and New Jersey. In this conference are contained thirty-five stations and thirty ministers.

4. Alleghany Conference includes that part of Pennsylvania west of the Alleghany Mountains, that part of Ohio east of the Scioto river, and Western Virginia. We find included in this conference thirteen stations and circuits, and eleven ministers.

5. Miami Conference includes the State of Ohio west of the Scioto river, the States of Indiana, Illinois, and the Territories of Wisconsin and Iowa, containing twelve stations and circuits, and five ministers.

6. Michigan Conference embraces the State of Michigan, containing nine stations and fourteen ministers.

Reserve List of Preachers-Contains nine preachers.

Thus making the summary, as before stated, reckoning from the best data in our possession, of six conferences, including about three hundred ministers and preachers, who itinerate, and upwards of three hundred other ministers and preachers who are as yet unstationed; and about twenty thousand communicating members of the respective churches belonging to this division of the vineyard of our common Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Having thus seceded from the other branches of the Methodist Church, after much prayerful deliberation, and purely from conscientious motives, whilst our devout and fervent prayer is, that grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and his anointed Son, Jesus, our Saviour, through the effectual operations of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, may be multiplied abundantly unto all who love and long for the appearance of the great God, our Saviour: we would go forward in relying on the grace of that God which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow, in accomplishing the work which God has given us to do; whilst we would ever look to the Redeeming Saviour to work in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure. Amen.

THE MENNONITES.

BY CHRISTIAN HERR.*

THE names of Ecolampadius, Luther, Zwinglius, Melancthon, Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin, and others, whom God in his providence raised up as humble instruments to reform, to no small extent, abuses which had crept into the church, are familiar to almost every ordinary reader; while that of Menno Simon is little known, although he was cotemporary with Luther, Zwinglius, and others, and with some of whom he had personal interviews-with Luther and Melancthon, in Wittenberg; with Bullinger, at Zurich; and at Strasburg, with Bucer.

In an article necessarily brief as this must be, the question, Whether the Mennonites are descendants from the Waldenses? cannot be discussed. The testimony, however, of Dr. Ypeij, Professor of Theology at Groningen, and a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, may here be appropriately introduced, on this point. In a work written by the Professor, published at Breda, 1813, he says: "We have now seen that the Baptists, who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in later times Mennonites, were the original Waldenses; and have long in the history of the Church received the honour of that origin." This testimony is borne from high official authority in the Dutch Reformed Church.

The Mennonites freely acknowledge that they derived their name from Menno Simon, a native of Witmarsum, born in Friesland, A. D. 1495. He, as well as all his cotemporaries, was educated a Catholic, and in his twenty-fourth year, he undertook the duties of a priest in his father's village, called Pinningum, in Friesland; although in utter darkness of mind and worldliness of spirit, yet not without some tenderness of conscience and apparent piety. In 1530, he was in

This article has been prepared by the aid of the Rev. Christian Herr, of Pequea, Lancaster county, a Bishop in the Mennonite Church, and has his approbation.—ED.

duced to examine the New Testament for himself. "I had not," says he, "proceeded far therein, before I discovered that I was deceived." His mind was completely changed; he renounced his former views, and embraced the doctrines of the New Testament, and which he zealously advocated.

He now commenced to travel, with a view to consult with some of his cotemporaries, such as Luther, Bucer, Bullinger, and others; having done so, he strenuously opposed the Munsterites. "He condemned," says Mosheim, says Mosheim, "the plan of ecclesiastical discipline of the Munsterites, that was founded on the prospect of a new kingdom, to be miraculously established by Jesus Christ on the ruins of civil government, and the destruction of human rulers, and which had been the pestilential source of such dreadful commotions, such execrable rebellions, and such enormous crimes."*

Menno Simon plainly foresaw to what horrid extremities the pernicious doctrines of the Munsterites were calculated to lead the inconsiderate and unwary; nevertheless, as there were many pious souls who had been misled by this pernicious sect, but who had renounced all connexion and intercourse with them, and as there were also others, descendants of the ancient Waldenses, all of whom were as dispersed sheep of the house of Israel: Menno, at their earnest solicitation, assumed among them the rank and functions of a public teacher. That he was calculated to discharge the duties of his office, is evident from his success. "He had," says Mosheim, "the inestimable advantage of a natural and persuasive eloquence, and his learning was sufficient to make him pass for an oracle in the eyes of the multitude. He appears, moreover, to have been a man of probity, of a meek and tractable spirit, gentle in his manners, pliant and obsequious in his intercourse with persons of all ranks and characters, and extremely zealous in promoting practical religion and virtue, which he recommended by his example, as well as by his precepts. A man of such talents and dispositions could not fail to attract the admiration of the people, and to gain a good number of adherents wherever he exercised his ministry."+

