August 7th.
I hope to be able soon now to resume the series of letters; but it seems to me there is no need whatever of more than three or four more respecting the last clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Those in your hands contain questions enough, if seriously entertained, to occupy twenty meetings; and I could only hope that some one of them might be carefully taken up by your friends. I think, however, in case of the clerical feeling being too strong, that I must ask you, if you print letters at all, to print them without omission. And if you do not print them, to return them to me for my own expansion and arrangement.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. R.
10.
August 9th.
I have got to work on the letters again; it would make me nervous to think of all these plans of yours. Suppose you leave all that till you see what the first debate comes to?[25] And in the meantime I'll finish as best I can.
[25] My clerical friends and brethren must not be displeased with me if I here mention the fact that at the meeting of twenty-three clergy where I proposed to read Mr. Ruskin's letters to them, I was only authorized to do so by a majority of two. I can scarcely describe the dismay and consternation with which the letters themselves were received,—though of course not universally, in another meeting of the same number.
11.
September 2nd.
That there are only a hundred copies in that form,[26] is just a reason why the book should be in your library, where it will be enjoyed and useful; and not in mine, where it would not be opened once in a twelvemonth. It is one of the advantages of a small house (and it has many) that one is compelled to consider of all one's books whether they are in use or not.