HELPING MANKIND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 121, 21 April 1938, Page 2

HELPING MANKIND

AUSTRALIAN MISSION. LECTURE BY REV. J. FLYNN. Unfolding a story of endeavour in the face of apparently hopeless odds, a story dramatic in its achievements and breathing the strength of effort inspired by faith, Rev. John Flynn (“Flynn of the Inland”) last evening told a large audience in the Opera House, in an unassuming and quiet manner, of the history and accomplishments of the Presbyterian Church Inland Mission in Australia. Ho outlined, too. the development of the inland medical section, a service which has caught tbe imaginattive interest of hundreds of thousands of persons on account of the victory of wireless and air transport over distance, time and desert. In the first section of Mr Flynn’s address he described tbe vastness of tbe mission field, its problems and tbe method of approach adopted. In tbe second half the speaker gave a commentary on a set of coloured slides touching multitudinous phases of tbe mission’s work. The chairman was Rev. J. Hubbard, minister of St. Andrew’s, and there was also on the stage Rev. G. Bnckl. borne missions superintendent of tbe Presbyterian Church in New Zealand Most of us, said the chairman in introducing tbe speaker, were familiar with Mr Flynn’s work through reading “Flynn of the Inland,” by lon L. Idricss. Mr- Flynn was to be compared with Grenfell of Labrador. Tt might he. said by some that they were working really only in tlieir own particular spheres, but actually thev were shaking us nil out. of lethargy by tbe magnitude of their labours. MISSION’S ENTERPRISE. It was now more than two months since he and Mrs Flynn bad come to New Zealand, said Mr Flynn, and their life here had been but one welcome after another. He conveyed good wishes from the General Assembly of tbe Presbyterian Church of Australia. They felt that the destinies of Australia ami New Zealand were inseparably intertwined. It was a faot, too, that many leaders of the Church in Australia were Now Zealanders. The audience would agree that the two countries were “as far apart as oranges and potatoes.” (Laughter.) It was humiliating to Rev. John McKenzie, a New Zealander in the Moderator’s chair in Australia, to see a difference growing between the two countries. It was to be hoped that the peoples would grow together, mingling across the “straits of the. Tasman Sea.” Actually we~ in New Zealand were closer to the headquarters of the Australian Inland Mission in Sydney than some of the mission’s out-stations. It had even been easier and more speedy at one time to- send a letter to London and'receive a reply than to send one from Sydney to the Hall’s Creek station and receive a repiy. Touching on problems which had faced and still did face the Australian Inland Mission, the speaker said Australia was a somewhat strange land. It was 29 times greater in area thami New Zealand and yet bad only four times the population of New Zealand. While that might make New Zealand appear small, bow many realised that New Zealand was larger than England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales put together, or almost as large as' Italy? The speaker showed by maps where the huge exceedingly unpopulated. spaces of Australia lay. About a third of the whole had less than ten inches of rain annually. Most of the rain fell in the north, but was not of full use because it was monsoonal, about Christmas, lasting from only two to four months, and the rest of the year saw a drought. Those who knew agriculture knew that one could not get along with more than five months’ drought—and some of the New Zealanders trembled at five weeks’ drought! There were three Australias—“normal” Australia, in the southeastern corner and a little of the southwest and the coast up to Cairns; another section, more or less the top half, was monsoonal; and the arid area. FROM PULPIT TO WHEELS. In 1912 the Australian Inland Mission had been organised as a new department of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, said the speaker, who explained that he had been given two years in which to organise the work. That period had grown to four years, and up to over 25 years and still he was organising. At 12 stations nursing services had* been undertaken and four of these had grown into public hospitals. It had been found that the only way of keeping in touch with the people was to leave the\pulpit behind, for wheels. To show the tremendous spread of the- territory Mr Flynn said that the minister whose home was in Sydney and his congregation in Northern Australia could travel to New Zealand and back without having covered the distance involved in going from his home to his congregation. Next, the speaker referred to the miracle of the wireless achievements of the Australian Inland Mission, and of the aerial medical section and the doctor and his ’plane, the expansion of the “mantle of safety” which was already operating and making life secure for the settlers. It was a fact that persons 350 miles from Cloncurry could receive medical assistance more speedily (by ’plane) than those living closer to the town, where there were other methods' of transport and the population more dense. The doctors and nurses had to wait for their calls. That proved tedious at times, but just had to be borne. The speaker told the story of D’Arcy. the young man who had died less than 13 hours before medical help, rushing from 2000 miles away in a 13-day journey, was able to reach him, a story which, like ripples in a pond had gradually spread across the Australian continent to play a big part in moulding practical interest' in the mission. In the development of the medical eection, the nursing and medical service at various centres, the Inland Mission had assumed the liabilities and “felled the cat.” All had known of the need —none had undertaken the organisation. Yet it_ had been worth it, because a comradeship had been built up, through it, between the Inland Mission and the people of Australia. It had knitted together multitudinous organisations for a common aim, and if there could be induced yet greater co-opera-tion in a wider sphere, then the future of the Australian Inland Mission was VIEWS ON THE SCREEN. The first group of slides showed scenes of outback Australia at the Snowy River, the Otway Ranges the great height of forest trees and a rude bark church, yet as highly regarded in its sphere as the magnificent Scots Church, Melbourne, built by tlie father of Dame Nellie Melba. The screen took the audience to the North, to see pictures of the pearling at Broome, where 30ft. tides left vessels high and dry at the jetty, and scenes which showed the monsoonal areas as anything but desert. Other slides depicted the arid areas, with mulga" bushes, the rooky McDonald Ranges of Central Australia; camel trains, the rivers running inland instead of seaward, thereby giving life to what would otherwise have been uninhabitable land; places where one could travel 1000 miles without seeing a fence were depicted, also the bores which, costing up to £4 a foot to sink, had been sent down to as lar as

5000 ft. in search of -water, sometimes unsuccessfully. For more than a quarter of a century the Presbyterian Church had worked in those areas, said the speaker. The Methodist and Anglican Churches were also working in the same field. The series of slides concluded with a view of a Fox Moth aeroplane used by the aerial medical section. It had a relatively low landing speed, thus making it suitable for the requirements in that direction. Mr AV. B. Tennent expressed the thanks of the audience to Mr Flynn, and in doing- so referred to the bond forged during the AVar which led to 1300 ex-servicemen being on their way to Australia now. Mr Tennent spoke of those who had had the courage and the vision to look ahead and who had joined with Rev. John Flynn, with the practical experience, in carrying those visions to accomplishment