Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2002

At this time, the controversy over Irving's opinions about Christ's incarnation was coming to a head in the ecclesiastical courts where also several other manifestations of the evangelical movement were being addressed. Irving began to meet daily with his staunchest supporters in an early morning prayer meeting, which was a means of consolidating his power within the church but which also had the effect of emphasizing the schism. The crowds drawn [page 38] to these meetings and all of his services were very large, indeed frequently overflowing the church, but numerous, too, were his opponents. Mrs. Oliphant emphasizes that at this time Irving's preaching had gone out of fashion with his noble and influential congregants, but in their place came a popular audience who were swept away by the intensity of Irving's preaching and the overwhelming sense of holiness in the atmosphere.(12) It was on the basis of these swelling numbers that Irving founded his hope that Christianity was on the verge of becoming, once again, a living force in society and not a mere form. And yet, the growing reaction to what was coming to be called Irvingism could hardly be ignored, and by the late 1820s even his old friend Carlyle had come to regard Irving as dangerously outside the spectrum of enlightened opinion and aware of his failure:

The fact that Irving was losing the confidence of more noble and distinguished figures in London society might be seen as an anti-democratic reaction, or it might be seen as a reaction against the authority and prestige which Irving wielded as a leader, his exertion of power over an unthinking mob. Carlyle recalled that Irving "objected clearly to my Reform Bill notions, found Democracy a thing forbidden, leading down to outer darkness; I, a thing inevitable, and obliged to lead whithersoever it could".(14) And yet, in this instance, Irving faced the question of literally how to place the power of the Holy Ghost, channeled through these humble parishioners within the power structure of the church.

[page 39] In his morning meetings Irving called upon God to elevate "the present low state of the Church" and specifically to bring

Having witnessed the extraordinary signs and wonders, and having found them to be, in his judgment, evidences of the power of the Holy Ghost working through these parishioners, Irving pondered this displacement of ministerial power. Canon law makes it clear that the role of the laity was strictly limited in the service. Irving himself did not at this time, or ever, to his dismay, speak in tongues or experience supernatural power except perhaps in the performance [page 40] of his ministerial duties. He could preach for two straight hours or more, with impressive power, but after all there was no miracle in that, merely a remarkable effort. But here, before him, were living exemplars of the prophetic and apostolic tradition.

On Sunday, October 16, 1831, one of the inspired, Miss Hall, was unable to restrain herself and burst forth with her utterances during the service. Soon another did the same. Irving then demanded that the empowered speakers leave, and spontaneously changed his sermon to an exposition of the fourteenth chapter of Corinthians, which describes the Pentecostal events. During the service, though, Miss Hall walked into the vestry and, after erupting first in an unknown tongue, shouted, "How dare ye suppress the voice of the Lord?"(16) Irving keenly felt the contradiction between his call for increased holiness among the people and his restraint of these inspired expostulations. A newspaper account of a service in which a man "commenced a violent harangue in the unknown tongue" reports that the whole congregation of more than 2000 rose to its feet in fear, ladies screamed.(17) The disorderly scene continued for some minutes: "Many were so alarmed, and others so disgusted, that they did not return again into the church, and discussed the propriety of the reverend gentleman suffering the exhibition, and altogether a sensation was produced which will not be soon forgotten by those who were present".(18) Thus, the ones who valued the orderliness and hierarchy of the church resented Irving for not restraining the unruly elements, and the prophets resented him for the fact that he did not empower them more. Mrs. Oliphant interprets this moment as a tragic turning point for Irving:

So he declared that everyone who had received the gift of the Holy Ghost should have liberty to speak in the church, and at this announcement certain of the prophets spoke words which expressed the sanction of God for this decision.

The Times soon fomented the controversy, charging Irving with a violation of the church laws and encouraging the disaffected congregants:

More than merely vouching for their inspiration, Irving fervently believed the prophets to be operating in the power of the Holy Ghost, speaking the word of God as true apostles, while he, a mere minister who could not attest to that power himself, merely gave them the opportunity. Virtually all the elders of the church walked out on these demonstrations. When one of them asked to be allowed to read from the Scriptures a passage giving his reason for leaving the church, never to return, Irving refused permission. The conflict mounted to a civil war, with the Presbyterian orthodoxy, proper churchmen, generally standing in opposition while, taking their place in the still constantly overflowing services, a group of ever more enthusiastic [page 42] believers exulted in the overthrow of the old institution. Carlyle characterized the latter as "the rearward of mankind" and "the crazed and weakliest of [Irving's] wholly rather dim and weakly flock".(21) Repeatedly, Irving's critics denounced the inspired ones because of their low class, limited education, and weakness. Another highly critical contemporary observer, William Jones, emphasized that Irving had been "prostrating his masculine understanding before the gabble of two silly women".(22) The image lurking behind all of this is of an insurrection against a patriarchally defined power structure, and Irving, who came to prominence as an expression of the latter, was seen as one who now turned traitor and enabled the rebels. An obituary of Irving, published in 1835, traced the downward course of his leadership:

The spectacle of the upstarts overthrowing the stale forms of yesterday's church was indeed a remarkable one, especially for those who did not have much experience of the contemporary theatre and the Romantic actor. Irving himself had often been described in terms that evoked the heroic actor, seen in his voice, his demeanor, his purity. William Hazlitt had in 1825 accounted Irving an exemplar of The Spirit of the Age, a patchwork of sacred and profane, radical and quaint ideas dressed up in extravagant fashion, a theatrical figure comparable to [page 43] Kean.(24) As the Romantic actor was seen often to perform in ways offensive to people of ordinary sensibility, and to bring forward dark material into the enlightened world, so Irving was widely regarded as one who had exceeded the bounds of good taste and rationality and who had touched a deep chord of spirituality, but one that might be confused with cant or dissimulation. William Jones could not but acknowledge the remarkable "command of human sympathy" wielded by Irving, by which he "rivetted the affections of his audience".(25) However, Jones also observed: "to act the indecorous part and give it stage effect, it would be difficult to find a person better qualified".(26)

However theatrical Irving might have seemed, the inspired ones presented a still more astonishing aspect and stood in contrast to Irving, as different as Kean and Kemble. The sound of the speaking in tongues during this period (and at many other times, too) has been repeatedly described as otherworldly, indeed sublime, and also a little mad. The terms that are used to describe the divinely inspired utterances consistently parallel those used to comprehend the work of the stage actor, as in the following account: "It is the result of the working of the indwelling Spirit, impelling the subject of it, not without his consciousness, but without any intention or plan of his own, to utter words which may be for the edifying of the Church. It seems to proceed from the Spirit working deeper than a person's own consciousness, and [page 44] bringing forth that which is in him, using him at the same time according to his own nature, so that peculiarities of expression, of idiom, and of pronunciation are preserved".(27) Thus, the inspired words of the Playwright or Character (in this case, God) are spoken by the actor, or through the actor, but in such a way that the materiality of the performer, or even the style, would be preserved. Mrs. Oliphant recalls: "To some, the ecstatic exclamations, with their rolling syllables and mighty voice, were imposing and awful; to others it was merely gibberish shouted from stentorian lungs; to others an uneasy wonder, which it was a relief to find passing into English, even though the height and strain of sound was undiminished".(28) As an example of "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth's definition of good poetry), these inspired performances typified a certain sort of Romantic expression. Irving was himself deeply impressed by the power and artfulness of these performances:

Of course, whereas the Romantic's transcendence often comes from a sense of connection to an organic wholeness, the apostle's transcendence derives from a mystical connection. Indeed, the process was a direct forerunner of spiritualistic mediumship, though in this case the channeled voice was God's, as the following account attests:

Once Irving had accepted these utterances into his services, he became again the minister, interpreting the words as an elaboration of Scripture and offering his guidance in the interpretation, but the apostolic effects were quite apart from the powers he proclaimed. He provided the authority and tranquility to translate their inspiration into poetry. His decision to give priority to this spoken "Scripture" and in the process defer his own preordained authority to speak on behalf of the written Scripture might be deconstructed as an attempt to re-found representation upon presence at a moment when Being itself seemed at an end with the imminent arrival of the end-time.

An astonishing and, for the present purposes, crucial account of this situation comes from Robert Baxter's Narrative of Facts, Characterizing the Supernatural Manifestations in Members of Mr. Irving's Congregation, and Other Individuals in England, Scotland, and Formerly in the Writer [page 46] Himself, published in 1833. Baxter was a senior partner in a prominent law firm, a well-educated man with an inquiring mind, who paid close attention to questions of Presbyterian church doctrine. He recalls his feelings of awe and reverence as he listened to two of the inspired speakers at one of the prayer-meetings and his perfect amazement when he felt himself seized by the power. Suddenly he heard issuing from his own mouth a voice rebuking him for not prophesying that the second coming of Christ was near and that the messengers of the Lord should go immediately to the ends of the earth, testifying to the power of God. Baxter owns that he had earlier felt guilt for not declaring these ideas, which had lurked within his thoughts but had been repressed. At once, the inspired ones declared the truth and holiness of what he had said. Baxter soon became a leading figure among the apostles, speaking mostly prophetically, once for over two hours, declaring such things as the coming of baptism by fire and the imminence of the moment – in 1260 days – when the saints would be taken up to Heaven, as prophesied in Revelations 11. His report of the experience of speaking prophetically was without will or pretext, an embodiment of presence: "The things I was made to utter, flashed in upon my mind without forethought, without expectation, and without any plan or arrangement: all was the work of the moment, and I was the passive instrument of the power which used me".(31)