CHAPTER XVI

1831. Church Conflicts.

 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 ecclesiastical authority, and which stood in the place of all those venerable 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 restraints 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. 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 pervaded, a man whose vital piety- and apostolical life nobody could impugn; and Mr. Maclean, younger, less wise, but not less a faithful: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 Scott had temporarily withdrawn from the contest, which, in his case also, was to be decided at the sitting of the General Assembly in the ensuing May.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 allegiance, the little local consistory stood by him loyally, without an appearance as yet of division. Every man of them had come forward 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 opposition to the orthodox jurisdiction of the next superior circle of rulers. Minister and session alike delivered themselves triumphantly from this dilemma by direct reference to the Church of Scotland. It is possible that a little unconscious jesuitry lay in this 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 interfere, 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. Fergusson, and her husband, on the loss, so well known to himself, of one of their children: "London, 17th January, 1831. "MYv 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 peculiar 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 sorrow, 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 repentance, and confession of sin for all your house, that, being exercised 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 seemed 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 to know how little of human existence is on this side the grave, and by how much the better and nobler portion 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 * Iis younger brother, then practicing as a surgeon in London. another prosperous birth, that of the only surviving son of the family, Martin Irving, now. Principal of the: University of Melbourne. On this occasion, Irving, writing to his father-in-law, Dr. Martin, to "give him joy of a grandson," enters as follows into affairs 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 suppose the union of the Son of God'with our nature to be otherwise than by the Holy Ghost, and therefore, whatever in our nature is predisposed 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 d6th not render it unholy, for the text saith holy; and how was it a living sacrifice but by continually putting to death and keeping inr 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 Ite 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 object 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, Irving was also preparing another work on the same subject, published 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 narrative of the progress of the controversy as far as it had proceeded, and especially of the dealings of the London Presbytery with himself, from which I have already repeatedly quoted. The story 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 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 proceeding by Galloway and Dumfriesshire, and desire to preach in Edinburgh twice a day the first week of the Assembly; the second, to be at leisure for conference and business." This intention, however, he did not succeed in carrying out. The still more engrossing 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 utmost 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 explanation 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 Parliament. In the brightening mornings of spring he invited around him the members of the Church, to pray for wisdom and guidance 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 which 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 behalf of the ecclesiastical rulers who were about to brand and stigmatize him 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 Assembly 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 breathless 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 crisis, or by the rush of his thoughts in another direction. HIe 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 evening. 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 meetings, taking his share in the general interests of religion every where; laboring yet again to convince the Bible Society to sanctify its business with prayer; giving up, as he himself relates, " all his spare time to the (Jewish) Institution,." and getting into private embroilments by reason of his friendliness toward strangers — Dr. Chalmers at this time being, as it appears, irritated with Irving and some of his friends on account of their generous patronage of a Jew, whom the doctor, too, would willingly have patronized 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 singularity, now at last must have occurred that moment. But it is not the aspect of a feverish ambition, straining after the applause of the crowd, which meets our gaze in this man, now lingering, 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 firmament were anew to raise curiosity to frenzy, and direct against 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 immediate attention and interest, jealous public guardians flashing their lights upon it for the sake of the one name always intelligible 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 th9 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 approaching 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 fanatic enthusiast-a man in search of popular notice and applause, here is the homely picture of him in the words of his sister Elizabeth-a picture only heightened out of its calm of sensible simplicity by the tender touch of domestic love: " Edward continues 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 after dinner William and he went to visit two families in sickness; took tea at Judd Place, and went to church half an hour before service, to talk with young communicants; went through the evening service with great animation, preaching a beautiful sermon 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 amazing strength. The morning meetings continue to be well attended.... Dear Edward has had much to bear, and we should suffer with him. He has had strong consolations in the midst of it all, andI 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 mysterious 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 mysterious 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 simplicity 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 lehve' the readers of this history to judge. Meantime, while the prayers of the faithful rose for them morning by morning in that distant London church, echoing the anxious 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 perversity, 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 liberal 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 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 inferior court; and, by way of relieving these heavier labors, it launched a passing arrow at Irving. This was done on the occasion of a Repoqrt 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 privileges 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 wellinformed 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 important. 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 violence. 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. 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 offense; 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 opportunity of defending himself. But if they should found upon their report 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 security, 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 Carlyle'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 of that, and I will take care of thee.... Our prayermeeting 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 condemned. 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 permits 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 "'occupieth the room of the unlearned" may venture to form a private opinion; but nobody 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. inducements of terror might be used, however closely the mysterious 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 repentance-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 exposition of doctrine; but no man had ever ventured to forbid or discourage the incessant iteration of that call to repentance, to conversion, to salvation, which every body acknowledged (howsoever limited 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 investigations than his own. He took the offer which he was instructed 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 fervently. 