The Epistles of Pastor August Gersch.

The first Journey.

The two men stood shoulder to shoulder on the precipice of the most Eastern knoll of the Mt. Lofty ranges, out before them spread the vast, vast and dark, green veldt of the Murray Mallee forest..here and there, at great distances apart, slim streams of smoke rose toward the morning sun, depicting what they were to come to know as campfires of the indigenous peoples of the region.. The Ngaiawang, The Nganaguruku and the various clans of the region.

A feeling of elation mixed with unease captured August’s body…he was the pastor and leader of this first small group of Germanic settlers assigned blocks of land by The South Australian Company, out there in that vast forest. He was to lead them into the wilderness.

He felt the elation of discovery, as he and his fellow pioneers were the first of their faith and peoples to set foot on this plain and the thought of laying the base for both a village community and a church to give praise to his God sent a thrill of the power of endeavour through his body and mind..But at the same time he felt an unease about whether he, himself had the measure and capacity to carry the responsibility and burden of strength needed to face and confront the unrelenting challenge of putting in train the necessity of setting up what was required for the protection, shelter, food and provision of the folk under his care….It was in consideration of this uncertainty, that Pastor August quietly said a personal prayer to his God seeking strength and encouragement…He then took a deep breath and returned to the present to attend to his flock’s needs.

“Julius”…he addressed the man standing at his shoulder “how deep is your faith?”

“I have absolute faith in my God” he answered, and then added ; “I have confidence in you, Pastor.”

The pastor turned and smiled to the man; Julius, father of four children, husband to Ada and brother to Wilhelm and gripped his shoulder..

“Then come, let us trust in our God and believe in ourselves and we will civilise this wilderness.”

The pastor then gathered the folk around himself, said a short prayer of encouragement and faith and then led the group down the long, shallow descent of the only marked track of the Moorundie Road that led toward the still unknown distance that was the Murray River…Pastor August Gersch led these first Germanic pioneers into the maw of the Mallee Plains forest.

Fifty persons including women and children, twelve families, ten single men, five single women, and their Pastor followed in orderly manner the lead wagon  from a train of six German wagons fully loaded, each wagon pulled by two draught horses, down onto the flats to where the surveyed plots of land were allocated to them out deep into the forest of mallee bush and grasslands.

These pioneers carried on the wagons all they needed to survive the time they needed to clear the land and plough and sow crops for a first harvest as soon as possible, they brought supplies of flour, corn and seed, they brought cuttings and seedlings of familiar plants, both for decoration and necessity, they brought implements for cutting and clearing the mallee, harrowing, ploughing and seeding. They brought square metal tanks containing water and were hopeful of finding and securing waterholes in the nearby region.

The task of clearing the mallee trees had to be overcome, and this required a communal effort to complete, all the men, women and suitable aged children joining in to clear each other’s block of land..one to the next to the next, likewise in the harrowing and ploughing, sharing the horses for the heavy deeds, but first the heaps of timber and mallee-roots had to be burnt and levelled, all timber boughs suitable for building sorted from the scrap, the rocks and boulders cleared into heaps to one side..Shelters for the families had to be constructed of makeshift pug and native pine, with thatched roofs. These they first clustered together for security and protection, the whole enterprise becoming a community of singular ambition and intention.

The plan for a small chapel was marked out on common ground and after eighteen months of exhausting work, the small community was confident enough to expand their gathering from under a chosen tree as place of worship to set in motion the first rudiments of laying a foundation for their chapel.

This level of achievement would never have been possible if not for the learned capabilities and social acceptance of each member of the community. The natural inclinations of such a hardy ethnicity as these illiterate peasants, being led by a committee of more learned and read persons gave both solid knowledge of needed work-skills to direct and complete the basic needs of the community, combined with a scientific knowledge of how, where and when to apply those actions best suited for the survival of the group in such wilderness, these skills, combined with an unquestioned loyalty to their faith in God gave strength of body and mind to the community to overcome even the most catastrophic situations, like sudden death by accident or in birthing, or the variables of weather and passing illnesses. So the combined collective of the folk working together toward the one end brought about an evolution of a completeness of the singular community, which became the concentration of their collective humanism unstoppable and faith inviolate.

While these people toiled away in establishing their small hamlet, they were not completely cut off from communication with the outside world. Regular trips by horseback to the nearest bigger town (if it could be called such in the budding province) allowed post to and from relatives and family back in their old country. These letters bringing news from Germany were transcribed by the pastor both in the old country and this new with personal information to and from the relatives of those illiterate folk and then relayed to the relevant persons by the respective pastors. This way, personal news from abroad was delivered to the small community.

