MESSAGES OF HOPE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 167, 11 April 1932, Page 10

MESSAGES OF HOPE

General Higgins’s Visit INSPIRING MEETING Gathering in Town Hall Sunday, April 10, 1932, must mark one of the biggest events in the history of the Salvation Army in Wellington. It was the occasion of the principal meeting held in connection with the visit of the Army chief, General E. J. Higgins, aud his wife, to this city. A vast assemblage filled the big Town Hall long before the advertised time of commencement, and the meeting, with its messages of fresh hope, was truly an inspiring one. As a happy coincidence, the day was the 103rd anniversary of the birth in Nottingham, England, of William Booth, the great founder of the now world-wide organisation. The meeting was over by the Chief Justice (BL Hou. Sir Michael Myers), and was attended by their Excellencies, Lord and Lady Bledisloe. General and Mrs. Higgins were accompanied by Commissioner and Mrs. Cunningham, and Colonel Fugmire, and there was a representative gathering of citizens present. Not the least inspiring part of the meeting was the singing of Handel’s “Halleluiah Chorus” at the conclusion of proceedings. It was accompanied by the city band and the grand organ. A prayer was offered by the Rev. B. J. Howie, and the lesson was read by Staff-Captain Davies. The hymn “Jesus Shall Reign” was sung, and the band rendered “Gladstone Melody.” Sir Michael Myers said that the present was the first time in the triumphal tour of the General that the chair had been taken by a member of the judiciary, and he thought that it might be well to tell the audience something of the activities of the Army as far as it ■was related to the administration of justice. In the Supreme Court he personally did not come into contact with the Army’s activities in this direction, but in what were known popularly as the “peoplg’s” courts —the Police Court, the Magistrate’s Court —the Army was of the greatest assistance. Consequently he had asked Mr. E. Page, S.M., to give a summary of the Army’s work as he saw it. Sir Michael then read a statement by Sir. Page, in which high tribute was paid to the work cSalvation Army officers, and its many institutions, in helping the less fortunately placed persons in the community. Creating Assets. Sir Michael, continuing, said that an organisation such as the Salvation Army must have been founded upon a religious and spiritual basis. But he thought that he was saying the very truth when he said that it was the social and sociological activities of the Army that, not unnaturally, appealed to and struck the public imagination. They all knew that a bad citizen was a liability upon the State, and a good citizen was an asset, and one of the main activities of the Salvation Army was to help to convert these liabilities into assets. The Army was an army established not for warlike purposes, not for the destruction of bodies, but for the salvation of souls, and its only war was a war waged against vice and sin. After referring to the fact that the Army had only had three heads, General William Booth, the founder; General Bramwell Booth, his son; and, finally, General E. J. Higgins, Sir Michael Myers said that the growth and development showed what could be done in the space of a single lifetime. Following a speech by the GovernorGeneral, which is reported in another column, the General addressed the gathering. GeneraTs Speech. After expressing his gratitude for the words that had been said that afternoon, General Higgins said that although he had been in New Zealand three weeks, he had not yet heard any criticism of the Army’s work, and he did not think he had ever been in any country in the world where there appeared to be such a unanimity of opinion regarding the value of its work. “I shall take back the happiest memories,” he said. “I shall remember the singing, I shall remember all the kindnesses that have been shown my wife and myself, and I shall tell them in the Homeland that the people of {New Zealand love the Salvation Army, and that they ai*e going on the best they can to further its work.”

The General referred to the fact that the day was the 103rd anniversary of the birth of William Booth in the city of Nottingham. He felt that he ought to give his own testimony to the life, character, and work of the first General.

“He took me by the hand,” he said, “he walked with me in the streets before I was out of my teens, encouraged me when moments of discouragement seemed to threaten me, and all through the years was a friend, a father, one to whom I owe more, probably, than anyone else in the world. But that is trivial, when we consider what he did for the world. , When we think of the result of this life in the blessing of God, then, surely, it must be an encouragement to every man and woman in this building, that they, too, should give of the best that they have and help to serve their day and generation, and help to develop all that is noble and pure, and do their utmost to turn away from the path that can only lead to disaster and sorrow. I thank God for William Booth to-day, and all over the world, hundreds and thousands are remembering him to-day and thanking God for him too.”

Early Difficulties.

General Higgins described the almost insuperable difficulties encountered by the Salvation Army in the early days of its existence, difficulties which rose when William Booth departed from tlie orthodox and struck out by new methods to secure the attention of the people. “Those days of difficulty are now passed,” he continued, “and from obscurity the Army has reached a world recognition, and has come to the place where all men speak well of us. There is danger in it, though. My eyes are not closed to that danger. Days of difficulty entourage us to greater devotion and toil, and I trust the present days are not creating softness or indifference.”

General Higgins devoted the remainder of his speech to telling what the Army was doing to-day. The Army, he said, was fighting against the indifference to religion which was so potent to-day; it was fighting against the indifference to the great moral questions, against the spirit of gambling which had got into the very life of the young people, and it was fighting against the breaking down of the great moral standards of the past.