vice one Sunday morning, and told them that Mr. Harris having laboured to restore the Friday meeting, things being in disorder or dealt with summarily and irresponsibly by one or two, I had pressed the point on those more immediately concerned, but to no purpose; I now laid it on the consciences of the saints themselves. Mr. Harris was at this time absent, and Mr. V. Haydon wrote to him that I had sought to turn the meeting into a dissenting body, but that nobody thought it worth taking the least notice of, and that it had dropped to the ground. This letter I know contributed very greatly to the emancipation of Mr. Harris’s mind, from the bondage it was under. I then went to Jersey, &c. to give all the fullest time to consider the matter. As Mr. Haydon stated truly, not one stirred. The fact is, while I attempted to heal or remedy, and walk with the evil, God, though he sustained me, never after the April meeting gave any efficacy to a step I took. I do not doubt I ought to have left then, or brought it publicly before all the brethren. I did not do so at the instance of Mr. Rhind, Mr. Young, and some others. I can only sorrow now I was not more decided. The case would have been infinitely simpler, but God graciously overrules all. But no brother could have expected me to have staid to have made Plymouth a focus, and join in helping a union in testimony against myself, not to speak of other brethren. It has been asked why did not I go on and teach at Plymouth. I answer, I did. Why did I not bring it before the leading brethren there to be remedied? They had been broken up, and their meeting was refused. Mr. Newton would not hear of it from any one. He had claimed, as already related, sole authority for him- self and three or four others he had approved. But I must now turn to some other collateral minor facts which entered into this miserable history.
An aged person, whom it is needless to name, who had long been opposed to, and kept aloof from brethren, and preached himself, but whose congregation had died away, came into communion and began to minister on Sunday morning. He did not do so, strange to say, in
