The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1942-02-16

and a soldier asked the police
chain barrier.
The officer refused and inform
ed the soldier that IL was Sunday
ana that no motor vehicle traffic
was permitted on the Sabbath. The
soldier recovered from this one and
informed the officer that he was
talking to the United States army
and that the army intended TO
patrol the coast of Ocean Grove as
IL was doing all other communities
along the North Jersey shore.
The officer telephoned to Joseph
A. Thoma, manager of the Ocean
Grove Camp Meeting association.
which directs the affairs of the
unique community. and Thoma in
structed the officer to permit the
army to enter Immediately. The
army truck, he said, should be put
in the same class with ambulances,
fire trucks and physicians cars
which are the few exceptions to
the Sunday vehicular ban and
which are permitted to enter and
leave Ocean Grove because of the
emergent nature of their business.
This little episode, ironed
out amicabIy. serves to show
that Ocean Grove, known far
and wide as the Mecca of
Methodism," still guards zeal
ously the sanctity and quiet of
Sunday. II has been ever thus
and, although secularism has
pounded long and hard against
those rugged chains, there is
no indication today that the
Camp Meeting association ever
will relax its restrictions.
Even with the demands Of the
patrol, the Ocean Grove asso-
citation still permits only the
one main gate to he opened
for the army trucks.
The CLOSED Sunday" i: supreme |
among the blue laws laid down for |
Ocean Grove. Many unique laws /
have been done away with down |
through the years. The ruling for
the sale of tobacco was
repealed officially in 1885 although !
it had been enforced for several
decades. No trains were allowed
CT ~ utifhita ~ thA
until Nov. l. 1911. when the New
Jersey public utilities commission
erased the law from the records.
Another restriction was that
forbidding the sale OF liquor
In Ocean Grove or within one
mile In any direction from the
outside boundaries. This, too,
was enforced until, soon after
the repeal Of the 18th amend
ment In 1888, the New Jersey
legislature repealed the ''mile-
limit" regulation. Ocean Grove
leaders, however. ruled that no
liquor would he allowed inside
the gates and that ruling still
is In effect.
But Ocean Grove is a lot more
han a community with restrictions
hat some think queer" Ocean
Grove is popular summer resort
which annually takes in hundreds
If thousands of vacationists and
[ is a religious retreat which has
,ome to be known as the "Gibral-
ar of Methodism. Thousands
lock to the huge auditorium dur
ng the annual camp meetings and
here has been no indication in
'ecent years that interest is wan
ng.
Great voices have rung out in
he auditorium, among them those
II the noted British preacher,
gypsy Smith. and the fiery Billy
Sunday who used the auditorium
Is the arena for one of his dra-
matte revival meetings.
Long remembered will be such }
# the latter's verbal broadsides as: {
I'VE are drifting toward the
time when we won't know it's '
Sunday except by looking at
the calendar"
I'VE have lots of church dig
nitaries who never dig for the
Lord"
THE world Is going to Hell r
50 fast she's breaking the \
speed limit" /
There are men and women @
looking In my face whose chill q
dren will never get to Heaven I
unless led there by someone
other than their parents"
Y
The average visitor to Ocean
;rove scarcely realizes that 10