enemies of the Lord's work, how little I have had to do with it,-how little any of us have had to do with it, save to mar and hinder it. Again, I have discerned that the Lord, who had made me strong in the flesh to serve Him, would in me first give before the Church the fulfilment of that word, 'All flesh is grass, and the glory of it as the flower of the grass.' The hand of the Lord hath touched me, and I am consumed like the moth; but He sendeth forth His quickening Spirit, and the decayed face of the earth is renewed again. Oh! cry ye for the outpouring of the Spirit, then shall there be the melody of health and joy in the habitations of the righteous."

A few days later he wrote to Mr. Cardale:

"The hand of the Lord is still upon me as heretofore, under which I desire to be humbled with all the flock, and to wait and learn the purpose of the Lord in such a separation. Oft times I think that it is the Lord's gentle hand, breaking that bond by degrees between me and my flock, which threatened to grow up into a kind of necessity, and even to pass over into idolatry. O, how I love them! how I am thankful to them! how I am laden with their benefits! And I am sure that their love to me is stonger than my love to them, and I do see it is of the great goodness and tenderness of God to take order that such affection should be stayed from passing over into unholiness; and that He hath done us a great favor to put us so far asunder, and for such a time, that we might try our hearts and prove ourselves that our mutual love is in the Lord. O, how terrible a thing it is in any way to eclipse or defraud that Brother who purchased every soul with the blood of God! O, be thou jealous for Him, my dear son, jealous for that Church which He hath betrothed unto Himself a chaste virgin. O, let no minister of Jesus seek to win her affections unto himself, for doth he not therein withdraw them from her Husband-from his Lord ?”

He lingered on for a few weeks, able at first to ride a little on⚫ horseback, and even to preach to the small company that sympathized with him in his faith and hope; but soon his failing strength confined him to his room, where on Sunday the Eth of December, after great bodily suffering, he fell asleep in Him in whom, amidst all his trials and heartrending disappointments he had ever trusted. "Once he was heard murmuring to himself sonorous syllables of some unknown tongue. Listening to these mysterious sounds, Dr. Martin (his father-in-law) found them to be the Hebrew measures of the 23d Psalm- The Lord is my Shepherd,' into the latter verses of which the dying voice swelled as the watcher took up and echoed the wonderful strain, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Not till the very last did he give up the hope of a Divine interposition which should re

tore him even from the brink of death. Words of prophecy had been spoken concerning him which seemed to promise a great work which he should do in his native land, and he was slow to believe that he must die without seeing their fulfillment. Whether, as is the case with so many of the promises in the Old Testament, they still wait for their accomplishment in the resurrection, when there will be many stages in the setting-up of the kingdom, and many acts of ministry to be performed by the risen and translated saints; or whether the words expressed rather the desire of God than His fixed and absolute purpose, and were of the nature of encouragements to faith and hope, more than of unconditional pledges, we will not undertake to say; but no one who remembers how farreaching are the prophecies of the former dispensations-as those made to Abraham and to David,-and how God himself speaks of His "breach of promise " in a case where the failure of others made it impossible for Him to fulfill His own part, will look upon Mr. Irving's death as any proof that his faith was resting in a delusion. Once he had been healed by the immediate act of God when all but overpowered by the cholera, and many were the instances of recovery by Divine power which he had known in his own flock and elsewhere; and it is not strange that, apart from any words of the Spirit, he should have looked for the arm of the Lord to be stretched forth to save him. But he was full of patient resignation to God's will, nor did his faith waver when it became evident that his end was near at hand.

We cannot better describe his last hours than in the words of one of the ministers who was sent from. London to be with him, but failed to reach Glasgow till after his death:

"From all the sources of information, it appears that in the last hours of him who is gone to his rest, there is reason both to rejoice and to be sorrowful. In his flesh it is evident he suffered much and painfully, both to himself and to those about him. In his spirit, as evidently, all was peace and joy. On Sunday, he said to his wife, 'If I die, I die to the Lord.' The last words he spoke to his wife were desiring her to read Ps. 18, to the end, always requesting her to go on when she paused; and then the fourth and fifth chapters of I. Thessalonians. He then said 'Peace be with you,' which were the last words expressly addressed to her. To Mr. Taylor, the gentleman in whose house he lodged, his last words

were, 'Cleave to the Church, cleave to the Church.'

To his father-in-law he said,

O, the depths of the peace and joy in Christ Jesus! His prayers were principally for the Church, especially his own flock; and when his mother asked him if he had nothing to say about his wife and children, he answered, 'No, what have I to say? the Elders will take care of them,' or 'I commit them to the care of the Elders of the Churches.' The last intelligible words he was heard to utter were, 'Keep that day,' which they supposed was that passage in II. Tim., I, 12, I know in whom I have believed,' &c. He then continued for about six hours in an unconscious state, moaning very much; and then the spirit of Edward Irving departed to that bosom of rest where it shall moan no more forever."

