Growth-and Some Decline-of the Churches / 87

Ohio Mennonite churches felt the Civil War in another important way. Some of their communities became the places to which fleeing Virginia families came. In an article of the November 1864 Herald of Truth there is a report by Editor John F. Funk of four Virginia families going to Mahoning County, Ohio. The report states that "others had reached their friends and acquaintances at other places, many were still on the way and daily expected to arrive. They will be scattered over almost every portion of the northern states and it is to be hoped that all will be received in the most hospitable manner."

D. H. Landis of Bremen, Ohio, Fairfield County, tells of coming to Ohio as a result of Sheridan's raid in October in 1864. He records a final communion at Weaver's Church in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. After this "joyful meeting" he made his escape to Bremen, Ohio, getting through the picket lines at New Market, Woodstock, Winchester, and Martinsburg, in the Shenandoah Valley." Still one other impress of the Civil War on Ohio Mennonite churches was the beginning of a body of literature related to war. John F. Funk of Chicago and Bishop John M. Brenneman of Allen County each wrote a manuscript on "Christianity and War." For some time Brenneman carried his manuscript with him, not knowing if he could risk its publication. He showed it to a young Chicago lumber dealer, the above-mentioned John F. Funk. Funk encouraged its publication which took place in 1863. The pamphlet set forth the historic Mennonite position on war and brought to a focus the issues that Mennonites faced in the Civil War. Said Bishop Brenneman:

There are many Mennonite brethren living in the North and in the South. If these should therefore march into the field against each other, armed with swords, guns, and the most fearful instruments of death, murderously destroying one another's lives, who could believe that they were newborn persons and brethren in Christ, or that they are led by the Spirit of God? No reasonable person could believe this."

Brenneman's pamphlet on war was a unique American Mennonite publication. It ran through several editions, including a German reprint at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1864. The Herald of Truth, an unofficial but highly influential organ of the Mennonite Church, contained an announcement of Brenneman's pamphlet in the first issue which appeared in January 1864. Through