Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church

John Ruskin's letters to clergy turn the Lord's Prayer into a searching examination of the Church, its ministers, and the moral life of ordinary believers. Framed by an editor's introduction that presents the correspondence as a challenge to complacent religion, the volume invites readers to measure doctrine, worship, and ministry against the plain demands of the Gospel. Ruskin, unable to speak publicly because of ill health, writes instead with urgency and clarity, asking what a clergyman of the Church of England is meant to be: a servant of the state, or a teacher of Christ's universal truth. Across the letters, he interprets each petition of the Lord's Prayer as a call to repentance, reverence, mercy, and active obedience. He condemns hypocrisy, empty ritual, and clergy who comfort without reform, while urging practical holiness in the Church and in society. Later responses broaden the debate, defending Anglican preaching, warning against doctrinal harshness, and insisting that true faith must unite clear teaching, repentance, and transformed conduct. The result is a vivid record of religious argument, reforming zeal, and moral seriousness. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.