The Salvation Army is an evangelical Christian church and a charity, founded in England and operating throughout the world. One of its principal aims is the relief of the poor, homeless, and destitute.
It is organized like an army: Its members wear uniforms and its brass bands are a regular site in the centre of towns before Christmas, playing and asking for donations to its work. They are always polite and never harangue people. They play peacefully and they generally engender a good feeling in the areas they play.
One thing that marks the Salvation Army out is the way people regard it and respond to it.
And that can be read in the way people stop and stand and look and listen to the bands. And in the way they dig in their pockets and find the coins to give. Because people like and trust the Salvation Army – they think it does good work: Their parents thought so and their grandparents thought so.
So they stop and smile a little and listen and as often as not they dig in their pockets. And if they have a young son or a daughter with them, they give the coin to them to go forward and put it in the hat.
English society seems to be changing very rapidly. Mockery, ridicule, abandonment, hedonism, disdain (and it’s mirror of self-loathing) seem to have grabbed English society. Binge drinking is almost incomprehensible to the French just across the English channel just 40 miles away, and yet it has taken hold so strongly in England that it merits debates in parliament.
But when the Salvation Army starts to play, there is no ridicule or heckling, despite the old-fashioned look of the uniforms.
