Thank God for gathering us together again this morning.
This morning, we would like to share on the life of John Nelson Darby. Probably many of you have never heard that name; and if you have heard it, probably you do not know much about him. But we feel that this brother has really been used of the Lord in the unfolding of God’s recovery work in the church.
This morning will require more concentration. So I do hope that the Spirit of the Lord will help us to really concentrate, because Darby is not a person who can be easily understood. Not only is his person difficult to understand, but his writing is even more difficult.
People read his writing and cannot really understand it, because one paragraph can be one page. He himself acknowledged that his writing is his thinking. He does not write for people to read; it is his thinking, and his thinking is so rich. It flows from one thing to another, and you can easily be lost. So I have to coach you, and that is why I ask you to give concentration. Otherwise, probably you will not be able to take it in. May the Lord really help us. Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, as we all gather in Thy presence, we do ask Thee to give us concentration. We ask Thee to touch our spirit, to touch our mind, that we may be able to grasp what is being shared; and not only grasp it, but, Lord, that Thy Spirit will plant these things in the depths of our hearts, that they may be translated into life and light.
And to Thee be the glory. We ask in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
In 1828, a pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ was published. It was written by a young curate of the Anglican Church.
In it, the writer surveyed the fact of Christian disunity and the attempts being made to remedy that situation through activities such as Bible societies, missionary enterprises, and the reunion of Christian believers.
He insisted that unity was God’s purpose, and expressed the view that the outward union of existing Christian bodies would merely perpetuate churches that were only partly reformed.
The name of the Lord is the center of unity. His death is the rallying point of communion. Conformity to His death, in terms of a life of self-giving, is the prerequisite for unity.
Believers should be living in the light of the approaching return of Christ. Unity is produced by the Holy Spirit. Only spiritual persons can unite together. Therefore, the essential need is for Christians to cultivate true spirituality.
Now listen to some of the key statements:
In the first place, it is not a formal union of the outward professing bodies that is desirable.
Indeed, it is surprising that reflecting Protestants should dream of it.
Far from doing good, I conclude it will be impossible that such a body could be at all recognized as the church of God.
Whatever plans may be in the order of providence, we can only act upon the principles of grace; and true unity is the unity of the Spirit. It must be wrought by the operation of the Spirit.
Accordingly, the outward symbol and instrument of unity is the partaking of the Lord’s Supper: “For we, being many, are one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.”
Am I desiring believers to correct the churches? I am beseeching them to correct themselves, by living up in some measure to the hope of their calling.
I beseech them to show their faith in the death of the Lord Jesus, and their boast in the glorious assurance which they have obtained by conformity to it; to show their faith in His coming, and practically to look for it in a life suitable to desires fixed upon it.
Let them testify against the secularity and blindness of the church; but let them be consistent in their own conduct. While the spirit of the world prevails, spiritual union cannot exist.
Further, unity is the glory of the church. But unity to secure and promote our own interest is not the unity of the church, but confederacy and denial of the nature and hope of the church.
But I will earnestly repeat what I said before: the unity of the church cannot possibly be found till the common object of those who are members of it is the glory of the Lord, Who is the author and finisher of faith—a glory which is to be made known in light and brightness at His appearing, when the fashion of this world shall pass away.
The Lord Himself says:
That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us: that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.
And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as We are one;
I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst Me.
Oh, that the church would weigh this word and see whether their persons do not preclude necessarily their shining in the glory of the Lord and fulfilling that purpose for which they were called.
Anyway, what he was trying to say in the pamphlet was this: as he looked around at the condition of the church, he was deeply distressed by the disunity among God’s people. He did see some attempts to unify God’s people, such as Bible societies, missionary enterprises, and the reunion of some believers; but he thought these were very superficial. These were not real unity.
Unity is in the Spirit. Unity can only be brought about by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Unity is centered upon the glory of the Lord. If people try to seek anything for themselves, that is confederacy; that is not unity.
His burden was that, instead of trying to correct the churches, we need to correct ourselves—that our life may be in agreement with what we see. Surely, it is the will of God that we shall be one, that the world may know that God has sent Christ into this world. Plainly, these are the things he was trying to say.
