happy circle of heaven-born souls. This is, alas, no uncommon thing, for when the freshness of a new found principle has passed away, when the joy of a recently discovered truth fades, when numbers increase who come into truth neither in its original love nor power, but who hold it in deference to a favourite teacher, rather than in allegiance to the Lord, and maintain it rather for its own sake than for Christ’s, the result inevitably is, that holding the truth out of its life-giving centre, Jesus, all ends in confusion, man, ultimately, taking the place of God.
Plymouth had early become the place in which, from a variety of causes, many of the so-called “Brethren” had collected, and where some of those of most esteem and of most power in ministry, had assembled round them a large number of saints, among whom the principles which they held, were most prominently brought before the Church at large. There was then much power as well as much grace, as those will certify who remember the earliest days of the Plymouth meetings. But little as it was generally seen, there were not wanting at an early period ominous indications, that humble and unpretending beginnings were growing up into a wall of pride, which, unless watched against, would separate rather than unite, the scattered members of the heavenly family. Among those who early saw the tendency of things in Plymouth, was the late Mr. A. N. Groves. He had been associated at the very commencement with the carrying out of the very principles we have been speaking of, of the fellowship of saints on the ground of the common life in Christ, of an open table, and an open ministry; but leaving England in 1829, when a few were meeting in Dublin, he came to England again 1835, to find a strong and compact body in Plymouth and elsewhere, meeting ostensibly on the same grounds. In moving about among them, he perceived but too plainly that they were becoming exclusive and sectarian. This led to his writing a long letter to Mr. Darby, before leaving England, in which he points out with almost prophetic clearness, what the effect of these changes would be. As this testimony is of great importance, we will give a lengthened extract from the letter, which bears date March 10th, 1836:—
“I wish you to feel assured that nothing has estranged my heart from you, or lowered my confidence in your being still animated by the same enlarged and generous purposes that once so won and rivetted me: and though I feel you hare departed from those principles by which you once hoped to have effected them, and in principle returning to the city from whence you departed, still my soul so reposes in the truth of your heart to God that I feel it needs but a step or two more to advance, and you will see all the evils of the systems from which you profess to be separated, to spring up among yourselves. You will not discover this so much
