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THE LIFE

OF

EDWARD IBVING,

MINISTER OF

THE NATIONAL SCOTCH CBMCfl, LONDON.

SUrataifei hq Iris Snuntnls ntii Cnrasjiiratottr?.

MRS. OLIPHANT.

" Whether I live, I live unto the Lord ; and whether I die, I die unto the Lord : living or dying,
I am the Lord's." Amen.

NEW YOEK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
18 62.

TO ALL WHO LOYE THE MEMORY OF
EDWARD IRVING,
WHICH THE WRITER HAS FOUND BY MUCH EXPERIMENT
TO MEAN ALL WHO EYEE KNEW HIM,

$j}t$i Snnk is SrartM.

PREFACE,

It seems necessary to say something by way of excusing my
self for what I feel must appear to many the presumption of un
dertaking so serious a work as this biography. I need not relate
the various unthought-of ways by which I have been led to
undertake it, which are my apology to myself rather than to the
public ; but I may say that, in a matter so complicated and deli
cate, it appeared to me a kind of safeguard that the writer of
Edward Irving's life should be a person without authority to
pronounce judgment on one side or the other, and interested
chiefly with the man himself, and his noble, courageous warfare
through a career encompassed with all human agonies. I hoped
to get personal consolation amid heavy troubles out of a life so
full of great love, faith, and sorrow ; and I have found this life
so much more lofty, pure, and true than my imagination, that the
picture, unfolding under my hands, has often made me pause to
think how such a painter as the Blessed Angelico took the atti
tude of devotion at his labor, and painted such saints on his
knees. The large extracts which, by the kindness of his surviv
ing children, I have been permitted to make from- Irving's letters,
will show the readers of this book, better than any description,
what manner of man he was ; and I feel assured that to be able
thus to illustrate the facts of his history by his own exposition
of its heart and purpose is to do him greater justice than could
be hoped for from any other means of interpretation.
My thanks are due, first and above all, to Professor Martin Ir
ving, of Melbourne, and to his sister, Mrs. Gardiner, London, who
have kindly permitted me the use of their father's letters; to the

vi ' PREFACE.
Rev. James Brodie and Mrs. Brodie, of Monimail, and Miss Mar
tin, Edinburgh; to J. Fergusson, Esq., and "W. Dickson, Esq.,
Glasgow, nephews of Irving ; the Bev. Dr. Grierson, of Errol ;
Patrick Sheriff, Esq., of Haddington ; Mrs. Carlyle, Chelsea ; the
Rev. Dr. Hanna ; M. N". Macdonald Hume, Esq. ; James Bridges,
Esq. ; Rev. D. Ker, Edinburgh ; Rev. J. M. Campbell, late of
Row ; J. Hatley Frere, Esq., London ; Rev. A. J. Scott, of Man
chester ; Dr. G. M. Scott, Hampstead ; Rev. R. H. Story, of Ros-
neath ; and other friends of Irving, some of them now beyond
the reach of earthly thanks — among whom I may mention the
late Henry Drummond, Esq., of Albury, and Mrs. "Wm. Hamilton
— who have kindly placed letters and other memoranda at my
disposal, or given me the benefit of their personal recollections.
M. 0. W. Oliphant.
Ealing, April, 1862.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
his parentage and childhood.
The Irvings and Lowthers. — Peculiarities of the Race. — His immediate family. —
Life in Annan. — Universal Friendliness. — Traditions of the District. — The Cove
nanters. — Birth of Edward. — His Parents. — Peggy Paine's School. — Hannah
Douglas. — Annan Academy. — Out-door Education. — Solway Sands. — Escaping
from the Tide. — Early Characteristics. — Sunday Pilgrimages. — The "Whigs." —
Ecclefechan. — His youthful Companions. — Strange Dispersion. — Home Influ
ences. — Leaving Annan  Page 17
CHAPTER II.
HIS COLLEGE LIFE.
Prolonged Probation of Scotch Ministers. — Boy-Students. — Independence. — Hard
Training. — Journeys on Foot. — Early Reading. — Distinctions in Society. — Pa
trons and Associates. — Carlyle's Description of Irving. — Early Labors  33
CHAPTER III.
HADDINGTON.
The Doctor's little Daughter. — The first Declension. — Conflict between Pity and
Truth.— New Friends. — Sport and Study. — Holiday Science. — Incident in St.
George's Church. — Society in Haddington. — Bolton Manse. — Young Compan
ions. — Extent of his Work. — Courage and Cheerfulness. — Leaves Haddington 40
CHAPTER IV.
KIRKCALDY.
Kirkcaldy Academy. — Personal Appearance. — Severe Discipline. — Doing all
Things heartily. — Kirkcaldy Sands. — Milton Class. — Schoolboy Chivalry. —
"Much respected Pupils." — Love-making. — Confidential Disclosures.— Engage
ment. — The Minister of Kirkcaldy. — The Manse Household. — Sister Elizabeth. —
Her Husband. — Irving's first Sermon. — Superiority to "The Paper." — "Ower
muckle Gran'ner." — Other people's Sermons. — His Thoughts about Preaching. —
In a Highland Inn. — Warlike Aspiration. — General Assembly. — Debate on Plu
ralities. — Intolerance of Circumstances. — Abbotshall School-house  ,49
CHAPTER V.
AFLOAT ON THE WORLD.
Bristo Street. — Renewed Studies.— Advice. — Literary Societies. — Begins Anew. —
Was his own Hearer. — Undisturbed Belief. — His Haddington Pupil. — Candor
and Pugnacity. — Clouded Prospects. — The Apostolic Missionary. — Domestic Let
ters. — Carlyle. — Hopes and Fears. — Preaches in St. George's, Edinburgh. — Sus
pense. — Goes to Ireland. — Wanderings. — Invitation to Glasgow. — Interest in
Church Affairs. — Doubtful of his own Success  67

viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
GLASGOW.
Dr. Chalmers's Helper.— Condition of Glasgow. — Irving's Political Sentiments.—
State of the Country in General. — Irving's Confidence in the Radicals. — The
Calton Weavers. — Chalmers and Irving. — Incessant Labors. — The Parish of St.
John. — Its Autocrat. — The Shoemaker. — "He kens about Leather." — Apostolic
Benediction. — Intercourse with the Poor. — A Legacy. — The Help of a Brother. —
"It's no himsel."— Two Presbyters.— The Peddler.— "A Man on Horse."— The
Howies. — Holiday Adventures. — Simplicity of Heart. — Solemnity of Deport
ment. — Convicts in Glasgow Jail. — Irving patronized by the Office-bearers. — In
the Shade. — His Loyalty and Admiration. — The bright Side. — The dark Side. —
Missionary Projects renewed. — The Caledonian Chapel, Hatton Garden. — Letter
of Recommendation. — Favorable Prognostications. — Irving desires to go to Lon
don. — His Pleasure in his Reception there. — Obstacles. — The Caledonian Asy
lum. — Pledges himself to learn Gaelic. — Bond required by the Presbytery. — Visits
to Paisley. — Removal of Obstacles. — Rosneath. — Happy Anticipations. — Farewell
Sermon. — Offers his Services in London to all. — Receives a farewell Present. —
The Annandale Watchmaker. — A "singular Honor." — Goes to London Page 81
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON, 1822.
First Appearance. — Satisfaction with his new Sphere. — His Thoughts and Hopes. —
Outset in Life. — Chalmers in London.— Appeals to Irving's Sympathy. — Progress
in Popularity. — "Our Scottish Youth." — Canning and Mackintosh. — Happy Ob
scurity. — The "Happy Warrior." — The Desire of his Heart. — His first House
hold  .'  115
CHAPTER VIII.
1823.
The Orations. — Irving's much Experience in Preaching. — Addresses himself to Edu
cated Men. — Argument for Judgment to come. — Assailed by Critics. — Mock Tri
al.-— Indictment before the Court of Common Sense. — Acquittal. — Description of
the Church and Preacher. — Influence of his Personal Appearance. — Inconvenien
ces of Popularity. — Success of the Book. — A rural Sunday. — His Marriage.—
His Wife. — The bridal Holiday. — Reappearance in St. John's. — Return to Lon
don. — Preface to the Third Edition of the Orations. — His Dedications and Pref
aces generally. — Mr. Basil Montagu. — Irving's grateful Acknowledgments. — His
early Dangers in Society. — Bedford Square. — Coleridge. — His Influence on the
Views of Irving. — Social Charities. — A simple Presbyter  124
CHAPTER IX.
1824.
Failure of Health. — Determination to do his Work thoroughly. — Proposes to write
a Missionary Sermon. — For Missionaries after the Apostolical School.  The wan
dering Apostle. — Consternation of the Audience. — Wrath of the religious World.
— A Martyr Missionary.— Publication of the Oration. — An Exeter Hall Meeting.
—Protest against the Machinery of Evangelism. — Dedication to Coleridge.  Lavish
Acknowledgments.— Coldness and Estrangement. — The Presbyterian Eldership.
— Its Duties and Privileges. — Irving forms his Kirk-session. — Birth of little Ed-

CONTENTS. ix
ward.— Personal Charities.— A lost Life.— Hospitality.— Commencement of the
new Church.— Evangelieal Journey.— Birmingham.— Home Society.— "In God
he lived and moved"  page li3
CHAPTER X.
1825.
Irving's Introduction to the Study of Prophecy.— The Fascination of that Study.—
His Conscientiousness in treating his Subjects.— Habits of Thought.— Sermon to
the Continental Society.— Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed.— Sermons on pub
lic Occasions. —Hibernian Bible Society. —An Afternoon among the Poor. —
Irving's "Way."— Invitation to remove to Edinburgh.— His Answer.— His Man
ner of Life.— The Paddington Coach.— His Letter of Welcome to his Wife.— His
Feelings in respect to his Call to Edinburgh. — Reasons for remaining in London.
— Sermons on the Trinity. — Opinions in respect to Miracles. — Sacrament of Bap
tism. — Original Standards. — Baptismal Regeneration. — Little Edward's Illness
and Death. — Sorrow and Consolation. — Irving's Announcement of his Child's
Death. — Little Edward's Memory. — "A glorious Bud of Being." — Irving visits
the sorrowful in Kirkcaldy  161
CHAPTER XI.
JOURNAL.
Wanderings among the Hills.— An Apostolical Journey.— Annan.— Incidents of a
Stage-coach Journey. — Arrival at Home. — Commencement of Journal-letters. —
Morning Worship. — Historical Reading. — Bishop Overall's Convocation Book. —
"Idolatry of the Memory." — Devotion and Study. — Visions of the Night. —
Breakfast Party. — A Day in the City. — Book-stalls. — Christian Counsel. — In
Faintness and Fervor. — "For the Consolation of Edward's Mother." — The Secret
of Fellowship. — Influence of the Landscape. — Wisdom and Power. — Prayers for
the Absent. — Interceding for the People. — A Sunday's Services. — Exposition. —
Sermon. — Evening Service. — His Responsibility as Head of the Household. — At
Home. — Scottish Adventurers. — The Priest and his Catechumens. — Two Sisters.
— A Companion for his Isabella. — A Son from the Lord. — Weariness. — A Spirit
full of Inspirations. — Returns to the Convocation Book. — Study. — A Reunion of
Young Christians. — Self-denial in Religious Conversation. — "A very rich Har
vest." — Temptations of Satan. — Pastoral Visits. — A Sick-bed. — Correggio's "St.
John." — Prayers. — Ecclesiasticus. — .Deteriorating Effect of a Great City. — Two
London Boys. — A logical Companion. — Sunday Services. — Want of Faith. — Iiit-
tle Edward's Ministry. — An Intellectualist. — Influence of Custom. — Remonstrance
about Length of Services. — The Peace-offering. — Philanthropy. — The Mystery of
the Trinity. — Missionaries. — Readings in Hebrew. — Letters of Introduction. — The
Church as a House. — Simple and unprovided Faith. — Funeral Services. — The
Twelfth Day of the Month. — Sunday Morning. — Presentiments. — True Brother
hood. — The prodigal Widow. — Undirected Letters. — A London Sponging-house.
— Joseph in Prison. — From House to House. — Christian Intercourse. — Domestic
Worship. — A Death-bed. — A good Voyage. — The Theology of Medicine. — The
Glory of God. — HuskineSs about the Heart.;— The Spirit of a Man. — Different
Forms of the worldly Spirit. — Try the Spirits. — A Benediction to the Absent-
Visions of the Night. — Sunday. — The Ministry of Women. — Morning Visitors. —
A Dream. — Skeptics. — The four Spirits. — Religious Belles. — Best Manner of con
tending with Infidelity. — A subtle Cantab. — A Circle of Kinsfolk. — Pleasures of

x CONTENTS.
the Table: Pea-soup and Potatoes. — The Spirit of a former Age.— The lost
She6p.  The Influence of the Holy Spirit. —New Testament History of the Church.
—The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men.— Wisdom. — Farewell Counsels.— A
Funeral.  The Joy of Grief. — Management. — Deterioration. — The new Church.
—Ministerial Liberty.— Dreams of Edward.— The Spirit of Prayer.— "My Dum
friesshire."  Paralytic in Soul. — Under-current of Thought during Prayer. —
Money, the universal Falsehood. — Lessons in Spanish. — The Wings of Love. —
Parables. — Tokens of God's Blessing. — Irving's Anxiety about his Wife's Jour
ney.— A young Visitor. — A "Benedict." — Evils of Formality. — Benediction.—
Irving's only Journal  Page 180
CHAPTER XII.
1826, 1827.
The Headship of Christ. — A Baptized Christendom. — Expansion. — Ben-Ezra. —
The Spanish Jesuit. — Irving's Consistency. — A Christian Nation. — Political Opin
ions. — Rest and Relaxation. — Beckenham. — His "Helper meet for him." — The
HibernianBible Society. — Albury. — Henry Drummond. — Conference for the Study
of Prophecy. — Concerning the Second Advent. — A School of Prophets. — Irving's
Verses. — The anti-Christ. — A Herald of the Lord's Coming. — Signs of the Times.
— The Fife Bank. — Help and Consolation. — Opening of National Scotch Church.
— Unanimity of the Congregation. — Dr. Chalmers's Diary. — Irving keeps Chal
mers waiting. — Dr. Chalmers shakes his Head. — Important Crisis. — Fashion went
her idle Way. — Irving's own Evidence on the Subject. — Reality. — Cessation of
the Crowd.— "The Plate."— Irving's Offering.— The Bible Society.— A May
Meeting. — A Moment of Depression. — Projects for the Future. — Lectures on Bap
tism. — Seed-time. — Ordination Charge. — Vaughan of Leicester. — The Light that
never was on Sea or Shore  -  264
CHAPTER XIII.
1828.
Sermons on the Trinity. — Unconscious of any Doubt on the Subject. — The Fellow
ship of Christ. — Discoveries made by the Rev. Mr. Cole. — A theological Spy. —
Follows the Preacher to the Vestry. — First Accusation of Heresy. — The Orthodox
Doctrine of the Church. — Irving's Manner of Meeting the Attack. — The Cloud
like a Man's Hand. — Apology for the Church of Scotland. — Irving carries his
Message to his own Country.— Plan of his Journey. — Annan Market. — His Labors
among his own People. — Arrival in Great King Street. — St. Andrew's Church be
sieged by the Crowd.— Excitement in Edinburgh.— Dissatisfaction of Chalmers.—
The Statesman and the Visionary.— Uses of the Impracticable. — Religious Thought
in Scotland. — Campbell of Row. — A new Friend. — Irving's Faculty of Learning.
— Rosneath. — Row. — A. J. Scott. — Accident at Kirkcaldy. — Cruel Reproaches. 
Irving visits Perth. — Returns to London. — Immediate Return to his usual La
bors.— Happiness in Returning.— The Last Days.— Irving's Anxieties.— Opposi
tion to his Doctrine of the Second Advent. — Improvement in his Wife's Health.
—His Anxiety for her Return.— Pause in the Saturday Occupation.— Consulta
tions about Prophecy. — Publishing Negotiations. — A Bible Society Meeting. 
Anticipates "Casting out of the Synagogue."— His Birthday.— Instructions and
Prayers.— The Lost Tribes. —Resignation to God's Will.— Arrangement about his
Trinity Sermons.— The Bishop of Chester.— Contract with Publishers.  Tale of
the Martyrs. — Excess of Health. — Harrowgate. — A true Apostolical Church. 

CONTENTS. xj
The Year's Work. — Pastoral Duties. — The Threshold of a new Future. — High
Anticipations. — Vaughan of Leicester. — Second Albury Conference. — Dr. Mar
tin's Account of its Results. — Mutterings of the coming Storm. — Trust of his
People  Page 294
CHAPTER XIV.
1829.
Degree of D.D. — The great Hope of the Church. — Form of Baptism. — Irving's Be
lief in his own Orthodoxy. — Misstatements of his Doctrine. — The Morning Watch.
— Words of Consolation. — Judd Place. — Visit to Edinburgh. — Preparations for his
Course of Lectures. — The two little Ballad-singers. — Annan. — Edinburgh. — The
General Assembly. — He appears at the Bar. — His Commission rejected. — Lectures
in Hope Park Chapel. — Preaches in Dumfriesshire. — Employment of his Summer
Holiday. — In Glasgow. — Bathgate. — "God loves you." — Incident in Kirkcaldy.
— His Views of Church and State. — Dedication of the Book.— The Representa
tives of three Generations. — Whisper of "Heretic." — His Circle in London. — The
Journeymen Bakers. — Family Sorrows. — Joseph Wolff's two Greeks. — Their Edu
cation and Maintenance. — Weekly Issue of Lectures. — The third Conference at
Albury. — Notes of the Conference. — Communion  337
CHAPTER XV.
1830.
A new Light. — Influence of Scott. — Mary Campbell. — Campbell of Row. — Reli
gious Fermentation in Clydesdale. — Tract on our Lord's Human Nature. — The
Man of Sorrows. — Beginning of the Conflict. — Gift from Friends in Edinburgh. —
The Christian Instructor. — Irving's Letter to Mr. Dods. — Statement of his own
Belief. — Invitation to brotherly Conference. — Heart-sickness. — Letter to Dr. Chal
mers. — Irving's Confidence in his Judgment. — Chalmers' timid Silence. — Prosecu
tion of Mr. Maclean. — Unfair Inquisition. — Proceedings in Mr. Scott's Case. —
Deliverance of the Presbytery. — Advice in the Dreghorn Case. — Necessity for
Caution and Patience. — Presbytery of London. — "God send better Days." — Fer-
nicarry. — Mary Campbell. — The Gift of Tongues. — The first Prophetess. — The
Macdonalds. — The Gift of Healing. — The Manifestations believed by many. —
Eagerly hailed by living. — Dr. Chalmers in London. — Irving, Chalmers, and Cole
ridge. — Fears for the Church of Scotland. — Irving's renewed Appeal to his "Mas
ter." — Farewell of Irving and Chalmers. — Little Samuel's Illness. — Irving's new
Surroundings. —His miraculous Heart. — Albury. — A faithful Wife. — The chief
Physician. — Serving God for Naught. — Resignation. — Irving's Visit to Ireland. —
Powerscourt. — Dublin. — Little Maggie's Song. — " Out of the Mouth of Babes and
Sucklings." — Congratulations. — Note on Samuel Martin's Bible. — Seamen's Asy
lum. — Movement in the Presbytery of London. — Dutifulness to the Church. — A
contumacious Brother. — Irving separates from the Presbytery. — Gives up his pro
posed Visit to Scotland.— Fright and Agreement of the Presbytery. — His Iso
lation. -Statement by his Kirk Session. — Petition to the King. — Lord Mel
bourne  361
CHAPTER XVI.
1831.
Church Conflicts. — Reference to the Mother Church. — The Usury of Tears. — Ir
ving's Repetition of his Belief. — Christ's Holiness in the Flesh. — Prayer for the

x|j CONTENTS.
General Assembly. — " In Labors abundant." — His Attitude and Aspect. — On the
Threshold of Fate. — Meeting of the General Assembly. — Position assumed by Mr.
geott.  The Assembly's Decisions. — Irving's Determination to defend his Rights.
 Peculiarity of the two Cases of Heresy. — Not heretical Opinions, but realizing
Faith.  Condemnation of Irving's Doctrine. — Prayers for the Outpouring of the
Spirit.  Inspiration of the Last Days. — First Appearance of the Tongues. — His
Prepossession.— The Prayer of Faith. — The Answer of God. — The Fulfillment of
Promise. — Trying the Spirits. — His unjudicial Mind. — The Baptism of the Holy
Ghost. — Inevitable Separation. — Utterances permitted at Morning Meetings. —
Probation. — Excitement in the Congregation. — Crisis. — The Matter taken out of
his Hands. — First Utterance in the Sunday Worship. — Commotion at the Evening
Service. — The Tumults of the People. — Comments of the Press. — Increase to the
Church. — Order of the Morning Service. — Character of the Tongues. — Supposed
to be existing Languages. — Described by Irving. — The Utterances in English. —
Their Influence. — Virtuous Indignation. — His Determination at all Hazards. —
Withdraws the last Restraint. — Impossibility of drawing Back. — Remonstrances
of his Friends. — First Meeting of the Trustees. — "If I perish, I perish." — Affec
tionate Conspiracy. — Future Order of Worship. — Full Statement of his Inten
tions. — Publications of the Year. — Original Standards of the Church. — The West
minster Confession. — Recalls the Church of Scotland to herself. — Papers in the
Morning Watch. — Irving and the Record. — The Trustees. — The Kirk-Session. —
His Remonstrance. — Importunities of his Friends  Page 404
CHAPTER XVII.
1832.
"Bedlam'' and "Chaos." — Robert Baxter. — Farther Development of the Power. —
The Two Witnesses. — Authoritative Interpretation of Prophecy. — Baxter's Nar
rative. — Inner World Revealed by it. — Attitude of Irving. — Retains his Influence
as Pastor. — Mystic Atmosphere.— Evangelists. — Inevitable Progress. — The Trus
tees take Counsel's Opinion. — Irving's Public Intimation of the Danger. — His Ad
vice to his People. — Answer to the Trustees. — Sir Edward Sugden's Advice. — The
foregone Conclusion of the Presbytery. — Their Authority finally appealed to. — The
Life of the Accused. — "Reproach hath broken my Heart." — The Angel of the
Church. — "Unwearied and Unceasing." — Fundamental Question involved. — Last
Remonstrance. — Warning. — Not the Shadow of a Doubt. — Banishing the Voice
of Jesus.— Impassioned Appeal. — The Trustees' Complaint. — Meeting of the Pres
bytery.— Recantation of Baxter.— Beginning of the Trial. — Examination of Wit
nesses: The Elder.— Appeal to the Scriptures. — Examination continued: The
Prophet. — "Did you hear any Conversation any where?"— Calling Names.  Ex
amination continued : The Deacon. — Sudden Blandness of the Examiners.  Con
clusion of the Evidence.— Unanimity of the Witnesses.— The Disenchanted Proph
et.— Unmoved by Discouragement.— Order of Irving's Defense.— The Head of
every Man.— An undivided Allegiance.— Records of Ecclesiastical Antiquity.—
The Conscience of the Presbytery.— Character of the Evidence.— Speech of the
Accuser.— Irving's Reply.— Whether the Work be of the. Holy Ghost.— The Pro
phetic Character.— "Dishonesty."— Tempted to withdraw from the Contest.—
Prefers his Duty as ¦* Pastor to his Feelings.— Standeth or Falleth to his own
Master.— A Lamb of the Flock.— Decision of the Presbytery.— Their Recklessness.
—Scraps of the Confession. — The Character of Presbyterian Worship.— -'What
could they do?— Sentence.— Irving "unfit" to remain a Minister.— Triumph of
the Press.— Times and Record.— The Fast-day.— Closing of the Church.— Gray's

CONTENTS. xiii
Inn Road. — Out-door Preaching. — The Lost Child. — Affectionate Recollections.
— The Scotch Psalms. — Islington Green. — Princely Hospitality. — How to over
come Disease by Faith. — Sufferings. — Resolved to Fall at his Post. — Victory over
the Body. — State of the Public Mind. — Reported "falling off" in Irving's Mind.
— The Morning Watch the Organ of the Church. — The Sick Child. — Invitation to
the Kirkcaldy Relations. — Prospered by the Lord. — The Despised in Israel. — De
velopment. — A new Order of Things. — Irving announces certain Changes. — Ar
rangement of the Church in Newman Street. — Opening Services. — Manifestations.
— Their Character. — Another Assault. — Weariness  Page 446
CHAPTER XVIII.
1833.
Inquiries of Mr. Campbell. — Irving's Reply. — The Fountain of Sweet Waters. — Let
ter to Alan Ker. — Position of the Angel. — God's Footsteps are not known. — Ir
ving's Mode of explaining himself. — His Reasonableness. — Contrast between Ir
ving arid Baxter. — Doctrine of "the Humanity." — Fighting in the Dark. — An
nan Presbytery. — Incompetence of the Judges. — Irving's arrival in Annan. — Da
vid and Goliath. — Irving's Defense. — The Captain of our Salvation. — Decision of
the Presbytery. — Scene in Annan Church. — Irving leaves the Church. — Deposi
tion. — His Letter to his People. — His Deliverance. — Nithsdale and Annandale. —
Set aside by his own Church. — Reordination. — The Christian Priest. — "Our dear
Father's Letter." — Another Death. — Infant Faith. — An American Spectator. —
The Morning Watch. — Conclusion of that Periodical. — Irving's Difficulties. — An
embarrassing Restraint. — The Communion in Newman Street. — Many Trials. —
Expectation of Power from on High. — Walking in Darkness  511
CHAPTER XIX.
1834. — THE END.
Sent to Edinburgh. — Is no longer his own Master. — Exhaustion. — Tender Courtesy.
— Reappearance out of the Shadows. — Projects his Journey. — Leaves London. —
The Hand of the Lord upon him. — Bridgenorth. — His ancient Counselor. — Let
ter to his Children. — The Royal Oak. — Beauty and Blessedness of the Land. —
Young Clergymen. — Healing both to Body and Soul. — Satisfied in beholding
God's Works. — Birthday Letter. — Well-sunned, well-aired Mountains. — Cader
Idris. — Care not to take his Wife "out of her Place." — Bedd-Gelert. — Beginning
of the End. — Legend "for Maggie." — Renewed Illness. — Yearns for his Wife. —
Well with the just Man at the .Last. — Alarm of his Relations. — Voyage to Green
ock. — Enters Glasgow. — His last Letter. — Flesh and Heart faint and fail. — His
Certainty of Recovery. — At the Gates of Heaven. — Amen! — He died and was
buried. — A Saint and Martyr  537

APPENDICES.
A. Case of Miss Fancourt, as described by herself in a Letter to a Friend1  561
B. Extracts from Mr. Baxter's "Narrative of Facts" in respect to the so-called mi
raculous gifts  562
C. Speeches of Irving before the Presbytery of London, March, 1832  570

LIFE OF EDWARD IRVING.

EDWARD IRVING.

CHAPTER I.
HIS PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.
The Irvings and Lowthers. — Peculiarities of the Race. — His immediate family. —
Life in Annan. — Universal Friendliness. — Traditions of the District. — The Cove
nanters. — Birth of Edward. — His Parents. — Peggy Paine's School. — Hannah
Douglas. — Annan Academy. — Out-door Education. — Solway Sands. — Escaping
from the Tide. — Early Characteristics. — Sunday Pilgrimages. — The "Whigs." —
Ecclefechan. — His youthful Companions. — Strange Dispersion. — Home Influ
ences. — Leaving Annan.
In the autumn of the eventful year 1792, at the most singular
crisis of the world's history which has arisen in modern times —
when France was going mad in her revolution, and the other
nations of Christendom were crowding in, curious and dismayed,
to see that spectacle which was to result in so many other changes,
but far away from all those outcries and struggles, in the peaceful
little Scotch town of Annan, Edward Irving, the story of whose
life is to be told in the following pages, was born. He was the
son of Gavin Irving, of a long-established local kindred, well-
known, but undistinguished, who followed the humble occupation
of a tanner in Annan, and of Mary Lowther, the handsome and
high-spirited daughter of a small landed proprietor in the adjacent
parish of Dornoch. Among the Irving forefathers were a family
of Howys, Albigenses, or at least French Protestant refugees, one
of whom had become parish minister in Annan, and has left be
hind him some recollections of lively wit worthy his race, and a
tomb-stone, with a quaint inscription, which is one of the wonders
of the melancholy and crowded church-yard, or rather burying-
ground ; for the present church of the town has left the graves
behind. The same dismal inclosure, with its nameless mounds,
rising mysterious through the rugged grass, proclaims the name
of Irving on every side in many lines of kindred ; but these tomb
stones seem almost the only record extant of the family. The
Lowthers were more notable people. The eldest brother, Tris-
B

18 THE IRVINGS AND LOWTHERS.
tram, whom Edward characterizes as " Uncle Tristram of Dor
noch, the willful," seems to have been' one of the acknowledged
characters of that characteristic country. He lived and died a
bachelor, saving, litigious, and eccentric ; and determined to enjoy
in his lifetime that fame which is posthumous to most men, he
erected his own tomb-stone in Dornoch church-yard, recording on
it the most memorable of his achievements. The greatest of these
were, winning a lawsuit in which he had been engaged against his
brothers, and building a bridge. It appears that he showed true
wisdom in getting what satisfaction he could out of this autobio
graphical essay while he lived; for his respectable heirs have
balked Tristram, and carried away the characteristic monument.
Another brother lives in local tradition as the good-natured giant
of the district. It is told of him that, having once accompanied
his droves into England (they were all grazier farmers by profes
sion), the Scottish Hercules, placid of temper, and perhaps a little
slow of apprehension, according to the nature of giants, was re
freshing himself in an old-fashioned tavern — locality uncertain —
supposed to be either the dock precincts of Liverpool, or the
eastern wastes of London. The other guests in the great sanded
kitchen, where they were all assembled, amused themselves with
an attempt to "chaff" and aggravate the stranger; and finding
this tedious work, one rash joker went so far as to insult him, and
invite a quarrel. George Lowther bore it long, probably slow to
comprehend the idea of quarreling with such antagonists ; at last,
when his patience was exhausted, the giant, grimly humorous, if
not angry, seized, some say a great iron spit from the wall, some
a poker from the hearth, and twisting it round the neck of his
unfortunate assailant, quietly left him to the laughter and condo
lences of his comrades till a blacksmith could be brought to re
lease him from that impromptu pillory. Gavin Irving's wife was
of this stout and primitive race. Her activity and cheerful, high-
spirited comeliness are still well remembered by the contempora
ries of her children; and even the splendor of the scarlet riding-
skirt and Leghorn hat, in which she came home as a- bride, are
still reflected in some old memories.
The families on both sides were of competent substance and
reputation, and rich in individual character. No wealth, to speak
of, existed among them : a little patriarchal foundation of land
and cattle, from which the eldest son might perhaps claim a terri
torial designation if his droves found prosperous market across the

HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY.

19

border ; the younger sons, trained to independent trades, one of
them, perhaps, not disdaining to throw his plaid over his shoul
der and call his dog to his heels behind one of these same droves,
a sturdy novitiate to his grazier life ; while the inclinations of
another might quite as naturally and suitably lead him to such
study of law as may be necessary for a Scotch " writer," or to the
favorite and most profoundly respected of all professions, "the
ministry," as it is called in Scotland. The Irving and Lowther
families embraced both classes, with all the intermediary steps
between them ; and Gavin Irving and his wife, in their little
house at Annan, stood perhaps about midway between the homely
refinement of the Dumfriesshire manses and the rude profusion of
the Annandale farms.
Of this marriage eight children were "born — three sons, John,
Edward, and George, all of whom were educated to learned pro
fessions ; and five daughters, all respectably married, one of whom
still survives, the last of her family. All the sisters seem to have
left representatives behind them ; but John and George both died
unmarried before the death of their distinguished brother. The
eldest, whom old friends speak of as "one of the handsomest
young men of his day," and whom his father imagined the genius
of the family, died obscurely in India on Edward's birthday, the
4th of August, in the prime of his manhood, a medical officer in
the East India Company's service. He was struck down by jun
gle fever, a sharp and sudden blow, and his friends had not even
the satisfaction of knowing fully the circumstances of his death.
But henceforward the day, made thus doubly memorable, was
consecrated by Edward as a solemn fast-day, and spent in the
deepest seclusion. Under the date of a letter, written on the 2d
of August some years after, he writes the following touching
note: "4 August, Dies natalis atque fatalis incidit" translated un
derneath by himself, "The day of birth and death draweth nigh."
The highest art could not have reared such a monument to the
early dead.
The stormy firmament under which these children were born,
and all the commotions going on in the outside world, scarcely
seem to have fluttered the still atmosphere of the little rural town
in which they first saw the light. There the quiet years were
revolving, untroubled by either change or tumult : quiet traffic,
slow, safe, and unpretending, sailed its corn-laden sloops from the
"Water-foot, the little port where Annan water flows into the Sol-

20 LIFE IN ANNAN.
way, and sent its droves across the border, and grew soberly rich
without alteration of either position or manners. The society of
the place was composed of people much too well known in all
the details and antecedents of their life to entertain for a moment
the idea of forsaking their humble natural sphere. The Kirk lay
dormant, by times respectable and decorous, by times, unfortu
nately, much the reverse, but very seldom reaching a higher
point than that of respectability. Politics did not exist as an
object of popular interest. The " Magistrates" of Annan elected
their sixth part of a member of Parliament dutifully as his grace's
agents suggested, and gleaned poor posts in the Customs and Ex
cise for their dependent relations. The parish school, perhaps of
a deeper efficiency than any thing else in the place, trained boys
and girls together into stout practical knowledge, and such rude
classic learning as has established itself throughout Scotland.
High Puritanism, such as is supposed to form the distinguishing
feature of Scotch communities, was undreamed of in this little
town. According to its fashion, Annan was warmly hospitable
and festive, living in a little round of social gayeties. These
gayeties were for the most part tea-parties, of a description not
now known, unless, perhaps, they may still linger in Annan and
its companion towns — parties in which tea was a meal of much
serious importance, accompanied by refreshments of a more sub
stantial kind, and followed by a sober degree of joviality. The
families who thus amused themselves grew up in the closest rela
tions of neighborship ; they sent off sons into the world to gain
name and fame beyond the highest dreams of the country-side,
yet to be fondly claimed on coming back with an old affection
closer than fame, as still the well-known John or Edward of all
their contemporaries in Annan. Nothing could contrast more
strangely with the idea which, looking back, we instinctively
form of the state of matters at that stirring epoch, than this little
neutral-colored community, dimly penetrated by its weekly news
paper, living a long way off from all startling events, and only
waking into knowledge of the great commotions going on around
when other occurrences had obliterated them and their interest
was exhausted. Nor was there any intellectual or spiritual move
ment among themselves to make up. The Kirk, the great main
spring of Scottish local life, was dormant, as we have said— as
indeed the Church was at this era in most places throughout the
world. The Annan clergyman was one whom old parishioners

TRADITIONS OF THE DISTRICT.— THE COVENANTERS. 21
still can scarcely bear to blame, but who in his best days could
only be spoken of with affectionate pity ; a man whose habitual
respect for his own position made him " always himself" in the
pulpit — a quaint and melancholy distinction- — -and who never
would tolerate the sound of an oath even when constantly fre
quenting places where oaths were very usual embellishments of
conversation. Religion had little active existence in the place, as
may be supposed; but the decorum which preserved the minis
ter's Sundays in unimpeachable sobriety kept up throughout the
community a certain religious habit, the legacy of a purer genera
tion. Household psalms still echoed of nights through the closed
windows, and children, brought up among few other signs of
piety, were yet trained in the habit of family prayers. This was
almost all the religion which existed in Puritan Scotland in these
eventful French Revolution days, and even this was owing more
to the special traditions of the soil in such a region as Annandale
than to any deeper impulse of faith.
For outside this comfortable prosaic world was a world of im
agination and poetry, never to be dissevered from that border
country. Strange difference of a few centuries! The Annan
dale droves went peaceably to the southern market past many a
naked peel-house and austere tower of defense on both sides of
the border; but the country, watched and guarded by these old
apparitions, had not forgotten the moss-troopers : and far more
clearly and strongly, with vision scarcely sufficiently removed
from the period even to be impartial, the district which held the
Stones of Irongray, and inclosed many a Covenanter's grave, re
membered that desperate fever and frenzy of persecution through
which the Kirk had once fought her way. I recollect, at a dis
tance of a great many years, the energy with which a woman-
servant from that country-side told tales of the " Lag," who is
the Claverhouse of the border, till the imagination of a nursery,
far removed from the spot, fixed upon him, in defiance of all
nearer claims, as the favorite horror — the weird, accursed spirit,
whom young imaginations, primitive and unsentimental, have no
compunctions about delivering over to Satan. This old world of
adventurous romance and martyr legend thrilled and palpitated
around the villages of Annandale. The educated people in the
town, the writer or the doctor, or possibly the minister, all the
men who were wiser than their neighbors, might perhaps enter
tain enlightened views touching those Covenanter fanatics whom

22 BIRTH OF EDWARD.
enlightened persons are not supposed to entertain much sympathy
with ; but in the tales of the ingleside— in the narratives heard by
the red glow of the great kitchen fire, or in the farm-house chim
ney-corner — enlightened views, were out of court, and the home
spun martyrs of the soil were absolute masters of all hearts and
suffrages. And perhaps few people out of the reach of such an
influence can comprehend the effect which is produced upon the
ardent, young, inexperienced imagination by those familiar tales
of torture endured and death accomplished by men bearing the
very names of the listeners, and whose agony and triumph have
occurred in places of which every nook and corner is familiar to
their eyes ; the impression made is such as nothing after can ever
efface or obliterate ; and it has the effect— an effect I confess not
very easily explainable to those who have not experienced it — of
weaving round the bald services of the Scotch Church a charm
of imagination more entrancing and visionary than the highest
poetic ritual could command, and of connecting her absolute ca
nons and unpicturesque economy with the highest epic and ro
mance of national faith. Perhaps this warm recollection of her
martyrs, and of that fervent devotion which alone can make mar
tyrs possible, has done more to neutralize the hard common sense
of the country, and to preserve the Scotch Church from overleg-
islating herself into decrepitude, than any other influence. "We
too, like every other Church and race, have our legends of the
Saints, and make such use of them in the depths of our reserve
and national reticence as few strangers guess or could conceive.
It was in this community that Edward Irving received his first
impressions. He was born on the 4th of August, 1792, in a little
house near the old town-cross of Annan. There he was laid in
his wooden cradle, to watch with unconscious eyes the light com
ing in at the low, long window of his mother's narrow bedcham
ber ; or rather, according to the ingenious hypothesis of a medi
cal friend of his own, to lie exercising one eye upon that light,
and intensifying into that one eye, by way of emphatic uncon
scious prophecy of the future habit of his soul, all his baby pow
er of vision — a power which the other eye, hopelessly obscured
by the wooden side of the cradle, was then unable to use, and
never after regained ; an explanation of the vulgar obliquity
called a squint, which I venture to recommend to all unpreju
diced readers. The stairs which led to Mrs. Irving's bedcham
ber ascended through the kitchen, a cheerful, well-sized apart-

EDWARD'S HOME. 23
ment as such houses go ; and in the other end of the house, next
to the kitchen, was the parlor, a small, inconceivably small room,
in which to rear a family of eight stalwart sons and daughters,
and to exercise all the hospitalities required by that sociable little
community. But society in Annan was evidently as indifferent
to a mere matter of space as society in a more advanced devel
opment. The tanner's yard was opposite the house, across the
little street. There he lived in the full exercise of his unsavory
occupation, with his children growing up round him; a quiet
man, chiefly visible as upholding the somewhat severe discipline
of the schoolmaster against the less austere virtue of the mother,
who, handsome and energetic, was the ruling spirit of the house.
It is from Mrs. Irving that her family seem to have taken that
somewhat solemn and dark type of beauty which, marred only
by the intervention of the wooden cradle, became famous in the
person of her illustrious son. I do not say that she realized the
ordinary popular notion about the mothers of great men ; but it
is apparent that she was great in all that sweet personal health,
force, and energy which distinguished her generation of Scottish
women, and which, perhaps, with the shrewdness and characteris
tic individuality which accompany it, is of more importance to
the race and nation than any degree of mere intellect. " Evan
gelicalism," said Edward Irving, long after, " has spoiled both the
minds and bodies of the women of Scotland — there are no women
now like my mother." The devoutest evangelical believer might
forgive the son for that fond and filial saying. It is clear that no
conventional manner of speech, thought, or barrier of ecclesiasti
cal proprieties unknown to nature had limited the mother of those
eight Irvings, whom she brought up accordingly in all the free
dom of a life almost rural, yet amid all the warm and kindly in
fluences of a community of friends. To be born in such a place
and such a house was to come into the world entitled to the fa
miliar knowledge and affection of "all the town" — a fact which
may be quaintly apprehended in the present Annan by the num
ber of nameless quiet old people who, half admiring and half in
credulous of the fame of their old schoolfellow, brighten up into
vague talk of " Edward" when a stranger names his name.
The first appearance which Edward Irving made out of this
house with its wooden cradle was at a little school, preparatory
to more serious education, kept by "Peggy Paine," a relation of
the unfortunate tailor-skeptic, who in those days was in uneasy

24 HANNAH DOUGLAS.
quarters in Paris, in the midst of the Revolution. An old wom
an, now settled for her old age in her native town, who had in
after years encountered her great townsman in London, and re
maining loyally faithful to his teaching all her life, is now, I sup
pose, the sole representative in Annan of the religious body com
monly called by his name, remembers in those old vernal days
how Edward helped her to learn her letters, and how they two
stammered into their first syllables over the same book in Peggy
Paine's little school. This was the beginning of a long friend
ship, as singular as it is touching, and which may here be followed
through its simple course. When Edward, long after, was the
most celebrated preacher of his day, and Hannah, the Annan girl
whom he had helped to learn her letters, was also in London, a
servant struggling in her own sphere through the troubles of that
stormier world, her old schoolfellow stretched out his cordial hand
to her, without a moment's shrinking from the work in which her
hand was engaged. It was natural that all the world about her
should soon know of that friendship. And Hannah's family
were ambitious, like every body else, of the acquaintance of the
hero of the day. He was too much sought to be easily accessi
ble, till the master and mistress bethought themselves of the in
tercession of their maid, and sent her with their invitation to back
it by her prayers. The result was a triumph for Hannah. Irving
gratified the good people by going to dine with them for his
schoolfellow's sake. I am not aware that any thing romantic or
remarkable came of the introduction so accomplished, as perhaps
ought to have happened to make the incident poetically com
plete ; but I can not help regarding it as one of the pleasantest
of anecdotes. Hannah lives at Annan, an old woman, pensioned
by the grateful representative of the family whom she had faith
fully served, and tells with tears this story of her friend, and
stands a homely, solitary pillar, the representative of the " Catho
lic Apostolic Church" in the place which gave its most distin
guished member birth.
The next stage of Edward's education was greatly in advance
of Peggy Paine. Schoolmasters must have been either a more
remarkable race of men in those days, or the smaller number of
them must have enhanced their claim upon popular appreciation.
At least it was no uncommon matter for the parishes and little
towns of Scotland to fix with pride upon their schoolmaster as
the greatest boast of their district. Such was the case with Mr.

ANNAN ACADEMY.— SCHOOL DAYS. 25
Adam Hope, who taught the young Irvings, and after them a cer
tain Thomas Carlyle from Ecclefechan, with other not undistin
guished men. There were peculiarities in that system of educa
tion. People below the rank of gentry did not think of sending
their daughters to what were called boarding-schools, or at least
were subject to much derisive remark if they ventured on such
an open evidence of ambition. The female schools in existence
were distinctively sew;mgr-schools, and did not pretend to do much
for the intellect ; so that boys and girls trooped in together, alike
to the parish-school and the superior academy, sat together on the
same forms, stood together in the same classes, and not unfre-
quently entered into tough combats for prizes and distinctions,
whimsical enough to hear of nowadays. Of this description was
the Annan Academy, at which Edward does not appear to have
taken any remarkable position. He does not seem even to have
attained the distinction of one of those dunces of genius who are
not unknown to literature. Under the severe discipline of those
days, he sometimes came home from school with his ears "pinch
ed until they bled," to his mother's natural resentment; but found
no solace to his wounded feelings or members from his father,
who sided with the master, and does not seem to have feared the
effect of such trifles upon the sturdy boys who were all destined
to fight their way upward by the brain rather than the hands.
The only real glimpse which is to be obtained of Edward in his
school days discloses the mournful picture of a boy "kept in,"
and comforted in the ignominious solitude of the school-room by
having his "piece" hoisted up to him by a cord through a broken
window. However, he showed some liking for one branch of
education, that of mathematics, in which he afterward distin
guished himself. It was the practice in Annan to devote one
day of the week specially to mathematical lessons — an exception
al day, which the boys hailed as a kind of holiday.
The little town, however, was not destitute of classical ambition.
Tradition tells of a certain blind John who had picked up a knowl
edge of Latin in the parish school, chiefly from hearing the lessons
of other boys there, and had struggled somehow to such a height
of Latinity that his teaching and his pupils were renowned as far
as Edinburgh, where awful professors did not scorn to acknowledge
his attainments. It is probable that Edward did not study under
this unauthorized instructor ; and the orthodox prelections of the
Academy did not develop the literary inclinations of the athletic

26 OUT-DOOR EDUCATION.— SOLWAY SANDS.
boy, who found more engrossing interests in every glen and hill
side. For nothing was wanting to the perfection of his education
out of doors. There were hills to climb, a river close at hand, a
hospitable and friendly country to be explored ; and the miniature
port at the Waterfoot, where impetuous Solway bathed with tawny
salt waves the little pier, and boats that tempted forth the adven
turous boyhood of Annan. Early in Edward's life he became
distinguished for feats of swimming, walking, rowing, climbing,
all sorts of open-air exercises. The main current of his energy
flowed out in this direction, and not in that of books. His scat
tered kindred gave full occasion for long walks and such local
knowledge as adventurous schoolboys delight in ; and when he
and his companions went to Dornoch, to his mother's early home,
where his uncles still lived, it was Edward's amusement, says a
surviving relative, to leap all the gates in the way. This fact sur
vives all the speculations that may have been in the boy's brain
on that rural, thoughtful road. His thoughts, if he had any, dis
persed into the listening air and left no sign ; but there can be no
mistake about the leaping of the gates.
In this early period of his life he is said to have met with an
adventure sufficiently picturesque and important to be recorded.
Every one who knows the Solway is aware of the peculiarities of
that singular estuary. "When the tide is full, a nobler firth is not
to be seen than this brimming flood of green sea-water, with Skid-
daw glooming on the other side over the softer slopes of Cumber
land, and Criffel standing sentinel on this, upon the Scotch sea-
border ; but when the tide is out, woeful and lamentable is the
change. Solway, shrunk to a tithe of its size, meanders, gleaming
through vast banks of sand, leaving here and there a little desert
standing bare in the very midst of its channel, covered with stake-
nets which raise their heads in the strangest, unexpected way,
upon a spot where vessels of considerable burden might have
passed not many hours before. The firth, indeed, is so reduced
in size by the ebbing of the tide, that it is possible to ride, or even
to drive a cart across from one side to the other ; a feat, indeed
which is daily accomplished, and which might furnish a little va
riation upon the ancient romantic routine of Gretna Green as the
ferryman at the Brough was in former times equally qualified
with the blacksmith at the border toll, and not without much
patronage, though his clients were humbler fugitives. When
however, Solway sets about his daily and nightly reflow, he does

ESCAPING FROM THE TIDE. 27
it with a rush and impetuosity worthy of the space he has to fill,
and is a dangerous playfellow when " at the turn." One day,
while they were still children, John and Edward Irving are said
to have strayed down upon these great sands, with the original
intention of meeting their uncle, George Lowther, who was ex
pected to cross Solway at the ebb, on his way to Annan. The
scene was specially charming in its wild solitude and freedom.
In that wilderness of sand and shingle, with its gleaming salt
water pools clear as so many mirrors, full of curious creatures still
unknown to drawing-room science, but not to schoolboy observa
tion, the boys presently forgot all about their immediate errand,
and, absorbed in their own amusements, thought neither of their
uncle nor of the rising tide. While thus occupied, a horseman
suddenly came up to them at full gallop, seized first one and then
the other of the astonished boys, and throwing them across the
neck of his horse, galloped on without pausing to address a word
to them, or even perceiving who they were. When they had
safely reached the higher shingly bank, out of reach "of the pur
suing tide, he drew bridle at last, and pointed back breathless to
where he had found them. The startled children, perceiving the
danger they had escaped, saw the tawny waves pursuing almost
to where they stood, and the sands on which they had been play
ing buried far under that impetuous sea; and it was only then
that the happy Hercules-uncle discovered that it was his sister's
sons whom he had saved. Had George Lowther been ten minutes
later, one of the noblest tragic chapters of individual life in the
nineteenth century need never have been written ; and his native
seas, less bitter than the sea of life that swallowed him up at last,
would have received the undeveloped fortunes of the blameless
Annan boy.
Another momentary incident, much less picturesque and mo-
nfentous, yet characteristic enough, disperses for the minutest
point of time the mists of sixty years, and shows us two urgent
childish petitioners, Edward with his little brother George, at the
door of a neighbor's house in Annan, where there was a party,
at which Mrs. Irving was one of the guests. Edward was so per
tinacious in his determination to see his mother that the circum
stance impressed itself upon the memory of one of the children of
the house. Mrs. Irving at last went to the door to speak to her
children, probably apprehensive of some domestic accident, but
found that the occasion of all this urgency was Edward's anxiety

28 EARLY CHARACTERISTICS.
to be permitted to give some of his own linen to a sick lad who
was in special want of it. The permission was given, the boys
plunged joyful back into the darkness, and the mother returned
to her party, where, doubtless, she told the tale with such pre
tended censure as mothers use. Momentary and slight as the in
cident is, it is still appropriate to the early history of one who in
his after days could never give enough, to whosoever lacked.
Even at this early period of his existence, it has been said that
Irving was prematurely solemn and remarkable in his manners,
"making it apparent that he was not a child as others," and having
"a significant elevation of manners and choice of pleasures." I
can find no trace of any such precocity; nor is it easy to fancy
how a natural boy, in such a shrewd and humorous community,
where pomp of any kind would have been speedily laughed out
of him, could have shown any such singularity. Nor was he ever
in the slightest degree of that abstract and self-absorbed fashion
of mind which makes a child remarkable. He seems, however, to
have sought, and got access to, a certain kind of society which,
though perhaps odd enough for a schoolboy, was such as all chil
dren of lively mind and generous sympathies love. At this early
period of his life it was his occasional habit on Sundays to walk
five or six miles to the little village of Ecclefechan, in company
with a pilgrim band of the religious patriarchs of Annan, to attend
a little church established there by one of the earlier bodies of se-
ceders from the Church of Scotland, an act which has been attrib
uted to his dissatisfaction with the preaching and character of the
Annan minister, already referred to, and his precocious apprecia
tion of sound doctrine and fervent piety. The fact is ^doubtless
true enough, but I think it very unlikely that any premature love
for sermons or discrimination of their quality was the cause.
Scotch dissenters, in their earlier development at least, were al|
doubly Presbyterian. The very ground of their dissent was not
any widening out of doctrine or alteration of Church government,
but only a reassertion and closer return to the primitive principles
of the Kirk itself— a fact which popular discrimination in the
south of Scotland acknowledged by referring back to the unfor-
gotten " persecuting times" for a name, and entitling the seceders
"Whigs" — a name which they retained until very recent days
in those simple-minded districts. The pious people who either
originated or gladly took advantage of such humble attempts to
recall the Church to herself, and bring back religion to a cove-

SUNDAY PILGRIMAGES.— ECCLEFECHAN. 29
nanted but unfaithful country, were thus identified with the saints
and martyrs, of whom the whole country-side was eloquent.
They were, as was natural, the gravest class of the community ;
men who vexed their righteous souls day by day over the short
comings of the minister and the worldly-mindedness of the people,
and proved their covenanting lineage by piety of an heroic, aus
tere pitch beyond the level of their neighbors.
Young Edward Irving had already made his way, as most
imaginative children manage to do? into the confidence of the old
people, who knew and were not reluctant to tell the epics of their
native districts; and those epics Were all covenanting tales —
tragedies abrupt and forcible, or lingering, long-drawn narratives,
more fascinating still, in which all human motives, hopes, and
ambitions were lost in the one all-engrossing object of existence,
the preservation and confession of the truth. With glowing,
youthful cheeks, fresh from the moor or the frith, the boy pene
trated into the cottage firesides, where the fragrant peat threw its
crimson glow through the apartment, and the old man or the old
woman, in the leisure of their age, sat in the great high-backed
chair with its checked linen cover; and with a curiosity still more
wistful and eager, as though about to see those triumphs of faith
repeated, trudged forth in the summer Sunday afternoons, unbon-
neted, with his black locks ruffling in the wind and his cap in his
hand, amid the little band of patriarchs, through hedgerows fra
grant with every succession of blossom, to where the low gray
hills closed in around that little hamlet of Ecclefechan, Ecclesia
Fechanus, forgotten shrine of some immemorial Celtic saint; a
scene not grandly picturesque, but full of a sweet pastoral freedom
and solitude ; the hills rising gray against the sky, with slopes of
springy turf, where the sheep pastured, and shepherds of an
antique type pondered the ways of God with men'; the road
crossed at many a point, and sometimes accompanied by tiny
brooklets, too small to claim a separate name, tinkling unseen
among the grass and underwood to join some bigger but still tiny
tributary of the Annan, streams which had no pretensions to be
rivers, but were only " waters" like Annan water itself. To me
this country gleams with a perpetual youth ; the hills rise clear
and wistful through the sharp air, this with its Roman camp in
dented on its side, that with its melancholy Repentance Tower
standing out upon the height; the moor brightens forth as one
approaches into sweet breaks of heather and golden clumps of

30 HIS YOUTHFUL COMPANIONS.
gorse; the burns sing in a never-failing liquid cheerfulness
through all their invisible courses; freedom, breath, silence, touch
ed with all those delicious noises :. the quiet hamlets and cottages
breathing forth that aromatic betrayal of all their warm turf fires
Place in this landscape that grave group upon the way, bending
their steps to the rude meeting-house in which their austere wor
ship was to be celebrated, holding discourse as they approached
upon subjects not so much of religious feeling as of high meta
physical theology ; with the "l&y among them, curiously attracted
by their talk, timing his elastic footsteps to their heavy tread,
making his unconscious comments, a wonderful impersonation of
perennial youth and genius, half leading, half following, always
specially impressed by the gray fathers of that world which dawns
all fresh and dewy upon his own vision, and I can not fancy a
better picture of old Scotland as it was in its most characteristic
districts and individual phase.
This seems the only foundation from which precocious serious
ness can be inferred, and it is an important and interesting fea
ture of his boyhood. The Whig elders no doubt unconsciously
prepared the germs of that old-world stateliness of speech and
dignity of manner which afterward distinguished their pupil ; and
they, and the traditions to which they had served themselves
heirs, made all the higher element and poetry of life which was
to be found in Annan. Their influence, however, did not with
draw him from the society of his fellows. The social instinct was
at all times too strong in him to be prevented from making friends
wherever he found companions. His attachment to his natural
comrade, his brother John, is touchingly proved by the fact we
have already noted ; and another boyish friendship, formed with
Hugh Clapperton, the African traveler, who was, like himself, a
native of Annan, concluded only with the death of that intrepid
explorer. Young Clapperton lived in an adjoining house, which
was the property of Gavin Irving, and the same "yard," with its
elm-trees, was common to both the families. The boys some
times shared their meals, and often the fireside corner, where
they learned their lessons ; and the adventurous instinct of young
Clapperton evidently had no small influence upon the dreams, at
least, of his younger companion. Of these three boys, so vigor
ous, bold, and daring, not one liyed to be old ; and their destinies
are a singular proof of the wide diffusion of life and energy cir
cling out from one of the most obscure spots in the country. One

STRANGE DISPERSION.— ANNANDALE. 31
was to die in India, uncommemorated except by love; one in
Africa, a hero (or victim) of that dread science which makes step
ping-stones of men's lives ; the third, at a greater distance still
from that boyish chimney-corner, at the height of fame, genius,
and sorrow, was to die, a sign and wonder, like other prophets
before him. It is sad to connect the conclusion with a beginning
which bore little foreboding of such tragic elements. But it is
scarcely possible to note the boyish conclave without thinking of
the singular fortunes and far separation to which they were des
tined. The friendship that commenced thus was renewed when
Clapperton and Irving met in London, both famous men ; and
the last communication sent to England by the dying traveler
was addressed to his early friend.
The little town was at this period in a prosperous condition,
and thriving well. When war quickened the traffic in provisions
and increased their value, Annan exported corn as well as droves.
But the industry of the population was leisurely and old-fashion
ed, much unlike the modern type. Many of the poorer folk
about were salmon-fishers, but had no such market for their
wares as nowadays, when salmon in Annan is about as dear, and
rather more difficult to be had, than salmon in London. When
there had been a good " take," the fishermen lounged about the
Cross or amused themselves in their garden still that windfall
was spent and exhausted, very much as if they had been mere
Celtic fishermen instead of cautious Scots, and the slow gains of
the careful burgesses came more from economy than enterprise.
Gavin Irving, however, made progress in his tanner's yard: he
became one of the magistrates of Annan, whose principal duty it
was to go to church in state, and set an official example of well
doing. Tradition does not say whether his son's passion for the
Whigs, and expeditions to the Seceders' meeting-house at Eccle
fechan, brought any " persecution" upon the boy ; so it is prob
able those heterodox preachings were attended only in summer
evenings and on special occasions when Annan kirk was closed.
There were clerical relations on both sides of the house scattered
through Dumfriesshire t,o whom the boys seem to have paid oc
casional visits ; one of them, Dr. Bryce Johnstone, of Holywood,
an uncle of Mrs. Irving's, being a notable person among his
brethren ; but, farther than the familiarity which this gave with
the surrounding country, no special traces of the advantages of
such intercourse exist. The loftier aspect of religion was in the

32 HOME INFLUENCES.— LEAVING ANNAN.
Whig cottages, and not in those cosy manses to which Dr. Car
ry le, of Inveresk, has lately introduced all readers.
It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the influence
which all the homely circumstances and habits of his native place
exercised upon a mind so open to every influence as that of Ir
ving. Despite his own strong individuality, he never seems to
have come in contact with any mind of respectable powers with
out taking something from it. His eyes were always open, his
ingenuous heart ever awake ; and the enthusiastic admiration of
which he was capable stamped such things as appeared to him
lovely, or honest, or of good repute indelibly upon his mind.
Much that would be otherwise inexplicable in his later life is ex
plained by this; and it is not difficult to trace the workings of
those early influences which surrounded him in his childhood
throughout his life. That, however, will be more effectually
done as the story advances than by any parallel of suggestions
and acts. His school education in Annan terminated when he
was only thirteen, without any distinction except that arithmetic
al one which has been already noted. This concluded the period
of his childhood: his next step subjected him to other influences
not less powerful, and directed the course of his young life away
from that home which always retained his affections. The home
remained planted in his kindly native soil for many years, long
enough to receive his children under its roof, and many of his
friends, and always honored and distinguished by himself in its
unchanging homeliness. His childish presence throws a passing
light over little Annan, rude and kindly, with its fragrant aroma
of peat from all the cottage fires ; its quiet street, where groups
of talkers gathered in many a leisurely confabulation ; its neigh
borly existence close and familiar. Such places might never be
heard of in the world but for the rising of individual lights which
illuminate them unawares — lights which have been frequent in
Annandale. Such a tender soul as Grahame, the poet of the
Sabbath, shines softly into that obscure perspective ; and it flash
es out before contemporary eyes, and warms upon the remem
brance of after generations in reflections from the stormy and
pathetic splendor of the subject of this history.

PROLONGED PROBATION OF SCOTCH MINISTERS. 33

CHAPTER H.
HIS COLLEGE LIFE.
Prolonged Probation of Scotch Ministers. — Boy-Students.— Independence. — Hard
Training. — Journeys on Foot. — Early Reading.— Distinctions in Society. — Pa
trons and Associates. — Carlyle's Description of Irving. — Early Labors.
At thirteen Irving began his studies at the Edinburgh Univer
sity : such was, and is still, to a great extent, the custom of Scotch
Universities — a habit which, like every other educational habit in
Scotland, promotes the diffusion of a little learning, and all the
practical uses of knowledge, but makes the profounder depths of
scholarship almost impossible. It was nearly universal in those
days, and no doubt partly originated in the very long course of
study demanded by the Church (always so influential in Scot
land, and acting upon the habits even of those who are not devo
ted to her service) from applicants for the ministry. This length
ened process of education can not be better described than- in the
words used by Irving himself at a much later period of his life,
and used with' natural pride, as setting forth what his beloved
Church required of her neophytes. "In respect to the ministers,"
he says, "this is required of them — that they should have studied
for four years in a University all the branches of a classical and
philosophical education, and either taken the rank in literature
of a Master of Arts, or come out from the University with certifi
cates of their proficiency in the classics, in mathematics, in logic,
and in natural and moral philosophy. They are then, and not
till then, permitted to enter upon the study of theology, of which
the professors are ordained ministers of the Church, chosen to
their office. Under separate professors, they study theology, He
brew, and ecclesiastical history for four years, attending from four
to six months in each year. Thus eight years are consumed in
study." This is, perhaps, the only excuse which can be made for
sending boys, still little more than children, into what ought to
be the higher labors of a University. Even beginning at such
an age, the full course of study, exacted from a youth in training
for the Church could not be completed till he had reached his
twenty-first year, when all the repeated "trials" of the Presbytery
C

34 EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY.
had still to follow before he could enter upon his vocation ; an
apparent and comprehensible reason, if not excuse, for a custom
which, according to the bitter complaints of its victims, turns the
University into a kind of superior grammar-school.
At thirteen, accordingly, Edward, accompanied by his elder
brother John, who was destined for the medical profession, came
to Edinburgh, under the charge of some relatives of their Annan
schoolfellow, Hugh Clapperton ; and the two lads were deposited
in a lofty chamber in the old town, near the college, to pursue
their studies with such diligence as was in them. Even to such
youthful sons the Edinburgh University has no personal shelter
to offer : then, as now, the Alma Mater was a mere abstract mass
of class-rooms, museums, and libraries, and the youths or boys
who sought instruction there were left in absolute freedom to
their own devices. Perhaps the youths thus launched upon the
world were too young to take much harm ; or perhaps that early
necessity of self-regulation, imposed under different and harder
circumstances than those which have brought the English public
schools into such fresh repute and popularity, bore all the fruit
which it is now hoped and believed to produce. But, whatever
may be the virtues of self-government, it is impossible to contem
plate without a singular interest and amaze the spectacle of these
two boys, one thirteen, the other probably about fifteen, placed
alone in their little lodging in the picturesque but noisy old town
of Edinburgh, for six long months at a stretch, to manage them
selves and their education, without tutors, without home care,
without any stimulus but that to be received in the emulation
of the class-room, or from their books and their own ambition.
These circumstances, however, were by no means remarkable or
out of the common course of thigns ; and the surprise with which
we look back to so strange a picture of boyish life would not
have been shared by the contemporary spectators who saw the
south-country boys coming and going to college without perceiv
ing any thing out of the way in it. The manner in which the
little establishment was kept up is wonderfully primitive to hear
of at so short a distance from our sophisticated times. Now and
then the lads received a box from home, sent by the carrier or
by some " private opportunity," full of oatmeal, cheese, and other
homely necessities, and doubtless not without lighter embellish
ments, to prove the mother's care for her boys. Probably their
linen was conveyed back and forward to the home-laundry by

INDEPENDENCE.— LIFE IN EDINBURGH. 35
the same means ; so that the money expense of the tiny establish
ment, with its porridge thus provided, and its home relishes of
„ham and cheese, making the schoolboy board festive, must have
been of the most limited amount. Altogether it is a quaint little
picture of the patriarchal life, now departed forever. No private
opportunities nowadays carry such boxes ; and those very rail
ways, which make the merest village next neighbor to all the
world, have made an end of those direct primitive communica
tions from the family table to its absent members. Nor is it easy
to believe that boys of thirteen, living in lonely independence in
Edinburgh, where the very streets are seducing andn&dl of fasci
nations, and where every gleam of sunshine on the hills, and flash
of reflection from the visible firth, must draw youthful thoughts
away from the steep gradus of a learning not hitherto found par
ticularly attractive, could live within those strait and narrow lim
its, and bear such a probation. But times were harder and sim
pler in the first twenty years of the century. Scotland was a
hundred times more Scotch, more individual, more separate from
its wealthier yoke-fellow than now. No greater contrast to the
life of undergraduates in an ancient English University could be
imagined than that presented by those boy-students in their lofty
chamber, detached from all collegiate associations, living in the
midst of a working-day population, utterly unimpressed by the
neighborhood of a University, and interpolating the homely
youthful idyll of their existence into the noisy, bustling, scolding,
not over-savory life of that old town of Edinburgh. Even such
a vestige of academical dress as is to be found in the quaint red
gown of Glasgow is unknown to the rigid Protestantism of the
Scotch metropolis. The boys came and went, undistinguished, in
their country caps and jackets, through streets which, full of
character as they are, suggest nothing so little as the presence of
a college, and returned to their studies in their little room, with
neither tutor nor assistant to help them through their difficulties,
and lived a life of unconscious austerity, in which they them
selves did not perceive either the poverty or the hardship; which,
indeed, it is probable they themselves, and all belonging to them,
would have been equally amazed and indignant to have heard
either hardship or poverty attributed to. Crowds of other lads,
from all parts of Scotland, lived a similar life ; the homely fare
and spare accommodation, the unassisted studies ; and in most
cases, as soon as that was practicable, personal exertions as teach-

36 HARD TRAINING.— JOURNEYS ON FOOT.
ers or otherwise, to help in the expense of their own educatiop,
looked almost a natural and inevitable beginning to the life they
were to lead.
By such methods of instruction few men are trained to pursue
and love learning for learning's sake ; but only by such a Spartan
method of training the young soldiers of the future could the An
nan tanner, with eight children to provide for, have given all his
sons an education qualifying them for professional life and future
advancement. The Edinburgh " Session" lasts only from November till May,
leaving theovhole summer free for the recreation, or, more prob
ably, the labors of the self-supporting students. Indeed, the whole
system seems based upon the necessity of allowing time for the
intervening work which is to provide means for the studies that
follow. When the happy time of release arrived, our Annan boys
sent off their boxes with the carrier, and, all joyful and vigorous,
set out walking upon the homeward road. In after years Irving
delighted in pedestrian journeys ; and it was most probably in
those early walks that he learned, what was his habitual practice
afterward, to rest in the wayside cottages, and share the potato or
the porridge to be found there. The habit of universal friendli
ness thus engendered did him good service afterward ; for a man
accustomed to such kindly relations with the poorest of his neigh
bors does not need any other training to that frank unconde-
scending courtesy which is so dear to the poor. " Edward walk
ed as the crow flies," says one of his surviving relatives who has
accompanied those walks when time was. Such an eccentric, joy
ful, straightforward progress must have been specially refreshing
to the schoolboy students, hastening to all the delights of home
and eountry freedom.
Whether Irving's progress during this period was beyond that
of his contemporaries there is no evidence ; but he succeeded suf
ficiently well to take his degree in April, 1809, when he was just
seventeen, and to attract the friendly regard of Professor Christi-
son, and of the distinguished and eccentric Sir John Leslie, then
Mathematical Professor in the Edinburgh University, both of
whom interested themselves in his behalf as soon as he began his
own independent career. So far as the library records go, he
does not seem to have been an extraordinary diligent student.
There is a story told, which I have not been able to trace to any
authentic source, of his having found in a farm-house in the neigh-

EARLY READING.— DISTINCTIONS IN SOCIETY. 37
borhood1 of Annan a copy of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, which
is said to have powerfully attracted him, and given an impulse to
*his thoughts. He is also said to have expended almost the whole
sum which he had received for the expenses of a journey in the
purchase of Hooker's works, " together with some odd folios of
the fathers, Homer, and Newton," and to have trudged forward
afoot with the additional load upon his stalwart shoulders, in great
delight with his acquisition. There can be no doubt, at least, of
his own reference to " the venerable companion of my early days
— Richard Hooker." In opposition to this serious reading stand
the Arabian Nights, and sundry books with forgotten but suspi
cious titles, which appear against his name in those early times in
the college library books — most natural and laudable reading for
a boy, but curiously inappropriate as drawn from the library of
his college. " He used to carry continually in his waistcoat pock
et," says one of his few surviving college companions, the Rev.
Dr. Grierson, of Errol, " a miniature copy of Ossian, passages from
which he read or recited in his walks in the country, or delivered
with sonorous elocution and vehement gesticulation" for the ben
efit of his companions. This is the first indication I can find of
his oratorical gifts, and that natural magniloquence of style which
belonged equally to his mind and person. «
Society in Edinburgh was at this period in its culmination.
Those were the "Edinburgh Review" days, when the brilliant
groups whose reputation is more entirely identified with Edin
burgh than that of generations still more exclusively her own,
were in full possession of the field. Looking back, the town
seems so occupied and filled by that brotherhood, that it is hard
to imagine the strains of life all unconscious of its existence, and
scarcely influenced, even unconsciously, by its vicinity, which
went serenely on within the same limited boundaries ; and it is
still harder to fancy a youth of genius pursuing his youthful way
into the secrets of literature in Edinburgh without the slightest
link of connection with the brilliant lettered society which gave
tone and character to the place. But the Antipodes are not far
ther off from us than were the lights of Edinburgh society from
the rustic student laboring through his classes. As distinct as if
they had belonged to different countries or different centuries
were the young lawyers, not much richer, but standing on the
threshold of public life, with all its possibilities, and the young
clerical students, looking, as the highest hope of their ambition,

38 PATRONS AND ASSOCIATES.
to the pulpit of a parish church, with a stipend attached of two
or three hundred a year at the utmost. In actual means the one
might not be much in advance of the other, but in hopes, pros
pects, and surroundings, how widely different! Beneath that
firmament, flashing with light and splendor, the common day
went on unconscious, concealing its other half- dawned lights.
Among all the fellow-students of Edward Irving, there are no
names which have attained more local celebrity except that of
Thomas Carlyle, whose fame has overtopped and outlasted that
of his early friend ; and Carlyle did not share the studies of the
four first years of his college life. He stands alone among men
who subsided into parishes, and chaplaincies, and educational
chairs, but who were his equals, or more than his equals, in
those days — without any connection with, or means of approach
to, that splendid circle which, one would imagine, concentrated
within so limited a sphere as that of Edinburgh, must have found
out by magnetic attraction every light of genius within its
bounds. But the ecclesiastical flats in which the youth stood,
together with his humble origin, more than counteracted that
magnetism. If the Church every where never fails to be re
minded that her kingdom is not of this world, that reminder is
specially thrust upon her in Scotland, where it is a principle of
the creed of both ministers and people to believe that even the
payment in kind of applause and honor, which is gained in every
other profession, is a sinful indulgence to a preacher, and where
demands are made upon his time and patience far too engrossing
to admit the claims of society. Irving went on in his early ca
reer far down in the shade of common life, out of reach of those
lights which, to the next generation, illuminate the entire sphere,
and grew from a boy to a young man, and took his boyish share
in the college debating societies, and made his way among other
nameless youths with no great mark of difference, so far as it ap
pears. Dr. Christison, the Humanity professor, noted him with a
friendly eye ; and odd, clumsy, kindly Leslie observed the fervor
of the tall lad, and took him for a future prop of science. A
younger fellow-student records simply how Irving, being more
advanced than he, helped him on with his studies, according to
that instinct of his nature which never forsook him. And he
read Ossian, and argued in defunct Philomathic societies, where
he and other people fancied he met equal opponents, till it be
came necessary for him, seventeen years old and a graduate of

CARLYLE'S DESCRIPTION OF IRVING.— EARLY LABORS. 39
Edinburgh University, to begin to help himself onward during
the tedious intervals of his professional training.
He did this, as all Scotch clerical students do, by teaching. A
new school, called the Mathematical School by some strange ca
price — since it seems to have been exactly like other schools —
had just been established in Haddington, and by the recommend
ation of Sir John Leslie and of Professor Christison, Irving got
the appointment. It was in the spring of 1810, after one session,
as it is called, in the " Divinity Hall," and at the age of eighteen,
that he -entered upon this situation. To somewhere about the
same period must belong the description given of him in Car-
lyle's wonderful "Eloge." " The first time I saw Irving was in
his native town of Annan. He was fresh from Edinburgh, with
college prizes, high character and promise : he had come to see
our schoolmaster, who had also been his. We heard of famed
professors, of high matters classical, mathematical, a whole won
derland of knowledge ; nothing but joy, health, hopefulness with
out end looked out from the blooming young man."
Angther spectator of more prosaic vision declares him to have
been " rather a showy young man," a tendency always held in
abhorrence by the sober Scotch imagination, which above all
things admires the gift of reticence ; or even, in default of better,
that pride which takes the place of modesty. Irving, utterly in
genuous and open, always seeking love, and the approbation of
love, and doubting no man, did not possess this quality. "The
blooming young man " went back to the school in which he was
once kept in and punished with candid, joyful self-demonstra
tion, captivating the eyes which could see, and amusing those
which had not that faculty. It was his farewell to his boyish,
happy, dependent life.
And it was also the conclusion of his University education, so
far as reality went. For four or five years thereafter he was what
is called a partial student of divinity, matriculating regularly, and
making his appearance at college to go through the necessary ex
aminations, and deliver the prescribed discourses, but carrying on
his intermediate studies by himself, according to a license permit-
. ted by the Church. His Haddington appointment removed him
definitely from home and its homely provisions, and gave him an
early outset for himself into the business and labors of independ
ent life. So far from being a hardship, or matter to be lamented,
it was the best thing his friends could have wished for him.

40 THE MATHEMATICAL SCHOOL.
Such interruptions in the course of professional education were
all but universal in Scotland, and he went under the best auspices
and with the highest hopes.

CHAPTER HI.
HADDINGTON.
The Doctor's little Daughter. — The first Declension. — Conflict between Pity and
Truth.— New Friends.— Sport and Study.— Holiday Science.— Incident in St.
George's Church. — Society in Haddington. — Bolton Manse. — Young Compan
ions. — Extent of his Work. — Courage and Cheerfulness. — Leaves Haddington.
Irving entered upon this second chapter of his youthful life in
the summer of 1810. He was then in his eighteenth year — still
young enough, certainly, for the charge committed to him. Edu
cation was at a very low ebb in Haddington, which had not even
a parish school to boast of, but was lost among " borough" regu
lations, and in the pottering hands of a little corporation^ The
rising tide, however, stirred a faint ripple in this quiet place ; and
the consequence was, the establishment of that school called the
mathematical, to which came groups of lads not very much younger
than the young teacher, who had been stupefied for years in such
schools as did exist, and some of whom woke up like magic under
the touch of the boy-student, so little older than themselves.
Coming to the little town under these circumstances, recommend
ed as a distinguished student by a man of such eminence as Sir
John Leslie, the young man had a favorable reception in his new
sphere. "When Irving first came to Haddington," writes one of
his pupils, "he was a tall, ruddy, robust, handsome youth, cheerful
and kindly disposed ; he soon won the confidence of his advanced
pupils, and was admitted into the best society in the town and
neighborhood." Into one house, at least, he went with a more
genial introduction, and under circumstances equally interesting
and amusing. This was the house of Dr. Welsh, the principal
medical man of the district, whose family consisted of one little
daughter, for whose training he entertained more ambitious views
than little girls are generally the subjects of. This little girl,
however, was as unique in mind as in circumstances. She heard,
with eager childish wonder, a perennial discussion carried on be
tween her father and mother about her education; both were

THE FIRST DECLENSION. 41
naturally anxious to secure the special sympathy and companion
ship of their only child. The doctor, recovering from his disap
pointment that she was a girl, was bent upon educating her like a
boy, to make up as far as possible for the unfortunate drawback
of sex; while her mother, on the contrary, hoped for nothing
higher in her daughter than the sweet domestic companion most
congenial to herself. The child, who was not 'supposed to under
stand, listened eagerly, as children invariably do listen to all that
is intended to be spoken over their heads, ^fier ambition was
roused ; to be educated like a boy became the object of her entire
thoughts, and set her little mind working with independent projects
of its own. She resolved to take the first step in this awful but
fascinating course on her own responsibility. Having already di
vined that Latin was the first grand point of distinction, she made
up her mind to settle the matter by learning Latin. A copy of
the Rudiments was quickly found in the lumber-room of the
house, and a tutor not much farther off in a humble student of
the neighborhood. The little scholar had a dramatic instinct; she
did not pour forth her first lesson as soon as it was acquired, or
rashly betray her secret. She waited the fitting place and mo
ment. It was evening, when dinner had softened out the asperi
ties of the day : the doctor sat in luxurious leisure in his dressing-
gown and slippers, sipping his coffee, and all the cheerful acces
sories of the fireside picture were complete. The little heroine
had arranged herself under the table, under the crimson folds of
the cover, which concealed her small person. All was still ; the
moment had arrived: " Penna, pennce, pennam /" burst forth the
little voice in breathless steadiness. The result may be imagined :
the doctor smothered his child with kisses, and even the mother
herself had not a word to say ; the victory was complete.
After this pretty scene, the proud doctor asked Sir John Leslie
to send him a tutor for the little pupil who had made so promis
ing a beginning. Sir John recommended the youthful teacher
who was already in Haddington, and Edward Irving became the
teacher of the little girl. Their hours of study were from six to
eight in the morning — which inclines one to imagine that, in spite
of his fondness, the excellent doctor must have held his household
under Spartan discipline — and again in the evening after school
hours. When the young tutor arrived in the dark of the winter
mornings, and found his little pupil, scarcely dressed, peeping out
of her room, he used to snatch her up in his arms, and carry her

42 CONFLICT BETWEEN PITY AND TRUTH.
to the door, to name to her the stars shining in the cold firmament
hours before dawn; and when the lessons were over, he set the
child up on the table at which they had been pursuing their
studies, and taught her logic, to the great tribulation of the house
hold, in which the little philosopher pushed her inquiries into the
puzzling metaphysics of life. The greatest affection sprang up,
as was natural, between the child and her young teacher, whose
heart at all times of his life was always open to children. * After
the lapse of all rafese years, their companionship looks both pa
thetic and amusing. A life-long friendship sprang out of that
early connection. The pupil, with all the enthusiasm of child
hood, believed every thing possible to the mind which gave its
first impulse to her own ; and the teacher never lost the affection
ate, indulgent love with which the little woman, thus confided to
his boyish care, inspired him. Their intercourse did not have the
romantic conclusion it might have been supposed likely to end in,
but, as a friendship, existed unbroken through all kinds of vicissi
tudes, and even through entire separation, disapproval, and out
ward estrangement, to the end of Irving's life.
When the lessons were over, it was a rule that the young
teacher should leave a daily report of his pupil's progress ; when,
alas! that report was pessima, the little girl was punished. One
day he paused long before putting his sentence upon paper. The
culprit sat on the table, small, downcast, and conscious of failure.
The preceptor lingered remorsefully over his verdict, wavering
between justice and mercy. At last he looked up at her with
pitiful looks: "Jane, my heart is broken!" cried the sympathetic
tutor; "but I must tell the truth;" and, with reluctant pen, he
wrote the dread deliverance, pessima ! The small offender doubt
less forgot the penalty that followed, but she has not yet forgot
ten the compassionate dilemma in which truth was the unwilling
conqueror. The youth who entered his house under such circumstances
soon became a favorite guest at the fireside of the doctor, who,
himself a man of education and intelligence, and of that disposi
tion which makes men beloved, was not slow to find out the great
qualities of his young visitor. There are some men who seem
born to the inalienable good fortune of lighting upon the best
people — "the most worthy" according to Irving's own expression
long afterward— wherever' they go. Irving's happiness in this
way began at Haddington. The doctor's wife seems to have been

SPORT AND STUDY. 43
one of those fair, sweet women whose remembrance lasts longer
than greatness. There is no charm of beauty more delightful
than that fragrance of it which lingers for generations in the
place where it has been an unconsciously refining and tender in
fluence. The Annandale youth came into a little world of hu
manizing graces when he entered that atmosphere, and it was
only natural that he should retain the warmest recollection of it
throughout his life. It must have been of countless benefit to
him in this early stage of his career. The main quality in him
self which struck observers was — in strong and strange contra
diction to the extreme devotion of belief manifested in his latter
years — the critical and. almost skeptical tendency of his mind,
impatient of superficial "received truths," and eager for proof
and demonstration of every thing. Perhaps mathematics, which
then reigned paramount in his mind, were to blame ; he was as
anxious to discuss, to prove and disprove, as a Scotch student
fresh from college is naturally disposed to be. It was a pecul
iarity natural to his age and condition ; and as his language was
always inclined to the superlative, and his feelings invariably
took part in every matter which commended itself to his mind, it
is probable that this inclination showed with a certain exaggera
tion to surrounding eyes. "This youth will scrape a hole in
every thing he is called on to believe," said the doctor; a strange
prophecy, looking at it by that light of events which unfold so
many unthought-of meanings in all predictions.
In the tmean time he made himself popular in the town, and,
apart from the delightful vignette above, appears in all his natu
ral picturesque individuality in other recollections. The young
master of the mathematical school commended himself to the
hearts of those whose sons he had quickened out of dunces into
intelligent prize-winning pupils. He was young and poor, and in
a humble position still, but he attracted the warm admiration of
the boys, and that enthusiasm which only young creatures in the
early blush of existence can entertain for their elders. The means
by which he won the hearts of those lads is simple and apparent
enough. Though he was severe and peremptory in school — " a
sad tyrant," somebody says — out of doors he had^just that de
lightful mixture of superior wisdom, yet equal innocence — that
junction of the teacher and the companion, which is irresistible
to all generous young people. Enthusiastic in his mathematical
studies as he had come from Edinburgh, and loving the open air

44 HOLIDAY SCIENCE.— INCIDENT.
as became an Annandale lad of eighteen, he contrived to connect
science and recreation in a social brotherly fashion quite his own.
"Having the use of some fine instruments," says one of his pupils,
Patrick Sheriff, Esq., of Haddington, " he devoted many of his
school holidays to the measuring of heights and distances in the
surrounding neighborhood, and taking the altitudes of heavenly
bodies. Upon such occasions he was invariably accompanied by
several of his pupils." When the state of the atmosphere, or any
other obstacle, interrupted the particular object of the day's ex
cursion, the young teacher jreadily and joyfully diverged into the
athletic games in which he excelled ; and with the scientific in
struments standing harmless by, enjoyed his holiday as well as if
every thing had been favorable for their use. Another pictur
esque glimpse of the boy -philosopher follows: "About this time
Mr. Irving frequently expressed a wish to travel in Africa in the
track of Mungo Park, and during his holiday excursions prac
ticed, in concert with his pupils, the throwing of stones into pools
of water, with the view of determining the depth of the water by
the sound of the plunge, to aid him in crossing rivers ;" a species
of scientific inquiry into which, I have no doubt, the Haddington
boys would enter with devotion. This idea of travel, not unnat
ural to the schoolfellow of Hugh Clapperton, seems to have re
turned on many occasions to Irving's mind, and to have displayed
itself in various characteristic studies, as unlike the ordinary
course of preparation for a journey as the above bit of holiday
science. His great bodily strength and dauntless spirit .made the
idea congenial to him, and he had no very brilliant prospects at
home; indeed, this thought seems to run, a kind of adventurous
possibility, through a great part of his life, changing in aspect as
his own projects and feelings changed, and to have afforded his
mind a refuge from the fastidious intolerance of youth when that
came upon him, or when cross circumstances and adverse persons
drove him back at bitter moments upon himself.
"Being an excellent walker," continues the gentleman already
quoted, " all his excursions were made on- foot. Upon one occa
sion, when Dr. Chalmers, then rising into fame, was announced
to preach in St. George's, Edinburgh, upon a summer week-day
evening, Irving set out from Haddington after school-hours, ac
companied by several of his pupils, and returned the same night,
accomplishing a distance of about thirty-five miles without any
other rest than what was obtained in church." The fatigue of

SOCIETY IN HADDINGTON. 45
this long walk was enlivened when the little party arrived at the
church by a little outbreak of imperious pugnacity, not, perhaps,
quite seemly in such a place, but characteristic enough. Tired
with their walk, the boys and their youthful leader made their
way up to the gallery of the church, where they directed their
steps toward one particular pew which was quite unoccupied.
Their entrance into the vacant place was, however, stopped by -a
man, who stretched his arm across the pew, and announced that
it was engaged. Irving remonstrated, and represented that at
such a time all the seats were open to the public, but without
effect. At last his patience gave way ; a§d, raising his hand, he
exclaimed, evidently with all his natural magniloquence of voice
and gesture, "Remove your arm, or I will shatter it in pieces!"
His astonished opponent fell back in utter dismay, like Mrs. Sid-
dons' shopman* and made a precipitate retreat, while the rejoicing
boys took possession of the pew. Thus, for the first time, Irving
and Chalmers were brought, if not together, at least into the same
assembly. The great preacher knew nothing of the lad who had
come nearly eighteen miles to hear him preach, and sat resting
his mighty youthful limbs in the seat from which he had driven
his enemy. Such glimpses are curious and full of interest, espe
cially in remembrance of other days which awaited Chalmers and
Irving in that same church of St. George.
To return to Haddington, however: Irving not only established
his place as a warm and life-long friend in the house of the doc
tor, but made his way into the homes and society of many of the
worthy inhabitants of the little town. Among those who had
children at the Mathematical School and opened his house to the
teacher was Gilbert Burns, the brother of the poet, with whom he
is said to have had some degree of intimacy ; and though the
humble position of dominie did not give him a very high place
in the social scale, and restricted his friendships within the circle
of those whose sons he educated, there were a sufficiently large
number of the latter to make their young preceptor known and
received at most of the good houses in Haddington.
" Social supper-parties," says Mr. Alexander Inglis, once a resi
dent in Haddington, who has kindly furnished me with some rec
ollections of this period, " were much the custom at this time in
Haddington, and the hospitalities generally extended far1 into the
night. At these social meetings Irving was occasionally in the
habit of broaching some of his singular opinions about the high

46 BOLTON MANSE.— YOUNG COMPANIONS.
destinies of the human race in heaven, where the saints were not
only to be made ' kings and priests unto God,' but were to rule
and judge angels. Dr. Lorimer (the senior minister of the town)
used to hint that there were many more profitable and useful sub
jects in the New Testament for a divinity student to occupy his
thoughts about than such speculations ; but Irving was not to be
put down in this way. 'Dare either you or I deprive God of the
glory and thanks due to his name for this, exceeding great re
ward?' cried the impetuous young man, according to the report
of his old friend: the good doctor's reply was, '"Well, well, my
dear friend, both you and I can be saved without knowing about
that.'" Here Irving also made the acquaintance of Mr. Stewart, then
minister of Bolton, afterward Dr. Stewart of Erskine, who was
himself the subject of a sufficiently romantic story. This gentle
man had been a medical man, and in that capacity had cured the
daughter of a Scotch nobleman of supposed consumption. The
physician and patient, after the most approved principles of po
etical justice, fell in love with each other and married, and the
former changed his profession, and becoming a minister, settled
down in the parish of Bolton, and became doubly useful to his
people and the neighborhood in his double capacity. He too
had been able to discern in some degree those qualities of mind
and heart which, despite his vehement speech and impatience,
and love of argumentation, showed themselves in the young
schoolmaster. In this manse of Bolton Irving was in the habit
of spending his Saturdays, along with a young fellow-student of
his own, Mr. Story, afterward of Rosneath. Nor was he without
society of his own age and standing. In those days, when long
walks were habitual to every body, Haddington was within reach
of Edinburgh — perhaps more distinctly within reach than now,
when, instead of the long pleasant summer afternoon walk, cost
ing nothing, the rapid railway, with inevitable shillings and six
pences, and fixed hours of coming and going, does away with dis
tance, yet magnifies the walk into a journey. On Saturdays and
holidays there was no lack of visitors. A tide of eager young
life palpitated about the teacher-student even in that retirement —
life of a wonderfully different fashion from that which issues from
English Universities ; confined to limits much more narrow, and
bound to practical necessities; a world more hard and real.
Among these comrades there were perhaps scarcely two or three

EXTENT OF HIS WORK. 47
individuals whose studies were not professional, and among the
professional students only a small number who were not, like Ir
ving himself, taxing their youthful strength to procure the means
of prosecuting their studies. "With theological students in par
ticular this was almost the rule, for few were the fortunate men
who were rich enough to spend their eight long years entirely in
study. Doubtless this fact gave a certain individual character to
the little groups who came to share the liberal boyish hospitality
of the young -schoolmaster, and filled with much clangor of logic
and eager Scottish argumentation his little rooms. Some youth
ful wits among them took pleasure in aggravating the vehement
temper of their young host, and stirring him into characteristic
outbreaks — the language which afterward became so splendid
being then, it is evident, somewhat magniloquent, and his natural
impetuosity warm with all the passion of youth. But the names
of them have passed away, or live in merely local recollection ;
some became teachers of some distinction in Edinburgh ; others,
and not a few, went abroad and died off in colonial chaplaincies ;
some, the most fortunate, settled down into respectable parish
ministers. But who knows any thing about those Browns and
Dicksons now?
Irving was al^> a member of a local literary society, which he
helped to originate among young men native to the burgh. The
fashion of their meetings seems to have been an excellent one.
They were in the habit of setting out together to some place of
interest near them, often to dainty Dirleton, that pretty artificial
village which is one of the boasts of East Lothian, and, after the
walk and talk of the road, holding their siance there — a method
which no doubt made their essays and discussions more reason
able, so far as reason was to be expected. It was thus not with
out activity of mind, cultivated, so far as that was practicable,
and kept in constant stimulation by contact with his compeers,
that this period of his life was passed. He seems to have taught
most things common to elementary education in his mathematical
school, with Latin of course, the unfailing representative of high
er knowledge and key to advancement, as it has been long con
sidered in Scotland ; and to his more advanced and more congen
ial pupils, the same who carried his instruments after him afield,
and threw stones with him in zealous devotion, unfolded the mys
teries of mathematics. His life must have been sufficiently la
borious to need all the relaxations possible to it. Starting at six

48 COURAGE AND CHEERFULNESS.
in the morning — not always in winter mornings, certainly, though
the idea instinctively recalls the icy chill of those starry hours
before dawn to the unheroic hearer — to conjugate Latin verbs
with the little maid, who perhaps did not apprehend all that her
ambition was to bring upon her ; then returning to his fifty boys,
to school them in all the different fundamentals of plain, unem-
bellished knowledge (and the teacher himself was not always im
maculate in his spelling) ; with again another private lesson after
the fifty had gone to their sports — those sports in which the eight
een-year old lad was scarcely above joining — close exercise for
the youthful brain and athletic developing form, to which some
counterbalance of strenuous physical exertion was necessary.
His independence seems now to have been complete. In his
humble Haddington lodgings he was no longer indebted even for
his oatmeal and cheese to the home household, but had set out
manful and early on the road of life for himself. Henceforward
Edward's expenses did not rank among the cares of the Annan
home. At seventeen and a half the young man took up his own
burden without a word or token of complaint, and ever after bore
it courageously through all discouragements and trials, never
breaking down or falling back upon the love which, notwith
standing, his stout heart always trusted in. Neither genius, nor
that temperament of genius, impassioned and1 visionary, which
he possessed to a large extent, weakened his performance of this
first duty which manifested itself to his eyes ; and he seems to
have accepted his lot with a certain noble simplicity, neither re
senting it nor quarreling with those whom circumstances made
temporally his superiors. Either people did not ill-use him, or
he had some secret power of endurance which turns ill-usage
aside. At all events, it is certain that the agonies of the sensi
tive, not sufficiently respected tutor, or the commotions of the
indignant one, have no place whatever in Irving's youthful life.
When the Haddington corporation, not likely to be the most con
siderate masters in the world, afflicted their young schoolmaster,
it is to be supposed that he blazed up at them manfully, and got
done with it. At least he has no complaints to make, or old
slights to remember; nor does it seem that he ever sulked at his
humble position or close labors at any time in his life.
Irving remained two years at Haddington, during which time
he began that singular grave pretense of theological education
which is called " partial" study in the Divinity Hall. From the

KIRKCALDY. 4.9
little Haddington school he was promoted, always with the good
offices of Sir John Leslie, who seems to have had a sincere kind
ness for him, to the mastership of a newly-established academy in
Kirkcaldy, in which he spent a number of years, and decided va
rious important matters deeply concerning his future life.
i

CHAPTER IV.
KIRKCALDY.

Kirkcaldy Academy. — Personal Appearance. — Severe Discipline. — Doing all
Things heartily. — Kirkcaldy Sands. — Milton Class. — Schoolboy Chivalry. —
"Much respected Pupils." — Love-making. — Confidential Disclosures. — Engage
ment.— The Minister of Kirkcaldy.— The Manse Household. — Sister Elizabeth.—
Her Husband. — Irving's first Sermon. — Superiority to "The Paper." — "Ower
muckle Gran'ner." — Other people's Sermons. — His Thoughts about Preaching. —
In a Highland Inn. — Warlike Aspiration. — General Assembly. — Debate on Plu
ralities. — Intolerance of Circumstances. — Abbotshall School-house.
, " The lang town of Kirkcaldy" extends along the northern
side of the Firth of Forth, and is one of the most important of
that long line of little towns — fishing, weaving, trading centres
of local activity — which gleam along the margin of Fife, and help
to make an abrupt but important edge to the golden fertile fringe
which, according to a pretty, antique description, adorns the "rus
set mantle" of that characteristic county. These little towns ex
tend in a scattered, broken line downward from Queensferry, till
the coast rounds off into St. Andrew's Bay, and are full of a busy
yet leisurely industry, sometimes quickened almost into the rest
less pulse of trade. Kirkcaldy earned its title of the " lang town"
from the prolonged line of its single street, running parallel to the
shore for rather more than a mile, and at that time had not wid
ened into proportionate breadth, nor invested itself with tiny sub
urbs and the body of scattered population which now gives it
importance. In the year 1812 there was no school in this flour
ishing and comfortable place except the parish school, with its
confusion of ranks and profound Republicanism of letters, where
boys and girls of all classes were rudely drilled into the common
elements of education, with such climaxes of Latin and mathe
matics as were practicable. The professional people of Kirkcaldy,
headed by the minister, who had himself a large family of chil
dren to educate, and the well-to-do shopkeepers and household-
D

50 KIRKCALDY ACADEMY.
ers of the place, determined, accordingly, upon the establishment
of a new school of higher pretensions, and Edward Irving was
selected as its first master. Two rooms in a central "wynd,"
opening into each other, with a tiny class-room attached — now
occupied by a humble schoolmaster, who points to his worm-
eaten oaken desks as being those used by " thf^great Mr. Irving"
— were simply fitted up into the new academy.
Without any accessories to command respect, in a humble
locality, with a cobbler's hutch in the sunk story beneath, and
common houses crowding round, the new institution, notwith
standing, impressed respect upon the town, and soon became im
portant. Boys and girls, as was usual, sat together at those brown
oaken desks without the least separation, and pursued their studies
together with mutual rivalry. For some time Irving managed
them alone, but afterward had an assistant, and in this employ
ment remained for seven years, and had the training of a genera
tion in his hands. The recollection of him is still fresh in the
town — his picturesque looks, his odd ways, his severities, his
kindnesses, the distinct individuality of the man. Here that title
which afterward was to be the popular designation of a religious
community came intd playful use, long and innocently antedating
its more permanent meaning, and the academy scholars distin
guished each other as "Irvingites" — a special and affectionate
bond of fraternity. He was now twenty, and had attained -his full
height, which some say was two, and some four inches over six
feet; his appearance was noble and remarkable to a high degree;
his features fine ; his figure, in its great height, fully developed
and vigorous ; the only drawback to his good looks being the de
fect in his eye, which, with so many and great advantages to coun
terbalance it, seems rather to have given piquancy to his face than
to have lessened its attraction, Such a figure attracted universal
attention : he could not pass thrpugh a village without being re
marked and gazed after; and some of his Kirkcaldy pupils remem
ber the moment when they first saw him, with the clearness which
marks, not an ordinary meeting, but an event. This recollection
is perhaps assisted by the fact that, though a divinity student, al
ready overshadowed by the needful gravity of the priesthood,
and in present possession of all the importance of a "dominie,"
he had no such solemn regard to dress as afterward became one
of his peculiarities, but made his appearance in Kirkcaldy in a
mornin gcoat made of some set of tartan in which red predom
inated, to the admiration of all beholders.

SEVERE DISCIPLINE. 51
A young man of twenty, with the full charge of a large number
of boys and girls in a limited space, and undertaking all the items
of a miscellaneous education, no doubt needed the assistance of a
somewhat rigorous discipline, and it is evident that he used its help
with much freedom. Sounds were heard now and then proceed
ing from the schoolroom which roused the pity and indignation
of the audience of neighbors out of doors. One of these, a joiner,
deacon of his trade, and a man of great strength, is reported to
have appeared one day, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his el
bows and an axe on his shoulder, at the door of the schoolroom,
asking, "Do ye want a hand* the day, Mr. Irving?" with dreadful
irony. Another ludicrous mistake testifies to the general notion
that careless scholars occasionally got somewhat hard measure
from the young master. Some good men loitering about their
gardens in the neighborhood of the "Academy" heard outcries
which alarmed them ; and, convinced that murder was being ac
complished in the school, set off to save the victim ; but discover
ed, to their great discomfiture, that the cries which had attracted
their sympathy came from an unfortunate animal under the hands
of a butcher, and not from a tortured schoolboy. These severe
measures, however, by no means obliterate the pleasanter recollec
tion with which Irving's pupils recall his reign at the Academy.
It was not in his nature to work among even a set of schoolboys
without identifying himself with them, and carrying them with
him into all the occupations and amusements which they could
possibly be made to bear a share in. On the holidays the young
teacher might be seen, with both boys and girls in his train, issuing
forth to the fields with such scientific instruments as he could
command, giving them lessons in mensuration and surveying,
which, half in sport and half in earnest, doubtless, were not with
out their use to the fortunate lads thus promoted to share his
hours of leisure. The same lads went with him to the firth,
where he renewed those feats of swimming which had distin
guished him on the Solway ; and, sometimes with an urchin on
his shoulder, sometimes holding an oar or rope to sustain the more
advanced, sometimes lending the aid of his own vigorous arm, the
young Hercules taught, or endeavored to teach, his pupils to be as
fearless in the water as himself. If he might sometimes happen
to be discontented with his occupation, as was very possible, it
never occurred to Irving to evidence that feeling by doing just as
* Anglice — assistance, a helper.

52 DOING ALL THINGS HEARTILY.
little as could be demanded of him. Exactly the reverse was the
impulse of his generous, single-minded nature. He went into it
with all the fresh, natural fullness of his heart. He never seems to
have attempted making any division of himself. And this is no
picture of an interesting student compelled to turn aside from his
studies by the necessity of maintaining himself— and if not resent
ful, at least preserving a certain reserve and pathetical injured as
pect toward the world, as there are so many ; but an entire indi
vidual man, full of the highest ambition, yet knowing no possibility
of any other course of conduct than that of doing what his hand
found to do with all his heart, as freely as if he had loved the
work for its own sake. With such a disposition, he could not
even enter into any work without insensibly getting to love it,
and spending himself freely, with exuberant volunteer efforts not
demanded of him. Under no circumstances was indifference pos
sible to this young man ; though, even then, it is very apparent,
prophetic visions of a very different audience, and of future possi
bilities which no one else dreamt of, were with him in the midst
of his hearty and cordial labors.
Thus for a circle of years his remarkable figure pervades that
little town ; seen every day upon the shore, pacing up and down
the yellow sands with books and meditations — the great firth
rolling in at his feet in waves more grand and less impetuous
than those of his native Solway ; with green islands gleaming in
the light, and Arthur's Seat looming out through the Edinburgh
smoke in the distance, a moody lion ; and many a moonlight night
upon the same shore, collecting round him his little band of eager
disciples, to point out the stars in their courses, and communicate
such poetical elements of astronomy as were congenial to such a
scene. These latter meetings were disturbed and brought to a
conclusion in a whimsical homely fashion. One season it happen
ed that, on two different occasions when they met, falling stars
were seen. Forthwith some of the common people took up the
notion that Irving drew down the stars, or at least knew when
they were to fall. They accordingly watched for him and his pu
pils, and pushing in among them with ignorant, half-superstitious
curiosity, broke up the little conclave. A curious incident, in
which a fanciful observer might see some dim, mystic anticipa
tions of a future not yet revealed even to its hero. Indoors, in
his own domain, as the different classes went on with their lessons,
he moved about in perpetual activity, seldom sitting down, and

MILTON CLASS.— SCHOOLBOY CHIVALRY. 53
always fully intent upon the progress of his flock. Now and then
he gave them a holiday, on condition of receiving afterward an
essay describing how. they had spent their time — receiving in re
turn some amusing productions largely taken up with bird's-nest
ing and other such exploits of rustic boyhood. Both French and
Italian, in addition to the steadier routine of Latin and mathemat
ics, seem to have been attempted by the ardent young teacher ;
and his own class read Milton with him, learning large portions
of Paradise Lost by heart. "Wherever the sense seemed involved,
the pupils were required to rearrange the sentence and give it in
prose. This implied a thorough understanding of the passage
and appreciation of its meaning" — altogether a system of educa
tion of a lofty Optimist character, quite as rare and unusual in the
present day as at that time. It is said that one of his older pu
pils came on one occasion to this same Milton Class before the ar
rival of her companions, and, on reaching the door of the class
room, found Irving alone, reciting to himself one of the speeches
of Satan, with so much emphasis and so gloomy a countenance,
that the terrified girl, unable to conceal her fright, fled precipitate
ly. Some of his pupils — and among these one or two girls — came
to high proficiency in the mathematical studies, which were spe
cially dear to their young instructor; and — much apart from
mathematics — Irving so managed to impress his spirit upon the
lads under his charge, that the common conjunction of boys and
girls in this school became the means of raising a certain chival
rous spirit, not naturally abounding among schoolboys, in Kirk
caldy and its academy. That spirit of chivalry which, under the
form of respect to women, embodies the truest magnanimous sen
timent of strength, rose involuntarily among the youths command
ed by such a leader. They learned to suspend their very snow
ball bickers till the girls had passed out of harm's way ; and, aw
ing the less fortunate gamins of the little town by their sturdy
championship, made the name of "an Academy lassie" a defense
against all annoyance. The merest snowball directed against the
sacred person of one of these budding women was avenged by the
generous zeal of the " Irvingites." The girls, perhaps, on their
side were not equally considerate, but won prizes over the heads
of their stronger associates with no compunction, and took their
full share of the labors, though scarcely of the penalties of the
school. Amusing anecdotes of the friendship existing between
the teacher and his pupils are told on all sides : his patience and

54 "MUCH-RESPECTED PUPILS."
consideration in childish disasters, and prompt activity when ac
cidents occurred ; and even his readiness to be joked with when
times were propitious. It was necessary to secure beforehand,
however, that times were propitious. On one such sunshiny occa
sion some of the boys propounded the old stock riddle about the
seven wives with their stock of cats and kits " whom I met going
to St. Ives," and the whole school looked on, convulsed with se
cret titterings, while their simple-minded master went on jotting
down upon his blackboard in visible figures the repeated sevens
of that tricky composition. Their floggings do not seem to have
much damped the spirit of the Kirkcaldy boys, or diminished
their confidence in their teacher.
During the early part of Irving's residence in Kirkcaldy he
was still a partial student at the Divinity Hall. During the first
three winters he had to go over to Edinburgh now and then, to
deliver the discourses which were necessary, in order to keep up
his standing as a student. " On these occasions," says the lady
from whose notes the chief details of his Kirkcaldy history are
taken, " to insure his pupils losing as little as possible, he used to
ask them to meet him at the school at six or half past six in the
morning. This arrangement enabled him to go over the most
important of the lessons before the hour at which the fly started
to meet the passage-boat at Kinghorn," that being, before the age
of steamers, the most rapid conveyance between Fife and Edin
burgh. On his return from one such expedition, he himself de
scribes how, " in fear of a tedious passage across the ferry under
night, I requested from a friend of mine in Edinburgh a book,
which, by combining instruction with amusement, might at once
turn to account the time and relieve the tiresomeness of the voy
age." The book was Rasselas ; and was afterward sent, with an
amusingly elaborate, schoolmaster note, to two young ladies, whom
the young teacher (who afterward made one of them his wife) ad
dressed as " My much respected pupils." The friend who lent the
book desired it to be given as a prize to the best scholar in the
school, and, having been present at the examination, distinguished
these two, without being able to decide between them, but at the
same time deprecated any mention of himself on account of the
trifling value of his gift. Whereupon Irving adds, with quaint
antique solemnity, that "it was not the worth, but the honor
which should be regarded : that the conquerors of Greece and
Rome reckoned themselves more honored by the laurel crown

LOVE-MAKING.— CONFIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE. 55
than if they had enjoyed the splendid pomp of the noblest tri
umph;" and concludes by sending the book to both, so that "by
making the present mutual, it will not only be a testimonial of
your progress, but also of that attachment which I hope will ripen
into cordial friendship, and which it is the more pleasant to ob
serve, as its place is too often occupied by jealousy and envy.
He was not always, however, so exemplary in his letter-writing.
Only next spring, a year after, one of the ladies to whom, in con
junction with her companion, the above faultless sentiments were
inscribed, seems to have ceased to be Irving's " much respected
pupil." The hyperbolical fiend which talks of nothing but ladies,
seems in full possession of the young man in the next glimpse we
obtain of him, which is contained in a letter to his friend Mr. Sto
ry, who had apparently met with some temporary obstruction in
his career, and whom Irving felt himself called upon to console.
He fulfills this friendly office in the following fashion, beginning
with sundry philosophical, but far from original arguments against
despondency :
" But all these having doubtless occurred to yourself, I proceed to
operate upon your feelings by the much-approved method of awak
ening your sympathy to the much keener sufferings of your humble
servant and correspondent. You must, then, understand, that in this
town or neighborhood dwells a fair damsel, whose claims to esteem
I am prepared, at the point of my pen, to vindicate against all deadly.
Were I to enter into an enumeration of those charms which challenge
the world, I might find the low, equal, and unrhyming lines of prose
too feeble a vehicle to support my flights. ... I got to know that
this peerless one was prevented from making a promised visit into
the country by a stormy Saturday. I took the earliest opportunity
on the next lawful* day of waiting on her, and hinting, when mamma's
ear was engaged, that I had business at the same village, some of
these evenings, and would be most ineffably blessed to be her pro
tector home, if not also abroad : would she consent ? I might ask
her mother. In this most disagreeable of all tasks I succeeded better
than I expected. But, alas ! after I thought every thing was in a
fair way for yielding me a half-hour's enjoyment, I was not till then
informed that another was to be of the party. This was a terrible
obstacle, and how to get the better of it I could not divine. ... I
could do nothing the whole afternoon but think how happy I might
be in the evening. Left home about seven o'clock, so as to call on a
friend and be ready at eight, the appointed hour. 'Twas . a most
lovely, still evening ; just such as you could have chosen from the
whole year for the sighs, protestations, invocations, etc., of lovers. I
called on my friend and tried to get him along with me, in order that
* A common Scotch expression for weekdays, excluding the Sunday ; public con
veyances used to be advertised as plying " on all lawful days."

56 ENGAGEMENT.— THE MINISTER OF KIRKCALDY.

/

I might throw on his charge the intruder, if she should happen to be
there. It would not do, and I was forced to go alone, resolving to
make the best of a bad business should I be so unfortunate. What,
think you, was my disappointment — what imagination can figure —
what language describe my torment when I found she was gone some
time ago ? What could I do ? The sea was at hand, but then the
tide was not full ; there were rocks at hand, but they were scarcely
elevated enough for a lover's leap. I took my solitary, gloomy way
down by the dark shore. I lingered long beneath the gloom of a ru
ined castle that overhangs the billow. I listened to the dash of the
waves, and cast my melancholy eye to the solitary beacon gleaming.
from afar. I fancied, fantastically enough, that it was an image of
myself separated and driven to a distance from what in the world I
valued. At last, however, my tardy feet, after scrambling on many
a ledgy rock, and splashing in many a pool, brought me to the haunts
of men. . . . where there were few stirring to disturb the repose of
my silent thoughts ; I stole home, and endeavored to find oblivion of
my cares in the arms of sleep. . . . Since that time the unfortunate
subject of the above tragic incident has consigned every serious study
to neglect."
This whimsical effusion concludes with a significant note:
" Have you got introduced to Miss P. or Miss D. yet ? If you be,
present my kind compliments. But at your peril mention a word
of the lady to whom I have referred as honoring this part of the world
with her presence /"
Out of the serio-comic levity of this beginning, however, sprang
important conclusions. Though it was only after a distance of
long years and much separation, the usual vicissitudes of youthful
life, and all the lingering delays of a classical probation, that the
engagement was completed, Irving found his mate in Fifeshire.
Not long after she had ceased to be his pupil he became engaged
to Isabella Martin, the eldest daughter of the parish minister of
Kirkcaldy. She was of a clerical race, an hereditary " daughter
of the Manse," according to the affectionate popular designation,
and of a name already in some degree known to fame in the per
son of Dr. Martin, ofMonimail, her grandfather, who survived
long enough to baptize and bless his great-grandchildren — who
had some local poetical reputation in his day, and whom the
grateful painter, entitled in Scotland "our immortal Wilkie," has
commemorated as having helped his early struggles into fame by
the valuable gift of two lay figures ; and of David Martin, his
brother, first proprietor of the said lay figures, whose admirable
portraits are well known. Her father, the Rev. John Martin, was
an admirable type of the class to which he belonged — an irre
proachable parish priest, of respectable learning, and talents, and

THE MANSE HOUSEHOLD. 57
deep piety, living a domestic patriarchal life in the midst of the
little community under his charge, fully subject to their observa
tion and criticism, but without any rival in his position or influ
ence; bringing up his many children among them, and spending
his active days in all that fatherly close supervision of morals and
manners which distinguished and became the old hereditary min
isters of Scotland. He was of the party then called "wild" or
"highflyers," in opposition to the "Moderates," who formed the
majority of the Church, and whose flight was certainly low enough
to put them in little hazard from any skyey influences. Such a
man in those days exercised over the bulk of his people an influ
ence which, perhaps, no man in any position exercises now, and
in which the special regard of the really religious portion of his
flock only put a more fervent climax upon the traditionary re
spect of the universal people, always ready, when he was worthy
of it, to yield to the traditionary sway of the minister, though
equally ready to jeer at and scorn him when he was not, with a
contempt increased by their national appreciation of the import
ance of his office. To the house of this good man Irving had
early obtained access, the Manse children in a goodly number
being among his scholars, and the Manse itself forming the natu
ral centre of all stray professors of literature in a region which
had too many sloops and looms on hand to be greatly attracted
that way. The family in this Manse of Kirkcaldy, which after
ward became so closely related to him, and the younger members
of which understood him all the better that their minds had been
formed and developed under his instruction, were, during all his
after life, Irving's fast friends, accompanying him, not with con
currence or agreement certainly, but with faithful affection and
kindness to the very edge of the grave. Irving himself, in one
of his somewhat formal early letters, gives us a pleasant, if slight
ly elaborate glimpse of this domestic circle. He is writing to one
of its absent daughters, and apologizing "for not having expressed
sooner the higher regard which I have for you."
" But," he proceeds, " I sometimes find for myself an excuse in
thinking that almost the whole of that leisure of which you were so
well entitled to a share has been engrossed in that family circle of
which you were wont to form a part, and with which your warmest
sympathies will for a long time, perhaps forever, dwell. They are
well, and living in that harmony and happiness which Providence, as
it must approve, will not, I pray, soon disturb. Your brothers and
sisters, as formerly, have gone on securing the esteem of their teach-

58 SISTER ELIZABETH.— HER HUSBAND.
ers, delighting the hearts of your worthy parents with placid joy,
and laying up for themselves a fund of useful knowledge, of warm
and virtuous feelings, and of pleasing recollections, which will go far
to smooth for them the rugged features of life. God grant that they
and you may continue to merit all the good that I for one do wish
you, and that you may receive all that you merit. By me it shall
ever be esteemed among the most fortunate events of my life to have
been brought to the acquaintance of your father and his family, and
I trust that the intimacy which they have honored me with shall one
day ripen into a closer connection."
Then follow some counsels to the young lady on her studies
(particularly recommending the acquirement of " a correct Eng
lish accent and pronunciation"), which must have been of rather
an ambitious kind.
" Last night we had a talk at the Manse over a clause in your last
letter about your Greek pursuits; and we have arranged to send you
by the first opportunity a copy of Moor's Grammar and Dunbar's
Exercises, which, with the Greek Testament, will withstand your
most diligent efforts for at least one year. You are not far from
Cambridge ; you ought to possess yourself of a complete set of the
Cambridge course (Wood and Vine's), and study them regularly; at
the same time, be cautious of losing, in the superior convenience and
readiness of the analytical or algebraical method, the simple and ele
gant spirit of the ancient Geometry, to which Leslie's elements, espe
cially the Analysis, is so good an introduction. I would like to have
a correspondence with you on scientific subjects  The
news of the burgh I intrust to those who know them better. The
people wear the same faces as when you left, and their manners seem
nearly as stationary. I leave the remainder of my paper to Isabel.
I can not claim, but do hope for a letter soon. When it comes, it
shall be to me like a holiday."
The lady addressed in this strain of old-fashioned regard and
kindness was one with whom, in after life, he had much inter
course, and who was not only a sister, but a friend capable of ap
preciating his character. Years after, he expresses, with a certain
naive frankness quite his own, his hopes that a dear friend about
to return to Scotland, and whom he had earnestly advised to
marry, should be " directed by the Lord to one of those sisters
who are in my mind always represented as one." Irving's prayer
was granted. The warm-hearted and admirable William Hamil
ton,* the friend of his choice and faithful counselor to the end,
* William Hamilton, a merchant in Cheapside, and, like Irving, a native of Dum
friesshire, was one of the early office-bearers in the Caledonian Chapel, Hatton Gar
den ; a man who, in the inglorious but profitable toils of business, concealed from the
world an amount of practical sagacity, unpurchasable, unacquirable endowment,
which might havo honored a higher place, and whose warm heart and benign man-

"TRIALS FOR LICENSE."— EXAMINATION. 59
became his brother-in-law ; and to the sister thus brought into
his immediate neighborhood some of his most touching confiden
ces were afterward addressed.
He had now completed his necessary tale of collegiate sessions,
having been, in the partial and irregular way necessitated by his
other occupations, in attendance at the Divinity Hall for six long
winters. He was now subjected to the " trials for license" which
Presbyterian precautions require. " They are now taken to se
verest trials by the Presbytery of the Church in those bounds
where they reside," he himself describes with loving boastfulness,
proud of the severities of the Church from which he never could
separate his heart, " and circular letters are sent to all the presby
ters in that district, in order that objections may be taken against
him who would have the honor, and take upon himself the trust
of preaching Christ. If no objections are offered, they proceed to
make trial of his attainments in all things necessary for the min
istry — his knowledge, his piety, his learning, and his character.
They prescribe to him five several discourses ; one an ' Ecce Je-
sum,' in Latin, to discover his knowledge in that language ; an
other an exercise in Greek criticism,' to discover his knowledge in
sacred literature ; another a homily ; another a discourse to the
clergy, to know his gifts in expounding the Scriptures ; another
a sermon, to know his gifts in preaching to the people. These
trials last half a year; and, being found sufficient, he is permitted
to preach the Gospel among the churches. But he is not yet or
dained, for our Church ordaineth no man without a flock."
It is thus that Irving, when at the height of his fame, and open
ing the great new church built for him in London, affectionately
vaunts the carefulness of his ecclesiastical mother. He went
through his " trials " in the early part of the year 1815, and was
fully licensed to preach the Gospel by the Presbytery of Kirk
caldy in the June of that year ; and " exercised his gift," accord
ing to the old Scotch expression, thereafter in Kirkcaldy and
other places with no great amount of popular appreciation. A
humorous description of his first sermon preached in Annan is
ners are remembered by many in his own sphere, where no man possessed a more
entire popularity. He had a share in originating the "call" from the scanty Scotch
congregation, all unaware of what that call of theirs was to bring about, who brought
Irving to London ; was his close and affectionate coadjutor for many years ; and,
not being able at last to follow so-far as his beloved friend would have led him, stood
silently and sorrowfully by to witness that disruption and separation which he could
not avert.

60 " OWER MUCKLE GRAN'NER."
given by an early friend. The " haill town," profoundly critical
and much interested, turned out to hear him ; even his ancient
teachers, with solemn brows, came out to sit in judgment on Ed
ward's sermon. A certain excitement of interest, unusual to that
humdrum atmosphere, thrilled through the building. When the
sermon was in full current, some incautious movement of the
young preacher tilted aside the great Bible, and the sermon it
self, that direful "paper" which Scotch congregations hold in
high despite, dropped out bodily, and fluttered down upon the
precentor's desk underneath. A perfect rustle of excitement ran
through the church. Here was an unhoped-for crisis! What
would the neophyte do now ? The young preacher calmly stoop
ed his great figure over the pulpit, grasped the manuscript as it
lay, broadways, crushed it up in his great hand, thrust it into a
pocket, and went on as fluently as before. There does not exist
a congregation in Scotland which that act would not have taken
by storm. His success was triumphant. To criticise a man so
visibly independent of "the paper" would have been presump
tion indeed.
In Kirkcaldy, however, his appearances neither excited such
interest, nor were attended by any such fortunate accidents. The
people listened doubtfully to those thunder-strains which echoed
over their heads, and which were certainly not like Dr. Martin's
sermons. They could not tell what to make of discourses so
strangely different from the discourses of other orthodox young
probationers, and doubtless the style was still unformed, and had
not yet attained that rhythm and music which would not have
passed unnoticed even in Kirkcaldy ; yet the common complaint
alleged against it was perfectly characteristic. "He had ower
muckle gran'ner," the good people said, with disturbed looks.
Too much grandeur ! most true, but most singular of criticisms !
A certain baker, Beveridge by name (let us hand it down to such
immortality as can be conferred by this record), rudely, with
Scotch irreverence for the place in which he was, kicked his pew-
door open and bounced forth out of the church when the lofty
head of the young schoolmaster was seen in the pulpit ; and the
same church, which a few years after was disastrously crowded
with hearers coming far and near at the name of the great preach
er, thinned out of its ordinary attendance in those early days when
he was to supply Dr. Martin's place. He got no credit and little
encouragement in what was, after all, his real vocation. The fer-

OTHER PEOPLE'S SERMONS. 61
vent beginnings of his eloquence were thrown back cold upon
his heart ; no eye in his audience making response to that imper
fect splendid voice of half-developed genius, which was so won
derfully distinct from the commonplace shrills of ordinary pulpit
declamation which they listened to and relished. He had " ower
muckle gran'ner" for the good people of Kirkcaldy. His chaotic
splendors disconcerted them ; and no doubt there was a certain
justice in the general voice. A style so rich and splendid might
very well have sounded turgid or bombastic in youth, before the
harmonious key-note had been found.
He lingered three years after his license as a preacher in his
schoolmaster's desk — silent, listening to other preachers, not al
ways with much edification — noting how the people to whom his
own "unacceptableness".was apparent relished the platitudes of
meaner men ; laying in unconsciously a certain scorn and intol
erance of those limited pretenders to wisdom, whose sham or bor
rowed coin had fuller currency than his own virgin gold ; and as
he sat in a position from which he could at once watch the pulpit
and the audience, with thoughts on this momentous and often-dis
cussed subject taking gradual form in his mind, he asked himself
the reasons of his own apparent failure. He asked himself a still
deeper question, whether this was the preaching of Paul and his
brother apostles? This process of thought is apparent through
out all his works, and above all in the Orations with which he
first burst upon the world. Those three years of slow successive
Sundays, now and then interrupted by an occasional appearance
in the pulpit hailed by no gracious looks, gave the silent listener,
whose vocation it was to preach, deep insight into, and deeper im
patience of, the common conventionalities of the pulpit. He found
out how little the sermons he heard touched his case : to his own
mind he represented himself, all glowing with genius and eager
ness, as a representative of the educated hearer, and chafed, as
many a man has chafed since, over the dead platitudes which
were only a weariness. It is probable that this compulsory pause,
irksome as it may have been, was of the profoundest importance
both to Irving and to his future eloquence. It delivered him en
tirely from the snare of self-admiration, so far as his pulpit efforts
were concerned, and concentrated his powers on the perfection of
his style and utterance ; while it gave at once to his Christian zeal
and human ambition the sharpest of all spurs — the keen stimulus
of seeing other men do that work badly or slothfully which he

62 HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT PREACHING.
felt it was in him to do well. The peculiar position of a Scotch
probationer, on the very threshold of the Church, but not within
it ; a preacher, but still only a layman, with the title of reverend
sometimes accorded to him by courtesy, but entirely without ec
clesiastical position, gave him all the greater facility for forming
a judgment upon the inadequacies of the ordinary pulpit. Such
speculations were not common in those days. People who ac
knowledged the influence of the Church cpnsidered themselves
bound, for reasons both religious and political, to maintain it in all
points, and suffer no assault ; while those who did not held it in
entire contempt as an unimprovable institution. The Kirkcaldy
probationer belonged to neither of these classes. He saw with an
ideal eye, which went as yet far beyond his powers of execution,
what that pulpit could do and ought to do. He was by far too
bold and candid, and too thoroughly assured of the truth he held
to be afraid of attracting notice to its imperfections ; on the con
trary, it chafed his very soul to permit it to be supposed that re
ligion and religious teaching were for the vulgar only, and that
what satisfied baker Beveridge was to be considered sufficient for
the world ; and while he was silent his heart burned. With a
temperament such as his, loving love and approbation, as it was
natural for him to do, and believing in the sincerity of all men,
no other discipline could have been half so effective. He learned,
if not to distrust himself, at least to admit, with a certain sorrow
ful but candid astonishment, that the world in general did not
take a lofty view of his qualifications ; and he passed over it,
weighing that and its causes in his heart with manful humility
and surprise — meaning to be at the bottom of this ere all was
done ; feeling in his heart that it was only for a time.
During this period of his life, his personal religious sentiments
are not very apparent, nor is there any record, so far as I have
been able to ascertain, of such a critical moment in his life as those
which have formed the turning-point of so many minds. He was
spotless in morals and manners at all times, but not without faults
of temper ; and was specially distinguished by a certain cheerful,
cordial pugnacity, and readiness, when occasion called for it, to
adopt a boldly offensive line of tactics in support of his own dig
nity and independence, or those of his class ; partly stimulated
thereto, doubtless, by the great personal strength which could no
more consent to remain inactive than any other of his gifts. In
one of his many walking excursions, for example, he and his com-

ADVENTURE IN A HIGHLAND INN.— ANECDOTE. 63
panion came to a little roadside inn, where there was but one sit
ting-room, of a very homely description. The young men left
their coats and knapsacks in this room, ordered dinner, and went
out to investigate the neighborhood while it was getting ready.
On their return, however, they found the room occupied by a party
of tourists, the only table filled, their dinner forestalled, and their
belongings huddled into a corner. Remonstrances were unavail
ing ; the intruders not only insisted that they had a right to re
tain possession of the room, but resisted the entrance of the hun
gry and tired, pedestrians, and would neither share the table nor
the apartment. When fair means were no longer practicable, Ir
ving pushed forward to the window, and threw it wide open ;
then, turning toward the company, all ready for action, gravely
addressed his comrade: "Will you toss out or knock down?" a
business-like inquiry, which, according to the story, changed with
great rapidity the aspect of affairs. Other anecdotes not unsimi-
lar might be quoted. " In the year 1816," says Dr. Grierson, " the
42d Regiment, having returned after Waterloo, was employed to
line the streets of Edinburgh on the day when, at the opening of
the General Assembly, the Royal Commissioner proceeded in state
from the reception hall in Hunter Square to St. Giles's. Standing
in front of the Grenadier Company, Irving said to me, pointing to
the tallest man among them, ' Do you see that fellow ? I should
like to meet him in a dark entry.' ' For what reason ?' I inquired.
' Just,' said he, ' that I might find out what amount of drubbing I
could bear !' "
The meeting of Assembly here referred to was enlivened by a
momentary specimen of the young man's muscular power. It is
impossible, out of Scotland, to form any idea of what was then the
interest excited by the General Assembly, which had been for
centuries the national Parliament of exclusive Scottish principles
and feelings. The late Lord Cockburn in his Memorials, as well as
in his life of Lord Jeffrey, has reproduced, in slight but graphic
sketches, the characteristic aspect of that unique ecclesiastical
body. Scotch churchmen may naturally enough object to the
friendly but not reverential description of the brilliant lawyer ;
but it is almost the only popular picture of the most national of
all Scotch institutions which can be referred to. Matters are al
tered nowadays ; the unity is broken ; and, however interesting
the annual meetings of the Scotch churches may be, there are
now two of them, both of which are incomplete, and neither of

64 GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
which has a full title to be called national. At the period of
which we are now speaking there was scarcely any dissent in the
country ; the body of the nation held tenaciously by the Kirk,
laymen of the highest class shared in its deliberations, and the
most distinguished lawyers of the Scotch bar pleaded in its judicial
courts. A great discussion in the Assembly was as interesting to
Edinburgh as a great debate in Parliament would be in London
to-day; and the interest, and even excitement, which attended
this yearly convocation, had taken a stimulus from the growing
stir of external life, and from the still more important growth of
existence within. The time was critical for every existing insti
tution. The Church, long dormant, was, like other organizations,
beginning to thrill with a new force, against which all the slum
brous past arrayed itself; and the Scotch metropolis was stirred
with universal emotion to see the new act of that world-long
drama which is renewed from age to age in every church and
country ; that struggle in which, once in a century at least, indif
ference and common usage are brought to bay by the new life
rising against them, and, roused at last, fight for their sluggish
existence with such powers as they are able to muster. At such
a moment occurred the famous "Debate on the Pluralities," which
holds an important place in the modern history of the Scotch
Church — a debate in which "Chalmers of Kilmany," not long be
fore zealously ambitious to hold such pluralities in his own per
son, but who had since gone through that mysterious and wonder
ful change in his views, which, when clearly honest and undoubt
ed, no human audience can refuse to be interested in, was to lead
the attack. The pluralities in question were such as might
awaken the smiles of the richer establishment on the other side
of the Tweed, where the word bears a more important meaning.
The widest extent of pluralities possible to a Scotch clergyman
was that of holding a professor's chair in conjunction with his pul
pit and parochial duties. This question, which at the time, from the
parties and principle involved, interested every body, had natural
ly a double interest for the future ministers of the Church. The
probationers and students of divinity were eager to gain admit
tance. The Assembly sat in a portion of St. Giles's known by
the name of the Old Assembly Aisle, one of the quaint subdi
visions into which that church, like Glasgow Cathedral in former
days, has been partitioned for congregational use and convenience
and where the narrow pews and deep steep galleries, thrust in be

INTOLERANCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 65
tween the lofty pillars, are as much out of keeping with those
pillars themselves as is the whitewashed blank of wall, despoiled
of its tombs and altars, under the calm height of the vault above.
" The Old Assembly Aisle," says the gentleman already quoted,
" afforded but very limited accommodation, and the students' gal
lery was understood to be occupied by some persons not of their
body. At this Irving felt great indignation. He remonstrated
with the doorkeeper, but in vain ; he demanded entrance for him
self and others who were excluded ; and when no attention was,
or perhaps could be, paid by that official, he put his shoulder to
the narrow door, and, applying his Herculean strength to it, fairly
wrenched it off its hinges ! The crash interrupted the proceedings
of the court, and produced both surprise and diversion, but no re
dress of grievances."
A somewhat unscrupulous mode of entering a church, it must
be allowed. Such incidents as these— and they might easily be
multiplied — display, in perhaps its least objectionable form, that
of downright personal force and resistance, the national charac
teristic intolerance of circumstances, and determination to subdue
all outside obstacles to its will, which shows so strongly in the
youthful development of Scotchmen ; a quality little recognized,
but most influential, and which has largely affected the recent his
tory of the Scotch Church. Nobody can read the life of Chalmers,
manful and often splendid as that life is, without a perception of
this determined willfulness, and disinclination to yield to circum
stances. If the same tendency is not so apparent in the Jeffreys,
Cockburns, and Tytlers of another class, it is probably because the
somewhat higher social sphere of the latter had tempered the
sharpness of their nationality. Irving's personal strength and
relish for its exercise threw into amusing outward exhibitions of
force a quality which, though always picturesque and character
istic, is not always amiable.
As the time of his probation lengthened out, it is probable that
Irving, with all his inclinations rising toward the profession which
the Church had now solemnly sanctioned his choice of, and pro
nounced him capable for, became very weary of his schoolmaster
life. Another school, in opposition to his, was set up in the town,
not apparently from any distaste toward him, but from the ad
vancing desire for liberal education which his own long appren
ticeship in Kirkcaldy must have fostered; a school which — sin
gular luck for the little Fife sea-port — secured the early services
E

66 ABBOTSHALL SCHOOL-HOUSE.
of Thomas Carlyle. Changes too, and attempts at widening out
his limited possibilities, appear in his own life. To increase the
profits of his post— which, however, of themselves appear to have
been considerable, as such matters go— Irving made an attempt
to receive private pupils, who were to attend his school and live
under his own charge. For this purpose he took up his abode in
the Abbotshall school-house, at one extremity of the town of
Kirkcaldy, but in another parish, the parish schoolmaster of
which was, like himself, a candidate for the Church. The house
was the upper flat of the building occupied as a school, and was
more commodious than the majority of schoolmasters' houses. A
nobler Marina could not be than the broad terrace overlooking
the firth, but totally unappropriated to any uses of fashion or vis
itors, upon which stands the school-house of Abbotshall, beholding
from its range of windows a wide landscape, always interesting,
and often splendid, the firth with all its islands, the distant spires
and heights of Edinburgh, and the green Lothian coast with its
bays and hills. Whether the pupils were slow to come, or the
conjoint household did not answer, or Irving himself tired of the
experiment, does not appear ; but it was soon given up, and does
not seem to have had any success. "Ay, Mr. Irving once lived
here — he was a great mathematician," says the present incumbent,
complacent among his gooseberry bushes ; spoken in that sunny
garden, such words throw back and set aside the years which
have made little change on any thing but man. One forgets how
his sun rose to noon, and at noon disastrously went down, carry
ing with it a world of hopes; a mist of distance conceals the bril
liant interval between this homely house and the Glasgow Cathe
dral crypt Here, where once he lived, it is not the great preacher,
the prophet, and wonder of an age, whose shadow lingers on the
kindly soil. He was master of Kirkcaldy Academy in those
days. He was "a great mathematician;" the glory of an after
career, foreign to the schoolroom, has not rubbed out that impres
sion from the mind of his humble successor on the spot where as
yet he had no other fame.

GIVES UP TEACHING.— BRISTO STREET.

67

CHAPTER V.
AFLOAT ON THE WORLD.
Bristo Street.— Renewed Studies.— Advice. — Literary Societies. — Begins Anew.—
Was his own Hearer.— Undisturbed Belief.— His Haddington Pupil.— Candor
and Pugnacity. — Clouded Prospects.— The Apostolic Missionary. — Domestic Let
ters. — Carlyle. — Hopes and Fears. — Preaches in St. George's, Edinburgh. — Sus
pense. — Goes to Ireland. — Wanderings. — Invitation to Glasgow. — Interest in
Church Affairs. — Doubtful of his own Success.
In 1818, when he had been seven years in Kirkcaldy, and had
now reached the maturity of his twenty-sixth year, Irving finally
left his school and gave up teaching. The position seems to have
been growing irksome to him for some time before. It was not
his profession ; and he was wasting the early summer of his life
in work which, however cordially he embraced it, was not the
best work for such a man. His assistants, too, on whom, as the
school increased, he had to depend, brought him into other com
plications, and he was now no longer a youth lingering at the be
ginning of his career, but a man eager to enter the arena where
so many others less worthy were contending for the prize ; and
not only so, but a man engaged to be married, to whom Nature
indicated the necessity of fixing himself permanently in life.
Moved by the rising excitement of all these thoughts, and appa
rently not without means of maintaining himself for some time,
while he saw what work the world might have for him to do, he
finally gave up the Kirkcaldy Academy in the summer of 1818,
and resolving henceforward to devote himself to his own profes
sion alone, came to Edinburgh, where he took lodgings in Bristo
Street, a locality still frequented by students. Here he was near
the college, and in the centre of all that mental activity from
which he had been separated in the drowsy retirement of the
country town. He entered largely and gladly into all academical
pursuits. He renewed his acquaintance with friends who had
been with him in his early college days, or whom he had met in
his hurried visits to Edinburgh while lingering through his tedi
ous "partial" sessions in the Divinity Hall; and seems to have
heartily set to work to increase his own attainments, and make

68 RENEWED STUDIES.
himself better qualified for whatever post he might be called to.
It is not a brilliant period in the young man's life. He presents
himself to us in the aspect of an unsuccessful probationer, a figure
never rare in Scotland ; a man upon whom no sunshine of pa
tronage shone, and whom just as little had the popular eye found
out or fixed upon; whose services were unsolicited either by
friendly ministers or vacant congregations — a man fully licensed
and qualified to preach, whom nobody cared to hear. With the
conviction strong in his mind that this was his appointed function
in the world, and with a consciousness of having pondered the
whole matter much more deeply than is usual with young preach
ers, there rose before Irving the immovable barrier of unsuccess —
not failure ; he had never found means to try his powers suffi
ciently for failure ; even that might have been less hard to bear
than the blank of indifference and " unacceptability" which he
had now to endure. His services were not required in the world;
the profession for which, by the labors of so many years, he had
slowly qualified himself, hung in his hands an idle capability of
which nothing came. Yet the pause at first seems to have been
grateful. He had nothing to do ; but, at all events, he had escaped
from long toiling at a trade which was not his.
Accordingly, he attended several classes in the college during
the winter of 1818-19, among which were Chemistry and Natural
History. "He prosecuted these studies," says a fellow-student,
" at least in some of their branches, with great delight ;" although,
in a note written at this period to Mr. Gordon, afterward Dr. Gor
don of Edinburgh, he confesses, while mentioning that he had been
studying mineralogy, " that he had learned from it as little about
the structure of the earth as he could have learned about the
blessed Gospel by examining the book of kittle* Chronicles ! " He
was also much occupied with the modern languages, French and
Italian especially. These were before the days of Teutonic en
thusiasm ; but Irving seems to have had a pleasure in, and faculty
for acquiring languages, as was testified by his rapid acquirement
of Spanish at an after period of his life. Some of the few letters
which throw any light on this period are occupied with discus
sions about dictionaries and grammars, and the different prices of
the same, which show him deep in the pursuit of Italian, and, at
the same time, acting as general agent and ready undertaker of
country commissions. One of these, addressed to one of his pu-
* Difficult, puzzling.

LITERARY SOCIETIES. 69
pils in the manse of Kirkcaldy, conveys, after reporting his dili
gence in respect to sundry of such commissions, the following
advice :
" Let me entreat you to pursue your own improvement sedu
lously, both religious and intellectual. Read some of the Latin
and Italian classics with a view to the higher accomplishments of
taste and sentiment, directing all your studies by the principle of
fitting your mind still more and more for perceiving the beauties
and excellencies God has spread over the existence of man."
Such a motive for studies of this description has novelty in it,
though it is one that we are well enough accustomed to see ap
plied to all those educational preparations of science with which
our schools abound. While he thus occupied himself in com
pleting an education which throughout must have been more a
gradual process of improving and furnishing the mind than of
systematic study, Irving had also engaged warmly in all the rec
ognized auxiliaries of University training. He had been in the
habit for years before of occasionally attending the meetings of
one of the literary societies of the college, the Philomathic, and
taking a considerable share in its proceedings. " He was some
times very keen and powerful in debate," says Dr. Grierson, " and,
without being unfair or overbearing, was occasionally in danger,
by the vehemence of his manner and the strong language he em
ployed, of being misunderstood and giving offense." But on
coming to Edinburgh in 1818, he found this society, now defunct,
too juvenile for his maturer age and thoughts, and was instru
mental in instituting another of riper pretensions, intended " for
the mutual improvement of those who had already completed the
ordinary academic course." This was called the Philosophical
Association, and consisted only of seven or eight members, of
whom Edward Irving was one and Thomas Carlyle another.
Some teachers of local eminence and licentiates of the Church
made up the number. The vast disproportion which exists now
between these immortals and the nameless, but, in their own
sphere, not undistinguished men who surrounded them, was not
apparent in those days, and probably the lesser men were at no
such disadvantage in their argumentations as one would imagine
at the first glance. The first essay delivered by Irving in this
society was " somewhat unexpectedly," his old companion says,
on the subject of Bible Societies, and "was full of thought, ardor,
and eloquence, indicating large views and a mind prepared for

70 BEGINS ANEW.
high and holy enterprise." It would be curious to know what
he had to say on a subject which afterward caused so much com
motion, and on which some of his own most characteristic appear
ances were made. But the Philosophical Association is also de
funct ; other generations have formed other societies of their own,
and the early sentiments of Irving and Carlyle are as entirely lost
as are those of their less distinguished colleagues.
In the reviving glow of intellectual life, his long pondering
upon the uses of the pulpit came to a distinct issue. He an
nounced his intention of burning all his existing sermons, and be
ginning on a new system ; an intention which was remorselessly
carried out. Those prelections which the youth had delivered
from year to year in the Divinity Hall, and those discourses
which the Kirkcaldy parishioners had despised, and Beveridge
the baker had boldly escaped from hearing, were sacrificed in
this true auto da fL No doubt it was a fit and wise holocaust.
Sacrificing all his youthful conventionalities and speculations, Ir
ving, at six-and-twenty, began to compose what he was to address
to such imaginary hearers as he himself had been in Kirkcaldy
church. The wonderful fame which flashed upon him whenever
he stood forth single before the world takes a certain explanation
even beyond the perennial explanation of all wonders which lies
in genius from this fact. For the four silent years during which
he had possessed the right to speak, other people had been ad
dressing him out of Dr. Martin's pulpit ; all the ordinary round
of argument and exhortation had been tried in unconscious ex
periment upon the soul of the great preacher, who sat silent,
chafing, yet weighing them all in his heart. He knew where
they failed, and how they failed, far more distinctly than reason
or even imagination could have taught him. Their tedium, their
ineffectiveness, their wasted power and superficial feeling, told all
the more strongly upon him because of his consciousness that the
place thus occupied was his own fit place, and that he himself
had actually something to say ; and when the, schoolmaster's daily
duties were over, and he had time and leisure to turn toward his
own full equipment, the result was such as I have just described.
Warmed and stimulated by his own experience, he began to
write sermons to himself — that impatient, vehement hearer,
whose character and intelligence none of the other preachers had
studied. Perhaps, in the midst of all the modern outcry against
sermons, the preachers of the world might adopt Irving's method

UNDISTURBED BELIEF. 71
with advantage. While he wrote he had always in his eye that
brilliant, dissatisfied, restless listener among the side pews in Kirk
caldy church. He knew to a hair's-breadth what that impatient
individual wanted — how much he could bear — how he could be
interested, edified, or disgusted. I have no doubt it was one of
the greatest secrets of his after power ; and that the sweet breath
of popular applause, pleasant though it might have been, would
have injured the genius which, in silence, and unacceptableness,
and dire prolonged experiment of other people's preaching, came
to be its own perennial hearer — the first and deepest critic of its
own powers.
One of the first occasions when he preached on this new sys
tem, Dr. Grierson adds2 "He was engaged to supply the pulpit
of his old professor of divinity (Dr. Ritchie), when, in his noble
and impassioned zeal for the supreme and infallible standard of
Scripture, he startled his audience by a somewhat unqualified
condemnation of ecclesiastical formulas, although he still unques
tionably maintained, as he had conscientiously subscribed, all the
doctrines of our orthodox Confession of Faith." " He was very
fearless, original, striking, and solemn," continues the same au
thority, "in many of his statements, illustrations, and appeals."
Though he is described, and indeed afterward describes himself,
as still " feeling his way" in respect to some matters of religious
truth, doubt does not seem ever to have invaded his mind. At
no period is there any appearance of either skepticism or uncer
tainty. While his mind took exception at the manner in which
the truth was set forth, there is no trace in his life of that period
of uncertain or negative belief — that agony of conflict which has
come, falsely or truly, to be looked upon as one of the inevitable
phenomena of spiritual life in every independent mind. The he
roic simplicity of Irving's character seems to have rejected that
vain contest among the incomprehensibles with which so many
young men begin their career. Even in the arbitrary, reasoning,
unreasonable days of youth, logic was not the god of the young
man, who never could disjoin his head from his heart, nor dis
solve the absolute unity of nature in which God had made him ;
and he seems to have come through all the perils of his time — a
time in which skepticism, if less refined, was by a great deal
franker, honester, and more outspoken than now — with a heart
untouched, and to have entirely escaped what was then called
Free-thinking. Whether his personal piety originated in any

72 HIS HADDINGTON PUPIL. i
visible crisis of conversion it is impossible to tell. There is no
trace of it in his history, neither does he himself refer to any sud
den light cast upon his life. " I was present once or twice about
this period," Dr. Grierson tells us, " when he was asked to conduct
family prayers. He was very slow, pointed, and emphatic, and
gave one, as yet, more the idea of profound, earnest, and devout
thinking than of simple and fervent petitioning." But it is im
possible to point to any portion of his life as that in which the
spiritual touch was given which vivified all. His behavior was
at all times blameless, but never ascetical. " He associated with,
and lived in the world without restraint, joining the forms and
fashions of mixed society," says an anonymous writer, supposed
to be Allan Cunningham, who afterward acknowledges, with an
apologetic touch of horror, that his social habits went almost the
length of vulgarity, since he was once in the habit of smoking
when in the company of smokers! But this seems the hardest
thing that any one has to say against him.
While in Edinburgh, and entering into all the modest pleasures
of the little intellectual society above described, Irving met once
more the little pupil whose precocious studies he had superintend
ed at Haddington. He found her a beautiful and vivacious girl,
with an affectionate recollection of her old master ; and the young
man found a natural charm in her society. I record this only for
a most characteristic, momentary appearance which he makes in
the memory of his pupil. It happened that he, with natural gen
erosity, introduced some of his friends to the same hospitable
house. But the generosity of the most liberal stops somewhere.
When Irving heard the praises of one of those same friends fall
ing too warmly from the young lady's lips, he could not conceal
a little pique and mortification, which escaped in spite of him.
When this little ebullition was over, the fair culprit turned to
leave the room, but had scarcely passed the door when Irving hur
ried after her, and called, entreating her to return for a moment.
When she came back, she found the simple-hearted giant standing
penitent to make his confession. "The truth is, I was piqued,"
said Irving ; "I have always been accustomed to fancy that i"
stood highest in your good opinion, and I was jealous to hear you
praise another man. I am sorry for what I said just now — that
is the truth of it ;" and so, not pleased, but penitent and candid,
let her go. It is a fair representation of his prevailing character
istic. He could no more have retained what he felt to be a mean-

CANDOR AND PUGNACITY.— CLOUDED PROSPECTS. 73
ness on his mind unconfessed than he could have persevered in
the wrong.
With this humility, however, was conjoined, in the most natu
ral and genial union, all that old pugnacity which had distinguish
ed him in former times. Pretension excited his wrath wherever
he saw it ; and perhaps he was not so long-suffering as his gigan
tic uncle. A story of a similar description to some already quoted
belongs to this period of his life. He had undertaken to escort
some ladies to a public meeting, where it was necessary to be in
early attendance at the door to obtain a place. Irving had taken
up a position on the entrance steps with his charges under his
wing, when an official personage came pushing his way through
the crowd, and ordering the people to stand back. When no at
tention was paid to him, this authoritative person put out his hand
to thrust the Hercules beside him out of his way. Irving raised
in his hand the great stick he carried, and turned to the intruder :
"Be quiet, sir, or I will annihilate you!" said the mighty proba
tioner. The composure with which this truculent sentence was
delivered drew a burst of laughter from the crowd, which com
pleted the discomfiture of the unfortunate functionary.
Thus the session — the few busy months of University labors —
the long year of expectation and hope, passed over amid many oc
cupations and solacements of friendship. But when the door was
closed in the dun-colored Bristo Street room, where nothing was
to be seen from the windows but a dusty street, which might have
flourished in any vulgar town jn existence, and bore no trace of
those enchantments of Edinburgh windows which make up for
long stairs and steep ascents, the young man's prospects were not
overcheerf ul. He had put forth all his powers of mind and warn
ings of experience upon his sermons, but the result had not fol
lowed his expectation. He was still, after a year's interval, the
same unemployed probationer that he had left Kirkcaldy ; his
money nearly about spent, most likely, and his cogitations not
joyful. What he was to do was not clearly apparent. That he
was not to be a teacher again seems distinct enough, but whether
he was ever to be a preacher on Scottish soil was more than un
certain. When he had shut out the world which would not have
him, the young man returned into his solitude, making up his
mind with a grieved surprise, which is quite touching and grand
in its unthought-of humilty, that this gift of his, after all his la
bors, was still not the gift which was to prove effectual in his na-

74 THE APOSTOLIC MISSIONARY.
tive country. He loved his country with a kind of worship, but
still, if she would not have him, it was needful rather to carry
what he could do elsewhere, than to lie idle, making no use of
those faculties which had to be put to usury according to his Mas
ter's commandment. The countryman of Mungo Park and school
fellow of Hugh Clapperton bethought himself, In all the heathen
world which hems Christianity about on every side, was there
not room for a missionary according to the apostolic model — a
man without scrip or purse, entering in to whosoever would re
ceive him, and passing on when he had said his message? A
missionary, with Exeter Hall expectant behind him, and a due
tale of conversions to render year after year, Irving never could
have been ; but in his despondency and discouragement, the youth
ful thought which had stirred him long ago returned as a kind of
comfort and hopeful alternative to his mind. He no longer cast
stones into the pools as he did with the Haddington schoolboys,
but he set about the zealous study of languages, in order to qual
ify himself for the kind of mission he purposed. To make his
way through the Continent, a religious wanderer totally unencum
bered with worldly provisions, it was necessary to know the lan
guages of the countries which he had to cross ; and the idea re
freshed him in the tedium of his long probation. When the ar
rival of summer dispersed his friends, Irving took refuge among
his books, with thoughts of this knight-errantry and chivalrous
enterprise swelling above the weariness of sickened hope. It was
not the modern type of missionary, going, laden with civilization
and a printing-press, to clear his little garden in the wilderness.
It was the red-cross knight in that armor dinted with the impress
of many battle-fields ; it was the apostolic messenger, undaunted
and solitary, bearing from place to place the Gospel for which he
could be content to die. The young man looked abroad on this
prospect, and his heart rose. It comforted him when the glow of
summer found him, country bred and country loving as he was,
still shut up in the shabby world of Bristo Street. " Rejected by
the living," he is recorded to have said, " I conversed with the
dead." His eyes turned to the East, as was natural. He thought
of Persia, it is said, where the Malcolms, his countrymen, from the
same vigorous soil of Annandale, were making themselves illus
trious. And with grammars and alphabets, with map and histo
ry, with the silent fathers of all literature standing by, prepared
himself for this old world demonstration of his allegiance and his
faith.

DOMESTIC LETTERS. 75
Some letters which have lately come into my hands, and of the
existence of which I was unaware at the time the above pages
were written, lift the veil from this silent period of his life, and
reveal, if not much of his loftier aspirations, at least all the hopeful
uncertainty, the suspense, sometimes the depression, always the
warm activity and expectations, naturally belonging to such a
pause in the young man's existence. They are all addressed to
the Martin family, who had done so much to brighten his life in
Kirkcaldy; and show how his style in letter- writing begins to
widen out of its youthful formality into ease and characteristic
utterance. Ever exuberant in his expressions of obligation and
gratitude, he writes to the kind mother of the Kirkcaldy manse as
"her to whom, of matrons, I owe the most after her who gave me
birth ;" and warmly acknowledges that " the greater part of that
which is soothing and agreeable in the experiences of my last six
years is associated with your hospitable house and delightful
family;" while, amid somewhat solemn compliments on the ac
quirements of that family, their former teacher joins special mes
sages " to Andrew, with my request that each day he would read,
as regularly as his Bible, some portion of a classical and of a
French author ; and to David, that he would not forget the many
wise havers he and I have had together." In another letter to
Mrs. Martin, the young man begs her acceptance, with many depre
cations of the clumsy present, of a bed, which he describes as "the
first article of furniture of which I was possessed," confessing that
"it is a cumbrous and inelegant memorial." "But let me dignify
it what I can," he adds quaintly, "by the fervent prayer that
while it appertains to your household it may always support a
healthful body, and pillow abound head, and shed its warmth
over a warm and honest heart. After such a benediction you
never can be unkind enough to refuse me." To Mr. Martin,
Irving writes more gravely of his own affairs, discussing at length
some projects for his future occupation, all of which culminate in
the proposed travels on which he had set his heart, and which
were to be commenced by study in Germany. The following
letter opens a glimpse into that youthful world, all unaware of its
own future, and thinking of terminations widely different from
those which time has brought about, which will show how another
career, as brilliant and longer than Irving's, took its beginning in
the same cloudy regions of uncertainty and unsuccess :
" Carlyle goes away to-morrow, and Brown the next day. So here

76 CARLYLE.— HOPES AND FEARS.
I am once more on my own resources, except Dixon, who is [better]
fitted to swell the enjoyment of a joyous than to cheer the solitude
of a lonely hour. For this Carlyle is better fitted than any one I
know. It is very odd, indeed, that he should be sent for want of
employment to the country ; of course, like every man of talent, he
has gathered around this Patmos many a splendid purpose to be ful
filled, and much improvement to be wrought out. ' I have the ends
of my thoughts to bring together, which no one can do in this
thoughtless scene. I have my views of life to reform, and the whole
plan of my conduct to new-model ; and into all I have my health to
recover. And then once more I shall venture my bark upon the
waters of this wide realm, and if she can not weather it, I shall steer
West, and try the waters of another world.' So he reasons and re
solves; but surely a worthier destiny awaits him than voluntary ex
ile. And for myself, here I am to remain until farther orders — if
from the East, I am ready ; if from the .West, I am ready ; and if
from the folk of Fife, I am not the less ready. I do not think I shall
go for the few weeks with Kinloch  and I believe, after all,
they are rather making their use of me than any thing else, but I
know not ; and it is myself, not them, I have to fend for, both tempo
rally and spiritually. God knows how ill I do it ; but perhaps in His
grace He may defend me till the arrival of a day more pregnant to
me with hours of religious improvement.
" I had much more to say of the religious meetings I have been
attending, and of the Burgher Synod, and of purposes of a literary
kind I am conceiving, but lo ! I am at an end with my paper and
time, having just enough of both to commend me to the love of your
household and to the fellowship of your prayers.
" Your most affectionate friend, Edwaed Irving."
It was while in this condition, and with contending hopes and
despairs in his mind, that Irving received a sudden invitation
from Dr. Andrew Thomson, the minister of St. George's, to preach
in his pulpit. It would be inconsistent with the loved principles
of Presbyterian parity to distinguish even so eminent a man as
Dr. Andrew Thomson as of the highest clerical rank in Edinburgh ;
but he really was so, in as far as noble talent, a brilliant and dis
tinct character, and — not least important — a church in the most
fashionable quarter could make him. With the exception of Dr.
Chalmers, he was perhaps the first man of his generation then in
the Church of Scotland, so that the invitation itself was a compli
ment to the neglected probationer. But the request conveyed also
an intimation that Dr. Chalmers was to be present, and that he
was then in search of an assistant in the splendid labors he was
beginning in Glasgow. This invitation naturally changed the
current of Irving's thoughts. It turned him back from his plans
of apostolical wandering, as well as from the anxious efforts of his

PREACHES IN ST. GEORGE'S, EDINBURGH. 77
friends to procure pupils who might advance his interests, and
placed before him the most desirable opening to his real profes
sion which he could possibly light upon. That path which should
lead him to his chosen work, at home, in the country of his kin
dred, his love, and his early affections, was dearer to him than
even that austere martyr-path which it was in his heart to follow
if need was. He went to St. George's with a new impulse of ex
pectation, and preached, there can be little doubt, that one of his
sermons which he thought most satisfactory. He describes this
event to Mr. Martin as follows, with a frankness of youthful pleas
ure, and, at the same time, a little transparent assumption of in
difference as to the result, in a letter dated the 2d of August,
1819: " '
" I preached Sunday week in St. George's before Andrew Thomson
and Dr. Chalmers, with general, indeed so far as I have heard, uni
versal approbation. Andrew said for certain ' it was the production
of no ordinary mind ;' and how Dr. Chalmers expressed his approba
tion I do not know, for I never put myself about to learn these
things, as you know. I am pleased with this, perhaps more so than
I ought to be, if I were as spiritually-minded as I should be ; but
there is a reason for it. To you yet behind the curtain, la voild! I
believe it was a sort of pious and charitable plot to let Dr. C. hear
me previous to his making inquiries about me as fit for his assistant.
Whether he is making them now he has heard me, and where he is
making them, I do not know. For, though few people can fight the
battle of preferment without preoccupying the ground, etc., I would
wish to be one of that few. Full well I know it is impossible with
out His aid who has planned the field and who guides the weapons
more unerringly than Homer's Apollo, and inspirits the busy cham
pions ; and that I am not industrious in procuring. Oh, do you and
all who wish me well give me the only favor I ask — the favor of your
prayers." The important movement, however, passed, and the young man
returned unsatisfied to his lonely apartments. He waited there
for some time in blank, discouraging silence ; then concluded that
nothing was to come of it, and that this once again his longing
hope to find somebody who understood him and saw what he
aimed at was to be disappointed. This last failure seems to have
given the intolerable touch to all his previous discouragements.
He got up disgusted from that dull probation which showed him
only how effectually all the gates of actual life and labor were
barred against him. Even at that disconsolate moment he could
still find time to write to his pupil and future sister-in-law about
the Italian dictionary which he had undertaken to procure for

78 GOES TO IRELAND.— WANDERINGS.
her. Then he packed up his books and boxes, and sent them off
to his father's house in Annan ; but, probably desirous of some
interval to prepare himself for that farewell which he intended,
went himself to Greenock, meaning to travel from thence by some
of the coasting vessels which call at the little ports on the Ayr
shire and Galloway coast. Sick at heart, and buried in his own
thoughts, he took the wrong boat, and was obliged to come ashore
again. At that moment another steamer was in all the bustle of
departure. Struck with a sudden caprice, as people often are in
such a restless condition of mind and feeling, Irving resolved, in
his half desperation and momentary recklessness, to take the first
which left the quay, and leaping listlessly into this, found it Irish,
and bound for Belfast. The voyage was accomplished in safety,
but not without an adventure at the end. Some notable crime
had been perpetrated in Ireland about that time, the doer of which
was still at large, filling the minds of the people with dreams of
capture, and suspicions of every stranger. Of all the strangers
entering that port of Belfast, perhaps there was no one so remark
able as this tall Scotchman, with his knapsack and slender belong
ings, his extraordinary powerful frame, and his total ignorance of
the place, who was traveling without any feasible motive or ob
ject. The excited authorities found the circumstances so remark
able that they laid suspicious hands upon the singular stranger,
who was only freed from their surveillance by applying to the
Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Mr. Hanna, who liberated his cap
tive brother and took him home with Irish frankness. That visit
was a jubilee for the children of the house. Black melancholy
and disgust had fled before the breezes at sea, and the amusing
but embarrassing contretemps on land ; and Irving's heart, always
open to children, expanded at once for the amusement of the chil
dren of that house. One of those boys was the Rev. Dr. Hanna,
of Edinburgh, the biographer and son-in-law of Chalmers, who, at
the distance of so many years, remembers the stories of the stran
ger thus suddenly brought to the fireside, and his genial, cordial
presence which charmed the house.
After this the young man wandered over the north of Ireland,
as he had often wandered over the congenial districts of his own
country, for some weeks; pursuing the system he had learned to
adopt at home— walking as the crow flies, finding lodging and
shelter in the wayside cottages, sharing the potato and the milk
which formed the peasant's meal. A singular journey ; performed

INVITATION TO GLASGOW. 79
in primitive hardship, fatigue, and brotherly kindness ; out of the
reach of civilized persons or conventional necessities ; undertaken
out of pure caprice, the evident sudden impulse of letting things
go as they would ; and persevered in with something of the same
abandon and determined abstraction of himself from all the dis
gusts and disappointments of life. Neither letters nor tokens of
his existence seem to have come out of this temporary flight and
banishment. He had escaped for the moment from those mo
mentous questions which shortly must be faced and resolved.
Presently it would be necessary to go back, to make the last prep
arations, to take the decisive steps, and say the farewells. He
fairly ran away from it for a moment's breathing-time, and took
refuge in the rude unknown life of the Irish cabins — a thing
which most people have somehow done, or at least attempted to
do, at the crisis of their lives.
When he re-emerged out of this refreshing blank, and came to
the common world again, where letters and ordinary appeals of
life were awaiting him, he found a bulky inclosure from his fa
ther in the Coleraine post-office. Gavin Irving wrote, in expla
nation of his double letter (for postage was no trifle in those days),
that he would have copied the inclosed if he could have read it ;
but, not being able to make out a word, was compelled to send it
on for his son's own inspection. This inclosure was from Dr.
Chalmers, inviting Irving to go to Glasgow ; but the date was
some weeks back, and the invitation was by no means distinct as
to the object for which he was wanted. It was enough, however,
to stir the reviving heart of the young giant, whom his fall, and
contact with kindly mother earth, had refreshed and reinvigorated.
He set out without loss of time for Glasgow, but only to find Dr.
Chalmers absent, and once more to be- plunged into the lingering
pangs of suspense.
While waiting the doctor's return, Irving again reported him
self and his new expectations to his friends in Kirkcaldy.
"Glasgow, 1st September, 1819.
" You see I am once more in Scotland ; and how I came to have
found my way to the same place I started from you shall now learn.
On Friday last arrived at Coleraine a letter from Dr. Chalmers, press
ing me to meet him in Edinburgh on the 30th, or in Glasgow the
31st of August. So here I arrived, after a very tempestuous pas
sage in the Rob Roy; and upon calling on the doctor, I find he is
still in Anstruther, at which place he proposes remaining a while
longer than he anticipated, and requests to have a few days of me

80 INTEREST IN CHURCH AFFAIRS.
there. So, but for another circumstance, you might have seen me
posting through Kirkcaldy to Anster, the famed in song. That cir
cumstance is Mrs. Chalmers's ill health, of which he will be more par
ticularly informed than he is at present by this post ; and then Miss
Pratt tells me there is no doubt he will return post-haste, as all good
husbands ought. Here, then, I am, a very sorry sight, I can assure
you. You may remember how disabled in my rigging I was in the
kingdom ;* conceive me, then, to have wandered a whole fortnight
among the ragged sons of St. Patrick, to have scrambled about the
Giant's Causeway, and crossed the Channel twice, and sailed in fish-
boats and pleasure-boats, and driven gigs and jaunting-cars, and never
once condescended to ask the aid of a tailor's needle. Think of this,
and figure what I must be now. But I have just been ordering a
refit from stem to stern, and shall by to-morrow be able to appear
among the best of them ; and you know the Glasgow bodies ken fu'
weel it's merely impossible to carry about with ane a' the comforts
of the Sa't Market at ane's tail, or a' the comforts of Bond Street
either. I shall certainly now remain till I have seen and finally de
termined with Dr. Chalmers ; for my time is so short that if I get
home without a finale of one kind or other, it will interfere with the
department of my foreign affairs, which imperiously call for atten
tion." The letter which begins thus is filled up, to the length of five
long pages, by an account of the organization of the Synod of
Ulster, and of a case of discipline which had just occurred in it,
on which, on behalf of a friend at Coleraine, the traveler was
anxious to consult the experience of the minister of Kirkcaldy.
In respect to his own prospects, Irving's suspense was now speed
ily terminated. Dr. Chalmers returned, and at once proposed to
him to become his assistant in St. John's. The solace to the
young man's discouraged mind must have been unspeakable.
Here, at last, was one man who understood the unacceptable pro
bationer, and perceived in him that faculty which he himself dis
cerned dimly and still hoped in — troubled, but not convinced by
the general disbelief. To have his gift recognized by another
mind was new life to Irving ; and such a mind ! the generous in
telligence of the first of Scotch preachers. But with Presbyterian
scrupulosity, in the midst of his eagerness, Irving hung back still.
He could not submit to be " intruded upon" the people by the
mere will of the incumbent, and would not receive even that
grateful distinction if he continued as distasteful as he had hith
erto found himself. He was not confident of his prospects even
when backed by the powerful encouragement of Dr. Chalmers.
" I will preach to them if you think fit," he is reported to have
* The kingdom of Fife, fondly so called by its affectionate population.

DOUBTFUL OF HIS OWN SUCCESS.— GLASGOW. 81
said; "but if they bear with my preaching, they will be the first
people who have borne with it." In this spirit, with the uncon
scious humility of a child, sorry not to satisfy his judges, but con
fessing the failure which he scarcely could understand, he preach
ed his first, sermon to the fastidious congregation in St. John's.
This was in October, 1819. "He was generally well liked, but
some people thought him rather flowery. However, they were
satisfied that he must be a good preacher, since Dr. Chalmers had
chosen him," says a contemporary witness. It was thus, with lit
tle confidence on his own part, and somewhat careless indulgence
on the part of the people, who were already in possession of the
highest preaching of the time, that Irving opened his mouth at
last, and began his natural career.

