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

nd to use the old Latin liturgy (the ‘articulus diaboli’ 168 is not omitted here), and to elect teachers and ministers from their own midst. Nevertheless, despite the external peace and protection which it enjoyed abroad, the church did not become stronger in any spiritual sense. Quarrels and tension among smaller parties consumed its best strength all too soon, and finally it decided to call a minister from Wuerttemberg. Wuest was the man who heeded the call around 1845. b) . . . [Cf. XII above, ‘Pastor Wuest,’ 2.3, from .... ‘It is’ ... to: . . . ‘has remained.’] c) Such scenes did not appear among the Mennonites at that time. Indeed, Wuest’s influence here was so unhindered and significant that the Gnadenfeld congregation was induced to dedicate their newborn children in the church. 169 d) As Documentary Supplements 385 mentioned earlier, quite vexing and deplorable confusions also occurred in the immediate vicinity of Wuest, a fact which will bewilder only those who forget that the Lord cannot build His little church without having Satan also erect his chapel alongside it. This man’s compelling testimony concerning the Lord’s love for sinners, concerning justification of the sinner by grace, was not really accepted by some in terms of its inherent purity. The Pauline teaching of grace was too narrow for the minds of these individuals; intoxicated by the spirit of false liberty, they entered upon a course in which Christianity could be abused as a cover for malice and sin, and forgot Paul’s chastening words to the Galatians (Galatians 3): O you foolish Galatians, etc. At first Wuest patiently bore the error of his friends, who certainly expressed themselves towards him very cautiously, in the hope that the error could be overcome. However, when these rank weeds ‘grew over his head’ and these folk utterly refused to be instructed or convinced of a better way he excommunicated them because of their shameful error. [In one meeting at which he spoke of the healing and chastening grace of God, he was obliged to listen to numerous unkind speeches from this group, and even I had the opportunity to read, in later years, a letter dating back to this time, and addressed to a friend in faraway Barmen; this letter was filled with sorrow and pain because of those whom Satan had misled.] If through such earnestness Wuest demonstrated most clearly that he had acted with integrity, it nevertheless remains a fact that he occasioned the schism and separation of the so-called ‘Huepfer’ from the church. In their bitterness against Wuest, the latter were not ashamed to accuse him of attempted suicide by means of poison and roundly to deny a Pharisee such as he eternal life, e) The chief representatives of this free movement were: Claassen of Liebenau among the Mennonites, Hottmann among the Wuerttembergers, Kappes among the Evangelicals on the Mariopol Plan. It should be noted that Claassen and his adherents lived