It was in one of these communications to Pastor August from the head Pastor Kaval, that he was encouraged to write uplifting letters back to the communities they left behind, telling of their improved life and situations in the new country and imploring others to make the journey along with their pastor to this new prospect and improved opportunity for themselves and their families.

Pastor August took it upon himself to fulfill this obligation by writing a series of open “Letters to the communities” explaining their lives in this new land, their hopes and situations and their growing faith that a new beginning had strengthened and given new direction to. He called the first of these letters, based upon the Letters of Saint Paul ; “Epistle to The Silesians” .

Pastor August Gersch..A Letter to my fellow Silesians.

The Pragmatic.

“Dear Brethren, by and under the direction of our sacred duty to God, I, August Gersch, disciple of Jesus Christ, servant to the congregation of God under the teachings of Martin Luther apostle to Christ our saviour, pastor to our collective of faithful souls dedicated to the faith, give greetings to you fellow congregationalists of Silesia, in this year of Our Lord 1856. May the blessings of God rain plentiful upon you there as it indeed has upon us in this new land.

I know of your situation and I feel for your sufferings, for I and my congregation also suffered under the tyranny of our sovereign governance. But be of good courage and hold steadfast to our beliefs, for there is now a choice for release at hand from your bondage, for I bring both hope and good news.

For has not God in his wisdom and glory not showered blessings and gifts down upon his brethren and faithful followers that we can rejoice in the worship of his son Jesus and raise our voices up in endless praise, my brothers and sisters. Even in the darkest times when we were compelled at threat of pain and death, did not God in his wisdom give his true believers a way to break free from the bonds of those who would force us to break with our traditions, our crafts and agriculture to be chained to the machinery of their factories to toil and sweat and break on their wheels of industry? Sever our contact with the earth and nature that brings us close to the plan of God..that our crafts and weaving and animal husbandry gives strength and honest character to our lives and families..take us away from our neighbourhoods and community to drive us into penury in overcrowded cities and slums to live and die in a rotting ghetto of slavery to their greed and cruelty?

For now I can tell you of this new land and life that awaits those with faith and courage to break from those bonds of slavery.

My friends and fellow believers, I tell you we, who have trusted in the will of our Lord, we who have travelled under the advice of Pastor Kaval and with the blessings of God, have walked into Paradise..for how else can one describe a land without want, a land evergreen with trees that shower petals of every hue of colour down on one as we pass under their wild and voluminous boughs..a land whose natives have never known disease or starvation..a forest never ending that stretches as far as the eye can see and the mind imagine..a menage of wild animals not one of which is ferocious or life threatening save the viper of which is present as a curse on any land.

Oh faith! That we can pray and give thanks to our Lord throughout any season of the year  without fear of wild snowstorm or flooded valley or thunderous avalanche..And land!..God be blessed there be land here enough to satisfy a legion of settlers and double that number with their wives and children..let no man go wanting for food or shelter, as the timber available here in this region named “Mallee”, is long and straight, firm and strong and the grasses and boughs thick and plentiful to thatch deeply any roof! The limestone rocks can be burnt easily to lime for mortar and the larger to use as structure for the walls.

The sparsely populated native tribes be not marauding nor plunderers, it is true that in the bigger town near the coast, those natives there have been corrupted and poisoned with merchant’s wine and many struck down with imported diseases that we unfortunately have brought to them from far away. But the ones we have come into contact out here in the mallee forests, have been very helpful and have given much useful advice through mutual interpretation of language, gesticulation and demonstration how they treat and make food of those local animals suitable for consumption. They are quite willing to make exchange of their ways and knowledge of native craft, skinning and tanning of the fur of the Kangaroo for any of our useful implements like an axe or knife, for theirs is a nomadic life taking them to a distant river they tell of and places further afield..the agents that come to us from the English governors of this province warn us of the natives and implore us to do harm to them to drive them out of the land, but we have spoken among ourselves and see no plan of God in doing such harm to such generous folk, regardless of our opinion of their pagan and humble ways..After all, they have already moved aside in accommodating us in their hunting grounds and while they look askance at what they see as our futile labouring with fire and steel, wagon and wheel to grow food in a land already of plenty, and I am certain by the way some of their elders narrow their eyes or laugh at our explanations and deeds, they do think of us as the simpletons without knowledge enough to let nature take its course and for us to follow in example.

