Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/255

 the Church on earth, was practically abandoned”. But Dorman had not so far shown any sign of disaffection, although circumstances had probably, unperceived by him, been loosening his moorings to Darbyism. Hall was before his friend in taking action. In 1865, after three years’ uneasy silence, he engaged in correspondence with Darby, but ineffectually. In the beginning of the following year, after prolonged persuasion, he induced Dorman to take up the matter. This initiated a correspondence which was partially published in one of the most interesting pamphlets in the literature of Brethrenism. I refer to Dorman’s Close of Twenty-eight Years of Association with J. N. D.

Dorman’s first letter to Darby, written in a most affectionate and confidential tone, takes up no decided attitude in regard to the doctrine of the incriminated tracts; and it actually ends with a suggestion that the time had come to undertake “something in the character of an ‘Irenicum’ in regard to many faithful men “associated with Open Brethren, among whom he specifies Harris and Wellesley.

Darby replied “with kindness and cordiality”. A few more notes passed, and the correspondence closed with satisfaction and hopefulness on Dorman’s part. But in a very short time he reopened the correspondence under rather curious circumstances. He had sat down to mark the passages that he judged should be altered, according to an offer he understood Darby to have made. The result was that the whole substance of the tracts impressed him in a new light. For the first time he saw (or thought he saw) that Darby had not merely