John Dunmore Lang - Patriot, Republican, Statesman, Evangelical, & Engima

	The real mystery is why he never combed his hair!
J.D. Lang ca 1875-78	Bibliography

INTRODUCTION: J.D. Lang the man - a paragon of paradox

What are we to make of John Dunmore Lang? Is he a hero of the faith, or a hypocritical villain? He is the epitome of a man who defies categorisation, a virtual paragon of paradox. The following cross section from Lang's life illustrates the complexity of his character.

He was an evangelical minister of the gospel of Peace. Yet he embroiled himself in one bitter controversy after another, from 1823 when he arrived, until his death in 1878. Henry Parkes described his friend and political colleague as having "all those qualities which form real human greatness - that is, his bravery, his grasp of intellect, his untiring capacity for work, and above all that tenderness of spirit without which ...no man can be truly great."FN1 Yet this tenderness of spirit seemed conspicuously absent on many occasions. Lang was gaoled and fined for libel, and had a reputation for being a master of vituperative put-downs.

Lang was extremely popular with the humbler classes. He was one of few ministers of any persuasion who preached with credibility before convicts, miners, and working class tradesmen FN2. Lang protested and lobbied tirelessly against the hegemony of the "squattocracy." He was a major force behind the push for responsible Colonial self-government. He advocated radical democracy and universal manhood suffrage. In things ecclesiastical he always believed Presbyterianism was the most scriptural and democratic order. Yet he ran any organisation or committee that he chaired, as much along the lines of a virtual dictatorship as possible. He was extremely sensitive to the slightest dissent.

Lang had a high sense of justice. He was quickly outraged by oppression of the powerless, especially farmers, workers, the unemployed, convicts, and aborigines. Yet he had an even higher sense of outrage at the slightest injustice against his own person. Sadly, he did not always himself deal justly, especially with creditors such as Samuel Marsden FN3, or the longsuffering Robert Wilkinson FN4.

One could list many other examples of seeming (and actual) contradictions in the stormy life of this extraordinary man FN5. These suffice, however, to show the magnitude of the problem one faces when writing about Lang. There are few areas of his life in which one can speak without qualification.

Any essay on the man is bound to be too simplistic at some point. Nevertheless, with that note of caution, let us proceed to examine further Lang's form of evangelicalism, using Bebbington's fourfold definition of Biblicism, Activism, Crucicentrism, and ConversionismFN06.

That Lang had an evangelical attitude to the bible is beyond question. He devoted himself to the tenets of the Westminster Confession and other fundamental doctrinal statements of Reformed religion. He believed all the evangelical biblical doctrines. His strict Calvinism, his fervent belief in the possibly imminent return of Christ, and his intense personal energy, resulted in a remarkable biblical activism in every arena, from the familial to the national.

Lang practised his commitment to the Word of God, in church, family, and personal devotions, by regular reading and preaching of the bible. He gave his wife a devotional daily bible reading aid, which she used for the rest of her life. Their family life revolved round daily prayer and the Word of God. This was evident in good times and bad, whether in prosperity, tragedy, danger, sickness or health. Lang's marriage of forty-seven years was, as Baker says, `supremely successful.' Baker points to their letters during Lang's frequent travels: "of the hundreds they wrote to each other there is not a hint of criticism or disagreement, but abundant outpourings of affection and ample signs of deep and abiding loyalty."FN8 He built a Christian home of love and fidelity.

This is all, of course, hard to reconcile with his often offensive public behaviour. An event highlighting this contradiction is his devotional reading of the whole bible, cover to cover, in a period of four months in 1851. A very evangelical achievement. The reason he had the leisure to do so, however, was that he was in gaol for libel!FN9 Lang rarely admitted fault. He could justify in his own mind even his libels as part of his biblical activism. He declared before the courts in 1835:

But if it should be represented as inconsistent with the character of a minister of religion, who... ought always to be meek and lowly, like his master, to assume the vindication of the rights of the public and the claims of virtue, ...I beg to observe, that there are occasions on which this mild and gentle demeanour is as unbefitting a minister of religion as an opposite demeanour is on all others... And I submit... whether I have been doing any thing more, as a minister of religion, than merely acting on this precedent and following up this example [of Christ driving the money changers from the Temple], in endeavouring...to cleanse and to purify... this colony.FN10

Looking more objectively, this is surely just a rationalisation for his egotism. His mistake was to see himself as indispensable to the achievement of God's purposes for society, and any attack on him as an attack on the gospel.FN11

Preaching the Word Faithfully:

Regular bible preaching was fundamental. In his second sermon in NSW, Lang declared, "the duty of every Christian minister is ...to preach the gospel to every creature, as far as God shall enable him."FN12 He displayed this attitude both in his own preaching practice and in his criticism of lesser zeal in others. He attacked sloth in the teaching of evangelical doctrine as much as the actual teaching of error. He was especially scathing of the Rev. McGarvie for his seeming apathy towards the duty of preaching the Word.

