IN PEACE AND WAR

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3251, 12 April 1943, Page 4

IN PEACE AND WAR

GOOD RECORD OF SERVICE WORK OF SALVATION ARMY DIAMOND JUBILEE IN N.Z. The Salvation Army is now celebrating its Diamond Jubilee in New Zealand by a series of Congress gatherings conducted by Commissioner J. Evan Smith at the four main centres.

These meetings will mark an • important milestone of the Salvation Army in New Zealand. The Army began its work in this country on April 1, 1883. The force consisted of only five officers, three of whom started operations in Dunedin and the other two in Auckland. They were sent by William Booth in response to an appeal by Miss Valpy, an Army friend, who had heard of the good work of the organisation in England. With audacious faith these pioneers, who had few friends and very little money, rented the Temperance Hall in Dunedin for £3oo> a year. Scenes ■of unprecedented spiritual enthusiasm were witnessed and hundreds of converts were soon made. The work rapidly spread all over the country and by the end of the first year 16 corps were opened and 36 officers were wholly engaged in Salvation Army work. A year later this number was doubled. In spite of such opposition, misunderstanding and active persecution the Salvation Army continued to make progress and soon added an extensive social work to its evangelism. To-day its activities, are being carried on in more than 400 1 centres of work throughout the Dominion. At all the corps and outposts officers arid soldiers are constantly proclaiming the Gospel and seeking to win men and women for Christ.

Homes for infants, girls and boys, and training farms for youths are provided for many hundreds. of orphans and semi-orphans. Industrial homes for men and women, maternity hospitals and Eventide Homes for aged men and women, are features of the work. By means \of prison visitation and police court work many are helped to a better way of life. Samaritan work, hospital visitation and an inquiry department f Dismissing friends are other avenues for helping many. The Salvation Army is concentrating now on its work among young people. Bible classes, scouts and guards, corps cadets and boys’ bands, also singing companies and young people’s legions and the Torchbearer Movement, all provide avenues for instructing youth and training them in right principles. The demands of the war have increased the responsibilities and duties of the Salvation Army and, as in the last war, it is busy providing for the temporal, social and spiritual needs of the forces. In New Zealand alone it is servicing over 106 groups of men, and its chaplains and welfare officers are doing a much appreciated work in the camps.