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

ality, as were the French Huguenots, whose fellow believers in German Switzerland acted as veritable wolves toward our brothers. Indeed, the reformer of German Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli, had left an example by martyring and drowning his Anabaptist opponents, that is, Zwingli had authorized the state to perform these acts of reform and deliverance for the salvation of souls and the good of the church! 60 f) The Dutch Mennonites also performed great service to their brothers by exerting a powerful influence upon the Dutch government, thereby motivating it to intercede energetically on behalf of those persecuted by their governments. Indeed, when the intercession of the Dutch government on behalf of the cheated Mennonites of the free city of Danzig in 1700 remained fruitless, the Dutch Mennonites used their “gross money” to manipulate the Amsterdam stock exchange (the first of its kind in the world) in order to paralyze the credit and commerce of the proud city of Danzig until the Mennonites had been given their due! Even today Mennonites belong in the ranks of the Dutch money moguls. Important public servants and scholars have come from their ranks. g) Scholarship was as common amongst the Dutch Mennonites as it was alien to the Prussian-Polish and Russian Mennonites. In his Abriss der gesamt. Kirchengeschichte (Outline of Church History) J. J. Herzog says: "The Dutch Anabaptists continue, even in the present, to be noted for their scholarship.” Their collection of historical documents and studies on Anabaptism, known as the “Fundatie” in Amsterdam, is immense and very valuable. 4. A totally different, to us more familiar sounding assessment than the above is provided for us by Reiswitz and Wadzeck concerning the Mennonites in France and Alsace-Lorraine, taken from French news- paper accounts of 1819. a) The Anabaptist-Mennonites in France are descendants of the Anabaptists 61 who were driven out of Strasbourg by its magistracy in 1546 and Switzerland, especially Bern, during the sixteenth century. I do not believe that one will find a single family in the cities. They rent isolated farms, since they have turned nearly exclusively to farming. Industrious and intelligent, they have supplemented their lack of theoretical knowledge with experience and perfected every branch of agriculture. This respect, the faithful fulfillment of all contracts, the 80 DUTCH-PRUSSIAN ANABAPTISTS punctuality of payments, all work together to give them preference at all times. They could hardly bring themselves to wear the tricolored cockade [the emblem of the Republic] when this was made compulsory. Like the Quakers, they neither swear oaths nor bear arms. They refrain from smoking, do not play at cards, take care of their destitute and support their fellow believers who have suffered a setback, not through any fault of their own, but because of an accident. On the whole they are very unlearned but honest, mod