Religion: Chassis Church

Nine years ago when trailers were a rarity, residents of the six New England States began observing on their highways an odd vehicle, no trailer but a house car, its sides as neatly clapboarded as a village church. It was a church, complete with folding pulpit and collapsible organ, built by a New Hampshire toy manufacturer for a Baptist minister named Herbert R. Whitelock. With his motherly wife Edith Sisson Whitelock, this man of God had spent many a summer preaching in parks, factories, on street corners and village greens.

Beginning this week, Preacher Whitelock planned to pack his wife and belongings in what he calls “the Chassis Church,” take to the road for good. After a tour of northern New England the Whitelocks will head for the paradise of trailer folk, Florida. There they will put to full use a technique which has earned them some fame broadcasting as “Uncle Herb and Aunt Ede” over small New England radio stations. Brisk, 50-year-old Uncle Herb preaches the gospel to crowds attracted by Aunt Ede’s singing, to her own accompaniment. Says he: “She is one of the finest outdoor singers in America.” Embarking last week on their new venture, Mr. Whitelock declared: “We’re starting on faith alone. No one with a lot of money is backing us. What does it say in the Bible—Carry neither purse, nor scrip? Churches are necessary, but Christianity is too big to be confined to churches alone.” The church which confined Baptist Whitelock to his itinerant preaching in the summer was Horace Memorial in Chelsea, Mass. Before resigning as its pastor he mounted its pulpit one Sunday last month, began preaching a stock sermon which he continually revises and brings up to date.

After 20 minutes, when most preachers would have ceased, Preacher Whitelock was merely warming up to his subject, “Signs of the Times.” When an hour had passed, Mr. Whitelock had no more than established his thesis: that Holy Writ contains prophecies of modern social, moral, financial, political, ethical and economic conditions. When two hours had passed, his patient congregation was still listening to quotations dealing with such subjects as heavy motor traffic (They shall justle one against another in the broad ways. . . .

They shall run like the lightnings.—Na-hum, 2 :4). After two hours and a quarter, Preacher Vhitelock said: “Let us pray.” His listeners professed not to have been bored. To them the service was a notable event, the 13th annual Two-Hour Sermon, which Baptist Whitelock had introduced in Chelsea as a revival from Puritan times.*

* Last summer Rector Frederic Sydney Fleming of Manhattan’s rich old Trinity Parish came out for a moratorium on preaching (TIME, Aug. 17). Fortnight ago the Institute of Public Opinion reported that its opinion samplings show that people are 80% in favor of preaching as it now exists.