The Public School and Religious Education - Milo Stucky 71
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Published in the interest of the best in the religious, social, and economic phases of Mennonite culture Clmreli anil Community Study Groups Will appreciate the opportunity Mennonite Life offers for more in tensive study of a particular phase of our life and heritage. Specifically we suggest: 1. Tile series on Aanabaptist Mennonite history by Roland Ii. Bainton of the Yale Divinity School published in the issues of July, October, 1953; and January and April, 1954. This complete series of issues is still available. 2. Attitude toward and treatm ent of mental illness. This will be fea tured in the July, 1954, issue. 8. Other topics for study readily suggest themselves as, Mennonite art, relief and rehabilitation, Mennonite leaders, etc. Every church and community library should subscribe to Mennonite Life. Subscription rates: Three years—$5.00, Two years—$3.50, One year — $2.00. Three bound volumes containing the first seven years of Mennonite Life are also available at $5.00 a volume or $12.00 for all three ordered at one time. Mennonite Life North Newton, Kansas Gdver Bethel College IAhrarg Photo by Loris Habegger MENNONITE LIFE An Illustrated Quarterly EDITOR Cornelius Krahn ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR John F. Schmidt ASSOCIATE EDITORS Harold S. Bender Robert Kreider J. Winfield Fretz S. F. Pannabecker Melvin Gingerich J. G. Rempel N. van der Zijpp Vol IX April, 1954 No. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page C o n t r i b u t o r s ..................................................- - 50 Providence ---------- - Jacob Sudermann 51 My Mission as an A rtist ------- - Marie Birkholtz-Bcstvater 53 The Mennonites of Alberta ------- Melvin Gingerich 56 Mennonite Conference of Alberta after Twenty-five Years David P. Neufeld 57 Grass for the Good of the Land ------ A. D. Stocsz 60 Baptists Come Back to Waldshut - - - - - Paul Peachey 63 Church Youth Give P l a y s ........................................ - - Arthur Isaak 66 The Story of a Library - - - - - - - - John F. Schmidt 68 The Public School and Religious Education - Milo Stucky 71 Moments with the Children ------- - Walter Gering 76 Our Youth in Christian Service ------ Harry E. Martens 77 Our PAX Boys in Europe ------- Curtis Janzen 80 The Enduring Witness: The Mennonites - Roland H. Bainton 83 Mennonite Research in Progress - John F. Schmidt and Melvin Gingerich 91 Mennonite Bibliography, 1953 - - - Melvin Gingerich, John F. Schmidt, and C. Krahn 92 Books in Review - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 94 Mennonite Life is an illustrated Quarterly magazine published in January, April, July and October by Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. Entered as second-class matter December 20, 1!UG, at the post cffice at North Newton, Kansas, under the Act of March 3, 1871), ContnibutonA la thiA ÜAAue (From left to right) PAUL PEACHEY, Eastern Mennonite College, completed his Ph.D, at Zurich, writing on the background of the early Swiss Anabaptists (p. 63). ARTHUR ISAAK, graduate of Bethel College, assistant pastor of the Bethesda Mennonite Church, Henderson, Nebr. (p. 60). CURTIS JANZEN is returning to America after having spent two years in MCC-PAX service in Germany (p. 80). JACOB SUDERMAN teaches German in the Extension Department of the University of Indiana. South Bend, Indiana (p. 51). MELVIN GINGERICH, director of the Mennonite Research Foundation, is a frequent contributor to Mennonite periodicals (p. 56, 91. 92). A. D. STOESZ has been chief of the regional nursery division of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, Lincoln, Nebr. (p. 60). CORNELIUS KRAHN, now in Holland, is editor of Mennonite Life, director of Bethel College Historical Library (p. 92). WALTER GERING, contributor to Mennonite periodicals, pastor of Bethel Mennonite Church, Mountain Lake, Minn. (p. 76). MARIE BIRKHOLTZ-BESVATER, Mennonite artist of Prussia, lives in Buenos Aires. Painting of husband in background (p. 53). ROLAND H. BAINTON, of Yale Divinity School, completes his series from the Menno Simons Lectureship in this issue (p. 83). MILO STUCKY, principal, Buhler Rural High School is past Vice-President of Kansas State Teachers Association and mem ber, Kansas Commission for Improvement of Secondary Education (p. 71). HARRY E. MARTENS, business manager of Bethel College, spent a year's leave of absence as relief commissioner for the M.C.C. (p. 71). JOHN F. SCHMIDT, is assistant in the Bethel College Historical Library and assistant to the editor of Mennonite Life (pp. 68, 91, 92). NOT SHOWN DAVID P. NEUFELD, former secretary of the Mennonite Conference of Alberta, is now MCC worker at Bremen, Germany (p. 57). