*Chapel Row in Singapore*

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 22, 1909

Chapel Row in Singapore

UNDER this heading the Straits Times of January 7, published in Singapore, speaks in the following complimentary manner of the work of Seventh-day Adventists:—

“Many persons expressed the opinion, when his excellency the governor gave the Methodists the imposing site for their chapel on Fort Canning Road, that it was too near the Presbyterian church, and now a representative of The Straits Times has unearthed the fact that still a third chapel is to be erected in the same general neighborhood, only a little farther on the other side of the Presbyterian church than the new edifice of the Methodists is on the southeast. The neighborhood may now be fairly entitled to the name of Chapel Row.

“The new building is to be a very neat structure, but smaller than the other two, and will be built on a site purchased from the government on Penang Lane, where the ground slopes up to Fort Canning Road, which will pass behind the chapel at a level approximately near the eaves. As this new structure is to be the church home of the Seventh-day Adventists, the services held there will not disturb the worshipers in the other two churches, as they will be held on Saturdays, this sect considering that day to be the true Sabbath.

“The sect is not as yet a large one in Singapore, but its devotees make up in vigor and industry what they lack in numbers, and it is safe to say that they are very modest in erecting a church home to seat only one hundred eighty persons.

“Messrs. Williams, Draper, and Steadman, who have had a large share of the prominent buildings of the town lately, are the architects, and they have drawn a structure which makes a very attractive appearance on paper, and will doubtless do so in bricks and mortar in the course of a few months, as bids have already been called for and are under consideration by the building committee. The most striking feature of the exterior of the building is a broad tower-like spire, or spire-like tower, under which an admirably sheltered driveway gives access to the front entrance. The interior is very conveniently arranged, with two vestries and class rooms, the latter having folding doors, which will enable them to be utilized as a part of the main body of the church on special occasions.

“The services to be held in the building will, at first, be only in the two languages in which the mission of this body is doing the most of its work here, English and Chinese, but later on, services in Malay will probably be held there. Like most of the other Christian bodies, the Adventists have had to begin in a small way; but without ostentation and by earnest, hard labor a congregation has been collected, and a number of adherents gained. The same body is doing a considerable work in Sumatra and Borneo among the natives of those islands, some of the most intelligent of whom have been sent to Singapore and are being educated in the Adventist training-school at Mount Pleasant, Thomson Road. For the present at least, they do not plan to take up the work of general education, as most of the other non-conformist bodies have done here, nor do they at present plan to acquire other property than their house of worship, the work on which is to commence very shortly. Of the money required for the purchase of the site and the erection of the building, one thousand pounds has been furnished from the United States, where the body is strongest; the remainder will be sent by friends in Australia, whence most of the local workers come. The denomination is very strong on the island continent, and has numerous sanitariums and large printing and sanitary food-preparing establishments there.”