Courier-Mail - Brisbane - Saturday, August 29, 1936
At Rochedale, 12 miles or so out of Brisbane, and just out of sight of the
Pacific Highway, is the chief gathering place of a little band of preachers
and 'saints,' who strongly repudiate every name but that of Christian,
though their teachings have won for them the soubriquet of 'Go-preachers.'
They go out two by two to preach, leaving home and relatives, and giving all
their property to needy preachers and the poor. They discourage the reading
of all other books, than the Bible, and will not put their doctrines into
print. Theirs, they declare, is the only highroad to God.
They claim that the word of God comes to man only through their preachers
and, in support of their dogma, quote the text: “How shall they hear without
a preacher?"
Others call them the Cooneyites, but they indignantly deny the name, and
declare that an Irishman named Cooney, who was one of their foremost
preachers 30 odd years ago, now has nothing whatever to do with them. The
true “preachers'' hold no communication with him.
These people have no church buildings, but meet for worship in the homes of
the ‘saints,’ their lay members. Their wandering preachers, about 12 of whom
are at work in each of the Australian States and New Zealand, hold missions
in tents and hired halls. Usually two men or two women go out together, one
an experienced missioner and other a young trainee. Sometimes a man and his
wife go together. Because of the difficulties of a life of itinerant
preaching, however, the preachers rarely marry. The head of each house in
which the 'saints' meet for family worship, in which several surrounding
households join, is called a bishop, overseer, or elder.
Rochedale is the main centre of their work in Queensland. There they have
buildings which form the nucleus of a big annual camp convention. I went as
a stranger to the family worship in the home of a Rochedale bishop.
The old farm house, built on high stumps, hid its bare poles with crimson
skirts of bougainvillea. As I walked up the track from the gate, I heard in
the distance singing, and over the paddocks, a magpie fluted gloriously.
Bird song and hymn and still sunny morning called to worship. The hymn
stopped before I came near the house. I went in through a gate that made a
gap in the bank of crimson and heard a voice in the deep tones of prayer.
Creepers hid the battening around the house stumps. A battened door stood
open. A congregation of about 20 knelt on matting strips beside the long low
stools to be found in most old farm homes. I stood near the door, waiting
for the prayer to end. When the young man who was praying had finished, a
young woman near him followed, and then a boy and an old woman.
The prayers were glad thanks to God for His great goodness to men, for His
gifts of sunny mornings and hearts happy in His service, and before all
other gifts for Jesus Christ, who showed men God and the love of God. They
asked of Him grace, strength, and guidance, that they might follow Him
worthily. They sought His blessing on themselves and on their preachers,
that all men might learn of His simple way, and be won to walk in it. There
were prayers of consecration, prayers of devotion and adoration, and humble
petitions for mercy and forgiveness. Almost everyone in the little meeting
offered a prayer, some only a sentence or two.
While I stood outside, undecided whether to wait or to go away, the head of
the house, who was bishop or elder of the church meeting there, came out to
me. When I told him I was a stranger wishing to attend worship in his
church, he said I was welcome.
A Setting of Nature:
He was a hospitable, genial old farmer, with a friendly, smile and hand
shake. He took me in among the kneeling people, left me at a gap in the
family circle, and went back to his place beside a little table on which
were bread and unfermented wine.
When the prayers were ended, and we got up from our knees, I was able to
look around me. The stumps of the house were the pillars of this holy place;
the altar was a simple table with its plate of bread and glass of wine. The
door was open to the sunny farm outside, red soil, plots of pineapples, and
rows of symmetrical orange trees, a cultivation paddock with the heat haze
trembling over it, and the bush, behind, like mirage.
“Will someone suggest a hymn?” the bishop asked. A young woman gave a
number, and the congregation, sitting, sang:
I listen to the Master's word,
And all my waking heart is stirred.
'Midst sin and strife I hear Him say:
'I will return; keep watch and pray.'
Though most despise God's lowly way,
Reject His love, and go astray,
Within my heart, one purpose burns:
To stand approved when He returns.
His love can full satisfy,
And needed grace He will supply
To keep me in the heavenly race
Until I see Him face to face;
His Way is best; I follow on,
Just where His bleeding feet have gone,
My one desire to worthy be
And fill the place prepared for me.
Members of the circle one by one, now an old man, now a girl, now a youth,
gave short devotional talks, most of them only two or three minutes long,
some even less. In their own figure of speech, each placed on the family
table a loaf, a thought from the week's meditation and experience of the
Christian way, that all might share the spiritual food God had provided.
Most of the messages were of quiet devotion. There were gaps of silence, in
one of which a magpie came up to the door and peered in, his inquisitive
head on one side. House swallows came in and out, circling over the heads of
the worshippers as if they had not been there. Neither speaking nor singing
disturbed them.
Simple Communion:
When a longer silence showed that no one else wished to speak, the bishop
took a piece of bread, and reminded them of the family of One who in a house
in Jerusalem 2000 years ago took bread and brake it, and gave it to His
disciples, saying, “This is My body which is given to you; this do in
remembrance of Me.”
