Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 9

Again, if any clergyman teaches from the pulpit that for the redemption of the world people ought to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the Son (Letter V.), he is obliged to publicly contradict his own teaching as often as he says the General Thanksgiving, and the collects in the Book of Common Prayer.

Again, if any clergyman teaches from the pulpit that any one who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, or that there is any other salvation except a salvation from sin, he is obliged to publicly contradict that teaching by everything which he says in the church out of the pulpit.

Again, if any clergyman preaches away the penalties of sin (Letter VIII.), he is obliged to publicly contradict his preaching every Ash Wednesday, when he reads the general sentences of G.o.d's cursing against impenitent sinners.

Mr. Ruskin asks (Letter III.), "Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it?"

I answer that the English Church has tried to do this in the Catechism, in which every baptized child is taught in very simple and plain words the gospel, or good news, that G.o.d the Father has, in His Son Jesus Christ, adopted him or her into His family, and therein offers him or her the continual help of the Holy Ghost.

Mr. Ruskin complains that the clergy do not teach the people the meaning of the Lord's Prayer (Letter VI.) He must a.s.sume that the clergy neglect to teach children the Church Catechism, in which is an answer to the question, "What desirest thou of G.o.d in this prayer?" It is an answer which would probably satisfy Mr. Ruskin. He would see that "Hallowed be Thy name" does not merely mean that people ought to abstain from bad language. And in the explanation of the third commandment, he would see that something more is forbidden than letting out a round oath (Letter VI.)

Mr. Ruskin complains that the clergy do not prevent the entrance among their congregations of persons leading openly wicked lives (Letter VI.) Before this can be charged on the clergy as a sin, he should show that they have power and authority to do this. In the service for Ash Wednesday he will find that the clergy express their desire for a restoration of the G.o.dly discipline of the primitive Church, which Mr.

Ruskin also desires. But he ought to know that such restoration must be the work not of the clergy only, but of the whole body of the faithful.

Mr. Ruskin insinuates that the clergy have no clear idea of their calling (Letter III.) If this be so, it is certainly not the fault of the Church, seeing that the nature of the calling of a clergyman is plainly set forth in the Offices for the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. But if one may form an opinion from many published sermons by English clergymen of various schools of thought, and from their speeches in Church Congresses and elsewhere, and from their pastoral work as parish priests, I should be inclined to think that they are not quite so ignorant of the nature of their calling and of the Gospel of Christ as Mr. Ruskin supposes them to be, and that of some of the sins, negligences, and ignorances which, in these Letters, he lays to their charge, they may plead not guilty, or at least not proven by Mr. Ruskin.

BARDSEA, ULVERSTON, _November 3rd, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I thank you for your letter, which I received this morning. Second thoughts are not always the best. Your own first thought about the motto which I prefixed to my notes was right; your second thought was wrong. It never occurred to me that anyone could possibly suppose that that motto was by me intended to be applied to myself, inasmuch as in these notes there is no "wound" inflicted on Mr. Ruskin, or even any "rebuke." On the contrary, I a.s.sume that he has evidence in support of his charges, although he has not produced it. The "rebuke" to which I alluded was _Mr. Ruskin's_ rebuke. _He_ is the "friend" whose wounds are faithful, and whose smitings are a kindness. For I have not the least doubt of his good-will towards the clergy, or of his earnest desire to see them all performing their sacred duties with zeal and knowledge. And it was as my acknowledgment of this that I prefixed the motto. With you I firmly believe that the standard which he takes is "lofty and Christian," and that it is one towards which we ought all of us to aim. The object of my notes was to show that the laity of England have, in the authorized teaching of the Church, a sufficient safeguard against any erroneous teaching which they may possibly hear from the pulpit or in the private ministrations of the clergy, and also a supplement to any defective teaching.

Very truly yours, EDWARD GEOGHEGAN.

_From_ JOSEPH GILBURT, Esq.

_Christmas Day_, 1879.

The words "Thy will be done" are generally coupled with resignation, and very often with patience under chastis.e.m.e.nt. It is always to us a sad-coloured sentence, and a sentimental illuminator of the Lord's Prayer would in all probability make it so. Now, if we think for a moment what the state of things would be if the will of the Lord were done, we shall see it should be the brightest sentence we could conceive. G.o.d's will is our weal. Aspiration, not resignation, is the characteristic of its doing. There would certainly be no death,--that is decidedly contrary to His will; and by-and-by, when His will is done, there will be none. For the present, while His will is not yet done, we have the sure and certain hope that death will be--nay, is--conquered by antic.i.p.ation.

