Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/65

Rh their own Judea; while their commission was simply to announce their Master's coming, and prepare the people for his arrival. This, however, was not enough for Mr. Irving. His missionary must go forth in faith, without a farthing for his journey, or even a purse to hold it. It was only by thus making himself nothing that the sacred cause could become all in all; and in proportion to his trials and necessities would be the greatness and number of the miracles by which he would be assuredly relieved. Who does not see in all this the germ of that strange system of religious error of which Mr. Irving was afterwards the hierophant. Becoming every day more impatient of the world of reality, he was hungering and thirsting for miracles; and these, any man whatever, in such a mood, is sure either to make or find. But another fact, almost equally significant, in this published sermon, or, as he called it, "Oration," was its dedication to S. T. Coleridge, a man certainly of rich original mind and splendid endowments, and yet not the fittest guide for so enthusiastic a theologian as Mr. Irving. But the latter thought otherwise ; and, discarding all his former preceptors, he now sat at the feet of this eloquent mystic, in the new character of a silent, humble listener.

The signals of a downward course had thus been given, and the thoughtful friends of Mr. Irving looked on with sad anxiety. His popularity also was wearing out, and he might be tempted into some strange measure to revive it. A change was evidently at hand, but what was to be its commencement? As yet he was unprepared for a departure from his old standards, or the promulgation of a new doctrine. But the field of prophecy lay temptingly in his way that field which has been common to expositors for eighteen centuries, and in which every one has been held free to entertain his own opinion. Here, then, lay the allurement, and for this also he had, for some time, been unconsciously under a course of training. In 1824 he had met, in company, Mr. Hatley Frere, a gentleman whose mind was much employed in the exposition of the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse, and by whom he was asked to take a walk into the fields on the breaking up of the party. As they strolled along, Mr. Frere took the opportunity of expounding his views on the fulfilment of prophecy, and found in Irving a willing auditor. After a year they again met, when the subject was resumed, and Irving listened with the same docility which he was wont to bestow upon Coleridge. He had now found a new guide to direct, as well as a new theme to interest him. Thus stood matters when he was invited to preach the anniversary sermon of the Continental Society in 1825. And will it be believed that, on this occasion, he plunged right downwards into a new interpretation of prophecy? A few conversations with Frere, who, as he thought, had furnished him with the right key, and his own miscellaneous readings upon the subject, were enough to qualify him as a guide upon a path where so many thousands had erred ! The "oration," as may well be supposed, was perplexing in the extreme; and while some of his audience thought that he was advocating Catholic Emancipation, others thought that he was battling against it. Some of the leading members of the committee had not even patience to wait the issue of the question, but left the church before the sermon was finished. To set himself right with the public, as well as announce his new interpretation, Mr. Irving published the substance of this sermon, which swelled, as he wrote, into a work of voluminous bulk, under the title of "Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed of God." He was the first expositor who ventured to connect particular predictions with the events of the French