Opposition to Error:

Lang's biblical activism produced a strident opposition to error. He fought a life-long battle against Moderatism and any form of Catholicism. In contrast to most Moderates, he preached the bible regularly wherever, whenever, and to whomsoever he could. In contrast to Roman Catholic and Tractarian emphasis on the early church fathers, ritual, and church architecture, he advocated modesty in church buildings. It was the Word, not the building that enabled the Church to worship aright. He declared from the start, when drumming up support for the building of Scots church: "our Scottish Church has never been ambitious of having splendid edifices reared for the worship of God; and she utterly disclaims all participation in the idolatry of those who would insinuate that any temple, however splendid, which the hand of man may rear for the worship of his Maker, is at all capable of exalting our conceptions of that God whom the heaven of heavens does not contain."FN13

Again we encounter a seeming paradox. Lang criticised one minister because in his sermon he mentioned the name of Christ not once, but merely gave a Platonic discourse on the immortality of the soul. Yet when one scans Lang's socio-politic and ecclesiastic works, we find that he himself rarely, if ever, mentions the name of ChristFN14.

The modern evangelical, looking back at Lang's works, would find it hard to label many of them as particularly evangelical. However, this may say as much about our late 20th Century form of evangelicalism as it does about Lang's.

Lang's Millenarian Motivation:

Lang was no mere worldling, as Hutchinson seems to implyFN15. He simply did not hold the social dualism of later Evangelicalism. Like his Puritan spiritual forebears, he saw no dichotomy between the private devotional life of the evangelical and the secular social life of the community. His Evangelicalism was more formal, respectable and denominational than that of 18th Century Evangelicals. However, he retains and even intensifies their integration of Christian faith with involvement in the shaping of society. His was more than an individualistic pietism. He consciously cooperated with political liberalism for the `moral welfare and general interests of the Colony', because "Christian religion ...was designed for the reformation of mankind and the moral renovation of the world."FN16

Lang wrote and spoke, not in the theological climate of the pre-millennialism or amillennialism which dominate (respectively) American and British/Australian evangelicalism today. The mid-nineteenth Century saw the zenith of post-millennial ideas. Optimism at the possibility of human progress was a by-product of the Enlightenment and the three revolutions (American; French; and Industrial). Postmillennialism baptised this optimistic mood into a radical millenarian dream of bringing in Christ's return by the godly transformation of society.

Lang himself was not exactly a Post-millenialist. Like everything else about him, his millennial viewpoint was, as Hutchinson says, "idiosyncratic." Lang managed to combine the optimistic progressive ideal of Postmillenarian theology with the Apocalyptic Adventism of PremillinialismFN17. This accounts partly, in Hutchinson's view, for his great activism.

One must read all Lang's works in the context of his grand scheme for making Australia a great land of the Holy Spirit, the United States of the Southern Hemisphere. Like the Puritans before him, he was seeking a godly nation. That was his motivation in everything he wrote, theological, homiletical, or political, whether it mentioned the name of Christ overtly or notFN18.

One of Lang's bad habits was that he told half-truths. What he left out was often significant in painting a misleading picture of his enemies. Baker writes about Lang's account of Thomson's appointment as Colonial Secretary: "This account... used one of Lang's favourite means of misleading the public by telling only part of the truth...FN19"

However, Lang's enemies, and even some biographers, are not above using the same device.

S.G. Foster, biographer of Edward Deas Thomson, writes about the electoral bill of March 1851FN20 which sought to divide NSW into electorates favouring rich pastoralists: "...For Thomson, the opposing forces stood for democracy on the one hand, and the constitutional principles of England on the other. As the chief defender of the constitution his position was especially strong, for few members of the council were prepared to deny the relevance of British precedent. When Lang urged the adoption of the American system he was easily put down by Plunkett, who, with characteristic concern for oppressed minorities, pointed to the treatment of Negroes as an indictment of American political institutions."FN21

Plunkett implied that Lang's support for the American system of government meant tacit approval of slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth. Concern for oppressed minorities was Lang's bread and butter. What Plunkett (and Foster) neglected to mention is that Lang was an active abolitionist.

