Salvation Army Corps, Burnley

Returning to Burnley bus station after visiting some members’ home, I took a short cut through the houses and stumbled across Burnley’s Salvation Army Corps. The Skipton bus was departing in ten minutes’ time, so barely had I time to take my photographs and then my leave.

Two things struck me: how very neat it was and how very angular. The neatness is a credit to those charged with maintaining it, while the angularity is thanks to the architect. Apart from a tree and some spreading flowers, everything seemed to be at right angles, from the noticeboard, the paving, the mower's stripes and the very building itself. I rather like the beautiful symmetry of squares and rectangles, and this design, far from boring me, bespeaks order and precision. It might have been designed to match the ‘gridiron’ streets and terraces of the locality, or was it just  the architectural fashion of the sixties when it went up?

Order. Regularity. Straightness.

Disorder. Irregularity. Crookedness.

The first row of words denote what our worship and doctrine ought to possess, the second row what they ought not to be like. The design of a building does not ensure that quality of its preaching and worship, but this one certainly offers reminder of how plainness  can be beautiful and straightness can be desirable.

¶ Thus again he showed me, and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by line with a line in his hand.

And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A line. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a line in the midst of my people Israel, and will pass by them no more. Amos 7:7-9, Geneva Bible

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