Bishops, Soldiers, Lawyers, and Squires;1-which, perhaps, he imagined me to have spoken jestingly; or, it may be, in witlessness; or, it may be, in voluble incipient insanity. Admitting myself in no small degree open to such suspicion, I am now about to re-word some matters which madness would gambol from; and I beg the reader to observe that any former gambolling on my part, awkward or untimely as it may have seemed, has been quite as serious, and intentionally progressive, as Morgiana's dance round the captain of the Forty Thieves.3

5

2. If, then, the reader will look at the analysis of Episcopacy in Sesame and Lilies, the first volume of all my works; next at the chapter on Episcopacy in Time and Tide; and lastly, refer to what he can gather in the past series of Fors, he will find the united gist of all to be, that Bishops cannot take, much less give, account of men's souls unless they first take and give account of their bodies: and that, therefore, all existing poverty and crime in their dioceses, discoverable by human observation, must be, when they are Bishops indeed, clearly known to, and describable by them, or their subordinates. Of whom the number, and discipline in St. George's Company, if by God's grace it ever take the form I intend, will be founded on the institution of the same by the first Bishop, or more correctly Archbishop, whom the Christian church professes to obey. For what can possibly be the use of printing the Ten Commandments which he delivered, in gold,-framing them above the cathedral altar,-pronouncing them in a prelatically sonorous

6

1 [For Bishops, see Vol. XXVII. pp. 15, 174; and above, p. 240. For Soldiers, Vol. XXVII. pp. 185, 260 seq., 321. For Lawyers, Vol. XXVII. pp. 17, 77, 208, 280 seq.; and above, pp. 37, 135, 197. For Squires, Vol. XXVII. pp. 30, 379-381, 383-387; and above, p. 149.]

2 [Compare Letter 67, § 15 (p. 650).]

3 [See Jonathan Scott's Arabian Nights, vol. iii. pp. 177-179 ("History of Ali Baba, and of the Forty Robbers, Killed by one Slave"). Compare Letter 81, § 7 (Vol. XXIX. p. 197).]

4 [Sesame and Lilies, §§ 20-22; the first volume in his "Works" Series (see Vol. XVIII. pp. 69-73).]

5 [See Vol. XVII. p. 376.]

6 ["i.e., Moses" (MS. note by Author in his copy)—referred to, below (§ 3), as "the first bishop of Israel."]

voice, and arranging the responsive supplications of the audience to the tune of an organ of the best manufacture, if the commanding Bishops institute no inquiry whatever into the physical power of-say this starving shoemaker in Seven Dials,—to obey such a command as "thou shalt not covet" in the article of meat; or of his son to honour in any available measure either the father or mother, of whom the one has departed to seek her separate living, and the other is lying dead with his head in the fireplace.1

3. Therefore, as I have just said, our Bishops in St. George's Company will be constituted in order founded on that appointed by the first Bishop of Israel, namely, that their Primate, or Supreme Watchman, shall appoint under him "out of all the people, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers (or, at the least, observers 2) of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens; "* and that of these episcopic centurions, captains of fifty, and captains of ten, there will be required clear account of the individual persons they are set over;-even a baby being considered as a decimal quantity not to be left out of their account by the decimal Bishops,-in which episcopacy, however, it is not improbable that a queenly power may be associated, with Norman caps for mitres, and for symbol of authority, instead of the crozier (or crook, for disentangling lost sheep of souls from among the brambles), the broom, for sweeping diligently till they find lost silver of souls among the dust.*

4. You think I jest, still, do you? Anything but that; only if I took off the Harlequin's mask for a moment, you would say I was simply mad. Be it so, however, for this time.

1 [See above, p. 504.]

Exodus xviii. 21.

2 [That is, episcopic persons: compare Vol. XVII. p. 378, and Letter 10, § 13 (Vol. XXVII. p. 174). See also, for a later reference to § 3 here, Letter 73, § 8 (Vol. XXIX. p. 19).]

3 [Compare Letter 4, § 12 (Vol. XXVII, p. 76).]

[See Luke xv. 8.]

XXVIII.

