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

anxiously awaited him. Even before Elder Huebert left, Brother Johann Regehr 257 and Johann Poetker were also called to the ministry. c) The growth of the church was not phenomenal, but it was steady. It may be of interest to many to know how many members were added to this church annually, after the departure of those who moved to the Kuban and of the “Hermann Peters Brethren,” when the church’s membership was approximately 100: from 1860 to the end of 1865, 299 people were baptized in the Molotschna, an average of about 50 each year; from 1866 to the end of 1872, 164 were baptized, averaging about 22 people a year. Specifically, the numbers baptized declined and increased in the following manner: 31, 19, 18, 15, 14, 23, 44. It is noteworthy that in these seven years the persecution and inner struggle had virtually ended, the yearly growth was less than half as much as Molotschna and Kuban 1865-73 469 during the first six stormy years! 258 At the end of 1872 the membership of the Molotschna Church must have been around 150 to 200, 259 because many were moving elsewhere (e.g. Friedensfeld, Blumenau, etc.). Naturally the church was not without cases which required disciplinary action, some cases were of a grievous nature, others less so. These experiences were s imil ar to those which have always prevailed every- where since the episodes involving Ananias and Saphira, Simon the Sorcerer, Demas, etc., etc., as well as the incident described in I Cor. 5. d) The nature of the church services at this time changed from the emphasis on personal edification, as in the evangelical-pietist tradition, to the evangelical-free-church emphasis on the preaching and worship service. The leaders of the church who were not used to this emphasis were clearly pressured in that direction by the membership. Just as the people were hungry for “order! order!” so they were hungry for lectures. The struggle between the Low German and High German dialect continued for a long time, but at the end of this period (1872) the organized sermon in High German predominated. As far as the style of preaching was concerned, Br. Christian Schmidt was the most popular man in the M.B. Church, just as Bernhard Harder was in the Mennonite Church— they were referred to as “our Wuests,” or “our South-Russian Spurgeons.” Besides the sermon, the private devotional emphasis remained in the M.B. Church. In many areas the Low German dialect remains to this day in the more confined evening services held in various villages, in the Bible studies, etc. Nevertheless, mutual sharing relative to the sermon was for too long a time forced into the background. Elder Huebert was and remained the strongest person in the various facets of ministry because of his depth of insight and the enthusiasm of his hope in the Kingdom of Grace. e) A small “storm of persecution” arose at this time. We are referring to an attack by a government agent. It was caused