Untitled - Electric Scotland

n 4 I-IFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. v.
. . . Read
Arnold s sermons. At whatever expense of orthodoxy
(so called) for the time, throw yourself thoroughly into his spirit.
Alter nothing at first. See all that is good and nothing that is
bad in the masters and the Rugby character."
A few days later he writes :
"
I feel as if your appointment to this tremendous office with
out an ordination had given a shock to my
tendencies to believe
in Apostolical succession which they will never recover. It is
of course impossible not to recur to the chasm never to be filled
up when I think of your election ; but my thoughts sometimes
return thence charged with the hope that God has in store great
things for you also, and that the object of this whole dispensa
tion, so far as I am concerned, has not been solely to break
down my chief earthly stay, but to show me how his work may
be continued by others."
And again :-
"
Forgive me, if in the first agony of distress, when your election
brought before me what I had lost not only in him at Rugby,
but in you at Oxford I may have spoken too sadly. You must
not expect that I could go scatheless through so terrible a con
vulsion as this has been."
Tait s inauguration as Head-master took place on
Sunday, August I4th, when the sermon was preached
The Head-master was deeply moved
by Arthur Stanley.
by the sors liturgica, which gave as the opening words
of the Epistle for the day,
"
Such trust have we through
Christ to God-ward : not that we are sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as of ourselves.; but our sufficiency is
of God."
Diary.
"
Sunday Evening, August i4///, 1842. Gracious Lord, accept
my heartfelt thanks for the mercies of this day. May the words
which Stanley spoke be fixed deeply in my heart, and in the
hearts of all who heard them. Oh may the solemn responsibility
which has this day come so fully upon me make me a man of
\