Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/270

 work is so perfectly done that death is nothing.“ (The italics are mine.) Now, whatever the writer meant, this is formal heresy. I do not know whether the heresy was ever repudiated; but there is no doubt that the whole subject was to a great extent quietly dropped among the Brethren. At that time, as Dorman tells us, it was “common to hear persons in popular addresses saying ‘the three hours of darkness in which atonement was made’”; but the tumult did good, and the brave men that fell did not sacrifice themselves in vain. I do not affirm that evil echoes of this miserable divinity were never heard, but on the whole the public teaching of Brethren in the seventies contained little of it. Probably the leaders did not, to use Soltau’s distinction, hold these principles “in their consciences,” and certainly the rank and file remained quietly evangelical.

Dorman never formed any new ecclesiastical ties. He was present with Hall in 1869 at a conference of the Open Brethren at Freemasons’ Hall, London; and Dorman took a prominent part in the proceedings. Invitations to attend had been sent to all the leading Exclusives, but very few answers were received. Copies of an open letter signed by Stoney, and addressed to “the believers meeting at Freemasons’ Hall,” were distributed at the doors. The letter, which began (rather inconsistently) “Dear Brethren in the Lord,” suggested that the Open Brethren were “occupying the place of Joshua when he rent his clothes and fell on his face to the earth, and that in consequence the Lord had to rebuke him and say, ‘Wherefore liest thou upon thy face? Israel hath sinned.’” When Dorman addressed