CHAPTER VI.
GLASGOW.
Dr. Chalmers's Helper.— Condition of Glasgow. — Irving's Political Sentiments. —
State of the Country in General. — Irving's Confidence in the Radicals. — The
Calton Weavers. — Chalmers and Irving. — Incessant Labors. — The Parish of St.
John. — Its Autocrat. — The Shoemaker. — " Bie kens about Leather." — Apostolic
Benediction. — Intercourse with the Poor. — A Legacy. — The Help of a Brother. —
"It's no himsel."— Two Presbyters.— The Peddler. — "A Man on Horse." — The
Howies. — Holiday Adventures. — Simplicity of Heart. — Solemnity of Deport
ment. — Convicts in Glasgow Jail. — Irving patronized by the Office-bearers. — In
the Shade. — His Loyalty and Admiration. — The bright Side. — The dark Side. —
Missionary Projects renewed. — The Caledonian Chapel, Hatton Garden. — Letter
of Recommendation. — Favorable Prognostications. — Irving desires to go to Lon
don. — His Pleasure in his Reception there. — Obstacles. — The Caledonian Asy
lum. — Pledges himself to learn Gaelic. — Bond required by the Presbytery. — Visits
to Paisley. —Removal of Obstacles. — Rosneath. — Happy Anticipations. — Farewell
Sermon. — Offers his Services in London to all. — Receives a farewell Present. —
The Annandale Watchmaker. — A "singular Honor." — Goes to London.
It was in October, 1819, that Irving began his work in Glas
gow — the first real work in his own profession which had opened
to him. He was then in the full strength of early manhood,
seven-and-twenty, the "Scottish uncelebrated Irving," whom his
great countryman regretfully commemorates. His remarkable
appearance seems, in the first place, to have impressed every body.
A lady, who was then a member of Dr. Chalmers's church, and
who had access to the immediate circle surrounding him, tells
F

82 DR. CHALMERS'S HELPER.
how she herself, on one occasion, being particularly engaged in
some domestic duties, had given orders to her servants not to ad
mit any visitors. She was interrupted in her occupation, how
ever, notwithstanding this order, by the entrance of one of her
maids, in a state of high excitement and curiosity. "Mem!"
burst forth the girl, "there's a wonderful grand gentleman called;
I couldna say you were engaged to him. I think he maun be
a Highland chief!" "That Mr. Irving!" exclaimed another in
dividual of less elevated and poetical conceptions — "that Dr.
Chalmers's helper! I took him for a cavalry officer I" "Do you
know, doctor," said a third, addressing Chalmers himself, " what
things people are saying about your new assistant? They say
he's like a brigand chief." " Well, well," said Dr. Chalmers, with
a smile, "whatever they say, they never think him like any thing
but a leader of men." Such was the impression he produced
upon the little mercantile-ecclesiastical world of Glasgow. There,
as every where, people were instinctively suspicious of this strange
unconventional figure — did not know what to make of the natu
ral grandeur about him — the lofty fashion of speech into which
he had already fallen, and which seems to have been entirely ap
propriate to the garb and aspect in which Nature had clothed
him. But he found warm friends here, as every where, and by
means of all his qualities, mental and bodily, his frankness and
warmth, and habit of making himself the friend of the humblest
individual he encountered, his splendid person and stately man
ners, took the hearts of the poor by storm. They are now dying
out of those closes and wynds of Glasgow who remember Irving
as Dr. Chalmers's helper, but there still lingers here and there a
recollection of that kindliest genial visitor. Chalmers himself,
though a man of the warmest humanity, had at all times a certain
abstract intentness about him, which must have altered the char
acter of individual kindness as coming from his hands. His pa
rishioners were to him emphatically his parishioners, the "body"
(not vile, perhaps, but still more profoundly important for the ex
periment's sake than for its own) upon which one of the most
magnificent of experiments was to be tried. But to Irving they
were the Johns and Sandys, the Campbells and Macalisters— the
human neighbors who were of his personal acquaintance and in
dividually interesting to himself. Such a distinction makes itself
known involuntarily. The position he held was one completely
secondary and auxiliary, not even answering to that of a curate;

CONDITION OF GLASGOW. 83
for he was still only a probationer, unordained, wirhout any rights
in the Church except the license to preach, which was his sole
qualification. He was not responsible for any part of the work
ing of that huge machinery which Dr. Chalmers bore up on his
Herculean shoulders, and which naturally collapsed when his
mighty vital force was withdrawn. The "helper" went about
more lightly, unburdened by social economy, and gained for him
self among the poor people whom it was his daily work to visit
the place of an undoubted and much-prized friend.
Glasgow was at this period in a very disturbed and troublous
condition. Want of work and want of food had wrought their
natural social effect upon the industrious classes, and the eyes of
the hungry weavers and cotton-spinners were turned with spas
modic anxiety to those wild political quack remedies, the ineffi-
cacy of which no amount of experience will ever make clear to
people in similar circumstances. The entire country was in a
dangerous mood, palpitating throughout with deep-seated com
plaint and grievance, to which the starving revolutionaries in
such towns as Glasgow acted only as a kind of safety-valve, pre
venting a worse explosion. The discontent was drawing toward
its climax when Irving received his appointment as assistant to
the minister of St. John's. In such a large poor parish he en
countered on all sides the mutterings of the popular storm. Chal
mers, always liberal and statesmanlike, saw the real grievance,
which finally labored and struggled, through the contest of years,
into that full redress and establishment of popular rights which
seems to make any such crisis impossible now. But Irving's'
mind was of a different construction. He was one of those men
of inconsistent politics, governed at once by prejudices and sym
pathies, whose " attitude" it is impossible to foretell, and of whom
one can only predict that their political opinions will take the
color given by their heart, and that the side most strongly and
feelingly let forth before them will undoubtedly carry the day.
His nature was profoundly conservative ; and yet the boldest in
novation might have secured his devoted support, had it approved
itself to his individual thoughts. His political opinions, indeed,
seem to have been such as are common to literary men, artists,
and women entirely unconnected with politics, and who only now
and then find themselves sufficiently interested to inform them
selves upon public matters. Accordingly, he appears in after-life
in strong opposition to every measure known as liberal; while in

84 STATE OF THE COUNTRY IN GENERAL.
Glasgow, with those poor revolutionary weavers round him on
every side, his heart convincing him of their miseries and despair,
and his profound trust, not in human nature, but in the human
creatures known to himself, persuading him that no harm could
come from their hands, he stands perfectly calm and friendly
amid the panic, disdaining to fear. That the crisis was an alarm
ing one every body allows. Nothing less than the horrors of the
French Revolution — battle and murder, and sudden death — float
ed before the terror-stricken eyes of all who had any thing to lose.
Whig Jeffrey, a non-alarmist and (in moderation) friend of the
people, declares solemnly that "if the complaints of the people
are repressed with insults and menaces— if no step is taken to re
lieve their distresses and redress their real and undeniable griev
ances — if the whole mass of their complaints, reasonable and un
reasonable, are to be treated as seditious and audacious, and to
meet with no other answer than preparations to put them down
by force, then indeed we may soon have a civil war among us —
and a civil war of a character far more deplorable and atrocious
than was ever known in this land — a war of the rich against the
poor ; of the government against the body of the people ; of the
soldiery against the great bulk of the laboring classes — a war
which can never be followed by any cordial or secure peace, and
which must end, or rather begin, with the final and complete sub
version of those liberties and that constitution which has hitherto
been our pride, our treasure, and our support and consolation un
der all other calamities."
It was a conjunction of many troubles, foremost among which
was that sharp touch of starvation which makes men desperate.;
that Want — most pertinacious and maddest of all revolutionaries,
who never fails to revenge bitterly the carelessness which lets
him enter our well-defended doors — he was there, wolfish and
seditious, in Glasgow in the winter of 1819, plotting nikes and
risings, with wild dreams of that legislation never yeVfound out,
which is to make a paradise of earth ; dreams and plots which
were to blurt out, so far as Scotland was concerned, in the dismal
little tragi-comedy of Bonnymuir some months later, and there
be made a melancholy end of. But while every body else was
prophesying horrors, it is thus that Irving, with tender domestic
prefaces of kindness and congratulation, writes to his brother-in-
law, Mr. Fergusson, a few months after his arrival in Glasgow.
The immediate object of the letter is to congratulate his sister

IRVING'S CONFIDENCE IN THE RADICALS. 85
and her husband on the birth of their first-born. Referring to
this event in the first place, he says :
"You have now consigned to your care a more valuable article
than the greatest emperor, who is not a father, can boast of — the
care of an immortal who shall survive when this earth shall have re
moved without leaving a memorial, save in the memories of those
spirits to whom it has been the training-place for heaven or hell.
How much the difference is between the real value, so much the dif
ference in general is between the reputed value ; but, as the mathe
maticians say, it is in the inverse way. But of you I know and hope
better, that you will account of him while you are spared together
as a precious deposit the Almighty has thought you worthy of . . .
" You will look for Glasgow intelligence, and truly I can neither
get nor give any. If I should report from my daily ministrations
among the poorest class and the worst reported-of class of our popu
lation, I should deliver an opinion so favorable as it would be hardly
safe for myself to deliver, lest I should be held a radical likewise.
Now the truth is, I have visited in about three hundred families, and
have met with the kindest welcome, and entertainment, and invita
tions. Nay, more, I have entered on the tender subject of their
present sufferings, in which they are held so ferocious, and have
found them, in general, both able and willing to entertain the relig
ious lesson and improvement arising out of it. This may arise from
the way of setting it forth, which I endeavor to make with the ut
most tenderness and feeling, as well is due when you see people in
the midst of nakedness and starvation. Yet we are armed against
them to the teeth ; and the alarm took so generally that, for all my
convictions and knowledge, I had engaged a horse-pistol to stand
out in defense of my own castle like a true Englishman ! But the
storm seems overdriven, although this morning, even, there was a
summons to the sharp-shooters by break of day, and all the soldiers
to arms in the barracks. Nobody knows a whit, and every body
fears a deal. The common ignorance is only surpassed by the
common alarm, and that, you know, is the most agitating of all
alarms. But from Monday to Saturday I am going among them
without the slightest apprehension ; but perhaps I may be convinced
by point of pike some day, which I pray may be averted for his sake
that should hold it. This is not braggadocio, but Christian (feel
ing); for the blood of the innocent always stains most deeply the
hand that sheds it  I hope my father and you won't forget
your Glasgow jaunt. I will introduce you to some of our Calton
weavers, now so dreaded, whom Jeffrey the reviewer calls the finest
specimens of the human intellect he has met with .... I commend
to your affection my dear mother, from whom I have had a most af
fectionate letter; and George, who will prove a credit, I trust, to
such two gifted masters as yourself and your humble servant ....
To all others, my good and kind friends, commend your affectionate
brother, Edward Ibving."
It was thus that Irving judged of the dangerous masses, who
seemed to other eyes so ripe for mischief; and it is characteristic

86 CHALMERS AND IRVING.
to observe the difference between the manner in which this opin
ion is expressed, and Dr. Chalmers's deliverance on the same sub
ject, contained in his letters to Wilberforce. There the clear
sighted Scotch legislator, whom his profession bounded to a par
ish, makes a stride of twenty years to the conclusions of another
generation, and lays his hand broadly upon that principle which
has now been received among the standard principles of English
government. " From my extensive minglings with the people,"
says Dr. Chalmers, " I am quite confident in affirming the power
of another expedient (that is, besides the repeal of certain speci
fied taxes) to be such that it would operate with all the quickness
and effect of a charm in lulling their agitated spirits — I mean the
repeal of the Corn Bill. I have ever been in the habit of dislik
ing the interference of the Legislature in matters of trade saving
for the purpose of a revenue." Irving has no theories of cure on
hand. His thoughts do not embrace the polity of nations. He
has not contemplated that troubled sea to divine what secret cur
rent it is which heaves its billows into storm. He goes down
among the crowds which are made of flesh and blood ; he stands
among them, and calls out with courageous, tender voice that they
are all men like others ; men trustful and cordial ; kind to him
self, open to kindness ; whom it behooves their neighbors to treat,
not with the cruelty of fear, but " with tenderness and feeling, as
well is due," he adds, with manly and touching simplicity, "when
you see people in the midst of nakedness and starvation" A greater
contrast in agreement could scarcely be.
A similar testimony to that which I have already quoted, and
evidence of the position he took in his Glasgow labors, is convey
ed in a letter to Dr. Martin, written upon occasion of the death of
a relative, in which, after some thoughtful regrets that men take
so little pains to " perpetuate for themselves" ties " which give so
much enjoyment here, and which, judging from the proportion of
things, must give infinitely more hereafter," he thus conveys his
impressions of his new sphere in the light most interesting to his
friend :
" It gave me singular pleasure the other night to hear a young
man, Mr. Heggie, from Kirkcaldy (foot of Tolbooth Wynd), who has
been of singular utility in this city, reclaiming by Sabbath-school op
erations the forlorn hope of the Salt Market and Briggate— to hear
him date his first impressions of serious religion from the conversa
tions he held with you before his first communion. This should en
courage your heart ; for he is, as it were, the nucleus of an establish-

INCESSANT LABORS.— THE PARISH OF ST. JOHN. 87
ment including not less than 700 children ; and he is giving them
spirit and example in truly a Christian style. Thus the Lord has
made you in your parlor instrumental in penetrating and pervading
the noisome recesses of this overgrown city. For all the impressions
which are abroad, I entertain the best opinion of our people, and I
consider the leading ones most grossly misinformed, if not 'misguided
by design. Dr. Chalmers's plan is to take up his district of the par
ish by groups. I have superadded the taking of them up family by
family, so that every mortal comes in review before me, and into con
tact with me upon a subject on which they are spoken of as being
held by no bounds. Yet so it is — I have hardly encountered any
thing but the finest play of welcome and congeniality ; and this very
half hour have I returned from so pervading twenty families in our
sorest district, and have been hailed as the bearer of good tidings,
though I carried nothing with me but spiritual offers  Tam
making the best of St. John's lean, though I have been of late hard
ly doing myself justice, being generally compressed to Saturday for
pulpit preparations by the week-day occupations of visiting, etc. ;
yet I think it is well employed."
This Glasgow parish had come to singular fortune at that mo
ment. After much labor and many exertions, Chalmers, already
the greatest preacher and most eminent man in the entire Scotch
establishment, had got himself translated from the Tron Church,
which was his first charge in Glasgow — solely in order to carry
out those social plans which are the greatest distinctive feature of
his life — to St. John's. His theory is well known ; but as theories
which are well known are apt enough to glide into vagueness
from that very reason, it may not be amiss to repeat, in the sim
plest manner, what it was. The truth was simply that he had
been born, like other men of his generation, into a primitive Scot
land, comparatively little affected by English usages and manners
— a self-supporting, independent nation, ignorant of poor-laws and
work-houses, and full of strenuous hatred to all such hateful char
ities. During all the centuries of Presbyterianism, " the plate," or
weekly offering made at the door of the church on entering, had
furnished the parochial revenue of charity ; and upon this nation
al and universal provision for the poor the statesman eye of Chal
mers fixed with characteristic intentness. Like other men of the
greatest type, he was unable to believe that what he might do was
yet impossible to others. Resolute to show all Scotland and the
world that the Church's ancient primitive provision could yet
meet all increased modern emergencies, and able from his high
position and influence to bring, half by coercion of moral force,
half by persuasion, the Glasgow magistrates to accept his terms,

88 AUTOCRAT OF ST. JOHN'S.
he made it a condition of his remaining among them that this par
ish of St. John's, one of the largest, poorest, and most degraded in
the town, should be handed over to him in undisturbed posses
sion, swept clean of all poor-rates, work-houses, and public parish
aid. He did not demand the criminal supervision and power of
the sword, certainly ; though, at this distance of time, and to En
glish readers, the one might seem almost as reasonable as the oth
er ; but he secured his terms with the puzzled civic functionaries,
who half believed in him. In this parish Chalmers set up the
most surprising, splendid autocracy that has ever been attempted
— an autocracy solely directed to the benefit of that little world
of people in the most unlovely portion of Glasgow. He was no
sooner established in his new dominion than he issued imperial
orders for a census, and made one in true royal fashion. There
were 10,304 souls. The condition in life of most among them
was that of weavers, laborers, and factory- workers. About one
family in thirty-three kept a servant, and in some parts of the dis
trict this point of domestic luxury was even more rare. Bad
times, failure of work, and all the casualties of accident and dis
ease would, according to ordinary calculations, leave a large mar
gin of inevitable pauperism in such a district. But the minister-
autocrat had sworn that pauperism was to be no longer, and he
made good his word. For three brilliant years "the plate" not
only supplied all the wants of the poor in the parish, but did large
service besides in the erection of schools ; and for thirteen years,
as long as the machinery originated by the wonderful imperious
vitality of this great man could go on without a new impulse, its
success continued as perfect as it was "extraordinary. This seems
to me the highest and most wonderful victory of Chalmers's life.
It is unique in modern annals — a bold return, out of the heart of
all those evils of extreme civilization which crush the poor, into
that primitive life when neighbor helped neighbor and friend
stood by friend. What an ideal despot, grand patriot autocrat,
or irresponsible vizier that Scotch minister would have made !
In this system of things, Irving took his place in perfect accord,
but not resemblance. Statesmanship was not in him, but admira
tion and loyal service were of his very essence. Without any ul
terior views, he visited those "three hundred families" — won
their confidence and friendship, in most cases readily enough;
and when that was not the case, took them captive by innocent
wiles and premeditation, One such case, which must have been a

"HE KENS ABOUT LEATHER." 89
remarkable one, is told in so many different versions, that it is
difficult to decide which is the true one. A certein shoemaker,
radical and infidel, was among the number of those under Irving's
special care ; a home-workman of course, always present, silent,
with his back turned upon the visitors, and refusing any commu
nication except a sullen humph of implied criticism, while his
trembling wife made her deprecating courtesy in the foreground.
The way in which this intractable individual was finally won over
is attributed by some tellers of the story to a sudden happy inspi
ration on Irving's part, but by others to plot and intention. Ap
proaching the bench one day, the visitor took up a piece of patent
leather, then a recent invention, and remarked upon it in some
what skilled terms. The shoemaker went on with redoubled in
dustry at his work ; but at last, roused and exasperated by the
speech and pretense of knowledge, demanded, in great contempt,
but without raising his eyes, "What do ye ken about leather?"
This was just the opportunity his assailant wanted ; for Irving,
though a minister and a scholar, was a tanner's son, and could dis
course learnedly upon that material. Gradually interested and
mollified, the cobbler slackened work, and listened while his visitor
described some process of making shoes by machinery which he
had carefully got up for the purpose. At last the shoemaker so
far forgot his caution as to suspend his work altogether, and lift
his eyes to the great figure stooping over his bench. The con
versation went on with increased vigor after this, till finally the
recusant threw down his arms: "Od, you're a decent kind o' fel
low! do you preach?" said the vanquished, curious to know
more of his victor. The advantage was discreetly, but not too
hotly pursued ; and on the following Sunday the rebel made a de
fiant, shy appearance at church. Next day Irving encountered
him in the savory Gallowgate, and hailed him as a friend. Walk
ing beside him in natural talk, the tall probationer laid his hand
upon the shirt-sleeve of the shrunken sedentary workman, and
marched by his side along the well-frequented street. By the
time they had reached the end of their mutual way not a spark
of resistance was left in the shoemaker. His children hencefor
ward went to school ; his deprecating wife went to the kirk in
peace. He himself acquired that suit of Sunday " blacks" so dear
to the heart of the poor Scotchman, and became a church-goer and
respectable member of society ; while his acknowledgment of his
conqueror was conveyed with characteristic reticence, and con-

90 APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION.
cealment of all deeper feeling, in the self-excusing pretense—
" He's a sensible man, yon; he kens about leather!"
The preacher who knew about leather had, however, in con
junction with that cordiality which won the shoemaker's heart, a
solemnity and apostolic demeanor which might have looked like
affectation in another man, and has, indeed, been called affectation
even in Irving by those who did not know him, though never by
any man who did. Probably his long silent contemplation of
that solitary mission which he had set his heart on had made him
frame his very manner and address according to apostolic rule.
When he entered those sombre apartments in the Gallowgate, it
was with the salutation " Peace be to this house," with which he
might have entered a Persian palace or Desert tent. " It was very
peculiar; a thing that nobody else did," says a simple-minded,
member of Dr. Chalmers's agency; "it was impossible not to re
mark it, out of the way as it was ; but there was not one of the
agency could make an objection to it. It took the people's atten
tion wonderfully." A certain solemn atmosphere entered with
that lofty figure, speaking in matchless harmony of voice, its
" Peace be to this house." To be prayed for, sometimes edify-
ingly, sometimes tediously, was not uncommon to the Glasgow
poor ; but to be blessed was a novelty to them. Perhaps, if the
idea had been pursued into the depths of their minds, these Pres
byterians, all retaining something of ecclesiastical knowledge, how
ever little religion they might have, would have been disposed to
deny the right of any man to assume that priestly power of bless
ing. Irving, however, did not enter into any discussion of the
subject. It was his habitual practice; and the agency, puzzled
and a little awed, "could not make an objection to it" He did
still more than this. He laid his hands upon the heads of the
children, and pronounced, with imposing solemnity, the ancient
benediction, "The Lord bless thee and keep thee," over each of
them — a practice startling to Scotch ears, but acquiesced in invol
untarily as natural to the man who, all solitary and individual in
picturesque homely grandeur, went to and fro among them. So
grave a preface did not detract from the entire heartiness with
which he entered into the concerns of the household, an inter
course which he himself describes with touching simplicity in his
farewell sermon addressed to the people of St. John's. It is im
possible to give any account of this part of his work half so true
or so affecting as is conveyed thus, in his own words :

INTERCOURSE WITH THE POOR.— A LEGACY. 91
" Oh, how my heart rejoices to recur to the hours I have sitten
under the roofs of the people, and been made a partaker of their con
fidence, and a witness of the hardships they had to endure. In the
scantiest and perhaps worst times with which this manufacturing city
hath ever been pressed, it was my almost daily habit to make a round
of their families, and uphold, what in me lay, the declining cause of
God. There have I sitten, with little silver or gold of my own to
bestow, with little command over the charity of others, and heard
the various narratives of hardship — narratives uttered for the most
part with modesty and patience ; oftener drawn forth with difficulty
than obtruded on your ear — their wants, their misfortunes, their ill-
requited labor, their hopes vanishing, their families dispersing in
search of better habitations, the Scottish economy of their homes
giving way before encroaching necessity; debt rather than saving
their condition; bread and water their scanty fare; hard and un
grateful labor the portion of their house. All this have I often seen
and listened to within naked walls ; the witness, oft the partaker, of
their miserable cheer ; with little or no means to relieve. Yet be it
known, to the glory of God and the credit of the poor, and the en
couragement of tender-hearted Christians, that such application to
the heart's ailments is there in our religion, and such a hold in its
promises, and such a pith of endurance in its noble examples, that
when set forth by one inexperienced tongue, with soft words and
kindly tones, they did never fail to drain the heart of the sourness
that calamity engenders, and sweeten it with the balm of resignation
— often enlarge it with cheerful hope, sometimes swell it high with
the rejoicings of a Christian triumph."
A more affecting picture of the position of a Christian visitor,
" with little or no means to relieve" except by sympathy, and tes
timony to the consolatory uses of the Gospel, was never made.
There does not exist human misery under the sun which would
not be cheered and softened by such ministrations. He who was
"often the partaker of their miserable cheer," who blessed the
poor meal and blessed the house, and linked himself to the suffer
ers by such half-sacramental breaking of the bread of sorrow,
could never fail to find his way into their hearts. He was not al
ways, however, without silver or gold of his own to bestow. A
little legacy was left him just at the time he describes, a legacy
of some sum between thirty and a hundred pounds — for tradition
has come to be doubtful as to the amount. Such a little windfall,
one might suppose, would have been very acceptable to Dr. Chal
mers's helper, and so it was, but after a fashion entirely his own.
Irving melted his legacy into the one-pound notes current in Scot
land, deposited them in his desk, and every morning, as long as
they lasted, put one in his pocket when he went out to his visita
tions. The legacy lasted just as many days as it was pounds in

92 "IT'S NO HIMSEL'."
value, and doubtless produced as much pleasure to its owner as
ever was purchased by money. What Dr. Chalmers said to this
barefaced alms-giving, in the very midst of his social economy, I
can not tell. As to its destination nobody but Irving was any
the wiser. It melted into gleams of comfort, transitory but pre
cious ; and he who shared the hard and scanty bread on the poor
man's table, could share the better meal when it was in his power
to bestow it. This was Irving's idea of his office and functions
among the poor. He had learned it theoretically from no -other
teacher than his own heart ; but he had learned the practice of it,
which so many fain would acquire without knowing how, in those
primitive journeys of his, where his lodgings were found in the cot-
house and cabin ; and it was his pleasure to make himself as ac
ceptable a guest as if the potato or porridge had been festive dain
ties, and his entertainers lords and princes. Such a gift of broth
erhood, however, is as rare as any gift of genius. Irving was
unique in it among his contemporaries, and has had but few equals
in any time.
Matters, however, had not changed much up to this period in
respect to his preaching. Friends who accompanied him to church
when it was his turn to conduct the services, tell, as a very com
mon incident, that the preacher going in was met by groups com
ing out with disappointed looks, complaining, as the reason of
their departure, that "it's no himseV the day." Nothing better
was to be looked for when himseV was such a man as Chalmers ;
and if his assistant felt at all sore on the subject, his mortification
must have been much allayed by the unrivaled gifts of his great
colleague. There is, however, no sign of soreness or mortification
in him. A brilliant vision of what he yet might attain had flick
ered before his eyes all through his probation, as is apparent by
many tokens, but he never disguised from himself his failure in
popularity. He smiled to his companions, not without an appre
ciation of the joke, when the good people came out of the church
door because it was " no himsel'." He did not forget what he had
said, that if this people bore with him, they were the first who
ever would ; nor did he hesitate to repeat that " this congregation
is almost the first in which our preaching was tolerated," and even
that still, "we know, on the other hand, that our imperfections
have not been hid from your eyes." Yet this unpopularity, ad
mitted with frankness so unusual and perhaps excessive, was by
no means universal. Within the great assembly who venerated

TWO PRESBYTERS. 93
Dr. Chalmers was a smaller circle who looked upon Irving with all
the enthusiastic admiration naturally given to a man whose mer
its the admirer himself has been the first to find out. " Irving's
preaching," said Dr. Chalmers, evidently not with any very great
admiration of it, "is like Italian music, appreciated only by con
noisseurs." But he does not hesitate to compare the influence of
his assistant, on another and more cordial occasion, to a special
magnetic spell, which went to the very hearts of those susceptible
to it, though it fell blank upon the unimpressionable multitude.
On the whole, Dr. Chalmers's opinion of him is the opinion of one
who only half understands, and does not more than half sympa
thize with, a character much less broad, but in some respects more
elevated than his own. A certain impatience flashes into the judg
ment. The statesman and philosopher watches the poet-enthusi
ast with a doubtful, troubled, half-amused, half-sad perplexity;
likes him, yet does not know what he would be at ; is embar
rassed by his warm love, praise, and gratitude ; vexed to see him
commit himself; impatient of what he himself thinks credulity,
vanity, waste of power, but never without a sober, regretful affec
tion for the bright, unsteady light that could not be persuaded to
shine only in its proper lantern. This sort of admiring, indul
gent, affectionate half-comprehension is apparent throughout the
whole intercourse of these two great men. That Chalmers was
the greater intellect of the two I do not attempt to question, nor
yet that he was in all practical matters the more eminent and
serviceable man ; but that Irving had instinctive comprehensions
and graces which went high over the head of his great contem
porary seems to me as evident as the other conclusion.
A light quite peculiar and characteristic falls upon Glasgow by
means of these two figures — Chalmers with a certain sweep and
wind of action always about him, rushing on impetuous, at the
height of his influence, legislating for his parish in bold independ
ence, perhaps the only real autocrat of his day — Irving, almost
loitering about the unlovely streets, open to all the individual
interests thereabouts ; learned in the names, the stories, the pe
culiarities of his three hundred families ; still secondary, depend
ent, dallying with dreams of a time when he should be neither,
of a Utopia all his own; not influential at all as yet, only remark
able ; noted on the streets, noted in the houses he frequented, an
out-of-the-way, incomprehensible man, whose future fortune it was
not safe to foretell. In the anecdotes told of him he often looms

94 THE PEDDLER.
forth with a certain simple elevation which is unmoved by ordi
nary restraints and motives, and always leaves some recollection
of his imposing presence upon the memories of all whom he en
counters. Amid all the luxuries of rich, lavish Glasgow, he still
set forth afoot in his times of relaxation, in primitive hardness,
carrying his own belongings on his shoulder, or helped the weak
on his way without a moment's consideration of the propriety of
the matter. Thus, on one occasion, he is reported to have been
on his way to some Presbytery meeting in the country — proba
bly some ordination or settlement which attracted his interest,
though not a member of the court. The ministers of the Presby
tery were to be conveyed in carriages to the scene of action ; but
Irving, who was only a spectator and supernumerary, set off on
foot, according to his usual custom. The "brethren" in their car
riages came up to him on the way — came up at least to a tall, re
markable figure, which would have been undeniably that of Dr.
Chalmers's helper but that it bore a peddler's pack upon its stal
wart shoulders, and was accompanied side by side by the fatigued
proprietor of the same. To the laughter and jokes which hailed
him, however, Irving presented a rather affronted, indignant as
pect. He could see no occasion for either laughter or remark.
The peddler was a poor Irishman worn out with his burden.
" His countrymen were kind to me," said the offended probation
er, recalling those days when, sick atjieart, he plunged among the
Ulster cabins, and got some comfort out of his wanderings. He
carried the pack steadily till its poor owner was rested and ready
to resume it, and thought it only natural. On another occasion
he had gone down to visit his old friend, Mr. Story, of Rosneath,
in that beautiful little peninsula ; and in the sweet gloaming of a
summer night stood on the narrow tongue of land called Row
Point, and shouted across the tiny strait for a boat. As he stood
with his portmanteau on his shoulder, among the twilight shad
ows, he heard an answer over the water, and presently saw the
boat gliding across the loch ; but when it had reached half way,
to Irving's amazement and impatience, it turned back: some com
motion arose on the opposite side, lights flickered about the bank,
and only after a considerable interval and many impatient shouts,
the oars began again to dip into the water, and the boat approach:
ed heavily. When Irving demanded why he had turned back,
and had kept him so long waiting, the boatman, gliding up to the
beach, looked discomfited and incredulous at his passenger. " I

"A MAN ON HORSE."— THE HOWIES. 95
thought you were a man on horse !" cried the startled ferryman,
looking up bewildered at the gigantic figure and portmanteau,
which distance and darkness had shaped into a centaur. He had
gone back to fetch the horse-boat, which in all its cumbrous con
venience was now thrust up upon the shingle. Irving did not
-appreciate the consideration. It even appears that he lost his
temper on the occasion, and did not see the joke when the story
was told.
In one of those walking excursions he penetrated into the
depths of Ayrshire, and reached at nightfall the house of the
Howies of Lochgoin — a name which recalls all the covenanting
traditions of that wild district. The family were at prayers— or
"worship," as it is usual to call it in Scotland— and one of its
members remembers the surprising apparition of the tall stranger
in the spence, or outer room, when they all rose from their knees,
as having had a rather alarming effect upon the family, whose de
votions he had joined unheard, and to whose house he bade his
usual "Peace." Though they were entirely strangers to him, Ir
ving not only made friends, but established to his own satisfaction
a link of relationship by means of the Waldensian Hdlwys, from
whom he himself boasted descent. The original family of refu
gees, according to his own account, had split into two branches,
one of which wandered to Ayrshire, while one settled in Annan.
The link thus accidentally found was warmly remembered, and
the Orations, published when Irving was at his height of early glo
ry, and one of the most largely read and brilliantly criticised of
modern works, found its way, by the hand of the first traveler he
could hear of, from that world of London which turned his head,
as people imagine, down to the moorland solitudes of Lochgoin.
The year after his arrival in Glasgow he made another visit to
Ireland, which was attended by one amusing result, upon which
his friends often rallied him. He had made an appointment with
a young Glasgow friend to meet him at Annan, in his father's
house, with the idea of guiding the stranger through those moors
and mosses of Dumfriesshire which were so dear and well known
to himself. But while his friend kept the appointment carefully,
Irving, seduced by the pleasures of his ramble, or induced, as ap
pears from a letter, to lengthen it out by a little incursion into
England from Liverpool, forgot all about it. The accommoda
tions of Gavin Irving's house at Annan were limited; and though
there was no limit to Mrs. Irving's motherly hospitality, it was

96 HOLIDAY ADVENTURES.
not easy to entertain the unknown guest. The youngest of the
handsome sisters had to exert herself in this emergency. She
showed the young stranger the way to the waterside and all the
modest beauties of the little town. The young man did not miss
his friend, nor was any way impatient for Edward's arrival ; and
when the truant did come, at the end of a fortnight, he was called
upon to greet the stranger, whom he had himself sent to Annan,
as his sister's affianced husband — an astonishing but very happy
conclusion, as it turned out, to his own carelessness.
At another holiday time Irving accompanied a member of his
congregation in some half-pleasure, -half-business excursion in a
gig. During this journey the pair were about to drive down a
steep descent, when Irving, whose skill as a driver was not great,
managed to secure the reins, and accomplished the descent at so
amazing a pace that several of a little party of soldiers, who were
crossing a bridge at the foot of the hill, were driven into the
stream by the vehemence of the unexpected charge. Some little
distance farther on, the gig and the travelers paused at a roadside
inn, into the public room of which entered, after a while, several
of these soldiers. Two of them regarded with whispered confer
ences the driver of the gig ; and when an opportunity of conver
sation offered, one of the two addressed Irving. "This man,"
said the skillful Scotch conversationalist, " thinks he's the wisest
man in a' the regiment. What do ye think, sir? He says
you're the great Dr. Chalmers.'* "And do you really think,"
asked Irving, with an appeal to the candor of this inquiring mind,
"that I look like a minister?" " My certy, no!" cried the' sim
ple-minded warrior, "or you wouldna drive like yon I"
Such comic lights, often dwelt upon and much appreciated by
his friends, played about this unusual figure, necessary accom
paniments of its singular aspect. To his intimates he opened his
heart so freely, and exhibited all his peculiarities after so trans
parent a fashion, that those points of his character which might
have appeared defects to the eyes of strangers were dear to those
who loved him, originating as they did in his own perfect affec-
tionateness and sincerity. " He was vain, there is no denying it,"
writes a dear friend of his; "but it was a vanity proceeding out
of what was best and most lovable in him— his childlike simplic
ity and desire to be loved— his crystal transparency of character
letting every little weakness show through it as frankly as his no
blest qualities ; and, above all, out of his loyal, his divine trust in

SOLEMNITY OF DEPORTMENT. 97
the absolute truth and sincerity, and the generous sympathy and
good-will of all who made friendly advances toward him." But
his aspect to the general mass, who saw him only " in society" or
in the pulpit, was of a different kind. The solemnity of his ap
pearance and manners impressed that outside audience. He
spoke in language "such as grave livers do in Scotland use,"
with a natural pomp of diction at all times, and took a certain
priestly attitude which is not usual in Scotland — the attitude of a
man who stands between God and his fellows. A story, for which
I will not vouch, is told of one such remarkable appearance which
he made at a Glasgow dinner-party. A young man was present
who had permitted himself to talk profanely, in a manner now
unknown, and which would not be tolerated in any party nowa
days. After expending all his little wit upon priestcraft and its
inventions, this youth, getting bold by degrees, at last attacked
Irving — who had hitherto taken no notice of him — directly, as
one of the world-deluding order. Irving heard him out in si
lence, and then turned to the other listeners. " My friends," he
said, "I will make no reply to this unhappy youth, who hath at
tacked the Lord in the person of his servant ; but let us pray that
this his sin may not be laid to his charge ;" and with a solemn
motion of his hand, which the awe-struck diners-out instinctively
obeyed, Irving rose up to his full majestic, height, and solemnly
commended the offender to the forgiveness of God. Whether
this incident really occurred I can not tell ; but it is one of the
anecdotes told of him, and it certainly embodies the most popular
conception of his demeanor and bearing.
The labors of all engaged in that parish were unceasing ; and in
addition to the two services on each Sunday, which were Irving's
share of the work, and the perpetual round of parochial visits and
occasional services, he was " always ready" — as says Mr. David
Stowe, the educational reformer of Glasgow, whose lifelong work
was then commencing in a great system of Sunday-schools — to
lend his aid wherever it was required. When the Sunday-schol
ars were slow to be drawn out, or the district unpromising, or a
more distinct impulse necessary than could be given by mere vis
its and invitations, Irving did not hesitate to go down with the
anxious teacher to his "proportion," and, with his Bible in his
hand, take his station against the wall, and address the slowly-
gathering assembly all unused to out-of-door addresses, a species
of ministrations which were at the period considered rather be-
G

98 IRVING PATRONIZED BY THE OFFICE-BEARERS.
neath the dignity of ministers of the Church. Irving had also
the charge of visiting the convicts in prison, and is said to have
done so on some occasions with great effect. One of those un
happy persons had been condemned for a murder, though strenu
ously denying his guilt. After his conviction, the unhappy man
succeeded in interesting his visitor by his assertions of innocence ;
and when Irving left the prison, it was to plunge into the dens
of the Gallowgate, taking with him as assistants a private friend
of his own and a member of Dr. Chalmers's agency, to make a last
anxious effort to discover whether any exculpatory evidence was
to be found. The surviving member of that generous party re
members how they searched, through the foul recesses of the Glas
gow St. Giles's, and went to all the haunts of their wretched client,
a charitable forlorn hope. But the matter, it turned out, was
hopeless ; what they heard confirmed, instead of shaking, the just
ice of the conviction, and the bootless investigation was given
up. But the kind of work in which he was thus engaged was not
the great work in which his fame was to be gained, or his use in
his generation manifested. In all that is told of him he appears
in the shade — only supplementing the works of another ; and it
is amusing to observe, even at this long distance of time, that the
ancient office-bearers of St. John's, once Dr. Chalmers's prime min
isters in the government of that, his kingdom, can scarcely yet
forbear a certain patronizing regard toward Dr. Chalmers's help
er. They all went to hear him, like virtuous men, who set a good
example to the flock, and tolerated the inexperience of the strange
probationer; and sat but, with a certain self-complacence, those
sermons which were to stir to its depths a wider world than that
of Glasgow. One here and there even detected a suspicion of un
soundness in the vehement addresses of the young preacher ; and
I have been told of a most singular, unorthodox sentiment of his
— unorthodox, but at exact antipodes from later sentiments equal
ly unlawful — which one zealous hearer noted down in those old
days, and submitted to Dr. Chalmers as a matter which should be
noticed. Wise Chalmers only smiled and shook his head. He
himself had but an imperfect understanding of his assistant, but
he was not to be persuaded by the evidence of one stray sentence
that his brother had gone astray.
Thus Irving lived in the shade. Some of those friends to
whom he attached himself so fervently, young men like himself,

IN THE SHADE. 99
not yet settled down into the proprieties of life, supported his
claims to a higher appreciation with vehement partisanship,
which proceeded as much from love to the man as from admira
tion of his genius. Here and there an eager boy, in the ragged
red gown which Glasgow uses for academical costume, recognized,
with the intuition of youth, the high eloquence flashing.over those
slumbrous heads. But, on the whole, the Glasgow congregation
sat patronizingly quiet, and listened, without much remarking
what the "helper had to say." As much as the ordinary brain
could bear they had already heard, or were to hear the same day
from "the doctor himsel'." Under such circumstances, it was
scarcely to be expected that they could do more than listen calm
ly to the addresses of the other preacher, whose manner and looks,
and mode of address were all undoubtedly exceptional, and sub
ject to criticism. Such a strain would have been impossible to
any merely mortal audience ; so the good people drowsed through
the afternoons, and were kind to Mr. Irving ; they were very glad
to hear the doctor found him so serviceable among his poor; that
the agency made such a good report of him ; and that, altogether,
he was likely to do well. They told the current stories of his
gigantic form, and doubtful looks, and odd ways ; laughed at his
impetuous individuality with kindness, but amusement ; and had
as little idea of the fame he was to reach as of any other incom
prehensible event. The profound unconsciousness in which this
strange little community, all dominated and governed by their
leader and his great project, held lightly the other great intelli
gence in the midst of them, is as strange a picture of human na
ture as could be seen. It reminds one of that subtle law of evi
dence which Sir Walter Scott introduces so dramatically in ac
counting for the recognition of his hero Bertram, in Ouy Manner-
ing, by the postillion, who had seen him without an idea of recog
nizing him before. "Wha was thinking o' auld Elian gowan
then?" says Jock Jabos. The principle holds good in wider
questions. The Glasgow people had their eyes fixed upon one
man of genius and his great doings. They certainly saw the
other man in the shadow of his chief, and had a perception, by
the way, of his stature and peculiarities. But who was thinking
of genius or extraordinary endowments in Dr. Chalmers's helper?
Their eyes had not been directed to him; they saw him always
in the shade, carrying out another man's ideas, and dominated by
another man's superior influence ; and this most natural and pre-

100 HIS LOYALTY AND ADMIRATION.
vailing principle of human thought kept Irving obscure and un-
revealed to their eyes.
The same influence gradually wrought upon himself. It is
apparent that there was much in his Glasgow life which he en
joyed, and which suited him ; and no more loyal expression of
regard for a master and leader was ever written than the dedica
tion afterward addressed to Dr. Chalmers, in which he thanks God
for "that dispensation which brought me acquainted with your
good and tender-hearted nature, whose splendid accomplishments
I knew already ; and you now live in the memory of my heart
more than in my admiration. While I labored as your assistant,
my labors were never weary; they were never enough to express
my thankfulness to God for having associated me with such a
man, and my affection to the man with whom I was associated."
To the same tenor is the tone of his farewell sermon, the first pro
duction which he ever gave to the press, and in which, not without
much strenuous argument for the freedom of individual preach
ing, his favorite and oft-repeated theme, he acknowledges " the
burden of my obligations to my God" in respect to his residence
in Glasgow. " He has given me," says the preacher, his heart
swelling with all the gratitude and affection which kindness al
ways produced in him, and the warm impulse of his nature cast
ing all drawbacks behind, " the fellowship of a man mighty in
his Church, an approving congregation of his people, the attach
ment of a populous corner of his vineyard. I ask no more of
heaven for the future but to grant me the continuance of the por
tion which, by the space of three years, I have here enjoyed. But
this I need not expect. Never again shall I find another man of
transcendent genius whom I can love as much as I admire — into
whose house I can go in and out like a son — whom I can revere
as a father, and serve with the devotion of a child — never shall I
find another hundred consociated men of piety, and by free will
consociated, whose every sentiment I can adopt, and whose every
scheme I can delight to second. And I feel I shall never find
another parish of ten thousand into every house of which I was
welcomed as a friend, and solicited back as a brother."
This was one side of the picture ; sincerely felt and fully ex
pressed, without any restraint from the thought that on the other
side he had expressed, and yet should express as fully, his weari
ness, his longings for a scene of action entirely his own, his al
most disgust with a subordination which had now exceeded the

MISSIONARY PROJECTS RENEWED. 1Q1
natural period of probation. It was no part of Irving's temper to
acknowledge any such restraint. What he said in the fullest,
grateful sincerity, he did not stumble and choke over because he
was aware of having on another occasion expressed, with equal
warmth, another phase of feeling, equally sincere, though appa
rently inconsistent. That he should have been content with the
position which he describes in such glowing colors would have
been simply unnatural. He had now attained the age when it
becomes necessary for a man to do what he has to do in this
world for himself, and not for another : he was approaching the
completion of his thirtieth year. Nature herself protested that he
could remain no longer dependent and secondary, and that it was
time to be done with probationary efforts. His thoughts, which
had been so long kept silent while his heart burned, and so long
indifferently listened to by a preoccupied audience, must have
full course. His energy must have scope in an independent field.
To stand aside longer, with all his conscious powers burning within
him, was gradually becoming impossible to Irving. At the very
moment when he recognized with generous enthusiasm the advan
tages of his position, he felt its limits and confinements like a
chain of iron round his neck. The bondage, though these were
the most desirable of bonds, was gradually growing intolerable.
He was a man fully equipped and prepared, aware of a longer
probation, a sterner prelude, a harder training than most men.
We will not venture to say that the natural sweetness of his heart
could have been embittered even by the continuance of this un-
encouraging labor; but, at all events, nature took alarm, and felt
herself in danger. He received an invitation to go to Kingston,
in Jamaica, to a Presbyterian congregation there, and is said to
have taken it into serious consideration, and only to have been
deterred from accepting it by the opposition of his friends. White
men or black men, what did it matter, so long as he could build,
not upon another man's foundation, but do his own work as God
has ordained to every man? And failing that, his ancient mis
sionary thoughts returned to his mind ; I can not help thinking
that there is something wonderfully pathetic and touching in this
project, which he carried so far upon the way of life with him,
and to which, up to this moment, he always recurred when his
path became dark or impracticable. I could fancy it a suggestion
of heaven to turn aside his feet, while it was yet possible, from
that fiery ordeal and passage of agony through which his course

102 THE CALEDONIAN CHAPEL, HATTON GARDEN.
lay. The same thoughts which once filled his chamber in Bristo
Street came back in the winter of 1821, when, after two years'
labor in Glasgow, he saw himself no farther advanced in his inde-
pendant way than when, full of hopes, he had come there to open
his mouth in his Master's service. Dr. Chalmers could get many
assistants, but Edward Irving could get but one life, and was this
all it was destined to come to ? Again he saw himself going forth
forlorn, giving up all things for his Lord ; carrying the Gospel
afar, over distant mountains, distant plains, into the far Eastern
wastes. It was an enterprise to make the heart beat and swell,
but it was death to all human hopes. When he grasped that
cross the roses and laurels would fade out of his expectation for
ever. Love and fame must both be left behind. It was in him
to leave them behind had the visible moment arrived and the
guidance of Providence appeared. But he understood while he
pondered what was the extent of the sacrifice.
Just at this moment the clouds opened — he has described it so
well in his own words that it would be worse than vanity to use
any other :
" The Caledonian Church had been placed under the pastoral care
of two worthy ministers, who were successively called to parochial
charges in the Church of Scotland ; and by their removal, and for
want of a stated ministry, it was reduced to great and almost hope
less straits. But faith hopeth against hope, and when it does so,
never faileth to be rewarded. This was proved in the case of those
two men whose names I have singled out from your number, to give
them that honor to which they are entitled in the face of the congre
gation. Having heard through a friend of theirs, and now also of
mine, but at that time unknown to me, of my unworthy labors in
Glasgow as assistant to the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, they commissioned
him to speak to me concerning their vacant church, and not to hide
from me its present distress.
" Well do I remember the morning when, as I sat in my lonely
apartment, meditating the uncertainties of a preacher's calling, and
revolving in my mind purposes of missionary work, this stranger
stepped in upon my musing, and opened to me the commission with
which he had been charged. The answer which I made to him, with
which also I opened my correspondence with the brethren, whose
names are mentioned above, was to this effect : ' If the times permit
ted, and your necessities required that I should not only preach the
Gospel without being burdensome to you, but also by the labor of
my hands minister to your wants, this would I esteem a more honor
able degree than to be Archbishop of Canterbury.' And such as the
beginning was, was also the continuance aud ending of this negotia
tion  Being in such a spirit toward one another, the prelimi
naries were soon arranged — indeed, I may say, needed no arrange-

LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION. 1Q3
ment — and I came up on the day before the Christmas of 1821 to
make trial and proof of my gifts before the remnant of the congrega
tion which still held together."*
Ere, however, going to London, he seems to have made a brief
visit to Edinburgh, where he obtained from the Rev. Dr. Fleming,
one of the most highly esteemed evangelical ministers there, a let
ter of introduction to Dr. Waugh, of London, which I have found
among other papers relating to his removal to London. These
credentials were as follows : "Edinburgh, 13th December, 1821.
"Dear Sie, — Allow me to introduce to you Mr. Edward Irving,
preacher of the Gospel, who goes to London on invitation to preach
in the Caledonian Chapel, with the view of being called to take the
pastoral charge of the congregation assembling in that place. I need
not tell you what you will at once perceive, that he is a large, raw-
boned Scotchman, and that his outward appearance is rather uncouth;
but I can tell you that his mind is, in proportion, as large as his body;
and that whatever is unprepossessing in his appearance will vanish as
soon as he is known ; his mind is, I had almost said, gigantic. There
is scarcely a branch of human science which he does not grasp, and
in some degree make his own. As a scholar, and as a man of science,
he is eminently distinguished. His great talents he has applied suc
cessfully to the acquisition of professional knowledge, and both his
talents and acquisitions he is, I believe, sincerely resolved to conse
crate to the service of his great Master. His views of Scripture
truth, while they are comprehensive, are, in my judgment, sound.
His exhibition of them, indeed, I thought at one time exceptionable,
as too refined and abstract for ordinary hearers ; but that was when
he contemplated the duties of a preacher as a spectator, being ordi
narily occupied with other important avocations. For some time
past, however, he has been actively employed in the vineyard, in the
character of assistant to Dr. Chalmers, of Glasgow, and it is no small
commendation that the doctor is in the highest degree pleased with
him and attracted to him. His connection with the doctor has prob
ably accelerated what experience would have in time produced in a
man of his mind and principles : it has brought him down to the level
of plain, sound preaching. This effect has been still farther promoted
in the exercise of a duty which he has had to perform, visiting the
families of the parish, and conversing with them about their spiritual
interests. This was a duty in which he engaged with great zeal, and
he is considered as possessing a particular faculty for performing it.
As a man, he is honorable, liberal, independent in his mind, fearless in
the discharge of his duties, and exemplary in his general deportment.
In short, taking into view his whole character and qualifications, his
* Dedication of the Last Days to W. Dinwiddie, Esq., Father of the Session of
the National Scotch Church; W. Hamilton, Esq., Secretary of the Committee for
building the National Scotch Church; and to the other members of the Session and
Committee.

104 FAVORABLE PROGNOSTICATIONS.
talents, his acquirements, his principles, his zeal, and his capacity of
exertion, I know nobody who seems better fitted for discharging the
duties of a Gospel minister in the metropolis faithfully, usefully, and
respectably than Mr. Irving. . . . If you can be of any service to Mr.
Irving, either with the managers qf the chapel, or in the event of his
remaining in London, by introducing him to any of your friends in
the ministry, I shall esteem it a favor. . . . Mr. Irving has come
upon me unexpectedly, and I have barely time to add that I am,
with great regard, dear sir, yours faithfully, " Thomas Fleming."
The kind elaboration of this old-fashioned recommendatory let
ter, written in days when people thought it worth while to fill
their paper, secured Irving a friend ; and many of its carefully
detailed particulars are sadly amusing in the light of all the after-
revelations, as, indeed, the calm unconsciousness with which an or
dinary man holds up his light to show forth the figure of an im
mortal has always a certain ludicrous-pathetic element in it. Arm
ed with this, and doubtless with various others which have not es
caped oblivion, the " large, raw-boned Scotchman" set out for Lon
don with unconcealed and honest eagerness. What he wanted
was not a benefice, or even an income, for hopeless enough in that
way were the prospects of the little fainting Scotch Church, bur
ied amid the crowded lanes about Holborn, which successive va
cancies and discouragements had reduced to the very lowest point
at which it could venture to call itself a congregation. If it had
been practicable — if, as Irving himself says, " the times had per
mitted," there can not be the slightest doubt that the vehement
young man would have been content to conjoin any apostolic
handicraft with his spiritual office rather than resign that longed-
for pulpit, in which he could say forth unchecked the message that
was in him ; and he does not attempt with any affected coyness
to conceal his own eager desire for this, the first independent
standing-ground which was ever placed fairly in his power. From
the moment that he heard of it, the idea seems to have taken full
possession of him. Nowhere else could he do such good service
to his Master's cause. Nowhere could the human ambition which
possessed him find readier satisfaction. Nowhere else was .the ut
terance with which he was overbrimming so deeply needed. He
seems to have felt with magical suddenness and certainty that here
was his sphere.
His own appreciation of his welcome in London, and the hopes
excited in his mind by this new development of affairs, may be

HIS PLEASURE IN HIS RECEPTION THERE. 105
learned from the following letter, addressed to his much regarded
pupil and friend, Miss Welsh. " Glasgow, 34 Kent Street, 9th February, 1822.
" Mt deae and lovely Pupil, — When I am my own master, de
livered from the necessity of attending to engagements, ever solicit
ing me upon the spot where I am, and exhausting me to very lassi
tude before the evening, when my friendly correspondence should
commence, then, and not till then, shall I be able, I fear, to discharge
my heart of the obligations which it feels to those at a distance. Do
excuse me, I pray you, by the memory of our old acquaintance, and
any thing else which it is pleasant to remember, for my neglect to
you in London, and not to you alone, I am sorry to say, but to every
one whom I was not officially bound to write to, even my worthy fa
ther. Forget and forgive it ; and let us be established in our former
correspondence as if no such sin against it had ever taken place. I
could say some things on my own behalf; but, till you go to London,
which I hope will not be till I am there to be a brother to you, you
could not at all sympathize with them.
" And know now, though late, that my head is almost turned with
the approbation I received — certainly my head is turned ; for from
being a poor desolate creature, melancholy of success, yet steel against
misfortune, I have become all at once full of hope and activity. My
hours of study have doubled themselves — my intellect, long unused
to expand itself, is now awakening again, and truth is revealing itself
to my mind ; and perhaps the dreams and longings of my fair corre
spondent* may yet be realized. I have been solicited to publish a
discourse which I delivered before his Royal Highness the Duke of
York, but have refused till my apprehensions of truth be larger, and
my treatment of it more according to the models of modern and an
cient times. The thanks of all the directors I have received formally
— the gift of all the congregation of the Bible used by his Royal High
ness. The elders paid my expenses in a most princely style. My
countrymen of the first celebrity, especially in art, welcomed me to
their society, and the first artist in the city drew a most admirable
half-length miniature of me in action. And so, you see, I have rea
son to be vain.
" But these things, my dear Jane, delight me not, save as vouch-
safements of my Maker's bounty, the greater because the more un
deserved. Were I established in the love and obedience of Him, I
should rise toweringly aloft into the regions of a very noble and sub
lime character, and so would my highly-gifted pupil, to retain whose
friendship shall be a consolation to my life ; to have her fellowship in
divine ambitions would make her my dear companion through eter
nity. " To your affectionate mother, whose indulgence gives me this
pleasant communication with her daughter, I have to express my at
tachment in every letter. May you live worthy of each other, mu
tual stays through life, doubly endeared, because alone together, and
therefore doubly dutiful to Him who is the husband of the widow
and the Father of the fatherless. I have sent this under cover to my
* He refers to his young friend's affectionate prophecies of his future fame.

106 OBSTACLES.— THE CALEDONIAN ASYLUM.
friend T. C, not knowing well where you are at present. If in Ed
inburgh, offer my benedictions upon your uncle's new alliance.^ I
hope to be in Edinburgh soon, where I will not be without seeing
you. I am, my dear pupil, your affectionate friend,
"Edwabd Ikving."
" Wherewith" (namely, with the trial of his gifts) " being satis
fied," he continues, in the dedication already quoted, " I took my
journey homeward, waiting the good pleasure of the great Head
of the Church. Many were the difficulties and obstacles which
Satan threw in the way, and which threatened hard to defeat al
together our desire and our purpose of being united in one.
Among others, one, which would have deterred many men, was
my inability to preach in the Gaelic tongue, of which I knew not
a word." This absurd stipulation originated in the connection of
the Caledonian Chapel with the Caledonian Asylum, the directors
of which are those whom he records as having thanked him for
mally — an institution originally intended for the orphan children
of soldiers and sailors, and of whose office-bearers the Duke of
York, the commander-in-chief, was president. This institution is
still in existence, and, until the disruption of the Church of Scot
land, still sent its detachments of children into the galleries of the
National Scotch Church, built to replace the little Caledonian
Chapel. But at that period it was its connection with the great
charity which alone gave the little chapel importance. Other
Scotch churches, more flourishing and prosperous, were in exist
ence, but the chapel in Hatton Garden had a trifling Parliament
ary allowance, in direct consideration of its connection with the
Asylum, and the minister's powers of preaching Gaelic. This in
itial difficulty called forth from Irving the following characteristic
letter :
" To my honored friends, Mr. Dinwiddie, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Robert
son, Mr. Hamilton, and others connected with the Caledonian Chap
el, to whom I have the pleasure of being known, and who take an
interest in my coming to London :
" Gentlemen, — My friend Mr. Laurie has called to report to me
the result of the last meeting of Directors of the Asylum ; and as Mr.
Hamilton requested him to make it known to me, I feel myself called
upon to do my endeavor to make you comfortable under, and also,
if possible, to extricate you from, the embarrassment in which you
may feel yourselves.
" First. Let my interest be as nothing. The Lord will provide for
me ; and since I left you His providence has presented me with the
offer of a chapel of ease in Dundee, with the probable reversion of the
first vacant living in the place. This, of course, I refused. The peo-

THE CALEDONIAN ASYLUM. 107
pie of New- York are inquiring for me to succeed the great Mr. Ma
son — at least are writing letters to that effect. This I do not think
will come to any head, because I am not worthy of the honor. But
I mention both to show you in what good hands my fortune is, when
it is left to God alone.
" Secondly. But if, for the interests of your own souls, and religion
in general, and the Scotch Church in particular, you do still desire
my services among you, then I am ready at any call, and almost on
any conditions, for my own spirit is bent to preach the Gospel in
London. " Thirdly. If the gentlemen of the Asylum would not mistake for
importunity and seeking of a place what I offer from a desire to me
diate peace, and benefit the best interests of my countrymen, I pledge
myself to study Gaelic; and if I can not write it and preach It in six
months, I give them my missive to be burdensome to them no longer.
There was a time when the consciousness of my own powers would
have made it seem as meanness so to condescend ; but now the low-
ness of condescension for Christ's sake I feel to be the height of honor.
" Fourthly. But if not, and you are meditating, as Mr. Hamilton
says, to obtain another place of worship to which to call me, then be
assured I shall not be difficult to persuade to come among you ; and
I shall not distress your means ; but content with little, minister, in
humble dependence upon God, the free grace of the Gospel.
" Finally, gentlemen, should I never see your faces any more, my
heart is toward you, and my prayers are for you, and the blessing of
the Lord God shall be upon us all if we seek his face ; and we shall
dwell together in that New Jerusalem where there is no temple and
no need of any pastors ; but the Lamb doth lead them and feed them
by rivers of living waters, and wipes away all tears from their eyes.
" Commend me to your families in love and brotherhood, and do
all regard me as your obliged and affectionate friend,
" Edwaed Ieving.
" Glasgow, 21st February, 1822."
The Directors of the Caledonian Asylum were not, however,
" so far left to themselves," as we say in Scotland, as to insist upon
the six months of Gaelic study thus heroically volunteered. The
Duke of York exerted his influence to set aside the stipulation ;
and after it had answered its purpose in stimulating the warmth
of both parties, and adding a little more suspense and uncertainty
to Irving's long probation, the difficulty was overcome. Or rather,
to use his own words, " God, having proved our willingness, was
pleased to remove this obstacle out of the way." Upon this an
other difficulty arose. It is a rule of the Church of Scotland not
to ordain any minister over a congregation until they are first cer
tified that the people are able and prepared to provide him with
a fit income — "to give him a livelihood," as Irving says simply.
This is usually done in the form of a bond, submitted to the Pres-

108 BOND REQUIRED BY THE PRESBYTERY.
bytery before the ordination, by which the stipend is fixed at a
certain rate, which the office-bearers pledge themselves to main
tain. This was a difficult point for the poor little handful at Hat
ton Garden, who had only been able to keep themselves together
by great exertions, and to whom only the valuable but scanty
nucleus of fifty adherents belonged. The Presbytery, in conse
quence, demurred to the ordination, and once more the matter
came to a temporary standstill. The following letter, addressed
to Mr. William Hamilton, one of the principal members of the
Caledonian Chapel, will show how Irving regarded this new ob
struction :
" Mt deae Sie, — Though I received so many and so kind atten
tions from you in London, the great diversity of my occupations, and
my frequent visits of late to different parts of the country, in the pros
pect of removal, have hindered me from ever presenting my acknowl
edgments, not the less felt, be assured, on that account. The confi
dence and frequency of our intercourse makes me assured, when I
come to London, that we shall find in each other steady friends ; and
it is delightful in the prospect opening up that I have such friends
to come to. The bearer is my brother-in-law, Mr. Warren Carlyle, a
young man of most admirable character, both moral and religious.
He is in London on business, and will be able to inform you in all
my affairs. I am doing my utmost to get the Presbytery to consent
to my ordination without a bond, and I hope to succeed. But if
they will not, I come in June, ordination or no ordination ; and if
they are not content with the security I am content with, then I shall
be content to do without their ordination, and seek it elsewhere, or
apply for it after. But I augur better  Mr. Dinwiddie must
not consider me wanting in affection that it is so long since I wrote
to him personally. Assure him and all his family, I pray, of my grat
itude and high regards, which many years, I trust, will enable me to
testify  May all good be with you and my other acquaintan
ces ; and may I be enabled, when I come among you, to do more than
fulfill all your expectations — till which happy junction may we be
preserved in the grace of the Lord.
" Yours most affectionately, Edwaed Ibving.
"Paisley, 24th April, 1822."
To Paisley, from which this letter is dated, Irving was in the
habit of walking out on Saturday afternoons, to snatch a little do
mestic relaxation at the tea-table of the family into which his sis
ter had married, and had a liberal habit of inviting chance fellow-
travelers whom he encountered by the way to accompany him,
occasionally to the considerable confusion and amazement of his
kind hosts. On one of these occasions he introduced a stranger
of shy and somewhat gruff demeanor, who spoke little, whose
name nobody heard distinctly, and whom the good people set

REMOVAL OF OBSTACLES. 109
down as some chance pedestrian, a little out of his ease in "good
society," whom Irving had picked up on the way. They were
not undeceived until years after, when a member of the family,
then in London, had one of the greatest of living authors, Thomas
Carlyle, reverentially pointed out to her, and recognized, with hor
ror and astonishment, the doubtful stranger whom she had enter
tained and smiled at in her father's house.
The "bond," however, which Irving, generous and impetuous,
would have been well content to dispense with, but which the
prudent Presbytery insisted upon, was at length procured. "An
other obstacle to my ordination your readiness," says Irving in
the dedication already quoted, " without any request of mine, re
moved out of the way. To those brethren who came forward so
voluntarily and so liberally on that occasion, the Church and the
minister of the church are much beholden ; and all of us are be
holden to God, who useth us, in any way, however humble, for
the accomplishment of his good purposes."
Every thing was now settled, and only the necessary ecclesias
tical preliminaries remained. The young man was at the highest
pitch of hope and anticipation. As he had not concealed his ea
gerness to go, he did not conceal the high expectations with which
he entered the longed-for field. Expressions of his hopes and
projects burst forth wherever he went — misconstrued, of course,
by many ; received with cold wonder, and treated as boasts and
braggadocio ; but understood and believed by some. And the
only evidence of other sentiments which appears in his corre
spondence — contained in a letter to Dr. Martin, evidently written
in a moment of depression — still characteristically exhibits the
high pitch of his anticipations : " There are a few things which
bind me to the world, and but a very few," writes the young man
in this effusion of momentary weariness ; " one is to make a dem
onstration for a higher style of Christianity, something more mag
nanimous, more heroical than this age affects. God knows with
what success." These wonderful prophetic words, written in
some moment of revulsion, when the very height of satisfaction
and triumph had brought a sudden depth of temporary depres
sion to his sensitive soul, are the only visible trace of those clouds
which can never be wholly banished from the brightest firma
ment. During the last week of his residence in Glasgow he went
to Rosneath to visit and take farewell of his friend Mr. Story, ac
companied by another clerical friend, who went with him in won-

110 ROSNEATH.— HAPPY ANTICIPATIONS.
der and dread, often inquiring how the farewell sermon, which
was to be delivered on Sunday, could come into being. This
good man perceived with dismay that Irving was not occupied
about his farewell sermon, and declared with friendly vexation
that if any thing worthy of a leave-taking with the people of St.
John's was produced by the departing preacher under such cir
cumstances, he would prove himself " the cleverest man in Scot
land." Irving, however, was not dismayed. He went joyfully
over loch and hill in that sweet holiday of hope. The world was
all before him, and every thing was possible. No more limits ex
cept those of the truth, nor obliteration under another man's shad
ow. All this time he had been but painfully fitting and putting
his armor together; now he was already close to the lists, and
heard the trumpets of the battle, with laughter like that of the
war-horse ; a little longer, and he should be in the field.
One day in this happy period, when going about the country
with his friend, Irving, active, as of old, and full of glee and en
ergy, leaped a gate which interposed in their way. This feat
took the minister of Rosneath a little by surprise, as was natural.
"Dear me, Irving," he exclaimed, "I did not think you had been
so agile." Irving turned upon him immediately, " Once I read
you an essay of mine," said the preacher, "and you said, 'Dear
me, Irving, I did not think you had been so classical;' another
time you heard me preach, ' Dear me, Irving, I did not know you
had so much imagination.' Now you shall see what great things
I will do yet I"
In this state of exulting expectation, he was not more patient
than usual of the ordinary orthodoxy round him. While himself
the sincerest son of his mother Church, and loving her very stand
ards with a love which never died out of him, he was always in
tolerant of the common stock of dry theology, and the certified
soundness of dull men. " You are content to go back and for
ward on the same route, like this boat," he is reported to have
said, as the party struck across the swelling waters of the Gair-
loch ; "but as for me, I hope yet to go deep into the ocean of
truth." Words overbold and incautious, like most of his words,
yet wonderfully characteristic of the unconcealed exaltation of
mind and hope in which he was.
So he returned to Glasgow, still accompanied by the alarmed
and anxious friend, who could get no satisfaction about his fare
well sermon. Such an occurrence as this solemn leave-taking, to

FAREWELL SERMON. HI
which the little world looked forward, was an event in the history
of the parish. It was an occasion such as preachers generally
make the most of, and in which natural sentiment permits them
a little freedom and deliverance from the ordinary restraints of
the pulpit. And it was, perhaps, the first opportunity which Ir
ving had ever had, with all eyes concentrated on himself, to com
municate his thoughts without risk of the inevitable comparison,
or the jealousy equally inevitable, of those who resented the idea
of the assistant attempting to rival " the doctor." He was now
no longer Dr. Chalmers's assistant, but a London minister elect ;
and when the bonds which bound him were unloosed, all the
kindnesses of the past rushed warm upon the memory of the im
pulsive young man. He came into the pulpit glowing with a ten
der flush of gratitude ; his discontent and weariness had dropped
off from him, and existed no longer; he remembered only the
love, the friendship, the good offices, the access he had obtained
to many hearts. In that sermon, of which his companion de
spaired, the materials required little research or arrangement.
The preacher had but to go back upon his own life of two years,
seen in the warm reviving light of farewell kindness. He stood
up in that pulpit, the last time he was to occupy it by right of
his present position, and calmly told the astonished hearers of his
own unpopularity, of their forbearance yet not applause, of the
"imperfections which had not been hid from their eyes," yet of
the brotherly kindness which they, and especially the poor among
them, had shown him ; and proclaimed the praises of his leader
with a warmth and heartfelt fullness which distressed and over
whelmed that sober Scotsman, unaccustomed to and disapproving
of such demonstrations of attachment. Even upon that unenthu-
siastic and preoccupied audience this farewell address seems to
have made an impression. He left them at peace with all men ;
and forgetting, as his affectionate temperament had a faculty for
forgetting, all his annoyances and discomforts there. This fare
well took away every possibility of bitterness. They were all his
friends whom he left behind. He gave a wide, but warm, uni
versal invitation to all. His house, his services, all that he could
do, were freely pledged to whosoever of those parishioners might
come to London and stand in need of him. He meant what he
said, unguarded and imprudent as the expression was ; and the
people instinctively understood that he did so. It was thus with
the warmest effusion of good-will that he left Glasgow, where, as

112 RETURNS TO ANNAN.
in every other place, there was no lack of people who smiled at
him, were doubtful of him, and patronized him with amusing
toleration, but where nobody now or then had an unkind word
to say.
When the farewell was over, and the sermon had met with its
award, that good, puzzled companion, who went with the incom
prehensible preacher to Rosneath, confided all his doubts and
troubles on this subject to the private ear of a sympathizing
friend. " Such a sermon would have taken me a week to write 1"
said this bewildered worthy. Possibly a lifetime would have
been too short for such a feat, had the good man but known.
Immediately after this leave-taking Irving proceeded to Annan,
to his father's house, there to appear once more before the Pres
bytery and go through his final " trials" for ordination. He chose
to have this great solemnity of his life accomplished in the same
church in which he had been baptized, and in which a third sad
act awaited him. But there was no foreboding in the air of that
sweet spring, which he spent in a kind of retreat of calm and re
tirement in his paternal house. The breathing-time which he had
there, as well as the hopes and interests which pleasantly agitated
it, are described in a letter addressed to his friend and frequent
correspondent, Mr. David Hope. "Annan, 28th May, 1822.
" I am snugly seated in this Temple of Indolence, and very loth to
be invaded by any of the distractions of the busy city. I would fain
devote myself to the enjoyment of our home and family, and to medi
tate from a distance the busy scene I have left, and the more busy
scene to which I am bound. My mind seems formed(for inactivity,
I can saunter the whole day from field to field, riding on impressions
and the transient thoughts they awaken, with no companion of books
or men, saving, perhaps, a little nephew or niece in my hand.
" You may from this conceive how little disposed I am to take any
task in hand of any kind ; and I had almost resolved to refuse flatly
the.flattering requests of my friends to publish that poor discourse ;
but yesterday there came such a letter from Mr. Collins, full of argu
ment and the kindest encouragement, that I have resolved to com
ply, and shall signify my resolution to him by this post.
_" For the other matter, it gives me the most exquisite delight to
think my friends remember me with attachment. That they are
about to show it by some testimonial I should perhaps not have
known till I received it. It is not my part to make a choice ; but if
I were to think of any thing, it would be that very thing which you
mention. But of this say nothing as coming from me."
The matter here referred to was a present which some mem
bers of St. John's Church were desirous of making him. It was

THE ANNANDALE WATCHMAKER.— "PRUNING." H3
decided that it should be a watch ; and I have been told, without,

however, being able to vouch for the entire authenticity of the
story, that when the matter was entirely decided upon, and the
money in hand, Irving was consulted to know whether he had
any particular fancy or liking in the matter. He had one, and
that was characteristic. He requested that it should be provided
by a certain watchmaker, whose distinguishing quality was not
that he was skillful in his trade, but that he was an Annandale
man. The good donors yielded to this recommendation ; and Ir
ving had the double delight of receiving a very substantial proof
of his friends' attachment, and of throwing a valuable piece of
work in the way of his countryman. Whether the watch itself
was the better for the arrangement tradition does not tell.
While the prospect of this tribute, or rather of the affection
which it displayed, .gave him, as he says, in the fullness of his
heart, " exquisite delight," the publication of his sermon was also
going on. But the discourse, in which Irving had poured out all
the generous exuberance of his feelings, fell into dangerous hands
before it reached the public. Mrs. Chalmers laid hold upon the
offending manuscript, and without either the consent or knowl
edge of the writer, cut down its panegyric into more moderate di
mensions — a proceeding which the luckless author, when he came
to know of it, resented deepry, as I suspect most authors would be
disposed to do. "Returning some months afterward to Glasgow,"
says Dr. Hanna, in his Life of Dr. Chalmers, "his printed sermon
was handed to Mr. Irving, who, on looking over it, broke out into
expressions of astonishment and indignation at the liberties which
had been taken with his production — expressions which would
have been more measured had he known who the culprit was."
Such a meddling with his first publication was enough to try the
temper of the meekest of men.
Immediately after his ordination he returned to Glasgow, and
there assisted Dr. Chalmers in the solemn and austere pomp—
(pomp, not certainly of outward accessories, yet it is the only word
by which I can describe the importance given to the half-yearly
occasion, the " sacramental season" of Scotch piety, separated as it
is by long array of devotional services from the ordinary course
of the year) — of a Scottish communion. Irving himself describes
this as "having experienced of my dear friend Dr. Chalmers the
singular honor of administering the sacrament to his parish flock,
being my first act as an ordained minister." It was a graceful
H

114 GOES TO LONDON.
conclusion to his residence in Glasgow. From thence he set out,
amid honor and good wishes, with the highest hopes in his mind,
and charity in his heart, on the morning of the 8th of July, 1822,
to London. The future seems to have glowed before him with
all the indefinite brightness of early youth. Certainly that little
chapel in London, in those dread wastes about Holborn, far out
of hearing of the great world as might have been supposed, with
fifty undistinguished members, to their own knowing strenuous
Scotch churchmen, but, so far as the great indifferent community
about them was concerned, lost in the crowd of Dissenting chap
els, nameless and unknown places of worship, had little in itself to
lift the anticipations of its minister to any superlative height; nor
did he carry with him any comforting consciousness of success ;
unflattered, undeceived, fully aware and never scrupling to con
fess that his preaching had hitherto, except in individual cases,
been little more than tolerated, it might have been supposed a
very homely and sombre perspective which opened before this
young man. So far as actual realities were concerned, it was so ;
but the instinct of his heart contradicted reality, and showed, in
wonderful indefinite vision, some great thing that was to come.
He calls himself "a man unknown, despised, and almost outcast;
a man spoken against, suspected, and avoided;" yet, withal, pro
ceeds to his obscure corner of that great wilderness of men, in
which so many men, greater than he could pretend to be, had
been swallowed up and lost, with a certain ineffable expectation
about him which it is impossible to describe, but which shines
through every word and action. He did not foresee how it was
to come ; he could not have prophesied that all London would
stir to the echoes of his voice. All that memorable tragic life
that lay solemnly waiting for him among the multitudinous roofs
was hid in the haze of an illumination which never takes visible
shape or form. But Nature, prevoyant, tingled into his heart an
inarticulate thrill of prophecy. He went forth joyfully, wittingly,
aware of all the hazards of that battle, into the deepest of the
fight — amid all the exaltation of his hopes, never without a touch
of forlorn dignity, acknowledged without any bitterness, the con
sciousness of a man who, however he might triumph hereafter,
had known many a defeat already. Thus Irving went out of his
youth and obscurity, out of trials and probation not often exceed
ed, to the solemn field full of lights and shadows greater than he
dreamt of, where his course, for a time, was to be that of a con-

BEGINS HIS LABORS IN LONDON. H5
queror, and where, at last, like other kings and victors before
him, he was to fall, dauntless but mortal, with the loss of all save
honor.

CHAPTER VII.
LONDON, 1822.
First Appearance. — Satisfaction with his new Sphere. — His Thoughts and Hopes. —
Outset in Life. — Chalmers in London. — Appeals to Irving's Sympathy. — Progress
in Popularity. — "Our Scottish Youth." — Canning and Mackintosh. — Happy Ob
scurity. — The " Happy Warrior." — The Desire of his Heart. — His first Household.
" On the second Sabbath of July, 1822," Irving began his labors
in London. The fifty people who had signed his call, with such
dependents as might belong to them, and a stray sprinkling of
London Scotsmen, curious to hear what their new countryman
might have to say for himself, formed all the congregation in the
little chapel. The position was not one calculated to excite the
holder of it into any flights of ambition, so far as its own qualities
went. It was far from the fashionable and influential quarter of
the town — a chapel attached to a charity, and a congregation re
duced to the very lowest ebb in point of numbers. Nor did Ir
ving enter upon his career with those aids of private friendship
which might make an ordinary man sanguine of increasing his es
timation and social sphere. Sir David Wilkie records his belief
that the new preacher had introductions only to himself and Sir
Peter Lawrie, neither of them likely to do much in the way of
opening up London, great, proud, and critical, to the unknown
Scotsman ; and though this statement may not be entirely correct,
yet it is evident that he went with few recommendations, save to
the little Scotch community amid which, as people supposed, he
was to live and labor. There are stories extant among that com
munity still concerning the early beginnings of his fame, which,
after all that has passed since, are sadly amusing and strange,
with their dim recognition of some popular qualities in the new
minister, and mutual congratulations over a single adherent gain
ed. Attracted by the enthusiastic admiration expressed by a
painter almost unknown to fame, of the noble head and bearing
of the new-comer, another painter was induced to enter the little
chapel where the stranger preached his first sermon. When the
devotional services were over — beginning with the Psalm, read

116 SATISFACTION WITH HIS NEW SPHERE.
out from the pulpit in a voice so splendid and melodious that the
harsh metres took back their original rhythm, and those verses
so dear to Scotsmen justified their influence even to more fastid
ious ears— the preacher stood up, and read as the text of his ser
mon the following words: "Therefore came I unto you without
gainsaying as soon as I was sent for. I ask you, therefore, for
what intent you have sent for me?" The sermon has not been
preserved, so far as I am aware ; but the text^-remembered as al
most all Irving's texts are remembered — conveys all the pictu
resque reality of the connection thus formed between the preacher
and his people, as well as the solemn importance of the conjunc
tion. The listening stranger was of course fascinated, and became
not only a member of Mr. Irving's church, but— more faithful to
the Church than to the man — a supporter of the Church of Scot
land after she had expelled him.
By gradual degrees the little chapel began to fill. So far as
appears, there was nobody of the least distinction connected with
the place, and it is hard to understand how the great world came
so much as to hear of the existence of the new popularity. This
quiet period, full of deep hopes and pleasant progress, but as yet
with none of the high excitement of after days, Irving himself de
scribes in the following letter to his friend, Mr. Graham, of Burns-
wark: "London, 19 Gloucester Street, Queen Square, J
" Bloomsbury, 5th August, 1822. )
" Mt veet deae Feiend, — I have not forgotten you, and if I wish
ed to forget you I could not, sealed as you are in the midst of my af
fections, and associated with so many recollections of worth and of
enjoyment. You always undervalued yourself, and often made me
angry by your remarks upon the nature of our friendship, counting
me to gain nothing ; whereas I seemed always in your company to
be delivered into those happy and healthy states of mind which are
in themselves of exquisite reward. To say nothing of your bounty,
which shone through all the cloud of misfortune ; to say nothing of
your tender interest in my future, my friends, my thoughts, and your
sleepless endeavor to promote and serve them, I hold your own man
ly, benignant, and delicate mind to be a sufficient recommendation of
you to men of a character and a genius I have no pretensions to. So
in our future correspondence be it known to you that we feel and ex
press ourselves as equals, and bring forth our thoughts with the same
liberty in which we were wont to express them — which is the soul
of all pleasant correspondence.
" You can not conceive how happy I am here in the possession of
my own thoughts, in the liberty of my own conduct, and in the favor
of the Lord. The people have received me with open arms ; the
church is already regularly filled ; my preaching, though of the aver-

HIS THOUGHTS AND HOPES. 117
age of an hour and a quarter, listened to with the most serious at
tention ; my mind plentifully endowed with thought and feeling ;
my life ordered, as God enables me after His holy Word ; my store
supplied out of His abundant liberality : these are the elements of
my happiness, for which I am bound to render unmeasured thanks.
Would all my friends were as mercifully dealt with, and mine ene
mies too.
" You have much reason for thankfulness that God, in the time of
your sore trials, sustained your honor and your trust in Himself;
nay, rather made you trust in Him the more He smote you. His
time of delivery will come at length, when you shall taste as formerly
His goodness, and enjoy it with a chastened joy, which you had not
known if you had never been afflicted. Persevere, my dear friend,
in the ways of godliness and of duty, until the grace of God, which
grows in you, come to full and perfect stature.
" For my thoughts, in which you were wont to take such interest,
they have of late turned almost entirely inward upon myself; and I
am beginning dimly to discover what a mighty change I have yet to
undergo before I be satisfied with myself. I see how much of my
mind's very limited powers have been wasted upon thoughts of vanity
and pride ; how little devoted to the study of truth and excellency
upon their own account. As I advance in this self-examination, I see
farther, until, in short, this life seems already consumed in endeavors
after excellence, and nothing attained ; and I long after the world
where we shall know as we are known, and be free to follow the
course we approve with an unimpeded foot. At the same time I see
a life full of usefulness, and from my fellow-creatures, full of glory,
which I regard not ; and of all places this is the place for one of my
spirit to dwell in. Here there are no limitations to my mind's high
est powers ; here, whatever schemes are worthy may have audience
and examination ; here, self-denial may have her perfect work in midst
of pleasures, follies, and thriftless employments of one's time and en
ergies. Oh, that God would keep me, refine me, and make me an ex
ample to this generation of what His grace can produce upon one of
the worst of His children !
" I have got three very good, rather elegant apartments — a sitting-
room, a bedroom, and dressing-room ; and when George* comes up,
I have one of the attics for his sleeping apartment. My landlady, as
usual, a very worthy woman, and likely to be well content with her
lodger. George comes up when the classes sit down, and in the
mean time is busy in Dr. Irving's shop. This part of the town is
very airy and healthy, close to Russell Square, and not far from the
church, and in the midst of my friends. My studies begin after
breakfast, and continue without interruption till dinner ; and the pro
duct, as might be expected, is of a far superior order to what you
were pleased to admire in St. John's."
This letter, after salutations as particular and detailed as in an
apostolic epistle, ends with the injunction to "tell me a deal about
* His younger, and then only surviving brother, of whom and of whose education
he seems from this time to have taken the entire burden.

118 CHALMERS IN LONDON.
Annandale, Sandy Corne, and all 'worthy men." His correspond
ent, like himself, was an Annandale man, a Glasgow merchant,
with a little patrimony upon the side of one of those pastoral
hills which overlook from a distance Irving's native town, where
George, a young medical student, was busy among the drugs in
the country doctor's shop; amid all the exultation of his hopes, as
well as in the fullest tide of success, his heart was always warm
to this " country-side."
About a month later, Dr. Chalmers, then making one of his rapid
journeys through England, collecting the statistics of pauperism,
came to London for the purpose of "introducing," according to
Presbyterian uses and phraseology, though in this case somewhat
after date, the young minister to his charge. This simple cere
mony, which is entirely one of custom and not of rule, is generally
performed by the most prized friend of the new preacher — who
simply officiates for him, and in his sermon takes the opportunity
of recommending, in such terms as his friendship suggests, the
young pastor to the love and esteem of his people. Nobody could
be better qualified to do this than Irving's master in their com
mon profession ; and it is creditable to both parties to note how
they mutually sought each other's assistance at such eventful mo
ments of their life. Dr. Chalmers writes to his wife on arriving
in London that he found Irving "in good taking with his charge.
He speculates as much as before on the modes of preaching ; is
quite independent with his own people, and has most favorably
impressed such men as Zachary Macaulay and Mr. Cunningham
with the conception of his talents. He is happy and free, and,
withal, making his way to good acceptance and a very good con
gregation." Such, as yet, was the modest extent of all prognos
tications in his his favor. The good doctor goes on to relate how
he was delighted to find that Irving had been asked to dine with
him in- the house of a Bloomsbury M. P., evidently rejoicing in
this opening of good society to his friend and disciple. The two
returned together to Irving's lodgings after this dinner, and found
there a hospitably-received, but apparently not too congenial
guest, "Mr.  , the singularity of whose manners you were
wont to remark, who is his guest at present from Glasgow.
This," remarks Dr. Chalmers, "is one fruit of Mr. Irving's free
and universal invitation ; but I am glad to find that he is quite
determined as to visits, and apparently not much annoyed with
the intrusion of callers." This is not the only evidence of the im-

PROGRESS IN POPULARITY.

119

prudent liberality of Irving's farewell invitation to the entire con
gregation of St. John's. About the same time, to select one in
stance out of many, a poor man came to him seeking a situation
— "a very genteel, respectable-looking young man," says the com
passionate preacher, who refers him, in a letter full of beseeching
sympathy, to his universal assistant and resource in all troubles,
the good William Hamilton. Such petitioners came in multitudes
through all his after-life, receiving sometimes hospitality, some
times advice — recommendations to other people more likely to
help them — kindness always. Such troubles come readily enough
of themselves to the clergymen of a popular church ; but the im
prudence of inviting them was entirely characteristic of a man
who would have served and entertained the entire world if he
could. The next Sunday, when Dr. Chalmers preached, the little Cross
Street church was of course crowded. Wilkie, the most tenacious
of Scotsmen, had been already led to attendance upon Irving's
ministrations, and was there, accompanied by Sir Thomas Law
rence, to hear his still greater countryman. But the brilliant
crowd knew nothing yet of the other figure in that pulpit, and
went as it came, a passing meteor. After this, Dr. Chalmers con
cludes his estimate of his former colleague's condition and pros
pects in the following words: "Mr. Irving I left at Homerton;
and as you are interested in him, I may say, once for all, that he
is prospering in his new situation, and seems to feel as if in that
very station of command and congeniality whereunto you have
long known him to aspire. I hope that he will not hurt his use
fulness by any kind of eccentricity or imprudence." In these
odd and characteristic words Dr. Chalmers, always a little impa
tient and puzzled even in his kindest moments about a man so
undeniably eminent, yet so entirely unlike himself, dismisses Ir
ving, and proceeds upon his statistical inquiries.
Meanwhile, in this station of " command and congeniality," as
Chalmers so oddly terms it, Irving made swift and steady way.
Writing at a later period to his congregation, he mentions a year
as having passed before the tide of popularity swelled upon them
beyond measure ; but this must have been a failure of memory,
for both the preacher and congregation were much earlier aware
of the exceeding commotion and interest awakening around them.
He expresses his own consciousness of this very simply in another
letter to his friend David Hope.

120 "OUR SCOTTISH YOUTH."
" 19 Gloucester Street, Queen Square, )
"5th November, 1822. _ )
" Mt deae Feiend, — You have too good reason to complain of me,
and a thousand more of my Scottish friends; but be not too severe;
you shall yet find me in London the same true-hearted fellow you
knew me in Glasgow  But I had another reason for delay
ing ; I wished, when I did write, to be able to recount to you an
exact account of my success. Thank God, it seems now beyond a
doubt. The church overflows every day, and they already begin to
talk of a right good Kirk, worthy of our mother and our native coun
try. But into these vain speculations I have little time to enter, be
ing engrossed with things strictly professional. You are not more
regular at the counting-house, nor, I am sure, sooner {Anglice ear
lier), neither do you labor more industriously, till four chaps from the
Ram's Horn Kirk,* than I sit in to this my study, and occupy my
mind for the benefit of my flock. The evening brings more engage
ments with it than I can overtake, and so I am kept incessantly active.
My engagements have been increased, of late, by looking out for a
house to dwell in. I am resolved to be this Ishmaelite no longer,
and to have a station of my own upon the face of the earth. So a
new year will see me fixed in my own habitation, where there will
be ever welcome entertainment for him who was to me for a brother
at the time of my sojourning in Glasgow. When I look back upon
those happy years, I could almost wish to live them over again, in
order to have anew the instances I then received of true brotherly
kindness from you and so many of your townsmen.
" You would be overjoyed to hear the delight of our Scottish
youth, which they express to me, at being once more gathered to
gether into one, and the glow with which they speak of their recov
ered habits. This is the beginning, I trust, of good among them.
So may the Lord grant in His mercy and loving-kindness.
" Now I wish to know about yourself — how all your affairs prosper.
.... I could speculate much upon the excellent fruit season, and
the wretched oil season ; but you would laugh at my ignorance. And
there is something more valuable to be speculated upon. I do hope
you prosper in the one thing needful, under your most valuable pas
tor ; and also my dear friend Graham. Give my love to him, and
say I have not found time to answer his letter ; but if this thing of
settlement were off my mind, I should get into regular ways. Do
not punish me, but write me with all our news ; and believe me, my
dear David, your most affectionate friend, Edwaed Ieving."
The immediate origin of Irving's popularity, or rather of the
flood of noble and fashionable hearers who poured in upon the
little chapel in Hatton Garden all at once, without warning or pre
monition, is said to have been a speech of Canning's. Sir James
Mackintosh had been by some unexpected circumstance led to
hear the new preacher, and heard Irving in his prayer describe
an unknown family of orphans belonging to the obscure congre-
* One of our Glasgow churches, popularly so called.

CANNING AND MACKINTOSH. 121
gation as now " thrown upon the fatherhood of God." The words
seized upon the mind of the philosopher, and he repeated them
to Canning, who " started," as Mackintosh relates, and, expressing
great admiration, made an instant engagement to accompany his
friend to the Scotch Church on the following Sunday. Shortly
after, a discussion took place in the House of Commons, in which
the revenues of the Church were referred to, and the necessary
mercantile relation between high talent and good pay insisted
upon. No doubt it suited the statesman's purpose to instance, on
the other side of the question, the little Caledonian chapel and its
new preacher. Canning told the House that, so far from universal
was this rule, that he himself had lately heard a Scotch minister,
trained in one of the most poorly endowed of churches, and estab
lished in one of her outlying dependencies, possessed of no en
dowment at all, preach the most eloquent sermon that he had
ever listened to. The curiosity awakened by this speech is said
to have been the first beginning of that invasion of "society"
which startled Hatton Garden out of itself.
This first year, however, of his residence in London was so far
obscure that he had as yet opened his voice only in the pulpit,
and had consequently given the press and its vassals no vantage
ground on which to assail him. It is perhaps, with -the new pub
licity which his first publication brought upon him in view, that
he reminds his people how "for one year, or nearly so, beginning
with the second Sabbath of July, 1822, our union went on cement
ing itself by mutual acts of kindness, in the shade of that happy
obscurity which we then enjoyed. And I delight to remember
that season of our early love and confidence, because the noisy
tongues of men and their envious eyes were not upon us." With
the best will in the world, newspapers can take but little notice
of a popular preacher, and periodicals of higher rank none at all,
so that it was merely priyate criticism which commented upon
the great new voice rising up in the heart of London. Besides
the vague general facts of the rapidly raised enthusiasm, of appli
cations for seats in the little Caledonian chapel, which would only
accommodate about six hundred people, rising in one quarter to
fifteen hundred, and Irving's own simple and gratified intimation
that "the church overflows every day," there is very little certain
information to be obtained of that first year of his ^progress in
London. Thirty Sermons, taken down in short-hand by W. J. Ox
ford, but published only in 1835, after Irving's death, and forming

122

THE "HAPPY WARRIOR."

the second volume of Irving's Life and Works— & production evi
dently got up to catch the market at the moment of his death-
contains the only record remaining to us of his early eloquence.
Nobody who reads these sermons, imperfect as they must be from
the channel through which they come, will wonder at the rising
glow of excitement which, when a second year set in, brought all
London struggling for places to the little Scotch church, already
fully occupied by its own largely increased congregation. They
have, it is true, no factitious attractions, and genius, all warm and
eloquent, has preached before without such results ; but the read
er will not fail to see the great charm of the preacher's life and la
bors already growing palpable through those early proclamations
of his message. Heart and soul, body and spirit, the man who
speaks comes before us as we read ; and I have no doubt that the
first thrill of that charm which soon moved all London, and the
fascination of which never wholly faded from Irving's impassion
ed lips, lay in the fact that it was not mere genius or eloquence,
great as their magic is, but something infinitely greater — a man,
all visible in those hours of revelation, striving mightily with
every man he met, in an entire personal unity which is possible
to very few, and which never fails, where it appears, to exercise
an influence superior to any merely intellectual endowment. Nor
is it possible to read the few letters of this period, especially those
above quoted, without feeling the deep satisfaction and content
which at last possessed him, and the stimulus given to all his fac
ulties by this profound consciousness of having attained the place
suitable for him and the work which he could do. A long breath
of satisfaction expands the breast which has so often swelled with
the wistful sighs of longing and deferred hope. He is the " hap
py warrior" at length able to work out his life "upon the plan
that pleased his youthful thought;" and his descriptions of his
studies and the assiduity with which he set to work — his very
self-examinations and complaints of his own unworthiness, are
penetrated with this sentiment. He stands at the beginning of
his career in an attitude almost sublime in its simplicity, looking
forward with all the deep eagerness of an ambition which sought
not its own advancement— a man to whom God had granted the
desire of his heart. Few men consciously understand and ac
knowledge the fullness of this blessing, which, indeed, is not often
conferred. Most people, indeed, find the position they had hoped
and longed for to fall far short of their hopes when it is attained.

HIS FIRST HOUSEHOLD. 123
Irving was an exception to this common rule of humanity. He
had reached the point to which he had been struggling, and amid
all the joyful stir of his faculties to fill his place worthily, he nev
er hesitates nor grudges to make full acknowledgment that he has
got his desire. Not merely obedience and loyalty constrain him
to the work, but gratitude to that Master who has permitted him
to reach the very post of his choice. With a full heart and un
hesitating words, and even more by a certain swell of heroic joy
and content in every thing he does and says, he testifies his thank
fulness. It is no longer a man struggling, as most men do, through
ungenial circumstances and adverse conditions whom we have to
contemplate, but a man consciously and confessedly in the place
which his imagination and wishes have long pointed out to him
as the most desirable, the most suitable in the worldNfor himself.
With this buoyant and joyful satisfaction, however, no mean
motives mingled. Irving's temper was eminently social. He
could not live without having people round him to love, and still
more to admire and reverence, and even to follow ; but no vain
desire of " good society" seems to have moved the young Scotch
man. He was faithful to Bloomsbury, which his congregation fa
vored ; and when he set up his first household in London, though
moving a little out of that most respectable of localities, he went
farther off instead of nearer the world of fashion, and settled in
Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville. Here he lived in modest econ
omy for some vears, prodigal in nothing but charity. The society
into which he*rst glided was still Scotch, even when out of the
narrower ecclesiastical boundaries. David Wilkie was one of his
earliest friends, and Wilkie brought him in contact with Allan
Cunningham, a still closer countryman of his own. Thus he
made gradual advances into the friendship and knowledge of the
people about him ; and with his young brother sharing his lodg
ing and calling out his affectionate cares, with daily studies close
and persevering as those he has himself recorded ; with the little
church Sunday by Sunday overflowing more fully, till accidents
began to happen in the narrow streets about Hatton Garden, and
at last the concourse had to be regulated, by wiles, and the de
lighted, but embarrassed managers of the little Caledonian chapel
found an amount of occupation thrust upon their hands for which
they were totally unprepared, and had to hold the doors of their
little building like so many besieged posterns against the assaults
of the crowd ; and with notable faces appearing daily more fre-

124 THE ORATIONS.
quent in the throng of heads all turned toward the preacher, Ed
ward Irving passed the first year of his life in London, and sprang
out of obscurity and failure with a sudden unexampled leap to
the giddiest height of popular applause, abuse, and idolatry, bear
ing the wonderful revolution with a steady but joyful simplicity,
recognizing his success as openly as he had recognized the want
of it, under which he suffered for so many silent years.

CHAPTER YIH.
1823.

The Orations. — Irving's much Experience in Preaching. — Addresses himself to Edu
cated Men. — Argument for Judgment to come. — Assailed by Critics. — Mock Tri
al. — Indictment before the Court of Common Sense. — Acquittal. — Description of
the Church and Preacher. — Influence of his Personal Appearance. — Inconvenien
ces of Popularity. — Success of the Book. — A rural Sunday. — His Marriage. —
His Wife. — The bridal Holiday. — Reappearance in St. John's. — Return to Lon
don. — Preface to the Third Edition of the Orations. — His Dedications and Pref
aces generally. — Mr. Basil Montagu. — Irving's grateful Acknowledgments. — His
early Dangers in Society. — Bedford Square. — Coleridge. — His Influence on the
Views of Irving. — Social Charities. — A simple Presbyter.
The second year of Irving's residence in London was one of
the deepest importance both to himself personally and to his
reputation. It opened with the publication of hiiLfirst book, the
Orations and the Argument for Judgment to corae,r>oth of which
had been partly preached in the form of sermons, and were now
in an altered shape presented, not to any special religious body,
but to the world which had gathered together to hear them, and
to those who lead the crowd, the higher intellects and imagina
tions, whom neither religious books nor discourses usually ad
dress. In this volume it is perceptible that the preacher's mind
had swelled and risen with the increase of his audience. Some
thing more, it was apparent, was required of him than merely
congregational ministrations ; and he rises at the call to address
those classes of men who are never to be found in numbers in
any congregation, but who did drift into his audience in unprece
dented crowds. In the preface to this publication he explains his
own object with noble gravity, claiming for himself, with the
most entire justice, though in such a way as naturally to call
forth against him the jealous criticism of all self-satisfied preach-

IRVING'S EXPERIMENT IN PREACHING. 125
ers, a certain originality in the treatment of his subject, and de
siring to be heard not in the ear of the Church only, but openly,
before the greater tribunal of the world. At the height of his
early triumph, looking back, he traces, through years of silence,
his own steady protest against the ordinary strain of pulpit teach
ing; and with a startling earnestness — which that long convic
tion, for which already he had suffered both hardship and injus
tice, explains and justifies better than any thing else can do — de
clares his knowledge of the great religious difficulty of the time.
"It hath appeared to the author of this book," he says, going at
once to the heart of the subject, and with characteristic frankness
putting that first which was like to be taken most exception to,
"from more than ten years' meditation upon the subject, that the
chief obstacle to the progress of divine truth over the minds of
men is the want of its being sufficiently presented to them. In
this Christian country there are perhaps nine tenths of every class
who know nothing at all about the application and advantages
of the single truths of revelation, or of revelation taken as a whole;
and what they do not know they can not be expected to rever
ence or obey. This ignorance, in both the higher and the lower
orders, of religion as a discerner of the thoughts and intentions
of the heart, is not so much due to the want of inquisitiveness on
their part as to the want of a sedulous and skillful ministry on
the part of those to whom it is intrusted."
It can not be surprising that such a beginning aroused at once
all the antagonism with which innovations are generally regard
ed, and provoked those accusations of self-importance, self-exalt
ation, and vanity which still are current among thosfe-who know
nothing of the person they stigmatize. But not to say that he
proves his case, which most unprejudiced readers will allow, nor
that the grievance has gone on since his days, growing more and
more intolerable, and calling forth many reproofs less serious but
more bitter than Irving's, none who have accompanied us so far
in this history, and perceived the exercises of patience which the
preacher himself had to undergo, and the warm and strong con
viction arising out of them which for years had hindered his own
advancement, will be surprised at the plain speaking with which
he heralds his own first performance. To get at the true way of
addressing men, he himself had been for years a wearied listener
and discouraged essayist at speech. At last he had found the se
cret : and the whole world round him had owned with an instan-

126 ADDRESSES HIMSELF TO EDUCATED MEN.
taneous thrill the power that was in it. With this triumphant
vindication of his own doubts and dissatisfaction to confirm him
in his views, it was impossible for such a man to be silent on the
general question. At this dazzling moment he had access to the
highest intelligences in the country— the teachers, the governors,
the authorities of the land, had sought him out in that wilderness
of mediocre London, which had not even the antiquity of the city,
nor any recommendation whatever, but was lost in the smoke, the
dust, the ignoble din and bustle. And why was such an audi
ence unusual ? How was it that they were not oftener attracted,
seized upon, made to hear God's Word and will, if need were, in
spite of themselves ? Thinking it over, he comes to the conclu
sion, not that his own genius was the cause, but that his brethren
had not found the true method, had not learned the most effect
ive way of discharging their duty. " They prepare for teaching
gipsies, for teaching bargemen, for teaching miners, by apprehend
ing their way of conceiving and estimating truth ; and why not
prepare," he asks, with eloquent wonder, and a truth which no
body can dispute, "for teaching imaginative men, and political
men, and legal men, and scientific men, who bear the world in
hand?" This preparation, judging from what he saw around
him every day, Irving was well justified in believing he himself
had attained; and he did not hesitate, while throwing himself
boldly forth upon the world in a book — a farther and swifter mes
senger than any voice — to declare it plainly, the highest reason
and excuse for the publication, in which he now, with all the fer
vor and eloquence of a personal communication, addressed all who
had ears to^ear.
The preface to the Orations, which form the first part of the
volume, is so characteristic and noble an expression of friendship,
that it would be inexcusable to omit it.
" To the Rev. Thomas Chalmees, D.D., Minister of St. John's
Church, Glasgow :
" Mt honored Feiend, — I thank God, who directed you to hear
one of my discourses, when I had made up my mind to leave my na
tive land for solitary travel in foreign parts. That dispensation
brought me acquainted with your good and tender-hearted nature,
whose splendid accomplishments I knew already ; and you now live
in the memory of my heart more than in my admiration. While I
labored as your assistant, my labors were never weary ; they were
never enough to express my thankfulness to God for having associa
ted me with such a man, and my affection to the man with whom I
was associated. I now labor in another field, among a people whom

ARGUMENT FOR JUDGMENT TO COME. 127
I love, and over whom God hath, by signs unequivocal, already bless
ed my ministry. You go to labor likewise in another vineyard,
where may the Lord bless your retired meditations as he hath bless
ed your active operations. And may he likewise watch over, the
flock of our mutual solicitude, now about to fall into other hands.
The Lord be with you and your household, and render unto you
manifold for the blessings you have rendered unto me. I could say
much about these Orations which I dedicate to you, but I will not
mingle with any literary or theological discussion this pure tribute
of affection and gratitude -which I render to you before the world,
as I have already done into your private ear. I am, my honored
friend, yours in the bonds of the Gospel, Edward Irving.
" Caledonian Church, Hatton Garden, July, 1823."
The Argument for Judgment to come, a longer and more elabo
rate work, which occupies the larger half of the same volume,
seems to have been specially suggested to the mind of the writer
by the two Visions of Judgment of Southey and Byron. The pro
fane flattery of the one, most humiliating tribute to both giver
and receiver which the office of laureate has, in recent ages at
least, extorted from any poet, and the disgusting parody of the
other, excited in Irving all the indignation and repugnance which
was natural to a right-thinking and pious mind. His feeling on
the subject seems warmer than those miserable productions were
worthy of exciting ; but it is natural that a contemporary should
regard such degradations of literature with a livelier indignation
than it is possible to. feel when natural oblivion has mercifully
swallowed them up. The Argument was dedicated, like the Ora
tions, to one of his earlier friends, the Rev. Robert (afterward well
known as Dr.) Gordon of Edinburgh ; this highest mark of regard
or gratitude, which it is in an author's power to bestow, being in
both cases characteristically conferred on men who could in no
way advance or aid him in his career, but whom he distinguished
from pure gratitude and friendship only. Inscribed with these
names, he sent his first venture into the yet untried world of lit
erature, exposing himself freely, with all his undeniable peculiari
ties both of mind and diction, to a flood of critics, probably never,
before or since, so universally excited about any volume of relig
ious addresses which ever came from the press.
The consequence was an onslaught so universal, exciting, and
animated, that the satire of the day— the age of pamphlets being
then in full existence — took hold of the matter, and has preserved,
in a curious and amusing form, the comments and ferment of the
time. The Trial of the Rev. Edward Irving, M.A., a Cento of Criti-

128 ASSAILED BY CRITICS.— MOCK TRIAL.
cism, had reached the fifth edition, now before us, in the same year,
1823, which was half over before Irving's book was published.
It is the report of a prosecution carried on before the Court of
Common Sense, by Jacob Oldstyle, Clerk, against the new preach
er, at the trial of which all the editors of the leading papers are
examined, cross-examined, and covered with comic confusion.
The state of popular interest and excitement suggested by the
very possibility of such a production, and the fact of its having
run through at least five editions, is of itself almost unbelievable,
considering the short period of Irving's stay in London, and his
character as a preacher of an obscure, and, so far as the ordinary
knowledge of the London public was concerned, almost foreign
church. Such a jeu d 'esprit is a more powerful witness of the
general commotion than any graver testimony. The common
public, it appears, were sufficiently interested to enjoy the mock
trial, and the discomfiture of able editors consequent upon that
examination, and knew the whole matter so thoroughly, that they
could appreciate the fun of the travestie. The editor of the Times
being called, and having in the course of his examination given
the court the benefit of hearing his own article on the subject,
gives also the following account of the aspect of affairs at the Cal
edonian chapel:
" Did you find that your exposure of the defendant's pretensions
had the effect of putting an end to the public delusion ?"
" Quite the reverse. The crowds which thronged to the Caledo
nian chapel instantly doubled. The scene which Cross Street, Hat
ton Garden, presented on the following Sunday beggared all descrip
tion. _ It was quite a Vanity Fair. Not one half of the assembled
multitude could force their way into the sanctum sanctorum. Even
we ourselves were shut out among the vulgar herd. For the enter
tainment of the excluded, however, there was Mr. Basil Montagu
preaching peace and resignation from a window ; and the once cele
brated Romeo Coates acting the part of trumpeter from the steps of
the church, extolling Mr. Irving as the prodigy of prodigies, and
abusing the Times for declaring that Mr. Irving was not the god of
their idolatry."
The other witnesses called give corroborative testimony. An
overwhelming popularity, which is not to be explained by com
mon rules, is the one thing granted alike by opponents and sup
porters ; and all the weapons of wit are brought forth against a
preacher who indeed had offered battle. Nor were the newspa
pers the only critics ; every periodical work of the day seems to
have occupied itself, more or less, with the extraordinary preach-

INDICTMENT BEFORE THE COURT OF COMMON SENSE. 129
er ; most of them in the tone, not of literary commentators, but of
personal enemies or adherents. The Westminster and Quarterly
Reviews brought up the rear ; the former (in its first number) re
ferring its readers "for the faults of Mr. Irving to the thousand
and one publications in which they have been zealously and care
fully set forth," and complaining that it is " compelled to fall on
Mr. Irving when every critical tooth in the nation has been flesh
ed upon him already." None of these criticisms were entirely
favorable ; almost all fell heavily upon the phraseology, the gram
mar, and taste of the orator ; and few omitted to notice the imag
ined "arrogance" of his pretensions. But from the solemn deliv
erance of the Quarterlies, down to the song of Doctor Squintum,
with which the truculent gossip of John Bull edified his readers,
every body was eager to record their several opinions on a topic
so interesting. Such matters were certainly discussed in those
days with a degree of personality unknown to our politer fashion
of attack ; but we can not remember to have seen or heard of
any thing like this odd turmoil of universal curiosity and excite
ment. The counts of the indictment laid against the culprit be
fore the Court of Common Sense will give some idea of the char
acter of the assaults made upon him. They were as follows :
First. For being ugly.
Second. For being a Merry-Andrew.
Third. For being a common quack.
Fourth. For being a common brawler.
Fifth. For being a common swearer.
Sixth. For being of very common understanding.
And, Seventh. For following divisive courses, subversive of the
discipline of the order to which he belongs, and contrary to the prin
ciples of Christian fellowship and charity.
It will gratify our readers to know that Irving was not found
guilty of ugliness, nor of any of the charges brought against him,
except the last ; and that one of his principal assailants, the Times
itself, the Thunderer of the day, was convicted by his own con
fession of having condemned Sir Walter Scott as " a writer of no
imagination," and Lord Byron as " destitute of all poetical talent."
Among all his smaller critics, the one personal peculiarity
which impaired the effect of Irving's otherwise fine features and
magnificent presence seems to have always come conveniently to
hand to prove his mountebankism and want of genius. When
his eloquence could not be decried, his divided sight was always
open to criticism ; and when all harder accusations were expend-
I

130 DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH AND PREACHER.
ed, his squint made a climax which delighted his assailants.-
Cockney wit, not much qhalified for criticising any thing which
had to do with the Oracles of God, sang, not with ill nature, but
merely as a relief to the feelings which were incapable of more
logical expression, the lively lay of Doctor Squintum, which indeed
was a harmless effusion of wit, and injured nobody.
It was not only, however, in the legitimate review that this sin
gular book was assailed or recommended. It produced a little
attendant literature of its own in the shape of pamphlets, one of
which we have already mentioned and quoted from. Another,
entitled An Examination and Defense of the Writings and Preaching
of the Rev. Edivard Irving, A.M., gives the following picture of the
man and his church :
" His mere appearanee is such as to excite a high opinion of his in
tellectual powers. He is, indeed, one of whom the casual observer
would say, as he passed him in the street, ' There goes an extraordi
nary man !' He is in height not less than six feet, and is proportion-
ably strongly built. His every feature seems to be impressed with
the characters of unconquerable courage and overpowering intellect.
He- has a head cast in the best Scottish mould, and ornamented with •
a profusion of long black curly hair. His forehead is broad, deep,
and expansive. His thick, black, projecting eyebrows overhang a
very dark, small, and rather deep-set penetrating eye. He has the
nose of his nation" (whatever that may happen to be, the essayist
does not inform us) ; " his mouth is beautifully formed, and exceed
ingly expressive of eloquence. In a word, his countenance is exceed
ingly picturesque. . . . Having cleared the way, let us request
such of our readers as have not attended the Caledonian church to
repair, at a quarter past ten o'clock on a Sunday morning, to Cross
Street, Hatton Garden, the door of the church of which, if he be a
humble pedestrian, he will find it difficult to reach, and when he gets
to it he can not enter without a ticket. If he occupies a carriage, he
takes his turn behind other carriages, and is subject to the same rou
tine. Having surmounted these difficulties, should his ticket be num
bered he enters the pew so numbered ; if not, he waits till after the
prayer, or possibly all the time, which is, however, unavoidable. All
this adjusted, exactly at eleven o'clock he beholds a tall man, appar
ently aged about thirty-seven or thirty-eight, with rather handsome
but certainly striking features, mount the pulpit stairs. The service
commences with a psalm, which he reads; and then a prayer follows
m a deep, touching voice. His prayer is impressive and eloquent.
The reading of a portion of Scripture follows, in advertence to which
we will only say that he can read. We haste to the oration, for
there the peculiar powers of the preacher are called into play. Hav
ing pronounced his text, he commences his subject in a low but very
audible voice. The character of his style will immediately catch the
ear of all. Until warmed by his subject, we shall only be struck
with a full and scriptural phraseology, in which much modern elision

INFLUENCE OF HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 131
is rejected, some additional conjunction introduced, and the auxiliary
verbs kept in most active service. As he goes on, his countenance,
which is surrounded by a dark apostolic head of hair waving toward
his shoulders, becomes strongly expressive and lighted up, and his
gesture marked and vehement."
It is characteristic that nobody attempts to discuss Irving, even
in such matters as his books or his sermons, without prefatory
personal sketches like the above. Even now, when he has been
dead for more than a quarter of a century, his most casual hearer
of old times acknowledges the unity of the man by eagerly inter
polating personal description into every discussion concerning the
great preacher. His person, his aspect, his height, and presence
have all a share in his eloquence. There is no dividing him into
sections, or making an abstract creature of this living man.
And it should be remembered that the audience admitted after
so elaborate a fashion were not the common rabble, who surround
and follow a popular preacher. His critics made it a strong point
against the bold and unhesitating orator that it was not the poor,
but the intelligent, the learned, and the intellectual whom he an
nounced himself intent upon addressing. Virtuous Theodore
Hook and other edifying evangelists declared the entry to the
Caledonian chapel to be closed to " the pious poor" — a class not
much accustomed to such advocates of their claims. "His chapel
is every Sunday a gallery of beauty and fashion," says another of
his assailants; and persons more important than the fair and fash
ionable sought the same obscure place of worship. The effect of
such incessant crowding, however agreeable at once to the Chris
tian zeal and national pride of the congregation, was no small trial
¦of their patience and good temper. A year later, when about to
lay the foundation of their new church, Irving comments feelingly
upon all the inconvenience and discomfort of popularity. "It is
not a small matter," he says in one of his sermons, "whether we
shall in our new quarters be pressed on by every hinderance to
rest and devotion, or shall be- delivered into the enjoyment of
Sabbath quiet and church tranquillity. We can now look for
ward to the comfort and quiet which other congregations enjoy,
to that simple condition of things which the simplicity of our
Church requireth. We have had a most difficult and tedious
way to make, through every misrepresentation of vanity and am
bition ; we have stood in eminent peril from the visits of rank and
dignity which have been paid to us. There was much good to

132 SUCCESS OF THE BOOK.— A RURAL SUNDAY.
be expected from it; therefore we paid willingly the price, being
desirous that they who heard the truth but seldom should hear it ivhen
they were disposed. But these, you know, are bad conditions to
our being cemented together as a Church; they withdraw us from
ourselves to those conspicuous people by whom we were visited;
from which I have not ceased to warn you, and against which I
have not ceased to be upon my own guard."
In spite of the universal assaults made against the book, the
Orations and Argument ran into a third edition in little more than
as many months ; and remain, now that all their critics are for
gotten, among the most notable examples of religious eloquence.
But it is not our business to criticise these works, which have
been long before the public, and can be still judged on their sep
arate merits. Their author, meanwhile, was approaching a crisis
in his life still more important than the publication of his first
book. Longer than the patriarch he had waited for his Rachel;
and now an engagement, which had lasted, I believe, eleven years,
and had survived long separation, and many changes, both of cir
cumstances and sentiment, was at length to be fulfilled. In the
end of September, 1823, Irving left London, and traveled by sev
eral successive stages to Kirkcaldy, where his bride awaited him.
He dates the following letter, pleasantly suggestive of the condi
tion of his -mind in these new prospects, from Bolton Abbey. It
is addressed to William Hamilton :
" Mt dear and valuable Friend, — I write you thus early by my
brother merely to inform you of my health and happiness, for as yet
I have had no time to do any thing but walk abroad among the most
beautiful and sequestered scenes with which I am surrounded, and
which never fail to produce upon my spirit the most pleasing and
profitable effects. When I shall have rested I will write you and my
other personal friends at length, and let you know all my plans and
purposes during my absence. ... I shall not write you till I get at
my journey's end, and have, perhaps, completed its chief object.
But, late though it is, I can not help telling you how happy I am,
and how tranquil and holy a Sabbath I spent yesterday, and how
every day I engross into my mind new thoughts, and ruminate upon
new designs connected with the ministry of Christ in that great city
where I labor. The Lord strengthen me, and raise up others more
holy and more devoted for His holy service. I foresee infinite bat
tles and contentions, not with the persons of men, but with their
opinions. My rock of defense is my people. They are also my rock
of refuge and consolation. We have joined hands together, and I
feel that we will make common cause. I hope the Lord will be
pleased to give me their souls and their fervent prayers, and then,
indeed, we shall be mighty against all opposition.

IRVING'S MARRIAGE. I33
" Will you be so good as to give my brother an order upon my
account for whatever cash he may need to enter himself to the hos
pitals with, or, if it is -more orderly, to give it him yourself, and con
sider this as your voucher should any thing happen to me before we
meet ? I should be happy to hear from you that all things are going
on well. Yours most affectionately, Edward Ieving.
"29th September, 1823."
After this he passed on his way by his father's house in Annan ;
and the Sunday before his marriage, being now no longer a pri
vate man, with his time at his own disposal, went to Haddington
to preach among his early friends. There, where he had made
his youthful beginning in life, and where, when a probationer, he
had preached with the ordinary result of half-contemptuous , tol
eration, his coming now stirred all the little town into excite
ment. The boys who had been his pupils were now men, proud
to recall themselves to his notice; and with a warmer thrill of
local pride, in recollection of his temporary connection with their
burgh, the people of Haddington welcomed the man whom great
London had discovered to be the greatest orator of his day.
Wherever he went, indeed, he was hailed with that true Scottish
approbation and delight which always hails the return of a man
who has done his duty by Scotland, and made himself famous —
a satisfaction no way lessened by the recollection that Scotland
herself had not been the first to discover his great qualities.
"Irving is in Scotland," writes Dr. Gordon from Edinburgh- to
Irving's friend, Mr. Story. "I have seen him twice for a little.
The same noble fellow — and, in spite of all his alleged egotism, a
man of great simplicity and straightforwardness. He is to be
married to-day, I believe, to Miss Martin, of Kirkcaldy." This
was on the 13th of October. The long-engaged couple were mar
ried in that Manse of Kirkcaldy which had witnessed so many
youthful chapters in Irving's life, and which was yet more to be
associated with his deepest and most tender feelings. They were
married by the grandfather of the bride, a venerable old man —
brother, as I believe has been already mentioned, of the cele
brated Scotch painter, David Martin, whom the imagination of
Scotland fondly holds as a second Reynolds, and in his own per
son a man much venerated, the father of the clergy in his local
ity — in the presence of a body of kindred worthy of a family in
which three generations flourished together. I will not linger
upon any description of Irving's wife. The character of a woman
who has never voluntarily brought herself before the public is

134 MRS. IRVING.— THE BRIDAL HOLIDAY.
sacred to her children and her friends. She stood by her hus
band bravely through every after vicissitude of his life ; was so
thorough a companion to him that he confided to her, in detail,
all the thoughts which occupied him, as will be seen in after let
ters ; received his entire trust and confidence, piously laid him in
his grave, brought up his children, and lived for half of her life
a widow indeed, in the exercise of all womanly and Christian
virtues. If her admiration for his genius, and the shortsighted
ness of love, led her rather to seek the society of those who held
him in a kind of idolatry than of friends more likely to exert
upon him the beneficial influence of equals, and so contributed
to the clouding of his genius, it is the only blame that has been
ever attached to her. She came of a family who were all distin
guished by active talent and considerable character ; and with all
the unnoted valor of a true woman, held on her way through the
manifold agonies — in her case most sharp and often repeated —
of life.
After this event a period of wandering followed, to refresh the
fatigue of the preacher, after his first year-long conflict with that
life of London which, sooner or later, kills almost all its comba
tants. The bridal pair appear in glimpses over the summer coun
try. One evening, sitting at the window of his quiet manse, at
the mouth of one of the loveliest and^ softest lochs of Clyde, the
minister of Rosneath saw a vast figure approaching through the
twilight, carrying — an adjunct which seems to have secured im
mediate recognition — a portmanteau on its Herculean shoulder.
It was Irving, followed by his amused and admiring wife, who
had come down from Glasgow by one of the Clyde steamers, and
had walked with his burden from the other side of the little pe
ninsula. " And do you mean to say that you have carried that
all the way?" cried the astonished host, as he hastened to welcome
his unexpected visitors. " And I would like to know," answered
the bridegroom, with all the gleeful consciousness of strength,
stretching out the mighty arms which he had just relieved,
"which of your caitiffs could have carried it better!" A little
later the pair are at Annan, awakening in the hearts of young
nephews and nieces there their earliest recollections of pleasure
and jubilee. Irving was not preaching, so far as there is any
record; he was idling and enjoying himself; and, with him, these
words meant making others enjoy themselves, and leaving echoes
of holiday every where. So late as the beginning of November

REAPPEARANCE IN ST. JOHN'S. I35
he was still in Scotland — in Glasgow — where Dr. Chalmers, at the
height of his splendid social experiments, and in full possession of
his unrivaled influence, a kind of prince-bishop in that great and
difficult town, had felt his strength fail, and — yielding to a natu
ral distaste for the atmosphere in which, not following his own
inclinations, except in the fashion of his work, he had labored for
years — had resigned his great position for the modest tranquillity
of a professor's chair in St. Andrew's, and was just taking leave of
the people over whom he had held so wonderful a sway. There
Irving went to listen to the last sermon of his master in the min
istry. The situation is a remarkable one. He was again to take
part in the services in that place where he had filled, loyally, yet
with many commotions and wistful dissatisfaction in his mind, a
secondary place so short a time before. A world of difference
lay in the year of time which had passed since then. Chalmers
himself had not turned the head of any community, as his former
assistant had turned the multitudinous heads of London. The
man who had gone away from them, forlorn and brave, upon an
expedition more like that of a forlorn hope than an enterprise
justified by ordinary wisdom, had come back with all the laurels
of sudden fame, a conqueror and hero. Yet here again he stood,
#,so entirely in his old place that one can suppose the brilliant in
terval must have looked like a dream to Irving as he gazed upon
the crowd of familiar faces, and saw himself lost and forgotten, as
of old, in the absorbing interest with which every body turned to
the great leader under whom they had lived and labored. Had
he been the egotist he was called, or had he come in any vain
glorious hope of confounding those who did not discover his great
ness, he would have chosen another moment to visit Glasgow.
But he came in the simplicity of his heart to stand by his friend
at a solemn moment, as his friend had stood by him — to hear the
last sermon, and offer the last good wishes.
This momentary conjunction of these two remarkable men
makes a picture pleasant to dwell on. Both had now separated
their names from that busy place ; the elder and greater to retire
into the noiseless seclusion, or rather into the little social "circles"
and coteries of a limited society, and the class-rooms of a science
that was not even theological; the younger, the secondary and
overlooked, to a position much more in the eye of the world, more
dazzling, giddy, and glorious than the pulpit of St. John's, even
while Chalmers occupied it, could ever have been. At this last

136 RETURN TO LONDON.
farewell moment they stood as if that year, so wonderful to one
of them, had never been ; and Irving, like a true man, stepped
back out of his elevation, and took loyally his old secondary place.
" When Dr. Chalmers left the pulpit, after preaching his farewell
sermon," says Dr. Hanna, his biographer, "it was entered by the
Rev.. Edward Irving, who invited the vast congregation to accom
pany him, as with solemn pomp and impressive unction he poured
out a prayer for that honored minister of God who had just re
tired from among them." This momentary appearance in that
familiar pulpit, not to display the eloquence which had made him
famous since he last stood in it, but simply to crown with prayers
and blessings the farewell of his friend, is the most graceful and
touching conclusion which could have been given to Irving's con
nection with Glasgow; or at least — since after events have linked
his memory forever with that of this great and wealthy town —
with the congregation of St. John's.
The newly-married pair traveled to London by the paternal
house in Annan. Accompanied by some of their relations from
thence, they posted to Carlisle, the modern conveniences of travel
being then undreamt of. When they were about to cross the
Sark, the little stream which at that point divides Scotland from
England, Irving, with a pleasant bridegroom fancy, made his^
young wife alight and walk over the bridge into the new country
which henceforward was to be her home. So this idyllic journey
comes to an end. After the bridge of Sark and its moorland
landscape, we see no more of the travelers till they reappear in the
bustle of London, where idylls have no existence.
His marriage leisure had probably been prolonged in conse
quence of his health having suffered a little from the great labors
and excitement of the past year. Just before starting for Scot
land, he had written to this purport to his friend David Hope,
who had consulted him what memorial should be raised to their
old schoolmaster, Adam Hope, the master of Annan Academy.
He writes :
" I have been unwell, and living in the country, and not able to at
tend to your request ; but I propose that we should erect a monu
ment, when I will myself compose elegies in the various tongues our
dear and venerable preceptor taught, all which I shall concoct with
you when I come to Scotland. Tell Graham, and all my friends,"
he adds, "if they knew what a battle I am fighting for the cause,
and what a single-handed contest I have to maintain, they would for
give my apparent neglect. Every day is to me a day of severe oo

PREFACE TO THE THTRD EDITION OF THE ORATIONS. 137
cupation — I have no idleness. All my leisure is refreshment for new
labor. Yet am I happy, and now, thank God, well; and this mo
ment I snatch in the midst of study."
His marriage and its attendant travels happily interrupted this
over-occupation, and he seems to have returned to London with
new fire, ready to re-enter the lists, and show no mercy upon the
assailants who had now' made him for several months a mark for
all their arrows. He took his bride to the home which had been
for some time prepared for her, and which, for the information of
the curious, was No. 7 in Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville.
His first occupation — or at least one of the first things which
occupied him after his return — must have been the third edition
of his Orations and Argument, with the characteristic preface which
he prefixed to it. The critics who assailed him must have been
pretty well aware beforehand, from all he had said and written,
that Irving was not a man to be overawed by any strictures that
could be made upon him. When, in the heat and haste of the
moment, one edition pursuing another through the press, and one
blow after another ringing on his shield, the orator seized his
flaming pen and wrote defiance to all his opponents, it is not diffi
cult to imagine the kind of production which must have flashed
from that pen of Irving. Allowing that an author's reply to crit
icism is always a mistaken and imprudent proceeding, and that
Irving's contempt and defiance are not written in perfect taste
(angry as the expression would have made him) or charity, yet
we should have been sorry not to have had the daring onslaught
upon these troublesome skirmishers of literature, from whose
stings, alas ! neither greatness nor smallness can defend the unfor
tunate wayfarer ; and the dignified vindication of his own style
and diction, which is as noble and modest a profession of literary
allegiance as can be found any where. " I have been accused of
affecting the antiquated manner of ages and times now forgotten,"
he says in his defense. " The writers of those times are too much
forgotten, I lament, and their style of writing hath fallen out of
use ; but the time is fast approaching when this stigma shall be
wiped away from our- prose, as it is fast departing from our poet
ry. I fear not to confess that Hooke, and Taylor, and Baxter in
Theology ; Bacon, and Newton, and Locke in Philosophy, have
been my companions, as Shakspeare, and Spenser, and Milton
have been in poetry. I can not learn to think as they have done,
which is the gift of God ; but I can teach myself to think as dis-

138 MR. BASIL MONTAGU.
interestedly, and to express as honestly, what I think and feel,
which I have, in the strength of God, endeavored to do."' What
he said of his critics is naturally much less dignified ; but in spite
of a few epithets, which were much more current in those days
than now, the whole of this preface, much unlike ordinary pref
aces, which authors go on writing with an amazing innocent faith
in the attention of the public, and which few people ever dream
of looking at, is one of the most eloquent and characteristic por
tions of the volume. Indeed, I know scarcely any volume of Ir
ving's works of which this might not be said. In his dedications
and prefaces, he carries on a kind of rapid autobiography, and
takes his reader into his heart and confidence, in those singular
addresses, in a manner, so far as I am aware, quite unprecedented
in literature.
He was now fully launched upon the exciting and rapid course
of London life — a life which permits little leisure and less tran
quillity to those embarked upon it. One of his earliest acquaint
ances was Mr. Basil Montagu — the gentleman described by the
Times as " preaching peace and resignation from a window" to
the disappointed multitude who could find no entrance into the
Caledonian church. In Mr. Montagu's hospitable house Irving
found the kindest reception and the most congenial society ; and
even more than these, found consolation and guidance, when first
excited and then disgusted, according to a very natural and oft-
repeated process, with the blandishments of society, and the cold
ness of those religious circles which admit nobody who does not
come with certificates of theological soundness and propriety in
his hand. In dedicating a volume of sermons to Mr. Montagu
and his wife some years after, he thus describes his state and cir
cumstances in his first encounter with that wonderful Circe, from
whose fascinations few men escape unharmed :
" When the Lord, to serve his own ends, advanced me, from the
knowledge of my own flock and the private walks of pastoral duty,
to become a preacher of righteousness to this great city, and I may
say kingdom— to the princes, and the nobles, and the counselors of
this great empire, whom He brought to hear me— I became also an
object of attack to the malice and artifice of Satan, being tempted on
the one hand to murmur because of the distance at which I was held
from the affections of my evangelical brethren, whom I had never
persecuted like Saul of Tarsus, but too much loved, even to idolatry;
and, on the other hand, being tempted to go forth, in the earnest sim
plicity of my heart, into those high and noble circles of society which
were then open to me, and which must either have ingulfed me by

IRVING'S GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 139
their enormous attractions, or else repelled my simple affections, shat
tered and befooled, to become the mockery and contempt of every
envious and disappointed railer. At such a perilous moment the
Lord in you found for me a Mentor both to soothe my heart, vexed
with cold and uncharitable suspicions, and to preserve my feet from
the snares that were around my path  And seeing it hath
pleased God to make your acquaintance first, and then your unwea
ried and disinterested kindness, and now, I trust, your true friend
ship, most helpful to my weakness, as well in leading me to observe
more diligently the forms and aspects of human life, and to compre
hend more widely the ways of God's providence with men, as in sus
taining me with your good counsel and sweet fellowship against the
cold dislike and uncharitable suspicion of the religious, and preserv
ing me from the snares of the irreligious world, I do feei it incumbent
upon me as a duty to God, and pleasant to me as a testimony of grat
itude and love to you, to prefix your honored names to this Discourse,
which chiefly concerneth the intermediate question of the soil on
which the seed of truth is sown, wherein I feel that your intercourse
has been especially profitable to my mind ; for while I must ever
confess myself to be more beholden to our sage friend, Mr. Coleridge
(whose acquaintance and friendship I owe likewise to you), than to
all men besides, for the knowledge of the truth itself as it is in Jesus,
I freely confess myself to be much your debtor for the knowledge of
those forms of the natural mind and of the actual existing world with
which the minister of truth hath in the first instance to do, and into
the soil of which the seed of truth is to be cast. Your much acquaint
ance, worthy sir, and your much conversation of the sages of other
days, and especially the fathers of the English Church and literature,
and your endeavors to hold them up unto all whom you honor with
your confidence ; your exquisite feeling, dear and honored madam, of
whatever is just and beautiful, whether in the idea or in the truth of
things, and your faithfulness in holding it up to the view of your
friends, together with the delicate skill and consummate grace with
which you express it in words and embody it in acts — these things,
my dear and honored friends, working insensibly during several
years' continuance of a very intimate friendship and very confidential
interchange of thought and feeling, have, I perceive, produced in me
many of those views of men and things which are expressed in the
following Discourse, concerning that question of the several soils into
which the seed of truth is cast — a' question which I confess that I
had very much in time past overlooked."
I make this long and interesting extract out of its chronologic
al place as the best means I have of showing at once the temper
of Irving's mind and the circumstances in which he stood at his
outset in London: on one side, religious people, shy of him at
first, as of a man who used a freedom in speech and in thought
unknown to ordinary preachers or authors of published sermons,
and afterward affronted and angry at his bold, simple-minded
declaration that they had lost or forgotten the way to proclaim

140 HIS EARLY DANGERS IN SOCIETY.
the truth they held, and, on the other, society of a more dazzling
kind, and with profounder attractions than any he had yet met
with — society such that men of genius continually lose their head,
and sometimes break their heart in seeking it. The position in
which he thus found himself was, indeed, enough to confuse a
man always eager for love and friendship, and ready to trust all
the world. Irving, fresh from the simpler circumstances of life
in Scotland, charmed with that subtle atmosphere of refinement
and high breeding which seems at the first breath to the unin-
structed genius the very embodiment of his dreams, stood upon
that dangerous point between, repelled from one side, attracted
to the other, understanding neither thoroughly— wavering and
doubtful at the edge of the precipice. That he had a friend qual
ified to point out to him the danger on both sides, and that he
was wise enough to accept that teaching, was a matter for which
he might well be grateful. Mr. Montagu drew him to his own
house, brought him into a circle above fashion, yet without its
dangerous seductions, introduced him to Coleridge and many
other notable men. And Irving, brought into the warm and af
fectionate intercourse of such a household, and assisted, moreover,
by that glamour which always remained in his own eyes and ele
vated every thing he saw, learned to gain that acquaintance with
men — men of the highest type — men of a class with which hith
erto he had been unfamiliar, in which the hereditary culture of
generations had culminated, and which, full of thought and ripen
ed knowledge, was not to be moved by generalities — which he
could not have learned either in his secondary rank of scholarship
in Edinburgh, nor among the merchants of Glasgow. He saw,
but in the best and most advantageous way, what every thought
ful mind which lives long enough is brought to see something of
— how deeply nature has to do with all the revolutions of the
soul ; how men are of an individuality all unthought of; and how
mighty an agent, beyond all mights of education or training, is
constitutional character. In Mr. Montagu's house he saw " the
soil" in many a rich and fruitful variation, and came to know
how, by the most diverse and different paths, the same end may
be attained. If his natural impatience qf every thing contracted,
mean, and narrow-minded gained force in this society, it is not a
surprising result. But he had always been sufficiently ready to
contemn and scorn commonplace boundaries. His friends in Bed
ford Square, and their friends, taught him to appreciate more thor
oughly the unities and diversities of man.

COLERIDGE'S INFLUENCE ON THE VIEWS OF IRVING. 141
Scarcely any record remains of the intercourse which existed
between Irving and Coleridge, an intercourse which was begun,
as has just been seen, by Mr. Montagu. It lasted for years, and
was full of kindness on the part of the philosopher, and reveren
tial respect on that of Irving, who, following the natural instinct
of his own ingenuous nature, changed in an instant, in such a
presence, from the orator who, speaking in God's name, assumed a
certain austere pomp of position — more like an authoritative priest
than a simple presbyter — into the simple and candid listener, more
ready to learn than he was to teach, and to consider the thoughts
of another than to propound his own. Nothing, indeed, can be
more remarkable, more unlike the opinion many people have
formed of him, or more true to his real character, than the fact,
very clearly revealed by all the dedicatory addresses to which we
have referred, that in his own consciousness he was always learn
ing ; and not only so, but with the utmost simplicity and frank
ness acknowledging what he had learned. If imagination had
any thing to do with this serious and sad 'history, it would not be
difficult to picture those two figures, so wonderfully different, look
ing down from the soft Highgate slopes upon that uneasy world
beneath, which, to one of them, was but a great field of study,
proving, as never any collection of human creatures proved be
fore, all the grievous but great conclusions of philosophy, while
to the other it raged with all the incessant conflict of a field of
battle, dread agony of life and death, through which his own cry
"to the rescue!" was continually ringing, and his own hand
snatching forth from under trampling feet the wounded and the
fallen. Here Irving changed the common superficial idea of the
world's conversion — that belief calmly held or earnestly insisted
on in the face of acknowledged disappointment in many mission
ary efforts, and the slowness and lingering issues of even the most
successful; which is common to most churches — "That error," as
he himself says, " under which almost the whole of the Church is
lying, that the present world is to be converted unto the Lord,
and so slide by a natural inclination into the Church — the present
reign of Satan hastening, of its own accord, into the millennial
reign of Christ." For this doctrine he learned to substitute the
idea of a dispensation drawing toward its close, and — its natural
consequence in a mind so full of love to God and man — of an al
together glorious and overwhelming revolution yet to come, in
which all the dead society, churches, kingdoms, fashions of this

142 SOCIAL CHARITIES.
world, galvanically kept in motion until the end, should be finally
burned up and destroyed. Whether this development of wistful
and anxious faith, and the "deliverance" conveyed by it, or wheth
er that more subtle view of the ancient and much-assailed Calvin-
istic doctrine of election, which sets forth God's message and mes
sengers as specially addressed to " the worthy," and universally
received by them wherever the message is heard, was the sub
stance of what the preacher learned from the poet-philosopher,
there is no information. The prodigal thanks with which the
teaching was received, given out of the fullness of a heart always
ready to exaggerate the benefits conferred upon it, is almost the
only distinct record of what passed between them.
Such was his society and occupations when he returned with
the companion of his life from Scotland. He brought his wife
into a house in which the tumult of London was perpetually
heard ; not into a quiet ecclesiastical society, like that which gen
erally falls to the lot of the wives of Scotch ministers, but to a
much -disturbed dwelling-place, constantly assailed by visitors,
and invaded by agitations of the world. Among all the other ex
citements of popularity, there came also the pleasant excitement
of a new church about to be built, of size proportioned to the ne
cessities of the case. The same crowds and commotion still sur
rounded the Caledonian chapel, but they became more bearable
in the prospect of more roomy quarters. An unfailing succession
of private as well as public calls upon the kindness, help, and
hospitality of a man whom every body believed in, and who
proffered kindness to all, helped to increase the incessant motion
and activity of that full and unresisting life. Thus, within eight
een months after his arrival in London, had the Scotch preacher
won the friendship of many, not specially open to members of his
profession and church, and made himself a centre of personal be
neficences not to be counted. If ever pride can be j ustified, Edward
Irving might have been justified in a passing thrill of that exult
ation when he brought his wife from the quiet manse which all
along had looked on and watched his career, not sure.how far its
daughter's future was safe in the hands of a man so often foiled,
yet so unsubdUable, to place her in a position and society which
few clergymen of his church have ever attained, and, indeed,
which few men in any church, however titled or dignified, could
equal. The peculiarity of his position lay in the fact that this
singular elevation belonged to himself and not to his rank, which

PHYSICAL STRENGTH OF IRVING. 143
was not susceptible of change ; that his influence was extended a
thousand-fold, with little addition to his means and none to his
station, and that, while he moved among men of the highest intel
lect and position, neither his transcendent popularity nor his ac
knowledged genius ever changed that primitive standing-ground
of priest and pastor which he always held with primitive tenacity.
The charm of that conjunction is one which the most worldly
mind of man can not refuse to appreciate ; and perhaps it is only
on the members of a church which owns no possibility of promo
tion that such a delicate and visionary, though real rank, could by
common verdict be bestowed.

CHAPTER IX.
1824.
Failure of Health. — Determination to do his Work thoroughly. — Proposes to write
a Missionary Sermon. — For Missionaries after the Apostolical School. — The wan
dering Apostle. — Consternation of the Audience. — Wrath of the religious World.
— A Martyr Missionary. — Publication of the Oration. — An Exeter Hall Meeting.
— Protest against the Machinery of Evangelism. — Dedication to Coleridge. — Lavish
Acknowledgments. — Coldness and Estrangement. — The Presbyterian Eldership.
— Its Duties and Privileges. — Irving forms his Kirk-session. — Birth of little Ed
ward. — Personal Charities. — A lost Life. — Hospitality. — Commencement of the
new Church. — Evangelical Journey. — Birmingham. — Home Society. — "In God
he lived and moved."
The year 1824 began with no diminution of those incessant la
bors. It is wonderful how a man of so great a frame, and of out-
of-door tendencies so strong and long cherished, should have been
able to bear, as Irving did, confinement in one of the most town
like and closely-inhabited regions of London. In Pentonville, in
deed, faint breaths of country air might at that period be supposed
to breathe along the tidy, genteel streets ; but in Bloomsbury,
where many of Irving's friends resided, or in the dusty ranges of
Holborn, where his church was, no such refreshment can have
been practicable. Nor had the Presbyterian minister any relief
from curates, or assistance of any kind. His entire pulpit services
— and, according to his own confession, his sermons averaged an
hour and a quarter in length — his prayers, as much exercises of
the intellect as of the heart, came from his own lips and mind, un
aided by the intervention of any other man ; and besides, his lit
erary labors, and the incessant demands which his great reputa-

144 FAILURE OF HEALTH.
tion brought upon him, he had all the pastoral cares of his own
large congregation to attend to, and was ready at the call of the
sick, the friendless, and the stranger whensoever they addressed
him. That this overwhelming amount of work, combined as it
was with all the excitement inseparable from the position of a
popular preacher — a preacher so popular as to have his church
besieged every day it was opened — should tell upon his strength,
was to be expected ; and accordingly we find him writing in the
following terms to Mr. Collins, of Glasgow, the publisher, who
had taken a large share in Dr. Chalmers's parochial work in St.
John's, and was one of Irving's steady friends. Some time before
he had undertaken to write a preface to a new edition of the works
of Bernard Gilpin, which, is the matter referred to :
"7 Myddelton Terrace, 24th February, 1824.
" Mt deae Me. Collins, — I pray you not for a moment to imag
ine that I have any other intention, so long as God gives me strength,
than to fulfill my promise faithfully. I am at present worked beyond
my strength, and you .know that is not inconsiderable. My head !
my head ! I may say with the Shunamite's child. If I care not for
it, the world will soon cease to care for me and I for the world. If
you saw me many a night unable to pray with my wife, and forced
to have recourse to forms of prayer, you would at once discover what
hath caused my delay. I have no resource if I throw myself up, and
a thousand enemies wait for my stumbling and fall.
" I am now better, and this week had set to rise at six o'clock and
finish it, but I have not been able. Next week I shall make the at
tempt again and again till I succeed ; for upon no account, and for
no sake, will I touch or undertake aught until I have fulfilled my
promise in respect to Gilpin. But one thing I will say, that I must '
not be content with the preface of a sermon or patches of a sermon.
The subject is too important — too many eyes are upon me — and the
interests of religion are too much inwarped in certain places with my
character and writing that I should not do my best.
" The Lord bless you and all his true servants.
" Your faithful friend, Edward Ieving."
This conscientious determination to do nothing imperfectly is,
amid all the exaltation and excitement of Irving's position, no
small testimony to his steadiness and devout modesty. Adula
tion had not been able to convince him that his name was suffi
cient to give credit to careless writing, nor had the vehement and
glowing genius, now fully enfranchised and acknowledged, learn
ed to consider itself independent of industry and painstaking la
bors. He had learned what criticism awaited every thing he
wrote; and even while he retaliated manfully, was doubtless

SOLICITED TO DELIVER A MISSIONARY SERMON. 145
warned in minor matters by the storm just then passing over,
which had been raised by his former publication.
His next point of contact with the astonished and critical world,
which watched for a false step on his part, and was ready to pounce
upon any thing, from an imperfect or complicated metaphor to an
unsound doctrine, occurred in the May of this year, when he had
been selected to preach one of the anniversary sermons of the
London Missionary Society. The invitation to do this was pre
sumed to be a compliment to Irving, and voucher of his popular
ity, as well as a prudent enlistment of the "highest talent" to
give attraction to the yearly solemnity of the society. Had the
London committee been wise, they would scarcely have chosen so
daring and original an orator to celebrate their anniversary, since
Irving was exactly the man whose opinions or sentiments on such
a topic were not to be rashly predicated. The preliminaries of
this discourse, as afterward described by himself, were not such as
generally usher in a missionary sermon. Instead of reading up
the records of the society, and making careful note of the causes
for congratulation and humility, as it would have been correct to
have done — instead of laying up materials for a glowing account
of its progress and panegyric upon its missionaries, Irving's prep
arations ran in the following extraordinary channel :
" Having been requested by the London Missionary Society," he
writes, " to preach upon the occasion of their last anniversary, I wil
lingly complied, without much thought of what I was undertaking ;
but when I came to reflect upon the sacredness and importance of
'the cause given into my hands, and the dignity of the audience before
which I had to discourse, it seemed to my conscience that I had un
dertaken a duty full of peril and responsibility, for which I ought to
prepare myself with every preparation of the mind and of the spirit.
To this end, retiring into the quiet and peaceful country, among a
society of men devoted to every good and charitable work, I searched
the Scriptures in secret, and in their pious companies conversed of
the convictions which were secretly brought to my mind concerning
the missionary work. And thus, not without much prayer to God
and self-devotion, I meditated those things which I delivered in pub
lic before the reverend and pious men who had honored me with so
great a trust." ^ -
It may easily be supposed that a discourse, thus premeditated
and composed by a man whose youth was full of missionary proj
ects, such as no practical nineteenth century judgment could des
ignate otherwise than as the wildest romance, was not likely to
come to such a sermon as should content the London or any other
Missionary Society. It was not an exposition of the character
K

146 A LONG SERMON.— THE WANDERING APOSTLE.
of a missionary, as apprehended by an heroic mind, capable of the
labors it described, which had been either wished or requested.
But the directors of the society, having rashly tackled with a man
occupied, not with their most laudable pursuits and interests, but
with the abstract truth, had to pay the inevitable penalty. The
day came. In preparation for a great audience, the chapel in
Tottenham Court Road, once known as the Tabernacle, and built
for Whitfield, was selected. The day was wet and dreary, but the
immense building was crowded long before the hour of meeting,
many finding it impossible to get admittance. So early was the
congregation assembled, that to keep so vast a throng occupied,
the officials considered it wise to begin the preliminary services a
full hour before the time appointed. When the preacher appeared
at last, his discourse was so long that he had to pause, according
to the primitive custom of Scotland, twice during its course, the
congregation in the intervals singing some verses of a hymn. One
of the hearers on that occasion tells that, for three hours and a
half, he, only a youth, and, though a fervent admirer of the orator,
still susceptible to fatigue, sat jammed in and helpless near the
pulpit, unable to extricate himself. All this might have but add
ed to the triumph ; and even so early in his career it seems to
have been understood of Irving that the necessity of coming to an
end did not occur to him, and that not the hour, but the subject,
timed his addresses, so that his audience were partly warned of
what they had to look for. But the oration which burst upon
their astonished ears was quite a different matter. It had no con
nection with the London Missionary Society. It was the ideal mis
sionary — the apostle lost behind the veil of centuries — the evan
gelist commissioned of God, who had risen out of Scripture and
the primeval ages upon the gaze of the preacher. He discoursed
to the startled throng met there to be asked for subscriptions—
to have their interest stimulated in the regulations of the com
mittee, and their eyes directed toward its worthy and respectable
representatives, each drawing a little congregation about him in
some corner of the earth — of a man without staff or scrip, without
banker or provision, abiding with whomsoever would receive him,
speaking in haste of his burning message, pressing on without
pause or rest through the world that lay in wickedness— an apos
tle responsible to no man— a messenger of the Cross. The intense
reality natural to one who had all but embraced the austere mar
tyr vocation in his own person gave force to the picture he drew.

THE SOCIETY DISAPPOINTED. 147
There can be little doubt that it was foolishness to most of his
hearers, and that, after the fascination of his eloquence was over,
nine tenths of them would recollect, with utter wonder, or even
with possible contempt, that wildest visionary conception. But
that it was true for him, nobody, I think, who has followed his
course thus far will be disposed either to doubt or to deny.
The wildest hubbub rose, as was natural, after this extraordi
nary utterance. It would not have been wonderful if the irritated
London Society, balked at once of its triumph and the advantage
to be derived from a wise advocacy of its cause, had set down this
unlooked-for address as a direct piece of antagonism and premed
itated injury. I am not aware that any body ever did so, but I
allow that it might have been alleged with some show of justice.
To judge of Irving's course on this occasion by mere ordinary
laws of human action, it would not be very difficult to make out
that somehow, piqued or affronted by the society, or at least dis
approving of it while pretending to serve it, he had taken oppor
tunity of the occasion, and done his best to place it in a false po
sition before its friends and supporters. The fact was as different
as can well be conceived. Resolute to give feh'em. of his best, as
he himself describes, and judging the " reverend and pious men"
whom he was about to address as free to follow out the truth as
himself, the conscientious, simple-minded preacher went down to
the depths of his subject, and, all forgetful of committees and rules
of " practical usefulness," set before them the impossible missiona
ry—the man not trained in any college or by any method yet in
vented — the man the speaker himself could and would have been
but for what he considered the interposition of Providence. The
amazed and doubtful silence, the unwilling fascination with which
they must have listened through these inevitable hours to that
visionary in his visionary description, watching in impatience and
helpless indignation while the wild but sublime picture of a man
who certainly could not be identified among their own excellent
but unsublime messengers rose before the multitudinous audience
in which, a little while before, official eyes must have rejoiced
over a host of new subscribers, all, alas ! melting away under the
eloquence of this splendid Malaprdp, may be easily imagined.
One can fancy what a* relief the end of this discourse must have
been to the pent-up wrath and dismay of the missionary commit
tee ; and, indeed, it is impossible not to sympathize with them in
their unlooked-for discomfiture.

148 WRATH OF THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.
In the mean time, preoccupied and lost in the contemplation of
that most true, yet most impossible servant of God, whom he had
evoked from the past and the future to which all things are "pos
sible, Irving, all unaware of the commotion he had caused, went
on his way, not dreaming that any body could suppose the pres
ent machinery and economics of commonplace missionary work
injured by that high vision of the perfection of a character which
has been, and which may yet be again. He says he " was pre
pared to resist any application which might possibly be made to
me" to publish his sermon; an entirely unnecessary precaution,
since the complacency of the London Society evidently did not
carry them the length of paying the preacher of so unwelcome an
address the customary compliment. But in the commotion that
followed — in the vexation and wrath of "the religious world,"
and the astonished outcry of every body connected with missions,
the preacher, not less astonished than themselves, discovered that
his doetrine was new, and unwelcome to the reverend and pious
men for whose hearing he had so carefully prepared it. When
he heard his high conception of the missionary character de
nounced as an ill-timed rhetorical display, and that which he had
devoutly drawn from the only inspired picture of such messen
gers characterized as not only visionary and wild, but an implied
libel upon their present representatives, his sincere heart was
roused and startled. He went back to his New Testament, the
only store of information he knew of. He drew forth Paul and
Barnabas, Peter and John, first missionaries, apostles sent of God.
The longer he pondered over them the more his picture rose and
expanded. Was not the errand the same, the promise of God the
same ? and why should the character of the individual be so dif
ferent? The natural result followed: confirmed by farther ex
amination, and strengthened by opposition, the sermon enlarged,
and grew into an appeal to the world. Pity, always one of the
strongest principles in his soul, came in to quicken his action. A
missionary in Demerara, who had apostolically occupied himself
in the instruction of slaves, had been arrested by an arbitrary
planter-legislation, upon some outbreak of the negroes, on the false
and cruel charge of having incited them to insurrection, and had
been actually, by Englishmen, found guilty, and sentenced to
death in consequence. The sentence was not carried out, fortu
nately for those who pronounced it ; but the unfortunate mission
ary, already ill, and savagely incarcerated, died a martyr to the

PUBLICATION OF THE DISCOURSE. 149
cruelty which had not yet dared to bring him to the scaffold.
The case, an ugly precedent to other cases in another country,
which we find ourselves now at full liberty to stigmatize as they
deserve, awoke the horror and compassion of England ; and when
the forlorn widow returned home, Irving, eager to show his sym
pathy and compassion, and finding the name of a missionary mar
tyr most fit to be connected with his picture of the missionary
character, came once more before the world with the obnoxious
discourse, which his first hearers had not asked him to print.
" Being unable in any other way," he says, " to testify my sense of
his injuries, and my feeling of the duty of the Christian Church to
support his widow, I resolved that I would do so by devoting to her
use this fruit of my heart and spirit. Thus moved, I gave notice that
I would publish the discourse, and give the proceeds of the sale into
her hands. When again I came to meditate upon this second en
gagement which I had come under, and took into consideration the
novelty of the doctrine which I was about to promulgate, I set my
self to examine the whole subject anew, and opened my ear to every
objection which I could hear from any quarter, nothing repelled by
the uncharitable constructions and ridiculous account which was oft
en rendered of my views, the effect of which was to convince me that
the doctrine which I had advanced was true, but of so novel and un
palatable a character that, if it was to do any good, or even to live,
it must be brought before the public with a more minute investiga
tion of the Scriptures and fuller development of reason than could be
contained within the compass of a single discourse. To give it this
more convincing and more living form was the occupation of my lit
tle leisure from pastoral and ministerial duties, rendered still less dur
ing the summer months by the indifference of my bodily health ; and
it was not until the few weeks of rest and recreation which I enjoy
ed in the autumn that I was able to perceive the true form and full
extent of the argument which is necessary to make good my posi
tion." As this is the first point upon which Irving fairly parted com
pany with his evangelical brethren, and exasperated that large,
active, and influential community which, as he somewhere says,
not without a little bitterness, " calls itself the religious world,"
and as it discloses with singular force the temper and constitution
of his mind, I may be permitted to enter into it more fully than
one of his shortest and least complete publications might seem
to deserve. He himself explains, in a very noble and elevated
strain, the manner in which he was led to consider the character
of the Gospel missionary. He was present at one of the great
missionary meetings in the metropolis — those meetings with which
all the British public have more or less acquaintance, and which

150 AN EXETER HALL MEETING.
collect audiences as wealthy, as devout, and as estimable as can be
found any where, yet which are, as every body must allow, and
as many uneasily feel, as unlike apostolical conferences as can well
be imagined. In such an assembly, " where the heads and lead
ers of the religious world were present," a speaker, whose name
Irving does not mention, expressed himself amid great applause
in the following manner: "If I were asked what was the first
qualification for a missionary, I would say, Prudence ; and what
the second ? Prudence ; and what the third ? still I would answer,
Prudence." The effect which such a statement was like to have
upon one listener, at least, in the assembly, may well be imagined.
Startled and disgusted, he went away, not to examine into the
memoirs of missionaries or the balance-sheets of societies, but into
the primitive mission and its regulations. He finds that faith, and
not prudence, is the apostolic rule. He finds that religious faith
alone has the prerogative of withstanding "this evil bent of pru
dence to become the death of all ideal and invisible things, wheth
er poetry, sentiment, heroism, disinterestedness, or faith." He
finds that the visionary soul of good, which in other matters is op
posed to and conquered by the real, is in faith alone unconquer
able, the essence of its nature. He then touches upon the only
particular in which the early mission differs from the mission in
all ages, the power of working miracles, and asks whether the lack
of this faculty makes an entire change of method and procedure
necessary ? With lofty indignation, he adds the conclusion which
has been arrived at by the religious world :
" The consistency of the Christian doctrine with everlasting truth
is nothing ; the more than chivalrous, the divine intrepidity and dis
interestedness of its teachers is nothing ; the response of every con
science to the word of the preacher is nothing ; the promise of God's
Spirit is nothing; it is all to be resolved by the visible work, the out
ward show of a miracle. ... The Gospel owed its success in
the first ages wholly to this, or to this almost wholly ; but for us, we
must accommodate ourselves to the absence of these supernatural
means, and go about the work in a reasonable, prudent way, if we
would succeed in it; calculate it as the merchant does an adventure;
set it forth as the statesman does a colony ; raise the ways and means
within the year, and expend them within the year ; and so go on as
long as we can get our accounts to balance."
This conclusion the preacher then sets himself to overthrow by
propounding the character of the "missionary after the apostolic
school," which, although prefaced by due acknowledgment of
" the high and seated dignity which this society hath attained in

DEDICATION TO COLERIDGE. 151
the judgment of the Christian Church, and the weighty and well-
earned reputation which it hath obtained, not in Christendom
alone, but over the widest bounds of the habitable earth," was in
disputably contrary to the very idea of missions, as held and car
ried on by such societies. Only the first part of a work, intended
to be completed in four parts, was given to the world, the mind
of the preacher being more deeply engrossed from day to day in
that law of God which was his meditation day and night, and di
rected ever to new unfolding of doctrine and instruction. This"
publication was dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the re
markable letter which follows:
" Mt deae and honored Friend, — Unknown as you are in the
true character of your mind or your heart to the greater part of your
countrymen, and misrepresented as your works have been by those
who have the ear of the vulgar, it will seem wonderful to many that
I should make choice of you from the circle of my friends to dedicate
to you these beginnings of my thoughts upon the most important
subject of these or any times ; and when I state the reason to be that
you have been more profitable to my faith in orthodox doctrine, to
my spiritual understanding of the Word of God, and to my right
•conception of the Christian Church than any or all the men with
whom I have entertained friendship or conversation, it will, perhaps,
still more astonish the mind, and stagger the belief of those who have
adopted, as once I did myself, the misrepresentations which are pur
chased for a hire and vended for a price concerning your character
and works. ... I have partaken so much high intellectual en
joyment from being admitted into the close and familiar intercourse
with which you have honored me, and your many conversations con
cerning the revelations of the Christian faith have been so profitable
to me in every sense, as a student and preacher of the Gospel — as a
spiritual man and a Christian pastor, and your high intelligence and
great learning have at all times so kindly stooped to my ignorance
and inexperience, that not merely with the affection of friend to
friend, and the honor due from youth to experienced age, but with
the gratitude of a disciple to a wise and generous teacher, of an anx
ious inquirer to the good man who hath helped him in the way of
truth, I do presume to offer you the first-fruits of my mind since it
received a new impulse toward truth, and a new insight into its
depths from listening to your discourse. Accept them in good part;
and be assured that, however insignificant in themselves, they are the
offering of a heart which loves your heart, and of a mind which looks
up with reverence to your mind. Edward Ieving."
These lavish thanks, bestowed with a rash prodigality, which
men of less generous and effusive temperament could never be
brought to understand, were, according to all ordinary rules of
reason, profoundly imprudent. To put such a name as that of

152 EXPOSTULATORY LETTER.
Coleridge,* under any circumstances, on a work which its author
was already assured would be examined with the most eager and
angry jealousy, and in which a great many of his religious con
temporaries would but too gladly find some suspicious tendency,
was of itself imprudent. But so, I fear, was the man to whom giv
ing of thanks and rendering of acknowledgments was always con
genial. It was not in his nature either to guard himself from the
suspicion of having received more than he really had received, or
to provide against the danger of connecting himself openly with
all whom he loved or honored.
This publication was received with shouts of angry criticism
from, all sides, and called forth an Expostulatory Letter from Mr.
W. Orme, the secretary of the outraged Missionary Society. This
letter is exactly such a letter as the secretary of a Missionary So
ciety, suddenly put upon its defense, would be likely to write,
full of summary applications of the argumentum ad hominem, and
much pious indignation. Between the preacher and his assailant
it would be altogether impossible to decide ; they were concerned
with questions in reality quite distinct, though in name the same;
the one regarding the matter as an individual man, capable of all
the labor and self-denial he described, might reasonably regard
it; the other looking upon it with the troubled eyes of a society,
whose business it was to acquire, and train, and send forth such
men, and which had neither leisure nor inclination to consider
any thing which was not practicable. It is entirely a drawn battle
between them ; nor could it have been otherwise had a champion
equal to the assailant taken the field.
But the religious world was too timid to perceive the matter
in this light. To attack its methods was nothing less than to at
tack its object; nor would it permit itself to see differently; and
a man who acknowledged, with even unnecessary warmth and ,
frankness, the instruction he had received from one who certainly
was not an authorized guide in religious matters, and who prof-
* In Leigh Hunt's correspondence, published since the above was written, occurs
the following notice of this dedication in a letter from Charles Lamb : " I have got
acquainted with Mr. Irving, the Scotch preacher, whose fame must have reached
you. Judge how his own sectarists must stare when I tell you he has dedicated a
book to S. T. C, acknowledging to have learned more from him than from all the
men he ever conversed with. He is a most amiable, sincere, modest man in a room,
this Boanerges in the temple. Mrs. Montagu told him the dedication would do him
no good: 'That shall be a reason for doing it.' was his answer," The kind Elia
adds, "Judge, now, whether this man be a quack."

THE PRESBYTERIAN ELDERSHIP. 153
fered to them a splendid antique ideal instead of the practicable
modern missionary, became a man suspect and dangerous ; and
the coldness, of which he again and again complains, rose an in
visible barrier between the fervent preacher and the reverend
and pious men to whom, in all simplicity and honest-endeavor to
lay his best before them, he had offered only the unusual and
startling truths which they could not receive.
While all this was going on Irving's life proceeded in the same
full stream of undiminished popularity and personal labor. Be
sides the passing crowds which honored and embarrassed the
chapel in Cross Street, its congregation had legitimately increased
into dimensions which the pastor, single-handed, could not dream
of retaining the full superintendence of; neither, if he could have
done it, would such a state of things have been consistent with
Presbyterian order. He seems to have had but one elder to yield
him the aid and countenance with which Presbyterianism accom
panies its ministers. Accordingly, from the summer retirement
at Sydenham, which he alludes to in the preface to his mission
ary oration, he sent the following letter, an exposition of the office
to which he invited his friend, to William Hamilton :
" Sydenham, 22d June, 1824.
"Deae Sie, — It has for a long time been the anxious desire and
prayer, and the subject of frequent conversation to Mr. Dinwiddie
and myself, that the Lord would direct us in the selection of men
from among the congregation to fill the office of elders among us.
.... And now, my dear brother, I write to lay this matter before
you, that you may cast it in your mind, and make it the subject of
devout meditation and prayer. That you may be rightly informed
of the nature of this office, I refer you to Titus, i., 6 ; 1 Timothy, v.,
17 ; Acts, xx., 17 ; and that you may farther know the powers with
which the founders of our Church have invested this office, I extract
the following passage from the second book of Discipline, drawn up
and adopted by the General Assembly for the regulation of the
Church in the year of our Lord 1590. Book 2d, chapter vi*
* The quotation is as follows: "What manner of persons they ought to be, we
refer it to the express word, and mainly to the canons written by the Apostle Paul.
" Their office is, both severally and conjointly, to watch over the flock committed
to their care, both publicly and privately, that no corruption of religion or manners
enter therein.
"As the pastors and doctors should be diligent in teaching and sowing the seed
of the Word, so the elders should be careful in seeking after the fruit of the same in
the people.
" It appertains to them to assist the pastor in the examination of them that come
to the Lord's table.'||ltem, in visiting the sick.
"They should cause the Acts of the Assemblies, as well particular as general, to
be put in execution carefully.

154 DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF A PRESBYTER.
" And now we pray of you, our dear and worthy brother, to join
with us and help us in the duty for which we are ourselves unequal,
of administering rightly the spiritual affairs of the congregation.
No one feels himself to be able for the duties of a Christian, much
less of the overseer of Christians ; and you may feel unwilling to en
gage in that for which you may think yourself unworthy. But we
pray you to trust in the Lord, who giveth grace according to our
desire of it, and perfects his strength in our weakness. If you re
fuse, we know not which way to look ; for, as the Lord knoweth, we
have fixed upon you and the other four brethren because you seem
ed to us the most worthy. I, as your pastor, will do my utmost en
deavor to instruct you in the duties of the eldership. I shall be
ready at every spiritual call to go and minister along with you ; and,
by the grace of God, having no private ends known to me but the
single end of God's glory and the edification of the people, we who
are at present of the session will join with you hand in hand in ev
ery good and gracious work 
" If you feel a good will to the work — a wish to profit and make
progress in your holy calling — and a desire after the edification of
the Church, the gifts will be given you, and the graces will not be
withheld. Therefore, if it can be consistently with your conscience
and judgment, we pray you and entreat you to accept of our solicit
ation, and to allow yourself to be constrained by the need and im
portunity of the Church to be named for this holy office.
" On Friday, next week, I shall come and spend the evening at
your house, and converse with you on this matter; meanwhile ac
cept of my heartfelt wishes for your spiritual welfare, and let us re
joice together in the work which the Lord is working in the midst
of us. I know that you will not take it amiss that I have used the
hand of my wife in copying off this letter — [up to this point the let
ter had been in Mrs. Irving's angular feminine handwriting, but here
her husband's bolder characters strike in] — who is well worthy of
the trust, although I can not bring her to think or write so.
" I am, my dear brother, your most affectionate pastor and friend,
" Edward Ieving."
This apostolical rescript, warmed with the quaint touch of do
mestic affection at the end, accomplished its purpose, and the ex
cellent man who had all along been Irving's referee and assistant
in every thing personal to himself, his friends, and charities, be-
"They should be diligent in admonishing all men of their duty according to the
rule of the Evangel.
"Things that they can not correct by private admonition they must bring to. the
eldership. " Their principal office is to hold assemblies with the pastors and doctors who are
also of their number, for establishing of good order and execution of discipline, unto
the which assemblies all persons are subject that remain within their bounds."
This latter is the formidable institution of the Kirk Session, which bears so large
a part in Scottish domestic annals, and has been subject, in later days, to so much
ignorant invective.

BIRTH OF LITTLE EDWARD. 155
came one of the rulers and recognized overseers of the Church,
which henceforward had, like other Presbyterian congregations,
its orthodox session, in which for years the preacher found noth
ing but fervent sympathy, appreciation, and assistance.
A little farther on we are introduced into the bosom of the
modest home in Pentonville, where domestic life and its events
had now begun to expand the history of the man. The swell of
personal joy with which the following letter breaks into the rec
ord of outside events and interests will charm most people who
have had occasion to send similar announcements. It is address
ed to Dr. Martin : "Pentonville, 22d July, 1824.
" Mt deae Fathee, — Isabella was safely delivered of a boy (whom
may the Lord bless) at half past eleven this forenoon, an3 is, with her
child, doing well ; and the grandmother, aunt, and father newly con
stituted, with the mother, are rejoicing in the grace and goodness of
God. " Mrs. Martin and Margaret are both well, and salute you grand
father, wishing with all our hearts that you may never lay down the
name, but enjoy it while you live.
" I am well, and I think the pleasure of the Lord is prospering in
my hand. A wide door and effectual is opened to me, and the Lord-
is opening my own eyes to the knowledge of the truth. Your arrival
find our great-grandfather's (whom, with all the grand-aunts, salute
in our name — I know not what they owe us for such accumulated
honors) is expected with much anxiety. I feel I shall be much
Strengthened by your presence.
" Your dutiful son, Edwaed Living."
This child — child of a love, and hope, and sorrow not to be
described ? celebrated, afterward, as poet's child has rarely been,
by such sublimated grief and pathetic resignation as have wept
over few graves so infantine — was afterward baptized, by the great
grandfather above referred to, in the presence of the two interme
diate generations of his blood. The child was called Edward, and
was to his father, with emphatic and touching verity, "his excel
lency and the beginning of his strength." The little tale of his
existence sent echoes through all the strong man's life — echoes so
tender and full of such heart-breaking pathos as I think no human
sorrow ever surpassed. In the mean time, however, all was thank
fulness in the increased household; and the patriarchal assemblage
of kindred, father, and father's father, could have prophesied noth
ing but life and length of days to the child of such a vigorous
race. Along with all the public and domestic occurrences which filled

156 PERSONAL CHARITIES.
this busy life, there are connected such links of charity and pri
vate beneficence as put richer and idler men to shame. Irving's
charity was not alms, but that primitive kindness of the open
house and shared meal which is of all modes of charity the most
difficult and the most delicate — a kind almost unknown to our
age and conventional life. To illustrate this, we may quote one
tragical episode, unfortunately more common among Scotch fami
lies, and, indeed, among families of all nations, than it is comforta
ble to know of: A young man, a probationer of the Church of
Scotland, who had been unsuccessful in getting a church, or, appar
ently, in getting any employment, had turned such thoughts as
he had in the way of literature, and had written and published,
apparentiyaby subscription, a Treatise on the Sabbath. Having ex
hausted Edinburgh, he came to London with the vain hopes that
bring all adventurers there. He seems to have had no particular
talent or quality commending him to the hearts of men. Into
London he dropped obscurely, nobody there finding any thing to
respect in his half-clerical pretensions or unremarkable book.
He went to see Irving occasionally, and was observed to fall into
that dismal shabbiness which marks the failure of heart and hope
in men born to better things. Irving had bought his book
largely, and stimulated others to do the same, and now watched
with anxiety the failure and disappointment which he could not
avert. One evening a man appeared at his house with a note,
which he insisted upon delivering into Irving's own hand. The
note was from the unfortunate individual whom we have just
described. It was written in utter despair and shame. "The
messenger was the landlord of a ' low public house,' " says a lady,
a relative of Irving's, then resident in his house, and acquainted
with the whole melancholy story, "where M  had been for
three days and nights, and had run up a bill which he had no
means of paying. It appeared that he had boasted of his intima
cy with Mr. Irving, and the man had offered to carry a note from.
him to ' his great friend,' who, M  declared, would at once re
lease him from such a trifling embarrassment. Edward was puz
zled what to do, but at last resolved to go to the house, pay the
bill, and bring the unfortunate man home. He went accordingly,
desiring me to get a room ready. M  was very glad to get
his bill paid, but would scarcely leave the house till Edward told
him he would free him only on condition that he came with him
at once. None of us saw him for a day or two, as he was, or pre-

HOSPITALITY. 157
tended to be, so overcome with shame that he could not look us in
the face. But he soon got over this, and joined the family party.
Decent clothes were obtained for him, and we hoped he was really
striving to give up his bad habits." This continued for some
time, when, "one day, he went out after dinner and did not re
turn. Two or three days passed, and no account could we obtain
of him. At last another note was brought, written in the same
self-condemnatory strain, begging for forgiveness and assistance."
There is little need for following out the sickening story. Every
where there are families who have received the same letters, made
the same searches, heard the same humiliating confessions and
entreaties, but only for those who belong to them, whom nature
makes dear amid all wretchedness, to whom the hearts of mothers
and sisters cling, and in whose behalf love still hopes against
hope, are such cases usually undertaken. To do it all for a
stranger — to bring the half-conscious wretch into a virtuous home,
to while him with domestic society and comfort, to seek him out
again and again, pay debts for him, find employments for him, re
ceive his melancholy penitences, and encourage what superficial
attempts after good there may be in him, is a charity beyond the
powers of most men. In rural places, here and there, such good
Samaritans may be found ; but what man in London ventures to
take upon himself such a responsibility? This doleful story
throws a light upon the private economics of the Pentonville
house which I should be sorry to lose.
Those who were in more innocent need were received with still
more cordial welcomes. Friends pondering where to cast their
lot — people meditating a change of residence, and desirous of see
ing how the land lay, found a little mount of vision in the house
of the great preacher from which to investigate and decide. A
stream of society thus flowed by him, fluctuating as one went and
another came. If any man among his friends was seized with
the thought that London might be a sphere more desirable than
Edinburgh or than Annan, such a person bethought him, natural
ly, of Edward Irving and his hospitable house. The great people
who sought the great preacher never interfered with the smaller
people who sought his assistance and his friendship ; and those
who had no possible claim upon his hospitality got at least his
good offices and kind words.
In the middle of the summer, just two years, as he himself tells
us, from the time of his coming, the foundation stone of his new

158 EVANGELICAL JOURNEY.
church was laid. It was planned of a size conformable to the
reputation of the preacher. This event was celebrated by Irving
in three sermons — one preached before, another after, and the
third on occasion of the ceremony — in which last he takes pains
to describe the discipline and practice of that Church of Scotland
which stood always highest in his affections; but, at the same
time, speaks of the building about to be erected in terms more
like those that might be used by a Jew in reference to his temple,
or by a Catholic of his holy shrine, than by Presbyterian lips,
which acknowledge no consecration of place. Doubtless the sub
limation which every thing encountered in his mind, the faculty
he had of raising all emotions into the highest regions, and of cov
ering even the common with an ideal aspect unknown to itself,
may have raised the expressions of a simple sentiment of rever
ence into this consecrating halo which his words threw around
the unbuilt church ; but it must not be forgotten that from his
very outset a certain priestly instinct was in the man who bade
" Peace be to this house" in every dwelling he entered, and who
gave his benediction, as well as his prayers, like a primitive pope
or bishop, as indeed he felt himself to be.
For rest and recreation, the little family, leaving London in
September, paid a short visit to the paternal houses in Scotland,
and then returned to Dover, where they remained for some weeks,
and where Irving, never idle, entered fully, as he himself relates,
into the missionary oration of which we have already spoken.
At a later period, after having again entered into harness, in the
November of the same year, he visited Birmingham, Manchester,
and Liverpool by invitation, in order to stir up his countrymen
there to the support and revival of the Church of their fathers,
for want of which many of them had sunk into indifference, or
worse. From Birmingham, where he opened a new church and
preached the discourse on the " Curse as to Bodily Labor," which
was published some time afterward, he writes to his wife :
"Birmingham, 29th or rather 30th November, 1824.
"Mt deaeest Wife, — I am arrived safe, notwithstanding your
evil auguries, or rather suggestions, of doubt and unbelief, which the
faith of God's providence can alone dissipate, and the assurance that
I am about our Father's business ; and I have found a home here at
the house of Dr. J  , my father's adjoining neighbor, and my very
warm friend, into whose heart I pray the Lord I may sow some spir
itual seed in return for his temporal benefits, for as yet he is in the
darkness of Unitarianism. Nevertheless, they have family prayers,
at which I this night presided ; and while I sought, I could not find

LIVERPOOL. 159
to avoid in my prayers the matter in dispute between us, but was
constrained, as it were, by superior power, to make cordial testimony
to our risen and reigning Lord, our Savior and our God.
" I have seen the committee, and find all things looking prosper
ously  Mr. L  has had so much distress in his family that he
was content I should come here and not to him ; but I go to-morrow
afternoon to weep with him and his motherless children. Mrs. L 
loved you to the end with a strange and strong love, and it was her
greatest earthly desire to have seen you. There is something so un
common in this that it seems to me to point the way that you should
love her children, and do for their sakes what she longed to do for
your mother's child. Therefore, my dear Isabella, do write Miss
L  , and strengthen her, and invite her, when she can be spared, to
come and spend some time with us  Be careful of yourself and
the little boy — the dear, dear little boy, my greatest earthly hope and
joy — for you are not another, but myself— my better and dearer half.
I pray the Lord to bless you, and be instead of a friend, and husband,
and father to you in my absence. Let not your backwardness hinder
you from family prayers night and morning.
" I hope I shall find time to write to Margaret, our beloved sister,
to whom I have much that is affectionate to communicate, and some
thing that may be instructive  Forget me not to Mary,* over
whom I take more than a master's authority, feeling for her all the
guardianship of a parent, which she may be pleased to permit me in.
.... My brotherly and pastoral love to the elders of the flock 
Say to Thomas, the moralist, that I love him at a distance as much
as at hand — I think sometimes full better, as they say in Annandale.
To my Isabella I say all in one word, that I desire and seek to love
her as Christ loved the Church.
" Your most affectionate husband, Edwaed Ieving."
Another brief letter follows from Liverpool, where he also
preached for the encouragement and strengthening of the Scotch
Church already in existence there. It is naturally to his wife that
his letters are now chiefly addressed, and the result is, as will be
shortly shown, as wonderful a revelation of heart and thoughts as
one human creature ever made to another. By this time the nat
ural course of events seems to have withdrawn him in a great de
gree from regular correspondence with his friends in Scotland — a
change which his marriage, and all the revolutions which had
taken place in his life, as well as the full occupation of his time,
and the perpetually increasing calls made upon it, rendered inev
itable. His affections were unchanged, but it was no longer pos
sible to keep up the expression of them. The new friends who
multiplied around him were of a kind to make a deep impression
upon a mind which was influenced more or less by all whom it
held in high regard. We have already quoted his warm expres-
* One of his servants.

160 "IN GOD HE LIVED AND MOVED."
sions of esteem and affection for Mr. Basil Montagu and his wife.
To Coleridge he had also owned his still higher obligations, An
other friend, whom his friends consider to have had no small in
fluence on Irving, was the Bev. W. Yaughan, of Leicester, an Eng
lish clergyman, who is supposed, I can not say with what truth,
to have been mainly instrumental in leading him to some views
which he afterward expressed. His distinguished countryman,
Carlyle, referred to with playful affection in the letter we have
just quoted, not then resident in London, was his occasional guest
and close friend. Good David Wilkie, and his biographer, Allan
Cunningham, were of the less elevated home society, which again
connected itself with the lowest homely levels by visitors and pe
titioners from Glasgow and Annandale. In this wide circle the
preacher moved with all the joyousness of his nature, never, how
ever, leaving it possible for any man to forget that his special
character was that of a servant of God. The light talk then in
dulged in by magazines breaks involuntarily into pathos and se
riousness in the allusions made in Frazer's Magazine, years after,
to this early summer of his career. The laughing philosophers,
over their wine, grow suddenly grave as they speak of the one
among them who was not as other men: "In God he lived, and
moved, and had his being," says this witness, impressed from
among the lighter regions of life and literature to bear testimony;
"no act was done but in prayer; every blessing was received
with thanksgiving to God ; every friend was dismissed with a
parting benediction." The man who could thus make his char
acter apparent to the wits of his day must have lived a life une
quivocal and not to be mistaken.
It was while living in the full exercise of all those charities,
happy in the new household and the first-born child, that he
worked at the missionary oration; the history of which I have al
ready told. Apart from the ordinary comments upon and won-
derings over the stream of fashion which still flowed toward Hat
ton Garden, this oration was, for that year, the only visible dis
turbing element in his life.

SOLICITED TO PREACH FOR THE CONTINENTAL SOCIETY. 161

CHAPTEB X.
1825.
Irving's Introduction to the Study of Prophecy. — The Fascination of that Study. —
His Conscientiousness in treating his Subjects. — Habits of Thought. — Sermon to
the Continental Society. — Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed. — Sermons on pub
lic Occasions. — Hibernian Bible Society. — An Afternoon among the Poor. —
Irving's "Way." — Invitation to remove to Edinburgh. — His Answer. — His Man
ner of Life. — The Paddington Coach. — His Letter of Welcome to his Wife. — His
Feelings in respect to his Call to Edinburgh. — Reasons for remaining in London.
— Sermons on the Trinity. — Opinions in respect to Miracles. — Sacrament of Bap
tism. — Original Standards. — Baptismal Regeneration. — Little Edward's Illness
and Death. — Sorrow and Consolation. — Irving's Announcement of his Child's
Death. — Little Edward's Memory. — "A glorious Bud of Being." — Irving visits
the sorrowful in Kirkcaldy.
In the beginning of the year 1825 — a year forever to be re
membered in Edward Irving's life, and which, indeed, so touch
ing, and solemn, and pathetic are all the records of its later part,
I could almost wish contained no common events, but only the
apotheosis of love and grief accomplished in it — he was, notwith
standing the sad failure and discomfiture of the London Mission
ary Society in its employment of his services, requested to preach
for the Continental Society on a similar occasion. This society
was held up and maintained from its commencement by the nerv
ous strength of Henry Drummond, a man already known to the
preacher, over whose later course he was to exercise so great an
influence. Irving, remembering the past, was slow to undertake
this new commission, becoming aware, I do not doubt, that his
thoughts often ran in channels so distinct from those of other
men, that it was dangerous to be chosen as the mouthpiece of a
large and varied body. He consented at last, however ; and, true
to his unfailing conscientious desire to bring out of the depths of
Scripture all the light which he could perceive it to throw upon
the subject in hand, his discourse naturally came to be upon
prophecy. I say naturally, because, in the evangelization of the
Continent, all the mystic impersonations of the Apocalypse — the
scarlet woman on her seven hills, the ten-horned beast, all the pro
phetic personages of that dread undeveloped drama — are neces
sarily involved. The manner in which Irving's attention had
L

162 IRVING'S INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PROPHECY.
been, some short time before, specially directed to the study of
prophecy, is, however, too interesting and characteristic to be pass
ed without more particular notice. Several years before, Mr. Hat-
ley Frere, one of the most sedulous of those prophetical students
who were beginning to make themselves known here and there
over the country, had propounded a new scheme of interpretation,
for which, up to this time, he had been unable to secure the ear of
the religious public. Not less confident in the truth of his scheme
that nobody shared his belief in it, Mr. Frere cherished the con
viction that if he could but meet some man of candid and open
mind, of popularity sufficient to gain a hearing, to whom he could
privately explain and open up his system, its success was certain.
When Irving, all ingenuous and ready to be taught, was sudden
ly brought in contact with him, the student of prophecy identified
him by an instant intuition. "Here is the man!" he exclaimed
to himself; and with all the eagerness of a discoverer, who seeks
a voice by which to utter what he has found out, he addressed
himself to the task of convincing the candid and generous soul
which could condemn nothing unheard. He disclosed to his pa
tient hearer all those details to which the public ear declined to
listen ; and the result was that Mr. Frere gained a disciple and ex
positor ; and that an influence fatal to his future leisure, and of
the most momentous importance to his future destiny — which, in
deed, it is impossible now to disjoin from the man, or to consider
his life or character apart from — took possession of Irving's
thoughts. This new subject naturally connected itself with that
conviction of an approaching crisis in the fate of the world, not
mild conversion, but tragic and solemn winding up and settle
ment, which he is said to have derived from Coleridge. Hence
forward the gorgeous and cloudy vistas of the Apocalypse became
a legible chart of the future to his fervent eyes.
The fascination of that study, always so engrossing and attract
ive, seized upon him fully ; and when it came to be his business
to consider the truths best adapted for the instruction and encour
agement of a body of Christian men laboring on behalf of that
old Koman world which has long been the heart and centre of
the earth, his mind passed at once into those solemn and myste
rious adumbrations of Providence in which he and many other
Christian men have believed themselves able to trace the very
spot, between what was fulfilled and what was unfulfilled, in
which they themselves stood. Could such a standing-ground be

HIS CONSCIENTIOUSNESS IN TREATING HIS SUBJECTS. 163
certainly obtained, who can doubt that here is indeed the guid
ance of all others for any effort of evangelization ? Irving had
no doubt upon the subject. To him the record was distinct, the
past apparent, the future to be reverently but clearly understood.
Superficial pious addresses were impossible to a man who went
into every thing with his whole heart and soul. His Bible was
not to him the foundation from which theology was to be proved,
but a Divine word, instinct with meaning never to be exhausted,
and from which light and guidance — not vague, but particular —
could be brought for every need. And the weight of his " call
ing" to instruct was never absent from his mind. To the mission
aries, accordingly, he brought forth the picture of an apostle, and
opened before the eyes of those who aimed at a re-evangelization
of old Christendom a cloudy but splendid panorama of the fate
which was about to overtake the sphere of their operations, and
all the mysterious agencies, half discerned in actual presence, and
clearly indicated in Scripture, which were before them in that dif
ficult and momentous field. In a man distinguished as an orator,
this tendency to avoid the superficial, and go to the very heart,
as he understood it, of his subject, was neither expected nor rec
ognized by the ordinary crowd. In this same spring of 1825, in
which he preached his prophetical discourse for the instruction
of a society engaged upon the Continent — on 'the very ground
where prophecy, according to his interpretation, was to be fulfill
ed — he also preached for the Highland School Society; a subject
which might have been supposed very congenial to his heart, and
in which I have no doubt his audience looked for such glowing
pictures of Highland glens and mountains, of primitive faith and
picturesque godliness, the romance of religion, as pious orators,
glad of so fluent a topic of declamation, have made customary on
such occasions. The orator took no such easy and beaten track.
He entered into the subject of education with all the conscien
tiousness of his nature, setting it forth fully in a manner which,
whatever may be the inevitable expediencies to which modern
civilization is driven, must command the respect and admiration
of every body who has ever thought upon the subject. I am
anxious to point out this peculiarity, because I do not think it is
one for which Irving, all oratorical and declamatory as he is sup
posed to have been, gets the honor he deserves. It is not my
part to decide upon the right or wrong of his views, especially on
such a subject as that of prophecy ; I am only anxious to indicate

164 SERMON TO THE CONTINENTAL SOCIETY.
fully a habit of his mind, which the correspondence shortly to be
given will illustrate more fully than any thing else can do. When
any subject was presented to him, his mind immediately carried
it away out of the every day atmosphere into a world of thought
and ideal truth, where practicabilities, much more expediencies,
did not enter ; interrogated it closely to get at its heart ; expound
ed it so from the depths, from the heights, from the unseen soul
of the matter, that people, accustomed to look at it only from the
outside, stood by aghast, and did not know the familiar doctrine
which they themselves had put into his hands. This will be
found the case in almost every thing he touches. No sooner does
he apply himself to the special consideration of any point than all
its hidden, spiritual meanings come gleaming upon his mind. He
goes about his daily business always attended by this radiant
track of meditation, pondering in his heart through the streets
and squares, among the fields, by the way. By close, secret
dwelling upon it, the ideal soul contained in any intellectual truth
gradually warms and glows into regions ineffable before his eyes
Men enough there are in all times — in our time, perhaps, too many
— who can expound the practicable. Irving's vocation was of a
totally different nature: it was his to restore to the enterprises
and doctrines of universal Christianity — without consideration of
what was practicable or how it could be realized — the Divine
soul, which use and familiarity perpetually obscure.
His discourse to the Continental Society, though it did not
raise such a commotion as the missionary oration, was still far
from palatable to some of his hearers. " Several of the leading
members of the committee," we are told, "had neither Christian
patience nor decorum enough to hear the preacher out, but ab
ruptly left the place ;" and, from the comments that followed, Ir
ving was soon brought to understand that he had been misappre
hended, and that political meanings, of which he was innocent, had
been suspected in his sermon. Catholic Emancipation was then
one of the questions of the day; and the advocates of both sides
suspected him, oddly enough, of having supported their several
views of the matter. At the same time, his heart had gone into
the task; he had found in prophetical interpretation a study
which charmed him deeply, and had found himself drawn, as was
natural, into a closer, exclusive fellowship with those who pur
sued the same study and adopted the same views. Urged by his
brother-students of prophecy, and inclined of himself to give forth

BABYLON AND INFIDELITY FOREDOOMED. 165
those investigations in which he had himself been comforted to
the world, he devoted his leisure during the year to amplifying
and filling out the germ which had been in his discourse. " Thus
it came to pass," he says in the preface, " that to clear myself from
being a political partisan in a ministerial garb, and to gratify the
desires of these servants of Christ, I set forth this publication, on
which I pray the blessing of God to rest."
He entitled the book Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed, and
dedicated it, with his usual magnanimous acknowledgment of in
debtedness, to the gentleman who had first directed his thoughts
to the subject.
" To my beloved friend and brother in Christ, Hatlet Fkeee,
Esq.:
" When I first met you, worthy sir, in a company of friends, and
moved, I know not by what, asked you to walk forth into the fields
that we might commune together, while the rest enjoyed their social
converse, you seemed to me as one who dreamed, while you opened
in my ear your views of the present time, as foretold in the Book of
Daniel and the Apocalypse. But, being ashamed of my own igno
rance, and having been blessed from my youth with the desire of in
struction, I dared not scoff at what I heard, but resolved to consider
the matter. More than a year passed before it pleased Providence
to bring us together again, at the house of the same dear friend and
brother in the Lord, when you answered so sweetly and temperately
the objections made to your views, that I was more and more struck
with the outward tokens of a believer in truth ; and I was again
ashamed at my own ignorance, and again resolved to consider the
matter ; after which I had no rest in my spirit until I waited upon
you and offered myself as your pupil, to be instructed in prophecy
according to your ideas thereof; and for the ready good-will with
which you undertook, and the patience with which you performed
this kind office, I am forever beholden to you, most dear and worthy
friend. . . . For I am not willing that any one should account of me
as if I were worthy to have had revealed to me the important truths
contained in this discourse, which may all be found written in your
' Treatise on the Prophecies of Daniel ;' only the Lord accounted me
worthy to receive the faith of these things which He first made
known to you, His more worthy servant. And if He make me the
instrument of conveying that faith to any of His Church, that they
may make themselves ready for His coming, or to any of the world,
that they may take refuge in the ark of His salvation from the deluge
of wrath which abideth the impenitent, to His name shall all the
praise and glory be ascribed by me, His unworthy servant, who,
through mercy, dareth to subscribe himself your brother in the bond
of the Spirit, and the desire of the Lord's coming, "Edwaed Ieving."
This opening season of '25 seems to have brought a large share

166 SERMONS ON PUBLIC OCCASIONS.
of public occupation to the preacher, whose unbounded popularity
attracted a crowded audience around him at his every appearance.
Another careful and weighty discourse upon the condition of Ire
land — not, perhaps, specially adapted to a moment when much of
the generous feeling of the country had been roused, in the dis
cussions upon Catholic Emancipation, to take the part of that por
tion of our countrymen who lay under disabilities so grievous,
but full of truth, which experience has proved — was preached at
the instance of the Hibernian Society. He is also recorded to
have made a striking and very characteristic appearance at a meet
ing of the same society not long before. The power of agitation
in that period, so much more strongly political than this, was at its
height ; and that wonderful and crafty leader, who won the Cath
olic battle almost single-handed, and ruled his island for a life
time with autocratic sway, already threw his shadow even upon
such an institution as the Irish Bible Society. Stanch Orange
men on their native soil would undoubtedly have defied such an
influence with double pertinacity and zeal, but metropolitan meek
ness counseled otherwise. An English clergyman of high stand
ing and well-known character called for Irving to drive him to
the meeting which was to be held under these circumstances, and
made a cautious attempt to tutor the uncompromising orator.
"Take us to one of your Highland glens," said the well-meaning
peacemaker, "and give us a picture of the simplicity and holiness
of life there produced by the study of the Word." Irving, who
had not adopted that natural and easy, superficial way of pleading
the cause of his own countrymen, asked with some astonishment
why his subject was to be thus prescribed to him. The answer
was one of all others least likely to tame the habitual fervor and
openness of the Scotch preacher. Some of O'Connell's followers
were to be present at the meeting, as a check upon overbold crit-
icismy and it had been decided that nothing was to be said which
could provoke the interference of these self-appointed moderators.
It is unnecessary to say that Irving altogether repudiated this ar
rangement, and came under no engagement to make the innocent
pastoral address, meaning nothing, which was suggested to him.
The meeting was very noisy and much disturbed, as had been ex
pected. One of the speakers, a Mr. Pope, who had come from Ire
land warmly indignant at the petty priestly artifices by which the
circulation of the Bible was hindered, was so often interrupted
that at length the chairman, giving way to the violence of the un-

AN AFTERNOON AMONG THE POOR. 167
welcome visitors, added his authority to the outcries, and requested
the speaker to sit down. This silenced witness was followed by
other speakers more complacent, who amused the audience with
sentiment and mild description, such as had been vainly solicited
from Irving. When his time came, as one of his auditors relates,
he advanced, in all the strength of his imposing height and de
meanor, to the front of the platform, and " lifting up a heavy stick
which he earned, struck it on the floor to give additional empha
sis to his words. 'I have been put to shame this day,' said the
indignant orator ; ' I have had to sit still and see a servant of God
put down in a so-called Christian assembly for speaking the sim
ple truth. Ichabod ! Ichabod ! the glory is departed !' " The
speech that followed this bold beginning was not interrupted ;
and, when the meeting was over, the orator was surrounded by a
crowd of excited and applauding hearers, showering thanks and
congratulations upon him.
From this scene another witness leads us to one very different
and more congenial to the most human-hearted of men. An ac
count of "an afternoon spent in his society among the poor of
London," which appeared some years since in the pages of the
Free Church Magazine, gives a quaint picture at once of the disa
bilities and mistakes of ordinary visitors of the poor, and of Ir
ving's entire capacity for that noble and difficult office. Some
ladies in the city had established an infant school in the district
of Billingsgate, and finding themselves quite unsuccessful in per
suading the people to send their children to it, applied to Irving
to help them. He, at the height of his splendid reputation, whom
critics had assailed with accusations of indifference to the poor,
immediately consented to give his aid in this humble mission.
He went with them, accordingly, through the district. In the
first house he left the explanation of their errand to his female cli
ents, and speedily discovered the mistake these good people made.
The scene is full of comic elements, and one can scarcely refrain
from imagining, the appearance that such a group must have pre
sented: the city ladies, important in their mission, impressing upon
the hesitating, half-affronted mother, into whose room they had
made their way, all the charitable advantages which they had or
dained for her children, and the great figure of the preacher stand
ing by, letting them have their own way, doubtless not without
amusement in his compassionate eyes. When they came to the
second house, he took the office of spokesman upon himself.

168 IRVTNG'S "WAY."
" When the door was opened, he spoke in the kindest tone to the
woman who opened it, and asked permission to go in. He then
explained the intention of the ladies, asked how many children
she had, and whether she would send them. A ready consent
was the result ; and the mother's heart was completely won when
the visitor took one of her little ones on his knee, and blessed
her." The city ladies were confounded. They had honestly in
tended to benefit the poor, very, very distantly related to them by
way of Adam and the forgotten patriarchs, but the cheerful broth
erhood of the man who had blessed the bread of the starving
Glasgow weavers was as strange to them as if he had spoken He
brew instead of* English. " Why, Mr. Irving," exclaimed one of
the ladies when they got to the street, "you spoke to that woman
as if she were doing you a favor, and not you conferring one on
her ! How could you speak so ? and how could you take up that
child on your knee?" " The woman," he replied, "does not as
yet know the advantages which her children will derive from
your school ; by-and-by she will know them, and own her obli
gations to you ; and in so speaking and in blessing her child I do
but follow the example of our Lord, who blessed the little ones,
the lambs of his flock." In another house the children had beau
tiful hair, which the benevolent visitors, intent on doing good after
their own fashion, insisted on having cut short as a preliminary
of admission. The great preacher lifted the pretty curls in his
hand and pleaded for them, but in vain. When they were denied
admission at one house, he left his benediction to the unseen peo
ple within, and passed on. On the whole, his companions did not
know what to make of him. Irving's fashion of visiting " the
poor" was unknown in Billingsgate.
Such a junction and contrast of duties throws a singular light
upon his full and. various life.
In the early summer, a deputation from Scotland in the persons
of two gentlemen, henceforward to be numbered among his warm
est and closest friends, Mr. James Bridges and Mr. Matthew Nor
man Macdonald, two Edinburgh lawyers, of influence and weight
in the Church, came, on a mission of inquiry, to ascertain, appar
ently, whether the much-distinguished preacher was equally zeal
ous in the performance of his pastoral duties, whether he was
worthy of the honor of being called to a church in Edinburgh,
and whether he would be disposed to accept such an invitation.
Irving's determination, lauded by Dr. Chalmers, of not suffering

REPLY TO AN APPLICATION TO REMOVE TO EDINBURGH. 169
his hours of study to be interrupted by visitors, kept these gen
tlemen wandering about the unsuggestive streits of Pentonville
till after two o'clock, when he received visitors. The inquirers
returned not only satisfied, but delighted, and stimulated the
church which had sent them out as laudable spies, to discover,
not the nakedness, but the wealth and vigor of the land, to send
another deputation, expressly asking Mr. Irving to become their
minister. His reply to this application I have been favored with
by Dr. Douglas Maclagan, in whose possession the letter now is :
" Mt beloved Beetheen in the Gospel op Cheist, — I rejoice to
have received by your hands and from your lips the assurance that
such a grave and spiritual body of Christians as the eldership of St.
Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, have judged me a fit person to be presented
to the people of Hope Place Chapel as one worthy to exercise the
minsitry of word and sacrament over them, if they should see it good
and profitable to call me, the more when I consider the character and
gifts of my dear friend and brother in the ministry,* who has been
called from among them to labor elsewhere  All that has been
said on both sides has sunk deep into my mind, and I have sought
grace to enable me to come to a wise and righteous determination ;
and, after much thought and anxiety, I have expressed the state of
my feelings toward both sides in a letter to my session and people,
of which there is inclosed an exact copy.
" You will perceive from that letter by what strong and enduring
ties I am drawn toward my native country and my beloved Church,
and by what present stronger, though not so enduring, ties I am held
here. I have no doubt the time is coming when the Spirit will press
me to declare in the ear of the Church of Scotland that truth which
I am bound at present to deliver here, until I shall have finished the
burden of it. When that time comes, you will find me in the midst
of you ; or. if any emergency should occur before that time to hasten
my resolution, it is, I think, to my own country, and to the chief city
of it, that I will present myself.
" You have been faithful to your trust, and are worthy to be the
messengers of such a spiritual body. The Lord conduct you on your
way to your home, and bring you in peace to your office in His
Church ! And be assured of the communion and fellowship of your
brother in the Gospel and in the Eldership, Edward Irving."
A word or two as to the most modest and primitive life led by
the subject of our memoir will not be out of place here. I give it
on the authority of one of his nearest relatives, a lady, who fre
quently lived in his house: "Mr. Irving's rule was to see any of
his friends who wished to visit him without ceremony at break
fast. Eight o'clock was the hour. Family worship first, and then
breakfast. At ten he rose, bade every one good-by, and retired
* The Rev. Dr. Gordon.

170 MANNER OF LIFE.— THE PADDINGTON COACH.
to his study. He gave no audience again till after three. Two
o'clock was the dinner hour ; and, after that, should no one come
to prevent him, he generally walked out, Mrs. Irving accompany
ing him ; and, until the baby took hooping-cough, Mr. Irving al
most always carried him in his arms. Some people laughed at
this, but that he did not care for in the very least." To see the
great preacher, admired and flattered by the highest personages
in the kingdom, marching along the Pentonville streets with his
baby, must have been a spectacle to make ordinary men open
their eyes. An amusing personal anecdote, belonging to a similar
period, comes from the same authority. His indifference to money
has been visible with sufficient distinctness throughout his life ;
but, after his marriage, according to a primitive habit most worthy
of imitation, he committed the charge of his finances entirely to
the prudence of his wife, and carried sometimes only the smallest
of coins, sometimes nothing at all, in his own private purse. This
habit sometimes brought him into situations of amusing embar
rassment. On one occasion he had left home to visit a member
of his congregation somewhere on the line of the New Boad ; but,
finding himself late, took, without considering the state of his pock
et, the Paddington coach, omnibuses having not yet come into fash
ion. As soon as the vehicle was on its way, the unlucky passen
ger recollected that he was penniless. His dismay at the thought
was overwhelming, but soon brightened with a sudden inspiration.
Looking around him, he artfully fixed upon the most benevolent-
looking face he saw, and poured his sorrows into his fellow-trav
eler's ear. " I told him that I was a clergyman," was the account
he gave to his amused home-audience ; " that, since I had obtained
a wife from the Lord, I had given up all concern with the things
of this world, leaving my purse in my wife's hands ; and that to
day I had set out to visit some of my flock at a distance, without
recollecting to put a shilling in my purse for the coach." The
good man thus addressed was propitious, and paid the fare. But
the honor due to such a good Samaritan is lessened when we learn
that the preacher's remarkable appearance, and scarcely less ex
traordinary request, betrayed him, and the stranger had the honor
and satisfaction, for his sixpence, of making the acquaintance of
Edward Irving.
Early in this summer clouds began to appear in the firmament
of the new household. The baby, so joyfully welcomed and dearly
prized, was seized with hooping-cough ; and, in the end of June,

LETTER OF WELCOME TO HIS WIFE. 171
Mrs. Irving, then herself in a delicate condition' of health, accom
panied by her sister, took little Edward down to Scotland, to the
peaceful manse of Kirkcaldy, for change of air. The following
letter was written immediately after the departure of the travelers :
"London, Friday afternoon, July 1st, 1825.
"Mt deae Isabella and beloved Wipe, — I suppose, by the time
this arrives in Kirkcaldy, you will be arrived, and little Edward, and
our dear brother and sister, and faithful Mary ; and, because I can not
be there to welcome you in person to your father's house, I send this
my representative to take you by the hand, to embrace you by the
heart, and say welcome, thrice welcome, to your home and your coun
try, which you have honored by fulfilling the duties of a wife and
mother well and faithfully — the noblest duties of womanhood. And
while I say this to yourself, I take you to your father and mother,
and say unto them, Receive, honored parents, yo'ur daughter— your
eldest-born child — and give her double honor as one who hath been
faithful and dutiful to her husband, and brings with her a child to bear
down your piety, and faith, and blessedness to other generations, if it
please the Lord. Thus I fulfill the duty of restoring with honor and
credit — well due and well won — one whom I received from their
house as its best gift to me.
" When I returned, I went solitary to Mrs. Montagu's, who was
pleased with your letter, in order to see whether I was expected at
Highgate. ... So to Highgate B— — and I hied, and we found the
sage,* as usual, full of matter. He talked with me privately about
his own spiritual concerns, and I trust he is in the way of salvation,
although I see that he has much to prevail against, as we have all.
.... I have pastoral work for all next week but Thursday, and shall
continue so until I remove. To-day I have been busy with my first
discourse upon the 'Will of. the Father,' which I pray you to study
diligently in the Gospel by John, i., 13, 14; v., 20, 21 ; vii., 37, 44, 65 ;
viii., 16, 19, 26, 28 ; x., 27, 29 — and all those discourses study if you
would know the precedency which the will of the Father hath of the
preaching of the Son, and how much constant honor you must give
to it in order to be a disciple of Christ. My head is wearied, and
with difficulty directeth my hand to write these few words, which I
am moved to by my affection to you as my wife, and my desire after
you as a saint. Therefore I conclude hastily with my love to our
dear parents, brothers, and sisters, and all our kindred. The Lord
preserve my wife and child !
" Your faithful husband, Edwaed Ieving."
This letter was followed, a week after, by another letter, in
which his doubts and inclinations in respect to the call from Edin
burgh — his decision of which question has been already recorded
— are fully set forth. The tone of this letter is far from enthu
siastic as regards London, notwithstanding his intention of remain
ing in it.
* Coleridge, then living at Highgate with his friends the Gillmans.
« «

172 REASONS FOR REFUSING THE CALL TO EDINBURGH.
..." I have Mr. Paul and Mr. Howden waiting upon me as a
deputation from the Kirk Session of the West Kirk, Edinburgh, that
I would consent to succeed Dr. Gordon, and I now write to you for
your counsel and advice in this matter. Take it into your serious
consideration, and seek counsel of the Lord, and write me your judg
ment. For myself, observe how it is. There is no home here, either
to our family or my ministrations, and all the love of my people can
not make it a home. If any thing would have rallied the Scotch
people to the Church, my notoriety, not to say my talents, would
have done it ; and you know how vain it has been. The religious
bodies are too bigoted to receive me with any cordiality. I had
wished to preach the Gospel in Edinburgh, though the call has come
sooner than I had looked for. I have a desire to meet the anti-
Christian influence full in the face, and, in God's help, to wrestle with
it. I love the Church of Scotland, and would contend for its pros
perity. "These are weighty considerations. But, on the other hand, it
would break the heart of so many dear friends and servants of Christ
who have cherished me here. I fear it would disperse the flock, and
smite down the proposed National Church. I see the victory over
my enemies, in and out of the Established Church, to be already at
hand, and their advantage likely to be promoted by my continuance.
But I know not how it is, the considerations on this side of the ques
tion do not muster so strong.
"There is a feeling of instability — a sense of insufficiency connected
with all one's undertakings here — I know not what to make of it. I
shall consider the matter very maturely. Do you the same, and re
turn me your (opinion) by return of post. Consult also your dear
father and mother."
The wife's answering letter does not seem to have been pre
served ; and in the next (from which it appears that she had been,
as was natural, inclined to the change) he intimates his decision.
In the mean time, he had removed from his own solitary home to
the hospitable house of Mr. Montagu :
"25 Bedford Square, 19th July, 1825.
"My deaeest Wife, — On Sunday I desired a meeting of the
church and congregation at six o'clock last night, and then laid be
fore them both my resolution to remain among them, and the grounds
of it ; and I now haste, having completed my morning's study, to lay
before you what I laid before them, that I may have your approba
tion, which is all that now remains to the full contentment of my own
mind. " The invitation, I said, had three chief reasons to recommend it,
and by which it still remains on my mind weightily recommended :
First, That so well advocated in your letter, which sunk deep into
my thoughts, that it might be the call of Providence to do for Edin
burgh what I had been called upon to do for London, and what no
one of the ministers of God had done before I came. Secondly. The
desire I had to be restored to the communion of the true ministers of

SERMONS ON THE TRINITY. I73
Christ and servants of God in the Church of Scotland, who hereto
fore, with a very few exceptions, have estranged me from their confi
dence. Thirdly. The love which I had to a manageable pastoral
charge. On the other hand, three more weighty reasons prevailed
with me to remain: First. Their desire of my ministry, and assurance
of co-operation in my official duties, which, going elsewhere, was all
to work for. Secondly. The consciousness that I had not yet told
half my message out of the Gospel, and but partially fulfilled my min
istry. Thirdly. The desire I had that my countrymen should yet
have a little longer trial, and the opportunity which a new church
would afford them of returning to the bosom of the Church. Lastly.
The strong love which I bore my people, and which made me shrink
from any call to depart but such a one as was very imperious and
strong. But while I consented to stay in my present ministry for
these weighty reasons, I gave them, at the same time, distinctly to un
derstand that such a call might be given me as would be able to call
me elsewhere; and that, without* a call, if the Spirit moved me, I
would certainly go to the world's end. Having said this much I left
the desk, and the people remained to consider what was best to be
done, and I have but heard imperfectly from Mr. Paul and Mr. How-
den, who breakfasted with us this morning, that it was conducted in
a good spirit.
"I trust that my dear Isabella will approve of what I have done,
which I have certainly done by much patient deliberation, yet with a
strong resolution, and, at the same time, a high sense and feeling of
all the considerations on the other side. The thing has done much
good already, and will do much more, chiefly as it has brought out
the declaration and understanding on all hands that I may be called
away, which the people here had little thought of. Also, that I will
stand justified before incredulous Edinburgh by two other witnesses.
For I am not to seek as to the true sentiment that is still entertained
by the religious part of men there concerning me, and would gladly
see it wiped away.
" Last Sabbath I preached in the morning on the subject of the
Trinity, showing that the revelation of the Word consisted of three
parts, Law, Gospel, and Obedience, which were severally the forms of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, so that a trinity was every
where in the Word of God ; and I intend to continue the same sub
ject next Sabbath, and on the following one to show that there are
three constant states by which the soul expresses her homage to the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost : First, prayer ; secondly, faith ; and,
thirdly, activity, which are a trinity in unity with the new man. In
the evening I lectured on John sending his disciples to inquire at
Christ of his Messiahship, showing thence how his mind, partaking of
the vulgar error, had lost the impression of the outward signs shown
at his baptism, and thence arguing the total insufficiency of that man
ner of demonstration and proof to which the last century hath given
such exaggerated importance. I showed that Christ's action before
the messengers, and his message to the Baptist, was a fulfillment of
the prophecy in the 61st of Isaiah, which led me to explain the great
point that miracles were nothing but the incarnation or visible repre-

174 SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM.
sentation of the Holy Ghost, as Jesus of Nazareth was of the Word
of God ; and that, as His Word was the will of the Father, so were
His works the acts of the Spirit dwelling in Him, and about to pro
ceed from Him.
" We were at Allan Cunningham's last night, where I met with
Wilkie. They all desired their love to you and Margaret. Every
body inquires after you, and rejoices in your welfare. You must
keep yourself quiet. Let not ceremony or any other cause take hold
of your kind heart, and disturb you from necessary quiet. I trust
little Edward continues to thrive. Cease not to pray for him and
me as for yourself. I see not why we may not pray in the plural
number, as if we were present together. I shall keep by eight in the
morning and ten at night for my hours of prayer. Oh, Isabella, pray
much for me. I need it much. These are high things after which
I strive, and I oft fear lest Satan should make them a snare to my
soul  The Lord protect you all, and save you !
" Your affectionate husband, Edward Ieving."
"London, 25 Bedford Square, August 2d, 1825. i
"4th August: Dies natalis atque fatalis incidit. >
" ' The day of birth and of death draweth nigh.' )
" Mt dearest Wife, — . ... I have not altered my mind upon
the course of my journey, which I will direct forthwith to Kirkcaldy
by the steam-boat, without passing at the present through the towns
in England, which, if all be well ordered, I can take upon my return.
 I greatly rejoice that you are enjoying the quiet and repose
whereof you stand so much in need, and that little Edward is thriv
ing daily. The Lord give health and strength to his soul ! I pray
you, my dear Isabella, to bear in mind that he has been consecrated
to God by the Sacrament of Baptism, whereby Christ did assure to
our faith the death of his body of sin, and the life of his spirit of
righteousness ; and that he is to be brought up in the full faith and
assurance of the fulfillment of this greatest promise and blessing,
which our dear Lord hath bestowed upon our faith ; wherefore
adopt not the base notion, into which many parents fall, of waiting
for a full conversion and new birth, but regard that as fully promised
to us from the beginning, and let all your prayers, desires, words,
and thoughts toward the child proceed accordingly. For I think
that we are all grown virtually adult Baptists, whatever we be pro
fessedly, in that we take no comfort or encouragement out of the
Sacrament. Let it not be so with you, whom God. hath set to be a
mother in Israel.
" Since I wrote, I have passed a Sabbath, when I had much of the
Lord's presence in all the exercises of public worship, and was able
to declare the truth with much liberty; preaching in the morning
from Rom., viii., 3, 4, and opening the sentence of death which there
was in the law, and the reprieve of life which there was in the work
and Gospel of Christ — a subject which I mean to follow up by show
ing that the reprieve is for the end of our fulfilling the law, which, as
an antecedent to the Gospel, is the form of our death, as the conse
quent of the Gospel is the form of our life, to be perfected and com
pleted in the state of complete restitution, when Christ shall present

"ORIGINAL STANDARDS." 175
His Church without spot to His Father, and shall then resign the
mediatorial kingdom.. This all deduces itself from the doctrine of
the Trinity : the Father is not beloved nor obeyed without the Son ;
but the Son sends forth his Spirit, that we may be enabled to come
and obey the Father. So that, unless the law be kept in our contin
ual view, the Spirit hath no end nor operation. In the evening I
lectured upon Luke, vii., 29, 36, setting forth the three forms of the
Pharisees : First, The Pharisee of the intellect or reason (of whom
Edinburgh is the chief city), who contemn faith and form equally.
Second, The Pharisee of form, who can not away with spiritual re
generation. Third, The Spiritual Pharisee, or religious world, who
take up notions, and language, and preachers upon second-hand from
spiritual people, instead of waiting for them directly from the Spirit
by the workings of faith upon the Divine Word. I pray the Lord
to bless these discourses.
"I have agreed with. Collins about the publication of the Original
Standards of the Church, concerning which I pray you to say noth
ing. I shall write my essay on the salt sea where Knox first matured
his idea of the Scottish Reformation  My dear Isabella, guard
against the formalities which abound on every side of you. Let me
find you grounded and strengthened in the spirit of godliness. For
the other book,* it is nearly finished. I have just brought to a close
the destruction of Babylon. And I have a part to write upon the
things which follow till the Revelation of our blessed Redeemer in
the clouds of heaven. Pray God that my pen may be guided to
truth, and that much profit may flow into the Church from what I
write ! .... I pray the Lord to bless you and Edward continually ;
write me, when you can do it without wearying yourself or injuring
your health  Say to the patriarch that I have got a noble New
Testament, in Greek, with all the Glosses and Scholise of the Fathers,
with which I delight myself. The Lord bless you all ! Forget not
to give my kind regards to Mary, and to encourage her to walk
steadfastly in the faith.
" Yours in one body and soul, Edward Irving."
The publication referred- to in the above letter, the Original
Standards of the Church, did not actually appear till many years
later, when it came in the shape, not of a simple republication, in
tended for the edification of all, but as a sharp rebuke and remind
er to the Church of Scotland, between whom and her devoted son
a gulf of separation had grown. It does not, consequently, belong
to this period of his history ; but the fact that it had been so long
in his mind, and that these documents were recognized by him
specially as the confession of his faith, and as containing all the
doctrines for which he afterward suffered the penalties of the
Church, is interesting and significant. No man in modern times
has so much proclaimed the merits of those ancient standards, or
* Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed.

