Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

I hope Christ will save me, so he bids me try to bring my neighbors to him also; and especially those whom I have known, and from whom I have received kindness. May Christ save us both, and turn our hearts to love him and our neighbors, even as he has loved us, and has died for us!

TO AN OLD PUPIL.

RUGBY, April 5, 1837.

I take this opportunity to answer your kind and interesting letter, for which I beg you to accept my best thanks. I can hardly answer it as I could wish, but I do not like to delay writing to you any longer. Your account of yourself and of that unhealthy state of body and mind under which you have been laboring, was very touching to me. I rejoice that you were recovering from it, but still you must not be surprised if God should be pleased to continue your trials for some time longer. It is to me a matter of the deepest thankfulness, that the fears, which I at one time had expressed to you about yourself, have been so entirely groundless: we have the comfort of thinking, that with the heart once turned to God, and going on in his faith and fear, nothing can go very wrong with us, although we may have much to suffer, and many trials to undergo. I rejoice, too, that your mind seems to be in a healthier state about the prosecution of your studies. I am quite sure that it is a most solemn duty to cultivate our understandings to the uttermost, for I have seen the evil moral consequences of fanaticism to a greater degree than I ever expected to see them realized; and I am satisfied that a neglected intellect is far oftener the cause of mischief to a man, than a perverted or over-valued one. Men retain their natural quickness and cleverness, while their reason and judgment are allowed to go to ruin; and thus they do work their minds, and gain influence, and are pleased at gaining it; but it is the undisciplined mind which they are exercising, instead of one wisely disciplined. I trust that you will gain a good foundation of wisdom in Oxford, which may minister in after-years to God's glory and the

good of souls; and I call by the name of wisdom, — knowledge, rich and varied, digested and combined, and pervaded through and through by the light of the Spirit of God. Remember the words, "Every scribe instructed to the kingdom of God is like unto a householder, who bringeth out of his treasure things new and old;" that is, who does not think that either the four first centuries on the one hand, nor the nineteenth century on the other, have a monopoly of truth, but who combines a knowledge of one with that of the other, and judges all according to the judgment which he has gained from the teaching of the Scriptures. I am obliged to write more shortly than I could wish: let me hear from you when you can, and see you when you can; and be sure, that, whether my judgments be right or wrong, you have no friend who more earnestly would wish to assist you in that only narrow road to life eternal, which I feel sure that you by God's grace are now treading.

TO AN OLD PUPIL, ENGAGED IN BUSINESS.

RUGBY, Nov. 18, 1840.

I think that even your very kind and handsome gift to the library has given me less pleasure than the letter which accompanied it, and which was one of the highest gratifications that a man in my profession can ever experience. Most sincerely do I thank you for it, and be assured that I do value it very deeply. Your letter holds out to me another prospect which interests me very deeply. I have long felt a very deep concern about the state of our manufacturing population, and have seen how enormous was the work to be done there, and how much good men, especially those who were not clergymen, were wanted to do it. And, therefore, I think of you as engaged in business, with no little satisfaction, being convinced that a good man, highly educated, cannot possibly be in a more important position in this kingdom than as one of the heads of a great manufacturing establishment. I feel encouraged also, by the kindness of your letter, to trouble you, perhaps,

hereafter with some questions on a point where my practical knowledge is, of course, nothing. Yet I see the evils and dangers of the present state of things, and long that those who have the practical knowledge could be brought steadily and systematically to consider the possibility of a remedy. We are now in the midst of the winter examination, which, as you may remember, gives us all sufficient employment.

TO ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

...

I must conclude with a more delightful subject, - my most dear and blessed sister. I never saw a more perfect instance of the spirit of power and of love, and of a sound mind; intense love, almost to the annihilation of selfishness- a daily martyrdom for twenty years, during which she adhered to her early-formed resolution of never talking about herself; thoughtful about the very pins and ribbons of my wife's dress, about the making of a doll's cap for a child—but of herself, save only as regarded her ripening in all goodness, wholly thoughtless, enjoying every thing lovely, graceful, beautiful, highminded, whether in God's works or man's, with the keenest relish; inheriting the earth to the very fulness of the promise, though never leaving her crib, nor changing her posture; and preserved through the very valley of the shadow of death, from all fear or impatience, or from every cloud of impaired reason, which might mar the beauty of Christ's Spirit's glorious work. May God grant that I might come but within one hundred degrees of her place in glory. God bless you all.

...

TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, Jan. 2, 1841.

If our minds were comprehensive enough, and life were long enough, to follow with pleasure every pursuit not sinful, I can fancy that it would be better to like shooting than not to like it; but as things are, all our life must be a selection, and pursuits must be neglected, because we have not time or mind

to spare for them. So that I cannot but think, that shooting and fishing, in our state of society, must always be indulged at the expense of something better.

I feel quite as strongly as you do the extreme difficulty of giving to girls what really deserves the name of education intellectually. When ― was young, I used to teach her some Latin with her brothers, and that has been, I think, of real use to her; and she feels it now in reading and translating German, of which she does a great deal. But there is nothing for girls like the Degree examination, which concentrates one's reading so beautifully, and makes one master a certain number of books perfectly. And unless we had a domestic examination for young ladies to be passed before they came out, and another like the great go, before they come of age, I do not see how the thing can ever be effected. Seriously, I do not see how we can supply sufficient encouragement for systematic and laborious reading, or how we can insure many things being retained at once fully in the mind, when we are wholly without the machinery which we have for our boys. I do nothing now with my girls regularly, owing to want of time: once, for a little while, I used to examine in Guizot's "Civilization of France;" and I am inclined to think that few better books could be found for the purpose than this and his "Civilization of Europe." They embrace a great multitude of subjects, and a great variety, and some philosophical questions among the rest, which would introduce a girl's mind a little to that world of thought to which we were introduced by our Aristotle.

CHAPTER IV.

GENERAL LIFE AT RUGBY.

THE general view of Dr. Arnold's life at Rugby must not be closed without touching, however briefly and imperfectly, on that aspect of it which naturally gave the truest view of his mind and character, whilst to those at a distance it was comparatively but little known.

Perhaps the scene which, to those who knew him best, would bring together the recollections of his public and private life in the most lively way, was his study at Rugby. There he sat at his work, with no attempt at seclusion, conversation going on around him; his children playing in the room; his frequent guests, whether friends or former pupils, coming in or out at will, ready at once to break off his occupations to answer a question, or to attend to the many interruptions to which he was liable; and from these interruptions, or from his regular avocations, at the few odd hours or minutes which he could command, would he there return and recommence his writing, as if it had not been broken off. head exhausted," he would

"Instead of feeling my sometimes say after the

« ZurückWeiter »