This pamphlet stirred inquiries from Christians in many parts of the British Isles. In time, it came to be regarded by some as the Brethren’s first pamphlet.
Miller, a church historian, considered this tract to be the statement of the unity which they believed and practiced, though not in the form of a confession; and further, as representing the divine ground on which they acted. It may also be considered to contain nearly all the elements of their distinctive truth, which have been held and unfolded by the Brethren from that day until now.
The effect of this statement—plain and scriptural—was immediate and great. It found an echo in many hearts.
Now, who was the writer of this pamphlet? His name was John Nelson Darby.
He was born at Westminster, in his father’s London house. His ancestry was Irish. He was born on November 18, 1800, the youngest son of John Darby, a merchant who had amassed a fortune by contracting with the navy. His mother was of the Vaughan family, well known in Wales.
When John Nelson Darby was five years old, his mother passed away. But the tender memory of her remained deep in his heart. When he was fifty years old, he wrote:
Long have I supposed I looked at the portrait of my mother, who watched over my tender years with that care which only a mother knows how to bestow. I can just form some incomplete thought of her looks, for I was early bereaved of her.
But her eyes fixed upon me—that tender love which has me for its heart’s object, which could win when I could know little else, which had my confidence before I knew what confidence was, by which I learned to love because I felt I was loved—was the object of a love quick in its joy in serving me, which I took for granted must be so, as I had never known aught else.
All that which I have learned, but which was treasured in my heart and formed part of my nature, was great with the greatness which hung before my gaze. That was my mother’s picture. He recalled her no longer sensibly present to my heart.
He received his education at Westminster School, which was a famous school at that time. But we know very little of his days at the school.
In 1815, his family removed back to Ireland, and they lived at their old castle. At the age of fifteen, he entered Trinity College, Dublin. Because of the intellectual atmosphere of that university, he seemed to blossom. When he graduated, he received the classical gold medal.
He then studied for the bar, and in 1822 he was admitted to the bar. But he never practiced.
At the age of eighteen, he had been greatly exercised about spiritual matters. For seven years, he lived in darkness—in deep waters—before he found his footing on the Rock of Ages.
He told us himself that during those seven years, the only comfort he had was Psalm 88. The reason that Psalm comforted him was because you could not find a ray of comfort in it.
Now, I think probably I should read that psalm, so that you may know it. What he did say was that he saw a ray of hope, nevertheless, in the first verse.
O Lord, the God of my salvation,
I have cried day and night before Thee.
Let my prayer enter into Thy presence;
Incline Thine ear unto my cry.For my soul is full of troubles,
And my life draweth nigh unto Sheol.
I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit;
I am as a man that hath no help,
Cast off among the dead,
Like the slain that lie in the grave,
Whom Thou rememberest no more,
And they are cut off from Thy hand.Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,
In dark places, in the deeps.
Thy wrath lieth hard upon me,
And Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves. Selah.Thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me;
Thou hast made me an abomination unto them:
I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
Mine eye wasteth away by reason of affliction:
I have called daily upon Thee, O Lord;
I have spread forth my hands unto Thee.Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead?
Shall they that are deceased arise and praise Thee? Selah.
Shall Thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave?
Or Thy faithfulness in Destruction?
Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark?
And Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?But unto Thee, O Lord, have I cried;
And in the morning shall my prayer come before Thee.
Lord, why castest Thou off my soul?
Why hidest Thou Thy face from me?I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up:
While I suffer Thy terrors I am distracted.
Thy fierce wrath is gone over me;
Thy terrors have cut me off.
They came round about me like water all the day long;
They compassed me about together.
Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me,
And mine acquaintance into darkness.
He was in that situation for seven years.
There are very few of God’s selected servants who do not pass through deep waters in the early days of their lives. But because of the depths of exercise he went through in his early years, it gave him a kind of stability and strength in his lifelong witness.
He heard a call of God. Unlike that rich young ruler in the Scripture, who came to the Lord Jesus and to whom the Lord said, “Sell all that you have, give to the poor, come and follow Me,” Darby heard the call and responded without hesitation.
He was a young man, rich and well placed; but when the call came to him, he rose up to follow the Lord at any cost.
