MEMORIES OF MARSDEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 1, 11 December 1911, Page 2

MEMORIES OF MARSDEN.

HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA. A groat “historic” wave is passing over Australia. There are an Australian Historical Society, a Pioneers’ Club, and other institutions here, all brought into being because of a sudden awakening to the interest attaching to old times. And this week the municipal jubilee of the historic old town of Parramatta, twenty miles from Sydney, where old Government House is situated, and the early Governors lived, had been made the occasion for reviving many old memories of the days of Australia’s infancy. The newspapers published special illustrated supplements dealing with the “cradle of Australia.” Nearly all tlie firsts of everything Australasian were established at Parramatta. The first seat of Government, the first church of any pretensions,-the first school, the first courthouse, that looked anything, like a Courthouse, certainly the first goal that would hold a criminal -against his will; the oldest military barracks, the oldest eemetary the cradle of the woollen and agricultural industries of this continent, and just about the first public house were* all in Parramatta. Not much more than a hundred years ago a few merino sheep (imported) were nibbling Australian grass where Parramatta streets are busiest to-day. How many millions sterling would it take to buy the livipg descendants to-day? Wheat a little, corn a little, oats a little, a. few horses (imported), a few pigs and poultry (imported), and a few men and women —also imported—lived, moved, and had their being hero 120 years ago. And here lived, i among other great men, one Samuel, Marsden, the preaching of whose first, sermon in New Zealand will bo celebrated in 1914. It is not to be wondered at that in the story of Parramatta just re-told by the newspapers memories of Marsden find an important place. Mr. Thomas Gilbert who was born in Parramatta, and has lived there through all his long life of ninety years, says he remembers Marsden as an old man when he himself was but a boy. “I used to go to his Church and 'Sunday-school,” he says. Now and again he would go over to New Zealand taking a few farmers with him, and bringing back some Maoris to educate them for missionary work. He was a fine old Christian gentleman. It is interesting to note that Mr. Montgomery, head of the New Zealand tourist and immigration bureau in Sydney, is at present engaged in turning over the old documents and records in the public and Mitchell libraries, in order to ascertain if there is anything of importance there relating to the early days of New Zealand. If so, he intends to have copies made of them, should it be impossible to acquire the originals for New Zealand.