A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

wever, and had the conference report printed in Elkhart, Indiana. The brethren also had numerous meetings, usually in the little hamlet of Canada (Kansas), where Harms was teaching, regarding the establishment of a conference paper. In these meetings the Zionsbote was born in the fall of 1884. It appeared as a four-page quarterly and the subscription rate was twenty-five cents per year. After two years as a quarterly, the Zionsbote became a monthly periodical; in 1889 it became a weekly paper. Two verses of Scripture were chosen as a motto for the periodical. Elder Schellenberg chose Isaiah 2:3 and Dietrich Claassen Philippians 4:8; these verses appeared on the title page in the upper left-hand corner and upper right-hand comer respectively, until the Zionsbote was discontinued at the end of 1964. PUBLISHING FOR THE BROTHERHOOD 285 The story of the publication efforts of the Mennonite Brethren in America during the first twenty years is inseparably connected with the vision, faith, and perseverance of the man who was selected to be the first editor of the Zionsbote, the twenty-nine-year-old John F. Harms (1855-1945)/' Harms, born and raised in the Molotschna colony of South Russia, had prepared himself for the teaching ministry. From 1873 to 1878 he taught school in the village of Lichtfelde. In 1878 Harms and his second wife Margaret (nee Isaak) 6 emigrated to America where they made their home at Mountain Lake, Minnesota, for two years. From here he went, in God's providence, to Elkhart, Indiana, where he assisted John F. Funk in his printing establishment. In that year (1880) the Mennonitische Rundschau began publication (replacing the Nebraska Ansicdler begun in 1877). Harms was the first editor of this paper which in later years became one of the most popular Mennonite weeklies in the German language in North America. In all probability this "apprenticeship" in Christian journalism made Harms such an ardent champion of church publications among the Mennonite Brethren in the years that followed.' The J. F. Harms were not members of the M.B. Church when they came to America. When they moved to Canada, Kansas, however, they joined the M.B. church west of Marion. In the fall of that same year Harms attended the Mennonite Brethren Conference for the first time. His abilities were recognized immediately and he was asked to serve as one of the secretaries. At this conference he was also elected to the "publications committee" and thus became involved in an activity that was to become his major concern in the years ahead. Shortly after he became the editor of the Zionsbote Harms established his own printshop in Hillsboro, Kansas. The life of an editor of a church paper was not easy in those days. (It still is difficult, but perhaps for different reasons.) In 1887 the conference voted to allow Harms fifty dollars for his services as editor. In 1888 the honorarium amounted to only twenty-five d