194 / The Crisis Years of 1915-1930

life of the church as the issue. His writings were widely read and were influential.

Thus by conferences and conference actions, by expulsions and disciplinary measures, and with the aid of polemical church literature, the numerous congregations passed through a critical period not unlike that which larger Protestant bodies faced during the same years.`'

The Passing of the Crisis

Beginning in 1930 S. E. Allgyer, I. B. Witmer, and E. L. Frey, as an official conference committee, visited many churches to study trends and to offer counsel on how best to meet the forces which were working against spiritual vitality. They dealt with the threats of modernism, and unequal yoke, and worldliness. "' By 1931 the committee was able to report that it had visited twenty-seven congregations." It would appear that these efforts, after years of internal struggle, were well received by the ministry and laity alike. The worst of the crisis seemed past.

A thorough study of the 1915-30 period in the history of the Mennonite Church has yet to be made, together with an interpretation of its meaning to the church. There is evidence that the entire Mennonite Church, its institutions, missions, programs, and emphases have been profoundly influenced by what happened in this period, much of which focused in the Ohio Mennonite and Eastern Amish Mennonite conferences. The exodus of many Mennonite youth from the church of their parents during this period would doubtless make a fruitful, if unpleasant, study. There is evidence to show that this departure, deeply lamented by the churches, took many talented and educated youth into other denominations.

Though a theological seminary was not founded by the progressives in the early 1920's, the Bible school of Goshen College was expanded and reorganized (1933) so that this goal was reached. In 1944 the school was organized under its own dean. In 1946 it was renamed the Goshen College Biblical Seminary, offering the £ull Bachelor o£ Divinity degree program, based on four years of liberal arts.''

Though The Christian Exponent was short-lived, Mennonite publications of many and vital types have proliferated since then. Missions have greatly expanded in many quarters of the world and relief and reconstruction programs have become a part of the