GENERAL BOOTH.

Evening Star, Issue 9830, 19 October 1895, Page 4

GENERAL BOOTH.

The reception meeting to General Booth, the head of the Salvation Army, was held in tho Garrison Hall last night. It was preceded by a social inarch, which left the Octagon at seven o'clock in the following order : A Battalion (Major Holdaway). Mounted troops, 6 corps flags, staff officers, brass baud (Dunedin), large banner (New Zealand welcome). B Battalion (Starl'-cr-ptuin Edwards).-4 corps flags, social lifeboat, female officers, large banner (Di>neuui), male officers. C Battalion (Staff-captain Knight).—Brass band (officers), 6 corps flags, female soldiers, South Dunedin banner, all nations gfoYip, male soldiers from any other corns, nay corps flags. There was a very large number of the publio ?n the Octagon and lining the streets to witness tho procession, which, with its banners and torches, presented a pretty spectacle. Some of the members of the Army were dressed to represent foreigners among whom their work is carried on.

The meeting in the Garrison Hall was attended by an audience that almost packed the Spacious hall to the doors, and throughout the evening the greatest enthusiasm was shown. Bound the front boards of the gallery wore hung several inscriptions in large letters, " Welcome, beloved General," " Welcome, Commissioner Pollard," and " The Scotch City lovingly greets the General" being among the number. On entering tho hall accompanied by Salvation Army officers and a number of citizens, General Booth was received with a tremendous ovation; everyone in the hall standing; many waving theirhandkerehiefs, others cheeringahd shouting "Hallelujah!" while theband keptup acontinual " volleying." The Bcv. W. Hewitson occupied the chair, and there were also on the platform the Mavor (Mr H. S. Fish), the Revs. A. Cameron, R. Taylor, L. J. Harrison, Messrs W. Brown, F. Giaham, S. C. Phillips, J. Wilkinson, W. E. Sessions, A. S. Adams, Archibald Barr, C. R. Chapman, J. P. Armstrong, A. C. Beg?, and J. A. Torrance, a number of officers of the Army, and the band. The proceedings were opened with praise and prayer, led by Commissioner Pollard. The Chairman, who was warmly received, said that as the minister of one of the City churches bo desired, at the first public meeting addressed in the City by General Booth, to offer him in the name of the churches a very hearty greeting to Dunedin.—(Applause.) Seeing that there were on the platform ministers of otherProtestant churches" in the City and the rabbi of their Jewish brethren—(applause)—ho was sure he might with confidence, in the name of the churches of Christ in the City, and in the name of the church of the Old Testament in the City, give the General of the Salvation Army a very hearty welcome 1o Dunedin.—(Applause.) There was probably no man in the world, not being a crowned monarch, who was exercising such a great influence over his fellow men, and who was getting from them such implicit obedience as General Booth, and he believed that obedience was rendered because those men were worshippers of Jesus Christ.—(Applause.)

