We listened to Dr. Arnold, as all boys in their better moods will
listen (aye, and men too for the matter of that,) to a man whom we
felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against
whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It
was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from
serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but
the warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us by our sides,
and calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so,
wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole,
was brought home to the young boy the meaning of his life; that it was
no fool’s or sluggard’s paradise into which he had wandered by chance,
but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no spectators,
but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death.
And he who roused this consciousness in them, showed them at the same
time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily
life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood there before them
their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band. The true sort of
a captain, too, for a boys’ army, one who had no misgivings and gave
no uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make truce,
would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the
last drop of blood. Other sides of his character might take hold of
and influence boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and
undaunted courage which more than anything else won his way to the
hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made
them believe first in him, and then in his Master.