ity; the earnest and the devout in crowds | became his disciples. The sensation he made was the product of something real. He condescended to no mere ingenious vagaries. He never became a pantaloon or a clown in the pulpit. He did not degrade the sanctity of his office by assuming the tricks of the stage. He appealed to more sober faculties than those of wonder or of inquisitiveness. He subdued, converted, thrilled, alarmed, as well as astonished, his countless and diverse auditors. He wrought-not by the assumptions of audacity, nor by the devices of affectation, but by the magic of some native and actual qualities to which the world had long been growing unaccustomed, and by which, whenever their manifestations have appeared, it has been deeply and widely moved. It may be worth our while to inquire what were the main secrets of his power. justified it; and appealed to the events In the second place, the character of his followers was absolutely adverse to the supposition that he succeeded by appealing to the credulity or the superstition of the world. We have already specified many of the Who were they? Not the ragged, ignorant, things to which his extraordinary popularity impulsive, and uninquiring mob. They were could not fairly be attributed. But there is men distinguished for intelligence, occupying one grand feature of his life, to which, per- positions of the highest respectability, and haps, his posthumous fame among the super- separated by every mark from the usual vicficial may be chiefly owing, which, we think, tims of religious imposture. They were the however, does not account for the vital influ- statesmen, princes, professional gentlemen, ence he exercised when living. Many seem critics, literati, and thinkers of his day. The too ready to suppose that, if a man grow fa- easy, lazy, and thoughtless, undoubtedly were natical, and claim peculiar correspondence among his casual hearers; but his friends, with Heaven, and deal in the solemn and his frequent attendants, and his permanent startling phenomena of the supernatural, it disciples, were honorable, intelligent, and diswill be very easy to bring together a band of interested men. Judging by his earlier labors credulous and superstitious mortals who never in the metropolis, we might say that for yield to independent and rational inquiry, and splendor, information, and true moral respectwho are by constitution and by education ability, his congregations were unrivalled in prepared for such impositions as quacks, and modern times. In his later life, when the adventurers, and false prophets, or self-de- first flush of his triumphs had somewhat subceived enthusiasts, will adopt. Now, this sided, he was associated with the great and theory-the general correctness of which we good of the Church to which he belonged; have no motive to dispute-does not touch and many, even those who took a part in his the case in hand. Its utter inapplicability is excommunication, separated from him with demonstrable on several obvious grounds. tears of affection and protestations of respect. In the first place, it is ungraceful and unfair The denomination to which he gave birththus easily to assume that because a man ap- the Catholic and Apostolic Church-considpeals to the supernatural he must be either ering its numbers, is perhaps the freest from an impostor or a fool. Certainly, the whole ignorance, fanaticism, and ostentatious spirof Edward Irving's life-every feature of his itual follies, of all the sects of Christendom. character, is a protest against the ascription True. they have dogmas which can only of either of those titles to him. He was never be accepted as necessary inferences from calmer, never more patient in his investiga- more rational and important principles: true, tions, never more thoroughly transparent, they contend with overwrought earnestness serious, or manly, than when he maintained for the trivial elements of organization, disthe doctrine of the gift of tongues. He ar- cipline and worship: true, they celebrate gued the point without dogmatism; he sub- the service of God with elaborate and august mitted to tests without timidity or impa- ceremonies: but, whilst they enthrone little tience; he asserted his point without arro- dogmas-such as that relating to the second gance; he pursued his course with a tranquil | advent—they are illustrious for their prac elicited supernal displays of religious ani reproach, these were his misfortunes and his mistakes; but he is entitled to be had in everlasting remembrance for that he blew God's trumpet of salvation in ears that had never before heard its tones, and with a power which startled into activity those who had been long familiar with its solemn music. quaintance with, and their reverence for, the Scriptures whilst they are rigid in the main-mation; if his memory deserves any possible tenance of the precise ecclesiastical machinery they have instituted, their many officers are wonderfully free from the conceits and assumptions