The fact that he

may be misdirected and stimulated to excess. resisted promptly, and with apparent ease, is not evidence that there was no power in the temptation; but rather proof of the strength of his holiness. The holier we are, the more easily we resist temptation; we have the more power to do it, though we may be more fiercely assailed. And, now, all we have to do is to turn our back on Satan, and he will flee from us. Stronger, greater, is he, this tempted Christ, that is in you, than he that is in the world. The desires in Christ were as full as in any man: that he had more self control, more firmness of will, is not to be attributed to the weakness of the temptation, but to the strength of his holy nature, and to his long previous fasting and prayer. It was necessary for him to summon up his energies, and bring to bear the power of his piety. It was his sublime faith that kept him calm, that brought the Scriptures quick to remembrance, that enabled him to seize hold of the truth, and to penetrate the devices of Satan. It was his filial reliance on his Father, and the fulness of the Spirit in him, that gave him the victory. He must be filled with the Spirit before he is tempted: but this did not render him insensible to human desires, did not place him beyond the reach of Satan; but rather led him out to meet Satan, and left him to feel the full force of those desires. He felt the power of temptation for us. He perceived how powerful it would prove to allure us to sin and ruin.

Looking upon the temptation, it behooves us to remember that we are not disinterested spectators. We brought the Lamb of God to the abasement of being side by side with the worst element and component of hell, and forced him to endure the presence of the most abhorred of his Father's enemies. This, it is well said, is something beyond Christ's humiliation, a deeper depth. "It was not only laying aside his majesty, but suffering the glory of his holiness to be concealed and to be questioned; for Satan evidently supposed it possible to tempt him to sin." Our sins caused that humiliation. We threw that heavy shadow, black as darkness and death, across the holiness of our Saviour.

Let us look and see the awful fact of temptation. It is something beyond the depravity of our nature. The most powerful

influences are brought to bear upon us to involve us inextricably in sin. An intellect, mighty and subtle beyond our conception, is plotting our ruin. This reveals our need of such a Redeemer as Christ, who alone can conquer the foe. In view of his own temptation, the words of the tempted one are most impressive: "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation;' and his solicitude, which provided for us the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Sin is no mere individual matter. Sin is an organism, a kingdom, with combined and ready forces. That kingdom must be overturned, that organism crushed, before one of us can be delivered from the dominion of sin, and rise superior to evil.

The Saviour resisted Satan in the temptation, then went forth to eject devils from the bodies and souls of men; and, finally, through death destroyed him that had the power of death, and delivered them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

It may be asked, why Satan alone is spoken of as tempting Christ and us? as though there were but one devil to tempt man. We reply, Satan is the head of the kingdom of darkness, therefore all temptations may be said to come from him. He left the great work of tempting the Saviour to none of his subordinates. Devils are represented in the New Testament as possessing men, and Christ as casting them out. Possibly, it was from their knowledge of the temptation of Jesus that they gained their remarkable knowledge of the Son of God, which they manifested when he approached them.

ARTICLE VI.

EDWARD IRVING.

The Life of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church, London. Illustrated by his Journals and Correspondence. By MRS. OLIPHANT. 8vo. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1862.

MANY lives of men and women strangely wind themselves around our hearts, though we would not wish to make them the model of our own existence. This is one of them. There is no mystery in the strong grasp which it lays on our sympathies. The very weaknesses of a regal nature like Irving's invest its bold and commanding features with a heightened interest, constraining a tender love where otherwise there might be only much admiration. When, moreover, as in this instance, some deep, consuming sorrow moans along the story, gathering itself at last into a thrilling and pathetic Cry of the Human,' then biography takes on a dramatic power all the more resistless because of its severe reality, and creates a world of radiant glories and sombre griefs, through which we travel with a sense of the arrest of another's destiny upon us that no art of fiction can ever produce. Minute and extended as is this narrative, its attraction gathers strength to the close.

