246 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvn 



sung, and a chapter in the Bible from Kings, of Elijah 

 destroying the prophets of Baal, which he likened in his 

 (Irving 's) prayer afterwards to the ministry of our Church 

 generally, and said that the ministry of Christ's Church had 

 fallen to them who had the gifts of the Spirit given to them. 

 After Mr Irving had finished he lay back in his chair, and 

 gifted Mr Backster from Doncaster came forward. He read 

 the 1st of Acts and during the course of his reading he raved 

 like a maniac ; repeating the same word or phrase six or seven 

 times over, and mixing up finally the chapter in Kings, the 

 1st of Acts, and all the Revelations together, and raving 

 with as small a portion of the Spirit, I should have thought, 

 if they had not said otherwise, as any teacher ever had. 

 He continually returned to the prophets of Baal. On 

 walking home afterwards with Mrs Rich, I told her that I 

 should have thought Mr Backster insane if left to my own 

 judgment; she told me she thought every repetition that 

 he had used commanded by the Spirit, and quoted the verse 

 " line upon line," &c. as the authority. The last day I was 

 there it was pretty nearly the same thing again, except 

 that Mr Irving had a more affected manner and his tone 

 was lower, as also Mr Backster, who did not rave, but spoke 

 in a sepulchral tone of the probable persecutions they 

 would undergo, and a recommendation to behave as Christ 

 did. He began " Oh that he would rend the Heavens and 

 come down," this he repeated several times, and also " the 

 Enemy is amongst us " ; then another man prayed in a crying 

 tone; then Miss Emily Cardale repeated much of what Mrs 

 Bich writes, in a shrill tone and in an unvarying note, with 

 her figure perfectly still: " Oh you do not know Christ " six 

 times over; then "Christ is love," and so on in texts of 

 Scripture for about 10 minutes I should think; and then 

 Mr Irving thanked God in prayer for the messages sent us 

 by the Spirit, and we were out at 10 minutes after 8. Mrs 

 Rich appeared much affected during the whole course of the 

 service, so I made no observation on our way back, and 

 listened to her and a friend whom we picked up on the way, 

 talking of these wonderful things. 



