Retired Commissioner George Jolliffe was a kind of mentor of mine when I was a young officer. In his younger years he was a secretary to the Founder of The Salvation Army and carried something of the influence of that close contact even into retirement. He told me that William Booth never missed an opportunity of making a spiritual contact with people he met, such as a cab driver, or the captain of a ship, or the host at a billet.
Apparently a lot of early day Salvationists followed the General in this respect so that people expected an enquiry about their spiritual condition when they met a Salvationist in uniform which testified to faith and availability.
I recently read a long article by a journalist commissioned to write about the Army and who, after a week of interviews, seemed surprised that only one person had broached the matter of his own spiritual experience. Does that indicate a lack of what used to be called a passion for souls or is it rather that we are so frightened of saying the wrong thing we do not say the right thing?
REad more HERE.
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