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020 - Of the Mystery of Life Part 5 · Sesame and Lilies

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty of Sesame and Lilies Revised and Enlarged edition
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  Speaker 1: by John Ruskin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Oxen Handler, The Mystery of Life and Its Arts?
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  Speaker 1: Part five? Does it vanish? Then? Are you sure of that?
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  Speaker 1: Sure that the nothingness of the grave will be a
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  Speaker 1: rest from this troubled nothingness? And that the coiling shadow
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  Speaker 1: which disquieteth itself in vain cannot change into the smoke
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  Speaker 1: of the torment that ascends forever. Will any answer that
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  Speaker 1: they are sure of it, and that there is no fear,
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  Speaker 1: nor hope, nor desire nor labor whither they go be it?
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  Speaker 1: So will you not then make as sure of the
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  Speaker 1: life that now is as you are of a death
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  Speaker 1: that is to come. Your hearts are wholly in this world?
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  Speaker 1: Will you not give them to it wisely as well
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  Speaker 1: as perfectly? And see first of all that you have
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  Speaker 1: hearts and sound hearts too to give because you have
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  Speaker 1: no heaven to look for? Is that any reason that
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  Speaker 1: you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite earth,
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  Speaker 1: which is firmly and instantly given you in possession. Although
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  Speaker 1: your days are numbered and the following darkness. Sure is
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  Speaker 1: it necessary that you should share the degradation of the
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  Speaker 1: brute because you are condemned to its mortality, or live
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  Speaker 1: the life of the moth and of the worm because
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  Speaker 1: you are to companion them in the dust. Not so,
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  Speaker 1: we may have but a few thousands of days to spend,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps hundreds, only perhaps tens, Nay, the longest of our time,
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  Speaker 1: and best looked back on, will be but as a moment,
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  Speaker 1: as the twinkling of an eye. Still we are men,
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  Speaker 1: not insects. We are living spirits, not passing cloud. Quote.
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  Speaker 1: He maketh the winds, his messengers, the momentary fire, his
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  Speaker 1: minister unquote. And shall we do less than these? Let
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  Speaker 1: us do the work of men, while we bear the
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  Speaker 1: form of them. And as we snatch our narrow portion
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  Speaker 1: of time out of eternity, snatch also our narrow inheritance
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  Speaker 1: of passion, out of immortality, even though our lives be
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  Speaker 1: as of apor that appereth for a little time, and
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  Speaker 1: then vanisheth away. But there are some of you who
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  Speaker 1: believe not this, who think this cloud of life has
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  Speaker 1: no such clothes, that it is to float, revealed and
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  Speaker 1: illumined upon the floor of heaven. In the day when
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  Speaker 1: he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him.
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  Speaker 1: Some day, you believe within these five or ten or
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  Speaker 1: twenty years, for every one of us, the judgment will
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  Speaker 1: be set and the books opened. If that be true,
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  Speaker 1: far more than that must be true. Is there but
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  Speaker 1: one day of judgment? Why? For us, every day is
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  Speaker 1: a day of judgment. Every day is a dius era
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  Speaker 1: and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its west.
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  Speaker 1: Think you that judgment waits till the doors of the
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  Speaker 1: grave are opened. It waits at the doors of your houses,
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  Speaker 1: It waits at the corners of your streets. We are
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  Speaker 1: in the midst of judgment. The insects that we crush
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  Speaker 1: our judges. The moments we fret away are our judges.
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  Speaker 1: The elements that feed us judge us as they minister,
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  Speaker 1: and the pleasures that deceive us, judge as they indulge.
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  Speaker 1: Let us, for our lives do the work of men,
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  Speaker 1: while we bear the form of them. If indeed those
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  Speaker 1: lives are not as a vapor, and do not banisheth
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  Speaker 1: the way quote the work of men? Unquote? And what
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  Speaker 1: is that? Well? We may any of us know very
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  Speaker 1: quickly on the condition of being wholly ready to do it.
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  Speaker 1: But many of us are, for the most part, thinking
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  Speaker 1: not of what we are to do, but of what
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  Speaker 1: we are to get. And the best of us are
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  Speaker 1: sunk into the sin of Anonius, and it is a
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  Speaker 1: mortal one. We want to keep back part of the price.
