The ample records of the early days of Australian settlement deal chiefly with secular concerns. There is very little information extant which may be used with any profit by the Church historian. From 1788 until the close of the century, it was a hand-to-hand fight for bare existence. To provide food and repress crime taxed the resources of the authorities to the uttermost. In comparison every other consideration seemed trivial and unimportant. This does not, it is true, justify the neglect of religion--quite the contrary; it is alluded to only to explain what would otherwise be to Christian people unintelligible. That the chaplains--first Mr. Johnson and afterwards Mr. Marsden--should have been able to accomplish so much single-handed and in the teeth of such unheard-of discouragements is a marvel. In judging of their work we must discard all preconceived ideas of modern times and throw ourselves into their actual surroundings--no church, no school, no discipline, no accessories of divine worship, no support from the ruling powers beyond occasional proclamations, which were bitterly resented by those who wished to be left to their own evil devices.

With the advent of additional clergy, headed by the Rev. William Cowper, in 1808, a better moral and spiritual tone began to prevail, from the authorities downward. Decent churches were provided, with fittings which if not altogether churchly were at any rate helps to a more reverent demeanour. Schools [v/vi] were built as essential adjuncts to the Church's operations. And though these were in course of time laid violent hands on by the Secularists and the land intended for their maintenance resumed by the State, yet they were not uninfluential in their day. In the mother colony at least the recognition of the Church's claims to have the teaching of her own children has been recognized by every successive parliament. That it is not so with Victoria, or Queensland, or South Australia is to be extremely regretted. Yet are there signs which make one hopeful that the growing sense of the community against the exclusion of religious instruction from the school curriculum will at no distant day compel an amendment.

Within the limits of a brief historical sketch it has been found impossible to dwell upon many minor details, interesting in themselves, but with scant bearing on the destinies of the Australian Church. Especially is it impossible to trace the full development of the several dioceses after their separation from the metropolitan diocese of Sydney in 1847, and their further subdivision from time to time as the exigencies of church extension demanded. Each of the older dioceses calls by this time for a story of its own, for each has a story well worth telling. Such pioneers as Tyrrell, Perry and Short, unselfish, able and zealous, supported on the one side by Gray of Capetown, consecrated with them, and on the other by Selwyn of New Zealand, what have they not been able to bring about by the blessing of the Divine Head of the Church! Their successors--good and true men also--have entered into their labours, and have wisely built on their foundations, hence the stability of Church institutions in Australia today--their complete freedom combined with respect for authority, offering in these respects an example which may well be followed by much older bodies. [vi/vii] Fortunately we have biographies of all three of these eminent missionary bishops which may heartily be commended. To their records these pages stand deeply indebted, as also to the reminiscences by Dean Cowper of his life-long friend and diocesan, Bishop Barker.

I have besides to add my grateful acknowledgments for help derived from a perusal of an account of the foundation of the colony by Judge-Advocate David Collins; of Mr. Justice Burton's Religion and Education in New South Wales; of Bonwick's Curious Facts; of Rusden's History of New South Wales; and of the Rev. Dr. Braim's New South Wales; nor must I omit to tender my best thanks for sympathetic help to the librarians of the Sydney Public Library, who courteously placed every record they had at my disposal, and to the registrars of the dioceses of Sydney, Melbourne, and Ballarat, who willingly did the same with their diocesan and synod reports.

That this little history may arouse a greater interest in and sympathy with the building up of an important branch of the Catholic Church in the southern hemisphere and so correct many existing misapprehensions is the abiding prayer of

THE AUTHOR.

March 24, 1898.

[11] THE STORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN CHURCH

INTRODUCTORY

Our earliest reliable information of the great southern land--the terra Australis of the older navigators--is derived from Captain Cook. In May of the year 1770 that famous commander stood into Botany Bay in his little exploring barque the Endeavour. During the previous year he had completed his observations of the transit of Venus at Tahiti, for which his expedition had been principally fitted out. Making westward he had skirted the coast of New Zealand and had finally passed through the stormy straits known by his name--between the northern and southern islands. He struck the coast of New Holland at about 37° south latitude, not far from the present boundary between New South Wales and Victoria. Sailing from Botany Bay northwards at daybreak on Sunday, May 6, the sailor on the look-out reported a deep inlet, then, as now, guarded by precipitous headlands to the north and south. In the ship's log the incident is simply recorded--"being two or three miles distant from the land and abreast of a bay or harbour in which there appeared [11/12] good anchorage, and which I called Port Jackson." Brief and insignificant language indeed by which to describe one of the finest and most capacious harbours that the world possesses. The native inhabitants are reported as scanty in number, divided up into small bands of twenty or thirty persons, the fighting men amongst them being noticeably few. They appeared to be as black as negroes, an impression afterwards modified by closer acquaintance, and both sexes looked to be entirely naked.

Most of the earlier discoveries had been confined to the western shores of the island. In 1527 a Portuguese commander named Menezes had approached from the side of the Indian Ocean. Next, in 1605, another Portuguese navigator, Luis Pays de Torres by name, had sailed between New Holland and New Guinea, thereby proving them to be islands, the two largest on the globe. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the north-western coast was sighted and mapped out by Dirk Hartog, a Dutchman of wide renown. Then within six years the southwestern portion of West Australia was visited by a Dutch vessel, the commander of which is nameless. Finally in 1665 the whole country, known and imaginary, was named by the Dutch New Holland.

But the most important voyage by far to the Pacific Ocean was made by Captain Abel Tasman, who sailed from Batavia, discovering and naming Van Diemen's Land and part of the west and north coasts of New Zealand. Captain Furneaux again sighted Van Diemen's Land in 1773, and after sailing up the east coast, came to the hasty conclusion that there was only a deep bay to separate Van Diemen's Land from New Holland. He therefore set sail without further delay for Queen Charlotte's Sound, New Zealand.

Nevertheless the shores of this almost limitless [12/13] territory had no sort of attraction for either Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch voyagers, who were on the look-out for outlets for their commerce rather than for fields of colonization. But the very point to which they attached not the slightest importance was eagerly seized upon by English discoverers. The time was especially ripe for the discovery of a new land. By the declaration of American independence the plantations now comprised within the United States were finally closed to imperial settlement. A new outlet must be found for the many thousands of convicts which it had been the custom to transport there. And here was a land not only fair to look upon, and one to add immeasurably to the treasures of geographical science, but a land of enormous area eminently suited to relieve the crowded gaols and penitentiaries of the mother country.

In Captain Cook's eyes his timely discovery was little short of providential, as may be gathered from his enthusiastic report. In the rich pastures and varied climate of the new hemisphere he saw infinite possibilities of future expansion. Since the African coast had been explored without success here was a solution of the problem in this sunny land of indefinite extent, curiously free from unfavourable conditions, yet sufficiently removed from the centres of civilization to reduce the elements of danger to a minimum. In this favourable view Captain Cook was strongly supported by the gifted botanist of his expedition, Sir Joseph Banks, who agreed with his leader in looking upon the Australian shores as a kind of terrestrial paradise. Their recommendations were hailed on all sides with acclamation; even the convicted criminals themselves welcomed the prospect of a betterment of their lot by successful industry. Parliament too unanimously approved the project. The endless gratitude of his countrymen is [13/14] undoubtedly due to the gifted and prescient commander who was as patriotic as he was skilful and brave.

THE COLONY FOUNDED

It was under auspices such as these that Governor Arthur Phillip, with his little fleet of ten sail, cast anchor in Botany Bay on January 20, 1788, after a chequered passage of eight months and a quarter. So far the authorities had eagerly availed themselves of this promising field for the bestowal of criminals. But they were not apparently so eager to make provision for the criminal's reform, notwithstanding that the declared objects of the settlement had included the moral benefit of the convict immigrant. We have it on the authority of the Rev. Samuel Marsden that until the fleet was on the point of sailing for New South Wales no chaplain had been thought of, and that it was only through the influence of Bishop Porteus and Sir Joseph Banks that the Government was moved to appoint one, in the person of the Rev. Richard Johnson, to accompany the little band of a thousand souls to their new home in the wilderness. The good effects of this arrangement, so grudgingly assented to, were not long in showing themselves. While at Rio de Janeiro the chaplain was able to hold service on board two of the transports each Sunday during their stay in port; also again at the Cape of Good Hope, where strangely enough the prisoners were found to be in excellent health. Indeed when we consider the vicissitudes of such a voyage in those days, the absence of disease and mishap is truly remarkable. In resuming their passage many seeds and plants likely to be useful were taken in at the various ports of call--coffee, cocoa and cotton, orange, lemon and guava, vines, figs and sugar-cane, [14/15] rice, wheat, barley and maize--a wise and thoughtful step which had far-reaching consequences.

On arrival Botany Bay was at once and unanimously pronounced unfit for the requirements of the colony, notwithstanding that Captain Cook himself had given such a glowing account of the surroundings as to cause its choice for the experimental settlement. Leaving his fleet at anchor Captain Phillip explored the coast northwards in one of his ship's boats, and to his gratified surprise found a capacious and beautiful harbour in place of the small inlet for boat shelter he had expected from the description of Port Jackson. With all possible speed, and with increasing delight, the different coves of this extensive and land-locked harbour, studded with islands, were examined one by one, and the preference given to that which had the finest spring of fresh water, and in which ships could anchor so close to the shore that at a very small expense the largest of the vessels could be unloaded. Three days later the whole party was safely conveyed from Botany Bay and landed on the shores of a richly-wooded cove, on the banks of a rippling stream about seven miles from the ocean. The portable canvas house brought out for the governor's use was set up in its place, the Union Jack unfurled, the officers and marines drawn up in line, and the infant community of 1030 souls founded under the name of Sydney, in honour of the English Minister of the day.

As to the immediate prospects of the infant colony opinions soon began to differ widely. On the one hand it was spoken of as embracing every possible element of success, while others declared the country to be the worst that ever was seen--barren and forbidding. Others again laid stress upon what seemed to them to be the prophetic words of Bacon, that "it is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of the people with whom you plant, and not [15/16] only so but it spoileth the planting, for they will ever live rogues and not fall to work, but he lazy and do mischief, to the discredit of the plantation." Certain it is that famine dogged the steps of Governor Phillip and his party. Officer after officer despaired of growing any article that would be of real use. And this despite the fact that the plants and shrubs brought from Rio and the Cape showed rapid signs of flourishing. It must be owned that convicts were not the best fitted to cope with the hardships of pioneer settlement. Continuous labour in a hot climate, and the restrictions laid upon them by authority to ensure the general safety were not at all to their taste.

The absence of any religious sanction greatly increased the difficulty. On the evening of that memorable 26th of January when the marines were firing their volleys to salute the national flag, and healths were being drunk to his Majesty the King and the Royal Family, amid the general acclamations, there was no sound of praise, or prayer, or thanksgiving for the abundant mercies of a remarkably prosperous voyage. Amid the busy scene of clearing space for the encampment and pitching tents, there was no acknowledgment of an overruling Providence. One cannot but recall the striking contrast of the foundation of Canada in the middle of the previous century. Of that ceremony we read that "tents were pitched, camp fires lighted, evening fell, and Divine service was held. Fireflies caught and imprisoned in a phial upon the altar served as lights, and the little band were solemnly urged by their chaplain to remember that they were as a grain of mustard seed, that should rise and grow till its branches overshadowed the earth ; that although they were few, yet that their work was the work of God, and that His smile would be upon them and their children."

Where the fault lay we cannot exactly say. The [16/17] chaplain so tardily added to the establishment must have stood by like the aborigines wondering. In the face of severest discouragement he had not only visited the vessels in port, but now on landing had set himself to a regular visitation of the sick, travelling from camp to camp for advice and instruction to all who would accept them, with very little effect it is to be feared on the disastrous state of religious apathy. No pressure of other business, and no obstacles placed in his way were allowed to interfere with such religious services as he was able to hold, as often as the weather permitted. Nearly three months elapsed before a recently finished storehouse was temporarily set apart as a place of worship. An attempt was made to keep Good Friday of 1789 solemnly in this building, and the convicts were exhorted to spend the rest of the day in their gardens. In August of the following year, we find Mr. Johnson bitterly complaining of the flagrant disregard of public worship, left again as he pathetically urges to the chances of open-air gatherings unprotected from wind, rain and sun, the sole shelter for the scanty congregation being the nearest big tree. Touched by the chaplain's evident distress, official orders were at last given that three pounds of flour should be deducted from the rations of every overseer and two pounds from those of each labourer failing to attend at least once on Sunday without excuse.

Nor can it be said that Governor Phillip was personally unfriendly to the chaplain's religious duties. Simply stated, the work of the latter was not part of the official routine, and so was in practice ignored. No governor was ever entrusted with vaster powers, which on the whole were exercised wisely and well. Practically a despot, he kept his unruly flock well in hand. Particularly he laid down wise and tolerant rules for intercourse with the natives, forbidding any dealings with them on the part of the convicts, and [17/18] visiting with condign punishment those who killed or ill-used them. Above all, there was to be no kind of forced labour or slavery permitted. As regards public worship, his conscience would seem to have been at length touched, for when the evil example of the higher officials was brought home to him he naïvely admitted that if nothing else would do he must attend service himself, and that he expected his officers to do the same. At the foundation ceremony previously spoken of he had omitted nothing--with the single and fatal exception of the religious service--that was likely to make the ceremonial elaborate and impressive. The speech he delivered on that occasion testified to his high sense of responsibility, and was quick with anticipations of the benefits which would accrue from a successful issue of their great experiment. That the chaplain of the expedition was called upon to take no part in the inauguration was owing no doubt to an official prejudice against him and his sacred office rather than to any personal prejudice on the governor's part. It is to be remembered how grudgingly the appointment was made at all, and under what strong pressure from without of men of influence in Church and State. Considering, moreover, how little provision had been made either for the religious instruction or comfort of the criminal, or for the moral training of his children, it is satisfactory to know that in less than two years sites at least were beginning to be set apart for churches, and an endowment in land provided for glebes and schoolhouses. Probably the state of things at the outset was so radically bad that in an official sense the chaplain's influence counted for little or nothing. It is but fair also to note that the first Christmas Day was observed with due ceremony, the chaplain preaching an earnest and suitable sermon.

About the middle of February 1788 Lieutenant [18/19] King was told off to establish a station at Norfolk Island in the South Seas, and sailed thither in the Supply, with tents, provisions, and flax-dressing tools, thus laying the foundation of quite a new and flourishing colony. The island climate was found to be more reliable, and the soil more fertile than on the mainland. Free settlers were found willing enough to risk the voyage, and these were accompanied by a band of sailors and marines. In every way this island colony offered a strong contrast to the parent colony at Sydney. At the time of the latter's greatest scarcity, Norfolk Island was reaping the advantage of her superior fertility of soil, and even when fears were entertained on account of the increase of population, they were promptly removed by the arrival for the breeding season of flocks of mutton birds, named by the grateful colonists "birds of Providence." For their religious needs the commandant was unusually solicitous. He read the service every Sunday morning in his own house, and that there might be no excuses made, he issued an order to the effect that "no person is to absent himself from public worship, which will begin at eleven o'clock, when every one will come clean and orderly and behave himself devoutly." What Norfolk Island afterwards became is only too notorious, and forms a dark blot in the annals of English colonization. Lieutenant King's wise and thoughtful government was not continued by his successor. Throughout several years no clergyman was appointed to minister there, dire as the need must have been, except that in a case of more than ordinary urgency the Rev. Henry Fulton, who had been sent out from Ireland for seditious practices, but whose conduct had been most exemplary, was given conditional emancipation and allowed to perform divine service. Also for awhile the chaplain of the New South Wales Corps, the Rev. J. [19/20] Bain, was granted permission to volunteer his services to accompany a band of sixty-three emigrants from Port Jackson in 1792.

In the interval the parent colony was threatened with prompt extinction by famine. Much of the soil was sandy and poor. Competent superintendents were lamentably few. Anything like skilled labour was practically unobtainable, which is the more surprising seeing that one of the main objects of the expedition was to clear and settle the land, and to provide permanent homes for the better among the criminal population. Many it is true were weakly from questionable living, and all were insufficiently fed. Altogether, it is concluded from the first ten years' experience that the labour performed was not nearly equal to the expense of maintenance. Defective accommodation was an additional factor in the failure of the industrial problem. Men of doubtful antecedents, to say the least, let loose upon society during the night hours, compelled to resort to any means that came most readily to hand to procure a lodging, and only too prone to theft and drunkenness, must of necessity become citizens of the worst description. Nor must the scandalous conditions of the voyage out, the shocking immorality tolerated, and an absence of the simplest comforts for the sick be left out of count in gauging the non-success of Governor Phillip's first attempts at self-support. The off-scourings of city streets do not provide the best tools wherewith to make of the wilderness a fruitful field. Total failure was prevented solely, and the settlement rescued from imminent starvation by the timely arrival of the vessels of the second fleet.

[21] INITIAL DIFFICULTIES

The desultory food supply from Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope barely kept the colony alive, while inland the harvest of grain was so poor that in accordance with Government proclamation the whole crop had to be reserved for seed. Where hunger prevailed petty thefts and robberies of larger extent must needs prevail also. These were incessant, one convict being sentenced to 300 lashes for stealing potatoes from the chaplain's garden. The governor's garden fared no better, was in fact constantly plundered. A youth of seventeen was actually executed for stealing property of no more than five shillings in value from a tent. Another with leg-irons partially removed was caught robbing a farm and severely punished.

Shortly after the first Christmas had been celebrated in the midst of such novel surroundings steps were taken to extend the borders of the original camp. Fourteen miles up the river land had been cleared and broken up for cultivation at a spot called Rose Hill, the military and convicts dwelling in tents in the meantime. On the banks of the Hawkesbury to the north some fertile plots had been found, and these were being developed as opportunity offered. At an important crisis fishing in the harbour became a valuable resource, as also an admirable means of healthily employing many of the prisoners. An incident occurred in June 1790 which marks the trend of public opinion, and emphasizes the prevailing destitution. As every eye was strained seaward for the first glimpse of the relieving vessels, long overdue, a transport was signalled having on board a band of 222 women convicts. A cargo "so unnecessary and unprofitable" was not enthusiastically welcomed, [21/22] especially when it was given out that a thousand more of both sexes were on the high seas and might at any moment be expected.

All this time the chaplain had aroused considerable sympathy by his touching appeals on behalf of some of the women landed from the transports. Sickness had decimated their ranks, and the survivors were put to sore straits among the lewd and abandoned of the older hands. But his influence, unfortunately never very strong, was much checked by a rumour that he was keeping back the proceeds of a public collection entrusted to him for distribution. Nor was this the only obstacle by many which continually interfered with the success of his really devoted labours, and which eventually broke down his physical powers. One glimpse of a silver lining to the cloud there was, however, in this same month of June. In response to the chaplain's persistent appeals to the Government it was ordered that in the laying out of each township 400 acres were to be reserved for the maintenance of a minister of religion, and 200 acres for that of a schoolmaster.

We have but to read contemporary records as to the shameful lack of the commonest necessaries for the settlement--no medicines or provisions for the sick, no beds, blankets or clothing worth speaking of, no decent accommodation for the women convicts--to be convinced of the hopelessness with which the chaplain must have carried on his task. There were, in short, difficulties innumerable to contend with. Prison discipline tended to harden the prisoner; numbers were reckless and abandoned from former habit, while from the ruling powers no attempt was to be looked for to uphold his authority beyond an occasional general order to overseers of gangs to insist upon a formal attendance at Divine service. Inasmuch as this service was for the greater part of the year held [22/23] under a burning sun, exposed to all weathers, we cannot be surprised that persons, whether of higher or lower rank, came so seldom and so reluctantly to public worship. Nor is it wonderful that, patient man as he was, the chaplain should "submit it to his Excellency's own consideration whether, before the approaching winter, some place of worship should not be thought of and built both in Sydney and at the new settlement at Parramatta."

That these earnest and continual pleadings, although falling at the time upon deaf ears, were not without effect will be seen from the events recorded in our next chapter.

On the third anniversary day, January 26, 1791, matters had sufficiently settled down to allow of a formal commemoration of the foundation of the colony. Colours were hoisted and congratulations exchanged, still with no house of God in which to render fitting thanks. The summer was an excessively hot one. Birds dropped gasping and dying from the stifling atmosphere. But to compensate somewhat maize began to ripen favourably at Rose Hill, and the prospect of starvation for the time receded. Workmen were told off to finish residences for the chaplain and the surveyor, good clay for making bricks having been discovered.

With the advent of increased military protection represented by the New South Wales Corps, the clerical strength was also raised, though not for long, for its chaplain, the Rev. J. Bain, immediately volunteered for work in Norfolk Island. For some reason or other a wave of lawlessness swept across the settlement about this time. Possibly the recent landing of hundreds of graduates in crime of all degrees of proficiency had much to do with it. More than one consignment had been dispatched to Norfolk [23/24] Island. Others had made good their escape into the wilds with the insane idea of walking to China, encountering on their way the most frightful perils. A terrible mortality began to afflict the colony. Insanity made fearful inroads. And soon, in April 1792, a fresh anxiety was added by the expiration of sentence of many of the earliest arrivals. With a view to settle these as resident cultivators, grants of land were made as to the free settlers from the old country, with a promise of implements, convict labour, and provisions for two years.

The New Year of 1793 opened like its predecessors without a place of worship of any kind or description. The chaplain of a Spanish man-of-war, paying a visit to the colony at this period, is constrained to express his astonishment at the services which were still being held in the open air, and to add that had the place been settled by his countrymen, "a house of God would have been built before any house for man."

From a combination of circumstances the passion for strong liquors spread through the community like a plague. Rum was an ordinary medium of exchange equally with dollars. It entered even into the Church building accounts, and played a leading part in the erection of the Sydney hospital. Convicts and settlers were alike slaves to its malign influence. Cargoes were sent on speculation from the United States, notably from Philadelphia, in this case at any rate belying its name. Merchants of repute forced its entrance against the most stringent regulations. Flour, on the other hand, was proportionably scarce, advancing in value to 4d. per lb. Sheep sold up to £8 each, and turkeys at £2.2s. per couple. An English cow and calf fetched £80. Nine-tenths of the free settlers were heavily in debt to the merchants. Frequent cruel murders, for which no redress could [24/25] be had, compelled the numbering of the houses occupied by convicts, and the placing of the tenants under strict surveillance.

SIGNS OF PROGRESS

Worn out by five years' weary waiting to no purpose, and despairing of ever gaining assistance from the Government, it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Johnson should have decided at last to take the matter of church building into his own hands, which he did in July 1793. His design was not by any means pretentious, simply a "wattle and daub" structure to accommodate about 300 worshippers. It was built on a rise to the eastward of the head of Sydney Cove. In his return of the cost the total is set down at £67.12s.11d., of which £7.14s. was paid in spirits, flour, pork and tobacco, and the remainder in dollars, which, after many vexatious delays, was eventually refunded by Government. Poor as the building was, it served for a second five years the double purpose of church and school until it was destroyed by fire. The term "wattle and daub," it may be explained, describes in brief a working of wattle boughs into a kind of hurdle included within strong posts, and daubed with a tenacious clay.

By the arrival of the Rev. Samuel Marsden in the early part of 1794 his senior's anxieties were greatly relieved. On the first Sunday after landing he commenced his duties by preaching to the military in barracks in the morning, and in Mr. Johnson's new church in the afternoon. In September of the same year a temporary church was finished at Parramatta out of the materials of two old huts, and opened by Mr. Marsden. Previously the chaplain had been obliged to hold his fortnightly service, when not in [25/26] the open air, in the nearest hut to be found vacant for the time being.

Thus for the first time decent places of worship were to be found in both settlements. Indeed a more permanent church had been planned for Parramatta, but before it was ready for use it was made use of for a gaol or lock-up, and subsequently for a granary for stores. The boon of these places of worship was not granted a day too soon, for the general state of society was as dissolute as could well be. Profane and obscene conversation had become so prevalent that the senior chaplain had issued an appeal to the colonists to desist from conduct which tended to degrade even the aborigines. His frequent protests lodged at Government House were fast gaining for him the reputation of a troublesome and discontented character. The lieutenant-governor at the time was a Major Grose, of the New South Wales Corps, who was suspected, and with reason, of winking at the prevailing immorality. On a memorable Christmas evening the watch-house was full of prisoners, whereas forty or fifty persons only were to be found at church. The deluge of fiery spirits poured in on the unfortunate colony undoubtedly did much to deepen the shameless habits of the people.

It was invariably found that under naval commandants a much greater encouragement was given to religious observances than under military commanders, consequently the long tenure of authority by the latter was anything but beneficial. Still an improvement was gradually being effected. Despite the turbulent disposition of the convicts a better observance of the Sunday was followed by an improvement in other directions. As regards the women especially very stringent regulations were enforced, the good effect of which was soon apparent. Although neither a firm nor a good ruler, Governor Hunter must at least [26/27] be credited with the effort to bring his superior officers to some sense of their responsibility.

It is very curious to contrast Governor Phillip's anticipations for the colony as "the grandest acquisition of the Crown," with the pessimistic views of his successors. True he was of a more sanguine turn of mind, and was speaking of a yet untried future, whereas they had borne the brunt of the battle. And there was always that brink of starvation, on which the colony was for ever hovering. A state of things under which 4000 persons were dependent on outside sources for their daily bread, with the pressure of hunger so great that one convict is reported to have died from eating his week's allowance in a single meal, could not be otherwise than painfully discouraging. We read, too, that even the guests at Government House were expected to take their own bread with them.