From 1537, Menno Simon, in the capacity of a public teacher, commenced travelling from one country to another, amidst pressures and calamities of various kinds, and was constantly exposed to the imminent danger of falling a victim to the severity of the laws. He first visited East and West Friesland, the province of Groningen, thence he directed his course to Holland, Guelderland, Brabant,

Westphalia, and continued through the German provinces that lie on the coast of the Baltic Sea, and penetrated as far as Livonia. "In all these places his ministerial labours were attended with remarkable success, and added a prodigious number of followers."* He laboured assiduously till the close of his life. He died at Fresenburg, near Oldeslohe, January 31, 1561.

His object was reformation, and the spiritual edification of his fellow-men, which he accomplished to an unparalleled extent. He purified the doctrines of the Anabaptists-some of them he reclaimed, others he excluded, who were tainted with the Munsterite heresy. He founded many communities in various parts of Europe.

From the year 1537, to the beginning of the present century, many of the Mennonites were sorely persecuted in Europe. They were compelled to flee from one country to another, and consequently have been dispersed. Some went to Russia, Prussia, Poland, Holland, Denmark, and many, on the invitation of the liberal-minded William Penn, transported themselves and families, into the province of Pennsylvania, as early as A. D. 1683. Those who came in that year and in 1698, settled in and about Germantown, where they erected a school and meeting house in 1708.

In 1709 other families from the Palatinate, descendants of the distressed and persecuted Swiss, emigrated to America, and settled in Pequea Valley, then Chester, now Lancaster county. Among these were the Herrs Meylius, Kendigs, Millers, Oberholtz, Funks, Bowmans and others. They settled in the midst of the Mingo or Conestoga, Pequea, and Shawanese Indians, where under unpropitious circumstances, they improved lands. The first who settled here were soon joined by others, who came to America in 1711, 1717, 1727, and at a later period. Before the year 1735 there were probably rising of five hundred families settled in Lancaster county. For some time they held their religious meetings, and school, in the same rude buildings. As a body, in this country, the Mennonites have spent little money in erecting stately buildings as churches, or for schools. Economy and comfort being their chief aim, they discard ornament.

Their religious views were at an early date, and since, misrepresented, and no small degree of prejudice excited against them. To allay such unfounded prejudices, they had "The Christian Confession of Faith, &c., containing the chief doctrines held by them, translated into English, and published at Philadelphia, in 1727." In the preface to that publication, they say—" that the Confession of Faith of the

* Mosheim.

harmless and defenceless Christians, called Mennonites, is as yet little known, &c.: so that the greatest portion of people doth not know what they believe and confess of the word of God, and by reason of that ignorance, cannot speak and judge rightly of their confession, nor of the confessors themselves; nay, through prejudice, as a strange and unheard of thing, do abhor them, so as not to speak well, but oftentimes ill of them. Therefore it hath been thought fit and needful to translate, at the desire of some of our fellow-believers in Pennsylvania, our Confession of Faith into English, so as for many years it hath been printed in the Dutch, German, and French languages; which confession hath been well approved of, both in the Low Countries and in France, by several eminent persons of the Reformed religion; and therefore it hath been thought worth the while to turn it also into English, that so those of that nation may become acquainted with it, and so might have a better opinion thereof, and of its professors; and not only so, but also that every well-meaning soul might inquire and try all things, and keep that which is best."

This confession, which is given below, was, at that time, (1727,) approved and received by the elders and ministers of the congregations of the people called Mennonites. "We do, (say they,) acknowledge and hereby make known, that we own the Confession. In testimony whereof, and that we believe the same to be good, we have subscribed our names:

"Shipack-Jacob Gaedtschlack, Henry Kolb, Claes Jansen, Michael Zigeler. Germantown-John Gorgas, John Conerads, Clas Rittinghausen. Conestoga-Hans Burgholtzer, Christian Heer, Benedict Hirchi, Martin Bear, Johannes Bowman. Great Swamp-Velte Clemer. Manatant-Daniel Langenecker, Jacob Beghtly."

ARTICLES OF FAITH.

The leading Articles of the Christian Faith of the Churches of the United Flemish, Friesland, and other Mennonites, and those in America, adopted A. D. 1632.

I. Of God, of the Creation of all things and of Man.-Since it is testified, that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that whosoever would come to God, must believe God is, and that he is a rewarder of all those who seek him; we therefore confess and believe, according to the scriptures, with all the pious, in one eternal, omnipotent, and incomprehensible God: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and in no more or none other; before whom there was no