Causes and Conditions
Bellett, in his account of the origins, mentions several other little companies meeting in ignorance of one another’s existence, and all more or less on the lines of the Brethren. He had reason to believe that before there was any “table” in Francis Hutchinson’s house, there was one in J. Mahon’s, “somewhere in the town of Ennis, by means of one of his family, if not by himself”. It was also his belief that the movement existed in the same independence in England.
“Having occasion to visit Somersetshire in 1831 or 1832, I being at Sir Edward Denny’s,[1] he asked me to give him an idea of the principles of the Brethren. We were sitting round the fire, and the daughter of a clergyman was present. As I stated our thoughts, she said they had been her’s for the last twelve months, and that she had no idea that any one had them but herself. So also, being at — shortly afterwards, a dear brother, now with the Lord, told me that he, his wife and his wife’s mother were meeting in the simplicity of the Brethren’s ways for some time before he even heard of such people. This brother and the lady mentioned at Sir Edward Denny’s as soon as occasion allowed were in full communion with us, and she continues so to this day in the County Down.”
All this is, of course, perfectly true, and it is doubtless typical of much more of the same kind; but it is far less miraculous than it appeared to Bellett. A
- ↑ The famous hymn-writer, afterwards one of the best known of the Brethren.
