CHAPTER VII.

LONDON, 1822.

"ON the second Sabbath of July, 1822," Irving began his labours in London. The fifty people who had signed his call, with such dependents as might belong to them, and a stray sprinkling of London Scotsmen, curious to hear what their new countryman might have to say for himself, formed all the congregation in the little chapel. The position was not one calculated to excite the holder of it into any flights of ambition, so far as its own qualities went. It was far from the fashionable and influential quarter of the town,—a chapel attached to a charity, and a congregation reduced to the very lowest ebb in point of numbers. Nor did Irving enter upon his career with those aids of private friendship which might make an ordinary man sanguine of increasing his estimation and social sphere. Sir David Wilkie records his belief that the new preacher had introductions only to himself and Sir Peter Lawrie, neither of them likely to do much in the way of opening up London, great, proud, and critical, to the unknown Scotsman; and though this statement may not be entirely correct, yet it is evident that he went with few recommendations, save to the little Scotch community amidst which, as people supposed, he was to live and

FIRST APPEARANCE.

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labour. There are stories extant among that community still, concerning the early beginnings of his fame, which, after all that has passed since, are sadly amusing and strange, with their dim recognition of some popular qualities in the new minister, and mutual congratulations over a single adherent gained. Attracted by the enthusiastic admiration expressed by a painter almost unknown to fame, of the noble head and bearing of the new comer, another painter was induced to enter the little chapel where the stranger preached his first sermon. When the devotional services were over, -beginning with the Psalm, read out from the pulpit, in a voice so splendid and melodious that the harsh metres took back their original rhythm, and those verses so dear to Scotsmen justified their influence even to more fastidious ears, the preacher stood up, and read as the text of his sermon the following words :"Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for. I ask you, therefore, for what intent you have sent for me?" The sermon has not been preserved, so far as I am aware; but the text-remembered as almost all Irving's texts are remembered — conveys all the picturesque reality of the connection thus formed between the preacher and his people, as well as the solemn importance of the conjunction. The listening stranger was of course fascinated, and became not only a member of Mr. Irving's church, but-more faithful to the Church than to the man,- a supporter of the Church of Scotland after she had expelled him.

By gradual degrees the little chapel began to fill. So far as appears, there was nobody of the least distinction connected with the place; and it is hard to

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SATISFACTION WITH HIS NEW SPHERE.

understand how the great world came so much as to hear of the existence of the new popularity. This quiet period, full of deep hopes and pleasant progress, but as yet with none of the high excitement of after days, Irving himself describes in the following letter to his friend, Mr. Graham, of Burnswark:

:

"London, 19 Gloucester Street, Queen Square, "Bloomsbury, 5th August, 1822.

“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND, — I have not forgot you, and if I wished to forget you I could not, sealed as you are in the midst of my affections, and associated with so many recollections of worth and of enjoyment. You always undervalued yourself, and often made me angry by your remarks upon the nature of our friendship, counting me to gain nothing; whereas I seemed always in your company to be delivered into those happy and healthy states of mind which are in themselves an exquisite reward. To say nothing of your bounty, which shone through all the cloud of misfortune; to say nothing of your tender interest in my future, my friends, my thoughts; and your sleepless endeavour to promote and serve them-I hold your own manly, benignant, and delicate mind to be a sufficient recommendation of you to men of a character and a genius I have no pretensions to. So in our future correspondence be it known to you that we feel and express ourselves as equals, and bring forth our thoughts with the same liberty in which we were wont to express them-which is the soul of all pleasant correspondence.

"You cannot conceive how happy I am here in the possession of my own thoughts, in the liberty of my own conduct, and in the favour of the Lord. The people have received me with open arms; the church is already regularly filled; my preaching, though of the average of an hour and a quarter, listened to with the most serious attention. My mind plentifully endowed with thought and feeling-my life ordered, as God enables me after his holy Word-my store supplied out of His abundant liberality. These are the elements of my happiness, for which I am bound to render unmeasured

HIS THOUGHTS AND HOPES.

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thanks. Would all my friends were as mercifully dealt with, and mine enemies too.

"You have much reason for thankfulness that God, in the time of your sore trials, sustained your honour and your trust in Himself: nay, rather made you trust in Him the more He smote you. His time of delivery will come at length, when you shall taste as formerly His goodness, and enjoy it with a chastened joy, which you had not known if you had never been afflicted: persevere, my dear friend, in the ways of godliness and of duty, until the grace of God, which grows in you, come to a full and perfect stature.

"For my thoughts, in which you were wont to take such interest, they have of late turned almost entirely inward upon myself; and I am beginning dimly to discover what a mighty change I have yet to undergo before I be satisfied with myself. I see how much of my mind's very limited powers have been wasted upon thoughts of vanity and pride; how little devoted to the study of truth and excellency upon their own account. As I advance in this self-examination, I see farther, until, in short, this life seems already consumed in endeavours after excellence, and nothing attained; and I long after the world where we shall know as we are known, and be free to follow the course we approve, with an unimpeded foot. At the same time I see a life full of usefulness, and from my fellow-creatures, full of glory, which I regard not; and of all places this is the place for one of my spirit to dwell in. Here there are no limitations to my mind's highest powers; here, whatever schemes are worthy may have audience and examination; here, self-denial may have her perfect work in midst of pleasures, follies, and thriftless employments of one's time and energies. Oh, that God would keep me, refine me, and make me an example to this generation of what His grace can produce upon one of the worst of His children!

"I have got three very good, rather elegant apartments,a sitting-room, a bed-room, and dressing-room: and when George* comes up, I have one of the attics for his sleeping

His younger, and then only surviving brother, of whom and of whose education he seems from this time to have taken the entire burden.

apartment. My landlady, as usual, a very worthy woman, and likely to be well content with her lodger. George comes up when the classes sit down, and in the meantime is busy in Dr. Irving's shop. This part of the town is very airy and healthy, close to Russell Square, and not far from the church, and in the midst of my friends. My studies begin after breakfast, and continue without interruption till dinner; and the product, as might be expected, is of a far superior order to what you were pleased to admire in St. John's."

This letter, after salutations as particular and detailed as in an apostolical epistle, ends with the injunction to "tell me a deal about Annandale, Sandy Corne, and all worthy men." His correspondent, like himself, was an Annandale man, a Glasgow merchant, with a little patrimony upon the side of one of those pastoral hills which overlook from a distance Irving's native town, where George, a young medical student, was busy among the drugs in the country doctor's shop; amid all the exultation of his hopes, as well as in the fullest tide of success, his heart was always warm to this "countryside."

About a month later, Dr. Chalmers, then making one of his rapid journeys through England, collecting the statistics of pauperism, came to London for the purpose of "introducing," according to Presbyterian uses and phraseology, though in this case somewhat after date, the young minister to his charge. This simple ceremony, which is entirely one of custom, and not of rule, is generally performed by the most prized friend of the new preacher who simply officiates for him, and in his sermon takes the opportunity of recommending, in such terms as his friendship suggests, the young pastor to the love and esteem of