St. Stephen, explain to you the pieces out of St. Michael's armoury needful to the husbandman, or Georgos,' of God's garden.

"Stand therefore; having your loins girt about with Truth.”

That means, that the strength of your backbone depends on your meaning to do true battle.

"And having on the breastplate of Justice."

That means, there are to be no partialities in your heart, of anger or pity;-but you must only in justice kill, and only in justice keep alive.

"And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of Peace."

That means, that where your foot pauses, moves, or enters, there shall be peace; and where you can only shake the dust of it on the threshold, mourning.

"Above all, take the shield of Faith."

Of fidelity or obedience to your captain, showing his bearings, argent, a cross gules; your safety, and all the army's, being first in the obedience of faith: and all casting spears vain against such guarded phalanx.

of

"And take the helmet of Salvation."

2

Elsewhere, the hope of salvation, that being the defence of your intellect against base and sad thoughts, as the shield of fidelity is the defence of your heart against burning and consuming passions.

"And the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." 8

That being your weapon of war,-your power of action, whether with sword or ploughshare; according to the saying

1 [For St. George the Husbandman, see St. Mark's Rest, § 214 (Vol. XXIV. p. 375).]

2 [1 Thessalonians v. 8 ("and for an helmet the hope of salvation").] 3 Ephesians vi. 14-17.]

of St. John of the young soldiers of Christ, "I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you." The Word by which the heavens were of old; and which, being once only Breath, became in man Flesh, “quickening it by the spirit" into the life which is, and is to come; and enabling it for all the works nobly done by the quick, and following the dead.

17. And now, finish your Advent collect, and eat your Christmas fare, and drink your Christmas wine, thankfully; and with understanding that if the supper is holy which shows your Lord's death till He come, the dinner is also holy which shows His life; and if you would think it wrong at any time to go to your own baby's cradle side, drunk, do not show your gladness by Christ's cradle in that manner; but eat your meat, and carol your carol in pure gladness and singleness of heart; and so gird up your loins with truth, that, in the year to come, you may do such work as Christ can praise, whether He call you to judgment from the quick or dead; so that among your Christmas carols there may never any more be wanting the joyfullest,

O sing unto the Lord a new song:

Sing unto the Lord, all the earth.

Say among the heathen that the Lord is King :

The world also shall be stablished that it shall not be moved.

For He cometh, for He cometh to JUDGE THE EARTH:

HE SHALL JUDGE THE WORLD WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS,

AND THE PEOPLE WITH HIS TRUTH.2

1 [1 John ii. 14. The other Bible references in §§ 16, 17 are 2 Peter iii. 5; John i. 14; 1 Peter iii. 18; Revelation xiv. 13; 1 Corinthians xi. 26; Ephesians vi. 14; 2 Timothy iv. 1.]

2 [Psalms xcvi. 1, 10-13. Ruskin partly retranslates, slightly altering the Authorised Version.]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

18. (I.) I HAVE kept the following kind and helpful letter for the close of the year:

66

"January 8, 1874.

SIR,-I have been much moved by a passage in No. 37 of Fors Clavigera, in which you express yourself in somewhat desponding terms as to your loneliness in 'life and thought,' now you have grown old. You complain that many of your early friends have forgotten or disregarded you, and that you are almost left alone. I cannot certainly be called an early friend, or, in the common meaning of the word, a friend of any time. But I cannot refrain from telling you that there are 'more than 7000' in this very Christ-defying' England whom you have made your friends by your wise sympathy and faithful teaching. I, for my own part, owe you a debt of thankfulness not only for the pleasant hours I have spent with you in your books, but also for the clearer views of many of the ills which at present press upon us, and for the methods of cure upon which you so urgently and earnestly insist. I would especially mention Unto this Last as having afforded me the highest satisfaction. It has ever since I first read it been my text-book of political economy. I think it is one of the needfullest lessons for a selfish, recklessly competitive, cheapest-buying and dearest-selling age, that it should be told there are principles deeper, higher, and even more prudent than those by which it is just now governed. It is particularly refreshing to find Christ's truths applied to modern commercial immorality in the trenchant and convincing style which characterizes your much maligned but most valuable book. It has been, let me assure you, appreciated in very unexpected quarters; and one humble person to whom I lent my copy, being too poor to buy one for himself, actually wrote it out word for word, that he might always have it by him." 2

("What a shame!" thinks the enlightened Mudie-subscriber. what comes of his refusing to sell his books cheap."

"See

Yes, see what comes of it. The dreadful calamity, to another person, of doing once, what I did myself twice-and, in great part of the book, three times. A vain author, indeed, thinks nothing of the trouble of writing his own books. But I had infinitely rather write somebody else's. My good poor disciple, at the most, had not half the pain his master had; learnt his book rightly, and gave me more help, by this best kind of laborious sympathy, than twenty score of flattering friends who tell me what a fine word-painter I am, and don't take the pains to understand so much as half a sentence in a volume.)

"You have done, and are doing, a good work for England, and I pray you not to be discouraged. Continue as you have been doing, convincing us by your 'sweet reasonableness' of our errors and miseries, and the time will doubtless come

1 [Letter 37, § 2 (p. 14).]

2 [In a letter to his publisher about this number of Fors, Ruskin wrote:"One of the letters in the correspondence will say how a poor man copied out Unto this Last word for word, being too poor to buy one. It makes one think, don't it?"]

when your work, now being done in Jeremiah-like sadness and hopelessness, will bear gracious and abundant fruit.

