16 Retiring Conversations, Last Atoning Works: 1985–95
Retiring Conversations, Last Atoning Works: 1985–95
One of Leon’s favourite forms of exercise was a brisk walk to the local shops, where he would buy a paper, do some banking or post some letters. Comfort trumped fashion, and he was often spotted in his favourite checked lumber-jacket that did very little for him. If Mildred was with him, she would continue to shop and Leon would sit down for a coffee. Sometimes a parishioner stopped to say hello. However, the vast number of people walking by had no idea that the slightly built old guy, with big glasses, in an unfashionable lumber-jacket, was among the most analytical brains in Australia and the sharpest New Testament scholar it had produced.
Letters, and More Letters
In 1985, sales of Leon’s books reached over one million copies. By adding the most recent figures from his publishers to his loose-leaf running charts, Leon noted ‘book sales 1,009,379’.1
Being such a prolific and popular writer, Leon received a large amount of correspondence, and his replies were characteristic of his careful scholarship and pastoral approach. An example is his letter to one scholar, who wrote to him about a comment Leon had made in his Tyndale Thessalonians commentary disagreeing with the scholar’s argument for a late origin of the doctrine of the (second) coming or arrival of the Lord (parousia).2
The scholar wrote a brilliantly clear aerogramme explaining to Leon the reasoning that he had used in his own book on the second coming. He argued the following: he failed to find the doctrine in pre-Christian literature; the doctrine could not easily be proved to come from Jesus in the gospels; and the language in the epistles seemed to be the source of the doctrine in the way authors used Old Testament ideas. Therefore, Christ would come to judge the world not because he is Messiah but because he is Lord. Although the scholar believed in the parousia, he concluded that the doctrine of the parousia was not part of Jesus’ teaching related to his messianic descent from heaven but a later development.
Leon replied that he accepted the view that Jesus did not expect the imminent end of the world, but he also accepted the historicity of the sayings of Jesus that the other scholar had rejected. He also differed in interpretation. So, in Mark 14:62 (NIV) – ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’ – Leon did not agree with the scholar that you had to assume the meaning was about a coming to God, but rather preferred the interpretation that the reference was about a coming to earth. He based this on the word order used in Mark 14:62 that the Son of Man was ‘sitting’ and then was ‘coming’ and suggested that Acts 1:11 supported this view, which was therefore held from very early times. He acknowledged that it was not straightforward and that maybe he and the scholar would need to be content to differ.3 Obviously Leon accepted as historical some data that others refuted. He also made up his own mind on interpretative difficulties and agreed that occasionally decisions were made on the balance of one’s view of carefully weighed evidence. His reply was rigorous, honest and caring.
Theological lecturers, leaders and clergy wrote to him about theological or ministry questions, and occasionally for advice about changing careers or help in securing a job. Several wrote to him about the ministry of women, which continued as a live issue. There were many letters about matters of interpretation. Others saw Leon as a significant person of standing who was one step removed from their situation and could therefore be trusted to give dispassionate advice or just to listen to their concerns. At times some very well-known names wrote to Leon asking for his intervention or support. The questions and requests were amazingly diverse, yet he patiently answered them all, often with a paragraph disclaiming that he was an expert.
Missionaries and Christian workers wrote to him, as did Bible translators, who sought his opinion about which books to translate. He told one lady in the Philippines that he had been praying for her all along.
Smaller publishers or budding authors wrote to him seeking advice on the probability of a project succeeding. Leon told them what he thought of the manuscripts or ideas without guessing if it would fly in a published form. One man who was blind sent him a manuscript of his book. Leon made some theological observations, pointed out changes on twenty-three pages where the man could improve the grammar and commended the man and his book at the end of the letter.
Students wrote to him. Theological students plied him with questions about current views or trends in theology. He was always pleased to reply, especially if the student had noticed some variation between Leon’s view and that of another scholar. Research students wrote to him. One sought advice about the subject he should do for a doctorate. Leon cheerily replied that he should work it out for himself – that was part of being a doctor.
Lay people wrote to him. A lady in Berkshire, England, had read his article on the atonement in The Illustrated Bible Dictionary and was enthralled by ‘its clarity, wisdom and truth’. She continued, ‘In these days when the true Christian Faith is being eroded even by our Bishops, it is so uplifting to read contributions such as yours. Thank you so much.’4 Then there were the medical doctors, who carried on an extensive correspondence with Leon about matters such as the nature of the human person.
