a few words to add; (read also, if you can, what is said of the Word of God, in Letters XLV. and XLVI). I told you in last Fors that you would have great difficulty in getting leave from English society to obey Christ. Fors has since sent me, in support of this statement, a paper called The Christian, -the number for Thursday, May 11,—in the fifteenth page of which is an article on young ladies headed "What can they do?" from which I take the following passage:

"There have been times of special prayer for young men and women. Could there not be also for the very large class of young ladies who do not go out into society? They have no home duties to detain them, as many in a humbler condition; they have hours and hours of leisure, and know not how to spend them-partly from need of being directed, but more so from the prejudices and hindrances in their way. Their hearts are burning to do something for Christ, but they are not allowed, partly because it is considered improper,' and for a variety of reasons.

There is a cry on every side for laborers. There are numbers longing to respond; if not wholly to dedicate their lives, at least a portion of their days, to active Christian service, and only a wave of united prayer can throw these objections aside, and free the large band who are so willing.

"A bright young Christian came to me this week. She is tired of meetings to which she is constantly taken, but never allowed to work in the inquiry-room at them,-hindered from taking up the least bit of work, till at last she cannot even ask for it. Almost to kill time,' she

has taken up a secular corresponding agency."

Now that it is considered improper' by the world that you should do anything for Christ, is entirely true, and always true; and therefore it was that your Godfathers and Godmothers, in your name, renounced the "vain pomp and glory of the world," with all covetous desires of the same-see baptismal service--(I wonder if you had pretty nameswon't you tell me?) but I much doubt if you, either privately or from the pulpit of your doubtless charming church, have ever been taught what the "vain pomp and glory of the world" was.

Well, do you want to be better dressed than your schoolfellows? Some of them are probably poor, and cannot afford to dress like you; or, on the other hand, you may be poor yourselves, and may be mortified at their being dressed better than you. Put an end to all that at once, by resolving to go down into the deep of your girl's heart, where you will find, inlaid by Christ's own hand, a better thing than vanity; pity. And be sure of this, that, although in a truly Christian land, every young girl would be dressed beautifully and delightfully.—in this entirely heathen and Baal-worshipping land of ours, not one girl in ten has either decent or healthy clothing, and that you have no business now to wear anything fine yourself, but are bound to use your full strength and resources to dress as many of your poor neighbors as you What of fine dress your people insist upon your wearing, take

can.

and wear proudly and prettily, for their sakes; but, so far as in you lies, be sure that every day you are labouring to clothe some poorer creatures. And if you cannot clothe, at least help, with your hands. You can make your own bed; wash your own plate; brighten your own furniture,-if nothing else.

'But that's servant's work'? Of course it is. What business have you to hope to be better than a servant of servants? God made you a lady'? Yes, He has put you, that is to say, in a position in which you may learn to speak your own language beautifully; to be accurately acquainted with the elements of other languages; to behave with grace, tact, and sympathy to all around you; to know the history of your country, the commands of its religion, and the duties of its race. If you obey His will in learning these things, you will obtain the power of becoming a true 'lady; and you will become one, if while you learn these things you set yourself, with all the strength of your youth and womanhood, to serve His servants, until the day come when He calls you to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

You may thus become a Christ's lady, or you may, if you will, become a Belial's lady, taking Belial's gift of miserable idleness, living on the labor and shame of others, and deceiving them and yourself by lies about Providence, until you perish in hell with the rest of such, shrieking the bitter cry, When saw we Thee?"

V.

"3, ATHOLE CRESCENT, PERTH, 10th May, 1876. "Sir.-Thinking that it may interest you, I take the liberty of writing to let you know that the Lead' is not at all in the state you suppose it to be; but still runs down, very clear, by the side of the North Inch and past Rose Terrace, and, judging from the numbers of them at this moment playing by it, affords no small delight to the children.

VI.

