The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-01-25
impotent folk back to the point of de-
parture.

palnIu I'll IdcC tndt Lney nave Ueon turoW-
ing their substance, their chance in
life, themselves, away, and that they are
but fragments of the men they might be.
If they stick and struggle heroically now
to the end they will recover only little
of the lost ground. While we got that
ten we failed to get thousand, who are
making the worst use of life's glorious
opportunity. We must redouble our
efforts and our forces, lift up our warn
ing cry in all the streets, and try to feel
repaid if we snatch here and there one
like brand from the burning. This is
what goes on all over the land and
largely over the world. We are making
repairs mostly, and 30 continuous are
the lapses that we mend only few
broken lives in comparison to the vast
throngs that drift by us unmended.
Yet this small achievement figures in
the thought of nearly all of us for more
than the whole sum of our regular form
ative work. What is it keeps the human
world in health and worthiness? Not
surely the one.in a. thousand whom we
rescue from degradation; but the hun
dreds in every thousand who sustain
themselves in course of virtue and
benefcence. The means by which soci
ETY. is preserved sound and sweet are
nurture, training, education, culture,
Formative work vastly outweighs refor
native, both in the subject it reaches
and in the influence it exerts over them.
An ounce of prevention is worth pounds
of cure; and right direction and useful
pre-occupation prevent the degeneracy
we are working so desperately to repair.
Social and religious craftsmanship con-
sists in repressing with one strong hand
the sources of public disorder and popu.
lar decay, while with many strong and
skillful hands the young are guided into
ways of usefulness, knowledge and rec
titude.
But is there not JOY in heaven over
one sinner who repenteth more than
over ninety and-nine just persons who
need no repentance? Yes, and on earth
too. 1t runs with our holiest desire to
see the sinner reclaimed; and we may
well believe that heaven will not be sat-
isfed till all the lost are found. But it
is an unwarranted inference that the one
sinner is worth more than the ninety
and nine just persons: still more unwar-
rantable is the conclusion that it is no
matter what becomes of them if he is
rescued. The rescue of the perishing is
great feature of the Gospel. 1t is dis
tinctively Christian work. We should
do more and not less of it. But let us
preserve the true proportion of Chris
tian work, and not lose sight of the stu
pendous fact that the greatest good of
our Gospel. both as an idea and as an
institution. consists in its power to nour-
ish, direct and inspire the life of men.
The letters of Matthew Arnold, q
vols. Macmillan. & Coz, have been
awaited with interest by great number
of persons on. both sides of the Atlantic.
Mr.. Arnold occuI les place in literature
which has not since been filed by any
one. He does not belong with the great
writer's of either. poetry or prose-; yet he
holds a rank which:many of them have
never attained.@= He was critic of the
first-class, and he was master of lucid,
winnowed and idiomatic English. In
range, originalitysand. flavor he is sur
passed bykRuskin and Carlyle, and in
eloquence and magnifcence by Macau-
lay and Martineau. Q But in the power to
"see straight and to tell what he saw,
no writer of our tongue has surpassed
Matthew Arnold. Add to this bis fine
and distinctively literary culture, ard we
have writer whose place in literature is
peculiarly his own.
Mr.. Arnold's admirers have been
drawn to his work rather than to him.
The appearance.o of these. letters gives the
opportunity of making acquaintance
with the man. Nearly all of them are
family letters: written to his mother, bis
sisters, his wife.and his daughters. The
revelation of Family life they make is
attractive in high degree. Matthew
Arnold was devotedito his parents and
sisters and an ardent lover of his home.
Better than anything he has written
was the pure, sweet, manly life he lived.
Though these letters are not literature,
in the sense in which those of Carlyle
and Emerson are. or those OF Lowell,
they have the charm of that infallible
choice Of the right word and phrase
which seems to ave been inseparable
from his writings. His home letters.
while in this country, are especially in
teresting to Americans. They are not
always fiattering and they betray fre-
quently an insular and English view of
our affairs; but they are valuable as the
sincere judgment of friendly, acute
and unusually intelligent observer.
CANTON THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL.
/ have too much esteem for God to