‘Mr Eternity’, Arthur Stace, was remembered at a service to mark 50 years since his death in Sydney’s St Andrew’s Cathedral on Sunday.
More than 300 people reportedly gathered in the Anglican church to remember the man who, a reformed alcoholic who was dramatically converted to Christianity during the Great Depression, went on to famously chalk the word ‘Eternity’ in perfect copperplate handwriting on footpaths and other places as he walked Sydney’s streets.
In a radio interview only a few years before his death, he told of how God had “laid it on his heart” to do so in 1932 after he listened to a sermon from Australian evangelist John Ridley who had asked people where they would spend eternity. It’s estimated he wrote the word more than 500,000 times.
At the service on Sunday, award-winning singer/songwriter Colin Buchanan debuted a song – Eternity (Arthur Stace) – he had written in honour of Mr Stace, who died at Hammondville in Sydney on 30th July, 1967.
A new biography of Mr Stace will be published in October.
