o an idea of
Scripture which others had built up from the point of view of a theory
of knowledge and by investigation of the facts. He is the helpless
personification of a view of the relation of science and religion which
has absolutely passed away. Yet Arnold died only in 1888. How much a
distinguished inheritance may mean is gathered from the fact that a
grand-daughter of Thomas Arnold and niece of Matthew Arnold, Mrs.
Humphry Ward, in her novels, has dealt largely with problems of
religious life, and more particularly of religious thoughtfulness. She
has done for her generation, in her measure, that which George Eliot did
for hers.

MARTINEAU

As the chapter and the book draw to their close we can think of no man
whose life more nearly spanned the century, or whose work touched more
fruitfully almost every aspect of Christian thoughtfulness than did that
of James Martineau. We can think of no man who gathered into himself
more fully the significant theological tendencies of the age, or whose
utterance entitles him to be listened to more reverently as seer and
saint. He was born in 1805. He was bred as an engineer. He fulfilled for
years the calling of minister and preacher. He gradually exchanged this
for the activity of a professor. He was a religious philosopher in the
old sense, but he was also a critic and historian. His position with
reference to the New Testament was partly antiquated before his _Seat of
Authority in Religion_, 1890, made its appearance. Evolutionism never
became with him a coherent and consistent assumption. Ethics never
altogether got rid of the innate ideas. The social movement left him
almost untouched. Yet, despite all this, he was in some sense a
representative progressive theologian of the century.

There is a parallel between Newman and Martineau. Both busied themselves
with the problem of authority. Criticism had been fatal to the
apprehension which both had inherited concerning the authority of
Scripture. From that point onward they took divergent courses. The
arguments which touched the infallible and oracular authority of
Scripture, for Newman established that of the Church; for Martineau they
had destroyed that of the Church four hundred years ago. Martineau's
sense, even of the authority of Jesus, reverent as it is, is yet no
pietistic and mystical view. The authority of Jesus is that of the truth
which he speaks, of the goodness which dwells in him, of God himself and
God