CHAPTER VII.

1834-THE END.

THE last year of Irving's life opened dimly in the same secluded, separated world, within which Providence had abstracted him after his re-ordination. He had not failed in any of the generous and liberal sympathies of his nature; his heart was still open to his old friends, and responded warmly to all appeals of affection; but the life of a man who prayed and waited daily, "yea, many times a day," for the descent of that "power from on high" which was to vindicate his faith and confirm his heart, was naturally a separated life, incapable of common communion with the unbelieving world. And he had paused in those "unexampled labours," which, up to the settlement of his Church in Newman Street, kept the healthful daylight and open air about him. At the end of the year 1832 he and his evangelists had ceased their missionary labours; henceforward nothing but the platform in Newman Street, and the care of a flock to which he was no longer the exclusive ministrant, occupied the intelligence which had hitherto rejoiced in almost unlimited labour. Whether there was any new compensation of work in the new office of the Angel I cannot tell; but nothing of the kind is apparent. He

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SENT TO EDINBURGH.

was not ill, as far as appears, during the early part of this silent and sad winter; but he was deprived of the toil which had hitherto kept his mind in balance, and of that communication with the world which was breath to his brotherly and liberal soul. No man in the world could be less fitted for the life of a recluse than he; yet such a life he seems to have now led, his span of labour daily circumscribed as the different "orders of ministries" in the new Church developed, and no missionary exertion, or new work of any kind, coming in to make up to the mighty activity, always heretofore so hungry of work, for this sudden pause in the current of his life.

In January, however, he was sent on a mission to Edinburgh, where a Church had been established under the ministry of Mr. Tait, formerly of the College Church. This little community had been troubled by the "entrance of an evil spirit, from which, in all its deadening effects, his experience in dealing with spiritual persons would, it was hoped, be efficacious, by the blessing of God, in delivering them." There is no information, so far as I can discover, how Irving discharged this difficult mission; but I am indebted to the kindness of Professor Macdougall, of Edinburgh, for a momentary note of his aspect there. "His characteristic fire," says that gentleman, who had been one of his hearers in earlier and brighter days, "had then, in a great measure, given place to a strangely plaintive pathos, which was as exquisitely touching and tender as his exhibitions of intellectual power had been majestic." He seems to have remained but a very short time, and to have occupied himself exclusively with his

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mission. Though the Edinburgh public, in much greater numbers than could gain admittance, crowded. to the place of meeting where Mr. Tait and his congregation had found shelter, the great preacher no longer called them forth at dawn to dispense his liberal riches, nor rushed into the chivalrous, disinterested labour of his former missions to Edinburgh. Wonderful change had come upon that ever-free messenger of truth. He' came now, not on his own generous impulse, but with his instructions in his hand. Always a servant of God, seeking to know His supreme will and to do it, he was now a servant of the Church, bound to minute obedience. Some time after, Mrs. Irving wrote to her mother, that "Edward was truly grieved that it was not in his power to go to see you, but his time is truly not his own, neither is he his own master." From this mission he returned very ill, with threatenings of disease in his chest; and, though he rallied and partially recovered, it soon became apparent that his wearied frame and broken heart were unable to strive longer with the griefs and disappointments which encompassed him, and that the chill of this wintry journey had brought about a beginning of the end.

A month after Irving's visit to Edinburgh the apostles, of whom there were now two, Mr. Cardale and Mr. Drummond, proceeded there to ordain the angel over that Church, and from Edinburgh visiting several other towns in Scotland, were some time absent from the central Church. During that interval, a command was given "in the power," in Newman Street, to which Irving gave immediate obedience. It concerned, I think, the appointment of a certain number

of evangelists. After this step had been taken, the absent apostles heard of it, and wrote, declaring the new arrangement to be a delusion, and rebuking both prophet and angel. The rebuked prophet withdrew for a time in anger; the angel bowed his loftier head, read the letter to the Church, and confessed his error. Thus, amid confusions, disappointments-long lingering of the promised power from on high-sad substitution of morsels of ceremonial and church arrangement for the greater gifts for which his soul thirsted-the last spring that he was ever to see on earth dawned upon Irving. As it advanced, his friends began to write to each other again with growing anxiety and dread; his sister-in-law, Elizabeth, describing with alarm "the lassitude he exhibits at all times," and bitterly complaining that he had neither time nor possibility of resting, surrounded as he was by the close pressure of that exclusive community, "the members of his flock visiting him every forenoon from 11 to 1 o'clock," and the anxieties of all the Church upon his head. Kind people belonging to the Church itself interposed to carry him away, in his exhaustion, on the Monday mornings, to rest in houses which could be barricaded against the world—a thing which, in Edward Irving's house, in the mystic precincts of that Church in Newman Street, was simply impossible; and, when he had been thus abstracted by friendly importunity, describe him as stretched on a sofa, in the languor of his fatigued and failing strength, looking out upon the budding trees, but still in that leisure and lassitude turning his mind to the work for which his frame was no longer capable, dictating to some ready daughter or sister of the house. As he thus composed, it was his wont to

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pause, whenever any expression or thought had come from him which his amanuensis could have any difficulty about, to explain and illustrate his meaning to her favoured ear,-neither weakness, nor sorrow, nor the hard usage of men, being able to warp him out of that tender courtesy which belonged to his nature.

In this calm of exhaustion the early part of the year passed slowly. He still preached as usual, and was at the command of all his people, but appeared nowhere out of their close ranks. In July, he wrote a letter, characteristically minute in all its details, to Dr. Martin, bidding him "give thanks with me unto the Lord for the preservation of your daughter and my dear wife from an attack of the cholera," and relating the means which had been effectual in her recovery. "All that night I was greatly afflicted," he writes; "I felt the hand of the Lord to cast me down to the greatest depths. It was on my heart on Friday night, and it was on hers also, to bring out the elders of the Church, which I did on Saturday morning, when, having confessed before them unto the Lord all my sin, and all her sin, and all the sin of my house, without any reserve, according to the commandment of the Lord (James v. 16), I brought them up to her room, when, having ministered to her a word to strengthen her faith, they prayed to the Lord, one after the other, and then strengthened her with a word of assurance, and blessed her in the name of the Lord. They had not been gone above five minutes when she asked me for something to eat. . . . While I give the glory to God, I look upon Dr. Darling as having been a blessed instrument in His hand, and am able to see the hand of