' It was not that he had
the slightest doubt of Dr. Arnold's orthodoxy-- Dr. Arnold, whose
piety was universally recognised--Dr. Arnold, who had held up to
scorn and execration Strauss's Leben Jesu without reading it.
What Ward complained of was the Doctor's lack of logic, not his
lack of faith. Could he not see that if he really carried out his
own principles to a logical conclusion he would eventually find
himself, precisely, in the arms of Strauss? The young man, whose
personal friendship remained unshaken, determined upon an
interview, and went down to Rugby primed with first principles,
syllogisms, and dilemmas. Finding that the headmaster was busy in
school, he spent the afternoon reading novels on the sofa in the
drawing-room. When at last, late in the evening, the Doctor
returned, tired out with his day's work, Ward fell upon him with
all his vigour. The contest was long and furious; it was also
entirely inconclusive. When it was over, Ward, with none of his
brilliant arguments disposed of, and none of his probing
questions satisfactorily answered, returned to the University to
plunge headlong into the vortex of the Oxford Movement; and Dr.
Arnold, worried, perplexed, and exhausted, went to bed, where he
remained for the next thirty-six hours.
The Commentary on the New Testament was never finished, and the
great work on Church and State itself remained a fragment.
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