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

well-bred, naivete. Some deformity was inevitable when uneducated persons with little capacity for rational thought, an inclination toward fanaticism and much blood and thunder, accepted Wuest’s message of grace in a superficial and one-sided manner and did not allow themselves to be sanctified by it as he did ; even upright believers were caused to fall by this message, but, like St. Peter, were helped back to their feet again. The same happened to a number of our older brethren, as we will make clear. But the others, who possessed the joy but not the obedience and self-denial in the discipleship of the “loving Savior,’’ stumbled on this rock of offence and were destroyed, as Kappes named below and some from our own ranks. Still a third group existed which, if saved— God alone knows— then only after a life of uncertainty and joylessness and as brands plucked from the fire, after having long preached and worshipped joy instead of Christ. Some, vacillating from one extreme to another, are still 14 seeking joy and consolation in Christian (?) things, though not in Christ Himself. The message of the dearly departed will reveal, to the thoughtful and impartial reader, a correct and well-rounded picture of the person himself; and we are convinced that the image arouses a warm love and respect, though not without Christian and objective criticism. b) The Mennonite Brethren Church must actually look upon Pastor Wuest as her second reformer: Menno built the house in which we live, on the one foundation (I Cor. 3:11 was Menno ’s motto). After narrow interpretations, differences over small things, and numerous divisions had weakened Menno’s family (cf. #9 above: “Dutch,” separation, etc.) and diverted it from its central focus— Christ living in the heart by faith, one’s life being an open letter of Christ, proclaiming his 212 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH name to the ends of the earth, even to the point of giving one's life to win the world for Christ” (Menno), and after externally “correct doctrine” and morality had replaced true faith and its inevitable fruits of sanctification in most hearts, even in those of the better ones in the churches of our fathers (not to speak of the morally weak elements in its bosom)— rationalism (belief in reason) and later indifferentism (religious indifference) gradually captured the most influential and numerous members of this Menno-family, the Dutch Church. Our rural Prussian churches were left with an ecclesiastical, doctrinally correct, moral formalism (always, however, with the exception of Elijah’s “7000”). Thus the good house of Menno had become practically desolate and empty and was about to collapse. As we have already seen, new life had flowed into individual groups of the Menno-family through evangelical Pietism and Herrnhut. Pastor Wuest was that person who, in this succession of renewing factors, contributed the most before the organization of the M.B. Chur