The rainbow never sets

emulate him in all my ways. He found it perhaps a little difficult to share his feelings, though, and was rather a pessimist. He didn't like changes, and it was he who didn't want to stay in Australia after their visit in 1964. In money matters he was very careful without being stingy. He had a very good business sense. Very early in our life he had taught us to value money and use it wisely. He would never gamble. He loved music and used to play the piano. Mixing socially, he was rather shy, but he could make good speeches. His heart has always been in agriculture, and there were not many people who knew more about it than he. I believe he never got over the loss of my brother Günter and the loss of our farm in Poland after the War, although he never talked about it. The end came after a relatively short period in hospital in Göttingen on 1 May 1975. I had always admired and loved him very much, and at the news of his death I acutely felt the distance which separated us. With him went the child in me which had always found comfort and re-assurance in his presence.

*

The Church Union issue became quite prominent in my life, beginning from September 1973, when all members in congregations in the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches in Australia had to vote again, whether they wanted the three churches to become one church. The first vote taken in 1971, when we were in Indonesia, had been declared null and void. I had not been present at any of the debates in Presbytery nor at Assembly, but for me there was no doubt that church union was the way to go ahead. Since early in my church life I had been interested in the World Council of Churches and found it inspiring when people of all different races and denominations were able to sit together, discuss things, and worship together. In my opinion, division was not God's intention, and all divisions which do occur in the Christian church are due to human weakness, failure and error. Of course I didn't agree with many things in other churches, but that was not enough reason to maintain division. I believed in unity, not uniformity, in co-operation, not separation, and above all in tolerance towards others. Also, I was naive enough to believe, that disagreements in the church would be dealt with in a Christian way, without cheating, coercion and intrigue. I was to be very disappointed in this respect before long.

Our Presbytery had drawn up a voting register of 'Congregations' in July 1973 which showed our three preaching centres as one congregation. The word 'parish' was not used in the Presbyterian church, and I became confused with the term 'congregation', which sometimes described an actual congregation, other times a cluster of congregations.

When the voting results were passed on to Presbytery, we listed them separately, one for Dapto, where from 60 communicant members 48

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