ORANGE CONG. CHURCH 43
meeting held in Minneapolis. It met a peculiar need just then, supplementing what had gone before. In the spring of 1888, the State Evangelist, the Rev. Arthur T. Reed, held special services with the Church for eight days, and as a result fifteen united with the Church on profession of faith July 1st, 1888. The summary for the first seven years was forty-three added to the membership of the Church, twenty-eight being on confession of faith. About this time the pastor was invited to become the regular "supply" of the Woodmont Chapel Sunday afternoons every other week. This widened somewhat the field of the Church's influence and intensified the joy of the work throughout the remainder of the pastorate, a period of about six years. Not the least pleasant memory of that pastorate is that of the new and salutary emphasis laid upon the dedication of infants in Christian baptism, and the giving of Bibles to boys and girls who attained the age of seven years with the benediction of the Church, thus in a way identifying them with the sanctuary and the people of God. Any record would be incomplete without some mention of the Ladies' Benevolent Society which so constantly held social gatherings in many of the several homes of the parish. These meetings not only bountifully met the needs of the inner physical man but also brought summer-time to the hearts of the people and bound them together in sweet fellowship and prepared the soil for richer spiritual harvests. The benevolent offerings of the Church which had by no means been neglected in former years were found after a time to have more than trebled. Along with this spiritual development and progress there was a certain prosperity of temporalities, such as often follows and becomes the concomitant of spiritual prosperity and greatly contributes to its fulness and strength. A Godless, prayerless, worldly church-membership means ultimately, unless restoration is wrought, a community without even the form of godliness. The only time that we were threatened with a considerable financial deficit was at the close of the fiscal year of 1887,