Shortly before, in 1850, Lang made a preaching tour of the Hunter Valley. At the age of fifty, he covered a huge area on horseback in a very short time, under often dangerous circumstances, including two falls from his horse. This tour illustrates perfectly the intersection of Lang's biblicism and activism. Along with sermons, he gave lectures promoting the planting and irrigating of cotton. This was not only part of his desire to "improve" NSW. Lang had a wider and more ambitious plan of ending oppression on another continent. Lang reasoned that cotton grown by slavery was economically inefficient and would not be able to compete with cotton grown by free men. Rather than merely speak against slavery, he tried to do something to end it. Lang had heard Southerners quote the bible to back up their right to own slaves, and knew they would not respond to mere loud castigationFN22.He firmly believed that when it was no longer economically viable, Americans would voluntarily give up their slave owning habits. Hence he saw his preaching and agricultural lectures as two sides of the one millennial coin of Christian progress in society.

Immigration: Creating The America of the Southern Hemisphere

Michael Roe isolates five factors crucial to the progress of NSW in this period - Political authority; Land policy; Convict transportation; Religion; and Education. FN23 Lang involved himself in all these because he thought it part of his work for the Kingdom. Let us consider especially his involvement in immigration.FN24

Lang speaks of his wish that the "heroic work" of colonization may be the "planting of a germ which may grow up in due time into a great Christian nation."FN25 He lamented the general lack of religious knowlege and good morals then in the colony, which he attributed to the convict base of society. Lang believed only a large injection of honest, Godfearing, hardworking free settlers could "increase the free population of the colony at a very rapid rate, ...raise the moral tone of society, and speedily obliterate all traces of its convict origin."FN26 At the same time he lobbied for the end of transportation, which he saw as an endless conduit of iniquity pouring into the Colony. He said, "our Country is not honoured by monuments of stone and mortar. The virtues of her children will ever be her best memorial; and a generation of men fearing the Lord, and keeping his commandments, were the loftiest pillar of her fame."FN27

The result of Lang's Immigration schemes, especially the Bounty Scheme of 1837 to 1852, had a considerable effect on the development of society and religious values in the Colonies. Many of his upright Calvinist highlandersFN28 settled in the Hunter Valley, NSW North Coast, Queensland, and around Port PhillipFN29 and other areas of Victoria. They and their descendants have helped shape Australian culture and mores.

The Religion of Lang's Highland Immigrants:

Lang promoted immigration of Protestants from England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Germany, France, and elsewhere. But his Highlanders epitomize the kind of migrant he thought would improve the morals and religion of Australia. Poor but upright, law abiding Calvinist Presbyterians, frugal, industrious, and godly.

Lang's Scottish immigrants were mostly victims of the Highland Clearances.FN30 Many perished from starvation and exposure. Up to 200,000 emigrated from Scotland with assisted passage, to Canada, South Africa, and Australia.Many were evangelical. Highlanders were not very responsive to the traditional Kirk. As George Robb says, "the Kirk was an alien institution which opposed the Gaelic language and was associated with the Lowland and English political system."FN31 They preferred the evangelical strain in Presbyterianism, which did not suppress their language, and sought to express the gospel in culturally relevant ways, incorporating Gaelic music and customs.FN32

The 1830s were years of optimism, growth and expansion, both for the colony and for religion in NSW.FN33 Emancipist and free settlers were generally many times better off than their social counterparts back in Britain. They were not only financially secure, but often better off in terms of the availability to them of religious instruction and education. This was particularly so for the Scottish Highlanders: "as late as 1837...sixty-one of some 200 Highland parishes had obstructed access to the parish church. The churches themselves were often in disrepair, or else too small to accommodate their congregations. Some...had no churches at all, [and] public worship was held in the open fields."FN34

The money made available from the Church Acts meant a sudden huge increase in clergy of the major denominations, and many churches were built. Lang and others also involved themselves actively in promoting both religious and general education.

Between 1837 and 1841, changes were made in the process of Government Bounty Immigration. It had been substantially privatised. According to Lang, this was detrimental to all but a few wealthy merchants who ran the scheme. They made money, but the people of NSW and Britain, and the migrants themselves, suffered loss. Migrants were no longer chosen on the basis of their "industry and virtue," their "moral and religious character," and their "suitability" for the needs of the colony, FN35 as they had been by Lang's agents. Nor did they consider the relative needs of various parts of Great Britain for "removal of her surplus population." Instead, migrants were collected from a few central urban locations.

Lang's agents had chosen mainly poor but morally and religiously desirable agricultural labourers and mechanics, especially from areas of high unemployment. Under the new operators, the chief criteria were no longer social and religious, but private and economic. Minimising expense and maximising profit. Consequently, NSW was receiving migrants who were unsuitable for Lang's grand social engineering scheme of building a righteous Christian nation which would emerge from the ashes of its convict past. Migrants who were coming, suitable or not, now endured unnecessary privation and hardship. Taking on cargo and cabin passengers, minimal and inferior rationing, etc sacrificed migrant comfort for profit, Lang protested indignantly on their behalf.

