Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/284

, a professional career was scarcely possible. On the other hand, the number of doctors amongst them was remarkable.

The reference just made to the existence of a kind of professional ministry among the Brethren suggests one of the most curious topics connected with their institutions. For a minister of the Gospel to receive a salary, or even to derive an income from any specified sources, was abomination to them. The minister of the Gospel, they allowed, was undoubtedly entitled to live by the Gospel; indeed, it was only by an act of indulgence to the Church that many did not do so; but the minister must “trust the Lord simply for his support”. This principle was embraced by the Brethren with characteristic absence of misgiving. It was accepted as Divine, and hard things were apt to be said of the salaried ministers of other denominations.

It is interesting to glance at the practical working of this principle. In the first place, it was impossible not to see that the institution based upon it was not a genuine thing at all. According to the theory, every Brother set apart for the Gospel, unless he had private means, advanced an implicit claim to trust the Lord in a peculiar sense for his daily support. Yet it would indeed be hard to believe that more than a very small minority of them actually did it. Some were practically supported by one or two opulent “brothers”; others manifestly depended on their acceptability with a certain section of the community, with which it was of course commonly said that they were more loth to fall out than was quite consistent with their independence; some even were considered to have become onhangers and parasites, inflicting long visits on benevolent patrons