Indeed, those same governors of the province will use all their cunning to try also to take advantage of us settlers while we know not their language or ways, but we are of an old peoples, with knowledge aplenty to inform us what is correct in form and deed or what is right and proper in attitude..so we nod our heads in agreement when spoken to, but turn away from their advice when out of their sight. For what honest man would seek to compel another, regardless of skin or learning how to boil an egg or sharpen a stick? But these foolish men who sell us the land would compel us to adhere to their corrupt ways..and what a waste of time is that chore, for we people are of a race of men used to the slippery ways of dealers and swindlers that come with hands sticky with sweet honey, but leave with hands soaked with blood!..They be the fools that God will punish with damnation.

So indeed, my fellow citizens and brethren, while God has given breath to you and your arms and heart be strong and healthy, let you make similar decision as we who are now living this life here in a land of plenty, giving thanks to God and his son Jesus for lifting us out of the tyranny of those princes and merchants that want body and soul to burn as industrial fodder in their factories and cannon fodder in their armies, gather your families together under your Pastor and pray that you have the strength of faith to make the journey here to this new land where you can, like us fellow citizens of the church of Jesus Christ our saviour, and continue the life granted to the best of men and women, that we can work and live and make strong families like humanity has done forever through time and circumstance immortal and pray to God in our own churches that we can build to thank together for a new life under those familiar old, old stars that light the firmament of the heavens..

Bless you all..and I remain your servant as I am forever God’s humble servant in the name of our Lord Father, Son and Spirit of all things Holy, Holy, Holy….Amen!”

This being my first Letter to the Salesians in the year of Our Lord 1856..from Pastor August Gersch.

The Second Epistle of Pastor August Gersch.

To The Silesians.

The Poetic.

“Behold, fellow brethren, the power of God Almighty, that he will make rise this very day a dawn so enamoured with beauty as to shower golden sunlight to soak these plains with the joy of the day’s awakening. Where every creature under god’s heaven lends its voice to cry praise to Our Lord God on high.

I, August Gersch, pastor to this humble congregation under God’s care and Luther’s instruction, servant to my people and disciple to Christ Jesus, follower of the teachings of Martin Luther under the care of Pastor Kaval, give greetings to you of the province of Selicia from these new lands of our settlement and worship.

It is with the elation of a blessing from God that I come to speak with you today. I have awoken to this bright day with news of a new-born son and wife in good health and spirit thanks be to the Lord God Almighty on this day!

How more can a man be honoured than with a healthy birth of his child and the mother in good health also? How more can a man be thankful for the honour of leading his congregation in a prayer of thanks for God leading us to this land of hope and glory? How easily can a man praise such generous circumstance so that the eyes are full of seeing the gifts of God, the ears full of hearing the songs of praise of God and the mouth full of words of praise to the glory of God..Let us all give thanks for his benevolent glory.

But I can reveal to you all, my fellow disciples of Jesus..Two days before the birth of my son I had a visitation in my dreams from The Lord Himself..and he spoke to me..to us all..thus; “August..you will have a son, and he will be healthy, as will be your wife and I give my blessing upon you and all your brethren and bestow upon you all my order that you will be the stewards of that land which I have bestowed upon you and that you now own and any man who owns his land and any man who farms his land to good condition and order, he will be one of my blessed named the “Inner Sanctum” ( Inneres Heiligtum). But he who farms badly and loses his land by that condition, or he who has no ownership of land to farm, he shall be outcast and be one of the “Outsider” (Außenseiter).“ These words given to me I pass on to us all. Let them be indelibly printed upon our minds as the words of The Lord.

Have not our first crops sprung forth from the rich virgin earth with all the vigour of an Olympian athlete of ancient Greece, the spears of grain full, fat and bountiful. Have not the vegetables in our gardens burst fat and full with choice pickings enough to feed with spare this small community and then extra to take to the town markets to exchange for much needed wares and supplies?

Oh faith and glory that this new land has granted absolution from the wretched memories of the old world ills and regrets that we can now let fall such torments from our memories and let in the new, bright, beautiful days, let us wipe the slate clean of scorn and curse of those that sought to harm us and our faith back in the old country..and to you still there, hold strong to your faith, for surely there is help on its way to bring you here closer to the bounty that we are celebrating in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

My friends in Selicia, let not my words appear to you as the proud speech of a braggadocio, but as truly humble praise to the blessings of Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour..see me now with head bowed in supplication as we, of the congregation of St, Pauls church of the Murray Flats, prepare our altar for the gifts and offerings of harvest in thanks to God Almighty.