As well as being morally and technically inferior to previous immigrants, Lang made what he considered an even more serious charge. The migrants coming in were religiously inferior. Put bluntly, there were too many Catholics. Especially IRISH Catholics. This alarmed Lang, as the very title of his 1841 pamphlet so loudly proclaims! "Is this colony to be transformed into a Province of The Popedom?"!

Lang's virulent anti-Catholicism was one way in which Lang expressed his belief in the bible as the only rule of faith and practice. His attacks on Roman Catholics were ferocious. Yet sometimes he showed that generosity and tenderness of spirit which Parkes spoke of, even towards implacable Catholic enemies such as Power, Plunkett, and Polding. He and Archbishop Polding were reconciled on the latter's deathbed in 1877. He had cordial personal relations with some Catholics. In 1855, when campaigning against his son's conviction for embezzlement, Lang received and published a gracious letter from Caroline Chisolm, his Roman Catholic rival in the promotion of immigration. She said "I am anxious to know if [there is] anything I can do. Deeply sympathizing with you under your present trial."FN36 Many years later she wrote to Lang asking for a letter of introduction for her son to the Governor of Queensland.

The corollary of Lang's anti-Catholicism was a typical evangelical ecumenism with `bible-believing' Christians from other Protestant denominations. Though his personality and political differences made his relationship with Samuel Marsden and other Anglicans strained and difficult at times, he was able to co-operate with them in areas where they shared the common goal of commending the gospel and Christian missions. He was even more willing in extending fellowship to those of less established persuasion - Congregationalists and the like. He said when beginning his Colonial ministry:

I disavow the intention of having come to make proselytes from other Christian communions...I disclaim all sentiments of illiberality... towards Christians of whatever name; and to each and all of those who are labouring in the vineyard of that Master whom we all profess to serve, I would say, from the bottom of my heart, "Go and prosper." In the day of reckoning, he who loveth the Lord Jesus, and he only, shall be honoured, whether churchman or no... Let there be no strife amongst us; or, if there should, let it only be the strife of Christian principle, and Christian practice, with all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men.FN37

The last clause provided Lang with his loophole for not always perfectly practising this ecumenical theory. In his mind, almost by definition, if someone was opposing him, they were deficient in some way in Christian principle or Christian practice. Nevertheless, he generally displayed the typical Evangelical trait of enthusiastic and warm fellowship with other bible-believing Protestants.

As well as preaching, and promoting immigration, `progress' and human rights, Lang's evangelical activism made him a keen supporter of Missions, both in Australia and elsewhere.

Lang loved the Aborigines, and set up a German mission at Moreton Bay. He thought Aboriginal culture more highly adapted for life in Australia than European culture.FN38 Unlike Marsden, or Bishop Broughton, Lang believed in `Christianity first, then civilisation follows'.

Lang defended Aboriginal customs, arguing that even their (alleged) cannibalism did not make their culture inferior to that of Europeans.FN39 He pointed out that the aboriginal tribes survived and flourished brilliantly in this harsh and inhospitable continent. Lang also condemned the appalling atrocities of white settlers. In 1838, when Governor Gipps called for a "day of fasting and humiliation on account of the late calamitous drought," Lang preached a remarkable sermon in the Scots Church entitled `National Sins the Causes and Precursors of National Judgements.' Like a modern Jeremiah, he pointed to three national sins which called for repentance - atrocities against aboriginal peoples; mistreatment of convicts and other poor; and Sabbath breaking. Having in mind especially the Myall Creek massacre of the previous June, he compared the Aborigines with the biblical Gibeonites, the aboriginal inhabitants of Canaan whom Saul killed. Lang was sure that if God punished Israel for Saul's crime, he would not spare New South Wales for their abhorrent treatment of their aboriginal people. Here is some of what he had to say:

Now, my brethren, ...standing as we are in the immediate presence of God on this day of fasting and humiliation on account of our social and public, as well as our private and individual sins; let us ask ourselves seriously and in earnest, whether, as the European colonists of this territory, we can lay our hands upon our hearts, and plead not guilty concerning the Gibeonites, I mean the wretched Aboriginal inhabitants of this land? Alas! we are verily guilty concerning these our brethren; for not only have we despoiled them of their land, and given them in exchange European vice and European disease in every foul and fatal form, but the blood of hundreds, nay of thousands of their number, who have fallen from time to time in their native forests, when waging unequal warfare with their civilised aggressors, still stains the hands of many of the inhabitants of the land! ...if the Lord visited the slaughter of the Gibeonites... on the whole house of Israel... Much more then will the Lord avenge the blood of the wretched Aborigines... on the European inhabitants of this land! ...They are... bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh - formed originally after the image of God, like ourselves...We may rest assured, therefore, that these Gibeonites, so to speak, are especially under the divine protectionFN40.

