The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1901-04-14
Long Line of
Religious Controversialists.

A long line Of leaders Of thought and
religious controversialists succeeds. Ra-
~tionalist and heterodoX in different degrees
We're Thomas Arnold. Frederick Maurice.
Stanley, Jowett, the writer's of Essays and
Reviews" and Robertson of Brighton. De-
cidedly skeptical were Matthew Arnold,
Carlyle and James Anthony Froude. Reac-
ton on the High Church side found lead
ers in Pussy. Newman and Hurrell Froude.
| The evangelical pulpit combated at once ra-
tionalism and High Church. The state
church was awakened from its long torpor.
| and under the inspiration of its High Church
| party strove to reanimate its convocation.
Frederick Maurice impressed more by
his character than by his writings, which
! were fatally obscure. He was nationalist
enough to be deprived of his profeSSorShip
in an Anglican college. At the same time
he could persuade himself that subscription
to the Thirty-nine Articles was no bondage.
but a security for free thought. To his
yoke-fellow, Kingsley, is to be traced mus
cular Christianity" a rather suspicious
adaptation of the Sermon on the Mount to
our times. But the pair exercised more In
ttuence as social missionaries striving in
conjunction with Thomas Hughes to give
the labor movement a religious turn than as
religious philosophers or critics.
Thomas Arnold, the headmaster Of Rugby,
was a man Of noble character. powerful
| mind and intense earnestness Of purpose.
He was a firm believer in Christianity as a
revealed religion. But he held a most lib
eral view of the church. He would have adj
mitted to it all the sects Of Dissenters and
have identified 1t as far as possible with the
nation. His theory of the identity Of the
church with the nation probably came to
him from his passionate study Of the ancient
commemorative. He forgot that the phi
~losophers of Greece, thought they might sac
rifice q cock to Aesculapius. were really
outside the state on religion. and that the
state religion made theSchief Of them drink
hemlock. Prince of educators as he was.
he sometimes laid too heavy a strain on his
pupils, and prematurely developed their
speculative tendencies. In the case of
CIough, especially, mental health and vigor
seem to have been impaired by premature
development.
Arthur Stanley was Arnold's best boy,
his most devoted adherent and his model
biographer. He embraced Arnolds theory
nation and carried his theory of the su-
premacy of the state SO far as to feel a
certain sympathy with "Bluidie Mac
kenZie'' as the defender Of q state church
against the independence Of the Covenant
ers of Scotland. His name was for a time
a terror to all the orthodox. High Church
or Low. Yet there was little that was ter
rible about him.. The sweetness Of his
character was remarkable.
Stanley's yoke-fellow Jowett was , man
Of a different cast Of mind and Of higher
caliber, as all the world now knows. But
in him also. though from different causes,
there was the same want of inclination to
grasp or capacity for grasping any definite
truth. 1t was said of him that he was
like a sign post, pointing to many roads, but
to no t~horoughfare.