1825. Irving's Introduction to the Study of Prophecy.
IN the beginning of the year 1825 - a year forever to be remembered in Edward Irving's life, and which, indeed, so touching, 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, notwithstanding the sad failure and discomfiture of the London Missionary 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 nervous 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. fHe 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 prophetic personages of that dread undeveloped drama -are necessarily involved. The manner in which Irving's attention had been, some short time before, specially directed to the study of prophecy, is, however, too interesting and characteristic to be passed without more particular notice. Several years before, Mr. Hatley 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, M. Frere cherished the conviction 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 suddenly brought in contact with him, the student of prophecy identified him by an insta'nt 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 patient hearer all those details to which the public ear declined to listen; and the result was that Mr. Frere gained a disciple and expositor; and that an influence fatal to his future leisure, and of the most momentous importance to his future destiny-which, indeed, 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 settlement, which he is said to have derived from Coleridge. Henceforward.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 attractive, seized upon him fully; and when it came to be his business to consider the truths best adapted for the instruction and encouragement of a body of Christian men laboring on behalf of that old Roman world which has long been the heart and centre of the earth, his mind passed at once into those solemn and mysterious 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 certainly obtained, who can doubt that here is indeed the guidance 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 " calling" to instruct was never absent from his mind. To the missionaries, 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 discernedl in actual presence, and learly indicated in Scripture, which were before them in that difficult 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 recognized 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 fulfilled-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, lhave made customary on such occasions. The orator took no such easy and beaten track. He entered into the subject of education with all the conscientiousness of his nature, setting it f6rth 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 supposed 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 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; expounded 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 trutb 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 abruptly left the place;" and, from the comments that followed, Irving was soon brought to understand that he had been misapprehended, 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 pursued the same study and adopted the same views. Urged by his brother-students of prophecy, and inclined of himself to give forth 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 indebtedness, to the gentleman who had first directed his thoughts to the subject. " To my beloved friend and brother in Christ, HATLEY FRERE, 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 ignorance, and having been blessed from my youth with the' desire of instruction, 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, " EDWARD IRVING." This opening season of'25 seems to have brought a large share 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 Ireland-not, perhaps, specially adapted to a moment when much of the generous feeling of the country had been roused, in the discussions upon Catholic Emancipation, to take the part of that portion 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 meeting 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 Catholic battle almost single-handed, and ruled his island for a lifetime with autocratic sway, already threw his shadow even upon such an institution as the Irish Bible Society. Stanch Orangemen on their native soil would undoubtedly have defied such an influence with double pertinacity and zeal, but metropolitan meekness counseled otherwise. An English clergyman of high standing 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 criticism, 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 arrangement, 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 expected. One of the speakers, a Mr. Pope, who had come from Ireland 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 unwelcome 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 demeanor, to the front of the platform, and " lifting up a heavy stick which he carried, struck it on the floor to give additional emphasis 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 simple 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 account of "an afternoon spent in his society among the poor of London," which appeared some years since in the pages of the Free Church Magaztne, gives a quaint picture at once of the disabilities and mistakes of ordinary visitors of the poor, and of Irving'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 persuading 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 clients, 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 presented: 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 ordained for her children, and the great figure of the preacher standing 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. "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 intended to benefit the poor, very, very distantly related to them by way of Adam and the forgotten patriarchs, but the cheerful brotherhood of the man who had blessed the bread of the starving Glasgow weavers was as strange to them as if he had spoken Hebrew 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 obligations 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 beautiful 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 people 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 covtrast 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 warmest and closest friends, Mr. James Bridges and Mr. Matthew Norman Macdonald, two Edinburgh lawyers, of influence and weight in the Church, came, on a mission of inquiry, to ascertain, apparently, whether the much-distinguished preacher was equally zealous 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 his hours of study to be interrupted by visitors, kept these gentlemen wandering about the unsuggestive streets of Pento.ville 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: "MY BELOVED BRETHIEEN IN THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST,- 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. W hen 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 frequently lived in his house: "Mr. Irving's rule was to see any of his friends who wished to visit him without ceremony at breakfast. Eight o'clockwas the' hour. Family worship first, and then breakfast. At ten he rose, bade every one good-by, and retired * The Rev. Dr. Gordon. 