THIRTY-SIX
Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf ’s letter to Dr George Cross,
2nd August 1915, continued IX Many more of the German and Prussian descendants’ homes and businesses were razed by fire, and more posters hung about the town of
Massacre Plains:—
‘INTERN THE LOT!’ ‘ANTI-GERMAN LEAGUE MEETING’ Before my departure a notice was nailed to the Mission Church, which read: ‘DO YOUR BIT. KILL A GERMAN.’ I’m certain I will die here. What use is this petition then? I fear my truth will go unnoticed and my life will simply be reduced to the coat of arms of a distant land. What use is determining our value or morality under the colours of a single flag? As you, Dr Cross, whom I believe to be of Irish stock? Be it Ireland’s flag. Be it the British flag or German or Australian?
What use is persecuting us upon the weight of inconsequential co-ordinates on the globe, of that trifling place of our birth?
I am a Lutheran minister, and I haven’t thought to be anything else all my days. However, later in my clergy work my friend Baumann had condemned our Founder, the theologian Martin Luther, as a hatemonger.
Baumann told me of the things Luther wrote in regard to the Jew. He informed me that Luther had gone so far as to compose a petition calling for the eradication of the Jewish race – ‘the cockroaches’, as Luther, a man of Scripture, had referred to them. ‘We must look forward,’ I had said in response. Yet the dishonour I felt was pointed. What woe filled my spirit – that I should have lived my life spreading the Word under the banner of Lutheranism, when its Founder held such misguided ideals. I sought verification, and after I’d read the document that Baumann gave to me I threw it against the threshing floor after not ten pages. What horror. I felt I was questioning all that I had knelt
before. God above all? The law and the Church? Church above all men?
The White man over the Black man? And all men above beasts? What have I done? Have I become the beast? I am despised as a beast and I fear hatred has reduced the so-called civilised man to a pack of murderous barbarians.
The words! What have we done by taking the words of our God and turning them on their heads for our own purposes? And I am of that number. What have I done, dear Dr Cross, that I feel such guilt in replacing Baymee with the Lord? What right had I to erasure? What right did I have to say one belief begets another? What right does any person? What has man done to man?
I fear I am losing my faith completely, in the Church and in Humanity.
If I had known the dark deeds, I question whether I would have asked to be shown back to the sea, and the unkind ocean, asking it to sweep me homeward. Though, I remained.
In closing, I beg for reason and for you to insert this letter – or its sentiment – in a rightful place. Although I deeply deplore that Great Britain has been compelled to declare war against Germany, the land of my father, I am a British subject and am willing to defend the honour of His Majesty King George V, of our beloved Australia. As a clergyman without chattels, I can only offer my body and life and this humble truth.
With sincerity, Ferdinand Greenleaf
