Part 17

Irving likewise established The Morning Watch for the sole purpose of advocating Millenarian views; but the extravagance of some of the collateral notions which the preacher intermingled with simple Millenarianism rather impeded than promoted the object in view. The doctrine, too, of speaking with tongues, the assertion of the peccability of Christ's humanity, the zealous advocacy of the opinion that the power of working miracles was still vested in the Church, and not the expectation only, but from time to time, the repeated assertion, most emphatically, that Christ would come immediately to reign personally on the earth—all these, and other sentiments no less confidently advanced, and earnestly inculcated both from Irving's pulpit and through the press, injured rather than benefited the cause of Millenarianism among the more sober-minded men in the religious world.

Moreover, he retained these momentous errors till his dying hour, and added one more to them. When his physicians and friends, seeing him in the last stage of consumption, prepared him in the spirit of affectionate faithfulness for the solemn event which was at hand, he would not believe that he was dying, or ever would die, but that he would be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and in a transformed body, made unspeakably glorious, be caught up to heaven. The Millenarians therefore do not strengthen their cause by quoting the name of Edward Irving as an authority in favour of their views.

The intense enthusiasm with which Irving entered into the notion of a personal reign of Christ on earth is well described in his Life by Mrs. Oliphant. "The conception," she says, "of a second advent nearly approaching was like the beginning of a new life. The thought of seeing his Lord in the flesh, cast a certain ecstasy on the mind of Irving. It quickened tenfold his already vivid apprehension of spiritual things. The burden of his prophetic mystery, so often darkly pondered, so often interpreted in a mistaken sense, seemed to him, in the light of that expectation, to swell into divine choruses of preparation for the splendid event which, with his bodily eyes, undimmed by death, he hoped to behold." It is generally thought that the extravagancies which, towards the close of his career, proceeded both from his lips and his pen, were to be traced to a mind which, through its prophetic studies, had lost its balance. Yet, to the last, he made many proselytes to his Millenarian notions.

Irving originated the idea of Christ, with his saints, remaining and reigning in the air after he has caught up his people to meet him there, instead of reigning literally on the earth. Irving also originated the doctrine of secret rapture, or the assumption that Christ will come and take up his people who are alive with him into the air when he raises the saints who are in their graves, and summons them to meet him in aerial regions. So deeply did this notion take possession of many of those who adopted Mr. Irving's Millenarian views, in conjunction with this other idea—that Christ's second coming might be looked for at any hour—that they were as firmly persuaded they would not see death, as they were of any truth in the Word of God.

See The End of All Things, by the author of Our Heavenly Home, 1866.

A Trio of Fanatics.

The names of Sharp, Bryan, and Brothers will not soon be forgotten among the so-called prophets of the present century. The first of this inspired trio was William Sharp, one of the greatest masters in the English school of engraving; Bryan was what is termed an irregular Quaker, who had engrafted sectarian doctrines on an original stock of fervid religious feeling; and Richard Brothers, who styled himself the "Nephew of God," predicted the destruction of all sovereigns, &c.

Sharp was, at one time, so infected with wild notions of political liberty, and so free in his talk, that he was placed under arrest by the Government and several times examined before the Privy Council, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not, in his speeches or writings, he had committed himself far enough to be tried with Horne Tooke for high treason; but Sharp, being a handsome-looking, jocular man, and too cheerful for a conspirator, the Privy Council came to a conclusion that the altar and the throne had not much to fear from him. At one of the examinations, when Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas were present, after he had been worried with questions, which, Sharp said, had little or nothing to do with the business, he deliberately took out of his pocket a prospectus for subscribing to his portrait of General Kociusko, after West, which he was then engraving; and handing the paper first to Pitt and Dundas, he requested them to put their names down as subscribers, and then to give his prospectus to the other members of the Council for their names. The singularity of the proposal set them laughing, and he was soon afterwards liberated.

