THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS 571

its father out of a burning house, and shrieking out that its brother or sister is still left behind, has any Pharisaical feeling towards such brother or sister? For its feeling towards them is that which I believe every saved Christian has towards those whom God has not converted, with this exception, that God becomes the Father only of those whom He saves, adopting them in Christ: He is the Father of others as He is of all beasts. That Pharisaical feeling will mingle itself with this, and that there will always be Accursed Pharisees mixed among Blessed Believers, I believe and admit as surely as you do. That does not in the least affect the firmness of my trust.

That those who are God’s Children know themselves for such; that there are, indeed, many men of whom they dare not pronounce whether they be His or no; but that of others, they may at once declare that they are not His-I will not argue this with you. You may find full statements of the doctrine and support of it, a thousand times better than I could give you, in the works of Calvin, Luther, Milton, Bunyan, Baxter, Boston, Newton,¹ and such others, to whom I refer you, for I can write no more-unless there is something in Maurice’s letter which I may desire to answer. Please send it me here, if you get it by Tuesday; after Tuesday, you had better keep it till you hear from me.

Effie joins me in kindest regards.

Yours most truly,

J. RUSKIN.

Be so kind as to keep this line, for perhaps my only answer to Maurice may be to ask him to read it.

III

[Postmark: March 28th, 1851.]

MY DEAR FURNIVALL,-I am very sorry I was impatient in the morning; I am now in less hurry, and can explain myself better.

You are like many other good people whom I know-who, having strong feelings, refuse the passages of Scripture which are plain and clear, in order to help themselves to those which are mystic.² There is, and can be, no doubt respecting what St. Paul means by not eating with a man, or having no company with him. This plain command you reject, and try to palliate your rejection by those mystical expressions of parables. I would read Scripture with the other side uppermost, I say, when the word and command is plain-do first what you are bid, and afterwards think about the meaning of parables.

But to me the parables themselves are also perfectly plain. You see, the gathering up of the tares would be, in the parable, a previous infliction

¹ [Thomas Boston (1677-1732), Scottish divine, author of Marrow of Modern Divinity; John Newton (1725-1807), divine and friend of Cowper, much influenced by Whitefield and Wesley.]

² [Compare the reply to Maurice, above, p. 567.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]