### John Nelson Darby

by W. G. Turner

Edited by E. N. Cross

#### Preface

In this life of labour, it was the whole Church of God which he desired to serve and feed; nor will its obligation for this service be known until the Day declares it.

"Christ, in supremacy in his soul — and thus, Christ's interests in all that which related to him — formed, as we know, his heart, and directed all he did. Hence, as his peaceful call approached, he could say, Christ has been the only object of my life. It has been Christ to me to live.'"

The above extract from a preface to J. N. D.'s Spiritual Songs in 1883, sufficiently suggests the character of the present volume. May the Lord graciously use it for the good of the reader.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. EARLY DAYS
III. IN LABOURS ABUNDANT
IV. FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES
V. CHARACTER AND PRINCIPLES
VI. REMINISCENCES
VII. AS AUTHOR
VIII. THE LIFE AND INFLUENCE
IX. LAST DAYS
X. SECOND OF MAY 1882
BIBLIOGRAPHY.

JOHN NELSON DARBY

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

"JOHN NELSON DARBY, 1800-1882. An English Priest." This terse Anglican description of J. N. Darby in a clerical book of reference entirely fails to convey to the reader the slightest impression of the man by whom a tremendous change was wrought in Christian circles at home and abroad.

The conditions prevailing in English-speaking Christendom during the Georgian era are familiar to every student of the period, and present a gloomy picture unrelieved save by the gleam of Evangelical revival under the Wesleys and Whitefield. But in the year 1800 two of the most remarkable men of the nineteenth century were born. This century, so rich in preachers, theologians and divines, is admitted by all who are conversant with the so-called religious world of the period, to have been powerfully influenced by the personalities of Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Nelson Darby, both of whom made indelible marks upon the face of Christendom.

Both became clergymen of the Established Church, and lived lives of unworldly piety; labouring, although in a wholly different way, to realise a great ideal (the visible unity of the Church of God). It is noteworthy that both ended their labours within a few months of each other. Dr. Pusey will ever be remembered by the views and practices associated with his name. He found the Church of England in a state of nearly unparalleled apathy and supineness. The clergy were, with some honourable exceptions, worldly and careless, and "Like priest, like people." The Lord's Supper was but rarely celebrated, the church-buildings were ill-kept and badly attended, and such religion as survived had become the monopoly of the better Evangelicals.

A writer of this period speaks of the clergy as "careless of dispensing the bread of life to their flocks, preaching at best but a carnal and soul-benumbing morality, and trafficking in the souls of men by receiving money for discharging the pastoral office in parishes where they did not so much as look on the faces of the people more than once a year"; and of a typical clergyman, further remarks, " He really had no very lofty aims, no theological enthusiasm. If I were closely questioned, I should be obliged to confess that he felt no serious alarms about the souls of his parishioners, and would have thought it a mere loss of time to talk in a doctrinal and awakening manner to old 'Feyther Taft,' or even to Chad Cranage the blacksmith. If he had been in the habit of speaking theoretically, he would perhaps have said that the only healthy form religion could take in such minds was that of certain dim but strong emotions, suffusing themselves as a hallowing influence over the family affections and neighbourly duties. He thought the custom of baptism more important than its doctrine, and that the religious benefits the peasant drew from the church where his father worshipped and the sacred piece of turf where he lay buried, were but slightly dependent on a clear understanding of the Liturgy or the sermon. Clearly, the Rector was not what is called in these days an 'earnest' man: he was fonder of Church history than of divinity, and had much more insight into men's characters than interest in their opinions; he was neither laborious, nor obviously self-denying, nor very copious in almsgiving, and his theology, you perceive, was lax."

Amongst the Dissenting communities there existed at that time a cold exclusiveness almost amounting to Pharisaism; their hope lay in political reform. The whole professing Church, wise and foolish virgins alike, apparently slumbered and slept. The Reform Bill, however, had a manifest and powerful effect; churchmen could not fail to see that their house was in danger. Then the Anglo-Catholic school within the borders of the Establishment began to realise the necessity of resting their claims against Radical encroachment on Apostolic succession, saving ordinances, and imposing forms, to which Dissent had no pretension, and in fact repudiated.

At the same time, the hearts of believers in the various denominations were stirred up to study the Scriptures, and, as ever, in so doing found light pouring into their minds.

Some, alas like Dr. Pusey, instead of being humbled by Scriptural light, obscured it by forms and human imaginings, imported mainly from traditions in the writings of the early fathers, thereby sowing baneful seeds of error, which have since become so abundantly fruitful in the Established Church and her daughters. Disgusted with the sloth and apathy of normal Christendom, these did not so much search the Scriptures, as insist on the need of an interpreter for them. They ignored (though unintentionally) the Divine Instructor, Whose special mission it is to reveal and explain the things of Christ to His people. So, practically substituting for the present energy of the Holy Spirit the confusions of the so-called fathers, it is little wonder they rapidly strayed more and more from the truth to masses, confessionals, crucifixes, purgatory, and, in some instances, to holy-water stoups and extreme unction, until, as Charles Kingsley observes, " all the appliances of region to deliver a man out of the hands of a merciful God" were speedily requisitioned. Yet their main object of visible unity, based on the principles of catholic corruption after the Apostles had departed, and on medieval development was, in their own eyes, but very partially realised, and even yet to the outsider, although nearly a century has elapsed since the famous Assize sermon of Keble which marked the outward commencement of the Oxford movement, still appears chimerical.

Thousands of earnest, and some pious, souls were enslaved within the bonds of a legal tyranny more irksome and insufferable than that of Judaism. It was, indeed, a species of a Jewish Pagano-Christian amalgamation. Some leaders may have been sincere, but mistaken sincerity like theirs only proves too well the subtlety of the enemy of souls, and the folly of leaning to one's own understanding in the things of God. Dr. Pusey and his friends therefore sought to establish a restoration of united Christendom, ignoring the palpable fact of its departure from God and His Word and Spirit, and its ruin doctrinal, ecclesiastically and morally.

John Nelson Darby, on the other hand, with a heart broken by the sense of the Church's sin and ruin, was the unflinching asserter of the rights of the Lord, and of the unfailing Word and Spirit of God. For over half a century he diligently taught and illustrated by his practice the truth that there still remains as the duty of every member of Christ strenuously to keep the unity of the Spirit, already established by God, whatever the sad universal disorder prevailing in current Christendom.

His conception of the Church, noble and sublime, differs widely from that advocated by many in high ecclesiastical positions, but cannot fail to appeal to the spiritual mind. He says, " The Church . . . a lowly, heavenly body . . . has no portion on earth at all, as it was at the beginning — suffering as its Head did, unknown and well known — an unearthly witness of heavenly things on earth."

How John Nelson Darby endeavoured to carry out these principles, and what manner of man he was, the following pages are written to show; not indeed to glorify the man, but to reveal the aim and ambition of his life.

CHAPTER II

EARLY DAYS - SCHOOL - UNIVERSITY - CURACY

JOHN NELSON DARBY was born at Westminster, in his father's London house, on November 18th, 1800. He was the youngest son of John Darby, of Markley, Sussex, and of Leap Castle, King's County, Ireland. His mother was of the Vaughan family, well known in Wales, whilst on his father's side he was of Norman extraction. His uncle, Admiral Sir Henry Darby, commanded the Bellerophon in the Battle of the Nile, and Lord Nelson, to the delight of the parents, was sponsor for their youngest son; hence the second Christian name given in compliment to England's naval hero. He received his early education at Westminster School; the years, however, spent by him at the famous school were very uneventful and gave no promise of the future that lay before the lad. All that could be learned from his master was that there was a lad named John Darby in the school at the time referred to, but that there was nothing special about him as far as memory served, and that he did not know what became of him after leaving the school, as he had never heard anything of him.

It is singular to reflect that, at a time when J. N. Darby's name was well known in almost every quarter of the globe, his old schoolmaster should so completely have lost sight of him.

It was in boyhood that a domestic crisis seems to have arisen in the Darby household and John was removed from the tender upbringing of his mother; and the impression made upon him was very deep; so much so that, in spite of a stormy ecclesiastical career, the tender memory which he cherished in his heart of her sometimes found expression on unexpected occasions. When fifty years of age, he writes of her as follows: "I have long, I suppose, looked at the portrait of my mother, who watched over my tender years with that care which only a mother knows how to bestow. I can just form some imperfect thought of her looks, for I was early bereft of her; but her eye fixed upon me that tender love which had me for its heart's object — which could win when I could know little else — which had my confidence before I knew what confidence was — by which I learnt to love, because I felt I was loved, was the object of that love which had its joy in serving me — which I took for granted must be; for I had never known aught else. All that which I had learnt, but which was treasured in my heart and formed part of my nature, was linked with the features which hung before my gaze. That was my mother's picture. It recalled her, no longer sensibly present, to my heart."

After leaving school young Darby, at the age of fifteen, matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, and thus visited for the first time the land and people with which his family had been closely identified from before the Reformation. Here he made rapid strides, becoming Classical Gold Medallist on the shorter time of a Fellow-Commoner for his degree in his nineteenth year. He first entered the legal profession and was called to the Irish Bar; but being converted to God he from conscientious motives abandoned it. This was a great disappointment to many, to none more than to his brother-in-law, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland (then Sergeant Pennefather), who hoped not only for his rise to the highest honours in the profession, but that his penetrating and generalising genius would have done much to reduce the legal chaos to order.

From the age of eighteen until he was twenty-five Mr. Darby underwent much spiritual exercise. Speaking to the late Mr. William Kelly many years after on the subject of the possibility of real conversion before the peace of conversion, Mr. Darby said that for these seven years he practically lived in the 88th Psalm, his only ray of light being in the opening words, "O Lord God of my salvation." To very few is it given to be thus exercised in soul; but the depth and reality of this initial spiritual experience gave tone and stability to his life-long witness.

With the ardour of a consciously reconciled soul he now desired a sphere of life-work wherein to serve God. With this object he sought admission to holy orders, and was ordained deacon by Archbishop Magee in 1825. He was appointed to the curacy of a large and straggling parish in County Wicklow, and having now a congenial sphere of labour and scope for his energies, he threw himself heartily into all its varied duties. He was earnest and diligent in his ministrations, strict in his personal walk and churchmanship, endeared to the poor by his devotedness, and exercised a generally beneficial influence over the whole locality, where he spent his patrimony in schools and charity.

Mr. Darby would no doubt have settled here amongst the Wicklow mountains quite contentedly, but God was fashioning him for a wider sphere of greater usefulness, to be entered upon in His own good time. Meanwhile a year had swiftly rolled by and Mr. Darby went up to the city to receive the priest's orders at the hands of the Archbishop, which should qualify him to perform all the duties of his office.

His mind on the very day of his ordination was disturbed as to his position in the Established Church, but he returned to his parish and became specially active in the Home Mission of that day, which was greatly blessed in the conversion of Roman Catholics (at one time five hundred in a week) all over Ireland.

In the discharge of his duties he met with an accident, injuring his foot, and had to go to Dublin for care and treatment; there he made some friends, of whom we shall hear later. Upon returning to his parish, he found to his sorrow and surprise that the Home Mission work had been brought practically to a standstill by a Pastoral letter of Archbishop Magee, requiring the converts to take an oath of allegiance to the King. The converts were just the persons who least needed such a guarantee of their loyalty, and on inquiring Romanists it had the most repellent effect, for it seemed to them a question between the Pope and the King, and not of Christ at all. Mr. Darby could not stand this, and vigorously protested against it. But Erastianism prevailed, and the qualms and increasingly serious doubts which had perturbed him before, now clamoured for a decision. He would not disobey his diocesan, but he believed it a dishonour to Christ's ministry and Church to create a religious police for currying favour with the Government. He had already for conscience sake relinquished one lucrative profession, and now abandoned another position of influence and dignity, as being, to him at any rate, untenable because unscriptural, and derogatory to the glory of Christ. Little thought Archbishop Magee what would be the ultimate consequences to the Church of God, when he forced J. N. Darby out from the clerical ranks, by his time-serving Pastoral charge. When at this time Mr. Darby was asked by the Rev Robert Daly (afterwards Bishop of Cashel), "Well; John, you have left us: what Church have you joined?" he replied, "None whatever; I have nothing to do with the Dissenters, and am as yet my own Church."

The fact was, that so far he had come to see that the opening of the door — to receive the whole population of a country into the most solemn acts of worship and Christian fellowship is a latitudinarian error; and he was therefore constrained to "cease to do evil," not doubting that the Lord would ere long teach him to "learn to do well."

A brother clergyman, the Rev. James Kelly (then of Stillogan in Ireland), on sending to him the question long afterwards, "Why did you leave the Church of England?" received the following answer from Mr. Darby. "I find no such thing as a National Church in Scripture. Is the Church of England — was it ever — God's assembly in England? I say, then, that her constitution is worldly, because she contemplates by her constitution — it is her boast — the population, not the saints. The man who would say that the Church of England is a gathering of saints must be a very odd man, or a very bold one. All the parishioners are bound to attend, by her principles. It was not the details of the sacramental and priestly system which drove me from the Establishment, deadly as they are in their nature. It was that I was looking for the body of Christ (which was not there, but perhaps in all the parish not one converted person); and collaterally, because I believed in a divinely appointed ministry. If Paul had come, he could not have preached (he had never been ordained); if a wicked ordained man, he had his title and must be recognised as a minister, the truest minister of Christ unordained could not. It was a system contrary to what I found in Scripture." Mr. Darby, young as he was then, had a backbone in his spiritual life; moral stamina, and a spiritual judgment which tested questions by Christ; consequently, he was willing to turn his back on al things else at what he believed to be the bidding of his Lord.

Some of the friends he had found in Dublin on the occasion of his last visit, had also been much exercised in heart in a similar manner; and feeling the absence of spiritual life and Christian fellowship in the Establishment, as well as in the various denominations to which they belonged, were really thirsting for something which could not be found existing. In this state of mind they agreed to study the Word of God together, and look to the Lord for light and direction as to their future path.

The customary result in such cases followed, for the Lord so satisfied their longing souls that they quickly considered all things else as loss compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord.

"For ah! the Master is so fair

His smile so sweet to banished men,

That they who meet it unaware

Can never rest on earth again."

Being unable to find an expression of the Church of God either in the national Establishment, or in any of the Dissenting societies, which latter never contemplated the large yet holy nature of Christ's body on earth, and could only be entered by pronouncing their peculiar "Shibboleth," the young disciples determined at all cost to go outside the religious camp of the day, recognising the Name of the Lord Jesus alone to be the original, abiding, and only true centre for His own. So when Mr. Darby arrived in Dublin during the winter of 1827-28, he had the joy of meeting with four of these on Lord's Day mornings to "break bread" according to the Word "upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread " (Acts 20: 7).

It is not by any means certain that these five brethren — Mr. J. G. Bellett, Dr. Cronin, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Brooke and Mr. Darby — who met thus for mutual fellowship in the breaking of bread at Fitzwilliam Square, in Mr. Hutchinson's house, had already completely severed their connection with the various bodies to which they had belonged, but it is very clear that they were getting free from the grave-clothes of merely human systems of religion and were well on the high road towards that liberty of worship and service which the Spirit of the Lord alone can make effectual in the soul. The consideration of the truth found in Matthew 18: 20, Romans 12, Ephesians 4: 3, 4 appears to have been largely instrumental in influencing their course of conduct at this time. As any one of these five would afterwards have expressed it, and substantially did so, they had discovered that intelligently to worship the Father in spirit and truth, and direct responsibility to serve the Lord, while awaiting His return, composes the proper sphere of the believer's aspirations here on earth.

