BOOKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10589, 5 September 1896, Page 6

BOOKS.

Letters to the Clergy, on the Lord's Prayer and the Church. By JOHN KUSKIK. Edited by the"Rev. 3*. A. Mallesoc, M.A.

j This is properly gpsftkiug not a new book, but a fresh edition cf aa old one, dating j back to 1880. But it is 60 little known to . j the general reader of Kujkin literature that it , has much of the freshness of a new book *. and, 1 indeed, it contains, a very considerable body iof Raskin correspondence hitherto unpublished. The letters on the Lord's Prayer haveall the unconventional audacity.so cbaracterj istic of many papsrb in the Fori* Clavigeru, Ruskin. lectures the clergy on their dntias ! and shortcomings with all the cocksure I eloquence that is possible to a man I who has not to put his views into practice and so show thafc thoy aie practicable. Tha cb-rgea Ru3kin makia against the clergy aie various and extremely candid: they hav* no clear conception of thoir calling or tho Gospel of Christ; they use the name of God lightly in the pulpit; they are moral cowards; they.absolve the sinner, instead of purging him of his sin; they encourage sin by preaching away its penalties; tbsy do not maintain discipline in tha church by e_- . c'udiag the openly wicked from her sacraments ; they do not tell the idle rich that they 1 ong ht to work for their dinners; they encour- ' I age their flocks to hypocrisy by urging them ; to confess sins for which they feel_ no repentance, and to promise amendment' which they never carry out. The great art critic thinks that a comprehensive statement of '. Christ- Gospel may be found in .the Lord- ., Prayer: and so be takes it- clause by clause, giving a letter to, each clause, and shows how '. it is generally "mi-understood and how it L ought to be understood. He emphasises .the 1 fatherhood of: God :—" To declare that we * have such a loving father, whose mercy .is 1 over all His works; s-od whose will and 1 law is so lovely and lovable that it is sweeter than honey and more precious [ than gold to tho-je who can ' taste' ' and ' see' that the Lord ia good—this, I i 3«ely, is a more 'pleasant and. glorieuI good message nza-spell to bring to meu,—as I i distinguished from -ihe evil mossage and : accursed spell that Si=an bas brought to the ' nations of 'the world instead of it, that they ' have no Father, but only a 'consuming fire' I ready to devour them, unless they are ' delivered from its raging flams by some schema of pardon ior all, for which they ara 1 to be thankful, not to the Father, but to the '. Son." Io the clause that prays for the . "hallowing" of God's name Ruskia finds much more than a prayer against bad i language aud cursing. What is usually » called swearing is as nothing in guilt i to the church responses "on the lips of the ' usurer and the adulterer, who, have

destroyed net their own souls oniy, but those of the outcast oces whom they bave made their victims. lo discussing the "Fiat Voluntas" clause; Raskin is severe on all ■'bishops and curates." "One would think by the tone of the eagerest preachers nowadays that they held their blessed office to be that, not of showing men how to do their Father's will on earth, hut how to get to Heaven without doing any of it either here or thero." And further on :"I have never yet, in my own experience, met either with a missionary or a town bishop who so much as professed himself to understand what the will of the Lord was, far less to

teach anybody else to do it." On the " Daily Bread " clause Buskin waxes yet more hotly indignant. " No' words could be burning enough," he says, "to tell the evils which hava come on the world from men's using it (this clause, viz., Give ns this day, &e.) thoughtlessly and blasphemously, praying God to give them what they are deliberately resolved to steal. 7. . For the man who is not —day by day—doing work which will e~rn his dinner, must be stealing his dinner; and the actual fact is, that the great mass of men calling themselves Christians do actually live by robbing the poor of their bread, and by no other trade whatsoever; and the simple examination of the mode of the produce and consumption of European food—who dig3 for it and who eats it—will prove that to any honest human soul." As he went on Ruskin seems to have found his task of adequate commentary mows and more difficult, so tbat when he comes to the sixth' clause—" Forgive us our trespasses " —he is stopped by " the sorrowful sense of the hopeless ts.sl_ thai you poorclergymen have nowadays in. recommending and teaching people to love their enemies, when t.heir whole energies s.re already .devoted to swindling their friends." Ruskin thinks that congregations aro apt to consider their " debts," as he prefero to term it rather than "trespasses," in the aggregate willingly enough, but to avoid consideration of onr debts in detail. " Nothing in the various

inconsistency of hu-aau nature is more grotesque than its willingness to hs taxed with any quantity of sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation of having committed the smallest parcel of them in detail." '""he lay mind will find in these letters a large amount of prophetic fire, after the manner of the Hebrew prophets -. but it is not to ha wondered- at that

amongst the clergy they came; in for some warm criticism. Of course he was told that though he might be an exquisite art critic, he knew nothing of theology, and had better let-it alone. In the numerous replies from the clergy which the editor incorporates in the volume there is, of course, a pardonable eagerness to show that things are not quite so bad as Ruskin finds them. Some, though only a few,, accept his rebukes as merited; and there is in all these clericaL replies a certain hide-_oucd.sanity in piquant contrast with the boiling zeal of the letters, that called them forth.

