Under the ministry of such able Methodist preachers as Asbury, Jesse Lee, and George Roberts, young Joshua had imbibed the main doctrines of theology, and set out in earnest to "search the Scriptures," both "for correction" if wrong, and for confirmation in the truth he had received and experienced. Thus fairly started on the King's highway of truth, he became profoundly interested in Bible study; and continued both the study and the intense love of it through life. He dug in this mine more than a third of a century without any human commentary, and found, to his great joy, that the poet had struck it: "God is his own interpreter, and He will make it plain." So diligently did he search for the "interpretation of Scripture by Scripture," that he largely learned the doctrinal Scriptures by heart, and also book, chapter, and verse; and to family and friends he was "both concordance and commentary." Near the middle of his experience and biblical research Mr. Arnold was urged, almost driven, to take license to exhort, and more publicly divulge some of the treasures of his years of study. He had thus "improved in public" (as exhorting was then called) but a year or two when his brethren, finding more of the expository than hortatory in his discourses, urged that his proper office was that of a local preacher. But to this he had two objections: lack of a distinct call, and a settled fear that the Church was growing too numerous a secular ministry; so he utterly refused. For the balance of his active life, as health and opportunity permitted, he "preached many things to the people in his exhortations," always laying for them a solid doctrinal foundation, and plentifully using Scripture language, both accurately quoted and wisely applied, and book and chapter usually given. His appointments for exhortation never lacked attendants or interest; and when called, as he often was, to "supply the appointment" of a circuit preacher, the substitute was not met with wry faces nor spoken of in frowns. Yet his highest apparent successes in speaking, if estimated by the excitement, were his brief speeches in love feast, not boisterous, but invariably stirring the deep of the heart of the meeting. Joshua Arnold's singing was no way superior in kind and had no marked defect, unless it was that time sometimes yielded to sentiment. But the amount of psalm singing done in a half century by this peaceful man was certainly marvelous. The leading of most of the hymns in the social meetings was a very small proportion of it. Whenever he found a psalm, a hymn, or a chorus that struck a chord in his devout heart he laid it carefully away in his retentive memory, and it was instantly called up when he wanted to sing it. But what was most noteworthy in his singing was that his happy heart, and soft, sweet voice, and abundant store of pious psalmody kept him singing wherever and whenever he could with propriety.