In 1861, the Queanbeyan-based newspaper ‘The Golden Age’ reported a case which it regarded as one of ‘rank heathenism’ and ‘an instance of the most lamentable ignorance it is possible to conceive of, as existing in a professedly Christian country’.[1] The ‘rank heathenism’ and ‘lamentable ignorance’ concerned a 12-year-old boy named Hobson and his lack of even a basic civilising experience of school and church or an understanding of the Christian faith. He was to testify in the Small Debts Court, but before he was sworn in to give evidence the Police Magistrate asked him a few questions:

PM         How old are you?

Boy        Don’t know.

PM         Have you been to school?

Boy        No.

PM         Ever been to church?

Boy        No.

PM         Do you say any prayers?

Boy        No.

PM         Ever heard of God?

Boy        No.

PM         Ever heard of heaven or hell?

Boy        No. [and after some hesitation] Yes, I think I have.

PM         What people go to heaven when they die?

Boy        Bad people.

The newspaper then commented on the situation and suggested a remedy:

Who the parents of the boy are, we know not; but such a specimen of rank heathenism we never heard of in a so-called Christian country. We draw the attention of the committee of the Bush Missionary Society to this case.[2]

The isolation of the ‘bush’ in colonial Australia meant that there were many, like young Hobson, who were never exposed to the Christian message, worship and prayer and were thereby ignorant of its precepts; the problem was recognised, but it was difficult to address. An attempt, however, was being made to address this lack of Christian ministry through the distribution of bibles and religious literature by colporteurs, and it was to this ministry of the Bush Missionary Society (BMS) that the Queanbeyan newspaper ‘The Golden Age’ looked in order to address the problem.

The BMS was, however, not the first in the colony of NSW to seek to deal with the issue of the spiritual neglect of the bush through the use of colporteurs.  This honour belongs to James Robinson, colporteur with the Bible Society, who was the first to provide a ministry of bible distribution to the sparsely populated rural districts.  In 1852, Robinson began his work in ‘the bush’ and in his helpful article Gladwin says that:

Robinson’s journeys were the first of many undertaken by dozens of colporteurs—across the Australian continent—on behalf of Australian Bible Society agencies during the second half of the nineteenth century. They provided important pastoral and evangelistic ministry to sparsely populated rural districts in the decades before the creation of dedicated ministries such as the Anglican Bush Brotherhoods (1897–1920) and the evangelical Anglican Bush Church Aid Society (BCA, founded 1919).[3]

Well before the commencement of the Anglican bush ministries that Gladwin mentions, and only a few years after the commencement of the work of the Bible Society, the ministry of the non-denominational Juvenile Missionary Society (JMS), later known as the New South Wales Bush Missionary Society (BMS), was inaugurated.[4]

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