PLYMOUTH BRETHREN, a religious sect which had its rise in the British Isles about 1827, when the Rev. John N. Darby, a minister of the Episcopalian Church of Ireland, asso ciated himself with a group of dissenters in Dublin and formed a religious society of Brethren on a platform of Evangelical Calvin ism. Similar local societies existed in various towns of Ireland and England, and Darby, while visiting the society at Plymouth, won over to his views a large number of persons, among them two or three clergymen of consul erable distinction, one of them the Rev. Ben jamin Wills Newton, another the Rev. James L. Harris, and the third the noted Biblical scholar, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tre gelles. Plymouth now became the principal centre of the movement, and hence the popular title of the sect, Plymouth Brethren: the offi cial title is %Brethren" or %Christians." A weekly newspaper was edited by Mr. Harris, and the sect made rapid progress, congregations being formed in every considerable town in England. In 1838 Mr. Darby went on an evan gelizing mission to Switzerland and spent seven years in that country, chiefly in French Switz erland, where his success in gaining disciples and forming congregations was extraordinary among the Methodists and other dissenters: in Germany, too, in German Switzerland, in Italy and in France his opinions were received with no small favor: but French Switzerland, and in particular Geneva, Lausanne and Vevey, was his stronghold. When he returned to Plymouth
in 1845 he sought to depose B. Wills Newton from the headship of the community there, charging him with a disposition to introduce priestly rule; but most of the Brethren upheld Mr. Newton, and Darby thereupon formed a separate assembly. At Bristol in 1848 there was a similar division, but this time into three sects, those siding with Darby, those siding with Newton and those siding with neither. Of these divisions there were subdivisions later. Four divisions of Plymouth Brethren had in the United States churches and membership at last report; Div. I — churches 134, communi cants 2,933; Div. II—churches 128, communi cants 4,752; Div. III —churches 81, communi cants 1,724; Div. IV —churches 60, communi cants 1,157. The Plymouth Brethren hold that an official ministry is an unchristian institution; among them all the male members are on an equal footing, and have the right to exhort in the meeting; after the opening exercises — a hymn or prayer — there is usually a pause to wait for volunteer addresses. See RELIGIOUS SEcrs.