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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2024
When evaluating factors shaping the Australian home front during World War I, the impact of preaching is generally overlooked, though historians have identified it as one of the most influential sources of public speech. This paper examines preaching in Melbourne just before and during the war, as reported in the influential Melbourne Herald. It asks how preaching was affected by the outbreak of war, and explores its developments, its reporting and its impacts. It points to conclusions about the nature and place of religion in the life of the city, and the interplay of preaching and war that highlight gaps in our understanding of the interaction of religion and war in Australia at that time. It challenges notions about Australian secularity, the degree of sectarianism, and the place of religion in our understanding of the war in both Australia and the wider British world.
1 Inglis, Ken, “Speechmaking in Australia,” The Allan Martin Lecture (Canberra, May 15, 2007), 14Google Scholar; Gladwin, Michael, “Preaching and Australian Public Life: 1788–1914,” St Mark's Review 227, no. 1 (February 2014): 2Google Scholar.
2 Atkinson, Alan, The Commonwealth of Speech: An Argument About Australia's Past, Present and Future (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2002), xv–xxiiGoogle Scholar.
3 Damousi, Joy, Colonial Voices: A Cultural History of English in Australia 1840–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 70Google Scholar.
4 “Church Attendance,” Daily Telegraph, September 27, 1913, 19; Inglis, “Speechmaking in Australia,” 17; Damousi, Colonial Voices, 71.
5 Damousi, Colonial Voices, 145.
6 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 2.
7 See, for example, Joan Beaumont, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2014); John Connor, Peter Yule and Peter Stanley, The War at Home (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2015); Frank Bongiorno, “‘We Cannot Fight Forever’: Australia, the First World War and the Question of Commitment,” Social Alternatives 37, no. 3 (2018): 6–11.
8 Jay Winter, “The Practices of Metropolitan Life in Wartime,” Quoted in Nicole Davis, Nicholas Coyne and Andrew J. May, “World War I on the Home Front: The City of Melbourne 1914–1918,” Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria no. 15 (2016–2017), https://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/provenance-journal/provenance-2016-17/world-war-i-home-front, accessed November 2, 2022.
9 Geoffrey R. Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism: The Age of Torrey, Mott, Mcpherson and Hammond (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017).
10 Michael McKernan, Australian Churches at War: Attitudes and Activities of the Major Churches 1914–1918 (Sydney: Catholic Theological Faculty, 1980).
11 Stuart Piggin and Robert D. Linder, The Fountain of Public Prosperity: Evangelical Christians in Australian History 1740–1914 (Clayton: Monash University Press, 2019), 386.
12 Stephen A. Chavura, John Gascoigne and Ian Tregenza, Reason, Religion and the Australian Polity: A Secular State? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 4–5, 8, 11, 96, 102, 157, 254; Piggin and Linder, Fountain of Public Prosperity, xv, 61–67, 388–390; Adam Possamai and David Tittensor, Religion and Change in Australia (London: Routledge, 2022), 41; Wayne Hudson, Australian Religious Thought (Clayton: Monash University Press, 2016), xiii.
13 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 10.
14 Keith A. Francis, “Sermons: Themes and Developments,” in The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689–1901, eds. Keith A. Francis, William Gibson, John Morgan-Guy, Bob Tennant and Robert H. Ellison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 31–33; Damousi, Colonial Voices, 103.
15 Michael Petras, “Charles Haddon Spurgeon's Sermons in Australia,” St Mark's Review 230, no. 4 (December 2014): 36; “The Best Things for Today,” Melbourne Leader, August 25, 1917, 55; “The Second Visit,” The Week, July 6, 1917, 37.
16 William Gibson, “The British Sermon 1689–1901: Quantities, Performance, and Culture,” in Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689–1901, eds. Keith A. Francis, William Gibson, John Morgan-Guy, Bob Tennant and Robert H. Ellison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 26.
17 Keith A. Francis, “Sermon Studies: Major Issues and Future Directions,” in Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689–1901, eds. Keith A. Francis, William Gibson, John Morgan-Guy, Bob Tennant and Robert H. Ellison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 614–615.
18 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 12.
19 Gibson, “British Sermon 1689–1901,” 5–6.
20 “Churches and Congregations,” Melbourne Herald, (hereafter cited as CCMH) June 25, 1917, 3.
21 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 2.
