repelled him. His first tractate (1535, first printed 1627) is directed against the “horrible and gross blasphemy of John of Leiden”—though the genuineness of this tract has been doubted. A brother of Menno joined the insurgent followers of John Matthyszoon, and was killed at Bolsward (April 1535). Blaming the leaders by whom these poor people had been misled, Menno blamed himself for not having shown them a straight course. Accordingly on the 12th of January 1536, he left the Roman communion. There were now among the so-called Anabaptists four parties, the favourers of the Münster faction, the Batenburgers, extremists, the Melchiorites and the Obbenites. For a time Menno remained aloof from both Melchior Hofman and Obbe Philipsz. Before the year was out, yielding to the prayer of six or eight persons who had freed themselves from the Münster spell, he agreed to become their minister, and was set apart (January 1537) to the eldership at Groningen, with imposition of hands by Obbe Philipsz, who is regarded as the actual founder of the Mennonite body. In fact, Obbe left the body and is stigmatized as its Demas. Menno repudiated the formation of a sect; those who had experienced the “new birth” were to him the true Christian church, which was limited by no decree of reprobation. His Christology was in the main orthodox, though he rejected terms (such as Trinity) which he could not find in Scripture, and held a Valentinian doctrine of the celestial origin of the flesh of Christ. His church discipline was drawn from the Swiss Baptists. Silent prayer was a feature of the worship; sermons were without texts. Neither baptism (by pouring on the head) nor the Lord’s Supper (with the accompaniment of feet-washing) conferred grace; they were divine ordinances which reflected the believer’s inward state. Marriage with; outsiders was prohibited; women had no part in church government. Oaths and the taking of life were absolutely forbidden; hence the magistracy and the army were for the Mennonite unlawful callings; but magistrates were to be obeyed in all things not prohibited by Scripture. The subsequent career of Menno was that of an active missioner; his changes of place, often compulsory, are difficult to trace. He was apparently much in East Friesland till 1541; in North Holland, with Amsterdam as centre, from 1541 to 1543; again till 1545 in East Friesland (where he held a disputation at Emden with John à Lasco in January 1544); till 1547 in South Holland; next, about Lübeck; at Wismar in 1553–1554 (he held two disputations with Martin Micronius at Norden in February 1554); lastly at Wüstenfelde, a village near Oldesloo, between Hamburg and Lübeck, where he died on the 13th of January 1559. He had married one Gertrude at Groningen, and left a daughter, by whom the dates of his birth and death were communicated to P. J. Twisch, for his Chronyk (1619).
Menno’s writings in Plattdeutsch, printed at various places, are numerous, with much sameness, and what an unfriendly critic would call wool-gathering; through them shines a character attractive by the sincerity of its simple and warm spirituality, the secret of Menno’s influence. The collection of his Opera Omnia Theologica (Amsterdam, 1681), folio, in a Dutch version, comprises twenty-three tractates, with reference to nine unprinted. His main principles will be found in his Dat Fundament des Christelycken Leers (1539, 8vo). A selection (Gedenkblätter) from his writings, in a German version, in honour of the (supposed) tercentennial of his death was edited by J. Mannhardt (Danzig, 1861) with an appendix from the writings of Dirk Philipsz (1504–1570), brother of Obbe, and Menno’s henchman. His writings are published in English at Elkhart, Indiana.
Since the publication of the Leven (1837) by A. M. Cramer, light has been thrown on the period by the researches of de Hoop Scheffer; see Van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden (1869); R. Barclay, Inner Life of Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (1876) for a good account of Mennonite anticipations of Quaker views and practices; F. C. Fleischer, Menno Simons, eene Levensschets (1892); V. M. Reimann, Mennonis Simonis qualis fuerit vita (1894); S. Cramer, in Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1903); a separate article in the same, Mennoniten, by S. Cramer, gives a survey of the origin and ramifications of the movement in Europe and America. (A. Go.*)
MENOMINEE, a city and the county-seat of Menominee
county, Michigan, U.S.A., on Green Bay, at the mouth of the
Menominee river, opposite Marinette, Wisconsin, at the southern
extremity of the upper peninsula. Pop. (1890), 10,630; (1900),
12,818, of whom 4186 were foreign-born; (1910 census),
10,507. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Wisconsin & Michigan, and the Ann Arbor railways, and is connected by five bridges with Marinette,
Wisconsin. Menominee has several parks, and harbour and dock
facilities for the heaviest lake vessels. It is one of the largest
lumber centres in the United States; it has excellent water
power, and there are manufactures of wire, steel, electrical appliances,
mill and mining machinery, shoes, beet sugar and paper.
