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

three) with rage and vengeance. Give this letter to your husband to read (when he returns from St. Petersburg). I beg him not to treat this matter in a one-sided way; rather, when he has heard the other brethren, that he then also listen to me .... I believe that once Brother Claassen will be present, the brotherhood will take on a completely different turn .... I John 5 and Romans 14:1. [But he utterly forgets his former ‘gospel lye,’ his ‘saltpeter’ and ‘salt,’ his defence of the soundness of these “young ones” half a year earlier!] According to I Cor. 13, what does it profit to have tongues of men and angels without love? . . . Christ alone is my foundation; this my foundation is eternal, and poor sinners are His heavenly kingdom . . . .” Somewhat later he writes to Otto Forehhammer in St. Petersburg. We condense this very long and bitter letter, the expression of a distracted and wounded personality, as much as possible, without indicating omissions (. . .), “Since I do not know whether or not the brethren Claassen and Gerhard Wieler are still there, and because you have been falsely informed about the condition of our brotherhood, I will share some things with you. You are familiar with its beginning, and we agree that this was of God. We Difficulties and Victory 273 lived in glorious peace; God was with us in the power of His Gospel. But half a year after Claassen’s departure [to St. Petersburg in November, 1860], some of the first members [the five mentioned above] found in the Bible that brethren and sisters should greet each other with the kiss of love. Already at that time quarreling and conflict emerged among the members in the villages [of the Molotschna], Whoever was not joyful in the faith was not truly ‘free’ it was said; he ‘had not been liberated’; he lived ‘pharisaically’ and legalistically, was still ‘in the flesh and carnal,’ etc. That came to my attention and I was asked by Andreas Voth and Abraham Cornels sen 80 to come and seek to straighten out the matter. I saw then that the brethren were too ‘spiritual’ and left Christ out of view. [And in November, 1861, he had declared them to be ‘shipwrecked in the faith.’] But they would not accept admonition. I begged them with all seriousness to put away this matter. Frequently the weak [?] were so harassed that I, coming from a distance, couldn’t understand the situation. All of this happened, in my opinion, in a spiritual manner [!], naturally in the spirit of self-righteousness. Some rashly presumed to have weathered all reefs. Instead of singing ‘I know no weaker servant,’ they sang ‘I know no better servant, I do everything right for Him,’ and the like. And so, instead of being poor in oneself and rich in Christ, one began to be rich in oneself and poor in the knowledge of Christ. [How aptly said!] Those who are jointly responsible for H’s fall, his former bosom friends, now set upon him and crushed him in spite of all his plea