Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/249

 old enough to offer a lively resistance; and others, to have affirmed the propriety of baptising their furniture—a course for which they might no doubt have found a New Testament precedent, though of rather an equivocal kind. I do not of course suggest that Darby had any further responsibility for such vagaries than that which must attach to a teacher who plentifully exercises dominion over his disciples’ faith, and is content to impose doctrines of which he gives no clear and precise account.

Brethrenism professed to offer a platform on which the two schools into which the baptismal controversy has divided the church might meet on a footing of perfect equality. The experiment was an interesting one; unfortunately, it cannot be said that it met with any very encouraging success; for, if respect for Darby kept his opponents quiet, his followers were apt to be a little touchy if the question were raised. Frequent services for the administration of adult baptism were a source of irritation; and a meeting-room in London that had formerly belonged to the Scotch Baptists, and at which baptism continued to be zealously observed along the old lines, was disparaged (to speak from the point of view of both parties alike) as “a mere Baptist Chapel”. And finally, at the rupture between Kellyites and Darbyites in 1881, though there were exceptions on both sides, the Baptists went nearly solid for Mr. Kelly, and the pedobaptists for Mr. Darby. Considering that the question of baptism had no connexion of any kind with the subjects then in dispute, this is certainly a very interesting circumstance.

Exclusive Brethrenism, apart from Darby, has no