illogical positions. Those most deeply imbued with the High Church conception bowed to Darby; those that were tinctured with a somewhat more liberal and generous Christianity followed the lead of Mr. Kelly.
“Bowing to Park Street” became a mania amongst Brethren. No devotee of Rome ever bowed to the authority of the chair of St. Peter with more relish. A good deal of hot Protestant blood was stirred, however, by the spectacle, and the cry of “Popery” was freely raised. The Derbyites replied with the yet more terrible cry of “Bethesda”. There was some truth perhaps in both charges; unless indeed the distinctive position of Kellyism were, that two meetings separated by a sentence of excommunication might both be recognised by other meetings, so long as no question of heretical doctrine were implicated in the local dispute. Even so, the principle was a new departure in Darbyism; and while we may gladly acknowledge that Mr. Kelly and his friends took a stand for Christian unity and liberty up to a certain point, the Park Street party are entitled to the dubious credit of the greater fidelity to the common traditions of Exclusivism.
The earlier rupture of 1848 had involved a mixed question of doctrine and of discipline. In 1881 no doctrinal question was so much as hinted at. This completed the absurdity of the situation. Before any one can be expected to see his duty, in obedience to Holy Scripture, to associate himself with Darbyism as with the only “expression of the Church of God upon earth,” he must form an opinion about the rights of the quarrel in 1848—in which the evidence is voluminous, complicated and difficult to procure; and he must subsequently determine the rights of a tedious, involved and obscure quarrel in 1881—a quarrel that had confessedly no posi-
