THE WORST AND BEST

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12315, 9 December 1925, Page 6

THE WORST AND BEST

LIFE OF SOCIAL WORK HUMAN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY RELIGION AND SERVICE COMBINED Service before self is the ideal of Rotary. “He serves most who serves best,” the motto reads. It was particularly appropriate, therefore, • that at yesterday’s luncheon of the Wellington Rotary Club the guest of honour should have been Lieut.-Colonel Bray, of the Salvation Army, bearing with him the motto of the organisation: “Save to Serve.” He carries the distinction of being the oldest Salvation Army active office'r raised by the organisation beneath the Southern Cross, and has been responsible in a great measure for many social reforms which have during the past forty years been effected in Australia and New Zealand. During that, long period of service to humanity, Lieut.-Colonel Bray has seen almost every phase of life, robbed shoulders with all classes, and has studied human nature in its multitudinous aspects. ( “I have seen the tragedy and the comedy of life,” he said, when relating to Hotarians some of the many experiences of his earlier days in the ranks of the Army._ And truly he has, for among his reminiscences are some intensely human incidents which have served to bring him into closer touch with life, and facilitate the execution of his wide sphere of duties. -RELIGION AND SERVICE It was in 1883 that this now great Army officer—then a youth of 19—was standing in the doorway of a small shop in a little Australian town, and a skirmishing party of ithe Salvation Army passed. The commanding officer asked: “How would you like to be in service like this for good?” That was the commencement of a great career of religious and social service, culminating with Lieut.-Colonel Bray’s ascension to the head of the Army in New Zealand. ' \ It was not till the activities of the Salvation Army extended to Australia that it was recognised that religion was inseparably bound with social service. Then it was that he, in the early, days of his service, was plaoed on the uplift of the social community. JEST OF MANHOOD How well he has accomplished the task set him is well known. He claimed little credit for himself, and gave generously to others, paying tribute to the best that he found in everyone with whom he came into contact. The days of the penal settlements in Australia were days of turmoil, and strife, but out of the. tangled mass of .the worst apd best in humanity there has been derived a well ordered social system, and many can lay their 'success at the door of these pioneering social workers.

In the early days, when the Melbourne land boom occurred, and industry collapsed with drastic consequences for every class of the community, Lieut.-Colonel Bray sau\ working side by side, the highest and the lowest in the land. It was then that the good in men was discovered. Those who could laugh at their misfortunes were the ones riho won through.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE Great credit was given by the speaker to Sir John Findlay and the effect of the Reformative Institutions Act, as a'result of-which the method in the social system had undergone such a change that it was now far and away ahead of that in the land across the Tasman. Some of the incidents told by Lieut.Colonel Bray .were amusing, some touching in their tragedy, others stirring in their courage^—each throwing .a light upon a different side of nature. Some or the 1 boys who had been in his control were now in Pentridge Gaol, others were at the head of big Australian business establishments, while between, the good effects of the early social activities of the Salvation Army were still being impressed upon struggling humanity.