| T A Denny back to 'People'
Thomas A Denny
In the Merthyr Drill Hall on 8th March 1880 Mr Denny stated that he had been travelling up and down the land to find a hole in the coat of The Salvation Army and had been unable to do so. This was the sequel to a call that had been made on him at his London office by the General, who on this occasion had-instead of asking for money straight out - described to him the work of the Army and invited him to come and see it.
The General characteristically added: " I don't ask you to come and make a speech, or hear other gentlemen make speeches, or hear me make a speech. I will simply gather some of the people benefited, tell you what they were and let them describe the change God has wrought in them." Denny, his brother, and two or three others came, and the Limehouse Hall, built the year before on the site of the old Penny Gaff, was the place chosen.
Denny was deeply impressed, but set himself to find out whether such a meeting was exceptional or general. He travelled to the north, calling at Newcastle and other towns; then to Bristol and Cardiff, being joined in Wales by R. C. Morgan and John Cory, and at a Council of War in the south made the declaration quoted.
From that day forward until he died on Christmas Day 1909, he proved himself a generous friend and whole-hearted champion, alike in public and private, of the Army. He was rich, he had been eminently successful in business and moved in the higher circles of society, having bankers, merchant princes, men of title and millionaires for his personal friends, but his kindly and sympathetic nature made him a comradely man, and he was not only respected but loved and trusted.
He gave large sums of money to the Army, but since he liked to have his money's worth in his transactions he gave the General the conviction that, so far as religion was concerned, he regarded what he put into The Salvation Army as a profitable investment.
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