CHAPTER III

IN LABOURS ABUNDANT

After resigning his curacy, Mr. Darby made it abundantly evident that he had neither resigned the holy ministry of God's Word nor the practical cure of souls; but like a famous John of the previous century had rather taken the whole world for his parish. In many striking respects, too, his after-career resembles that of John Wesley, although their respective estimates of the Church of England differed very widely. John Wesley could never conscientiously bring himself to separate from the Establishment; John Darby, on the other hand, could not conscientiously bring himself to remain within her pale. In missionary zeal, earnestness, devotedness and thorough-going evangelism there was, however, much resemblance between the two giants. In Mr. Darby's case, there was, along with the most enthusiastic and ardent evangelism clear definite teaching as to the Church of God, the body of Christ, the coming of the Lord, prophecy, dispensational truth, the Word of God, the operations of the Spirit, with the calling and privileges of the Church. In the early days of his ministry, at Powerscourt Castle, and, subsequently, in various centres of England, great attention and interest was aroused by this teaching. Sixty or seventy of the most devoted clergymen and some Dissenting ministers attended the meetings and enjoyed the truth together at one time, until they became alarmed as to whereunto this would grow. Then the inevitable reaction followed. As Mr. Groves writes to him in 1836, when Mr. Darby had been insisting that separation from evil was the Divine principle of unity, "I know it is said (dear Lady Powerscourt told me so) that as long as any terms were kept with the Church of England, by mixing up in any measure in their ministrations when there was nothing to offend your conscience, they bore your testimony most patiently, but after your entire rejection of them, they pursued you with undeviating resentment, and this was brought to prove that the then position was wrong, and the present right."

It was one great part of Mr. Darby's lot throughout his life to be thoroughly misunderstood even by those whom he personally esteemed the most for their devotion to Christ. By many he was dubbed a mystic, and his teaching regarded as being impossible of practical realisation in the present disordered state of Christendom. John Nelson Darby, however, was not only meditative as few are, but practical, and had thoroughly grasped and woven into actual practice the pilgrim side of the Christian calling. His beautiful lines in the Song of the Wilderness, written in the year 1849, sufficiently indicate both the trend of his mind and the spring of his course of action.

"This world is a wilderness wide:

I have nothing to seek or to choose,

I've no thought in the waste to abide

I've nought to regret, nor to lose.

........................................................

'Tis the treasure I've found in His love,

That has made me a pilgrim below."

This decision was neither the product of a morbid spirituality, nor of mere religious emotionalism, but the result of a clear apprehension of the object for which he had been apprehended of Christ Jesus. Hence we find him going hither and thither all over Great Britain and Ireland as likewise afterwards through France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland Italy, Canada, America and Australia carrying the living water to thirsty souls, and being abundantly used by God in the emancipation of thousands of Christian souls from unscriptural bondage and churchly traditions.

An unfriendly Continental writer, the late Professor Herzog of Lausanne, thus writes of Mr. Darby on the occasion of his visit to Switzerland in the spring of 1840.

"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 to 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 in him a combination of fine and great qualities. His conversion, we have no reason whatever to doubt, was real and sincere. He is capable of much devotion to the Lord's cause, and he has given striking proofs of it. He is a man of indefatigable activity, and at the same time of great originality and independence of mind."

Then by way of qualifying the to him too adulatory paragraph, he adds: "If he had taken a different turn, he might have rendered eminent services to the Church."

Of course Professor Herzog could not be expected to enjoy the great movements which took place in Swiss ecclesiastical circles as the outcome of Mr. Darby's visits. Three years previous to the date above mentioned a large number of believers separated from the Swiss Free Church after a course of lectures by Mr. Darby on the Book of Exodus, upon which he composed one of his, perhaps, best known hymns:

"Rise, my soul ! thy God directs thee;
Stranger hands no more impede:
Pass thou on; His hand protects thee—
Strength that has the captive freed.
Is the wilderness before thee—
Desert lands, where drought abides?
Heavenly springs shall there restore thee
Fresh from God's exhaustless tides.
Light divine surrounds thy going;
God Himself shall mark the way:
Secret blessings, richly flowing
Lead to everlasting day.
God, thine everlasting portion
Feeds thee with the mighty's meat;—
Price of Egypt's hard extortion,
Egypt's food, no more to eat!
Art thou wean'd from Egypt's pleasures?
God in secret thee shall keep:
There unfold His hidden treasures
There His love's exhaustless deep.
In the desert, God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found
Patient, gracious, powerful, holy—
All His grace shall there abound!
On to Canaan's rest still wending,
E'en thy wants and woes shall bring
Suited grace from high descending;—
Thou shalt taste of mercy's springs.
Though thy way be long and dreary
Eagle strength He'll still renew:
Garments fresh and foot unweary
Tell how God hath brought thee through!
When to Canaan's long-loved dwelling
Love divine thy foot shall bring
There with shouts of triumph swelling,
Zion's songs, in rest, to sing.
There, no stranger-God shall meet thee!
Stranger thou in courts above:—
He, Who to His rest shall greet thee,
Greets thee with a well-known love."

CHAPTER IV

FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES

Of friends, in the usual sense of the term, John Nelson Darby had few. It was, however, well-nigh impossible but that his dominant personality and ardent devotion to our Blessed Lord should attract like-minded persons, and also others who were temporarily fascinated by the savour of Christ and the primeval freshness of Darby's teaching, and yet failed to renounce the world and reduce that doctrine to a life of obedience. We select seven typical examples of these friends or associates of John Nelson Darby, but the reader will not, we trust, suspect any esoteric meaning to lie in the numeral selected.

Professor Francis William Newman, Benjamin Wills Newton, J. C. Philpot, Dr. Edward Cronin, George V. Wigram, George Muller and William Kelly were all at one time friends of Mr. Darby, or at any rate very intimately associated with him.

Almost every writer on Darby has felt it incumbent upon him to incorporate in his narrative Professor Newman's striking pen-portrait and appraisal of John Nelson Darby. Some may consider its value to be enhanced by the ground occupied by Newman when writing the notorious Phases of Faith, from which it is taken.

Professor Francis William Newman (brother of Cardinal Newman) was associated with Mr. Darby in rather early days, but, alas! widely drifted from the early teaching. He had won an unusually high double First Class at Oxford, and become resident tutor at Sergeant Pennefather's. Here he saw much of Mr. Darby, who was there invalided. But ere long, after a brief missionary journey to the East in company with Mr. A. N. Groves and others, he returned to England and lapsed into a form of scepticism or Deism, at least as soon as Mr. Darby's personal influence was withdrawn.

His reminiscences of those early days are interesting and are here given, He says:

"After taking my degree, I became a Fellow of Balliol College; and the next year I accepted an invitation to Ireland, and there became private tutor for fifteen months in the house of one now deceased, whose name I would gladly mention for honour and affection — but I withhold my pen. While he paid me munificently for my services, he behaved towards me as a father, or indeed as an elder brother, and instantly made me feel as a member of his family. His great talents, high professional standing, nobleness of heart and unfeigned piety, would have made him a most valuable counsellor to me; but he was too gentle, too unassuming, too modest; he looked to be taught by his juniors, and sat at the feet of one whom I proceed to describe. This was a young relative of his, a most remarkable man*, who rapidly gained an immense sway over me. I shall henceforth call him 'The Irish Clergyman.' His bodily presence was indeed 'weak.' A fallen cheek, a bloodshot eye, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom-shaved beard, a shabby suit of clothes, and a generally neglected person, drew at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing-room. It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a halfpence, mistaking him for a beggar; and if not true, the story was yet well invented.

"This young man had taken high honours at Dublin University, and had studied for the Bar, where, under the auspices of his eminent kinsman, he had excellent prospects; but his conscience would not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his talents to defeat justice. With keen logical powers, he had warm sympathy, solid judgment of character, thoughtful tenderness, and total self-abandonment. He before long took holy orders, and became an indefatigable curate in the mountains of Wicklow. Every evening he sallied forth to teach in the cabins, and, roving far and wide over mountains and amid bogs, was seldom home before midnight. By such exertions his strength was undermined; and he so suffered in his limbs that, not lameness only, but yet more serious results were feared. He did not fast on purpose [he did fast often on purpose, for neither display nor influence],—but his long walks through wild country and amongst indigent people inflicted on him much severe privation; moreover, as he ate whatever food offered itself (food unpalatable and often indigestible to him), his whole frame might have vied in emaciation with a monk of La Trappe.

"Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists who looked on him as a genuine 'saint' of the ancient breed. The stamp of Heaven seemed to them clear, in a frame so wasted by austerity, so superior to worldly pomp, and so partaking in all their indigence. That a dozen such men would have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism, than the whole apparatus of the Church Establishment, was ere long my conviction; though I was at first offended by his personal affectation of a careless exterior [never was a greater mistake: it was his unworldly principle and practice]; but I soon understood that in no other way could he gain equal access to the lowest orders, and that he was moved, not by asceticism nor by ostentation, but by a self-abandonment fruitful of consequences. He had practically given up all reading but the Bible, and no small part of his movement soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary study. In fact, I had myself more and more concentrated my religious reading on this one Book; still I could not help feeling the value of a cultivated mind. Against this my new eccentric friend (having himself enjoyed no mean advantages of cultivation) directed his keenest attacks.

"I remember once saying to him, 'To desire to be rich is absurd; but if I were a father of children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure them a good education.' He replied, ' If I had children, I would as soon see them break stones on the road as do anything else, if I could only secure to them the Gospel and the grace of God.' I was unable to say Amen; but I admired his unflinching consistency. For now, as always, all he said was based on texts aptly quoted and logically enforced. He made me more and more ashamed of political economy and moral philosophy and all science, all of which ought to be counted dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. For the first time in my life, I saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others professed with their lips only.

"Never before had I seen a man so resolved that no word of the New Testament should be a dead letter to him. I once said, 'But do you really think that no part of the New Testament may have been temporary in its object? For instance, what should we have lost if St. Paul had never written, 'The cloke that I left at Troas bring with thee and the books, but especially the parchments?' He answered with the greatest promptitude, 'I should have lost something; for it was exactly that verse which alone saved me from selling my little library. No! every word, depend upon it, is from the Spirit and is for eternal service.' In spite of the strong revulsion which I felt against some of the peculiarities of this remarkable man, I for the first time in my life found myself under the dominion of a superior. When I remember how even those bowed down before him who had been in the place of parents — accomplished and experienced minds — I cease to wonder in the retrospect that he riveted me in such a bondage."

Even an apostle's prayer (Ephes. 3) could not keep the Ephesian Church from losing her first love, and the powerful influence for good of Darby did not prevent Newman from gliding out into the darkness of Agnosticism.

But we must leave him to his God, and pass on to give a brief notice of another remarkable man and Oxford Fellow, Mr. J. C. Philpot, M.A., who also was at one time resident tutor at the Pennefathers'. He knew Mr. Darby when he emerged out of the depths after seven years of bitter exercise into perfect peace with God. As Mr. Philpot belonged to the extreme school of Hyper-Calvinistic Baptists, he naturally appreciated Mr. Darby's trial of spirit, but not so his subsequent happiness. Yet he testified in the Earthen Vessel of that day that Darby was "generous to the wasting of his substance, and possessed of more than martyr courage."

Mr. Benjamin Wills Newton and J. N. Darby first met at Oxford in 1830, where Newton was Fellow of Exeter College. Of his character some suggestive words of the late C. H. Spurgeon are illuminative; he says: "that in matter and spirit Mr. Newton is far removed from the Darby school." He was a scholarly man, of grave, sober manners and of very considerable influence over a certain class, especially people of leisure. He was one of the earlier labourers at Providence Chapel, Plymouth, but almost from the first was observed to court isolation and to hold aloof from other labouring brethren. He held Bible-readings, and would not allow other labouring brethren to be present, saying that "it was bad for the taught to hear the authority of the teacher called in question, as it shook confidence in him."

Mr. Darby says, " I sorrowed over this unhappy trait of isolation, and love of acting alone, and having followers for himself. I had no suspicion of any purpose of any kind, and bore with it as a failing, of which we all had some. I should not so have acted without my brethren. I should have rejoiced to have my views corrected by them when I needed it, and learn theirs; but there it was and there I left it." At a meeting in Clifton Mr. Newton, speaking of ministry and points connected with it, "told me," says Mr. Darby, "that his principles were changed." "I replied that mine were not; that I felt I had received them from the Lord's teaching, and with His grace should hold them fast to the end." In a review of these facts, one cannot help observing how nearly C.H.S. all unconsciously hit the mark.

At a later date he advanced a peculiar heterodoxy which seemed the fruit of his prophetic speculation in making Christ have the experience of an unconverted Israelite, in order to sympathise with a future Jewish remnant in that state. It is singular that it was in resisting the error of Edward Irving, Newton himself fell into a modified and subtle Irvingism.

But there were others very different from the foregoing. One who was even earlier than John Nelson Darby in learning Christian liberty, ecclesiastical and ministerial, but only in the germ and much simplicity, was Edward Cronin (afterwards the last Canterbury M.D.). By birth a Roman Catholic, he early came under the rough and ready discipline of his Bishop. It was in Cork that this Roman shepherd finding Cronin reading a Protestant copy of the Scriptures actually knocked him down on the spot, and thus served to open the door for escape. He proceeded to Dublin as a medical student, and here learnt from his study of the Bible that Christendom was very anomalous, and very sturdily refused to join himself to any sect. He was allowed to take the Communion in the Lord's Name by the Independents for a while, but later was excluded because he declined to become "a member" of their Church like the rest. God gave him soon afterwards to take the simple Christian stand. His memory is revered by many to this day. After a long life of devotion and fidelity to the Lord and His people, he passed away in 1882 to be with Him Whom he had devotedly loved and served. His end was more than peace, for constantly upon his lips was the Name of the Lord, and almost his latest utterance was the well-known verse:

"Glory, honour, praise and power

Be unto the Lamb for ever!

Jesus Christ is my Redeemer!

Hallelujah! Praise ye the Lord."

Mr. G. V. Wigram, a later associate and intimate friend of Mr. Darby, first met the latter at Oxford in the year 1831, when Mr. Darby was visiting that city. Though never great as a writer, or a speaker, Mr. Wigram was characterised by a singular spirituality and devotedness; by decision where Christ was concerned and love for His flock; together with his moral power these gave him justly a very high place in the esteem of J. N. Darby and many others. His chief published works were The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance to the Old Testament, and a cognate one to the Greek New Testament.

Another with whom John Nelson Darby came for a while into association was Mr. George Muller of Bristol. At one time we find Mr. Muller writing of "two Swiss brethren who have learned the way of truth more perfectly through our brother John Darby"; and during the winter of 1843-44 there occurs in his correspondence the following: "There is one brother among us, who through dear John Darby learned the way of God more perfectly in Switzerland"; showing thereby the fellowship in and appreciation of Mr. Darby's labours felt by Mr. Muller at that period. Would that it might have so continued. But, alas! history repeats itself in the ecclesiastical sphere as surely as in the secular; hence, before many months passed we find, if we may be allowed so to say, Paul again withstanding Peter because he was to be blamed. In apostolic times it was pretty evident who was at fault, and if Christ Himself and His honour had been equally paramount in His servants' lives, this sad spectacle would not have been exhibited either at Antioch in the first, or Bristol in the nineteenth century.

