Australia should be proud of the fact that Lifeline began here as the initiative of the Rev Sir Alan Walker. This Methodist minister was fearless at speaking out on things that matter and relentless at working on solutions to the things that trouble us. My friend Ian Palmer who volunteers as a telephone counsellor sent me his reflections on what this 24/7 service has meant for us over the past six decades and OK’d me to share it. It’s an amazing story.
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I had been looking forward to visiting Echuca for a while because it’s the site of one of the greatest of Australia’s invisible faith stories. Back in the 1870’s Daniel and Janet Matthews, without support from any church or society, created a sanctuary for the suffering and hunted Aboriginal people. They called it Maloga.
Located on a beautiful bend of the Murray River, this traditional ceremonial ground saw leaders emerge from the Yorta Yorta people who learned to make the teachings of Jesus a launching pad for the civil rights movement that finally gave them recognition as citizens in their own country. Cummeragunja sits on a sweeping bend of the Murray River about 20km upstream from Echuca. It’s home to some significant chapters of the Christian experience of the Yorta Yorta people. I’ve already posted the story of the remarkable Thomas Shadrach James, who taught a generation of Aboriginal activists to ‘lead and write.’ It was good to stand in the schoolroom of that dedicated Mauritian Indian teacher who quietly helped change the course of history for the Aboriginal people. Two of his trainees - Doug and Gladys Nicholls - are buried side by side out on the sand ridge and it was an honour to pay our respects there to these two outstanding Australians. I’ve told their story on this Outback Historian website. I think these people made Cummeragunja a genuinely sacred site. Look out for more stories related to this place.
A couple of years ago, I stumbled onto this interesting story of a young man who left a decisive mark on the Port Jackson settlement. I filmed the Thomas Hassall story in some great locations in Cobbity in Western Sydney, with my mate John Hills. It was a great day, full of surprises. I hope you’ll find the film he edited just as intriguing.
It’s embarrassing for a historian to admit he made a mistake, but I did this day. A couple of times I said Thomas was native born. Actually, he was born in England, taken first to Tahiti before arriving in Sydney Town. One of his earliest initiatives was to build the first Sunday School which was more than an exercise in mild religion, but a robust effort to teach the neglected ‘currency kids’ born to the new arrivals, the basics of reading and writing. I’m sure this is a clue to the mystery of how what began as a brutal convict settlement, managed to turn out as well as it did. Click Read More to WATCH the video. ,,Yesterday, I was invited by Vision Radio to speak to listeners across Australia of the moment when 33-year-old chaplain Richard Johnson stood under a gum tree in Port Jackson with an audience of mostly convicts and soldiers and spoke the message of Jesus on Australian soil for the very first time. Churches everywhere celebrated it as Heritage Sunday.
Today Australia’s elected representatives sat together in St Paul’s Anglican church, Canberra, listening to the Bible being read at the beginning of their parliamentary year. Here in Dubbo, the legal fraternity attended a service where the Catholic father admonished them to balance the law with love. How long will these practices continue in secular Australia? Is it all just a cursory nod to the Deity and then back to business as usual? Perhaps a lingering echo of the question voiced in the first chaplain’s sermon haunts us. ‘What shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits?’ There is an enormous volume of Australian story that strongly suggests there’s a lot we should be grateful for. I’ll give just one example. On return to Adelaide after being wounded in fighting missions over the trenches of the Western Front in World War One, Captain Harry Butler cast a vision for aviation in Australia. “The plane was great in war, but it will be greater in Peace. This…is the beginning of a new era in mail and passenger transport.” To demonstrate, in 1919, he pioneered the world’s first over-water airmail flight in his crimson Bristol MC fighter plane The Red Devil, flying from Adelaide to his hometown on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. It was a breathtaking achievement and he quickly drew wondering crowds to watch his daring stunt flying.
