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On the Old Road Volume 2 (of 2), essay(s) by John Ruskin |
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Theology - The Lord's Prayer And The Church - Letter IV |
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_ IV. BRANTWOOD, _8th July._ 227. I am so very glad that you approve of the letter plan, as it enables me to build up what I would fain try to say, of little stones, without lifting too much for my strength at once; and the sense of addressing a friend who understands me and sympathizes with me prevents my being brought to a stand by continual need for apology, or fear of giving offense. But yet I do not quite see why you should feel my asking for a simple and comprehensible statement of the Christian Gospel at starting. Are you not bid to go into _all_ the world and preach it to every creature? (I should myself think the clergyman most likely to do good who accepted the [Greek: pase the ktisei] so literally as at least to sympathize with St. Francis' sermon to the birds, and to feel that feeding either sheep or fowls, or unmuzzling the ox, or keeping the wrens alive in the snow, would be received by their Heavenly Feeder as the _perfect_ fulfillment of His "Feed my sheep" in the higher sense.)[158] 228. That's all a parenthesis; for although I should think that your good company would all agree that kindness to animals was a kind of preaching to them, and that hunting and vivisection were a kind of blasphemy to them, I want only to put the sterner question before your council, _how_ this Gospel is to be preached either [Greek: pantachou]" or to "[Greek: panta ta ethne] if first its preachers have not determined quite clearly what it _is_? And might not such definition, acceptable to the entire body of the Church of Christ, be arrived at by merely explaining, in their completeness and life, the terms of the Lord's Prayer--the first words taught to children all over the Christian world? I will try to explain what I mean of its several articles, in following letters; and in answer to the question with which you close your last, I can only say that you are at perfect liberty to use any, or all, or any parts of them, as you think good. Usually, when I am asked if letters of mine may be printed, I say: "Assuredly, provided only that you print them entire." But in your hands, I withdraw even this condition, and trust gladly to your judgment, remaining always THE REV. F. A. MALLESON. _ |
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