The Merger of the Ohio Mennonite and Amish Conferences / 203

from the Ohio Mennonite churches."

The reunion of these two branches of the Anabaptist tradition diet not include all of the Amish in Ohio. and Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact, it included only certain of those Amish who in the nineteenth century had made changes from German to English, had begun to worship in meetinghouses instead of homes, and in other ways had taken on new customs and practices in their church life. Both in Pennsylvania and Ohio many Amish continued in the traditional ways which resisted innovations in transportation, dress, worship, and church life. To this day there are still thousands of Amish in Pennsylvania and Ohio (as well as Indiana, Iowa, and elsewhere) who maintain the ways of their forebears with remarkable steadfastness. They are known formally as the Old Order Amish. The Old World schism of 1693 is still not completely healed.

The merger of these conferences took place in the decade of the 1920's which was a somewhat turbulent period for the Mennonite and Amish churches since, as noted elsewhere, they had become involved in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy-a controverse which reached its zenith in the nation during the same decade. Members of the respective conferences welcomed the merger as a stabilizing force at a time when there were numerous threats to the Doctrine and practice of the conferences. C. Z. Yoder, an esteemed leader and for many Bears secretary of the Amish Conference, expressed this viewpoint in a letter to J. B. Smith dated February î, 192 î

In regards to the merging of our two Conferences in Ohio. I am in favor of accepting the 18 articles of Confession of Faith of our forefathers and the statement of Christian Doctrine as interpreted by our General Conference as a basis and unite on that as our platform-we already belong to one General Conference-and work out details in Conference after merging. I fear if gee fail in uniting our Conferences now we will fall to pieces and gradually loin in with the liberal element''

A. J. Steiner, long an influential member of the Ohio Mennonite Conference and a brother of M. S. Steiner, considered the merger of the two conferences as crucial and necessary for the future of the Ohio Mennonite Conference itself as it faced problems of unity in doctrine and also in the maintenance of nonconformity. According to A. J. Steiner the merger was also so regarded by Daniel Kauffman, editor of the Gospel Herald (official organ of the