Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1917. A BENEFICIENT ORGANISATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 1014, 16 November 1917, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1917. A BENEFICIENT ORGANISATION.

We have had occasion before to-day to comment upon the many sided activities of the Salvation Army, which occupies a unique position among the churches and religious organisations working for the benefit of mankind. The visit of Chaplain-Captain Greene to Palmerston North, and the very interesting address he delivered at the Salvation Army Hall last evening, served to introduce another sphere of the Army’s action, in which very real help is being rendered to our citizen soldiers, both in the training camps and in the lighting line abroad. The Salvation Army has its chaplains, in common with the churches, and at '1 reutham and also at Featherston, where Chaplain-Captain Greene is in charge, the Army Institutes, and the Army Chaplains, are very popular with the men, their services being invariably well attended on the Sunday, while through the week the many conveniences the Institutes offer, and tlm personal advice and assistance the chaplains are always anxious to render, are extensively used and much appreciated. On the battlefield, ami in the trenches, the Salvation Army Chaplains have made a name and a reputation for themselves second to none, and it is interesting to know that New Zealand has had, and has, worthy representatives amongst them. ChaplainCaptain McKenzie (a former editor of the New Zealand War Cry), and Chap-lain-Captain Walls, holding Salvation Army rank respectively as Major and Staft-Captain, are men whoso heroic devotion has gained for them the respect and admiration of the soldier comrades on whose behalf they labour, the former by his daring earning the name of ‘'Fighting Mae” at Gallmoli, although he never handled a gun or a bayonet against the Turks. Doth manly men, and true to their spiritual ideals, they have had the privilege (and they have esteemed it such) of ministering to the sick, the wounded and the dying, never sparing themselves in any way, if they could comfort the brave fellows who were making “the .supreme sacrifice” in giving up their lives for tlie ultimate benefit of their fellow-men. and thus illustrating the truth of the sublime utterance, “Greater love hath no man than tin's that a man lay down bis life for his friends.” Salvation Army Chaplains are not, of course, peculiar in this respect, for the records of the war show that each and till of the Churches have •sent men into the field, to care for the spir.tual welfare of their several members and adherents, who have exhibited the highest courage under the appalling conditions in which they have to labour tor the good of men’s souls, and to comfort them in the hour of death. Hut the world has gained a new conception of the Salvation Army through its activities in the actual field of war. Long regarded as the Cinderella of the ohiirelies it has yet taught other religious organisations many valuable lessons, and while not over-burdened with any great amount of wealth or learning, it has, by its practical application of Christian principles and doctrine, and the faith that is within it, given religion a new and sweeter meaning for the poor and helpless, and for the outcast and suflering, implanting fresh hope m those to whom it has stretched out a helping hand and given y now fcUu'l in lije,