Page:Neatby - A history of the Plymouth Brethren.djvu/97

Rh extent qualify even his own. Rochat’s first tract against Brethrenism appeared not later than 1841. He followed it up the next year by A Thread to help the Simple to find their Way.

Francois Olivier, a brother of the ex-champion of Methodism, was a man of unquestioned ability. If his personal influence was less than Rochat’s, he had the advantage of being resident at Lausanne, and of having attended Darby’s ministry there with great interest. Not feeling, however, wholly satisfied with the course things were taking, Olivier began in the winter of 1842-3 to hold meetings independently of Darby. Yet he was so far from wishing to precipitate a rupture that he fixed an hour for his meetings at which they would not clash with Darby’s, and abstained, until the end of 1844, from administering the communion. Olivier published his first pamphlet, An Essay on the Kingdom of God, in 1843; and his second in the same year, or in the following.

Darby’s replies to Rochat are favourable specimens of his controversial manner. He does not indeed always write in perfect taste, but he refers to Rochat with respect, and even with cordiality. “I know no person,” he says, “at least so it seems to me, who desires more faithfully to fill it [‘the relation of a pastor to the sheep of God’s flock ’] than he whose pamphlet has given rise to these pages.” In the reply to Olivier the tone is far less pleasant; there is more readiness to insinuate unworthy motives, and the self-sufficiency amounts sometimes to arrogance. The difference may be accounted for, partly by the fact that Olivier was a rival on the spot, partly per- haps by a tendency to severity in Olivier himself—though indeed he seems to have treated Darby with consideration. It must also be remembered that the controversy with Olivier was the later, and the stress of conflict