Mr. Darby last saw Mr. Muller in July, 1849, and they never met again on earth.

But the greatest of John Nelson Darby's friends, one who appeared at a considerably later date, was a man singularly like-minded with himself, and truly taught of God in the same school; for everything that was best in John Nelson Darby's teaching and practice found its ablest exponent and advocate in the late Mr. William Kelly, of Blackheath, London.

He has been the subject of frequent suggestive comments from the pen of the late C. H. Spurgeon, who in his Commenting and Commentaries (of the College Series) refers to Mr. Kelly in the following terms:

First, as a leading writer of the exclusive Plymouth School.

Secondly, as "an eminent Divine of the Brethren School who sometimes expounds ably, but with a twist towards the peculiar dogmas of his party."

In the third instance, he remarks: "We are sorry to see such a mind as Mr. Kelly's so narrowed to party bounds."

Fourthly, "It is a pity that a man of such excellence should allow a very superior mind to be so warped."

And lastly, he speaks of him as a man "who born for the universe, has narrowed his mind by Darbyism."

He was an intimate fellow-worker of Mr. Darby and revised his Synopsis of the Bible, besides editing his other writings, English, French, German, Dutch and Italian, in some thirty to forty volumes. Mr. Kelly did not, however, blindly follow his eminent friend, or approve all his ecclesiastical actions, and it is extremely difficult to say which was the greater of these two men, whose lives were so closely interwoven for a quarter of a century.

One trait of Mr. Darby's character, often completely overlooked and quite unsuspected save by the recipient, which astonished Mr. Philpot in earlier days, and Mr. W. Kelly (who informed me of it) in later times, was his wonderful generosity. He was as diligent in applying practical Scriptures to himself, as in insisting upon those which are considered more purely ecclesiastical. He was not a professional philanthropist, but his kindly thoughtfulness for his poorer brethren, both in temporal and spiritual need, was most marked.

Mr. Darby possessed to a wonderful degree the faculty of remembering the names and faces of those who had once come under his notice, frequently surprising people thereby. His patience with honest ignorance, his ready tact, his manliness of character, and hearty sympathy, endeared him to many, especially amongst the poorer classes. A poor man, who had been unable to make a livelihood in England but anticipated better things in America, was hindered from emigrating through lack of funds. This was mentioned to Mr. Darby, who after due enquiry presented the astonished man with a cheque for fifteen pounds to pay his expenses. Just then the man's circumstances improved, and he decided to stay in England. On his returning the cheque, Mr. Darby said, "So you are not going now; never mind, if you should want it, come to me again." This is but an example of that practical Christianity which was conspicuous in J.N.D. but should be characteristic of all who follow Him "who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."

Neatby, in his garbled History of the Plymouth Brethren, says, "If he (Darby) was ruthless in his ecclesiastical conflicts, he had at other times a singularly kindly and sympathetic nature. In the act of addressing a meeting he would roll up his greatcoat as a pillow for a sleeping child whose uncomfortable attitude had struck him. I have heard that, on one of his numerous voyages, he might have been seen pacing the deck all night with a restless child in his arms, in order to afford the worn-out mother an opportunity of rest; and I doubt whether many children were more tenderly nursed that night. The incident is the more interesting for the fact that Darby was never married. Was it the breaking forth of this tenderness, deep-hidden in his lonely heart, that bound men to him in so pathetic a fidelity of devotion "No wonder that they loved him."

CHAPTER V

CHARACTER AND PRINCIPLES OF JOHN NELSON DARBY

From the simplicity and severity of his manner of life, somewhat approaching that of an anchorite of olden days, some have averred that J.N.D. was ambitious of ecclesiastical renown and actuated by a desire for influence over men's souls. There is that in unworldliness and piety which irresistibly attracts a certain type of person, and unscrupulous professional religionists have not failed to take advantage of this human infirmity for their personal aggrandisement. Mr. Darby, on the contrary, had nothing to gain but everything to lose by his line of conduct. He might reasonably have aspired to the woolsack or the mitre, but he esteemed the reproach of Christ a far greater treasure, and delighted to walk in lowly paths of service.

"If he had been an ambitious man, anxious to build up a great and prosperous society, with a view to illustrate his own name, rather than the glory of Christ, he might have compromised with Mr. Newton, and thereby saved the society from the schism which followed. But if he had done so, he would have been justly contemptible in the eyes of the true Christian. If, after withdrawing from other denominations because they were untrue to Christ's Name and Word, he had sanctioned fellowship with him or his allies, in spite of the outrageous dishonour put upon the Lord Christ, he would have been among the most inconsistent of men, the most patent of hypocrites. But such was not the character of John N. Darby. On the contrary, finding it impossible to expel Mr. Newton, with his 'blasphemous heresy,' from the society at Ebrington Street, Plymouth, he withdrew himself therefrom, and went on with his missionary labours for the blessing and salvation of souls. Dr. Reid complains, 'Not content with this (his own withdrawal), he called upon Brethren everywhere to withdraw from all fellowship with Mr. Newton.' He did right. He was a saint, and not a hypocrite; he was a champion of Christ, and not a coward. Many of those called 'Brethren,' of course, followed the example and call of Mr. Darby; for they were not all apostates. Hence, when the true Christ was cast out of the camp at Plymouth, the faithful remnant went forth to seek Him. They refused to worship with the assembly, or to hold communion with the unfaithful brethren, who had set up the false Christ of Mr. Newton. This was the head and front of Mr. Darby's offending. If his whole life has been of a piece with this (and we have no reason to doubt it has been), then may we safely pronounce him a saint of the highest and purest stamp. He faced heresy in the very society originally formed by himself, even when outwardly most prosperous and flourishing; and, in spite of the obloquy, scorn, and contempt of the brethren once most dear to him, he continued, even as he had begun, to esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. The world may pour contempt on such a man; sectarians may dip their pens in wormwood and gall for his destruction; and the eulogists of hypocrites and liars may denounce him as a fiend incarnate; but, in our very heart of hearts, we honour and reverence him as a true soldier of the Cross." * [Extract from the Southern Review, 1877, a little softened (saint for "hero," etc.).]

Whilst it is comparatively easy to transcribe historical facts respecting J.N.D. and his friends, it is a far different matter to attempt to delineate his character, it being so many-sided. Lion-like against all that assailed Christ's person and work, or undermined God's Word, no man was more childlike, especially with the poor, whom he visited regularly day by day in the midst of sustained study and constant authorship; for in- this respect Professor N.'s appraisal was defective. Dead to mere letters, he was most diligent not only in all that pertained to the inspired text and its interpretation, but to every question connected with it and with souls, bad as well as good, ancient, medieval and modern, and abroad no less than at home. Thus he abhorred Kant's principles; yet it would have been hard to find an Englishman as familiar with all he wrote in an uninviting style. His simplicity was touching and edifying. An old Christian woman sought fellowship at Islington, and was visited in view of this. Her account was that several young gentlemen called to see her, whose learned talk she hardly understood. But a dear old man visited her, with whom she felt quite at home: "he was so plain." It was J.N.D. So far was he from the sternness imputed to him, that he was only too lenient when devotedness appeared to be among the young; as he also clung, but too tenaciously, to old sharers of the common faith in spite of their narrowness and party spirit, which he disliked.

He could turn the blind eye as adroitly as his godfather at Copenhagen; yet he was liable to listen to evil stories, told him by rash and self-seeking persons whom he credited with honesty. This dangerous credulity naturally increased with age — so much so that, when one of these mischievous workers, under his withering rebuke, wrote "I am a poor fool," J.N.D. turned round at once and committed himself to as great a mistake as he ever made. There has only ever been One whose character was perfectly flawless and evenly balanced, but He was the Son of God; and there is no comparison between even the most eminent and devoted servant of Christ and the Master Himself. He that is from above is above all, holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. God be thanked that we have Him as an object for faith, hope and love. We will give what lets out a little of his character, nearly in Mr. Darby's own words, extracted from a pamphlet printed and published in Glasgow, on "The Sabbath: is the Law dead or am I?" I love the poor, and have no distrust of them, living by far the most of my time amongst them, and gladly. When first I began such a life, I as to nature felt a certain satisfaction in the intercourse of educated persons: it was natural. If I find a person spiritually minded and full of Christ, from habit as well as principle I had rather have him than the most elevated or the most educated. The rest is all alike to me. The latter are apt to spare and screen themselves to get on in Society: they want a fence round them. I would rather in general have a poor man's judgment of right and wrong than another's; only they are, from being thrown more together and the importance of character, apt to be a little hard on each other as to conduct, and jealous of favours conferred, but often very kind and considerate one towards another. After all, we [believers] are all one in Christ Jesus, and the Word of God is to guide and lead us withal. Surely, while every Christian will readily give honour where honour is due, God loves and cares for the poor. What sympathy can one have with the sentiment that, because the spirit of radicalism is to be feared, we must suit God's authority, if it be such, to man's wishes?

"This is morally very low ground. If in Parliament the proposition was made to shut up the London parks on Sunday (that is the foot-gates, leaving the carriage-gates perhaps open for the sick), I should have moved as an amendment (did I meddle with such things) to shut the carriage-gates, and open the foot ones; the rich could go out every day, and if sick could drive elsewhere. That a poor man, the one day he has with his family, should be able to breathe, is a delight. I rejoice to see the affections of a father cultivated in kindness to his children, and both happy together; and if the Lord's Day gives him the opportunity, the Lord's Day is a true blessing. The poor, everyone labouring during the week, should insist on the Sabbath [so-called]: it is essentially his own day. For the same reason, if my vote decided it (and happily for me I have none, and would not have or use one), not a train should run on Lord's Day. As to excursions, they are a thorough curse to all engaged in them. I cannot help: I leave them there.

"But as to Sunday trains, I do not believe they are for sole reasons to meet cases of necessity and mercy, as men speak; they are to make money. If it be alleged that the requirements of Society oblige it, what are requirements of Society but haste to be rich, and an imperious claiming of the right to have one's own way? One understands very well that, railroads monopolising the roads, there is a kind of supposed obligation to meet the case of those who could have travelled at any rate; but if obliged, they can hire something to go. No, it is facility and cheapness they want; it is money and will. They are as free to travel as they were before. I have nothing to do with these things, and never intend to have to do with them. The world goes its own way, and I am not of it. The allegations of Christians about it I have to answer; and I do not accept them, or the accommodating Christianity to what is termed progress. The Christian has to form his own ways, and not expect to mend the world. There is no moral gain in its progress. We have telegraph and railway, very convenient no doubt; but are children more obedient, men happier, servants more faithful and devoted, homes and families more cherished? Is there more trust and genial confidence among men, more honesty in business, more kindly feeling between master and man, employer and employed? Let everyone answer in his own heart. You have more facilities in money-making, but more anxiety and restlessness in making it; more luxury and show, but not more affection and peace."

The careful reader will be enabled from the foregoing to understand in a measure J.N.D.'s character, as well as his views on a few home truths. Despite immense learning, his humility was very striking; he never intruded his scholarship into his ministry. A quaint old divine once remarked that "Christ still hung crucified under Hebrew, Greek, and Latin": so learned and pedantic was the preaching of that day. This was not so in Mr. Darby's case, however; for how few ever heard an allusion to the Hebrew or the Greek in his addresses? So much so that expectant strangers wondered and said, "What! is this the great Mr. Darby?" A common instance of his greatness of character and humbleness of mind occurred at a reading-meeting, where a brother advanced a peculiar theory, professedly based upon a quotation from J.N.D.'s Collected Writings. After a pause of a moment Mr. Darby with imperturbable gravity replied, "Then J.N.D.'s writings are entirely at fault, for it is obvious that the theory is quite unscriptural, and therefore unsound." Needless to say, the brother had misread and misquoted Mr. Darby; he had in fact read his own ideas into the book, which is not difficult.

His tender thoughtfulness and consideration for children was markedly displayed during one of his many visits to the United States. A poor brother whose children kept tame rabbits, was extremely anxious to entertain the great man to dinner. The long-wished-for opportunity arrived. Mr. Darby, with his usual Christian courtesy and tact, declined an influential brother's invitation to dine, but proceeded to the poorer man's house. The household were all on the tiptoe of expectation and pleasurable excitement with the sole exception of one downcast little fellow, whose tame rabbit had been requisitioned as the principal dish for the honoured guest's refection. Whilst the dinner was in process of serving, Mr. Darby, noticing the little lad's downcast demeanour, enquired the reason; and the little fellow (contrary to previous instructions) blurted out the whole truth, with the result that J.N.D. expressed his sympathy with him in a practical manner.

Declining to eat any of the little fellow's pet, as soon as the meal was over he took him to where there was a large tank of water, and producing some mechanical toy ducks from his pocket, the great man played with the little boy for an hour or so; thus conferring all the honour of his company upon a little child in the hope of partially consoling him for the loss of his pet. He, Who is the Lord and Master of us all, has told us that humility is the truest greatness.

CHAPTER VI

REMINISCENCES OF JOHN NELSON DARBY

A friend of Mr. Darby's, who was for many years on intimate terms with him, has kindly forwarded the following interesting account of a most interesting career. He says, "As you wish for some personal reminiscences of the late J.N.D., I go back to my first intercourse with him in the summer of 1845 at Plymouth. For though I had been for years in communion before this, it had not been my lot to see him for whom above all others I had conceived, because of his love and testimony to Christ, profound respect and warm affection. I was then living in the Channel Islands, in one of which I began to break bread with three sisters in Christ, before ever looking a 'brother' in the face. It was in J. B. Rowe's shop, Whimple Street, that we met, and very cordial and frank was his greeting. Painful disclosures had already been made of an effort to undermine from within, and to set up, under His Name Who had taught us liberty of ministry and the unity of the Spirit, a state of things contrary to His Word.

"Mr. Darby was then bringing out in numbers the perhaps most valuable critique he ever wrote, in exposure of Mr. B. W. Newton's Thoughts on the Apocalypse; wherein the main object was to oppose, slyly but with set purpose, every truth which was distinctive of the movement, and all-important in our convictions of God's truth and glory in Christ. Nor was the revolutionary effort confined to the retrograde party in Plymouth. Mr. Chas. Hargrove, an Irish ex-rector; Mr. J. Parnell (was he yet Lord Congleton?), with others, had committed themselves on various grounds to the reaction. Mr. Darby had replied to them all, with an earnest trenchant ability which earned the dislike and resentment of such as love compromise rather than truth. Though grieved to the heart at schism, which must if unjudged lead to what the Apostle calls 'heresy' or sect, it was clear to me which cared for Christ, and which did not rise above self or their friends.

"To established and non-established, it was just what many leaders of Christendom were desiring; for like the chief priests of old, they doubted whereunto this would grow. As no mean one among them wrote, they began to breathe freely when the Newtonian rent came. But a little matter of a private kind will interest you and your readers, as it gave me (some twenty years or so his junior) a practical lesson. When dining with Mr. Darby, he by the way said, 'I should like to tell you how I live. To-day I have more than usual on your account. But it is my habit to have a small hot joint on Saturday, cold on Lord's Day, cold on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, and on Thursday. On Friday I am not sorry to have a bit of chop or steak; then the round begins again.' I too, like Mr. Darby, had been ascetic as a young Christian, and had been reduced, by general indifference to outward life, so low that the physician prescribed as essential what had been discarded in self-denial. How uncommon to find a mind endowed with the rarest power of generalisation, able to come down like the Apostle, and impress on a young disciple, eating, drinking, or whatever is done, to do all unto God's glory I At that time Mr. Darby had not a whit of asceticism, but liberty and his heart bent on pleasing the Lord as to necessary food. To me, however small it might seem to some, it was a hint of daily value, and through me to others; for many a saint, when 'cleansed from leprosy,' forgets or neglects, in Levitical phrase, to shave off all his hair, and to wash his clothes, though he may duly bathe. So natural is it, as one of that class said, to retain and give to the Lord his 'gentlemanship' — a gift abhorrent in His eyes; for it is worldly to the core.

