06a Edward Irving, Cath. Apostolic Ch. Irvingites

Chapter 6 Rev. Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church or Irvingites

ONE of the most pathetic and tragic figures among all the tongues people is that of Edward Irving. Irving was a minister of the Church of Scotland and, as minister of the Caledonian Church in London, at one time the most popular preacher in that city. His birthplace was at Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, where his statue now stands. He was born on August 4, 1792, of parents who were of the better-to-do sort of Scotch people. His father was a tanner. Irving received his higher education from Edinburgh University, which institution in 1809 awarded him the degree of Master of Arts. After teaching school for a time and pursuing during that period his studies in Divinity, he became assistant to the then renowned Dr. Thomas Chalmers of Glasgow. In 1822 he was called to be the minister of the Caledonian Church in Hatton Garden, London. This was a considerable promotion ^or Irving, although the church numbered less than three hundred members. These were Scotch people resident in London. Irving had not long been there before he was the center of the religious public’s attention. By chance a prominent member of the House of Commons had heard him preach, and referred in glowing terms a few days later, in the course of parliamentary debate, to the young preacher. Irving needed only this introduction; crowds went to hear him, crowds of the most fashionable people in London and in those crowds were included the greater part of the notables of that day. It became the fashion to hear Irving preach. In the course of time Irving became interested in the study of prophecy, and became convinced of the imminent nature of our Lord’s return. Finally he came under the influence of a group of people who professed to prophesy and to speak with other tongues, and the new church which Irving’s congregation had been obliged to build to take care of the great multitude which came to listen to his preaching was crowded no longer with the elite and the fashionable, but with the curiosity-seekers and religious cranks of the day. The "gifted" and the prophetic stood up in Irving’s church and publicly rebuked him, and prophesied and contradicted each other until finally Irving was deposed on a charge of heresy by his presbytery and excluded from his church.

Irving and a band of his followers then held services in a room in Gray’s Inn Road, used on other occasions by Robert Owen. Later they moved to Newman Street. In time a new church was organised by the prophets which they called "The Catholic Apostolic Church." In the meantime the only great man in the movement, Irving, was gradually stripped of his powers, and the real leadership of the movement passed into the hands of a group of men of very ordinary ability, but of very positive convictions. Irving died of tuberculosis on December 8th, 1834, in the forty-third year of his age.

Thomas Carlyle had known Irving as a young man, and had kept up a more or less close touch with him all through his London residence. In fact, Mrs. Carlyle, according to common tradition, had been an old sweetheart of Irving’s. Thomas Hitchcock, in hiis little book, "Unhappy Loves of Men of Genius," * makes the, love of 1 Hitchcock, Thomas: "Unhappy Loves of Men of Genius." New York, 1891.

Irving for Jane Welsh Carlyle the subject of one of his essays. At any rate, Mrs. Carlyle had been as a young girl one of Irving’s pupils, and he had found her both interesting and attractive. Carlyle himself is unstinted in his praise of Irving. Thus he writes, in his essay on the "Death of Edward Irving":

"Here once more was a genuine man sent into this our ungenuine phantasmagory of a world, which would go to ruin without such; that here once more, under thy own eyes, in this last decade, was enacted the old Tragedy, and has had its fifth act now, of The Messenger of Truth in the Age of Shams" l And again in the same essay:

. . . "He was so loving, full of hope, so simple-hearted, and made all that approached him his. . . . But above all, be what he might, to be a reality was indispensable for him." 2

Carlyle, with all his bombast and pessimism, not only loved, but understood Irving. Be what he might, to be a reality was indispensable for Irving. He was a reality. What he preached he lived. What he expressed as the great motive of a life was the motive of his life "the ends of everlasting goodness":

"The most acceptable offering which we can present unto God, the author and preserver of our being, and the most grateful return which we can make to the world in which we have passed our days, is to live a life directed according to our best perceptions of truth and devoted to the ends of everlasting goodness." 3

1 Carlyle, Thomas: "Dei Essays," Vol. II, p. 223. Death of Edward Irving," in "Crtiical and Miscellaneous
2 Same: p. 223.
3 Irving, Rev. Edward, M.A.: Introduction to the "Life of Bernard Gilpin," by William Gilpin, M.A. Glasgow, 1830; p. 5.

James Bridges, Esq., at whose home Irving stayed while attending the General Assembly at Edinburgh in 1828, wrote of him:

"Before his decay, it will be well remembered by all who knew him, with what gravity, spirituality, and orthodox earnestness he preached; with what benevolent assiduity he laboured; what gentle and amiable simplicity and kindness marked his deportment in private life; what solid, brilliant, and flowing variety, in all the shades of grave and gay, ever characterised his conversation." l Nor are these words in reference to Irving out of place:

"The poet Procter (Barry Cornwall), who saw much of him in London, pronounced him ’the most pure and hopeful spirit surely that Scotland has ever produced/ and wrote of him

’ ’If his manner had not been so unassuming I might have felt humble before him. But he was so amiable and simple that we all forgot that we stood in the presence of a giant in stature, with mental courage to do battle with any adversary, and who was always ready to enter into any conflict on behalf of his own peculiar faith. ... I never heard him utter a harsh or uncharitable word. I never heard from him a word or a sentiment which a good man could have wished unsaid. His words were at once gentle and heroic. No one who knew him intimately could help loving him.’ " 2 Truly he was "the good Irving: so guileless, loyal always, and so hoping and so generous." 3 The words of criticism and of unkindness that have been spoken against Edward Irving are words that are

1 Bridges, James: Prefatory Notice to "Irvingism and Mormonism Tested by Scripture," by Emilius Guers. London, 1854.
2 Hitchcock, Thomas: op. cit., pp. 192, 193.
3 Carlyle, Thomas: "Reminiscences," Edited by James Anthony Froude. New York, 1881; p. 351. spoken only by ignorant and in many cases more or less jealous contemporaries. Those who criticised him have long been forgotten. Those who love him are all those who study faithfully his life and character. There are various ways of interpreting Irving, and particularly of explaining the collapse of his latter days, but there is only one explanation possible, only one explanation satisfactory, and that explanation is the simple but ^tragic one of a lack of common sense. Simple as tms explanation "is, it is the explanation of the tragedy of many of those who in earnestness and sincerity have, nevertheless, concerning faith, made shipwreck. Reason, and particularly the analytic processes of reasoning, need to be applied searchingly to those things alleged to be spiritual, as well as to that class of things which we denominate natural. The familiar and practical criticism of Irving is on the ground of his undue sense of his personal importance. It was his gigantic conceit which, more than anything else led to his downfall. Such a conviction led Dr. Meade C. Williams to explain the tragic closing years of Irving’ s life as

"partly from conceit and an overweening sense of his own sufficiency which made him impervious to criticism and proof against every friendly suggestion, and partly from the ineradicable conviction that the whole Church had but an obscure sense of the truth. . . .

