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with remarkable precision. In the first place, there is not a vestige in Scotland of the earlier kind of square keep, such as might have been raised in the days of the Conqueror, or of William Rufus, with its semicircular arches and dogtoothed decorations. The pointed architecture, and the Edwardian baronial, had come into use ere any of the fortresses of which we possess remains were erected. Hence, the oldest of the Scottish castles were evidently built by Edward to secure his conquest. They may be enumerated as those of Caerlaverock, Bothwell, Dirleton, Kildrummie, and Lochindorb. These names at once excite recollections of the war of independence, when these castles were taken and retaken, and were surrounded by the most interesting and enduring associations of that majestic conflict.

The architectural progeny which this style of building left in Scotland, is very different from its growth into the bastioned fortifications of other countries. The Scottish laird, or chief, when he made his house a fortress, as he had imminent necessity for doing, could not afford to erect the great flanking towers of the Normans; but he stuck little turrets on the corners of his block-house, which served his purpose admirably; and there are no better flanked fortresses, considered with a view to the form of attack to which they were subjected, than our peel

houses.

On the other hand, in the Continental castles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as Heidelberg, Perronne, and Plessis la Tour, as the old representations give it, we see the flanking system extending itself laterally, until it forms something between the Norman keep and the modern fortress. It was on Plessis that Philip de Comines moral izes, as a large prison into which the great King Louis had virtually immured himself, becoming, by his own exertions for the enlargement of his power, and his protection from secret enemies, nothing better than the hapless immured prisoner, whose lot he forced upon so many others.

The one great leading step which modern fortification took, beyond the mere flanking system, is the discovery of the glacis for covering the stone-work, and protecting it from the attacks of cannon. The whole

system, it appears, is now on trial. The charge against it is, that every addition made to it in the way of protecting works, only renders a fort the more certain of ultimate capture, since these protecting works are themselves easily taken. It is said that they save the main work from a general escalade, which is never likely to be attempted, but facilitate a deliberate siege, which is the proper method of taking fortified places. It is said that in fortification we must, as in other matters of war, recur to the first principle, that the best way to protect ourselves is to kill our enemy. Of old, the main defences of a vessel were to protect the deck by castles stem and stern from a boarding enemy; now, the arrangement is directed to the destruction of the enemy before he can board. Our old knights in armor were a sort of moving fortresses made more for protection than destruction. In Italy, the steel incasement was brought to such perfection, that at the battle of Tornoue, under Charles VIII., we are told by Father Daniel that a number of Italian knights were overthrown, but could not be killed until the country people brought huge stones and sledge-hammers, and broke their shells, like those of so many lobsters. It sounds like an odd accompaniment of civilization that she should make the external form of warfare more destructive and less defensive-but so it is; and a reform in fortifications is proposed, which, by the abandonment of the flauking system, and something like a restoration of the primitive form, is to make the fort more terrible to the invader, as a means of making it a more effective defence.

We profess not to enter on so great a question. Mere theories we have herein offered to our reader; and as they are given in all innocence and good-humor, all we pray is, that he will not, if they differ from his own, condemn us to some dire mysterious fate. Let him, if we displease him, simply content himself with the old established remedy, and mutter to himself, "Pooh! humbug!" And we, on our part, engage that we shall live in all charity with all men who accept not our theory; and will by no means endeavor to prove that they are sensual, lewd, dishonorable people, deserving of some dire punishment.

1

1855.]

From Tait's Magazine.

EDWARD IRVING.*

WITHIN the compass of 278 pages, foolscap octavo, Mr. Wilks has given us an outline of the life, and an epitome of the productions, of this extraordinary man. Dedicated to Thomas Carlyle, and to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, it will be supposed that the author writes from a friendly, though not prejudiced, stand-point. He is a discriminating admirer, not a blind follower of his hero. We find it difficult to understand how he can be a common disciple of Carlyle, Maurice, and Irving. For perhaps it would be difficult to name three teachers, the methods and tendencies of whose minds more vary. But Mr. Wilks is catholic in his reading, and catholic in his sympathies; and he has brought to his present task a pains-taking reverence, and an honest wisdom, which we may without scruple praise. A sectarian, whatever his school, could not understand Irving; and should not do his life. Mr. Wilks does understand; and, though he has left much to be written and said, what he has done, he has done well. The aim of the book does not appear to be very high; and, though the tone of its author is occasionally above the manner and the matter of his work, both in matter and in manner the work is to the author's credit.