"Mr. Harris, Mr. Newton, Mr. H. Soltau, and many more I of course saw, and found full of kindness, even then when party spirit was doing its deadly work. For in brighter days did not Edward Irving call it a 'swamp of love,' when his own mind was carried away by pretensions to miraculous power, and to a ritual beyond the Ritualists?

"But such is the power of spirituality and devotedness, that Mr. Darby was the only one there to whom I felt free to tell confidentially the sad tale of an ex-clergyman's sin, and to join with me in prayer respecting it. As the evil had come to my knowledge unsought and far away, it devolved on me in faith and love to seek him out, and lay what none, perhaps, suspected upon his soul before God. As he had already withdrawn from communion, one could leave all else with Him. No doubt he is long departed, and as no one is alive to guess the one meant, I venture thus to speak.

"It was at a much earlier date (1831, I think) that F. W. Newman invited Mr. Darby to Oxford: a season memorable in a public way for his refutation of Dr. E. Burton's denial of the doctrines of grace, beyond doubt held by the Reformers, and asserted not only by Bucer, P. Martyr, and Bishop Jewell, but in Articles IX-XVIII of the Church of England. With a smile he said to me, 'That is the only pamphlet by which I ever made money.' The same visit of his acted more privately (not on Mr. W. E. Gladstone, who saw and heard him then) but on G. V. Wigram, Sir L. C. L. Brenton, B. W. Newton and W. Jarrett, as well as others too halting in faith to make a decided stand and endure the consequences. It was characteristic of those young men that, when once at a conversazione some one remarked, 'May the Lord give me a living in a beautiful country' (and he had more than his desire in a Scotch bishopric), Mr. Wigram immediately exclaimed, 'May He give me to follow and serve Him at all cost' He too had his heart's desire. Sir Chas. Brenton hardly quite appreciated J.N.D., if one may judge by his rather severe saying, 'I never knew a man in whom the two Adams were so strong.' Sir Charles was rather legal, and suffered from it; so much so that J.N.D. called a few, not long before the former died, for special prayer on his behalf, and not in vain.

"It was, if I err not, before 1830 that, filled with the sense of the Christian's union with Christ, J.N.D. visited London, and laid it before one regarded as among the most mature of the Evangelical clergy. But his own indifference to worldly appearances seemed to render that precious but little understood truth a dead letter to this divine, who confounded it with the new birth, as ill-taught saints commonly do. His tone was pompous and self-complacent. He evidently regarded his visitor as a poor curate airing as a wonder what all knew. But the well-appointed carriage from Westminster, with coachman and footman, came to take Mr. Darby to his father's house, and happened to catch the clergyman's eye, when his manner changed to servility. This disgusted my friend, who could make allowance for ignorance, but was pained by a worldly spirit in a Christian, especially in a Christian minister. He well enough knew that the clergyman was of humble extraction: but this was nothing in his eyes if there had been spiritual feeling. Nor did the clergyman grow in grace any more than truth, when he became a Bishop, and a metropolitan one. There was a worm at the root of his theology; for he betrayed unsoundness as to Divine inspiration, both before his elevation to the episcopal throne, and after it. Such men cannot be expected to have ears to hear.

"I was unable to attend the Conference at Liverpool in the forties, but was present at that which was held in London in 1845. Only on the afternoon of the third day did J.N.D. rise to speak, and this, after a well-known friend had alluded to his silence in singular terms. Mr. D. explained that he had not spoken because so many brothers had a great deal to say. It was a most impressive discourse; for after many, and not leaders only, had spoken with considerable power and unction, he gave a terse summary, which set their main points in the best position, and then brought in a flood of fresh light from Scripture on the whole theme. During the same Conference a noble personage, who resented D.'s exposure of a foolish and injurious tract by himself, gave way to vehement spleen. But J.N.D. answered not a word. Another, who was no less unreasonably offended, came into the hall while Mr. R. M. Beverley was telling us what had helped him to what he regarded as the chief truth he had long wanted. The old brother (very deaf) entered, and went as near the speaker as he could, and heard him read a page of his own book, affirming the very doctrine of the Spirit's presence and working, which he himself was abandoning, and for which Mr. Darby had censured him. This incident made no small impression on me of a living God's ways.

"Considerate and kind as J.N.D. was to F. W. Newman, before Newman's active mind rebelled against 'the doctrine of Christ,' he had no real sympathy with the character either of him or of his brother the Cardinal. Men, and not God, governed them both, though in a different way. The younger of the two had been much the most distinguished throughout his academic career. The elder became a master of style in English writing, but a mere slave of tradition. Mr. Darby cared supremely for Christ and the truth to the glory of God the Father. Both brothers began as Evangelicals; but they diverged, as time went on, and were quite estranged, till the one became a Papist, and the other an infidel; then they 'renewed happy intercourse.' Anything like this was sorrow and shame to Mr. Darby, who could not respect, even as a man, him who wrote and justified No. 90 of the Oxford Tracts; for from beginning to end it is a barefaced and Jesuitical plea, to construe in a Romanist sense the Protestant Thirty-nine Articles. More shocking still that Pusey and Keble, etc., should endorse its deceit. Also what could J.N.D. feel but grief and indignation at the blasphemer, who at length could compare J. Fletcher's as a life more perfect than that of Jesus, the Son of God? It is my judgment, that if Professor H. Rogers, in his Eclipse of Faith, crushed Phases of Faith on its own ground, much more did Mr. Darby, on a Christian basis, in his Irrationalism of Infidelity; just as he also laid bare the dishonesty of J. H. Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua. Even their logic was anything but immaculate.

"Mr. Darby was deliberate and prayerful in weighing a scripture; but he wrote rapidly, as thoughts arose in his spirit, and often with scarcely a word changed. He delighted in a concatenated sentence, sometimes with parenthesis within parenthesis, to express the truth fully, and with guards against misconception. An early riser and indefatigable worker, he yet had not time to express his mind as briefly and clearly as he could wish. 'You write to be read and understood,' he once said playfully to me; 'I only think on paper.' This made his writings, to the uninitiated, anything but pleasant reading, and to a hasty glance almost unintelligible; so that many, even among highly educated believers, turned away, because of their inability to penetrate sentences so involved. No one could be more indifferent to literary fame; he judged it beneath Christ and therefore the Christian. He was but a miner, as he said; he left it to others to melt the ore, and circulate the coin, which many did in unsuspected quarters, sometimes men who had no good to say of him, if one may not think to conceal the source of what they borrowed. To himself Christ was the centre of all, and the continual object before him, even in controversy; nor is anything more striking, even in his hottest polemics, than his assertion of positive truth to edification. He was never content to expose an adversary, where not only his unfaltering logic, but instant and powerful grasp of the moral side, and above all of the bearing of Christ on the question, made him the most redoubtable of doctors. Yet the same man ever delighted in preaching the glad tidings to the poor, and only paid too much honour to those whom he considered evangelists more distinctively than himself. Indeed, I remember one, who could scarcely be said to be more so than he was, happening (to his own discomposure) to preach in his presence at one of the Conferences in the past (Portsmouth); and for months after, this dear, simple-minded servant of the Lord, kept telling brethren in private, and not there only, 'Ah, I wish that I could appeal to the people as So-and-so does!'

"That he exercised large and deep influence could not but be; but he sought it not, and was plain-spoken to his nearest friends. To one whom he valued as a devoted man, he said, 'Come, not so much of the gentleman.' Another, dear to him from an early day and an admirable pastor, a good teacher and preacher, had got married to a worldly-minded lady (his second wife), though an Evangelical of the Evangelicals. This brother (an ex-clergyman) grieved him by running down the simple few gathered to the Lord's Name in the village where he lived. The complainant was no longer the labourer he had once been among the poor, but was as a half-squire and half-parson drawing back to a long-abandoned social intercourse with county folk. 'Ah!' said Mr. Darby, 'it is not the brethren but the wife.' That this was true made it the less palatable; and the wife did not fail to make it a rupture never healed. Nor was it only such cases that gave him pain. A lady I knew, when he paid a visit to Guernsey, invited a company to meet him in private, but exclusively of those who were in a good position. Had it been an Anglican Christian, or one with the Denominations, he would have made allowance and expected nothing else; but he was vexed that one in fellowship should be so far from the word and will of the Lord as to fail in giving an opportunity to lowly saints, rich in faith, who would have enjoyed it exceedingly. When asked to give thanks, he begged me to do so, meaning it as a quiet sign that he was displeased.

"It was my privilege, being actively engaged, to hear him very seldom, and this at great meetings in which he ordinarily took a large part; but I remember once hearing him preach (on Romans 5: 20, 21) to a small company of the very poor; and to a more powerful and earnest discourse I never listened, though in the plainest terms, exactly suited to his audience. The singing was execrable; and he did his best to lead them, for his voice was sweet, and his ear good; but the barbarous noise of others prevailed, with which he bore in a patience truly edifying, going on with his message quite unmoved.

"Yet was he anything but self-confident. Being asked once to preach in the open air, he begged the younger man to take it; for, said he, 'I shrink from that line of work, being afraid of sticking in the midst, from not knowing what to say.' He ungrudgingly delighted in the bold preacher with a heart full of the love of souls. He overlooked many faults, where he credited anyone with devotedness (sometimes at their own valuation). An intense admirer of his used to say that in this respect, and others too, 'he was the most gullible man in England.' This of course was extreme exaggeration; nevertheless, it occurred often enough to embarrass his fellow-labourers. I remember once in Bath remonstrating with him because of his apparently unbroken confidence in a brother who was behaving very ill to his own mother and sister, whom he drove out of the meeting as a veritable 'Diotrephes,' to gratify his mad and unbelieving father. Mr. Darby soliloquised as we walked along, 'Strange thing, that my pets should turn out scamps.' I fear that so it evidently was with this person; for not long after he furnished the most defamatory scandal ever written, printed and circulated, against his blindly generous benefactor.

"The upshot of this case is instructive. The railer, who of course vanished, not only from fellowship but to another land, had great kindness shown him by a Christian man there, an Irish gentleman. Having occasion afterwards to visit Ireland, he enquired if any of his friends knew of one, Mr. Darby. Oh, yes, to be sure! everyone knows of Mr. Darby. 'Well,' said he 'I received — and his large family for a long time during which he was habitually abusing Darby. But I found him out to be worthless; so I came to the conclusion that the object of his abuse must be a very good man.' It smacks rather Hibernian; but it was a sound instinct, and true in fact.

"The same readiness to believe the best, even of untoward souls, showed itself not seldom when persons drew on his purse, or, what was of more moment, sought fellowship through his mediation. Not a few even now will recollect an excessively turbulent man, who espoused the cause of one who had to be put out of fellowship; and being himself no less guilty, he fell under the like sentence. This man never appeared till Mr. Darby returned to London from his long journeyings, but repaired to him forthwith on his arrival. Then followed the renewed appeal: 'How is it that — is still outside?' Thereon a dead silence ensued, easily understood; for every one would have gratified Mr. Darby, had it been possible. At last a brother (now deceased), noted for his downrightness, said, 'Mr. Darby, we know —; but you do not.' Yet were some weak enough to call him a Pope who would have his way, and bore no contradiction.

"A similar case, only more disreputable, of one excommunicated for outrageous profanity, etc., occurred much later. Mr. Darby's heart somehow was touched, because he came to the meetings, and indeed forced himself to the front, and tried, while unrestored, to appropriate the Lord's Supper. Yet our beloved friend looked leniently on what was very painful to most. He was as far as possible from the ogre which so many fancied, but inflexible against those who assailed Christ. So he himself used to say, 'I ought never to touch matters of discipline; for I believe the first person, brother or sister, that tells me about things. It is quite out of my line.' So much was this felt, that I used to pray the Lord that only a true account might first reach his ear. But every considerate Christian must be aware that the faithful were as slow to spread evil tidings to gain a point, as the light and party-spirited were quick to plead for those they favour, and especially with one so influential as J.N.D. Also, when one of his position and character took up a cause in this one-sided way, as might and did happen, all can conceive how difficult it was for others to convince, or for himself to revise. Do any blame me for giving these amiable drawbacks? I humbly think that even in a brief sketch it is hardly truthful to omit what has been here touched with a loving hand, and what he himself would have frankly owned. It is not for me to say one word of what is best left in the grave of Christ, where my own failures lie buried.

"No man more disliked cant, pretension, and every form of unreality. Thos. Carlyle loudly and bitterly talked his detestation of 'shams,' J.N.D. quietly lived it in doing the truth. He often took the liberty of an older Christian to speak frankly, among others to a brother whose love, as he thought, might bear it. But sometimes the wound however faithful only closed to break out another day. 'What were you about, hiding among your family connexions, and not once seeing the brethren around?' On the other hand, reliable testimony is not wanting of his ready love in so lowly a way as to carry him where few would follow, especially where known. In early days, among the few at Plymouth a barber brother fell sick — and as no one else thought of his need, J.N.D. is said to have gone in his absence and served as well as he could in the little shop.

"Thoughtful for others he was indifferent as to comforts for himself, though he did not mind buying costly books, if he believed them of value for his work. Then he was habitually a hard worker, from early morn devoted to his own reading the Word and prayer; but even when most busily engaged, he as the rule reserved the afternoons for visiting the poor and the sick, his evenings for public prayer, fellowship, or ministry. Indeed, whole days were frequently devoted to Scripture readings wherever he moved, at home or abroad. But his clothes were plain, and he wore them to shabbiness, though punctiliously clean in his person, which dressy people are not always. In Limerick, once, kind friends took advantage of his sleep to replace the old with new, which he put on without a word, as the story went.

"In middle life he trudged frequently on foot through a large part of France and Switzerland, sometimes refreshing himself on the way with acorns, at other times thankful to have an egg for his dinner, because, as he said, no unpleasant visitors for certain could get in there! In his own house, or lodging, all was simplicity and self-denial; yet if invited to dine or sup, he freely and thankfully partook of what was set before him.

"His largeness of heart, for one of strong convictions and of practical consistency, showed itself in many ways. After he left the Anglican Establishment he preached occasionally at the call of godly clergymen who urged it; but he only appeared for the discourse and was not present at the previous service. So in France afterwards he preached for pious ministers of the Reformed Church; nor did he refuse the black gown as an academical dress; but when they brought the bands, 'Oh! no,' said he: 'I put on no more.' Again, he did not spare, but warmly rebuked the zealots among half-fledged brothers, who were so ignorantly bitter as to apply what the Apostle said of heathen tables to those of the various Denominations. It was only fundamental error which roused his deepest grief and indignation. Then, as one of these (a heterodox teacher) said to me, J.N.D. writes with a pen in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other.

