3 Sydney – Self-Starters: 1931–40
Sydney – Self-Starters: 1931–40
Upon moving to Sydney, Leon settled in Leichhardt, an inner-western suburb within walking distance of the University of Sydney. Leichhardt contained a Church of England church with a vicarage. Nearby were the post office, the town hall and the public school generously built in late-nineteenth-century architecture. Leichhardt was largely a working-class suburb,1 and its population was badly affected by the Great Depression. During the 1930s, working men were prepared to do almost anything to put bread on the table. Often only one person in a large family had paid employment, and sometimes there was no work at all. For many in Australia at this time, sport was a refuge. It cost little to cobble together a team to play a game of football or cricket2 on one of the many council ovals.
A story from Leichhardt is told of a lady from the church who visited the butcher’s shop for her weekly ‘shop’. A smallish boy came in and asked for threepence’ worth of cat meat. After he left, the butcher told this lady, ‘You know, that’s not for the cat, it is for the family.’ The lady, who was better off than many, gave the butcher enough money to give the family a leg of lamb next time the boy came in. When she returned, the butcher told her that when he asked the boy, ‘Did the family enjoy the lamb?’ the boy told him, ‘Oh no, Mum sold it, and we all went to the pictures.’3
All Souls Leichhardt
Leon’s assessment of himself in those days was that he was ‘a rather shy boy from the country’4 and his parents were anxious that he settle in and find a suitable church. As it turned out, the local Church of England church, the red-brick, slate-roofed All Souls Leichhardt, was run by Revd R.B. Robinson, a former minister of the parish of Lithgow from 1919 to 1923 and highly respected by Leon’s family. Robinson and his family lived in the federation-style vicarage. The Vitner family, who were regulars at the church, gave Leon lodgings. This young couple, without children of their own, inherited a quiet boy on the brink of life. He got on well with them and they liked him. Later, when teaching in North Newtown at the high school, he returned to live there again. Robinson and his people were to have a marked impact on Leon, and the time he spent at All Souls proved to be critical years for him.
When he was thirteen, Robinson had attended a ‘tent meeting’ mission in the Sydney suburb of Waverley, which was organized by a young minister, D.J. Knox, and conducted by Herbert Begbie. Begbie and Knox were both ministers of extraordinary zeal and were passionate about evangelism.5 Robinson and his older brother went to the tent meeting and the young Robinson was converted.6
Robinson came from a mixed religious background and for a time his father was a publican.7 His background helped him to get on well with people, including children, and he was sensitive to the needs of others. As a rector, he preached, taught and visited, and his family ran a significant social service ministry from a shed at the back of the rectory. This shed, and other rooms in the rectory, was ‘full of things for the poor’.8 His wife was extraordinarily hospitable, given the short notice she sometimes received of visitors.
Robinson lived out the gospel in promoting open-air meetings in Leichhardt, living a simple life and clearly communicating God’s truth to others. From time to time Leon found his way to the Robinsons’ home, where he participated in discussions of all sorts of issues. It would have been impossible for this family to imagine just how much they had influenced Leon,9 yet their pastoral and intellectual care of him would bear prolific fruit over time.
Conversion
Leon became a Christian during his first year in Sydney after some friends at All Souls Leichhardt encouraged him to attend a Christian group at the University of Sydney. Those very close to him knew of this decision, but his shyness meant that he did not share this unless he had a good reason.
