CORRESPONDENCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 149, 22 May 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SALVATIONISTS. (TO THE EDITOR OP THE STANDARD.) Sir, — I see by a paragraph m Tuesday's Standard someone is reported to have said at the Salvation Army meeting that " What he had witnessed at their meetings was, m big opiuion, calculated to do the cause of Christianity far more harm than. good," a sentiment which I think every 'thoughtful man must echo. It was stated as an excuse for the socalled Salvationists, that their object was to gather together all those who attended no place of worship and who cared nothing for religion,' If this is so, '\-hat a number of irreligious outcasts Palmerstou must contain, judging by the numbers said to attend the meetings at the Hall. These people, if they are not of the kind mentioned, must be proclaiming to all that the good men who minister to them Sunday after Sunday, and profess to teach them the way of salvation, do not possess their confidence, and consequently, to them, must be " shams." Their very attendance at these meetings must point this moral to all sceptics and non-believer?, and be m every way other than conducive to the best .interests of the Christian religion. It is not the bellowing " the grace of God" and « the blood of Christ" about the streets at very late hours of tbe night, like drunken men m a brawl, that will convince outsiders of the depth of their conviction er* 7 cept m a disagreeable manner ; and their roaring about the street that' " they arc saved " will not prove an, irresistible fact. I fear many of those" who are reported to be making very foolish confessions of their misdoing' li -' (the truth of which nobody doubts) will he sorry enough presently, that, under excitement, they made sucn a sad spectacle of themselves to their fellow-settlers. Would it not be belter for all who believe m Christianity, to carefully attend their own. places of worship, and so. encourage, by their dutiful support, the good men who have the charge over them r and who doubtless feel their great re--^---sponsibility to their master on their account . Unhappily, there are too . many of those who are turned about with every wind of doctrine, and io whom the words of the old Testament apply forcibly, "unstable as water, thou shalt not excel."— l am, &c\ Anglican, May 20th, 1884.