Contrast the attitudes toward religious faith expressed in Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" and in Augustus Toplady's hymn "If, on a Quiet Sea."

Matthew Arnold’s famous poem “Dover Beach” contrasts
strongly and in many ways with Augustus Toplady’s hymn “If, on a Quiet Sea,”
particularly in its attitude toward religious faith. Arnold’s poem expresses great
doubts about the future of religion; Toplady’s hymn is a fervent expression of faith.
The tone of Arnold’s poem is therefore melancholy, while the tone of Toplady’s hymn is
optimistic and hopeful. Other contrasts between the two poems, especially as they relate
to religious faith, include the
following:

• Arnold’s poem presents a speaker
  addressing another human being, not God. Toplady’s hymn presents a speaker directly
  addressing God himself and thus confident in God’s
  existence.


• Arnold’s speaker speaks solely for himself,
  thus suggesting his sense of isolation and his attempt to overcome it. Toplady’s speaker
  is a spokesman for himself and others, who are joined in a common
  faith and a common devotion to God.


• Arnold’s depiction of
  the “Sea of Faith” (21) is dark and
  pessimistic:

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. . . I only
hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing
roar,

Retreating . . .
(24-26)

Toplady, on the other
hand, uses the sea as a metaphor for the course of life, and he proclaims on behalf of
his fellow Christians that not only can they gratefully accept the good times and
pleasures of life (“the favoring gale” [5]) but that they can also accept and deal with
any “tempest” or “storm” that might drive them closer to “home” with God
(7-10).

• Arnold’s poem gives voice to profound
  doubt, as when his speaker says that this world, which
  seems

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So various, so beautiful, so
new

Hath really neither, nor love, nor
light,

Nor certitude, nor
peace, nor help for pain . . . (32-34) [emphasis
added]

In contrast, Toplady’s
hymn expresses faith in God’s ability to grant real peace to the human
heart:

Soon
shall our doubts and fears all yield to Thy
control;

Thy tender mercies shall
illume

The midnight of the soul.
(11-13)

Significantly,
Toplady does not deny that “doubts and fears” can and will exist in
human minds and hearts; he merely proclaims his confident faith that God is the answer
to such uncertainties and worries.

• At the end of
  Arnold’s poem, the speaker is still addressing another human being (thereby suggesting
  that he lacks sufficient faith to assume that he can address himself to God). The final
  imagery of Arnold’s poem is bleaker than anything described before, since the speaker
  presents life as resembling

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. . . a darkling
plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and
flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.
(35-37)

In contrast,
Toplady’s hymn closes not with this kind of personal, pessimistic assessment of the
state of life but with a faithful request to God:

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Teach us, in every state, to make Thy will our
own;
And when the joys of sense depart,
To live by faith alone . .
. (16-18)