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 peculiarity of his case. He was expelled from the Church for making 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 merit, 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 interpreted 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 censure, to be inevitably followed by all the heavier sentences she had in her power. Such was the work of this momentous Assembly. With hasty national absolutism, it cut off from its communion, for such causes, men- whom it knew and confessed to be an honor and blessing to the Church and nation which had produced 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 conditions, and, if resolute to attain perfection, always yet more resolute 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 agitated career, with its sad disruption and rending asunder, as bearing 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 company 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 gradually 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 interval that other question had been gathering force and shape. Miraculous instances of healing were told, and discussed, and proved, and contested, in the London 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 moment, 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 every morning for the extension of this marvel to London, and for the visible manifestation of God and his wonderful works among themselves, there was one at least so intent upon the petition he urged, and so sure that what he asked was in conformity 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 promised to the last days. He forgot neither the rights of a man nor the duties of a brother in that solemn and overwhelming expectation. 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 human eyes his Master Himself descend to the visible- millennial throne; and there was, to his sublimed vision, a certain magnificent 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 letter, 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 ecclesiastical matters, in which both were so deeply interested, as follows: "I feel as if it were the duty of every minister of the Church of Scotland to open his pulpit to Campbell and Maclean, and take the consequences; and that the people should no longer hear those ministers 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 themselves 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 Dodsworth'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 understanding." It was in July this letter was written, but not until four months later did the new wonder manifest itself publicly. In the interval, notwithstanding his eagerness and strong prepossession in favor of these miraculous pretensions, Irving took the part of an investigator, 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 askedfish, He gave us a serpent," he says, out of the simplicity of his devout heart, recognizing only in this complicated matter-which involved so profound a maze of incomprehensible human motives, emotions, and purposes-the devout sincerity of prayer on the one hand, and the 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 deliberate 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, because we saw it written in God's Word that these are the appointed ordinances for edifying of the body of Jesus. We continued in prayer 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 mpre 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, perhaps 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 answer to our prayers, it became me, as the minister of the church, to try that which we hadc received. I say it became me, and not another, 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 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 before 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 person 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 detect 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 introducing 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 faithfulness, that I was. praying the prayer of faith, and that He had poured out the gifts on the Church in answer to our prayei-s. Was I to disbelieve that which in faith I had been praying for, and which we had all been praying for? When it comes, He gives me every opportunity of proving it. I put it to the proof, according to Hi-s 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 undoubting confidence he had asked for bread, and the agreement of more than two or three in that petition had made God Himself. 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 overpowering 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 unbelievers, 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 accusations 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 testimony. Of all men in the world, perhaps this man, with his inalienable 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 least qualified to institute the searching and severe investigation which the case demanded; and when it is remembered how forlorn 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 disabilities of nature grow strong with every additional touch of circumstance. 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 utterances 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.onsolation 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 triefly, 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 thanksgiving, 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 churches 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 0ofthe 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 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 constant sympathy and unfailing support. The unanimous and spontaneous declaration by which his session expressed their perfect concurrence in his views, which he had published with affectionate 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 desolation, his last link to the old world of hereditary faith and dutiful 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 praying, 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 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 Scriptures, 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 our 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 liberty 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 approval.... Now, observe, I took to myself, according to the commandment 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, beyond question, it belongeth to every man to try the spirits; it belongeth not to the pastor alone, it belongeth to every man to do it.... It was my duty, therefore, in obedience to the Lord Jestus 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 people, that they might be tried by them. I put them forth at the morning 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 stateliness, 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 dreaded 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 probation 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 influential members of the congregation, they were prepared, for love of their leader, to wink at almost any thing which was not authoritatively 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 of prophecy and miracle. The very newspapers were discussing those wonders, which could not be contradicted, however 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 astonishing 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 exception, new-comers, attracted to the National Scotch Church neither for its nationality nor its Presbyterianism, but simply for Irving'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 gratified 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 favor 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. -- 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 discourse intended for the day, and expound the 14th chapter of Corinthians, in order to elucidate what had just happened. The sister was now returning from the vestry to her seat, and Mr. Irving, observing her from the pulpit, said, in an affectionate tone,' Console yourself, sister, console yourself!' He then proceeded with his discourse.' The matter was thus taken out of Irving's hand by an occurrence 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 tiomes in a state of solemn an.d 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 expected. 