Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/90

78 therefore fortunate that we have in abundance from Darby’s own pen the means of putting ourselves at the point of view of the other side. Darby carried on his campaign largely by aid of tracts, some expository and some controversial. These are brought together in an English form in his Collected Writings.

Darby came to Lausanne in response to an invitation he had received in the previous autumn from an influential member of the Free Church, who had taken alarm at the rapid spread of Wesleyan Methodism amongst the Dissenters. The intervening months were spent, at least in part, at the important centres of Neuchâtel and Geneva. That he had already earned a very high reputation in Switzerland is amply witnessed by Herzog, who also allows, with a candour that does him credit, that the reputation was in great part well deserved.

“Such is the man who towards the end of March, 1840, appeared at Lausanne in the midst of the almost broken up dissenting Church. He came, preceded by the double reputation of an able pastor and of a teacher profoundly acquainted with the Bible. People spoke in glowing terms of the devotion of a man who, from love for Christ and for souls, had renounced almost the whole of his fine fortune; and who displayed in his whole conduct a simplicity and a frugality that recalled the primitive times of the Church. It was also said in his favour that, sacrificing the delights of family life, he spent his life in journeying from place to place to gain souls for the kingdom of God.

“Notwithstanding that Mr. Darby seeks less to convert souls than to unite under his direction souls already converted, we gladly acknowledge that he deserved to a great extent the compliments that were paid him. There certainly is to be found