Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/127

Rh an explanation, before publicly assailing the acknowledged leader of a very large Christian community—not to say a personal friend of fourteen or fifteen years’ standing—with accusations of a grave moral character, the like of which had never been imputed to him before, by friend or by foe.

These startling events being noised abroad, leading members of the community of the Brethren flocked to Plymouth from all parts in order to investigate the circumstances. The investigation actually began on Friday, December 5, ten Brethren (not counting Darby or Newton) being present. Of this number three were believed to have been invited by Newton; two (Sir Alexander Campbell and Mr. Potter) were invited by Darby; two (Code and Rhind) by Soltau, Newton’s principal lieutenant in the trouble that followed, but one who through the preceding quarrel had sympathised in some particulars with Darby; two (Wigram and Naylor) were uninvited; and one (Parnell, who had by this time succeeded to the peerage as Lord Congleton) was invited both by Darby and Newton. It is a striking tribute to the love of truth and fair play with which Congleton is, I believe, usually credited, that two rivals so bitterly at strife should have concurred in soliciting his presence. He had returned from India with Cronin in 1837, feeling that there was not such prospect of success in the mission as to justify him in remaining.

Of the uninvited men Wigram was, by Darby’s own account, “considered an adversary to Mr. Newton,” and Naylor was apparently regarded in that light by Newton himself. Sir A. Campbell had formerly belonged to the