place exclusively under the care of the Ebrington Street leaders. Since my return, those who assumed the lead there arranged an assembly of those they judged elders, that they might recognize and own one another among themselves. Two, however, of the persons they included, declined. A number of the brethren then met to know what was to be done, and this was broken up by authority. A good many left, and the rest, I apprehend, are tolerably peaceful and at liberty. Those who sought to govern all in connection with Ebrington Street having been stated by all who left as the persons whose assumption drove them away, they were withdrawn for the time, and now, I apprehend, go on pretty quietly.[1]
As to Plymouth. There was a constant labour to reduce the meeting to a clerical form, and to invest certain leaders with the sole direction.
This went on in a thousand minute, and many private circumstances which it is impossible to detail, which made gracious brethren uneasy, but afforded little or no ground for any specific interference; if it did, there were few or none that dared. For indeed, one of the scarce intelligible phenomena of the case to me was, the way people were cowed, and heart and conscience disposed of, I know not where; save that the quiet and gracious were oppressed and unhappy. I have remarked that it is the art and skill of some men to turn every conscientious man, every one who cannot, or will not become an instrument, into a radical or a schismatic. But it is a sad state of things. I could name persons here, that were denounced to us as radicals and busy bodies, that I have found
- ↑ I have some doubt of the stability of this gathering, from what I have heard since, but I do not pretend to know much about it. Others can give more exact details of this than I can, as I took no part in it, but I give the substance of what passed, as I had it from the mouths of those concerned; and I know myself many of the facts.
that way that I bring it forward here. A brother, whose integrity no one would dispute, Mr. Hill, declared, when this came to be known, that it was no isolated case, but the constantly inculcated doctrine at that date.
