We cannot help observing with what vehemence Mr. Ruskin constantly thrusts the thief, the adulterer, and the usurer all into the same boat to be tossed against the breakers of his wrath. Now I would ask some one of those numerous disciples of his, whose affection almost prompts them to say to him, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," "Pray, my good friend, what is your own practice? Providence has blessed you with ease and affluence far more than you need for daily bread. What do you do with your money? Of course you would never think of investing in consols, in railway shares, or dock-bonds, would you? you would not lend money upon mortgage, or exact rent for your household and landed property? I see that you hesitate a little; you have something to confess. Come! what is it?" And my amiable friend replies, "Oh, but you see all the world is gone after interest of money; all our mutual relations are so intimately bound up with that accursed, abominable practice, that I have no alternative. _I have_ large sums lodged in various safe investments, and employ an agent to collect my rents and settle with my tenants." And so I am forced to exclaim, "What! you who are persuaded that usury, and theft, and adultery, are all of equal blackness, if you find that one sin is unavoidable, what about the other two? Would you then invite the robber and the licentious to sin with impunity, as you practise your own convenient iniquity, with the applause of the world and your own acquiescence?" Positively I see no escape from this argument. It is the _argumentum ad hominem_,--generally an uncivil mode of address; but here, at any rate, it is impersonally used. These are my views frankly stated. If I am wrong, even by the highest standard of Christian ethics, I shall be thankful for Mr. Ruskin's corrections. ON LETTER X The letters which I have received up to the present time (October 31st) in reply to Mr. Ruskin's have not failed to bring me not a little of disappointment. On the one hand, I see a man noble and elevated in his aims, and with highest aspirations, desiring nothing so fervently as to see the world and its pastors and teachers rising to the highest attainable level of religious and moral excellence; fearlessly rebuking the evils he sees so clearly; clothing thoughts that consume him in words that stir our inmost hearts; and yet I see him unavoidably missing his aim as all men are liable to do, through the defect of possessing human language alone as the channel to convey divine meanings; and, moreover, who cannot at every turn stay the course of their reasoning to explain that that which they speak apparently, and from the necessities of language, to _all_, is, as the most ordinary apprehension would perceive, really addressed to _some_.