LETTER XLIX.

I wonder if Fors will let me say any small proportion, this year, of what I intend. I wish she would, for my readers have every right to be doubtful of my plan till they see it more defined; and yet to define it severely would be to falsify it, for all that is best in it depends on my adopting whatever good I can find, in men and things, that will work to my purpose; which of course means action in myriads of ways that I neither wish to define, nor attempt to anticipate. Nay, I am wrong, even in speaking of it as a plan or scheme at all. It is only a method of uniting the force of all good plans and wise schemes; it is a principle and tendency, like the law of form in a crystal; not a plan. If I live, as I said at first, I will endeavour to show some small part of it in action; but it would be a poor design indeed, for the bettering of the world, which any man could see either quite round the outside, or quite into the inside of. [2]

But I hope in the letters of this next year to spend less time in argument or attack; what I wish the reader to know, of principle, is already enough proved, if only he take the pains to read the preceding letters thoroughly; and I shall now, as far as Fors will let me, carry out my purpose of choosing and annotating passages of confirmatory classical literature; and answering, as they occur, the questions of my earnest correspondents, as to what each of them, in their place of life, may immediately do with advantage for St. George’s help.

If those of my readers who have been under the impression that I wanted them to join me in establishing some model institution or colony, will look to the fifth page of Letter I., they will see that so far from intending or undertaking any such thing, I meant to put my whole strength into my Oxford teaching; and, for my own part, to get rid of begging letters and live in peace.

Of course, when I have given fourteen thousand pounds away in a year,1 everybody who wants some money thinks I have plenty for them. But my having given fourteen thousand pounds is just the reason I have not plenty for them; and, moreover, have no time to attend to them, (and generally, henceforward, my friends will please to note that I have spent my life in helping other [3]people, and am quite tired of it; and if they can now help me in my work, or praise me for it, I shall be much obliged to them; but I can’t help them at theirs).

But this impression of my wanting to found a colony was founded on page 23 of Letter V., and page 15 of Letter VIII. Read them over again now, altogether.

If the help I plead for come, we will indeed try to make some small piece of English ground beautiful; and if sufficient help come, many such pieces of ground; and on those we will put cottage dwellings, and educate the labourers’ children in a certain manner. But that is not founding a colony. It is only agreeing to work on a given system. Any English gentleman who chooses to forbid the use of steam machinery—be it but over a few acres,—and to make the best of them he can by human labour, or who will secure a piece of his mountain ground from dog, gun, and excursion party, and let the wild flowers and wild birds live there in peace;—any English gentleman, I say, who will so command either of these things, is doing the utmost I would ask of him;—if, seeing the result of doing so much, he felt inclined to do more, field may add itself to field, cottage rise after cottage,—here and there the sky begin to open again above us, and the rivers to run pure. In a very little while, also, the general interest in education will assuredly discover that healthy habits, and not mechanical drawing nor church catechism, are the staple of it; and then, not in my model colony only, but as best it can be [4]managed in any unmodelled place or way—girls will be taught to cook, boys to plough, and both to behave; and that with the heart,—which is the first piece of all the body that has to be instructed.

A village clergyman, (an excellent farmer, and very kind friend of my earliest college days,) sent me last January a slip out of the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ written across in his own hand with the words “Advantage of Education.” The slip described the eloquence and dexterity in falsehood of the Parisian Communist prisoners on their trial for the murder of the hostages. But I would fain ask my old friend to tell me himself whether he thinks instruction in the art of false eloquence should indeed receive from any minister of Christ the title of ‘education’ at all; and how far display of eloquence, instead of instruction in behaviour, has become the function, too commonly, of these ministers themselves.

I was asked by one of my Oxford pupils the other day why I had never said any serious word of what it might seem best for clergymen to do in a time of so great doubt and division.

I have not, because any man’s becoming a clergyman in these days must imply one of two things—either that he has something to do and say for men which he honestly believes himself impelled to do and say by the Holy Ghost,—and in that case he is likely to see his way without being shown it,—or else he is one of the group [5]of so-called Christians who, except with the outward ear “have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost,” and are practically lying, both to men and to God;—persons to whom, whether they be foolish or wicked in their ignorance, no honest way can possibly be shown.

