Events in 1908 - Deakin's Prayers 18

Cr Bourke Street and Elizabeth St looking south to Flinders St Station 1920

Deakin was coming to the end of his second term as Prime Minister in 1908 while the American Great White Fleet were visiting Australia. This was a time of new inventions like radio, air flight, automobiles and oil. The same year Wilber Wright was showing off the miracle of flight in France and Henry Ford was revealing his first Model T while Oil was being discovered in the Middle East. A radio message is sent to Tasmania and from the Eiffel Tower for the very first time and Shackleton and Douglas Mawson are exploring the Antarctic.

The name Gandhi is being heard for the first time in South Africa as he is arrested for standing up for Indian rights. Its the time of Harry Houdini and Mark Twain in America while in Australia Women Suffrage laws are past. The national capital location is decided and Alfred Deakin's close friend David Syme passes away.

Deakin's words written by him on 16th May 1908 "My prayer is for light to see clearly. There are no perplexities that I cannot overcome within me if I be but granted insight to discern my duty. Needs are many and plain, opportunities many and misleading, powers questionable but tempting, but what I have been craving for all this month is the light to see where my duty lies. In this case doing it is not difficult no matter which choice I make, but to see it, to appraise it, to disentangle it from the jungle of adoration and appeal through which I have been and am moving, this to Thee O God, and to all Thy ministers of Truth and Righteousness. I cry heart and soul, day and night for aid to understand. Action is easy, either path is indifferent to me personally, nothing but the work, the means of usefulness it affords, are to be studied. Help me, O Father, O Son, O Holy Ghost and all wise and good influences."