A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

avior and called their suppressors to repentance. The story of Abram Unger and Heinrich Neufeld in the Tschernyschevo prison seems to echo the stories of Acts.17 Heinrich Huebert's confinement in a dark, cold and damp prison cell reminds us of the story of Peter in Acts 12.18 The persecutions endured by the early Mennonite Brethren, as reported by Jacob Bekker, bring to mind the words of Je- sus in John 15:18-20: "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you ... if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you."19 Some lost homes and posi- tions as the result of their newfound faith.20 But even this would not silence their witness. Many in the Mennonite com- munity avoided them because at every contact they would in- quire as to the individual's relation to Christ.21 Cornelius Krahn characterized the early Mennonite Brethren as follows: The new emphasis upon a strong personal experience of the grace of God with its accompanying assurance of sal- vation produced a very sturdy and active type of Christian, and led to the development of an almost unbelievable zeal for witnessing for the Gospel in home and foreign mis- sions.22 Early Mennonite Brethren diaries have a flavor of Acts 8:4, "They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching (telling) the word." Reports of their witness following the June Reform of 1865 depict a fervent, spontaneous witness. They went from village to village, visiting people in their homes and speaking of the grace they had experienced in their personal salvation. They read Scripture, prayed and in- vited people to accept Christ as Savior.23 They witnessed out of their own personal experience of redemption and a love for those who were without Christ. This zeal followed them to North America. Conference records of the early Mennonite Brethren churches in America 85 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH contain only one major theme, that of "Home and Foreign Missions/24 As in Russia, initially home missions focused on other Mennonites. Later outreach expanded to Lutherans and Congregational communities of German cultural background,25 It is significant to observe that the period 1860-1865* a time of internal turmoil and external persecution, recorded the most rapid increase in conversions and baptisms. By 1872 the Mennonite Brethren fellowship had 600 baptized mem- bers, and by 1914 the new church comprised one-fouith of the whole Russian Mennonite population,26 Similar growth happened in America, which received its first Mennonite Brethren immigrants in 1874. Continued renewals in Menno-