If His will were done, all beautiful things would flourish, and all minds would answeringly rejoice in them.

Our men of the piercing eye--Turners, Hunts, Ruskins, etc.--show us, till we almost worship the state of things in cloud and mountain, river and sea, in hedgerow and wayside, even in cathedral and campanile, where G.o.d's will is done, and we are enchanted with their beauty. It is G.o.d's will that stones should be laid truly and carven well, and aptly described. And our men of the probe and the lens, the scientific openers of nature's secrets, are daily demonstrating new beauties in which the will of the Lord is done in the formation of bodies and working of forces. It is mere truism to add to this that the will of the Lord being done, none of the ills that are all of them indirectly or directly the result of not doing it could occur, and resignation would have no scope for exercise. There was One who always did it, and He for three years made sundry parts of Palestine a heaven,--with what results a many quondam poor folk testified. This leads me to say that I like to look upon the word heaven as a participle instead of a noun, as the state of being heaved or raised, rather than a place: and for this reason. The experience of every one of us suffices to prove that we are never so _heaven_, or raised in true happiness, moral dignity, and worth, as when we are in the company of one greater, wiser, or better than ourselves. Those who lead a humdrum life among mean persons, can testify what a heaven it is to be transplanted for ever so short a time to the company of a great and good man. Now the culminating, indeed all-absorbing, attraction of the heaven we all look to, is the presence and the companionship of the greatest and best; and the experience of ourselves tallies with the promise of St. John that it will have the effect of making us "like Him," when "we shall see Him as He is." Surely being _heaven_, or raised like that, is superior to any Mahomet's paradise that we can invent or distil out of the poetical parts of the Scriptures.

_From the Rev._ ARCHER GURNEY.

Mr. Ruskin's view as to the duty of basing all upon the Father's love is essentially sound and orthodox; and he is also right in bidding all men lead self-denying lives,--in this sense, that they should give up time and labour to the endeavour to help their brethren; but he fails utterly, hopelessly, to realize the Incarnation and its glorious consequences, how all human life and love,--how art, science, knowledge, enjoyment, are sanctified by G.o.d's becoming man; sharing this human life of ours,--not to trample upon it as an unholy thing, but to consecrate it to G.o.d's service. Such is our call. We must enjoy the beautiful to vindicate enjoyment. We do not please G.o.d by casting all His choicest gifts away. To give all we have to feed the poor is the way to make men poor, and is false charity. Use rather the mammon of this world to G.o.d's honour and glory, and when ye fail, the good works that you have done shall plead for your entrance into everlasting habitations; for the way to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, permanently, is to teach men and women to help themselves, and to find employment and reward for the exercise of their powers and energies.

_From the Rev._ J. H. A. GIBSON, _Brighton_.

To Mr. Ruskin, then, asking us to define ourselves as a body, I reply, We are presbyters and deacons, deriving our authority from the episcopate, who themselves form links in that spiritual chain which binds both ourselves and them, by perpetual succession, in one communion and fellowship, with the Apostles, and to whom has been committed the office of consecrating and sending forth labourers to work in the Lord's vineyard.

But Mr. Ruskin proceeds, "And our business as such." Our business as such! Well, if we have in any satisfactory manner proved our first point--_that_ is, the authority with which we act--we may fairly say to Mr. Ruskin, "Do you put this question, 'What is your business?' to your lawyer or doctor?" Does he ask the same question of the clergy of any other portion of the Catholic Church? We shall not wish to insult Mr.

Ruskin by attempting to explain to him the duties of the priesthood, with which, doubtless, he is well acquainted.

But he asks, "Do we look upon ourselves as attached to any particular State, and bound to the promulgation of any particular tenets?" We are undoubtedly attached to the particular sphere to the which we are sent by those whose office is to provide the various parts of G.o.d's vineyard with labourers. The Anglican Church is the legitimate representative of the Catholic Church of Christ in England; and we, as clergy of this Church, minister for the most part to our countrymen at home, and only in other countries as the necessities of our colonists and others may require. And, as subscribers to the Prayer Book and priests of the Church of England, we are certainly bound to teach faithfully and honestly her doctrines, neither adding to them nor taking away from them according to our own individual idiosyncrasies.

_From the Rev._ CANON GRAY.

