50. Henderson, as cited, p. 126. "Story concluded by confess- ing," continues Henderson, "that he had greatly sinned in not ex- posing her earlier, but he had been restrained from doing this by feelings of affection. What change this letter might have wrought on Irving had he received it we cannot tell. Probably not even Story's voice could have now recalled him." Mary Campbell had in 183 1 married a young clerk in a writer's office in Edinburgh, of the name of W. R. Caird, and was residing at Albury (not without interruptions for journeys) as the guest of Henry Drummond; she died in 1840 (see Edward Miller, The History and Doctrines of Irvingism, 1878, vol. I, pp. 58 ff.). Caird, who was acting as a lay-evangelist, undertook in 1841 an Irvingist mission in south Germany, and in i860 was raised to the "apostolic" office. On the 27th of January, 1832, Irving wrote to Story announcing the new developments which had been introduced by Baxter, and con- cluding with the remarkable appeal: "Oh, Story, thou hast griev- ously sinned in standing afar off from the work of the Lord, scan- ning it like a skeptic instead of proving it like a spiritual man ! Ah! brother, repent, and the Lord will forgive thee!" To this letter, as a postscript, he adds this single unprepared-for line: "Mrs. Caird is a saint of God, and hath the gift of prophecy." We cannot miss the air of defiant assertion, or fail to read behind it a feeling of the need of something in Mrs. Caird's defense. Mrs. Oliphant (p. 450) justly comments: "The sentence of approval pronounced with so much decision and brevity at the conclusion of this letter addressed to him was Irving's manner of avoiding controversy, and making his friend aware that, highly as he esteemed himself,
IRVINGITE GIFTS 295
he could hear nothing against the other, whose character had re- ceived the highest of all guarantees to his unquestioning faith." The cause of Irvingite gifts was indeed bound up in one bundle with the trustworthiness of Mary Campbell's manifestations. Thomas Bayne, writing on Robert Story, in the Dictionary of Na- tional Biography (vol. LIV, p. 430), condenses the story thus: "In 1830 his parishioner, Mary Campbell, professed to have received the 'gift of tongues,' and though Story exposed her imposture, she found disciples in London, and was credited by Edward Irving, then in the maelstrom of his impassioned fanaticism. On the basis of her predictions arose the 'Holy Catholic Apostolic Church' (see Carlyle, Life, II, 204)."
51. Hanna, as cited, p. 209.
52. P. 213.
53. The nearest he came to it seems to be expressed in the sen- tence (p. 208) : "I have a witness within me which, I am conscious, tries truth; but I do not know a witness within me which tries power." With this inner infallible sense compare Mrs. Eddy's assertion (Christian Science History, ed. 1, p. 16): "I possess a spiri- tual sense of what the malicious mental practitioner is mentally arguing which cannot be deceived; I can discern in the human mind thoughts, motives, and purposes; and neither mental arguments nor psychic power can affect this spiritual insight." An infallible spiritual insight is a dangerous thing to lay claim to, and what we take to be its deliverance a still more dangerous thing to follow.
54. Pp. 507 ff.
55. Erskine in his tract, On the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1830, writes: "For the languages are distinct, well-inflected, well-com- pacted languages; they are not random collections of sounds, they are composed of words of various lengths, with the natural variety, and yet possessing that commonness of character which marks them to be one distinct language. I have heard many people speak gibberish, but this is not gibberish, it is decidedly well- compacted language." — (Quoted in Hanna, Chalmers, vol. Ill, p. 253; Erskine, p. 392.)
56. As quoted in The Edinburgh Review, June, 1831, p. 275: "The tongues spoken by all the several persons who have received the gift are perfectly distinct in themselves, and from each other. J. Macdonald speaks two tongues, both easily discernible from each other. I easily perceived when he was speaking in the one, and when in the other tongue. J. Macdonald exercises his gift more frequently than any of the others; and I have heard him speak for twenty minutes together, with all the energy of action and voice
296 NOTES TO LECTURE IV