'N spite of his open heterodoxy, Arnold was to the last

staunch in his Churchmanship. He has told us how in his Oxford days the Church of England was for him and his friends "the most national and natural institution in the world," and the attachment and the sentiment underlying it never weakened. True, he has strong things to say about Anglicanism at times. Some of his strictures in A French Eton, indeed, fall short of justice, and should not be accepted as a final verdict. "It is not easy," he writes there, "for a reflecting man who has studied its origin to feel any vehement enthusiasm for Anglicanism; Henry VIII. and his Parliament have taken care of that. One may esteem it as a beneficial social and civilising agent. One may have an affection for it from life-long associations, and for the sake of much that is venerable and interesting which it has inherited from antiquity. One may cherish gratitude for it for the shelter

and basis for culture which this, like other great nationally established forms of religion, affords; those who

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are born in them can get forward on their road, instead of always eyeing the ground on which they stand and disputing about it. But actual Anglicanism is certainly not Jerusalem, and I should be sorry to think it the end which Nonconformity and the middle class are to reach."

But in so writing Arnold was concerned to discredit the suspicion that in urging Nonconformity to pay more attention to education he desired to hold up Anglicanism as the goal of his crusade of culture. His truer attitude must be sought in the Sion College address to the London clergy in 1876, in which he goes to great pains to disprove the accusation of hostility to the Church, an accusation " totally erroneous." On the contrary, he claims that he has consistently striven to co-operate with the Church in the carrying out of its special mission, which is simply and solely "the promotion of goodness through the most effective means possible, the only means which are really and truly effectual for the object: through the means of the Christian religion and the Bible." He even goes so far as to confess the relative unimportance of his religious criticisms when compared with the practical work of helping to make crooked natures straight.

'

'Of this address, given on February 22, 1876, and reprinted in Last Essays, he wrote two days afterwards: "My address went off very well. . . . It was of no use speaking at Sion College unless I could in some degree carry my audience with me, and I did carry them. .. The President said that to someone who had expressed his astonishment at my being in

"If the two are to conflict I had rather that it should be the object and business of those writings which should have to give way. Most certainly the establishment of an improved biblical criticism, or the demolition of the systems of theologians, will never in itself avail to teach men their duty or to assist them in the discharge of it. Perhaps, even, no one can very much give himself to such objects without running some risk of over-valuing their importance and of being diverted by them from practice."

Holding such views, he was not the man to cut himself off from fellowship with others in a matter which touches life so nearly as religion. "Not to break one's connexion with the past in one's religion," he wrote truly both for mankind and for himself, "is one of the strongest instincts in human nature." But this is inconsistent," it may be said; "Arnold's rebellion against dogma was unreal if he stopped short at its practical consequence." Yet again it should be remembered that his criticism, destructive though it was, was not aimed at ecclesiastical systems—at religion in practice; but at doctrinal systems—at religion in theory; and

vited to speak at Sion College he had answered that it would be found, he was certain, that Mr. Arnold would not speak ten minutes without managing to establish a rapport between himself and the clergy, and so it turned out. Altogether I was much pleased, and in my little speech at the end I spoke of my being a clergyman's son, of its being against my nature to be estranged from the clergy, and of the pleasure it gave me to be in sympathy with them."

even had his action in remaining in intimate contact with the Church whose basis he had tried to subvert been hopelessly illogical, it was at any rate more admirable than deserting it after his writings had done their worst. Even the heretic Benedict Spinoza never forsook the Jewish faith; he was driven out against his will. Moreover, Arnold held so firm a conviction of the value of publicly-instituted religion that departure from the Church of his fathers would have been the true inconsequence. Hence it is that while on the one hand he is the uncompromising critic of the Church's doctrine, on the other he is the equally resolute defender of its historical position in the national life.

Advising others, he was still more insistent upon the necessity of no breach with "the church of their country and childhood." He tells them that it is easy for a scrupulous man inclined to adopt his criticism "to exaggerate to himself the barrier between himself and popular religion. The barrier is not so great as he may suppose; and it is expedient for him rather to think it less great than it is, than more great. It will insensibly dwindle the more that he, and other serious men who think as he does, strive so far as they can to act as if it did not exist. It will stand stiff and bristling the more they act as if it were insurmountable." The layman especially need have no difficulty in continuing the old attachment to the Church and in using the recognised formularies subject to his own interpretation of them. He grants that "it is a strong thing to

suppose

a man taking orders in the Church of England who accepts, say, the view of Christianity offered in Literature and Dogma," and he, at any rate, must consider his position seriously; but the clergyman in office, on the other hand, may hold reservations right and left and still do his work faithfully.

"Religion," he writes, in an outburst of antiHebraism, "is a matter where scrupulousness has been far too active, producing most serious mischief; and where it is singularly out of place. I am the very last person to wish to deny it. Those, therefore, who declared their consent to the Articles long ago, and who are usefully engaged in the ministry of the Church, would in my opinion do exceedingly ill to disquiet themselves about having given a consent to the Articles formerly, when things had not moved to the point where they are now, and did not appear to men's minds as they now appear." Looking to the future, however, he anticipates indemnity for the equivocations of layman and cleric alike in the abolition of all religious tests, and he recommends Liberal politicians to give such a measure precedence before legislation which would further disintegrate the Church. Against legislation of this kind Arnold offered uncompromising opposition.

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In these days the question of Establishments is regarded more and more as one of political principle.

Last Essays on Church and Religion: "A Psychological Parallel."