Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/311

. All who knew anything about Darbyism were of course agreed that to acknowledge both was out of the question, since a ban of excommunication lay between the two. To admit to “fellowship” persons coming from both meetings would “identify” the whole community with both, and thus constitute it one huge self-contradiction—for above this petty mathematical conception of unity the mind of Darbyism could not rise.

It was not until April, 1881, that matters came to a head, though the strained state of feeling during the whole of that time made London life amongst Exclusive Brethren almost unendurable to sensitive people. Within the last week in April and the first in May, two London meetings came to a decision by large majorities to recognise Guildford Hall; and they duly forwarded to Cheapside notifications to that effect.

The first meeting to take this action was one situated at Hornsey Rise; the second was the incomparably more important Priory. The Priory, of course, sat merely to register Darby’s edicts. To put this beyond reasonable doubt, Darby announced at the earlier of the two meetings at which the investigation was conducted, that he would immediately leave if Abbott’s Hill were recognised. This was a threat that had more than once stood Darby in good stead during his stormy career. It is interesting to see him now, as an octogenarian, using it still with the same implicit reliance on its efficacy.

In this instance it was probably quite superfluous. There were at the outside only four dissentients when the sense of the meeting was finally taken. According to the principles that Darby had avowed for forty years, a minority of four (or, for the matter of that, of one) was as absolute a barrier against an “assembly decision” as the largest possible majority; but this was not the first