The forlorn state of the children, growing up in ignorance in the midst of the most debasing surroundings, pressed sorely on the chaplain's mind. In his perplexity he turned to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and readily obtained from them a grant for teachers. The school-room was provided for by his little wattle church, where he had the happiness to see as many as could be got together instructed in ways of sobriety and cleanliness. It was his anxiety, as set forth in his letter of appeal in 1792, to have schools established after the English pattern, from which some missionary effort might also be made to Christianize the aborigines.

At the end of 1798 Governor John Hunter, who had landed in 1795 as captain of the New South Wales Corps, in reporting the burning of Mr. Johnson's useful if plain church, stated that he had laid the foundation of a larger stone church on the opposite side of the cove, the quaint round tower of which was [27/28] already finished. The main building, however, pro-gressed but slowly. The intended church at Parramatta was of smaller size, and was being raised with equal slowness. While these were in process of completion, a spacious storehouse was set apart, with suitable fittings, for Divine service. The arrival of a band of refugee missionaries from Tahiti this year did much to strengthen the hands of the overworked chaplains. They were most kindly received, and settling down at Parramatta, exercised a cheering and wholesome influence upon the society which had welcomed them. To help on the improvement, overseers were again charged to muster their men regularly, and to attend with them at church; officers were ordered to send their servants, and licensed houses were closed by proclamation--all excellent commands, if only the bulk of the residents could have been got to show some real respect for religion.

In the development of the country's resources, a striking advance had been made by Mr. John Macarthur, who may be called with truth the founder of the wool industry of Australia. Granted a tract of 5000 acres on the Cowpastures at Camden, Mr. Macarthur set to work by largely improving his flocks and herds as opportunity offered, and with truly extraordinary results. Before the end of the century his tiny flock had increased to the number of 7000, and he had won an additional 4000 acres from the wilderness about him. His example was quickly followed by the Rev. Samuel Marsden, who, besides his kindred energy, was likewise quick to see the illimitable possibilities of the industry. Both chaplains, indeed, were accused of making gain by secular pursuits, which no doubt they did, though not for their selfish benefit, and in a perfectly legitimate way. That they were allowed the labour of assigned servants is nothing to their discredit, seeing that healthy [28/29] employment, with humane treatment, was a necessity for the prisoners themselves. Mr. Marsden especially had a strong sense of the usefulness of industry, on the part of both parson and people. He himself laboured indefatigably with hand and brain. His great success as "the best practical farmer in the colony," as he has more than once been called, did not in the least interfere with his more spiritual duties. Not seldom he would take the steamer to Sydney on the Saturday, officiate there on Sunday morning, and walk back the thirteen miles to Parramatta for service in the evening. Differing widely as he did from his senior in office, they were alike in their strong practical common-sense as they were alike in their devotion to the best interests of the community.

THE SENIOR CHAPLAIN'S RETIREMENT

The departure in 1800 of the Rev. Richard Johnson, the first and for several years the only chaplain of the settlement, gives an opportunity of judging more impartially the worth of the man who had been willing at such short notice to lead so forlorn a hope. As we have already recorded, his appointment was an afterthought, no spiritual provision for the expedition having been intended at head-quarters. In the scathing words of the good Bishop Nixon of Tasmania, "there were constables, military guards, and a governor on board--everything to coerce the wretched exile, but not one thought was bestowed on the exile's soul." Unhappily, though of strong personal excellence, the chaplain was wanting in the force of character necessary to cope with the stupendous difficulties of his position. On the voyage out he had been unceasing in the duties of his office, but on landing he had [29/30] been completely ignored. A more determined man would have perhaps enforced the recognition of his sacred office, and would have insisted on his right to confer a religious sanction on the foundation ceremonies. His kind-heartedness really stood in his way. Against despotic rulers such as these Australian governors were to all intents and purposes, he had no chance, and their sub-officers did their utmost to thwart his plans for improvement. It was with the greatest hesitation that he gave any information as to the neglect of church attendance. "I used," he says long afterwards, "to get as many of them together as I could, and after reading a part of the service, I gave them an exhortation." What a confession of failure may be read between the lines. Yet his patient devotion to duty in the midst of every kind of discouragement, did undoubtedly have its effect in the end, although he remained only to see the foundation of the first permanent church. "On the Sunday after our landing," writes one of the official members of the party, "Divine service was performed under a great tree, in the presence of the troops and convicts, whose behaviour on the occasion was equally regular and attentive:" a circumstance which leads Mr. Justice Burton to wonder whether a softening influence might not have been gained over even these hardened criminals by an initiatory act of confession and prayer, as marking the beginning of a new life under God. At any rate, the universal testimony of the convicts themselves, in after years, was that they did not believe that there was a better man than Mr. Johnson in the wide world. At the time of his leaving, these convicts had grown to 4000 in number. His success in cultivating the little plot of ground allotted to him did indeed provoke a good deal of ill-natured faultfinding, but with his quiet energy, seconded by his [30/31] blameless life, he was able to live it all down. Being very provident and thrifty, it was almost entirely due to him that the seeds taken on board at Rio and the Cape were safely kept and planted immediately on arrival. He was, in fact, an intense lover of natural objects, and so took a keen interest in the little flock of sheep which he kept, in addition to his plantation. His voice was continually lifted on behalf of the helpless aborigines, lest the swearing and drinking white man should corrupt them--a plea much in advance of the habits of the time.

REV. SAMUEL MARSDEN

The chaplain who now, on the departure of his chief, took up the work single-handed, after filling the post of assistant for six years, was of a totally different temperament. A sturdy Yorkshireman of an ardent and impetuous disposition, he was as unbending in his dealings with evil-doers, as he was manly towards the peaceably-minded. Mr. Wilberforce calls him a "moral hero." As a matter of course he quickly came into conflict with the authorities. As chaplain he resented the governor's interference with his spiritual duties, maintaining that they were being performed strictly within Church statutes. The formation of Sunday-schools outside his control was especially objectionable to him as a reflection on the clergy. He threw himself heart and soul into the work of bettering the condition of the women workers in the factory at Parramatta, and insisted on their receiving more decent accommodation. When this was granted, he obtained by the same means the establishment of an orphan school, which was urgently called for. The farming class, too, were deeply indebted to his influence and to his practical knowledge of their wants. [31/32] A school-church was built for them on the Hawkesbury, an annual charge of twopence per acre being laid on the residents for the maintenance of a religious teacher. Such good works as these did in fact go far to disarm the hostility of his many detractors.

There being now as many as 600 men off the books, and the ex-convict being as a rule of thoroughly abandoned character, it became necessary to practise a severity of discipline little adapted to restore order. At such a crisis it was more than unfortunate that the blunder should have been committed of making the chaplains magistrates. At a time when cattle-stealing and bush-ranging were rampant, the fearless discharge of duty by a clerical magistrate could not but cause intense hatred, and lead sooner or later to serious reprisals. Hence the conspiracy that in 1802 denounced Mr. Marsden and threatened his life. Among a more than usually ferocious set of Irish prisoners such plots were of common experience, the women we are informed being even more violent than the men. Their animosity was implacable. As some sort of justification, it cannot be doubted that Mr. Marsden did order men to be flogged to whom he would in all probability be called upon later on to act as spiritual adviser, although it is pleaded on his behalf that he was absent when the severest sentences were passed. Also to his credit it must be said that it was against the vices of the emancipist party, who by their wealth and position formed by this time what of aristocracy there was in the colony, that he levelled his unsparing rebukes. Governor Macquarie, otherwise a just ruler, inclined to favour the freed class, and so there grew up a hatred of the magisterial chaplain, and an antagonism between him and the governing powers. The dispute led to an inquiry by Mr. Commissioner Bigge into the whole matter, as it concerned the general welfare of the colony. Besides the accusation [32/33] of cruelty, it was urged that Mr. Marsden "spent his days between the cares of farming, grazing, and trade, and the oversight of his mills." Being made of much sterner stuff than the mild-mannered Mr. Johnson, he stood his ground manfully, and after a searching investigation he was acquitted of the graver charge. The Commissioner's opinion was that some of the chaplain's arrangements did not altogether consist with the dignity of the ecclesiastical character, but he was praised for his noble efforts to reform the factory or depôt for women convicts, and for his efforts to provide for the neglected orphans of both sexes. In justice to the accused, the deplorable state of society at the time must be taken into account. By his own testimony, which was not sought to be disproved, his mills and farm were carried on by a trustworthy manager without anxiety on his part, and exhibited a necessary example of industry and thrift to the released prisoners.

One of the good results of Mr. Commissioner Bigge's report was the appointment of an archdeacon. There was previously no responsible head so far as the Church was concerned. By the Commissioner's influence the post was given to the Rev. Thomas Hobbes Scott, who had formerly been his private secretary:--a man of no sufficient knowledge of Church affairs, but a good friend to educational extension. He remained only five years, and was suc-ceeded by the Rev. William Grant Broughton, a priest of unbounded resource, of inflexible purpose and burning eloquence. The appointment was pressed upon him by the Duke of Wellington, then in power, who gave it as his decision that the Australians must have a Church, and who urged, with true prophetic instinct, that "there was no telling to what extent and importance these new colonies may grow." The duke took a most hearty personal interest in pushing on the new [33/34] archdeacon's preparations, and assigned him a salary of £2000 per annum.

Very naturally Mr. Marsden was greatly disappointed at not receiving the appointment of archdeacon, feeling that his claims had been passed over for a stranger, yet he was in every way loyal to his superior in office, and when Archdeacon Broughton arrived he had no more faithful ally. Representing totally opposite schools of thought, they had the most cordial respect for each other. In fact, in the Rev. Samuel Marsden, lax as lie was in matters of form and ceremonial, the Church had ever a strong supporter.

CHURCH BUILDING

The pleasure with which the notice was received in 1803 that the new church at Parramatta was ready for occupation was somewhat qualified by the general order assigning to it its name. "Out of respect to the memory of Governor John Hunter," the church was to be known as St. John's. Similarly Governor Phillip's rule was to be commemorated by the dedication of the first permanent church in Sydney as St. Phillip's. Both parishes were proclaimed by Government order in July 1803. In Van Diemen's Land the merits of Colonel David Collins were in like manner memorialized by the dedication of St. David's Church in Hobart Town.

However, the buildings were too greatly needed to allow of a too close scrutiny into the origin of their dedicatory titles. Much more important was the problem of reaching the mass of the strangely mixed population. Governor King, who had succeeded the mistaken Captain Hunter, was fortunately a man of great resource and of undoubted excellence and force of character. He had been recommended to the Imperial authorities by Phillip, as his successor, but had been passed over in favour of the commanding officers of the New South Wales Corps, Grose and Paterson, to the evident detriment of good and stable government. Wiser counsels prevailed in the end, placing at the head of affairs in the mother colony the able lieutenant-governor of Norfolk Island. One of his first acts was to sympathize with the misfortunes of the orphan children, whose future had pressed so sorely on the chaplain's conscience, and of whom he wrote in 1806, that "finer or more neglected children were not to be met with in any part of the world." The Asylum, containing 1800 inmates, was endowed by a grant of 12,000 acres at Cabramatta, and a farm of 600 acres at Petersham. The forlorn condition of the women convicts at Parramatta has been already touched upon, and now compelled attention. Some hundreds of these were employed in the Government factory, with no provision for their decent lodgment. The few who were able to sleep on the premises did so amongst the machinery and refuse on the floor. By far the great majority had to find accommodation where they could of a most wretched description, and subject to nameless temptations. What wonder that these women became came notorious as "more dissolute and abandoned than the men."

In Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, Governor King had for successor an able administrator, an excellent officer, and one really desirous of advancing the best interests of the colony, but he was unhappily given to favouritism. This habit was indeed attributed in turn to each of the Australian governors. The conflicting interests of the emancipists, as the freed prisoners were called, and the exclusionists, who favoured a large scheme of free immigration, compelled the executive to declare for one or the other. Governor Macquarie generally sided with the [35/36] emancipists, while Sir Thomas Brisbane, of later date, as strongly recommended the introduction of free settlers, and during his government a large number of such settlers were welcomed from the Scotch border. The main objection to this course was the insufficiency of convict servants, who were at the time regarded as indispensable to the profitable cultivation of the land. At any rate, between raids upon property by the aborigines, and the alternation of floods and droughts, agriculture was certainly not in a very flourishing condition. After the flood of 1806, wheat ran up in price to per bushel, and coarse bread to 2s. per lb. For one bushel of seed-wheat, the incredible price of £7 was willingly paid.

To Parramatta, as temporarily the seat of Government, was accorded the privilege of the first stone church. It was built to seat 400 persons. Two western towers were added subsequently by the wife of Sir Charles Fitzroy, to remind her of the twin towers of the Church of the Reculvers. Of the opening ceremony the Sydney Gazette reports the presence of "many ladies of the first respectability." The first chaplain had preached in a carpenter's shop, in a deserted hut, or more frequently in the open air. His successor for many years did the same. A brighter era dawned when, in 1804, three Tahitian missionaries were welcomed by Governor King, and provided with house and board in return for their services at the various settlements.

In 1807 Mr. Marsden left for England, to plead the cause of New Zealand missions, and to obtain help for his own work. The Rev. Henry Fulton was left in charge. In August 1808 the Rev. William Cowper arrived, and was placed in charge of St. Phillip's, where he did most excellent work as a fearless and devoted parish priest. He was quickly followed by the Rev. R. Cartwright. When Mr. [36/37] Marsden returned to the colony in 1810, the population numbered over 10,000 souls. By 1812 there were four clergy ministering, with two substantial churches.

From the year 1810 onwards, the Church began to take more definite shape. The clerical staff was augmented by the appointment of the Rev. John Youl, and again in 1818 by the arrival of the Revs. Richard Hill and John Cross. At Mr. Youl's death, in 1820, his place was filled by the Rev. Thomas Reddall, who was stationed at Campbell Town. Thus was the way prepared for a more complete Church organization. Under letters patent of Geo. IV., Oct. 2, 1824, the archdeaconry of New South Wales was established within the diocese of Calcutta. The choice of first incumbent was unfortunate. Fresh from secular occupations Archdeacon Scott was never really in touch with his clergy, and was besides greatly deficient in tact. Consequently, after a brief but troubled rule, the post was vacated, to be filled by a man immeasurably his superior in every respect. In the meantime the staff of clergy had been increased to fourteen, ministering in eight churches and six chapels. Seven of the chaplains were provided with parsonage houses, two occupied temporary parsonages, four were in receipt of rent allowance, and one resided at the Parramatta Orphan School.

In 1833, in an important dispatch, Sir Richard Bourke enumerates an archdeacon, fifteen chaplains, and four catechists; also seven stone or brick churches, of moderate size and respectable appearance, within forty miles of Sydney, besides two in more remote districts, and several less permanent buildings in various places; serving a total population of 60,000.

The Rev. William Grant Broughton, second archdeacon, and virtually the father and founder of the Australian Church, was born in 1788 and was at the [37/38] time of his selection by the Duke of Wellington chaplain of the Tower of London. His acceptance of the arduous post was prompt, and his duties were commenced with all the strength of his nature. In a letter to a friend he describes the sphere of his work as having a church at St. Albans, another in Denmark, another in Constantinople, with the Bishop in Calcutta.

EDUCATIONAL EXTENSION

The instructions issued by King George III. in 1790, to Governor Phillip, to set apart in each new township 400 acres of land for the maintenance of a minister of religion, and 200 acres for that of a schoolmaster, which were repeated in 1809 to Governor Macquarie, continued in force until 1824, when they were superseded by royal charter. This charter was promulgated by King George IV. to the following effect:--

"Whereas we have taken into our royal consideration the necessity of making provision for the maintenance of religion and the education of youth in our colony of New South Wales, and for that purpose have thought proper to erect into one body politic and corporate, such persons as are hereafter mentioned, viz. the Governor and Chief Justice, the several members of the Legislative Council, the Archdeacon, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the nine Senior Chaplains--they are hereby authorized and empowered to purchase, hold, or alienate certain lands; to sell to the amount of one-third, and to grant leases up to thirty-two years, the proceeds to be divided into--

"(1) Improvement and building account. For making roads, erecting farm buildings, building and [38/39] repairing of churches, schools, and parsonages, clearing and settling the estates.

"(2) Clergy and school account. For expenditure on the maintenance and support of clergy and schoolmasters in the proportions of five-sevenths and two-sevenths respectively."

The bishop or the archdeacon was constituted the visitor to all the said schools. Former trusts and properties were to be vested in this corporation, and one-seventh in extent and value of all lands in every county was to be set apart under the title of the "Clergy and School Estates." The previous expense to the Treasury for educational purposes had been about £17,000. Some 1487 children were under instruction. Owing to serious delays, no grant was issued until 1829, and no provision was made for existing institutions. And what was more detrimental still, this munificent provision was largely neutralized by the envious opposition of those who were hostile to the entire theory of State aid to religion. Notwithstanding that the colony was founded on the principle of identity of Church and State, we find a powerful body among the colonists at this time objecting to what they characterized "a dominant and endowed Church."

Finally, the charter was revoked in 1833, after extended notice. Owing to the unexampled difficulties thrown in the way of the trust, much valuable Church property was sacrificed in Sydney, Parramatta, Windsor, and other places; being sold or leased, and otherwise lost to the Church. On August 28 all the property of the corporation was to revert to the Crown, but was still to be disposed of for the purposes of the original charter. [footnote: "In such manner as to his Majesty and his heirs and successors shall appear most conducive to the mainaenance and promotion of religion and the education of youth."] It is a surprising fact that the [39/40] archdeacon should have been allowed to sail for England in May 1829 in ignorance of the revocation, although the notification of it had been issued the day before. Nor was he informed until long afterwards that the schools were to be removed from his control and superintendence.

Archdeacon Broughton paid this his second visit to the old country in 1834, to secure help in the many undertakings which were springing up around him. He found the home authorities sadly cold and reluctant, so was obliged to return alone and dispirited. His appeals, however, were not wanting in results in other directions. The "S.P.C.K." voted £3000, and the "S.P.G." £1000, for the lessening of the spiritual destitution under which a great part of the colony was labouring. A diocesan committee of the two societies was formed for the "joint extension of religion and education throughout the length and breadth of the land." Fourteen more churches were built, and nine additional clergy sent out to the colony, the English benefactions being generously met by the colonists themselves raising the sum of £13,500 for Church extension in one year.

AUSTRALIA'S FIRST BISHOP

The year 1836 must undeniably be marked as the beginning of the modern growth and development of the Church in Australia. It was in this year that the office of archdeacon was revoked, to make way for a resident episcopate. The grounds for making the change are stated in the Royal Letters Patent, dated June 18:--"Whereas the doctrine and discipline of the United Church of England and Ireland are possessed and observed by a considerable part of our loving subjects in New South Wales, Van Diemen's [40/41] Land, and Western Australia, and these are deprived of some of the offices prescribed by the liturgy and usages of the Church aforesaid, by reason that there is not a bishop residing or exercising jurisdiction within the same: We have determined to erect these our colonies into a bishop's see or diocese, to be called the Bishopric of Australia, of which William Grant Broughton is appointed first bishop, who together with his successors shall be subject and subordinate to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury." It was further provided--that every future Bishop of Australia should take the oath of due obedience to the Archbishop of Canterbury as his Metropolitan; that a written engagement to perform the duty should be a sufficient title for Orders; that the Letters of Orders were to distinctly state that they were for the diocese of Australia only; that the recipients should not be obliged to make the oath or subscription required in England, and that the Bishop of Australia should be held to be a body corporate with perpetual succession.

Vigorous of intellect, of devout mind, deeply attached to Church principles and usages, and of exhaustless energy, the newly-appointed bishop resolutely faced the difficulties of his position. His visits were extended to the remotest settlements, and everywhere his enthusiasm enkindled a responsive liberality. Confirmations were everywhere held, and a further band of twenty clergy, of whom five were for Van Diemen's Land, were dispatched at the expense of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. That the colonists were intensely grateful need hardly be stated, more especially when they heard that in addition to the profuse liberality of the two great societies, a number of English Churchmen, led by the Rev. Edward Coleridge, had collected and sent out no less than £3000, to help to remedy "the dearth of the appointed means of grace and salvation." The [41/42] list was headed by his Majesty King William IV., who presented services of plate for Holy Communion, for the use of St. Phillip's and St. James's churches, of the value of l00 guineas each.

Sydney, with a population of nearly 20,000 souls, possessed the two consecrated churches already named. There were four clergy besides the bishop, of whom the Rev. E. A. Dickin officiated in a brewery storehouse in the parish of St. Lawrence. The average number attend-ing Divine service was at St. Phillip's between 600 and 700, and at St. James's about 1200. In the country districts as many as thirty-two new churches were in contemplation. At the chief centres of population, Newcastle, Bathurst and Goulburn, small churches, holding from 200 to 300 persons, were erected. At Stroud, Port Stephens, the head-quarters of the Australian Agricultural Company, to whom had been granted a million acres of land, in return for an expenditure of a million sterling, a church was built through the exertions of Sir Edward Parry, of which the incumbent was the Rev. William Macquarie Cowper, the first of Australia's sons to be devoted to the priesthood, and the son of one whose exertions in the cause of religion and morality have never been sufficiently recognized. The son is yet actively engaged as Dean of Sydney and Bishop's Commissary.

Although in 1837 the foundation stone was re-laid by Governor Sir Richard Bourke, of the cathedral church of St. Andrew, which the bishop had decided on as one of his first efforts towards Church extension, no great progress was made until 1846, when a new committee was formed and fresh plans adopted. The intervening years were busy beyond description. The appointment of chaplains by the Crown, apart from the bishop's control, was the source of much friction. The work of the clergy, too, was excessively severe, both bodily and mentally, leaving no time for study or systematic parochial visitation. At Parramatta two clergymen were all that could be obtained to minister to a scattered population of 3500, with of course outlying districts at great distances. In an early address to the clergy, the bishop laments the lack of helpers in touching language. "I cannot look on," he says, "with tranquillity while I see such extended and populous districts devoid of churches, devoid of clergymen, devoid of schools."

The first annual meeting of the diocesan committee of "S.P.C.K" and "S.P.G." held on June 30, 1837, showed most gratifying results. Of the thirty-two additional churches, several were in rapid progress, and the remainder were only delayed by the lack of competent workmen. The little band of fifteen clergy were growing feeble from age and long service. Their engagements being made to cover as wide an area as possible, the physical toil and mental strain were incessant. No intermission of rest was possible, even in the oppressive heat of summer, and exchange of duty was not easy. Continuous travelling and poor accommodation helped to break down the strongest health. In the early days of his government, Sir Richard Bourke was emphatic in his advice that public aid should be given to Church work. "I think it necessary that, at this early period of the colony's existence, the Government should grant pe-cuniary assistance for the establishment of religious institutions, and take upon itself the nomination of the ministers, or it might happen that the ordinances of Christianity would be neglected, or its tenets perverted by incompetent teachers." The senior chaplain's stipend was fixed at £600 per annum, on the surrender of his glebe. Others of the clergy received respectively, £500, £460, £400, £350, and £250, together with glebe and parsonage house, or rent allowance. The rest were granted £250 and forage [43/44] for their horses. In response to the bishop's continued appeals, promises of more clergy were received from home, which would eventually nearly double his inadequate staff.

In November 1840, the Roman Catholic Bishop Polding visited Europe, and on his return in 1843 assumed the title of Archbishop of Sydney, conferred on him by the Pope. Bishop Broughton indignantly scouted the claim, contending that "there can be neither two metropolitans in the same province, nor two bishops of one diocese. The one would involve a reversal of the canons of the Church, the other a contradiction of the ordinances of the Lord. The inference from the establishment of an archbishopric, with metropolitical privileges within the limits of the province of Canterbury, must unavoidably be that it is intended thereby to deny to the Primate of All England any rightful possession of metropolitical juris-diction within the limits of the new or assumed archbishopric. Moreover, the erection of the city of Sydney, within this already existing diocese, into an episcopal see amounts to a denial that there is a lawful Bishop of Australia, according to the canons and usages of the Church." The form of protest was as follows:--"In the name of God, Amen. We, William Grant, by Divine permission bishop and ordinary pastor of Australia, do protest publicly and explicitly, on behalf of ourselves and our successors that the Bishop of Rome has not any right or authority, according to the laws of God and the canonical order of the Church, to institute an episcopal or archiepiscopal see or sees within the limits of the diocese of Australia and pro-vince of Canterbury."

The protest was loyally supported by his presbyters in the following pronouncement:--"We, the undersigned presbyters, duly licensed within the diocese and jurisdiction of Australia, being present in the church of [44/45] St. James the Apostle at Sydney in the year of our Lord 1843, do hereby testify that at the conclusion of the Nicene Creed, standing at the north side of the altar or communion table of the said church, the Right Rev. Father in God, William Grant, bishop of Australia did read in our presence, and in the sight and hearing of the congregation, all that protest herein before set forth.

Robert Allwood, B.A., Minister of St. James's, Sydney.

H. H. Bobart, M.A., Minister of St. John's, Parramatta.

Thomas Steele, LL.D., Minister of St. Peter's, Cooks River.

W. B. Clarke, M.A., Minister of St. Simon's, Castle Hill.

Henry T. Stiles, Minister of St. Matthew's, Windsor.

William H. Walsh, Minister of St. Lawrence's, Sydney."

An active controversy followed. The newspapers were filled with letters on both sides, pamphlets were issued, and the Rev. Robert Allwood delivered six valuable lectures, proving from Holy Scripture, the testimony of the Fathers, and the decrees of ancient councils, that no Bishop of Rome could claim jurisdiction beyond his own see.

