the new church, seating 300 persons, was dedicated soon after the turn of the century.

The congregation, which already had 440 members in 1906, was first served by the Reverend J. Bäck, whose pastorate (set up in 1896) included the pulpits of Biwabik, Eveleth, Hibbing, Mt. Iron and, of course, Virginia. He was succeeded by Heikki Sarvela and then by M. Havukainen, who was the first pastor of the church to live in Eveleth. During the period 1902-05, S. W. Renfors and K. Salovaara were pastors, and it was at this period that the congregation joined forces with the temperance society to fight for reform in Eveleth

Finnish Participation in the Reforms in Eveleth: The struggle to eradicate the immoral conditions in Eveleth began in 1907 with a meeting of interested parties, whose first step was to establish the Eveleth Civic League. This league was joined by the Valon Lähde Temperance Society, the Finnish Swedish Runeberg Orden, the Good Templars, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Finnish and Swedish Lutheran churches, as well as the local Methodist, Baptist and Catholic churches, with two delegates from each forming the executive committee of the league, whose first officials were Finns: F. Mattson, chairman, and John Wargelin, secretary.

It was common knowledge that laws were being broken in Eveleth, but it was difficult to get local citizens to testify against the system, let alone to fight it, so one of the first steps of the League was to engage the services of a lawyer from the outside. The League began its action by first appealing to the saloon keepers, who were invited to a conference, at which they were urged to carry on their business in accordance with the law and common decency. The saloon keepers countered that they should not be harassed, since they were the ones who paid the taxes without which the city could not exist, and they pointed out that if their `legal' activities were threatened all the money would go to the illegal saloon keepers and that then no taxes would be forthcoming. The League admitted all this, but the fault lay in the system itself, "and it began to appear as if the strings led in ever more instances back to the brewery owners than to the sales outlets," reported Mattson.

As to the houses of ill repute, the League gave them an ultimatum to get out within 6 months. When the operators were about to give in, preparing to close down with the excuse that `business' had grown poor, unexpected support came to their aid,

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