"As a more public instance, take his letter from Barbados to Archdeacon Stopford, when cast down by Mr. Gladstone's disestablishment and spoliation of the Irish Protestant Church, to assure him of his sympathy. 'If the Protestants trust God, this will remain their position. Let them, because of the Word of God, and in honouring it and what is called Protestantism, as owning it cordially, coalesce with the Presbyterians, as you have noticed they did in the best times under Bramhall.... Only be yourselves, and trust God. Have done with the State, reject it, making no terms for a little money and much subjection; if you do, you are lost.' But none the less, when the pious and learned Dr. O'Brien, Bishop of Ossory, who had married his niece, wrote a defence of Baptismal Regeneration, which he had long rejected, Mr. Darby wrote a vigorous reply, and proved that the argument on the formularies as well as Scripture was simply and grossly a begging of the question.

"Even in his own circle his forbearance towards prejudice was as great as his decision in momentous things. He often worked with another, when he did not shrink from preaching in the open air so much as later. Once his companion was a man of singular eloquence, but slow to learn fuller truth and addicted to form. So the naval ex-commander read a petition from the Common Prayer selection, and the ex-clergyman made the Gospel appeal. Perhaps one such experiment sufficed. Incongruities happened in those days. At a later date he became more chary of preaching in so-called churches or 'temples' (as they call them abroad), when superstition crept in and rationalism. The recent indifferentism that prevails also curtailed in practice the readiness with which outside Christians were received, though the principle abode as ever; but its application could not but be abridged, when some wished to break bread who were insensible to notorious and grievous error taught where they usually attended.

"It will interest many to hear that his paper on the Progress of Democratic Power, and its Effect on the Moral State of England, immensely struck the late Sir T. D. Acland, who was Mr. Gladstone's intimate friend from Oxford days till death. In acknowledging the gift of Miscellaneous I, which contains the sketch, he wrote to me that it was (though written many years before) the most wonderful forecast and just appraisal he ever read of what is come and coming.

"This then is my conviction, that a saint more true to Christ's Name and Word I never knew or heard of. He used to say that three classes, from their antecedents, are apt to make bad brothers: clergymen, lawyers, and officers. He himself was a brilliant exception, though a lawyer first and a clergyman afterward.

"A great man naturally, and as diligent a student as if he were not highly original, he was a really good man, which is much better. So, for good reason, I believed before I saw him; so taking all in all I found him, in peace and in war; and so, in the face of passing circumstances, I am assured he was to the end. Do I go too far if I add, may we be his imitators, even as he also was of Christ?"

From "J.N.D. as I knew him"

by William Kelly

CHAPTER VII

JOHN NELSON DARBY AS AN AUTHOR

JOHN NELSON DARBY was a most voluminous and original writer of theological books and tracts. Foremost amongst his works is his translation of the Holy Scriptures (an entirely free and independent rendering of the whole original text, using all known helps), into German and French, and of the Greek into English. The revisers used his New Testament, and were astonished at an amount of painstaking research exceeding that of most, if not of all, as two of the best in the company wrote to the late Mr. William Kelly. In itself this would have been the life-work of an ordinary man. His aim was to bring man into touch with the exact words of Him Who is " the Truth." In this attempt the literary was made to give place to the literal, and hence a certain abruptness of style characterises his translation of the Scriptures. But the notes are invaluable and betoken true scientific scholarship.

First in interest, if not quite in point of time, may be noticed a pamphlet entitled The Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ. This was published by him at the age of twenty-eight, and from thence till his death, at the advanced age of eighty-two, there followed in quick succession works of marked spirituality covering the widest field of scriptural enquiry. He laid bare both Irvingism and Puseyism; he demolished the scepticism of Professor Newman, and the faithlessness of his elder brother, the Cardinal. He exposed Mr. B, W. Newton's Thoughts on the Apocalypse, as well as his more subtle errors as to Christ. He refuted the "perfectionism" of John Wesley, to the delight of the Swiss Free Churchmen, who were, however, not so pleased with his criticism of the spurious Free Churchism and its eldership of Dr. J. H. Merle D'Aubigne. He was as unsparing on Popish error in several works of much research as he was in helping the Free Church of Scotland against the rationalism of the late Mr. W. Robertson Smith. Then, again, the fearful errors as to sin and its penalty which are abroad, and have been spreading so rapidly — such as annihilationism, non-eternity of punishment, and the various vagaries of eschatological scepticism and infidelity — were fully refuted by Mr. Darby. Dr. J. Milner, Archbishop Whateley, Bishop Colenso, as also the writers of Essays and Reviews, were carefully examined, their sophistries exposed and arguments refuted by this fearless, well-instructed, independent student of Holy Scripture.

His expository works are of the highest value, the Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, in five volumes, being a case in point. Where is there any single work of any author affording such help to the study of Scripture? Yet several others are comparatively of only inferior worth, Evangelic, Practical, Doctrinal, Ecclesiastical, Prophetic, Miscellaneous, etc. His Critical Volume is a fund of thought for the student. All are able and scholarly, though some from the nature of the case are profound while others are of quite simple character. They are alike stamped with that devotion to Christ and faith in God's Word, and surely never was an author more indifferent to literary distinction.

But Mr. Darby's expression no doubt was difficult to the uninitiated, and many published pieces are but mere notes of readings or lectures taken by others.

He possessed a highly critical faculty, but carefully refrained from exhibiting it in his ordinary ministry. His works are not popular in style or method, but solid, spiritual and profound, and abundantly repay careful study.

Three volumes of his Letters have appeared, many of great interest, from which we append one or two of the more characteristic.

From Ventnor in the winter of his last year, 1881, he writes to a friend a letter full of general profit.

MY DEAR BROTHER,—I was glad to receive your kind letter, and to know that you are happily arrived and quietly established at —, though it be a somewhat cold climate; but it is hardly colder for you Canadians than Canada for us English, and I liked it. But, here or there, it is where God would have us, that is our place, and where we may expect a blessing and the consciousness of His presence. He may and does keep us, in His patient and perfect goodness, everywhere, but it is in the way of His will that His presence is revealed to us, so that we walk in the light of His countenance. He kept Abraham in Egypt, but he had no altar from Bethel back to Bethel.

"I trust fully that you are both in that way; I do not think it an evil that a young married couple should go through the rough of life a little together at the beginning; it binds their hearts together. Surely there is a far higher and better bond, but as to circumstances the comfort each is to the other, and the sustaining help each is to the other, bind their hearts together; for life down here is made up of small things. If it were only when a husband comes home cold and tired, finding ease and a welcome and comfort, as far as may be, and the like, there is the continuous sense of one caring for the other, and that is a great point. They are thrown on one another, and where affection is, this cultivates it, and I believe this is of all importance; and then what accompanies it, entire confidence one in another.

"But this is all maintained, dear brother, by Christ being all to each, for self is thus set aside, and the grace of Christ working in the heart overcomes all difficulties, and, while Christ is the motive which rises over all makes the other the object of affectionate and considerate service. But for our own sakes too He is everything, light to the soul, but the blessed expression and communicator of the love of God; and for this there must be real diligence. All that is around us and even real duties are constantly soliciting us away from Him, and tending to weaken us spiritually. When we cleave to Him, all goes on smoothly in the heart, in the consciousness of His love: we know how to confide in and count on Him, nothing separates us from His love. The distractions of the world lose their power, because the heart is elsewhere: nine-tenths of our temptations would not be such at all; as a mother who thought her child was run over by a train would not see fine things in the streets on her way down. And what are really our duties we should serve Christ in? A holy intimacy with Christ is the strength and light of the soul, and He encourages us in it, for He is full of love. How near He brings Peter at the end of Matthew 17. The tribute was the tribute to the temple, to Jehovah, and while He shews He knew all and could command the creatures — the fish to bring the exact needed sum — He says to Peter, 'Lest we should offend them,'—you and I are children, we do not owe the tribute, and—'that give for me and for thee.' And He spoke as intimately and familiarly to His disciples about His death as He did to Moses and Elias. It is a gracious and blessed Saviour we have; He delights in our being near Him, and soon will have us so for ever, and like Him too. May He make you more and more like Him daily! Oh! cultivate intimacy with Him; it keeps the conscience alive and the heart happy. You may be comparatively a young Christian, and I an old one; but He is all we want, each of us, and suited to each. You can have Him to keep you in the journey before you, and I can look back and see a patience and a faithfulness, a goodness beyond all my thoughts and all my praise. It is a sweet thought that in going on, I am drawing near being with Him for ever. If spared, you have more of the toil of the way; with me it is almost over. You have a help-meet and I have trod it alone; but all is lost, so to speak, in His grace and faithfulness.

"Kind remembrances to Mrs. —, whom I must learn to call by her new name — my first attempt-and thank her for her kind note. I am very glad she already bears it, for when people are engaged I do not think long delays are a good thing, though possibly sometimes inevitable. May the Lord abundantly bless you both. I shall be very glad, dear brother, though far off, to increase my acquaintance with yourself; only may your heart be with Christ!

"Your affectionate brother in Him,

J. N. D."

To another labouring brother he writes:—

"DEAR —, I rejoice that you are helped and happy in your work—I trust very constantly dependent too. That is the secret of a work wrought with God, and that, though it may seem quiet, lasts, and lays the ground for progress. I can only write a line now, though, thank God, much better.

"It is not that there are not deep things in the Word of God, but if we search it with His grace and spirit it is always plain for us on the top; then we have it from Him. The cream is on the surface, not that we do not search and study, but that when we get it from God it is plain and on the surface. Till then we must wait till He teaches us. The passage you refer to is quite general. You must expect in a great house all sorts of vessels, precious and vile. Christendom has become such, and hence we must expect such. False doctrine, when it characterises a man, is a vessel to dishonour; sound and exalted doctrine accompanied with unholiness, makes a man a vessel to dishonour; he who builds up sacramental corruptions, as Puseyites, Romanists, Greeks, are—at any rate as teachers—vessels to dishonour. I give these merely as examples; but it is left to spiritual discernment, according to the Word, to judge what is, and then to purge oneself from them. ...

"The Lord keep you humble and near Himself."

Two other of his letters are given, but the reader should procure the published volumes, which are full of real human interest, as well as spiritual good. Of the two given below, the first is to one in deep sorrow at the loss of a little one. He writes:

". . . I did not doubt a moment, when I saw the black edge, that your darling was gone. Be assured of my unfeigned sympathy. It is a world for death, but death is gain in Christ. The Lord has left you other objects to occupy your affections, but I have always seen and felt that the first taken, and her the first-born too, tells more on us than any. Up to now life, so to speak, had been working, and the fruit of life growing up in these dear objects of affection. But now death comes and says Yes, but I am here in the world; and it is more or less written on all that are left. But it is a mercy that God has left all your recollections of dear little pleasant, and that you step from these into heaven to Christ with her. I do not think that there is more feeling in the sorrow than in sympathy with it—a different kind there is, of course: but the Lord's sense of death at the tomb of Lazarus was deeper far, I believe, than Martha and Mary's, tempered with divine sustainment of life, but feeling what death was more than they did—-not exactly the loss of Lazarus, that was their sorrow, but all that death meant for the human heart, and as God saw it in love. So your little one is gone, but is gone to Christ, and He is the resurrection and the life. Wonderful that He, such in this world, Master of death, steps then into death Himself for us! But oh, how perfect in all things He was! I recommend you and Mrs. — to Him. He makes up every loss, and in Him we lose nothing. He had a better right, and a blessed right, to — than even you had, so He has taken her to Himself. We cannot say a word, save that that is what it is; and He has taken her before the fresh buds of divine goodness were soiled or sullied in her. May the gracious Lord turn it all to blessing to you. Since my affections were linked up with these little ones, but there is better than what passes away.

"Affectionately yours in the Lord."

The last letter which we must give, while written under quite different circumstances from the preceding, yet also reveals the true parental spirit of the childless writer.

DEAR BROTHER,—I am always glad to get your letters with news of the work. Thank God it seems a moment of blessing in general, not that there is not conflict, that the enemy does not seek to embarrass our service by his manoeuvres; still the Lord works, and everything is made to work together for good. All I seek and desire is, that brethren should give a thoroughly faithful testimony, so that the Lord can be with them and put forth His grace with them.... But oh, how much more there is to do! but the Lord will assuredly do His own work....

"I hope you have learned to nurse your baby: we heard bad accounts of you in this respect. It is a charge the Lord has given you for higher purposes than this world; and thorough confidence in the parents, begotten by tender care and laying one's self out a little for them—is what creates it under God's goodness, though of course your little one is too young to be much in your care now; but affections begin early. This world passes and ends, but what we do, and are in it, never does—save the poor vessel.

"May the Lord bless your babe and you in it.

"J.N.D."

This selection from his correspondence throws a new light upon the character of the man, whom those who knew him little and loved him less, persistently misrepresented as a turbulent ecclesiastic who delighted to live in the midst of religious strife and discord.

A letter of J. N. Darby's, of a public nature, dealing with a question upon which he felt deeply and expressed himself strongly (the Irish Education measures of 1832), though familiar to readers of his Miscellaneous volume, may be new to many and gives a further view of his character and principles. He says:

"SIR,—I address you thus formally in a public document in which it is my object, not to express any personal feelings, but to investigate principles. Your language (as reported) has given me occasion to address you on the subject on which I write: a matter which I confess has occasioned some astonishment to my mind, though other principles than astonishment bring it into action. The character of the public meeting held in this city on the subject of the anti-scriptural system of education needs no comment at present. You were present at that meeting and spoke; but it is not my object to discuss the character of your speech. The unholy marriage between Infidelity and Popery, the devil's apostate counterpart of the union between the bride, the Lamb's wife, and the great Head of the Church—whose banns have been first published in this unhappy country, if not adequately exposed (as I think none can feel its evil sufficiently), has yet given occasion to so loud an expression of principle as, I trust, will, under God, give stability to those who might otherwise have been entangled, and maintain the public expression of the right, here at least, before God, when all principle and allegiance towards Him have been so atrociously invaded. But you were following in your opposition in the rear of those to whom you owed canonical obedience. It was at least, sir, an unfriendly way of doing it.

"But not to leave seriousness, considering the path which the Archbishop has trodden, it was well you were behind him. Authority and circumstances hide much from the world, and I must feel that it is the assumed orthodoxy of official situation, which could alone blind the clergy of this country to the principles of the Archbishop by whom they are governed. Such principles known I should be sorry indeed to follow, and the fullness of an episcopal robe does but ill conceal—even though one be behind it—the false principles which may be set before its face. The circumstances of the case are these: a scheme is set on foot whose professed object is to exclude the Scriptures from the school instruction of the children of this country, and this not for the purpose of meeting the poor people or consulting their feelings. It had required, Mr. Stanley states, the energetic exertion of the priests to prevent the people from embracing the proffered boon of instruction in the Word of God, the boon of God Himself; not then to meet the prejudices of the people, but in acquiescence, we learn from the same authority, with the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. The Scriptures are the witness, not only of the holiness of God, but of His love, of His prerogative love in Christ. The Archbishop has set himself forward as the main effectuator, as under the circumstances he certainly is, of a scheme which is professedly to meet the priests, in accordance with their principles, in excluding from the schools this witness of God's love in Christ; for their introduction Mr. Stanley himself states to be the vital defect of the previous system.

But the clergy are more deeply concerned in this, and the laity too, than, as far as I can see, they are aware. The only discerning spring of Christian activity, synergism in God's love (for Christianity is the activity of God's love), is the knowledge and love of Christ. The perception of His person is the great centre and spring of all vital theology. To see this is the material of faith. 'He that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, hath everlasting life.' Not to see this leaves a person in the darkness of this world.

