It would be entirely predictable that our sources would be silent on Hoa Ah Pang before his encounter with the Wesleyans. Surprisingly this is not so—however, the only snippet of information we have about him is tantalising in its brevity. The Mail tells us in its 3 September 1862 issue that the day before in the Castlemaine Police Court, ‘Ah Leung sued Hu Ah Pang for 30s, which amount he had kindly lent defendant. The debt having been proved, a verdict was given for the amount’. ^[13] Who Ah Leung was, why Hoa borrowed the money, if he made a habit of borrowing money and then not paying it back and any number of other questions are raised by this gnomic reference but cannot be answered.

Some other aspects of Hoa’s life can be elucidated from the statement read out at his baptism in the Wesleyan church, Castlemaine and preserved in The Wesleyan Chronicle for January 20, 1869 and the Mission Notices for that year. ^[14] Hoa, whose baptismal name was Enoch, came from Foo Tow village in Lunning district, Canton province. His family were too poor to send him to school, and he says that when he came to Victoria he ‘brought idols with me, hoping they would take care of me, and keep me in health, and aid me to become more rich’. He, ‘came here to make money. I got a little and went home.’ He later returned with another idol ‘in whom I trusted for greater prosperity’. This new god proved popular with other miners who came to Hoa’s tent to worship him. Not letting the opportunity slip away, Hoa says that he, ‘first thought of building a temple, in order to make money’. Over eleven years, he ‘removed it to six different places, and made £2000 by the speculation’. I might pause to note here that for Hoa, as for most temple keepers, religion was a business. This makes it even more surprising that Ah Coy did not include joss-houses in his list of Chinese businesses active in Castlemaine. So, obeying the proper narrative rules for this kind of document, Hoa then speaks of his progressive degradation, smoking opium and gambling all his money away. He then tells of his meeting Leong On Tong on the road, and his gradual acceptance of Christian doctrine. At his moment of true conversion, he describes his realisation in terms that are, by now familiar:

The Holy Spirit shined into my heart, and I understood that to worship images was to offend God, and to be the owner of a joss-house was a great sin.

It is clear that the conversion of Hoa Ah Pang was regarded by the mission as a great coup, demonstrating God’s great strength and power. He is singled out in this article for special mention from three other Chinese recipients of baptism by both its author, presumably King, and by Leong in his address reprinted from the ceremony.

I have not been able to find out anything more of Hoa Ah Pang, including whether he remained in Australia or returned to China, whether he remained a Christian or became a ‘backslider’, and what he did for a living after he had turned to the straight and narrow and given away his means of sustenance.

The situation is different for Leong On Tong.