YOUTH CRUSADE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 95, 16 January 1935, Page 10

YOUTH CRUSADE

Campaign By Salvation Army CALL BY COMMISSIONER During February a young people’s crusade will be conducted by the Salvation Army, according to a general order issued by Lieutenant-Commis-sioner F. 11. Adams, Territorial Commander of the Army in the Dominion. In his call to Salvationists to take part in the crusade the Commissioner says:— “There is an attraction about a crusade. It suggests going into the enemy’s country, fighting, recovering that winch Ims been lost; in fact, it speaks of any daring or romantic undertaking. Young life is an essential element tn every corps. We cannot afford to overlook or neglect them; they represent the measure of our hope for the future. There is a story told of a famous Roman general who took the salute from sections of the community. First the veterans marched by —those who were battle-stained and bore scars of wounds received: they saluted and said. ‘We have been brave.’ Then the stalwarts came: they, too, saluted their general and as one man exclaimed. ‘We are brave.' Following them came the younger generation, youths and maidens, with joy written all over their faces, and as they danced and pranced along, when they came to the saluting base, as one they shouted at the top of their voices. ‘We will be brave.’ “Our aim must be the salvation of the young people—to get them to choose Christ deliberately and to give themselves entirely to Him. The great challenge of the Army has ever been the world; yet there is abundant evidence incur ranks in all lands that where the young people have been truly converted they have become loyal, enthusiastic disciples of Jesus Christ. No boy or girl is surely ours until truly converted, but when changed by grace, that life link is forged which holds them to us. “The founder on his eightieth birthday wrote: ‘There are many other things you will have to do, but I must remind you of the unchanging necessity of looking after the young. So great are the advantages flowing out of the discharge of this duty, and so self evident must be the importance of compliance with it, that I need not take up time by presenting any arguments in its favour. With all the emphasis of which I am capable, I plead for the intelligent, compassionate, religious, and persistent duty of saving the children and young people. I cannot help feeling that if a band of angels from heaven was deputed to undertake the mighty task at present resting on our shoulders, they would begin with the young, Passing by the matured and hardened and hoaryheaded slaves of sin and vice and crime, they would turn to the children and say. “This is the shortest, surest, most economical method of saving the world.” ’