BUSH MISSIONARIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 July 1927, Page 12

BUSH MISSIONARIES

REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES. Pushing into corners of New South Wales where houses are 50 miles apart, and where people talk of strangers for months after they have passed, showing miners and farmers and boundary riders the first Bible they have ever seen, the workers of the Bush Missionary Society are always breaking new ground. One of the missionaries, Mr Kearney, related at the half-yearly meeting of the society in Sydney recently how he had come upon one man who had not crossed beyond the boundary of his holding for 27 years. A few hundred miles away he met people who had been telephoning over 400 miles for a clergyman to bury their dead. They were despairing in their search when Mr Kearney arrived and performed the ceremony for them. The manager of another station, Mr Kearney discovered, though 70 years of age, had never entered a church. At a township, far out at the end of all railway lines and roads, he heard from the oldest inhabitant, who had been there 17 years, that no minister of religion had ever come to the place. Mr Kearney spoke appreciatively of the hospitality extended to the bush missioners wherever they went. In five months he had spent on his meals only 10/3. Those present included Mr Joseph Palmer, one of the foundation members of the society, which was established 71 years ago.