Background: Railton on service in Africa

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Salvation Army officers were sent to Africa as early as 1883.


“Remember, that in almost every place in South Africa the people respect us, because we are the only people who can be depended upon to care for everybody, no matter how poor or bad–the only people who hold open-air meetings regularly all the year round–the only people who hold meetings with the colored prisoners–the only people who look after prodigals who have gone anywhere in the world–the only people who urgently teach holiness–the only people who warn the wicked to get saved at once–the only people who try to get children properly saved–the only people who urge women and children, as well as ignorant men, to speak and pray in public–the only people who constantly visit public-houses and worse places, and fight there against drink and sin of every kind–and the only people who do not care whether anybody is baptized, confirmed, gets the sacrament, or where they are buried, but do care whether they are quite ready to die today.

Then, you will understand why it is worth while to keep on being all that, year after year, even where there are less than a thousand people to do it all amongst. And in any country, where you may be, God grant you grace to persevere to the end in work that does not show, but which somebody must do, if the Army is always to be marching along.”

–George Scott Railton

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