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

their promise, and the rest declared that, ‘they had promised nothing; one had to obey God rather than man; they could not act against their conscience, come what may.’ o) All counterpresentations once again accomplished nothing, and consequently nothing else remained but for the brotherhood assemblies to decide what course of action the churches were to take. In the 380 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH Gnadenfeld congregation the decision was reached ‘to excommunicate the seceded members from the church but without the ban,' that is, the civic association between them and the church members could continue. In the other churches the seceded members were punished with the full ban according to II Thessalonians 3. p) Those thus set apart ignored the punishment and gave no indication that they would reform. On the contrary, from that time on they conducted holy co mmuni on, sometimes in the presence of their elected ministers and sometimes without them. As a premliminary to the Lord’s Supper they introduced mutual footwashing which to them means that the male sex washes the feet of the female sex and the latter those of the male sex. 163 Soon they also began to baptize each other by total immersion because in their opinion only that form is scriptural and valid. In their worship services disorderly and arbitrary things went on in that at random persons of any age and sex loudly voiced their opinions and prayed while others applauded with loud exclamations of ‘Victoria! Gloria! Halleluja!’ or voiced their approval of these things with hand-clapping, jumping, and loud laughing. All Christian devotional literature, books of sermons, Besser’s Bibelwerk, Arndt’s Wahres Christentum and the Paradiesgaert- lein, Stark’s Gebetbuch, and the like, were despised and rejected by them; writings which they disliked particularly were even burnt. Only the Friedensglocke , whose argumentation in 1860 had been in agreement with their own desires and thoughts about the relationship of believers to the church, and the Missionsblaetter getaufter Christen [Baptists], were and remained cherished periodicals in their midst. At times they made so much unnatural noise in their gatherings by shrieking (rejoicing), singing, music, dancing, and jumping, that neighbors and passers-by ran to see if human lives were in danger in the house. The most repulsive aspect of all this is that such wild, crude activities, not infrequently carried on through half or all of the night, during which the ‘holy kiss,’ as token of sacred brotherly and sisterly love, plays a major role, are considered by them the work of the Holy Spirit, q) Not satisfied with merely drawing new members from the Mennonite colonies to their fanaticism, a fanaticism that caters to the carnal, evil heart, they sent two youths who excelled in intellectual narrow-mindedness, conceit, and impudence, as apostles to the Lutheran churches in the Volga area in 1860. There these