Lang boldly defended Aboriginal culture. He opposed Negro slavery. Yet he could be openly racist in other areas. He said of the South West Irish: "according to every ...person of experience and observation, they are the most ignorant, the most superstitious, and the very lowest in the scale of European civilization."FN41

He was even more uncomplimentary towards Chinese, describing his aversion to their physical characteristics.FN42 Yet, confusingly, he also had a vision of a multicultural Australia which included Asians as equal citizens.FN43

Lang's biblical activism was fundamental to all he stood for. He expressed this confidence in the authority of the bible not only in his energetic and active preaching, his anti-Catholic rhetoric, and his evangelical ecumenism, but also in less immediately obvious ways, such as his political involvement and radical social plans for NSW. We turn now to examine his...

Lang saw Australian society as Christian, but ungodly, and in need of moral reform. He consciously cast himself in the role of one like an Old Testament prophet to Israel. Evangelical Christianity in the middle of the19th century often saw its task more in terms of edifying an already existing Christian society by encouraging Christians to have better morals, than in preaching the gospel to a godless society.

Lang's millenarian hope caused him to express his Conversionism more often on a global than an individual scale. In 1823 he began his ministry with the hope that "the building of our church... will form an era in the religious history of this Colony. It will doubtless be a lesser link in that chain of events that shall one day issue in the conversion of the world..."FN44

This does not mean that Lang did not believe in the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He was not content with mere formal religion. He was appalled by the Roman Catholic Power's attempt to baptise an aboriginal prisoner about to be hanged by offering to throw holy water on him and promising him eternal life if he would allow Power to do soFN45. On many occasions Lang, with other evangelicals, tried to convince condemned prisoners to repent and believe the gospel and be saved.

Lang knew the need for true inward conversion. He declared warmly in a sermon in 1845,

We may also [be guilty] in the presence of an all-seeing and heart-searching God... [of having] made a public profession of religion without cherishing a heart-felt affection towards the divine Redeemer, and named the name of Christ as our chosen Saviour, without departing from iniquity - thereby rendering ourselves amenable to that fearful malediction, "Whosoever loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema..."FN46

When Lang visited America, the Christian moral and social fibre of their culture impressed him greatly. He never tired of promoting the American system as the best framework for growing a godly society. However, he did not gain a similar enthusiasm for the American evangelical tendency to express conversion in terms of having a particular kind of religious and emotional experience.

Lang grew up in a Scottish Christian home, and never seems to have undergone a conversion experience at any one point of time. He was brought up to love Jesus. From a very early age knew he wanted to be a Presbyterian minister. The theology of evangelical Conversionism that grew up in America in association with the Great Awakenings did not develop in the same way in Scotland. It was not that there were no great revivals in Scotland. Those Lang chose as his ideal godly immigrants under the Bounty Scheme of Immigration from 1837 to 1852, were from areas where the winds of revival had blownFN47. And the `affections' were important, especially to the Highlander. However, Scottish Calvinism placed much more emphasis on Sabbath observance, abstinence from luxury, and godly morals as the marks of a true believer, than on a person having undergone a particular kind of religious experience.

This concentration on the marks of a godly Christian sometimes obscures the clear message of the cross in Lang's writing, but there is no doubt that he believed in justification by faith in the death of Christ on the cross as a substitutionary atonement for one's sins. Lang's believed there was "a future blessedness to win, through faith in Christ Jesus, evinced in genuine and sincere repentance; - and the silent testimony of our own Christian practice in remembering the Sabbath day...FN48"

The cross was central, but he concentrated more on its subjective effects than the objective work of Atonement. He preached passionately about the Christian following Christ to the Cross daily. "The true Church of Christ will always bear the mark of the cross - not the Popish sign of a material cross in stone or marble... but in suffering and sorrow, in persecution and abasement. These are the true cross..."FN49

Scottish Presbyterianism's attitude to Sabbath keeping and suffering may seem legalistic from a modern evangelical viewpoint. But we must ask whether this was necessarily any more legalistic in its cultural context than early 20th Century evangelicalism's attitude to alcohol, dancing, makeup, etc, or modern evangelicalism's attitude to the `Quiet Time' and compulsory daily bible reading?

Lang polarised those he dealt with. You could not easily remain indifferent to him. He inspired both great love and great hatred. Like Marsden, the incessant criticism and opposition he incurred can only partly be explained by his own obvious character deficiencies. Some of it came because of his unceasing moral campaigning against licentiousness, injustice and vice, especially amongst the rich and powerful. Lang's belief that others were persecuting him for his exposure of their immoralities and shortcomings was at least partly true.

