Public Meeting
THE PAPERS OF
MAY 26, 1894:
The Seventh-day Adventists decided to campaign to have the obsolete laws pertaining to Sunday-keeping wiped from the Statute Book, and so Messrs McCullagh and Starr met with the local Member of Parliament, Mr Hugh Taylor, to ask him to call and chair a Public Meeting.
Upon Mr Taylor’s asking whether the purpose of the meeting was religious, Mr McCullagh assured him that the object was to show that State and Religion should have no connection with each other. Mr Taylor’s reaction was to commend that an approach be made to the Mayor, Mr J W Withers to call the meeting and chair it.
Therefore the two men obtained many signatures to an appropriate petition, which they presented to the Mayor. The Mayor’s reply was, according to the
Cumberland Argus,
26/5/1894, page 4 – “Mr George Whiteman and others; I have carefully considered your requisition, and am obliged to decline your request. The matter, it seems to me, is a religious one, and involving religious issues, and, as I understand my position, it compels me to maintain an absolute (sic) neutral attitude. Yours truly, J. W. Withers, Town Hall,
Parramatta.
However, a public meeting was called, and was attended by an interested crowd of over 400 people, on Tuesday evening,
22nd May, 1894. As a result of this trial and the furore created throughout the local countryside and in the wider press, both in Sydney and Melbourne, a movement sprang up to campaign for separation of Church and State to be incorporated in the forthcoming Constitution of the Nation.
Harry and William Firth little realised what great effect their simple, hard-working lives would have on the affairs of the nation of
Australia. They were men of strong principle, who were not afraid to stand in public for what they then believed.
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