ys consistent. In 1879 he writes to Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff:
"Perhaps we shall end our days in the tail of a return-current of
popular religion, both ritual and dogmatic." In 1880 he sees a great
future for Catholicism, which, by virtue of its superior charm and
poetry, will "endure while all the Protestant sects (amongst which I do
not include the Church of England) dissolve and perish." In 1881 he
seemed to apprehend the return to Westminster Abbey, after "Wisdom's too
short reign," of--

Folly revived, re-furbish'd sophistries,
And pullulating rites externe and vain.

In the last autumn of his life he wrote to M. Fontanes--a friend whose
acquaintance he first made over _St. Paul and Protestantism_--

"Your letter has reached me here (Ottery St. Mary), where I am staying
with Lord Coleridge, the Lord Chief Justice, who is a grand-nephew of
the poet. He loves literature, and, being a great deal richer than his
grand-uncle, or than poets in general, has built a library from which I
now write, and on which I wish that you could feast your eyes with
me.... The Church Congress has just been held, and shows as usual
that the clergy have no idea of the real situation; but indeed the
conservatism and routine in religion are such in England that the line
taken by the clergy cannot be wondered at. Nor are the conservatism and
routine a bad thing, perhaps, in such a matter; but the awakening will
one day come, and there will be much confusion. Have you looked at
Tolstoi's books on religion: in French they have the titles _Ma
Religion, Ma Confession, Que Faire?_ The first of these has been well
translated, and has excited much attention over here; perhaps it is from
this side, the socialist side that the change is likely to come: the
Bible will be retained, but it will be said, as Tolstoi says, that its
true, socialistic teaching has been overlooked, and attention has been
fixed on metaphysical dogmas deduced from it, which are at any rate,
says Tolstoi, secondary. He does not provoke discussion by denying or
combating them; he merely relegates them to a secondary position.

[Illustration: The Grave in Laleham Churchyard

Where Matthew Arnold, his wife, and three sons are buried

_Photo Ralph Lane_]

And now that we have enquired into Arnold's influence on theology, it
is, perhaps, proper to ask what he himself believed. His faith seems to
have been, by a curious paradox, far stronger on the Christian than on
t