Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/39

 May, 1889, with John S. Coffman President, David Burkholder Vice President, M. S. Steiner Secretary, and G. L. Bender Treasurer. A number of field members were also appointed, among whom were John W. Weaver, A. D. Wenger, A. D. Martin, and John Blosser.

The object of this institution was to furnish books to ministers at cost, and also to establish a fund for the printing of tracts and their free distribution. Under the auspices of this association, besides over six-hundred tracts that, under as many different titles, have been printed by hundreds and by thousands and distributed promiscuously by mission workers in public gatherings, in the streets of cities, towns and villages of the country; books under various historical and religious titles, with fifty to a hundred page pamphlets have been issued and sold at a minimum cost to ministers, missionaries, mission workers and other religious circles throughout the country.

At the time of the organization of the Mennonite Publication Board, the Mennonite Book and Tract Society was taken over by that organization and merged with the work of the Mennonite Publishing House.

Historical Committee

A Church with such deep historical setting in the earlier period of the great Reformation that convulsed all Europe, together with the written accounts of its many leaders and writers, and its extended