And thus ended the mortal career of one of the noblest of God's servants in these last ages. No man of larger gifts, or a more heroic spirit, or a greater measure of self-sacrificing fidelity and love, has arisen in the Church for generations. He was cast altogether in a gigantic mould, and it was a giant's work that was given him to do. His was a career which, from the beginning to the end, drew the eyes of men to it as no other has done-which was felt to be something by itself-a new and wonderful spiritual phenomenon, which the world could not help gazing at. Twelve such years of toil and achievement, of fame and reproach, of triumph and suffering, are almost, if not altogether, without parallel. When they were ended by what seemed a premature and tragical death, there was a universal burst of sorrow. The Church which had cast him off, and poisoned by her cruelty the very fountains of his life, honored him at his burial, and gave him a sepulchre within the walls of her noblest cathedral. The friends who had stood aloof, and well nigh broken his heart by their alienation in the hour of his greatest trial, could not withhold their praise when the grave had received him. Chalmers gave utterance before his class to his reviving love and admiration, saying of him that "he was one in whom the graces of the humble Christian were joined to the virtues of the old Roman."

*"I believe," says one who was a minister in the church at the time, “from the testimony of those who had the best means of judging, that the great burden of Mr. Irving's soul in the last year of his life was the condition of the Church of his native land, which had rejected him and his testimony. If to any single circumstance beyond himself his death is to be ascribed, it is to that act of deposition at Annan."

Thomas Carlyle, who had no spiritual ken to discern heavenly mysteries, but was quick to recognize truth and courage and faith within the sphere of this world, recorded this noble encomium:

"Edward Irving's warfare has closed, if not in victory, yet in invincibility, and faithful endurance to the end. The spirit of the time, which could not enlist him as its soldier, must needs fight against him as its enemy. One of the noblest natures—a man of antique, heroic nature, in questionable, modern garniture which he could not wear. Around him a distracted society, vacant, prurient, heat and darkness, and what these two may breed; mad extremes of flattery, followed by madder contumely, by indifference and neglect. The voice of our 'son of thunder,' with its deep tone of wisdom, . . . has gone silent so soon. The large heart, with its large bounty, where wretchedness found solacement, and they that were wandering in darkness the light of a home, has paused.

“Think (if thou be one of a thousand, and worthy to do it), that here once more was a genuine man sent into this, our ungenuine phantasmagory of a world, which would go to ruin without such; that here once more, under thy own eyes, in this last decade, was enacted the Old Tragedy (and has had its fifth act now), of The Messenger of Truth in the Age of Shams.”

So much the keen and generous sceptic could see (his light not then turned into darkness by a soured heart), that this man was worthy to be God's embassador, although, alas! he himself had little power of apprehending a Divine message. The nobleness of the vehicle he was able to appreciate, even while the treasures of the truth it conveyed were hidden from his sight.

It is, perhaps, too soon to form a just estimate of the life and labors of Mr. Irving. Up to the year 1830, his great work had been to show forth Christ in the two great poles of His humiliation and His glory. The chief themes of his preaching were, Jesus come in flesh, and Jesus made Lord of all. These precious truths, the very Alpha and Omega of Christianity, were set forth by him with a fullness and power of argument and illustration, and a fire of holy ardor, not surpassed in the whole range of English theology. In this he rendered an incalculable service to the Church, which she is now beginning to see and acknowledge. This was the true gateway to a reviving of the work of the Holy Ghost, for manhood redeemed and glorified in the Person of the Son of God, is the fountain head of all that is peculiar to the work of

the Spirit in this dispensation. The declaration of John (vii, 39), that "the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified," sets forth a connection of cause and effect which the Church cannot ponder too deeply. If He must lay hold of fallen humanity, and bear it triumphant above all curse into the glory of God, before the Comforter could come with His gifts of love and His works of power; then the preaching of the Incarnation and Lordship of Christ might be expected to precede the mighty outpouring of the Spirit.

This was not understood at the time that Mr. Irving was so earnestly and powerfully proclaiming these truths, for God keeps His own secrets, and gives to His servants only light enough for the work they have in hand; but it was afterwards seen that he had thus prepared the way for the reviving of spiritual gifts. They could not be safely given until those two great heads of doctrine, of which St. Paul and St. John* speak as the criteria by which to distinguish between the Spirit of God and evil spirits, had been fully and thoroughly opened. Nor would gifts, which are the earnest of the kingdom, be of use where the hope of the kingdom was not cher. ished. It is certain that Mr. Irving's preaching of Christ as one with us in fallen flesh, and as hereafter to come to glorify us as His joint-heirs, was fitted to make ready a people amongst whom the Spirit could manifest the first fruits of that glory which the Church is hereafter to inherit.

There was another feature, also, of his labors, which should not be overlooked. The wise steward brings out of his treasury things new and old; both, and not one to the exclusion of the other. And God's way is to honor the old things before He brings in the new; for He will be vindicated in what He has given already, before He gives more largely. The preparation of the Church for the revelation of the Kingdom, must be a Catholic work, as reaching beyond what is contained in any fragment, Roman, Greek, or Protestant. But before this new step should be taken, He would have that which had been

* I. Cor. xii, 3; I. John iv, 1-3.