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

t the sum of money or thing in question and say: since we cannot come to an agreement, my brother, keep what you have in your hands and may God bless it. Peace and concord are more important than all the transitory goods of this world. If the quarrel takes place in their own midst, the quarreling parties appeal to the judgment of their ministers, and if one party is found guilty it confesses its guilt at the next meeting of the congregation. An evil deed, an offence, a bad habit call for other regulations and a more severe punishment. Only one punishment is recognized by the Anabaptists' disciplinary code: expulsion and avoidance (shunning). As soon as one learns to know them [Michiels continues], one is constrained to love these virtuous, moderate, benevolent people; without condemning themselves to the monotonous and inactive life of the monastery they have been able to stay aloof from the main causes of vice, sorrow and fear; without stifling the personality of the individual through a communistic system they protect one another from want and humiliation. 64 “Their attitude toward war will sooner or later be victorious.” [From 3.e to this point essentially according to the Beitraege and Ramseyer.] 5. Wichem’s visit with the Mennonites in the Graudenz Lowlands. We find a most attractive and heart warming account in No. 8 of the Mennonitische Blaetter of 1901 concerning a visit of J. H. Wichem, the founder of homes for neglected children, “Rauhes Haus” etc., and the so-called “father of home missions,” to the Mennonites at a time when, at the request of the king, he was occupying an important post in the government of the Prussian state church as a high counsellor and member of the consistory: a) “On the 28th of this month [October, 1862] I was accorded a genuine pleasure. Without any substantial loss of time or too much trouble I was able to pay a visit to the Mennonites of the Vistula lowlands [specifically the Montau congregation] ... I wish that everyone, who longs to associate with simple Christians in order to gather new strength for any task in the midst of the follies of this world, could spend an afternoon and night with these lovely people as I did. We left the old Vistula city [Graudenz] about one o’clock noon accompanied by several ministers and a few other friends. b) “In the Vistula lowlands proper the sons of Menno have built dikes and dug canals thereby making possible a better future for their 82 DUTCH-PRUSSIAN ANABAPTISTS descendants, a future in which the latter totally forgot about the temporal privations their forefathers suffered. Brother Dietrichsen, whom I had brought along from Bromber, had arranged everything extremely well. Old father Dirks was already waiting with his large, prancing horses, while a second wagon, for the purpose of carrying the baggage, was being driven by his stepson. The road led partially over the dikes of the Vistula. In about an hour we were