"He was a good man, but marked by grievous infirmities. In public ministrations he seemed utterly without prudence or practical wisdom." 1 Who, however, is going to draw the line and tell us what is conceit and what is humility when a man is a 1 Williams, Meade C. Article: "Edward Irving," in the Princeton Theological Review, Vol. I, p. 7. mystic? Being conscious of an immediate revelation from God, and being therefore incapable of error, is a heresy for which many a man in good and regular standing remains as yet to be tried in our church courts. When a man rings true, when he is so generous that he suffers wrong for that generosity, when he seems persistently to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, then certainly we must look for some explanation other than that of a lack of fundamental humility to explain his failures. But even Carlyle felt that Irving’ s difficulties were the product in part an unconscious part of the applause which had turned the preacher’s head:

"Unconsciously, for most part in deep unconsciousness, there was now the impossibility to live neglected; to walk on the quiet paths, where alone it is well with us. Singularity must henceforth succeed Singularity. O foulest Circean draught, thou poison of Popular Applause! madness is in thee, and death; thy end is Bedlam and the Grave." * In his "Reminiscences," however, it seems as though Carlyle comes a little nearer to the real analysis of the situation. Irving had lost his sense of proportion, his consciousness of the ultimate relation of things, because of his eagerness for the spread of the Christian religion. Perhaps he never had a sense of proportion.

"At sight of Canning, Brougham, Lady Jersey and Co., crowding round him and listening week after week as if to the message of salvation, the noblest and joyfullest thought (I know this on perfect authority) had taken possession of his noble, too sanguine, and too trustful mind: ’that the Christian religion was to be a truth 1 Carlyle, Thomas: "Death of Edward Irving," cit. supra, p. 224. again, not a paltry form, and to rule the world, he unworthy even he, the chosen instrument.’ " 1

Dr. Simpson suggests 2 that a great lack in Irving’s mental nature was the lack of a sense of humour. Yet Irving was neither an ascetic nor a pessimist. He knew the pleasure of life. He knew and practised the art of friendship; he could mingle with people and be happy.

Carlyle speaks frequently of the preacher’s joy in life. At the time when they were both teaching at Kirkcaldy, Carlyle says:

"He had a most hearty, if not very refined sense of the ludicrous; a broad genial laugh in him always ready. His wide, just sympathies, his native sagacities, honestheartedness, and good humour, made him the most delightful of companions." 3

If, however, humour be the faculty of appreciating the unexpected, Irving had a lack of humour. For him nothing was unexpected. "To him that believeth all things are possible" was no empty phrase with Irving. Anything in the realm of the supernatural, whether it was of any value or not, was for Irving not only possible but imminent.

He was so anxious for the supernatural that he refused to go to school in the natural. His utter want of common sense, the sense of the fitness of things, is illustrated in a host of anecdotes told about him. There is none more characteristic than the story which James Bridges tells in the following words:

1 Simpson, J. G. Article: "Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church.” “Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics," Edited by James Hastings. New York, 1915, Vol. VII, p. 426.
2 Carlyle, Thomas: "Reminiscences," p. 186.
3 Same, p. 82. See also Story, Robert Herbert: "Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story, Late Minister of Rosneath, Dumbartonshire." London, 1862; p. 60.

"Another characteristic trait. Walking by Whitehall one day, I met him arm in arm with the late Dr. Gordon of the High Church of Edinburg. ’Oh, Mr. Bridges,’ said he, ’Dr. Gordon wishes to drink London porter in a London pot-house. Shew us one,’ So we went to the York in Prince’s Street, Soho, where the public room was crowded with dining parties in all the boxes. When our repast was ready, Irving raised his arm perpendicularly over his head, and in that attitude commenced a loud blessing. The clatter of knives, and corks and forks, and the bustle of waiters, competed with him for a time, but gradually subsided, till amidst deep silence, he made the assembled company hear in his prayer not a few things strange to chop-house ears." 1 And Rev. Mr. Craig of Edinburgh tells of another similar incident:

"A certain gentleman invited a party of Christian friends to his house. In the course of the evening, before separating, a late supper was served. Some of the guests had three miles to walk after the meal. But before sitting down Irving was requested by the host to read the Bible and expound a little. He began, and continued to discourse on and on. At last the clock struck twelve, and then the host very gently suggested it might be desirable to draw to a close. ’Who art thou/ replied Irving, ’who darest to interrupt the man of God in the midst of his administration?’ He pursued his talk for some time longer, then closed the .book, and waving his long arm over the head of his host, uttered a prayer that the brother’s offence might be forgiven." 2 Perhaps what Irving needed was some one to tell him that he did not have common sense. Perhaps Jane

1 Bridges: op. cit., pp. 10-11 (footnote).
2 Hanna, William: "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D." Edinburgh and London, 1851. Vol. IIL p. 276. See also OHphant, Margaret W.: "The Life of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church, London." New York, 1862; p. 97.

Welsh Carlyle was right when she said, "There would have been no ’tongues’ had Irving married me!" 1

Dr. Chalmers’ phrase, "a prodigious want of tact" may be a phrase about as suggestive of Irving’s limitations and eccentricities as well may be found. Dr. Chalmers went down to London in the spring of 1827 to preach the sermon in connection with the opening of Irving’s new church. This is what we find in Dr. Chalmers’ Diary under date of May 11, 1827, in connection with the services on that occasion:

"Friday Mr. Irving conducted the preliminary service in the National Church. There was a want of tact in the length of his prayer, forty minutes, and altogether it was an hour and a half from the commencement of the service ere I began." 2

One of Irving’s most characteristic public addresses was made to the London Missionary Society. This was an address in which he told the members of the Society that their methods of procedure were utterly useless, and that the missionaries ought to be sent out as they were in the days of the Apostles, without any provision for their temporal needs. It took him over two hours and a half to deliver the address, and he dedicated it to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But let Charles Lamb tell the story:

"I have got acquainted with Mr. Irving, the Scotch preacher, whose fame must have reached you. He is a humble disciple at the feet of Gamaliel S.T.C. Judge how his own sectarists must start when I tell you he had dedicated a book to S.T.C., acknowledging to have learned more of the nature of Faith, Christianity and the Christian Church from him than from all the men he ever conversed with. He is a most amiable, sincere, 1 Quoted by Hitchcock: op. cit., p. 211. Hanna: op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 160. modest man in a room, this Boanerges in the temple. Mrs. Montague told him the dedication would do him no good. That shall be a reason for doing it,’ was his answer. Judge now whether this man be a quack." l

Dr. Chalmers tells of a visit to Coleridge in company with Irving. This was the day before the dedication of the National Scotch Church.

