 Archbishop of Sydney, Primate of Australia and Tasmania. |
Sometime Archdeacon of Brisbane Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester and Chaplain of Dulwich College LONDON: 34 Great Castle Street, Oxford Circus, W. OXFORD: 106 S. Aldate's Street |
Chapter I. Introductory
Chapter II. The Founding of the Church
Chapter III. The First Bishop of Australia
Chapter IV. The Province of New South Wales
Chapter V. The Province of Victoria
Chapter VI. The Province of Queensland
Chapter VII. The Autonomous Dioceses
Chapter VIII. Education
Chapter IX. Missions to the Heathen
Chapter X. Church Organization
IT was said, I believe by the late Bishop Lightfoot, that the study of history was the best cordial for a drooping courage. I can imagine no study more bracing and exhilarating than that of the modern expansion of the Church of England beyond the seas during the past half century, and especially since the institution of the Day of Intercession for Foreign Missions. It is only when these matters are studied historically that this expansion comes out in its true proportions, and invites comparison with the progress of the Church in any similar period of the world's history since our LORD'S Ascension into heaven.
But for this purpose there must be the accurate marshalling of facts, the consideration of the special circumstances of each country, race and Mission, the facing of problems, the biographies of great careers, even the bold forecast of conquests yet to come. It is to answer some of these questions, and to enable the general reader to gauge the progress of Church of England Missions, that Messrs. A. R. Mowbray and Co. have designed a series of handbooks, [v/vi] of which each volume will be a monograph on the work of the Church in some particular country or region by a competent writer of special local experience and knowledge. The whole series will be edited by two men who have given themselves in England to the work and study of Foreign Missions-Canon Dodson, Principal of S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh, and Canon Bullock-Webster, of Ely.
I commend the project with all my heart. The first volume, which I have been able to study in proof, appears to me an excellent introduction to the whole series. It is a welcome feature of missionary work at home that we have now passed into the stage of literature and study, and that the comity of Missions allows us to learn from each other, however widely methods may vary. The series of handbooks appears to me likely to interest a general public which has not been accustomed to read missionary magazines, and I desire to bespeak for it a sympathetic interest, and to predict for it no mean success in forming and quickening the public mind.
EDGAR ALBAN.
HIGHAMS,
WOODFORD GREEN, ESSEX,
November 10, 1907.
FEW facts in modern history are more arresting or instructive than the rapid extension of the Church's responsibilities and labours in the colonial and missionary fields; yet, until recently, few facts perhaps have been less familiar to those who have not deliberately given themselves to a study of the subject.
It has therefore been felt that the time has come when a series of monographs, dealing with the expansion of the Church of England beyond the seas, may be of service towards fixing the popular attention upon that great cause, the growing interest in which constitutes so thankworthy a feature in the Church's outlook to-day.
The range of this series is confined to the work in which the Church of England is engaged. That story is too full to allow of any attempt to include the splendid devotion, and the successful labours, of other Missions of Christendom. But, for a fair understanding either of the Christian advance generally or of the relative position of our own [vii/viii] work, a knowledge of those Missions is essential; and it is in the hope of leading some of its readers to such further comparative study that this series has been taken in hand.
The Editors have tried to keep in view the fact that, while the wonderful achievements here recorded have been accomplished in large part through the agency of our Missionary Societies, yet these Societies are, after all, only the hands and arms of the Holy Church in the execution of her divine mission to the world.
They have directed their work, as Editors, simply to securing general uniformity of plan for the series, and have left each writer a free hand in the selection of material and the expression of opinion.
T.H.D.
G.R.B.-W.
IN the following pages no attempt has been made to trace the development of the civil government from Crown Colony to Commonwealth. For this aspect of Australian life the reader is referred to the list of books on page 222, especially Tregarthen's Australian Commonwealth, and Jebb's Problems in Colonial Nationalism. The latter of these gives a fair indication of modern tendencies which, for good or for evil, cannot fail to influence the destinies of the Australian Church in the future.
Little, also, has been said of the work of individual clergymen, whose pioneer labours contributed so largely to the extension of the Church in the early days. The brief account given of the experiences of the Rev. E. Synge in New South Wales may be taken as an example of what might be written of many another, who, through perils and hardships almost incredible, carried spiritual ministrations to the children of the dispersion in the Back-blocks. Each diocese [ix/x] has its own roll of honour in this respect, and the Church in Australia owes more than it is possible to express to this band of devoted men, upon the foundation of whose labours the Bishops afterwards built.
Very slight, too, is the acknowledgement made of the services of the large body of able and devout laymen who, whether as legislators, lawyers, and merchants, have played a great part in the moulding of the organization of the Church, or who, as voluntary lay readers, Sunday school teachers, and in other capacities, have brought their gifts to the treasure chamber of the Church, and have given assistance of incalculable value to Bishops and clergy in diocese and parish throughout the island-continent.
These omissions are serious, and detract much from the living interest of the story told in these chapters, which is a description of results rather than of processes; and, if the personal element be largely lacking from the narrative, the writer's apology must be that, in order to secure a connected account of the chief events in over one hundred years of Church history, he has felt obliged to rigidly exclude details, to the attractiveness of which he is far from being insensible.
[xi] A full history of the gradual growth and organization of the Australian Church, correlating the lives and labours of its leaders, both clerical and lay, is a great desideratum, and, as a slight contribution towards this end, and that, despite its many and obvious defects, it may serve to make better known in England the problems and vicissitudes of one of the great Daughter Churches of the Empire, this little book has been written.
A. E. D.