Longtime Salvation Army officer Major Albert Benjamin MBE was found dead in his car at Albuoy?s Point yesterday morning hours after his family raised the alarm that the 90-year-old preacher had gone missing.

?It?s mixed emotions for us here (on Earth). But for him ? it is a promotion,? is how the head of the Salvation Army in Bermuda divisional leader Major Lindsay Rowe characterised Major Benjamin?s death. Police said foul play had not yet been ruled out.

?We have lost a patriarch, who had a tremendous influence as an officer and we will miss him greatly,? Major Rowe said, before explaining that Major Benjamin and his wife Major Ruth ?had an amazing influence? in Bermuda.

?So many people referred to them as Mom and Dad,? Major Rowe added, referring to their longtime work with what are now called ?at risk? children ? orphans and troubled youth.

Major Benjamin would have turned 91 in December. Major Benjamin was the longest ever standing-Bermudian officer within the Salvation Army ? but was not the highest ranking. He had been honoured by Queen Elizabeth II and made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 for his service to the community.

He was a past president of the Ministerial Association and the Bermuda Bible Society. As chairman of the Panel of Clergy, he advised Government on spiritual, moral and ethical matters.

On Tuesday evening, family members told Police that he and his car were missing, Police media spokesman Dwayne Caines said yesterday. Officers arrived at Major Benjamin?s Khyber Pass, Warwick home and searched the surrounding area without success. Police then began a search about the Island.

At 7.45 a.m. Police were notified by a member of the public of a man in an unresponsive state at Albouy?s Point. A short time later an on-call physician pronounced Major Benjamin dead. The Bermuda Police Service extended its condolences to Major Benjamin?s family.

Curious HSBC/Bank of Bermuda staff watched Police activity from their headquarters as Police closed the Point off to vehicles during morning rush hour.

Major Alfred Wilson of the Hamilton Citadel said Major Benjamin was a mentor who remained active well past retirement age. ?The doctors told him a couple of years ago that he could not preach,? Major Wilson said. ?He wanted to. But he was a passionate preacher. When he preached it would bring on his angina.

?He could feel it. It broke his heart that he could not preach anymore. But his passion and excitement that doing it brought up was not good for his heart and he had to quit just in the last two years.?

Major Wilson said Major Benjamin was a positive influence on him since he was a boy. ?He was a kind man,? he said. ?There were no limits in what he would give.?

He said Major Benjamin would be sorely missed throughout the whole community and a book was even going to published about his life.

?He was very much a community man. He loved people,? Major Wilson said. ?He was an encourager, he was a lifter-upper.?

Major Benjamin attended Southampton Glebe school and completed an electrical engineering apprenticeship at the Royal Naval Dockyard and during the Second World War helped maintain US military landing craft.

Shortly after the war he qualified as a refrigeration engineer.

The Benjamins ran day care centres in three parishes, helping about 50 children a day for many years. From 1956 to 1972 they ran the Sarah Kempe corrective training school for teenage girls.

From 1972 to 1981, they fostered more than 300 children who passed through the Salvation Army?s foster homes at Cedar Hill and White Hill. For most of the next decade they operated Benjamin?s Boys Home, and then took boys into their own home when that venture closed due to a lack of funds.

Major Benjamin had retired as divisional secretary or second in command in 1980. He had served as a Hood Associate on the body set up by Governor Hood to assist offenders in prison and upon their release, and he later served on the Treatment of Offenders Board.

In the aftermath of the 1977 riots, Major Benjamin was appointed deputy chairman of the Race Relations Council and chairman of the school committee.

Major Benjamin was the last surviving member of the Army?s White Hill Corp brass band originally formed in 1896.

Major Benjamin retired as divisional secretary in 1980 and preached in more than 120 churches in Bermuda and overseas.