Books, and More Books
In 1986, Zondervan published Leon’s New Testament Theology.5 It filled a gap in the evangelical field – a resource book to help ministers and lay people in their week-by-week preaching and teaching. Scot McKnight wrote to Leon saying, ‘To my knowledge there is no New Testament Theology written at the introductory level which inductively examines the evidence of each author.’6
The same year Leon finished The Epistle to the Romans, which was published two years later.7 It was the culmination of some twenty years of research first seen in a Tyndale paper delivered in Melbourne on Romans in 1970. The only book on which Leon had spent more time and energy was his John commentary. Leon saw The Epistle to the Romans as a flagship book and part of the Pillar series, which became a significant new series of a major publisher of evangelical authors, although that series properly began in 1992.8 He produced a fine analysis of Paul’s theological sweep and inserted five additional notes interleaved through the book covering key ideas such as the righteousness of God and justification. These mini articles allowed him to elaborate on concepts that he had been championing for decades.
The reviewers were kind: ‘Careful readers will find that their minds are stretched, but also that their souls are nourished by this unfolding of God’s truth’ and ‘Don’t jib at the price – think of it as an investment that will yield lifelong dividends.’ The Governor of Victoria, Leon’s home state, wrote of struggling with his discipline, as he wanted to drop everything and keep reading the book, complimenting Leon, ‘You remind me of John Calvin.’9
The Epistle to the Romans did not include any discussion of the New Perspective about righteousness and the law, which had surfaced in the 1970s. This was not unexpected: Leon was known for his trait, more evident in later books, of not interacting with other scholars; Carson observed that Leon’s contributions in the shared work, An Introduction to the New Testament,10 were not as interactive with modern scholars as his and Moo’s. I. Howard Marshall commented on another book written by Leon: ‘without too much side glancing at scholars who interpret the texts differently’.11
Nevertheless, Leon’s exclusion of any detailed discussion on the New Perspective was criticized in some quarters. New Testament scholar Colin Kruse, when asked for his opinion on why Leon did not engage with the New Perspective, offered:
It is only a guess; I never spoke to him about it. My guess is that he wasn’t convinced about it. He was writing for his readership, he didn’t want to confuse the issues, so he didn’t want to engage with it and muddy the waters … It would also be true that as he was focused on the text, he would have needed to embrace the whole perspective to interpret Romans in that way. It is my guess that he just would not have thought it necessary to do that.12
Kruse, who had worked with Leon and later wrote his own Romans commentary for the Pillar series,13 thought Leon’s work in the Romans commentary was brilliant, despite the criticisms of some others.14
Lowe, who did his ThD under Leon in this period, commented:
The other point I’d elaborate is Don Carson’s comment, made in print some years ago, re the scholarship of Morris’ work. This charge is somewhat imbalanced … it is true that by the time Morris’ Romans commentary came out, academia had moved into new debates. (Sanders, Dunn, Wright.) But (some) factors explain this …
(a) I’d say the key factor was that Morris was obviously writing for a non-scholarly audience … his focus was on training pastors rather than PhD candidates. Mildred did tell me that he loved being surrounded by his books at Tyndale, but felt called to serve the church in Australia.
(b) a second factor was his devotion to Scripture and exegesis, rather than to speculative or abstract analysis or theoretical frameworks (though this is a matter of greater or lesser rather than one or the other).
(c) a third factor was his orientation toward the details of evidence rather than toward grand theorizing. Scholarly theology … depends upon ‘new discoveries’ and innovation … so often what happens is that some new theory arises, attention diverts to it for 10–20 years, and then some work comes along that decimates it (such as Kern’s monograph on the application of rhetoric to New Testament interpretation) … Much of the history of New Testament interpretation is chronicles of time wasted on trendy notions.