Sharp possessed a fraternal regard for Bryan, had him instructed in copper-plate printing, supplied him with paper, &c., and enabled him to commence business; but they soon quarrelled. A strong tide of animal spirits, not unaccompanied by some intellectual pretensions and shrewdness of insight, characterized the mind of Jacob Bryan; which, when religion was launched on it, swelled to enthusiasm, tossed reason to the skies, or whirled her in mystic eddies. Sharp found him one morning groaning on the floor, between his two printing-presses, at his office in Marylebone Street, complaining how much he was oppressed, by bearing, after the pattern of the Saviour, part of the sins of the people; and he soon after had a vision, commanding him to proceed to Avignon on a Divine Mission. He accordingly set out immediately, in full reliance on Divine Providence, leaving his wife to negotiate the sale of his printing business: thus Sharp lost his printer, but Bryan kept his faith. The issue of this mission was so ambiguous, that it might be combined into an accomplishment of its supposed object, according as an ardent or a cool imagination was employed on the subject; but the missionary (Bryan) returned to England, and then became a dyer, and so much altered, that a few years after he could even pun upon the suffering and confession which St. Paul has expressed in his text—"I die daily."

The Animal Magnetism of Mesmer and the mysteries of Emanuel Swedenborg had, by some means or other, in Sharp's time, become mingled in the imaginations of their respective or their mutual followers; and Bryan and several others were supposed to be endowed, though not in the same degree, with a sort of half-physical and half-miraculous power of curing diseases, and imparting the thoughts or sympathies of distant friends. De Loutherbourg, the painter (one of the disciples), was believed by the sect to be a very Esculapius in this divine art; but Bryan was held to be far less powerful, and was so by his own confession. Sharp had also some inferior pretensions of the same kind, which gradually died away.

But, behold! Richard Brothers arose! The Millennium was at hand! The Jews were to be gathered together, and were to re-occupy Jerusalem; and Sharp and Brothers were to march thither with their squadrons! Due preparations were accordingly made, and boundless expectations were raised by the distinguished artist. Upon a friend remonstrating that none of their preparations appeared to be of a marine nature, and inquiring how the chosen colony were to cross the seas, Sharp answered, "Oh, you'll see; there'll be an earthquake, and a miraculous transportation will take place." Nor can Sharp's faith or sincerity on this point be in the least distrusted; for he actually engraved two plates of the prophet Brothers, having calculated that one would not print the great number of impressions that would be wanted when the important event should arrive; and he added to each the following inscription: "Fully believing this to be the man appointed by God, I engrave his likeness: W. Sharp." The writing engraver, Smith, put the comma after the word "appointed," and omitted it in the subsequent part of the sentence. The mistake was not discovered until several were worked off; the unrectified impressions are in great request. Whether this be true, or only a hoax by Smith to put collectors on a false scent, has not been ascertained; there is no such impression in the British Museum. If the reader paused in the place where Sharp intended, the sentence expressed, "Fully believing this to be the man appointed by God,"—to do what? to head the Jews in their predestined march to recover Jerusalem? or to die in a madhouse? one being expressed as much as the other.

Brothers, however, in his prophecy, had mentioned dates, which were stubborn things. Yet the failure of the accomplishment of this prophecy may have helped to recommend "the Woman clothed with the Sun!" who now arose, as might be thought somewhat mal à propos, in the West. Such was Joanna Southcote. The Scriptures had said: "The sceptre shall not depart from Israel, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to him shall the gathering of my people be." When Brothers was incarcerated in a madhouse in Clerkenwell, Johanna, then living in service at Exeter, persuaded herself that she held converse with the devil, and communion with the Holy Ghost, by whom she pretended to be inspired. When the day of dread that was to leave London in ruins, while it ushered forth Brothers and Sharp on their holy errand, passed calmly over, the seers of coming events began to look out for new ground, and to prevaricate most unblushingly. The days of prophecy, said Sharp, were sometimes weeks or months; nay, according to one text, a thousand years were but as a single day, and one day was but as a thousand years. But he finally clung to the deathbed prediction of Jacob, supported as it was by the ocular demonstration of the coming Shiloh. In vain Sir William Drummond explained that Shiloh was in reality the ancient Asiatic name of a star in Scorpio; or that Joanna herself sold for a trifle, or gave away in her loving kindness, the impression of a trumpery seal, which at the Great Day was to constitute the discriminating mark between the righteous and the ungodly. We shall hear more of Sharp in association with Joanna Southcote, presently.

Sharp died poor; he earned much money, but his egregious credulity accounts for its dispersion. He was an epicure in his living, he grew corpulent, and had gout; he died of dropsy, at Chiswick, July 25th, 1824, and was interred in the churchyard of that hamlet, near De Loutherbourg, for whom, at one period, he entertained much mystic reverence.

