One of the Brethren's earliest visitors from a distance, whose name has become connected with their beginnings, was the late Mr. Anthony Norris Groves. From the scantiness of dates, even in his Memoirs, it is difficult to ascertain with certainty when he first met with the Brethren in Dublin, or how often. After doing our best by comparing the dates of letters, we believe the following to be substantially correct.
This dear devoted man was a successful dentist in Exeter; but from an early period of his life his heart had been fixed to go abroad as a missionary. The following conversation, as told by himself, shows a heart of almost ascetic devotion to its object. " Mr. Bickersteth," he says, " came down, and in our dining parlor at Exeter I related to him my circumstances. I told him I had offered myself to the society ten years ago; and that my whole desire was to do the Lord's will, and the greatest good to the church at large, but more especially to that object to whose interests I had pledged myself-the cause of missions. But this, I said, may be done in two ways: first, by giving one's means; secondly, by personal exertions. In the first point of view I have an increasing professional income, and have this year received nearly fifteen hundred pounds, and dear Mrs. G., on the death of her father, will most probably have ten or twelve thousand pounds more; the whole of which, with my present views, will of course vanish, the moment we take the contemplated step. Mr. Bickersteth's answer was, If you are called of the Lord to the work, money cannot be set against it; it is men whom the Lord sends, and He stands in need of men more than money.' I thought his judgment a wise and holy one, and I do so to this day.
Although we have no date as to when this conversation took place, we gather from a letter to a friend that it was not later than March, 1827. Writing under date April 2nd, 1827, he says, " The death of Mrs. G.'s father, about three weeks ago, has rendered our path in some respects much easier; but it has put some of that deadly corrupter of the human heart-money in our way, under circumstances we have no control over. Pray for us, therefore, that we may glorify Him with every farthing of it."
But as the Church Missionary Society required that all their missionaries should have a college education and be duly ordained to the ministry, Mr. G. had to give up his professional duties and turn his attention to the study of theology. It was not necessary, however, that he should reside in Dublin during his studies, but that he should appear at the university there two or three times a year for examination as to his attainments. It was during some of these periodical visits that he became acquainted with the Brethren. As a Christian he broke bread with them in Fitzwilliam Square, the meeting being at that time in existence. This was the extent of his connection with the young community. Indeed he never agreed with their ecclesiastical principles, nor the ground they had taken in separation from all the religious systems around them. In the year 1828 Mr. G. had a lengthy conversation with some of the Brethren on the subject of Missions and the Church, but as to the nature of the latter they could not agree. Mr. G. warmly contended that the tares were to grow in the church to the end, which the Brethren strongly resisted as unscriptural, and necessarily opposed to all wholesome discipline; " the field is the world," not the church.
This was probably the last time they met previously to his sailing for Bagdad. During these visits to Dublin a great change had taken place in his mind as to the necessity of a college education, and of a ministerial ordination, for the work of the ministry. He abandoned his connection with the college, thought his preparations and visits to Dublin a waste of time, and recommended all missionaries going abroad to avoid the dictation of the cold formalities of a committee. Mr. Groves and his party sailed from Gravesend for Bagdad on the 12th of June, 1829, and arrived after a most perilous journey on the 6th of December.
Although we think that the self-denying wholehearted devotedness of Mr. Groves, for the spread of Christianity among the heathen, is well worthy a page in all church histories-and no pen could adequately write of the singleness of his purpose-yet this is not our object in the present instance. In several hurried and inaccurate sketches of the origin of Brethren which have come before us, Mr. Groves has been spoken of as the one who first suggested the idea of coming together to break bread without the presence of a minister. From this alleged suggestion some have called him the " founder" of the Brethren, and some the " father;" but this conclusion is not at all borne out by facts. It is quite possible that some of the early Brethren may have benefited by the remarks of Mr. Groves, and that he may have profited by his intercourse with them, especially as to the Establishment and ordination; but they had been meeting for worship and communion before Mr. Groves knew them, and we are fully assured that he never had any real sympathy with the ground they had taken.
We now return to trace a little, though with scanty materials, the spread of the truth by the Brethren.