Even fifty years later, he still did not like to talk about himself. A young lady who had been asked to write an essay on a notable Christian had chosen Leon, and she wrote to him asking for some biographical details, including his Christian experience. Leon replied, ‘Why write about me? There must be someone notable somewhere!’10 With reticence he then referred her to an article by an American friend, David Hubbard, which formed the introduction to a collection of scholarly essays presented to Leon when he turned sixty. He told the young lady that the Festschrift book ‘must be in some library’.11 Eight months later the young lady wrote thanking Leon for the referral to the Festschrift, which she had found useful. However, although Hubbard’s tribute was a brilliant affirmation of Leon’s significance, it did not cover the finer details of him becoming a Christian. With some persistence the young lady asked if Leon could explain, ‘How did you become a Christian?’12 Leon replied more fully:
I became a Christian during my first year at University. I suppose there were many influences, but the principal reason, I think, was my contact with two young men, Eric Norgate [later a missionary with the China Inland Mission] and Reg Langshaw [later a clergyman in the Diocese of Sydney]. They were convinced Christians and I met them at various activities at All Souls’ Leichhardt, the church I attended when I came down from Lithgow to attend the University of Sydney. I saw in them a quality of the Christian life I had not experienced before and bit by bit came to learn what it was to appropriate it for myself.13
Study
Although history would show Leon Morris had considerable skills in the English language and was a brilliant linguist, his early inclinations were towards science.14 In Leon’s words, ‘I had no great interest in the Arts faculty loving Chemistry and Mathematics.’15 He loved study that involved research and the scientific method and opted for a science degree majoring in mathematics. Leon immersed himself in his studies, which helped him to hone his natural disposition to methodically record and analyse details.
He worked hard and industriously, well aware of the sacrifices that his family were making to support his study. The deteriorating work and financial situation for his family affected him very deeply, and he would later record: ‘The family had not only to forego whatever earning capacity I had but in addition to put in some scarce money to keep me studying. I could not throw that away.’16 He remembered a time when he just couldn’t come up with his board money no matter what he tried: ‘A horrible moment that has stayed with me through the years.’17
Leon spent three years at the University of Sydney from 1931 to 1933 followed by a year at Sydney Teachers College in 1934. He had a bond from the Education Department of NSW, which covered his fees and gave an allowance of one pound a week.18 Other expenses were partly met by the family. The bond was to be paid back at the end of his study by a commitment to teach for five years in the state-school system. He was still nineteen at the conclusion of his time at Sydney Teachers College.
Uncertainty
In 1932 while attending a Christian meeting in the Blue Mountains, Leon sensed God speaking to him and asking him to move towards becoming an ordained minister. This would take six years to eventuate, and in the meantime Leon pushed on with the task at hand of securing a degree and getting some work under his belt.
He continued to thrive under the influence of his two contemporaries, Norgate and Langshaw,19 as well as the vibrant congregation at Leichhardt. In addition to its main services, Leon experienced outreach services, which involved taking a portable organ out with a group of parishioners for an outdoor gospel meeting.20 The large Sunday school gave him the opportunity to teach and become part of the leadership team.21
Around this time, he heard a sermon at All Souls by Revd Tom Terry about the work of Bush Church Aid Society (BCA).22 Terry drew an analogy between a river running in a dry place, leading to an eruption of new life, and the proclamation of the good news of God leading to spiritual life. Many years later Leon recalled precisely where he was sitting in the church and said that the sermon ‘changed my life … From that sermon I have never doubted that part of God’s will for my life was to serve with Bush Church Aid in the outback.’23
In 1934, Robinson encouraged Leon to prepare for ordination and hatched a cunning plan. Knowing Leon was interested in BCA, he arranged a meeting between Leon and Tom Jones, who was the acting organizing missioner for BCA.24 Robinson hoped that BCA might sponsor Leon through theological college as a trade-off for Leon working for the agency. The interview was a disaster. Jones felt Leon was trying to get something for nothing from BCA in difficult times, and Leon was deeply offended by Jones’ inference that he was a bludger.25 Leon recalled, ‘I am a mild mannered man and rarely get hopping mad. But that was one day when I did.’26 From 1935 until well into 1939, Leon gave BCA a wide berth.
Leon had finished his formal education at the end of 1934, in the middle of the depression. Although he was qualified to teach secondary school, there were no school positions available for new teachers. Leon had no job, which made it difficult to work off a five-year bond. Leon commented that ‘people more wealthy than I could buy their way out of their bond but I did not have the money’.27 He reached his twenty-first birthday unemployed, with little money and his parents’ finances stretched to breaking point. He had returned to Lithgow to assist in his father’s foundry.