"Thursday. Irving and I went to Bedford Square. Mr. and Mrs. Montague took us out in their carriage to Highgate, where we spent three hours with the great Coleridge. . . . His conversation, which flowed in a mighty unremitting stream, is most astonishing, but, I must confess, to me still unintelligible. I caught occasional glimpses of what he would be at, but mainly he was very far out of all sight and all sympathy. I hold it, however, a great acquisition to have become acquainted with him. You know that Irving sits at his feet, and drinks in the inspiration of every syllable that falls from him. There is a secret and to me as yet unintelligible communion of spirit betwixt them, on the ground of a certain German mysticism and transcendental lake poetry which I am not up to. Gordon 2 says it is all unintelligible nonsense, and I am sure a plain Fife man, as Uncle ‘Tammas,’ had he been alive, would have pronounced it the greatest heff he had ever heard in his life." 8 Hanna, Chalmers’ son-in-law and biographer, adds in a footnote to the above:

"Returning from this interview, Dr. Chalmers remarked to Mr. Irving upon the obscurity of Mr. Coleridge’s utterances, and said, that for his part he liked to

1 "Correspondence of Leigh Hunt.” Edited by his eldest son. London, 1862. Vol. I, p. 250.
2 The Rev. Dr. Gordon of Edinburgh.
3 Hanna: op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 160. see all sides of an idea before taking up with it. ’Ha!’ said Mr. Irving in reply, ’you Scotchmen would handle an idea as a butcher handles an ox. For my part I love to see an idea looming through the mist.’’

Irving’s subsequent theological troubles with the Presbytery were not in toto matters of theology. They were in part, as matters of heresy almost always are, a matter of personality. Irving was not merely unsound; he was a greater, braver man than many of those who were most extraordinarily and painfully sound. He did not hesitate to do his own thinking without consulting any one as to the acceptability of his thinking. He even went so far as to intimate that one element which hindered the spread of the gospel was the manner in which the gospel has been presented. Thus we find him writing in the preface to his first published book:

"It hath appeared to the Author of this book, from more than ten years’ meditation on the subject, that the chief obstacle to the progress of divine truth over the minds of men is the want of its being properly presented to them." 1 Carlyle pretty clearly understood the theological Scotland of his day when he wrote:

"Theological Scotland above all things is dubious and jealous of originality, and Irving’s tendency to take a road of his own was becoming daily more indisputable." 2

Even Irving’s critics were willing to pay him a deserved tribute as a preacher. William Orme, who printed "An Expostulary Letter to the Rev. Edward Irving,

1 Irving, Edward: "For the Oracles of God. Four Orations. For Judgment to Come. An Oration."
2 Carlyle, Thomas: "Reminiscences," p. 150.

A.M., Occasioned by his Orations for Missionaries after the Apostolical School," wrote:

"When I reflect on your powers of declamation on the extraordinary energy by which you are distinguished on the oracular tone in which you intimate your sentiments, on the anathemas with which you denounce those who cannot sympathize with many of your views, and on the defiance which you hurl at the spirit of this feeble, prudent, selfish, vain-glorious generation, I frankly own that I feel little inclination lo approach within the sweep of your arm, or the frown of your indignation." 1

There were of course different opinions as to Irving’s ability as a preacher; the one that he was a great preacher and orator a judgment in reference to Irving’s ability which was somewhere near the correct opinion and the other, which was the opinion of unsympathetic minds which dismissed Irving at once from consideration because of his eccentricities, that Irving was a sort of mountebank and spiritual actor. To this class of opinions belongs that of J. G. Lockhart expressed in a letter written during the year 1824 to Professor John Wilson:

"Irving, you may depend upon it, is a pure humbug. He has about three good attitudes, and the lower notes of his voice are superb, with a fine manly tremulation that sets women mad as the roar of a noble bull does a field of kine; but beyond this he is nothing, really nothing. He has no sort of real earnestness; feeble, pumped up, boisterous, overlaid stuff is his stable." 2 For the good folks of Dr. Chalmers’ congregation in Glasgow Irving had "ower muckle gran’ner," 3 a fact

1 Orme, William: "An Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Edward Irving, A.M.. Occasioned by his Orations for Missionaries after the Apostolical School. London, 1825; p. 2.
2 Gordon, Mary Wilson (Mrs. J. T.): "’Christopher North/ A Memoir of John Wilson." Edinburgh, 1862. Vol. II, p. 71.
3 Oliphant: op. cit., p. 60. which was undoubtedly true. They were accustomed to Dr. Chalmers, a Scotch analyst, and Irving was the other type of Scot, the Scotch mystic.

According to Carlyle, "Irving’s discourses were far more opulent in ingenious thought than Chalmers’, which indeed were usually the triumphant on-rush of one idea with its satellites and supporters. But Irving’s wanted in definite head and backbone, so that on arriving you might see clearly when and how." 1 A visitor who heard Irving speak in Edinburgh when he was delivering a series of lectures at St. Andrew’s Church, lectures which were delivered at six o’clock in the morning to crowded houses, and which dealt in general with the subject of the Second Advent, is quoted as saying that

"On the previous Sabbath I listened for nearly two hours and a half to what he (Mr. Irving) termed an explanation, without being able to understand it." 2

While it is very true that an explanation requires not only an explainer, but also one capable of understanding the explanation, it is not to be doubted but that for the most part of us, Irving’s explanations would signally fail to explain.

Many took exception to Irving’s most trivial mannerisms. "A writer in the Saturday Evening Post, Edinburgh, for example, states that ’Irving’s gesticulation, it seems, is studiously varied/ and the several parts of his manner ’may be valuable requisites and auxiliaries of oratory, but are quite incongruous with the dignity and sanctity of the pulpit." 3

1 Carlyle, Thomas: "Reminiscences," p. 128, vide infra.
2 "Reply to Various Criticisms Which Have Appeared on the Course of Lectures Lately Delivered in this City by the Rev. Edward Irving, together with a Statement and Defence of the Scripture Doctrine of the Second Advent of Christ." Edinburgh, 1828: p. 8. For another estimate of Irving as a preacher, see Hazlitt, William: "The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits." First American Edition, New York, 1849. Article on Rev. Mr. Irving.
3 "Reply to Various Criticisms": cit. supra, p. 13.

