Militant Christians

A general made his first tour of inspection to two of the most important posts in his command last week. He is George Lyndon Carpenter, who succeeded Evangeline Booth as head of the Salvation Army in 1939. The posts: Chicago and New York.

To Chicago for four days and then to Manhattan for six went thousands of disciplined Salvationists to attend the Army's Central and Eastern Territorial Congresses and see their worldwide leader. The men were in high, stiff-necked uniforms, the lassies in black-&-red poke bonnets, long-skirted uniform dresses. They went early to every meeting, between sessions ate at recommended restaurants, sat stiffly in lounges. At the meetings they heard General and Mrs. Carpenter, accompanied by the whole staff of territorial officers. Both the Carpenters talked long and low, preached little, preferred to report the Salvation Army's role in World War II.

Highlights:

> A Salvation Army mobile canteen was the first relief unit to reach Coventry, got there while the bombs were still falling.

> Some 650 Salvationist huts and canteens serve British troops round the world.

> In the U.S. Salvationists are operating 105 U.S.O. centers.

> The Salvation Army lost $1,600,000 worth of equipment during the 1940 retreat in France. General and Mrs. Carpenter, who were in France themselves at the time, several times got out of towns a jump ahead of the Nazis.

> Bombs have wrecked more than 400 Salvationist buildings in England, including the international headquarters, which is just behind St. Paul's Cathedral in London. But this has not stopped the Army from distributing vast quantities of food, clothing, tracts.

Since World War II began, General Carpenter has lost direct contact with the Salvation Army in 20 of the 94 countries in his worldwide command, but by indirect means he knows that the work still goes on. Only in Italy has the Army been suppressed. In Germany and Japan it still has German and Japanese officers. Some 200 U.S. and British Salvation Army officers are now Axis prisoners or have been interned--including Colonel Mary Booth (granddaughter of Founder William Booth), Army commander in Belgium.

Australian-born, 70-year-old General Carpenter was a $1.25-a-week printer's devil before he joined the Army in 1892. "My sole program for the Army," he says, "is religion--always hot, as General William Booth used to say he liked his religion and his tea."

Slight, smiling Mrs. General Carpenter is one of the Army's writers, directs much of its relief work in England. Throughout their lives the Carpenters have lived within the Army's rigid pattern, which forbids smoking, use of alcohol, going to the theater. The General has not read a novel for 20 years. A typical Salvationist couple, the Carpenters have two children, both in the Salvation Army.

In Toronto, which General and Mrs. Carpenter recently visited on their tour of inspection, the Army War Cry reported that after the official welcome, "brigades of Salvationists raided Toronto's sordid night-life haunts with dire results to enemy ranks. Scores of captured were escorted to the Temple where hot coffee was served, drunkards were sobered and repentant souls sought salvation."

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