John Nelson Darby was born at Westminster, in his father's London house, on November 18th, 1800. He was the youngest son of John Darby, of Markley, Sussex, and of Leap Castle, King's County, Ireland. His mother was of the Vaughan family, well known in Wales, whilst on his father's side he was of Norman extraction, the family records going back before the Reformation. His uncle, Admiral Sir Henry Darby who commanded the Bellerophon in the Battle of the Nile, was a friend of Lord Nelson, and he, to the great delight of the parents, consented to be one of the sponsors at the christening of his friend's little nephew: Hence the second Christian name given in compliment to England's naval hero. His mother's death when he was only five years old, made a deep and lasting impression upon young Darby. And the tender memory which he cherished in his heart of her would sometimes find expression on unexpected occasions. When he was fifty years of age we find him writing of her thus: " I have long, I suppose, looked at the portrait of my mother, who watched over my tender years with that care which only a mother knows how to bestow. I can just form some imperfect thought of her looks, for I was early bereft of her; but her eye fixed upon me that tender love which had me for its heart's object -which could win when I could know little else-which had my confidence before I knew what confidence was-by which I learned to love, because I felt I was loved, was the object of that love which had its joy in serving me-which I took for granted must be; for I had never known aught else. All that which I had learned, but which was treasured in my heart and formed part of my nature, was linked with the features which hung before my gaze. That was my mother's picture. It recalled her, no longer sensibly present, to my heart."
He received his early education at Westminster School; the years however spent by him at the famous school were very uneventful and gave no promise of the future lying before the lad. All that could be learned from one of the masters, several years later, was that there certainly had been a lad named Darby in the school at the time mentioned, but that was really all he could say. So far as memory served there was nothing special about him, and as to what became of him after leaving the school, the master had no idea. Indeed he had never heard his name from that day to the time of this inquiry. This, too, when J. N. Darby's name was familiar in almost every quarter of the globe!
In 1815 the family went to reside in the ancestral castle in Ireland, and to young Darby it was his first visit to that country. He then at the age of fifteen matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, and in this entirely congenial atmosphere his whole nature seemed at once to expand. He now made rapid strides, becoming Classical Gold Medalist on the shorter time of a Fellow-Commoner for his degree in his nineteenth year. These four happy years were followed by three during which he studied for the Bar, and in 1822 he was called to the Irish Chancery Bar, but did not practice; and it is here the secret of his after career begins to reveal itself.
Ever since his eighteenth year he had been greatly exercised about spiritual matters, and being now converted to GOD, conscientious objections arose in his mind as to following a legal profession, however fair the prospects it offered.
After a year, he, to his father's great annoyance, altogether abandoned the idea of practicing as a barrister, and this decision came as a very great disappointment to many who had watched with interest the opening of a very promising career. None perhaps was more disappointed than his brother-in-law, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland (then Sergeant Pennefather), who hoped not only for his rise to the highest honors in the profession, but that his penetrating and generalizing genius would have done much to reduce the legal chaos to order.
To understand this renunciation of an assured position by a young man, brilliant, gifted, talented, well connected, in a circle possessing great influence in the profession which he had entered and already made his mark, by being " called " when only a youth, it will be necessary to revert to a period of seven years in his life which he rarely mentioned. On one occasion, however, in conversation upon deep spiritual experiences with his friend, Mr. William Kelly, he remarked that for seven years he had once practically lived in the 88th Psalm, his only ray of light being in the opening words, " 0 LORD GOD of my salvation."
To only a select few of GOD's servants is it given to pass through severe exercise of this character. But the depth and reality of this initial experience undoubtedly gave tone and stability to his life-long witness. Moses at the back of the desert for forty years; Paul in Arabia for three years; and Richard Baxter in Puritan England for seven years, all witness to the fact that He Who chooses and calls for special service, trains His servants specially for their life-work.
That of Moses and Paul will be familiar to the reader, but that of Richard Baxter not equally so. Yet in the great work wrought by GOD, through the author of The Saints'
Everlasting Rest in the godless town of Kidderminster, which is a simple matter of history, the preparation of the vessel was both searching and severe.
So curiously reminiscent of Darby's inner conflict from 1818 to 1825 is the account given in Ladell's Life of Richard Baxter (pp. 148/9, Edition 1925), that it is profitable to compare them.
" To one so naturally acute and critical, and with a mentality that accepted very little without question, faith was no easy matter. Baxter was, as so very few are able to be, strictly honest with himself; and neither expediency nor the persuasions of others, could make him blind to the perplexities, or indifferent to the numerous problems that Christianity presented. He bravely faced them all, and wrestled with them, until his exacting reasoning powers were satisfied, or at least no longer hostile. It is not surprising, then, to find him often in great perplexity... he records in more than one of his works, the time when he was almost overwhelmed by unbelief. For seven years, he says, it continued: years that must have been to him a time of great suffering.... ' When faith revived then none of the parts or concernments of religion seemed small, then man seemed nothing, and the world a shadow, and GOD was all... but yet,' said he, ' it is my daily prayer, that GOD would increase my faith.' "
In the case of Darby the ray of light that had been, as he said, his only glimmer of spiritual hope during the " dark night " of the seven years, ushered him at last into the full blaze of day as he was brought into the knowledge of peace with GOD, and so became filled with the joy of GOD's salvation. He heard the call, he saw the Hand that beckoned, and unlike the rich, well-placed young man in the Gospel story who made " the great refusal " and went away very sorrowful, John Nelson Darby, also a rich, well-placed young man, made the great renunciation as With a light heart he now set off " to follow on to know the LORD," and to follow Him at any cost.
Cheerfully abandoning the legal profession as we have already mentioned, and now desiring to find a sphere of lifework wherein to serve GOD, he applied for, and was admitted to Deacon's Orders in the Irish Church in 1825 by Archbishop Magee without further delay.
He had still some way to go on the Christian course, and many lessons yet to learn, but like Abraham's servant, he, looking back in after days, might well have said, " I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my MASTERS brethren " (Gen. 24;27).