Without dwelling on the possibility--which I do not myself, however, for a moment doubt--of an honest clergyman's being able actually to prevent the entrance among his congregation of persons leading openly wicked lives, could any subject be more vital to the purposes of your meetings than the difference between the present and the probable state of the Christian Church which would result, were it more the effort of zealous parish priests, instead of getting wicked _poor_ people to _come_ to church, to get wicked rich ones to stay out of it? Lest, in any discussion of such question, it might be, as it too often is, alleged that "the Lord looketh upon the heart," &c., let me be permitted to say--with as much positiveness as may express my deepest conviction--that, while indeed it is the Lord's business to look upon the heart, it is the pastor's to look upon the hands and the lips; and that the foulest oaths of the thief and the street-walker are, in the ears of God, sinless as the hawk's cry, or the gnat's murmur, compared to the responses, in the Church service, on the lips of the usurer and the adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those of the outcast ones whom they have made their victims. It is for the meeting of clergymen themselves--not for a layman addressing them--to ask further, how much the name of God may be taken in vain, and profaned instead of hallowed--_in_ the pulpit, as well as under it. Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN. VII. BRANTWOOD, _14th July, 1879_. DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Sincere thanks for both your letters and the proofs sent. Your comment and conducting link, when needed, will be of the greatest help and value, I am well assured, suggesting what you know will be the probable feeling of your hearers, and the point that will come into question. Yes, certainly, that "His" in the fourth line[1] was meant to imply that eternal presence of Christ; as in another passage,[2] referring to the Creation, "when His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary," but in so far as we dwell on that truth, "Hast thou seen _Me_, Philip, and not the Father?" we are not teaching the people what is specially the Gospel of _Christ_ as having a distinct function--namely, to _serve_ the Father, and do the Father's will. And in all His human relations to us, and commands to us, it is as the Son of Man, not as the "power of God and wisdom of God," that He acts and speaks. Not as the Power; for _He_ must pray, like one of us. Not as the Wisdom; for He must not know "if it be possible" His prayer should be heard.