Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/136

124 all Christendom his debtor, and had been for several years associated with the Rawstorne Street meeting. In his opinion Wigram ought to have been called upon “to repent of his sin in publishing … such a thing”. It does not appear that he publicly expressed his opinion. At all events nothing was done.

It was deemed however that this “masterly inactivity” should stop short when Mr. Newton’s faults came in question, and in November a letter was sent to him inviting him to answer to Darby’s charges before the assembled saints at Rawstorne Street. It might be presumed that Newton had at the least applied for communion there, but this was not the case. He had come up to London and had held some private Bible-readings. In conversation he expressed a wish “to satisfy the minds of any brethren as to the charges made against him”. It was private explanation that he contemplated; but some of the Rawstorne Street Brethren took the opportunity to propose a public investigation. Newton replied that the ministering brethren at Plymouth, following the ordinary usage of their church in such cases, had published a document exculpating him; and that the ten investigators of the previous December had “all with the exception of Mr. W[igram] declared that” he “was free from the charge of moral dishonesty”; and that “after all this” he did not feel that he could “be properly asked to plead again”. He received however a second summons, in a most curious letter, dated November 20, and signed by W. H. Dorman.

William Henry Dorman was one of the ablest and most interesting men ever connected with the Brethren. He had been minister of Islington Independent Chapel, and filled that important post with great acceptance. In 1838, while still quite a young man, he resigned, and