for their discourses to be rendered useful, even where they have sterling merit in the matter and delivery, they must be practically illustrated in the lives and tempers of the preachers. But this subject is tender, and is touched with kindness; that it need be touched at all, is a matter of regret, and it is not here alluded to, to furnish food for slandour, but a word in season. Ministers, as

well as people, need to be reminded, that they should walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called. Thus will they adorn the doctrine of God, their Saviour, in all things, and it will be said of their preaching, 'The word was with power.'

IOTA.

CRITICAL REMARKS ON SCRIPTURE.

No. IX.

ORIGINAL AND SELECT.

From the Interleaved Bible of a Deceased Clergyman.

GENESIS, CHAP. XXXVI.

31. Before there reigned any king. These words must be said after there had been a king in Israel, and therefore could not have been the words of Moses, but must have been interpolated afterwards. Prid. Connect. part 1, b.5, p. 343. But some think there is no need to suppose this; for that Moses knew by the spirit of prophecy, that kingly government was to be established among the children of Israel; nay, God had promised it to Jacob at Bethel. Gen. 35, 11, 12. Or else this passage may only mean, that the persons there mentioned did reign kings of Edom before Moses, who was set over them as their head and king under God. Deut. 33, 5. LORIMER'S Exam. of P. Simon's Crit. Hist.

CHAP. XXXVII.

25. And Balm. The balm here mentioned, and that in Jer. 8, 22, is in the original, zori, which the Rabbins interpret to mean any gum of the rosinous sort, and seems to be only a better sort of turpentine then in use, for the cure of wounds and other diseases, but by no means that balsam which is now imported into these parts from Egypt and Arabia, in the latter of which it naturally grows, near Mecca, from whence physicians in their prescriptions call it Balsamum e Meccâ. This balsam seems not to have been in Canaan till the queen of Sheba, an Arabian, brought that root of it to king Solomon which Josephus mentions. Prid. Connect. part 2, b. 6, p. 436. SIR T. BROWN'S Misc. p. 49.

CHAP. XLIII.

34. And sent messes unto them. The Egyp tians, who were all sober, and whose air inspired frugality, ate and drank, and did almost every thing under the regulation of the laws, and their very kings permitted the quality and proportion of their eatables and liquids to be prescribed them. ROLLIN'S Hist. of the Egyptians, &c. v. 1, p. 29.

THE REV. E. IRVING.

THIS popular preacher is the theme of all the periodical works of last month, and furnishes abundance of matter to help the distressed editors; moreover the topic is something new and original, which is highly desirable when it can be obtained. The NEW EUROPEAN MAGAZINE informs us, 'The Rev. Edward Irving is, we understand, the second son of highly respectable parents, at Annan,

in Dumfrieshire; where he was born in the year 1792; and where they are yet living to rejoice in the fulness of their son's renown. Mr. Irving's elder brother, a surgeon, recently died in India; a younger brother is now studying in the London hospitals, and he has also four sisters. At the University of Edinburgh, famed throughout all Christendom for the scholars which have issued from its tutelage, Mr. Irving was educated for the ministry, and at the early age of seventeen, was selected by the Professor to teach a Mathematical school at Haddington, where he remained three years, and was subsequently removed to give instruction in the higher classes of learning, at Kirkaldy. Of the date of Mr. Irving's license to preach we are not accurately informed; but he was, we believe, about seven and twenty only, when the Rev. Dr. Chalmers of Glasgow, requiring an assistant, was recommended to hear him, and instantly gave him the appointment.

'In 1822, the church of the Caledonian Asylum, in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, becoming vacant, by the removal of the Rev. Mr. Macnaughton, the popularity of Mr. Irving naturally attracted the attention of the Elders, and he was invited to London. Here, indeed, at the very outset, a difficulty arose from the constitution of the Asylum requiring the minister to preach every Sunday afternoon in Gaelic, of which language he was utterly ignorant. His friends, however, were zealous and persevering; a subscription was entered into, securing to Mr. Irving a stipend of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum for five years, with the addition of the seat rents: though as the congregation was then far below fifty, except to great talents, and strong enthusiasm, the offer was by no means tempting. Mr. Irving was, how

ever, extremely anxious for a settlement in London; its emoluments he held as an entirely secondary consideration, and the Caledonian church having been taken for three years, leaving the afternoons open for the Asylum minister, Mr. Lees, to preach in Gaelic, since discontinued, however, in consequence of a new Act of Parliament,-Mr. Irving came to the metropolis; where his attraction has very far exceeded the most popular of his predecessors; and the anxiety which has pervaded all ranks to hear him, has been perfectly unexampled. Tickets are issued for every probable vacancy on each succeeding Sunday, which are far from supplying one half of the demand; and it is by no means the least surprising effect of his eloquence, that a large proportion of his constant hearers, are individuals, who never went to church elsewhere.'

In person Mr. Irving very much exceeds the middle size, being no less than six feet two inches high; with a dark, impressive countenance, a slight obliquity of vision, and a large quantity of long black hair, almost guiltless of a curl. The descriptions of Charles the Second, indeed, both in prose and poetry, have been each applied to him, and both, certainly, with more than usual correctness. Sir Andrew Marvell's rhymes,--

"Of a tall stature and a sable hue,

Much like the son of Kish, the lofty Jew," being equally applicable with Evelyn's delineation of his Majesty's countenance, being fierce, his voice great, proper of person,' and almost every motion becoming him.

'Mr. Irving's mode of delivery, and style of eloquence, we feel it extremely difficult even to analyse, or describe. If at one moment he appears

K

awkward, and homely, and unstudied, and uncouth; the next he soars into the very heaven of heavens, and all that is mighty, and magnificent, and glowing, and powerful, and energetic, appear doubly interesting in his phraseology, and from his lips. Sternness, and severity, and passionate earnestness, seem, however, to be best suited to his peculiar characteristics of preaching, and to become his deep-toned voice and lofty bearing.

His sermons, contrary to every ancient custom of the church of Scotland, are all written; and it is a singular fact, that upon an extempore official notice being to be given from the pulpit, notwithstanding all the gifted copiousness of language which usually distinguishes him, he frequently appears so embarrassed, as to entirely destroy the grammatical construction of his announcement. His action is generally graceful and appropriate, though sometimes excessively redundant and inelegant.' 'We have merely to subjoin, in our personal description of Mr. Irving, that he is most abstemious in his habits and unaffected in his manners: is eminently social, generous, affectionate, and warm-hearted; and to his other high literary acquirements, adds the perfect knowledge of seven different languages. Arrangements for immediately building a large and more commodious church, have been for some time in progress, and the subscriptions for that purpose, we understand, already amount to nearly four thousand pounds. The above Magazine contains the following letter:

MY DEAR SIR,

Hill Street, 7th July, 1823.

I have to thank you very much for the gratification you procured me yesterday. I never was more struck in my life than with the extraordinary powers of