NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CXCVII.

OCTOBER, 1862.

ART. I.1. The Life of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church, London. Illustrated by his Journals and Correspondence. By MRS. OLIPHANT. London: Hurst and Blackett. 1862. 2 vols. 8vo.

2. The Same. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1862. 8vo.

"EDWARD IRVING'S warfare has closed, if not in victory, yet in invincibility and faithful endurance to the end...... His was the freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever came in contact with. I call him, on the whole, the best man I have ever (after hard trial enough) found in this world, or now hope to find."

Thus wrote Thomas Carlyle nearly thirty years ago. The history of a man who while living filled so large a place in men's minds, and who when dead could call forth such a eulogy, deserves to be written; all the more that in outward results his life was the saddest failure. The heroes of lost battles deserve a record. We have only commendation to give to the manner in which Mrs. Oliphant has performed her task. The theological warfare in which Irving's later years were passed has now grown of little consequence; but the character of the man himself, which she so lovingly portrays, can never lose its interest.

Edward Irving was born in August, 1792, at the quiet little Scotch seaport of Annan. His father was Gavin Irving, a tanner of good repute and condition. His mother, Mary VOL. XCV.-NO. 197.

26

Lowther, was the tall, handsome, high-spirited daughter of a neighboring farmer. From her the children of Gavin Irving inherited the stately presence and dark, solemn beauty for which they all were noted. This in Edward was rendered peculiar, though hardly marred, by a marked obliquity of vision. The young Irvings grew up tall and stout, Edward being famous for his feats of running and leaping, and of swimming and rowing in the swift-flowing Solway.

Edward was destined for the ministry. The Scottish Church demands a long course of study, four years in the Humanities, and as many more in Theology, before ordination. The candidates for the ministry, therefore, must enter college at an early age. At thirteen Edward was sent to the University of Edinburgh, in company with his brother, two years older. The Scottish Alma Mater provides only classrooms and instruction, and takes no personal charge of even her youngest children. A room far up in one of the lofty Edinburgh houses was procured for the two lads. Here, to use our American college phrase, they "boarded themselves," at small cost in money, receiving their supplies of oatmeal, cheese, and other necessaries, from home. They pursued their studies as best they might, going to the class-rooms at the hours for recitation, in their country caps and jackets; for a distinct academical costume is unknown in Edinburgh. The session lasts only from May to November, leaving the whole summer free. At its close the lads sent their boxes home by the carrier, and set out themselves on foot, walking "straight as the crow flies," Edward making it a point to leap every fence in the way.

The four years passed. Irving returned to his native Annan "with college prizes, high character, and promise. Nothing but joy, health, hopefulness, looked out from the blooming young man." Soon afterward he was appointed teacher of a school just established in the little village of Haddington, where he remained two years, pursuing his theological studies by himself, only resorting to the Divinity School at Edinburgh to undergo the necessary examinations. Here we get our first purely personal glimpse of the man. He was employed as private tutor to a little girl of five or six years.

The lessons were to be given from six to eight in the morning, and in the evening. When he came in in the dark winter mornings, and found her peeping, hardly half-dressed, from her room, he would take her up in his strong arms, and, carrying her to the door, point out the constellations shining in the frosty dawn, or, setting her on the table, would teach her the mysteries of scholastic logic, with which the little philosopher puzzled the astonished household. The tutor was required to leave a written report of his pupil's conduct; and when this report was pessima,-"Very bad indeed,”—she was to be punished. One day this was the only true report that could be rendered. Irving paused long, pen in hand, before writing the word. "Jane," he said at length, pitifully, "my heart is broken, but I must tell the truth." Half a century has passed; but that pupil still remembers the sad face of her tutor as he wrote the word which doomed her to chastisement. Love for children and the consequent faculty of winning their love were characteristics of Irving's great nature. In after years, he could hardly pass a child without laying his hand in benediction upon its head. In the height of his London renown he might be seen walking the street with his own infant in his arms, while the nurse followed behind; or stretched at full length upon the grass in the public square, with a bevy of the neighboring children tumbling over him. Toward the close of his troubled career he was once preaching in the street, when a cry went up that a child had been separated from its parents in the crowd. He had it brought to him; taking it in his arms, he hushed its cries, and held it lovingly nestling against his broad shoulder during the whole of his long discourse, then gave it back to its parents, who had been waiting for it in the throng.

