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42 found that his servants had already made some progress with the meal. They explained that, as he was so late, they thought they had better begin without him.

Amongst the favouring conditions of the rise of Brethrenism, the distinguished social position of its earliest votaries was probably not the least important. It passed for an aristocratic movement, as Darby himself admitted in his Swiss campaign in the early forties. A very vehement assailant of the whole school, the author of Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled and Refuted, attributes no small part of its influence to that single circumstance (p. 162). In this respect things have changed inevitably, but even yet fashionable people often find it easier to pass from the Church of England to Brethrenism than to any of the older forms of Dissent.

It is an interesting question to what extent the earliest days of Brethrenism may be looked back to as a golden age. So far as the earliest of all are concerned, the answer must be unfavourable. This rests upon the unsuspicious testimony of men who were makers of the sect. Speaking of the time when he and his friends first occupied the room in Aungier Street, Bellett writes: “It was poor material we had. … There was but little spiritual energy, and much that was poor treasure for a living temple; but we held together in the Lord’s mercy and care, I believe advancing in the knowledge of His mind.” And even the far more sanguine Cronin confirms the report. “We were also, from ignorance or indifference, careless as to conscience and godly care of one another.”

It is surprising that the inauguration of a movement for which its promoters had been content to lose much and suffer much should have been so lacking in the