From the first seedings in Autumn, the rains fell in perfect sequence, in just the right time and just the right amounts to give swift and fulsome growth to all our crops..for certain am I to agree with the adage that “The rain will follow the plough” and wherever people settle in this new land, if they be of hard-working folk, honest in praise and prayer to God in all his benevolent mercy, be sure that their agriculture with plough and seeding will be a success. Be sure that they too will walk with joy as their hands brush through the seed heads of their fulsome crops in rich fields.

Oh joy to God to be able to watch our children grow and the small school overflow with laughing children as they absorb their lessons or play in the grounds. Joy to hear the raised voices of the congregation as we gather on Sunday to sing praise to God above and then to gather and talk of the things that matter most to a community..the plans and ambitions of a people in both good spirit and health.

So I am saying to you, fellow congregationalists, gather around your Pastor, meet ye all and talk of the possibility of taking yourself, your womenfolk, the young men and children…Pastor too..take yourselves from the reach of the opportunists that will turn your farms into ditches and drains, your children into chimney sweeps and machine workers, your women into street-walkers in rags and disease..and yourselves into slaves chained to the machines they have created as breakers of the spirit and body of men and youth.

I say unto you, let these old world tyrannies fall from your sight, turn your eyes to see the sunlight of the heavens, come to us in these new lands where there is land a plenty for a family to grow and prosper, for how many times can I tell you that here we are living in a paradise, surrounded by forest that supplies all our building needs, soil that had never till now felt the cut of harrow or plough and has yielded crops of great bounty..We have our menfolk, youth, women and children all in good health, full and clean of spirit and then to cap all this bounty off, we live this life in praise of God and his good graces under the umbrella of a million miles of blue, blue sky..Oh blessed be the joys of heaven and may God forever shine down on his true believers..Amen

I am forever your fellow believer in Christ Jesus and follow his instruction in the holy book and give thanks for this honour in prayer and deed. I am also the fervent follower of the teachings of Martin Luther under instruction from Pastor Kaval in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit..Holy, Holy, Holy..”

Pastor August Gersch of the parish of St. Pauls in the province of South Australia.

Third Epistle of Pastor August Gersch.

To the Silesians.

The Spiritual…

“Fellow Silesians..I, August Gersch, Pastor to our congregation of St. Paul’s church in the province of South Australia, servant to the apostle of God, Martin Luther, praise be disciple of Lord Christ Jesus and humble servant to my people, greet you in this third letter to you my friends.

Brothers and sisters of the faith, here we are four years into our settlement on the Murray River Flats in this new province, we have made farms for our families, cleared selections of land for planting, dug tanks and wells for water storage and use, we now have a school building and a chapel built of stone in which we celebrate our good fortune and offer up prayers to God Almighty to preserve and keep in good health and spirits this growing community.

Several small but important enterprises have sprung up from the need for such things to be available in any growing community..We now have a blacksmith-ironmonger, a saddler-harness maker..we have the brothers Rasmus carpenters, we also have just celebrated the opening of a small bakery to supply bread and bakery products to the community. A community that grows with the birthing of healthy children.. along with the arrival of new migrants from the old country, what started as a small group of families numbering around fifty folk, has now doubled in number to over one hundred.

More farms are being created and so there is need for a builder to set up his workshop in what is now becoming a village. We are in the process of petitioning the central government to allow us to register this settlement as a town and we will give it a good German name suitable for the folk who live here.

I have to tell you this..several days ago, upon my returning from a visit to the regional centre in the hills, as I broached the Eastern escarpment of those hills before descending onto the mallee plain, I paused to cast my gaze over the spread of settlements that have grown over the plains..It was truly a vision splendid. Quite a few farms have taken to grazing sheep on the paddocks and this has demanded a more thorough clearing of the mallee trees to create grazing land and those green paddocks showed a broad patchwork quilt over the plain.

This growth of farms has intruded deep into the hunting grounds of the local natives, resulting in some incidences of confrontation between the Government authorities and those natives. Over time, I have come in contact with the elders of some of those local clans, picked up some of their language and they also have learned some of ours..It appears our intrusion into the better areas of land, where there is deeper soil and more water, has interrupted their hunting grounds and driven much of their quarry away. This cannot be helped as far as I can see, as the new settlers are in desperate need of more and more land.

