Part 13

Without doubt Arnold was right. He could not then foresee how the newspapers of to-day, with their syndicate novels, travels, and biography, were to take the place of books in very many families. The life and times of Lincoln in the _Century_ Magazine was a great step in the right direction. Sometime, it is to be hoped, our newspapers, instead of containing so much that is neither helpful nor lasting, will be the schools of the people, teaching history, political economy, and helpful biography.

While Arnold was, above all things, devoted to one central idea, "One name there is, and one alone--Jesus Christ, both God and man," yet he said, "I never wanted articles on religious subjects half so much as articles on common subjects written with a decidedly Christian tone. History and biography are far better vehicles of good, I think, than any direct comments on Scripture, or essays on evidences."

Arnold used to say, "Above all, be afraid of teaching nothing; it is vain now to say that questions of religion and politics are above the understanding of the poorer classes--so they may be, but they are not above their _misunderstanding_, and they will think and talk about them, so that they had best be taught to think and talk rightly."

In 1833 Arnold published a pamphlet on Church Reform. He believed in a union of Church and State, but wished to bring Dissenters within the pale of the Established Church. He would give them the use of the churches for worship, with different hours for their services. He did not believe in the Apostolical succession, and deprecated all divisions among Christians. He longed to see all united on one foundation stone, the Saviour of men.

The Church Reform pamphlet went rapidly through four editions, and aroused a perfect whirlwind of invective. Arnold was denounced by the Established Church because too liberal; by Dissenters as not liberal enough; by Conservatives in politics as one revolutionary in doctrine and too thoroughly a friend of the people; by other educators as the unwise head of a new system which bade fair to destroy the old. The sale of his sermons--he had published two or three volumes--was stopped. Some of his friends even dropped their intercourse with him.

"The strong, great man was startled," says Dean Stanley, "but not moved by this continued outcry."

He resolved not to answer anybody through the newspapers. "All that is wanted," he said, "is to inspire firmness into the minds of those engaged in the conduct of the school, lest their own confidence should be impaired by a succession of attacks, which I suppose is unparalleled in the experience of schools."

When the controversy was at its height, he voted for the Liberal candidate, "foreseeing," as Stanley says, "as he must have done, the burst of indignation which followed."

"I should like," he said, "to write a book on 'The Theory of Tides,' the flood and ebb of parties. The English nation are like a man in a lethargy; they are never roused from their conservatism till mustard poultices are put to their feet."

He wrote in 1833, "May God grant to my sons, if they live to manhood, an unshaken love of truth and a firm resolution to follow it for themselves, with an intense abhorrence of all party ties, save that one tie which binds them to the party of Christ against wickedness."

Two years later he wrote, "The only hope is with the young, if by any means they can be led to think for themselves without following a party, and to love what is good and true, let them find it where they will."

Arnold went steadily forward with his scholarly work, bringing out in 1835 the last volume of his edition of Thucydides, and resumed his labor on his "Roman History." He thought "brevity and simplicity" two of the greatest merits which style can have, and applied these rules to his own accurate and thorough workmanship.

His eyes were often turned towards America, which he foresaw would solve many of the old world problems. To Jacob Abbott he wrote concerning "The Young Christian," "The publication of a work like yours in America was far more delightful to me than its publication in England could have been. Nothing can be more important to the future welfare of mankind, than that God's people, serving Him in power and in love, and in a sound mind, should deeply influence the national character of the United States."

Later he writes to his friend Chevalier Bunsen, "so beautifully good, so wise, and so noble-minded!" "I hear, both from India and the Mediterranean, the most delightful account of the zeal and resources of the American missionaries, that none are doing so much in the cause of Christ as they are. They will take our place in the world, I think not unworthily, though with far less advantages, in many respects, than those which we have so fatally wasted."

While the storm raged around him, he enjoyed great peace and comfort in his home life. He romped with his children, gathered flowers with them, and climbed mountains like a boy. "I do not wonder," he said, "that it was thought a great misfortune to die childless in old times, when they had not fuller light--it seems so completely wiping a man out of existence." He wrote Coleridge, "What men do in middle life without a wife and children to turn to, I cannot imagine; for I think the affections must be sadly checked and chilled, even in the best men, by their intercourse with people, such as one usually finds them in the world.... But with a home filled with those whom we entirely love and sympathize with, and with some old friends, to whom one can open one's heart fully from time to time, the world's society has rather a bracing influence to make one shake off mere dreams of delight."

Archbishop Whately said of Arnold, "He was attached to his family as if he had no friends; to his friends as if he had no family; and to his country as if he had no friends or relations."

