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

une, so that its well-being under the blessed and wise government of its beloved monarch may develop and be enduringly established evermore in peace. “In deepest respect, submission and faithfullness Your Majesty’s Most obedient Representatives of the Mennonite Churches.” (The signatures of Gerhard Dyck, Bernhard Peters, Heinrich Epp, Peter Goertz, and Heinrich Heese.) 10. The efforts of the Mennonites caused the friendly Tsar Alexander II to send a special confidant to the Molotschna and Chortitza colonies in April of 1874. He was Adjutant-General (subsequently Count) Totleben, the well-known, congenial engineer from the Sevastopol campaign who was supposed to restrain the energetic migration movement to America, which had already begun. This he did through proposals which praised the fatherland and which made maximum concessions to the Mennonites’ conscience. He also expressed friendly words of caution concerning the uncertain future in America. In an open assembly at the church in Neu-Halbstadt as well as in smaller meetings with church and civil administrations of the Molotschna Mennonites, held in the district office at Halbstadt and later in Chortitza, this most charming and trust-inspiring man 14 conveyed, in a very effective manner, the good will, wishes and proposals of the Tsar for his Mennonite subjects. The result was an extensive reversal of opinion among the Mennonite people. The brotherhoods in most of the communities were instructed and influenced by the administrations in such a way that the Military Service and Emigration 591 large majority heeded the Tsar’s word. Many men from the regions which set the trends, who had earlier decided for emigration (a mass migration as a total body had been a wide-spread subject under consideration), left thoughts of emigration behind and began to promote efforts to remain. 15 The result was that probably less than a third of all Russian Mennonites emigrated from that time until today. 11. The "implacable’’ leaders of the Mennonite emigration from the §269 Molotschna were: the otherwise so mild and sympathetic Elder Leonhard Sudermann (spokesman for the first deputation) who passed away in America in the year 1900; Isaak Peters, 16 the (due to spiritual and physical influences) otherwise dispositioned, yet no less godly former elder of the Pordenau congregation (former school teacher in Fuerstenau and Sparrau: see #19) who through rather serious and stringent demands in the process of church discipline had lived through a church division; Elder Jakob Buhler, Minister Dietrich Gaeddert, Heinrich Richert and the other ministers from the Alexanderwohl congregation; the well-known “Consul Jansen” from Berdiansk (father of Peter Jansen in Jansen, Nebraska, North America who was a personal friend of McKinley and other delegates from the United States government at the international exhibition in Paris— a man of great political significance