Page:Darby - A narratives of the facts.djvu/50

was going to do as to the brother’s speaking; Mr. Harris declaring he had no intention to do any thing. Mr. N. pressed the matter, that this brother was not fit to minister, and that it was a sin against the order of God’s Church for which he had been sweating his soul for the last twelve years.^[1] Mr. Harris declined. However he had been quite sufficiently cowed by other means used already. How did this history close? This brother, a respectable godly man, for such he has been ever esteemed, had given up a place of confidential warehouseman in the town, I believe conscientiously from the nature of the employment, and waited to see what would turn up: he was given^[2] a weekly allowance, sent out to preach, and began to speak in the meetings. In one of the meetings held by Mr. Newton by invitation, to explain things, after the brethren who came to enquire were gone, this brother stood up and testified that be never bad been hindered,^[3] but always encouraged to speak. Mr. Newton and Mr. Soltau who knew all that had passed sitting by. Having gone through this collateral subject, I return to the general narrative. After some time I returned from Jersey, my mind much tried about leaving, but my conscience allowing me no longer to stay. I arrived Saturday and had no wish to act in a hurry. On Sunday week I

1. If any one knew all the pains taken to persuade me that if there were evils they were unintentional accidents they would be surprised. This was not the only occasion on which Mr. N. made use of this same expression.
2. Since writing this the state of things here related has ceased to exist; and the brother, whose godliness none called in question, not only has employment of his own, but his conscience, I apprehend, better informed as to many facts, is out of the snare that he was in. But I have had no communication with him. It is not his path I refer to, though he may have been caught unawares in the snare, it is that of those who were active in the matter: the system.
3. The reader must remember that he did not know what had passed between Mr. Newton and Mr. Harris; but he certainly was inconsistent in this, that no one had spoken more plainly as to the hindrances there were.