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

I commend you to the love and faithfulness of our Savior! Your brother, Heinrich Huebert.” g) Johann Claassen of Liebenau writes a letter to the congregation from St. Petersburg in which we recognize his mediating, but still too lenient attitude toward the “exuberant” movement: “St. Petersburg, June 18 (20), 1861. Dear brothers and sisters in Berdiansk and Molotschna! . . . Finally, finally I have received the much-longed-for letters. We demand that our civil liberties not be denied us [through the ‘ban’ which hindered their civil activities]; and we have a right to do this: we are entitled to seek protection as long as our highest secular authority [the monarch] allows us to do so. [Compare the petition to His Free and Exuberant Movement 269 Imperial Majesty above.] But if the authorities prove to us that we have □o separate existence as secular citizens, what am I then to say? What I mean is this: Brethren, you should ask yourselves in all seriousness: Is it entirely possible that no imitation should occur in the midst of so much tumult? If one has the feeling that he could shout for joy with all his might but refrains from doing so out of consideration for one or another brother (but not because of human fear), and thus does him a service, should this always be sin? May the following verse have absolutely no application here: All things are lawful for us, but not all things are helpful? May one brother never say to another: Dear brother, if you were to shout or rejoice ten times harder than you already do— and if your voice were ten times stronger than it is, God’s mercy would still be much greater, higher, deeper, longer and wider than you could ever shout it out. But since Christ, highly praised in all eternity, rather than shouting for joy, is our element, might we not, for this or that reason, perhaps acquit ourselves more quietly— should that always be considered Pharisaism or sin? Of course, I can understand that brothers and sisters filled with new wine cannot leave off shouting. Nor do I demand this of them, for I myself have felt and tasted how kind the Lord is when once in a dream I felt like throwing down my cap, tearing my clothes (which the Jews did for sadness), indeed even throwing myself down before the Lord, to be consumed, wishing never to rise again for joy. But even this would fall short and never express our joy adequately. God’s mercy is too exalted, too glorious, too precious than that we should be able to express it with our voice or gestures. And so, since things are the way they are, judge and be sober, and do not immediately think, if for some reason you sometimes shout less for joy, that Christ, our bridegroom, is therefore lowered one rung in heaven! That this my language will not at all please many of you, dear brethren, and you, indeed many of you, will say, Claassen has become a Pharisee, will not influence me in the least. And though you should attack Jakob R