Arizona republican., 1910-03-05
CHURCH ON WHEELS
 EVANGELICAL WORK
James Creighton Is Organizing Lay mems Board" to Do Missionary Work With a Gospel Car
 and Big Tent.

For the purpose of conducting q missionary campaign throughout Ari- zOna by means Of q gospel car and . huge tent. q Laymen's ETangellstic James II. Creighton as its chief insti- gator The general plan is 10 secure q ear, which will be a little church on wheels. and attach il to regular trains and thus carry the evangeliSts all over the territory. The tent will he used where the audiences are too large for all of them to get in the car
 Money is now being subscribed for the purpose. and it is thought there will be little difficulty in securing the ear as means toward that end are all ready in sight. The car will cost s6.600. and s2.50U additional will have to be raised toward the expenses Of the first year of it's operation. The railroads have been asked to haul the car free and the fact is pointed out to them that the Baptists have six ar seven ears on the road for which m charge k made The car used by Crittenton when he established his great philan- thropy. was also hauled free of charge
 such a car would be useful especially in carrying on the work among fhe Indians There are now some 4,000 Maya jos at work on the railroad be- tween AShfork and the eastern end of the Navajo reservation. There are many young men and women. who are graduates of the Indian school, who have expressed their desires 10 enter the mission field. but there has been no method devised by which their services could be made use of. With the gospel car all would be made easy for them and they could carry out their desire to become missionaries among their own tribes. The gospel car was used successfully by Bishop Taylor of the Methodist church in Africa and by many others. There is also another reason for the organization of the Lay mems Evangelistic board of Arizona. Something over a year ago MT Creigh- ton conceived the idea of a railway mission for the children of the dis thict south of the railroads who have little opportunity for spiritual instruc-
 
 for building such a mission. Then. be- ing an architect. he drew up the plans for it. and after that he Superintend- ed the work of construction. He did the whole thing himself and represented nobody but himself. When he came to buy the site he found that the deed had to be made out to somebody. and as there was no one else to make II out to he had the property deeded in trust to himself The property. which consists of q lot and fine brick build ing on it, is worth about 5000. The responsibility of operating this mis- sion and being the sole possessor of it. began to weigh on his nerves. He offered to donate the mission and deed the property tn the Presbyterian church But as the mission is non- sectarian and children of all creeds are in regular attendance, the church could hardly see how it could accept and still keep faith with John Calvin. The offer was therefore refused.
 Now Mir. MT. Creighoton is organiz- ing the Laymen's board and when the wheels are oiled and the machinery started he will deed over the railway mission and the board will have a good starting point in its work. With the gospel car and the big tent and the mission. the Laymen's board will be in q position to do it's share of the work which the Laymen's conven- tiop. now meeting here. has cut out for America during the present genera ton.