Morning Prayer [and] Evening Prayer.

Sydney : [William] Jones, Printer, Bridge-street, [circa 1835]. Pair of broadsides, each 450 x 390 mm, printed on letterpress; both examples with an old central horizontal fold and toning, the Morning Prayer sheet with some insect damage around the fold and at top right corner (no loss of text); both unmounted.

These rare companion broadsides were printed in Sydney by William Jones, possibly for the Church Missionary Society, some time in the mid 1830s. They are very early examples of educational printing in New South Wales. Intended for the use of children – as their wording and large, easy-to-read font suggests – they are prayers to be read aloud in the morning and in the evening.

The texts are almost identical, and both close with the lines: ‘God bless our fathers and mothers, and sisters and brothers, and our teachers, and make us obedient and kind for Jesus Christ’s sake’. They only differ from one another in a couple of phrases which are specific to either the beginning or close of the day. Thus, ‘Make us try to learn all that we are taught; keep us in health all the day’, in Morning Prayer, contrasts with ‘Make us try to remember all that we have learned to-day. Keep us from evil through the night’, in Evening Prayer.

These printings appear to relate to a pair of Māori religious lesson sheets printed by William Jones around 1833, Christ raiseth Lazarus to life, or Ka wa-ka-a-ra-hia a Ra-ha-ru-hi e Te Ka-rai-ti; and Children brought to Christ, or Ka mau-ria nga ta-ma-ri-ki ki Te Ka-rai-ti. The Māori broadsheets are similar in format to Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, and it seems reasonable to posit that they were all published around the same time, for the Church Missionary Society.

Not separately listed in Ferguson, but see his note for four Māori language sheets (1674): ‘in the Dixson Collection are two separate sheets … One is a Morning Prayer, the other an Evening Prayer … They came to this collection among other papers from the collection of C.A. Ewen of New Zealand.’