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the January issue we failed to give credit to Arnold J. Regier, Rosthem, Sask., for making available the pictures of seventeenth century Hutterite ceramics on pages 34-37.Photography top, p. 54, pp. 68, 69, top and bottom left, p. 70, Loris H abegger. M ap p. 56, The Mennonite Encyclopedia. Photographs pp. 63-65, Soil Conservation Service. United States Department of Agriculture. Photography bottom right, p. 70 and p. 90, Kenneth Hiebert. Photography pp. 72-74, Arnold B. Baergen. Drawing p. 76, Lois Duerksen. Illustrations pp. 83 and 88. photostat copies by Roland H. Bainton of drawings in Dutch Martyr's Mirror. Printed by The Herald Book & Printing Co., Newton, Kansas Are lV c the M*titrns of I'«tic or the Children of liod$ Providence BY JACOB SUDERMANN HE Mediterranean was a Roman ocean. The mark the heart, the perennial homing instinct of the soul. In a ings of the ships riding at anchor, either at the Hebrew this longing was never stilled until the hand of T pier or farther out in the harbor of Apollonia, Death released his restless soul to seek its permanent were visible proof of this. The seamen, themselves, came level. from all parts of the Empire to load the products of “Wonderful boys, those, Shimon,” said a voice at his Cyrenaica, whose proud city, Cyrene, famed for trade side. The man Shimon looked up in glad surprise. He be and culture, nestled securely on the high, fertile plateau held the Greek merchant, Demetrius, with whom he had a few leagues inland from its harbor satelite. dealt frequently in Cyrene. Black Libyan stevedores, stripped to the loincloth, “How providential that we are taking the same boat!” bent glistening backs under baskets filled with grain. The other smiled provocatively. They trudged up the gangplanks, bare toes gripping the “I would call it fate, Shimon, but it’s all the same, spray soaked footing, to dump their loads and return providence—fate, a matter of words, or don’t you think for another in endless belt fashion. The raucous cries of so?” deck foremen, urging more speed and shouting directions, The Hebrew laughed goodnaturedly. “How typically rose above the general monotone hubbub of shore activ Greek, Demetrius. I believe you are trying to draw me ity and the surging noisome surf, breaking in fine spray into a philosophical discussion. I will humor you by an against the chalk cliffs facing the sea. swering “No” to your question. Fate and providence are not synoyms. The distinction, of course, depends on one’s The waiting ships rose and fell in a rhythmic pattern, idea of Divinity.” determined by the weight of the cargo already deposited “And I will parry your thrust, Shimon. Whether one and the force of the incoming rollers. Woe to the steve believes in a single deity or in many has no bearing on dore who misjudged this rhythm. Not only was he sub the matter. In either case man’s destiny is determined by jected to a stream of salty vocabulary for the threatened the one or the many; the result is always the same, un loss of his load; he was also in personal peril. A fall be less you wish to argue that deity can be at fault some tween the pier and the grinding contact of the sides of times.” a heaving ship meant almost certain death. “At fault? Never! You will not catch me in that One boat was moving out; another was tacking under trap.” direction of skilful hands to take its place. A man of “True, Shimon. We cannot admit imperfection in middle age stood at the rail of the former, leaning far deity without casting doubt on its authority. To do so over, gesturing a reluctant farewell to two frantically would also erase the distinction between deity and man. waving youths whose faces spoke eloquently of a yearn But how do you support your statement that there is a ing to go along. He was a Hebrew, unm istakably so, yet difference between fate and providence? I would like to not conspicuous among those lining the rail. There were hear it.” many others of his own race, pilgrims going “home,” in “The fate concept, Demetrius, is enervating. To be a spiritual manner of speaking, to satisfy that unquench lieve in it is to float aimlessly on the sea of life like able craving once to eat the Pascal Lamb in the Holy driftwood. Such belief eventually saps mental and moral City and to set foot in the courts of the Temple. It would vigor because fate is blind; fate assumes a disinterested be a great comfort in old age to look back upon such an deity, one that decides the future of an individual or a experience After that one could await the call of death whole society and then turn its back with no thought of on “foreign” soil with a tranquil heart. intervention, with no expression of further solicitude or The gap between the outgoing ship and the receding feeling.” pier had widened considerably. The man at the rail ceased “There is truth in your argument, Shimon, but the waving. His face reflected the serious quality of his advantage of such deities is that one has no moral obli thoughts.