… Still the point that his Romans commentary does not interact significantly with the Sanders perspective remains true. But the value of that observation may be subject to diverse opinion. Morris devoted two plus years to refuting Dodd on atonement and clearly won; he devoted less time to critiquing the lectionary theory as an explanation for John’s Gospel and clearly won. The fact that he did not devote his life to it, as a career choice is not grounds for criticism. My read is that his love for Jesus, and for the church, more than compensated for any downside to his career choice.15
Williams agreed with the observations that Leon in the latter years did not relate much in print with other scholars, but pointed out that if these criticisms implied that Leon had not read or was not familiar with the other scholars and views, they might well be mistaken. He found that Leon had read other scholars or was at least familiar with their points of view, but ‘simply has no patience any longer with what he regards as matters peripheral to the understanding of the text’.16
Leon did address the New Perspective in New Testament Theology, when he discussed the place of the law. He argued that Jewish writings did not say the same thing as Paul, as the Jews saw keeping the law as fundamental and God’s mercy as operating within that framework. He argued that ‘The Jews rightly welcomed the law as a great good that God had bestowed on them’17 and then footnoted:
E.P. Sanders in an important work argues that Christians have not always seen this (Paul and Palestinian Judaism London 1977). He stresses the Jewish idea that God had elected the nation and given the law. He sees the emphasis of God’s choosing of the people and rejects the idea that Jews held that the keeping of the law merits salvation. Paul’s difference from orthodox Jews was his rejection of any way of salvation other than through Christ (p. 550). Sanders calls us to think again about the way Jews regarded grace and law, and this is valuable. But in the end the Jews were very much involved in legal niceties (whether and/or how they had fulfilled their obligation). With all their emphasis on covenant and the like, ‘legalism’ remained an important concept for them. Paul repudiated it.18
The Epistle to the Romans was finished ten years after Sanders and others published on the New Perspective. If Leon made any response, it was to include his five additional articles on crucial subjects such as righteousness and justification. The evidence in the new theories did not create enough weight for Leon to react strongly; instead, he expressed his considered opinion in the additional articles.
As well as writing books, Leon had the opportunity to work in other areas of the publishing industry. As the Tyndale Commentary Series editor, he kept in regular contact with various scholars, including John Stott, who had been a close friend for many years. In 1987 Stott, in responding to Leon’s comments about his revised commentary on the letters of John,19 wrote:
I am exceedingly grateful for the conscientious way in which you turned your ‘cold hard eye’ as Editor upon my revised text! You have certainly saved me from several blunders, large and small. I have now made my references to Gnosticism in general, and Cerinthus in particular, considerably more tentative. And as for your ‘points of detail’ I have weighed them all and virtually adopted them all. What a generous editor you are to take so much trouble over this revision! Thank you very much indeed.20
The same year Leon went to Sydney to give a series of lectures on the atonement to a new generation at Moore College. He also took a ‘Quiet Morning’ with the Sydney Anglican bishops. While the atonement metaphors were familiar, Leon had done further work and now linked the atonement to the modern traits of frustration, loneliness, ignorance and selfishness. He demonstrated how the cross could be applied to these universal and particularly Western urban realities. Near the end of 1987 he finished The Cross of Jesus, which incorporated these fresh perspectives.21
Love and Truth in Atonement
In 1988 Leon travelled overseas for the last time. Future serious health issues meant it was also the last year he was able to work at full pace.
On an oppressively hot February day, Leon left Melbourne for Los Angeles. He was alone for this trip and almost seventy-four years old. His destination was Louisville, Kentucky, where snow and ice covered the ground. Louisville is set on the wide Ohio River, and it is linked to Indiana by Meccano-like bridges. Rejuvenation works have created a city plaza above and below the freeway, near the river. Main Street has some museums, but the city is mostly business. Leon had been asked to speak at SBTS, fifteen minutes from downtown, the largest Baptist theological seminary in America with some fifteen hundred students.
The seminary’s president, Roy Honeycutt, loved Leon’s work on the atonement and particularly The Cross of Jesus, and the way he crossed evangelical divides. He had invited Leon to be the Gheens lecturer from Tuesday to Friday in the chapel. Before his first lecture, Leon rose, thanked Honeycutt for the invitation, and thanked the students for the wonderful singing of the first hymn: ‘I won’t forget the way you sing here for as long as I live … pity I’m an old guy and that doesn’t mean much … still you can’t have everything – ah – it was magnificent. I rejoice to be worshipping our great and wonderful Lord and in a song like that.’22 In a few remarks he showed that he was more than a good scholar, he was a worshipper of Jesus with a quirky sense of humour and willing to use it to identify with the students. He joked with the students about whether he was permitted to mention archbishops to Baptists, after mentioning Anselm, the eleventh-century Archbishop of Canterbury. He half joked that his talks were summaries and that for the rest of his argument, ‘Dear friends … you will have to buy the book.’