This great engraver, this William Sharp, was an enthusiast for human freedom. He engraved, from a liking for the man, Northcote's portrait of Sir Francis Burdett; and bestowed unusual care on an engraving after Stothard's beautiful bistre-drawing of "Boadicea animating the Britons." For many years preceding his death he was a wholesale believer in Joanna Southcote; as we have already seen—and he had implicit faith in mystical doctrines; of his portrait of Brothers, Horne Tooke well observed, that, coupled with its extraordinary inscription, it "exhibited one of the most eminent proofs of human genius and human weakness ever contained on the same piece of paper."

Burnet, the engraver, used to relate that Sharp had an ingenious way of carrying a proof print to a purchaser, in an umbrella contrived to serve two additional duties—a print-case, and a walking-stick.

When John Martin exhibited his picture of Belshazzar's Feast, Sharp called upon him at his house, introduced himself, praised his picture, and asked permission to engrave it. "That I was flattered by a request of the kind from so great an artist," says Martin, "you will readily imagine; and I so expressed myself." Sharp felt pleased. "My belief," said Sharp, "is, that yours is a divine work—an emanation immediately from the Almighty; and my belief further is, that while I am engaged on so divine a work, I shall never die." When Martin told this story, he added, with a smile, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "Poor Sharp! a wild enthusiast, but—a masterly engraver."

"New Materials for Lives of English Engravers," by Peter Cunningham. Builder, 1863.

Richard Brothers was born at Placentia, in Newfoundland, and had served in the navy, but resigned his commission, because, to use his own words, he "conceived the military life to be totally repugnant to the duties of Christianity, and he could not conscientiously receive the wages of plunder, bloodshed, and murder." This step reduced him to great poverty, and he appears to have suffered much in consequence. His mind was already shaken, and his privations and solitary reflections seem at length to have entirely overthrown it. The first instance of his madness appears to have been his belief that he could restore sight to the blind. He next began to see visions and to prophesy, and soon became persuaded that he was commissioned by Heaven to lead back the Jews to Palestine. It was in the latter part of 1794 that he announced, through the medium of the press, his high destiny. His rhapsody bore the title of "A revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times, Book the First. Wrote under the direction of the Lord God, and published by his sacred command; it being the first sign of warning for the benefit of all nations. Containing, with other great and remarkable things, not revealed to any other person on earth, the restoration of the Hebrews to Jerusalem, by the year 1798: under their revealed prince and prophet." A second part speedily followed, which purported to relate "particularly to the present time, the present war, and the prophecy now fulfilling: containing, with other great and remarkable things, not revealed to any other person on earth, the sudden and perpetual fall of the Turkish, German, and Russian Empires." Among many similar flights in this second part, was one which described visions revealing to him the intended destruction of London, and claimed for the prophet the merit of having saved the city by his intercession with the Deity.

Sketches of Imposture, Deception and Credulity. Second Edition. 1840.

Brothers gained a great number of partisans, not only among uneducated persons, but among men of talent. We have seen Sharp, the engraver, as his devoted disciple. Among these followers was Mr. Halhed, who had been a schoolfellow of Sheridan at Harrow; they also had a sort of literary partnership, and they fell passionately in love with the same woman, Miss Linley. Halhed was a profound scholar, a man of wit, and a member of the House of Commons; he published pamphlets in advocacy of the prophetic mission of Brothers, and even made a motion in the House in favour of the prince of the Jews, as Brothers delegated himself.

Brothers took more of a political turn than his companions. He had been a lieutenant in the navy, and during the years 1792-3-4, greatly disturbed the minds of the credulous with his prophecies. We have said that he styled himself the "Nephew of God," and predicted the destruction of all sovereigns; he also foretold the downfall of the naval power of Great Britain.

His writings, founded on erroneous explanations of the Scriptures, at length made so much noise, that Government found it expedient to interfere, and on the 14th of March, 1795, he was apprehended at his lodgings, No. 58, in Paddington Street, under a warrant from the Secretary of State. After a long examination before the Privy Council, in which Brothers persisted in the divinity of his legation, he was committed to the custody of a State messenger. On the 27th he was declared a lunatic, by a jury appointed under a commission of lunacy, assembled at the King's Arms, in Palace Yard, and was subsequently removed to a private madhouse at Islington. While here, he continued to see visions and to pour forth his rhapsodies in print. One of these productions was a letter of two hundred pages, to "Miss Cott, the recorded daughter of King David, and future Queen of the Hebrews, with an Address to the Members of His Britannic Majesty's Council." The lady to whom this letter was addressed had become an inmate of the same asylum with Brothers, and he became so enamoured of her, that he discovered her to be "the recorded daughter of both David and Solomon," and his spouse "by divine ordinance." Brothers was subsequently removed to Bedlam; but in the year 1806 was discharged by the authority of Lord Chancellor Erskine. He died in Upper Baker Street, on the 25th of January, 1824. He was seen in the street a few days before his death, walking with great difficulty, and apparently in the last stage of consumption. It is recorded that the minister who attended Brothers in his last moments died of a broken heart; and the medical man under whose care he had been confined, committed suicide.