176 BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.
so pertinaciously ranged himself under their shelter, as this man,
whom the Church which holds them cut off as a heretic.
It will also be seen from these letters that Irving had already
found his way to those views of baptism which he did not pub
lish to the world till some time after. The instincts of fatherhood
had quickened his mind in his investigations. He had found it
impossible, when his thoughts were directed to this subject, to rest
in the vagueness of ordinary conceptions : " We assuredly believe
that by baptism we are ingrafted in Christ Jesus," says simply
that ancient, primitive confession to which his heart turned as the
clearest, simple utterance, uncontroversial and single-minded, of
the national faith. When Irving turned toward that question, he
" assuredly believed" the canon he had subscribed at his ordina
tion ; and receiving it with no" lukewarm and indifferent belief,
but with a faith intense and real, came to regard the ordinance in
so much warmer and clearer a light than is usual in his Church,
that his sentiments seem to have differed from those of the High-
Church party of England, who hold baptismal regeneration, by
the merest hair's-breadth of distinction — a distinction which, in
deed, I confess myself unable to appreciate. This intensified and
brightened apprehension, which made the ordinance not a sign
only, nor a vaguely mysterious conjunction ,of sign and reality,
but an actual, effectual sacrament, rejoiced the new-made father to
the bottom of his heart. His soul expanded in a deeper tender
ness over the chrisom child, whom he " assuredly believed" to be
"ingrafted in Christ Jesus." Years afterward he makes a touch
ing acknowledgment of gratitude for this insight, given, as in the
fervor and simplicity of his heart he believed it to be, as a
strengthening preparation against the sharpest personal anguish
of life..
In the months of July and August he remained alone in Lon
don, living in the house of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Montagu, and
proceeding vigorously, as has been seen, in his labors, with no se
rious fears respecting the boy who was so dear to his heart, of '
whom he had received comforting news. In the beginning of
September he went to Scotland to join his wife, who was then in
expectation of the birth of her second child. But, with the cold
autumn winds, trouble and fear came upon the anxious household.
The baby, Edward, had rallied so much as to make them forget
their former fears on his account, but it was only a temporary re
lief. On the second day of October a daughter was born ; and

ILLNESS AND DEATH.— SORROW AND CONSOLATION. 177
for ten days longer, in another room of the house, separated from
the poor mother, who, for her other baby's sake, was not permitted
ever again, in life, to behold her first-born, little Edward lingered
out the troubled moments, and died slowly in his father's agonized
sight. The new-born infant was baptized on Sunday, the 9th of
October, for a consolation to their hearts ; and on the 11th her
brother died. Dr. Martin, of Kirkcaldy, writing to his father—
the venerable old man who had baptized little Edward, his de
scendant . of the fourth generation — describes with tears in his
voice how, sitting beside the little body, he could do nothing but
kneel down and weep, till reminded of the words used by the
child's father " in a sense in which, probably, they have not often
been applied, but the force of which, at the moment, was very
striking, when he saw all about him dissolved in tears on view
ing the dear infant's cruel struggle, ' Look not at the things which
are seen, but at those which are unseen [' " " Edward and Isa
bella," he continues, "both bear the stroke, though sore, with won
derful resignation  Two nights ago they resolved, in their
conference and prayers concerning him, to surrender him wholly
to God — to consider him as not their child, but God's, ....
When her husband came down stairs to-day, he said, in reply to
a question from her mother, ' She is bearing it as well as one saint
could wish to see another do.' Blessed be |he Holy Name ! Da
vid will tell you that the little Margaret was received into the
Church visible on Sabbath afternoon  I should have said,
that when assembled to worship as a family, after all was over,
Mr. Irving, before I began to pray, requested leave to address us ;
and he addressed us, all and several, in the most affectionate and
impressive manner. The Lord bless and fix his words ! In tes
timony of his gratitude for the consolation afforded him and his
wife, he has gone out to visit and comfort some of the afflicted
around us."
The manner in which Irving himself announced this first inter
ruption of his family happiness, with an elevation and ecstasy of
grief which I do not doubt will go to the hearts of all who have
suffered similar anguish, as indeed the writer can scarcely tran
scribe it without tears, will be seen by the following letter, ad
dressed to William Hamilton, and written on the day of death
itself: "Kirkcaldy, 11th Octoher, 1825.
" Our deaelt- beloved Friend, — The hand of the Lord hath
M

178 IRVING'S ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS CHILD'S DEATH.
touched my wife and me, and taken from us our well-beloved child,
sweet Edward, who was dear to you also, as he was to all who knew
him. But, before taking him, He gave unto us good comfort of the
Holy Ghost, as He doth to all His faithful servants ; and we are com
forted, verily we are comforted. Let the Lord be praised, who hath
visited the lowly, and raised them up !
" If you had been here yesterday and this day when our little babe
was taken, you would have seen the stroke of death subdued by faith,
and the strength of the grave overcome ; for the Lord hath made
His grace to be known unto us in the inward part. I feel that the
Lord hath well done in that He hath afflicted me, and that by his
grace I shall be a more faithful minister unto you, and unto all the
¦flock committed to my charge. Now is my heart broken — now is
its hardness melted ; and my pride is humbled, and my strength is
renewed. The good name of the Lord be praised !
" Our little Edward, dear friend, is gone the way of all the earth,
and his mother and I are sustained by the Prince and Savior who
hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. The
affection which you bear to us, or did bear toward the dear child
who is departed, we desire that you will not spend it in unavailing
sorrow, but elevate it unto Him who hath sustained our souls, even
the Lord our Savior Jesus Christ; and if you feel grief and trouble,
oh ! turn the edge of it against sin and Satan to destroy their works,
for it is they who have made us to drink of this bitter cup.
" Communicate this to all our friends in the congregation and
church, as much as may be, by the perusal of this letter, that they
may know the grace of God manifested unto us ; and oh ! William
Hamilton, remember thyself, and tell them all that they are dust, and
that their children areifts the flowers of the field.
"Nevertheless, God granting me a safe journey, I will preach at
the Caledonian church on Sabbath the 23d, though I am cut off from
my purpose of visiting the churches by the way. The Lord be with
you, and your brethren of the Eldership, and all the church and con
gregation. " Your affectionate friend, Edwaed Irving.
" My wife joining with me."
With such an ode and outburst of the highest strain of grief,
brought so close to the gates of heaven that the dazzled mourner,
overpowered with the greatness of the anguish and glory, sees the
Lord within, and takes a comfort more pathetic than any lament
ation, was the child Edward buried. He was but fifteen months
old ; but either from his natural loveliness, or from the subliming
influence of his father's love and grief, seems to have left a mem
ory behind him as of the very ideal and flower of infancy. By
his father and mother the child was always held in pathetically
thankful remembrance. " Little Edward, their fairest and their
first," writes one of Mrs. Irving's sisters, "never lost his place in
their affections. Writing of one of her little ones some years aft-

LITTLE EDWARD'S MEMORY. 179
erward, my sister said, ' I have said all to you when I tell you
that we think her very like our little Edward ;' " and the same
lady tells us of Irving's answer to somebody who expressed the
superficial and common wonder, so often heard, that helpless ba
bies should grow up to be the leaders and guides of the world, in
words similar to those which break from him in his Preface to
Ben-Ezra: "Whoso studieth as I have done, and reflecteth as I
have sought to reflect, upon the first twelve months of a child ;
whoso hath had such a child to look and reflect upon as the Lord
for fifteen months did bless me withal (whom I would not recall,
if a wish could recall him, from the enjoyment and service of our
dear Lord), will rather marvel how the growth of that wonderful
creature, which put forth such a glorious bud of being, should
come to he so cloaked by the flesh, cramped by the world, and
cut short by Satan, as not to become a winged seraph; will rather
wonder that such a puny, heartless, feeble thing as manhood
should be the abortive fruit of the rich bud of childhood, than
think that childhood is an imperfect promise and opening of the
future man. And therefore it is that I grudged not our noble,
lovely child, but rather do delight that such a seed should blos
som and bear in the kindly and kindred paradise of my God.
And why should I not speak of thee, my Edward, seeing it was
in the season of thy sickness and death the Lord did reveal in me
the knowledge, and hope, and desire of His Son from heaven ?
Glorious exchange ! He took my son to His own more fatherly
bosom, and revealed in my bosom the sure expectation and faith
of His own eternal Son ! Dear season of my life, ever to be re
membered, when I knew the sweetness and fruitfulness of such
joy and sorrow."
' I can not dou^t that the record of this infant's death, and the
traces it leaves upon the life and words of his sorrowful but re
joicing father, will endear the great orator to many sorrowful
hearts. So far as I can perceive, no other event of his life pene
trated so profoundly the depths of his spirit. And I can not think
it is irreverent to lift the v,eil, now that both of those most con
cerned have rejoined their children, from that sanctuary of human
sorrow, faith, and patience. Those of us who know such days of
darkness may take some courage from the sight ; and such of my
readers as may have become interested in the domestic portions
of this history will be pleased to hear that the little daughter,
born under such lamentable circumstances, lived to grow up into

180 IRVING VISITS THE SORROWFUL LN KIRKCALDY.
a beautiful and gifted woman, brightened her father's house dur
ing all his lifetime, and died — happily not long before her much-
tried and patient mother.
Irving remained in Kirkcaldy about a week after this sad
event, during which time he occupied himself, "in gratitude for
the comfort he had himself received," as it is pathetically said, in
visiting all who were sorrowful in his father-in-law's congregation.
Then, leaving his wife to perfect her slow and sad recovery in her
father's house, until she and the new-born infant, now doubly
precious, were fit to travel, he went away sadly by himself, to
seek comfort and strength in a solitary journey on foot — an apos
tolical journey, in which he carried his Master's message from
house to house along the way — to his father's house in Annan.
Mrs. Irving and her child remained for some time in Scotland;
and to this circumstance we owe a closer and more faithful picture
of Irving's life and heart than any thing which a biographer could
attempt ; than any thing, indeed, which, so far as I am aware, any
man of modern days has left behind him.

CHAPTER XL
JOURNAL.
Wanderings among the Hills. — An Apostolical Journey. — Annan. — Incidents of a
Stage-coach Journey. — Arrival at Home. — Commencement of Journal-letters. —
Morning Worship. — Historical Reading. — Bishop Overall's Convocation Book. —
"Idolatry of the Memory." — Devotion and Study. — Visions of the Night. —
Breakfast Party. — A Day in the City. — Book-stalls. — Christian Counsel. — In
Faintness and Fervor. — "For the Consolation of Edward's Mother." — The Secret
of Fellowship. — Influence of the Landscape. — Wisdom and Power. — Prayers for
the Absent. — Interceding for the People. — A Sunday's Services. — Exposition. —
Sermon. — Evening Service. — His Responsibility as Head of the Household. — At
Home. — Scottish Adventurers. — The Priest and his Catechumens. — Two Sisters.
— A Companion for his Isabella. — A Son from the Lord. — Weariness. — A Spirit
full of Inspirations. — Returns to the Convocation Book. — Study. — A Reunion of
Young Christians. — Self-denial in Religious Conversation. — "A very rich Har
vest." — Temptations of Satan. — Pastoral Visitte. — A Sick-bed. — Correggio's "St.
John." — Prayers. — Ecclesiasticus. — Deteriorating Effect of a Great City. — Two
London Boys. — A logical Companion. — Sunday Services. — Want of Faith. — Lit
tle Edward's Ministry. — An Intellectualist. — Influence of Custom.— Remonstrance
about Length of Services. — The Peace-offering. — Philanthropy. — The Mystery of
the Trinity.— Missionaries. — Readings in Hebrew. — Letters of Introduction. — The
Church as a House. — Simple and unprovided Faith. — Funeral Services. — The
Twelfth Day of the Month.— Sunday Morning.— Presentiments.— True Brother-

LETTER TO HIS WIFE. 181
hood. — The prodigal Widow. — Undirected Letters. — A London Sponging-house.
— Joseph in Prison. — From House to House. — Christian Intercourse. — Domestic
Worship. — A Death-bed. — A good Voyage. — The Theology of Medicine. — The
Glory of God. — Huskiness about the Heart. — The Spirit of a Man. — Different
Forms of the worldly Spirit. — Try the Spirits. — A Benediction to the Absent. —
Visions of the Night. — Sunday. — The Ministry of Women. — Morning Visitors. —
A Dream. — Skeptics. — The four Spirits. — Religious Belles. — Best Manner of con
tending with Infidelity. — A subtle Cantab. — A Circle of Kinsfolk. — Pleasures of
the Table: Pea-soup and Potatoes. — The Spirit of a former Age. — The lost
Sheep. — The Influence of the Holy Spirit. — New Testament History of the Church.
— The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men. — Wisdom. — Farewell Counsels. — A
Funeral. — The Joy of Grief. — Management. — Deterioration. — The new Church.
— Ministerial Liberty. — Dreams of Edward. — The Spirit of Prayer. — "My Dum
friesshire." — Paralytic in Soul. — Under-current of Thought during Prayer. —
Money, the universal Falsehood. — Lessons in Spanish. — The Wings of Love. —
Parables. — Tokens of God's Blessing. — Irving's Anxiety about his Wife's Jour
ney. — A young Visitor. — A "Benedict." — Evils of Formality. — Benediction. —
Irving's only Journal.
The correspondence which follows needs neither introduction
nor comment. No one who reads it will need to be told how re
markable it is. It was Irving's first long separation from his wife,
and his heart was opened and warmed by that touch of mutual
sorrow which gives a more exquisite closeness to all love. This
perfect revelation of a man's heart, and of a husband's trust and
confidence, is given by permission of the remaining children of
his house. It will be seen to begin from the time of his leaving
Kirkcaldy, after the sorrows above recorded. "Annan, 18th October, 1825.
" Mt deaeest Wiee, — I am grieved that I should have missed
this day's post.by the awkwardness of the hour of making up the
bag at noon precisely, beyond which I was carried, before I knew
that it was past, by the many spiritual duties to which I felt called
in my father's house and my sister's  But I know my dear Isa
bella will not grieve half so much on this account as I have done my
self. .... And now, having parted with all the household, I sit down
here, at the solemn hour of midnight, to write you how it is with me,
and has been since I left you, first praying that this may find you
and our dear babe as I left you, increased in strength.
" Andrew bore me company to Peebles, and will inform you of my
journey so far. We parted at two o'clock on the south side of Pee
bles Bridge, and I took my solitary way up Glen Sark, calling at
every shepherd's house along my route, to obtain an opportunity of
admonishing mother and children of their mortality, and so proceeded
till I set my face to climb the hill which you must pass to get out of
the glen ; in ascending which, I had the sight and feeling of a new
phenomenon among the mountains, a terrible hail-storm, which swept
down the side of the opposite mountain, and came upon me with such
a violence as required all my force of hand and foot to keep erect,

182 WANDERINGS AMONG THE HILLS.— ANNAN.
obliterating my meagre path, and leaving me in the wildest mountain,
wholly at a nonplus, to steer my way, until the sun breaking out, or
rather streaking the west with a bright light, I found myself holding
right east instead of south, and night threatening to be upon me be
fore I could clear the unknown wild. I was lonely enough; but,
committing my way unto the Lord, I held south as nearly as I could
guess, and reached the solitary house in the head of another water,
of which Sam may recollect something ; where, forgathering with a
shepherd, I got directions, and set my breast against Black-house
heights, and reached my old haunts on Douglas Burn, where, in an
swer to the apostolic benediction which I carried every where, I re
ceived a kindly offer of tea, night's lodging, then a horse to carry me
through the wet, all of which in my haste refusing, I took my way
over the rough grounds which lie between that and Dryhope by Loch
St. Mary. My adventures here with the Inverness-shire herds and
the dogs of Dryhope Tower (a perfect colony, threatening to devour
me with open mouth), I can not go into, and leave it to the discourse
of the lip. Here I waded the Yarrow at the foot of the loch, under
the crescent moon, where, finding a convenient rock beneath some
overhanging branches which moaned and sighed in the breeze, I sat
me down, while the wind, sweeping, brought the waters of the loch
to my feet ; and I paid my devotions to the Lord in His own ample
and magnificent temple ; and sweet meditations were afforded me of
thee, our babe, and our departed boy. My soul was filled with sweet
ness. ' I did not ask for a sign,' as Colonel Blackadder says ; but
when I looked up to the moon, as I came out from the ecclesia of the
rock, she looked as never a moon had looked before in my eye — as if
she had been washed in dew, which, speedily clearing off, she looked
so bright and beautiful ; and on the summit of the opposite hill a lit
tle bright star gleamed upon me, like the bright, bright eye of our
darling. Oh, how I wished you had been with me to partake the
sweet solacement of that moment ! Of my adventure with the shep
herd-boy Andrew, whose mother's sons were all squandered abroad
among the shepherds, and our prayer upon the edge of the mountain,
and my welcome at the cottage, and cold reception at the farm-house,
I must also be silent till the living pen shall declare them unto you.
Only I had trial of an apostolic day and night, and slept sweetly, after
blessing my wife and child. Next day I passed over to the grave of
Boston, at Ettrick, where I ministered in the manse to the minister's
household, and tracked my way up into Eskdale, where, after con
versing with the martyr's tomb (Andrew Hy slop's), I reached the
Ware about half an hour after George, who had brought a gig up to
Grange, and from that place had crossed the moor to meet me ; and
by returning upon his steps, we reached home about eleven o'clock.
But such weather ! I was soaked, the case of my desk was utterly
dissolved, and the mechanical ingenuity of Annan is now employed
constructing another. But I am well, very well, and for the first time
have made proof of an apostolical journey, and found it to be very,
very sweet and profitable. Whether I have left any seed that will
grow, the Lord only knows.
" Many, many are the tender and loving sympathies toward you

ARRIVAL AT CARLISLE.— VISITORS. 183
which are here expressed, and many the anxious wishes for your wel
fare and hope of seeing you, when, without danger, you can under
take it  I shall never forget, and never repay, the tender atten
tions of all your dear father's household to me and mine. The Lord
remember them with the love He beareth to His own. I affection
ately, most affectionately, salute them all  The Lord comfort
and foster your spirit. The Lord enrich our darling, and make her
a Mary to us 
" Your most affectionate husband, Edward Irving."
" Carlisle, 21st October, 1825.
" Mt deak Isabella, — Thus far I am arrived safely, and find that
my seat is taken, out in the London mail to-morrow evening at seven
o'clock. I left all my father's family in good health, full of affection
to me, and, I trust, not without faith and love toward God. Mr.
Fergusson, and Margaret, and the two eldest boys came down from
Dumfries on Wednesday, and added much to our domestic enjoy
ment, which, but for the pain of parting so soon, was as complete as
ever I had felt it ; for, though my heart was very cold, I persevered,
by the force, I fear, rather of strong resolution than of spiritual affec
tion, to set before them their duties to God and to the souls of their
children. They spoke all very tenderly of you, and feel much for
your weal, and long for the time when they shall be able to comfort
you in person. Thomas Carlyle came down to-day, and edified me
very much with his discourse. Dr. Duncan came down with C 
M  , who, poor lad, seems fast hastening into one of the worst
forms of Satanic pride. He desires solitude, he says, and hates men.
" Your short penciled note was like honey to my soul; and, though
I have not had the outpouring of soul for you, little baby, and my
self which I desire, I hope the Lord will enable me this night to utter
my spiritual affections before His throne. I am an unworthy man—
a poor, miserable servant — unworthy to be a doorkeeper; how un
worthy to be a minister at the altar of His house ! I shall write you
when I reach London. Till then, may the Lord be your defense, my
dear lamb's nourishment and strength, Mary's encouragement, and
the sustenance of your unworthy head. Rest you, my dear, and be
untroubled till the Lord restore your health ; then cease not to med
itate upon, and to seek the improvement of our great trial, which
may I never forget, and as oft as I remember, exercise an act of sub
mission unto the will of God. This is written at the fire of the pub
lic room among my fellow-travelers. The Laird of Dornoch, Tris
tram Lowther the willful, where I waited for the coach, expressed a
great desire that, when you came to the country, you would visit
him. '. . . .
" Your true and faithful husband, Edward Irving."
"Myddelton Terrace, 25th October, 1825.
" Mt dear Wipe, beloved in the Lord, — I bless you and our little
child, and pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with
you and all the house.
" I reached London late (eleven o'clock) on Saturday night, by the
good preservation of God, to which, when I sought at times to turn

184 INCIDENTS OF A STAGE-COACH JOURNEY.
the minds of my fellow-travelers, I seemed unto them as one that
mocked ; but, though we were a graceless company, we were pre
served by the Lord. On our journey there occurred nothing remark
able except one thing, which, for its singular hospitality, I resolved
to recount to you. Our road lay through Rutlandshire, and half
way between Uppingham and Kettering there appeared before us,
on the top of a hill, an ancient building, but not like any castle which
I had ever seen before, being low and irregular, and covering a deal
of ground, and built, you would say, more for hospitality and enter
tainment than strength. I make no doubt, from the form of the
structure, it is as old as the Saxon times, and belonged to one of
those franklins of whom Walter Scott speaks in 'Ivanhoe.' ....
Now mark ; when our road, swinging up the hill, came to the gate
of this mansion, which was a simple gate — not a hold, or any imita
tion of a hold of strength — to my astonishment, the guard of the
mail descended and opened the gate, and in we drove to the park
and gate of the castle, where they were cutting wood into billets,
which were lying in heaps, for the sake of the poor in the village be
neath the hill. One of these billets they laid in the wheel of the
coach, for the hill is very steep ; and while I meditated what all this
might mean, thinking it was some service they were going to do for
the family, out came from a door of the castle a very kindly-looking
man, bearing in a basket bread and cheese, and in his hand a pitcher
full of ale, of which he kindly invited us all to partake, and of which we
all partook most heartily, for it was now past noon, and we had trav
eled far since breakfast — from Nottingham  So here I paid my
last farewell to ale, and am now a Nazarite to the sense. . Oh that the
Lord would make me a Nazarite indeed from all lusts of the flesh !
.... Remember this hospitable lord in your prayers. He is my
Lord Londes, and his place is Rockingham Castle. The mail-coach
hath this privilege from him at all times, and, I understand, during
the great fall of snow, he took the passengers in, and entertained them
for several days, until they were able to get forward.
" I arrived, I say, at eleven o'clock, and Alexander Hamilton was
waiting for me at the Angel, with whom I walked to this house of
mourning, and found Hall getting better, and all things prepared by
his worthy wife for my comfort. So here I am resolved to abide,
and meditate my present trials and widowhood for a time. But I
forget not, morning and evening, to bless you, and our dear little
lamb, and Mary our faithful servant, and to sue for blessings to you
all from the Lord ; and truly I feel very lonely to ascend those stairs,
and lie down upon my lonely bed. But the Lord filled me with some
strong consolations when I thought that a spirit calling me father,
and thee mother, might now be ministering at His throne. I do not
remember ever being so uplifted in soul. Yesterday I travailed
much in spirit for the people, and preached to them with a full heart
— that is, compared with myself; but, measured by the rule of Chris
tian love, how poor, how cold, how sinful ! This morning I have had
the younger Sottomayor* with me. Would you cause inquiries to
* This was one of two brothers, Spaniards, the elder of whom had been abbot of

COMMENCEMENT OF JOURNAL LETTERS. 185
be made what likelihood there is of his succeeding as a Spanish teach
er in Edinburgh ? . . . . Before setting out, I resolved to write you,
however briefly, that your heart might be comforted ; for are not
you my chief comfort? and ought not I to be yours, according to my
ability ? I assure you, all the people were glad to see me back again,
and condoled with us with a great grief. The Lord bless them with
all consolations in their day of affliction. The church was, as usual,
very crowded, and I had much liberty of utterance granted me of
the Lord  I desire my love to your dear father and mother,
and my most dutiful obedience as a son of their house. My broth
erly affection to all your sisters, who were parents to our Edward ;
and to our brothers, who loved him as their own bowels. Oh, forget
not any of you the softening chastisement of the Lord. Walk in
His fear, and let your hearts be comforted.
" Your most affectionate husband and pastor of your soul,
"Edwaed Irving.
" Say to Mary, ' Pray for the Comforter, even the Spirit of truth,
which proceedeth from the Father.' "
After his arrival in London his letters take the form of a jour
nal, commenced as follows :
" Let me now endeavor to express, for the information of my
dear wife, and for her consolation under our present sore trial, and
for the entertainment of her present separation from me, and the
gratification of all her spousal affections, and, by the grace of God,
for the building up of her faith in Christ, and her love toward her
husband, whatever hath occurred to the experience of my soul
this day, and whatever hath occupied my thoughts in this my
study, and whatever hath engaged my activity out of doors ; and
for her sake may the Lord grant me a faithful memory and a true
utterance. " 26th. This morning I arose a little after seven o'clock, in pos
session of my reason and of my health, and not without aspira
tions of soul toward the communion of God, but poor and heart
less when compared with those experiences of the Psalmist, whose
prayers prevented the dawning of the morning, and his medita
tions the night-watches ; and my soul being afflicted with the
a monastery, and had more than once been intrusted with missions to Rome. He
had been enlightened by a copy of the Bible in the library of his convent, and after
a while had been obliged to flee from the terrors of the Inquisition. He could speak
scarcely any English, but was kindly helped to acquire it by the ladies of Mr. Irving's
family. The younger was a soldier, brought to Protestantism as much by love for
his brother as by love for the truth. Irving exerted himself in behalf of both, and
treated them with great and constant kindness. The abbe married a lady whose
confessor he had been, and whom he had insensibly led into his own views, and, as
a consequence, into persecution, but died early, leaving his widow to the protection
of his devoted brother.

186 AN UNFAITHFUL SABBATH-SCHOOL TEACHER.
downwardness, and wandering of spirit, and coldness of heart to
ward the God of my salvation, in the morning, which is, as it
were, a new resurrection, it was borne in upon my mind that it
arose in a great measure from my not realizing with abiding con
stancy the Mediator between me and God, but breaking through,
as it were, to commune with him in my own strength, whereby
the lightning did scathe my soul, or rather my soul abode in its
barrenness, unwatered from the living fountain, in its slavery un
redeemed by the Captain of my salvation, who will be acknowl
edged before He will bless us, or rather who must be honored in
order that we may stand well in the sight of the Father. When
the family were assembled to prayers in the little library (our
family consists at present of Mrs. Hall, her niece, a sweet young
woman out of Somersetshire, and a servant-maid, and Hall, who
is not able to come down stairs till afternoon), Miss Dalzell* and
her sister came in to consult me concerning the unsuitable behav
ior of one of the Sabbath-school teachers, who was becoming a
scandal unto the rest of the teachers, and had been a sore trouble
to her, and whom Satan was moving to trouble the general peace
of the society. Under which affliction, having given her what
present comfort the Lord enabled me, I refrained from any posi
tive deliverance, or even hinting any idea, till the matter should
come before our committee, against which may the Lord grant me
and all the teachers the spirit of wise counsel to meet and defeat
this device of the Evil One. How the tares grow up among the
wheat in every society, and, alas! in every heart! The Lord root
them out of my soul, though the pain be sore as the plucking out
a right eye or a right hand. After worship and breakfast I com
posed myself to read out of a book of old pamphlets concerning
the Revolution one which contains a minute journal of the expe
dition of the Prince of Orange, for the Protestant cause, into Eng
land, from the day of his setting out to the day of his coronation;
which, written as it is in a spiritual and Biblical style, brought
more clear convictions to my mind that this passage of history is
as wonderful a manifestation of God's arm as any event in the
history of the Jews, being the judgment of the Stuarts, the re
ward of the Orange house, the liberation of the sealed nation from
its idolatrous oppressors, and the beginning of the humiliation of
France, which went on for a century and was consummated in the
Revolution, of which the remote cause was in the expensive wars
* A lady who had been the means of establishing a system of local Sabbath-schools,

BISHOP OVERALL'S CONVOCATION BOOK. 187,
of Louis XIY., exhausting the finances, and causing Louis XVI.
to be a ' raiser of taxes,' according to Daniel's prophecy. Oh that
some one would follow the history of the Christian Church, and
embody it in chronicles in the spirit of the books of Samuel !
There is no presumption, surely, in giving a spiritual account of
that which we know from the prophecies to be under spiritual
administration. Afterward I addressed myself to Bishop Over
all's Convocation Book, concerning the government of the Catho
lic Church and the kingdoms of the whole world, which digests,
under short chapters, the history of God's revelation, and appends
a canon to each ; in the first twenty-two of which chapters and
canons I was astonished to find the full declaration of what had
been dawning upon my mind, viz., that the maxim, which, since
Locke's time, has been the basis of all government, 'that all power
is derived from the people, and held of the people for the people's
good,' is in truth the basis of all revolution and radicalism, and
the dissolution of all government ; and that governors and judges,
of whatever name, hold their place and authority of God for ends
discovered in His Word, even as people yield obedience to laws
and magistrates by the same highest authority. Also it pleased
me to find how late-sprung is the notion among our leveling Dis
senters, that the magistrate hath no power in the Church, and how
universal was the notion among the Reformers and divines that
the magistrate is bound to put down idolatry and will-worship,
and provide for the right religious instruction of the people. \ That
subject of toleration needs to be reconsidered; the Liberals have
that question wholly their own way, and therefore I know that
there must be error in it; for where Satan is there is confusion
and every evil work.
" I went out into the garden to walk before dinner, and with
difficulty refrained my tears to think how oft and with what sweet
delight I had borne my dear, dear boy along that walk, with my
dear wife at my side ; but had faith given me to see his immortal
ity in another world, and rest satisfied with my -Maker's will. Sir
Peter Lawrie called after dinner, and besought me, as indeed have
many, to go and live with him; but nothing shall tempt me from
this sweet solitude of retirement, and activity of consolation, and
ministry to the afflicted  When he was gone I went forth
upon my outdoor ministry, and as I walked to Mr. Whyte's, along
the terraces overlooking those fields where we used to walk, three
in one, I was sore, sore distressed, and found the temptation to

188 DEVOTION AND STUDY.
'idolatry of the memory,' which the Lord delivered me from, at
the same time giving the clew to the subject which has been tak
ing form in my mind lately, to be treated as arising out of my
trial ; and the form in which it presented itself is 'the idolatry of
the affections,' which will embrace the whole evil, the whole rem
edy, and the sound condition of all relations. I proceeded to
Mrs. S., and, being somewhat out of spirits, was tempted of Satan
to return, but having been of late much exercised upon the neces
sity of implicit obedience to the will of God, I hastened to pro
ceed, and was richly rewarded in an interview with the mother
and daughter, wherein my mouth was opened, as was their heart,
and I trust seed was sown which will bear fruit. Then I returned
home through the church-yard, full of softness of heart 
Upon my return home I addressed myself to a discourse upon the
text, ' To me to live is Christ, and to die gain,' until the hour of
evening prayer, when I gathered my little flock, and having com
mended all our spirits and all our beloved ones to the Father of
mercies, we parted — they to their couches, where I trust they now
sleep in peace ; I to this sweet office of affection, which I now
close with the deep closing knell of St. Paul's sounding twelve in
my ear. My beloved Isabella, you are sleeping upon your pillow;
the God of Jacob make it rich and divine as the pillow of Padan-
aram ! My little darling, thou art resting on thy mother's bo
som; the Lord make thee unto us what Isaac was to Abraham
and Sarah ! Farewell, my beloved !
" 27$. October. I am so worn out with work that I fear it is a
vain undertaking to which I now address myself, of giving some
account of the day's transactions to my dear wife. I began the
day with a sweet exercise of private devotion, wherein the Lord
gave me more than usual composure of soul ; and having descend
ed, we read together the fourth chapter of Job, and prayed earn
estly that the Lord would enable us to fulfill His will; at and
after breakfast I read the seventy-third Psalm in Hebrew, and in
the Greek New Testament the first chapter of Hebrews ; after
which I went to my solitary walk in the garden, and was exer
cised with many thoughts which came clothed in a cloud, but
passed encircled with a rainbow. As I walked I employed my
self in committing to memory some Hebrew roots. Having re
turned to my study, I addressed myself to read two or three ad
ditional chapters and canons in the Convocation Book, and am a
good deal shaken concerning the right of subjects to take arms

VISIONS OF THE NIGHT.— BREAKFAST PARTY. 189
against their sovereign. Thereafter I labored at my discourse, in
the composition of which I find a new style creeping upon me,
whether for the better or for the worse I know not ; but this I
know, that I seek more and more earnestly to be a tongue unto
the Holy Spirit. My dinner being ended I returned to my read.
ings, and sought to entertain my mind with a volume of my book
of ancient voyages, which delights me with its simplicity. I had
a call from Mr. M  , and Dr. M  with him. I was enabled
to be very faithful, and I trust with some good effect. . . . Then
I went to church to meet my young communicants and the spirit
ual part of my people. But of all that passed, sweet and profit
able, I am unable to write, with difficulty forming my thoughts
into these feeble words. The Lord send refreshing sleep to my
dear wife and little babe, and to His servant, who has the satisfac
tion of having wearied himself in His service. Farewell !
" 28th October, Thursday. This day, my best beloved, has been
to me a day of activity and not of study, feeling it necessary to lie
by and refresh my head, whose faintness or feebleness hindered
my spirit from expressing itself last night to its beloved mate.
My visions of the night were of our dearly beloved boy, whose
death I thought all a mistake or falsehood, and that he was among
our hands still; but this, illusion was accompanied with such
prayers and refreshings of soul, and all so hallowed, that I awoke
out of it nowise disappointed with the sad reality ; and having
arisen, I addressed myself to the cleansing of body and soul, and
especially besought the Lord for simple and implicit obedience to
His holy will, of which prayer, methinks, I have this day expe
rienced the sweet and gracious answer. At family prayers and
breakfast there assembled Mr. Hamilton, our brother; Mr. Darling,
one of the flock, who came to consult concerning the schools, for
which they wish a collection, to which I am the more disposed
that all other means have failed ; Mr. Thompson, the preacher who
visited us at Kirkcaldy, and came to present me with his little re^
ligious novel of The Martyr, a tale of the first century : opus per-
difficile; Mr. M  , curate of our parish of Clerkenwell, who
came to commune with me concerning Sottdmayor and the affairs
of the parish, a man of zeal, but I fear not of much wisdom, yet
devoted to the Lord ; Mr. Johnstone, a young lawyer from Aln
wick, four years an inmate of Pears' house,* a Christian likewise,
but of the Radical or Dissenting-for-dissenting-sake school — I trust
* The school-house at Abbotshall, Kirkcaldy, referred to in Chapter IV.

190 A DAY LN THE CITY.
men of God ; and a sweet thought it is to me that the Lord should
encompass my table with His servants; for whose entertainment
Mrs. Hall (best and frugalest of housekeepers) had prepared a ham
and other eatables, with which, and tea not over strong, we were
well pleased and thankful to satisfy our hunger. After breakfast
we set out (which had been projected between Mr. Hamilton and
me) to see the walls of the new church, arising out of the earth in
massive strength to more than the height of a man, where we
found Mr. Dinwiddie, with his daughters, of whom he would not
allow one to go to Edinburgh on a visit of months without having
seen it, to carry the reports of our work. This careful elder
having pointed to Mr. Hamilton the remissness of the overseer to
be on his post betimes, we proceeded to the city ; I to visit the
flock, they to their honest callings. In Mr.  's hospitium of
business and general rendezvous of Caledonian friends, I wrote for
Elizabeth Dinwiddie a letter of pastoral commendation to Mrs.
Gordon, through whom, wife of my heart and sharer of my joys,
you will find her out if you should be resident in the city. In
the room of shawls, muslin, and muslin-boxes, which your father
found cool as the refreshing zephyrs, there were four Greeks, ne
gotiating with Alexander, by the universal language of the ex
change, the ten digits, for one other common sign had they nofc
They were small, strong, well-built fellows, turbaned, with black
hair curling from beneath high skull-caps ; and yet, I think, though
they had fire in their look, one or two English seamen carry as
much battle in their resolute faces as did these four outlandish
mariners. But I hastened to another conflict — the conflict of sor
row and sickness, in the house of our dear brother David, whose
hurt in his head threatens him grievously. ... In my first visit
I liked the complexion of his sickness ill ; he was then so moved
and overacted by my visit that we judged it best that I should
not have an interview with him. He had spoken much and de
lightfully to his excellent wife  I gathered the family to
gether, and having spoken to them, we had a season of prayer,
from whence I proceeded to Mr. L  , in order to exhort him
and his wife concerning their children, and especially concerning
the Sacrament of Baptism, which they sought for the youngest,
two months old. They are two saints, as I judge, and our com
muning was sweet. Thence I passed to Whitecross Street, in or
der to visit an old couple, Alexander M  and his wife (he
whom we got into the pension society). They are sadly tried

BOOKSTALLS.— CHRISTIAN COUNSEL. 191
With two sons, one of whom has fits of madness ; the other, accord
ing to his father's account, 'has caught the fever of the day,' be
come infidel, which he tells me is amazingly spread among the
tradesmen. Having exhorted them to zeal and steadfastness, I
passed on to Sottomayor's, whom I found correcting . a Spanish
translation of Doddridge's ' Rise and Progress ;' and after much
sweet discourse — for, dear Isabella, he proves well — his wife came
up, and he interpreted between us. She is perplexed most to give
up the honor of the Virgin — I should say the idolatry of the Vir
gin. I prayed with them, as in every other place, and hastened
home, expecting letters from my Isabella, which I found not, at
Pentonville. Thence I passed, peeping at the bookstalls, and
sometimes going a step" out of my way, but purchasing nothing,
though sore tempted with St. Bernard's works, until I reached
Bedford Square, where I found the two proof-sheets with the let
ter, which was like water to my soul. But one o'clock has struck.
William Hamilton came at six, when we went to St. Peter's. . . .
After which, returning home with sweet discourse, I assembled
my family, and when I prayed there wept one, I know not which
(may they be tears of penitence and contrition !) ; and having sup
ped upon my cup of milk and slice of toast, I have wrought at
this sweet occupation till this early hour. And now, with a hus
band's and a father's blessing upon my sleeping treasures— a mas
ter's blessing on my faithful servant, and a son and brother's upon
all your house — I go to commit myself to the arms of Him who
slumbers not nor sleeps. Farewell.
" Walthamstow, 29th, Friday. This morning, my dear Isabella, I
excused myself a little longer rest by the lateness of my home-re
turning last night and my weariness, which you will observe is
not right ; for, unless there be some fixed hour, there can be no
regularity, of which the great use is to form a restraint upon our
willfulness. Moreover, I always find that the work of the Lord
proceeds with me during the day according to my readiness to
serve Him in the morning. Oh, when shall my eyes prevent the
morning, that I might meditate in His law or lift up my soul unto
His throne ! After our morning prayers, our friend Mr. W. came
in, much grieved in spirit by the vexations of the world, and the
mistreatments of one whom he thought his friend. But I told
him that his faith was unremoved and unremovable, and his wife
and children spared to him, and daily bread furnished out to
them, therefore he ought not so sadly to grieve himself. ... I ad-

192 IN FAINTNESS AND FERVOR.
dressed myself to my main occupation of preparing food for my
people, beginning a lecture upon the first three verses of the eighth
chapter of Luke, which I sought to introduce by giving a sketch,
chiefly taken from the preceding chapter, of what kind His min
istry was likely to be in these cities, in which I think I had no
small liberty granted to my mind and to my pen, for which I had
earnestly besought the Lord in the morning. And having well
exhausted myself by about one o'clock, and brought the discourse
to a resting-place, I judged I could not do better than gather my
implements and walk over to Walthamstow, that I might have
the more time with our afflicted friends. . . . I -pursued my road
alone, reflecting much upon the emptiness of all our expectations,
and the transitoriness of all our enjoyments, seeing that the last
time I traveled that way I had pleased myself with having found
a road through the park, by which you and I and dear Edward
might oft walk out of a summer eve to see our friends ; and now
little Edward and our esteemed friend are in the dust. Be it so.
I praise the Lord for His goodness, and so do you, my dearest
wife. I found our dear friends as I could have wished 
Having assembled the family, and encouraged them to stand fast
in the Lord and see his wonders, we joined in worship, and the
ladies retired, leaving me in this room, dear, and sitting in the
spot where our friend used so cheerfully to entertain -us. . . . Oh,'
Isabella, my soul is sometimes stirred up, and sometimes languish
es with much faintness, yet with a very faint as well as a very
fervent cry, I will entreat Him that I may be wholly His, in my
strength and in my weakness. I pray for you all continually. I
bless you and our dear babe night and morning, not forgetting
Mary, whom I entreat to advance, and not to go back. . . . Now,
my dearest, how glad should we be that the fresh, free air of our
house was eminently servicable to Hall, with whom it might have
gone very hard in his confined place. The servant is now about
to leave us; and then we are Hall, his wife, his wife's cousin,
three most worthy people. ... So be wholly at rest, my dearest,
concerning my comfort, and regulate your time wholly by consid
eration for your health and dear Margaret's. The solitude does
me good. It teaches me my blessedness in such a wife, which I
have much forgotten, but now, thank God, forget not. . . . But
time hastens, and my eyes grow heavy and my conceptions dull.
The Lord, who preserved the Virgin and the Blessed Babe on
their journey to Egypt, preserve my wife and babe, and bring

"FOR THE CONSOLATION OF EDWARD'S MOTHER." 193
them in safety to their home, and their home in my heart. This
night may His arms be around you, and soft and gentle sleep seal
your eyelids, and when you awake may you be with Him. Amen.
" 29th, Saturday. " 'Long have I viewed, long have I thought,
And trembling held the bitter draught ;
But now resolved and firm I'll be,
Since 'tis prepared and mixed by Thee.
" ' I'll trust my great Physician's skill,
What He prescribes can ne'er be ill ;
No longer will I groan or pine,
Thy pleasure 'tis — it shall be mine.
" 'Thy medicine oft produces smart,
Thou wound'st me in the tenderest part ;
All that I prized below is gone ;
Yet, Father, still Thy will be done.
" ' Since 'tis Thy sentence I shall part
With what is nearest to my heart,
My little all I here resign,
And lo ! my heart itself is Thine.
" 'Take all, Great God. I will not grieve,
But wish I still had more to give.
I hear Thy voice ; Thou bidd'st me quit
This favored gourd, and I submit.'
" These lines, my dearest, were brought in for the consolation
of Mrs. I  by the two pious sisters in whom our departed
friend used to rejoice so much. I thought them so pious and
obedient in their spirit that I immediately copied them out for
the consolation of Edward's mother. Dear Isabella, if the fruit
^of our marriage had been no more than to give birth and being
to so sweet a spirit, I would bless the Lord that He had ever giv
en you to my arms.
"I am in Dr. M  's back dining-room, so far on my way
home. . . . So, to place myself in the sweetest company which
the world possesses for me, I have taken my pen in hand. I know
not how it is, my dear, that I find not the communion I looked
for in the company of Mrs. I  . Her mind is fidgety or
flighty, I know not which. ... So it is with me also, and with
all others who nourish their own will in its hidden places. An
evidence, my dear, of those who nourish their own will, is the
carelessness which they have in expressing their thought, and
manifesting it to others/ Being manifest to themselves, they stop
short, and heed not the farther revealing it. How this has been
my character, and that of Mrs. I  ! Hence our inability to en-
N

194 INFLUENCE OF THE LANDSCAPE.
ter into communion; for communion implies one common, not
two several minds. The true access and assurance of good soci
ety* is the communion of the Holy Spirit, which if you cultivate,
my beloved wife, it will be well for you in all relations, and so
also for me. As Christ is the author of all true regulation of the
mind, or understanding, or reason, so the Holy Ghost is the au
thor of all true love, and affection, and communion, out of which
all forms of society spring. But for Miss B  , I think her, so
far as I can judge, a faithful and true disciple of the Lord ; rather,
perhaps, over-theological, and not enough practiced in the inward
obedience of the mind. Oh, my dearest, this obedience is the per
fection of the Christian — obedience, in the thought, obedience in'
the feeling, obedience in the action. Think much of this, for it is
true, true I As I came over these fields and marshes, and by that
running water, there revived in me some effeminate feelings, which
convince me that there is an intimate connection between the soft
er and more luxurious forms of nature, and the softer passions of
the mind ; for I am never visited with any such fleshly thoughts
when moving through the mountains and wilds of my native
country; and, to my judgment, this tendency of visible beauty,
variety, and richness to cultivate the sensual part of our nature,
which obscures the intellectual and moral, is the true account that,
being left to themselves without religion, the people of the plains
sink into lethargy and luxury of soul far sooner than the people
of the mountains. The eye hath more to do with the flesh than
any other sense, although they be all its vile ministers. Oh,
when shall I be delivered from these base bonds ? When shall I
desire to be delivered, and loathe them with my soul?
" Dr. M  interrupted me, and I now write by my fireside,
whither the Lord has conducted me again in safety, preparing all
things for my reception. I have finished both my discourses, and '
have had a season of discourse and prayer with the three women
whose tears are the tokens of their emotion. Oh, that they may
be saved! .... Dr. M  pleases me not a little. He is an
exact, but formal man, yet he seems to possess more insight into
theology than I had thought. One discourse was profitable and
full of argument. The University! makes progress, and the good-
* Irving uses this word in the Scotch sense — good company, fellowship. The so
cial faculty is evidently what he means.
t London University, which was then being established, and which, in conse
quence of the exclusion of religion, Irving strenuously opposed.

WISDOM AND POWER.— PRAYERS FOR THE ABSENT. 195
natured doctor thinks he has mellowed them into the adoption of
some measure defensive of religion. He pleases himself with the
thought that Dr. Cox can do every thing or any thing with Brough
am. ' The man who thinks he hath Brougham captive hathl
caught a Tartar. He has more of the whirlpool quality in him
than any man I have met with ; and he careth not for wisdom,
but for power only.' These were some of my exclamations in
the midst of the doctor's simplicity. Observe, Isabella, that the
philosopher, or lover of wisdom, is a grade higher than the lovers
of power, or the monarchs who have reached it. Hence, when a
truly great man chances to be a king, he desires wisdom more
over, as Alfred did, and others after, as Justinian and Napoleon ;
but no philosopher ever cared to be a king — Pythagoras, or Pla
to, or Socrates, for instance. There are no philosophers nowa
days, because they are all ambitious of power or eminence. Even
Basil Montagu is desirous of power — that is, his own will ; and
Coleridge is desirous of power — that is, the good-will of others, or
the idolatry of himself. The Christian is both priest and king, a
minister of wisdom and a possessor of power. The rest I leave to
your own reflections. I had much earnest discourse with Mr.
T  on our way home, concerning his vocation. The Lord be
his defense. And now, Edward Irving, another day hath passed
over thy head, and hast thou occupied the time well ? Art thou
worthy of to-morrow ? I have passed the day amiss, and am not
worthy of to-morrow. I have been in communion with myself.
I have loved myself better than another. I know not whether I
have been altogether temperate ; and yet will I praise the Lord,
for I have prayed oft, and I have written my discourses in a spir
itual frame of mind. But oh ! my meditations, why centre ye at
home so much ? Now may the Lord prepare me for to-morrow's
holy dawn, and all my people, and give me strength to beget one
unto Christ, whom I may call my sonb How doth my sweet
daughter, my dear child? Thou seed of an immortal! the Lord
make light thy swaddling-band, and salvation thy swathing round
about thee ! And thou, my most excellent wife ! when shall these
eyes behold thee, and these lips call thee blessed, and these arms
embrace thee? In the Lord's good time. When Thou judgest
it to be best, oh my God, direct them to a good time, and conduct
them by a healthy way. Thou doest all things well. And this
night encircle them with Thy arm where they lie, and bless the
house where they dwell for their sake. Make my wife like the

196 INTERCEDING FOR THE PEOPLE.
ancient women, and my child like the seed of the fathers of Thy
Church. And, oh ! that Thy servant might be held in remem
brance by the generation of the godly. Bless also Thine hand-
Ifenaiden, our faithful servant. Even so, my family, let the bless
ing of God encompass us all.
"Sunday, 30th. This has been to me a day to be held in remem
brance, my dearest wife, for the strength with which the Lord hath
endowed me to manifest his truth. I pray it may be a day to be
remembered for the strength with which He hath endowed many
of my people to conceive truth and bring forth its fruitfulness.
In the morning I rose before eight, and having sought to purify
myself by prayer for the sanctification of the Sabbath, I came
down to the duties of my family ; but, before passing out of my
bedchamber, let me take warning, and admonish my dear Isabella
how necessary it is for the first opening of our eyelids upon the
sweet light of the morning to open the eye of our soul upon its
blessed light, which is Christ, otherwise the tempter will carry us
away to look upon some vanity or folly in the kingdom of this
world, and so divert our souls as that, when they come to lift
themselves up to God, they shall find no concentration of spirit
upon God, no sweet flow of holy desires, no strong feeling of want
to extort supplication or groanings of soul, so that we shall have
complainings of absence instead of consolations of His holy pres
ence, barrenness and leanness for faithfulness and beauty. So,
alas ! I found it in the morning; but the Lord heard the voice of
my crying, and sent me this instruction, which may He enable me
and my dear wife to profit from in the time to come. After our
family worship, in which I read the first chapter of the Hebrews,
as preparatory to reading it in the church, .Mr. Dinwiddie, our
worthy and venerable elder, came in as usual, and we joined in
prayer for the blessing of the Lord upon the ministry of the Word
this day throughout all the churches, and especially in the church
and congregation given into our hand; whereupon he departed,
having some preparations to make before the service, and I went
alone, meditating upon that first of Hebrews, which has occupied
my thoughts so much all the week. We began by singing the
first six verses of the forty-fifth Psalm, whose reference to Messiah
I shortly instructed the people to bear in mind. In prayer I found
much liberty, especially in confession of sin and humiliation of
soul, for the people seemed bowed down, very still and silent, and.
full of solemnity ; then, having read the first of Hebrews, I told

A SUNDAY'S SERVICES. 197
them that it was the epistle for instructing them in the person and
offices of Christ as our mediator, both priest and king; but that it
wholly bore upon the present being of the man Christ Jesus, from
the time that he was begotten from the dead, not upon his former
being, from eternity before He became flesh, which was best to be
understood from the Gospel by John, but for the new character
which He had acquired by virtue of His incarnation and resurrec
tion, and the relations in which He stood to the Church and to
the world, this epistle is the great fountain of knowledge, though,
at the same time, it throws much light upon His eternal Sonship
and divinity, by the way of allusion and acknowledgment in pass
ing ; that the purpose of the epistle was to satisfy the believing
Hebrews, who were terribly assailed and tempted by their unbe
lieving brethren, and confirm them in the superiority of Christ to
Moses as a lawgiver, to Aaron and the Levitical priesthood as a
priest, and to angels, through whose ministry they believed that
the law was given, as the apostle himself teacheth in his Epistle
to the Galatians. And therefore he opens with great dignity the
solemn discourse by connecting Christ with all the prophets, and
exalts Him above all rank and comparison by declaring His in
heritance, His workmanship, His prerogative of representing God,
of upholding the universe, of purging our sins by Himself, and
sitting at the right hand of the majesty on high. Then, address
ing himself to his work, he demonstrates His superiority to angels,
in order, not to the adjustment of His true dignity — which he had
already made peerless — but to the exaltation of the dispensation
which he brought, above the former which was given by angels.
This demonstration he makes by reference to psalms, which, by
the belief of all the Jewish Church, from the earliest times, were
understood of Messiah, which quotations, however, far surpass, in
finitely surpass the purpose for which they are quoted, placing
Him, each one, on a level with God, to us, at least, to whom that
doctrine hath been otherwise revealed. But those Psalms looking
forward to Messiah's glory can consequently have only an applica
tion posterior to the time that He was Messiah, and that he was
Messiah in humility. Therefore, the ' this day' is the day either
of His birth or of His ascension, the ' first-begotten' is from the
dead, and the ' kingdom' is the kingdom purchased by His obedi
ence unto the death ; and hence the reason given for His exalta
tion is, because He hath loved righteousness and hated iniquity.
These trains of reasoning and quotation being concluded, I chal-

198 SERMON.
lenged them to remark the sublimity of that from the 102d Psalm,
and thence took occasion to rebuke them very sharply for going
after idolatries of profane poets, and fictitious novelists, and mea
gre sentimentalists, who are Satan's prophets, and wear his livery
of malice, and falsehood, and mocking merriment, while they for
sook the prophets of the Lord, and their sublime, pathetic, true,
wise, and everlasting forms of discourse. Then, having begun
with a prayer that the Lord would make the reading of this Epis
tle effectual to the confirming their faith in Christ's character, offi
ces, and work, and possessing them of the efficacy thereof, I con
cluded with a prayer that the Lord would enlarge our souls by
that powerful word which had now been preached to us of His
great grace.
" Then we sung the last verses of the 102d Psalm, and prayed
in the words of the Lord. The sermon* was from Phil., i., 21, to
which I introduced their attention by explaining my object to
show them the way to possess and be assured of that victory over
death, of which, last Lord's day, I showed them the great achieve
ment (1 Cor., xv.j 55-57) ; then, having, in a few sentences, embod
ied Paul's sublime dilemma between living and dying, I joined
earnest battle with the subject, and set to work to explain the life
that was Christ, which I drew out of Gal., ii., 20, to consist in a
total loss of personality and self^ and surrender of all our being
unto Him who hath purchased us with His blood, leaving us no
longer ' our own' — which condition of being, though it seem ideal
and unattainable, is nothing else than the obedience of the first
great commandment, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,' &c. ;
since to be so identified, and at one with Christ, was only to be
wholly in love with, and obedient to the Father. Now this con
dition of life must insure to all who have reached to it the same
grace at death which Christ, the man Christ, the Messiah, by His
resurrection, attained to — or, if not wholly at death, partially then,
and wholly at the resurrection. For I argued from the 2d of the
Hebrews that whatever Christ attained to His people attained to,
and also from all the promises in the 2d and 3d of the Revelations
to those who overcome. This gave me great purchase upon the
subject, allowing me the whole scope of the contrast between
* This wonderful resume of the day's services will give a better idea than any de
scription of the lengthened and engrossing character of these discourses, into which
the preacher went with his whole soul and heart, and of the extraordinary fascina
tion which could hold his audience interested through exercises so long, close, and
solemn.

EVENING SERVICE. 199
Christ's humiliation and exaltation ; which having wrought ac
cording to my gift, I then proceeded to show the vanity of any
lower estimate of the life which is 'Christ' by touching many
popular errors, such as place it in a sound faith merely, or in a
correct morality, or in a religious conformity, against which hav
ing opposed the universality and unreservedness of obedience, the
thoroughness of redemption, and the perfectness of regeneration,
I told them and warned them of sad misgivings on a death-bed,
of desperate fears and hoodwinkings of the conscience, showing
them that the believer could not die hard, like the unbeliever, or
brutified, like the carnalist; and I prayed them, when these doubt-
ings came upon them, to remember that this day they had been
warned by a minister of the Gospel. I had a good deal of matter
still remaining, but Mr. Lee's child being to be baptized, and the
quarterly collection to be gathered, I stopped there, the place being
convenient. " We sang the three first verses of the 23d Psalm, and con
cluded. Mr. Hamilton walked home with me, and we enjoyed
much spiritual discourse. I refused to dine with him, and also
with Mr. Dinwiddie, and had my chop, which, being eaten with
thankfulness, was sweet. Benjamin shared with me, and was sad
ly afflicted to hear of little Edward's death. I am sure it does
not trouble you to speak of our departed joy, else I would desist.
I rested the interval, meditating upon the 22d chapter of Genesis ;
and having gone forth, not without prayer and thanksgiving, to
my second ministry, I have reason to give God thanks for his gra
cious support. From the chapter I took occasion first to observe,
in general, that it was for the instruction of families, as the fount
of nations., in God's holiness ; . . . I observed how it was that
idolatry in the people and true piety in the king were found to
gether, even as, among the Roman Catholics, you have among the
priests singular saints, while the body of the people are rank and
gross idolaters. . . . The Lecture was upon Luke, xiii:, 1 ; when
I sought, first, to give the character of our Lord's ministry in their
towns and villages, deriving it from the specimen of Nain, and
other fragments from the preceding pages, its munificence of well
doing, its public discourses, sifting and sounding the hearers, its
private ministrations in houses and families, improving each to
the justification and recommendation of a higher kind of ministry
than what presently prevails among us. . . . Such, dear, hath
been my employment this day, of which I give you this account

200 AT HOME.— SOTTOMAYOR.
before I sleep, that you may be edified. . . . The Lord be gra
cious unto you, and to our little babe, and to our faithful servant,
for He regards me accountable for all my household. Therefore
I exhort you all to holiness and love. The Lord reunite us all in
peace and blessedness.
"Monday, Zlst October. I now sit down, my dear Isabella, to
give you the humble history of another day, which, from yester
day's exhaustion, hath been a day of weakness. What a restraint
and hinderance this flesh and blood is upon the inflamed spirit,
and to what degradation that spirit is reduced which doth not
beat its weary breast against the narrow cage which confineth it.
But to fret and consume away with struggles against the conti
nent flesh is rather the part of discontented and proud spirits than
of those who are enlightened in the faith of Christ, to whom the
encumbrance which weighs them down is a constant memorial of
the resurrection, and by the faith of the resurrection soothed
down into patience and contentment. Besides, the bodily life is
to them the period of destinies so infinite, and the means of char
ities so enlarged, that it is often a matter of doubt and question
with them, as with St. Paul, whether it is better to depart and be
with Christ, which is far better, or to remain in the flesh, which is
more profitable to the Church. And I do trust that my abode
this day in an overstrained tabernacle hath not been unprofitable
to that Church which is the pillar and ground of the truth. It
was a day devoted to private conversations with those who pro
pose, for the first time, to join themselves to the Church at our
approaching communion. When I came down to breakfast, my
table was spread with the welcome news of Anne P  's mer
ciful delivery, which Mr. M  had come to tell me of, but not
finding me, had written out. Sottomayor was waiting for me, and
joined with us in our morning worship. He is in good cheer, but
in want of another hour's teaching, in order to keep his head above
water, which, I trust, will be obtained for him by that merciful
Providence which has watched over his wife and him. By-the-
by, I had taken upon me the task of inquiring, while in the north,
what opening Edinburgh presented for his brother, the soldier,
which my various unforeseen duties hindered me from fulfilling.
Would you give that in trust to some one and let me know ? I
think Sottomayor, the priest, is truly confirmed in the faith, and
I have good reason to think that the soldier is finding relief for
the multitude of his doubts. There came also to breakfast with

SCOTTISH ADVENTURERS.— A WOMAN OF TEARS. 201
me a Mr. M  and a Mr. C  (I think), of neither of whom I
know any thing, except that the former had met me in Glasgow.
He has come to this town on adventure, like so many of our coun
trymen, and came to me in his straits to help him to a situation,
leading with him, or being led by, the other lad. I thought it
hard enough to be by so slight a thread bound to so secular a
work ; but looking to the lad, and seeing in him an air of serious
ness and good sense, and thinking of his helplessness, I felt it my
duty to encourage "him ; and though I could not depart from my
rule of not meddling with secular affairs, and stated so to him
plainly, I penciled him a word to Alex. Hamilton to give him
counsel. At the same time I declared to him what I believe to
be the truth, that this coming upon venture from a place we are
occupied well, and sustained in daily food from our occupation,
merely that we may rise in the world, is not a righteous thing be
fore God, however approved by our ambitious countrymen ; and
though it may be successful in bringing them to what they seek,
a fortune and an establishment in the world, it is generally unsuc
cessful in increasing them in the riches of the kingdom, in which
they become impoverished every day, until they are the hardest,
most secular, worldly, and self-seeking creatures which this me
tropolis contains. Let them come, if they have any kindred or
friends to whose help they may( come, or if they be in want, for
then they come on an errand which the Lord may countenance ;
but let them come merely for desire of gain, or of getting on, and
they come at Mammon's instigation, with whom our God doth not
co-operate at all. ... I began the duties of the day at ten o'clock,
with Mrs. C  , the woman whom Lady Mackintosh recommend
ed to you for a matron. She has been a mother of tears, having
lost, since she came to England, about twenty -five years ago, hus
band, and child, and mother, and brothers three, and all her kin
dred but one brother, who still lives in Buchan. The loss of her
little daughter, at six years of age, by an accident upon the streets,
brought her to the very edge of derangement, in the excess of her
grief, so that, like Job, she was glad when the sun went down,
and shut out the cheerful light from her eyes. But the Lord re
strained this natural sorrow, that it should not work utter death,
as its nature is to do, in consideration, I doubt not, of her faith,
and for the farther sanctification of her soul. . . . She left Scot
land without her mother's consent (why, I did not venture to ask),
and in six months her mother was no more to give or withhold

202 CATECHUMENS.—TWO SISTERS.
her consent, which made her miseries in England have something
in them, to her mind, of a mother's curse ; and this, she told me,
was bitterness embittered. Tell this to all your sisters, that they
may honor their parents, and never gainsay their mother. Tell it
also to Mary, and let Mary tell it to her sisters ; but withhold the
woman's name ; that, like many other things I write, is to your
self alone. . . . This good woman, whose face is all written over
with sorrow and sadness, like Mrs. M  's, had been a member
of Dr. Nicol's church till his death, whose ministry had been to
her a great consolation. Tell this to James Nicol when you see
him ; and say that, now that he is inheriting his father's prayers,
he must walk in his father's footsteps, and comfort the afflicted
flock of Christ, which is our anointed calling, as it was that of our
great Master. Obey this at the commandment of your husband.
This woman satisfied me well, both as to knowledge and spirit,
and I admitted her freely thus far. . She is now a sort of guardian-
servant to a lady in Bloomsbury, who has partial and occasional
aberrations of mind. The Lord bless her in such a tender case !
" My next spiritual visitants were the two Misses A  , whom
I am wont to meet at Mr. Cassel's, of whom the younger came to
my instructions, drawn by spiritual concern, the elder to accom
pany the younger, and thus both have been led to come forward
— I fear the latter still rather as a companion than as a disciple.
But oh ! the difference ; as a lad who has just parted from me
said, 'Grace gives to the youth a fuller majesty, without any petty
pride,' so I found it here in the difference between the living spirit
of the one's conversation and words, and the shaped formality and
measured cadence of the other. I propose looking here a little
deeper; but as I have several days devoted to farther instruction,
I made no demur at present, though I counseled them fervently
and prayed with them both. My next was a Miss S  , from
Johnstone, near Paisley, who has come to London to be under her
brother's medical care — a fine Scotch head, with an art-pale coun
tenance, and fine Grecian outline of face ; she is a regular mem
ber of the Church in her native place, but out of her own will
came to speak with me ; and, though feeble in strength, we were
able to commune and pray together to our mutual comfort. My
last, at one o'clock, was Mrs. R  , a widow lady of most devout
and intelligent appearance, who has been in the habit, for many
months, of attending my Wednesday ministrations, bringing a son
or a daughter in her hand, with the latter of whom, a sweet girl

A SON FROM THE LORD. 203
of about seven, she came attended. And we joined in discourse,
and I found in her a most exercised and tender spirit, whose hus
band of her youth had been cut off from her in the East Indies,
and left her three sons and a daughter ; the former she had now
come up to town to prepare for cadetships ; afterward to return,
with her daughter, to the country again, to rear her in the fear of
the Lord. And of her eldest son, whom she had watched over
with such care for six years, having for that time lived with them
in Beverley, for no other end but to educate them herself, in which
occupation she met with the healing of God to her own soul in
the midst of scoffers and deriders (whereof the memory to men
tion drew tears from her eyes) — her eldest son, who had shown
no signs of grace under her most careful instruction, being now,
like herself, for the sake of the Hindostanee language, placed
among the alien as his mother was, has since shown such a new
character, and written such letters as she never expected to receive
from him ; and then she communed with me of sweet domestic
interests in such a devout and simple way, with so many appli
cations for instruction, and such a tender interest in two half-caste
daughters of her husband, whom she has cared for as her own,
that I delight to think what a sweet companion she will make for
you, my dearest, when you return. Thus passed a forenoon, not
without its mark in memory's chart.
"I walked down to Mrs. M.  's in order to inquire after
Anne  But time forestalls my wishes, dear Isabella.
Twelve has struck, and the sweetest, holiest scene of the day re
mains untold. I prayed for a son, and the Lord this night hath
brought me my son, Henry S  , a youth who called on me be
fore my northern visit, and then showed tokens of grace which I
had not time to consider ; but this night, though but an appren
tice, he hath, being the last of my visitants, showed such wonder
ful seriousness of mind, soberness of reason, purity of life, and
richness of character, as far outpasses in promise any youth that
I have been the means of bringing unto Christ. And when at
nine we assembled to prayer, and Hall showed his pale, emaciated
face, and head but sprouting again from the shaver's razor, along
with the rest of my household, and I gave him my easy-chair in
consideration of his weakness, oh, Isabella, I felt like a priest and
a patriarch ! and the Lord enabled us to have one of the sweetest
occasions of praising Him and serving Him which for a long time
I have enjoyed ; so that we parted bedewed with tears from our

204 WEARINESS.— COMMUNICANTS.
prayers, in which we never forgot you and our separated family ;
after which, while I partook of my usual repast, I glanced at that
very remarkable article 'Milton,' in the 'Edinburgh Review,'
which came in from the library. I take it to be young Macau-
lay's. It is clever — oh, it is full of genius — but little grace. The
ology of this day — politics of this day — neither sound. Oh, envi
ous Time, why dunnest thou me ? I write to my wife to comfort
and edify her, and bless her, and my babe, and my servant, and
all my kindred of her father's honorable and pious house. Well,
I come. Farewell, my dear wife.
"November 1st, Tuesday. The command of King George could
not have made me take a pen in my hand this night, dearest Isa
bella ; and now that I have taken it in hand, I exceedingly ques
tion whether this weary head will drive it over another line. But,
dear, your thanks with me ! I have had such a harvest of six
precious souls, whose spiritual communications have carried me al
most beyond my power of enduring delight. The Lord doth in
deed honor me. But, ah ! this will not do ; I must leave off. To
morrow, the Lord sparing me, I will set forth the particulars to
my Isabella, whom, with my dear daughter, may the Lord this
night preserve.
"2d, Wednesday. It was well-nigh nine o'clock before I was
recruited this morning with strength enough to go forth to my
labors ; for these mental and spiritual labors, being in excess, do
as truly require an extra quantity of rest as do bodily and social
labors. But I have risen, thank God, well recruited, and have
proceeded thus far on the day (five o'clock) very prosperously.
The first of my communicants yesterday was a Mary B  , from
Hatton Garden, a young woman of a sweet and gracious appear
ance and discourse, who, with her mother and a numerous family,
were early cast upon God's care, who hath cared for them accord
ing to His promise. I was much pleased with the simplicity and
sincerity of her heart, and the affectionate way in which she spoke
of her Lord ; so that she left no doubt on my mind of her being,
to the extent of her knowledge and talents, a faithful and true
disciple. I shall seek another interview with her ; for I do not
feel that I have got acquainted with her spirit, or else it is of so
simple and catholic a form as to have no character to distinguish
it. The next was my old acquaintance, Sarah Evans, the wild
girl, who was somewhat carried in her mind, if you remember, in
the beginning of a sermon, and whom I visited at Dr.  's, in

RETURNS TO THE CONVOCATION BOOK. 205
Bloomsbury. I little expected to see her so soon, and so com
pletely restored, although she still gives one the idea of one on
whom our friend Greaves would work wonders by animal mag
netism. I have a moral certainty that this is her temperament,
and that her temporary instability was rather a somnambulism of
the spirit than any insanity or derangement of mind. Smce her
seventeenth year she has been a denizen of this great hive of men,
friendless and without kindred, and has partook the watchful care
of the Great Shepherd. She is a spirit full of inspirations. Her
very words are remarkable, and there is a strange abundance and
fertility in her sayings which astonishes me. She has already
had much influence on her fellow-servants, who have banished
cards and idle, worldly books. Poor Sarah (and yet thou art not
poor), I feel a strange feeling toward thee, as if thou wert not
wholly dwelling upon the earth, nor wholly present when I con
verse with thee. And sure it is, dear Isabella, she has always to
recall herself, as from a distance, before she answers your inqui
ries ; and even the word is but like an echo. Of her spirituality
I have no doubt, though still she seems to me like a stranger.
Her master at present is Dr. H  , one of my brother's medical
teachers here, who inquires at her occasionally about my brother
and about the Caledonian church, from which I presume that
every one recognizes in her the same unlikeness to another and
to her station.
"These occupied me till eleven o'clock, after -which I went
forth to breathe the air into the garden, in expectation of another
visitor ; and, as usual, for his memory hangs on every twig, the
little darling whom I used to fondle and instruct came to my re
membrance, and bowed me down with a momentary sorrow, which
passed, full of sweetness, into what train of thought I have now
forgotten. I occupied myself with my Convocation Book, which
is to me what a politician and Christian of the year 1600 would
be if I could have him to converse with me and deliver his opin
ions. It embodies the ideas of the English Church in full convo
cation upon all points connected with the government of the
Church and of the world, and hath done more than any other
thing to scatter the rear of radicalism from my mind, and to give
me insight into the true principles of obedience to government.
There are, my dear, certain great feelings or laws of the soul, un
der which it grows into full stature, of which obedience to govern
ment is one, communion with- the Church is another, trust in the

206 STUDY.
providence of God another, and so forth, which form the original
demand in the soul, both for religion, and law, and family, and to
answer which these were appointed of God, and are preserved by
His authority. My notion is, that the ten commandments contain
the ten principal of these mother-elements of a thriving soul — these
laws of laws, and generating principles of all institutions. These
also, I think, ought to be made the basis of every system of moral
and political philosophy. But all this is but looming upon my
eye, and durst not be spoken in Scotland, under the penalty of
high treason against their laws of logic and their enslaved spirit
of discourse. By-the-by, when I speak of Scotland, it was about
this time of day when I received a letter from Dr. Gordon, asking
me to preach a sermon in some chapel which Dr. Waugh has pro
cured for the Scots Missionary Society, and bring the claims of ,
that Society before the greatpeople of London. I mean to an
swer it by referring them to my Orations on the Missionary Doc
trine, as being my contribution to the Society. . . . But I must
go to the church to preach from John, xiv., 27. The Lord
strengthen me.
"And now, having enjoyed no small portion of His presence
for one so unworthy, I return to my sweet occupation of making
my dear Isabella the sharer and partner of my very soul. From
the garden, where I communed with the canons of the convoca
tion, and with my own meditations on these elemental principles
of wisdom, I returned, and upon looking over my paper, I found I
had no more visitors till five o'clock ; so I addressed myself to my
discourse, which I purposed from Gal., ii., 20, in continuation and
enlargement of that from Phil., i., 21 ; but, going into the context,
I was drawn away to write concerning the Church in Antioch,
which occasioned the dispute between Paul and Peter, until I
found it was too late to return, so that my discourse has changed
its shape into a lecture, and where it will end you shall know on
Sabbath, if the Lord spare me. At five came a young man, by
name Peter Samuel, of a boyish appearance, very modest and
backward, a native of Edinburgh, and by trade a painter in grain ;
in whom, Isabella, I found such real utterance of the Spirit, such
an uplifted and enlarged soul, that I could but lie back upon my
chair and listen. The Lord bless the youth ! It was very mar
velous ; such grace, such strength of understanding, such meek
ness, such wisdom! He is also one of the fruits of my ministry;
had wandered like a sheep without a shepherd, ' creeping by the

A. REUNION OF YOUNG CHRISTIANS. 207
earth,' until, in hearing me, he seemed exalted into the third
heavens, at times hardly knowing whether he was in the body or
out of the body. ' And all the day long, at my work, I am hap
py, and in communion with the Church, which is every where dif
fused around me like the air;' and he arose into the mysteries of
the Trinity, and his soul expatiated in a marvelous way. At six
I had made double appointments ; the one for James Scott, a state
ly, bashful lad from Earlston, on the Leader, between Lauder and
Melrose — the residence, in days of yore, of Thomas the Rhymer —
who is come to town to prosecute his studies as an artist. He is
already in full communion with the Church, but loved the oppor
tunity of conversing with me ; and the other was of two who de
sire to come in company, John R  , a man of about thirty-five,
and C  , a young lad of about twenty. Moreover, Samuel had
not departed ; and I think they had been congregated of the Lord
on very purpose to encourage my heart and strengthen my hands,
for it is not to be told what a heavenly hour they spent in making
known the doings of the Lord to their souls ; and the two latter
told me that every Sabbath they held meetings, before and after
church, with others of the Church. Poor Samuel had been la
menting his loneliness, but now his soul was filled with company
who welcomed him to their heart ; and Scott had now one whose
spirit and manners attracted him; and I was lost in wonder how
the Lord should work such things by my unworthiness. But re
membering my ministerial calling, I opened to them the duty of
self-denial in the expression of our spiritual experiences before
the world, lest they should profane these sanctuaries of our God ;
and the necessity of wisdom to veil with parable and similitude,
before the weak eye of man, the brightness of the pure and simple
truth, reserving for the Lord and for his saints the unveiled reve
lations of our higher delights. Upon which life, having enlarged
to their great seeming contentment, we joined our prayers to
gether, and they departed. Now these men who thus commune
together are of most diverse ranks. C  is a gentleman's son ;
R  , though of high expectations, has been reduced to fill some
inferior office in Clement's Inn ; and the others, whom I know, are
Scotch lads, working as journeymen ; so true is it that there is no
difference in Christ Jesus. After seven I went to the meeting of
the Sabbath-school teachers. : . . After I returned home, I wrote
a letter to Constantinople to L  , who sends us the figs, exhort
ing him to stand fast among the alien ; which altogether was a day

208 "A VERY RICH HARVEST."
of such exhaustion as unfitted me for writing to you the particu
lars of it, that you might rejoice in my joy, and give praise unto
the Lord, when you know the blessing which He is pouring out
upon my ministry. Oh that He w.ould . give me food for these
sheep, and a rich pasture, and a shepherd's watchfulness, and the
love of the Chief Shepherd, that I might even die for them, if
need were ! In all which spiritual conditions I am much encour
aged by what yesterday the Lord brought before me.
" And now, dearest, this day hath been a day of thought which
has hardly yet taken form to be distinctly represented ; but on
Sabbath I will communicate the result. Only I have had much
insight given me into the Epistle to the Galatians, from which the
matter of my discourse will be taken. At six I went forth to my
duties, and opened to my children the nature of the Christian
Church, as being to the world what the new man is to the old ;
what the body, after the resurrection, is to the present body. . . .
After which, commending them to the grace of God, I returned to
the vestry, and came forth again to discourse to the people of
Christ's bequest of peace. . . . But, though my head could thus
rudely bloek out the matter, I wanted strength and skill to de
lineate it as it deserved, which, if I be in strength, I shall do it
another time. . . . After the lecture, ten more came, desirous to
converse with me ; so that I shall have, by the blessing of God, a
very rich harvest this season. . . . The Lord be with thy spirit.
" Thursday, Nov. 3d. Last night, my dearest Isabella, upon my
bed I had one of those temptations of Satan, with which I per
ceive, by your affectionate letter, that you are oft troubled, and
which I shall therefore recount to you. The occasion of it was
the memory of our beloved boy, who hath now got home out of
Satan's dominion. That morning he was taken by the Lord I
was sleeping in the back room, when dear sister Anne, who loved
him as dearly as we all did, came in about three or four o'clock
in the morning, and said, ' Get up, for Edward is much worse.'
The sound of these words, caught in my sleeping ear, shot a cold
shiver through my frame like the hand of death, and I arose. Of
this I had not thought again till, last night on my bed, before
sleeping, Satan seemed to bring to my ear these words; and, as
he brought them, the cold shiver trickled to my very extremities.
I thought to while it away, but it was vain ; and I remembered
that the only method of dealing with him is by faith, and of over
coming him by the word of God. So I took his suggestion in

PASTORAL VISITS. 209
good part, and meditated all the sufferings of the darling, which
are too fresh upon my mind ; and sought to ascend, by that help,
to the sympathy of our Lord's sufferings, and to take refuge (as
the old divines say) in the clefts of His wounds till this evil should
be overpast. Whereupon there came sweet exercises of faith,
which occupied me till I fell asleep, and awoke this morning in
the fear of the Lord. I make Mondays and Thursdays my days
of receiving friends ; and while we were engaged with worship,
Mr.Ker came in, and, after prayers, Mr. C  .' I was happy to
understand from the former that Mr. Cunningham, of Harrow,
has become a violent opponent of the expediency principle in re
spect to the Apocrypha,* and think the committee will come to
the righteous conclusion, which will please our good father much.
Mr. C  came on purpose to communicate the dying injunction
of a friend who had been converted from Unitarianism by my
discourse on that heresy last summer, and had died full of faith
and joy before fulfilling his purpose of joining my church. I
trust he hath joined our Church of the first-born, whose names
are written in heaven. As we went to the city together, Mr. Ker
bore the same testimony to the blessing of my discourses to his
soul, for which I desire you to give thanks unto the Lord when
you pray secretly, or with Mary, for it is a great blessing to our
household to be so honored. I found our friend David at length
able to see me again, who has passed through a terrible storm of
afflictions, swimming for his life, and tried with great agony of
the body ; but in his soul above measure strengthened and en
dowed with patience, and full of holy purposes and continued ac
knowledgment to the Lord. . . . His wife, and Martha her sister,
bore testimony to the goodness of the Lord, and we joined our
souls in thanksgiving with one accord.
" Thence I went on my way to our friends, the G  's, who
now live in America Square, toward the Tower. I know not
how it is, but I feel a certain infirmity and backwardness to speak
to Alex. G  concerning spiritual things, though I love him,
and believe that he loves the truth; against which, by the grace
of God, I was enabled in some measure to prevail, and make some
manifestation of the truth, and unite in prayer, which had the
effect of bringing him to signify his purpose of waiting upon me
* Referring to the hot and bitter conflict then going on in the Bible Society, chiefly
between the parent society in England and its Scotch auxiliaries, which were vehe
mently opposed to the insertion of the Apocrypha along with the canonical Scriptures.
0

210 A SICK-BED.— A SUFFERING SAINT.
(I suppose concerning the communion). The Lord receive this
worthy and honorable youth into the number of his chosen!
Thence returning, I felt an inclination to pay a visit to Miss
F  , in Philpot Lane, but resolved again to proceed on more
urgent errands, and passed the head of the lane, and was drawn
back, I know not by what inducement, and proceeded against my
purpose. It was the good will of the Lord that I should comfort
one of His saints, and He suffered me not to pass. I found the
mother of that family, who has long walked with God, and tra
vailed in birth for the regeneration of all her children, laid down
by a confusion in her head, which threatened apoplexy or palsy,
and now for three days afflicted, without that clear manifestation
of the Holy Comforter which might have been expected in one so
exercised with faith and holiness. Many of the friends and kin
dred were assembled in the large room below, and the father and
the children ; to whom having ministered the word of warning
and exhortation, and prayed with one accord for the state of the
sick, I went up to her bedchamber with the father and daughters,
and found the aged mother lying upon the bed more composed
than I had expected. I taught her that Christ was the same,
though her faculties were bedimmed; that her soul should the
more long to escape from behind the dark eclipse of the clouds ;
but not to disbelieve in His mercy, because her body burdened
her, and caused her to groan. We bowed down and prayed, and
the Lord gave me a large utterance; and when I had .ceased, I
could not refrain myself from continuing to kneel, and hold the
hand of the dear saint, and comfort her, and utter many ejacula-
tory prayers for her soul's consolation ; and I was moved even to
tears for the love of her soul ; with which having parted, her
daughters, who remained behind, came down and told us that she
was much comforted, and had proposed to compose herself to rest.
The Lord rest her soul, and prepare it for His kingdom, though
I hope she may be restored again to health. . . .
" Thence I proceeded to Bedford Square, by Cheapside, and
gave Mr. Hamilton charge of your letter, which may you receive
safe, and with a blessing, for it is intended for your comfort and
edification in the faith, that you may know the goodness of the
Lord to your head, and rejoice and give thanks. On my way to
Bedford Square I called at Mr. Macaulay's, having heard that he
and his wife were poorly, and with a view, if opportunity offered,
of saying a word to their son concerning Milton's true character,

CORREGGIO'S "ST. JOHN."— PRAYERS. 211
if so be that he is the author of that critique. For I held with
him once, but now am assured that Milton, in his character, was
the archangel of Radicalism, of which I reckon Henry Brougham
to be the arch-fiend. But I found they had gone to Hannah
Moore's for retirement and discourse. The Lord bless their com
munion! I called at Mr. Procter's to look at two marvelous heads
by Correggio — the one of the Virgin about to be crowned with
stars, the other of St. John ; certainly, beyond comparison, the
most powerful heads I have ever seen. The latter, they say, is a
portrait of me. But I do not think so. I can not both be like
the Baptist and the beloved apostle ; I would I were in spirit, for
the flesh profiteth nothing. Anne P  and the child continue
to do well, and the poet is already a very tender father. ... The
counselor and I had a good deal of private discourse. . . . He
is a tender father and a well-meaning man, but willful ; and will
fulness, dear Isabella, is weakness and inutility, the excess of will
being to the same effect as the defect of will. Yet I love him, and he'
loves me, and permits me to open truth in a certain guise to his
ear. The Lord give me wisdom, if it were only for this family !
I returned home to peruse Eckhard's 'Rome,' and to worship with
my family, and read the Holy Scriptures, and conclude by writing
the summary of the day to my dear wife. And now I return to
my chamber, thankful unto Thee, oh my Father, who hast pro
tected thine unworthy child, and not allowed him this day to stray
far from thy commandments. Thou hast made me to know Thee ;
Thou hast exercised my soul with love and kindness ; Thou hast
called me1 out of the world by prayer. I bless Thee, oh my God;
I exceedingly bless Thee ! And now, my tender wife, go on to
seek the Lord ; wait upon Him ; entreat Him ; importune Him.
Do not let Him go till He give thee thy heart's desire. And thou,
Margaret, my sister, submit thy strong spirit unto the Lord, and
thou shalt find peace. And Elizabeth, my sister, persevere in the
good part which thou hast chosen, and thou wilt find all that is
promised to be true and faithful. And, my lovely Anne, be com
posed in thy spirit by God, who will deliver thee from all things
that disconcert and trouble, and make thy spirit lovely. And, my
David, remember our covenants of love with one another, where
in thou wert oft moved to desire God. Oh, forget Him not, my
children ! Walk before Him, and be ye perfect. . . . May He
keep us as the apple of the eye, and hide us under the shadow of
His wings this night ; and when we awake in the morning, may
we be satisfied with His likeness !

212 ECCLESIASTICUS.— TWO WILD YOUTHS.
" Tuesday, Nov. Ath. I feel it necessary already to be on my
guard against the adversary, lest he should convert these journals,
intended for the comfort of my dear wife, into an occasion of self-
display or self-delusion ; and the more, because I have been sin
gularly blessed by the goodness of the Lord, which, you would
say, was the best protection against him; but the Lord judged
otherwise when, after enriching Paul with such revelations, he
saw it wise to give him a thorn in the fiesh, a messenger of Satan
to buffet him, lest he should be exalted above measure. There
fore let me watch my pen, and the Lord watch my soul, that noth
ing pass thence to the eye of my partner which may in any wise
convey a false impression of my heart. I have resumed my cus
tom of reading the lessons of the day, besides the Psalms, whatever
else I may read out of the Holy Scriptures, and was struck, in
reading out of Ecclesiasticus, with the odor of earthliness which
there is about the wisdom of it. It is rather shrewd than divine,
and, I am convinced, has little heavenward drift in it to the soul.
But how much more spiritual than the maxims of Rochefoucault,
or any other modern who has sought to express himself by apho
risms ! I was in great danger of falling under the spirit of indo
lence after breakfast, and loitering. The sensation about my eyes,
which foretells a listless day, made its appearance, and I felt ip>
clined to stretch my limbs, and take up a book at hand, and while
away the time. But I thank God who enabled me to withstand
the enemy, and stir myself up to study, which I prosecuted with
a view to my morning sermon. This is beginning to take shape,
and will form, I judge, a digest of the Epistle to the Galatians, or
a statement of the apostle's argument for the abolition of the law
and the liberty of faith, in order to my afterward showing our de
liverance from the forms of the world into the liberty of Christ.
" This was a fast-day to me, at least a soup-day, which I judged
good for my health, so that I felt languid the whole forenoon until
four, when Miss A  called to conduct me to her house. The
two Miss A  's j oined our Church at the last communion. Their
mother had died some months before, and they are orphans. They
win their bread by the needle, and dwell with two younger broth
ers, whom they wished me much to converse with. Those two
brothers have no one over them, and are as wild as the beasts of
the wood. Though only fifteen and seventeen, I was perfectly
amazed at the irreverent, thoughtless way in which they behaved
when I entered — nothing awed, nothing moved, but full of conceit

» *

TWO LONDON BOYS. 213
and self-possession. The eldest is a clerk in a writer's (Anglice",
attorney's) office ; the younger is a sort of clerk to a councilors-
one to keep the door of his office open, and to go errands — for
whom his master is glad to find something to do. Oh ! what a
horrid effect London has upon the character of children ! It is
only beginning to be revealed to me in its native deformity. The
awful iniquity of a great city is nothing to its silent effects in de
teriorating the races of men. They really dwindle as if they were
plants. I saw at once that if I was to be profitable to these two
lads, it was by authority as well as by affection ; so I resolved to
teach them the reverence of God, and of God's word, and of God's
messenger. The eldest sat over against me on the other side of the
fire, the two sisters working at the table, and the youngest beyond
the table, and he would not be persuaded to come near me. I
opened my way by speaking of their orphan state, and their want
of counsel and authority over them. Then I passed to the author
ity of God, and opened the tendency of youth to be headstrong
and untamed. The eldest, I perceived, was full of observation
and thought. He could not divide the matter between the au
thority and affection with which I spoke. By degrees I got him
to open his mind, which was very willful. I continued to oppose
to his whims the will of God, and would not lower the discourse to
any compromise, or indulgence to any of his. moods. His brother
had to go away earlier ; and after getting him to sit beside me, I
spoke to him with great earnestness and affection, and blessed
him ; but whether he was moved from his indolent and lethargic
obstinacy, I know not. Then with the eldest I dealt for another
hour, in various discourse, which I am now too weary to recall.
And when I knew not what impression I had made upon his
short and hasty temper, which I saw writhing between the awe
of the truths which I spoke and the irritation of the mastery
which I held over him, the lad rose from his seat, and went to a
press and took out a parcel, from which he drew forth a set of
beautiful little prints of Bible subjects, and asked if I had seen
them. I answered no. Then, said he, ' Will you accept them
from me?' I hesitated; but perceiving it was altogether neces
sary, if I would have any farther dealing with this strange spirit,
I took them, and here they are before me. Upon which, his hour
of seven having come, he went his way. ... I am weary, but
very well, and give the Lord thanks for his goodness, praying
Him to strengthen me with rest. St. Pancras is ringing up the

214 A LOGICAL COMPANION.— SUNDAY SERVICES.
hill twelve o'clock, so the Lord compass you and my beloved
child. Farewell !
" Saturday, Nov. 5. I had all arranged to finish this sheet and
send it off to-night ; but James P  is come, and has occupied
me so much, and the Sabbath is now on the verge of coming in,
and I have much before me, therefore I delay this day's summa
ry till to-morrow evening, if God spare me. But that I might not
go to bed without blessing you and our tender lamb, I have taken
up my pen to write — That the Lord God, whom I serve, would
be the guardian of my wife and child until He restore them to the
sight of his servant. Amen.
" Sabbath, Nov. 6. And now, my dearest Isabella, I am alone
with thee again, and can give thee the news which are dearest to
thy heart, that the Lord- hath not deserted His unworthy servant
this day, but hath been, especially in the evening)ppresent to my
soul, and given me a large door of utterance, I trust to the edifi
cation of His Church and the comforting of His people. Yester
day I had labored all the morning with a constant and steady dili
gence, and about one o'clock was in full sight of land, with strength
of hand still left me to have finished this letter, and so cheated
the lazy post, when, as I said, James P  stepped in ; in whom,
to be brief, I find we shall have a most easily accommodated in
mate, if so he likes to become, and a very shrewd, logical com
panion, full of political economy and of mathematics, who can not
help stating every thing as if it were a question to be resolved by
the Calculus, and can not conceive of any ideas or knowledge
which are to be otherwise come at than by the methods of the in
tellect ; which error I have labored hard to correct in him, and
not, I believe, without some partial success. He is one of the
coolest, shrewdest intellects I have ever met with — sweetly dis
posed, very gentle, and easily served. . . . My morning lesson
this day was the 2d chapter of the Hebrews, in which is taught
us this great lesson, that we shall partake with Christ in the gov
ernment of the world to come, which I take to be the same with
the ' rest that remaineth,' mentioned in the 4th chapter, or the per
fection of the present dispensation of the Gospel in the millennial
state. . . . Also there is taught us, though but incidentally, the
end of His incarnation to destroy death and him that hath the
power of death, and deliver us from the fear and bondage of
death. Let us enter into faith, my dear wife, and be delivered
from the blow which death hath brought us. . . . Also He took

WANT OF FAITH. 215
our flesh that we might be assured of our oneness ; that we might
be able to give ourselves to the hope of His glory, He did first
join himself to the reality of our humility. My discourse was a
view of the doctrine of the Epistle to the Galatians, introductory
to discourses upon Gal., ii., 19, 20. . . . This introduction, sum
of doctrine, and threefold argument embraced the whole Epistle,
which I had thus digested into my discourse, with application of
each branch of the argument to the present times and all times ;
but I was able to deliver only about a half of it, and withal our
service reached to within a quarter of two. My evening chapter
was the 21st of Genesis, when I felt my mouth opened in a re
markable way to bear testimony to the want of faith in this gen
eration, who would embrace the heavens and the earth, and the
truth and majesty of God, within the nutshell of their own intel
lect, and believe in God not a hair's-breadth beyond their intel
lectual sight — which, adopted by children as scholars, would de
stroy the school — by subjects, would destroy government; and,
in short, that these sacred things all hang together, and must sink
or swim with faith. ... I was much strengthened in this dis
course, and in both my prayers. . . . Mr. E— — was there morn
ing and evening. The Lord add that youth to His Church ! I
travail for him. Farewell, dear Isabella. You can not have so
much pleasure in reading these as I have in writing them. The
blessing of the Lord be with my babe— my tender babe. The
blessing of the Lord be with her mother — her tempted but victo
rious mother. ...
" Monday, 7th November. Though wearied, my dearest Isabella,
with a day of much activity, and afterward with the exposition
of that blessed Psalm, this night's lesson, and now with much dis
course and discussion to James P  , whom I like exceedingly,
and William Hamilton, all concerning the subordination of the
sensual or visible, and the intellectual or knowable, to the spirit
ual or redeemable (the first giving the typography, the second giv
ing the method, and the last the substance of all true and excel
lent discourse), I do now sit down with true spiritual delight to
commune with my soul's sweet mate. Yea, hath not the Lord
made us for one another, and by his providence united us to one
another, against many fiery trials and terrible delusions of Satan?
And, as you yourself observed, has he not over again wedded us,
far more closely than in any joy, by our late tribulation, and the
burial of our lovely Edward, our holy first-born, who gave up the

216 LITTLE EDWARD'S MINISTRY.
ghost in order to make his father and mother one, and expiate
the discords and divisions of their souls? Dear spirit, thou dear
est spirit which doth tenant heaven, this is the mystery of thy
burial on the wedding-day* of thy parents, to make them forever
one. Oh, and thou shalt be sanctified, God blessing, by such a
concord and harmony of soul as hath not often blessed the earth
since Eden was forfeited by sin. My wife, this is not poetry, this
is not imagination which I write ; it is truth, rely upon it, it is
truth that lovely Edward hath been the sweet offering of peace
between us forever ; and so, when we meet in heaven, he shall be
as the priest who joined us — the child of months being one hund
red years old. Let my dear wife be comforted by these thoughts
of her true love. I found much sweet meditation upon my bed
last night ; and when I awoke in the morning He was with me,
and I had much countenance of the Lord in my secret devotions ;
and when I descended found Mr. T  , the preacher, and Mr.
Bull met in the breakfast parlor, and Mr. P  seated in the li
brary. That preacher is very clever, and infinitely prolific in his
vein, and that no contemptible one ; but volatile and wild as the
winds, yet musical in his mirth, and full of heartiness and good
will. But he serveth joyaunce of the mind, and has not yoked
himself to any workmanship ; and I have accordingly exhorted
him to be about his Master's work — to get him down into the bat
tle, and take his post. Mr. Bull brought me a very sweet frontis
piece, which he has executed for Montgomery's Psalmist, one of
Collins's series. ... As usual, his bashful, meek company was
very sweet to me.
" When they went, Miss N  came, who can believe none,
and would intellectualize every thing, and consequently looks for
her religious prosperity in expedients of the intellectual or visible
world, or in means, as they call them (but, Isabella, nothing is a
means of grace in which Christ is not seen to be present, whence
he is called the Mediator or mean-creator), which, I told her, I
could no longer indulge her in by framing my discourse to her
subtleties, but would read her the Word of God, to which, if she
framed her mind by faith, then it would be well ; but if not, she
must utterly perish. After which reading of the 103d Psalm, be
ing moved in my spirit with love to her, I pronounced over her,
without rising, a prayer which made her weep abundantly — tears,
* This much-lamented child was buried on the 14th of October, the second anni
versary of their marriage.

INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM. 217
I trust, which may by God's grace reap joy hereafter. She says
I have demolished all the glory of her building, and she stands as
upon a ruin of herself. I say unto you, Miss N  , Christ can
alone build up and mould your shattered mind to the similitude
of His own mind. You see, my dear, what boldness the Lord is
endowing me with. . . . What clean, black villainy, what un-
wrinkled villainy, there was upon those countenances I met in
Saffron Hill and Field Lane on my way to the Bible Society,
where, among others, I saw the face of Father Simon, looking with
all its eager unrest ; and there being nothing of importance to de
tain me, I came away with the old worthy, and held such discourse
with him as the Strand heareth not oft, until we reached the Tem
ple, whither he entered to his business, and I returned to the city
to dine with Mr. Dinwiddie and Wm. Hamilton ; and on my way,
having found a receiving-house, I committed your letter to the
care of the post. But, ah ! forgot the blessing or prayer for its
safe arrival, so doth the rust of custom corrode the frame of our
piety. Life should be a web of piety ; custom makes it a web of
impiety. My dear, we must be redeemed in all things from wick
edness to serve the living God. Having dined with my friends,
I proceeded at three to visit Mr. David, who had yesterday a re
lapse, and is this day very low. The surgeon apprehended no
danger ; but I know not how it is, I fear we are going to lose him.
His soul is winged with faith : let it take its flight. He also is
my son in the Gospel. I could not see him, but we lifted up our
hearts together for his health and salvation. Then I proceeded
to Mrs. T  ; and now, my dear, learn a lesson of spiritual life,
and let me learn what I am now to teach thee. This sweet moth
er, whom I greatly love, said to me, ' All darkness, all darkness ;
what if it should have been all self-deception ?' That is, the Lord
was shaking His saint out of the last refuge of Satan, which he
takes in the righteousness which hath been wrought in us by the
Holy Spirit. As Knox said on his death-bed, ' The enemy has
been trying me with representations of the work which has been
done by me.' . . .
" From thence I proceeded to the Session, where we proceeded
with good harmony and union till they came to speak of time,
and then I told them they must talk no more to me concerning
the ministry of the Word, for I would submit to no authority in
that matter but the authority of the Church, from which also I
would take liberty to appeal if it gainsaid my conscience. I am

218 HASTENING THROUGH THE SERVICES.
resolved that two hours and a half I will have the privilege of.
Write me your judgment in this matter. . . . We had another
meeting, at seven, of the congregation. ... So I returned, and
one o'clock sounding in my ear from Pancras church, I bid you
farewell for the night, and pray the Lord to bless you, and our lit
tle treasure, and her who hath joined herself to our house, and
hath a right to the share of its blessings. Farewell, my spouse !
" Wednesday, 9th November. I sit down, my dearest, after a day
of languishing and mourning, rather more cheerful and refreshed
than I have deserved to be ; for, whether from defective sleep or
overfatigue yesterday, I have been very dead and lifeless all day
long, until the evening roused me to some spiritual exercises.
Satan could not have had this occasion against me but for my
own most blameworthy conduct in preferring man before God in
the services of the morning ; for, having promised to take James
P  down to Bedford Square to breakfast, I hurried over both
my private and family worship. Now this is such infinite irrev
erence done unto the majesty of heaven, that I know not how any
stronger proof of want of faith could be found. . . . When we
returned from Mr. M  's, I endeavored to seek the Lord in my
closet, but found Him not. He hid His countenance, and my
heart was left to the bitterness of being alone. I took to the
reading of the 3d chapter of Hebrews, in the original, with a view
to pasture for my people ; and afterward to the 22d of Genesis,
with the same end in view, of which I have been able to make
out eight verses. I wish to read the Sabbath lessons, at least, in
the Hebrew, and to make both lessons a diligent study through
the week, with Pool's ' Synopsis' before me ; and I have besought
the Lord, as I do now again beseech Him, that I may continue
in this righteous and dutiful custom. In the Hebrew, it would
perhaps be an entertainment to your heart to accompany me, that
we may not be divided in this study when we meet again. But
I forget that you have the dear babe to watch over ; for whom,
my dear, let our souls be exercised rather than for the dead. Oh,
let us wrestle with God for her soul, that she may not be caught
away from us at unawares. I wish she were here, that I might
in my arms present her to the Lord every morning and evening.
Your letter gave me great delight, and came to cheer me in my
spiritual mourning. The Lord continue to support your soul, and
to be your portion ! Oh, how blessed has been thy death, my be
loved, to thy parents' souls ! thou first-fruits of our union, and

THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY. 219
peace-offering of our family, dearly -beloved child, who never
frowned on any one, and never fretted, but moaned the approach
of that enemy which was to bereave us of thee ! . . .
"I sought to begin the discourse on Galatians, ii., 19, whose ob
ject it will be to show that an outward law is always a sign of
bondage, and that the inward willingness is liberty, which a Di
vine indwelling spirit can alone beget and maintain within us.
Pray that I may be enabled to handle this mighty theme to the
glory of God and the promotion of the Redeemer's kingdom ; for
it calls upon all that is within me, and I shall have this and the
following week to give to it. . . . Too many cares of philanthro
py, dear, are as seductive as any other cares ; it is divinity which
alone can sustain philanthropy. But a divine is become like a
phoenix. We know one, but he is near in ashes, and who is to
arise in his stead, I know not. . . . After leaving the study, Mr.
P  and I walked together. ... At six, I had the visit of
another child of my ministry, Miss Miller, in whom I found a very
humble and sweet spirit, thoroughly, as 1 trust, convinced of sin,
and purged of her sin. After conversing and praying with her,
I went out to Mr. and Mrs. Hall, at their own request, to open the
subject of the communion to their souls, when I set it forth by
the parable of the prodigal son. That at baptism we had obtain
ed our freedom in our Father's house, who ever since had divided
to us our portion of gifts, graces, and opportunities, which we had
prodigally squandered ; but, taking pity on us, He doth keep open
table in His house, in order to welcome every one who hath a
longing to return. He breaketh bread and poureth out wine, the
body and blood of His Son's sacrifice, for every one who will
come, as the prodigal came, heartily repenting, and humbly con
fessing his sin. This, therefore, is what I desire — the sense of sin,
and the faith that it is to be forgiven only through the blood of
Christ. For the enlightening of the mind, for the convincing of
the heart, and the converting of the whole soul, it is the work of
the Holy Spirit, who is the gift of Christ to His weak but faithful
disciples. Oh, dearest, how profitable is that mystery of the Trin
ity to my soul ! The husband and wife heard me with tears. I
trust these are tokens for good. The Lord enable them to retain
upon their souls those feelings toward Him which they this night
expressed to me. By these exercises my spirit was restored.
The Lord hath restored my soul, and I was able to comfort the
family with the 42d Psalm, and I trust to encourage my own

220 <THE NEW COVENANT.
spirit. . . . Now, the blessing of the Lord rest upon my wife, and
child, and servant this night, who have not separated, I know,
without commending me to the Lord ! Thus do we unite our in
terests on high, and lay in our proofs and pledges of mutual love
with our heavenly Father. . . . Farewell !
" TJiursday, 10th November, 1825. I pray the Lord so to quicken
my love to my dear wife, and so to move my soul with the spirit
of truth and wisdom, as that I shall much comfort and edify her
by the words which I am about to write. Yesterday I so wore
myself out with the various duties I had to discharge, that I was
hardly able to do the offices of family worship, and, in utter ina
bility, forewent my sweet interview of faith with my Isabella ; no,
not of faith, but of these visible emblems of faith, for the inter
view of the spirit I truly had with you. ... I have fulfilled your
commission to Mrs. Hall, who received your gift with much thank
fulness. Our maid is now gone, and we are a very happy, and, I
trust, contented household. In the church last night I opened the
real contents of the new covenant (Hebrews, viii., 10, to the end)
to the young communicants, who are about to enter by the prop
er form to the renewal of it; for- you will observe, dearest, that
there was a renewal of the covenant when the children of Israel en
tered into the land of promise, as there is to us : first, the granting
it at baptism to the faith of our parents ; and, again, the renewal
of it over the sacrifice of our own faith. Now these contracts are,
1st, the law within, and no longer without, that is, liberty of soul
to obey God, instead of restraint of fear ; 2d, the ruling of God
over us, and our subjection to Him in all willingness; 3d, the
teaching of His spirit in all His revelations ; 4, the absolution of
all our sinfulness through Christ's atonement. The first being the
conversion of our will ; the second, the maintenance of our weak
ness ; the third, the enlightening of our knowledge ; the fourth,
the purging of our conscience from all fear. What an inherit
ance, my dear wife, is this to which you, and I, and all believers
are admitted ! Let us enter it, let us enter into it. Why can we
not enter into the willingness, the confirmation, the enlightening,
the peace of it? We can not enter in by reason of unbelief.
Now encourage one another, I pray you, for the time is short.
" This morning we mustered a goodly company, though it was
the stormiest morning almost I remember; three missionaries
from the Mission House, our broad-faced Wiirtemberg friend, so
dear to us all, and a countryman, and an East Indian, half-caste,

READINGS IN HEBREW. 221
preparing for his return to preach to the Hindoos. They tell me
there are at present two of their countrymen at St. Petersburg
fulfilling to the letter our Lord's instructions to his disciples. I
have a very strong purpose of sending over to all the Mission
Houses copies of my Orations for the sake of the youth ; and to
this effect of ordering Hamilton to send me all that are not sold,
and desiring him to transmit the proceeds of the sale which there
has been to the widow of Smith. Tell me what you think of this,
The German missionaries at Karass soon found out the unpro
ductiveness of Scottish prudence when applied to propagate the
Gospel, and are fast recurring to the primitive method on the con
fines of Persia, where they at present labor. They speak of a
great revival in the Prussian kingdom; more than a hundred
young preachers have gone forth from the Universities to preach
the Gospel. The Lord prosper his work ! To-morrow a number
of young missionaries are to receive their instructions at a public
meeting in Freemason's Hall, and they are to set out for Malta
some time this month. The Lord is their helper. I took occa
sion, from the 51st Psalm, to speak to them of the qualifications
there referred to. . . . After their departure, I addressed myself
to my sweet studies of reading the lessons of the day, and medi
tating the lessons of Sabbath in the original tongues. . . . After
ward I betook myself to my lecture on Christ's attendants and
sustenance in his ministry, Luke, viii., 2, 3, which is a subject of
great importance and fruitfulness, if the Lord see it good to open
it to me by His Spirit, which I do now earnestly pray. James
and I, after dinner (we have now got the wine-cellar open, and I
have ordered Hall a bottle of Madeira to strengthen him), went
down to Bedford Square, where I had a good deal of profitable
conversation with our dear friends. But before I went out I re
ceived a parcel, ... in which was a fine lace cap and wrought
robe for our dear departed boy; . . . our darling hath now a
more precious robe than can be wrought by the daughters of a
duke ; yet it is a sweet and honorable token of their love. I
have written to tell them whither the object of their love is gone.
. . . Our little.boy ! thou art incorporated with my memory dear
ly, with my hope thou art incorporated still more dearly. We
will come, when our Lord doth call, to thee and to the general as
sembly of the first-born. Oh, Isabella, I exhort thee to be diligent
in thy prayers for thee and me !
" Friday, 11th November. I have just dismissed Mrs. Hall, my

222 THE CHURCH AS A HOUSE.
dear Isabella, to set into the study to-morrow morning a slice of
bread and glass of water, purposing to keep myself alone for med
itation, and I pray the Lord that he would give us both a heart
full of divine thoughts and holy purposes. . . . Mr. Hamilton is
a great comfort to me ; I may say of him, as Paul says of Mark,
that he is helpful to me for the ministry, literally delivering me
of all secular cares. But I must proceed in order. When we
were at our morning worship, Mr. 0  slipped in, with his slow
and canny foot, in order to seek introductions to Scotland, which
I would not give ; for, though I am enough satisfied with him for
the rule of charity, I have no sufficient evidence upon which to
commend him to another. Indeed, I would be suspicious of his
favor-seeking and power-hunting if I were not satisfied it is uni
versal, and that he may have caught it by infection, not generated
it in his own constitution; but, ah! it is a weakening disease,
however caught. When I had dismissed him, I read the 3d chap
ter of John in the original, and studied the latter half of the 3d
chapter of the Hebrews with a diligent reference to the parallel
scriptures ; and in studying that chapter it will help you to know
that 'even as Moses in all his house' is not to be understood
Moses,' but God's house, the house of ' Him who appointed him,'
as you will see by referring to the passage in Numbers, of which
it is the quotation ; the whole argument being to set Moses forth,
not as having a house of his own, but as a servant in the house
which Christ had ordered, and to which, in due time, He came as
the heir to claim and inherit His own. That idea of the Church,
under the similitude of a house, is constant in the New Testament,
derived, I take it, from the Temple, which was a type of the
Church ; and I have no doubt that ' In my Father's house are
many mansions,' means the Church in which he prepared a place
for his apostles, by sending to them His Holy Spirit, so that
thenceforth they became its foundation stones. 'We are made
partakers with Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confi
dence steadfast unto the end,' refers to Christ's coming in the end
to occupy His house, when all His people shall share with Him in
His kingdom, which He himself sets forth by the same similitude
of a householder who went into a far country, and in the mean
time gave his servants their several charges. We are these serv
ants ; let us be found faithful, and when He comes we shall be
made partakers or sharers with Him. After these studies in di
vinity I relieved my mind by reading a portion of the Convoca-

SIMPLE AND UNPROVIDED FAITH. 223
tion Book which treated of our Lord's respect to those who sat in
Moses' seat, presenting this feature of His obedience in very meek
and true colors. Oh, how I have offended herein, making myself
a judge instead of a minister of the Church ! and yet I know not
how otherwise to proceed when all things are manifestly so out
of square. I do pray earnestly that the Lord would keep me man
ly in the regulation of the censorious part of my spirit ; for I have
this day, and immediately after the perusal of the above, written
a lecture upon the simple and unprovided faith in which our
Lord made His rounds of the ministry, arguing thence the spirit
in which His ministers should 'stand affected toward the provis
ions of this life, and should receive them ; wherein I have not
scrupled to declare the whole counsel of God, but I know not
whether' in the right spirit.
" This also has occupied me since dinner up to the time of even
ing prayer, when the Lord opened my mouth to speak of His love
to our souls, so that I could see the tears gather in the eyes of my
little company. I do hope there is a work of Divine grace pro
ceeding in these servants' hearts. . . . Oh, Isabella, I have a strong
persuasion of the power of a holy walk and conversation, in which,
if we continue, we shall save not only our own souls, but the souls
of those that hear us ; even now there is a strong conviction of
that truth brought home to my spirit. For yourself, dear, when
you are in darkness and distress, then do not fret, but clothe your
spirit in sackcloth, and sit down and take counsel with your soul
before the Lord, and study all its deformity, and search into the
hidden recesses- of its unbelief. It is a rich lesson for humility ;
it is a season of sowing seed in tears. The Lord permitteth such
temptations, that we may the more thoroughly see our depravity;
and in the midst of our seasons of brightness, they come like
clouds threatening a deluge, which the rainbow covenant averts
from the soul of God's chosen ones. . . . My dearest, we must
soon go to our rest, and our sweet infant also ; and perhaps the
Lord may not see us worthy to leave any seed on the earth. His
will be done. I pray only to be conformed to His will. Now
rest in peace, my other part, and thou, sweet link of being betwixt
us ! The Lord make our souls one ! And may He bless with
the inheritance of our domestic blessings, spiritual and temporal,
our faithful servant, who has joined herself to our house. Fare
you all well. The Lord compose your souls to sweet and quiet
sleep !

224 FUNERAL SERVICE.
" Saturday, 12th November. ... I am left to my sweet occupa
tion of making my dear Isabella a sharer of the actions of my life
and the secrets of my heart ; would that they were more valuable
for thy sake, my dearest love ! This day was devoted to pious
offices connected with the memory of our dear boy, that it might
be made profitable to the living. But I found not the satisfaction
which I expected. I began by reading the 15th chapter of 1st
Corinthians in the original, hoping to be somewhat raised in my
thoughts ; but whether I fell away into the criticism and scholice,
from the old Greek fathers, which are in my noble Greek Testa
ment, I know not ; but I think I missed the edification of the
spirit. Satan is never absent from us ; he can slay as effectually
from the letter of God's word as from the lightest and vainest
pleasures of the world. After which I studied the funeral service
of the Church, in which office I found some movements of the
spirit which I sought. Then I girt myself to my duties, and
wrote, first, a letter to my father's house, exhorting them against
formality, and testifying to them the nature of a spiritual conver
sation ; then I wrote to M  , manifesting, according to my abil
ity, the evils of self-communion and self-will, and the blessings of
communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. I
know not how it may be felt by her, but if she should speak of it,
assure her it was done faithfully and in love. . . . Thereafter I
addressed myself to some reading in my Convocation Book and
Roman History. . . . Since tea I have been busy preparing my
discourses, and I do pray that He would bless them. I had much
liberty in exhorting my little evening congregation and opening
to them the comfortable doctrine of the Divine Providence, and
in praying for our souls, and the souls of all men ; and now, dear
est, twelve o'clock hath rung in my ears, and having exhorted the
household to timeous hours on the Sabbath morning, I must not
be slack to give the example ; and that I may leave room for to
morrow's work, which I trust will be holy and blessed, I part from
you with few words, praying the Lord to have you all in His holy
keeping. But let me not forget that this day, which I have im
proved to others, I ought of all to improve the most carefully to
Edward's mother. Every twelfth day of the month, my loving
and beloved wife, let it be your first thought that your babe is
mortal, and that the father of your babe is mortal, and that you
yourself are mortal ; and every twelfth day of the month, my lov
ing and beloved wife, let it be your last thought that your babe

SUNDAY MORNING.— PRESENTIMENTS. 225
is mortal, and that the father of your babe is mortal, and that you
yourself are mortal. Do this, that you may swallow up our mor
tality in the glorious faith of our immortality in the heavens.
Farewell, my wife. Dwell forever with the Lord, my sister saint
in Christ ; dwell forever with the Lord, my tender babe, and be
blessed of Him, as He was wont to bless such as thee. I pray
the Lord to bless all with whom you dwell, thou daughter of
Abraham and heir of the promise !
" Sabbath, 13ih November. My dear Isabella, I have finished the
labors of another Sabbath, with much of the presence of the Lord
in the former part of the day, and not so much in the evening.
There must have been some want of faith either in the writing or
delivery of my discourse, and I have besought the Lord that he
would preserve me during this week in a spiritual frame of mind,
and move within my soul right thoughts and feelings for the sal
vation of my people ; and I desire that you would ever on a Sab
bath morning pray the Lord to preserve my soul in a spirit of
faith and love all the day, and in the evening pray that He would
direct my mind to such subjects of meditation and methods of
handling them as He will bless. ... I have been much exercised
this last week with the possibility of some trial coming to me from
the resolute stand which I have taken, and will maintain, upon
the subject of the liberty of my ministry. For the spirit of au
thority and rule in the Church begins to grow upon me, and I
fear much there is not enough of the spirit of obedience in our
city churches to bear it. But I am resolved, according as I am
taught the duty of a minister of the Gospel, to discharge it, and
consider every thing that may befall as the will of the Lord. I
was telling this to Mr. Dinwiddie this morning ; for I find, good
men, they have all their little schemes, after which they would
like to see me play my part, instead of looking to me, as one un
der Christ's authority, to watch over the Church, and to be hon
ored of the Church. The church was crowded both morning and
evening ; but I am prepared, if the Lord should see it meet to try
me here also, and I sometimes think I shall be tried here at some
time or other. Now, my notion is, that the Lord is very gracious
to me at present, permitting me to be strengthened ; that then
Satan will have power against me for a season by every form of
trial — and, alas ! there are too many open rivets in my armor —
but that in the end the Lord, if I abide faithful, will increase me
with much honor. ... I thank God that I am very strong ; and
P

226 TRUE BROTHERHOOD.
even now (ten o'clock) sleep begins to loose the curtains of my
conception, and twilight is settling in my mind. . . . And now,
dearest, I commend you and our little one unto the Lord, and
pray that the Lord may bless you and preserve you for a blessing
to these eyes.
" Monday, 14$ November. My dear wife, this has been a day
sweetly varied with the good mercies of God, who in various
ways hath used His servant to minister unto the comfort of His
people, which I shall now set forth to you in order, being full of
gladness and thankfulness. In the morning we had the Psalm
of our Lord's humiliations — (lxix.), and the chapter of Job's most
pathetic lamentation and divine confidence in his Redeemer (xix.),
upon which I have been able to reflect more during the day by
what I have seen than I was able to reflect unto my family, though
I sought for words of exhortation. We were, besides our own,
Mr-. J  , a friend introduced by Pears ; Rev. Mr. Cox, of the
Church of England, a calm, pious, and charitable man, whom I
met at Brighton ; and Sottomayor, the soldier. I had to with
stand the radicalism and village-town conceit of the first, who cut
all questions with a keen blade of self-conceit, but neither of wit
nor understanding, in which I was greatly assisted by the wisdom
of Mr. Cox, who, having traveled, was able to speak with author
ity ; and he delighted me with one declaration, that in the Cath
olic churches of Italy he had never heard a sermon (though he
had heard many) which breathed of saints' days and other mum
meries, but always of solid theology, deep piety, and much unc
tion, and that he had met with many whom he believed most spir
itual. My dear, I have often more concern about the issue of the
intellectual forms of our own Church, which tend to practical and
theoretical infidelity, than of the sensual forms of the Romish
Church, which do tend to superstition, and still preserve a faith,
though it be of the sense. Anyway, I give God praise that either
with us or with theni He preserveth a seed. When they depart
ed, poor Sarah Evans came to me, troubled in her conscience,
poor girl, that she had not confessed to me all her sins ; and she
was about to open all her history in time past, when I interrupted
her, and would not allow her to proceed. Poor thing I I pity
much her wandering mind, still timorous and startled like one
that had been lost, and not sure of having found the way. I think
I must consult the elders about her. It is a hard case ; she is truly
spiritual, but has a certain instability and flutter in her judgment.

THE PRODIGAL WIDOW. 227
After her came a poor woman, the sister of Mr. M'W-

(formerly of Dumfriesshire), who had been a prodigal for the last
twenty-one years in a far distant land of the West Indies, having
followed into dissipation a dissipated husband, buried ten chil
dren, left one, and now returned in forma pauperis — left upon the
shore by the good Samaritan, who provided her in a fortnight's
lodging, expecting that in that time her brother, to whom he
wrote, would be eager to relieve her. But her brother seems
more ashamed of her than sorry for her, and dreads her return to
Scotland, and had written a letter entreating me to get her into
a hospital, which I found on my arrival. I liked its spirit ill,
even before I had seen her, and wrote that I would not recom
mend to any hospital the sister of a Scotch clergyman in good
circumstances, except she should be wholly abandoned. Still he
writes me, inclining to the finding an asylum for her in London,
and wishing me to see her, which this day I appointed by letter,
for she lives all the way at Shad well, and is disabled of her side
by a palsy. And she came — a poor picture of the prodigal, hum
bled and penitent, and longing for her brother's bosom as ever the
prodigal did for his father's. ' I should never be off my knees, I
think, if I could but see John, and partake of his prayers and
counsels; the Lord would bring peace to my soul.' And she
wept; and she very sorely wept when I read her parts of her
brother's letter, but confessed to her past sinfulness ; and before
she went away her last words were, with many tears, ' And tell
him I am an altered woman.' ... So I sat down and wrote for
the widow, and rebuked my brother sharply, and told him he
ought to make for her a room around his fireside. What may
be the issue I know not ; but my part, God helping me, is to help
the prodigal widow. . . .
" Then I went forth to visit Mrs. P  , as I set down in my
letter; but be thankful that letter went not to the dead office,
for giving a glance to the object of my affections, whose name I
thought fairly inscribed, I found that it was fairly blank, and had
to get pen and ink at the receiving-house. James P  (who is
very great in the highest mathematics, and reads La Place's Cal
culus of Generating Functions, which that greatest of calculators
has applied to probabilities), immediately told me that La Place
observed, to show how constant causes are, that the number of
such undirected letters put into (the Paris post-office was year by
year, as nearly as possible, the same. When I went up to Mr.

228 -A- DEBTOR IN PRISON.
P  's shop I found his sister standing in it, and she took me
up to her mother's sick-room, saying little or nothing by the
way. And her mother took me by the hand, and said, 'The
Lord hath sent you this day, for my Andrew is cast into prison.'
. . . Andrew, you must know, is betrothed to a young lady whom
he has been the instrument of converting to the Lord, and when
he left S  's, being unresolved what to do with his little capi
tal, which could not meet his present business, his betrothed's un
cle said, ' Get your bills discounted, and you shall not want for
money ;' for they had always said that he was to have £500 on
the wedding-day, and £500 afterward. To this the servant of the
Lord trusting, sunk his money in his lease, trusting to have his
floating bills met by his friend, who, growing cool because An
drew did not instantly succeed, withdraws his promises, and leaves
our friend in deep waters ; and deals with his niece to send poor
Andrew all his letters, and to request hers in return. This took
place on Friday, and this day, at breakfast, 'two of the officers of
justice, at the instance of a creditor, came, and he went with them.
Thus was his mother left, and thus I found her all but overcome.
I comforted her as I could, and prayed, with her as I could, and saw
that something was to be done as well as said. So coming down,
I sat down to write in the back shop, while his sister sought some
clew to the creditor's address, that I might find the prison. . . .
So I proceeded by Cary Street, and, after diligent search, found
Andrew in a house of which the door is kept always locked, seat
ed with three men who seemed doleful enough — one resting his
forehead on his hands, another reclining on a sofa, and the third
contemplating, half miserably, half sottishly, a pint of porter. An
drew was close by the chimney corner. We communed togeth
er, and he was as calm and cheerful as Joseph, having Joseph's
trust ; and of a truth, yesterday, he seemed to his own household
lifted above himself. And he had tasted my evening discourse
upon the minister's wayfaring, raven-brood life to be very good.
And it is marvelous, we concluded our service with the 34^37
verses of the 37th Psalm, as if the Lord would encourage me with
respect to that service of which I desponded to you last night.
While I talked with dear Andrew, not knowing but the others
were the watchful officers of justice, he upon the sofa struck his
forehead and started to his feet with a maniac air, crying, ' Oh
God, the horrors are coming upfji me !' and wildly, very wildly
strode through the room, so that I was standing to my arms, lest

JOSEPH IN PRISON. 229
he might be moved of Satan against me for the words which I
was speaking to Andrew. And he with his hand upon his head
wept, and the other man would comfort with ' patience'^-' philos
ophy.' But the wounded man continued to burst out, and stride
on, and beat his forehead, whence we gathered that he had been
there for a whole month, daily expecting releasement, but none
came, every message worse than another ; and ever and anon he
spoke of his wife. Then, when his fit was over, in which he talk
ed of people putting an end. to themselves, and of the fits of hor
ror which broke his sleep, I addressed words of comfort to him,
and prevailed to soothe him ; so that, when I came away, he said,
'It were well for us to receive many such visits, sir.' But I must
break off; the night wears very late, and I am getting too much
moved. The Lord bless, for the night, my loving and beloved
wife, and the Lord bless our baptized babe — our little daughter
of the Lord !
" Tuesday, Ibih. Andrew, who realized to me the idea of Jo
seph in prison, had come away in great haste, and omitted to take
his Bible with him, which I supplied with my far-traveled and
dear companion, now bound firmly as at the first. Those storms
which I encountered upon the Yarrow mountains melted the cov
er of my writing-desk, and firmly bound the loose back of my
Bible. Leaving Andrew, I proceeded to my engagement at six
o'clock in Fleet Market, which was to visit Miss M  , and her
brother and sister, who live with her. Their father dead, their
mother in Essex, and two married brothers in town, so estranged
from her by selfishness and worldliness that, ' if five shillings
would save me from death, I hardly think I could muster it among
all my relations.' Oh, what a blessing to Scotland are her family
ties ! Families here are only associations under one roof for a few
years, to issue in alienation and estrangement : I am grieved at
my heart to witness it; butane abides strong in the Lord. . . .
Her brother gave wonderful ear to me. My words entered deep,
for he wept almost continually, and was much overpowered ; and
I do trust in the Lord that the lad may be brought to a more obe
dient and loving spirit toward his sister. Having finished a very
sweet visitation, to which there came in an old woman, and a boy
about to proceed to North America, whom I also exhorted, I hast
ened to Mrs. P  's, in order to set her mind, and especially her
imagination, at rest, which would be conjuring a thousand ideal
frights about a prison ; which having done with much consola-

230 CHRISTIAN INTERCOURSE.
tion to my own spirit, I called as I passed at Bedford Square to
see if any thing had happened untoward, but found that all was
well. ... Mr. Scoresby was still sitting, and after I had taken a
cup of tea, we came on our ways together, enjoying much delight
ful discourse. The Lord is opening his mind wonderfully to the
right apprehension of the ministerial office. I arrived not at home
till about ten o'clock, and assembled the family for worship ; and
after writing the above, I went to bed and dreamt a dream of
sweet thoughts — that I was sitting at Jesus's feet, and learning
the way to discharge, my office, having only six days to hear from
the Divine Instructor, at which time He was to remove from the
earth. " I was much refreshed by the sweet thoughts of the night, and
arose very cheerful ; and while the family was at worship, Mr.
Scoresby and Mr. Hamilton came in, whom I had invited on pur
pose to meet one another. Our morning was passed in sweet dis
course, and afterward I opened to Mr. Scoresby, in my own study,
many of my views concerning' the Church : into some he could
enter, and into others not. But he is growing richly in divine
knowledge, and I praise the -Lord for his sake. We prayed to
gether before he went away, and I invited him, when he came
back, to make his home with us. . . . Then I addressed myself
to my discourse on the bondage of law, and having wrought that
vein till I was wearied, I betook myself to the correcting of anoth
er proof, and had gone over it once, and was about concluding the
second reading, when a letter from Wm. Hamilton announced that
Mr. David was much worse, and a few hours might terminate his
life. Thereupon I left all, and proceeded to the house of death.
On my way I met Mr. Simon proceeding to Bath in order to build
up certain churches there who have besought his presence. We
commended each other to the Lord, and took our several ways. I
found Mr. David still living, and som% faint hopes of amendment ;
but I am prepared for the worst, which I doubt not is the best. . . .
I wrote a letter to Wilhe> who is at Norwich at school, opening
the afflicting intelligence to him as best I could. ... I returned
in time to get my proof-sheet finished for the post, since which I
have been laboring up the hill with my lecture upon the pious
women who ministered unto Christ ; when at nine o'clock a lady
came in to enjoy the privilege of our prayers. At the church on
Wednesday evening a sorrowful lady asked me if it was true that
I read prayers at my own house and permitted people to come.

DOMESTIC WORSHIP.— A DEATH-BED. 231
I said, at family worship I delight to comfort and encourage the
hearts of all who are present, and if you come on a spiritual er
rand you shall be welcome. So this night she came, and hath
opened to me her sorrows. Three months ago she lost her only
boy, after three years' illness, during which she watched him con
tinually ; and now she is alone in the world, with a memory
haunted and a heart stunned and broken, knowing little of the
spiritual, and dwelling much in the imagination. His sufferings
had been extreme, and his death frightful; and his poor mother,
not more than your years, is now alone in this great city, which to
her is a great desert. . . . Her husband was a Sicilian, and died
before the boy was born. . . . She- wanted to know if she would
know her son in heaven. I could have wept for her, but I saw
she needed another treatment, and therefore rebuked, but with
kindness, her imaginations, and showed her the way to the spirit
ual world, whither I pray the Lord to lead her. . . . The Lord
enable me to direct her in the way of peace. . . . Thus another
day has passed with its various incidents and various blessings.
I have been oft in it enjoying near communion with God, and oft
I have been cold and lifeless. When shall I be wholly with the
Lord ? I do desire His abiding presence^the light of his counte
nance. . . . Now may the Lord be the canopy over your head,
and over the head of the babe, this night, and over mine, envelop
ing us in the everlasting arms !
" Wednesday, Iftth November. Our dear, dear friend is no more.
He departed about five o'clock, in exactly that frame of spirit
which, above all others, I would wish to die myself in. . . . In
the five weeks of his sore affliction his robust and zealous spirit
has had the meekness of a little child, and as a little child he was
taught of the Spirit in a wonderful way. . . . The propitiation of
Christ and his own unworthiness were his chief meditations, and
continued so to the last. During that time a worldly care has not
crossed his lips. His soul has been full of love to all, and of great,
great affection to me. I know not that I have one left who loved
me as he did. . . . He accompanied me to the ship, with Mr.
Hamilton, when I came to see you and little Edward; now he is
gone in London, and Edward lies in his cold grave in Scotland ;
and I am left, and you are left, whom I feared lest I should lose ;
and left we are, dearest, to bear fruit unto God, and fruit we will
bear unto God, being cleansed by the word of Christ, and support
ed by the juices and nourishment of the vine, and dressed by the

232 A GOOD VOYAGE.
hands of our heavenly Father. Let us watch and exhort one an
other, as I now do you, my dearest wife, to much frequent private
communion with God. This was what our friend had resolved to
apply himself to with more diligence than ever if it had been the
will of the Father to spare him. About three o'clock I received
a message from Wm. Hamilton that he was fast fading away, and
had expressed a wish to see me. I had proposed going about two
hours after; these two hours would have lost me the sweetest
parting in my life — my child first born unto Christ, at least who
is known to me. I found him far gone in breathlessness, but live
ly in hearing, quick in understanding, and full of the Spirit of life.
He stretched out his hand to me ; his other was stretched to his
wife on the other side of the bed. ... I prayed with him, and
afterward continued, at intervals, to supply his thoughts with preg
nant scriptures. I repeated to him the 23d Psalm, in which he
was wont to have such delight. This revived him very much,
and he uttered several things with a grave, full, deep voice, inter
rupted by his want of breath. ' My whole hope, trust, and de
pendence is in the mercy of God, who sent His Son to save the
meanest.' ... I saw death close at hand, and drew near and took
his hand. His breathing deepened, and became more like distinct
gasps. And it failed and failed, until his lungs did their office no
more, and he died without a struggle of a limb or the discompos
ure of a muscle — his mouth open as it had drawn its last breath
— his eye fixed still on me; and we stood silent, silent around
him. Then Mr. Bedome closed his eyelids. I know not why
they do so. I loved to look on Edward's. Dear, lovely corpse
of Edward, what a sweet tabernacle was that over which thy
mother and I wept so sadly ! My much-beloved child, my much-
cherished, much-beloved child, dwell in the mercies of my God,
and the God of thy mother! We will follow thee betimes, God
strengthening us for the journey. I had still an hour to sit with
Mrs. David, and to write sweet William and his grandfather. She
was comforted, and I left her tranquil. Mr. Hamilton, who is
much affected, was seated below, in the dining-room, and we came
to the church together, when I discoursed from the 24th and 25th
verses of the 14th chapter of John, and made known to them the
good intelligence that our brother had had a good voyage so far
as we could follow him or hear tidings from him. Every one
seemed deeply affected, and all whom I talked with were sensibly
rejoiced. . . . Thus another of my flock has gone to the Chief

THE THEOLOGY OF MEDICINE. 233
Shepherd. . . . Andrew P  brought me up my Bible, having
been delivered last night, and giving thanks unto God. I love
him much; his mother, also, is better; so that the Lord hath
shined from behind the cloud. . . . James P  is a very sweet
companion. Hall is still weakly. The rest are well. I fight a
hard fight, but let me never forsake private communion or I per
ish. The Lord bless you and our dear babe. I wish I were re
freshed with a sight of you both.
" Thursday, 2 o'clock. I have had such a conversation with one
of my congregation, a medical man, upon the subject of what I
would call ' the theology of medicine,' as made me sorry you were
not present to hear it. But in good time, when you are restored
to me, you shall hear him often ; for he is both a gentleman, a
man of science — the true science of nature — and a Christian. He
discoursed upon infants, and the treatment of infants, so well and
wisely, that I could not let this letter go without noting to you
one or two things.*. . .
" Thursday, 17th Nov. My dear Isabella, nothing is of such im
portance as to have a distinct view of the end of all our labors un
der the sun — our studies, our conversations, our cares, our desires,
and whatever else constitutes our being; for, though many of
these seem to come by hazard, without any end in view, believe
me, my dear, that every habit arose out of an end, either of our
own good or some other -good desirable in our eyes, and that the
several acts contained under that label go to strengthen that end
which it carried with it from the beginning. Now, dearest, our
one, only end should be the glory of God, and our one, only way
of attaining that end by the fulfillment of His will; and the only
means of knowing that will is by the faith of His word ; and the
only strength for possessing it is the love, desire, and joy which
are begotten in us by the Holy Ghost. Therefore be careful, my
dear sister in Christ, to occupy your thoughts and cares with some
form of the divine revelation, and to have before the eye of your
faith some divine end present or distant — yea, both present and
distant ; and then shall you have communion with the Father and
with his Son Jesus Christ from morning to evening. This at
tempt, this succeed in, not by the force of natural will, which will
* Here follows a minute record of the advice he had just received, reported with
the most grave and anxious particularity, but concluding thus: "To these rules
give no more confidence than seems to your own mind good, and put your trust in
the providence and blessing of Almighty God."

234 HUSKINESS ABOUT THE HEART.
make such a hirpling, hobbling gait of it, but by the practical re
demption of your Savior, which will by degrees clear you of the
former slough, and feather your callow nakedness, and give you
wings with which to mount up into the exalted region of life.
Have ever in view the glory of God, and ever seek help to it by-
prayer, and the Lord himself will lead you into the way. These
thoughts occurred to me as I came home from Bedford Square,
where I took dinner with our dear friends, and I resolved I would
write them for your sake. I spent the morning in study upon
the help which women may afford and have afforded in the
Church, and have brought my lecture nearly to a close ; so that I
have to-morrow and next day for the great theme of legal bond
age on which I have entered. I would, and earnestly pray that
I might, keep my thoughts during study intent upon the. glory of
God and the promotion of Christ's kingdom. And it were not
dutiful if I did not acknowledge that the Lord is bringing me into
a region of nearer communion. But I can not tell what huski-
ness there is about my heart, and in my discourse what seeking
after intellectual or imaginary forms. Oh that I could feel the
very truth, and rejoice with the free joy of its inheritance. Dur
ing my study, Dr. Wilkins came in, and discoursed to me for
about an hour with a simplicity and beauty which ravished me.
If he do not prove visionary upon further acquaintance — if his
practical understanding be perfectly sound, then he is the greatest
accession to my acquaintance since I became acquainted with Mr.
Frere, and will prove to me, in all that respects the chemistry of
the bodily constitution, what other leaders have been to me in re
spect to the mental and the spiritual. The Lord hath showed me
such marvelous kindness in respect of teachers that I can not
enough praise Him. . . . The object of his discourse was to prove
that nature had no tendency to any disease, but wholly the re
verse; and that, were it not our ignorance and perversity, we
would come to our full age, and drop into the grave as a shock
of corn in its season ; and he began his demonstration from the
condition of the child. . . . There was much more he had to dis
course of, but I told him I had enough for the present, and would
hear him another time. He is a man of fine manners and a sweet
nature — of continued acknowledgment of God and blame of man.
. . . Now, dearest, I have put all this down for your sake, that
you might meditate upon it, and make the use of it which you
judge best. The man you will like exceedingly, that I know full

THE SPIRIT OF A MAN. 235
well, because we are of one spirit now, or fast growing into one
spirit — praised be the mercy of our God. . . . The Lord be gra
cious to you and all in the house. I pray for you and baby, I oft
think, with more earnestness than for myself, which is sentiment,
and not faith.' The Lord edify us in one most holy faith ; and
Mary also, whose salvation I earnestly desire. Amen.
"Friday, 18th. My dear Isabella, there is no point of wisdom,
human or divine, so carefully to be attended to, for one's own
good, or for the knowledge and good of others, as the spirit which
men are of. For the spirit draws after it the understanding, and
determines the views which men take of every subject, in the
world of sight or in the world of faith. Some people remain un
der the spirit of their minds, and become intensely selfish. Bfjt
the social principle leads the several spirits to congregate together
for mutual defense and encouragement. First of all there is the
Holy Spirit, whose communion constitutes the true Church of
Christ, and you may be sure their opinions will be orthodox doc
trine, charitable sentiment, sweet, patient temper, and, in short,
transcripts of -Christ Jesus our Lord. Then there is the worldly
. spirit, which is one in respect of its opposition to the former, and
intolerance of all its opinions ; but in respect to itself is divided
into many, its name being Legion. Of these I find to prevail at
present the following : 1st. Around you in Scotland there is the
spirit of the human understanding, of which skepticism of all
things that can not be expressed with logical precision is the char
acteristic, and an utter abhorrence of all mystery ; whereas, as you
know, to the Holy Spirit of simplicity every thing is a mystery
unfolding itself more and more. There is also the spirit of self-
sufficiency, which characterizes our countrymen above measure.
With us we have the spirit of expediency, which calculates what
it can foresee, and accounts all beyond to be void and unreclaim
ed chaos; it is utterly fruitless of any principle self-directing in
the human soul, and would make man wholly under the influence
of outward things. Of this class Owen is the fool. About the
Universities of England is the spirit of antiquity, which prizes
what is recondite and difficult of discovery, and runs out into
Egyptian expeditions to the Pyramids and the Tombs. And
among the common people there is, in direct opposition to this,
the spirit of radicalism, which hath no reverence for antiquity, or,
indeed, for any thing but its own projections. In the Church
here there is the spirit of formality, which often ascends into very

236 TRY THE SPIRITS.
high regions of beauty and comeliness, but wants the living, act
ing, confirming principle — is but an Apollo Belvidere or a Venus
de' Medici after all — not a living, acting, self-directing principle.
I have not time nor strength to open the subject philosophically,
but I have said enough to lead your meditations to it, which is all
that I desire. For observe you, my dear, that if you be of the
right spirit, all things will right themselves in the eyesight of your
mind. Hence the Holy Spirit is called also the spirit of truth.
We do not get right by conning our opinions back over again,
but we change our opinions, as we do our dress, from a change in
our spirit. Therefore these are often not hypocrites, but rash
men, who are seen so suddenly to change their sides. And true
conversion draws with it an alteration of all our opinions ; and
conversion is properly defined as a change of spirit. How often
do people say, It was all true he said, but spoken in a bad spirit.
Now if you wish to be right, seek communion with the Holy Spir
it; and if you wish to know whom you ought to listen to, by
what manner of spirit he is of, try the spirits whether they be of
God. Milton could not say, Jesus is the Son of God, because he
would not yield to the Holy Spirit, but preferred the spirit of
radicalism ; and as no one can know the Father but he to whom
the Son revealeth Him, so no one knoweth the Son but he to
whom the Spirit revealeth Him. And what is meant by having
right opinions, or being wise, but to know the Son who is truth ?
And much more remains, which I may perhaps write hereafter.
" I gave God thanks for your letter, and for the answer of my
prayers that you continued to stand fast in the Lord. With re
spect to your journey, you will easily reach Dumfries by posting
it ; and I think you ought to take the road by Biggar, Thornhill,
and the Nith, as being the more pleasant, and I think, if any thing,
the more sheltered of the two ; although, in that respect, both are
bleak enough ; . . . from Annan you had better take the way by
Newcastle, and thence to Mr. Bell's, of Boswell, which I under
stand to be within seven miles of York, and I would meet you
there. . . . From Annan you will bring me two or three pairs of
a shoe of a passing good form for my foot. Nothing has occurred
to me to-day worth mentioning. I have enjoyed the presence of
God beyond my deservings. I preached to Mr. N  's people,
and recognized in them improvement, as I hope ; much in him.
There was one idea which occurred to me worth writing. How
vain is it for man to trust in God's mercy, when His own Son,

A BENEDICTION TO THE ABSENT. 237
though He cried hard for it, could find none, but had to drink the
cup of justice ! I am weary. The Lord be with you all !
" Saturday, 19th November. I am so fatigued, dear Isabella, that
I dare not venture to Write, but will not retire to rest without in
serting upon this record of my dearest thoughts a husband's and
a father's blessing upon his dear wife and child.
" Sabbath, 20th November. I have reason this night again to bless
the Lord for His goodness to His unworthy servant, for I have been
much supported, and have had great liberty given me to wrestle
with the souls of the people ; but I want much the grace of wrest
ling with the Lord for their sake. I feel daily drawn, like the
Prophet Daniel, to some great and continued act of humiliation and
earnest supplication for the Church, but Satan hindereth me. And
yet I doubt not the Lord will work in me this victory, and that by
your help I shall yet be able to wait upon the Lord night and
day, and to weep between the altar and tabernacle for the souls
of the people. Indeed, I have already planned that when the
Lord restore you to my sight (in spirit we are never parted), we
shall pass an' hour of every day, from four till five, in our own
room, with no presence but the presence of God, which we will
earnestly entreat ; and we will rest from our great labors that
hour, and meditate of our everlasting rest. Before entering upon
this day's labors I will look back upon yesterday, that you may
be informed of one or two things which will be pleasant to your
ear. . The death of our friend David hath wrought wonderfully
for good with us all, so that men busy with the world have wept
like children ; and all have, I think, had the spiritual seasoning
intermingled with the natural feeling. It wrought upon me in
the way of greater earnestness of spiritual communion; and I
think yesterday morning, in the visions of the night, I was con
scious of the sweetest enjoyments of the soul I ever knew. There
was no vision presented to my sight in my dream, but there was
a sense of deeper meaning and clearer understanding given to our
Lord's parting discourse, which filled me with a spiritual delight
— a light of spiritual glory that, was unspeakably mild and de
lightful. I awoke full of thanksgiving and praise, and bowed my
self upon my bed, and gave thanks, and arose to my labors. I
break off for worship. The Lord be in the midst of us !
" In reading the last half of the 16th chapter of John, I was
struck with the 23d and 24th verses, which show us why the
. Lord's prayer was not concluded in Christ's name — because he

238 SUNDAY.
was not Intercessor and High-Priest till after His death. He was
perfected, that is, consecrated (for the word for consecration was
then perfecting) by sufferings. In the days of His flesh He had
no mediatorial power, but was conquering it to Himself and His
Church, and therefore He called upon them to rejoice that He
was to go away. Now to return. All the day long I continued
in study, with walks in the garden and relaxations of history, un
til after two o'clock, when I bore Mr. P  company to Bedford
Square. . . . Thence I proceeded to the house of affliction. . . .
Now I come to the labors, the blessed labors of the Sabbath.
This morning I awoke at six, but was too weary to rise till eight;
and having gone over my sermon, with my pen in my hand, to
bring it to very truth as nearly as I know it, I went to church
with Mr. Dinwiddie, who enters cordially with me into prayer,
and is desirous of a more spiritual discourse than when you used
to walk with him. After Psalms and prayer, in which I had no
small communion, we perused the 4th of Hebrews. . . . Then I
commenced my discourse on Gal., ii., 14, upon the bondage of
law, opening the whole subject of justification by faith, upon
which I intend to discourse at large ; and I presented them first '
with a view of the dignity of the law, both outward in the state
and inward in the soul. . . . (But it has struck twelve ; the Lord
bless thee and the child, and rest us this night in the arms of His
love and mercy, so as we may arise as to a resurrection of life
against to-morrow ! Amen.) To-morrow is come, and I am still
in the land of the living to praise and glorify my Creator and
Redeemer ; which having done according to my weakness, I sit
down to my pleasant labor, after many incidents which must form
part of my next dispatch. Then showing them the Charybdis of
licentiousness upon the other side of the fair way, into which An-
tinomians and other loose declaimers against the law did carry
miserable souls, and where also superstition and Methodism did
bind them in bare bondage after they had seduced them from the
wholesome restraints of law, into which law they ought to have
breathed the spirit of true obedience, I concluded by entreating
their prayers that I might be enabled to handle this vast subject
with power, and love, and a sound mind (which I again beseech
of you also). . . .
" In the evening I was feeble in prayer to begin with, no doubt
from want of faith ; but the Lord strengthened me toward the
close, otherwise I think I should not have had heart to go on with .

THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN. 239
the service, I felt so spirit-stricken. ... My lecture was upon the
ministry of women in their proper sphere in the Church, which I
drew out of the Scriptures by authority; and by the same author
ity limited and restrained from authority, either in word or in dis
cipline, to the gentle and tender ministry of love, and devotion of
goods and personal services, which afforded me a sweet and gra
cious topic to descant upon, in defense of female liberty, and eman
cipation from worldly and fashionable prudential laws and tyran
nies of decorum, false delicacy, and other base bondages ; all which
I set off with the historical illustrations of woman's vast services,
martyrdoms, shelter of the persecuted, care of the poor, to the
seeming conviction of the people, and concluded with a summary
of a Christian woman's duties in her various relations ; and in
sisted upon them, as they were members of my church, to be help
ful to me, or else I saw no prospect of any growth of communion
in the midst of us. . . . Dearest, I have set forth many things in
this letter for your meditation. They are seeds of thought (rather)
than thoughts; the spirit of truth (rather) than the doctrines -of
truth. Think on these things, and meditate them much, and the
Lord give you understanding in all things. For our babe we can
do nothing but pray unto the Lord, and cease from anxiety, living
in faith; and cease from anxiety, living in faith. . . .
" Monday, 21st November, 1825. May the Lord of His great mer
cy fill my soul with the fullness of love to my dear wife ; that, as
Christ loved the Church, I may love her, and in like manner mani
fest with all gracious words my unity of soul with her soul ; that we
may be one as. Thou, our Creator, didst intend man and woman to
be from the beginning. This day, dearest, hath been to me a day
of much and varied activity, which, being full of reflection and
conflict, I shall recount in order. After good rest, which, by the
blessing of God, my wearied head doth constantly enjoy, I arose
about eight, and, being outwardly and inwardly appareled, I came
down to fulfill the will of God, whatever it might be, and found
Mr. M  , the artist, and Mr. S  , also an artist, of whom I
wrote to you as being one of my communicants, with whom and
the family, having worshiped the God of our salvation, while
breakfast was arranging in the other room by good Mrs. Hall,
Miss W  and another lady came to wait upon me, whom I
went to see. The lady is a Mrs. S  , dwelling in the city, who
has been much blessed by my ministry, and was brought to it in
this wonderful way, as she told it me from her own lips. She had

240 A DREAM.
been much tried by a worthless husband, of whom you know
there are so many in this tie-dissolving city ; and in the midst of
her sorrowful nights she dreamed a dream : that she was carried
to a church, of which the form and court, even to two trees which
grew over the wall, were impressed upon her mind; and there
she heard a minister, whose form and dress, to the very shape of
his gown, was also impressed upon her, who preached to her from
these words : ' Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of
heaven.' This she communicated to one of her comforting friends,
to whom, describing the gown, she answered that he must be a
Scotch minister who was intended by the vision, for they are the
only people who wear that kind of gown. She had already heard
Dr. Manuel and Dr. Waugh, but was sure they answered not to
the figure of the vision ; but, as she passed a window, she saw a
print of me, and was impressed with the resemblance. Heretofore
she had been deterred from coming near me by the crowd, but
now she resolved some evening to come; and, having taken a
friend's house by the way, they strongly gainsayed her purpose,
and would have taken her elsewhere with them, and all but pre
vailed. This detained her beyond the hour, and when she re
turned our psalm and prayer were over, and I was naming the sub
ject of lecture, and the first words that fell upon her ears were
the words of her dream : ' Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the
kingdom of heaven.' She stood in the midst of a crowd hardly
able to stand, and beheld and heard all which had been revealed
to her in the visions of the night. ... Is not this very marvel
ous, dear Isabella, and very gracious, that the Lord should comfort
His people by such a worm as I am ? I exhorted her to abide
steadfast, and to come again and see me.
" When breakfast was over I brought Mr. S  with me into the
library, whose heart, I perceived, was full of some matter, who told
me, with an artlessness and alarm which showed his happy igno
rance of our town infidelity, that a cousin of his had, in the course
of religious conversation, declared his disbelief of Jesus being the
son of David, and disputed the genealogies, and had maintained
that in Joshua's time they were but poor geographers, otherwise
they would never have alleged that the sun stood still. I was at
pains to instruct him, and to teach him the subtle arts of the tempt
er, but he concluded by saying that it was not for himself, but for
his cousin, that he was concerned, and the big tear filled his eye
when he' said it. I entreated him to bring his cousin some night

THE FOUR SPIRITS. 241
at our hour of prayer, and I would do my endeavor to set him
right. Now I had received this very morning a letter from one
Gavin H  , a poor infidel, craving that I would preach a dis
course upon the character of God, which he could not understand
to be both merciful and vindictive ; and I had received two other
letters, one with a pamphlet, craving help of me against the infidel
Taylor, who is poisoning the city at such a rate ; and having like
wise been entreated by two men to attend a meeting in John Street
Chapel upon the subject of the District Society for Evangelizing
the Poor, I resolved to attend, though somewhat against my in
tention, considering that these things, put together, were a sort of
call of Providence. Haying dismissed Mr. S  , I had commu
nion with Mr- M  , whom Mr. A  had been in much fear
about lately, lest he should be falling back, through the love of
a young woman and the companionship of her family, who were
not spiritual. To this subject, introducing myself gently, modest
ly, and tenderly, I came, and spoke upon it with feeling, as hav
ing been in like manner tried ; for in what way have I not been
tempted, and, alas ! overcome in all ? . , .
" Then, being left alone, I sought to relieve my mind by perus
ing the history of those wonderful instruments of God, the Roman
people, not without prayer that the Lord would interpret the rec
ord of His providence to my soul. And I think that I was edi
fied in it until I had gathered strength to finish your letter, which
Brightwell interrupted me in, to whom I revealed all my convic
tions of the spirits that were abroad in the world, and which were
defacing the glory of the Church : the radical spirit among the
Dissenters, the intellectual spirit in the Scottish churches, the spir
it of expediency among the Evangelicals. He could not see along
with me throughout, but he saw more than most men I converse
with. Do pray that the Lord may enable me clearly to discern
truth, and steadfastly to bear testimony to it ! It is a Jesuitical
spirit that is opposing Christ among the Methodists. And these
four spirits are so weakening the being of the Church, and cor
rupting the life which is faith, that, though their numbers may
increase, it will still be true, ' When the Son of Man cometh shall
He find faith on the earth ?' . . .
"I had engaged to dine with Mr. H  at four o'clock. . . .
I knew not that any thing was waiting me there. But where is
not the minister of the Lord wanted in this distressed, imprisoned,
and rebellious earth ? The old man was ill, and they had been
Q

242 RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.
forced to bleed him. I went in to see him on his bed, and would
have prayed with him, but he professed he was not able to hear
me. Ah ! Isabella, I fear for that old man ; I greatly fear his
soul is asleep and will not awake. Make your prayer for him,
for he also shall be required at your husband's hand. There are
two Miss F  's, cousins of the family, come to spend the win
ter, who talked much like the young women of Edinburgh, chat
tering a vain palaver about ministers, and music, and organs, with
which I would have nothing to do. But after tea I began to talk
to them all concerning the things of their peace, and was led by
Mrs. H  's questions to unfold the judicial blindness to which
men are at length shut up, and to open the whole matter of our
dependence upon the Father, which was mightily confirmed by
the first half of the 17th chapter of John, which is a marvelous
acknowledgment of the Father's sovereignty. I pray you to read
it and learn humility, self-emptying humility, and profound noth
ingness in your prayers. They all wept, the religious belles as
well as the rest ; and a young nephew, half-caste, about to sail for
India, wept with a very full heart after I had prayed with them
all. I trust that family is growing in grace, and I fear they have
long abidden formalists. Remember this one thing, my Isabella,
that we who have believed are by covenant to be brought into
the full inheritance, but according to the Lord's time and propor
tion; but surely as He hath sworn we shall inherit, therefore
abide waiting, abide waiting (how long did He wait for us?),
waiting in perfect faith of being led in.
" I took the John Street Church by the way, and heard them
deliberating about an expedient to meet Taylor's blasphemous
tract that is soon to be published. They are very busy, these*
enemies of the Lord. He can not bear it long. They are carry
ing the people like a stream away from God. But I told them it
was not by the expedient of tract-writing or circulating, or con
troversial work, but by manifestation of the truth to the conscience,
that they were to prevail ; and that, when they found the people
upon that ground, they should answer them with a caveat that
the matter at issue was not there, still giving them a reason with
meekness and fear, but shift the ground' as fast as possible, not be
cause the ground was not tenable, but because the kingdom was
to be contended for elsewhere. That the teachers ought to assem
ble to make themselves masters of the infidel's fence, in order to
interpose their shield against his poisoned arrows, but with the

A SUBTLE CANTAB. 243
other hand they should feed the poor captive, and nourish him
into strength to fight himself. They heard and believed me. But
I came away entreating the Lord to make me a man in the breach
against these sons of Belial, and that I was willing to die if He
would spare His inheritance from these fiery flying serpents of
infidel notions, which have fallen in upon this central congrega
tion of Israel. Tell your father to be on his post, and to tell his
brethren to look to their arms, they know not how insecure their
citadel is. Henry Drummond was in the chair ; he is in all chairs
— I fear for him. His words are more witty than spiritual ; his
manner is spiritual, not grave. . . . Then I came home, and im
mediately there gathered a pleasant congregation .... to whom,
with my family, I addressed the word of exhortation, and opened
the 103d Psalm, that psalm of psalms, and our passage in order
was Luke, xiv., verse 25. How appropriate to these communi
cants, but oh, Isabella, how sublime ! None but God durst have
uttered such an abrupt apostrophe to a multitude of men, and no
multitude of men would have borne it but from a manifest God.
But how contemptible a comparison of unresolved professors — sa
vorless salt, neither good for the field of the Church nor for the
dunghill of the world ! I pray you to consider this passage ; it
was more fertile to my soul than I have now strength to tell.
The ladies went their ways, and left the two young men, with
whom having conversed in the study, I found to be of a righteous
spirit, and pressing into the kingdom. . . . These things rejoice
me. The Lord enriches me with comfort. Blessed be His name !
Blessed be His holy name ! His thrice holy name be blessed for
ever and ever !
" And now, dear, I am wearied, having fulfilled many gracious
offices, and having had a breathing of the Spirit on them all, and
on this not less than the others, my worthy wife — that thou and
ours, and the house where thou dwellest, may be blessed of our
God forever and ever!
" Tuesday, 22d. That subtle Cantab, with his logic, has almost
robbed my Isabella of hex tribute of love, he has so exhausted
me. In the morning we were alone, and I arose much refreshed
with sleep, and, after worship and breakfast, addressed myself to
the work of meditating the 5th chapter of the Hebrews in the orig
inal, which is so full of tender humanity. To this I added, in the
garden, some reading on the high-priest's office in Godwin's ' Mo
ses and Aaron.' And as I walked I had much elevation of soul

244 A CIRCLE OF KINSFOLK.
to the heavenly thrones, with certain cogitations of God's neigh
borhood to very holy men, so that to me it seemed not possible
to say whether He might not still work manifest wonders by their
hand ; not to convince them with visible demonstrations, for that
is the Catholic solicitatron for an idol, but to work spiritual won
ders by their means. Thereafter I set myself to rough-hew my
discourse, of which more when it takes shape ; taking among hands
the 'Roman History,' not without prayer that the Lord would
open to me the mystery of his Providence, when, for the first time
(oh unbelief I), it occurred to me that I was reading the rise of the
fourth great monarchy into whose hands God had given the earth.
The works of. the Lord are wonderful — sought out are they of all
those who take pleasure therein ; so wonderful was the rise of
Macedon and of Persia, for Babylon I have forgot. . . . Another
letter from Henry Paul, commending a Miss M  to me as one
of the people of God who wished to join our fold. She is wel
come in the Lord's name. I could not see her, being occupied
with a little circle of kinsfolk, who were Peter F  's wife, and
daughter, and mother. . . . They are on their way to join him
at Dover (how full of painful interest that place is now become !
My Edward! oh my Edward!). The mother wishes to get a
housekeeper's situation, for which she is qualified, and desires
your countenance ; so, while you are at Dumfries and Annan, I
pray you to satisfy yourself of her character and ability, that we
may help her if we can. I commended them to the Lord after
they had eaten bread with me. Thereafter I addressed myself to
reading, being broke up for the day by this welcome interruption,
until toward three, when I bore James P  on his way to the
inn, and returned to my own solitary meal ; and after it I took
myself much to task for want of temperance, which, after all, I
have not yet attained to. It is a saying of one of the Fathers, 'In
a full belly all the devils dance ;' and Luther used to say ' he loved
music after dinner, because it kept the devils out' But I believe
the truth is, that temperance wrought by the Spirit is the only
defense, of which I felt this day the lack, although my dinner was
wholly of pea soup and potatoes; but. I took too much, and was
ashamed of the evil thoughts which have dared to show face in
the temple of the Holy Ghost.
" I prayed the Lord to strengthen me in all time coming for
His greater glory, and proceeded, about five, on my way to Mr.
Barclay's, Fleet Market, taking by the way a brother of Hall's,

THE SPIRIT OF A FORMER AGE. 245
whose house joins by the back of the church. Oh, Isabella, how
frail we are ! There was a sweet boy of nine years, who had nev
er ailed any thing in his life, brought in one day to the jaws of
death, if he be not already consumed of it, by the croup; and a
poor family, and, I fear, an ignorant one, with whom, having left
my prayers and help, I proceeded on my way. The boy had said,
' Mother, do not fret ; I must die some time, and I will go to heav
en.' So would patient Edward have said if he could have spoken
any thing. Love not Margaret after the flesh, but after the spir
it, my dearest wife. I went with fear and trembling to Mr. Bar
clay's, but with self-rebuke that I had not made it a day of prayer
and humiliation for their sakes. I had besought the Lord, but I
did not feel that He was found of me ; and I had meditated by the
way this one thought, kindred to what I set forth in my last let-
ler, ' That when the Holy Ghost departs from any set of opinions
or form of character, they wither like a sapless tree.' Witness
the preaching of Scotland, the voice of the Spirit of a former age ;
witness the high-flying Whigs of the Assembly, the armor-bearers
of the covenanting Whigs of the Claim of Rights; witness the
radical and political dissenters of England, the mocking-birds of
the Nonconformists ; witness the High-Churchmen of England,
who pretend to maintain what Ridley, and Latimer, and Hooper
embodied. Ay, there is the figure ; the doctrine is the vainest
when the Spirit is gone. Meditate, Isabella, this deep mystery of
the spirit in man quickened by the Holy Spirit. I had one med
itation at home, ' That immortal souls, not written compositions,
nor printed books, were the primum mobile of a minister's activi
ty.' I found father, and mother, and two sisters, and from the first
Mr. B  opened his doubts and difficulties to me, by telling me
that he hoped to be able to enter better into my new subject than
into my former, but declaring that he had seen new views of his
sinfulness, and brought to look to Christ alone for salvation, whom
he looked upon as his Mediator, Intercessor, and Redeemer, but
could not see as equal with God, though he was God's representa
tive. I opened the great mystery as I could, telling him at the
same time it was only to be opened by the Holy Spirit, upon
whose offices I enlarged, and went over a large field of demon
stration with much satisfaction to them all, and deep emotion
with the two daughters, whom I think the Lord our God is call
ing. Then we came to speak of dear David's death, by my recit
al of which they were very much moved, as also by my unfolding

246 THE LOST SHEEP.
the blessed fruits of our Edward's removal. He has been much
upon my mind this day. Dearest, I think light is breaking upon
Mr. Barclay's mind. Pray for him ; he is to mark his difficulties,
which I am to do my endeavor to clear up. When I returned,
here waited Miss W  and a Mr.M'Nicol, from Oban, who, with
his wife, desired the ordinance. . . . Our chapter was the first
seven verses of the fourteenth of Luke. What a touching appeal
that parable of the sheep was for the poor publican to the Phari
sees; how delicately reproved they were, themselves being al
lowed to be as men who needed no repentance compared with
these sinners ! Grant that ye are the unoffending, unstrayed chil
dren of the house ; but here is one that has shipwrecked. May I
not go and seek him as ye would a strayed sheep, and, if he re
turn, will not the family forget their every-day blessedness in a
tumult of joy? The Lord strengthened me in prayer, and now
He hath strengthened me in this writing beyond my expectations.
Kiss our beloved child for her father's sake. I heard of you both
by those airy tongues that syllable men's names. . . . Fear the
Lord, my wife, always ; fear the Lord ! . . .
" Wednesday, 23d. This has been to me a day of temptation
from dullness and deadness in the divine life. I know not
whence arising, if it be not from want of more patient commun
ion with God in secret, and more frequent meditation of His holy
Word. Oh, Isabella, there is no abiding in the truth but by the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is not reasoning, or knowledge,
or admonition, or council, or watchfulness, or any other form of
spiritual carefulness and ability, but His own presence — His own
Spirit, quick and lively, which maketh us tender, ready, discern
ing in the ways of righteousness and iniquity. The Spirit search-
eth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Dearest, mistrust rea
sonings, mistrust examples, mistrust prudential views, mistrust
motives, and seek for an abiding, a constant spirit of holiness,
which shall breathe of God, and feel of God, and watch in God,
and care in God, and in all things reveal God to be with us and
in us. A child possessed of the Holy Spirit is wiser to know
righteousness from iniquity than the most refined casuist or the
most enlightened divine. It is truly a spiritual administration,
the present administration of our souls, and we see but as through
a glass, but afterward face to face. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, we shall know as we are known. Oh, seek a pres
ence, an ever-abiding presence of the Holy One, for yourself and

NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 247
your husband ! Yet, though heavy in soul, I cried to the Lord
very often, and He has heard my prayer. I know that we shall
be tried with various tribulations, but we shall not be prevailed
against. While I was occupied constructing my morning dis
course, Mr. N  came in, and we had a season of brotherly com
munion. His sisters go forward, all the three, with one consent,
and bear a loving heart to us and to all the people of God. They
wished books to peruse, and I recommended to them Edwards'
History of Redemption, to read along with the Old Testament his
tory of the Church, and to prepare them for reading the New
Testament history of the Church. Oh, that this was drawn up by
one possessed of the Spirit of God, and not the spirit of history,
who, in a short space and with a round pen, would draw it out
after the manner of the books of Samuel and the Chronicles, ad
joining to it specimens of the most pious writings of the Fathers,
which might answer to the history, as the prophets answer to the
Old Testament history. ... I also opened my lecture, which is to
treat of the duty of the Church to support its ministers ; for I per
ceive that, from want of being discoursed of, these great rudiment-
al ideas of the Church have changed into convenient and expedi
ent arrangements of human wisdom.
" I dined alone, and after dinner kept on with the History of
Rome, whose age of tumults and domestic seditions I have arrived
at, the condition of the people, with plebeian institutions, who have
lost the bond of religion, and the domestic and moral obligations
resting on it. That tradition is remarkable of Julius Caesar's hav
ing the vision of a man of great stature and remarkable appear
ance inviting him to cross the Rubicon, which paved the way to
the empire, in which form it becomes a prophetic object, and has
a prophetic character. I have resolved, nevertheless, to throw
that part of my book* which derived its materials from the book
of Esdras into a note, lest I should give encouragement to the pru
dential advocates of the Apocrypha. It is there that Julius Caesar
is a prophetic character. . . . When we came to Mrs. David's, I
had such a desire to deliver Brightwell from political leaning in
the Slavery Abolition question, for I find they are to a man gone
into the idea that Christianity must have the effect of making the
slaves disquiet ; that is, they lean so much to the political ques
tion, that even themselves say, until they are emancipated, it is
vain that you seek to Christianize them. This is turning round
* Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed.

248 WISDOM.
with a vengeance ; but it is so every where. Oh, my Isabella,
how the sons of God are intermarrying with the daughters of
men ! Every where some evil spirit is seeking alliance with the
Holy Spirit. This is to me an evidence that the Deluge is at
hand. Every day I feel more and more alone, and more and more
rooted and grounded in the truth. The Lord make me faithful,
though it were by the hating of father, and mother, and brother,
and my own life. William Hamilton sees this matter as I do, and
I found Dr. M--  saw the question of liberty as I do : these are
the only two concurrences I have had in these broad and general
questions since I came to visit you. But I thank God, in other
matters of a private and personal kind, I am at one with all the
children of God. Oh, out of what a pit the Lord hath brought
me ! How I abhor my former self and all my former notions ! I
was an idolater of the understanding and its clear conceptions ; of
the spirit, the paralyzed, dull, and benighted spirit, with its mys
terious dawnings of infinite and everlasting truth, I was no better
than a blasphemer. Now the Lord give me grace to bear with
those who are what I lately was. This discourse wore me out,
and when I came to church I was more fit for a couch and silence ;
but I sought strength, and, though I could not reach the subject
in all its extent — ' the prince of this world cometh, and hath noth
ing in me' — I trust I was able somewhat to put the people on
their guard against Satan's temptations, and establish the Church
in Christ, their everlasting strength. . . .
" Thursday, 2Aih. ... In this record, which I make daily for
the comfort and edification of my dear wife, I desire God to be my
witness and constant guide, lest I should at any time consult for
the gratification of my own vanity, or warp truth from the great
end of His glory and the comfort of His saint. And may He not
suffer the method which I pursue, of personal narrative, to betray
me into any egotism or self-preference to the prejudice of holy
truth ! In the morning our dear friend B. M  came to break
fast, bringing (diligent man !) the sheets of the third volume of
Bacon with him. He preferred to be with us during worship, and
was very much affected, as I judge, by our simple service. We
read that sublime evaluation of wisdom in the Book of Job
(xxviii.), which was so appropriate to our dear friend's mind,
though it came in course, and I was so stupid and dull, or over
awed by his presence, as not to be able personally to apply it.
Dearest Isabella, what a passage of Holy Writ that is ! What a

FAREWELL COUNSELS. 249
climax of sublimity, ranging through the profound mysteries of
the bowels of the earth, and the knowledge of man and all his
most valuable possessions, and through the earth and the hoary
deep, and through death and the grave, till at length he finds it in
the simplicity of spiritual truth : ' The fear of the Lord is the be
ginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil, that is understand
ing.' It is equaled by the nineteenth chapter, which is in the pa
thetic what the other is in the sublime ; expressing the uttermost
dejection and desolation, and from the depths of it all piercing
through gloomy time, and hoary ruin and waste, to the resurrec
tion, when he should meet the Redeemer from all these troubles,
and ^and before Him in immortal being. My dear companion of
thou ,,. meditate these two chapters of inspiration ; they will re
pay you well.
" The four German missionaries came in during prayer, and I
think I had a spirit of supplication granted to me in interceding
for their sakes. We had sweet discourse during breakfast. I
think our dear friend is melting into sweeter moods, and over
coming himself not a little. I trust, by the grace of God, to see
him a disciple of the Lord, humble and meek. His manner to me
is utterly changed, permitting me to follow my own manner of
discourse in things spiritual and divine. When breakfast was
finished, I left him and James together, and brought the mission
aries into the library, for they came to take leave. Then I opened
to them the condition of the world as presented to us in the proph
ecy, and the hopes to which they had to look forward ; of the fall
ing ' of the cities of the nations,' that is, the superstitions of the
world. Then, as their constant encouragement, I read them the
seventeenth chapter of John : their Lord's intercession for their
sakes, which now He hath power also to accomplish, if they have
faith in him. Oh, Isabella, it seemed to me a rich reward of all
their labors that they would be brought to a nearer acquaintance
with these most precious apostolic consolations, the 14th, 15th,
16th, and 17th chapters of John. Then I recounted to them my
own missionary success in London, the hinderances of Satan, the
enmities of my countrymen and their evil reports, the enemies in
this place, and whatever else was raised up against me, in order
to acquaint them with the wonderful works of God on my behalf,
unworthy sinner, headstrong rebel as I am. Then we joined in
prayer, and I besought the Lord to be for home and friends, and
wisdom and strength to these defenseless sheep, which were about

250 THE JOY OF GRIEF.
to go forth among wolves. I made them write their names and
nativities in my book, chiefly for your eyes, seeing you are not
permitted to see them before they go. I do again pray the Lord
to be their guide and their prosperity.
"By this time the mourning coach had arrived to carry me to
the funeral of my beloved son in the Gospel, which took up, by
Clerkenwell church, a Mr. T  , who, with his wife, are hearers
in my church ; with whom also I returned, and was enabled to
speak clearly to his soul, without any shamefacedness, and, I trust,
with pastoral love and fidelity. The truth drew tears from his
eyes ; whether the Lord may bless it to his spirit, He who is wise
will witness. When we arrived there were several assembled of
her trusty friends and nearest kindred, and among others Mr.
A  , the counselor. He began to remind me, in a voice little
apt to mourning, or mindful of the sacredness of the house of
mourning, that the last time we had met was at the house of feast
ing, dining with the lords at the Old Bailey ; upon which I felt it
my duty, in order to overawe worldly intrusions, to take up that
word, and say that my friend had reminded me of our last meet
ing at the house of feasting, and that, as it would have been thought
very indecorous then to have obtruded the face or feeling of sor
row, so this house of sorrow and death had also its rights, which
did not bear with the conversation of lively (minds) and worldli-
ness ; but with humble moods and downcast spirits, and mourn
ing before the Lord, and other afflictive conditions of the soul ;
and when it was a Christian who was taken, and from Christians
that he was taken, there should shine upon the troubled waters a
gleam of light, and a hope of glory, and thankfulness, and joy:
the joy of grief that he had escaped the troublous and chastening
deep. This led to discourse that was profitable. . . . Poor Wil
liam wept very sore, but always sorest when I mingled religious
warnings to him and counsels; then he turned his face and his
eyes to me, as we walked together in the church-yard, and wept
without restraint, as if he had said, Oh, forsake me not, forsake me
not ! And I will not forsake thee, my orphan boy, God not for
saking me. It drizzled and rained ; several of the congregation
were waiting there, to walk behind the company ; and when he
was lowered into the grave, I stood forth to declare the conquest
of death and the grace of God in the faith of our brother, and ex
horted the people to be of a good and constant faith, after which
we prayed and departed to our homes and occupations, I trust not

"MANAGEMENT." 251
without motions of the Holy Spirit to a better life. Then apply
ing myself to study what short interval was left me, I proceeded
to Bedford Square. ... On my way I called at Mr. H  's, and
found the old man growing worse ; but he would not see me.
That is very remarkable. I gather that he sees his partner.
Dare he not bear my probe? It is wont to be very gentle; but
she is a saint growing fast. . . .
" Friday, 25th November. This morning I arose rather worn and
weary. ... I have all day experienced that trial which, many
have continually, of a troublous body, but am better now at night.
This condition of my body and mind was not relieved by many
interruptions, while I had upon me the weight of two discourses.
First, Mr. Hamilton bringing me the tidings of Mr. H  's ill
ness ; then Mr. Whyte, who called by appointment; then Mr. Din
widdie posting with the same account of Mr. H  . I would
they would help me, not beat me up as if I were slothful, when
my poor soul is like to languish with too much exertion. But
formality, formality, thou art man's scourge ! and thou, spirit of
truth and duty, thou art man's comforter ! My elders have a
nice idea of things being rightly managed ; I wish they had the
spirit of it ; and I think that also is growing. Then came Miss
D  with the same tidings ; and though I was in the midst of
weakness with such a load on my mind, I went my ways with my
papers in my pocket, having to meet Mr. W  at Mr. Dinwid-
die's at dinner. I found Mr. H  shut himself up from my vis
its, although he saw both his medical man and his mercantile part
ner. I pray the Lord to be his Shepherd and comfort in my
stead ; and we prayed in the adjoining room, and afterward I
came down stairs to study, being purposed to wait as long as I
could. Toward four Mrs. H  came to me, and we had much
discourse with one another. She told me of the saintly character
of her father, and of Mr. H  's grandfather. . . . Why are there
no such saints in Scotland now ? Because their wine is mingled
with water — their food is debased. It will nourish men no longer,
but dwarflings. Oh, Scotland ! oh, Scotland ! how I groan over
thee, thou, and thy children, and thy poverty-stricken Church!
Thy Humes are thy Knoxes, thy Thomsons are thy Melvilles, thy
public dinners are thy sacraments, and the speeches which attend
them are the ministrations of their idol. And the misfortune,
dearest, is that the scale is falling everywhere in proportion, min
isters and people, cities and lonely places, so that it is like going

252 THE NEW CHURCH.
into the Shetland Islands, where, though you have the same plants,
they are all dwarfed, and the very animals dwarfed, and the men
also. So valuable is pure unadulterated doctrine ; so valuable is
pure faithful preaching ; so valuable is simple faith, and a single
eye to the glory of God. How well the state of our Church, nay,
of the Christian Church in general, is described by the account of
the Laodicean Church. It almost tempts me to think more of the
idea that these seven Churches are emblems of the seven ages of
the Christian Church, to the last of which men are now arrived.
My dear, if this is to be reformed, if it is to be withstood, and I
have faith to undertake it, I think I must stand alone, for I can
get no sympathy among my brethren. Dr. Gordon even has not
had this revealed to him ; and for Dr. Chalmers, he is immersed ¦
in civil polity and political economy, a kind of purse-keeper to the
Church Apostolic. And for Andrew Thomson, he is a gladiator
of the intellect, his weapons being never spiritual, but intellectual
merely, and these of an inferior order — nothing equal to those
that are in the field against him. Of these things I am calmly
convinced ; for these things I am truly troubled ; and to be help
ful to the removal of these things, I pray God for strength con
tinually. You must be a help-meet for me in this matter as in
other matters, and, I pray you, for that as well as for your own
blessedness, seek the purity of the faith, the sincere milk of the
Word, that you may grow thereby. So I counseled dear Mrs.
H  , when she looked out from those eyes so full of sorrow, so
full of doubt, so full of supplication, and gave me her cold hand
again and again, and often asking that I would remember them
in my prayer.
"I walked melancholy enough along Burton Crescent to see
the church for the second time, which is now up to the level of
the first windows — indeed above it ; and in front the yellow stones
are showing themselves above the ground, and when it is finished
I doubt not it will be a seemly building. But may the Lord fill
it with the glory of His own spiritual presence, and endow me
with gifts to watch over the thousands who are to assemble there
in ! or raise up some other more worthy, and take me to His rest.
Ah ! how formality hath worn out the excellent faculties of the
females at Burton Crescent, and the continual longing for that
state and rank whence they have fallen! Oh, how thou dost
skillfully take thy game, thou spirit of delusion ! 0 Lord, deliver
Thou their feet out of the net, I do humbly pray Thee ; and give

MINISTERIAL LIBERTY. 253
me grace to be found faithful in this city of the dead. After din
ner I opened my mouth to them all — Mr. Woodrow, Hamilton,
Virtue, Aitchison — expounding to them the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit, and the withered trunk of form, ceremony, and mere doc
trine which remained when He was gone ; illustrating it by all
things in which there was once a spirit of holiness, and which,
during the last century, the most unspiritual, I think, we ever
have had, faded away out of every thing, whereby we are become
these meagre skeletons of saints and ministers which I lamented
over. They had nothing to say in reply, and, if I might judge,
were a good deal impressed with what I had testified. The Lord
give it fruit ! Mr. Woodrow and I came away at eight o'clock,
and I bore him company through Russell Square. I think he- is
likely to be elected,* but it is by no means certain yet. The el
ders have been telling him that he must be more plain, as they
are plain people ; that is, he must not leave their beaten track ;
and that he must be shorter ; that is, not interrupt their family
arrangements of dinner, etc. ; and that he must be more explicit
in discourse, in order to gratify their desire of mere fragments of
knowledge, instead of receiving the living continuity of spirit and
soul which a discourse ought to be. Oh, that cutting of truth into
bits is like dividing the body into fragments ! death, death unto
it! The truth should breathe continuous; the spirit of truth
should inspire every member of a discourse, instead of our hav
ing it in those cold, lifeless limbs of abstract intellectual propor
tions. How your father would laugh at this ! Nevertheless, tell
him it is truth, though ill-expressed in my present feebleness of
conception. I told Woodrow if he yielded a scruple of his minis
terial liberty I would call him brother no more, but impeach him
of treason to the Great Prophet. Nevertheless, I encouraged him
to be of good cheer, for he was a little cast down. I came home
by Mr. H  's, and found him as I had left him ; but saw her
not — only comforted poor Agnes, whom I met in the passage.
Miss W — — came to prayers, and I trust the Lord was with us.
The greater part of the afternoon I devoted to your ear, Tibby,
which is to me more sweet audience than the ear of princes or of
learned men. Fare thee well !
" Saturday, 2Qth November. Yesterday and yesternight, dearest
wife, I had many thoughts of our departed son, our first-born, and
I was able to use David's words in the Psalm of that night, ' Thy
* As minister of one of the Scotch churches in London.

