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CHAPTER XI.

JOURNAL.

THE correspondence which follows needs neither introduction nor comment. No one who reads it will need to be told how remarkable it is. It was Irving's first long separation from his wife, and his heart was opened and warmed by that touch of mutual sorrow which gives a more exquisite closeness to all love. This perfect revelation of a man's heart, and of a husband's trust and confidence, is given by permission of the remaining children of his house. It will be seen to begin from the time of his leaving Kirkcaldy, after the sorrows above recorded.

66 Annan, 18th October, 1825. "MY DEAREST WIFE,- I am grieved that I should have missed this day's post, by the awkwardness of the hour of making up the bag at noon precisely, beyond which I was carried, before I knew that it was past, by the many spiritual duties to which I felt called in my father's house and my sister's.... But I know my dear Isabella will not grieve half so much on this account as I have done myself. And now, having parted with all the household, I sit down here, at the solemn hour of midnight, to write you how it is with me, and has been since I left you, first praying that this may find you and our dear babe as I left you, increased in strength.

...

"Andrew bore me company to Peebles, and will inform you of my journey so far. We parted at two o'clock on the south

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WANDERINGS AMONG THE HILLS.

side of Peebles Bridge, and I took my solitary way up Glen Sark, calling at every shepherd's house along my route, to obtain an opportunity of admonishing mother and children of their mortality, and so proceeded till I set my face to climb the hill which you must pass to get out of the glen. In ascending which, I had the sight and feeling of a new phenomenon among the mountains, a terrible hail-storm, which swept down the side of the opposite mountain, and came upon me with such a violence as required all my force of hand and foot to keep erect, obliterating my meagre path, and leaving me in the wildest mountain, wholly at a nonplus, to steer my way; until the sun breaking out, or rather streaking the west with a bright light, I found myself holding right east instead of south, and night threatening to be upon me before I could clear the unknown wild. I was lonely enough; but, committing my way unto the Lord, I held south as nearly as I could guess, and reached the solitary house in the head of another water, of which Sam may recollect something; where, forgathering with a shepherd, I got directions, and set my breast against Black-house heights, and reached my old haunts on Douglas Burn, where, in answer to the apostolic benediction which I carried everywhere, I received a kindly offer of tea, night's lodging, then a horse to carry me through the wet, all of which in my haste refusing, I took my way over the rough grounds which lie between that and Dryhope by Loch St. Mary. My adventures here with the Inverness-shire herds and the dogs of Dryhope Tower (a perfect colony, threatening to devour me with open mouth), I cannot go into, and leave it to the discourse of the lip. Here I waded the Yarrow at the foot of the loch, under the crescent moon, where, finding a convenient rock beneath some overhanging branches which moaned and sighed in the breeze, I sat me down, while the wind, sweeping, brought the waters of the loch to my feet; and I paid my devotions to the Lord in His own ample and magnificent temple; and sweet meditations were afforded me of thee, our babe, and our departed boy. My soul was filled with sweetness. 'I did not ask for a sign,' as Colonel Blackadder says; but when I looked up to the moon, as I came out from the ecclesia of the rock, she looked as never a moon had

AN APOSTOLICAL JOURNEY.

251

looked before in my eye,- as if she had been washed in dew, which, speedily clearing off, she looked so bright and beautiful; and on the summit of the opposite hill a little bright star gleamed upon me, like the bright, bright eye of our darling. Oh, how I wished you had been with me to partake the sweet solacement of that moment! Of my adventure with the shepherd-boy Andrew, whose mother's sons were all squandered abroad among the shepherds, and our prayer upon the edge of the mountain, and my welcome at the cottage, and cold reception at the farm-house, I must also be silent, till the living pen shall declare them unto you. Only, I had trial of an Apostolic day and night, and slept sweetly, after blessing my wife and child. Next day I passed over to the grave of Boston, at Ettrick, where I ministered in the manse to the minister's household, and tracked my way up into Eskdale, where, after conversing with the martyr's tomb (Andrew Hyslop's), I reached the Ware about half an hour after George, who had brought a gig up to Grange, and from that place had crossed the moor to meet me; and by returning upon his steps, we reached home about eleven o'clock. But such weather! I was soaked, the case of my desk was utterly dissolved, and the mechanical ingenuity of Annan is now employed constructing another. But I am well, very well; and for the first time have made proof of an Apostolical journey, and found it to be very, very sweet and profitable. Whether I have left any seed that will grow, the Lord only knows.

