Originally, I believe, the sect sprang up in Scotland, and Edward Irving merely joined it, and the form of worship which now prevails was not fully established till after his death. After Irving left the Scotch Church, the body took refuge in Newman Street, where they have remained till the present magnificent place was opened. There are to be seven cathedrals in London; each cathedral is to have four places of worship attached to it; and to each service in a cathedral appertain an evangelist, an apostle, a prophet, and an angel. The angel is the presiding spirit, an apostle seems to be what a bishop is in the English Church. There is an apostle for England, another for France, another for America, and another for Germany. To every cathedral there are twenty-four priests. The angel is magnificently clad in purple, the sign of authority. The next order, the prophets, wear blue stoles, indicative of the skies whence they draw their inspiration. The evangelists wear red as a sign of their readiness to shed their blood in the cause.
The Cathedral is well attended: upwards of 1000 communicants are connected with it. Service takes place in it several times a-day,
and on the Sunday evening a sermon is preached, which is intended to enlighten and to win over such as are not connected with the church. Many distinguished persons are office-bearers in the church, such as Admiral Gambier, the Hon. Henry Parnell, J. P. Knight, R.A., Mr. Cooke, the barrister, Major Macdonald; while Lady Dawson, Lady Bateman, Lady Anderson, are amongst its members. Henry Drummond, the eccentric M.P. for East Surrey, has the credit of being connected with this place; but, while it is true that he is an Irvingite, it is not true that he is an office-bearer of the church. Those who join the church offer a tenth of their annual income towards its support, and this promise, it is believed, year after year is faithfully kept. The Cathedral itself is an evidence of the liberality of the people. Attached to the church is a small, but very elegant, chapel, which is to be used on rare occasions, and which was raised by the ladies, who contributed the magnificent sum of £4000 in aid of the work. The chief beauty of the church, however, is the altar, which is carved out of all sorts of coloured marble, and is superbly decorated. The service-book put into your
hands is called ‘The Liturgy and Divine Offices of the Church,’ but I do not learn from the members of the body that they think themselves exclusively the church, and that there is no salvation out of their pale. They merely profess to be one portion of the church, to take within their comprehensive fold members of all other churches; and this, to a very considerable extent, has been the case. The Irvingites have taken their converts not from the world, but the church. They have made proselytes, not Christians: the members of other churches have come over to them. In their ranks are many Dissenters and Churchmen, and amongst their priests are many who have been clergymen in connection with the Dissenters or the Church of England. They profess to be above the common distinction by which sect is fenced off from sect—Catholic and Protestant come alike to them.
The Liturgy appears to be compiled from the rituals of the Greek, Anglican, and Roman Churches, with a slight preponderance to the latter. The apostle of the church is Mr. John Cardall, formerly a lawyer’s clerk, but called to his present office, as he himself states, about
twenty years ago, by the voice of prophecy. This call is acknowledged by the community. He rules the whole body with irresponsible authority. He is the final appeal. On his decision everything rests. He claims spiritual preëminence over not only the churches in his own communion, but over all the churches of all baptized Christians throughout the world, nay, over all bishops, priests, and deacons, Anglican, Greek, or Roman, not excepting even the Pope himself. The Liturgy and Service-book is understood to be his compilation. He has also published a work, entitled ‘Readings upon the Liturgy,’ which is privately circulated, and is said, by those who have seen it, to be an interesting and peculiar book, abounding in the interpretations of the symbols and types of the Old Testament, and an ingenious endeavour to adapt them to the purposes of the Christian Church at the present day. In the Liturgy, besides what is found in that of the English Church, there are prayers for the dead, invocation of saints, transubstantiation. The authority of the church, the power of the priesthood, and the existence of actual living apostles to rule the church universal, are acknowledged and enjoined.
The chief minister of the church, or, as he is called, the angel or bishop, is Mr. Christopher Heath, who, for many years, carried on business in the neighbourhood of the Seven Dials. He was also called miraculously to his present post. The other ministers, of whom there are a vast number, are all well paid for their services, on an average much better than many London incumbents. Several of them have been military men: they are not formally educated for their work, but called to it. They are not man-made ministers—they claim a Divine sanction and power. Nor are they taken from the well-educated classes. They assert that the Spirit may qualify any man, no matter how humble his occupation or his birth. Some of them, I am told, have been tailors, tinkers, shoemakers, barbers, but are now filled with divine light, and may do the signs and wonders done by the apostles in an earlier day.
With apostolic pretensions, these men are careless of apostolic simplicity. They must meet, not in an upper room, but in a gorgeous cathedral; they must array themselves in grotesque garments; they must have tapers and incense—Roman Catholic forms and ceremonies.
One would have thought that the name of Edward Irving would have been kept free from such things; that his followers would have been above them; that they would as much as most realize the spirituality of Him who dwells not in houses made with hands, and whose temple is the lowly and contrite heart. Genius like Irving’s would have lent grandeur to a barn; and now the master is gone, and having no more an orator to enchant them, the church worships in fretted aisles—treads mosaic pavements—rejoices in fine music and elaborate ceremonial.
Thus always is it: when nature fails, men have recourse to art. We have no actors now, but, instead, we have a stage splendidly decorated, regardless of expense. We put Shakspere on the stage in a way that would astonish Shakspere himself: but we have no Shakspere. Is not this a sign of weakness? When a beauty betakes herself to jewellery, and invests herself with borrowed graces, is it not a sign that Time is dealing in his old-fashioned cruel way with the rose upon her cheek and the lustre in her eye? and is it not so with the Irvingite Church? Is not its pomp and splendour a sign that it is not