A SALVATION ARMY MEETING.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 470, 10 May 1890, Page 4

A SALVATION ARMY MEETING.

AN IMPRESSIVE SCENE. Auckland, May 5. There was something grand in the simplicity and earnestness of the huge crowd who met in the Salvation Army Barracks last night for what was quaintly termed a holiness meeting. The Salvationists may be noisy, but they are honest in all they do. They sang to the full power of their lungs, sang as if they meant singing and nothing else. They prayed humbly, and as if they wanted the things they asked for terribly badly. They also prayed as if they were sure of getting the things. There seemed no doubt in their minds they would receive what they begged, they were assured. The speeches were powerfully emotional, as they always are amongst Salvationists, but the man who could laugh at the heartfelt feeling poured out so freely, or believe them to be sham, would indeed be a hardminded creature. They were not always logical in their reasoning, but purely logical arguments are seldom soul-moving. There was, however, a strong current of warm human feeling running through every word. PARDON, NOT PUNISHMENT, was the word for sinners. Comfort, nob condemnation, was the message for the Magdalenes of the city. Colonel Taylor, who was chief spokesman, was impassioned and impressive. He was also simple and understandable. His speech was nob one which would look so well on paper as some—it lacked rhetoric perhaps, but it was full of the right sorb of instances to catch the hearts and fancy of the audience he had. Anecdote predominated, but the anecdotes were apt and understandable. God would not change a passionate man into a meek and mild one all at once, he said, but He would give the man greater and greater strength every day to overcome his impatience and his temper. The salvation would not make a man holy all at once. When a man was cleansed from sin it did not mean that he would bo FREE FROM TEMPTATION. By no means. The devil would probably tempt them more than ever, bub instead of the temptation coming as it did before from within them, it would come from without. Inside they would feel a new strength, making them hate sin and giving them a double power bo resist it. There was hope for everyone. God understood men and women and how hard life was, how difficult it was for them to be good. All we mortals had to do was to confess our sin, repent sincerely and try our best. We might leave all the rest to the wonderful power of God. We should grow in grace ; as we went on trying to do right, our power of doing it would rapidly increase. If we tried hard, God would keep us from falling. If, however, we had no faith, and did not try, we should FAIL AND FALL, and it would be harder and harder every hour. But there was no need to fail. We had bnly to try our best —however little that was—and we should be saved. Let nobody think themselves too lowly or bad. They had only to confess to God, repent, and then set to work and try. There was nothing like trying. The Lord would make them blessed. There were several other speakers, some of them fully as impressive as Colonel Taylor. Bub their very passionateness makes it impossible to do them justice in a report. Black and white is too antagonistic to the nervous sentiment of feeling. One of the best speakers was a lady. Her utterance was so rapid that even a verbatim report of her speech could not have been made. Her great point was that salvation made us do what was right, when it was convenient or otherwise. The unsaved did right when it was convenient. It was so much nicer, bub salvation made people do good if it resulted in gain or loss. It was always easier to do good when salvation was obtained. It is rather the fashion to

LAUGH AT THE SALVATIONISTS, but there is less to smile at in them than almost any sect. They were somewhat rampant in the fervour of their religious intoxication, bub there was something almost grand in the very freeness with which they exposed their inmost feeling. There were many rugged faces, heavily marked with the lines of fast living, and even the most sceptical person would have felt convinced that the Army does good, if he could have seen repentance and something else marvellously like mystic love which shone from those very faces. It made the very worst seem nobler than could have been believed possible. Even if it was, as many aver, bu ta transitory emotion aroused by moving prayers and swinging choruses sandwiched in with passionate bub plain words of entreaty ; even if it was only a fleeting feeling, yet it was a good one for the time being. Nobody is ever the worse for feeling nobler than his common self even for half an hour.