Tillie: A Mennonite Maid

arfully looked forward, came about much sooner than Tillie had anticipated. The o

ascetic faith of the New Mennonites that precipitated the crisis, this conversio

sion, the most popular form of dissipation known, bringing the wh

r the loss of some money he had unsuccessfully invested, was so sudden and shoc

n which she had been reared aroused in her, in common with the rest of the community, a superstitious fear before this sud

he coffin stood, and though surrounded by people, she felt strangely alone

to prepare the immense quantity of food necessary to feed the large crowd that always attended a

half dozen men employed to take charge of the "teams" that belonged to the funeral guests, who came in families, companies, and crowds. That so well-to-do a farmer as Jake Getz, one who owned his farm "clea

ing in southeastern Pennsylvania, the funeral services were conducted by two ministers, one of them a New Me

as the condition of giving their services at a funeral. A New Mennonite preacher will not consent to preach after a "World's preacher"-he must have first voice. It was therefore the somber doctrine of

tairway opening out of the sitting-room, and gave expression to his own profound sense of the solemnity of the occasi

ptly produced and agita

of Christ, as held and taught by the New Mennonites, could be saved from the fire which cannot be quenched. With the heroism born of deep conviction, he stoically disregarded the feelings of the bereaved family, and affirmed that th

s sect on such an occasion, and made of his funeral sermon an exposition of the whole field of New Mennonite faith and practice. Beginning in the Garden of Ed

ation with the enemy of her soul! Beloved, that was an unfortunate circumstance! And you that are still out of Christ and in the world, have need to pray fur Gawd's help, his aid, and his assistance, to enable y

ou're a trans

ade and p

s raised to life, was not rai

knew how bad they felt, having had a brother who had died with equal su

d by a hymn, sung a line at a t

ow to the grav

orruption till

body for i

h then shall im

"a member," it was necessary, at the end of the Reverend Abram Underwocht's sermon, for all the Mennonites presen

ise and follow into the kitchen those who were thus retiring from the sound of the f

as that the spiritual condition of the young girl, just awakening to her womanhood, with all its mysterious craving, its re

deep "conviction of sin," she did not heed the sin

Ages, cle

ear a word of

the mourners, and then to all those who expected to follow the body to the grave. The third table, for those who

invariably of cold meat, cheese, all sorts of stewed dried fru

, two chests of dishes owned by the Mennonite church are sent to

stance!-she wore over her black Mennonite hood a crape veil! This was an innovation nothing short of revolutionary, and the brethren and sisters

llie's stepmother whispered to her as she gave the g

ight be found, a sense of the weakness of her flesh and spirit before her father's undoubted opposition to her "turning plain," as well as his certain refusal to supply the wherewithal for her Mennonite garb, should she indeed be led of