Nor are Lang's biographers always unbiased. Lang is a soft target. Many highlight his eccentric, public, and brazen faults, yet allow these to obscure his achievements. Those who do acknowlege the positive contributions he made to Australian life, rarely emphasise his positive character traits.

These include his family love and devotion, sense of justice for the oppressed, his courage and dedication, high sexual moral integrity, hard working attitude, concern for the lost, and serious application to his sense of vocation. Unlike far too many Australian clergy, not to mention many of his critics, no one could call Lang lazy, affected, sycophantic, drunken, or sexually impure.

John Dunmore Lang was a complex character. However, his glaring public faults should not lead us to conclude that he was not a significant evangelical Christian leader. Great men usually have great weaknesses as well as great strengths. Lang's sins were of a public nature. History is kinder to those who are `public angels yet home devils.' We must remember that Lang's family life was a paragon of evangelical virtues that far surpassed that of other great heroes of the faith, such as the Wesley brothers, whose piety in their public ministry is taken for granted. We all live in glass houses. Martin Luther's words are apt: "The Saints indeed, know God's word, and can discourse of it, but the practice is another matter: therein we shall all remain scholars."FN50

One must inevitably ask, however, what this energetic and zealous evangelical dynamo might have achieved had he learned to curb his tongue and control his temper better?

Lang's contribution to Australian society in general and Evangelical Christianity in particular has yet to be explored fully by writers. His achievements in the areas of democracy, education, immigration, and the development of the Australian colonies, are generally under-acknowleged. If Henry Parkes is the "Father of Federation," Lang deserves at least to be called its UncleFN51. His political achievements influenced both radical and conservative politics, and prefigured the rise of the Union movement and the Labor Party. On the conservative side, the influence of his godly immigrants was considerable. Lang may be substantially responsible for many conservative Australian mores that persisted well into the 20th century, such as observance of Sunday as a Sabbath.

He was responsible for building up evangelical churches, importing evangelical clergy, and establishing an Australian-trained native born clergy. His fundraising for and personal participation in, Christian mission, both in Australia and the Pacific Islands, was prodigious. As an example of evangelical piety and applied theology, there is much in Lang's work to challenge the assumptions of modern evangelicalism. There are both positive and negative examples to follow or avoid. An essay of this length can only begin to unfold a few of those, but this short examination of Lang's Biblicism, Activism, Conversionism, and Crucicentrism has shown that he was indeed a man of considerable evangelical piety and zeal, despite his faults.

In an allusion to the trials of the apostle Paul, Samuel Marsden wrote, shortly before his death,

[I] have gone through many Toils, and Hardships, and have often to contend with unreasonable, and wicked men in Power. I have gone through many dangers by Land and by water, and amongst the Heathens, and amongst my own Countrymen in New South Wales; and have both suffered Shipwreck and Robbery: but the Lord in his mercy at all times delivered meFN52.

Lang could have written those very words himself. He too was fond of comparing himself with the great apostle. Also, like Marsden, he could point with a fair degree of truth to having experienced every one of these trials. A.T. Yarwood's comment on Marsden's summary of his own life could also be lifted straight into a biography of John Dunmore Lang with no incongruity: "He had a sense of destiny and divine purpose which not only sustained him in physical danger and political controversy but drove him on to the zealot's great error of believing that ends justified the means."FN53

But, as Lang would insist, we must allow him to have the final word! "I have come to minister..., determined to be my own epistle of commendation; and it is my earnest prayer, that by the faithful and zealous discharge of the duties of my office, I may be read and approved as such by you all. I trust I have come hither in obedience to our Lord's command, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel."FN54

Much has been said (not least by Lang himself!) about the arrival of the Scots Mechanics on the Stirling Castle in 1831. But let us look at a lesser know episode which illustrates Lang's evangelical activism in the area of immigration, and again raises questions about possible mixed motives.

The barque Midlothian entered Sydney Heads December 12, 1837. The passengersFN55 disembarked next day. It was the third ship of twenty in Lang's Bounty Scheme. Bounty ships gave assisted passage to 4000 Scots between 1837-40. The second, William Nicol, arrived in Sydney a week before the Midlothian. Lang himself arrived back from England at the same time on the Portland. A week after arriving, the Midlothian passengers attended the first Gaelic speaking church service in Australia, at Scots Church. They refused to be split up as the first shipload had been, and demanded to be settled as a community, with their clergyman, William McIntyre.FN56 They presented a petition through Lang and McIntyre, "representing that they had been induced to emigrate by the hope held out to them of being enabled to settle in one neighbourhood, so as to be within reach of religious ordinances administered in their native language, the only one understood by four fifths of their number, and praying that facilities to enable them to do so might be granted by the Government."FN57

The Executive Council had an emergency meeting, and decided that, even though no such undertaking had been given, the Highlanders should be allowed to settle together, if any large landowner could be found who would accept them as a body. The Government would give them free passage and supplies for six monthsFN58.

