scertain the facts,
but only to defend practices which they hold to be convenient in the
world, and are afraid to blame in their congregations. Of the
presumption with which several of the writers utter their notions on the
subject, I do not think it would be right to speak farther, in an
epilogue to which there is no reply, in the terms which otherwise would
have been deserved. In their bearing on other topics, let me earnestly
thank you (so far as my own feelings may be permitted voice in the
matter) for the attention with which you have examined, and the courage
with which you have ratified, or at least endured, letters which
could not but bear at first the aspect of being written in a
hostile--sometimes even in a mocking spirit. That aspect is untrue, nor
am I answerable for it: the things of which I had to speak could not be
shortly described but in terms which might sound satirical; for all
error, if frankly shown, is precisely most ridiculous when it is most
dangerous, and I have written no word which is not chosen as the
exactest for its occasion, whether it move sigh or smile. In my earlier
days I wrote much with the desire to please, and the hope of influencing
the reader. As I grow older and older, I recognize the truth of the
Preacher's saying, "Desire shall fail, and the mourners go about the
streets;" and I content myself with saying, to whoso it may concern,
that the thing is verily thus, whether they will hear or whether they
will forbear. No man more than I has ever loved the places where God's
honor dwells, or yielded truer allegiance to the teaching of His evident
servants. No man at this time grieves more for the danger of the Church
which supposes him her enemy, while she whispers procrastinating _pax
vobiscum_ in answer to the spurious kiss of those who would fain toll
curfew over the last fires of English faith, and watch the sparrow find
nest where she may lay her young, around the altars of the Lord.

Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 169: The following extracts from letters of Mr. Ruskin to Mr.
Malleson were printed in the "Letters to the Clergy":--

"_14th May_, 1880.--My dear Malleson, ... I had never seen _yours_ at
all when I wrote last. I fell first on ----, whom I read with some
attention, and commented on with little favor; went on to the next, and
remained content with that taste till I had done my Scott (_Nineteenth
Century_).

"I have this morni