22 A. M. Laughton, Victorian Year-Book, 1913–14 (Melbourne: Albert J. Mullett, 1914), 331.
23 Laughton, Victorian Year-Book, 204–205; Census of the Commonwealth of Australia taken for the night between the 2nd and 3rd April, 1911, Volume II, Part VI Religions, 827, 842.
24 Edwin Charles Dargan, The Art of Preaching in the Light of Its History (New York: George H. Doran, 1922), 221; Ralph G. Turnbull, A History of Preaching Volume III, From the Close of the Nineteenth Century to the Middle of the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), 430.
25 H. R. Jackson, Churches and People in Australia and New Zealand, 1860–1930 (Wellington: Port Nicholson Press, 1987), 125–141.
26 F. R. Webber, A History of Preaching in Britain and America (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1957), 456–601; Piggin and Linder, Fountain of Public Prosperity, 341.
27 Hilary M. Carey, God's Empire: Religion and Colonialism in the British World c. 1801–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 5–6.
28 Damousi, Colonial Voices, 60–61, 71.
29 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 4.
30 Michael W. Casey, Saddlebags, City Streets and Cyberspace: A History of Preaching in the Churches of Christ (Abilene: ACU Press, 1995), 13–15, 19–21, 26–27; “Round the Churches,” Quiz and the Lantern, March 28, 1895, 8; Damousi, Colonial Voices, 71–73.
31 David Hilliard, “Round the Churches with Quiz: Preaching in Adelaide in the 1890s,” St Mark's Review 230, no. 4 (December 2014), 7–8.
32 CCMH, March 23, 1914, 3.
33 Atkinson, Commonwealth of Speech, 72–74; Francis, “Sermon Studies,” 623.
34 Gibson, “British Sermon 1689–1901,” 3.
35 Francis, “Sermons: Themes and Developments,” 34; Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 4–5.
36 “Around the Churches,” Newcastle Morning Herald, February 25, 1913, 6; April 15, 1913, 6; April 22, 1913, 6.
37 See the “Round the Churches” column, Quiz and the Lantern, across 1895, 8.
38 Hilliard, “Round the Churches with Quiz,” 12.
39 Data interpreted from Laughton, Victorian Year-Book, 204–205; Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, 827.
40 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 4–5.
41 CCMH, May 26, 1913, 3.
42 CCMH, February 3, 1913, 3.
43 CCMH, March 10, 1913, 3; September 1, 1913, 4.
44 CCMH, February 9, 1914, 3.
45 CCMH, July 6, 1914, 3.
46 Gibson, “British Sermon 1689–1901,” 26; Francis, “Sermon Studies,” 614–615.
47 CCMH, September 8, 1913, 3.
48 CCMH, September 15, 1913, 3; May 11, 1914, 3.
49 CCMH, May 18, 1914, 3.
50 CCMH, June 22, 1914, 3; June 8, 1914, 9.
51 CCMH, February 15, 1915, 3; April 12, 1915, 3; February 7, 1916, 3; January 22, 1917, 3.
52 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, 2–3; Treloar, Disruption of Evangelicalism, 120–122, 171; Michael Gladwin, Captains of the Soul (Newport, NSW: Big Sky, 2013), 78–83.
53 CCMH, January 3, 1916, 3.
54 CCMH, October 2, 1916, 3.
55 CCMH, January 8, 1917, 3.
56 CCMH, October 4, 1915, 7; October 11, 1915, 7.
57 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, 172–175.
58 Stuart Piggin, Spirit, Word and World: Evangelical Christianity in Australia, Revised Ed. (Brunswick East: Acorn Press, 2012), 83.
59 Hudson, Australian Religious Thought, xiii; Piggin and Linder, Fountain of Public Prosperity, 484, 487; Thompson, Roger C., Religion in Australia: A History (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994), 57–58Google Scholar; Treloar, Disruption of Evangelicalism, 10, 121–125.
60 CCMH, March 15, 1915, 3; March 6, 1916, 3; October 2, 1916, 3.
61 Treloar, Disruption of Evangelicalism, 122; Thompson, Religion in Australia, 57.
62 CCMH, December 17, 1917, 3; December 24, 1917, 7.
63 CCMH, January 18, 1915, 3.
64 CCMH, March 22, 1915, 3.
65 CCMH, November 13, 1916, 3.
66 CCMH, May 17, 1915, 3; November 13, 1916, 3; July 16, 1917, 3.
67 CCMH, August 20, 1917, 3.
68 CCMH, June 3, 1918, 11; July 15, 1918, 3.
69 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, 66–68; Thompson, Religion in Australia, 57.
