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

e paralyzed when I wrote. [He was ordinarily an experienced and fluent writer and had read widely.] Then I was reminded of you, how you must feel with all the important officials around you .... We also asked for passports, but then again we were told: Present your identification documents according to regulations and you will get passports. We said: We can get these from the village mayor, and from the ministers, too. And who are your ministers? 'Huebert and Becker,’ Peters replied. They have not yet been acknowledged. Then, too, you have never applied for passports in order to purchase land. This statement I refuted. Would you have both money and prospects to buy something? ‘That I did not yet know,’ was my reply, ‘but one can always rent land, or it can be worked on a crop-sharing basis.’ Regarding the latter, you have never applied. Yes, Sir! At least a number of times we have talked to you about that, but because you have always said: ‘You will get no passports, there was no use talking about it; we could do nothing. For, of course, we would first want to go down to look at the land and to talk to the owners about it.’ Bring your identification documents according to regulations, and do not wire so many lies [to St. Petersburg], for we will get hold of Claassen and publicly expose him as a liar and punish him. For the whole matter about Isaak Matthies [Rudnerweide] is a bundle of lies. [Alas, even today the Matthies family, which was ruined, knows all too well that it was true.] Sir, I do not know the details about the Matthies story, but what we have reported to St. Petersburg is true. When I had copied and handed back the decision, I asked once more for passports and that we might be permitted to live according to our convictions. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘who keeps you from living piously and decently? You should conform to existing order and rule as we all do.’ Sir, that is contrary to our understanding of the Word of God, for baptism is immersion; then, too, we have published books to prove that the first Mennonites practiced immersion. [Cf. XX. ‘Baptism in the M.B. Church.’] Aren’t you clever— much cleverer than I am and ever shall be. Well, Sir, you can read for yourself that Christ stepped into the Jordan and then out again; therefore. He must have descended into the water. Well, Christ must have conformed to the practice of His day; today the practice is as we have it. ‘No, Sir, according to Matt. 15 this practice is a rule of the elders and not the command of God.’‘Hmm!’ Do we then get our passports? As I said, bring personal identification papers according to the one general regulation which we have and you will get passports. Sir, what you ask for we cannot and will not do! Here Documentary Supplements 373 he became very angry. Then I will tell ‘ya’ 152 [you] also: we cannot and will not issue you any passports on your terms, and I advise you not to send out so many lies, or else you will