SALVATION ARMY

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1929, Page 5

SALVATION ARMY

SERVICE BEFORE SELF. (Australian Press Association.) (By Cable —Press Assn. —Copyright.) LONDON, February 10. Commissioner Evangeline Booth, of America, in the course of her letter t.> American Salvationists, says: “We cannot see in General Booth’s action any purpose other than to preserve to himself and his family the control of the heritage which the founder bequeather to the world —not as the personal possession of any individual or family—but as an instrument for the widest diffusion of sacrificial service to be rendered the world by the Army as a whole, without which the skill and the devotion of the leaders would be fruitless. General Booth, by attack ing the 1904 Deed Poll, has aimed a. cruel, heartless blow at the foundations of the Army’s constitution laid under the Divine guidance by the founder. . The constitution rested upon two wisely-devised deeds, one of which the General seeks to destroy, because he discovers that the 1904 Deed provides, in establishing the High Council, a single safeguard against an autocracy which might become a despotism, and eventually a tyranny. All of the General’s specious pleas in the “War Cry” do not excuse justifying the invoking of the law to enable him to destroy the deed, under which he has acted for twenty-four years. It is most significant and most painful that a challenge to this deed’s validity should be given only when its provisions react upon himself. Our duty is to go with our Calvary. The purpose of the Army is unchanged. Our love is unchanged. Let us continue to quit ourselves like men, as soldiers of Christ, in the witness of a good conscience and the priceless peace of God.”