The use of beet-pulp instead of Indian corn ensilage for dairy
cows has promoted the dairying industry in the city.
A trading post was established here in 1799, but settlement was not begun until 1833. Menominee became the county-seat in 1874, was chartered as a city in 1883, and in 1891 and in 1901 it was re-chartered; in 1903 an amendment to the charter created a municipal court. The city is named after the Menominee Indians,[1] an Algonquian tribe formerly ranging over a considerable territory in Wisconsin and Michigan, who seem to have been first visited by whites in 1634, when Nicolet found them at the mouth of the Menominee river, and now number about 1600, most of them being under the Green Bay school superintendency, Wisconsin. The name is the Chippewa word for wild rice, which formed part of the food of the tribe.
MENOMONIE, a city and the county-seat of Dunn county,
Wisconsin, U.S.A., about 64 m. E. of St Paul, Minnesota, on the
Red Cedar river. Pop. (1890), 5491; (1900), 5655, of whom
1772 were foreign-born; (1905), 5473; (1910), 5036. It is
served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and the Chicago,
St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railways. The city is widely
known for its institutions, for the most part founded or supported
by James Huff Stout (1848 –1910), a prominent local lumberman.
Among them are the Mabel Tainter Memorial Library, the Dunn
County School of Agriculture, the Dunn County Normal Training
School, the Stout Institute for the training of teachers of domestic
science &c., institutions in which public school children receive
physical training. The city has grain elevators, and manufactures
of bricks and tiles, foundry and machine shop products,
carriages and wagons and flour. Menomonie is an important
market for dairy products and livestock. Menomonie was
settled about 1846 and was chartered as a city in 1882. The
first free travelling library in the state was established here in
1896 by James Huff Stout.
MENSA and MAREA, semi-nomad pastoral tribes of Africans occupying part of the Abyssinian highlands included in the Italian colony of Eritrea, and the adjacent coast plains of the Red Sea. They have for neighbours the Habab and Beni-Amer tribes, as well as Abyssinians. The Marea are found chiefly in the valley of the Khor Anseba, the Mensa dwelling farther north. These tribes claim Arab origin, tracing their descent from an uncle of the Prophet. Under Abyssinian rule they were Christians, but became Mahommedans in the 19th century. They speak a dialect of Tigrin (Abyssinian). On the death of a Marea the head of every dependent tigré or slave family must give his heirs a cow. The tribes avenge an illegitimate birth by putting parents and child to death.
MENSHIKOV, ALEXANDER DANILOVICH, Prince (1663?–1729), Russian statesman, was born not earlier than 1660 nor later than 1663. It is disputed whether his father was an ostler or a bargee. At the age of twenty he was gaining his livelihood in the streets of Moscow as a vendor of meat-pies. His handsome looks and smart sallies attracted the attention of François Lefort, Peter’s first favourite, who took him into his service and finally transferred him to the tsar. On the death of Lefort in 1699, Menshikov succeeded him as prime favourite. Ignorant, brutal, grasping and corrupt as he was, he deserved the confidence of his master. He could drill a regiment, build a frigate, administer a province, and decapitate a rebel with equal facility. During the tsar’s first foreign tour, Menshikov worked by his side in the dockyards of Amsterdam, and acquired a thorough knowledge of colloquial Dutch and German. He took an active
- ↑ See W. L. Hoffman in the Fourteenth Report (Washington, 1896) of the Bureau of American Ethnology and A. E. Jenks in the Nineteenth Report (1900).
