true-I deserved it all. I went forth; I sent coal, and food, and clothing into that wretched room; I sent a physician; I prayed by the bedside of Peter Croft, as if he had been a dear brother. I found him truly penitent; and with all the resolves for amendment which so often fade in the sunshine of health and strength, he wailed over his lost time, his lost means, his lost character-all lost; all God had given--health, strength, happiness, all gone-all but the love of his ill-used and neglected wife; that had never died! And remember,' she said to me, 'there are hundreds, thousands of cases as sad as his in England, in the Christian land we live in! Strong drink fills our jails and hospitals with sin, with crime, with disease, with death; its mission is sin and sorrow to man, woman, and child; under the cloak of good-fellowship it draws men together, and the 'goodfellowship' poisons heart and mind! Men become mad under its influence. Would any man not mad, squander his money, his character, and bring himself and all he is bound to cherish to the verge of the pauper's grave; nay, into it? Of five families in this wretched house, the mothers of three, and the fathers of four, never go to their ragged beds sober; yet they tell me good men, wise men, great men, refuse to promote temperance. Oh, they have never seen how the half-pint grows to the pint the pint to the quart-the quart to the gallon! They have never watched for the drunkard's return, or experienced his neglect or ill usage -never had the last penny for their children's bread turned into spirits-never woke to the knowledge, that though the snow of December be a foot on the ground, there is neither food nor fire to strengthen for the day's toil!' "Poor Emma! she spoke like one inspired; and though her spirit was sustained nei ther by flesh nor blood, she seemed to find relief in words. When I spoke to her of the future with hope, she would not listen. 'No,' she said, my hope for him and for myself is beyond the grave. He cannot rally; those fierce drinks have branded his vitals, burnt into them. Life is not for either of us. I wish his fate, and mine, could warn those around us; but the drunkard day after day sees the drunkard laid in his grave, and before the last earth is thrown upon the coffin, the quick is following the example set by the dead-of another, and another glass!"` "She was right. Peter's days were numbered; and when she knelt beside his coffin, she thanked God for his penitence, and offered up a prayer that she might be spared a little longer for her children's sake. That prayer gave me hope: she had not spoken then of hope except of that beyond the grave. "My friends jested at my attention to the young widow, and perhaps I urged her too soon to become my wife. She turned away, with a feeling which I would not, if I could, express. Her heart was still with her husband, and she found no rest until she was placed beside him in the crowded churchyard. The children live on-the son, with the unreasoning craving for strong drink which is so frequently the inheritance of the drunkard's child; the daughters, poor, weakly creatures-one, that little deformed girl who sits behind the tea-counter, and whose voice is so like her mother's; the other, a suffering creature, unable to leave her bed, and who occupies a little room at the top of what was the Grapes.' Her window looks out upon a number of flower-pots, whose green leaves and struggling blossoms are coated with blacks, but she thinks them the freshest and most beautiful in the world!” From the Eclectic Review. EDWARD We have often asked, and have often, too, of late, had the question asked us, Why have we no life of Edward Irving? Why no full or authentic record of that short, eccentric, but most brilliant and instructive career? What has become of his papers, which, we believe, were numerous-of his sermons, private letters, and journal? (if such a thing as a journal he ever kept-think of the journal of a comet!) Why have none of his surviving friends been invited to overlook these, and construct from them a life-like image of the man? Or, failing them, why has not some literary man of eminence-even although not imbued with all Irving's peculiar opinions, yet, if possessing a general and genial sympathy with him-been employed on the task? We know that many think this arises from the impression that Irving died under a cloud being felt by his admirers to be general. But does not the silence of his relatives and friends serve to deepen this impression? We have heard it hinted, on the other hand, that the real reason is connected with the peculiar views of Irving, some imagining that no man can write his life well, if not what is called an Irvingite, and that no Irvingite has the literary qualifications. These statements, however, we do not believe. Some of the Irvingites are men of very considerable talent, and why-although most of his very eminent literary friends be either dead or have departed farther and farther from his point of view-although Chalmers be gone, De Quincey nearly shelved, Thomas Carlyle become a proclaimed Pantheist, and Thomas Erskine, of Linlathen, ceased to lay much if any stress on the personal reign, and forsaken other Irvingite peculiarities--does not some one of his own party attempt a biography of this eaglewinged man? Meanwhile we propose to give what we know to be an honest and be *For the Oracles of God. Four Orations. For Judgment to come. An Argument in Nine Parts. By the Rev. Edward Irving, M.A. 8vo. London: T. Hamilton. 1823. IRVING.