Washington Wilks writes:

’’The Times’ fell upon the pulpit celebrity in its capacity of general guardian of the public taste. There appeared, one July morning, an article commencing ’There is a fashion in everything in wigs and bonnets, in poetry and novel writing; and lastly, in actors and preachers; and while things go on in the ordinary way while wigs do not accumulate their curls into periwigs, nor bonnets swell into coal scuttles while our popular poets scribble only one poem, and our popular romancers only two novels a year while our actors are content with one new reading in a play of Shakespeare, and our preachers aim at no praises beyond those of the regular frequenters of fashionable chapels we are disposed to let things pass, and allow the candid and enlightened public to have their own way. But the case is different with Mr. Irving. His popularity absolutely frightens us ’from our propriety/ We learn that statesmen and quack doctors, old ladies and judges, young ladies and students of law, all flock with eagerness to hear the Caledonian orator. We become somewhat anxious to know what are the attractions to collect together such an heterogeneous mass; and, after a serious consideration, we profess ourselves unable to discover. After hearing him, and after reading what he has written, we are, in our own minds, fully convinced that he is a man of very ordinary talents; that his understanding is weak in its grasp, and limited in its observation; and that his taste is of the very lowest order of badly instructed school-boys. He is an imitator of Dr. Chalmers, but no more like his prototype than the inflated frog in the fable was like the bull whom he strove to resemble; for the energy of thought of his original, he gives us nothing but rumbling and distorted common-places; for the impressive and impassioned diction of his master, he has nothing but antitheses without point, and epithets without distinctness; while the poor and insignificant idea, wrapped up in a heap of tinsel and clumsy phraseology, looks like ’the lady in a lobster, or a mouse under a canopy of state.’ . . . We feel ashamed and begin to distrust our own judgment, when weisee that we have one idea in common with such a turgid and shallow declaimer. . . . Surely, surely it cannot be long before this bubble bursts !" 1 On one occasion the London Times took the liberty to conduct a trial of Edward Irving before the "Court of Common Sense. " The counts of indictment, says Mrs. Oliphant, were as follows:

"First, For being ugly.
Second, For being a Merry-Andrew.
Third, For being a common quack.
Fourth, For being a common brawler.
Fifth, For being a common swearer.
Sixth, For being of very common understanding.
And Seventh, For following divisive courses, subversive of the discipline of the order to which he belongs, I and contrary to the principles of Christian fellowship and charity.

"It will gratify our readers to know that Irving was not found guilty of ugliness nor of any of the charges brought against him, except the last; and that one of his principal assailants, the Times itself, the Thunderer of the day, was convicted by its own confession of having condemned Sir Walter Scott as "a writer of no. imagination," and Lord Byron as "destitute of all poetical talent." 2 In spite, however, of all the thundering of the London Times, and in spite of all the criticisms of small-minded critics, Irving was able to attract and to retain friends and admirers. For example, in Fraser’s Magazine for

1 Wilks. Washington: "Edward Irving. An Ecclesiastical and Literary Biography.’ London. 1854; p. 144.
2 Oliphant: op. cit., p. 129.

May, 1831, appeared an article, "The Rev. Edward Irving and his Adversaries," in which Irving is mentioned in terms of the highest praise. The article deals with Irving’s Christological heresy and his trial before the Presbytery. It begins:

"It is now nine or fen years since the Reverend Edward Irving first attracted that extraordinary attention in this country, as a pulpit orator, which has since fixed the eyes equally of admirers and opponents, upon him and his doings as a public character, and as public acts." 1 A statement from the pen of Coleridge in reference to Irving is also given in the course of the article:

"That he (Edward Irving) possesses my unqualified esteem as a man, is only saying, that I know him, and am neither blinded by envy nor bigotry. ... I have no faith in his prophesyings, small sympathy with his fulminations... But I hold withal . . . that Edward Irving possesses more of the spirit and purposes... of the first Reformers, that he has more of the head, the life, the unction, and the genial power of Martin Luther, than any other man now alive; yea, than any man of this and the last century. I see in Edward Irving, a minister of Christ after the order of Paul." 2

Preacher or no preacher, orator or no orator, Irving had the undoubted ability to stir his hearers, and to stir them to action.

"Once in Kirkcaldy Kirk, which was well filled and all dead silent under Irving’ s grand voice, the door of a pew a good way in front of me (ground floor righthand as you fronted the preacher), banged suddenly open, and there bolted out of it a middle-aged or elderly 1 Fraser’s Magazine, May, 1831, Vol. Ill, No. XVI, p. 423 et seq. 2 Same; p. 423. little man (an insignificant baker by position) who with 1, long swift strides, and face and big eyes all in wrath, | came tramping and sounding along the flags close past my right hand, and vanished out of doors with a slam; Irving quite victoriously disregarding. I remember the * violently angry face well enough, but not the least what the offence could have been. A kind of Who are you, sir, I that dare to tutor us in that manner, and harrow up our | orthodox quiet skin with your novelties?’ " 1 A word might also be said as to Irving’s personal appearance. Dr. Addison Alexander, who, while on a visit to London, went to hear Irving preach, says:

"He has a noble figure, and his features are not ugly, with the exception of an awful squint. His hair is parted right and left and hangs down on his shoulders in affected disorder. His dress is laboriously old-fashioned a black Quaker coat and short clothes. His voice is harsh, but like a trumpet: it takes hold of one and cannot be forgotten. In his youth his height, his long hair and his princely bearing made him a conspicuous figure. Brown, Irving and Carlyle went one day to see the Falls of Clyde:

"The Falls were very grand and stormful--nothing to say against the Falls; but at the last of them, or possibly at Bothwell Banks farther on, a woman who officiated as guide and cicerone, most superfluous, unwilling too, but firmly persistent in her purpose, happened to be in her worst humor; did nothing but snap and snarl, and being answered by bits of quiz, towered at length into foam. She intimated she would bring somebody who would ask us how we could so treat an unprotected

1 Carlyle, Thomas: "Reminiscences," p. 96.
2 Alexander, Henry Carrington: "The Life of Joseph Addison Alexander." New York, 1875; p. 290. Cf. Carlyle: "Reminiscences," p. 70. female, and vanished to seek the champion or champions. As our business was done, and the woman paid, too, I own (with shame if needed) my thought would have been to march with decent activity on our way, not looking back unless summoned to do it, and prudently evading discrepant circles of that sort. Not so Irving, who drew himself up to his full height and breadth, cudgel in hand, and stood there, flanked by Brown and me, waiting the issue.

