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

ee the episode with G. Wieler and others), now interceded for Huebert in order to provide bond for his release from the imprisonment where he was being held for questioning. Above one of the songs he composed while in prison, Huebert wrote in his own hand: “After the security which the village community at Liebenau offered on my behalf was denied, and I was forced to discover new resources of patience. . . .” Always known as a law-abiding, sober, and morally upright man of honor, he was now a virtual martyr, pitied all the more and more highly esteemed, because although he did not baptize the Russian woman (the accusation against him) he refused to divulge the name of the person who did. His failure to deal with the “Exuberant Movement” had been excused, and was scarcely remembered any more by those inside or outside the M.B. Church. All anger and resentment was directed without restraint against the “self-made apostles.” (G. Wieler, for example, was called “a fallen angel” by the believers of the now purified M.B. Church at Ohrloff when he rejoined the Mennonite Church at Chortitza.) Furthermore, Christian Schmidt and Jakob Janz, who had recently been named as “assistant ministers” (on August 29, 1865) were accepted everywhere as angels of peace by those who had withdrawn from the mother church, except by a large number of those living in the district of the "five elders” who had not become irreconcilable enemies or been grossly offended by the ‘ ‘renegades.” Great things were expected of these men amongst the believers and the revived Mennonite Church as well as from the moderates of the “Friends of Jerusalem” group, such as Nikolai Schmidt and Abraham Wiebe, who never ceased being pietists. (We vividly recall a glorious sermon on the (2) Retrospect and Prospect 455 Prodigal Son preached by Nikolai Schmidt— now long since deceased but who at that time had left the church at Gnadenfeld and joined the "Temple Church.’’) It took place in the winter of 65/66 at a private gather- ing in Alexanderthal in a group meeting of revived, penitent souls. His glowing countenance, the tears in his eyes, the deeply moving, vibrant voice, his warm personality, and simple yet suitable mode of dress made him the most appealing of evangelical ministers and the ideal man— this sermon remains today, after a lapse of almost 45 years, an unforgettable event. In all he said and did and in his total being he was a true ambassador of the Father to all lost sons and daughters. As far as the two brethren J. Janz and Christian Schmidt are concerned, they were indeed the ideal messengers of love and peace. The fruit of an early conversion, they were young men in the full bloom of youth and youthful innocence (in so far as it is possible for any son of Adam to show this), whose friendliness and love for God and man was much in evidence, and who were still without that hardness that the trials of life invariably imprint on all