Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church. John Ruskin

Mr. George Allen's encouragement, and cheered by the valuable assistance and co-operation of another friend, Mr. T. J. Wise, I agreed to carry forward this Third Edition with the full approbation and consent of Mr. Ruskin himself, though it should be said that on account of the state of his health, I have been unable to consult him on any of the details of the publication.

      But it will not be exactly the same volume. Mr. Allen and Mr. Wise, having gone over much of my correspondence with Mr. Ruskin, were good enough to express a desire that some of those letters addressed to myself as a friend should be embodied in the present volume, as being strongly illustrative of his views on the subjects dealt with in his more formal Letters to the Clergy. I may claim pardon for a feeling of great satisfaction with the circumstance that in the course of so long and so delicate a correspondence as is contained in this volume, never has a cloud overshadowed our paths in this matter, never has a cold blast from the east sent a shiver through my system, nor, I presume, his. For had Mr. Ruskin felt any resentment at anything I wrote, with his usual downright frankness he would not have been backward for an hour in expressing in vehement language what he felt. But from first to last my intercourse with that kind and eminently distinguished friend has been kept bright and happy by his unvarying serenity.

      The Letters from Clergy and Laity in this Third Edition occupy much less space than in the original one. It was Mr. Ruskin's wish that they should be subjected to some process of abridgment; besides which the allowing of space for the new feature of additional Ruskin Letters made a curtailment in another direction necessary. The plan which seemed to me the least discourteous to my numerous correspondents of that time has been to make a selection of passages from a certain number of the Letters.

      F. A. Malleson.

      The Vicarage,

       Broughton-in-Furness,

       January 1896.

MR. RUSKIN'S LETTERS

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      Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,

       20th June, 1879.

      Dear Mr. Malleson,—I could not at once answer your important letter: for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing to address such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in answering to any call relating to matters respecting which my feelings have been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for me to be of service therein. My health—or want of it—now utterly forbids my engagement in any duty involving excitement or acute intellectual effort; but I think, before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to write one or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more or less completing, some passages already printed in Fors and elsewhere, which might, on your reading any portions you thought available, become matter of discussion during the meeting at some leisure time, after its own main purposes had been answered.

      At all events, I will think over what I should like, and be able, to represent to such a meeting, and only beg you not to think me insensible of the honour done me by your wish, and of the gravity of the trust reposed in me.

      Ever most faithfully yours,

       J. Ruskin.

       The Rev. F. A. Malleson.

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      Brantwood, Coniston,

       23rd June, 1879.

Dear Mr. Malleson,—Walking, and talking, are now alike impossible to me;[1] my strength is gone for both; nor do I believe talking on such matters to be of the least use except to promote, between sensible people, kindly feeling and knowledge of each other's personal characters. I have every trust in your kindness and truth; nor do I fear being myself misunderstood by you; what I may be able to put into written form, so as to admit of being laid before your friends in council, must be set down without any question of personal feeling—as simply as a mathematical question or demonstration.

      The first exact question which it seems to me such an assembly may be earnestly called upon by laymen to solve, is surely axiomatic: the definition of themselves as a body, and of their business as such.

      Namely: as clergymen of the Church of England, do they consider themselves to be so called merely as the attached servants of a particular state? Do they, in their quality of guides, hold a position similar to that of the guides of Chamouni or Grindelwald, who being a numbered body of examined and trustworthy persons belonging to those several villages, have nevertheless no Chamounist or Grindelwaldist opinions on the subject of Alpine geography or glacier walking: but are prepared to put into practice a common and universal science of Locality and Athletics, founded on sure survey and successful practice? Are the clergymen of the Ecclesia of England thus simply the attached and salaried guides of England and the English, in the way, known of all good men, that leadeth unto life?—or are they, on the contrary, a body of men holding, or in any legal manner required, or compelled to hold, opinions on the subject—say, of the height of the Celestial Mountains, the crevasses which go down quickest to the pit, and other cognate points of science,—differing from, or even contrary to, the tenets of the guides of the Church of France, the Church of Italy, and other Christian countries?

      Is not this the first of all questions which a Clerical Council has to answer in open terms?

      Ever affectionately yours,

       J. Ruskin.

[1] In answer to the proposal of discussing the subject during a mountain walk.

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      Brantwood, 6th July, 1879.

      My first letter contained a Layman's plea for a clear answer to the question, "What is a clergyman of the Church of England?" Supposing the answer to this first to be, that the clergy of the Church of England are teachers, not of the Gospel to England, but of the Gospel to all nations; and not of the Gospel of Luther, nor of the Gospel of Augustine, but of the Gospel of Christ,—then the Layman's second question would be:

Can this Gospel of Christ be put into such plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it?—and, if so, would it not be, in a quite primal sense, desirable that it should be so, rather than left to be gathered out of Thirty-nine Articles, written by no means in clear English, and referring, for further explanation of exactly the most important point in the whole tenor of their teaching,[2] to a "Homily of Justification,"[3] which is not generally in the possession, or even probably within the comprehension, of simple persons?

      Ever faithfully yours,

       J. Ruskin.

[2] Art. xi.

[3] Homily xi. of the Second Table.

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