WOLSINGHAM, _October 13th, 1879_.

MY DEAR PENRHYN,--Will you please to thank Mr. Malleson on my behalf for the Letters on the Lord's Prayer? I have ever admired Ruskin, and learn much even when I most differ from him. But if I had the good fortune to be with you to-morrow, I fear that I should constantly be demurring to his teaching,--_e.g._ (Letter III.) his supposition that the Thirty-nine Articles were meant to include a summary of the Gospel; (Letter V.) his belief that there is need now to warn men against being thankful not to the Father but only to the Son,--a remnant of the teaching of his youth; (p. 20) his hard way of speaking as to the Son of Man, Whose human soul, as that of perfect man, received its knowledge in steps according to His own will as perfect G.o.d; (Letter VII.) his confused distinction between the Kingdom of G.o.d and the Kingdom of Christ (see Eph. v. 5 in the Greek, and remember "_tradendo tenet_" on 1 Cor. xv. 24); his belief that because no one knoweth the hour of Christ's coming, it cannot be hastened by prayer; (Letter VIII.) his seeming identification of claiming interest from a poor man who is in need and necessity, and from a railway company who borrow money to make more,--speaking, as far as I can see, of money as if it had no market value like other things; (Letter X.) the belief that we clergy are not awake to the guilt of sins of omission; (Letter X.) the inability to see that the nearer and nearer by G.o.d's grace we come, in answer to prayer, to purity and holiness, the more we _realize_ our distance from them; and that his objection to our Liturgy might be adapted into one against the Lord's Prayer, in which we pray daily for forgiveness of sins, and deliverance from evil, showing that we never shall be so delivered as no longer to need forgiveness; (Letter XI.) the supposition that any one state of life is necessarily more full of temptations than another, as though the fruit of a tree were not to Eve what the glory of the world was to the Son of Man, at least in the eye of the Tempter.

I am ashamed to jot down thus obscurely the points on which I should have liked to speak, and I know that our brethren can fully deal with them. On the other hand (Letter VIII.) there is much to move us, and lead to searchings of heart. As to the timidity and coldness with which the Church is attacking the crying sins of our day, one often feels how we need some among us to speak as the prophets did to the men of their generation, and we may be thankful to have our shortcomings brought home to us by words like Ruskin's.

I wish I were not writing so hurriedly.

Remember me most affectionately to all my old and true friends who are with you to-morrow.

[NOTE.--_March 12th, 1880_:--

Mr. Malleson has kindly brought this letter of mine again before me.

Hasty and concise as it was, I have no wish to expand it, as Mr.

Ruskin's Letters are now _publici juris_, and in the hands of many a critic, who will rejoice to deal with them according to his wisdom. I should be thankful, however, for leave to add a few words on one point.

I cannot help having misgivings as to whether I was right in demurring without hesitation to "the supposition that one state of life is necessarily more free from temptations than another," for I well know that in favour of such a supposition there is a strong _consensus_ of just men. I am, however, one of those who believe that the shorter Beat.i.tude, "Blessed be ye poor," (Luke vi. 20) is explained by the longer, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." I see, also, that the difficulty with which "they that have riches" enter the kingdom of G.o.d is rea.s.serted with a qualification in the very next verse, which speaks of those "who trust in riches" (St. Mark x. 23, 24). "Who then can be saved?" asked the disciples, who, poor men indeed themselves, first heard of this difficulty, instinctively perceiving, it may be, that it has its root in temptations from which in one shape or other no one is free. I read that "the cares of this world," as well as "the deceitfulness of riches," choke the Word; and I am sure that into the number of those "who will be rich," or "who are wishing to be rich," and so "fall into temptation," a poor man may but too easily find his way. I like to remember that when "the beggar died," he was carried into the bosom of one who had been "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold;"

and I think that very deep and far-stretching may be the meaning of the words of the wise man, "The rich and poor meet together, and the Lord is the Maker of them all."]

_From the Rev._ H. N. GRIMLEY, _Norton Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds_.