By 1936, after the collapse of the foundry business, Leon’s family had no option but to move to Sydney.28 Leon’s youngest brother recalled that ‘from being a fairly affluent family, prominent in a large country town, we went suddenly to being a poor family in a Sydney suburb’.29 They moved to Marrickville, and Leon’s father became an employee for the first time in over twenty-six years. From that day onwards, he never knew when he’d be laid off, and Ivy would dread George coming home with his toolbox for it meant he had lost his job again. The family did the best they could, joining the local church, taking work as it came, trying their hand at growing daisies to sell, and remaining positive. George Morris eventually got a low-paid catechist job that paid just enough to support the family. Leon’s mother looked after a branch-church Sunday school and was more often than not down at the local church.
Some family traditions from Lithgow continued in Marrickville. Max recalled:
Leon laughing and fooling around with his brothers when he would visit the house. There were times when there was quite a bit of washing up. George Morris commented to a visiting friend that there seemed an awful lot of washing up this night – more than usual. The three senior boys Phil, Leon and John were carrying the plates in after they were dried to put in the cupboard. Unbeknown to their Dad, they were sprinkling a few crumbs on the plates and bringing them back to wash again. George … would never imagine such things occurring, so was caught often, and Leon and his brothers had great fun.30
Teaching
On 1 April 1935 – April Fool’s Day – a telegram arrived for Leon, asking him to report to a primary school in Warren, a small country town west of Lithgow. Upon arrival, he discovered that no one had been told he was coming, and he had to stay the first night in the local pub.
Leon’s first classes were in a playground-shelter shed, where he taught the children aged five to twelve years. While at Warren, the school authorities asked him to undergo speech therapy, as he had a malformation of the roof of his mouth that affected his speech.31 Leon developed a style of speaking that overused his top lip but gave him the best possible modulation and diction. In future years, scores of students delighted in mimicking his distinctive speaking voice.
He used his spare time to learn the common (koine) Greek used across the first-century Roman Empire in order to better understand the original language of the New Testament (NT). Leon approached this task by obtaining a language manual and working his way through it.32 As he did not have the answers to the exercises set in the book, he felt like a golfer hitting the ball onto an unseen fairway. So, Leon did what he knew – applied the scientific methodology of looking at the evidence and piecing it together as he went along.
After teaching at Warren Primary School for a short time, Leon was transferred near the end of the year to North Newtown Secondary School to teach science and mathematics. He was able to live with the Vitner family again.33
Outside of the classroom, Leon began a private Licentiate in Theology (ThL) course, building on the Greek he had acquired while in Warren. This ThL was the two-year qualification required for Church of England clergy until the mid-1970s in Australia. It covered several Greek subjects as well as biblical studies, theology, history and liturgy. Although plenty could pass, few excelled, given the breadth of skills required.
Leon completed the first half of the ThL by the end of 1936, having taken seven subjects. The next year he gained pace and completed the second half, taking ten subjects. He gained first-class honours and was awarded the prize for the top student in the study of New Testament Greek. When the full results were known, Leon had also topped Australia in the ThL finals. All of this while studying for the degree part time and with a full teaching load at North Newtown Secondary School.
After Leon completed seven subjects in one year while studying part time, his potential was recognized by Moore Theological College. This took place after T.C. Hammond, a fine theologian, became its principal.34 Until this point, the college had been unwilling or unable to help Leon. During the second half of his ThL, Leon visited Hammond from time to time for informal tutoring. However, Leon never attended a lecture at Moore and no one could ever claim Leon as a ‘Moore’ man. For better or worse, Leon was no one’s man.
