SALVATIONISTS.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4757, 5 April 1884, Page 2

SALVATIONISTS.

(Io the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sib, —Partisans of that mis-named body, the Salvation Army, hare the impudence to assert in print that the work done by this motley crowd tends in the direction of making people lead better lives, pay their storekeepers, and perform a variety of good works of a similar nature. Their assertions are, I unhesitatingly affirm, untrue. If fanatically following street processions, which make a laughing stock of religion—causing even children to chant along the streets, as purposelessly as they might a Christy Miastrel chorus, airs and words which should be delivered with some degree of reverence and attention— if bringing shame on many families by theactions of weak minded followers (principally of the gentler sex), who, seized by the excitement of the moment, have their over-wrought feelings worked upon by practised hands to an extent which overbalances their reason —should lead to a brighter hereafter, I am entirely wrong in my reckoning. When I hear of » woman openly stating in public that certain of her children bear the brand of illegitimacy, I say most emphatically that woman is no Christian, and does not deserve to ever hear a child say " Mother.*' If such a monstrous statement be untrue, let it be at once contradicted; but until it is, it must be believed in the many quarters where it is circulated. Yet I am credibly informed that the so-called penitent form has produced such an instance here. When I hear of girls, whose age demand that some supervision be exercised over them in that passage from girl to womanhood: being kept from their homes night after night, at most unreasonable hours—one night this week the proceedings were kept up until midnight—l as strongly assert there is no good attendant on the cause of the detention. Where there is an indiscriminate and unrestrained mixture of young men and women, as there is in the case referred to, considerable supervision of a matured nature is necessary to prevent evil following. I would counsel fathers who care for their daughters to strongly discountenance the attendance of their chiU dren at places where they hear nought but a record of crime. But even if they are weak-minded enough to think that a recital of iniquities is likely to benefit their offspring, let me advise those parents to accompany their daughters to the scene of this penitence and see them home. lam tolerably certain if the fathers^ of the children who attend this " show " were to act on my sugges* tion, their visits to St. George's Hall would not be frequent. The flow of re« ligion and true penitence are holy things which should be sanctified by peace, and unaccompanied by loud declamation or the braying of trumpets. Grief over spiritual transgressions, to be sincere, needs not clamorous demonstration to excite or betray it. It has been said, and probably with reason, that numerous conversions have been made in this noisy way, and by earnest followers of the band of invaders which is now holding forth here; but it must be remembered that all this good— if good it eventually be—has been done in cities with criminal populations, in the midst of which religion has been unknown, and where less calm, reasonable, and more lasting methods have not been capable of introduction ; but here we have no such population, and even were the theory of the combination I complain of unobjectionable, the practices of the local branch of it are not conducive to the end they profess, viz, Salvation,—l am, &c,

Patebtamilias. Thames, April 3rd, 1884.