After two years at Haddington, Irving was appointed to the mastership of the academy in the "lang toun of Kirkaldy." He was now past twenty, and had attained his full height of six feet and some two, three, or four inches, with a corresponding development of breadth. Like all strong, healthy men, he gloried in his physical might and activity. He taught the academy at Kirkaldy for seven years. In school he was an absolute ruler, being nowise sparing of the rod. Out of

school he was the companion and playmate of his pupils, with whom he was always a favorite. Looking back upon his career, we cannot help thinking that his proper vocation was that of a teacher, and that, if Scotland had offered any fitting sphere for him, like that of the great English schools, Irving might have anticipated the noble career of Arnold of Rugby. Three years after coming to Kirkaldy he completed his divinity course, and after going through the "trials" before the Presbytery he was duly licensed to preach the Gospel among the churches; for the Scottish Church "ordains no pastor until he has been provided with a flock."

He met with little acceptance anywhere. Good Dr. Martin, of Kirkaldy, whose daughter he was to marry, sometimes suffered Irving to occupy his pulpit, to the manifest disfavor of the people. Beveridge the baker would irreverently kick open his pew door, and bounce out of kirk whenever a certain lofty head was seen in the pulpit; and it was notable that the congregation was visibly diminished whenever it was known that the "schoolmaster" was to preach. He had "ower muckle gran'ner," was the criticism of the good folks of Kirkaldy; very likely not altogether an unjust one, for Irving's style, always ornate and sounding, was doubtless at first overstrained and bombastic. At all events, he found no honor at home. So for three years more he taught his school, and sat on Sundays silent in church, listening to sermons which fell coldly upon his ear, or framing imaginary discourses which

should move men's hearts.

He was now twenty-seven years old; and if, as he believed, his work in life was to be that of a preacher, he must not delay entering upon it. So he gave up his school, and, with the small savings of seven years, betook himself again to Edinburgh, hoping that some opening would present itself. For a whole year he waited in vain, an unemployed probationer. Then his thoughts turned toward the East. If Scotland rejected him, he might carry Christianity under strange skies. In that year, 1819, there was another young student, who also had been teaching at Kirkaldy, had now come up to Edinburgh, and was wearily waiting for employment. None offering, he was about to return to the country. "I have,"

he said, "the ends of my thoughts to bring together, which no one can do in this thoughtless scene. I have my views of life to reform, and the whole plan of my conduct to newmodel; and with all, I have my health to recover. And then once more I shall venture my bark upon the waters of this wide realm, and if she cannot weather it, I shall steer west, and try the waters of another world." This young student did not try the waters of a new world; but has lived to write "Sartor Resartus," "The History of the French Revolution," and the "Life of Frederick the Great."

While busy with his Oriental grammars, and looking for a speedy departure to the East, Irving received an invitation from Dr. Chalmers to become his assistant in Glasgow. That great manufacturing city was in a troubled state. Want of work, and consequent starvation, produced the deepest discontent. There was talk of plots and risings. Chalmers had undertaken the supervision, economical and spiritual, of the very poorest quarter of the city, and Irving's main work was to visit the hungry weavers and spinners in their gloomy homes, to minister to their spiritual wants, and likewise to aid in dispensing the alms of the church. He entered these poor dwellings always with the apostolical benediction, "Peace be to this house." As a visitor he was eminently successful, but as a preacher he still found little favor. The discourses which were destined to awaken the great heart of London fell coldly on the ears of Glasgow. There was but one Chalmers, and the good trades-people saw in Irving only the Doctor's "helper." "It's no himsel' the day," was whispered disparagingly when Irving entered the pulpit.

Irving felt that this was not his place. There was, indeed, but one Chalmers; but there was also only one Irving, for whom, he was assured, there was a fitting work, - if not in Scotland, then elsewhere. His old missionary schemes recurred to his thoughts. Might it not be his appointed task to go forth, apostle-like, and proclaim the Gospel in the East? Or should he accept an invitation to become a preacher in Jamaica? White men, or brown men, or black men, what mattered it, so long as he found his own work and performed it? Sitting one morning in my lonely apartment," he writes,