A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

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Another tale of the same period told of a bishop who owned a ship called “The
Gospel” and who made an agreement with the captain of “The Raven”. The two ships
were engaged in blackbirding – running kidnapped natives to the cities where they
were sold as slaves. The pact ensured that “one should take the bodies – the other
save the souls:”. 1 These however, were extreme cases. In more general terms,
Brady’s main charge against orthodox, organised religion was that it preached words
unfulfilled by practice and this of course was hypocrisy, which he detested as strongly
as McCrae in “The Vision” 2 He charged the clergy as a body with apathy about the
plight of the people; that this was anti-Christian in that it did not fulfil the command
of Christ Jesus whose example and precept was to bind up the wounds of the poor.
Nor had he any qualms about using Biblical references and quotations to slate the
clergy:
These custodians of the Kingdom’s gates, on whose heads the oil of sacerdotal
unction has been officially poured, are choosing queer company on the road from
Jerusalem to Jericho, where a certain man – called Demos – has fallen among
thieves. Like the Levite and the priest of old, they pass him by. 3
While this was, in effect, an anti-clerical attitude, it derived from an eagerness to
achieve a more direct and practical sympathy with the worker in his plight which he
considered religion should give and socialism would give. He was not objecting to
the principle of religion but to failures in its practice brought about by a
misconception of its essence and by human neglect, a neglect encouraged by the
existing social system which judged on words and appearances rather than on
practical achievements.
The effect of man’s malfeasance and neglect, both religious and social, was often
rendered vivid by the trick of contrasting what is and what might have been. For
example the birth of the Australian continent, in all its beauty, contrasts with the use
to which man has put it:
The moment came! and like to Love, thous rose at last
From sapphire seas, from pulseless sleep unknown and past,
Thou rose from where they lovely limbs had ages lain,
And woke – to hear the clanking of a convict’s chain! 4
Man indeed has clearly not lived up to the highest ideals propounded by the founder
of Christianity. Obviously he needed new guidelines for behaviour and a new spirit
of willingness to put Christian ideals into more practical, demonstrable form. For
Brady, socialism alone could supply both the spirit and the means of social and
individual betterment. As he wrote in a front page article in The Labor Call:
The emancipation of civilisation from the chains of wage slavery is our
immediate mission. That selfish incentive can be changed to altruistic
methods, we do not doubt. A life devoted to the service of Socialism is a life
given to highest ideals. In this service students become teachers. Their
Gospel is one of goodwill. It is a gospel of love and logic combined –
reasonable, truthful and just. 5
1 “Blackbirding”, Bird-O’-Freedom, 8.12.1894
2 The Bulletin, 13.6.1907.
3 “Priestly Politicians”, The Labor Call, 5.7.1931, p. 1.
4 “Australia’s Awakening”, Truth, 13.3.1892
5 “Blood Bath and Aftermath”, 16.7.1931. p. 1.