"The Archbishop of Dublin is a Sabellian. Of the painful situation in which this may place the clergy it is not for me to judge. What the laity will feel in thinking of their association with him, on the general superintendence of the establishment, they must consider for themselves. But Sabellianism may be considered some questionable opinion or difference. But you must know, sir, that it strikes at the root of all vital as well as orthodox Christianity, by neutralising the distinction between the Father and the Son. The Father's sending the Son—the Son's obedience to the Father-the whole scheme of mediatorial Christianity—that is, Christianity itself becomes lost in this form of infidelity. A Trinity in character, but not a Trinity of persons, in the essential force of that word, may ease the proud mind of man of that which is beyond its natural powers, but takes away, at the same time, the whole basis on which a sinner can rest by faith. Men may be guilty of Tritheism, and Sabellians may avoid this. But they also may undermine the faith in another way.

"I care not, sir, for the term Sabellianism: but when the personality of the Son of God is avowedly attacked, I cannot be surprised that the person who does so should be the instrument of establishing the first open public act of infidelity—avowedly rejecting the Scriptures, to meet the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. It may not be unprofitable to see the suitableness of the agent to such a work. With what satisfaction anyone can follow in the rear, or own canonical obedience to such a one, I must leave to their own consciences and their fidelity to Christ to determine. Certainly the fate of the Archbishop has been unfortunate. Famous, if fame is to be trusted, for being opposed to the union of Church and State, he has with painful singularity united himself to it in its first public act of professed infidelity, to be the solitary agent of any consequence in carrying the blighting influence of their infidelity into general and diffusive operation.

"Dr. Whately may be amiable, affable in manner, and efficient in business; but truth is truth, and principle is principle, and talents (however great or over-estimated) and the most candid kindness of manner are but snares to the unwary. Satan is not foolish enough to make mischief disagreeable. These things appear to me, sir, not only heretical, and (as I should call it) infidel, on the most vital principle of Christianity, but, considering the circumstances in which the author of them is placed, sad want of principle. But when I consider that one who has sworn that the essential point of popish instruction and worship is a 'blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit,' as Dr. Whately has, should be the principal agent for securing the instruction of the majority of the children of this country in it, and their actual attendance on it, I cannot be surprised, sir. There never was a stronger instance of the principle, that, where the truth of the gospel did not exist, the grace or principle of it could not be found. I confess, sir, more heartless unprincipledness I never heard of. Nor, slight as Dr. Whately's tie may be to standards which have elevated him to the place from which he throws them down, will the refuge this may be afford him much shelter. The results of such instruction as he is putting the children under I shall state in his own words. They are from a note to the same article. There is some ignorance on the subject shewn in it, but it is immaterial to the present point.

"'The correctness of a formal and deliberate confession of faith is not always of itself a sufficient safeguard against error, in the habitual impression of the mind. The Romanists flatter themselves that they are safe from idolatry, because they distinctly acknowledge the truth, that God only is to be served (namely, with latria), though they allow adoration (hyperdulia and dulia) to the Virgin and their saints, to images, and to relics. To which it has been justly replied, that, supposing this distinction correct in itself, it would be in practice nugatory, since the mass of the people must soon, as experience proves, lose sight of it entirely in their habitual devotions.

"It must be a happy office to one who has a heart and a conscience to secure to the mass of the people instruction which must plunge them into idolatries, however people may flatter themselves. But I must not pursue this part of the subject, or I should say a great deal more than is needful; and the general principles of the subject are already before people's minds.

"I have very briefly brought the subject forward, stating little of my own views or feelings, not because I have them not, but because I rather desired the facts should be presented for consciences of others. God may bring good out of evil. But these sorts of circumstances are just the trials of the faithfulness of God's children. Let it be known only that, though God may be in a distinct position, there is, according to Dr. Whately, no distinction in the person of the Father and the Son. What may be the duty of the clergy in such a case I leave to themselves: of that of a Christian I can have no doubts.

"O God, to what a pass is Thy Church come, when those who govern and should feed it are found, even where the truth seems specially professed, deniers of that upon which Thy whole glory rests, even the person and therefore the mission of Thy Son, who loved it and gave Himself for it! O Lord, regard Thy people, and give them faithfulness and wisdom to do that which becometh Thy saints for the glory of Thy Name, and acknowledgment of Thy love through Jesus, Thy sent One, come in the flesh that, according to that which is given them, all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father by one Spirit! Amen.

"I am, sir, faithfully yours,

"J. N. D."

CHAPTER VIII

THE LIFE AND INFLUENCE

"O! dwell with me; let no distracting thought

Intrude to hide from me that heavenly light:

Be Thou my strength! Let not what Thou hast brought

Be chased by idle nature's poor delight."

J. N. DARBY. 1879.

"Christ has been the only object of my life. It has been Christ to me to live."

"When we own the authority of God, then the affections can come into play."

These words of John Nelson Darby, uttered by him at the end of his long pilgrimage, may very aptly serve as an index of his life. rom the day when he came into peace with God, the Person of the blessed Saviour claimed his entire allegiance and affection. The reader of his most controversial works cannot fail to observe how naturally the mind is led to the person, work and claims of Christ whatever the subject immediately discussed; while the perusal of his Spiritual Songs is a revelation of a devotion, deep, true and tender; the outpouring of heartfelt piety in chaste and beautiful expression; which enchains, while it also constrains the Christian heart to join its delightsome melody. There is a celestial fragrance that like the precious spikenard fills the house with its perfume, as we read and ponder these hymns of Mr. Darby.

In one of a very early date his ardent spirit crys:

"Lord! let me wait, for Thee alone:

My life be only this—

To serve Thee, here on earth unknown

Then share Thy heavenly bliss.

..............................

O rest ineffable, divine,

The Rest of God above:

Where Thou for ever shalt be mine

My joy, eternal Love!"

Another of his hymns, considered by many to be one of the best written by him, is doubly interesting from the apparently untoward circumstances which witnessed its production. It was in 1845 when Mr. Darby was engaged in a tremendous ecclesiastical conflict that he published the following nobly conceived lines on the Saints' Rest:

"Rest of the saints above,

Jerusalem of God!

Who in thy palaces of love,

Thy golden streets have trod.

To me thy joy to tell?

Those courts secure from ill,

Where God Himself vouchsafes to dwell

And every bosom fill!

Who shall to me that joy

Of saint-thronged courts declare—

Tell of that constant, sweet employ,

My spirit longs to share?

.......................................

There, only, to adore

My soul its strength may find—

Its life, its joy for evermore,

By sight nor sense defined.

God and the Lamb shall there

The light and temple be;

And radiant hosts, for ever, share

The unveiled mystery."

Another of his familiar hymns, "Hark, ten thousand voices, crying," was dictated by him while confined to his bed in a dark room during the intervals of a prolonged and severe attack of gout in the eye. Its jubilant strain of worship, inspiring and exultant, in no way reveals the distressing malady from which its author was then suffering, but it does clearly indicate the habitude of the writer's spirit.

Another hymn, not so well known as it deserves, was also written under somewhat similar circumstances.

It was in the year 1867 that Mr. Darby, then travelling in Canada, was taken with a severe illness, and became so much worse that the friends with whom he was staying besought him to let them bring medical aid as they feared he was dying.

Mr. Darby, after a while feeling better, although extremely weak, got up, and poured out his soul in the poem which was published as The Man of Sorrows.

It is really a metrical life of our Lord from the manger-cradle to His coming again for His own; but the whole of the two hundred lines are charged with such a reverent affection to the Divine Object of the author's devotion as cannot fail to thrill the heart of the Christian reader.

The briefest excerpt will illustrate this.

"Thou soughtest for compassion—

Some heart Thy grief to know,

To watch Thine hour of passion—

For comforters in woe:

No eye was found to pity—

No heart to bear Thy woe

But shame, and scorn, and spitting—

None cared Thy Name to know.

The pride of careless greatness

Could wash its hands of Thee:

Priests that should plead for weakness

Must Thine accusers be !

Man's boasting love disowns Thee

Thine own Thy danger flee

A Judas only owns Thee—

That Thou may'st captive be.

.............................................

O Lord ! Thy wondrous story

My inmost soul doth move

I ponder o'er Thy glory,—

Thy lonely path of love!"

Mr. Darby immediately after finishing these beautiful lines had a severe relapse and was again compelled to take to his bed for a considerable period.

One curious fact in connection with Mr. Darby's hymn-writing is that many of the finest and most deeply spiritual of them were produced during seasons of very great strain and stress. As we have already noticed, The Saints' Rest was published during a period of tremendous ecclesiastical unrest and discord, and strangely enough his most exquisite lyrical composition, "We praise Thee, glorious Lord!" was written, when as an old weary veteran in 1881 he had again become the unwilling storm-centre of ecclesiastical partisanship, and was written as a cheer for a sick friend; its last stanza expresses what then more than ever was the attitude of J. N. Darby's heart:

"Jesus, we wait for Thee!

With Thee to have our part:

What can full joy and blessing be,

But being where Thou art."

Not many months later, in the November of the same year, we find him writing to another friend about a new hymn, which accompanied the letter: "I send you a hymn, suggested by one you like: but that brought you down to being 'often weary.' This goes up to where there is no weariness."

"I'm waiting for Thee, Lord;

Thyself then to see, Lord!

I'm waiting for Thee,

At Thy coming again:

.................................

With Thee evermore, Lord

Our hearts will adore, Lord;

Our sorrow'll be o'er,

At Thy coming again."

To many who view John Nelson Darby as a teacher who has raised up a school of his own, committed to a view of the Church's calling and character which, whether considered a restoration or an innovation, is certainly revolutionary in its character and results, the foregoing extracts, breathing as they do the simple ardent devotion of his inner life, may appear somewhat strange. But the career of Mr. Darby is full of strange and strongly marked contrasts. The tender devotion of a St. Bernard of Clairvaux linked with the fiery dominant personality of a St. Dominic in his zeal for truth and hatred of heresy; the mystic engrossed in the heavenlies, and yet so truly the ecclesiastic, that as one remarked in a strain of pleasantry, "He always had his surplice in his pocket," a leader of matchless sagacity, yet with an impetuous impulsiveness that was occasionally a source of embarrassment to other leading brethren, his life resembles a landscape with its towering rocks and solitudes; its verdant meads and meandering streams; its rushing torrents and calm lakes; each of which in turn stand out upon the canvas as the arresting feature of the picture. As a man, as a Christian, and as a scholar, he was and is held in the highest respect by all who knew him save those indeed who permit themselves to be blinded by prejudice or invincible party feeling. His unchallenged consistency, sincerity and unwearied service to the faith to which his soul was yielded in his early years commands the reverence and admiration of those who recognised in him a spiritual guide. But there is always need for caution lest this admiration of a Christian leader's intellect and spiritual qualities should be allowed to pass (unconsciously, perhaps, at first) into an unwarranted and dangerous deference to his authority, or even into a passive acquiescence in all his teachings, as though it were impossible for such a man to err in any point of faith or practice.

That Mr. Darby should have been able to inspire such enthusiasm as he undoubtedly did throughout a long life in men of widely differing temperaments and ranks of Society, and that his influence should still remain a potent factor in the lives of "Brethren" all over the world, although nearly half a century has elapsed since his death, is in itself a striking tribute to his powerful personality.

As to the various controversies in which he was engaged, and which ran practically right through his career, it is well to remember the saying of Dr. Ganden: "If either truth or peace must be dispensed with, it is peace and not truth. Better to have truth without public peace, than peace without saving truth." The temper in which John Nelson Darby engaged in controversy is very instructive; it was alike humble and pious, both very rare qualifications of the controversialist. As he wrote to one on this subject, "If I am useful to any, and the Lord accepts it as service done to Him, I am content."

Not to secure a triumph in the ecclesiastical arena, but to help the saints and serve the Lord, was J. N. Darby's ambition when entering the lists.

The lapse of time naturally has, and should have an influence in softening the asperities of controversy, and particularly in qualifying our estimates of those who have been active in the struggle. It is, however, possible to allow this tendency to become too strong, and to forget that we are called to the same conflict; that we too must fight the good fight, and keep the faith whole and undefiled, until we finish the course.

Of the subject of the present little work, we can truly say that if ever man in this or any other age did with his might what his hands found to do it was John Nelson Darby. Now he rests from his labours; but his works still follow him.

In February, 1882, while still very weak from protracted illness, he wrote to a friend, "I am (through mercy) better: at my age shall never be well, till all sickness is over: but through mercy work half the day."

Two months later, on April 29th, he fell asleep in Christ at Sundridge House, Bournemouth. A very large company followed his body to the grave, a special train being chartered to bring the contingent of London friends who wished to pay a last earthly tribute to his memory.

He served the will of God in his own generation, and now is laid to rest until the Morning Star appears and the shadows flee away. What a moment of blissful rapture that will be, when the glorified Man of Sorrows shall stand surrounded by the fruit of His soul-travail, the innumerable company of the redeemed at home with their Redeemer. As Mr. Darby himself sings in The Hope of Day:

"Yet it must be!

Thy love had not its rest

Were Thy redeemed not with Thee

Fully blest."

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST DAYS

11th March, 1882.—"He went about a week ago to Bournemouth, accompanied by Captain Leslie, young Mr. Hewer, and the Swiss attendant. He seemed better for the first two or three days, and Captain L. returned; but after that he rapidly sank, and on Thursday Mr Langton Hewer (the elder) and Mr. Stoney went down. Mr. Stoney remained two hours, but while there Mr. Darby had to be carried upstairs to bed, and Mr. Stoney helped to carry him. When upstairs Mr. Darby kissed him, and prayed for the Church of God and the testimony, and poor Mr. Stoney was quite overcome. He rushed down from the room in tears, and could with difficulty be persuaded to see beloved Mr. Darby again. H. G.

Extract from Notes.

"My husband returned last night, after 10 p.m., much cut up. He had a sweet visit, and the precious man greatly enjoyed seeing him. He would have him come up quite alone, and talked on every subject; then proposed a little prayer for the Church, which he did most touchingly; for the servants to consider Christ's glory; for my husband individually, etc. After concluding, he prayed for those outside, that they might be led into the unity of the testimony; they commended him to the Lord and kissed him. After he had left he sent a message after him asking him to come back, as there was still a little time before the train. There was much more, which he will probably tell you some day. But oh, our hearts are crushed more than I can tell—more than I expected.

9th March.—He dwelt very much on the rest that remaineth.—"You see it is God's rest." He spoke frequently of God's goodness, as if cheered by the way the work was progressing. He then proposed prayer for the Church. He prayed most touchingly for the servants, that they might continue for Christ's glory; and again for those outside, that they might be led into the unity of the testimony.

From Mr. Hammond to M. B., Bournemouth.

9th March.—You will be grieved to hear that dear Mr. Darby seems to be fast failing. He sits out in the garden when he can; but yesterday he thought he was dying, and settled all his little matters.

Dr. C. Wolston asked him whether he had any especial thoughts in view of death. He said, "There are three things which I have dwelt much upon:

1. God is my Father, and I am His gift to His Son.
2. Christ is my righteousness.
3. Christ is my object for life, and my joy for eternity."

Another time he said, "I can say, though in great feebleness, I have lived for Christ—in life it has been Christ. There is not a cloud between me and the Father."

From Dr. A. H. Burton

"And do you really think, Mr. Darby, you are going to leave us?" "Oh, yes," he said, in his quaint little way: "the spring of life is gone. The only thing is, that it seems to me to make such little difference, though I doubt not when I shall see his face." . . . I can't give his own words, but he spoke of the ecstasy of joy it would be. Then he said he hoped that the brethren would be more like a garden after a summer shower. His heart goes out after the dear brethren, that they may be more occupied with Himself; that, though the Lord had humbled them, they may be as clear shining after rain.