He wrote in a letter to Professor Tholuck, about 1857 or 1858:
I was a lawyer. The feeling that He, the Son of God, gave Himself for me, I owe myself entirely to Him. And then the so-called Christian world was characterized by deep ingratitude towards Him.
I longed for complete devotedness to the work of the Lord. My chief thought was to get round amongst the poor Catholics of Ireland. I was induced to be ordained. I did not feel drawn to take up a religious post; but, being young in the faith and not knowing deliverance, I was guided by the feeling of duty towards Christ, rather than by the consciousness that He had done all, and that I was redeemed and safe. Consequently, it was easy to follow the advice of those who were more advanced than myself in the Christian life.
When he decided to serve the Lord, he gave his father great annoyance. All his friends were disappointed. No one was more disappointed than his brother-in-law, Pennefather, who later became the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
He saw this young man as having a penetrating and generalizing genius. He hoped that his nephew would one day not only rise to the highest honour in the legal profession, but would codify Irish law.
Some said that, because of this decision, his father disinherited him. But later, when his uncle died, his uncle left him a great fortune.
After his decision, he applied and was admitted to the deacon’s order in the Irish Church in 1825. In the following year, he was ordained priest. He was appointed to the Wicklow parish of Calary, in the mountains among poor people.
He lived in a peasant’s cottage on the bog. I do not know if you know what a bog is: it is marshland.
He threw himself heartily into the work, performing the various duties of his office. He was earnest and diligent in his ministry, strict in his churchmanship and conduct, and he very quickly won a place in the hearts of the poor people of that place.
Every evening, he would go out to teach the peasants living in the mountains amidst the bogs. He never returned to his lodgings before midnight. It was a wild country.
So far as he himself was concerned, he was very contented to spend his whole life in the wilderness and in the mountains. But from the day of his ordination, his restless, inquiring mind had been disturbed by the position of the established church.
Even in 1826, he wrote his first pamphlet, distributed privately: A Testimony Against the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy Forced Upon Roman Catholic Converts to Protestantism.
You know, his commission was to convert the Irish Catholics. But the established church passed a law that all these Catholic converts to Protestantism must take an oath of allegiance to Great Britain—to England.
To Darby, this was something that should not have been done. He felt that the church should never ask for the protection or help of the government. He felt that the church was supposed to suffer.
Before that decree of allegiance and supremacy was issued, it was said that every week about six hundred to eight hundred Roman Catholics in Ireland turned to Protestantism. But after the decree was issued, the whole thing stopped.
Then, in 1828, he wrote his second pamphlet, which we have already touched upon at the very beginning.
He laboured very diligently in Calary. Like John Wesley a century ago, he travelled over the mountains and among the bogs, visiting people and caring for people. His way of travelling was mostly by horse. So, like John Wesley, he rode a horse.
One day, the horse suddenly stumbled, throwing both itself and Darby. Darby was severely injured. Because of that, he had to go to Dublin for treatment.
He was detained in Dublin for some time. During the long period of convalescence, the disturbing thoughts concerning the established church and his own clerical position returned with unrelenting force and urgency.
He said:
As soon as I was ordained, I went amongst the poor Irish mountaineers in a wild and uncultivated district, where I remained two years and three months, working as best I could.
I felt, however, that this style of work was not in agreement with what I read in the Bible concerning the church and Christianity, nor did it correspond with the effects of the action of the Spirit of God.
Much exercise of soul had the effect of causing the Scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me. I had always owned them to be the Word of God.
When I came to understand that I was united to Christ in heaven, and that consequently my place before God was represented by His own, I was forced to the conclusion that it was no longer a question with God of this wretched “I,” which had sought wearily during six or seven years in the presence of the requirements of the law.
It then became clear to me that the church of God, as He considers it, was composed only of those who were so united to Christ; whereas Christendom, as seen externally, was merely the world and could not be considered as the church.
He came to understand his union with Christ. He came to understand that the church is composed only of Christians who are united with Christ. So the Christendom that he saw, he felt could not be considered as the church of God; rather, it was the world.