A Modern Man. By ELLA MACMAHON. Mtcmillan''* Oolcni-l Library. Ducadibi James Horsbar^h. There is net much cf _ story in this novel. Marion Byng, the q-sasi-hero and "-modtsrn man" of the book, is a sorry sort ef. personage—though, we sre bound to say, none the less medera on that account. He is a cold-blooded cslcalating sort of creature— not wicked enough cr gend enough toinferc'fc anybody iu what he doss or what becomes of him. As a matter of fact what he does is to ask one girl to raarf ■' him and then fall in love with another: a sufficiently commonplace theme. Miss Macmahon's style i3 a trifle diffuse for our "caste. At times she seems to be fairly intoxicated with tha txaberance of her Or<"_ vsvbcsity* '7 Marred in the Mahiti;/. 3y H. W. Shebwsbuiiy. London : Oliphant, Andersen, and Ferrier. Danedin: James Hor*-burgh. , This story is more in the semi-religious didactic vein than most of those we have the happiness or misfortune to road. We are presented to the gentleman who was marred in the making whiUt I;e is at the communion rail being christened " Fred." The moral of the story, for it is nothing if not moral, ja tbat you may overdo religious training. Fred Wedmore, who is carefully nurtured ia the church catsclii3ru, is unfortunately the son of foolish, though pious, parents. Whilst Frank Rsed, who is brought up as an Agnotitic, ends by becoming an exemplary Christian himsilf and converting his own lather. Those who like this sort of thing may find tho book readable. A Lost JEndeavtmr. By GU-' Boothbs; M.cs-illan's Col'jiiia'. Library. Dcracdin: James Horsburgli. After reading this book we have not the most remote notion why it is called "A Lost Endeavour."' Aa far a& we'tan see, it might just as wsll have bear, culled " Fee-Fa-Fnm." It ia, however, a very readable story-.telling how a castaway beaebcombsr of Thursday Island married and foil in love with a castI away, like himself. The woman, who has escaped from New Caledonia, whither she ha_ been sent lor her part in a diamond robbery, is really au admirable sketch. Har husband, the drunlsv.*. beachcomber, is also an elaborate and lifelike study. Altogether the book makes good reading, our'-chief objection beiDg tha gloom of the finish, ; The Swarfs Chamher.."&Y Fbbgds Hume, London, New York, and Melbourne-: Ward, ! Look, and Bowdea. Dunedin: J. Braifch-* waits.

" The D warf's Chancer," as baing the longest and most elaborate item in this collection of short stories, naturally gives its name to th*. book. We doubt whether in these page's there, is anything calculated either to add to 01 detract from the repuUtioa of the author, who apparently finds the nicha he fills in the world ot fiction both comfortable aud remunerative, since he certainly -".spites to do higher place. But Fergus Hume has his own public, and to those people who enjoy his style the tales comprised in this collection will prove eminently readable. Soma of thorn, such as "Mias Jpnataan" and "The Turquoise Skull," we have •-.lready made acquaintance with in the English magazines. They reappear, however, in the volume uuder uotic-j with all the capital illustrations which then enriched them, together with the added advantages of the excellent type s.ud paper which a*:e distinctive of Messrs Ward, Lock, and Bowden's Colonial Library; " The Dwarf's Chamber" is a pretty story, and with but slight difference of treatment would have made a very charming children's tale, so quaint and dainty is the tiny dwarf herself, sd artistic her surronodiogs, aod so delightfully improbable the whole carefully-compiled plot. Ia " The Turquoise S'toll," " The Dead Man's Diamonds," and "The Greenstone God," wa nave Fergus Hume at his best, dealing with all the shattered decrees of the social and moral decclogua, and adding the " sauce piquant" of an imagination still elr-soat aa nimble as*when. it took the " shilling shocker" public by storm mth Tlie Mystery of a Ransom Gab. Other numbers in tbo varied collection are somewhat less sensational, and it is possible that in one or two episodes, such as "-The Ivory Leg and the Diamonds," " The Rainbow Camellia," ke.. the author approaches as nearly as he may. to a touch cf humour, but.this effort ■we distinctly deprecate. Fergus Hums will be Fergus Hume always ;. if not strikingly sensational, then at least malodramatic; if not melodramatic —nothing. Having, we hope, made it apparent that ia The Dtcarf's Chamber the reader m*y in-' nuiga a varied taßte, from the-strong mesS of *ifn'*»tiooalisin to the milder fare of conventional episode, we shall leave further detalV to so oh experience as/may be gained by reading tha work itself.