HWGA 8

Back to Table of Contents or perhaps forward to Chapter/Section 9?

Section 8 – Mr. Darby’s seventh and last trip to America following trip to New Zealand and Australia (June 9, 1876 to June 4, 1877

After spending from September 1875 to March 1876 in New Zealand and April and May 1876 in Australia, Mr. Darby returned to San Francisco about June 9, 1876. He visited both Melbourne and Sydney in Australia. He writes from New Zealand, “The relief to my spirit after the States is very sensible, though where the Lord’s work is, there is joy.”

Upon arrival at San Francisco he writes to Mr. Paul Loizeaux at Vinton, Iowa, “It would have been happy to see the brethren in Iowa, and you all also. But they had arranged for a kind of little conference here, having invited the people before my arrival, so that I shall be here until the 20th of the month… and it will be impossible for me to be at Vinton. When I learnt that there was a conference there, I felt that I should not be there.”

On June 23, 1876, reached Chicago and then to Brantford, Ontario, for a conference in the middle of July. Many came from as far as Pennsylvania and Maryland. Then to Hamilton and Toronto in August, and Belleville (in September) then Ottawa on October 29th, 1876. At conference in Montreal. Stopped at Detroit and was in Quebec on November 20th.

At Boston November 29th and during December 1876 and January 1877, then to New York in February, and on March 5th and during March 1877 left the United States for the last time going into Canada stopping at Halifax on March 21st and April 2nd also there, and then back to Ottawa by June 4th, and left America evidently from Quebec late in June or early in July, as he writes from England on July 27th, 1877. He writes that denominational conventions considered in 1877 how to stop the progress of Plymouthism in the States and elsewhere, also writes of Mr. Evans’ early labors in Canada and the United States.

Mr. Darby spent in all, over six years in North America. It was in 1877 that Mr. Andrew Miller’s “History of the Rise, Progress and Testimony of Brethren” first appeared in England. In 1881, J.S. Teulon appeared with an attack but giving considerable history.

In 1876 breaking of bread first began in Italy at Novi with J.N.D. present. Breaking of bread began first in Sweden at Gothenburg in 1878 by Mr. Hedman and a few others.

About 1878, Mr. Andrew Miller in his book “The Brethren, Their Origin, Progress and Testimony” lists the number of meetings as:

• Great Britain = 189
• France = 146
• Canada = 103
• United States = 91
• Switzerland = 72
• Holland = 39
• Elsewhere = 100
• Total: 1488

In 1876 in Vinton, Iowa, Paul and Timothy Loizeaux started a tract depot in a corner of Timothy’s home, with tracts and books from England. They also set up a press, printing tracts and books of Charles Stanley and C.H. Mackintosh among the first. In 1879 the work was moved to New York City, where it is still operated by two of Timothy’s sons.

Back to Table of Contents or perhaps forward to Chapter/Section 9?