Dr. Arnold's married life was very happy. He wrote his "Dearest Mary" on their wedding-day; "How much of happiness and of cause for the deepest thankfulness is contained in the recollections of this day; for in the ten years that have elapsed since our marriage, there has been condensed, I suppose, as great a portion of happiness, with as little alloy, as ever marked any ten years of human existence."

To his servants he was extremely kind and considerate, as are all true gentlemen and well-bred women. "He was in the habit," says Stanley, "whether in travelling or in his own house, of consulting their accommodation and speaking to them familiarly as to so many members of the domestic circle."

In 1832 Arnold had purchased a small estate, Fox How, between Rydal and Ambleside, among the English lakes. "It is," he said, "with a mixed feeling of solemnity and tenderness that I regard our mountain nest, whose surpassing sweetness, I think I may safely say, adds a positive happiness to every one of my waking hours passed in it." He loved every tree, every rock, every flower, "as a child loves them." The three roads he often used to walk upon with his children he called "Old Corruption," an irregular, grassy path; "Bit-by-Bit Reform;" and "Radical Reform," a straight, good road.

The mountains were an especial delight. The impression they gave him, he said, "was never one of bleakness or wildness, but of a sort of paternal shelter and protection to the valley."

Here the work went on as elsewhere. "All the morning, till one o'clock," he wrote, "I used to sit in one corner of the drawing-room, not looking towards Fairfield lest I should be constantly tempted from my work, and there I worked on at the 'Roman History' and the 'Tudor Tables,' and Appius Claudius and Cincinnatus, and all the rest of them."

The "Roman History" was never finished. The third volume, published after his death, Archdeacon Hare thinks the first history which "has given anything like an adequate representation of the wonderful genius and noble character of Hannibal."

Dr. Arnold took an active part in the opposition to "The Tracts for the Times," when John Henry Newman went from the High Church Party of Oxford to the Roman Catholic Church, and became a cardinal. "I groan," he said, "over the divisions of the church, of all our evils I think the greatest ... that men should call themselves Roman Catholics, Church of England men, Baptists, Quakers, all sorts of appellations, forgetting that only glorious name of CHRISTIAN, which is common to all, and a true bond of union."

In 1835 Arnold accepted a fellowship in the Senate of the new London University, with the hope that he could make it as he said, "Christian, yet not sectarian." He wished an examination in the Scriptures to be a part of the University work, but as the University from its charter was intended for all denominations, without regard to belief, he was overruled, and resigned his position. While he thanked Parliament "for having done away with distinctions between Christian and Christian"--Dissenters had been excluded heretofore from degrees at the universities because not belonging to the Established Church--"I would pray," he said, "that distinctions be kept up between Christians and non-Christians."

It is surprising to read that a man so broad and great as Dr. Arnold thought the Jews, because unbelievers, "have no claim whatever of political right,"--"no claim to become citizens, but by conforming to our moral law, which is the Gospel,"--and petitioned against the removal of their civil disabilities. Mr. Gladstone was also against the removal, but happily changed his opinions, and spoke in behalf of the Jews in 1847.

When the Chartists were demanding a people's charter with universal suffrage for men, and other reforms, Arnold was greatly moved. He began a correspondence with Carlyle, urging that a society be formed "for drawing public attention to the state of the laboring classes throughout the kingdom." He believed that the "upper classes would make sacrifices," if the real condition of the poor and the workers could be brought to their knowledge. "Men do not think of the fearful state in which we are living," he said; and he did not despair of a remedy, "even though it is the solution of the most difficult problem ever yet proposed to man's wisdom, and the greatest triumph over selfishness ever yet required of his virtue."

We in America are facing the same problems; and there was never more need for the "upper classes to make sacrifices," and live unselfish lives for the good of their country, than now. We need to keep ever before us the Bible message, "For none of us liveth to himself."

Arnold believed rightly in each one doing his share of the world's work and duties. "There is no earthly thing," he said, "more mean and despicable in my mind than an English gentleman destitute of all sense of his responsibilities and opportunities, and only revelling in the luxuries of our high civilization, and thinking himself a great person."

He wrote to a pupil who had become a physician, "It is a real pleasure to me to find that you are taking steadily to a profession, without which I scarcely see how a man can live honestly. I use the term 'profession' in rather a large sense ... a definite field of duty, which the nobleman has as much as the tailor, but which he has not, who, having an income large enough to keep him from starving, hangs about upon life, merely following his own caprices and fancies."

