L Ruskin's Religion JASON ALMUS RUSSELL, ITHACA, N. Y. OUISE Wilcox gives us the story of a good old lady who horrified her neighbors by refusing to go to church or prayer-meeting. When they came to argue the matter with her they asked whether she prayed regularly and when she prayed. The practical Christian woman replied: "When I wake in the morning and see the sunlight I pray that the sun of true charity may shine in my heart; and when I wash myself I pray that I may some day wash in the living waters of innocence and refreshment; and when I kindle my fire I pray that the fire of love and charity may burn in me; and when I eat I pray that I may be eating and drinking the Life Everlasting." Every person, whatever his race, age, or creed, has a different conception of God, from the little child who pictures the Almighty as a kindly old gentleman with a long beard, riding along on a cloud, to Matthew Arnold's classic definition of "a Power not of ourselves which makes for righteousness." The mental process is more advanced in the second conception than in the first, but the heart which comes nearest to knowing and understanding this power is the one which feels most deeply the universal response and believes most in the unseen. With Ruskin all themes take their root and center in religion. He builds upon the Bible and appeals to the Scriptures as a final and uncompromising authority. He is, moreover, the prophet of his time, writing in the purest English-prosepoetry, and in a form which can be appreciated by the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated. He maintains that the use and function of man is to attest to the Glory of God, and to advance that glory by producing reasonable and resultant happiness. What many teachers need is a key or password to the mines of intellectual wealth which is hidden in the literature of greater geniuses. This constitutes his persistent and unaltered doctrine. Now we are to trace the religious development of the mature man as revealed to us through his views on political economy, public and personal religion, architecture and sculpture, nature and poetry. During John's private school-days, Reverend Mr. Dale, an undiplomatic instructor, made some discourteous remarks about the Scotch grammar which Mrs. Ruskin had used as a textbook for her son. This action deeply wounded the youth. In no uncertain language he observed that to make a boy hate his mother's love leads to hatred of God and his Redeemer; and that his own religious training, received from his mother, was the most precious and essential part of his education because this body of sacred principles became a life protection to him against fears and doubts, temptation and sin. He was a steady force, working for truth and righteousness, and had the greatest reverence for Divine Mysteries. When exposed to the light of his logical mind the hide-bound and narrow principles of the evangelical churches he discovered, to his horror, that if true they left only a remnant of the race as participants in Salvation, and consequently he left the church of his fathers forever. In Modern Painters the reader of Ruskin sees a plea for a definition of art wide enough to cover the whole field of its aims. That art which gives the spectator the greatest number of ideas is the most valuable; and ideas are great in proportion to their reception and appreciation by the higher faculties of the mind. From this the definition of a great artist naturally follows as being that person who has embodied in his works the greatest number of ideas. Like Emerson this genius was great enough to contradict himself as often as he chose. Like Carlyle he has a great body of positive teaching in the proposal of practical methods and solutions. In political economy he was the exact opposite of Mill and Fawcett-merciless in his force, ironical in his opinions, yet gentle and considerate with his friends. Although liberal with his talents he insisted that his books should be sold at high prices, and forcefully rejected the idea that he should sacrifice high prices for popularity through cheapness. Like Paracelsus he had high aims, but he laid his foundations firm and strong, that his superstructure might last for all time. He believed that the man or woman who performed his daily task conscientiously did his duty by the state; the farmer who thrashes his oats at the proper time, the neat and efficient housewife, the up-to-date teacher, all these do their duty by the nation and add continually to her well-being and prosperity. Our philosopher had the habit of donating much money to needy and struggling men. In one year alone he sacrificed seventy-six thousand dollars to human good as he saw it. Thus it was natural that he became interested in the ideal of the American Nation which he stated as the Divine Right of the People, expressed in a completely democratic form of government. It was to be expected that Old World thinkers would emphasize the dangers of this experiment, and that its proponents should have no precedents to follow in applying it. With this in mind he regretted the passing of the peasantry from the land. Agriculture he regarded as the fundamental basis of national life in England, and more so because the spirit of his age was against it, at a time when the people were flocking to the cities, still influenced by the industrial revolution. He founded St. George's Guild to buy land which was to be cultivated by manual labor with as little waterdriven machinery as possible. The workers were to till the soil intensively, to have fixed and sufficient wages, and to live in comfortable homes of their own. Wholesome recreation became an integral part of his plan, and also sound education along lines which he would point out. People of means contributed a fund to buy land for the salvation of society. Even the author of the plan invested thirty-five thousand dollars of his own in the project. The Guild aimed at three essential material things; pure air, water, and earth. Three essential immaterial things were to accompany them: admiration, hope, and love. In addition Ruskin based the scheme on three fundamental propositions; that there could be no civilization without practical religion; no prosperity without labor on the soil; and no happiness without honesty and truth. All this furnished a great practical experiment in Communism with the object of buying up the land and training as many English men and women and their children on the soil as the land would maintain in comfort, establishing for them and their descendants a national store of increasing wealth, and a government based on religion and justice. Whatever may be our criticism of this Utopian plan, it will live long as the pathetic dream of a beautiful but lonely spirit. Ruskin labored to give mankind a vision of beneficent and true brotherhood. In this he received both encouragement and condemnation; but happily the immortality of great souls does not rest upon the success or failure of material agencies or social schemes. "He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them . . دو Henry Van Dyke informs us that it is unworthy of a religious man to view an irreligious one with any other feeling than that of regret and hope and brotherly commiseration; for whether or not he seeks the truth he is still our brother. Ruskin rejected orthodox religion, orthodox morals, and politics, orthodox art and science. And even when Oxford gave him a position on her teaching staff she did not bring him back into the fold. Yet he never departed from the orthodoxy of righteousness and scriptural truth. His religious spirit permeated all things he touched. With him the funda mental truths of Christianity were never subjects of dispute or doubt. He had no sympathy with the State Church, for he maintained that the ministers and priests did not live up to their teachings, and that the ceremonies conveyed a narrow interpretation of the truth. This change and revolt from the faith of his fathers culminated when he was forty years old. He has much to say of the beauty of expression of the Prayer Book but is very severe in his criticism of many who use it; he asserted, furthermore, that the confessional is one of the evils of the Church and sin can be acknowledged without confessing it publicly or to a priest. "God is a living God and will arrange things eventually in his own way, and not as we may plan for him to do." Ruskin divided his studies of architecture into seven parts, "seven bright stars," as Charlotte Bronte calls them; seven searchlights, throwing out their rays into the darkness and revealing those things hidden from the superficial eye of man; structures which have no utility except as they point to Heaven. This book shook conventional ideas to the root and flung forth a body of new and pregnant thought. It maintained that no actions are so slight and unimportant but that they may be performed to a great purpose; nor is any purpose so great but that small actions may assist it. The Seven Lamps of Architecture he entitles: Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory, and Obedience. He informs us that he had great difficulty in limiting them to less than ten! The lamp of Sacrifice is the spirit which prompts us to offer precious things because they are precious, and is reflected in the opposite feeling of modern times which aims to produce the largest results at the least possible cost. This is a plea for the beautiful-such as the fruits of the handloom,-produced with no regard to the amount of time expended. Sacrifice, like the alabaster bottle of ointment broken over the feet of the Savior, is another name for self-denial and generosity. The people of the Middle Ages threw their |