General Booth met with a very hearty reception. After thanking the people for so kindly greeting him he said the problem of remedying the world's pociftl miseries was a very difficult one, but he thought he had done something in the direction of the solution. He believed that the plan he sketched out in ' Darkest England ' five years ago contained the principles upon which the remedy could bo based. He had been led to come more closely into contact with the miseries of minkind; to walk into the dark sea of sorrow and pain, and he found there was a mass of misery he had not contemplated. The evils were not confined to tho Old Country. They were to be met with everywhere," though "perhaps not in the same proportion, and it became every man and woman who cared for their country, for humanity, for the image of God to be stamped on the land they loved, to find if there were remedies, and, if so, to make use of them. Referring to the work of the Army at Home, he said that of the 1,800 men and women in the new Social Army under the Darkest England scheme, most of them had been shipwrecked themselves. Now they were saviours. There had been fed to-day something like 30,000 starving people at their various food depots. They gave a child a meal for a farthing and an adult a mt'3l for a halfpenny, and if he had not the halfpenny they gave him some work so that he could cam it. It was the starving people sleeping outside palaces that first drew his attention, and, thanks to tho Army Shelters with their 10,000 men and women nightly, that reproach was nearly removed from the greatest city in the world. They gave for a penny warmth and shelter and comfort—also a bath and encouragement. Then it was said all this would cost money, but the Army made it pay. They put heart into the poor creatures. They made them the copartners in their own regeneration. They reformed them. The great difficulty was to get society to believe in this reformation. "What thev wanted was to reform these people, whatever they had been, and his experience showed that if "a man had not gono over the line into eternity there was hope for his reformation and his salvation. Thero were vices hj? which men climbed into fortune which were far more execrable than those by which other men fell. The work of the Army was new, but after twelve months' trial they found that 60 per cont. of the criminals they had rescued had been converted into honest, respectable men. Of the fallen women thej had rescued during years past, and whom they kept on an average four months, at a cost in London of £3 14s a girl, 75 per cent, had been made chaste and good women. Under his system, he could save 60 per cent, of the inmates of our prisons. He would put the men who had no work on to the land, as the best part of his scheme. There was room in many parts of the earth for hundreds of millions. All that was wanted was to take people from the crowded places to these places, and give them some care. It was thought his colonies in England would injure the neighborhood they were placed in, but the very reverse had been the case. South Africa was first in his heart, and he thought he would settle back on this. He asked first for £IOO,OOO to start this scheme, and £30,000 a year to keep it going. The public gladly gave him the £IOO,OOO, but forgot the £30,000, and he had spent £230,000, but only received £160.000. He was therefore £70,000 in debt. Hiß plan was to put these people on to some waste tract of country. This could be done by transfer from one part of the world to another, and he instanced the Army's farm at the mouth of the Thames as an illustration of what he meant. The Army was in debt over it, but he had not come to Australasia to collect money to pay off that debt, as it had been inadvertently reported in the papers. He had come to ask tho people for God's sake to give a lift to the social operations for the relief of fallen humanity that were at work in their midst.— (Proloneed applause.) His Worship the Mayor said it was with the greatest of pleasure that he rose to propose a hearty vote of thanks to the General for his address that night—an address whioh he had listened to with the very greatest pleasure. He had often wondered how it was possible for one man to control so many thousands of men and women while he was not personally superintending the operations of the whole, but, having heard the General that night, he wondered no longer. There ran through his unpolished eloquence an evident strain of sincerity and belief in the good work he was doing. He had felt for years past, and the longer he lived the deeper grew his conviction, that it was true the Salvation Army, grotesque and curious as many of their practices might seem to be, were doing great and noble/

work—work our orthodox ohuroheshad utterly failod to reach and oover. There was about the language of the General a striking imitation of our great Master, Jesus Christ. It seemed to the speaker that the religion the General taught and the Army practised was the true religioii of Christianity, whlbh—and he did not want to Say anything that would offend the orthodox ohur'ehe's—was riot so muoh praotised by those churches in reality as it ought to be. There was always in every community a largo number of people, who might be termed the masses, who could *be reaohed only By means whioh the orthodox ohurches did not adopt. They must be brought together by a common feeling of humanity, they must be spoken to as men from men, the heart must be touched, and then the people would respond, The Army, to his mind, fulfilled that great and important funotion in our social life, and he said, on bohalf of the citizons of Dunedin, while the rev. chairman had given to the General the welcome of the Christian churches, he (the speaker), as mayor, would give to him the hearty greetings of what he might term the civic churoh of Dunedin. In conclusion, he would say, with the rev, chairman, " God bless the General."—(Applause.) The Chairman quite agreed with a great deal of what had been said by His Worship the Mayor as to the fact that the Army was more conspicuous in doing social work than the Churches. The General asked him if His Worship the Mayor belonged to the orthodox churches, and he (the speaker) said he did not know, but it was quite clear the Mayor was a fit subjeot for the jersey of the Salvation Army—(applause)—and if again elected to the mayoral chair he would have this additional badge of honor. —(Applause.) Mr A. C. Bkgg seoonded the motion, and the Rev. Mr HARRISON (Jewish rabbi) supportod it. The motion being put was then carried. A Vote af thanks to the chairman was carried on the motion of the General, and after the benediction had been pronounced the proceedings closed. .