The World’s Tragedy

VI PREFACE. than the minister of God and the mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost ; just as on the other hand it was only natural that the orders from the Hall should come his way, and leave the first-best butcher lamenting, and the second-best bewil- dered. So that in my time the sect (though it is only fair to point out that they refused to be described as a sect, since what they had done was not to form a new sect, but to “ come out of sect ”, — this they maintained in spite of the fact that they were far more exclusive than any other religious body in Europe) was composed of a few of the old guard, my father the last of them all, and the meanest crew of canaille that ever wriggled. With my father’s death the small schisms which had hitherto lopped off a few members every year or two were altogether surpassed by the great Raven heresy which split the body into two equal halves, and extinguished the last sparks of its importance. I am going beyond my subject, but I cannot refrain from telling the awful story of the Meeting at Oban. The Meeting at Oban consisted of a Mr. Cameron and his wife and the bedridden mother of one of the two, I for- get which. Now as it is written : “ wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them ” it was all very well : but two forms a quorum. Jesus will not come for less. This has never been disputed by any doctor of the Brethren. Wigram is clear on the point ; if Darby had ever been clear on any point, it would have been on that ; Kelly never denied