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

. And if this longing does indeed come from the heart, and a good many seek rest and peace where they can be found, and at the same time not only forgive but also forget what has happened, then spiritual and physical well-being can and will come to them. Let us pray that this will happen and that God the Lord will empower all of us, according to the riches of His glory, to become strong through His Spirit in the inner man . . . (Eph. 3:16, 17). With this sincere wish I, Johann Wall, your loving brother, greet you and commend myself to you.” b) Obviously this letter was destructive for Elder Heinrich Wiens and his friends, justifying Comies nearly more than was right and— in our opinion— more than was necessary. It must have had a depressing effect upon those who held Wiens in high esteem; and it must have been as great a disappointment to Wiens as to his friends that a prominent 156 IN RUSSIA 1789-1860 representative of the mother church in Prussia should circulate such a verdict. This would have been all the more disappointing if it were correct— as we believe to be justified in assuming, according to our recollection of discussions we had regarding this matter with the Rev. Bernhard Fast and other contemporaries— that Wall was to a certain extent an official representative of the Prussian Mennonite council of minis ters, and that on the request of Heinrich Wiens and his followers. For the founders of the Lichtenau congregation had also, before 1825, tinned to the “Elders, Ministers and Brothers in Prussia” (#59) for moral support in their quarrel with Bernhard Fast and his adherents. The answer (#59) must have led the church councils in Prussia to the conclusion that they had been largely misinformed. We have been informed that Heinrich Wiens, who at first met with a great deal of sympathy in Prussia, soon disappointed many people greatly through his sermons and then in turn himself became disappointed, which is probably connected with Johann Wall’s travels in Russia and explains Wiens’ quiet return and subsequent withdrawn existence in the Molotschna Colony. As far as the minister Johann Wall himself is concerned, we are happy to find in him a man who pleasantly reminds us again of Elders Cornelius Warkentin and Gerhard Wiebe. E. A Letter from. One of the ‘‘Quiet in the Land" a) The following original letter, written by a school teacher in 1826, after the separation and organization of the Kleine Gemeinde from the large congregation had taken place, demonstrates that next to and within the dead mass of the people, the quarreling parties and congregational splintering (where, even though our sympathy lies first and foremost with Ohrloff, Gnadenfeld and their like-minded followers, and only in the second instance with the Kleine Gemeinde— and least of all with the large congregation— we must recognize and feel that right and wrong cannot be clearly distinguished but are to be found mixed th