2 K

3

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

[For Ruskin's tribute to Bishop Colenso, see Vol. XXVI. p. lv. Compare above, p. 244.]

2 [For some explanations of this charge, see (in a later volume) the letters to the Rev. J. P. Faunthorpe of February 11, 13, 16, 1883.]

[For the sphere of St. Michael, as patron saint, see Letter 35: “with Michael's help to drive the devil of hunger out of poor men's stomachs" (Vol. XXVII. p. 657).]

4 [The title to this letter is here indicated. For another reference to the association of St. Dominic and his friars with dogs, see Vol. XXIII. p. 444, and compare below, p. 719.]

[Ruskin's note for Index here is "Creeds, not to be taken cognizance of (beyond the faith in God and in virtue)."]

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.

5. 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,' "2 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,3 where God has kept them safe from missionaries : *—and, as I above said, even out of the rotten mob of moneybegotten 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.

And you will please to observe that this hate and fear are flat opposites one to the other; so that if a man fear or reverence God, he must hate covetousness; and if he fear or reverence covetousness, he must hate God; and there is no intermediate way whatsoever. Nor is it possible for any man, wilfully rich, to be a God-fearing person; but only for those who are involuntarily rich, and are making all the haste they prudently and piously can, to be poor; for money is a strange kind of seed; scattered, it is poison; but set, it is bread: so that a man whom God has appointed to be a sower must bear as lightly as he may the burden of gold and of possessions, till he find the proper places to sow them in. But persons desiring to be rich, and accumulating riches, always hate God, and never fear Him; the [For Ruskin's defence and explanation of this word, see Letter 81, § 8 (Vol. XXIX. p. 198).]

[Exodus xviii. 21.]

3 Hebrews xi. 37, 38.]

[For the condemnation of usury among the Hovas, and Ruskin's suggestion that missionaries should be sent from Madagascar to England, see Letter 60, § 8 (above, p. 468).]

[See Letter 58, § 9 (above, p. 427).]

idol they do fear (for many of them are sincerely religious) is an imaginary, or mind-sculptured God of their own making, to their own liking; a God who allows usury, delights in strife and contention, and is very particular about everybody's going to his synagogues on Sunday.

2

6. Indeed, when Adam Smith formally, in the name of the philosophers of Scotland and England, set up this opposite God, on the hill of cursing against blessing, Ebal against Gerizim;' and declared that all men "naturally" desired their neighbours' goods; and that in the name of Covetousness, all the nations of the earth should be blessed,3 -it is true, that the half-bred and half-witted Scotchman had not gift enough in him to carve so much as his own calf's head on a whin-stone with his own hand; much less to produce a well molten and forged piece of gold, for old Scottish faith to break its tables of ten commandments at sight of. But, in leaving to every artless and ignorant boor among us the power of breeding, in imagination, each his own particular calf, and placidly worshipping that privately fatted animal; or, perhaps,-made out of the purest fat of it in molten Tallow instead of molten Gold,-images, which may be in any inventive moment, misshapen anew to his mind, Economical Theology has granted its disciples more perfect and fitting privilege.

7. From all taint or compliance with such idolatry, the Companions of St. George have vowed to withdraw themselves; writing, and signing their submission to, the First

1 [See Joshua viii. 33, 34.]

2 [See such passages in The Wealth of Nations as book iv. ch. ii.: "It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view; and book iv. ch. ix.: "the natural effort which every man is continually making to better his own condition"-the theory on which Adam Smith's doctrines rest, though it is nowhere expressly presented as the foundation of them, being that, though the individual thus aims only at his private gain, he is yet, in doing so, led by an invisible hand to promote the public good, which was no part of his intention. For other references by Ruskin to Adam Smith, see A Joy for Ever (Vol. XVI. p. 10), where he mentions reading the book as a boy; Unto this Last (Vol. XVII. p. 20 n.), where he quotes Smith's saying that fear is the preventive of fraud; Proserpina, Vol. XXV. p. 298 (a passage similar to the present one); and Fors, Letter 78, § 10 (Vol. XXIX. p. 134).]

[Galatians iii. 8.]

[See Exodus xxxii.]