Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
“So long as you deliberately refuse to help in any way a man who (you
have every reason to know) possesses more of the righteousness of God
than yourself, (when you have ample means to do so,) how can you be
said to ‘do the will of your Father which is in Heaven’? or how can you
expect to receive understanding to ‘know of the doctrine’ of the
Saviour, (or of my doctrine,) ‘whether it be of God, or whether I speak
of myself’? If you possessed a genuine ‘faith,’ you would exercise
humanity towards such a man as myself, and leave the result with God;
and not presumptuously decide that it was ‘wrong’ to relieve ‘a
righteous man’ in distress, lest you should encourage him in delusions
which you choose to suppose him to be labouring under.
“People seem to suppose that it is the Saviour who will judge the
world, if any one does. He distinctly declares that He will not. ‘If
any one hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not
to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and
receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.’ John xii. 47, 48. I
represent that ‘WORD’ which the Saviour spoke, and I have already
judged, and condemned, this country, and the United States, in
particular; and Christendom, and the World in general. I have for
twenty years been a preacher of ‘the Righteousness of God’ to this
generation (as Noah was for a hundred years to his generation), and I
have proved by actual experiment that none among the men of this
generation can be induced to ‘enter the kingdom of heaven’ until the
predicted ‘time of trouble, such as was not since there was a nation,’
comes suddenly, and compels those who are ready to enter the kingdom of
God, to do so at once; and I know not how soon after I leave this
country the ‘trouble’ will come; perhaps immediately, perhaps in about
a year’s time; but come it must; and the sooner it comes, the sooner it
will be over, I suppose.
“Yours faithfully.”
The following specimen of the kind of letters which the “judge of the
United States in particular, and the World in general,” leaves the
people favoured by his judgment to send to his friends, may as well
supplement his own letter:—
“Mr. (J. of U.S. in p. and the W. in g.)’s name will, I trust, excuse
me to you for writing; but my house entirely failed me, and I, with my
child, are now really in great want. I write trusting that, after your
former kindness to me, you will feel disposed to send me a little
assistance.
“I would not have written, but I am seriously in need.
“Please address to me,” etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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