by Jim Haynes
The superintendent’s prayer did not raise a single qualm; and the boys of Class II straggled openly over the forms, pinched each other, and passed such rubbish as they could collect to Dicky Haddon, the pale, saintly, ginger-headed boy at the top of the class, who was in honour bound to drop everything so sent him in amongst the mysteries of the old, yellow, guttural harmonium, through a convenient crack in the back.
Throughout the service Brother Best, proud of his new office, watched the scholars diligently, visiting little boys and girls with sudden sharp raps or twitches of the ear if they dared even to sneeze, but judiciously overlooking much that was injurious and unbecoming in the bigger boys of Class II, who had a vicious habit of sullenly kicking elderly shins when cuffed or wigged for their misdeeds.
The Bible reading, with wonderful, original expositions of the obscure passages by horny-handed miners, occupied about half an hour, and then the superintendent stilled the racket and clatter of stowing away the tattered books with an authoritative hand, and invited Brother Tresize to pray. If he was great he could be merciful.
Brother Tresize made his preparations with great deliberation, spreading a handkerchief large enough for a bedcover to save the knees of his sacred black-cloth trousers, hitching up the latter to prevent bagging, and finally loosening his paper collar from the button in front to give free vent to his emotions—and preserve the collar. Then, the rattling of feet, the pushing and shoving, the coughing and whispering and sniffing having subsided, and all being on their knees, Brother Tresize began his prayer in a soft, low, reverent voice that speedily rose to a reverberant roar.
‘Oh, Gwad, ah! look down upon we here, ah; let the light of Thy countenance ahluminate, ah, this little corner of Thy vineyard, ah. Oh, Gwad, ah! be merciful to they sinners what be assembled here, ah; pour down Thy speerit upon they, ah, make they whole, ah. Oh, Gwad, ah! Thoo knowest they be some here, ah, that be wallerin’ in sin, ah, some that be hippycrits, ah, some that be cheats, ah, some that be scoffers, an’ misbelievers, an’ heathens, oh, Gwad, ah! Have mercy on they people, oh, Gwad, ah! Show they Thy fires, ah, an’ turn they from the wrath, oh, Loord Gwad, ah!’
Brother Tresize was evidently in fine form this morning; already the windows were vibrating before the concussions of his tremendous voice, and the floor bounded under the great blows that punctuated his sentences. As he went on, the air became electrical, and the spirit moved amongst the flock. The women felt it first.
‘Oh, Gwad, ah!’ interjected Mrs Eddy from her corner. ‘Throw up the windies, an’ let the speerit in!’ sobbed Mrs Eddy.
Brother Prator blew his nose with a loud report, a touching and helpful manifestation. Brother Tresize prayed with every atom of energy he possessed. His opinion was on record: ‘A good prayer Sunday mornin’, you, takes it out of en more’n a hard shift in a hot drive, you.’ When his proper momentum was attained he oscillated to and fro between the floor and the form, swaying back over his heels till his head almost touched the boards—a gymnastic feat that was the envy of all the brethren—he shook his clenched fist at the rafters and reached his highest note.
The plunge forward was accompanied by falling tones, and ended with a blow on the form that made every article of furniture in the building jump. The perspiration ran in streams down his face and neck; dry sobs broke from his labouring chest; long strands of his moist, well-oiled, red hair separated themselves from the flattened mass and stood out like feelers, to the wild, ungodly delight of Class II; and whilst he prayed the brethren and ‘sistern’ kept up a continuous fire of interjections and heart-rending groans.
‘They be people here, ah! what is careless of Thy grace; chasten ’em with fire an’ brimstone—chasten ’em, oh, Lord, ah! They be those of uz what go to be Thy servants, oh, Gwad, ah! an’ to do Thy work here below, ah, what is tried an’ found wantin’, ah—some do water they milk, oh, Gwad, ah! an’ some do be misleadin’ they neighbours’ hens to lay away. Smite they people for Thy glory, oh, Loord, ah!’
