, I have received many letters upon
the affairs of the Church, from persons of nearly every denomination of
Christians; for all these letters I am grateful, and in many of them I
have found valuable information, or suggestion: but I have not leisure
at present to follow out the subject farther; and no reason has been
shown me for modifying or altering any part of the text as it stands. It
is republished, therefore, without change or addition_.

_I must, however, especially thank one of my correspondents for sending
me a pamphlet, called "Sectarianism, the Bane of Religion and the
Church,"[138] which I would recommend, in the strongest terms, to the
reading of all who regard the cause of Christ; and, for help in reading
the Scriptures, I would name also the short and admirable arrangement of
parallel passages relating to the offices of the clergy, called "The
Testimony of Scripture concerning the Christian Ministry."_[139]

PREFACE TO THIRD (CALLED SECOND) EDITION.

_I have only to add to this first preface, that the boldness of the
pamphlet,--ungraceful enough, it must be admitted,--has done no one any
harm, that I know of; but on the contrary, some definite good, as far as
I can judge; and that I republish the whole now, letter for letter, as
originally printed, believing it likely to be still serviceable, and, on
the ground it takes for argument, (Scriptural authority,)
incontrovertible as far as it reaches; though it amazes me to find on
re-reading it, that, so late as 1851, I had only got the length of
perceiving the schism between sects of Protestants to be criminal, and
ridiculous, while I still supposed the schism between Protestants and
Catholics to be virtuous and sublime._

_The most valuable part of the whole is the analysis of governments, Sec.Sec.
213-15; the passages on Church discipline, Sec.Sec. 204-5, being also
anticipatory of much that I have to say in Fors, where I hope to
re-assert the substance of this pamphlet on wider grounds, and with more
modesty._

BRANTWOOD,

_3rd August, 1875._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 137: This pamphlet was originally published in 1851, under the
title of "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds," by John Ruskin,
M.A., author of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," etc. (Smith, Elder, &
Co.). A second edition, with an additional preface, followed in the same
year, after which the pamphlet remained out of print till 1875, when it
was reprinted in a third, erron