Many assumptions and misconceptions have been made about the early Plymouth Christian Brethren, an evangelical secessionist movement. In this book, James Callahan discusses various aspects of the early Brethren and provides for readers an enlightened understanding of the people and their movement. He examines the issues involved in the search for a description of the movement; the basis upon which the Brethren's primitivist orientation can be explained; the idealism associated with the Brethren's primitivism; the subject of prophecy; and the revived interest in apostolic Christianity. The book is structured in a chronological pattern with a focus on the writings produced during the late 1830s through the early 1840s and on the writings that focus on that time period.