The kind of work which pressed upon him on all sides may be judged from a reference to one of the bishop's journals of visitation. It is not quite the earliest, but it affords a fair sample of the rest. Starting on June 12, 1843, with a meeting of the diocesan society, which was attended by upwards of 1000 children, we find his lordship next day laying the foundation stone of the new church of St. Thomas, North Shore; June 14, confirming at St. Anne's, Hunter's Hill; 15th, embarking for Morpeth, preaching [45/46] there and at East Maitland on the 18th; journeying to the Paterson 19th, and Gresford 23rd. Then, after various minor visits, the new church of St. Mary, West Maitland, was consecrated June 28, and that of St. Peter, East Maitland, next day. A confirmation was held at St. Peter's on the 30th, and at St. Mary's July 1. Thence to Singleton, Edenglassie, and Scone. On the road several baptisms and a churching were solemnized in a wayside hut. Mudgee was reached overland by July 28, and the mission to the aborigines there inspected. At Bathurst continuous storms of wind and rain were met with, but large numbers assembled to listen to the bishop's plans for the erection of a church. A confirmation followed at Holy Trinity Church, Kelso, on August 6, and thence by way of the Blue Mountains to Sydney. Friday, September 15, saw the bishop on board a merchant barque bound for Port Phillip. The Heads were entered on the 25th, and the day spent in beating up towards Geelong. Melbourne was visited October 9, where a church of "dark-coloured stone" was found dedicated to St. James. Confirmation was administered on the 27th to eighty-seven candidates. Embarked for Sydney December 11, but on the 14th, meeting the steamer Shamrock at the Heads, bound for Launceston, a transfer was made for Van Diemen's Land. Arrived there on the 15th, and left for Sydney on the 18th, having preached fifty-six sermons in ninety days.

Of these early confirmations the bishop has the pleasure to report that "the appearance and demeanour of young persons who have come forward on these occasions, their unaffected seriousness, their evident marks of attachment to the Church and its ordinances, and the piety with which they have pledged themselves to fulfil the solemn engagements which they undertook in my presence, have filled [46/47] with satisfaction not my heart alone, but the breasts of all who truly desire the welfare of this colony."

FORMATION OF SCHOOLS

At the very outset Bishop Broughton was in conflict with the authorities in the matter of primary education. When the first school was mooted by the Rev. Richard Johnson, he was at once supported by grants from the "S.P.G." Ten years later an evening school was formed for the notorious "Rocks" of Sydney. Orphan schools were founded at Parrarnatta in 1819, by General Macquarie, after the example of Governor King. The King's School was established in 1832, at the head of which was the Rev. Robert Forrest, with a salary of £100 per annum only. By a vote of the Legislative Council £2300 -were expended on the site and buildings, sufficient for the reception of from sixty to eighty boarders and day scholars. As with the orphans of the State, all the children were presumed to be members of the Church of England. About 230 of the former were being educated and maintained at a cost to the revenue of £2500. The schools founded by the Clergy and School Corporation numbered thirty-five, attended by 1250 children. They gave a plain, useful education, were superintended by the chaplain, and the Church Catechism was taught in all. By resolution of the council they were opened by reading a chapter from the Authorized Version of the New Testament.

In place of these schools, Governor Macquarie now suggested that others should be formed on the Irish system, for the general education of the youth of the colony of all creeds--the Scriptures to be read, but no religious instruction to be given by the master or mistress; the schools to be open on one day of the [47/48] week to the clergy for special religious instruction. The bishop stoutly opposed, as he did at a later date, when in 1839 Sir George Gipps proposed a somewhat similar plan of combined schools. In 1826 the Church had sixteen schools open, with over 1000 scholars. In 1840 there were forty Church schools, educating 2500 children. Aid was given by Government equal to the receipts from private sources, altered in 1841 to a grant to necessitous schools of 1/2d. per day for each child in towns of 2000 people and upwards, and in other places from 1/4d. to 1/2d. per day. The annual subsidy of the Parramatta Orphan Schools was increased to £6000, of the Church parochial schools to £2950, of others to £5370. By the Act of 1837 the actual existence of a church and school was made essential to the appointment of a minister receiving aid. In the State schools of Western Australia religious instruction "by any clergyman" was forbidden, and separate schools for Roman Catholics were established.

Always an anxiety to the well-wishers of the colony, the subject of education was raised to paramount importance by the cessation of transportation. Many of the tutors had been themselves convicts, whose influence was in itself corrupting. To avoid the taint, it is recorded that in secluded parts Christian mothers made the most heroic efforts to teach their own children. With the same view the bishop pleaded valiantly for a large measure of free immigration. He proposed, in 1838, a loan of £2,000,000 for the introduction of 3000 adults, the land fund to bear the cost. In 1846 Mr. Robert Lowe carried a resolution in the Legislative Council in favour of schools after the Irish National system, but Governor Sir Charles Fitzroy claimed delay, in order to see whether such an important change was warranted by the circumstances of the colony. Again Bishop Broughton [48/49] made an earnest appeal for suitable provision for religious instruction, "without which," he urged, "the people must gradually sink to that very low standard of morals, which it was among the chief purposes of bringing them to this country that they might help to elevate." Despite all opposition, the measure was eventually carried. A board of national education was formed in 1848; as also a denominational board to control grants made to such schools.

Sunday-schools were the exception rather than the rule, the first anniversary being held in 1821 at St. Phillip's. In the census of 1838 the only Sunday-school mentioned is that of St. Lawrence, with ninety-five children. The average number in the primary schools of the parish was 230. For St. James's the number given is 500, divided amongst five schools. At St. Phillip's there were also 500 attending four schools. St. John's, Parramatta, reports a good average of Church-goers, from 500 to 600, but no schools. The withdrawal of aid to the King's School in this town was subsequently recommended.

A small church at Newcastle, where there was a population of 704, seated nearly 300 persons, with an average attendance of 230. The clergyman's residence was much out of repair. For the support of the clergy, an Act was passed, under Sir Richard Bourke, securing to the minister a stipend of from £100 to £200 per annum, according to the number attending Divine service. Grants were to be made from the Treasury towards church building of not less than £200, and not exceeding £1000, to meet an equal amount raised by voluntary subscription. A Bill introduced into the council by Mr. Lowe to secure to the Church of England clergy the freehold of their benefices was, after a dignified and eloquent speech by Bishop Broughton at the bar of the House, by leave withdrawn.

[50] DIOCESE OF TASMANIA

With the fleet sailing in 1803, for the occupation of Port Phillip as a convict settlement, came the Rev. Robert Knopwood as chaplain. On the failure of the attempt and its diversion to the banks of the Derwent, in the south of Van Diemen's Land in 1804, Mr. Knopwood accompanied the expedition. He was a magistrate, but did not incur the hatred of the prisoners as did Mr. Marsden at Parramatta, being of rather jovial disposition. Except with the lower classes, who had a great liking for him, he did not command much respect. The first church was a large tent, which was succeeded by a small wooden building, with thatched roof and earthen floor, to seat about 100. On this being blown down, Divine service was provided for in the Government stores or workshops, of which the arrangements were of a most primitive character. The foundation of a permanent church was laid on February 19, 1817, to be named in early colonial fashion St. David's, out of compliment to Colonel David Collins, the commandant. It was consecrated in 1823 by Mr. Marsden, senior chaplain of New South Wales, then on a flying visit from Sydney, the year in which the Rev. Wm. Bedford succeeded to the chaplaincy. A holiday was proclaimed, to give éclat to the grand procession of civil and military officers. Described in the Sydney Gazette, St. David's figures as a church "which for beauty and convenience cannot be exceeded by any in the Australasian hemisphere," a sufficiently glowing description of the future pro-cathedral of the diocese.

Some curious Government orders are extant relating to the conduct of Church service previous to the completion of St. David's. Thus, in March 1818, it is announced that "Divine service will be performed at the Barracks, Government House, 11 o'clock on Sundays, when the weather permits, until further orders." The reference to the weather became a necessary one, from the inability of the verandah to shelter more than the clergyman and a select number of the inhabitants. The troops on parade were to attend, and the inspector of public works was ordered to enforce the regular attendance of all the Crown servants in and around the town. St. John's Church, Launceston at the northern extremity of the island, was founded in 1824, and consecrated in 1827, by Archdeacon Hobbes Scott, of Sydney. Its first incumbent was the Rev. John Youl, a returned Tahitian missionary. Of his eccentric methods, it is said of him that he was in the habit of summoning his people to church by beating on an iron barrel with a mallet.

In 1823 Mr. Knopwood was followed in the Government chaplaincy by Dr. Bedford, a man whose schemes of reform were warmly seconded by Governor Arthur, and followed up by the efforts of the colonists, who willingly gathered under his leadership. Drunkenness and immorality had been terribly prevalent, for early history of Van Diemen's Land was the old
story of strong drink. Constables were paid their wages in rum. A local distillery was started. By the imposition of a heavy duty, however, aided by the influence of the chaplain and his sympathizers, the tone of society was soon greatly changed for the better. It was not to be supposed that a community founded on and saturated with convictism would set an example of high principle. The wonder is that from such beginnings the colony should have developed so favourably. No doubt the timely steps taken for providing a fitting educational system exercised a beneficial influence, as did also the extension of political and social freedom to all classes. But it is [51/52] none the less due to the persistent and self-sacrificing efforts of the clergy and devout laity that the fallen were raised, and their children helped to remove the old stigma from their midst. Whatever may be said of the dissipation of high and low--and words are too weak to express a proper horror and detestation of the vicious conduct of many even in authority--yet it must be remembered that the men and women transported to Australia were in numberless cases the sweepings of British cities, prepared for every excess of crime. Add to this that there was no one on the protracted voyage out to guard the safety of the women convicts, and that on arrival the circumstances in which they found themselves almost inevitably contributed to their continued depravity. So late as 1822 prisoners were landed with no one deputed to receive them, or to protect the women from licence and drunken revelry. Travellers were warned against the dangers of the road after dusk, and there was little less danger of being stripped and plundered in the lower parts of the city. No one laboured more strenuously to mend so horrible a state of things than the Ven. Archdeacon Cowper, of Sydney, where "the Rocks" had attained an unenviable notoriety for filth and crime. Lady Macquarie too gave active help in the crusade. A reference to the Imperial Parliament seemed to have no appreciable effect.

A brighter side to the picture appears in the endeavours of the wise and good Sir John Franklin, while governor, to secure a higher education for the youth of the colony. Through Dr. Arnold of Rugby, he secured the services of a former pupil, the Rev. John Philip Gell. Lord Normanby accepted the nomination. Mr. Gell arrived towards the end of the year 1840. Like the governor, he had a high sense of the importance of his mission, "to become the father of the education of a whole quarter of the globe," ­ [52/53] an exalted standard indeed. New Norfolk, some twenty-five miles up the Derwent, and a spot of great beauty, was decided on as the site of the new "Christ's College," which was--to quote again Sir John Franklin's anticipations--"to train up Christian youth in the faith as well as in the learning of Christian gentlemen."

On August 18, 1842, the young Queen thought good to "separate, divide, and exempt the island of Van Diemen's Land, and to declare the same to be the diocese of the Bishop of Tasmania." The Rev. Francis Russell Nixon was appointed to the see, an excellent choice in every way. The cathedral church was fixed at Hobart Town.

DIOCESE OF ADELAIDE

The primary needs of South Australia were attended to by the Rev. C. B. Howard, who had come out as one of the colonizing party of 1836. Besides providing his stipend, the "S.P.C.K." had made a grant of £200 towards the cost of a small wooden church, to seat 350 persons, the building of which was rapidly pushed forward. A wooden parsonage was erected alongside. But although the clergyman's stipend was found by the society in England, he was bound to hold his licence from the Bishop of Australia, which unfortunately he was not inclined to do. The conflict was carried to the length of a repudiation of episcopal control. The question was referred home by the bishop to Lord John Russell, who upheld his lordship's claim to jurisdiction throughout the whole of Australia. There could be in fact no other decision possible. The disputed point was happily settled by the foundation in 1847 of Adelaide as a separate see. In the meantime a second priest had arrived in 1840, [53/54] in the person of the Rev. James Farrell, afterwards dean of the cathedral, whose stipend was found by the liberality of the "S.P.G." Mr. Howard's early and lamentable death in 1843 left this priest to struggle on alone for three years, until the welcome arrival of two colleagues, the Revs. W. J. Woodcock and James Pollitt. These again were joined shortly afterwards by the Revs. G. Newenham and W. H. Coombs, for so many years the incumbent of Gawler.

The munificent gifts of Miss Burdett Coutts in connection with the "Colonial Bishoprics Fund," were such as to make possible the establishment of the see at a much earlier date than would otherwise have been practicable. The Rev. Augustus Short, D.D., of Christ Church, Oxon., and Vicar of Ravensthorpe in Northamptonshire, was chosen first bishop, and set sail in September 1847, with his wife and children, in a barque of only 362 tons, the Derwent. Coincident with his arrival was the celebration of the eleventh year of the foundation of the colony. Landing in Adelaide after a passage of sixteen weeks, the bishop was instituted in the pro-cathedral of Holy Trinity, on December 30. After a month's stay at Government House, as the guest of Colonel Robe, he removed to a small cottage at Kensington, preferring to feel his way gradually, according to circumstances. By his own statement he found the outlook encouraging. Five clergy were in the field before him, and the people, he states, were particularly intelligent and enterprising. An endowment fund was his chief care, in which his hands were greatly strengthened by the generous efforts and gifts of Mr. W. Leigh, of Aston Hall, Lichfield, who gave town lands in the new capital, which subsequently produced a rental of £3500 per annum, for the general purposes of the Church.

By the end of six months the bishop had visited [54/55] most of the settled districts, consecrated ten new churches, and confirmed numbers of young people in every settlement. Also, before the end of the year 1848, he had finished a six weeks' tour in Western Australia, a part of the continent cut off by the 1100 miles of the Great Australian Bight by sea, and by the trackless desert by land. He was accompanied by the Rev. Mathew Blagden Hale, who had come out with him from England, and who afterwards became first bishop of that western portion of the diocese. A stone church at King George's Sound, the first port of call of incoming steamers, was consecrated on October 20. Here the Rev. John Wollaston was labouring. Busselton, Bunbury, Picton, and Fremantle, were so many links in the chain to Perth, on the Swan River, where a cordial welcome awaited him from the governor. Of the six clergy at work, four were in receipt of Government stipends of £100 each, the Church population numbering about 3700 out of a total of 4600.

The bishop preached at St. George's, a roomy but plain building, which on November 15 he was able to consecrate. A week later a second church was consecrated on the Upper Swan, of which the Rev. Mr. Postlethwaite held charge. Of the Middle Swan, the Rev. W. Mitchell incumbent, the bishop records that the parsonage was "no better than an English labourer's cottage." Testimony is borne to the estimable character of the founder of the colony, a Mr. Peel, by the fact that at his residence at Mandorah, twenty-three were at the Church service, out of a total population of twenty-five. The bishop returned to Adelaide in January 1849.

[56] DIOCESE OF MELBOURNE

St. Peter's Day 1847 was a veritable red-letter day for the Australian Church. By some it has been called its birthday, but it may be more aptly regarded as the day of its confirmation. The consecration in Westminster Abbey of the four bishops who were so ably to lay the foundations of a colonial episcopate, was sufficient of itself to mark off the day to all time. Of the officiating prelates, it was fitting that Bishop Blomfield should be the preacher. He chose for his text St. John xxi. 15. There were present besides Archbishop Howley, the Bishops of Gloucester and Bristol, Winchester, Chichester, and Lichfield.

For some time past Bishop Broughton had been forced to the conclusion that he could not efficiently superintend a diocese ten times the size of the United Kingdom. Nor was he the man to render perfunctory duty. He had expressed his willingness to give up a third of his own income, and had besieged the two great English societies with incessant appeals. The establishment in 1841 of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund enabled plans to be matured for the subdivision of unworkable dioceses. Founded on the appeal of Bishop Blomfield and Archbishop Howley to remedy the neglected condition of English colonists in different parts of the world, a sum of £600,000 had been raised by its means for the endowment of more than forty dioceses. Since the year 1833 the number of bishops abroad bad grown from five to seventy-five. The see of New Zealand was the first to reap the advantage. Five years later, by the munificence of Miss Burdett Coutts, the diocese of Adelaide was endowed to the west, while by Bishop Broughton's surrender of £1000 of his yearly income, the see of Newcastle was made possible to the north. Grants were made [56/57] of £10,000 by the "S.P.C.K." and £7500 by the "S.P.G."

The earliest settlement of Port Phillip coincided with the foundation of the bishopric of Australia. Batman and Faulkner, on their arrival from Van Diemen's Land in 1835, had obtained from the blacks what purported to be a conveyance of 600,000 acres of the surrounding country, in return for sundry knives, tomahawks, and blankets. This astounding document was promptly disallowed, both in Sydney and by the home authorities, but land to the value of £7000 was granted towards the legitimate expenses of settlement. The Crown laid sole claim to the ownership of the soil, and properly forbade any so-called purchases from the aboriginal inhabitants. When Captain Lonsdale was appointed first magistrate, the population numbered about 400. The earliest religious service was conducted in Mr. Batman's house, by a Wesleyan minister from Van Diemen's Land, according to the use of the Church of England. Part of the afternoon congregation was made up of a band of fifty blacks, who are said to have behaved with great propriety, and to have especially enjoyed the singing. A visitor from the same island, the Rev. T. B. Naylor, next year baptized the first white child born in Melbourne.

Five acres on either side of Little Collins Street were set apart for Church purposes, not without the usual accusation of favouritism, and a small wooden church was speedily erected on the site which in after years was to carry the pro-cathedral of St. James. In 1838 the little Church community was encouraged by a visit from the Metropolitan, who was greatly pleased with the zealous laymen who were serving the temporary church. The Rev. J. C. Grylls arrived, as "S.P.G." chaplain, the same year. Towards the close of 1839 the more permanent church was founded by his Honour, Chief-Justice Latrobe.

[58] On a second visit the needs of Geelong, always a keen rival of the metropolis, were pressed on the bishop's notice, when, with his accustomed quickness, he drew out a rough sketch on the spot, and laid the first stone of Christchurch within ten days, on the site of two acres granted by Government. This was in September 1843, in the midst of a keen depression following on a period of feverish speculation.

In January 1846 the sum of £1000 was voted by the central Government at Sydney, towards the building of St. James's, to meet an equal amount privately subscribed. The Metropolitan nobly added his own donation of £500. A church was started on Eastern Hill about the middle of the year, to be dedicated to St. Peter. But an earlier ecclesiastical foundation than all had been made as far back as 1834, by Messrs. Edward and Stephen Henty, who had begun operations as squatters or sheep-owners at Portland, a lovely district in the extreme south-west corner of the colony. The thatched barn in which Mr. Stephen Henty first held Church service was replaced by a plain brick building, with timber-framed tower, in time to welcome the visit of a clergyman in 1841, the Rev. A. C. Thomson. With the rapid extension of settlement, with churches springing up on all sides, the Metropolitan's duties increased and multiplied to an alarming extent. With infinite pains he contrived to respond to every call made upon him; still the burden was beginning to press beyond the power of the strongest man to bear. The consecration on the same day of bishops for Melbourne, Newcastle, and Adelaide happily relieved the strain in time, and opened up unlimited possibilities to the Church in Australia.

On their consecration, the Right Rev. William Grant Broughton, heretofore Bishop of Australia, was proclaimed by royal letters patent Bishop of Sydney [58/59] the others, "with the bishops of Tasmania and New Zealand, to be suffragan bishops, subject and subordinate to the see of Sydney, in the same manner as any see within the province of Canterbury is under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury." They were all to be known by the title of Lord Bishop. Suitable provision for episcopal residences failed from lack of local funds. Nor was the appeal of the Archbishop responded to, backed up though it was by Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, for the purchase or setting apart of available land for the augmentation of episcopal incomes. The separation of Port Phillip from the mother colony of New South Wales was successfully accomplished in 1851. Of the 80,000 inhabitants, 25,000 were located in the new capital, Melbourne. Two years previously the separation had been recommended in a report of the Committee of Privy Council, which, among other things, provided (Schedule C) that a sum of £30,000 should be allotted for the maintenance of public worship, "under the sanctioned regulations of the Churches of England and Rome, of the Church of Scotland, and of the Wesleyan Society." All vested rights of indi-vidual clergymen under the Constitution Act of 1842 were to be maintained inviolate.

Charles Perry, first Bishop of Melbourne, arrived in Hobson's Bay on January 23, 1848, in the Blackwall liner Stag, and was installed on the 28th, in the pro-cathedral of St. James, yet unfinished and unconsecrated. He found the work in the hands of three Government chaplains, the Revs. A. C. Thomson, E. Collins, and J. Y. Wilson, to whom were now added three from his own party. Of these the Rev. Hussey Burgh Macartney, a D.D. of Trinity College, Dublin, was within a few weeks appointed archdeacon of Geelong; the Rev. F. Hales, after good work in the diocese, left for Van Diemen's Land, to become eventually [59/60] archdeacon of Launceston; and Mr. H. P. P. Handfield was commissioned on ordination to St. Peter's, Eastern Hill, of which he is still the incumbent, venerable in years as in honourable service. The existing church attendance was not good. Educational arrangements, even in Melbourne, were far from satisfactory.

What the state of the country districts must have been may be gathered from the vivid descriptions of Mrs. Perry in her Letters from Gippsland. "The post," she writes, "goes into the country one week and returns the next. The rudeness of the settlers' huts, and of their mode of living, is extreme. The door of the inn is a foot too short at top and bottom, while there are cracks three inches wide between the slabs." A congregation of 200 attended Divine service held in a neighbouring wool-shed.

As an instance of the bishop's wonderful power of endurance, we find him at the close of his Gippsland tour starting immediately with his party on another from Geelong to Port Fairy, "in two dog-carts driven tandem." The little wooden church there was filled to overflowing, served by an educationist of standing, though not licensed to the cure of souls, the Rev. Dr. Braim. Owing to the wetness of the season, the journey on to Portland was made by sea. From Warrnambool the return trip included the inland settlements of Ballan and Bacchus Marsh. What impressed the bishop most strongly throughout the trip was the unbounded hospitality of the people, and their anxiety for the ministrations of their religion. A staff of itinerating clergy was proposed, with a central home, from which the dwellers in the bush might be reached periodically.

The extension of the episcopal tour to the northeast through Seymour, Mount Macedon, Wangaratta, and the Ovens, gave occasion for a long-desired meeting of the bishops at Albury, the border-town between [60/61] New South Wales and Victoria. For a humorous description of this meeting, with its quaint and strange accompaniments, we are again indebted to the facile pen of Mrs. Perry. We are likewise given a glimpse of the side of Bishop Broughton's character not often turned to the public eye--his real liveliness of disposition, contrasting with the intense earnestness which was so patent to everybody.

DIOCESE OF NEWCASTLE

To hasten the subdivision of his diocese, becoming every day more urgent, Bishop Broughton generously offered to surrender one-half of his income, to be divided between the proposed new dioceses of Melbourne and Newcastle. The offer was only accepted for the latter to the amount of £1000 per annum. William Tyrrell was consecrated first bishop in Westminster Abbey, on the never-to-be-forgotten St. Peter's Day 1847, one of the galaxy of able and devoted men who have left their mark on the Church indelibly. He was accompanied to his see by his two examining chaplains, the Revs. H. O. Irwin and R. G. Boodle, and seven candidates for holy orders. Sailing in the good ship Medway, he safely reached Sydney on January 16, 1848. It was early on a Sunday morning, under a cloudless sky of intensest blue, that the bishop and his party were conducted to the temporary cathedral of St. Andrew, to join with their Australian brethren in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The Metropolitan was away on a visitation. No time was lost in journeying on towards their destination. Morpeth was decided on as the episcopal residence. Mr. Irwin was appointed to the charge of Singleton, Mr. Boodle to that of Muswellbrook. In the meantime Bishop Broughton [61/62] had returned to his see city, and immediately arranged a meeting of welcome from the diocesan committee and the Church of England Lay Association. Amid universal congratulations, the hope was expressed that the occasion might prove "an indication that the episcopate would be made in future commensurate with the necessities of the increasing population of the colonial empire."

Nominally the see of Newcastle embraced an area of 800 by 700 miles, but the settled portions probably covered a region of about 500 by 250 miles, chiefly taken up by squatters or sheep-owners. There were twelve clergy already at work, making fourteen in all. On January 30 the bishop was instituted in the pro-cathedral, a poor and nondescript building, which has been recently removed to make room for the solid stone structure which it is hoped will one day grace the heights of the city. By the year 1849 he had elaborated a plan for the better training of literates for the priesthood, under which many good men were in after years trained for holy orders. His veneration for the metropolitan bishop led him to seek counsel from him in Sydney in every difficulty; one of the first to occur being how to provide for the growing educational needs of the people. Very little dependence could be placed on the good-will of Government, and the annual grant from the "S.P.G." barely sufficed for a nucleus of the requisite funds. A general diocesan society was resolved upon, which not only did good work on its own account, but eventually developed into a complete synodical organization. On May 26, 1850, a church was consecrated at Armidale, the most northerly in the diocese at that time, now the seat of a separate diocese, that of Grafton and Armidale. The visitation was extended to Brisbane and Ipswich, there being much Church work in progress there requiring supervision.