of priestcraft; and, whilst they resort to every resource of art and taste to make their worship splendid, they discriminate with unceasing care between the symbol and the soul of devotion-between the poetic forms and the spiritual reality of godliness. So that, whether we judge him by his first achievements, his maturer faith, or his posthumous renown, Edward Irving was no simpleton, and no knave. Moreover, it is worthy of especial notice, that, in so far as his life was a success, it was so in spite of those characteristics which are usually cited in explanation of the fact. The real moral power of the man was sensibly and largely diminished by his lapsing into the ecstacies and dreams of supernaturalism. Till he began to talk about miracles and prophecy, the whole Church of Christ throughout the three kingdoms revered his name: then, many began to laugh, to doubt, and to pity. When he talked in solemn naturalness and severe simplicity to the people, they listened to him with rapt and unsuspecting attention-they yielded up unquestioningly to his strange control conscience, imagination, and heart. But when he perplexed them with his theories of "interpretation," and paused in his speech that the "possessed" might utter their unintelligible jargon, they stared in wonderment, and shed tears of compassion. He retained many followers, by whom his character and memory are not disgraced; but he lost many over whom he had long exercised a healthy influence, and through whom he communicated to his country his real and his richest religious bequests. For we seek not the full measure-no, not even the chief elements, of Edward Irving's spiritual power, in the events and the associations of his later days, nor in the repute, the resources, or the enterprise of the sect which is popularly known by his name. The true work done by him was concluded before his unusual proceedings commenced. He had revived religious thought in the land. He had, by his quiet yet mighty labors, inaugurated a grand, deep, moral movement, which had a consummation far nobler, and a dominion far wider, than the peculiarities of his subsequent faith, or the number of nominal disciples he left behind him. His glory consists not in the fact that he invented a new ecclesiastical system, or Yes: Irving was a sincere, earnest, deeply religious man. He had high intellectual powers. He was mighty in speech. His imagination was intimate with the beautiful, the mysterious, the magnificent in the universe, and in life. His reason could grapple with stout difficulties; and, when they were mastered, it was clear, distinct, and certain in the comprehension of the themes on which it was exercised. But these were not his power. Others were more learned, more logical, more versatile, if not more eloquent. Few had a more fascinating authority over words, perhaps; but many could boast a correcter insight into systems. His eloquence and his thought were but the instruments of a fervid, devoted, and sanctified soul. God gave him power. The Spirit witnessed unto him. He spake as a man having authority. He had the heart of a prophet, and the presence of a master. His words were like tears, and prayers, and groans. He agonized with men. He wrestled, and fought, and commanded. He let out in his address the holy sympathies of his rich nature. He traded with realities, and not with shams; and he was upright in his business. His sword was sharp as truth; his spear, pointed as love. Whenever his lips moved, you could hear his great heart beat. the proud ambassador of the Almighty, and you should know his message. came before the people ever fresh with the vigor, the sanctity, and the charms of the Infinite. His home was in the Eternal, and, when he appeared, its awful sanctions, sym bols, and furniture still clung to him. He came direct from Jehovah to the sinner man He was a mediator between a yearning Cre ator and an aspiring creature. He was the interpreter of the Ineffable. When he told the great and the proud of their sins, he did it as though it were their own conscience speaking to them. His fine old phrase about judgment, were mysterious and awfu as the intuitive forebodings of the convinced and conscious soul. Every thing he said an did was actual. It was a "Verily, verily, say unto you." His prayers were the aban donment of piety; and his sermons th He was He abandonment of honest, faithful, constant love. In the name of God he went on his way. He knew it was all a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. His zeal was apostolic, and he had the valor of a hero. Ever ready for martyrdom, he lived grandly; carelessly as to himself-all anxiously as to others. The world felt, when he fairly came into it, that he was its true and magnanimous friend; and therefore it respected, admired, and loved him. Not often does the world get such a friend! Ages sometimes pass away, and not one such appears. By the scarcity of the honor, and the fulness of the privilege, when such an one appears, in