New General

The Salvation Army had a new General. For two weeks the 48 top officers of its High Council had met, prayed, chatted, and photographed each other at a high-ceilinged old Georgian house at Sunbury-on-Thames (once the seat of a noble Irish family, it had degenerated to a house of ill repute when the Army saved it in 1925). Last week, to succeed 74-year-old General George Carpenter, whom the war had kept in office two years past retirement age, the High Councilors finally chose Albert W. T. Orsborn.

General-designate Orsborn vigorously proclaimed the keynote of his new administration : emphasis on evangelism. The 59-year-old new General is every inch an Army man; both his parents were among the pioneer Salvationists, as were his two wives, now dead. One son, Howard, is a S.A. captain.

The new leader is also probably the Army's best-known hymn writer, with more than 250 to his credit. A verse from one of them (sung to the tune of The Old Rustic Bridge) well sums up his conception of a Salvationist's business:

Oh, is not the Christ 'mid the crowd of today

Whose questioning cries do not cease? And will he not show to the hearts that would know

The things that belong to their peace?

But how shall they hear if the preacher forbear,

Or lack in compassionate zeal? Or how shall hearts move with the

Master's own love

Without his anointing and seal?

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