 Catholic chapel car St. Paul dedicated on March 14, 1915
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as railroads carried settlers into the expanding American frontier, Christian leaders faced a practical problem: how do you build churches in places that barely have towns. Episcopalians, Baptists, and Catholics answered with a novel solution: chapel cars. These specially outfitted railroad cars functioned as mobile sanctuaries, complete with pews, organs, altars, and modest living quarters for clergy. For a week at a time, a chapel car would remain in a small town or rail stop, offering daily services, baptisms, Sunday schools, and religious instruction. The novelty alone drew crowds, but the deeper purpose was clear: to bring Christian worship to mining camps, lumber settlements, railroad workers, immigrants, and families scattered across vast territories where permanent churches were financially out of reach.
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 On the night of February 3, 1943, the U.S. Army transport Dorchester was crossing the North Atlantic when it was struck by a German torpedo. The ship sank in less than thirty minutes, killing 672 of the 902 people aboard. Amid the chaos and freezing darkness, four U.S. Army chaplains chose to remain on deck, helping others reach safety. They were Rev. George L. Fox (Methodist), Rabbi Alexander D. Goode (Reform Judaism), Rev. Clark V. Poling (Dutch Reformed), and Father John P. Washington (Roman Catholic).
Christmas was not always a celebrated holiday in the United States. In fact, it was once outlawed in some colonies. In 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law called Penalty for Keeping Christmas, declaring such “superstitious” festivals a “great dishonor of God.” Anyone caught feasting or taking the day off could be fined five shillings. The law was repealed in 1681, but suspicion lingered. While colonists in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York observed the day freely, many New Englanders rejected it as frivolous. After the American Revolution, Christmas fell further out of favor, dismissed as an English custom. It would not become a national holiday until 1870, when President Ulysses S. Grant declared it a legal, unpaid holiday for federal employees in Washington, D.C.
“There is no religion higher than Truth” — Henry Steel Olcott, Theosophical Society motto
The Theosophical Society was founded 150 years ago in New York City on November 17, 1875. Theosophy, from the Greek theos (god) and sophia (wisdom), means “divine wisdom.” Its early aim was the scientific investigation of psychic and “spiritualist” phenomena. By the end of the 19th Century, the goals of the Society were:
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