On Sunday, 11th March, he sent for us; and when we got to his room, there he was, propped up in bed, with a little bed-table across his knees, and his Bible and a candle-stick. He wanted "to have a little reading before going to bed, that was all." We were amazed. He primed himself up for the occasion, dear old man, and gathered all the strength he could find, to give us a little word on the Seven Churches.

His little word last night was very sweet. The longing and burden of his heart is for a brighter and clearer testimony from the saints, those whom the Father has given to Christ in His love, that they may come forth from His presence prepared to do His will. He likes to talk about the Lord, and all He has led the brethren into and through. "His own hand did it."

Again he sent for us, for a little reading—Eph. 3. It was wonderful to listen to him, he was so fresh and bright. It was like the old general saying his adieu, and giving a few last commands to a little remnant of a scattered army who had kept with him; Paul, the aged, on his departure, giving a word of encouragement to those he was leaving.

I once ventured a foolish remark as to our being left here, and the path a dark one. "It is not to me," he said, "the Lord is the same."

10th March.—He was very cheerful, and was talking of what brethren ought to do. It is beautiful the way that Christ is in his heart to the last.

14h March.—There has been a wonderful improvement since Sunday, and the water rapidly decreasing, and he feeling better in every way; and says himself that, perhaps the Lord is going to leave him longer, now that he has had a peep into the other world. He took the reading last night. You know he said before leaving London that it it was any comfort to the saints to have him He would still leave him. The change has been sudden, for even on Saturday a telegram was sent to Dr Wolston that he was sinking. The doctor had said he would probably not be with us more than four or five days, or he might go any moment.

15th March.—He is weaker, but converses very brightly. He said to Mr. E., "I have no ecstasy, but I have profound glory." He often said, "It is the same Christ I have known all these years, not another that I am going to." He counsels brethren to read John's writings.

22nd March.—He thinks himself better, and feeling how idle he has been he has been writing in his M.S. book. He lay awake composing hymns.

25th March.—He expounded Psalm 23 to those around his bed, repeating verse by verse, and commenting on each. He is so cheerful, and so full of peace — cloudlesss peace filling his soul. He said, he does not look on death at all. He had had the Lord with him here, and he should have Him there. That was the difference. He said to a brother, "Cleave to Christ and to the brethren." In his wanderings one night he exclaimed, "He quickens whom He will."

16th March.—Mr. P. writes:

"Dear Mr. Darby continues on, though with great weakness, yet with occasional energy, this day. He dictated a really beautiful letter to young Hewer to one in the West of England troubled about Ramsgate. He ought not to have done it, I think, but he not only did it, but did it well."

16th March.—Mr. A. writes:

"Dearest J. N. D. up to Monday last wished the brethren to be with him. To meet his desire, a few days before returning to London to be with his own friends, J. B. S. with H. went to him, the latter reporting him to be much worse. J. B. S. returned after two hours. The next day Mr. A., A. P., and F. C., who is J. N. D.'s executor, called. He spoke at times blessedly to them, and then, wandering, speaking as to where the funeral should be, and that he did not wish for any demonstration. On Saturday evening last, to the surprise of brethren in the house, he summoned them to his room, where he was in bed propped up. He said he wished to speak to them on the 3rd chapter of Ephesians—Christ in the heart by faith. He had a clear voice, and appeared strong for the moment, expressing some beautiful thoughts. He kept on saying that he trusted the brethren would appear as "the clear shining after rain," after the trouble and exercise of soul. He spoke of the unspeakable joy of going to be with Christ.

17th March.—It does not seem like death, he is so calm and happy, and talks of it as naturally as possible, making every necessary arrangement himself. He lay awake composing hymns.

Two brothers, Captain Thompson and Mr. G., who had not seen him since he went to Bournemouth went to take leave of him, but it was thought he was too weak to see them. They only stayed two minutes, and could not distinguish all he said, but his look was full of affection, and he seemed very bright and happy. That was on Friday last (17th).

19th March.—His own remark was that he was sorry that he had given the saints so much trouble to come and see him die, for he did not think he was going to die after all.

21st March.—Brethren still arriving from all parts for a last word with him, and he has been able to see them all, which looks as if he was somewhat stronger . . . He enjoys sitting up at the open window; feels and looks more comfortable.

Mr. E. J. A. writes:

"Mr. Darby's improvement still continues. He takes sleep now when it comes. He was regarding it as stupor, and fighting against it. Last night was a good one till four, but he was wandering. He knows it has been so in the morning.

22nd March.—A message at Park Street was delivered (19th) from Mr. Darby. "His love, and to keep near Christ, and thus discover all that was wrong, so that we may know what He is to our heart." All his heart goes out to the brethren, and he longed to press Christ upon them more than ever, and says, if they only keep humble God has blessing in store for them.

26th March.—Mr. A. P. writes:

"J. N. D. is still weaker: considers himself to be departing to be with Christ. He read Psalm 23. He is bright and clear, but very weak, and nights bad.

28th March.—He continues much the same. Thought himself better and has been writing in his M.S. book; but those about him think he grows weaker. He says himself now that he believes the Lord is going to take him, but he cannot say as to the time.

On Sunday he was very weak; they almost thought he was going; yet next morning he was up, dressed, before 8 o'clock. His mind is clear. He wrote a little paper, and gave directions as to his letters and other things. He keeps his window open on account of his breathing, which is difficult at times. He thinks John's writings should be specially studied at this time.

30th March.—Miss E. writes:

"Mr. E. saw Mr Darby yesterday morning, and he said his face looked like a little child. He had a good deal of sleep the night before. They think the dropsy is keeping off paralysis. He asked about Parkstone, and sent his love. He was told the brethren prayed for him, and that one asked that he might be kept from the attack of the enemy. He said, 'Tell him the enemy has not come near me.'"

"Mr. E. adds, 'He is abiding in Christ; his thoughts Christ's interests down here; the beauty and the glory of the Christ he is going to;' writing letters to those in foreign lands, and to those who have fallen out of their rank in the testimony. He gets up and has his breakfast at 8 o'clock. Mr. E. seemed greatly cheered and elevated by the interview."

Friday.—He seems better at times, but really is not so, and grows weaker day by day. A brother went to seem him this week, and found him in the balcony, and left after shaking hands with him; but Mr. Darby sent for him to return, and talked with him; told him in what drawers to find some letters he wished him to have; his mind and memory so clear. Mr. P. quoted to him the last verse of Psalm 3—"Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of Jehovah for the length of the days," and he responded, repeating the whole Psalm, verse by verse, and commenting on each as he went on. He generally goes to bed at 3 p.m., and gets some hours sleep in the evening. The night is sometimes trying from his breathing being affected.

2nd April.—Mr. Lowe records in his diary concerning J. N. D. on whom he waited much during his last illness at the house of the late H. A. Hammond, in Bournemouth. It is not only an entry of great interest, but all those who were privileged to know Mr Lowe will recognise how closely he followed Mr. Darby's wise advice:—"Afternoon. J. N. D. took my hand and drew me to him to kiss him, thanking me most heartily for all co-operation in his work, and said: 'We have worked together and rejoiced together. God bless you.' Then a minute after: 'Work with the younger brethren, occupying their hearts with Christ.' Then shortly after 'Walk with Christ and with the brethren.' I said: 'The only way to walk with the brethren is to walk with Christ, is it not?' 'Yes,' he said, 'and vice versa . . . I can only commend you to God and the word of His grace.'"

April 3.—Mrs. E. writes:

"The tidings to-day are much more trying. The night bad and much greater weakness, and state of the heart low; the dropsy increasing. He was not up all day yesterday, for the first time. We saw him a few days ago, so beautifully bowed down and restful. My husband says, in writing to Mr. H. T.

"Everything we hear concerning him is lovely, and in keeping with his life of devotedness and service; always says, in speaking of the Lord, 'It is the same thing; He is now just what I have always known Him; no change.' It is sweet the bright hopefulness he has as to his testimony, and brethren going on in a truer and brighter way than ever: seeking more the outside path with the Lord. So his dear heart is cheered before his departure. He has been writing to the French Brethren, and to the Germans. It is a privilege to have known him; our hearts are bound to him; and it will be joy, as some one writes to me, to see him enter the joy of his Lord—such a true and faithful servant he has been. It is most remarkable, there is not a trace of gloom anywhere; no cloud at all. Every one feels that the race so blessedly sustained, and the work filled up, is now drawing to a close, and that he is only changing his place, about to join those who have gone before, soon to be followed by those who remain: and when that comes to pass, oh! it will be joyful indeed!"

5th April.—Mr. Lowe writes:

"The beloved man is certainly a shade better. He said yesterday (Tuesday) —

'Dieu a arrêté la mort,' and both yesterday and to-day he has been very quiet. The bad crisis of Monday seems to have passed. I should not be surprised at his lasting some time longer. All in the Lord's hands. We have to be thinking about His glory, and the blessing and establishment of His saints, which He is ever set upon."

5th April.—Mr. B. said that he was wonderfully quick and alive to everything, though often wandering, especially at night. He spoke affectionately to L., and said, "If it is with Christ, it is with the brethren," and he said, "and vice versa."

8th April.—He allowed W. J. Lowe to feed him. His love for him is great.

11th April.—Sometimes he soliloquizes to himself thus—

"Well, it will be strange to find myself in heaven; but it won't be a strange Christ-one I have known these many years. How little I know of Him! I am glad He knows me." "I know my sheep."

He said, too: "I never knew till the other day, or thought, that 'We love Him because He first loved us' refers to God, not Christ, as I have imagined. This is plain from the context."

23rd April.—Dear J. N. D. gets gradually weaker . . . His legs are much swollen, and his breathing often difficult . . . Every possible care is taken of the dear patient—nothing lacking. C., the Swiss attendant, sleeps with him during the night. The house is in such beautiful order, and everything goes on so quietly that you would not detect there was such an invalid there, did you not know it. Mr. K., of Folkstone, saw him a few days back, but he could only say to those near him, "I know him." In fact, it is difficult at times to catch his words.

Mrs. H. goes in occasionally. At one time he said to her, "I am not a demonstrative man, but I have a deep, deep peace, which you know." Once he asked her what she would be thinking about if she were expecting to be soon with the Lord. She replied, "I fear it would be my children." He then told her of one who had been able to commend them to the Lord's care, and afterwards entered so gently and kindly into her feelings. He said recently, when C. was in his room for the night, "What is the justice of God?" C. replied, "I suppose His placing you on this sick bed." "Oh! no, no, no," he said; "that is the love of God."

One evening he had spoken rather sharply to C. Next morning he inquired what the reading had been about. He was told, "Abiding in Christ." "I was not," said he, "abiding in Christ when I spoke to C. last evening. Now, C., if you see me in anything unsuited to Christ, rebuke me. Now, mind you do."

Copy of a Letter from Dr. A. H. B., Sundridge, Bournemouth, 29th April, 1882.

"It is hard to have to communicate intelligence which will bring a pang to many a heart. You will have heard ere this reaches you, that beloved Mr. Darby entered his well-earned rest this morning, at 5 minutes after 11. He had been evidently sinking for 36 hours previously, had not spoken at all, and scarcely ate anything, noticed nobody, and seemed in a semi-unconscious state. I asked him yesterday if he knew me, upon which he opened his eyes and smiled. One cannot but feel that real love would rejoice that he is now absent from the body, and present with the Lord. What a welcome! but what a loss to us! A life of devotedness, and entire consecration to Christ. It would be impossible to describe the feelings and thoughts, and memories, and anticipations that rushed through one's heart as I looked at him just passing into the presence of the Saviour whom he loved, and the Master whom he had served so really, so simply, and so unostentatiously. L., H., and I were in the room about 10.30. He was then breathing very rapidly, as he had been doing for some time previously; the mucous in his throat was very distressing, and his feebleness made it impossible to cough it up. Suddenly I noticed a change in his breathing, and went to his side. His heart was then failing, and respiration ceased.

We called up all in the house, but he began to breathe again. However, respiration became more and more difficult, until at last it ceased, stopped entirely, and we were all left silently looking on the earthly tabernacle.

Mr. S. then prayed, and thanked the Lord for what his life had been, and for what we had all received through him, that it might abide. Mr. H., too, and then L., but he broke down. I shall never forget this season. It is beautiful to see the calm, dignified repose upon his countenance. Oh! what will it be when he awakes in His likeness, conformed to the image of the Son? This we shall share in common when Christ comes. But there is a glory and joy which are special. 1 Thess. 2: 20.

"Called by that secret name

Of undisclosed delight,

Blest answer to reproach and shame,

Graved on the stone of white."

CHAPTER X

THE SECOND OF MAY 1882

It was a sad, sad day, for on it we bore him to his last resting place on earth; and yet not himself, for he was "absent from the body, present with the Lord." He had said on the previous Thursday, "I feel just like a bird ready to fly away;" and the Saturday following, April 29th, at five minutes past eleven, a.m., he departed to be "with Christ which is far better."

As many hearts in many lands will like to have some account of this day, we will do our best to give it to them; though it will be but the outside of what took place, for the deeper stream flowed all silently within, and has its record with Him who wept at the grave of Lazarus.

At the pleasant and retired home of our dear brother and sister Hammond, at Bournemouth, (where for exactly the last eight weeks of his earthly course, beloved J. N. D. had been watched and tended with loving care) as many as could, assembled for prayer at a quarter to twelve.

As they entered the hall to gain the large drawing room of SUNDRIDGE, Mr Hammond's house, where the meeting was held, they passed the precious remains, resting on trestles, and read inscribed upon the coffin plate:—

JOHN NELSON DARBY

Born November 18th, 1800

Died "In the Lord," April 29th, 1882

The solemn, sad fact for us then was—he was gone; a great one had fallen asleep. God's chosen vessel, who had toiled and laboured to feed the flock, and unfold the truths and glories of His word and His Christ was gone to his rest-his work was done. In this room, where his last words at a reading meeting were heard on the closing verses of Ephesians 3, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith," about 150 bereaved saints waited on God in silence, with much manifest sorrow, and a blessed sense of the Lord's presence.

The sad quietude was broken by Charles Stanley giving out J. N. D.'s own hymn—"Rest of the saints above." The company broke down with grief in singing it. Strong men wept like children, and many a hoary head was bowed with inexpresssible sorrow, for the loved one that had been taken from them. This was followed by an aged brother, Mr. McAdam, leading the saints in thanksgiving to God, first for the bright glory before us, and which cannot be taken from us, then for all the sufficiency of Christ and the certainty of His blessed presence all the way through the wilderness. Next, H. H. Snell prayed that the removal of our beloved brother might be used to our blessing, in leading us to more occupation with Christ and devotedness to Him. Then W. J. Lowe prayed, very blessedly and most touchingly, thanking God for His gift to the church; for His servant's faithful stewardship, and his devoted and consistent life. He was so much affected that he was unable to continue in prayer. For some moments the silence was only broken by the sobbing of many, scarcely one could refrain from tears. After this, Captain Kingscote, with much thanksgiving for the blessing that he had been to the whole church of God, prayed that his death might be used to speak to the hearts of all the saints at large that knew him; and that his writings might continue to be largely blessed to believers generally, and for the need in connection with the cemetery and many coming together, that all might be kept and ordained for the Lord's glory. Mr. McAdam then prayed with lowly confidence in God, and this sweet, though sad and solemn, season of prayer and thanksgiving concluded with him suggesting the hymn, "Thou hidden source of calm repose." This closed the meeting.