[63] Bishop Tyrrell's keen interest in missions had been intensified by a flying visit from his old college friend and companion, George Augustus Selwyn, on his way to New Zealand, and his affection led to his undertaking, in 1851, a voyage to New Zealand and Melanesia, in the mission schooner Border Maid. The mission was then in its trial stage. He returned on September 20, after an absence of four months, when, finding that the Morpeth steamer had left Newcastle, he set out to walk the twenty miles which separated him from his modest home.

The increasing usefulness of the Diocesan Church Society was much more fully apparent as settlement gradually pushed its way into the bush districts of the interior. There were the shepherds and selectors to provide for spiritually, besides the enormous development of population brought about by the gold discoveries. The rough and sometimes lawless character of the diggers, from every country almost in the world, constituted an added difficulty. A diocesan book depot was initiated. The bishop was anxious, too, to do something for the welfare of the aborigines, a matter in which he had the warm sympathy of the governor, Sir William Denison, but every plan mooted was checked by the coldness of the Legislative Council.

In 1853 the bishop, now alone, since the departure and death of his metropolitan, went to Sydney to meet Bishop Selwyn, to devise some means of securing a Church of England college affiliated to the university, in which Church students might be boarded and cared for. He succeeded in reconciling a good deal of factious opposition, and, what was more, carried his point with the Government. He was again called to Sydney in July 1855, to welcome the new metropolitan. His pleasure in discussing Church methods adapted to the changing circumstances of the colony [63/64] was very great. The same year he suffered the loss of one of his chaplains, the Rev. H. O. Irwin, by removal to Tasmania. The Rev. W. M. Cowper was also promoted to St. Phillip's, Sydney. At least twelve more clergymen were sorely needed. In writing home the necessities of his diocese, he pleaded with the secretary of the "S.P.G." not to send "doubtful men, who leave England on account of debt or weak health, or from some untoward event in their past history." He desired men who would choose ministerial work as their first love, strong and earnest spirits, sound in mind and body. Towards the end of 1857 he took steps for the subdivision of the diocese, by the separation of Moreton Bay and districts north and west of Brisbane. Some months later he was able to announce that towards the endowment of a new see there the "S.P.C.K." had promised a grant of £1000, the "S.P.G." £1000, and the English committee of the diocese £700. Also from the original endowment of the see of Newcastle £2300.

CLOSE OF BISHOP BROUGHTON'S EPISCOPATE

Another memorable year in Australian annals was the year 1850. It witnessed the birth of two Constitution Acts, one providing for the new independent colony of Victoria, the other concerning the far-away settlement of Western Australia, just coming into notice, and soon to become a receptacle for the convict element rejected by the older States. Before its close the Church was destined to meet in conference, preparatory to the establishment of free synods in all the dioceses.

That the land might be more profitably cultivated, pardons were freely granted to men nearing the end [64/65] of their sentences, Western Australia being loud in demand for convict labour. Van Diemen's Land, the contrary, by its own choice, protested against continuance as a penal settlement, and wished to be known for the future as Tasmania. The request was very properly granted. The little island-colony, the beginning of which had been so steeped in wickedness, was making a brave start for moral and constitutional freedom. In none of the more populous centres has education been more wisely or more generously fostered.

On the whole the previous decade had brought troublous times to colonists. Impending ruin had many times threatened a general break-up. For a time the resources of the Church were well-nigh exhausted. Emancipists, by which name were known the great body of released prisoners and their sympathizers, no longer made up the bulk of the population. Free immigration still further shifted the balance of power. Among those who most strongly denounced the transportation system was Bishop Broughton. His efforts, already alluded to, in favour of a national scheme of immigration under definite religious oversight, were greatly helped by the terms of the Constitution Act of 1842. On the rejection of the report on transportation by the local legislature, the question was taken up vigorously by Mr., afterwards Sir Charles, Cowper. Dissensions followed respecting land tenure, the high purchase value on the abolition of free grants, viz. from five to twelve shillings an acre, being singled out for bitter agitation.

Notwithstanding these cares, and the monetary crisis which day by day seemed more threatening, the progress of diocesan affairs was by no means stayed. The foundation stones were laid of St. Stephen's, Camperdown, and St. Mary's, Balrnain, and a finished church at Denham Court was consecrated. In the [65/66] western interior, afterwards the diocese of Bathurst, active visitation was made with the happiest results, the bishop making a wide circuit by way of Yass to consecrate the church of St. Saviour at Goulburn, the precursor of the present cathedral church of that diocese. Christchurch, Queanbeyan, and St. John's, Canberra, were consecrated during March 1845, followed by the consecration of St. John's, Ashfield, on August 59, and Christchurch, St. Lawrence, next day. At the last-named ceremony twenty-six of the clergy were present, and the offertory amounted to £114. An exhaustive tour of the northern portion of the diocese around Scone, Murrurundi, Tamworth, and Armidale, prepared the way for the subsequent formation of a new diocese at Newcastle. Many churches were either projected or carried to completion.

By the timely discovery of gold the influx of population was increased by leaps and bounds. But beyond bringing the much-needed labour, it is doubtful whether the gold-fields, with all their richness, were of real benefit to the country. Disturbances were frequent and widespread. The moral effect was generally disastrous. The mad race for wealth ended, as a rule, in an equally mad expenditure.

Bishop Broughton was one of the first to appreciate the loss to the diggers spiritually, of having neither church nor school. He hurried away to the scene of the earliest finds near Bathurst, whither thousands had been drawn by the wild desire to grow rich in a day. At O'Connell he called the men together at dawn of day, and entreated them to build a church, excavating with his own hands a portion of the foundations. Inspired by his example, the roughest and most careless set to work with a will, so that before breakfast-time the holes for the posts were ready. Other willing hands felled trees, shaped the logs for plates and joists, and fitted the framework, which was then completed [67/68] within a very few hours. Teams from Bathurst brought canvas for covering in, doors, a prayer-desk and communion-table. In four days the whole building, sixty-six by twenty-one feet, was ready for occupation. Early on Sunday morning the bishop, mounting by a ladder to the ridge, in his episcopal robes affixed a little wooden cross to the end of the pole; then, having descended, set apart the structure to the worship of the Holy Trinity, by the name of Christchurch. The bell called the rejoicing people together, crowds of whom could not find entrance, and a celebration of the Holy Eucharist fittingly concluded a ceremony reminding one of Mr. Johnson's early labours on the flower-decked slopes of Sydney Cove. It being nine o'clock in the morning, the sermon was preached from the text, "And it was the third hour."

To Bishop Tyrrell of Newcastle is mainly owing the introduction of a more central organization for the management of Church affairs. But the necessity was sufficiently patent to all, and was urged persistently by each of the bishops upon the laity of his diocese. For many months the Metropolitan, enthusiastic as ever, was in frequent consultation with his provincial bishops, until in September 1850 matters were so far advanced as to allow a general Conference being held in Sydney. The summons was answered in person by the entire bench of bishops. The names--to be held in ever-grateful remembrance--were William Grant Broughton, George Augustus Selwyn, Francis Russell Nixon, Augustus Short, Charles Perry, and William 'Tyrrell.

Owing to the pressing needs of their own dioceses, the bishops could spare but a short month for conference, but in this time questions were introduced of stupendous importance, and were pronounced upon with singular tact and judgment. A final disposal of any of them was not for a moment contemplated. On the [67/68] ground of the proved worthlessness of letters patent, and that in consequence a living authority and headship was called for, for purposes of discipline, it was affirmed, to begin with, that duly-constituted diocesan and provincial synods, charged among other powers with the election of bishops without interference by the secular authorities, were a necessity. Bishops were to be tried by the bishops of the province, and priests or deacons by the synod of the diocese, a practice founded on the position occupied by the Catholic Church in primitive times. Discipline was to be enforced on bishops by their brother bishops, on the clergy by their synods, on the laity by private admonition or refusal of Communion. Clergymen were not to be removed except on sentence pronounced by a recognized tribunal. The Canons of 1603-4 were held to be generally binding, while the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Book of Common Prayer were to remain unaltered. The conversion and civilization of the Australian blacks, and of the heathen races of the Western Pacific, came prominently before the conference--a difficult matter made yet more difficult by the wandering habits of these poor people, and the divergency of their language and innumerable dialects. An Australasian Board of Missions was forthwith constituted, in the hope of future extension.

A pronouncement was made on the subject of "Regeneration, the work of God in Holy Baptism," the Bishop of Melbourne dissenting, who pleaded for an explanation of the rite as the "sacrament of regeneration." Some demur having been made as to the public reading of the offertory sentences, and the Prayer for the Church Militant, the bishops decided that "no clergyman can be justly suspected of holding opinions at variance with the sound teaching of the Church, in consequence of his complying with the rubric." [68/69] With united voice their lordships bound themselves "not to incur the responsibility of incorporating themselves with Boards, either general or local, having the reputation of schools in which erroneous, defective, or indefinite religious instruction is given." The subdivision of dioceses was to be under the control of the provincial synod. A very necessary warning was sounded against irregular marriages, which had become sadly frequent.

A more notable gathering of single-minded men was never held; all filled with an enthusiastic love of Church and Country; all pioneers in a cause calling for the most devoted self-sacrifice; as wise in deliberation as weighty in action, of intense sympathy, of untiring energy and of rare administrative powers. From the Metropolitan downwards all were imbued with a burning desire to lay broad and deep the foundations of a Church polity which should bind in one, indissolubly, the present and future dioceses of Australia. Naturally some were more highly gifted than others, by instinct, by training, and by practical knowledge, for the solution of the grave problems submitted to them. To name but one, Bishop Selwyn would come charged with the experience of the stirring events which had accompanied his pioneer work in New Zealand. He would be further fortified by the advice of his young friend, William Ewart Gladstone, given the year before, to "organize. themselves on that basis of voluntary, consensual compact, on which the Church of Christ rested from the first." Before leaving Auckland, he had been the recipient of an address signed by the Governor, Sir George Grey, the Chief-Justice, the Attorney-General, and other leading citizens, praying that "the Church might be constituted in some way that would secure to her the power to manage her own affairs, and that in any such constitution the laity might have their full weight." [69/70] The Bishop of Newcastle at first sided with those members of Conference who desired the full sanction of the Home Government for the institution of the proposed synods, but on reconsideration came to the conclusion that a simple Enabling Bill was sufficient, as in New Zealand and South Australia.

On the decisions of Conference being referred to the several dioceses for consideration, replies were received from the following:--From Melbourne it was suggested that bishops should be appointed as hitherto by royal prerogative, or by the recommendation of the diocesan synod. That there should be one assembly, consisting of clergy and laity, presided over by the bishop. Objection was raised to the creation of an Australian province, suggesting instead that the senior bishop should be ex-officio Primus, subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Also to any system of education which included instruction not based on the Holy Scriptures, and not in accordance with the principles of the Church. Signed by seventeen of the clergy, Archdeacon Macartney of Geelong leading. Bishop Perry issued an addendum, to the effect that it was of the utmost importance that the supremacy of the Queen should be distinctly recognized, and that an appeal should always lie from every colonial court to the highest ecclesiastical tribunal at home. The reply from the diocese of Adelaide assumed the Conference to be simply a voluntary assembly of chief pastors to confer upon matters of general interest to the Church. It was agreed that clergy and laity should meet in one assembly. The right and power of the Queen to subdivide dioceses and to appoint bishops should be left intact, but if that right were to be relinquished, then the clergy of the diocese should nominate. They would regard favourably any system of education in which the Bible was made the basis of instruction. They deprecated the [70/71] introduction of the question of Holy Baptism as uncalled for and injudicious. Signed by eleven of the clergy, Dean Farrell leading. The Tasmanian clergy, while generally favourable, deeply regretted the introduction of the subject of Holy Baptism. They joined with their South Australian brethren in cordially welcoming the projected mission to the aborigines.

In February 1852, we find the Bishop of Newcastle in Sydney in consultation with the Metropolitan on the synod question. At a meeting of his clergy it was petitioned that leave should be given to assemble from time to time, with authority to consult and deliberate for the better ordering of the affairs of the Church. A royal commission was asked for, but not granted, many of the leading laity being opposed, for fear of encroachment on existing authority. Condemned to inaction by the puzzling contradiction of opinion, the Metropolitan, who held very decided views himself on the inherent freedom of the Church to manage her own affairs, determined on a visit to the old country, to obtain--to use his own words--"the removal of those restrictions by which the Colonial Church was inhibited from the free exercise of those powers of self-guidance with which she was originally endowed."

It was at the close of a laborious and troubled episcopate that the Metropolitan Bishop thought well to take counsel of his English brother bishops. After what must have been to him a restful passage, after the toils and anxieties of office, he sailed up the Thames as the knell was tolling for his noble friend and patron, the Duke of Wellington. On January 30, 1853, he preached his last sermon at the re-opening of the Temple Church. The next month he was called to his rest, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. By friend and foe alike, this truly apostolic bishop was honoured, and will ever be honoured, for his [71/72] bravery of spirit, and for his unflinching advocacy of all that he deemed to be of the truth and right. His efforts in opposition to a school system shorn of the safeguards of religious teaching, though they failed to stop its adoption, were nevertheless chivalrous to a degree, and carried conviction to the hearts of many. The Church schools he always designated as her right hand--as the artery through which the life-blood is conveyed from the heart to the extremities, which, if severed, she must die. His selection of co-workers was admirable. "We must have men," he was wont to say, "earnest, zealous, able to make an impression on the minds of others; not only well-intentioned and of pure lives, but in the extraordinary state of society with which they have to contend, we must endeavour to draw out the talents of the Church and transport them hither." A truly prophetic insight into the spiritual needs of the colonies in every part of the world.

METROPOLITAN DIOCESE OF SYDNEY

For nearly three years the diocese of Sydney was ably administered by Archdeacon Cowper, as it was not till May 25, 1855, that the newly-appointed Metropolitan arrived. The Right Rev. Frederick Barker had been consecrated at Lambeth on the previous St. Andrew's Day. Of his party were the Revs. Edward Synge and P. G. Smith, the former of whom was dispatched on a lengthy tour of inspection. The latter was sent to the Tumut River, to a more settled charge. They were warmly received on arrival by the Bishop of Newcastle, and the clergy and laity of the diocese. There were in all forty-eight licensed clergy at work, ten of whom were in Sydney. The number was quickly increased to fifty-six, but another dozen at [72/73] least were seen to be urgently called for. The bishop determined as soon as possible to establish a Church Training College for teachers. This he was enabled to do within two years. Unhappily, the King's School at Parramatta was found to be in a languishing condition, consequent on the departure of its first head-master, the Rev. Robert Forrest. And although a marked improvement was effected by his successor, the Rev. F. Armitage, yet the absence of endowments, or of any funds for repairs and enlargement, seriously hindered the usefulness of the institution. St. Paul's College, affiliated to the university, was already in progress to provide for the lack of theological instruction to Church students. For the supply of future clergy--always a pressing want--a bequest of Mr. Thomas Moore of a house and landed estate bringing in an income of nearly £400 a year, was taken advantage of, and Moore College founded at Liverpool. Bishop Barker had himself collected over £5000 towards the building. The Rev. William Hodgson, a Cambridge wrangler, was first principal. During the eleven years of his headship, thirty-three candidates were trained for holy orders for the Australian dioceses.

Considerable public interest was taken in the bishop's first tour, which was an extensive one, begun on August 20. At St. John's, Parramatta, which had been rebuilt with the exception of Lady Mary Fitzroy's twin towers, a halt was made for a confirmation. Windsor, Richmond, Penrith, Wallerawang, and Bathurst followed. The Turon River Gold-fields, now in full swing, were taken in due course, where the white tents of the diggers of all nationalities must have offered a novel spectacle to English eyes. Mudgee was reached with some difficulty. Here was held a confirmation, chiefly of adults, after which a serious consultation was had with the Rev. James Günther on [73/74] the subject of missions to the aborigines. Wellington, Dubbo, Molong, and Orange were visited in turn. On approaching the latter township the bishop's horses got bogged in the sticky black soil. Leaving Carcoar in a southerly direction, the country traversed was that which ultimately became the see of Goulburn--Yass, Queanbeyan, and Wagga Wagga. The Rev. Robert Cartwright, who had come out as assistant-chaplain in 1810, was met with at Lake George, and had many stirring anecdotes to tell of the early days. Of St. Saviour's, Goulburn, the Rev. William Sowerby, afterwards dean, had been in charge for eighteen years. Sydney was reached on November 2, by way of Berrima, Sutton Forest, and Camden Park--a lovely mountainous district with a temperate and healthy climate.

The Rev. Edward Synge had in the meantime completed his tour of inquiry to the south and south-west, through Kiama, thence by Twofold Bay to the region of the Lower Murray. In six months he had travelled on horseback 2000 miles. How were those remote settlements to obtain the privilege of regular worship? State-aid was confined within strict limits, and grants from without were exhausted. There remained but to form a Diocesan Church Society, such as had been established by the Bishop of Newcastle with such happy results. To some such body would be committed the work which had hitherto been done by the combined Committee of "S.P.C.K." and "S.P.G." Sir William Denison, who was the chief speaker at the inaugural meeting, led the subscriptions with a promise of £100 per annum. The question of education--always a knotty one, and productive of wide divergence of opinion--was by general consent omitted from the objects of the society.

One of the matters brought home to the observation of the bishop and Mrs. Barker on their journeys, was [74/75] the sore straits the country clergy were put to for the education of their daughters. They decided that a strong effort should be made to supply the deficiency. A site was secured at Waverley, about five miles from t he metropolis, and close to Bishopscourt, where Mrs. Barker soon had the satisfaction of gathering quite a number of pupils from every part of the country. The institution has had a very prosperous career, and has relieved the anxieties of numbers of the country and bush clergy. On the lamented death of its beneficent foundress, St. Catherine's, or, as it is more often simply called, the "Clergy Daughters' School," was largely endowed in her memory. Moore College was fairly started in August 1856, by the arrival from England of its principal. The requisite buildings were immediately proceeded with, not the least of which was a chapel, dedicated to the memory of good Bishop Broughton.

During 1856 Bishop Barker made an exhaustive visitation of the southern country, whither Mr. Synge had paved the way. He thought the aborigines at Eden (Twofold Bay) "a very ignorant and reckless set of savages," which they might well be at the close of a whaling season, after close companionship at sea with some of the lowest class of European sailors. Fine mountain ranges and deep water-courses were crossed, in rich and beautiful country. Most of the places became familiar in later records as forming centres in the Goulburn diocese. It was, in fact, strictly pioneering labour, the shaping into form of a great territory, to be handed over to other hands when the fitting time should come. At Braidwood, then the gold-fields' centre, it is stated of the National school, that "the children had first to go home for their Bibles, as they were not allowed to keep them at school." On the borders of Victoria, 500 miles away to the westward, were districts just being opened up to settlement. In a difficult [75/76] journey of fifty-two days, the bishop traversed these by way of Deniliquin, preaching and confirming, and encouraging the erection of churches. Thence he went on to Melbourne, an additional 150 miles or thereabouts, to judge of the working of the lately constituted Church Assembly there.

The cathedral church of St. Andrew had been progressingwith irritating slowness since its commencement twenty years previously. Fresh energy was thrown into the work by the new diocesan. A meeting, presided over by Sir William Denison, was held within the unfinished walls, under the dome of the heavens. Funds were collected, which soon swelled to a total of nearly £4000, not quite half the amount required to prepare the building for public worship. Bishopscourt, at Randwick, was occupied in February 1858. The Ven. Archdeacon Cowper died on July 6, full of faith and good works, a truly apostolic man, but modest withal, who had fought vigorously and continuously to raise the standard of morals which had been for so many years hopelessly lax and indifferent. Before he died, however, he was privileged to see the abundant fruit of his labours. Sydney was a changed city. His son was appointed incumbent of St. Phillip's and dean of the cathedral. The clergy numbered seventy-six. Forty new churches had been built.

DIOCESE OF ADELAIDE

Although Bishop Short was fortunately far removed from the controversies rife in the more northern colonies respecting the constitution of synods, he was yet not entirely free from anxiety thereupon. Called upon in 1862 to settle a dispute with one of his priests, whom he had suspended from office, he endeavoured to have a Bill introduced into the Legislative Assembly, [77/78] for the purpose of obtaining parliamentary sanction to the synodical constitution already in force by consensual compact. The Assembly, however, declined to interfere, and so a legal declaration was thenceforward required from each clergyman, on receipt of his licence, that "he held his office subject to the synodical law, and that as to temporalities he held himself as tenant at will to the ordinary," who had power to withdraw his licence, on his being convicted of any breach of discipline, by assessors properly appointed.

The general affairs of the diocese were prospering. Many bush journeys of hardship and difficulty were undertaken, and the episcopal visits received with every token of pleasure. People were stirred up to build churches, and to bring their children to confirmation, and to see that they were trained afterwards in Christian habits. A missionary tour among the widely-dispersed settlers was in those days a stupendous undertaking. Rides of forty or fifty miles a day, under a hot sun for days together, were nothing unusual, were in fact but an ordinary experience. Every description of country was met with, and innumerable fences had to be surmounted on the way. The work was in reality more parochial than episcopal, although it was essential that the bishop should do it. It consisted in visiting the out-stations or shepherds' huts, preaching and explaining and baptizing, and giving heed generally that religious obligations were not utterly lost sight of in the midst of so many temptations to the contrary. The bishop himself was more than ordinarily adaptable to circumstances. Always of a simple and gladsome nature, he made light of hardships which would have cowed many a man accustomed to English ways. He was content to take bodily rest when the opportunity occurred, and he fairly revelled in the beauty of the wild-flowers, [77/78] and in the strange habits of the gaily-plumaged birds of the primeval forest. Now and again, as all travellers of thirty years ago were apt to do in the interior, he came across men of education, university graduates and scions of old families, travelling with bullock teams, over-landing with cattle, or engaged in woolgrowing, in country more like an English park than an Australian plain.

The busy avocations of a wool-shed in the season will never be forgotten by any one witnessing them for the first time. The crowded board of shearers, the rouseabouts, the wool-packers, the teamsters, many of them rough of manner, but good-hearted and generous to a degree, make up a picture as full of promise as it is of colour and variety. But wonderful changes have passed over the country of late years, with the advent of railways and the substitution of extensive squattages for the old square-mile farms or grazing areas.

To carry on the multifarious works successfully, some general scheme for the diocese was needed. One was ultimately proposed by which, through the purchase of land, a permanent endowment might be secured, but of the £20,000 required only £7000 could be raised. At first the income derivable amounted to about £800, which was afterwards increased to £1200, and was devoted to the supplying of parochial stipends. The project was greatly assisted by the Leigh bequest, previously mentioned, which grew to be a constant source of benefit to the growing Church. Vested in the "S.P.G.," but managed by a local board of attorneys, the property largely increased in value, consisting as it did of a two-acre block of land in the centre of the city. Many other gifts of value were added by prosperous colonists in the after days.

A similar movement in the shape of a pastoral aid [78/79] fund was begun by Captain William Allen, a liberal and enterprising citizen, such as most of the colonies produced in the early days, who, besides several gifts in his lifetime, left £5000 for increasing the incomes of the clergy. Grants in aid were made on condition that a given sum should be raised to meet them locally, during a certain number of years, A widows and orphans' fund was made possible by the spirited action of the attorneys for "S.P.G." in setting aside a capital sum of £10,000 for its establishment. At the same time, the clergy annuity fund secured a moderate pension to priests disabled by infirmity or old age, and thus rendered incapable of properly fulfilling their office. For a long time happily there was no applicant under its beneficial provisions.

EDUCATION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

As we have seen, the colony of South Australia was founded on principles antagonistic to the provision of State aid to religion. Nevertheless, in 1848, an attempt was made, with the support of Colonel Robe, the governor, to conform to the practice of the other colonies--New South Wales and Tasmania in particular--by granting assistance to all recognized religious bodies. The compromise was agreed to, on the understanding that the experiment was to last only three years. Consequently, in 1851, the battle was fought over again, with the result that the temporary policy was reversed. A capitation grant of two shillings per head of the population was suggested, but met with such strenuous opposition that, in the interests of peace, an amendment was adopted by the Legislative Council, that no aid should be given from any public funds whatsoever. What Bishop Broughton had sorrowfully said in Sydney was equally applicable [79/80] to all the colonies and all the dioceses--"It is my duty, in this public manner and on this solemn occasion, to represent some circumstances almost peculiar, so far as I know, to these latter ages, and in a more extended degree, perhaps, to this country than to any other upon earth. I allude to that disposition arising, I would persuade myself, not so much from selfishness as from forgetfulness or want of better information, which has led so many men, the professed friends of religion and members of the Church, to believe that they may lawfully and blamelessly appropriate the entire possession of the soil of the territory to the use and benefit of themselves and their descendants, without bestowing a thought upon the means by which provision should be made for the perpetual supremacy of the Christian faith."

On the declaration of the poll at the general election of 1851, when a new constitution was granted to the colony, the bishop knew that the death-knell had been sounded of State grants in aid of Church objects, whether of church or school. Henceforth the voluntary principle would have to be relied upon solely. For the previous year the grant had been £850, besides £4500 which had been contributed from Government funds towards building seventeen churches, ten parsonages, and a large National school in Adelaide. There were now eighteen clergymen officiating in twenty-two churches, compared with the five clergy at work and the five churches provided at the time of the establishment of the see.

