Eternity – Arthur Stace
It was just after midnight on January 1, 2000, when the word ‘Eternity’ appeared in copperplate writing on the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The New Millennium was ushered in with the biggest fireworks display ever over the harbour city.
An estimated two million people gathered around and on Sydney Harbour and two billion people watched on television.
They were outstanding!
Sydney’s fireworks display is one of the first to be seen worldwide.
What did this ‘Eternity’ mean?
Those in the gathering who knew the story of Arthur Stace and Eternity, although surprised, knew the meaning of the ‘sermon in a word.’
To grasp the true meaning of the word we need to understand the story behind it and to do so, we need to travel back in time to Sydney over 120 years ago.
Arthur Stace was born in Balmain in 1884. His father was an alcoholic, his mother ran a brothel, two brothers died early and his two sisters later also ran brothels.
Domestic violence in the home was so bad the children often slept on hessian bags under the house to escape the drunken wrath of their father.
Arthur stole to eat and at the age of 12, was made a Ward of the State. He had no education.
In gaol by 15
At 14 he went to work in the Balmain coal mine and at 15, served his first jail sentence. He was already a heavy drinker.
In his early 20s, he moved to Surry Hills and occupied himself running ‘sly grog’ for pubs and acting as a ‘cockatoo’ (lookout) for illegal gambling houses and brothels. He was arrested several times and sentenced to gaol.
The Great War
World War I intervened in Arthur’s life; he enlisted in the AIF and went to France as a stretcher bearer. He witnessed all the horrors of war in the trenches, the heavy artillery bombardments, thousands of dead and wounded along with the mud and freezing conditions.
He was wounded and the injuries impaired the sight in one eye. He returned to Australia in 1919 where he was discharged, still suffering what was then known as ‘shell shock’ and the effects of mustard gas poisoning.
Arthur found it easy to renew old acquaintances and soon slipped into a life of alcohol, gambling and crime. He became homeless and methylated spirits became a cheap escape.
By 1930 the world was in the grip of the Great Depression, there was no work, no income and Arthur wandered the streets stealing food or begging for handouts.
A cuppa and a rock cake
One port of call was St Barnabas Anglican Church in Broadway which conducted a ‘Meeting for Needy Men’ where afterwards, a cup of tea and a rock cake was given to all who attended.
Arthur wandered into the meeting on August 6, 1930 where he found 300 men seated. He saw some well-dressed men standing near the door and asked the man next to him – one of Sydney’s best-known criminals – who they were.
“I’d reckon they’d be Christians,’ was the reply.
Arthur said, “Well look at them and look at us. I’m havin’ a go at what they’ve got.”
The Rock of Ages
After the meeting Arthur walked across the road into Sydney University Park and under a big Morton Bay fig tree, fell to his knees with tears streaming down his face and cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
He was a genuine conversion to Christ. Arthur later testified:
“I went in to get a cup of tea and a rock cake but I met the Rock of Ages.”
Eternity, where will you spend eternity?
In November 1932 Arthur was listening to evangelist John Ridley MC in the Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle in Darlinghurst when he heard the words from Isaiah 57:15, “Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.”
Stressing the word, Ridley cried out, “Eternity, eternity. I wish I could sound or shout that word to everyone in the streets of Sydney. Eternity! You have to meet it. Where will you spend eternity?”
In his testimony, Arthur Stace recalled the meeting.
“Eternity was ringing through my brain and suddenly I began to cry 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, before I wrote it I could barely write my own name. I had no schooling and couldn’t have spelled ‘Eternity’ for a hundred quid ($200) but it came out smoothly in a beautiful copperplate script. I couldn’t understand it and I still can’t”
Over the next 33 years, the word Eternity was repeated more than 500,000 times all over the city, in country towns and in Melbourne.
“The sermon in a word.”