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  Speaker 1: And we continually talk of taking up our cross, as
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  Speaker 1: if the only harm in a cross was the weight
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  Speaker 1: of it, as if it was only a thing to
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  Speaker 1: be carried, instead of to be crucified upon quote, they
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  Speaker 1: that are his have crucified the flesh with the affections
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  Speaker 1: and lusts unquote. Does that mean think you that, in
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  Speaker 1: time of national distress, of religious trial, of crisis for
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  Speaker 1: every interest and hope of humanity, none of us will
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  Speaker 1: cease jesting, None cease idling, None put themselves to any
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  Speaker 1: wholesome work, None take so much as a tag of
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  Speaker 1: lace off their footmen's coats to save the world. Or
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  Speaker 1: does it rather mean that they are ready to leave houses, lands,
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  Speaker 1: and kindreds? Yes, and life if need be life? Some
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  Speaker 1: of us are ready enough to throw that away, joyless
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  Speaker 1: as we have made it. But quote station in life unquote,
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  Speaker 1: how many of us are ready to quit that is
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  Speaker 1: it not always the great objection where there is question
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  Speaker 1: of finding something useful to do, we cannot leave our
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  Speaker 1: stations in life unquote. Those of us who really cannot,
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  Speaker 1: that is to say, who can only maintain themselves by
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  Speaker 1: continuing in some business or salaried office, have already something
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  Speaker 1: to do, and all that they have to see to
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  Speaker 1: is that they do it honestly and with all their might.
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  Speaker 1: But with most people who use that apology quote, remaining
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  Speaker 1: in the station of life to which Providence has called
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  Speaker 1: them unquote means keeping all the carriages and all the footmen,
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  Speaker 1: and large houses they can possibly pay for, and once
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  Speaker 1: for all. I say that, if ever Providence did put
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  Speaker 1: them into stations of that sort, which is not at
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  Speaker 1: all a matter of certainty, Providence is just now very
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  Speaker 1: distinctly calling them out again. Levi's station in life was
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  Speaker 1: the receipt of custom, and Peter's the shore of Galilee,
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  Speaker 1: and Paul's the anti chambers of the high priest, which
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  Speaker 1: quote station in life unquote, each had to leave with
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  Speaker 1: brief notice. And whatever our station in life may be
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  Speaker 1: at this crisis, those of us who mean to fulfill
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  Speaker 1: our duty ought first to live on as little as
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  Speaker 1: we can, and secondly, to do all the wholesome work
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  Speaker 1: for it we can, and to spend all we can
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  Speaker 1: spare in doing all the sure good we can. And
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  Speaker 1: sure good is first in feeding people, then in dressing people,
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  Speaker 1: then in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people
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  Speaker 1: with arts or sciences or any other subject of thought.
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  Speaker 1: I say, first in feeding, and once for all, do
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  Speaker 1: not let yourselves be deceived by any of the common
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  Speaker 1: talk of quote indiscriminate charity unquote. The order to us
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  Speaker 1: is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious hungry,
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  Speaker 1: nor the amiable and well intentioned hungry, but simply to
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  Speaker 1: feed the hungry. It is quite true, infallibly true, that
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  Speaker 1: if any man will not work, neither should he eat.
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  Speaker 1: Think of that, and every time you sit down to
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  Speaker 1: your dinner, ladies and gentlemen, say, solemnly before you ask
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  Speaker 1: a blessing, quote, how much work have I done today
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  Speaker 1: for my dinner? Unquote. But the proper way to enforce
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  Speaker 1: that order on those below you, as well as on yourselves,
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  Speaker 1: is not to leave vagabonds and honest people to starve together,
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  Speaker 1: but very distinctly to discern and seize your vagabond and
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  Speaker 1: shut your vagabond up out of honest people's way, and
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  Speaker 1: very sternly then see that until he has worked, he
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  Speaker 1: does not eat. But their first thing is to be
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  Speaker 1: sure you have the food to give, and therefore to
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  Speaker 1: enforce the organization of vast activities in agriculture and in
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  Speaker 1: commerce for the production of the wholesomest food and proper
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  Speaker 1: storing and distribution of it, so that no famine shall
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  Speaker 1: any more be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty
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  Speaker 1: of work in this business alone, and at once for
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  Speaker 1: any number of people who like to engage in it. Secondly,
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  Speaker 1: dressing people, that is to say, urging everyone within reach
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  Speaker 1: of your influence to be always neat and clean, and
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  Speaker 1: giving them means of being so. In so far as
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  Speaker 1: they absolutely refuse, you must give up the effort with
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  Speaker 1: respect to them, only taking care that no children within
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  Speaker 1: your sphere of influence shall any more be brought up
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  Speaker 1: with such habits, and that every person who is willing
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  Speaker 1: to dress with propriety shall have encouragement to do so.
