Efforts were being made in Ontario 180 years ago to immunize people against smallpox. Today's issue of MooseJawToday.com carried the following snippet from the October 13, 1841 issue of the Christian Guardian, a publication of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada: "A lady belonging to the Church of England lately refused to have her child … Continue reading An anti-vaxxer from 180 years ago
History
The fear of some people who called themselves Mennonites
Beginning in the 16th century many Mennonites fled persecution in Friesland and Flanders and settled in the Vistula delta region of Poland. Here they gradually lost their evangelistic fervour and their faith dwindled to a mere outward conformity to some principles that they felt to be the essence of the faith. It seems they ceased … Continue reading The fear of some people who called themselves Mennonites
A Christian admonition from 600 years ago
[Barbe means beard. It came to be applied to the person wearing the beard, becoming a term of affection for an uncle and then became the term which Anabaptists in France and Italy used for their ministers. Pragela, a valley in the Alps west of Turin and near the French border was home to a … Continue reading A Christian admonition from 600 years ago
Quebec: from Ultramontanism to nationalism
Ultramontanism was a word invented to describe the Roman Catholic church in France which taught that people owed a greater loyalty to the man on the other side of the mountains than to their own government. The man on the other side of the mountains was the Pope who resided across the Alps in Rome. … Continue reading Quebec: from Ultramontanism to nationalism
Seeing French as a Bridge
Some languages are walls, some are artefacts, a few are bridges. A language used only by one tribe or ethnic group is useful for communication within that group, but it is also a wall that prevents communication with, and assimilation by, another group. Some languages are no longer in daily use but are studied as … Continue reading Seeing French as a Bridge
The Bible is enough
Image by Pexels from Pixabay A reader of my French blog recently mentioned the book Le roi des derniers jours, l’exemplaire et très cruelle histoire des rebaptisés de Münster (1534-1535), written by Barret and Gurgand, first published by Hachette in 1981. I obtained a copy of the book and found it a meticulous, almost day by day account … Continue reading The Bible is enough
To know and to do the will of God
There are striking similarities in the stories of the three men mentioned in Monday’s post. Their study of the Martyrs’ Mirror and the writings of Menno Simons and Dietrich Philips led them to see that the Mennonite church to which they belonged was adrift from the anchor of the old faith. Each one found that … Continue reading To know and to do the will of God
A little history, and a little mystery
Levi Young was a young man on fire for the Lord. He couldn’t have been more than 21 when he was ordained a minister in the Evangelical Mennonite Association. This was a small group with a few congregations in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. Levi Young served as an itinerant evangelist, but soon began to feel that … Continue reading A little history, and a little mystery
Good news, somewhat disguised
1918, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. People began dying from the Spanish Flu in the first week of October. Sick soldiers returning from the European front were housed at the Moose Jaw Armoury and the disease spread from there. The Moose Jaw and District Medical Officer, Dr. Turnbull, ordered all gathering places closed until further notice. That … Continue reading Good news, somewhat disguised
WHY?
The war to end all wars didn't end all wars. When a revolution succeeds in overthrowing the oppressors, the revolutionaries then become the oppressors. What is wrong with the world? "The answer to the question, 'What is Wrong' is, or should be, 'I am wrong.' Until a man can give that answer, his idealism is … Continue reading WHY?
Flatlander Faith 