Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/96

84 Darby’s, as he entered the hall; and the table disappeared for good and all.”

If the Brothers who took the lead in Darby’s absence were asked how they set to work to keep things in order, they replied, “Very simply; we meet together and discuss what is to be done”. Herzog’s not unnatural comment is that the declaration “was tantamount to an avowal that they fell back, in virtue of the very nature of things, on a first step in ecclesiastical organisation”. All the advantage they had, to his mind, was that the gifts manifested by various brethren “were not regularly recognised, and [that] arbitrariness presided over the whole arrangement”.

During the five years that followed Darby’s arrival in Lausanne, his principles spread far and wide in French Switzerland, and obtained some successes in Berne and Bâle. In the South of France they spread over a considerable district, of which Montpellier was the most important town, though Ardèche is said to have been the scene of their greatest success in those days. The way in which Darby kept in touch with all the ramifications of the work, without for a moment relaxing his hold on his continental metropolis, is admirable. Nor can it be accounted for by any want of strenuous opposition. Two of the best known dissenting ministers of Vaud took the field against him in a series of pamphlets, to which he replied one by one.

Auguste Rochat, pastor of the Free Church at Rolle, a small town about sixteen miles from Lausanne, has not only received the most honourable testimony from Herzog, but is also frequently referred to with high regard by Darby himself. “But for Rochat we should be masters of the country,” were the words in which Darby acknowledged an influence that could to some