A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

pects of further growth, the shareholders that year decided to relocate the Christian Press. From the small and crowded quarters at 672 Arlington Street, the publishing house in 1951 moved into the spacious, new, two-story building located at 159 Kelvin Street (now called Henderson Highway). The annual conference reports consistently stressed the missionary character of the publishing enterprise. After reporting a profitable financial year at the 1950 convention, the manager added: "Far more important, however, is the main purpose of a Christian publication enterprise: to cultivate Christian attitudes, to proclaim a good message, to report on Divine Providence in the life of the Mennonite brotherhood, to portray a world that moves toward an impending judgment, and to render comfort and aid."-" At the convention the following year the delegates accepted a part, of this mission through the printed page by agreeing to pay for 500 copies of the Mennonitische Rundschau out of the conference treasury to make the paper available without charge to needy fellow-believers in South America and Europe. Another forward step was taken at the convention in 1952 when the Committee of Reference and Counsel recommended the election of a publications committee. This action was motivated by an increasing awareness of the need for appropriate literature in both German and PUBLISHING FOR THE BROTHERHOOD 293 English in the M.B. constituency. "We have to admit," the recommendation reads, "that in our circles there is a lack of literature that presents the ethical and religious views of our Conference and its Bible exposition." 2 " The committee's duties appear to be limited to the production and promotion of appropriate tracts, pamphlets, and books, and did not include the publication of a conference paper. The Konferenz-Jugendblatt, as we have seen earlier, was published by the Canadian Conference Youth Committee. The question of an English family paper was a crucial and sometimes controversial issue in the Canadian Conference during the fifties. When the Christian Leader became the official organ of the General Conference in 1951, it appeared that this paper might also meet the needs in the Canadian constituency. At the annual convention that year in Herbert, Saskatchewan, the delegates accepted a recommenda- tion presented by Elmo Warkentin, chairman of the Publications Committee of the General Conference, that the Christian Leader be accepted (provisionally) "as the official English language conference paper." 3 " However, official conference action does not always result in the practical realization of any given concern. The Christian Leader continued to have only a limited appeal among Mennonite Brethren in Canada. In a report to the constituency, the Publications Committee of the Canadian Conference explains this lack of response as follows: "The Christian Leader is an excellent paper. The difficulty has b