66

'Many, many are the tender and loving sympathies towards you which are here expressed, and many the anxious wishes for your welfare and hope of seeing you, when, without danger, you can undertake it. . . . . I shall never forget, and never repay, the tender attentions of all your dear father's household to me and mine. The Lord remember them with the love He beareth to His own. I affectionately, most affectionately, salute them all. . . . . The Lord comfort and foster your spirit. The Lord enrich our darling, and make her a Mary to us.

"Your most affectionate husband,

EDWARD IRVING."

"Carlisle, 21st October, 1825. "MY DEAR ISABELLA,—Thus far I am arrived safely, and find that my seat is taken out in the London mail to-morrow evening at seven o'clock. I left all my father's family in good health, full of affection to me, and, I trust, not without faith and love towards God. Mr. Fergusson and Margaret and the two eldest boys came down from Dumfries on Wednesday, and added much to our domestic enjoyment, which, but for the pain of parting so soon, was as complete as ever I had felt it; for, though my heart was very cold, I persevered, by the force, I fear, rather of strong resolution than of spiritual affection, to set before them their duties to God and to the souls of their children. They spoke all very tenderly of you, and feel much for your weal, and long for the time when they shall be able to comfort you in person. Thomas Carlyle came down to-day, and edified me very much with his discourse. Dr. Duncan came down with C who, poor lad, seems fast hastening into one of the worst forms of Satanic pride. He desires solitude, he says, and hates men. "Your short pencilled note was like honey to my soul; and though I have not had the outpouring of soul for you, little baby, and myself which I desire, I hope the Lord will enable me this night to utter my spiritual affections before His throne. I am an unworthy man- a poor, miserable servant,

M

,

unworthy to be a doorkeeper; how unworthy to be a minister at the altar of His house! I shall write you when I reach London. Till then may the Lord be your defence, my dear lamb's nourishment and strength, Mary's encouragement, and the sustenance of your unworthy head. Rest you, my dear, and be untroubled till the Lord restore your health; then cease not to meditate upon, and to seek the improvement of our great trial, which may I never forget, and as oft as I remember, exercise an act of submission unto the will of God. This is written at the fire of the public room among my fellow-travellers. The Laird of Dornoch, Tristram Lowther the wilful, where I waited for the coach, expressed a great desire that, when you came to the country, you would visit him.

"Your true and faithful husband,
"EDWARD IRVING."

INCIDENTS OF A STAGE-COACH JOURNEY.

253

'Myddelton Terrace, 25th October, 1825.

"MY DEAR WIFE, beloved in the Lord,-I bless you and our little child, and pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with you and all the house.

"I reached London late (eleven o'clock) on Saturday night, by the good preservation of God,-to which, when I sought at times to turn the minds of my fellow-travellers, I seemed unto them as one that mocked; but though we were a graceless company, we were preserved by the Lord. On our journey there occurred nothing remarkable except one thing which, for its singular hospitality, I resolved to recount to you. Our road lay through Rutlandshire, and half way between Uppingham and Kettering, there appeared before us, on the top of a hill, an ancient building, but not like any castle which I had ever seen before,- being low and irregular, and covering a deal of ground, and built, you would say, more for hospitality and entertainment than strength. I make no doubt, from the form of the structure, it is as old as the Saxon times, and belonged to one of those franklins of whom Walter Scott speaks in Ivanhoe.' Now mark, when our road, swinging up the hill, came to the gate of this mansion, which was a simple gate,-not a hold, or any imitation of a hold, of strength to my astonishment, the guard of the mail descended and opened the gate, and in we drove to the park and gate of the castle, where they were cutting wood into billets, which were lying in heaps, for the sake of the poor in the village beneath the hill. One of these billets they laid in the wheel of the coach, for the hill is very steep; and while I meditated what all this might mean, thinking it was some service they were going to do for the family, out came from a door of the castle a very kindly-looking man, bearing in a basket bread and cheese, and in his hand a pitcher full of ale, of which he kindly invited us all to partake, and of which we all partook most heartily, for it was now past noon, and we had travelled far since breakfast-from Nottingham.... So here I paid my last farewell to ale, and am now a Nazarite to the sense. Oh, that the Lord would make me a Nazarite indeed from all lusts of the flesh ! ... Remember this hospitable lord in your prayers. He is my Lord Londes, and his