ERSKINE, Henry Albert, Rev, B.D. (1864-1946)
Assembly memorial minute, 1947
Henry Albert Erskine was born at Sligo, on the north-west coast of Ireland, on 14th October, 1864.. At an early age he was left fatherless, and his mother took him to Dublin to her own father’s home. He had some experience of farming near Dublin. In 1889 he came, with his mother, to whom he was deeply devoted, to Australia. In the early ’nineties he lost all his capital at the time of the Land Boom, and was reduced to the severest straits of poverty. For a time it was by stonebreaking on the roads that he supported himself and his mother. Through these trying years he remained faithful to his Church, and found a spiritual home first at Scots Church, then at Flemington. It was the late Rev. Matthew Hart who, discerning his spiritual and mental gifts suggested that he enter the ministry of the Church. He was offered a journalistic position on a Melbourne daily paper, but was led by a remarkable spiritual experience to decline this offer and to study for the ministry.
He took his Theological Course at the Ormond College Hall in the years 1894 to 1896, and was licensed to preach in 1897. He was ordained and inducted at Bright in April, 1898, where he remained for over three years. He was translated to Shepparton on 30th October, 1901, and to Maryborough on 11th September, 1907. Maryborough was his third and last charge, and he remained in active work there till 30th September, 1932, when he resigned, but remained in Maryborough as a resident till his death on 2nd June, 1946. He was Clerk of the Presbytery of Maryborough for many years, and was a tower of strength to his fellow-Presbyters, being a man of sympathetic insight, practical ability, and wise judgment.
Henry Albert Erskine was a man whose diversified experiences in earlier years had an immense and enriching influence in his work as a minister. He knew the world, and he knew men, to an unusual degree. But his practical contacts with life failed to destroy, nay rather intensified, the enthusiasm of the student. Both science and literature had a fascinating appeal for him, and as a Shakespearean scholar he was outstanding. The rough handling which he received at the time of the Land Boom gave him an active sympathy with the manual labourer, and at times he raised an eloquent voice on behalf of the working classes. His attitude to war, and to some of the things that belong to war, did not always bring him popularity. He saw in the theatre something that might be used to noblest ends. But with him spiritual things were always supreme. He was a great man of prayer, and through it he had some remarkable experiences of the Divine Hand in life. Indeed in the truest sense of the term he was a mystic.
He was intensely earnest in his preaching and thinking. He spent long hours in devotion, his method being—as he once stated at a Conference in Ballarat—to read chapter after chapter, indeed whole books of the Bible, at a time. But he never neglected the valley of human need for the mountain of devotion, and found an intense delight in pastoral visitation. While at Maryborough he obtained the degree of B.D., from the University of London. In H.A. Erskine there was such a combination of gifts and aptitudes and experiences as made him a gift of God to our Church.
Mr. Erskine was married at Sorrento on June 1st, 1898, to Miss Edith Browning, whose father was the doctor in charge of the quarantine station at Portsea. She died in May, 1939. Their daughter Elsie, now Mrs. Jackman, lives at Swan Reach. To her the Assembly tenders its sincere sympathy.
Gender
- Male