The Portland daily press., 1895-10-07


prietors for their trouble. The saloons as
a rule ap peared resigned to the situation.
"CHAPEL CARS"
ssUncIe Boston, Tells Large Audiences
About Them.
A Most Interesting Discourse About This
Extraordinary New Missionary Method
in the Great West.
Yesterday morning at the Free Street
Baptist church and last evening at the
First Baptist church, Mr.. Boston W..
Smith, familiarly known among Baptists
as 'sUncle Boston, the ''Sunday School
Missionary of the Baptist Publication
Society narrated to largo audiences some-
thing of the history of the "Chapel Car
missionary movement in the West. Mr..
Smith said that it was his pleasure to
speak of 10Th century missionary
method He said that fifteen years ago
he was called from a business life into
the Baptist National Sunday School
society. When he went to Minnesota
the Sunday school missionary Of the
Baptist Publication society he found that
it was necessary to follow the rule 'Do
the best you can with what you have.
He went into new town, where people
lived in tents because the houses couldn't
be built fast enough for them. He was
told chat they had no place to hold a
Sunday school and the people didn't want
it, But the boys and girls there, like
everywhere else that he had visited,
wanted Sunday school. They held the
first one in an undertaken shop among
the coffins. 1t didn't die either. 1t be-
came one of the largest in the state.
The beginning of the "Chapel Car"
idea was the forming of Sunday school
In railroad car in one of these little
Minnesota towns, whore there was no
other place to form it. Mr.. Smith then
traced the formation of the "Chapel
Car syndicate and the building of the
first missionary car with the name
sEvangel' upon it. He described this
car as equipped for missionary's homo
as comfortably as any Pullman car, with
every facility for cooking and sleeping.
etc. 1t was also provided with an Estey
organ, sent by the organ company as
gift. Its largest room had seating
capacity of one hundred people. The
car was dedicated in Minnesota and old
railroad men, when they saw it, said that
it ought to have been built long ago.
The car was taken to the great North
west and the Northern Pacific railroad
hauled it anywhere and every where from
Chicago to the Pacific free of charge.
The " Chapel Carr hadn't been going a
week before the invitations from the little
new towns began to come in and within
a month there were enough invitations to
keep the car going for two years. Soon
chapel car No. was built The first one
was sixty feet long and ten feet wide.
The second one was seventy feet long and
eleven feet wide. 1t would scat one
hundred and sixty people. 1t was
dedicated in Denver and then went to
the Paci fic coast. 1t was named
g Emanuel.
Mr.. Smith read letter from rich
business man of the great Northwest
This man said that he believed that this
modern evangelistio agency had
tremendous possibilities, and he SO firmly
believed in the efficiency that he would
make the offer to build "Chapel Car"
No 8, under two conditions. The first
condition was that the association should
build "Chapel Car" No. 4, and the
second was that his own wife should
name the car. The association accepted
the offer and last Christmas Mr.. Smith
telegraphed the Gonor of ouInber three
that the money had been raised for num-
ber four The donors wife named num-
ber three 'Glad Tidings." Number four
was named 'tGood Will. F" 1t was finished
last May. The first car. sfEyangel," is in
Arkansas. The car Emanuel is on the
Pacific coast "Glad Tidings'' is i'll
Texas and "Good Will'' is in the great
Northwest.
The chapel cars have had such good
influence upon railroad men, as we'll as
in the towns that the railroad managers
are very cordial in their support OF it.
For the four cars, during the past ionr
years, they havn't paid one cent for
transportation.
Commercial travellers are among the
many that the chapel cars turn toward
Christian lives. One of them said after
attending prayer meeting in the car
that prayer meeting going forty-fiye
miles an hour was the fastest prayer
meeting that he ever heard of. When he
used to 90 to prayer meetings they used
to be SLOW
MIR. Smith closed with a vivid account
of the conversation of one of the typical
Western gamblers and cut-throats in one
of the chapel cars.
Durrant's Case.