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father's manse, for the recovery of her health), is one of the most remarkable records that was given to the public, and must be read by any who would form a just appreciation of Irving's noble and simple character. Night after night, never too much occupied, or too exhausted by the labours of such days as his were, he sits down to his task of love, though often, as he confesses, with " great combination against himweary hand, a heavy eye, a dull mind, and a late hour." A great sorrow had just fallen upon the young parents-the death of their first-born son. He died at Kirkcaldy, fifteen months old, immediately after the mother's second confinement. Irving felt the loss acutely. The child had been his pride and joy; as he himself worded it in Scripture phraseology-" his excellency and the beginning of his strength.' He had been used to carry him in his own arms during his walks with his wife about the streets of Pentonville and its then suburban lanes, drawing thus additional attention to the tall and remarkable. figure which carried such an unusual burden. The birth of other children, and even their death, nearly as it touched him, never for a moment dimmed the little image in the father's memory. He talked of him, wrote of him, dreamed of him, for years afterwards. The following extract from one of his publications shows, in his own remarkable language, how real and how noble the sorrow

was:

"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 be 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 blossom and bear in the kindly and kindred paradise of my God."

It was to cheer and comfort the bereaved mother, waiting her recovery before she rejoined her husband in London, that Irving undertook the long daily record in the form of letters which has been just mentioned, and which seems to have been the only journal he ever kept. "It is not wonderful," says Mrs Oliphant, "that the wife should have cherished them to the last as too sacred for common sight; few men or heroes have been laid in their grave with such a memorial as envelops the holy name of little Edward; and I think few wives will read this record without envying Isabella Irving that hour of anguish and consolation." We will add that they might well have envied her if she had survived to know it—the biographer in whose hands the husband's journal has been placed.

We confess that we had rather linger with him in his quiet home at Pentonville, where friends gathered round his early breakfast-table, and joined in his social worship, and listened to his deep and yet practical expositions of Scripture, than follow him to the conferences of the students of prophecy at Albury. There, at the house of Mr Henry Drummond-the clever and sarcastic political debater, whom it is difficult in some respects to identify with any preconceived ideal of an apostle, but who possessed in a remarkable degree that large benevolence which is not one of the least of apostolic virtues - there met together in the winter of 1826, in a kind of religious retreat,

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* Preface to 'The Coming of the Messiah,' from the Spanish of J. J. Ben Ezra.

some twenty men, many of them famous or to be famous in their generation, who, differing on many minor points either of religious belief or of church discipline, were agreed in this, that the Second Advent was near at hand. They remained there, as Mr Drummond's guests, for eight days; "twenty men," as Irving himself describes them, "of every rank, and church, and orthodox communion in these realms," to deliberate upon the great prophetic questions which do at present most intimately concern Christendom." Their president or "moderator," as the narrator terms him—was Hugh M'Neil, then rector of the parish; and among the number were Joseph Wolff, Hatley Frere, Peter Borthwick, Lord Mandeville,* and Mr Dodsworth. They spent "six full days in close and laborious examination of the Scriptures;" holding each day three "diets"-for Irving fondly insists throughout upon his own Presbyterian terminology-the first at eight o'clock, the second at eleven, the third at seven in the evening. The whole passage which gives the details of this first conference is highly interesting, though too long for extract. He closes it in these words :

"The 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 councilroom, 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 chamber where I met in the Spirit my Lord and Master, whom I hope soon to meet in the flesh."

There can be no question but that these meetings-which were repeated in nearly the same form for five years successively

had

much share in the ripening and developing of Irving's peculiar views. He had adopted, with all the intensity of his nature, the belief which has always possessed some enthusiastic minds ever since the Day of the Ascension-more or less prevalent, from time to time, according as some signs in the world's horizon seemed more directly to betoken it-that the Second Personal Advent was drawing near; might be looked for any day, and was what every Christian ought to hope to live to see. This is not the place to discuss the doctrine further than as it bears upon the phenomena of Irving's mental life. Let this much be said; it is a doctrine few men will be inclined to hold, except such as, like Irving, lead an intensely spiritual life, and walk as it were always in the presence of the Infinite.

