"Mr Eternity"
In Sydney Australia, August 6th 1930
was to be the beginning of a new life for one man Arthur Stace as he
followed a group of men into a Church where there was the offer of a free
cup of tea and cake. First this large group of 300 men who were mostly
homeless or drunks had to listen to Rev Hammond, at St Barnabas’
Church in Broadway for over an hour before they received the free food on
offer. This service was the the turning point Arthur noticed six neatly
dressed people near the front unlike the rest of them who were all rather
untidy and dirty, he asked the man sitting next to him, a well-known criminal:
"Who are they?" "I'd reckon they'd be Christians", he replied. Stace said:
"Well look at them and look at us. I'm having a go at what they have got,"
-- upon leaving the Church he crossed to University Park and there under an
old Fig Tree he stood and cried out, "God, be merciful to me, a
sinner". Arthur had faith and God filled his heart and he was able to give up
his drinking and slowly started to gain respect of others as time passed and
he was even able to find steady employment.
Months later at the
Burton Street Baptist Church at Darlinghurst he
heard the evangelist, the Reverend John Ridley preaching about Eternity
based on the Bible verse
Isaiah chapter 57 :15
"For thus saith the high and
lofty One that inhabiteth
Eternity,
whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with Him also that
is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and
to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
The word Eternity was stressed
over and over then Reverend Ridley laid down his notes and in a loud voice
cried "Eternity,
Eternity, I wish that I could sound or shout that word to everyone in
the streets of Sydney. You’ve got to meet it, where will you spend
Eternity?"
Since his
conversion Arthur had been faithful to God and his service leaving his old
life style behind him but now he felt for other sinners who hadn’t accepted
God and asked for forgiveness. Again he responded to God "Here
am I, Lord, send me".
In Arthur’s own words "Eternity
went ringing through my brain and suddenly I began crying and felt a
powerful call from the Lord to write
Eternity.
I had a piece of chalk in my pocket and outside the church I bent down right
there and wrote it…. The funny thing is that before I wrote it I could
hardly write my own name. I had no schooling and I couldn’t have spelt
Eternity
for a hundred quid. But it came out smoothly, in a beautiful
copperplate script. I couldn't understand it, and I still can't."
Arthur Stace who could not read or
write, left the Church and once outside he was compelled to take a piece of
yellow chalk from his pocket and knelt down on the footpath and wrote the
single word Eternity. For 37 years this man who was to become known as “Mr
Eternity” would go out every night and write Eternity wherever he thought
people would see it, at the entrance of Railway Stations, on footpaths, on
Railway Platforms. To avoid his work being so easily washed away in
the rain he also used crayons.
The word Eternity, always
written in perfect copperplate handwriting with a flourish on the 'E', and
underlined by the tail of the 'y', has fascinated people for many years.
For years no one knew who he was,
he was a private man who didn’t like publicity and it wasn’t until 1956 that
he was revealed when he bent down outside a Church and wrote Eternity not
knowing he was being watched by
the Rev Lisle Thompson of the Burton Street Baptist Church in Darlinghurst.
At this time Arthur was the Church cleaner, Rev Thompson asked him
“Are you Mr Eternity” to which Arthur replied "Guilty Your Honour".
Rev Thompson wrote a story called
"The
Power" to Make the Crooked Straight"
about the life of Arthur Stace, the first interview was by Tom Farrell and
was published in the Sunday Telegraph on 21 June 1956.
Arthur Stace
Arthur
Stace was born in 1884 in Balmain,
Sydney Australia both of his parents were drunks, to
survive he stole milk and food. At the age of 12 he became a ward of the
state, his schooling was basically non-existent, by 14 he had his first job
in a coal mine and was already drinking and sadly on his way to becoming a
drunk like the rest of his family. At 15 he was sent to jail which was
the first of many more times to come.
During World
War 1 he enlisted in the Army and travelled to France serving in the 19th
Battalion, he had been gassed and was half blind in one eye when he returned
home. He slipped back into his old habits of drinking anything he could find
beer, rum, whiskey including methylated Spirits. It was during this time that he walked into the Church on
Broadway and listened to Rev Hammond and his life was changed forever, and
little did he know how much of a difference he was to make in
peoples lives in the future. Two years later after hearing evangelist
Reverend Ridley talking about Eternity, he felt God had sent him a message
and he wanted everyone to stop
and think about how they would live Eternity, would it be with Jesus or
would it be without Him.
Every day he would pray for an hour or more each morning then head out at
4am or 5am and write the word Eternity wherever God sent him to that day.
Arthur also prayed in the middle of the day and in the evenings, he believed
that prayer and obedience to God were important and you couldn't have to
much prayer. During the next 37 years Arthur was to bend down and write the
word Eternity over half a million times and yes he made a difference and is
remembered as Mr Eternity.
Arthur passed away in a nursing home on 30th July 1967 at the age
of 83 years from a stroke. He left his body to the Sydney University
so that the proceeds could go to charity and his remains were finally buried
at Botany Cemetery in Sydney more than two years later. The word Eternity is written
at the foot of his grave the same as if he had written it and his headstone
identifies him as Arthur Malcolm “Mr Eternity” Stace. Sydney journalists
went on to say he was first and greatest graffiti artist, no one else has
ever done it with one word over half a million times
There were
numerous arguments as to how this man should be remembered and recognised,
with suggestions from a statue of him kneeling down and writing Eternity to
plaques with the word "Eternity" being laid around the city of Sydney. All these ideas were stopped
as some thought the money could be better spent. Ten years after his death
an Architect, Ridley Smith had the word Eternity in approximately 8 inch
high letters cast in aluminium and set in pebbles and laid in Sydney Square
beneath St Andrew’s Cathedral near the Sydney Square water fountain.
As a tribute
to Arthur Stace known as Mr Eternity the year 2000 began with the word
Eternity lit up in lights on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and was broadcast to
millions of people around the world. The opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney
Olympics also displayed the word Eternity in lights exactly as if Arthur
Stace wrote it in beautiful copperplate lettering. What a wonderful way to
start a new century and to show tribute to a man who gave so much of his
life to the work of God.
In Sydney
today, you can still see the word "Eternity" in three places...
1)
On Stace's gravestone in Waverley Cemetery, Sydney NSW Australia.
2)
Inside the huge bell in the GPO clock tower which had been dismantled during
the Second World War. When the clock tower was rebuilt in the 1960s, the
bell was brought out of storage and as the workmen were installing it they
noticed, inside, the word "Eternity" in Arthur Stace's chalk.
3)
In Town Hall Square, between St Andrew's Cathedral and the Sydney Town Hall.
When the area was redeveloped in the 1970s, a replica of the
word in Stace's original copperplate handwriting was embedded in the
footpath near a fountain as an eternal memorial to Arthur Stace.
Years later
someone wrote that
"Stace was the kind of person who reminds us that when God measures a man's
greatness, he puts a tape around his heart and not his head". Clergy
preached that "this man taught how to descend into greatness—just like
Jesus".
As Stace was often
heard to say at the street meetings he addressed in his last years,
"The
great question is not what you make of ETERNITY, but what
ETERNITY will make
of you!"
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