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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

I

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I.

Perth, Western Australia,

We arrived here four weeks to a day after leaving Leeds. We might have left three days later, had we been pressed for time, and come by way of Brindisi in twenty-five days. Indeed, it would scarcely have been possible to have had a quicker, smoother or more comfortable voyage. Our only misadventure was a delay of some eight or nine hours in the Suez Canal, due to the foundering of a cargo steamer at the southern entrance. So we had to "tie up," as they say, sailors landing in the boat and tying the ship fast to the shore, to let ships bound northward go by. In this way we had to watch one after another pass us, their claim over us consisting in the yellow quarantine flag which floated at their prow. They could not tie up, as none of their crew would have been permitted to land, so we had to bear the penalty of health, and give them way. They mostly came from Jeddah, the port of Mecca, and were conveying pilgrims home to Turkey and Asia Minor. It was curious to watch the pilgrims at their prayers, as indifferent to the eyes of a hundred European infidels page 76 gazing at them through glasses, and discussing their devotions, as if we had been so many birds perched in the rigging. Not hypocrites, certainly, for what could it advantage them to be seen of us as we passed and were gone forever. Men rather to whom prayer was one of the ordinary practices of decent life, and who were no more ashamed to be seen praying than we are to say grace at table.

On the whole I was glad of the little delay, for it helped to fix on my mind the impression of the eternal desert, just the same now as it was in the days of Moses, and long before his time. To our right was a narrow plantation of tamarisk and reeds, and the railway running from Port Said to Cairo; beyond, sand and the gleam of distant waters blending with the sky. On the left naught but a desert of sand and clay, here and there rising into mounds, here and there glistening with the white salt left where some sea pool had long ago dried up; on the horizon broken hills, their bases hidden in the mist. A Bedouin family had made their camp for the night beside some dry bushes, as the same people—almost, one would think, the same individuals—did a thousand years ago. And through it all, the timeless unchanging wilderness, we men of these last days have stretched the line and cut a path for our mighty steamships, and laid iron rails for our engines. A little while more, measuring time by the desert standard, will it all have passed away? the canal be filled with the sand which it is so difficult now to keep it clear of, and the rails be covered up, and no traces be visible of our all- page 77 conquering might, but the waste stretch far and wide as from of old? We are fond in this day of progress of speculating more or less seriously of the state of mankind in a hundred or two hundred years hence. I do not know that anyone has dared to face the problem of what will be in ten thousand years, but however it fare with man this we may safely assert, that the scene will be unchanged here save for perhaps another broader waterway or more railroads. The waste of sands will stretch then as now to the barren hills, and the desert watch unmoved the clever little animals who score its surface with their lines of travel, as do the ants who make their little paths in the great forest.

We arrived at Aden on April 18, and left in a few hours. There was no temptation to risk a landing, for of all places I have ever seen, from the Shetland Islands to the West Indies, it seemed the least eligible for human habitation. Naked and desolate as it is, a chaos of bare burnt rock, here have 30,000 human beings made themselves a home and hewed out fortifications to protect it against any attempt to wrest it from the possession of the Mistress of the Seas.

Across the Indian Ocean the heat was certainly oppressive, but very tolerable I was assured compared with what it would be later or earlier in the year. The crew had to do their customary work just as if the weather was cool and bracing. We, the idle passengers, because we had nothing to do, found ourselves reduced to a state of utter incapacity, unless exception should be made for bridge-players, who page 78 pursued their calling with apparently undiminished ardour.

At Colombo we were greeted just as on the Sunday morning we were stepping into the boat to go ashore by a friendly inquiry as to our identity. It was Mr. Creach, who will, I hope, by this time have made the acquaintance of many English Unitarians. He had come from Melbourne the day before by the German packet, and was on the look-out for us here when our boats happily met. He very kindly took us under his care, having the advantage over us of having made acquaintance with the place the previous day.

