After having, to my best ability, thus busied and informed little Agnes concerning her bees and their operations, am I farther to expatiate on the exemplary character of the bee? Is she to learn “How doth,” etc. (and indeed there never was a country in which more [[106]]than in her own, it was desirable that shining hours should be taken advantage of when they come)? But, above all, am I to tell her of the Goodness and Wisdom of God in making such amiable and useful insects?
Well, before I proceed to ask her to form her very important opinions upon the moral character of God, I shall ask her to observe that all insects are not equally moral, or useful.
It is possible she may have noticed—beforehand—some, of whose dispositions she may be doubtful; something, hereafter, I shall have to tell her of locust and hornet, no less than of bee; and although in general I shall especially avoid putting disagreeable or ugly things before her eyes, or into her mind, I should certainly require her positively, once for all, to know the sort of life led by creatures of at least alloyed moral nature,—such, for instance, as the ‘Turner Savage’ which, indeed, “lives in the haunts of men, whom it never willingly offends; but is the terror of all smaller insects. It inhabits holes in the earth on the side of hills and cliffs; and recesses that it forms for itself in the mud-walls of cottages and outhouses. The mud-wall of a cottage at Peterborough, in Northamptonshire, was observed to be frequented by these creatures, and on examination it was found to be wrought, by their operations, into the appearance of Honeycomb.”
The appearance only, alas! for although these creatures [[107]]thus like to live in the neighbourhood of a Bishop, and though “there are none which display more affection for their offspring,”—they by no means live by collection of treasures of sweet dew. “They are excessively fierce, and, without hesitation, attack insects much larger than themselves. Their strength is very great, their jaws are hard and sharp, and their stings are armed with poison, which suddenly proves fatal to most of the creatures with which they engage, The ‘Sphex’ (generic name of the family) seizes, with the greatest boldness, on the creature it attacks, giving a stroke with amazing force, then falling off, to rest from the fatigue of the exertion, and to enjoy the victory. It keeps, however, a steady eye on the object it has struck, until it dies, and then drags it to its nest for the use of its young. The number of insects which this creature destroys, is almost beyond conception, fifty scarcely serving it for a meal. The mangled remains of its prey, scattered round the mouth of its retreat, sufficiently betray the sanguinary inhabitant. The eyes, the filament that serves as a brain, and a small part of the contents of the body, are all that the Sphex devours.”
I cannot, therefore, insist, for the present, upon either pointing a moral, or adorning a tale, for Agnes, with entomological instances; but the name of the insect, at which the (insect) world might grow pale, if it were capable of pallor,—might be made, at least, memorable, and not uninstructive, to the boys in the Latin [[108]]class, by making them first understand the power of the preposition ‘ex’ in the two pleasant senses of examen, and the one unpleasant sense of ‘examiner’—and then observe, (carefully first distinguishing between play with letters and real derivation,) that if you put R for Right, before ex, you have ‘Rex’; if you put L, for Love, before ex, you have ‘lex’; if you put G, for George, and R, for Rural, before ex, you have ‘grex’; and then if you put S, for Speculation, P, for Peculation, and H, the immortal possessor of Pie, before ex, you have ‘Sphex’; pleasing and accurate type of the modern carnivorous Economist, who especially discerns of his British public, ‘the eyes and small filament that serves as a brain.’ [[109]]
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
“The Parsonage, Werrington, Peterborough,
March 4, 1875.“My dear Sir,—I have no doubt you know better than I do what Gospel is the more widely preached, for while you have been wandering, freer than a bee, from place to place, and from church to church, I have been ‘entangled’ from day to day in stuffy rooms among ignorant and immoral people, in crowded parishes in London and elsewhere; and on Sundays have listened chiefly to the gathered voices of the same ignorant people, led by my own.
“But, not to move from the ground of ascertained fact, I have a right to say that I know that the morality of the parishes best known to me has been made better, and not worse, by the shepherding of the Pastors.
“I have heard and read a good deal, in clerical circles, and clerical books, of doctrines of ‘substitution’ and ‘vicarious righteousness’ such as you rightly condemn as immoral; but if all the sermons preached in the English Church on any given Sunday were fully and fairly reported, I question if a dozen would contain the least trace of these doctrines.
“Amidst all the isms and dogmas by which Clerics are entangled, I find the deep and general conviction getting clearer and clearer utterance, that the one supremely lovely, admirable [[110]]and adorable thing,—the one thing to redeem and regenerate human life, the one true Gospel for mankind,—is the Spirit and Life of Jesus Christ.
“As to your terrible charge against the Pastors, that they preach for hire, I need only quote your own opinion in this month’s Fors, that all honest minstrels and authors, manifestly possessing talent for their business, should be allowed to claim ‘for their actual toil, in performance of their arts, modest reward, and daily bread.’
“Surely the labourer who spends his life in speaking salutary truth is not less worthy of his hire than he who sings or writes it?
“The reward offered to most Pastors is ‘modest’ enough,
“I am very faithfully yours,
“Edward Z. Lyttel.“John Ruskin, Esq.”
I willingly insert my correspondent’s second letter, but will not at present answer it, except privately. I wonder, in the meantime, whether he will think the effect of the ministry of Felix Neff on the mind of the sweet English lady whose letter next follows, moral, or immoral? A portion of whose letter, I should have said; its opening touches on household matters little to her mind, to which her first exclamation refers.
“How sorrowful it all is! Yet, I don’t feel so naughty about it as I did on Saturday, because yesterday I read the life of Felix Neff, who went to live by his own wish at that dismal Dormilleuse in the high Alps, amongst the wretched people who were like very unclean animals, and for whom he felt such sublime pity that he sacrificed himself to improve them; and as I read of that terrible Alpine desert, with eight months’ hopeless dreariness, and of the wretched food and filthy hovels in which the miserable people lived, I looked up at my good fire and clean room, with dear white Lily lying so soft on my lap, and the snowdrops [[111]]outside the window, and I really did feel ashamed of having felt so grumbly and discontented as I did on Saturday. So good Felix Neff’s good work is not done yet, and he will doubtless help others as long as the world lasts.”