Rather suspiciously, the landowner willing to take them was Lang's brother, Andrew, who ran the family property of Dunmore. It is hard not to wonder whether Lang orchestrated the whole affair so that Andrew could establish twenty families of tenant farmers on his property at the Government's expenseFN59.

1Sir Henry Parkes, quoted in the facsimile edition of The Fatal Mistake and two statements on the Scots Church, Sydney, (Sydney: Library of Aust. History, 1978), title page [italics mine].

2One wonders whether in a perverse sort of way his egotism was one reason that he did get on so well with the working class. Perhaps they more readily looked up to him than those of his own, or higher social levels. He does seem to have been more comfortable in a spiritually paternal role than a filial or dependent one.

3A.T.Yarwood, Samuel Marsden - The Great Survivor, (Carlton: Melb. Uni. Press, 1977), 267

4See Baker, Days of Wrath, (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1985), 283, 296, 299, 319, 342-3, 499. Lang incurred the debt, over £700, in 1849, and did not pay it all off until years later. He spent four months in gaol because of it. To be fair to Lang, Baker records one of the rare occasions on which he showed remorse. In 1873, many years after he had legally paid off the debt, he was passing though Melbourne and gave Wilkinson £25 compensation because he recognised the loss his creditor had sustained by Lang's neglect.

5More will become apparent below, such as his conflicting views on Race.

6Quoted from an earlier work by Bebbington in Evangelicalism - Comparitive Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, Noll, Mark A., Bebbington, David W., Rawlyk, George A. eds, (N.Y.: Oxford Uni Press) 1994, 6.

7It is impossible to separate Lang's `biblicism' from his `activism'. Lang's commitment to the bible was not just academic, but extremely activist. Therefore, both of Bebbington's categories are combined under this heading.

8D.W.A. Baker, Days of Wrath, 85.

9D.W.A. Baker, Days of Wrath, ch 21, esp. 338.

10Baker (ed) Reminiscences of My Life and Times Both in Church and State in Australia, for upwards of Fifty Years, (1877, edited with intro & notes by D.W.A. Baker, Melbourne: Heineman, 1972), Appendix B, 234.

11Nevertheless, it is also true that he often got as good as he gave. His enemies took every opportunity to vilify him. To his credit it was only after enduring more than thirty years of vilification that he ever sued anyone else for defamation, and then only under special circumstances.

12A Sermon, preached on Sunday, June 15, 1823, to the congregation of Scots Presbyterians, in Sydney, New South Wales; preparatory to the building of a Scots Church in Sydney, (Sydney: Robert Howe, 1823 ML 285.291) p.11.

13A Sermon, preached on Sunday, June 15, 1823, etc, p.13-14.

14Even some of his sermons (though by no means most) display this tendency of speaking the name of Christ but sparingly.

15Mark Hutchinson, `LANG, JOHN DUNMORE' entry in The Australian Dictionary of Evangelical Biography (Brian Dickey ed.), (Sydney: Evangelical History Association, 1994), 209-13.

16Reminiscences, Appendix B, 233.

17See for example Lang's 1872 sermon, `The Little While of the Saviour's Absence, and the Speedy Prospect of His Return' in A.L. McLeod, AUSTRALIA SPEAKS - An Anthology of Australian Speeches, (Sydney: Wentworth Books, 1969), 66-72; and his The Moral & Religious Aspect of the Future America of the Southern Hemisphere, etc, (New York: J.van Norden printer, 1840). There is some evidence that he moved from being more post-millenial in emphasis to a more pre-millenial position, but he was never fully either. Though committed to hastening the coming of the Kingdom by social and moral improvements and the preaching of the gospel, he had a firm hope in the sudden and unexpected return of Christ at any moment, according to the sovereign decision of God.

18In theory at least! An obvious and sad exception to this was his unfortunate habit of getting sidetracked into justifications of his own actions and achievements.

19Baker, DOW, 322.

20See also Baker, DOW, 324f.

21S.G.Foster, Colonial Improver - Edward Deas Thomson 1800-1879, (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne Uni. Press, 1978), 109-110 [My italics].

22Ironically, this attitude was similar to that of his opponent Thomson, who thought it politic to steer clear of the subject when talking with Americans, even though he despised the abuses he saw.

23M.Roe, The Quest for Authority in Eastern Australia, (Melbourne: Melbourne Uni. Press, 1965), 1-6.