Mr. Ruskin's Letters have already been closely scrutinized. What have seemed to be blemishes in them have been commented on. They have been spoken of as somewhat random utterances--as utterances such as are pardonable in a layman, but would be inexcusable in a clergyman who should endeavour to instruct his brethren. It has been said of them that they manifest a want of knowledge of teaching constantly being given from Church of England pulpits. It would be quite possible for the present paper to be devoted to a continuation of the like free criticism of the Letters. I might ask, for instance, whether Mr. Ruskin, after (in Letter V.) speaking with condemnation of a plan of salvation which sets forth the Divine Son as appeasing the wrath of the Father in heaven, does not himself give expression to words, as to the love of the Father, which almost imply that in his estimation the Divine mind is not in unity in itself? I might further ask for Mr. Ruskin to put more definiteness into his remarks on usury, and to particularize the special forms of that condemnable practice which the clergy should boldly denounce. The few hints which he throws out on this subject show that to his own thoughts there is present an exalted socialism. He himself in previous writings, while shadowing forth a social system based on unselfishness, has carefully deprecated any revolutionary attempt to hasten the establishment of such a system, and would prefer that it should be waited for while it quietly and with orderliness evolves itself out of the present imperfect order of things. Is it not so evolving itself? Does not the co-operative movement, now steadily advancing, spring out of the recognition of the fact that mutual welfare is a far more excellent thing to be attained than the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many? And if, with regard to the land question, any readjustment of relations is made, will it not be made in the light of the same beneficent principle? If, however, the clergy were to give heed to Mr. Ruskin's words, and at once proceed to the indiscriminate excommunication of usurers, would they not be initiating a social revolution, altogether different from that orderly upgrowth of a better state of things which has commended itself aforetime to Mr.

Ruskin himself? My own impression is that I shall be giving voice to a wish that will spring up wherever Mr. Ruskin's Letters may be read, if I say that a clearer, more definite utterance on the usury question would be welcomed. The clergy everywhere would receive with thankfulness any hints as to how they might hasten the coming of the day when the Church of Christ will no longer embrace within her borders the few, with a useless excess of wealth, and around them the unhappy many, hopelessly, squalidly dest.i.tute; along, too, with a vast number of toiling teachers, clergy, artists, and literary workers, living mostly on the verge of pennilessness--men of whose existence Mr. Ruskin has, in earlier writings, expressed himself as keenly and sympathetically conscious.

But I will not linger on such parts of Mr. Ruskin's Letters as may seem to display inconsistency, or to need more precision of language before they can be practically useful. I will proceed to speak of those for which, as it seems to me, the clergy may unhesitatingly be very grateful to Mr. Ruskin for laying them before them.

And first, I think we cannot be other than thankful to Mr. Ruskin for sounding at the outset a note of catholicity. He asks the clergy of the English Church (let me say he asks us,--he asks you and me), whether we look upon ourselves as the clergy of a mere insular Church, or as the clergy of the Church Universal. Is the teaching we are continually giving utterance to as to the conduct of life in harmony with, or different from, the teaching of the Christian Churches on the Continent of Europe? Mr. Ruskin's tone, in asking these questions, is such as implies that it would be no satisfaction to him to hear from us that we rejoice in considering ourselves as severed from the clergy of the Christian Church abroad. Indeed, he goes on to a.s.sume that we, with one consenting voice, admit our fellowship with the rest of Christendom--that we recognize as our brothers the clergy of the Church of France, and of the Church of Italy, and of the Church everywhere.

Mr. Ruskin thus does not lend the support of his name to any useless Protestantism. There are senses in which the whole Christian Church must ever be a Protestant Church, and in which even individual members may from time to time raise protesting voices. The Church must ever lift up her protest against all influences that work in the world for evil--against whatsoever tends to overthrow the Christian ideals of individual, family, social, national, and international life. She must protest against all hindrances, even though they may spring up within her own borders, which tend to prevent her from putting any beneficent impress upon human handiwork and upon manifestations of human genius.

She must protest against the very Protestantism in her midst which has served to paganize art and to demoralize the drama, by banishing both to an outer region of darkness which Gospel rays cannot be expected to illumine. She must protest vigorously against the mischievous Protestantism which impoverishes the intellect and chills the affections, by causing men to devote the whole energies of their lives to protesting against systems of thought with which they are very imperfectly acquainted, and to maintaining an att.i.tude of perpetual suspicion as to others' aims and motives. Under the influence of such Protestantism as this, many have been possessed with the a.s.surance that a vast number of the clergy of Christendom live for no other end than to conspire against freedom, to disseminate falsities, and to work ruin amongst human souls. This Protestantism is fast ceasing to have any power amongst us; still, as it is not quite extinct, it is comforting to find that Mr. Ruskin does not attribute it to the main body of those whom he addresses.