group, between those who supported the church and those who did not. Whatever the true cause, this second temperance society was on its deathbed for some two years but did not die : in January 1898, at a quarterly business meeting, the future was still regarded with some optimism. In 1902 this Duluth society was even host to the annual meeting of the national organization of temperance societies, although records show that the society did not even possess its own quarters at that time. Even later the society did not have such a permanent home but used to meet in the parlors of the Finnish church on St. Croix Avenue, which was soon called the `temperance box.'

On the eve of World War I, when the Minnesota Temperance League owned the newspaper Päivälehti, the activity of the Duluth society grew momentarily brisker and included a dramatics group which, according to Lauri Lemberg, was good enough to put on quite demanding productions. After the war came Prohibition which, in a way, erased the society's very reason for existence. Of course, this epoch did not make the Finns any more abstinent but even managed to bring several Finns into conflict with the law because of their bootlegging activities. When the Repeal came in 1933, the Finnish temperance society was practically nonexistent. According to the Siirtokansan Kalenteri of 1933, "The Star of Hope has been unable to get any popular support and has had to suspend its activities for the time being."

Religious Activity : Although Duluth is one of the few Finnish centers where organized temperance activity was started before the first official congregation was established, it did not take long before religious activity also reached "the Point." The initial impetus, however, seemed to come from the outside, for during the latter part of the 1880s at what was then fairly distant West Duluth there lived the pastor William Williamson, whose name has been mentioned frequently in these pages, and in 1891 there arrived in that same community another pastor, Heikki Sarvela, and it was particularly during the period that Sarvela remained there that even Duluth's religious activity became so firmly established that a congregation was legally established in 1899. It was named the Independent Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, but it did join the Suomi Synod in 1912 and changed its name to the Independent Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Suomi Synod Church. It was not until 1944 that a simpler name - Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church - was adopted. Sarvela was succeeded by Jacob Määttä in 1906, and later came P. Keränen, F. W. Kava and S. Ilmonen. In 1912 Sarvela returned

217