THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

M.B. Church 971 d) Jakob Quiring, Itinerant Minister of the Mennonite General Conference 971 59. a) Minister P. M. Friesen (b. 1849), Author of the Mennonite Brotherhood, in Russia, teacher and princi- pal of the Halbstadt Secondary School, 1873-1886 983 THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE “It’s been a long, long time!” It was on a Sunday evening in the midsummer of 1886, shortly before my departure from Halbstadt after I had resigned my position at the Secondary School there, that my friend and former colleague, the now deceased minister Johann Johann Wieler, approached me with the duly recorded decision of the Rueckenau M.B. Church to commission me to write the history of the M.B. Church during its first twenty-five years. At the same time he turned a portion of the historical material over to me, charged me to collect the necessary further material, to question the older brethren for information, and presented me with fifty rubles travelling money as well as a part of the payment intended for me. The way in which these people thought of the size of the history and the length of time it would take to compile the material was expressed by one prominent member of the congregation— an old (former) Area Administrative Officer— in the following words: "That is a nice piece of work exactly suited for Friesen. But he will also earn handsomely from it, for he will complete it in fourteen days!” Similar but not quite such extreme thoughts were probably harbored by most members of the fellowship. And the way in which they conceived the history was expressed by another, a common brother of the M.B. Church (who was expelled from the same a few years later and remained expelled because of an unfit life): “Well, then, you are going to write our history and prove conclusively that we are in the right and the ‘church’ in the wrong!” The unadorned honesty of these words so amazed me that I was lost for a rejoinder (which seldom happens). An important, totally different piece of advise was given me by the old Br. Jakob Reimer of Felsental, as he turned some important documents over to me with his blessing. “Write truth,” he said, “the good and the bad, as the Bible did xxvin concerning David!” These were the two great warnings which the God of my life gave me before the writing of my book. Should I write in the spirit of the first? Certainly not! But in the manner recommended by father Reimer— yes, that was right, but how difficult! And the time? Instead of “fourteen days” it took twenty-five years! At the ann ual meeting of the Mennonite Brethren General Conference in Rueckenau of May, 1890, the author felt constrained to inform the meeting that he had committed an act of folly in already attempting to write the history of “these times.” Nor did he care to state his reasons openly: “It was still too difficult to be objective.” But by now the whole fellowship, which had undertaken the project at the request of the