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

ers a testimonium pauperitas, a certificate of impoverishment. It is noteworthy that Lenzmann now fully consented to all of this! It was now said among the Brethren that the Minister Heinrich Franz was, from now on, the driving force in Gnadenfeld as well as the author of most of lenzm ann 'a papers. Reimer describes Lenzmann ’s personal attitude as a friendly one for quite some time; in the council of elders, however, he gradually took over the leading role in this matter. From now on Ohrloff became the protectress of the Brethren until they had won a total victory. 233 234 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH 3. The following document, “Declaration to the honorable Area Administrative Office,” makes the purpose of the Brethren completely clear. "In accordance with the summons of the honorable Area Adminis- trative Office to make known what our essential purpose is, we declare, in the name of all our brethren, who signed the document of January 6, and, amidst prayer, called upon us to represent them, that each one of us would much sooner have remained in his own congregation; but because the ministers, as we declared in the document of January 6, do not act in accordance with the Word of God, we cannot do so for the sake of our conscience, and wish to form our own church as Mennonites. For the rest, we commend ourselves into the hands of our dear Savior, who has loved us and washed away our sins with His blood. Written at Halbstadt, January 23, 1860. Abraham Cornels sen, Johann Claassen, Isaak Koop.” 4. On January 27, the Area Administrative Office, on the basis of the penal law against secret (!) gatherings, forbade all religious gatherings in the colonies! (Compare below §159: “Petition to His Majesty.”) 5. We can discern the attitude of the Ohrloff-Halbstadt congre- gation to the cause of the Brethren from the following documents. Because of earlier ecclesio-political blunders 32 (§§50, 58, k,l) and their now aged Bishop Bernhard Fast, they had also been forced to taste numerous “rods they had themselves planted." a) "From the diary” [of an Ohrloff minister, given to the current Elder David Schellenberg of Rueckenau by the late Ohrloff Church Minister Franz Isaak and copied in his own hand. Compare further with the letter of July, 1862]. “I pondered the condition of the Mennonite brethren [he means all Mennonites here]; and behold, it is even worse than the departed brethren describe it. There is no fear of God, no faithfulness or honesty in the land, everyone must beware of his fellow man, his own brother, and those who still repent of anything repent the fact that they cannot cheat their fellow man any worse than they already do. And those who boast, boast of their roguery and revelry, as a hero of drunkenness, as a ruffian and the like. The keepers of Zion see it and remain silent. Or should they not be able to see? Are all the keepers blind? And are they what the prophet describes furt