The death of Mrs. Arnold,—the widow of the great head-
master of Rugby, and we might almost say, of the founder of the Broad Church in that sense in which the Broad Church is not only distinct from, but almost opposed to, the Latitudinarian.
Church,—which took place at Fox How, Ambleside, on Tuesday last, takes us back over an almost bewildering vista of events to the very seed-time of our modern intellectual world, and to one of the most distinguished of the sowers of that seed. That second week in June, 1842, when so many were startled with the news that the master they had so deeply revered was no more, is the date from which a great many movements -with which Dr. Arnold's name and moral influence were intimately connected, may be said to have originated. The -Condition-of-England question was at its height. Lord Ashley's -first great measure for the protection of the factory operatives was introduced into Parliament the week before. Sir Robert Peel was just passing the Income-tax, the instrument by which he was enabled to relieve so sensibly the distress of the working-classes. And the Church was deep in that discussion of the conditions of -orthodoxy which has more and more been influenced by Dr. Arnold's principles :—indeed, the repeal of the statute against Dr. Hampden was hotly discussed in Convocation in the week -that preceded his death. Mrs. Arnold must at least have had the singular consolation of seeing the seeds which her husband Lad sown bringing forth fruit, "some thirty, some sixty, some .a hundredfold."
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