MENNONITES ON MOVE.

New Zealand Herald, 23 May 1921, Page 5

MENNONITES ON MOVE.

4 MIGRATION FROM CANADA.

TO SETTLE IN MEXICO. A. and N.Z. OTTAWA. May 20.

A message from Swift Current, Saskatchewan, states that the Mennonite colony, numbering 80,000, has completed arrangements to move from Canada to land in Mexico. The Mennonites, who came to Canada in 1873 under agreement with ithe Dominion have clashed with uhe Cahadianj authorities,' who refused to allow the sect to establish separate schools, in which instruction should be carried on in the German language. They also state that under the original agreement Canada agreed to exempt the sect' from military service. During the wax considerable agitation arose when the Government insisted that tjhe younger generation did' not come under the exemption clause, but was liable to compulsory service. The Mennonites have sold their entire holdings in Canada, totalling 165,000 acres, and will transport their farm stock to Mexico.

The Mennonites, who take their name from Menno Simons, a religious leader born in 1492 in Friesland, maintain a form of Christianity which, discarding the sacerdotal idea, owns no authority outside the Bible and the enlightened conscience, limits baptism to the believer, and lays stress on the sanctity of human life and a man's word. The sect originated at Zurich, where in 1523 a small community left the State church and adopted the tenet of believers' baptism. Denying at once the Christian character of the existing church and of the civil authority, the sect was subjected to bitter persecution, though in later cenutries their colonies in Holland, France, and South Russia were exempted from military service.