contrary: how darest thou come into the church? It is the church of that God which hath said, 'Thou shalt take no usury'; and thou knowest He hath so said. How darest thou read or hear the word of God? It is the word of that God which condemneth usury; and thou knowest He doth condemn it. How darest thou come into the company of thy brethren? Usury is the plague, and destruction, and undoing of thy brethren; and this thou knowest. How darest thou look upon thy children? thou makest the wrath of God fall down from heaven upon them; thy iniquity shall be punished in them to the third and fourth generation: this thou knowest. How darest thou look up into heaven? thou hast no dwelling there; thou shalt have no place in the tabernacle of the Highest: this thou knowest. Because thou robbest the poor, deceivest the simple, and eatest up the widows' houses: therefore shall thy children be naked, and beg their bread; therefore shalt thou and thy riches perish together." EXTRACT FROM THE FAREWELL SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY WOOLNOTH, LOMBARD STREET, BY THE REV. DAVID JONES, WHEN THE PRESENT SYSTEM WAS IN ITS INFANCY. "And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided Him."-LUKE xvi. 14. "I do openly declare that every minister and every churchwarden throughout all England are actually perjured and foresworn by the 109th canon of our church,1 if they suffer any usurer to come to the sacrament till he be reformed, and there is no reformation without restitution. "And that you may know what usury is forbid by the word of God, turn to Ezekiel xviii. 8, 13, and you will find that, whoever giveth upon usury or taketh any increase,-Mark it,—he that taketh any increase above the principal,—not six in the hundred, but let it be never so little, and never so moderate, he that taketh any increase, is a usurer, and such a one as shall surely die for his usury, and his blood shall be upon his own head. This is that word of God by which you shall all be saved or damned at the last day, and all those trifling and shuffling distinctions that covetous usurers ever invented shall never be able to excuse your damnation. "Heretofore all usurious clergymen were degraded from Holy Orders, and all usurious laymen were excommunicated in their lifetime, and hindered Christian burial after death, till their heirs had made restitution for all they had gotten by usury." 26. As this sheet is going to press, I receive a very interesting letter from "a poor mother." That no wholesome occupation is at present offered in England to youths of the temper she describes, is precisely the calamity which urged my endeavour to found the St. George's Company. But if she will kindly tell me the boy's age, and whether the want of perseverance she regrets in him has ever been tested by giving him sufficient motive for consistent exertion, I will answer what I can, in next Fors.2 1 [The canon touching "Notorious Crimes and Scandals." "If any offend their brethren, either by adultery. . . or by usury, and any other uncleanness and wickedness of life, the Churchwardens or Questmen, and Sidemen, in their next presentments to their ordinaries, shall faithfully present all and every of the said offenders, to the intent that they, and every of them, may be punished by the severity of the laws according to their deserts; and such notorious offenders shall not be admitted to Holy Communion till they be reformed."] 2 [Not answered in next Fors, but in Letter 55, § 10 (p. 382).] LETTER 54 1 PLATTED THORNS 1. BEFORE going on with my own story to-day, I must fasten down a main principle about doing good work, not yet enough made clear. It has been a prevalent notion in the minds of welldisposed persons, that if they acted according to their own conscience, they must, therefore, be doing right. But they assume, in feeling or asserting this, either that there is no Law of God, or that it cannot be known; but only felt, or conjectured. "I must do what I think right." How often is this sentence uttered and acted on-bravely-nobly-innocently; but always-because of its egotism-erringly. You must not do what you think right, but, whether you or anybody think, or don't think it, what is right. "I must act according to the dictates of my conscience." By no means, my conscientious friend, unless you are quite sure that yours is not the conscience of an ass." "I am doing my best-what can man do more?" You might be doing much less, and yet much better:perhaps you are doing your best in producing, or doing, an eternally bad thing. All these three sayings, and the convictions they express, are wise only in the mouths and minds of wise men; they are deadly, and all the deadlier because bearing an image and superscription of virtue, in the mouths and minds of fools. 3 [Matthew xxvii. 29: "When they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head." See below, § 25.] 2 [Compare Sesame and Lilies, § 26 (Vol. XVIII. p. 78). The sharp distinction which Ruskin draws in these places and many others between opinion and exact thought is one of the points in which he closely follows the Platonic philosophy: see, for instance, Republic, vi. 506 (" Do you not know that opinions are bad all, and the best of them blind?"), and compare the Introduction to Vol. XXVII. (pp. lix., lxxiii.).] 3 [See Mark xii. 16.] 2. "But there is every gradation, surely, between wisdom and folly?" No. The fool, whatever his wit, is the man who doesn't know his master-who has said in his heart-there is no God-no Law.1 2 The wise man knows his master. Less or more wise, he perceives lower or higher masters; but always some creature larger than himself-some law holier than his own. A law to be sought-learned, loved-obeyed; but in order to its discovery, the obedience must be begun first, to the best one knows. Obey something; and you will have a chance some day of finding out what is best to obey. But if you begin by obeying nothing, you will end by obeying Beelzebub and all his seven invited friends. 