But then again there were those—­and we should hope the great majority—­who, whether they knew the man or not, loved his temper, admired his methods, and found no more difficulty in detaching what was good from what was bad in his teaching, than he himself found in the case of his master, Wordsworth.  A Catholic priest, ministering formerly in the Roman and now in the English Church, thus describes the help which he gained from Arnold at a time of distress and transition.  “That I held to any sort of Christianity, and continued to use and enjoy the Bible, I owe entirely to Matthew Arnold.  I began to read him in 1882; first his prose, and then his verse.  For several years I read him over, and over, and over again with growing delight and profit; until, so far as I was able, I understood something of his mind and methods.  He taught me how to think, and how to write.  He undoubtedly saved me from leaving the Papal Church a dulled and blank materialist, thoroughly and violently anti-Christian; and his gentle influence tended me through the next few years, until I was mellowed for the process of reconstruction."[56]

This is a fine tribute to all that was best and most characteristic in his teaching.  Beyond doubt, by his insistence on the relation of Letters to Religion, he helped many young men to read their Bibles with better understanding and keener appreciation; and enabled them that are without to enter for the first time into the spirit and attractiveness of the Christian ideal.  Not only so, but men established in age, position, and orthodoxy, felt and acknowledged his helpfulness.  When he delivered an address on “The Church of England” to a gathering of clergy at Sion College, he tells us that “Clergyman on clergyman turned on the Chairman” (who had scented heresy), “and said they agreed with me far more than with him.”  A divine so profoundly Evangelical as Bishop Thorold larded his sermons and charges with extracts from Arnold’s prose and verse.  In 1893 Arnold dined with Archbishop Benson, and “thought it a gratifying marvel, considering what things I have published”; but the marvel was of such frequent occurrence that it had almost ceased to be marvellous.  That this was so was due, no doubt, in great measure to the charm of his character and conversation.  It was not easy for any one who knew him to take serious offence at what he wrote.  Just as Coleridge’s metaphysics were said by a friend to be “only his fun,” so Arnold’s theology was regarded by his admirers as part of his playfulness.  It was difficult to disentangle what he really wished to teach from his jokes about the hangings of the Celestial Council-Chamber; “Willesden beyond Trent”; “Change Alley and Alley Change”; Professor Birks, “his brows crowned with myrtle,” going in procession to the Temple of Aphrodite; the Duke of Somerset “running into the strong tower” of Deism, and thinking himself “safe” there from further questionings.  This method of illustration threw an air of comedy over the theme which it illustrated; and, if the criticism failed to disturb faith in Biblical theology, the critic had only himself to thank.