Mr. Eternity the story of Mr. Arthur Stace of Sydney, Australia

I read an interesting story on the web about Mr. Eternity--- Arthur Stace 1884-1967. I read it on a web site devoted to busting myths and it listed this one as a story that was proven to be true.  Apparently you can still see his handy work written inside a bell at the old Sydney Post Office.  His one word graffiti sermon is the word "Eternity" as seen in the photograph above. He  had very little education and could barely write his name but he knew how to  inscribe, " Eternity."For one decade it was a mystery-- this flourishing hand written, "Eternity" was written with crayon or chalk  on side walks, doors, and on the streets; author unknown.  What possessed this man to write this Word half a million times on the streets of Sydney.

 He came from a family of alcholics. He had two sisters that ran brothels. He grew up stealing to take care of his needs, eventually coming under the care of the state. He started work on a coalmine until he ran afoul of the law by the age fifteen. By his twenties he was a drinking low lifer that signed up for WW 1 in France. There he got messed up by poison gas an had one eye nearly blinded. Of course he came back thus scared and slipped back into the bottle living on handouts.
 He happened to a church service for men that offered free food afterwards in the 1930's. He was impressed with the clean look of the Christian men. According to one of the sources I read that he said, "Well look at them and look at us. I'm having a go at what they have got," -- and he slipped down on his knees and prayed. The amazing thing is that afterwards he was able to give up the bottle and get a job. 
Later he heard a hell fire sermon where the preacher shouted, "I wish I could shout ETERNITY through all the streets of Sydney!"

Mr. Stace recieved his calling  "He repeated himself and kept shouting 'ETERNITY, ETERNITY' and his words were ringing through my brain as I left the church. Suddenly I began crying and I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write "ETERNITY". I had a piece of chalk in my pocket and I bent down there and wrote it."

He got his direction for the day after an hour of prayer in the morning around 5am  or so then he would write evey hundred meters or so in a visible place. Usually he was back at home in five hours. He was a short man, but it is still a wonder that few people noticed him. He saw  it as a mission but did not desire any publicity for it and would not come forward.
He finally was caught one day by his pastor and the story came out. He continued on even after this. He died at 83 in 1967. 

In 1994, a well-received documentary was shot, interviewing those who had known Arthur Stace, and featuring dark, atmospheric scenes of a man, by night, combing the streets of Sydney, writing Eternity on the pavements.

And when the State Library of New South Wales recently hosted an exhibition of the lives of Sydney's most notable eccentrics, his name was prominent in the introduction, as perhaps the best public symbol of a group to which he was not, in the end, admitted. Because eccentrics are lighter than life. You take them or leave them, you find them amusing, diverting, escapist. But that is not how we respond to Stace's Eternity and so, intuitively, we exclude him from their company. Not because of any superiority to that group, but precisely for the opposite reason: eccentrics are often gifted and astonishing people, but really, he was not - He was a normal man, one who pretended nothing more, who'd had a hard life, but who was driven along by a calling, and whose impact was just the normal and the natural impact of a sublime idea. 

 Later at the Sydney Olympics they put up his trademark "Eternity" signature on a bridge for all to see during a fire work display.

Makes you wonder how many people were caused to stop and consider the weightiness of this one word. Where will we spend eternity? A personal choice.

Alot of the material I drew upon was from the article found here, though his story is in Wikipedia and numerous other places.

http://www.wesleymission.org.au/publications/eternity/eternity.htm