On This Day 220 Years Ago…
Two-hundred and twenty years ago on September 23, 1786 John Newton – the man who penned Amazing Grace – approached Rev Richard Johnson with a vision for Johnson to be the chaplain and missionary on the first fleet of convicts being sent to Botany Bay in the uncolonised land of Australia. Australian history was written when Johnson accepted this challenge put to him by Newton.
Both of the first chaplains to the settlement, Rev Richard Johnson who arrived on the First Fleet and Rev Samuel Marsden who arrived on the Second Fleet, were convinced God had given them Australia as a base for evangelism in this country and throughout the South Pacific. Richard Johnson built the first church at his own expense and by his own hands. It was a wattle and daub church he started building in 1793. A marble obelisk stands by the spot near Macquarie Square.
The first European ashore on the First Fleet, a seaman who jumped ashore to hold the boat for Captain Arthur Phillip, later used land he had been given for a church. Owen Cavanough with Thomas Arndell built a church at Ebenezer that still stands to this day – Australia’s oldest church. The headstones for Owen Cavanough and his wife are in the Ebenezer churchyard. Rev John Dunmore Lang, the great Presbyterian Minister and member of the first Legislative Council, celebrated Holy Communion at Ebenezer, which has been held there ever since.
A female convict, Mary Parker Small, gave birth to the first European born in Australia on September 22nd, 1788. Baby Rebekah Small was probably conceived in that licentious night when the women convicts first landed a week after the men. Baby Rebekah grew up to be a fine young woman. She was converted to Christ through evangelical preaching, and later married a Congregational missionary, Rev Francis Oakes. Their children and other descendants became Christian leaders in Australia. They all believed Australia was to be a Christian country.
Unlike other lands, the Church in Australia was not established by missionaries who came bearing the Gospel, or “Pilgrim Fathers” who came to escape persecution and found a nation dedicated to God. Our earliest settlers came unwillingly, but they brought the faith with them, and many caught the faith because of the faithful witness largely through believing lay men and women. The Lord Jesus was a prisoner, as was John the Baptist, Peter and John, the Apostle Paul and Silas. The church has always been concerned for the prisoner and convict. But no other country has seen its churches founded and built by believing convicts. What is required now, is that you have that saving faith in Jesus Christ, that so many of the makers of Australia did – both freemen and convicts. They believed. So must you.
GORDON MOYES
