SIXTY YEARS’ PROGRESS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 383, 18 June 1928, Page 14

SIXTY YEARS’ PROGRESS

SALVATION ARMY’S RECORD A crowded audience listened to Commissioner IT. Mapp, of the Salvation Army, at Scots Hall yesterday. The Mayor, Mr. G. Baildon, presided. The speaker pointed out that the organisation had made amazing strides in the 60 years of its being. Figures alone showed this. The movement had spread to 82 countries and its doctrines were spoken in 59 languages. Spread over the world there were 14,719 corps, organisations and societies, 1,512 social institutions and agencies, 1,028 day schools, 27 naval and military hostels, 22,847 cadets and officers, 8,207 persons without rank wholly employed, 97,598 senior and junior local officers, 32,412 senior bandsmen and 11,059 junior bandsmen, 54,323 songsters, 30,356 corps of cadets, and 108 published periodicals. “Surely,” the commissioner said, “that is wonderful when it is remembered the movement has only been known for 60 years.” “It is a deeply religious society, first and last,” he said. “It is a philanthropic organisation, a total abstinence society and a missionary society. The misunderstanding and animosity that the amry had to fight against in its cradle-days have largely, if not absolutely, passed away, and to-day we are looked upon with kindly and favourable eyes. For the world lias discovered that there is more behind the Salvation Army than the beating of drums, the clash of brass cymbals, the crash of tambourines.”