RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mennonites
ing. The Mennonites now have 134 communities with 126 preachers and 60,000 adherents, almost 10,000 being in Amsterdam. The other Protestants are no longer hostile to them; their pastors frequently officiate in the churches of other denominations, and vice versa, and the teachers in their theological seminary rank as professors of the University of Amsterdam. The fact that some of them represent orthodoxy in opposition to the prevalent rationalism does not destroy their inherent unity. They are associated with their coreligionists outside of Holland chiefly by their board of foreign missions which works in Java and Sumatra. Their hostility to the State has disappeared, many of the congregations receive state aid, and Mennonites now take part in public office. Their distinctive features are abstinence from taking oaths, adult baptism, and the substitution of moral earnestness and piety for dogma. The congregations possess full autonomy, and are directed by the preacher, who need have no official authorization or qualification, and by the deacons, who are chosen by all members, male and female.
V. On the Lower Rhine, and in North Germany and Russia 1700-1909: During the period of oppression, which lasted until 1720, the majority of the Mennonites in Jiilich, Berg, Cleves, and neighboring districts emigrated to Holland, while many settled in Crefeld, where they came in contact with such pietists as Hochmann and Tersteegen. This community still flourishes, like that in Altona and the congregations in East Friesland. The chief Mennonite center of Germany, however, is West Prussia, where the body numbers 11,000 out of a total in Germany of 18,000. All these communities have passed through the same stages as their Dutch coreligionists, although the two bodies have been far less closely associated since 1780. They maintained their doctrine of non-resistance until 1868, when political equality and the growth of culture put an end to their isolation from their fellow citizens. To avert the danger of absorption into larger religious bodies, the Vereinigung der Mennonitengemeinden im deutschen Reiche was founded at Hamburg in 1884. The chief organ of the German Mennonites is the Mennonitische Blatter, established in 1854.
The Russian grant of large territories and the unrestricted right of religious freedom led a few thousand Mennonites to emigrate from Prussia to Russia in 1788, where they received numerous accessions until 1824. They now have, together with the followers of Hutter, who in 1874 emigrated from Hungary to the United States, 70,000 members, and are settled in the governments of Yekaterinoslav, Taurida, Warsaw, the Crimea, Saratof, Samara, the Caucasus, and Khiva. In their communities, which are sharply defined socially and economically, the churches and schools are excellently organized, the former being rigidly controlled, as in the rural congregations of Prussia, by elders and by preachers chosen from among the brethren and exercising their office in addition to their civil calling. They are noteworthy, moreover, for their industry, especially in agriculture. Thousands emigrated to America when military service was VII.— 20
forced upon them. Immigrant Prussians have also founded communities in Galicia. All these congregations have been affected by the activity of Baptist and Methodist missionaries, and are characterized by a liberal spirit, although they are tenacious of their ancient customs and still faithful to their old doctrines of sobriety, independence, and separation of Church and State.
VI. The South German and Swiss Mennonites 1 600- 1 909: Throughout the seventeenth century the Mennonites were subject to oppression from the Swiss governments, nor was it until 1715 that imprisonment and deportation to the Italian galleys ceased at Zurich. In Bern, on the other hand, the emigration, with the financial assistance of the Dutch, of all Mennonites whom the government could seize, that they might seek new homes in America, was powerless to prevent the continuance of churches in the Emmenthal, the bishopric of Basel, and Neuenburg, which have survived to the present day. Their organ is the Zionspilger. After 1600 a large number of Mennonites was settled by Alsacian nobles on their estates, where they amalgamated with older Anabaptist communities and still exist, like their French-speaking coreligionists in eastern France. In the nineteenth century their numbers were much diminished by emigration to America. Many also entered the Palatinate, and thence sought America, after accepting the rigid teachings of Jacob Amman, who, about 1690, introduced into the highlands of Bern the doctrines of avoidance of all under the ban, the washing of feet, and the condemnation of such luxuries as the use of buttons on clothing, thus founding the " Amish " sect. The fate of the followers of Hutter was most pathetic. Driven from Moravia in 1622, they settled in Hungary and Transylvania, where they renounced their communism in 1685. They were unable, however, to make headway against the Jesuits after 1680, and entered the Roman Catholic Church in increasing numbers subsequent to 1762.
VII. In the United States and Canada 1683- 1909: Mennonites from the Netherlands and Holstein settled in New Amsterdam (New York) as early as 1650, and on Oct. 6, 1683, thirteen families from Crefeld occupied the territory on the Delaware which they had purchased from Penn, and founded Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia. In 1688 their numbers were augmented by coreligionists from the Palatinate and Crefeld, and they began an emigration which lasted throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After 1820 they received new additions from Switzerland and South Germany, while they were joined by entire communities of Russians subsequent to 1870. Many American Mennonites stood in close relations with the Quakers, the Schwenkfeldians, and other bodies. Others, however, maintained their individuality, usually separating themselves rigidly from all others. These still retain the washing of feet and excommunication in case of mixed marriage. Only after long deliberation did they permit elders who had not received the laying on of hands in Europe to administer baptism and the Lord's Supper. The majority of Mennonites cling to their past, remem-
Mennonites