PLYMOUTH BRETHRENISM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4026, 13 January 1875, Page 3

PLYMOUTH BRETHRENISM.

TO TIIK KDlTOft. Sm—l observe in the report of the Sailors' Gathering at Port Chalmers, that not one of the Port Chalmers ministers was present. The Port Chalmers ministers believe iv Evangelist sermons, and in free tea-meetings for the sailors, for they have taken a prominent part in such meetings before, but at the hist meeting 1 notice that not one was present. How is this? Perhaps some of them will favour the Christian public with an explanation. Iv the memtime, however, the report itself seems to surest one. If the meeting was earned on b.v those who look upon the Church as "a stuck up thing," who. hold " Clericalism and Ecclesi.-isticissu" at a discount, and who " believe we have come to the times of the Lord," the matter becomes explicable enough. The Port ministers could not well expect to be invited to a gathering called in the interests of Plymouth Brethrenism. If^hat be so, we shall have no difficulty in finding one or two parallel cases to put alongside of this one.. The recent meetings for united prayer in Duuedin were no sooner closed as united meetings, than a section of those who had taken part in them proceeded to carry them on themselves. The union terminated in tbe breach of au honourable understanding on the part of one of the parties to it. That party was the Plymouth Brethren. A Christian minister some years ago procured the services of a gentleman to occupy his pulpit duriug at( uiporary absence in the home country. The gentleman came, preached up to the last Sabbath possible, and then drew after him to a separate meeting a great part of his friend's church and congregation. That gentleman is the leader of the sect of the Plymouth Brethren. But, curiously enough, the zeal of " the brethren" has betrayed them. One of them has at last confessed, in your columns, that tte mission is destructive, and he only wishes that they were more expert "thieves" than they are. There is a bird that has eggs to lay like other birds, but is not willing like other birds to build a nest wherein to lay them ; at least she finds it vastly more convenient to take a nest already prepared, if such a nest can be found, than to build one for herself. The cuckoo is the very type o£ "-Plymouth Brethrenism " The " brethren " did not establish the Port Chalmers meetings for the benefit ofthe sailors-. They needed, and obtained the help of the Port Chalmers ministers to do that. But being established, they contrive to make " clericalism ' clear out, and fill tho empty nest themselves. Tbey did not gather the meetings recently held in Dunedin for united prayer ; tliey only availed themselves of the large meetings already gathered to promote the interests of a sect. And the leader of the sect, preferring- the pagan maxim of di.itle et impi'i-ct to the apostle's noble refusal to "build upon another man's foundation," began his Dunedin mission by breaking up one church to build another out of its ruins. Sir, I am in the warmest sympathy with every movement, ecclesiastical or other, which'tends to make men Christian in Faith and better in character. I believe a.l the sects are more or less contributing to this. I should be sorry to think that even our Roman Catholic brethren are not all the better for the degree of truth which they so reverently hold. And 1 know that some of the Plymouth Brethren are among the most devout and earnest Christians, and have no sympathy with the destructive aims of their Society. But I do feel that the time is come for speaking plain words concerning a system which pursues a policy of destruction by methods of sham co-operation. Occasions will'doubtless arise hereafter for union among Evangelical Christians. And, by the way I heartily wii-h we could have united gatherings 'of Christian people without asking whether they qualify their Christianity by the epthet •' Evangelical" or not When such occasions arise, I trust the various churches which hitherto with so much accord have united in such gatherings, will beware of a system whose very purpose it is to disorganise and to divide, and of whose zeal in the carrying out of this purpose Dunedin has had such pointed illustrations.—l am, &c, Christian Uxiox.