One hundred years later, in 1827, the Lord raised up the British or Plymouth Brethren under the leadership of John Nelson Darby. They took a stand to practice the church life. The light became clearer in this second practice of the church life in the Lord’s recovery. They were quite strong in spirit and rich in life, but when they began to study the Scriptures, they became ensnared and paid too much attention to doctrines. They developed different understandings concerning doctrines, and by 1918, ninety years after their beginning, they were divided into approximately one hundred fifty groups. The two main divisions are the Exclusive Brethren and the Open Brethren. Among these, there are many other small divisions. Some years ago, a young sister told me that she was raised in a Brethren assembly that was divided because some insisted on using an organ and others insisted on using a piano. The Brethren became dead and then divided by paying too much attention to doctrines. Eventually, they became the fulfillment of the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3. Thus, the Brethren practice of the church life was spoiled by the end of the 1800s after spreading quite prevailingly from Europe to South America, North America, Africa, and Australasia.
The first practice of the church life began with Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren in 1727. Then the British Brethren were raised up in 1827 with a more complete vision but were damaged by emphasizing doctrinal knowledge. One hundred years later, the third practice of the church life began in China. Brother Watchman Nee explained to me that the Lord was forced to go to the virgin soil of China because the long history of traditional Christianity in Europe and America had spoiled those places for the proper practice of the church life. Because China was pagan and heathen, it was unspoiled, virgin soil for the practice of the church life. Brother Nee was saved in 1920, and two years later he saw the light concerning the problem of denominations and the proper practice of the church life. He started a meeting at a sister’s home in his hometown of Foochow, and that was the beginning of the church life in China. Before that time all Christian meetings in China were led by Western missionaries and were held in church buildings that were built by missionaries. At nineteen years of age, Watchman Nee was the first native Chinese to start a meeting in a believer’s home without a pastor or anything of denominational Christianity. This group simply met in the name of the Lord Jesus and according to the Bible.
Among this group there were seven or eight young people who were co-workers, including Brother Nee. One was especially gifted in preaching the gospel. He was becoming popular as a traveling evangelist, when a brother from the Christian and Missionary Alliance proposed to him that he should be formally ordained so that various denominations would open their doors to him. The others meeting with Brother Nee agreed with the ordination of this brother. They had cut off the old current, but religion came in through a gifted one who was seeking popularity. When Brother Nee refused to agree with this brother’s ordination, the other members signed a paper to excommunicate Brother Nee. Thus, religion crept in to spoil the first attempt to practice the church life in China.
In those times Brother Nee was learning the lesson of the cross—not to fight for himself and not even to vindicate himself. He moved away to a suburb of Foochow, and from 1925 to 1927 he used his time to publish twenty-four issues of a magazine called The Christian in which he expounded the first three chapters of Revelation. He was only a little over twenty years of age. That magazine grew to a monthly distribution of ten thousand, and I became familiar with Brother Nee by subscribing to it. I began to write to Brother Nee in 1925, and he answered me. Through this correspondence we came to know each other. In those twenty-four issues, he thoroughly exposed denominational Christianity, explaining the meaning of the works and teaching of the Nicolaitans (2:6, 15). Throughout China hundreds of young people were enlightened and raised up to follow the Lord through reading The Christian.
I began to become clear about the denominations in 1925, when I was nineteen. I remained in my denomination and testified to the other members for about two years. Because they respected me as a seeking young believer, they asked me to give messages on Lord’s Day mornings. In 1927 they elected me as a member of the board, but I told them that I could not accept the position and asked them to remove my name from their “book of life.”