On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the Peacemakers,
for they shall be called the
children of God.

Modern

Blessed are the Rich in
Flesh, for their's is the
kingdom of Earth.

Blessed are they that are
merry, and laugh the last.

Blessed are the proud, in that
they have inherited the
earth.

Blessed are they which hunger
for unrighteousness, in
that they shall divide its
mammon.

Blessed are the merciless, for
they shall obtain money.

Blessed are the foul in heart,
for they shall see no God.

Blessed are the War-makers,
for they shall be adored by
the children of men.

180. Who are the true "Makers of War," the promoters and supports of it, I showed long since in the note to the brief sentence of "Unto this last." "It is entirely capitalists' (i.e., Usurers') wealth[135 - "Cash," I should have said, in accuracy—not "wealth."] which supports unjust Wars." But to what extent the adoration of the Usurer, and the slavery consequent upon it, has perverted the soul or bound the hands of every man in Europe, I will let the reader hear, from authority he will less doubt than mine:—

"Financiers are the mischievous feudalism of the 19th century. A handful of men have invented distant, seductive loans, have introduced national debts in countries happily ignorant of them, have advanced money to unsophisticated Powers on ruinous terms, and then, by appealing to small investors all over the world, got rid of the bonds. Furthermore, with the difference between the advances and the sale of bonds, they caused a fall in the securities which they had issued, and, having sold at 80, they bought back at 10, taking advantage of the public panic. Again, with the money thus obtained, they bought up consciences, where consciences are marketable, and under the pretense of providing the country thus traded upon with new means of communication, they passed money into their own coffers. They have had pupils, imitators, and plagiarists; and at the present moment, under different names, the financiers rule the world, are a sore of society, and form one of the chief causes of modern crises.

"Unlike the Nile, wherever they pass they render the soil dry and barren. The treasures of the world flow into their cellars, and there remain. They spend one-tenth of their revenues; the remaining nine-tenths they hoard and divert from circulation. They distribute favors, and are great political leaders. They have not assumed the place of the old nobility, but have taken the latter into their service. Princes are their chamberlains, dukes open their doors, and marquises act as their equerries when they deign to ride.

"These new grandees canter on their splendid Arabs along Rotten Ron, the Bois de Boulogne, the Prospect, the Prater, or Unter den Linden. The shopkeepers, and all who save money, bow low to these men, who represent their savings, which they will never again see under any other form. Proof against sarcasms, sure of the respect of the Continental Press, protecting each other with a sort of freemasonry, the financiers dictate laws, determine the fate of nations, and render the cleverest political combinations abortive. They are everywhere received and listened to, and all the Cabinets feel their influence. Governments watch them with uneasiness, and even the Iron Chancellor has his gilded Egeria, who reports to him the wishes of this the sole modern Autocrat"—Letter from Paris Correspondent, "Times," 30th January, 1885.

181. But to this statement, I must add the one made to § 149 (see note) of "Munera Pulveris," that if we could trace the innermost of all causes of modern war, they would be found, not in the avarice or ambition, but the idleness of the upper classes. "They have nothing to do but to teach the peasantry to kill each other"—while that the peasantry are thus teachable, is further again dependent on their not having been educated primarily in the common law of justice. See again "Munera Pulveris," Appendix I.: "Precisely according to the number of just men in a nation is their power of avoiding either intestine or foreign war."

I rejoice to see my old friend Mr. Sillar gathering finally together the evidence he has so industriously collected on the guilt of usury, and supporting it by the always impressive language of symbolical art;[136 - Mr. Sillar's pamphlet consists of a collection of paragraphs, all condemnatory of usury, from the writings of the English bishops, from the sixteenth century down to the present time; and is illustrated by five emblematic woodcuts representing an oak tree (English commerce) gradually overgrown and destroyed by an ivy-plant (usury).—Ed.] for indeed I had myself no idea, till I read the connected statement which these pictures illustrate, how steadily the system of money-lending had gained on the nation, and how fatally every hand and foot was now entangled by it. Yet in commending the study of this book to every virtuous and patriotic Englishman, I must firmly remind the reader, that all these sins and errors are only the branches from one root of bitterness—mortal Pride. For this we gather, for this we war, for this we die—here and hereafter; while all the while the Wisdom which is from above stands vainly teaching us the way to Earthly Riches and to Heavenly Peace, "What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

Brantwood, 7th March, 1885.

THEOLOGY

NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS

(Pamphlet, 1851.)

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE CHURCH

(Letters and Epilogue, 1879-1881.)

THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE

(Contemporary Review, March 1873.)

NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS.[137 - This pamphlet was originally published in 1851, under the title of "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds," by John Ruskin, M.A., author of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," etc. (Smith, Elder, & Co.). A second edition, with an additional preface, followed in the same year, after which the pamphlet remained out of print till 1875, when it was reprinted in a third, erroneously called a second, edition (George Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent).—Ed.]

PREFACE (CALLED "ADVERTISEMENT") TO THE FIRST EDITION

Many persons will probably find fault with me for publishing opinions which are not new: but I shall bear this blame contentedly, believing that opinions on this subject could hardly be just if they were not 1800 years old. Others will blame me for making proposals which are altogether new: to whom I would answer, that things in these days seem not so far right but that they may be mended. And others will simply call the opinions false and the proposals foolish—to whose goodwill, if they take it in hand to contradict me, I must leave what I have written—having no purpose of being drawn, at present, into religious controversy. If, however, any should admit the truth, but regret the tone of what I have said, lean only pray them to consider how much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness, than by untimely fear.

