The audience
was very numerous, standing in close order to the distance of
twenty-five or thirty yards under a large gum tree.
The preacher spoke with a German accent, but his meaning was plain.
He said:
"My dear brethren' 'Beatus ille qui post aurum non abiit'. Blessed
is the man who has not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money or
treasures. You will never earn that blessing, my dear brethren. Why
are you here? You have come from every corner of the world to look
for gold. You think it is a blessing, but when you get it, it is
often a curse. You go what you call 'on the spree'; you find the
'sly grog'; you get drunk and are robbed of your gold; sometimes you
are murdered; or you fall into a hole and are killed, and you go to
hell dead drunk. Patrick Doyle was here at Mass last Sunday; he was
then a poor digger. Next day he found gold, 'struck it rich,' as you
say; then he found the grog also and brought it to his tent.
Yesterday he was found dead at the bottom of his golden shaft, and he
was buried in the graveyard over there near the Government camp."
My conscience was quite easy when the sermon was finished. It would
be time enough for me to take warning from the fate of Paddy Doyle
when I had made my pile. Let the lucky diggers beware! I was not
one of them.
After we had been at work a few weeks, Father Backhaus, before
stepping down from the packing-case, said:
"I want someone to teach in a school; if there is anyone here willing
to do so, I should like to see him after Mass.
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