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

llowing a long famine. When a parched and starving flock of sheep suddenly has too good a pasture and too abundant a water supply, it is the shepherd’s chief concern not to let the flock graze and drink as much as it desires, or most of them will perish (see long “Note” to “June Reform,” #J9i[2J). Believers who come from death to life in this m ann er readily want to make a system out of the exceptional form they experienced. A great many perversions of this type can be traced to Methodism, which has been so wholesome for the renewal of English-speaking churches and world evangelism. Its legitimate daughter is the “Salvation Army” with its eccentric ritual, about which, though we feel extremely antipathetic toward its external manner, we dare not make any negative comment, because this church fellowship has done phenomenal good and has had outstanding spiritual- moral-social success “in its area,” primarily the populace of large cities. f) Unger continues: In the colony of Einlage there were also several persons who had earlier come to assurance through the reading of Holy Scripture and now began to make contact with those from Kronsweide. “But the sly evil one already had his eye on that small flock of believers. These believed that they had the serpent already under their feet; they were completely inexperienced and did not think of temptation; some got the idea that anything that came to their mind was of God, and that God would not permit anything that would harm His children,” and similar statements. g) Heinrich Epp continues the report: Since the above-named forerunner of this revival J.L., had no one who was his equal spiritually in leading the flock, other than a one-time minister of the Kronsweide church, J.J., who had fallen into error and had therefore been deposed from his office, the latter also misled J.L., and through him led several others into the same delusion. They perverted Scripture: To the clean, everything is clean. Thus I am not doing it, but the sin which abides in me, does it— and other similar (passages), so that they believed they were doing the will of God in everything. Thus they also fell into sins of The Einlage M.B. Church 283 the flesh. They were revealed and received [due] ecclesiastical and civil punishment. This “strong meat,’’ as the misled ones called their heresy, was not made known to all believers, and many remained undefiled by that sin. “Yet the whole fellowship, the innocent along with the guilty, were steeped in the same lye and banned by the church,” 1855. After several weeks they were reinstated, according to custom, and now they and the ones from Einlage were most strongly forbidden to hold “any religious meetings” outside the church [because these meetings were hated and regarded as the root of the evil. Instead, they should have been put under wise leadership, as in Brenkenhofswalde, during its time, cf. 1145-48 above: "Gnadenfeld.” But the min