By the suggestion of brother McAdam, Mr. Darby's last written words to his brethren were then read, first by Mr. Higgins, and again by Mr Hammond. It is as follows: "My beloved brethren:

After years of communion in weakness, I have only bodily strength to write a few lines, more of affection than ought else. I bear witness to the love not only in the Lord ever faithful but in my beloved brethren in all patience towards me; and how much more, then, from God, unfeignedly do I bear witness to it. Yet I can say, Christ has been my only object; Thank God, my righteousness too. I am not aware of anything to recall, little now to add. Hold fast to Him; count on abundant grace in Him to reproduce Him in the power of the Father's love; and be watching and waiting for Christ. I have no more to add, but my unfeigned and thankful affection in Him.

J. N. DARBY"

(Said and taken down later):

"I do add, Let not John's ministry be forgotten in insisting on Paul's. One gives the dispensations in which the display is; the other, that which is displayed."

"I should particularly object to any attack being made on William Kelly."

"Beloved Brethren:

March 19th, 1882.

"I feel satisfied that it there be recognition of God's hand upon us, and lowly confidence in the purpose of the Father for the glory of His own Son, there will be a great deal of blessing, and spreading forth into the doors which He opens."

Luncheon was provided at the Landsdown Rooms, through the kindness of a brother.

At about 2.30 p.m. a special train ran in from London, bringing between two and three hundred brethren, and soon there were congregated about one thousand saints, including some from Ireland, Scotland, and distant parts of England, anxious to have fellowship in the last solemn act of delivering the body of the servant into the hands of the beloved Master who bought it.

At a little after three, the body was carried to the plain hearse by eight brethren, and by this conveyed to the cemetery, which was some considerable distance from the house. There were no mourning coaches; and only a few cabs, containing some who could not well walk the distance, followed it. The majority of those who had gathered at the house walked to the cemetery by another route, so that there might be as little as possible to attract the eye of the world, our beloved brother having expressed the desire that his burial might be very quietly performed. Although no regular procession was formed, but brethren—and there were many sisters as well—followed the body en masse. The effect of this point was striking. Every voice was hushed; and nothing was heard but the tread of many feet, almost as regular as the measured treat at a military funeral.

The time fixed for the interment was 3.30 p.m. and within about five minutes of that time the hearse was at the cemetery gate where many hundreds had gathered to receive it. At a short distance outside the gates the body was taken from the hearse, and by a kind and thoughtful arrangement by means of which twenty-four brethren at a time were enabled to assist in carrying, it was borne to the grave side; the bearers being changed several times, so that the many brethren who wished to share in the privilege of carrying him to his burial might be enabled to have it. About a hundred brethren shared in this. The body was not taken into the cemetery chapel.

About a thousand sorrowing saints, several coming from Scotland and Ireland, stood closely round the grave, and after a short time of quiet waiting on God, the meeting at the grave commenced with singing the hymn "O Happy Morn, the Lord will come," sung to the tune Praise and given out by Mr. McAdam.

"O happy morn! the Lord will come

And take His waiting people home,

Beyond the reach of care;

Where guilt and sin are all unknown:

The Lord will come and claim His own

And place them with Him on His throne

The glory bright to share.

The resurrection-morn will break,

And every sleeping saint awake,

Brought forth in light again;

O morn, too bright for mortal eyes!

When all the ransom'd church shall rise

And wing their way to yonder skies—

Called up with Christ to reign.

O Lord! our pilgrim-spirits long

To sing the everlasting song

Of glory, honour, power

Till then, when Thou all power shalt wield,

Blest Saviour, Thou wilt be our shield

For Thou hast to our souls reveal'd

Thyself, our strength and tower."

(R. C. Chapman)

This was sung with much feeling by all. Just as the last note died away, a lark rose from the lawns close by and poured forth its joyous notes.

C. E. Stuart of Reading then read Matthew 27: 59, 60, 61 and said: "What a contrast between the burial of the Master and the burial of the servant, for which so many of us are assembled here this day. Joseph of Arimathaea found a place for the body of the Master in his own new tomb, where, with the help of Nicodemus, he reverently laid it; but how few the mourners, just two lowly women. What a tale it tells us of the reality of the Master's humiliation! We have our sorrow around the servant's grave, but how far greater was that of those few who wept around the Master's, and of a character, too, how different! bitter desolation and unrelieved sorrow filled their hearts, for they were burying, as they thought, in that new tomb, all their hopes when they laid His body there. They had trusted that it was He which should have redeemed Israel. But He was dead, and all their hopes for the future of their nation were therefore dashed to the ground. At the moment they knew nothing of the resurrection, we get that in the next chapter, and the joy of their hearts through it; but we are here around the servant's grave, with knowledge that the Master has risen, that the He is with us here in our sorrow, and that He is coming again soon to take us all to be with Himself in heaven. How could we possibly have come here to lay this loved one in the grave with confidence, did not we know the blessed hope of resurrection? As we think of all that flows from His resurrection, what joy mingles itself with our sorrow!

"In the presence of death it does not become us to eulogise the dead. One name only of all who have walked this earth is worthy here to be remembered and spoken of, even His who has annulled death, and him that had the power of it, and who will, we know not how soon, call forth from the tomb the bodies of His sleeping saints, and take up His living ones to be with Himself for ever. The Master died, was buried—but He is risen. 'Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.' We place the body of our beloved brother in this grave, with this blessed hope ours to comfort and cheer our sorrowing hearts." These few words so simply spoken came to all who could hear him (for the circle had become a very large one of 700 or more) with singular power. This was followed by a very fervent prayer by Mr. H. A. Hammond for the blessing of the Lord upon His own, the strengthening of our hearts in Himself and His resources for us in our present need; closing with a touching word of thanksgiving for the long life of devoted service to His church of the one taken from our midst, and touching reference being made to his course, which, through grace, to human eyes had been unswerving. The prayer gave expression to much that was in the hearts of the sorrowing by thankful moments.

Next came, with much sweetness and relief to our sad hearts, the hymn 28 given out by Mr. Blyth, sung to the tune Indian.

"Soon Thou wilt come again,

Jesus, our Lord!

We shall be happy then,

Jesus, our Lord!

Then we Thy face shall see,

Then we shall like Thee be

Then evermore with Thee,

Jesus, our Lord!"

Dr. Christopher Wolston then said: "Let us read together three scriptures. The first you will find in the 48th of Genesis, verse 21, 'And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die; but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers.'

"Tears would most naturally fall from the eyes of those who surrounded him, as the patriarch said, 'Behold, I die;' and not to have shed them would have been out of the course of nature; but what comfort was in the words that followed, 'God shall be with You.'

"So, too, to-day, beloved friends, our tears may rightly fall, as we surround the grave of this honoured servant of God. Not to feel his death were wrong; for what he has been, as God's vessel, to us all, in many ways, I need not say. Could his voice sound now in our ears, would it not be just to say to us, 'God shall be with you?' In this our hearts can and do rest. Our beloved brother is gone from earth, but our God is not gone. "When the telegram came, kindly sent by a brother, announcing his departure, this and two other scriptures came with great power to my own soul, and—though but a young brother—I felt I should like to read them here to-day, with the hope that the Spirit of God might comfort your hearts by them, as He did mine.

"The second is in the 2nd chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians: 'Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but how much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.' (Phil. 2: 12, 13)

"It is the same sweet truth here. Paul was gone—shut up in prison—but God was not gone, and the prisoned apostle counted on greater obedience, now that he was away, than when he was with them. His absence gave greater scope, so to say, for God to manifest His grace and power, and this comforted Paul's heart.

"The third passage you will find in Revelation 1: 'And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead: and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and hades.' (Rev. 1: 17-18)

"What were these words to the apostle John? And are they not full of living power to us also, beloved brethren? Surely! In a world of death, as this is, I know of no such cheer and comfort to one's heart as this. We know, and love, and cleave to One who can never die He has died for us, blessed be His holy name, and by His death we have life—eternal life. Yet still are we where death often afflicts us, as this day, and what solace and support is ours!

"Fear not,' He says, and why should we? This one goes, and that. This tenderly loved one is taken away, and that; this support snapped, and that; but He lives, and lives to die no more. What is it then we learn? Our hearts may go out towards Him, and there tenderly wind themselves round His blessed Person with no fear that the rude hand of death shall ever snap them. No, brethren, He lives, and He must be more and more the object of our lives' deepest devotion; and, I believe, what our God would teach us, by the removal of our beloved brother, His honoured servant, is not only to follow him as he followed Christ, but, above all, to make the Lord Himself our object, and find all our springs in Himself. We want no more, whatever be the need of the way, if only our hearts are in the enjoyment of the old saint's words, 'God shall be with you.'" He followed his remarks by an earnest prayer, that God would give us to know the full comfort of His own presence while deeply mourning the departure of His servant, and that it might lead to increased devotedness to Christ and His interests. Hymn 286 was then sung again.

Brother Charles Stanley then read: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14: 1-3) "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thess. 4: 13-18)

He said—"The precious truths contained in these and other portions of scripture, have now become familiar to thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, in the church of God. But some of us around this grave may be able to look back and remember the time when these great distinctive truths were forgotten and unknown. Yes, we can remember the time when there was not a person the various districts from which we have gathered this day, that knew the blessed truth of the coming of the Lord to take His church, or the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost on earth. We would acknowledge, in the presence of death, as we commit this precious body to the Lord's care in this grave: the great goodness of our God and Father, in using our beloved departed brother as His vessel to restore these and other blessed truths to the church; and what comfort and cause for thanksgiving that the Lord, who raised him up and gave him as His gift, is still with us. His word remains with us. The Holy Ghost abides with us. Let our prayer be, that the Lord may use his death to our blessing of the entire church of God."

He concluded by praying that the coming of the Lord, as the immediate hope of believers, which our departed had, under God's hand, been the means of reviving, might more than ever by a living and operative truth in our souls.

Christopher Wolston then gave out hymn 324 (which was sung to American)

"Lord Jesus, come!

Nor let us longer roam

Afar from Thee and that bright place

Where we shall see Thee face to face.

Lord Jesus, come!

Lord Jesus, come!

Thine absence here we mourn;

No joy we know apart from Thee,

No sorrow in Thy presence see.

Come, Jesus, come!

Lord Jesus, come!

And claim us as Thine own;

With longing hearts, the path we tread,

Which Thee on high to glory led;

Come, Saviour, come!

Lord Jesus, come!

And take Thy people home;

That all Thy flock, so scatter'd here,

With Thee in glory may appear,

Lord Jesus, come!"

The brightness and nearness of His coming was very present to many pilgrim hearts in this affecting scene.

The coffin was then lowered into its resting place till the Lord comes, by Christopher Wolston and John Alfred Trench at the head, Walter Wolston, H. A. Hammond and Captain Kingscote on the right, Etchells, Leslie Higgins and T. Roberts on the left, and W. Thompson at the foot. Brother T. Roberts of Worcester commended it to the Lord's safe keeping, in view of the bright and blessed morning of resurrection, praying earnestly that we might all be kept steady in His ways till "That day."

E. Carter gave out the following hymn:

"Brightness of th'eternal glory,

Shall Thy praise unutter'd lie?

Who would hush the heaven-sent story

Of the Lamb who came to die?

Came from Godhead's fullest glory

Down to Calvary's depth of woe,—

Now on high, we bow before Thee;

Streams of praises ceaseless flow!

Sing His blest triumphant rising;

Sing Him on the Father's throne;

Sing—till heaven and earth surprising,

Reigns the Nazarene alone."

which was sung to the tune Alma, unto Him who had taken our brother to Himself, and without being given out, as from one heart and voice, welled up, in sadly solemn, yet joyful strains—

Glory, honour, praise, and power,

Be unto the Lamb for ever!

Jesus Christ is our Redeemer,

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Hallelujah! Praise ye the Lord!

This closed the meeting, and the sorrowing ones dispersed, one last farewell look was given by most into the grave, no more to think of him here in willing and unwearied service for his Master; the one to whom any could resort for ready counsel in difficulties, comfort in sorrow, help and cheer at all times, and in all circumstances; but now to think of Him in the presence of His loved Lord and Master.

A brother had provided tea at the Room, whither most repaired, and his last letter was read, for many who had not heard it before.

The S.W. Railway ran a "special" train which took back a large number to London at 6.10 and those who were left filled the Landsdown Room at 7.30 for an open meeting.

Dr. Wolston gave out the hymn No 79, "Rest of the Saints Above." Mr. H . H. Snell read 1 Samuel 17: 50-58, presenting the Lord Jesus Christ before the saints. He then prayed. Then Charles Stanley read Neh. 13: 4-13, and Acts 20: 28-38, and referred to Mr. Darby's departure to the Lord, and the truth brought out through him, and to God having placed brethren in responsibility to distribute the truth given to them. Hymn No 228 "Join all the Glorious Names," was sung.

Mr T. Roberts then read Acts 20: 17-28, and, in speaking, dwelt specially on "God and the word of His grace," and on His faithfulness.

The meeting closed with marked leading of the Lord in prayer by C. E. Stuart.

Dr. Wolston referred to a remark of Mr Darby's:

"The secret of peace within, and power without, is to be occupied only and always with good."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anonymous, A brief account of the life and labours of the late W. J. Lowe, C. A. Hammond 1927.

F. Cuendet, Souvenez-vous de vos conducteurs, Editions Bibles et Traites Chrétiens, Vevey 1966.

E. Early, The last days of J.N.D., 2nd Edition, Christchurch, New Zealand 1925.

E. Early, The last days of J N D. G. Morrish, London 1926.

W. Kelly, John Nelson Darby as I knew him, Words of Truth, Belfast 1986

Napoleon Noel, The History of the Brethren, vols 1 and 2, W. F. Knapp, Colorado 1936.

W. Scott, John Nelson Darby, a memorial, London, 2nd Edition.

J. A. Trench, MS notes, Workington 4th May 1882.

W. G. Turner, John Nelson Darby, Chapter Two, London 1986.

M. S. Weremchuk, John Nelson Darby und die Anfänge einer Bewegung CSV, Bielefeld, West Germany 1988.

C. Wolston, The second of May 1882, Words of Faith 1882.

Back cover.

The continued influence of this servant of the Lord is much in evidence to this day. Darby's numerous writings and French and English translations of the Bible are still in print and enjoying an increasing circulation. Besides these translations, others exist based on his textual studies of the original tongues. To date German, Dutch, Italian, Slovak and Swedish have been published, and most recently 300,000 Romanian New Translation Bibles have been widely circulated. His perceptions of Scriptural truths are the source from which Scofield reference Bibles get their characteristic notes. It is well documented that the influence of his powerful and clear teaching has been appreciated by millions of Christians throughout the world.

His incomparable "Synopsis of the books of the Bible" has been in print continuously for over a century serving the needs of countless Bible students. H. A. Ironside said of the Synopsis: "I think I am safe in saying that they opened up the Scriptures in a way that nothing else ever touched."

This new edition has been revised and contains additional information which will doubtless be of interest to many Christians as well as historians as they read the account of the remarkable life of this man of God.

We trust that as you read this brief account of Darby's life you will be stirred to serve more faithfully the same Lord Jesus Christ, whom he and many other servants have sought to honour.

This document may be found online at the following URL: http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/darby/ABOUTJND/turner.htm.

You are welcome to freely access and use this material for personal study or sending to other Bible students, compiling extracts for notes etc, but please do not republish without permission.

With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett .