Notice in the Mennonite Historian,Winnipeg, Manitoba March 1982
There is a real question as to whether the names given in these letters should even now be made public. In an age of the most sordid revelations it would seem innocuous enough. Not to reveal the names even now, even though they are public record, but they are so closely related to Mack, his brother in law, an elder, the father, the mothers the sister all implicated in this tiny community, prevents our understanding why they might have had such tight rules. It was in order to survive. The relations were pretty much for life. Is the maid of Ihst going to move away? But of course there is always the possibility we might make a mistaken identity try as we might otherwise. But there is a larger point for instruction, that being that the fraud, the sham and the cover up all too familiar, with nobody taking or giving account of their own sins, has been so perpetuated that we drown in a sea of self infatuation where nobody’s at fault. This seems the more relevant considering “spiritual wickedness in high places” scholars may cite at the machinations of King David’s court, the fortune and fog of war.
When we do get the hair shorn from the religious? Spare us the names? Do we need to think more poorly of ourselves than we do? Does our own rehabilitation override covering the sins of Lot? Good questions, except there is no answer in good taste. And further what happens to the content neutral standard of good writing if as we show the passion of a character and his empathy we trespass so far into the moral universe. In the end there is no avoiding what Ezekiel saw through a hole in the wall, the elders making pact and sacrifice. Such sins are sordid not glorious, not the “heart became proud on account of its beauty” (Ez 28.17), the second we think of Ezekiel and do well to be afraid. The Spirit lifted me up…I dug into the wall and saw a doorway…I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals… In front of them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shapham was standing among them (Ez 8.11).
To see the sins of world portrayed in all their sickness is a crippling sight and when it concerns your own all the more so, so that we can well believe Andrew Mack saw these things with tears and we can believe it was with weakness and pain that he mediated among them. It’s not witty, it’s heartbreaking. Ezekiel writes with a sense of outrage and judgment, but his knowledge is by revelation, being caught up. Andrew Mack writes privately with a sense of sorrow, pain, unbelievable contradiction that such things come to him he has to decide. But Andrew Mack was also a farmer. He knew that when the weeds are rank in their growth the husbandman with a scythe (or a weedeater) is going get the moist blades and severed roots on his clothes. Weed puller, he was a stone puller.
When we do get the hair shorn from the religious? Spare us the names? Do we need to think more poorly of ourselves than we do? Does our own rehabilitation override covering the sins of Lot? Good questions, except there is no answer in good taste. And further what happens to the content neutral standard of good writing if as we show the passion of a character and his empathy we trespass so far into the moral universe. In the end there is no avoiding what Ezekiel saw through a hole in the wall, the elders making pact and sacrifice. Such sins are sordid not glorious, not the “heart became proud on account of its beauty” (Ez 28.17), the second we think of Ezekiel and do well to be afraid. The Spirit lifted me up…I dug into the wall and saw a doorway…I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals… In front of them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shapham was standing among them (Ez 8.11).
To see the sins of world portrayed in all their sickness is a crippling sight and when it concerns your own all the more so, so that we can well believe Andrew Mack saw these things with tears and we can believe it was with weakness and pain that he mediated among them. It’s not witty, it’s heartbreaking. Ezekiel writes with a sense of outrage and judgment, but his knowledge is by revelation, being caught up. Andrew Mack writes privately with a sense of sorrow, pain, unbelievable contradiction that such things come to him he has to decide. But Andrew Mack was also a farmer. He knew that when the weeds are rank in their growth the husbandman with a scythe (or a weedeater) is going get the moist blades and severed roots on his clothes. Weed puller, he was a stone puller.
The circumstances of his early life as a pastor were utterly formative in the career he was to have as a peacemaker. These took principally two forms in the problems he faced in his own church and in his dire sickness when elevated to Bishop.
The first six letters, from 1870 to 1876 are preoccupied with pastoral problems that the young minister needs to air: discord, adultery and immorality leading to disfellowship. In spite of the custom that Mennonites would generally confess their sins before the whole congregation, in much of this he is the last to learn of the problem, hearing only secondhand of the discord and adultery. The problem with digging around in the past is that we might find things that have been buried. This is the case regarding the young pastor’s afflictions.
With the first problem of discord however the young preacher does not even himself believe his advice to the parties and does not actually send the letter. He must sense that his own counsel is flawed. Are we to take it literally when he says he writes “partly in tears?” He says, “I have heard that discord has taken place” and feels that he must act, “write.” Perhaps the reason he does not believe even himself is that he assumes their guilt in such language that they might “sooner return to your first love.” What are you going to say to gossipers, “I heard that you were gossiping?” That doesn’t work. That’s gossip too. His strategy in the letter he doesn’t send is to display his feelings, “tears,” followed by his reasoning.
This is all the more strange since this letter is not cataloged with the other 49! As though it had fallen through some crack and ended up in the Mensch collection.
His reasoning he admits “is sometimes made worse by writing.” But this leads in the second part of the letter to his own self doubt as if he were seriously thinking, “I will lay down my office” rather than intervene this way. He includes himself with them in a triangle, “consider with me where we stand.” Their disagreement is emotional, fueled by false beliefs about themselves, each other and of the nature of discord, “the old Adam,” who threatens God’s kingdom in this, and gives comfort to Satan. His solution is humility, his own as he has said, but theirs too, but are they hardhearted or tender? And whose spirit is it that “will make us believe this or that, which often has no significance?”
The solution he offers is one he sought for himself in his own life with his own tears. That is “take each other’s weaknesses upon yourself,” that is, bear one anothers' burdens to the sea of forgetfulness, the “ocean of oblivion.” His argument is that they should be like Jesus “and hear Him say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
It doesn’t sound even to him like this is going to work if they want to continue to disagree. He feels that the letter would just make it appear he is taking sides. He doesn’t send it also because he doesn’t believe his own argument. What is the flaw? Nothing except that he is still learning to feel his way in such matters. But he learns that the solution is not argument. His wife feels this too and gives the writer the best counsel of his day, stop. Later in life he will have learned how to bring the disagreeable together, but also he will know when not to speak.
With the second issue, the sin of adultery, he only learns of it at the 11th hour and there is little then to do except try to heal the injured by counseling, but he is counseling his own family, daughter, cousins, aunts. The offender in this letter is John L. Gehman who has confessed himself an adulterer “several weeks ago,” an act that transpired “several years ago, with the maid who was with Ihst.” This raises two issues with him, first that Ihst “did not wish to say anything; yet he talked about it so much it made me wonder; then he told me about it himself.” It sounds derelict of Ihst first not to have defended the maid better after “she told Ihst about it,” but further, when she had confided in him, not to have properly reported it, instead gossiping the news all over so that Mack heard it from others before ever Ihst said a word.
John L. GEHMAN
12 SEP 1819 - 3 MAR 1892
BIRTH: 12 SEP 1819 [24459]
DEATH: 3 MAR 1892, Hereford, Berks Co PA [24460]
BURIAL: Old Hereford Mennonite
REFERENCE: LKG
Father: Johannes Ziegler GEHMAN
Mother: Maria M. LATSHAW
Family 1 : Susanna S. STAUFFER
Mother: Maria M. LATSHAW
Family 1 : Susanna S. STAUFFER
MARRIAGE: 25 AUG 1844 [61708]
Family 2 : Elizabeth S. STAUFFER
MARRIAGE: 4 APR 1847
Another and more serious problem for him is that this John L. Gehman, ordained a deacon in 1858, is the son of the preacher John Z. Gehman (mentioned in Noah Mack, 4) who had grown up in the church and community. He was about 50 when taken with the escapade of the maid of Ihst. But Gehman had married Elizabeth Stauffer in 1847. Andrew S. Mack is Andrew Stauffer Mack, and indeed had both sisters and daughters named Susanna and Elizabeth, but with different birth dates than Gehman's wives, so this was either an aunt or cousin. Further Gehman had previously been married to Elizabeth’s sister, Susanna Stauffer in 1844. He had one child with the first wife, a daughter, and three sons with the second, two of whom became deacons. [see Mack 10, the number of sons and daughters is in question.] No wonder the “church is in a sad situation.”
When Mack says “you wouldn’t believe how much trouble this caused for me and also for many others, especially the family," that is because of his relation to the Stauffer family and because Gehman had married both daughters. Mack’s solace which he offers is that Gehman’s “wife thinks she can bear it with the help of God,” meaning that she can go on living anyway, “yet for the rest of life can have no more joy,” more than a sad situation.
When Mack says “you wouldn’t believe how much trouble this caused for me and also for many others, especially the family," that is because of his relation to the Stauffer family and because Gehman had married both daughters. Mack’s solace which he offers is that Gehman’s “wife thinks she can bear it with the help of God,” meaning that she can go on living anyway, “yet for the rest of life can have no more joy,” more than a sad situation.
As with the previous discord and the “old Adam,” here “the flesh still feels its weakness” and nobody can correct those who will not correct themselves: “verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.” Later he says that “Gehman also desires that all faithful ones should pray for him. He is quite depressed because of this sin,” but that is not altogether to the point since, “what is man when he flees from the Lord? He is as the prodigal son. He must arise and go to the father, but no man can come to him except the father draw him.” Nobody can correct one who will not correct himself. Mack bears the lesson himself as always and mutually exhorts Mensch, “dear brother, let us seek to accomplish our office faithfully,” always realizing that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities…the rulers of darkness of this world…”
To illustrate the extraordinary nature of these Mennonite communities and their close proximity to one another, therefore the need to be without discord and adultery, Gehman’s own daughter was married to the same (John M.) Ihst (1844-1923) with whose maid Gehman conducted his affair. Andrew Mack had visited upon him a vision of the sins of the world and it was only his weakness that enabled him to bear.
A third, even greater personal tragedy, reported in these first letters, his own brother-in-law is disfellowshiped. Compassed with the first report of his severe ensuing illness which was to last years, this makes the trial more poignant, “I write tonight as I have never written before.” Taking his lead from “the saddest part,” he writes that “brother John Gabel fell into an abominable sin and is discharged from the church.”
John L. Gable (1837-1887) had first been married to Leah High who died 23 Aug 1873 at age 34. Andrew Mack preached the sermon at her funeral. He had eight children with her. A sawmiller and merchant, he then married Elizabeth, sister of Andrew S. Mack and had four more children. Gabel had been ordained a deacon at Hereford 17 Oct 1872.
This letter comes two and a half years after the death of that first wife. That this transgression had occurred while he was, past tense, still a widower, we would say “single,” indicates perhaps that he was remarried at the time of this report. Mack writes that “this took place while he was still in the state of widowhood.” Writing as he has never written before means that “you can’t imagine how my poor heart often feels, especially at this time while I am weak and unwell.” It is as though he feels the whole enterprise is coming apart yet still he has to provide solace for the aggrieved, Gabel’s father for instance, who died at age 86 in 1885, who with his son J. L. Gabel bought the Gleason company machinery and had begun production in 1871.
Demonstrating again how everybody knew everything about everybody else in that small community, he says, “old father Gabel was here today and he wept over his son.” While he says nothing about the pain of his sister in all this, he does say “pray for J. Gabel. He is in great sorrow yet there are those who press him farther down.” Depression and some gossip, the reward for sins. He seems to bear the burden himself, “when I see the church and how I labored these 12 years that I served, my courage would often sink.”
Demonstrating again how everybody knew everything about everybody else in that small community, he says, “old father Gabel was here today and he wept over his son.” While he says nothing about the pain of his sister in all this, he does say “pray for J. Gabel. He is in great sorrow yet there are those who press him farther down.” Depression and some gossip, the reward for sins. He seems to bear the burden himself, “when I see the church and how I labored these 12 years that I served, my courage would often sink.”
Not To Do
Like the first account when writing could have been misconstrued so it were better left unsent, writing to his friend Mensch as relief from pressures is to be curtailed, “I could still write much of what is on my mind, but too much writing isn’t good for me either.’ This is because of the sickness he has first reported,
“I am not well…my nerves are also weakened.” Those things which had been his escape from the ministry are now denied to him: “I am not to do any heavy physical work, not preach, not indulge in deep thoughts and not read. The latter is the most difficult for me. I couldn’t keep up with reading much anyhow.”
This sickness is to vex him off and on the rest of his life. It reminds him of his vulnerability, increases his humility so that when “our pilgrimage is over, we may all enter into that heavenly home where no sickness nor sorrow may overtake us.” His solace in all this is simply what he recommends to others and himself, “I will seek to totally surrender myself to my dear Jesus and as He decides for me is right.”
It must be the case that these letters are only a sampling of the trials of these six years, although maybe they are the low spots; it is obvious he has undergone a lot. This period of his life comes to an end. Never again does he address such dire straits, either because they don’t happen, other issues are more urgent, or simply that he says nothing. His health however continues to be difficult, both from the burden of his accountability and from the physical weakness. He writes, “how serious it often appears to me when I consider what we are accountable for, if we have not been found faithful stewards.” This does not refer to finance, but to moral leadership, compassion, wisdom, judgment in administering his office. He would always feel this deeply. “I find myself so weak, physically and spiritually,” he says, probably a desirable effect in a leader since it enforces a sense of humility. “I am still not supposed to preach and cannot work much yet.” It has only been six weeks since he had released the doctor’s report in his last letter, but it shows how much he wants to continue his vocation.
Whether to Resist
He is to have plenty of opportunity to be accountable. About a year after being ordained bishop by acclamation in 1875, a dispute arises between the old and new Mennonites at Boyertown, formerly Colebrookdale. This corporate discord has its roots in the original split of 1847, the Oberholtzer controversy. He was not a minister then, but was the first ordained after it at Hereford in 1863. His jurisdiction as bishop now includes the problem, so immediately his care of the larger Mennonite community impacts both Old and New Mennonites as it was also to do later in his life when he “approved the organizing of the Mennonite General Conference, even though the majority of his conference did not” (The Mennonite Encyclopedia, III, 432).