One of the first of the bishop's difficulties on entering upon the duties of his charge, to use his own words, was the want of habit, on the part of those who could afford it, of giving, and paying for the support of religious education in behalf of the poorer classes. However, with energy and foresight, he had [80/81] within three months of his arrival started a school in Adelaide on National-school lines. "Religion," he writes, "must be taught in definite views, and those views in the Church of England are embodied in her Catechism, which is to be taught to all children after they have learned the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments." In the same year a grammar school was founded, which afterwards devel-oped into the most useful collegiate school of St. Peter, towards the building and endowment of which the "S.P.C.K." grant of £2000 was handed over by the bishop. Captain William Allen met this grant by the benefaction of a like sum, increased to £7000 in all before the college was completed. A site of thirty acres was purchased about half-a-mile from the city boundary, and the foundation stone laid on May 24, 1849. The work was actively pushed on, so that by Michaelmas 1853 the main block of buildings was ready for occupation by the regular staff of teachers and sixty resident scholars. The magnificent bequest of another generous colonist will eventually accrue to the extent of ever £100,000.

The bishop hoped to connect a school-room with every church in the land, and to open it for both day and Sunday schools, but the secular wave which swept over the whole of Australia proved too strong for even his brave spirit. The attempt became more and more hopeless in competition with State organization supported by State funds, until, in 1875, the central board of education was finally superseded by a system "secular, compulsory, and free," with merely permissive Bible-reading before school hours, if desired by the parents.

The University of Adelaide owes its origin to the munificence of Mr. Walter Hughes, who gave a sum of £20,000 for the purpose. Sir Thomas Elder added an equal sum, and when the total had reached [81/82] £60,000, the Government supplemented the amount by a grant of five per cent per annum, and an endowment of 50,000 acres of land. Sir Richard Hanson, Chief-Justice, became the first chancellor. He was succeeded by Bishop Short, who had by this time won the respect and affection of all classes and denominations. To crown his labours he had the further satisfaction, before leaving the diocese, of founding the training college of St. Barnabas, for the preparation of candidates for holy orders, to which he presented his valuable library of theological and classical works.

EDUCATION IN VICTORIA

Added to the many difficulties attending Church finance in a new and struggling community, were the still more formidable ones surrounding the education question. On his arrival in Melbourne, Bishop Perry found to his very great dismay a wretched wooden school-room, built under the walls of St. James's Church, as the sole representative of Church-school teaching. By dint of persistent effort he procured its displacement in 1850 by a more worthy one. Then a second school was erected on land purchased in Bourke Street by means of a grant of £1000 from the "S.P.C.K." In addition to these and the school premises provided in connection with St. Peter's Church, Eastern Hill, it was determined to have suitable girls' and infants' schools in other portions of the city, rising in importance. A diocesan society was founded in furtherance of the work, but the failure to obtain possession of a portion of the Government grant from Sydney was an intense disappointment, and wofully crippled its operations from the outset. Again recourse was had to a timely grant of £600, promised by the "S.P.C.K." on certain conditions.

[83] Church of England Grammar Schools were soon established both at Melbourne and Geelong--always rivals in good works as in business enterprise. Grants were made by Parliament, in the year 1853, of £20,000. Before 1861 the national and diocesan boards were merged into one. Religious instruction had been previously given by the teachers appointed by the local boards and by the parish priest also. In 1872 an Act passed the legislature bringing the educational system of Victoria into line with what was assumed to be the universal trend of public opinion--an Act rendering the teaching in all State schools "secular, compulsory, and free," according to the new catchwords. Teachers were not to be allowed to give the simplest religious instruction, nor any minister of religion to do so during school hours. The local boards were endowed with no real authority.

The bishop was greatly cheered by a visit in 1857 from the Metropolitan, and he returned the visit by proceeding to Sydney two years later, where he was struck by the diversity of the circumstances of the two dioceses. Sydney he thought more parochial. The churches were handsomer than in Melbourne--the people more permanently resident, and their wants therefore more readily ascertainable. In 1860 the bishop and the Metropolitan journeyed together to Adelaide, where they were warmly welcomed by Bishop Short and his faithful clergy and laity. These mutual visits, interchanged between the Australian prelates when rare opportunities offered, were fraught with untold blessings to the growing Church life.

As in New South Wales, the wonderful gold discoveries had more than doubled the population within two years, necessitating a proportionate increase of clergy, if the people were not to be thoroughly demoralized. Fired by the enthusiastic example of his Metropolitan, Bishop Perry himself started for the [83/84] diggings," accompanied by his fearless wife. For their accommodation the chief-commissioner gave up his tent--a poor protection from the weather, measuring seven feet by nine, and containing as furniture two stretchers, a table, a large tin dish, and an American chair. Both, however, made light of their troubles, and the episcopal ministrations at Forest Creek were much appreciated by the diggers. There were now twenty-four priests and deacons labouring in nine churches and various school-houses. Nine had been removed by sickness and death. For their support a stipend and endowment fund was started with good hopes of permanence. And, as if in encouragement, an Act passed the legislature late in 1852, to promote church building and the maintenance of ministers. The annual grant of £30,000 was increased to £50,000, of which the Church of England proportion was at first £14,000 and subsequently £23,500. The aid would have been more welcome had it not been for the bishop's well-known and strongly expressed objection to the principle of assisting all denominations alike.

Under Archdeacon Macartney's auspices, the Church was progressing rapidly at Geelong. Christchurch was enlarged by 500 free and open seats. Towards an episcopal residence the Government appropriated the sum of £2000, with a grant of two acres of land. Bishopscourt at East Melbourne was the fruit of this generosity. The terrible fires which devastated the colony on "Black Thursday," 1857, wofully retarded Church expansion in the country districts. Trinity College was instituted in 1869, in the University Reserves, and the Rev. G. W. Torrance placed in charge of the students, Dr. Leeper being appointed resident tutor.

[85] FURTHER CONFERENCES

By the death of Bishop Broughton the Church throughout Australia sustained a grievous, it would not be too much perhaps to say an irreparable, loss. For the time all movements towards synodical government were effectually stayed. In Victoria, Bishop Perry had been striving to cope with the obstacles continually thrown in his way. Being stoutly opposed on principle to any sort of despotic authority as contrary to the democratic instincts of colonists, he yet believed in the necessity of an Enabling Act of the legislature, in opposition to the opinion of his late Metropolitan, who just as strenuously desired to have no State interference whatever. Two measures had been introduced into the Legislative Council at Sydney, but withdrawn in deference to protests from the press and people of Victoria. Liberty of action for the Church was strangely interpreted to foreshadow the creation of a dominant Church. A Conference was held in Melbourne during June and July 1851, with the intention of considering a constitution for the Church of England in Port Phillip. Resolutions were carried in favour of a Church Assembly of clergy and laity. All clergy in priests' orders holding the bishop's licence were to be qualified. In 1853 the matter had gone so far as to include the actual passing of a Bill in the House of Lords, on the initiation of Archbishop Sumner, to enable Colonial bishops to share their authority with the laity, and in fact to manage Church affairs generally, but it failed to pass the ordeal of the House of Commons.

In a second Conference, in 1854, a draft Bill was submitted and carried by a decisive majority, and passed on to the legislature for its sanction, to enable the bishops, clergy, and laity of the United Church of [85/86] England and Ireland, in Victoria, to provide for the regulation of the affairs of the said Church. The opposition was led by a prominent Roman Catholic, on behalf of his co-religionists, on the very curious ground that "limiting the power of the bishop was asking them to regulate the affairs of the Church, and that it was impossible for a mixed assembly to frame a constitution for a Church, or to give force to its enactments." It would seem as though Bishop Gray were right in determining to solve the troublesome problem in his own diocese of Capetown by doing without legislative sanction altogether, and substituting consensual compact. All opposition notwithstanding, the Enabling Act passed the Victorian legislature by fifteen votes to five, and received the Queen's assent, after sundry objections and petitions had been dealt with.

In South Australia Bishop Short was hardly pressed by the cessation of State aid in 1851. This colony having, unlike the rest, opposed itself from the beginning to the idea of a State-assisted Church, had enjoyed the grants for three years only by way of experiment. Grasping the situation at once, the bishop proposed concentrated effort, and petitioned the Queen to allow of the meeting of diocesan clergy and laity under episcopal direction. The growing importance of the question induced his lordship to join his brother prelates in their visit to England, to confer with the ecclesiastical lawyers, and to watch the progress of his petition. His hopes were rather damped by the failure of Archbishop Sumner's measure to pass the parliamentary test, but he was greatly comforted by the legal friends to whom he had submitted his draft constitution for the diocese. Sir Richard Bethell, afterwards Lord Westbury, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Sir Joseph Napier, and Mr. A. J. Stephen, gave it as their unanimous opinion that it was competent for a colonial [87/88] diocese to organize itself without imperial authority. Armed with this opinion, the bishop returned to Adelaide, and early in 1855 a diocesan assembly was called together to consider the synodical compact. The fundamental regulations were solemnly signed at Bishopscourt.

The way being thus promptly cleared, the first session of synod based on mutual compact met on April 29, 1856, in the Chapter House--the original wooden parsonage sent out, in 1837, by the "S.P.C.K." for the Rev. C. B. Howard. In his review of two years later, the bishop explains and justifies his action. He tells how he shrank from exercising the absolute authority conferred upon him by his letters patent, preferring to assemble his diocesan synod to make such laws for the internal government of the diocese as did not conflict with the civil law of the colony, or the ecclesiastical law of England, and he touchingly concludes:--"Being persuaded from the Scriptures that the strength of the primitive Church, met under the power of the Holy Ghost, lay in the union of apostles, elders, and brethren, and the common interest they took in evangelizing the world, when I found this diocese suddenly placed, so far as regards its relations with the civil government and temporal endowments, in the condition of the primitive Church, it became an obvious duty to recur to those elements of strength which are inherent in the apostolic organization." Coincident with these vast strides in the direction of self-government for the Australian Church, the royal assent was given in May 1856 to an Act enabling members of the United Church of England and Ireland in Canada to meet in synod.

The new Metropolitan having with great zeal set his more immediate diocese in order, turned his attention to this much-vexed question. A Conference of bishops, clergy, and laity was summoned to meet in Sydney [87/88] on Nov. 24, 1858. The draft Bill prepared by Sir Alfred Stephen, C.J.; Sir William Burton, a retired judge; and Mr. Alex. Gordon, was submitted, "to give the Church permission to hold synods, and to pass in them ordinances that should be legally valid." The Rev. Canon Allwood ably upheld Sir William Burton's contention that a simple Enabling Bill was all that would be required, while the two bishops of Sydney and Goulburn carried the majority of the Conference with them in their opinion that Parliament should not only be asked to legalize the formation of synods, but to decide on all the details of their constitution. The Bill was adopted by the Conference held immediately after at Newcastle, with the addition that it should be made compulsory on the Metropolitan to summon a provincial synod of bishops and elected members of clergy and laity, as soon as three dioceses should be formed in New South Wales. A private Bill was introduced into the Legislative Council towards the end of 1859, but was withdrawn for the further consideration of the Church on the point of the bishop's veto.

The next Conference was called to meet in Sydney on February 7, 1865, by which time a conflict had become imminent in the matter of what should be held to constitute a legal synod. Since the abortive attempt of 1861, both the Metropolitan and the Bishop of Newcastle had advanced considerably in their views of what was requisite for a permanent foundation. The draft Bill was prepared by Canon Allwood. An amendment was proposed by Mr. Robert Johnson, M.L.C., and adopted, for the appointment of a committee to frame fundamental constitutions, based on the Bill of 1858 as amended, and to obtain legislative sanction thereupon, for the synod to manage the property of the Church accordingly. The committee was appointed, and submitted a series of constitutions on March 15, which were passed by a large majority. The draft Bill [88/89] was to have been at once introduced into the Legislative Assembly, and a Select Committee asked for, when a further delay occurred through the prorogation of Parliament. An adjourned Conference was thereby rendered necessary, which met on September 26, and passed resolutions for the convening of a united Conference of the bishops and clergy and lay representatives of all the Australian dioceses. It was also resolved that "it is necessary to recognize the inherent and independent rights of the diocese," and that "a revision of the constitution based on the foregoing principle is imperatively needed."

Since the Conference of 1858, the Bishop of Newcastle had come to the conclusion that the Church was free to meet in synod without any legislative sanction at all, without even an Enabling Act, in which latter, however, he was willing to concur in deference to the fears of the Metropolitan. He thought, moreover, that provincial action should take precedence of diocesan. The Sydney Conference had acted wrongly, in his opinion, in not making immediate provision for a provincial synod, and he gave notice that unless the Metropolitan see retraced its steps, he would petition against their Bill, which eventually he did with success. Bishop Tyrrell's hands had been greatly strengthened by the Privy Council Judgment of 1856, in the case of Long v. the Bishop of Capetown, that "the bishop had acted as though letters patent conferred on him an authority which at the time her Majesty had no power to grant, and that it was important to set at rest the various questions raised by the suit." Acting on this judgment, the New Zealand bishops had craved permission "to resign their letters patent, and to be allowed to rely in future upon the powers inherent in their office for perpetuating the succession of their order within the colony of New Zealand." The Bishop of Adelaide was heart and soul with them in so doing, [89/90] completing, if anything more were needed, the conversion of the Bishop of Newcastle to their views. Their experience coincided with his own belief in the Divine origin and entire freedom of the Church.

On August 15, 1865, the diocese of Newcastle met in synod to give effect to its bishop's expressed beliefs. It claimed an inherent right, as a spiritual voluntary society not connected with the State, to make bye-laws not at variance with any law of the land, to be binding on her own members. A draft "Temporalities Bill" was framed for submission to the Provincial Conference, at its meeting, April 11, 1866. At the intervening Conference on September 26, 1865, the Chancellors of Sydney and Goulburn clung tenaciously to the valueless letters patent, and pinned their faith to legislative sanction. Their representatives were pledged to allow no alteration. It was with difficulty the Newcastle representatives obtained leave to introduce any provision for the proposed provincial synod, and when at last the Sydney Chancellor moved to subordinate the provincial synod to the diocesan, Bishop Tyrrell stoutly protested against the proposal as unprecedented and un-Catholic, and moved the omission of all but the management of Church property from the scope of parliamentary control. Although outvoted at the time, his lordship's wishes were partially met in the completed measure. At about the same time a circular was addressed by Bishop Tait of London, to the members of the Colonial Episcopate, asking for their views respecting the "desirability, or otherwise, of all bishops in British colonies receiving their mission from the see of Canterbury, and taking the oath of canonical obedience to the Archbishop." The Bishop of Newcastle replied that, as the mission had been given by letters patent, it did not reside in the Archbishop of Canterbury, that it should now be given by the provincial synod, and that the bishop-elect should be consecrated [90/91] by his comprovincial bishops. He objected to any appeal beyond the limits of the colony, and declared against the royal supremacy, as applicable only to an Established Church. Not even a 1oyal mandate was in his opinion required for consecration.

In these protests, extreme as they were deemed at the time to be, Bishop Tyrrell had the support of an important dispatch from the Duke of Newcastle relating to the Capetown crisis. The dispatch, in brief, laid down as an undeniable principle, governing the Church everywhere, where an independent legislature had been granted: (1) That the Church of England was in no better position, but in no worse, than any other religious body; and (2) that her members may adopt, as may the members of any other communion, rules for enforcing discipline, which will be binding on those who have assented to them, provided they are not contrary to existing laws. Fortified by the terms of this dispatch, the diocese of Newcastle finally abandoned the "figment of authority" conferred by letters patent, which was so stoutly contended for by the bishops and chancellors of Sydney and Goulburn.

DIOCESE OF BRISBANE

When the separation was proposed of Queensland from the mother colony of New South Wales, and its erection into a separate colony, to include all the enormous territory to the far north-east of the continent, an urgent appeal was made by the Bishop of Newcastle, in whose diocese the settled portions of Moreton Bay were situated, for the formation of a new diocese to correspond. Of the £5000 required for endowment, he guaranteed to raise £3000, and by September 1858, the whole amount was lodged in the hands of the Committee of the "Colonial Bishoprics [91/92] Fund." The "S.P.C.K." and "S.P.G." each granted £1000 towards the total amount.

The district of Moreton Bay was discovered and explored by Lieutenant Oxley, who had been sent by Sir Thomas Brisbane to provide an outlet for convict prisoners. Proceeding as far north as Port Essington, he returned to Sydney in 1823, and on the voyage back put into Moreton Bay, giving the name of Brisbane to a settlement about sixteen miles up the river flowing into the bay. Thirty of the worst offenders were immediately dispatched, and before the end of four years the settlement numbered a thousand souls. Unhappily the same mistake exactly was made as was made in the original design of the parent colony. No clergyman or religious instructor was thought of, and all that could be done in the emergency was to entrust to the officers' charge as many Bibles and Prayer-books as could be spared at the moment. During the period of 1824-1840 there were eight commandants in charge, with an unlimited power of discipline. In 1839 the sending of criminals to Moreton Bay was stopped, and in 1842 the whole of the surrounding country, and far inland, was thrown open for settlement. Vast plains, scarcely undulating and enclosed by sundry streams and rivulets, were found in the western interior, most suitable for the grazing of the rapidly increasing flocks of sheep. The air was dry--the skies of a cloudless blue, deepening after sunset to a rich purple. Means of transit formed of course the chief necessity for further expansion, and we can enter into the feelings of the pioneer settlers when they were wont to turn out in a mass to meet the night coach as it drew up at the rough bush post-office, their only source of communication with the outside world. River traffic was possible as far as Ipswich, a distance of fifty-two miles, shortened to twenty-five miles by road. Bullock [92/93] teams brought periodical supplies of food, and took back the clips of wool to the seaport.

The consecration of the Right Rev. Edward Wyndham Tufnell realized the long-cherished wish of the Bishop of Newcastle for the subdivision of his unwieldy see. To add to his anxieties, his two senior clergy--Canon Rusden of East Maitland, and Canon Wilton of Newcastle--had been called to their rest. Bishop Tufnell arrived during August 1860, with six clergy and several lay-helpers. They were met and welcomed in Sydney by Bishop Tyrrell, who took them back with him to Newcastle, and after a splendid reception there, speeded them on their way to Brisbane the same afternoon.

In the fourth year of its separate existence the diocesan received an official visit from the Metropolitan, who had just returned from his trip to the old country with the good news of the Bishop of Goulburn's consecration and expected arrival. It was in July, the height of the lovely winter weather of Brisbane. Sir George and Lady Bowen received the visitors at Government House, Mrs. Barker being of the party. A public meeting tendered its respectful welcome, and three weeks were profitably spent in impressing on the members of the Church the essential unity which bound them together, despite geographical divisions.

Bishop Patteson was in Sydney when the Metropolitan got back, on a mission to entreat sympathy with his work in Melanesia. At a public meeting held under the presidency of the governor, Sir John Young, the deepest interest was aroused; among other things resulting in the annual contribution of the Sunday Schools of Australia towards the education and maintenance of the young Melanesian islanders in training, which has been continued ever since. The sum of £10 maintains and educates one boy or girl at Norfolk Island.

[94] DIOCESE OF GOULBURN

On April 20, 1860, the Metropolitan, accompanied by the Bishop of Newcastle--after a meeting at Morpeth of much mutual pleasure and profit--paid a long-contemplated visit to Tasmania. They were received by the bishop and Archdeacon Davies with every demonstration of respect, twenty-five of the clergy being present at the visitation held in St. David's Cathedral, Hobart Town, and twenty at the subsequent visitation at St. John's, Launceston, at the northern end of the island.

A long and toilsome tour of the south-western districts, at the end of the year, paved the way finally for the formation of a new see, with Goulburn for its centre. Many years previously Bishop Broughton had been convinced of the necessity of the subdivision of his diocese in this direction. The hardships and difficulties, to say nothing of the loss of time accompanying these remote journeys, were growing each year more irksome. There were places here and there which could not possibly be visited oftener than once in four or five years, and exceptional districts that could not be reached at all in the usual course. That the time had come for the inevitable separation was agreed by all the clergy and laity of the southern portion of the colony. An endowment fund was started, to be fixed at £12,000, afterwards increased to £15,000. The bishop proceeded to England the following year for the purpose of choosing a suitable priest, and, on the nomination of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the choice fell on the Rev. Mesac Thomas, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, then secretary of the "Colonial and Continental Church Society." His consecration took place at Canterbury on March 25, 1863, the Primate being assisted by the Bishop [94/95] of Worcester and the Bishops of Sydney and Melbourne. Bishop Thomas arrived in Sydney on March 14, 1864, in time to gladden the heart of the Metropolitan, who was in the midst of a lengthy series of confirmations, awaiting his return. The new bishop was cordially welcomed at a thanksgiving service in St. James's Church, was escorted to Melbourne by his Metropolitan, and duly installed in the pro-cathedral of St. Saviour in his own diocese, thus further relieving the mother diocese of a huge territory, with its increasingly heavy duties and incessant travel. The number of clergy handed over with the see was about twenty "men, with whom any bishop might be happy to co-operate," writes Bishop Thomas, when recalling his earlier experiences. The question of clergy supply lay in fact at the foundation of all diocesan work throughout the continent. It was the hope of obtaining additional workers, combined with the need of rest and change, which decided the Metropolitan on his journey to England. He was fortunate in his quest, for of the many who offered themselves eight were chosen. Many more would probably have been selected had it not been for the very special qualifications desired, and the uncertainty of adequate remuneration. Since the bishop had left Sydney the New South Wales Legislature had passed an Act abolishing all grants in aid of religion beyond those made to existing incumbents. The Bill was reserved for her Majesty's approval, owing to the strong opposition, but passed in the end. English Churchmen, speaking generally, had no accurate knowledge of Australian wants, and consequently did not feel the sympathy with them that could be wished for; hence the necessity for some one like the Metropolitan to go through the length and breadth of the land, preaching and exhorting continually. His advocacy was liberally responded to, notably in the cause of [95/96] his theological college at the new Liverpool of the antipodes, his appeals for which were met in his old diocese of Liverpool alone by gifts amounting to £2000. From other sources the sum was raised to £4000.

FORMATION OF SYNODS

On December 5, 1866, the Metropolitan Bishop of Sydney met his first synod, which proceeded to consider, among other matters, the desirableness of making better arrangements for the due celebration of marriages; the mode of appointment of clergymen to parochial cures; the relations of the Church in the colony to the mother Church of England; the enact-ment of a tribunal ordinance; and the framing of a constitution for St. Andrew's Cathedral, rapidly approaching completion. The further consideration of most of the subjects was referred to select committees for presentation at the next session. With regard to the more pressing matter, a Bill had been introduced into the Imperial Parliament by Mr. Cardwell, "to remove doubts as to the effect of letters patent granted to certain colonial bishops, and to amend the law with respect to bishops and clergy in the colonies." The Bill met with scant courtesy at the hands of some of the leading members of the synod. A petition was drawn up, to be forwarded to both Houses of the imperial legislature, as well as to both Houses of Convocation, praying that no consecration may take place of bishops, in and for the colonies, in a manner contrary to the long-established ordinances of the Church, or tending to the weakening of the connection of the Church with the Church in the United Kingdom. The synod met for its second session on August 20, 1867, when the right rev. [96/97] president was able to announce the probable arrival of an addition to the episcopal ranks--the bishop of the new see of Grafton and Armidale.

The visit, in 1868, of Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand, on his way to Lichfield, was taken advantage of by the Bishop of Newcastle to gain support for his statement of claim on behalf of the Divine authority inherent in the Church, apart from the secular power; the bishops and chancellors of Sydney and Goulburn holding the opposite view. At his suggestion the Metropolitan summoned the Bishops of Melbourne, New Zealand, and Newcastle, to confer with himself on the subject, which tended happily to "a visible moderating of previous differences." The consecration of St. Andrew's Cathedral, at the end of November, gave opportunity for a still wider discussion. Seven of the bishops of Australia and Tasmania were present, the Bishop of Perth being the only absentee. The conclusions arrived at were:--

1. The relation of the Church of England in Australia is one of identity of doctrine and worship, and subject as far as practicable to the law of the Church of England.

2. The election of colonial bishops, whatever be the mode adopted, should be confirmed by the bishops of the province.

3. A general synod should be constituted, consisting of bishops and representatives of the clergy and laity in the several dioceses comprised within the province, with the object of maintaining the relations of the Church in the province of Australia to the Church both at home and in the various colonies, as well as to secure unity of doctrine and discipline.

4. The general synod should constitute a tribunal to which there should be a right of appeal from any bishop or diocesan tribunal in the province in cases involving faith and worship.

[98] 5. Every bishop of the province should, at his consecration, take an oath of canonical obedience to the Metropolitan.

Respecting the efficacy of letters patent to confer territorial jurisdiction, there was a wide divergence of opinion; the Bishops of Sydney, Melbourne, and Goulburn holding the favourable view, until overruled by an adverse judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The majority expressed a hope that letters patent would continue to be issued, "so long as practicable," assigning to bishops a territorial sphere of action.

The session of synod for 1868 made its commencement in Sydney on August 5. In his opening address the bishop, while congratulating the Church on the utterance of the eighty-two bishops assembled at Lambeth in the previous year, took exception to one of their recommendations relating to synodical government. The bishops had resolved, "that a provincial synod may make or authorize alterations in the services of the Church required by the circumstances of the province." To this Bishop Barker objected, preferring the 27th constitution of the local Church Act, "that no rule, ordinance, or determination of any diocese or provincial synod shall make any alteration in the articles, liturgy, or formularies of the Church, except in conformity with any alterations which may be made by a competent authority of the United Church of England and Ireland in the United Kingdom." The bishops had also recommended, "that a provincial tribunal of appeal should be established by the provincial synod." To this, too, the Metropolitan objected, if the effect of it should be meant to supersede the right of appeal to the Queen in Council.

