A WORLD ARMY IS NOT A NEW IDEA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 376, 6 September 1946, Page 6

A WORLD ARMY IS NOT A NEW IDEA

| General who Became a Legend in his Lifetime

A "Listener" Interview

by

A.M.

R.

EVAN SMITH, who leaves Wellington this month to become Territorial Commander of the Salvation Army for Southern and Western Australia, has been private secretary to the Army’s first two generals. The Listener, interviewing Commissioner Smith on the eve of his departure, was particularly interested to record the impression which "The Founder" had made upon his close associates. "The earliest occurrence I remember in our long contact," replied Commissioner Smith, "is my Own nervousness when I first went into his study. I was a very young lieutenant in my éarly twenties, and he was 77 years old. He hesitated quite a lot in his dictation and then broke off and said, in that gruff, deep tone of his, ‘Smith, if you can teach me to dictate I'll promote you on the spot.’ He always much preferred to write himself, although before he died I was taking down everything for him-even his intimate family letters." "Then was his presence somewhat overpowering? I mean were junior officers in fear, or at least in awe, of him?" Per Ardua "No, it wasn’t that. Mostly, I think, I was worried whether I’d be able to read CC vaN SMT JOHN

my shorthand again afterwards. But of course the Founder was’ quite a figure by that time-practically a legend, in fact. He had fought his way through his early uncertainties as to where his duty and his work lay; and fought his way through the seas of abuse and vituperation that met the Army’s early activities; and by this time his love for

the needy-and particularly his extraordinary book on_ social conditions, Darkest England and the Way Out, had established him as the foremost religious leader and philanthropist of the 19th Century. "As for the impression that he made on his officers — well, it was primarily that of whole-hearted and burning devotion to his God-given task. I remember phrases from his letters that convey this perfectly. For example, ‘our task is to save men and women out of the hellish earthly conditions in which so many live, and to build them up and to organise them so that they too may carry on God’s service.’ And again ‘practical godliness must be our theme: let us push it by tongue, by pen and by example.’

Those phrases, I suggested, did mean a lot if you read them in the, light of his lifetime of effort. "Indeed yes. You know, I suppose, that he was originally a Methodist minister, and that he resigned, despite having several children, no prospects of financial support, and even no hall to speak in, when he and his wife both felt a necessity laid upon them to take the Gospel to wider circles than they could reach where they were. They began in Whitechapel, where the most wretched victims of drink and vice and crime were to be found. But they never intended to found a sect. Their sole intention was to get men to abandon their evil ways and by the power of God to live new lives. And William Booth didn’t give long street sermons. Mostly he got the men who had been inwardly and outwardly ‘changed’ to stand up. themselves and testify to the cause of it. After that he expected them to link up with the churches. But they insisted on staying with him. The. resulting community simply called themselves ‘The Christian Mission’." * \ Mission Becomes an Army "Then how did the movement come to be called ‘The Salvation Army’?" | "Well in 1878 Booth and his son Bramwell and George Railton, who acted

as secretary, were composing an Annual Report. The Government had just formed a militia, or volunteers, and so they wrote "The Christian Mission is a volunteer Army of converted working people.’ But the militia were meeting with a lot of public derigion, so young Bramwell cut in firmly ‘I’m no volunteer; I'm a regular or nothing.’ At that his father took a pen and struck out ‘volunteer’ and wrote over it ‘Salvation.’ Then they atl looked at each other, realising somehow that they had done something epochal. Uniforms and ranks came in through Cadman, a converted chimney-sweep, who wore a_ sailor’s jersey with ‘S.A.’ on it and was callod ‘Captain’ when he preached among fishermen. And it was he who first printed handbills describing his leader not as ‘the Rev. William Booth’ but as ‘General Booth of the Hallelujah Army’-though the evengelists among themselves had often called him ‘the

general,’ short for ‘the general superintendent.’ But of course these innovations would not have taken hold if they had not just fitted the actual ways in which ‘the Mission’ was expressing and organising itself in response to the needs around it." "And were those needs regarded as material or as spiritual? I mean was the Army’s ‘social work’ to the fore or its preaching?" "There’s no distinction between them now, and there wasn’t then. ‘Social work’ was not sd organised in the early days, that’s all. Salvationists were poor people who helped their neighbours in every way they could give help. That’s how every one of our so-called social activities started. But while our brothers for whom Christ died may need food or shelter or friendship as well as salvation, it is salvation that is their greatest need-and bringing them to that brings them in practice to every other good thing as well. And it turns the saved into savers themselves of individuals and society. That was the General’s outlook. And it is still the Army’s. " Courageous Spirit "And when you knew him, Commissioner, was the old General’s spirit still as fiery as in those earlier days?" "He was right to the end inspired by his ruling passion-to save souls-and by his literally dare-devil courage in

doing it. His sight was failing then, at 77, and he’d had no holiday for 20 years, but he was so eager to serve with all his faculties that he arranged to have an operation on one eye. It took place in his own home, successfully, and I was present. After that what must he do but get out immediately, campaigning. Motor cars were then a novelty. But with them you could reach a dozen places a day, all off the railways. So in a white Napier with red wheels we toured for thirty days on end, the General speaking from the car 10 or 12 times a day to crowds in every settlement we passed through — in fact they lined the roads like a royal procession. Then he’d end up in a big hall each evening. However, they were all open cars in those days and he caught some infection in the tender eye that turned into" an abscess. The whole eye had to come out and,. while few people knew it, he wore an artificial one thereafter." "But, if I remember rightly Vachell Lindsay’s poem on General Bocth’ Entering Heaven, he. was completely blind when he died?" "Yes, that’s so. The cataract was slowly forming on the other eye also and when it became ‘ripe’ for -operating on he decided for it, although the occulist taid there was only ‘a fair chance’ of success. He was then 83. I helped him prepare a farewell address, reading his dictation over and over again to him until he had it by heart. And everyone in the 10,000 audience in the Albert Hall heard his impassioned de-livery-and remember there were no ‘mikes’ then. I can give you the peroration yet-‘While women weep as they do now, I'll fight: While little children go hungry as they do now, I'll fight: While men go to prison, in and out, I'll fight: While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fightI'll fight to the very end.’ The Operation Failed "Well, he’d said. in the address that he was ‘going into dry doék for repairs.’ But actually the operation failed. When Bramwell told him he simply said, ‘I’ve done what I could for God and the people with my eyes: I’ll do what I can for God,and the people without my eyes.’ I was privileged to minister to him constantly through the remaining weeks. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’ I asked once. And he replied very falteringly. ‘Take me to a meeting and let me hear-dear old Lawley say, ‘General, here comes to-night’s fortieth penitent soul.’ You see ‘How can I win men for Christ’ was his ruling passion night and day, well or ill, to the very end." _ "And what would he think of us now?" "I like to quote the old Roman Tacitus on that," concluded the’ Commissioner. "‘States can only be maintained by the same spirit with which they were created.’ In other words the Salvation Army will only continue its service to the world so long as it maintains’ the spirit of its Founder. That does not imply slavishly adhering to old methods. Some of them would in fact be quite out of place in this present generation-to whose improved conditions, incidentally, he contributed more than any other man of ‘his day. But it is important that we maintain the same zeal, the same love for God, and the same devotion to the souls whom He can save and transform."