* lieve to be a true outline of his character and peculiar genius. We have had not. a few disappointments in our career, but none in one small department-that of sight-seeing and hero hearing equal to that which befell us in Edinburgh, in the year 1834. We were told that Edward Irving was to hold forth in Mr. Tait's chapel, Canongate, on the forenoon of a February Sabbath day. We went accordingly, and with some difficulty procured standingroom in the gallery of a small chapel in an obscure and very dirty close. It was not he! The lofty, once black, but now blanched head, did not appear over the throng, like the white plume of a chieftain over the surge of battle. Another came-(good Mr. Tait, who had left the sweet moorland solitudes of Tealing, and resigned his living to follow Irving)--and we lost the first and last opportunity we ever had of seeing and hearing the giant of pulpit oratory. In the close of that year he died in Glasgow, a weary, worn, grayheaded and broken-hearted man of forty-two. What a life his had been! Short, if years are the only measurement of time; but long, if time be computed by the motion of the higher stars of thoughts, feelings, and sorrows! His life, too, was a strangely blended one. It was made up of violent contrasts, contradictions, and vicissitudes. At college his career was triumphant; he carried all easily before him. Then, after he obtained license, came two great reverses-unpopularity as a preacher, and, if general report be credited, a love disappointment. He was discouraged by these to the extent of preparing to leave his native land, and undertake the duties of a missionary to the heathen. In this case he would probably have perished early, and his fame had been confined to the corner of an obituary in a missionary magazine. Then in a momentwhether fortunate or unfortunate, how shall we decide?-Chalmers heard him preach, and got him appointed as his colleague in Glasgow. Then London rose up to welcome him, as one man, and his pulpit became a difficulty into the interior, you find yourself throne of power, reminding you of what in a nest of celebrities. The chapel is small, Knox's was in Edinburgh in the sixteenth but almost every person of note or notoriety century. Not since that lion-hearted man of in London has squeezed him or herself into God had thundered to nobles and maids of one part or another of it. There shine the honor, to senators and queens, had any fine open glossy brow and speaking face of preacher in Britain such an audience to com- Canning. There you see the small shrimpmand and such power to command it as like form of Wilberforce, the dusky visage Irving. It was like Noah preaching to an of Denman, the high Roman nose of Peel, assembly of primeval giants. There were and the stern forehead of Plunket. There princes of the blood, ladies high in honor Brougham sits coiled up in his critical might, and place, ministers of state, celebrated sena- his nose twitching, his chin resting on his tors, orators and philosophers, poets, critics, hand, his eyes retired under the dark lids, and distinguished members of the bar and of his whole bearing denoting eager but somethe church, all jostled together into one what curious and sinister expectation. Yonmotley yet magnificent mass, less to listen der you see an old venerable man with mild and criticise than to prostrate themselves be- placid face and long gray hair; it is Jeremy fore the one heroic and victorious man; for Bentham, coming, in the plenitude of his it seemed rather a hero of chivalry than a bonhommie, to hear his own system abused divine who came forward Sabbath after Sab- as with the tongue of thunder. Near him, bath to uplift the buckler of faith and to note that thin, spiritual-looking, little, old inwield the sword of the Spirit. The speaker dividual, with quiet philosophic countenance was made for the audience, the man for the and large brow: it is William Godwin, the hour. In Glasgow he was an eagle in a author of Caleb Williams." In a seat becage; men saw strength, but strength im- hind him sits a yet more meagre skeleton of prisoned and embarrassed. In London, he man, with a pale face, eager eyes, dark closefound a free atmosphere, and eyes worthy of cropped hair and tremulous nervous aspect; beholding his highest flight, and he did it is the first of living critics, William Hazlitt, "ye stars! how he did soar." It was a who had "forgot what the inside of a church flight prompted by enthusiasm, sustained by was like," but who has been fairly dragged sympathy, accelerated by ambition, and con- out of his den by the attraction of Irving's secrated by Christian earnestness. There eloquence. At the door, and standing, you might be indeed a slight or even a strong see a young, short, stout person, carrying his tinge of vanity mingled with his appearances, head high, with round face, large eyes, and but it was not the vanity of a fribble, it was careless schoolboy bearing: it is Macaulay, rather that of a child. It was but skin-deep, on furlough from Cambridge, where he is as and did not affect the simplicity, enthusiasm, yet a student, but hopes soon to be equal and love of truth which were the bases of with the proudest in all that crowded Calehis character and of his eloquence. His donian Chapel. And in a corner of the auditors felt that this was no mouthing, rant-church, Coleridge-the mighty wizard, with ing, strutting actor, but a great good man, speaking from a full intellect and a warm heart; and that if he had and knew that he had a strange and striking personal presence, and a fine deep voice thoroughly under his management, and which he wielded with all the skill of an