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 accompanying him; and, until the baby took hooping-cough, Mr. Irving almost 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 membel of his congregation somewhere on the line of the New Road; but, finding himself late, took, without considering the state of his pocket, the Paddington coach, omnibuses having not yet come into fashion. As soon as the vehicle was on its way, the unlucky passenger recollected that he was penniless. His dismay at the thought was overwhelming, but soon brightened with a sudden inspiration. iLooking around him, he artfully fixed upon the most benevolentlooking face he saw, and poured his sorrows into his fellow-traveler'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 today 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 extraordinary 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, Mrs. Irving, then herself in a delicate condition of health, accompanied 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. "MY DEAR ISABELLA AND BELOVED WIFE, —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 country, 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, your 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 HIighgate 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, EDWARD IRVING." This letter was followed, a week after, by another letter, in which his doubts and inclinations in respect to the call from Edinburgh-his decision of which question has been already recorded -are fully set forth. The tone of this letter is far from enthusiastic as regards London, notwithstanding his intention of remaining in it. * Coleridge, then living at Highgate with his friends the Gillmans. "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 judgment. 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 antiChristian 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 prosperity. "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 question 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 return 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 preserved; 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 DEAtEST WIFE,-0On Sunday I desired a meeting of the church and congregation at six o'clock last night, and then laid before 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 approbation, 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 Edinburgh 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 Christ and servants of God in the Church of Scotland, who heretofore, with a very few exceptions, have estranged me from their confidence. 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 ministry. 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 understand 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. Howden, 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 Tyhere in the Word of God; and I intend to continue the same subject 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 manner 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 representation 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 proceed 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 IRPVING." "London, 25 Bedford Square, August 2d, 1825. I "4th August: Dies natalis atque fatalis incidit. "'The day of birth and of death draweth nigh.' "MY 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 thriving 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 hotion, 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 professedly, 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 th6 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 showing 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 consequent of the Gospel is the form of our life, to be perfected and completed in the state of complete restitution, when Christ shall present His Church without spot to His Father, and shall then resign the mediatorial kingdom. This all deduces itself fiom 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 continual 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 regeneration. 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 Churc]h, concerning which I pray you to say nothMng. I shall write my essay on the salt sea where Knox first matured -is idea of the Scottish Reformation... My dear Isabella, guard;gainst the formalities which abound on every side of you. Let me!nd you grounded and strengthened in the spirit of godliness. For he other book,* it is nearly finished. I have just brought to a close ~he 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 Scholiam 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 inll 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, intended for the edification of all, but as a sharp rebuke and reminder 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 ilf 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. 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 publish 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 ordination; 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, indeed, 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 tenderness over the chrisom child, whom he " assuredly believed" to be " ingrafted in Christ Jesus." Years afterward he makes a touching 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 London, living in the house of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Montagu, and proceeding vigorously, as has been seen, in his labors, with no serious 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 relief. On the second day of October a daughter was born; and 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 Kirkealdy, writing to his father the venerable old man who had baptized little Edward, his descendant 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 viewng the dear infant's cruel struggle, 'Look not at the things which are seen, but at those which are unseen "' "Edward and Isaella," he continues, "both bear the stroke, though sore, with wonderful 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 the Holy Name! David 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 testimony 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 interruption 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 transcribe it without tears, will be seen by the following letter, addressed to William Hamilton, and written on the day of death itself: " Kirkcaldy, 11th October, 1825. "OUR DEARLY-BELOVED FRIEND,-The hand of the Lord hath 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 comforted, 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! I" Our little Edward, dear friend, is gone the way of all the earth, and his mother, and I are sustained by the Prince anid 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 chill who is departed, we desire that you will not spend it in unavailin[ sorrow, but elevate it unto HIim who hath sustained our souls, evei 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! WVilliam Hamilton, remember thyself, and tell them all that they are dust, and that their children are as 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 congregation. " Your affectionate friend, EDWARD 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 lamentation, 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 memory 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 afterward, 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 babies 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 too 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 taut short by' Satan, as not to become a winged seraph; will rather yonder that such a puny, heartless, feeble thing as manhood hould 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. 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 remembered, when I knew the sweetness and fruitfulness of such joy and sorrow." I can not doubt that the record of this infant's death, and the traces it leaves upon the life and words of his sorrowful but rejoicing father, will endear the great orator to many sorrowful hearts. So far as I can perceive, no other event of his life penetrated so profoundly the, depths of his spirit. And I can not think it is irreverent to lift the veil, now that both of those most concerned 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 a beautiful and gifted woman, brightened her father's house during all his lifetime, and died-happily not long before her muchtried 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 apostolical 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 coul attempt; than any thing, indeed, which, so far as I am aware, an" man of modern days has left behind him.