The beginning is innocent enough. Mennonites had shared premises, I mean buildings, a long time. After their initial division between old and new in 1847 the two groups shared the Hereford meetinghouse until the new Mennonites built their own in 1851. The old group then bought out the new’s half share in the old building. There being also a building at Boyertown, then Colebrookdale, about six miles from the Hereford church, “built for the convenience of the Hereford Mennonites in and near Boyertown” (Wenger 366), but with no pastor separate from Hereford, this building had been used by both groups until 1876 when the old purposed to build anew on the original 1819 building, first tearing down the old. In the midst of the demolition the new “served an injunction against the building committee, enjoining them against the tearing down of the meetinghouse, and sued for equal rights as tenants in common” (Wenger 122).
Contrary to the stand of the old, Andrew’s son Noah says that his father “always upheld the idea that the old Mennonite Church should not have made any defense but when the sheriff came and placed an injunction on the church building the brethren just should have left and built a meeting house outside of the town” (Mack, ) A question as to why he could not overrule the building committee as bishop does not understand the conditions applied. Neither could he introduce footwashing or missions when he wanted. Pressed on his first trip to Kansas in 1881 about missions by some Prussian Mennonites at Beatrice, Nebraska, he could only reply that “he had to wait until the time when such support could be had” (5). The injunction not only resulted in a lawsuit that lasted seven years, ultimately decided by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but it caused a scrutiny of the conditions of the original Oberholtzer controversy of 1847.
“However, he was somewhat relieved in heart when the judge of the supreme court called the old Mennonites the defendants still to the close of the litigation but from a pure non-resistant standpoint he considered the true way would have been to leave all when and flee to another city as Jesus says Matt. 10-23.” (Mack, )
Andrew Mack would of course know nothing of this when he wrote, before the fact, the letter of 27 Feb 1876:
“For some time there have been quite a few communications among us regarding the building of a meeting house in Boyertown. The new (Mennonites) wished to build with us and we did not want that. Then our members decided that we would build a house, but they [the New] would have nothing to say to the building, but after it was built they could donate to the costs voluntarily and then have meetings in the new house as before in the old house. The new (ones) wished to have meetings in the new house as before in the old house. The new (ones) wished to have a written agreement drawn up so they could show that they had their rights, but ors did not wish to commit themselves. Now this is as it stands and I haven’t heard anything more. I heard that in Matdege they built in a similar way. If you know how they did in Matdege then write to me as soon as you can. I did not intend to be concerned with the building, but I would like to tell the brethren how they did it there.”
For one who “did not intend to be concerned with the building,” his concern is prescient. The original differences between the two groups in 1847 were some parts substantive, one being the whole subject of legality, which traditionally Mennonites rejected. That is, “that litigation was a downright violation of the New Testament ethic and was contrary to the historic practice of the church” (Wenger, 353). Oberholtzer testified, “our conference was not opposed to go to law in a just cause” (cited by Wenger, 353). Outside of the Bible and the Dortrecht Confession, traditional Mennonites shunned legality, creeds, written ordinances, constitutions, even minutes of their meetings at that time.
In Boyertown the two factions fought all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. When the old group referenced in Andrew Mack’s letter decided to build anew, they offered tenancy to the new, on condition of their using no objectionable musical instruments. This demand initiated a series of conundrums that lasted six years. When demolition had already partly removed he old building, the New Mennonites sued for tenancy in common before the Berks County Court. That suit, denied in 1879, was subsequently reversed. Then, on appeal in 1883, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, reversed it back, finding for the Old, a truly contradictory procedure for people who did not believe in such legal remedies (see Wenger, 122-23 and Ruth, 366-67) and a betrayal of principles held by traditional Mennonites.
The disagreement between old and new at Boyertown was similar to one in Skippack except there the old Mennonites surrendered the meetinghouse and built anew. This was celebrated by John F. Funk as “one of the most glorious examples of self-denial and devotion to … religious principles, presented to us in modern times. The new factions claimed the old meeting-house and were determined to have it at all events. The property was one of considerable value and justly belonged to the Old Church, and any impartial judge or jury would have, without any scruples, freely accorded it to them, had they presented their claims, but instead of doing so, they chose rather to obey the scriptural injunctions 'not to resist evil, and of him that taketh away thy goods, not to ask them again,' and quietly, leaving the new factions in possession, they purchased other grounds and built themselves a new house.” (Funk, 128.)
Andrew Mack’s thinking on all this was reported much later by his son, Bishop Noah Mack in 1939. This eleven page biography of Andrew Mack never got much circulation since it was solicited by Noah’s own biographers and served only as background for their work.
John F. Funk. The Mennonite Church and Her Accusers. Elkhart, Indiana: Mennonite Publishing Company, 1878.