Again he writes to a friend, "I would far rather send a boy to Van Diemen's Land, where he must work for his bread, than send him to Oxford to live in luxury, without any desire in his mind to avail himself of his advantages." As the years went by, the spirit of opposition against Arnold seemed to die out, and the school at Rugby gained continually in numbers and influence. He was presented to the Queen; he went up to Oxford to see degrees conferred upon Wordsworth and Bunsen; he published more volumes of sermons--six in all--and two volumes of his admirable "Roman History."

In 1841 he was appointed by Lord Melbourne, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, the chair being made vacant by the death of Dr. Nares. This gave him great pleasure, and with enthusiasm he began to prepare his lectures.

He gave his first lecture Dec. 2, 1841, in the "theatre," the usual lecture-rooms in the Clarendon Buildings being too small for the hundreds who crowded to hear him. "It was an audience," says Dean Stanley, "unprecedented in the range of academical memory."

He designed to give a yearly course of eight lectures, beginning with the fourteenth century. Some of his lectures were to be biographical: "The life and times of Pope Gregory, or the Great," Charlemagne, Alfred, Dante, and "the noblest and holiest of monarchs, Louis IX."

He wrote Coleridge before going to Oxford, "If I do go up, many things, I can assure you, have been in my thoughts, which I wished gradually to call men's attention to; one in particular, which seems to me a great scandal--the debts contracted by the young men, and their backwardness in paying them. I think that no part of this evil is to be ascribed to the tradesmen, because so completely are the tradesmen at the mercy of the undergraduates, that no man dares refuse to give credit; if he did, his shop would be abandoned."

Arnold still continued his work at Rugby, remaining in part because two of his sons were being educated there. He was also making final arrangements for an edition of St. Paul's Epistles.

The last lecture of his first year at Oxford, June 2, 1842, was abandoned for the time, on account of a brief, but sudden illness. June 5 he preached his farewell sermon to the Rugby boys, before the vacation; and Friday, June 10, was the public-day for school speeches.

Saturday he was in high spirits, taking his usual walk and bath, and conversing with his guests on social and historical topics. In the evening he gave a supper to some of the higher classes of the school.

He wrote in his diary that evening, June 11, 1842: "The day after to-morrow is my birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it--my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large a portion of my life on earth is already passed.... But above all, let me mind my own personal work--to keep myself pure and zealous and believing--laboring to do God's will, yet not anxious that it should be done by me rather than by others, if God disapproves of my doing it."

Between five and six o'clock on Sunday morning he awoke with a sharp pain across his chest. He lay with his hands clasped and his eyes raised upwards, while he repeated, "And Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

Against Arnold's wish, his wife sent for a physician. Meantime she read to him in the Prayer Book, the fifty-first psalm. The twelfth verse, "O give me the comfort of thy help again, and establish me with thy free spirit," he repeated after her very earnestly.

The physician soon came, and Arnold, asking the cause of the pain, was told that it was spasm of the heart.

"Is it generally fatal?" asked Arnold. "Yes, I am afraid it is," was the reply.

Soon after the doctor left the house for medicine, and the son Thomas entered the room. "Thank God, Tom," said Arnold, "for giving me this pain; I have suffered so little pain in my life, that I feel it is very good for me; now God has given it to me, and I do so thank Him for it."

His son said, "I wish, dear papa, we had you at Fox How." He made no reply, but smiled tenderly upon the boy and his mother.

The doctor soon came; and as he was dropping the laudanum into a glass, Arnold asked what medicine it was. On being told, he replied, "Ah, very well."

In a moment there was a convulsive struggle, then a few deep gasps, and the work of the great teacher was over.

Five of their nine children were waiting for their father at Fox How, to celebrate his forty-seventh birthday, and returned to Rugby for the burial. The news brought bewilderment and deep sorrow to Rugby, to Oxford, to London, and indeed to the whole of England.

On the following Friday he was buried in the chancel, immediately under the communion-table. How many of us Americans have stood by that sacred spot, and remembered how one good man can bring honor to his work and nation!

Out of gratitude for his services in the cause of education, a public subscription was at once started. The money subscribed was used to erect his monument in Rugby Chapel, Chevalier Bunsen writing an epitaph for it in imitation of those on the tombs of the Scipios, and of the early Christian inscriptions; and for scholarships, first to be used by his sons, and afterwards for the promotion of general study at Rugby, and history at Oxford.

[Illustration: WENDELL PHILLIPS.]

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

The great orator, thinker, and leader was of the best blood of New England. Educated, brilliant, aristocratic, he gave his life to the lowly. No such self-sacrifice can ever be forgotten. His name will live as long as American history is read.

