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.
CHAPTER III.
SEPARATION.
But this aged couple were to share their joys and sorrows in their retirement but a few years. Joshua was the first called away. He died in his seventy-seventh year, in peace with God and all men. Just before his speech failed one of his sons inquired how long he had been in the Methodist Episcopal Church. His answer came slowly but firmly: "Fifty-two years ago I said to this people, 'Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.'
'The word hath passed my lips, and I
Shall with thy people live and die.'"