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 impulse 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 incapable. Irving paused in his preaching when this strange interruption occurred. -He had been in the midst of one of those discourses which were still ranked among the wonders of the time. He paused when the faltering, hasty steps of the retiring prophetess 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 longunited 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 henceforth 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 previously recorded habits of his simple and spotless life. While the November day darkened over him in those prayers and meditations 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 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 discourse, when another of the ladies spoke. The people heard for. a few minutes with quietness comparatively. But on a sudden a number of the fellows in the gallery began to hiss, and then some cried'Silence!' and some one thing and some another, until the congregation, except such as had firm faith in God, were in a state of extreme commotion. Some of these fellows (who, from putting all the circumstances together, it afterward appeared were a gang of pickpockets 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 Kirkcaldy 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. Irving 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 suffered." 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 curious 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 miraculous 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 surprise of the congregation, who did not seem prepared for the exhibition. 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 Irving in June, 1828. Corinthians. Toward the conclusion of the exposition he took occasion 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 vestry. 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 confusion 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 danger, and that there had either been a murder or an attempt to murder 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, indeed, 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 attempt was made to-stop the individual, and after two or three minutes he became exhausted and sat down, and then the reverend gentleman concluded the service. Many were so alarmed, and others so disgusted, that they did not return again into the church, and discussed the propriety of the reverend gentleman suffering the exhibition; 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 unimportant; 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 nearness to Himn, going forward and not going backward. For it is a sore and a sifting time wherein there is no safety, but will be destruction to every one who is not abiding in Christ and in Him 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 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 preached a mighty sermon on the 91st Psalm, bearing much allusion to the cholera; and twice over did the Spirit speak forth, once in confirmation, 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 diligently that Satan may not be able to put this light out!.... Farewell! 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 thousand people at the morning service is perhaps almost as wonderful 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 assembly dispersed, is a prodigy such as perhaps London never saw before, 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 wandering 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. 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 "suffered it not in the Church, acting according to the canon of the apostie; 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 languages 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 conferred seems to have given way to that of a supernatural sign and attestation of the intelligible prophecy, which, indeed, the Pentecostal 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 exclamations, with their rolling syllables and mighty voice, were imposing and awfull to others it was merely gibberish shouted from stenorian 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 "' bursting forth," and that from the lips of a woman, "'with an astonishing 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 rapidity 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 of Ambrose, are recollections and transmissions of the inspired utterances 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 regularlyformed, well-proportioned, deeply-felt discourse, which evidently wanteth only the ear of himr whose nactive 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 represents the tongue as something awful and impressive. The utterances in English are within the range of a less elevated faith, being at least comprehensible, and open to the test of internal evidence. 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 phenomena so extraordinary, and, fortunately, am not called upon to do either. The fact and fashion of their existence, and the wonderful 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 organized and established in being; and that, after a lapse of thirty years, they still continue to regulate the destinies of that oft-disappointed but patient Church. 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 deserved 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 intelligible hints that the church, though built for the Rev. Edward Irving, was only his so long as he conformed himself to the laws of the Church of Scotland, showing an interest in the cause of orthodoxy, and Scotch orthodoxy to boot, somewhat rare with that cos* See Appendix B.

"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 millennium. 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 comprehends, and is seldom more than half respectful of Presbyterianism, so followed by the observation of the world, so watched and noted. In the mean time, the mystic world within concentrated 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 humbleness, 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 unbelieving 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 hazards, leaving myself in His hand. Both at Liverpool and near Baldock, in Herts, in the parish of Mr. Pym, there have been manifestations. The work at Gloucester, we have reason to believe, is a possession of Satan. One child who received the Spirit there, and after her, her twin brother, son and daughter (about eight years old, 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 antics, 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 delivered 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 evening 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 Sunday, however, he had risen above such considerations. Daily stimulated, warned, and reproved by the prophets who surrounded him, he gradually gave up his lingering tenderness of reluctance to disperse his people, and even sacrificed his devout regard (always so strong in him the reverence more of a High Anglican 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 November, 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 the unknown tongue, and then passed into the known tongue. She said,'lHe shall reveal it! He shall reveal it! Yea, heed it! yea, heed it! 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 belief, the Holy Spirit, the great Teacher, from utterance in the church. While the newspapers without denounced the " exhibitions," 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 perpetual referee, retires with a grieved heart into the country; and, consulting privately with Dr. Martin, describes his own uncertainty 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 thoroughly convinced in his own mind that it is impossible to make an impression upon him, or to induce that caution which the circumstances seem so imperatively to demand." When fortified with the advice and arguments of Dr. Martin, who was under no such trembling anxiety as that which influenced his son-in-law, Mr. Hamilton proceeds to reason with his " dear brother and pastor" 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 arrest: "London, 21st November, 1831. " MY DEAR BROTHER AAND SISTER, —I pray that the Lord may preserve 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 kingdom 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 prophesying 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 attention 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, Christian 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 reading 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. Cardale 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 leaving 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.

