Others were heard to wonder how it was that the Doctor's
preaching, to which they had attended at the time so assiduously,
seemed, after all, to have such a small effect upon what they
did. An old gentleman, recalling those vanished hours, tried to
recapture in words his state of mind as he sat in the darkened
chapel, while Dr. Arnold's sermons, with their high-toned
exhortations, their grave and sombre messages of incalculable
import, clothed, like Dr. Arnold's body in its gown and bands, in
the traditional stiffness of a formal phraseology, reverberated
through his adolescent ears. 'I used,' he said, 'to listen to
those sermons from first to last with a kind of awe.'
His success was not limited to his pupils and immediate auditors.
The sermons were collected into five large volumes; they were the
first of their kind; and they were received with admiration by a
wide circle of pious readers. Queen Victoria herself possessed a
copy in which several passages were marked in pencil, by the
Royal hand.
Dr. Arnold's energies were by no means exhausted by his duties at
Rugby. He became known not merely as a headmaster, but as a
public man. He held decided opinions upon a large number of
topics; and he enunciated them--based as they were almost
invariably upon general principles--in pamphlets, in prefaces,
and in magazine articles, with an impressive self-confidence.
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