Leon’s four lectures were on ‘Love, Power and Hate’, ‘The Cross: The Answer to Futility’, ‘The Cross: The Answer to Loneliness’ and ‘The Cross: The Answer to Selfishness’. His first lecture covered the theories of the atonement by dividing them into three categories that dealt with the issues of law, love and power with respect to God. He then analysed our need for God to save us in a way that dealt with the seriousness of sin while leaving God in the right. He showed how the love of God and the cross are connected: the cross effects atonement partly as a result of the love of God that is shown in the cross. Furthermore, the idea that the cross effects atonement by attaining a victory should be retained. He suggested that in their day these theories helped people understand aspects of the atonement, and that we should retain the good in them.
Leon’s last three lectures were about futility, loneliness and selfishness and how he saw the cross touching them and helping to deal with them. He turned to the biblical material where the cross and these issues intersected and demonstrated how the cross could heal or address each one. The students were hearing a lifetime of study and distilled analysis of the problems we face in the world. They were hearing a lifetime of travel and teaching in cultures across the globe. They were hearing a scholar who worked with the church more than the academy to reach the world, one who sought to communicate truth in a form that more easily translated into effective Christian action.
This series showed that there were other ways of seeing the impact of the death of Christ besides the categories of redemption, covenant, reconciliation and the like. It was the last full series of addresses that Leon gave on the cross and it was vintage Leon Morris. Just occasionally, there were signs of a pause or word choice that showed it was costing Leon to lecture at this intensity.23 Whether it was his age or jet-lag, it was clear that he had to make an effort to speak lucidly.
After Kentucky, Leon flew Piedmont Aviation P1/102 connecting P1/294 to Raleigh, North Carolina. There he spoke on ‘The God of Love’, ‘The Love of God’, ‘Love is Creative’ and ‘Love at Work’. At a separate event, he spoke on Romans 9 – 10. Leon then flew to Chicago on his way to Grace Theological Seminary, where he gave daily talks from Romans 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8 and took public lectures on ‘Apocalyptic in the New Testament’. There were meetings with staff families, students, a special meeting with Navajo Indian students, individual faculty member meetings and dinners. Then on to Pittsburgh, where he spoke at the Church of the Ascension, met the leaders of the Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry,24 and taught on John and love at the School of Ministry. He returned to Los Angeles to teach at Fuller for the last time. Next, a Qantas flight home.
The responses to Leon’s teaching tour expressed sentiments that he was the most exciting lecturer to have come. Wayne Ward, on behalf of the staff and students at SBTS, wrote: ‘We have never had a lecturer who challenged our minds and hearts more than you did!’25 It was a nice accolade. Leon was still inspiring young minds.
This last nineteen-day tour had had a punishing schedule. Added to that, Leon faced the challenge of interpreting the biblical data for a morally relativistic age. None of his earlier analysis of the cross was outdated, but he now incorporated other helpful ways of seeing the cross that addressed the issues of the time. Leon started on the cross in the 1940s and finished in the 1990s, changing the shape of thinking on it for some sixty years. He creatively preached, taught and thought on it until he could do no more.
Adjusting Pace
On his return, Leon finished a revised manuscript on Luke along with Jesus Is the Christ: Studies in the Theology of John. Once these tasks were out of the way, he had some time to devote to the garden, which he loved. In fact, Leon and Mildred’s love of the garden nearly cost him his life. Mildred’s sister, Wilma, recalled various gardening incidents: ‘Mildred asked of me if I would cut back a hibiscus bush for her. Little did I know then Leon was adverse to shrubs being cut back. Hence I was roundly told by Leon, I “had spoilt the bush and moreover had cut the middle out of it”. Thereafter I might add that Mildred was left to her own cutting back.’26 Not long after, Leon was up a ladder and fell, breaking his ankle. Two weeks later the plaster was removed and the day after Leon took ill with a pulmonary embolism. Some friends thought that it might be curtains for Leon. He was immediately hospitalized for three days and Mildred asked for prayer around Melbourne that the clot would be dissolved and would not travel to the brain or heart. August was lost as Leon took medical advice to go easy and attended numerous appointments for injections.
Remarkably, he got the all-clear in October to go on a six-week trip to Thailand and Nepal. Leon’s first stop was Bangkok, for a week at the Leprosy Mission, then a month in Kathmandu, where he spoke at various meetings attended by some 350 people. After spending some time with missionaries Judd, Collier and Chambers and the United Mission to Nepal, Leon flew home.
There was a marked reduction in Leon’s workload from 1989 onwards. His health was causing him and others to be more circumspect in the acceptance of invitations. Nevertheless, that year he spoke at four conferences: SU (on children and childlikeness in the Bible, conversion and original sin), World Vision (the cross and the New Testament), the AFES Graduates Fellowship and Menzies College, NSW.