A great moaning filled the chapel, and all heads turned towards Brother Nehemiah Best, kneeling at his chair, with his face buried in his hands, trembling violently. Nehemiah, two years earlier, had been fined for watering the milk sold to his town customers; quite recently he had been thrown into the Phoenix slurry by an unregenerate trucker, who accused him of beguiling his hens to lay from home.
Brother Tresize was wrestling with the superintendent in prayer, and the excitement rose instantly to fever heat. ‘They what do not as they wad be done by, pursue ’em, ah; smite they with Thy right hand, oh, Lord Gwad, ah! so they may be turned from they wickedness, ah. They what have better food to they table for theyselves than for they children or they wives, ah, they what be filled with vanity, ah, they what havin’ no book-learnin’ do deceive Thy people, an’ fill the seats o’ the learned, ah, deal with such, oh, Gwad, ah!’
Brother Tresize was now almost frantic with the ecstasy of his zeal. His exhortation was continued in this strain, and every word was a lance to prick the cowering superintendent. The women sniffed and sobbed, the men groaned and cried ‘Ahmen, ah!’
It was a great time for grace. But suddenly a new voice broke in—a shrill, thin voice, splitting into that of Brother Tresize like a steam whistle. Brother Best had assumed the defensive. ‘Oh, Lord, ah!’ he cried, ‘give no ear to they what bears false witness against they neighbours, to they what backbite, ah, an’ slander, ah, an’ bear malice, ah; heed they not, oh, Lord, ah!’
Abel Tresize rose to the occasion. It was a battle. His voice swelled till it rivalled the roar of the ravening lion; he no longer selected his words or cared to make himself understood of the people; it was necessary only to smother Brother Best, to pray him down, and Abel prayed as no man had ever prayed before at Waddy.
A curious crowd—the Irish children, Dan the Drover, an old shepherd, and a few cattlemen from the Red Cow—attracted by the great commotion, had assembled in the porch, and were gazing in open-mouthed, delighted. Tresize persevered, but Best’s shrill, penetrating voice rang out distinctly above all. Brother Best was transformed, inspired; under the influence of his great wrath he had waxed eloquent; he smote his enemy hip and thigh, he heaped coals of fire upon his head, and marshalled St Peter and all the angels against him.
The severity of his exertions was telling heavily upon Abel Tresize; he was dreadfully hoarse, his great hands fell upon the form without emphasis, he was almost winded, and his legs wobbled under him. He pulled himself together for another effort, and the cry that he uttered thrilled every heart, but it quite exhausted him, and he went over backwards, striking his head upon the floor, and lay in the aisle convulsed in a fit.
Instantly the chapel became a babel. The teachers ran to Brother Tresize, and bore him into the open air, the wondering children crowding after, and left the new superintendent sobbing on his table like a broken-hearted boy.
BILL’S RELIGION
WILLIAM BAYLEBRIDGE
AMONG THOSE QUESTIONS PUT to men before we let them into our armed forces, the one that most troubles them is the question that bears upon their creed or religion.
To many men the beliefs of the various church conclaves and synods are dead things of which they know nothing. These men have their own creed, often kept well hidden and containing some strange articles. Some of these articles many a priest, perhaps, would set little store by.
This creed, the creed proper to Australians, we have not yet written down in books, thus, men are at times hard-put to answer questions that bear upon their creed or religious beliefs.
There was a young bushman called Bill. He went early to join up for the Light Horse. Having passed the riding test, he was told, with others, to get stripped, and stand in a tent, and wait there till the tape-sergeant called on him. This he did. Seeing him there in his skin only, you could have marked that he was a lengthy lean fellow, broad of bone, with muscle sitting along it like bunched wire. The bush had done that.
Someone
said: ‘Step forward!’ And he stepped up and onto the scale.
‘Twelve seven,’ said the sergeant.
He then stood up to have the tape run across him.
‘Five eleven and a half—forty—forty four,’ said the sergeant again.
Then, when they were done with his age, his eyes, the colour of his hair, and the quaint marks, an officer said, looking up:
‘What religion?’
Now, this man, because of the reason I have spoken of, could not well answer this.
‘My kind,’ he said, ‘give little thought to that.’