The particular kinds of folly also which lead youths to become clergymen, uncalled, are especially intractable. That a lad just out of his teens, and not under the influence of any deep religious enthusiasm, should ever contemplate the possibility of his being set up in the middle of a mixed company of men and women of the world, to instruct the aged, encourage the valiant, support the weak, reprove the guilty, and set an example to all;—and not feel what a ridiculous and blasphemous business it would be, if he only pretended to do it for hire; and what a ghastly and murderous business it would be, if he did it strenuously wrong; and what a marvellous and all but incredible thing the Church and its power must be, if it were possible for him, with all the good meaning in the world, to do it rightly;—that any youth, I say, should ever have got himself into the state of recklessness, or conceit, required to become a clergyman at all, under these existing circumstances, must put him quite out of the pale of those whom one appeals to on any reasonable or moral question, in serious writing. I went into a ritualistic church, the other day, for instance, in the West End. It was built of bad Gothic, lighted [6]with bad painted glass, and had its Litany intoned, and its sermon delivered—on the subject of wheat and chaff—by a young man of, as far as I could judge, very sincere religious sentiments, but very certainly the kind of person whom one might have brayed in a mortar among the very best of the wheat with a pestle, without making his foolishness depart from him. And, in general, any man’s becoming a clergyman in these days implies that, at best, his sentiment has overpowered his intellect; and that, whatever the feebleness of the latter, the victory of his impertinent piety has been probably owing to its alliance with his conceit, and its promise to him of the gratification of being regarded as an oracle, without the trouble of becoming wise, or the grief of being so.

It is not, however, by men of this stamp that the principal mischief is done to the Church of Christ. Their foolish congregations are not enough in earnest even to be misled; and the increasing London or Liverpool respectable suburb is simply provided with its baker’s and butcher’s shop, its alehouse, its itinerant organ-grinders for the week, and stationary organ-grinder for Sunday, himself his monkey, in obedience to the commonest condition of demand and supply, and without much more danger in their Sunday’s entertainment than in their Saturday’s. But the importunate and zealous ministrations of the men who have been strong enough to deceive themselves before they deceive others;—who give the grace and glow of vital sincerity to falsehood, and lie for God [7]from the ground of their heart, produce forms of moral corruption in their congregations as much more deadly than the consequences of recognizedly vicious conduct, as the hectic of consumption is more deadly than the flush of temporary fever. And it is entirely unperceived by the members of existing churches that the words, “speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron,” do not in the least apply to wilful and self-conscious hypocrites, but only to those who do not recognize themselves for such. Of wilful assumption of the appearance of piety, for promotion of their own interests, few, even of the basest men, are frankly capable; and to the average English gentleman, deliberate hypocrisy is impossible. And, therefore, all the fierce invectives of Christ, and of the prophets and apostles, against hypocrisy, thunder above their heads unregarded; while all the while Annas and Caiaphas are sitting in Moses’ seat for ever; and the anger of God is accomplished against the daughter of His people, “for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. They have wandered blind in the streets; they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.”2

Take, for example, the conduct of the heads of the existing Church respecting the two powers attributed to them in this very verse. There is certainly no Bishop now in the Church of England who would either dare in a full drawing-room [8]to attribute to himself the gift of prophecy, in so many words; or to write at the head of any of his sermons, “On such and such a day, of such and such a month, in such and such a place, the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying.” Nevertheless, he claims to have received the Holy Ghost himself by laying on of hands; and to be able to communicate the Holy Ghost to other men in the same manner. And he knows that the office of the prophet is as simply recognized in the enumeration of the powers of the ancient Church, as that of the apostle, or evangelist, or doctor. And yet he can neither point out in the Church the true prophets, to whose number he dares not say he himself belongs, nor the false prophets, who are casting out devils in the name of Christ, without being known by Him;—and he contentedly suffers his flock to remain under the impression that the Christ who led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, left the gift of prophecy out of the group as one needed no longer.

But the second word, ‘priest,’ is one which he finds it convenient to assume himself, and to give to his fellow-clergymen. He knows, just as well as he knows prophecy to be a gift attributed to the Christian minister, that priesthood is a function expressly taken away from the Christian minister.3 He dares not say in the open [9]drawing-room that he offers sacrifice for any soul there; and he knows that he cannot give authority for calling himself a priest from any canonical book of the New Testament. So he equivocates on the sound of the word ‘presbyter,’ and apologizes to his conscience and his flock by declaring, “The priest I say,—the presbyter I mean,” without even requiring so much poor respect for his quibble as would be implied by insistance that a so-called priest should at least be an Elder. And securing, as far as he can, the reverence of his flock, while he secretly abjures the responsibility of the office he takes the title of, again he lets the rebuke of his God fall upon a deafened ear, and reads that “from the Prophet unto the Priest, every one dealeth falsely,” without the slightest sensation that his own character is so much as alluded to.