Many restless young airmen like Harry finished the war looking for further challenges. Englishman Len Daniels, who had earned his wings piloting bi-planes dubbed ‘the flying bedsteads’ with the Royal Flying Corps in Egypt, arrived in Australia in 1922, in search of a better climate and a theatre to match his passion to be an active missionary. The newly formed Bush Church Aid captured his interest. Native-born John Tebbutt has his name written on the moon alongside famous thinkers like Copernicus, Pythagorus and Tycho Brahe, but in all his eighty years he hardly moved more than a few miles out of the Hawksbury District near Sydney. Born in 1834 and growing up on farm near Windsor, the young lad found joy looking into the star-filled Southern skies at night.
At school, his mind was set toward the heavens by his teachers – all men of intelligent Christian faith. A passion for astronomy was lit in his five-year-old heart by Edward Quaife, the long-term teacher at the local Anglican parish school. At nine years old, he went to the nearby Presbyterian school to learn from Rev Matthew Adam, a sturdy Scot who worked as a missionary among seamen in Port Jackson. John’s teenage years were spent with Henry Stiles, an evangelical clergyman chosen to come to Australia specifically for his ability to train young people. This classical scholar taught him Latin and the higher mathematics he needed to sustain his longing to unravel the mysteries of the heavens. John finished his education aged 15 and went to work on his father’s farm. In his spare time, he worked on improving methods of farming and learning German and French. This is a great Rememberance Day reflection. I decided while visiting the Vietnam War Memorial in Seymour earlier this year that it would be good to recount the journey of a young ANZAC from rural Victoria, who began as a humble Sunday School teacher and morphed into one of the deadliest snipers at Gallipoli. It's the story of a country lad whose lethal skills with a rifle, and trust in the Bible he carried, made him one of our most surprising heroes.
According to World War One historian, Charles Bean, Stan Savige's bravery and strategic skill on the battlefield made him one of our finest soldiers. But what really moved me was the discovery that the greatest legacy Stan left behind was, not the reputation he earned as a crack shot, but his compassionate service to the victims of war. The Assyrian Church in Australia still reveres him almost as a saint. You'll be all the better for getting to know this faith story which has brought help to tens of thousands of widows and orphans. When Robyn and I went ‘back of Bourke’ in 1978, we only had a rough idea of what we were doing. As it turned out, it was a very rough idea! A handful of young Australians came to join us, lived in basic conditions, embarking on the adventure of living in community and learning to put their faith to the test on a farm.
Lindsay McKenzie was a young bloke from Tassie who had met our co-workers Laurie and Elvira McIntosh the year before and came to see what our rough idea looked like. It seeded some simple thoughts that he took with him to Spain and transplanted them into an unlikely setting with heroin addicts on the streets of Madrid. Here he looks back over the unexpected journey that he took with his wife Myk and others in multiplying those seeds. It’s now a remarkable set of communities called Betel that redeems and renews the lives of addicts around the world. It seemed highly unlikely that a boy christened ‘Hyacinth’ would one day become one of the great figures in Australia’s military history. His devout Irish Catholic mother may have admired St Hyacinth as a heroic strategist who spread the Christian message from China to Scotland in the 12th century, but the name Hyacinth Honner predictably caused the quiet lad from Three Springs, 300 km North of Perth, a great deal of grief at boarding school! He swiftly resorted to using his second name, Ralph.
Hefting 180-pound wheat bags on the family farm at Dalwallinu bulked the slight, scholarly boy into an accomplished athlete at the University of Western Australia between 1923-25. In his studies in English and History, Ralph developed a deep affection for two key concepts – chivalry and the epic. These gave shape to his unshakable Catholic ideals and fired a conviction that he should live and die - with absolutely no half measures – by what he believed in. They melded into the steel that became the backbone of Ralph Honner’s career as a soldier. |
AuthorJoin The Outback Historian, Paul Roe, on an unforgettable journey into Australia's Past as he follows the footprints of the Master Storyteller and uncovers unknown treasures of the nation. Archives
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