Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/122

110 with jealous care the support he might reckon on in pressing hostilities against Darby. He was losing no opportunity to discredit the dreaded teaching. Zealous ladies were circulating manuscript notes of his Bible readings far and wide, and were (it was stated) making things very unpleasant for all whose zeal for Newton was less ardent than their own. How far, on the other hand, such a course may have struck Newton as mere self-defence it is hard to tell, because of the scantiness of our materials for the fourteen years preceding Darby’s fatal visit to Plymouth in March, 1845.

It was on this point that the quarrel came at once to a head. Darby wrote to Newton, objecting to his “having acted very badly towards many beloved brethren, and in the sight of God”. Newton asked for names and circumstances. “I confess,” Darby tells us, “I felt this miserable. He had been writing for six years to every quarter of the globe (Mr. Newton boasted of it at last before the brethren who came), saying, the foundations of Christianity were gone if brethren were listened to; sisters had been employed in copying these letters; tracts had been published, declaring that we all subverted the first elements of Christianity! and he asks for dates and circumstances. I replied, it was the sectarianism and denouncing of brethren I complained of. This, he replied, was a new charge! And as it involved all the rest at Plymouth in the charge as well as him, he would consult with them about it and meet, but demanded the dates or circumstances of the former charge, or its withdrawal. As I well knew, and any one could see, that it was a mere explanation and enlargement of acting badly towards beloved brethren, I declined further communication unless before brethren; the rather as he alluded very incorrectly to past circumstances, and I