A Successful Country Minister 87 



life of the community and bringing the people to- 

 gether in a spirit of mutual sympathy and help- 

 fulness. After less than a decade of hard work a 

 marvelous transformation of the rural life thereabout 

 was achieved. Among other notable changes was a 

 new church to supplant the old one. The new 

 building was erected at a cash cost of ten thousand 

 dollars ; has an audience room seating five hundred 

 or more, several Sunday school class rooms, a choir 

 room, a cloak room, a pastor's study and a mothers' 

 room, all on the main floor. In the basement below 

 there is a good kitchen, a dining room with equip- 

 ment, also a furnace, a store room, and the like. 

 The church membership has grown to one hun- 

 dred sixty-three with many non-members attending, 

 while the Sunday school enrollment increased to 

 three hundred. 



Now there are always a few minds who wish to 

 measure all earthly things in terms of a money 

 value. To such it may be shown that the land 

 values in the vicinity of this new country church 

 have gone up to a marked degree and that the 

 economic conditions are all of a most satisfactory 

 nature. 



As further evidence of what a rural community 

 working together may achieve for the spiritual 

 welfare, there may be cited the instance of the little 

 side station by the name of Ogden in Riley County, 

 Kansas. Here the people got together and voted to 



