12. See sub. nom. in the Dictionary of National Biography.
13. From 1829 to 1833 they published a periodical, The Morning Watch, a Journal of Prophecy.
14. J. A. Froude, Life of Carlyle, 1795-1835, vol. II, p. 177.
15. See Mrs. Oliphant's Life, p. 302.
16. Ibid., pp. 312, 362.
17. The writer of the sketch of Scott in the Dictionary of Na- tional Biography thinks Mrs. Oliphant does him injustice. There seems to be no good reason for so thinking. Cf. what David Brown says of him, The Expositor, III, VI, pp. 219, 266.
18. Fraser's Magazine, January, 1832, quoted by Mrs. Oliphant,
>• 363-
>• 365.
>• 378.
>• 379-
>. 363.
>• 379-
). 381. It is perhaps worth mentioning that neither of these young women was bedridden. The miracle did not con- sist in their literally rising up from their beds.
26. Samuel J. Andrews, The New Schaf-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. II, 457, thinks it worth while, in the interest of the genuineness of the "gifts," to insist on their first occurrence in England apart from Irving's congregation. The deputation to Scotland, he writes, "returned fully convinced that the utterances were divine. In May, 1831, like utterances were heard in London, the first in a congregation of the Church of Eng- land. This being reported to the bishop, he forbade them in the future as interfering with the service. Their occurrence in several dissenting congregations brought forth similar prohibitions, and this led to the utterances being made chiefly in the church of Ed- ward Irving, he being a believer in their divine origin. But they were not confined to London. At Bristol and other places the same spiritual phenomena appeared." The entire drift of Andrews's account is to represent the "gifts" as thrust upon, rather than
363
19.
Ibid.
P-
20.
Ibid.
P-
21.
Ibid.
P-
22.
Ibid.
P-
23-
Ibid.
P-
24.
Ibid.
P-
25-
Ibid.
P-
290 NOTES TO LECTURE IV
earnestly wooed, by Irving and his fellows. This is wholly unhis- torical. On Miss Fancourt's case, see Mrs. Oliphant, Life, etc., pp. 416, 561 ; it was the subject of a controversy between The Morn- ing Watch and The Christian Observer, some account of which may be read in The Edinburgh Review, June, 1831 (vol. LIII, pp. 263 ff.). The opinion of the medical attendants was that there was nothing miraculous in the cure. One of their opinions (Mr. Travers's) is so modern, and a parallel case which is inserted in it is so instructive, that we transcribe the latter part of it. "A volume, and not an uninteresting one," we read, "might be compiled of histories re- sembling Miss Fancourt's. The truth is, these are the cases upon which, beyond all others, the empiric thrives. Credulity, the foible of a weakened though vivacious intellect, is the pioneer of an unqualified and overweening confidence, and thus prepared, the pa- tient is in the most hopeful state of mind for the credit as well as the craft of the pretender. This, however, I mention only by the way, for the sake of illustration. I need not exemplify the sudden and remarkable effects of joy, terror, anger, and other passions of the mind upon the nervous systems of confirmed invalids, in re- storing to them the use of weakened limbs, etc. They are as much matters of notoriety as any of the properties and powers of direct remedial agents recorded in the history of medicine. To cite one. A case lately fell under my notice of a young lady, who, from in- ability to stand or walk without acute pain in her loins, lay for near a twelvemonth upon her couch, subjected to a variety of treat- ment by approved and not inexperienced members of the profes- sion. A single visit from a surgeon of great fame in the manage- ment of such cases set the patient upon her feet, and his prescrip- tion amounted simply to an assurance, in the most confident terms, that she must disregard the pain, and that nothing else was required for her recovery, adding, that if she did not do so she would become an incurable cripple. She followed his directions immediately, and with perfect success. But such and similar examples every medical man of experience could contribute in partial confirmation of the old adage, 'Foi est tout.' Of all moral energies, I conceive that faith which is inspired by a religious creed to be the most powerful; and Miss Fancourt's case, there can be no doubt, was one of the many instances of sudden recovery from a passive form of nervous ailment, brought about by the powerful excitement of this extraor- dinary stimulus, compared to which, in her predisposed state of mind, ammonia and quinine would have been mere trifling." A curiously similar instance to that given by Mr. Travers is adduced by a distinguished recent surgeon, Mr. George Buchanan, in illus-
IRVINGITE GIFTS 291