THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS 567

must have supposed to have been his meaning in the text itself-and read it thus?

“If thy brother-&c.-go and tell him his fault, &c. If he will not hear thee,-&c.-(take two or three others). And if he will not hear them, tell it unto the Church. But if he will not hear the Church-call him to one of the highest offices of the Church.”

If you are not prepared to read the text thus, Matthew’s thoughts are not to the purpose; and you have given no interpretation to the text.

Now, that text should have an interpretation. At present it lies dormant in the Bible-not a soul quotes it-thinks of it-far less acts upon it. Everybody quotes “Judge not that ye be not judged.”¹ It is a pleasant text that for most people, being a pious expression for-”Let me alone, and I’ll let you.” But the counter-text might as well not have been written for any use we make of it.

But the main point I would press upon you is, your inclusiveness. You ask me what I make of those texts, “Gave himself a ransom for all,” etc.

Those texts are, it seems to me, as simple as they are necessary.

If you had bought a shipload of slaves, and offered them their freedom, I suppose you would do it in these terms-“I have paid for you all; you are all free to come with me or stay where you are, as you choose.”

How Christ could otherwise express Himself than thus, I see not. He has purchased us all. But why, for this reason, you should put in the same category those who accept His offer-who hold out their arms to Him to have their fetters struck off, and then wash His feet with tears-and those who shrink out of His way into the hold of the ship, and with blasphemies and defiances declare they will stay by their old owner-I see not either.

DENMARK HILL,

25th April [1851].

I KEPT the letter by me for some days more-hoping to be able to follow out your argument more closely. But it now seems to me useless; for you miss the plain, simple, and straightforward statements of Scripture to reason abstractedly into far distance from such obscure ones as the “to Reveal His Son in me.”

You, as a minister, are called upon to read some portions of the Psalms every Sunday, and to wait for the congregation’s taking up every alternate verse. I always supposed that the language of the Psalms was therefore intended to be personally adopted by both minister and people;-but you cannot adopt five verses together, I suppose, from one end of the book to the other, without calling yourself a separate person in some way or other, and declaring, if not invoking, God’s wrath against persons not in such separate state. The distinction between the righteous and wicked is the end, in express words, of both the Old and New Testaments-it echoes in terrific decision and inevitable plainness through every verse of them both: as plainly as the voice of mercy which calls to the one class

¹ [Matthew vii. 1. Following Bible references are-1 Timothy ii. 6; Luke vii. 38. With what Ruskin here says about picking and choosing texts, compare Ethics of the Dust, § 59.]

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