On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and LiteratureRuskin, John
General
On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature
Ruskin, John
Art; Essays; Literature
220. Much more I would fain say of these things, but not now: this only
I must emphatically assert, in conclusion:--That the schism between the
so-called Evangelical and High Church Parties in Britain, is enough to
shake many men's faith in the truth or existence of Religion at all. It
seems to me one of the most disgraceful scenes in Ecclesiastical
history, that Protestantism should be paralyzed at its very heart by
jealousies, based on little else than mere difference between high and
low breeding. For the essential differences in the religious opinions of
the two parties are sufficiently marked in two men whom we may take as
the highest representatives of each--George Herbert and John Milton; and
I do not think there would have been much difficulty in atoning those
two, if one could have got them together. But the real difficulty,
nowadays, lies in the sin and folly of both parties; in the
superciliousness of the one, and the rudeness of the other. Evidently,
however, the sin lies most at the High Church door, for the Evangelicals
are much more ready to act with Churchmen than they with the
Evangelicals; and I believe that this state of things cannot continue
much longer; and that if the Church of England does not forthwith unite
with herself the entire Evangelical body, both of England and Scotland,
and take her stand with them against the Papacy, her hour has struck.
She cannot any longer serve two masters; nor make courtesies alternately
to Christ and Antichrist. That she _has_ done this is visible enough by
the state of Europe at this instant. Three centuries since Luther--three
hundred years of Protestant knowledge--and the Papacy not yet
overthrown! Christ's truth still restrained, in narrow dawn, to the
white cliffs of England and white crests of the Alps;--the morning star
paused in its course in heaven;--the sun and moon stayed, with Satan
for their Joshua.
221. But how to unite the two great sects of paralyzed Protestants? By
keeping simply to Scripture. The members of the Scottish Church have not
a shadow of excuse for refusing Episcopacy; it has indeed been abused
among them, grievously abused; but it is in the Bible; and that is all
they have a right to ask.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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