254 THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER.
judgments, 0 Lord, are just, and in righteousness hast thou afflict
ed me.' My dreams brought you and little Margaret before me,
and I said, Dear Isabella, it is little Edward ; and was not unde
ceived till I saw her small black eyes instead of his full-orbed
blue, whose loving kindness was so dear to me even in death.
But my dreams withal were very pleasant, and not afflicted with
evil suggestions. This morning I have arisen fresh and lively,
and have already nearly finished my discourses ; and now, at three
o'clock, am hastening to cover this sheet with sweet thoughts for
your dear mind, that you may receive it before leaving Fife. Mr.
H  is no more in this world. He died about eleven o'clock,
and I have now a letter from dear Agnes. May the Lord com
fort the widow and the fatherless. I think I shall have time,
after finishing this, to hasten down, though it were but for a few
minutes. Oh, Isabella ! put nothing off, my dearest, put nothing
off; have nothing to do, have all besought, have all believed, have
all done, and live quietly unto eternity ! Say so to your dear
father and mother, and all the family. We know not what a day
may bring forth. If you be languid, then cry for help ; if you be
under bondage, cry for deliverance ; and abide believing, abide
believing, opening your heart to the admonitions of the Holy One,
your ear to admonitions of every faithful one. Turn aside from
lies, from flattery, from vanity and folly. Be earnest, be grave —
always ready. There will be no folly, nor laughter, nor bedim-
ming of truth with false appearances, nor masquerading, in eter
nity. But I return. After prayer, in which I seek the spirit of
prayer above all requests, for my soul wanders, there is an un
der-current of feeling, and even of thinking. It is very amazing
we can speak to God so, and not to any mortal. I am oft to seek
for an answer to man when I am thinking of another matter ; but
I dare speak to God, though I am thinking of another matter.
Oh ! what is this, my dear Isabella ? It is very lamentable, and
I lament it very much. The Lord doth not hear us because we
ask amiss. Now, my dear wife, make it for yourself and myself
a constant prayer that we may have the spirit of prayer and sup
plication bestowed upon us; rather pause to recover the soul,
than hurry on in a stream of words. I take it this must be still
more felt by those who use forms, and that this is one of the chief
advantages of the disuse of forms ; but no means will charm forth
the evil heart of unbelief. He only who hath all power in heaven
and earth is able — our Savior and our Lord. Now I had almost

"MY DUMFRIESSHIRE." 255
forgotten that this is the day before your communion. It is stormy
here, may it be quiet with you ; and to the saints may it be a day
of much refreshment ! . . .
" Now, with respect to your journey, if you set out on Thurs
day, you must not go farther than Dumfries that week ; and then
open your mind to Margaret and James Fergusson concerning the
things of the Spirit. Be not filled with apprehensions about ba
by. The Lord will prove your shield and hers. There is noth
ing wilf interest you till you come to the edge of my Dumfries
shire. . . . After you go through Thornhill you pass the Camp
bell Water. . . . Then, as you come to the Shepherd's bar, you
are upon Allan Cunningham's calf-ground, and in the midst of a
scene worthy of the Trosachs. . . . Within four miles of Dum
fries you pass through a village. That village my uncle Bryce
founded for the people at the time of the French Revolution,
when he wrote a book on Peace, seeing well that the spirit of an
archy was out ; and a half mile farther on you will see Holywood
Manse, a bowshot from the road, and the church, where my uncle
and aunt lie side by side. . . . Now, for the rest, you will find a
letter waiting for you at Dumfries. . . . The Lord guard you on
your journey, and temper the blast to the little darling. ... It is
now past four, and I hasten to salute Mrs. H  , widow, with the
blessing of her husband, and the children, orphans, with the bless
ing of their father. Be at peace, full of faith and blessedness !
"Saturday, 26th November. After putting your letter in the post-
office, and still without any uplifting of the soul that it might be
safely conveyed to you, and arrive in good season (so doth cus
tom eat out piety), I went directly to the H  's; Mrs. H  ,
the most composed, being manifestly full of faith, and by faith
supported ; and I felt moved with much fellow-feeling. She spoke
of his kindness to all; — of his charity to the poor — of his constant
cheerfulness in a most perplexing and tried life — of his faith in
Christ, though it had little outward appearance — of all which I
was well pleased to hear. We then went up stairs, and, having
assembled the family, I sought to apply to them the 130th Psalm
and the 4th and 5th of 1st Thessalonians, showing them that the
only hope was in Christ Jesus either for themselves or the de
parted. Then I proceeded to Mr. W  , and received Mr. Bell's
instructions for you. The place is Bossal, near York. . . . You
must go to the George Inn, York, which is the posting-house, and
take a post-chaise to the house, where you are expected with much

256 THE PRESENCE OF GOD.
delight ; and may it be delightful to us all. Mrs. W  is bet
ter. We had very sweet discourse, in which I was enabled to
maintain faithfully the truth — I fear, not so much in the love of
it as I could desire. And, oh ! I am pressed with the desire of
nearer communion to the divine throne ! There is something in
my spirit very paralytic there. Oh that I could pray unto the
Lord — even with what affection I write these letters ! I do earn
estly pray the Lord to take the veil off my heart, and I believe
in good time He will. . . . Now I go to seek the Lord in secret
for us all. Farewell !
" Sunday, 27th November. I have reason to bless the Lord, my
dear Isabella, for His strengthening and encouraging presence this
day, both in the ministry of the Word and of prayer, which I re
ceive as His wonderful patience with my unworthiness, and as a
sign that His hand is toward me for good. In the morning pray
er I was better able to abstract my soul from under-thoughts, and
to stand with my people before the Lord. I have been led to
think more concerning that under-current of thought during pray
er, and I perceived it to be owing to our infidelity. The living
and true God, with His acts and attributes, is not present to our
spirit, but our own ideas of Him, and customs of discourse, which
the mind presents while thinking of other things, as it doth in
many other cases. . . . Therefore it is the awe of God's presence
— the reality of His presence — by which the soul is to be cured
of this evil — this heinous evil. It is the feeling of this want which
has introduced pictures and statues among the Catholics, and I
take it to be the same which makes the Episcopalian attached to
forms. But nothing will do, dear, but His own presence — the
presence of His own invisible Spirit in our hearts, crying unto
our Father which is in heaven. Prayer, my dearest, is the com
plaint of the Holy Spirit under His incarnation in our hearts.
Our chapter in the morning was the 5th of Hebrews, compre
hending Christ's priesthood. But I find I have not strength for
unfolding these high matters. My beloved, fare thee well ! My
baby, the blessing of the Lord upon thee !
" In considering the priestly office of Christ, be at pains to sep
arate it from the prophetic. . . . My discourse was on justifica
tion by faith alone. . . . And I concluded with exhortations to
humility, and an abiding sense of the Savior's righteousness, and
of our own wickedness, and of a new principle derived from the
former which should be generative of a set of works truly good,

LESSONS IN SPANISH. 257
truly holy, truly blessed. In the evening I read the sweet and
picturesque account of Isaac's courting, and took occasion to press
the fidelity of the servant in all points, and to point out the veri
similitude which the narrative bore with the manners of the ages
nearest to those times. I discoursed concerning the duty of the
Church to their ministers in respect to support, yet handling the
subject largely and widely, with the view of demonstrating the
total disproportion between moral and spiritual services and pe
cuniary rewards — showing them my favorite maxim, that money
is the universal falsehood and the universal corruption when we
use it for discharging obligations contracted by spiritual or moral
services. For example, if you think the wage discharges you of
your obligation to Mary, you are deceived out of so much spirit
ual feeling as should have repaid her, and corrupted into a world
ling ; and so if Mary were to think her obligations discharged by
works ; and so of all giving of gifts to express sentiments. They
do express the sentiment, but discharge it they can never. This
was a very fertile topic of discourse, and full of warning to the
worldly people. There were very large congregations to hear, and
I trust they were edified. Our service extended to three hours in
the morning, and two hours and a half in the evening, and I find
I can not relax. . . .
"Monday, 28lh. This morning Sottomayor the soldier was with
us, and James and I, partly of charity, partly of veneration to the
old Spanish character and literature, have agreed to take lessons
in Spanish at seven every morning, which will curtail this letter.
So we have provided us in Bibles, with which we are to begin,
and afterward we shall read Don Quixote. . . . Then there came
Mr. M  to read with me the Greek Testament, and we gave
ourselves to the 6th chapter, which I will open to you in some
other place. I think the Lord, by the help of Father Simon, hath
enabled me to understand it. Oh, I thank God for the change
upon that young man ! Even P  , who is very judicious, and
was with him an hour alone, could discern in him no supercilious
ness nor conceit He is very, docile, and is to come every Mon
day for an hour or two. I hope to do for him what others have
done for me. . . .
" Tuesday, 29th. Last night I endured the temptation of many
evil thoughts and imaginations, which the good Spirit of God en
abled me to overcome, although it was a great trouble and vexa
tion to my soul. . . . Such an almighty and infinite work is the
R

258 THE WINGS OF LOVE.
sanctification of the soul ! Our Lord hath said, ' Satan cometh
and findeth nothing in me.' Alas ! how otherwise with us ! The
Holy Spirit cometh and findeth nothing in us ! . . , What a work
is the sanctification of a soul ! It is second only to its redemp
tion ; and to that second only in place and order, not in degree.
In the morning we started at seven o'clock to the Book of Sam
uel, and made out one chapter with Giuseppe Sottomayor, who
commends himself more and more to my esteem as a man of true
principle and piety. I think the work of conviction goes on in
his mind. He breakfasted and worshiped with us ; after which I
came to my study, and did not rise, except to snatch a portion of ,
dinner, till five o'clock. In that time I did little else than study'
a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and read Poole's Synopsis upon it,
which is written in Latin, with abundant Hebrew and Greek quo
tations, that occupy me well — insomuch that, if my time will al:
low, I purpose doing the same daily. For I fell in with a diction
ary, which I can consider little else than a providential gift, in
two handy little quarto volumes — a Latin dictionary, which ren
ders the word into Hebrew, Greek, French, Italian, German, Span
ish, Dutch, so that it is to me a continual assistance of the mem
ory, besides affording a perpetual delight in tracing the diversity
and analogy of languages, in which I had always great pleasure.
. . . During my solitary study I received two sweet interruptions
— one in the shape of a messenger from a far country, coming
from one dear to you, but dearer to me, and who loves me too
well to love herself well. Now, who is that? and who is that
messenger? A riddle which I take you to resolve. . . . The
messenger was from yourself, in the shape of a letter, laying out
your plans of travel, and making merry with my scheme. Now
Kant's Metaphysics was not in my mind, but that better authority,
the road-book ; for you must know that, setting off on Monday
morning, I can be in York, you at Bossal, to breakfast on Tues
day. ... So that you see there is neither Kantian negation of
space and time, nor the wings of love, in the matter, but simple,
prosaic, stage-coach locomotion. . . . Being so far, I went on to
Bedford Square. ... But there is no getting a spiritual discourse
maintained: you can but set it forth in intellectual parables,
which are nothing so efficient as the parables for the sense which
our Lord was accustomed to use. But, dearest, we must either
speak in parables to the world, or we must be silent, or we must
present a wry and deceptive form of truth, or we must cast our

PARABLES. 259
pearls before swine, of which choice the first is to be preferred,
and our Lord therefore adopted it ; because a parable is truth veil
ed, not truth dismembered ; and as the eye of the understanding
grows more piercing, the veil is seen through, and the truth stands
revealed. Now parables are infinite ; besides those to the imag
ination, they are to the intellect in the way of argument, to the
heart in the way of tender expression and action, and to the eye
in the way of a pure and virtuous carriage. And the whole visi
ble demonstration of Christian life is, as it were, an allegorical
way of preaching truth to the eyes of the world, whether it be
wisdom in discourse, or charity in feeling, or holiness in action.
But I wander. I returned home about seven, and addressed my
self to write my action sermon,* but found myself too fatigued to
conceive or express aught worthy of the subject — 'Do this in re-
" membrance of me' — and I know not whether any thing may be
yielded to me this night worthy of it. ... I trust our meeting
may be blessed to add gifts to us mutually. I am truly happy to
anticipate it so much sooner.
" You are now among my dear kindred, who I know will be
very kind to you, for your own sake and for mine. I owe them
all a great debt of love and affection, which I shall never be able
to repay. I look to you to drop seasonable words into their ears,
especially concerning their salvation and their little ones; for
nothing is so fatal to Scotland as lethargy. I trust they are not
nominal Christians, but I would fain have deeper convictions of
so important a matter. I pray you not to yield any thing to your
natural kindness at the expense of your health and risk of the in
fant, but in all things, as before the Lord, to take the steps which
you judge the best, looking to His blessing. . To this also I charge
you by your love and obedience to me. This day is very fine.
I hope you are on your journey ; and I earnestly pray you may
travel as Abraham did, at every resting-place setting up an altar
to God in your heart. We remember you night and morning in
our prayers, and I trust that the Lord will graciously hear us.
At Annan I have nothing for you to say particularly but to as
sure them of my most dutiful love and constant prayers, and to
entreat them not to slumber. . . . The Lord bring you in safety
to my bosom and to your home. I know you will care for Mary
in every thing as one of the family, and bound to us by many acts
of faithfulness and love.
* The name usually given in Scotland to the sermon preached before the com
munion.

260 ANXIETY ABOUT MRS. IRVING'S JOURNEY.
" Wednesday, 30th November. My dear Isabella, I am daily load
ed with the tokens of the Lord's goodness, which I regard with
the more wonder and gratitude, as I have been this week more
than ordinarily tried with inward trials ; and to receive tokens of
love from a friend when we are wavering in our fealty is also al
ways very full of rebuke. But I have withstood Satan accofding
to my ability, and he hath not been allowed to prevail over me,
nor will, I trust, by the continuance of unfailing prayers. ... So
you see, my dear, what tokens I have of the Lord's blessing: there
are not fewer than thirty -five who have come seeking to be joined
to the Church at this time ; and no other season have I observed
the same zeal, and intelligence, and faith. Oh that the Lord, for
their sakes, would furnish me with good ! I lament much that
so few of the Scotch youths are drawn. I think there is not much
above one third Scotchmen. I trust the Lord will draw near to
them. I think they can hardly fail either to leave the congrega
tion altogether, or to join the Church, my preaching has been
of late so separating. . . . This letter will reach you at Annan,
where, individually and collectively, I pray my dutiful affection
and ministerial blessing to be given by you. Farewell ! and may
the Lord be your shade to-morrow in your journey southward !
"Thursday, 1st December. The beginning of a new month, my
dearest, wherein let us stir up our souls to more lively faith in
these great and precious promises which we inherit from the death
of our Lord, which you have so lately, and which we are so soon
about to commemorate. I look back upon the last month as one
in which I have had various experiences of good and evil — en
couragements beyond all former experience, and trials of Satan
proportioned thereto. . . . I have had many revelations, and beck-
onings, and overtures to enter into the temple's inmost place, which
I shall yet do, if the Lord permit. If I allowed anxiety to prey
upon me, I would now be anxious for you and the child, having
seen by the papers that so much snow is fallen in the North. But
the Lord, who sendeth His ice as morsels, and giveth the snow
like wool, and scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes, will not let it
alight upon you without good and gracious ends, for the very
hairs of your head are numbered.- I have had a good deal of con
versation this night with Mr. Hunter, who is returned from the
North, concerning the comparative fatigue and comfort of posting
and traveling by the mail, and he says for both reasons, but es
pecially for less exposure to the cold, the mail is to be preferred.

A "BENEDICT." 261
. . . Take wise counsel in the matter. I had a very pleasant call
this morning from Mr. W  , desiring, by conversation with me,
to express his forgiveness of his friend, and to purge himself of
all malice and revenge before bringing his gift to the altar. . . .
After he was gone I sought to continue my discourse, and, when
I had laid down my pen to enter upon my Hebrew studies, I was
interrupted by the call of a young lady, who had stolen to me,
having heard me preach, and thinking me likely to listen to her.
... I thought the struggle between shamefacedness and fear on
the one hand, and her desire of counsel on the other, would have
wholly overpowered her. I found she had been taught of the
Spirit without knowing it, and, when I taught her by the Word,
it was sweet to witness the response of her soul pronouncing the
Amen, ' That I know,' ' That I feel is true.' She is one in a fam
ily, and the rest have no fellowship with her. . . .
" A proof-sheet occupied me till dinner, and after dinner I read
the Roman History till toward six, when I had to meet my young
communicants, to introduce them to the session. There was a
goodly number of them present, to whom I addressed a word of
instruction concerning the infinite honor to which they were ad
mitted, and the duties which devolved upon them in their Chris
tian calling. ... I had received a letter from Andrew P.  , de
siring that his mother might be remembered in our prayers as one
looking for death. This moved me to go and see the afflicted
servant of Christ, whom I found brought very low, and not likely
to recover again, her children rejoicing in her joy, and content to
part with her to the joy of her Lord. So the arrows of the Lord
are flying on all sides of us. This made it past eleven when I got
home, and I found Mr. Murray sitting to inform me that he was
about to become ' a Benedict,' which means blessed — which means
a husband. I wish them all happiness. And so was I hindered
from fulfilling this duty, being overladen with sleep and worn out
with labor. . . .
"Friday, 2d December. This morning, dearest, I felt, when call
ed at seven, the effects of yesterday's labor, and was not able to
arise from headache, which I durst not brave, having such a weight
of thought and action before me ; therefore I lay still, endeavoring
to sleep it off, and rose not till half past nine, when, descending
quietly, I sought to get to work without interruption, and, thank
God, have made out a good day's work, being well-nigh finished
with my action sermon ; and, for the rest, I am very much dis-

262 EVILS OF FORMALITY.
posed to depend upon the Spirit to give me utterance ; for to-mor
row, all the morning I have to be helpful to Mrs. H  , and the
evening I have to preach to the people. After working with my
pen, I took an interlude of history, walking in the garden, when
my thoughts are fullest of our darling. But, indeed, I know not
how it is, I think the last two or three days I have been thinking
of him too much, and last night I dreamed he was in life, and,
though drooping like a flower, giving hope of health again. He
was on your knee, and I thought I caught the first sign of hope
to seize him and carry him into the fresh air, when it all vanished
before me into the sad reality. Then I addressed myself to my
Hebrew studies, at which I continued till I went forth to minister
comfort to Mrs. H  's family, with whom I worshiped, opening
to them that Psalm of divine sorrow (the xiii.) where the Psalm
ist, in all his sorrows, sees nothing to lament but his distance and
separation from the house of God and the communion of His peo
ple. I came back at half past eight, having several appointments
with those who had not spoken to me in time, yet sought with
earnestness to approach the table of the Lord. And now, more
briefly and less feelingly and spiritually than I would have de
sired, have I set forth to you the incidents of Thursday, which to
my soul hath been a day of consolation. Oh that the Lord would
break these bands of sleep — these heavy eyelids of drowsiness,
my beloved wife, and awake us to the full- vision of the truth and
possession of the things of faith ! You are now, I trust, by the
mercy of God, seated beside my most honored parents, to whom
I present my dutiful affection, praying the Lord to compass them
with His grace ; and oh, tell them to press inward to the temple :
not to rest, but to press onward. Exhort them from me to have no
formality. Tell them that, until religion cease to be a burden, it
is nothing — till prayer cease to be a weariness, it is nothing. How
ever difficult, and however imperfect, the spirit must still rejoice
in it, after the inward man. ... If I write much longer you will
not be able to read, for there is a great combination against me —
a weary hand, a heavy eye, a pen worn to the quick, a dull mind,
and a late hour, and a day before me of much occupation. There
fore, farewell to all that are with you, and to all with whom you
abide !
" Saturday. I thought, my dearest, to have finished this before
the post, but have been taken up all the morning, till two o'clock,
doing the last duties to our beloved friend M. H  ; and hav-

IRVING'S ONLY JOURNAL. 263
ing to preach to-night, I rather choose to take up the only hour
that is left me in meditation for so many souls. The Lord bless
you, and the house in which you dwell ! I trust in the grace of
God to sustain me to-morrow, and to give you a good journey.
" The Lord bless my father's house.
" Your affectionate husband, Edward Irving.
"If you take the mail from Carlisle, you should take it only to
Kattrick Bridge, or perhaps a stage farther. I think it is but
eighteen miles from Kattrick Bridge, and the landlord seemed to
me a very pleasant old man. If the time of leaving Carlisle be
too soon, you could perhaps go on a stage or two the night be
fore. The Lord direct you in all things.
" Forget not the shoes — I care not how many pairs, only pay
for them ; for my mother will always make herself a beggar for
her children."
Thus concludes a journal which, perhaps, has no parallel in
modern days. A picture so minute, yet so broad — a self-revela
tion so entire — a witness so wonderful of that household love,
deepened by mutual suffering and sorrow, which so far transcends
in its gravity and soberness the more voluble passions of youth,
has never, so far as I am aware, been given to the world. It is
not wonderful that over the vicissitudes of more than a quarter
of a century, the scattered remnants of the family, once admitted,
even in part, to the secret soul of such a man, should remember
these letters with a certain tearful exultation, the traces of the de
parted glory ; nor that the wife, to whom all were addressed,
should have cherished them to the last as too sacred for common
sight. This is the first and only journal of Irving's life. On va
rious occasions afterward he was separated from his wife for con
siderable periods, but never again produced any thing like the af
fecting history, at which he labored day by day and hour by
hour, to cheer the mother of his dead baby, as she lay, weak and
sorrowful, in the faintest hour of a woman's life, in the sad, affec
tionate shelter of her father's house. Few men or heroes have
been laid in their grave with such a memorial as envelops the
baby name of little Edward, and I think few wives will read this
record without envying Isabella Irving that hour of her anguish
and consolation.

264 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

CHAPTER XII.
1826, 1827.
The Headship of Christ. — A Baptized Christendom. — Expansion. — Ben-Ezra. —
The Spanish Jesuit. — Irving's Consistency. — A Christian Nation. — Political Opin
ions. — Rest and Relaxation. — Beckenham. — His " Helper meet for him." — The
HibernianBibleSociety. — Albury. — Henry Drummond. — Conference for the Study
of Prophecy. — Concerning the Second Advent. — A School of Prophets. — Irving's
Verses. — The anti-Christ. — A Herald of the Lord's Coming. — Signs of the Times.
— The Fife Bank. — Help and Consolation. — Opening of National Scotch Church.
— Unanimity of the Congregation. — Dr. Chalmers's Diary. — Irving keeps Chal
mers waiting. — Dr. Chalmers shakes his Head. — Important Crisis. — Fashion went
her idle Way. — Irving's own Evidence on the Subject. — Reality. — Cessation of
the Crowd.— "The Plate."— Irving's Offering.— The Bible Society.— A May
Meeting. — A Moment of Depression. — Projects for the Future. — Lectures on Bap
tism. — Seed-time. — Ordination Charge. — Vaughan of Leicester. — The Light that
never was on Sea or Shore.
After the full and detailed personal portrait which Irving
gives of himself in these journal-letters, a period of comparative
silence follows. This was the silent seed-time of the exciting and
exhausting years, full of conflict and struggle, upon the threshold
of which he stood. The full flood of life which now carried him
along was not more visible in his actual labors than it was in the
eager progress of his unresting and ever-active spirit. Whether
his mind had ever been content with the sober Presbyterian ideal
of a democratic Church, in which the will of the people had really,
if not nominally, a distinct and apparent sway, and in which the
priests were subject to the perpetual criticism of a community too
much disposed to argument and individual opinion to yield much
veneration to their legitimate leaders, it is difficult to say ; but
the Scotch imagination has always found a way of escaping from
those prosaic trammels. That which the outside world has dis
tinguished as religious liberty, and recognized as the object of the
many struggles in which the Church of Scotland has engaged, has
never been so named or considered among the champions of that
Church. Their eyes, throughout the long and eventful drama,
have been fixed, not upon the freedom of individual worship or
the rights of the Christian people, but upon a much loftier.
ineffable principle, often converted into an instrument of evil,

THE HEADSHD? OF CHRIST. 265
yet always retaining, to some, the divinest sunshine of ideal
perfection. Nowadays, when martyrdoms are no longer pos
sible, and heretical stakes and blocks are long ago out of fash
ion, it is more difficult than it once was to idealize, out of a
struggle for mere ecclesiastical authority, that conflict which,
in the days of blood and violence, so many humble heroes
waged for the headship of Christ. To many a Scotch confessor
this doctrine has stood instead of a visible general, animating
the absolute peasant-soul to so distinct a conception of Christ's
honor and authority, as the object for which it contended, that
the personal ardor of the conflict puzzles the calm observer,
who understands as nothing but a dogma this inspiring principle.
The events which made the great crisis in the existence of Scot
land a struggle for her faith1, drove this lofty, visionary concep
tion into the ideal soul of the nation, where it has ever since ex
isted, and is still appealed to, as the experience of to-day can tes
tify. When, according to the evidence of facts, the Covenanters
were fighting against the imposed Liturgy and attempted episco
pacy of the Charleses, they were, to their own fierce conscious
ness, struggling for the principle that, in the Church, Charles was
nothing, and Christ all in all ; nor has the sentiment failed in
more recent struggles. Irving had received this national creed
along with his earliest impressions : he had even received it in the
still closer theocratic model well known in ancient Scotland,
where God the ruler was every where visible, in providence, judg
ment, and mercy. But his impassioned soul led him to recon
struct upon these sublime elements another ideal of a Church than
that which has long been supreme in Scotland. Unconsciqusly
his thoughts elevated themselves and grew into fuller develop
ment ; unconsciously he assumed in his own person the priestly
attitude, and felt himself standing between God and the people.
Then the community itself rose under his glowing gaze into a
baptized world — a Christendom separated by the initiatory ordi
nance of Christianity, of which Christ was the sole head. The
longer he contemplated this world, the more it rose out of the re
gion of doctrine into that of reality. That Lord became no dis
tant Presence, but a Person so intensely realized and visible that
the adoring eye perceived the human pulses throbbing in His
veins ; and for awe, and love of that mysterious union, the wor
shiper could not keep silence. That faith became no system of
words, but a divine evidence and substantial proof of the unutter-

266 EXPANSION.
able glories ; that baptism grew out of a symbol and ceremony
into a Thing — an immortal birth, to which God Himself pledged
His word. One can see this wonderful process going on in the
transparent, vehement spirit Every thing suffered a change un
der those shining eyes of genius and passion. From impersonal
regions of thought they rose into visible revelations of reality.
To a mind instinct with this realizing principle, the conception of
a Second Advent nearly approaching was like the beginning of a
new life. The thought of seeing His Lord in the flesh cast a cer
tain ecstasy upon the mind of Irving. It quickened tenfold his
already vivid apprehension of spiritual things. The burden of
the prophetic mysteries, so often darkly pondered, so often inter
preted in a mistaken sense, seemed to him, in the light of that
expectation, to swell into divine choruses of preparation for the
splendid event which, with his own bodily eyes, undimmed by
death, he hoped to behold. He had commenced his labors, and
the studies necessarily involved in those labors, with a certain ex
pansion of spirit, and power of sublimating whatever truth he
touched, but no apparent divergence from ordinary belief. But
years of close dwelling upon the sacred subjects which it was his
calling to expound had borne their natural fruit. Not yet had
he diverged ; but he had expanded, intensified, opened out in an
almost unprecedented degree. Special truths, as he came to con
sider them, glowed forth upon his horizon with fuller and fuller
radiance ; life and human affections seemed to go with the adven
turer into those worlds of believed but not appreciated divinity ;
and, as he himself identified one by one those wonderful realiza
tions which were to him as discoveries, with ever a warmer and
fuller voice he declared them aloud.
Such was his state of mind in the comparatively silent, and, in
some respects, transition period to which we have now reached.
His first sorrow did but strengthen the other influences at work
upon him, while, at the same time, his many and continual labors,
acting upon his health, obliged him to withdraw a little from the
din and excitement of his battle-field, and left him fuller scope for
his thoughts. In his winter solitude, while his wife was absent,
he had begun, more from benevolent motives than with any idea
of making use of the accomplishment, to study Spanish ; but, be
fore he had made any great advances in the language, a manner
of turning the new gift to the profit of the Church came, by a
complication of causes — to his eyes clearly providential — in his

THE SPANISH JESUIT. 267
way. A Spanish work, entitled " The Coming of the Messiah in
Glory and Majesty," professedly written by Juan Josafat Ben-
Ezra, a Hebrew convert to Christianity, but in reality, according
to the facts afterward ascertained, the production of a Jesuit priest
called Lacunza, was brought to him, as he describes in his preface
to the translation of that work, by friends who had been specially
impressed by his own views on the same subject. He found in
it, as he declares, "the hand of a master," and not only so, but
" thechief work of a master's hand ;" and feeling assured that his
God had sent this "masterpiece of reasoning" to him "at such a
critical time for the love of His Church, which He hath purchased
with His blood," he resolved " to weigh well how I might turn
the gift to profit." The result of his ponderings was, that he un
dertook the translation of the book, concluding, after his fashion,
that the Church was as open to receive instruction, wheresoever
it came from, as he himself was. Not very long before he had
stood up against the champions of Catholic emancipation, taking,
without a moment's hesitation, the unpopular side of the question,
and declaring with the utmost plainness that, "though it expose
me to odium in every form, I have no hesitation in asserting it to
be my belief that when the rulers of this nation shall permit to
the worshipers of the Beast the same honors, immunities, and
trusts which they permit to the worshipers of the true God, that
day will be the blackest in the history of our fate." But in the
face of these uncompromising sentiments, and almost in a breath
with the expression of them, he comes, with characteristic candor
and openness, to the feet of the Spanish priest, receives his book
"as a voice from the Roman Catholic Church," just as he claims
for his own preaching to be " as a voice from the Kirk of Scot
land," and finds it his duty to interpret between the Jesuit preach
er and the English world. A better illustration of the native can
dor and simplicity of his mind could not be. Few Protestant
preachers would take upon themselves such an office ; and those
who could believe their own views enforced and supported by the
concurrence of a Catholic writer, would be, according to ordinary
rules, men of tolerant, not to say latitudinarian principles — not
rigid upon points of difference. Of a very different kind was the
toleration of Irving. It was not toleration at all, indeed, nor any
modern convenience, but simple love for all who loved his Mas
ter's appearing, and unfailing belief in the human utterance which
speaks out of the abundance of men's hearts. The same voice

268 IRVING'S CONSISTENCY.
which had just declared its horror at the thought of political
equality for the Catholics, and doubtless had been anathematized
as the voice of a bigot in consequence, declares, immediately after,
the determination of the speaker to give no Protestant comment
upon the Jesuit's simple words. " The doctrines of the Roman
Church," he says, " which now and then appear, are brought for
ward with so much simplicity and sincerity of faith, and so little
in the spirit of obtrusion or controversy, that it seemed to me like
taking an advantage of the honest, well-meaning man to enter the
lists against him, unaccoutred as he was. . . . Oh no ; I had no
heart to catch him tripping, or to expose the weakness of so dear
a teacher, concerning whom I was continually exclaiming to the
companion of my solitary labors, ' I hope yet, in some of my fu
ture pilgrimages, to meet this grey-haired saint in the flesh, and
receive his blessing, while I tell him how much I love him, and
have profited from his instructions.' "
This contrast of sentiment will possibly puzzle some observers.
Irving, it is evident, was not careful to preserve his consistency;
but it is difficult to make out how a man who labored so lovingly
over this priest's book, and presented him, all Jesuit as he was, to
the Protestant world as a teacher to whom he himself looked up,
could be much of a bigot, even though he took the most uncom
promising and decided position on the political question of Cath
olic disabilities. His views on political questions generally seem
to have been forming at this time into a more decided shape than
they had hitherto possessed. Out of the eclectic personal creed
of a professional man, to whom politics were secondary, they had
consolidated into something which, from the outside, looks like
High Toryism in its most superlative and despotic development.
His frequent references to the " Convocation Book," described in
his letters, and the conclusion he arrives at, that subjects are not
justifiable in taking up arms against their lawful governors, seems,
at the first glance, a singular principle for the descendant and
champion of the Covenanters ; but it belongs, as naturally as any
other development of doctrine, to the elevation and growth of all
his thoughts. To him, with whom the limit of practicability told
for nothing, and whose business was with the far more generally
forgotten or slighted ideal form of things, the consideration of
how it would work was out of the question ; enough men there
were in the world to consider that ; his work was entirely of an
other description. To his eyes, full of sublimating light, the sec-

POLITICAL OPINIONS. 269
ular forms of government stood forth like the spiritual, in all the
authority of Divine origin. The nation was a Christian nation,
periling its very existence by the admission into power of any
who did not recognize the principle of its being. The powers
that be were ordained of God. The purity of the national faith
was the safeguard of its life, and the ark of national safety was in
danger the moment that unhallowed hands touched or approach
ed it.
Such was the political creed of the fervid Scotch preacher when
the world was palpitating around him with Catholic struggles and
the early essays of Reform. Almost all the strength of contem
porary genius went with the popular stream. He, all Old-world
and unprogressive, stood against the tide. How circumstances
could modify belief, or individual and temporary hardships set
aside everlasting truth, it was not in him to understand, nor did
he enter into the less or more practicable degrees of national vir
tue. His stand was taken upon the absolute. From this point
of view he protested against the abolition of tests, against the
emancipation of Catholics, and, most of all, against the great athe- .
istical principle, as he held it, that power was derived from the I
people instead of from God. Upon this, as upon the antipodes
of those lofty politico-religious principles which he himself held
like a prophet in a world consciously ruled of God, he looked
with horror. Such elevated theories of government are not al
ways necessary to disgust thoughtful men with the doubtful and
unreliable impulses of popular supremacy. But Irving's views
were not founded upon any calculation of results. To put power
into the hands of any man who was not ready, and, indeed, eager
to declare himself a follower of Christ, according to the apparent
means of Christ's own appointing, was an act of national sacrilege
to him who considered himself bound to obey that power when
exercised as the ordinance of God. Thus a political creed, which
time and the hour have made obsolete, as being all impracticable,
flashed forth into life in the hands of a champion who thought
only of right and never of practicability. Whatever may be said
of those doctrines of divine right and religious government, which
by times have been perverted by human ingenuity into the most
horrible instruments of cruelty and national degradation, the grand
idea of a Christian nation, governed by Christians, on the broad
basis of that law which is good- will to man, as held by such a
mind as that of Irving, must always remain a splendid imagina-

270 KEST AND RELAXATION.
tion : no vulgar political belief, although it called forth from the
Optimist demonstrations .of his own strenuous sentiments, which
were swept off, all futile and unavailing, before the inevitable tide.
Early in the year 1826 the work of Ben-Ezra came into Irving's
hands, confirming and strengthening his heart in respect to the
new revelation of doctrine which had already illuminated his path.
He had begun his Spanish studies only a few months before, with
the view of helping his friend, Giuseppe Sottomayor ; and it was
not until summer that he undertook the translation of the book
which had impressed him so deeply. He had, by this period, so
exhausted his strength in his ordinary pastoral labors that his
congregation became anxious about his health, and insisted on
the necessary rest and relaxation which alone could recruit him.
"About this time," as he himself says, "it pleased the Lord to
stir up the greater part of my flock to exhort me by all means, as
I valued my own health and their well-being, to remove a little
from the bustle and intrusion of this great city, and abide in the
country during some of the summer months ; and two of the breth
ren who loved me much engaged, unknown to me, a place in the
country, where, without forsaking my charge, I might reside in
peace and quietness amid the beauty and bounty with which God
hath covered the earth. This occurring so unexpectedly, at the
time when all concerned were soliciting me to undertake the whole
care and responsibility of the translation, and perceiving that the
work was likely to suffer from a divided labor, without being at
all hastened, I resolved at length, insufficient as was my knowl
edge of the language at that time, to conquer all difficulties, and
heartily to give myself to the Lord and to His Church during
these weeks of retirement; for I was well convinced that the
health which I most needed was the healing waters of the Holy
Spirit, which I thus made bold to solicit, by devoting myself to
His service ; and certainly the laborer was not disappointed of
his hire. I prevented the dawning of the morning, and I envied
the setting in of the shades of evening to labor in my work ; and
when my hands and my eyes failed me because of weakness, the
helper whom God hath given meet for me served me with hers,
and so we labored to bring this labor of love to completion, pur
posing to offer it to the Church as our Christmas offering. Oh
that my brethren in Christ might have the same divine satisfac
tion and unwearied delight in reading that I had in translating
this wonderful work !"

BECKENHAM. 271
It would be difficult to add to, without impairing, the perfection
of this beautiful sketch of the summer leisure which Irving "gave
to the Lord." The retirement of the pair, so wonderfully united
in labor and sympathy, was at Beckenham, where, with that child
of tears over whom they could not choose but watch with double
solicitude, they lived in quiet, at least, if not in repose, for the
greater part of the summer. During all this time Irving went up
to London every Saturday, remaining until Monday, to fulfill his
usual laborious ministerial duties, and in the interval labored, as
he has described; at the work — perhaps, of all literary labors, the
most tiresome and wearing out — of this translation. Such was
his version of relaxation and ease. He worked at it so closely
that he was at one time threatened with loss of sight in conse
quence, those strong out-of-doors eyes of his evidently not having
been adapted by nature for poring perpetually over print and pa
per. However, he appears to have known the true medicine for
his own case. The village quiet, and incidental advantages, pas
sively enjoyed, of fresh air and summer greenness, comforted and
refreshed his heart as he sat laboring with his imperfect Spanish
over the long treatise of Lacunza ; and, in the calm of those toils,
his health returned to him. The defect in his eyes even helped
him to find out the auxiliary which was at hand, and of which, in
after times, he largely availed himself. " I rejoice to tell you that
Edward is very much better," writes Mrs. Irving to her sister.
" He has now made me almost entirely his amanuensis. I even
write his discourses, which to him is a most wonderful relief.
This will surprise you when you remember he could bear no one
in the room with him ; still he can bear no one but myself; but
he can stop and give ear to my observations." . . , And the anx
ious mother diverges from this description into expressions of
subdued alarm lest baby should have the hooping-cough, and a
wife's tender admiration of her husband's increasing fondness for
the child. Once more the strain is idyllic ; but the fond woman's
letters, in which " dear Edward" appears as the centre of every
thing, invested with a certain impersonal perfection, do not con
vey so clear a picture out of the bosom of that domestic happi
ness, tranquillity, anxiety, love, and labor — the sublime but com
mon course of life — as the brief words in which he himself com
memorates the summer scene. It was a halcyon moment, sub
dued by the touch of past sorrow, and that trembling which ex
perience so soon brings into all mortal enjoyment, yet sweet with

272 THE HIBERNIAN BIBLE SOCIETY.
the more exquisite happiness which only those who have sorrowed
and trembled together can snatch out of the midst of their years.
This laborious retirement had been preceded by the toils and
excitements of a London May, with all its calls upon the powers
and the patience of the great orator. One of the religious meet
ings of the season was distinguished by an oft-told incident — one
of the common wonders which have established Irving's charac
ter for eccentricity among those who know little more of him
than is conveyed by such anecdotes. This was the meeting of
the Hibernian Bible Society, at which, the previous year, he had
made so remarkable an appearance, denouncing and resisting the
terror or complacency with which its members yielded to a pop
ular outcry. This year — probably, as one of his friends suggests,
that he might offer his support as openly as his rebuke — he gave
his watch, till he should be able to redeem it, to the subscription
in aid of the Society. It is the only incident standing out from
this tranquil period of his life.
During the summer of 1826, while Irving was busied with his
translation, the expectation conveyed in this Spanish book, to
which his own mind and that of many others had been directed,
with special force and clearness, not very long before, seems to
have swelled within the minds of all who held it to such an
amount of solemn excitement and inquiring interest as could no
longer keep silence. If the advent of the Lord were indeed close
at hand; if events were visibly marching forward to that great
visible era of doom and triumph, as so many students of prophe
cy concurred in believing, it was but natural that a hope so ex
traordinary should bring the little brotherhood into a union far
more intimate than that of mere concurrence in belief. The bond
between them was rather that personal and exciting one which
exists among a party full of anxiety for the restoration or elec
tion of a king — a patriotic band of conspirators furnished with
all the information and communications in cipher which can not
be given at length to the common mass — than the calmer link be
tween theologians united in doctrine ; and, indeed, one wonders
more at the steady pertinacity of human nature, which could go
on in all the ordinary habitudes of the flesh under the solemn
commotion of such a hope, than at any kind of conference or ex
traordinary consultation which might be held under the circum
stances. " A desire to compare their views with respect to the
prospects of the Church at this present crisis" naturally arose

HENRY DRUMMOND. 273
among them, as Irving informs us in the preface to Ben-Ezra ;
and after several meetings during the summer, a serious and
lengthened conference on the subject was arranged to take place
at Albury, the residence of one of the most remarkable of the lit
tle prophetic Parliament, the late Henry Drummond.
It is unnecessary to enter into any history of this remarkable
man, who was but the other day, in the full force of his wonder
ful individuality, taking his part in all the affairs of the world.
That individuality was too marked and striking to permit any
calm, general opinion of the merits of a man who was at once a
religious leader and the patron of religious distress throughout
the world ; an independent influence, and most caustic critic in
the British Parliament ; a believer in all the mysteries of faith,
yet a contemptuous denouncer of every thing beypnd the shad
owy line which he recognized as dividing faith from superstition ;
the temporal head, in some respects, of a band of religionists, and
yet a man in full communion with the busy world, keeping the
ear of society, and never out of the fullest tide of life. Such a
conjunction of character had never been witnessed before in his
generation, and has given occasion for estimates as different as are
the points of view from which they are taken. Such as he was,
all impetuous and willful — with an arbitrary magnificence of dis
position possible only to a man born to great riches, and uncon
scious of many of those natural restraints which teach most men
the impossibility of putting their own will into full executions-
Mr. Drummond had from his youth dedicated his wealth, his wit,
his unparalleled activity, his social position, every thing he had
and was, to the service of God, according as that appeared to his
vivid but peculiar apprehension. Before this time he had ap
peared in the track of the Haldanes at Geneva, where the dead
theological lethargy of the early Reformed Church was again wak
ing into life, and had heard the Hebrew Wolff questioning the
Roman professors in the chambers of the Propaganda. Not very
long before, Irving himself, a very different mould of man, had
recorded in his journal a certain dissatisfaction with the perpetu
al external activity of the restless religious potentate. But this
warm link of common belief awoke closer feelings of brotherhood.
Henry Drummond, impatient, fastidious, and arbitrary, a master
of contemptuous expression, acting and speaking with all the sud
denness of an irresponsible agent, was as unlike a man as could
possibly be supposed to the great Scotch preacher, with all the
S

274 CONFERENCE FOR THE STUDY OF PROPHECY.
grand simplicity of his assumptions and tender brotherhood of
his heart. But "they who loved His appearing" were united by
a spell which transcended every merely human sympathy ; and
from this time Mr. Drummond appears to have exercised a cer
tain degree of influence, varying, but always increasing, over the
career of Irving. Their first point of actual conjunction appears
to have been at this meeting of prophetical students, held at Al
bury. When the summer was over, with all its restraints of la
bor and fashion, and early winter whitened the gentle hills of Sur
rey, the grave little company assembled in that house, which has
since given character and color to the district round it, and be
come for one division of Christians a kind of visible Beth-El in
the wilderness of men's houses.
" One of our number," says Irving, in the preface already quoted,
" well known for his princely munificence, thought well to invite by
special letter all the men, both ministers and laymen, of any orthodox
communion whom he knew or could ascertain to be interested in
prophetic studies; that they should assemble at his house of Albury
Park, in Surrey, on the first day of Advent, that we might deliberate
for a full week upon the great prophetic questions which do at pres
ent most intimately concern Christendom. In answer to this honor
able summons, there assembled about twenty men of every rank, and
church, and orthodox communion in these realms ; and in honor of
our meeting, God so ordered it that Joseph Wolff, the Jewish mis
sionary, a son of Abraham and brother of our Lord, both according
to flesh and according to faith, should also be of the number. And
here, for eight days, under the roof of Henry Drummond, Esq., the
present high sheriff of the county, and under the moderation of the
Rev. Hugh M'Neil, the rector of the parish of Albury, we spent six
full days in close and laborious examination of the Scriptures. . . .
These things I write from recollection, not caring to use the copious
notes which I took ; for it was a mutual understanding that nothing
should go forth from the meeting with any stamp of authority, that
the Church might not take offense, as if we had assumed to ourselves
any name or right in the Church. But there was such a sanction
given to these judgments by the fullness, freeness, and harmony which
prevailed in the midst of partial and minor differences of opinion ; by
the spirit of prayer, and love, and zeal for God's glory and the Church's
good; by the sweet temper and large charity which were spread
abroad ; and by the common consent that God was in a very re
markable way present with us, that I deem it my duty to make
known these great results to the Christian churches which1 1 have
thus so early an opportunity of addressing.
" Having said so much, I think it to be my duty farther to state
the godly order and arrangement according to which the Albury
conference, concerning the second Advent, was conducted ; for to
this, under God, I attribute in no small degree tbe abundance of bless
ings with which our souls were made glad. We set apart a day for

A SCHOOL OF PROPHETS. 275
each subject, and resolved to give no more than one day to each ;
and as we were but six free days assembled, having met on the Thurs
day and parted on the Friday of the week following, we joined the
fourth and seventh subjects together, conceiving them to be closely
connected with one another ; and having apportioned a separate sub
ject to each day, we proceeded to each day's work after the follow
ing method : we divided the labor of each day into three parts — a
morning diet before breakfast, the second and principal diet between
breakfast and dinner, and the third in the evening. The object of
our morning diet, to which we assembled at eight o'clock precisely —
as early as we could well see — was two-fold : first, to seek the Lord
for the light, wisdom, patience, devotion to His glory, communion of
saints, and every other gift and grace of the Holy Spirit which was
necessary and proper to the labor which was that day appointed us
in God's good providence : this office was always fulfilled by a min
ister of the Gospel. Secondly, one of the number was appointed over
night, and sometimes several nights before, to open the subject of the
day in an orderly and regular way, taking all his grounds of argu
ment, and substantiating all his conclusions out of the Holy Scrip-
> tures ; and while he thus proceeded, the rest of the brethren took
down the substance of what he said, and noted down the texts from
which he reasoned ; for we sat in the library around a large table,
provided with every convenience for writing and for consulting the
Holy Scriptures. When the outlines, and divisions, and whole ground
work of the subject were thus laid out by the brother, strengthened
by our prayers, we parted without at that time declaring any thing,
and refreshed ourselves with breakfast, where we met the pious and
honorable lady and family of our worthy host. Two full hours were
allowed from the breaking up of the morning till the assembling of
the midday diet, which was at eleven o'clock, in order that the breth
ren might each one try and prove himself before the Lord upon the
great questions at issue, and that we might come together with con
victions, not with uncertain persuasions, and speak from the con
science, not from present impressions. And when we assembled,
and had shortly sought the Divine favor to continue with us, an
office generally performed by our reverend Moderator, he proceeded
in due course to ask each man for his convictions upon the subject
which had been laid before us in the morning, and the rest diligently
used their pen in catching the spirit of what dropped from each
other's lips. No appeal was allowed but to the Scriptures, of which
the originals lay before us ; in the interpretation of which, if any
question arose, we had the most learned Eastern scholar perhaps in
the world to appeal to, and a native Hebrew — I mean Joseph Wolff.
Tn this way did every man proceed to lay out the nature and ground
of his convictions, which was done with so much liberty, and plenti-
fulness, and mutual respect and reverence of the Holy Word as much
to delight our souls. Now this diet lasted oft four, and sometimes
almost five hours, our aim being to gather the opinions of every one
before we parted ; and when we tired, we refreshed ourselves with
prayer, which also we regarded as our main defense against Satan.
This diet also we closed with an offering of thanksgiving by any of

276 IRVING'S VERSES.
the clerical brethren whom the Moderator might pitch upon. After
dinner we again proceeded, about seven o'clock, to the work of wind
ing up and concluding the whole subject, but in a more easy and fa
miliar manner, as being seated round the fire of the great library-
room, yet still looking to a moderator, and with the same diligent
attention to order, each seeming desirous to record every thing that
was said. This went omby the propounding of any question or diffi
culty which had occurred during the day, addressed to him who had
opened the' subject, or to any other able to resolve it ; and so we
, proceeded till toward eleven o'clock, when the whole duties of the
day were concluded by the singing of a hymn and the offering up of
an evening prayer. Such were the six days we spent under the holy
and hospitable roof of Albury House, within the chime of the church
bell, and surrounded by the most picturesque and beautiful forms of
nature. But the sweetest spot was that council-room where I met
the servants of the Lord — the wise virgins waiting with oil in their
lamps for the bridegroom ; and a sweeter still was that secret cham
ber where I met in the spirit my Lord and Master, whom I hope
soon to meet in the flesh."
And upon this the warm emotions of the preacher burst forth
into verse — verse less melodious and full of poetry than his or
dinary diction, but not less the expression of those high-pitched
and lyrical climaxes of feeling which naturally find utterance in
rhythm and cadence. The narrative, however, which Irving gives
in such detail, redeems the singular assembly out of that oblivion
into which it and its proceedings have since fallen. What their
deliberations were, or the results of them, is neither important to
this history, nor is the present writer qualified to enter into such
a subject. They who had set their chiefest hopes ^upon the per
sonal appearance of our Lord, at a period which some actually
fixed, and all regarded as close at hand, looked also, as a necessa
ry preliminary of that appearance, for a personal development of
evil, more remarkable and decided than any thing that had pre
ceded it; and had so identified and concluded upon the source
from which this anti-Christ was to come, that the ruin of the First
Napoleon, and the death of his harmless and unfortunate son, had
so much effect upon one, at least, of the disappointed expounders
of prophecy, as, when fact could no longer be contradicted, to
bring an illness upon him. This gentleman, as common rumor
reports, first declared that it could not be, and then "took to his
bed" in dire disappointment and distress.
A more formal account of the deliberations and conclusions of
this extraordinary little assembly was published by Mr. Drum
mond himself, first in 1827, and afterward when the successive

A HERALD OF THE LORD'S COMING. 277
meetings took place. These reports, however, being given in the
form of dialogues conducted by Philalethes, Anastasius, &c, are
by that masquerade so withdrawn out of all recognizable individ
uality, that neither the persons who took part in the conference,
nor the historian of it himself — piquant and characteristic as are
his other writings — are able to throw any perceptible token of
their presence through the chaos of words and consultations. The
assembly only meets again in Irving's Preface, and in a lighter
sketch made by the missionary Wolff, who, about this time, had
come over to England under the patronage of the pious autocrat
of Albury. " Within the chime of the church bell," as Irving
says — looking out upon the woods and lawns which inclosed that
venerable remnant of ancient masonry, within the walls of which
another ritual and a fuller worship were to connect and commem
orate the names of Irving and Drummond, occurred this confer
ence — the beginning of the second chapter of the preacher's ca
reer — a prayerful retreat of piety, surrounded by all the genial ob
servances of hospitality and human communion. It is an era of
no small importance in Irving's life. Doubtless a more than us
ual awakening of general interest on the subject of prophecy — so
often left in the mystery which can never be fully cleared up un
til the end come — was evidenced by a consultation so remarkable.
But of the men there assembled, there was, perhaps, no such indi
visible man as Irving — none so liable to be seized upon by the
splendid expectation, which was henceforward, more or less, to ab
stract his thoughts from things more earthly, or to give himself
up, with such ever-increasing devotion, as a herald of his Lord's
coming. This he did henceforth, often losing, in the breathless in
terest of his theme, all regard to those necessary boundaries of
time and space, of which he never had been too observant.
His. companions are described generally as ministers and mem
bers of all the different orthodox churches — men both lay and
clerical ; some of them already distinguished, and some who were
hereafter to become so. Mr. Hatley Frere, who, according to his
own testimony, was the first to turn Irving's thoughts toward
prophecy; Mr. Lewis Way, whose publications on the Second
Advent Irving cites, along with his own and that of Ben-Ezra, as
a token of the unity of three churches in the one great doctrine ;
the -Rev. Hugh M'Neil, since so notable a member of his party in
thetGhurch ; along with Wolff, Drummond, and Irving, are the
onlymembers named at this early conference. But the solemnity

278 SIGNS OF THE TIMES.— THE FIFE BANK.
of the meeting, the importance which all its members felt to at
tach to it, and the evident curiosity it awakened, make it of itself
a remarkable incident in the history of its time. That time was
clearly a time of expectation. An age of great events was just
over, and the public mind had not yet accustomed itself to the do
mestic calm. At home the internal economy of the country was
swelling with great throes — agonies in which many people saw
prognostics most final and fatal. Out of all the visible chaos,
what a joyful, magnificent deliverance, to believe — through what
soever anguish the troubled but short interval might pass — that
the Lord was coming visibly to confound his enemies and vindi
cate his people ! No wonder they assembled at Albury to build
themselves up in that splendid hope ; no wonder the empire thrill
ed, through some thoughtful and many believing minds, at the
mere name of such an expectation ; least wonder of all that a mind
always so lofty, and attuned to high emotions as that of Irving,
should have given itself over to the contempla*tion, or should
shortly begin to cast wistful looks over all the world, not only for
prophecies fulfilled, but for signs approaching — watching the
gleams upon the horizon which should herald the advent of the
Lord. This meeting, he tells us, delayed the completion and publica
tion of the book which had cost him so much toil; but it was,
after all, only the January of 1827 when that laborious perform
ance, with the long preface, which occupies half of an octavo vol
ume, and is one of his finest and most characteristic productions,
was "offered to the Church." I can find no evidence of the
amount of favor which Ben-Ezra and his work attained in the
Church ; but the translator's preface has been often quoted, and
was reprinted in a separate form, along with some other of Ir
ving's shortest and least-known publications, a few years ago, by
some of his admirers in Glasgow.
The year 1826 contains few letters and little domestic incident.
Once only, besides that picture of the tender seclusion and gener
ous labors of the little family at Beckenham, which I have already
instanced, the clouds open round the Pentonville house. It is to
show the great preacher and his wife consulting together over a
calamity which has suddenly fallen upon her father's family. The
minister of Kirkcaldy had been the unfortunate possessor of shares
in the Fife Bank — a local joint-stock banking company — which
had fallen into sudden ruin by the misconduct of some of its man-

HELP AND CONSOLATION. 279
agers ; such an occurrence as unhappily has been familiar enough
to us all in more recent days. Immediately upon hearing of it,
the first impulse of Irving was consolation and help. He and his
Isabella took the matter into tender consideration — so much mon
ey was expected from a new publication — so much was at present
in hand ; and with suggestions of lofty comfort in his heart, and
warm, instantaneous filial impulses of aid, he thus writes to the
father in trouble : " 21st January, 1826.
" My dear Father, — I have heard from Elizabeth of the loss in
which you have been involved by wicked and worldly men, which is
nothing new in the history of God's faithful servants, and ought not
to trouble you. He that hath the stars in his right hand may say to
you, as to the angel of the Church of Philadelphia, ' I know thy pov
erty (but thou art rich).' Remember we are but promised to live by
the altar, and the rest is so much burdensome stewardry, to which
we submit in accommodation to the weakness of our people. . . .
Therefore be not cast down, nor let my dear mother be cast down.
Though the worst should come to the worst, what mattereth it?
The kingdom of Heaven is still ours, unto which all things shall be
added. And unto the new Jerusalem, the city of our habitation, the
kings do bring the riches of the earth.
" But we must provide things honest in the sight of all men, that
the name of Christ and his Gospel be not blasphemed, and that I may
be partaker of your trial, and partaker also of your joy in rising
above it, we, Isabella and I, must be allowed to contribute our part.
... I shall now also see to a fourth edition of the Orations, the third
having been nearly sold off some months ago. . . . Isabella and I
feel much for you and our dear mother, but we are not amazed or
confounded as if some strange thing had befallen you. . . ."
This letter is concluded by Mrs. Irving with the touching argu
ment of a woman and a mother. " If we have been able to say,
' The will of the Lord be done,' when He saw meet to take from
us those who were far more dear than all. worldly goods," writes
little Edward's mother, her heart still bleeding from that wound,
"I trust you will be enabled to take well the spoiling of your
goods." It was thus they comforted each other, who had mourn
ed together.
Early in 1827, the church in Regent Square — over the build
ing of which Irving and his congregation had watched so loving
ly, and which was to deliver them from the crowds and commo
tion of the little Caledonian chapel — was at last completed. At
the time of its erection, it was considered the handsomest church
not belonging to the Establishment (for the Presbyterians of that
day, proud of their National Church, and connection with the

280 OPENING OF NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH.
Scotch Establishment, would have done any thing sooner than al
low themselves to be called Dissenters) in London. One thousand
sittings were taken at the time of its opening ; and the excellent
William Hamilton writes, in all the pious joy of a church official,
about the " gratifying success" which had attended the opening
services/at which Dr. Chalmers officiated. " Dr, Chalmers," writes
Mr. Hamilton, sending the newspapers which contained an account
of these services, along with his own joyful description, to his fu
ture wife, the sister-in-law of Irving, in Kirkcaldy manse, " was so
highly pleased with his stay among us, that he spontaneously of
fered to, pay us an annual visit. He has complied with our re
quest to publish the sermon he preached at the opening, which
contained a powerful defense of our excellent pastor, and a most
eloquent eulogium on his extraordinary talents, piety, and worth,
which was not a little gratifying to the congregation, but gall and
wormwood to some of his enemies who were present." On the
evening of the same Sunday, Dr. Gordon, of Edinburgh, another
old and tried friend of Irving, preached ; and with the highest
auguries of increase and prosperity — relieved from the inconven
iences of popularity which they had felt so deeply, and able at
last to appear, not in relays, but as a body together — the congre
gation into which the fifty worshipers of Hatton Garden had grown
entered into quiet possession of the handsome church for which
they had labored and longed. " Both Dr. Gordon and Dr. Chal
mers," says the affectionate witness we have just quoted, " love
our friend, and bore a noble testimony to him in public and in pri
vate wherever they went. . . . Our session now consists of seven
elders and seven deacons — all, I believe, sincerely devoted to the
good cause ; and I am happy to say that the most perfect harmo
ny prevails among us, and, indeed, throughout the congregation."
Such were the domestic circumstances of the community over
which Irving presided. Inspired by his fervid teaching, they be
lieved themselves established there to carry out " a work which
is likely to be the means, in God's hand, of greatly advancing the
spiritual interests of our countrymen in the metropolis." By this
time already many of the sermons which were afterward found
out to be heretical had been preached and listened to with equal
unconsciousness of any divergence from the orthodox faith, and
the unanimity of regard and admiration with which the people
clung to their leader had been as yet rather strengthened than
diminished by any thing that had been alleged against him. The

DR. CHALMERS DIARY. 281
long services in which he would not be curtailed ; his perpetual
determination, notwithstanding the overflowing of human kind
ness in his heart, to be among them the priest, the pastor, the spir
itual guide, and not the companion and friend alone ; the high po
sition he assumed, and uncompromising distinctness of his attacks
upon all the special forms of evil, had neither lessened the confi
dence nor weakened the affection of his adherents. People who
steadily, and not capriciously according to the dictates of fashion,
resorted to the teaching of a man who kept them nearly three
hours at a stretch, Sunday after Sunday, plunged in the deepest
questions of religion — sometimes maintained the strain of an ar
gument which ascended into the secret places of the Trinity, un
fathomable mystery — sometimes stirred with appeals and exhort
ations which excited the multitude into all but open outcry, must
indeed have been under the sway of a fascination seldom exer
cised, and of which few men know the secret. The thousand
souls, who at its earliest commencement declared their allegiance
to the preacher in his new church, had suffered this test of their
sincerity, and were unanimous, harmonious, objecting neither to
his long sermons nor to his orthodoxy. But other sentiments had
begun to dawn upon other men.
Dr. Chalmers, always doubtful, puzzled, but admiring, never
knowing what to make of this genius, which he could not choose
but acknowledge, yet which was so different from his own, and
in some respects so incomprehensible to it — Dr. Chalmers writes
from London to his wife with the same half wondering, half com
prehending regard which was visible in almost every thing he
said of Irving, as follows :
" 1th May. Mr. Irving made his appearance and took me to his
house, where I drank tea. Mr. Miller and Mr. Maclean, Scottish min
isters of the London Presbytery, were there. Their talk is very much
of meetings and speeches. Irving, though, is very impressive, and I
do like the force and richness of his conversation. . . . Studied about
two hours, and then proceeded to take a walk with James.* We
had just gone out, when we met Mr. Irving. He begged of James
the privilege of two or three hours in his house, to study a sermon.
I was vastly tickled with this new instance of the inroads of Scots
men ; however, James could not help himself, and was obliged to con
sent. We were going back to a family dinner, and I could see the
* A brother of Dr. Chalmers, noted, as all the readers of his biography will re
member, for a certain kind churlishness, and special terror of the encroachments of
Scotch visitors, and the universal entertainment and introductory letters required by
them.

282 IRVING KEEPS CHALMERS WAITING.
alarm that was felt on the return of the great Mr. Irving, who was
very easily persuaded to join us at dinner, and the study was all put
to flight. There was not a single sentence of study all the time ; and
notwithstanding Mrs. C  's alarm about the shabbiness of the din
ner, every thing went on most delightfully. Irving intermingled the
serious and the gay, took a good, hearty repast, and really charmed
even James himself, so that I was very glad of the inroad that had
been made upon him. Thursday. Irving and I went to Bedford
Square. Mr. and Mrs. Montagu took us out in their carriage to High-
gate, where we spent three hours with the great Coleridge. His
conversation flowed in a mighty unremitting stream. You know
that Irving sits at his feet, and drinks in the inspiration of every syl
lable that falls from him. There is a secret, and, to me, unintelligi
ble communion of spirit between them, on the ground of a certain
German mysticism and transcendental lake poetry which I am not
yet up to. Friday. Mr. Irving conducted the preliminary services
in the National Church. There was a prodigious want of tact in the
length of his prayers — forty minutes ; and, altogether, it was an hour
and a half from the commencement of the service ere I began. . . .
The dinner took place at five o'clock. Many speeches. Irving cer
tainly errs in the outrunning of sympathy."
The length of this preliminary service seems to have troubled
-the great Scotch preacher mightily. He appears to have felt,
with true professional disgust, the wearing out of that audience
which properly belonged not to Irving, but to himself. Long af
ter, he recurs to the same incident in a conversation with Mr. J.
J. Gurney. "I undertook to open Irving's new church in Lon
don," says the discontented divine. " The congregation, in their
eagerness to obtain seats, had already been assembled three hours.
Irving said he would assist me by reading a chapter for me. He
chose the longest in the Bible, and went on for an hour and a half.
On another occasion he offered me the same aid, adding, ' I can
be short.' I said, ' How long will it take you ?' ' Only an hour
and forty minutes.' "
Such an indiscretion was likely to go to the heart of the wait
ing preacher. Dr. Chalmers never seems to have forgotten that
impatient interval, during which he had to sit* by silent, and see
his friend take the bloom of expectation off the audience, which
had come not to hear Irving, but Chalmers. In all his after re
marks, a reminiscence of his own sore experience recurs. On the
following Saturday, he records that "Mr. Gordon informed me
that yesternight Mr. Irving preached on his prophecies at Hack
ney Chapel for two hours and a half; and though very powerful,
yet the people were dropping away. I really fear lest his proph
ecies, and the excessive length and weariness of his services, may

IMPORTANT CRISIS. 283
unship him altogether, and I mean to write to him seriously on
the subject."
This was the impression of a stranger, unaware of the long
training by which Irving had accustomed his people to these pro
longed addresses ; and also of an elder, and — so far as experience
went — superior in the Church, who was slow to forget that "the
great Mr. Irving" had once been his own nameless assistant and
subordinate. With dissatisfied and doubtful eyes, the celebrated
Scotch preacher contemplated the apparently brilliant and en
couraging position of his friend. The practicable, which did not
trouble Irving, was strongly present in the mind of Chalmers.
He, with both feet planted steadily on the common soil, cast a
troubled eye upon the soaring spirit which scorned the common
restraints of possibility. He shakes his head as he tells his wife
of the mingled fascination and imprudence visible to himself in
this incomprehensible man. Chalmers, too, was capable of fol
lowing one idea with the most absorbing enthusiasm ; but his
ideas were those of statesmanship, practicable and to be worked
out ; and with the eyes of a wisdom which, if not worldly, was at
least substantial, and fully aware of all the restrictions of human
ity, he looked on doubtfully at a man who calculated no possibil
ities, and who estimated the capacities of human nature, not from
among the levels of ordinary life, but from the mountain top of
his own elevated and impassioned spirit. Dr. Chalmers shook his
head. What else could a man of reason and ordinary prudence
do? Nothing could be certainly predicated of such a career as
that which, under changed circumstances, made now a new, and,
to all appearance, prosperous beginning. Triumph or ruin might
be beyond ; scarcely the steady progress and congregational ad
vancement, which is the only advancement in life open to the
hopes of an orthodox Scotch minister. Such a progress, happy
but uneventful — a yearly roll of additional members, perhaps a
hundred pounds or so of additional income, a recognized place
on the platform of Exeter Hall — was not a natural vaticination
of the future course of Edward Irving ; and over any thing
else, what could Chalmers — what could any other sober-minded,
clerical spectator do otherwise than shake his head ? Something
was like to come of it too far out of the ordinary course to yield
ordinary comfort or happiness ; and I don't doubt that Chalmers
returned to Scotland alarmed and uneasy, comprehending as little
what would be the end, as he entered into the thoughts and emo
tions which were bringing that end about.

284 "FASHION WENT HER IDLE WAY."
And, indeed, it was a crisis of no small importance. Up to this
time the preacher and his congregation had been in exceptional
circumstances. They had never been able to make experiment
of that calm congregational existence. Crowded out of the little
Caledonian chapel for years, their hopes had gone forward to that
new church which was to be a kind of national centre in the noisy
capital, and the completion of which was to open the way to a
great and extended mission. It was only natural that all the
projects and hopes both of leader and people should fix upon that
place as the scene of the result and issue to their great labors.
Doubtless they did so unawares. For years the preacher had
been used to see round him an unusual exceptional crowd, drawn
out of all regions, necessarily unsteady and fluctuating — a crowd
which he could charm, and thrill, and overawe for the moment,
but out of which few results could be visible. Now was the time
to test what had been done in that flattering overflow of popular
admiration. If, as Carlyle says, " hopes of a new moral reforma
tion" had fired the preacher's heart — if, with the flattered expect
ation of a popular idol, he was watching to see the "sons of Mam
mon, and high sons of Belial and Beelzebub, become sons of God,
and the gum-flowers of Almack's to be made living roses in a new
Eden" — now was the time to test that dream. The tiny chapel
where celebrities could not be overlooked, and where the crowd
never could lessen — first chapter and preparatory stage of the his
tory — was now left in the quiet of the past ; and with full space
to collect and receive all who sought him, and the highest expect
ations and hopes of now seeing the fruits of his labor, Irving en
tered that new temple, whence a double blessing was to descend
upon his people's prayers. If fashion had crazed him with her
momentary adulation, here was the critical point at which fashion
and he parted ; the beginning of a disenchantment which, next
to personal betrayal, is perhaps the hardest experience in the
world. This has been accepted by many — and asserted by one who
knew him thoroughly, and from whose judgment I know not how
to presume to differ — as the secret cause of all the darker shadows
and perplexing singularities of his later life. I am as little able
to cope with Mr. Carlyle in philosophic insight as I am in person
al knowledge ; I can only take my appeal to Irving himself in. the
singular journal which has already been given. If that record
shows any trace of a man whose heart has been caught in the

DIVING'S OWN EVIDENCE ON THE SUBJECT. 285
meshes of the social enchantress ; if he looks to have Circe's cup
in his hand as he goes pondering through those streets of Blooms-
bury and Pentonville, or with anxious care and delicacy visits the
doubtful believer in Fleet Market, and comforts the sorrowful
souls who seek his kindness in the nameless lanes of the city, I
am willing to allow that this was the influence that set his mind
astray. But if the readers of this history are as unable as myself
to perceive any trace of that intoxication — an intoxication too well
known in all its symptoms, and too often seen to be recognized
with difficulty — another clew may be reasonably required for this
mystery. I can find no evidence whatever, except in what he
himself says in the dedication of his Sermons to Mr. Basil Mon
tagu, of even a tendency on Irving's part to be carried away by
that brilliant social stream. He speaks of himself there as "being
tempted to go forth, in the simplicity of my heart, into thosehigh
and noble circles of society which were then open to me, and
which must either have ingulfed me by their enormous attrac
tions, or else repelled my simple affections, shattered and befooled,
to become the mockery and contempt of every envious and disap
pointed railer." But that was at the earliest period of his London
experience. The master of the Pentonville household, with all
its quaint and simple economics; with its domestic services, fre
quented not by the great, and its stream of homely guests — the
faithful priest, exercising all the human courtesies and Christian
tendernesses of his nature to win a sullen London errand-boy, or
convince a skeptic of the humblest ranks — who is not to be moved
by the representations even of his anxious elders to shorten his
services by half an hour, or adapt himself to the necessities of his
popularity — is, on his own evidence, the most unlike a man carried
away and crazed. by the worship of Fashion that can be conceived.
If he had been such a man, here was the sickening moment when
the siren visibly went her way. The crowd that fluctuated in the
tiny aisles of the Caledonian chapel, and presented the preacher
with a wonderful, suggestive, moving panorama of the great world
without, which he addressed through these thronged and ever-
changing faces, settled into steady identity in Regent Square. The
throng ceased in that spacious interior. Those mists of infinitude
cleared off from the permanent horizon — "Fashion went her idle
way," Mr. Carlyle says: indisputably the preacher must have
learned that he was no longer addressing the world, the nation,
the great capital of the world, but a certain clearly definable num
ber of its population — a congregation, in short, and not an age.

286 CESSATION OF THE CROWD.
This great change happened to Irving at the moment when he
had apparently arrived at the beginning of his harvest-time. The
office-bearers of his church found the fruit they sought in the roll
of seat-holders and communicants, the visible increase which had
promoted them from the Caledonian chapel to the National Scotch
Church. But to the preacher the effect must have been wonder
fully different — as different as reality always is from expectation.
At the end of that uncertain, brilliant probation, which seemed to
promise results the most glorious, he woke and found himself at
the head of a large congregation. It was all his friends could
have wished for him — the highest amount of external success *
which his Church acknowledged. But it was an indifferent cli
max to the lofty hopes of the great evangelist. Yet this great
shock and crisis seems to have been encountered and got through
unconsciously, with no such effects as might have been anticipat
ed. There is, indeed, no evidence that Irving was himself aware
when he passed out of that wide horizon of hope and possibility
into the distinct field laid out for him under the smoky canopy
of London sky. Yet here is the evident point when that transi
tion happened. The wide popular current ebbed away from the
contracted ways of Hatton Garden, and subsided into a recogniz
able congregation in Regent Square. " The church was always
well filled, but no longer crowded," says the calm official retro
spect of the present community belonging to that church. Fash
ion then and there took her departure ; but, so far from plunging
into wild attempts to reattract her fickle devotion, the preacher
seems to have gone on unconscious, without even being aware of
what had happened to him. Years intervened, and the fervent
beginnings of thought — then only appearing in a firmament where
the hidden lights came out one by one, all unforeseen by the eager
gazer till they startled him with sudden illuminations — came to
developments never unaccordant with the nature that produced
them, though mysterious and often sad enough to the calm looker-
on, before the world which had subsided out of its frenzy of admi
ration was tempted to return into a frenzy of curiosity and won
der. In the mean time, Irving's sober-minded Scottish friends left
him in his new beginning with alarms and uneasy forebodings,
not that he would peril his understanding in attempts to retain
his popularity, but that the unmanageable sublimation and proph
et-spirit of the man, inaccessible as they felt it to all such motives,
would ruin his popularity altogether.

"THE PLATE."— IRVING'S OFFERING. 287
Some years before two silver salvers had been presented to
Irving by the grateful office-bearers of the Scotch Church in Liv
erpool. When the National Scotch Church was opened, he pre
sented them, with an impulse of natural munificence, for the ser
vice of the house of God. Every body at all acquainted with the
usages of the Church of Scotland must be aware of the collection
made weekly at the doors of every place of worship — a collection
entirely voluntary, yet -so thorough "an institution" that, to an
old-fashioned Scotsman, the fact of passing " the plate" without
depositing a coin in it woul6. be something like a petty crime.
The fund thus collected is entitled the Session Fund, and is in
parish churches appropriated to the relief of the poor ; and it was
from this fund alone that Chalmers, in the day of his reign in
Glasgow, provided for the poor of his parish, and abolished pau
perism in St. John's. Irving designed his silver salvers for the
reception of this weekly bounty, and presented them to the church
on the day of its opening, engraven with the following inscription:
" These two plates I send to the National Scotch Church, London,
on this the 11th of May, 182*7, the day of its opening, that they may
stand on each side of the door to receive the offerings for the Poor,
and all other gifts of the congregation of the Lord in all time com
ing while He permits. And if at any time, which God forbid, the
fountain of the people's charity should be dried up, and the Poor of
the Lord's house be in want of bread, or His house itself under any
restraint of debt, I appoint that they shall be melted into shillings
and sixpences for the relief of the same, so far as they will go.
" Edward Irving, A. M., V. D. M.,
" Minister of the National Scotch Church, London."
Irving's purpose, I am sorry to say, was not carried out. The
elders, more prudent and less splendid than he, imagined or dis
covered that the show of the silver at the door of the church, even
though watched over by two of their members, would be too
great a temptation to the clever thieves about. Irving's salvers
were altogether withdrawn from the office of receiving the pen
nies and sixpences of the congregation, and were placed, where
they still remain, among the communion plate of the church in
Regent Square.
The only public appearance which he is recorded to have made
at this period was at one of the field-days of the long and warm
intestine war which at that time was raging in the Bible Society.
The conduct of that society generally had not been agreeable to
Irving. Going to the meetings of its London Committee as to the
assembling of a body of men engaged in the service of religion,

288 A M^Y MEETING.
he had been at once chilled and startled by the entirely secular
nature of their proceedings. When he remonstrated, he was an
swered that they were not missionaries, but booksellers ; and this
was doubtless one of the points at which the vulgar business, and
bustling secularity of the religious world disgusted a man who
had nothing whatever to do with a mere community of booksel
lers, nor could understand why the Church's interest should be
specially claimed for such. His indignation and protest on this
point, however, were private ; the controversy was a public one,
and had now lasted for many years*. The question was whether
or not the Apocrypha should be issued along with the canonical
Scriptures as a part of the Bible, which the Society professed
themselves commissioned to spread throughout the world. The
warmest interest had been excited in religious circles generally,
and especially in Scotland, by this dispute. North of the Tweed
the Apocrypha has always been held in particular abhorrence,
and the idea of supporting, by their labors and subscriptions, a so
ciety which sent forth this spurious revelation along with the can
on of Scripture, roused the pugnacious kingdom into a blaze of
displeasure and resistance. The Society at its headquarters stood
out stoutly ; why, it seems impossible to find out, unless by an in
stinct of self-assertion and controversy ; and it was not until the
whole community was in commotion, and a serious secession threat
ened, that the London Committee came to its senses. Just at the
moment when it was about to do so, at the Anniversary Meeting
held in May, 1827, Irving made his appearance in the place of
meeting. His entrance created a commotion which interrupted
the business — the general public, apparently, having by this time
come to understand that this man could not be regarded with
calm impartiality, but must either be loved or hated. The tumult
raised on his appearance naturally aroused the orator to assert
himself, and, independently of the timid authority of the chair, to
make himself heard. It is difficult, in the vague account given,
to find out what " motion" it was that Irving supported, or what
was accomplished by the forgotten assembly, whose cheers and
hisses would have long ago passed into oblivion but for the pres
ence of that unusual champion. With a straightforward manful-
ness and simplicity, which look quaint and out of place upon such
a platform, and which must have been wonderfully confusing to
the minds of the Society, he advises them to " acknowledge that
they are exceedingly sorry." And when this suggestion is re-

A MOMENT OF DEPRESSION. 289
ceived with mingled hisses and applause, he indignantly asks, "Is
there any member of the Church of England — is there any con
sistent Protestant Dissenter — wh'o would think it at all degrading
to him to acknowledge himself in error when he felt he was so,
and when so doing would heal the wounds which had been in
flicted thereby, and so unite a whole Christian Church to the So
ciety? Would it be at all degrading to the Committee to say
that it was sorry that that which is not the Word of God had been
(say unwittingly, or unwarily, I mind not the word) mixed up and
circulated with the Book of God ? Let them, I say, record that
which they have individually expressed by word of mouth — that
that which is not the Bread of Life has been sent out to the world
as the Bread of Life, and that they are sorry !" The answer
which the Bible Society or its Committee gave to this appeal is
not recorded. But Irving triumphantly overcame the opposition
against his own appearance, and retired from the meeting, which
he did immediately after his speech, amid universal applause.
In the mean time, his private family story went on, amid the
clouds which, having once descended, so often continue to over-'
shadow the early history of a household. In the same spring, an
other infant, a short-lived little Mary, came to a house saddened
by the long and serious illness of the mother. In the depression
occasioned by this interruption of domestic comfort, Irving writes,
in a mood certainly not habitual, but from which such a tempera
ment as his can never be severed,
" For myself, I feel the burden of sin so heavily, and the unprofit
ableness of this vexed life, that I long to be delivered from it, and
would gladly depart when the Lord may please ; yet, while He pleas
eth, I am glad to remain for his Church's sake. What I feel for my
self, I feel for my dear wife, whom I love as myself. And at present
my rejoicing is, that she is able to praise Him in the furnace of trial
and the fire of affliction."
In another and brighter mood, however, he writes the follow
ing letter, full of projects, to Dr. Martin : " 8th June, 1827.
" My dear Father, — We have all great reason of thankfulness to
the Giver of all gifts and the Fountain of all strength for the recov
ery of Isabella and the children, whose health is now so far re-estab
lished as that Dr. Darling recommends her going to the country in a
few days. I am now fairly entered upon my duties in the new church,
and, by the grace of God, have begun with a more severe ;'self-devo-
tion to secret study and meditation. In the morning I propose to
expound the whole Epistle to the Ephesians, in order to clear out
T

290 LECTURES ON BAPTISM.
anew some of the wells of salvation which have been choked up, at
least in these parts, and to see if there be not even deeper springs
than the Reformers reached. In the evening I am to discourse upon
the sixth vial, which I propose as a sequel to my discourses upon
Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed, and which I intend to print in
the fall of the year. I think that, by God's blessing, I can throw a
new and steady light upon the present face of Christendom and the
world. Besides this, I have a little tribute of friendship to pay to
Basil Montagu . . . and an aphoristic history of the Church of Scot
land, from the primitive times to this time, for an introduction to a
work containing the republication of our authorized books at the
Reformation. It is for man to design, but God to permit and to en
able; yet if He spare me, I hope to do His Church some service. I
ask your prayers, and entreat solicitously for them, although I know
that we must have the spirit of prayer in ourselves and for ourselves.
Farewell ; may the Lord make the going down of your age more
brilliant than the beginning of it, and enrich you all with His divine
grace, and enlighten you with His countenance. Amen.
" Your affectionate son, Edward Irving."
The little Mary died in December of the same year. Though
the second blow does not seem to have struck like the first, it
"deepened the channel of those personal tears first wrung from Ir
ving's eyes by the death of his little Edward, and quickened into
pathetic adoration his thankfulness for the almost revelation, as
he believed it, which had thrown light upon that doctrine of Bap
tism, henceforth to be held as one of the brightest, comforting in
spirations of his life. The volume of Lectures on Baptism, in
which he set before the Church the views which had been so con
solatory to his own heart, was prefaced by the following touching
dedication :
" To Isabella Irving, my wife, and the mother of my two de
parted children :
" Mt honored and beloved Wiee, — I believe in my heart that
the doctrine of the holy Sacraments, which is contained in these two
little volumes, was made known to my mind, first of all, for the pur
pose of preparing us for the loss of our eldest boy ; because on that
very week you went with him to Scotland, whence he never return
ed, my mind was directed to meditate and preach these discourses
upon the standing of the baptized in the Church, which form the sixth
and seventh of the Homilies on Baptism. I believe it also, because,
long before our little Edward was stricken by the hand of God in
Scotland, I was led to open these views to you in letters, which, by
God's grace, were made efficacious to convince your mind. I believe
it, furthermore, because the thought contained in these homilies re
mained in my mind like an unsprung seed, until it was watered by
the common 'tears we shed over our dying Mary. From that time
forth I felt that the truth concerning baptism, which had been reveal-

SEED-TIME. 291
ed for our special consolation, was not for that end given, nor for that
end to be retained ; and therefore I resolved, at every risk, to open
to all the fathers and mothers of the Christian Church the thoughts
which had ministered to us so much consolation.
" I desire most gratefully to acknowledge my obligations to the
fathers of the Scottish Church, whose Confession of Faith concerning
the Sacraments, and especially the sentence which I have placed as
the motto* of this book, were, under God, made instrumental in open
ing to me the whole truth of Holy Scripture concerning Baptism and
the Lord's Supper ; of which having been convinced, by God's bless
ing upon these words of my fathers in the Church, upon consulting
the venerable companion of my early studies, Richard Hooker, I
found such a masterly treatise upon the whole subject of the Sacrar
ments, that I scrupled not to rank as one of his disciples, and to pre
fer his exposition infinitely to my own ; yet to both to prefer that
sentence of our own Confession which I have placed as the motto of
my book. For this reason it is that I have reprinted those parts of
Hooker's treatise which concern the doctrine of the Sacraments.
" And now, my dear wife, as we have been sorely tried of the Lord
by the removal of two such sweet children, let us be full of prayers
and fellow-feeling for those who are in like manner tried ; and, above
all, be diligent in waiting upon those children of Christian Baptism
whom Christ hath committed to my charge as a bishop and shepherd
of His flock; unto all whom, even as many as by my hands have been
admitted into His Church, I do now bestow my fatherly benediction
in the Lord. May the Lord make you the mother of many children
to glorify His name forever and ever ! This is the prayer of your
loving husband, Edward Irving."
The volumes thus inscribed were not published till 1828 ; but
they belong to this period of much quiet, but many emotions,
which lay between the death of his two children. He labored
much, and pondered more, during these two years. They were
the seedtime of a great and melancholy harvest ; and containing,
as they did, the first germs of those convictions which he after
ward carried so far, and the adjuncts of which carried him still
farther, they are full of interest in the history of his life. The
Albury Conference, which drew him into the close and exciting
intercourse of a brotherhood engrossed with hopes and expecta
tions unshared by the common world, and the opening of his
church, which brought him suddenly out of the brilliant, indefi
nite world of possibility into a certain position, restricted by visi
ble limits of the real, were, perhaps, equally operative in preparing
his mind for all that dawned upon it. What that was, and how
it began to develop, may be better treated in another chapter.
* The motto of the book is as follows : " We utterly condemn the vanity of those
who affirm sacraments to be nothing but naked and bare signs." — Confession of
Scotch Reformers.

292 ORDINATION CHARGE.
One of the most noble pieces of oratory which Irving ever pro
duced — the Ordination Charge, which reads like an ode of the
most thrilling and splendid music — was delivered in this spring at
the ordination of the Rev. Hugh Maclean to the charge of the
Scots Church, London Wall. It is a kind of satisfaction to know
that the man so magnificently addressed — in a strain to which
perhaps no Scotch minister, and few priests of any description,
have ever been called to listen — had soul enough to follow the
leader, who charged him to his duty as one hero might another,
out into the conflicts and troubles of his after-life. Such an ap
peal must have thrilled to the heart of any man capable of being
moved to high emotions. I am not aware that any similar ode
has ever embellished the ordination service of any other Church
than that which Irving here describes as "the most severe and
uncompromising" of all Christian churches. It is an unrivaled
outburst, full of all the lyric varieties and harmonies of a great
poem, and must have fallen with startling effect upon the com
monplace ears of a quiet company of ministers, no man among
whom, except the speaker, had ever distinguished himself, or had
a chance of distinguishing himself. Such an address might have
given a climax to the vocation of a heaven-born preacher, but it
is only the genius capable of being roused to the utmost by such
an appeal that is ever able to offer it ; and the heroic strain called
forth no answering wonder. But the young preacher to whom it
was addressed threw his humble fortunes, in after days, into the
same lot as that of his instructor in the office of the ministry; and
one feels a certain comfort in knowing that the disciple was faith
ful to the master who had connected his unknown name with an
address which inferred such noble qualities in him who could re
ceive it.
Later in the year, Irving made a short visit to Leicester, to see
his friend Mr. Vaughan, with whom, and with "some other minis
ters of the Church of England there," we hear that "he had some
delightful intercourse." " He was expressing to me yesterday,"
writes William Hamilton, " how much he had been gratified by
the harmony "which prevailed, and the exact coincidence of their
views on almost all the important points which they discussed."
The same writer goes on to tell how Irving had visited with him
the families under his own charge as an elder, and of " the cordial
reception they every where met with." " Mr. Irving is very hap
py and successful on these occasions," writes his admiring friend,

THE CELESTIAL LIGHT. 293
" and it is very delightful to see such harmony and good feeling
among the members." Thus, undeterred by the many absorbing
subjects of thought which were rising to his mind — by the en
grossing prophetical studies which Dr. Chalmers feared would
" unship him altogether" — or even by the impatience and almost
disgust which often assailed his own spirit in sight of the indiffer
ent and unimpressible world, he pursued all the varieties of his
immediate duty, carrying through it all a certain elevation and
lofty tone which never interfered with the human loving-kind
ness in which all his brethren had a share. Notwithstanding his
unsparing condemnation of evil and worldliness, Irving had so
much of the "celestial light" in his eyes, that he unconsciously
assigned to every body he addressed a standing-ground in some
degree equal to his own. The " vision splendid" attended him
not only through his morning course, but throughout all his ca
reer. The light around him never faded into the light of com
mon day. Unawares he addressed the ordinary individuals about
him as if they, too, were heroes and princes ; charged the astound
ed yet loyal-hearted preacher, who could but preach, and visit, and
do the other quiet duties of an ordinary minister, to be at once an
apostle, a gentleman, and a scholar ; made poor astonished women,
in tiny London apartments, feel themselves ladies in the light of
his courtesy; and unconsciously elevated every man he talked
with into the ideal man he ought to have been. This glamour
in his eyes had- other effects, melancholy enough to contemplate;
but, even though it procured him trouble and suffering, I can not
find it in my heart to grudge Irving a gift so noble. The harm
that comes by such means is neutralized by a power of confer
ring dignity and happiness, possessed by very few in the com
mon world.

294 SERMONS ON THE TRINITY.

CHAPTER XIII.
1828.
Sermons on the Trinity. — Unconscious of any Doubt on the Subject. — The Fellow
ship of Christ. — Discoveries made by the Rev. Mr. Cole. — A theological Spy-
Follows the Preacher to the Vestry. — First Accusation of Heresy. — The Orthodox
Doclrjne of the Church. — Irving's Manner of Meeting the Attack. — The Cloud
like a Man's Hand. — Apology for the Church of Scotland. — Irving carries his
Message to his own Country. — Plan of his Journey. — Annan Market. — His Labors
among his own People. — Arrival in Great King Street. — St. Andrew's Church be
sieged by the Crowd. — Excitement in Edinburgh. — Dissatisfaction of Chalmers. —
The Statesman and the Visionary. — Uses of the Impracticable. — Religious Thought
in Scotland. — Campbell of Row. — A new Friend. — Irving's Faculty of Learning.
— Rosneath. — Row. — A. J. Scott. — Accident at Kirkcaldy. — Cruel Reproaches. —
Irving visits Perth. — Returns to London. — Immediate Return to his usual La
bors. — Happiness in Returning. — The Last Days. — Irving's Anxieties. — Opposi
tion to his Doctrine of the Second Advent. — Improvement in his Wife's Health.
— His Anxiety for her Return. — Pause in the Saturday Occupation. — Consulta
tions about Prophecy. — Publishing Negotiations. — A Bible Society Meeting. —
Anticipates "Casting out of the Synagogue." — His Birthday. — Instructions and
Prayers. — The Lost Tribes. — Resignation to God's Will. — Arrangement about his
Trinity Sermons. — The Bishop of Chester. — Contract with Publishers. — Tale of
the Martyrs. — Excess of Health. — Harrowgate. — A true Apostolical Church. —
The Year's Work. — Pastoral Duties. — The Threshold of a new Future. — High
Anticipations. — Vaughan of Leicester. —Second Albury Conference. — Dr. Martin's
Account of its Results. — Mutterings of the coming Storm. — Trust of his People.
The year 1828 commenced amid those domestic shadows, and
had not progressed far before the public assaults, in which Irving's
life was henceforward to be passed, began. In the early begin
ning of the year he had prepared for publication three volumes
of his collected sermons ; the first volume setting forth the very
heart and essence of his teaching, his lofty argument and exposi
tion of the Trinity,, and its combined action in the redemption of
man ; the second, his conception of the manner of applying Di
vine truth as symbolized in the Parable of the Sower ; and the
third, his views on national and public subjects. When this work,
however, was all but ready for the press, one of the spies of ortho
doxy hit upon a grand and unthought of heresy, in the splendid
expositions which the congregation had received without a sus
picion, and which Irving himself had preached with the fullest
conviction that the sentiments he uttered were believed by all

THE INEVITABLE COLLISION. 295
orthodox Christians. Up to this period his works had been ar
raigned before less solemn tribunals ; failures in taste, confusion
of metaphors,, and an incomprehensible and undiminished popu
larity, which no attack could lessen, and which piqued the public
oracles, had been brought against him, one time or another, by al
most every publication in the kingdom. But even when a man
is fully convicted of being more eloquent and less cautious than
his neighbors, when he is proved to fascinate the largest audiences,
and utter the boldest denunciations, and give the most dauntless
challenges to all opponents, with the additional aggravations of a
remarkable person, and some peculiarities of appearance, these
things are still not enough to make him a heretic.
The religious world had long been shy of a man so impractica
ble, but yet had been forced, by way of availing itself of his gen
ius and popularity, to afford him still its countenance, and still to
ask anniversary sermons, though with fear and trembling, from
the greatest orator of the time. These anniversary sermons, how
ever, were so little to be depended upon — were so much occupied
with the truth, and so little with the occasion, or the subscrip
tion lists — that he was not, and could not be popular among the
religious managers and committee people, who make a business
of the propagation of the Gospel. He was a man of a different
fashion from their favorite model, by no means to be brought
into conformity with it ; and they regarded him afar off with jeal
ous eyes. At last the inevitable collision occurred. Irving's ser
mons on the Trinity were uttered to an audience so unaware of
any error in them that, by special desire of the office-bearers of
the congregation, they were placed first in the volumes which
their author prepared as a complete manifestation of his varied
labors. The sermons themselves had been preached some years
before ; they are mentioned in Eraser's Magazine, in the eloge pro
nounced upon him after his death, as having been first delivered
in Hatton Garden, where no man hinted heresy ; and Irving him
self describes the gradual composition of several of them in his
journal-letters in 1825 ; they were not, however, ready for pub
lication till the beginning of the year 1828, and seem to have been
selected in all simplicity, and, as the preface relates, with no con
troversial meaning, "as being designed for the instruction of the
Church committed to my ministerial and pastoral care, of whom
I knew not that any one entertained a doubt upon that great head
of Christian faith." These sermons, though of a very different

296 THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST.
character from those bursts of bold and splendid oratory by which
the preacher had made his great reputation, are perhaps more re
markable than any of his other productions. How any man could
carry a large audience breathless through those close and lofty ar
guments, and lead them into the solemn courts of heaven to trace
the eternal covenant there, preserving the mighty strain of intel
ligence and attention through hours of steadfast soaring into the
ineffable mysteries, is a question which I find it hard to solve.
But he seems to have done it ; and all unaware of the fact that
underneath, in the cloudy world below, certain sharp eyes, una
ble to follow him, could yet follow and discern where his brilliant
way cut through divers floating clouds of doctrine, he pursued
his eagle's path straight into the sunshine. That loftiest, splendid
theme unfolded before his intent gaze into a grand harmonious
system of God-manifestation. It was not doctrine that he unfold
ed. It was the vivid reality of the sublimest historic facts, a God
head in combined and harmonious action, working forth, not the
salvation of individual man by any expedient, however sublime,
but the grand overthrow and defeat of evil in a nature which had
sinned. In this light the man who embraced his Lord with all
the fervor of human affections, as well as with all the spiritual
love and faith of which his soul was capable, perceived, with a
depth of tender adoration not to be described, that wonderful re
ality of union which made his Lord not only his Savior, but his
brother and kinsman, the true everlasting Head of the nature He
had assumed. Controversy was not in his mind, nor any desire
after a novel view of the truth he uttered. He " knew not that
any one entertained a doubt upon that great head of Christian
faith." And with all the simplicity of undoubting belief and con
fidence, he set forth the Savior in whom he trusted — a Lord no
ways abstracted from the life-blood of humanity, but rather its
fullest spring and fountain-head, a man without guilt, but with
every thing else that belongs to man — an existence not of itself
secure and unassailable, but held like a fortress in immaculate
purity by the Godhead within. Such was the form in which the
Redeemer of his life and Master of his heart appeared to Irving.
He set forth the Lord so, before all eyes, with outcries of joy and
tears, finding in that utter brotherhood of the flesh a culmination
of grace, and love, and unspeakable Divine tenderness such as
heart of man had not conceived.
This was the preacher's view, standing above the crowd with

DISCOVERIES MADE BY THE REV. MR. COLE. 297
his eyes and his thoughts in the heavens ; but other eyes and
thoughts were in the cloudy regions underneath, watching that
lofty perilous career into the Divine mysteries without either light
to lead or faith to follow. An idle clergyman, called Cole — of
whom nobody seems to know any thing but that he suddenly ap
peared out of darkness at this moment to do his ignoble office— -
heard by the wind of rumor, which at that time was constantly
carrying something of the eloquent preacher's lavish riches about
the world, of what appeared to him " a new doctrine." The im
mediate cause was an address delivered by Irving in behalf of a
society for the distribution of Gospel Tracts, in which some of his
audience discovered that the preacher declared the human nature
of our Savior to be identical with all human nature, truly and in
actual verity the " seed of Abraham." This, coming to the ears
of Mr. Cole, apparently, at the moment, a man at leisure, and in a
condition to set his laborious brethren right and find out their er
rors, filled the soul' of that virtuous critic with alarm and horror.
To him the world seems to be indebted for the disingenuous state
ment of this new view, if new view it was, which, by giving the
name of the "sinfulness of Christ's human nature" to that which in
Irving's eyes was the actual redemption of human nature through
Christ, inevitably prejudiced and prejudged the question with the
mass of religious people. Few can follow those fine and delicate
intricacies and distinctions which encompass such an important
but impalpable difference of belief, but every body can be shocked
at the connection of sin with the person of the Savior. This was
the unfair and deeply disingenuous method of representing it
which Cole first hit upon, and which all who followed him on
that side of the question, in spite of countless protests and denials
from the other, obstinately maintained. The novel means which
Mr. Cole took to satisfy himself about the new doctrine we are
fortunately able to give in his own words, which, in the form of a
letter to Irving, he published shortly after the event he narrates.
" I had purposed," says this candid divine, " ever since the delivery
of your Society Oration, to hear you myself, that I might be satisfied
personally whether you really did hold the awful doctrine of the sin
fulness of Christ's human nature or not ; but six months elapsed
before my continued purpose was realized. I did not like to leave
my usual place of worship to hear you, and yet there appeared no
possibility of accomplishing my desire without it. On Sunday even
ing, the 28th of October last, however, I was returning home rather
early, about eight o'clock, and it occurred to me that, if I went to
your chapel, I might find your oration not quite concluded, and that

298 A THEOLOGICAL SPY.
I might, perhaps, hear something that would enable me to arrive at
the desired satisfaction. I accordingly proceeded to the Caledonian
chapel. When I entered, I found your oration not concluded; I
therefore sat down, and heard you for about twenty minutes. I had
not been seated above a minute or two when I found that you were
dwelling much upon the person and work of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ; and I had hardly arrived at a perception of the train
of that part of your discourse, when you made me tremble from head
to foot by thundering out the expression, 'that sineul substance!'
meaning the human "body of the adorable Son of God! You were
declaring 'that the main part of His victory consisted in His over
coming the sin and corruption of His human nature.' You stated
'•He did not sin.' 'But,' you said, 'there was that sinful substance
against which He had to strive, and with which He had to conflict
during the whole of His life upon earth.' What I felt at hearing
such awful blasphemy against the person of the Son of God declaimed,
with accompanying vehement gesticulations, before upward, I should
suppose, of two thousand persons, I can not describe. And the whole
superstructure of the remaining part of your oration was more or less
of a piece with and built upon this terrifically awful foundation. . . .
Nevertheless, to put myself beyond the reach of error in so moment
ous a matter, and at the same time to give you the most fair and full
opportunity of unsaying any unguarded expressions, and also to ascer
tain whether what you uttered was your considerate and real belief,
I resolved, if practicable, to speak to you in person. Having under
stood from one of your attendants that you would favor me with, a
conference, I waited till you were disengaged, and was at length ad
mitted into your presence. My address and questions, and your an
swers, were as follows : 'I beheve, sir, a considerable part of the con
clusion of your discourse this evening has been upon the person and
works of Jesus Christ?' You answered in the affirmative. I added,
'If I mistake not, you asserted that the human body of Christ was sin
ful substance ?' You replied, ' Yes, I did.' I continued, ' But is that
your real and considerate belief?' You answered, ' Yes, it is, as far as
I have considered the .subject.' And here you produced a book, which
I believe was some national confession of faith, to confirm your faith
and assertions, in which you pointed out to me these words (if I mis
take not), 'The flesh of Jesus Christ, which was by nature mortal and
corruptible.' . . . ' This, sir,' I observed, ' is to me a most awful doc
trine.' And, after making other remarks upon the awfulness of the
doctrine, and asking you once or twice if such was your deliberate
and considerate belief, which you answered in the affirmative, I put
this final question to you : ' Do you then, sir, really believe that the
body of the Son of God was a mortal, corrupt, and corruptible body,
like that of all mankind ? the same body as yours and mine ?' You
answered, 'Yes, just so; certainly; that is what I believe.' Upon
which I departed."
The inquirer departed, after so unwarrantable an invasion of
another man's privacy, to bring against the sincere and patient
preacher who had borne this catechising, and had not resented it,

FIRST ACCUSATION OF HERESY. 299
the charge of serious heresy. Such a method of getting at the
facts on which the indictment was to be framed has fortunately
been seldom resorted to, and it is not an example which many
men would like to follow. Irving himself gives a much shorter
account of the same interview in the preface to a volume entitled
Christ's Holiness in the Flesh, published in 1831. He says;
" Of the man I know nothing, save that a stranger once solicited
conversation with me on a Lord's-day night, after public worship,
of which conversation I found what purported to be the substance
standing at the head of this publication (Cole's pamphlet). Whether
it be so or not I can not tell, for it was at a moment of exhaustion
that it was held ; and I gave the stranger an invitation to come to
me at leisure on the Thursday following for the farther satisfying of
his conscience. He did not think it worth his while to do this, and
could reconcile his conscience to the betrayal of pastoral and minis
terial confidence, and to the publication of a conversation, without
even asking me whether it was correctly reported or not. ... I shall
never forget," he proceeds, " the feeling which I had upon first hear
ing my name coupled with heresy. So much did it trouble me, that
I once seriously meditated sending a paper to the Christian Observer
in order to contradict the man's false insinuations. But I thought it
better to sit quiet and bear the reproach.- When, however, I per
ceived that this error was taking form, and that the Church was com
ing into peril of believing that Christ had no temptations in the flesh
to contend with and overcome, I felt it my duty to intercalate, in the
volume on the Incarnation, a sermon (No. III.), showing out the truth
in a more exact and argumentative form, directed specially against
the error that our Lord took human nature in its creation, and not in
its fallen estate ; and another (No. VI.), showing the most grave and
weighty conclusions flowing from the true doctrine that He came un
der the conditions of our fallen state in order to redeem us from the
same. This is the true and faithful account of the first work which
I published upon the subject."
In the preface of that work itself, he refers us simply, but with
less detail, to the same occurrence :
" When I had completed this office of my ministry," he explains,
when giving forth the contested sermons for the first time to the
world, " and, by the request of my flock, had consented to the publica
tion of these, and the other discourses contained in this book, and
when the printing of them had all but or altogether concluded, there
arose, I say not by what influence of Satan, a great outcry against the
doctrine which, with all orthodox churches, I hold and maintain con
cerning the person of Christ ; the doctrine, I mean, of His human na
ture, that it was manhood fallen which He took up into his divine
person, in order to prove the grace and the might of Godhead in re
deeming it ; or, to use the words of our Scottish confession, that His
flesh was, in its proper nature, mortal and corruptible, but received
immortality and incorruption from the Holy Ghost. The stir which

300 IRVING'S MANNER OF MEETING THE ATTACK.
was made in divers quarters, both of this and of my native land, about
this matter, as if it were neither the orthodox doctrine of the Church,
nor a doctrine according to holiness, showed me, who am convinced
of both, that it was necessary to take controversial weapons in my
hand, and contend earnestly for the faith as it was once delivered to
the saints. I perceived, now, that the dogmatical method which I
had adopted for the behoof of my own believing flock would not be
sufficient when publishing to a wavering, gainsaying, or unbelieving
people, and therefore it seemed to me most profitable to delay the
publication until I should have composed something fitted to re-es
tablish men's minds upon the great fundamental doctrine of the
Church ; which having done, I resolved to insert the same as two
other sermons, the one upon the method of the Incarnation, and the
other upon the relations of the Creator and the creature, as these are
shown out in the light of the Incarnation. And for this timeous in
terruption by evil tongues, I desire to give thanks to God, inasmuch
as I have been enabled thereby not only to expound, but to defend
the faith that the Son of God came in the flesh."
Such was the simple and straightforward course adopted by Ir
ving at the first whisper of the accusation brought against him.
Instead of rushing into sudden encounter with his darkling assail
ant, he waited until nearly the end of the year, in order to add to
the plain statement of his belief its fuller defense and support;
and after adding these careful productions to the already printed
volume, issued it, with the explanation given above, without even
referring to the obscure originator of the sudden outcry. The
dedication to the third volume of this work is dated January 10th,
1828, while the similar preface to the first is not written till No
vember 10th of the same year, ten months later. The difference
of these dates bears notable and simple testimony to the way in
which this matter affected him. The work, prepared with all care
and deliberation, and just on the eve of being given to the world,
was postponed, not that he might soften down or clear away the
doubtful expressions, but that, with more distinct force and clear
er utterance, he might disclose the belief that was in him. Hav
ing nowdoubt in himself, he was only anxious to be understood
clearly, that his doctrine might be proved. In this patient and
candid manner, not hastily, but with the postponement of all an
author's expectations, and all the natural indignation of a man un
handsomely assailed, he answered this first charge of heresy. He
himself bears witness that it was echoed on all sides around him.
It was " a great outcry"—" a stir in divers quarters." He delay
ed answering for a year— a year so full of other .occupations that
it is hard to conceive how he can have had the patience and com-

APOLOGY FOR THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 301
posure necessary to take up the threads and extend the high ar
gument ; and then soberly asserts his cherished truth and vindi
cates his character. " The point at issue is simply this," he says
with dignified gravity and moderation, "whether Christ's flesh
had the grace of sinlessness and incorruption from its proper na
ture, or from the indwelling of the Holy Ghost ; I say the latter."
With this statement of the matter, we may, in the mean time, like
Irving, leave the question. The cloud, like a man's hand, had
risen out of the envious mists, when the religious spy entered the
little Presbyterian sacristy at Begent Square to bring the ingenu
ous soul there to account, and betray its frank and unstudied ex
planations. All unconscious of the object of his questioner, Ir
ving spoke forth the truth he held then as always ; and when he
became aware of the brewing storm, faced it, all candid and un-
disguisable, but with a patience and lofty composure which few
men could have equaled. And with that, for the present, the
matter closed. An angry wind of assault and accusation raged
without ; but within, his beloved Church, always ready enough
to note deviations in doctrine, was yet unroused and unstartled.
And Irving went on his way, full, not of one truth, but of many,
and believing himself, first and above all, called upon to proclaim
the coming of thatLord whom he all but saw — the approach of
one who was no abstraction nor embodiment of doctrine to his
fervid spirit, but his very God and Lord, fiesh of his flesh and
bone of his bone.
In the spring of the same year he preached a Fast-day Sermon,
it is not recorded upon what occasion, before the Presbytery of
London, which was afterward published under the title of an
Apology for the ancient fullness and purity of the doctrine of the
Church of Scotland. This work I can only speak of from the frag-
mants contained in an adverse and ill-natured review; but it was
evidently not only a fervent eulogium on the mother Church, but
an assertion of higher claims on her behalf than the so-called dem
ocratic and popular Church of Scotland is generally supposed to
have ever made ; and he seems to have founded his views, as Ir
ving was always disposed to do, upon the ancient Confessions of
the Church, and not upon the modern Westminster Confession,
which is now its chief recognized standard. Upon these old con
fessions he always made his stand, reaching across the controver
sial age to those ancient and loftier days when the primitive creed
was set forth simply and without argument. There is, indeed, a

302 IRVING CARRIES HIS MESSAGE TO HIS OWN COUNTRY.
certain willful independence in the way in which he eludes all
mention of the later declaration of doctrine which has been iden
tified with his Church, and fixes his tenacious regard upon the
elder utterance, which he never ceased to maintain, and quaintly
inflicted upon his English disciples in after years with a pertinaci
ty which would be amusing were it not deeply pathetic. "I do
battle under the standards of the Church under which my fathers
fell," he says with touching prophetic sadness in this Fast'day ser
mon. " I am a man sworn to discipline, and must abide by my
standard, and may not leave it, but fall beside it, or fall above it,
and yield to it the last shelter and rampart of my fallen body."
These words were laughed at by some of the critics of the day as
"mouth-valiant tropes." The progress of time, however, throws
sad and striking illustrations upon them ; for it is certain that,
whether right or wrong in his interpretation of their meaning, Ir
ving did stand by those standards till he fell in the heat of battle,
and never relinquished them, even to the death.
In May, Mrs. Irving, whose health was still delicate, went to
Scotland to her father's house, and about the same time Irving
himself left London to travel by the slower route of Annan and
his native district, preaching as he went, to Edinburgh and Kirk-;
caldy. His object in this journey was not relaxation or pleasure.
He went, counting himself "most favored of ihe Lord," to pro
claim in Scotland, as he had already done in London, the coming
of his Master. " Walk, dear David, in the fear of the Lord — the
time is short," he writes in one of those friendly letters, now, be
coming rarer and rarer. And, penetrated with that conviction, he
went to Scotland to warn, first his father's house and kindred, and
the country-side which had still so great a hold upon his heart,
and then universal Scotland through her capital, of that advent
which he looked for with undoubting and fervent expectation.
This journey was in many respects a very remarkable one, being
occupied entirely in the work to which he had no inducement or
persuasion but his own profound belief of the great event about
to happen — of which, indeed, nobody can doubt that the world
had, if it were so near at hand, most strenuous need to be adver
tised. No way could he have better proved the perfect reality
of his own belief.
"Edward is in excellent health," writes Mrs. Irving, on the 16th
of May, from Kirkcaldy, to Mr. Story, of Rosneath. " He has gone
to bear his testimony for the truth in his native town, and purposes

ANNAN MARKET. 303
being in Dumfries, if the Lord will, next week, and to commence his
labors in Edinburgh on Thursday next. . . . His time is wholly oc
cupied. His course of discourses will not be finished in Edinburgh
until Wednesday, the 4th of June, when he proposes starting imme
diately for Glasgow, and, if they choose, preaching there on the fol
lowing day ; then at Paisley on Friday, at Greenock on the Saturday
morning, and, crossing to Rosneath, doing all the service you may re
quire on Sabbath and Monday. He desires much to preach for Mr.
Campbell on Tuesday evening, again at Glasgow on Wednesday, at
Bathgate (my brother's parish) on Thursday, and be here at the com
munion on Sabbath the 15th. All being well, on Tuesday after, we
expect that your acquaintance, William Hamilton, will be united to
my sister Elizabeth. After this, God willing, Edward visits Perth,
Dundee, and Monimail."
Such was the course he had determined for himself before set
ting out from his labors in London ; and when it is understood
that he did this without inducement or stimulation, except that
of the message with which he was bursting, something of the fer
vor of the spirit which could not keep silent may be apprehend
ed. One joyful domestic incident — the marriage of his sister-in-
law to his bosom friend, a marriage quaintly suggested years ago,
before the pair had ever met, to the present bridegroom — gave a
point offender human interest to the laborious journey ; but such
a holiday few laboring men, few workers errant in such an agi
tating field as that of London, would have thought of or could
have carried out.
From the first point in these apostolic travels he writes as fol
lows to his wife : "Annan, Saturday, 17th May, 1828.
" My dear Wife, — I arrived here on Wednesday night, and found
all our friends well. Next morning I waited on the minister, who
most graciously gave me my request to preach the three week nights
as well as the Sabbath. This I published in the market as I came
down the street, and in the evening the church was thronged, as also
last night. I opened the seventh chapter of Daniel, and the second
and third of Acts, laying out the whole subject, and this night I open
2 Peter, iii., and Romans, xix. and xx. Indeed, I have been most fa
vored of the Lord to open these great truths first in Scotland to my
own kindred and townsmen, and in the church where I was bap
tized. To-morrow I preach at Kirkpatrick, in a tent, I suppose, when
I intend throwing all help aside, and preaching a regular sermon from
Rom., viii., 1, 2, 3, trusting to Christ's own most helpful and blessed
promise. In the evening I return and preach for the Sabbath-schools ;
I know not what sermon yet ; perhaps, however, it may be a discourse
of baptism, from Rom., vi., embodying the doctrine of the homilies,
and this also extempore. On Monday I proceed for Dumfries, resting
a few hours with our Margaret, and proceeding thence to Cargen, to

304 HIS LABORS AMONG HIS OWN PEOPLE.
meet some clergymen there ; but, finding the minister of the parish
to be my nearest of kin, I wrote a letter to him, inclosed to Cargen,
to say, that if he would gather the people after their work at seven
o'clock, I would preach to them. On Tuesday, at one o'clock, I
preach for the Society ; and in the evening, at seven, for Mr. Kirk-
wood, at Holy wood, if it please him ; and then, on Wednesday morn
ing, I proceed with Margaret to Edinburgh by the earliest coach.
. . . These things I write that you may remember me at those sea
sons when I am engaged in the Lord's service ; for it is the strength
yielded unto the prayers of His saints which is my strength. I am
nothing but a broken reed. I desire to be still viler in my sight. I
am His worthless instrument, whom He will use for His own glory,
either in saving me or in not saving me ; and, so that His glory is
promoted, I desire to be satisfied. Oft I have the feeling of the apos
tle — lest I also be a castaway. God bless you and dear Margaret.
. . . The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be upon thee, and upon all
the house of thy father. Farewell.
" Your affectionate husband, Edward Irving."
Thus laboring, he made his way through Dumfriesshire. % The
wonderful apparition of that great figure, with which Annan had
grown unfamiliar, pausing in the street where the weekly market
of the country town was going on, and proclaiming with audible
voice to all the rural crowd of farmers, and cottagers, and homely
country-merchants the night's preaching", is a scene well. worthy
any painter's skill. There where, as his old companions boast,
no man has ever had " an ill word" to say of Edward Irving, he
appeared out of the halo of distant metropolitan grandeur, famil
iar, yet strange, a distinction to his native town. The country
side, stirred with an impulse warmer than mere curiosity, arose
and went to hear the message he brought them. On the Sunday
when he preached, neighboring ministers shut up their churches,
and went the long Sabbath-day's journey across the Annandale
moors to hear him, along with their people. Such a scene as
Tennyson touches, with one wistful stroke of his magic pencil,
must have been common enough in those days in that southland
country. Many a countryman, roused by the sound of his old
schoolfellow's name, like him who
1 ' In his furrow musing stands,
Does my old friend remember me?"
must have given his Sunday's leisure to listen to that voice which
had no equal in Annandale. For once the proverb seems to have
failed. He had honor in his own country, where gentle and sim
ple flocked to hear him, and where, when the church would not
contain his hearers, he preached in the open air from the little

ARRIVAL IN GREAT KING STREET. 305
wooden pulpit, traditionally known as the " tent," to which, on
extraordinary occasions, the rural ministers resorted. That he
had been able to carry his message thus to his own people seems
to have been a refreshment to Irving's heart.
Then he went on to Edinburgh, where he had already arranged
to deliver twelve lectures on the Apocalypse. Here he was to
live in the house of Mr. Bridges/now a friend of some years' stand
ing, who lived"' in Great King Street, one of those doleful lines of
handsome houses which weigh down the cheerful hill-side under
tons of monotonous stone. The mistress of the house awaited in
some trepidation the arrival of her distinguished guest, doubtful
whether one, of whose eccentricities and solemnities every body
had heard, might be sufficiently of human mould to make him an
agreeable visitor. She "sent away her children hurriedly when
she heard his arrival at the door, and listened with a little awe
for his stately approach. But, while the mother stood palpitating
by her drawing-room door, the children on the stairs encountered
the stranger. He stood still immediately to greet them, to make
himself acquainted with their names, and give them the blessing,
without which he could not pass any head sufficiently low to have
his hand of benediction laid upon it. I am not sure that one of
them was not mounted aloft on the mighty altitude of his shoul
der when he confronted the mother, alarmed no longer, and re
ceived the welcome, which came from no hesitating lip.
It was May, and the clergy of Scotland were all in Edinburgh.
Of all times to deliver the message of Elias, this was the best time
for the Presbyterian nation, and it was on that special account
that Irving had chosen it. He began his lectures in St. Andrew's
Church at the extraordinary hour of six in the morning, in order
to make sure of the ecclesiastical audience, busied all day in the
affairs of the Church, which he particularly sought. In the sweet
but chilly freshness of those spring mornings, a dense crowd filled
the area of George Street. I have heard a clergyman of the mild
est aspect and most courtly manners describe how, roused by the
idea that favored persons were being admitted 1» another en
trance, he, despite all the proprieties of his clericsB^haracter and
the suavities of his individual disposition, was so far roused as to
threaten an official in attendance with a personal assault, and de
scent over the besieged railing, if admittance was not straightway
afforded. Nothing in our day seems fit to be compared with that
wonderful excitement. Half of the audience would, on ordinary
U

306 EXCITEMENT IN EDINBURGH.
occasions, have been peacefully reposing in their beds at the hour
which saw them, all animated" and anxious, pressing into the
gloomy church. The very accompaniments which would have
repelled them from another — his indifference to ordinary comforts
and regulations — his selection of an hour of all others least likely
to tempt forth the crowd — seem to have attracted them to Irving.
Hosts of people cheerfully made themselves uncomfortable for
the chance of getting admittance ; and those who came, came not
once, as to an unparalleled exhibition, but time after time, as una
ble to escape from the spell. " He is drawing prodigious crowds,"
Dr. Chalmers writes. " We attempted this morning to force our
way into St. Andrew's Church, but it was all in vain. He changes
to the West Church for the accommodation of the public." In
that vast building, fitted up with three hideous galleries, the won
derful invention of the eighteenth century, the crowd did not
lessen. " Certainly there must have been a marvelous power of
attraction that could turn a whole population out of their beds as
early as five in the morning," adds Dr. Chalmers. " The largest
church in our metropolis was each time overcrowded." And the
enthusiastic hearers took the younger members of their house
holds with them, when it was practicable, through the crowd, by
way of impressing that wonderful eloquence, so unlikely to ap
pear again in their day, upon the minds of the new generation.
It was altogether an extraordinary new chapter in the preach
er's life. Perhaps to disturb the equilibrium of the composed so
ciety of Edinburgh, and draw an immense congregation of his so
ber-minded countrymen from their morning slumbers and home
comfort into such a crowded assembly as the rising sun rarely
shines upon, was the greatest triumph to which he had yet at
tained. It does not seem, however, that he looked at it at all in
this vulgar light. " I have fairly launched my bark. God speed
us !" he writes to his wife ; and, without another word of comment
upon his extraordinary audiences, proceeds to report his progress
through Dumfriesshire, and to diverge into purely domestic mat
ters, telling how- one of the Kirkcaldy sisters, then in his' native
country, "is dfar to all who know her;" but, "being of the Ref
ormation school by education," he perceives that the family with
whom she resides is " but evangelical ;" and sending to another
sister — the bride Elizabeth — the tender regards which her cir
cumstances call forth : " My brotherly love and ministerial bless
ing upon her virgin head," he writes ; his heart evidently touch-

THE STATESMAN AND THE VISIONARY. 307
ed with the tearful joy of that crisis of youthful life. Nor could
any one guess, from this brief correspondence, that the writer was
at the height of popular applause, followed, lauded, and comment
ed upon by the whole disturbed town, in which he had appeared
like a sudden meteor; the agitating popularity which encircled
him leaves no trace upon his hurried and simple communications.
And now the objections which had always risen against him
began really to take a form grievous to his heart. London criti
cism had not dismayed the dauntless orator; but he was now
among friends, and exposed to animadversions of a heavier kind.
Again Dr. Chalmers comes in, puzzled and full of doubt, yet speak
ing plainly the opinion for which his mind had evidently been
preparing since his visit to London. "For the first time heard
Mr. Irving," he notes in his brief journal ; " I have no hesitation
in saying it is quite woeful. There is power and richness, and
gleams of exquisite beauty, but, withal, a mysterious and extreme
allegorization, which, I am sure, must be pernicious to the gener
al cause. He sent me a letter he had written to the king, on the
Test, etc., and begged that I would read every word of it before I
spoke. I did so, and found it unsatisfactory- and obscure, but not
half so much so as his sermon." At the discussion upon the Ab
olition of Tests in the General Assembly of that year, Chalmers
again describes the apparition of Irving, making himself visible
among the assembled spectators, and doing all that a by-stander
could to make his own strenuous opposition apparent. "Irving
is wild on the other side from me," said the calm and liberal di
vine, who supported with all his force of practical wisdom the ab
olition of a safeguard proved to be useless, and who had read,
without being at all influenced by it, the eloquent letter to the
king, in which the idealist opposite him set forth his splendid im
practicable vision of a Christian nation bound under God to be
swayed by only Christian men; "he sat opposite to me when I
was speaking, as if his eye and looks, seen through the railing,
were stationed there for my disquietude." He, by the way, had a
regular collision with a Dr. H., a violent sectarian, who denounced
him as an enemy to the Gospel of Christ. The colloquy that en
sued was highly characteristic ; Mr. Irving's part of it began with
"Who art thou, 0 man, that smiteth me with thy tongue?"
Nothing could better illustrate the characters of the two men,
whom it is always interesting and often amusing to see together,
than this odd juxtaposition : the one, clear-sighted and executive

308 USES OF THE IMPRACTICABLE.
within the legislative area ; the other, impatient, eager, visionary,
outside, spending his strength in vehement appeals and protests
against the inevitable tide of things which was, visibly to his eyes,
sweeping down the lofty claims and standing of his country.
Chalmers puts the impracticable optimist aside with a mixture of
impatience and compassion — finds his impassioned protest "ob
scure and unsatisfactory," and proceeds, in spite of the brilliant
gaze fixed upon him " through the railing," to clear the modern
working ground for modern action and practical necessities. Ir
ving, with a certain loving, noble scorn, all unaware of the differ
ent direction in which his friend's eyes are turning, and totally in
accessible to all considerations of practicability, watches the for
mation of the commonplace road, shaped according to compelling
circumstances, and burns to rush in and establish the eternal ideal
track, deviating for no compulsion, which neither he nor any other
man can ever fix upon the surface of this earth. Yet, let nobody
think that the ideal protest outside was of less use to humanity
than the operative sense within. Chalmers helped on the course
of modern affairs, and smoothed and widened the national path ;
Irving, with extravagance, with passion, with convictions which
knew no middle course, stirred the hearts in men's bosoms, and
kept alive the spirit of that sublime impracticable, which, never
reaching, every true man strives to reach, and which preserves an
essence of national and spiritual life far beyond the power of the
most perfect organization or the highest political advantages to
bestow. Whether Chalmers's conclusion, that the lectures of this course
were " quite woeful," was shared by the Edinburgh public, seems,
very doubtful ; for, to the last, that public, not overexcitable,
crowded its streets in the early dawn, thronging toward that point
where the homely West Church, with its three galleries, stands
under the noble shadow of the Castle Hill; and his wonderful
popularity was higher at the conclusion than at the beginning.
Nor is it easy to believe that the same year which produced the
splendid oratory of the Last Days, could have fallen so far short
in the special mission with which he felt himself charged. But
Chalmers's disapproving eye did not perceive nor recognize the
overpowering force of that conviction which had taken possession
of his friend. The second Advent was, to him, a doctrine open
to discussion, possibly capable of proof; to Irving, a closely-ap
proaching stupendous event, of which woe was unto him if he did

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN SCOTLAND. 309
not warn his brethren. The one man was not able to judge the
other with such an astonishing gulf of difference between.
Other encounters, telling upon his future career, happened to
Irving at this remarkable era of his life. It was one of the crit
ical periods of religious thought. Here and there, throughout
Scotland, one mind and another had broken the level of fixed the
ology, and strayed into a wider world of Christian hope and love.
Departing from the common argumentative basis of doctrine, such
minds as that of Mr. Erskine, of Linlathen, and Mr. Campbell, of
Row, afterward notable enough in the agitated Church, had con
centrated themselves upon one point of the bountiful revelation
of divine truth, and declared, with all the effusive warmth of
Christian love and yearning, the " freeness of the Gospel." Ac
cording to their view, a substantial difference had taken place in
the position of the world since the great act of redemption was
accomplished. It was not a problematical salvation, only real
when faith and conversion came to the individual soul, but an
actual fact, entirely changing the position of the human race, which
was manifest to them in the work of our Lord and Savior. It
was not that salvation might be, as man after man believed and
received it, but that salvation was, for God had accomplished and
revealed that greatest demonstration of His love. Leaving to
other men the task of balancing with all those wonderful myster
ies of limitation, which, whether called divine election or human
resistance, show visibly, in gloom and terror, the other side of that
glorious picture, they addressed themselves to the joyful utterance
of that unquestionable universal proffer of love which God makes
to all His creatures. This delicious gleam of light, opening inef
fable hopes of universal safety, and emboldening the preacher to
summon every man, as in the position of a redeemed creature, to
the assurance of that love and forgiveness which dwelt in God,
had begun to brighten the pious soul and laborious way of the
young west-country minister, with whose name, as a system of
doctrine, these views were afterward identified in the early au
tumn of 1828. Dreaming nothing of heresy, but anxious to con
sult a brother in the ministry, of older experience and more vivid
genius than himself, about this tremulous dawning glory which
had brightened the entire world of truth to his own perceptions,
John Campbell, of Row, saintly in personal piety and warm in
Celtic fervor, came, with the natural diffidence of youth, to seek
an interview with Irving. He found him alone in the drawing-

310 A NEW FRIEND.
room at Great King Street, with one of the children of the house
playing on the carpet at his feet — a tender domestic accompani
ment to the high reverie and musings of the interpreter of proph
ecy. The stranger — less a stranger as being the dear friend of
one of Irving's dearest friends — told his errand modestly : he had
come to ask counsel and help in the midst of his hopes and diffi
culties. Irving turned toward him with the natural gracious
humbleness of his character, and bade him speak out. "God
may have sent me instruction by your hands," said the candid
heart, always more ready to learn than to teach. It is not hard
to imagine what must have been the effect of these words on the
young man, shy of his errand. They sat down together to dis
cuss that high theme, with the child playing at their feet. No
body will doubt that their after-friendship lasted till death.
I am not able to estimate what effect Mr. Campbell's views had
upon the mind of Irving. As one part, and that a deeply impor
tant one, of the truth, great and wide enough to deserve any man's
special devotion, and, indeed, the most clear demonstrative exhi
bition of the Gospel, it is evident that he entered into it heartily ;
and holding, as he himself held, that Christ's work was one which
redeemed not only individual souls, but the nature of man, no one
could be more ready than he to rejoice in the fullest uncondition
al proclamation that Christ died for all. His own sentiments,
however, on other subjects, and the higher heroical strain of a soul
which believed visible judgment and justice to be close at hand,
and felt, in the groaning depths of its nature, that the world he
contemplated was neither conscious nor careful of its redemption,
make it apparent that Irving's mind was not so specially bent
upon this individual aspect of the truth as that of his visitor. But
it is a curious and significant fact, that many men — I had almost
said most men, at all able to think for themselves, who ever cross
ed his path — seem to have entertained an impression that they, in
their proper persons, had instructed and influenced Irving. To
the outer world, the great preacher appears drawing after him a
crowd of lesser luminaries ; but each individual of these, when
one comes to inquire into it, retains a conviction that he was the
leader, and Irving, always so lavish and princely in his acknowl
edgments of benefits received, the follower. With the open heart
and eye of simple genius, always ready to hear and receive, he
seems somehow to have convinced all with whom he came in
close contact that light had reached his mind through their means,

ROSNEATH. 311
and this notwithstanding the high position he always assumed as
a teacher. But Mr. Campbell commended himself entirely to Ir
ving's heart. He was too visibly a man of God to leave any
doubtfulness upon his immediate reception into the fervent broth
erhood of that tender nature.
From Edinburgh, as soon as his lectures were finished, the
preacher went to Glasgow, from whence, about a week after, he
writes the following brief account of his labors to his wife :
" Collins' shop, Glasgow, June 10th, 1828.
" I have a moment's time, and embrace it, to let you know that I
am here, well, and about to proceed to Carnwath to-morrow morn
ing. I have had much of the Lord's presence. I preached here on
Matt., xiii., on Thursday. On Friday, on the Regeneration, when the
apostles are to sit on thrones. On Saturday, on the Resurrection.
On Sabbath, at Rosneath, in the tent, on Psalm ii. for lecture, and on
the name of God, Psalms ix. and x., for sermon. At Row, on the
24th of Matthew. To-morrow I preach on Matt, xxv., first parable ;
at Bathgate, second parable ; and in Edinburgh, on the Last Times.
I was much delighted with Campbell and Sandy Scott, whom I have
invited to come with you to London. I trust the Lord will deliver
him out of his present deep waters. I have much comfort in these
extempore expositions, and, if I mistake not, it will constitute an era
in my ministry ; not that I will hastily adopt it, or always, but for the
propagation of this truth by exposition. It is a great delight for me
to find that I can preach every day with little trouble, with no injury.
I trust the Lord preserves you in faith, and peace, and love. By the
blessing of God, I will see you on Saturday morning. . . . Farewell,
my beloved wife !"
This brief record supplies little except the facts of the rapid
but apostolic journey. I have no information as to the effect of
his appearance at Glasgow; but when he arrived at the little
westland paradise of Rosneath, and under the rich sycamores and
blossomed laurel set up the tent, or wooden out-door pulpit, fa
miliar to all eyes on great ecclesiastical occasions, and close by
the little church, all too small for the overflowing audience, yet
occupied by a portion of the hearers, thrilled the soft air and lis
tening crowd with his herald's proclamation of the coming King,
the whole district, hereafter to bear a notable part in his own his
tory, was stirred by his approach. Doubtless the singular young
woman who was first to receive that wonderful gift of " tongues,"
which had so great an influence on Irving's future fate, was there
from the head of the loch to have her mysterious imagination
quickened with words which should reverberate to the preacher's
undoing. All the agitations and distractions of his latter days

312 ROW.— A. J. SCOTT.
lay there in the germ by the sweet half-Highland waters, on the
shore of which, as eager to penetrate the rural stillness as to charm
the greater ear of cities, he delivered his startling message. Next
day at Row, on the opposite shore, almost within hearing of his
Sabbath-day's station, a similar scene was repeated. A witness
describes, with a certain unconscious poetry, the aspect of the loch,
bright with boatsj conveying from all points the eager congrega
tion, and Irving's generous spontaneous divergence from his spe
cial mission, to take up, and illuminate, and enforce the equally
special and earnest burden of the young brother who had unfold
ed to him his heart. There he met, not for the first time, but
with an important result, another man, who can not be dismissed
with the familiar mention given him in the letter above : Alex
ander Scott, now of Manchester, the son of Dr. Scott, of Greenock,
a licentiate of the Scotch Church — a man whose powerful, willful,
and fastidious mind has produced upon all other capable minds
an impression of force and ability which no practical result has
yet adequately carried out. A Scotch probationer, but character
istically recalcitrant and out of accordance with every standard
but his own, this remarkable man, then young, and in a position .
in which any great thing might be prophesied of his visible pow
ers, attracted, I can not tell how, notwithstanding his total dissim
ilarity and unaccordance, the regard of Irving. A greater con
trast could not be than between that fastidious fancy, which seems
to reject with disgust the ordinary ornaments of language, win
ning a kind of perfection of simplicity by the disdainful finesse of
art, and the fervent and glowing imagination, swelling into irre
sistible lyric strains by intuition of nature, which inspired the elo
quence of Irving, unless it were the contrast between the profound
and sublime faith which turned belief into reality in the heart of
the great preacher, and that questioning, unsatisfied, always fas
tidious philosophic soul, which seems to delight in undermining
the ground on which the other great intelligence holds a precari
ous standing, and lessening one by one the objects of possible
faith. Notwithstanding this vast difference, so visible nowadays,
these two dissimilar natures had somehow fallen into warm and
sudden friendship; and Irving, all truthful and ingenuous, de
siring no pledges about doctrine, and confident in the piety and
truth of the young man, engaged the doubtful probationer to join
him in London, and be his assistant in his ministerial labors.
Such an offer, perhaps, no man in the Church of Scotland but

ACCIDENT AT KIRKCALDY. 3I3
himself would have made ; but the bargain seems to have been
concluded at this Row preaching ; and for some time after, this
strangely-matched pair labored together with such agreement as
was possible, and with friendship unbroken.
Passing through Glasgow, Irving then went to Carnwath, in
the wilds of Lanarkshire, where his wife's cousin, the Rev. James
Walker, was minister of the parish, and from thence to Bathgate,
not far off, to his brother, Samuel Martin, another well-known and
honored parish priest. Another sermon in Edinburgh seems to
have concluded this laborious week. On Saturday he crossed the
firth to Kirkcaldy, to join his family and share the household joys
and conferences of the family home, then excited by all the agita
tions of an approaching bridal. It was the eve of the communion
besides, always a time of solemn yet pleasant stir in a Scotch
manse. The tenderest, touching conjunction of family emotions
was in that manse of Kirkcaldy on the expectant Saturday, and
the solemn cheerful dawn of the sacramental morning : one of the
daughters a bride, another a delicate expecting mother — sweet
agitation and religious calm.
But darker shadows were to fall over the wedding-day. On
Sunday evening, after the sacramental feast was over, a prodigious
concourse of people gathered in Kirkcaldy church. They had
come from all quarters to hear a preacher so renowned for his elo
quence, who had long been familiar to all the neighborhood, whom
once the popular mind of Kirkcaldy had scorned, but whom now
the entire neighborhood struggled for a chance of hearing. In
the sweet summer evening, when Irving, all unaware of any ca
lamity, and having just left his ailing wife, was on his way to
church, he met a messenger coming to warn him of the terrible
accident which had just occurred. The overcrowded galleries had
fallen, and, besides the immediate inevitable loss of life, which, for
tunately, was not great, all the horrors of a vulgar panic had set
in among the crowd. Irving immediately took up his post under
a window in the staircase, and, conspicuous by his great size and
strength, helped many of the terrified fugitives to make their way
out, lifting them down in his arms. Such a scene of popular panic
and selfish cowardice is always an appalling one. Dr. Chalmers,
whose wife and child were present, reckons, in his account of it,
that " at least thirty-five people" were killed, two or three only by
the actual fall of the gallery, and the rest "by the stifling and suf
focation toward the doors of the church." The dead and dying

314 CRUEL REPROACHES.
were lifted out into the church-yard, the latter to receive such help
as might be possible, and terror and lamentation filled the neigh
borhood. In the midst of this heart-rending scene, one of the
crowd, with a bitterness, perhaps, excused by some great loss,
turned upon the preacher, and taunted him cruelly with being
the cause of the terrible event. The reproach, bitterly unjust as
it was, went to Irving's heart. He is said to have withdrawn from
the melancholy scene to his own chamber with tears of anguish
and humiliation. And when this dreadful disturbance of the
evening's calm had come to an end, and the troubled family, after
having exhausted all possible efforts for the relief of the sufferers,
were at last assembling to their evenipg prayers, his grieved soul
broke forth into words. "God hath put me to shame this day
before all the people," he said, with a pang of distress all the more
sharp and terrible from the love of love and honor that was natu
ral to his heart. The short time he spent in Kirkcaldy afterward
was entirely occupied by visits to the injured or bereaved people,
and, to such of them as needed pecuniary help, his purse as well
as his heart was open. But the whole calamitous event seems to
have been embittered by a wholly unreasonable and most cruel
resentment against the preacher, which it is hard to account for.
It is said that in some excited local coterie there was wild talk of
offering up the author of all this calamity as a deodand. And even
the fact that the marriage, thus sadly overcast, was not postponed,
increased the popular indignation. Dr. Chalmers himself, with
inexplicable bitterness, exposed as he himself was to all the acci
dents common to the gathering together of immense multitudes,
describes this calamity as "the most striking and woeful effect of
Irving's visit." It gave a tragic conclusion to the triumphant and
exciting course of his brief but incessant labors.
Just at this eventful and exciting period, another infant son
came into the world in the Kirkcaldy manse, and, as soon as Ir
ving could leave his wife, he returned to London, making a brief
divergence into the North before setting out on his homeward
journey. In this short expedition northward he reappears out
of the darkness in the following vivid glimpse, for which I am
indebted to the kindness of the Rev. J. W. Taylor, of the Free
Church, Creich. This gentleman writes :
" My own remembrance of Edward Irving is thirty years old, yet
is the impression as fresh as the day on which it was made. I re
member the very bend of the pavement where first I saw him : the

IRVING VISITS PERTH.— RETURNS TO LONDON. 315
raven locks flowing down to his broad shoulders, his magnificent
erect figure, the cloak thrown over his arm, and the giant air with
which he marched, are ineffaceably present to my mind. ... He had
come to Perth to preach. Midday sermons were not popular enter
tainments then, and the Kirkcaldy church catastrophe was fresh in
people's thoughts; but the East church was filled. His text was
taken from the 24th chapter of Matthew, regarding the coming of the
Son of Man. I remember nothing of the sermon save its general
subject ; but one thing I can never forget. While he was engaged
in unfolding his subject, from out of a dark cloud, which obscured
the church, there came forth a bright blaze of lightning and a crash
of thunder. There was deep stillness in the audience. The preacher
paused ; and from the stillness and the gloom of his powerful voice,
clothed with increased solemnity, pronounced these words : 'For as
the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west,
so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.' You can imagine the
effect." The next that we see of him is in London, returned to his post,
and plunging, without any interval, into his ordinary labors. He
went, not to his own house — it being, indeed, a transitionary mo
ment, in which he seems to have had no house, having ended his
tenancy of one, and not entered upon another till his wife's re
turn — but to that of Miss Macdonald, a daughter of Sir Archibald
Macdonald, once Lord Chief Justice, a woman of great accom
plishments and wonderful self-devotion, who had been for some
time tbe warmest friend of his family, and his own zealous assist
ant and amanuensis. From her habitation — then, it is to be sup
posed, a more refined locality than it appears now — he writes to
his wife : "6 Euston Grove, Euston Square, London, )
"Friday, July 3d, 1828. J
" Mt dearest Wife, — This is merely to announce to you my safe
arrival. I have a long sheet begun, but there is not time to close it
until to-morrow, for which I have a frank. I found Miss Macdonald
well, about one o'clock ; after washing, etc., we sat down to our old
work* for about two hours, after which we have gone forth to visit
the schools, which are thriving. ... As I passed through Cheap-
side, I called to inquire after our friends both there and elsewhere.
Alex had received a letter that morning to say that they were on
their way, and would be here either to-morrow or on Monday. The
Lord bring them in peace and safety ! For myself, I am in good
health, and slept well all the voyage. It is really a matter of some
importance to come by the James Watt, and I would have you to
bear it in mind. I fondly hope, before this time, you are so far re
covered as to be able to be up and to enjoy yourself, and that the
dear boy is thriving well. God make his soul to prosper and be in
health ! And for dear Margaret, say that little Stewart inquired af-
* Miss Macdonald writing to his dictation.

316 HAPPINESS IN RETURNING.
ter her, and all rejoice in her health. But, no ! guard against her
vanity and egotism. It will become very great unless it be kept
down. I pray you to bear this in mind. Dinner is on the table, and
Campbell is to spend the evening with us — going off to-morrow.
My love to you all. God bless the homes of our fathers all !
" Your affectionate and dutiful husband, Edward Irving."
Mr. Camphell, of Row, had either accompanied or preceded Ir
ving to London, and had preached in his church, not only in the
ordinary course, but an extraordinary Gaelic sermon, carrying
back the minds of the changed congregation to those old days of
the Caledonian Chapel when Irving himself volunteered to learn
Gaelic, if need were, rather than give up that post which he felt
to be his fittest sphere. And it is evident that the profound pie
ty and fervent love to God and man which he found in the heart
of his new friend had already made Irving a partisan in his favor,
as was natural to the man. The correspondence proceeds, not
with the closeness or fullness of the journal-letters, which made
the former separation between husband and wife memorable, but
still conveying the best picture that can be given of his life and
thoughts : "14 Westbourne Terrace, Bayswater, 19th July, 1828.
" Mt dearest Isabella, — I find it impossible, for some few days
yet, of getting my plan carried into effect of finishing my long letter,
so much lies to my hand ; and, that you may not be disappointed of
the regular communications which you so well deserve and I so much
desire to make, I must send you these light pilot-boats before my
great galleon. William and Elizabeth arrived last night about half
past eight o'clock. They are both looking uncommonly well;. Eliz
abeth a great deal stronger than at the time of her marriage, and
both, as you may well conceive, glad to get home. We were hold
ing a session, and so I did not arrive here till toward or after ten
o'clock. The session were loud in their acknowledgments to Mr.
Campbell, and none more so than Mr. Mackenzie, who, before, had
been in some doubt of his doctrines. Now I think the judgment of
so many pious and intelligent men, supported, as it is generally, I
may say universally, ought to have its weight among the gainsayers
in Scotland. I wrote for Campbell two letters, as I said, and saw
him off on Saturday night. On Sabbath I preached my sermon on
' Jesus,' and in the evening I opened the period of the provocation
from the making of the covenant unto the turning back into the wil
derness. Next Sabbath, God willing, I open the name ' Christ' and
the Church in the wilderness. The services were both well attend
ed, and the people seemed most glad to see me back again, as you
may be sure was I to be back. I caused thanks to be returned for
you, and I am glad, by your father's letter, to find that we have such
good reason for the continuance of thanks.
" I have read Mr. Evil's second tract, which contains a good deal

THE LAST DAYS. 317
of matter. ... I write these things because I know you love to med
itate on them. Von Billow called yesterday afternoon ; he has been
hunted out of Scandinavia as they would a man-destroyer, but not
until he had been instrumental in raising up two or three preachers
in his stead, and he is now bound on his way to Poland, still in the
service of the Continental Society. His wife is with him, and they
have now three children. . . . I have finished this day my dedication,
which, as Miss Macdonald was writing it, containing a review and
narration of God's dealings with the Church, we found we were writ
ing on that day six years on which I set out from Glasgow to go to
London to take up my charge. Next Sabbath is the first of my Sab
batical year. God grant it may be a year of free-will fruitfulness !
I have several curious things to send to you, but I must wait for a
frank. Mr. Percival and his brother were in church on Sabbath morn
ing. ... I forget whether there is any thing else of news, but I for
get not to assure you of my tender love and constant faithfulness.
God grant me to prove myself your worthy husband! I bless my
children, yours and mine. I pray God to bless all the house. Re
member me with all affection, and pray for me always. E. I."
The dedication mentioned in this letter was that of the splendid
volume, entitled the Last Days, a work which one naturally places
beside his Orations, and which, apart from prophetical researches,
or the deeper investigations into doctrine of his Trinity sermons,
is perhaps more likely to preserve his literary fame than any oth
er of his productions. The dedication was to his session, and es
pecially to William Hamilton, now so nearly connected with him
by family ties, and his old elder, Mr. Dinwiddie ; and contained a
history of his coming to London, and all the difficulties connected
with it, from which I have already largely quoted. It is one of
the chief of those many brief snatches of autobiography in which
he revealed himself from time to time with unconscious simplici-
' ty, and which, unlike prefaces and dedications in general, are of
an interest in many instances superior, and always equal to, the
book itself thus introduced. But his wife's health had again
raised fond anxieties in his heart :
" London, Boro', Scotch Church, 15th July.
" Mt dearest Isabella, — I write this from the Presbytery-room,
after a long meeting, merely to express by this post the satisfaction
which I have in not having received any letter, and the hope to which
I have been raised that it was only an affection of the stomach. . . .
I trust it has been a profitable, though a most overwhelming night to
me, last night. God willing, we shall not separate again, save at the
command of God, and for the needful duties of His Church ; and this
experience convinces me of the propriety, of the duty, of not leaving
Margaret in Scotland. Ah ! dear wife, you see how hope takes wing !
I am speaking as if you were all beside me again, when, perhaps, you

318 IRVING'S ANXIETIES.
may be in sore affliction and trouble. If so, God be your help and
comfort, your health and your portion ! You were remembered in
the prayers of the Presbytery, and shall be remembered to-morrow
night in the Church. I can not go to dine with my brethren, but go
home to Miss Macdonald's. . . . My blessing upon our children, and
my dearest love and blessing to yourself, my most dear and affection
ate wife." "6 Euston Grove, Euston Square, 15th July.
" Mt dearest Isabella, — This letter of your father's afflicts me
exceedingly, but yet I have a good hope that the Lord will be gra
cious to us, and restore you to your bodily strength for a consolation
to me and to his people. . . . Miss Macdonald assures me that her
sister has frequently had similar attacks. This is some comfort to
me in my present absence and great distance from you ; but my chief
comfort is in knowing that where God is there is peace. His pres
ence be with thee and give thee rest ! It was a very great delight
to me to receive a letter written partly by your own hand, and I had
begun to count over the weeks before your return. But the Lord
suffereth me not to be high-minded ; I am kept in poverty of spirit
and in affliction ; would that I may be found bowed down for my
sins, and the sins of my house, and the sins of the Church ! Lately
I have been very much exercised with the consciousness of indwelt
ing sin, and, by God's grace, have attained unto some measure of
self-loathing ; but much, much I lack of this grace, which cometh
only through the apprehension of God's beauty, and holiness, and
loveliness, seen in the face of Jesus Christ. To you, now lying on a
bed of sickness and weakness, how sweet must be the thought that
the Son of God himself bore your infirmities, and carried your dis
eases and sorrows, and that He is able to succor you in your tempta
tion ; yea, that He is suffering with you, and wj^De a strength in you
to overcome your suffering ! Oh, my de£r wife, how glad were I
at this moment to stand beside your bed and speak comfort to your
heart ! But He, who is the head of all the members, heareth my
prayer, and will minister grace unto you by His Spirit, or by some
one of His saints. I am very troubled in my spirit at present, but
yet I will trust in my God. The other night I was enabled to make
a very full confession of our sins as husband and wife, and the heads
of a family. I desire to be before the Lord in great lowliness and
poverty of spirit until He is pleased to comfort me with the tidings
of your recovery. If you be able to attend to other things, I know
you will desire to know all our state, and how we prosper together.
The enemy seems stirring up the lukewarm and formalists to speak
more and more against the blessed hope of our Lord's coming, but
among us I find it findeth room and bringeth peace. I had a good
deal of controversy this morning with  , who came out with such
an expression as this : ' I wish you were done with that subject alto
gether.' The ears of men are fast shutting, and we will soon be re
duced to the necessity of giving ourselves wholly to the ear of God.
' I gave myself to prayer.' Yesterday I preached upon ' Christ,' the
anointed, showing from Exodus, xxx., that the holy oil was the sym
bol of the anointing spirit, and the things anointed the symbols of

IMPROVEMENT IN HIS WIFE'S HEALTH. 319
Christ's humanity therewith anointed. First, the tabernacle of His
humanity, as the inclosure of divinity and of the worshiper of God —
the middle thing between the Creator and the fallen creature, the
ground of all intercommunion ; second, the ark of the covenant . . .
third, the shew-bread. ... To you, dearest Isabella, that which is of
most concern is to look with faith to those cherubim upon the mer
cy-seat. They are what we hope to be, and what we now believe
ourselves to be — souls saved by grace, and resting upon Christ, our
propitiation, which is the same word with mercy-seat, or propitiatory.
In the evening I preached upon the wilderness state of the Church,
having written a new discourse for that purpose, in which I showed
how the Jewish wilderness experience was to teach us of the Gentile
Church how few, how very few would be honored to come into the
Sabbatical rest. Even Moses and Aaron fell in the wilderness, though
doubtless glorified saints, and many more ; but only these two men
came through to inherit the land. We are all sealed with the new
covenant in the Lord's Supper; and if this generation should be the
one which receives the judgment, how few will be brought through,
for how few see the new covenant in the cup ! But we do, my dear
Isabella, therefore let us be strong in faith. I am again comforted.
I feel a hope that the Lord will long spare us to go forward together
through the wilderness, and that He may bring us and our little ones
with us unto our rest. . . . Meanwhile, I am employing myself in fin
ishing the work upon the latter days, and . . . shall engage myself
with my work on the Lord's Supper, which I see to be daily more
and more important. . . . We have great love and harmony, blessed
be the Lord ! . . . I wish we were together : this is a poor substi
tute for personal communion ; but all was done for the best. Abide
in faith, my dearest wife, and be not disappointed at His appearing.
The Lord bless our two children." "17th July.
" I have received with much gladness, and, I trust, thankfulness of
heart, this letter of dear aunt's, which Mr. H  sent out from town
immediately on its arrival. I trust you will exercise over yourself
much care, and walk by the rules d| your physician, to whom I will
be very much indebted when he gwes you permission to set out on
your voyage. I wish you would ask him how long it is likely to be
till then. Let me know also in what way you would like that we
should put up till we get a house of our own, for which I will now be
looking out, somewhere in the neighborhood of the church.
" I spent the first part of this week at Miss Macdonald's, engaging
ourselves chiefly with the finishing of a long discourse upon ' Having
a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,' in the handling
of which, to establish the fact of the abounding hypocrisy, I have
gone over every one of the characteristics* again, which makes it
likewise serve the end of a recapitulation. Upon the whole, I begin
to think that you and Mr. Drummond think more correctly about
these sermons than I do myself. May God accept them as an offer
ing of the faith and faithfulness of His Church ! . . . I have had a
letter from  , of Edinburgh, remonstrating with me for not hav-
* See Last Days.

320 PAUSE IN THE SATURDAY OCCUPATIONS.
ing preached the fundamental truths of the Gospel when I preached
my twelve discourses. I take it as a precious oil from him, though
it proves to me how dark the time is in which such a one should be
held up for a light. I doubt very much whether he apprehends any
more than the altar and the laver, which was open to all the people
and under the open heaven. The Church of the first-born — the elect
ones in the holy place — he very dimly perceives, if at all. However,
if you should see him, let him know that I am beholden to him for
his kindness, and take it in good part. . . . The Presbytery were
very kind to me when I presented my apology for my absence. I
have had several visits of Miss C  , whom I call ' my little nun.'
She fasts every Friday, confessed herself to me before the Sacrament,
is most earnest that we should all league and covenant over again,
and is a most pure-minded creature, but somewhat of a devotee. . . .
I shall observe what you say of Von Billow, but I fear he is gone.
In the paper before yesterday there was an address from Wolff, the
apostle of the Jews in Palestine, to his countrymen in Alexandria,
being chiefly taken verbatim from our Ben-Ezra. I liked it well ; he
seems growing in the knowledge of the truth. They say (the evil-
speaking generation) ' Wolff has separated from his wife.' You see
what you have to expect if you do not haste back again. . . . Fare
well, my sister, my spouse ! When are we to meet again ? Make
no tarrying. My blessing upon the children. . . . Farewell ! The
^galleon is hardly yet on the stocks." "19th July.
"Miss Macdonald and I snatch a moment before dinner, in the
midst of Saturday occupations, to let you know how happy we were
made, and all your friends, on account of your restoration, which I
dare say hath abounded in many thanksgivings to God. May the
Lord continue to preserve you and the dear children by His mighty
power until our union and forever ! . . . Yesterday we had a call, at
Bayswater, of Captain Gambier, who opened to me his interpretation
of Ezekiel's three chapters of Tyrus, making it out to be this land.
... I am deeply impressed with it, but have not yet had time to ex
amine it. I am writing upon Cbj-ist, the altar of incense, the brazen
altar and the laver, and upon KWah and his company." . . .
This hurried break in his Saturday's labors is accompanied by
a letter from his kind and gentle amanuensis, insisting on Mrs.
Irving taking possession of her house as soon as she is able to
come to London, and declaring her own intention of going to the
country, and leaving it entirely to her friends, whenever she knew
their arrangements. The author and the scribe mutually paused
— the one from the deepest ponderings of judgment and mercy,
the other from the absorbing yet tedious labors of the ministering
pen. — to send messages of comfort to the patient wife in her sick-
chamber. These intimations of the joint labors of the preacher
and his amanuensis are sufficient to show that his delight in the
faculty of extempore preaching, which he seems to have discov-

CONSULTATIONS ABOUT PROPHECY. 321
ered in himself in his travels in Scotland, by no means interfered
with his habitual studies. The fatiguing home voyage from Ed
inburgh was no sooner accomplished than he plunged into this
habitual occupation; and throughout all this summer, through
the fervid months which most people find unbearable in London,
his pastoral labors are constantly kept in balance by intervals of
close composition. The lonely man, with his heart and its treas
ures at a distance, divides his time between the new-formed home
of his sister Elizabeth and that warm centre of friendship and
good offices where Miss Macdonald's pen was always ready to
save him half his toil. Very interesting is the picture of the in
terrupted occupation presented to us for a moment in the letter
above : the man, all fervent and loving, turning from his work to
rejoice in the safety of his distant wife, yet with a delicate consid
eration, even in that most sacred tenderness, for the friend beside
him, connecting her name with his own; and the sympathetic
woman, adding her congratulations and invitation, glad, yet not
without a sentiment of contrast, as she writes that " all times are
alike to a disengaged person like myself," while anticipating the
joyful return of the wife so deeply longed for; such a vignette
of the many-sided life, which can only be seen of other eyes when
it concerns the gifted, is enough to throw a certain gleam of pleas
ant interest even over the noisy purlieus of Euston Square.
The next letter from Kirkcaldy contained still better news :
"22d July, 1828.
" Mt dearest Wife, — The anxiety with which I heard the two
knocks of the postman was amply repaid upon my breaking the seal
and seeing your own hand. I hope the Lord will enable us to be
thankful for all His mercies. . . . Lord Mandeville came last night,
and passed three hours with us, opening to me his views, which are
not new to you or to me, though to himself so much that he almost
doubted the evidence of his own most patient inquiries. 1st. That
we are not yet living under the New Covenant, which is to the Jews
primarily, and through them to others, against the day of their res
toration. 2. That we are still under Abraham's covenant of imputed
righteousness. 3. That we enjoy it in a testamentary form. ... I
have now his Lordship's papers. He is gone down to Huntingdon,
to the Bible Society meeting. . . . Mr. Dinwiddie is in great trepi
dation at being put at the head of my book,* and he tells me Mr.
Hamilton is of the same mind. I hope to persuade them better. I
have a strong conviction that this boastful land is soon to be hum
bled. Oh, my dear Isabella, make no tarrying, but hide yourself and
our children under the shadow of His wings, which is the Almighty.
. . . Pray for me often and diligently, and pray for us altogether in
* The Last Days was dedicated to these two gentlemen.
X

322 A BIBLE SOCIETY MEETING.
1 Our Father,' and pray much that we may have a sweet sense of the
forgiveness of our sins. It is too good for me to be used as the
Lord's instrument in these perilous times, though but little believed.
Oh; God, grant me to be thy faithful servant, in the spirit of a son,
' though a son learning obedience.' Coleridge and Wordsworth are
gone to Germany in company ; is not that curious ? . . . I remem
ber nothing farther to mention, except what I would never forget —
my love to all your house, and my blessing upon my children, and
upon my tender and devoted wife." "25th July.
" I have received the sermons, and, as usual, there is now nothing
wanting, and what I am to do with them I have not yet determined.
I wish* your father would make me a good bargain with some of
the Edinburgh booksellers, and so implicate their purse that they
would be forced, by self interest, to push them, for I see no other
way of getting such interested. I would give them an edition of the
series, consisting of 1500 copies, two vols, octavo, for £500. I'll tell
you what, my good chancellor, I will give you all you can get for
them, in full possession, to do with it whatever seemeth to you good.
Try Blackwood, or some of those worldlings ; for truly there is no
longer any grace or honor, and hard justice must be the rule with
such. I wish sadly you were back again. I miss you very sore, al
though Miss Macdonald does every thing which one not a wife can
do for my comfort, and I have great reason to be thankful. She de
sires her kind love, and rejoices in your recovery. Tell Maggy she
must come to her own papa, or I will come and carry her off across
the seas. But now keep of a good heart, that I may see you the
sooner." "Blackheath, 25th July.
" I write this from Miss Stubbs' cottage, whither Miss Macdonald
and I have come in order to see and enjoy its beauty before it pass
into the hands of another owner. . . . Lord Mandeville came to us
on Saturday night, and Elizabeth was with us. Mr. Hamilton and
Mr. Mackenzie dropped in, and we spent a very sweet evening, being
chiefly occupied with the Epistle to the Hebrews, upon which his
Lordship and I have come to very similar conclusions. ... He had
been at the Bible Society at Huntingdon, and had to stand in the
pillory of Public Opinion. He had written, when invited to take the
chair, that he had resolved within himself never to take the chair in
any meeting which was not opened with prayer, and, hearing noth
ing farther, concluded they had come to that resolution; but when
he found himself in the committee-room, all but two opposed it vio
lently. . . . ' So,' he said, ' there remain only two ways to proceed,
and I leave you your choice : either I will not take the chair and al
low the county to put their own construction upon it, or I will take
the chair and begin the meeting by an explanation of all that has oc
curred.' They preferred the last, to which he was not disinclined,
lest it might seem that he was acting from ill temper. And so, hav
ing opened the matter by this act of lecturing, the meeting proceed-
* This is apparently a reference to the three volumes of Sermons already men
tioned.

THE "RECORD" NEWSPAPER. 323
ed, every speaker leveling against his Lordship's view of the matter,
and apologizing for and justifying the Society .... during which
exposition they were so given over to an ungovernable mind, that
they shut their ears with their hands, and even stamped with their
feet, and did not refrain themselves from any other expression of
disgust and disdain. . . . But so it is, dearest, this religious world
will outdo the French Republicans in their rage against the true serv
ants of the Lord, who shall be faithful enough to withstand them. . . .
Yesterday, though rather weakened in body, I was much strengthen
ed in spirit for the Lord's work, to open, in the morning, the mystery
of Christ the first-born from the dead, and therein preferred above
all creatures to be the High-Priest ; and in the evening, to open up
the mystery of Baptism as shadowed forth in the judgment and pres
ervation of the Deluge. . . . There is a curious piece of information
connected with the Record newspaper, which I resolved to commu
nicate to you, in order to prepare you for that opposition which we
are destined to from the religious world. It had come to a stand
still, and was going to be given up, when Mr. Drummond and Hal-
dane, and Lord Mandeville, and a few others, resolved to take it up
and make it a truly Christian paper, adopting jure divino doctrine
with respect to Church and State at home, and Protestant principles
with respect to our foreign affairs, such as Cromwell taught Papal
Europe to fear. The moment it was heard by the religious world
(the Evangelical) that it was coming into the hands of such men, they
rallied themselves, subscribed plentifully, and are resolved to carry
it on. . . . Such is the idea entertained of us, and such is the present
standing of the Record religious newspaper. Prepare yourself, my
love, for casting out of the synagogue. I am sure it will come to
this, and that, according to our faithfulness in testifying to the death,
will be our acceptancy and admission into the kingdom of the Lord.
. . . Beloved, I desire you to love me as I love you, and let us love
one another as one self; not as one another, but one — the same."
"31st July.
" However short the time I can snatch, I know, though it were but
a line that I wrote, it will yield you pleasure as a token of my affec
tion, and therefore I do not hesitate, in the midst of my many occu
pations, to send you these hasty and most insufficient letters. ... In
the mean time, I have been slowly working out Mr. Drummond's
book ; for, as usual, I always feel myself pressed with a superfluity
of matter, which I take as a gracious token of the Lord's goodness,
and a call, at the same time, not to slacken in my endeavors to arouse
the Church. It would have pleased you to see almost the whole
body of the church full last night, listening to the exposition of the
last part of the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation. I believe the
Spirit can not now be quenched. I feel the assurance of it, that the
Lord's people are destined to make a stand in this place for His
truth. The Dissenters are showing signs of fear in beginning to or
ganize a lecture for next winter upon the subject of unfulfilled proph
ecy ; and I hear they are prevailing against me in various parts, and
that I am generally reported among them as a man wholly mad. I
trust there is enough of method in my madness to expose all their

324 HIS BIRTHDAY.— INSTRUCTIONS AND PRAYERS.
treachery to Christ and His Church. About fifteen of the chief Prot
estant noblemen, with the Duke of Gordon at their head, have begun
to organize among themselves a Protestant Association, to act, not as
a body, but with a mutual understanding in their several parts of the
country. They begin now to perceive the sanctimonious mask of Sa
tan concerning the Sacraments when it is too late. . . . Elizabeth
was with us a good part of yesterday. We went out and looked at
some houses, but as yet I see none to my mind ; and, indeed, I am
rather disposed, if I could bring it about, to take a lodging for you
and the children somewhere in the neighborhood of town, and to
come in and out myself for some months until you are strong. I
would like to hear your mind upon this subject. . . . Miss Macdon
ald and I amuse ourselves among hands with reading a very curious
German book of travels, full of beautiful plates — above all measure
interesting. I think I shall be beyond you in German when you re
turn, for I begin to like it very much : it is a rare book for Maggy,
the plates are so magnificent. I heard from George the other day by
Mr. R  , and I have remitted him £30 in clearing of his expenses
and enabling him to return. . . . Would you believe it, that the Bap
tist minister refused to baptize Miss C  because she declared that
she expected the grace of the Holy Ghost in the ordinance ? Indeed,
there is no saying to what lengths they will go. They will now stop
at nothing. . . . God preserve my Margaret and Samuel unto the
eternal kingdom ! I often think woefully of the pair that are gone
before ; but I ought not. The Lord preserve me from all murmui--
ings ; but I am a very wicked man. The Lord alone can keep me in
peace and tranquillity." "Mornington Terrace, Hampstead Road, 4th August.
" On this day and at this hour, thirty-six years ago, I entered into
this sinful world, and very evil have been the days of my pilgrimage,
and sore grieved am I this morning to look out upon the past. Noth
ing could comfort me but the blessed revelation that it is so ordered
of the Lord that our flesh should be full only of sin, and that by this
ordinance His glory is advanced. This is not, ' Let us sin that grace
may abound,' but it is, ' The grace of God aboundeth by my sin,' and
therefore, I am born a sinner, and, being so, I am not to be discon
tented or murmur against God, but betake myself to the remedy
which He hath provided, which remedy will only lay open the disease
more, and force us out of ourselves into the Redeemer. The number
of sins which I have committed are to me profitable to reflect upon
only as they confirm the truth, which, by faith, I have received and
hold, that the whole race of mankind is fallen, and, as such, can not
cease from sin. He that hath believed this is farther advanced than
the greatest spiritualist, who seeks and sighs that he may be torn up
with racking emotions and painful workings of remorse. The work
of the Spirit, in convincing of sin, is not by agonizing convictions, and
bringing of us, as it were, to heli's mouth, but by a calm and settled
avoiding of ourselves and the fallen world, always for the preference
of Christ and the world to come. I therefore desire and pray, both
for myself and for my own dear wife, that we may at all times prefer
the glory of God in Christ revealed to that temporary well-being of

THE LOST TRIBES. 325
the creature which is to be found in this fallen world. There is a
well-being and perfection of the creature to be found here, otherwise
there would be no glory to God in our preference of that eternal per
fection which we have in Christ. In this way the Holy Spirit acteth
in and upon us, not by making us insensible to the worldly well-be
ing, but, while we are alive thereto, by leading us to prefer our bet
ter being in Christ. He hath not a pleasure in cruelty, or torturing
us with what so many seek to have worked up in their experiences
of a great and grievous sort, but He delighteth in our peace and joy,
and giveth us to see the excellency and loveliness of our blessed Jesus,
who hath been tried with every infirmity of the fallen creature, which
in us becometh sin, but in Him stayed at infirmity and temptation.
In perceiving that our Lord's flesh was altogether such as ours, we
may well be comforted, dear Isabella, to abide in this flesh, all-sinful
though it be, and await the good pleasure of the Lord. So may we,
having a body conversant only with wickedness, and in itself compe
tent only to the suggestion of sin, be so possessed with the Spirit of
Christ (not the Holy Ghost in his unlimited divinity, but the Spirit
of Christ, that is, the Holy Ghost, proceeding through the man-soul of
Christ, and bringing with Him the humanity of Christ, His holy hu
manity, to bear up against, and overcome, our wicked humanity. Oh,
blessed mystery !) that we may, notwithstanding of the flesh anima
ted only to evil, be able to love and obey God from the heart. In
all these thoughts, instructions, and prayers to and for my beloved
wife, I have my sweet children in my mind no less than their mother,
whom God beholdeth all represented by mei So may I bear them
forever on my heart !
" Our dear friend, Mr. Paget, of Leicester, was in church all yes
terday, and kindly came down to converse during part of the inter
val. I wish you knew him. He is truly a divine — more of a divine
than all my acquaintances. . . . He also, like Campbell and Erskine,
sees Christ's death to be on account of the whole world, so as that
He might be the Lord both of the election and the reprobation, and
that it is the will of God to give eternal life by the Holy Ghost to
whom it pleaseth Him. I first came to the conviction of that truth
on that Saturday when, at Harrow, after breakfasting with a bishop
and a vicar, I sat down to prepare a meal for my people. He thinks
the Calvinistic scheme confines this matter by setting forth Christ as
dying, instead of, whereas there is no stead in the matter, but on ac
count of, for the sake of, to bring about reconciliation. He also
thinks that the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to us is not
the righteousness of the Ten Commandments, which He kept, and
which is only a fleshly righteousness, but the righteousness into
which He hath entered by the resurrection — that super-celestial glo
ry whereof we now partake, being one with Him, and living a resur
rection life. This I believe ; and I take it to be a most important
distinction indeed.
" Mr. Drummond was at church last night, and brought me as far
as Miss Macdonald's in his carriage. He was telling me a very
extraordinary piece of intelligence, if it be true, namely, that the
Tribes have been discovered, twenty millions in number, inhabiting

326 ARRANGEMENT ABOUT HIS TRINITY SERMONS.
the region north of Cashmere and toward Bokhara, in the great cen
tral plain of Asia. It would seem that there came men from them to
Leipsic fair who brought this intelligence. They were trading in
Cashmere shawls. ... I will let you know more of this when I hear
farther concerning it. I am to dine with Mr. Drummond this day
week, to settle who are to be of the Albury Conference. He seems
to think that we must select with more caution, as some of the peo
ple last year have not been very faithful. I hope it is only malicious
report. Oh, that we were filled with the love and the life of Christ !
I have had but a restless night, and I write this fasting. It is just
striking twelve upon the Somers-town church, which is almost right
opposite my window, with a green grass-park full of milch cows* be
tween, which I overlook on this sweet autumn-like morning. My
dear brother ! oh, my brother ! how oft, on such mornings, have we
rejoiced in our childhood together; and behold, thy visible part
moulders in the dust far away, and mine abideth here still. May we
meet at the throne of the glory of God ! This is not a prayer for the
dead, but for the living. Miss Macdonald is to come at twelve to
write. What excellence is wrapped up in that name — right-hearted,
tender-hearted woman ! Thou art, indeed, a comfort to me, in the
absence of my wife and children, worth many sisters. Farewell, my
dear Isabella ; make no tarrying to return ; our time may be short
together, let it be sweet. I bless the children in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." "15th August.
" God hath enabled us, my dear wife, to be in perfect resignation
to His will, and in much affliction to say, 'Thy will be done!' His
actings in Providence are the declarations of His sovereignty, and our
receiving them with thankfulness is our thankful acknowledgment
of the same. Therefore, to me and mine be it according to the will
of God. I did rejoice exceedingly when I found that He had been
pleased to shine on us with His face, and I trust He will continue to
do so more and more. It is very sweet to me to receive your letters,
and to bear the share of your burdens. I have thought it might con
duce to your health and the children's to try the air of Monimail, and,
if that did not recruit you, might it not be advisable to try the very
mild air of Annan or Moffat? But act in this matter as you judge
best. I think our desires are equal, to be separated no longer than
is absolutely necessary.
" Your prayers concerning my books have been answered, in one
respect already, that yesterday and to-day I have been directed, I
think, in great wisdom, and delivered from great perplexity. You
know how the book for the Church hath passed to three volumes.
It is now my purpose to make it three complete volumes, and not to
burden the Church with the risk, but to give them Mr. Drummond's
book,f which I think will come into immediate and wide circulation,
* This description will startle the present inhabitants of that crowded and busy
district. f By " Mr. Drummond's book" Irving evidently means the Last Days, Mr. Drum
mond, it would appear, having specially suggested or approved it.

THE BISHOP OF CHESTER. 327
the expense being already provided for. And now, having the other
work on my hand, I propose adding to the first part another discourse
upon the ' Method of the Incarnation,' which will complete the whole
doctrine .... and this done, I offer the thousand copies to any book
seller in Edinburgh, being resolved to bring it out in the heart of my
mother Church, as containing the whole doctrine on which she is be
come so feeble, and containing, besides, much prophetic matter, and
much natural and ecclesiastical, which may prepare the way for the
other work, upon which I find I must at least spend a diligent winter.
This, therefore, I intend immediately to arrange for, by means of my
friend, Mr. Bridges, to whom I will write, and ask him to negotiate
with the booksellers for me. This I think a very great deliverance,
and humbly trust to see prosperous unto the Church of Christ and
the glory of God. The additional discourse will bring the first vol
ume up to the size of the other two, being 400 pages ; and I will dis
tinctly state the reason of it to be my becoming aware of the exist
ence of the heresy in the Church. Be of good cheer; the Lord is
not raising a controversy about these things for naught.
"I am now sleeping at Mr. Hamilton's, but working here with my
most faithful fellow-workman, and I trust attaining to deeper and
deeper insight into the mystery of God, as also is my flock. To-night
we begin Ezekiel at Mr. Tudor's, and I trust the Lord will be with
us. Mr. Marsh intends to be of our party ; and Miss Macdonald has
consented to accompany me. . . . Mr. Drummond told us that the
new London College was an idea of the archbishop's thrown out to
the king, without thinking he would approve it. But he did at once,
and the archbishop pledged the bishops, who were invited to Lam
beth, knowing not wherefore, as a bishop told Mr.  . When they
were come together, the archbishop told them he had pledged them
to the king. They were loth, but could not draw back, and con
sented, in the hope it might come to nothing. The Lord leads men
blindly; it is now come to £100,000, and will go on, I hope, to the
defeat of the infidel, or to the showing out the Dissenters as the op-
posers of religion established, and the preferrers of infidelity un estab
lished, and the establishers of it. Dr. Sumner, now Bishop of Chester,
was in Hatchard's, and said to a clergyman whom he met there, ' I
have a note here to wait upon the Duke of Wellington ; tell me
where he lives.' He went, was back in about ten minutes, and the
clergyman was still there. ' You have soon got your business over.'
' Yes, and in so short a time I am promoted to the see of Chester. I
was shown into a room ; in came the duke : Are you Dr. Sumner ?
I am commanded to offer you the bishopric of Chester. Do you ac
cept it or not? Yes? Then put down your name here. Good-
morning.' And so he left him. This is from good authority, Mr.
Drummond says. I send, it to amuse you and your father. . . . The
Lord bless you and my children, and all your house." " 18th August.
"I am glad to-day to have no accounts from you, concluding that
dear Samuel is recovering, and that the mild weather will be blessed
to the speedy restoration of your strength ; yet, while I thus hope
and pray, I desire to submit myself and mine to the great Sovereign

328 CONTRACT WITH PUBLISHERS.
Disposer, who ordereth all according to the pleasure of His own will.
I feel that this is, indeed, to feel and to act upon my election of God,
to surrender all things unto Him as a righteous and tender father, in
which I know you labor along with me. By the blessing of God, I
continue equal to my duties. ... I am, indeed, very anxious that
you should remove before those cold winds, which proved in God's
hand fatal to our dear Edward. Whenever you do propose it, you
should begin to have preparations made for your removal in such
time as to leave you nothing to do for a day or two before, but to
take leave of your family and step into the carriage or the boat. . . .
You may think this is shooting far ahead, but I am, indeed, desirous
that you and my children should be with me as soon as is consistent
with health and safety, for I dread these east winds, and long to be
your nurse, if not in bodily, at least in spiritual matters.
" I have signed a contract with Seeley for the three volumes, to
the first of which I intend to add a fifth sermon, demonstrative of
Christ's true humanity. I take all the risk, pay the printers, and have
a guinea for each copy, allowing him £5 per cent., which, if they sell,
will leave me £1000, and the expenses of printing, etc., will be about
half of it. It is provided that I may have separate agents for Glas
gow and Edinburgh, with whom (Collins and Oliphant, I propose,
with your judgment) I will make a similar contract for those which
they may sell. Miss Macdonald has already pressed upon me £300,
which she has no use for at the banker's, to pay the printing. It is
a book for much good or evil, both to the Church and myself, I dis
tinctly foresee. I intend to read it all over with the utmost diligence,
and correct it with the greatest care. The other book is proceeding
fast; — we are now about the 350th page ;, it will be about 450. I
hav&kthe sweetest testimonies, both from Ireland and from Mr. Mac
lean, to my book on Baptism — or rather, I should say, yours — for to
you, I believe, the thoughts were given, as to you they are dedicated.
My little tale is now completed, about eighteen pages, and I have
asked a revise, that I may send it to you under cover. We have had
apro-re-nata meeting of Presbytery, and I am much exhausted. I
shall now close with my blessing — the blessing of the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost be upon the head of my dear wife, and my two chil
dren, forever and ever."
The "little tale" here referred to was a quaint and graceful lit
tle narrative, entitled a Tale of the Times of the Martyrs, which his
countryman, Allan Cunningham, then engaged in the arduous oc
cupation of editing an Annual, had persuaded him to write. The
Annual in question was the Anniversary, a publication which, I
believe, lived and died in one appearance. Irving's story is a fine
piece of writing, in the same style of minute and simple narrative
as his journals, but is chiefly remarkable as his only attempt in
the lighter form of literature, excepting, indeed, another brief nar
rative, equally minute, quaint, and melancholy, entitled The Loss
of the Abeona, which appeared in Frazer's Magazine nearly about

EXCESS OF HEALTH. 329
the same time. Both are true, detailed, and simple to the laist de
gree, and convey the reader into a primitive world of heightened,
but profoundly reserved Scotch imagination, very remarkable and
impressive in its way. How he could have found time for such
elaborate, minute cabinet pictures, amid all his great labors and
studies, is more than one can understand.
His next letters are occupied with a project of visiting Harrow-
gate, which Mr. Drummond had proposed to him. Irving's health
was shaken at the time ; at least, he was in such a condition of
discomfort as the strongest frames, shut out from external nature,
and pursued by an incessant flood of thought, are naturally liable
to. His doctor told him that, " as my complaints proceed rather
from an excess of health and disarrangement of the functions
through much thought, they (the Harrowgate waters) would be
of little good or evil to so robust a person;" yet, tempted by Mr.
Drummond's society, and by the fact that Harrowgate was so far
on his way to the North, whither he was anxious to go to bring
home his wife, of whose prolonged absence he began to be very
impatient, he seems to have persuaded himself to the contrary,
and went accordingly. From Harrowgate he writes as follows :
" 9th September, 1828.
" Mt dear Isabella, — We arrived here last night about 1 2 o'clock,
and, now that I have paid my respects to the well and breakfast, I sit
down to write you with Mr. Drummond's pen, ink, and paper, but
with my own heart. ... I do trust this my coming here is ordered
of the Lord for the restoration of my strength, that I may serve Him
with more diligence and ability during the winter. Lately there has
been too great a sympathy between my head and my stomach, so
much so as to cause slight headaches ever after eating. ... I doubt
not that the root of the matter is study, which of late has been with
me of a deeper, intenser, and clearer kind than at any former period
of my life, as I think will appear in the things which are now in the
hands of the printers. Besides the conclusion of my book on the
Last Tmes, I have written 150 or 160 of Miss Macdonald's pages
upon the Method of the Incarnation. ... It will be a body and cen
tre to the whole discourse, which now has a perfectly logical meth
od: 1. The origin or fountain-head of the whole in the will of God.
2. The end of it unto His glory. 3. Themethod of it by the union
with the fallen creature. 4. The act of it by the life and death of the
God-man, and his descent into hell. 5. The fruits of it in grace and
peace to mankind ; and, finally, conclusions concerning the Creator
and the creature. If I mistake not, my dear Isabella, there is much
more to God's glory in that volume than in all my other writings
put together. ... I have been strongly impressed, at the conclusion
of the book, with the necessity of undertaking a work upon the Holy
Spirit and the Church, but whether in the way of a completion of

330 HARROWGATE.
the introduction to Ben-Ezra, or in a separate treatise, I am not yet
resolved ; and then, if God spare me, I undertake a work upon the
Trinity. What most blessed themes these are ! They ravish my
heart, and fill me with the most enlarged and exquisite delight. . . .
Oh, my dear Isabella, how I long to be with you again, and to be one
with you, unseparated by distance of place or interruption of vision,
and to embrace my dear children ! God grant me patience and con
stancy of affection, and a heart of more tenderness." "17th September.
" I dare say this water would do me good if I were to stay long
enough, for it seems to enter into strong controversy with my com
plaint, and I think, in the end, would overcome it. But stay I can
not, for my communion hastens, and my duties call me to London.
This is truly my chief reason for not delaying my journey to Scot
land so long as you seem to have desired. To remain separate for a
whole half year from my wife and children is to me no small trial.
When God requires it, I trust I shall be able to submit to it ; but
when there is no such call, I freely confess myself little disposed to
it. . . . Besides, though we know differently, such separations lead
to idle speculation, which it is good to prevent. That it is possible
to prevent intrusion in London I have found during the last two
months ; and if London do not agree with you, I should be glad to
take a place for you wherever you please, but I confess myself very \
loth to be separated from you and my children longer than is neces
sary, and shall be slow in consenting to it again.
"The other day the new Bishop of Chester, Dr. Sumner, confirmed
about two or three hundred persons. He had been instituted, or
consecrated, only the day before at Bishopthorpe, the residence of
the Archbishop of York, and made this his first duty. It was to me
very impressive, and I hope very profitable. . . . His brother, the
Bishop of Winchester, bore him company, and I was much impressed
with the episcopal authority and sanctity of their appearance. In
deed, the more I look into the Church of England, the more do I
recognize the marks of a true Apostolical Church, and desire to see
somewhat of the same ecclesiastical dignity transferred to the office
bearers of our Church, which hath the same orders of bishops, priests
or presbyters or elders, and deacons, whereof the last is clean gone,
the second little better, and the first hath more of worldly propriety,
or literary and intellectual character, than of episcopal authority and
grave wisdom. Oh, that the Lord would revive His work in our
land ! In what I have said I do not affect the ceremony, or state, or
wealth of the English Church, but desire to see some more of the
true primitive and Scottish character of our Church restored. I
would wish every parish minister to fulfill the bishop's office, every
elder the priest's, and every deacon the deacon's ; and I am convinced
that, till the same is attempted, through faith in the ordinances, we
shall not prosper in the government and pastorship of our churches.
" To-day I have received a copy of Dr. Hamilton's book against
Millenarianism, and have been reading it all this morning : I think it
breathes a virulent spirit, and seeks occasions of offense-. I receive
my share of his censure. I said to your father I would answer it,

THE YEAR'S WORK. 331
but as yet I have found nothing to answer, save his attempt to ex
pose my inconsistencies with others, and theirs with me. Now, ver
ily, I am not called upon to be consistent with any one but God's
own Word. Still, if I had time, I would, for the sake of the Church
of Scotland, which I love, and to which I owe my duty, undertake an
answer to it ; but at present my hands are filled. I wish Samuel
would break a spear with him.
" I shall drink the waters till Friday morning, and then proceed on
my way to York, from which I will take the first coach that I can
get to Edinburgh. . . . On Monday, I trust, the Lord willing, I will
be permitted to embrace you all. . . . Tell Maggy that she must
make herself ready to set out on this day week for London. My
dear Samuel is oft on my mind at the throne of grace. God alone
can convey my messages to him."
So concluded this separation, which at length made the solitary
head of the house impatient, and produced the nearest approach
to ill-temper which is to be found in any of Irving's letters. He
conveyed his family home to Miss Macdonald's house in the end
of September, where they seem to have remained for a consider
able time, their kind hostess forming one of the household. The
ceaseless occupation of this year is something wonderful to con
template. The Homilies on Baptism, the three volumes of ser
mons, and the Last Days, were but a portion of the works so lib
erally undertaken and so conscientiously carried out. In the in
tervals of those prodigious labors he had not only his own pas
toral work to carry on from week to week, but, by way of holi
day, indulged in a preaphing tour with sermons every day ; threw
himself into the concerns of the time with a vehemence as unusu
al as it was all opposed to the popular tide of feeling ; and be
came the centre of a description of study, known, when it throws
its fascination upon men, to be the most absorbing which can oc
cupy human intelligence. In this height and fullness of his life,
men of all conditions sought Irving, with their views of Scripture
and prophecy. He heard all, noted all, and set to work in his
own teeming brain to find place and arrangement for each. The
patience with which he listens to every man is as remarkable as
the cloud of profound and incessant thought in which his mind
seems enveloped, without rest or interval ; and his perpetual hu
man helpfulness is equally notable. When the Presbytery of
London, doubtless moved by his own exertions, sends forth a pas
toral letter to the Scotch community in London, it is Irving who
takes the pen and pours forth, like a prophet, his burden of grief
and yearning, his appeal and entreaty, and denouncing voice, call-

332 PASTORAL DUTIES.
ing upon those baptized members of the Church of Scotland who
have forgotten their mother to return to her care and love ; and
scarcely are these grave entreaties over, than, at a friend's impul
sion, he is. again devoting his leisure hours — those hours full of
every thing but rest — to that grave picture of the martyr's son,
which must have startled the ordinary readers of Annuals into
the strangest emotion and amazement ; while conjoined with all
this is the entire detail of a pastor's duties — visits of all kinds,
meetings with young men, death-bed conferences, consultations of
Session and Presbytery, into all of which he enters with an inter
est such as most men can only reserve for the most important
portions of their work. So full a stream of life, all rounded and
swelling with great throbs of hope and solemn expectation, seldom
appears among the feeble and interrupted currents of common
existence. It is impossible to understand how there could be one
unoccupied moment in it; yet there are moments in which he
reads German with Miss Macdonald, or enters into the fascinating
gossip of Henry Drummond, or consults with the young wife Eliz
abeth over her new plenishing, and what is needful to her house.
Though they meet in solemn session in the evening upon the high
mysteries of Ezekiel, he makes cheerful errands forth with this
sister to look at houses, and prepares by anticipation for the re
turn of those still dearer to him, and has domestic tidings of all
his friends to send to his lingering and delicate wife. Amid all,
he feels that this time, so full and prosperous — this period in which
he has come to the middle of life's allotted course, the top of the
arch, as Dante calls it — is a time of wonderful moment to himself
no less than to his Church. He feels that his studies have been
" of a deeper, intenser, and clearer kind than at any former period
of my life." He " distinctly foresees" that one of the books he is
about to publish is " a book for much good or evil, both to the
Church and myself," though convinced that there is also more for
God's glory in it than "in all my other writings put together;"
he has, in short, come to the threshold of a new world, which yet
he can not see, but which vaguely thrills him with prophetic
tremors — a world to him radiant with ever-unfolding truth, per
secutions, glories, martyrdoms, one like unto the Son of Man in
the midst of the fiery burning with him, and the Lord visible in
the flesh, vindicating his saints at the end. Such was not the fu
ture which awaited the heroic devoted soul, but such was the form
in which his anticipations presented it now.

THRESHOLD OF A NEW FUTURE. 333
I may be pardoned for lingering on this splendid and overflow
ing year. Irving had already controversies enough on hand ; vul
gar antagonists, whom he scorned ; assaults from without, which
could not harm him, having no point of vantage upon his heart ;
but nothing which touched his life or honor. He had enemies,
but none whose enmity wounded him. Every thing he had touch
ed as yet had opened and sublimed under his hand, and no au
thoritative voice had yet interfered to drive back to doctrine and
forms of words a man whose faith seized upom a Divine reality
instead, and converted dogmas into things. He stood, open-eyed
and eager, trembling on the verge of an opening world of truth,
every particular of which was yet to gleam forth as vivid on his
mind as those which he had already apprehended out of the dim
domain of theology. And other men, who had also found light
unthought of gleaming out of the familiar text which use had
dulled to most, were gathering round him, bringing each his trem
bling certainty, his new hope. Whether they were right or wrong
had as yet come under the question of no serious tribunal. Wrong
or right, it was the love of God glowing radiant over the human
creatures he had made that inspired them all ; and to many an
eye less vivid than Irving's, this wonderful combination seemed
the beginning of a new era, the manifestation of a higher power.
For himself, he was at the height of his activity and the fullness
of his powers: his anticipations were all grand, like his thoughts.
He looked for suffering on a heroic scale, not the harassing repe
titions of Presbyterial prosecution ; and he looked to be splendid
ly vindicated at the last day by the Lord himself, in glory and
majesty. His heart swelled and his thoughts rose upon that high
tide of hope and genius ; shades of passing ailment might now
and then glide across him ; but it was " excess of strength" resist
ing the intellectual and spiritual commotions within, and not any
prevision of bodily weakness. His friends stood round him close
and cordial, an undiminished band; and every vein throbbing
with life, and every capacity of heart and mind in the fullest sway
of action, he marched along in the force and fullness of his man
hood, prescient of splendid conflict and great sorrow, unaware and
unbelieving of failure or defeat.
In the beginning of winter he paid a hurried visit to Leicester,
to his friend Mr. Yaughan, whose life was then nearly drawing to
its close. The short time they appear to have had together was
spent " conversing about the things pertaining to our high calling

334 SECOND ALBURY CONFERENCE.
as ministers of the Gospel and Church of Christ." And the letter
in which Irving records this is ended by an amusing conjugal ad
vice, more in the strain of ordinary husbands than is common to
his chivalrous and tender heart: "I will hope to be with you,
under Miss Macdonald's roof, on Thursday evening, which let us
have quietly together," he writes. " And therefore be not over
wearied, for nothing afflicts me so much as to see you incapable
of enjoying the society and love for which you do not always
give me credit, hut which I trust I always feel." And in a post
script, he adds a message to the little daughter, now, at three years
old, capable of entering into the correspondence. " Tell Maggy,"
he says, "that at Dunstable a man would have sold me twelve
larks for a shilling, to bake into a pie, four-and-twenty blackbirds
baking in a pie ; and that at Newport-Pagnell one of the horses
lay down when he should have started to run, which is like Meg,
not Maggy, when she will not do ma's bidding, but stands still
and cries. Not Maggy, but Meg; for Maggy is like the other
three, who would have gone on cheerfully, except when Meg is
restive." This is the first appearance of the little woman in the
father's letters, which afterward contain many communications for
her. A week or two later he writes from Albury, where the sec
ond prophetical conference was now taking place ; and, after a
brief announcement to his wife of his arrival, devotes his second
letter from thence entirely to his three-year-old correspondent. I
find no more serious account of this second meeting than the one
Irving thus sends to his child :
" Mt Maggt, — Papa is living in a great house with a great many
men who preach. The house is Mr. Drummond's and Lady Harriet
Drummond's. They have two daughters and two little boys. . . .
This house where we live is all round with great trees, like great-
grandpapa's, and the black crows build their nests, and always cry
caw, caw, caw. There is a sweet little river that runs murmuring
along, making a gentle noise among the trees. And there is a large,
large garden. . . . Now, my Maggy, tell your papa what he and the
great many preaching gentlemen are doing at Albury Park, where
Mr. Drummond and Lady Harriet live ? We are all reading the
Bible, which is God's Word — the book we read at worship. God
speaks to us in that book, and we tell one another what He tells to
us. Every morning, about half past six o'clock, a man goes round
and awakens us all. Then, soon after, comes a maid, like Elizabeth,
and puts on a fire in all our rooms, and then we get up. . . . Then
we go down stairs into a great room, and sit round a great table, and
speak concerning God and Christ. Here is the table, and all the
gentlemen about it." (Here follows a rude drawing of the table,

DR. MARTIN'S ACCOUNT OF ITS RESULTS. 335
with the names of all the members of the conference scribbled in, in
their places, Irving's own seat being distinguished by the title, " My
Papa.") " But it is time for dinner. Farewell, my dear Maggy.
Mamma will tell all this to you, and you must tell it all to Miss Mac
donald and little brother.
" The Lord bless my Maggy ! " Your Papa, Edward Irving."
The Albury Conference once more produced its volume of rec
ords, travestied by a lifeless form and obsolete treatment out of
all human interest, but in Irving's domestic chronicle retains no
memorial but this simple description. Immediately after its con
clusion his father-in-law, Dr. Martin, writes thus to one of his
younger daughters :
" We had a long letter from Isabella the other day. All with her
seems to be well. Edward's visit to Albury had not, she thinks,
done him much good, in body at least. The vehemence with which
he goes after every object that impresses him is extraordinary. Some
things stated at Albury had impressed him much with the ignorance
of the poorer population of London, and with the sin of those who
are more enlightened in not doing more for their instruction ; and he
has resolved to preach every night to the poor of London and its vi
cinity, while Mr. Scott is to do, or at least to attempt to do, the like
in Westminster. The Lord be with them ! But there are limits to
mortal strength ; Mr. Scott's is not great, and Edward's, though more
than ordinary, is not invincible. I suppose his conviction of the near
approach of the second Advent has been increased by his attendance
on the late meeting ; and viewing it as the hour of doom to all who
are not reconciled to God, he feels it the more imperatively his duty
to warn all to flee from the wrath to come. After giving the subject
the most careful and impartial consideration I can," adds the sober-
minded Scottish pastor, " I am unable to see things as he and his
friends do ; nay, I am more and more convinced that they are wrong.
But, supposing them to be right, and they doubtless imagine they are,
his conduct, which many will be apt to represent as that of a mad
man, is that of a generous lover of his fellow-creatures and a faithful
embassador of Christ."
Such was not the spirit, however, in which Irving's deviations
from the ordinary views were to be generally received. He con
cluded this year with enough of these deviations to alarm any
prudent friend. On the subject of the Millennium, and on that
of Baptism (his doctrine on which differs from that commonly
known as Baptismal Regeneration by the most inappreciable
hair's-breadth), the authorities of the Church seem to have had
nothing to say to him, and to have tacitly admitted these matters
to be open to a diversity of opinion. How, doing this, the much
more abstruse question concerning the Humanity of Christ should

336 MUTTERINGS OF THE COMING STORM.
have been exempted from the same latitude and freedom, I am en
tirely at a loss to conceive, seeing it is, of all disputed questions,
perhaps the most unfit to be argued before a popular tribunal.
But the mutterings of the storm were already audible ; and Ir
ving visibly stood on a tremulous elevation, not only with dawn
ing lights of doctrine, unseen by his brethren around him, but
even more deeply at variance in spirit with the time pid all its
ways. As if his own responsibilities, in the shape of doctrine, had
not been enough, he had identified himself, and thrown the glory
of his outspoken, unhesitating championship over that which was
shortly to be known as the Row Heresy. Every where he had
" committed himself," thought or calculation of prudence not be
ing in the man. But at present, though his friends did not all
agree with him, and though the scribblers of the religious press
were already up in arms against him, no one seems to have fear
ed any interruption of his triumphant and splendid career. Like
other invincible generals, he had inspired his army with a confi
dence unconquerable in himself and his destiny. Some of the
very closest in that half ecclesiastical, half domestic circle which
gathered warmly round him in the new Church at Regent Square
were afterward to turn upon him, or sadly drop from his side in
horror of the heresy, to which now, in its first unconscious state
ment, they had given in their delighted adhesion. They did not
know it was heresy for long months, almost years afterward : they
believed in him with' a unanimity and enthusiasm seldom paral
leled. Downfall or confusion, as it seemed, could not approach
that fervent and unwearied herald of God.

