SCOTTISH EVANGALIST.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1924, Page 4

SCOTTISH EVANGALIST.

•GYPSY" SMITH ARRI YES

AITK LAND, April 29

.Sensational tactics and emotional appeals do not find lavour with Captain (Gipsy) I’m Smith, the Scottish evangelist, who arrived in Auckland by the Niagara yesterday to start a New Zealand campaign.

•I ;iiii :ui iild-l'a-hionoil. plain evangelist, and I believe in fjuiet, earnest appeal." .-.aid Captain Smith yesterday. ••If a man disagrees with me it is not lor ine to say lie is hound for i hot place; lie is entitled to disagree.” Captain Smith, who i- young and alert, mentioned that at the time of his conversion he wa- a rough Gipsy lad in Glasgow, where he was horn. He had since done considerable evangelistic work in Kngland and the I’nited States, and he is now making his first visit to the southern lands. He has a special interest in Australia, for lie was closely associated with the Australian troops in the north of France, and became so much attached to these men that he has since had a desire to see the land that produced themThe evangelist had something to say about the tremendous vogue of wireless in America, and the uses to which it is put. While in I.os Angeles he spoke at meetings which were attend ed hv over 200,000 people, and besides this vast audience, his message was carried to many thousands more hv means of the broadcast system. At one meeting ho asked some wireless enthusiasts who were listening-in to his address to write to him telling him of the success of the plan. Confining his nppeal to those thousand or more miles away, he received well over four hundrod messages, and from Phil-

ndelphia, approximately three thousand miles distant, came a letter announcing that his talk had been clearly received, and enclosing 500 dollars toward the work of the mission.

Captain Smith will spend three weeks in Auckland, and then go on to Wellington, after which he will continue his mission in Australia, whore his engagements will occupy about four months. He will then return to England.