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And it is a doctrine which every Church must needs leave open to each man's individual acceptance, because no Church can have any warrant for insisting on its truth, any more than for asserting its falsehood. It is when such a personal belief is sought to be imposed upon others as an article of faith, or as one of the terms of communion, that it can fairly raise any question of heresy. Together with this belief, and closely connected with it, Irving had long been inclining towards another the possible restoration to the Church of miraculous gifts, which it had always held as it were in posse, and the exercise of which was only suspended from the lack of faith and prayer. To many exponents of Scripture this latter tenet followed by logical sequence from the former; the Spirit was to be poured out in the "last days;" and the "last days" were now. We see what appears to have been almost the first dawn of this hope in Irving's mind, in that remarkable epistolary journal in which he recorded not his acts only, but his inmost thoughts. As he walked in

Better known as Duke of Manchester. Mr Dodsworth, long an able "Highchurch" preacher in the Anglican communion, afterwards conformed to Rome.

he says,

his garden-his favourite scene for reading and meditation-he had, "certain cogitations of God's neighbourhood to very holy men, so that it seemed not possible to say whether He might not still work manifest wonders by their hand." Continually the thought grew upon him, till it absorbed his whole mind and desire; he was confirmed and strengthened in his views by the periodical meetings with kindred minds at Albury; and the whole of his after career was the working out, after his own impulsive fashion, of that which he came to hold not only as a truth,

but as the truth.

Meanwhile, comparatively early in his London career, he had displayed those peculiarities of temperament which impaired his usefulness, while they threw an irresistible interest about the man personally. What he never could make allowance for, was the limitations of actual life. Hic cum hominibus, non cum diis, agitur-was a maxim he would have spurned. "The sublime impracticable" was always his aim. The religious societies of his day-in the eyes of whose managers popular preachers have a distinct pecuniary value-were naturally eager to secure the services of so able an advocate; and Irving, never sparing of himself, readily consented to preach on one occasion for the London Missionary Society. But that excellent body soon found themselves in the position of the man who had impressed a giant to do his everyday work, and was nearly ruined by the impossibility of limiting his new servant's exertions. Irving preached for them for above three hours, and to such a congregation as had never before been gathered, wet and dreary as the day was.

"But the oration which burst upon their astonished ears was quite a different matter. It had no connection with the London Missionary Society. It was the ideal missionary-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 gulations of the committee, and their eyes directed towards 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 his burning message, pressing on without pause or rest through the world that lay in wickedness-an apostle responsible to no man-a messenger of the Cross. The intense reality natural to one who had all but embraced that austere martyr the picture he drew. There can be little vocation in his own person, gave force to

have their interest stimulated in the re

doubt that it was foolishness."

In this style he harangued the astonished audience and discomfited managers, and this for three hours! But of time Irving consistently refused ever to take note; and when even the elders of his own church ventured to suggest some moderation on this point, he protested at once, in terms somewhat prophetic of future protests, that he "would submit to no authority in that matter but the authority of the Church, from which also he would take liberty to appeal if it gainsaid his conscience." When his friend Dr Chalmers came to preach at the opening of his new church in Regent Square, Irving was to commence the service (the congregation, in their eagerness, having already been assembled three hours), by reading and expounding a chapter. "He chose," says Dr Chalmers,

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evident, even at that period, of a wholly accidental kind.* It was not long before he was honoured with the enmity of the 'Record' newspaper; and the Dissenters, according to his own account, "generally reported him as a man wholly mad."

In May 1828, Mrs Irving being again on a visit at Kirkcaldy for change of air, Irving took the opportunity of making an apostolical tour in Scotland, in order to "bear his testimony" to that which he had now come to consider as the one important truth which he was charged to deliver to the men of his own faithless generation-the imminence of the Second Advent; the point of view "from which, and from which alone," as he expresses it in one of his letters, "the whole purpose of God can be contemplated and understood." First, he thought himself bound" to open these great truths to his own kindred and townsmen, and in the church in which he was baptised." He was now no longer the unrecognised prophet among his own people. "On the Sunday when he preached, neighbouring ministers shut up their churches, and went the long Sabbath-day's journey across the Annandale moors to hear him, along with their people." Thence he went on to Edinburgh, where at that season the clergy were gathered for the General Assembly, and lectured on the mysteries of the Apocalypse at six in the morning, not to interfere with the other engagements of the clerical audience whom he especially burned to address. Crowds of eager listenersfathers, mothers, and childrenthronged the churches even at that untimely hour, and yet found no

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room; and Scotch divines forgot their mild dignity, and threatened the officials with personal violence," at the mere suspicion of unfair dealing with regard to priority of admission. At Glasgow and in the wilds of Lanarkshire, where he proceeded with his message, the excitement was the same. At Kirkcaldy it had a most unhappy result; the crowded galleries gave way, and thirty-five lives were lost. Amongst other towns in the North he preached at Perth, when the following striking incident is recorded in a letter from one who was present:

"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 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."