LETTER TO DR. CHALMERS. 337

CHAPTER XIV.
1829.
Degree of D.D.— The great J3ope of the Church.— Form of Baptism.— Irving's Be
lief in his own Orthodoxy. — Misstatements of his Doctrine. — The Morning Watch.
—Words of Consolation.— Judd Place.— Visit to Edinburgh.— Preparations for his
Course of Lectures. — The two little Ballad-singers. — Annan. — Edinburgh. — The
General Assembly. — He appears at the Bar. — His Commission rejected. — Lectures
in Hope Park Chapel. — Preaches in Dumfriesshire. — Employment of his Summer-
Holiday. — In Glasgow. — Bathgate. — "God loves you." — Incident in Kirkcaldy.
— His Views of Church and State. — Dedication of the Book. — The Representa
tives of three Generations. — Whisper of "Heretic." — His Circle in London. — The
Journeymen Bakers. — Family Sorrows. — Joseph Wolff's two Greeks. — Their Edu
cation and Maintenance. — Weekly Issue of Lectures. — The third Conference at
Albury. — Notes of the Conference. — Communion.
The following year opened with unabated activity. The cour
age and hopefulness, equally unabated, with which Irving entered
upon it, will be seen from a letter addressed to Dr. Chalmers, and
apparently written in the very conclusion of December, 1828 (the
date being torn off), in which it will be seen that the laborious
man, not weaned, among all his other triumphs, from academical
ambition, proposed, and was ready to prepare for an academical
examination, in order to obtain the highest title in theology. This
letter was written immediately after Dr. Chalmers's entrance upon
the duties of the Divinity Chair in Edinburgh,
" Mt dear aisto honored»Friend, — I desire to congratulate you
upon the welcome which you have received in the University of Ed
inburgh, in which I pray that you may have much wisdom and long
life to labor. I agree with that which I have gathered of your sen
timents with respect to the excessive duties of the chair, beyond the
reach of any single man to discharge them aright. Biblical criticism
should be the chief object of the Hebrew chair, not the teaching of
the letters and the grammar ; and, certainly, of the three years spent
in the Greek class, at least one should be occupied in the critical
study of the New Testament. There is no University in Europe
(always excepting the thing called the London University) which
would be so ashamed of God and theology as yours, against which I
ought not to speak, for she is my Alma Mater. Then the Church
History, instead of dawdling over the first four centuries, should es
pecially be conversant with the history of the Church of Scotland,
and the duties incumbent upon a parish priest; in short, what be
longs to the Churchman rather than the theologian, and the Hebrew
Y

,338 DEGREE OF D.D.
what belongs to the scholar. Then it would be a theological faculty
indeed ; but what pretensions these two classes have at present to
that title I am at a great loss to discover. This is spoken in your
own ear, for it but ill graces what I am now to turn to.
" I have, you know, a great reverence foi: antiquity, and especially
the antiquity of learning and knowledge : the venerable honors of
the academy have ever been very dear to me. At the same time, I
love the discipline of a University, and set a great value upon a strict
examination before any degree is conferred. On this account, when
Sir John Sinclair volunteered more than five" years ago to obtain for
me the degree of Doctor in Divinity, I rejected his offer, because I
held it against all academical discipline. While I would not have
the thing thus attained or thus conferred, there is no honor upon earth
which I more desire, if the ancient discipline of sitting for it with my
theses and defending them in the Latin tongue, submitting to exam
inations of the learned professors, were restored. Now I wish you
to inquire for me what is the ancient discipline of the University in
respect to this degree ; and whether it be the privilege of a Master of
Arts to ask and demand examination for his degree ; and how long
he must have been an M.A. to entitle him to do so. I took my degree
of A.M. in the year 1809, that is nineteen years ago. If the privilege
were granted me of appearing in my place, and submitting myself to
trial, I should immediately set about diligent preparations, and might
be ready before the next winter, or about that time. I leave this in
your hands, and shall wait your answer at your convenience.
" We have had another Albury meeting, and are more convinced
than ever of the judgments which are about to be brought upon
Christendom, and upon us most especially, if we should go into any
league or confederacy with, or toleration of, the papal abomination.
I intend, in a few days, to begin a letter to the Church of Scotland
on the subject. They intend setting forth quarterly a Journal of
Prophecy, which may stir -up the Church to a consideration of her
hopes. I think there is some possibility of my being in Edinburgh
next May. Will any of the brethren permit me the use of their
Church to preach a series of sermons *iipon the Kingdom, founded
upon passages in the New Testament ? Sandy Scott is- a most pre
cious youth, the finest and the strongest faculty for pure theology I
have yet met with. Yet a rough sea is before him, and, perhaps, he-
fore more than him. I trust the Lord will give you time and leisure
to consider the great hope of the Church first given to Abraham :
' That she shall be heir of the world.' Certainly it is the very sub
stance of theology. The second coming of the Lord is the ' point de
vue,' the vantage-ground, as one of my friends is wont to word it,
from which, and from which alone, the whole purpose of God can be
contemplated and understood. You will sometimes see my old friend
and early patron, Professor Leslie: please assure him of my grateful
remembrances. I desire my cordial affection to Mrs. Chalmers and
the sisterhood. Farewell. The Lord prosper your labors abundant
ly, and thereto may your own soul be prospered.
" Your faithful and affectionate friend and brother,
" Edward Irving."

FORM OF BAPTISM. 339
This letter, sent by the hand of a relative, Dr. Macaulay, who
was " desirous of paying his respeots to one whom he admires and
loves very much," was followed, at a very short interval, by an
other, asking advice on a very delicate point of ecclesiastical or
der, which Irving states as follows :
"London, 5th January, 1829, 13 Judd Place, East.
"Mt dear Sir, — This case has occurred to us as a Session, on
which it has been resolved to consult you, our ancient friend, and any
other doctors or jurists of the Church with whom you may please,
for the better and fuller knowledge of the matter, to consult. It is,
whether the Church permit baptism by immersion or not. The stan
dards seem not to declare a negative, but only to affirm that baptism
by sprinkling is sufficient. In the Church of England the rule of
baptizing infants is by immersion, and the exception is by sprinkling.
I sought counsel of our Presbytery in this matter, which once occur
red in an adult, as it has now occurred in an infant. They seemed to
be of the mind that there was no rule, but only practice, against it,
and advised, upon the ground of expediency, to refrain. . . . The
father, who is a member of the Church, is a most pious and worthy
man, full of forbearance to others, but very firmly, and from much
reading, convinced of the duty of baptizing by immersion only. He
has waited some time, and the sooner we could ascertain the judg
ment of the Church the better. . . . My own opinion is, that our
standards leave it as a matter of forbearance, preserving the sprink
ling ; the Church of England the same, preserving immersion. I am
sorry to trouble you who have so much to do, but the mere writing
of the judgment would satisfy us. And as you are now the head
of the theological faculty, as well as our ancient friend, the Session
thought of no other, at whose request I write. . . .
" Your affectionate friend, Edward Irving."
So dutiful and eager to know the mind of the Church was the
man whose long conflict against her authorities was now just com
mencing. If Dr. Chalmers answered these letters, the answers
have not been preserved ; nor have I the least information what
the head of the theological faculty said to that old-world applica
tion for an examination and trial by which the candidate for the
ological honors might win his degree. Irving was never to get
within sight of that testimony of the Church's approval; far from
that, was verging, had he but known it, upon her censures and
penalties. But, though this year upon which he had just entered
was one of the most strenuous and incessant defense and assertion
of doctrine, though its whole space was occupied with renewed
and ever stronger settings forth of the truth, which with growing
fervor he held to embody the very secret of the Gospel, his posi
tion, to his own apprehension, was in no respect that of a heretic

340 IRVING'S BELIEF IN HIS OWN ORTHODOXY.
assailed. On the contrary, he conceived himself to stand as the
champion of orthodox truth against a motley crowd of heretics ;
and with this idea, calmly at first, and with more and more ve
hemence as he began to discover how great was the array against
him, devoted himself to the assertion and proof of a doctrine
which, when he stated it, he knew not that any man doubted.
Throughout all his contentions he never abandoned this position.
First surprised, then alarmed, not for himself but for the Church,
afterward, and not till a long interval had elapsed, indignant, he
continued steadily to hold this attitude. Even when the Church
uttered her thunders, he stood dauntless, the Church's real cham
pion, the defender of her orthodox belief, the faith once delivered
to the saints. Such was his position, to his own thinking, in the
struggle which was beginning. He did every thing that man
could do, privately, calmly, with unparalleled "forbearance some
times, sometimes with vehemence and rashness, to set forth fairly
and fully before the world the doctrine he held. He supported it
with an array of authorities difficult to get over ; with quotations
from the fathers and standards of entire Christendom, with argu
ments and appeals to Scripture, almost always with a noble eloi
quence which came warm from his heart. In private letters, in
sermons, in every method by which he could come into communi
cation with the world, he repeated, and expounded, and defended,
this momentous matter of belief.
It is unnecessary that I should give any account of a question
which he states so fully and so often in his own words, nor is it
my business to pronounce upon the right or wrong of a theologi
cal question. But I think I am warranted in pointing out again
the deeply disingenuous guise in which this matter was first set
before the public. When the difference appears thus, according
to his own statement of it, "Whether Christ's flesh had the grace
of sinlessness and incorruption from its proper nature, or from the
indwelling of the Holy Ghost, I say the latter," it is a difference
which certainly may exist, and may be discussed, but which can
not shock the most reverent mind. But when, on the other
hand, it is stated as an heretical maintenance of the " sinfulness
of Christ's human nature," the matter changes its aspect entirely,
and involves something abhorrent to the most superficial of Chris
tians. But in this way it was stated by every one of Irving's op
ponents ; and attempts were made to lead both himself and his
followers into speculations of what might have happened if the

THE "MORNING WATCH." 341
Holy Ghost had not, from its earliest moment of being, inspired
that human nature, which were as discreditable to the questioners
as aggravating to men who held the impossibility of sinfulness in
our Savior as warmly and entirely as did those who called them
heretics. The real question was one of the utmost delicacy and
difficulty ; a question which the common world could only alter
and travestie ; re-presenting and re-confuting, and growing indig
nant over a dogma which itself had invented. Only by such a
statement of it, which, if not distinctly false, was thoroughly disin
genuous, could it at all have been brought into a platform ques
tion for common discussion before the untrained and inexact
public. In the early spring, the first number of the Morning Watch, a
quarterly journal of prophecy, to which he alludes in his letter to
Dr. Chalmers as meditated by the leading members' of the Albury
Conference, came into being. Its editor was Mr. Tudor, a gentle
man now holding a high office in the Catholic Apostolic Church.
(I take, without controversy, the name assumed by itself, gladly
granting, as its members maintain, that to designate it a sect of
Irvingites is equally unjust to its supposed founder and itself.) Ir
ving took advantage by this publication to explain and open up
the assailed doctrine, already popularly known as the doctrine of
the Humanity, reasserting all his former statements with renewed
force and earnestness. Besides this, the chief thing which appears
to me remarkable in these early numbers of the Morning Watch
is the manner in which Irving pervades the whole publication.
Amid eight or ten independent writers, his name occurs, not so
much an authority as an all-influencing unquestionable presence,
naturally and simply suggesting itself to all as somehow the centre
of the entire matter. They speak of him as the members of a
household speak of its head; one could imagine that the name
might almost be discarded, and " he" be used as its significant and
unmistakable symbol. To realize the fullness of this subtle, un
spoken influence, it is necessary to glance at this publication,
which has fallen out of the recollection of the greater part of
the world. I do not remember to have met any similar instance
of unconscious, unquestioned pre-eminence. No man there but
is ready to stand up for every word he utters, for every idea he
advances; ready, even before knowing what the accusation is, to
challenge the world in his behalf. It is hero-worship of the most
absolute, unconscious kind — all the more absolute that it is un-

342 WORDS OF CONSOLATION— JUDD PLACE.
conscious, and that neither the object nor the givers of that loyal
allegiance are aware to what extent it goes.
I can not pass over the beginning of this year without quoting
some portion of a letter of consolation addressed to his friend Mr.
Bridges, in Edinburgh, who had just then lost his wife. Irving's
own wife was at this time subject to the ever-recurring ailments
of a young mother, and often in a state of health which alarmed
her friends ; and it was accordingly with double emotion that he
heard of the death of another young mother, she who, timid of his
own approach, had forgotten all her alarm at the sight of his re
ception of her babies. The news went to Irving's sympathetic
heart. " Mt dear and wortht Friend, — Now is your hour of trial, and
now is your time to glorify God. Out of all comparison, the heavi
est trial of a man is upon you. Now, then, is the time for your
proved faith to show its strength, and to prove it unto honor and
glory in the day of the Lord. The Father plants us, and then says,
' Blow every blast, and root up the plant which I have planted :' our
faith standing fast proves that He has planted us to bring Him honor
and glory against a fallen world, which we overcome without any
visible help. The Father gives us as sheep unto Christ, and says,
' Now, ye wolves, snatch them if ye can.' The afflictions and adver
sities of the world, yea, and the hiding of the Father's countenance,
also come against us ; our faith, however, stands fast in the Lord.
Christ is glorified as the good Shepherd. As affection is proved by
adversity, so is faith in God proved by trial ; as a work is proved by
enduring hardship, so is the work of the Spirit proved by sore visita
tions of God. God sendeth them all in order to bless us, and glorify
Himself in our blessedness with Himself. Oh, my brother, I write
these things to you because I know you are of the truth ; your faith
standeth not in man, but God. ... I believe the time of tribulation
is at hand, and that God will spare us that wait for Him as one that
spareth his own son that serveth him. . . . Oh, how my loving and
beloved friends are removed ! They are taken from me whom God
gave me for comforters. My own heart is sore pressed ; what must
yours be, my excellent and bountiful friend ? But I wait His. com
ing, and wait upon His will. May the Lord comfort you with these
words which I have written, with His own truth, with his own spirit.
" Your faithful and affectionate friend, Edward Irving."
These letters are all dated from Judd Place, another street in
the same locality, where he had again entered upon the possession
of his own house. Here he remained as long as he occupied the
Church in Regent Square. There are various doubtful traditions
in existence which describe how he used to be seen lying upon
the sooty London grass of the little oasis in Burton Crescent, his
great figure extended^upon the equivocal green sward, and all the

VISIT TO SCOTLAND, 343
children in those tiny gardens playing about and around him,
which was most like to be the case, though I will not answer for
the tale. This entire district, however, most undistinguished and
prosaic as it is, gathers an interest in its homely names, from his
visible appearance amid its noise and tumult. His remarkable
figure was known in those dingy, scorched streets, in those dread
' parallelograms of Bloomsbury respectability. The greater num
ber of his friends were collected within that closely populated re
gion, to which the new Church in Regent Square now gave a cen
tre, as it still gives a centre to a little Scotch world, half unaware,
half disapproving, of Irving, who tread the same streets, and pray
within the same walls, and are as separate and national as he.
This spring was once more occupied by thoughts and prepara
tions for another visit to Edinburgh, on the same high errand as
had formerly engaged him there. A letter of anxious instructions
to his friend Mr. Macdonald, about the necessary arrangements for
the course of lectures he meant to deliver, shows that he had al
ready more difficulty than on a former occasion in finding a place
to preach in.
" I yesterday received a most fraternal letter from Dr. Dickson,"
he writes, " most politely and upon very reasonable grounds of dam
age and danger to the house, refusing me the use of the West Kirk,
and I am perfectly satisfied. Indeed, it is as it should be, and as I an
ticipated it would be. The subject I have to open is too common
and concerning to be confined to the walls of a house : it ought to be
open as the day to all hearers from the streets and the by-ways, and
from every where. . . . You who know law, and are wise as con-
cerneth this world as well as concerneth the world to come, see if
there be any thing to prevent me preaching in the asylum of the
King's Park ; and, if not, then signify by public advertisement in one
or two of the papers, and by hand-bill and otherwise to this effect :
' I hereby give notice that, God willing and prospering, I will preach
a series of discourses, opening the book of the Revelation in regular
order, beginning on Tuesday, the 19th of May, at six o'clock in the
evening, and continuing each evening that week; but in the week
following, and to the end of the series, at seven o'clock in the morn
ing (not to interfere with the hours of the General Assembly); and
earnestly entreat as many of my fellow Churchmen as love the expo
sition of the holy Word, and that Book which is specially blessed
and forbidden to be sealed, to attend on these discourses designed
for the edification of the Church. The place of meeting will be in
the open air (here insert the place), where our fathers were not afraid
nor ashamed to worship. Edward Irving, A. M.,
" ' Minister of the National Scotch Church, London.'
" Let this be stuck up on the corner of every street ; and for the
rest we will trust to God. I believe the Lord will not fail me in this

344 THE TWO LITTLE BALLAD-SINGERS.
purpose, from which nothing on earth shall divert me. I will do it,
though they should carry me bound hand and foot to prison ; so aw
fully necessary do I now see it to be. . . . Let there be no tent ; a
chair on which I can sit and stand. Choose a place where the peo
ple may slope upward, and so that we can wheel with the wind.
Pray much for me. I never undertook so much or so important a
thing. Ask the prayers of all who will not laugh it to scorn."
These arrangements were, however, unnecessary. Edinburgh
did not see that sight which might have been as striking as any
of the modern occurrences endowed with double picturesqueness
by her noble scenery. The last representative of the ancienti
prophets, heroic antique figure, noways belonging to vulgar life,
did not utter his message under the shadow of the hills, with his
audience ranged on the grassy slopes above him. A place was
provided for his accommodation, more convenient, if less noble,
in Hope Park Chapel, situated in what is commonly called the
south side of Edinburgh; and there he preached this second
course of lectures, which he seems to have come to, in spite of all
obstacles, with a still deeper sense of their importance than the
first. Before going to Scotland, however, he paid a short visit to Bir
mingham, with which place, or rather with the Scotch congrega
tion there, he appears to have had a great deal of intercourse. He
seems to have preached three sermons there during his short stay;
but I refer to it only for the sake of the following letter to his lit
tle daughter :
" Mt own Meggt, — Papa got down from the coach, and his large
book, and his bag, and his cane with the gold head. And a little rag
ged boy, and his little sister, with ballads to sell — not matches, but
ballads — trudged and trotted by papa's side. The boy said, ' I will
carry your bag, sir.' Papa said, ' I have no pennies, little boy, so go
away.' But he would follow papa, he and his little sister, poor chil
dren ! So papa walked on with his bag under his cloak in one hand,
and his book and his staff under his cloak in the other. It was dark,
and the lamps were lighted, and it was raining, but still the little rag
ged boy, and his little sister with the ballads, followed papa ; and the
boy said, 'I will find you where Mr. Macdonald lives.' So we asked,
and walked through very many streets, and came to a house. And
the door was open ; and I said to the woman, 'Is Mr. Macdonald in?'
The woman said, ' No, sir, he is dining out.' Papa said, 'What shall
I do ? I am come to preach for him to-morrow.' She said, ' There
is no sermon to-morrow — till Saturday.' Papa said, 'Are you sure?'
She said, ' There is mass in the morning.' Now, my dear Meggy,
the mass is a very wicked thing, and is not in our religion, but in a
religion which they call papacy. So papa knew by that word mass

ANNAN. 345
that this was not the right Mr. Macdonald's, but another one. So
away papa trudged, his bag, his book, and his staff under his cloak,
and the little ragged boy, and his sister with the ballads. Papa was
angry at them because they would not go away, and had brought
him to a wrong place. But papa had pity upon them, and asked
them about their papa and mamma. Their papa was dead, and their
mamma was in bed sick at home. So papa took pity upon them,
and gave them a silver sixpence, and they went away so glad. I
heard them singing as they ran away home to their poor mother.
Now papa trudged back again, not knowing where to find the right
Mr. Macdonald. And papa took his bag, and put his cane through
it, and swung it over his shoulder upon his back, as he does when he
carries Meggy down stairs. . . .' Now, after mamma has read this,
tell it over to Miss Macdonald, and ask her to write papa with his
stick and his bag over his back, and then tell the tale over to little
brother, and kiss him, and say, ' This is a kiss from papa.' "
The picturesque individuality which is inevitable to the man
wherever he goes, shows in the most tender light in this little let
ter. The big, tender-hearted stranger, in his mysterious cloak,
with the little vagrants wandering after him in the wet Birming
ham streets, paints himself more effectually than the kind domes
tic friend, whose custom it plainly was to make pictures for his
little Maggyfcould have done ; and who will not believe that this
silver sixpence must have brought luck to the poor little ballad-
sellers so unwittingly immortalized ?
Irving went to Edinburgh as usual by Annan, from which place
he writes to his wife : "Annan, 14th May, 1829.
"lam arrived safe by the goodness and grace of God. . . . I have
been to see the minister and provost, and, as usual, find every thing
ready arranged to my mind. This night I begin my preaching at
seven o'clock, and to-morrow at the same hour. On Saturday I go
up the water to New Bridge village, on General Dirom's property,
to preach to the people on that hand. . . . This will serve the Ec
clefechan and Middlebie people. On Sabbath I preach twice in the
open air, if there be not room in the church. Give God praise with
me that I am counted worthy to preach His truth.
" I made a strong endeavor to gain my point of faith over the
points of expediency at Manchester ; I can not say that I succeeded,
and yeyftfam not without hopes that I have. They incline not to
have theTninister till they have the house respectably set forth ; I
protest against that, because I see no end to it. One thing, howev
er, I have prevailed in, for which I doubt not I was sent to Manches
ter. I have received a full commission to provide a minister>for Mr.
Grant's church at the works, and I have already chosen Mr. John
stone, your father's assistant. He will have £100 from the Grants
themselves (munificent princes that they are !), with a house and gar
den, and their favor, which is protection from all want. . . .

346 EDINBURGH. |' Edinburgh, 19th May, 60 Great King Street.
" At Annan I went on with my labors on Thursday and Friday.
. . . But the assembly on Sunday passed all bounds. The tent was
pitched in the church-yard ; and that not holding the people, we went
forth to Mr. Dickson's field, where it is believed nearly ten thousand
people listened to the Word, from twelve o'clock to half past five,
with an interval of only an hour. It was a most refreshing day to
all of us. I passed on to Dumfries with Margaret and her baby that
night, in order to get the mail next morning, and so I arrived safe,
leaving all my friends well, praised be the Lord. Before I left An
nan, letters came from Dr. Duncan Dumfries, and Mr. Kirkwood, en
treating me to preach there ; and considering it was so ordered of
God as that they should be the first to ask for my vacant Sabbath, I
consented at once, and shall therefore return there the last day I am
in Scotland. For in that part there is a strength ; Kirkwood, and
the Dows, and Burnside are firm as to the human nature of Christ,
which none here is except Thomas Carlyle. James Haldane has
written a pamphlet against me, but there is no strength in it. I call
ed at Dr. Thompson's last night, and fixed to have an hour with him
for conversation. Now for the matter which I have to do in Edin
burgh. Hope Park Chapel is the place I am to preach in, if it will
hold the people. My commission every body pronounces a good
commission. But it will be stiffly called in question, and I fear will '
have a hard battle of it. Let the Lord decide what is best and wis
est. . . . Sometimes I am troubled by the reproach of men, but nev
er forsaken or overcome. I desire an unwearied interest in your
prayers, and the prayers of all the flock. My letters will be regular,
but, I fear, short, for very much is laid on me."
The commission referred to above was a commission from the
borough of Annan, by which Irving was empowered to represent
it as an elder in the approaching General Assembly. It was the
only way in which he could sit in that ecclesiastical Parliament ;
and, though somewhat contradictory to his own lately expressed
opinion that the position of ministers and elders corresponded to
the orders of bishop and priest, was in entire conformity with the
ordinary Presbyterian idea that ministers were but preaching el
ders, and were, in reality, members of the same ecclesiastical class.
A warm discussion arose in the General Assembly when his com
mission was presented. It was one of those questions which, with
out being really matters of party difference, are invariaUy seized
upon as party questions. One side of the house contended for
his admission, the other against it. His defense was undertaken
by Dr. Andrew Thomson, one of the leaders of the Evangelical
party, who very shortly after entered the lists against him in mat
ters of doctrine, but manfully stood up now for the friend of Chal
mers and Gordon ; a man who, if not actually belonging to his

HE APPEARS AT THE BAR. 347
own side, was leagued in the warmest amity with many of its
members. Irving himself, before the matter was put to the vote,
appeared, by permission of the Assembly, at the bar to speak for
himself. His speech is too long to quote ; nor does he make any
very vehement stand for his rights ; very probably feeling that it
was at best a side way of approaching that venerable assembly,
which he held in so much honor. The appearance he makes is,
indeed, more for the purpose of supporting the claims of his con
stituents, and their right to elect the superior instead of inferior
degree of ruling elder if it so pleased them, than on his own ac
count. But he takes the opportunity, the first and the last which
he ever had, of recommending to the Assembly " to take a pa
rental care of the hundreds of thousands of their children who are
now dwelling beyond their bounds." In this appeal he waxes
warm. He, too, is " beyond their bounds ;" but is he not subject
to their oversight and authority ? " If I disobey," says the great
orator, who could see into the mysteries of prophecy, but not into
.the slowly opening mists of the immediate years, " can you not
call me to your bar ? and, if I come not, have you not your court
of contumacy wherewith to reach me? If I offend in any great
matter — which I would fain hope is little likely — can you not
pronounce against me the sentence of the lesser or the greater ex
communication?" These words detach themselves from the con
text to us who know what came after. He spoke then all una
ware what significance time was preparing for the unthought-of -
expressions, evidently fearing nothing of such a fate. " I was en
abled to deliver myself with great calmness and respect, in a way
which seemed very much to impress the house," he tells his wife
— " stating how I sought not to intrude, but had advertised my
constituents to consult authorities upon the subject." And when
the matter was at length decided against him, personal disappoint
ment scarcely appears at all in the record he gives :
"Edinburgh, 26th May,
" It gave me no pain at all to be cast out of the Assembly, except
in as far as it wronged the burgh of Annan, and all the burghs in
their rights, which we proved beyond a question are to send a min
ister or elder. . . . The attention and favor which I received was
very marked, especially from the commissioner and the moderator ;
and unbounded was the wonder of men to find that I had not a rough
tiger's skin, with tusks, and horns, and otheY savage instruments.
. . . Upon the whole, I am very well satisfied with this event in my
life. . . . My lectures are decidedly producing an impression upon
the people. The work of the Lord is prospering in my hand. The

348 LECTURES IN HOPE PARK CHAPEL.
glory be unto His great name. ... It is the custom for the modera
tor to choose two ministers and an elder to walk down from the As
sembly-house to the Levee-room in Hunter Square, and inform the
commissioner* when the Assembly is waiting for him. He honored
me on Saturday with this duty, and the commissioner asked me to
dine with him, when I enjoyed myself vastly with the solicitor gen
eral and Sir Walter Scott, who were sitting over against me. The
moderator has sent me an invitation to attend the Assembly, and sit
in the body of the house. ... It is hard work standing forth, with
an extempore sermon of two hours, every morning at seven o'clock.
"29th May.
" I remain here till Friday night, when I go to Dumfries in the
mail, and from there I come to Glasgow on Wednesday to preach,
then to Paisley, and finally to Row. Above all things, I rejoice that
I shall completely open the Apocalypse. I am wonderfully strength
ened. The people come out willingly, and are very patient. They
are generally assembled from seven to half past nine. It tries my
strength, but I have strength for it. . . . There is a great work to be
done here, and I think God has chosen me for the unworthy instru
ment of doing it. The number of ministers who attend is very re
markable. I could say much, but am weary, and am going to the
Assembly. I desire my love to Mr. Scott and Miss Macdonald, my
brotherly love to Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, my blessing upon the head
of my children, and my whole heart to you, my faithful wife. "4th June.
" To-morrow I finish my lectures, which I can with assurance say
have produced a strong and lasting impression. The one thing which
I have labored at is to resist Liberalism by opening the Word of God."
So concluded this second course of Edinburgh lectures. Hope
Park Chapel was crowded; and quiet country people, trudging
out to the suburban villages in the evening, or into the busy town
in the early summer sunshine, remember • vaguely still, without
remembering what it meant, the throng about the door of the
place ; but it was remote, and out of the way, and very different
from the West Kirk, in the heart of Edinburgh life, which he had
occupied the previous year. The same amount of excitement
does not seem to have surrounded him on this second occasion,
though he himself appears to have been even more satisfied than
formerly with the effect his addresses produced.
And now another course of ceaseless preaching followed, prin
cipally in his native district, where thousands of people went after
* It may be well to explain, for the information of readers unacquainted with Scot
land, that the commissioner is the representative of her majesty in the Scottish As
sembly ; and that by way of making up for a total want of any thing to do in that
Convocation itself, this high functionary holds a sort of shadow of a viceregal court
outside.

PREACHES IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. 349
him wherever he appeared, and through which he passed, boldly
preaching his assailed doctrine before the multitudes who won
dered after him, and the " brethren" who were shortly to sit in
judgment upon him.
"We arrived at Dumfries," he writes, "by six in the morning,
when, having breakfasted with the Fergussons, I took some rest, and
prepared myself for meeting a company of clergymen at Miss Goldie's,
and preaching in the evening for Dr. Scott, to whom I had written for
the old church, which he readily granted. This I took as a great gift
from Providence, for it is like the metropolitan church of our county.
I opened the Apocalypse as far as in one lecture could be done. Next
day I preached in the Academy grounds, upon the banks of Nith, to
above 10,000 people, in the morning, from the eighth Psalm and the
second of Hebrews. In the afternoon I preached at Holy wood to
about six or seven thousand, upon the song of the Church in heaven,
Rev., v. The surveyor at Annan had the curiosity to measure the
ground and estimate the people. He made it as many as thirteen
thousand ; and there were more at Dumfries. My voice easily reach
ed over them all.* At Holywood I was nearly four hours, and at
Dumfries three hours in the pulpit ; and yet I am no worse. Next
day I went to Dunscore, which stretches away up from the right
bank of the hill toward Galloway. I visited Lag, the persecutor's
grave, by the way, and found it desolate ; though surrounded with
walls and doors, it was waste, weedy, and foul. There is not a mar
tyr's grave that is not clean and beautiful. At Dunscore, Thomas
Carlyle came down to meet me. It is his parish church, and I rode
up with him to Craigenputtock, where I was received with much
kindness by him and his wife. . . . My dearest wife, what I owe you
of love and gratitude ! The Lord reward you, and enable me to cher
ish you as my own self. From Craigenputtock I rode down with
Carlyle on Wednesday morning, and met the coach at the AuldFgarth
brig, and came on to Glasgow that night. Alexander Hamilton I
saw at Langholm. He and his sister are both well. And at Mauch-
line I stopped to ask for Mr. Woodrow's parents, who are also well.
I slept at Mr. Falconer's last night, and am now, after many calls,
seated in James Stevenson's, beside the chapel where I am to preach.
Collins spoke this morning to me as a heretic, and I rose and left him
with offense. I have much, much to bear. Let patience have her
perfect work. There were assembled at Dunscore, though it be a
lonely place, full two or three thousand people. These are my com
forts, that I have the privilege of addressing so many of my belov
ed brethren. To-night I preach in the chapel of ease, proceed to
Paisley, and preach to them to-morrow ; thenqe to Rosneath, where
I preach on Saturday at four, and at Row on Sabbath. I travel back
to Edinburgh on Monday, and preach at Kirkcaldy on Tuesday night ;
after which, on Wednesday, I take shipping for home — sweet home 1
* It is recorded that when preaching ae Monimail, in Fife, in the open air, his ser
mon was heard distinctly by a lady seated at her own window a quarter of a mile off;
and his voice was audible, though not distinctly, at double that distance.

350 IN GLASGOW.
— the dwelling-place of those whom I am most bound to and behold
en to in this world. My worthy father and mother came to Dum
fries and Holywood all well. . . . The blessing of the Lord be with
all the flock. God help me this night. Friday. I was much sup
ported in preaching at Glasgow, and did the cause some service, as I
hope. The Calton weavers came, soliciting me to preach on Monday
night for the destitute among them. This I agreed to, and shall trav
el in the mail at eleven o'clock, and reach Kirkcaldy on Tuesday fore
noon." It is difficult to realize the fact that these intense and incessant
labors were all entirely voluntary, the anxiously premeditated
offering of his summer holiday to his Master and the Church. A
local paper of the time confirms and heightens Irving's brief ac
count of the crowds which followed him in Dumfries. The jour
nalist, with the license of his craft, describes (Dumfries Courier,
June, 1829) those audiences as " innumerable multitudes," and
adds that not less than 12,000 or 13,000 people attended both the
Sunday services. In Glasgow, however, for what reason I can not
tell, or whether it is simply for want of evidence, he does not seem
to have gained the ear or the heart of the community. Glasgow,
absorbed in the prose of life, had perhaps less patience than other
places for the most impracticable of theologians ; or, still more
likely, never could forget that he had once been assistant at St.
John's, and that nobody had discovered the manner of man he
was. A lady who knew him well, and was at the moment with
him, describes with graphic vivacity an incident in this Glasgow
visit.* He had preached to a disturbed and restless audience,
crowded but not sympathetic ; and when about to leave the
church, found a crowd waiting him outside, full of vulgar incipi
ent insult. Some of the by-standers addressed him in vernacular
taunts : " Ye're an awfu' man, Mr. Irving : they say you preach a
Roman Catholic baptism and a Mohammedan heeven ;" and the
whole position looked alarming to his troubled female companion*
Irving, however, faced the crowd calmly, took off his hat, bowed
to them, and uttered a " fare ye well" as he went forward. The
multitude opened, swinging back "like a door on its hinges," says
the keen observer, who, half running to keep up with his gigantic
stride, accompanied him through this threatening pathway. It
was the only place in which popular friendliness failed him. One
great cause of this, however, is said to have been the warm sup
port which he gave to Mr. Campbell, of Row, whose " new doc
trine" had been for some time alarming the orthodox society of

BATHGATE— "GOD LOVES YOU." 351
the West, so that in Irving's person the theological crowd of Glas
gow saw a type of all the heresies which put the Church and
country-side in commotion. But after all this lapse of years, after
the strange, lofty political principles which he had come to hold so
firmly and speak out so boldly, the Calton weavers, Democrats and
Radicals to a man, still remembered and trusted the old friend who
shared their miseries without ever learning to distrust them, ten
years before, in the dismal days of Bonnymuir. Kis jus divinum
did not frighten those critics, it appears: by a diviner right, long
ago, he had possessed himself of their hearts.
After this he seems to have again paid a flying visit to Bath
gate, the residence of his brother-in-law ; for to this year belongs
a beautiful anecdote told of him in that place. A young man be
longing to the Church there was very ill, "dying of consumption."
Mr. Martin had promised to take his distinguished relative to see
this youth, and Irving's time was so limited that the visit had to
be paid about six in the morning, before he started on his farther
journey. When the two clergymen entered the sick-chamber,
Irving went up to the bedside, and, looking in the face of the pa
tient, said softly, but earnestly, " George M  , God loves you ;
be assured of this — God loves you." When the hurried visit was
over, the young man's sister, coming in, found her patient in a tear
ful ecstasy not to be described. " What do you think ? Mr. Ir
ving says God loves me," cried the dying lad, overwhelmed with
the confused pathetic joy of that great discovery. The sudden
message had brought sunshine and light into the chamber of
death. An incident of a similar kind occurred about the same time in
the Manse of Kirkcaldy. When the family were going to pray
ers at night, a messenger arrived, begging that Irving would go
to visit and pray with a dying man. He rose immediately to
obey the call, and left the room ; but, coming back again, called
one of the family to go with him. On their return, inquiries were
naturally made about the sufferer, who had either been, or ap
peared to have been, unconscious during the devotions offered by
his bedside. " I hope there was a blessing in it to the living, at
least," said the mother of the house. " And to the dying also,"
answered Irving ; " for it is written, 'If two of you shall agree on
earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father which is in heaven.' " It was for this sub
lime reason, holding the promise as if it had been audibly spoken

352 HIS VIEWS OF CHURCH AND STATE.
to himself, that the Christian priest turned back to call the other,
whose brotherhood of faith he was assured of, to hold their faith
ful Master to His word.
When these laborious travels were concluded, Irving returned
to London so unexhausted, it would appear, that he was able im
mediately after to prepare another bulky volume for the press.
This was a work on Church and State, founded upon the vision
of Daniel, and tracing the line of antique history, the course of the
Kings and of the Church, through Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, and
Alexander, up to fated Rome, in all its grand developments. He
himself explains the book to have been an expression of his own
indignant sentiments in respect to the late invasions of the British
Constitution, which, according to his view, destroyed the standing
of this country as a Christian nation; these being specially the
abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the repeal of
Catholic disabilities. It would be vain to attempt to vindicate
Irving from the charges of illiberality and intolerance which his
decided and vehement opposition to these measures may naturally
call upon him. To us, in the present day, it is so difficult to real
ize how such restraints ever could have existed, that to under
stand the character of any serious opposition raised to their repeal
is almost impossible. But I am not careful to defend Irving from
such imputations. So far as his character may have been set forth
in this history, so far will his sentiments be justified as the natu
ral product of a high-toned and lofty mind, always occupied with
the soul of things. Such a man is not always right ; maybe, in
practical necessities, mightily wrong; but is always in a lofty unity
with his own conclusions and convictions. His divine right, at
least, is, if nothing else, a splendid ideal, always pointing forward
to the sublime realization of that personal reign, the divinity of
which no man could question, and giving a soul to the loyalty he
required by converting it into the patience of the saints, all con
scious of a government yet to come, in which right and law should
be the perfection of justice and truth; and, ready for that hope,
to endure all things rather than rebel against the external majes
ty, which was a type of the universal King. I repeat, I do not
defend Irving for holding such impracticable, impossible views.
The training of the present generation has been all accomplished
in a world from which those ancient restrictions have passed away;
but such as find it possible to consider the matter from his stand
point, elevated as it was upon the heights of loftiest ideal right,

DEDICATION OF THE BOOK. 353
and can enter into his theory of government, whether they accept
it or not, will need no exculpation of the intrepid champion, who,
holding this for truth, was not afraid to speak it out.
The book was dedicated, with an affecting union of family af
fection and the loyalty of a fervent Churchman, as follows :
"To the Reverend Samuel Martin, D.D.,
My venerable Grandfather-in-law :
The Reverend John Martin,
My honored Father-in-law :
The Reverend Samuel Martin,
My faithful Brother-in-law :
And to all my Fathers and Brethren,
The ordained Ministers of the Church of Scotland.
" Reverend and well-beloved, the peace of God be with you and
with your flocks; the blessing of the great Head of the Church pre
serve you from all heresy and schism ; and the Holy Ghost give you
plentiful fruit of your ministries.
" I, who am your brother in the care of the baptized children of
the Church of Scotland, having written this book upon the responsi
bility of the Church and State to God and to one another, can think
of none to whom it may be so well dedicated as to you, the heads
of the Scottish Church, the established ministers of the Scottish king
dom. Accept, I pray you, the offering of my thoughts and labors,
however unworthy the great subject, as a tribute of my gratitude to
the Church of Scotland, and a token of my fealty to the good cause
in which our fathers labored, many of them sealing their testimony
with their blood.
" I had purposed, if God had permitted, to bring before the last
General Assembly of the Church some measure which would have
embraced my doctrine, and represented the sense I have of the late
acts of the kingdom respecting Dissenters, and Papists, and to have
done what in me lay to clear the Church of the guilt of acquiescence,
or of silence, when such great wickedness was transacted by the es
tates of the kingdom, whose counselors we are in all things which
concern the honor and glory of Christ. But the Providence of God,
which is wisest and best, saw it good to prevent this purpose of my
heart, and likewise to forbid that any other member should bring
forward such a measure. Whether this was permitted in judgment
or in mercy, time will show ; but my present conviction is, that it
was in judgment. Of this my purpose, having been prevented by an
all- wise Providence, I feel it to be the more my duty now to dedicate
the substance of my thoughts on these subjects to you, my reverend
fathers and brethren, and through you to present them to the mother
Church, of which you are the representatives.
* * * * * * * *
" I can not conclude this dedication without one word of a more
personal and domestic kind, addressed to my excellent kinsmen, the
representatives of three generations, grandfather, father, and son, all
laboring together in the vineyard of the Lord. It recalls to our minds
Z

354 WHISPER OF HERETIC.
some shadow of the Patriarchal times to behold a man within one
year of ninety fulfilling the laborious duties of a Scottish minister, by
the side of his son and his son's son, and with as much vigor as they;
adhering to the constant practice of the fathers in giving a double
discourse in the morning, and another in the afternoon of the Lord's
day. It is like the blessing of Caleb, whose natural force was not
abated by forty years' journeying in the wilderness, and by the wars
of taking possession of the promised land. So mayest thou, venera
ble sire, by strength of faith and strength of arm, gain for thyself
thine inheritance ; and may the mantle of thy piety, and faithfulness,
and joy descend unto thy children and thy children's children, and
their children also.
" Now fare ye all well, my fellow-laborers. The God of grace and
consolation bless your persons, your wives, your little ones, your/
flocks, and make you ever to abide the faithful watchmen of the spir
itual bulwarks of Old Scotland, which have been strengthened of
God to stand so many storms, and to come out of them all strong
and mighty, rooted in the truth, and adorned with the beauty and
the faithfulness of an intelligent, upright, and religious people. Fare
well, my beloved brethren ; remember me in your love, faith, and
hope, and in your prayers make mention of those from among your
children who are sojourning beyond your borders, and endeavoring
to preserve in all regions of the world the honors of your great and
good name. Edwaed Irving.
"National Scotch Church, London, July 6, 1829."
While Irving was in Scotland, Mr. James Haldane, of pious
memory, published a pamphlet entitled A Refutation of the Here
tical Doctrine promulgated by the Rev. Edward Irving respecting the
Person and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, which Irving refer
red to slightly in one of the above letters as having "no strength
in it." This, and the other still slighter, but more painful mention,
that " Collins spoke to me as a heretic," were the only marks of
the gathering storm in Scotland, unless the stifled demonstration
of the Glasgow mob might be regarded as such. The position
which Irving assumed in the above dedication and in his speech
in the Assembly was clearly that of a man certain of his own po
sition, and resolute that the name of heretic was one that could
with no justice be applied to him. This certainty he never relin
quished. Slowly and unwillingly the fact dawned upon him at
last that he was called a heretic, and the stroke went to his heart ;
but that he never acknowledged himself to be so — always, on the
contrary, was confident in the perfect orthodoxy of his belief— is
apparent through all his works.
He returned to London, to his "beloved flock," with all the
comfort of a man who knows himself undoubted and unrivaled in

THE JOURNEYMAN BAKERS. 355
his own special field. There no mutterings of discontent assailed
him. His congregation stood round him, shoulder to shoulder,
in a unanimity of affection rarely bestowed upon one man. The
prophetic brotherhood, to whose company he had gradually drawn
closer in late years, especially under the stimulus of the Albury
Conferences, seem, like the congregation, to have been charmed
by the magical influence of a heart so tender and so true, and to
have given themselves up to his half-conscious sway with a loy
alty and simplicity perhaps as remarkable as any circumstance of
his life. Out of that beloved native country, which had been but
a step-mother to Irving, but which he could never keep his heart
or his fated footsteps from, it was natural that he should go back
with a sense of relief to the people who knew him, and whom he
had led entranced and enthusiastic, unconscious whither, into all
those vivid openings of truth which startled unaccustomed eyes
with a hundred side-gleams of possible heresy. He returned to
his pastoral labors always more zealous and earnest in his work,
if that were possible. I insert here a curious document, undated,
and evidently intended solely for distribution among the class to
whom it is addressed, which I imagine must belong to this period
of his life, and which will show how minute as well as how wide
was his observation, and how prompt his action in all the varied
enterprises of his calling. It is addressed To the Scottish Journey
man Bakers resident in London and its neighborhood. Social Sci
ence did not exist in those days, but Christian charity seems to
have forestalled statistics, so far, at least, as the vast field of Ir
ving's labor was concerned.
" Mt dear Countrymen-, — I have been at pains to make myself
acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of your calling, and do en
ter very feelingly into the hardships and danger of your condition,
from being deprived in a great degree of the ordinances of our holy
religion, which are God's appointed means of grace and salvation.
While I know that many of you do your best endeavor to profit by
the means of grace, I know, also, that many more have a desire to do
so, if only it was in their power ; and I am sure the most of you will
regret with me that not a few of you are fallen into, carelessness, and
some into entire neglect of their invaluable privileges as baptized
members of Christ's Church. Moved by the consideration of your
peculiar case, and desiring, as a minister of the Church of Scotland,
to spend myself for the sake of her children in these parts, I have
come to the resolution of setting apart two hours of the second Sat
urday evening in the month, from seven till nine o'clock, for the ex
press purpose of meeting with as many of you as will be entreated to
come together, and holding some profitable discourse with you con-

356 FAMILY SORROWS.
cerning the things which belong to our everlasting peace. These
meetings we will hold in the Session house of the National Scotch
Church, Regent Square, of which I am the minister ; and, God will
ing, we will begin them on the evening of the 14th March, at seven
o'clock. " Take this in good part, my dear countrymen, and believe that it
proceeds from a real interest in your welfare, especially in the wel
fare of your souls. I do not forget that, like myself, you are separ
ated from father, and mother, and tender relations ; that you are liv
ing in a city full of snares and temptations ; that you are members of
Christ's Church, for whom He died ; and that I am appointed one of
those who should watch for your souls. Do, therefore, I entreat you,
receive this invitation with a welcome, and come with a willing mind
to meet one who, though unknown to you in the flesh, can with the
heart subscribe himself your faithful and true friend, " Edward Irving.
" P. S. — Though this be written specially with a view to the young
Scotchmen of the baker trade, and accommodated to meet their cir
cumstances, other bakers of other nations will be welcome even as
they ; for are we not all the disciples of one Lord and Master ? and
other young Scotchmen of other trades, who may find this suitable to
their circumstances, will be likewise welcome."
Whether any thing came of this brotherly invitation I am un
able to say, but it is an indication of the extent of those toils
which only the inevitable hour and day, time and space, and
nothing else, seem to have limited.
In the month of August another cloud passed over the house
hold — one of those events which tell for so little in the history of
• a family, but which make all the difference, at the moment, be
tween a light heart and a sad one, and deepen all other shadows.
A child, just born to die, came and went on one of those August
days. Save the mention of its name, nothing is said, even in the
family letters of this hour-long life, as, indeed, nothing could be
said ; but it had its share in obscuring that personal happiness,
which, though it can never be the end of life, is the most exqui
site of all stimulants and earthly supports in its great conflict and
battle. A month later another death occurred in the kindred :
that of the old man, to whom, in conjunction with his descend
ants, Irving's last book had been dedicated, the "venerable patri
arch" of his former letters. His love for the patriarchal constitu
tion of the family, as well as for the grandsire dead, breathes
through the following letter, addressed to Dr. Martin, of Kirk
caldy : " 18 Judd Place East, 1st Sept., 1829.
" My dear Father-in-law, — I do from the heart sympathize with

JOSEPH WOLFF'S TWO GREEKS. 357
you, and all your father's children and grandchildren, iq the visita
tion of God taking from you your venerable head ; that most dear
and precious old man, for whom all that valued venerable worth and
long-tried service had the greatest esteem and admiration. To me
he was most dear in every respect, as the faithful and diligent minis
ter of the New Testament, as the reverend patriarch, as the scholar
and the gentleman ; and I honored him much as the head of my
wife's house. . . . Your father was the last of the old and good
school of Scottish Churchmen. That race is now gone, and we have
now a. new character to form for ourselves according to the new exi
gencies of the times. God grant us grace to meet His enemies and
establish His testimony as faithfully as our fathers did. . . . We set
out to-morrow for Brighton. Miss Macdonald goes with us. Isa
bella is getting well ; and I hope Brighton, where Elizabeth is, will
do them both good. Margaret's eye is better by God's goodness. . .
Samuel is well ; and they are all God hath spared with us — Edward,
and Mary, and Gavin are beyond worldly ailments.
" I had much to say to you concerning the Church, but I must wait
another opportunity. Watch for the Lord as if He were daily to ap
pear — I can not say that it may not be this night. ... I ask your
blessing upon me, my wife, and my children, night and morning. Do
not forget us, and plead for us very earnestly, for ours is no ordinary
post. ... I pray God to bless and comfort all the family. . . . Fare
well! " Your affectionate and dutiful son, Edward Irving."
Early in this year (a quaint episode which I had almost forgot
ten), Irving's hands had been suddenly burdened by the whim
sical liberality of the missionary Wolff, who, without preface or
justification, and after an acquaintance not very long, if sufficient
ly warm during the time it had lasted, sent home to his friend
two Greek youths, to be educated and trained to the future serv
ice of their countrymen. They were, of course, totally penniless,
and this extraordinary consignment involved the maintenance,
probably for years, of the two strangers. Irving announced their
coming to his friend Mr. Story, of Rosneath, in whose parish he
wished to place his unexpected visitors, with a certain chivalrous
magniloquence of speech, as if to forestall all comments on the
singular nature of the charge thus put upon him. " Joseph Wolff,
my much esteemed friend," he writes, " and Lady Georgiana Wolff,
also my much esteemed friend, have given me another proof of
their esteem by sending, me two Greeks. . . . These two Greeks
has Joseph Wolff sent — wholly intrusted to me— so that I am to
them as father, and guardian, and provider, and every thing,
which also I am right happy to be. . . . By the blessing of God,
poor though I am, yet rich in faith, by His grace I will take upon

358 WEEKLY ISSUE OF LECTURES.
myself the^responsibility of their charges till they return to their
native Cyprus again." The young men went to Rosneath to the
parish school there, where they remained for years. In an after
letter Irving unbended from the high ground he had taken at
first, and confessed, though only by the way, that this charge had
been " rashly devolved upon him ;" notwithstanding, he accepted
it, and arranged carefully, as well for the economical limitation of
their expenses as for the pastoral care and authority which he ex
horted his friend to wield over them. I do not suppose, as indeed
it would be unnatural to imagine, that the cost of Mr. Wolff's lib
erality came entirely, or even chiefly, out of Irving's slender
means. Such a thing could only have been possible had the mat
ter been secret ; but he assumed the responsibility, and undertook
all those expenses without any apparent hesitation, never dream
ing, it would appear, of declining the charge so rashly devolved
upon him, or of turning it off on other hands.
The family remained for some time at Brighton in the autumn
of the year, but this arrangement conferred no special leisure upon
their head. During the whole time of their absence from town
he continued to discharge his ordinary pulpit duties, going up ev
ery Saturday, to be ready for his work. Indeed, Irving seems to
have at last worked himself into the condition, so common to la
borious men, especially those whose field of toil is in London, of
finding relaxation only in a change of work. Absolute rest ap
pears to have been unknown to him.
During this year he began to issue, in weekly numbers, his Lec
tures on the Revelations, afterward to be collected in the more dig
nified form of four octavo volumes. These little rudely-printed
brochures were each prefaced by a sonnet, the sentiment of which
is more perfect than the poetry ; that being, indeed, as in every
case where Irving used this vehicle of expression, much less po
etical and melodious than his prose. Notwithstanding, I do not
doubt they gave a more grateful utterance to his own heart at its
highest strain of emotion, a use of verse which is not to be des
pised. The Morning Watch also contained various papers from
his hand — one series treating of the Old Testament Prophecies quoted
in the New, in which he takes occasion again and yet again to en
ter into that doctrine of our Lord's entire union with us in the
flesh, which, the more he considered and meditated on it, opened
up to him ever new and tenderer lights ; and articles treating ex
clusively of the same subject, some from his own pen, some in-

THIRD CONFERENCE AT ALBURY. 359
spired by him — authorities, arguments, eloquent expositions of
this distinctive crown of his belief. In defense of this he stood
forth before all the world, fervently convinced of its supreme im
portance ; taking infinite comfort in his own splendid but troubled
career — in his contentions with the world — in those still, domestic
sorrows, unperceived by the world, which penetrated the depths
of his heart with ever-returning accesses of exquisite sadness —
from the thought that this very throbbing flesh, this very troubled
soul, was the same nature to which the Lord, by conquering all
things in these self-same garments, had secured the victory. It
was no dogma to Irving ; the reality of the consolation and
strength which he himself found in it is apparent in every word
he writes on the subject ; he fights for it as a man fights for some
thing dearer than life.
Another Albury Conference concluded the year. This was the
third ; and the yearly meeting seems now to have become a reg
ular institution, returning with the return of winter. The bonds
formed in this society were naturally drawn closer, and the inter
est of their researches intensified by this repetition, at least to a
man who entered so entirely into them as Irving did. Nothing
of the position he himself held in those conferences is to be learn
ed from his own report ; but the significant pre-eminence in which
he appears in the pages of the Morning Watch, their organ and
representative, infers that it must have been a high place. No
doubt the little interval of retirement, the repose of the religious
house, inclosed by all the pensive sights and sounds of the wan
ing year, the congenial society and congenial themes, the with
drawal from actual life and trouble in which these serious days
passed, amid the falling leaves at Albury, must have been deeply
grateful to his soul. Whether it was a safe or beneficial enjoy
ment is a different matter. There he attracted to himself, by Khat
" magnetic influence" which Dr. Chalmers noted, but did not un
derstand, a circle of men who were half to lead and half to follow
him hereafter; attracted them into a certain loyal, all-believing
admiration, which he himself repaid by implicit trust and confi
dence, as was his nature — admiration too great and trust too pro
found. Nothing of this, however, appears in the following record
of the third conference at Albury. "Albury Park, 30th Nov., 1829.
" My dear Wife, — I have enjoyed great tranquillity of mind here,
and much of God's good presence with me, for which I desire to be
very thankful. Our meetings prosper very well. My time is so

360 MLLLENNIAL BLESSEDNESS.
much occupied with preparations and examinations of what I hear,
that, except when I am in bed, my Bible is continually before me, in
the margin of which I engross whatever illustrates my text. This
morning I have been alone, being minded to partake the Lord's Sup
per with the rest of the brethren. I find Mr. Dow agrees with me in
feeling his mind clear to^this act of communicating with the Church
of England.
" We are not without some diversities of opinion upon most sub
jects, especially as to the Millennial blessedness, which was handled
yesterday. Lord Mandeville and Mr. Dodsworth take a view of it
different from me, rating the condition of men in flesh higher than I
do, and excluding death. I desire to think humbly, and reverently
to inquire upon a subject so high. Mr. Dow has great self-possession
and freedom among so many strangers. Mr. Borthwick is very pen
etrating and lively, but Scotch all over in his manner of dealing with
that infidel way of inteUectualizing divine truth which came from
Scotland. I myself have too much of it. Mr. Tudor is veiy learned,
modest, and devout. Lord Mandeville is truly sublime and soul-sub
duing in the views he presents. I observed a curious thing, that
while he was reading a paper on Christ's office of judgment in the
Millennium, every body's pen stood still, as if they felt it a desecra
tion to do any thing but listen. Mr. Drummond says that if I and
Dodsworth had been joined together we would have made a Pope
Gregory the Great — he to furnish the popish quality, not me. I do
not know what I should furnish ; but the church bell is now ringing.
"We have just returned from a most delightful service. . . . Mr.
Dodsworth preached from Psalm viii., 4, 5, 6. . . . Our subject to
morrow is the parables and words of our Lord as casting light upon
His kingdom, opened by Dodsworth. Next day the Remnant of tho
Gentiles and their translation, opened by your husband; the next,
the Apocalypse, opened by Mr. Whyte ; and the last, the Signs of the
Times, opened by our host. This will enable you to sympathize with
us. . . . Farewell ! The Lord preserve you all unto His kingdom.
" Your faithful husband, Edward Irving."
With this Sabbatical scene, in which Irving was a simple wor
shiper, concludes, so far as I have any record, this year of strenu
ous labor and conflict. Another illness of his wife's still farther
saddened its termination. The sunshine of household prosperity
did not light up for him that path which went forward into the
darkness. But he went on boldly, notwithstanding, bating noth
ing of heart or hope.

IRVING'S CULMINATING PROGRESS. 361

CHAPTER XV.
1830.
A new Light. — Influence of Scott.— Mary Campbell. — Campbell of Row. — Reli
gious Fermentation in Clydesdale. — Tract on our Lord's Human|Nature. — The
Man of Sorrows. — Beginning of the Conflict. — Gift from Friends in Edinburgh. —
The Christian Instructor. — Irving's Letter to Mr. Dods. — Statement of his own
Belief. — Invitation to brotherly Conference. — Heart-sickness. — Letter to Dr. Chal
mers. — Irving's Confidence in his Judgment. — Chalmers' timid Silence. — Prosecu
tion of Mr. Maclean. — Unfair Inquisition. — Proceedings in Mr. Scott's Case. —
Deliverance of the Presbytery. — Advice in the Dreghorn Case. — Necessity for
Caution and Patience. — Presbytery of London. — "God send better Days." — Fer-
nicarry. — Mary Campbell. — The Gift of Tongues. — The first Prophetess. — The
Macdonalds. — The Gift of Healing. — The Manifestations believed by many. —
Eagerly hailed by Irving. — Dr. Chalmers in London. — Irving, Chalmers, and Cole
ridge.— -Fears for the Church of Scotland. — Irving's renewed Appeal to his "Mas
ter." — Farewell of Irving and Chalmers. — Little Samuel's Illness.— Irving's new
Surroundings. — His miraculous Heart. — Albury. — A faithful Wife. — The chief
Physician. — Serving God for Naught. — Resignation. — Irving's Visit to Ireland. —
Powerscourt. — Dublin. —Little Maggie's Song. — " Out of the Mouth of Babes and
Sucklings." — Congratulations. — Note on Samuel Martin's Bible. — Seamen's Asy
lum. — Movement in the Presbytery of London. — Dutifulness to the Church. — A
contumacious Brother. — Irving separates from the Presbytery. — Gives up his pro
posed Visit to Scotland. — Fright and Agreement of the Presbytery. — His Isola
tion. — Statement by his Kirk Session. — Petition to the King. — Lord Melbourne.
From year to year, as Irving proceeded farther on his course,
the tide of thought and emotion had been hitherto rising with a
noble and natural progress. He had now reached almost to the
culmination of that wonderful and splendid development. Every
thing he had uttered or set forth with the authority of"his name
had been worthy the loftiest mood of human intellect, and had
given dignity and force to the high position he assumed as a
teacher and embassador of God. All his discoveries and open
ings up of truth had operated only, so far as his own mind was
concerned, to the heightening of every' divine conception, and to
the increase and intensification of the divine love in his heart.
But another chapter of life had commenced for the great preacher.
That a man whose thoughts were sublimated so far out of the usual
way, and whose mental vision was so vivid as to elevate every
thing he clearly perceived entirely out of the region of compro
mise into that of absolute verity, should have gone on so long with-

362 A NEW LIGHT.
out coming in contact at some point with the restrictions of author
ity, is more wonderful than that the common orthodox understand
ing, long jealous of a fervor and force which it could not compre
hend, should at length set up a barrier of sullen resistance against
his advances. The conflict had fairly set in when the year 1830
commenced. No longer the politico-religious journals of London,
no longer stray adventurers into the world of controversy, but
the authorized religious periodicals of his own country, and the
divines of iris mother Church, were now rising against him ; and
while the storm gathered, another cloud arose upon the firmament
— another cloud to most of the spectators who watched the pro
gress of this wonderful tragedy, but to Irving himself another
light, still more beautiful and glorious than those which had al
ready flushed his horizon with the warmest illuminations of grati
tude and love. Since that summer-day of 1828 when he preached
at Row, and agreed with Mr. Alexander Scott to come to his as
sistance in London, and work with him entirely unfettered by any
pledge as to doctrine, that powerful and singular spirit had been
his close companion and fellow-workman, and had not occupied
that place without influencing the open and candid heart of his
leader. I do not know what thread of unity ran through Mr.
Scott's beliefs at this time, and gave his faith coherence. All that
is outwardly apparent of him through the long vista of years is a
determined resistance to every kind of external limitation, and
fastidious rejection of all ecclesiastical boundary for his thoughts,
combined with a power of impressing other minds around him
not only with his own marvelous powers of understanding, but
with his profound spirituality and perception of divine things.
To a man of so questioning and unsatisfied a mind, slow to believe
what any body told him, and apparently rather stimulated to con
tradiction than to reverence by the utterances of authority, the
hope of direct communications from heaven afforded, no doubt, a
gleam of possible deliverance out of the ever-increasing problems
and perplexities of life and thought. It was an idea which al
ready, in a kind of grand prophetic reverie, had crossed the mind
of Irving. So far back as 1828, he himself says he had become
convinced that the spiritual gifts so largely bestowed upon the
apostolic age of Christianity were not exceptional, or for one pe
riod alone, but belonged to the Church of all ages, and had only
been kept in abeyance by the absence of faith. Yet with the lofty
reasonableness and moderation of genius, even when treading in a

INFLUENCE OF SCOTT.— MARY CAMPBELL. 363
sphere beyond reason, Irving concluded that these unclaimed and
unexercised supernatural endowments, which had died out of use
so long,, would be restored only at the time of the Second Advent,
in thP miraculous reign, of which they would form a fitting ad
junct. Such had been his idea for some time, when the restless
soul beside him began to work upon this germ of faith. " He was
at that time my fellow-laborer in the National Scotch Church,"
writes Irving some time afterward, in his narrative of the Facts
connected with recent Manifestations of .Spiritual Gifts, published in
Fraser's Magazine for January, 1832,
" And as we went out and in together, he used often to signify to
me his conviction that the spiritual gifts ought still to be exercised
in the Church ; that we are at liberty, and indeed bound, to pray for
them as being baptized into the assurance of the ' gift of the Holy
Ghost,' as well as of ' repentance and remission of sins.' . . . Though
I could make no answer to this, and it is altogether unanswerable, I
continued still very little moved to seek myself or to stir up my peo
ple to seek these spiritual treasures. Yet I went forward to contend
and to instruct whenever the subject came before me in my public
ministrations of reading and preaching the Word, that the Holy
Ghost ought to be manifested among us all, the same as ever He was
in any one of the primitive churches."
Mr. Scott's influence did not end here. About the same period
at which he was engaged in quickening this germ of expectation
in the breast of Irving, circumstances brought him in the way of
sowing a still more effectual seed :
" Being called down to Scotland upon some occasion," continues
Irving, " and residing for a while at his father's house, which is in the
heart of that district of Scotland upon which the light of Mr. Camp
bell's ministry had arisen, he was led to open his mind to some of the
godly people in these parts, and, among others, to a young woman
who was at that time lying ill of a consumption, from which after
ward, when brought to the very door of death, she was raised up in
stantaneously by the mighty hand of God. Being a woman of a very
fixed and constant spirit, he was not able, with all his power of state
ment and argument, which is unequaled by that of any man I have ever
met with, to convince her of the distinction between regeneration and
baptism with the Holy Ghost ; and when he could not prevail, he left
her with a solemn charge to read over the Acts of the Apostles with
that distinction in her mind, and to beware how she rashly rejected
what he believed to be the truth of God. By this young woman it
was that God, not many months after, did restore the gift of speak
ing with tongues and prophesying to the Church."
This singular transaction connects the history together in its
several parts with wonderful consistence and coherence. The
preaching of Mr. Campbell, of Row, which had stirred the whole

364 CAMPBELL OF ROW.— ISABELLA CAMPBELL.
country-side with its warm and single-minded proclamation of an
uncomplicated Gospel ; the proceedings against him,* then going
on before the ecclesiastical courts, which quickened th% trades
men and laborers of Clydesdale into a convocation of llii-ned
doctors deep in metaphysics and theology ; the repeated appari
tion of Irving — then, perhaps, the most striking individual figure
in his generation, and who spread excitement and interest around
him wherever he went — had combined to raise to a very high de
gree of fervor and vividness the religious feeling of that district
Several humble persons in the locality had become illustrious over
its whole extent by the singular piety of their lives — piety of an
ecstatic, absorbing kind, such as in the Catholic Church would
have brought about canonization, and which, indeed, does every
where confer a spiritual local rank equal to canonization. Such
was Isabella Campbell, of Fernicarry, a youthful saint who had
died not long before in an odor of sanctity which no conventual
virgin ever surpassed, and whose life had been published with
immense local circulation by Mr. Story; of Rosneath. It is unnec
essary to describe more fully the singular condition of mind into
which the entire district seems to have been rapt at this special
period, since it has already been done with fuller knowledge and
more perfect detail in the Memoir of the admirable minister of
Rosneath,f written by his son. But religion had at this crisis
taken a hold upon the entire mind of the population which it
very seldom possesses. It was not only the inspiration of their
hearts, but the subject of their thoughts, discussions, and conver
sations. They seem not only to have been stimulated in personal
piety, but occupied to an almost unprecedented degree with those
spiritual concerns which are so generally kept altogether apart
* The report of these presbyterial proceedings, being the trial of this saintly and
admirable man for heresy by his Presbytery, in the very centre of the district which
had been instructed and influenced by him, with its full testimony of witnesses for
and against the orthodoxy of the reverend " defender" — witnesses of all descriptions,
plowmen, farmers, small shopkeepers, Dunbartonshire lairds— is perhaps one of the
most singular records ever printed ; each man of all these miscellaneous individuals
being evidently, not only in his own estimation, but in that of the Presbyteiy, a com
petent informant on a nice point of doctrine ; and their testimony of the different
senses in which they had understood their minister's sermons, and their opinions
thereupon, being gravely received as influencing the important question of a clergy
man's character and position in the Church. Nowhere but in Scotland could such a
body of evidence be brought together.
t Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story, by Robert Herbert Story, Minister
of Rosneath : Macmillan and Co.

TRACT ON OUR LORD'S HUMAN NATURE. 365
from the common tide of life. On such a state of mind Mr. Scott's
pregnant suggestion fell with the force that might have been ex
pected from it. A master of "statement and argument," as Ir
ving declares him to have been, he bent all his powers to laying
this train of splendidftnischief. I irust no one will consider that
I speak with levity, or in the slightest degree prejudge what was
to follow, by using this word. But the position is so remarkable,
and the results were yet so much more so, that it seems to me a
justifiable expression; all the more, as the singular man who
dropped this seed, obeying his fastidious instincts, as might have
been predicted of him, afterward rejected the phenomena which
his own exertions had shaped into being.
With this smouldering fire beginning to glow in unsuspected
quiet, and with a longing expectation beginning to rise in the
mind of Irving, both fanned by one powerful hand, the year be
gan. Nothing as yet had come of that expectation. But no one
can watch the progress of events, marking how Irving's heart grew
sick over the opposition of his brethren, and how the deep con
viction that this antagonism was against a fundamental doctrine
of Christianity, and involved the Church in a practical denial of
her Head, overpowered him with indignation and melancholy,
without perceiving how open his troubled spirit was to any thing
which appeared like the ineffable joy of direct support and vindi
cation from heaven.
In January his tract, entitled the Orthodox and Catholic Doctrine
of Our Lord's Human Nature, made its appearance — the first dis
tinct and separate publication on the subject which he had given
to the world since the Incarnation sermons which first broached
the question. It was a controversial reassertion, strongly defens
ive and belligerent, of the doctrine which he had before stated
with calm exposition and lofty argument. I have heard many
competent authorities say that there are rash and unjustifiable ex
pressions in this little book. It may very well be so ; and, con
sidering that his faith in this respect was the very heart and soul
of his Christianity, it is not wonderful if he defended it with even
an excessive vehemence. But no one can read this, or any of his
publications on the subject, without observing how he pauses now
and then at every point of his argument, lays down his weapons,
restrains his excited action, and with a simplicity and moderation
that becomes pathetic as one observes how it is repeated, states
over again the plain text of the question at issue. That self-con-

366 THE MAN OF SORROWS.

trol and affecting earnestness prove, much more effectually than
any heat of argument, how profoundly important he held it, and
how deeply bent he was on conveying the true statement of his
cherished belief to every ear that could be induced to hear. To
a man so deeply human, there was no comfbrt in the passive im
maculate image of a Savior, set aside from our temptations by a
flesh which could not feel them, and only by some divine fiction
of sympathy entering into the more heavily burdened way of His
hapless creatures. But his whole nature expanded with love and
consolation when he saw that Savior sensible to those assaults
which rend the human soul asunder, yet keeping perfect, in his
strength and inspiration of Godhead, the flesh, which he held
against all the forces of evil :
" I believe," cries Irving, with the deepest emotion, " that my Lord
did come down and toil, and sweat, and travail, in exceeding great
sorrow, in this mass of temptation, with which I and every sinful
man am oppressed ; did bring His Divine presence into death-pos
sessed humanity, into the one substance of manhood created in Adam,
and by the Fall brought into a state of resistance and alienation from
God, of condemnation and proclivity to evil, of subjection to the dev
il ; and bearing it all upon His shoulders in that very state into which
God put it after Adam had sinned, did suffer its sorrows and pains,
and swimming anguish, its darkness, wasteness, disconsolateness, and
hiddenness from the countenance of God ; and by His faith and pa
tience did win for Himself the name of the Man of Sorrows, and the
author and finisher of our faith."
This was the very essence of his belief. And when, from un
expected quarters every where round him, he discovered that oth
er men — that his fathers and brethren in his own Church, dis
owned this central truth which gave life and reality to the Gos
pel, it went to his heart like a personal affliction. It was not that
they differed with him on a controverted subject; the matter was
different to his grieved and wondering perception. To him it ap
peared that they denied the Lord. The deepest heart of divine
grace and pity, the real unspeakable redemption, seemed to Irving
overlooked and despised when this wonderful identity of nature
was disputed. He stood wondering and sorrowful, always in the
midst of his argument turning back again to simple statement, as
if, like his Lord, he would have asked, "Do ye now believe?" '
And not only increasing controversy, but actual events, began
to intensify the character of this conflict. The first parallels of
actual warfare were opened by two younger men than himself,
both, I presume, his disciples, on this question at least ; one being

GIFT FROM FRIENDS IN EDINBURGH. 367
the Rev. H. B. Maclean, of London Wall, and the other his chosen
friend, Mr. Scott. Mr. Maclean received a presentation to a Church
in Scotland, and Mr. Scott was chosen by the little Scotch congre
gation at Woolwich as their minister. The two events seem to
have been almost simultaneous. Writing to his father-in-law
about the prospects of a young minister in Scotland whom he
seems to have sought an opportunity to befriend, Irving thus re
fers to them both :
" There is likely to be a vacancy at London Wall soon, but for me
to interfere in it would be to mar the prospects of any one ; for they
have foolishly taken it into their heads that I have had a great hand
in making Mr. Maclean a Churchman and a Millenarian, instead of a
Liberal and a Nothingarian, which is the thing that goes best down
in these latitudes. The Lord's hand hath indeed been manifest in
the settlement of Woolwich. Almost unanimously hath Mr. Scott
been chosen, who had not a man, no, not one, to speak for him. But
he had friends in a higher court ; it was like a thunder-stroke to us
all. I praise God for it above all measure ; it is decidedly the most
striking instance of an overruling Providence which hath occurred in
my day."
So Irving imagined in his hopeful and brotherly heart. It came
to little save controversy and discussion, but it brought closer and
nearer the turning-point in his own career. Mr. Scott, who was
only a probationer, had to go through his " trials" for ordination,
which necessitated the preaching of various discourses before the
Presbytery, whose ears it may be supposed were specially quick
ened and critical. Mr. Maclean had to be subjected to the still
more severe ordeal of presbyterial examination in Scotland. And
thus the field was cleared for action.
Just at this time Irving seems to have received an offering
from his Edinburgh friends and followers, conveyed to him by
the friendly hands of Mr. Matthew Norman Macdonald ; a sum of
money, nearly a hundred pounds, which he proposes to make use
of in a characteristic fashion.
" My present feeling is," he writes, " that it should go to the pur
chase of books which are profitable for the understanding of the Holy
Scriptures. ... I look upon it as a gift of the Church of Christ to
one of her poor ministers, which he should lay out for the greatest
profit of the Church which gave it. Your letter, which expressed
the sentiments of my unknown benefactors, did my heart much good
in the midst of this fearful conflict which I have to maintain for the
faith once delivered to the saints.
" I have one desire yet unaccomplished, which is to expound the
Epistle to the Hebrews in the metropolis of my native land and
mother Church. But the time and opportunity must be left to God.

368 IRVING'S LETTER TO MR. DODS.
Meanwhile, I am perfecting myself in the understanding of that most
wonderful book. I perceive that the controversy which is now aris
ing in the Church is not merely for the person of Christ, but for the
very name of God, whether He be Love or not. I am a most un
worthy man, but while I live I will defend the honor of my God,
and, above all places of the earth, in the land of my fathers. I am a
most diligent observer of what is proceeding there. If at any time
I can be of service with lip or with pen, I am ready unto the death
to serve the Church of Scotland, which I believe in her constitution
to be the most apostolical of the churches existent on the earth. I
entreat you all to reverence her ordinances, and to stand by her in
the perils which are at hand."
The mingled love, alarm, and indignation with which he began
to regard his country also gleams forth in a letter to Dr. Martin,
in which he gives the following advice to a young Scotch clergy
man who had consulted him : " Tell him from me it is a great ad
vantage to be out of Scotland for a while ; Knox and Melville,
and almost all the Reformers, were so ; and there is rising in your
quarters a commotion which will give forth, if I err not, fearful
issues." To these northern quarters, where, indeed, it did not require
much prophetic foresight to perceive the gathering of a storm, Ir
ving's eyes were now turned with ever closer and closer interest.
The Christian Instructor, a periodical published under high sanc
tion, and in some degree the organ of the evangelical party in the
Church, had now entered the lists against himself. The criticism
in which it indulged was, I understand, sharp and unfriendly ; and
to the author of the papers in which he was specially assailed, the
Rev. Marcus Dods, Presbyterian minister at Belford, in Northum
berland, and afterward known as the author of a work on the In
carnation, partly, I believe, originating in this controversy, the fol
lowing letter, a production, perhaps, almost unique in theological
controversy, was addressed : another proof, if any were wanting,
of Irving's inability to conceive of a nature less candid, manful,
and brotherly than his own :
"London, 13 Judd Place, East, March 8, 1830.
" My dear Brother, — It is reported to me (and, indeed, without
any signification of doubt, a friend, who wrote me the other day a
letter from Edinburgh, approving what you have written, speaks of
it without even an allusion to uncertainty) that you are the author of
two critiques in the Christian Instructor upon some of my writings.
" I do not ask you whether you are or not ; indeed, I would rather
not know by whom they are written, for I am told they are very
severe in their language and in their spirit, though I can only speak
from report of others, not being in the habit of reading that work.

STATEMENT OF HIS OWN BELIEF. 339
The object for which I write is to ask the favor of^your setting down,
in a brief form, what is the doctrine you hold on this subject, that I
may leisurely consider it in my own mind ; for I am assured you
would not write on such high subjects without having well consid
ered them. And I will set down for your perusal the sum of the
doctrine which I hold ; of which, let me say, till within these two
years, I never knew that there were two opinions in any orthodox
creed and true Church. I believe, then,
" 1st. That all things, with man as their lord, were created holy and
sinless.
" 2d. That since the Fall they have all, with man as their head, be
come altogether sinful, without the power of redeeming them
selves.
" 3d. That the Eternal Son of God, very God of very God, by incar
nation unto death, and resurrection out of death, redeemed
man the head, and man's inheritance.
" 4th. That flesh in human nature was created all good, then it be
came, all evil, then in_Ohrist it became all holy, and by the
Resurrection it became aflglory.
" 5th. That by generation our nature is all sinful, as Adam's was after
the Fall ; that py regeneration it is strengthened of Christ the I
regenerator, the second Adam, to overcome all sin, and that
by resurrection it is changed into Christ's glory.
" 6th. That sin in the regenerate ariseth, not from the weakness of
the Spirit of Christ in them, but from their own moral wick
edness, which they give place to, and so contract guilt, which
needs a continual atonement or forgiveness, whereof we are
assured in the good work of God's having united himself to
our nature and sanctified it.
" 7th. With respect to the experience of the Son of God in our na
ture, I am content to say that He was tempted in all points .
like as we are, and yet never sinned : when I want to have
this truth expanded I study the Psalms and the Prophets,
which testify of Him.
"Now, dear sir, and fellow-laborer in the ministry of truth, I shall
take it very kind if you will set down in a form somewhat similar to
this the views which you hold upon these subjects, that I may con
sider them at my leisure.
" For God knows, who knoweth all things, that I have no desire
upon this earth but to know His truth and to declare it. I would
rather that you exhibited your views in a summary form, than that
you entered into criticism upon mine, although I should take it very
kind, if you should notice any thing wrong, that you should mention
it. If you lived nearer me, I should think nothing of coming to con
verse with you at large upon these great points of our common faith.
It is not the first nor the second time that I have traveled 100 miles
to converse with men who were making the deep things of God their
meditation. " Though, certainly, the having heard that these articles, so severe
on my writings, as I am informed, were written by you, was the oc
casion of this letter, I beg there may be no reference whatever to that
A A

370 HEART-SICKNESS.
subject, for what I do not know I do not need to think about, and,
if I did know that you had said, or written, or done the severest
things to me, what is that but a call for me to forbear, and endeavor
either to know your truth or to make you know mine ? If you say,
Why not read the articles ? my reason is, that for many years I have
walked by the rule of not reading any thing personally addressed to
me, unless the name of the person who writes it be subscribed. And
this I do as the only way of honoring our Lord's rule, given in the
18th chapter of Matthew, for the redress of all personal offenses, re
quiring that the persons should know one another.
" Let, therefore, every thing connected with that subject be as far
from your mind, when you answer,, as it is from mine while I write
this letter. Let us just regard each other, as, in truth, we are, two
brethren — two fellow-laborers in the vineyard of our Lord. I write
this without the knowledge of any one, my wife lying asleep upon the
sofa beside me, and my porritch cooling before me.
" If ever you come to London we shall talk this matter over at
large : you shall be welcome to my house, as every brother is. Fare
well ! May God bless you and bless your labors, and lead us into all
truth ! This is the prayer of your faithful brother and fellow-laborer.
" Edward Irving,
"Minister of the National Scotch Church."
I am not informed what answer Mr. Dods made to this remark
able letter, but its noble charity and candor certainly did not in
any way change the character of the violent opposition offered to
Irving and his doctrines, gradually increasing, as they were more
fully known, and rising into public prosecution, directly after, in
the cases of Messrs. Maclean and Scott. Though his labors con
tinued abundant as ever, and though, amid all the gathering tu
mult of controversy, glimpses of the much-laboring man appear
in the domestic letters of his relatives at this period, in which we
can perceive him as deeply absorbed in pastoral duties as if these
alone were the occupation of his life, yet a deep sadness was hence
forth visible in his own estimation of his warfare. To the bottom
of his heart he was disappointed with the decision of Scotland
against him ; and from the time that he began to foresee that deci- .
sion, a tone of melancholy pervaded all that he said of himself.'
" Sufferings and trials, my dear friend, are the good of faith," he
wrote, during this spring, to an old and beloved companion':
" they work patience, and patience- is the way to perfection. I
have a fiery conflict ; my enemies have now become those of my
own household, the members of the Church of Scotland ; but I
am only the more confirmed in my faith of a present Savior and
of a future reward. Oh, my dear William Graham, let your disap'
pointments and trials in this world wear you into the fold of the

LETTER TO DR. CHALMERS. 371
grace of God, our blessed Lord and Savior I" This was the result
his own disappointments and trials produced : they threw him
more and more upon that Divine sympathy, which, more and
more as it consoled him, he felt to come from the human bosom
of a Savior who knew in all their reality the troubles of the flesh
— the sick heart and the disappointed soul.
To the correspondence of this period, while still the only public
assaults upon himself were by means of the press, and while no
authoritative censure had been yet proclaimed upon either of his
followers, belongs also the following letter to Dr. Chalmers — a let
ter of confidence and friendship so undoubting, that it is wonder
ful to believe that it met with little response. It is prefaced by a
petition from the Session of Regent Square, that the distinguished
Scotch preacher, who was to visit London during the summer,
should preach in their Church. After preferring which request,
Irving proceeds to unbosom himself with all the freedom of
friendship :
" I need not say how unabated is my esteem of you, and how sin
cere my gratitude to you ; and I believe that the wicked and shame
less attacks upon me have no great effect upon your mind. You are
a professor of theology ; I am a theological minister, orthodox to the
faith, and who can discern the unsoundness of a multitude as well as
an individual. If those papers in the Instructor, of which I have
heard scraps, and seen extracts, and know the substance, be the opin
ions of the ministers of the Scottish Church, then it is time that you,
the professor of theology, and all orthodox men, should join together
to resist the tide of error. I feel a dependence upon the largeness
of your comprehension and the charity of your heart, and your cau
tiousness to take offense, which is refreshing to my spirit forecasting
the future. And really I am ashamed, in the sight of English schol
ars, to see a man, pretending to judge these great questions, talking
about Monothelos himself, and 6 ipiKos avdpwwoQ, signifying an ordi
nary man. . . . These things ashame me in the presence of English
scholars. I know not what apology to make for the Christian In
structor, confounded as it generally is with my worthy and kind
friend, Dr. T  . If he is ever to become your colleague, get him
at least better instructed in the nomenclature of the heresies, so that
he shall not mistake the name of an opinion (one- wilier) for the name
of a man [Monothelos].
" I remember, when I dined with you, you opened to me your
views concerning a first theological class, which should open the sub
ject as a branch of liberal education. It is curious that, in looking
over the printed acts of the Assembly from 1690 to 1720,1 should
find a recommendation or act to the same effect. I can not lay my
hand upon it now, being in the country ; but before you come to
town I will. When you come to town, I will be glad to be of all

372 CHALMERS' TIMID SILENCE.
service to you that I can. My family are at present at Bayswater,
hard by Kensington, where Wilkie lives, for the health of my wife
and youngest child. I hope the Lord is restoring them. I have
many things to bear, but the Lord and His truth sustain me. I gath
er strength and confidence daily. The Lord prospers my ministry.
The addition to my church within the last year has, in communicants
alone, been near to one hundred and eighty persons ; and great, great
fruit have I of my labors among the clergy of the Church of England.
There is not a corner of this part of the island where the subject of
Prophecy and the Second Advent have not in the Church firm and
able supporters. And for the heresy of our Lord's humanity, when
a friend of mine, passing from one diocese to another, had to give an
account of his faith on that head, they would not believe that any one
could doubt that our Lord took humanity under the conditions of the
Fall. These were the Bishops of Gloucester and London ; and yet
the present most zealous prosecutor of Mr. Maclean preached to the
people of Irvine a whole sermon to prove that He took man's nature
before the Fall ; and others of his co-presbyters did the same. . . .
Oh, if there be any truth in the land, if the Church of Scotland be not
given up of God, these men will be yet made to pay for it. ' Let
nothing be done through vainglory.' You see how, being now a pro
fessor of theology, and I aspiring to become a doctor thereof, I write
accordingly. Farewell, honored and beloved sir. ... I pray God.to
strengthen you for all His will, and to endow you for your most mo
mentous station. . . .
" Your faithful and dutiful friend, Edward Irving."
Nothing can be more remarkable than the contrast between Ir
ving's repeated appeals to his friend's standing as professor of the
ology and the conduct of Dr. Chalmers during the eventful and
momentous period which had just commenced. During the fol
lowing year, several men, of the highest character and standing,
were ejected from the Church of Scotland on theological grounds
— grounds which Dr. Chalmers, occupying the position of Doctor,
par excellence, in the Scottish Church of the time, should have
been the foremost to examine, and the most influential in pro
nouncing upon. Dr. Chalmers quietly withdrew from the require
ments of his position in this respect. That he pursued his special
work nobly, in the face of all the agitation of the period, is a small
excuse for a man who was so little of a recluse and so much of a
statesman : it is, perhaps, the chapter in his life least honorable, to
the most eminent Scotch Churchman of his day. He was not
bold enough, at that crisis, to put that "largeness of comprehen
sion and charity of heart," in which Irving trusted, into competi
tion with the vulgar fervor which swept the popular Assembly
into anathema and deposition. " Amid this conflict of opinion,
of which he was far from being an unmoved spectator, Dr. Chal-

PROSECUTION OF MR. MACLEAN. 373
mers preserved unbroken silence," says his biographer. It seems
exactly the course of procedure which Dr. Chalmers ought not to
have adopted; and this becomes all the more apparent in the
light of Irving's frank appeals to the professor of theology — he
whose business it was to discriminate most closely, and set forth
most authoritatively the difference between truth and error. The
conflict which had begun in the Irvine Presbytery against Mr.
Maclean, and that which was in full course in the Dunbarton
Presbytery against Mr. Campbell, were, however, matters with
which authority or learning had nothing to do ; no council of
doctors or fathers, no gravely-elect judicial body, examined into
those delicate and difficult questions. The country-side sat upon
them in its array of witnesses ; the Presbytery, an indiscriminate
and miscellaneous crowd of ministers, by no means distinguished
(as, indeed, no mass of men can be distinguished) for clearness of
perception, theological learning, or judicial wisdom, decided the
matter, or else referred it to the decision of a synod and assembly
equally miscellaneous and indiscriminate. Meanwhile, the chief
representative of what is called in Scotland the theological facul
ty, sat apart and preserved unbroken silence, leaving the ship at
a crisis of its fate, the army at the most critical point of the battle,
to the guidance of accident or the crowd. It is impossible not to
feel that this abandonment of his position at so important a mo
ment was such an act of cowardice as must leave a lasting stain
upon the reputation of one of the greatest of modern Scotsmen.
In March the first steps of ecclesiastical prosecution were taken
against Mr. Maclean. This gentleman, the same to whom Irving's
noble Charge was addressed at his ordination, had been presented
to the Church and parish of Dreghorn, in Ayrshire, in the begin
ning of the year, where his coming was hailed by the presentation
of a petition from some of the heritors and members of the Church
to the Presbytery, calling their attention to his heretical opinions.
The appeal of these theological critics was met by the ecclesiasti
cal court to which it was presented in the promptest manner.
Their action was rapid but singular. They drew out a series of
questions, which the young clergyman was called upon to answer ;
entering fully, and in an artful, suggestive way, likely to lead him
to the fullest committal of himself, into the doctrine in dispute —
or, rather, into their own statement of the doctrine in dispute— in
which it was called "the peccability of our Lord's human nature,"
and specially insisting upon explanations as to what our Lord

374 UNFAIR INQUISITION.
might have done had he not been possessed and anointed by the
Holy Ghost — a possibility wholly disowned and rejected by the
assailed individual, who was thus placed at the bar under com
pulsion of criminating himself. Mr. Maclean was inexperienced,
and perhaps not overwise, perhaps rash and self-devoted, as is
seemly for a young man. He accepted the questions, and an
swered them in detail, with natural effusiveness and a want of
prudence which is very obvious, though it is difficult to condemn
it. A harassing process immediately commenced. No informa
tion upon the state of the parish which possessed a population so
ripe for controversy, and thoroughly prepared to take the field at
a moment's notice, is afforded us ; but the theological parishioners
held to their protest, and from Presbytery to Synod, and from
Synod to Assembly, the case was dragged and combated. The
interest of Irving in this matter was naturally of the deepest kind,
yet, perhaps, scarcely so exciting as the more immediate contest,
in which he himself was called upon to take part, in the ecclesias
tical court of which he was a member. There Mr. Scott, being
called to go through the trials necessary for his ordination to the
Scotch Church at Woolwich, stumbled upon the same point, and
kept the Presbytery to repeated meetings, which, by a chance per
haps unparalleled before in the annals of the Presbytery of Lon
don, were, in right of their connection with the distinguished name
of Irving, reported anxiously in the newspapers, the Times itself
pausing to remark and comment upon the proceedings of the
Scotch ecclesiastical tribunal. These proceedings, indeed, seem,
according to the newspapers, to have made a wonderful ferment
in the perplexed world, which still watched the progress of a man
in whom it could not choose but be interested for good or for evil.
Mr. Scott, being in delicate health, had requested that his trial dis
courses might be delivered to the Presbytery alone, without a&
mitting the public, and his desire had been agreed to. This fact,
which looks innocent enough, is taken up and commented upon
by the various papers of the day with an interest and vehemence
amazing to behold. It is denounced as a violation of the Tolera
tion Act by various voices of the public press, little apt to interest
themselves in the proceedings of Scotch Presbyteries; and the
Record, with pious spitefulness, does not hesitate to add, that "the
privacy was adopted at the suggestion of Messrs. Irving and Scott,
as the means of concealing from the public the actual views and
feelings of the Presbytery : illustrating the truth of Scripture,

DELIVERANCE OF THE PRESBYTERY. 375
' He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in
God.' " The same paper declares that, " If the Presbytery refuse
Mr. Scott ordination, they must necessarily call upon Mr. Irving
to recant, or resign his charge. It is gratifying to find so much
firmness, intelligence, and faithfulness in the Presbytery of Lon
don." This commendation, however, seems, from the point of
view adopted by the Record, to have been somewhat premature,
as the immediate conclusion of the Presbytery was one which,
without deciding the question so far as Mr. Scott was concerned,
gave equal satisfaction and consolation to Irving. He gives the
following account of it in the preface to a little work, entitled
Christ's Holiness in the Flesh, which was published in the follow
ing year :
" About this time it pleased God to try the faithfulness of the min
isters of the Scotch Church in London by this great question. A
preacher being called to one of the churches in connection with the
Presbytery, applied to them for ordination, and his trials proceeded
with approbation till they came to this question of our Lord's human
nature, and there they stuck fast. It was thought good to have a
private conference of all the brethren, both ministers and elders, upon
this question, at which we came unanimously to the conclusion of
doctrine which is embodied in the third part of this tract, in the draw
ing up of which I had no more hand than the others, and none at all
in the submitting of it. It was the pure and unsolicited deliverance
of the unanimous Presbytery. By that deliverance I am willing that
every sentence which I have written should be tried."
A more full account of the same satisfactory deliverance is giv
en in the two following letters, the first of which, addressed to Mr.
Macdonald, is chiefly occupied with the twin case of Dreghorn :
"London, 13 Judd Place, East, 21st May, 1830.
" My dear Friend, — To set your mind at rest with respect to the
orthodoxy of our opinions on the great subject of the human nature
of our blessed Redeemer, I need only to report what was the conclu
sion to which we came in our Presbytery last night, with one consent
— ' That the human nature of our Lord was of the virgin's substance,
perfectly and completely sanctified or purified in the generation of it
by the work of the Holy Ghost, and underwent no process or pro
gress of purification.' I fear there is a point of difference between us
and some of the Edinburgh theologians, who look upon this work as
a physical work, changing the natural substance of His humanity,
whereas it is the whole truth to believe that it was a divine indwell
ing of Godhead power, and not a physical change in the created
thing, in the creature part. But as to the holiness of it, flesh and
soul, there is no question, and ought never to have been any, were it
not that the Church had been asleep, and awaked in bad humor, and

376 ADVICE IN THE DREGHORN CASE.
spake angrily, and about things before her eyes were well opened.
This is all to be borne with, and will, if you prevent things from being
precipitated. I write to you as a lawyer at present, to give you my
views, not of the theological, but constitutional doctrine of this mo
mentous case.
" No one will doubt that a Presbytery has power to put questions
to a preacher, even after he has been ordained ; but how jealous the
Church is of this power is evidenced in her instructions, even at ordi
nation, not to insist afresh upon the catechetical questions which have
been already gone through at licensing, and likewise in this, that it
has never been done, that I know of, since the time that Principal N*
was removed from London to Edinburgh. Study that case, and see
how cautiously both the Presbytery and the Assembly conducted
themselves. God grant the same discretion to the Assembly now
sitting ! Granting the power to put questions for their satisfaction,
I doubt very much their power to put a series of written questions,
and require written answers in any case whatever. I do not know
an instance of it, and, if permitted, I see it would lead to this — that
the ruling powers of a Presbytery may put every probationer or stu
dent into the condition of either giving way to their opinionativeness,
or standing the issue of an ecclesiastical process. ... To ask the ac
cused party to purge himself by declarations, what is it but inquisi
tion, pure inquisition ? . . . Next, what have they made of their an
swers? They resolve themselves into a committee of the whole
house, in order that they may have freedom from restraint and from
responsibility, and then they report to themselves. What is the use
of a committee ? It is to give grave consideration to the matter, to
afford delay, to explicate it thoroughly, to deal with it wisely, and to
prepare the matter for the judgment of the whole court. Ah me!
that Maclean had taken my advice, and done what John Campbell
has wisely done ; but should not a young man and inexperienced be
protected from oppression ? Now is the time for the Assembly to
intrench itself behind the forms of justice, in order to protect justice
from that tempest of public opinion which Satan, through his minis
ters, the press-gang of anonymous writers, has raised. Oh, my friend,
the son of faithful men, stand for substantial justice in this case, and,
if no more can be done, postpone the matter till the storm be over.
It ought to be treated as Boradale's case, and Nisbet's, and Simpson's,
and Campbell's were, by appointing a committee of discreet and tem
perate divines to converse with Mr. Maclean, and to report to the As
sembly, and, if their report be satisfactory, the Presbytery of Irvine
should be required to proceed according to the rules of the Church,
and to erase these questions and answers from their minutes. With
a petition containing grave charges before you of a most excellent
minister of the Church, tried and proved, to proceed by putting him
to the question, and condemning him upon his own declaration, is,
granting the grounds were good, the most pure piece of inquisition
ever practiced. Remember, the question of orthodoxy is at issue ; I
maintain the spirit of the Irvine questions to be thoroughly hetero
dox ; and, if God spare me, I will prove it to be so. The question
* The name is illegible in the MS., and I do not know what is the case referred to.

PRESBYTERY OF LONDON. 377
of orthodoxy is at issue ; now, when was a question of orthodoxy
settled at a sederunt of the General Assembly ? The rule of the As
sembly's orthodoxy is not Wilson of Irvine. . . . The rule of her or
thodoxy is the Confession of Faith ; this Maclean is willing to sub
scribe. . . . God appear for the right and for the truth ! Say to the
Prophetic Society that I will come and preach for them whenever I
can get away, and they can get a church. My wife is well, the chil
dren but delicate, and poor Scott is sick ; the Lord tries me sore, but
gives me not over to death. The work of the Lord prospers might
ily. Your faithful friend and the friend of your dear children,
" Edwd. Irving."
The next, which treats of the same contest, but, as it had oc
curred in London in Mr. Scott's case, is addressed to Dr. Martin,
and refers, at the commencement, to the stupid commotion raised
about the Presbytery's private meeting, and supposed breach of
the Toleration Act : "27th May, 1830.
" My dear Sir, — You may have been concerned about these most
foolish and false reports in the newspapers about our Presbytery, and
about me personally. The simple truth was that, according to the
custom of, I believe, most Presbyteries, we permit the young men to
have their questionary trials private, if they please, which Mr. Scott
desiring, to the custom we deferred ; although a young man so learn
ed and accomplished in all kinds of discipline I have never met with,
and as pious as he is learned, and of great, very great discernment in
the truth, and faithfulness Godward and manward. . . . But in the
correspondence I have taken no part. Mr. Hamilton merely contra
dicted the falsehoods. However, I am such rare game that I believe
it has furnished all the provincial and even metropolitan newspapers
with a rare hit at me, and I have the blessed privilege of being evil
spoken of for the Lord's name sake. Nevertheless, I was afraid that
our Presbytery should have been brought under the influence of the
idol ' public opinion,' and also that they should have drunk into the ,
form of heterodoxy, which is working among the Dissenters here,
and I think in some parts of our Church also, though, I am glad to
say, utterly rejected by the Church of England. This, however,
proved groundless, when we came together this day week for con
ference in committee, and found that we could unanimou ly agree
upon the much disputed subject in this proposition — 'That the hu
man nature of our Lord was of the virgin's substance, sanctified and
purified by the work of the Holy Ghost in the generation, and sus
tained always in the same state by the same work of the Holy Ghost,
and underwent no process or progress of purification.' That is to
say, was holy at the first as at the last ; and from the first to the last
only by the work of the Holy Ghost, and that the same work always.
So, what I have been contending for, I have the happiness of seeing
at least our Presbytery unanimous to receive. They have attempted
to fasten upon me the charge of making our Lord's human nature
undergo a process or progress of sanctification ; that is, that there is
a time at which it was not so holy as it was at another time. It is a

378 / THE VIRGIN-SAINT OF FERNICARRY.
false charge, and most of those that bring it know that it is false, if
they have read my writings like honest men. For the rest, I have
not time to say any thing, except that I am more and more shocked
and ashamed at the state of verbalism in which the Church reveals
itself to be. I think, so far as this generation of believers is concern
ed, the Incarnation had as well never have been : a word would have
done it all. But these things can not stand. There must either be
a more vital, real, and matter-of-fact theology, or no church, no holi
ness. I have sought to put a system of facts and of God under their
system of words and lessons ; and for this they call me a blasphemer!
Woe is me ! woe is me ! God send us better days ! Farewell ! The
Lord strengthen you for the maintenance of His truth.
" Your faithful and affectionate son, Edwd. Irving."
While these struggles were progressing at different points of
the compass — Maclean, at Dreghorn, entangled in a mean and har
assing series of examinations, in which his orthodoxy was tossed
from hand to hand of two parties of peasant witnesses, whose rec
ollection or non-recollection of his sermons was the sole ground
on which to prove him guilty or not guilty; while Scott, more
fortunate in his judges, had fallen sick, and brought the compli
cated argument, as regarded himself, to a temporary suspension —
the other influence to which I have referred was rising upon the
stormy firmament. In the little farm-house of Fernicarry, at the
head of the Gairloch, the saintly Isabella Campbell, whose name
has been already mentioned, had lived and died a life of such un
usual and expressive sanctity as to draw pilgrims to her couch
and to her home from many quarters, and to confer upon her
haunts a singular and touching local celebrity. The spot where
this peasant-girl — elevated by simple devotion and holiness into
• one of those tender virgin-saints whom Nature, even under the
severest Protestant restrictions, can scarcely choose but worship
— was accustomed to pray is still one of the shrines of the dis
trict. It was at one time a retirement of delicate simplicity — a
lonely nook on the hill-side, close by the devious and picturesque
channel of a tiny mountain stream. The burn still leaps in tiny
waterfalls down its ledges of rock undisturbed by that gentle
memory ; but some enthusiast pilgrim has built a wall, a memo
rial of rude homage and affecting bad taste, round the mountain
ash and little knoll, which the girl-saint had made into a sanctua
ry. When Isabella died, a portion of her fame — her pilgrim vis
itors — her position as one of the most remarkable persons in the
i country-side, a pious and tender oracley-descended to her sister
Mary. This was the young woman " of a very fixed and constant

HER SISTER MARY. ! 379
spirit," as Irving describes, whom Mr. Scott, a few months before, -
had vainly attempted to convince that the baptism with the Holy
Ghost was distinct from the work of regeneration, but was as much
to be looked and prayed for as the ordinary influences of the Spir
it. Mary Campbell seems to have been possessed of gifts of mind
and temperament scarcely inferior to genius, and, with all the per
sonal fascination of beauty added to the singular position in which
her sister's fame had left her — visited on terms of admiring friend
ship by people much superior to her in external rank, and doubt
less influenced by the subtle arguments of one of the ablest men
of the day — it is impossible to imagine a situation more danger
ous to a young, fervid, and impressionable imagination. For the
circumstances under which that spark took light, I can only refer
my readers again to the Memoir of Mr. Story, of Rosneath, where
they are fully and with great graphic power set forth. The actu
al event is described by Irving as follows :
" The handmaiden of the Lord, of whom he made choice on that
night (a Sunday evening in the end of March), to manifest forth in
her His glory, had been long afflicted with a disease which the med
ical men pronounced to be a decline, and that it would soon bring
her to her grave, whither her sister had been hurried by the same
malady some months before. Yet, while all around her were antici
pating her dissolution, she was in the strength of faith meditating
missionary labors among the heathen ; and this night she was to re
ceive the preparation of the Spirit ; the preparation of the body she
received not till some days after. It was on the Lord's day ; and
one of her sisters, along with a female friend, who had come to the
house for that end, had been spending the whole day in humiliation,
and fasting, and prayer before God, with a special respect to the res
toration of the gifts. They had come up in the evening to the sick-
chamber of their sister, who was laid on a sofa, and, along with one
or two others of the household, were engaged in prayer together.
When in the midst of their devotion, the Holy Ghost came with
mighty power upon the sick woman as she lay in her weakness,
and constrained her to speak at great length and with superhuman
strength, in an unknown tongue, to the astonishment of all who heard,
and to her own great edification and enjoyment in God ; ' for he that
speaketh in a tongue edifieth himself1.' She has told me that this first
seizure of the Spirit was the strongest she ever had, and that it was
in some degree necessai-y it should have been so, otherwise she would
not have dared to give way to it."
It was thus that the agitating and extraordinary chapter in the
history of the modern Church, which we have hereafter to deal
with, began. It is not in my province, happily, to attempt any
. decision as to what was the real character of these marvelous phe-

380 THE GIFT OF TONGUES.
nomena. But the human circumstances surrounding their earli
est appearance are remarkable enough to claim the fullest expo
sition. The first speaker with tongues was precisely the individ
ual whom, under the supposition that they were no more super
natural than other elevated utterances of passion or fervor, one
would naturally fix upon as the probable initiator of such a sys
tem. An amount of genius and singular adaptability, which
seems to have fitted her for taking a place in society far above
that to which she had been accustomed ; a faculty of representing
her own proceedings so as, whether wrong or right, to exculpate
herself, and interest even those who were opposed to her ; a con
viction, founded perhaps upon her sister's well-known character,
and the prominent position she herself was consequently placed
in, that something notable was expected from her; and the joint
stimulus of admiration and scoffing, all mingled with a sincere
desire to serve God and advance his glory, were powerful agen
cies in one young, enthusiastic, and inexperienced spirit. And
when to all these kindling elements came that fire of suggestion,
at first rejected, afterward warmly received, and blazing forth at
last in so wonderfully literal an answer, it is impossible not to feel
how many earthly predisposing causes there were which corre
sponded with, even if they did not actually produce, the result.
In saying so much, I leave the truth or falsehood of the " tongues"
entirely out of the question. I do not judge Mary Campbell,
much less the numerous others who, without the excitement of
Mary Campbell's special surroundings, afterward exhibited the
same power. But I should not be fulfilling the task I have un
dertaken if I did not point out the dubious cradle from which so
wonderful a development proceeded, and the singular position of
influence and universal observation occupied by this young wom
an — her consciousness that she stood full in the eye of the little
world that surrounded her — her personal fascination and mental
powers. Such an opportunity of acting upon what, in a limited
horizon, seems the universal mind, scarcely occurs to a member
of the humbler classes once in a generation ; to a woman, perhaps
not once in a thousand years. Altogether this youthful female
figure, appearing out of the troubled expectant country as with a
message from heaven ; this inspired creature, fair, and delicate,
and young, with all the hopes and purposes of youth removed into
superlative spiritual regions — nothing more earthly than a mis
sion to the heathen occupying her solitary musings — is one which

THE MACDONALDS.— GIFT OF HEALING. 381
nobody can turn from without wonder and interest, and which
naturally awoke the highest excitement in the already agitated
district to which she belonged.
Nor was this all. On the opposite shores of Clyde, in the little
town of Port Glasgow, dwelt a family distinguished, like these two
young Campbells, for a profound and saintly piety, which had
marked them out from their neighbors, and attracted to them
many friends out of their own condition. The leading members
of this household were two brothers, according to all report, men
of the soberest steadfast life, quietly laboring at their business, and
in no way likely to be the subjects of ecstatic emotion. But with
results more startling and wonderful still, the newly-awakened
power glided over the loch and river to the devout and prayerful
house of the Macdonalds. Touching first upon an invalid sister,
it then burst upon the elder brother with an impulse^ more extra
ordinary than any mere utterance. James Macdonald had return
ed from the building-yard, where he pursued his daily business,
to his midday dinner, after the calm usage of a laboring man.
He found the invalid of the household in the agonies of this new
inspiration. The awed and wondering family concluded with
reverential gravity that she was dying, and thus accounted to
themselves for the singular exhibition they saw. " At dinner
time James and George came home as usual," says the simple
family narrative, " whom she then addressed at great length, con
cluding with a solemn prayer for James, that he might at that time
be endowed with the power of the Holy Ghost. Almost instant
ly, James calmly said, ' I have got it' He walked to the window,
and stood silent for a minute or two. I looked at him, and al
most trembled, there was such a change upon his whole counte
nance. He then, with a step and manner of the most indescriba
ble majesty, walked up to  's bedside, and addressed her in
these words of the 20th Psalm : ' Arise, and stand upright.' He
repeated the words, took her by tbe hand, and she arose." After
this wonderful event, with inconceivable human composure, the
homely record continues, " we all quietly sat' down and took our
dinner ;" an anti-climax to the extraordinary agitation and excite
ment of the scene just described, which no fiction' dared attempt,
and which nothing but reality, always so daring in its individual
opposition to recognized laws of nature, could venture to have add
ed to the "description. The young woman was not merely raised
from her sick-bed for the moment, but cured; and the next step

382 THE MANIFESTATIONS BELIEVED BY MANY.
taken by the brother so suddenly and miraculously endowed, was
to write to Mary Campbell, then apparently approaching death,
conveying to her the same command which had been so effectual
in the case of his sister. The sick ecstatic received this letter in
the depths of languor and declining weakness, and, without even
the hand of the newly-inspired to help her, rose up and declared
herself healed. I do not pretend to account for these extraordt
nary circumstances. Whatever natural explanation they may be
capable of, I do not believe it possible to account for them by sup
posing any thing like trickery or simulation beneath. They take
their place among the many other unresolvable wonders which
have from time to time perplexed the world ; but, whatever the
cause, the result was real. Mary Campbell, who before this time
had been confined to bed, from this moment, without any inter
val, returned to active life ; became, as was natural, the centre of
double curiosity and interest^spoke, expounded, gave forth the
\ utterances of her power in crowded assemblies, and entered into
the full career of a prophetess^ and gifted person. The Macdon-
alds, less demonstratives-arid more homely, went on upon their
modest way, attracting crowds of observers, without being there
by withdrawn from the composed and sober course of their exist
ence ; and thus a new miraculous dispensation was, to the belief
of many, inaugurated in all the power of apostolic times by these
waters of the West.
When these extraordinary events became known, they reached
the ear of Irving by many means. One of his deacons belonged
to a family in the district, who sent full and frequent accounts.
Others of his closest friends — Mr. Story, in whose immediate par
ish the wonder had first arisen, and Mr. Campbell, whose teaching
had helped to inspire it — looked on with wistful scrutiny, eagerly
hopeful, yet not fully convinced of the reality of what they saw.
Mr. Erskine, of Linlathen, went upon a mission of personal inqui
ry, which persuaded his tender Christian soul of the unspeakable
comforts of a new revelation. Almost every notable Christian
man of the time took the matter into devout and anxious consid
eration. Even Chalmers, always cautious, inquired eagerly, and
would not condemn. On Irving the effect was warmer and more
instantaneous. Assured of the personal piety which nobody could
gainsay, and doubtless moved with a subtle, unconscious propiti-*
/ ating influence, conveyed by the fact that his own distinctive
V teachings were echoed in what seemed divine amens and confirm-

DR. CHALMERS IN LONDON. 383
ations through those burdens of prophecy, he does not seem to
have hesitated for an instant. One of the immediate circle round
him, an Englishman and a lawyer, went down to Port Glasgow to
examine and report. A subtle agitation of hope, wonder, and cu
riosity pervaded the Church, which, under Irving's half-miracu
lous realizations of every truth he touched, must have been fully
prepared for the entirely miraculous whenever it should appear
with reasonable warrant and witness. The future palpitated be
fore the earnest leader and his anxiqus followers. If their con
troversies did not slacken, broken lights of a consolation which,
if realized, would be unspeakable and beyond the hopes of man,
came to brighten that troubled, laborious way. It was a moment
of indescribable hope and solemn excitement, when, to the strain
ed eyes and ears, and throbbing hearts which stood watching on
the threshold of revelation, nobody could predict or conceive what
wonderful burst of glory any moment might bring.
The following letters appear, however, to have been written in
the suspense of this crisis, befor'e any absolute manifestation of
the new gifts had been made in England. In this interval Dr.
Chalmers once more visited London, and seems, according to the
details in Irving's letters, to have preached not only on a Sunday,
but also at some week-day services in the National Scotch Church.
At this moment Irving's much-tried household was again in deep
anxiety and distress. The little Samuel had been for some time
ill— so ill that the troubled house was unable to offer the ordinary
hospitalities to the visitor, but had to fulfill those duties, so im
perative to the habits of Scotsmen, vicariously through Mr. Ham
ilton ; and the anxious father was even afraid to be out late in
the evening, his dying baby holding stronger to his heart than
even his much-prized friend, to whom once more he thus express
es affection :
" Believe me when I say that in regard to the preaching also, it is
the entire love and high admiration which I have of you that makes
me feel it so desirable. I am sore beleaguered, and have almost
been beaten to the ground ; but my God hath sustained me, through
your means. The time will come, and perhaps is not far distant,
when I shall begin to be understood and valued according to the sin
cerity of my heart ; but if not, let me die the death of the righteous
One, who was crucified as a blasphemer, and let my latter end be like
His." This was the last encounter, so far as mutual help and sympa
thy were concerned, of these two singularly unlike men. They

384 IRVING, CHALMERS, AND COLERIDGE.
went together once more, before they parted, to visit Coleridge;
as they had gone together to visit him when life and hope were
at their brightest for Irving, and every thing seemed possible.
Strangely different must this second visit have been. Seven years
before, Chalmers, half- wondering, half-amused, had watched the
young preacher in the early flush of his fame, sitting at the feet
of the sage ; both of them equally curious, and half-decipherable
to the eyes bright with characteristic genius, which yet did not
know that development of uncongenial and mysterious light.
Now the two elder men watched the younger with regret, amaze
ment, and impatience equal to their mutual incomprehension. He
had left the calm regions of philosophy far apart and behind. He
had left the safe limits of ecclesiastical restraint. The divine and
the philosopher gazed at him with a certain mournful admiration
and affectionate anger. Coleridge "poured out an eloquent trib-^
ute of his regard" into the ears of Chalmers, "mourning pathetic- '
ally that such a man should be throwing himself away." They
did not comprehend, neither the one nor the other, that nothing
in this palpitating human world could be abstract to that passion
ate, splendid human soul ; that it was as truly his mission to ren
der up love and life, to break his heart, and end his days in con
flict with the shows of things, and vehement protestation for the
reality, as it was theirs to dream, to ponder, to legislate, to abide
the bloodless encounters of argument and thought. They watch
ed him going on to his passion and agony with wondering hopes
that advice and remonstrance might yet save him, unperceiving
that the agony and passion by which this man was to prove the
devotion of a loyal heart to his Master's name and person, and
unspeakable certainty of spiritual verities, was indeed the. true
object and purpose of his life.
While Chalmers was still in London, but apparently on the eve
of quitting it, and after they had taken leave of each other, the
following letter seems to have been written.
"13 Judd Place, East, June 2d, 1830.
" My dear and kind Friend, — I have at last found the document
I referred to. You will find it in the printed Acts of the year 1 704,
Act xxviii., and from the 6th of certain ' Overtures concerning Schools
and Bursaries, and for instructing youth in the principles of religion,'
and is as follows :*
" There are very many Acts of the Church scattered through these
* It is unnecessary to quote the extract made by Irving, which bears reference to
Chalmers's idea of making theology one of the branches of liberal education.

IRVING'S APPEAL TO CHALMERS. 385
years following the Restoration concerning the advancement of learn
ing, which would, I think, strengthen your hands very much in any
undertaking to that effect.
" I had thought to see you, to thank you in person for your great
kindness to me and my Church on this occasion ; but the state of my
poor boy's health prevents me leaving home for a night. Accept of
them now, and be assured of my willingness to repay unto Christ and
His Church the kindness which by you He hath shown unto me ; and
whenever any opportunity occurs of serving you personally, be as
sured of my readiness.
" I perceive two things in Scotland of the most fearful omen : First,
self-sufficient ignorance of theological truth, and a readiness to pride
themselves in and boast of it, and to call every thing speculation
which proposes to advance the bounds, or rather narrow limits of the
ological knowledge. My doctrine on our Lord's human nature is as
literally the doctrine of the Confessions of the Church as can be, viz.,
That He took the human nature of the Virgin, that it was thoroughly
and completely sanctified in the generation by the work of the Holy
Ghost, and underwent no process or progress of sanctification. Yet,
through ignorance of the person and office of the Holy Ghost, I per
ceive the greatest horror to prevail against this truth, and a readiness
to adopt one or other of the errors — either that His nature was in
trinsically better than ours, or that it underwent a physical change
before its assumption into the person of the Son. If you would see,
within a short compass, the three opinions brought to the test of the
Confessions of Faith, I recommend to you a short anonymous tract,
entitled The Opinions ciradating concerning the Human Nature of
our Lord brought to Trial before the Westminster Confession of
Faith. You ought to give some study to this point, and stand in
the breach for the truth. I have thoroughly gone through the sub
ject of the Incarnation, and if it served you, could at any time give-
you the history from the beginning of the controversies on this sub
ject, and of its present form. The second thing which grieves and
oppresses my heart with respect to poor Scotland is the hardness of
heart manifested in the levity and cruelty with which they speak of
others ; the zeal and readiness with which they rush to overthrow
such men of God as John Campbell ; the union of all parties to this
end ; the scorn with which they regard the signs of the Holy Ghost
beginning to be again vouchsafed to the Church ; and, if not scorn,
the mere juryman way of considering them, as the House of Com
mons might, without any respect to any existing promise, or proba
bility, or doctrine of any kind upon the subject — also without any
regard to the discernment of the Holy Ghost in us, and even as if
the Holy Ghost were merely a sharpener of our natural faculties to
detect imposture or to know sincere persons. The substance of Mary
Campbell's and Margaret Macdonald's visions or revelations, given
in their papers, carry to me a spiritual conviction and a spiritual re
proof which I can not express. Mr. Cunningham, of Lainshaw, said
to me the other day that he had seen nothing since the apostles' days
worthy to be compared with a letter of Mary Dunlop's which is writ
ten to a person in this city. Thomas Erskine and other persons ex-
Bb

386 FINAL PARTING OF IRVING AND CHALMERS.
press themselves more overpowed by the love, and assurance, and
unity seen in their prayers and conversations than by the works.
Oh, my friend ! oh, my dear master ! there are works of the Spirit
and communions of the Spirit which few of us ever dream of! Let
us not resist them when we see them in another. Mind my words
when I say, ' The Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland will
lay all flat if they be not prevented.' I desire my true love to Mrs.
Chalmers and Miss Anne. May God give you a prosperous journey!
" Your faithful friend and brother, Edward Irving."
To all these appeals, the man whom Irving addressed, with
touching loyalty to the past and its associations, as "my dear
master," seems to have made no response whatever. If he exam
ined that momentous question at all, or re-examined it at the en
treaty of his friend, whose very life was involved in its considera
tion, no record remains to prove it. He left the controversy to
be settled by the nameless Presbyters of Irvine and Annan, vol
untarily making his own learning and influence useless in a con
troversy most deeply momentous to the Church, and which only
the doctors and fathers of the Church ought to have given any
deliverance upon. At the crisis then existing, I repeat, Chalmers
and his equals permitted this matter, and also the equally impor
tant process of Mr. Campbell, of Row, to be discussed and virtu
ally settled by an untrained country population ; a manner of
procedure, I presume, justified by the laws of Presbytery, but in
the profoundest discordance not only with reason and justice, but
with the true spirit of a system which professes to hold its author
ity, not from the people, but from God.
As, I believe, they never met again after this year, I add, though
a little out of chronology, the farewell mention which Chalmers
makes in his diary of their final parting.
" Oct., 1830. Had a very interesting call from Mr. Irving between
one and two, when I was in bed. He stopped two hours, wherein
he gave his expositions ; and I gave, at greater length and liberty
than I had ever done before, my advices and my views. We parted
from each other with great cordiality, after a prayer which he him
self offered with great pathos and piety."
So the two made everlasting farewells, so far as this world was
concerned, and parted in life, spirit, and career, each retaining a
longing love for the other. The friendship of Chalmers, which
was not strong enough to draw him personally into the conflict,
or to give him any sympathetic understanding of the entire devo
tion with which Irving abrogated reason itself in obedience to
what he believed the voice of God, was yet enough to raise him

LITTLE SAMUEL'S ILLNESS. 387
above the vulgar lamentations which broke forth, at Irving's death,
over his misused talents and sacrificed life. The great Scotch di
vine knew well that his friend's life was not wasted; and with
cumbrous but grand phraseology, and a laboring of tears in his
voice, made that eulogium of " the Christian grafted upon the
Old Roman," by which he acknowledged his consciousness, not
withstanding separation and estrangement, of this primitive hero
ic soul. In the mean time, however, all the tumults in Irving's life were
veiled over, and all its hopes subdued by the fluttering of a baby
life, as it waned and declined toward the grave, which already
had swallowed up so many blossoms of his existence. This pro
found domestic anxiety gave him, as was natural, a deeper trem
bling interest in the miraculous reports that reached him. The
command of intense and undoubting faith, which had raised Mary
Campbell from her sick-bed might still raise that declining infant,
whose baby days were numbered. From the little bedside he
gazed out wistfully upon the horizon, where miraculous influences
seemed hovering, but had not yet revealed themselves ; hoping
in the prayers of the Church, in the faith of the saints, in the in
tervention of the Lord himself, when earthly hope was over. It
is not possible to enter into this phase of his life without perceiv
ing the heart-breaking glimmer of terrible hope and expectation
which mingles with the elevated and lofty anticipations of a new
outpouring of the Spirit, and gives a certain color to the father's
hopes and prayers.
"My darling boy," he writes, "is very poorly. We have no de
pendence upon human help. Nothing but that power of hearing and
answering prayer offered by the Church, for the testimony of which,
as still resident in the Church, I have stood these many years, and for
which these despised Row people are now suffering, can bring my
dear Samuel from his present weakness back again to strength. Oh,
my dear A  , tell me when this distinction of the works of the
Spirit into ordinary and extraordinary arose ? There is no such thing
in the Scriptures. I believe the Holy Ghost is as mighty in the
Church, and, but for our unbelief, would be as apparent, as ever He
was. I pray you to be upon your guard against speaking evil of any
mighty work which you may hear of in the Church, for in the last
days God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh."
Such seems to have been as yet his attitude in respect to the
supernatural commotions in the west of Scotland ; and there is no
evidence that as yet they had extended to London, or appeared
in his own immediate surroundings. Those surroundings, how-

388 IRVING'S MIRACULOUS HEART.
ever, had modified and changed as the years grew. New friends,
bound together by the close and peculiar links of prophetic study ;
new followers, detached out of other churches by his influence,
and adhering to him with all the closeness of choice and personal
election, had joined the old friends and faithful Churchmen of
former days with a more jealous and fervid allegiance. Minds,
to whose latent enthusiasm his eloquence gave the quickening
thrill, and who had followed him so far with ever-rising thoughts,
that it became natural now to follow him whithersoever his fervent
inspiration might lead, and to believe in every thing he thought
possible, had glided into the circle closest to him, surrounding his
anxious soul, in its troubles, with a dangerous readiness of sym
pathy and assent. Among them were men on whose friendship
he reposed with all the characteristic trust of his nature, and wom
en who served him unweariedly with willing pen as amanuenses,
proud of their office. These closest friends watched with himself,
with kindred eagerness, the flushings of light upon the distant
firmament. And to him it was always easier to believe the mirac
ulous than the mean and common. By right of his nature, he
understood a thousand times better how God could bestow and
lavish the extraordinary gifts of His grace, than how the poor
practicabilities of human nature could limit the Divine profusion.
It is indeed important to remember, while entering upon this most
momentous period, how much attuned to the miraculous was his
fervid genius and absolute lofty tone, and how much the sublima
tion of his mind gave to all the course of nature that aspect of
daily miracle which its wonderful successions present more or
less to every thoughtful eye.
In July another prophetical meeting was appointed to be held
at Albury. His child was still ill, indeed hourly progressing to
ward his end ; but supported by the thought that this was a sa
cred duty, and the direct service of his Master, and also by the
assurances given him, by many of his anxious friends, of the pray
ers they had presented, with full assurance of faith, for the in
fant's life, Irving ventured to leave the troubled household, where
his wife was supported by the presence of her mother and sisters.
With what tremblings of love and faith he went will be seen from
the following letters : "Albury Park, 1st July, 1830.
" My dearest Wife, — While I am serving God in the house of
our common Husband, Christ, you are serving Him in the house of
me, your husband, and both of us together fulfilling the portions

ALBURY.— A FAITHFUL WIFE. 389
which our God hath allotted us. . . . Much have I thought, and
much have I prayed to God for you and our dear children, especially
for our beloved Samuel ; and though I can not say that God hatb
given me assured faith of his recovery, I can say that He hath given
me a perfect resignedness to His will, which I believe to be the pre
cious preparation for the other. For, until our faith and prayer spring
out of resignation, ' Not my will, but Thine be done,' it is asking amiss
to gratify, not the life of God, but the life of nature, which in us, and
all the members of Christ, ought to be crucified and dead. . Last night
I was troubled with some visions and dreams which afflicted me ; but
this morning, having arisen early, I found great consolation in prayer
to God. In my prayers I seem to forget my own trials in the trials
of the Church. I am carried away from my own pain to the wound
of the daughter of my people. It is very curious how I am always
brought back to the children through you, my partner in their care,
and now the whole bearer of it. ' Be careful for nothing,' but in
every thing, by prayer and supplication, make your request known
unto God, and the peace, of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep you. We arrived here at half past four, not in time to
write ; and I took up the time till dinner in expressing some thoughts,
preparatory to my next number of the Apocalypse. . . . The subject
to-day has been the Jews, which always yields much matter. Mr.
Leach opened it, and several have spoken this forenoon with very
great power. I feel as if far more light had been afforded me upon
this subject than at any time heretofore. I would say there has beed
more of the spiritual, and less of the literal — more of the results of
wisdom, and less of mere knowledge or learning. I trust it will so
continue. Ah me ! how little do they know who speak evil of this
meeting, what it really is ! To me it is the greatest spiritual enjoy
ment in this world. I try to devote myself with entire heart to my
Father's business, and to repose you and my dear babes with entire
confidence upon His care. If I am often invaded by the thoughts
and fears of a father, I lift up my soul to Him who is the Father.
What a blessing to have a faithful wife ! Had you not been what
God's grace has made you, I would not have been here. Had you
signified your wish that I should remain, or even faltered in your con
sent, I should not have been here. To you, my dear wife, the Church
owes whatever benefit I may be of now ; and surely I never felt more
the duty of addressing myself to the Lord's work. Indeed, but for
your bearing and forbearing with me, what might I at this day not
have been, who am now your devoted husband, and desiring to be
the faithful servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. God reward
you with much enjoyment and profit in your love to me, for jt has
been very great! It has come to rain most fearfully for the last
hour, and is now pouring down in torrents. God pity the beasts of
the earth, and let them not want. The hay is very much damaged
here. I desire my most dutiful love to your mother, and my heart
felt thanks for her love to us all; . . . . and, oh, remember me lov
ingly to dear Maggie, and tell her to stir up the gift of the Holy
Ghost that is in her ! and for dear Samuel, God rest and restore him !
Farewell, my well-beloved wife. I desire you always to think of me

390 THE CHIEF PHYSICIAN.
as entirely one with yon, even as you are with me. My kind conso
lations to Dr. Carlyle, and my affectionate love to George. Also re
member me with kindness to both the servants.
" Your faithful and affectionate husband, Edwd. Irving."
"Albury, 2d July, 1830.
" My very dear Wife, — I desire to be thankful for the consola
tion of the letter of the two physicians, and I pray you to thank them
both for me for all their care and kindness. Also I am satisfied to
know that Dr. Farr agrees with the judgment which they have formed
and been acting on ; and I desire that George and Dr. Calryle should
consult together, and do for the dear babe whatever they can, and
do it in faith as far as they are enabled ; joining prayer of faith to
their use of means. Withal my confidence is with the chief Physi
cian, and I feel only the more trust as I see the case to be the more
extreme. One thing I know, that my soul hath been much hum
bled, and my hard heart much melted by this visitation of the Lord.
All the brethren here seem deeply to sympathize with us, and I think
there is much grace upon the brethren. . . . Mr. Cunningham is gone
away. His company has been very pleasant and profitable. He is
in very deed a man of God. He considers himself to have been put
out of the Church of Scotland for the testimony of the universal
atonement. If indeed it be so, he is honored. My dear, we must not
treat Christ as a common physician, or believe that He has not reme
dies because the physicians have none. May the Holy Spirit grant
us strong and lively faith for our dear child ! My love, you must
take care of yourself, and not undertake so much without looking up
for very much strength by much faith. Let not your much labor for
dear baby proceed of carefulness, but of a confidence in God for
strength; and if God weaken you, consider it as His sign that you
should confide more to others. . . . Mr. Hawtrey, Mr. Bayford, and
I come in to-morrow, taking a chaise from Ripley. I shall be home
about nine o'clock in the evening.
" Your faithful and affectionate husband, Edwd. Irving."
On the 3d of July he appears to have returned home, and on
the 6th this child of prayer gave up its little life, and left another
blank in the household so often invaded. Miracle did not inter
pose to give joy to God's devoted servant. During the whole of
this last dread discipline of his life, he served God divinely "for
naught," receiving none of the extraordinary graces he believed
in. Already the last trial had begun. Miraculously from the
edge of the grave, Mary Campbell and Margaret Macdonald in
Scotland, and others in England shortly after, near and visible to
his eyes and his faith, were brought back in safety to fulfill their
existence. But it was not so that God dealt with His loyal and
forlorn soldier. The draught of joy, of glorious proof and assur
ance, that would have refreshed his soul, was withheld from his
lips. If he turned away sighing, with a pang of disappointment

RESIGNATION. 391
added to his sorrow, he never paused or slackened on that account
in the faith which did not depend upon personal blessings, but
watched, with an interest unabated, the new miraculous dispensa
tion, which had not saved his child, but which yet he trusted in
as divine and true.
It was this child, I think, who died so late in the week as to
leave no time for the afflicted father to find a substitute for his
Sunday duties. He preached in his own church the day after,
taking for his text the words of David — "I shall go to him, but
he will not return to me." Persons who were present have de
scribed to me, almost with a sob of recollection, the heart-break
ing pathos and solemnity of -this service ; and no one can have
read his letters at the time of his first child's death without being
able to realize in some degree the outburst of ineffable anguish
and rejoicing which must have been wrung from him by such a
necessity. They say he went tearless and fasting through that
dark Sabbath ; and coming in from his pulpit, went straight to
the little coffin, and flinging himself down by it, gave way to the
agony of a strong man's grief — grief which was half or wholly
prayer — an outcry to the one great Confidant of all his troubles,
the faithful Lord who yet had not interposed to save.
Shortly after, Irving took his mourning wife and the one little
daughter who was still spared to him, and whose health seems to
have been fragile enough to keep them anxious on her account
also, to Albury, from whence he writes to Mrs. Martin an account
of their journey and welfare; after arriving "in the cool of one
of the sweetest evenings which was ever seen," as he says with a
sacramental hush of grief breathing from his words —
" Maggie has been running about with all manner of cheerfulness
and joy. The day is delightful, and the scene one of the most en
chanting you ever saw. The house is large and cool ; the manners
of it put every one at their ease; and I fondly hope it may be the
means of restoring my wife and child. I desire to express my great
sense of your kindness to them and to us all during the late trial of
divine Providence, as during others which you have witnessed and
shared with us. We must not murmur, but seek to know the end
of the Lord, and to submit to His gracious will. Many a time I de
sire to be with my children, and I hope we shall be all gathered to
His congregation ere long ; for I believe the day of His coming draw-
eth nigh, and that before these judgments fall out we shall be taken
to Himself and receive the morning star. I can not but feel the
greatest interest in the things, taking place in Scotland* The Church
of Christ is recovering from a long sleep, and the false brethren who
are mingled with the true are ready to resist her new activity ; and

392 IRVING'S VISIT TO IRELAND.
a third party of worthy and pious people are perplexed what to think
of it. I pray you, and all who wish well to the Church, but can not
clearly discern your way in the conflict of opinions, to observe the
fruits of the two parties, and in this way to discover the true from
the false prophets. This is the counsel of our great Counselor, ' By
their fruits ye shall know them.' "
The melancholy family took their autumn holiday sadly, and,
so far as Irving was concerned, laboriously as always. From Al
bury they went to Ireland, to visit Lady.Powerscourt, from whose
house Mrs. Irving writes to her sister. The first portion of the
letter refers to Mr. Scott, who had apparently, by this time, quite
withdrawn from his contest with the London Presbytery ; his dif
ficulties lying not in the way of one doctrine alone, but branching
out into many varieties of doubt and hesitation. He had objec
tions to being ordained, objections to the Confession of Faith, ob
jections indeed, apparently, to every limit which restrained his
own powerful but wayward thoughts.
" On the Wednesday before we left for Ireland," says Mrs. Irving,
" we dined at Miss F  's, to see and hear our dear friend. What
wonderful power the Lord gives him ! His complaints are no bet
ter, in some respects; but he is enabled to speak, to teach, and ex
hort for many hours every day, to the edification, and comfort, and
awakening of many of the body of Christ. Many feel, while listen
ing to him, that they are listening to a dying man. Well, be it so ;
let us in every thing be given up to the good will of God. To our
short sight there appears much need of him, and such like ; and if
there be need of him for the Church's sake, he will be spared. He
preached a most powerful discourse that evening, besides having ex
pounded and exhorted for between four and five hours during the
day. If able, he takes all the Wednesday evenings while Edward is
absent. On Monday we left London at 7 A.M., and reached Bath
before 7 P.M. . . . Shortly after, some gentlemen, whom Mr. E 
has induced to study the Scriptures with him, assembled to spend the
evening with us. These kind friends had made arrangements for Ed
ward preaching at Bath. He did preach, and was said to have had
a larger congregation than was ever seen before at Bath in a morn
ing. We dined early, and our kind host accompanied us in his own
chaise to Bristol. Several other friends followed us. . . . Here again
Edward preached to a large and crowded audience. The packet was
not to sail for Dublin till 5 P.M., so we spent part of the morning
walking about ; and Edward passed a pleasant hour with the Rev.
Robert Hall. ...
" We landed about 10 P.M. on the Dublin quay ; so we went to a
hotel for the night, and next forenoon proceeded to Powerscourt.
Here we met a kind, hearty welcome. . . . Next morning we drove
out a few miles to visit a waterfall. ... On our return at three
o'clock there was a great gathering to hear Edward preach. After

DUBLIN. 393
dinner, Lady Powerscourt and Edward set out to a Mr. Kelly's, near
Dublin, where he met many clergymen. On Sabbath he preached
twice in Dublin: on Monday he again preached twice, and came
here to a late dinner ; there were several clergymen to meet him.
Tuesday he preached at Bray. On Wednesday he attended a cler
ical meeting ; upward of thirty clergymen, some laymen, and a few
ladies present. Lady Powerscourt and I staid at a clergyman's near
Dalgony, where dear Edward arrived at half-past five o'clock, snatch
ed a hasty dinner, and preached at a little after six to a large and
most attentive audience — a most delightful and profitable discourse,
and which, we have since learned, made a very deep impression on
many, and was understood by the poorest of the people. ... On
Thursday morning we went together and attended a meeting of the
Bible Society at WicklJJv. Edward preached thirteen times in eight
days." This gigantic holiday work seems to have been imposed upon
him, without the slightest compunction, wherever he went; par
ties assembling to make all they could out of the great preacher,
after a twelve hours' journey, and private conferences filling up
every hour which was not occupied in public labor. " You know
well from my feeling and acting with regard to dear Edward,"
says his wife, with wifely simplicity, " that I am not one who am
continually in fear about health when a man is doing the Lord's
work." And, indeed, there seems no leisure, in this incessant
round of occupation, either for fears of health or precautions to
preserve it. An account of his preaching in Dublin on this occa
sion is given in one of the Irish papers of the time (Saunders's
News-Letter, 18th Sept., 1830), as follows:
" The Rev. Edward Irving, who our readers may recollect is min
ister of the Caledonian chapel in London, preached an able and ad
mirable discourse yesterday at the Scots chapel. . . . This place of
worship was not only crowded to suffocation, but several hundreds
assembled outside on benches placed for their accommodation in the
yard. The reverend preacher was placed at the southwest window,
the frame of which had been previously removed, from which he was
audibly heard by the external as well as internal portion of the con
gregation. We observed many highly respectable Roman Catholic
gentlemen present ; among them were Messrs. Costello, Nugent, and
other members of the late Catholic Association."
A month later, on his return to London, Irving himself thus
related the most beautiful incident of his Irish travels to his sis
ter-in-law Elizabeth, who was then at Kirkcaldy, in the paternal
house. "London, 13th October, 1830.
" My dear Sister, — Though I have but a very short moment, I

394 LITTLE MAGGIE'S SONG.
will not let Mr. Hamilton go without sending you my love and bless
ing. I leave to him to inform you how our matters in the Presby
tery at present stand, both with respect to Mr. Scott and myself. Of
this I have no fear, that the Lord is the strength of all His faithful
people, and that we are contending for the foundation of the truth
when we maintain that Christ was holy in spite of the law of the
flesh working in Him as in another man, but in Him never prevailing
as it does in every other man. It was my turn to preach before the
Presbytery, and I spent two of the most gracious hours of my life in
opening the subject of the Church as a co-essential part of the pur
pose of God, with the Incarnation of the Son, unto which this was the
preparation and likewise the way, and all the means and all the life
of it. Mr. Brown, our missionary,* sees in all respects with me, and
said there was not a word in my discourse wj^rein he took not pleas
ure, and that the statement on the humanity was in every tittle satis
factory to him.
" My dear Isabella and Maggie are at Lady Olivia Sparrow's ; . . .
Miss Macdonald is there also: they are well. . . . What do you
think of this little song ?
" ' Come, my little lambs,
And feed by my side,
And I will give you to eat of my body,
And to drink of the blood of my flesh,
And ye shall be filled with the Holy Ghost,
And whosoever believeth not on me
Shall be cast out ;
But he that believeth on me
Shall feed with me
Beside my Father.'
" It has not metre nor regular measure, and yet there is a fine
rhythm in it, and I dare say your father would say it might be very
well set to music. You will say, who made it? I will tell you.
When the Countess of Powerscourt, after her noble and Christian
entertainment of us, thought it good to bring us in her own carriage
to the waterside at Kingstown, and the boat was not arrived by rea
son of the terrible west wind, we went into the inn ; and Isabella, as
her case required, was resting on the sofa, Lady Powerscourt sitting
before the fire with Maggie on her knee, and I between her ladyship
and my wife. Maggie broke the silence ; for God had given us all
three much love for one another, and we were silent, being loth to
part. Maggie said : ' Lady Powerscourt, shall I sing you a song ?'
' Yes, Maggie,' said her ladyship. Whereupon the child, modulating
her voice most sweetly, poured forth these divine words. When she
was finished, her ladyship said, ' Does not that comfort you ?' But I
wist not it was the child's making, and understood not what she
meant ; but perceiving she wished not to explain farther (it was for
fear of begetting vain conceit in the child), I said no more ; but Mag
gie left her ladyship's knee, and went to the other side of the room.
* This gentleman had succeeded Mr. Scott when the latter was called to the
Woolwich Church, and was in reality Irving's assistant or curate,

CONGRATULATIONS. 395
Then I said to Isabella, ' Where did Maggie learn that song, and who
taught it her ?' She said, ' Nowhere, and no one taught her.' I call
ed the child and said, ' Maggie, my dear, who taught you that song?'
She said, 'Nobody. I made it one day after bathing;' and so I
thought upon the words, ' Out of the mouth of babes and of sucklings
I have ordained praise,' and I was comforted. Read it to your father
and mother, and tell my dear sister Margaret to set it to a tune and
sing it of an evening at her house when she goes home ; and think
of the sweet and of the sad hours she, as well as you, dear Elizabeth,
have passed with us. Give my love to your dear parents, as also
mine, and to all the family. Be filled with love, my dear child, to all
men, and have the mind of Christ. Think not of yourself, but of
your Lord, and of the glory of your God. ... Be steadfast and im
movable in the truth, and give up all things for it. Farewell ! God
be with you, and bless you and your husband, and bring you back in
safety !
" From your faithful brother and pastor, Edward Irving."
Thus the five-year-old Maggie, sole blossom at that time of the
two saddened lives she cheered, comforted her father's soul. He
paints the little picture with minute quaint touches, which would
be like Dutch painting were they not always full of a pathetic
tenderness which has no accordance with that name. The scene
lives before us in all its profound simplicity and silent emotion,
distinct and vivid as reality. It is pleasant to know that this
ehild was very like her father; grew up to have his voice, his
features, something of his power of winning hearts ; and died in
full womanhood, but in youth, untouched by any vulgar fate.
The " dear sister Margaret," whom he exhorts to sing this touch
ing childish utterance, was then a bride, just about going to her
new home in the hereditary manse of Monimail, where her ven
erable grandsire had died not very long before. To her and to
her husband the following letter of congratulation was shortly
thereafter addressed : " Brampton Court, October, 1830.
" My dear Margaret and James, — I am just setting out to preach
at Huntingdon, and take up my pen, before starting, to give you my
benediction. May the Lord fulfill upon you the prayers which we
have prayed for you, and make you as those that preceded you at
Monimail! I can not present to you two better examples. Dear
Margaret, be in dutiful subjection to your husband, and strengthen
his hands in every good work — ' good works in her husband to pro
mote.' Dear James, be a loving husband, a guardian, and a guide to
our Margaret; she is a precious person. God be your guide and
your portion ! His truth is your common rule, and His love your
communion and fellowship. . . .
" Your faithful brother, Edward Irving."

396 SEAMEN'S ASYLUM.
From Brampton Court, from which this letter is written, he
was, as usual, overwhelmed with supererogatory labors. " Dear
Edward hurried down from London again, to be with me as soon
as possible," writes his wife. " There are a goodly number of
hearers, and hearers all day long here, so that yesterday Edward
spoke almost constantly from nine in the morning till eleven at
night, what with expositions, dictating for an hour, and answering
questions." How either mind or body sustained this perpetual
pouring forth, it seems difficult to imagine ; but, though this very
letter proves that he still wrote, dictating to some of his faithful
amanuenses, it is a relief to believe that much of this must have
been extempore. Years before, he had written a brief and strik
ing note on Samuel Martin's Bible. " My brother, no man is fur
nished for the ministry till he can unclasp his pocket Bible, and
wherever it opens, discourse from it largely and spiritually to the
people." Nothing but such a capacity could have carried him
through the incessant calls upon him, which, indeed, are curious
exemplars how those pious nobles who are nursing fathers and
mothers to religion, having laid hold upon such a notable and
willing laborer, do their best to work him to death.
It is very evident, at the same time, that he never had a thought
or conception of saving himself. A glimpse of another unsus
pected branch of labor gleams out in a speech reported in the
newspapers as having been made at one of the May meetings in
this year, a meeting in behalf of the Destitute Seamen's Asylum,
at which the great preacher appeared to "bear testimony to the
excellence of the institution from personal observation, having
been accustomed to minister to the seamen once a fortnight. He
had witnessed," he says, " the spectacle of six or seven houseless
seamen herding at the bottle-works at Shadwell for the sake of
the warmth," but had afterward found "from 130 to 150 seated
in comfort to a homely meal, with such a spirit of order maintain
ed among them that never in one instance had his holy avoca
tion been disturbed by any act of irreverence." So far as any
one can see, he had nothing in the world to do with these sailors,
with all his own manifold affairs in hand ; but to a soul never in
any difficulty to know who was his neighbor, such brotherly of
fices were more restful than rest.
On his return to London from these laborious wanderings, he
writes to his wife, " The Lord has preserved my flock in love and
unity, and we assembled on Sunday as numerous as at any former

MOVEMENT IN THE LONDON PRESBYTERY. 397
period. Our meeting of Session was very delightful. . . . Mr.
Henderson and Dr. Thompson are fully convinced of the reality
of the hand of God in the west country work, and so is Mr. Car-
dale. Pray for Mary Campbell ; she is under some temptations."
But while this was a matter of constant reference and anxious
expectation, and while restoration to health, as miraculous and
extraordinary as that which happened at the Gairloch, had start
led into still warmer excitement the believers about London in
the wonderful case of Miss Fancourt,* Irving's mind was still
much more entirely occupied with the momentous matter of doc
trine, on which so great a commotion had lately risen. Mr. Mac
lean's case was not yet decided ; but Mr. Scott had, as has been
mentioned, formally withdrawn his from the consideration of the
Presbytery of London, by the objections against ordination, and
indeed against most matters distinctive of an ecclesiastical organ
ization, which had arisen in his mind. The Presbytery of Lon
don was reduced in number at the moment. Several of those
ministers who came to the conclusion, which a few months before
gave so much comfort to Irving, seem to have left its bounds.
The little ecclesiastical court was balked but emboldened by the
discussion, which had been rendered fruitless by the withdrawal
of Mr. Scott ; and now a bolder move suggested itself to one
of its members, who resolved upon bringing the great preacher
himself to the bar. Irving had just been entertaining dreams
of another apostolic visit to Edinburgh, when this threatened
stroke arrested him. Always drawn, by a fascination which he
seemed unable to resist, toward his native country, he had writ
ten to Mr. Macdonald: "I desire very much, if possible, to come
to Edinburgh for one fortnight, to preach a series of discourses
upon the nature and acts of the Incarnation. I wish it to be dur
ing the sitting of the college, and in the evenings, or evenings and
mornings, when the divinity students might attend. Ask Mr.
Tait if he would risk his pulpit, or could you get another?" The
arrangement even went farther. In December Irving wrote again
to the same friend :
" Mr. Maclean comes up this very week, and to him, with our most
devout and devoted missionary, I can with all confidence commit my
flock ; so that in the Christmas recess I can, and, God permitting,
will be with you to keep the feast. . . . Mr. Carlyle's counsel is good,
and I take as the subject of my evening discourses the Epistle to the
Hebrews — ' A series of lectures upon the Epistle to the Hebrews.'
* See Appendix A.

398 DUTIFULNESS TO THE CHURCH.
But my wife has suggested, and I have faith to undertake besides,
if you think it good, a series of prophetic expositions, in the forenoon
of each day, upon prophetical subjects connected with the signs of
these times, the restoration of the Jews, the coming of the Lord and
His kingdom. For many ladies and infirm people might come out
in the morning who could not venture in the evening, and some might
desire both. In this case I would make Sunday a resting day, and
show my dutifulness to the Church in waiting upon the ministry of
my brethren. Now I could set off from this so as to be in Edinburgh
on the eve of Christmas day, that is, Friday night ; and, if you please,
you might advertise the lectures to begin on Saturday. . . . At the
rate of a chapter each night, it would occupy me just a fortnight, af
ter which I might find time to visit my friends in various parts for an
other week, and so return, having been absent three Sabbaths. Judge
and decide, and send me word by return of post. When my dear
brother Alexander Scott comes to Edinburgh (he is to be married
this day, God bless him!), would you say that if he were to remain
and go over the subjects with me privately, I should deem it a great
help ? but let him be free. . . . My flock is in great peace and har
mony, and I think concentrating more and more, praised be the
Lord!" He had, however, no sooner arranged thus particularly the de
tails of a Christmas holiday so much after his own heart, when
the apostolic enterprise was put a stop to, for the moment, by the
course of events which brought him, in his own person, before the
bar of the Presbytery, and began the series of his ecclesiastical
persecutions. This process and its issue he himself describes, with his usual
minuteness, in the preface to Christ's Holiness in the Flesh, from
which we have already quoted. After reference to the discussion
in Mr. Scott's case, the narrative goes on as follows :
" Some time after this, one of the brethren of the Prebytery signi
fied to me by letter his purpose of calling my book into question the
next day after he wrote, when the Presbytery was to meet ; to whom
I replied that this was to proceed against the divine rule of Christ,
which required him to speak to myself privately, and then with wit
nesses, before bringing a matter before the Church. In this he ac
quiesced, and did not make any motion concerning it ; but another
brother did, when I solemnly protested against the proceeding ; and
the Presbytery would not entertain it, but required that I should be
privately conferred with. Many weeks passed, but no one of them
came near me, until the next meeting of the Presbytery was just at
hand. Then the first mover of the matter waited upon me, and I
laid before him the tract, instructing him to point me out the objec
tionable parts, when, to my amazement, he either would not or could
not; for, though he Bhuffled over its leaves, he could not alight upon
any thing ; and then at length he said he would write what he ob
jected to. But he never did it. I stood engaged to be in Ireland,

A CONTUMACIOUS BROTHER. 399
and could not be present at the next meeting of the Presbytery; yet
in my absence he sought to force it on, and was again prevented by
the Presbytery. When I returned, being appointed with two other
members of Presbytery (for besides myself there were but three min
isters in all) to confer with the young preacher referred to above as
desiring to withdraw his application for ordination because he could
not sign the Westminster Confession of Faith, when the conference
was over, these two brethren did request that we might converse to
gether upon the tract, and they pointed out two or three passages
in it to which they objected, for which kindness I was very thankful.
But still, the brother who had stood forth from time to time as my
accuser took no opportunity of conferring with me whatever. And
when, at the next meeting, he brought forward his motion indicting
my book, and reading from it many passages to which he objected,
I stood forth, and having first disabused the Presbytery, and also the
people, of the errors laid to my charge, as if I taught that Christ sinned
in instead of sanctifying our nature, I moved that the contumacious
brother should be censured for setting at naught both the canon of
the Lord and the order of the Presbytery, and be required to pro
ceed regularly. But, to my astonishment and vexation, I found the
very same Presbytery willing to indulge him, and these very mem
bers who had themselves sanctioned their own order by conferring
privately with me. I then rose the second time, and signified to
them what I could and what I could not submit to the adjudication
of that body of three ministers and as many elders, from whom I had
no appeal. Every thing which affected my conduct among them as a
brother I would submit to free censure and rebuke if necessary, but
nothing affecting my standing as a preacher and ordained minister
of the Church of Scotland, and as the minister of the National Scotch
Church in Regent Square, who, by the trust-deed, must be ordained
by a Presbytery in Scotland, and not by the Presbytery of London.
It was argued that I stood wholly and entirely at their tribunal ; and
when I perceived that there was nothing for it but either to give up
my standing as a minister of Christ to thejudgment of these six men,
or to dissolve my voluntary connection with them, I resolved of the
two evils to choose the least, and not to submit the authority of the
Church of Scotland to the verdict of any six men in Christendom.
And though I have tried my conscience much, I feel that I did right.
But, before taking this final step, I rose the third time, and conjured
them by every tie and obligation to Christ, to the Church, to myself
personally, to my large and numerous flock, to the memory of my
brotherly labors with and for them, to my acts of service and kind
ness to them individually, which I will not here, and did not there,
enumerate, to take the regular process of the Lord's appointing, and
I doubted not all would be well : which when they would not do, I
arose and went forth from them, appealing my cause to the Church
of Scotland, who alone have rightful authority over me and my flock.
. . . The Presbytery, notwithstanding my solemn separation from
their association, and likewise the separation of the elders of the Na
tional Church, and the whole Church with us, proceeded with their
measures against me, and carried things to the utmost stretch of

400 VISIT TO SCOTLAND GIVEN UP.
their power; for all which they are answerable at the bar of the
Head of the Church, and not to me."
Another account of the same event, in which a greater degree
of personal feeling and excitement appears, was contained in a let
ter which — a few days after the one previously quoted, in which
he had arranged all the preliminaries of a Christmas visit to Scot
land — he addressed to Mr. Macdonald :
" My very dear Friend, — I have now had an opportunity of con
sulting both my session and other influential men of the congrega
tion, and they are all of one mind, that, even though it should pre
cipitate the present mixture of good and evil in the Church, and bring
down upon my head wrath, I should do it ;* but not immediately,
because of our own trials. The Presbytery of London, that is, three
members, one of them just taking his leave, and another of them hav
ing oftentimes declared his agreement with me, and two elders, one
of them having done the same — these five persons, in the face of my
protest against their power, Mr. Hamilton's against their injustice,
and the elder of Woolwich and the elder of London Wall's entire
disapprobation, have condemned my writings, excommunicated me
from their body, and recommended their sentence to be read from
the pulpits. Our session met last night, and drew up, and subscribed
with their hands, a solemn testimony to the truths taught by me and
held by us ; and I have added a brief explanation of the principles
on which I acted by the Presbytery, and the Presbytery by me ; and
it will be published in all ways, and read from our pulpit next Sab
bath. We are as one man, blessed be the Lord, and so is all my
flock. What a grace !
" Nevertheless, some thought that I should be at my place for a
few Sabbaths, and I wished every day to visit the flock and establish
them ; so that we must pass from the Christmas recess, and without
at present saying when, hope and pray that it may be as soon as pos
sible. ... If you should see any likelihood of its being perverted,
send me instant notice, and I will come at all hazards rather than
lose the opportunity, which I perceive to be a golden one. . . .
My plans are the same for the subjects as in my last letter. If any
change arise I will communicate. Now pray much for us here, be
cause there are many enemies ; but oh, what a wide door, and effect
ual ! The Lord has given me the honor of being the first to suffer ;
blessed be His name !
" Your faithful friend and brother, Edward Irving."
This somewhat willful and lofty step of denying the jurisdic
tion of the London Presbytery left Irving in an isolated position,
which, though it did not in any respect, as yet, injure his exter
nal standing, touched his brotherly heart. He seems to have in
trenched himself stoutly, like the impracticable visionary man he
was, behind that divine rule of procedure, which has long ceased
* Referring to his projected sermons in Edinburgh.

FRIGHT AND AGREEMENT OF THE PRESBYTERY. 401
to be, if ever it was, the rule of ecclesiastical proceedings. To re
quire men to do, even in Church matters, exactly and literally
what their Lord tells them, is a thing few think of attempting ;
and the ordinary spectator will doubtless sympathize to some ex
tent with that hapless Presbytery of London, whom the great
preacher, in the simplicity of his heart, called to private confer
ence with himself before they ventured on public condemnation.
He was not aware, as his unfortunate accuser was, that in private
conference, the weaker man naturally goes to the wall ; nor could
comprehend, in his ingenuous greatness, how antagonists, so unfit
to cope with him individually, might be glad to huddle together,
and express, in what language of condemnation they could, their
confused sense of something beyond them, which they could nei
ther consent to nor understand. Nothing can be more expressive
than that pertinacious agreement which, when they were thus put
to it, united the alarmed presbyters, each man of whom well knew
that, in private conference, he must infallibly break down and
yield. They seized their opportunity with a vulgar but wise per
ception of it, refusing the perilous ordeal of private personal en
counter; and with a lofty indignation, which might be almost ar
rogance, were one to name it harshly, the accused arose and went
forth. He had no insight into that expedient of weakness. He
called that harshly injustice which was mere fright and natural
human poltroonery, and so left them, giving, in his own elevated
thoughts, a certain grandeur to the petty persecution. Henceforth
he was alone in his labors and troubles ; no triumphant gladness
of conscious orthodoxy, because the Presbytery had so decided,
could hereafter give assurance to his own personal certainty.
They of his own house had lifted up their heel against him.
Notwithstanding all his independence, the profound loyalty of his
soul was henceforward balked of its healthful necessities. The
only authority which could now harm or help him — the sole pow
er he recognized — was distant in Scotland, apart from the scene
of his warfare and the knowledge of his work, judging coldly, not
even without a touch of jealous prejudice. He was cast unnatu
rally free of restraint and power ; that lawful, sweet restraint, that
power endowed with all visionary excellences and graces, to which
the tender dutifuluness so seldom wanting to great genius natural
ly clings. It was hard — it was sad — it was almost fatal work for
Irving. He could not live without that support and solace; and
when this disjunction was accomplished, he found his Presbytery,
C c

402 STATEMENT BY HIS KIRK SESSION.
his authority, the needful concurrence and command which were
indispensable to him, in other things.
The statement drawn up by the Session, to which he refers
above, was as follows : "London, 15th December, 1830.
" We, the Minister, Missionary, Elders, and Deacons of the Nation
al Scotch Church, Regent Square, feel it a duty we owe to ourselves,
to the congregation to which we belong, to the Church of Christ, and
to all honest men, no longer to remain silent under the heavy charges
that are brought against us, whether from ignorance, misapprehen
sion, or willful perversion of the truth, and therefore we solemnly
declare " That we utterly detest and abhor any doctrine that would charge
with sin, original or actual, our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
whom we worship and adore as 'the very and eternal God, of one
substance, and equal with the Father ; who, when the fullness of the
time was come, did take upon Him man's nature, with all the essen
tial properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin;' 'very
God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God
and man;' who in the days of His flesh was 'holy, harmless, undefiled,
and full of grace and truth ;' ' who through the Eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God ;' ' the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world,' 'a Lamb without blemish and without spot;' in
which offering of Himself ' He made a proper, real, and full satisfac
tion to His Father's justice in our behalf.' And we farther declare
that all our peace of conscience, progress in sanctification, and hope
of eternal blessedness resteth upon the sinlessness of that sacrifice,
and the completeness of that atonement which He hath made for us
as our substitute.
" And, finally, we do solemnly declare that these are the doctrines
which are constantly taught in this church, agreeably to the standards
of the Church of Scotland and the Word of God.
Edward Irving, Minister.
David Brown, Missionary.

Archibald Horn,
David Blyth,
Wm. Hamilton,
Duncan Mackenzie,
James Nisbet,

Charles Vertue,
Alex. Gillispie, Jun.
? Elders. John Thomson,
J. C. Henderson,
Thos. Carswell,
David Ker,

Deacons."

In the midst of these personal agitations and ecclesiastical troub
les, a quaint and characteristic public incident diversifies the his
tory. The congregation at Regent Square, under Irving's inspi
ration, had decided upon presenting a petition to the king, calling
upon him to appoint a national fast. The petition itself, a power
ful and eloquent production, like all Irving's personal appeals, is

PETITION TO THE KLNG.— LORD MELBOURNE. 403
now only to be found in collections of the tracts and pamphlets
of the period. Accompanied by. three of his elders, he went to
Lord Melbourne, by appointment, to present this singular address.
While -they waited in the anteroom the premier's leisure, Irving
called upon his somewhat amazed and embarrassed companions to
kneel and pray for "favor in the sight of the king's minister," as
a private letter describes it. When they were admitted to the
jaunty presence of that cheerful functionary, the preacher read
over to him at length the remarkable document he came to pre
sent, during the reading of which, we are told, " Lord Melbourne
was much impressed, and also by some solemn things Mr. Mac
kenzie (one of the elders) said, on the only means of saving this
country." When they took leave, the minister " shook hands
heartily" with Irving, who, holding that hand in his gigantic
grasp, "implored the blessing and guidance of God on his admin
istration." A scene more remarkable could scarcely be. On one
side an impersonation of the good-hearted, cheerful man of the
world, bland by temper and policy, to whom most things were
humbug, and truth a fluctuating possibility ; and confronting him
the man of God, in utter loyalty and simplicity, mournful over
falsehood, but little suspicious of it, to whom all truth was abso
lute, and hesitation or compromise unknown. They confronted
each other for a moment, a wonderful spectacle ; the prophet soul
bestowing lofty benedictions upon the awed and wondering states
man. It is a picture with which we may well close the record of
this momentous year.

404 SIGNS OF APPROACHING FATE.

CHAPTER XVI.
1831.
Church Conflicts. — Reference to the Mother Church. — The Usury of Tears. — Ir
ving's Repetition of his Belief. — Christ's Holiness in the Flesh. — Prayer for the
General Assembly. — "In Labors abundant." — His Attitude and Aspect. — On the
Threshold of Fate. — Meeting of the General Assembly. — Position assumed by Mr.
Scott. — The Assembly's Decisions. — Irving's Determination to defend his Rights.
— Peculiarity of the two Cases of Heresy. — Not heretical Opinions, but realizing
Faith. — Condemnation of Irving's Doctrine. — Prayers for the Outpouring of the
Spirit. — Inspiration of the Last Days. — First Appearance of the Tongues. — His
Prepossession. — The Prayer of Faith. — The Answer of God. — The Fulfillment of
Promise. — Trying the Spirits. — His unjudicial Mind. — The Baptism of the Holy
Ghost. — Inevitable Separation. — Utterances permitted at Morning Meetings. —
Probation. — Excitement in the Congregation. — Crisis. — The Matter taken out of
his Hands. — First Utterance in the Sunday Worship. — Commotion at the Evening
Service. — The Tumults of the People. — Comments of the Press. — Increase to the
Church. — Order of the Morning Service. — Character of the Tongues.— Supposed
to be existing Languages. — Described by Irving. — The Utterances in English.—
Their Influence. — Virtuous Indignation. — Sis Determination at all Hazards.-^
Withdraws the last Restraint. — Impossibility of drawing Back. — Remonstrances
of his Friends. — First Meeting of the Trustees. — "If I perish, I perish." — Affec
tionate Conspiracy. — Future Order of Worship. — Full Statement of his Inten
tions. — Publications of the Year. — Original Standards of the Church. — The West
minster Confession. — Recalls the Church of Scotland to herself.^— Papers in the
Morning Watch. — Irving and the Record. — The Trustees. — The Kirk-Session. —
His Remonstrance. — Importunities of his Friends.
The year 1831 dawned upon Irving solemnly, full of all the
prognostics of approaching fate. He was himself separated from
the little ecclesiastical world which had hitherto represented to
him the Church of his country and his heart. The Presbytery,
in which he had heretofore found a sufficient symbol of ecclesias
tical authority, and which stood in the place of all those venera
ble institutions of Church government and legislation on which he
had lavished the admiration and reverence of his filial heart, had
rejected him, and been rejected by him. While still strenuously
upholding his own title to be considered a minister of the Church
of Scotland, he stood isolated from all the fellowships and re
straints of Presbyterianism, virtually separated — though always
refusing to believe in or admit that separation — from the Church
upon which he still and always looked with so much longing love.

CHURCH CONFLICTS. 405
His closest and most prized friends were in actual conflict with the
same ecclesiastical authorities, or at least with the popular courts
and theological controversialists, who were all that Scotland had
to represent the grave and patient authority of the Church. Mr.
Campbell, of Row, after years of apostolical labor, the efficacy of
which was testified by the whole district which his influence per
vaded, a man whose vital piety and apostolical life nobody could
impugn ; and Mr. Maclean, younger, less wise, but not less a faith
ful servant of his Master, were both struggling for bare existence
in the Church, and approaching the decision of their fate within
her bounds. Their names were identified and united with that
of the solitary champion in London, whose forlorn but dauntless
standard had risen for years among all the enmities which can be
encountered by man. He who had not hesitated to adopt the
cause of both with warm enthusiasm, stood far off in his solitude,
watching, with a heart that ached over his own powerlessness to
avert it, the approaching crisis, at which his beloved Church was,
according to his conception, to deny the truth, and condemn her
own hopes and future life in the persons of these " defenders" at
her bar. Nearer home, Mr. Scott had temporarily withdrawn from
the contest, which, in his case also, was to be decided at the sitting
of the General Assembly in the ensuing May. Without even that
dangerous but beloved henchman at his elbow, supported only by
an assistant, who, doubtless entirely conscientious and trustworthy
so long as his support lasted, was yet to fail him in his hour of
need, Irving stood alone, at the head of his session, clinging to that
last prop of the ecclesiastical order in which, during all his former
life, his soul had delighted. Condemned by his Presbytery, and
held in suspicion by the distant Church to which he owed alle
giance, the little local consistory stood by him loyally, without an
appearance as yet of division. Every man of them had come for
ward in his defense and justification, to set their name and credit
to the stake on which he had put his heart and life. They were
his earliest and closest friends in London, stout Churchmen, pious
Christians, sufficiently Scotch and ecclesiastical, attached to all the
traditions of the Church, to make it possible to forget that they
stood, a little recalcitrant community, and "inferior court," in op
position to the orthodox jurisdiction of the next superior circle of
rulers. Minister and session alike delivered themselves triumph
antly from this dilemma by direct reference to the Church of Scot
land. It is possible that a little unconscious Jesuitry lay in this

406 THE USURY OF TEARS.
appeal; for the Church of Scotland was as powerless to interfere
on the southern side of the Tweed, as the Bishop^ of London would
be on the north ; and so long as the minister of the National Scotch
Church refrained from asking any thing from her, could not inter
fere, otherwise than by distant and ineffectual censures, with his
proceedings. Such, however, was the attitude they assumed; a
position not dissimilar from that of certain English clergymen in
Scotland, who, professing to be of the English Church, refuse the
jurisdiction of the Scottish Episcopal, and live bishopless, and
beyond the reach of government, in visionary allegiance to their
distant mother.
Amid all these outward agitations, Irving's heart still throbbed
with personal sorrows and joys ; from the sad experience of the
former comes the following letter, written to his sister, Mrs. Fer-
gusson, and her husband, on the loss, so well known to himself, of
one of their children : "London, 17th January, 1831.
" My dear Brother and Sister, — You have at length been made
to prove the bitterest of mortal trials, and to feel it is a season of pe
culiar grace to the people of God. George* felt desirous to answer
your letter communicating the painful information, and I was glad to
permit him, that you may see he has not forgotten you. I think he
is very true-hearted and honest in his affections.
" Now, my dear brethren, while you are exercised with this sor
row, while the wound and smart of it is still fresh in your hearts, be
exercised much in faith and prayer toward God, in humility, and re
pentance, and confession of sin for all your house, that, being exer
cised with the affliction, you may be made partakers of His holiness.
I remember well when I lost my darling Edward : it taught me two
lessons ; the first, how little I had dealt faithfully toward God in his
baptism, not having surrendered him altogether to the Lord, and
used him as the Lord's stewardship, to be surrendered when it seem
ed good to his Father and to my Father. Let me pray you to take
this view of the children who are still spared to you. The second
lesson which I learned was { o know how little of human existence is
on this side the grave, and by how much the better and nobler por
tion of it is in eternity. This comforted me exceedingly, and I seek
to comfort you with the consolation with which I have myself been
comforted of Christ.
" For our own affairs, I have had much to suffer for the truth's
sake since I was with you, and expect to have much more to suffer in
the course of not many months. I know not where nor how it is to
come, but I know it is coming ; and in the foreview of it, I ask your
prayers and the prayers of all the faithful near you. . . ."
Early in the year the mournful household was gladdened by
* His younger brother, then practicing as a surgeon in London.

"CHRIST'S HOLINESS IN THE FLESH." 407
another prosperous birth, that of the only surviving son of the
family, Martin Irving, now Principal of the University of Mel
bourne. On this occasion, Irving, writing to his father-in-law, Dr.
Martin, to " give him joy of a grandson," enters as follows into af
fairs less personal, but equally engrossing :
" Though I have not time now to answer your much-esteemed let
ter, I will just say this to keep your mind at ease — that I never sup
pose the union of the Son of God with our nature to be otherwise
than by the Holy Ghost, ^nd therefore, whatever in our nature is pre
disposed to evil, was always by the Holy Ghost disposed to good ;
moreover, that there are not two persons, the one the person of the
Holy Ghost, and the other the person of the Son, in Him, but that
He, the Son of God, acting within the limits of the Son of man, or as
the Christ, did Himself ever use the Holy Ghost to the use and end
of presenting His members a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
unto God. That it should be a sacrifice doth not render it unholy,
for the text saith holy ; and how was it a living sacrifice but by con
tinually putting to death and keeping in death the law of the flesh.
The difference, so far as I can apprehend your doctrine, between us,
is, that you suppose the Holy Spirit to have at once and for aye
sanctified the flesh of Christ before He took it, that He might take
it ; I say that Christ did this ever by the Holy Spirit, but that it was
as completely done at the first as at the last ; and to your notion I ob
ject many things which I will draw out in order and send to you.
Oh ! how you mistake in thinking that such a letter as you wrote me
would not be most acceptable ! I thank you exceedingly for it. I
would that others had done likewise. But, dear and honored sir, be
assured that my confidence in the truth of what I hold is not of the
teaching of man, but is of the teaching of the Word and Spirit of
God. . . . My blessing be upon you all — the blessing of one of
Christ's servants, who loves his Lord, and is ready, by His grace, to
give up all for His name's sake !"
In the same spring, while still explaining and re-explaining to
his friends, with inexhaustible patience, this special doctrine, Ir
ving was also preparing another work on the same subject, pub
lished shortly afterward under the title of Christ's Holiness in the
Flesh ; the Form and Fountain-head of all Holiness in Flesh. The
preface to this book consists of a long, minute, and animated nar
rative of the progress of the controversy as far as it had proceed
ed, and especially of the dealings of the London Presbytery with
himself, from which I have already repeatedly quoted. The sto
ry is told with a certain flush of indignation and self-assertion, as
of a man unable to deny his own consciousness of being himself
a servant and soldier of Jesus Christ, more zealous and more* fully
acknowledged of his Master than those who, in Christ's name, had
condemned him. The book itself is one which he seems to have

408 PRAYER FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
been satisfied with as a fit and careful statement of his views. "I
should like that it were sent among the clergy," he writes to his
friend Mr. Macdonald, in Edinburgh ; "I think it will be popular
enough to pay its own expenses in time." In the same letter he
declares that " I intend being in Edinburgh at the Assembly, if
I should crawl and beg my way. God give me both strength of
body and mind to endure what is before me ! I intend proceed
ing by Galloway and Dumfriesshire, and desire to preach in Edin
burgh twice a day the first week of the Assembly ; the second, to
be at leisure for conference and business." This intention, how
ever, he did not succeed in carrying out. The still more engross
ing interest then springing up at home, or motives of prudence,
strange to his usual mode of procedure, kept Irving away from
the actual arena at that momentous period. He did not go to
Edinburgh for that Assembly, nor thrust himself into conflict
with the Church. What happened there he watched with the ut
most eagerness and interest ; but the prudence of his friends, or
his own interest in matters more immediately calling his attention,
kept him at that moment from personal collision with the excited
and jealous courts of the Scotch Church.
He did, however, all that an earnest man could do to influence
their proceedings. Having already exhausted himself in expla
nation and appeal to the tribunal, where he still hoped to find
mercy and wisdom in the case of his friends, and patience and
consideration for himself, he did the only thing which remained
possible to his devout and believing heart. He besought the
prayers of his people for the direction of the ecclesiastical Parlia
ment. In the brightening mornings of spring he invited around
him the members of the Church, to pray for wisdom and guid
ance to the General Assembly — an Assembly which, to many of
these members, had been hitherto little known and less cared for.
He collected not only his stanch Scottish remnant, but his new
and still more fervent disciples, who knew nothing of Scotland or
her Church, to agree upon this thing wliich they should ask of
God. They met at half past six in the morning for this object;
and there, in the church so fondly called National, Irving, fervent
and impassioned, presented the prayers — not only of the Scotch
Churchmen who understood the matter fully, but of the puzzled
English adherents who believed in him, and were content to join
their supplications with his for a matter so near his heart — on be
half of the ecclesiastical rulers who were about to brand and stig-

"IN LABORS ABUNDANT." 409
matizehim as a heretic. This prayer-meeting for the benefit of
the General Assembly was the origin of the early morning service
which has now become one of the characteristic features in the
worship of the "' Catholic Apostolic Church." Engaged in these
daily matins on their behalf, Irving remained absent from the As
sembly and the people of Edinburgh at a crisis so interesting and
important, but did not the less follow the deliberations, in which
he himself and his friends were so deeply concerned, with breath
less interest and anxious attention.
Neither his personal activity, however, nor the popularity which
had so long followed him, was impaired by the anxiety of the cri
sis, or by the rush of his thoughts in another direction. He still
spent himself freely in all manner of voluntary services. In
April, his sister-in-law Elizabeth, Mrs. Hamilton, mentions, in her
home letters, that " Edward has commenced a Thursday morning
lecture, besides the Wednesday evening. He is going through
John's Gospel in the morning, and through Genesis in the even
ing. The Sunday evening services are crowded to overflowing
at present. The subject is the second coming of Christ, from the
last chapter of 2d Peter." He is also still visible at public meet
ings, taking his share in the general interests of religion every
where ; laboring yet again to convince the Bible Society to sanc
tify its business with prayer ; giving up, as he himself relates, " all
his spare time to the (Jewish) Institution," and getting into pri
vate embroilments by reason of his friendliness toward strangers
— Dr. Chalmers at this time being, as it appears, irritated with Ir
ving and some of his friends on account of their generous patron
age of a Jew, whom the doctor, too, would willingly have pat
ronized as a convert, but was not content to admit into all the
equalities of Christian fellowship. If ever there was a time when
Irving, longing for the adulation which attended his earlier years,
and smarting from the neglect which followed, or is supposed,
with a dramatic completeness not always inevitable in real life,
to have followed it, turned aside to woo back fashion by singu
larity, now at last must have occurred that moment. But it is
not the aspect of a feverish ambition, straining after the^pplause
of the crowd, which meets our gaze in this man, now Angering,
trembling upon the threshold of his fate. Fashion has been gone
for years— years of wholesome, generous, gigantic labor ; and on
the very eve of the time when strange lights flushing over his firm
ament were anew to raise curiosity to frenzy, and direct against

410 ON THE THRESHOLD OF FATE.
him all the outcries of propriety and all the' transitory excitement
of the mob, it is a figure all unlike the disappointed prophet, ready
rather to call down fire from heaven than to suffer himself to fade
from the public recollection, which reveals itself before our eyes.
Instead of that hectic apparition, there stood in the crowded heart
of London a man whom the world had never been able to forget ;
who needed no extraordinary pretense of miracle to recall his
name to men's recollections; whose name, on the contrary, had
only to be connected with any obscure ecclesiastical process to
make that and every thing connected with it the object of im
mediate attention and interest, jealous public guardians flashing
their lights upon it for the sake of the one name always intelligi
ble through the gloom. London journals grew to be familiar
with the technical terms of Scotch Presbyterianism for Irving's
sake. The English public suffered strange forms of ecclesiastical
conflict to occupy its regard because he was in the midst. This
was little like the dismal neglect which wakes mad fancies in the
heart of genius. Wherever he went, crowds waylaid his steps,
turning noble country-houses into impromptu temples, and seizing
the stray moments of his leisure with jealous eagerness. His own
church was crowded to overflowing at those services which were
least exclusively congregational. Amid all this, his own eyes,
burning with life and ardor, turned not to fashion or the great
world, not to society or the givers of fame, but were bent with
anxious gaze upon that " gray city of the North" where the Scotch
Assembly gathered, and where, as he conceived, the beloved
Church of his fathers was herself at the bar to acknowledge or
deny the truth. While he stood thus, the moment was approach
ing when another chapter of his history — the darkest, the saddest,
the last — perhaps, in some respects, the most splendid of all — was
to dawn upon Irving. At this crisis, when he has been supposed
to be wandering wildly astray — a disappointed notoriety — a fa
natic enthusiast — a man in search of popular notice and applause,
here is the homely picture of him in the words of his sister Eliz
abeth — a picture only heightened out of its calm of sensible sim-
.plicity by the tender touch of domestic love: "Edward contin
ues remarkably well, notwithstanding his many labors," writes
this affectionate witness. " On Sunday we did not get home from
the morning service till two o'clock. He came with us ; and af
ter dinner William and he -went to visit two families in sickness;
took tea at Judd Place, and went to church half an hour before

MEETING OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 4H
service, to talk with young . communicants ; went through the
evening service with great animation, preaching a beautiful ser
mon on ' A new commandment give I unto you ;' walked up here
again, and William and he went to pray with a child, up at White
Conduit House. He then returned home, and was in church next
morning as usual at half past six o'clock. God gives him amaz
ing strength. The morning meetings continue to be well attend
ed. .. . Dear Edward has had much to bear, and we should suf
fer with him. He has had strong consolations in the midst of it
all, and I think is endeavoring to bear a conscience void of offense
toward God and toward all men. He becomes daily more tender,
and daily more spiritually wise."
This was the aspect of the man about to be rapt into a mysteri
ous world of revelation and oracular utterance, of prophecy and
portent. When this sober sketch was written, he was trembling
on its very verge ; but whether he went forward to that last mys
terious trial in hectic impatience and presumption, with a wild,
half-conscious intention of presenting himself before the eyes of
the world, or whether he approached it in all the solemn simplic
ity of his nature, with no thought, conscious or unconscious, but
of his glorious Master and the progress of His kingdom, I do not
hesitate to leave the readers of this history to judge.
Meantime, while the prayers of the faithful rose for them morn
ing by morning in that distant London church, echoing the anx
ious prayers of many an agitated soul in Scotland, the General
Assembly met. To the troubles of that solemn period, when the
saintly Campbell stood at the bar to be finally and solemnly cast
out of the Church, Mr. Scott, with a certain touch of chivalric per
versity, which is almost amusing amid such grave surroundings,
added a climax. In the midst of the anxious struggle, while
Campbell and his champions labored to prove that the standards
of the Church did not pronounce against that expanded and lib
eral Gospel which neither Paul nor John hesitated to proclaim,
here suddenly appeared this brilliant knight-errant by himself
upon the field, proclaiming his readiness, not only to impugn the
standards, but to argue the matter with the Church, and maintain
against all comers, in the strength of an argumentative power
which Irving calls unequalled, his solitary daring assault against
the might of orthodoxy. The Assembly, however, took no notice
of the bold summons which this dauntless opponent rang upon
its shield. It deposed Mr. Campbell for maintaining that Christ

412 THE ASSEMBLY'S DECISIONS.
died for all men, and that the whole world stood upon a common
ground in universal relations to the manifested love of God ; and
it withdrew from Mr. Scott his license to preach, which, indeed,
considering his opposition to most ecclesiastical propositions, was
not so remarkable. This notable convocation, however, had still
other matters on hand. It settled the case of Mr. Maclean, of
Dreghorn, by sending him back, upon technical grounds, to his
Presbytery, leaving that victim to be baited to death by the in
ferior court ; and, by way of relieving these heavier labors, it
launched a passing arrow at Irving. This was done on the occa
sion of a Report upon Books and Pamphlets containing Erroneous
Opinions, in approving which a motion was made to the effect
that, if at any time the Rev. Edward Irving should claim the priv
ileges of a licentiate or minister of the Church of Scotland, the
Presbytery of the bounds should be enjoined to inquire whether
he were the author of certain works, and to proceed thereafter as
they should see fit. This motion — a more peremptory suggestion
having failed, and a contemptuous appeal for toleration, on the
score that these works were not calculated to influence any well-
informed mind, having also broken down — was carried. This was
the first direct authoritative censure pronounced upon Irving. It
gave him a personal share in the sorrow and indignation with
which a large portion of the devout people of Scotland saw the
Church commit itself to a rash decision upon matters so import
ant. And it was in anticipation of some such attack that he wrote
as follows, while the Assembly was sitting, to his faithful friend in
Edinburgh, apparently just after having heard of the temporary
unsuccess of the proceedings against Mr. Maclean :
"London, 26 May, 1831.
"We have had great joy and thanksgiving over the deliverance
which we have had out of the hands of those evangelical doctors,
whose violation of all natural affection (being most of them intimate
friends of my own) and of the law of Christian discipline will no doubt
be punished by, as it hath proceeded from, the spirit of reckless vio
lence. Dreading this, I sit down to write you what should be our
course of procedure in case the committee ask the Assembly for any
judgment against me or my books. I feel that I ought not to lose
one iota of my standing as an ordained minister, or even as a man,
without an effort, and a strong and steady one, to preserve it. If
they shall present any evil report thereupon, and ask the Assembly
for a sanction of it, I give Carlyle* full power to appear at the bar for
* Thomas Carlyle, Esq., advocate, of Edinburgh, who had conducted the case of
Mr. Maclean.

IRVING'S DETERMINATION TO DEFEND HIS RIGHTS. 413
•
me, and claim for me the privilege of being first communicated with,
in order to explain away, as far as I honestly can, the matters of of
fense; and if I have erred in any expression, to have an opportunity
of confessing it ; for, however they may labor to separate me and my
book, their decision upon my book must materially affect my standing
with the Church, and no man ought to suffer loss without the oppor
tunity of defending himself. But if they should found upon their re
port any proposal to exclude me from the pulpits of Scotland, or to
put any mark upon me, then I solemnly protest for a hearing, and an
argument, and a libel, and a regular process of trial, with a view to
that issue. For, though I might, and do rejoice in my personal se
curity, I can not think of the Church being led to give judgment
against me, or against the truth, or to bind me up from my natural
liberty and right in my own country. I am not anxious about these
things, but I am deeply impressed with the duty of contesting every
inch of ground with these perverters of the Gospel and destroyers of
the vineyard. In leaving this matter in your hands and dear Car-
lyle's, and above and over all, in the hands of the Lord, to whom I
now commend it, I feel that it will be well cared for. I would not
intrude upon the Assembly, or trouble them unnecessarily, but I
would lose none of my rights without a controversy for them in the
name and strength of the Lord. . . . God has said, London is thy
post; take care ofthat, and I will take care of thee. . . . Our prayer-
meeting is well attended, fully one hundred. I do not yet think that
we have had the distinct pouring out of the spirit of prayer. I feel
more assurance daily that the Lord is bestowing upon me ' the word
of wisdom,' which I take to be the faculty of opening the mysteries
of God hidden in the Scriptures. . . . The Lord be with thy spirit !
" Your faithful brother, Edwd. Irving."
The proceedings of this Assemby, momentous as they were and
have been proved to be, had a special characteristic, which I will
venture to indicate, though the point I remark is at once subtle
and important enough to demand a fuller and clearer exposition
than I am qualified to give* For no resistance of authority or
perversion of belief was Mr. Campbell deposed and Irving con
demned. The fault of Mr. Campbell was that he received and set
forth as the foundation of his creed that full, free, and universal
offer of God's love and pardon, which the veriest Calvinist per
mits and requires his preachers to make. No preaching has ever
been popular in Scotland, more than in any other country, which
did not offer broadly to every repentant sinner the forgiveness
and acceptance which are in Christ Jesus. However largely the
* All that is said on this subject I say with diffidence, and only as one who "oc-
cupieth the room of the unlearned" may venture to form a private opinion ; but no
body can glance into these ¦ controversies without feeling deeply the fatal power of
words to obscure and overcloud on both sides the divine heart of a common faith.