artist, that was not his fault. These natural and acquired advantages he could not resign, he could not but be aware of, he must use, and he did consecrate. What less and what more could he have done? We have heard him so often described by eye-witnesses, not to speak of the written pictures of the period, that we may venture on a sketch of a Sabbath, during his palmy days, in the Caledonian Chapel. You go a full hour before eleven, and find that you are not too early. Having forced your way with more knowledge and more genius under that one white head than is to be found in the whole of that bright assembly-looks with dim nebulous eyes upon the scene, which seems to him rather a swimming vision than a solid reality. And then besides there are belted earls, and feathered duchesses, and bishops not a few, and one or two of the Guelphic race included in a throng which has not been equalled for brilliance in London since Burke, Fox, and Sheridan stood up in Westminster Hall, as the three accusing spirits of Warren Hastings. For nearly half an hour the audience has been fully assembled, and has maintained, on the whole, a decent gravity and composure. Eleven o'clock strikes, and an official appears, bearing the Bible in his hands, and thus announcing the approach of the preacher. Ludicrous as might in other circumstances seem the disparity between the forerunner and the coming Man, his appearance is welcomed by the rustle and commotion which pass through the assembly, as if by a unanimous cheer-a rustle which is instantly succeeded by deep silence, as, slowly and majestically, Edward Irving advances, mounts -not with the quick basty step of Chalmers, but with a measured and dignified pace, as if to some solemn music heard by his ear alone-the stairs of the pulpit, and lifting the Psalm-book, calmly confronts that splendid multitude. The expression of his bearing while he does this is very peculiar; it is not that of fear, not that of deference, still less is it that of impertinence, anger, or contempt. It is simply the look of a man who says internally, "I am equal to this occasion and to this assembly, in the dignity and power of my own intellect and nature, and MORE than equal to it, in the might of my Master, and in the grandeur and truth of my message." Ere he proceeds to open the Psalm-book, mark his stature and his face! He is a son of Anak in height, and his symmetry and apparent strength are worthy of his stature. His complexion is iron-gray, his hair is parted at the foretop, and hangs in sable masses down his temples, his eye has a squint, which rather adds to than detracts from the general effect, and his whole aspect is spiritual, earnest, Titanic; yea, that of a Titan among Titans-a Boanerges among the sons of thunder. He gives out the psalm -perhaps it is his favorite psalm, the twenty-ninth-and as he reads it, his voice seems the echo of the "Lord's voice upon the waters," so deep and far-rolling are the crashes of its sound. It sinks too ever and anon into soft and solemn cadences, so that you hear in it alike the moan and the roar, and feel both the pathos and the majesty of the thunder-storm. Then he reads a portion of Scripture, selecting probably, from a fine instinctive sense of contrast, the twenty-third Psalm, or some other of the sweeter of the Hebrew hymns, to give relief to the grandeurs that have past or that are at hand. Then he says, "Let us pray," not as a mere formal preliminary, but because he really wishes to gather up all the devotional feeling of his hearers along with his own, and to present it as a whole burnt-offering to Heaven. Then his voice, "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," rises to God, and you feel as if God had blotted out the Church around and the Universe above, that that voice might obtain immediate entrance to his ear. You at least are conscious of nothing for a time save the voice and the Auditor. It is a great being conversing with God. "Reverence and lowly prostration are most striking," it has been said, “when paid by a lofty intellect, and you are reminded of the trees of the forest clapping their hands unto God." The prayer over, he announces his text, and enters on his theme. The sermon is upon the days of the Puritans and the Covenanters, and his blood boils as he describes the earnest spirit of their times. He fights over again the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell; he paints the dark muirlands, whither the Woman of the Church retired for a season to be nourished with blood, and you seem to be listening to that wild eloquence which pealed through the wilderness and shook the throne of Charles II. Then he turns to the contrast between that earnest period and what he thinks our light, empty, and profane era, and opens with fearless hand the vials of apocalyptic vengeance against it. He denounces our "political expediencies," and Canning smiles across to Peel. He speaks of our "godless systems of ethics and economics," and Bentham and Godwin shrug their shoulders in unison. He attacks the poetry and the critici-m of the age, inserting a fierce diatribe against the patrician Byron in the heart of an apology for the hapless ploughman Burns; knocking Southey down into the same kennel into which he had plunged Byron; and striking next at the very heart of Cobbett; and Hazlitt bends his brow into a frown, and you see a sarcasm (to be inserted in the next " Liberal") crossing the dusky disk of his face. Nay, waxing bolder, and eyeing the peers and peeresses, the orator denounces the "wickedness in high places" which abounds, and his voice swells into its