Campaign To Save Youth From Heathen Outlook

Northern Advocate, 4 August 1949, Page 9

Campaign To Save Youth From Heathen Outlook

A MAN with a message for the youth of Whangarei, and particularly the non-church-going youth, Senior Major .Edward Nicholson, of the Salvation Army, spoke in the Whangarei Citadel to a gathering of all youth organisations in the corps last night. Major and Mrs Nicholson let England nine months ago to carry out a tour of duty as territorial youth directors for New Zealand, with a mission to organise and oversee contacts between junior members of Salvation Army corps and non-attending young people up to 30 years of age. In addition, Major Nicholson will be responsible for interviewing and recommending candidates for commissions in

the corps. In the course of a tour of New Zealand, during which he has visited most of the centres in the country to obtain the background knowledge of the organisation which he will need for his administrative position, Major Nicholson has been amazed at the number of young people who have no real church affiliation.

These are the people the Salvation Army plans to encourage into its vouth organisations, which include Red Shield Scouts, affiliated with the Baden Powell movement, and a girls’ organisation acting in close cooperation with the Girl Guides. From the response in southern centres he is confident that the campaign will meet with success, but Major Nicholson fully realises his army has a stern task if it is to compete with other attractions. THE CHURCH MILITANT He considers that young people have too much leisure, which they do not appreciate, and too much money to spend on themselves. , It is the responsibility of all church people, he considers to teach the rising generation Christian principles to prevent the youth of the country from growing up with a heathen outlook.

Unless the churches are prepared to be more militant in their attack on the undesirable influences in the world, the young generation will be lost to God, he said. In England, Major Nicholson, in common with many other church leaders, noticed a definite swing back to church-going among the people. Major and Mi's Nicholson saw the worst of England’s fight, being in London for the greater part of the war, until the major landed in Normandy with the forces. DEBT TO WOMEN “The people of the British Empire owe a debt to the women of England who exerted, and still exert, a steadying influence on reactionary trends, and were responsible for maintaining the morale of the country through the trying years of the war,” he said. Since his arrival in New Zealand Major Nicholson has been appointed to the National Council of Churches, in which 'he takes special interest in youth work and in arranging for the spiritual welfare of immigrants.