It is surprising to read that a man so broad and great as Dr. Arnold
thought the Jews, because unbelievers, "have no claim whatever of
political right,"--"no claim to become citizens, but by conforming to
our moral law, which is the Gospel,"--and petitioned against the removal
of their civil disabilities. Mr. Gladstone was also against the removal,
but happily changed his opinions, and spoke in behalf of the Jews in
1847.
When the Chartists were demanding a people's charter with universal
suffrage for men, and other reforms, Arnold was greatly moved. He began
a correspondence with Carlyle, urging that a society be formed "for
drawing public attention to the state of the laboring classes throughout
the kingdom." He believed that the "upper classes would make
sacrifices," if the real condition of the poor and the workers could be
brought to their knowledge. "Men do not think of the fearful state in
which we are living," he said; and he did not despair of a remedy, "even
though it is the solution of the most difficult problem ever yet
proposed to man's wisdom, and the greatest triumph over selfishness ever
yet required of his virtue."
We in America are facing the same problems; and there was never more
need for the "upper classes to make sacrifices," and live unselfish
lives for the good of their country, than now. We need to keep ever
before us the Bible message, "For none of us liveth to himself."
Arnold believed rightly in each one doing his share of the world's work
and duties. "There is no earthly thing," he said, "more mean and
despicable in my mind than an English gentleman destitute of all sense
of his responsibilities and opportunities, and only revelling in the
luxuries of our high civilization, and thinking himself a great person."
He wrote to a pupil who had become a physician, "It is a real pleasure
to me to find that you are taking steadily to a profession, without
which I scarcely see how a man can live honestly. I use the term
'profession' in rather a large sense ... a definite field of duty, which
the nobleman has as much as the tailor, but which he has not, who,
having an income large enough to keep him from starving, hangs about
upon life, merely following his own caprices and fancies."
Again he writes to a friend, "I would far rather send a boy to Van
Diemen's Land, where he must work for his bread, than send him to Oxford
to live in luxury, without any desire in his mind to avail himself of
his advantages." As the years went by, the spirit of opposition against
Arnold seemed to die out, and the school at Rugby gained continually in
numbers and influence. He was presented to the Queen; he went up to
Oxford to see degrees conferred upon Wordsworth and Bunsen; he published
more volumes of sermons--six in all--and two volumes of his admirable
"Roman History."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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