Fors Clavigera (Volume 6 of 8): $b Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 6 of 8): $b 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
I simply and most utterly mean, that, so far as my best judgment can
reach, the present Bishops of the English Church, (with only one
exception, known to me,—the Bishop of Natal,) have forfeited and fallen
from their Bishoprics by transgression; and betrayal of their Lord,
first by simony, and secondly, and chiefly, by lying for God with one
mouth, and contending for their own personal interests as a
professional body, as if these were the cause of Christ. And that in
the assembly and Church of future England, there must be, (and shall be
so far as this present body of believers in God and His law now called
together in the name of St. Michael and St. George are concerned,) set
up and consecrated other Bishops; and under them, lower ministering
officers and true “Dogs of the Lord,” who, with stricter inquisition
than ever Dominican, shall take knowledge—not of creeds, but of every
man’s way and means of life; and shall be either able to avouch his
conduct as honourable and just, or bound to impeach it as shameful and
iniquitous, and this down to minute details;—above all, or before all,
particulars of revenue, every companion, retainer, or associate in the
Company’s work being bound to keep such accounts that the position of
his affairs may be completely known to the Bishops at any moment: and
all bankruptcies or treacheries in money matters thus rendered
impossible. Not that direct inquisition will be often necessary; for
when the true nature of Theft, with the other particulars of the Moral
Law, are rightly taught in our schools, grown-up men will no more think
of stealing in business than in burglary. It is merely through the
quite bestial ignorance of the Moral Law in which the English Bishops
have contentedly allowed their flocks to be brought up, that any of the
modern English conditions of trade are possible.
Of course, for such work, I must be able to find what Jethro of Midian
assumes could be found at once in Israel, these “men of truth, hating
covetousness,” and all my friends laugh me to scorn for thinking to
find any such.
Naturally, in a Christian country, it will be difficult enough; but I
know there are still that kind of people among Midianites, Caffres, Red
Indians, and the destitute, afflicted, and tormented, in dens and caves
of the earth, where God has kept them safe from missionaries:—and, as I
above said, even out of the rotten mob of money-begotten traitors
calling itself a ‘people’ in England, I do believe I shall be able to
extricate, by slow degrees, some faithful and true persons, hating
covetousness, and fearing God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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