For over twenty five years, from 1930 to 1956, the people of Sydney woke up each day to a one-word sermon—”Eternity”—handwritten in yellow crayon on footpaths, train station platforms, and perimeter walls lining the city’s many walkways and streets.
Each day a fresh batch of graffiti rendered in beautiful copperplate lettering style would appear at places where there weren’t any the previous night. Somehow, for twenty-five years, a mysterious figure had managed to sneak into the city every night and leave his presence on the city’s walls and sidewalks.
It attracted the ire of Sydney City Council at first, but as the weeks became months, and the months became years, the “Eternity”graffiti became an iconic symbol of the city. Pedestrians stepped around and over the words, and street sweepers and cleaners left the elegant writings untouched.
The mysterious figure behind the phenomenon, who was to become the most famous graffiti artist in Australia’s history, managed to keep his identity a secret until one morning in June 1956, when he was caught in the act. That morning, Reverend Lisle M. Thompson, who preached at the Burton Street Baptist Church, saw a church cleaner sneak out a piece of chalk from his pocket and write the word on the footpath.
Rev. Thompson approached the cleaner and asked, “Are you Mr. Eternity?”, to which the cleaner replied, “Guilty, your honour.”
Soon after that encounter, the Sunday Telegraph published an interview with the artist and the mystery that had baffled Sydney for over 25 years was finally revealed. The cleaner’s name was Arthur Malcolm Stace.
Born in 1885 in Redfern, Stace’s childhood and much of his adulthood was marked by abject poverty. His parents were alcoholics, and his sisters ran a brothel. To survive, he resorted to stealing bread and milk and searching for scraps of food in bins. At the age of 12, Stace became a ward of the state and for worked briefly in a coal mine.
As a teenager, he became an alcoholic and was subsequently sent to jail at 15 for drunkenness. His twenties were spent running liquor between pubs and brothels, and working as a lookout for gambling dens. During the First World War, Stace found work as a laborer with the Australian Imperial Force, but his recurring bouts of bronchitis and pleurisy led him to be discharged.
It was the Great Depression years, and a ragged alcoholic like Stace had no chance of finding a job. One day in 1930, together with three hundred other homeless people, he attended an evangelical church to get tea and a muffin. Although his intention was finding food for his body, he ended up finding food for his soul, too. He received Christ in his heart and everything changed for him.
Two years later, Stace finally found his calling when he went to listen to a Baptist preacher named John Ridley give a sermon based on a fragment from the Gospel of Isaiah 57:15 titled “Echoes of Eternity”, Ridley declared: “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?”. The words so captivated Stace that at that very moment, Stace pulled a piece of chalk he had in his pocket, bent down and wrote the word “ETERNITY” on the church floor.
Even though he was illiterate and could hardly write his name Arthur, legibly, the word ‘Eternity’ came out smoothly, in a beautiful copperplate script. “I couldn’t understand it, and I still can’t,” he later told in an interview.
For the next 35 years of his life, until he died in 1967, the reformed alcoholic woke up at the crack of dawn to scrawl “Eternity” in yellow chalk all over the city. Stace narrowly escaped arrest for defacing public property on some two dozens occasions, but each time he was caught, he had a well-rehearsed defense for the police: “I had permission from a higher source”. Stace estimates he wrote his single-word message an estimated half a million times over three-and-a-half decades.
Stace’s word wound its way into Sydney’s heart. Many contemporary artists incorporated the word into their artworks, and ‘Eternity’ became a common motif in the Sydney street art scene. At the turn of the century New Year’s Eve celebration, it was proudly emblazoned across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Later, that same year, it was part of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Only two original Eternity inscriptions survive today. One is on a piece of cardboard Stace gave to a fellow parishioner, and is now at Eternity Gallery of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. The other, and the only remaining inscription in situ, is inside the bell of the Sydney General Post Office clock tower.
This beautiful memorial to Sydney’s ‘Mr Eternity’ Arthur Stace is located in the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park in Matraville in Sydney.