"Issue was, a thickish kind of man, seemingly the woman’s husband, a little older than any of us, stept out with her, calmly enough surveying, and at a respectful distance; asked if we would buy apples. Upon which with negatory grin we did march." l

Irving’s difficulties began, not with his popularity, but with the fact that his eagerness for the supernatural was L -, unhindered by any inhibitions. He had not been preaching long in London before his interest turned toward prophecy. For a man of his type an interest in prophecy was almost inevitable.

It was also inevitable that Irving’s type of mind should lead him to an eager interest in the problem of the return of the Lord. While thus interested, and engaged at the same time in the study of Spanish, he studied and translated into English, during the summer of 1826, a Spanish work entitled "The Coming of the Messiah, in Glory and Majesty."

"Irving was not alone in his interest in prophecy. There have always been groups of men who have felt a special gift for understanding those aspects of reality before which both reason and the Scriptures draw a veil. Such a group existed in the days of Irving’s popularity under the leadership of Henry Drummond.

Drummond, who was six years older than Irving, was 1 Carlyle, Thomas: "Reminiscences," p. 105. See also p. 246 and p. *59. a wealthy banker and a member of the House of Commons. He was a man of no mean powers and abilities, and a man of independent convictions. The Rev. Edward Miller, M.A., in his admirable work on Irvingism, quotes the following description of Drummond:

"Every habitual reader of the debates must be familiar with Mr. Drummond’s style of speech. But only the habitual attendant can adequately realize its attraction and effect. The presence, the costume, the manner of the speaker were all totally unlike what the reader would imagine. A tall, slender, white-haired figure, perfectly upright, and scrupulously attired in black, rose from the first seat on the first bench below the gangway, on the ministerial side, whatever the ministerial politics. From a place thus significant of parliamentary independence, there was delivered, slowly, almost inaudibly, and with perfect gravity, a speech that proclaimed an equally independent position in the world of opinion. Through lips that hardly seemed to part, there came trickling forth a thin but sparkling stream of sententious periods, full of humour and sarcasm, learning and folly, boldness and timidity, bigotry and charity, and of everything antithetical. The strongest contrast of all seemed that between the speaker and his hearers. Everybody but himself was excited by laughter, or anger, or pleasure. He alone seemed perfectly unmoved a speaking statue, shaking the sides of all men within hearing, and some who could not hear caught the contagion of laughter, but the man himself was a paradox. His strongly marked individuality ran into so many opposite extremes that his right hand seemed always at war with his left hand. Some of his favourite notions seemed utterly puerile, yet there was a ripeness of wisdom in him that made his speeches abound with proverbial philosophy.

"But it was by his religious opinions that Mr. Drummond was chiefly known to the general public, and yet least known. Sometimes a rash opponent would venture an allusion to his connection with a Church whose head ministers ranked as archangels, and whose services were in an unknown tongue. If Mr. Drummond forebore to punish such coarse and blundering replies to the thrusts of his own keen and polished blade, it was out of respect to a subject which he held too sacred for such encounters. The really remarkable thing about what we may call the parliamentary aspect of his religion was, that he constantly appeared as the champion of essentially Roman Catholic doctrine, and yet as the fierce antagonist of papal supremacy. His speeches equally offended Romanists and Protestants. Against the latter, as in debates on the flaw of marriage, he was the strict asserter of Church authority. Against the former, as in the debates on the Ecclesiastical Tithes Bill, and on the inspection of convents, he maintained the pope to be an usurper. He ’ provoked, by the fierceness of his denunciations of these institutions, the uncontrollable feeling of Roman Catholics; and he shocked Mr. Spooner by scornful disclaimers of the Protestant right of private judgment.

"His social position was that of a link between the territorial and the moneyed aristocracy; and though he perpetually railed at the political economists, he founded at Oxford a professorship of ’the dismal science.’ He ridiculed the opponents of capital punishment, and the advocates of humanitarian movements generally. Yet much of his time, as well as of his money, was spent in actively doing good. Nothing would have provoked him more than the association of his name with radicalism and retrenchment, yet there are few passages in the writings of financial reformers equal for severity to the speech in which he turned into words Gilchrist’s forgotten caricature, representing the State as a maternal pig, with the last of her progeny sucking at her tail. No other man would have had the boldness to use such Rabelaisian wit as his with such unsparing severity, applying to dukes and knights of the garter the same caustic aphorism as to venal voters.

"But all this was but the rocking to and fro of a mind whose history was that of a continual struggle to reconcile authority and freedom, truth and beauty, religion and reason? 1 " In the early winter of 1826 Drummond invited a group the members of which described themselves as "they who love His appearing" 2 to his house, "Albury," to "deliberate for a full week upon the great prophetic questions which do at present most intimately concern Christendom. The men stayed at Drummond’s home for six days, and discussed questions dealing especially with the imminence of our Lord’s return. The group numbered about twenty.

"These meetings at Albury were continued annually for five years, the last being held in 1830, generally about the season of Advent. Forty-four people 3 in all attended one or more of them, but of these, nineteen were clergymen of the Church of England, one was an English Moravian, two were Dissenting ministers, four were ministers of the Established Church of Scotland, and eleven English laymen, one Scotch Presbyterian layman, and six other Englishmen, whose adhesion is unknown, made up the number.

"Amongst these were, besides Irving, Drummond, Wolff, and Hugh McNeile, Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, Robert Story of Rosneath, a wellknown Scotch minister, of whom we shall hear more in the course of this history, Hatley Frere, Haldane Stewart,

1 Miller, Rev. Edward M. A.: "The History and Doctrines of Irvingism or of the So-Called Catholic and Apostolic Church." London, 1878. Vol. I, pp. 33-4. Dr. Miller quotes this description from "A Notice in the Morning Star quoted in the Gentleman’s Magazine, for April, 1860, p. 414, as what ’appears to us on the whole well considered and impartial.’ " See also Carlyle: "Reminiscences," pp. 246-7.
2 Oliphant: op. cit., p. 274. Quoted by Mrs. Oliphant from Irving’s Preface to his translation of Ben Ezra.
3 For a complete list of those who attended the Albury Conferences see Miller, Edward: op. cit., Vol. I, p. 41 (footnote).

Spencer Perceval, eldest son of the murdered minister, and afterwards one of the ’Apostles/ Mr. Tudor, afterwards editor of the Morning Watch, the late Duke of Manchester, then Viscount Mandeville, who had married the only daughter of Lady Olivia Sparrow, Mr. Strutt, the late Lord Rayleigh, and Dr. Dodsworth.