Of what we saw there I will mention only a Buddhist temple, a poor little place, for we had no time to go up to Kandy where is the world-famous temple of the Golden Tooth. But in a way it was the more interesting, just the home of worship, the Bethesda of the natives. At the entry was the altar table on which lay the offerings of simple flowers, gathered in the woods and brought there to spend their fragrance and die in sacrifice. So much better, it seemed to me, sweeter and cleaner, than the crowded candles which I had seen flaring before the image of "Our Lady of the Watch" at Marseilles. Further in on a screen were painted the sins men do in this life and the torments which they earn for themselves hereafter—"not everlasting" the priest who showed us round was careful to explain, as if he knew how abhorrent the doctrine of hell was to us, or else would correct our erring Christianity by his own more charitable faith. In the inner shrine was the page 79 statue of the Lord Buddha, and the contemplation of the huge figure, lying at rest with head supported on the elbow, gave me to understand, as I never had before, the secret of Buddhist influence in the East and its impotence in the Western world. The expression—if indeed it may be called expression at all—of feature and posture was not of rest, reminiscent of labour and suffering in the past, nor was it of victory, nor exultation, nor joy, nor even love. It was not life, nor yet was it as of one dead. Fear, hope, desire, passion, even the bliss of attainment, were surpassed. He seemed to Be rather than to live, but to be with a fulness of being which included and was more than living. It was an ideal as far as possible removed from that of the Vision of God which enthralled the devout Christian poet of the Middle Ages—the ecstacy of perfect knowledge, of perfect love, of oneness with the Infinite and Eternal Energy which is the Fount of All Being and All Bliss, which Dante learned of from the great theologians of his age and made popular in his verse. And I could understand how to the teeming millions of the East, who seemed to spring as grasshoppers under our feet, who were doomed from birth to lives of extremest penury and to early death, this ideal of the perfect life as one of absolute impassivity, of being which was almost the same as not to be, would commend itself as the most satisfying to the craving of their souls for the contentment they had never had on earth.

It was in rain and darkness that we came alongside the wharf at Freemantle, the port for Perth. There page 80 was no one to meet us, and I knew not what to think or where to go, or whether it were better to leave Perth, where there was no Unitarian Congregation, and go on with the boat to Adelaide. But the next morning, before we were yet dressed, arrived Mr. W. D. Campbell in all haste from Perth. The boat had got in before it was expected, or he would have been there to meet us. He conducted us on to the city some twelve miles distant by rail, and found us a comfortable boarding-house. The same evening we met a number of persons friendly to the movement at the cafe of Mrs. Macdonald, herself one of the warmest supporters it had. The next day I gave a lecture on "The Religion of the New Testament." It had not been advertised, and the attendance was very small. I was doubtful whether it would be worthwhile to spend a fortnight here, as was first intended, and only delayed a decision for the Sunday. I expected little, but was agreeably disappointed. The service was held in the evening, in the Town Hall and I think there would have been nearly 250 present—enthusiastic supporters said 400. But for a first Unitarian service, and in a city in which I was a complete stranger, even 200 was an excellent beginning. The service of the following Sunday, i.e., of to-day, has not been so well attended. The novelty had worn off, and the newspapers had ceased to write of me. But there were a hundred earnest listeners, and I had good reason to be content. I invited those who were interested to meet me on Thursday evening for the purpose of forming a church committee, and if page 81 I can get this done I shall depart for Adelaide the next day, not, indeed, elated, but satisfied to have done all that could be done under the circumstances.

This is a charming place to be idle in, at least in this season of the year, which answers to our English November. They call it winter, and tell me how beautiful it is in spring; but were I dropped down here, ignorant of all the differences between the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and of the peculiarities of Australian vegetation, I should guess it to be midsummer. The trees are all green, flowers are abundant, there is plenty of sunshine, and though it is sometimes a little chilly at morning and evening it is rather too hot in the day-time. But it is decidedly relaxing, and I should not like to have to do as much work as I get through at home. The people are very friendly, and the two morning papers have given me kindly notices.

I earnestly hope I may succeed in persuading our friends here not to wait for a minister, but to begin at once regular Sunday services among themselves, however few they may be. If they will do this I have no doubt but that in time they may have a fair congregation, which will increase with the rapid growth of the city. But for an unknown man to come here at once would be a doubtful experiment, and the failure of it would be disastrous to our cause. Unitarian literature there is none. If some friend who can spare his or her Inquirer or Christian Life would send it to Mrs. Macdonald, City Café, Perth, W.A., it would be appreciated, and lead, perhaps, to others being ordered.

C.H.