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This year 1870 may be assigned as the date of y Matthew Arnold's open breach with the religious, or at least the orthodox, world. The later stages of that quarrel, not in all respects creditable to either side, will be traced in the next chapter, which will be devoted to Mr. Arnold's theology. St. Paul and Protestantism, with an Essay on Puritanism in the Church of England, was reprinted, like Culture and Anarchy, from the Cornhill Magazine. It is rather philosophical than theological, and carries a step further the principles laid down in Culture and Anarchy. Its object was twofold. The author desired to contrast Hebraism, the philosophy of morals, with Hellenism, the philosophy of thought. sought also to prove that Evangelical Puritanism, which grounded itself upon the doctrines of St. Paul, had misunderstood and perverted the teaching of the apostle. Of Evangelical Puritanism the Nonconformists were the chief representatives, and therefore they come in for a peculiar share of Mr. Arnold's attention; but he deals also with the Evangelical party in the Church of England, then stronger, at least among the clergy, than it is now. Translating, or paraphrasing, the Greek word 'Erieíκeia by "sweet reasonableness," he urged that that was the distinguishing characteristic which St. Paul had derived from the teaching of his Master. Setting this against the spirit of contentiousness which, in his opinion, Dissent developed, he proceeded to argue in favour of unity, of one Church. So far his position was thoroughly agreeable to the Anglican Establishment. But it soon appeared that the new and universal Church was to be purged of all dogma. God was no longer to be, as the Calvinists

made Him, "a magnified and non-natural man," but "that stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the law of their being." This is Pantheism, pure and simple. Now Pantheism, though a profoundly religious creed, is not regarded with favour by orthodox Protestants, or, for that matter, by orthodox Catholics. I remember that, when I was at Oxford, a Bampton Lecturer incurred much ridicule by this passionate adjuration from the pulpit: "I beseech you, brethren," said he, "by the mercies of Christ, that you hold fast to the integrity of your anthropomorphism." It was enough to make Dean Mansel turn in his grave. But, as Mr. Goldwin Smith, in a brilliant though now forgotten essay, and Mr. Mill, in his examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, reminded Mr. Mansel, a Deity of whom no human or natural qualities can be predicated is a mere abstraction, and for practical purposes might as well not exist.

What, then, according to Mr. Arnold, was St. Paul's real doctrine? It will be found on page 42 of the second edition. "This man, whom Calvin and Luther and their followers have shut up into the two scholastic doctrines of election and justification, would have said, could we hear him, just what he said about circumcision and uncircumcision in his own day: 'Election is nothing, and justification is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." It may be

So.

What has been said generally of the Bible is true especially of St. Paul. Everybody goes to the Pauline Epistles for his own doctrines, and everybody finds them. They are far more difficult to understand than Plato or Aristotle, and yet preachers wholly innocent of hermeneutics will expound them with the most

touching confidence. Mr. Arnold had a short way of eliminating from St. Paul what he did not like, such as "the harsh and unedifying image of the clay and the potter." St. Paul "was led into difficulty by the tendency, which we have already noticed as marking his real imperfection both as a thinker and as a writer -the tendency to Judaise" (page 97). It is hardly strange that St. Paul should have Judaised. He was a Jew, a Pharisee, familiar not merely with the law and the prophets, but also with the Rabbinical traditions, long before he heard of Christ. Conversion changes, or ought to change, a man's purpose and mode of life. It does not affect the habits of his mind. St. Paul wished to reconcile Christianity with Judaism, not to supersede one by the other. His "tendency to Judaise" is part of his system. Take it away, and he

ceases to be St. Paul.

In the essay on Puritanism and the Church of England Mr. Arnold points out (page 129), "that the High Church divines of the seventeenth century were Arminian, that the Church of England was the stronghold of Arminianism, and that Arminianism is an effort of man's practical good sense to get rid of what is shocking to it in Calvinism." And he traces the existence of Nonconformity mainly to the fact that the Church would not "put the Calvinistic doctrines more distinctly into her formularies." This is more than doubtful history. The persecuting policy of Laud, and the Act of Uniformity passed when that most Christian king, Charles the Second, was restored to the throne, were the chief causes of Protestant Dissent. Mr. Arnold was fond of Butler, and quoted him almost as often as he quoted the Vulgate. "The

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Bible,' said the great bishop, 'contains many truths as yet undiscovered,' and in so saying he passed sentence on every creed and council” (page 151). That is an admirable application of a profound truth, whether Butler would himself have made it or not. For if it be true, as Cardinal Newman says, that we halve the gospel of God's grace," so neither can we limit it. Securus judicat orbis terrarum. These words of St. Augustine convinced Newman that the Church of Rome must be in the right. For that purpose Mr. Arnold, of course, rejects them. But he adopts them in support of his own theory that religion implies unity. For my part, I think that the words are much nearer the truth if construed as a classical Roman would have construed them. When Horace wrote that he was "quid Tiridaten terreat unice securus," he did not mean that he had infallible knowledge of what frightened Tiridates. He meant that he did not care, which is only too true of the world and theology. Mr. Arnold defends the Church of England from the charge of "not knowing her own mind," or, rather, he denies that it is a charge, and claims it is as a merit. He pleads with eloquence and sincerity that doctrinal differences, however fundamental, are no ground for separation, and that Luther did not separate for any such reason, but because the Church of Rome was immoral, which was a true ground, and the only true one. This idea of a universal Church, with departure from iniquity for its first principle, is a very noble one. The invisible tie which unites all good men is in some sort a fulfilment of it. Fully realised on earth it is never likely to be. As Mr. Jowett so beautifully says of Plato's Republic,

the moment we seem to comprehend it, it eludes our grasp, and at length fades away into the Heavens. Perhaps Mr. Arnold knew that. There is nothing in the book to prove that he did not know it.

Mr. Arnold's "genial and somewhat esoteric philosophy," if I may borrow a phrase applied by Sir George Trevelyan to his uncle, is nowhere more compendiously stated than in Friendship's Garland, which appeared in a complete form at the beginning of 1871. The history of this little book is curious. The letters of which it consists were first printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, when that journal of many vicissitudes was edited by Mr. Frederick Greenwood. They extend over a period of four years, from 1866 to 1870, dealing chiefly with the victories of Prussia over Austria, and of Germany over France. Attributed to a young Prussian, Arminius von Thunder-ten-Tronckh, whose name is of course taken from Candide, they really represent Mr. Arnold's views upon the characteristic deficiencies of his countrymen. It is a remarkable fact that, though an unsparing critic of English foibles, and also of the qualities upon which Englishmen particularly pride themselves, he never became unpopular. Such is the power of urbanity. The outer public, the widest circle of readers, knew Matthew Arnold chiefly from quotations in newspapers, and the readers of the old Pall Mall were of the "kid glove persuasion." But, as he said himself, the writing people had a kindness for him; and even those at whom his shafts of ridicule were directed laughed, unless they were translators of Homer, as heartily as anybody else. I can myself (and so can Mr. George Russell) testify to the fact that Mr. Sala, one of Mr.