preacher, Darby began a rival and separate assembly. The majority of the Brethren out of Plymouth supported Darby, but a minority kept by Newton. The separation became wider in 1847 on the discovery of supposed heretical teaching by Newton. In 1848 another division took place. The Bethesda congregation at Bristol, where Mr George Müller was the most influential member, received into communion several of Newton’s followers and justified their action. A large number of communities approved of their conduct; others were strongly opposed to it. Out of this came the separation into Neutral Brethren led by Müller, and Exclusive Brethren or Darbyites, who refused to hold communion with the followers of Newton or Müller. The exclusives, who were the more numerous, suffered further divisions. An Irish clergyman named duff had adopted the views of Mr Pearsall Smith, and when these were repudiated seceded with his followers. The most important division among the exclusives came to a crisis in 1881, when Mr William Kelly and Mr Darby became the recognized leaders of two sections who separated on some point of discipline. There are therefore at least five official divisions or sects of Plymouthists: (1) the followers of Mr B. Wills Newton; (2) the Neutrals, who incline to the Congregationalist idea that each assembly should judge for itself in matters of discipline, headed by Mr George Müller; (3) the Darbyite Exclusives; (4) the Exclusives who follow Mr Kelly; and (5) the followers of Mr Cluff. The fundamental principle of the Exclusives, “Separation from evil God’s principle of unity,” has led to many unimportant excommunications and separations besides those mentioned.
The theological views of the Brethren do not differ greatly from those held by evangelical Protestants (for a list of divergences, see Reid, Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled and Refuted); they make the baptism of infants an open question and celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly. Their distinctive doctrines are ecclesiastical. They hold that all official ministry, anything like a clergy, whether on Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Congregationalist theories, is a denial of the spiritual priesthood of all believers, and a striving against the Holy Spirit. Hence it is a point of conscience to have no communion with any church which possesses a regular ministry. The gradual growth of this opinion, and perhaps the reasons for holding it, may be traced in Mr Darby’s earlier writings. While a curate in the Church of Ireland he was indignant with Archbishop Magee for stopping the progress of mission work among Roman Catholics by imposing on all who joined the church the oath of supremacy. This led Darby to the idea that established churches are as foreign to the spirit of Christianity as the papacy is (“Considerations addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin, &c.,” Coll. Works, vol. i. 1). The parochial system, when enforced to the extent of prohibiting the preaching of the gospel within a parish where the incumbent was opposed to it, led him to consider the whole system a hindrance to the proper work of the church and therefore anti-Christian (Thoughts on the present position of the Home Mission,” Coll. Works, i. 78). And the waste of power implied in the refusal to sanction lay-preaching seemed to him to lead to the conclusion that an official ministry was a refusal of the gifts of the Spirit to the church (“On Lay Preaching,” Coll. Works, p. 200). These three ideas seem to have led in the end to Plymouthism; and the movement, if it has had small results in the formation of a sect, has at least set churches to consider how they might make their machinery more elastic. Perhaps one of the reasons of the comparatively small number of Brethren may be found in their idea that their mission is not to the heathen but to “the awakened in the churches.”
Authorities.―Darby, Collected Works, 32 vols., edited by Kelly; Reid, Plymouth Brethrenism Unveiled and Refuted, 3d ed., 1880, and History and Literature of the so-called Plymouth Brethren, 2d ed., 1876; Miller, The Brethren, their Rise, Progress, and Testimony, 1879; Teulon, History and Doctrines of the Plymouth Brethren, 1888.
PNEUMATIC DESPATCH. The transport of written despatches through long narrow tubes by the agency of air-pressure was introduced in 1853, by Mr Latimer Clark, between the Central and Stock Exchange stations of the Electric and International Telegraph Company in London. The stations were connected by a tube H inches in diameter and 220 yards long. Carriers containing batches of telegrams, and fitting piston-wise in .the tube, were sucked through it (in one direction only) by the production of a partial vacuum at one end. In 1858 Mr C. F. Varley improved the system by using compressed air to force the carriers in one direction, a partial vacuum being still used to draw them in the other direction. This improvement enables single radiating lines of pipe to be used both for sending and for receiving telegrams between a central station supplied with pumping machinery and outlying stations not so supplied. In the hands of Messrs Culley and Sabine this radial system of pneumatic despatch has been brought to great perfection in connexion with the telegraphic department of the British post office. Another method of working, extensively used in Paris and other Continental cities, is the circuit system, in which stations are grouped on circular or loop lines, round which carriers travel in one direction only. In one form of circuit system that of Messrs Siemens a continuous current of air is kept up in the tube, and rocking switches are provided by which carriers can be quickly introduced or removed at any one of the stations on the line without interfering with the movement of other carriers in other parts of the circuit. More usually, however, the circuit system is worked by despatching carriers, or trains of carriers, at relatively long intervals, the pressure or vacuum which gives motive power being applied only while such trains are on the line. On long circuits means are provided at several stations for putting on pressure or vacuum, so that the action may be limited to that section of the line on which the carriers are travelling at any time.
The following particulars refer to the radial system of pneumatic despatch as used in the British post office. In London most of the lines connect the central office with district offices for the purpose of collecting and distributing telegrams. Iron tubes were used in some of the earliest lines, but now the tubes are always made of lead, with soldered joints, and are enclosed in outer pipes of iron for the sake of mechanical protection. The bore, which is very smooth and uniform, is normally 2