gratitude and in reverence the world embraces him. Oh! if all the preachers talked thus boldly, naturally, and truthfully to the heart of man, how changed would soon be the aspect of affairs! But among the priesthoods, the force of example is weak, because the fire of emulation burns dimly. Many who are too proud to imitate, are not degraded enough to envy. Many who industriously ignore the living, industriously malign the dead. But the living are mighty in spite of them; and, in spite of them, the dead are not forgotten; and thousands who are weary of the tame platitudes of their contemporaries, resort with pious pleasure to the traditions and records of the departed to save themselves from absolute spiritual starvation. Thus Edward Irving is a power to many who knew him not. Being dead, he yet speaketh. He died in the Lord, and his works do follow him. But the power of his fame is the same as was the power of his life. It is the power of moral beauty, of absorbed devotion, and of earnest love-in short, the magic omnipotence of sincerity. Edward Irving had illustrious friends. He was great among the great. The noble ennobled him by their fellowship. Dr. Chalmers, who won from him the affection of a son, felt towards him the love of a brother. Frederick Denison Maurice, and Thomas Carlyle of our own day knew him intimately, and loved him well. And Coleridge delighted him not seldom with his monologues of philosophy, and his uncomely but impressive tokens of esteem. Why did a man thus guarded, go off into such wonderful eccentricities? That he should have been encouraged to independence of thought by these mighty men and ministers, we should have expected. But Chalmers believed only in the supernatural of the Past-Coleridge, in the supernalism of the Eternal-Carlyle, in the glorious naturalism of history, religion, and life-and Maurice, in the poetry and the power of supernaturalism-but, we suppose, hardly in its philosophy at all. The stolid orthodoxy of the Scotch divine, counterbalanced by the profoundly religious catholicity of the rest, might have seduced the impetuous but stately mind of the inquirer from the established forms and prominent theological angles of his faith; but surely they could not have had any share in the responsibilities of his inexplicable and unaccountable extravagances of faith? No: Irving was independent, and, therefore, he did not conform even to his honored companions, with whom he often took sweet counsel, and at whose feet he was proud to sit. He was docile, meek, and ready to learn. But he must follow only the light within. Capable of great faith, he knew no skepticism, and, therefore, he believed more than the common sense of the world can generally take in. He never had reason to distrust the Book: he had all trust in the God of the Book: and what God had been reported by the Book to have done, why should He not do again? What He had given to Paul, why should He not give to him? What He had once instituted, why should it not stand for ever? These questions it is not for us to answer. We only ask them by way of suggesting, generously to our hero, and respectfully to his despisers, that upon the answer which shall be given to them depends his consistency or inconsistency; his greatness or his imbecility; his goodness and piety, or his dishonesty and the worthlessness of his soul. 1 SIAM AND ITS PRINCES. THE kingdom of Siam is known to most Europeans as a territory situated in the "crop" of that vast peninsula which, like the head and claw of a bird, stretches down into the Eastern Archipelago. Of its inhabitants the only specimens we have ever seen are "the Siamese Twins," and its most remarkable production people generally imagine to be "white elephants." Recent events, however, have rendered the kingdom of Siam of more importance to Englishmen and other maritime nations than heretofore. Civilization having, by means of the sword, coasted its way round the peninsula of India, attacked Burmah, and opened the hitherto hermetically-sealed ports of China, as it will speedily of Japan, can no longer be kept at arm's length by the customs of any eastern people; and Siam and Cochin China must speedily undergo the same kind of revolution which China is experiencing at the present moment. Such a revolution, only of a perfectly peaceable character, has in fact for many years been going on in Siam, and we may expect its acceleration from the accession to the throne of the present ruler, who promises to be far more than a Toussaint L'Overture of the East. The country of Siam is one of the most productive upon the earth. Well watered, and possessed of a magnificent alluvial soil, the land absolutely overflows with luscious fruits and vegetable productions. The chief river of the empire, the Menam, flows through the land from its most northern boundary, until it empties itself in the Gulf of Siam, and, like the Nile, by periodical overflows, enriches its banks for a distance of four hundred miles. This splendid