minutes before one o’clock”. They shook hands, and Darby said, “As you have judged Newton’s tracts, there is no longer any reason why we should be separated” . Müller answered, “I have this moment only ten minutes’ time, having an important engagement before me; and as you have acted so wickedly in this matter, I cannot now enter upon it, as I have no time”. Darby rose and left. They never saw one another again.[1]
Of all the incidents in Darby’s chequered career, this is distinctly the most damaging to his reputation, for he left Müller’s presence only to enforce to the last letter the decree that he had just declared obsolete.
Müller and two of his colleagues had received in June an application from “a number of brethren at Rawstorne Street, London, and elsewhere,” professing to act “as separate individuals,” asking for a meeting open to all parties concerned, to be held “either in Bristol or elsewhere”. Müller’s reply bears date July 18, and may therefore fall either before or after his last interview with Darby. He writes: “We are ready to afford full explanation of the course that has been adopted at Bethesda to any godly enquirers who have not committed themselves as partisans of Mr. Darby and Mr. Wigram, but … we do not feel warranted in consenting to meet with those who have first judged and condemned us, and now profess to be desirous of making enquiry. We think it well plainly to state, that were such brethren even to profess themselves satisfied with us, we could not without hypocrisy accord to them the right hand of
- ↑ I have taken the speech of each of the interlocutors from an autograph letter of Müller’s, addressed to Mr. Henry C. Crawley, and bearing date, “Breslau, Germany, April 30, 1883”. Henry Groves, who wrote the first draft of his Darbyism in 1863, and published the first edition in 1866, gives the speeches with a few immaterial variations.
