FIFTY YEARS OF SALVATION SERVICE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19523, 24 June 1933, Page 11

FIFTY YEARS OF SALVATION SERVICE

WORK OF THE ARMY IN NEW ZEALAND

When the religious movement which was the genesis of the Salvation Army began to emerge from Mile End Waste, amid the brickbats of the Whitechapel mob, and the hideous caricature of the Skeleton Army, it was the masterful spirit of the founder that rose supremely above all obstacles. At thirty-one years of age, William Booth without a penny of assured income, and with a wife and four young children to support, faced the world with an ideal and a message: a man freed from the task allotted to him, to use his own phrase, of being “hooked into the ordinary rut and put on to sermonmaking and preaching.” Here was the beginning of a movement that was to extend its uplifting influence into the four corners of the earth. That was in 1861. General Booth conceived a literal warfare, his battleground the streets, his Army uniformed and disciplined, challenging the world with its resounding war cries and its principle of unquestioning obedience on the part of its soldiers. . The Founder of the Army had but one inspiring enthusiasm —the salvation of humanity. He loved mankind in the mass after the fashion of a philanthropist, but one of the greatest assets of the Founder of the Army was his indifference to the judgments of the world. In this he had the touch of genius. He set out to shock the world by new methods.

The religion of the Army has been summed up in the two great Commandments, “Thou Shalt Love the Lord Thy God with All Thy Heart,” and “Thou Shalt Love thy Neighbour as Thyself.” To General Booth no other formula applied. By the Salvation Army, dogmas were allowed to look after themselves, and the banners of the Movement that found its inspiration in General Booth have remained as broad as the heavens. Thus the Salvation Army was founded.

The manner in which the Movement spread throughout the world is as strange and as marvellous as the Army itself. A lonely soldier laid the foundation of the Army in Canada; two lowly men started the work in America; two delicate youths in Australia; four officers carried the Salvation War into India to the terror of the authorities; one male and three female Salvationists “conquered” South Africa; and on the European Continent a mere handful of loyal men and women fought desperate battles and gained heroic victory. And before the end came to the Founder, General Booth’s searching eye had pierced the gloom that lay over the Far East, and he himself, at the age of nearly eighty, saw the great awakening of Japan and knew that in China the dawn was breaking. This year the Army celebrates the jubilee of the unfurling of its banners in New Zealand.

On August 20, 1912, General Booth fell asleep. He had followed to the end “the impulses and urgings of an undying and unsatisfied ambition,” aiming only at making the most of his opportunities to do his best in the living present. The world-wide movement remains a memorial to the surety of his vision and courage.