Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/131

Rh himself, it was still more an acquittal of his accuser. This was true, and, in my judgment, a great injustice to Newton; but he was pitted against a foe who held a strong advantage, and would use it without mercy; and a prudent course was to be recommended to the weaker party.

It is impossible not to feel for Newton. Darby had refused his very fair and reasonable proposal for arbitration. The investigation of the ten had fallen through. All that remained was Darby’s appeal to a church-meeting at Ebrington Street. This Newton and the other leaders of the church disallowed. An investigation by the church was not, from their point of view, a desirable course; and assuredly it was not one that Darby had the least right to insist on. He had voluntarily put himself outside the communion of the church, and had therefore clearly no claim to be heard before it. Neither was he, as Newton’s accuser, entitled to refuse any reasonable suggestion that the accused might make with a view to clearing himself. Newton must have felt that a right of selection lay with himself, and that Darby was determined to secure every possible advantage over the man he had defamed. That this should rouse a spirit of opposition in a man of Newton’s temperament may possibly be an occasion of regret, but scarcely of surprise.

But this is not all. Darby’s tactics were seldom faulty. Arbitration could not have been of any use to him. A board of arbitrators, properly selected and bound to find a verdict, must have acquitted Newton. But Darby’s power over a public assembly, even to the end of his long life, was marvellous. If Newton had consented to argue the question of his character before the whole church, he would have put a formidable weapon into his adversary’s hand. Darby would probably have