414 SUBSTANCE OF IRVING'S OFFENSE. «
inducements of terror might be used, however closely the myste
rious limitation of election might be established, no preacher had
ever been debarred from — on the. contrary, every preacher had
been instructed and incited to — the duty of calling all men to re
pentance — of offering, to every soul that sought it, access to the
Savior, and of echoing the scriptural call to " whosoever will."
This universally acknowledged duty of the preacher was, indeed,
to be ballasted, and kept in due theological equilibrium by full expo
sition of doctrine ; but no man had ever ventured to forbid or dis
courage the incessant iteration of that call to repentance, to conver
sion, to salvation, which every body acknowledged (howsoever lim
ited by mysteries of decree and predestination unknown to men) to
be the burden of the Gospel. Mr. Campbell, a man of intense and
concentrated vision, received this commission put into his hands,
and took his stand upon it. He was willing to leave the mysteries
of God to be expounded by other minds more prone to those inves
tigations than his own. He took the offer which he was instruct
ed to make as the embassador of heaven as full credentials for his
mission. He made this proclamation of God's love the foundation
of all Christian life and faith, and believed and maintained it fer
vently. This was the sum of his offense against the orthodox
standards of his Church. No one of all the men who condemned
him but was bound, by ordination vow, by public expectation,
and by Christian love, to proclaim broadly that invitation to every
soul, and promise to every contrite heart, which Campbell held to
be no hypothesis, but an unspeakable verity. Herein lay the pe
culiarity of his case. He was expelled from the Church for mak
ing his special stand upon, and elevating into the rank of a vital
truth, that very proclamation of universal mercy which the Church
herself had trained and sent him forth to utter.
The offense of Irving was one, when honestly stated, of a still
more subtle and delicate shade. Unaware of saying any thing
that all Christians did not believe; ready to accept heartily the
very definition given in the standards of the Church as a true
statement of his doctrine ; always ready to bring his belief to the
test of those standards, and to find their testimony in his favor,
his error lay in believing the common statement, " tempted in all
points as we are, yet without sin," to infer a diviner ineffable mer
it, a deeper condescension of love in the human life of the holy
Lord than could be stated in any formula. What the General
Assembly interpreted to mean a passive Innocence, he interpret-

PRAYERS FOR OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT. 415
ed to mean an active Holiness in that divine immaculate Savior,
whose heavenly purity he adored as entirely as they. For this
difference the Church, excited with conflict, inflicted hasty cen
sure, to be inevitably followed by all the heavier sentences she
had in her power. Such was the work of this momentous As
sembly. With hasty national absolutism, it cut off from its com
munion, for such causes, men whom it knew and confessed to be
an honor and blessing to the Church and nation which had. pro
duced them. I do not pretend to point this narrative with any
moral drawn from the troubled and stormy course through which
the Church of Scotland has had to pass since then ; on one side
always more and more absolute, impatient of inevitable condi
tions, and, if resolute to attain perfection, always yet more reso
lute that such perfection was to be attained only in its own way ;
but it is not surprising to find that men who looked on during
that crisis with anguish and indignation — believing that not John
Campbell deposed, but the love of the Father limited or denied,
and that not Edward Irving censured, but the love of the Son
in its deepest evidence rejected, was the real issue of the double
process — should draw such conclusions, and contemplate that agi
tated career, with its sad disruption and rending asunder, as bear
ing melancholy evidence of that which some men call inevitable
development, and some the judgment of heaven.
When the meetings of the Assembly were over, the devout com
pany of worshipers who had offered up daily supplications on its
behalf during that crisis having come to take comfort in these
early matins, resolved to continue their meeting, and direct their
prayers to interests more immediately their own. It was for the
outpouring of the Spirit that they now resolved to ask ; for the
bestowal of those miraculous gifts of which news came without
ceasing from Scotland— which were daily hoped for with gradu
ally increasing intensity among themselves — and which, if once
revealed, they did not doubt would be to the establishing of a
mighty influence in the great city which surged and groaned
around them, a perpetual battle-ground of human passion. For
this they prayed in the early quiet of the summer mornings as
May brightened into June. To this, the indignant excitement of
the ecclesiastical crisis over, Irving turned with eyes which saw
no help in man. During the intervalthat other question had
been gathering force and shape. Miraculous instances of healing
were told, and discussed, and proved, and contested, in the Lon-

416 INSPIRATION OF THE LAST DAYS.
don world, as they had been in the anxious local world of which
Gairloch was the centre. From the padded couch of a cripple.
Where she had lain for years, Miss Fancourt had risen in a mo
ment, at the bidding of an evangelist, still more marvelously than
Mary Campbell had risen in Scotland. The religious papers were
all busy with this strange, unbelievable occurrence, laboring hard
to set to the score of excitement a wonder which they could not
otherwise cast discredit upon ; and the echo of the miraculous
"tongues," and singular prophetic utterances which came up on
every wind from Scotland, had quickened a world of curiosity,
and some faith of the most intense and eager kind. Among those
who prayed e-wery morning for the extension of this marvel to
London, and for the visible manifestation of God and his wonder
ful works among themselves, there was one at least so intent upon
the petition he urged, and so Sure that what he asked was in con
formity with the will of God, that his anxious gaze almost had
power to create upon the horizon the light he looked for. But
still there was nothing unearthly or inhuman in the aspect of the
man who thus stood between earth and heaven, pleading with a
fervor that would not understand denial for the inspiration prom;
ised to the last days. He forgot neither the rights of a man nor
the duties of a brother in that solemn and overwhelming expect
ation. To a heart so high and a spirit so devout, miracle itself,
indeed, was rather an unveiling of the ineffable glories always
known and felt to be present where God's presence was felt and
known, than a breach of the laws of nature, or a harsh though
splendid discordance struck among the common chords of life.
The heart within him was miraculously akin to all wonders and
splendors. It was his cherished and joyful hope to see with hu
man eyes his Master Himself descend to the visible millennial
throne ; and there was, to his sublimed vision, a certain magnifi
cent probability in the flood of divine Utterance and action for
which he prayed and waited.
The first intimation of the actual appearance of the expected
miraculous gifts is given simply and almost incidentally in a let
ter, addressed to Mr. Story, of Rosneath, dated in July of this
year, in which, after exhorting his friend, who had been ill, to
"have faith to be healed," Irving proceeds to speak of the eccle
siastical matters, in which both were so deeply interested, as fob
lows: " I feel as if it were the duty of every minister of the Church of

FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE TONGUES. 417
Scotland to open his pulpit to Campbell and Maclean, and take the
consequences ; and that the people should no longer hear those min
isters who cast them out, and the truth of God with them, until these
ministers have returned to the preaching of the truth. For they have
declared themselves anti-Christ in denying that Christ came in the
flesh; and they have denied both the Father and the Son. The
Church, naturally considered, is one, but rightly considered is many,
according to the number of her ministers, each Church standing or
falling with its angel. Now these angels have all declared them
selves enemies of Christ and His truth ; and I say, therefore, it is the
duty of the people to come out and be separate. I am sounding this
matter to the bottom, and shall set it forth in regular order. Dear
Story, you keep too much aloof from the good work of the Spirit
which is proceeding beside you. Two of my flock have received the
gift of tongues and prophecy. The Church here is to inquire into it.
We had a conference of nearly twenty last Wednesday at Dods-
worth's, and we are to have another next Wednesday. Draw not
back, brother, but go forward. The kingdom of heaven is only to be
won by the brave. Keep your conscience unfettered by your under
standing." It was in July this letter was written, but not until four months
later did the new wonder manifest itself publicly. In the inter
val, notwithstanding his eagerness and strong prepossession in fa
vor of these miraculous pretensions, Irving took the part of an in
vestigator, and, according to his own conviction, examined closely
and severely into the wonderful phenomena now presented before
him. He explains the whole process with his usual lofty candor
in his speech before the London Presbytery, a year later, in which
he discloses, at the outset, the profound prepossession and bias in
his believing mind, while he is evidently quite unconscious how
this could detract in the least from the conscientious severity of
the probation to which he subjected the gifted persons. This is,
however, so important an element in the matter, and one which
throws so touching a light upon all the unthought-of extents to
which his faith afterward carried him — besides being, as he
thought, an important particular in proof of the reality of the
gifts themselves — that it is worthy of special notice. "I, as
Christ's dutiful minister, standing in His room and responsible to
Him (as are you all), have not dared to believe that, when we asked
bread, He gave us a stone, and when we asked fish, He gave us a ser
pent," he says, out of the simplicity of his devout heart, recogniz
ing only in this complicated matter — which involved so profound
a maze of incomprehensible human motives, emotions, and pur
poses — the devout sincerity of prayer on the one hand, and the
Dd

418 THE PRAYER OF FAITH.— THE ANSWER OF GOD.
certain faithfulness of promise on the other. They had asked
their faithful Master for these wonders of His grace ; and when
the wonders came, how could the loyal, lofty, unsuspicious soul,
confident in the honor and truth of all men as in his own, dare to
believe that God, when asked for bread, had given only a stone ?
But all unaware that by this very sentiment he prejudged the
matter, Irving went on to make assurance sure by careful and de
liberate investigation, which he accordingly describes as follows :
" We met together about two weeks before the meeting of the
General Assembly, in order to pray that the General Assembly might
be guided in judgment by the Lord, the Head of the Church ; and
we added thereto prayers for the present low state of the Church.
We cried unto the Lord for apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,
and teachers, anointed with the Holy Ghost, the gift of Jesus, be
cause we saW it written in God's Word that these are the appointed
ordinances for edifying of the body of Jesus. We continued in pray
er every morning, morning by morning, at half past six o'clock; and
the Lord was not long in hearing and in answering our prayers. He
sealed first one, and then another, and then another, and then another ;
and gave them first enlargement of spirit in their own devotions, when
their souls were lifted up to God and they closed with him in nearness.
He then lifted them up to pray in a tongue which the Apostle Paul
says he did more than they all. ... I say as it was with Paul at the
proper time, at the fit time, namely, in their private devotions, when
they were rapt up nearest to God, the Spirit took them and made
them speak in a tongue, sometimes singing in a tongue, sometimes
speaking words in a tongue ; and by degress, according as they
sought more and more unto God, this gift was perfected until they
were moved to speak in a tongue, even in the presence of others.
But while it was in this stage I suffered it not in the church, acting
according to the canon of the apostle ; and even in private, in my
own presence, I permitted it not ; but I heard that it had been done.
I would not have rebuked it, I would have sympathized tenderly with
the person who was carried in the Spirit and lifted up, but in the
church I would not have permitted it. Then, in process of time, per
haps at the end of a fortnight, the gift perfected itself, so that they
were made to speak in a tongue and to prophesy ; that is, to set forth
in English words for exhortation, for edification, and comfort, for that
is the proper definition of prophesying, as was testified by one of the
witnesses. Now, when we had received this into the church in an
swer to our prayers, it became me, as the minister of the church, to
try that which we had received. I say it became me, and not anoth
er, as minister of the church ; and my authority for that you will find
in the 2d chapter of Revelations. . . . Therefore, when the Lord had
sent me what professed to be prophets, what we had prayed for, what
the Lord had answered, what had the apparent signs of a prophet
speaking with tongues, and prophesying and magnifying God, I then
addressed myself to the task, I durst not shrink from it, of trying
them, putting them to proof; and if I found them so, permitting

THE FULFILLMENT OF- PROMISE. 419
them ; yea, giving thanks to Jesus that had heard our prayers, and
sent among us that ordinance of prophesying which is said expressly
to be for the edifying of the Church.
"The first thing toward the trial was to hear them prophesy be
fore myself; and so I did. The Lord, in His providence (I can not
remember the particulars, nor do I charge my memory with them),
the Lord, in His providence, gave me ample opportunities in private
prayer-meetings (of which there were many in the congregation for
this purpose established) of hearing the speaking with tongues and
prophesying ; and it was so ordered by Providence that every per
son whom I heard was known to myself, so that I had the double
test, first, of private walk and conversation, and, secondly, of hearing
the things prophesied. ... I had then, first, the blameless walk and
conversation of persons in full communion with the Church of Christ;
and I had, next, privately hearing the utterances, in which I could de
tect nothing that was contrary to sound doctrine, but saw every thing
to be for edification, exhortation, and comfort; and beyond these
there are no outward or visible signs to which it can be brought.
" Having these before me, I was still very much afraid of introduc
ing it to the Church, and it burdened my conscience I should suppose
for some weeks. For look you at the condition in which I was
placed. I had sat at the head of the Church praying that these gifts
might be poured out in the church ; I believed in the Lord's faithful
ness, that I was praying the prayer of faith, and that He had poured
out the gifts on the Church in answer to our prayers. Was I to dis
believe that which in faith I had been praying for, and which we had
all been praying for ? When it comes, He gives me every oppor
tunity of proving it. I put it to the proof, according to His own
Word ; and I find, so far as I am able to discern honestly before God,
that it is the thing written of in the Scriptures, and unto the faith of
which we were baptized."
Such was the process going on in the mind of Irving during
this interesting and exciting period. Convinced, before he began
to examine, that he and his felloW-worshipers had asked in faith,
and that this was the visible and speedy answer to their prayers,
it is evident that his investigations were necessary only to satisfy
his conscience, and not to convince his heart. With the most un-
doubting confidence he had asked for bread, and the agreement
of more than two or three in that petition had made God Himself
responsible for the fulfillment of His own promise to the eyes and
to the heart of His believing servant. With all-trusting humility,
yet with a lofty confidence, at once in his own perfect sincerity
and in the accordance of his request with the revealed mind of
God, Irving dared not believe that it was a stone which his heav
enly Father had given him in answer to his prayers. In this cer
tainty he went forward, seeing no choice for himself; not disguis
ing either from his own eyes or those of others the anguish of sep-

420 "TRYING" THE SPIRITS.
aration and estrangement, the broken peace, the desertion, all the
sorrows to which this course must expose him. But he had no
alternative. He had asked, and God had bestowed. If it may be
possible that, in his secret heart, Irving sometimes wondered over
the meagreness of those revelations, the heroic faith within him
bent his head before the Word of God. He explained, with a
wonderful acceptance of the conditions under which the revelation
came, that it was with " stammering lips and another tongue" that
God was to speak to this people. He took his stand at once
upon this simple foundation of faith. He and his friends had
asked with fervid importunity, putting their Master to His word.
They had agreed together concerning this thing, according to
God's own divine directions. Irving had no eyes to see the over
powering force of suggestion with which such prayers might have
operated upon sensitive and excitable hearts. His regards were
fixed upon God, faithful and unchanged, who had promised to
grant requests which His people presented thus ; and to a nature
so loyal, so simple, so absolute in primitive faith and dependence,
there was no alternative. What he received in answer to his
prayers was by that very evidence proved to be divine.
Reasoning thus, he proceeded, as he has described, to "try the
spirits." The gifted persons were all known to himself; they
were, to the acknowledgment of all, both believers and unbeliev
ers, individuals of blameless life and saintly character. Among
them were men who, since then, have preserved the confidence
and respect of their community for an entire lifetime ; and gentle
and pious women, against whom it does not appear that even ac
cusations of vanity or self-importance could be brought. Always
with that prepossession in his mind, that these gifts were directly
sent in answer to prayer ; always with that trust in every body
round him which was his nature, and that unconscious glamour
in his eyes that elevated every thing they lighted on, Irving went
on to examine, and try and prove the new marvel. His was not
a mind, judicial, impartial, able to confine itself to mere evidence;
had it even been so, the result might still have been the same,
since the evidence which was of overwhelming force with him
was of a kind totally beyond the range of ordinary human testi
mony. Of all men in the world, perhaps this man, with his inal
ienable poetic privilege of conferring dignity and grandeur upon
every thing which interested him deeply ; with his perfect trust
in other men, and tender sympathy with all genuine emotion, was

BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 421
least qualified to institute the searching and severe investigation
which the case demanded ; and when it is remembered how for
lorn he stood — in the Church, but scarcely of it ; deprived of the
support for which his spirit longed ; his heart aching with pangs
of disappointment and indignation to see that which he held for
the divinest of truths every where denied and rejected — the disa
bilities of nature grow strong with every additional touch of cir
cumstance. I can not pretend to believe that he was capable of
taking the calm position of a judge at this deeply important crisis ;
but I do not doubt for a moment that he entirely believed in his
own impartiality, and made, notwithstanding his prepossession,
the most conscientious balance of fact and argument ; and it is
evident that he proceeded with a care and caution scarcely to be
expected from him. For weeks he hesitated to suffer the utter
ances in his Church, even in the morning meetings, where the
audience were those who had joined with him in supplication for
this very gift. Writing to one of his relations who had lost her
husband in this anxious interval, he turns from the strain of con
solation and counsel (in which he specially directs the mind of
the widow to the speedy coming of the Lord as the sum of all
comfort) to notice, simply and briefly, ere he concludes, that " the
Lord prospers His work greatly in my Church. Several of the
brethren have received the gift of tongues and prophecy ; and in
answer to prayer, the sick are healed and raised up again. The
coming of the Lord is near at hand." But it is not till the end of
October that he bursts forth into the following triumphant thanks
giving, conveyed in a letter — or rather in what seems to have been
the outer inclosure of a letter, doubtless from his wife or her sister
to the anxious household at home — to Dr. Martin :
"26th October, 1831.
" My dear Father, — Thanks should be returned in all the church
es for the work which the Lord has done and is doing among us.
He has raised up the order of prophets among us, who, being filled
with the Holy Ghost, do speak with tongues and prophesy. I have
no doubt of this ; and I believe that if the ministers of the Church
will be faithful to preach the truth, as the Lord hath enabled me to
be, God will seal it in like manner with the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
' Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed ?' is a question
which may be put to every Church in Christendom ; and for every
Church may be answered as the Ephesians answered Paul, Acts, xix.
I desire you to rejoice exceedingly, although it may be the means,
if God prevent not, of creating great confusion in the bosom of my
dear flock. For as prophesying is for the edifying of the Church,
the Holy Ghost will require that His voice shall be heard when ' the

422 INEVITABLE SEPARATION.
brethren are come together into one place ;' and this, I fear, will not
be endured by many. But the Lord's will be done. I must forsake
all for Him. I live by faith daily, for I daily look for his appearing.
. . . Farewell !
" Your dutiful and affectionate son, Edwd. Irving."
This affecting and solemn, yet exultant statement, proves how
truly Irving foresaw all that was before him. Up to this time,
all external assaults had been softened to him by the warm and
close circle of friends who stood up around to assure him of con
stant sympathy and unfailing support. The unanimous and spon
taneous declaration by which his session expressed their perfect
concurrence in his views, which he had published with affection
ate pride in the Morning Watch, and of which he declares that he
" had no hand whatever in originating, nor yet in penning this
document, which came forth spontaneously from the hearts and
minds of those honest and honorable men whose names it bears,"
is dated only in December of the previous year. He describes
his supporters in March, 1831, as " those who have, with one only
exception, been with me from the beginning ; who for many years
have, publicly and privately, had every opportunity of knowing
my doctrine thoroughly." They were all dear to him for many
a good work done together, and sorrowful hour shared side by
side : some of them were his "spiritual sons ;" some his close and
dear companions. He foresaw, looking steadfastly forward into
that gloom which he was about to enter, that now, at last, this
bond of loyal love was to be broken, this last guard dispersed
from about his heart. He saw it with anguish and prophetic des
olation, his last link to the old world of hereditary faith and duti
ful affection. But, though his heart broke, he could not choose.
The warning and reproving voices which interrupted his prayers
and exhortations in private meetings had by this time risen to
their full mastery over the heart, which, entirely believing that
they came from God, had no choice left but to obey them. These
prophets told him, in mournful outbursts, that he was restraining
the Spirit of God. It was a reproach not to be borne by one who
held his God in such true, filial, personal love as few can realize,
much less experience. Touched by the thought of that terrible
possibility, he removed the first barriers.
" Next morning," he says, " I went to the church, and after pray
ing, I rose up and said, in the midst of them all, ' I can not be a party
in hindering that which I believe to be the voice of the Holy Ghost

UTTERANCES PERMITTED AT MORNING MEETINGS. 423
from being heard in the church. I feel that I have too long deferred,
and I now pray you to give audience while I read out of the Scrip
tures, as my authority, the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ
concerning the prophets.' I then read these passages : 1 Cor., xiv.,
23. . . . Therefore, reading these two passages in the hearing of the
people, I said, ' Now I stand here before you (it was at pur morning
meeting, and after my conscience had been burdened with it for some
weeks), and I can not longer forbid, but do, on the other hand, in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, permit, at
this meeting of the Church, that every one who has received the gift
of the Holy Ghost, and is moved by the Holy Ghost, shall have lib
erty to speak ;' and I pointed to those whom I had heard in private.
It pleased the Lord, at that very meeting, to sanction it by His ap
proval. . . . Now, observe, I took to myself, according to the com
mandment of Jesus, the privilege and responsibility of trying the
prophets in private before permitting them to speak in the church.
I then gave the Church an opportunity of fulfilling its duty; for, be
yond question, it belongeth to every man to try the spirits ; it belong-
eth not to the pastor alone, it belongeth to every man to do it. . . .
It was my duty, therefore, in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ,
who ruleth over all churches, and without which a Church is nothing
but a synagogue of Satan — it belonged to me, as the servant of the
Lord Jesus Christ, having tried them, to put them forth to the peo
ple, that they might be tried by them. I put them forth at the morn
ing exercise of the Church ; and I did, from the pulpit, make known
to the people, in prayer and in preaching, and in all ways, and invited
the people to come and to witness for themselves."
This process of " probation," as the preacher, with solemn state-
liness, names the second interval, lasted for several weeks. It is
not difficult to imagine what during this time must have been the
state of the agitated congregation, in which, already, all the dread
ed symptoms of resistance and separation were becoming visible.
Aware, as entire London was shortly aware, of those extraordinary
manifestations, the sober Scotch remnant looked on severely, with
suspicion and fear ; anxious, above all things, to escape the proba
tion thus placed in their power, and to ignore, as far as possible,
the existence of the new influence which they felt they could see
and hear only to condemn. Still steady and faithful adherents of
Irving, and numbering among them all the oldest and most influ
ential members of the congregation, they were prepared, for love
of their leader, to wink at almost any thing which was not authori
tatively set before their eyes, and with troubled hearts, as men hear
news from an enemy's camp in which are some of their dearest
friends, they listened anxiously to the reports of what was done
and said at those romantic matin services, in the mornings which
began again to darken into autumn. The air was rife with tales

424 PROBATION.— EXCITEMENT IN THE CONGREGATION.
of prophecy and miracle. The very newspapers were discussing
those wonders, which could not be contradicted, howevef they
might be accounted for. And the vaguer excitement outside rose
into a climax within that church in Regent Square, where now,
Sunday after Sunday, the preacher invited his alarmed or curious
hearers to satisfy themselves, to prove the gifts, to make sure,
each on his own account, what the new revelation was; and
where, morning after morning, in the chill daybreak, these aston
ishing voices and strange bursts of utterance found expression.
A shudder of expectation, a rising stir of alarm, of indignation, of
resistance, mingled with remorseful love toward the devoted man
who thus risked his last human strong-hold at the bidding of what
he supposed to be the voice of God, and perhaps with a suspicious
jealousy of those "gifted persons" who were, almost without ex
ception, new-comers, attracted to the National Scotch Church nei
ther for its nationality nor its Presbyterianism, but simply for Ir
ving's sake, ran trembling through the little community. It was
clear to the dullest eye that matters could not stand still where
they were. They waited, perplexed, disapproving, and afraid, for
what was next to come ; shaken in their allegiance, if never in
their affection.
Early in November (there is some confusion about the exact
date) matters came to a crisis :
" I went to church," writes a Mr. Pilkington* — who, for a short
time, professed to be gifted in his own person, and afterward changed
his opinion, and did what he could to " expose" the mysteries in which
he had not been able to take a part — " and was, as usual, much grati
fied and comforted by Mr. Irving's lectures and prayers ; but I was
very unexpectedly interrupted by the well-known voice of one of the
sisters, who, finding she was unable to restrain herself, and respecting
the regulation of the Church, rushed into the vestry, and gave vent
to utterance ; while another, as I understood, from the same impulse,
ran down the side aisle, and out of the church, through the principal
door. The sudden, doleful, and unintelligible sounds, being heard by
all the congregation, produced the utmost confusion; the act of stand-
* The statements of this gentleman, and another still more important deserter
from the prophetical ranks, Mr. Baxter, of Doncaster, are extremely interesting;
that of the latter in particular, called a Narrative of Facts, and intended to prove
that the whole matter was a delusion, is in reality by far the strongest evidence in fa
vor of the truth and genuine character of these spiritual manifestations which I have
met with. After reading such a narrative, it is impossible to dream of trickery, and
very difficult to believe in mere delusion, although the sole object of the writer in the
extraordinary and touching tale is to show that he had deceived himself, and was no
prophet.

THE MATTER TAKEN OUT OF IRVING'S HANDS. 425
ing up, the exertion to hear, see, and understand, by each and every
one of perhaps 1500 or 2000 persons, created a noise which may be
easily conceived. Mr. Irving begged for attention, and when order
was restored, he explained the occurrence, which he said was not
new, except in the congregation, where he had been for some time
considering the propriety of introducing it ; but, though satisfied of
the correctness of such a measure, he was afraid of dispersing the
flock ; nevertheless, as it was now brought forward by God's will, he
felt it his duty to submit. He then said he would change the dis
course intended for the day, and expound the 14th chapter of Cor
inthians, in order to elucidate what had just happened. The sister
was now returning from the vestry to her seat, and Mr. Irving, ob
serving her from the pulpit, said, in an affectionate tone, ' Console
yourself, sister, console yourself!' He then proceeded with his dis
course." The matter was thus taken out of Irving's hand by an occur
rence which was to him a visible sign of the will and pleasure of
God, to be restrained by him at his peril. The scene is striking
and extraordinary enough to be worthy of its antecedents and
consequences. While he preached in his lofty, miraculous strain,
with that elevation of mind and thought which was something
more than eloquence, to the agitated, expectant crowd, which
knew, by mysterious half-information and confused rumors, that
something mystic and supernatural was daily evidencing itself in
the more private services of this very church, the heart of one of
those ecstatic women burned within her. The preacher himself
was now at all times in a state of solemn and devout expectation,
straining his ear to hear what messages God might send through
the silence. The audience trembled 'throughout with a vaguer
anticipation, compounded of curiosity and alarm, and perhaps all
the more exciting in proportion to its ignorance of what it ex
pected. Through this assembly, so wonderfully prepared to thrill
to the sudden touch which for weeks past it had apprehended, the
" sister" rushed, laboring with her message, afraid to disturb the
severe laws of the place, yet unable to restrain the mysterious im
pulse with which her bosom swelled. The "tongue" burst from
her lips as she disappeared into the shelter of the vestry, echoing,
audible and awful, through the pause of wonder. A second sister
is said, by another account, to have hastened after the first, and to
have added to the distant "testimony" which rang forth over the
listening congregation in a force and fullness of sound, of which
the delicate female organs which produced it were naturally inca
pable. Irving paused in his preaching when this strange inter-

426 FIRST UTTERANCE IN THE SUNDAY WORSHIP.
ruption occurred. He had been in the midst of one of those dis
courses which were still ranked among the wonders of the time.
He paused when the faltering, hasty steps of the retiring prophet
ess awoke the silence of the congregation. He stood listening, like
the rest, to the half-distinguishable message. When it was over,
and he had calmed the crowd, he neither attempted to resume his
own course of thought, nor dismissed the agitated assembly. He
turned to the passage which he had already quoted as conclusive,
containing the rules by which St. Paul ordered the exercise, in the
primitive Church, of miraculous utterances. He explained, in his
candor and simplicity, his own reluctance to admit into his long-
united and brotherly band this new influence, which he foresaw
would turn harmony into chaos ; but God having himself taken
the matter in hand, without waiting for the tardy sanction of His
servant, here was the Divine directory by which he must hence
forth be guided. Accordingly, he read and expounded St. Paul's
instructions to the prophets and gifted persons of Corinth. It was
all that he could see remaining for him to do. Henceforward the
die was cast. He foresaw, in his sorrowful heart, all the desertion
and desolation that was coming ; he saw faces turned away from
him in which he had hitherto seen only love and confidence, and
lowering looks where he had been used to the utmost trust and
affection. But to bear these, or any other martyrdoms, was easier
than to restrain for a moment longer that voice which to him was
the voice of God.
After this the congregation separated, full of excitement, as was
natural. And the one notable figure which appears in the midst
of that confused and agitated assembly withdrew to domestic
quiet, to prayer or visitation of the sick, according to the previ
ously recorded habits of his simple and spotless life. While the
November day darkened over him in those prayers and medita
tions through which thrilled hopes of immediate communication
with heaven almost too much for the human heart, which, all
aflame with love and genius as it was, was not the heart of an
ecstatic, the rumor of this new thing ran through the wondering
world around him. In the evening an excited and almost riotous
crowd rushed into the church where such an astonishing novelty
and sensation was in their power. The tumultuous scene which
followed is thus described by Mrs. Hamilton :
" In the evening there was a tremendous crowd. The galleries
were fearfully full, and from the commencement of the service there-

TUMULT.— COMMENTS OF THE PRESS. 427
was an evident uproariousness, considering the place, about the doors,
men's voices continually mingling with the singing and the praying
in most indecent confusion. Mr. Irving had nearly finished his dis
course, when another of the ladies spoke. The people heard for a
few minutes with quietness comparatively. But on a sudden a num
ber of the fellows in the gallery began to hiss, and then some cried
' Silence !' and some one thing and some another, until the congrega
tion, except such as had firm faith in God, were in a state of extreme
commotion. Some of these fellows (who, from putting all the cir
cumstances together, it afterward appeared were a gang of pickpock
ets come to make a row) shut the gallery doors, which I think was
providential — for, had any one rushed and fallen, many lives might
have been lost, the crowd was so great. The awful scene of Kirk
caldy church* was before my eyes, and I dare say before Mr. Irving's.
He immediately rose and said, ' Let us pray,' which he did, using
chiefly the words, ' O Lord, still the tumult of the people,' over and
over again in an unfaltering voice. This kept those in the pews in
peace ; none attempted to move ; and certainly the Lord did still the
people'. We then sang, and before pronouncing the blessing Mr. Ir
ving intimated that henceforward there would be morning service on
the Sunday, when those persons would exercise their gifts, for that
he would not subject the congregation to a repetition of the scene
they had witnessed. He said he had been afraid of life, and that
which was so precious he would not again risk, and more to a like
effect. A party still attempted to keep possession of the church.
One man close to me attempted to speak. Some called 'Hear!
hear!' others, ' Down ! down!' The whole scene reminded one of
Paul at Ephesus. It was very difficult to get the people to go ; but,
by God's blessing, it was accomplished. The Lord be praised ! We
were in peril, great peril ; but not a hair of the head of any one suf
fered." The following version of the same occurrence, describing it
from an outside, and entirely different point of view, appears in
the Times of the 19th November, extracted from the World.. It is
headed " Disturbance at the National Scotch Church," and is cu- \
rious as showing the state of contemporary feeling out of doors :
" On Sunday the Rev. Edward Irving delivered two sermons on
the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, on each of which occasions the
congregation was disturbed by individuals pretending to the miracu
lous gift of tongues. During the sermon in the morning, a lady (a
Miss Hall) thus singularly endowed was compelled to retire into the
vestry, where she was unable, as she herself says, to restrain herself,
and spoke for some time in the unknown tongue to the great sur
prise of the congregation, who did not seem prepared for the exhibi
tion. The reverend gentleman resumed the subject in the evening
by discoursing from, or rather expounding the 12th chapter of 1st
* The falling of the gallery there in consequence of the extreme crowd to hear Ir
ving in June, 1828.

428 INCREASE TO THE CHURCH.
Corinthians. Toward the conclusion of the exposition he took occa
sion to allude to the circumstance of the morning, and expressed his
doubts whether he had done right in restraining the exercise of the
gift in the church itself, and compelling the lady to retire to the ves
try. At this moment, a gentleman in the gallery, a Mr. Taplin, who
keeps an academy in Castle Street, Holborn, rose from his seat, and
commenced a violent harangue in the unknown tongue. The confu
sion occasioned was extreme. The whole congregation rose from
their seats in affright; several ladies screamed aloud, and others
rushed to the doors. Some supposed that the building was in dan
ger, and that there had either been a murder or an attempt to mur
der some person in the gallery, insomuch that one gentleman actually
called out to the pew-openers and beadle to stop him, and not to let
him escape. On both occasions the church was extremely crowded,
particularly in the evening, and it would be impossible to describe
the confusion produced by this display of fanaticism. There was, in
deed, in the strange, unearthly sound and extraordinary power of
voice, enough to appall the heart of the most stout-hearted. A great
part of the congregation standing upon the seats to ascertain the
cause of the alarm, while the reverend gentleman, standing with arms
extended, and occasionally beckoning them to silence, formed a scene
which partook as much of the ridiculous as the sublime. No at
tempt was made to stop the individual, and after two or three min
utes he became exhausted and sat down, and then the reverend gen
tleman concluded the service. Many were so alarmed, and others so
disgusted, that they did not return again into the church, and dis
cussed the propriety of the reverend gentleman suffering the exhibi
tion; and altogether a sensation was produced which will not be
soon forgotten by those who were present."
In a letter to Mr. Macdonald, Irving himself gives an account
of a very similar scene. There is, however, great confusion of
dates ; some of the witnesses identify the decisive day as the 16th,
some as the 30th of October, while Mrs. Hamilton's letter fixes it
as the 13th of November. The precise day, however, is unim
portant ; many such scenes of agitation and tumult must have
disturbed the Church. In the general features of the prevailing
excitement all the accounts concur. Irving's own record is as
follows : "London, 7th November, 1831.
" My dear Friend, — May the Lord keep you in a continual near
ness to Him, going forward and not going backward. For it is a
sore and a sifting time wherein there is no safety, but will be destruc
tion to every one who is not abiding in Christ and in Hip only.
Yesterday was our communion, and the Lord gave me great increase
to my Church, nearly a hundred during the half year ; but some have
drawn back, offended in the word of the Spirit in the mouth of the
prophets, which, in obedience to the Lord's commandment, I have
permitted, ' when the Church is gathered together into one place,' on

ORDER OF THE MORNING SERVICE. 429
all occasions. Now it is remarked that in all instances the Spirit hath
permitted the service to be concluded, and the blessing pronounced,
before the manifestation. And it hath always been a witness of the
Holy Ghost with us, the ministers. Last night David Brown preach
ed a mighty sermon on the 91st Psalm, bearing much allusion to the
cholera ; and twice over did the Spirit speak forth, once in confirma
tion, generally, that it was the judgment of God, once, in particular,
to the scoffers. I was seated in the great chair, and was enabled by
my single voice to preserve order among, I dare say, 3000 people, and
to exhort them, as Peter did at Pentecost, and commend them to the
Lord. And they all parted in peace. Most of the session dislike all
this ; and had I not been firm, and resolved to go out myself sooner,
the voice of the Holy Ghost would, ere this, have been put down by
one means or another. In two instances the Spirit hath confirmed
the Word when I was expounding the Scriptures. Our morning
¦ worship is attended by nearly 1000 persons, and the order of it is
beautiful. I seek the blessing of God, then we sing. Mr. Brown or
I read a chapter, and the Spirit confirms our interpretations, or adds
and exhorts in few words, without interruption, but with great
strengthening ; then one of us, or the elders, or the brethren prays,
and then I fulfill the part of the pastor or angel of the Church with
short instructions, waiting at the intervals for the Spirit to speak,
which He does sometimes by one, sometimes by two, and sometimes
by three, which I apply, and break down, and make the best use of
for edifying of the flock and convincing the gainsayers, with short
prayers as occasion serveth ; and I conclude with prayer, and with
the doxology, and the blessing. Every Wednesday night I am
preaching to thousands ' the Baptism with the Holy Ghost,' and the
Lord is mightily with us. But many adversaries. Oh, pray dili
gently that Satan may not be able to put this light out ! . . . Fare
well ! May the Lord have you in His holy keeping !
" Your faithful friend and brother, Edwd. Irving.
" The Cairds are now with us again."
The singular fact herein recorded of an attendance of a thou
sand people at the morning service is perhaps almost as wonder
ful as any other particular of this exciting time. A concourse of
a thousand people, drawn together at half past six, in those black,
wintry mornings, with the November fogs rolling up from the
unseen river and murky heart of the city, and day but faintly
breaking through the yellow, suffocating vapors when the assem
bly dispersed, is a prodigy such as perhaps London never saw be
fore, nor is likely to see again. " The Cairds" mentioned in the
postscript of this letter were Mary Campbell, the earliest gifted
and miraculously healed, and her husband, now apparently wan
dering from house to house, and church to church, to enlighten
the minds or satisfy the curiosity, as the case might be, of those
who were chiefly interested in the new dispensation.

430 CHARACTER OF THE TONGUES.
This irrevocable step having been taken into the new world —
confused, gloomy, and tumultuous, yet radiated with momentary
and oft-recurring lights, almost too brilliant and rapturous for the
health and reason of a wholesome human creature — which now
lay before Irving, it is perhaps necessary to describe, so far as
that is practicable, to a generation which has forgotten them, what
those unknown tongues were which disturbed the composure of
the world thirty years ago. The newspaper report quoted above
would lead the reader to imagine that the unknown tongue alone
was the sum of the utterances given on the occasion referred to in
the National Scotch Church. This, however, is proved not to
have been the case by Irving's own declaration, that, so long as
the tongue was unaccompanied by intelligible speech, he "suffer-.
ed it not in the Church, acting according to the canon of the apos
tle ; and even in private, in my own presence, I permitted it not."
The actual utterances, as they were thus introduced in the full
congregation, were short exhortations, warnings, or commands, in
English, preceded by some sentences or exclamations in the tongue,
which was not the primary message, being unintelligible, but only
the sign of inspiration ; so that a " violent harangue in the tongue"
was an untrue and ridiculous statement. The tongue itself was
supposed by Mary Campbell, who was the first to exercise it, and
apparently by all who believed in the reality of the gift at that
time, to be, in truth, a language which, under similar circumstances
to those which proved at once the miraculous use of the tongues
given at Pentecost, would have been similarly recognized. Mary
Campbell herself expressed her conviction that the tongue given
to her was that of the Pelew Islands, which, indeed, was a safe
statement, and little likely to be authoritatively disputed ; while
some other conjectures pointed to the Turkish and Chinese lan
guages as those thus miraculously bestowed. Since then, opinion
seems to have changed, even among devout believers in these
wonderful phenomena; the hypothesis of actual languages con1|
ferred seems to have given way to that of a supernatural sign and
attestation of the intelligible prophecy, which, indeed, the Pente
costal experience apart, might very well be argued from St. Paul's
remarks upon this primitive gift. The character of the sound
itself has perhaps received as many different descriptions as there
are persons who have heard it. To some, the ecstatic exclama
tions, with their rolling syllables and mighty voice, were imposing
and awful ; to others it was merely gibberish shouted from sten-

DESCRIBED BY IRVING. 431
torian lungs ; to others an uneasy wonder, which it was a relief
to find passing into English, even though the height and strain
of sound was undiminished. One witness speaks of it as "burst
ing forth," and that from the lips of a woman, " with an aston
ishing and terrible crash ;" another (Mr. Baxter), in his singular
narrative, describes how, when '( the power" fell suddenly upon
himself, then all alone at his devotions, "the utterance was so
loud that I put my handkerchief to my mouth to stop the sound,
that I might not alarm the house ;" while Irving himself describes
it with all his usual splendor of diction as follows :
" The whole utterance, from the beginning to the ending of it,
is with a power, and strength, and fullness, and sometimes rapid
ity of voice altogether different from that of the person's ordinary
utterance in any mood ; and I would say, both in its form and in its
effects upon a simple mind, quite supernatural. There is a power in
the voice to thrill the heart and overawe the spirit after a manner
which I have never felt. There is a march, and a majesty, and a
sustained grandeur in the voice, especially of those who prophesy,
which I have never heard even a resemblance to, except now and
then in the sublimest and most impassioned moods of Mrs. Siddons
and Miss O'Neil. It is a mere abandonment of all truth to call it
screaming or crying; it is the most majestic and divine utterance
which I have ever heard, some parts of which I never heard equaled,
and no part of it surpassed, by the finest execution of genius and art
exhibited at the oratorios in the concerts of ancient music. And
when the speech utters itself in the way of a psalm or spiritual song,
it is the likest to some of the most simple and ancient chants in the
cathedral service, insomuch that I have been often led to think that
those chants, of which some can be traced up as high as the days ow
Ambrose, are recollections and transmissions of the inspired utter
ances in the primitive Church. Most frequently the silence is broken
by utterance in a tongue, and this continues for a longer or a shorter
period, sometimes occupying only a few words, as it were filling the
first gust of sound; sometimes extending to five minutes, or even
more, of earnest and deeply-felt discourse, with which the heart and
soul of the speaker is manifestly much moved to tears, and sighs,
and unutterable groanings, to joy, and mirth, and exultation, and even
laughter of the heart. So far from being unmeaning gibberish, as
the thoughtless and heedless sons of Belial have said, it is regularly-
formed, well-proportioned, deeply-felt discourse, which evidently
wanteth only the ear of him whose native tongue it is to make it a
very masterpiece of powerful speech."
This lofty representation, if too elevated to express the popular
opinion, is yet confirmed by the mass of testimony which repre
sents the tongue as something awful and impressive. The utter
ances in English are within the range of a less elevated faith, be
ing at least comprehensible, and open to the test of internal evi-

432 INFLUENCE OF THE PROPHESYING.
dence. I quote several of these manifestations in the after part
of this history for the satisfaction of my readers. To my own
mind they contain no evidence of supernatural, and specially of
divine origin. That the effect of their passionate cadences and
wild rapture of prophetical repetition may have been overwhelm
ing, I do not doubt ; and most of the speakers seem to have been
entirely above suspicion; but the thought that "there needs no
ghost come from the grave to tell us this," much less a new and
special revelation from heaven, will recur infallibly in the face of
these utterances. I can neither explain nor account for phenom
ena so extraordinary, and, fortunately, am not called upon to do
either. The fact and fashion of their existence, and the wonder
ful influence they exercised over the subject of this history, are
all I have to do with. The reader will find in the remarkable
narrative, intended by Mr. Baxter* to dissipate the delusion, more
subtle and striking evidences of a real something in the movement
than is given either by the recorded utterances themselves, or any
plea for them that I have heard of. And, at the same time, it is
certain that Irving faithfully followed them through every kind
of anguish and martyrdom ; that, by their sole inspiration, a body,
not inconsiderable either in numbers or influence, has been organ
ized and established in being ; and that, after a lapse of thirty
years, they still continue to regulate the destinies of that oft-dis
appointed but patient Church.
I In that autumnal season of '31, in itself a time of trouble and
perplexity, of political agitation at home and apprehensions abroad,
and when the modern plague, cholera, doubly dreaded because
unknown, yet not more dreaded than, as the event proved, it de
served to be, trembled over the popular mind and imagination,
filling them with all the varieties of real and fanciful terror, the
newspapers still found time to enter into this newest wonder.
With natural zest they seized again upon the well-known name,
so often discussed, which was now placed in a position to call
forth any amount of criticism and ridicule. Very shortly after
the introduction of the "prophesying" into the Sunday meetings
of the church in Regent Square, the Times put forth very intelli
gible hints that the church, though built for the Rev. Edward Ir
ving, was only his so long as he conformed himself to the laws of
the Church of Scotland, showing an interest in the cause of ortho
doxy, and Scotch orthodoxy to boot, somewhat rare with that cos-
* See Appendix B.

VIRTUOUS INDIGNATION. 433
mopolitan journal. " The great body of Mr. Irving's adherents
would probably have remained by him if, in his headlong course
of enthusiasm, he could have found a resting-place. They might
pardon his nonsense about the time and circumstances of the mil
lennium. They might smile at unintelligible disquisitions about
' heads' and ' horns,' and ' trumpets,' and ' candlesticks,' and ' white
and black horses,' in Revelations. These things might offend the
judgment, but did not affect the nerves. But have we the same
excuse for the recent exhibitions with which the metropolis has
been scandalized?" says the virtuous Times. "Are we to listen
to the screaming of hysterical women and the ravings of frantic
men ? Is bawling to be added to absurdity, and the disturber of
a congregation to escape the police and tread-mill because the
person who occupies the pulpit vouches for his inspiration?"
Much virtuous indignation, indeed, was expended on all sides on
this fertile and inviting subject. The Record takes up the story
where the Times leaves it, and narrates the drama of the second
Sunday. Never was congregation of Scotch Presbyterians, lost in
the mass of a vast community, which never more than half com
prehends, and is seldom more than half respectful of Presbyteri-
anism, so followed by the observation of the world, so watched
and noted. In the mean time, the mystic world within concen
trated more and more around the only man who was to bear the
brunt ; he whom the outside world accused of endless vagaries ;
whom his very friends declared to be seeking notoriety at any
cost, and from whose side already the companions of his life were
dropping off in sad but inevitable estrangement, yet who stood in
that mystic circle, in the depths of his noble simplicity and hum
bleness, the one predestined martyr who was to die for the reality
of gifts which he did not share. With criticisms and censures of
of every kind going on around, he proceeded, rapt in the fervor
of his faith, deeper and deeper into the spiritual mystery which
he believed and hoped was now to dawn splendidly upon the un
believing world, awakening every where, amid material darkness,
that sacred, sense of the unseen and the Divine which had always
existed in his own lofty spirit, and over the failure and lack- of
which he had sighed so deeply and so long in vain. A few weeks
later he wrote as follows to Mr. Macdonald : " 19th November.
" My dear Friend, — The Lord still stands with us, and confirms
me more and more in the duty of encouraging this work at all haz
ards, leaving myself in His hand. Both at Liverpool and near Bal-
E E

434 IRVING WITHDRAWS RESTRAINT.
dock, in Herts, in the parish of Mr. Pym, there have been manifesta
tions. The work at Gloucester, we have reason to believe, is a pos
session of Satan. One child who received the Spirit there, and after
her, her twin brother, son and daughter (about eight yearsold, twins)
of a clergyman, a particular friend of mine, both spake with tongues
and prophesied. The Spirit betrayed himself, would not take the
test (1 John, iv., 1-3), forbad to marry, and played many more an
tics, and was at last expelled. It was a true possession of Satan,
preached a wondrously sweet Gospel, had a desire to be consulted
about every thing, disliked prayer, praise, and reading the Scriptures,
and otherwise wrought wondrously. Blessed be God, who has de
livered the dear children ! When I read these letters from Mr.
P  , the children's father, to the gifted persons here, the Spirit in
them cried aloud to be tried ; and I did put the test, whereupon
there was from one and all (Mrs. Caird also, who was present) the
most glorious testimony that I ever heard. Many were present, and
were all constrained to sing songs of deliverance. You should try
the Spirit both in Miss C  and in M  ; they ought to desire
it, and you should cleave to the very words of the test, and make the
Spirit answer directly in these words. Also observe him closely, for
it is amazing how subtle they are (1 Tim., iv., 1-4). . . . May God
bless you and your wife !
" Your faithful friend, Edwd. Irving."
The current, when it had once broken forth, was much too
strong to be checked. The tumult and commotion of the even
ing service described by Mrs. Hamilton had drawn from Irving's
lips a hasty undertaking, not to expose his congregation again to
the danger and profanation of such scenes. Before the next Sun
day, however, he had risen above such considerations. Daily
stimulated, warned, and reproved by the prophets who surround
ed him, he gradually gave up his lingering tenderness of reluct
ance to disperse his people, and even sacrificed his devout regard
(always so strong in him — the reverence more of a High Angli
can than an iconoclastic Presbyterian) for the sanctities of the
house of God. Indeed, believing fervently, as he did, that these
utterances were the voice of God, one does not see how he could
have done otherwise. The Record relates, on the 21st of Novem
ber, its great surprise to hear that, after " the positive declaration
of the Rev. Edward Irving to his Church and congregation, on
the 13th instant, that he should forbid for the future the exercise
of the unknown tongues during the usual Sabbath services, Mr.
Irving stated yesterday morning that he committed an error by
so doing. He stated that if it pleased the Lord to speak by His
messengers, he begged them to listen with devout attention. In
a few seconds a female (we believe Miss Cardale) commenced in

IMPOSSIBILITY OF DRAWING BACK. 435
the unknown tongue, and then passed into the known tongue.
She said, ' He shall reveal it 1 He shall reveal it ! Yea, heed it !
yea, heed itl Ye are yet in the wilderness. Despise not his
Word ! despise not his Word ! Not one jot or tittle shall pass
away.' The minister then rose and called upon the Church to
bless the Lord for His voice, which they had just heard in the
midst of the congregation."
Notwithstanding the surprise of the Record, it is very apparent
that, having entered upon this course, it was simply impossible to
pause or draw back. Had any dishonesty or timidity existed in
Irving's breast, he might, indeed, as men of irresolute tempers or
uncertain belief will, have so far smothered his own convictions
as to refuse his consent to the prophetic utterances. But with
that entire faith he had, what was the servant of God to do ? It
was not denying a privilege even to the " gifted persons." It was
silencing the voice of God. Yet even those who knew him best
vexed his troubled soul with entreaties that he would put up
again this impossible barrier, and debar, according to his own be
lief, the Holy Spirit, the great Teacher, from utterance in the
church. While the newspapers without denounced the " exhibi
tions," and wondered how he could permit them, tender domestic
appeals were at the same time being made to him to pause upon
that road which evidently led to temporal loss and overthrow.
and must make a cruel separation between his future and his past.
The judicious William Hamilton, his brother and friend, and per
petual referee, retires with a grieved heart into the country ; and.
consulting privately with Dr. Martin, describes his own uncertain
ty and desire to wait longer before either permitting or debarring
the new utterances ; his conviction that all the speakers are "very
holy and exemplary persons ;" the general anxiety and desire of
the congregation to " wait patiently and see more distinctly the
hand of God in the matter ;" and, at the same time, the inclination
of "some of the trustees to enforce the discipline of the Church of
Scotland, according to the provisions of the trust-deed." "Mr.
Irving is fully persuaded, and hesitates not to declare that it is
the Holy Ghost speaking in the members of Christ, as on the day
of Pentecost," writes this anxious and loving friend. " Edward
is most conscientious and sincere in the matter ; and he is so thor
oughly convinced in his own mind that it is impossible to make
an impression upon him, or to induce that caution which the cir
cumstances seem so imperatively to demand." When fortified

436 REMONSTRANCES OF IRVING'S FRIENDS.
with the advice and arguments of Dr. Martin, who was under no
such trembling anxiety as > that: which influenced his son-kirlaw,
Mr. Hamilton proceeds to reason with his " dear brother and pas
tor" in a sensible and affectionate letter, dated from Tunbridge
Wells, the 26th of November, but is anticipated by a letter from
Irving, in which already appears the first cloud of that coming
storm which his kind and anxious relative was so desirous to ar
rest: "London, 21st November, 1831.
" My dear Brother and Sister, — I pray that the Lord may pre
serve you in His truth and keep you from all backsliding, for he that
putteth his hand to the plow and looketh back is not fit for the king
dom of heaven. Draw not back, neither stand still, I beseech you,
for your souls' salvation. Remember the exhortations of the Lord
and His apostles to this effect : save your own souls, I beseech you.
The trustees met, and I explained to them that I could not in this
matter take any half measures, but would be faithful to God and His
Word, and would immediately proceed to set the ordinance of proph
esying in order in the meetings of the Church ; and because I see
prophesying with tongues is as much for the assembling and snaring
of the hypocrite (Is., xxviii., 13, 14) as for the refreshing of the saints,
I was resolved that, whatever class of people might come to the
church at any meeting, I would not prevent the Lord from speaking
then and there what it pleased Him to speak, and I pointed their at
tention to that part of the trust-deed which gave into my hand the
regulation of every thing connected with the public worship of God
in the house over which they were the trustees. And after a good
deal of conversation, conducted in a very friendly, and, I hope, Chris
tian spirit, I came away and left them to deliberate. They adjourned
the meeting till Tuesday night, when I do not intend to be present ;
but, through Mr. Virtue, have intimated that if they should think of
taking any step, they would previously appoint a conference with
me, and one or two who think with me, that, if possible, we might
adjust the matter without a litigation ; and if it be necessary, that it
may be gone into with a simple desire of ascertaining the question
whether, in any thing I have done, I have violated the trust-deed.
Perhaps I may write this by letter to them ; I shall think of it.
" Yesterday we had peace and much edification. I began by read
ing passages in 1 Cor., xiv., and then ordering it so that, after the
chapter and the sermon, there should be a pause to hear whether the
Holy Spirit was minded to speak to us. He spake by Miss E. Car-
dale after the chapter (John, xvi.), exhorting us to ask, for we were
still in the wilderness, and needed the waters of the Holy Spirit,
identifying the river from the rock with the Holy Ghost. It was
very solemn, and all was still attention. While singing the Psalm
after, Mr. Horn came up to the pulpit with a Bible in his hand, and
asked me permission to read out of the Scriptures his reason for leav
ing the church and never entering it more. This I refused ; and he
went into the vestry, took his hat, and went right down the church.

"IF I PERISH, I PERISH." 437
Oh, what a fearful thing ! Dear brother, I beseech you to be guard
ed against the workings of the flesh. Mr. Mackenzie was the only
elder left ; but the Lord was with us. This morning a man came to
us who was delivered under the sermon from his sins. In the after
noon service which I took, the Spirit sealed with His witness both
the exposition (Mai., iii.) and the sermon (John, vii., 37-39). In the
evening, when the church was altogether filled, we locked the doors
and kept them locked. The people beat upon them, but I command
ed them to be kept shut, resolved to take the responsibility on my
self, and I preached with much of the power and presence of God
(exposition, Mark, xiii.; sermon, Is., xxviii., 9-14); and, after all was
over, I explained to them that, though I had kept my pledge that
night, I now solemnly withdrew it, and would permit the Spirit to
speak at all times, waiting always at the end of the exposition and
the sermon. And if I perish, my dear brother and sister, I perish.
Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my latter end be like
his. . . . Oh, my dear, my very dear friends and brethren, wait upon
your Father, and keep close to Him in such a time as this ! My love
to you would not suffer me to be silent, though I have much to do.
God have you ever in His holy keeping !
" Your faithful brother, Edwd. Irving."
So, with pathetic solemnity, he communicates his final decision
to those anxious spectators who yet can not choose but interpose
and ply him once and again with clear and sober arguments, part
ly supplied by the distant Scotch divine in Kirkcaldy Manse, who
is more absolute and assured in his reasoning, and half disposed
to be impatient of Edward's credulity, and partly by the uncon
vinced yet sympathetic soul of the affectionate brother, who can
not condemn the faith which he sees to be so firm and deeply-
rooted. There is something profoundly touching in the situation
altogether ; the anxious private correspondence <5f the disturbed
relatives — their fears for Edward's position and influence — the
troubled laying of their sagacious heads together to make out
what arguments will be most likely to affect him, and how he can
best be persuaded or convinced for his own good; and, altogether
ignorant of that affectionate conspiracy, the unconvincible heroic
soul, without a doubt or possibility of skepticism ; no debatable
ground in his mind, on which reasoning and argument can plant
their lever ; full of a glorious certainty that God has stooped from
heaven to send communications to his adoring ear, and ready to
undergo the loss of all things, even love, for that wonderful grace
and privilege. For some time longer these two Hamiltons, his
" dear brother and sister," follow him doubtfully and sadly, with
regrets and tears ; but nothing is to be done by all their tender
arguments and appeals ; " Edward is so thoroughly convinced in

438 FUTURE ORDER OF WORSHIP.
his own mind that it is impossible to make any impression upon
him." They try their best, and fail ; they drop off after a while,
like the rest, with hearts half broken. Months after, when Wil
liam Hamilton reappears among the mournful handful in Regent
Square which Irving has left behind him, it is said among his
friends that he looks ten years older. Comprehension and agree
ment may fail, but nothing can withdraw this brother Edward
from any heart that has ever loved or known him ; for the two
words mean the same thing, as far as he is concerned.
The very next day after the above letter was written, Irving
addressed another to the trustees, setting forth fully the order of
worship which he intended henceforth to adopt in the church:
"November 22d, 1831.
" My dear Friends, — I think it to be my duty to inform you ex
actly concerning the order which I have established in the public
worship of the Church for taking in the ordinance of prophesying,
which it hath pleased the Lord, in answer to our prayers, to bestow
upon us. The Apostle Paul, in the 14th chapter of the first Epistle
to the Corinthians, hath ordered, in the name and by the command
ment (verse 37) of the Lord Jesus, that the prophets shall speak when
the whole Church is gathered together into one place, 'two or three'
(verse 23), and hath permitted that all the prophets may prophesy
one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted (verses
29-31) ; and he hath given instructions concerning the comely man
ner in which women shall prophesy in chapter eleven of the same
Epistle. Walking by this rule, I have appointed, for the present,
that, immediately after the reading and exposition of the Scriptures
by the minister, there shall be a pause for the witness of the Holy
Ghost by the mouth of those to whom He hath been given (Acts, v.,
32), and the same have I appointed to be done after the sermon. And
this I intend shall have place at all the public congregations of the
Church, because I believe it to be according to the commandment of
the blessed Lord by the mouth of the apostle, and according to the
practice of the Church, so long as she had prophets speaking by the
Holy Ghost in the midst of her.
" The Church of Scotland, at the time of the Reformation, turned
her attention reverently to this standing order of the Church of
Christ, and appointed a weekly exercise for prophesying or interpret
ing of the Scriptures (First Book of Discipline, chapter xii.), express
ly founded on and ordered by the 14th chapter of the first Epistle to
the Corinthians, ' to the end that the Kirk may judge whether they
be able to serve to God's glory and to the profit of the Kirk in the
vocation of the ministry or not.' At that time they had adopted the
prevalent but erroneous notion that the offices of the apostle, of the
evangelist, and of the prophet are not perpetual, and now 'have ceased
in the Kirk of God, except when it pleased God extraordinarily for
a time to stir some of them up again (Second Book of Discipline,
chapter ii). God hath now proved that He both can and will raise

IRVING'S STATEMENT OF HIS INTENTION. 439
up these offices again, having anointed many, both among us and
elsewhere, with the gift of prophesying after the manner foretold in
Isaiah, xxviii., 11, fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and particularly or
dered in 1 Cor., xi. and xiv. These persons having been fully proved
at our daily morning exercise, and found to speak by the Spirit of
God, I have, in obedience to the apostle, and in the spirit of the
Church of Scotland, permitted to exercise their gift in the congrega
tion, according to the order laid down above.
"Now, my dear brethren, it is well known to you that by the
Word of God, and by the rules of all well-ordered churches, and by
the trust-deed of our church in particular, it lies with the angel or
minister of the Church to order in all things connected with the pub
lic worship and service of God. For this duty I am responsible. to
the Great Head of the Church, and have felt the burden of it upon
my conscience for many weeks past ; but, consulting for the feelings
of others, I have held back from doing that which I felt to be my
duty, and most profitable for the great edification of the Church of
Christ, over which the Lord hath set me. I desire to humble myself
in His sight for having too long lingered to walk in the way of His
express commandment ; and having at last obeyed Him to whom we
must all answer at the great day, I beseech you, dearly beloved, to
strengthen my hands and uphold them, as in times past ye have al
ways been forward to do ; but if ye can not see your way clearly to
do this, I entreat you not to let or withstand, lest haply ye be found
fighting against God ; and the more, as it is expressly written in the
only place where the method of prophesying in another tongue is
mentioned, that it should be for a rest and refreshment to some, for
a snare and stumbling unto many (Isaiah, xxviii., 12, 13). For the
rest, dear brethren, I need only add that, if you should see it your
duty to take any step toward the prohibition of this (as I have heard
that some are minded to do, which may God, for their own sake, pre
vent, and for the sake of all concerned), I pray that nothing may be
done till after a friendly conference between the trustees on the one
hand, and myself, your minister, with some friends to assist me, on
the other; for, as we have hitherto had good Christian fellowship
together, we will do our part by all means to preserve it to the end,
without compromising our truth and duty. I have done myself the
satisfaction of sending to each one of you, dear brethren, a copy of
the first part of a treatise on the subject of the Baptism with the
Holy Ghost for your farther information on this subject, which I beg
you will accept as a small token of the esteem and gratitude of your
faithful and affectionate friend and minister, Edwd.Trvtng.
"Finally, may the Lord guide you in upright judgment, and pre
serve you blameless unto the day of His appearing, and then receive
you into His glory ! Amen and Amen !"
It was thus, not in anger, but- in mutual affection and regret,
that the first parallels of this warfare were opened-; and strangely
enough, of all who argued, remonstrated, or pleaded with Irving,
in public or private, his Scotch father-in-law, strong in all ecclesi
astical proprieties, as it was natural he should be, and often dis-

440 PUBLICATIONS OF THE YEAR.
posed to be impatient of Edward's faith, seems to have been the
only man who recognized and acknowledged that, believing as Ir
ving did, no other course was practicable to him. The suppres
sion of the manifestations in public appears to have been all that
the trustees ever wanted, and that they hoped their minister might
be urged or persuaded into if they still left him the freedom of
his morning services. Dr. Martin alone perceived that it was im
possible for Irving to shut out what he took for the voice of God
from any place where he was or had authority.
The treatise upon Baptism with the Holy Ghost is one of the
brief and few results of his literary labors during this agitating
year; this — the tract, published earlier in the year, on Christ's
Holiness in the Flesh, and the reprint of the Ancient Confessions of
Faith and Books of Discipline of the Church of Scotland, beiiig, with
the exception of articles in the Morning Watch, his sole publica
tions in 1831. The latter is especially remarkable as appearing
at such a moment. He had apparently cherished the idea for
years ; but only now, in the midst of his own troubles, grieved
to the heart to see his beloved mother-Church falling, as he be
lieved, so far from her ancient height of perfection, he confronts
her once more, indignant yet tender, with these, the primitive
rules of her faith and practice, in his hand. A rapid historical
sketch of primitive Scotch Christianity in its romantic period, the
Culdee age of gold, which he evidently intended, had time per
mitted, to carry out through the less obscure chronicles of the
Reformation, occupies the first part of the book. But the real
preface, to which attaches all the human and individual interest
always conveyed by Irving's prefaces, contains an examination of
those ancient documents, in which he — who had already been de
nounced as a heretic, and who was on the eve of being cast out
from his church for departing from the rules of the Church of
Scotland — enthusiastically adopts the primary standards of that
very Church of Scotland as the confession of his faith, and ad
miringly sets forth the beauty and perfectness of those entirely
national statements of belief. I do not know if Irving was the
first to fall back with a sensation of relief and expansion from the
cruel logic of the Westminster Confession, to' the earlier Scottish
creed — the simple, manful, uncontroversial declaration of the faith
that was in them, which the first Reformers gave, and which, I be
lieve, many of their present descendants would gladly and thank
fully see replaced instead of the elaborate production of the West;

THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 441
minster Puritans, but it was he who introduced them anew to the
notice of his brethren. In the present condition of the Scotch
Church, palpitating silently with what seems a new and different
life, the restoration of these old authorities to the supreme place
would, I am assured, give space and breathing-room to many wist
ful souls.
" I prefer beyond all measure," says Irving, " the labors of our Re
formers, which took so many years to complete them, and grieve ex
ceedingly that they should have been virtually supplanted and buried
out of sight by the act of one General Assembly in a factious time
convened. . . . While I say I lament this other instance of Scottish
haste, I am far from disavowing the Westminster Confession, to
which I have set my hand, or even disallowing it as an excellent com
position upon the whole. But, for many reasons, I greatly postpone
it to our original standards. . . . The truth is that the Church of
Scotland was working with head and hand to proselytize or to beat
England into the Presbyterian form of Church government, and
therefore adopted these books of the English Presbyterians, thinking
there could be no unity without uniformity, a cruel mistake which
was woefully retaliated upon them in the reigns of the Second
Charles and the Second James. It is not with any particular ex
pressions or doctrines of the Westminster Confession that I find
fault, but with the general structure of it. It is really an imposition
upon a man's conscience to ask him to subscribe such a minute docu
ment ; it is also a call upon his previous knowledge of ecclesiastical
controversy which very few can honestly answer ; and, being digest
ed on a systematic principle, it is rather an exact code of doctrine
than the declaration of a person's faith in a personal God, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. I find it to be a great snare to tender con
sciences — a great trial to honest men — insomuch that, as a pastor, I
have often been greatly perplexed to reconcile men, both elders and
preachers, to the subscription of it. They seem to feel that it is rath
er an instrument for catching dishonest than a rule for guiding hon
est people ; that it presupposeth men knavish, and prepareth gyves
upon their legs, and shackles for their hands. ... In one word, there
is a great deal too much of it for rightly serving the ends of a confes
sion. . . . There is no use for hard-fasting men at such a rate, although
it be very necessary to exhibit a distinct standard of faith for them
to rally under."
Holding such opinions, Irving, almost hopeless for the recovery
of his mother-Church, which appeared to him to have denied the
faith, presented to her once more her old forgotten standards, and
"this the native and proper Confession of our Church," to show
her from what height she had fallen. Had he been prudent, he
might have found some better way of deprecating the censures
that threatened him ; but he was not prudent. He came forward
boldly, not to correct his own views by her present light, but to

442 PAPERS IN THE "MORNING WATCH."
recall her to the venerable past, the early Reformation glory, her
true individual national standing-ground before she had begun to
borrow doctrine or authority from other communities. At this
very moment, when on the brink of excommunication, and accused
of every kind of ecclesiastical irregularity, he' once more fervent
ly proclaimed himself truly loyal, and his assailants the heretics
and deniers of the faith. Forlorn, with his friends and brethren
dapping off from him, and all the ties of his life breaking in
pieces, shortly to be left among a new community which had no
filial relationship to Scotland or her Church, he planted again this
old national Reformation standard beneath which he was ready to
live or to die, and under that antique emblazonry prepared to
fight his last battle. It was the neglected, forgotten banner of
the Church which assailed him that waved over his martyr head,
as he sadly lifted his arms to defend himself against those who
sadly took up their weapons against him. But the Church did
not pause to recognize her own ancient symbols ; took no notice,
indeed, of the sorrowful, indignant offering by which her grieved
but loving son sought to recall her to herself. I am not aware
whether the publication attracted any special degree of attention
from any portion of the public. Few people were so much inter
ested as Irving was in proving that, whatever might be her tem
porary errors, the foundation of the Church of Scotland was
sound, and her ancient heart pure. His new followers endured
the solemn reading of those antiquated articles, which were asso
ciated to them with no sacred recollections, and smiled aside at
his national fervor. His old adherents were too deeply engaged
in the more exciting interest of the present conflict to observe this
pathetic reassertion of orthodox faith.
Throughout the year the Morning Watch carried on, without in
termission, the two great controversies in which Irving was en
gaged. Papers on the Humanity of our Lord, which, by over-
exposition and explanation, confuse and profane the question, ap
peared in every number, along with inquiries into the new spirit
ual gifts, some of which bear the mark of Irving's own hand, and
accounts of miraculous cures, so detailed and minute that it is dif
ficult not to think "of the parallel cases cited by Professor Hollo-
way and other vendors of miraculous universal medicine. Ir
ving's series upon Old Testament Prophecies fulfilled in the New
runs through the entire volume, where, too, there appears now
and then a human, personal glimpse of him in the affectionate tes-

HIVING AND THE "RECORD." 443
timony of a friend ; as, for example, when the Morning Watch, tak
ing part, for some wonderful occasion, with the Record, begs its
adherents to support that paper, irrespective of " its conduct on
another subject." " We exhort all such to overlook the trespass
against a brother, dear as he deservedly is to all who know him,"
says the prophetical journal, confident that nobody can mistake
whom it means, and speaking with a warmth of personal feeling
unknown to the abstract dignity of the Press. " There is no breast
on earth more ready to pardon than he who has most reason to
complain, or who would more regret that personal feelings to
ward him should impede the promulgation of such sentiments as
those of which we have shown the Record to be now the advo
cate." Such a reference to an individual, assumed to be so en
tirely well-known and held in such affectionate regard by an- au
dience considerable enough to keep a quarterly review afloat, is,
perhaps, unique in literature.
As the days darkened and the end of the year approached, mat
ters became more and more hopeless in the little world of Regent
Square, where still the daily matins gathered crowds of curious
worshipers, and where, at almost every service, the voices of the
prophets were heard, filling up the pauses which the preacher had
appointed for the purpose, and crowding with an excited and mis
cellaneous auditory the church which was to have been a national
rallying-point and centre of Christian influence. Such hopes were
over now. The inspired circle which surrounded Irving was not
of the nation which gave his Church its name ; those who were of
that race were deserting him day by day. It was no longer to a
national influence, but to a remnant saved from all nations, a pe
culiar people, that his earnest eyes were turned. The trustees of
the church, to whom he had addressed his letter concerning the
new order of worship, continued, while firmly opposed to that
novel system, to hope that something might yet be done by reason
and argument to change his mind. They met again in December,
and had a solemn conference with Irving, who was accompanied
by Mr. Cardale (a gentleman whose wife and sister were both
among the gifted persons) as his legal adviser, and by Mr. Mac
kenzie, the only one of his elders who believed with him. Mr.
Hamilton reports, for the information of Dr. Martin, that " a com
promise was attempted by some of the trustees, who strongly urged
Edward to prohibit the gifted persons from speaking on the Sab
bath, leaving it to him to make such regulations regarding the

444 THE KIRK SESSION.
weekly services as he might think proper." When this proved
vain, the trustees, "being exceedingly unwilling, from their great
reverence and respect for Edward, to push matters to extremes,
resolved again to adjourn, and to leave it to the session, at their
meeting on Monday, to reconsider the subject.,," " The session"
— the same session which, not a year ago, came forward spontane
ously and as one man to take up their share of their leader's bur
dens, and declare their perfect concurrence with him — "accord
ingly entered into a very lengthened discussion, during which
quotations were made from the Books of Discipline and the Acts
of the Assembly to show the inconsistency of the present proceed
ings with the Discipline of the Church. . . . An intimation was
given, which I was pained at, that an appeal would be made to
the Presbytery of London, according to the provision of the trust-
deed. This Edward most earnestly deprecated, and begged that
he might not be carried before a body who are so inimical to him."
Mr. Hamilton proceeds to confide to his father-in-law his own mel
ancholy forebodings for every body and every thing concerned ;
his fears of Irving's " usefulness as a minister being lamentably
curtailed," of the scattering of the congregation, and " ruin" of the
Church, which had been, from the laying of its earliest stone, an
object dear to the heart of the zealous Scotch elder, who now was
about to see all his own laborious efforts and those of his friends
comparatively lost. How such repeated entreaties, urged upon
him with real love by his most faithful and familiar friends, must
have wrung the heart of Irving, always so open to proofs of affec
tion, may easily be imagined. He stood fast through the whole,
a matter more difficult to such a spirit than any strain of resist
ance to harsher persecutions. The next meeting he does not seem
to have attended ; but, on hearing their decision, wrote to the ses
sion the following letter, full of an almost weeping tenderness, as
well as of a resolution which nothing could move :
" London, December 24, 1831.
" My dear Brethren, — There is nothing which I would not sur
render to you, even to my life, except to hinder or retard in any way
what I most clearly discern to be the work of God's Holy Spirit,
which, with heart and hand, we must all further, as we value the sal
vation of our immortal souls. I most solemnly warn you all, in the
name_ of the most High God, for no earthly consideration whatever,
to gainsay or impede the work of speaking with tongues and prophe
sying which God had begun among us, and which answereth in all
respects, both formally and spiritually, to the thing promised in the
Scriptures to those who believe ; possessed in the primitive Church,

IMPORTUNITY OF TRVING'S FRIENDS. 445
and much prayed for by us all. I will do every thing I can, dear
brethren, to lead you into the truth in this matter ; but God alone
can give you to discern it, for it is a work of the Spirit, and only spir
itually discerned. It can not but be with great detriment to the
Church over which we watch, and much grieving to the Spirit of
God, that any steps should be taken against it. And I do beseech
you, as men for whose souls I watch, not to take any. I can not find
liberty to deviate in any thing from the order laid down in my former
letter, received by the trustees the 22d of November, which is accord
ing to the commandments of the Lord, and in nothing contradictory
to the constitutions of the Church of Scotland. And to that letter I
refer the trustees, as containing the grounds of my proceeding. Fare
well ! may the Lord have you in His holy keeping and guidance !
" Your affectionate and faithful friend and pastor, " Edwd. Irving."
So the year closed, in perplexity and anxious fear to all those
friendly and affectionate opponents whom the heat of conflict
had not yet excited into any animosity against himself, but not in
perplexity to Irving, who, secure in his faith, doubted nothing,
and was' as ready to march to stake or gibbet, had such things
been practicable, as any primitive martyr. But sharp to his heart
struck those reiterated prayers which he could not grant — those
importunities of affectionate unreasonableness, which would nei
ther see this duty as he saw it, nor perceive how impossible it was
for him, believing as he did, to restrain or limit the utterances of
God. Such a want of perception must have aggravated to an in
tolerable height the sufferings of his tender heart in this slow and
tedious disruption of all its closest ties; but he showed no sign of
impatience. He answered them with a pathetic outburst of sor
rowful love, " There is nothing which I would not surrender to
you, even to my life" — nothing but the duty he owed to God. In
that dreadful alternative, when human friendship and honor stood
on one side, and what he believed his true service to his Master
on the other, Irving had no possibility of choice. Never man
loved love and honor more ; but he turned away with steadfast
sadness, smiling a smile full of tears and anguish upon those breth
ren whose affection would still add torture to the pain that was
inevitable. He could descend into the darkening world alone,
and suffer the loss of almost all that was dear to his heart. He
could bear to be shut out from his pulpit, excommunicated by his
Church, forsaken of his friends. What he could not do was to
weigh his own comfort, happiness, or life for a moment against
what he believed to be the will and ordinance of God.

446 INCREASING DARKNESS.

CHAPTER XVII.
1832.
"Bedlam" and " Chaos."— Robert Baxter.— Farther Development of the Power.—
The Two Witnesses.— Authoritative Interpretation of Prophecy. — Baxter's Nar
rative. — Inner World Revealed by it. — Attitude of Irving. — Retains his Influence
as Pastor.— Mystic Atmosphere.— Evangelists.— Inevitable Progress. — The Trus
tees take Counsel's Opinion. — Irving's Public Intimation of the Danger. — His Ad
vice to his People. — Answer to the Trustees. — Sir Edward Sugden's Advice.— The
foregone Conclusion of the Presbytery. — Their Authority finally appealed to.— The
Life of the Accused. — "Reproach hath broken my Heart." — The Angel of the
Church. — "Unwearied and Unceasing." — Fundamental Question involved. — Last
Remonstrance. — Warning. — Not the Shadow of a Doubt. — Banishing the Voice
of Jesus.— Impassioned Appeal. — The Trustees' Complaint. — Meeting of the Pres
bytery. — Recantation of Baxter. — Beginning of the Trial. — Examination of Wit
nesses : The Elder. — Appeal to the Scriptures. — Examination continued : The
Prophet. — "Did you hear any Conversation anywhere?" — Calling Names. — Ex
amination continued : The Deacon. — Sudden Blandness of the Examiners. — Con
clusion of the Evidence. — Unanimity of the Witnesses. — The Disenchanted Proph
et. — Unmoved by Discouragement. — Order of Irving's Defense. — The Head of
every Man. — An undivided Allegiance. — Records of Ecclesiastical Antiquity. —
The Conscience of the Presbytery. — Character of the Evidence. — Speech of the
Accuser. — Irving's Reply. — Whether the Work be of the Holy Ghost. — The Pro
phetic Character. — "Dishonesty." — Tempted to withdraw from the Contest. —
Prefers his Duty as a Pastor to his Feelings. — Standeth or Falleth to his own
Master. — A Lamb of the Flock. — Decision of the Presbytery. — Their Recklessness.
— Scraps of the Confession. — The Character of Presbyterian Worship. — What
could they do? — Sentence. — Irving "unfit" to remain a Minister. — Triumph of
the Press. — Times and Record. — The Fast-day. — Closing of the Church. — Gray's
Inn Road. — Out-door Preaching. — The Lost Child. — Affectionate Recollections.
— The Scotch Psalms. — Islington Green. — Princely Hospitality. — How to over
come Disease by Faith. — Sufferings. — Resolved to Fall at his Post. — Victory over
the Body. — State of the Public Mind. — Reported "falling off" in Irving's Mind.
— The Morning Watch the Organ of the Church. — The Sick Child.— Invitation to
the Kirkcaldy Relations. — Prospered by the Lord. — The Despised in Israel. — De
velopment. — A new Order of Things. — Irving announces certain Changes. — Ar
rangement of the Church in Newman Street. — Opening Services. — Manifestations.
— Their Character. — Another Assault. — Weariness.
The next year began with but a gradual increase of darkness
to the devoted household, from which old friends were failing and
old ties breaking every day. It was no lack of affection which
necessitated those partings ; but utter disagreement in a point so

"BEDLAM" AND "CHAOS." 447
important, and the growing impatience of the sensible, " practical"
men around him for that impracticable faith which no motive of
prudence nor weight of reasoning could move, inevitably took the
heart from their intercourse, and produced a gradual alienation
between Irving and his ancient brethren. Other friends, it is
true, came in to take their place — partisans still more close, loyal,
and loving — but they were new, little tried, strangers to all his
native sympathies and prejudices, neither Scotch nor Presbyte
rian, and, with equal inevitableness, took up .an attitude of oppo
sition to the older party, and made the pathetic struggle an inter
necine war. On all sides the friends of years parted from Irving's
side. His wife's relations, with whom he had exchanged so many
good offices and tender counsels, were, to a man, against him ; so
were his elders, with one exception. His friends outside the ec
clesiastical boundaries were still less tolerant. Thomas Carlyle
and his wife, both much beloved, not only disagreed, but remon
strated; the former making a vehement protestation against the
"Bedlam" and "Chaos" to which his friend's steps were tending,
which Irving listened to in silence, covering his face with his
hands. When the philosopher had said, doubtless in no measured
or lukewarm terms, what he had to say, the mournful apostle
lifted his head, and addressed him with all the tenderness of their
youth — " Dear friend !" — that turning of the other cheek seems
to have touched the heart of the sage almost too deeply to make
him aware what was the defense which the other returned to his
fiery words. None of his old supporters, hitherto so devoted and
loyal, stood by Irving in this extremity ; nobody except the wife,
who shared all his thoughts, and followed him faithfully in faith
as well as in love to the margin of the grave.
In the midst of all these disruptions, however, he snatches a mo
ment to send the good wishes of the beginning season to Kirkcal
dy Manse : " I desire to give thanks to God that He has spared us
all to another year," he writes, "and I pray that it may be very
fruitful in you and in us unto all good works. We have daily
reason to praise the Lord. He gives us new demonstrations of
His presence among us daily. There is not any Church almost
with which He hath dealt so graciously. May the Lord revive
and restore His work in the midst of you all ! I would there
were in every congregation a morning prayer-meeting for the gifts
of the Spirit." These brief words mark, however, the limits to
which he is now reduced in those once overflowing domestic con-

448 ROBERT BAXTER.
fidences. He can but utter with an unexpressed sigh the still af
fectionate good- will, and make a tacit protest against harsh judg
ment by fervent utterances of gratitude for the manifestations of
God's presence. Sympathy of thought and spiritual feeling was
over between those close friends.
Very early in this year, the little band of " gifted" persons,
whose presence had made so much commotion in Regent Square,
and of whom we have hitherto had no very clear and recogniza
ble picture, is opened up to us in the narrative, which I have al
ready referred to, of one of the most remarkable among them, Mr.
Robert Baxter, then of Doncaster. Having but recently appeared
within the inspired circle, this gentleman had made his utterances
with so much power and authority, that already adumbrations of
an office higher than the prophetic overshadowed him, and he
seems to have taken a leading place in all the closest and most
sacred conferences of the prophets. He had been for some years
known to Irving ; his character for godliness and devotion stood
high ; and he was so much in the confidence and fellowship of
the minister of the Church in Regent Square as to have been, be
fore any gifts had manifested themselves in him, permitted occa
sionally to conduct some part of the service in the morning pray
er-meetings. At length he spoke, and that with a force and full
ness not yet attained by any of the other speakers. " In the be>
ginning of my utterances that evening," he says in his narrative,
"some observations were in the power addressed by me to the
pastor in a commanding tone, and the manner and course of ut
terance was so far differing from those which had been manifest
ed in the members of his own flock* that he was much startled.
... I was made to bid those present ask instruction upon any
subject on which they sought to be taught of God ; and. to sever
al questions asked, answers were given by me in the power. One
in particular was so answered with such reference to the circum
stances of the case, of which in myself I was wholly ignorant, as
to convince the person who asked it that the Spirit speaking in
me knew those circumstances, and alluded to them in the answer."
This further development of the gift, after a momentary doubt,
was received with still fuller gratitude and trust by Irving, who
comforts himself in his desertion by communicating the news as
follows to his distant friends, one of whom was in perfect accord
ance with him, while he had still hopes of the sympathy of the
* Mr. Baxter was a member of the Church of England.

THE TWO WITNESSES. 449
other. To Mr. Macdonald he conveys the intelligence in haste,
and with perfect confidence of being understood :
"London, 24th January, 1832.
" The Lord hath anointed Baxter of Doncaster after another kind,
I think the apostolical ; the prophetical being the ministration of the
Word, the apostolical being the ministration of the Spirit. He speaks
from supernatural light, and with the choice of words. Neverthe
less, the word is sealed in the utterance. It is more abiding than the
prophetical, though sometimes for a snare he is locked up. It is au
thoritative, and always concludes with a benediction."
In more detail, and with pathetic appeal and remonstrance, he
communicates the same news to Mr. Story, transmitting the mes
sage itself, as well as the claims of the messenger to increased
honor and reverence. " London, 27th January, 1832.
" My dear Brother, — It has been said in the Spirit by a brother
(Robert Baxter, of Doncaster ; he has written several papers in the
Morning Watch) that the Two Witnesses are two orders of anoint
ed men, the prophets and the priests, the one after the Old Testa
ment, the other after the New Testament form ; the one those who
speak with tongues, and to whom the Word of the Lord comes with
out power to go beyond or fall within ; the other the apostolical, in
whom the Spirit of Jesus dwells as in Jesus Himself for utterance of
every sort with demonstration of the Spirit and with power. For
the last six months the Spirit hath been moving him, and uttering by
him privately ; but his mouth was not opened till Friday week, when
he was reading the*Scripture and praying at our early service. From
that time for more than a week he continued [among us*] speaking
in the power and demonstration of the Spirit with great authority,
always concluding in the Spirit with a benediction. To me it seems
to be the apostolical office for which I have had faith given to me to
[pray] both publicly and privately these many months. I gave him
liberty to speak on the Lord's day, but God did not see it meet. A
clergyman of the [Church] had the faith to give him his pulpit last
Sunday, when he prayed in the Spirit. He said in the Spirit that the
two orders of witnesses were now present in the Church, the 1260
days of witnessing are begun, and that within three and a half years
the saints will be taken up, according to the 12th chapter of the
Apocalypse. (This is not to date the Lord's coming, which is some
time after His saints are with Him.) Also, he said in the Spirit, that
ordination by the hands of the Church is cut short in judgment, and
that God Himself is about to set forth by the Spirit a spiritual minisi-
try, for which we ought to prepare the people. That both the Church
and the State are accursed ; that the abomination of iniquity is set
up in this land, and that here the witnesses will be slain ; that many
people, multitudes, will be gathered of the people, a goodly number
pf the nobles, and the king himself given to the prayers of his people ;
* This letter is torn and partly illegible. The few words in brackets are filled in
from the evident meaning of the context.
Ff

450 BAXTER'S NARRATIVE.
but that the nation and the Church will be else destroyed. That the
pestilence and the sword will overflow the land, but the people of
God preserved ; and that those who are looking for the coming of the
Lord should set their house in order, and be sitting loose. These
things I believe, some of them I understand, others I have not yet at
tained to. I write them for your reflection ; do not make them mat
ter of news, but of meditation. The Lord greatly blesses my minis
try. His way is wonderfully opened among us, and those that know
Him gather strength daily. I have no doubt that He is preparing
the way of a great work in my church, through much reproach and
apparent foolishness. My own soul hath greater entrance unto God.
The Lord is leavening this city with His truth. Every night there
are several places at which the men of the congregation gather the
poor to discourse to them. I seldom preach less than seven times a
week, and we meet more than two hundred every morning for pray
er in the church at half past six o'clock, and continue till eight, and
have done it the winter through. I intermingle it with pastoral ad
monitions, and the Spirit speaks almost every morning by the proph
ets and interpreters. Oh, Story, thou hast grievously sinned in stand
ing afar off from the work of the Lord, scanning it like a skeptic in
stead of proving it like a spiritual man ! Ah ! brother, repent, and
the Lord will forgive thee ! I am very much troubled for you ; but
I rejoice in your returning strength. God give you unmeasured
faithfulness! ....
" Your faithful friend and brother, Edwd. Irving.
" Mrs. Caird is a saint of God, and hath the gift of prophecy."
Mrs. Caird thus referred to, the gifted Mary Campbell of the
Gairloch, who appears to have been again in London, and to whom
Irving bears such emphatic testimony, had by this time failed to
satisfy the expectations of her former pastor and oldest friend, the
minister of Rosneath ; and the sentence of approval pronounced
with so much decision and brevity at the conclusion of this letter
addressed to him was Irving's manner of avoiding controversy,
and making his friend aware that, highly as he esteemed himself,
he could hear nothing against the other, whose character had re
ceived the highest of all guarantees to his unquestioning faith.
Our history has little directly to do with this remarkable woman,
who does not appear distinctly even in the revelations of Mr. Bax
ter ; but I am happy to have it in my power to refer my readers
to the biography of Mr. Story, which has been already mentioned,
for many most interesting and powerful sketches of the secondary
persons who crossed and influenced in different degrees' the faith
of Irving. None of all the prophetic speakers who at this time
wrought into the highest dramatic excitement the little world of
Regent Square appears before us in such recognizable personality
as does Mr. Baxter. He tells his strange story with all the intens-

THE INNER WORLD REVEALED. 451
ity of passion, and that unconscious eloquence which inspires a
man when he chronicles the climax and culmination of his own
life. In the wonderful sphere revealed to us in his little book,
the detail of ordinary circumstances scarcely appears at all. Out
side, the office-bearers are holding melancholy consultations how
to deal with this Church, in which practices contrary to the usual
regulations of the Church of Scotland are undoubtedly taking
place every day — how to soothe or persuade the friend and min
ister, so dear to them all, into moderation, conformity, indulgence
for their scruples, if not into their own common-sense view of the
entire matter. We have already noted this side of the question ;
how they consult and reconsult — how they invite to sad argu
mentative meetings the tender heart which, torn by every fresh
argument, would surrender every thing, even his life, but can not
relinquish his duty and conviction ; how, as the lingering days
wear on, his position, his daily bread, his children's subsistence,
and, dearer still, his honor and good fame, and that standing-
ground within the Church of Scotland which in his heart he
prizes more than life, hang in the balance, no one knowing when
the sad assailants may open the last parallel and the final blow
may fall. Nothing of this outside scene, though it proceeds at
the same moment with all its real and pathetic particulars, wring
ing some hearts and grieving many, is visible in the closer sanc
tuary within, where Mr. Baxter draws the curtain. There life lies
rapt in ecstatic flights of devotion,' yet with an inward eye always
turned upon the movements of its own heart — there sudden su
pernatural impulses, fiery breaths of inspiration, seize upon the
expectant soul — there, in a mysterious fellowship, prophet after
prophet, with convulsed frame and miraculous outcry, takes up
the burden and enforces the message of his predecessor, by times
electrifying the little assembly with sudden denunciation of some
secret sin in the midst of them, over which judgment is hanging, ,
or of some intruding devil who has found entrance into the sacred
place. The fact that these awful assemblies are in the first place
collected to dinner makes an uncomfortable discord in the scene,
till the chief seer of the company becomes himself uneasy on that
score, and declares "in the power" that this assembling with a sec
ular motive is unseemly, and must be no longer continued. But
the meetings themselves continue daily, nightly, the record flow
ing on as if life itself must have come by the way, and these re
unions alone have been the object of existence. I quote at length

452 IRVING RETAINS HIS INFLUENCE AS PASTOR.
in the Appendix from this most remarkable narrative. The pas
sionate closeness of the tale, the reality of the scene, the long-
drawn breath and gasp, scarcely calmed out of that profound emo
tion with which the speaker tells his story, are more emphatic
witnesses of his truthfulness than any proof.
In this strange drama Irving appears more than a spectator and
less than an actor. He is there listening with fervent faith, try
ing the spirits with anxious scrutiny, his own lofty mind bring
ing to a species of ineffable reason and proof those phenomena
which were entirely beyond either proof or reason, both to the
ecstatics who received them unhesitatingly, and to. the skeptics
who could not receive them at all. In the case of Mr- Baxter
above described, "the pastor" was "troubled," fearing that this
new development of the utterance resembled the case of "two
children in Gloucestershire who had been made to speak in won;
derful power, and who afterward were found to speak by a false
spirit." " He came up to me," says Mr. Baxter, " and said, ' Faith
is very hard.' I was immediately made to address him, and rea
son with him in the power, until he was fully convinced the Spirit
was of God, and gave thanks for the manifestation of it." At an
other time this prophet, having been directed by the mysterious
influence within him to proceed to the Court of Chancery, where
a message was to be given him, found, on proceeding there, with
tragic expectations of prison and penalty, that the impulse was
withheld. Deeply disappointed, he came to Irving in his dis
comfiture, and the pastor soothed the impatience of the inspired
speaker, and re-established his failing faith. In the midst of an
other exciting scene, in which the exorcism of an evil spirit is
attempted without success, where Mrs. Caird and Baxter himself
stand over the supposed demoniac, adjuring the devil to come out
of him, and another prophetess of weaker frame has fainted in the
excitement, Irving once more appears exhorting them to patience,
suggesting, as our informant significantly says, that " this kind go-
efh not forth but with prayer and fasting." Such is his position
in that strange atmosphere where hectic expectation is always on
tiptoe, and where the air throbs with spiritual presence. No pro
phetic message comes from his lips ; but he has not relinquished
his authority, the sway of a spirit which is roused, but not intox
icated, by the surrounding miracle. Amid the agitation and tu
mult he stands, preserving all the tender humanity of which noth
ing could deprive him, ready to cheer the ecstatic souls in their

MYSTIC ATMOSPHERE. 453
intervals of depression, ready to moderate the absolutism with
which the more profoundly agitated struggle for results, leading
their prayers, listening with devout faith to their utterances, under
standing some part of them, though " others," as he himself says
with touching humility, " I have not yet attained to," and never
ceasing to mingle with " pastoral admonitions" the prophetic ad
dresses. When an unlucky neophyte stumbles into the sacred
inclosure, believing himself endowed with power to interpret the
unknown tongues, in the midst of the somewhat rough handling
which he meets from the prophets themselves and the immediate
by-standers, he has nothing but kindness to report of Irving, who
overpowers him with awe by solemnly praying for him that the
gift he had imagined himself to have received might be perfected.
The position and scene is altogether wonderful ; and through the
often- varying voices, through the cries and thrills of prophetic ec
stasy, through the frequent agitations which convulse that com
pany, waiting the impulse which comes and goes " as it listeth,"
no man being able to say when it will enter or when go forth, the
great preacher stands wistful-silent, never able to shut out from
his heart the sad world and the sadder desertions outside, yet
thanking God with pathetic joy for the revelations, of which he be
lieves all and understands something, within. Never was a more
affecting picture ; and it is only in the remarkable disclosures of
Mr. Baxter that this strange inner circle rounds out of the dark
ness with its "appalling utterances," its intruding demons, its
breathless, absorbed existence full of rapture and revelation.
In the Church itself the warnings and admonitions of the new
prophets had borne more wholesome fruit. A new body of evan
gelists sprang up among the spiritual men of the congregation,
who went preaching every where, sometimes even bringing upon
themselves the observation of the alarmed protectors of the public
peace, and " being called up before the magistrates on account of
it," as Mr. Baxter informs us — a harmless kind of persecution,
which naturally the new preachers, in the exuberance of early
zeal, made the most of. Irving himself, always so lavish in labor,
was not behind in this quickening of evangelical exertion. He
describes himself as preaching "seldom less than seven times a
week;" besides which, he had the morning meeting constantly to
attend, children to catechise, conferences to hold, and a close
perpetual background of private expositions, prophesyings, and
prayers, in which, without any metaphor, his entire life seems to

454 INEVITABLE PROGRESS.
have been occupied. Rent asunder as he was by the two compa
nies between which he stood — the one, whom he would have died
to win, importuning him to relinquish his faith for their sake, and
gradually withdrawing from him, as he resisted, all the human
supports upon which he had most leaned ; the other, with whom
he had no choice but to cast his lot, perplexing oft his noble intel
ligence, sometimes wounding his heart ; bound to him, indeed, by
close links of love and fellow-feeling, but not by ancient brother
hood — the bonds of long mutual labor, hope, and sorrow — nor by
the tender prejudices of nationality and education, it is yet no di
vided man who appears amid all the agitation and tumult without
and within. Constant, steadfast, without a vacillation, he goes
upon his heroic way: No new honor has come to him ; rather the
contrary ; for other voices of higher authority than his echo within
the walls once consecrated to his voice, while he, the foremost to
believe, bows his head and thanks God, and bids his people listen
to that utterance from heaven. But nothing that he encounters,
not even that hardest trial of all — the anxiety that moves him
when "faith" becomes "hard," when spiritual accusations begin
to rise, and evil influences are suspected to mingle with the in
spiration of God — can disturb the unity of his being or make him
waver. He has prayed, and God has answered ; he has tried the
spirits, and with solemn acclamations they have answered the test,
and owned the Lord ; and now let all suffering, all opposition, all
agony come. If his very prophets fail him, his faith can not fail
him. And thus he goes forward, feeling to the depths of his heart
all the remonstrances and appeals addressed to him, yet smiling
in sad constancy upon those importunate voices, and hearing as
if he heard them not.
Notwithstanding, however, the reluctant affection of the man
agers of the Church, affairs made inevitable progress. Though it
is perfectly true, on one side, that there were no direct laws of the
Church of Scotland against the exercise of an entirely unexpected
endowment for which no provision had been made, and equally
certain that to every man who believed these gifts genuine, no sin
could be more heinous than a willful suppression of them, yet
it was still more apparent, on the other side, that nothing could
be more unlike the reserved and austere worship of the Scotch
Church, so carefully abstracted from every thing that could excite
imagination or passion, than the new and startling intervention of
voices, unauthorized by any ecclesiastical rule, which introduced

THE TRUSTEES TAKE COUNSEL'S OPINION. 455
the whole round of human excitement into those calm Presbyte
rian Sabbath-days, stirring into utter antagonism, impatience, and
opposition the former leaders of the community, who found them
selves thus defied and thwarted on their own ground. For their
minister's convictions they had the utmost tenderness and rever
ence, but they would indeed have been more than men could they
have seen with equal forbearance the new influence, twenty times
more engrossing and exacting than theirs, which had become ab
solute with him, and through him exercised unbounded sway in
all their public religious services. Feelings less tender and Chris
tian came in. Men who little more than a year before had pledged
their honor to Irving's support against the petty persecution of
the Presbytery, and maintained him in his withdrawal from its
jurisdiction, now began to bethink themselves of the capabilities
of that very Presbytery against which they had protested. That
court only could, with any ecclesiastical consistency, arbitrate be
tween them and their minister ; and at length they seem to have
reached the pitch of indignation and impatience necessary to in
duce them to take the humiliating step of asking the intervention
of the authority which they had renounced against the man for
whose sake, a little while before, they had thrown off their alle
giance. This painful conclusion was, however, reached by slow
degrees. The first step toward it was taken in the beginning of
the year, when — still with a forlorn and indeed most hopeless hope
of breaking Irving's resolution, if they were clearly demonstrated
to have the law on their side — they submitted the whole facts of
the case to Sir Edward Sugden, and obtained that eminent law
yer's opinion in their favor. This decision gave an authoritative
answer to the assumption that the direction of the order of wor
ship in Regent Square Church was entirely in the hands of the
minister, which Irving seems to have been advised to set up in
answer to their remonstrances. Armed with this document, a
deputation of the trustees went to Irving, asking his final determ
ination. " He received them cordially," writes Mr. Hamilton ;
''expressed himself much gratified with the kind manner in which
they had always treated him, and promised to give them his an
swer in a few days." A Sunday intervened before this answer
was given ; and on that day, after each service in the church, Ir
ving forestalled the formal intimation, which, indeed, so thorough
ly were his sentiments known, was nothing more than a form, by
a public statement from the pulpit, which Mr. Hamilton, follow-

456 IRVING'S ADVICE TO HIS PEOPLE.
ing the course of events in anxious and minute detail, reports to
Kirkcaldy. " I have something of great importance to say to
you," said the preacher, according to his brother-in-law's report:
" I do not know whether I may ever look this congregation again
in the face in this place, and whether the doors of the church will
not be shut against me during this week. If it be so, it will be sim
ply because I have refused to allow the voice of the Spirit of God to
be silenced in this church. No man has any thing to say against me.
I have offended no ordinance of God or man, and I have broken no
statute of man. No one has found any fault with me at all except in
the matter of my God — nay, on the contrary, every one has pro
nounced me even more abundant in my labors and more diligent in
my duties of late, and also that my preaching has been more simple
and edifying than formerly. The Church has been enlarged ; many
souls have been converted by the voice of the Spirit ; the Church has
fallen off in nothing ; and altogether the work of the Lord has been
proceeding. But because I am firm in my honor of God and rever
ence for His ordinances we are come to this. Now I must provide
fbr my flock. What are you to do? You must not come here.
Here the Spirit of God has been cast out, and none can prosper who
come here to worship. Go not to any church where they look shyly
on the wo.rk of the Spirit. We must ' not forsake the assembling of
ourselves together, as the manner of some is.' This, then, I advise
for the present, that each householder who is a member of this flock
do gather around him those in his neighborhood who are not house
holders, and joining to them the poor, do exhort them and expound
to them the Word of the Lord. . . . And if he has no gifts, there are
plenty of young men in this Church who are gifted, and who are will
ing to be so employed, and I myself am willing to be helpful in all
ways in this work. All the other meetings of the Church will be
held in my house. Let no one be troubled for me ; I am not troub
led. When I came to London, I said, ' Let me have the liberty to
preach the Gospel without let or hinderance, and I am ready to come
without any bond or money transaction ; and if there is any diffi
culty, let me come and be among you from house to house.' To
these kind friends I am beholden. They have ever provided me
with what was needful; but I have never counted my house my
own, nor my money my own ; they have been for the brethren. And
now I am ready to go forth and leave them, if the Lord's will be so.
If we should be cast out for the truth, let us rejoice; yea, let us ex
ceedingly rejoice."
Such was the sorrowful elder's account of this address, which
comes through his memory evidently dimmed out of its natural
eloquence, but touching in the perfect truthfulness of its appeal to
the recollection at once of the hearers and of the speaker himself.
Many of those who heard Irving speak these words could prove
from their own remembrance the lofty disinterestedness with
which he had begun his career, and none more than the men who

IRVING'S ANSWER TO THE TRUSTEES. 457
now felt it necessary to take from him the house and income
which, as he says, " he never counted his own." What prospect
of compulsory silence to himself or dispersion to his flock had
been in his mind, prompting that singular piece of advice to
" every householder," it is impossible to tell. Perhaps, when he
spread the lawyer's judgment before the Lord, dark indications of
future trouble had trembled on the prophetic lips, and nothing
which he could interpret as a clear indication of the Divine will
had made light in the darkness of the future. But, however that
might be, his course was decided. If even he had to be silent
from that work of preaching which had at all times been his
chosen occupation, he who would have come to London ten years
before without "bond or money transaction," only to have "the
liberty of preaching the Gospel," was now ready to relinquish not
only all his living, but that dearer privilege, the very power of
preaching, if so it must be, rather than put any limit upon the ut
terances which he believed divine. The next day, after this inti
mation to the people, he gave the formal answer which had been
demanded from him to the trustees of the church :
" 13 Judd Place, East, 28th February, 1832.
" My dear Brethren, — I have read over the opinion of Sir Ed
ward Sugden which you were so kind as to submit to me, and I have
taken a full week to consider of it. The principle on which I have
acted is to preserve the integrity of my ministerial character unim
paired, and to fulfill my office according to the Word of God. If the
• trust-deed do fetter me therein, I knew it not when the trust-deed
was drawn, and am sure that it never was intended in the drawing
of it ; for certainly I would not, to possess all the churches of this
land, bind myself one iota from obeying the great Head and Bishop
of the Church. But if it be so that you, the trustees, must act to
prevent me and my flock from assembling to worship God, according
to the Word of God, in the house committed into your trust, we will
look unto our God for preservation and safe keeping ! Farewell !
may the Lord have you in His holy keeping !
" Your faithful and affectionate friend, Edwd. Irving."
After this he was vexed with no more of those affectionate and
importunate arguments which had tried his tender heart for
months before. The division was now accepted as final ; com
promise was no longer possible; and nothing remained but to
prove his divergence from the rules of Presbyterian worship, and
to close the church doors upon him. " The trustees," said Sir
Edward Sugden, " ought immediately to proceed to remove Mr.
Irving from his pastoral charge, by making complaint to the Lon-

458 THE FOREGONE CONCLUSION OF THE PRESBYTERY.
don Presbytery in the manner pointed out by the deed." It was
now understood by both parties that this was the only course to
be adopted ; and the minister who had withdrawn from the cen
sures of that Presbytery a year before, disowning its jurisdiction,
and the men* who had rallied round him then, and solemnly de
clared their entire approval at once of that act and of the senti
ments which had roused the Presbytery into censure, had now to
approach that obscure tribunal to have the matter between them
decided ; the one to stand at the unfriendly bar, the others to
prosecute their charge against him. Considering all that had
passed before, Irving had not the shadow of a chance before the
ecclesiastical court which had already delivered judgment on him,
and the authority of which he had cast off almost haughtily. It
was a foregone conclusion to which that little group of ministers
were asked to come over again. If such a wonder had happened
as that the case of the trustees had broken down, the Presbytery
itself, now that he had been dragged back within its grasp, had
matter enough on which to condemn him. If any thing could
haVe embittered the matter in dispute, it would have been the se
lection of these judges. When, in the earlier stages of the argu
ment, it was proposed to appeal to the arbitration of the Presby
tery, Irving " begged" the elders, as Mr. Hamilton tells us, not to
take this step. But things had progressed far in these few months.
Now he said nothing on the subject, and was apparently indiffer
ent as to who might judge him. The matter had resolved itself,
indeed, into mere question and answer ; any other trial, however
exciting it might be at the moment, was but a necessary form.
The simple fact was, that he had been asked to silence those
strange voices which the trustees proclaimed to be mere outcries
of human delusion and excitement, but which he held to be so
many utterances of the voice of God, and had answered No;
would answer No, howsoever the question might be asked him ;
opposing to every argument of reason, to every inducement of in
terest, to every taunt of folly, a steadfast front of faith unbroken.
The trial before the Presbytery, considering the ground taken by
the trustees, and the hopelessness of any real and grave inquiry
into the merits of the question, was little more than a form. But,
notwithstanding that, bitterness had to be encountered ; and, when
ever it became inevitable, Irving awaited it calmly, making no far-
* The trustees and Kirk session were not identical, but the most influential of Ir
ving's opponents were membors of both.

THE LIFE OF THE ACCUSED. 459
ther appeal against the cruelty and humiliation. If he had car
ried matters with a high hand once, when, secure of support and
rich in friends, he shook off the dust from his feet in testimony
against the arbitrary condemnation of his former brethren, the re
verse that befell him now, when forced to return and plead his
cause before them, would have been mortification enough to any
ordinary man. He accepted it, however, with lofty composure,
and without a complaint, throwing no obstacles in the way of
those for whose relief and satisfaction this trial was to be inflicted
on him.
It was not till the 22d of March that the Presbytery received
the complaint of the trustees. An entire month consequently
elapsed between the solemn intimation made by Irving to his
people that their church would probably be closed upon them
and the commencement of the proceedings. This month passed
in the ordinary labors — the extraordinary devotions common to
his life. Every wintry morning dawned upon the servant of God
amid prayers and prophesyings, while he stood, the first to hear
and to worship amid the early company, never intermitting, not
withstanding his faith, the pastor's anxious care that admonition
should be mingled with revelation, and that the spirits should
prove themselves to be of God, by acknowledging the name that
is above all names ; every laborious evening fell filled up till its
latest moments with his Master's business. Day by day he
preached, day by day sent forth other men into the streets and
highways to preach — if not like him, yet with hearts touched by
the same fire ; over those perpetual evangelist proclamations with
out, and that wonderful world of expectation within, in which at
any moment God's audible voice might thrill the worshipers, the
days passed one by one, mingling the din of busy London, the in
cidents of common life, the domestic voices and tender tones of
children, with the highest strain of human toil and climax of hu
man emotion. Such a cadence and rhythmical overflow of life
few men have ever attained. The highest dreams of imagination,
trembling among things incomprehensible, could realize nothing
more awful, nothing so certain to take entire possession of the fas
cinated soul as those utterances of the Spirit if they were true —
and they were true to Irving's miraculous heart; while, at the
same time, no laboring man could imagine a more ceaseless round
of toil than that by which he kept the mighty equilibrium of his
soul, and counterpoised with generous work the excitement and

460 "REPROACH HATH BROKEN MY HEART."
agitation which might otherwise have overwhelmed him. Be
tween those two consuming yet compensating spheres, the man
himself, not yet exhausted, stands in a pale glow of suffering and
injured love, wounded in the house of his friends, with a hundred
arrows in the heart which knows no defense against the assault
of unkind words and averted looks. He makes no outcry of his
own suffering. There, where he stands, the dearest voices mur
mur at him with taunts of cruel wisdom or censures of indignant
virtue. They say he seeks notoriety, courts the wild suffrage of
popular applause ; they cast at him common nicknames of enthu
siasm, fanaticism, delusion ; they call him arrogant, presumptuous,
vain — even, with more vulgar tongues, religious trickster and
cheat. In the very fullness of that lofty and prodigal existence,
the blow strikes to the fountains of life. A friend had once said
to him that Christians ought to rejoice when the outside world
despised and contemned the Church. ", Ah ! no," answered with
a sigh this soul experienced in such trials ; " reproach hath broken
my heart !" These words breathe out of his uncomplaining lips at
this crisis with ineffable sadness, sometimes breaking forth in pa
thetic outbursts of that grief which, in its passion and vehemence,
sounds almost like the lofty wrath of the old prophets, and giv
ing sometimes a momentary thrill of discord to his undiminished
eloquence. Already he had entered deep into the pangs of mar
tyrdom. The following letter will show how even the bosom of domes
tic affection was ruffled by these assaults. It is addressed to Dr.
Martin, who, watching the progress of affairs from a distance, had
not hesitated to make emphatic and repeated protests against what
appeared to him delusion : "London, 7th March, 1832.
"My dear Father-in-law, — Your letters concerning the work
of the Holy Ghost in my church, and my conduct in respect thereto,
do trouble and grieve me very much, because of your rashness in
coming to a conclusion on so awful a question without the materials
for a judgment, and because of the unqualified manner in which both
you and Samuel and all condemn me, without any adequate informa
tion, and, as seems to me, without due tenderness and love. If this
be the work of the Holy Ghost, the voice of Jesus in His Church,
who am I that I should interdict or prevent it any way ? I believe
it is so, and that is the only reason why I have acted as I have done,
and will continue so to do until the end. ... I am responsible to
the great Head of the Church in virtue of being the angel of the
Church ; the elders and deacons have an authority derived from and
delegated to them by me, but not to the dividing or deprivation of

IRVING COMPLAINS TO DR. MARTIN. 461
mine. The grounds of this doctrine I laid out before this came to
pass in my Lectures on the Apocalypse, and I have acted thereafter
according to previous conviction, and as a course of conduct, and not
from the particular case, as you and Samuel unkindly and unjustly
suppose. I never made any agreement, at any time, to suppress the
voice of the Spirit in the public assemblies of the Church, and never
will do. For one week, while I thought the people were turbulently
set against it, I wavered about its proceeding in the evening till I
saw my way clearly.
" Moreover, dear father, know and be assured that the Lord pros
pers my ministry and my flock more abundantly than ever; that
more souls than ever hear the Word at my mouth, and more souls
are converted unto the Lord Jesus ; . . . and for myself, and my wife
and children, fear nothing, because we serve the Lord, and suffer for
righteousness' sake. What you misname my imagination is my spir
it, which surely you would wish to see triumphant over the under
standing of the natural mind. . . . Oh, my dear sir, look to your own
dead, and heretical, and all but apostate Church at home, and see
what repentance and humiliation can be offered for it. Rejoice that
there is one Church in this land where the voice of the Holy Ghost,
speaking in the members, is heard. Give thanks, and judge no rash
judgments ; for, however they be well meant, they are far, far from
the truth, and add much to the burden which I have already to sus
tain. . . . Farewell ! God keep you faithful in such times !
" Your affectionate and dutiful son, Edwd. Irving."
Over this letter wise heads were doubtless shaken and sorrow
ing tears shed in the Kirkcaldy manse, where the family, in their
mutual letters, full of Edward, confide to each other a certain dis
tressed and excited impatience of his weakness, mingled with in
voluntary outbreaks of love and praise, which, uttered evidently
to relieve their own hearts, give an affecting picture of the won
derful hold which this brother, straying daily farther out of their
comprehension and sympathy, had of their hearts.
With strange calmness, after these utterances of emotion, yet
giving example of the common feeling, Mr. Hamilton's sensible,
regretful voice interposes once more in the narrative, telling over
again, with the sigh of impatient wonder natural to a man so sa
gacious and unexcitable, those same prophecies and revelations
given by Mr. Baxter, which Irving had reported in full conviction
of their importance. " I merely mention the above to give you
some idea of the nature of the manifestations which have been
made in the Church," he writes. " There have been others, how
ever, of a much more comforting tendency. I believe that a large
proportion of the present congregation agree with Edward in the
belief of the reality of those manifestations, and that they will fol-

462 FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION INVOLVED.
low him wherever he may remove to ; and I must say that they
are in general very pious people, zealous for God, and most exem
plary in the discharge of their religious duties. As for Edward,
he continues unwearied and unceasing in his labors ; indeed, it is
a marvel to me how he is able to bear up under them all. I
never knew any man so devoted to the service of his Master, or
more zealous in the performance of what he conceives to be his
duty." Such being the condition of affairs, the question came before
the London Presbytery to its final trial. " Is there any thing in
the constitution of the Church which forbids the exercise of the
prophetic gift, supposing it to be real?" asks Mr. Hamilton, with
sudden acuteness, in the letter above quoted. Such a question
would indeed seem to be the first and most urgent, seeing that
the emergency was distinctly unexpected and unprovided for by
the original legislators of the Church of Scotland. But, so far as
I am aware, nobody attempted to give an answer to this funda
mental inquiry. In the trial which followed, it does not seem ever
to have been taken into consideration at all. The matter was
contracted and debased, at the very outset, to a superficial inquiry
into facts, the complaint of the trustees being entirely confined to
the assertion that unauthorized persons, "neither ministers nor
licentiates of the Church of Scotland," and in some cases " neither
members nor seat-holders" of the individual congregation, had
been permitted to " interrupt the public services of the Church."
The Presbytery, of course, did not confine themselves to the prov
ing of this simple issue ; but, amid all the inquisitions that follow
ed, no one seems to have been sensible that the first question to
be asked in the matter was that put by Mr. Hamilton, or that,
supposing the strange possibility of Irving's belief proving true,
it was necessary to find out whether God Himself might not be
an unauthorized speaker in His too well-defended Church. This
hypothesis the little ecclesiastical court did not take into consid
eration for a moment. They put it aside arbitrarily, as it is al
ways so easy to do, and, indeed, never seem to have thought, or
to have had suggested to them, that this profounder general ques
tion lay under the special case which they had immediately in
hands, and that no radical settlement could be made of the indi
vidual matter without some attempt, at least, to establish the gen
eral principle.
Before, however, these final proceedings were commenced, Ir-

LAST REMONSTRANCE. 463
ving addressed yet another letter to his opponents. It is without
date, but was evidently intended to reach them on the occasion
of a conclusive meeting, of which he had been informed ; and,
while less familiar and more solemn than his former letters, still
overflows with personal affection.
"Men and Brethren, — As a man and the head of a family,
bound to provide for himself and those of his own house, I am ena
bled of God to be perfectly indifferent to the issue of your delibera
tions this night, though it should go to deprive me of all my income,
and cast me — after ten years of hard service, upon the wide world,
with my wife and my children — forth from a house which was built
almost entirely upon the credit of my name, and primarily for my
life enjoyment, where also the ashes of my children repose.
" As a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath been honored
of Him to bring forth from obscurity a whole system of precious
truth, and especially to proclaim to this land the glad and glorious
tidings of His speedy coming, and strengthened of Him to stand for
the great bulwarks of the faith, ofttimes almost single and alone, I
am still indifferent to the issue of this night's deliberations, which can
bring little addition to the burdens of one groaning under the re
proach of ten thousand tongues, in ten thousand ways put forth
against his good and honorable name. For I am well assured that
my God whom I serve, and for whom I suffer reproach, will support
and richly reward me, even though ye also should turn against me,
whom the Lord set to be a defense and protection round about me.
As the pastor of a flock, consisting of several hundreds of precious
souls, and the minister of the Word unto thousands weekly, nay, daily
congregating into our beautiful house, though it hath cost me many
a pang, I am also entirely resigned to His will, and can cast them all
upon His rich and bountiful providence, who is the good Shepherd
of the sheep, and doth carry the lambs in His bosom, and gently lead
those that are great with young. On no account, therefore, be ye
assured, personal to myself as a man, as a minister of Christ, or as a
pastor of His people, do I intrude myself upon your meeting this
night with this communication ; but for your sakes I wait, even for
yours, who are, every one of you, dear to my heart. Bear with me,
then, the more patiently, seeing it is for your sakes I take up my pen
to write.
" I do you solemnly to wit, men and brethren, before Almighty
God, the heart-searcher, that whosoever lifteth a finger against the
work which is proceeding in the Church of Christ under my pastor
al care is rising up against the Holy Ghost ; and I warn him, even
with tears, to beware and stand back, for he will assuredly bring upon
himself the wrath and indignation of the God of heaven and earth
if he dare to go forward. Many months of most painstaking and
searching observation, the most varied proofs of every kind, taken
with all the skill and circumspection which the Lord hath bestowed
upon me ; the substance of the doctrine, the character of the Spirit,
and the form and circumstances of the utterances tried by the Holy

464 NOT THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT.
Scriptures, and whatever remains most venerable in the traditions of
the Church ; the present power and penetration of the Word spoken
over the souls of the most holy persons, with the abiding effects of
edification upon hundreds who have come under my own personal
knowledge ; the nature of the opposition which, from a hundred
quarters, most of them entirely indifferent, infidel, and atheistical,
hath arisen against it, together with the effects which the opposition
hath had upon the minds of honest and good persons who have
stumbled at it ; their haste and headiness ; their unrest and trouble
of mind ; the attempt of Satan, by mimicry of the work, and thrust
ing in upon it of seduction and devil-possessed persons to mar it, and
the jealous holiness with which God hath detected all these attempts,
and watched over His own work to keep it from intermixture and
pollution ; and, above all, the testimony of the Holy Ghost in my
own conscience, as a man serving God with my house ; the discern
ment of the same Holy Ghost in me as a minister over His truth and
watchman over His people — all these, and many other things, which
I am not careful to set out in order or at large, seeing the time for
argument is gone by, and the time for delivering a man's soul is
come, do leave not a shadow of doubt on my mind that the work
which hath begun under the roof of our sanctuary, and which many
of you are taking steps to prevent from proceeding there, is the work
of God — is verily the mighty work of God, the most sacred work
of the Holy Ghost ; which to blaspheme is to blaspheme the Holy
Ghost ; which to act against is to act against the Holy Ghost. This
is the guilt of the action you are proceeding in ; whether there be
sufficient cause for bringing down such a load upon your heads, dear
ly-beloved brethren, judge ye. For my part, I would rather, were I
a trustee, lose all my property ten times told than move a finger in
hinderance of this great work of God, which God calleth on you to
further by all means in your power, and to abide the consequences of a
prosecution, yea, all consequences between life and death, rather than
hinder. Oh, ' what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul ; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?'
" You have determined to lodge a complaint against me to the
London Presbytery for no immorality of conduct, for no neglect of
duty, for no breach of good faith, for no change of ordinance proper
to the Church of Scotland, for no departure from the constitution of
the Church of Scotland, for no cause, in point of fact, which was or
could have been contemplated in the formation of the trust-deed, but
simply and solely because God, in His great love and mercy, hath re
stored the gifts of Providence to the Church under my care, and I,
the responsible minister under Christ, being convinced thereof, have
taken it upon me to order it according to the mind and will of Christ,
the only Head and Potentate of His Church, as the same is. express
ed in the Holy Scriptures. I ask ye before God, and as ye shall an
swer at the great day, if the trust-deed could have been intended to
prevent the spiritual gifts from ever being exercised within the build
ing, or from being ordered according to the Word of God ? May I
go farther, and ask whether the constitution of the Church of Scot
land, or of any church, could be intended to keep the voice of Jesus

IMPASSIONED APPEAL; 465
from being heard, as heretofore it was wont to be, within the assem
blies of His people ?' Oh, beloved brethren, how can you find it in
your hearts to complain against one who hath been' so faithful among
you to declare the whole counsel of God, and to do every thing by
night and by day for the good of the flock and of all men, merely be
cause he hath been faithful to his Lord, as well as to the people of the
Lord, and.would not by a mountain of opposition be daunted from
acknowledging the work and walking by the counsel of his God ? I
beseech you to search your hearts, and examine how much of this
complaint ariseth from a desire to do your duty as trustees, how
much from dislike and opposition to the work, from the influence of
the popular stream, and the fear of the popular odium, from your own
pride of heart and unwillingness to examine any thing new, from the
love of being at ease in Zion, and from other evil causes over which
I have a constant jealousy in myself and in my flock, whom I should
love better than myself. I do not judge any one in this matter ; but
I would be blind indeed if I did not discern the working of these and
the like motives of the flesh in many of you, and I would be unfaith
ful if I did not mention them. I fear lest I may have been unfaithful
in time past ; if so, God forgive me, and do you forgive me, and take
this as the last and complete expression of my love to all of you.
Oh, my brethren, take time and think what tenant, may be expected
to come and take up his abode in that house, from which the Holy
Ghost hath been cast forth ! It will never prosper or come to any
good until it hath been cleansed from this abomination by sore and
sorrowful repentance. How can you make a fashion of calling it a
house of praise or prayer any longer, after having banished forth of
it the voice of Jesus lifted up in the midst of the Church of His
saints, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost ? Surely disappoint
ment and defeat will rest upon it forever. God will not bless it ; the
servants of God will flee away from it ; it will stand a monument of
folly and infatuation. Nay, so much hath the Lord made me to per-
. ceive the iniquity of this thing, that I believe it will bring down judg
ment upon all who take part in it, upon their houses, upon the city
itself in which the National Scotch Church hath been a lamp, yea,
and a light unto the whole land, and to the distant parts of the earth.
Oh, my brethren, retrace your steps ; leave this work in the hands of
the Lord. Come forward and confess your sin in having thought or
spoken evil against it. Come to the help of God against the mighty.
I beseech you to bear my words. They have been written with pray
er and fasting ; and when I read them over about an hour ago in the
hearing of one gifted with the Spirit, that the Lord, if He saw good,
might express His mind, the consequences which he denounced upon
the doing of this act were frightful to hear. I had little thought of
mentioning this to any one, but it seemeth to be not right to hide it
in my own breast. If you desire, dear brethren, any personal com
munication with me upon this awful subject, I beseech you to send
for me, and I will be at your call ; for I could stand to be tortured
from head to foot rather than any one of you should go forward in
such an undertaking as to prevent the voice of God from being heard
in any house over which you have any jurisdiction.
GG

466 THE TRUSTEES' COMPLAINT.
" May the Lord preserve you from all evil, and lead you in the way
of His own blessed will ! Amen and Amen ! "
" Your faithful and loving pastor and friend,
" Edwd. Irving."
This wonderful letter proves over again, if more proof were
needed, how impossible it was for Irving to open his mouth with
out unfolding his very heart and soul.
The trustees of the church received this impassioned appeal,
knowing better than any other men how true were those asser
tions of his own purity and faithfulness to which Irving was driv
en ; but, with such an address in their hands, went forward calm
ly to the Presbytery and presented the complaint, which he mar
vels, with grieved surprise and wounded affection, how they could
"find it in their heart" to prefer against him. This complaint,
which begins by setting forth the character of the trust-deed, and
the rigid particularity with which it had bound the Regent Square
Church to the worship of the Church of Scotland, finally settles
into five charges against the minister. Perhaps it was in tender
ness for him that every hint of divergence in doctrine, or even of
extravagance in( belief, was kept back from this strange indict
ment ; but it is impossible to read, without wonder, those charges
upon which the existence of a congregation, and the position of a
man so notable and honored, now depended. They are as fol
lows: " First. That the Rev. Edward Irving has suffered and permitted,
and still allows, the public services of the Church in the worship of
God, on the Sabbath and other days, to be interrupted by persons,
not being either ministers or licentiates of the Church of Scotland.
" Second. That the said Rev. Edward Irving has suffered and per
mitted, and still allows, the public services of the said church, in the
worship of God, to be interrupted by persons not being either mem
bers or seat-holders of the said church.
" Third. That the said Rev. E. Irving has suffered and permitted,
and also publicly encourages, females to speak in the same church,
and to interrupt and disturb the public worship of God in the church
on Sabbath and other days.
" Fourth. That the said Rev. E. Irving hath suffered and permit
ted, and also publicly encourages, other individuals, members of the
said Church, to interrupt and disturb the public worship of God in
the church on Sabbath and other days.
" Fifth. That the said Rev. E. Irving, for the purpose of encour
aging and exciting the said interruptions, has appointed times when
a suspension of the usual worship in the said church takes place, for
said persons to exercise the supposed gifts with which they profess
to be endowed."

MEETING OF THE PRESBYTERY. 467
After all the agitation and excitement, after the sorrowful strug
gle which had just come to an end, and all the depths of feeling
and suffering involved, this bald statement comes with all the ef
fect of an anti-climax upon the interested spectator. Was this,
then, all? these mere matters of fact — this breach of common reg
ulation and decorum ? Was this important enough to call for all
the formal paraphernalia of law — the reverend bench of judges —
the witnesses and examinations — the pleas of accuser and defend
er ? The court, we may be sure, had no mind to confine itself to
the mere proof of charges so trifling in themselves. A month aft
er the presentation of this indictment the Presbytery assembled
for " the hearing of parties." There were present six ministers
and three elders, and the place of meeting was the old Scotch
Church in London Wall. With that odd simulation of legal
forms, and affectation of scrupulous rule and precedent, joined to
all the irregularities of a household examination, which charac
terize a Presbyterian Church Court in a country where Presbyte-
rianism has no acknowledged authority, and where the unrecog
nized' tribunal is without professional guidance, the judges took
their places, and the process began. A Mr. Mann, one of the
trustees, appeared for the complainers ; Irving stood by himself
on his defense — Mr. Cardale, a solicitor, accompanying him, and
making what hopeless attempts he could, now and then, tot recall
the precautions of a court of justice to the recollection of the as
sembly. The witnesses called by the complainers were three of
Irving's closest supporters ; one, a " gifted person," who had him
self taken a very decided part in the "interruptions" which he
was called to prove. Thus, with wonderful and apparently cause
less cruelty, in very strange contrast to the consideration they had
hitherto shown him, his opponents contrived his downfall by the
hands of those who not only believed with him, but one of whom
had been an actual instrument of his peril.
On this same eventful April morning, before coming with those
three witnesses, whom a common faith made his natural defend
ers, but whom the selection of his adversaries had chosen to sub
stantiate their case against him, to the court where he was to take
his place at the bar, a still more cruel and utterly unexpected blow
fell upon Irving. He who, of all the prophetic speakers, had
spoken with most boldness and claimed the highest authority ;
he who, "in the power," had expounded the most mysterious
prophecies of the Apocalypse, and pronounced the very limit of

468 RECANTATION OF BAXTER.
time, the three years and a half which were to elapse before the
witnesses were received up to heaven ; he whose utterances only
a month or two before, Irving, in all the assurance of utter trust,
had sent to his friends, that they too might be edified and triumph
in the light which God was giving to his Church, Robert Baxter,
came suddenly up from Yorkshire to intimate the total downfall
of his own pretensions, and to disown the inspiration of which so
short a time before he had convinced the troubled pastor, who for
that once found it "hard" to believe. "I reached him on the
morning of his appearance before the Presbytery of London,"
writes this penitent, apparently as impetuous and absolute in his
renunciation as in his former claims. " Calling him and Mr. J.
Cardale apart, I told them my conviction that we had all been
speaking by a lying spirit, and not by the Spirit of God." A
most startling and grievous preface to the defense which was that
day to be made. The little group went doubtless with troubled
souls to that encounter, knowing well how strong a point this
would be for their opponents, and themselves dismayed and
brought to a sudden stand-still by a desertion so unlooked for.
Had Irving's heart been discourageable, or his faith less than a
matter of life and death, such a blow, falling at such a time, might
well have disabled him altogether. There is no trace that it had
any effect upon him on that important day. When^they had
reached London Wall, and the Moderator of the Presbytery was
opening the sitting with prayer, a message suddenly burst, with
echoing preface of the " tongue," from one of the three witnesses.
Perhaps it comforted that heart torn with many sorrows, which,
when needing so emphatically all its strength, had been subject
to so overwhelming a discouragement. At all events, it was with
dignity and steadfastness unbroken that Irving met the harassing
and irritating process which now opened. As an example of the
manner in which this so-called trial was conducted, I quote a pas
sage here and there from the report :
" The first witness called was Mr. Mackenzie.*
"Mr. Mann (the spokesman of the complainers). You are an el
der of the National Scotch Church ?
"I am. A jurat proof of oath before a Master in Chancery was
here put in.
" You were an elder of the Church prior to October, 1831 ? Yes,
I was. * This gentleman was the only elder who entirely sympathized with Irving, and
went with him when shut out from Regent Square.

BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL. 469
" Will you, to save the time of the Presbytery, detail some of those
exhibitions which you witnessed in the Scotch Church betwixt No
vember and March last ?
"Moderator. That is too leading a question. You may ask if he
has witnessed any thing in the church which is a breach of order
prior to that date.
" Mr. Mann. I admit this is not right, but I ask him the detail of
the proceedings, and the persons concerned in them. If he declines,
I will put the question seriatim. To the witness : Detail the occur
rences different from ordinary worship prior to that time, if any ?
There have certainly occurrences taken place in the church since the
period stated which had not taken place in the church before.
"State what they are? Certain persons have spoken who had
never spoken in the church before."
A detailed account of the persons who had thus spoken was
then drawn from the witness, along with the fact that interrup
tions of the worship, consisting of objections to points of doctrine,
made by strangers, had occurred previous to October, 1831, and
been promptly put down. The examination then proceeded.
" Moderator. Do any members of the court wish to put questions
to the witness ?
" Mr. Maclean. Pray, Moderator, will you allow me to ask whether
the witness considers, from what he had previously heard there, that
there were new doctrines taught ?
" Solicitor. I object to the question : this is not an examination
into Mr. Irving's doctrines.
" Moderator. It is a valid objection.
" Mr. Miller questioned this opinion, and pressed the question. Mr.
Maclean waived it.
" Moderator. I wish to put one other question. You have alluded
to interruptions that have taken place as being objections'to the doc
trines taught at the time. Now you are a party on oath ; has there
ever been declared in that church a connection between that doctrine
and the manifestations in question? I do not perceive the connec
tion of that question with the previous question. It was a stranger
that objected to the doctrine.
" Moderator. Have you heard the manifestations adduced as a sup
port to that doctrine ? I do not recollect what the doctrine was that
was objected to, so I can not answer your question, sir."
After much more of the same loose and confused interrogations,
Irving, doubtless as informal as his judges, himself took the wit
ness in hand, and by means of broadly suggestive questions estab
lished their concurrence of belief that the interruptions complain
ed of were utterances not "made by the persons themselves,"
but "in the strength and by the power of the Holy Ghost." He
then proceeded to ask, " So far as you have been able to search,

470 EXAMINATION.— THE PROPHET TAPLIN.
does it agree with the things written in the Scripture or not ?"
when immediately a tumult of opposition arose. The Moderator
interfered at once to declare the question irregular, as no doubt,
under any pretense of adherence to legal forms, it was. The ob
jection of the Presbyterial president, however, was not that the
witness's opinion was asked where only his evidence as to matters
of fact was admissible, but that the matter in dispute was not
whether these "interruptions" were according to Scripture, but
whether they were in accordance with the standards of the Church.
A hot but brief discussion followed, in which, with a courage for
which they certainly deserve credit, every clerical member of the
court declared, individually, in opposition to Irving's protest, that
"the reverend defender was quite out of order in appealing to
the Scriptures," and that " the question was not the Word of God,
but the trust-deed and the doctrines of the Church of Scotland."
This matter being settled, the business proceeded, and the second
witness, Mr. Taplin, one of the " gifted persons," who had already
given practical evidence on the subject by the utterance with
which he had interrupted the opening prayer, was called. After
eliciting from this witness the fact of his own frequent exercise
of the prophetic gift, and that he had been once reproved by " a
sister" for speaking by " a spirit of error," the following questions
were put:
" Mr. Mann. When you have thus spoken, has it been during the
public service of the Church on Sunday ? I do not remember ever
speaking but once on the Sunday.
" Was that during the service ? It was at the close of Mr. Irving's
sermon." The Moderator now interposed with what seems, considering
the transparent and candid character of the accused, an inconceiv
able insinuation.
" Now, sir," said this Christian judge, " was it not by a previous
arrangement with Mr. Irving that you then spoke?" The amazed
witness answered with natural indignation, " Do you think, sir,
we stand before you knaves ? I should have abhorred the idea
of it. I could not have entered into such an arrangement had
Mr. Irving been willing ; but I believe his heart is too pure to
have been a party to such a proceeding."
" Was there not an arrangement that the speaking should not take
place till after the sermon ? I understand you to ask if it was by
concert or private arrangement previously entered into, whereas the
arrangement was made some time afterward.

A DISTINCTION OF NAMES. 471
" By this answer now given, the witness recognizes an arrange
ment to have been afterward entered into ? The arrangement was
not made with the gifted persons ; it was Mr. Irving's own order ;
and in making it he never consulted with us ; and when I heard of it
afterward, I said in my heart, Will he set bounds to the Spirit ?
Will the Spirit of the Lord submit to speak when he pleaseth ?
" Mr. Irving. For the honor of a Christian minister, I must say
one word here. I made an order that the speaking should be per
mitted after the service, because I did not wish to agitate the feelings
of the congregation ; I was desirous of feeling my way tenderly to
ward them, and yet not to prevent the Spirit speaking at other times.
" Moderator. Did you hear any conversation any where respecting
the revival of these gifts before you exercised them ? I heard Mr.
Irving, I believe, first teach that he saw no reason why the gifts of
the Spirit should have been withdrawn from the Church ; and I was
led by that, and hearing of their revival in Scotland, to read the Sci'ip-
tures for myself on the subject ; and I found in the last chapter of
Mark, the Lord had promised 'that signs should follow them that
believe ;' and I thought, What is a Church, or the authority of a
Church, if it set aside the plain promise of Scripture ?"
To this explanation the Moderator replies significantly, "Sir,
you have answered quite enough," and proceeds to pursue the
question, which it will be apparent has no connection whatever
with the matter-of-fact complaint in proof of which the witness
was examined, into farther metaphysical depths.
" Do you consider that all persons not having these manifestations
in themselves have not the seal of faith ? I can not answer that
question. " I ask you in the sight of God, upon your oath.
" Mr. Irving. It is a deep theological question, which I could not
answer myself; he means not that he will not answer it, but that he
is not competent to answer it.
" Mr. Taplin. I read that these signs shall follow them that be
lieve ; and although I have not a positive conviction, I am inclined
to believe that persons may have the seal of faith who have not re
ceived these gifts.
" Moderator. Proceeding on this answer, that persons may have
the seal of faith without these extraordinary gifts, I ask you whether
it is just to condemn any Church or any one who does not believe
them ? Do I condemn any one ? or have I condemned any man ?
" Mr. Miller. I object to such a question.
" Mr. Irving. The witness has only deposed that I said they were
in error on that subject.
" Mr. Mann. Were the exhibitions of tongues in the church by
you and others similar to the exhibition you made this morning ? It
was no exhibition, and I will not answer the question if you use that
word. " Well, display, then ? It was no display, sir.

472 EXAMINATION CONTINUED.— DEACON KER.
" Well, manifestations, as you call them ; for I do not admit them
to be of the Spirit of God ; I call them an outrage on decency.
(General disapprobation, with cries of order.) I shall not answer
your question.
" Well, I will put it in a different form : Were the manifestations
in the church by you and others similar to that we heard this morn
ing ? Our gifts differ in some respects, although they are similar in
kind. We speak each a different tongue.
" Did you understand what you spoke this morning ? I under
stood the English.
" Mr. Maclean. I object to the question.
" Solicitor. Such questions, I submit, have nothing to do with the
subject." \
Such questions, however, continue to be put for some time lon
ger, the witness being required to declare whether he believes
these manifestations to be of the Spirit of God ; whether he be
lieves them in accordance with the standards of the Church ;
whether he would ever have been impelled to speak had not Ir
ving prayed for the gifts ; whether he did not believe his own ut
terances to be of higher authority than Irving's preaching ; and,
finally, by a dexterous side wind, whether any of these utterances
" referred to the humanity of our blessed Lord." This new ques
tion, altogether alien to the inquiry, and which the Presbytery
were perfectly well known to have publicly concluded upon long
before, was, however, reserved for the next witness, Mr. Ker, a
deacon of the National Scotch Church, and devoted adherent of
Irving, concurring with him in all his belief. His examination,
after a few questions as to points of fact, was conducted by the
Presbytery, who proceeded to ask him whether he had heard va
rious matters of doctrine, in the first place the second coming of
Christ and the millennial reign, confirmed by the gifted persons
as the message of the Spirit.
" Solicitor. I object to such questions as irrelevant.
" Mr. Irving. Although my solicitor considers the question irrele
vant, I desire that all technical objections may be waived ; and what
ever tends to bring out what I have taught, let it be promulgated to
the world. I desire no concealment or reserve in respect to my doc
trine." Upon which the examination proceeded :
"Have you heard such a statement as this — That Christ's human
ity was fallen and corrupt humanity. I have heard it declared that
His flesh was fallen.
" Mr. Maclean to the Clerk noting the evidence. He has heard it
declared that our Lord's flesh was fallen and corrupt.
" Mr. Irving instantly rose and said, He has not said any such word,

SUDDEN BLANDNESS OF THE EXAMINERS. 473
sir, as corrupt ; why will you make additions of your own to the ev
idence ?
" The Witness to Mr. Maclean. I did not say corrupt ; the addi
tion of one such word will alter the whole meaning."
A multitude of other questions follow, in which it is endeav
ored to drive the witness to a declaration that the fact of these
manifestations sealed as perfect every word taught in the Church
— a statement from which, however, he guarded himself. When
this was over, the examination relaxed into a generosity as irrel
evant and out of order as the inquisition which preceded it.
" In case we may not have got the whole truth of this case,"
said the president of the court, with a blandness which, followed
as it was by renewed questions, looks quite as much like an at
tempt to entrap the unwary speaker into some rash admission as
to extend to him a grace and privilege, " is there any thing which
you wish to add in exoneration of your minister ?"
'' I thank you, sir," answered the surprised witness, with a kind
and anxious simplicity most characteristic of the man, and which
his friends will readily recognize. " I would only say that I be
lieve nothing could be so painful to Mr. Irving as that any one
should interrupt the public services of the Church except those
persons through whom the Holy Ghost speaks."
A renewed flood of questions as to who is to be the judge wheth
er the Holy Ghost speaks, etc., etc., followed this affectionate and
natural speech, and the whole concluded with a return to the ques
tion of doctrine.
" Mr. Macdonald. It has been said that the doctrine taught re
specting the Lord's humanity is that He came in fallen flesh ; has the
witness said that the manifestations commended this doctrine partic
ularly ? Yes.
" Moderator. Have the complainers finished their case ?
" Mr. Mann. We have.
"The court was then adjourned till next day at eleven o'clock.'A ,
This was the entire amount of evidence taken. Some time aft
er, the Times, taking the trouble to interfere in an elaborate lead
ing article, congratulated the public that, after a " laborious inves
tigation," the Presbytery had decided unanimously. This one
day, however, of theological fence, varied with such occasional in
solences as few men endowed with the temporary power of cross-
examination seem able to deny themselves, is the total amount of
the inquiry so ostentatiously described. Had the reverend judg-

474 UNANIMITY OF THE WITNESSES.
es confined themselves to the real evidence which the complaint
demanded, their sitting need not have lasted above an hour or
two; but the greater part of the day engaged in this "laborious
investigation" was occupied with personal inquisition into the
thoughts and opinions of the three witnesses, which had no bear
ing whatever upon the case. So easy is it to give with a word a
totally false impression even of a contemporary event. I need
not draw attention to the very peculiar character of the evidence,
which must strike every one in the least degree interested. The
three witnesses thus examined upon oath proved, so far as a man's
solemn asseveration can, not that unlawful and riotous interrup
tions had taken place in the Regent Square Church, but that the
Holy Ghost had there spoken with demonstration and power.
This was the real evidence elicited by the day's examination.
Nobody attempted to impeach the men, or declare them unworthy
of ordinary credit ; and this was the point which, according to
the common principles of evidence, they united to establish. I
can not tell what might be the motive of the complainants for
keeping' back all who held their own view of the question, and
resting their case solely upon the testimony of believers in the
gifts ; but the fact is apparent enough, and one of the most strange
features of the transaction, that the witnesses, upon whom no im
putation of falsehood was cast, consistently and solemnly agreed
in proving an hypothesis which the court that received their tes
timony, and professed to be guided by their evidence, not only
negatived summarily, but even refused to take into consideration.*
From this day's work, anxious and harassing as it naturally
must have been to him, Irving went home, not to rest, or refresh
among his loyal supporters the spirit which was grieved with the
antagonism of his former brethren, but to meet with Mr. Baxter,
and to be assailed by that gentleman's eager argument to prove
d|I can scarcely express the painful surprise with which, born a Presbyterian, and
accustomed to regard with affectionate admiration, scarcely less than that which an
imated Irving himself during almost all his life, the economy of the Church of Scot
land, I have discovered, and the reluctance with which I have felt myself constrained
to point out, the singular heedlessness, haste, and unfairness of these Presbyterial in
vestigations. The discovery was as novel and as painful to me, who have in former
days been very confident on the other side of the question, as it can be to the most
devoted lover of Presbyterian discipline and order. I can not allow, even now, that
it is necessary to the system, which is surely capable of better things ; but that the
Presbytery of London were not singular in their manner of exercising their judicial
functions is proved by the voluminous proceedings of the Presbyteries of Dunbarton
and Irvine in the cases of Messrs. Campbell and Maclean.

UNMOVED BY DISCOURAGEMENTS. 475
himself in the wrong, and attempts to overthrow the fabric which
he had done so much to bring into being. "I saw him again in
the evening, and on the succeeding morning I endeavored to con
vince him of his error of doctrine, and of our delusions concern
ing the work of the Spirit," says the prophet, so suddenly disen
chanted, and so vehement in his abrupt recantation, "but he was
so shut up he could not see either." This evening and morning,
which were vexed by Mr. Baxter's arguments, might well have
been spared to the all-laboring man, who was now to appear for
himself at the bar of the Presbytery, and make, before the curious
world which watched the proceedings in that obscure Scotch
church at London Wall, his defense and self-vindication. Fresh
from the endeavors of Mr. Baxter to convince him that the most
cherished belief of his heart was a delusion, Irving once more
took his way through the toiling city in the April sunshine, which
beguiles even London into spring looks and hopes. Little sun
shine, only a lofty constancy and steadfast composure of faith was
in his heart — that heart which had throbbed with so many heroic
hopes and knightly projects under those same uncertain skies.
Another of the " gifted," who had woven so close a circle round
him, had just then lost heart, and wavered like Baxter in her
faith. With such discouragements in his way, and with all the
suggestions of self-interest (so far as he was capable of them), and
a hundred more delicate appeals, reminders of old affection and
tender habitude, to hold him back to the old paths, he went to the
bar of the Presbytery. The speech he was to make to-day must
tear asunder, in irrevocable disruption, the little remnant of life
which remained to him from all the splendid past — must throw
him into a new world, strange to all his associations, unacquainted
with those ways of thought and habit he was born in, totally un
aware of the extent and bitterness of his sacrifice. That intrusive
apparition of the prophet penitent, declaring his own prophetic
gift a delusion, makes the strangest climax to the darkness, the
pain, and the difficulty of the position. Irving, however, shows
no signs of hesitation — betrays no tumult in his mind. His faith
was beyond the reach even of such a blow ; and, in full posses
sion of all that natural magnificence of diction, noble reality, and
power of moving men's hearts, which even his enemies could not
resist, he presented himself to make his defense.
This speech, which is a thoroughly characteristic production, I
give at length in the Appendix, only indicating here the nature

476 ORDER OF IRVING'S DEFENSE.
of the argument. After declaring that it is "for the name of
Jesus, the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, that I now stand here
before you, and before this court, and before all this people, and
am called in question this day," he. announces the order according
to which he intends to make his explanation :
First. As I am to justify the thing which I have done, it is need
ful to show the grounds on which I did it ; and to show the grounds
on which I did it, it is needful to show the thing in the Word of
God, which I believe God has given us. Next. It is needful that I
show you that the thing which we have received is the very thing
contained in the Word of God, and held out to the hope and expect
ation of the Church of God ; yea, of every baptized man. Thirdly.
That I show you how I have ordered it as minister of the Church ;
and show also that the way in which I have ordered it is according
to the Word of God, and in nothing contradictory to the standards
of the Church of Scotland. Fourthly. To speak a little concerning
the use of the gifts ; and, finally, to show how we stand as parties,
and how the case stands before this court."
He -accordingly proceeds to set forth the scriptural grounds on
which, some years before, he had been led to conclude that the
extraordinary gifts of the Spirit might be legitimately looked and
prayed for ; and then coming down to the real course of events,
relates, with all his wonderful power of close- and minute narra
tive, the first circumstances of their appearance ; his own anxious
trying of the spirits ; the long and careful investigation to which
he subjected them, and the final entire satisfaction and belief of
his own mind and of many others. I have quoted so largely from
this narrative in a previous chapter that it is unnecessary to go
over it again, and I proceed to the more personal defense, only
pausing to remind the reader of the lofty ingenuousness with
which Irving declares his own mind to have been biased, to begin
with, by his perfect conviction that God — from whom he and his
disciples had daily, with an absolute sincerity and fervor of which
the leader of these entreaties has no doubt, asked the baptism
with the Holy Ghost — would not give them a stone instead of
bread. He then enters into a lofty vindication of his own office
and authority :
" It is complained by the trustees .... that I have allowed the
worship of God to be interrupted by persons speaking Who are nei
ther ordained ministers nor licentiates of the Church of Scotland.
Now, respecting the ordering of it, which is here complained against
as a violation of the trust-deed, and a violation of the constitution of
the Church of Scotland, I can say, with the Apostle Paul, when he
went to Rome to his countrymen, ' That unto this day not only have

THE HEAD OF EVERY MAN. 477
I done nothing contrary to the Word of God, but, men and brethren,
I have done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers.'
I lay it down as a solemn principle that as a minister of Christ I am
responsible to Him at every instant, in every act of my ministerial
character and conduct, and owe to Him alone an undivided allegi
ance ; and I say more, that every man is responsible to Jesus at every
instant of his fife, and for every act of his life, and not to another, in
an undivided allegiance. He is the Head of every man, and upon
this it is that the authority of conscience resteth ; on this it is that
toleration resteth ; on this it is that all the privileges of man rest ;
that Jesus is the Head of every man ; and this is His inalienable pre
rogative. . . . And if any person or court, or the Pope of Rome, or
any court in Christendom, come between a man, or a minister, and
his Master, and say, ' Before obeying Jesus, you must consult us,' be
they called by what name they please, they are anti-Christ. I say no
Protestant Church hath ever done so. I deny the doctrine that was
held forth yesterday,* that it is needful for a minister to go to the
General Assembly before he does his duty. I deny the doctrine that
he can be required to go up to the General Assembly for authority
to enable him to do that which he discerneth to be his duty.
" Moderator. Let these words be taken down.
" Mr. Irving. Ay, take them down, take them down ! I repeat
the words : I deny it to be the doctrine of the Church of Scotland
that any minister is required to go up to the General Assembly for
authority to do that which he discerneth to be his duty. Ye are
pledged to serve Jesus in your ordination vows. Ye are the minis
ters of Jesus, and not ministers of any assembly. Ye are ministers
of the Word of God, and not ministers of the standards of any
Church." He then explains the " arrangements" he had made to allow
room for the utterances, which had been largely commented on,
partly by way of showing that he had encouraged the interrup
tions, and partly that, taking his own view of the subject, he had
himself, in some measure, been guilty of limiting the Spirit.
" It is charged that I appointed set times for the suspension of the
worship in order to encourage and allow these interruptions. This
needs a little explanation. When I saw it was my duty to take the
ordinance into the church, I then considered with myself what was
the way to do it with the greatest tenderness to my flock — so as to
cause the least anxiety and disturbance. ... I observed, therefore,
what was the manner of the Spirit in the morning meetings, and I
found generally it was the manner of the Spirit when I, the pastor,
had exhorted the people, to add something to the exhortation, either
* This refers to a statement made by the Moderator, that in case of any new de
velopment of doctrine unprovided for in the standards, the constitutional mode of
procedure for a Scotch minister was to call the attention of the General Assembly to
it by means of an overture from his own Presbytery. I despair of making the phrase
ology of Scotch Church courts intelligible to English readers.

478 RECORDS OF ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITY.
to enforce it, if it were according to the mind of God, or to add to it,
or graciously and gently to correct it if it were incorrect. I also ob
served it was the way of the Spirit not to do this generally, but in
honor of the pastor ; and that the spirits in the prophets acknowl
edged the office of the angel of the Church as standing for Jesus ;
and accordingly I said, wishing to deal tenderly with the fiock, let it
begin with this order, that after I have opened* the chapter, and aft
er I have preached, I will pause a little, so that then the prophets may
have an opportunity of prophesying if the Spirit should come upon
them ; but I never said that the prophets should not prophesy at any
other time. I did this in tenderness to the people ; and feeling my
way in a case where I had no guidance, I did it according to the best
records of ecclesiastical antiquity ; and I was at great pains to con
sult the best records ; and I found Mosheim, in his most learned dis
sertation on Church History, declare to this effect : that in the first
three ages of the Church, it was the custom, after the pastor had ex
horted the people, for the congregation to rest, and the prophets
prophesied by two or three ; so that I walked in the ordinances of
the Church of Christ."
He then proceeds to show, with large quotations from the first
"Book of Discipline," that a regular " exercise" for "prophesying
or interpreting the Scriptures" had been instituted in the early
Reformation Church, by which it was provided that learned men,
or those that had " somewhat profited in God's Word," should not
only be exhorted to meet for joint exposition of the Scriptures
according to the apostolic rule — " Let two or three prophets speak,
and let the rest judge" — but that, "if found disobedient, and not
willing to communicate the gifts and special graces of God with
their brethren, after sufficient admonition, discipline must proceed
against them ;" from which he justly argues, that " if our Church
has ruled that in a matter of ordinary gifts there should be liberty
given to speak, can any one believe that if the gifts of the Holy
Ghost had been in the Church, they would not have ruled it for
these extraordinary gifts also?" Then rising into loftier self-vin
dication as he proceeds, he declares that, had there been ordinances
of the Church of Scotland forbidding the manifestations (which
there were not), he would still have felt it necessary to disobey
them in exercise of the higher loyalty which he owed to the Head
of the Church ; and winds up this part of his address by the fol
lowing solemn disavowal:
" I deny every charge brought against me seriatim, and say it is
not persons, but the Holy Ghost that speaketh in the church. I do
not say what the judgment of the Presbytery might be if they could
* Meaning, in other words, expounded the lesson.

THE CONSCIENCE OF THE PRESBYTERY. 479
say that these persons do not speak by the Holy Ghost. But this
they can not do. This is what I rest my case upon. This is the root
of the matter. This is what I press on the conscience of the Pres
bytery ; and it is laid before them out of the mouths of all the wit
nesses. The evidence is entirely to this effect ; not one witness hath
witnessed to the contrary. I say," he proceeds after an interruption,
" I submit this matter to the Presbytery as to a number of men en
dowed with conscience — with the conscience and discernment of the
truth — and who are beholden to exercise their conscientious discern
ment for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Head of this court, and
the Head of every man, and who are beholden to judge all things
according to the law of Jesus Christ, which is the law of this court —
the law of every man ; and I say that this Presbytery are called upon
before the Lord Jesus to see and ascertain whether that thing which
I have declared to them upon the veracity of a minister, which is
substantiated by the testimony on their table, given by witnesses
yesterday, all of their own selection, and which I will pledge myself
to authenticate farther by the testimony of not less than five hundred
persons, of unblemished life and sound faith, that it is the work of
the Holy Ghost, speaking with tongues and prophesying. And as
all the witnesses have borne one uniform testimony to it as the work
of the Holy Ghost, the Presbytery can not — they may not, before
God, before the Lord Jesus Christ, and before all those witnesses,
shut their eyes willfully against such testimony in this matter. . . .
It is instructed before you (surely the Presbytery will not shut its
eyes to the evidence on the table) that it is by the Holy Ghost that
these persons speak. There is no civil court whatever that would
refuse to receive the evidence lying on your table ; and you may not
as members of a Christian Church — you may not as ministers and
elders — you may not as honest men, turn aside from the matter of
fact that has been certified to you, and say, ' We will leave that mat
ter in the background ; we will not consider it at all ; we will go sim
ply by the canons of the Church of Scotland, and see what they say
on the subject.' They say nothing on it, seeing they could say noth
ing — seeing there was then no such thing in being. ... It will be a
burdensome thing to this Presbytery if it shall give judgment against
that which hath been instructed before them to be the work of the
Holy Ghost, and which none of them can say, on their own conscience
or discernment, not to be the Holy Ghost, since they have not come
to witness it, they have not attempted to prove it. . . . Think ye, oh
men, if it should be the Holy Ghost, what ye are doing ; consider the
possibility of it, and be not rash ; consider the possibility of the evi
dence being true, of our averments being right, and see what you are
doing ! Ah ! I tell you, it will be an onerous day for this city and
this kingdom, in the which ye do, with a stout heart and a high hand,
and without examination or consideration, upon any ground, upon
any authority, even though ye had the commandment of the king
himself — shut up that house in which the voice of the Holy Ghost is
heard — that house in which alone it is heard ! . . . I beseech you to
pause. ... Be wise, men ; come and hear for yourselves, when you
will have an opportunity of judging. Come and hear for yourselves.

480 SPEECH OF THE ACCUSER.
The church is open every morning ; the Lord is gracious almost every
morning to speak to us by His Spirit. The church is open many
times in the week ; and the Lord is gracious to us, and speaks through
His servants very often. ... I have no doubt in saying it, and I
would be an unfaithful man, pleading not my cause, but the cause of
God — the cause of Christ — the cause of the Holy Ghost in the Pres
bytery (for it is not the cause of a man; no, man has no charge
against me ; I stand unimpeached, unblemished before them), did I
not say it. It is only this interruption, this new thing (for it is not
an interruption) that hath occurred, which is instructed by the evi
dence to be the voice of the Holy Ghost, this speaking with tongues
and prophesying, which I have declared to be the same, which hath
given offense. And I sit down solemnly declaring before you all,
before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, on the faith of a minister of
Christ, that I believe it to be the work of the Holy Ghost. . . ."
This speech, interrupted two or three times by hot discussions
and calls to order, was replied to on the same day by Mr. Mann,
the spokesman of the trustees, who " considered it his duty to
reply to the unseemly and untimely denunciations with which
he was bold to say the reverend defender had attempted to stem
the torrent of justice." And proceeding in the unequal strife,
not content with the manifold disadvantages under which he la
bored as opposed to Irving's noble eloquence, this gentleman did
all he could to vulgarize and debase the whole question, by con
tending that it was a question of discipline only, in which the
Word of God was no authority ; and called upon the reverend
defender to bethink himself of the Confession of Faith which he
had signed, and as an honest man to separate himself in fact from
the Church from which he had already separated in spirit. After
this the court adjourned for a week, during the course of which
the " reverend defender" thus assailed went on with those labors
which one of his friends called '' unexampled," in no way with
drawing from his wonderful exertions, preparing, with all the
catechisings and preparatory services usual before a Scotch com
munion, for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. On the follow
ing Wednesday the Presbytery again assembled ; and with a gleam
of magnanimity, in consideration of the fact that Irving had no
appeal from their decision, but — contrary to Presbyterian usage,
which, had he been in Scotland, would have permitted him a
double appeal to the Provincial Synod and General Assembly-
must accept their sentence as final, offered him the privilege of
answering the speech of Mr. Mann, which he did accordingly in
an impassioned and noble oration* still more intense, because
* See Appendix C.

DIVING'S REPLY. 481
more personal than the former ; thrilling with all the indignation,
the grief, the faith absolute and immovable, the injured and mourn
ful affection which rent his breast. That there are some passages
in this splendid address where the speaker, flushed with palpable
injustice, and angry in his righteous heart at the superficial basis
on which a question, to himself the most momentous, was thus in
juriously set down, delivers himself of warnings too solemn and
startling to chime in with the mild phraseology of modern days,
is undeniable ; but the point on which he insists is so plainly a
necessity to any just decision of the matter involved, that few
people who consider it seriously will be surprised to find that Ir
ving is betrayed into a certain impatience by the pertinacious de
termination, shown equally by his accusers and his judges, not to
enter into the question by which alone the case could be decided.
Such a singular and obstinate evasion of the real point at issue,
involving as it did all his dearest interests, might well chafe the
spirit of the meekest of men ; yet he returns again and again with
indignant patience to the question which his judges refused to
consider. " If these be the manifestations of the Holy Ghost," he asks, " what
court under heaven would dare to interpose and say they shall not
be suffered to proceed ? Tell me if that body does exist on the face
of the earth which would dare to rule it so if they believed the work
to be of the Holy Ghost. Surely not in the Christian Church does
such a body exist. Therefore the decision must entirely depend on
this : whether it be of the Holy Ghost, or whether it be not of the
Holy Ghost ; for if it be, who dare gainsay it ? Will any one say,
if it be of the Holy Ghost, that any rule of discipline or statute of
the Church, supposing the statutes were sevenfold strong instead of
being none at all — for on this subject the canons of the Church of
Scotland are entirely silent — will any one dare to say that if it be the
voice of the Holy Ghost, all laws and statutes in which, during the
days of her ignorance, the Church might have sought to defend her
self against the entering in of the Spirit of God, should be allowed
to keep Him out ? And is it possible that the Presbytery should
shuffle off the burden of this issue, and act upon the assertion made
that it is not the matter of doctrine which is to be entered into ; the
more when the evidence upon the table is unanimous to this point,
that it is the voice of the Holy Ghost ?"
After this most just protest, he descends to enter the lists with
his accusers upon their own ground, and assert that " there is not
one word in the standards against the thing I have done ;" the
fact being that the only reference in those documents, according
to the admission of the Presbytery themselves, is a statement in
Hh

482 THE PROPHETIC CHARACTER.
the; Westminster Confession, that the " extraordinary" offices of
apostle, prophet, etc., had ceased — a statement which the earlier
Book of Discipline, the authority of which the Church of Scotland
had never repudiated, limits by the more modest suggestion, that
" they may be revived if the Lord sees good." After this Irving
enters into a most remarkable discussion of the character of the
prophetic office, and the possibility of a prophet deceiving him
self by attempting to make an arbitrary interpretation of the Di
vine message he utters ; in which he takes as his text the singu
lar utterance of the Prophet Jeremiah — " 0 Lord, Thou hast de
ceived me, and I was deceived" — and proceeds to elucidate a char
acter which most of his hearers believed utterly extinct, with all
the close and intense observation which distinguished him, and
with a lofty, visionary reasonableness which, could the charac
ter itself be but granted real and existent, would make this an
exposition of high metaphysical value. In the course of this sin
gular and close picture of the prophetic temperament and its per
ils, he refers in the following terms to Baxter, whose name was
by this time discussed every where, and whose desertiou was the
heaviest possible blow in the eyes of the public to the new faith.
" A dear friend of my own," said Irving, coming fresh from that
troublesome and impetuous friend's remonstrances and recantation,
" who lately spake by the Spirit of God in my church — as all the
spiritual of the Church fully acknowledged, and almost all acknowl
edge still — I mean Mr. Baxter, whose name is in every body's mouth,
hath, I believe, been taken in this very snare of endeavoring to inter
pret by means of a mind remarkably formal in its natural structure
the spiritual utterances which he was made to give forth ; and per
ceiving a want of concurrence between the word and the fulfillment,
he hastily said, ' It is a lying spfrit by which I have spoken.' No lie
is of the truth; no prophet is a liar; and if the thing came not to
pass, he hath spoken presumptuously. But while this is true, it is
equally true that no prophet since the world began has been able to
interpret the time, place, manner, and circumstance of the fulfillment
of his own utterances. And to Jeremiah thus unwarrantably em
ploying himself, God seemed to be a deceiver and a liar, as the Holy
Ghost hath seemed to be to my honored and beloved friend, whom
may the Lord speedily restore again."
The orator then, leaving this mysterious subject — to his expo
sition of which his audience seems to have listened in rapt silence,
probably too much carried away by the strange influence of his
faith, and the life-like personality in which he clothed this unbe
lievable, prophetic ideal, to object — returns to the more personal
question, and bursts forth in natural and manful indignation. " I

"DISHONESTY!" 483
was taxed with dishonesty," he exclaims, " and I was told if I was
an honest man I ought to have gone forth of the Church. Let
me repress the feeling that riseth in my bosom while I repel the
insinuation ; for I must not speak out of the resentment of nature,
but out of the charity of grace. Dishonesty ! if it be such a moot
point and simple case of honesty and dishonesty, why trouble they
the Presbytery to consider it ? . . . It is a great and grave ques
tion affecting the rights of the ministers and prophets of the Chris
tian Church ; a question of the most deep and sacred importance ;
a question not of discipline only, but of doctrine ; and is a ques
tion of doctrine and of discipline, and of ordinance and of person
al right, to be called a question of common honesty, as if I were
a knave?" Then changing, as he could, with the highest intu
itions of harmony, the stops of that noble organ, the great preach
er falls into the strain of self-exposition, so full of simple grandeur,
with which he was wont to reveal the working of his own candid
soul and tender heart.
" This is a temptation which has come over my brethren, arising
from their loose and unholy way of thinking and speaking upon this
subject, as if it were a common bargain between the trustees upon
the one hand and myself upon the other. I would it had been such ;
neither they nor you would have been troubled with it this day.
For the world is wide, and the English tongue is widely diffused
over it; and I am used to live by faith, and love my calling as a
preacher of the Gospel as well as I do my calling of a pastor. I also
have been tempted with the like temptation of making this a matter
of personal feeling. One whole day I remember, before meeting the
elders and deacons of my church, upon the first breaking out of this
matter, I abode in the mind of giving way to my own feelings, and
saying to them, ' Brethren, we have abidden now for so many years
in love and unity, never, or hardly once, dividing on any question,
that, rather than cause divisions which I see can not be avoided, I
will take my leave of you, and betake myself to other quarters and
other labors in the Church. And do you seek out for some one to
come and stand in my room, to go in and out before this great peo
ple, and rule over them, for I can no longer be faithful to God, and
preserve the body in peace and unity. I can not find in my heart
to grieve you ; let me alone and entreat me not ; I will go and preach
the Gospel in other parts, whither God may call me.' In this mood,
which these men* would call honest and honorable — which I call self-
* In justice to the speaker on the other side, it ought, however, to be noted here
that Irving seems to have mistaken his meaning, which I presume to be the ordinary,
arbitrary, and easy conclusion, that when a clergyman expands or alters his views,
so as under any interpretation to vary from the laws of his Church, scrupulous
honor would dictate his withdrawal from its communion ; » notion very specious
upon the face of it.

484 TRVTNG PREFERS HIS DUTY TO HIS FEELINGS.
ish and treacherous to my Lord and Master — I did abide for the
greater part of the most important day of my life, whereof the even
ing was to' determine this great question ; but the Lord showed me
before the hour came — He showed me, with whom alone I took coun
sel in the secret place of my own heart, that I was not a private man
to do what liked me best, but the pastor of a church, to consider
their well-being, and the minister of Christ, to whom I must render
an account of my stewardship. I put away the temptation, and went
up in the strength of the Lord to contend with the men whom I loved
as my own bowels ; and to tell them, face to face, that I would dis
please every one of them, yea, and hate every one of them, if need
should be, rather than flinch an iota from my firm and rooted pur
pose to live and die for Jesus. God only knows the great searchings
of heart that there have been within me for the divisions of the Kirk
Session and flock of the National Scotch Church. But they have
rooted and grounded me in my standing as a pastor, which I had un
derstood, but never practiced before, and in the subordinate standing
of an elder, which is very little understood in the Church of Scotland
whereof I am a minister. And they have knit me to my flock in a
bond which can not be broken until God do break it. I preferred
my duty as a pastor to my feelings as a man, and abode in my place.
And what hath the faithfulness and bounty of my God yet done?
Within six months thereafter, by the preaching of the Word and the
witness, of the Spirit, there were added two hundred members to the
ChurchThot a few of whom were converted from the depths of im
morality and vice to become holy and God-fearing men ; and as I sat
yesterday in my vestry for nearly five hours examining applicants for
the liberty of sitting down with my contemned and rejected Church,
I thought within myself, ' Ah ! it was good thou stoodest here in the
place where the Lord had planted thee, and wentest not forth from
hence at the bidding of thine own troubled heart. Behold what a
harvest God hath given thee in this time of shaking ! Wait on thy
Lord, and be of good courage ; commit thy way unto Him ; trust
also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.' These were my thoughts,
I do assure you, no farther gone than yesterday, when I sat wearied
out with the number and weight of the cases which were brought
before me in my pastoral vocation. And for your encouragement, ye
ministers of Christ who sit here in judgment, that ye may labor with
good hope in this city, through good report and through bad report,
and that ye may not put your hands rashly upon the man of God, I
do give you to wit that by my labors in this city, not hundreds, but
thousands — at least upward of a thousand, have been converted by
my ministry ; and I feel an assurance that, let men do their utmost to
prevent it, thousands more will yet, by the same feeble and worthless
instrument, be brought into the fold of the Father, out of which no
power shall be able to pluck them. I have no bargain with these
trustees. I am not their pensioner, nor bound to them by any obli
gation, nor indebted to them in any matter, that they should charge
dishonesty upon me. I am another man's servant, another man's
debtor. . . . If this deed to which they have obliged themselves com
pel them to raise an action against me before this Presbytery, then

A LAMB OF THE FLOCK. 485
let them do it, and leave the issue to the competent judges ; but do
not. let them dare to accuse their minister as a dishonest man because
he sees it his duty to his Master to abide where his Master hath
placed him, and where he hath offended neither against the ordi
nances of God nor the covenants of man."
Thus, in his most characteristic strain, did Irving make his de
fense ; not without frequent reference to the great point of the
first day's proceedings, which was the refusal of the Presbytery
to permit his appeal to the Scriptures, a resolution against which
he entered his solemn protest, but which his judges, with many lit
tle interruptions of self-vindication, adhered to. When his speech
was concluded, he withdrew with an apology to the Presbytery
for his inability to be present at their decisive meeting, which was
to take place the same evening, as he had to preach that night.
Before he left the court, however, Mr. Mann, the spokesman of
the trustees, who had vainly begged to be heard in reply, assailed
the much-tried defender with another arrow. One of the proph
etesses, a Miss Hall, about whom I can find no details, had, like
Baxter, accused herself of delusion.
" Does Mr. Irving consider he has acted fairly and honestly by the
Presbytery," said his accuser, who seems to have lost in the heat of
conflict the affectionate and reverential feelings which all entertained
toward the great preacher before this actual antagonism with its an
gry impulses commenced, " in not acknowledging to them that Miss
Hall has been acting under delusion ?
" The Moderator. That is not before the court.
" Mr. Irving. She is one of the lambs of my flock — she is carried
in my bosom. Oh, she is one of the lambs of my flock ! and shall I
bring one of the lambs of my flock, who may have been deluded and
led astray, before a public court ? Never — never, while I have a pas
tor's heart !"
This exclamation of natural feeling moved the general audi
ence out of propriety. It was received with involuntary applause,
which seems to have led to the immediate adjournment of the of
fended court.
In the evening the Presbytery met again to determine upon
their sentence — a sentence on the nature of which nobody could
have any doubt, if it were not the generous soul of the accused
himself, who " could not endure to think" that they would decide
against him. Five clerical members of the court spoke one after
another, announcing with such solemnity as they could their sev
eral but unanimous conclusion. I have no desire to represent

486 DECISION OF THE PRESBYTERY.
these men as judging unfairly, or as acting in this new matter
upon their own well-known prior conclusions. But the fact is
remarkable, in a country so familiar as ours with all the cau
tion and minute research of law, that the judgment of this Pres
bytery, involving as it did not only the highest privileges of
Christian freedom, but practical matters of property and income,
uttered itself in the shape of so many opinions, as loose, slight,
and irregular as might be the oracles of a fireside conclave. In
stead of close and cool examination of those canons of the Church
to which they had demonstrated their allegiance with protesta
tions unnecessarily vehement, their only appeal to law consisted
of one or two cursory quotations which bore only superficially
upon the subject. " The public worship being begun," says one
of the judges, quoting from the Directory for Public Worship, "the
people are wholly to attend upon it, forbearing to read any thing
except what the minister is then reading or citing, and abstaining
much more from all private whisperings, conference, etc., and oth
er indecent behavior which may disturb the minister or people,
or hinder themselves or others in the service of God." Another
announces the ground of his decision in the words of the West
minster Confession, that " the whole counsel of God, concerning
all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith, and
life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and nec
essary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which
nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations
of the Spirit, or traditions of men." A third cites the statement
of the same Confession, that " the Holy Scripture is most neces
sary, those former ways" (i. e., direct revelations) " of God's reveal
ing His will to His people being now ceased;" and another from the
Directory of Public Worship, to the effect that the extraordinary
offices of apostles, prophets, and evangelists have ceased. These
slight quotations constitute the entire reference made to the can
ons of ecclesiastical law in order to settle a matter so important.
To people who are accustomed to see the columns of newspapers
filled day after day with close, lengthened, and, it may be, tedious
arguments concerning the true meaning of the Articles of the
Church, it will be almost inconceivable that any decision, bearing
weight in law, could be come to upon grounds so trivial ; yet
such was the case ; and the extraordinary recklessness which
could stake an honorable man's character and position upon the
opinions or impressions of a group of fellow-clergymen, supported

SCRAPS OF THE CONFESSION. 487
by the merest shreds of quotation from those Articles by which,
and by which alone they professed to be guided, has never, so far
as I am aware, been so much as remarked by the community
most interested. If he was to be judged by the standards of the
Church, it must be apparent to every one that the merest superfi
cial rules of justice required a close examination of those stand
ards, a patient and detailed scrutiny, care being had to arrive at
the true meaning, and to put aside the individual and local cir
cumstances which so evidently and avowedly color those produc
tions of a belligerent age. Nothing can be more evident, for ex
ample, than that the extract from the Directory above quoted re
fers simply to the. irreverent behavior in church of a half-enlight
ened people, and is entirely innocent of any allusion to utterances
of either real or pretended inspiration ; and few people will im
agine that, apart from other evidence, the declaration of the West
minster divines that " those former ways of God's revealing His
will to His people have now ceased," could either finally settle
the question, or was ever intended by those very divines them
selves to settle it. The Presbytery decided that to suffer unau
thorized persons to speak in the Church was a capital offense
against the laws of the Church, of Scotland, in ' direct opposition
to those directions quoted by Irving for the exercise of " prophe
sying or interpreting the Scriptures," which appear in one of the
authoritative books of that Church, and which point to an assem
bly almost identical with that over which Irving presided, with
the exception that the former laid claim to no miraculous gifts.
"This has just exactly the reverse meaning of what the reverend
defender had endeavored to extract from it, not to mention that
there is nothing here about these prophets speaking on a Sun
day," says the Moderator, with a simple and amusing dogmatism
which attempts no proof; and the other members of the court
give forth their opinions with equal looseness, each man using a
few inapplicable words out of the Confession, as if it were a charm
which could convert his personal notions into a solemn judgment.
I neither assert nor imagine that there was the least dishonesty
in the conclusions so strangely arrived at, or that the judges were
not quite conscientious, and convinced that they were doing their
duty ; but, so far as law and justice are concerned, the entire pro
ceedings were a mere mockery, only rendered more palpably fool
ish by the show of legal form and ceremony with which they were
conducted. Had the matter been argued before a civil court, it

488 CHARACTER OF PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP.
might, indeed, have been decided that the proceedings complained
of were contrary to the usage of the Church of Scotland, no doubt
an important point; but it must have been satisfactorily estab
lished that no ecclesiastical law* forbade them, and that no direct
ordinance of the Church had been in any way transgressed*
At the same time, while this is very evidently the case, it is
necessary to admit that the spiritual manifestations then taking
place in Irving's church were, though contrary to no ecclesiasti
cal canon, yet thoroughly contrary to the character and essence
of Presbyterian worship ; and that only the existence, not to be
hoped for, of an imperturbable judicial mind, resolute in the maj
esty of law, and beyond the influence of feeling, in the court that
judged him, could have made a different result possible. Those
outbursts of prophetic voices, exciting and unexpected, were pal
pably at the wildest variance with the rigid decorumf^pf that na
tional worship which has so carefully abstracted every thing which
can influence either imagination or sense from its austere services.
And a body of men trained to the strictest observance of this af
fronted order of worship, totally unaccustomed to the exactitude
of law, and important in the exercise of an authority which they
would have unanimously declared it an infraction of Christ's sov
ereignty in His Church had any qualified adviser attempted to
guide, were scarcely to be supposed so superior to Presbyterial
precedent as to conduct this trial on the cautious principles of
civil equity. They quoted ecclesiastical law as uninstructed con
troversialists quote texts, by way of giving a certain vague author
ity to their own opinions, but the idea of examining scrupulously
what that law really enforced and meant, or wherein the actions
of the accused were opposed to it, never seems to have entered
the minds of the hasty Presbyters. The Confessions of Faith and
Books of Discipline, to which Irving referred so often, had, in fact,
nothing to do with the matter. Apart from all disputed doctrine
and irritated theological temper, a simple matter of fact, visible to
all the world, had to be dealt with ; a startling novelty had sud
denly disturbed the sober composure of the Scotch Church, which
was no way to be reconciled with its habitual reserve and grav
ity, and somehow had to be got rid of. Scotch observers, looking
back at the present moment, regretful of the necessity, still ask,
* That this is the case, and that no such rigid adherence to the proprieties of cus
tom binds tho Church when she chooses to be tolerant, might be proved by the many
irregularities permitted in connection with the late «' revivals."

THE VERDICT. 489
What could they do ? And I can not tell what they could have
done except examine, and wait, and tolerate — three things which
the national temperament finds more difficult than any action or
exertion. "I do not dissent from your assertion that the Scotch
Consistory had no choice but to expel Irving from the body,"
writes the Rev. F. D. Maurice ; " I do not say that the authorities
of the English Church, if they had (unhappily) the same kind of
jurisdiction, might not or may not exercise it in the same man
ner ; but I know few signs which (in the latter case) I should
deem so sure a prognostic of coming desolation." The Scotch
mind, much less tolerant and more absolute than the English —
that same mind which makes it by times a " unanimous hero na
tion," had already learned to make abrupt settlement of such
questions ; and, unless the Presbytery had been content to wait
with Gamaliel and see whether this thing was of God or not, the
decision they came to was the only one to be looked for from
them. But the laws of the Church, those standards which they
themselves set up as the ultimate reference, had absolutely noth
ing at all to do with the matter.
The verdict — elaborately enveloped, as will be seen, in the per
plexing obscurity of Scotch law terms, which, taken in connection
with the wonderful lack of law in the proceedings themselves,
throw an air almost of absurdity upon it — was as follows :
"At a meeting of the London Presbytery, held at the Scotch
Church, London Wall, this 2d day of May, 1830 :
" Whereas the Trustees of the National Scotch Church, Regent
Square, having, on the 22d day of March last, delivered to the Mod
erator of this Presbytery a memorial and complaint, charging the
Rev. Edward Irving with certain deviations from the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of Scotland, in the said complaint particu
larly set forth, and praying that this Presbytery would forthwith take
the same into their consideration, so as to determine the question
whether, by such breaches of doctrine and discipline, the said Rev.
Edward Irving hath not rendered himself unfit to remain the minis
ter of the said National Scotch Church, and ought not to be removed
therefrom, in pursuance of the conditions of the trust-deed of the said
church. And whereas the said Rev. Edward Irving, having previous
ly been, delated and convicted before this Presbytery on the ground
of teaching heresy concerning the human nature of our Lord Jesus
Christ, has been declared to be no longer a member thereof, yet, in
respect that the trust-deed of the said church, legally drawn and
concluded with the consent of the said Rev. Edward Irving, and the
said trustees as parties thereto, expressly provides not only that this
Presbytery shall or may act and adjudicate in all cases of complaint
brought in the manner therein specified against the minister of the

490 IRVING "UNFIT TO REMAIN A MINISTER."
said church for the time being, by certain persons therein specified ;
but that the award or decision of this Presbytery in all such matters,
so referred to them as aforesaid, shall be final and conclusive.
"And further, in regard that the trustees of the said church, being
of the parties competent to complain as aforesaid, have laid before this
Presbytery, in the manner prescribed by the said trust-deed, the me
morial and complaint hereinbefore-mentioned or referred to, against
the said Rev. Edward Irving, charging him as aforesaid with certain
deviations from the doctrine and discipline of the Church of Scotland,
as mentioned in the said complaint particularly, in as far as he has
permitted and publicly encouraged, during public worship on Sab
bath and other days, the exercise of certain supposed gifts by persons
being neither ministers nor licentiates of the Church of Scotland, in
contravention, as well of his ordination vows, as of the true intent
and meaning of the said trust-deed, which, in the governing clause
thereof, provides that the said National Scotch Church, of which the
said Rev. Edward Irving is the present minister, shall, at all times
hereafter, be used, occupied, and enjoyed as a place for the public re
ligious worship and service of God, according to the doctrines, forms
of worship, and modes of discipline of the Established Church ; an
account of all which deviations and innovations the said trustees, of
fering proof of the same, have petitioned this Presbytery to decern
in the premises, according to the provisions of the said trust-deed.
And farther, in regard that the said complaint has in all respects
been orderly proceeded in. And that on the 26th and 27th days of
April last, and on this 2d day of May instant, the said trustees on the
one part, and the said Rev. Edward Irving on the other, having sev
erally compeared before this Presbytery, and probation having been
taken on said complaint by the examination of witnesses upon oath,
and by documentary evidence lodged in process, and parties having
been heard and removed ; therefore this Presbytery, having seriously
and deliberately considered the said complaint and the evidence ad
duced, together with the statements made in court by the said Rev.
Edward Irving, and acting under a deep and solemn sense of their
responsibility to the Lord Jesus Christ as the great Head of the
Church, do find that the charges in said complaint are fully proven;
and therefore, while deeply deploring the painful necessity thus im
posed upon them, they did and hereby do decern that the said Rev.
Edward Irving has rendered himself unfit to remain the minister of
the National Scotch Church aforesaid, and ought to be removed
therefrom, in pursuance of the conditions of the trust-deed of the said
church. Jambs Reid Bkown,
" Moderator of the Presbytery of the Established
Church of Scotland in London."
The following morning had scarcely dawned when the triumph
ant press echoed and celebrated this decision. Never before was
a Presbytery out of Scotland so watched and so applauded. The
Times itself opened with a discharge of its great guns in honor of
the victory, devoting a leading article to the subject;

TRIUMPH OF THE PRESS.— " TIMES" AND "RECORD." 491
" The blasphemous absurdities which have for some months past
been enacted in the Caledonian Church, Regent Square," says the
leading journal, " are now, we trust, brought to an effectual conclu
sion. The Scotch Presbytery in London, who are, by the trust-deed
of the chapel, appointed to decide on any alleged departure of its
minister from the standards of the Kirk of Scotland, to which, by the
same deed, he is sworn to adhere, last night, after a laborious inves
tigation, declared- that the fooleries which he had encouraged or per
mitted were inconsistent with the doctrine and discipline of the
Scotch National Establishment. It would, indeed, have been a sub
ject of wonder had they come to a different conclusion, though they
had had the benefit of a concert upon the ' tongues' from the whole
male and female band of Mr. Irving's select performers. So long as
the reverend gentleman occupied the stage himself," continues this
great authority in religious doctrine, " he was heard with patience —
perhaps sometimes with pity ; . . . . but when he entered into part
nership with knaves and impostors, to display their concerted ' mani
festations' — when he profaned the sanctuary of God by introducing
hideous interludes of ' the unknown tongues,' it was impossible any
longer to tolerate the nuisance."
Such terms had Irving, with his lofty sense of honor and chiv
alrous truthfulness, to hear applied to himself and to endure.
The Record, with milder, but not less triumphant satisfaction, fol
lows in a similar strain, emphasizing its rejoicing by congratula
ting its readers not only upon Baxter's recantation, but upon the
timely withdrawal of Irving's assistant and missionary from the
falling house — that gentleman having not only had his eyes open
ed to the delusion of the gifts, but also to the " awful heresy in re
gard to our Lord's humanity, which it has been the privilege of
this journal steadfastly to resist." Such were the paeans with
which the perfectly illogical and indefensible decision of the Lon
don Presbytery was received in the outside world, and such the
accompaniments with which this heavy blow fell upon Irving.
The assistant who deserted him at so painful a crisis had been his
companion for but a short time, and appears but little either in
the history of the .struggle, or in those all-demonstrative letters in
which Irving, incapable of concealment, reveals his heart and soul.
It is a relief to turn from all this misrepresentation and injust
ice ; from the reckless Presbyters who refused to examine either
their own law or the real question at issue ; from the contemptu
ous journalists, to whom this matter was only one of the wonders
of the day, a fanaticism as foreign and unintelligible as heaven ;
from disenchanted prophets and failing friends, to Irving himself,
spending the next day after, morning and evening and at noon, in

492 THE FAST-DAY.— CLOSING OF THE CHURCH.
the labors and devotions of that dedicated day preparatory to the
communion, which Scottish piety still calls par excellence the Fast-
day, totally as the ordinance of fasting has disappeared from the
nation. He did not intermit those services, although it was now
uncertain whether the church would be open to him on the next
Sunday for the celebration of the sacrament./ " The tokens* were
given, to be kept (if not delivered up on Sunday) as a bond of
union till such time as the Lord shall guide the flock to some oth
er place of refuge," writes a lady, whose diffuse woman's letter
deepens into momentary pathos when, speaking of Irving in that
day's services, she exclaims, " I verily believe he offered to God
the sacrifice of a broken heart." It was the last sacrifice of his
ever to be offered in that place where "the ashes of his children
rested," as he himself mournfully said. The next morning, in the
early May sunshine, before the world was half awake, the daily
congregation, gathering to their matins, found the gates of the
church closed upon them. Perhaps it was that " wrath with
those we love," working " like madness in the brain," the bitter
anger of a brother offended, which moved the trustees to so ab
rupt a use of their power. " I strongly urged them to allow the
church to remain open till after the dispensation of the sacra
ment," writes Mr. Hamilton, who had been a sad spectator
throughout, specially intimating his non-concurrence, as being
himself a trustee, in the complaint of the others, although unable
in conscience to offer any opposition to them ; " but they refused
to do so on the ground that, as they could not conscientiously join
with Edward themselves, they would thereby be deprived, under
the provisions of the trust-deed, from having a voice in the elec
tion of a future minister, and also because it would bring a great
accession of friends to Edward" — two hundred new members, ac
cording to the same authority, having applied for admission ; so
they put an arbitrary stop to all the multiplied services with which
the Church of Scotland prefaces its communion, and just as the
sacred table was about to be spread, silently prohibited that sol
emn farewell feast, and left the large congregation, with its two
hundred new members, to seek what accommodation it could find
in the two days which intervened. They found it in a place of
which the Morning Watch declares, " Nothing could be more re-
* Admission to the communion being in the Scotch Church hedged in with many
restrictions, it is customary to distribute these "tokens" before every observance of
the ordinance, without which no one is admitted to the " fenced" and guarded table.

GRAY'S INN ROAD. 493
pugnant to the judgment, taste, and. feeling of all the members
than the asylum to which they were driven. A barn or a cow
shed would have been preferable, but none such were to be ob
tained." This was a large room in Gray's Inn Road, occupied at
other times by the well-known Robert Owen, and which was not
only desecrated by that association, but too small to hold the large
body of Irving's adherents. In this place, however, in that dis
mal centre of London life, the holy feast was held on the 6th of
May, by almost the entire Church, about eight hundred communi
cants ; and here, for some months, the more solemn services of the
Church were celebrated ; while Irving preached out of doors in
various places, sometimes in Britannia Fields, sometimes in Isling
ton Green, to the multitudes who assembled wherever his presence
was known.
Such was the first step he had to make in that new world, out
side what his followers call "the splendid towers of Regent
Square," outside the ancient circle of companions and counselors
who had deserted him. Of the pangs of that parting he hence
forth says not a word, but goes on in sad grandeur, feeling to the
depths of his heart all the fullness of the change. Between the
church he had founded and watched over as stone upon stone it
had grown into being, and round which, in his fond imagination,
the venerable prestige of the Church of his fathers had always
hovered, and the big room in that squalid London street, where
foolish-benevolent Unbelief* shared the possession with him, and
played its frivolous pranks of philanthropy under the same roof
which echoed his religious voice, amid all the sneers of the preju
diced world outside, what a difference was there 1 But after the
struggles of the so-called " trial" were over, not a word of com
plaint or reproach comes to his lips ; he proceeds with those " un
exampled labors." Multitudes stand hushed before him on those
summer days, as on the parched suburban grass, or under the
walls of the big prison, he preaches the Gospel of his Master, with
an eloquence deeper and richer, a devotion more profound and
perfect, than when the greatest in the land crowded to his feet,
and all that was most wise and most fair in society listened and
* I may notice here, so strong is the power of even a momentary and fortuitous
connection of two names, that some friends of my own, entirely ignorant otherwise
of Irving, have confidently assured me that he had something to do with the infidel
Owen, as I was sure to find out on examination ! This is, I need not say, the entire
amount of that connection.

