DEATH OF THE REV. WILLIAM ARNOT.

Evening Star, Issue 3902, 26 August 1875, Page 3

DEATH OF THE REV. WILLIAM ARNOT.

{AUlii. ■:re J\V.-«.)

The death is announced of tlie Rev. William Arnot, of Edinburgh, one of the ablest of the Free Church ministers of Scotland, and well known by his published works all over Great Britain ■uul America. Mr Arnot, who was ordained to the ministry in ] $.39 was for many years minister of Free St. St. Peter’s, in the Anders ton district of Glasgr v ; from which, eleven years ago, ho was translated to succeed Professor (now Principal) Rainy in the Free High Church of Edinburgh. While a minister in Glasgow Sir Arnot stood in the front rank of social reformers, and on the temperance platform was specially at homo. His name on a programme was sufficient at any time to fill the City Mall. His dry caustic humor had full [day on such occasions ; and his temperance tracts, with their short powerful sentences and nervous purpose-like grasp of their subject, did effective service to the same cause. His church in Glasgow used to be the favorite haunt of students of all denominations attending the university, who, far beyond his preaching—which of its class was unsurpassed in the city—were riveted by his public prayers. In Edinburgh, again, his ministry was a great success, and maintained the high reputation of the Tree Church pulpit. Mr Arnot was also a frequent visitor to England. America recognised his ability as a theologian by conferring on him, through one of her universities, the degree of D.D, • but he never used it. but remained plain Mr Arnot to the last. Mr Arnot was the author of two volumes of lectures on the book of Proverbs, with the title of “ Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth.” They have had a large circulation on both sides of the Atlantic. He was also the editor of the ‘Family Treasury,’ and his volume—“ The Parables of our Lord ” —may be placed on the same shelf with Archbishop Trench’s “ Notes ’’ in point of thoroughness and many-sided scholarship. During the last twelve months Mr Arnot has taken a prominent part in .Scotland in the discussion on the question of disestablishment. All in every church who knew him—and he was one of the most, catholicminded of men—will regret that genial, wise, witty, and, above all, devout William Arnot has passed from the ranks of “ the laborers in the vineyard.” His death was unexpected. The Assembly in Edinburgh had hardly closed its sittings when one of its brightest and most s did ornaments closed for ever his ear tidy career. He was sixty-seven years of age, and had only been ailing slightly for a few days. Mr Arnot at a very early point in its history rendered powerful aid to the United Kingdom Alliance. Of the two inaugural sermons preached before the Ministerial Conference on the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic, held in Manchester in June, 1857, one was delivered by the Rev. William Arnot, and was afterwards published under the title, " What To Do for Drunkards, and How To Do it.”