Extracts from Johnson and Marsden, Australia's first and second chaplains

I spent most of today in Lambeth Palace Library reading room after an unsuccessful visit to the British Library doing some more reading for my Australian church history essay on the Eclectic society and its role in sending ministers and missionaries to Australia

It was great to sit and read letters that Johnson and Marsden wrote to Archbishop Moore about their early experiences in Australia.

In one, Johnson recounts his agreeing to come as chaplain:

In the evening of the 23rd of September, 1786, I was asked by a Friend if I had got the spirit of a Missionary or if I wished to go abroad - I smiled, and replied - no - I had no inclination or thought of leaving my native country.

Yet as history reveals, Johnson did indeed have a missionary heart and accompanied the convicts and military as military chaplain to the First Fleet. His evangelical commitments meant that he was motivated to preach the gospel to all:

Convicts, as well as others, are possessors of souls that are immortal and that they must 'afor long appear before the solemn tribunal of God, thereafter then to answer for their actions.

Yet his assessment of the people under his care just 5 years after the arrival at Botany Bay was not positive. They are: 'poor abandoned people lost to all sense of virtue, religion and even common morality'. Indeed, 'That this is the case, I shall only instance as to the manner in which the Sabbath is observed (or rather profaned) amongst us.'

Samuel Marsden likewise faced a difficult time. As he writes to Archbishop Moore of of his arrival and harrowing journey he says:

'These trials no doubt were permitted for some real good or we shd(sic) not have met with them. They did not make my mind uneasy so as to cause me to wish I had never come, but rather tended to confirm me in the persuasion that I was in the line of Duty ... I am fully convinced that a faithful minister will and must have many difficulties to contend with, and at the same time can obtain no remedy but patience, till lenght of time and the divine providence shall make a material change in the present circumstances of the colony.'

How encouraging that in the face of difficulties and hardship, not least from the governing officials, these men continued to preach the gospel. They sought to establish the gospel in Australia, recognising that only through the gospel could reform of society take place, a legacy that we are privleged to inherit.