Scotch College

Chaplain's Corner - Lost the Story? April 2000

Chaplain's Corner

Lost the Story?

John Jackson, onetime neighbour, rang to invite me to the lecture.

Rather apologetically he explained his connection with the Royal Victorian History Society. His father gave him life membership, so what could he do? Anyway, the talk was on James Forbes and his attitude to the Aborigines. Would I like to hear Dr Mairi Harman speak on this theme?

Since I read 'Promised Lands' by Jane Rogers and 'A Life of John Mathew' by Malcolm Prentis last summer I've been interested in the attitude of early Christian leaders to Aboriginal people. In Rogers' novel there are two strands. One strand is set in 1788, New South Wales. Marine Lieutenant William Dawes has arrived with the First Fleet to build an observatory, reform the convicts and understand the Aborigines. He is a keen Christian and a good man who will struggle to overcome many difficulties. I wondered, 'How authentically portrayed is Dawes' attitude to Aboriginal people? We hear so many horror stories. Were there real people like Dawes?'

In contrasting style, Prentis' book is seriously historical. Here is a writer with a well known interest in Aboriginal as well as Church history. His subject, John Mathew, was born in Aberdeenshire in 1849, and migrated as a sixteen year old to become a Queensland jackaroo. He worked for his remarkable uncle, John Mortimer on Manumbar station. Mortimer bought advertising space in the Brisbane Courier in 1860 to help protect Aboriginal people from the excesses of the 'Native Police'.

Young John Mathew was a student of languages and expressed real respect for and interest in the local aboriginal people who spoke the Kabi and Wakka languages. He became a teacher and eventually moved to Victoria to further his education. He was a fellow student of John Monash, became a Presbyterian minister at Coburg, an army chaplain in WW1, member of the Scotch College Council and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church. He maintained a lifelong interest in anthropology.

James Forbes was also a native of Aberdeenshire who became a Presbyterian minister in Melbourne a generation before Mathew. His interest in education preceded Mathew's for, as we know, he was the founder of Scotch College. The question in my mind was 'Did James Forbes share Mathew's respect for and interest in aboriginal people?' I accepted John's invite to the lecture.

The venue of the RVHS is delightful, overlooking Flagstaff Gardens. However, as the western sunlight filtered through the trees it seemed to maintain the room at an even 30 degrees. Not ideal listening conditions. Dr Harman's material was fascinating. I wish I'd taken notes of her extensive documentation. One seminal reference will have to suffice. He wrote, in a letter to Rev Dr Welsh which was published in the 'Home and Foreign Missionary Record', of the Church of Scotland, January 1, 1842 'The deeds of darkness at which I hinted increase in number and enormity. The whole territory has been occupied by the flocks and herds of the colonists, and the natives are famishing on the lands of which they were so lately the sole lords. Not much wonder that they commit occasional outrages; but every peccadillo of theirs is visited with the most savage retribution.'

Although it is now common to belittle the work of early Christian workers in Australia, Forbes sympathies were clear. Interestingly, medical specialist Bill Williams, who spent time in the Western Desert comments, 'within one year of going to live with the Aranda, Karl Strehlow, the 19th century German linguist and Lutheran pastor, was preaching to the people in their language'. He maintains that identification with Aboriginal concerns continued into this century 'without the (missionaries) efforts the Haast Bluff reserve and the Pitjinjtajara homelands would now be cattle stations'. He observes that contemporary western medics have not sought to integrate themselves as the early missionaries did (The Age, 24.5.2000).

Williams notes there are old people of the Western Desert who are deeply committed to their ceremonial lives as Aboriginal people, yet regard themselves as Christians. 'They see white people as having arrived in this country with a fantastic story about the soul, a story that had magic. They find it hard to believe that so many white people have now lost the story.'

The 'story' is the good news of Jesus Christ, and the 'magic' is surely the grace of God it brings to our lives. James Forbes struggled to share that gospel across a cultural divide that today we find almost impossible to bridge. Do we lack the motivating grace because we have 'lost the story'? Where else can we find the power to heal and unite us as a people?

Rev Graham Bradbeer, Chaplain