, but not to pray for. Their prayer is to be for the greater
kingdom to which He, risen and having all His enemies under His feet, is
to surrender _His_, "that God may be All in All."

And, though the greatest, it is that everlasting kingdom which the
poorest of us can advance. We cannot hasten Christ's coming. "Of the day
and hour, knoweth none." But the kingdom of God is as a grain of mustard
seed:--we can sow of it; it is as a foam-globe of leaven:--we can mingle
it; and its glory and its joy are that even the birds of the air can
lodge in the branches thereof.

Forgive me for getting back to my sparrows; but truly, in the present
state of England, the fowls of the air are the only creatures, tormented
and murdered as they are, that yet have here and there nests, and peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost. And it would be well if many of us, in
reading that text, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink," had even
got so far as to the understanding that it was at least _as much_, and
that until we had fed the hungry, there was no power in us to inspire
the unhappy.

Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.

I will write my feeling about the pieces of the Life of Christ you have
sent me, in a private letter. I may say at once that I am sure it will
do much good, and will be upright and intelligible, which how few
religious writings are!

VIII.

[Greek: genetheto to thelema sou hos en ourano, kai epi ges.]

_Fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra._

BRANTWOOD, _9th August, 1879._

234. I was reading the second chapter of Malachi this morning by chance,
and wondering how many clergymen ever read it, and took to heart the
"commandment for _them_."

For they are always ready enough to call themselves priests (though they
know themselves to be nothing of the sort) whenever there is any dignity
to be got out of the title; but, whenever there is any good, hot
scolding or unpleasant advice given them by the prophets, in that
self-assumed character of theirs, they are as ready to quit it as ever
Dionysus his lion-skin, when he finds the character of Herakles
inconvenient. "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words" (yes, and some
of His people, too, in your time): "yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied
Him? When ye say, Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the
Lord, and He delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?"

How many, again and again I wonder, of the lively young ecclesiasti