’The second meeting, in 1827, was attended by a larger number than the first. Amongst these was Robert Story of Rosneath, who had not been present the year before. The interpretations of prophecy appear now to have taken a more definite turn, and to have been carried onwards from merely general notions about the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and the approaching coming of the Lord for his millennial reign on earth, to a detailed application to the ’times and seasons’ of the current period. The Apocalyptic Vial was supposed to have been poured out on Rome, in A. D. 1798; and it was concluded that the coming of our Lord would take place in 1847. It is’ evident that in this method of precise interpretation they had ventured upon unsafe ground, and an amusing incident occurred which struck Story forcibly. 1 While they were in session, the news of the death of the Duke of Reichstadt, the son of the first Napoleon, reached them. ‘That cannot be true,’ said one of them, springing from his seat, ’for it would overturn this whole interpretation.’ The young Napoleon had been taken for the Beast of the Apocalypse.

"’The School of the Prophets,’ as Irving termed them, met again the next year. A falling off had already commenced. Drummond came to the conclusion that ’some of the people last year had not been very faithful,’ and consulted with Irving in the summer whom he should invite. It is striking to see the stress then laid upon passing events. The death of Mr. Canning, the formation of a Liberal administration under Mr. Robinson, afterwards Lord Ripon, and a war with Turkey seemed 1 Cf . Story, R. H.: op. cit. t p. 234. to the council to denote the near approach of the end. Indeed, the sixth vial was supposed to foreshow the fall of the Ottoman Empire. A speech of Canning’s, in which he expressed his apprehension of a terrible conflict of opinions, when opposing principles would become the groundwork of a general war, was eagerly seized upon as indicating the nearness of the battle of Armageddon. It was thought that there would soon be a general apostasy of the Church, and that the Jews would be the instruments of Almighty God’s displeasure. It appeared to be almost taken for granted that the Time-state 5 of the Church Militant would very soon close.

" Whether from any comparative failure, or through circumstances wholly unconnected with the meeting yet interfering with the natural sequel to it, or more probably from the sudden outbreak of supposed prophetical inspiration, which outleaped and cast into shade the previous deliberations, we have no authorized record of the last meeting in 1830.

’But we may glean the following particulars: The students of prophecy who still held together met at Albury in July. Certain events in Scotland, where the spirit of prophecy was supposed to have arisen, were among the chief subjects discussed. On the last day of the meeting, the chairman, ’a clergyman of the Church of England,’ delivered it as his opinion in which he was joined by the members of the conference: That it is our duty to pray for the revival of the gifts manifested in the primitive Church; which are wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discovery of spirits, kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues; and that a responsibility lies on us to enquire into the state of those gifts said to be now present in the west of Scotland.’ The meeting was a short one, not extending over three days. From other causes the movements had now made a sudden advance." 1 1 Miller: op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 40-46. In the parish of the Rev. Robert Story, of Rosneath, mention of whom has been made in connection with the Albury prophetic group, was a family by the name of Campbell, two of whom, Isabella and Mary, came in the course of time to be regarded as women of singular piety and virtue. Isabella was an invalid and a sufferer from a tubercular condition from which she finally died. During her illness her religious experience was of such a nature as to attract and to hold the admiration of Mr. Story. After her death, Mr. Story wrote a narrative of her life which he called "Pggc^jn Believing. ’ ’ The book was tremendously popular. In fact, the income from the work was large enough to permit Mr. Story and the publishers generously to provide for some of the pressing needs of Mrs. Campbell. 1 The nature of Isabella Campbell’s life may be judged from the following extracts from Mr. Story’s work:

"Often she would fast for a whole day, that her mind, as she conceived it, might be fitter for devotion." 2

"In her religious development she became tormented with fears. . . . The sin against the Holy Ghost, for example, was charged upon her conscience with resistless energy. 3

"In her struggle, she wandered into the fields, on the side of the mountain, or along the solitary shore, seeking rest, and finding none. She fasted and she prayed. Her soul, as it were, ’abhorred all manner of meat.’ ’Wearisome nights’ were appointed to her. No sooner did she lie down in her bed, than she would rise again, venting her agonies in piteous moanings; or if she found herself falling asleep, she would start from her pillow, terror seizing upon her, lest her awakening should be in a place of torment.

1 Story, R. H.: op. cit., p. 224.
2 "Story, Robert: "Peace in Believing, or a Memoir of Isabella Campbell," etc. New York, Boston, 1830; p. 43.
3 Same: pp. 51-2.

"Her bodily strength decayed; while her mind seemed to reTalnnts^stfelipn^oWy’nfor the endurance of greater suffering. But no words can more fitly express her condition than those which she herself once used in her sister’s presence. One of her cousins had been observing, ’How miserable Isabella is ! What can be the matter with her? She has a look of such great anguish.’ And Mary, a little afterward approaching where she was, heard her thus mournfully express herself, rather in the way of soliloquy than in the form of an address to her: ’O sin ! Sin is just hell. I can understand well that which David said, "The pains of hell took hold of me." For one to experience a little more of this awful enmity towards God would make life insupportable. I feel it to be almost so as it is.’ . . .

"She began to think that it was sinful in one with so much conscious hatred to God and all things holy, to dare to hold communion with him or to examine the revelations of his will. She seems, accordingly, at this time, to have abandoned altogether the reading of the Bible, and refrained from intercessory prayer; although she continued to deplore and confess her guiltiness."

Mr. Story continues:

"It may be recorded also as very remarkable, that the passages of Scriptures, which she had got by heart, entirely faded from her remembrance. She likewise absented herself from church." 1 So scrupulous was she to avoid even the least appearance of evil that "she would not, for example, exchange the ordinary salutations with any person she met on the road, lest she should be tempted to utter vain words, or expend foolishly one of those ’moments upon which eternal results seemed to depend. When in society she was generally silent and thoughtful, listened eagerly to any religious conversation; and when she did speak, it was with great earnestness and solemnity; while at all 1 Story, Robert: op. cit., pp. 56-7. New York, Boston, 1830. times, she seemed to regard with sacred horror any approach to cheerfulness and gayety. 1 . . .

"At length, she returned to the services of the Church and in great anticipation went again to the Communion.

