e. As in so many other cases, to bring the churches together in
cooperative service to the community was seen to be the only way to secure
a vigorous church life for Aurora. That led to the decision to form a
federated church under the leadership of one pastor. Under the plan
adopted, each church was to keep its denominational relations, contribute
to its denominational benevolences, and fulfill all denominational
obligations. But in Aurora, as in Greene Township, the people were to work
together as in one church.

Owing to circumstances which were purely accidental, for the first year or
two the church was not very prosperous and the federation was only
partially successful. But after awhile the church began to take on life.
While at the beginning it was mutually understood that the arrangement was
to be tried for but two years, at the end of that time the desirability
of going back to the old way was not even discussed. So far as Mr. Gill
could learn in a visit to the community, the one and only one person who
still preferred the old way was a woman who had opposed the movement from
the start and had always held aloof from it. The opinion of the people is
now practically unanimous that both the community and the churches were
greatly benefited by the change. The first pastor of this church was of
the Disciples, the second a Presbyterian.

_Garrettsville_

Garrettsville is a prosperous community on the Erie Railroad between
Youngstown and Cleveland. Its thousand inhabitants are engaged partly in
farming, partly in manufacturing, and partly in supplying the various
daily needs of the people. Its good houses, electric lights, paved
streets, and trim sidewalks indicate progressiveness and community spirit.
Being progressive, the people not merely recognized the undesirability of
interchurch competition, but they were able to work out a plan whereby
they have largely avoided it.

In April, 1916, there were four churches in the community, or on an
average one to 250 persons. The highest salary paid to its minister by any
of the churches was $800. Two of the other churches paid much smaller sums
and shared the service of their ministers with the churches of other
towns, while one of the pastors was the Educational Secretary of a Y. M.
C. A. in a town thirty miles away. The spirit of denominational rivalry
was in no respect different from that commonly found where there are too
many churches. When the pastor of the Congr