Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/36

24 on matters ecclesiastical. Finding none who would receive them except under conditions which would vitiate their object, and as being under an allegiance to Christ which they did not owe to their sects, knowing no need of a consecrated place or an ordained minister, they saw it right to meet in their own room and break bread thus. Some weeks later, William Stokes, going out on Sunday morning, met Mr. Patterson, a Scripture Reader. ‘Where are you going?’ asked the latter. ‘Going!’ was Stokes’ reply; ‘why you are going one way, and I am going another!’ ‘Is it there you are?’ said Patterson; ‘then I’ll shew you what will suit you.’ He took him to where those three were meeting, joined by two sisters. The movement thus grew, for there were many of Stokes’ mind; and many elsewhere about that time, knowing apparently little of what was going on in Dublin, gathered on the same ground.”

This story is as intrinsically likely as it is well authenticated. It furnishes another proof, if further proof be needed, that the ideas that went to make up Brethrenism were “in the air,” and were extensively obtaining embodiment. It does not alter my contention that the consolidating force of the movement issued from the company that finally gathered at Aungier Street; on the contrary, it obviously confirms it. Brethrenism was indeed formed out of a variety of little meetings of a more or less similar character, and these must be accepted as its ultimate elements; but Brethrenism, as we know it, is a synthesis, and the synthesis has a history; and I do not believe that its history can be truly told without locating its original force in Dublin, and in Aungier Street.