CHURCH PROVIDES A FREE LUNCH.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1983, 9 April 1906, Page 7

CHURCH PROVIDES A FREE LUNCH.

A NOVEL PLAN TO SECURE A LARCE ATTENDANCE AT BIBLE READING IS PROCLAIMED A SUCCESS BY ORIGINATOR.

Free lunch as an inducement to the study of the scriptures has been tried for the first time in Chicago. A more effective plan could not have been devised. The Rev. VV. R. Newel J, pastor of Moody Church, at Chicago and La Salle avenues, was its originator. For some time the Bible classes of the Moody Bible Institute had been lagging, and the problem of increasing interest in them confronted those at the head.

Upon the sugg<fstion of the Rev. Mr. Newell advertisements were inserted in the daily papers and the pastors of 400 of the churches of the city and the suburbs made announcement that free lunches would be given to those who attended the meetings Saturdays afternoons.

More than 600 men and women responded to the announcement, of which number 200 were entire strangers to the church. One man, who said he had been a Baptist, but had not been inside a church in eight years, entered the church about 6 o'clock when the lunch had been served. He took his portion of it, and when it was over said that he liked it so well that he would return every Saturday.

The Rev. \V. F. Jacoby, who assisted Mr. Newell, said that the man's breath smelled as though he had recently partaken of whiskey. "That does not matter, however," he said. "It is such men that we want, and it was for the purpose of getting some of them that we offered the free lunch." When lunch hour arrived the number of those who wanted to learn something of the Bible largely increased, and those who volunteered had their hands full in waiting on them.