[From "New Year's Address and Messages to Blackfriars Bible Class." Aberdeen, 1874.]
"LABORARE EST ORARE."
Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
December, 1873.
My dear Sir: I should much like to send your class some message, but have no time for anything I like.
My own constant cry to all Bible readers is a very simple one—Don't think that nature (human or other) is corrupt; don't think that you yourself are elect out of it; and don't think to serve God by praying instead of obeying.
Ever, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
John Ruskin.
[From "New Year's Address," etc. (as above), 1878.]
A PAGAN MESSAGE.
Herne Hill, London, S.E.
19 Dec. 1877.
My dear Sir: I am sure you know as well as I that the best message for any of your young men who really are trying to read their Bibles is whatever they first chance to read on whatever morning.
But here's a Pagan message for them, which will be a grandly harmonized bass for whatever words they get on the New Year.
Inter spem curamque, timores et inter iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.[138]
("Amid hope and sorrow, amid fear and wrath, believe every day that has dawned on thee to be thy last.")