Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/62

50 almost incredible carelessness rather than of defective power.

Was it affectation? Probably such a term is too harsh to use in the case of a man of striking general simplicity of character; but the negligence as to all externals, of which this is only the culminating instance, was perhaps adopted (if not deliberately, yet at least instinctively) as the fitting external form for the inward spirit of his life’s mission.

Limerick was the scene of Darby’s earliest efforts outside Dublin in behalf of the new cause. It was “after July, 1830,” as he says in a note apparently appended to Bellett’s narrative, that Darby first found his way to Oxford. Wigram, who was then at Queen’s College, may have been the means of bringing him over. “Breaking of bread” had already begun. “About the year 1831 [it should be 1830] I went to Oxford,” writes Darby, “where many doors were open, and where I found Mr. Wigram and Mr. Jarratt. Subsequently in calling on Mr. F. Newman I met Mr. Newton, who asked me to go down to Plymouth, which I did. On arriving, I found in the house Captain Hall who was already preaching in the villages. We had reading meetings, and ere long began to break bread. Though Mr. Wigram began the work in London he was a great deal at Plymouth.”

Such were the fair beginnings of several friendships