The bread was passed from hand to hand around the circle; and each ate a
fragment and bowed in prayer. So, too, the wine was passed around, and all
drank of it. I have not seen anywhere a simpler or more reverent Communion
than I saw in the family gathering beneath the farm house that sunny Sunday
morning. A hymn of consecration was sung at the end, and the bishop's
benediction sent the people out into the glorious day.
When later I took a photographer to get pictures of the 'family' church, I
had to content myself with pictures of the farm house in which the church
had met. The bishop and his flock were doubtful whether even these might be
used without the authority of the preachers, an authority the preachers
readily gave, though they refused to be photographed themselves.
Preacher at Work:
The kindly bishop of Rochedale made me curious to hear the preachers of his
faith, whom he and the flock esteemed so highly. Only through hearing them
expound the Word of God, he told me, could mankind attain salvation. When I
asked him what the distinctive teachings of his Church were, he referred me
to the preachers for fuller explanation.
So that night I went to a 'gospel meeting' in the preachers tent at
Wooloowin. Several cars were standing in the street outside. In the tent,
which was about 25 feet in diameter, was the beginning of the congregation,
a score or so of people, old and young, who increased to about 50,
comfortably filling nearly all the seats, before the service started. A
smoking kerosene heater near the centre pole took the chill out of the air.
A fizzing petrol lantern hanging on a rope across the tent lit the place
with white glare.
A venerable preacher with a close clipped pointed white beard, a Bible under
one arm, and a hymn book in one hand, came through the tent entrance and
went to a front seat facing the congregation. Despite 30 years of itinerant
preaching, he still looked, and when he spoke, sounded, the school master he
used to be.
“Well, I feel sure you will enjoy the meeting a lot better by helping it,”
he said, “The way you can help is by joining in the hymns heartily.” He
announced the first hymn in a voice that had a strong Irish flavour, despite
almost pedantically careful English enunciation.
Stones on the Roof:
A second hymn was sung, a young man, having announced, “We will just wait
upon God in a little time of prayer,” prayed for Divine blessing on “Thy
preachers, who have given up all.”
Another hymn was sung to the tune of 'Juanita.' The old preacher then said,
“Young brother will speak to us, and after that a brother in the meeting who
wants to sing will sing.” The young brother preached on a passage from the
Book of Isaiah.
For punctuation, stones fell on the tent roof, and the preacher went out to
investigate. As he put his head out the door there was a scatter, and the
sound of boys' running feet. It was soon over, and the volunteer singer sang
in a pleasant tenor:
Your life is one short season here:
Be careful what you sow.
Sow wheat, and you will reap the same;
Sow tares, and they will grow.
God’s harvest time will surely come,
With sheaves for you and me.
O, ask yourself the question friend,
'What shall the reaping be?'
Your days, though blooming like the rose,
Will reach the yellow leaf,
And seeds you sow, you'll one day reap
In sheaves of joy or grief.
In his sermon, on spiritual influence, the preacher said those called to be
preachers of the way must not let any earthly ties hinder them, to the
destruction of their souls; nor should any one shrink from entering God's
way because of fear that someone near and dear might be called to leave home
on service as a preacher.
Scorn of Buildings:
In this way he preached the renunciation, which is the central feature of
the 'Go-preachers' way of life. 'Give God what He asks of you and He will
see that you have all that is necessary for you.' From among those who are
converted in their missions and from the families of the saints, the
preachers select promising young volunteers, men and women, to send out
preaching. They must leave their homes and families, and give up everything
they possess. They must apply literally Christ's words to the rich young
ruler: 'Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor,' and go out penniless and
homeless.
Although in principle the new preacher is free to distribute his goods to
the poor as he pleases, in practice he usually gives it to the poor preacher
who has been the means of his conversion. The preacher passes on to other
needy preachers what he himself does not need, and, with the balance, helps
needy lay members.
Voluntary contributions from the lay members are also left in the hands of
the preachers to carry on the work.
The preachers had to account to no one but God for the administration of
these funds, I was informed. They held the money in trust, and passed it on
to others in need, often sending money across the world to poor preachers in
other countries.
The rest of the world, including the other churches, was in such deadly
peril of damnation; the preacher declared in his sermon, that the preachers
sometimes were rough in their methods, like the two preachers who dragged
Lot and his family from doomed Sodom.
The early Quakers' contempt for 'steeple houses' was nothing to this
people's scorn of church buildings for the worship of God. They will preach
the Gospel anywhere, in tent or hall, or under gum trees; but, for their
private meetings for Communion, 'the breaking of bread,' nothing but the
home of a 'saint' of their way will serve. They interpret, literally 'The
Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands,' from Stephen's defence
before the Sanhedrin.
The gospel meeting ended, almost two hours from its commencement, with a
hymn and a prayer by the old preacher. He prayed simply and fervently for
blessing on God's glorious family, and for grace and strength for the
preachers, that they might be a meditative, thoughtful, and consecrated
people to lead the family in His way.
Despite their exclusive dogma, I liked the zeal of these nameless people,
their simple family worship, and their unbounded confidence.
