Word: menno
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...have made the swampy wilderness bear fat crops of cotton and kaffir corn. There the immigrants will have a chance to prove by the banks of the Paraguay what their co-religionists have proved by the banks of the Susquehanna, the Dnieper and Canada's Red River-that Menno Simons' followers are among the world's best farmers...
White-bearded Menno Simons, who gave the group its name, was a Catholic priest of 44 when he left his church in 1536 to join Grebel's movement. Then the group were called Anabaptists because of their belief in the necessity of adult baptism. Like the Quakers 150-odd years later, they eschewed a paid priesthood and the use of force, did their best to follow literally the precepts of Jesus, patterned their lives on those of the early Christians. In those days, even more than now, such behavior was not only unconventional but dangerous...