Thus, not daring to call themselves prophets, which they know they ought to be; but daring, under the shelter of equivocation, to call themselves priests, which they know they are not, and are forbidden to be; thus admittedly, without power of prophecy, and only in stammering pretence to priesthood, they yet claim the power to forgive and retain sins. Whereupon, it is to be strictly asked of them, whose sins they remit; and whose sins they retain. For truly, if they have a right to claim any authority or function whatever—this is it. Prophesy, they cannot;—sacrifice, they cannot;—in their hearts [10]there is no vision—in their hands no victim. The work of the Evangelist was done before they could be made Bishops; that of the Apostle cannot be done on a Bishop’s throne: there remains to them, of all possible office of organization in the Church, only that of the pastor,—verily and intensely their own; received by them in definite charge when they received what they call the Holy Ghost;—“Be to the flock of Christ, a shepherd, not a wolf;—feed them, devour them not.”

Does any man, of all the men who have received this charge in England, know what it is to be a wolf?—recognize in himself the wolfish instinct, and the thirst for the blood of God’s flock? For if he does not know what is the nature of a wolf, how should he know what it is to be a shepherd? If he never felt like a wolf himself, does he know the people who do? He does not expect them to lick their lips and bare their teeth at him, I suppose, as they do in a pantomime? Did he ever in his life see a wolf coming, and debate with himself whether he should fight or fly?—or is not rather his whole life one headlong hireling’s flight, without so much as turning his head to see what manner of beasts they are that follow?—nay, are not his very hireling’s wages paid him for flying instead of fighting?

Dares any one of them answer me?—here from my college of the Body of Christ I challenge every mitre of them: definitely, the Lord of St. Peter’s borough, whom I note as a pugnacious and accurately worded [11]person, and hear of as an outspoken one, able and ready to answer for his fulfilment of the charge to Peter: How many wolves does he know in Peterborough—how many sheep?—what battle has he done—what bites can he show the scars of?—whose sins has he remitted in Peterborough—whose retained?—has he not remitted, like his brother Bishops, all the sins of the rich, and retained all those of the poor?—does he know, in Peterborough, who are fornicators, who thieves, who liars, who murderers?—and has he ever dared to tell any one of them to his face that he was so—if the man had over a hundred a year?

“Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites.” Who are the true Israelites, my lord of Peterborough, whom you can definitely announce for such, in your diocese? Or, perhaps, the Bishop of Manchester will take up the challenge, having lately spoken wisely—in generalities—concerning Fraud. Who are the true Israelites, my lord of Manchester, on your Exchange? Do they stretch their cloth, like other people?—have they any underhand dealings with the liable-to-be-damned false Israelites—Rothschilds and the like? or are they duly solicitous about those wanderers’ souls? and how often, on the average, do your Manchester clergy preach from the delicious parable, savouriest of all Scripture to rogues, at least since the eleventh century, when I find it to have been specially headed with golden [12]title in my best Greek MS. “of the Pharisee and Publican”—and how often, on the average, from those objectionable First and Fifteenth Psalms?

For the last character in St. Paul’s enumeration, which Bishops can claim, and the first which they are bound to claim, for the perfecting of the saints, and the work of the ministry, is that of the Doctor or Teacher.

In which character, to what work of their own, frank and faithful, can they appeal in the last fifty years of especial danger to the Church from false teaching? On this matter, my challenge will be most fittingly made to my own Bishop, of the University of Oxford. He inhibited, on the second Sunday of Advent of last year, another Bishop of the English Church from preaching at Carfax. By what right? Which of the two Bishops am I, their innocent lamb, to listen to? It is true that the insulted Bishop was only a colonial one;—am I to understand, therefore, that the Church sends her heretical Bishops out as Apostles, while she keeps her orthodox ones at home? and that, accordingly, a stay-at-home Bishop may always silence a returned Apostle? And, touching the questions which are at issue, is there a single statement of the Bishop of Natal’s, respecting the Bible text, which the Bishop of Oxford dares to contradict before Professor Max Müller, or any other leading scholar of Europe? Does the Bishop of Oxford himself believe every statement in the Bible? If not,—which does he disbelieve, and why? He suffers the whole collection [13]of books to be spoken of—certainly by many clergymen in his diocese—as the Word of God. If he disbelieves any portion of it, that portion he is bound at once to inhibit them from so calling, till inquiry has been made concerning it; but if he and the other orthodox home-Bishops,—who would very joyfully, I perceive, burn the Bishop of Natal at Paul’s, and make Ludgate Hill safer for the omnibuses with the cinders of him,—if they verily believe all, or even, with a living faith, any, vital part of the Bible, how is it that we, the incredulous sheep, see no signs following them that believe;—that though they can communicate the Holy Spirit, they cannot excommunicate the unholy one, and apologetically leave the healing of sick to the physician, the taking up of serpents to the juggler, and the moving of mountains to the railway-navvy?

“It was never meant that any one should do such things literally, after St. Paul’s time.”

Then what was meant, and what is, doctors mine?

