From Fors Clavigera
by John Ruskin

From Letter XXXV, September, 1873.

In his days, there was still a quite sharp separation between honest men and rogues; and the honest men were perfectly clear about the duty of trying to find out which was which. The confusion of the two characters is a result of the peculiar forms of vice and ignorance, reacting on each other, which belong to the modern Evangelical sect, as distinguished from other bodies of Christian men; and date therefore, necessarily, from the Reformation.

They consist especially in three things. First, in declaring a bad translation of a group of books of various qualities, accidentally associated, to the ‘Word of God.’ Secondly, reading, of this singular ‘Word of God,’ only the bits they like; and never taking any pains to understand even those. Thirdly, resolutely refusing to practise even the very small bits they do understand, if such practice happen to go against their own worldly especially money interests.