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

nite churches provided the major increase in Mennonite Brethren fellowships. The Hillsboro (Kansas) Mennonite Brethren Church, for many years a key generator of leaders and resources, was bom from a revival in the French Creek Mennonite settlement north of town. Hie church in Goessel, Kansas, which later joined Hillsboro, became a major factor in Mennonite Brethren growth through the ministry of Cornelius P. Wedel, who with a group of members from the Alexander- wohl Mennonite Church had founded that congregation.17 Two factors emerged as the major motivating dynamic in this movement. First was the experiential reality of their con- version. A favorite song in early Mennonite Brethren Church life went, "But I know whom I have believed, and am per- suaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day."28 In contrast to the fear of eternal lostness that characterized many other Mennonites, their new certainty of forgiveness and eternal life produced an explo- sion of joy that the old wineskins could not contain.29 They had to tell others. The second factor was their world-view that assigned all people not genuinely saved to hell. To warn them against such destiny and plead with them not to reject the redeeming provision of God was the focus of their mission, They were 86 A MISSIONARY MOVEMENT acutely conscious of the "blood guilt" for failing to warn the wicked (Ezekiel 3:18). And the "either-or" theology of Eduard Wust had impressed upon them that every person was wa child of God or a child of the E>evil-on the way to heaven or on the way to hell."30 The effectiveness of their evangelism was due in no small way to its "lay" character. The conference selected itinerant ministers from the ranks of the pew. Their service was volun- tary, since the stipend of $25 per month (to cover immediate expenses in 1878), could not influence their motives. Hein- rich Voth, who received $400 for a full year of service in Canada, returned $100 to the conference with the explanation that his actual expenses had been less. For the Lord's work he did not wish to be paid. Voth exemplified evangelistic fervor. His ministry in Mani- toba, Canada, was one of walking from house to house, seek- ing the lost and spiritually hungry to bring them to Christ.31 Many people hated him and persecuted him for the gospePs sake, but others responded to the message and were convert- ed. In one village a local ordinance forbade him to remain overnight and he was chased into the fields. His only shelter in a cold night with the