THE SALVATION ARMY IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 1, 1 October 1883, Page 7

THE SALVATION ARMY IN CHRISTCHURCH.

[from a correspondent.] Christchurch, Sept. 12. I daresay some account of the doings of the Salvationists here will interest your readers. You are aware, a few months ago a small party of Salvationist officers arrived in Dunedin, and from their own point of view a successful footing has been obtained there. It was not to be expected that Christchurch, with its clerical and sanctimonious associations, would escape the notice of the Hallelujah Brigade; accordingly, a few skirmishers were detached for this duty. The Gaiety Theatre, after a brief financial parley, surrendered ; and now a section of the Arm " hold the fort "in Cathedral Square. It was not long before its adherents were requisitioned for a big drum and brazen instruments and uniforms, and now a number of smartly-dressed recruits, and Hallelujah Lasses in dark blue dresses and poke bonnets, testify to the liberality of the deluded ones.

This Salvation mania may be regarded as a mild form of the epidemic which swept over Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth centuries, which was signalised by the burning of witches and heretics, such merciless and atrocious cruelties having only been rendered possible from the great mass of the people being thoroughly imbued with a belief in the existence of devils and demons by their catechists and teachers.

The Salvationist leaders of the present day are similarly obtaining a fictitious and transitory influence by terrorising over the minds of morbidly inclined people by conjcuring up vivid pictures of a personal devil roaming about seeking for victims, and a material hell with its quenchless fire, it being represented that the only escape is plenty of knee drill, a complete surrender of the reasoning faculties by which a childlike faith in the redeeming blood of a cruelly murdered immortal is alone possible, and the miraculous sacrifice conceived and accepted as a logical, consistent, and natural event, essential to salvation, combined with liberal contributions to enable the officers” to promulgate, advertise, and spread through the land such “ glad tidings” of “ peace and joy.”

When the promoters of the “ Blood and Fire” doctrines first commenced their missionary labours, they received a good deal of petting and patronage from high church dignitaries, it being said that good work was being done in spreading a knowledge of gospel truths among a large section of the population quite outside the pale of religion ; and the generality of the clergy, knowing how intelligent criticism is extending and freeing men’s minds from the trammals of creeds and dogmas, were disposed to regard with satisfaction and complacency the prospect of upraising a new multitude of devotees as a formidable counterpoise and barrier to the freethought and secular tendencies of the age. But a change in their views is already perceptible ; they now find their congregations thinning, and the offertories falling off, in favour of the more exciting scenes and discourses of the rival expounders of their own doctrines, and it will be a curious commentary upon their previous encouragement and support, if, as is very probable, a pulpit crusade is commenced before long, denouncing the immorality and blasphemy of these Salvationist and hallelujah meetings. It suited the policy of General Grab-all to begin his propaganda with the low multitude as a good advertising medium for drawing funds from other classes, and appears to have admirably answered the purpose ; but now the rag-tag and bob-tail may hang on to his skirts and receive a certain amount of encouragement and toleration, being useful for public demonstrations by which the adherance of a paying class has been secured— it is a perception of this fact that is bringing about a revulsion in the public mind.