We therefore thank Mr. Wilks for reviving a name the world should not forget. He who stirs the Church, whether to new thought, or to new zeal, augments the moral resources, and stimulates the moral energies of the whole community. Not in the establishment of new sects, nor in the mere sustenance of religious agitation, does the value of religious reforms and religious revivals mainly consist. These may, and, in most These may, and, in most cases, naturally will, be the accompaniments or the consequences of such a movement; but they do not comprehend its full virtue, nor its essential glory. When the religious life of a great nation, or of a great sect, be

* Edward Irving: an Ecclesiastical and Literary Biography. By Washington Wilks, author of “Å History of the Half-century," etc. London: William Freeman, 69 Fleet-street.

comes stagnant; when its priests become
unfaithful to the sanctities of their office, and
its people sink into unhealthy lethargy;
when corruptions in its discipline provoke no
remonstrance, and death-like repose in its
worship occasions no solicitude, a lion-heart-
ed, God-fearing, man-loving, apostolic ad-
venturer is a benefactor and a blessing-he
repeats within limits the unlimited work of
Christ-he redeems the people of God.
There is Divine power in his strange, strong,
unfettered, and undismayed humanity. His
holy indignation, awakened by ostentatious
abuses; his fervent prayers, inspired by
dread of prevailing impiety, and by unwonted
devotion to the Most High; his appeals,
which august conventionalisms cannot silence,
and his rebukes, which no sense of earthly
interests can restrain; his prophetic glances,
of which piety, poetry, and love (the three
elemental attributes of one beautiful flame)
are the illumination; his outbursts of deep
lamentation; his grand and sacred scorn of
all affectations, and unseemly, unnatural
courtesies; his defiance of enthroned eccle-
siastical potentates; his faith, warm as his
heart, and solid as his instincts; his eloquence,
which rolls with mysterious majesty, as
though it were the echo of speeches ad-
dressed by God to the nations; his absorp-
tion in the infinite, eternal, and almighty
wonders of that Gospel which is at once the
theme of his ministry, the plea of his assump-
tions, and the law of his heart; the tender-
ness of his many tears, shed over the obsti-
of the wicked, and the cruelty of
unfaithful friends; the yearnings of his
broken soul; in short, the magic fervor of
his whole address-these, as they are so
many embodiments and utterances of a re-
ligiousness uncommon in his day, become the
creative agents of new light and new life to
all who come within the range of their in-
fluence. Words thus spoken are pregnant
with sublime spiritual power. The man thus
constituted wears the commanding dignity
of a king, whilst he exercises the functions
Among the saints he restores
of a prophet.
new sanctity. The minister of remorse, he

nacy

is truly the minister of salvation. To none should the Church or the world be more grateful than to such a man; for from none do richer blessings proceed.

the gratitude of the Church, and the respect of history, are abundantly due!

Edward Irving was born in the little town of Annan--a place of some other interesting It is not too much to say that, in very associations on the 15th of August, 1792. many respects, Edward Irving was preemi- His father was descended from a French nently a man of this order. He was con- family; his mother was supposed to have nected with a branch of the Christian king- come from the family of which Martin Ludom where spiritual flatness and inactivity ther was an illustrious member. His parents had been fostered by events and by leading were in comfortable circumstances; and, men for some generations. He came upon though Edward was one of eight children, an age when a few others, equally with him- his education was not neglected. His first self, felt the necessity of renewed enterprise instructress was Margret Paine-an aunt, and restored faith. To the restoration of and the reputed teacher, of the author of the faith and the renewal of enterprise he hon- famous "Rights of Man," and "The Age of estly with all the ardor of impulse, com- Reason." The youth was given to the more bined with all the solemn sobriety of con- exuberant and healthy amusements of his scientiousness-dedicated his life. In the age-devoted to athletic sports, and long face of innumerable obstacles he persevered, rambles on the shores, or rowings on the even unto death. Independent in the appli- waters of the beautiful Solway Frith,-but cation of his reasoning powers to the great he attended, notwithstanding, with some sucproblems of Revelation, and of religious cess, to the severer occupations of the school, truth, he met the charge of heresy with where he especially distinguished himself as calm self-reliance and holy appeals to God. an arithmetician. The promise thus given Working in spheres that had been long was fulfilled at the University of Edinburgh, neglected, and with an enthusiasm to which to which seminary he was in due course sent. his contemporaries were utter strangers, he He made such proficiency in mathematics, sustained the criticisms of the captious, the that, on the recommendation of Professor exclamations of the astonished, and the jeers Leslie, he was, as early as his seventeenth of the envious, with that equanimity which is year, appointed teacher of mathematics in an an attribute only of true greatness. Flat- academy at Haddington. He had already tered by a popularity that had never been taken the degree of "A. M." In about surpassed, he yielded to none of its seduc- twelve months, he was promoted to the rections. Royal smiles, and the blaze of aris- torship of an academy at Kirkaldy. It was tocratic beauty, never put him off his guard. here that he completed the probation rePrinces heard his faithful warnings; and the quired of him by the Church of Scotland, as splendor and the wealth of the metropolis a candidate for its ministry. He was well trembled beneath the weight of his rebukes. versed in classics, modern languages, and The patronage of the exalted could not be ancient and modern standard literature; and tray, the persecution of the mighty could he had studied natural philosophy and the not overcome; the sneers of the ignorant, the more practical sciences to considerable purfactious, and the profane, could not disturb pose. Thus equipped, he awaited a "call" the resolutions of his piety, or the fidelity of to the office for which he had diligently and his services. He was God's own; and he solemnly prepared himself. Long he had to was true. To this, rather than to any pecu- wait. By his occasional sermons he had liarities of opinion, must be attributed his rendered himself rather notorious than popusuccess. For he was successful. Commu- lar, and, wherever he went, excited rather the nities with which he was never associated, felt curiosity of the few than the admiration of the force and the value of his zeal. The the many. Without conforming to the estabcommunity from which he was cast out had lished conventionalities of the pulpit, either been enriched by his labors, and was re- in the courses of his thinking or the style of proached by his excommunication. And his address, there was a wayward earnestanother community, respectable for the char- ness, and a deep-seated originality, which aracter and the numbers of its adherents, and rested attention, but failed to establish power. noteworthy for the comprehensiveness of its Growing weary of delay, and anxious to be basis and the magnificence of its worship, is diligently and regularly employed for God, for ever identified with his life, though not | he had made up his mind, at the age of known by his name. Surely, to such a man | twenty-seven, to devote himself to missionary