"Will you pardon my troubling you with this note? but, indeed, I could not be happy after reading your gloomy experience, until I had done my little best to send one poor ray of comfort into your seemingly almost weary heart.

I remain,

"Yours very sincerely."

19. (II.) Next to this delightful testimony to my "sweet reasonableness," here is some discussion of evidence on the other side:

"TO JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., greeting, these.

"November 12, 1872.

"Enclosed is a slip cut from the Liverpool Mercury of last Friday, November 8. I don't send it to you because I think it matters anything what the Mercury thinks about any one's qualification for either the inside or outside of any asylum; but that I may suggest to you, as a working-man reader of your letters, the desirability of your printing any letters of importance you may send to any of the London papers, over again-in, say, the space of Fors Clavigera that you have set apart for correspondence. It is most tantalizing to see a bit printed like the enclosed, and not know either what is before or after. I felt similar feelings some time ago over a little bit of a letter about the subscription to Warwick Castle.1

"We cannot always see the London papers, especially us provincials; and we would like to see what goes on between you and the newspaper world.

"Trusting that you will give this suggestion some consideration, and at any rate take it as given in good faith from a disciple following afar off,

The enclosed slip was as follows:-
:-

"I remain, sincerely yours."

"MR. RUSKIN'S TENDER POINT.-Mr. John Ruskin has written a letter to a contemporary on madness and crime, which goes far to clear up the mystery which has surrounded some of his writings of late. The following passage amply qualifies the distinguished art critic for admission into any asylum in the country: 'I assure you, sir, insanity is a tender point with me.'

The writer then quotes to the end the last paragraph of the letter, which, in compliance with my correspondent's wish, I am happy here to reprint in its entirety.

MADNESS AND CRIME

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE "2

SIR,-Towards the close of the excellent article on the Taylor trial3 in your issue for October 31, you say that people never will be, nor ought to be, persuaded "to treat criminals simply as vermin which they destroy, and not as men who are to be punished." Certainly not, Certainly not, sir! Who ever

1 [Ruskin wrote two letters to the Daily Telegraph (December 22 and 25, 1871) on the subject of an appeal for public subscriptions towards the restoration of Warwick Castle, which had been partly destroyed by fire. The letters are reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. i. pp. 223-226, and in a later volume of this edition.] 2 [From the Pall Mall Gazette, November 4, 1872; also reprinted in Arrows of the Chace, 1880, vol. ii. pp. 189-190.]

3 [The trial of W. J. Taylor at the Central Criminal Court (October 30, 1872) was for the murder of a woman and child, and ended in his acquittal on the ground of insanity owing to drink.]

talked or thought of regarding criminals "simply" as anything (or innocent people either, if there be any)? But regarding criminals complexly and accurately, they are partly men, partly vermin; what is human in them you must punish-what is vermicular, abolish. Anything betweenif you can find it-I wish you joy of, and hope you may be able to preserve it to society. Insane persons, horses, dogs, or cats, become vermin when they become dangerous. I am sorry for darling Fido, but there is no question about what is to be done with him.

Yet, I assure you, sir, insanity is a tender point with me. One of my best friends has just gone mad; and all the rest say I am mad myself. But, if ever I murder anybody-and, indeed, there are numbers of people I should like to murder-I won't say that I ought to be hanged; for I think nobody but a bishop or a bank director can ever be rogue enough to deserve hanging;2 but I particularly, and with all that is left me of what I imagine to be sound mind, request that I may be immediately shot. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

J. RUSKIN.

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD, November 2 (1872). 20. (III.) I am very grateful to the friend who sends me the following note on my criticism of Dickens in last letter:

"It does not in the least detract from the force of Fors that there was a real 'Miss Flite,' whom I have seen, and my father well remembers; and who used to haunt the Courts in general, and sometimes to address them. She had been ruined, it was believed; and Dickens must have seen her, for her picture is like the original. But he knew nothing about her, and only constructed her after his fashion. She cannot have been any prototype of the character of Miss Flite. I never heard her real name. Poor thing! she did not look sweet or kind, but crazed and spiteful; and unless looks deceived Dickens, he just gave careless, false witness about her. Her condition seemed to strengthen your statement in its very gist, as Law had made her look like Peter Peebles.

"My father remembers little Miss F., of whom nothing was known. She always carried papers and a bag, and received occasional charity from lawyers.

"Gridley's real name was Ikey;-he haunted Chancery. Another, named Pitt, in the Exchequer ;-broken attorneys, both.”

21. (IV.) I have long kept by me an official statement of the condition of England when I began Fors, and together with it an illustrative column, printed, without alteration, from the Pall Mall Gazette of the previous year [$ 22]. They may now fitly close my four years' work, of which I have good hope next year to see some fruit.

"MR. GOSCHEN ON THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND.-The nation is again making money at an enormous rate, and driving every kind of decently secure investment up to unprecedented figures. Foreign Stocks, Indian Stocks, Home Railway Shares, all securities which are beyond the control of mere speculators and offer above four per cent., were never so dear; risky loans for millions, like that for Peru, are

1 [Compare Letter 49, § 13 (p. 246). For the death of this friend, see Vol. XXIV. p. xx., together with the Introduction to Præterita.]

2 [Compare, on the punishment of bank directors who fail, Letter 7, §§ 12, 19 (Vol. XXVII. pp. 125, 131).]

3 [Letter 47, § 9, p. 195.]

[That is, the statement in Mr. Goschen's speech on June 17, 1870, already noticed in Letter 4, § 9 (Vol. XXVII. p. 70), and summarised in the article from the Spectator here given in § 21.]