ACCENT ON YOUTH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 132, 4 May 1940, Page 8

ACCENT ON YOUTH

LUNCH CLUB ADDRESS. Speaking at the weekly meeting, yesterday, of the Citizens’ Lunch Club, Colonel D. Macaulay, a retired officer of the Salvation Army, _delivered an address on “The Accent on Youth.” At the close of his address, Avhich was liberally interspersed with anecdotes, he was accorded a vote of thanks on the motion of Mr W. H. Brown, who occupied the chair. There had been great changes from’ the early days of his 47 years' service with the Salvation Army, said the speaker, who referred to life in the “skeleton army” in the times of public abuse of the organisation. Born in the north of Scotland, Colonel Macaulay was brought up in North Otago, where the family’s first home was a sod whare. The speaker visited the district relatively recently, and seeing the old home, familiar places and familiar faces recalled to him : “There is no place like home.” Yet in the voices of some whom he knew there was a strange lack of the sparkle of youth, for they had grown old. The speaker told of his own aims in keeping a youthful outlook alive, despite advancing years, and asked if there was any need for a man to be bent because of his years, or to have grease-spots on his coat. There was no need for laxities of behaviour, no need for a man to allow himself to “slump.” Humour was a spark of life, yet “friskiness” was not youth. There was a spark of youth in every man if he desired to use it. We could at least bring cheer and joy as we went about—by doing good, eschewing evil and honouring the King. The visitors welcomed wore Messrs D. J. Heritage (Tasmania) and E. Edwards (Palmerston North).