Brothers appears to have unwittingly suggested to Coleridge and Southey the clever poem of the Devil's Walk, by the mad prophet asserting that he had seen the devil walk leisurely into London one day!

The Spenceans.

Early in the present century there arose in the metropolis a religio-political sect, which took its name from an itinerant bookseller, named T. Spence, who formed a sort of Constitution on the principle that "all human beings are equal by nature and before the law, and have a continual and inalienable property in the earth and in its natural productions;" and consequently that "every man, woman, and child, whether born in wedlock or not (for Nature and Justice know nothing of illegitimacy), is entitled quarterly to an equal share of the rents of the parish where they have settled." This he called "the Constitution of Spensonia;" and the Abstract from which we have quoted he called "A Receipt to make a Millennium, or Happy World." By this reference and by some allusions to the Jewish economy, he also gave his system a slight connection with religion—but it was very slight; for he neither regarded the precepts of the moral law, nor the doctrines of the Gospel. He admitted, however, of a Sabbath every fifth day; but only as a day of rest and amusement—not for any purposes of devotion. A scheme somewhat similar to the above was formed in the time of the English Commonwealth, and it is probable Spence may have borrowed his system partly from that source.

Spence was punished for his vagaries; for, in 1801, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 50l. and to suffer twelve months' imprisonment for publishing Spence's Restorer of Society, which was deemed a seditious libel. Spence died in October, 1814.

Joanna Southcote, and the Coming of Shiloh.

This "dropsical old woman," Joanna Southcote, was a native of Exeter, and was born in April, 1750. She was employed chiefly in that city as a domestic servant, and up to the age of forty or thereabout, she seems to have aspired to no higher occupation. But having joined the Methodists, and become acquainted with one Saunderson, who laid claim to the spirit of prophecy, the notion of a like pretension was gradually communicated to Joanna. She wrote prophecies, and she dictated prophecies, sometimes in prose and sometimes in rhymed doggerel; her influence extended, and the number of her followers increased; she announced herself as the woman spoken of in the 12th chapter of Revelation, and obtained considerable sums by the sale of seals, which were to secure the salvation of those who purchased them. Her confidence increased with her reputation, and she challenged the bishop and clergy of Exeter to a public investigation of her miraculous powers, but they treated her challenge with contemptuous neglect, which she and her converts imputed to fear.

By degrees, Exeter became too narrow a stage for her performances, and she came to London on the invitation and at the expense of Sharp, the eminent engraver. She was very illiterate, but wrote numerous letters and pamphlets, and her prophecies, nearly unintelligible as they were, had a large sale. In the course of her Mission, as she called it, promising a speedy approach of the Millennium, she employed a boy, who pretended to see visions, and attempted, instead of writing, to adjust them on the walls of her chapel, "the House of God," a large building which adjoined the Elephant and Castle Inn, at Newington Butts. A schism took place among her followers, one of whom, named Carpenter, took possession of the place, and wrote against her; not denying her Mission, but asserting that she had exceeded it.

It may, however, be interesting here to describe what may be termed the modus operandi of the delusion. Great pains were now taken to ascertain the truth of her commission. "From the end of 1792," says Mr. Sharp, who, we have already seen, was the most devout of her believers, "to the end of 1794, her writings were sealed up with great caution, and remained secure till they were conveyed by me to High House, Paddington; and the box which contained them was opened in the beginning of January, 1803. Her writings were examined during seven days, and the result of this long scrutiny was the unanimous decision of twenty-three persons appointed by divine command, as well as of thirty-five others that were present, that her calling was of God." They came to this conclusion from the fulfilment of the prophecies contained in these writings, and to which she appealed with confidence and triumph. It was a curious circumstance, however, that her handwriting was illegible. Her remark on this occasion was, "This must be, to fulfil the Bible. Every vision that John saw in Heaven must take place on earth; and here is the sealed book, that no one can read!"