A week ago I saw some wonderful posts about Australia Day. People seem to be very thankful for the country we live in. A week after the first landing in 1778 we commemorated, Richard Johnston, Chaplain on the Fleet, preached the first Christian sermon in the new colony. Johnston, an evangelical anglican, was recommended to the position of Chaplain by two notable English Christians, William Wilberforce and John Newton. Johnstons text for the occasion was from Psalm 116 vs 12 What shall I render unto the Lord for all that he has done for me?. His congregation of course, may have had mixed feelings about what God had done for them considering that neither convicts or those guarding them wanted to be in this alien wilderness so far from home. They had no idea of Gods plan for either the country or its first white inhabitants. More than two hundred years after that service, in a country where we have such freedom, the question asked by the Psalmist is so relevant to every Australian today.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 05:19:45 +0000
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