Ordination
By 1937 three years of the Education Department’s bond had been paid back and Leon had been noticed within the upper echelons of the Sydney Anglican Church. The Archbishop of Sydney, the magisterial and entrepreneurial Howard Mowll, wanted to ordain Leon and negotiated to pay back the remaining bond owing with church money. Mowll made Leon a deacon on 13 February 1938, bypassing the usual processes.
Leon was welcomed into the fold. As he had bypassed the formal study programme and processes, it meant a lot to him when he received a note of affirmation from another candidate who wrote: ‘Let hope be something exultant; in affliction never flinch. In prayer be intensely in earnest.’35 In entering the ministry Leon affirmed that he was inwardly moved by the Holy Spirit and called according to the will of Jesus Christ into the Christian Church. It was a declaration of commitment to lifelong service that he exemplified in years to come. Yet true to his impish humour, Leon told his youngest brother of a meal held for the candidates where one of Leon’s friends was seated well up the large oak table near the archbishop and was feeling very nervous. A pea fell from this bloke’s fork and, to Leon’s great delight, it just rolled up the table and came to rest in front of the archbishop. Max Morris reflected: ‘Leon loved ridiculous little things like that.’36 After his deaconing in the Church of England, he was appointed to St John’s Campsie as a curate. The suburb of Campsie is several kilometres west of Leichhardt.
Leon was accountable to Revd Cecil C. Short, who had a reputation as a good leader. He liked Short’s dynamism, his ‘working like mad’ ethic, as he would say, and his preaching. He learned much about ecclesiology and running a church and felt privileged to be working with such a good boss in his first curacy.
On 5 March 1939 Leon was ordained a priest and continued in his second year of curacy. Realizing that he wanted to do further study, and without fully working out where it would lead,37 he began studying for the London Bachelor of Divinity. This was a correspondence course with several parts, and Leon hoped to sit for the first part in June 1940.
Leon’s family would occasionally visit him at Campsie and the brothers would play tennis on the church’s tennis courts. Despite a heavy work and study load, Leon continued to enjoy life and was often full of fun and laughter. At other times he could be disarmingly silent. He was at heart reflective, and he would listen to conversations while rarely, if ever, intervening with a comment. This could be very frustrating for family members, and when asked about this habit he would say, ‘If other people want to talk, why stop them. I am happy listening.’38
The following is an account by a young woman who travelled by tram with Leon one Sunday to an evening service. Along the way they were held up in a traffic jam on Broadway. It was getting late, and Leon was due to take the Campsie evening service. The young person recalled:
the quietness of the man. There was no fretting or fuming as one might expect. As a 16-year old, sitting beside him I could not fathom the passiveness of Leon’s demeanour. Over the years I have observed this has been one of his major strengths. His whole-hearted trust in the Lord has surely proved his Lord indeed was his strength and stay and … yes … we did make it to the evening service on time.39
The Bush Church Aid Society
During his curacy, Leon had not forgotten that God had spoken to him about serving with BCA. The society had not seen or heard from him for nearly four years since the disastrous first interview. Leon arranged an interview with Tom Jones, who was still the person to see within BCA, to discuss his desire to serve but also his desire to keep studying. Jones was of the opinion that it would not be wise for Leon to work for BCA and study at the same time. Leon replied that ‘outside working hours’ his time was his own to spend in study or other activities. He silently waited. This seemed to win a kind of unacknowledged truce. Jones was not as inflexible as Leon had first thought, and at the beginning of 1940 Leon was employed by BCA to work in South Australia in a rural and farming area based in Minnipa.
Throughout this period, Leon was exploring the link between the cross of Christ and his commitment to ministering among people and reaching them with the gospel. While in Minnipa, Leon’s efforts in this area were brightly illuminated alongside startling examples of deep humility, sacrificial choices and consistent discipline. By the grace of God, the influence of Leon’s work began to spread across the region. Not that Leon saw it that way. He was just doing what he had discerned God was telling him to do – as a man might go and open a window because someone requested the need for fresh air.