The officer said, ‘But, you must tell me this. We require an answer. What belief does your father hold to?’
‘He kept it always inside his shirt,’ said Bill, slowly, ‘no one rightly knew.’
‘How, then, was he buried?’ asked the officer again, sharply. He did not care much for this man’s manners. ‘That will clear this thing up.’
‘Well,’ said Bill, ‘the old man had the laugh on them there too, for he put that job through himself.’
‘Himself! How so?’
‘He dropped down a shaft,’ Bill answered, ‘and it fell in upon him. This we found out later and, as he was a dead man then, there was nothing left to do but to put the stone up.’
‘A poor funeral!’ the officer remarked.
‘Well, he always said,’ answered Bill, ‘that he’d care most for a funeral that had little fuss about it.’
The officer, plainly, was losing his patience. ‘Have you never heard tell of such things as the Thirty-nine Articles?’ he asked, ‘the Sermon on the Mount, and the Ten Commandments? Look, my man, don’t you know what a Catholic is, and a Quaker? What a Wesleyan is, or a Seventh Day Saint? It might be, now, that you’re an Anabaptist,’ he said, ‘or a Jew. But one of these things you must be. Speak up. The Sergeant has to fill this form in.’
‘One of those things I might be,’ Bill answered. ‘But I can’t tell that. I’m a plain man.’
The officer looked at him squarely and then said, with a hard lip:
‘Tell me this—have you any religion in you at all?’
‘That I can’t swear to,’ said Bill. ‘But an old fellow up our way, who looked after us well as children and often chatted with us around the campfire, said he reckoned so.’
The officer smiled tartly, ‘And this bushman had some articles of faith for this religion?’
‘He did,’ replied Bill.
‘This ought to be looked into,’ said the officer, ‘it may be that he made up the decalogue for it, too.’
‘In a manner of speaking he did,’ answered Bill again.
‘Indeed! And what, then, was that?’
Bill, taking his time about it, said: ‘I got this off by heart. To give it in his own words it ran like this:
Honour your country; put no fealty before this.
Honour those who serve it.
Honour yourself, for this is the beginning of all honour.
A mean heart is the starting place of evil.
A clean heart is the dignity of life; keep your heart clean.
Think first; then labour.
Lay to, so that your seed will stand up thick on the earth.
Possess your own soul.
Thou shalt live . . . and
Thou shalt lay down thy life for more life.
‘I think that was it,’ he said. ‘I can’t go much into that swagger; but I guess that’s about right. Now, if you’ll put that question again, I think I could fix it.’
‘What, then, is your religion?’ asked the officer.
Glad at heart to have found his answer, Bill said, quickly, ‘Australian, that’s my religion.’
‘Well,’ said the officer, with a sour smile, ‘that will do. Pass on to the doctor.’
On Bill’s form, then, in the space against religion, he wrote this word—‘None’.
EVERYONE LIKED
FATHER CONNOLLY
JIM HAYNES
EVERYONE LIKED FATHER CONNOLLY, even Dad and Auntie Maude.
Back in those days, when you were either ‘Catholic’ or ‘Protestant’, our town had very few ‘tykes’, or ‘rock choppers’. Still, nearly everyone in Weelabarabak liked the local Catholic priest.
Dad liked Father Connolly partly to annoy Mum.
‘That Father Connolly’s a nice bloke,’ he would say to Mum. ‘He came into the pub and had a yarn this arvo. You have to admire that, don’t you? Our C of E bloke never comes near the pub, too busy with the Ladies’ Auxiliary.
‘Why don’t we switch to being Catholic? My grandmother was a good Irish Catholic, you know. I’m sure they’d have us back. It might straighten out that bloody kid of ours. What do you reckon, Joyce?’
This was guaranteed to get Mum going, which was exactly what Dad intended, of course. He loved to ‘stir’ Mum when he thought she was putting on ‘airs and graces’, but only up to a point. He wasn’t silly enough to go too far.
Still, Dad did like Father Connolly.
Even Auntie Maude had a soft spot for our local Catholic priest, and she was on the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the C of E and did the flowers at St Matthew’s!
