When ‘home invasions’ were all part of a cadet’s training
- deansimpson7
- Jun 2
- 2 min read
BY BARRY GITTINS
One reason that pioneering Salvationists and their successors raised the ire of some fellow churchgoers and citizens was their unwillingness to remain quietly seated in church pews.
The Salvation Army would be out and about, in their faces, on their streets, and even on their doorsteps! The War Cry’s 8 June 1935 issue, 90 years ago, illustrates this well.
As part of their regular training, officer cadets would conduct door-to-door visits to private homes with no prior notice or invitation.
“Small houses, big houses, clean houses, dirty houses,” the article explained, “It does not matter what kind of house it is. It is not passed by. The cadet never knows what the knock on the door will reveal.”
The Salvos rocked up, fully expecting sorrow to “reign behind the door … [with] some form of sin or trouble spoiling the peace of the home”.
In such an instance, the interloping cadets were expected to serve as “the sympathetic listener and adviser of the people”.
The visit of 93 cadets to 490 homes in 10 Melbourne suburbs, the War Cry reported, “makes interesting reading … [90] homes were entered by the cadets at the invitation of the householders … The cadets read the Bible to, and prayed with, 234 persons, and engaged 362 in earnest conversation about their spiritual life.”
From the 90 households the Salvationists entered, three people ‘sought salvation’, one being ‘a Greek woman’ (we do not know if she spoke English fluently, or if the cadets spoke Greek).
One resident, an 80-year-old blind man “in an extremely dirty house”, told his unexpected visitors that “he remembered when Major [James] Barker was the leader of the Army’s work in Melbourne”.
Another householder, “a Communist”, told the Salvos that “the only people who bothered about religion were the ignorant, the insane and the criminal … the cadets wondered in which category he had placed them”.
That same day of visitation, “eight women cadets visited [wards of] the Melbourne, Queen Victoria, and the Eye and Ear hospitals”, talking with 54 patients and praying with 37 people.
One man’s chart stated he was a Salvationist, but when beset by cadets, he explained, shortly, “I am not a Salvationist. When I entered hospital, I told them that I belonged to the Army – so that the other sky pilots who visit here would leave me alone.”
Entreated to “live up to the standard set by the Salvation Army”, the man pulled “the blankets over his head, refusing to discuss religion any more that day”.
Not every visit is welcome, and not every visitor comes to our doors invited. But a knock on the door can be a welcome surprise.