Oh, what a fearful thing! Dear brother, I beseech you to be guarded 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 afternoon service which I took, the Spirit sealed with His witness both the exposition (Mal., 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 commanded them to be kept shut, resolved to take the responsibility on myself, 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, partly 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 unconvinced yet sympathetic soul of the affectionate brother, who can not condemn the faith which he sees to be so firm and deeplyrooted. There is something profoundly touching in the situation altogether; the anxious private correspondence of 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 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'William 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 agreement 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 DEAIR FrIIENDS, —I think it to be my duty to inform you exactly concerning the order which I have established in the public worship of the Church for taking in the ordinance of prophesying, which it bath 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 commandment (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 manner 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 interpreting of the Scriptures (First Book of Discipline, chapter xii.), expressly 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 ups 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 ordered 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 congregation, 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 public 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 Chulch 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 always 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, prevent, 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. IRVING. "Finally, may the Lord guide you in upright:judgment, and preserve 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 enouagh,'of all who argued, remonstrated, or pleaded with Irving, in public or private, his Scotch father-in-law, strong in all ecclesiastical proprieties, as it was natural he should be, and often disposed to be impatient of Edward's faith, seems to have been the only man who recognized and acknowledged that, believing as Irving did, no other course was practicable to him. The suppression 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 impossible 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, being, with the exception of articles in the Morning Watch, his sole publications 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 believed, 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 permitted, 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 denounced 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 admiringly 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 believe, many of their present descendants would gladly and thankfully see replaced instead of the elaborate production of the Westmninster 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 wistful souls. "I prefer beyond all measure," says Irving, " the labors of our Reformers, which took so many years to complete them, and grieve exceedingly 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 composition 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 expressions 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 document; it is also a call upon his previous knowledge of ecclesiastical controversy which very few can honestly answer; and, being digested 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 consciences —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 rather an instrument for catching dishonest than a rule for guiding honest 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 confession.. 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 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 fervently proclaimed himself truly loyal, and his assailants the heretics and deniers of the faith. Forlorn, with his friends and brethren dropping 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 interested as Irving was in proving that, whatever might be her temporary 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 associated 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 Jforning Watch carried on, without intermission, the two great controversies in which Irving was engaged. Papers on the Humanity of our Lord, which, by overexposition and explanation, confuse and profane the question, appeared in every number, along with inquiries into the new spiritual gifts, some of which bear the mark of Irving's own hand, and accounts of miraculous cures, so detailed and minute that it is difficult not to think of the parallel cases cited by Professor Holloway and other vendors of miraculous universal medicine. Irving's series upon Old Testament Prophecies fufitlled in the New runs through the entire volume, where, too, there appears now and then a human, personal glimpse of him in the affectionate testimony of a friend; as, for example, when the Morning Watch, taking 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 toward him should impede the promulgation of such sentiments as those of which we have shown the Record to be now the advocate." Such a reference to an individual, assumed to be so entirely well-known and held in such affectionate regard by an audience considerable enough to keep a quarterly review afloat, is, perhaps, unique in literature. As the days darkened and the end of the year approached, matters 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 miscellaneous 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 ihfluence, but to a remnant saved from all nations, a peculiar 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. Mackenzie, the only one of his elders who believed with him. Mr. Hamilton reports, for the information of Dr. Martin, that " a compromise was attempted by some of the trustees, who strongly urged Edward to prohibit the gifted persons from speaking on the Sabbath, leaving it to him to make such regulations regarding the 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 spontaneously and as one man to take up their share of their leader's burdens, and declare their perfect concurrence with him —" accordingly 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 proceedings 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 trustdeed. 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 melancholy 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 affection, may easily be imagined. He stood fast through the whole, a matter more difficult to such a spirit than any strain of resistance to harsher persecutions. The next meeting he does not seem to have attended; but, on hearing their decision, wrote to the session 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 surrender 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 salvation 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 prophesying 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, 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 spiritually 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 according 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. Farewell! 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 neither 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 intolerable 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 sorrowful 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 brethren 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. IHe 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.