Auntie Maude liked Father Connolly because he was an educated man who always found the same mistakes in the Weelabarabak Bugle that she found herself.
This was not exactly true. What Father Connolly did was to sympathise with Auntie Maude when she showed him the mistakes at the newsagent.
‘Oh, that shouldn’t be a possessive, now should it?’ he’d say, ‘and the spelling is very wayward, but the poor man does his best.’
Mum always reckoned that Auntie Maude was ‘taken in’ by Father Connolly’s lovely Irish lilt.
‘I am taken in by nothing of the kind,’ Maude would say, ‘but he has a lovely manner and his voice is very educated and pleasant on the ear, I must admit. He’s an educated man, and very civil for a Catholic. And he’s very kind to the less fortunate.’
This was true, Father Connolly had time for everyone it seemed.
Even our town drunk, Dipso Dan, liked Father Connolly.
Dipso used to make little jokes whenever he ran into the priest downtown. The jokes were based on a scant knowledge of Catholicism similar to my own and seemed to consist of fragments collected from films starring Bing Crosby and Spencer Tracy.
‘G’day, Father, are you goin’ my way?’ he’d ask.
If the priest was wearing his black smock, as he often did when he was on official church business or making house calls, Dipso would always say, ‘G’day Father, got any dirty habits you wanna get rid of?’
Father Connolly liked Dan, too. He’d always stop for a yarn and take the jibes in good humour.
But then, Father Connolly liked everyone.
He was always friendly and would ask after everyone’s family by name, even though the vast majority of the town’s population was not Catholic.
Much of Father Connolly’s time was spent ministering to the needs of one particular family.
The O’Sheas were the town’s largest Catholic family, although their faith wasn’t what you’d call rock solid, or even consistent. In fact the O’Sheas were generally considered to be the biggest bunch of rogues around the district.
Whereas the C of E minister seemed to spend all his time ministering to his regular and committed churchgoers, the Catholic priest spent a lot of time with the local sinners.
Father Connolly walked a very thin line between attempting to keep the O’Sheas on the straight and narrow, and attempting to keep them out of trouble with the authorities. When he failed to do the latter he gave character references to the local Magistrates Court and, when that failed, he made prison visits to keep the family members in touch with one another.
People in our town often debated the priest’s commitment to the O’Sheas. They were not good Catholics in any sense of the term, and some people wondered why they got so much attention when they made no attempt to be good members of the flock.
/> ‘Their Irish name is the only bloody Catholic thing about them,’ Dad would say, ‘and that poor bloody priest spends most of his time trying to help them.’
I actually brought the subject up with Father Connolly when I was old enough to be interested in such things.
I was home from college and finally had a car of my own, a Ford Prefect that was always in need of some ‘tinkering’ to keep it mobile. When your car needed a bit of ‘tinkering’ you usually took it down to Sheedy’s Garage and borrowed Nev Sheedy’s tools and paid him for any spare parts you used.
Father Connolly was always tinkering with the parish car at Sheedy’s on Saturday. For many years the priest had a beautiful old Morris Isis, but it had been replaced by a less glamorous, but equally unreliable, Morris 1800 by the time I had my first car.
So there we were, ‘tinkering’ together and yarning a bit about college and cars.
I asked the priest the question in a roundabout sort of way.
‘Father,’ I said, ‘you seem to spend a lot of time helping people who aren’t very religious. Don’t you get depressed after all these years?’
‘Heavens, me boy!’ he replied. ‘Why would you think such a thing as that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘At our Sunday school they always told us you had to always try to be a proper member of the church.’
‘Well now, that may be true,’ he said with a generous smile, ‘but there’s no such thing as a perfect Catholic, didn’t you know that?’
I replied that I didn’t know that.
‘Well, we like everyone to be as near to good as they can be, too,’ he mused. ‘But in our faith you’re either a “practising” or “lapsed”—you’re never perfect.’
He seemed to find this amusing and was chuckling to himself as he added, ‘The thing is though, me boy, if you’re born a Catholic, you’re always going to be a Catholic, of one kind or another, that’s for sure!’