DR. SHELDON’S GREAT MISSION.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43116, 20 July 1907, Page 1

DR. SHELDON’S GREAT MISSION.

INITIAL MEETING IN THE FREE TRADE HALL.

The Eev. Dr. C. M. Sheldon,;; of Topeka, Kansas, U.S.A., has begun his great campaign in this country, of which particulars have been duly appearing in® our columns, Arrivingat Liverpool from Boston ; he was met by the secretary of the Kingdom Alliance, Mr W. Williams, along with the Alliance district superintendent, >Mr Edward Boreland. - Mrs ShehC don accompanied him, but it not being intended that she. should itinerate, with her husband, she went on at once to London,'. At; Manchester Dr. Sheldon was met - by the Eev. S. F. Collier, the well-known head of the Man** Chester Wesleyan Central Mission, and chaplain to the Lord Mavor of Manchester, to whose rooms in the Town Hall our

visitor was taken by special invitation.- / \ , y A tremendous audience awaited Dr. Sheldon in the Free Trade Hall in the evening, large numbers being nnable to get in. DR. MACLAREN’s WORDS OF ,; WELCOME. Prior to Dr. Sheldon’s address Dr. Maclareu |offered the following words of welcome : “It seems a very unnecessary expenditure of force,-”• he said, “for one to he brought back here in order to - introduce to you our friend Mr Sheldon.” He has introduced himself to England, and I,suppose that most of us had followed with interest, and many of us with profit, his fenent, wise words; so that instead of infroducing him to you, :I want to introduce you to him, and to offer him on our parts the' heartiest brotherly welcome. We esteem him for his works sake—some of us have learned to love him for himself ‘ —and we are Jglad to receive in this great field of continuous evangelistic effort in our Free Trade Hall so faithful a fellowtielper. lam sure that on your behalf I may assure him of our heartiest welcome, and I hope that your will suffer the word of—exhortation.' and give him a patient and quiet listening which Manchester audiences can give, md which sometimes they do not give,” dr. sheldon’s first address. Starting a long address with .V observation .that.he brought '■••'ings from kindred across >• Dr Sheldon’s manly ['■ nn and sirong voice, with its dight and attractive Yankee iccent, did not fail to command be necessary sustained hearing. He had come, he said, to deliver a plain and simple story of what Tie part of the Lord’s earth had lone, through the people that lived upon 'it, to help, to wipe mt one of. the greatest curses if humanity. He took it. for granted that in the hearts of the great English-speaking people, md especially those in the ihurches and the thoughtful leople generally, there would le a readiness to listen to wliafc night seem at first to be nothing nore than a statement of facts md figures and statistics. The iiree tilings, he said, which mule the drink curse so strong in our civilisation were (1) per- ' ; ?onal passion for drink ; (2) the morinous gain from the manufacture and sale of it ; and (3) tradition and custom, which so often kept people in a state of barbarism and away from the growth of Christian Dealing with the question doing something to curb - and suppress the which everybody admitted snould b&Mpne. he we on.tb ,say that be in no spirit of the 1 that he recounted thei€ t six years’ experience *ihv.KalspP fighting for a sober and common w ealth . • (To be Continued. ’ ||g