Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8) / Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain

FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTERS
TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. , HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART.
Vol. V. GEORGE ALLEN, SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 1875.
But I hope in the letters of this next year to spend less time in argument or attack; what I wish the reader to know, of principle, is already enough proved, if only he take the pains to read the preceding letters thoroughly; and I shall now, as far as Fors will let me, carry out my purpose of choosing and annotating passages of confirmatory classical literature; and answering, as they occur, the questions of my earnest correspondents, as to what each of them, in their place of life, may immediately do with advantage for St. George’s help.
A village clergyman, (an excellent farmer, and very kind friend of my earliest college days,) sent me last January a slip out of the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ written across in his own hand with the words “Advantage of Education.” The slip described the eloquence and dexterity in falsehood of the Parisian Communist prisoners on their trial for the murder of the hostages. But I would fain ask my old friend to tell me himself whether he thinks instruction in the art of false eloquence should indeed receive from any minister of Christ the title of ‘education’ at all; and how far display of eloquence, instead of instruction in behaviour, has become the function, too commonly, of these ministers themselves.
I was asked by one of my Oxford pupils the other day why I had never said any serious word of what it might seem best for clergymen to do in a time of so great doubt and division.
Does any man, of all the men who have received this charge in England, know what it is to be a wolf?—recognize in himself the wolfish instinct, and the thirst for the blood of God’s flock? For if he does not know what is the nature of a wolf, how should he know what it is to be a shepherd? If he never felt like a wolf himself, does he know the people who do? He does not expect them to lick their lips and bare their teeth at him, I suppose, as they do in a pantomime? Did he ever in his life see a wolf coming, and debate with himself whether he should fight or fly?—or is not rather his whole life one headlong hireling’s flight, without so much as turning his head to see what manner of beasts they are that follow?—nay, are not his very hireling’s wages paid him for flying instead of fighting?