494 OUT-DOOR PREACHING.— THE LOST CHILD.
thrilled to his prophet voice. But not his now the prophet voice ;
by his side, or in the crowd near him, is some obscure man or
woman, to hear whom, when the burst of utterance comes upon
them, the great preacher pauses with rapt looks and ear intent;
for that utterance, because he believes it to be the voice of God,
he has borne "reproach, casting out, deprivation of every thing
save life itself," writes one of his female relatives, with aggrieved
and pathetic indignation ; and there he stands, in the unconscious
splendor of his humility, offering magnificent thanks when those
strange ejaculations give, what he believes a confirmation from
heaven, to the Word he has been teaching ; a sight, if that voice
were true, to thrill the universe ; a sight, if that voice were false,
to make angels weep with utter love and pity; any way, whether
true or false, an attitude than which any thing more noble and af
fecting has never been exhibited by man to men.
One of those outdoor sermons was distinguished by a thorough
ly characteristic and beautiful incident. It was shortly after his
ejection from Regent Square, on a. summer Sunday morning, when
surrounded by a little band of his own people, and raised in "a
temporary pulpit or platform made for his use by one of his flock,"
Irving was preaching to the dense crowd which had gathered
round him. The subject of his discourse was, as the lady from
whom I have the information believes, that doctrine of regenera
tion in baptism with which so many pangs of parental love and an
guish were associated in his mind. Suddenly he was interrupted
by an appeal from the crowd ; a child had been lost in the throng •
by its parents, and was now held up by the stranger who had ex
tricated it, and who wanted to know what he should do with the
forlorn little creature. "Give me the child," said the preacher;
and with difficulty, through the multitude, the lost infant was
brought to him. " Mr. Irving stretched out his arms for it," says
my informant, " and in a moment it was nestling (just as we used
to see his own little baby do), with the most perfect confidence and
contentment, against his broad shoulder. It was a poor child, and
poorly clothed, but he was not the man to love it less on that ac
count. We shall none of us ever forget the wonderful manner in
which Mr. Irving could hold an infant. This one appeared to be
perfectly happy from the moment it was in his arms, while he
continued to preach with as much ease and freedom as before ;
and interweaving at once into his discourse (to which it was, of
course, most appropriate) our Lord's own lesson about the little

AFFECTIONATE RECOLLECTION. 495
children, made this little one, as it were, the text of his last clauses,
which he prolonged considerably ; when he had concluded, in his
final prayer and blessing, he particularly prayed for and blessed
"the little child ;" and after the psalm had been sung, he beckon
ed to the parents, who (as he had intended) had seen it from the
time he took it into his arms, to come and receive it back." The
affectionate writer goes on, with a little outburst of that loving
recollection which brings tears to the eyes and a tremor to the
voice of every one who remembers Irving, to say that in his life
time they " hardly dared to speak or think of those natural gifts
which had, previously to his more spiritual ministry, gained for
him the praises of the world." But now, at a distance of thirty
years, his friends can venture to recall the picture — that figure al
most gigantic, with the lost baby "literally cradled" in his arms;
the summer heavens blazing above ; the breathless crowd below ;
the solemn harmony of that matchless voice, full of all the intona
tions of eloquence, to which nobody could listen unmoved ; and
that living sign of a tenderness which embraced all helpless things,
the love with which his forlorn heart, wounded to its depths, yearn
ed to its brethren. "An intense sunshine bathed the whole," con
cludes the lady, whose notes I have quoted. Under that sunshine,
in fervid midsummer, silent thousands stood and listened. This
was now the only means remaining to Irving of communication
with the outside world.
And in these preachings, with but here and there a scattered
individual who retained, or ever had known, allegiance to the
Church of Scotland near him, and in the room in Gray's Inn Road
— and still more strangely in the chapel where the Rev. Nicholas
Armstrong, not long before a clergyman of the English Church,
and of fervent Irish blood, established the first dependent congre
gation of the new sect — one sign of Irving's influence, as remark
able as it is affecting, accompanied the services. So far as the
London Presbytery could do it, the great preacher had been cast
out of the Church of his fathers ; he had been pronounced unfit to
occupy any longer a pulpit bound to the Church of Scotland ; but,
wherever Irving's friends and followers sang the praises of God,
it was that rugged version of the Psalms of David which we, in
Scotland know from our cradles, and— all poetic considerations
out of the question — cherish to our graves, which ascended from
the lips of the unaccustomed crowd. Those rugged measures, by
times grand in their simplicity, by times harsh and unmelodious

496 THE SCOTCH PSALMS.
as only translated lyrics can be, which cheered the death-passion
of the Covenanter, and which Carlyle, with an almost fantastic loy
alty (in rebellion) to the faith that cradled him, puts into the
mouths of his mediaeval monks, Irving, in actual reality, put into
the mouths of his English followers. When his bold disciples in
terposed their Gospel into the din of every-day life in the heart of
London, and preached at Charing Cross in the heat of the labori
ous hours, it was not the smooth hymns of modern piety, but the
strange songs of a sterner faith, which mingled with the confused
noises of the life-battle. To find those harsh old verses, sometimes
thrilling with an heroic touch, but at all times as unlike the effu
sions of devotion in our days as can well be conceived, preserved
amid records of "manifestations" and sermons, upon neither the
speakers nor the hearers of which they had the least claim of as
sociation, is a singular memorial of the affectionate reverence with
which all his followers regarded Irving. I can not tell how long
this lasted ;* but in these days of excitement and commotion, when
the expelled Church had no refuge, but snatched its solemn cel
ebrations in the obnoxious concert-room which Robert Owen
shared, and wandered out about those noisy suburbs to find space
for its preaching, it is always the old Psalms of Scotland which
rise quaint and strange upon the air, used to smoother, if not to
nobler measures. And throughout this summer there is a con
tinual changing of scene and place. The old green of Islington,
swallowed up out of all village semblance in the noisy centre of
population ; the still less pleasant space overshadowed by Clerk-
enwell prison— nay, even, as we have said, Charing Cross, which
sometimes, in insular arrogance, we call the centre of the world,
all saw the wandering nucleus of devoted worshipers, the gather
ing crowd, the preaching evangelist.
Nor was there always the same veneration shownt even to the
great preacher himself, as in the instance we have quoted. The
newspapers of the day mention a threatened assault upon him by
the Jews, to whom he had preached in Goodman's Fields; and he
himself refers to the presence of "a multitude of strangers and
gazers," who "have insulted me, and do insult me daily;" while,
at the same time, he desires the prayers of the Church "for two
brethren now lying in prison," who were suffering for their zeal
in this respect. The newspapers, in the mean time, were full of
* I am told that their use was continued for several years, until the system of chant
ing the Psalms in the prose version, as in the Church of England, was adopted.

PRINCELY HOSPITALITY. 497
sneers and contemptuous self-congratulations on having foreseen
the depths of the " foolery" into which this new fanaticism had
fallen ; but I can not help thinking that this summer conveyed,
amid the labors that refreshed his soul, a little repose to Irving,
who, at last, was done with all the harassing cares of daily contest
— the struggle with his friends. It was over now ; and if desert
ed on many sides, he was comparatively unmolested. After the
morning services the worshipers poured into his house, which was
still in Judd Place, and which, in that moment of transition, had
no certain provision even for its own necessities, and crowded
round the breakfast-table, where the man who knew how to live
by faith exercised, as Mr. Drummond described to me, " a prince
ly hospitality." During the entire summer, the Morning Watch
informs us, the members of the expelled Church had been " inde
fatigable in seeking to purchase, hire, or build a chapel." None
eligible offered for the former purpose ; and when it was resolved
to erect a building, and money had been collected toward defray
ing the expense, the Spirit expressly forbade it, saying " that the
Lord would provide in His own time." And, in fact, a place adapt
able for the purpose was found in the beginning of autumn, in the
large picture-gallery which had /belonged to West, the painter, and
which was attached to his house in Newman Street, where, accord
ingly, after a little interval, the changed congregation established
itself, remodeled and reorganized.
That was a year almost as momentous and exciting to the na
tion at large as it was to Irving and his people. It was the year
of the Reform Bill, and half the periodical literature of the day was
awful in prognostications which one reads nowadays with incred
ulous smiles ; and still more closely interesting and important, it
was the year of the cholera, when men's hearts were failing them
for fear of the uncomprehended plague, which stole, insidious and
sudden, alike through crowded streets and quiet villages. In the
June number of the Morning Watch appears a letter from Irving,
touching an attack of this malady to which he himself had been
subject, and the manner in which he had surmounted it, which is
remarkable, as all his letters are, for the simple and minute picture
it gives of his own heart and emotions.
The idea that disease itself was sin, and that no man with faith
in his Lord ought to be overpowered by it, was one of the princi
ples which began to be adopted by the newly-separated commu
nity. Ii

498 H0W T0 OVERCOME DISEASE BY FAITH.
" To the Editor of the '¦Morning Watch.'
"Mt dear Fkiend, — As you have asked me to give you an ac-
» count of the gracious dealings of our heavenly Father with me, His
unworthy servant, on the occasion of my being seized with what was
in all appearance, and to the conviction of medical men, when de
scribed to them, seemed to be, that disease which has proved fatal to
so many of our fellow-creatures in this and other lands, I sit down to
do so with much gratitude of heart to my God, who enabled me to
hold fast my confidence in Him, and who did not forsake me when I
trusted in Him, nor suffer the adversary to triumph over me, but gave
me power, through faith in Christ my risen Head, to overcome him
when he endeavored, by his assault in my flesh, to shake my faith in
my God, and to prevent me from fulfilling that day to two different
congregations the office of a minister of Christ. ... I feel I ought
to mention that, on the evening preceding my attack, I had preached
from the words in the 12th of 1 Cor., 'To another the gifts of heab
ing by the same Spirit.' I was led in discourse to show out to my
flock that the standing of the members of Christ was to be without
disease, and that this had ever been the standing of God's people.
. . . And I added that if disease did come upon them, as in the case
of Job, it was either for chastening for some sin, whether in them
selves or in the body of Christ, for God ever views us as one, or per
mitted as a trial of our faith. Having stated these things out fully,
I exhorted the saints of God before me to live by faith continually
on Jesus for the body as Well as the soul. . . . Or, should their faith
be put to the test by disease, I entreated them to hold fast their con
fidence, and to plead the Lord's own many and gracious promises to
the members of His Church, and in faith to go about the occupations
which in His providence they were called to perform, ever bearing
in mind that whatsoever they did should be for His glory, and that
I had no doubt but they would ever experience that the Lord hon
ored their faith in His word.
" On the following morning I arose in perfect health at the usual
hour, and was in the church by half past six o'clock. During the
prayer-meeting I began to feel pain, but was able to go through the
service. A number of friends accompanied me home to breakfast.
On reaching home I became very chill, and had very severe pain.
. . . After resting a while I felt a little relieved, and entered the room
where my friends were, and sat down by the fire, unable to taste any
thing. The hour's pain I had endured, and the other trial of my con
stitution, had even then had such an effect on my frame that my ap
pearance shocked my friends. I could take no interest in the con
versation going forward, but endeavored to lift up my heart to my
God, having a presentiment that I was called upon to show forth the
faith which I had on the preceding evening been led to exhort my
people to have in their heavenly Father. In the strength of God I
proceeded, when my friends had finished breakfast, to conduct family
worship, which I was enabled to do, though my body was so enfee
bled that I could neither kneel nor stand, having tried both positions,
but had to sit while I prayed. I then retired to my own room, in

SUFFERINGS— RESOLVED TO FALL AT HIS POST. 499
order to search myself in the presence of God, to confess my sins,
to cast myself entirely on the mercy of my Father, and to seek for
strength to perform the duties of that day, having to preach that
forenoon at half past eleven o'clock, and again in the evening at sev
en. I was now very sick, with a feeling of wringing or gnawing
pain through my whole body. ... I was so weak that I could not
sit up, and in sore pain, with a painful chill all over my body. I
therefore wrapped me up in blankets and laid me on my bed, desir
ing to be left alone until a few minutes before the time for setting
out for the house of God, where I should minister to His people.
My orders were obeyed, and my wish attended to. My wife entered
my room about a quarter past eleven o'clock. I felt so exhausted that
I did not attempt to speak to her. She saw my weakness and spoke
not, but hurried down stairs to prepare a little arrow-root and bran
dy for me, and to desire that my fellow-laborer, the missionary of our
Church, should go and take my place, as she thought there was little
hope of my reaching the church at the hour when the service should
commence. When my wife had left the room, though I was no bet
ter, I said in the strength of the Lord I will rise and do my duty. I
arose, and came down stairs in tottering weakness, but holding fast
my assurance that, though brought very low, the Lord would not for
sake me. . . . My sunken eyes and pallid cheeks, and altogether my
ghastly appearance, my wife afterward told me, reminded her of her
grandsire of eighty-four, whose frame had been wasted with disease.
. . . With slow and difficult steps, accompanied by my wife and a
young friend, I proceeded to the church, about a quarter of a mile
from my house ; and on entering, found my friend and fellow-laborer
standing and ministering in my room. All things tempted me to
shrink back from my office ; but I felt no hesitation to instruct my
faithful beadle, though he remonstrated much, to go up to the pulpit
and inform my brother that when he had finished the first prayer I
would take my place, and by God's help perform my own duty.
Meanwhile, I stretched myself on three chairs before the fire in the
vestry, barely able to keep myself in heat, and, by perfect stillness in
one position, a little to abate the pain. Ever as I shifted my posi
tion I endured much suffering, and was almost involuntarily impelled
to draw up my limbs in order to keep the pain under. Nevertheless,
when I stood up to attire myself for the pulpit, and went forward to
ascend the pulpit stairs, the pains seemed to leave me. Over and
over again my kind and true-hearted brother besought me to let him
proceed ; but my mind was made up to fall at my post, which I had
an inward assurance my Master would not suffer me to do. I began
to read the chapter, expecting the power of spiritual exposition, which
was wont to abound to me in this above all my other services ; but,
to my astonishment, I had no thought in my heart, nor word upon
my lips, and felt it was all I could do to keep on reading. About
the sixth verse my words began to be indistinct in the sound. I
could not strike them shrill and full out ; they fell short of my usual
utterance all I could do. My eye became dim, and the words of the
book looked hazy. Then my head began to swim, and my heart to
become faint ; and I laid bold on the pulpit-sides, and looked wist-

500 VICTORY OVER THE BODY.
fully about, wondering what was to befall me. But the most painful
symptom of all was that I felt it a great effort to draw my breath.
At this moment, when the disease was come to a crisis, and all na
ture was sinking down within me, I had only one feeling, for the hon
or of Jesus, my Lord and Master, that he should be put to shame
through my unbelief, and that I should fall before the enemy in the
place "of testimony and in the sight of all the people. One thought,
one prayer, shot across my spirit, which was this : ' Surely Thou, oh
Jesus, art stronger in my spirit than Satan is in my flesh !' That in
stant a cold sweat, chill as the hand of death, broke out all over my
body, and stood in large drops upon my forehead and hands. From
that moment I seemed to be strengthened. My reading, which had
not been interrupted by all this, though strongly affected so as to be
sensible to all present, proceeded more easily to the end of the chap
ter, but all without my being able to add one word of exposition.
Nevertheless, after the singing a few stanzas of a Psalm, I undertook
to preach on the last verse of the 3d chapter of John's Gospel, which
came in order. According to my custom I had premeditated noth
ing, and, as hath been said, whileT reading the chapter, found myself
utterly incapable of originating any thing. But I knew the Master
whom I serve, and set out on His charges. Slowly and "with great
weakness the words dropped from me, and I was ill able to indite
sentences or bind them into regular discourse ; but I gave myself to
the Spirit, and went forward. I had not proceeded many minutes
until the Holy Ghost, in one of the prophets, burst in upon my dis
course, speaking with tongues and prophesying. This brought me
rest and refreshing, and some of the words were made to me spirit
and life, so that I resumed with fresh strength, but still as a dead
man both in respect of body and of mind, alive in respect of the Spirit.
I continued my discourse for about an hour with more unction, as it
appeared to myself and all who spake of it, than I had ever preached
before. After the service I walked home and conversed with my
friends, and took a little simple food, expecting to strengthen my
body for my evening duty by eating heartily at dinner. But God
was resolved that for this day the glory of my strength should stand
only in Him ; for I was able to eat little or nothing, yet had more
power given me in preaching to about two hundred poor people in a
crowded schoolroom than I ever remember to have had. And next
morning I rose to my duty before the sun, and was enabled to go for
ward with renewed strength unto this hour. For all which, let the
glory be given to Jehovah by His name — ' I am the Lord God which
healeth thee.' Edwd. Irving."
The perfect simplicity of this narrative may, perhaps, bring a
smile upon some faces ; but I can not pretend to offer any excuses
for a man who felt the everlasting arms always under him, and
recognized no dull intervening world between himself and his
God. The occurrence thus described evidently took place before
his expulsion from Regent Square, and at a time when men's
minds were highly strung, and as delicate to deal with as the.

A REMARKABLE PASSAGE. 501
wavering bands of an army in the first thrill of panic, which the
merest stumble of the leader might throw into mad rout and de
struction. Perhaps the steadfast, pallid figure, holding by the
sides of the pulpit, and maintaining its Christian sovereignty
over the body and its pangs, did more than much philosophy to
strengthen the hearts of the watching multitude against that panic
which is the best aid of pestilence.
Notwithstanding Irving's declaration that, according to his cus
tom, he had premeditated nothing, he had by no means given up
the composition of sermons ; but still, and to the end of his days,
continued to dictate to the writing of here and there a joyful
amanuensis, honored to feel her female pen the medium of record
ing his high thoughts and burning exhortations. Nor does it ap
pear that the " falling off," which is so commonly alleged against
him at this agitated period of his life, was in any respect more true
than suppositions framed upon general probability generally are.
On the contrary, Mr. Hamilton, who, deeply affectionate as he
was, would not perhaps have been sorry could he have seen a
momentary feebleness visible in the brother whose convictions
carried him into paths so strange and dangerous, could not say
that the bewilderment of the manifestations, or the undue 'xaith
with which Irving regarded them, had any effect upon the force
and fullness of his preaching. " His ministrations in the pulpit,"
wrote this trusty witness, dating the 4th of May, "have for some
time past been extremely powerful, and I believe instrumental in
winning many souls to Christ." Certainly his few printed pro
ductions of this period give little sign of any decay of intellect.
One of these, published in the Morning Watch of March, 1832, en
titled, A Judgment upon the Decisions of the late General Assembly,
contains a very remarkable passage in reference to the future fate
of the Church of Scotland, which, uttered without any prophetic
pomp, has verified itself more absolutely than any of the profess
edly inspired predictions to which Irving himself gave such un-
doubting heed : " That the General Assembly, Synods, Presbyter
ies, and Kirk Sessions, with all the other furniture of the Church,
are about, like the veil of the temple, to be rent in twain, or to be left,
like the withered fig-tree, fruitless and barren, I firmly believe,
and yet would do all I could to retard it," he says ; regarding
steadfastly, not any premonition of a rising controversy about
Church government, nor even the restless, absolute spirit entering
into a wild struggle with all the conditions of nature, which took

502 THE SICK CHILD.
so readily to deposition and anathema, but, what to his intent eyes
was a thousand times more significant, the practical denial of the
love of the Father and the work of the Son, which he believed
the Church of Scotland to be guilty bf. After the event which
has left so deep a scar upon the heart of Scotland, it is startHng
to meet with such words.
The Morning Watch, notwithstanding its dignity as a Quarterly
Review, and its oft-repeated declaration that the majority of its
readers were members of the English Church, occupied itself,
throughout those exciting months, in the most singular manner,
with the ecclesiastical" prosecution, which only the great fame of
Irving, and the remarkable character of the spiritual question in
volved, prevented from being a merely local and individual mat
ter. Though a periodical of the highest class and most recondite
pretensions, it palpitated with every change in the fortunes of the
Regent Square Church, and was as truly the organ of that expel
led band, large as a congregation, but small as a community, which
followed Irving, as its adversary the Record was the organ of En
glish Evangelicism ; and not only abounded in discussions and
expositions of the miraculous gifts and cures, and of the doctrines
specially identified with Irving, but went so much farther as to
represent "Mr, Irving's Church as The Sign of the Times," and to
discuss the position of the body in its temporary and disagreeable
refuge as " The Ark of God in the Temple of Dagon." Perhaps the
presence in the new community of a man so rich, so determined,
so swift, and self-acting as Henry Drummond, sparing no cost,
either of money or labor — a potentate considerable enough to
have an " organ" in his own right — goes far to explain the pos
session, by a single Church, of a representative so magnificent as
a Quarterly Review.
I am not informed as to the precise period when Irving re
moved his family into the house in Newman Street, which in
cluded under the same roof the large picture-gallery henceforward
to form the meeting-place of his Church ; but, before going on to
that, there occurs another of those anecdotes which his friends
have hoarded up in their memories, and tell with tears and smiles.
When he went for the first time to see this house, some time
elapsed before he could get admission ; and when, at last, the man
who was in charge of the place opened the door, he apologized
for the delay, saying that he had a child dying up stairs. " Then,
before we do any thing else," said Irving, on the threshold of

INVITATION TO THE KIRKCALDY RELATIVES. 503
the much-desired building which might liberate him from Robert
Owen and Gray's Inn Road, " let us go and pray that it may be
healed." He followed the astonished and sorrowful custodian of
the empty house up through the echoing staircase to the attic
where the little sick-bed was, and, kneeling down, poured out his
soul for the child, over whose feeble head he no doubt pronounced
that blessing which dropped from his tender lips upon all little
children. Then he returned to the business which had brought
him there, and examined the extent and capabilities of the place.
Some time after, he returned again with the architect who was to
superintend the alterations, and, as soon as the door was opened,
asked, How was the child? The father answered with joy that
it was now recovering. " Then, before we do any thing else*let
us go and give thanks," said the Christian priest. Hearing of
such daily incidents, natural accompaniments of that full life, one
can not wonder at the exclamation which bursts from the troubled
bosom of his sister Elizabeth when, in a passion of mingled doubt
and grief, she says, " There are moments when I feel as if God
had deserted the Church altogether ; for if He is not in the midst
of Mr. Irving's family and flock, where is God to be found ?"
Surely, amid all clouds of human imperfection, the light of His
countenance fell fair upon that echoing empty house where His
faithful servant gave the thanks of a prince and poet for the little
life of the poor housekeeper's child.
Most probably that eventful summer passed without much in
tercourse between the household which was in direct opposition
to all its kindred, and the kind but grieved relations who with
stood the new faith ; for in August, Mrs. Irving addressed a be
seeching woman's letter, tender and importunate, evidently writ
ten out of the yearning of her heart, to her father and mother,
begging them to come to visit her, and evidently not without a
hope that, if they did but see and hear the " work" which was go
ing on, they would be persuaded of its truth. When she had
made her petition, she seems to have transferred the letter to Ir
ving, who, more prescient of all the difficulties involved, yet ten
der of his Isabella's desire, adds to the anxious conciliatory letter
the following sentences :
" If your hearts draw you to grant this, the request of my dear
Isabella and myself, let not the expense be any consideration, for we
never were so rich since we began house-keeping. . . . And if you
should not wish to abide in our house by reason of the contrariety

504 PROSPERED BY THE LORD.
of our faith in so essential a point as the voice of the Good Shepherd,
which is more spoke under our roof than in any other place, you have
our dear brother Mr. Hamilton's house to go to, who will be too glad
to receive you. For my own part, I could not wish you to abide in
that holy presence and stand in doubt of His identity, much less
speak against His divinity, and worse than all, speak of the Holy
Ghost as a spirit of delusion. . . . You would certainly be continual
ly exposed to great trials in this way, and might be brought under
heinous sin ; but God might be pleased to give you to acknowledge
His truth. Do as seemeth best to you, being guided by the Lord in
all things. My only comfort is that the people know not what they
have spoken against ; were it otherwise, I would be ready to perish
at the thought of the despite which hath been done to the Spirit of
grace. The Gospel soundeth out through the whole city from my
Church. I should suppose there are not fewer than thirty or forty
who now preach in the streets, every one of them as zealous, and
many of them more bold than I am ; and for myself, the Lord's work
by me, both within my church and among the people, prospers above
all former times. Every two months there are added to the Church
nearly fifty souls. If you knew it, you have great ground of thanks
giving on our account. I believe the Lord is doing a work in my
Church wherein the whole world shall have reason to rejoice.
" Your affectionate and faithful children, E. & I. Irving."
The parents naturally did not come to complicate all his diffi
culties ; but another communication passed between them a month
later, when Irving intimated the birth of another son, and also
that " the Lord prospers us otherwise very much. He hath pro
vided us with a house and church under one roof, where I believe
the Lord will work blessings manifold, not only to this city and
nation, but to the whole world, because He is gracious, and the
time to visit His Church is come, and we were the most despised
among the thousands of Israel."
With such anticipations, accordingly, he entered into possession
of the new church ; and now, indeed, the ancient, austere usages
of the Church of Scotland began to yield to the presence of that
gradually rising tide of spiritual influence within. Those utter
ances, which at first had only conveyed exhortations and warn
ings to the people of God, had, in the hands of Baxter, taken an
entirely different and much more authoritative character ; up to
his time, the prophets, of whom the majority were women, seem
only to have given stray gleams of edification, encouragement,
and instruction to the believing assembly. Baxter, on the con
trary, carried matters with a high hand ; he not only interpreted
prophecy, but uttered predictions ; he fixed the day and the year
when the " rapture of the saints" was to take place, in opposition

DEVELOPMENT. 505
to the sentiments of many of the " gifted ;" and if he did not posi
tively assert his own call to be an apostle, at least intimated it
with more or less distinctness. Nor was this all ; he also declared
in " the power" that the Church no longer retained the privilege
of ordaining, and that all spiritual offices were henceforth to be
filled by the gifted, or by those specially called, through the gift
ed, by the Spirit of God. Before the opening of the Newman
Street Church, it is true, the prophet himself had published the
wonderful narrative, in which he repeated the predictions which
came from his own lips, and, appealing to the whole world wheth
er they had been fulfilled, proclaimed them a delusion. But the
principle which he had introduced did not fall to the ground, nor
did his brother prophets cease to believe in his prophecies. And
so it came to pass, that those utterances which had only been ex
pository and exhortative before Baxter's time, after his revelation
changed their nature, and, gradually mingling details of Church
ceremonies and ordinances with their previous devotional and
hortatory character, became ere long the oracles of the commun
ity, fluctuating sometimes in gusts of painful uncertainty when
one prophet rebuked the utterances of another, and reversed his
directions, or when conclusions too summary were drawn which
had inevitably to be departed from. This new development in
troduced, instead of the steady certainty of an established law, the
unsettled and variable condition naturally resulting from depend
ence upon a mysterious spiritual authority, which might at any
time command an entire change in their proceedings, and was, be
sides, liable to be intruded upon by equally mysterious, diabolical
agencies, which could with difficulty be distinguished from the
real influence of the Spirit. When the principle of spiritual ordi
nation was once established, this condition of painful change and
fluctuation became inevitable. If it was indeed the Spirit of God
which declared the old authority of the Church to be superseded,
such an intimation was reasonably to be supposed the preface of
spiritual action ; and if a power other than the Spirit of God, still
more certain was the fruit to be borne by a suggestion which gave
scope to every burning imagination and enthusiast heart. New
names, new offices, a changed order of worship came in gradual
succession ; when the greater matters were momentarily settled,
the minutest details came in for their share ; and the very details
became important when it was believed that God Himself direct
ed and suggested every arrangement of the new sanctuary.

506 IRVING ANNOUNCES CERTAIN CHANGES.
I do not attempt to follow the gradual development of the
" Catholic Apostolic Church." I could not do so without shock
ing the holiest feelings of some of the most excellent people I
know, to whom I am indebted for much courtesy and no small as-
sistanpe. They are very well able to set forth and defend their
own faith, and it would be ill my part to cast the faintest shade
either of ridicule or of odium upon it. I only pause to point out
the moment when the old order of things began to break up and
disappear, leaving only here and there some pathetic shred of an
cient habitude, such as the use of the Scotch Psalms, to show
where the former landmarks had been. In the excitement of the
new system thus gradually forming, in the proclamation of apos
tles about to be consecrated, and prophets about to be sent forth,
and a new tabernacle of testimony against the world lying in
wickedness to be established in that wilderness — a living taber
nacle, every office-bearer of which was intended by God to stand
in the place of some one of the symbolical material parts of Moses'
tabernacle — it would have been marvelous indeed had the old
forms of Scottish worship remained intact amid so many convul
sions. In a sermon preached in Gray's Inn Road just before entering
the new church, Irving thus intimated one or two of the changes
purposed :
" Because I have been sore hindered by the presence of the multi
tude of strangers and gazers who have profaned the Lord's house,
and have insulted me and do insult me daily, and not me only, but
the Lord Jesus, it is my purpose, by God's grace, when we meet to
gether again, that the Church shall meet together alone one full hour
before the admission of the people, in order that the Church may
know what are the duties of the Church, and that we may together
confess our sins before the Lord, and humble ourselves before the
Lord, and bow ourselves down ; and that I may speak to you in the
confidence of a pastor, that I may tell you more plainly than in the
presence of strangers what be our faults, what be our shortcomings,
in order that we may all be before the Lord, to be rebuked of Him
accordingly. Then, when the service of the Church hath thus been
gone about, it is my purpose that the doors be opened, and all whom
the Lord shall please to send shall come in, that we may pray for
them and minister the word of the Gospel unto them. ... I hope,
at no great distance of time also, that we shall find it both convenient
and desirable to eat the Lord's Supper together, as a Church, every
Lord's day. But, as I said before, I do not wish to press this heav
ily, nor to enforce any thing, but that by the gentle leading of the
Spirit of God the Church may be led into it."
The new Church itself bore outward evidence of the change.

EXAMPLE OF THE UTTERANCES. 507
In a second pamphlet, entitled " Irvingism," much less rare and
curious than his " Narrative," and published a year or two later,
in which Mr. Baxter appears calmed down out of his prophetic
passion into the ordinary tone of religious controversy, he de
scribes the place as follows : " The room adopted for their meet
ings was fitted up in the usual style of pews and galleries, as in a
church ; instead of a pulpit, however, there was constructed at the
upper end of the church a raised platform, capable of containing
perhaps fifty persons. In the ascent to this platform are steps ;
on the front of the platform are seven seats ; the middle seat is
that of 'the angel ; the three on each side of the angel are elders.
Below them, on the steps, and in a parallel line, are seven other
seats belonging to the prophets, the middle seat being allotted to
Mr. Taplin as the chief of the prophets. Still lower in a parallel
line are seven other seats appropriated to the deacons, the middle
seat being occupied by the chief deacon. This threefold cord of
a sevenfold ministry was adopted under direction of the utterance.
The angel ordered the service, and the preaching and expounding
was generally by the elders in order, the prophets speaking as ut
terance came upon them." The opening services, however, in this
church seem to have been conducted exclusively by Irving, whose
sermon, interrupted now and then by a manifestation, I have now
before me. It was on Wednesday evening, the 24th of October,
that this service was held ; and the manifestations are reported as
they occurred. As an example of these utterances I quote them
at length. In the course of his exposition of the 1st chapter of
the First Book of Samuel, Irving mentions the Church as barren
— " conceiving, but not having brought forth," upon which the
ecstatic voice interposes,
" Oh, but she shall be fruitful ; oh ! oh ! oh ! she shall replenish the
earth ! Oh ! oh ! she shall replenish the earth and subdue it — and
subdue it !"
A little farther on, another, less apposite to the subject of the
discourse, breaks in as follows :
" Oh, you do grieve the Spirit — you do grieve the Spirit ! Oh, the
body of Jesus is to be sorrowful in spirit ! You are to cry to your
Father — to cry, to cry in the bitterness of your souls ! Oh, it is a
mourning, a mourning, a mourning before the Lord — a sighing and
crying unto the Lord because of the desolations of Zion — because of
the desolations of Zion — because of the desolations of Zion !"
The sermon is on Reconciliation to God, and is interrupted by

508 MANIFESTATIONS.
the following "manifestations," in some cases with only a few sen
tences of the discourse, and in the first two with only a few words
between. Irving is exhorting his hearers to believe that " there
is salvation in Christ for every one of you," when the utterance
bursts forth by the voice of Mr. Drummond,
" Ah ! shut Him not out — shut not out you Savior ! Ah ! you are
proud of your dignity ! Ah ! truly your power is fearful ! Ah ! you
have a power of resisting your God — you have a power of resisting
your salvation ! Ah ! you are not straitened in your Father ; you
are straitened in yourselves ! Oh, receive Him now ! The day is al
most closed. Ah ! enter now ! Delay not — delay not, delay not.
Ah ! wherefore stand you back ?"
Here Irving resumes : " Shut not the Lord out, the spirit of the
Lord speaking in his servants," when he is immediately interrupt
ed again : ' ' Oh, I have set before thee — oh, I have set before thee
an open door ;
Oh, let no man shut it — oh, let no man shut it !"
And the following occur at longer intervals, the first uttered by
a lady :
"Ah! will ye despise — ah! will ye despise the blood of Jesus?
Will ye pass by the cross, the cross of Jesus ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! will ye
crucify the Lord of glory ? will ye put Him to an open shame ? He
died, He died, He died for you — He died for you ! Believe ye, be
lieve ye the Lamb of God ! Oh, He was slain, He was slain, and He
hath redeemed you — He hath redeemed you — He hath redeemed you
— He hath redeemed you with His blood ! Oh, the blood, the blood,
the blood that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel — which
crieth mercy to you now — mercy to you now ! Despise not His love
— despise not His love — despise not His love!"
" Oh, grieve Him not ! Oh, grieve not your Father ! Rest in His
love ! Oh, rejoice in your Father's love ! Oh, rejoice in the love of
Jesus, in the love of Jesus, oh, for it passeth knowledge ! Oh, the
length, oh, the breadth, oh, the height, oh, the depth of the love of
Jesus ! oh, it passeth knowledge ! Oh, rejoice in the love of Jesus !
Oh, sinner ! for what, for what, what, oh, sinner, what can separate,
separate, separate from the love of Jesus ? Oh, nothing, nothing !
Oh, none can pluck you out of His hands ! Oh, none shall be able to
pluck you out of your Father's hand !"
Irving then, the sermon being concluded, intimates that the
church is free throughout, no pew letting being permitted — thus
forestalling, as in various other respects, the anxious endeavors of
a most important part of the English Church — that it is to be open
ten times a week for public worship, besides four other services to
which only members of the Church are admitted, "with such de-

CHARACTER OF THE MANIFESTATIONS. 509
vout persons as they may introduce by tickets," all others being ex
cluded except to the porch of the church. This intimation is scarcely
completed when Mr. Drummond's voice again breaks forth:
" Ah ! be ye warned ! be ye warned ! Ye have been warned. The
Lord hath prepared for you a table, but it is a table in the presence
of your enemies. Ah! look you well to it ! The city shall be build-
ed— ah ! every jot, every piece of the edifice. Be faithful each under
his load — each under his load ; but see that ye build with one hand,
and with a weapon in the other. Look to it — look to it. Ye have
been warned. Ah ! Sanballat, Sanballat, Sanballat ; the Horonite, the
Moabite, the Ammonite ! Ah ! confederate, confederate, confederate
with the Horonite ! Ah ! look ye to it, look ye to it !"
The benediction concluded the service.
Thus concluded this singular service. The reader will perceive
that there is actually nothing in those exclamations to which the
most orthodox believer could object, but will most probably won
der, as I confess I can not help doing, why it should have been
necessary to interrupt the voice of the preacher for utterances
which convey so little, and which, to read them in common print
and daylight, are not more, but less profound and instructive than
the strain of the. discourse which pauses to give them place ; many
of the services, however, are much less frequently interrupted, and
some not at all. In one of them occurs a curious instance of the
expanded ritual grafted upon the old usage, in a series of short
addresses spoken to each individual communicant by name, with
which Irving accompanied the distribution of the. "tokens," and
in which every man and woman of all those unknown appellations
receives a curious identity in all the various particulars of poverty
and prosperity, age and youth.
Little farther of Irving's personal history appears in this event
ful and exciting year. Amid all its agitation, one can fancy a
certain repose lighting upon him after the fiery trial with which
it began. He was forsaken of his friends, yet love still surround
ed him; he had suffered injustice, despite, and loss, but the imme
diate pangs were over. Already he had been promised the mis
sion of a great prophet to his dear native country, and solace was
in the thought ; and, though Baxter had fallen, there were other
prophets standing close around him, who renewed and held up to
the continued hope of the Church those predictions which they
believed Baxter to have too rashly interpreted, too suddenly de
sired fruition of — and the sky before the separated community
was still bright with glorious hopes.

510 ANOTHER ASSAULT.
This momentary calm was, however, once more broken in Oc
tober by warnings of renewed trouble. The Church of Scotland
was in no manner called upon to interfere. The scene of his
labors was beyond her jurisdiction, and he seems to have had
no immediate intention of visiting Scotland, or bringing himself
within the reach of her anathema. But perhaps it was impossi
ble that any merely human corporation of men, actuated by no
greater self-control than their fellows, could have passed over the
solemn and indignant judgment pronounced upon their proceed
ings by Irving in the Morning Watch without using such means
of reprisal as were in their power. The General Assembly of
1831 had issued orders to any Presbytery which might find him
ministering within their bounds to " take action" against him for
his heretical views ; but, stimulated by assault, it had quickened
its movements, and by means of its commission, a kind of repre
sentative committee, had given orders to the Presbytery which
ordained Irving to proceed at once to his trial. The Presbytery
of Annan accordingly bestirred themselves. They wrote to him
demanding whether he was the author of three tracts which they
specified. Under the circumstances, his answer was purely vol
untary ; but, with his usual candor, he replied at once, with full
avowal of the fact, and vehement condemnation of the General
Assembly, with which he declared himself able henceforth " to
make no relationship but that of open and avowed enmity." The
expressions he used on this occasion were almost violent, his vex
ed spirit, to which no rest was permitted, bursting forth in words
more suitable to an Ezekiel than to a man unjustified by inspira
tion. In his view, the highest court of the Church of Scotland
had rejected God in all the three-fold character of His revelation
— in the love of the Father, the humanity of the Son, and the
operations of the Holy Ghost ; and his heart burned with a sol
emn and lofty indignation, all the more intense for the love and
reverence with which he had formerly regarded the Church of his
fathers. With this renewed thunderbolt hanging over him he went
through the rest of the year. "We are all- well, and the Lord
forbeareth greatly with such unworthy creatures, and aboundeth
in love to us for Christ's sake," are the words with which he con
cludes a letter in December. A certain exhaustion, yet calm of
heart, breathes out of the words. Scarcely a man of all those
with whom he had been used to take counsel but had fallen aloof,

GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT. 5H
and stood afar off, disapproving, perhaps condemning, and, what
was a still harder trial to Irving, calling that which to him was
the work of the Holy Ghost a delusion. But his heart was worn
out with much suffering ; and, in the interval of conflict, a certain
tranquillity, half of weariness, enveloped his troubled life.

CHAPTER XVIH.
1833.

Inquiries of Mr. Campbell. — Irving's Reply.— The Fountain of Sweet Waters.— Let
ter to Alan Ker. — Position of the Angel. — God's Footsteps are not known. — Ir
ving's Mode of explaining himself. — His Reasonableness. — Contrast between Ir
ving and Baxter. — Doctrine of "the Humanity." — Fighting in the Dark. — An
nan Presbytery. — Incompetence of the Judges. — Irving's arrival in Annan. — Da
vid and Goliath. — Irving's Defense. — The Captain of our Salvation. — Decision of
the Presbytery. — Scene in Annan Church. — Irving leaves the Church. — Deposi
tion. — His Letter to his People. — His Deliverance. — Nithsdale and Annandale. —
Set aside by his own Church. — Reordination. — The Christian Priest. — " Our dear
Father's Letter." — Another Death. — Infant Faith. — An American Spectator. 
The Morning Watch. — Conclusion of that Periodical. — Irving's Difficulties. — An
embarrassing Restraint. — The Communion in Newman Street. — Many Trials. 
Expectation of Power from on High. — Walking in Darkness.
The course of events went on in natural development after the
separation of Irving and his little community. To a large extent
secluded within themselves, they carried out their newly-estab
lished principles, and " waited upon the Lord" as perhaps no other
community of modern days has ever dreamed of doing, guiding
themselves and their ordinances implicitly by the teaching of the
oracles in the midst of them. In this career of daily increasing
isolation, Irving had not only lost the support of his immediate
personal friends in London, but also of those much-loved breth
ren in faith, in whose defense he had lifted his mighty voice, and
for whom he had denounced the Church of Scotland. Mr. Scott,
though entertaining the full conviction that miraculous gifts were
part of the inheritance of Christians, and after doing much to per
fect that belief in Irving's own mind, as well as in those of the
first ecstatic speakers, had totally refused his sanction to the pres
ent utterances ; and the two friends were now separated, to drift
farther and farther apart through all imaginable degrees of un-
likeness. Mr. Campbell, for whose distinctive views Irving had
stood forth so warmly, and whom he had embraced with all the

512 MR. CAMPBELL'S INQUIRIES.— IRVING'S REPLY.
overflowing sympathy and love of his heart, was equally unable
to perceive any evidences of Divine inspiration. An impression
seems to have prevailed, if not in Irving's mind, at least among
several members of his community, that both these gentlemen
would naturally fall into their ranks, and add strength and sta
bility to the new Church. I have in my possession notes of a
correspondence carried on some time later between Mr. Campbell
and some members of the Newman Street Church, in which the
Scotch minister had to hold his ground against two most acute
and powerful opponents — one of whom was Henry Drummond,
brilliant and incisive in controversy as in most other things — and
to defend and justify himself for not joining them. To lose the
sympathy of these special brethren was very grievous to Irving ;
and he seized the opportunity of explaining the ground of his
faith and that of his people in answer to some questions which
Mr. Campbell very early in this year addressed to Mr. David Ker,
one of the deacons in Newman Street, and a member of a well-
known family in Greenock, in the immediate neighborhood of
which the "gifts" had first displayed themselves. This letter,
which I quote, shows that Irving's own faith had needed very ab
solute props to support it, and that he had not proceeded so far
upon his martyr-path without such trial of doubts and misgivings
as could only be quenched by a confidence in his own sincerity
and utter trust in God's promise possible to very few men under .
any circumstances. Once more he reiterated with sorrowful con
stancy his certain conviction that to His children, when they ask
ed for bread, God would not give a stone.
" 14 Newman Street, February 22, 1833.
" My dear Brother, — When our dear David Ker asked me coun
sel concerning the answering of the questions in your letter touching
the ground of faith in spiritual utterance, I deemed it best to take
the matter in hand for him altogether, and do now hope to deliver
the mind of God to you in this matter. The view of the dear breth
ren in Port-Glasgow,* to wit, the answer of the spirit in the hearer,
is the ground of belief in any word spoken by any man or by any
spirit; but it is only the basis or ground thereof, and by no means re
solves the question in hand. There is a confidence in God which
goes far beyond the answer of the -spirit, and enables us to walk in
the darkness as well as in the light ; for His footsteps are not known.
This confidence pertaineth to him that is of a pure heart and single
eye, and conscious of integrity, and clearness in His sight. I believe
that this sustained our Lord in the crooked paths wherein God led
him, and that it was, and is, and ever will be, the main, yea, the only
* Where the "manifestations" first took place : see ante, p. 381.

the fountain of sweet waters. 513
evidence by which the prophet, having the word of God coming to
him, shall know it is the word of God, and as such speak it ; by which
also the hearer shall know it is the word of God, and as such hear it.
It is true that God leadeth men into temptation, as He did Abraham,
and then it is their part to obey implicitly the word of the Lord, and
the Lord will bring them out of the temptation to His own glory
and to their own good. I declare, for myself and for my Church,
that this is almost our entire safety, to wit, confidence that our God
will take care of us ; for we are not a reasoning people, but we seek
to be, and I believe are, the servants of God. Moreover, we have
great faith in the stability of an ordinance. We look up to the dea
cons, and the elders, and the angel of the Church, as standing in the
Lord Jesus, and we expect and desire to see and hear Him in their
ministry, and we believe that it will be to us according to our faith,
and we have found it to be so in times past. But forasmuch as the
voice of the Comforter is the highest of all ordinances in the Church,
we steadily believe that the Lord for His own name, as well as for
His own end's sake, will not suffer, without a very great cause, any
breaking in or breaking out therein ; and so, when He openeth the
mouth of a brother in power, we expect to hear His voice, and we
are not disappointed, and so our experience increaseth our expecta
tion, and in this way we proceed and prosper. In respect of signs,
we rather desire them not than desire them at present, until the word
of our God shall have delivered us from our carnal-mindedness, and
from following sight instead of faith. When the Lord permitted the
enemy to tempt us, seeing our simplicity, He himself delivered us
from the temptation, and we learned the more to trust Him and to
distrust ourselves. And, oh brother, the fountain which is opened
having yielded us nothing but sweet waters, it would be so ungrate
ful for us to do any thing but rejoice at it, that I feel even this letter
to be a liberty with my God, which, save for a brother's satisfaction,
I would not have ventured to take. There are many things now that
I could say, but I refrain lest I should encourage a temptation in you
to speculate about holy things, and so lead you into a snare: I pray
God to keep you in the faith of Him, in darkness as in light, and no
less when in light than in darkness. Farewell.
" Your faithful brother, Edward Irving."
Another letter of a similar character was addressed a few months
later to Alan Ker, of Greenock, a man who, long confined to a
sipk-room, and at all times in the most precarious health, seems to
have secured always the love, and often the reverential regard of
those who knew him. "London, April 30, 1833.
" My dear Brother, — Your brother gave me, after our worship
on the Lord's day, a letter of yours to read, which I returned to him
on Monday morning after our public prayers, with little or no com
ment, and with no purpose of writing to you myself, nor does he
know that I am now about to write ; but, having a great love to you
and to your father's house, and admiring the brotherly love wliich
Kk

514 LETTER TO ALAN KER.
reigneth among you, and being well acquainted with the ground
whereon you and others are stumbling, and not going forward with
us into the glorious city, I take heart of loving-kindness to write to
you, my brother, and do what I can to help you forward.
" The word of the Lord, my Scottish brethren, since Adam fell,
hath never been a copy of itself, but always a new growth and form
of the same good purpose which the Father purposed in Himself be
fore the world was, and revealeth in His dear Son through the Church,
which is the fullness of Him who filleth all in all. . . . And, thou, 0
Alan, who lookest from thy sick-chamber with pious delight upon the
works of thy Creator, dost not expect the green blade which now
pierces the ground to continue in its beautiful verdure, but to shoot
out into the stalk and the ear, and the full corn in the ear. But you
will not permit such variety of forms in the growth of the works of
the Lord, but go to the apostolical writings and say, ' It must be this
over again,' wherein ye grieve God, not walking by faith, but by
sight. Ye see the historical notices there written, and ye say, ' Now
we will guide our own steps and keep our own way.' Your own
steps you may guide ; but God's steps are not known. Your own
way you may find, but God's by searching you can not find. Think
ye that Abraham took test of God by his dealings with Noah ? or
Moses by Abraham ? or the apostles, at Pentecost, by the schools of
the prophets in Bethel or in Gilgal ? If we have the word of the
Lord, we have the word of the- Loi-d and nothing else, and the word
of the Lord shall shape the work of the Lord, and not thou or I, nay,
not Paul, nor Peter, nor Moses, but He of whose fullness they all re
ceived — Jesus the Word made flesh, who sitteth in the heavens, and
speaketh in the midst of us, and of you also, brethren beloved of the
Lord. . . . Dear Alan, if there were any thing spoken or done among
us which is meant or intended to abrogate or weaken one jot or tit
tle of the Law or the Prophets, let it be anathema ! But it is not so ;
there is no word in Scripture to say that an apostle should have seen
the Lord. Read again, brother. When thou showest it me written
that no one is an apostle who has not seen the Lord, I will say that
John Cardale is not an apostle, although the spirit that speaketh here
and in all other parts were to say that he was ten thousand times.
Neither, brother, is it said in Scripture that an apostle is to be tried
by signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds, although these belong to
an apostle, and an evangelist, and an elder, and to thee also, if thou
hast faith ; for these signs shall follow them that believe ; and art
thou not a believer, oh brother, because the signs in thee have not been
manifested? . . . Why stand ye afar off? Come to the help of the
Lord against the mighty, lest the curse of Meroz come upon you ;
for, brother, it is no question of logic, but the losing or gaining of a
crown. " Next, ye are envious of me ; ye think that I am usurping it in
the house of God, and ye brook not that an apostle should be under
me. The apostle is over the angel of the Church, and the angel of
the Church is over the apostle : ye Scottish people, why will ye at
tempt spiritual things with carnal reason ? I give ye forth another
contradiction to call heresy. The angel of the Church is over the

GOD'S FOOTSTEPS ARE NOT KNOWN. 515
apostle, and the apostle is over the angel of the Church. ' First apos
tles,' etc. ; and then, ' Thou hast proved them that say they are apos
tles, and hast found them liars.' Now, doth Jesus write His epistles
to the apostles of the Churches, or to the angels of the Churches ?
But by whoiSrwriteth He them ? Is it not by an apostle ? So receive
I, through an apostle, my instructions ; and having received them, the
apostle himself is the first man that must bow to them, and I will take
good care that he doth so, lest he should exalt himself to the seat of
our common Master, who alone is complete within Himself, and all
His office-bearers are worthless worms, useless, profitless — grievous
offenders, ever offending, whom He maketh by His grace and power
ever worthy, obedient, and offenseless. Oh, children, I am broken in
my heart daily with your slowness of faith !
" Finally, my dear brother, if you ask what it is that we know our
Lord by, I answer by the mercy, the grace, the truth, the holiness,
the righteous judgments which .... in these times and in all times
belong to Him alone .... we know it is Jehovah, and none but He,
who through the mouth of a weak and sinful prophet, through the
hand of a weak and sinful apostle, hath wrought the work of separa
ting a Church out of this corner of Babylon. . . . But in respect of
His way, it is in the dark waters, and of His footsteps, they are not
known ; only this know we, that we have committed our way unto
the Lord, and that we are seeking to depart from our own ways ;
for our ways are not His ways, nor our thoughts His thoughts ; there
fore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, cease ye betimes
from suspicion and from judging, for otherwise ye shall not be guilt
less, and the Lord is stronger than you ; but abide in love to them
that love you, and have been beholden to you for many prayers and
much fellowship, and would now repay you with a share of whatever
grace, understanding, and wisdom the Lord giveth unto us. . . . To
Him who is the life and the head, and the Lord sovereign and para
mount, whom we serve in pureness of heart and mind, through the
cleansing of His blood and effectual ministry of His Spirit, be all hon
or and glory forever. Amen.
" Your faithful servant, for the Lord's sake,
"Edward Irving."
The singular junction in these letters of the ruling " Angel"
of the Church, retaining all his natural influence and sway, who
" will take good care" that the apostle does bow to his authority,
with the simple and absolute believer, confident that he is serving
God in utter sincerity, and that God will not deceive him, nor suf
fer him to be.deceived in his unbounded trust, is very remarkable.
In this lies the clew which many of Irving's critics have sought
in vain and which some have imagined themselves able to trace
to motives which appear in no other manifestation of his heroic
and simple soul. While one portion of his friends are affection
ately lamenting the. blind faith with which he delivers over his
understanding to the guidance of the "gifted," and another are

516 IRVING'S MODE OF EXPLAINING HIMSELF.
impatiently fretting over the credulity which to their calm sense
is inconceivable, this is the attitude in which the object of so
many animadversions stands. Vulgar voices outside assail him,
the soul of honor, with imputations of imposture -'and religious
fraud ; friends, more cruel, suggest sometimes a hectic inclination
toward the marvelous — sometimes the half-conscious desire of at
tracting back again the fashionable crowds of early days. Singu
larly unlike all these representations he here presents himself.
Years before, he had called his brother with him from the Kirk
caldy manse-paflor to join in his prayers for a dying man, in the
sublime confidence that " what two of you shall agree together to
ask, it shall be done unto them of my Father." Years have not
changed his confidence in that unchanging God. He stands gaz'
ing with eyes abstracted upon the skies which that burning gaze
can all but pierce ; he has put his Master to His word ; and, hav
ing done so, the servant of God can not descend from that mount
of prayer to the cool criticism of other men. First in the matter
to a mind at all times so exalted, and to which all nature was mi
raculous, was that Lord to whom he had appealed ; as he explains
himself from those heights of perpetual prayer, a certain impa
tience, strangely like the impatience with which the watchers be
low contemplate him in his incomprehensible simplicity, breathes
from his impassioned words : "lam broken in my heart daily
with your slowness of faith ;" and his explanation is, if any thing,
more incomprehensible than his acts to men who, lost in all the
complications of a world growing old, can only gaze amazed at
that primitive standing-ground on which, as if he had been born
in the days of Moses or Abraham, this man of the nineteenth cen
tury has found footing. How any man dares believe that he him
self is utterly sincere in his asking, and sure of an answer — how
any man ventures openly to assume for himself that position to
which the Bible calls every man — and how, dismissing all farther
question, he can lift his abstracted ear, and give his rapt soul to
the infallible reply, is a mystery which nobody; can penetrate.
Such a position devout men may attain to at the supreme and
secret moments of individual life. I can no more explain or com
prehend that ineffable primitive elevation than could Irving's curi
ous observers, who saw him standing forth in it, a sign and won
der to the world. But there he did stand absolute, in a primitive
heroic faith.
And, granting this miraculous postulate, there is, in every thing

HIS REASONABLENESS. 517
Irving does thereafter, a certain lofty reasonableness which does
but still more and more bewilder the minds of his auditors. The
region into which he had entered appeared so entirely one beyond
reason, that the outside observers expected to find nothing that
was not wild and irregular, according to all the traditions of en
thusiasm and spiritual excitement, there. But Irving, with his
exalted heart, to which no miracle seems too wonderful, keeps, in
the midst of all that wild agitation, the limits of God's Word and
man's nature in utter distinction from such a rash enthusiast as
the prophet Baxter, whom even at the height of his inspiration
the pastor continually interposes to calm and moderate. When
the latter fancies that he has been commanded by God to abandon
his family and profession, to appear before the king in " testimo
ny," and to suffer the pains of martyrdom, Irving comes in upon
his heated visions with the suggestion that " if a man provide not
for those of his own house he is worse than an infidel," proving
his own declaration, that if in any thing the utterances controvert
ed Scripture, he was content that they should "be anathema."
Throughout his pleadings before the Presbytery of London, and
in the letters I have just quoted, nothing seems to me so remark
able as this reasonableness, only allowing the truth of the first
grand assumption that the "work" was the work of God. But
this reason, governing the actions of a man on such a sublimated
level of existence, does only perplex and confuse the more those
curious, anxious, interested spectators, who might have ventured
to hope it was a merely temporary delusion had every thing about
it been equally wild and irregular, but who were struck dumb by
this visionary application to such a matter of those rules of trial
and experiment common, in the ordinary affairs of life, to all sane
and vigorous minds.
The year was little more than begun when Irving had again to
enter into direct conflict with his former brethren. The question
was changed as well as the scene. Before tbe hasty and reckless
Presbytery of London he had defended himself against the impu
tation of having suffered unauthorized persons to speak in his
church. The Presbytery of Annan, who had ordained him, now
called him to their bar to answer the charge of holding heretical
doctrine, viz., the sinfulness of our Lord's humanity. This doc
trine, concerning which Irving, at first, wist not that there was
any controversy, had by this time created a little controversial
literature of its own in the excited theological world — a literature

518 ' FIGHTING IN THE DARK.
in which that holy and perfect Existence, which both parties pro
fessed to adore, was made the subject of discussions, always more
or less profane, in which both parties forgot, in horror at each
other's statements, the reverence and awe which neither statement
had, till controversy arose, done any thing to impugn. I know
nothing more painful, nor, indeed, in some of its phases, more hid
eous and revolting, than -the hot contest, preserved in many scat
tered publications, fortunately now almost forgotten, which rose
over this mysterious and awful subject. From the trials in the
Scotch Church courts where ignorant witnesses delivered their
opinions on " the hypostatical union," to the revolting physical
argument by which some writers of higher pretensions labored to
establish what proportion of its substance a child derived from its
mother, the whole discussion is throughout destructive — so far as
any external influence can be so— of that tender, profound, and
adoring reverence which no man living ever felt more deeply
than he who was accused of aiming at its subversion. I do not
believe there was any real difference whatever between the faith
of devout men on the opposite sides of this question. Those who
held, with Irving, that our Lord took the flesh of man as He found
it, and was our true brother, disowned with horror and .indigna
tion the most distant thought that sin ever soiled or breathed
upon that holy flesh ; and those who believed Him to have come
in a certain Eden-fiction of humanity, not so much holy as inno
cent, were, nevertheless, when off this vexing controversy, as ready
as any to claim the privilege of Christians, that sympathy of the
fellow-sufferer- — that tenderest compassion which comes from ex
periment of all our sorrows and temptations — with which practi
cally every Christian soul knows its Lord invested. The men
were fighting in the dark with deadly weapons of those words
which confuse and obscure the truth. They were in their hearts
at one, both holding a Head absolute in divine holiness and puri
ty, perfect in human fellowship and tenderness, but the words
were external and demonstrative, and the hearts could not make
themselves audible in any other than that belligerent human lan
guage which does but half express and half conceal every spirit
ual reality. So it came about that the Church of Scotland, then
so impatient and absolute, and resolute for identity of expression
as well as agreement of faith, had to enact another scene in this
strange episode of history, and wear with another sharp struggle
Irving's sorrowful and troubled soul.

ANNAN PRESBYTERY. 519
I am in doubt whether it is not ungenerous to specify the mem
bers of this Annan Presbytery, for it is probable that any other
Presbytery in the Church would have come to an exactly similar
conclusion. I may say, however, that the names of these obscure
Presbyters will recall to all who have any local acquaintance with
the district no such recollections as hallow the names of many a
humble parish priest, but will bring many an anecdote of eccen
tricity, and some of that peculiar clerical profaneness which is to
be found in no other profession to the memories of those men of
Annandale who know the traditions of the last generation. The
one exception to the perfect obscurity and homeliness of this little
clerical group was Dr. Duncan, of Ruth well, a man of universally
acknowledged eminence and high character. Of the rest, some
were homely old men, half farmers, half ministers — some of bet
ter standing, half ministers, half country gentlemen, both on a
very small scale. Without a single special qualification for decid
ing any question which required clear heads and practiced intel
ligence, from their moorland manses and rural cares, they came,
with such solemnity as they could muster, to try a question for
which, in primitive times, a solemn council of the whole Church
would have been convened. Not very long before, Irving him-i
self, always magnificent and visionary, bent not upon the practi
cable, but the right, had pointed out, in the preface to his edition
of the Standards of the Church of Scotland, the necessity for a grand
Catholic Council, such as that, of Nicaea, to consider and settle the
momentous matters which then divided the Reformed Churches.
He had also appealed, in still earlier days, with earnest personal
solicitations, to the large intelligence of Chalmers, as doctor and
head of the theological faculty ; but neither oecumenical council
nor learned judge was to be afforded to the so-called heretic.
They came in their gigs from among their sheep-farmers, from the
anxieties of the glebe and its tiny crops, those nameless Annan
dale ministers — not pale theologians, but rosy, rural men; and to
their hands, all irresponsible in their safe obscurity, the decision
of this momentous and delicate difference of doctrine was calmly
committed, nobody so much as perceiving, at least nobody re
marking upon, the total incompetence of such a tribunal for any
real settlement of the question.
" Edward goes down to Annan to meet the Presbytery I think
on the 12th of March. The Lord give him a sound mind !" writes
Dr. Martin to one of the affectionate and anxious family, who

520 IRVING'S ARRIVAL IN ANNAN.
watched all Irving's proceedings with tender curiosity. He went
by way of Manchester, from which place, where his only surviv
ing sister still lives, he wrote to his wife of his affectionate meet
ing with his kindred there — " my dear and precious mother, and
my two sisters and all their children here present" — and took
time to remark that " two sweeter children I have not seen" than
the little nephew and niece whom he mentions by name. This,
and the fact that he had dropped the bag of sandwiches prepared
for his refreshment on the journey, "on the highway for the ben
efit of some poor one or other — I lost it and grudged not" — is all
that is contained, besides his never-failing benediction, in the rapid
note of the wayfarer. On the morning of the 13th of March he
" arrived at Annan," according to the report of the trial after
ward published, " by the London mail, and was met by Mr. Ker,
of London, one of his deacons. A crowd was collected in the
street, in expectation of the reverend gentleman's arrival by the
mail ; and, upon his alighting at the house of his brother-in-law,
Mr. Dickson, where the coach stopped on its way to the inn, the
crowd, which was at that time dispersed in groups, ran eagerly to
the spot, to catch a glimpse of their celebrated townsman. In the
course of the forenoon, hundreds of individuals of all classes kept
pouring into Annan from the neighborhood, and parties, in ve
hicles of different descriptions, came in from Dumfries, Carlisle,
Longtown, and other neighboring towns. Twelve o'clock was
the hour appointed for the proceedings to commence at the parish
church, and by that time the place was literally crammed. It is
computed that at least 2000 persons were assembled." Irving
was accompanied by Mr. Ker, by a Mr. Smith, who had been the
companion of his journey, and by the Rev. David Dow, formerly
of Irongray, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who had some
time before received the " gift of tongues and prophecy."
After the court was constituted, the libel or indictment was
read. In this document, which was of great length, Irving was
accused of "printing, publishing, and disseminating heresies and
heretical doctrines, particularly the doctrine of the fallen state and
sinfulness of our Lord's human nature." No evidence of any
kind, except the admission of the accused that he was the author
of The Orthodox and Catholic Doctrine of Our Lord's Human Na
ture ; The Day of Pentecost ; and one specified article in the Morn
ing Watch, seems to have been considered necessary. A discus
sion then ensued upon the " relevancy of the libel" — or, rather, no

IRVING'S DEFENSE. 521
discussion, for all were agreed, but a statement by each member
of the Presbytery, individually, of his opinion. Dr. Duncan, the
only man among them whose name was ever heard out of Annan
dale, contented himself with declaring the libel to be "relevant."
Two of the members of the Presbytery, however, made speeches
on the occasion. The first, Mr. Sloan, of Dornoch, the hero of
many local anecdotes, deplored " the difficulties under which he
labored in rising to combat with one of so great a name as the
Reverend Edward Irving — one with whom he was in many re
spects so unequally yoked — though, notwithstanding that, as the
stripling David slew the giant Goliath with a stone from the
brook, having gone forth in the strength of the Lord, so he hoped
to succeed in proving the heresy of even so great a giant as that
reverend gentleman." After a considerable time spent in these
preliminaries, Irving was permitted to speak in defense. His
speech is throughout a noble and indignant protest against that
disingenuous statement of the point at issue, which infallibly pre
judged the question, and which no amount of denial or protest
could ever induce his opponents to alter. With a warmth and
earnestness becoming the importance of the cause, he thus plead
ed for a true understanding of his own faith :
"As to my maintaining that Christ is other than most holy, I do pro
test that it is not true. It is not true — before the living God I do
declare it is false. And, though all men should say it is true, I say
it is false, and that it proceeds from the father of lies. It has been
held up in every pulpit within this land that I have preached and
disseminated doctrines inconsistent with the unity of God. Albeit I
deny it — I deny it. It is a lie. It has not a shadow of foundation in
truth. I would give my life, and, if I had ten thousand lives, I would
give them all to maintain the contrary. It is an unjust slander. I
never wrote, I never preached, such damnable doctrine ; and that all
honest men can say. I stand in this place, and say that I am ready
to die for it. ... I stand here, a witness for the Lord Jesus, to tell
men what He did for them ; and what He did was this : He took
your flesh and made it holy, thereby to make you holy ; and there
fore He will make every one holy who believes in Him. He came
into your battle and trampled under foot Satan, the world, the flesh,
yea, all enemies of living men, and He saith to every one, ' Be ye
holy, for I am holy.' Do you say that that man was unacquainted
with grief — that He was unacquainted with the warrings of the flesh ?
I dare ye to say that the Lord your Savior had an easier passage
through life than you had. I dare ye to say that His work was a
holiday work. Is this your gratitude to the Captain of your salva
tion ? Can you follow in His footsteps if He did not do the work ?
. . . (The reverend gentleman then turned to the 40th Psalm, which

522 THE CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION.
he proceeded to read and comment upon.) 'I waited patiently for
the Lord ; he inclined his ear, and heard my cry,' etc. But ye say
He was never in the pit nor the clay. But I say He was in both ;
and, moreover, that all the water-floods of the Divine wrath passed
over Him, and that the Father left him to mourn with a great mourn
ing. . . . The Apostles taught out of the Psalms, and not from Con
fessions of Faith and traditionary documents. But show me the
Psalm where it is written that He does not call our sins His own.
But was He sinful ? No ; but look ye, the very reverse of sin in
hered in His soul. He suffered because He loved you ; and now you
dare to say that He loved you not. Be ashamed to this day, ye peo
ple! that ye know not more of Him who suffered so much for you.
He bore your sin. This broke His heart. . . . Now, men and breth
ren, I am here this day to tell you the truth as it is in Jesus."
I>r. Duncan rose and said that it was evident Mr. Irving was
speaking to the people of his own doctrines, not to the Presbytery in
his defense.
Mr. Irving. " Oh no, no. Don't prevent me saying what I wish
in my defense."
The Moderator said it seemed to him as if Mr. Irving imagined he
was in London, preaching to his people there.
Mr. Irving. " Oh, no, no, it is not so. I know well where I now
stand. I stand in the place where I was born, in the church wherein
I was first baptized and then ordained. ... Ye ministers, elders, and
Presbytery, this is no question of scholastic theology. I speak for
the sanctification of men. I wish my flock to be holy; and, unless
the Lord Jesus has contended with sin, as they are commanded to
do, how can they be holy when they follow Him ? Can I ask the
people to do or suffer more than He did ? He is the Captain of their
salvation, and I wish them to follow Him ! Can a soldier who is
sick, wounded, or dead, be expected to follow a leader who is filled
with the omnipotence of God ? Nay. But if his captain be sick,
wounded, and dead too, may he not ask the soldier to do the like ?
Now Jesus was sick for us, contended with sinful flesh for us, and
hence it. is that He can call on us to follow Him in our contendings
with sin, our sicknesses, and deaths. Yea, and he does call on us.
. . . Ah! was He not holy? Did He not gain for us a victory?
Holy in His mother's womb ; holy in His childhood ; holy in His ad
vancing years ; holy in His nativity ; holy in His resurrection, and
not more holy in one than in another ? And He calls upon you to be
holy ; and this is what He says, ' Be ye holy, for I am holy.' This is
my doctrine. . . . Mock me not by speaking of popularity. The re
proaches of a brother are hard to bear. Ye know not what I have
suffered; you know not what it is to be severed from a flock you
love ; to be banished from your house ; to be driven from a place of
worship in which ye have been honored, as God's servants, by the
tokens of His approbation. Yet, though thus scorned and trampled
on, truth is prevailing. You shall not go one half mile in London
but you shall see some of our Scottish youth, yea, and of our English
youth also, standing up to preach that truth for which I now appear
at this bar. At Charing Cross, at London Bridge, at the Tower, and

DECISION OF THE PRESBYTERY. 523
in all the high places of the city, you shall find them preaching to a
perishing people, and though often hooted and pelted, yet patient
withal. And I am sure the day is not far distant when the evangel
ist shall go forth and be listened to throughout the land.
"Ministers and elders of the Presbytery of Annan, I stand at your
bar by no constraint of man. You could not — no person on earth
could — have brought me hither. I am a free man on a free soil, and
living beyond your bounds. Neither General Assembly nor Pope has
a right to meddle with me. Yea, I know ye have sinned against the
Head of the Church in stretching thus beyond your measure, and
this sin ye must repent of. . . . Is it nothing, think ye, that ye have
brought me from my flock of nine hundred souls, besides children,
looking up to me for spiritual food ? Is it nothing that ye have taken
me away from ruling among my apostles and elders, and brought me
three hundred miles to stand before you at this bar ? .... I stand
here not by constraint, but willingly. Do what you like. I ask not
judgment of you; my judgment is with my God."
I will not attempt to enter into the decision of the Presbytery
of Annan as contained in the speeches, delivered one by one, of
its clerical members. The only one reported at any length is that
of Dr. Duncan, who repeats for the hundredth time those passages
which Irving was as ready to quote and adopt as any man, in
which the Yirgin's child is spoken of as that holy thing, and which
describe our Lord as " holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from
sinners," and " tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Calmly
ignoring the fact that the accused maintains that perfect and spot
less sinlessness with an earnestness which is almost passion, it is
on these quotations that this honest and able Presbyter grounds
his sentence. The other men, whose arguments are not recorded,
agree one by one. The accused is pronounced to be " guilty as
libeled." The Moderator then asks him if he has any objection
to state why sentence of deposition should not be passed against
him. " Objection ! all objection," exclaims the defendant at that
strange bar ; " I object, not for my own sake, but for the sake of
Christ my Lord, whom I serve and honor. I object for your
sakes .... I object for the Church's sake." "The reverend
gentleman," continues the report from which I quote, " again sol
emnly declared that he did not hold the sinfulness of the human
nature of Christ .... and concluded by most earnestly beseech
ing the Presbytery, as they valued the salvation of their souls, not
to pass sentence upon him." Upon which ensued the following
singular and exciting scene :
"The Moderator was then about to proceed to the solemn duty
which had devolved upon him, and, as a preliminary, requested Mr.

524 HIVING LEAVES THE CHURCH.
Sloan, the senior member of the Presbytery, to offer up a prayer to
Almighty God, when a voice was heard from the pew in which Mr.
Irving was seated, and which was immediately found to be that of Mr.
Dow, late minister of Irongray, exclaiming, ' Arise, depart ! Arise,
depart ! flee ye out, flee ye out of her ! Ye can not pray ! How can
ye pray ? How can ye pray to Christ whom ye deny ? Ye can not
pray. Depart, depart! flee, flee!' The scene at this moment was
singular, and the commotion in the gallery not a little astounding.
As there was only one candle in the church, no one, at first, knew
whence or from whom the voice proceeded ; and it was not till one
of the clergymen had lifted the candle and looked peeringly about
that he discovered the interjection al words spoken were emitted by
Mr. Dow. . . . The assembly, which was very numerous, and had
acted in the most becoming manner, now became confused, and Mr.
Dow rose to leave the house. Mr. Irving, who was proceeding to
follow his friend, then exclaimed, also with great vehemence, and ap
parently to the crowd, that somewhat obstructed his passage, ' Stand
forth! stand forth! What! will ye not obey the voice of the Holy
Ghost ? As many as will obey the voice of the Holy Ghost let them
depart.' "
Thus, in the twilight of the March night, through crowds of
confused and wondering spectators, who heard that unlooked-for
outcry without being able to see whence it proceeded, Irving went
forth from the church where he had been baptized and ordained
— from the Church of Scotland, the sanctuary of his fathers —
never more to enter within walls dedicated to her worship till he
entered in silent pomp to wait the resurrection and advent of his
Lord. There are, perhaps, few more striking scenes in his life
than this in his native church, filled with all those throngs of na
tive friends — -old people, who had helped to form his mind — con
temporaries of his own, who had watched his wonderful progress
with a thrill of pride and amaze ; men to whom he had been a
brother ; wistful women, scarcely able, for awe and pity, to keep
the tears within their eyes. From that May-day in which he
knelt there before his Master and took his ordination vows,
swearing a true faith which he had never broken, a loyal allegi
ance and service to which he had been true, with the fidelity of
a spotless knight, to this bleak afternoon of March, slowly shad
owing, minute by minute, upon those clouds of eager faces, grow
ing pale in the darkness, what a brilliant interval, what a wonder
ful difference! Clouds and coming night were now upon the
path to which he went forth, commanded by the Holy Ghost:
no longer triumph and victory, no second spring of hope : only
the reproach that broke his heart — the desertion — the sin, as he

LETTER TO IHS PEOPLE. 525
held it, of his brethren, for whom he would have given his life.
But it was a comfort to his forlorn heart to be sent forth by that
voice which he believed to be the voice of God. The anguish of
hearing the sentence of deposition was spared him, and with a pa
thetic joy he rejoiced over this when he gave his own account of
the eventful day.
Left behind in the dark church, with their two thousand trem
ulous, amazed spectators, and their solitary candle, the Presbytery
deposed him from the ministry — took away from him, as far as
they could do it, his clerical character, and pronounced him no
longer a minister or member of the Church ef Scotland ; then,
after seven hours' sitting, went after him into the darkness, and
disappeared henceforth out of all mortal ken — except in Annan
dale, to be seen no more.
Irving's own report of the proceedings was sent next day to
London, addressed as follows :
" To the Church of Christ under my pastoral care, and to the saints
in London, with the elders and deacons — grace, mercy, and peace
from the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, our Glory :
" Dearly-beloved in the Lord, .... Yesterday I arrived here
with my dear brother, Robert Smith .... and immediately after
us arrived David Dow, and Mr. Nivan, and another brother, by whose
coming I was much encouraged. After we had prayed together, we
met the Presbytery at noon in the parish church, which was filled
with people, and straightway the ministers began to accuse me of
heresy because I preached and published the glorious name and work
of God as the Word made flesh. They put several questions to me
concerning their manner of proceeding against me, to which I would
not answer a word, telling them to do their own work in their own
way, for that I would not in anywise make myself a sharer in their
guilt ; nevertheless, I took this early opportunity of disabusing the
people, and solemnly protesting before the living God that I was
guiltless of the thought, word, or wish of making our Blessed and
Holy One a sinner. They then proposed to have a private conference
with me in the Sessions-house, apart from all the people, when God
gave me grace to refuse to every one of them the right hand of fel
lowship, yea, and not to eat bread with them, and drink wine with
them ; and to tell them that they had lifted up the standard of rebel
lion against the Lord Jesus Christ, and that I would hold no confer
ence of friendship with them, but be at open and avowed enmity un
til they had ceased from persecuting His faithful members. So I sat
in the midst of them in silence and sorrow, very much burdened and
afflicted in soul that I should be thus called upon to separate myself
from them, of whom many were members of the Church before me,
and some of them had laid their hands on me. We then returned to
the church and the great congregation, when, having received liberty

526 DELIVERANCE.
to speak for myself, I was strengthened by your prayers to speak with
great boldness for the name of Jesus, and to justify His truth, and to
vindicate myself as a member of Christ; also to reprove and rebuke
them all, both elders and people, of their sins, and to proclaim in their
hearing the coming of the Blessed One, and the mercy and truth
which are now going before Him to prepare His way and set us in
His steps. Oh, it was a gracious and a sweet opportunity which He
gave me of certifying to His great name, and His perfect work of
mercy and judgment. They then proceeded, one after another, to
pronounce me worthy of being deposed from the holy ministry ; and
having asked me if I had any objection to their doing so, I had an
other opportunity of pointing out to them the awful sin of which
they were about to be guilty, and of protesting, before God and all
the people, that I was innocent of all the things laid to my charge.
Then they were proceeding to the fearful act ; and as it is required
that they shall first pray before the sentence of ^deposition is pro
nounced, they had asked the oldest member to pray; but the Lord
had mercy in store for His servant, and would not suffer them to lay
their hands upon me, whom the Holy Ghost had set as an angel in
His Church, and as they rose to prayer, the Holy Ghost opened the
mouth of David Dow, who sat at my right hand, and with awful
power and solemnity commanded us who would bear the vessel of
the Lord to depart, and touch not the unclean thing ; and added
unto them one word of bitter rebuke — ' How can ye pray to God in
any other name than in that which ye have rejected !' Wherefore
we arose at the voice of the Lord and came forth, and I sang in my
heart, 'Blessed be the Lord, who hath not not given us as a prey
to their teeth ; our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the
fowler. The snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in
the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.' Now give
thanks, my dearly-beloved, for the Lord himself hath broken my
bonds. For six hours did He try me in that furnace ; and when He
saw that I did bear it for His name's sake, and would not be divert
ed by their questions, nor enticed by their flatteries, from a faithful
testimony to His name, and that I would not shake hands, nor eat
bread, nor confess a friendship with those who were His enemies,
He sent me that wonderful word and set me free. I had already re
solved, and was thereunto instructed by the word of the Lord, while
yet in the midst of you, neither to seek judgment at the hand of the
Synod nor at the General Assembly, and had declared this in the
hearing of them all, so that I did not wait in silence in order to ex
press my thanksgivings unto the Lord for my redemption out of all
my bonds. But, behold, He would not suffer His servant to be dis
honored of them, and He snatched me away by this one word. Med
itate on His goodness and give Him thanks. I then sent to the
house of my sister, which joineth hard to the church, these two
brothers, Robert Smith and David Ker, to publish to the people that
I would preach to them to-morrow, that is, this day, at eleven o'clock,
in the open'field. And now, dearly-beloved, when I saw the gross
darkness of these poor ministers, and the errors with which they
have filled the breasts and minds of the people in all these parts, I

NITHSDALE AND ANNANDALE. 527
was much and powerfully convinced that it is my duty to tarry here
some days, and preach the Gospel to the benighted people around,
for I do not see that there is any of the brethren upon whose hearts
the Lord hath laid this as He hath upon mine .... and I do pur
pose, by the grace of God, to tarry in these parts certain days, and to
publish in the towns of the coast the great Name of the Lord. I
do therefore commend you to the Lord, and encourage the elders to
strengthen! themselves in their God, who will abundantly supply all
your wants, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. And now, well-
beloved, I commend you to the Lord and to the riches of His grace,
which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among
them that are sanctified. Your faithful and loving pastor, and angel
over Christ's flock in London, Edwd. Irving.
"Annan, March 14, 1833."
A note appended to this general letter informed his wife that
he intended to preach at Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, and at some
of the villages in Annandale. Except this brief notice, I know
few details of his after proceedings. Wherever he did preach it
was out of doors, and to thousands of excited and sympathetic
listeners. At Cummertrees — on the Sands of Dumfries — and on
a hill-side in Terregles, the fair Terra Ecclesia, through which Nith
flows to the sea, his countryfolk gathered to hear him whose voice
they were never more to hear again. It was a solemn leave-taking
of his native hills and mosses. With an indignation vehement as
only grief could make it, he denounced the Church which had
cast him out — which had disowned not him, but his Lord, who
" came in the flesh," and preached with an eloquence more intense
and inthralling than ever Christ's fellowship and love, Christ's
coming and glory. Then he took farewell of his kinsfolk and re
turned to London, where what I can not but believe must have been
another and an equally hard trial awaited him. Deposed by his
mother Church, he returned to Newman Street, to the little com
munity which, according to ordinary ideas, he himself had origin
ated and brought together, and of which he was supposed to be
the ruling influence ; and when he arrived there, with his wound
ed heart, he was received, not with extraordinary honors as a mar
tyr, but with an immediate interdict, in "the power" forbidding
him to exercise any priestly function, to administer sacraments, or
to assume any thing out of the province of a deacon, the lowest
office in the newly-formed Church. One of his relations writes
with affectionate indignation that he was not permitted even to
preach except in those less sacred assemblies in which the outer
world of unbelievers were admitted to meet the Church ; but in

528 REORDINATION.
the church itself sat silent, deprived of his office, no longer the
angel to whom the apostle himself had to bow, but a simple serv
ant — doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. Such an inconceiv
able indignity, according to all human rules, did the spiritual au
thorities, whom his constant and steadfast faith had made masters
of his flock, put upon their former leader. No expectation of any
such setting aside seems to have been in Irving's mind when he
subscribed himself their " faithful pastor and angel over Christ's
flock." This, however, was the welcome he received when, sad
and weary, he returned from Annan. As effectually as if the de
cree of the Scotch Church Court had bound that recalcitrant con
gregation, the deposed minister was silenced among them. I have
no right to affirm that this was one among the many wounds that
went to his heart, for not a syllable of complaint upon the subject
ever came from Irving's lips; but he seems to have had no ex
pectation of so extraordinary a proceeding, and it is something
entirely unprecedented in the records of religious organizations.
Other men have founded sects to rule them ; Irving, no founder
of a sect, came forth, through repeated anguish and conflict, at the
head of his community, only to serve and to obey.
Accordingly, those lingering March days glided on through all
the oft devotions of the Church : the prophets spoke and elders
ruled ; but in the midst of them Irving sat silent, listening wistful
ly if perhaps the voice from heaven might come to restore him to
that office which was the vocation of his life. Few of God's serv
ants have been so profoundly tested ; and small would have been
the wonder had his much-afflicted soul given way under this last
unkindness, with which Heaven itself seemed brought in to give
a climax to man's ingratitude. At last, while he sat in the low
est place, and waited with a humbleness to which I know no par
allel — strangest and most touching proof of that sincerity to which,
in the sight of God, he might well appeal — the " utterance" once
more called the forlorn but dauntless warrior to take up his arms.
By " the concurrent action in manifested supernatural power, both
of prophet and apostle, he was called and ordained angel or chief
pastor of the flock assembled in Newman Street," says the author
ized " Chronicle" of that Church. The sacred office, in which he
had labored for so many wonderful years, and won such usury of
his Master's grand deposit — that office in which, for so many sor
rowful days, his surprised soul had been stopped short and put
aside — was restored to him by the apostolic hands of Mr. Cardale,

"OUR DEAR FATHER'S LETTER." 529
at the command of one of the ecstatic speakers. And Irving ac
cepted that reordination : he, upon whose devoted head no gifts
of inspiration descended, and for whose deliverance no miracles
were wrought — standing alone in the eminence of nature, among
men, none of whom on any but this supernatural ground could
ever have reached his sid& — stooped to the touch of the new apos
tle, and took back the ministry which, through many a long year,
God Himself had sealed in the saving of souls. Not Ezekiel,
when that prophet stood tearless, forbidden to weep, and saw the
desire of his eyes buried out of his sight, was a more perfect sign
to his generation than this loyal, humble, uncompensated soul.
In this moment of trouble and humiliation, heightened as it was
with domestic anxiety occasioned by the illness of his children, Ir
ving's heart was still alive to all the solicitude of a Christian
priest — that character bestowed by God, which neither Presby
tery could take away nor apostolic touch confer. Just then, when,
so far as the intervention of the " gifted" could obscure it, and the
very countenance of his Master seemed withdrawn from him, a
letter came from Kirkcaldy to the sorrowful pair in Newman
Street, in which it appears — with that singular inhumanity which
only importunate affection can carry to its full height — that the
father-minister, in his manse, had taken the opportunity to open
once more a full battery of arguments on the " Humanity" against
Irving's wearied spirit. Forwarding this letter to his sister Eliza
beth, the heart of the pastor stirred in his troubled bosom. She
and her husband had not followed him, could not believe as he
did ; with grief on both sides they had so far parted ; but his
thoughts were roused from his own troubles when he saw a far
ther attack made upon their faith : "London, March 27, 1833.
" My dear Elizabeth, — At Isabella's request, I inclose this letter
from her father, that you may see how they all do. The Lord's hand
is heavily upon us and our dear children. Martin and Ebenezer are
both very ill, and my wife and I have been together up the great part
of last night. She has lain down to get some rest. Dear Elizabeth
and dear William, be not shaken from the true faith in which I found
ed you of our Lord's oneness with us, in all the infirmities and tempt
ations, properties: and accidents of the flesh, otherwise you will be
subverted from the way of godliness altogether, and fall into Phari
saical pride and hypocritical formality. If you can not go along and
Buffer with me in all things, stand upon the rock, or you sink into the
waves. For, if the holiness of Jesus made Him avoid our flesh, must
we not as we grow holy, avoid sinners, instead of embracing them
with our love, to draw them near, and so become Pharisees instead
Ll

530 ANOTHER DEATH.— INFANT FAITH.
of Christians ? And oh ! my children, if the Son of God with our
flesh could not be holy, how shall you and I in the flesh be holy —
how should we be commanded to be holy ? Oh, give not way, there,
either to father or mother, or any mortal, else you go altogether.
These words I write to you, because I know you can bear them, and
lest our dear father's letter should prejudice your minds against the
truth. "Your faithful and loving brother, Edwd. Irving."
Meanwhile the youngest of the children continued very ill.
" His mother said that the Lord had punished their child for their
sin," writes Mrs. Hamilton in April, " which sin, I think, they con
ceive specially to be Edward's having remained in Scotland after
meeting with the Presbytery," an error for which, she proceeds to
say, he was sharply rebuked in the Church after he returned.
But, whether or not the ailing infant bore this burden, it is cer
tain that its life was waning ; and another bereavement fell imme
diately, as intimated in the following letter to Dr. Martin, upon
the much-suffering house : 14 Newman Street, April 23, 1833.
" My dear Father, — The Lord, in His severity and His good
ness, hath been pleased to chastise us for our sin and the sins of the
flock by removing from us our darling Ebenezer, who seemed, like
Edward, a child of God from his mother's womb ; for, surely, during
the months of his life, he never showed any thing which might not
become a child of God ; and when, in faith, I addressed words of
godliness to nourish the seed of faith which was in him, his patient
heed was wonderful. We are much comforted of our heavenly
Father and of our dear flock under all our trials. Peace be with
you. Farewell !
" Your loving and dutiful son, Edwd. Irving."
I can not undertake to account for the sublime unreason of this
man, who in faith addresses words of godliness to the dying infant.
Perhaps it may want small apology to those who, like myself,
have seen that solemnity of death shadowing over a baby -face, of
which this " patient heed" gives but too pathetic and affecting a
picture. But he had long believed in the possibility of infant
•faith — a point to which Coleridge refers, in the Aids to Reflection,
as one which he will not reply to " honored Irving" upon without
careful consideration of the whole question. This article of faith,
which may look fantastic enough to cool spectators, the father of
those dead children has bequeathed to his Church, which, I be
lieve, gives children a share in some of its most solemn services.
Limits of human possibility were never in Irving's heart; he
could not understand the existence of any soul debarred from

AN AMERICAN SPECTATOR. 531
communication with that Lord of life in whom he had his being ;
it was easier far to believe that the little intelligence which yet
had not dawned into human expression was, in an intercourse
even more close than his own, hidden with Christ in God.
It is strange to turn from this passion and agony of human life,
so heavily overcast by the sorrows sent of God and the vexations
imposed by man, to glance at what the outer world was saying,
and what miraculous uncomprehension existed in the minds of
many who came to gaze at the wonders in Newman Street. I do
not know who the American, Dr. Addison Alexander, may have
been, but I am told he was a man of some note in his own coun
try. He was in Irving's church on the 10th May, 1833, and sent
an account of what he saw there to the New York papers. With
American detail, he described the man, the church, and the serv
ices, which he thought " extremely well contrived for scenic ef
fect ;" then added his impression of the demeanor of the preacher.
" Dr. Cox and I," said the self-important trans- Atlantic spectator,
"flatter ourselves that he observed and preached at us. I saw
him peeping through his fingers several times, and I suppose he
was not gratified to see us gazing steadfastly at him all the time,
for he took occasion to tell the people that it would profit them
nothing without the circumcision of the ear." This was the tone
assumed, not by traveling Americans alone, but by all the gener
al public, which imagined itself too enlightened to be deceived by
any spiritual manifestations. It was a juggle which was supposed
to be going on before those keen observers ; and the heroic suf
ferer, who stood upon that platform before them with the heart
breaking in his generous and tender breast, was the chief trickster
of the company, and was supposed to cast jealous eyes upon any
curious stranger who might "gaze" too "steadfastly," and, per
haps, find out the secret of the imposture. In sight of such amaz
ing misconception, miracles themselves lose their wonder ; noth
ing is so wonderful as the blindness of those human eyes, which,
"gazing steadfastly," do but demonstrate their own total inca
pacity to see.
During this summer considerable accessions were made to the
separated community. An independent congregation in the city,
presided over by Mr. Miller, having gone through the same pro
cess which had taken place in Regent Square, attached itself to
the new Church, its minister being also reordained angel over it ;
and the ecstatic voices began to be heard in the Church of Eng-

532 THE "MORNING WATCH."
land, from which they also ended by detaching at least one cler
gyman in London. The most singular proof, however, of the ad
vance and development of the community is to be found in the
winding up of the Morning Watch, and the very remarkable rea
sons assigned for the ending of that strange periodical, the history
of which breaks in like an episode of pure romance into the dull
er records of ordinary literature. Commenced at first to afford a
medium by which the consultations and conclusions of the Al
bury School of Prophets might be brought before the public, it
had faithfully followed all the gradual expansions of the new
Spiritualism. Vague but grand expectations had been in the
heart of its originators. They believed the Lord to be at hand —
the world's history to be all but concluded. The night was over,
the day breaking, when Henry Drummond and his brother seers
set their Morning Watch upon the battlements, that the sentinels
might communicate to each other how the shadows dispersed, and
the gleams of coming sunshine trembled from the east. Now a
strange fruition was coming to those hopes. Not the Lord, in
deed — for the gates of heaven still closed serenely in azure calm
upon the far celestial glory — but a Church, with all its orders of
ministers called by direct inspiration, a spiritual tabernacle, con
stituted by God himself, had been revealed to their faith ; and all
that close band of true believers stood breathless with expectation,
each man listening whether, perhaps, his name might not be the
next upon the prophetic roll. One by one, the sentinels thus
summoned dropped into other offices ; and at last it became nec
essary for their leader to make the following announcement — such
an intimation as, I presume, no editor of a periodical ever made
before since literature was :
" The followers of Christ and the followers of anti-Christ are now
gathering ; each is now requiring, not merely the nominal, but the
personal services of their respective adherents ; Christ is gathering
His children into the true Church, to do Him service there, and, in
so doing, to be prepared for His coming ; Satan is gathering his hosts
( under the standard of Liberalism to become the pioneers of that
'Wicked One, that Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition,' the personal
anti-Christ. " In the progress of this work, of gathering and preparing his fol
lowers, Christ, for some months past, hath been calling for the per
sonal services of nearly all the regular correspondents of this journal,
one after another; and He hath at length called the editor to take
the place of an elder in His Church, and hath claimed all his time and
services for the special duties of feeding and overseeing a sixth part

CONCLUSION OF THAT PERIODICAL. 533
of the flock of Christ in London. To this higher calling the editor
now resolves to devote himself wholly, and at the same time brings
the Morning Watch to a close, as he will not transfer to any other
person such a solemn responsibility."
This singular periodical, a phenomenon in literature, came to a
conclusion in June, 1833. The March number contained several
papers of Irving's, and, in particular, a most striking reply to Bax
ter's narrative — as eloquent an address as one man ever made to
another, for it is almost entirely a personal appeal. When the
Morning Watch ceased to afford him a means of communicating
his thoughts to the public, Irving wrote no more. The only pro
ductions of his pen thereafter, except the sermons which he still
continued to dictate wherever he found an amanuensis, were now
and then a pastoral letter. His intercourse with the world, so far
as literature was concerned, had now terminated. In every way,
that intercourse grew less and less. He no longer went abroad
to preach those open-air sermons, to which, in the previous year,
thousands listened. Events drew closer the circle of fate ; more
and more he became isolated in that little world guided by the
ecstatic utterances, where daily development was taking place.
Darkly it appears, through the formal records of the official Chron
icle, that revolutions were being accomplished there, in which his
devoted soul acquiesced painfully and with difficulty. He had
to be instructed even in that new office of Angel, which at first,
I read in the Chronicle, he did not understand to be " any thing
more than a Presbyterian minister." He had to reconcile him
self to the newly-bestowed spiritual functions — much more wide
than those which belonged to the same offices in the Church of
Scotland-^-of the elders and deacons, which, as the same authority
informs us, he " had not the least conception of," and at first en
tertained " the utmost repugnance to." He had to learn, besides,
that, " after the apostolic office had been brought out," it was no
longer his part to draw conclusions from the prophecies, or to fol
low their guidance upon his own authority ,; " and so contrary,"
we are informed, " was it to his views and practice" to await the
apostle's decision upon these matters, " that he still continued to
judge and act upon words spoken in his flock, whereby great
trouble and perplexity were occasioned both to himself and his
people." It is added, however, that "he at length perceived his
error" in all these particulars ; yet, through the haze which envel
ops the early growth of so exclusive a body, and through all the

534 AN EMBARRASSING RESTRAINT.
personal affection which surrounds Irving himself, it is plain to
see, by glimpses, that this great, real, natural soul was again sad
ly in the way of those rapidly-growing new conventionalities to
which only the conviction that they were ordained by God could
make him bow his head, and was once more an embarrassing
presence to the lesser men around, who knew not how to adapt
their vestments to the limbs of a giant. From that dim world
no more letters come forth to tell us how it is with him in his own
sincere and unconcealable spirit ; but when, now and then, for a
moment, some other hand puts back the curtain, the picture is sad
and full of trouble. His reason and his heart struggle against
those bonds; but still he submits — always submits, bowing his
lofty sorrowful head, on which anguish and conflict have scat
tered premature snows, under the yoke. Throughout the Chron
icle and other publications put forth by the community, this great
figure looms, always with formal acknowledgments made of its
greatness, often with natural outbursts of affection celebrating its
nobility, but, nevertheless, with a certain unexpressed disapproba
tion visibly mingling with all praise. Even the apostles and
prophets are puzzled how to manage a soul so heroically simple,
a heart so warm. They are tender of his repugnances and re
luctances, but can not understand how it is that their restraints irk
him. And so it is that his days, which are numbered, glide on
out of sight of the world. Outside, people imagine him the lead
er, who has brought and keeps this congregation together, and by
right of whose permission prophets speak and elders teach ; but
in reality, when one looks within, the scene is very different. The
apostles and prophets have patience with him when the light
breaks slowly, painfully upon his troubled soul ; and, mastering
all the prejudices of his life, all the impulses of his will, this mar
tyr, into whose lingering agony nobody enters, still bends his head
and obeys.
A single example of this, contained in a letter from his brother-
in-law, the Rev. J. Brodie, of Monimail, I may instance. The
Communion was being celebrated in the Newman Street Church
one Sunday in June, and Mr. Brodie, then in London on a visit,
was present :
"After praise and prayer, he (Irving) proceeded to dispense the
ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and pointed out the character of
those who were invited to approach, and of those who were unwor
thy. While he was doing this, one of the apostles exclaimed, ' And

MANY TRIALS. 535
ifthere.be any one who does not acknowedge that the Spirit of God
is among us, if there be any one that doubts the work of the Lord,
let him abstain ; let the unbeliever depart.' . . . Next forenoon Mr.
Irving came to call for me. I very readily expressed my belief that
not a few of those who belonged to his congregation were true be
lievers in the Savior, when he asked me, ' Why, then, did you not
come and join with us at our communion ?' I replied, ' Even if I
had desired to do so, how could I, after having heard it so plainly
stated that all who doubted as to the nature of those manifestations
were commanded to abstain ?' He paused a moment, and then said,
' Ah ! yes ; the Spirit hath so enjoined us.' I saw that it was not
without a struggle that he gave up the liberal and truly catholic feel
ing by which he had formerly been led to regard all true believers as
brethren." How many of such groans burst out of Irving's laboring heart
is known only to the Divine Confidant of all his sorrows. The
grieved and anxious brother who records this incident plied him
inevitably once more with argument and appeal, representing that
" these manifestations were the effects of excited imagination."
In the midst of the harder sacrifices by which he had now to prove
his devotion, the sufferer's constancy and patience had again and
yet again to go through this trial. He was still remonstrated with
about that belief which was bringing upon him internal struggles
more severe than any man knew of, and still he held to that only
ground on which he could sustain himself, in forlorn but sublime
confidence-^the conviction that he had asked sincerely, and that
God had answered. But God's ways were dark to His all-trusting
servant — " His footsteps are not known."
Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, a profound expec
tation still moved the community in Newman Street, and kept
hope and strength in the breast of Irving. The details of the
living tabernacle were not all that he looked for from heaven.
The baptism by fire was yet to come, and apostolic gifts, more
marked and distinctive than the supernatural impulses which
moved Mr. Cardale to confer ordination, were promised to the faith
of the Church. This state of expectation is very apparent in the
following letter addressed to a pious household in South America,
one of the members of which, when in England, had been a par
taker in the gift of prophecy :
"London, 14 Newman Street, July 29, 1833.
"My dear Friends and Brethren, — ... In respect of the
matters concerning which you ask my counsel, I think that you, my
dear Mrs. K  , ought both to desire and earnestly pray to be made

536 EXPECTING "POWER FROM ON HIGH."
the vessel of the Holy Ghost, seeing that once He hath honored you
in so wonderful a manner. But I believe that this will not be until
those of the brethren who are set with you to seek the Lord do sep
arate themselves to prayer and supplication, and waiting upon the
Lord to join them into a Church, and endow them with His gifts and
ministries from heaven. . . . But do nothing without His voice ; ad
minister no ordinance, take upon you no rule ; only wait upon Him,
and, until He appear for you, use the ordinances as they are found
among you in the Protestant Church, from which I would not have
you to separate or secede, but be along with them in the bondage
and barrenness, in every thing but in sin, crying for them and for all
the people bitterly unto the Lord, who will separate you when and
how He knoweth best.
" In respect of an evangelist being sent to you from my Church, I
know they shall be sent out unto all the world from this land, and
especially from this Church, if we abide faithful and patient in the
Lord ; but not until we receive power from on high, the outpouring
of the latter rain, the sealing of the servants of God upon their fore
heads, which even now God longeth to give, for which we wait and
pray daily, yea, many times a day. Therefore be patient with us,
and labor together with us in the Lord for the accomplishing of this
very thing. He is preparing builders here ; He is gathering stones
every where. Pray that the laborers may be sent forth unto the
harvest, for the fields are already ripe unto the harvest. We are
heavy and fruitless in the Lord's hand, yet doth He glorify His
abundant grace and goodness in the midst of us, for He hath by no
means forsaken us, but doth daily both rebuke and comfort us. Truly
my heart weepeth while I write over the let and hinderance we have
presented to His work, whereby it hath come to be evil-spoken of
over all the world. . . . Oh, my brother, restrain thy -imagination
from the handling of things divine, but in faith and prayer be thou
built up and established in all truth. . . . My love to all the breth
ren who love the Lord Jesus !
" Your loving friend and servant, for the Lord's sake,
" Edwd. Irving."
The remainder of the year was spent in this expectant yet sad
suspense, waiting for " power from on high," and, when it did not
come, groaning in heart over that want of faith which presented
" a let and hinderance to God's work" within the isolated circle of
the Church in Newman Street. Of that silent conflict which Ir
ving had now to wage with himself, last and perhaps sorest of his
trials, there remains no record except the scanty intimations in
the Chronicle of the reluctance with which he received various
particulars of the new order of things. But " light broke in upon
his mind" always at last; he "confessed his error;" and so strug
gled onward on his sorrowful path, more and more wistfully con
scious that God's footsteps are not known.

A PAUSE IN IRVING'S LABORS. 537

CHAPTER XIX.
jk 1834 — THE END.
Sent to Edinburgh.— Is no longer his own Master.— Exhaustion.— Tender Courtesy.
—Reappearance out of the Shadows. — Projects his Journey.— Leaves London.—
The Hand of the Lord upon him. — Bridgenorth. — His ancient Counselor. — Let
ter to his Children.— The Royal Oak.— Beauty and Blessedness of the Land.—
Young Clergymen.— Healing both to Body and Soul.— Satisfied in beholding
God's works.— Birthday Letter.— Well-sunned, well-aired Mountains.— Cader
Idris. — Care not to take his Wife "out of her Place." — Bedd-Gelert.— Beginning
of the End. — Legend "for Maggie."— Renewed Illness.— Yearns for his Wife.—
Well with the just Man at the Last. — Alarm of his Relations. — Voyage to Green
ock. — Enters Glasgow. — His last Letter. — Flesn and Heart faint and fail. — His
Certainty of Recovery. — At the Gates of Heaven. — Amen ! — He died and was
buried. — A Saint and Martyr.
The last year of Irving's life opened dimly in the same se
cluded, separated world within which Providence had abstracted
him after his re-ordination. He had not failed in any of the gen
erous and liberal sympathies of his nature ; his heart was still
open to his old friends, and responded warmly to all appeals of
affection; but the life of a man who prayed and waited daily,
" yea, many times a day," for the descent of that " power from on
high" which was to vindicate his faith and confirm his heart, was
naturally a separated life, incapable of common communion with
the unbelieving world. And he had paused in those " unexam
pled labors" which, up to the settlement of his Church in New
man Street, kept the healthful daylight and open air about him.
At the end of the year 1832 he and his evangelists had ceased
their missionary labors ; henceforward nothing but the platform
in Newman Street, and the care of a flock to which he was no
longer the exclusive ministrant, occupied the intelligence which
had hitherto rejoiced in almost unlimited labor. Whether there
was any new compensation of work in the new office of the An
gel I can not tell, but nothing of the kind is apparent. He was
not ill, as far as appears, during the early part of this silent and
sad winter, but he was deprived of the toil which had hitherto
kept his mind in balance, and of that communication with the
world which was breath to his brotherly and liberal soul. No
man in the world could be less fitted for the life of a recluse than

538 IRVING SENT TO EDINBURGH,
he ; yet such a life he seems to have now led, his span of labor
daily circumscribed as the different " orders of ministries" in the
new Church developed, and no missionary exertion, or new work
of any kind, coming in to make up to the mighty activity, always
heretofore so hungry of work, for this sudden pause in the cur
rent of his life.
In January, however, he was sent on a mission to Edinbui^,
where a Church had been established under the ministry of Mr.
Tait, formerly of the College Church. This little community had
been troubled by the " entrance of an evil spirit, from which, in
all its deadening effects, his experience in dealing with spiritual
persons would, it was hoped, be efficacious, by the blessing of
God, in delivering them." There is no information, so far as I
can discover, how Irving discharged this difficult mission ; but I
am indebted to the kindness of Professor Macdougall, of Edin
burgh, for a momentary note of his aspect there. " His charac
teristic fire," says that gentleman, who had been one of his hear
ers in earlier and brighter days, "had then, in a great measure,
given place to a strangely plaintive pathos, which was as exquis
itely touching and tender as his exhibitions of intellectual power
had been majestic." He seems to have remained but a very short
time, and to have occupied himself exclusively with his mission.
Though the Edinburgh public, in much greater numbers than
could gain admittance, crowded to the place of meeting where Mr.
Tait and his congregation had found shelter, the great preacher
no longer called them forth at dawn to dispense his liberal rich
es, nor rushed into the chivalrous, disinterested labor of his former
missions to Edinburgh. Wonderful change had come upon that
ever-free messenger of truth. He came now, not on his own gen
erous impulse, but with his instructions in his hand. Always a
servant of God, seeking to know His supreme will and to do it, he
was now a servant of the Church, bound to minute obedience.
Some time after, Mrs. Irving wrote to her mother that "Edward
was truly grieved that it was not in his power to go to see you,
but his time is truly not his own, neither is he his own master."
From this mission he returned very ill, with threatenings of dis
ease in his chest ; and, though he rallied and partially recovered,
it soon became apparent that his wearied frame and broken heart
were unable to strive longer with the griefs and disappointments
which encompassed him, and that the chill of this wintry journey
had brought about a beginning of the end.

EXHAUSTION.— TENDER COURTESY. 539
A month after Irving's visit to Edinburgh, the apostles, of
whom there were now two, Mr. Cardale and Mr. Drummond, pro
ceeded there to ordain the angel over that Church, and from Ed
inburgh, visiting several other towns in Scotland, were some time
absent from the central Church. During that interval, a com
mand was given " in the power" in Newman Street, to which Ir
ving gave immediate obedience. It concerned, I think, the ap
pointment of a certain number of evangelists. After this step
had been taken, the absent apostles heard of it, and wrote, declar
ing the new arrangement to be a delusion, and rebuking both
prophet and angel. The rebuked prophet withdrew for a time in
anger; the angel bowed his loftier head, read the letter to the
Church, and confessed his error. Thus, amid confusions, disap
pointments, long lingering of the promised power from on high,
sad substitution of morsels of ceremonial and church arrangement
for the greater gifts for which his soul thirsted, the last spring
that he was ever to see on earth dawned upon Irving. As it ad
vanced, his friends began to write to each other again with grow
ing anxiety and dread ; his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, describing with
alarm " the lassitude he exhibits at all times," and bitterly com
plaining that he had neither time nor possibility of resting, sur
rounded as he was by the close pressure of that exclusive com
munity, " the members of his flock visiting him every forenoon
from 11 to 1 o'clock," and the anxieties of all the Church upon
his head. Kind people belonging to the Church itself interposed
to carry him away, in his exhaustion, on the Monday mornings,
to rest in houses which could be barricaded against the world — a
thing which, in Edward Irving's house, in the mystic precincts of
that Church in Newman Street, was simply impossible ; and, when
he had been thus abstracted by friendly importunity, describe him
as stretched on a sofa, in the languor of his fatigued and failing
strength, looking out upon the budding trees, but still in that leis
ure and lassitude turning his mind to the work for which his
frame was no longer capable, dictating to some ready daughter or
sister of the house. As he thus composed, it was his wont to
pause whenever any expression or thought had come from him
which his amanuensis could have any difficulty about, to explain
and illustrate his meaning to her favored ear, neither weakness,
nor sorrow, nor the hard usage of men being able to warp him
out of that tender courtesy which belonged to his nature.
In this calm of exhaustion the early part of the year passed

540 REAPPEARANCE OUT OF THE SHADOWS.
slowly. He still preached as usual, and was at the command of
all his people, but appeared nowhere out of their close ranks. In
July he wrote a letter, characteristically minute in all its details,
to Dr. Martin, bidding him "give thanks with me unto the Lord
for the preservation of your daughter and my dear wife from an
attack of the cholera," and relating the means which had been ef
fectual in her recovery. " All that night I was greatly afflicted,"
he writes ; "I felt the hand of the Lord to cast me down to the
greatest depths. It was on my heart on Friday night, and it was
on hers also, to bring out the elders of the Church, which I did
on Saturday morning, when, having confessed before them unto
the Lord all my sin, and all her sin, and all the sin of my house,
without any reserve, according to the commandment of the Lord
(James, v., 16), I brought them up to her room, when, having min
istered to her a word to strengthen her faith, they prayed to the
Lord one after another, and then strengthened her with a word
of assurance, and blessed her in the name of the Lord. They
had not been gone above five minutes when she asked me for
something to eat. . . . While I give the glory to God, I look upon
Dr. Darling as having been a blessed instrument in His hand, and
am able to see the hand of the Lord in the means, as clearly as
in my own case, where there was neither means, nor medicine,
nor the appointed ordinance of the Church."
In this letter Irving affectionately anticipates a visit from his
wife's father and mother, and writes as if time had softened the
warmth of their opposition and restored much of the old frank
ness of their intercourse. This is the only glimpse which I can
find of him till he reappears finally im September, in all his old,
individual distinctness, softened by his weak bodily condition,
with a grave gentleness and dignity, and the peace of exhaustion
breathing in every thing he does and says. He had been by " the
power" commissioned as a prophet to Scotland, to do a great work
in his native land some time before. Either the time had now
arrived for that great work, and he was authoritatively command
ed to go forth and do it, which is the explanation given by his
alarmed and disapproving relatives of his journey, or else the
Church at Newman Street, anxious for the restoration of his
health, gladly pronounced an authoritative sanction to his own
wish to wander slowly over the country, wending his way by de
grees to Scotland, with the hope of gaining strength, as well as do
ing the Lord's work by the way. He had been warned by his

PROJECTED JOURNEY TO THE NORTH. 541
doctor that the only safe thing for him, in the condition of health
he was in, was to spend the winter in a milder climate ; and when,
notwithstanding this advice, his anxious friends saw him turn his
face, in the waning autumnal days, toward the wintry north in
stead, it is not wonderful that they should add the blame of this
to all the other wrongs against his honor and happiness of which
they held the prophets of Newman Street guilty. However that
may be, it is apparent that the spiritual authorities of his own
Church, perhaps aware that no inducement would lead him to
seek health, for its own sole sake, in any kind of relaxation, gave
their full countenance to the journey, upon which he now set out
in confidence and hope.
It is singular, however, to note how, as soon as he emerges from
his seclusion in Newman Street, he regains his natural rank in a
world which always had recognized the simple grandeur of his
character. Away from that Church, where he rules, indeed, but
must not judge, nor act upon even the utterances from heaven ex
cept on another man's authority — where he is censured sometimes
and rebuked, and where his presence is already an unacknowl
edged embarrassment, preventing or at least hindering the devel
opment of all its new institutions — the free air of heaven once
more expands his forlorn bosom. In the rural places where he
goes there is no man " worthy" who does not throw open his doors
to that honored guest, whose greatness, all subdued and chastened
by his weakness, returns to him as he travels. Once more his
fame encircles him as he rides alone through the unknown coun
try. It is Edward Irving, of tender catholic heart, a brother to
all Christians, whose thoughts, as he has poured them forth for
ten eventful years, have quickened other thoughts over all the
nation, and brought him many a disciple and many a friend in
the unknown depths of England, and not merely the angel of the
new Church, who goes softly in his languor and feebleness to the
banks of the Severn and the Wye. I can not but think that the
leaders of the community- must have felt — to judge by the senti
ment which is apparent in their publications — a certain relief, per
haps unconscious to themselves, when he left them — he whom it
was impossible not to be tender of, but whose enlightenment was
slower and more difficult than they could have desired ; and for
himself I can not doubt that the relief was even greater. He had
escaped away to the society of his Lord — to the silent rural ways,
where no excitement disturbed the musings of his soul ; to the

542 IRVING LEAVES LONDON.
company of good men, who were not disposed to contend with
him whom, unconsciously, he had helped and enlightened in the
liberal and princely years that were past. So he left London and
the battle-field, never more to enter those painful lists, nor be lost
amid the smoke of that conflict, and went forth, in simple dignity,
to a work less hard than he dreamed of, unwitting to himself,
leaving his passion and anguish behind him, and turning his fated
steps toward the hills with no harder thing on hand than to die.
He left London without any apparent presentiment that this
parting was the last, and gave his final benediction to the chil
dren whom in this world he was to see no more. They were
three whom he thus left fatherless ; one only, the Maggie of his
letters, old enough to understand or remember her father; the
youngest an infant a few months old. The first point in his jour
ney was Birmingham, from whence he begins his letters to his
anxious wife : "Edgbaston, Birmingham, 3d September, 1834.
" My dear Wipe, — I have just time to write a line to say that I
have got here in good health and spirits, without feeling any weari
ness at all, yet conscious of bearing about the hand of the Lord upon
me, at which I must neither murmur nor rebel. . . . Oh, that I might
leave a blessing in this hospitable and peaceful house !
" Your faithful husband, Edwd. Irving."
The next letter is from Blymhill, by Shiffnel, where he de
scribes himself to have arrived, " bearing the hand of the Lord
upon me, yet careful enough and contented enough," and where
his friends find him a horse on which to pursue his way. On the
6th of September, still lingering at this place, "visiting the breth
ren," which he speaks of as " strengthening and fitting me for the
journey," he tells his Isabella that " the Lord deals very tenderly
with me, and I think I grow in health and strength. What I
could not get in London or Birmingham," he adds, with quaint
homeliness, " I found lying for me here — the gift of Mr. Cowper,
of Bridgenorth, a sort of trotcosie of silk oilcloth, which will take
in both hat, and shoulders, and cheeks, and neck, and breast. I
saw the hand of Providence in this." Here he is troubled by his
own inadvertence in having dated a check, which he gave in pay
ment for his horse, "London, little thinking that this was a trick
to save a stamp. I am very sorry for this, but I did it in pure
ignorance." Next day he is at Bridgenorth, in trouble about his
little boy, who is ailing, and on whose behalf he directs his wife
to appeal to the elders for such a visitation as had been, according

¦ BRIDGENORTH. 543
to his belief, so effectual in her own case. " Ask them to come
in after the evening service, when I shall separate myself to the
Lord with them," says the absent father, whose heart is with his
children, and who, after many anxious counsels about the little
four-year-old boy, sends a message to tell him that " the horse is
brown, with black legs." Next day he resumes : I did separate
myself according to my promise, and was much distressed by the
heavy and incessant judgments of the Lord, and afterward I had
faith to plead the promise that the prayer of faith should heal the
sick." " This Bridgenorth is one of the most beautifully situated
towns I ever saw," he continues, and proceeds to describe the
route which he meant to adopt to his wife. After recording the
expenses to which his horse and saddle had put him, he adds :
"But no matter; I feel that I am serving the Lord daily, and I
think He daily giveth me more strength to serve Him." On the
10th of September he is again at Blymhill, where he lingers to
receive the visits of some brethren in the neighborhood, and to
prove his horse, " which goes well." The friends who detain him
in this quarter seem to be the clergymen of the place. "lam
greatly pleased and comforted," he says, "by all that I [hear]
about Henry Dalton's two flocks, and have no doubt that the
pleasure of the Lord is prospering in his hands ; nor am I less
pleased here with Mr. Brydgeman, whose labors for the Lord are
very abundant." From Blymhill he also writes to Mr. Hamilton,
committing into his hands the management of his business affairs
with his former publishers, a commission which he introduces by
the following affecting preface :
" My dear Brother Hamilton, — Although we have parted com
pany in the way for a season, being well assured of the sincerity and
honesty of your mind, and praying always that you may be kept from
the formality of the world in divine things, I do fondly hope that we
shall meet together in the end, and go hand in hand, as we have
done in the service of God. And this not for you only, but for your
excellent wife, whose debtor I am in many ways. On this account
I have always continued to take your counsel and help in all my
worldly matters, as in former times, though God, in His goodness,
hath given me so many deacons and under-deacons worthy of all con
fidence. But I can not forget, and never will, the assiduous kindness
with which you have, ever since I knew you, helped me with your
sound judgment and discretion in all temporal things, and sure am I
that I should be glad as ever to give you my help in spiritual things
as heretofore. I could not, without these expressions of my hearty,
faithful attachment to you, and of my grateful obligations for all your

544 IRVING'S LETTER TO HIS CHILDREN.
past kindness, introduce the business upon which I am now to seek
your help."
All the literary business in which Irving was now concerned
seems to have been the settlement of his accounts with his pub
lishers. Some balances appear to have been owing him. But I
have been told, I can not say with what truth, that he derived lit
tle pecuniary advantage at any time even from his most popular
publications. A few days later he writes the following descriptive letter to
his children: "Ironbridge, Shropshire, 16th September, 1834.
" My dear Children, Margaret and Martin, — This place from
which I write you is named Ironbridge, because there is a great
bridge of iron, which, with one arch, spans across the River Severn,
and there is another, about two miles farther up the river, where
there are the ruins of an ancient abbey, in which men and women
that feared God used in old times to live and worship Him. The
walls of the ruin are all grown over with ivy. Your father stopped
his horse to look at them ; and six miles farther back there was an
old gray ruined wall in a field, which a smith by the road side told
me was the ruins of an ancient Roman city, named Hniconium, which
once stood there. . . . Your father has ridden from Shrewsbury this
morning, where he parted with his dear friend, the Honorable and
Reverend Henry Brydgeman, who is a very godly man, and has been
wonderfully kind to your father. He has six sons and only one
daughter, all little children, the eldest not so big as Margaret ; and I
am writing to Bridgenorth to another dear friend, the Rev. Henry
Dalton, who has no children yet. You must pray for both these min
isters, and thank God for putting it into their head to be so good to
your father.
" Now concerning the house and the oak-tree in which the king
was hidden and saved. There have been eight kings since his time
and one queen — Queen Anne, whose statue is before St. Paul's Church
in London. This king's name was Charles, and his father's name was
v Charles, and therefore they called him Charles the Second. The peo-
Ele rose up against his father, and warred against him till they took
im, and then they cut off his head at Whitehall, in London ; and his
poor son they pursued, to take him and kill him also, and he was
forced to flee away and hide himself, as King David did hide himself.
The house is only three miles from Mr. Brydgeman's, so we mounted
our horses and away we rode — Mr. Brydgeman in the middle — till
we came to a gate which led us into a park, and soon we came to an
other gate, which opened and let us into the stable-yard, and there
we dismounted from our horses. . . . The master of the house and
his family were gone, and there were none but a nice, tidy, kind wom
an, who took us through the kitchen into an ancient parlor all done
round the walls with carved oak, just as it was when the king hid
himself in the house. And there was a picture of the king. Then
we went up stairs into an ancient bedroom, whose floor was sore

THE ROYAL OAK. 545
worn with age, and by the side of this bedroom was a door leading
into a little, little room, and the floor of that room lifted up in the
middle, and underneath was a narrow, dark dungeon or hiding-place,
in which the king of all this island was glad to hide himself, in order
to escape from his persecutors ; this narrow place opened below by
narrow stairs into the garden, where is a door in the wall hidden be
hind ivy. Then we went up another stair to the garret, and at the
top of it there was another board in the floor that lifted up, and went
down by a small ladder into another hiding-place. But all these
hiding-places were not enough to hide the king from his persecutors
— armed soldiers on horseback, who entered the house to search it.
Then the king fled out by the door behind the ivy in the garden, and
leaped over the garden wall into a field, and climbed up an oak-tree,
and hid himself among its thick branches. Papa saw this tree. It
is done round with a rail, to distinguish it from the rest and to keep
it sacred. . . . Then the soldiers, not finding him in the house,- gal
loped about into the wood, and passed under the very tree ; but God
saved the king, and they found him not. . . . There are many lessons
to be learned from this, which your dear mother will teach you, for
I am tired, and my horse is getting ready. So God bless you, and
your little sister, and your dear mother, and all the house. Fare
well ! Your loving father, Edwd. Irving."
After this, his correspondence is exclusively addressed to his
wife, and continues, from point to point along his journey, an al
most daily chronicle : " Shobdon (half way between Ludlow and Kington,))
Thursday,. 18th September, 1834. £
" My dearest Wife, — In this beautiful village, embowered with
trees, and clothed with ivy and roses, in the little inn—where are as
sembled the last remains of a wake which has holden since Sunday —
from a little bar-room or parlor within the ample kitchen, where they
are playing their drunken tricks with one another, I sit down to write
you. I know not wherefore I went to Shrewsbury,* but wherefore
I returned to Bridgenorth I discern was for seeing Mejanel, and
opening to him the whole state of his soul in the presence of Mr. Dal
ton, and with his confirmation ; and I do hope it will lead to that re
pentance and cleansing of heart which may prepare him for the ordi
nation of the Lord, which I trust will not be delayed, in the great
mercy and goodness of our Lord. I charged himf at no rate to go
to France without ordination, and I think I prevailed with him. . . .
" But oh ! how shall I describe the beauty and the blessedness of
the land through which I have traveled these three days. Whether
it be that the riding on horseback gives time for the objects to enter
* He had however, in a former letter, described to his wife the impulse he felt to
seek out a young surgeon, whom he believed to be in Shrewsbury, who was in dan
ger of falling from the faith, but who, he found on going there, had left the plaee.
t The person here referred to was a French preacher, who had been a very prom-
inent figure in the excitement which attended the origin of the "gifts" in Scotland.
—See Memoir of Mr. Story, of Rosneath.
M M

546 ROSS.— CHEPSTOW.— RAGLAN.
and produce these impressions, I know not, but it seems to me as if I
had never seen the beauty and the fatness of the land till now. I am
filled with the admiration of it. My way to Ludlow lay over the
ridge which joins the two Clay (or Clee) mountains, and, as they rose
before me, in their blue and naked majesty, out of the ripe vegeta
tion and abundant wood of the country around, I was filled with de
light. My road, both yesterday and to-day, though a turnpike road,
is out of the great lines, and I was as solitary and sequestered as I
could have wished, leaving me much opportunity of communion with
God. ... I keep this letter open till I come to Kington. My din
ner, ham and egg, a cold fowl, an apple-tart and cheese, a tumbler of
cider, a glass of Sicilian Tokay, of which Mr. Brydgeman put two
bottles in my saddle [bags]. ... I am safe in Mr. Whalley's, and
have passed a good night. Tell your dear mother I had such a me
mento of Kirkcaldy Manse — ginger wine in a long-necked decanter.
. . . Love and blessing to the children, and to all the house.
" Your faithful and loving husband, Edwd. Irving."
" Ross, 23d September.
" I have but ten minutes to the post, being just arrived at Ross.
A Mr. Davies came to Kington, and invited me to Hereford, and
gathered an inquiring people, whom I instructed, under Mr. Davies'
authority, as his chaplain. He has ridden thus far with me, and goes
on to Monmouth, where I expect to be at tea. I am getting daily
better. The Lord bless you all !" *?¦
" Chepstow, 26th September.
"I was greatly comforted by your letter last night, having been in
great distress of soul for dear Martin ; and I give thanks to the Lord,
who hath preserved him. . . . Say to Mr. T  that I spent a most
agreeable night and forenoon at his brother's, and that I feel my go
ing to Monmouth was very much for his sake and his wife's, both of
whom, I think, are not far from the kingdom of heaven. I also saw
and conversed much with the Rev. Mr. Davies, of whom I thought
very highly. . . . Here, at Chepstow, the seed has indeed been sown
by Mr. Sturgeon, and I am watering it with words of counsel and
instruction, teaching them the way of worshiping God, and encour
aging them to gather together and call upon His name. I think there
is the foundation of a Church laid in this place. Now, my dear wife,
I am surely better in my health, for my appetite is good, and my
pulse is come to be under 100. The Lord's hand I feel to be with
me, and I believe that I am doing Him service. Farewell ! the Lord
be your stay." "Raglan (half way to Criekhowel), Saturday, 27th September.
" The inn here, at which I have just arrived to breakfast, is also
the post-office, and I have about three quarters of an hour to write
you. My visit to Chepstow, I feel, hath been very well bestowed.
I had the people two nights to Mrs. Sturgeon's, and they came in
great numbers, and I had great presence and power of the Lord in
ministering to them the two chapters which we offered in the family
worship, Luke, xi., and Matthew, xxv., and great, I am persuaded,
will the fruits of Mr. Sturgeon's ministry here be. But the thing

HEALING BOTH TO BODY AND SOUL. 547
wherein the hand of the Lord is most seen is His bringing me into
contact and conference with all the young clergymen round about.
At Tintern, which is two thirds of the way from Monmouth to Chep
stow, I rested my horse while I went to see the famous ruins of the
abbey. I had not been within the abbey walls five minutes when
there was a ring for admittance, and two young men of a scholar
like appearance came in. One immediately came forward and sa
luted me with information that his father, a barrister in Dublin, had
once been entertained in our house, and the young man with him
was also a clergyman; with both of them I have had much close con
versation, and with two at Chepstow. . . . My time is exhausted ; I
will, therefore, speak of myself. I think I may say I am indeed very
much better, and hardly conscious of an invalid's feelings. ... I con
tinue to use Dr. Darling's prescriptions,, and find the good of them.
Now, as concerneth speaking, I am fully persuaded, by experience,
that it is the proper exercise of the lungs, and, being taken in meas
ure, it is always good for me. But nothing has done me so much
good as to hear of dear Martin's recovery. That was indeed healing
both to body and soul." "Criekhowel, 28th September.
" I arrived here safe and in good order, horse and man, last night ;
and, because they could not get a messenger over to Mr. Waddy,
who lives about two miles off, I made my arrival known by a note
to the Rev. T. Price, Mr. Tudor's friend, who came to the inn very
speedily, and took me up to his house to spend the evening. I find
him much instructed in the truth, but holding it rather by the light
of the understanding than by the faith of the Spirit ; still he is, as I
judge, one by whom the Lord will greatly bless this principality,
through the continual prayer of the Church. Oh! tell Mr. Tudor to
keep Wales upon his heart, and Price and Scale. Scale is the young
man at Merthyr Tydvil who breakfasted with us once. He is a pre
cious man — one set of the Lord for a great blessing, I am convinced,
though the time be not yet fully come. He rode over to-day, and
poor Waddy had ridden early all the way to Abergavenny, six. miles
back on the road, thinking to find me there, and ride in with me ;
but I had resolved that the Christian Sabbath should not fall beneath
the Jewish in being a day of entire rest for man and horse. Mr.
Price is a great Welsh scholar, a literary and patriotic man, full of
taste and knowledge ; young — that is, within my age — a bachelor,
whose wife, I fear, is more his books than the Church as yet. Yet I
love him much, and owe him much love. I breakfasted with him
this morning, and afterward went to the church in this place, where
an aged man, Mr. Vaughan, who fears God much, is the minister ; for
Mr. Price went to serve a church in Welsh some three miles off. . . .
We did not meet till the interval, when we all went over to Mr.
Price's other cure, a church over the water, close by. He preached
on the coming of the Lord, a short but true sermon. Then afterward
he asked me, at the request of the family, to go with him to a sick
lady who had been prayed for, and gave the whole household minis
try into my own hand. The rest of the evening I have spent with
the three brethren, Price, Scale, and Waddy, and having supped

548 BEAUTY AND MAJESTY OF GOD'S WORKS.
upon a piece of bread and a tumbler of precious beer, home-brewed,
I sit down to write to you before I offer up my worship and go to
rest. Now, my dear, I think it rather of the Lord that we should
remain apart till I be brought home in the good time of the Lord.
... It is a trial to me to be separated from you in many ways, and
chiefly in this, that I may testify to you the new love with which
God hath filled my bosom toward you ; that I may bear you ever
upon my arm, as I do now bear you upon my heart."
"Builth (border of Radnor and Brecon), 29th September.
" I am again returned to the banks of the Wye, and shall ascend it
to near its summit in ' huge Plinlimmon.' Of all rivers that I have
seen, the grace of its majesty surpasseth. I first came in sight of its
scenery as we rode to Hereford, a few miles from Kington, and, as
far as the eye could stretch up to the mountains from which it issued,
it seemed a very wilderness of beauty and fruitfulness. My eye was
never satisfied with beholding it. But how impossible it is to give
you an idea of the vast bosom of Herefordshire as I saw it from the
high lands we cross on the way to Ross ! . . . My soul was altogether
satisfied in beholding the works of my God. . . . But the valley of
the Usk, where Criekhowel is, hath a beauty of its own, so soft, with
such a feathery wood scattered over it, gracing with modesty, but
not hiding, the well-cultivated sides of the mountains, whose tops are
resigned to nature's wildness. . . . Now, my dearest, of myself: I
think I grow daily better by daily care and the blessing of God upon
it. I ride thirty miles without any fatigue, walking down the hills
to relieve my horse. ... I have you and the children in continual
remembrance before God, and them also that are departed, express
ing my continual contentedness that they are with Him. Now fare
well ! say to Martin that I am going to write him a letter about an
other king, St. Ethelred."
This promised letter to his little son was never written, but
there breaks in here a birthday epistle to the little Maggie of his
heart : "Aberystwyth, Oct. 2d, 1834.
" My dear Daughter Margaret, — This is your birthday, and I
must write you a letter to express a father's joy and thanksgiving-
over so dear a child. Your mother writes me from Brighton that
Miss Rook has written to her such an account of your diligence and
obedience. It made me so glad that you were beginning to show
that you are not only my child, but the child of God, regenerate in
baptism. Bring thou forth, my sweet child, the fruits of godliness
daily, more and more abundantly. I am now got to Aberystwyth,
and. dwell upon the shore of the sea, in the same house with Mr.
Carre, who goes out and preaches every evening at five o'clock, and
I go out and stand beside him. You will delight to hear that I am
much better, through the goodness of God, and that I hope to be
quite well before I reach Scotland. ... I beseech you, my beloved
child, to have your soul always ready for the hand of the Lord, who
is your true Father. I am but His poor representative. Now bless
ings be upon thee, and dear Martin, and dear Isabella! I pray God

WELL-SUNNED, WELL-AIRED MOUNTAINS. 549
to keep you many years in health, and afterward to receive thee to
His glory. . . . Remember me with affection to all the house, and
be assured that I am your loving father, Edwd. Irving."
He then resumes the chronicle of his journey: "Aberystwyth, October 3d.
"I wrote to Maggie yesterday, which, with a letter to Mr. Whally,
I found occupation enough. . . . The letter I wrote you from Builth
was too late for the post. That day was the sweetest of all my jour
ney, for it was among the well-sunned, well-aired mountains, where
every breeze seemed to breathe health upon me. My road during
the morning was up rough, and, in many places, wooded glens ; but
after passing Rhyadhon, where I breakfasted, I cleared the region of
pultivation, taking the hill-road to what they call the Devil's Bridge,
or Havod Arms, an inn within twelve miles of Aberystwyth. Among
the sheep and the sheepfolds I found that air which I wanted ; hun
ger came hours before its time, and I seemed to feel the strength of
my youth. I do not find it so by the shore of the sea, though this
be assuredly a sweet and healthy place, at the opening of a short val
ley, which in five or six miles carries you into the bleak air of the
mountains. It will give you some idea of my returning strength
when I tell you that next morning I arose at seven, and, with the
Boots of the inn for my guide, descended to the bottom of that fear
ful ravine of roaring cataracts, 320 feet below the level of the road,
and ascended again, and surveyed them one by one with great de
light. . . . This Aberystwyth is against letter writing. I was inter
rupted yesterday ; and so I will interrupt my description, and leave
it for a letter to dear Maggie. The house of Mrs. Brown was open
to me, and a bed prepared for me. Mr. Carre also abides under her
roof/ since her son came home. . . . Mr. Brown has the felicity of
seeing his family joined together in one mind. . . . No doubt they
have all to be tried, and their faith is yet but in its infancy ; but it is
most heart-cheering to see the house of one mind. Since my coming,
Mr. Brown has opened his house at morning and evening worship to
' those who are godly disposed,' where I have had an opportunity of
instructing and counseling many of the Lord's people. Dear Carre
preaches in the open air at the head of the Marine Parade, where the
main street of the ancient town descends into the noble crescent
which hath .been builded of late years for the accommodation of the
company who chiefly resort from the West of England hither for the
sea-bathing and sea-air ; and he was wont to open the Scriptures far
ther, within doors, at seven, to those who came to Mr. Brown's ; but,
now that he has seen the better way of combining domestic worship
with that household ministration, I think he will adopt it, and con
tinue what I have begun. Mr. Brown departs for his1 cure at Mad-
dington on Wednesday next week. " Harlech, Merionethshire, 7th October.
"I write you from the inn which overlooks one of the three strong
castles with which Edward III. did bridle all this region of North
Wales. It stands frowning, like the memory of its master, over land
and over sea. Out of the window, where I have dined, I have seen

550

CADER-IDRIS.

the most beautiful sunset, full of crimson glory, with here and there
a streak of the brightest green. It was at the time that I was with
you all in spirit in Newman Street, and I took it as a figure of the
latter-day glory. Yesterday I set out from Aberystwyth, from that
dear family, who were all up to see me off at seven o'clock ; and,
being mindful of Dr. Darling's words, rode enveloped in India-rubber
to Machynlleth (which being pronounced isMachuntleth). This was
a stage of eighteen miles before breakfast/nowise particularly inter
esting. . . . But from Machynlleth to Dolgelley is by the foot of
Cader-Idris, a mountain surpassed by none, if equaled by any, -for its
rugged majesty and beauty. I had much communion with God
in the first part of this stage, for the Church, for Mr. Cardale, but,
above all, for you and for all who have received from us life. When
I descended upon the base of Cader-Idris, on my left hand there shot
out a vista toward the sea, which terminated in a clear and bright
sky. I can not describe the pleasure which I had in looking away
from the terrible grandeur of Cader-Idris down that sweet glade
opening into the beautiful skies. But it was the instant duty of, my
self and horse to cross up a shoulder of the mountain and get on our
way. . . . About six I arrived at my inn, and was much refreshed
by my dinner and bed. This morning I sent my horse early down
to Barmouth, proposing myself to come by a boat, which I was told
sailed at half past nine, and got down in forty minutes — all to see the
scenery, which is very, very beautiful upon the estuary or loch ; but
when I came to the boat-house, about two miles' walking, I found
the boat would not be there for more than an hour, would tarry some
time, and then had a rough sea and rough head-wind to sail with.
My purpose was to be here before the meeting of the church, and
this is ten miles from Barmouth. There was nothing for it but to
ferry over the water, and walk the remaining eight miles, along with
three skinners going thither on their business, men in whom was the
fear of God. I gave them my great-coat to carry, and walked by the
rough side of the loch with a strong wind ahead, and was no worse,
but I thought rather the better for it. Then I rode hither, and be
ing all alone, have been more with you than with myself. Truly the
Lord hath laid Mr. Cardale upon my heart, and the whole Church,
and all those to be presented, and I have prayed for them every one,
according to my discernment. Show this sentence to Mr. Cardale,
or transcribe it, for I am not able to write to-night, .... and this
to Mr. Woodhouse — (two sentences in Latin are here inserted in the
manuscript). It is not because I may or can not trust you, most
trustworthy wife, that I write these answers in Latin, but because I
would not take you out of your place. . . . Now the peace and bless
ing of the Lord be with you and all the house." "Bangor, 9th October.
"My dearest Wife, — For I have heart and strength to write
only to you ; indeed, it is in my heart to write many letters ; but a
due sense of my duty of resting when the labors of the day are over
holds my hand, and I have committed my flock into the Shepherd's
hand. I rode from Harlech, before breakfast, along the sea-shore,
until we found an inlet to follow up, at the head of which sits Taw-y-

BEDD-GELERT. 551
bwlch, in such stillness and beauty, among the most sublime and
beautiful mountain scenery. Oh ! it is a place of peace and repose.
Thence I crossed rugged and barren mountains, with occasional views
of the ocean, until the road swept up a mountain pass of great sub
limity, and opened at the head of it upon Bedd-Gelert, a place of the
like character with Taw-y-bwlch, but not so sequestered. (This is
for Maggie, but it is profitable to us all.) Bedd-Gelert means ' the
grave of Gelert.' Gelert was a hound of matchless excellences. . . .
The hound fell at his master's feet and breathed out his life in piteous
moan jngs. He was hardly dead when the babe awoke from some
place of greater security whither the dog had carried it, and when
they looked beneath the bed they found a mighty and ferocious wolf,
whose mangled body showed what a desperate conflict poor Gelert
had waged that day for his master's infant. Ah me ! what faithful
ness God hath put into the hearts of his creatures ! what pure love
must be in His own! The name Bedd-Gelert commemorates that
event. Here I had a harper to play to me the choicest of the old
Welsh airs, Of a noble race was Shenkin, The March of the Men of
Harlech, etc. The old blind man was very thankful for a sixpence,
and I taught him how to use his harp as David had done, in the
praise of his God. From thence I set myself to begird the roots of
Snowdon, for he covered his head from the sight of man. I had seen
his majestic head lifted above the mountains from Aberystwyth, and
it is the only sight I have had of him. He is the monarch of many.
The mountains stand around him as they shall stand around Zion.
When I was seeking to disentangle the perfect form of one of them
from the mist, which I thought must surely be he, a countryman told
me my mistake. That beautiful sunset which I saw at Harlech yield
ed only wind ; and as I rode up these defiles the wind was terrible.
It made the silken shroud over my shoulders rattle in my horse's ears
until he could hardly abide it ; and, in truth, I had to take it off, for
the bellowing of the wind itself was enough for the nerves of man or
horse. Lnever endured such a battery of wind. I arrived at my inn
a little after the setting of the sun — Dolbaddon, an inn like a palace.
Thence I rode this morning to Caernarvon, secluded on the outgoing
of the Menai Straits ; and I turned off my road to look at the bridge
—that wonder of man's hand. And now here I am in the very house
of the Shunamite woman ; for, though it is an inn like a castle, the
Penrhyn Arms, mine hostess is a very mother. Mr. Pope is resident
here, having married a wife of the daughters of the land. To him I
wrote a letter of brotherly love ; but it hath been in vain, I fear.
The Lord's will be done. Now I doubt that this is too late for the
post • but, come when it will, let it come with the blessing of God
upon you and upon all the house. I begin to feel a strong desire
that you were with me. I do not know, but it may be well to com
mit that thing to the Lord against the time I reach Glasgow."
'"Flint, Saturday night, 11th October.
" I am still able to praise the Lord for His merciful and gracious
dealings, though these two last days, or rather the two before this,
have been days of trial to me. When viewing the Menai Bridge, I
got wet by a sudden gust driven through the Straits by the wind,

552 LEGEND FOR MAGGIE.
and though I put on my cloak, and changed all at that motherly inn,'
I had a very fevered night, and was in a very fevered state next day.
Still, I felt my horse's back and the beautiful day to be my medicine,
and rode to Conway very slowly, having a good deal of headache.
There I found myself little better, and the inn being kept by a sur
geon, I was greatly tempted to take his advice. My spirits sank for
one half hour, and I had formed the serious resolution of turning into
the sick-room. But I remembered the words of the Lord upon my
journey, and ordered my horse, and having now not more than two
hours of good daylight, I rode with great speed, and, as it were, vio
lently. This I soon discovered to be my remedy ; for while the cool
air fanned the heat of my lungs and carried it off, the violent riding
brought out a gentle perspiration, until I came to the hotel at Aber
gele, where I gave myself with all my heart to cry to the Lord. I
drank copiously of tea, and had gruel, and bathed my feet, which God
so blessed that, when I awoke this morning, the feeling of all within
my breast was such that I exclaimed, ' Can it be that I am entirely
healed !' But I soon found that the Lord's hand is still upon me.
Yet am I sure that I received a very great deliverance that night.
To-day my headache has returned, with sickness. . . .
"This is for Maggie. At the mouth of the Conway was a weir
for catching fish, which belonged in very ancient times to the broth
er of the lord of these parts about Great Ormeshead. He had a son
pamed Elfin, whe had wasted all his substance, and wearied out his
father's goodness, and was brought to great straits. He begged, as
a last boon from his father, the weir for one night, thinking to catch
many fish. But in the morning there was not one, only there was a
basket, and a baby in it. He took the infant boy, and was careful of
his upbringing. This boy grew to be Taliesin, the prince of all the
British bards, who afterward lived to reconcile his patron with his
father. . . . God keep you all, my dear children, and make you more
and more abound to His glory." " Flint, 12th October.
"The service is in Welsh this forenoon, and so I am at my inn,
where indeed they have most tenderly treated me. It is English in
the evening, and, God willing, I will go up to His house. Now, my
dear, I write you again this day, though it will be the companion of
my last night's letter, to express my decided judgment that you
should not any longer be separated from me. My God is sufficient
for me, I know, and He hath been my sufficiency during these three
days and nights of the sharpest fiery trial, both of flesh and heart,
which I have ever proved. I believe that upon my saddle, and by
the strength of faith, I have fought against the most severe bilious
fever. How in the night seasons the Psalms have been my consola
tions against the faintings of flesh and heart ! And I believe God
hath guided me to do things which were the very means of dispelling
those fears and troubles. Last night I slept well from half past nine
till two, then I counted the hours as they chimed out from the clock
on the staircase ; and so I lay, parched with thirst and inward heat,
and yet chilly, my head full of pain, my heart of fainting, but my faith
steadfast. I felt that there was much of nervousness in it, and that

RENEWED ILLNESS. 553
by some strong act I must dissolve it. The foot-pan, with the water
that had been hot, but now was wintry cold (for last night was very
chill), stood by the bedside, and a little jug which had contained boil
ing water to keep up the temperature was standing by its side. It
was the breaking of the morning. I threw off flannels and stockings,
and stood with my feet in the cold water, and poured with the jug
the cold water from my shoulders downward .... and all at once
was a changed man, and had some winks of sleep.
" And again, when I had desired the maid to bring my breakfast
to me in bed, purposing to keep my bed all day, or some considera
ble part of it, it occurred to me that this also was yielding to the dis
ease, and I instantly arose, dressed myself, ate my breakfast — a mut
ton-chop, stale bread, and tea, and went out and walked for half an
hour by the sea-shore, breathing such health and sweetness from the
air of heaven.
" (Monday night, Liverpool, Mr. Tarbet's). The Lord hath made
vain the remedies of man. The last three days have been the days
and nights of sorest trial I ever had. . . . The fevered heat of my
hands and head in the night season, and the sleepless hours appoint
ed to me, are indeed a new thing in the history of my trouble. Yet
I am strong ; witness my riding this day twenty-four miles. Nor
have I any fears of myself; but I am strangely, strangely held, deep
ly afflicted. I felt myself shut up to the necessity of going direct
from Liverpool to Greenock by the steam-boat. I have written my
mother, and proposed going that way, but have put it off. God may
give me liberty as I return. Now I feel unable to take care of my
self, and my calm judgment is that you should be my nurse and com
panion. I write not these things to trouble you, but to put you in
possession of the truth. I will any way abide your answer here.
... I now think Maggie should not come. In great haste not to
lose the post, your faithful and loving husband, Edwd. Irving.
" Oh, how I have longed after you in heart and spirit."
"Liverpool, 13th October.
" My dearest Isabella, — .... Last night I had comparatively
good rest, and was able to keep down the fever and prevent the per
spiration by timeous sponging with vinegar and water. What it in
dicates I know not, but I have had to-day and last night a good deal
of those cold creepings upon the skin which Dr. Darling used to in
quire about. I think, before you leave London, you should let him
know these things. There is nothing I have kept back from you.
" Now, my dear, I have sought to serve God, and I do put my
trust in Him ; therefore I am not afraid. He hath sore chastised me,
but not given me over to death. I shall yet live and discover His
wonderful works. I have oft felt as if one of the ends of the Lord
in His visitation were to constrain me to send for you at this point
of my progress, and that another was to preclude me from farther
journeying on horseback into these parts of England and into Scot
land. At the same time, in your coming, if you see it your duty to
come, proceed tenderly and carefully in respect to yourself, coming
by such stages as you can bear. I hope you will find me greatly bet
ter under this quiet and hospitable roof.

554 IRVING JOINED BY HIS WIFE IN LIVERPOOL.
" Be of good courage, my dear wife, and bear thy trials, as thoU
hast ever done, with yet more and more patience and fortitude. It
will be well with the just man at the last. . . . Now farewell. The
blessing of God be upon you all.
" Your faithful and loving husband, Edwd. Irving."
Thus ended forever the correspondence between the husband
and wife. The history of that lingering journey, with its breezes
of health, its hopes of recovery, its pauses of refreshment among
the sweet Welsh valleys, where the parish priests of a national
church, more powerful but less absolute than his own, opened
wide their doors and their hearts to his presence and his coun
sels ; the bits of legend picked up for his little Maggie ; the silent
progress along mountain paths, all sanctified with prayer, where
"the Lord laid" such a one "on his heart;" the forlorn temerity
with which, fainting and fevered, he pushes on, no longer aware
of the landscape or of the people round him, brought down to
bare existence, hard enough ado to keep his frame erect on the
saddle, and to retain light enough to guide his way in those dim
med eyes ; the yearning that seizes upon him at last for the com
panion of his life, bursting out pathetically in that exclamation
which he puts down after his letter is finished, at the end, in an
irrepressible outcry — " Oh, how I have longed after you in heart
and spirit!" — all is clearer written in these letters than in any
thing that could be added to them. His wife obeyed his call at
once, and joined him in Liverpool. Again her sisters write to
each other, wringing their hands with a grief and impatience
which can scarcely express itself in words. " Isabella set off for
Liverpool on Thursday," says Mrs. Hamilton; "in her letter she
says she found Edward looking much worse than when he left
home, his strength considerably reduced, and his pulse 100. Not
withstanding this, they were, she said, to sail for Glasgow on Mon
day, and so proceed to the ultimate object which was in view in
Mr. Irving's leaving home — his going to Glasgow to organize a
Church there. Oh me ! it is sad, sad to think of his deliberately
sacrificing himself! Dr. Darling has decidedly said that he can
not, humanly speaking, live over the winter, unless he retire to a
milder climate and be entirely at rest. Yet at this inclement sea
son they proceed northward, and take that cold and boisterous
passage too, by way of making bad worse." No wonder those af
fectionate spectators were touched with the anger of grief in their
powerless anguish, finding it impossible to turn him for a moment

THEY SAIL FOR GLASGOW. 555
from the path to which he believed himself ordained, and com
pelled to look on and see him consummate all his sacrifices with
this offering of his life.
The weather was boisterous and stormy, but the dying apostle
— who was not an apostle, nor, amid all the gifts that surrounded
him, anyway gifted, except as God in nature and grace had en
dowed His faithful servant — did not depart from his purpose. He
went to Greenock, accompanied by his wife, whose heart was de
livered from all wifely and womanish terrors by undoubting con
fidence in that "word of the Lord" which had promised him a
great and successful mission in Scotland. At Greenock they
seem to have encountered Mrs. Stewart Ker, a lady of singular
piety, whom Irving valued highly, and whose remarkable letters,
though not published, are known . and prized by many good peo
ple. In one of these letters, dated October 25th, 1834, she thus
describes his changed appearance, and the manner in which he en
tered Glasgow :
"To human appearance he is sinking under a deep consumption.
His gigantic frame bears all the marks of age and weakness ; his tre
mendous voice is now often faltering, and when occasionally he breaks
forth with all his former feeling, one sees that his bodily powers are
exhausted. Add to all this the calm, chastened dignity of his expres
sion — his patient waiting upon God for the fulfillment of His pur
poses to himself and his flock through this affliction, and it is exceed
ingly edifying. ... I was going to Glasgow with them ; and just
before we left the house, he lifted up his hands in blessing, commend
ing them (the family under whose roof he was) to Jesus, and to the
reward f of His grace, for their kindness to him. I had a great deal
of conversation with him in the boat. ... In driving through the
crowded streets of Glasgow, he laid aside his hat and exclaimed,
'Blessed be the name of the Shepherd of Israel, who has brought us
to the end of our journey in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel
of peace !' and continued for some time praying."
It was thus, with uplifted hands, and words of thanksgiving
and blessing, that he entered Glasgow. He thought he had a
great work to accomplish in that centre of life, and wickedness,
and sorrow, and so he had ; but it was no longer to labor or bat
tle that God called His servant. He was not destined to descend
from the height of hope, which still trembled with the promised
lustre of " power from on high" to the chill land of shadows, and
disappointment, and deferred blessings that lay below. But it
was a surprise which his Master had prepared for him — a nearer
road to the glory and the perfection that he dreamed of— not to
work nor to fight, but to die.

556 IRVING'S LAST LETTER.
Here once more, and for the last time, Irving took the pen in
his trembling hand, and revealed. himself in the fast-closing twi
light of his life. He wrote two pastoral letters from Glasgow,
containing most pathetic acknowledgment of the sins by which
he and his Church had "let and hindered" the work of God — sins
which, if they, were any thing more special than that general un
belief, and slowness of heart with which every apostle has had to
upbraid his fellow-Christians, are lost in the mysterious records
of the Church, and unintelligible except to those who may be
thoroughly acquainted with all the details of its origin. His last
private letter, written only ten days before his death to his " dear
brother" William Hamilton, lies under no such obscuring haze,
but gives with sad and affecting simplicity a final glimpse of his
fainting flesh and trusting soul :
" You will be sorry to hear," he writes with the restrained utter
ance of weakness, " that I continue very weak. Indeed, the Lord has
now permitted me to be brought very low ; but my trust and confi
dence is in Him only, and not in any other, and when He sees fit He
will renew my strength. Oh, my brother, cleave you to Him ! He
is the only refuge. Isabella is in excellent health, and sustained un
der all her trials. Samuel was with us yesterday. He is quite well,
though much troubled for me, as I believe all my friends are."
These were the last words of private affection which dropped
from his feeble pen. Amid the friends who were all troubled
for him, he was the only one unmoved. He had not yet come to
the discussion of that last question, which, like all the rest, was to
be given against him, but still smiled with a heart-breaking con
fidence over the daily dying of his own wasted frame, waiting for
the wonderful moment when God should send back the vigorous
life-current to his forlorn and faithful heart.
The last scene of the history now approaches rapidly. For a
few weeks he is visible about Glasgow, now appearing against the
sunshine in a lonely street, his horse's hoofs echoing slowly along
the causeway, his gaunt gigantic figure rising feeble against the
light ; now in the room which his Glasgow disciples have found
to meet in — still preaching; recognizing one of Dr. Chalmers's
old " agency," who comes to see him after the service, and recall
ing, with the courtesy of the heart, to his wife, who has forgotten
the stranger, the familiar Kirkcaldy name he bears; walking
home after the worship is over, fain to lean upon the arm of the
elder who has come hastily from London to be near him, while
his wistful wife goes mournful by his side, carrying the stick

HIS CERTAINTY OF RECOVERY. 557
which is now an insufficient support to his feebleness — sometimes
pausing, as they thread the streets in this sad fashion, to take
breath and gather strength — a most sorrowful, pathetic picture.
The hearers were few in the Lyceum room in comparison with
former times ; but in the street, as he passed along, many a sad
glance followed him, and the people stood still, with compassion
ate looks, to point out to each other " the great Edward Irving."
His friend, Mr. Story, came hurriedly up from Rosneath to see
him, with hopes of persuading him thither, to that mild climate
and tranquil seclusion, but found he had gone down to Erskine,
on the opposite bank of the Clyde, to consult Dr. Stewart, the
physician-minister, with whom, in joyful youthful days, these two
had spent their Saturday holidays in the East Lothian manse.
Neither Dr. Stewart. nor any man could aid him now. He came
back to the house of the kind stranger and enthusiastic disciple
who had taken him in in Glasgow, and, nature refusing longer to
keep up that unreasonable conflict, lay down upon the bed from
which he was never to rise.
Dr. Rainy, who attended him, informed me of various particu
lars in these last days ; but, indeed, so touched with tears, after
nearly thirty years' interval, was even the physician's voice, and
so vivid the presentment of that noble, wasted figure, stretched in
utter weakness, but utter faith, waiting for the moment when God,
out of visible dying, should bring life and strength, that I can not
venture to record with any distinctness those heart-breaking de
tails. By times, when on the very verge of the grave, a caprice of
sudden strength seized the patient ; he sighed for " God's air" and
the outdoor freshness, which he thought would restore him. He
assured the compassionate spectator, whose skilled eyes saw the
golden chords of life melting asunder, how well he knew that he
was to all human appearance dying, yet how certainly he was con
vinced that God yet meant to raise him ; and again, and yet again,
commended " the work of the Holy Ghost" to all faith and rever
ence ; adding, with pathetic humility, that of these gifts he himself
had never been " found worthy." Never death-bed appealed with
more moving power to the heart. His mother and sister came to
see him, but I know nothing of the intercourse between that
sorrowful mother and the last and greatest of her sons. His life
long friends from Kirkcaldy were also there to watch by his bed,
to support the poor wife, whose faith gave way at last, and who
consented, with such pangs of natural love and disappointed faith

558 AT THE GATES OF HEAVEN.
as it would be hard to estimate, that the " word of the Lord" must
have had some other interpretation — that God had no purpose of
interposing, in visible power, for his deliverance, and that Edward
must die; and their home letters give the clearest picture of Ir
ving's last hours. With fluctuations of despairing hope, Dr. Mar
tin and his son wrote to the anxious sisters. Sometimes there
were better symptoms — gleams of appetite, alleviation of pain ;
but, throughout all, a burning fever, which nothing could subdue,
consumed away the fainting life. " Your mother and I are at Mr.
Taylor's," writes Dr. Martin on the 4th of December; "he is a
most devout believer in the reality of the gifts, of Mr. Irving's di
vine commission, etc., and has hardly ever faltered in his faith that
Edward is still to recover strength ; till this morning Isabella has
never had a doubt of it." This was on Thursday. As the week
waned, the frame which inclosed that spirit, now almost wholly ab
stracted with its God, died hourly. He grew delirious in those
solemn evenings, and " wandered" in his mind. Such wander
ing! "So long as his articulation continued so distinct that we
could make any thing of his words, it was of spiritual things he
spoke, praying for himself, his church, and his relations." Some
times he imagined himself back among his congregation in Lon
don, and in the hush of his death-chamber, amid its awe-stricken
attendants, the faltering voice rose in broken breathings of exhort
ation and prayer. " Sometimes he gave counsel to individuals ;
and Isabella, who knew something of the cases, could understand"
what he meant. Human language has no words but those which
are common to all mental weakness for such a divine abstraction
of the soul thus hovering at the gates of heaven. Once in this
wonderful monologue he was heard murmuring to himself sono
rous syllables of some unknown tongue. Listening to those mys
terious sounds, Dr. Martin found them to be the Hebrew measures
of the 23d Psalm — "The Lord is my Shepherd," into the latter
verses of which the dying voice swelled as the watcher took up
and echoed the wonderful strain — " Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." As the cur
rent of life grew feebler and feebler, a last debate seemed to rise in
that soul which was now hidden with God. They heard him mur
muring to himself in inarticulate argument, confusedly struggling
in his weakness to account for this visible death which at last his
human faculties could no longer refuse to believe in — perhaps
touched with ineffable trouble that his Master had seemed to fail

AMEN !— HE DIED AND WAS BURIED. 559
of His word and promise. At last that self-argument came to a
sublime conclusion in a trust more strong than life or death. As
the gloomy December Sunday sank into the night shadows, his
last audible words on earth fell from his pale lips. " The last
thing like a sentence we could make out was, ' If I die, I die unto
the Lord. Amen.' " And so, at the wintry midnight hour which
ended that last Sabbath on earth, the last bonds of mortal trouble
dropped asunder, and the saint and martyr entered into the rest of
his Lord.
Amen! He who had lived to God for so many hard and bit
ter years, enduring all the pangs of mortal trouble, in his Lord at
last, with a sigh of unspeakable disappointment and consolation,
contented himself to die. I know not how to add any thing more
to that last utterance, which rounds into a perfection beyond the
reach of art this sorrowful and splendid life. So far as sight or
sound could be had of him, to use his own touching words, he
had " a good voyage," though in the night and dark. And again
let us say, Amen !
They buried him in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral, like his
Master, in the grave of a stranger — the same man who had first
introduced him to London coming forward now to offer a last
resting-place to all that remained of Edward Irving. He was fol
lowed to that noble vault by all that was good and pious in Glas
gow, some of his close personal friends and many of his immedi
ate followers mingling in the train with the sober members of
Dr. Chalmers's agency, and " most of the clergy of the city," men
who disapproved his faith while living, but grudged him not now
the honor due to the holy dead. The great town itself thrilled
with an involuntary movement of sorrow. " Every other consid
eration," says the Scottish Guardian, a paper at all times doubly
orthodox, " was forgotten in the universal and profound sympathy
with which the information was received," and all voices uniting
to proclaim over him that divine consolatory verdict of the Spirit,
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." There he lies, in
such austere magnificence as Scotland has nowhere else preserved
to enshrine her saints, until his Lord shall come, t vindicate, better
than any human voice can do, the spotless name and honor of His
most faithful servant and soldier. So far as this volume presents
the man himself with his imperfections breaking tenderly into his
natural grandeur, always indivisible, and moving in a profound

560 A SAINT AND MARTYR.
unity of nature through such proof of all sorrows as falls to the lot
of few, I do not fear that his own words and ways are enough to
clear the holy and religious memory of Edward Irving of many
a cloud of misapprehension and censure of levity ; and so far as I
have helped this, I have done my task.
He died in the prime and bloom of his days, forty-two years
old, without, so far as his last writings leave any trace, either de
cadence of intellect or lowering of thought ; and left, so far as by
much inquiry I have been able to find out, neither an enemy nor
a wrong behind him. No shadow of unkindness obscures the
sunshine on that grave which in old days would have been a
shrine of pilgrims. The pious care of his nephew has emblazon
ed the narrow Norman lancet over him with a John Baptist, aus
tere herald of the Cross and Advent ; but a tenderer radiance of
human light than that which encircled the solitary out of his des
ert lingers about that resting-place. There lies a man who trust
ed God to extremity, and believed in all Divine communications
with truth as absolute as any patriarch or prophet; to whom
mean thoughts and unbelieving hearts were the only things mi
raculous and out of nature; who desired to know nothing in
heaven or earth, neither, comfort, nor peace, nor rest, nor any con
solation, but the will and work of his Master, whom he loved, yet
to whose arms children clung with instinctive trust, and to whose
heart no soul in trouble ever appealed in vain. He was laid in
his grave in the December of 1834 — a lifetime since ; but scarce'
any man who knew him can yet name, without a softened voice
and a dimmed eye, the name of Edward Irving — true friend and
tender heart — martyr and saint.

APPENDICES,

APPENDIX A.
Case of Miss Fancourt, as described by herself in a Letter to a Friend.
" Mt dear Christian Friend, — I received yours of the 22d on Friday last, and
take up my pen with pleasure to inform you of the particulars of the Lord's gracious
dealings with me ; in doing which, I can not refrain from saying, ' Oh, magnify the
Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together !' I transcribe you a copy of facts,
which, by the wish of my dearest father, I have written out for the perusal of our
Christian friends ; it is a plain detail of facts, from the commencement of my illness.
In the month of November, 1822. having for some months been in a bad state of
health, it pleased God to visit me with a hip disease. Perfect rest was recommended
by the late Mr. Pearson, of Golden Square, as absolutely necessary. , . . This was
the last application ; and in September, 1828, 1 returned home as unable to walk as
when leaving ; once or twice the attempt was made, but produced much pain. From
this time no means have been used excepting constant confinemejgt to the couch.
Within these few weeks, even on the very day in which Jesus so manifested His Al
mighty power, I had attempted to walk : scarcely could I put one foot before the
other ; the limbs trembled very much. Thus it continued till the 20th of October,
1830, when a kind friend, who had seen me about two months before, had been led
by God to pray earnestly for my recovery, remembering what is written, ' Whatso
ever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.' He asked in faith, and God
graciously answered his prayer. On Wednesday night, my friend being about to
leave the room, Mr. G. begged to be excused a short time. Sitting near me, we
talked of his relatives, and of the death of his brother ; rising, he said, they will ex
pect me at supper, and put out his hand.
"After asking some questions respecting the disease, he added, 'It is melancholy
to see a person so constantly confined.' I answered, ' It is sent in mercy.' ' Do you
think so? Do you think the same mercy could restore you?' God gave me faith,
and I answered, ' Yes.' ' Do you believe Jesus could heal, as in old times ?' ' Yes.'
'Do you believe it is only unbelief that prevents it?' 'Yes.' 'Do you believe that
Jesus could heal you at this very time?' 'Yes.' (Between these questions he was
evidently engaged in prayer.) 'Tken,' he added, 'get up and walk to your family.'
He then had hold of my hand. He prayed to God to glorify the name of Jesus. I
rose from my couch quite strong. God took away all my pains, and we walked down
stairs. Dear Mr. G. prayed most fervently, Lord, have mercy upon us ! Christ, have
mercy upon us ! Having been down a short time, finding my handkerchief left on
the couch, taking the candle, I fetched it. The next day I walked more than a
quarter of a mile, and on Sunday from the Episcopal Jews' Chapel, a distance of one
mile and a quarter. • Up to this time God continues to strengthen me, and I am per
fectly well. To Jesus be all the glory. It is material to add that my legs, the flesh
Of which was loose and flabby, feeling them in a short time after I walked down,
Nn

562 APPENDICES.
were firm as those of a person in full health. The back, which was curved, is now
perfectly straight. My collar-bones have been pronounced by a surgeon to be in quite
a natural state, whereas one of them was before much enlarged. I must tell you that
my mind had not been at all occupied with those events which had taken place in
Scotland ; indeed, all I had heard concerning them was that a young person had
been restored in answer to prayer ; this was perhaps five or six months back. I had
heard of nothing since, and can with truth say, my mind had never been led to the
contemplation of such subjects. I had not the least idea that my dear friend was
offering up prayer in my behalf, for he did not say so till after the mighty work was
wrought ; he then said, ' This was my errand ; for this I have been earnestly pray
ing ; and with all humility gave the glory to Jesus, to whom be all might, majesty,
and dominion.' Elizabeth Fancourt."

appendix: b.
The following Extracts from Mr. Baxter's "Narrative of Facts" will throw full light
upon the condition of the Regent Square Church, and of many devout persons in all
parts of the country, in respect to the so-called miraculous gifts.
" For the sake of those whom I may have hardened or betrayed into a false faith
is it that I feel called upon to publish my own shame, and confess before all my
transgressions. My God, who in His love pardons, has heard, I trust, in secret, and
gladly would I rest in the obscurity of my private station without challenging public
attention at all? The snare in which I was taken has, however, entangled so many
others, and the busy tongues of partisans and tattlers are so much excusing and mis
stating the facts which have developed its character, that I am constrained to give a
faithful narrative, at the expense of my own feelings, in the hope that God may open
the eyes of the understanding of all who are seeking His truth, and deliver them from
the net of the fowler. In the detail I am about to enter into, I may lay myself open
to the charge of egotism. . . . Another charge I must underlie which is far more
painful to me. The narrative will necessarily involve the conduct of many who have,
like myself, though more excusably, been deceived. The regard I bear them as sin
cere, though deluded followers after truth ; the debt I owe them, as well for the af
fectionate kindness evinced toward myself, as also for the wounds I have inflicted or
exercised on them, by confirming them in delusion ; and, moreover, the longing I
have that they might be brought to the knowledge of the truth (for, as the apostle
said of the Israelites, so may I humbly say of them : I bear them record that they have
a zeal of God but not according to knowledge) : all these increase greatly my desire to
say nothing which may in any way wound their feelings. It may be they may con
sider much of this narrative as disclosing occurrences and opinions which, passing in
private, in family worship, and social intercourse, ought to be treated as confidential ;
and thus I may be charged with blazoning to the public eye that which came before
me in the confidence of friendly intercourse, and with betraying the confidence of
friends. Of such a breach of confidence I trust I may, in no case, be guilty. It is
simply my wish to show forth the workings of that spirit which challenges, and for
which is claimed, the glorious name of the Holy Spirit of Jehovah. . . .
" Some months before writing the Layman's Appeal, I had heard many particulars
of the extraordinary manifestations which had occurred at Port Glasgow, in Scot
land. . . . Conceiving as I did, and still do, that there is no warrant in Scripture
for limiting the manifestations of the Spirit to the apostolic times — and deeply sensi-

APPENDIX B. 563
ble of the growth of infidelity in the face of the Church, and of the prevalence of
formality and lakewarmness within it — I was ready to examine the claims to inspira
tion, and even anxious for the presence of the gifts of the Spirit, according, as it
seemed to me, to that apostolic command, Covet earnestly the best gifts. I longed
greatly and prayed much for such an outpouring. When I saw, as it seemed to me>
proof that those who claimed the gifts were walking honestly, and that the power
manifested in them was evidently supernatural, and, moreover, bore testimony to
Christ come in the flesh, I welcomed it at once as the work of God.
" I should mention that I had for twelve months previously to this been in the
almost daily habit of reading to and teaching the poor in the parish where I reside,
and had found much strength and comfort to myself; and I have reason to believe it
was also accompanied with profit to those who heard it. I had carefully avoided
any assumption of the ministerial office ; so much so that (though I do not now think
the scruple well-founded) I had refrained from praying with the people when gather
ed together, conceiving the privilege of leading in public prayer belonged alone to
the ordained ministers. At this period I was, by professional arrangements, called
up to London, and had a strong desire to attend at the prayer-meetings which were
then privately held by those who spoke in the power and those who sought for the
gifts. Having obtained an introduction, I attended ; my mind fully convinced that
the power was of God, and prepared, as such, to listen to the utterances. After one
or two brethren had read and prayed, Mr. T  was made to speak two or three
words very distinctly, and with an energy and depth of tone which seemed to me ex
traordinary, and fell upon me as a supernatural utterance, which I ascribed to the
power of God. The words were in a tongue I did not understand. In a few minutes
Miss E. C. broke out in an utterance in English, which, as to matter and manner,
and the influence it had upon me, I at once bowed to as the utterance of the Spirit
of God. Those who have heard the powerful and commanding utterance need no
description ; but they who have not may conceive what an unnatural and unaccus
tomed tone of voice, an intense and riveting power of expression — with the declara
tion of a cutting rebuke to all who were present, and applicable to my own state of
mind in particular — would effect upon me and upon the others who were come to
gether expecting to hear the voice of the Spirit of God. In the midst of the feeling
of awe and reverence which this produced, I was myself seized upon by the power ;
and in much struggling against it was made to cry out, and myself to give forth a
confession of my own sin in the matter for which we were rebuked : and afterward
to utter a prophecy that the messengers of the Lord should go forth, publishing to
the end of the earth, in the mighty power of God, the testimony of the near coming
of the Lord Jesus. The rebuke had been for not declaring the near coming of Je
sus, and I was smitten in conscience, having many times refrained from speaking of
it to the people, under a fear that they might stumble over it and be offended.
" I was overwhelmed by this occurrence. The attainment of the gift of prophecy
which this supernatural utterance was deemed to be, was, with myself and many
others, a great object of desire. I could not, therefore, but rejoice at having been
made the subject of it ; but there were so many difficulties attaching to the circum
stances under which the power came upon me, and I was so anxious and distressed
lest I should mistake the mind of God in the matter, that I continued for many weeks
weighed down in spirit and overwhelmed. There was in me at the time of the ut
terance very great excitement, and yet I was distinctly conscious of a power acting
upon me beyond the mere power of excitement. So distinct was this power from
the excitement, that in all my trouble and doubt about it I never could attribute the
whole to excitement. ... I regarded the confession which was wrung from me to

564 APPENDICES.
be the same thing as is spoken of in 1 Cor., xiv., where it is said, 'If all prophesy,
and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he
is judged of all ; and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest ; and so, falling
down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.' It
seemed so with me ; I was unlearned ; the secret of my heart was made manifest ;
and I was made, by a power unlike any thing I had ever known before, to fall down
and acknowledge that God was among them of a truth.
"The day following this occurrence I devoted to fasting and prayer, to beseech
God to open to me His mind in the matter, that I might not stumble in the way. In
the midst of my prayer, the promise in Matt., iv., 5 — ' Behold, I will send you Elijah
the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord ; and he
shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to
their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse' — coupled with the dec
larations concerning John the Baptist, particularly that in Luke, i., 17, 'He shall
go before him in the spirit and power of Elias' — was brought before me, and it was
written upon my mind by a power wholly new to me. ' The Lord is now pouring
out upon the Church the spirit and power of Elias, to prepare for the second com
ing of Jesus.' This view was altogether new to me. ... I staid but few days in
town, though I had much communication with those who attended upon the utter
ances. No utterance had then been allowed in the public congregation, but the
meetings were strictly private. I argued upon the impropriety of shutting up the
manifestations, and strongly urged the offense which, by such a course, was given to
inquirers, who would be ready to infer that they would not bear the light. . . . The
word spoken seemed to be the Gospel of Christ, and the effect upon the hearers a
prostration of pride, and a devotedness and apparent patient waiting upon God. . . .
"From this period, for the space of five months, I had no utterances in public;
though, when engaged alone in private prayer, the power would come down upon
me, and cause me to pray with strong crying and tears for the state of the Church.
... In the utterances of the power which subsequently occurred, many were ac
companied with the flashing in of conviction on the mind, like lightning rooting it
self in the earth ; while other utterances, not being so accompanied, only acted in
the way of an authoritative communication.
"In January, 1832, occasion was given me, by a professional call to London, to
visit the brethren there. . . . For nine months previously it had been the arrange
ment of Mr. Irving, the pastor of that church, to have prayer-meetings every morn
ing at half past six, to pray for the Church and for the gifts of the Spirit. ... No
commentary upon the Scriptures was given, but it was simply read over, and follow
ed by prayer. In these meetings I had, on one or two occasions, been called upon
by the pastor, and had read or prayed before the congregation. On the morning fol
lowing the day of my arrival, I was called upon again, and opening upon the Proph
et Malachi, I read the 4th chapter ; as I read, the power came upon me, and I was
made to read in the power— my voice raised far beyond its natural pitch, with con
strained repetition of parts, and with the same inward uplifting which, at the pres
ence of the power, I had always before experienced. When I knelt down to pray, I
was carried out to pray in the power, for the presence and blessing of God in the
midst of the Church : in all this I had great joy and peace, without any of the strug
gling which had attended my former utterances in power.
"Having been asked to spend the evening at a friend's with the pastor, one of the
gifted persons (Mrs. J. C), and three or four others, I went; and while discoursing
on the state of the Church, some matter of controversy arose, on which I requested
the pastor to pray that we might be led into truth. After prayer, Mrs. J. C. was

APPENDIX B. 565
made to testify that now was the time of the great struggle and power of Satan in
the midst of us. . . . The pastor observed that this utterance taught us our duty, as
standing in the Church, to muster against the enemy ; and while he was going on
to ask more questions, the power fell upon me, and I was made to speak ; and for
two hours or upward the power continued upon me ; and I gave forth what we all
regarded as prophecies concerning the Church and the nation. . . . The power which
then rested upon me was far more mighty than before, laying down my mind and
body in perfect obedience, and carrying me oh without confusion or excitement ; ex
citement there might appear to a by-stander, but to myself it was calmness and peace.
Every former visitation of the power had been very brief; but now it continued, and
seemed to rest upon me all the evening. The things I was made to utter flashed in
upon my mind without forethought, without expectation, and without any plan or
arrangement — all was the work of the moment, and I was as the passive instrument
of the power which used me.
"In the beginning of my utterances that evening, some observations were, in the
power, addressed by me to the pastor, in a commanding tone ; and the manner and
course of utterance manifested in me was so far differing from those which had been
manifested in the members of his own flock, that he was much startled, and in the
first part of the evening doubted whether it was of God or of the enemy. ... He
came up to me and said, 'Faith is very hard.' I was immediately made to address
him, and reason with him in the power, until he was fully convinced the Spirit was
of God, and gave thanks for the manifestation of it. . . .
"While the people were departing, Mr. Irving called me, with Mr. Brown, his mis
sionary, into another room, and said he was in some trouble as to what he should do
on the morrow, which was Sunday, whether to allow me to speak in the full congre
gation ; he had found doubts creep over him during the evening, though he scarcely
dared to doubt. Mr. Brown's advice, without any deep consideration of the subject,
was, 'Don't do it while you have a doubt.' To this Mr. Irving assented, but turned to
me, and asked what I thought. Of course, under the conviction which I had, I said he
must not forbid it. Afterward the power came on me, rebuking him, and reasoning
with him until he sat down, and said he was greatly tried, and did not know what to
do. I then told him to consult the prophets who were with him ; and immediately
the power came upon Miss H., who was wholly a stranger to me, but then received
as a prophetess among them ; and she was made to bear testimony that the work in
me was of God, and he must not forbid my speaking. This satisfied him, and he
yielded at once. The next day, after the morning prayer-meeting, Miss E. C, at the
pastor's house, was made to give forth an utterance, enjoining upon all deference and
respect to the Lord's prophets ; which served, though she was not aware of what had
passed on the preceding evening, to confirm him in that which I had been made to
say to him. I was afterward in the power, in the most fearful terms, made to enjoin
the most perfect submission to the utterances. . . . This was so strongly put, that
Mr. Irving, on a future occasion, observed to me, he felt tempted to doubt whether
the Spirit, bearing testimony in such a manner to itself, was God's method of teach
ing us submission. ... At the public services of the Scotch Church on this day, no
utterance was given me ; but in the intervals of service, while sitting with Mr. Irving
and one or two friends, the power Was so abundant upon me, that almost every ques
tion which was asked was answered in the power ; and the wisdom and instruction
which was given forth from my lips was as astonishing to Mr. Irving as to myself.
We all felt as though the Lord was indeed resolving our doubts, and graciously con
descending, by His Spirit, to teach us by open voice. Mr. Irving seemed most fully
confirmed in the belief, and I was myself exceedingly composed and strengthened.

566 APPENDICES.
"On the morrow began a more trying and bitterly painful occurrence. The re
bukes which I was made to give to Mr. Irving, for want of ready and implicit obedi
ence to the utterance of the power, whatever might have been their effect upon him,
had entered deeply into my own mind. After breakfast, when sitting with Mr. Ir
ving, Mr. P., and a few others, Mr. Irving remarked that Mr. T., when in the Court
of Chancery, had found the power mightily upon him, but never a distinct impulse
to utterance. While he was speaking on it, I was made in power to declare, ' There
go I, and thence to the prison-house.' This was followed by a prophecy setting forth
the darkness of the visible Church, referring to the king as the head of the Church
of England, and to the chancellor as the keeper of the conscience of the king ; that
a testimony should that day be borne before him which should make the nation trem
ble at what was coming to pass ; that I was to go and bear this testimony, and for
this testimony should be cast into prison ; that the abomination of desolation would
be set up in the land, and Satan sit in the high places of the Church, showing him
self to be God ; that the world had now the possession of the visible Church, but for
the purity of the doctrine of the Church of England, she, as the last portion of the
visible Church, had been anointed holy by the Lord ; but she had gone on in world
ly cares, and was now so provoking the Lord, and by worldly-mindedness so quench
ing the Spirit of God, that God had cast her off; that it was necessary a spiritual
minister should bear testimony before the conscience-keeper of the head of this
Church, and then the abomination of desolation would be set up, and every man
must flee to the mountains. Much was added of the judgments of God in the midst
of the land : the power upon me was overwhelming ; I gave all present a solemn
benediction, as though I was departing altogether from among them ; and forbidding
Mr. Irving, who rose to speak to me as I was going, I went out under the constraint
of the power, and shaped my way to the court of the chancellor, to bear the testimo
ny to which I was commanded.
"As I went on toward the court, the sufferings and trials I underwent were almost
beyond endurance. Might it not be a delusion ? Ought I not to consider my own
character in the sight of the world, which would be forfeited by such an act ? and
the ruin of all worldly prospects, which would ensue from it, and from my imprison
ment ? These, and a thousand more subtle and trying suggestions, were cast upon
me ; but, confident that the power speaking in me was of God, it seemed my duty to
obey at any sacrifice ; and, without counting the cost, I gave myself up to God, to do
with me and use me as He should see fit. In this mind I went on, expecting, as I
entered the court of the chancellor, the power would come upon me, and I should be
made to bear testimony before him. I knew not what I was to say, but supposed
that, as on all other occasions, the subject and utterance would be together given.
When I entered, no power came on. I stood in the court before the chancellor for
three or four hours, momentarily expecting the power to come upon me ; and as the
time lengthened, more and more perplexed at its absence. I was tempted to speak
in my own strength, without the power ; but I judged this could not be faithful to
the word of John, as my testimony would not have been in the Spirit. After wait
ing this time, I came out of court, convinced that there was nothing for me to say.
"The mental conflict was most painful. I left the court under the conviction I
had been deluded. If I was deluded, how was it with the others who spoke in the
power, one of whom had borne direct testimony to my utterance being of Goo), and
the others of whom had received me, and heard me, and spoken in power with me,
as one of them? Here, however, I failed; I adjudged myself deceived, but I had
not sufficient proof, as I thought, to sit in judgment upon them. I thought I had
stumbled, but I dared not condemn them. I went at once to Mr. Irving, who, anx-

APPENDIX B. 567
ious as to the issue of my mission, welcomed me as delivered from prison. I said to
him, 'We are snared— we are deceived; I had no message before the chancellor.'
He inquired particulars, but could give no solution. He said, ' We must wait. You
certainly have received the gift, and the gift and calling of God are without repent
ance.' We set ourselves to search whether in any thing I had mistaken the direc
tions of the power, but could not discover it. I observed to him, ' If the work in me
is of the enemy, what will you say of the rest, who have so joined me, and borne wit
ness of me?' 'True,' said he; 'but theirs has been tried in every way.' . . .
Deeply was I troubled and perplexed, and much was I humbled before God.. . . .
In the morning I attended the prayer-meeting, though so much burdened as not to
be able to lift up my heart among them. An utterance came from Miss E. C. 'It
is discernment ye lack — seek ye for it.' ... I believe she knew nothing of the issue
of the visit to the chancellor ; but, be that as it may, the message impressed me as
though it applied to my case, and I was led to think want of discernment would be
found to have occasioned my stumbling. . . . The power came upon me, and I was
made to say, ' The word of the Lord is as fire ; and if ye, oh vessel ! who speak, re
fuse to speak the word, ye shall utterly perish ! Ye have obeyed the word of the
Lord — ye went to the place of testimony — the Spirit was quenched before the con
science .of the king — ye, a spiritual minister, have borne witness there — and were ye
not cast into prison? Has not the dark dungeon been your prison-house since ye
came from the place of testimony ? Ye lack discernment ; ye must read the word
spiritually.' . . . This acted like electricity. I thought, and those who had heard
the message of the former morning thought with me, that read spiritually, in which
way I ought to have read it, the message concerning the chancellor had been fulfilled
by my silent testimony, and my subsequent darkness and bondage. My satisfaction
was complete. . . .
"In the course of the same day, and the day following, a prophecy was given to
me that <Jod had cut short the present appointment for ordaining ministers by the
laying on of hands by succession from the apostles ; that God would not henceforth
recognize such ordinations. . . . As I journeyed on the coach, the power came upon
me in the form of a revelation, conveying to me that God had set me apart for a
special purpose toward His Church, for which He would commission and endow me ;
that for this purpose I should be taken away from my wife and family, and become
as a wanderer, without home or habitation. . . . The conclusion I gathered from it
was, that I should never see my wife and children again, supposing the Lord's will
to be such as seemed to be revealed to me. . . . Soon after this the power came
upon me, and I was made sensible something was about to be declared concerning
the king. . . . When the utterance burst forth, it was a declaration that the Lord
had given the king to the prayer of the queen and of the Church, and his heart
should be turned wholly to the Lord. . . . That I was to. stand before the queen, to
bear the Lord's testimony to her, and she would bring it in before the king. I then
inquired of the Lord who should open the way to the queen — whether a servant who
had been named should do it ? The answer given to me from the power was, to take
heed to the question, and to go forth now upon this mission ; to return to the brethren
I had left, and the Lord would declare it in due time. There was given also a mys
terious allusion to the three children of Israel in the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnez
zar ; and an intimation that, before the king's presence was attained, I should have
to pass through the fiery trial to the utmost. Family prayer following, I was directed
to the psalm, The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord ; and as I read it I was made
to chant it in the power.
"I returned the same day to town, and the next morning joined the prayer-

568 APPENDICES.
meeting at the Scotch Church. . . . When we were separating, Mr. P  came to
me to ask me to take up my abode with him. I mentioned to him what had been
revealed and confirmed to me concerning my being set apart wholly to the Lord's
work ; and I added, I had a little, professional business in London, which I must
break off, and then I looked for the Lord's direction as to my future course. When
I had said this, I perceived the power to rest upon Miss E. C., and to be moving to
the utterance of something which she was distressed or troubled about. I turned
round and said, ' Speak.' She said, in power, ' Will you hear ?' I answered, ' If the
Lord give me grace, I will.' She went on in utterance : 'Did ye feel the touch of
the enemy? Did ye mark his deceit? Watch, for the enemy lieth in wait;' and
continued in a strain of warning ; and passing from that into a declaration that great
revelations should be given to me, concluded in an encouraging tone. I gathered
from this there was something in which I needed to be warned, but I could not un
derstand what in particular it applied to.
"Bearing on my mind the prophecy concerning the king and queen, I asked Mr.
Irving, Mr. P  , and Miss E. C, to go apart with me, detailed to them the partic
ulars, and in conclusion sought of the Lord farther direction. The power came on
Miss E. C. with the answer, 'It is not yet, it is not yet. It shall be a plain way.
The way shall be very plain.' From this we gathered we must not at present look
for the fulfillment. Mr. Irving then asked me the particulars of the revelation and
messages separating me from my family and setting me apart. I gave all particu
lars, which, though he was before startled, seemed to give him full satisfaction ; and
after a few observations he came up to me and said, ' Well, dear brother, be not
puffed up with the abundance of revelations.' I was then most grievously weighed
down in spirit, without knowing fully the cause. On Iris observing it and asking the
reason, I said, ' I know not what it is ; I am overwhelmed ; I have yet to break my
connection with my professional engagements here, and it seems as though Satan
would not suffer me.' Immediately the power in Miss E. C. cried out,' 'To the
word! to the written word!' with peculiar emphasis upon 'written.' This was re
peated several times, to my great confusion. Mr. Irving then said, 'A passage is
brought to my mind, whether the suggestion of it is from below or from above, as
applying it to this case, I can not tell: If any man provide not for his own, he hath
denied the faith.' Miss E. C. in the power said, 'That is it;' and went on to speak
of the great stumbling-blocks which were cast before the people, and of the woeful
effects of stumbling and offenses. Mr. Irving then added, ' It seems strange to me
you should leave your wife ;' and immediately a response in power from Miss E. C.
followed : 'Ye must not leave her.' If a thunderbolt had burst at my feet it would
not have created half the pain and agonizing confusion which these utterances cast
upon me. The impression rushed on me like a flood. ' The revelation must then
have been of Satan. ' . . . This was the agonizing suggestion of a moment. I reel
ed under the weight of it. I paused a little, and under the revulsion of feeling which
always succeeds any violent excitement, I was ready to say, 'It is impossible.' I
fell on my knees and cried aloud to God — 'O Lord, Thou kriowest that in honesty
of heart Thy servant hath performed what has been done ; show now whether Thou
meanest that he has altogether stumbled and been deceived, or whether it is that,
though true, it will be a stumbling-block to others.' Racked with the most fierce
mental conflict, I endeavored to lift up my soul in patient waiting upon God, and in
a little time I seemed to have light upon the subject, which spoke peace in a measure
to me. It was that the messages and revelations were of God, but that I had mis
taken them in supposing they called for my immediate cessation from all worldly
labor ; that the time of my so ceasing was not yet, and the time of my leaving my

APPENDIX B.

569

family was not yet ; and that the reproof had been sent me to correct my haste and
rashness in rushing upon their immediate fulfillment.
"At breakfast at Mr. Irving's, the closing scene of my unhappy ministrations
among them was no less remarkable than mysterious. Very great utterance had,
for several mornings, been given me at family prayers there, aud particularly beauti
ful and comforting expositions of Scripture were given from the power. This morn
ing a clergyman was present. He was talking to Mr. Irving, but I did not hear his
observations. Presently the sister of Miss E. C, who sat by me, said, ' That gentle
man is grieving the Spirit.' I looked, and saw a frown resting on Miss E. C, and
presently she spoke in rebuke ; but I did not gather more from it than that the cler
gyman had been advancing something erroneous. Mr. Irving then began, as usual,
to read a chapter, to which I had been made in power to direct him ; but instead of
my expounding, as before, the power resting upon me revealed there were those in
the room who must depart. Utterance came from me that we were assembled at a
holy ordinance, to partake of the body and blood of Christ, and it behooved all to
examine themselves, that they might not partake unworthily. None going out, I was
made again and again still more peremptorily to warn, until the clergyman in ques
tion, and an aged man, a stranger, had gone out, when Mr. Irving proceeded in read
ing the chapter, I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath ; and I
was made to expound, as usual, with great setting forth of God's love in the midst
of the trials of His people, and with great promises of blessing. It was greatly to
my own comfort, and I believe also to that of others. I then prayed in the power ;
and when all was concluded, I was made in power to declare to Mr. Irving that he
had seen in this an example of the ministration of the Supper of the Lord, as he had
before seen the example of baptism ; that he must preach and declare them to his
flock, for speedily would the Lord bring them forth ; that the opening of the Word
was the bread, and the indwelling and renewing presence of the Spirit the wine— the
body and blood of our Lord ; and the discourse of spirits would not permit the unbe
lievers to mingle with the faithful, but they would be driven out, as he had seen.
Then in power I was made to warn all of the snares of the enemy, and concluded
with the remarkable words, ' Be not ye like Peter. I will smite the shepherd, and the
sheep shall be scattered. ' . . . had not any previous idea that on this morning the
ministrations of the Lord's Supper would be given, nor had I, until this was set be
fore me, any conception what its spiritual ministration would be. . . .
"I returned to the country deeply depressed, though quite unshaken in my faith
of the work. . . . Then followed in the power a most emphatic declaration, that on
the day after the morrow we should both be baptized with fire .... that had the
Church in London manifested greater love, this baptism and power would have been
given then ; but now it should be given her ; and on the day named we should re
ceive it, and thenceforward would the work proceed in swiftness, and not again tar
ry. .. . We were overjoyed with these communications, and in fullness of hope and
confidence awaited the day of fulfillment. The interval was filled up by very pow
erful and frequent utterances in interpretation of Scripture and in confirmation of the
work. The day named arrived, and in the evening an utterance from the power,
1 Kneel down and receive the baptism of fire.' We knelt down, lifting up prayer to
God continually. Nothing, however, ensued. Again and agqjn we knelt, and again
and again we prayed, but still no fulfillment. Surprising as it may seem, my faith
was not shaken ; but day by day, for a long time, we continued in prayer and sup
plication, continually expecting the baptism. My wife gradually concluded the whole
must be delusion, and ceased to follow it. For six weeks, however, I continued un
shaken to ask after it, but found it not. . . .

570 APPENDICES.
"Being anxious to communicate with Mr. Irving, I traveled on to. London, and
reached him on the morning of his appearance before the presbyters of London.
Calling him and Mr. J. C. apart, I told them my conviction that we had all been
speaking by a lying spirit, and not by the Spirit of the Lord."
The above quotations are chosen as throwing light upon the little body of prophets
and gifted persons surrounding Irving, rather than as tracing the extraordinary ca
reer of Mr. Baxter himself, who, in the intervals of these scenes, gives pages of direct
prophecy and large expositions of Scripture, all of which were revealed to him in
"the power," showing himself to have been much the most active and urgent of the
band, always thrusting matters to extremes. The manner in which he came to him
self, by discovering error in Irving's doctrine respecting the person of our Lord, in
regard to which ' ' an utterance in power broke from me, ' He has erred, he has
erred,' " is, like the prophecies, too lengthy for quotation.