adventures. His intention was not to commit himself to the control and the protection of any existing religious corporation; but, with apostolic simplicity and apostolic faith, to go forth under the guidance of Providence alone, "without purse or scrip"-thus leaving the sinister interests of life to the care of Him to whose glory his spiritual energies were to be so unreservedly and chivalrously consecrated. He was destined, however, to a less hazardous, though, perhaps, a not less troubled and laborious career. On Saturday afternoon he received a message inviting him to preach on the following day for Dr. Andrew Thompson, of Edinburgh; an intimation being given that Dr. Chalmers, who was at that time seeking an assistant minister, would be one of the congregation. A few days having passed without bringing him any communication, his old resolution came back to his heart with augmented force, and he actually packed up his books, despatched them to Annan, and proceeded on a farewell journey round the coast of Ayrshire. By a strange whim, he extended his ramble to Ireland: and when he arrived at Coleraine, he found a letter from his father awaiting him, in which was inclosed a communication from Dr. Chalmers, soliciting his immediate presence in Glasgow. The Doctor informed him that he wished him to become his assistant. Irving would only consent on the condition that the people should first hear him preach. He preached before them, and was forthwith installed in the office of assistant minister of St. John's, Glasgow. This engagement lasted only three years-time long enough for the earnest young man to discover that honesty, originality, and naturalness in the pulpit were not the best securities of public and official approbation. Again without satisfactory occupation, the mind of this brave servant of God resorts once more to its favorite dream of missionary enterprise-a dream which is again interrupted by an incident from which may be dated the origin of Mr. Irving's peculiar position and influence in the Christian Church. The Caledonian Church (of Scotland) in Cross-street, Hatton-garden, London, was at this period in a very dejected and low condition. An appeal was conveyed to Mr. Irving, through Dr. Chalmers (who through life remained his friend), that he would take the ruins under his care. He consented, and immediately removed to the metropolis, after having submitted to the rite of ordination in his native parish. He had not occupied his new pulpit many months

when he acquired a quite unprecedented popularity. Members of the Royal family, leading statesmen of all parties, noblemen of every grade, the representatives of the public press, might be regularly seen among the crowds who thronged to hear the wonderful preacher. At length, seat-holders were obliged to be admitted by a side door, and those who came from curiosity could only gain admission by ticket. The earnestness, originality, and true Christian boldness of the man, commanded, as they were entitled to, this eminence. Nor were the critics silent. From the Times newspaper to the smallest penny journal-from the Quarterly Reviews to the petty organs of denominational progress-the journals of the day recorded his fame and canvassed his powers. This unrivalled notoriety neither betrayed his meekness, nor modified the practical fidelity which was, from the beginning, one of the most obvious characteristics of his ministry. He was not abashed by the presence of kings; nor did the powers and potentates of iniquity effect any restraint of his sacred denunciations. At the same time, he continued his independent pursuit of truth; and, when invited to preach a sermon on behalf of the London Missionary Society, he was not afraid to avow the belief on which he had himself been once ready to act, that those who went far and wide with the Gospel, should trust, as did the first missionaries, to the hospitality of those on whom they might call, for their support. The publication of this discourse brought upon him some bitter animad versions from those more immediately connected with the administration of the Society at whose request it had been delivered. This was the small beginning of strife. Before long, the preacher got involved in the meshes of prophetical interpretation. Like some good people in all ages, he wished to know the times and the seasons of coming events. In this fruitless work he soon got quite absorbed. He now, also, began to teach, respecting the sacraments, that they were more than appropriate ceremonies, they were sacred symbols: they were not mere barren signs, but operative and vital mysteries. For instance, he went so far as to say, "No man can take upon him to separate the effectual working of the Holy Spirit from baptism, without making void all the ordinances of the visible Church," &c. Notwithstanding his largeness of soul, and his generally very liberal notions on questions of civil and religious liberty, and notwithstanding these approaches