Meanwhile, Leon continued to be sought out for his opinions. The Archbishop of Adelaide, Keith Rayner, wrote to Leon about whether women deacons were eligible under the Anglican constitution to sit as members of the clergy in the national General Synod.27 The Archbishop of Sydney, Donald Robinson, had written a paper arguing that women deacons were not eligible, based on his understanding of the English words of the constitution in the light of their essential masculinity in Greek with reference to bishop, priest and deacon. Leon, a personal friend and admirer of Robinson, replied dispassionately to Rayner: ‘It is astonishing what you can come up with in discussions on ordination, isn’t it?’28 He told Rayner that Robinson’s logic was inconsistent and that his argument was unsupportable.29
On a later occasion, two teachers from a prestigious Melbourne school wrote to Leon for advice about views circulating in their religious education department on Jewish–Christian relationships, the nature of salvation and the historical nature of the gospels. He carefully replied, telling them of the great historical value of the gospels when compared to the Jewish oral traditions of the time, and he pointed out that the Jewish oral traditions were not written down until well after the gospels. He also responded to the claim made by someone at the school that the Scriptures were wrong in parts. He wrote:
I do not feel that Scripture is wrong. There are some parts I find hard to understand, but that does not mean that I stop using my mind. In such places I must be humble enough to accept the unwelcome possibility that somehow I may be wrong. And that sometimes I am just plain dumb – I do not understand. So I keep thinking about the problem until light comes.30
By February 1990 Leon was experiencing a noticeable deterioration in his eyesight.31 His specialist recommended cataract surgery on his right eye but Leon declined and bought new glasses.32 Despite this setback, Leon finished The Gospel According to Matthew for the Pillar series. Roger Nicole penned, ‘an excellent and monumental achievement’.33 It was, so soon after Leon’s 1988 Romans commentary in the same series. When a budding author asked Leon about the tricks of the trade, Leon wrote back a politely meandering letter telling the man he did not really have any tricks. Then as an afterthought, ‘I don’t waste time.’ It reflected Babbage’s assessment of forty years before: ‘he had never seen a more disciplined Christian scholar than Leon Morris.’34 Leon may not have had any tricks, but he did have a writing plan that he had stuck to throughout his retirement – the goal of completing one page a day for the publishers when at home. At six days a week, that was three hundred pages a year.
Leon’s teaching engagements became more Melbourne-based except for short trips interstate about twice a year. He still preached, launched appeals and attended lectures. He gave the ‘Leon Morris Lecture’, an annual lecture named after him by the Evangelical Alliance, on ‘Matthew: A Gospel for Our Time’, and attended this lecture if he could, including the year Jim Packer spoke.35
He and Mildred now spent more time at local parish events and attended home groups to lead studies.36 He continued to welcome visitors and host scholars coming through town, including Gordon Fee, Stott, Carson and Ramsey. Every letter was answered diligently, including the many letters of thanks that flowed to Leon and Mildred in the 1990s. A United Bible Societies leader wrote to Leon about an 81-year-old professor, Wu Nu Jai, in Beijing who had found Leon’s commentaries to be very helpful.37 Leon wrote to him, offering any help he could give.38 The professor replied, telling Leon how his commentaries on John, Revelation, Thessalonians and his Reflections on the Gospel of John had helped: ‘I like your style of originality.’39 Leon sent the professor further volumes of his John reflections as well as New Testament Theology.
In December 1991 Leon contracted shingles. He told a friend that the shingles affected his writing output as the condition lingered well into 1992 and persisted. He was never the same in that it affected his ability to concentrate for long periods. Nevertheless, his output was still significant. He wrote, ‘The Saints and the Synagogue’ for Ralph Martin’s Festschrift, and ‘Disciples of Jesus’ for I. Howard Marshall’s Festschrift. He supplied material for The Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature and an article on ‘Blood’ was approved for the Oxford Companion to the Bible. He submitted articles on ‘Judgment’, ‘Judgment Day’, ‘Judgment Seat of Christ’, ‘Justification’ and ‘Second Coming and the Last Days’ for the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, to be assembled in 1992–3. He also sent ‘The Dreadful Harvest’ to Christianity Today and ‘Christ the Only Saviour’ to the Australian Evangelical. He noted that for one project he was being paid seven cents per word but could not bring himself to write more than necessary. Around this time a book was published featuring Leon on the covers.40 Leon had not submitted an article for this book and no one could fathom how his name appeared. The publisher wrote with ‘blushing apologies’. Leon accepted with some humour and amazement that the error was not picked up before publication.