My dear Ruskin, -I have just received this month's Fors, but not read it, (of course not: my friends never do, except to find the mistakes,) as I am off to Dublin, but as regards Psalm lxxxvii., (note, p. 169,) I expounded it in a sermon some time since, and was talking of it to a very learned Hebraist last Monday. Rahab, there, is generally understood to mean the monster,' and has nothing to do, beyond resemblance of sound, with Rahab the harlot. And the monster is the crocodile, as typical of Egypt. In Psalm lxxxix. 10, (the Bible version, not the Prayer Book,) you will see Rahab explained in the margin, by 'or Egypt.'

"Perhaps Rahab the harlot was called by the same name from the rapacity of her class, just as in Latin lupa.

"The whole Psalm is badly translated, and, as we have it, unintelligible. But it is really charged with deep prophetical meaning. I cannot write more, so believe me,

"I hope you will have had a pleasant journey when you receive this. The Greek Septuagint is much better than the English, but not good. As regards the general meaning, you have divined it very correctly."

LETTER LXVII.

As I am now often asked, in private letters, the constitution of St. George's Company, and cannot, hitherto, refer, in answer, to any clear summary of it, I will try to write such a summary in this number of Fors; that it may henceforward be sent to inquirers as alone sufficiently explanatory.

The St. George's Company is a society established to carry out certain charitable objects, towards which it invites, and thankfully will receive, help from any persons caring to give it, either in money, labour, or any kind of gift. But the Company itself consists of persons who in certain general principles of action, and objects of pursuit, and who can, therefore, act together in effective and constant unison.

agree

These objects of pursuit are, in brief terms, the health, wealth, and long life of the British nation: the Company having thus devoted itself, in the conviction that the British nation is at present unhealthy, poor, and likely to perish, as a power, from the face of the earth. They accordingly propose to themselves the general medicining, enriching, and preserving in political strength, of the population of these islands; they themselves numbering at present, in their ranks, about thirty persons,-none of them rich, several of them sick, and the leader of them, at all events, not likely to live long.

Whether the nation be healthy, or in unwholesome degradation of body and mind; wealthy, or in continual and shameful distress; strong, or in rapid decline of political power and authority,—the reader will find debated throughout the various contents of the preceding volumes of Fors. But there is one public fact, which cannot be debated-that the nation is in debt. And the St. George's Company do practically make it their first, though not their principal, object, to bring that state of things to an end; and to establish, in

stead of a National Debt, a National Store.

(See the last line of the fifth page of the first letter of the series, published 1st January, 1871, and the eleventh, and twenty-seventh, letters, throughout.)

That very few readers of this page have any notion, at this moment, what a National Debt is, or can conceive what a National Store should be, is one of many evil consequences of the lies which, under the title of "Political Economy," have been taught by the ill-educated, and mostly dishonest, commercial men, who at present govern the press of the country.

I have again and again stated the truth in both these matters, but must try once more to do it, emphatically, and intelligibly.

A 'civilized nation' in modern Europe consists, in broad terms, of (A) a mass of half-taught, discontented, and mostly penniless populace, calling itself the people; of (B) a thing which it calls a government-meaning an apparatus for collecting and spending money; and (C) a small number of capitalists, many of them rogues, and most of them stupid persons, who have no idea of any object of human existence other than money-making, gambling, or champagne-bibbing. A certain quantity of literary men, saying anything they can get paid to say, of clergymen, saying anything they have been taught to say,—of natural philosophers, saying anything that comes into their heads,-and of nobility, saying nothing at all, combine in disguising the action, and perfecting the disorganization, of the mass; but with respect to practical business, the civilized nation consists broadly of mob, moneycollecting machine, and capitalist.

Now when this civilized mob wants to spend money for any profitless or mischievous purposes,-fireworks, illuminations, battles, driving about from place to place, or what not, being itself penniless, it sets its money-collecting machine to borrow the sum needful for these amusements from the civilized capitalist.

The civilized capitalist lends the money, on condition that, through the money-collecting machine, he may tax the