One settler, Johan Aurich, cleared and farmed the deep, sandy soil on top of a nearby hill, the highest point in the surrounding plain, that the elders claim was a corrobboree site and sacred to the tribe..I, for the life of me could not see any evidence or trappings of altar, markings or chattel of anything alluding to worship to any deity, pagan or otherwise..I said to one of the native elders;

“I cannot see anything physical here to tell the area is sacred”..to which he replied..rather sagely if I may say so..

”And can you physically see your God you pray to?”

“We have images and description of Our Lord Jesus Christ passed down to us in our Holy Bible”. I replied.

“Also have we our stories and depictions in drawings which we dance to and sing of in these corrobboree grounds.” The Elder spoke.

“But there are no walls here like we have with our churches to contain those sacred things which we celebrate” I countered..to which the Elder spread his arms wide and said;

“Our church’s walls are the sky above, the endless horizon beyond sight and the perimeter of our dreams..even there be not space enough to contain all that we give respect and worship to.”

I confess I had no answer to such a vast dimension or faith…and I wonder if what we are destroying of their sacred grounds will drive these quiet natives also, like their game and quarry further away into the wilderness..and did not Paul himself write ; “If you take all that is owned by a man from him, and yet leave him with nothing, will he not turn and strive to take in turn all that is owned by you as possession?”

I wonder if we ought to take more care in striking out beyond those boundaries set aside for us new settlers and leave the natives have their lands to continue to hunt and thrive. But that seems in contradiction to what we are engaged in and what the Government authority demands from us. So I must surrender to each his own and let the matter rest in others hands.

But I give fair warning to those of you contemplating coming to this province..and come please by all means and we welcome you when you do..but come to us here and keep clear of those who govern this province, for many times have they tried to coerce and cajole us to rapaciously clear the land, fence-line to fence-line so nothing is left to protect crop and soil from the wind..”Trees do not pay taxes” they claim, and some blocks granted to migrants even before they left the shores of Europe are too small to farm sustainably and they are left with no choice but to clear boundary to boundary.

Keep clear of those in the city and come to us that we may cluster and keep alive our old traditions, farming methods and community habits..there is continuity and protection within our closed society that has the blessing of God and spiritual direction from our faith in the teachings of Martin Luther.

Know that I am your most humble servant and devout disciple to our Lord Christ Jesus. Know also that I have learned so much in these passing years here in the mallee flats, and much have I learned from observing those natives here before us who seasonally hunted prey, dug the ground for yams and picked berries and fruits when in season..and they studied those produce and studied those seasons to know the fullness of crop and tuber..when to harvest and when to leave the area for another district, another food, another prey..and when they did, they gave thanks to their spirits just as we give thanks to God for his generous bounty. In point of fact, I cannot really say that the natives differ all that much from ourselves, save their ways appear more primitive and their beliefs so much Pagan worship.

But all in all, do we not act in accordance to the need of our culture, and if they not have the invention of the wheel or plough, it is not needed in their ways and means of nomadic life, just as we have need of such a thing in our settled life.

And if they not have walls around their places of worship, is it not similar also to our teachings that one can worship God anywhere one stands and not just in a church or cathedral? And I see the implements the natives use to carry supplies or to hunt quarry are carved with images and notches representing their totems and beliefs, not altogether unsimilar to our own carrying of the Holy Book that we use as reference, or our own personal lockets or rings as talisman and memory of a person or thing valued by ourselves, and while ours be of milled gold or silver and theirs of stout mallee wood, can the sentiment be any less valued?

In their world of great difference in colour, creed and culture, there is much the same..do not they have families, children, chattels and places of home no different than ourselves? And if one was to contemplate the vastness of these forested lands before we came to settle and clear, one has to ask if there was need to domicile in the one location, farm the one crop..why not wander when want was non-existent…just there you have prey to cook, vegetable to eat, water to drink..the weather is not so bad here that one needs to shelter from winter snow or Siberian wind..a soft wrap of animal fur would be sufficient for cover in the coldest night and the shelter of the dense mallee canopy to shade one in the hottest of Summer days. There is the river or stream, there is the soft sand for bed, there is the mythological stories for both children’s lullaby and adult example ..why invent the wheel except to perhaps make more work when no such work was needed.

I will close now wishing you brethren God speed to come to us in company to build a solid community that will last down through time itself in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit of God Almighty…Holy, Holy, Holy..”

Pastor August Gersch, servant to Christ Jesus, disciple to Martin Luther..Amen.