BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Thomas Arnold, schoolmaster and preacher, was born at West Cowes, Isle of Wight, in 1795. He was educated at Oxford, and after his graduation taught as fellow of Oriel College, until in 1820 he removed to Laleham near Haines and took pupils to prepare for the universities. In 1827 he was elected to the head mastership of Rugby, and took priest's orders before entering upon his duties. At Rugby he remained till his death in 1842. His great work as an educator consisted in teaching boys the duty of self-government, self-control and freedom of intellectual judgement. His sermons in the school chapel were distinguished by simplicity and profound moral and religious earnestness.
ARNOLD
1795-1842
ALIVE IN GOD
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.—Matt. xxii., 32.
We hear these words as a part of our Lord's answer to the Sadducees; and as their question was put in evident profaneness, and the answer to it is one which to our minds is quite obvious and natural, so we are apt to think that in this particular story there is less than usual that particularly concerns us. But it so happens that our Lord in answering the Sadducees has brought in one of the most universal and most solemn of all truths,—which is indeed implied in many parts of the Old Testament, but which the Gospel has revealed to us in all its fulness,—the truth contained in the words of the text, that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."