He continued:
The careful reading of the Book of Acts afforded me a practical picture of the early church, which made me feel deeply the contrast with its actual present state, though still as ever beloved by God. Now, what was to be done?
I saw in that Word the coming of Christ to take the church to Himself in glory. I saw there the cross, the divine basis of salvation, which impresses its own character on the Christian and on the church in view of the Lord’s coming.
And also, that meanwhile, the Holy Spirit was given to be the source of the unity of the church, as well as the spring of its activity, and indeed of all Christian energy.
When he read the Book of Acts, he was given a picture of the early church. When he contrasted it with the present state of Christianity, he saw the great difference.
Then he began to see that the cross is the basis of all things, that the coming of the Lord is the blessed hope, and that the Holy Spirit supplies the power of activity. That is what he saw during his time of convalescence.
At that time, he met a few young men who seemed to have the same conviction. One day, a few young men came to visit him—Henry Hutchinson and others. As they talked together, they decided that they would come together the next Lord’s Day to break bread in simplicity.
So four of them began simply to break bread and remember the Lord together. The presence of the Lord was very real, and gradually others began to be added to them.
Darby spent the remainder of his convalescence in the home of his sister. We already mentioned that his brother-in-law later became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
While he was staying there, nursed by his sister, the family employed a tutor by the name of Francis William Newman. Francis Newman’s brother became the famous Cardinal Newman. Francis William Newman was a very brilliant person. In the beginning, he was associated with the Brethren; later, he became an atheist. But before his death, he came back to Christ.
This young man was the tutor in that family, and we have almost no other description of Darby during that period. So I would like to give you Newman’s impression of Darby:
It was a surprise to me to find, in the drawing room of the Chief Justice, a relative, this most remarkable man, who before long gained an eminent sway over me. I shall henceforth call him the Irish clergyman.
His bodily presence was indeed weak: a fallen cheek, bloodshot eyes, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom-shaved beard, a shabby suit of clothes, and a generally neglected person, made at first sight an extraordinary figure.
It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar. And if it were not true, the story was yet well invented.
This young man had taken high honours in Dublin University and had studied for the bar, where, under the auspices of his eminent kinsman, he had excellent prospects. But his conscience would not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his talents to defeat justice.
With keen logical power, he had warm sympathies, solid judgment of character, such tenderness, and total self-abandonment.
He before long took holy orders and became an indefatigable curate in the mountains of Wicklow. Every evening he set forth to teach in the cabins, roaming far and wide over mountains and amid bogs, and was seldom home before midnight.
By such exertions his strength was undermined, and he suffered in his limbs. He did not fast on purpose, but his long walks through wild country and among poor people inflicted on him such severe deprivation. Moreover, he ate whatever food offered itself—food often unpalatable and indigestible to him. His whole frame bore witness to the emaciation of a monkish life.
Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists to look on him as a genuine thing of the ancient breed. The stamp of heaven seemed to them clear in a frame so wasted by austerity, so superior to worldly aims, so partaking in all their indigence, to a degree that a dozen such men would have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism than the whole apparatus of the church establishment.
Though I was at first offended by his outward appearance and apparent affectation of a careless exterior, I soon understood that in no other way could he gain easy access to the lower and lowest orders, and that he was moved not by asceticism nor by affectation, but by self-abandonment fruitful of consequences.
He had practically given up all his reading except that of the Bible. And though part of his movement towards me soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary studies, I remember once saying to him, “To desire to be rich is absurd; but if I were a father of children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure them a good education.”
He replied, “If I had children, I would as soon see them breaking stones on the road as doing anything else, if I could secure to them the gospel and the grace of God.”
I was unable to say, “Amen,” but I admired his unflinching consistency.
For, then as always, all he said was based on texts, aptly quoted and logically enforced. He made me more and more ashamed of political economy, moral philosophy, and all sciences, all of which were to be counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord.
For the first time in my life, I saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others profess with their lips only. Never before had I seen a man so resolved that no word of the New Testament should be a dead letter to him.
I once said, “But do you really think that no part of the New Testament may have been temporary in its object? For instance, what should we have lost if Saint Paul had never written, ‘The cloak that I left at Troas, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments’?”
