tion, and no attempt at it. Had there been now and then something like a word, it was mixed up in such a jargon of sound, it was uttered with such rapidity, and in such a long continued and prolonged yell that, led up to it as I had been by the adjuncts of the scene, by the weirdness and obscurity of the building, I was never deceived by it for one moment. After a few minutes' utterance of these 'unknown tongues,' the excited woman began to speak in articulate English words. It was still in the same loud yell, slightly subdued by the necessity of speech. The ut- terances were chiefly texts of Scripture of an exhortative kind — the first word being uttered three times over, each one louder than the last, the last calling forth the woman's powers to the utmost, her breast heaving and straining with the exertion. On this occasion the English began oddly enough, with the word, 'Kiss! Kiss!! Kiss!!! the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.' This morning there was only one manifestation. Generally there were two; on several occasions I heard three, and once four. They proceeded, however, from the same women, for while the second was speaking the first recov- ered her strength, and as her companion's voice died away in subdued murmurs, she burst out anew, as if a dozen spirits were contending in her. When I look back on that first morning, I feel moved with the deepest pity and re- gret for poor Edward Irving. He was greatly excited and overcome. In his honest heart, he believed that God had honored him and favored him above all the ministers in London. I can see him now before me, as I saw him then, meekly and humbly saying, 'I will now finish reading the chapter in which I was interrupted by the Holy Spirit, speaking by this young woman.' Yes I heard him say this with my own ears. Already the charm of the service was gone. He seemed glad to conclude it, as if he were afraid his own gentle words could detract from and injure the holy impression that had been produced. . . ."
SHIPWRECK 153
Edward Irving himself "never received the power, nor attained to any supernatural utterance, though no one more earnestly sought after it." 63 As Erskine in Scotland, so Irving in London, had to be content with the role of ob- server of others' endowments. Nor was the actual num- ber of those who enjoyed the gifts at any time very large. "Of the many hundred individuals who for the first twelve months attended in London upon these utterances, and who were, one and all, praying for the same gifts, not so many as twelve attained to the utterances." "The lead- ing persons who, for many months gave forth the utter- ances, and wrought the strong conviction of the work being of God were two ladies" 64 — and one of them (Miss Hall) was not only declared by her sister prophetess (Miss Car- dale) to be a false prophetess,65 but was constrained to confess that on some occasions at least she was herself the author of her utterances.66
Of course we are in the presence here of hysteria.67 There are those who take occasion from this fact to exon- erate Irving, in whole or at least in large part, for his va- garious course. "Oh," cries an appreciative biographer, "that the whole sad tribe of prophetic pedants and hys- terical pietists had gone their own way, leaving him to go his!"68 Did they not go their own way? And was it their fault that Irving never had a way of his own ? Why burden "the Albury sages" or the crowd of hysterical women which surrounded him, and to whom he gave all too willing an ear, with "the shipwreck of Irving's genius and usefulness"? Is not their own shipwreck burden enough for them to bear? Were it not juster to say simply that this was the particular kind of fire Irving chose to play with, and that, therefore, this is the particular way in which he burned his fingers? It is altogether probable, being the man he was, that if it had not been in these, he would have burned them in some other flames.69
FAITH-HEALING
FAITH-HEALING