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stronger than in the later years of his life, when the attacks to which it was exposed from without and from within, appeared at times to endanger its existence.

"I hope to be allowed before I die, to accomplish something on Education, and also with regard to the Church," he writes in 1826;

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the last indeed even more than the other, were not the task, humanly speaking, so hopeless. But the more I think of the matter, and the more I read of the Scriptures themselves, and of the history of the Church, the more intense is my wonder at the language of admiration with which some men speak of the Church of England, which certainly retains the foundation sure, as all other Christian societies do, except the Unitarians, but has overlaid it with a very sufficient quantity of hay and stubble, which I devoutly hope to see burnt one day in the fire. I know that other churches have their faults also, but what have I to do with them? It is idle to speculate in aliená republicá, but to reform one's own is a business which nearly concerns us."

His lively appreciation of the high standard of practical and social excellence, enjoined in the Christian dispensation, was also guiding him to those principles of interpretation of Scripture, which he applied so extensively in his later works.

"which so

"The tendency," he writes to Dr. Hawkins in 1827, many Christians have had and still have, to fancy that the goodness of the old Patriarchs was absolute rather than relative, and that men who are spoken of as having had personal communication with God, must have had as great knowledge of a future state as ourselves, is expressed in one of G. Herbert's poems, in which he seems to look upon the revelations of the patriarchal Church almost with envy, as if they had nearer communion with God than Christians have. All which seems to me to arise out of a forgetfulness or misapprehension of the privileges of Christians in their communion with the Holy Spirit,—and to originate partly in the tritheistic notions of the Trinity, which make men involuntarily consider the Third Person as inferior in some degree to those who are called First and Second, whereas the Third relation of the Deity to man is rather the most perfect of all; as it is that in which God communes with man, not as a man talketh with his friend,' but as a Spirit holding discourse invisibly and incomprehensibly, but more effectually than by any outward address,—with the spirits only of his

creatures. And therefore it was expedient for the disciples that God should be with their hearts as the Spirit, rather than speaking to their ears as the Son. This will give you the clue to my view of the Old Testament, which I never can look upon as addressed to men having a Faith in Christ such as Christians have, or looking forward to eternal life with any settled and uniform hope."

Lastly, the following extracts give his approaches to his subsequent views on Church and State.

"What say you," he writes in 1827, to Dr. Whately, "to a work on Tx, in the old Greek sense of the word, in which I should try to apply the principles of the Gospel to the legislation and administration of a state. It would begin with a simple statement of the Téλos of man according to Christianity, and then would go on to show how the knowledge of this Téos would affect all our views of national wealth, and the whole question of political economy; and also our practice with regard to wars, oaths, and various other relics of the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου.

And to Mr. Blackstone in the same year:

"I have long had in my mind a work on Christian Politics, or the application of the Gospel to the state of man as a citizen, in which the whole question of a religious establishment and of the education proper for Christian members of a Christian commonwealth would naturally find a place. It would embrace also an historical sketch of the pretended conversion of the kingdoms of the world to the kingdom of Christ in the fourth and fifth centuries, which I look upon as one of the greatest tours d'adresse that Satan ever played, except his invention of Popery. I mean that by inducing kings and nations to conform nominally to Christianity, and thus to get into their hands the direction of Christian society, he has in a great measure succeeded in keeping out the peculiar principles of that society from any extended sphere of operation, and in ensuring the ascendancy of his own. One real conversion there seems to have been, that of the Anglo-Saxons; but that he soon succeeded in corrupting; and at the Norman Conquest we had little I suppose to lose even from the more direct introduction of Popery and worldly religion which came in with the Conqueror."

All these floating visions, which were not realized till long afterwards, are best represented in the first volume of his Ser

mons, which were preached in the parish church at Laleham, and form by far the most characteristic record of this period.

"My object," he said in his Preface, "has been to bring the great principles of the Gospel home to the hearts and practices of my own countrymen in my own time-and particularly to those of my own station in society, with whose sentiments and language I am naturally most familiar, and for this purpose, I have tried to write in such a style as might be used in real life, in serious conversation with our friends, or with those who asked our advice; in the language, in short, of common life, and applied to the cases of common life; but ennobled and strengthened by those principles and feelings which are to be found only in the Gospel."