valley drained by this arterial stream averages thirty-five miles in breadth, and here plantations of rice, indigo, sugar, and coffee, seem incapable of drawing out the full productive force of the soil. The Menam is navigable for the largest ships and junks for a hundred miles from the sea, far above the capital, Bangkok. This curious city is another Venice, or more than a Venice, for wh of the sea" has its foundati land, a greater part of the actually floats upon the wa who visited this country in following glowing account pressions of the Water C upon it by night, whilst river. "Yet another tack, and on the river, and lo! the glories burst upon our admiring gaze, It was night-dark night; neit dent ray of sunlight through were in the heavens. But wha with its millions of globes that broad surface from side to darkness? It was like that houris dwell, whose eyes shed 1 as made the stars decline to watch, and Madame Moon t behind a silvery cloud. As far reach, on either side of the riv endless succession of lightsand of every imaginable colo such only as Chinese ingenuity every little floating house had these lights; the yards and ma and junks (and these were b were decorated in a like ma pagodas or minarets of the wall of light. It was the most s beautiful panorama I had ever had we been a day later, shoul the spectacle, for the night of ou to be that of one of the feast-da Feast of Lanterns." Doubtless much of this appearance was owing to the which night throws over Vulgar details, and leaving imagination; but even these broad glare of day, were perfectly novel, for Mr. Nea the sober view of things the says, * Narrative of a Residence in S rick Arthur Neale. debtors did of old through the iron gratings of the Fleet and other debtors' prisons. The batis, or temples, of which there are a hundred in the city, are built upon the banks. Here also stand the king's palace, and the houses of the nobles, foreign consuls, and missionaries. During the last century, the capital stood much higher up the river, and upon its banks. From this situation it was removed for a sanitary as well as commercial reason. It was thought that the exhalations from the mud at low water were the cause of the "As the sun cleared the atmosphere, however, things assumed a pleasanter aspect; and by the time that we were fairly under weigh, and working towards the anchorage, the whole city of Bangkok, consisting of a long double, and in some parts, treble row of neatly and tastefully painted wooden cabins, floating on thick bamboo rafts, and linked to each other, in parcels of six or seven houses, by chains (which chains were fastened to huge poles driven into the bed of the river), rose like a magic picture to our admiring gaze. Junks of 1400 tons were lying close alongside these floating cabins, so close that they could converse with each other with the greatest facility, and one vessel-a Portuguese, that was working tack and tack with us up the river-frightful visitations of cholera which ravaged approached so close to the houses that, in going about, she came foul with, and carried away with her, half a dozen of these floating domiciles. The tide was running down rapidly, and so soon as the brig disengaged herself, away went these houses at a steamer's pace, amidst the vociferous hootings and shoutings of their tenants; and before many minutes had elapsed, they had disappeared round a corner of the river, and were stranded on the opposite shore." The houses fronting the water-streets, or open channels, have all open shops, and as there is no such a thing as foot-way or carriage-road, like the Venetians, the Bangkokians do all their town locomotion in boats. The thousands of these little canoes, each managed by one person, often by girls, that are seen early in the morning, before the sun becomes powerful, moving through the different channels, give an interesting activity to the whole picture. Every conceivable commodity is thus borne from door to door. In one you will see rice, in another, fruit, in a third, fish; or an old Chinaman every now and then floats along, intent upon a hissing pot and pans, in which he is manufacturing a rich-looking soup. In the midst of these little craft, a Chinese junk, painted all over with dragons and monsters, lies at anchor in the stream, and forms a brilliantlooking bazaar; for no sooner does such a vessel arrive, than an awning is spread over the deck, and tables and cases are ranged fore and aft by the crew, and every one brings forth his particular stock in the general venture, and becomes, for the nonce, an expert salesman. Here and there the rows of floating houses are broken with large cages; these are the debtors' prisons, and the poor wretches who occupy them are obliged to hop from one to the other, according as the sun moves, in order to obtain a little shade, all the while keeping a sharp look-out for passers-by; for they are compelled to beg their daily bread, as our poor the place; and certainly, since this dense |