to the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Irving was a most determined and violent opponent of Catholic emancipation. In the course of this contest, an amusing incident occurred, which we cannot forbear narrating:

the consternation of some, and the astonishment of all, Prophecies were spoken; rebukes were administered; exhortations were applied by this agency. Thus the victim of honest heresy, was also suspected of wild fanaticism; and on both grounds was treated with a harshness of discipline and a super"When the Catholic Relief Bill had entered its ciliousness of contempt that are sadly inconfinal stage, Mr. Irving determined to address a remonstrance to the king against giving it the sistent with the spirit of true Christianity, royal assent. The document is said to be a mas- and yet more sadly consistent with the comterpiece of objurgatory composition. Accompa- mon practices of ecclesiastical bodies. Irving nied by two of the heads of his congregation, its eloquently, and with true dignity of spirit, author presented himself, according to appoint- defended himself, but without avail; and he ment, at the Home-office. They were ushered was first of all thrust out of the pulpit he into an ante-chamber, in which were a number of had so long honored, on a pretence of having such miscellaneous personages as are haunting violated the proper discipline of the Church the outer rooms of Downing-street. Having waited about ten minutes, Mr. Irving proposed to by the encouragement with which he regardhis elders that they should pray for grace in the ed the speaking in unknown tongues, and was eyes of the ruler, and for a blessing to accompany afterwards cut off from the ecclesiastical their petition. One can easily conceive the body with which he had been associated amazement of a company of place-hunters and throughout his life, on a charge of heresy. officials on beholding the gaunt and almost gro-The outcast divine now proceeded to the tesque figure of Edward Irving upon his knees, pouring out a fervid prayer for the king and country. When the deputation had risen, and were admitted to the presence of the gentleman commissioned by Mr. Secretary Peel to receive them, he would have taken the petition at once. But Mr. Irving, putting himself into one of those imposing attitudes which his limbs assumed as readily as his tongue moved itself to speak, begged the honorable gentleman to hear first a word of admonition. He then commenced reading and commenting on the petition, and addressed himself to the Secretary's heart and conscience with words and gestures that made him pale and tremble. At length, he released his unwilling auditor, on his giving an assurance that the memorial should

certainly reach the throne."-Pp. 197, 198.

Soon after this, Mr. Irving published an opinion contrary to the orthodox doctrine that Jesus Christ was free from the taints of hereditary sin; maintaining that he was absolutely and truly human, and that he was only saved from actual iniquities by the triumphant supremacy of the Divinity, which dwelt within him. This finally resulted, after long and bitter conflicts, in the expulsion of this noble man from the church he had raised to such prosperity, and in his excommunication from the loved and well-served Church of his native land. Consentaneously with these proceedings the manifestation of supernatural gifts began to appear. Having heard that at Port Glasgow the strange phenomenon of "speaking with unknown tongues" had been realized, Mr. Irving despatched one of the elders of his church to make observation thereof. The report was favorable. Soon the same "gift" was received by members of his own church, to the amusement of many,

fuller development of his opinions. The "Apostolate" was set up, and other modifications (elaborated and completed in the "Catholic and Apostolic Church") were introduced.

But the strange author of these changes was approaching his own final change. He was sent on a mission to a new church in Edinburgh, early in the spring of 1834. He accomplished this undertaking. The following summer he spent in London, suffering, secluded, and gradually going towards his grave. Again he was sent on a died on the way thither on Monday, Decemvisit of ecclesiastical purport to Scotland, and

ber the 8th.

Such is a brief outline of the life of Edward Irving; and if it indicate nothing more, it at least proves that he must have been a man of power. Success in life is only the reward of some prominent virtue or virtues, or of some distinguishing endowment or endowments. A man gets no permanent fame unless he be more or less unusually good or great. Now, without doubt, Edward Irving did what scarcely any other preacher of modern times has done-he attracted the wise and the honorable of all classes: the poor loved him as a friend, and trusted him as an advocate; the learned respected him for his erudition; the polite admired him for his refinement; the exalted in rank, power, and station were so fascinated by the charms of his eloquence, that they continuously sustained the severity and integrity of his counsels and appeals; critics left the usual spheres of their activity to test his excellence; the idle followed him to satiate their curios

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