William Blair Neatby

“ The meeting at Ryde had long been an eyesore to the Exclusive Brethren, and for many years past it had enjoyed the good word of nobody. Recently, some London leaders with an inclination to the hyper-spiritual school had “taken up” the objectionable “gathering”—with a view to making party capital out of it, as their opponents thought. In March, 1877, the majority of the meeting seceded, on the refusal of the minority to visit the contractor of an illegal marriage with excommunication. ”

“ I have not the least intention of pursuing the quarrel in detail; it could be of no general interest. It is almost incredible to what depths of pettiest technicality both parties descended. A broad and statesmanlike view of the matter could have appealed to nobody. The Sunday after the secession at Ramsgate, some twenty or thirty people of the minority (which must have rallied in the interval) had come to the door of the meeting-room, only to find that by some mistake it had not been opened. ”

“ Kelly’s Party It was the wont of Darby’s sagacious eye to survey the whole field of action, and his indefatigable energy enabled him to bring the power of his personal presence to bear wherever it might be needed, even to the ends of the earth. He began a fruitful work in Germany at Elberfeld in 1854. In 1871 he added Italy to his spheres of labour, and his Meditations on the Acts were composed in Italian. A long campaign in the United States began in 1872. The year 1875 found him in New Zealand. For a man born just within the previous century these exertions were surely prodigious. ”

“ Darby wrote to Cronin on January 5, 1881,—“If you could give up breaking bread,” (i.e. in private) , “and own you were wrong in the step you took as to Ryde I should be the first to propose and rejoice in your restoration [to ‘fellowship’] . ... I believe ... it was false confidence in yourself led you to the false step you took buoyed up by others, not doubting the unhappy influence exercised over you by others.” ”

“ It may seem a strange speculation that Darby might be afraid of a party among his own followers; but there is a point beyond which no man can altogether hold in check the forces of fanaticism that he has evoked. After that point, he must follow if he would still lead. Historically, it is clear that Darby at least made a truce with the party of which he had so frankly expressed his dislike, if he did not actually capitulate to it. ”

“ At a church meeting held on the 28th of April, it was resolved that “the assembly” had “no fellowship with Dr. Cronin’s act in Ryde,” or “with the Masonic Hall meeting,” and that this resolution was tantamount to a censure on Dr. Cronin. The resolution was sent to London Bridge and refused, on the ground that it had not been written out during the meeting. A more formal and explicit censure was then adopted at Kennington; but it also was refused at London Bridge, the plea this time being that four local Brethren had protested against it as insufficient. ”

“ This opportune letter was circulated with tremendous energy by the leaders of the Priory meeting [5] —a meeting always distinguished by its relentless resort to “discipline” for the enforcement of the highest ecclesiastical pretensions of the sect. These men, who thus used the name of their venerable chief for the prosecution of their own purposes, might have tried rather to save the credit of his grey hairs—a task that they have made it hopeless for any one else to undertake. ”

“ The next week, Darby, who had been in the North, returned to London, and brought some sort of order into chaos. He quashed the resolution of the Priory, and compelled the acceptance of the Kennington act of excommunication against Cronin. Some prospect of peace, on the basis of making Cronin the scapegoat, now appeared, and men began to breathe more freely.
The respite was short. On the very day of the Kennington act of excision, and of the wholesale excommunication by the Priory, the meeting in Ramsgate met to discuss the same burning question. ”

“ Unity, though all had shared in reducing it to a name, not to say to a byword, was still the ideal of many. Moreover, Darby’s rejection of the projects of the seceders was peremptory in the extreme. In reply to a letter from their leader, dated September 18, 1880, he wrote, “I have not remarked those who have taken the ground you do have advanced in holiness and spirituality, rather the contrary, and I am satisfied it is the path of pretension, not of faith. ... Were the movement of those you join yourself to, to break up Brethren, ... your party ... ”

“ At Vevey old M. Rossier addressed some remonstrances to the meeting with respect to its support of the Park Street decision, and received a brief reply containing the following words: “The assembly maintains in its integrity the letter it addressed to you, and accepts no kind of discussion on matters settled for the assemblies of God, and so held by every brother who recognises and respects the presence of the Lord in the assembly”. ”

“ They were distinguished by the names of their several places of meeting, the seceders being known as Guildford Hall, and the others as Abbott’s Hill.
In very few quarrels is it more impossible to feel the slightest enthusiasm for either party. The manifestoes of both alike are destitute of any trace of a liberal sentiment or an enlarged view of the situation. It was even urged in the defence of Abbott’s Hill that it had been as severe as the seceding party in condemnation of Dr. Cronin, deeming that he ought to have been excluded at Kennington on his first return from Ryde. ”

“ Cronin visited Ryde, and took the communion with Mr. Finch at this private meeting. He repeated the act a few weeks later, and by his advice the meeting was transferred to the Masonic Hall.
Cronin had no thought of making a secret of what he had done. On his return to London from the second visit, he reported his action to his own meeting in Kennington, and he wrote to Darby to the same effect. Darby’s reply should be carefully noted. “I only think you have deceived yourself as to the effect of the step. I shall be delighted if I am wrong. ... ”

“ In some cases, men made for better things devoted no little dialectical skill to the public elucidation of these momentous points.
It had been reported that one of the leaders of this minority, after the failure to effect the desired entrance, had taken a walk on the sands. This was urged against the claims of his party with great pertinacity by the supporters of the Guildford Hall seceders. ”

“ Yet Darby described his own act as a return, “if alone, into the essential and infallible unity of the Body”; [4] but came ere long to treat Cronin’s as a crime.
The opposition to Cronin proceeded mainly from some leading Brethren who have been referred to as lending their countenance to the Temperance Hall meeting. The controversy was already sufficiently exasperated, when a furious letter from Darby arrived in London and put pacification almost out of the question. This letter, technically known as “the letter from Pau,” is conceived in its author’s worst style. ”

“ Dr. Cronin asked him just before his departure for Pau to visit the meeting and judge of its state. Darby replied, “Never will I put my foot into that unclean place. I have known it for twenty years to be a defiled meeting.” This rests on Dr. Cronin’s testimony. An Examination of the Principles and Practice of the Park Street Confederacy, by G. Kenwrick, p. 14. ↑ This expression occurs in a tract that Darby wrote (in October, 1846) entitled Separation from Evil God’s Principle of Unity. J. E. Howard’s sarcastic comment is worth quoting. ”

“ But the meeting had a bad name for laxity, and a large number of Brethren sympathised with the seceders. No second communion was formed, the party that had withdrawn assembling for prayer, but not observing the Lord’s Supper. Meanwhile the minority (known as the Temperance Hall Meeting) accused Mr. Kelly, who was in no good odour with the New-lump school, of having fomented division. Mr. Kelly’s convictions favoured severity in dealing with illegal marriages, and this lent colour to the imputation. ”

“ The “act of independency” called for “judgment”. At last, Kennington submitted to the hard necessity. On the 19th of August, 1879, a resolution was taken, and transmitted to the Central Meeting, just transferred to Cheapside. It bore the odd direction, “To the Assembly of God in London,” and ran as follows:—
“After long waiting and prayerful consideration, and the failure of all previous action by the assembly, and admonition, we are sorrowfully compelled to declare Dr. ”

“ What sort of answer have we to ‘the grand question of the nineteenth century—What is the Church?’ The Church is the pearl, and the pearl has many incrustations, and when these incrustations are all stripped off, we have Mr. ”