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  Speaker 1: And the first absolutely necessary step towards this is the
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  Speaker 1: gradual adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks of persons,
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  Speaker 1: so that their ranks shall be known by their dress,
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  Speaker 1: and the restriction of the changes of fashion within certain limits,
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  Speaker 1: all which appears for the present quite impossible. But it
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  Speaker 1: is only so far as even difficult, as it is
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  Speaker 1: difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear
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  Speaker 1: what we are not. And it is not, nor ever
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  Speaker 1: shall be creed of mind that these mean and shallow
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  Speaker 1: vices are unconquerable by Christian women. And then, thirdly lodging people,
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  Speaker 1: which you may think should have been put first, but
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  Speaker 1: I put it third, because we must feed and clothe
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  Speaker 1: people where we find them, and lodge them afterwards, and
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  Speaker 1: providing lodgment for them means a great deal of vigorous
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  Speaker 1: legislation and cutting down of vested interests that stand in
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  Speaker 1: the way. And after that, or before that, so far
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  Speaker 1: as we can get it, thorough sanitary and remedial acts
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  Speaker 1: in the houses that we have, and then the building
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  Speaker 1: of more strongly, beautifully and in groups of limited extent,
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  Speaker 1: kept in proportion to their streams, and walled round, so
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  Speaker 1: that there may be no festering and wretched suburb anywhere,
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  Speaker 1: but clean and busy street within and the open country without,
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  Speaker 1: with a belt of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls,
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  Speaker 1: so that from any part of the city, perfectly fresh
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  Speaker 1: air and grass and sight of far horizon might be
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  Speaker 1: reachable in a few minutes. Walk. This the final aim,
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  Speaker 1: but in immediate action, every miner and possible good to
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  Speaker 1: be instantly done when as we can, roofs mended that
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  Speaker 1: have holes in them, fences patched that have gaps in them,
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  Speaker 1: walls buttressed that totter, and floors props that shake. Cleanliness
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  Speaker 1: and order enforced with our own hands and eyes, till
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  Speaker 1: we are breathless every day, and all the fine arts
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  Speaker 1: will healthily follow. I myself have washed a flight of
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  Speaker 1: stone stairs all down with bucket and broom in a
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  Speaker 1: Savoy inn, where they hadn't washed their stairs since they
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  Speaker 1: first went up them, and I never made a better
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  Speaker 1: sketch than that afternoon. These, then, are the three first
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  Speaker 1: needs of civilized life, and the law for every Christian
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  Speaker 1: man and woman in that they shall be in direct
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  Speaker 1: service towards one of these three needs, as far as
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  Speaker 1: is consistent with their own special occupation, and if they
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  Speaker 1: have no special business, then wholly in one of these services,
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  Speaker 1: and out of such exertion in plain duty, all other
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  Speaker 1: good will come. For in this direct contention with material evil,
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  Speaker 1: you will find out the real nature of all evil.
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  Speaker 1: You will discern by the various kinds of resistance, what
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  Speaker 1: is really the fault and main antagonism to good. Also
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  Speaker 1: you will find the most unexpected helps and profound lessons given,
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  Speaker 1: and truths will come thus down to us, which the
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  Speaker 1: speculation of all our lives would never have raised us
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  Speaker 1: up to. You will find nearly every educational problem solved.
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  Speaker 1: As soon as you truly want to do something, everybody
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  Speaker 1: will become of use in their own fittest way, and
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  Speaker 1: will learn what is best for them to know. In
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  Speaker 1: that use. Competitive examination will then, and not till then
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  Speaker 1: be wholesome, because it will be daily and calm and
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  Speaker 1: in practice. And on these familiar arts and minute but
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  Speaker 1: certain and serviceable knowledges will be surely edified and sustained
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  Speaker 1: the greater arts and splendid theoretical sciences. But much more
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  Speaker 1: than this, on such holy and simple practice will be founded. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: at last an infallible religion. The greatest of all the
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  Speaker 1: mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption
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  Speaker 1: of even the sincerest religion which is not daily founded
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  Speaker 1: on rational, effective, humble and helpful action. Action observe, For
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  Speaker 1: there is just one law, which obeyed keeps all religions pure.