Denmark Hill,

February, 1851.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND (1851) EDITION

Since the publication of these Notes, I have received many letters upon the affairs of the Church, from persons of nearly every denomination of Christians; for all these letters I am grateful, and in many of them I have found valuable information, or suggestion: but I have not leisure at present to follow out the subject farther; and no reason has been shown me for modifying or altering any part of the text as it stands. It is republished, therefore, without change or addition.

I must, however, especially thank one of my correspondents for sending me a pamphlet, called "Sectarianism, the Bane of Religion and the Church,"[138 - London: 1846. Nisbet & Co., Berners Street.] which I would recommend, in the strongest terms, to the reading of all who regard the cause of Christ; and, for help in reading the Scriptures, I would name also the short and admirable arrangement of parallel passages relating to the offices of the clergy, called "The Testimony of Scripture concerning the Christian Ministry."[139 - London: 1847. T. K. Campbell, 1, Warwick Square.]

PREFACE TO THIRD (CALLED SECOND) EDITION

I have only to add to this first preface, that the boldness of the pamphlet,—ungraceful enough, it must be admitted,—has done no one any harm, that I know of; but on the contrary, some definite good, as far as I can judge; and that I republish the whole now, letter for letter, as originally printed, believing it likely to be still serviceable, and, on the ground it takes for argument, (Scriptural authority,) incontrovertible as far as it reaches; though it amazes me to find on re-reading it, that, so late as 1851, I had only got the length of perceiving the schism between sects of Protestants to be criminal, and ridiculous, while I still supposed the schism between Protestants and Catholics to be virtuous and sublime.

The most valuable part of the whole is the analysis of governments, §§ 213-15; the passages on Church discipline, §§ 204-5, being also anticipatory of much that I have to say in Fors, where I hope to re-assert the substance of this pamphlet on wider grounds, and with more modesty.

Brantwood,

3rd August, 1875.

NOTES, ETC., ETC

182. The following remarks were intended to form part of the appendix to an essay on Architecture: but it seemed to me, when I had put them into order, that they might be useful to persons who would not care to possess the work to which I proposed to attach them: I publish them, therefore, in a separate form; but I have not time to give them more consistency than they would have had in the subordinate position originally intended for them. I do not profess to teach Divinity, and I pray the reader to understand this, and to pardon the slightness and insufficiency of notes set down with no more intention of connected treatment of their subject than might regulate an accidental conversation. Some of them are simply copied from my private diary; others are detached statements of facts, which seem to me significative or valuable, without comment; all are written in haste, and in the intervals of occupation with an entirely different subject. It may be asked of me, whether I hold it right to speak thus hastily and insufficiently respecting the matter in question? Yes. I hold it right to speak hastily; not to think hastily. I have not thought hastily of these things; and, besides, the haste of speech is confessed, that the reader may think of me only as talking to him, and saying, as shortly and simply as I can, things which, if he esteem them foolish or idle, he is welcome to cast aside; but which, in very truth, I cannot help saying at this time.

183. The passages in the essay which required notes, described the repression of the political power of the Venetian Clergy by the Venetian Senate; and it became necessary for me—in supporting an assertion made in the course of the inquiry, that the idea of separation of Church and State was both vain and impious—to limit the sense in which it seemed to me that the word "Church" should be understood, and to note one or two consequences which would result from the acceptance of such limitation. This I may as well do in a separate paper, readable by any person interested in the subject; for it is high time that some definition of the word should be agreed upon. I do not mean a definition involving the doctrine of this or that division of Christians, but limiting, in a manner understood by all of them, the sense in which the word should thenceforward be used. There is grievous inconvenience in the present state of things. For instance, in a sermon lately published at Oxford, by an anti-Tractarian divine, I find this sentence,—"It is clearly within the province of the State to establish a national church, or external institution of certain forms of worship." Now suppose one were to take this interpretation of the word "Church," given by an Oxford divine, and substitute it for the simple word in some Bible texts, as, for instance, "Unto the angel of the external institution of certain forms of worship of Ephesus, write," etc. Or, "Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external institution of certain forms of worship which is in his house,"—what awkward results we should have, here and there! Now I do not say it is possible for men to agree with each other in their religious opinions, but it is certainly possible for them to agree with each other upon their religious expressions; and when a word occurs in the Bible a hundred and fourteen times, it is surely not asking too much of contending divines to let it stand in the sense in which it there occurs; and when they want an expression of something for which it does not stand in the Bible, to use some other word. There is no compromise of religious opinion in this; it is simply proper respect for the Queen's English.

184. The word occurs in the New Testament, as I said, a hundred and fourteen times.[140 - I may, perhaps, have missed count of one or two occurrences of the word; but not, I think, in any important passages.] In every one of those occurrences, it bears one and the same grand sense: that of a congregation or assembly of men. But it bears this sense under four different modifications, giving four separate meanings to the word. These are—

I. The entire Multitude of the Elect; otherwise called the Body of Christ; and sometimes the Bride, the Lamb's Wife; including the Faithful in all ages;—Adam, and the children of Adam yet unborn.