Bernhard Regier: a Mennonite minister of West Prussia and Kansas; born at Sandhof near Marienburg in West Prussia in 1810. He learned to read at home, and by the age of ten had read the entire Bible three times (the Bible and the hymnal were usually the only books in the homes). He received his education in a private Mennonite school in Rodlofferhuben, where the gifted Wilhelm Lange was teaching. The school was later transferred to Broskerfelde. In 1839 he was chosen to the ministry in his home congregation, and served without salary until the age of seventy.

He took an active part in the Danzig Missionary Association (founded 1829). The monthly meetings were held in Mennonite homes; the annual mission­ary conference, in which Lutherans and Reformed also took part, met in a roomy granary of a mem­ber of the Association. He was also interested in the temperance movement.

Bernhard Regier gathered in Germany the material for the Regier family history. When the German Mennonites lost their nonresistant privileges he immigrated to Newton, Kansas in 1880, and took part in the establishment of the first Mennonite (GCM) church in Newton, as well as of Bethel College. He died in 1892 at the age of 82 after a ministry of 54 years.

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 273, 1147. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

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