Wendell Phillips was born in a stately mansion on Beacon Street, Boston, Nov. 29, 1811, the eighth in a family of nine children. The father was the Hon. John Phillips, a rich merchant, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, a member of the corporation of Harvard College, and of the convention which revised the Constitution of the State; elected to the House of Representatives, and later to the Senate till his death; the first mayor of Boston; honored for a noble heart as well as for gifts of speech, and worthy to be the parent of such a son as Wendell.

Sally Walley, the mother, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, well-educated and of strong nature, soon perceived the unusual talents of her son. Her earliest gift to him was a Bible, which was one of his most prized treasures for seventy years.

Affectionate and domestic by nature, "Wendell's love for his mother was a passion," says the Rev. Carlos Martyn, in his life of Phillips. Her advice to him always was, "Be good and do good; this is my whole desire for you." From her he learned his Bible and the catechism; and years after, when he stood like a great oak in the forest, beat upon by wind and storm, he never forgot to keep his trust where his mother first taught him to place it.

From her knowledge and common sense in political and mercantile affairs, he judged that other women must be able to take part in the world's work, and therefore through life he asked for them an equal place in home and state.

When a child he enjoyed tools, and would have made a good carpenter or engineer. As his ancestors were mostly preachers--he was descended from the Rev. George Phillips, who came from Great Britain in 1630, and was settled at Watertown, Mass., for fourteen years, till his death--Wendell seemed inclined to follow in their footsteps; for when he was four or five years old, he would put a Bible in the chair before him, and arranging other chairs in a circle, would address them by the hour.

"Wendell," said his father, "don't you get tired of this?"

"No," said the boy, "_I_ don't get tired, but it's rather hard on the chairs!"

His most intimate playmate was J. Lothrop Motley, afterward the celebrated historian. Often, in the Motley garret, they dressed themselves in fancy costume, and declaimed poetry and dialogue; a good preparation for the after years.

At eleven years of age Wendell was sent to the Boston Latin School, then on School Street, where the Parker House now stands. Here he met and became the warm friend of the studious Charles Sumner.

While noted for his love of books and power in declamation, he was also fond of sports,--boating, horseback-riding, and all gymnastic exercises. He was tall, graceful, and handsome.

In 1827, when he was sixteen, he entered Harvard College, whose buildings, noble trees, and shaded walks have become dear to thousands, and will be through all time. The widowed mother--John Phillips had been dead four years--gave her promising boy her blessing, and sent him out into the world to make a man of himself by virtuous and noble living, or to spoil himself by yielding to temptation, as he should elect. He chose the former course.

He became the intimate friend of Edmund Quincy, the son of the president of the college, Josiah Quincy. He stood high in his classes, besides reading extensively in general history and mechanics. He was also greatly interested in genealogy.

Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and James Watt were among his English heroes, and Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Eli Whitney among his American. Scott and Victor Hugo were great favorites. Elizabeth Barrett Browning he regarded as the first of modern poets. Through life he was an omniverous reader of newspapers.

He was versed in several languages,--German, Italian, and Spanish, but French was his favorite among the modern tongues. He was always skilled in Latin.

Already his life had become more serious through the preaching of Dr. Lyman Beecher. The Rev. Dr. O. P. Gifford relates that Phillips once told a friend that he asked God "that whenever a thing be wrong it may have no power of temptation over me; whenever a thing be right, it may take no courage to do it. From that day to this it has been so. Whenever I have known a thing to be wrong, it has held no temptation. Whenever I have known a thing to be right, it has taken no courage to do it."

The Rev. Dr. Edgar Buckingham, secretary of the class of 1831, says: "I remember well his appearance of devoutness during morning and evening prayers in the chapel, which many attended only to save their credit with the authorities. Doddridge's 'Expositor' Wendell bore to college in his Freshman year (a present, I think, from his mother, a new volume), to be his help in daily thought and prayer."

Another of his classmates says: "Before entering college he had been the subject of religious revival. Previous to that he used to give way to violent outbursts of temper, and his schoolmates would sometimes amuse themselves by deliberately working him into a passion. But after his conversion they could never succeed in getting him out of temper."

"He had a deep love for all that was true and honorable," said his room-mate, the Rev. John Tappan Pierce of Illinois, "always detested a mean action. His Bible was always open on the centre-table. His character was perfectly transparent; there were no subterfuges, no pretences about him. He was known by all to be just what he seemed.... As an orator, Phillips took the highest stand of any graduate of our day. I never knew him to fail in anything or hesitate in a recitation."