This volume is, not only in the time of its appearance, but also in its style and substance, the best introduction to all his later works; the very absence of any application to particular classes or states of opinion, such as gives more interest to his subsequent sermons, is the more fitted to exhibit his fundamental views, often not developed in his own mind, in their naked simplicity. And it is in itself worthy of notice, as being the first or nearly the first attempt, since followed in many other quarters, at breaking through the conventional phraseology with which English preaching had been so long encumbered, and at uniting the language of reality and practical sense with names and words which, in the minds of so many of the edu cated classes, had become closely associated with notions of sectarianism or extravagance.

It was published in 1828, immediately after his removal to Rugby, and had a rapid circulation. Many, both then and long afterwards, who most differed from some of his more peculiar opinions, rejoiced in the possession of a volume which contained so much in which they agreed, and so little from which they differed. The objections to its style or substance may best be gathered from the following extracts of his own letters.

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1. If the sermons are read, I do not care one farthing if the readers think me the most unclassical writer in the English language. It will only remove me to a greater distance from the men of elegant minds with whom I shall most loathe to be associated. But,

however, I have looked at the sermons again, with a view to correct-
ing the baldness which you complain of, and in some places, I have
endeavoured to correct it. And I again assure you, that I will not
nowingly leave unaltered anything violent, harsh, or dogmatical.
I am not conscious of the ex cathedrâ tone of my sermons—at least
not beyond what appears to me proper in the pulpit, where one does
in a manner speak ex cathedrâ. But I think my decided tone is
generally employed in putting forward the sentiments of Scripture,
not in drawing my own conclusions from it."

my sermons;

2. In answer to a complaint that "they carry the standard so high as to unchristianize half the community," he says, “I do not see how the standard can be carried higher than Christ or his Apostles carry it, and I do not think that we ought to put it lower. I am sure that the habitually fixing it so much lower, especially in all our institutions and public practice, has been most mischievous." 3. "I am very much gratified by what you say of Jet pained to find that their tone is generally felt to be so hard and severe. I believe the reason is, that I mostly thought of my pupils in preaching, and almost always of the higher classes, who I cannot but think have commonly very little of the bruised reed' about them. You must remember that I never had the regular care of a Farish, and therefore have seen comparatively little of those cases of a troubled spirit, and of a fearful and anxious conscience, which require comfort far more than warning. But still, after all, I fear

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that the intense mercy of the Gospel has not been so prominently

represented as it should have been, while I have been labouring to express its purity."

Meanwhile, his friends had frequently represented to him the desirableness of a situation which would secure a more certain provision, and a greater sphere of usefulness than that which he occupied at Laleham; and he had been urged, more than once, to stand for the Mastership at Winchester, which he had declined first from a distrust of his own fitness or inclination for the office, and afterwards from more general reasons. expense of the neighbourhood of Laleham had already determined him to leave it, and he was framing plans for a change

But the

of life, when, in August, 1827, the head-mastership of Rugby became vacant by the resignation of Dr. Wooll, who had held it for twenty-one years. It was not till late in the contest for

the situation that he finally resolved to offer himself as a candidate. When, therefore, his testimonials were sent in to the twelve trustees, noblemen and gentlemen of Warwickshire, in whom the appointment rests, the canvass for the office had advanced so far as to leave him, in the opinion of himself and many of his friends, but little hope of success. On the day of the decision, the testimonials of the several candidates were read over in the order in which they had been sent in; his own were therefore among the last; and whilst none of the trustees were personally acquainted with him, few if any of them, owing to the lateness of his appearance, had heard his name before. His testimonials were few in number, and most of them couched in general language, but all speaking strongly of his qualifications. Amongst them was a letter from Dr. Hawkins, now Provost of Oriel, in which it was predicted that, if Mr. Arnold were elected to the head-mastership of Rugby, he would change the face of education all through the public schools of England. The trustees had determined to be guided entirely by the merits of the candidates, and the impression produced upon them by this letter, and by the general confidence in him expressed in all the testimonials, was such, that he was elected at once, in December, 1827. In June, 1828, he received Priest's orders from Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London; in April and November of the same year took his degree of B.D. and D.D.; and in August entered on his new office.

The following letters and extracts have been selected, not so much as important in themselves, but rather as illustrating the course of his thoughts and general views at this period.

LETTERS FROM 1817 TO 1828.

I. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

Oxford, May 28, 1817.

I thank you very heartily for the kindness which all your

letter displays, and I cannot better show my sense of it than by telling you without reserve my feelings and arguments on both sides

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