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

d §247 542 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH minister in the M.B. Church. For many years the second teacher was Komelius Abram Wiens, graduate of the Secondary School in Ohrloff. Since 1905 he was an ordained elder of the M.B. Church. In 1904 the school in Alexanderfeld became a three-room school and now (1910) has four rooms. Since 1904 (?) a third teacher here was the son of the above-mentioned Johann Fast, a graduate of the school in Alexanderfeld and the state school in Berdiansk. By 1904 approximately 200 students from outside the colony had attended the school in Velikokniashesk: Orthodox Russians, Molokans, and Russian Baptists, Poles, Georgians, Armenians and children of the mountain tribes (Gorzy, i.e. Muslims). To date, six former students of this school have gone on to secondary schools and two of them into higher education. §248 4. a) In the spiritual and intellectual areas, the Kuban Church, toward the end of the earlier period and the beginning of the period here under consideration (since 1885), experienced a serious slackening and despondency of spirit. This has been referred to in sections 231-234 above. The influence of the Friends of Jerusalem upon the more intelligent youth of the M.B. Church was so strong that some feared (and others hoped) that they would totally defect to this fellowship. For a long time almost no baptisms of young men and women bom of Mennonite Brethren parents occurred. Indeed, the reception of new members into the church was a very rare event. The leaders and the older members complained and sighed unceasingly, and many called upon God incessantly in prayer. Then late in 1887 a miraculous spiritual revival took place. Among other things, the visit of the itinerant ministers Jakob Reimer of Rueckenau and Wilhelm Loewen of Alexander krone made a deep impact. A large number of young men and young women (some very young), as well as young married couples and a few older persons who were descendants of M.B. members but had joined the Mennonite Church, together with others, came to the faith. Most of these were received into the M.B. Church. Some who had left the church or had been excommunicated returned to the fellowship. 338 The following teachers and their wives became new members of the M.B. Church: David Claassen, 339 Johann Friesen, Johann Fast, Gerhard Giesbrecht. The majority of the most promising youth and children became members of the M.B. Chinch. Already prior to this increase there had been evident an upsurge of spiritual life which was intensified by this growth. A debt on the church building, which for years had burdened the church and seemed impossible to liquidate, was now paid off in less than two years through a unified effort of all able-bodied members. Economically, too, the church recovered when after a number of difficult years the colony experienced good crops. The village community of Wohldemfuerst had had the courage to erect a fin