["Clergyman's Denunciation", The Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 28 December 1908, page 8]
CLERGYMAN'S DENUNCIATION.
"A CARNIVAL OF SAVAGERY."
BURNS AND JOHNSON DENOUNCED.
MELBOURNE, Sunday.
In the course ot his sermon at the Forest-street (Bendigo) Methodist Church to-night the Rev. H. Worrall said: "On Saturday for hours that ghastly Stadium at Rushcutter Bay was made the scene of a carnival of savagery. Two human brutes, fought with all the malice and vindictiveness of Bengal tigers. A crowd of 20,000 strong witnessed It; and there was spent sufficient money to found and maintain a national university, money enough to send forth 400 cultured and inspired missionaries and to malntnin them a year in the empires of paganism."
"After all the boasting, bragging, and betting, those 20,000 raving white Australians beheld their white champion beaten by the despised black man. Racial hatred had been set on fire. There would be racial reprisals and recriminations. They have by this deed put back the clock of history. There was not one redeeming feature in the savagery and brutality. God grant that the defeat of Saturday may not be the sullen and solemn prophecy that Australia is to be outclassed and finally vanquished by these dark skinned people who everywhere aro beginning to realise their immense possibilities.
Continuing, Mr. Worrall said it was sad and humiliating to contemplate the fact that the very Church of which this man Burns was a member, whose priests should have turned his thoughts to things sublime, had no condemnation for his impious and brutal profession. For both here and in England, the Church was eager to make merchandise of him.