He answered with great promptitude, “I should have lost something, for it was exactly that verse which alone saved me from selling my little library.”
“No,” he said, “every word, depend upon it, is from the Spirit and is for eternal service.”
In spite of a strong revulsion which I felt against some of the peculiarities of this remarkable man, I found myself, for the first time in my life, under the dominion of a superior.
Now, there was Newman’s description of Darby.
After he resigned from his curacy, that did not mean that he gave up his calling. He continued ministering the Word of God and caring for souls. Like John Wesley a century ago, he took the whole world as his parish.
He started out preaching the Word of God in Powerscourt.
There is an interesting episode. Powerscourt Castle belonged to Lady Powerscourt. She was a widow. Had she not died early, probably she would have been the Countess of Huntingdon among the Brethren.
You know, Lady Huntingdon was a tremendous help to the Wesleys, especially to George Whitefield. So, had Lady Powerscourt not died early, she would probably have functioned in a similar way. She was such a fine and spiritual person.
It was known that her idea of a Christian was not one who looks up from earth to heaven, but one who looks down from heaven to earth.
It was understood that at one time Darby was thinking of marrying her. But the brothers advised him that he was needed to travel, visiting different assemblies, and that this was more important. Because of that, he gave up the thought. So he remained single throughout his life.
It was after the abandonment of that hope that one day he was sitting by the beautiful sea of the Lake of Calary and wrote these words:
This world is a wilderness wide;
I have nothing to seek or to choose;
I have no thought in the waste to abide;
I have nought to regret or to lose.
Then he revealed the inward feeling of a pilgrim’s heart:
’Tis the treasure I found in His love
That has made me a pilgrim below;
And ’tis there, when I reach Him above,
As I’m known, all His fullness I’ll know.
Darby seemed, from the first, to have a love for carrying the truth from place to place. So he set out on his mission in a true apostolic spirit. He steadily went on for over fifty years.
Beginning in Ireland, he went to London and travelled all over the British Isles. He crossed the Channel to the Continent, labouring in France, Switzerland, and Germany. He crossed the Atlantic many times to the New World—to America—and visited many cities in Canada.
As a matter of fact, from 1828 to 1848, many brothers and sisters were moved by the Spirit of God to catch the same vision. Many brothers with great talents and great learning, whom God had brought together, laid down their titles. They came together as brothers and sisters and ministered to one another.
So this movement began to spread very speedily during the first twenty years.
But unfortunately, in 1848 there was a great division. Our brother already mentioned in the evening that it seems, whenever the Spirit of God moves, it usually lasts for twenty or thirty years, and then something happens. So a great divide came in 1848.
Now, this was not my subject, so I will just pass it over. But we find that John Nelson Darby was at the very center of contention. For this, he was labelled the Tertullian of these last days because of the many controversies in which he was engaged.
Because of his love of Christ and his absolute loyalty to the truth, he found himself to be a man of contention. He wrote in a letter in 1832:
Though I have met with abundant individual kindness and many dear children of God, yet I have not met the children of God dwelling together so much in unity, but have been a man of contention rather. God is my witness whether I love it or not.
The devotion of this man is without question, though in this perhaps lay his weakness.
For the love of Christ and the love of souls, he had renounced everything—renounced his future—and displayed in his whole conduct a simplicity that recalled the primitive times of the church.
Sacrificing the delights of family life, his greatest delight was travelling from place to place to gain souls for the kingdom of God. He was a very lonely man in many aspects, and at times felt conscious of this, though never regretting what led to it.
As an old man of seventy-nine years of age, he gave expression to this in writing, Echoes of Songs in the Night:
O dwell with me! Let no distracting thought
Intrude to hide from me that heavenly light.
Be Thou my strength; let not what Thou hast brought
Be changed by idle nature’s poor delight.
One day, when he was travelling in Italy as an old man, he reached a very uncomfortable inn where he was to spend the night. Weary and worn out, he leaned his head upon his arms and was heard to hum softly:
Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee.
Despite all his immense learning, his humility was most striking. His scholarship was never introduced into his ministry.