"She ate, however, the body and drank the blood of her Lord, without realizing what she had been anticipating; so that she might have said to the promises of her deceiving hope, ’Where is the blessedness ye spake of?’" 2 As a result:

"Groaning and lamenting, night after night, she literally watered her couch with her teaiS: the house continually resounding throughout the silent watches with the voice of her weeping. Long would her mother lie sleepless, listening to expressions of grief, for which she had no remedy or comfort; or when awakening from slumbers, which, through weariness of nature, she could not avoid, finding Isabella absent, she would thus be filled with alarm, lest some new calamity should visit her beloved child. Thus, at dead of night, had she tQ rise and leave the house, and search for her in the fields or where she often found her, and that during the depth of winter, careless of any of its storms, weeping and praying in her little garden. *O, then it was pitiful to see her/ she has said to me; ’not like an earthly creature. I could give her no help, and she could find none where she was seeking it. She looked so pale and wo-begone, it was easily seen that her misery could not be told.’ " 3 Mary Campbell, in writing of her sister, said:

"I have known her run through the room, almost in very despair, exclaiming, ’I am lost! I am ruined forever! The pains of hell have taken hold of me! What 1 Story, Robert: op. cit., pp. 61-2.
2 Same: p. 66.
3 Same: p. 69. shall I do? Whither shall I flee from His presence? Nowhere, nowhere; there is no place where the Almighty is not. O ! that I could tear this awful heart from within me or escape from myself/ . . .

"I have seen her, if calling at any place, and if offered anything to eat or drink, occupy eight or ten minutes in soliciting a blessing, ere she would venture to take any of it.

After the death of Isabella, many visitors came to Fernicarry, attracted by reading the Memoir of Isabella Campbell, and much of the interest which attached itself to the older sister gradually was directed towards the younger sister, Mary.

Let us read now from the biography of Mr. Story, written by his distinguished son, Rev. Robert Herbert Story, later principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow:

"In Isabella’s Memoir, reference is made to a peculiar sorrow of her sister Mary’s, in which she was called to sympathize. This was the death of a young man to whom Mary was engaged to be married, and with whom she had intended to go abroad on a mission to the heathen. His death frustrated the accomplishment of her design, but did not abate her desire to carry it out; and her mind continued to dwell upon it with intense interest, hopeless though the project seemed. She was in ill health, and exhibited obvious symptoms of the disease which had carried off her saintly sister. Her malady, however, was not of a nature to render society dangerous, or impossible to her. And society she had in abundance. The interest excited by Isabella’s Memoir drew many to Fernicarry, to see the sister whose name was so often on its pages; and that interest, attached to the memory of the one, ere long transferred itself to the 1 Story, Robert: op. cit., p. 76. living presence of the other. She was a woman of great personal attractions, had a beautiful face, and soft eyes with drooping lids, which she seldom raised. She was very clever, and, considering her obscure circumstances, was well informed. Her character, however, lacked the moral strength of Isabella’s, and her enthusiastic imaginative mind was not so strictly controlled as might have been desired, by keen and clear instincts of perceptions of right and wrong. There was in her, in fact, much of the nature and disposition which have, from age to ’ age, furnished the Church with mystics.

"A young, beautiful, not highly educated, and withal excitable invalid, could not but suffer a certain distortion of the morale of her nature, and be led insensibly, it may be towards the borders of delusion and vanity, when she found herself the cynosure of the eyes of a large portion of the religious public, and beheld some company of its pilgrims ever and anon resorting to her shrine. Among those who thus came to Fernicarry were some whose minds were much engaged with the idea to which, at the time, Mr. Irving’s teaching had directed public attention, viz. that bodily disease was the direct infliction of Satan, and that, therefore, faith and prayer, and these only, should be employed as the means of deliverance from it; and that, moreover, by the due exercise of these, the power of effecting miracles of healing and other wonderful works would be restored to the Church -- a power hitherto kept in abeyance, because of the Church’s faithlessness.

"The subject of missions was also profusely talked about in Mary’s sick-room^ and the idea of a due preparation for evangelistic work was more or less bound up with the new notions regarding the restoration of spiritual gifts. To Mary, herself, the central point in all the discussions and speculations that went on around her, was the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen. A small band of intended missionaries gathered at Fernicarry funds were collected clothes provided and prayer was made to God continually that their way might be directed according to His will. This was in the winter of 1829-30.

"To Mrs. Campbell, whose, eldest son had for months past been on his death-bed, the constant stream of visitors which the discussions and arrangements about this projected enterprise conducted to Fernicarry, became excessively trying. She frequently complained to her minister of the hardships to which the ceaseless influx of Mary’s admirers and coadjutors subjected her. At last, on one occasion, when he found her on a bleak cold day rinsing clothes at the ’burn,’ near the house, she told him that, though she never went to bed ’the day she rose,’ yet, so great was the burden cast on her by these visitors, that she was utterly unable to give the attention that was indispensable to the comfort of her dying son. There were, she said, at that moment two young men in the house, one of whom had been there for some days, and there was no hint of his much-longed-for departure. Mr. Story at once went in, and on entering the little parlour, he found the pair, of whom she had spoken, comfortably seated beside the fire with books and writing materials on a small table before them. Stung into quick wrath at the contrast between their comfort and Mrs. Campbell’s forlorn washing operations under the wintry sky, he at once told them that they ought immediately to be gone; that they had no right to oppress their hostess and idly eat the bread of charity, as they were doing, instead of attending to their ordinary avocations. To this, one of them starting up and stamping his foot, replied ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’; and, Mr. Story remaining unmoved by this exorcism, the other proceeded to explain that they were in their present position by the Lord’s command, in order to be prepared for this work, and that it was an honour to Mrs. Campbell to be permitted to minister to the Saints.

"Why, then, said Mr. Story, if preparing for missionary work, were they not acquiring a knowledge of the languages in which the Holy Scriptures were written, and of the people to whom they meant to proclaim the Gospel. No preparations of that kind, he was assured, were needful; and unbelief alone could suggest the thought of such carnal preliminaries.

"If so, pursued the inexorable minister, why not cross over to Corval? There were thousands of Gaelic-speaking people there, who knew very little of the Glad Tidings: why not try their virgin powers on them? To such a rash experiment, it need hardly be said, they felt the Lord did not call them.

"On Mr. Story’s going from thence to Samuel Campbell’s room, the sick man reiterated the complaints which had been made by his mother, and he added that his rest was night after night entirely destroyed by the continual talking and psalm-singing in his sister’s chamber above him.

