In the early months of 1845 the Pays de Vaud was convulsed by a revolution brought about by Jesuit intrigue. The fury of a section of the populace was let loose against the Plymouth Brethren. Darby’s life was in great jeopardy, and he wisely resolved to leave the country. He was not the man to quail in the face of peril; but his presence in Vaud could be of no use, and was probably a principal source of danger to his followers. Commotions continued, however, for some time after his departure.
Such was Darby’s famous campaign in Vaud. Herzog thought the movement would run a short course, so far as Switzerland was concerned. He miscalculated. French Switzerland has ever since remained the stronghold of Brethrenism abroad, and Darby’s personal authority there was maintained till his death, more than forty years after his work began in Lausanne.
Darby’s conduct has been severely criticised. But it is not quite so easy as some have imagined to determine the rights of the matter. Brethrenism in 1840 was far from appearing the total failure that it appears at the present day. It had obtained a rapid and even a startling success, and its supporters were not without excuse if they almost imagined that the problem of Christian reunion had found its solution at last, and that their principal mission, therefore, lay among “the awakened in the churches”; and account must be taken of this before we set Darby down as a vulgar ecclesiastical revolutionist.
This, however, does not settle the question of the uprightness of his tactics. If he came to Lausanne with the intention of utilising the opportunity for the propagation of his peculiar ecclesiastical principles, he was bound to give the friends who had invited him dis-
