CHAPTER II.
JOSHUA ARNOLD.
No life experience of Elizabeth would seem at all complete without a chapter giving a somewhat connected view of her companion, near a half century by her side, in her toils, liberality, and church work. Did she, when driven by persecution from her father's house, take up, under stress of calamity, an inferior associate for life? Let us see. If, as many claim, the wisest matches are founded on contrast, this must have been par excellence. For if we except their large size and mutual endowment of sound common sense, there was very little natural similarity. In Connecticut the farms of the Arnolds and the Wards joined, and yet they were not intimate as families, for there was, for that day, too great disparity in property and style. Both were moral and intelligent, but the large Arnold family on the hill, though in comfortable circumstances, did not train in the same "set" with the elegant establishment at the Cove.
Of the numerous family (of almost giant size) of Ebenezer and Anna Miller Arnold there were only two sons. Ebenezer, among the eldest, had the ancestral name, took to a mariner's life, was a few years a sea captain, and lies at the bottom of the ocean. Joshua was the youngest of the family, the almost idol of his parents, and of a house full of lusty sisters, who vied with one another which should teach him most and secure most of his confidence. So he lived on until nearly thirty a bachelor. Such opportunities as were afforded the common farmers' boys of New England in the eighteenth century young Joshua diligently improved, and became a close student, and well qualified as a teacher of common schools of his day. His specialties were mathematics, penmanship, bookkeeping, business science and forms, and navigation. And he continued to do more or less in this profession until fifty years of age. He was converted among the first fruits of Methodist labors in that part of New England.
Then, every Methodist studied closely into her doctrines, and this young man became qualified to state clearly, and ably defend, all that was peculiar to that Church. The cast of his mind was logical, candid, patient—he was never inclined to hasty conclusions. He loved to dig deep, collect strong evidence, and wait till conclusions were sound and inevitable.
His brethren soon marked him for the ministry, and so advised; but, with his great modesty and high opinions of a divine call, he was not then, and never was, satisfied that he had such an essential individual commission. Without a full consciousness of duty in the line of that awful responsibility, this pious young man refused to look in that direction. He, however, cherished a high sense of the honor involved in the confidence of the Church, and felt impelled to lay himself out to do his best as a private member.
Under the ministry of such able Methodist preachers as Asbury, Jesse Lee, and George Roberts, young Joshua had imbibed the main doctrines of theology, and set out in earnest to "search the Scriptures," both "for correction" if wrong, and for confirmation in the truth he had received and experienced. Thus fairly started on the King's highway of truth, he became profoundly interested in Bible study; and continued both the study and the intense love of it through life. He dug in this mine more than a third of a century without any human commentary, and found, to his great joy, that the poet had struck it: "God is his own interpreter, and He will make it plain." So diligently did he search for the "interpretation of Scripture by Scripture," that he largely learned the doctrinal Scriptures by heart, and also book, chapter, and verse; and to family and friends he was "both concordance and commentary."
Near the middle of his experience and biblical research Mr. Arnold was urged, almost driven, to take license to exhort, and more publicly divulge some of the treasures of his years of study. He had thus "improved in public" (as exhorting was then called) but a year or two when his brethren, finding more of the expository than hortatory in his discourses, urged that his proper office was that of a local preacher. But to this he had two objections: lack of a distinct call, and a settled fear that the Church was growing too numerous a secular ministry; so he utterly refused.
For the balance of his active life, as health and opportunity permitted, he "preached many things to the people in his exhortations," always laying for them a solid doctrinal foundation, and plentifully using Scripture language, both accurately quoted and wisely applied, and book and chapter usually given. His appointments for exhortation never lacked attendants or interest; and when called, as he often was, to "supply the appointment" of a circuit preacher, the substitute was not met with wry faces nor spoken of in frowns. Yet his highest apparent successes in speaking, if estimated by the excitement, were his brief speeches in love feast, not boisterous, but invariably stirring the deep of the heart of the meeting.
Joshua Arnold's singing was no way superior in kind and had no marked defect, unless it was that time sometimes yielded to sentiment. But the amount of psalm singing done in a half century by this peaceful man was certainly marvelous. The leading of most of the hymns in the social meetings was a very small proportion of it. Whenever he found a psalm, a hymn, or a chorus that struck a chord in his devout heart he laid it carefully away in his retentive memory, and it was instantly called up when he wanted to sing it.
But what was most noteworthy in his singing was that his happy heart, and soft, sweet voice, and abundant store of pious psalmody kept him singing wherever and whenever he could with propriety.
Mr. Arnold was the opposite of a business sharper. He was a moderate, patient toiler, but traded no more than he was obliged to, and always with frank, honest words, and very few words. He hated extortion, avoided debt, and threw nothing away in interest or in lawsuits, and was both careful and skillful in maintaining a good influence. Like his wife, he was economical and liberal; and the Christian liberality of their home knew no bounds but the limit of their means; nor was that limit dreaded, nor often, if ever, found, when it embarrassed the case on hand.
As Joshua Arnold was no ordinary man, so his personnel was rather peculiar: nearly six feet in height; large, but not fat; wore a shoe of size number twelve, and hat size seven and a half. His eye was blue, large, and mild; forehead broad and high; nose long and straight; lips long and thin; mouth and chin small and delicate; hair brown, fine, straight, and complexion florid. His motions were moderate, and temper very steady and mild.