MRS. ALDIS AND THE SALVATION ARMY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8709, 28 October 1891, Page 3

MRS. ALDIS AND THE SALVATION ARMY.

TO TIIK EDITOR. Sir, — Mr." Booth—Mrs. Aid is has not the courtesy to give him his well-earned title —needs 110 apologists. His is the noblest; work any one man has undertaken since the Crucified cast a halo of light and glory over wronged humanity. That his attempts to raise the submerged arc appreciated is proved by the ready response made to his appeal for monetary assistance. It is only fair to ask Mrs. Aluis to inform herself as to what the Army and its leader do or do not " ignore" before she dogmatically places them beyond Christianity's pale, " Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," This is precisely the " liberty" General Booth would inspire and teach. But who, in Heaven's name, cared one straw for the "liberty" of the "submerged" till he took them in hand? Ginx's Baby over again! What a farce ! o talk to the submerged of " liberty !" in all their helpless misery they have been lying at the Churchs, door for 1800 years, and no man cared for their souls, beyond a little patronising " charity," so called. Think of the Church's "threepenny bits," and of the " £40,000 " of the Army's one week's Self-denial! Well may it say of such self-denial to Christians, go thou and do likewise. If the remedy is worse than the disease, Mrs. Aldis is at liberty to inspire a higher, a holier enthusiasm, to raise the unhappy world above its man-made misery? Why does she not start a better, a more Christlike mission, and show the world how to do good by stealth, if she prefers it? Mere dictatorial faultfinding is very unsatisfactory. Why has she not raised her voice against the class of immigrants—mentioned by "Mercutio " in Saturday's Herald—bad immigrants, imported at the ratepayers' cost. I fully expect the General's colonists will be too good for us, and that when his schema is a pronounced success, Mrs. Aldis will regreti having opposed it. To every good man, it is doubtless most inspiriting to know that there is henceforth never " A pauper whom nobody owns," except the self-doomed pariah ; no longer a " Submerged tenth," that the father of the poor, as the General may well be called, has gone deeper than the deepest, to lift them up, and he'll do too. It is clearly his one desire to advance the rank and file of his army, the instant they arc worthy of it. Those who would command, must first learn to obey. In dealing with raw material, the one« man-one-law principle is neededdiscipline. The clay may not say to potters, what doesb thou? The autocracy of right is God-like. Sedition, as such, may not be tolerated. Satan must be cast down. The Army and its leader are for Christ, out and out, and can give the Church points in a loving devotion to his person, precepts and service. The very noise and parade are, perhaps, but the _ inevitable waste of the sculptor's rude beginning of his presently most finished work.— am, &c., Ellen E. Ellis.