Challenge enough, for this time, it seems to me; the rather that just as I finish writing it, I receive a challenge myself, requiring attentive answer. Fors could not have brought it me at better time. The reader will find it the first in the Notes and Correspondence of this year; and my answer may both meet the doubts of many readers who would not so frankly have expressed them; and contain some definitions of principle which are necessary for our future work. [14]

My correspondent, referring to my complaint that no matron nor maid of England had yet joined the St. George’s Company, answers, for her own part, first that her husband and family prevent her from doing it; secondly, that she has done it already; thirdly, that she will do it when I do it myself. It is only to the third of these pleas that I at present reply.

She tells me, first, that I have not joined the St. George’s Company because I have no home. It is too true. But that is because my father, and mother, and nurse, are dead; because the woman I hoped would have been my wife is dying; and because the place where I would fain have stayed to remember all of them, was rendered physically uninhabitable to me by the violence of my neighbours;—that is to say, by their destroying the fields I needed to think in, and the light I needed to work by. Nevertheless, I have, under these conditions, done the best thing possible to me—bought a piece of land on which I could live in peace; and on that land, wild when I bought it, have already made, not only one garden, but two, to match against my correspondent’s; nor that without help from children who, though not mine, have been cared for as if they were.

Secondly; my correspondent tells me that my duty is to stay at home, instead of dating from places which are a dream of delight to her, and which, therefore, she concludes, must be a reality of delight to me.

She will know better after reading this extract from [15]my last year’s diary; (worth copying, at any rate, for other persons interested in republican Italy). “Florence, 20th September, 1874.—Tour virtually ended for this year. I leave Florence to-day, thankfully, it being now a place of torment day and night for all loving, decent, or industrious people; for every face one meets is full of hatred and cruelty; and the corner of every house is foul; and no thoughts can be thought in it, peacefully, in street, or cloister, or house, any more. And the last verses I read, of my morning’s readings, are Esdras II., xv. 16, 17: ‘For there shall be sedition among men, and invading one another; they shall not regard their kings nor princes, and the course of their actions shall stand in their power. A man shall desire to go into the city, and shall not be able.’ ”

What is said here of Florence is now equally true of every great city of France or Italy; and my correspondent will be perhaps contented with me when she knows that only last Sunday I was debating with a very dear friend whether I might now be justified in indulging my indolence and cowardice by staying at home among my plants and minerals, and forsaking the study of Italian art for ever. My friend would fain have it so; and my correspondent shall tell me her opinion, after she knows—and I will see that she has an opportunity of knowing—what work I have done in Florence, and propose to do, if I can be brave enough.

Thirdly; my correspondent doubts the sincerity of my [16]abuse of railroads because she suspects I use them. I do so constantly, my dear lady; few men more. I use everything that comes within reach of me. If the devil were standing at my side at this moment, I should endeavour to make some use of him as a local black. The wisdom of life is in preventing all the evil we can; and using what is inevitable, to the best purpose. I use my sicknesses, for the work I despise in health; my enemies, for study of the philosophy of benediction and malediction; and railroads, for whatever I find of help in them—looking always hopefully forward to the day when their embankments will be ploughed down again, like the camps of Rome, into our English fields. But I am perfectly ready even to construct a railroad, when I think one necessary; and in the opening chapter of ‘Munera Pulveris’ my correspondent will find many proper uses for steam machinery specified. What is required of the members of St. George’s Company is, not that they should never travel by railroads, nor that they should abjure machinery; but that they should never travel unnecessarily, or in wanton haste; and that they should never do with a machine what can be done with hands and arms, while hands and arms are idle.

Lastly, my correspondent feels it unjust to be required to make clothes, while she is occupied in the rearing of those who will require them.

Admitting (though the admission is one for which I do not say that I am prepared) that it is the patriotic [17]duty of every married couple to have as large a family as possible, it is not from the happy Penelopes of such households that I ask—or should think of asking—the labour of the loom. I simply require that when women belong to the St. George’s Company they should do a certain portion of useful work with their hands, if otherwise their said fair hands would be idle; and if on those terms I find sufficient clothing cannot be produced, I will use factories for them,—only moved by water, not steam.

My answer, as thus given, is, it seems to me, sufficient; and I can farther add to its force by assuring my correspondent that I shall never ask any member of St. George’s Company to do more, in relation to his fortune and condition, than I have already done myself. Nevertheless, it will be found by any reader who will take the trouble of reference, that in recent letters I have again and again intimated the probable necessity, before the movement could be fairly set on foot, of more energetic action and example, towards which both my thoughts and circumstances seem gradually leading me; and, in that case, I shall trustfully look to the friends who accuse me of cowardice in doing too little, for defence against the, I believe, too probable imputations impending from others, of folly in doing too much. [19]