Contrast of Essayist Matthew Arnold and Hymn Writer Augustus M. Toplady

Matthew Arnold and Augustus M. Toplady were men who were very prolific writers. Although they were not contemporaries, each man addressed serious issues of his day. Each differed in their upbringing and circumstances, had different writing styles, and held vastly diverse beliefs on the subject of reliance.

Arnold was a man who lived entirely in the nineteenth century, and became the Inspector of Schools for the British government, whereas Toplady lived completely during the eighteenth century and was a well-known hymn writer. Although they each reached different audiences, cultures, and time periods, each man’s writing technique was fruitful given the setting that the Ultimate Story-Teller had placed them in.

Arnold wrote poetry during the first few years of his writing career and later focused mainly on literary and social criticism, whilst Toplady only wrote hymns. Arnold is most known for his poems Thyrsis and “Dover Beach,” and Toplady for his beloved hymn, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.”

Both men each held a different belief when it came to the subject of reliance, and to be more specific, upon whom or what they relied on. Arnold believed in self-reliance and finding one’s self, as reflected here in his poem “Self-Dependence”: “O air-born voice! Long since, severely clear, A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: ‘Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, Who finds himself, loses his misery!” Although he recognized that the literature of his day was immoral, he did not acknowledge religion to be the answer, and called religion nothing more than “morality touched with emotion.” How more effective he would have been as a writer had he acknowledged, like Toplady did, the need for the Savior, and the change that can only come from a life that is being transformed by Him! Toplady recognized his desperate need for the Lord as his refuge, and penned the following words: “While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold thee on thy throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let my hide myself in thee.”

While diverse writing styles and circumstances are usually wonderful things to celebrate, Arnold and Toplady both had very dissimilar views on the imperative topic of reliance. It would not be fair in the least to say that they both were amazing men who had perfect views in their own ways. No, truth is never relative; therefore, Toplady, though a mere imperfect human being, just like the rest of humanity, was most in the right, as he recognized that apart from God, we can do nothing (see John 15:5), unlike Arnold’s view of self-dependence. When comparing and contrasting, one must recognize the Truth, and look upon everything else from that viewpoint.