These words refer to the famous verse in which Jesus attacks the hypocrisy of the puritans of the day:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness (Matthew 23.27)
Ruskin 's argument is, however, closer to Jesus's subsequent words:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets (Matthew 23.29-30)
Ruskin's intimate knowledge of the source and subtle use of allusion - both of which reflect his Evangelicalism - are characteristic. (See Ruskin and religion.)