A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

n Church through baptism, among them were those who had attended the meeting where baptism had been discussed. For the first time in some twenty years the question of "open communion" was taken up again in the Mennonite Brethren Church. The two men who submitted the question for consideration, P. M. Friesen and Johann Wieler, had wide contacts with believers also among non-Mennonites, especially among the Russian people. The CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION (1865-1885) 83 14. David Duerksen Rueckenau Mennonite Brethren Church, where the question first came up in 1882, referred the matter to the General Conference that was to convene the following year. At this conference Friesen and Wieler told the brotherhood that they could no longer be bound by the regulations of the church in this matter. Although the conference could not give its approval to "open communion" at this time, it did not take any action to curb the freedom of these brethren, who were highly respected in both church and community."' Around the turn of the century this question again assumed major significance in General Conference discussions. In the years 1884-85 the Mennonite Brethren Church experienced "seasons of refreshing" through large scale revivals in both the Molotschna and the Crimea. In 1884, eighty-four members joined the church and in 1885 one hundred and seventy-one were baptized, the largest addition in any one year since the founding of the church. Among these new members were several men with outstanding leadership ability who helped to expand the spiritual horizons of the Mennonite Brethren: David Duerksen, schoolteacher and minister of the Margenau Mennonite Church, who became the "prince among preachers" in the Mennonite Brethren Church; Jacob W. Reimer, teacher and evangelist of the Ohrloff Mennonite Church; and Peter Bergmann, a candidate for the ministry in the same church. All three brethren continued their preaching ministry in the Mennonite Brethren Church. It was also at this time (1884) that P. M. Friesen, principal of the teacher training school in Halbstadt, was called into the ministry. It may be noted, in passing, that a relatively large number of men from the 84 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH teaching profession were drawn into the ministry of the Mennonite Brethren Church. It is largely due to the high spiritual and intellectual caliber of these brethren that the church continued to grow and find favor with God and with men. Directly and indirectly the Mennonite Brethren contributed to the reformation within the "old" Mennonite Church. "Catholicism," it has been suggested, "is never so exemplary as when and where it is confronted with a vigorous Protestant competition." According to Kreider, the "struggle with basic spiritual issues gave new vitality to a dormant church." 38 Men like Bernhard Harder were encouraged in their labors for the renewal of the church by this cont