Mr. Parnell-afterward Lord Congleton—who appears to have united with the Brethren in 1829, hired a large auction room in Aungier Street for their use on Lord's day. His idea was that the Lord's table should be a public witness of their position. This was the Brethren's first public room; there they commenced breaking bread about the spring of 1830, if not in the winter of 1829. This strange-looking place for the holy service of the Lord may be taken as a sample of what Brethren's rooms have been in all parts of the country ever since. In order to clear the place for the meeting on Lord's day morning, three or four of the brothers were in the habit of moving the furniture aside on Saturday evening. One of these active brothers, referring to their Saturday night's work, after, a lapse of nearly fifty years, says, " These were blessed seasons to my soul-J. Parnell, W. Stokes, and others, moving the furniture, and laying the simple table with the bread and wine-and never to be forgotten; for surely we had the Master's presence, smile, and sanction, in a movement such as this was." We have heard some describe the strangeness of their feelings on their first visit to this room, having been accustomed to all the proprieties of "church and chapel," but what they heard was entirely new to them, and is remembered to this day. Such love to speak of the peculiar freshness, unction, and power of the word at that time.
The Brethren afterward engaged the room entirely for themselves, and continued to meet in it for several years; so that it became as well known in Dublin to be the Brethren's room, as the Priory of late years in London.