OFFENSIVE EVANGELIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18321, 11 August 1921, Page 8

OFFENSIVE EVANGELIST

SYDNEY THREATENS TAR AND FEATHERS. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 1. A person calling fimisoii •'Ambassador” Booth, who claims to be a son of the famous Salvation Army general, has uccn appearing as an evangelist in various places m Victoria and New South Wales, and attacking tne “sinfulness” ot Australians, and ol Sydney people in particular. His remarks have been peculiarly offensive. He has thoroughly and enthusiastically damned everyone in Australia, irrespective ot age and condition, and lias set himself up as one entitled to pass opinion on dancing, surfing, racing, and every one ot the pastimes in winch young Australia indulges. The “ambassador” lias boon shrieking at Sydney from the safe distance of certain country towns. Sydney said nothing, but the people were quietly wailing. There was a definite movement afoot to catch this peculiarly offensive taint at. soon as he set loot in the city, and give him an effective coat ol tar and leathers. But he must have heard a rumour ot tne scheme, for he did not linger in Sydney. Ho arrived from the wekt by one tram, and caught the next express for Queensland. It he comes back, ho ought to provide himself with a bodyguard of prize-ughlers, because if the furious monlolk, whose sisters and wives ho' has gratuitiously insulted lay hands on him, he will have a peculiarly unpleasant experience to add to his Tist ot Sydney’s sins. Mr Booth got into an argument with Bishop Long, oi Bathurst, one of the most remarkable figures in the Australian ecclesiastical world. He is a man of outstanding mentality, with .a notable grip on Australian social problems and, though a young man, is greatly loved by all sections of the people. Jhe bishop attended a ball arranged by his parishioners and danced, whereupon the “ambassador” publicly hurled a' Tuimber of insults at him. The "ambassador” was yelling himself hoarse in condemnation of dancing at the time, and he took the bishop’s attendance at the ball as a challenge. The bishop replied with dignity, and other people rushed in. A lady said that the “ambassador's” remarks made her feel as if slugs were crawling over her. His imagination and his mind were like a filthy cess-pool. Whereupon the gentle “ambassador” came back with this; “As to the right-to-do-it but filthy-to-speak-of-it lady who says she felt as if a slug were crawling over her, 1 am right glad I made her for once conscious ot the true nature of ball-room, onestepping, bunny-hugging, senslous, powdered nakedness. Tha naked-backed, barcbreasted girf doing the beastly movements of the modern dance, in the arms of many polished counterfeit Christian gentlemen”— this is a dig at the bishop—“will got infinitely more harm than the slime ol a slug will ever do her. ... As to Bishop Long’s use of the gentleman’s argument he proposes I should be horse-whipped. Well, that is exactly the kind of treatment the Pharisees proposed for the JLord Jesus. So I thunk God and take courage.”