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

e who justified infant baptism, the swearing of oaths, and war could not be true Christians no matter how holy they may otherwise appear. At this the elder jumped from his chair and said: Man, you are making a terrible statement which cannot stand! No appeal to the Scriptures helped me, and I regretted having made so strong a statement until I had the occasion to read tin even stronger one to him out of the writings of Peter Peters [an old Anabaptist author], a statement far more terrible than my own . . . and then I was satisfied! O God, how terrible it is now that Documentary Supplement 131 Satan, in the guise of an angel of light, is free to deceive! Yet he deceives only those who will not listen to the Word of God. The two elders Goerz and Wedel taught diligently in our churches, indeed spoke much of love and peace while opposing the severity exercised by the authorities ... for everything pointed to the imminent inauguration of the millennium. [He elaborates on the quarrels between those of Ohrloff and Lichtenau, which destroyed all hopes for peace. Elder Wedel becomes president of the Bible Society 54 which Reimer regards as terrible. New threats of removal to Siberia and the like are now made against the Kleine Gemeinde by the civil authorities, the colony administration, and higher officials such as General Insow, whereby it would appear that the elders Wedel, Goerz, and B. Fast, provoked by Klaas Reimer’s stubbomess, did not act completely honorably.] But I was neither afraid nor would I give in, for what God has established no man can destroy. God has dealt with us Mennonites in accordance with Zechariah 13. . . . g) “When I wanted to leave Prussia [which was very difficult for him ] . . . because Danzig had become a desolate Babel, . . . and also because my father-in-law, Elder Peter Epp, had often said on his sick-bed: Children, you must go to Russia, for the Mennonites here are done for, — I too thought to myself that God might perhaps raise up his small flock in Russia. But alas, when I arrived here I found that terribly hot-tempered elder and everything in a state of confusion. Thus, even here, after many years, I had to leave the church, which for me was very difficult. God, however, directed everything toward this end. And so there we were, about eighteen or twenty brethren. . . . Then God began to purify us because our number had increased, and with the increase the false spirit, like an angel of light, had entered our midst and become our upright brother, so that he might, as Menno Simons says, seat himself among the saints, receive communion with them, wash their feet and be an earnest and very helpful, virtuous spirit. . . . But when we refused to be attracted to the world, he appeared amongst us in the guise of a Pharisaical holiness, which was more frightening than his earlier form. Had God not worked in our midst with great power, we should have fallen to a worse state th