Leon’s friend, David Hubbard, finished at Fuller in 1993. Leon replied to an invitation to attend the farewell in Los Angeles. His reply and Hubbard’s response reveal details about the depth of their relationship and also Leon’s health:
[Leon:]
I have just received an invitation to be present at the dinner to honour your thirty years of service at Fuller. It is well that you should be honoured. I recall Fuller as I first visited it, while you were still at Westmont and contrast that with the Seminary as I last saw it. You have had a tremendous impact and made Fuller into one of the outstanding places of learning in the USA … So be assured that Mildred and I are very interested in the celebratory dinner. Though we do not make a practice of accepting invitations to functions in the States we thought hard about this one. But in the end we felt that the doubts about my health made it impossible. But be assured we will be thinking of you and praying for you.
As I think you know over the years I have enjoyed excellent health. I don’t think I ever missed as much as one day for sickness in all my time at Ridley both as Vice Principal and as Principal. But I developed shingles … and the thing is still with me. There is a fair amount of pain and what is perhaps worse a lack of energy. Since the disease struck I have not been able to do a full day’s work. I try to do some writing but I can’t concentrate for long. I would despair of the quality except for the fact that last year I wrote a little book Expository Thoughts on Ephesians and Baker Book House have accepted it for publication. This gives me encouragement to plough on. A year or two back I was asked to do the Word Biblical Themes book on 1, 2 Thessalonians as F.F. Bruce, who had done the commentary, was too ill to do it. I am no F.F. Bruce but could scarcely refuse such a request.
When my copies of the book arrived, behold in the box a baseball autographed by all the Dodgers in a year when they won the World Series … I recall that the name David A. Hubbard appears as one of the General Editors of the Word Commentaries. I have always felt in one way or another you were behind this beautiful object. If so, many thanks. And as I write it is on my study desk right in front of my eyes. It is wonderful. Which is more than I can truthfully say about the Dodgers since. Or the Lakers of recent years. How are the mighty fallen.
Mildred joins me in sending best wishes and the assurance of our prayers. We hope your retirement will prove as happy as ours has been, Yours Leon.
P.S. Every blessing and much love. It would have been wonderful to have been with you in April. Mildred.41
Hubbard replied:
Ruthie and I appreciated more than we can say your good letter of March 31. We were saddened, however, to hear of Leon’s battle with shingles. That is mean stuff, a terrible combination of discomfort and tenacity.
The retirement dinner in Los Angeles went very well. Its literacy Gattung was hyperbole if not fable, but the exaggerations were thoroughly enjoyable while not totally credible … Ruthie was able to sit through the program; her presence with me was the highest joy of all …
You will be heartened to know that the Lakers mastered enough spark to scare Phoenix in the first round of the play off, though they eventually succumbed. Meanwhile the Dodgers have won six straight games and are beginning to make the rest of the league believe they will not spend the season in the cellar as they did last year. This week I shall have a personal look at them with Dean, Mary, and the boys. I shall drink a malted milk in honour of the two of you.
You are both in my prayers. Ruth joins me in sending love to you. We shall pray especially for Leon’s relief from that vexing malady …Thanks again for more than three decades of friendship. May Christ’s joy be your daily portion. As ever, David Allan Hubbard.42
In 1994, Leon made one trip to Western Australia to speak. He told old friends how he now used notes. Nevertheless they reported: ‘We didn’t see him look down once during the whole talk.’43
It was appropriate that Leon’s last trips around Australia were to launch the small story, Bush Parson, an account of the time he and Mildred spent with Bush Church Aid (Society) in the 1940s. It was launched in Leon’s presence at Sydney’s St Andrew’s in February 1995. This was followed by a launch in Adelaide, then Melbourne a day later to a gathering of 140 people. Leon smiled broadly through these celebrations. In its own right, it is a great record of a few years of ministry.44
Leon’s last published book was Galatians: Paul’s Charter of Christian Freedom. It lacked his usual depth.45 In 1995 Leon wrote an article for a dictionary but then withdrew from submitting further articles citing health reasons. He realized he was past writing and graciously let go. Friends heard him say, ‘Each time I work on a book I have the next one forming in my mind. This time that is not happening.’46 Soon after he stopped making additions to his charts on his book sales and investments. Life now entered a different phase.