The Press.
London, England, 1855-11-10 00:00:00

1078

kind of revelry ; how many generations of her gay cour•
tiers to a royal residence where courtier arts are not ; how
many generations of her toilsome tradesmen to the place
of silence, whither no gain can follow them! How time
hath swept over her, age after age, with its consuming
wave, swallowing every living thing, and bearing it away
unto the shores of eternity ! The sight and thought of all
which is my assurance that I have not, in the heat of my
feelings, surpassed the merit of the case. The theme is
titter for an indignant prophet, than an uninspired sinful
man.

And again of the same subject :

But come, at length, it will, when Revenge shall array
herself to go forth, and Anguish shall attend her, and from
the wheels of their chariot ruin and dismay shall shoot far
and wide among the enemies of the King ; whose desola•
tion shall not tarry, and whose destruction shall be swift as
the wing of the whirlwind—hopeless as the conclusion of
e:ernity, and the reversion of doom. Then, around the
tiery concave of the wasteful pit, the clang of grief shall
ring ; and the flinty wretch who, in life, repelled tender
mercy, shall now find the door of spurned mercy for ever
barred; and the soft and gentle spirit which dissolved in
voluptuous pleasures, shall now dissolve in weeping
awrows and outbursting lamentations. Aud the gay glory
of time shall depart ; and a sportful liberty shall be bound
f)r ever in the chain of obdurate necessity. The green
earth, with all her blooming beauty and bowers of peace,
s'iall depart. The morning and evening salutations of
kinsmen, and the ever-welcome voice of friendship, and
the tender whispering of full-hearted affection, shall depart,
for the sad discord of weeping and wailing and gnashing
of teeth. And the tender names of children, and father,
and mother, and wife, and husband, with the communion
of domestic love and affection, and the inward touches of
natural instinct—which family compact, when uninvaded
by discord, wraps the live-long day into one swell of tender
emotion, making earth's lowly scenes to breathe of Heaven
itself—all, all shall pass away ; and, instead, shall come the
level lake that burneth, and the solitary dungeon, and the
desolate bosom, and the throes and tossings of horror and
hopelessness, and the worm that dieth not, and the fire that
is not quenched.

Many a Felix must have trembled at this awe-
inspiring discourse of righteousness, tempe-
rance, and judgment to come.
One of the most intimate friends of Irving
was the present Mr. Henry Drummond, at
whose residence at Albury park were held the
famous Albury-park Conferences on the re-
ligious condition of the Jews. It is recorded
of Irving that at one of these meetings,
" rising from his chair and standing before the
" fire, he soliloquised aloud, It is a sore
" trouble to the flesh for a man to have more
" light than his brethren.' " The results of
these conferences have been published by the
eccentric host in three volumes, entitled
" Dialogues on Prophecy."
At this period of his life Irving was living
in Claremont-square, New-road, and the only
glimpse of his domestic habits is to be found
in Dr. Chalmers's diary, who came up to be
present at the opening of his friend's new
church in 1827. From the extracts given by
Mr. Wilks it seems that Irving was a sociable
and agreeable companion. He was a profound
admirer of Coleridge, and said to Chalmers,
who objected to the poet's obscurity, " you
" Scotchmen would handle an idea as a
" butcher does an ox ; for my part I like to
" see an idea looming through the mist."
The doctor expressed an opinion at this time
that his prophecies and the length of his ser-
vices would unship him.
The point at issue between Irving and the
Scotch Presbytery was this :
Whether Christ's flesh had the grace of sinlessness and
ineorruption from iti proper nature, or from the in-
dwelling of the Holy Ghost.—P. 202.
Irving maintained the latter, and for this he
was, as we have seen, excommunicated by his
Church in the year 1833. But in 1830 he had
adopted that belief which has made him most
notorious to the public at large. We mean a
faith in the revival of " the gift of tongues."
This was first claimed by some ladies at Port
Glasgow. But Irving, when he heard of it, at
once signified his acceptance of the doctrine ;
and the existence of such a power became a
leading article of faith with all that class who
now began to be called Irvingites.
The account of his trial before the Presby-
tery is highly interesting, but we must refer
our readers to the work itself for a perusal of
it. There cut be little doubt, we think, of the
ustice of the sentence. Irving had now
become a mere enthusiast, and his claims
were quite inconsistent with ecclesiastical
discipline. The subsequent construction of
his Church is curious. One of his followers
was moved by the spirit to become an apostle—
a position apparently equivalent to that of