The lady who gives the public this history has fitted herself for the labor by a thorough possession of the requisite materials, and by that hearty entering into the spirit of her subject which, while in danger of making an author too much of an eulogist or apologist, as possibly sometimes here, is necessary to a congenial and satisfying treatment of the theme. She dedicates her volume, with a charming feminine grace, "To all who love the memory of Edward Irving, which the writer has found by much experiment to mean all who ever knew him." That she is one of the former every page brings proof. Irving deserved such an interpreter, for he was every inch a man, though sad to say, one most unfortunate and misunderstood.

That six feet and

a third stature could not have caged a narrow soul save by a strangest freak of nature. His spirit was worthy its tenement. No one now will hesitate to concede to him masterly powers of mind, the true aura of genius. He was one of the few originals, born to be a leader of men.

Irving came of a sturdy race, being born among the woolgrowers and small farmers of Annandale, just over the Scottish border, on the fourth of August, 1792— the second of eight children. His ancestors were a notable people, particularly on the mother's side. An uncle "lives in local tradition as the good-natured giant of the district." A sister, Irving's mother, "handsome and high-spirited," transmitted to her son the physical and mental peculiarities of her family. The parents were religious in the traditionally ecclesiastical spirit of the region. The boy early caught the same tendency. At a very childish age, we see him trudging off of a Sunday morning, with the rustic neighbors, five or six miles to attend a seceder meeting which he preferred to the established church of the village. Possibly the pleasant walk had something to do with his selection. His romantic turn of mind, moreover, was already stirring, and it found a ready stimulant in the tales of persecution for the truth with which the country-side abounded. The elderly folk were pleased with so eager and intelligent a listener to their inspiring talk by the bright peat fires, and along the burns and vales which led to their Sabbath shrine. Irving never outlived the influences of these juvenile scenes and employments. To the day of his death he was only the larger and older child of those simple years at Annan.

This town, close by the coast of the Solway frith, gave the resolute youth abundance of pastime "in that wilderness of sand and shingle with its gleaming salt-water pools clear as so many mirrors, full of curious creatures" at ebb tide; and once, at least, he, with his venturous brothers, came within a perilous step of being caught far out from shore, by the in-rushing of the impetuous waters. His physical powers got a good development before the brain began to do much work. He was at home among the graziers, drovers, and salmon-fishers of the district, and in his father's tannery also, agile at all sports and handy at all tasks. Hugh Clapperton, the African explorer of

a later day, was one of his playfellows, and many a castle in the air did the imaginative boys build together, as they planned all manner of possible travels for future execution. It was long before Irving gave up this rambling fancy, and when, by and by, he became a clergyman, this taste of his boyhood took the direction of a missionary life in unknown lands, which, at several points in his career, he almost reached the purpose of accomplishing.

We must not linger too long over these youthful notices, but the physical life of Irving was so marked a part of him, that a few anecdotes of his prowess must be given. While teaching school, at about the age of twenty, he walked some seventeen miles, of an afternoon, to Edinburgh, to hear Chalmers preach. The church was crowded, but seeing a vacant place he pushed for it, when a man obstructed his way—saying that the seat was engaged. Irving waited for the occupants to arrive till "his patience gave way, and, raising his hand he exclaimed, 'Remove your arm or I will shatter it in pieces.' His astonished opponent fell back in utter dismay and made a precipitate retreat," while the schoolmaster and some of his boys who had accompanied him fell into the vacancy victoriously. At another time, wishing with some friends to gain admittance to the Scottish General Assembly, which the doorkeeper refused to allow, "he put his shoulder to the narrow door, and applying his herculean strength to it, fairly wrenched it off its hinges.' He was impetuous in his dislike of all kinds of upstart assumption. It roused his ire and nerved his arm alike. Once having escorted some ladies to a meeting and got a good place near the door, to crowd in when it should be opened, an official personage bustled up commanding the bystanders to give way, and when no one obeyed him, he put his hand on Irving's shoulder to move him aside. Irving raised in his hand the great stick he carried, and turned to the intruder: Be quiet, sir, or I will annihilate you!' The composure with which this truculent sentence was delivered drew a burst of laughter from the crowd which completed the discomfiture of the unfortunate functionary."

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A native grandeur belonged to all his movements — the shining of a clear and gallant soul through its commanding