Clouds were hanging over himself, and the storm was soon to burst. A second missionary visit to Scotland in the following year found him no less than before the object of popular interest, and innumerable multitudes-if the newspapers of the day are to be trusted literally thronged to the places where he preached. But even in his native country the cry of "heresy" was raised here and there, as it had already been in London. It was asserted that he held and taught "the sinfulness of Christ's Human

He had little of the narrow-mindedness of (so-called) Evangelicism, and seldom adopted their popular phraseology. One exception has amused us. He was trying to sell an edition of his sermons. "Try Blackwood," he writes, "or some of those worldlings." It is always allowable, we suppose, to make spoil of the Egyptians in these cases. Non olet is the mental remark when the cash comes in from the worldly publisher. Possibly the "serious firms think that, in a matter of publishing, authors have no right to expect the gain and the godliness. For our own part, if liberal dealing be one of the marks of the unregenerate, we shall be quite content to be counted among the "worldlings."

Nature." The mysteries of religion had always a subtle attraction for his mind; and the great doctrine of the Incarnation had been almost as favourite a subject of his meditations as the visions of the Apocalypse. The orthodoxy of his teaching upon this head had been already more than questioned from time to time during the two previous years, when in 1830 he published his tract on 'The Doctrine of Our Lord's Human Nature.' Irving's own statement of the point in dispute and it seems a fair statement is in these words: "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." He was violently attacked by several of the religious periodicals of the day; * and though he had manifestly the advantage of his opponents in the charitable tone of such replies as he made, it will be readily conceived that Irving was not the man to moderate the expression of an opinion because it was unpopular. Others also accepted his statement of the question, and probably, as is apt to be the case with disciples, pushed their master's assertions to the extreme. Mr Maclean, a young minister just presented to a parish in Ayrshire, was petitioned against on the ground of this same heresy, and, after a series of appeals, was finally deposed by the Assembly. Irving's day was yet to come.

And now began the first of those remarkable manifestations which for a while startled and excited not only quiet hillsides in Scotland, but the busy heart of London itself; and of which it is by no means easy to give even the barest sketch without incurring the risk of seeming either irreverent or over-credulous. Mrs Oliphant, in dealing with the sub

ject so far as is necessary from its bearing on Irving's life, wisely determines that it is not within her province to attempt any decision as to what was the real character of these marvellous phenomena." The interesting memoir of Mr Story of Roseneath, already noticed, and to which the authoress refers her readers, contains probably as fair and unprejudiced a statement of the facts as could possibly be obtained; for it was in Mr Story's parish, and under his immediate cognisance, that the first manifestations took place. They were briefly as follows. In a lone farmhouse, amidst the lovely scenery of the Gairloch, a girl named Isabella Campbell had lived and died with a deserved reputation for almost saintly piety. A memoir of her, drawn up by Mr Story, had obtained an immense circulation, and drew hundreds of visitors, from curiosity or better motives, to the place where she had lived. Her sister Mary-beautiful, clever (as her letters abundantly prove) though not highly educated, imaginative and excitable, and affected with tubercular consumption-found herself in some degree the inheritor of her sister's honours. The peculiarities of Irving's teaching had, as we have seen, already reached Scotland; and some of the pilgrims to Fernicarry had learned to look upon bodily disease as the permitted infliction of Satan, and to pray for the manifestation of the gifts of healing, of tongues, and other spiritual powers which they believed only required faith and prayer to be reawakened in the Church. Suddenly Mary Campbell broke out into an utterance. Let Mr Story describe it, for he was present on a subsequent occasion-a deeplyinterested and not entirely unsympathetic witness :—

"I had just taken her by the hand to bid her adieu, when, obviously possessed

* If the virulence of some of Irving's opponents may be estimated from their ignorance, it must have been great indeed. A writer in the Christian Instructor' chose to compare Irving's opinions with the Monothelite (lit. "single-willed") heresy; and, in the course of his argument, spoke of "Monothelos himself."

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