Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1875 — The Mennonites. [ARTICLE]

The Mennonites.

Over 100 families of Mennonites from the south of Russia were yesterday landed in this city by the steamship Nederland, of the Red. Star line. There are in all about 550 persons, most of whom bear the impress on their countenances of oppression and persecution, extending back through a long line of ancestors, but all seemed yesterday joyous with hope and determined to make the most, of the advantages of the country of their adoption. In this connection a brief sketch of the history of the sect may prove of interest. The denomination known as the “ Mennonites” was first organized in Holland by Menno Simonis, a reformer, in the sixteenth century. Menno was originally a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, but declared himself in favor of a reformation of the church after witnessing the beheading of Bicke Snyder, who was put to death for having been rebaptized, and also see-' ing his (Menno’s) brother killed in 1535, when an Anabaptist movement was put down by force. He separated from the church, and, gathering together the scattered congregations of the Waldenses, founded in Holland the denomination of Mennonites, or Dutch Baptists, as they were originally called. For a long time the sect suffered greatly in their native country from the national prejudice which confounded them with the Anabaptists, and as they rejected both psedo-baptism and “the oath” they found little sympathy among the majority of European Protestants. In 1581 they were granted a degree of toleration by William of Orange, but it was not until almost 100 years later that they obtained full liberty of worship. Their number in Holland was estimated in the middle of the eighteenth century at 160,000, but this was made up partly by immigration from Germany and Switzerland. In Germany they numbered during the seventeenth century over 70,000, but they were greatly persecuted, and it was not until the revolution of 1848 »that most of the German States granted them full civil liberty. Toward the close of the eighteenth century several thousand German Mennonites found a quiet retreat in the south of Russia, near the Sea of Azof, and obtained a charter from the Emperor Paul granting them freedom from military service forever. This was to them a great boon, as, like the Society of Friends, they are utterly adverse to war as well as to capital punishment and oaths. In doetrine and usages they are not unlike the Baptists, except in the mode of baptism, as they generally baptize by crinkling, not by immersion. The Mennonites observe the ordinance of feet-washing, and torbid their members to be married to any e’xcept those who have been united to the church. As they have been compelled in Europe for generations to remain in colonies, the.continual intermarriage which has thus b£en necessitated has not mdy j all <j the original surnames, but made the addition of new ones as the' numbers increased almost impossible; *iThe consequence is that in every community many families bear the Same name. Amotog the 500 io>-' migrants which arrived yesterday the m»v jority answered to the name either or Funk or Harms. Immigration to this country began in 1683, when a small colony of Mennonites settled in and about Germantown. In 1709 Other fam 11 tea from tbe Palatinate settled in Pesia Valley, Lancaster County. The tide.of immigration has since been increasing, of late years

the numbers have rapidly become larger, and Mennonites can none be found in many parts of this State, in Maryland, C hio, New York, Canada, and, more recency, to the far West. It is estimated that tlrey now number in this coontry over 140,Ote'O souls. The Mennonites brought over by the Nederland will leaVe this city by the 1 Pennsylvania Railroad, this morning, and g ° direct to points along the Atchison, \ r opeka & Santa Fe, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and Burlington & Missouri Railroads, where they expect to purchase lano’* About a dozen families, however, will goyo Manitoba, Canada. A small party will settle on Government lands in Dakota, but almost all the others will purchase land of the railroad companies. There are now on the way to New York 500 more Mennontte immigrants, who will shortly arrive by the Red Star line steamship Nevada. They will go direct to the West and join their friends who came in the Nederland.— Philadelphia Press , July 28.