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  Speaker 1: Forgotten makes them all false. Whenever, in any religious faith,
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  Speaker 1: dark or bright, we allow our minds to dwell upon
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  Speaker 1: the points in which we differ from other people, we
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  Speaker 1: are wrong. And in the devil's power. That is the
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  Speaker 1: essence of the Pharisees thanksgiving quote Lord, I thank THEE
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  Speaker 1: that I am not as other men are unquote. At
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  Speaker 1: every moment of our lives we should be trying to
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  Speaker 1: find out not in what we differ with other people,
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  Speaker 1: but in what we agree with them. And the moment
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  Speaker 1: we find we can agree as to anything that should
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  Speaker 1: be done kind or good. And who but fools couldn't
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  Speaker 1: then do it? Push at it together. You can't quarrel
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  Speaker 1: in a side by side push. But the moment that
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  Speaker 1: even the best men stop pushing and begin talking, they
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  Speaker 1: mistake their pugnacity for piety. And in it's all over.
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  Speaker 1: I will not speak of the crimes which in past
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  Speaker 1: times have been committed in the name of Christ, nor
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  Speaker 1: of the follies which are at this hour held to
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  Speaker 1: be consistent with obedience to Him. But I will speak
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  Speaker 1: of the morbid corruption and waste of vital power in
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  Speaker 1: religious sentiment, by which the pure strength of that which
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  Speaker 1: should be the guiding soul of every nation, the splendor
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  Speaker 1: of its youthful manhood, and spotless light of its maidenhood,
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  Speaker 1: is averted or cast away. You may see continually girls
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  Speaker 1: who have never been taught to do a single useful
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  Speaker 1: thing thoroughly, who cannot so, who cannot cook, who cannot
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  Speaker 1: cast an account nor prepare a medicine, whose whole life
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  Speaker 1: has been passed either in play or in pride. You
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  Speaker 1: will find girls like these, when they are earnest hearted,
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  Speaker 1: cast all their innate passion of religious spirit, which was
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  Speaker 1: meant by God to support them through the irksomeness of
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  Speaker 1: daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation over the meaning
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  Speaker 1: of the Great Book of which no syllable was ever
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  Speaker 1: yet to be understood. But through a deed, all the
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  Speaker 1: instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made vain, and
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  Speaker 1: the glory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless agony
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  Speaker 1: concerning questions which the laws of common serviceable life would
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  Speaker 1: have either solved for them in an instant or kept
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  Speaker 1: out of their way. Give such a girl any true
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  Speaker 1: work that will make her active in the dawn and
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  Speaker 1: weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow creatures
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  Speaker 1: have indeed been the better for her day, and the
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  Speaker 1: powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a
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  Speaker 1: majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. So with our youths
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  Speaker 1: we once taught them to make Latin verses and call
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  Speaker 1: them educated. Now we teach them to leap and to row,
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  Speaker 1: to hit a ball with a bat, and call them educated.
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  Speaker 1: Can they plow? Can they sow? Can they plant at
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  Speaker 1: the right time? Or build with a steady hand? Is
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  Speaker 1: it the effort of their lives to be chaste, nightly, faithful,
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  Speaker 1: wholly in thought, lovely in word and deed? Indeed it
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  Speaker 1: is with some, nay with many. And the strength of
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  Speaker 1: England is in them and the hope. But we have
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  Speaker 1: to turn their courage from the toil of war to
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  Speaker 1: the toil of mercy, and their intellect from dispute of
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  Speaker 1: words to discernment of things, and their knighthood from the
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  Speaker 1: errantry of adventure to the state and fidelity of a
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  Speaker 1: kingly power. And then indeed shall abide for them and
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  Speaker 1: for us. An incorruptible felicity and an infallible religion shall
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  Speaker 1: abide for us. Faith, no more to be assailed by temptation,
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  Speaker 1: no more to be defended by wrath than by fear,
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  Speaker 1: shall abide with us. Hope, no more to be quenched
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  Speaker 1: by the years that overwhelm, or made ashamed by the
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  Speaker 1: shadows that betray, shall abide for us and with us.
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  Speaker 1: The greatest of these, the abiding will, the abiding name
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  Speaker 1: of our Father. For the greatest of these is charity.
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  Speaker 1: End of Section twenty, end of The Mystery of Life
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  Speaker 1: and Its Arts. End of Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin,