EVANGELIST'S INNOVATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 11

EVANGELIST'S INNOVATION.

CAMPAIGN TO "FLAPPERS.*' (From Our Special Correspondent.) SAN FBANCISCO, March 16. America does not consider itself "on the map" unless it has its daily innovation. The latest announced is the new role accredited to Rheba Crawford, formerly a popular captain in the Salvation Army, and who is. now going out to preach a modern sort' of salvation to the young people of these United States. She says she will be armed with a "new thrill for the American girl—the greatest thrill of all." And just to show that ahe ia one of them, and that they need not fear her type of evangelism will not fit in with the modern scheme of things, Miss Crawford will take along some of the latest models from Broadway in New York, and stage a fashion chow for women between prayer meetings. "The Angel of Broadway" knowa what she is talking about-—dress or evangelism. The beautiful fair-haired Salvation Army lass, whose street corner meetings in the "White Light" district of New York brought her international fame, and more recently arrest, has an intimate acquaintanceship with most of the big theatrical people of the country. She loves them, she says, but she is leaving them to "play to the provinces,'' because she thinks the young folks out along Main Street need her more. Her arrest was brought about because she was obstructing traffic on Broadway. She was given her freedom, she says, when Army officials assured the authorities that the street corner meeting* would cease, it being the policy of the. Army never to run counter to police regulations. This did not suit Miss Crawford, bo she resigned her captaincy in the 'Army—much to her regret, she States, as her mother and father were both Army officers, and as a child she used the big drum for a toy more than she did dolls. SEEKING NEW THRILLS. Mias Crawford's meetings will be of the Billy Sunday type. She has the ability of swaying a crowd, and abe will have a troupe with her, but does not' indulge in physical devils just below the platform as does the raelo-dramatic evangelist, Billy Sunday. "It's that -hollow place that hurts the morning after that only faith can fill; that is what my religion is good for," the pretty evangelist said. '"The American girl is just in a transitory period. She has exhausted all ihe thrills of flapperdom. Now she is looking for something new, and I have it for her. My meetings will be for folks between 15 and 25." Parenthetically, it might be mentioned that Miss Crawford falls attractively within that limit herself. Continuing her views, Miss Crawford added: "That is an age when young people—l know, because I am one of them—but especially the girls of the Middle West and West, are enjoying more freedom than ever before, freedom of speech, freedom of dress, freedom of companionship with men. Bat the,. have not got freedom of spirit. I want to get to know the American girl, and then to help ber, if I can, to get her vision. It does not matter what God she worships, the God of the Christian or of the Jews, it is just that she has faith in I something, and she will find out what a fine 'thing service is."