THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS 569

2. LETTERS TO F. J. FURNIVALL

[DR. FURNIVALL, who was the intermediary between Maurice and Ruskin in the foregoing correspondence, also himself joined in the fray. His letters are not available; but he has explained his point of view. Ruskin had sent him a copy of Sheepfolds. “I did not at all like the Discipline and Excommunication part of it,” he writes, “as I thought it would lead to ministers and neighbours poking their noses into every man’s private affairs, and to a lot of hypocrisy and intolerance.”¹ Other points made by Dr. Furnivall sufficiently appear from Ruskin’s letters.]

I

[Postmark: March 17th, 1851.]

MY DEAR FURNIVALL,-Many thanks for your notes on mine. To answer them fully would take much more time than I have this morning-almost another pamphlet-but to their main purport I answer briefly.

(1) I allow the Church (ii.), p. 2², to include tares, because with all the scrutiny that human eyes can give it, it always must. (Remember St. Bruno’s conversion.)³ But that is no excuse for not turning out people who are plainly not of it. All who look like sheep will not be sheep, but at least turn out all who do not wear sheep’s clothing.

(2 and 3) The Epistles written to the invisible Church therefore necessarily address with it multitudes not for the time living up to their profession. This might be in ignorance, and all the passages you quote addressed to persons living in crime presume this ignorance, and are the rebuking of the fault previous to excommunication.

Otherwise the Church is always used in my sense of it-as including only persons living up to their profession.

(4) You may see that I quote Thess. iii. 15, as the first degree of excommunication, not the second.

(5) I said in all Christian States, i.e., in Christendom. If you let the Dom be unchristian, it is Unchristendom. Wherever the State calls itself Christian, its government should be pre-eminently Christian, therefore preeminently part of the Church, and the State or whole people is either a

¹ [“Forewords” to Two Letters (see Bibliographical Note, above, p. 514), p. 9. The first of Ruskin’s Letters to Furnivall was the Appendix to that book (pp. 29-30). The second and third are reprinted from pp. 7-13 of Letters from John Ruskin to F. J. Furnivall (privately printed, 1897), where also the first letter is again given.]

² [The reference is to the pamphlet; § 3 in this edition, p. 525.]

³ [St. Bruno’s conversion is dated from the funeral of the renowned doctor, Raymond, under whom Bruno had studied theology at Paris. Raymond was celebrated for apparent holiness of life; but in the midst of the funeral service the dead man sat up, and cried, “By the justice of God I am condemned.” Twice more the same thing happened: Raymond’s body was cast into an unhallowed grave; and Bruno retired into the wilderness. The story is depicted in the series of pictures, now in the Louvre, painted by La Sueur for the cloisters of the Chartreuse at Paris.]

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