24Though we must keep in mind the close connection between immigration and the sale of land, the former being financed by the latter under the "Wakefield Principle." Lang was deeply involved in the politics surrounding the funding of immigration.

25J.D.Lang, An Historical Account of NSW (Vol II), (London:Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Neale, 1875), 125.

26An Historical Account of NSW Vol II, 127.

27A Sermon, preached on Sunday, June 15, 1823, etc, 14.

28For a description of the events surrounding the arrival in 1837 of the first ship carrying gaelic speaking highland clearance victims, see

Appendix A.

29For a treatment of the character of migrant Presbyterianism round Port Phillip, see Cumming, Cliff, `Covenant & Identity: Scots Presbyterians in Port Phillip, 1838-51' JRH, Vol. 16, No. 2, December 1990, 202-16.

30For a full treatment of this episode of Scottish/English history, see John Prebble's book The Clearances.

31G. Robb, "Popular Religion & the Christianization of the Scottish Highlands in the 18th & 19th Centuries," JRH vol 16 #1, June 1990, 31.

32See Robb, 33.

33The `Boom & Bust' cycle of Australian economic life began at this time, and has not ceased since!

34Robb, 26.

35The Question of Questions, almost any page.

36J.D.Lang, The Convicts' Bank; or A Plain Statement of the Alleged Embezzlement, on the part of Messrs. G.D. Lang, late manager, and F.L. Drake, late accountant, of the Branck Bank of New South Wales, at Ballarat, 47.

37A Sermon, preached on Sunday, June 15, 1823, etc, p.11.

38This was in sharp contrast to Marsden, who considered aboriginals so degraded and impossible to reach with the gospel until they were better civilised that he went off to preach to the Maoris instead.

39In Cooksland in North Eastern Australia; the future cotton-field of Great Britain: its characteristics and capabilities for European Colonization. With a disquisition on the origins, manners, and customs of the aborigines, 1847, as quoted by Baker, Days Of Wrath, 224.

40J.D.Lang, National Sins the Precursor and Cause of National Judgements, etc, (Sydney: James Tegg, 1838 ML RBC 252/L), 14-15

41J.D.Lang, The Question of Questions: Is this colony to be transformed into a province of the popedom? (Sydney: J.Tegg & Co, 1841), 41.

42See Baker, 438. His racism always seems to be linked to his wider political agendas. He used it to stir up his hearers natural prejudices in favour of whatever policy he was promoting.

43In 1851 he wrote a future fantasy about the Australian Republic of twenty years time, and imagined bustling trade seaports in Northern Australia, the citizens of which would be two-thirds Chinese and Malay immigrants, since they coped better with the climate than Europeans. Perhaps here he sublimated his own natural ungodly racism to the greater goal of building a godly and progressive nation.

44A Sermon, preached on Sunday, June 15, 1823, etc, 16.

45Baker, DOW, 59-60.

46National Sins the Precursor and Cause of National Judgements, etc, 21.

47For a fascinating treatment of the revivals in the Highlands and Highland spirituality, especially in the period 1790 to 1840, see John Kennedy, The Days of The Fathers in Ross-Shire (first published 1861, Inverness: Christian Focus Publications, 1979).

48National Sins the Precursor and Cause of National Judgements, etc, 23, [italics mine].

49`The "Little While" of the Saviour's Absence, and the Prospect of His Speedy Return' (Sermon, Melbourne, 1872) in A.L.McLeod (ed), AUSTRALIA SPEAKS - An Anthology of Australian Speeches, (Sydney: Wentworth Books, 1969), 72.

50Source unknown.

51And, if it ever happens, great-grandfather of the Republic!

5218 Feb 1838, Hocken Library Manuscripts 57/264, as quoted by Yarwood, 281.

53Yarwood, 281

54A Sermon, preached on Sunday, June 15, 1823, etc, 18.

55Including my 3xgreat grandparents, Donald & Helena Munro, peasant farmers from Sutherlandshire, with a young family.

56Who later became a rival of Lang.

57Gipps to Glenelg, Despatch 114, 20th July, 1838: Historical Records of Australia, 507.

58See the report of Gipps to Glenelg, and Glenelg's answer, regarding the Midlothian immigrants, in Historical Records of Australia, 506-8 & 692.

59Governor Gipps was not at all happy about the situation, as expressed in his despatch to Glenelg of 20th July, 1838: "...considerable dissatisfaction has been expressed in this Colony at the manner in which a number of Emmigrants [from] the ship "Midlothian," were disposed of, they having been settled as a Body...and thus become occupiers of land on their own account, instead of being forced to work for wages as farm labourers." One suspects the "considerable dissatisfaction" was felt by other landed gentry deprived of the opportunity to exploit these new migrants and jealous of Andrew Lang's windfall.

copyright G.S.Munro 1996