THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AND THE SALVATION ARMY.

Kumara Times, Issue 3094, 2 October 1886, Page 2

THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AND THE SALVATION ARMY.

Dr. Moorhouse, the new Bishop of Manchester, appears to be a great friend of the Salvation Army. In an inaugural address at the Church of England Assembly, Melbourne, he said : —“ I must say to you a few words about a spiritual organisation which is working vigorously in our midst, and which, by the tremendous power of its enthusiasm, is sure to affect all our work for good or ill. The Salvation At my has, I think, a special mission. Its avowed object is a very large one to make every man love God. Practically, however, its labour is confined almost exclusively to the lowest classes in our cities aud places of considerable population. All its methods of appeal are shaped with a view to reaching those classes, winning their interests, and bringing them into the kingdom of God. I cannot believe that its religious pathos, its military ritualism, its noise and disconcerting familiarity can ever be made tolerable to men of thought, culture, and largely-developed religfous reverence. If I had t 0 judge this movement by its adaptation to any classes but to those who are lowest in culture and intelligence, I should pronounce it a huge mistake, aud say it was destined to disastrous failure. But I do not judge it thus. I look upon it as an effort to win classes which the Christian churches have not won, and so considered, it must be judged very differently; its means must be estimated with reference to the object which they are intended to attain. And now I must say of the Salvation Army, m the first place, that I believe u to be inspired by the noblest impulse winch can direct human energies by the desire to make sinful men love and follow Christ. I see in its leading ministers and ngenis a holy self-denying enthusiasm, which on the large scale is nowhere equalled at the present time W hen 1 read of the bold assau’t winch they make on the very strongholds of vice in this city— 0 f delicate

women risking insult and braving disease that they may rescue their fallen sisters from the grasp of loathsome rice and reckless violence—l feel my heart go out to them in love and admiration. They are God’s children; they are Christ’s people. If the Master was here, I am sure that He would own them and honour them, and set them above me. If they don’t shame all of ns into more earnest, self-denying efforts to fight the great foes of Christ and humanity, it must be because our hearts are cold, and we have lost the glow of our first love. Again, I must say that, in reading their book of doctrine and discipline, I have been very much struck by the sanctified common sense which, to a very large extent, leavens its teaching. It is old-fashioned Evangelical Christianity, with a few of its excellencies, and also with some of what I should call its objectionable features, left out. The firmness and fulness with which it insists upon holiness of heart and life are most cheering. Antinomianism as a doctrine is, I should say, impossible in the Salvation Army.”