24

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CAMPBELL OF ROW.

redemption was accomplished.

It was not a pro

blematical salvation, only real when faith and conversion came to the individual soul, but an actual fact, entirely changing the position of the human race, which was manifest to them in the work of our Lord and Saviour. It was not that salvation might be, as man after man believed and received it, but that salvation was, for God had accomplished and revealed that greatest demonstration of His love. Leaving to other men the task of balancing with all those wonderful mysteries of limitation, which, whether called divine election or human resistance, show visibly, in gloom and terror, the other side of that glorious picture, they addressed themselves to the joyful utterance of that unquestionable universal proffer of love which God makes to all His creatures. This delicious gleam of light, opening ineffable hopes of universal safety, and emboldening the preacher to summon every man, as in the position of a redeemed creature, to the assurance of that love and forgiveness which dwelt in God, had begun to brighten the pious soul and laborious way of the young west-country minister, with whose name, as a system of doctrine, these views were afterwards identified in the early autumn of 1828. Dreaming nothing of heresy, but anxious to consult a brother in the ministry, of older experience and more vivid genius than himself, about this tremulous dawning glory which had brightened the entire world of truth to his own perceptions, John Campbell of Row, saintly in personal piety, and warm in Celtic fervour, came, with the natural diffidence of youth, to seek an interview with Irving. He found him alone in the drawing

A NEW FRIEND.

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room at Great King Street, with one of the children of the house playing on the carpet at his feet, a tender domestic accompaniment to the high reverie and musings of the interpreter of prophecy. The stranger less a stranger as being the dear friend of one of Irving's dearest friends-told his errand modestly: he had come to ask counsel and help in the midst of his hopes and difficulties. Irving turned towards him with the natural gracious humbleness of his character, and bade him speak out. "God may have sent me instruction by your hands," said the candid heart, always more ready to learn than to teach. It is not hard to imagine what must have been the effect of these words on the young man, shy of his errand. They sat down together to discuss that high theme, with the child playing at their feet. Nobody will doubt that their after-friendship lasted till death.

I am not able to estimate what effect Mr. Campbell's views had upon the mind of Irving. As one part, and that a deeply important one, of the truth, great and wide enough to deserve any man's special devotion, and, indeed, the most clear demonstrative exhibition of the Gospel, it is evident that he entered into it heartily; and holding, as he himself held, that Christ's work was one which redeemed not only individual souls but the nature of man, no one could be more ready than he to rejoice in the fullest unconditional proclamation that Christ died for all. His own sentiments, however, on other subjects, and the higher heroical strain of a soul which believed visible judgment and justice to be close at hand, and felt, in the groaning depths of its nature, that the world he contemplated was neither con

26

IRVING'S FACULTY OF LEARNING.

scious nor careful of its redemption, make it apparent that Irving's mind was not so specially bent upon this individual aspect of the truth as that of his visitor. But it is a curious and significant fact, that many men-I had almost said most men, at all able to think for themselves, who ever crossed his path-seem to have entertained an impression that they, in their proper persons, had instructed and influenced Irving. To the outer world, the great preacher appears drawing after him a crowd of lesser luminaries; but each individual of these, when one comes to inquire into it, retains a conviction that he was the leader, and Irving, always so lavish and princely in his acknowledgments of benefits received, the follower. With the open heart and eye of simple genius, always ready to hear and receive, he seems somehow, to have convinced all with whom he came in close contact that light had reached his mind through their means; and this notwithstanding the high position he always assumed as a teacher. But Mr. Campbell commended himself entirely to Irving's heart. He was too visibly a man of God to leave any doubtfulness upon his immediate reception into the fervent brotherhood of that tender nature.

From Edinburgh, as soon as his lectures were finished, the preacher went to Glasgow, from whence, about a week after, he writes the following brief account of his labours to his wife :

"Collins' shop, Glasgow, June 10th, 1828. "I have a moment's time, and embrace it, to let you know that I am here, well, and about to proceed to Carnwath to-morrow morning. I have had much of the Lord's presence. I preached here on Matt. xiii. on Thursday. On Friday,

on the Regeneration, when the apostles are to sit on thrones. On Saturday, on the Resurrection. On Sabbath, at Rosneath, in the tent, on Psalm ii. for lecture, and on the name of God, Psalms ix. and x., for sermon. At Row, on the 24th Matthew. To-morrow I preach on Matt. xxv., first parable; at Bathgate, second parable; and in Edinburgh, on the Last Times. I was much delighted with Campbell and Sandy Scott, whom I have invited to come with you to London. I trust the Lord will deliver him out of his present deep waters. I have much comfort in these extempore expositions, and, if I mistake not, it will constitute an era in my ministry; not that I will hastily adopt it, or always, but for the propagation of this truth by exposition. It is a great delight for me to find that I can preach every day with little trouble, with no injury. I trust the Lord preserves you in faith, and peace, and love. By the blessing of God, I will see you on Saturday morning. Farewell, my beloved wife!"

This brief record supplies little except the facts of the rapid but apostolic journey. I have no information as to the effect of his appearance at Glasgow ; but when he arrived at the little westland paradise of Rosneath, and under the rich sycamores and blossomed laurel set up the tent, or wooden out-door pulpit, familiar to all eyes on great ecclesiastical occasions, and close by the little church, all too small for the overflowing audience, yet occupied by a portion of the hearers, thrilled the soft air and listening crowd with his herald's proclamation of the coming King, the whole district, hereafter to bear a notable part in his own history, was stirred by his approach. Doubtless the singular young woman who was first to receive that wonderful gift of "Tongues" which had so great an influence on Irving's future fate, was there from the head of the loch to have her mysterious imagination quickened with words which should reverberate to the preacher's undoing. All

the agitations and distractions of his latter days lay there in the germ by the sweet half-Highland waters, on the shore of which, as eager to penetrate the rural stillness as to charm the greater ear of cities, he delivered his startling message. Next day at Row, on the opposite shore, almost within hearing of his Sabbath-day's station, a similar scene was repeated. A witness describes, with a certain unconscious poetry, the aspect of the loch, bright with boats, conveying from all points the eager congregation, and Irving's generous spontaneous divergence from his special mission to take up and illuminate and enforce the equally special and earnest burden of the young brother who had unfolded to him his heart. There he met, not for the first time, but with an important result, another man, who cannot be dismissed with the familiar mention given him in the letter above: Alexander Scott, now of Manchester, the son of Dr. Scott, of Greenock, a licentiate of the Scotch Church-a man whose powerful, wilful, and fastidious mind has produced upon all other capable minds an impression of force and ability which no practical result has yet adequately carried out. A Scotch probationer, but characteristically recalcitrant and out of accordance with every standard but his own, this remarkable man, then young, and in a position in which any great thing might be prophesied of his visible powers, attracted, I cannot tell how, notwithstanding his total dissimilarity and unaccordance, the regard of Irving. A greater contrast could not be than between that fastidious fancy, which seems to reject with disgust the ordinary ornaments of language, winning a kind of perfection of simplicity by thedisdainful finesse of art and the fervent