deepest thunder and his eye assumes its most portentous glare as he characterizes the falsehood of courtiers, the hypocrisy of statesmen, the hollowness, licentiousness, and levity of fashionable life, singling out an individual notoriety of the species, who happens to be in more immediate sight, and concentrating the "terrors of his beak, the lightnings of his eye," upon her, till she blushes through her rouge, and every feather in her head-dress palpitates in reply to her rotten and quaking heart. It is Isaiah or Ezekiel over again, uttering their stern yet musical and poetic burdens. The language is worthy of the message it conveys, not polished, indeed, or smooth, rather rough and diffuse withal, but vehement, figurative, and bedropt with terri ble or tender extracts from the Bible. The manner is as graceful as may well coëxist with deep impetuous force, and as solemn as may evade the charge of cant. The voice seems meant for an "orator of the human race," and fitted to fill vaster buildings than earth contains, and to plead in mightier causes and controversies than can even be conceived of in our degenerate days. It is the "many-folded shell" of Prometheus, including in its compass "soft and soul-like sounds," as well as loud and victorious peals. The audience feel in contact with a demoniac force rather than a mere orator, and retire saying that if that man be not mad he must be inspired. That this sketch is not exaggerated we have abundant testimony. Canning repeatedly declared that Edward Irving was the most powerful orator, in or out of the pulpit, he ever heard. Hazlitt has written panegyric after panegyric upon him, annexing, indeed, not a few critical cavils and sarcasms, as drawbacks from his estimate. De Quincey called him once to us a "very demon of power," and uniformly in his writings speaks with wonder, not unmingled with terror, of the fierce, untamed, fire-fed energy which ran in the blood and spoke in the talk and public oratory of Edward Irving. Yet there can be little doubt that these splendid exhibitions, while exciting general admiration in London, were not productive of commensurate good. They rather dazzled and stupefied than convinced or converted. They sent men away wondering at the power of the orator, not mourning over their own evils, and striving after amendment. They served, to say the most, only as a preface, paving the way for a volume of instruction and edification which was never published; as an introduction, to secure the attention and gain the ear of the public, for a sermon, and an application thereof of practical power, which was never preached. hand. He saw, too, for the first time, the mountain-ranges of prophecy lowering before him, dark and cloud-girt for the most part, but with strange gleams shining here and there upon their tops, and with pale and shadowy hands beckoning him onward into their midst. These were to him the Delect able Mountains, and to gain the summit of Mount Clear became henceforth the object of his burning and life long ambition. He toiled up these hills for many a weary hour and with many a heavy groan, but his strong faith and sanguine genius supported him; in the evening of each laborious day he fancied he saw, on the unreached pinnacle, Hope, enchanted, smile, and wave her golden hair; and each new morning found him as alert as ever, climbing the mountains towards the city. Again and again, he imagined that he had reached the far-seen and far-commanding summit, and certainly the exaltation of his language, and the fervor of his spirit, seemed sometimes those of one who was beholding a "little of the glory of the place;" but, alas! the clouds were perpetually gathering again, and many maintained that the shepherds Watchful and Experience (whatever Sincere might have done) had not bid him "welcome to the Delectable Mountains," and that he had mistaken Mount Clear for Mount Error, which hangs over a steep precipice, and whence many strong men have been hurled headlong and dashed to pieces at the bottom. It was certainly a rapid, a strange, a fearful "progress," that of our great-hearted pilgrim during the ten last years of his life. What giants he wrestled with and subdued what defiles of fear and danger he passed -what hills of difficulty as well as of delight he surmounted-what temptations he resisted and defied-what bye-paths, alas! too, at times he was led to explore! All subjects passed before him, like the animals coming to be named of Adam, and were scanned and classified, if not exhausted; all methods Irving, indeed, left himself no choice. He had so fiercely and unsparingly assaulted the modes of thought and styles of preaching which prevailed in the Church, that he was of 60 concluding" men into the obedience of compelled, in consistency and self-defence, to his form of the faith were tried; now he aim at a novel and original plan of promul- "piped" his Pan's pipe to the mighty Longating the old doctrines. By and by, inter- don, that its inhabitants might dance; now course with Coleridge, added to his own he "mourned" to them his wild prophetic restless spirit of speculation, began to shake wail, that they might lament. All varieties his confidence in many parts of our ancient of character he met with and sought to gain creeds. A new system, of colossal propor--all places he visited-all varieties of treattions, founded, indeed, on the basis of Scripture, but ascending till its summits were lost in mist, began to rise under his Babylonian ment and experience he encountered and tried to turn to high spiritual account. We see him now preaching among the wilder * |