The Paper Article January 2015 - 175 Years in Australia

The Paper January 2015

Enjoying the Journey - 175 Years in Sydney

In October 1839, just on 175 years ago, two Travelling Preachers from the Christian Israelite Church in the UK arrived at Sydney Cove, after a journey which took 136 days (just over four months).  They were Charles Robertson (a bachelor from Aberdeenshire in Scotland) and Charles Wilson (a married man, who left his wife at home whilst he undertook this visit).  We remembered this event, and those that have followed, in a special Praise Service at the Christian Israelite Church in Campbell Street during our Christmas festivities over the weekend of 6^th and 7^th December last.

When these travelling preachers arrived the population of Sydney was around 10,000, with the outskirts of the city almost reaching to around where Central station now stands.  Within a week of arriving they made their first Australian “converts” – a man John Tuckwell, who had been born in the Colony, and his wife Susannah.

Conditions were harsh, and we read of how these first Preachers preached in Hyde Park – which was then a completely open field with no trees, and in summer with no green grass!  The Colonist newspaper reported as follows:  “PERSERVERANCE - This quality is much admired, and greatly talked of, but as example is always better than precept, we would thoroughly recommend all who are not fully gifted with it, to go for one Sunday on the Race Course and witness the arduous and enthusiastic labours of the bearded prophets.  For full seven hours on Sunday they held forth to a crowd constantly changing in its composition, and had not the shades of evening and night supervened, it is probable they would yet be propounding their doctrines, and endeavouring, in their way to save the souls of their fellow creatures.”

Their efforts were rewarded, and within fifteen years (1853) the Church which is still in use today was built up on the hill out of the hustle and bustle of the City!  In 1866 it is noted that there were 275 people who had “signed as members” in Sydney. 

Charles Robertson undertook a journey to Bathurst mainly on foot, travelling around 20 miles (32 kilometers) each day, and would stay overnight at the Stockade with soldiers and convicts, taking whatever opportunity he could to “preach” to them on the way.  Interestingly a gentleman, John Hood, travelling with his son from Scotland, penned the following entry in his journal in January 1842:

“I and young D_____ left Bathurst in that most villainous of machines, the Sydney mail; and, after a terrible shaking, we at last reached his destination, B______, where we put him down.  At the inn at the Water of Lett, a singular looking person joined us in the mail, and placed himself opposite to me.  I thought I had seen him somewhere in Scotland; his appearance was completely Jewish.  I got into conversation with him and gave him great pleasure by telling him that I was from Scotland, whence, as I had guessed from his accent, he also came.  He told me his name was Robinson, or Robertson, I forget which; that he came from Aberdeenshire, and was preaching the gospel to the brethren throughout the world.  He seemed at least seventy years old, but was hale, and had a full keen grey eye, and a very reverend aspect. He was in Edinburgh, he said, a few years ago, and I have no doubt it was there I had seen him. 

“His beard reached to his girdle.  He said something about the lost tribes, but I could not discover his particular tenets.  The brethren were few, he said, in Australia, but he had been refreshing them in Bathurst.  He was a person of humble sphere of life, and left us at an ale-house, whose landlord, half-seas over, received him familiarly as an old acquaintance, yet as a person whom he was proud to have within his gates.  He was not a Jew, or a Calvinist, nor an Episcopalian: but as to what he was, he left me in utter ignorance.  The poor old man seemed to look upon me as the last link with his country, and seemed unwilling to leave me, returning twice from the house to speak another word and have another shake of my hand; at last he said feelingly, ‘If you should ever happen to see anyone that asks you if you saw me, say the old man is alive, and still preaching the truth to the brethren’."

So for over 175 years believers in Australia have continued to worship following the Biblically based life-style as proclaimed by the Church, and for 160 years in the same Sanctuary in Sydney.  Some may no doubt take a view that they are now more educated, and embrace a more enlightened life-style, but others hold the view that the teachings of the Bible have been proved by time, and the principles it outlines continue to hold today as much as in times past.  Life goes on, and history provides information from the past for us to apply in the present.  We are in the present, and have a responsibility to shape the future.  We should seek to learn from the past so as not to repeat the mistakes that have been made, and to help improve the future. 

If you have never thought seriously about the importance of history, and the lessons it has given us for today, perhaps now at the beginning of a new year might be a good time to do so.  We would like to invite you to contact us, or a Church in your local Community, to discuss how you can identify the key events of history which are impacting the way things happen today, and to recognise how the things you do today will impact your future.  See Church Notices in this Paper for times of Meetings at the Christian Israelite Church at 196 Campbell Street – we have been in continuous service there since 1853 helping to meet the needs of people in a changing society.