3 Which being premised, I venture to continue the history of my own early submissions to external Force. 3. The Bible readings, described in my last letter, took place always in the front parlour of the house, which, when I was about five years old, my father found himself able to buy the lease of, at Herne Hill. The piece of road between the Fox tavern and the Herne Hill station, remains, in all essential points of character, unchanged to this day: certain Gothic splendours, lately indulged in by our wealthier neighbours, being the only serious innovations; and these are so graciously concealed by the fine trees of their grounds, that the passing viator remains unappalled by them; and I can still walk up and down the piece of road aforesaid, imagining myself seven years old. 4. Our house was the fourth part of a group which stand accurately on the top or dome of the hill, where the ground is for a small space level, as the snows are (I 1 [See Psalms xiv. 1.] [Compare Cestus of Aglaia, § 82: "The first duty of every man in the world is to find his true master," etc. (Vol. XIX. p. 129).] 3 [See Matthew xii. 45.] 4 [SS 3-11 of this letter were used by Ruskin when writing Præterita, where they appear, slightly revised, as §§ 36-45 of vol. i. ch. ii. For the continuation of the autobiographical notes, see below, § 13.] 6 [Corrected to "four" in Præterita.] [Again corrected to "four" in Præterita.] understand) on the dome of Mont Blanc; presently falling, however, in what may be, in the London clay formation, considered a precipitous slope, to our valley of Chamouni (or of Dulwich) on the east; and with a softer descent into Cold Arbour1 (nautically aspirated into Harbour)-lane on the west on the south, no less beautifully declining to the dale of the Effra (doubtless shortened from Effrena, signifying the "Unbridled" river; recently, I regret to say, bricked over for the convenience of Mr. Biffin, the chemist, and others); while on the north, prolonged indeed with slight depression some half mile or so, and receiving, in the parish of Lambeth, the chivalric title of "Champion Hill," it plunges down at last to efface itself in the plains of Peckham, and the rustic solitudes of Goose Green. 5. The group, of which our house was the quarter, consisted of two precisely similar partner-couples of houses,— gardens and all to match; still the two highest blocks of buildings seen from Norwood on the crest of the ridge; which, even within the time I remember, rose with no stinted beauty of wood and lawn above the Dulwich fields. The house itself, three-storied, with garrets above, commanded, in those comparatively smokeless days, a very notable view from its upper windows, of the Norwood hills on one side, and the winter sunrise over them; and of the valley of the Thames, with Windsor in the distance, on the other, and the summer sunset over these. It had front and back garden in sufficient proportion to its size; the front, richly set with old evergreens, and well grown lilac and laburnum; the back, seventy yards long by twenty wide, renowned over all the hill for its pears and apples, which had been chosen with extreme care by our predecessor (shame on me to forget the name of a man to whom I owe so much!)—and possessing also a strong old mulberry tree, a tall white-heart cherry tree, a black Kentish one, and an almost unbroken hedge, all round, of alternate gooseberry and currant bush; decked, in due season (for the 1 [See the author's note on the name in Præterita.] ground was wholly beneficent), with magical splendour of abundant fruit: fresh green, soft amber, and rough-bristled crimson bending the spinous branches; clustered pearl and pendent ruby joyfully discoverable under the large leaves that looked like vine. 6. The differences of primal importance which I observed between the nature of this garden, and that of Eden, as I had imagined it, were, that, in this one, all the fruit was forbidden; and there were no companionable beasts: in other respects the little domain answered every purpose of Paradise to me; and the climate, in that cycle of our years, allowed me to pass most of my life in it. My mother never gave me more to learn than she knew I could easily get learnt, if I set myself honestly to work, by twelve o'clock. She never allowed anything to disturb me when my task was set; if it was not said rightly by twelve o'clock, I was kept in till I knew it, and in general, even when Latin Grammar came to supplement the Psalms, I was my own master for at least an hour before dinner at half-past one, and for the rest of the afternoon. My mother, herself finding her chief personal pleasure in her flowers, was often planting or pruning beside me,—at least if I chose to stay beside her. I never thought of doing anything behind her back which I would not have done before her face; and her presence was therefore no restraint to me; but, also, no particular pleasure; for, from having always been left so much alone, I had generally my own little affairs to see after; and on the whole, by the time I was seven years old, was already getting too independent, mentally, even of my father and mother; and having nobody else to be dependent upon, began to lead a very small, perky, contented, conceited, Cock-Robinson-Crusoe sort of life,1 in the central point which it appeared to me (as it must naturally appear to geometrical animals), that I occupied in the universe. 7. This was partly the fault of my father's modesty; and 1 [Compare Letter 90 (Vol. XXIX. p. 426).] |