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

out of the swamps, forming threatening storm clouds over us. Has not many a thunderbolt already shaken the foundations of our existence? How little would it take, on the part of Him before whose threat the earth flees and finds no refuge, to destroy us if He tired of being merciful, for we have earned it through willful sin and hardening of our hearts against the call of grace. Friend! brother! father! or whatever else you wish to be to me who am as yet a very inexperienced person in the service of the Word and the ways of God, I cast myself on your breast and weep, for things look very sad in our midst, and yet I love our people with the passion of a first love. Is there any way in which you could add to the fervor of prayer, or to the fervor of admonition to prayer through your sermons and publications? In any case, the time has come to lift up the tired hands and strengthen the weak knees. Like a woman in birth pangs, we should labor for the new birth of our people. Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Has His ear become Difficulties and Victory 253 hard of hearing? Or has His blood, the precious blood of Jesus, now lost its power and validity? 0, what is lacking? We— the witnesses and watchmen— we are lacking. A large number of us lack the beginning letter of the alphabet, the capital ‘A’ of Christianity: ‘Wake up, o man, from the sleep of sin, etc.’ “This is not due to our lack of learning— though it were desirable that matters stood differently among us even in this regard— it is due to our emptiness and estrangement from God. For many a simple craftsman, who has become a child of God through faith in Christ, could hardly read a word and has now become quite a scribe, educated for the kingdom, in a matter of a few years, because he not only read, but studied, and not only studied, but opened his heart and life to the divine revelation. But what can be expected from such full and self-satisfied preachers who do nothing to fill their office but occasionally read a sermon which has already been a family heirloom along with the office for half a century, without regard to whether or not it is appropriate in the present circumstances. There has even been preaching contrary to our confession of faith because the work of strangers has been used unexamined and unaltered. In copying a sermon, someone once attempted to make his version smoother and milder to please the people, and substituted ‘eating and drinking’ for ‘devouring and consuming,’ which had been condemned in the original. Thus he reprimanded people for eating and drinking as though it displeased the Lord. You see! And in spite of the coldness and indifference of the large majority of us, there is a longing in our area for the true bread of life, and there is a striving for it that cannot be subdued by violent measures. If only we shepherds were alive, then the sheep would hear our voice, and the awakening life would flow beautifully and appr