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

he university), he entered upon his ecclesiastical duties— after, to his own surprise, a very good performance in his theological examinations— with all sincerity and an exemplary conduct as the assistant vicar at Neukirchen and Riedenau (1841-44). Not until the third year of his ministry, however, was he able to renounce his sinful behavior (which had taken on a more secretive and refined character) and lead a more dedicated Christian life in faith, word and conduct. As a minister and congregational leader (Bible study leader) he enjoyed great success, won many followers, their trust and brotherly love, but he also became the object of the vicious hatred of his superior pastor and neighboring colleagues (pastors), eventually being unjustly removed from his curacy and hatefully persecuted in that he was forbidden to visit the places where he was loved the most. Even vagrancy fines were imposed upon him to disgrace him. He claims that about one year after such blessed spiritual activity, on New Year’s Eve, 1844/45, he experienced the complete joy of sins forgiven and the assurance that he had become a child of God. He maintained a warm relationship with "Pietists,” the Moravian Brethren, and the Methodists. At one point he almost went to America as a Methodist minister. But through God’s leading and the mediation of Hoffmann, the founder of the Pietist colony of Koratal in §74 205 206 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH Wuerttemberg, he received and accepted the call of the above-mentioned church at Neu-Hoffnung and thus came to Russia at the age of twenty-eight. (This account is based on Wuest’s "autobiography” which he read from the pulpit at the time of his installation in Neu-Hoffnung, in which he, as in his inaugural sermon, in our opinion too unsparingly and severely, exposed himself before the new congrega- tion.) Physically Wuest was a tall and stout man, his voice strong and sonorous; his outward appearance was friendly and attractive. It was said of him that anyone who associated with him had to love him, or, on the other hand, because of his decided Christian stance— hate him, depending upon the inner attitude of the person in question to the Christian faith. The church was already full to overflowing at the occasion of his installation sermon, given in Neu-Hoffnung on September 28, 1845; many Mennonites, who had already associated with the Wuerrtemberg Pietists, were among those in attendance. (Cf. above, “Gnadenfeld.”) 2. In order to shed some light on Wuest's character and activity, we present some written evaluations by his contemporaries. a) The late Brother Jakob Reimer of Felsental, a long-time resident of Gnadenfeld and member of that congregation, who died as a leader of the M.B. Church in Wiesenfeld, describes the Brotherhood Movement during Wuest’s time in his “Report” of 1884, written to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the M.B. Church on January 6, 1885: "...