A tribunal ordinance was introduced and passed by the synod, providing for the initiation of a charge [98/99] by the bishop, or by any person making complaint to the bishop in writing; the bishop to decide upon the existence of a prima facie ground for the charge; the accused to submit himself to the summary judgment of his diocesan, if he shall so elect, or be cited before a panel of triers, consisting of six clergy and six laymen, the bishop having power of suspension meanwhile, without deprivation of stipend. It was further resolved by the synod that the expediency of the amendment of the Church Act, 8 William IV., chapter v., be a subject of joint reference from the diocesan synods to the provincial synod of New South Wales.

One of the most important of the ordinances passed by the synod of 1868 was for the more satisfactory presentation to vacant benefices. Briefly summarized its enactments were:--

1. At the first session of every new synod three clergymen and three resident laymen shall be elected as a board of nominators.

2. At the meeting to be held in any parish or ecclesiastical district, the electors present may determine that, for the currency of that synod, the appointment of a clergyman may vest absolutely in the bishop, or in the synod board of nominators, together with the parochial board.

3. If the latter, then the electors may proceed to choose four persons, being communicants, to act as a parochial board of nominators with the churchwardens in office.

4. In the event of vacancy the board of nominators, in whom the appointment has been vested, shall present to the bishop.

5. The right of presentation shall not be allowed to any parish in which provision is not made for securing to the clergyman a stipend of at least £300 per annum, together with a suitable residence.

[100] 6. An appeal shall lie to the provincial synod of New South Wales.

The fourth session began its sittings on April 6, 1869, the seven bishops of Australia and Tasmania having met in Sydney in the interval to consider the question of the formation of a general synod. The Church Assembly of Melbourne had passed a resolution affirming the desirability of such synod for the entire province, and making the synod to consist of the bishops and representatives of the clergy and laity of all the colonies. On the motion of the Chancellor, the following matters were referred to the provincial synod, to meet some time before May 12:--

1. The mode of appointment and consecration of bishops.

2. The expediency of constituting a general synod for the province of Australia, and the nature of the functions of such synod if formed.

3. The expediency of such general synod constituting a tribunal of appeal, in cases where any question of faith or worship is involved, from the decision of diocesan bishops or tribunals, together with the expediency of constituting a council of reference in England from a general synod.

4. The desirability of a general synod constituting a tribunal for the trial of charges against a bishop within the province.

Among the subjects determined on at the meeting of bishops held in Sydney, November 23 ­ December 1, 1868, were:--

"That it is desirable, saving the rights of the Crown, that colonial bishops should be appointed by the Church of the diocese, the election to be confirmed by the bishops of the province, and the person so chosen and confirmed to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by the Metropolitan.

"That it is also desirable, so long as it is practicable, [100/101] that letters patent should continue to be issued assigning to the bishop a territorial sphere of action.

"That the diocesan synod may delegate its power to any bishop or bishops, or to such a body as the standing committee, or a specially-appointed permanent committee, or the cathedral chapter, or may nominate two or more clergymen, of whom the bishops of the province shall select one."

The first provincial synod of the three dioceses of Sydney, Newcastle, and Goulburn, within the colony of New South Wales, met at Sydney, May 1, 1869. The Metropolitan, who presided, expressed his congratulations upon the progress made towards the complete organization of the Church in Australia. The Very Rev. the Dean of Sydney was elected chairman of the House of Representatives. In the excited state of public feeling, there was naturally some sharpness of debate, but the session was by no means barren of result. Members learned to understand one another. A better and higher tone and spirit altogether prevailed than had hitherto existed.

The House of Bishops decided in the affirmative:--

1. The expediency of the formation of a general synod, but with no weakening of the previous connection between the Colonial Church and the Crown.

2. The desirableness of leaving the mode of election of bishops to the synod of each diocese.

3. The desirableness of constituting a tribunal of appeal from diocesan tribunals.

4. The desirableness of constituting a tribunal for the trial of bishops.

An open conference was asked for by the House of Representatives with the House of Bishops. The two Houses concurred in the resolutions, with minor amendments, except that the synod, by a majority, declined entering on the consideration of the tribunals or council of reference. The House of Bishops agreed [101/102] in thinking the formation of these tribunals premature. The House of Representatives amended the minute of the House of Bishops relating to the future election of bishops so as to read, "that it is most desirable that bishops in this province should continue to be appointed by the Crown under letters patent, assigning to each such bishop a territorial sphere of action, but that, nevertheless, each diocese should have a voice in such appointment." This was assented to.

CHURCH BUILDINGS

The fortunes of the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew varied with the varying vicissitudes of the colony. It was projected by Governor Lachlan Macquarie at a time when the country had no bishop, and the city practically no population. The 7000 or so living around the shores of Sydney Cove were served by the churches of St. Phillip's and St. James's. A few residences straggled along the line of George Street, and on the road to Parramatta. There were five or six chaplains at work, all of them more than fully occupied without the duties which would fall to a cathedral staff. Nevertheless, the Governor, who was an enthusiast in church building, but with no taste for graceful architecture, determined to start his cathedral, and in 1819 the foundation stone was laid. Alongside was the cemetery, at first .unenclosed and uncared-for, but after a good deal of urging, it was enclosed by a fence, then by a brick wall. On the site now stands the largest town-hall in the world, in the centre of a busy hive of commerce, peopled by nearly half-a-million souls. Being in advance of the times, and of the requirements of the Church, the building may be said to have made no progress whatever. When Archdeacon Broughton arrived in Sydney in 1829, [102/103] during the term of office of Sir Ralph Darling, he found many and great changes. Streets had been formed, inhabitants had increased, and a further church was beginning to be called for. But the archdeacon was wearied with much travelling. Parishes were being organized in all directions; churches and parsonages in the new centres took up the whole of his time and thoughts, so the cathedral remained in much the same inchoate condition. In 1836 he returned from an English trip, the consecrated Bishop of Australia. A vast change had come over the spirit of Church architecture in the meantime. Instead of the heavy and unsightly fabrics, of which we have abiding examples in St. James's, Sydney; St. Matthew's, Windsor; St. Stephen's, Penrith, and others, marking the early Australian style, if they can be said to have a style at all,--Gothic architecture was growing in favour, as it was gradually becoming better known and understood. The bishop was in favour of taking St. Mary's at Oxford for a standard for nave and aisles, and the beautiful tower of Magdalen College for the crowning of the work. In 1837 the old foundation of eighteen years before was taken up and relaid by Sir Richard Bourke, now governor. Before the walls were finished, one of those disastrous droughts which periodically afflict the Australian continent, produced a general depression, which sufficed to bring the works to a complete standstill. For five years the advance was slow; for the next five years the gates were altogether closed. Again in 1846, a number of Churchmen, thinking the time had come when a more spirited effort should be made to provide a cathedral church for the diocese, set to work to raise the necessary funds. As in the previous waiting time, so in this, great changes had passed over the city. A new parish had been formed at the top of Brickfield Hill--Christchurch, St. Lawrence. St. Paul's, [103/104] Chippendale, was contemplated. There were also the same changes-- may we not say advances--in the public mind respecting church building. Solid stone was decided on in place of plastered interior walls. The roof was to be open-timbered and painted. Two western towers were designed to span the last bays of the aisles. While rival proposals threatened to once more put a stop to progress, a timely visit from Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand offered an opportunity for arbitration. He threw his influence strongly on the side of the western towers, also in favour of lengthening the nave and aisles by two bays. A greater length could not unfortunately be had, because, while all these delays had been hindering the work, the spare ground to the westward had been made over to other parties. The building was proceeded with in September 1846, to be pushed on without any considerable break to its opening in 1868. Of course the rush for the gold-fields in 1851 affected the cathedral in common with every building in process of erection at the time. The sudden rise in the wages of masons from six shillings to twenty-six shillings per day reduced builders to a state bordering on despair.

The cathedral--at last sufficiently completed for Divine service at a total cost of about £60,000--was consecrated on St. Andrew's Day, 1868. The western towers were finished in 1874. A chapter-house was added as a memorial of Bishop Barker, to be used also as a synod-hall, and was occupied for the first time at the session of the General Synod in 1886. At the enthronement of Bishop Barry in 1888, the offertory, amounting to £450, was expended in providing a new reredos, after a design by T. L. Pearson, Esq., R.A., which includes bas-reliefs in alabaster of the Transfiguration, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord.

The non-religious character of the university charter [104/105] led to the establishment of affiliated colleges as hostels for the students, and a means of theological teaching. St. Paul's College was the first to be provided, the Church of England being quick to recognize its necessity. On St. Paul's Day, 1856, his Excellency, Sir William Denison, laid the first stone. The outlay was some £34,000, the Government contributing pound for pound, and setting apart £500 as a yearly income for the warden.

Moore College, founded in 1856 for the training of candidates for holy orders, was enlarged and partially endowed by gifts from Bishop Barker's old diocese of Liverpool. Early in the year 1868, the college lost the valuable services of its first principal, the Rev. William Hodgson, M.A., by his return to the old country. Under his guidance the institution had greatly flourished. His place was filled by the appointment of the Rev. Robert Lethbridge King, of St. John's College, Cambridge, grandson of the governor, Philip Gidley King, who had rendered such signal service in the early days of the colony, both at Norfolk Island and at Sydney. In the year 1889 it was thought well to transfer the college to the neighbourhood of the metropolis, where a site has been found adjoining the affiliated college of St. Paul, in the university grounds. Many Churchmen have never ceased to regret the sacrifice of the beautiful little Broughton chapel, with its hallowed associations.

In the King's School, Parramatta, the Church had for a number of years a centre for the higher-class education of boys. In its foundation it was assisted from Government funds. Its first head-master was a Government chaplain resident. From the year 1832 it met with much success, educating as it did many leading men of various walks in life. But soon it became the point of attack for politicians hostile to any system of Church or even religious education; [105/106] hence it was made to pass through many changes of fortune. In January 1869 it was resuscitated by the exertions of the Rev. George Fairfowle Macarthur, who remained its head-master for seven years. During 1885 the school was brought under the control of a council appointed by the synod of the diocese, and incorporated by Act of Parliament.

Year by year the Clergy Daughters' School at Waverley continued to be of infinite service to the country clergy in the higher education of their girls. It stood upon three and a half acres of land granted by the Government. The cost of board and education to the sixteen foundationers was fixed at £25 per annum. But the buildings were extended, and the scope of the institution considerably widened in 1886, in loving memory of its foundress.

VICTORIAN CHURCH FINANCE

Whereas the gold fever doubled and even quadrupled the population, the number of clergy remained almost stationary. Death and sickness had been busy in the clerical ranks. Curates especially were urgently needed--a matter feelingly referred to by the bishop in one of his earlier Church assemblies: "There was not a single church either in Melbourne or Geelong, the two most populous centres, with two working clergymen in it." Clearly his lordship was right in thinking that it "ought not to be so." His visit to England served but to deepen his regret that something approaching home organization should not be attempted here. The cessation of State aid in November 1869 rendered the problem of adequate support even more hopeless. It was to take effect in the course of five years. Land that had been given was to be restored. What was still worse, the customary grants from England were [106/107] gradually being lessened as the Government aid was being gradually taken away. To meet the crisis, help was once more extended from the two great home societies, the "S.P.C.K." promising a grant of £2000 for each diocese, against £8000 raised locally, and the "S.P.G." a grant of £1000, on the like conditions, viz. against a local contribution of £4000 within five years.

Much worn by constant journeyings and the growing cares of the more distant parts of his diocese, the bishop in 1870 advocated the subdivision of his diocese, or the appointment of a coadjutor-bishop. The Church Assembly, while agreeing in the main, was not disposed to grant the jus successionis, and so the matter fell to the ground for that year.

During the previous year steps had been taken with a view to the erection of a cathedral church. Plans and estimates were procured for a building to cost £75,000, exclusive of tower and fittings. Pending the carrying out of such an extensive plan, the constitution of a cathedral chapter was adopted in anticipation, but not finally confirmed until 1878. The chapter was to consist of the bishop, the dean, the two senior archdeacons, six clerical and six lay canons elected for life by the assembly, and two clerical and two lay canons nominated by the bishop.

In December 1858 Castlemaine was formed into an archdeaconry, and the Rev. Archibald Crawford advanced to the post. In common with other of the gold-fields this district had been subject to many and great vicissitudes. By the terms of the original Patronage Act of Victoria, a first vote was given to all contributors of £2. A contribution of £100 conferred a second vote, and each additional gift of £100 carried with it an additional vote. The unsatisfactory character of the measure was being continually felt in practice--notably at an election of [107/108] trustees for St. Mark's, Collingwood, one of the rising suburbs of Melbourne. An amending Act was consequently passed in 1870, by which a standing board of nominators was to be appointed, quite independent of any specific vacancy in the parish concerned. A system of selection was organized, the bishop to have the right of one turn in three. This was in its turn abolished by a later Church Assembly, in favour of a settlement which gave power to the diocese to elect three nominators, who should join three others elected by the parish: the bishop to preside and have an independent vote, as well as a casting vote if necessary.

The blunder of issuing letters patent to newly-appointed bishops after they had been declared inoperative in self-governing colonies, became more and more apparent as time went on, and in many cases blocked the way to a free management by the Church of her financial concerns. A precisely similar ill effect was caused when a new diocese had to be created, and a new bishop consecrated. The difficulty had been partly met in Victoria, by obtaining for the Church constitutions a legislative enactment, which provided that they should be recorded in the Supreme Court, and that for all purposes relating to Church property they should be legally binding, as if in a specific deed of trust, unless expressly ordered otherwise. The Church Assembly in 1877 adopted the plan of appointing by ballot six of the clergy and six laymen, to hold office for three years, with power to make an independent election in case of a vacancy in the see, subject, however, to confirmation by a majority of the bench of bishops. The Queen's mandate was not mentioned.

One of the first provisions of the Assembly had been to vest the management of every consecrated church in the vestry and churchwardens--one fourth of whom were to be nominated by the incumbent, [108/109] The Act to provide for unconsecrated churches was obtained from the Victorian Legislature later on, in 1885, by which a "Trusts Corporation" was formed specially for that purpose.

At the end of 1861 the Diocesan Council advised that either the bishop or some other suitable clergyman of the diocese should go to England to secure an addition to the clerical staff. It was decided in the following year that the bishop himself should undertake the mission, accompanied by one of his clergy. The great dearth of candidates for the ministry, and the many drawbacks in the way of their adequate training for holy orders, in sufficient numbers, led the bishop to organize a large scheme of lay agency. As a substitute for the unattainable, it was extremely successful. The diocese of Melbourne has to this day the largest and best equipped band of lay helpers in Australia.

DIOCESE OF PERTH

Although the south-western coast of Australia, broken by the estuary of the picturesque Swan River, has always been the least known, and the most sparsely populated of the settled portions of the continent, yet it was the first to be discovered. As long back as the year 1527, the navigator Menezes sighted it when exploring the Indian Ocean. The famous Dirk Hartog renewed acquaintance with its north-western shores in 1616. In 1665 it was named New Holland by the Dutch after sundry casual visits. Coming to modern days, Major Lockyer was dispatched to Western Australia with a party of convicts and a detachment of the 39th Regiment, to take possession of King George's Sound, and to hold it as a dependency of the mother colony of New South Wales. [109/110] During the next two years, Captain Fremantle, of H.M.S. Challenger, hoisted the British flag at the port since bearing his name at the mouth of the Swan River. The settlement was not a financial or a commercial success. The settlers were in perpetual strife with the aboriginal inhabitants. Employers were on bad terms with their labourers. The soil was unfavourable, the seasons wretched, the roads were bush-tracks, and the food-supply insufficient. And so in 1848, reduced to a state of utter helplessness, the few who had remained so far from eastern civilization, prayed that convicts might be sent to them to help till the land, and generally to rescue the country from despair. To obviate the evils of an unmixed convictism, a guarantee was given that an equal number of free settlers should be introduced.

At a very early date after his consecration and arrival on the scene of his labours, Bishop Short had made the journey from Adelaide to oversee the churches. From Albany, King George's Sound, he travelled overland to Perth. All along the route he found excellent work in progress, and he had been received on all hands with acclamation. But it was evident that so distant a settlement, and one-of such growing importance, could not be left to the chance visits of a diocesan who had already more duties than he could possibly overtake satisfactorily at home. And so, when the new see of Perth was created in 1856, the Bishop of Adelaide felt greatly relieved in being spared his most distant and certainly his most troublesome journeyings. The appointment of Archdeacon Hale to the post was welcomed by everybody who knew his splendid work amongst the aborigines, as well as the unaffected respect he had won from all classes of European colonists.

The problem of a sufficient supply of clergy was solved by the Government retaining the chaplaincies [110/111] largely in its own hands. The colony differed in this as in so many other respects from its southern and eastern confrères, owing to the strong imperial element remaining up to a very late period. In Perth there are more Government officers connected with the Church than even in the little island-diocese of Tasmania, once so largely imperial. In the matter of education, religious instruction was given in the elementary schools during one hour of the day, leaving four hours for secular teaching. The Bible was read and such religious books allowed as were appointed by the Central Board. No catechisms were used, and for the protection of parents who desired it, a conscience clause was in operation of a sufficiently stringent nature.

DIOCESE OF BATHURST

Instead of the Metropolitan's labours being lessened by his loss of the enormous south and south-western districts of the colony, now the see of Goulburn, they seemed rather to press upon him with accumulated force. His western tours were rendered, it is true, somewhat more frequent, but the claims of the Metropolitan area were fast becoming, not only urgent, but absorbing. On a prolonged visit to the far west in 1864, Bishop Barker had carefully broached the subject of a separate bishopric, which was taken up with approval, but advanced slowly in public favour, on account of the paucity of funds. The project, however, was never allowed to sleep, and a year afterwards we find the bishop again in the west, in earnest consultation with the squatters and leading laymen of Bathurst and neighbourhood. In 1866 his visitation was extended much farther than usual, with a view to the making of a final and supreme effort to achieve the [111/112] long-wished-for separation. In the outside districts he got the lay Churchmen together, and convinced them that the territory was far too vast for efficient supervision from the seaboard. An increased number of clergy was imperatively demanded, with a bishop of their own to guide and advise. About £5000 was raised towards these pressing needs. Actual steps were taken to formulate some plan by which the formation of the new see might be hastened.

Again, on May 6, 1867, the Metropolitan, on almost his last western round, called together the bishopric committee, which had been appointed, to receive their report. All things considered, the report may be spoken of as fairly favourable. It was found that the operations of the Central Church Society had been of immense advantage. Of the eight western clergy, six were in part maintained by its help, while eleven churches had been built, and three school-churches. The endowment of the proposed see was gradually being subscribed.

Two more years elapsed before the next material step was taken, which proved fortunately to be the final one. By the year 1869, all preliminaries were settled, and the last condition fulfilled by the appointment of the Rev. Samuel Edward Marsden as first bishop. Numberless old memories were revived and new associations formed by this choice. A native of Sydney, and a grandson of the heroic Samuel Marsden of Parramatta, of Maori missionary fame, the new prelate would be welcomed to Australia with no ordinary warmth.

The bishop arrived in Sydney on March 16, 1870. After the usual cordial greetings from his co-Churchmen, clerical and lay, and being much cheered thereby, he was accompanied to Bathurst by the Metropolitan on May 3, and there installed in his own Cathedral of All Saints, on the 5th of the same month. Thus once more [112/113] was Bishop Barker relieved from the stress of his anxieties by the cutting-off of another huge tract of the interior from his hitherto unwieldy see. Thenceforward the lot of the newly-divided see flowed evenly along, becoming year by year more closely identified with the common progress of the colony.

DIOCESE OF NORTH QUEENSLAND

Bathurst being now safely provided for, and its new diocesan manfully at work, west, north, and south, there remained but one outlying portion of the Metropolitan see to cause trouble and anxiety. This was in North Queensland, which came under the Primate's ken, because it was in no other diocese. Access to it was to be gained only by sea, involving a voyage, not always smooth, of over a thousand miles, and an unlimited amount of bush-travelling, from the several ports at which steamers were wont to call. It was about the month of June 1874 that Bishop Barker first made known his great wish that North Queensland should be made into a separate see. The obstacles were well-nigh insuperable. With the Rev. R. L. King as companion, one of the distinguished family which has deserved well of Australian colonists of every degree, he set out for the far north on a mission of inquiry. Towards the financial requirements, the Bishop of Brisbane promised £1000, the "S.P.G." £1000, and the "Colonial Bishoprics Fund" £1000. Thus encouraged, the Metropolitan made a further strenuous effort in 1876, this time accompanied by the Rev. Stanley Howard, a delicate and lovable priest of his diocese, since called to his rest. The visit was necessarily a long one, culminating in the successful formation of the see. The Metropolitan left for England on March 13, 1877, and was cheered by finding a priest [113/114] thoroughly qualified for the missionary diocese. The Rev. George Henry Stanton, vicar of Holy Trinity, St. Giles's in the Fields, was appointed bishop in 1878. On arrival in Sydney on April 1879, he was welcomed at various meetings, as well as by a large gathering of Churchmen at Bishopscourt, in which the Bishop of Brisbane was able to take part, he being in Sydney on business connected with the Australasian Board of Missions. It is worthy of note that the Rev. Copland King, a son of the Rev. R. L. King, Bishop Barker's companion in travel, has for some years led the van of the New Guinea Mission, off the shores of North Queensland.

A YEAR OF SYNODS

The year 1872 was marked by a succession of synods. At Newcastle the bishop, as president of the diocesan synod, enunciated some very plain truths. He objected altogether to the custom of having bishops intended for a colonial province consecrated in England, as involving "the sad unreality of taking an oath of canonical obedience to the wrong authority. In the early Church the patriarch was consecrated by the bishops of his own patriarchate; so it should be here. The office of Metropolitan and Archbishop was precisely the same." A weighty pronouncement which, read in the light of recent events, testifies to the remarkable prescience of Bishop Tyrrell.

On October 10 a General Conference met in Sydney, which distinguishes this year as an epoch in the development of the Australian Church. After preliminary debate, it was determined "that this Conference do now resolve itself into the General Synod of the Dioceses of Australia and Tasmania, in conformity with its constitution, which has been adopted." Thus

[114/115] was formed the first general synod, completing the gradation of diocesan, provincial, and general, with however the curious and unprecedented anomaly of striving to balance the triangle on its apex instead of on its base. Diocesan jealousy effectually prevented the natural gradation, and retained for itself the diocese as the unit. All measures were to be submitted to the diocesan synod for approval before acceptance. Three subjects were referred to select committees, and determinations founded on their reports were passed by the synod:--

1. The constitution of an appellate tribunal.

2. Rules for the confirmation and due consecration of future bishops, and the election of future primates.

3. Rules for the formation of new dioceses and provinces were eventually reserved till the next session.

There were present, in addition to the Metropolitan Bishop of Sydney, the Bishops of Newcastle, Goulburn, Bathurst, Grafton and Armidale, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Tasmania. The Bishop of Newcastle proposed to make the general synod supreme over provincial and diocesan synods as in a natural sequence, but, recognizing the overwhelming opposition to any such proposal, did not press the point. He was more successful in the matter of an appellate tribunal, to which appeals were to be made from all diocesan tribunals. He secured that the tribunal should be one of final appeal, and that no right of appeal from its decisions should lie with parties to causes, only with the appellate committee themselves.

Bishops were to be elected in future according to regulations laid down by each diocese in synod assembled, the confirmation in all cases to be by the bishops of the province. They were to be consecrated by three bishops at least, one of whom should be the Metropolitan of the province or the Primate. The Primate should be elected by the House of [115/116] Bishops from their own number. The Australasian Board of Missions was re-elected, and provision made for its continuance.

The General Synod met for its second session on October 3, 1876. There were nine bishops present, the Bishops of Melbourne and Perth being unavoidably absent. It was at this session that the Metropolitan urgently pleaded for the establishment of a separate diocese for North Queensland. He reported that to supplement the £4000 promised towards the endowment the "S.P.G." would give £400 per annum. A determination for the formation of the diocese was passed unanimously.

The next session of 1881 found the Metropolitan in England in serious ill-health. Bishop Moorhouse of Melbourne presided. Rules for the formation of new provinces, and for the regulation of the status of new metropolitans were adopted. It was determined that the Bishop of Sydney should remain Primate, and that on the next voidance of the see the dioceses of New South Wales should be deemed to form a province, of which the Bishop of Sydney should be Metropolitan. Rules were then adopted for the appointment of future bishops of Sydney, to conserve the three interests involved, of the diocese, the province, and the Church. Of the two methods proposed, viz. the submission of three names by the diocesan synod, one of which should be struck out by the bishops of the province, and a second by the Australian bench of bishops, or the appointment of a committee by the diocese to meet the other two bodies for an election by concurrent majorities--the former of the two was adopted. Rules were also passed for the trial of bishops for certain offences. The synod was held at a critical time. Bishop Barker's life hung in the balance, and there was a danger lest the diocese of Sydney should elect a new bishop before satisfactory [116/117] arrangements had been made as to the position he would occupy with relation to the other Australian dioceses. These fears were justified by the lamented death of the Metropolitan at San Remo in 1882, after an arduous and honourable episcopate of twenty-eight years. His successor in the see was the Rev. Canon Barry, Principal of King's College, London. The new method of election proving cumbrous and unsatisfactory, the new Primate was in reality chosen and sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

At a further session, held in 1886, a Church mission to New Guinea was determined upon, and earnestly commended to the support of the several dioceses.

