RECORD OF SERVICE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5602, 7 April 1943, Page 4

RECORD OF SERVICE

SALVATION ARMY JUBILEE WORK IN PEACE AND WAR The Salvation Army is now celebrating its Diamond Jubilee in New Zealand by a series of Congress gatherings conducted by Commissioner J. Evan Smith at the four main centres. In Wellington the date of the Conpress will be April 17-19, and one of the main features will be a public gathering in the Opera House on- Sunday afternoon, April 18, at which the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, will reside. These meetings will mark an important milestone of the Salvation Army in New Zealand. The Army

began its work in this country on April 1, 1883. The force consisted of only five officers, three of whom started operations in Dunedin and the ether two in Auckland. They were sent by William Booth in response to an appeal by Miss Valpy, an Army friend, who had heard of the good work of the organization in England. With audacious faith these pioneers, who had few friends and very little money, rented the Temperance Hall, in Dunedin for £3OO a year. Scenes of unprecedented spiritual enthusiasm were witnessed and hundreds of converts were soon made. The work rapidly spread all over the country and by the end of the first year 16 corps were opened and 36 officers were wholly engaged in Salvation Army work. A year later this number was doubled. In spite of much opposition, misunderstanding and active persecution the Salvation Army continued to make progress and soon added an extensive social work to its evangelism. To-day its activities are being car-

ried on in more than 400 centres of work throughout the Dominion. At all the corps and outposts officers and soldiers are constantly proclaiming the Gospel and seeking to win men and women for Christ.

Homes for infants, girls and boys, and training farms for youths are provided for many hundreds of orphhans and semi-orphans. Industrial homes for men and women, maternity hospitals, and Eventide Homes for aged men and women, are features of the work. By means of prison visitation and police court work many are helped to a better way of life. Samaritan work, hospital visitation and an inquiry department for missing friends are other avenues for helping many.

The Salvation Army is concentrating now on its work among young people, Bible classes, scouts and guards, corps cadets and boys’ bands, also singing companies and young people’s legions and the Torchbearer Movement, all provide avenues for instructing youth and training them in right principles.

The demand of the war has increased the responsibilities and duties of the Salvation Army and, as in the last war, it is busy providing for the temporal, social and spiritual needs of the forces. In New Zealand alone it is servicing over 100 groups of men and its chaplains, and welfare officers are doing a much appreciated wdrk in the camps.