"To her Mr. Story related all that had passed, and urged upon her that it was her obvious duty to send away these foolish young men, and to discourage the renewal of the visiting and noise, which were so grievous to her mother and dying brother." 1 The connection between Irving and the Campbells is brought out in Washington Wilks’ account of Mary Campbell and the Rev. A. J. Scott, the greater part of which is taken from an account written by Edward Irving for Fraser’s Magazine:

"The Rev. A. J. Scott, a man widely revered as a master of learning and especially as a teacher of religious truth; and envied to Manchester by many in London, as the principal of its Owen’s College was, up to the middle of 1830, the missionary of the Caledonian Church in Regent Square, to the poor of the city; and was thus 1 Story, Robert Herbert: op. cit., pp. 194-7. in close contact with Edward Irving one of whose felicities it was to draw about him spiritual excellencies of every sort. Mr. Scott seems to have been more decided than his more eminent friend ’on this head/ indeed, to have expected what the latter only desired. Towards the end of 1829, he was on a visit to his father, in the west of Scotland; and was ’led to open his mind to some of the godly in these parts, and among others to a young woman who was at that time lying ill of a consumption, from which afterwards, when brought to the very door of death, she was raised up instantaneously by the mighty hand of God.’ Being a woman of a very fixed and constant spirit, he was not able, with all his force and argument, which is unequalled by that of any man I have ever met with, to convince her of the distinction between regeneration and baptism with the Holy Ghost; and when he could not prevail, he left her with a solemn charge to read over the Acts of the Apostles, with that distinction in her mind, and to beware how she rashly rejected what he believed to be the truth of God. By this young woman it was that God, not many months after, did restore the gift of speaking with tongues and prophesying in the church. In the intervening months a remarkable mental change was accomplished. The study of Scriptures produced the conviction which Mr. Scott . . . had failed to produce. The young woman . . . had actually come to ’conceive the purpose of a mission to the heathen/ and wrote long letters for the persuasion of others to that purpose." 1 How the tongues appeared is told in Mr. Story’s biography:

"On a Sunday evening in the month of March, Mary, in the presence of a few friends, began to utter sounds to them incomprehensible, and believed by her to be a 1 Wilks: op. tit., pp. 208-210. tongue such as of old might have been spoken on the day of Pentecost, or among the Christians of Corinth. This was the first manifestation of the restored ’gift’ for such it was imagined to be. She desired to ascertain what the tongue was, in order that she might, if strengthened to do so, repair to the country where it was intelligible, and there begin her long-contemplated labours. By and by she announced that she believed it to be the language of a group of islands in the southern Pacific Ocean; but as nobody knew the speech of the islanders, it was impossible either to refute or corroborate her assertion; and, for the present at least, she was unable to proceed in person in quest of the remote Savages, whose mother tongue she held had been revealed to her." 1 Meanwhile, occurrences of a similar nature were taking place in a family named Macdonald:

"On the other side of the Clyde, opposite the Gareloch, lay the town of Port-Glasgow. A family of the name of Macdonald was living there at this time; two twin brothers, James and George, with their sisters. The brothers, shipbuilders, staid and orderly men, two years before had become exceedingly devout. Their religion was of a quiet and unobtrusive type. Their doctrinal knowledge was at first very limited. They procured no religious books, for years they scarcely read one; the ministry under which they sat was unimpressive, and if they did adopt peculiar views of divine truth, it was from no heretical writings or preaching, but from the Bible alone that they derived them. For instance, although they soon became classed among the disciples of Mr. Irving, who at that time was beginning to be stigmatised as heretical, the fact was that, so far as I can ascertain, they never read a single volume of his, or at least not for years after their own views were established.

1 Story, Robert Herbert: op. cit., pp. 204-5. And although after a time they began to attend the preaching of the Rev. Mr. Campbell of Row, it was because they had previously been taught of God the same truths, and were attracted to Row by their love of them. . . . Until the eve of the miraculous manifestations in them, the subject of spiritual gifts did not at all occupy their attention, much less their expectations and desires; nor did it even when their prayers, in common with those of other Christians, for an outpouring of the Spirit, began to be answered by the pouring out of a very extraordinary if not marvellous spirit of prayer upon themselves/ In March, 1830, an event occurred in this family which one of the sisters thus describes: Tor several days Margaret had been so unusually ill that I quite thought her dying, and on appealing to the doctor he held out no hope of her recovery unless she were able to go through a course of powerful medicine, which he acknowledged to be in her case then impossible. She had scarcely been able to have her bed made for a week. Mrs. and myself had been sitting quietly at her bedside, when the power of the Spirit came upon her. She said, "There will be a mighty baptism of the Spirit this day," and then broke forth in a most marvellous setting forth of the wonderful work of God; and as if her own weakness had been altogether lost in the strength of the Holy Ghost, continued with little or no intermission for two or three hours in mingled praise, prayer, and exhortation. At dinner-time James and George came home as usual, whom she addressed at great length, concluding with a solemn prayer for James, that he might at that time be endowed with the power of the Holy Ghost. Almost instantly, James calmly said, "I have got it!" He walked to the window, and stood silent for a minute or two. I looked at him, and almost trembled, there was such a change upon his whole countenance. He then, with a step and manner of the most indescribable majesty, walked up to Margaret’s bedside, and addressed her in- these words, "Arise and stand upright." He repeated the words, took her by the hand, and she arose/

"The same evening James wrote to Mary Campbell at Fernicarry: ’My dear Sister, Lift up your voice wun^ us; let us exalt His name, for He hath done great things > for us, and Holy is His name. There is still power in the name of Jesus yes, all power in heaven and on earth. Our beloved Margaret hath been made to hear His voice, and to rise up, leap, and walk. Faith in His name has given her soundness in the presence of us all. Mary, my love, lay aside unbelief, it is of the devil; hear God’s voice to you also, "Rise up and walk; what hindereth?"

"Let Mary Campbell herself tell us of what happened on the receipt of this letter: ’Two individuals who saw me about four hours before my recovery said that I never would be strong, that I was not to expect a miracle being wrought upon me, and that it was quite foolish in one who was in such a poor state of health ever to think of going to the heathen. I told them they would see and hear of miracles very soon, and no sooner had the last of the above-mentioned individuals left me, than I was constrained of the Spirit to go and ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to stretch forth His hand to heal, and that signs and wonders might again be done in the name of His Holy Child, Jesus. One thing I was enabled to ask in faith, nothing doubting, which was, that by the next morning I might have some miracle to inform them of. It was not long after this that I received our dear brother James Macdonald’s letter, giving me an account of his sister’s having been raised, and commanding me I to rise and walk. I had scarcely read the first page when I I became quite overpowered, and laid it aside for a few I minutes; but I had no rest in my spirit until I took it I up again and began to read. As I read, every word came with power, but when I came to the command to arise, it came home with a power which no words can describe; it was felt to be indeed the voice of Christ; it was such