DIOCESE OF GRAFTON AND ARMIDALE

At the diocesan synod meeting in Sydney, on August 20, 1867, the right rev. the president was able to announce the probable arrival of a bishop for Grafton and Armidale before the close of the year. Bishop Tyrrell's efforts had been long and strenuously directed towards this subdivision of his diocese. The progress of settlement on the fine New England tableland had been rapid and profitable. Along the belt of coast country, too, population had pushed northward to the Queensland border, embracing a strip of country of great fertility, suitable for the growth of sugar and fruits. Grafton, on the Clarence River, occupied the central position, and was the seat of an increasing population with a thriving commerce. It was proposed to unite the two districts, lying mainly cast and west, and so to relieve the congested diocese of Newcastle of all its northern territory. Before the separation of Brisbane it lay on the track thither, consequently could be visited in a brief and hasty manner by the way; now it seemed to lie beyond the interests of [117/118] Newcastle altogether, as much on account of the diversity of occupations of the people as on account of the impracticable distances to be traversed. The centre of the new diocese would be Armidale on the table-land. Generous as always, Bishop Tyrrell guaranteed £5000 towards the endowment.

In the first instance the post of pioneer-bishop was offered to the Rev. S. R. Waddelow, but on the advice of a London physician he was reluctantly obliged to decline consecration. The Rev. W. C. Sawyer was selected in his place by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was consecrated in Canterbury Cathedral on the Feast of the Purification, 1867, together with the good Bishop Milman for Calcutta. The bishop and his party reached Sydney at Christmastide. Leaving his wife at Morpeth, under the hospitable roof of Bishop Tyrrell, he pushed on at once to the scene of his future labours, riding to Armidale and returning to Newcastle by way of his eastern boundary at Grafton. Eight weeks later he took his family by steamer to Grafton, where he settled them in their new home on the banks of the Clarence, on March 13, 1868. On the 13th the bishop drove to evensong, ordering that his boat should take him home. The church was very full, and the service more than usually solemn and impressive. Shortly before ten o'clock, on the return journey, with his second son, two servants, and the two boatmen, the sail was hoisted, when, by some mistake never satisfactorily explained, the boat was capsized by a sudden gust of wind. The bishop, his sleeping boy, and one of the women servants were drowned, the bodies not being recovered for two days. With true Australian sympathy offerings were immediately collected throughout the diocese for the widow and orphan, amounting in a few weeks to £1700. A fatal oversight had been committed by some one in not placing the bishop's life-belt in the [118/119] boat that night as usual. Bishop Sawyer was never even installed in office.

After a rather tedious delay, the Rev. James Francis Turner was nominated for the vacant see, and was consecrated in Westminster Abbey, on St. Matthias' Day, 1869. He arrived in Sydney on August 13, where he was greeted by the Bishop of Newcastle, as well as cordially welcomed by the clergy and lay Churchmen of the metropolis. This second subdivision of his diocese was an inestimable relief to Bishop Tyrrell. With a thankful heart he accompanied Bishop Turner to his installation at Armidale, and took a loving farewell of his former flock. For ten years longer he was spared to continue his devoted labours in the smaller area inland from Newcastle, literally dying in harness on March 24, 1879. With the single exception of his short cruise among the South Sea Islands, with his friend Bishop Selwyn, he never left Australian shores. All that he possessed, including very valuable sheep stations, he left in the hands of trustees for the extension of Church work. The name of William Tyrrell will live in the annals of the Australian 'Church as the single-minded Bishop of Newcastle.

DIOCESE OF BALLARAT

The beautiful city of Ballarat, about seventy-five miles to the north-west of Melbourne, rose to sudden importance on the discovery of gold in August 1851. Divine service was first held by a little band of Wesleyans in a "mia mia," or tent of boughs, such as the aborigines put together as a shelter from the weather. When the Rev. C. F. Perks was sent from St. Peter's, Melbourne, on a brief mission to "the diggings," he was compelled, like the first Australian [119/120] chaplain sixty years before him, to hold service in the open air. There was no church or settled ministry at the end of 1853, although the population had increased to 25,000. For these the Rev. J. H. Gregory provided occasional service. In June 1854, by the appointment of the Rev. T. C. B. Stretch as archdeacon, a new era was commenced. Churches and parsonages were built to meet the spiritual necessities of the ever-growing centres of Ballarat, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maryborough, and other goldfields. Naturally the more rapid the spread of Church agencies, the more arduous became the duties of the bishop. More than once Bishop Perry begged that his diocese might be divided, only to find first one difficulty and then another to bar the way. For the five years previous to his half-jubilee, as St. Peter's Day 1872 has been called by his biographer, the proposal had peacefully slept. The Ven. Archdeacon Stretch wisely and energetically collected funds in the meantime for the endowment when required. At length the plan was endorsed by authority, one of the leading laymen of Melbourne advocating the choice from the Australian clergy of a priest to be advanced to the episcopate. The idea was a most proper one, but shared the fate of most ideas propounded in advance of their day.

In the event the selection was left to the Bishop of Melbourne, who was to have the advice of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. An income of £1000 per annum was guaranteed. Their choice fell on the Rev. Samuel Thornton, Rector of St. George's, Birmingham, a man of equal energy and eloquence. The diocese had been determined on by an Act of the Melbourne Church Assembly on October 30, 1873, but did not come into actual existence until the consecration of its first bishop--a ceremony which took place on St. Philip and St. James's Day, 1875,in Westminster Abbey. The Primate was assisted by the Bishops of London, Melbourne, and Goulburn. On August 5 of the same year, the bishop arrived safely in Melbourne, and was welcomed with acclamation by all classes of his flock at Ballarat.

The first Church Assembly was summoned for November 23, when, of the thirty-five clergy, twenty-eight were present. There were also in the diocese a band of forty licensed readers, who were of incalculable service to the overworked incumbents of parishes. The population was estimated at 215,000, one-fourth of them at least members of the Church of England. In this, as in each succeeding assembly, a protest was made against the secular system of State education, and the necessity proclaimed of the re-introduction, whenever practicable, of religious instruction as a part of the teacher's work. On the literary tendencies of the day the bishop was especially severe, characterizing a good deal of what men were reading and writing as tainted by a "cynical, impatient disrelish for definite Christianity." A board of electors was chosen to act in case of a vacancy in the see for the appointment of a bishop, to consist of six clergymen and six laymen. In 1880 the number of churches had grown to ninety-four, with thirty-nine parsonages--an encouraging increase since the formation of the diocese.

The determinations 1 and 2 of the General Synod were unanimously adopted by the Church Assembly of 1881. An effort was at the same time made to secure an Education Act on the model of that of New South Wales, containing more liberal provisions for religious teaching, but without success. In 1883 the bishop visited England at the request of his diocesan council: 1. To establish fresh relations with the great English Church Societies, and in particular to secure, as other means had failed, a renewal of the noble offer of the "S.P.C.K." towards endowment, which [121/122] had lapsed from the inability of the diocese to fulfil the conditions. 2. To pave the way for the addition of suitable men from home to the working staff of the diocese as required. 3. To afford such information in England on Church affairs in Australia, as might correct former mistakes, and perhaps lead to financial help towards an endowment fund for sustaining and extending Church work in the poorer and more newly-settled districts.

The bishop preached during his mission over 200 sermons, and addressed seventy meetings. About £5000 was collected in all, to which the "S.P.C.K." added another £1000. The "Colonial and Continental Church Society" awarded a grant of £100 per annum. On his return the bishop pleaded for a greater elasticity in Church services, and protested against the slovenliness which was complained of by Bishop Selwyn as characteristic of colonial work. Sometimes a mean conduct of Divine worship was necessitated by poverty, but there was also prevalent "a morbid dread of Ritualism, which with some folks seemed to block the way to better church arrangements, as well as to a heartier and more comely worship." There were now forty-two clergy and seventy-six readers--sixty-one of them honorary.

In the matter of the Patronage Bill before the Church Assembly, the Rev. R. T. Cummins objected to the measure proposed in 1879, as giving no place to the laity in appointments. The existing system was criticized by the Rev. H. E. Cooper as too cumbrous and intricate in its machinery. Archdeacon Beamish held out for the absolute veto of the bishop, and suggested a Board to intervene between the parishes and the bishop, presided over by his lordship, who would have a vote with the other representatives, and a casting vote in case of equality. Full patronage should not be granted to any parish, except in return [122/123] for complete parochial endowment. The Bill ultimately provided that if the bishop and the parochial authorities failed to agree, the matter should be referred to the Board of electors of the diocese, whose decision should be final.

A clergy endowment fund was formed, to meet the conditions of "S.P.C.K." and "S.P.G." when promising their grants of £3000 to supplement the £12,000 to be raised by the bishop and the diocese. Considerably more was required to keep the Clergy Sustentation Fund in working order, and to overtake the fresh work imperatively called for. An appeal was made to relieve Bishopscourt from debt. The property on the shores of Lake Wendouree, just outside the city, had been purchased for about £5000, in place of building at a cost of £4000 as originally planned. A widows and orphans' fund, started in 1879, was being actively worked. An encouraging response was received to these appeals.

In 1884 it was moved that as the rebuilding of Christchurch pro-cathedral was in contemplation, advantage should be taken to discuss the possibility of erecting a more worthy cathedral church for the diocese on the same site. A select committee was appointed to report to the assembly. A corporate body of trustees was appointed, after the example of other dioceses. The cathedral committee reported at the next session in favour of the building, but decided against the duplicate collection of funds by the diocese and parish. Competitive designs were invited from Australian architects. Of the twenty-four designs sent in, the first premium was awarded to one by a Ballarat firm. It was resolved that the cathedral should be of stone, not to exceed £35,000 in cost, exclusive of tower and spire, and that a Cathedral Board should be appointed, to receive all contributions and to make investments. For the purpose of comparison, it was [123/124] stated that the cost of Goulburn Cathedral had been £8,000; of Adelaide, £17,000; of Hobart, £11,000.

The number of the clergy having increased to fifty-six, it was evident that the sustentation and superannuation funds must be considerably augmented. Unfortunately, each diocese had to struggle along with its own small scheme. Up to the present time the totals had reached about £16,252, besides the clergy endowment fund of nearly £17,000.

In connection with the recognition of the colonial clergy in England by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the "Colonial Clergy Act" of 1874 was condemned for its unsatisfactory working. The bishop, in his address to the assembly, said that "no precautions could be objected to for discovering men with doubtful papers, or who, although pledged to serve abroad, return on insufficient grounds. But his Grace appears to have adopted the view that every clergyman ordained abroad may be presumed to have given such a pledge, and when he appears at home must give valid reasons for forsaking the ministry to which he was ordained. I can imagine no greater deterrent from colonial service than this ear-marking of those who may incline to give their youthful ministry to the work of the Church abroad. The ministry to which our clergy are ordained is simply the ministry of the Church of England, and should any of them choose to transfer their service from one part of the Church's field of operations to another, and find patrons or beneficed clergy at home ready to nominate them, why should any further barrier be interposed, than the production of their canonical papers and of a certificate from their last bishop that they left his diocese in good standing? The colonial clergy may rely upon their bishops to champion vigorously their legitimate claims."

[125] DIOCESE OF MELBOURNE

On February 26, 1874, the bishop and Mrs. Perry were speeded on their way to the old country by a farewell service at St. James's pro-cathedral. There in the following year, and greatly to the regret of the Church and diocese, he tendered his resignation of the see, after a difficult but most successful episcopate of twenty-eight years. For successor the appointment was made of the Rev. James Moorhouse, Vicar of St. James's, Paddington, an admirable appointment in every way, which was more than amply justified by ten years' active and prosperous labour. The bishop was consecrated in Westminster Abbey, October 22, 1876, the Archbishop of Canterbury being assisted by the Bishops of Ely and Hereford. On landing in Melbourne, in January 1877, he threw himself at once into the question of the building of the cathedral. A large and representative meeting was held in the town-hall on March 20, when the bishop was in the chair and was the chief speaker. In urging on the work, he wished to point out that practical men could not be expected to give unless it were clearly shown to them that it would be auxiliary to the great spiritual purposes of the Church in the colony. The cathedral would be the fitting place in which to meet the doubts and difficulties of the day. He went on to prove that the cathedral service was the best form possible of lifting the voice of worship to the gates of heaven, and would serve also as the pattern and example of what the services of all churches should be. The service of the Church of England was peculiarly one of public worship. Sir W. F. Stawell, C.J., the Rev. Dr. Bromby, and Mr. Justice Fellowes strongly supported the proposal, the latter claiming that equal liberality should be shown by colonists in their spiritual [125/126] as in their temporal business concerns. A sum of £2000 was subscribed at the close of the meeting, which was quickly augmented to £11,000.

In his opening address to the Church Assembly of 1877 (July 11), the bishop dwelt on the difficulties of the country clergy by reason of the scattered population. Two-thirds of the people attended no place of worship at all. He impressed on Churchmen that the Holy Communion was the central point of Christianity. Greater exertions were needed in the direction of religious instruction. Union among Christians would be best brought about by a broadening of thought. The clergy should be trained in the wise, the loyal, the historic spirit of the Catholic Church. The theology of no particular period could be fastened on the Church, which was an everlasting body. A committee was appointed to report upon the best means of affording religious instruction to Church children attending State schools. As to the cathedral, the bishop strongly recommended setting it, as in Europe, in the heart of the population. The St. Paul's site in Flinders Street would be close to the station, and so accessible from all the railway suburbs.

An extraordinary session of assembly was convened for November 20, in which the battle of the sites was finally fought out and settled. Of those selected by the committee--viz. Holy Trinity, East Melbourne; St. Peter's Church and Schools, Eastern Hill; St. James's Parsonage and Schools, William Street; and St. Paul's Church and Schools, Flinders and Swanston Streets--the latter was now fixed upon by an overwhelming majority. The bishop's address dwelt on the continued necessity of religious training for children and young persons. He implored lay help in giving instruction privately to boys and girls engaged in service or business. The work of the Church was to gather into Christ's body those who are without, and the [126/127] godly and assiduous training of those who are within. Every Christian should be a central force or centre of spiritual force. At a subsequent public meeting, the bishop contended that aid should be given even to Roman Catholic schools imparting sound religious knowledge.

When the Church Assembly met for its 1879 session, Bishop Moorhouse proposed the founding of a permanent diaconate, "to confer deacons' orders on those who still pursue a secular calling." In unusual cases these sub-deacons might pass on to the priesthood. Most valuable ministers were lost to the Church from having no opportunity of training or of testing their spiritual powers. Bishop Milman of Calcutta had organized an order of sub-deacons and readers, with the sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who declared that the bishop was competent to introduce those offices into his own province. The diocese was to be divided into rural deaneries, for concentrating and developing Church agencies; to provide an authorized means of communication between Churchmen; to draw together men of differing theological views, and so promote brotherly feeling; and to remove the sense of isolation and helplessness so chilling to the energy of sensitive men.

On the question of education, the bishop pleaded once more for religious teaching in State schools by the teacher, the lessons to be selected from the Bible, and any parent objecting the child should be instructed in some secular subject while the lesson was being given. He also advocated the payment for secular results to Roman Catholic schools, on the ground that they could not in conscience accept the State system. No one objected to the free and compulsory clauses, but they all did to the secular; "Let them be swept away before they have produced a national blight and curse;" "Under the secular [127/128] provisions of the Act, one-half of our children will never receive any religious education at all, and of the other half, a moiety will receive little better than none, while the remainder, seeing all reference to religion banished from the schools, must inevitably come to look upon the subject with indifference, if not with contempt."

The growing importance of obtaining an educated ministry for the service of the Church, led in 1877 to the enlargement of Trinity College, affiliated to the university, by the addition of a handsome suite of rooms. It was well that students preparing for holy orders should breathe the freer atmosphere, and mingle liberally with their lay fellow-students, as well as with the students of other colleges.

The sessions of 1881 and 1882 were concerned with several questions of practical importance. The committee appointed to consider the best means of providing for aged and disabled clergymen suggested that the scheme be referable only to clergy under forty-five years of age--those above that age, and the nineteen over sixty years, to be left to the operation of the old fund. Clergy to be allowed to retire at sixty-five if they have served the diocese for thirty-two years, and on disabling infirmity if of twelve years' standing. The minimum pension was fixed at £50, the maximum at £150 per annum. After 1883 the old fund was ordered to be capitalized. The bishop urged more thorough organization in the working of parishes, after the model of St. Alphege, Southwark, and St. Peter's, London Docks, also short services for children, as well as shorter and more practical sermons for adults. The clergy should give earnest heed to intellectual culture, so as to secure variety of interest. By the enlargement of Trinity College there was a brightening prospect ahead, which would help to guard against the danger of an ignorant clergy. The "Bishop of [128/129] Melbourne's Fund," started soon after his arrival, was doing excellent work as "a great home missionary society." Funds were, however, still urgently needed for aid in country districts. There were forty-three parishes able to maintain a clergyman, and forty-two not able.

At the session of 1885, the Rev. Canon Vance moved for the formation of a diocese of Sandhurst, but the idea was not realized. It was abundantly evident that the diocese was now too onerous for the oversight of one bishop. A diocesan missioner was appointed.

THE ABORIGINES

We fear it must be acknowledged that the aborigines of Australia are of a low type generally, though they differ greatly in different districts. Those of Western Australia, e.g., are finer in physique and mentally superior to the blacks of South Australia. Under favourable circumstances, and with a regular supply of food, they are well-formed, and are almost universally of a happy disposition. The small groups seen by Captain Cook impressed him very favourably, and his dealings with them were marked by kindness and humanity. The same may be said of Governor Phillip's provisions for their just treatment. Conflicts of course were inevitable, between the reckless, crime-stained men of the earliest settlements and these unsophisticated children of the forest, responsive when treated with kindness, but cruel in their revenge of injustice and robbery. Their manner of living was extremely wretched--in "mia mias," or "wurleys," which were nothing but a few boughs of trees or sheets of bark, loosely laced together, and covered by skins of the opossum. Around these invariably roamed troops [129/130] of miserable, half-starved-looking dogs. Nowhere did they in any way till the ground. Nuts and seeds, and the flesh of animals caught in hunting, formed their staple food. Most of the sanguinary battles between black and white arose out of food quarrels, the settlers unfeelingly driving them off the cultivated lands, and the aborigines retaliating by the destruction of the growing crops. Over and over again the poor blacks pleaded to be left in quiet possession of that part of the country where they had been accustomed to gain their livelihood, promising on their part to make no attacks on the colonists, unless provoked by insults and cruelties. To its credit be it said, the Government was always and everywhere precise in its demand that the natives should be dealt with justly. But excesses could hardly be restrained where so many hardened and ill-disposed persons were engaged in hot dispute about land and the necessaries of life. At a place called Myall Creek, there was in 1838 a brutal murder of thirty or forty of the aborigines. Seven of the murderers were arrested, condemned and executed, causing a great shock among the European settlers, who were in the habit of excusing such outrages by saying that they were not aware of any breach of the law in killing blacks, as it had been so frequently done in the colony before. To this Mr. Justice Burton replied, with decided indignation, that "black or white, the law would be equally upheld." In the protection of the native races, Governor Macquarie gladly associated himself with the Rev. Samuel Marsden, and thanked him for his able, firm, and unwearied exertions as a magistrate; but when Mr. Marsden refused to sit on the bench with pardoned convicts, the two friends became estranged, and Mr. Marsden's name was left out of the committee "for the civilization and care of the aborigines of New South Wales."

In the matter of religious belief, a majority of the [130/131] tribes recognized a Creator and an overruling Power above them, modified, it is true, by an overwhelming dread of the vengeance of evil spirits. Family and class distinctions were very strictly enforced, no inter-marriage being permitted. The chiefs held their power by hereditary descent, if they proved themselves deserving and capable, otherwise they were reduced to the ranks. Women were treated with much cruelty, being absolutely at the mercy of the men. As personal property, everything was reckoned which conduced to the maintenance of life, the stone hatchet, the fishing-net or spear, and the like weapons. The rest formed the common property of the cluster of huts or village. Fish forming a chief article of food, most of the men and lads were expert fishers, and were exceedingly clever too with the throwing-stick and the boomerang. In the disposal of the dead, various customs existed, either burning or burying alongside a running stream, or placing the body in the fork of a tree.

As early as the year 1814, attempts were made to establish schools for the children, and a Conference was held between the races at Parramatta, with a view to gaining over the parents to consent. Many of them were willing to hand over their children unreservedly to the Government, while others refused, nor would these latter listen to any proposals for their own instruction in farming. Unhappily, the Conference, in place of healing dissension, issued in more fatal outbreaks of violence. At a much later time, Bishop Short of Adelaide formed a high opinion of the capacity of the black children, maintaining that they were but little inferior to white children, when taught and brought up on the same lines. One aboriginal girl, who married a white settler, did certainly teach her husband to read, and kept her household affairs in admirable order.

The settlement of Port Phillip was marred by a [131/132] series of wholesale killings and poisonings by squatters and armed overseers; at least, so it has been alleged on good authority. Such conflicts would almost invariably follow on some pilfering expedition of the aborigines, who were accustomed to regard food as the common property of the hungry, and the fierce retaliation of the aggrieved colonists. On their part, the blacks, where in sufficient numbers, were merciless in revenge, spearing both cattle and their keepers, and looting their tents and huts. More charitable measures ultimately prevailed, when Port Phillip became the flourishing colony of Victoria. A mission-station was formed at Lake Condah, under Church control, with about eighty inmates, costing a little over £250 a year, and another at Lake Tyers, costing for seventy inmates rather more than £300 per annum. At Corranderrk an establishment was started under the auspices of the State, at which as many as 135 of various ages were cared for, and trained in habits of morality, cleanliness, and thrift. In the year 1877-78, the report shows the receipt of £1089 for hops grown by the little community under the tutorship of European overseers. The great variety of dialects, as among the South Sea islanders, was the great obstacle in the way of united effort. Still, the friends of the missions, nothing daunted, persevered, and before long had the satisfaction of seeing comfortable huts of slab or bark taking the place of the old "mia mias," and the women dressed neatly and suitably, and becoming adepts in domestic ways. Best of all, a good stone church provided the opportunity of common Divine worship.

In 1832 a mission-station was formed, on the initiation of the Church Missionary Society, in the lovely Wellington valley, some 200 miles west of Sydney. Towards the cost, a grant of £500 per annum was made from the public revenue, besides £1000 for an [132/133] annual gift of blankets and provisions. Seven thousand acres of land were provided as an endowment. The mission, however, did not prosper permanently. Perhaps the settlers around cast a covetous eye on the attractive bit of country, which they would look upon as being thrown away on a people who could, in their opinion, make no profitable use of it. Every endeavour was made by the Superintendent, the Rev. James Gunther, afterwards Archdeacon of Mudgee, to influence these poor people for good, holding, as he did, that it was useless to expect any of them, more especially the children, to be gained, except by those whom they had learned to respect and love. Later on, grants were made by the Government to institutions on the river Murray at Maloga and Warrangesda, both of which were carried on with energy and success, to the lasting benefit of the one hundred or one hundred and twenty pensioners dependent upon them. At Warrangesda, a thousand acres were resumed by the Crown, and the sum of £2 granted for each £1 contributed by individuals. A vote of £200 was made to the refuge centred at Maloga. An "Aboriginal Protection Association" was inaugurated in 1881, of which the Metropolitan-Bishop Barker was an influential member, and made an early report.

But to South Australia, or rather to the diocese of Adelaide and its indefatigable Bishop Short, with the active assistance and support of Archdeacon Hale, must be given the credit of founding the most complete, and, it must be added, the most sensible establishment for the welfare of the aborigines. Quite in the early days of the colony, the Church began to devise a scheme for their civilization and conversion to Christianity. With the archdeacon as the moving spirit, a sheep-run was secured close to the aboriginal reserve. The two were combined with a carrying capacity of 5000 sheep, purchased for the [133/134]establishment. On the archdeacon's elevation to the see of Perth in 1856, this thriving venture at Poonindie was handed over to the management of three trustees. The bishop made a visit in 1872, when he was able to report that the mission "showed a well-ordered community of more than eighty aborigines and half-castes, husbands and wives, single men, boys, girls and infants living in quietness, sobriety, and godliness; employed in the various labours of a sheep-station, and a cultivated farm of 260 acres; supplying themselves with clothing and domestic comforts, dwelling in neatly-kept cottages, sending their children regularly to school, and in all respects conducting themselves in a manner to compare with the best-ordered villages in England." The mission was started in 1850 with five married couples and a single man, the ages ranging from nineteen to twenty-five years.

Of course, the great object of all concerned was to hold the inmates aloof from the debasing practices of their own tribe, as well as from the evil example of unscrupulous colonists. The trained scholars were soon able to read the lessons, and even to conduct service themselves in the archdeacon's absence. They were fearlessly trusted on long journeys with teams, and other property for the transport of produce, and never failed to justify the confidence reposed in them.

A sketch of the ordinary routine of the mission station will not be without interest. It is given in the interesting biography of Bishop Short, by one of his own clergy, Canon Whitington of Adelaide:--

6 a.m. Station-bell rings. Horses fed and watered, and oxen brought in.

7 a.m. Chapel-bell for morning prayer. 60 present out of 86 on the bishop's visit.

7.30. Breakfast.

8 a.m. Station-bell calls to the various employments of the day.

12 noon. Dinner-bell.

5 p.m. winter. Work ceases.

6 p.m. summer.Work ceases.

