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

able. Praise God, they are also meant for me! It therefore means that I, too, must rejoice, but not because I no longer sin, am already free from many an evil, live more piously, have holier thoughts or other similar things. Not at all, but only in the mercy of Jesus which is revealed in the blood of Jesus Christ ; it is in this that we want to rejoice, and that daily and hourly. Indeed, we want to rejoice only as godless though justified §115 264 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH children of grace and cough in the devil’s eye. 72 Such verses as the following are especially dear to me: We are justified by His grace, and that apart from works, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; and: And to one who does not work but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. A blessed poet writes: Not in piety nor prayer, no, faith alone can justify. And this we find hard to swallow, do we not? Let us rejoice if the Lord brings us more and more to naught, even if, in the end, we can no longer pray, only believe! Woltersdorf writes: Therefore, learn but to have faith, every day but to have faith; e’en though Satan takes all else, walk the blessed road of faith. Therefore, my conclusion is this, and it is right and biblical: Cursed is he who does not believe, and blessed and justified he who does. Amen. Hallelujah, Amen, that I too can and may believe, and do believe. By grace I too can tell of it, I am a part of His reward, so wretched as is seldom seen, so glorious as to frighten the enemy, so godless as to make all others better, and as righteous as a pardoned child. This much that you may know in what place I dwell, in what atmosphere; it is clean and fragrant. Yes, praise God! The Lord is King, praise His name; O’er all the earth His praise proclaim. Hallelujah! Do let us also hear from you. We have experienced blessed times with Brother Kappes; more of that later. Hein and his sister send hearty greetings. Greet all; all from us and from me; the two Hueberts as well. Your brother, W. Bartel, extends greetings to you, your wife and Cornelius. H., June 2, 1864.” During this time Bartel was a Bible colporteur and evangelist. 2) To Joh ann Claassen and Forchhammer in St. Petersburg (seven years later): “Berdiansk [where Bartel lived during the first evolutionary years of the M.B. Church as a businessman until 1864], January 8, 1861. Everything is now in the best of order in our fellowship . . . very merry and lively, . . . only the Wuerttembergers are indolent. Those of Mariupol are also alive once more .... Your Wilhelm.” 3) To Otto Forchhammer in St. Petersburg, who had gone there from Molotschna upon the request of the brethren in November of '60 to serve Claassen as secretary for German and as adviser. He was a Dane, Bible colporteur, and, to judge from his letters, originally a well-educated man. (His German bears hardly any traces of the non-German.) He remained