A quaint old divine once remarked, “Christ is still being crucified under Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.” You know what he means, do you? When Christ was crucified, His crime was written on the cross in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
This was not so in Darby’s case. Few ever heard an allusion to Hebrew or Greek in his addresses.
His writings came to forty volumes. He wrote Synopsis of the Books of the Bible in five volumes. It is a book of this kind, and it is very difficult to read. But there are gold nuggets everywhere.
When you read a commentary on the Bible, it can be very intellectual, academic, and scholarly exposition. But when you read Darby’s writings—when you read the Synopsis—there is a devotional spirit throughout. It is a most unusual book.
It is not merely exposition; it is his thinking over the Word of God. There is a spirit of devotion, but gold nuggets everywhere.
His linguistic gifts were great. He translated the whole Bible into English, German, and French, and he translated the New Testament into Italian.
To those who were his social and intellectual equals, he could be very hard and harsh. But to those who were ignorant, poor, and weak, he was extremely kind and sympathetic.
In his travels, he used to seek out the humble and the poor. He would rather stay with the poor than with those who were wealthy.
He had a special love towards children. When he was lecturing, he could notice a child who was restless and uncomfortable. He would take his greatcoat, wrap it up, and put it under the child as a pillow.
He crossed the Atlantic many times. Sometimes you could see him walking the deck, carrying a child in his arms to relieve the mother for the night; and he would walk back and forth the whole night.
Once he was in this country. All the brothers and sisters liked to entertain that great man. A poor brother wanted to entertain him, but he had nothing to offer.
His children had some pet rabbits, so he took one of the rabbits and prepared a meal for that great man. When Darby came to the table, he noticed that one of the children was unhappy. He asked why, and contrary to previous instructions, the child blurted it out.
So Darby refused to eat. After dinner was over, he took that boy to a tank of water, took from his pocket some mechanical toy ducks, and played with the child for over an hour.
Incessant travelling, with the lack of mere ordinary comfort, began at his advanced age to tell upon the iron frame of the old warrior. Early in 1881, he had a fall in Dundee during one of his visits to Scotland. This proved to have more serious consequences than expected. It affected his lung and heart.
The earthen vessel was beginning to break.
He wrote to a dear friend:
I have not been ill, but knocked up and overworked. I work morning and afternoon as far as I can, and in the evening let the strain go; and it goes in the Word and feeds on His life.
For a time, it was impossible for him to rest at night lying down in bed. Sitting up and propped up, he could sleep a little.
In March, he was taken to the house of H. A. Hammond. There he lingered for two months. When his friend, Dr. Christopher Wolston, asked him whether he had any special thoughts in view of death, he replied:
There are three things which I have dwelt much upon:
- God is my Father, and I am His gift to His Son.
- Christ is my righteousness.
- Christ is my object in life and my joy for eternity.
His last letter to the Brethren is typical. This is what he wrote:
After years of communion and witness, I have only bodily strength to write a few lines, more of affection than of aught else.
I bear witness to the love—not only in the Lord, ever faithful—but in my beloved brethren, in all patience towards me; and how much more does God unfailingly bear witness to it.
Yet I can say Christ has been my only object. Thank God, my righteousness too. I am not aware of anything to recall.
Little now to add: hold fast to Christ. Count on abundant grace in Him to reproduce Him in the power of the Father’s love, and be watching and waiting for Christ.
I have no more to add but my unfailing and thankful affection to Him.
Then he said something which other people took down for him:
Let not John’s ministry be forgotten in insisting on Paul’s. One gave the dispensation in which the display is; the other, that which is displayed.
I should particularly object to any attack being made on William Kelly.
William Kelly was another servant of the Lord. Somehow, he had different interpretations, and some brothers were attacking him. Darby said that they should not attack him.
At last, on April 29, the earthly life of a good soldier of Jesus Christ came to its close. So we pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank Thee for giving this gift to the church. We do thank Thee that Thou wert able to take an earthen vessel, pour Thyself into him, and through him pour upon the church.
Oh Lord, we do pray that we may be such vessels, given over to Thee without reservation, that Thou mayest commit Thyself to us without reserve, that Thy church may be blessed.
And to Thee be the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.