SALVATION ARMY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13270, 26 April 1907, Page 5

SALVATION ARMY.

VISIT OF COMMISSIONER CADMAN. The Salvation Army Corps of Timaru were given a red letter day for their record* of 1907 by'the, visit yesterday of Commissioner Cadman, one of General BootlA right hand man, the first captain appointed in the Army, a successful organiser of social work, and especially of the Army's industrial farm on. the bank of the Thames, and. a zealous evanglist during over forty years of work. Mr Cadman, accompanied by Brigadier Veal, arrived from Oamaru by the first express, and became the guest of Mr W. J. Bardsley, who took him for a drive round the | town in the afternoon. The Provincial Commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Knight, of Christehurch, ' met tlie Commissioner here, and accompanies him through Canterbury. ■ -.... Mr .Cadman explained at the evening meeting in the Barracks, which were about two-thirds filled, * that he had been sent out by the General to convey his greetings ~to people of Australasia, to inquire into the welfare of the Army, and take back love to their beloved chief. General Booth, he said, thought highly of the people of the colonies, he had visited them four times, and it was not unlikely that he would do so again. He had been so much pleased with the' reception he. had met 'with; especially 'in Melbourne and New Zealand, that he had asked the General —who was now 78—to make ararrangements to spend his : 80th birthday in Australasia, (Applause). Since .the end of February, when he (the speaker) left England, General Booth had been through. America and; Canada, and was now in Japan, organising the Army there; and from Japan lis would go to China," to see what could be done for that great country. Every mention of the General's name was followed by applause. ' . After a short devotional opening of the meeting, the Provincial Commander, on behalf of the Corps welcomed the Commissioner to Timaru." The Commissioner, he said, .had been associated with General Booth for thirty-one years, and was the first captain of the Army. He was ,sure that lie was right in saying that Timaru was glad to welcome his visit. (Applause.) Commissioner Cadman expressed his thanks for the welcome, and stated his commission as above described. He then gave : an address on the conversion of Said, "the chief of sinners," giving a striking word picture of the. event, and of the life of Saul before and after his conversion. He described the effects of the same power in the conversion of the chief of shiners to-day, and then told the story of his own life and conversion. Left an orphan at 15 mouths, one of five small children, he became a " British workman" at the age of 5-|. one of those little. chimney climb-. ers wliosa employment was a blot upon the England of that day. He lived an eager, strenuous life, as a youth, and when opportunity offered baited the "ranters." He was a'keeper of a boxing saloon when an open-air preacher whom he meant to treat in the .same way, touched his heart, and soon after he was out in the streets, a preacher of the Gospel himself, " converted at 9 cs'elpck, a. parson at 9.30 o'clock." His account of how he learned to read; first by deputy and then by the

aid of a Sunday School'.chi's of hi fan Is, would-have been intensely amusing had ib had been so interesting as a revelation of character. One may have inferred from this little narrative that he had been both a clever and a determined boxer; -and ha has applied these traits of cleverness and determination - ever since in the work" of the Arniy. The 'Commissioner passed from biography to his duty as evangelist, and his earnest address drew seven or eight young people to the penitent form.