Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1889 — RELIGIOUS FEET-WASHING. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS FEET-WASHING.

Description of a Ceremony Still Practiced by the Mennouitea. Twenty-three Mennonites of the new reformed fchurch held their annual celebration of the Lord’ssupper md feet-washing recently in Baltimore. Md. Mr. Jacob Leninan. from Chambersburg, * Pa., preached and gave tljc coinlnuurou. Mr. Henry Shoemaker read chapters from the Bible. Mr. Lehman explained why they washed feet.' He said It’wps done ns symbolic of keeping the hotly pyre, the feet being easily detiled by putting tlrem...in|o that which defiles. It was also emblematic of humility. It represented a spiritual washing..- He explained that they

would not vote or have anything to do with law-making, while they were good citizens and obeyed the laws. One of their principles is never to go to law. Fifteen women, dressed in their neat', small. white 1 linen caps, and “ten men took off their shoes, socks and stockings and washed each other’s feet. The feet of the older ones were washed first. Mr. Henry Shoemaker girded himself with a wjrite towel, and was busily engaged for some fifteen 1 minutes washing the men’s feet. Ttic men sat on one side and the women on the other side of the hall. The Mennonitcs differ from, the Dunkards, or German Baptists, in not baptizing by immersion, and in some other respects. There are only twenty-five members in Baltimore and Baltimore county, but in Pennsylvania they constitute a large denomination. They claim to follow the direction of Jesus, that he washed his disciples’ feet, so they should wash each others’ feet.