The only remaining step was to convey the gifts to liv- ing's church. Of course, he was at once informed of the extraordinary events which had taken place in Scotland. He seems to have caught the contagion of excitement at once. John Bate Cardale, a lawyer of living's circle, who afterward became the first Irvingite "Apostle," went to Scotland at the head of a delegation to investigate and report. Meanwhile the church at London was kept in an attitude of strained expectancy. But the "gifts" did not come at once. An isolated case of healing occurred in October, 1830 — a Miss Fancourt — but this instance seems to have stood somewhat apart from direct relation whether to the Scotch manifestations or to the coming events in Irving's church.26 Irving's baby son took sick and died, and though they sought it anxiously with tears there was no interposition to save him. During the next spring daily prayer-meetings were held in the early mornings to ask directly for the "gifts of the Spirit," news of the unbroken exercise of which was now coming continually from Scot- land. "Irving," says Mrs. Oliphant, "had no eyes to see the overpowering force of suggestion with which such prayers" "might have operated upon sensitive and ex- citable hearts." 27 At last we hear incidentally in July, 1 83 1, that two of the flock in London had received the gifts of tongues and prophecy.28 They had been in ex- ercise, however, for some months before that, first in the form of speaking with tongues at private devotions, then in the presence of others, and at length both in speaking with tongues and in prophesying at small prayer-meetings.29 The formal date of the beginning of the "power" is usually given as April 30, 1831, when Mrs. Cardale spoke solemnly with the tongues and prophesied. David Brown,
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however, seems to imply30 that the first to exercise the power in the presence of others was Emily Cardale at a date apparently very near this. He is speaking of the early-morning prayer-meetings in the church, which, he says, began to be held two weeks before the General Assembly of 183 1.31 It was the custom of a party from the prayer-meeting to go home with the livings to break- fast. "At one of these breakfasts," he writes, "a sweet, modest, young lady, Miss Emily Cardale, began to breathe heavily, and increasingly so, until at length she burst out into loud but abrupt short sentences of English which after a few minutes ceased. The voice was certainly be- yond her native strength, and the subject matter of it was the expected power of the Spirit, not to be resisted by any one who would hear. Mr. Irving asked us to unite in thanksgiving for this answer to our prayers." "Other such instances," adds Brown, "followed, but as yet all in private, first by the same voice, but afterwards by a Miss Hall, and then by a man who rather repelled me (a teacher by the name of Taplin) who professed to speak in an un- known tongue." It was through this Miss Hall that the voices were introduced into the public services of the church, on Communion Sunday, October 16, 1831. We have several accounts of the scene by eye-witnesses.32 What they chiefly dwell upon is the startling effect of the outcry, and the rush of the young woman, either unable to restrain herself, or alarmed at what she had done, into the vestry, whence proceeded a succession of doleful and unintelligible cries, while the audience of fifteen hundred or two thousand people, standing up and straining to hear and see what was toward, fell into utter confusion.
It is not necessary to give an account here of the natural excitement which was raised in London; of the increasing confusion which the exercise of the "gifts" brought into the public service of the church; of the suit instituted by the trustees against Irving for breach of trust deeds, and
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