She was arrested in England for stealing a horse. BUT she didn't really, her little boy Oscar lay sick with a ghastly fever, and she had to get a doctor fast. She had no way of getting to the city without some sort of help.
She quickly went around to the neighbours, who were few and far between, but she couldn't contact anyone.
Her husband, the father of little Oscar, was away fighting some obscure war brought on by the British somewhere - she really had no idea where.
So, in her brilliance and utter total frustration, she broke into the neighbours' stables and took their horse; she didn't bother saddling it and took off for the township.
She found the doctor and told him about Oscar. He asked her how she got here, and she told him. He didn't bother about Oscar; he told the local police who arrested Mary straight away and took her off to prison.
She pleaded with the authorities to let her help her little boy, but they took no notice and left her to sweat away in prison, not knowing what happened to her Oscar, and she never did find out.
She was found guilty of theft and sent off to the colony in Australia as a convict, and she never again saw her husband or Oscar.
How sad - and yet it happened all the time.
Australia has a vast history. A scary one with lots of miscreants and yet lots of innocents as well. Many were wrongly convicted. All have a sad story to tell.
According to Wikipedia, between 1788 and 1868, good old England transported about 162,000 convicts to Australia. The first penal colony in Australia was established and run by Captain Arthur Phillip, who led the ships from England, arriving in Botany Bay (Sydney) in January 1788 before moving to establish a new settlement at Sydney Cove (Port Jackson) on January 26th 1788.
It was so sad, really, because so many people were struggling so badly at that time over in England and Ireland. There were no jobs available, especially for women. Prostitution was so common because these poor people had no other way of gaining any sort of income for their families.
Extraordinarily many of them were arrested and sent off on packed sailing ships to the colonies, as Australia was known in those days, and so many of them died on the transportation and were slung over the side of the ships. So barbaric, so horrible.
When arriving in Australia, these poor people, if they survived at all after eight long and tedious months on the crowded and horrible sailing ships, were given to work in factories, as servants or slaves for people who were struggling to survive here at all.
In the early 1800's, Elizabeth was a poor single mum in Liverpool, England, determined to keep her family together. She was like so many women in those days, and unfortunately, even like today, struggling against huge poverty and gender inequality. Men could, at a pinch, maybe get a job, but women?
Elizabeth was accused and convicted of stealing a pair of bellows, which she absolutely refuted and pleaded her innocence. She was so excited to get a job working and employed by one Henry Cole, whose wife, Jane, happened to be the prosecutor at the Old Bailey at that time.
Elizabeth was found guilty and was to be sent out to Australia as a convict. She screamed her innocence, but was dragged off to jail, never to see her child again, so similar to Mary, where she spent six long months in horrendous conditions and then was put on a crowded old sailing ship and was sent off to Sydney, Australia to serve nine years for theft.
Did she make it? No, Elizabeth apparently died on the ship and was buried at sea, never to be heard of again.
All these terrible stories of our sordid past here in Australia. Many "convicts" didn't make it out here, as mentioned. Many survived and became Australians and ended up raising families here. Many died horribly, and many children born here to so many poor and destitute ladies died or were shunted off to other families.
There are so many sad stories in the old world of ours; it really does make our hearts ache when we read them.
Sue and I spent a lot of time in Tasmania, one of the worst places for convict imprisonment here in Australia, and there are so many sad stories of prisoners sent over here if they made it at all.
John the Baptist was an amazing man recorded in the Bible. He was one of the first people to go before Jesus and herald His coming as the Saviour of the world. He was born a little before Jesus and was somehow related in a way. His mother, Elizabeth, and Jesus' mother, Mary, were related, and she had spent time with Elizabeth before Jesus was born.
John spent many years in the wilderness. He was a pretty rough kind of guy, but he was so close to God, and he knew that God was using him to bring the good news that someone, Jesus, was coming to show the world the huge love of God.
John was telling the people to repent and come to a knowledge that God loves them and to come to Him, and he also told them that a special person was coming to show the way to eternal life.
He was gobsmacked when Jesus suddenly appeared. This gentle and unassuming man suddenly turns up and wants to be baptised by John. He was totally amazed.
As it was told in the Bible, how Jesus commenced his ministry there and then, and John ended up in the background. John was arrested by the Pharisees at the time and was thrown in jail, where he spent quite a few years.
It must have been pretty ghastly in those days. It can be the same today, unfortunately.
As Jesus' ministry continued, John, in jail, sent some of his secret followers to ask Jesus if he was indeed the one who was promised to come. Jesus sent back a message to John in prison, confirming that yes, I am the one promised by God to come.
Poor John, here he was heralding the way for the Lord and ending up being emotionally tortured in prison. He gave his all, his whole life. He was beheaded on the orders of Herod, the ruler of Israel at that time, and one of the cruelest people to have ever lived. Herod was sexually motivated by his so-called daughter-in-law when she asked for the head of John the Baptist. Nice family!!
Jesus went on to expand what coming to God meant! He explained as in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
This is the very core of what coming to God means. We should come to God and ask Him to enter our lives. He will come in regardless of what we are going through at the moment, and we are to hand our lives over to Him and let Him take control.
God needs to be the leader of your life and my life. He needs to be number one in our lives, and we need to hand our lives completely over to him.
That is something you really need to think about very seriously. God needs to be your personal Savior and Lord.
God bless you. Hope to see you next week.
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