which it was perpetually murmuring-objects so pitiful, that if gained ever so completely, they would make no man the wiser, or the better; they would lead to no good, intellectual, moral, or spiritual." The very principles which in their vague floating aspect he had so deeply dreaded were now arrayed in bodily shape before him; the dream had become a reality, the spectre a solid corporeal substance, and he felt himself called upon to attack the principles, but not the persons who represented this new and specious school of theology. The letter to which reference has been made was written to Sir Thomas S. Pasley, Bart., and bears date, Rugby, December 14th, 1836.

66 ... The Scripture notion of the Church is, that religious society should help a man to become himself better and holier, just as civil society helps us in civilisation. But in this great end of a Church, all Churches are now greatly defective, while all fill it, up to a certain degree, some less, others more. . . . In this simple Scriptural view of the matter all is plain; we were not to derive our salvation through or from the Church, but to be kept or strengthened in the way of salvation by the aid and example of our fellowChristians, who were to be formed into societies for this very reason, that they might help one another, and not leave each man to fight his own fight alone. But the life of these societies has been long since gone; they do not help the individual in holiness, and this is in itself evil enough; but it is monstrous that they should pretend to fetter, when they do not assist. ... The Popish and Oxford view of Christianity is, that the Church is the mediator between God and the individual; that the Church (i.e., in their sense, the clergy) is a sort of chartered corporation, and that by belonging to this corporation, or by being attached to it, any given individual acquires such and such privileges. This is a priestcraft, because it lays the stress, not on the relations of a man's heart towards God and Christ, as the

Gospel does, but on something wholly artificial and formal, -his belonging to a certain so-called society; and thus,— whether the society be alive or dead,-whether it really helps the man in goodness or not,-still it claims to step in and interpose itself as the channel of grace and salvation, when it certainly is not the channel of salvation, because it is visibly and notoriously no sure channel of grace. Whereas, all who go straight to Christ, without thinking of the Church, do manifestly and visibly receive grace, and have the seal of his Spirit, and therefore are certainly heirs of salvation. This, I think, applies to any and every Church, it being always true that the salvation of a man's soul is effected by the change in his heart and life, wrought by Christ's Spirit; and that his relation to any Church is quite a thing subordinate and secondary; although, where the Church is what it should be, it is so great a means of grace, that its benefits are of the highest value. But the heraldic or succession view of the question, I can hardly treat gravely; there is something so monstrously profane in making our heavenly inheritance like an earthly estate, to which our pedigree is our title. And, really, what is called succession is exactly a pedigree and nothing better; like natural descent, it conveys no moral nobleness-nay, far less than natural descent; for I am a believer in some transmitted virtue in a good breed; but the succession notoriously conveys none. So that to lay a stress upon it, is to make the Christian Church worse, I think, than the Jewish; but the sons of God are not to be born of bloods (i.e., of particular races), 'nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,' (ie., after any human desire to make out an outward and formal title of inheritance), 'but of God,' (i.e., of Him who alone can give the only true title to his inheritance,—the being conformed into the image of his Son). I have written all this in haste as to the expression, but not at all in haste as to the matter of it. But the simple point is this: Does our Lord, or do his Apostles, encourage the notion of salvation through the Church; or would any human being ever collect such a notion from the Scriptures? Once begin with

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tradition, and the so-called Fathers, and you get, no doubt, a very different view. This, the Romanists and the Oxfordists say, is a view required to modify and add to that of the Scripture. I believe that because it does modify, add to, and wholly alter the view of the Scripture, that therefore it is altogether false and unchristian.”

He had once said that his love for any place, person, or institution, was exactly the measure of his desire to reform them. Now, he loved Oxford with a deep and passionate tenderness; and vehement therefore was his indignation against it, as being the foster-nurse of opinions, whose propagation he dreaded beyond expression. Canon Stanley writes: "Nor were the passionate sympathies and antipathies of the exiled. Italian poet more sharpened by conflicting feelings towards the ideal and actual Florence than were those of the English theologian and citizen towards Oxford, the 'ancient and magnificent University on the banks of the Thames,' alike beloved as the scene of his early friendships, and longed for as the scene of his dreams of future usefulness; and Oxford, the home of the Tory and High Church clergy, the stronghold of those tendencies in England, which seemed to make him their peculiar victim."

During this year he had been engaged in a translation of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians; and his time was also much taken up with study of the Roman law, by making abstracts, or rather a translation, of Gaius' Institutes, which he thought it expedient to undertake before he finished the subject of the Twelve Tables, which he had already begun.

It should have been mentioned that, during the course of the summer of 1836, Dr. and Mrs. Arnold were in the Isle of Man, and in Ireland. He admired

Dublin and its far-famed bay, which tourists tell us rivals the Bay of Naples; and he was delighted with the Wicklow Sugar-loaf, and "the blue sea of Killiney Bay." But, nevertheless, he found to his astonishment that the Emerald Isle "was a very parched and dusty isle in comparison with Westmoreland;" and the "Three Rock Mountain," he says, with evident selfgratulation, "though beautiful with its granite rocks and heath, had none of the thousand springs of our Loughrigg." It was the same when some one was describing to him the glories of his German tour: he replied, "I have no temption even for one summer to resign Fairfield for Drachenfels." The Christmas of 1836 was spent according to custom at Fox How, with Fairfield in front and Loughrigg behind, for the thorough delectation of his senses.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LONDON UNIVERSITY.

THE spring of 1837 brought with it no small anxiety, on account of the London University, of which, as it may be remembered, he had been elected Fellow in 1835. He was more than ever desirous to add to the examination already instituted a theological examination, which should treat of essentials only, and dispense of course with any reference to those peculiar principles, which conscientious motives, or the circumstances of birth and education, lead a man to adopt or to maintain, as the case may be. It was objected to on the score of sheer impracticability; but he believed, and justly too, that the differences between Christian and Christian were exaggerated by those who would fain expel religion altogether from the educational system of those public institutions. His plan was to examine every candidate for a degree, in one of the gospels and one of the epistles out of the Greek Testament. He wished every man to be asked the previous question, "To what denomination do you belong?" and according to his answer, he would specially refrain from touching upon those points on which he, as a Churchman, disagreed from him. "I should then probably say to him aloud," continues the Doctor, explaining his views on this head, "if the examination were