APPENDED C.
Speeches of Irving before the Presbytery of London, March, 1832.
On Wednesday morning, at the meeting of the court, pursuant to adjournment,
Mr. Irving commenced his defense as follows :
"The four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, have one after another
recorded it for our learning, that the forerunner and messenger whom God chose and
sealed from his mother's womb, yea, and gave to his parents for that very end, John
the Baptist, who came forth from the wilderness of Judea to proclaim and herald the
coming of the Son of God, did it in these words :
" 'There cometh One mightier than I after me, the latchel of whose shoes I am
not worthy to stoop down and unloose : I, indeed, have baptized you with water, but
he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. ' Of such consequence did the eternal God,
in whose presence we stand, deem it that the Son of God should be known by the
name of Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, that He did send forth His messenger before
His face, greater than any of the prophets, with no other message but to announce
him by this name, 'He it is who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.' And when our
Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, had arisen from the dead, and had appeared among
His disciples, and had spoken to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God,
He opened their understandings that they should understand the Scriptures, but told
them to wait in Jerusalem, and expect the promise of the Father, for that not many
days hence they should be baptized by the Holy Ghost. He also considered His of
fice of Baptizer with the Holy Ghost to be so essential a part of His dignity and of
His name, that He forbade His disciples who had traveled with Him, who had been
instructed by Him, whose weakness He had borne with, and whose hearts He had
purified by His words, to proceed forth from Jerusalem without that baptism ; and
it is for the name of Christ, as the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, that I am this day
called in question. It is for that name, which God deemed so sacred and important
as to give it to the Baptist to proclaim, ana* which the Son of God deemed so im
portant that He would not suffer His disciples to go forth and preach till they had
received the substance of that baptism ; it is for that name, even for the name of Je
sus, the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, that I now stand here before you, sir, and be
fore this court, and before all this people, and am called in question this day. It
hath pleased Him, of His great grace, in answer to the prayers of His people, acting

APPENDIX C. 571
faith on the name of Jesus, crying mightily to Him day and night, that He would
fulfill His faithfulness to thafname — it hath pleased Him to give to some of us, in
my church, this baptism, with its sign of speaking in unknown tongues, and with its
substance of prophesying ; and I, as His dutiful minister, standing in this room, re
sponsible (as ye all are) to Him, have not dared to believe that, when we prayed to
God for bread, He would give us a stone ; that when we asked for a fish, He would
send us a serpent ; but believing that He is faithful who has promised, and trying
the thing given by test of the Holy Scriptures, and the testimony of God in my own
conscience, and in that of His people, and having thus been satisfied of the truth
of the manifestations, I have not dared to put it to silence, as being the thing wit
nessed in the Holy Scriptures ; and have ordered it, as I can show, in nothing con
trary to the standards of the Church. Yet, because I would not put my hand on it
to suppress the voice of the Spirit against the conscience, both of myself and also of
most of my people, against my sense of duty, against the Word of God, against the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ — because I would "not suppress this at once with a
high hand — for these reasons am I called in question before you.
"This is a matter of high import; this is a matter of great concernment. May
the Lord give me grace to open it in order ; may the Lord also give me strength to
sustain the burden of so great a, cause ; and may the Lord give me wisdom in my
words, that I may utter nothing which may be a stumbling-block to the least of these
little ones ; that I may give no offense — no needless offense — to any of His enemies ;
but that I may order my discourse in the same manner as my Lord would have done,
standing in my room. Yea, do thou, Lord Jesus, speak through thy servant, and en
able him to set forth the very truth of God.
"That I may lay this case rightly before this court, and in order, this method pre
sents itself to my mind :
"First, As I am to justify the thing which I have done, it is needful to show the
grounds on which I did it ; and to show the grounds on which I did it, it is needful
to show the thing in the Word of God, which I believe God has given us. This is
the first thing I must do ; for even the heathen could say ' that the song and the dis
course should begin from God.' Next, It is needful that I show you that the thing
which we have received is the very thing contained in the Word of God, and held
out to the hope and expectation of the Church of God — yea, of every baptized man.
Thirdly, That I show you how I have ordered it, as the minister of the Church ; and
show also that the way in which I have ordered it is according to the Word of God,
and in nothing contradictory to the standards of the Church of Scotland. Fourth
ly, To speak a little concerning the use of the gifts. And, finally, To show how we
stand as parties, and how the case stands before this court ; and then I shall leave it
to the judgment of you, and of all here present.
"I read it in the Gospels — and it is in all the four Gospels — that John the Baptist
spoke the following words : ' I, indeed, baptize you with water unto repentance ; but
He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear ;
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Now, in the beginning of
the Acts of the Apostles, I find it thus written : 'And being assembled together with
them, He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait
for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of me ; for John truly
baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days
hence.' We have here this message from God by the mouth of the Baptist, that
Jesus was He who should baptize with the Holy Ghost ; that that was the end of His
coming ; and we have here also the declaration from the mouth of Jesus Himself,
after His resurrection, that He had not done that in the days of His flesh, neither

572 ' APPENDICES.
between His resurrection and ascension, but that He was to do it not many days
hence, when He was ascended into glory. The baptism of the Holy Ghost, there
fore, is a thing which was not by Jesus in His ministry while on earth accomplished,
nor by His teaching while on earth accomplished ; but it was accomplished when He
had ascended up on high, not many days thereafter. On the day of Pentecost, as
we see in the second of Acts, was it accomplished ; and here is the description of it :
'And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in
one place. And suddenly there came a, sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty
wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto
them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them ; and they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
them utterance.' Here is the baptism with the Holy Ghost which Jesus promised
to them when He should go to the Father ; and the way in which it was manifested
was the speaking with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
" Now Peter, when preaching on that occasion to the people, said to them these
words : ' Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of
the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost ;' that is, what he directed their attention
to when he said, ' Wait for the promise of the Father, and ye shall be baptized with
the Holy Ghost;' being, he says, 'by the right hand of God exalted, and having re
ceived this promise, He hath shed forth this that ye now see'- in these men ' and hear'
in these men, speaking with other tongues, and magnifying God.
"The effect of this discourse on the people is thus described : 'Now, when they
heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of
the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do ?' Peter having said to them that
Jesus, who had just ascended to the Father, had now shed down the gift of the Holy
Ghost on His Church, which ye now see and hear, says to all people, ' Repent and be
baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost ;' the same thing He had
been discoursing of, and to which their attention had been drawn by the outpouring
of the Spirit, and speaking in the midst of them. And if ye were in like manner
exercised, when ye hear in the Church, speaking with tongues and magnifying God —
and ye never hear them do any thing else in my Church than speaking with tongues
and magnifying God — ye would hear the word of truth saying to yourselves, ' Repent
and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
gifts of the Holy Ghost.' We have all been baptized, and it is our privilege to be
baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire ; otherwise Peter held out a false mes
sage, and preached a false Gospel, and connected a false benefit with baptism ; for
he promised it distinctly to all. If Christian baptism be that which Peter on the
day of Pentecost set forth, preached, and ministered, every baptized person is privi
leged to expect, and ought to possess, and, through faith, shall receive, the gift of the
Holy Ghost ; ' for the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all ;' not to this
generation only, but to another, and another, and another ; for, it is added, ' to them
that are afar off,' Gentiles as well as Jews; Jews at hand, Gentiles afar off; yea,
'even to as many,' without exception, 'as the Lord our God shall call.' Ye are
called ; ye are called by the ministry of the Gospel. We are all called ; we are all
baptized with the baptism which Peter preached ; for there is no other. Jesus had
commanded Peter and the apostles to go forth into all nations, and preach the Gospel
to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost. Peter obeyed that commandment, and, in obeying it, said, ' Ye shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost ; for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and
to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.' But Peter's
words are only a quotation, a part of the text of his discourse. The text is taken

APPENDIX C. 573
from Joel ; and in the conclusion of his discourse, he embodies the text to his peo
ple, referring them to their own prophets ; for he was speaking to them that believed
the prophets. Peter knew himself to be a man of no reputation, and despised among
them. He could say nothing of his own authority. He therefore directed their at
tention to their own prophets, and he referred them to the prophecy of Joel, as con
taining the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, and assured them, in the words
of Joel, that it should be fulfilled in those days. Now, what is the promise of Joel?
'And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions ; and also upon the servants, and upon the hand
maidens in those days' (twice over you have here repeated daughters and handmaid
ens) ' will I pour out my Spirit.' He taketh the first words of that text, ' Your sons
and your daughters shall prophesy,' and tells them, 'the promise is to you and to
your children ;' and he taketh the last words of it, ' As many as the Lord our God
shall call ;' and so, knitting them both in one, he projects it on baptism, and binds
the prophecy of Joel to baptism. And I say that every baptized person is privileged
to possess this gift, and is responsible for it, and will possess it through faith in God ;
and only does not possess it because he hath rejected the promise of God, and turneth
away from it. I say it is knit unto baptism — it is the rubric of baptism. And no
minister baptizeth in the manner Peter baptized who doth not hold out to the bap
tized person not only the remission of sins, but also the gift of the Holy Ghost, as set
forth in that promise of Joel, which is to ' as many as the Lord your God shall call.'
Brethren, this is for the conscience ; it is not for the members of the body, for the
feet, nor for the hands, but for the conscience of men.
"Now, sir, it is about four or five years ago, very soon after we entered the Na
tional Scotch Church — I think immediately before the first sacrament therein ; for
the last thing we did in the Caledonian Church was to administer the Lord's Sup
per — and immediately before the next ordinance in November, that I was called, I
felt called upon to open to the people the subject of the sacraments, in order to pre
pare them with due knowledge for sitting down at the Lord's table ; and so far back
as that time I opened to them what I now open in your hearing, and in the hearing
of this court ; and I gave it as my judgment before them all, that every one of us is
responsible for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, in all the fullness in which it was ad
ministered by Jesus on the day of Pentecost, and in all the fullness contained in that
name of Baptizer with the Holy Ghost.
"What would ye say if any one were to stand up and reason thus : 'Yea, John
the Baptist said of Jesus, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
the world. No doubt Jesus was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the
world. He was so for one or two generations, but he is so no longer.' And what
do ye say now to those who reason in this manner, and who affirm, after John the
Baptist announced the same Jesus as He who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and
after Jesus Himself had turned the attention of His disciples to the thing that was
to be fulfilled not many days hence, as the baptism with the Holy Ghost (and when
that baptism took place, it was with speaking with tongues and prophesying on the
day of Pentecost ; and Peter, thereupon, baptizing with water, gave the promise of it
to the whole Church) — what say ye to those who say, ' Oh, yes, he was the baptizer
with the Holy Ghost, in that kind for one century or two, but he is no longer so now?'
What do I say to them but that they are deniers of the name of Jesus ? And if they
repent not, now that Jesus is manifesting Himself by this name, His judgments will
alight on their heads.
" This was several years before any manifestations, appeared ; and as the Lord or-

574 APPENDICES.
dered, that book containing the Homilies on Baptism was printed, and was before
the Church several years before any manifestations appeared, clearly showing you
that it was a conviction of my own soul, gathered from the Word of God, and
preached publicly in the whole congregation, and the whole congregation entreated
faithfully to give heed to it. Now I need not go into other scriptures in order to
confirm what I have now said, because, a thing coming forth from the mouth of the
Baptist, and promised by the mouth of Jesus, and sealed iip in an ordinance by
Peter, needeth not to be confirmed. You might as well take the passage in the
sixth chapter of John, where our Lord, speaking of the eating of His flesh in order
to everlasting life, and which He knit up in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, say
ing, ' Take, eat, this is my body' — you might as well require that that discourse in
the sixth chapter of John, sealed up in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, needeth
more scriptures to confirm it, as that the proclamation of Christ's name by the Bap
tist as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, the substantiation of it by Christ Himself on
the day of Pentecost, and the knitting of it up in the ordinance of baptism, needeth
confirmation. But, if confirmation be wanting, I have the book before me, and
from end to end there is not one passage in which the gifts of the Holy Ghost are
mentioned where they are not mentioned as the property of the whole Church, as
the blessing of the whole Church, as needful to the growth of the whole Church, and
as designed to continue until that which is perfect is come — to continue until we
shall see eye to eye and face to face. And again, in the fourth chapter of Ephesians,
it is said, these gifts were to continue ' until we all arrive at the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ.' Christ ascending up on high gave ' to some apos
tles, to some prophets, to some evangelists, to some pastors and teachers,' giving
them all alike, without alteration or reservation, ' for the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come in
the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.'
"How any man dareth to take out of this passage apostles, evangelists, prophets,
and to say that they were only intended for a season, but that the pastor and the
teacher were intended always to continue, I never have been able to find a reason.
But I hold it to be a daring infraction of the integrity of the Word of God, and per
mit me to say, it was erroneously alleged of the Church of Scotland that she denieth
this doctrine. On referring to the Second Book of Discipline, which I hold in my
hand (whereof you ought not to be ignorant, seeing that I have referred to it in the
documents), it is distinctly said that though these gifts do not now exist in the Church,
they might be revived when occasion served ; and that now they have ceased in the
Church, except it shall please God to stir some of them .up again. Who can say that
it hath not now pleased God to stir them up again? But now at this part of the
case, if ye intend to act as attesters of the standards of the Church of Scotland mere
ly, and not as attesters and ministers of the Word of God, I ask of you to say wheth
er the time in which we live, when anti-Christ and infidelity are coming forth in all
their strength, when wickedness rages on all hands, when the name of Jesus is cast
out by the kings and potentates of the earth, and when monarchs are set up to rule
in their own names instead of ruling in His name — I ask if these are not those extra
ordinary times in which it may please the Lord to raise them up again ? But pass
ing that by, it is said they were bestowed for the perfecting of the saints — for the
work of the ministry — for the edifying of the body of Christ. Do not the saints
need to be perfected? The work of the ministry needeth to be wrought. The body
needeth to be edified, and we are not yet come to the measure of the stature of
Christ ; and I believe the Lord will seal apostles ; I believe that the Lord hath sealed

APPENDIX C. 575
prophets ; and I believe that the Lord will seal evangelists, and pastors, and teachers,
in the power of the Spirit, if only the Church, laying hold of the Word of God, and
forsaking the traditions of men ; if only the saints of God, believing and establishing
themselves on the rock, which is the word of Jesus, and pleading the name of Jesus,
and believing on Him as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, as well as the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sins of the world ; if one half, if one tenth, if one hundredth
part of those before me will with confidence look unto Him, and call upon Him,
they will find Him faithful — they will find His name to be a strong tower, to which
the righteous runneth and is safe. And it will not be long, whether you consider it
or not, whether you will hear or whether you will forbear — it will not be long until
the Lord, who hath sealed prophets, will also seal apostles, and evangelists, and ev
ery other gift in His Church. This is the thing, sir, which we expected — which we
prayed for in the National Scotch Church privately before this time last year ; and
publicly, about this time last year, we met together about two weeks before the meet
ing of the General Assembly, to pray that the General Assembly might be guided in
judgment by the Lord, the Head of the Church ; and we added thereto prayers for
the present low estate of the Church ; and we cried unto the Lord for apostles, proph
ets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, anointed with the Holy Ghost, the gift of Je
sus ; because we saw it written in God's Word that these are the appointed ordi
nances for edifying the body of Jesus. We continued in prayer, we met morning
after morning, at half past six every morning, and the Lord was not long in hearing
and answering our prayers. He sealed first one, then another, then another ; and
gave them, first, enlargement of spirit in their own devotions when their souls were
lifted up to God, and they were closed with him in great nearness ; He then gave
them to pray in a tongue, which Paul said he was wont to do more than they all :
'I bless God, speaking with tongues, more than you all.' And Paul, speaking of
praying in an unknown tongue, says : ' If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit
prays, but my understanding is unfruitful;' just as, in the evidence of yesterday, the
witness declared that, in praying in a tongue, he enjoyed closer communion with
God than in praying with the understanding, Paul said, v^ien he came into the
congregation, it was for edification of the body of Christ; and he would not then
pray in a tongue, because it was out of place ; for they understood not the tongue,
therefore he prayed both in spirit and in the understanding. But in his private de
votion, blessing God in his eucharistical services, he gave thanks, speaking in tongues,
more than they all ; but in the Church, as contradistinguished from his private de
votions, he would rather speak five words with the understanding than ten thousand
in an unknown tongue, because then it was not for edification ; for he would, in the
latter case, be to them a barbarian, for no one would understand him unless an in
terpreter were also present. Just as it was with Paul, so with these persons, for the
first time in their private devotions ; when they were wrapt up nearest to God, the
Spirit took them, and made them to speak sometimes song, sometimes words, in a
tongue ; and by degrees, according as they sought more and more unto God, the gift
became perfected, until they were moved to speak in tongues, even in the presence
of others. In this stage I suffered them not to speak in the Church, according to
the canon of the apostle ; and even in private, in my own presence, I permitted it
not ; but I heard that it had been done. I would not have rebuked it ; I would have
sympathized tenderly with the person who was carried in the Spirit and lifted up ;
but in the Church I would not have permitted it. In process of time, about fourteen
days after, the gift perfected itself, so that they were made to speak in tongues, and
prophesy the Word in English, for exhortation, edification, and comfort, which is the
proper definition of prophecy, as testified by one of the witnesses.

576 APPENDICES.
"Now, when we had received this into the Church, in answer to our prayers, it
became me, as the minister of the Church, to try that which we had received. I re
peat it ; it became me, as minister of the Church, and not another ; and my author
ity for this you will find in the second chapter of Revelations, where the Lord Jesus,
writing to the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, speaks thus to him : ' I know thy
works, and thy labor, and thy patience ; and how thou canst not bear them which
are evil ; and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not ; and
hast found them liars.' Here the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church, commend
ed the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, the head of that Church, in whose place I
stand in my Church, and in whose place no other standeth (the elders and deacons
have their place, but this belongeth to the angel or minister of the Church), and the
Lord commendeth him for trying them which say they are apostles, and are not.
Therefore, to me, as minister of the Church, watching over the souls of the people,
it belongeth to try every one who says he is commissioned of Jesus, be he prophet,
apostle, or evangelist, pastor or teacher. I, as responsible for those souls, must search
into the matter, and it was on my responsibility if I allowed a wolf to come into the
fold ; and if I keep out one who is a prophet, apostle, or evangelist, and prevent him
from exercising the gift given him for the edifying, not of one part of the Church,
but of the whole Church of God, I do it at my peril. I dare not do otherwise ; be
cause the Lord Jesus, the only Head of the Church, in writing these seven epistles to
the angels of the seven churches in Asia, in order to guide them, commendeth the
Angel of the Church of Ephesus for having taken upon him this duty ; and I, as the
minister of the Lord Jesus, dare not disobey him, though the loss of my head, of my
life, of a hundred lives, were the consequence. I dared not willingly disobey*him,
and set to all my people, and to all authorities, an example of disobedience. I was
necessitated to obey him, though my life were taken. Therefore, when the Lord sent
us what professed to be prophets, what we had prayed for, what the Lord had given
in answer to prayer — when there appeared the sign of the prophet speaking with
tongues, and prophesying and magnifying God, and what appeared to be true — I
dared not shrink fronyny plan of trying them, and putting them to the proof; and,
if found not so, preventing them, and if they were so, permitting them ; yea, and giv
ing thanks to Jesus for having answered our prayers, and sent us the ordinance of
prophesying, which is expressly said to be for the edification of the Church ; for it is
said, 'He that prophesieth edifieth the Church.' Moreover, I learned that this duty
doth devolve upon me, the angel and pastor of the Church, from the same second
chapter of Revelations ; where, writing to the Angel of the Church in Thyatira, he
says, ' Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that
woman, Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my serv
ants.' Here we have the proof that there were true prophetesses in the Church.
The same thing is referred to in Joel, ii., 28. And again in the second chapter of
Acts, where we are told that Philip the Evangelist had four daughters, virgins, which
did prophesy. And in the second chapter of 1st Corinthians there are instructions
for women to pray and prophesy in a comely manner in the Church. In the Church
at Thyatira, this woman, Jezebel, calling herself a prophetess, was permitted to teach.
A prophetess may not teach : to teach belongeth to a man ; it is an office of author
ity. A prophetess may prophesy, speaking by the Holy Ghost ; and none of those
persons prophesying in my Church have ever spoken by any power except by the
power of the Holy Ghost, as I believe. But Jezebel was suffered to teach in the
Church, and also to seduce the servants of the Lord, contrary to the canons of Paul,
given in 1 Cor., ii., and 1 Timothy, ii. I produce this second commandment of the
Lord Jesus Christ, your Head, the Head of the Church, my Head, and the Head of

APPENDIX C. 577
every man ; whom no man, as he values his own salvation, dares, on any account,
willingly to disobey. This commandment of Jesus reproveth the angel of that Church
for refusing to do that which was his duty, and permitting this woman, calling her
self a prophetess, to teach. So that here have I one commended for fulfilling this
duty, and one reproved for not fulfilling it ; and I want no more evidence to show
that it was my duty, as the servant of Jesus, to fulfill His commandment ; and I want
no other authority than His command, whom I must not, whom I dare not, whom I
will not disobey, to make trial of the persons who have these gifts ; and I proceeded
to that trial.
"The first thing toward the trial was to hear them prophesy before myself, and so
I did it. The Lord, in His providence, gave me ample opportunity in private pray- ,
er-meetings, of which many were in the congregation established, of hearing them
speaking with tongues, and prophesying ; and it was so ordered by Providence that
every person whom I heard was known to myself, so that I had this double test, first,
of their private walk and conversation, and, second, of hearing the thing prophesied.
The private W|lk and conversation were, as far a3 I knew, according to godliness ;
they waited on the ordinances daily ; they were all duly baptized ; they were all
members of Christ, and therefore fully privileged to expect baptism of the Holy
Ghost ; they were all in full communion, though not all in my Church ; but my
Church is only « part of the Church of Christ, which condemneth none and separ-
ateth from none. It was not the custom of the Primitive Church in the apostolic
times, that, when one or two brethren came from another church, they were not per
mitted to speak or to exhort the brethren until they had sat down with them at the
Lord's table ; for our Lord Jesus Himself, wherever He went, spake in the syna
gogues ; and in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas, though they were only
known as brethren, went into the synagogues and exhorted. And I hold it to be
contrary to the constitution of the Protestant Church that any member or minister
oT one church, being in full communion with it, should not be admissible into full
communion with another. A member, for instance, of the Church of England is in
full communion with the Scotch Church, both in respect to Baptism and the Lord's
Supper. It is so by the Acts of the Assembly. I can not tell you the express date
of the Act, but it comes between the time of the Revolution, 1692, and the date of
1720. I can not charge my memory with the exact date ; but it is a short Act, set
ting forth that the member of another communion, coming into the bosom of the
Church of Scotland, is admissible to all the ordinances, if his walk is according to
godliness ; for, as it is generally said, we ought rather to use diligence to draw them
over to us, than we to go to them. These persons were members of the Church of
Christ, walking in His commandments and ordinances blameless ; nay, distinguished
for acts and labors of love in their own churches ; in fact, there was only one such ;
and another, though not admitted to membership, was under examination previous
to communion. First, they were of blameless walk and conversation, and in full
communion with the Church of Christ. Second, in private prayer-meetings, where
they were accustomed to exercise the gift of utterance, I could discern nothing con
trary to sound doctrine, but every thing for edification, exhortation, and comfort.
There was the sign of the unknown tongue, and prophesying for edification, exhort
ation, and comfort ; and, beside these, there is no other outward and visible test to
which they might be brought. Having these before me, I was still very much afraid
of introducing it into the Church, and was exceedingly burdened in conscience for
some weeks. Look at the condition in which I was placed. I had sat at the head
of the Church, praying that these gifts might be poured out on the Church ; believ
ing in the Lord's faithfulness, and that I was praying the prayer of faith, and that
Oo

578 APPENDICES.
He had poured out the gifts in the Church in answer to our prayers. Was I to dis
believe what in faith I had been praying for, and which we had all been praying for?
When it came, I had every opportunity of proving it. I had put it to the proof ac
cording to the Word of God, and I found, so far as I was able to discern, that it is
the thing written in the Scriptures, and into the faith of which we had been bap
tized. Having found this, I was in a great strait between two opinions, and much
burdened. God knoweth for certain days, nay, even weeks, my burden I could dis
close to no one. A great burden it was, for I felt it was my duty to act ; and I
feared, if I were to go seeking counsel of others, and any were to say, ' Do not intro
duce it into the Church,' then I should be putting myself into a strait between my
obedience to the Lord and my inclination to follow the counsel of wise men. In this
state I remained some time ; and I need not tell the leadings of Providence, which
led me, at length, to determine ; but it was very much the testimony of my own
heart. In the morning meeting the Spirit burst out in the mouth of that witness
whom you examined yesterday ; and, several times in one day, the voice of the Spir
it was, that it was quenched and restrained_ in the Church. I felt this very burden
some to me, and this conviction came at once to.my heart : It belongs to you to open
the door ; you have the power of the keys ; it is you that are restraining and hin
dering it. I reflected on. it all that day, and next morning I came to the Church.
After prayers I rose up, and said in the midst of them all, ' I can not any longer be
a party to hinder that which I consider to be the voice of the Holy Ghost from being
heard in the Church. I feel I have too long deferred, and I pray you to give heed
while I read out these passages, as my authority and the commandment of the Lord
concerning the prophets;' and I read, therefore, these passages, 1 Cor., xiv., 23 : 'If,
therefore, the whole Church be come together into one place, and all speak with
tongues, and there come in those who are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not
say that ye are mad ?' The apostle was here writing of speaking with tongues, in
contradistinction to prophesying ; that is to say, speaking nothing but the unknown
tongue ; for what should it profit unless there be an interpreter? He is not speak
ing of what we have ; that which we have is one fifth or one tenth in tongue, and the
rest in prophesying. He is taking the distinction between speaking with tongues
and prophesying. No one in our Church could say the person speaking is mad, be
cause he doth not utter, perhaps, more than two minutes or one minute in tongue,
and then he begins to prophesy in English for the edification, exhortation, and com
fort of all : the one is the sign of inspiration that it is the power of the Spirit ; the
other is the thing which the Spirit would give forth for the edification of the Church.
"Sometimes it comes forth without the sign, but generally it is otherwise; for I
think I have observed in the Church, when many are present who disbelieve, or doubt,
or mock, the sign is given in great power ; but it is otherwise ordered in a company
of persons believing the calling of the prophet, when the sign is not given, but the
word of prophecy comes out simply.. But I have observed, if the word of prophecy
is hard to be received, the sign is given, even in the company of those strong in the
faith ; yea, I have seen it occur more than once that the sign has been given, and
then the word in English follows, and then the sign is again repeated. I have no
ticed that in this case something is added hard to be received, or, perhaps, a rebuke
to some one present, or something hard for the will of the party to receive ; for the
Spirit speaketh to the conscience. Well, I read out this passage : ' But if all proph
esy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of
all, he is judged of all, and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest ; and so,
falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is among you of
a truth.' Then it is said, 'When the whole Church cometh together into one place,'

APPENDIX C. 579
they may ' all prophesy, one by one ;' and it is added, ' Let the prophets speak, two
or three, and let the others judge,' and discern the things which they prophesy, and
try the spirit that it is done by ; whether the prophet, through carelessness or want
of holiness, be overtaken of any temptation, even as the witness examined yesterday
did declare before you all, without being questioned, in the honest purity and sim
plicity of his heart, that he once was made to rebuke me in a manner which he be
lieved was not by the Spirit of God-; and this he learned by another prophet's dis
cerning ; and after waiting on the Lord, at the end of two days it was made mani
fest, agreeably to this : ' Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others dis
cern ;' and, farther, ' If any thing be revealed to another sitting by, let the first hold
his peace.' Now I beg your attention to this passage, as it bears much on the case
attempted to be made out against me, and yet not against me, but against the voice
of the Spirit in the Church.
"And here let me say, they are not interruptions, though they are called interrup
tions, of the service of the Church ; for we are told, ' If any thing be revealed to an
other sitting by, let the first hold his peace.' And if, by the Spirit, any thing be re
vealed to any one sitting by, though I be engaged in praying — though I be engaged
in preaching — I am required to hold my peace, because I might be preaching false
hood, which the Spirit of the Lord might wish to defend the congregation from. Je
sus is the Head of the congregation, not I ; I am only His deputy, and the prophets
are His voice. You are very ignorant of the Old Testament if you know not that
the prophet is the voice of God to kings and to princes ; he is the voice of Jesus to
His Church ; and if I be speaking any thing contrary to the mind of Jesus, shall not
He, the Head of the Church, have liberty by His prophets to tell the congregation so,
and guard them from error ? If I be praying in error or in a wicked spirit — for a
man may be erroneous in his prayers ; a man may curse and blaspheme in his prayer;
and if I do so, shall not the Lord Jesus have power in His own Church, then and
there, to make, manifest the error, that the congregation bo not poisoned thereby ? If
a father saw improper food put upon the plate of his child, which the child should not
eat, would he not step in and take the morsel out of his mouth ? And shall the Lord
Jesus, the master of the house, not be permitted to step in, at any time, and prevent
such food from being partaken of by the children whom He hath purchased with His
own blood 1 He shall in my church. He shall in my church, so long as He honors
me by permitting me to be the minister of it. Call it not interruption ; ye speak it
in ignorance — ye understand it not, and you examine not into it — and the Lord for-
giveth it. Take heed lest your ignorance bo not willful. The complainants have
mostly withdrawn their ears from it, and would not hear it ; they would not put
themselves to the pains of examining it, but would beat, with the high hand of a
trust-deed, the minister of Jesus from his place, and the Lord Jesus from his place
also." Moderator. " Order ! I will not allow any one to say that we beat the Lord Jesus
from his place. We hear Mr. Irving from a matter of tenderness and courtesy, and
he must not use this language toward us."
Mr. Irving. "The thing stated was a truth.''
His Solicitor protested against the interruption.
Mr. Irving. " I have spoken the truth, and nothing hut the truth, and God knows
it • and whether the truth should not be spoken, He knoweth also ; but be it, be it
so. Well, then, I read this passage, and also the passage which concerneth the
comely way in which women should prophesy and pray in the Church, which is thus
written in 1 Cor., xi., 4-10: 'Every man praying or prophesying having his head
covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with

580

APPENDICES.

her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head, for that is even all one as if she were
shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn ; but if it be a
shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed
ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God ; but
the woman is the glory of the man. . . . For this cause ought the woman to have
power on her head, because of the angels.' The woman having power on her head
is a. sign of authority, because of the angels of the Church, in reference to their
office. I know there has been a difference of opinion in this matter, and that the
passage has been confronted with that passage in 1 Cor., xiv., 34, 35: 'Let your
women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak,'
etc. ; and another passage in 1 Tim., ii., 11, 12, to the same effect. Now it has
been said we have gainsayed these passages, and that we have interpreted them in a
way that would never have been thought of but for this which has occurred. Now,
to say nothing of the old commentators, I give you, among the moderns, the opinion
of Locke, that master of exact interpretation, though not of sound doctrine ; yet he
was the master of logic, which is the science of sound words. I also refer you to
Scott, whom the whole evangelical body in England consider the pattern of com
mentators. I refer, also, to Brown, who is looked upon in Scotland as Scott is in
England. These three commentators have all judged of these passages as I have
judged of them, namely, that the two latter refer to women speaking by their own
power and strength, the former to women speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost ;
the one not to be permitted, the other hot to be prevented. I have these three, than
whom none stand higher in their respective schools : Locke in the Arminian school,
Scott in the Evangelical school, and Brown, universally consulted in the Scottish
churches ; and all these interpret them as I have done. No one can say that we
have strained the Scriptures to suit our purposes. Grotius also concurs in the same
view, than whom no one, at the period of the Reformation, stood in such reputation
among the remonstrants. And almost all the interpreters in the primitive Church
held the same views, and the practice was almost invariably continued in the first
ages of the Church, and may be traced till the time of Cyprian, when women, and
even children, were accustomed to prophesy in the Church by the Holy Ghost ; as it
is written in the Psalms, ' Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast per
fected praise.' And Cyprian, who was Bishop of Carthage, thought it not beneath
him to send the things spoken by children in the Church, by the power of the Spirit,
to the Presbyteries of his diocese for their instruction. Now, having read these pas
sages, therefore, I said to the people, ' I stand here before you, after my conscience
has been burdened with it for weeks, and I can no longer forbid it, but do, in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, permit that every one, who has received the Gift of
the Holy Ghost, and is moved by the Holy Ghost, shall have liberty to speak.'
" It pleased the Lord at that meeting to sanction this by His own approval ; while
I was reading, the Spirit of the Lord spoke in Mr. Taplin, who appeared yesterday
as a witness, and said, ' Let them prophesy, but let it be under authority.' And at
the same meeting, both Mrs. Cardale and Miss E. Cardale spoke in the Spirit, with
tongues and prophesying, rejoicing at what had been done. Now observe, according
to the commandment of Jesus, I took to myself the privilege and responsibility of
trying the prophets in private first, before permitting them to speak in the Church.
I then gave to the Church the opportunity of fulfilling its duty ; for it belongs not
to the pastor merely, but to every man, to try the spirits ; as it is written in Mat
thew, that our Lord, when speaking to His disciples in the mount, 'Beware of false
prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves ; ye shall know them by their fruits.' And I say, therefore, it is the bounden

APPENDIX C. 581
duty of every one, when the minister puts forth any person before the congregation
whom, having tried, he believeth to speak by the Spirit of God, to be on their guard,
and beware of false prophets, and to try them. Moreover, Paul, in his Epistle to
Timothy, declares of some who in the last days should give heed to seducing spirits,
and he warneth the Church against being insnared by them. In like manner, John
also, in his first catholic epistle, gives instruction to try spirits, whether they be of
God, and gives the rule whereby they might be tried : ' Every spirit that confesseth
not that Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God; and whosoever denieth this is
anti-Christ.' "It was my duty, therefore, in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, who ever
ruleth all churches, and withput whom any Church is nothing but a synagogue of
Satan, after trying the spirits, to put them forth to the people, that they might be
tried by them. I put the prophets forth at the morning exercises of the Church ;
and I made it known to the people at prayer, in preaching, and in all ways, and in
vited the people to come and witness for themselves ; and so the thing continued.
I had not yet introduced it into the great congregation, permitting, I should sup
pose, four or five weeks for probation by the Church, and was still reluctant — for I
erred on the side of reluctance ; and seeing the spirit of many of the congregation,
that they viewed with dislike and suspicion the whole subject. I waited, and it was
not until silence was broken, in spite of me, that I spoke in the full congregation
concerning the duty of its being then heard ; and that day, after the speaking by
' which the congregation was thrown into a good deal of distress, I left my ordinary
subject; for although it was attempted to be instructed in evidence yesterday that I
set myself to discourse on one subject exclusively, and fed my people on that, my
custom is to go regularly on, reading, preaching, and lecturing; but when the
Church was tried in this way, I felt it my duty to take up the subject as it occurs in
1 Corinthians, xiv., to prevent their souls being snared by Satan, and exhorted them
to try the spirits according to the rules there laid down. I am ashamed and grieved
to say that, from that time forward, several of the trustees entered not the church
any more, notwithstanding all I could say, to hear and make trial whether it were
the work of God or not, but set it down at once as a thing that ought not to be, and
then left it. At the same time I appear here, not to complain against any one, but
merely to state the truth to-the court ; that the Presbytery may be rightly informed,
I am willing to substantiate these things, if the Presbytery desire it, from the evidence
of the persons sworn.
"After the speaking was thus forced on the congregation, I felt I could no longer
resist it ; but in the evening I rose in my place, and said, ' If the worship of God
should be again added to by those speaking with tongues and prophesying— for that
is the right word, for it is the addition of an ordinance of prophesying— that they
should understand it to be, not the word of man, but what I believed it to be, the
Word of the Spirit of God,' and it was added to. From that time I felt it my duty,
in obedience to the great Head of the Church, to take order that it should not be
prevented, but encouraged; I claim the word encouraged; and I took all lawful
means in the midst of the congregation to encourage it, and did so in obedience to
the Lord Jesus Christ, who had given this precious gift; not for naught, but for the
edifying of the Church, which is His body ; and I would think myself a most un
worthy pastor if, after receiving a gift, I did not lay it out to use, and encourage it
to be used for the good of the people. I did it in obedience to Jesus, for the good of
the flock ; and if you want testimony, I shall pledge myself that I will produce five
hundred men and women who shall come forward voluntarily, and testify in this
court that there have been prophets raised up in our Church whose words have been

582 APPENDICES.
most edifying, yea, like a marrow and fatness to their souls. These five hundred
persons, walking in the commandments and ordinance of the Lord, will freely come
forward on any day you will appoint, and declare that it hath been the most blessed
thing to their souls, next to the ministry of the Word and ordinance. And thus
these were the steps I took for proving it — for all this comes under the head of pro
bation — first, by myself, privately ; then, not in public, but at the morning service,
where all might have attended if they would ; and then before all the congregation ;
and still it is continued, for the probation is not yet done. Many in the Church
have not yet received full probation of it ; and them I teach to wait on the Lord,
and they shall receive full satisfaction ; for I believe that the Lord tenderly regards
the doubts of every one of his children ; ' for the bruised reed will He not break, nor
the smoking flax will He not quench ;' and I believe there is not a weak member of
Christ's Church waiting humbly and sincerely on Him, to whom He will not give
conviction. I have never made it a test in my church, although, as a man preach
ing to his congregation, I have seen it my duty to declare the truth conceming it ;
for the Lord Jesus is very tender and very loving ; and if a man will but turn aside,
and see what this great thing is, he will be taught and fed of God. If there be any
of my flock here present, let them take assurance, as a consolation to their souls.
On the other hand, I believe, that if men turn away from, and harden themselves
against it, it will prove to them that which Isaiah said it was sent for. It is only
mentioned once in the Old Testament (speaking with tongues) ; and notice what the
Prophet Isaiah, in the 28th chapter, says it was sent for : ' Whom shall He teach
knowledge ? and whom shall He make to understand doctrine ?' The high-minded ?
No. Men who are proud in their own conceit? No. Men who have enough, and
want no more, saying, 'Having the ordinances and institutions of the Gospel, we
have enough ?' No. Let the prophet answer : ' Them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breasts ;' babes ; those tliat feel they need much ; those
that are weak, like a weaned child ; for ' precept must be upon precept, precept upon
precept ; line upon line, line upon line ; here a little, and there a little.' As you
speak to a child, so should it be ; and so it is in prophesying ; it is precept upon pre
cept, line upon line, discourse not regularly built up. That is the reason why the
learned of the world, those that are not babes, despise it ; because it is not built up
on argument or reasoning ; not set forth in eloquent language, but in simple, pure,
unadulterated milk ; not cooked in the kitchen, but cooked in the body of the parent,
fresh from the body of Jesus, by the Spirit of Jesus, coming down direct from Him,
as milk of the children, which, indeed, the pastor may prepare, and serve out to the
Church; and which, in dependence on my Master, I have endeavored to prepare
and serve out, according' to the taste of the people — that is, as they can bear it.
'For with stammering lips' — ah! who can bear that? — 'and with men of other
tongues will I speak to this people.' And He hath thus spoken in the midst of us.
Paul quotes this of the gift of tongues given to the Gentile Church ; on the day of
Pentecost it was sealed to the Gentile Church. Oh, and he says, ' This is the rest
wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing ; yet they
would not hear. ' Though it be rest and refreshing which is preached by it contin
ually, yet they would not hear, and wherefore ? that they may go and fall backward,
and be broken, and snared, and taken.' There is another end of it, and it is for a
rest to the weaiy ; but for those who are not children, and think they are learned
enough, and do not feel their lowly estate, to them it is given ' that they may go and
fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.' And it will prove so to this
generation. ' ' Now ye have heard the method I took to prove that it was the thing contained

APPENDIX C.

583

in the Scriptures that we had received ; first, the walk and conversation of the per
sons ; . second, by trying it from the words of Scripture, which says that the sign is
the speaking with tongues, and the prophesy is for edification, exhortation, and com
fort ; third, by the consciousness of the Spirit within myself, bringing the conviction
to my own heart ; fourth, by submitting it to all the people. And I believe the ef
fect of such probation is this— that the snares of Satan have been detected, and that
that which, if left alone, and not taken into the Church, Satan would have prevailed
against, hath prevailed against Satan ; for we ought to remember the prophets are
not infallible ; for they are directed to speak by two or three, that the rest may dis
cern ; and by bringing it before the Church, the spirit in the prophets has discerned
when the false prophets spoke, and when the flesh spoke ; ay, and the very members
of the Church, also, endued with the Holy Ghost, have been able to discern it. I
believe it will always be so. Jesus hath not given up His place to the prophet any
more than to the minister ; and He hath let them know that prophecy is a fallible
ordinance, as well as the ordinance of the ministry ; and it is only by the congrega
tion, and the prophets, and the minister abiding in Jesus in all obedience, in the
light of Jesus as he is in the light, in the love of one another, and in the love of God
— it is only thus that the minister can be preserved from erring, or the prophets, or
the people ; for the minister is not lord over the heritage, nor is the prophet the Word
of God to the h'eritage ; but the lord of the heritage is Jesus, and the Word of God
to the heritage is this book ; neither are the people rulers over the minister to say
' You shall not do this,' which the Lord requireth of him, nor the people rulers over
the prophets to say the prophet shall not utter what the Lord giveth him to utter ;
but these, like the members of the body — the head, the lips, the hands, the feet — are
all bound together in mutual respect to one another, and by their mutual respect and
service to one another they are all preserved in health and comfort, provided the life
be in them all, which is Jesus. Therefore I say, this method of proceeding God has
shown to be good ; for He hath shown my judgment not to be enough for the proph
ets ; and even the congregation, on whom the Spirit of the Lord is, have detected
what I could not detect ; and it is not that any one office should be prevented from
exercising their functions, or prophecy, or tongues, because they are not infallible,
but that one and all, according to the orders of their Great Captain, in this book laid
down, and in their various posts, united together in brotherly love and amity, might
fulfill their kindly and dutiful offices one toward another. Thus the Church of God
is built up and flourishes. If the people rise up against the minister, or the minister
lord it over the people ; or if either rises up against the prophets, and puts them
down, then the golden cord of love is broken, and the Church must suffer. In every
csise where love is preserved, it will be found that all are necessary, that all going on
together will be preserved in unity, and make increase of the Church. So much for
the second head.
" I make no apology for the length of time I have occupied, for eight hours have
been allowed to the accusers, and I am the party most deeply interested in the case,
and I trust you will bear with me in patience. The third thing to which I referred
is the manner of ordering it in the Church ; this I have in a great manner antici
pated ; but still, as the point of the complaint standeth here, I think it good to attend
to it carefully. It is complained by the trustees of the National Scotch Church, in
discharge of the duty imposed on them by the trust-deed, and which is the founda
tion of their complaint, First, that I have allowed the worship of the Church to be in
terrupted by persons speaking, who are neither ordained ministers nor licentiates of
the Church of Scotland. Now, with respect to the ordering of it, which is here com
plained against as a violation of the trust-deed, and a violation of the constitutions

584

APPENDICES.

of the Church of Scotland, I can say with the Apostle Paul, when he went to Rome
to his countrymen, ' That unto this day not only have I done nothing contrary to the
Word of God, but, men and brethren, I have done nothing against the people or cus
toms of our fathers.'
"Hay it down as a solemn principle that, as a minister of Christ, I am responsible
to Him at every instant, in every act of my ministerial character and conduct, and
owe to Him alone an undivided allegiance ; and I say more, that every man is re
sponsible to Jesus at every instant of his life, and for every act of his life, and not to
another, in an undivided allegiance. He is the head of every man, and upon this it
is that the authority of conscience resteth ; on this it is that toleration resteth ; on
this it is that all the privileges of man rest ; that Jesus is the head of every man ;
and this is His inalienable prerogative. Nothing can come between it and a man ;
and every man must die for his duty to Jesus rather than his duty to the king ; he
must die loyally, not rebelliously ; but still he must rather die than disobey Jesus ;
and I say more, every man must gainsay his minister if he believe him to be in er
ror ; must gainsay his prophet, yea, every creature on the earth, if in error ; must do
it reverently, not rebelliously, but still do it, because Jesus is the head of every man ;
and every elder, and every minister and deacon of a church, must do the same. And
if any person or court, or the Pope of Rome, or any court in Christendom, come be
tween a man, or a minister, and his master, and say, ' Before obeying Jesus, you
must consult us,' be they called by what name they please, they are anti-Christ. I
say no Protestant Church hath ever done so. I deny the doctrine that was held
forth yesterday, that it is needful for a minister to go to the General Assembly before
he does his duty ; I deny the doctrine that he can be required to go up to the Gen
eral Assembly for authority to enable him to do that which he discerneth to be his
duty." Moderator. "Let these words be taken down."
Mr. Irving. "Ay, take them down, take them down. I repeat the words: I deny
it to be the doctrine of the Church of Scotland that any minister is required to go up to
the General Assembly for authority to do that which he discerneth to be his duty. Ye
are pledged to serve Jesus in your ordination vows. Ye are the ministers of Jesus,
and not ministers of any assembly. Ye are ministers of the Word of God, and not
ministers of the standards of any Church. I abhor the doctrine ; it is of anti-Christ ;
it is the essence of anti-Christ — it is Popery in all its horrors ; it hath never been
endured in this land ; and I trust there is still sufficient reverence for the name of
Jesus not to endnre it. And if any man seeth any thing to propose to the Church
in which they err or come short, in duty to the Church, and not in fear of the Church
— for there is no authority in the Church above the authority of the minister — it is
his duty to set this matter in order, and lay it before his brethren, saying, ' I have
discovered we are in fault in this matter, and have set it in order, and do you like
wise.' It is an easy way of appeasing a man's conscience to say, ' I must go to the
General Assembly for authority to do this or that.' It is Satan's trap to keep all
things as they are ; to prevent all things from returning to what they have been, and
to prevent them from coming forward to farther perfection. But I lay it down as a
doctrine that if I, as a minister of the Church, for instance, see evidence of the speedy
coming of Christ to this world, to execute the judgments written in the Scriptures,
and destroy anti-Christ, and establish His kingdom, and reign with His saints upon
the earth, I am not to be prevented preaching it because it is not in the standards.
When were the standards made the measure of the liberty of preaching and of proph
esying, which is the basis of all liberty? When was the liberty of preaching bound
np within the limits of Twenty-six or Thirty-nine Articles ? Never since the world

APPENDIX C. 585
began ; never was it so, and never shall it be endured. What ! is it meant to be as
serted that the decision of a council sitting in Westminster, in troublous times, was
forever to bind up the tongue of the preacher to preach nothing but the things con
tained therein? I never subscribed these articles with that view; and if any other
man hath so signed them, it is with a false view ; and if with that view it is said I
di'd subscribe them, I say it is not so ; and if any one say I must use them, I solemnly
say I will not do so.
"As for the trust-deed, was it ever heard that those who merely hold a trust over
the walls of a building should step in and take from the minister the right and priv
ilege he hath as a minister of Jesus, and the obedience he oweth unto Jesus ? But
this trust-deed distinctly provideth for the contrary, namely, 'That all matters relat
ing to the public worship of God, in the said church or chapel, and the administra
tion of such religious rites and services as should be performed or observed therein,
shall be left to the discretion of the minister for the time being, during such time as
there shall be a minister.'
" Seeing that the ordinances and services performed or observed in that chapel are
left to the discretion of the minister for the time being, the complainants must in
struct the Presbytery that I have set up an ordinance contrary to the Church of Scot
land ; that the Church of Scotland has forbidden the ordinance of prophesying to be
in the Church, by those who are moved by the Spirit of God, for the evidence which
is on your table is evidence to the effect that they speak by the Spirit of God. Ye
are judges of the fact ; it is a complaint on a point of fact ; and the fact instructed
is this, that they speak by the Spirit of God. But it is the fact you must bring to
the constitution of the Church of Scotland, not your opinion of the fact. I charge
the Presbytery before Him who is the judge of all, that they put aside their own opin
ion whether these persons speak by the Spirit of God ; for they have not heard or
examined it, neither have they proved them by the text of Scripture. You are not,
in such circumstances, competent to question it ; and for your souls, your precious
souls' sake, ye must take the fact as judges, and show by the canons of the Church
that men are forbidden to speak in tongues, and prophesy by the constitution of the
Church of Scotland ; and ye shall search- long before ye shall find it. I have not,
therefore, suffered the public service, as charged against me, of the Church to be in
terrupted by persons not being ministers or licentiates of the Church of Scotland ; I
have not. I have permitted it to be interrupted by the Holy Ghost, and that accord
ing to the canons of Scripture, where we read, that ' If any thing be revealed to an
other that sitteth by, let the first keep silence.'
"2dly. It is charged that I have allowed the public worship of said National
Scotch Church to be interrupted by persons speaking who were neither members nor
seat-holders. I have not. Your evidence shows I have not suffered the worship of
God to be interrupted by persons not members or seat-holders, but by the person of
the Holy Ghost speaking in the members of Jesus. And respecting the particular
assignation, 'not being seat-holders,' they are members of the Church of Christ, and
I know them to be so ; and I never yet heard of seat-holders in Scripture, or in the
constitution of the Church of Scotland ; nor did I ever hear of holding a seat in the
Church of Scotland giving any right or privilege by its constitutions, but quite the
contrary ; for in the generality of the churches, the seats, or at least the greater part
of them, are not held by the persons who sit in them, the church being divided among
the heritors and tenants. It is the custom for the servants and tenants to sit in their
landlord's seat indiscriminately ; and I wish there was no such thing as seat-holding
and seat-renting in churches : it is one of the most dishonorable things in the Prot
estant Church, which has never been known in the Church of Rome, and is not at

586 APPENDICES.
this day. Yea more, it is contrary to the law of-<the realm of Scotland that scats
should be private property ; and in the case of Haddington Church, it was ruled by
the Lord Ordinary that the lock of a pew should be taken off; and that, if not, any
person might break it off, after the worship had begun.
" 3dly. I am charged with allowing females to speak in the Church : I have not
allowed females to speak in the Church ; but, believing that it was the Holy Ghost
speaking in them, I have permitted it ; but I never allowed any one, male or female,
to speak of themselves, as the evidence bears ; but, on the other hand, when others
spoke, I caused them to be silenced, and even sent for aid to the police-office when I
found by milder means they would not be restrained.
" 4thly. It is charged that other individuals, members of the congregation, were
suffered by me to interrupt the public service on Sabbath and other days. I have
not done so, as the evidence on the table will show, and that evidence adduced by
the complainants themselves.
"5thly. It is charged that I appointed set times for the suspension of the wor
ship, in order to encourage and allow these interruptions. This needs a little ex
planation. "When I saw it was my duty to take this ordinance into the Church, I then con
sidered with myself what was the way to do it with the greatest tenderness to my
flock, so as to cause the least anxiety and disturbance ; for complaints immediately
came to me from several persons that they were unable to taste the good and profit
of the other services for fear of these interruptions. My anxiety, therefore, was to
deal faithfully by the shepherd, and tenderly with the flock. I observed, therefore,
what was the manner of the spirit in the morning meetings ; and I found generally
it was the manner of the spirit, when I, the pastor, had exhorted the people, to add
something to the exhortation, either to enforce it, if it were according to the mind of
God, or to add to it ; or graciously and gently to correct it, if it were incorrect. I
also observed it was the way of the spirit not to do this generally, but in honor of the
pastor ; and that the spirits in the prophets acknowledged the office of the angel of
the Church as standing for Jesus ; and accordingly, I said, wishing to deal tenderly
with the flock, let it begin with this order, that, after I have opened the chapter, and
after I have preached, I will pause a little, so that then the prophets may have an
opportunity of prophesying if the spirit should come upon them ; but I never said
that the prophets should not prophesy at any other time. I did this in tenderness to
the people ; and, feeling my way in a case where I had no guidance, I did it accord
ing to the best records of ecclesiastical antiquity ; and I was at great pains to con
sult the best records ; and I found Mosheim, in his most learned dissertation on
Church history, declare to this effect : That in the first three ages of the Church, it
was the custom, after the pastor had exhorted the people, for the congregation to
rest, and the prophets prophesied by two or three ; so that I walked in the ordinances
of the Church of Christ. It is true, there are no directions to this effect in the stand
ards of the Church of Scotland ; but I never yet understood that the Book of Disci
pline, or the Confession of Faith in 1560, was intended to begin a new Church, nor
that it was intended to be said, wo must get at the Scriptures only through these
standards ; and I know, and am very sure, that if the Reformers had expected any
such doctrine to be broached by us, their descendants, they would have suffered their
hands, ay, and their heads too, to be cut off rather than have compiled and put forth
these articles. There are, in fact, no instructions at all in the canons of the Church
on the subject; but in the First Book of Discipline there is an endeavor made to re
constitute the order of prophets, as laid down in 1 Cor., xiv., and this with the ma
terials they then had. I state it for the information of the Presbytery, and also of

APPENDIX C. 587
the complainers, that so far was the Church of Scotland from preventing at the time
any person from speaking in the Church but ordained ministers or licentiates, that
there are express provisions laid down requiring every person who hath a gift to
come forward at the request of the minister, on pain of proceedings before a civil
magistrate ; nay, more, men in whom is supposed to be any gift which might edify
the Church must be charged by the ministers and elders to join in the session, and
' company of interpreters, to the end that the Kirk may judge whether they be able
to serve to God's glory, and to the profit of the Kirk, in the vocation of ministers or
not ; and if they be found disobedient, and not willing to communicate the gifts and
special graces of God with their brethren, after sufficient admonition, discipline must
proceed against them, provided the civil magistrate concur with the judgment and
election of the Kirk. For no man may be permitted, as best pleaseth him, to live
within the Kirk of God ; for every man must be constrained, by fraternal admonition
and correction, to bestow his labors, when of the Kirk he is required, to the edifica
tion of others.' Now this is in the First Book of Discipline, drawn up by our Re
formers, and which received the assent of Parliament in the reign of James VI., and
never has been abrogated to this day. The Westminster Articles of Confession were
intended as a supplement to the others, but not to supersede them ; and they were
adopted chiefly for the sake of conformity with the Presbyterian churches in En
gland, and nothing whatever therein contained is to prejudice what is found in these
standards. " So far, then, from being the rule of the Established Church, it is expressly pro
vided that any member, even with an ordinary gift of teaching, if charged by the
minister to join with the session to come forward, must obey, in order to see wheth
er he may labor in the vocation of the ministry or not. The prophets, therefore, arc
one part of the ministry ; and in permitting them to speak, I, in fact, did exactly
obey this canon. I tried the gifts, and then planted them in the Church ; and in
stead of acting contrary to the standards in so doing, I say I acted in the spirit of
them. For it is thus written in the ninth head of the First Book of Discipline, enti
tled, ' For Prophesying or Interpreting the Scriptures.'
" 'To the end that the Kirk of God may have a trial of men's knowledge, judg
ments, graces, and utterances, as also such that have somewhat profited in God's
Word may from time to time grow, in more full perfection, to serve the Kirk, as ne
cessity shall require, it is most expedient that in every town where schools and re
pair of learned men are, there be one certain day in every week appointed to that
exercise, which St. Paul calls prophesying, the order whereof is expressed by him in
these words: "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest judge; but if any
be revealed to him that sits by, let the former keep silence ; ye may one by one proph
esy, that all may learn, and all may receive consolation. ¦ And the spirit," that is,
the judgment, " of the prophets is subject to the prophets." By which words of the
apostle it is evident that, in the Kirk of Corinth, when they did assemble for that
purpose, some place of Scripture was read, upon the which one first gave his judg
ment, to the instruction and consolation of the auditors ; after whom did another
either confirm what the former had said, or added what he had omitted, or did gen-
tty correct, or explain more properly, where the whole verity was not revealed to the
former. And in case things were hid from the one and from the other, liberty was
given for a third to speak his judgment to the edification of the Kirk; above which
number of three (as appears) they passed not for avoiding of confusion. This exer
cise is a thing most necessary for the Kirk of God this day in Scotland; for thereby,
as said is, shall the. Kirk have judgment and knowledge of the graces, gifts, and ut
terances of every man within their body. The simple, and such as have somewhat

588 APPENDICES.
profited, shall be encouraged daily to study and to proceed in knowledge-Hhe Kirk
shall be edified. For this exercise must be patent to such as list to hear and. learn ;
and every man shall have liberty to utter and declare his mind and knowledge to
the comfort and consolation of the Kirk. But, lest of this profitable exercise there
arise debate and strife, curious, peregrine, and unprofitable questions are to be avoid
ed. All interpretation disagreeing from the principles of our faith, repugning to
charity, or that stands in plain contradiction with any other manifest place of Scrip
ture, is to be rejected. The interpreter in this exercise may not take to himself the
liberty of a public preacher (yea, although he be a minister appointed), but he must
bind himself to his text, that he enter not in digression ; or, in explaining common
places, he may use no invective in that exercise, unless it be of sobriety, in confuting
heresies : in exhortations or admonitions he must be short, that the time may be
spent in opening the mind of the Holy Ghost in that place, following the sequel and
dependence of the text, and observing such notes as may instruct and edify the audi-
tory for avoiding of contention ; neither may the interpreter, or any in the assembly,
move any question in open audience whereto himself is not able to give resolution
without reasoning with one another ; but every man .ought to speak his own judg
ment to the edification of the Kirk.
'"If any be noted with curiosity of bringing in of strange doctrine, he must be ad
monished by the moderator, ministers, and elders immediately after the interpretation
is ended. ' ' ' The whole ministers, a number of them that are of the assembly, Aught to con
vene together, where examination should be had how the persons that did interpret
did handle and convey the matter (they themselves being removed) ; to each must be
given his censure ; after the which, the person being called, the faults (if any notable
be found) are noted, and the person gently admonished.
" 'In that assembly are all questions and doubts, if any arise, resolved without
any contention ; the ministers of the parish kirks in landwart adjacent to every
chief town, and the readers, if they have any gift of interpretation, within six miles,
must concur and assist those that prophesy within the towns, to the end that they
themselves may either learn, or others may either learn by them. And, moreover,
men in whom is supposed to be any gift which might edify the Church, if they were
well employed, must be charged by the ministers and elders to join themselves with
the session and company of interpreters, to the end that the Kirk may judge whether
they be able to serve to God's glory, and to the profit of the Kirk in the vocation of
ministers or not ; and if any be found disobedient, and not willing to communicate
the gifts and special graces of God with their brethren, after sufficient admonition,
discipline must proceed against them, provided that the civil magistrate concur with
the judgment and election of the Kirk. For no man may be permitted, as best
pleaseth him, to live within the Kirk of God. But every man must be constrained
by fraternal admonition and correction to bestow hislabors, when of the Kirk he is
required, to the edification of others. What day in the week is most convenient for
that exercise, what books of Scripture shall be most profitable to read, we refer to
the judgment of every particular kirk — we mean, to the wisdom of the ministers and
elders.' d|
" If our Church has ruled that in a matter of ordinary gifts there should be liberty
given to speak, can any one believe that if the gifts of the Holy Ghost had been in
the Church they would not have ruled it. for these extraordinary gifts also? Is it
possible to believe the Reformed Church would have justified the complainers in this
motion, or justify the Presbytery in coming to the decision that I should be ejected
from the National Scotch Church because I admitted persons, after they had been

APPENDIX C. 589
fully proved to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to exercise those gifts in the con
gregation ? Can any one say that it is contrary to the ordinances of the Reformed
churches of Scotland so to do ? But if there were ordinances to this effect (which
there are not), I would disobey them ; if there were ordinances of the king to this
effect, I would disobey them. Yea, I would disobey all ordinances, whether of the
ecclesiastical or civil power, which commanded me not to do a, thing which I be
lieved the Lord Jesus commanded me to do ; and the man who doth not so act in
this matter is guilty of treason against the King of Heaven ; and I would disobey
any earthly king in this matter, but I would do it loyally, not rebelliously. I would
say, ' Whether it be right I should obey man rather than God, judge ye ; ' and whether
it be right in the sight of God to obey the great Head of the Church or His servants ;
the Head of the Church speaking in His Word, or His servants speaking through any
confession or canon of their drawing up, judge ye. And if any man thinks I have
set my hand to any thing contrary to that, I deny it. I tell that man I have not
done it knowingly ; and if unknowingly I have done it, I do here, before the Church
of God, confess I have done wrong ; for it never was given to a man to sign away his
liberty of serving Jesus. It can not be required of a man ; no power on earth can
require it. And if by any act of my life I have given away my power of serving
Jesus, I confess I have done wrong, and when it is brought to my conscience I will
renounce it, because I solemnly deny that there is any power oh earth which can
take away a man's power of serving Jesus, who bought him with His blood, who is
King over all ; who sitteth in the congregation of His saints as head, and raiseth the
beggar from the dunghill to set him among princes, and who casts down princes
from their thrones. But I have not done it ; the Church of Scotland hath not re
quired it ; and if the Church of Scotland had, in an evil hour, in her fallibility (which
none is so ready to confess as she is ; for, in the Preface to the first Confession of the
Reformed Church of Scotland, words nearly to the following effect are. contained.
I can not, perhaps, quote the precise words, but I will answer for the substance :
' If any man do discover in these Articles any thing which repudiates God's Word
or right reason, we crave him of his honor or of his kindness to inform us, and we
promise that we will give him satisfaction out of the Word of God and sound reason,
or admit that we are wrong') — if, therefore, the Church of Scotland, in the exercise
of that fallibility, which none were so ready to acknowledge as our Reformers, stand
ing up as they did against the infallibility -of the Church of Rome, had framed any
canon to prevent me as a minister of Christ from doing the thing which I have done
in obedience to Christ, I would have felt it my duty to disobey that canon, and have
borne the consequences. I would not have waited for months or years the result
of a slow process before the Church courts for authority so to do ; for where in the
mean time were my conscience ; where were my Lord ; where were the spiritual
edification of my flock ; where were the ordinance of prophesying ? But the Church
expecteth it of her ministers that they should walk according to the ordinances of
Christ, and fulfill their duty to Him ; and in doing so I should have advised my
brethren to do it, and would have taken counsel with them in the matter. Nay, I
did take counsel with the brethren in the ministry in this matter, at least with two,
than whom none stand higher in their respective churches : the Rev. D. Dow, min
ister of Irongray, in Scotland, than whom no man in that Church stood in higher
reputation till he had received the gift of the Holy Ghost, but of whom I must now
say that he hath become a fool for Christ's sake — I wrote to him on the subject, and
also communed with another, who stood in the very highest place in the English
Church before the evangelical body ; and I asked them what they thought of this
matter ; and the deliverances I received from them answered exactly to the previous

590 APPENDICES.
judgment of my own mind. At the same time I wrote to a clergyman of the
Church of England, than whom none stood higher in his Church, but who is now
also become a fool for Christ's sake, and received his judgment to the same effect ;
so that in one week I had three judgments concurring with my own opinion to the
very letter. These I laid before the elders and deacons, in order to show them that
I was not acting precipitately, but with the counsel of my brethren. And I do not
say but that, if I had been a member of this Presbytery, which at that time I was
not, I would have felt it my duty to lay it before them. Ah ! surely I would ; I
would never have hid any thing in my bosom which came from the Lord, and I
knew it to be so ; for while I was connected with this Presbytery, every thing that
was brought to me I brought into the Presbytery ; but then I had been rejected by
this Presbytery as a heretic ; I had been publicly repudiated by them as a heretic,
and branded with this stigma over the whole land, and I had none to consult with.
I would have observed brotherly love, but I was under no authority to them, or to
any Church court ; for the General Assembly, at their last meeting, clearly laid it
down that they could not exercise .any rule beyond the kingdom of Scotland. It
was ruled so by men on both sides the house ; so that if I had been inclined to act
the churchman instead of the Christian minister ; if I had been inclined to act the
part of a minister of the Church of Scotland, and not the part of a minister of
Christ ; if I had been inclined to put myself forth as a trustee of the standards
of the Church of Scotland, and not as a minister of the living Word, even then I
could not have done the thing required of me, namely, to apply to them to allow the
speaking with tongues and prophesying in the congregation ; but I would not, so
there is an end of that kind of argument. I would not, because, when I felt the au
thority of my Lord in my conscience, it would have been an insult to Him to ask for
more. There is no authority that can come between the angels of the Church and
Him the Head. See ye -if it is ever written in the seven epistles of Christ to his
Church, in the Revelations, or in the Word of God any where, that a minister is re
quired to go to the Presbytery or synod before obeying the commands of Jesus. See
ye if there be any instance in which it is not charged to the angel of the Church -if
any thing disorderly occurs in the Church ; and I say, after long and painful study
of the constitution of the Church of Scotland, and after long love, and ardent, to her
constitution and discipline, and much active service for her sake, aud after much de
lightful communion with her members, I will say to my younger brethren in the
ministry here present, that it is not sound doctrine which teacheth that the Presbytery,
or the General Assembly, or any court, or any man, or bishop, or any pope inter-
veneth and interposeth their authority between a minister and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who speaks to the minister directly, and the minister directly obeys Christ. The
counsels of the Church are for settling the differences that arise, but are not intended
to take away the free standing of a minister of Christ in the Church. I say it is the
only sound doctrine that the ministers of Christ, and pastors of His people, stand di
rectly responsible to Christ, all Presbyteries, synods, councils, creeds, canons, and
confessions notwithstanding. These, doubtless, have their use and place, but this is
not within the present question.
" Now I have brought this third head to a close, namely, concerning the ruling
of it. I deny every charge brought against me seriatim, and say it is not per
sons, but the Holy Ghost that speaketh in the Church. I do not say what the
judgment of this Presbytery might be if they could say that these persons do not
speak by the Holy Ghost. But this they can not do. This is what I rest my case
upon. This is the root of the matter. This is what I press on the conscience of
the Presbytery ; and it is laid before them out of the mouths of all the witnesses.

APPENDIX C. 59I
The evidence is entirely to this effect ; not one witness has witnessed to the con
trary. "I do not think it necessary to go into the institution of the Church of Scotland
to show my faithfulness to the Church since I came into this city ; how many of the
ordinances I found fallen down, and my labors in building them up again ; the office
of deacon, the duty of the elders in visiting the sick of the flock, public baptism in
the Church, the services before and after-the holy communion, etc. ; but I am not
here to testify of myself, for if I did my witness were not true. I am here to testify
of another, even of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose name as Baptizer with the Holy
Ghost, whose standing name of Godhead— for it is that which distinguisheth His
name as God, implying that He hath a person of the Godhead to distribute— is denied
by this complaint. And though the complainers shut their ears upon it, yet it is the
truth, it is the burden of it ; and it is, let me say, the guilt of it, and a heinous guilt
it is. I believe this standing name of Godhead which Jesus hath, as Baptizer with
the Holy Ghost, it is the purpose of this complaint to suppress in the Church, to
prevent from being exercised in the Church! It is the purpose of this complaint to
prevent the Lord Jesus from fulfilling His covenant of baptism to every member of
the Church ; it is the purpose of this complaint to prevent the Lord Jesus from
speaking with His own voice in the Church."
Moderator. ' ' Order ! I will not allow this assertion. As long as Mr. Irving speaks
to facts, we will hear him ; but when he imputes intentions to the complainers, I sub
mit it is clearly disorderly."
Mr. Irving. "You do not understand what I mean. I mean that it is the animus
of this document. Is it not the very intention of the whole complaint ? I appeal to
the court."
Moderator. "You have made severe personal charges, and I rule it is not compe
tent so to go on."
Mr. Irving. "I ask the judgment of the court on this point, whether it is not the
very intention of this deed, and whether I was arguing as to the persons, or as to the
deed of complaint ; and I was saying it is the very spirit of the complaint to prevent
the voice of the Holy Ghost from being heard in the Church, which is the temple of
the Holy Ghost ; it is the .spirit of the complaint to put it down, because it has the
sign of the Holy Ghost upon it, which is speaking with tongues."
Mr. Mann here interrupted the defender, and disavowed the intentions imputed to
the trustees.
Mr. Irving. "I speak to this paper (the copy of the complaint), and I am perfect
ly in order. I have a good right to judge of this paper, and no man shall prevent
me. Surely this Presbytery, to whom I appeal, will allow me to speak to my in
dictment." Dr. Crombie. "I must say, Moderator, that I conceive Mr. Irving perfectly in or
der, although the words might have been qualified as to the effect of the complaint.
Mr. Irving has explained that ho does not impute improper motives to the complain
ers ; he means not the spirit of the complainers, but the spirit of the complaint."
Mr. Irving. ' ' The tendency and effect of the complaint, then, that is quite regular."
Moderator. "That is what I suggesttM."
Mr. Irving. "Well, I say, the tendency and effect of the complaint is to resist and
hinder the voice of the Holy Ghost speaking in the Church ; and let me enumerate
the points in the complaint again, and glad am I to have another opportunity of enu
merating them. Well, then, the inevitable tendency of the complaint is to destroy
the name of Jesus as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, and by a verdict of a court, and
with a canon of a Church (and it makes no matter what court it is, for the highest

592 APPENDICES.
of human authorities is but as the lowest when compared with the dignity of Jesus),
to take away from Him this name as Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, and to say that
name in its full property, and grace, and blessedness, and effects, belongeth not to
Him. The tendency of the complaint is to take away from every child of God, in
the bosom of the National Scotch Church, the hope and the desire of having the bap
tism of the Holy Ghost given to them for the edification of the Church, according
to the covenant of baptism. The tendency of the complaint is to take away the lib
erty from that Church of having and exercising the gift of tongues and of prophecy,
the grand ordinance which the apostle expressly says is for edification, exhortation,
and comfort. The tendency and effect of the complaint is to take away the speak
ing with tongues and prophesying, which is for the edification of the Church. The
tendency of the complaint is to take away the ordinance of the prophet from the
Christian Church, which ordinance Jesus hath appointed to be in the Church always,
and which would always have been in the Church, had men looked always to the
ordinances of Jesus, instead of looking to human wisdom and traditions, and human
system and human authority. The tendency of the complaint is to take away from
the Holy Ghost the liberty of speaking in the Church, His own temple, the temple of
truth, and that because the thing spoken is accompanied' with His own sign of speak
ing with tongues. It is the spirit and tendency of this complaint to take from a min
ister of Christ the dignity and responsibility which pertaineth to him as an officer of
the Church of Christ, to rule and order his church in spiritual things, and to be the
responsible deputy of Christ in all things pertaining to words and ordinances. It is
the tendency and effect of this complaint to take from a minister of the Church of
Scotland the liberty and privilege which belongs to him as a minister of Christ,
which, though not given him by the Church of Scotland, yet are guaranteed to him
both by the canons of the land and the canons of the Church ; which are given to
him by Jesus, and are guaranteed to him by the powers, as well civil as ecclesiastic
al, so that no man shall let or hinder him therein. It is the tendency and effect of
this complaint to put trustees (who have nothing to do but with the care of the build
ing, that it be not diverted from its proper ends, which in this case has not been
done ; and I defy them, and all men, to show that I have contravened any ordi
nances of the Church of Scotland or of the Church of Christ) — to exalt trustees over
the minister, and to make him their bondman. And I warn you, ministers, that if
you do sanction such an interference with a man acting in the spirit in which I have
acted ; if you do wink at these proceedings, and not look them in the face, but give
these men power to cast me and my flock — a flock of hundreds, and a congregation
of thousands— out of that church wliich has been built, I will say, very much on the
credit of my name ; if you aid them in casting me out into the wide streets, you will
do a thing for which the Lord will chastise you, not in higher matters only, but in
this kind also in which you offend, namely, in those who have the secular care of the
houses where you worship.* I have but one word to add as to the position in which
I submit this matter to the Presbytery, because .in this matter both parties have a
right of judgment. With all reverence, therefore — and you must hear it with pa
tience, for what I am going to say is not pleasing to flesh and blood ; but I must ex
onerate my conscience — with all reverence, (therefore, I say, I do not submit this case
to the Presbytery as a Presbytery of the Church of Scotland, having any jurisdiction
over me ; and ye will not ask it of me, because I have no right of appeal from this
Presbytery to the Church of Scotland. I do not, therefore, submit it to this Pres
bytery as a Presbytery having any right of superintendence over me ; for, though I
was once a member of your Presbytery, I went out from you of my own free-will ;
* This warning has been singularly and literally justified by the course of events since then.

APPENDIX C.

593

and when I had so gone forth from you, because I saw you not acting as I judged
according to the commandments of the Lord, ye did judge me, in my absence, a her
etic on great points of faith ; and then, at the sessions of our Church, the Church
did, by solemn act of the ruling elders, withdraw itself from the Presbytery, and
therefore we are in no respect under your jurisdiction. And although many ques
tions have been put by you to the witnesses as to my doctrine, and ye, I believe,
would not have done so if you had not supposed erroneously that you had jurisdic
tion over me, I, although I could have arrested it, yet being desirous that the truth
should be fully known, and knowing the examination would throw some light on the
question in hand, I suffered it to go on, although I felt that in it the Presbytery did
trespass very far on my rights as a party in this case ; and I will say also, did very
much forget the calmness and disinterestedness of judges ; for never did I hear, or
any one else, in any court, witnesses so questioned and cross-questioned— no, not
even where evidence of the most suspicious kind is wont to be brought forward— as
they were here cross-questioned by the Presbytery; and that, too, even in the most
solemn matters. And the witnesses being voluntary, and under no compulsion, were
subjected to a most unusual process of vexatious scrutiny."
Mr. Maclean. " Order ! I say, Moderator, the questions were not put in an im
proper manner. They were questions quite in order, and for sifting the truth in
respect to this matter ; although the manner may have been that of firmness and
decision, there was no improper feeling."
The Moderator rose to defend the Presbytery, and thought they had not departed
from gravity in cross-examining the witnesses. There was no parallel between them
and civil judges, for the Presbytery were both prosecutors and judges, and therefore,
in duty to the Church, they were bound to put all questions needful to elucidate the
truth. Mr. Irving. "It stands in evidence that the witnesses were examined as to my
doctrine, and as to matters far away from the matter in hand. I can only say I
never authorized the Presbytery to inquire into my doctrine. Nay, I say more, I
never could submit my doctrines to you as a court of Christ ; for, by refusing all
reference to the Holy Scriptures, ye have put yourselves beyond this privilege. What
would any one say of a civil court in Britain which would refuse an appeal to the
laws of the realm ? Would not such a court, sitting in name of the king, who would
so despise the ^aws, be guilty of rebellion against the king, whose office it is to ad
minister the laws impartially to all his subjects ? So say 1 if a court, calling itself
the court of Christ, says it will not allow appeal to lie open to the Scriptures, which
are the statutes of our King, as was ruled by this Presbytery in deliberate judgment
yesterday, and that judgment protested against, then that court ceaseth to be a court
of Christ: and I can not retract or qualify my assertion that, by such proceeding,
this Presbytery hath become only a court of anti-Christ."
Mr. Maclean rose to order, and said, "It is quite competent to the reverend gen
tleman to protest against our decision on that point, but not to impugn the court ;
but to say that we are not a court of Christ, but a court of anti-Christ, I will never,
never submit to it. I hold my judgment on the matter to be as good as that of the
Rev. E. Irving, and maintain that he is not competent to do any thing but to enter
a protest against us."
Mr. Irving. "I have said the word, and do not retract it, because it is the truth.
I said it, I assure you, sir, in sorrow ; I grieve over it, I lament over it in faithful
ness. I am bound to say the Presbytery have most grievously erred in this matter ;
and, until repentance be shown by them for this sin, the Lord is angry with them.
I can not, therefore, submit this matter to the Presbytery as a Presbytery, but mere-
PP

594

APPENDICES.

ly as referees. I do not deny that the Presbytery when it meets is, or at least ought
to be, constituted in Christ, the Head of the Church, and ought to be conducted by
entire regard to the teaching of the Holy Ghost ; but this Presbytery have virtually
denied this, and have cut themselves off from the fountain of justice ; they have cast
themselves from all judgment on the basis of Scripture, which is the only standard
of faith and practice, as declared by the very standards of. our Church ; and they
can not give righteous judgment in this cause until they repent of that which was
done yesterday, in cutting themselves off from all appeal to this Book, and expunge
their decision on this point from the records ; and not only not prevent, but gladly
permit, in all causes that come before them, reference to be made to the Holy Scrip
tures. For how would I be a good magistrate of the king if, when parties came be
fore me with any case to be adjudged, and those parties were referring to the stat
utes of the land, I should say, you ought not to refer to the statutes of the king, but
to some antique customs, or some of the new-come notions — some of the notions
lately come up in this part of the country — which we have ruled among ourselves?
At our Quarter Sessions, if a man should come up before a magistrate, and should
be accused of any matter, and it should be found out and showed that the statutes
of the realm applied to the very point, but that they had been long neglected, and
were lying in desuetude, surely you would judge him by the statute so adduced.
If that court were to say No, we can not permit any such appeal, would you say they
were fulfilling their office justly? So I say you ought to encourage appeals to the
Word of God, because it is the only rule of faith and of practice. It is the thing
which is imposed on every baptized person, and as such it is obligatory on you. Is
it not the custom with you, and with every other minister of our Church, to impose
it on every baptized person in these very words ? Do you not oblige every person
who comes to be baptized to declare that these Scriptures are the only rule of faith
and practice, whereof an excellent summary is contained in the Confession of Faith,
and in the shorter and longer Catechisms? Yes, these are the words which are
imposed on every .baptized person. I have imposed them on every person I have
baptized, except occasionally I may have forgotten it ; and it is the constant custom
to impose them on every baptized person. The Scriptures are laid on every parent
as the only rule of faith and practice. You are bound by this obligation, whether as
fathers or as ministers ; and yet now, when I come into your court, and submit to
you a cause, a most solemn cause, a most momentous cause, a most ponderous cause,
the like of which hath not been agitated in Christendom for many centuries — a cause
affecting the honor of the Holy Ghost, and His work in the Church, which is His
temple ; a cause touching the Holy of Holies, and not the skirts of the tabernacle —
ye, when I come before you with this cause, refuse all proof of such work from the
Scriptures, and say, We will not rule our practice by the Word of God."
Mr. Irving, on being called to order, said in explanation, "I was only saying that,
in the practice of this court, there was never such a solemn subject before it. Is it
not the naked fact that you did prevent me from appealing to the Scriptures ? Am
I to be held in disorder for speaking the plain and naked truth?"
The Moderator denied the analogy drawn between civil courts and ecclesiastical
eourts, and disclaimed the inference drawn by Mr. Irving from their conduct that
they had interdicted him from appealing to the Scriptures. "What are the laws of
a kingdom but the will of the king constructed by the nation ? The standards of
our Church, in like manner, were held to be the will of the King of Zion, as declared
by our Church, and therefore wc are in order when we insist that the reverend de
fender shall plead to the will of the King as declared in the standards of our Church.
The reverend defender must show that he is acting according to his ordination vows

APPENDIX C. 595
in this matter. He has taken a larger range, however, and gone into irrelevant
matters. We have borne with him by courtesy and in tenderness ; but I will not
compromise the dignity of the court, and permit him to use epithets which I think
are abusive."
Mr. Irving. "I speak at this bar as a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ; as »
minister of His Word, which the Lord has given me to keep and to minister ; and
as a maintainer of the paramount authority of His Word ; and I say again, that dis
honor of the most flagrant nature hath been done to the Word of God in these pro
ceedings by preventing an appeal to it ; and if I were not to lift up my voice against
it, the very stones out of the wall, and the beams out of the timber, would cry out.
What ! if I am not to appeal to the facts which have actually taken place in this
court, which have been ruled in this court by the Presbytery in this matter, I will sit
down and speak no more. For I will not, I can not, be prevented by the court.
There is a right above every court, and there is one Head over every court. It has
been endeavored to prevent me from alluding to the things which were ruled in this
court, to take away from me the only line of defense which, as a, minister of the
Word of God, I could have taken. Sir, I can not but appeal from the course that
has been adopted toward me, since I was prohibited by a solemn decision of the
court from appealing to the only authority on the subject, wliich is the Word of God ;
for there is not a line nor a word in the standards of the Church which directly takes
up the subject of the gift of the Holy Ghost. There is not a word concerning speak
ing with tongues and prophesying in the standards of the Church of Scotland. There
is not a word within the whole compass of the Church canons to carry an appeal to ;
and I say it is a mere hoodwinking of a man, after you have shut my mouth on this
important part of my case, to say that my judgment was not taken away by your
decision. Find me in the standards of the Church any thing to appeal to ; ye can
not." Mr. Mann here rose with a call of "Order."
Mr. Irving. " If I am to be interrupted thus, I will sit down. I wish to act rev
erently toward my brethren, but I must be more reverent to the Lord Jesus Christ ;
God knows I am acting as a minister of His Word. Well, I say, I submit the mat
ter to this Presbytery as to a number of men endowed with conscience — with the
conscience and discernment of truth, and who are beholden to exercise their consci
entious discernment for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Head of this court, and the
head of every man, and who are beholden to judge all things according to the law
of Jesus Christ, which is the law of this court, the law of every man-, and I say that
this Presbytery are called upon before the Lord Jesus Christ to see and ascertain
whether that thing I have declared to them upon the veracity of a minister, which is
substantiated by the testimony on 'their table, given by witnesses yesterday, all of
their own selection, and which I will pledge myself to authenticate farther by the
testimony of not less than five hundred persons, of unblemished life and sound faith,
that it is the work of the Holy Ghost, speaking with tongues and prophesying. And
as all the witnesses have borne a uniform testimony to it as the work of the Holy
Ghost, the Presbytery can not, they may not, before God, before the Lord Jesus
Christ, and before all these witnesses, shut their eyes willfully against such testimo
ny in this matter, or if they do, they will have to stand at a bar where they can not
evade the force of conscience and the deep responsibility they now take on them
selves, where there is no shutting of eyes, but where every thing shall be disclosed.
It is instructed before you (surely the Presbytery will not shut its eyes to the evi
dence on the table) that it is by the Holy Ghost that these persons speak. There is
no civil court whatever that would refuse to receive the evidence lying on your ta-

596

APPENDICES.

ble ; and you may not as members of a Christian Church, you may not as ministers
and elders you may not as honest men, turn aside from the matter of fact that has
been certified to you, and say, We will leave that matter in the background ; we will
not consider it at all ; we will go simply by the canons of the Church of Scotland,
and see what they say on the subject. They say nothing on it, seeing they could
say nothing, seeing there was no such thing in being. There is nothing of the kind
mentioned in the Confession of Faith ; and I ask you with what conscience yon can
turn from the plain evidence that it is the Holy Ghost Speaking in the Church, and
rest yourselves on nothing but points of formality. I say, go to nothing to make up
your judgment, for even from the Holy Scripture ye may not do it ; you may not do
it, you can not do it if you fear the living God ; you can not do it if you respect
men ; you can not do it if you respect your children ; you Can not do it if you re
spect truth and justice ; you can not do it if you respect the Head of the Church, if
you acknowledge the authority of the Lord Jesus ; you can not do it if you have
any reverence for the Holy Ghost. And if you resolve so to do, which may the Lord
forbid, I shall appear at the bar of the Great Judge as a witness against you, that I
did here this day for four or five hours contend,, no irrelevant matter, but contend
the very matter in question — that we have received the gift of the Holy Ghost; that
we have ordered it according to the Word of God, and that it ought not to be cast
out of the Church. I shall appear at that bar where all secrets shall be revealed,
and evidence that you have shut your eyes against this thing, notwithstanding all
the evidence that could be adduced ; yea, though I have offered to substantiate it
by five hundred persons of unblemished reputation, who would willingly come for
ward and testify to this work being of the Holy Ghost, before this court, or any diet
you may appoint. Ah ! if ye will turn aside from that, and say No, there are no
customs or authority in the canons of the Church for it, and we will not consider
whether the thing is in Scripture or not; if ye will not consider it in the only true
light — the light of the Scripture — I tell you, ye shall be withered in your church
es ; I tell you, ye will be visited with heavy retribution ; I tell you, the waters in
your cisterns shall be dried up ; I tell you, ye shall have no pastures in which to
feed your flocks ; I tell you, your flocks shall pine away for hunger and shall die.
Moreover, I stand here rejoicing, not on your account truly, but oh ! I rejoice that I
am counted worthy to suffer shame and reproach for this testimony. If ye will, as
members of a Christian court, give your decision against me, while I deplore it on
your account and that of the complainers, I rejoice, yea, I rejoice exceedingly, for
my own sake, and for the sake of my flock ; yea, I will call on them to rejoice, and
to.be exceeding glad, that I am counted worthy to suffer for the Lord's sake. And
I will say of this Presbytery that it took away my judgment ; that it thrust away my
judgment; that it would not examine into the merits of the case ; that it set aside
the testimony of honest men — of an elder, and a deacon, and a prophet, and a min
ister of Christ ; and, judging against all the evidence, ye have thrust aside then-
testimony, and have merely said, Is there any authority for this in the Church of
Scotland ? Oh, it is a small matter to be cast out of a house ; it is a small matter
this, seeing we have ' a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' and are
here but as pilgrims and sojourners on the earth, as all our fathers were. The Lord,
we do not doubt, will provide us another, and if not, we are no worse off than He
who was accustomed to preach the glad tidings of the kingdom by the Sea of Gal
ilee ; who taught His flock in the fields and desert places of Judea, and on the
Mount of Olives. We can take ourselves to the fields and open places around this
great city, and there I can feed my flock ; we can not be worse off than He who, to
seek retirement, went up into a desert mountain to pray, and who had not where to

APPENDIX C. 597
lay His head ; and when they all went' to their several homes, Ho went to the
Mount of Olives during the night to sleep there. We are not worse off than He.
Oh, it is a small matter to be turned out of our church. He will soon recompense
us with ' a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.,' The day
is near at hand when the heavens shall be opened, and He, the Son of Man, shall ap
pear in the clouds, with power and great glory, and when His saints shall be taken to
Him, to dwell before His throne. It is near at hand, we know ; that day is near at
hand ; and we know this voice of the Holy Ghost has been sent to His Church to be
the witness to prepare all men for His speedy coming, by a voice that could not be
doubted, which the Lord has been graciously pleased to send among ns in answer to
our prayer. When ye had set aside the voice- of testimony, which I have lifted up
for the last five or six years, to the coming of Jesus, and counted it as a fable, then
the Lord, in order that ye might not perish, sent His own voice, as in the old time,
to prepare you for His coming ; and poured out His Spirit to lead you to Jesus, in
order that ye might receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; to call on you to receive
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, through which alone you can be saved in that day
when the Lord's judgments shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire ; when there
shall be signs in the sun and in the moon, and in the earth distress and perplexity
of nations, as is now begun. And when anti-Christ, that man of sin, shall be re
vealed, and shall be destroyed with judgment ; and when only those shall be pre
served from the persecutions of anti-Christ who have an anointing from the Holy
One. When we know these things, it is a small matter to be cast out of the Church,
because we know that house, that throne of glory, that temple in which God dwells,
shall be prepared — shall soon be prepared — for us ; when we know that in our time —
yea, even in our time — He will come with all his saints to execute vengeance upon
all them who fear not God, and obey not the Gospel of Christ. But it is a most
momentous thing for you, who have been thus betrayed into the snare of Satan, to
bring up a complaint against the Holy Ghost, and from which awful responsibility I
pray God your souls may be delivered. A blessed thing will it be for you if you give
heed, and turn ; but if ye will not turn, and yet, not having examined the thing for
yourselves, ye will give judgment against it, it will be a burdensome thing to you.
It will be a burdensome thing to this Presbytery if it shall give judgment against
that which hath been instructed before them to be the work of the Holy Ghost, and
which none of them can say, on their own conscience or discernment, not to be
the Holy Ghost, since they have not come to witness it, they have not attempted to
prove it. Ah ! it will be a burdensome thing, not to this Presbytery alone, but to
this city also, if ye shut the only church in it, yea, the only church in this kingdom
in which the voice of the Holy Ghost is heard ! Think you, O men ! if it should be
the Holy Ghost, what ye are doing ! Consider the possibility of it, and be not rash ;
consider the possibility of the evidence being true, of our averments being right, and
see what ye are doing. Ah ! I tell you it will be an onerous day for this city and
this kingdom, in the which ye do with a stout heart and high hand, and without ex
amination or consideration, upon any grounds, upon any authority, even though you
had the commandment of the king himself, shut up that house in which the voice
of the Holy Ghost is heard, that house in which alone it is heard. Pause— pause-
pause, and reflect. Ye are going to set yourselves to the most terrible work to which
a Presbytery ever set its hand. I must say, in honesty, I do not see every where
that spirit prevailing (it may prevail in some of you, I judge no man), but I do not
see that spirit prevailing of looking at the act ye are about to do in that solemn
magnitude in which it truly standeth before the Judge of all. I beseech you to
pause ; pause for the sake of the complainers, if not for your own sakes ; pause for

598

APPENDICES.

the sake of this city ; pause for the sake of this land. Be wise men ; come and hear
for yourselves. The church is open every morning ; the Lord is gracious almost
every morning to speak to us by His Spirit. The church is open many times in the
week and the Lord is gracious to us, and speaks through his servants very often.
Ah ! be not hard-hearted, be not proud of mind ; remember ye are but men. Re
member, this work of the Spirit, this speaking with tongues, is, indeed, for rest and
refreshing to the weary ; but it is also for the stumbling, and snaring, and taking of
' the proud and high-minded. Remember that it is to teach wisdom to those only
who are weaned from the breasts, and have the spirit of little children. If ye be
like those who are weaned from the breasts, and have in you the spirit of little
children, ye will beware, and learn ; but if ye have the spirit of strong men, and
think your own wisdom sufficient, believing that in the Church there is enough, or in
the traditions of the Church there is enough, ye will plunge headlong into the wrath
of God. I have no doubt in saying it, and I would be an unfaithful man, pleading
not my cause, but the cause of God, the cause of Christ, the cause of the Holy Ghost,
in this Presbytery (for it is not the cause of a man ; no, man has no charge against
me ; I stand unimpeached, unblemished before them), did I not say it. It is only
this interruption, this new thing (for it is not an interruption) that hath occurred,
which is instructed by the evidence to be the voice of the Holy Ghost, the speaking
with tongues and prophesying, which I have declared to be the same, which hath
given offense. And I sit down, solemnly declaring before you all, before God and
the Lord Jesus Christ, on the faith of a minister of Christ, that I believe it to be the
work of the Holy Ghost, for the edifying of the Church, for the warning of the
world, and for preventing men from running headlong into the arms of anti-Christ,
and for pointing out that condition of Babylonish confusion into which the churches
are come ; for we all lament with one accord, and must acknowledge that we have
surely departed from what we were originally as a Church, and how could the Lord
show what the Church should be but by restoring those gifts which she had at the
beginning? What can reconstitute the Church of God but that which, constituted it
at the first? What can deliver the captive from the bondage of the flesh but that
God who called Abraham from his native land ? That God is now come in the per
son of the Holy Ghost, to deliver His Church from the bondage of Egypt, from the
bondage of the flesh in which she is.
" One word more, and I conclude. I do solemnly declare (it is the faith of a
Christian, and I mean no offense), but I do solemnly declare my belief that the
Protestant churches are in the state of Babylon as truly as is the Roman Church.
And I do separate myself, and my flock standing in me, from that Babylonish con
federacy, and stand in the Holy Ghost, and under the great Head of the Church,
waiting for His appearing, who shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, constituting no
schism, but, as a minister believing his Lord is soon to appear, desiring and praying
that his Church may, by the baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, be made
meet for His appearing. And with this hope and prospect I still have great love for
each of you, and desire you to know the same, and entreat you to come out from the
Babylonish mixture, to come out of all carnal ordinances, from all human authority
repressing you, and putting you in bondage to man's devices, and preventing you
from entering the promised land of the Spirit. I entreat you to set up the Holy
Scriptures as the only basis of faith and practice ; to look as ministers, and to look
as people, to them alone ; and I know this, that if you throw the Bible aside, you
will not look to much else that is good. You may talk about standards as you
please, but I know there will be little reading of the standards or other good books
if there be not much reading of the Scriptures. Therefore I entreat you to put the

APPENDIX C. 599
standards on their own basis, and every moment to walk before the Lord in His
commandments. Cry to the Lord, and repent of worldliness ; turn to the Lord,
and call on Him to lead you into the true faith, and to baptize you with the Holy
Ghost, and the Lord will soon teach you and bless you. What I say to the Presby
tery I say also to you all ; and I would farther urge you, in doing so, not to fear but
that in the day of His appearing the Lord will spread His mantle over you, and hide
you in the secret of His pavilion, and give you forever reverently to inquire for, and
to know Him in His holy place. Amen and Amen.''
This defense was followed by a speech from Mr. Mann, the representative of the
trustees, after which the Presbytery adjourned for a week.
On Wednesday the Presbytery met, and after the court had been opened in the
usual form, the reverend Moderator rose and said, that, "as there was no appeal
from the decision of the court, the Presbytery had come to the determination that
they would permit Mr. Irving to make any observations he might think fit to make
in reply to Mr. Mann's remarks, provided he would keep himself entirely to the mat
ter to which Mr. Mann had adverted."
Mr. Irving then rose, and after a short pause, which he devoted to prayer, said,
"In order that I may aid my memory, and walk strictly by the rule which the court
has laid down, I hold in my hand the report of the speech made on Friday, on be
half of the trustees (of which I did not take notes), as it is reported in the Record
newspaper ; and I will endeavor, by the help of my memory, and of this report, how
ever imperfect, to keep within the proper limits ; and if in any thing I may travel
out of them, I desire to be called by you or the opposite party to order. Neverthe
less, you will allow me the privilege of replying in such a manner as that I may set
forth a full and fair answer, according to the convictions of my own mind, to the
things which were alleged in the speech of the gentleman who appeared on the oth
er side. The first thing of importance which he stated was, that ' He did not con
sider himself called upon to make any reply to the unseemly and untimely denuncia
tions with which I attempted to stem the course of justice.' To this I reply, I did
not attempt to stem the course of justice by any thing which I spoke, but I sought
to open the channels for the stream of justice to flow freely ; and because I believe
that the present question before the Presbytery amounteth to this, Whether the out-
breakings of the latter-day glory shall be quenched or permitted to proceed in the
churches of Scotland and of England ? I was at pains to lay before you the awful
consequences involved in this issue, being truly desirous to save my brethren and my
country from the wrath of God, which will come upon all who stand in the way of
His gracious purposes. For I do certainly foresee that if you, as a Presbytery hav
ing power given to you in this matter, should decide on any ground earthly, that this,
which is by the evidence on your table sworn* and which I solemnly declare to be
the voice of God speaking again in His Church, shall now be hindered and put to
silence, the end of it shall be great and heavy judgments of the Lord on all those
who have a hand in opposing His work ; yea, and upon the Church itself, if the
Church shall take part in these proceedings, if she do not enter her solemn protest
against them, and deliver her soul from them altogether. It was not surely to stem
the course of justice, but to lay open before your eyes what I believe to be involved
in your decision, that I did not hesitate to put these things forth, not in the way of
denunciation (for who am I, that I should judge or denounce any man ?), but as the
convictions of my faith : 'I believed, and therefore have I spoken,' as the Holy Ghost
saith in reference to the Lord (Psalm cxv.), which the apostle also taketh to himself

600

APPENDICES.

(2 Cor., iv., 13). I therefore beseech the Presbytery not to be carried away by this
misrepresentation, as if I had taken upon me God's seat of judgment, and spoken
from that seat, in order to stem the course of justice on earth. I hope the word was
spoken unadvisedly, and not with evil design ; yet, if it had weight with any of the
judges, let them be careful to put it away. The fearful things which I spake were
not intended to stem the course of justice, but to let the judges know what depended
on the issue of the question before them. And most solemnly do I again, before this
court, declare my faith to be, that like as the Man of Sorrows, because of His humil
iation, and desertion of all the people, was rejected and crucified by the Jews, where
by they brought down upon their nation all those consuming judgments under which
they still lie oppressed, and from which they shall not be recovered till they look on
Him whom they pierced, and mourn over their sin, so is this Presbytery now brought
into the peril of rejecting the small and slender beginnings of the Holy Ghost's work,
because of the humble form in which it hath appeared, as a few droppings before the
abundant latter rain ; into which snare if you fall, then, while I believe that the
Lord's work will not be hindered by you or by all men, I farther believe that, because
you will not further it, but fight against it, you will bring down upon you heads, not
the judgment of the Jewish Church, which can be forgiven, because they sinned
against the Son of Man, but the judgment of the Gentile Church, which can not be
forgiven, neither in this world nor in that which is to come, because it is done
against the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father, which is now revealed in its first-
fruits, and standeth before you, the ministers of Jesus, to be discerned and encour
aged, not to be overlooked and quenched, so far as your influence extends.
" The next thing spoken in reply was, That the subject matter before the Presby
tery was not of doctrine, but of discipline. But, brethren, I aver, and you should
know well, that discipline without doctrine is nothing but legal constraint and abso
lute tyranny — a thing unknown in the Christian Church. Discipline is not a thing
which can be considered apart, being in truth nothing else than the labor of the vine
dresser when the vine is putting forth exuberant leaves and branches, which hinder
the fruit from being perfected ; a labor, surely, which presupposeth life in the vine,
which life cometh in the Church from sound and fruitful doctrine. Discipline, apart
from doctrine, hath no grace or love to rest upon, and turneth to severity. For here
in a court of the Church differeth from a court of law in that it ruleth every thing,
not according to the letter of the statute, but according to the spirit of charity ; and
if she findeth her children in error in any matter, the Church treateth with the con
science, not to destroy, but to save ; to pluck out the root of bitterness, and set the
heart right with God, with our neighbor, with the Church ; to indoctrinate him in
the mind of Jesus ; to deal lovingly and gently with him for whom Christ died ; to
open upon him the flood-gates of the Gospel, and hold forth to his view the holiness,
the love, and the salvation against which sin doth blind the eye and harden the heart.
So that, supposing we were even to grant the allegation that it were a mere question
of discipline, this Presbytery can not treat it rightly unless it inquire into the doc
trine which the discipline doth order and regulate ; and if we be found of you to
have erred in any thing, teach us the true doctrine, and we will promise to walk
therein, according to the wholesome discipline of love. But I deny the averment
that it is a question of discipline and not of doctrine ; for if these be the manifesta
tions of the Holy Ghost, what court under heaven would dare to interpose and say
they must not be suffered to proceed ? Tell me if that body does exist on the face
of the earth which would dare to rule it so if they believe the work to be of the Holy
Ghost. Surely not in the Christian Church doth such a body exist ; therefore the
decision must entirely depend on this : whether it be of the Holy Ghost, or whether

APPENDIX C.

601

it be not of the Holy Ghost. For if it be, who dare gainsay it ? Will any one say,
if it be of the Holy Ghost, that any rule of discipline or statute of the Church, sup
posing the statutes were sevenfold strong, instead of being none at all— for on this
subject the statutes of the Church of Scotland are entirely silent — will any one dare
to say that, if it be the voice of the Holy Ghost, all laws "and statutes in which, dur
ing the days of her ignorance, the Church might have sought to defend herself against
the entering in of the voice of the Spirit of God, should be allowed to keep Him out ?
And is it possible that this Presbytery should shuffle off the burden of the issue, and
act upon the assertion made, that it is not the matter of doctrine which is to be en
tered into, the more when the evidence upon the table is unanimous to this point,
that it is the voice of the Holy Ghost ? And with such evidence upon your table,
and none other, will they say that you should not go into the question, but decide on
the matter according to an arbitrary rule, when, in point of fact, there is no such
rule in existence ? Verily, if the Presbytery should do so, it would make void all
the laws of evidence, and convert witness-bearing into an idle formality, if it pre
sumes to judge away from the evidence before it. But I hope better things of this
body of ministers and elders than that they will fall into the trap laid for them, of
hiding the matter of fact in evidence before them from their eyes, of shunning the
question of doctrine, and converting this weightiest of all questions into a mere mat
ter of form. I know that you consider yourselves constituted under the Holy Ghost;
and when you pray to be directed under Christ by the Holy Ghost, you are not put
ting up, prayers in hypocrisy, but in sincerity ; and being so, when it is on the table
in evidence, brought by the accusing party, that it is the work of the Holy Ghost,
this Presbytery, constituted under the Holy Ghost, will surely never set such evidence
to a side, and refuse to expiscate the truth of the matter, either to justify before the
world the Holy Ghost's work, or else to expose the fallacious pretense thereto, and
so protect the dignity and sanctity of that name in which you believe that you sit
constituted. "But to return to the course holden by the other party; taking it up as a ques
tion of discipline, the gentleman who was the mouth of the trustees set forth to you
that ' the subject-matter before the Presbytery was not the question of the doctrine,
it was a question of discipline ; that being the case, would he not be right in refer
ring to the discipline of the Church of Scotland as set out in her own standards ?
Because he did not" go to the Word of God to find out what was not in the Word of
God, was he to be told that he refused to appeal to the Word of God ? Certainly
not.' In reply to this, I say that any man who will go into the standards of the
Church as if they stood upon a basis of their own, and had an authority in them
selves, he doth thrust the Word of God to the ground, and trample it under his feet.
Standards, in their own place, I respect as a testimony against error, lifted up by one
generation, not to prevent another generation from standing up in the same liberty
of testifying for what our fathers testified, to add to, or take away from their testi
mony, according as the Spirit in the Church may make the truth more manifest, or
array it in better forms against the enemy. I maintain that if any man will go into
the standards of any Church, be they Canons of the Council of Trent, the Articles
of Pope Pius the Fourth, the Articles of the Church of England and her Canons of
different reigns, or be they the Articles of the Church of Scotland, her Books of Dis
cipline, or the conclusions of the Westminster Assembly— be they what they please,
and presume to put them forth as having the weight of a feather in themselves until
they be confirmed by the Holy Scriptures, he doth, in so doing, plant his hand upon
the throne of God ; and as Amalek was smitten by Jehovah for that sin, so God will
have war with him forever. For what is the throne of God? Is it not His Word,

602 APPENDICES.
His indefeasible, immutable Word, His ever-to-be-revered Word, every jot and tittle
of which is most holy, most awfully holy, and heaven and earth shall pass away, but
it shall not pass away.
"But let us come to the facts, and wrestle with them on their own ground. And
the fact is this : that there is not one word in the standards against the thing which
I have done ; I know very well where the minds of those who think differently take
refuge ; in the clause pointed out in the forms of Church government approved by
the synod of divines in Westminster, where it is said that the office of apostles, etc.,
hath ceased. But I appeal from that to the Second Book of Discipline, which is of
higher authority in the Church, and where it is said that they may be revived if the
Lord see it good. Now we say positively it hath been revived ; and in proof of our
asseveration, I appeal to the evidence, the whole evidence upon your table, which if
you refuse to admit, you not only set the oaths of honest men at naught, but refuse
to reverence that proviso and reverend supposition of your fathers that the extraor
dinary gifts which were ceased might be revived again. Now, saving these two
places, I declare before you all that, up to this moment, I am unconscious of a word
concerning the gift of the Spirit and the revival of the offices of apostles and proph
ets being spoken of in any of the articles of the Church. I do not say that it is not
so, but I am unconscious of its being so : I have never been curious to examine ; but
having engaged myself in republishing the ancient books of the Church, I know for
certain that in the Confession of Faith, and in the Book of Discipline of the Church
of Scotland, there is not a word spoken farther on the subject.
"But, even supposing that there were a breach of discipline, I ask you to bear on
your hearts of what degree and kind the breach of discipline ought to be which would
depose a man from being a minister of the Church of Scotland. The question is not
whether I have in any thing infringed on the letter of the standards, but whether I
have been guilty of a crime sufficient to depose me from my Church ? Am I charged
with heresy, neglect of public worship, leaving the flock for five or six Sundays with
out due notice' to the Presbytery, notorious swearing, theft, adultery, fornication ?
Are these the things which the trustees have come hither to complain of? for, veri
ly, to guard against such opprobrious scandals was the meaning of the clause, under
the protestation of which they drag me up hither. In the name of common sense,
can you think that the trustees were constituted for the end of keeping a look-out
on the discipline of the Church of Scotland, or its doctrines either ? to come into
every ordinance of the Church and office of the minister, and see whether they can
rake up any thing in our doings whereon they can fasten a complaint before the Pres
bytery ? Surely this was never meant, but that they should take cognizance of such
things as would depose a man in the Church' of Scotland. Have I done any thing
worthy of deposition? Who is the man who can stand up before the Presbytery,
and challenge me in any point of doctrine ; in my walk and conversation ; in my
ministerial faithfulness ; in any thing which would invoke the question of deposi
tion ? Oh, if justice is not departed from the breasts of men ; if the sacred duty of
protecting a brother against oppression is not departed from the breasts of clergy
men ; if reverence for a pastor and minister who hath labored and spent himself for
ten years in their service do dwell in the breasts of elders and people, think what you
are doing this day in sustaining a question of deposition against a man who, in tho
eye of the whole Church, is blameless as to its ordinances ; who has been at pains to
rebuild the ordinances of the Church, fallen into decay and desuetude ; who has re
constituted its discipline in this city, restoring the office of the deaconship, the fast-
days, with the other regular services both before and after the communion, the regu
lar meetings of session, domestic visitation of the flock, the custom of lecturing and

APPENDIX C.

603

preaching, and public baptism, yea, and every other form of worship and discipline;
bringing it into consistency with the standards of the Church and the Word of God 1
What a thing it is for you to take sides, as you have manifestly done, against a
brother brought up before you on a question of deposition, for no immorality, for no
heresy, for no neglect of duty, no schism, nothing subversive of the Church, but, upon
their own showing, for a mere irregularity or informality, if such it be ! Is justice,
is charity, is honor gone from your breasts, that you can bear such an insolence ? If
these be left with you, I can still, notwithstanding your manifested partiality, safely
trust this question to the arbitration of the Presbytery.
"It hath been farther said by the complainer ' that they never merged on the mat
ter of doctrine till they were compelled by the witnesses refusing to answer the ques
tions on the point of doctrine in the way they thought it ought to be put.' Here he
appealeth to a fact in order to show the way in which he was brought into the mat
ter of doctrine ; and I, standing here, appeal to the remembrance of the court and
people whether it be not true that, of their own free will, without any constraint of
any kind, they went into the doctrine. Was it ever heard that a witness compelled
a party or a court to change their purpose? It is too absurd to be mentioned. The
witness compels no one to go out of his course ; many times the questioner compelled
the witness, but never the witness the questioner. A witness is a silent man ; noth
ing can be laid on his shoulders except the simple fact how he answereth the ques
tions put to him. It is too much for honest men to bear it if one will say that the
questions broached around the table were not put of their own free will, inquiring
and on set purpose framed, in order to take to task, yea, and tease the witnesses, in
order to find out my doctrine. It is too much for honest men who heard to take it
in that you were compelled by the witnesses to go into the doctrine ; and when my
solicitor, objected to the relevancy of your doing so, I said, 'No, I allow you all liber
ty to go all length into any inquiry connected with the manifestations of the Spirit,
and the doctrines which I preach.' But after you did so fully indulge your inquis
itive curiosity, and put the witnesses on the rack of the most refined ingenuity, and
almost laid for them the traps of cunning sophistry, it is too much for you to turn
round and say, when it suits your arguments to do so, It is all a matter of disci
pline ; and if we did go into doctrine, it was not our wish to do so, but we were forced
out of our course by the witness— who is altogether passive in your hands, and hath
no activity or force at all. If, therefore, you have gone into the question of doctrine
— as from the evidence appeareth, nine tenths of which has to do with points of doc
trine only — an evidence, let me say it, led, as if on purpose, to find out, if you could,
some connection between the manifestation of the Spirit and the doctrine which I
teach— yea, some collusion between the prophets and myself, which you may say
was not intended, but was so evident as to strike one of the witnesses with such hor
ror as forced him to exclaim, 'Do you think we stand here as knaves?' I say, then,
if you, of your own accord, have thoroughly expiscated the question of doctrine in
the evidence, and turn round upon us, and say, as the gentleman who was the mouth
of the trustees declared, ' It is a question of mere discipline, and not one of doctrine
at all,' you do commit tergiversation with a witness."
The Moderator here interposed : "The court does not commit itself to the allega
tion of Mr. Mann ; we consider it as a mixed question of doctrine and discipline."
Mr. Irving. " I am very glad to hear that, sir ; I am sure the contrary could not
be entertained.
" The next thing which was asserted by the other party in his speech was to this
effect : That I called upon them to take my assumption, and the assumption of the
witnesses, that it was the voice of the Holy Ghost. I assume nothing, but refer you

604 APPENDICES.
to the testimony. And when was it ever heard that a witness assumeth any thing,
who only beareth testimony ? and his testimony ye are bound to take, for he is upon
oath. "Ye yourselves chose them, led forth the evidence, and requested that they should
be put upon their oath, and ye are bound to receive their testimony if it contradict
not itself or otherwise be invalidated. As you defer to the sacred obligation of an
oath, ye are bound to give sentence according to the evidence. Is a man to take an
oath in vain, that, after commanding them to be sworn, ye should now declare that
to be the mere assumption of the witnesses which is their testimony upon oath ?
And ' an oath for confirmation is an end of all strife.' God could not go farther
than an oath, and man can not go farther ; and when a man has given his testimo
ny upon oath, are ye to call that mere assumption ? When a witness is upon oath,
are ye to say that in his heart he denies the responsibility on oath, and giveth forth
assumptions? It is to insult man ; it is to insult G°d, in whose name, and in whose
presence he stands arraigned thus to speak ; and honest men will not abide it. Have
you any thing upon your table in counter testimony ? Not a word. Here, then, you
have the testimony of witnesses selected by my opponents that this is not a work of
enthusiasm or fanaticism, but a work of the Holy Ghost (not their assumption, but
their testimony) ; and surely out of thousands they have selected men worthy of cred
it in the matter, the testimony of men whom you required to be sworn to give evi
dence as in the sight of God, and I say that it is an insult to the Sovereign Lord of
heaven and earth to make thus light of their testimony, unless an opposite testimo
ny may be given. The Presbytery will look to it that the evidence be not without
cause traduced, otherwise they will be answerable to God, whose name they have
caused to be taken in vain, and to these witnesses, whose solemn testimony, confirm
ed by an oath, they disregard. All law and equity do regard an oath as the most
holy of all things. Many men have been hanged on the testimony of a single man ;
and here are three men, chosen to make good the complaint, whose testimony bear
eth that it is all the work of the Holy Ghost. Be ye ware, then, of the rash, unad
vised statements of one who talketh of the testimony of the witness as mere assump
tion. And as to the other less important part of the charge, that I assume any thing,
I offered to prove it by the testimony of five hundred men ; and I strictly charged
my adversaries, in the hearing of the court, that if they judged me speaking any
thing at random, or away from the truth, they should challenge the same, and I
would justify it on the spot, out of the mouths of their own witnesses, summoned and
sworn by themselves. After these false charges against me and the witnesses, it was
said that to call it a work of the Holy Ghost was an outrage on common sense and
decency. The good Lord forgive this word ; forgive the lips, O God, by which it
was uttered ! O God, forgive it, and let it not be reckoned against a brother. [Here
the reverend gentleman was much affected.]
"The next thing asserted in his reply was, That the doctrine I laid down con
cerning this matter in my place of minister in this church was the doctrine of pope
ry, which he, as an Englishman and a Protestant, could not receive. I founded the
doctrine on the authority of two passages of Holy Writ, namely, the two passages
from the 2d chapter of Revelations, concerning the duty of the angel of the Church
toward apostles and prophets. Now if I, the minister, am not the angel of the
Church, it hath no angel; and the seven epistles can not be profitable to us, for
they are addressed to the angel of the Church. The Great Head of the Church ap
proved the angel of the Church of EphesuS for trying the men who came into the
church, saying that they were apostles, and for putting them away because he found
them liars. Did the angel herein act wrong? why, then, doth the Lord approve

APPENDIX C. 605
him ? What the Lord Jesus approves, this man may call popery and tyranny. It
mattereth not to me ; I will continue to act so unto the end, and will require both
Englishmen and Protestants to submit to it. Another passage in the same chapter
rebuketh the angel of the Church of Thyatira for allowing that woman Jezebel, who
calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce the servants of the Lord. These
were the grounds, and no other, of the doctrine which I held, as I can appeal to
every one of my flock, even the trustees themselves. Yet I did not teach that it was
the duty of the minister in any congregation alone to bear the burden of this respon
sibility ; but it is his province to make trial whether they be true prophets, and, being
satisfied thereof, to set them before the congregation ; whereupon he and the con
gregation, acting together by the Spirit of Jesus, wil^n due time ascertain the
point. Nor would I consider my office made void, nor yet that I did not discharge
my office of a faithful minister, if it should turn out that every one whom I had set
before the congregation as a prophet were not a true prophet. My duty standeth
still the same though I may sometimes fail therein, and I am bound to fulfill it to
the best of my ability. Because I am not a perfect man, because I have not the in
fallibility of God, I am not to shrink from yielding obedience to the commandment
of the Lord Jesus, and to put forth whatever judgment, whatever discernment He
hath given me. There is nothing papal in my doctrine. I do not presume to be
infallible, nor even to take the whole determination of the matter upon myself; for
this were to offend the generation of His children, and to trample on the rights of the
people and their duties also, which are to 'try the spirits whether they be of God.'
If I were to say that I would not license any one to speak before the congregation
until I was infallibly certain he was a prophet, then God would soon bring me to
shame for standing between his people and their duty. The angel's it is to license,
the people's to approve or not ; and it is his to withdraw the license when it hath
been abused.
"This is the doctrine which I had and have acted upon; I set before the people,
according to the best of my ability, those who had the signs of the prophets, and said
to the whole Church, ' Now try ye them ; they are before you.' And for the pur
pose of gathering the common voice, I sat in the vestry every day for many weeks,
that the people might come to me, and give in to me any doubts or distresses
which pressed on their consciences. I ask, was this a papal act ? I deem it was
my pastoral duty ; it became me as a dutiful minister of the Gospel. I think the
gentleman should have been at more pains to choose the words which he used before
the reverend Presbytery, especially when speaking of the actings of his minister.
And, when speaking so much of right, and justice, and good feeling, he should have
borne in mind that these are not the monopoly of any single individual, but the con
stitution of man as, the creature of God. Did I charge any thing against any man,
that I should be so abused with evil words ? When at one time you challenged the
word I spoke, I appealed the matter to the court, and it was decided that I had not
spoken unadvisedly. Yet was I contented to change the word, that no one might be
offended ; because, as I have said, right, and equity, and good-feeling are not the
monopoly of any man, but the gifts of God to His responsible creatures, which He
must not suffer to be trampled on if He can prevent it. Let words be well weighed
in speaking before a court constituted under the Head of the Church, especially
when they affect the standing of a minister of Christ, than which no standing on the
earth is more dignified and sacred. The opposite party next took occasion to
animadvert upon an answer of one of the witnesses, in that he had said that on one
occasion, when he thought he was speaking by the power of the Spirit, he came aft
erward to see that he was speaking by a spirit of error; from which it was argued,

606 APPENDICES.
that if they knew not the spirit by which they spake, there was nothing to rest upon
but my ipse dixit. Before proceeding to reply to this grave matter, I beg to recall
your attention to the way in which the witness gave that part of his testimony ; for
now I feel that we are indeed come to the substance of the question, which turneth
upon the evidence before the court ; and I do heartily wish that instead of so many
irrelevant strictures upon my defense, the gentleman had alluded more to the matter
in evidence. Observe, then, that this answer was a free-will offering on the part of
the witness, and not in answer to any interrogations. Also, it was not from his own
conviction, for he declared that he had not yet come to the full conviction of not
having spoken by the Holy Ghost, but had some reason to suspect it from some mis
givings of his own mind, njjuch had been mainly brought to light by the rebuke of
another member of the Church in whom the Spirit speaketh. And forasmuch as, in
giving testimony, we are called upon only to declare that which we know and have
fully ascertained to be the truth, there was no call to put this forth, even if there had
been a question leading to it, which there was not ; but, like a man whose conscience
was rendered very delicate by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, and as a man stand
ing before a court which should be constituted under Jesus, and have the spirit of
holy discernment, he would not allow a doubt on his mind to remain untold, nor
leave a chance of your being misinformed. It was a beautiful instance of perfect
purity of conscience, however little it was appreciated both by the other party and
the court, concerning which it is not my intention to express what I feel. But with
respect to the conclusion attempted to be drawn from it, I must say that it betrays
great ignorance of this Book of God to draw such a conclusion, as we shall show
immediately. But farther, with respect to the testimony in answer to the question
how he discerned whether it was the Spirit of God or the spirit of error by which he
spake, his answer was, by the fruits : love, joy, peace, and other fruits of the Spirit,
which, at the time he had rebuked his pastor, he felt to be absent, and not present
with his soul. He was then asked whether it lay merely with his own feelings
whether the spirit that came to him was of God or not, and he immediately replied,
' Can I believe these fruits of the Holy Ghost are from the spirit of error ?' And so
sayeth the Apostle John : ' He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that evil
one toucheth him not.' And now with respect to the conclusion which all, especially
the court, sought, by cross-questioning, to extort from this answer, I refer them, for
their better information, to the Prophet Jeremiah, who thus speaketh to the Lord :
1 0 Lord, Thou knowest ; remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my per
secutors ; take me not away in Thy long-suffering : know that for Thy sake I have
suffered rebuke. Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and Thy Word was
unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by Thy name, O Lord
God of Hosts. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced ; I sat alone
because of Thy hand ; for Thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain
perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed ? wilt Thou be alto
gether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail ?' Here we have the instance of a
prophet than whom no one had perhaps a greater charge laid upon him, and one
most like to that now laid upon the prophets to be His witnesses against a falling
Church, and he was so carried beyond his understanding as to say to the Lord,
' Wilt Thou be altogether to me as a liar, and as waters that fail ?' And in the 20th
chapter, verse 7, he uses stronger language : ' O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and
I was deceived.' If Jeremiah had not known God's word by some other test than
his own understanding of it, or than the expected time and way of the fulfillment,
his case would have been desperate, for he looks upon himself as a deceived man.
Such words from such a mouth may well make us to pause a little, and study the

APPENDIX C. 607
law of the prophet's calling, and the temptations to which he is exposed. Do not, I
beseech you, be rash ; let us not, coming straight from the deep and dark ignorance
which exists on such a subject, seeing there have been of a long time no prophets in
the Church, begin to draw conclusions, and pronounce judgments, and do the part
of legislators before we have inquired into the standing of the prophet, or known
any thing of his conditions. Surely the Lord hath not lied to Jeremiah, and de
ceived him ; and yet the prophet supposeth, yea, and saith it, leaning to his own un
derstanding, and so stood in peril of being snared : ' The word of the Lord was made
a reproach to him and a derision daily.' The calling of the prophet is a fearful one ;
Jeremiah flinched from it because it brought him into trouble, and the word which
he spoke from the Lord was not accomplished how and where he had expected.
Jonah, who stood to Israel (2 Kings, xiv., 25) much as Jeremiah stood to Jerusalem,
was so well aware of God's relcntings, and of the prophet's apparent dishonor there
by, that he fled away from the presence of the Lord, and refused to be His prophet
unto Nineveh on no other account whatever, as he himself averreth (Jonah, iv., 1).
Let it not be for a moment imagined that God ever gave forth, by the mouth of a
prophet, any thing but the truth ; yet so little were the prophets able to construe
their own messages, that they seemed ever to themselves to be deceived in them.
The prophet can not understand his own utterances ; if he could, they would not be
manifestly from another mind, but might be from his own. And I verily believe
that any prophet who will undertake to interpret, either to himself or to others, what
he utters, will be snared. Sufficient for one man is the honor of transmitting the
word pure from the fountain. It belongeth to those who hear it to find out its
meaning. It is from faith to faith that God ever speaketh. A dear friend of my
own, who lately spake by the Spirit of God in my Church, as all the spiritual of the
Church fully acknowledged, and almost all acknowledge still — I mean Mr. Baxter,
who is now in every body's mouth — hath, I believe, been taken in this very snare of
endeavoring to~nterpret, by means of a mind remarkably formal in its natural
structure, the spiritual utterances which he was made to give forth ; and perceiving
a want of concurrence between the word and the fulfillment, he hastily said, ' It is a
lying spirit by which I have spoken.' No lie is of the truth; no prophet is a liar ;
and if the thing came not to pass, he hath spoken presumptuously. But while this
is true, it is equally true that no prophet since the world began has been able to in
terpret the time, place, manner, and circumstance of the fulfillment of his own utter
ances. And to Jeremiah, thus unwarrantably employing himself, God seemed to be
a deceiver and a liar, as the Holy Ghost hath seemed to be to my honored and be
loved friend, whom may the Lord speedily restore again.
"But to return to the case of the Prophet Jeremiah: The notion current about
the prophet is, that he is a man sealed and set apart for infallible utterances. And
I perceived when the prophet who was examined as a witness before you confessed
of his own accord to an utterance of which he now doubteth, you shrunk from hav
ing any more faith in his prophetical calling, or, if I might say it, you triumphed as
if you had gotten a victory. But be it known to you that the prophet is, after all,
still fallible ; and that God is the only infallible being, and the only infallible man
is the Lord Jesus Christ ; and as for the infallibility in another, the Pope is the old
est claimant of it, nobody else having dared to usurp it from the Godhead and man
hood of Jesus Christ. The prophet, indeed, and not only he, but every Christian,
while he abideth in Jesus, speaketh only the truth ; but as he leaves the light of life,
so is he liable to snares, as was the case with my brother, or I may say my child, in
the Gospel. All the prophecies and writings in the Scriptures were delivered by per
sons so abiding in the communion of Jesus, and so moved by his Spirit to utter only

608

APPENDICES.

the truth • but these very persons were liable to fall into snares, and' might at other
times have spoken presumptuously. We have several examples of the fact in the
case of Peter, one of the holy penmen, who at times" both spoke and taught errone
ously. God will not set up an outward infallibility; but reposeth it in the teaching
of the Spirit through the faith of the word : ' Ye have an unction from the Holy
One, and ye know all things. ' What saith the Lord to Jeremiah ? ' Therefore, thus
saith the Lord, if thou return, then will 1 bring thee again, and thou shalt stand be
fore me ; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my
mouth : let them return unto thee, but return not unto them' (Jeri, xv., 19). So
say I to the prophet who is now stumbled and fallen, and to him who did once stum
ble, as he confessed in your hearing."
Mr. Maclean asked whether, in referring to a certain person, he meant Mr.Taplin.
Mr. Irving. " Sir, I was referring to Mr. Taplin indirectly, and to Mr. Baxter di
rectly ; but, both to the one and the other, only as illustrative of the prophet's stand
ing, so entirely misunderstood and misrepresented in the speech of the other party."
An elder here interposed, and defended Mr. Irving from the interruption, when he
thus proceeded :
"I was reading and commenting upon the Word of the Lord at the time the rev
erend gentleman interrupted me, and not putting forth any notion of my own ; and
the word I read was this: 'I will bring thee again,' that is, from thy doubting and
silence, ' and make thee as a brazen wall.' These things I submit to your consider
ation, not surely to lower any man's idea of the prophet of God, still less to serve
any particular ends of my own, if I had any in this case, which is not mine, but that
of the Catholic Church, but in order to put you on your guard against the statements
of men who come straight from the counting-house or the shop, and the other en
gagements of secular life, and rashly decide on such holy and grave matters. Your
only safety is to look to the law and the testimony, to the experience of those holy
men who stood in the same office heretofore. To this bringing back your attention
I refer again to the Prophet Jeremiah : ' O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was
deceived : Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed : I am in derision daily ;
every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil ;
because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily.
Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name ;
but His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was
weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.' (Jer., xx., 7-9.) Whatever was the
cause, whether he thought God had not kept His word made to him when He called
him to the prophet's office (Jer., i., 17-19), or whether some of his utterances had
seemed to himself and the people to fail, or whether the Lord had relented, as Jonah
knew to be his manner, this is clear from these verses, that a prophet may be shaken
from his position like another man, and may be left to take the resolution of speak
ing no more in the Lord's name, as hath been the case with my dear brother referred
to above, who now restraineth himself from uttering in that power which he and we
believed to be of the Holy Ghost, because he thinks it hath deceived him. A proph
et may be a very unstable man, and be brought into great doubtings, and yet be a
true prophet withal ; may grieve and dishonor God very much, and yet be retained
in His service, and exalted to very great honor. What, then, is the guide of the
prophet in judging of the power that comes to him in vision, in revelation, in utter
ance ? It is a clean conscience, at peace, with God, rejoicing in holiness, and averse
from all evil, to which God coming maketh sweet harmony of truth and love there
in, and useth the tongue to give it forth in words worthy of God. But that the
prophets did not understand the things they prophesied, Peter, in his first epistle, ex-

APPENDIX C.
pressly declareth, ' Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched dili
gently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you ; searching what, or
what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it tes-
tified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto
whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the
things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel
unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; which things the angels de
sire to look into' (1 Peter, i., 10-12). The law of the prophets is, as I have said,
that they should not understand the thing they did utter, to show that they were
speaking, not by the understanding of man, but by inspiration and the utterance of
God. If the prophets spake by their own understanding, what were the prophets
more than a meaner man ; and I may observe, in passing, that the mystery of the un
known tongue introducing the utterance is to teach us that the thing about to be ut
tered, as it cometh from a higher source, addresseth itself to another ear than that
of the natural understanding, even to the discernment of the Spirit of Christ with
us, and that the meaning is hid from the prophet himself; that as neither prophet
nor people understand the tongue, so neither prophet nor people are to receive or
render out bythe understanding the thing uttered. It is not by the understanding,
though of a Bacon, that a word of God can be apprehended ; for ' the natural man
perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned.'
" The universal law of all divine truth is exemplified, and, as it were, embodied in
the act of speaking in an unknown tongue, when the spirit of the speaker is edified,
though his understanding be unfruitful ; having entire communion with God in spir
it, though entirely darkened in the understanding ; which, after all, is no more than
the most orthodox truth, that without the Spirit of God the word of God availeth not
unto any fruit of life, but only unto death : ' the letter killeth, but the Spirit maketh
alive. ' The prophet's own understanding is as incompetent as the hearer's to inter
pret his own utterances ; and he, as much as we are, is driven upon the indwelling
mind of Christ, in order to have fellowship with the word of the Spirit in his own
lips. The spiritual man discerneth all things, and every one having the anointing
of the life of Christ abiding in him hath the means of discerning and testing the
things spoken by the prophet ; for Christ and the Spirit are one in the substance of
the Godhead, and the Holy Ghost doth only take of the things of Christ, and show
them to our souls. Some of the questions put by the opposite party, but still more
put by you, the judges, went to reveal a base suspicion, as if I were lording it over,
or acting in collusion with the gifted persons. Oh, perish the thought ! I pretend
not, save as a pastor, to direct the order of the Church, and as a minister to show the
mark and stamp of the Spirit of God in the matter and form of the utterances, leav
ing things future, and things which I discern not, to be opened by the Lord in His
own time.
"Jeremiah hasted, and fell into the sin of charging God falsely, and stood in per
il of falling entirely, if he had not returned and separated the precious from the vile.
But it may be said this is not in point ; it is not so exactly in point as that case to
which I now refer you, the Prophecy of Ezekiel, xiv., 8-11 : ' And I will set my face
against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off
from the midst of my people ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And if the
prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that
prophet ; and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the
midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity :
the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh
unto him ; that the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be pol-
Qq

610 APPENDICES.
luted any more with all their transgressions ; but that they may be my people, and
I may be their God, saith the Lord God.' Let those who think a prophet, whose
lips are sealed up for infallibility, and if he utter any thing amiss that it counter-
vaileth and subverteth all which he hath ever spoken, peruse this passage, which is
only one of many wherein the prophets are constantly reproached for their unfaith
fulness, as well as the priests and the princes. Our adversaries argue that because
a prophet, speaking by the Spirit of God, hath been once deceived, this doth invali
date his speaking by the Spirit of God at other times, and therefore he is no proph
et, and speaketh not of God. But what saith God ? ' If the prophet be deceived
when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.' Now the
meaning of this will be best explained by referring to the instance recorded in 1
Kings, xxii., 15-16, where Micaiah came to the king, who said to him, 'Micaiah,
shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered
him, Go, and prosper; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.' We
may, I think, hardly doubt that this word came from Jehovah, in what way he hard
ened Pharaoh's heart, and doth lead the wicked into temptation. God permitted
Micaiah to utter it as a word to try the temper of the king, and reprove his levity
and his tampering with the prophets of the Lord. But when the king became seri
ous, and adjured him, saying, ' How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell
me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord,' God seeing the king's
mind turned to earnestness, and hearing him speak to His prophet as His prophet
should be spoken to, giveth to His prophet another word which might prevent him
from the evil he meditated, and not lead him into temptation to commit it. Most
true it is, as saith St. James, that ' God tempteth not any man ;' but when a man
will suffer his own lusts to tempt him to evil, the Lord, wearied out with correcting
him, and having no profit of His rebukes, doth ofttimes lead him on that He may
punish him for his iniquity on this side the grave, and haply save his soul in the day
of the Lord. Therefore spake Jesus in parables, that "seeing they might not see,
and hearing they might not hear, lest they should be converted, and I should heal
them.' Ye may say this is strange doctrine. Strange indeed it is to a man who
can not think of vengeance in his God, whereas vengeance belongeth unto Him ; but
how should it be strange to any father or mother who is practiced in the education
of their children ? How oft doth a. father, having sought in vain by counsel and
correction to heal the perversity of his child, permit him in a little of his own will,
yea, lay the very temptation in his way, that he may prove the evil of it, and so
avoid it in the time to come. And shall not God be intrusted with the same liberty
in disciplining a prophet or a people? Shall He not also lead His children, and
give them to taste of tho fruit of their own ways ? Nay, He will and ever doth with
the wicked as He did with Pharaoh, and it is a chief part of His discipline with
strong-headed and high-handed sinners. Wherefore also we pray continually, 'Lead
us not into temptation.' And this did He that day by Ahab, by making Micaiah
the instrument without misleading him. Micaiah was not deceived ; but a word
through him would have deceived the king, unless he had changed his mood, and
adjured him solemnly in the name of the Lord, who straightway answered, 'I saw
all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd ; and the Lord
said, These have no master ; let them return every man to his house in peace' (1
Kings, xxii., 17). This case proveth that a prophet, without fault of his, may be
used to deceive a king or a pastor, a people or a flock. But still this is not the case
in point ; for it was through fault of the prophets that the evil before us fell out. In
such a case, I believe it ariseth from opening the door unto Satan, through some un
holy state of his heart. It certainly was so in the present instance. The prophet

APPENDIX C. 611
had conceived suspicions of me as not dealing uprightly, but partially ; and as not
comforting him in his trials, but helping on the affliction. This was entirely a mis-
judgment ; and being against a pastor, it added the sin of insubordination to that of
uncharitableness. Through this door Satan entered in, and the Lord permitted him
to occupy for once the gift which the prophet had not kept by the Holy Ghost, as
Paul commandeth Timothy to do (2 Tim., i.). These are deep things, and I would
not be understood to give out any thing dogmatically concerning it. But it shows
that a prophet may be deceived, and be a prophet still ; and it teacheth how rash
and foolish are they who question and reason as if that one thing subverted the whole
question. The direction given by the Lord is this : ' And if thou say in thine heart,
How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken ? When a prophet
speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is
the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presump
tuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him' (Deut., xviii., 21, 22). Such a prophet
loseth his credit and standing with the people, and maketh shipwreck of his calling
toward God. And every prophet standeth in jeopardy of this, and there is no other
safety for him than for others. ' My grace is sufficient for thee, and my strength is
perfected in weakness.' Our brother did it in that instance presumptuously : as a
prophet, he did it in the power of a prophet, and he hath suffered loss for it in his
own soul ; but, now that he hath openly and of free will confessed it in the hearing
of all, I believe that he hath delivered his own soul, how many soever he may stum
ble thereby ; myself he stumbleth not, because I have somewhat studied and under
stood the law of the prophet. And should a prophet, therefore, deem his standing
to be unsteady or unsafe ? Surely not. He standeth by faith, as every one else doth
stand in Christ. Nor is there any other safety in the world but abiding in Christ.
Jesus, who lived by faith upon the Father, did always speak the truth ; and the proph
et who liveth by faith on Christ will, with the same certainty, speak nothing but the
truth ; and not he alone, but every Christian. For the anointing which we have re
ceived is true, and no lie. If I, as a minister, abide in Christ, my utterances will al
ways be true. And how are the people to be defended ? In the same way, by abid
ing in Christ, and hearing the prophets, without suspicion, as the voice of the Holy
Ghost. If they look upon it as lies, they disgrace and trample on the ordinance,
and will be punished for the same. Yet, if they rest in reverencing the ordinance,
without seeking the answer of the Spirit of Jesus in their hearts, they do neglect the
Ordinance-Head, which is still worse, and they shall speedily be shut up in supersti
tion, and given over to the idolatry of men and of gifts, to the destruction of that love
which is the life of Jesus, and of God within the soul. And yet a church, and their
minister, and their prophets, all standing together faithfully in Jesus, may, nay will,
\ certainly be tried with temptations from Satan as an angel of light, who will endeav
or to introduce heresies and schisms, or to bring in hypocrites, false brethren, una
wares ; or will entrap some weak, foolish ones, and through them seek to prophesy
his lies and to minister his delusions. But in such a case the Lord will, in due time,
detect him, through the faithfulness of the brethren, and the poor Iamb will be de
livered out of the lion's mouth, and the lion will be driven away from the fold.
"A prophet is not sent for a single person nor for a family, but for the Church;
and if the Church abide in truth and love, they will not be misled though all the
spirits of hell came forth against them. Moreover, if a Church, having prophets
sent to them, as my Church hath, will not abide in Jesus, but look to the prophet as
if he were something, the Lord will chasten that Church by the mouth of that
prophet, who is ever more jealous of Christ than he is of himself. But if the prophet
shrink from rebuking the Church, pastor and all, then will the Lord take the other

612 APPENDICES.
way of rebuking both him and the people, smiting him their idol, and making him
to stumble and fall. And if they are inclined to set him above the pastor, and the
pastor be faithful, the Lord will justify the pastor ; all to teach that the prophet is
nothing apart from Christ, even as it is written, 'Who then is Paul, and who is
Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
I have planted, Apollos watered ; but God gave the increase' (1 Cor., iii., 5, 6). If
the prophets have done me any good, it is in teaching me to do nothing without
Christ, and to dare to do every thing in and by Christ. They have made me bold
for my Master, for myself a very coward. And the same effect I covet for my peo
ple. All these things have I spoken, that ye might understand the law and the
prophets, whereof we are all woefully ignorant. So may the Lord guard you from
rash and ignorant judgment.
" The notion now subsisting in the Church concerning the prophet is that he gave
signs supernatural, on the credit of which he was to be believed without farther ques
tion ; and concerning inspiration, that it was an enforcement of the organs of speech,
whereby they could not utter any thing but the truth. The former notion subverts
all moral responsibility in the hearers ; the latter doth the same by the prophets ;
and both together do make God first to extinguish responsibility, in order to bring in
that -word whereto all are to be responsible. We have shown the utter falsehood of
the notion as respecteth the prophet, who was no more an infallible person than is
the Pope ; being liable, like every other man, to be drawn aside, as was Jonah, by
his distrust of God ; and he standeth only by his faith. This only had he above
other men, that the conviction of truth within him is wont to be sealed to him by a
supernatural revelation of light and power in utterance ; which, however, he pos-
sesseth not for his own private use, nor for the use of any private family or society
of men, but for the whole Church of God, yea, and for the whole world. Of the
other part of this bare and baseless hypothesis, which now holdeth the Church con
cerning the traduction of infallible truth from God to man — namely, that the prophet
hath but to give a miraculous sign, and let him say what he pleaseth, must be be
lieved ; and if any one doubt, he hath but to thrust forth another wonder into the
midst of the beholders, #nd carry on his revelation — I will just quote against it one
of the great standing rules of God, as given in all parts of His Word. In the Law
of Moses it is written thus : ' If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of
dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass
whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not
known, and let us serve them, thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prqphet,
or that dreamer of dreams ; for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye
love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk
after the Lord your God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His
voice, and ye shall serve Him and cleave unto Him. And that prophet, or that
dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you away
from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed
you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy
God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst
of thee' (Deut., xiii., 1-5). Was the sign or the wonder to authenticate and verify
the word uttered by the prophet? No ; but the law and the testimony were to verify
the sign. And, if they did not attest it, the prophet was to be put to death, all signs
and wonders notwithstanding. So now have I dealt by the prophets whom the Lord
hath sent into my Church, trying every thing by the written Word of God, and at no
rata permitting any deviation therefrom, or inconsistency therewith, to have any au
thority, though uttered with all the tongues of men or of angels. And among many

APPENDIX C. 613
hundreds of instances spoken in the midst of us, the greatest doubter, the greatest
opposer, hath been able to discover nothing repugning from the Holy Scriptures.
Yea, even in one case which there hath been strong reason to suspect not to be from
God, so carefully hath God overruled the enemy, that out of his mouth nothing hath
been permitted to issue but glory unto our God and His Christ. Yet do the majority
both of ministers and of people stand aloof from the work on no other ground but
this, that there are no signs and wonders, thereby confessing that they are willing to
judge God's Word by the light of the eye and by the hearing of the ear, but on no
account by the discernment of the Spirit of Jesus within them, from which folly let
them be delivered by reading the 2d chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.
The signs and wonders are demonstrations of supernatural power ; but whether from
the region of spiritual good, or of spiritual evil descending, the fact of their being
above nature determineth not. This is to be known by their character, of grace, and
goodness, and blessing, or of violence, and malice, and destructiveness. The diabol
ical possessions were witnessed in the torture which they brought, and the Divine
power in delivering from the same, and bringing back to peace of conscience, sound
ness of mind, and health of body. And so shall it continue to be evidenced unto the
end ; an evil spiritual world contending with the good in all supernatural acts, in
order, if possible, to seduce the faith and obedience of men. The speakers for the
one are false prophets, for the other are good prophets ; and nothing can discriminate
between them but the honest and good heart, which discerneth between good and
evil ; and the life of Jesus in the believer, which, being of one substance with the
Holy Ghost, doth well know His voice, and the voice of a stranger will not follow.
I marvel greatly at the doting, dreaming Church, which for the last century, in all
universities and colleges, and in all books of evidence, hath been teaching men to
look only or chiefly to the external evidence to the things in time or place, the tra
dition of miracles, and so preparing a snare for the taking of the whole Church, in
which all the book-learned and book-readers are at present holden almost to a man,
and bound fast. And the common people have escaped only because they are not
readers of Paley, Lardner, Macknight, and the host of their followers.
"What test our Lord gives to distinguish true prophets from false you have writ
ten in these words : ' Beware of false prophets, whicb come to you in sheep's cloth
ing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, eveiy good tree
bringeth forth good fruit ; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree
can not bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven' (Matt., vii., 15-21). Do they produce the fruits of
righteousness in those who give ear unto them, and obey their words ? For them
selves, their disguise may be complete ' in sheep's clothing,' though ' inwardly they
are ravenous wolves ;' and their words may to the ear be sound and true, but in
wardly they are 'ravening wolves,' and will infuse the same spirit into those who
follow after them. This spirit will express itself first in a spirit of zealous proselyt-
ism ; for, until they can get the sheep from under their proper shepherds, they can
not so well get their wicked use out of them. Then, when they have got them in
corporated into a sect, they work them to their ends, seducing them to commit all
manner of iniquity with greediness. Thus was it exhibited in the heresies of the
primitive Church, which came in through false prophets, possessed, I make no doubt,
in the instances of the Gnostics and the Manicheans, with seducing spirits, propaga-

614 APPENDICES.
ting doctrines of devils, and ending in abominations hitherto unpracticed, and even
unheard of in the world. But the true prophets are for edification, exhortation, and
comfort of the Church of God, for bringing- them up into the stature of the fullness
of Christ. Now if you can observe any features of error, or fruits of wickedness about
us, or about those who adhere to us, then bear testimony against us ; for we desire
nothing more than to have our errors exposed, that we may correct them. But if
the fruits upon the minister have been greater light, love, faith, and watchfulness ;
upon those who follow his faith, greater holiness, communion, and obedience, as even
our enemies are forced to confess, then do you greatly offend the Lord in not apply
ing His test, but judging those to be false prophets who by their fruits do prove them
selves to be true ones. The evil fruits which are produced in the people upon whom
false prophets practice I have had occasion to know and to observe in the followers
of Joanna Southcote, who are a people full of evil possessions ; and also in many
persons acting as prophets among the ignorant of this city, and actually possessed
of familiar spirits capable of divination. And I can lay this down as an invariable
rule, that the conscience of truth is deadened in them all, ' having their conscience
seared as with a red-hot iron,' and the natural strength of the will altogether gone.
Irresolute and without determination, they are the slaves of the spirit which over-
ruleth them ; and, when speaking in their own understanding, the great, almost the
whole bent of their discourse is to justify and magnify the Spirit by recounting the
wonderful prognostications which He hath given to them. But it is a certain char
acteristic of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father, that he doth not testify of Him
self, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the witness of whom He is given. When a
false spirit getteth hold of an ingenious and cultivated mind, I do observe that it
leadeth him into all manner of wanderings, as it did the Gnostics of old, and de-
stroyeth all mark of truth in subtle niceties, striking analogies, and mazes of doc
trine of which I had read in the first ages of the Church, but never dreamed of see
ing them equalled, yea, and surpassed in our days. Furthermore it hath befallen
me, within these twelve months past, to have had personal knowledge of members
of Christ's body, upon whom the subtle enemy hath made diverse attempts to seduce
them from their integrity by taking the form of an angel of light, and in most cases
it hath been attended with the fruits of disgrace in their own souls ; and when per
mitted to proceed through ignorance or mistakes as to its true character, hath ended
in the entire subversion of confidence toward God and the brethren, to suspicion of,
yea, and insurrection against the ordinance of the pastor and of the Church itself ;
or it hath ended in dazzling the mind, and deceiving the conscience with such
shows of light and love as to make it utterly impervious to the counsel of the breth
ren, to the authority of rulers, yea, and to the voice of the Holy Ghost Himself.
The various experience which I have had during the last twelve months of the work
of the Holy Ghost and the work of Satan, hath convinced me that, until the discern
ment of spirits shall be given as a distinct gift in the Church, there is no rule so cer
tain as that which our Lord hath given of trying them by the fruits. And taking
this rule, I must solemnly declare that, if the fruits of the Spirit be ' love, peace, joy,
long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, patience, temperance,' these fruits have been
produced by the Spirit speaking in our Church, whether you respect the persons in
whom He speaketh, or those who have grace given to recognize and confess it as the
Holy Ghost.
"Besides this universal test of our Lord, there be others of a more special kind
given by the apostles, which I have found available in some cases for the detection
and exposure of evil spirits. The confession ' that Jesus Christ is Lord, ' and that
' Christ is come in tho fiesh, ' hath, in my own experience, sufficed to detect an evil

APPENDIX C.

615

spirit ; and in other cases, when an evil power was present, there hath been such
ample confession on these heads as would deceive the most wary and sagacious in
quirer. There is a mystery in this which I do not thoroughly understand ; but it
seems to me that besides evil possessions, when another spirit is actually present in
the person of a man, there is a power which Satan putteth forth through the flesh,
to imitate and counterfeit the utterances of the Holy Ghost through the spirit. For
the former case I believe it is that the test of the apostles is given ; but the latter
case yieldeth only to the rule of our Lord, ' Try the prophets by their fruits,' or to
the discernment which is given to one prophet of another, in order to keep his order
pure, and to preserve a brother from the attempts of Satan through the flesh. But
it is not convenient in this place to go into the details of an experience which would
fill a volume. Only these things I have said for the end of clearing a little the mat-
ter of true and false prophets, and to show how utterly erroneous is the notion uni
versally current, that a prophet is to be tried by the miracles which he can do ; as
if there were no evil region in the spiritual or supernatural world, as well as in the
visible and natural. Let the Presbytery be upon their guard against the sweeping
and loose conclusions of the opposite party, who would have you to believe that noth
ing will prove a man to be a prophet but unchangeable infallibility. I can not go
into all the trials with which this work of God hath been tried of the enemy. But I
will say this in general, that as well that which hath been referred to, as every oth
er, have been permitted of God, m order to show the work to be His, who ever com
eth forth to suppress and defeat them all. As, in the days of our Lord, Satan's
kingdom was manifested in demoniacal possessions that Jesus might be proved not
to have a devil, but the Holy Ghost in casting them out, so among us hath Satan's
power in utterance been permitted, in order that the work of the Holy Ghost might
be proved in detecting and exposing them, and putting them to silence. When they
charged Jesus with casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, he an
swered, 'A kingdom is not divided against itself.' So can I, the minister of the
Church in which the Holy Ghost hath manifested Himself, say to those who allege
that it is a work of Satan, Satan would not cast Satan out — Satan would not silence
Satan. In every form have I seen Satan seek to insinuate himself into this work
and mar it, and as often have I seen him withstood by the supernatural power which
speaketh among us in tongues and prophesying, whereby I know that it is the power
of God — of Jesus, the vanquisher of Satan — of the Holy Ghost, in that very form in
which He was manifested in the day of Pentecost.
"The next allegation is, That I have, with no very great kindness, charged on the
trustees and complainers that they have absented themselves from the church, and
at once denounced the doctrine without investigation or inquiry. It is not necessa
ry for me to refute this farther than to state what I said. What I said was, that in
stead of coming to the church to hear the utterances and try the spirits, a great por
tion of the trustees refused to come near us any more, and would not even hear the
spirits, much less try them ; and so they come up to the Presbytery causa incognita.
I did not say that all had done so, but that a great portion of the trustees had so ;
and if it is not true, let them now gainsay it. But you perceive they do not.
" The next charge is, That I suffered unauthorized persons to speak in the church.
My answer is, They were not unauthorized persons. I authorized them ; in the right,
in the plenary right which I possess as an angel of the Church of Christ, I author
ized them ; and the man liveth not who can come between the Lord Jesus and me
His minister, so as to set that authority aside. I do not say that my authorizing of
them is credentials enough, but that my Master only can control me in the exercise
of that authority. The allegation, therefore, is not true. They were fully author-

616

APPENDICES.

ized. I say it in the presence of ministers of the Gospel, of the angels and elders of
the churches ; and in defense of this right, which I must not surrender to any man
or to any body of men, I appeal again to the express command of the Lord himself,
in two of the epistles to the Churches, and no one can say that this is not good and
sufficient ground of my right.
" Then I was taxed with dishonesty ; and I was told, if I was an honest man, I
ought to have gone forth of the church. Let me repress the feeling that riseth in
my bosom while I repel the insinuation ; for I must not speak out of the resentment
of nature, but out of the charity of grace. Dishonesty ! if it be such a moot point
and simple case of honesty and dishonesty, why trouble they the Presbytery to con
sider it ? Ye trouble the Presbytery, do ye, to adjust a question of common honesty
and dishonesty ? It is a great and grave question, affecting the right of the minis
ters and prophets of the Christian Church ; a question of the most deep and sacred
importance ; a question, not of discipline only, but of doctrine ; and is a question of
doctrine, and of discipline, and of ordinance, and of personal right, to be called a
question of common honesty, as if I were a knave ? Ye, being the judges, ought not
to have permitted the complainers thus to speak of a reverend brother, and twit me
as I was twitted. Ye were quick-scented after their honor, but mine they might
trample under foot. My well-known character among you ought to have protected
me from this allegation. It was not right in you to permit it ; nay, but they them
selves know me too well not to know that I am honest, at least, according to the
measure of a fallible man, for I do ever aim to be honest. These insinuations are
not honorable to you nor to me; ye should not have permitted them to be uttered
of a brother. It is to me a question of great and momentous duty, which hath cost
me long, laborious, and painful thought. Was it a small matter for me, when plant
ed the minister of the Church of Christ, and secured in the possession of that house
during my life, unless I should be guilty of some crime disqualifying me for the min
istry, to surrender the post in which God, and the Church, and the covenants of man
had planted me, to the discontent of a few men, to the opinions of any number of
men, whom I believed in my heart to be grieving both God and His Church by their
rash and indiscriminate, their hasty, heady, and unfounded judgments ? Seeing they
rest so much upon the trust-deed, I also am a party to that document, representing
the Church of God, the flock of believers, and a numerous congregation, whose peti
tion to be heard at your bar upon the issue you have rejected. If these men be par
ties representing the house of stone, and brick, and lime, and timber, I am a party
representing the flock of believers, gathered unto Christ under my ministry, through
whose generous contributions, chiefly, the house hath been both builded and upheld ;
and being placed as their representative in the trust-deed, I ask if it was a small
matter that should move me to consent to go forth from the habitation and home of
our souls, and wander, we know not whither, over this wide and wicked city, where
wo have no Church that will call us sister, or welcome us to an hour's shelter under
their roof? These men seem to have little knowledge of the thoughts for my flock
which have exercised and wearied, and, but for our God's presence, would have over
whelmed my heart, else they would not have spoken of it as they have done, as if it
were a question of private feeling, and not of great and grave responsibility before
God and man. My personal right in that church never once came into my mind.
The condition of my wife and young children, cast out upon the wide world, never
once was spoken of among all the strivings which we have had together upon this
question in the kirk-session and congregation. Every one felt that the question was
altogether one of a higher region ; and it doth indeed amaze me to hear it now, for
the first time in this presence, spoken of as a personal question merely, and the sim-

APPENDIX C. 617
plest of all personal questions, namely, whether I was to act the part of an honest
man by removing, or of a knave by abiding in the Church. Even in cases where a
minister hath done something in direct violation of his ministerial standing, preach
ing heresy, or practicing schism, or breaking the moral law, he may not be called
upon to leave the Church out of hand, but must be proceeded against by libel ; and
even in civil matters a man may not be degraded from his office, or deprived of his
liberty, Upon any confession of his own, but upon the judgment of his peers, because
we are guardians one of another, members of a community : how much more in a
question like this, where there are neither written statutes, nor precedents, nor com
mon practice whereon to convict me, except, indeed, the statutes and precedents of
the Word of God, which are altogether on my side. But, to cut this matter short, is
it not upon your table in evidence that this is a work of the Holy Ghost ? and can
there be any statute forbidding the Holy Ghost to speak in His own temple ? And
if He do speak, must I, as an honest man, call upon my flock to go forth with me
from the house in which He has spoken as if it were defiled, and forever disqualified
from being the house of our worship and our peace ?
' ' This is a temptation which has come over my brethren, arising from their loose
and unholy way of thinking and speaking upon this subject, as if it were a common
bargain between the trustees upon the one hand and myself on the other. I would
it had been such : neither you nor they would have been troubled with it this day ;
for the world is wide, and the English tongue is widely diffused over it, and I am
used to live by faith, and love my calling of a preacher of the Gospel as well as I do
my calling of a pastor. I also have been tempted with the like temptation of mak
ing this a question of personal feeling. One whole day, I remember, before meeting
the elders and deacons of my Church, before the first breaking out of this matter, I
abode in the mind of giving way to my own feelings, and saying to them, ' Brethren,
we have abidden now for so many years in love and unity, never, or hardly once, di
viding on any question, that, rather than cause divisions, which I see can not be avoid
ed, I will take my leave of you, and betake myself to other quarters and other labors
in the Church, and do you seek out for some one to come and stand in my room, to
go in and out before this great people, and rule over them, for I can be no longer
faithful to God, and preserve the body in peace and unity. I can not find in my
heart to grieve you ; let me alone, and entreat me not ; I will go and preach the
Gospel in other parts, whither God may call me.' In this mood, which these men
would call honest and honorable, which I call selfish and treacherous to my Lord
and Master, I did abide for the greater part of the most important day of my life,
whereof the evening was to determine this great question ; but the Lord showed me
before the hour carne. He showed me, with whom alone I took counsel in the se
cret place of my own heart, that I was not a private man to do what liked me best,
but the pastor of a Church, to consider their well-being, and the minister of Christ,
to whom I must render an account of my stewardship. I put away the temptation,
and went up, in the strength of the Lord, to contend with the men whom I loved as
my own bowels ; and to tell them, face to face, that I would displease every one of
them, yea, and hate every one of them, if need should be, rather than flinch one iota
from my firm and rooted purpose to live and die for Jesus. God only knows the
great searchings of heart which there have been within me for the divisions of the
kirk-session and flock of the National Scotch Church. But they have rooted and
grounded me in my standing as i pastor, which I had understood, but never prac
ticed before, and in the subordinate standing of an elder, which is very little under
stood in the Church of Scotland, whereof I am minister. And they have knit me to
my flock in a bond which can not be broken until God do break it. I preferred my

618 APPENDICES.
duty as a pastor to my feelings as a man, and abode in my place. And what hath
the faithfulness and bounty of my God yet done ? Within six months thereafter, by
the preaching of the Word, and the witness of the Spirit, there were added two hund
red members to the Church, not a few of whom were converted from the very depths
of immorality and vice to become holy and God-fearing men ; and as I sat yester
day in my vestry for nearly five hours examining applicants for the liberty of sitting
down with my contemned and rejected Church, I thought within myself, ' Ah ! it
was good thou stoodest here in the place where the Lord had planted thee, and went-
est not forth from hence at the bidding of thine own troubled heart. Behold, what
a harvest God hath given thee in this time of shaking ! Wait on thy Lord, and be
of good courage ; commit thy way unto Him ; trust in Him, and He will bring it to
pass.' These were my thoughts, I do assure you, no farther gone than yesterday,
when I sat wearied out with the number and weight of the cases which were brought
before me in my pastoral vocation. And for your encouragement, O ye ministers
of Christ ! who sit here in judgment, that ye may labor with good hope in this city,
through good report and through bad report, that ye may not put your hands rashly
upon the man of God and the work of God, I do give you to wit, that by my labors
in this city, not hundreds, but thousands, at least upward of a thousand, have been
converted by my ministry ; and I feel an assurance that, let men do their utmost to
prevent it, thousands more will yet, by the same feeble and worthless instrument, be
brought into the fold of the Father, out of which no power shall be able to pluck
them. I have no bargain with these trustees. I am not their pensioner, nor bound
to them by any obligation, nor indebted to them in any manner, that they should
charge me with dishonesty. I am another man's servant, another man's debtor.
Their debtor, indeed, I am, to preach to them the Gospel, and to guide them, as
their pastor, into the way of righteousness. If this deed, to which they have obliged
themselves, compel them to raise an action against me before this Presbytery, then
let them do it ; and leave the issue to the competent judges ; but do not let them
dare to accuse their minister as a dishonest man, because he sees it his duty to his
Maker to abide where his Maker hath placed him, and where he hath offended nei
ther against the ordinances of God nor the covenants of man ; and, on the other
hand, if any trustee should see that in raising such an action he doth offend against
the laws of God, then let him not do it, and abide the consequences. For it is bet
ter to lose the right hand and the right eye both, than knowingly to offend against
God. No action of a man in times past can bind him up in the time to come, that
he should not always be at liberty to serve God. But this is not the place for hand
ling these questions, and I conclude this topic of my adversary's speech by solemnly
charging the Presbytery that they be not beguiled into such short and summary views
of the question before them. It is a question of deposition, the deposition of a min
ister from those rights which, as a minister, belong to him. Now ye know well what
an onerous thing it is accounted by Christ and his Church that a minister should be
deposed by his Presbytery. Remember, I am a man of unblemished character ;
there is no charge against me of any kind ; but the very contrary, the testimony of
the other party to my blameless and faultless conversation among them unto this
day. When this Presbytery rashly charged a book of mine with heresy, these very
men, many of them, did come forward of their own accord to repel the charge, and
vindicate me against a thousand malicious reports as a true, and faithful, and ortho
dox minister of Christ. And bear ye in mind that ye are not at liberty to take up
any matter but that which is exhibited in the charge of the trustees. Ye have me
legally before you, not in your character of a Presbytery, but of referees under this
deed ; in that character, and that only, have you any power against me. The ques-

APPENDIX C. 619
tion is, simply, whether I, a pastor, shall be deposed from the Church, and deprived
of my rights as a minister of Christ, because I have permitted that to take place in
my church which all the evidence upon your table concurreth to testify is the speak
ing of the Comforter, whom Christ promised as being to abide with his Church for
ever, to lead her into all truth, and to show her things to come. Is this enough to
incur deposition ? Give heed to the question which is before you : as pastors having
the hearts of pastors, as elders having the hearts of elders, can you conclude this day
that a brother elder and pastor shall be deposed because he hath suffered the voice
of the Comforter to be heard in the Church ? This is the question wliich these men,
by indictment and by testimony, have laid upon your table ; it is before you, a Pres
bytery of the Church of Christ ; and remember ye that it is not in a corner, but in
this, the chiefest city of the world ; before all Christendom, yea, before all nations ;
before the great Head of the Church, yea, and before the throne of the Majesty of
God on high, that these matters are to be adjudicated, and this issue to be tried and
determined, namely, whether a blameless and unblemished man shall have the last
censure of the Church pronounced upon him, and be deposed from his ministerial
office, because he has allowed the voice of the Holy Ghost to be heard in his church ;
for I maintain that it is in evidence, on the table of the court, that it is the voice of
the Holy Ghost that speaketh in the Church. Ah ! there never was such an issue
before any court — abstract justice being alone considered — as is now before this
court ; where a body of trustees, stepping out of their proper place, have impugned
their minister, placed over them by the great Head of this Church, of a criminal act,
in permitting God to speak in His own house ; and you, a body of ministers and el
ders, acting under Christ for God, are called to give sentence.
"And here I must set aside a poor and pitiful evasion with which they would seek
to beguile you from seeing the greatness of the issue which is this day joined between
the parties. With great appearance of helpless meekness, they come forward and
say that they can not help themselves ; they can not avoid the responsibility imposed
upon them by the trust-deed ; and they come up, seeking from the Presbytery to be
delivered from the dilemma in which they stand, being alike content, whichever way
it be determined, so that they have exonerated themselves of their duty to their trust.
To this I answer, with all plainness of speech, that they have altogether forgotten
their place, through the deceitfulness of their own heart ; and being supported by the
force of public opinion, have gone aside from their trust, which hath nothing to do
either with discipline or with doctrine, or with ordinances of any kind, but simply
with this matter of fact, whether the minister be of the Church of Scotland, and the
worship be according to the constitution of that Church. Leaving which, they have
dared to bring me before the Presbytery for changing no ordinance, for breaking
down no constitution, for denying no point of orthodox doctrine, for abolishing no
rule of discipline ; and what business have they to interfere at all ? I pronounce
them daring intermeddlers with my sacred functions, which I will not yield up to any
man ; and if you have any honor of your office, or resentment of impertinent intru
sion, you will send these men back again from your reverend bar with an injunction
to distinguish better hereafter between the office of a trustee over a building, and the
oyersight of the great Head of the Church over the angels of the Churches, whom
He holdeth in His right hand. If I have not been guilty of a gross, yea, of a capital
offense against my ministerial standing, these men have no case ; they have no busi
ness here ; they grieve me, and they grieve you alike, by their impertinent forsaking
of their trust to meddle in things which are too high for them. It is yours to teach
trustees what their place is ; and if you do not give them this lesson with all faith
fulness, you shall, in the just visitation of God, be trodden and trampled upon by the

620

APPENDICES.

men who attend to the secularities of your several chapels. I charge you, by the duty
you owe to these men, as well as to me and to yourselves ; I charge you, by the sacred
immunities of the ministerial office, by the sacredness of covenants, by the bands of
justice, by the appointment of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, and by the ordi
nances of Almighty God, that ye be not deceived by such wily words, but that ye bear
upon your heart and in your mind what an awful issue it is that ye are called upon this
day to decide. Ye shall not, surely, escape the consequences of this day's judgment if
ye should entertain these men's complaint against their minister, and remove me from
the church where I abide in all faithfulness in the Lord. They will cleave to you
while you live ; they will cleave also to your flocks ; and chiefly will they cleave to
this ecclesiastical court. You will be borne a while upon the gale of public opinion ;
you will please yourselves with the idea of having put down a delusion of Satan,
and honors may fall upon you from your superiors in the Church ; but when- you
shall see the spark which you have sought to smother burst out into a flame, mighty
to consume you, and all opposers of the Spirit of God ; when ye find that cloud,
about the bigness of a man's hand, which ye scoffed and mocked at, overspread the
heavens, and pour down the torrents of the latter rain to fertilize the earth ; when
you see these despised fanatics grow into the mighty witnesses of God, who have
power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and to turn
waters into blood, and to smite the earth with plagues as often as they will, in what
light will ye appear to the men whom ye have misled from the beginning of the
glorious work, which ye thought too mean to give heed to, though it hath been
pressed upon you by every consideration.by which men can be moved ? Oh ! I am
not careful for myself; but truly I am very careful for you, that you may not err in
this great question which you are called upon to decide.
"The next charge made against me (for, instead of answering my speech, the
gentleman hath raised against me a series of the most momentous charges) is ex
pressed in these words : ' He begged to call the, attention of the reverend defender to
the solemn Confession of Faith which he had signed, he believed, without any mental
reservation, though he had told them that, if he had believed the -signing of it would
have prevented him preaching any thing which he thought was right, he would not
have signed it. Having been ordained a minister of the Church of Scotland, he had
declared the Confession of Faith, ratified by law in the year 1690, to be the confes
sion of his faith, and that he owned the doctrine therein contained to be the true
doctrine, which he would constantly adhere unto.' And if these words mean any
thing, their meaning is, that, in virtue of having subscribed to the Westminster Con
fession of Faith, my hands are bound up from permitting the voice of the Comforter
from being heard in the church whereof I am pastor. It were sufficient to ask in
what place of that Confession is that interdict laid upon me ? and so to wait for a
reply ; for none was quoted in proof of so grave a charge. I am sure that no such
injunction is to be found in the standards of the Westminster, or any other divines
since the world began. At most, all that could be produced out of these books is the
declaration of the fact that the extraordinary gifts had ceased in the Church, and
with them the extraordinary offices, in opposition to the Romanists, who maintained
that they were still present. But, waiving this question of fact, which had nothing
to do with the matter, and upon which I am very much at one with them, where is
the declaration that Almighty God neither would nor could ever again raise up these
offices by again communicating these gifts to the Church ? If there be any such dec
laration in the Westminster Confession, let them produce it ; but till they produce it,
I hold their insinuation to be no better than a gratuitous and empty assertion of their
own, dishonoring me in your eyes, and tending to turn justice from its course. And,

APPENDIX C. 621
supposing that there were such a declaration in that Confession, I would immediately
countervail it with the declaration in the Second Book of Discipline, that these ex
traordinary offices of evangelist, prophet, and apostle, God, for extraordinary pur
poses, might again raise up. And I would add, that the Westminster books were to
be taken as in nothing prejudicial to the form of sound words and the canons of dis
cipline originally agreed upon by the Scottish Church when she was ordering the
house of God in that realm according to His Word, and under no misleading views
of uniformity with the English Presbyterians. I then would say the office of the
prophet hath been revived of God to meet the extraordinary emergencies of these
times, wherein the whole of Christendom is receiving a last warning from the God
of mercy before meeting him as the God of judgment and revenge. The same is in
testimony upon your table, out of the mouths of my accusers, and I call upon this
Presbytery of ministers and elders of the Scotch Church to examine whether it be so
or not. Such is the firm basis of ecclesiastical as well as of Scriptural doctrine on
which I have to rest this cause.
"But while I do thus argue for the truth's sake, and for the honor of our stand
ards, which, be they what they may, have been most unjustly forced to do service in
this cause against the Holy Ghost, I am far from assenting to the doctrine which was
stated in your hearing, and hath been vented by some of yourselves, concerning the
obligation involved in subscribing of articles ; and, in a few words, I desire to expose
the fallacy and evil tendency of the views on this subject which I find to prevail al
most universally in the minds of honest men. They seem to regard the Confession
of Faith as the pillar and ground of the Church, whereas the Church itself is the pil
lar and ground, not of the confession only, but of the truth itself. The Church hath
no basis but the living and glorified Jesus, who is the fullness of the Godhead and the
Head of His Body the Church, from whom nothing can divide our allegiance in the
least, no, not for a moment. Every book which the Church hath at any time stamped
with its authority, the same Church doth stand above and not beneath, to take away
its authority if it please, to let it fall into disuse, or entirely to abolish it. The book
doth not stand over the persons, but the persons over the book. But most of the
members of my session, and I perceive also of this Presbytery, and even of the Gen
eral Assembly of the Church of Scotland, think the Church resteth wholly upon the
basis of the Westminster Confession, and is cemented with that band, which is to
sell both Christ and His people into the hands of a body of men who lived and acted
some two hundred years ago. A confession of faith issued by any minister or body
of ministers is good as their testimony for the truth against error, and may be adopt
ed by the Church as a landmark in the midst of the wilderness of man's opinions ;
but the Church may not impose it. upon men as an obligation Godward, seeing every
thing of that kind God hath Himself written and preserved in the Holy Scriptures.
When I subscribe to it, I add my name to those that have gone before me, declaring
that I believe the things which are written therein, and, as an honest man, will do
and say nothing to the prejudice of what I believe. But my liberty as Christ's free
man, my prerogative as Christ's minister and guardian of truth, remains unimpaired
and unimpeached ; for there existed no power upon the earth which dareth to med
dle with these, whereof the Church is the guardian, but in nowise' the maker, or the
mender, or the abolisher. And after subscribing that confession, I am just as much
at liberty to compare and examine all its doctrines as before ; and, finding fault in
any of them, I am beholden unto Christ and to the Church to point out the same,
and have it set to rights. And this I ought to do in all places, but especially in that
corner of the vineyard committed to my care, among the people over whose souls I
watch, in the meetings of the elders, of the ministers, in the synods and assemblies

622 APPENDICES.
of the Church ; for, as hath been said, the person is above the book, and not the
book above the person. It is not so with the Word of God, just because it is God's
Word ¦ it is so with every word of man, because it is man's word ; for that man is
not under man, but under God. The ecclesiastical courts in Scotland have, during
the last three years, held more false doctrine and judged more wicked judgments on
this matter, and more grieved God and Christ, and the generation of His children,
than did the Council of Trent ; and I would sooner be exiled from my native land,
and excommunicated from my mother Church, ay, and mewed up all my life in the
dungeons of the Inquisition, than seal to such doctrines, or take part in such judg
ments, against which I have ever lifted up, and now again do lift up, my solemn
protestation, as outrageous popery, sanctified with the name of common honesty.
The reason why such treasonable doctrine findeth currency among the ignorant as
nothing else than common honesty is because they think that a confession of faith is
like the charter of a corporation, and the signing of it by a minister is as an appren
tice signing his indenture ; they think it is like a deed of copartnery, to violate which
is a distinct infraction of honesty rectified by positive covenants. And the clergy,
instead of teaching them better, know in general no better themselves, and head the
hue-and-cry against every enlightened and sound churchman who declareth the true
doctrine as laid down above. And so it is that, after all manner of arguments and
expostulations, I am content for Christ's sake to lose my character, and sit down un
der the foul charge of being a dishonest man. But while I am content to lose it, I
will do all I can to keep it, and therefore I make no hesitation in declaring before
you that I subscribed the Confession without any mental reservation or partial inter
pretation, having carefully read it, and pondered it, and consulted the minister of the
parish when I stood in doubt. In subscribing it, I honestly declared it to be the con
fession of my faith, and never at any time did say or meditate any thing to its hurt.
But, being a Christian and a Protestant, I subscribed it as itself directeth, not as be
ing absolute truth, self-vouching, but truth under the correction of the Holy Scrip
tures, whereto it desireth to be brought for examination, and by which I will ever try
it. Indeed, I have, since I subscribed it, thought little about the matter, being intent
altogether upon the right knowledge and declaration of God's mind as contained in
the Holy Scriptures. Only I have made it a rule to read it, in the hearing of the
Church, once or twice in a year, which I am resolved to do no more, because it is the
word of fallible man, and not of the living God. Yet do I not feel burdened by hav
ing subscribed it, but walk in great liberty with respect to it, keeping it far, far in the
background of my mind, neither troubling myself nor my people concerning it. Only
when I have had to handle a matter controverted, I have taken it as evidence of what
the Church thought upon the subject in that day. I grieve over the bondage and
dishonesty of my brethren in these times ; their bondage in declaring that a man's
preaching should be guided by the Confession, as if he were =¦ preacher of man's
word, and not of God's Word ; as if the Westminster Confession were to say to the
Holy Ghost in the preacher, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther;' their hy
pocrisy, in that, saying thus, not one of them hath ever acted on, or ever doth act
upon it ; forasmuch, I believe, that no book in the English language hath been more
out of the mind of preachers in the pulpit or in the closet than the Westminster Con- ,
fession of Faith, whereof, till it became a convenient weapon for dashing out the /
brains of faithful ministers, far more than half of the clergy were ignorant despisers
or hearty haters. Oh, the hypocrisy, the seven-fold hypocrisy of this generation of
churchmen ! I abhor the hypocrisy with which they perpetrate their wickedness far
more than the wickedness itself. They lovers of the Westminster Confession of
Faith, forsooth ! A great part of them know nothing about it, and a still greater

APPENDIX C. 623
part heartily dislike it. Oh, I know Scotland too well, and have looked into the bo
som of the priesthood too narrowly, to be taken with that cant about the Confession!
But what, it may be said, hath this to do with the matter in hand ? It is the spon
taneous boiling up of my indignation against the mummery which they have set up
in order to catch the honest-minded people of this land into their snares, and carry
their verdict along with them in the persecution of the most worthy men which the
Church of Scotland hath for long ages produced ; yea, men in some of whom the
primitive gifts of the prophet and the evangelist have been revived. My heart boil-
eth, and fury cometh into my face when I think of the way in which the people have
been hounded on to the slaughter of the most famous men in the congregation. But
a higher end than the expression of my indignation moveth me in what I have said
concerning the treasonable doctrine advanced to you respecting confessions of faith.
It is my firm and rooted conviction that by these acts of setting up the book of men
in judgment over Christ's ministers, as they have done, and by insisting that no evi
dence should be grounded upon the Scriptures, as ye have done, both ye and they
have sealed yourselves Babylon, and have set up the abomination which maketh des
olate in the holy place. For what is your Confession, taken at the best, but the skill
ful device of man's wit? With all its doctrines and its canons, with all its distinc
tions and divisions, what is it but the device of man ? And when ye set it in the
pulpit, and in the place of judgment, in the house of God, and in the meetings of el
ders, what is it but your idol, the image of jealousy, your drag and net to which you
sacrifice your sons and daughters, yea, the rulers and chief men of the Lord's con
gregation ? I believe, by the way in which you have set up that book of about two
hundred years' standing, in the place of and above God's Word, ye have done an act
which, if not repented of, will seal you up in darkness and in deadness, in apostasy,
and the worship of anti-Christ. And being myself the head of a congregation, and
a standard-bearer in the Church, I do solemnly denounce you as in arms against the
King, and lead forth my squadron from the midst of you, to do battle no longer by
your side, but against you, until you do change your ensign, and fight under the ban-
ner of the Word of God.
"Do I therefore secede or separate myself and my Church from the Church of
Scotland ? Verily no ; but from a degenerate race of her rulers, who are unworthy
of the name, and have sold themselves to do iniquity with greediness, and to draw
sin as with a cart-rope. The Church of Christ, within the realms of Scotland, is
now of at least 1600 years' standing, and subsisted in great glory before the stream
of the Reformation, in times when her children went forth and planted the Gospel in
the dark regions of the world, amid the fierce aud unconquered nations who over
whelmed the Roman empire ; when her ministers went forth into the court of Chris
tian emperors, and warned them against the Bishop of Rome, and watched and ex
posed him, and denounced him the enemy of Christ in all the nations of Christen
dom. I am a minister of that Church which received into its bosom the persecuted
Britons, fleeing from the murderous decrees of Diocletian ; which received the Cul-
dees from Ireland, and maintained her independence of Rome for centuries after the
other churches had sold themselves into bondage. Nor do I disparage the work of
Knox and the Reformers when I set it down as but the brazen age of the Church,
now degenerated into the age of iron. And this age of iron was, I think, introduced
by that same Westminster Confession, which received royal authority at the Revolu
tion. Knox, and the men of his time, raised up a noble protestation against the
papacy, and ordered the Church according to righteousness in her discipline, and in
her doctrine coming behind none of the reformed churches. But the Reformers
were too intent upon the mere negation of popery, and upon the emancipation of

624 APPENDICES.
the civil estate of kings and peoples, upon leagues and covenants constructed for the
preservation of what they had made good. They lacked discernment in the truth
of God ; they digged not deep enough in the Holy Scriptures ; they saw not the glo
rious privileges of the Church, her spiritual gifts and supernatural endowments, the
coming and kingdom of the Lord, and the blessed offices of the ever-present Com
forter. I am in no wise fettered by their shortcomings, I have no homage to offer
at their shrines, but in my liberty of Christ's free-man, in my prerogative of Christ's
minister, I am intent upon the knowledge and faith of all the truth written in His
holy Word, and do perceive a work arising into view which will far surpass the work
of Reformation, and bring back the best days of the Church. I make no doubt that
the Lord is hearing the prayers and rewarding the labors of his servants, and bring
ing to pass all the promises of the glory of the latter day. Ye are this day either to
exert yourselves for or against this blessed work ; either to stand with it and pros
per, or to stand against it and be overwhelmed. Small are its beginnings, but faith
apprehendeth its great and glorious ending. The cloud, like a man's hand, hath
appeared ; and the heavens shall soon be black with clouds, the earth moistened with
rain, and all her fields clothed with plenty.
"Having thus followed the reply of the complainers, topic by topic, I trust you
will permit me to add one word in conclusion, in order to express what I feel toward
them, the prosecutors, and toward you, the judges in this cause. Though they know
it not, and are far from thinking it, I know, and feel, and declare that_ they are ene
mies of the cross of Christ in that which they have done ; and if they persist in it,
they must draw down upon themselves the wrath and indignation of Almighty God.
My counsel to them, therefore, is instantly to withdraw their suit out of court, as they
wish to prosper in this world and that which is to come. And this request I make
of them the more earnestly, because I do not feel that I am personally much con
cerned in it. They have impeached me of nothing, but have spoken both courteous
ly and honorably of me, in the hearing of this court, and on all other occasions. It
is the work of the Holy Ghost which, they have set themselves against, whereof I am
but a poor instrument to justify and defend it ; and against the rights arid dignity
of the Christian ministry, in my person represented, they have conspired together,
under the pretended sanction of a trust-deed. Enemies they are in this act of the
Lord Jesus and of the Holy Ghost, whose enemies I may not take for my friends,
but as enemies must henceforth regard them ; for I hold it to be the sacrifice of
God's honor upon the altar of worldly prudence, or personal courtesy, for any servant
of the Lord to call one who is actively setting himself against God by any other name
than his enemy, and as such to entreat him. I can not any more give to these men
the right hand of fellowship, or go forward in company with them to any work.
Until they repent of their sin, and turn themselves unto the Lord with confession
and contrition, I must hold them for my enemies, because they are risen up against
my King. And thus also must I carry myself to all those ministers and elders of
the Church who have risen up against God's truth in my native land, and smitten
from the altar where they ministered the chosen ones of God's priesthood. It is a
vain thing, and a wicked, to make distinctions between my personal friends and
God's ; neither will I do it any more, being mindful of the example of Christ, and
of the words spoken of him by the Holy Ghost, in the Book of Psalms : 'Do not I
hate them, O Lord, that hate thee ; and am I not grieved with those that rise up
against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies"
(Psalm cxxxix., 21, 22). I would that the trustees, my brethren, heretofore my
friends, and most of them of my flock, might not be offended in this, because I love
them not the loss ; for my enemies I have learned to love, and for them I desire at

APPENDIX C.

625

all times to be willing to die. But, whatever offense it may cause them, it is better
to offend man than to offend God. I bear them no malice, but . contrariwise love;
and the first act in which that love doth show itself is an act of honest testimony
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, and are entered on a course of with
standing the Holy Ghost, which will bring them to perdition if they return not from
it to serve the living and true God, whose voice in His Church they are this day
combined to suppress. I could fall down before them, and beseech them; yea, I
could weep before them, and wash their feet with my tears, for the love I bear their
souls, and their wives, and their little ones, if only I might thereby prevail to turn
them back from their pernicious ways. If, by any thing which I have spoken, I
have caused them grief and sorrow, I rejoice if their grief be for the sin they have
done in moving for authority to cast out the Spirit atj,d minister of the Lord Jesus
Christ ; but if, which I rather fear, it be only the natural shame of having their evil
deeds exposed, which grieveth them, I pray them to look away from the eye of
man to the eye of God, which is this day bended upon them with looks of mingled
anger and mercy. In no way could they have so grieved and offended Him as in
this which they have taken ; but still there is mercy, if they will repent of their sins,
and lie low in the dust before Him. I am much troubled in spirit for you, oh my
brethren, who have now become my enemies, though you all joyfully and plentifully
partook of the spiritual bread which I have long broken in the midst of you. Oh,
ye have grievously offended me, ye have grievously offended your God ! Seek re
pentance, and withdraw this evil suit from the court of the Presbytery. I will not
cease to pray that God will grant you repentance unto the acknowledgment of the
truth ; otherwise, ye will surely perish in your sins. I say it again, ye know it not,
but surely ye are the enemies of the Lord your God iti this matter.
"And now, to you, O ministers and elders of the Presbytery, before whom God
hath condescended to take witness, and to plead in this cause, bringing before you
four of the orders of His Church, a minister, a prophet, an elder, and a deacon, and
through their lips testifying in your ears that He hath returned in grace and mercy
to His Church, and is speaking in the midst thereof by the mouth of the Holy Ghost,
reckon ye that He hath put upon you an honor and shown you a love whereof ye are
altogether unworthy, because He is gracious, and His mercy endureth forever. You
have wearied him in times past with your iniquities, whereof I stand here a witness,
rejected from among you for holding, and publishing abroad, the most glorious truths
of His incarnation in this our fallen flesh ; and ye have this day added a still great
er provocation, in that ye have refused, with one voice, to permit a question of the
most awful importance from being judged according to His most Holy Word. Fain
would I that you might revoke with shame and sorrow that unprecedented act of
contempt toward the Word of your God, which He doth magnify above all His name,
in order that you might enter with pure hands and a clean heart into the judgment
of this mighty issue. Do not gloze it over to the eye of your conscience by saying,
as your Moderator did, that it was for the honor of the standards, and not against
the Word of God, ye stood up. There was no mention of the standards in my lips,
nor thought of them in my mind ; no one was calling them into question. I did but
ask whether the thing manifested in our Church answered to the thing written of in
the Scriptures, when, lion-like, ye rushed with one mouth upon me, as if I had ap
pealed to Satan's oracles. It was a fearful deed, and, being gravely deliberate, for
you submitted it as a question to the court, and heard their opinions seriatim, it is
the most black record of wickedness which this day the eye of Heaven doth look
upon — a gratuitous insult to the Word of our God, and a planting in the stead there
of the abomination that maketh desolate. For the most excellent work of men, yea,
Er

626 APPENDICES.
and of God himself, when planted in the place and stead of His Word — in the holy
place of judgment and ecclesiastical government — becometh straightway the abomi
nation which maketh desolate. I can not suffer you to pass on to judgment without
beseeching you to revoke that gratuitous insult to your God. How else can you ex
pect the Holy Ghost to sit in council with you, without whom you are no Presbytery
of the Church of Christ ? And how can we expect, in the thing which is questioned,
ye will give impartial justice, if ye, in the thing that is unquestioned, do offer delib
erate insult unto your God? There may be a question, even with pious but unin
formed minds, whether these be the very manifestations of the Holy Ghost ; but no
question is there, or can there be, that this book is the Word of God. And if ye re
fuse reverence and weight of any sort in this cause to these undoubted oracles of
God, how can ye give any weight to the testimony of men, however clear — to the
pleading of a man, however strong ? Nor doth it matter to me, though I should get
your verdict on my side, if, at the same sitting, my God should get a verdict against
Him. I can not, I will not rejoice ; I must sit down by the rivers of Babylon, and
weep over the miserable fall and ruin of those with whom I went in company to the
house of God, and took sweet counsel together. Why will ye thus, for no cause,
grieve the Spirit of your God ? Why will ye trample His laws and His statutes,
which make the simple wise, under your feet ? Who will you thank for that ? The
Scottish Reformers will repudiate you from their company with horror; and all
Christian men of this day will do likewise; and your flocks will pine and perish;
and all honest men will wonder and be amazed when they hear that out of a court
of judgment the Word of God was cast willfully and deliberately ; that the court
where it was done was a court of Christ's Church ; and the occasion, when they were
sitting in judgment, the work of the Holy Ghost, by whom that Book was given, for
the guide and measure of His operations. I am indeed amazed and astonished at
you ; I am ashamed and terribly afraid ; I could almost arise and run for my life
from beneath the roof which overcanopied the perpetrators of such a wickedness. It
is not to be reckoned up. The sum of it is only surpassed by the mercy and forgive
ness of our God, where I do cast you with prayers, and supplications, and strong cry-
ings, that it might not be reckoned against you. Oh ! it is such a blind as will en
tirely cover up justice whichever way the Presbytery may decide. But, oh ! I can
not think of your deciding against me ; I can not entertain the thought of it. It
goes to my heart to put the supposition. Not because it is against me, but because
it is against the truth. It is not I that am decided against, but it is you, the pas
tors and elders of churches, that are decided against. You stand as the represent
atives of the congregation ; and if you err, the judgment falleth on the congregation
and the Church ; for Christ holdeth the angel as the representative of the Church.
Far be such evil from my brethren ; from my enemies far be it. By dismissing the
complaint the trustees entertain no loss — they have exonerated their conscience as
they plead — and there is no evil done to any one. But, oh 1 I set no store by these
considerations. I would not mention consequences in such an issue. I have not
done the part of a pleader, nor will do it, save to plead for the Word and Spirit of
God. I do merely point to the opposite consequences of entertaining or rejecting
the complaint ; but, lest any one may think that I am doing the part of a special
pleader, I put that away. Show me what I have done contrary to the Word of God,
contrary to the office of a minister of Christ, contrary even to the standards of the
Church ; then show that the offense is of such a magnitude as can not otherwise be
healed than by deposition, and, without troubling you, I will contentedly go forth.
There is no complaint here of elders or deacons, or flock or congregation, concern
ing their souls or my ministry, but simply of the trustees over a building. And what

APPENDIX C. 627
have they instructed in evidence but that I have permitted the Holy Ghost's voice to
be heard in the Church, without prejudice to any person or to any ordinance ? That
you should entertain such a complaint, that you should justify it, that you should
ratify it, I can not endure to think, and can not speak under that supposition.
Wherefore I do just leave it in the hands of God, and in the hands of the Lord Je
sus Christ, the Head of the Church, to do with me and my flock and congregation
what He pleaseth ; but never, never, oh God ! and oh, thou Head of the Church !
never suffer this court of ministers and elders, for their own souls' sake, for any ad
vantage, even though it were to gain the whole earth, to decide that the voice of
Thy Spirit shall not be heard in Thy Church ! Amen."

THE END.

ii'lfMEinsiTY LIBRARY

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