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

riend and fellow pilgrim, Heinrich Wiens.” [Note of the copyist and person who read the letter: “Read publicly on June 22, 1847, in Margenau.”] 70 c) Wiens later returned quietly from Prussia and lived just as quietly until his death (c. 1870?). His chief opponent, Johann Comies, Sr., had died. Nor does anyone seem to have thought of molesting him, the more so since the offices of the colony had come into the hands of the members of the “large congregation” soon after Comies’ death in 1848. According to the reports of Bernhard Harder, he is supposed to have preached only at private services, funerals and weddings. As far as the official public life of the colony was concerned, he was a living man whom they had buried; nevertheless, thousands of people who saw in him the practitioner of a perfect religion and a martyr, still revered him fervently, heaping anger and contempt upon the residents of Ohrloff and Documentary Supplement 153 the defenders of Comies, the more so since these had belittled Wiens and exalted Comies. For a long time Ohrloff was repaid with bitterness because of Heinrich Wiens and mayor T. (cf. #69d). (Compare Ohrloff ’s position toward the M.B. Church around 1860 and in the “Halbstadt church building dispute” in Chapter XV., etc.) Today all of this is forgotten, largely because of both positive and negative influences emanating from the M.B. Church. For a long time, the office of elder in Margenau remained vacant and was only filled in 1861 by Bernhard Peters, Gandenheim, now retired and ninety years of age, a mild mannered, quiet man, although of the old school. Until then the functions of the elder in Margenau were carried out by the elders from Pordenau and Petershagen. Compare If 160 (2). D. (2). An Evaluation of Conditions in the Molotschna Colonies at the Time of Heinrich Wiens ’ Exile by a Prussian Mennonite Minister (Supplements to ## 37, 61, 68, 69) a) The following letter, in abbreviated form, of Johann Wall, a Prussian mini ster who travelled through the colonies during the time period in question, 71 is taken from Elder Heinrich Dirks’ Mennonitisches Jahrbuch (Mennonite Yearbook of 1907). 72 (Page 73 of the Jahrbuch ). ”... As pleased as I was with the many good accommodations ... I was as deeply grieved over the many divisions ... to be found there. . . . Many of the people there have grown up with prejudiced points of view, and it seems to me that many of them do not understand the charter of privileges under which they live, nor do they know how to value the grace of His Imperial Majesty highly enough. And I believe, were one to think through the existing conditions there impartially and without prejudice, he would, were it possible, retract many things that have happened here. Let me lay the foundation for this by citing the beginning of that charter of privileges . . . (compare above #55, b to ‘First’). “From this it is clear that our fellow-believers in