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without a leader. David Boesinger, a deacon, took responsibility for the Sunday school and Bible instruction. After Abraham and Christian P. Steiner were ordained in 1869 the Sunday school made progress. However, about 1877 the congregation had internal difficulties. Both ministers were silenced. The deacon left the congregation in order to follow Abraham Steiner who joined the Egly (later called Defenseless) Mennonite Church. During the time the Sunday school was closed many of the children attended the Swiss Mennonite Sunday school at Ebenezer Church. Christian P. Steiner was reinstated in the ministry and he reopened the Sunday school. In 1890 it became "evergreen."
The advent of Sunday schools had a broadening effect on the horizons of Mennonite youth as the nineteenth century moved toward its close. This is illustrated in the Menno Chapel Sunday school at New Stark in Hancock County. Organized in 1878 after the erection of a Mennonite meetinghouse at Reams's Corners the Chapel Sunday school was conducted as a union school. Presbyterians taught in the classes, though the superintendent was a Mennonite. The influence of other religious groups became a threat to the Mennonites, and Umble says, "Their fears were not without foundation." Some felt that it had been a mistake to move from Bluffton to New Stark.
Despite the problem of assimilation the Sunday school did serve as a center that gathered young people into the fold of the church."' A few young Mennonites who were attending nearby Ohio Normal University (now Ohio Northern) at Ada worshiped with the Chapel congregation and Sunday school. Several of them were to become future leaders in the Ohio Mennonite Conference. Among them were J. B. Smith and I. W. Royer. The former preached his first sermon at Menno Chapel on the text, "In the beginning God." Smith and Royer along with Samuel Stalter and J. W. Zerbe also conducted a mission Sunday_ school in Ada while they_ attended the university.
The Chapel congregation is important too because of some of the church workers that came from it. John Blosser became a prominent evangelist and for some years was president of the Mennonite Board of Education. His cousin, Menno S. Steiner, became a prominent evangelist and also president of the Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities.
One other Sunday school of the region was founded in Putnam
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