SALVATIONISTS IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 156, 20 March 1923, Page 8

SALVATIONISTS IN INDIA

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD? THE MAYOR GIVES HIS OPINION The Salvation Army Citadel, in Vivian Street, was packed to the doors on Saturday evening, when Commissioner Booth-Tucker delivered an address on “India.” where the Army’s activities are very varied and extensive. After an inspiriting opening by Commissioner Hoggard and a prayer by Mrs. Hoggard, tho audience sang the old missionary hymn, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains.” Th? chair was occupied by the Mayor (Mr. R. A. Wright, M.P.), who said that one of the most important duties a Mayor ha<J to fulfil was to preside over meetings of this kind—meetings of people who stood for Christian ideals in all things. Every statesman and newspaper throughout the world had boen declaring that something had gone wrong with the world to upset it so, and and were seeking to find out what that something was. But they < who were present knew quite well what had gone wrong with the world. The present cond.tion of things had been brought about because the people had forgotten tho first principles of Christianity, and until they remembered and practised those principles, and gave, more attention to the spiritual side, he was very much afraid that the world would not regain its feet. (Applause.) ’After a Hindu chorus (sung in costume) by the Salvation Army Cadets, the Mayor introduced Commissioner Booth-Tucker, who, in the Indian uniform of a Salvation ' Army officer, cut a striking figure. The Commissioner said much about the need for more missionaries in the Indian field, and about the prospect of recruiting largo numbers of natives lor mission work He mentioned that the Salvation Army had been instrumental in reviving the hand-weaving industry in India. He also’ spoke ■of the wonders that were being accomplished through irrigation in India, and told how for twenty years past the greatest immigration schema in the world had been going on successfully, whereby millions of peo'pla had been removed from the overcrowded Punjab and placed on arid lands mad? fertile by the greatest irrigation scheme known,. The Army had its own settlement scheme _on an area of 2000 acres, cut up into farms of from 6} tc 12{ acres, which had been going for teg years without there being one defaulter.