The American Baptist Publication Society chapel cars on the western frontier of faith

Baptist History and Heritage, Summer-Fall, 2003 by Wilma Rugh Taylor, Norman Thomas Taylor

The Glad Tidings

Charles Rust, on the Baptist chapel car Glad Tidings in Minnesota and the Dakotas, handed out cards midday and midnight, saying, "Come just as you are." Bare-armed, dirty, and work-clothed, they came by the thousands. Rust stood at the door of the chapel car and grasped the hand of each man. About one man, he proclaimed,

   Look at this man who is reaching up now in some haste. He is the
   engineer of a stationary engine in the shop. He has been in the
   car each noon, but cannot stay to the entire service, as he is
   obliged to run to his engine to blow the whistle at 12:45. He
   hardly can part with the missionary, and says in parting: "God
   alone knows what the chapel car has meant to me. I have not been
   in church for years, but you have brought the church to me." (6)

Nine years later Glad Tidings experienced even more success in Wyoming. There, on January 18, 1910, the Shoshone dam project was completed, and the dry Wyoming land began to turn green. Homesteaders then flooded into the area. E. A. Spear, the missionary aboard Glad Tidings, described the events of July 10, 1910, a very special day for him and for the chapel car ministry. No matter the direction Spear's eye turned, majestic mountains, the loftiest peaks crowned with perpetual snow, range upon range, met his vision. In the chapel car, flowers topped the organ, and he preached a stirring sermon, followed by a basket dinner. In the afternoon, the Powell Valley Baptist Church was organized, and the crowning event was a baptismal service at the Shoshone River, attended by a crowd of over 150 people of all faiths or no faith. (7)

   The baptistery was the wild, beautiful Shoshone River, probably the
   first time its waters were ever used for this impressive, symbolic
   rite. In its hurling course from its mountain source to the thirsty,
   waiting plains below, it found time to linger in a sheltered spot,
   spreading into a quiet pool, overhung by great trees. The
   overlapping trees formed a green background to the scene; curtains
   were stretched for dressing rooms, and the assembled company
   numbered not less than one hundred and fifty. Seven candidates
   awaited the ordinance, and as the evangelist led them into the
   rippling waters and laid them beneath the waves, the hearts of
   parents and friends were thrilled with solemn joy. "Shall we gather
   at the river?" was sung from full hearts. (8)

Emmanuel

In 1896, after services at the old mining town of Gold Run, perched on the California side of the Sierra Nevadas, Emmanuel, the second Baptist chapel car, went down grade to Truckee. Aboard were the Baptist colporteurs, B. B. Jacques and his wife. The couple spent sixteen days in the town, visiting homes and saloons, distributing gospel tracts, and having meetings. They saw that in Truckee, an 1860s hell-on-wheels town, "sin of every kind abounds, and the majority of the people seem so fully given to Satan, yet we found some of the most kind hearted I ever met. We had great children's meetings, and Protestant and Catholic alike flocked to the car." (9)