70 CCMH, May 10, 1915, 3.
71 CCMH, May 17, 1915, 3.
72 CCMH, July 5, 1915, 3; May 29, 1916, 3; August 14, 1916, 3; December 4, 1916, 3; January 8, 1917, 3; July 16, 1917, 3; June 4, 1917, 9.
73 CCMH, July 23, 1917, 3; June 21, 1915, 3.
74 CCMH, April 27, 1914, 3; November 23, 1914, 3; January 29, 1915, 4; January 10, 1916, 3; September 3, 1917, 3; February 11, 1918, 3; June 3, 1918, 3; July 22, 1918, 10.
75 Treloar, Disruption of Evangelicalism, 20–27, 122, 127.
76 CCMH, October 2, 1916, 3; May 14, 1917, 3; May 21, 1917, 3; August 19, 1918, 3; October 28, 1918, 3.
77 CCMH, June 3, 1918, 11.
78 CCMH, June 24, 1918, 10.
79 CCMH, May 24, 1915, 3.
80 CCMH, October 25, 1915, 3; October 22, 1917, 7.
81 See for example, CCMH, October 8, 1917, 3.
82 CCMH, October 22, 1917, 3.
83 Piggin and Linder, Fountain of Public Prosperity, 579; Michael Hogan, The Sectarian Strand: Religion in Australian History (Ringwood: Penguin, 1987), 289.
84 For the latter, see for example “Dr Mannix and his critics,” and “Origin of Inquisition,” Melbourne Herald, September 29, 1917, 6.
85 CCMH, December 6, 1915, 3. See also the Monday editions between November 29 and December 20, 1915, 3, for extended correspondence on the topic.
86 CCMH, October 15, 1917, 7; November 5, 1917, 9; June 24, 1918, 10.
87 CCMH, July 1, 1918, 3.
88 CCMH, June 12, 1916, 3; August 13, 1917, 3; August 20, 1917, 3.
89 CCMH, October 21, 1918, 10.
90 Hogan, Sectarian Strain, 95–96; Piggin and Linder, Fountain of Public Prosperity, 579; Treloar, Disruption of Evangelicalism, 3–5.
91 CCMH, July 20, 1914, 3.
92 CCMH, June 22, 1914, 3.
93 CCMH, May 3, 1915, 3; June 5, 1916, 10; February 19, 1917, 3.
94 CCMH, March 27, 1916, 3; “Winter Addresses Begun,” Melbourne Herald, June 3, 1918, 11; “Common Platform Seen,” Melbourne Herald, June 24, 1918, 10; “New Programme in Hand,” Melbourne Herald, May 3, 1915, 3.
95 CCMH, September 3, 1917, 3.
96 CCMH, November 20, 1916, 10.
97 CCMH, July 2, 1917, 3; August 12, 1918, 10.
98 Carey, Hilary M., Believing in Australia: A Cultural History of Religions (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1996), 117Google Scholar.
99 CCMH, January 26, 1914, 7; July 26, 1915, 3; February 28, 1916, 3; July 17, 1916, 3; May 7, 1917, 3; May 14, 1917, 3.
100 CCMH, August 21, 1916, 9; March 19, 1917, 3.
101 CCMH, July 9, 1917, 3.
102 CCMH, March 11, 1918, 3.
103 CCMH, March 19, 1917, 3.
104 Data interpreted from Census of the Commonwealth of Australia taken for the night between the 2nd and 3rd April, 1911, Volume II, Part VI Religions, 827.
105 Chavura, Gascoigne and Tregenza, Reason, Religion and the Australian Polity, 164.
106 Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 10.
107 CCMH, May 3, 1915, 3.
108 CCMH, January 10, 1916, 3; November 20, 1916, 10.
109 Connor, Stanley and Yule, The War at Home, 188–190; Davison, Graeme, “Religion,” in The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume 2: The Commonwealth of Australia, eds. Bashford, Alison and Macintyre, Stuart (Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 223–225Google Scholar.
110 McKernan, Australian Churches at War, 173–177; Treloar, Disruption of Evangelicalism, 153–168.
111 Gibson, “British Sermon 1689–1901,” 26; Gladwin, “Preaching and Australian Public Life,” 12.
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