the
ears of God, sinless as the hawk's cry, or the gnat's murmur, compared
to the responses in the Church service, on the lips of the usurer and
the adulterer, who have destroyed, not their own souls only, but those
of the outcast ones whom they have made their victims.

It is for the meeting of clergymen themselves--not for a layman
addressing them--to ask further, how much the name of God may be taken
in vain, and profaned instead of hallowed--_in_ the pulpit, as well as
under it.

Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.

VII

[Greek: eltheto e basilheia sou]

_Adveniat regnum tuum._

BRANTWOOD, _14th July, 1879._

232. DEAR MR. MALLESON,--Sincere thanks for both your letters
and the proofs[159] sent. Your comment and conducting link, when needed,
will be of the greatest help and value, I am well assured, suggesting
what you know will be the probable feeling of your hearers, and the
point that will come into question.

Yes, certainly, that "His" in the fourth line was meant to imply that
eternal presence of Christ; as in another passage,[160] referring to
the Creation, "when His right hand strewed the snow on Lebanon, and
smoothed the slopes of Calvary," but in so far as we dwell on that
truth, "Hast thou seen _Me_, Philip, and not the Father?"[161] we are
not teaching the people what is specially the Gospel of _Christ_ as
having a distinct function--namely, to _serve_ the Father, and do the
Father's will. And in all His human relations to us, and commands to us,
it is as the Son of Man, not as the "power of God and wisdom of God,"
that He acts and speaks. Not as the Power; for _He_ must pray, like one
of us. Not as the Wisdom; for He must not know "if it be possible" His
prayer should be heard.

233. And in what I want to say of the third clause of His prayer (_His_,
not merely as His ordering, but His using), it is especially this
comparison between _His_ kingdom, and His Father's, that I want to see
the disciples guarded against. I believe very few, even of the most
earnest, using that petition, realize that it is the Father's--not the
Son's--kingdom, that they pray may come,--although the whole prayer is
foundational on that fact: "_For_ Thine is the kingdom, the power, and
the glory." And I fancy that the mind of the most faithful Christian is
quite led away from its proper hope, by dwelling on the reign--or the
coming again--of Christ; which, indeed, they are to look for, and
_watch_ for