Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 15

BRANTWOOD, _September 5th, 1879_.

I shall be delighted to have the comments, though it will be well first to have the series of letters done--the last but one is coming to-morrow. I have only written them in the sense of your sympathy in most points, and am sure you will make the best possible use of them.

14.

_September 7th, 1879._

It is rather comic that your first reply to my challenge concerning usury should be a prospectus of a Company[28] wis.h.i.+ng to make 5 per cent. out of Broughton poor men's ignorance. You couldn't have sent me a project I should have regarded with more abomination.

[28] A projected Public Hall.

15.

_September 9th, 1879._

There is absolutely no debate possible as to what usury is any more than what adultery is. The Church has only been polluted by the indulgence of it since the 16th century. Usury is _any kind whatever_ of interest on loan, and it is the essential modern form of Satan.

I send you an old book full of sound and eternal teaching on this matter--please take care of it as a friend's gift, and one I would not lose for its weight in gold. Please read first the Sermon by Bishop Jewel, page 14, and then the rest at your pleasure or your leisure.

_No halls are wanted_, they are all rich men's excuses for destroying the home life of England.

The public library should be at the village school (and I could put ten thousand pounds' worth of books into a single cupboard), and all that is done for education should be pure Gift. Do you think that this rich England, which spends fifty millions a year in drink and gunpowder, can't educate her poor without being paid interest for her Charity?

At the time of writing this the following letters pa.s.sed between Mr.

Ruskin and myself:--

16.

THE VICARAGE, BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS, _September 12th, 1879_.

MY DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--I feel in a great strait. I have before me a task of the utmost delicacy, and one before which I feel that I _ought_ to shrink,--that of editing your letters, with the accompaniment of comments of my own. You trust me, evidently, or you would have laid down limitations to guard yourself against misrepresentation. My anxiety is lest I should abuse that large and generous confidence you have so kindly placed in me. Let me explain my position, as I see it myself.

The series will consist of eleven letters, when you have sent me your last. I have now copied nine, and written concisely the views I have presumed to form upon each. With every letter I mostly agree and sympathize, looking on them as "counsels of perfection," and viewing the great subjects you deal with from a far higher standpoint than (in my experience) either laymen or clergymen generally view them. All that there is in me of _enthusiasm_ rings in answering chords to the notes you strike. Yet I do not _always_ agree. But when I do disagree, I acknowledge it is because your standard is excessively high--too high for practical purposes.

Now, I ask, shall you consider it strictly fair and honourable in me to receive your letters, read them or send them to a.s.semblies of clergy, gather their views, both adverse and favourable, and add diffident animad-versions of my own? If you will allow this to be right, and if you will trust to my sense of what is proper, to deal with your letters in the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman, then, hoping to fulfil your expectations, I shall proceed in my work with a mind more at ease; for I could not endure the thought that, after all was done, I had written a single sentence or word that had inflicted pain upon you.

Then comes another question. Do you wish to hear or read my comments before they are printed? I say frankly, if you trust me, I would prefer not; for it would not, perhaps, be pleasant for me either to read your praises, or my poor criticisms, to your face. But still, if you wish it, I shall be ready at your bidding; for I recognize your right to require it. Only I would rather read them to you myself some quiet autumn evening or two.

17.

_September 13th._

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I am so very grateful for your proposal to edit the letters without further reference to me. I think that will be exactly the right way; and I believe I can put you at real ease in the doing of it by explaining as I can in very few words the kind of carte-blanche I should rejoicingly give you.

Interrupted to-day! more to-morrow, with, I hope, the last letter.

J. R.

18.

_Sunday, September 14th._

I've nearly done the last letter, but will keep it to-morrow rather than finish hurriedly for the earlier post. Your nice little note has just come, and I can only say that you cannot please me better than by acting with perfect freedom in all ways, and that I only want to see or reply to what you wish me for the matter's sake. And surely there is no occasion for any thought for waste of type about _me_ personally, except only to express your knowledge of my real desire for the health and power of the Church. More than this praise you _must_ not give me, for I have learned almost everything I may say that I know by my errors.

Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.

19.

_September 16th, 1879._

I should have returned these two recent letters before now, but have been looking for the earlier letters which have got mislaid in a general rearrangement of all things by a new secretary. I am almost sure to come on them to-morrow in my own packing up for town, where I must be for a month hence. Please address, &c.

20.

[_Undated._]

I am sincerely grieved by the first part of your letter, and scarcely like to trouble you with answer to the close. * * * Surely the first thing to be done with the letters is to use them as you propose, and you may find fifty suggestions, made by persons or circ.u.mstances after that, worth considering. I do not doubt that I could easily add to the bulk of MS.; but should then, I think, stipulate for having the book published by my own publisher.