7.30. Evening prayer by the Superintendent, and all retire at 9.

Besides the ration allowances, week by week, regular wages were paid. A sum of £10 was subscribed annually by the inmates, to maintain one Melanesian scholar at the island of Mota. Also, when their founder and fast friend, the Bishop of Perth, visited them after an interval of sixteen years, they gathered from among themselves a further £10, with which to present him with a silver tea-service. Their honesty of service may be best measured by the fact that Poonindie wool always commanded a good price, even in competition with other clips. A yearly grant from the "S.P.G." was supplemented by £300 per annum, voted from the Colonial Treasury. But alas, only about 500 blacks were benefited, of the 5000 estimated to be in South Australia.

For many years after the separation of the colony, there were no missions or stations in Queensland for the betterment of the condition of the aborigines. Indeed the up-country settlers, the adventurous spirits who led the van of aggressive colonizing, earned a very evil repute as to their treatment of the wandering tribes met with on the road, who seemed to them to block the way. No doubt there were provocations on both sides as usual. In any case it became war to the knife; whole tribes being shot down, we are told, without mercy, as wild beasts would be or birds of prey. When Bishop Hale was transferred, in 1876, from Perth to Brisbane, a committee was appointed to work with him in his freely given and persistent efforts for the improvement of their lot. Votes for blankets and simple necessaries were made by Parliament, and an area of 10,000 acres set apart at Port Mackay for [135/136] a refuge, the grant of which was, however, afterwards repealed. The project failed for awhile, from want of funds. Being renewed, and the finances established by an annual grant from the "S.P.G.," a fresh start was made at Bellenden Ker, now one of the most prosperous of the Australian missions. Here, as elsewhere, can be found many blacks leading really consistent Christian lives. Mention must not be forgotten of a German mission-station which was started on the shores of Moreton Bay, and which did good work in a humble way.

The Government of Western Australia did its best to prevent wrong-doing towards the aborigines, and encouraged the founding of a mission, in 1847, by Benedictine priests, at New Norcia. Further north, on the boundary line of settlement, steps were also taken to secure fair dealing, not, we fear, altogether with the good-will of the squatters, many of whom thought that the ideas put into the heads of the blacks would make them less valuable as labourers. Although accustomed to fatigue in long hunting expeditions, they were averse to sustained labour, and not suited for carrying heavy loads. Nevertheless, being extremely fond of animals, they were often trained to become useful as shepherds and boundary riders. With the help of the "S.P.G.," there has been of late years a fairly flourishing mission-station on the Gascoigne River, which it is trusted will redeem the good name of the colony with respect to the native inhabitants.

The story of the conciliation of the Tasmanian aborigines has been well told by Mr. G. A. Robinson, who wielded such a marvellous power over them as to induce them to surrender in a body. The narrative is as full of interest as the venture was of bravery and skill. It was at the close of a sanguinary conflict between the two races, carried on with great cruelty on both sides for a number of years. More is the pity that it should have heralded the utter extinction of the remnant that had been got together at such pains. About 250 were at first gathered on Flinders Island, in Bass's Straits, but these were rapidly thinned by death as time went on, until, in the year 1847, a miserable little band were transferred to Oyster Cove, on the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, some thirty miles to the south of Hobart Town. Here they were destined to become parishioners of mine thirty years ago, and here died the last of the race. Truganinni, or, as she was more generally called, Lalla Rookh, had been a famous princess in her day, when the tribe was powerful and a foe to be dreaded, and on one memorable occasion had shown great heroism in saving Mr. Robinson's life. She died at the age of sixty-five, as nearly as could be estimated. King Billy, otherwise William Launé, was considerably younger as well as of a much less romantic disposition. In fact there was little to distinguish him from the careless, reckless aboriginal of the early days of the settlement. Of a jovial temperament, he sought the society of seafaring men, whom he accompanied on more than one whaling voyage in the South Seas. His premature death from consumption, accelerated by the dissolute habits he had acquired, ended the career of the last of the Tasmanians. At the time of the Duke of Edinburgh's visit it was amusing to watch King Billy, at the Hobart regatta, walking with His Royal Highness as a fellow royalty. Alas, that a naturally high-spirited race, from which in years gone by a really effective body of native police had been organized, should be fated to produce so degenerate a specimen as its final effort!

Most of the aborigines are great mimics, and have their national and tribal dances of an elaborate character. This often leads them to represent in [137/138] pantomime scenes of hunting and fishing and mimic warfare, as well as of civilized life coming under their notice, such as the novelty of railway travelling and the eccentricities of their white brothers. Nor are they devoid of a keen sense of humour. Bungary, one of the best known, as he was one of the most intelligent, of the friendly Sydney natives, was wont to create intense amusement by his wonderfully apt reproduction of the ceremonious bows of the different Governors.

CONCLUSION

On January 26, 1888, was celebrated throughout the Australian colonies, but more especially in the mother colony of New South Wales and in the mother city of Sydney, the Centenary of Australian Settlement. The Australian Church held her centennial rejoicings at the same time. For however reluctantly the authority may have been given for a chaplain to accompany the first fleet of transports, yet it is a blessed fact that he did so. Consequently the Commonwealth of Australia, which seems to be at last within measurable distance, and the ecclesiastical commonwealth, will be able to look back upon the self-same day as the foundation-day of their liberties. The centenary occurred but a few months after the Jubilee of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen-Empress of Great and Greater Britain. How marvellous the contrast between 1837 and 1887, in all that concerned the Church and the religious life of these realms, is too evident to need repetition. How much more marvellous the contrast between the convict settlement of 1788 and the thriving metropolis of the Australias of 1888, with its half-million industrious citizens; between the hastily erected tent for Governor [138/139] Phillip's shelter, and the castellated mansion graced by the presence of Lord and Lady Carrington; between the tiny fleet of weather-beaten sloops lying off Sydney Cove, after discharging their human freight, and the crowded ranks of ocean-going steamers of every description of tonnage, and flying the flags of all nations. Where the virgin forest rang to the coo-ee of the savage, resounds now the din of commerce, while melodious peals ring the thousands of worshippers to service, and schools, colleges, and university complete the chain of every known department of knowledge. When we thank God for the hierarchy of fifteen bishops, with their working staff of clergy running into the higher hundreds, let us not omit a generous meed of praise to the solitary man who, wearied to exhaustion by Government neglect or worse, set to work with his own hands to build a house of God with wattle-boughs cut from the bush, daubed with the clay of the neighbouring hollows. It was

just such a church as our Saxon forefathers would have dedicated to the glory of God, and it roofed over a band of 300 worshippers on the Sunday, while on the week-day 200 of the lambs of the flock, otherwise growing up in wretchedness and ignorance, were gathered in for loving instruction. This temporary building, which cost not quite £70 in money, is surely worthy of being ranked with the most costly of the Australian cathedrals, though neither bishop nor archdeacon, nor even canon, ever ministered at its altar--only a Government chaplain, simple-minded and earnest, but sick at heart with hope deferred.

The Centenary of the Australian Church witnessed many changes not recorded in these pages. As the dioceses were divided and subdivided, what was difficult before became quite too intricate to follow in a general history--I mean the chronicling of the minor details of Church life and progress.

[140] Of the establishment of the see of Tasmania by Royal Letters Patent we have already spoken at the beginning of our history. Bishop Nixon's appointment dates from 1842, and from the very first he commended himself by his able and tactful administration, both to his flock and to those in authority. The endless conflicts between the settlers and the aborigines gave him much pain, and no one was more devoutly thankful than he when Mr. G. A. Robinson's scheme of pacification ended by gathering the dwindling remnant safely under Government shelter. It was a sad story at the best, as were most of the experiences of Van Diemen's Land in the olden days. So much the greater credit to those who so nobly raised the standard of living, first among the official class and then among the people, and who so firmly laid the foundations of that Church organization upon which all later developments have been based. Bishop Nixon was followed in his difficult post by the Rev. Charles Henry Bromby, of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Principal of Cheltenham Training College. He was consecrated by Archbishop Longley in Canterbury Cathedral in the year 1864, the Bishop of Winchester and Bishop Nixon assisting. A crisis came when, after many threatenings, a Bill was passed through the legislature abolishing all grants in aid of religious bodies. Churchmen stoutly protested, and the governor, yielding to pressure, thought well to reserve the measure for the Royal Assent. It was referred back to Hobart Town, with a requirement that provision must be made for the vested interests of the clergy then licensed, as well as for certain future necessities. This was done in a second Act passed by both Houses of Parliament, and assented to, by the terms of which a sum of something like £100,000 in Government Debentures was set apart in perpetuity for the due maintenance of divine worship. [140/141] In addition the Diocesan Synod passed sundry resolutions pledging the parishes to raise a supplementary amount according to the population and circumstances of each. By the introduction of railways the bishop's journeyings were materially lightened, yet there still remained sufficient to tax his utmost powers, even with the assistance of his two archdeacons of Hobart and Launceston. On Bishop Bromby's retirement his place was filled by the Rev. Daniel Fox Sandford, an LL.D. of the University of Glasgow, whose consecration took place in St. Paul's Cathedral, April 25, 1883. Archbishop Benson was assisted by the bishops of London, Bangor, Ely, Lichfield, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Bedford, Bloemfontein and Calcutta, and Bishop Bromby. After six years' steady labour, unmarked by any special incident, he was in turn succeeded by the Rev. Henry Hutchinson Montgomery, of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Vicar of St. Mark's, Kennington, consecrated in Westminster Abbey, May 1889, by Archbishop Benson. The bishops of Rochester, Antigua, Moosonee, and Ballarat took part in the ceremony. Whereas the stream of home affairs continued to flow evenly on, the bishop was enabled to take his full share in the councils of the Church, and was more especially able to render signal service to the missionary cause in Melanesia. As was naturally to be expected, the disablement and enforced departure for England of Bishop John Selwyn dealt a terrible blow to the mission, the life and soul of which he had been for upwards of sixteen years. Funds too were running low, and so it was decided to allow the see to remain vacant for a considerable period. Under these forlorn circumstances Bishop Montgomery willingly responded to the appeal that he should as bishop make a thorough visitation of the islands. The tour occupied several months of the year 1892, and included the New Hebrides, Banks', Torres, and Solomon [141/142] groups. A most interesting record of the trip, from the bishop's own pen, will be found in The Light of Melanesia, published by the S.P.C.K. in 1896.

Of the five years' episcopate of Bishop Barry as Metropolitan and Primate it may be briefly said that it was marked by conspicuous ability, and was accompanied by a continuous growth of Church life. In addition to his wide sympathies he was quick to seize upon matters of detail, and his advice was always worth following. From habit the synods were beginning to work smoothly of themselves, but a guiding hand was called for at times, and so wise a controlling mind could not be otherwise than. of lasting benefit. He resigned in 1888, to the great regret of the diocese. At the session of synod called for the purpose of electing a successor, several names of eminence in the home Church were submitted, from which, after an exhaustive debate, three were chosen to be sent on to the provincial bishops, and from these again two to be considered by the Australian bench of bishops in accordance with the terms of the Ordinance. By this process of exhaustion the Rev. William Saumarez Smith, D.D., of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Principal of St. Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead, was left as final nominee. Owing to a regrettable informality on the part of the senior bishop in reporting the result the election was declared invalid, and the entire routine had to be gone through de novo. The Primate-elect was consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral, June 24, 1890, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The prelates assisting on the occasion were the bishops of London, Carlisle, St. Davids, Llandaff, Colchester, Marlborough, Bedford, and Madras, and Bishops Campbell, Marsden, and Barry. Encouraged by the recommendation of the Lambeth Conference of 1897, it has at last been resolved to accord to the Primate of Australia his [142/143] rightful title of Archbishop. Seeing that in reality he has occupied the position and executed the office of Archbishop since the first General Synod of 1872, the change is simply one of title.

In the year 1875 Bishop Hale was transferred from far-away Perth to the see of Brisbane, which had just lost its first bishop by resignation. The diocese had been steadily advancing, if not quite so rapidly as its friends had once anticipated. In the course of years a radical change had passed over the colony, bringing to the management of its sheep-runs an agent or overseer class in place of the original owners, who had won their pastures mile by mile from the wild bush, and whose personal influence helped so much to encourage the earlier bishops and clergy. In spite of his inability to master the art of Australian horsemanship, Bishop Tufnell had managed to become intimately acquainted with his diocese from end to end, making long excursions to the westward by coach and buggy before the advent of railways, and availing himself of the coasting steamers to visit Maryborough, Rockhampton, and the further north. The building of an episcopal residence on the outskirts of the city was entirely owing to his efforts and private liberality. But the mother church of St. John remained, and still remains to this day, the pro-cathedral, every endeavour to provide a more worthy substitute having failed of accomplishment. If in his departure from Perth the blacks of Western Australia lost a staunch friend in Bishop Hale, their fellows in Queensland undoubtedly gained one. Missions in their behalf received a fresh impetus, even the Government being roused to a keener sense of obligation in the matter of their protection and moral improvement. Unfortunately the bishop's physical strength proved unequal to the tasks thrown upon him, hence his resignation after ten years' unremitting exertion. He will long be remembered [143/144] as the "good bishop." His successor was chosen from the ranks of the London clergy. As Vicar of St. John the Evangelist, Holborn, the Rev. William Thomas Thornhill Webber had made his mark as an able organizer and successful church builder. He was consecrated third bishop of the diocese in St. Paul's Cathedral by the Archbishop of Canterbury, June11, 1885, the bishops of London, Carlisle, and Bedford, with Bishops Tufnell and Mitchinson assisting. Losing no time in entering on the duties of his office, he took out with him from England a goodly staff of clergy, whom he distributed throughout the country districts, reserving the Rev. Bernard Robert Wilson for the charge of the pro-cathedral, and placing the Rev. Nathaniel Dawes at St. Andrew's, South Brisbane, and the Rev. Manley Power at Christchurch, Milton. By this time the magnificent pasture lands of the Darling Downs had been found to be equally favourable to agriculture. Immense tracts of country naturally open to the plough were either subdivided privately by the graziers or resumed by the State to be re-sold for farming purposes. Toowoomba, healthily and beautifully situated on the eastern edge of this smiling corn-land above the main range, soon became the seat first of an archdeaconry, then the headquarters of a coadjutor-bishop. The Vicar of South Brisbane was called to fill both offices. At the bishop's request he was consecrated by the Primate in St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, May 1, 1889, the bishops of Brisbane, Riverina, Melbourne, Bathurst, and Grafton and Armidale taking part in the ceremony. In Bishop Dawes the diocesan found a loyal and efficient helper in the increasing labours of the see until his appointment as first Bishop of Rockhampton in 1892. For his next coadjutor Bishop Webber looked to the cathedral city of Ballarat, which had for dean the Very Rev. John Francis Stretch, an [144/145] LL.B. of the University of Melbourne and a born Australian. Dean Stretch was consecrated to his new office November 1, 1895, in St. Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, by the Primate of Australia, assisted by the bishops of Ballarat, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Goulburn. His sphere of work has been fixed at Roma, round about the terminus of the main line of railway from Brisbane to the extensive downs of the far west.

The task of finding a worthy successor to Bishop Short in the important see of Adelaide was by no means an easy one. At length the choice fell on the Rev. George Wyndham Kennion, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxon, Vicar of All Saints, Bradford, and his consecration was fixed for November 30, 1882, in Westminster Abbey. Under commission from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Jackson of London was the officiating prelate, assisted by the bishops of Winchester, Rochester, Lichfield, Bedford, Ballarat, and Nelson, together with Bishops Short, Ryan, and Hellmuth. Of his successful episcopate of twelve busy years not much has been said, not because it is unworthy of remark, but simply because the limits of this little work forbid. Stated in brief, it was carried out wisely and loyally on the lines laid down by his predecessor. During his tenure of office he greatly promoted the growth of Church agencies, raising funds for the endowment of churches, and sustaining an active, living administration in every parish of the diocese. Towards the completion of the cathedral church of St. Peter he succeeded in gaining an additional £16,000, the chancel and one bay of the nave having been finished in the previous bishop's time. But perhaps his greatest work was the establishment of his "Home Mission Fund," by means of which over forty new churches and one city church were erected, besides schoolrooms and missions all [145/146] over the colony. To the keen regret of Churchmen of every school of thought, he was called home all too soon to the see of Bath and Wells. The Rev. John Reginald Harmer, Dean of Christ Church College, Cambridge, a literary coadjutor of the learned Bishop Lightfoot of Durham, was chosen to succeed him. On May 19, 1895, his consecration took place in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops of Manchester, Sarum, Durham, Bath and Wells, and Trinidad. Bishop John Selwyn was also able to assist. Nominally the see of Adelaide is identical with the colony of South Australia, which would include the Northern Territory, bordering on the equator, and separated from the metropolis by a few thousand miles of ocean. Practically, however, that territory lies outside the range of possible visitation, and will eventually, no doubt, form part of a separate diocese, cutting off as well the extreme north of the colony of Queensland, and extending to the island of New Guinea unless the lately consecrated bishop of the latter should be given jurisdiction of the whole of these tropical regions.

Just as the colony of Western Australia for many years stood alone among Australian States in not possessing a Constitutional Government, so is Perth in many ways peculiar among the dioceses. It has, to begin with, a nominal area of 1,000,000 square miles, the south-western fringe of which only is peopled. Then it is cut off by the 1100 miles of the Great Australian Bight from any sort of rapid communication with the more eastern colonies. To attend the sessions of general synod held in Sydney every five years, the bishop is compelled to undertake a full week's journey at considerable trouble and expense. But, in spite of its prodigious size, Bishop Hale had actually no more than forty or fifty thousand souls within his jurisdiction. These were distributed [146/147] between the various settled districts, those to the northward about Shark's Bay and the. Gascoigne River involving the longest journeyings. When the see was vacated in 1875, by the departure of the bishop for Brisbane he had for successor the Right Rev. Henry Hutton Parry, who came fortified by his eight years' experience as coadjutor-bishop of Barbadoes. Church matters during his tenure of office advanced but slowly, nor did the affairs of State progress any more rapidly, until the inrush of gold-seekers to the fields of Cue, Coolgardie, and Kalgoorlie altered the entire aspect of the country. Men of every degree, and of every nationality, continued to pour into the seaports and to throng the bush-tracks leading to the diggings. Whether for good or ill, townships multiplied and grew apace, the revenue leaped up year by year, raising the hopes of statesmen in power to the highest pitch of expectation. The Church has been hard put to it to cope with the demands suddenly made upon her for clergy to minister in the new fields. In the early stages of the difficulty Bishop Parry was called away by death. His place was filled by the consecration of the Rev. Charles Owen Leaver Riley, Vicar of St. Paul's, Preston, October 18, 1894. The Archbishop of Canterbury was assisted by the bishops of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Peterborough, Reading, Norwich, Bath and Wells, and Honduras. For very many years to come the anxieties of the diocese are not likely to be diminished, the problem of an adequate supply of clergy alone. presenting a stupendous obstacle in the way of a Church extension commensurate with the growth of population.

The diocese of Riverina was formed in 1884, a large inland territory included, as its name implies, within the waters of several navigable rivers. Far removed from the seaboard, and commencing only [147/148] at the termini of the railways, there are necessary there the same long and exhausting journeys on horseback which marked the pioneer days of long ago. Droughts, floods, unfortunate seasons, and low prices have reduced the power of Churchmen to do what is urgently required of them. Its first bishop, the Right Rev. Sydney Linton, previously a Norwich vicar, a saintly man and a ceaseless worker, was not spared to reap any great harvest to his labour. He was called to his rest while winning the first-fruits in the love and respect of his scattered flock. Nevertheless he contrived during his ten years' episcopate to visit every portion of his vast diocese, cheering his little band of clergy in their isolation, and giving renewed hope by his presence to an almost despairing laity. Synodical organization, as understood in the older and more favoured sees, seemed hopeless under the circumstances, yet not only was it instituted but there are good hopes of its having taken permanent root. "Bishop's Lodge" was built at Hay, on the opposite bank of the Murrumbidgee to the pro-cathedral of St. Paul, a roomy and comfortable residence, but one labouring unhappily under a heavy indebtedness. At the bishop's request, who was much "given to hospitality," ample provision was made for the due entertainment of his clergy, an admirable principle which its present occupant, with his largely reduced income, will find it difficult to carry out. On the lamented death of Bishop Linton the choice of successor rested with the provincial bishops, who called to the office the Rev. Ernest Augustus Anderson, Vicar of St. Paul's, West Maitland, in the diocese of Newcastle. Mr. Anderson had previously done good service as a mission-priest in the back blocks of North Queensland, where he had gained just the kind of experience which he would now be able to utilize with effect. But here a difficulty arose as to the place of [148/149] consecration. The Honble. John Campbell, M.L.C., who had generously endowed the diocese on its formation, had made it a condition of his gift that all future bishops should be consecrated in England, to prevent, as he hoped, the severance of the Church in Australia from the Church of England. Opinions were much divided, the plea being set up on the one hand of the Church's independence, as evidenced by her power to pass binding ordinances in her synods, by her undisputed right to choose her own bishops, and by her possession of a primate who in Australia commanded the self-same obedience as the Archbishop of Canterbury in England, while it was insisted on by others that the founder's wishes must be complied with or the endowment relinquished. Eventually the bishop-elect proceeded to England, where he was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in St. Paul's Cathedral; June 29, 1895, the bishops of London, Sarum, and Bath and Wells taking part. Thus was perpetuated what was so often and so forcibly deprecated by Bishop Tyrrell, the "sad unreality of taking the oath of obedience to the wrong authority." The diocese covers the huge south-western corner of the colony of New South Wales, and consists of a series of apparently interminable plains, for the most part treeless, measuring about 100,000 square miles.

The loss of Bishop Moorhouse from the Australian bench in 1886, on his call home to Manchester, was irreparable. His ringing voice had, year by year, called Churchmen to arms, to do battle for the religious instruction of the little ones; for a supply of educated clergy; for bright, short services; for a studious ministry, and an eye to the trend of the times. He did not, however, have his strong wish gratified for a new diocese centred at Sandhurst, the Bendigo of golden days, to be carved out of the overgrown Melbourne [149/150] see. His successor was the Rev. Field Flowers Goe, Rector of St. George's, Bloomsbury, who was consecrated in Westminster Abbey, February 24., 1887, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops of London, Rochester, Manchester, and Perth, with Bishops Perry, Alford and Marsden. On arrival in Melbourne, as one of his first acts he was able to announce at the Church Session of 1887 the completion of the Clarke buildings of Trinity College, which had been so near to the heart of his predecessor. For himself Bishop Goe acknowledged the extreme kindness of his reception. He congratulated the diocese on the progress of the cathedral, as the crowning work of forty years' labour, and trusted that the Church would be considered as bound up with all the events of our lives.

The see of Goulburn sustained a distinct loss by the decease of Bishop Thomas. Undaunted by difficulties, and a plodding, earnest worker, he succeeded in visiting regularly the most distant of his parishes. He was ever a staunch friend to his clergy--more than once standing between them and a threatening parish council, greatly to their advantage. A priest of long colonial experience was selected for the vacancy in the person of the Rev. William Chalmers, Vicar of St. Andrew's, Brighton, Victoria, and formerly a student of St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, and "S.P.G." Missionary to Borneo. On November 1, 1892, he was consecrated in his own cathedral church of St. Saviour, by the Primate, assisted by the bishops of Ballarat, Newcastle, Riverina, Brisbane, and Melbourne. Financial troubles have sadly hindered the diocese of late years in providing for the increasing spiritual needs of the interior. A recent grant of £1000 from the "S.P.C.K." will, however, do much to strengthen the spirit of self-sacrifice of which the cathedral church is so striking a monument.

[151] The place of the great pioneer bishop, Tyrrell, who died as we have seen in 1879, was filled by the election of the Rev. Josiah Brown Pearson, Vicar of Newark, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. He was consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral, May 1, 1880, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the bishops of London, Winchester and Hereford, and Bishop Perry. His episcopate was marked by much earnestness and ability, with steady progress in Church extension, but was sadly clouded towards the end by an utter prostration of health. The diocese suffered severely in consequence, so that it became a source of devout thankfulness when the bishop recovered sufficiently to be able to resign his see, however reluctantly the resignation might be accepted on other grounds. During the three years' interval, the diocese was administered by the very Rev. the Dean of Newcastle, Arthur Edward Selwyn--one of the veterans of the Church in Australia. The shadow was finally removed by the translation to Newcastle, in 1891, of Bishop Stanton- of North Queensland, who received a right hearty welcome. The appointment was in fact a most desirable one from every point of view. A new cathedral--which was projected and commenced on the original site of the quaint old structure on the hill so widely known as a beacon to mariners entering the harbour met with troublous times, and is yet far from completion. Bishop Pearson died in England four years after his resignation, having partially recovered from the effects of his long and lamentable affliction.

At the close of sixteen years' continuous labour, Bishop Marsden decided, in 1885, to resign the see of Bathurst, and to seek a more restful sphere in the old country. Here he subsequently accepted the invitation of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol to become his assistant. The administration of a diocese [151/152] comprising the whole north-western interior of New South Wales, approaching 100,000 square miles in extent, is certainly enough to tax the powers of the strongest physique. The Rev. Charles Edward Camidge, Vicar of Thirsk, was appointed to the vacant see, and was consecrated October 18, 1887, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the bishops of Rochester and Sodor and Man, with Bishops Perry and Marsden. Cordially welcomed to his cathedral city, he manfully faced the arrears of work found to have accumulated during the vacancy. In addition, the colony was called upon to pass through the vicissitudes of alternate droughts and floods. Travel became difficult, while, to add to the problems to be solved, continual changes were being made in the laws dealing with State education. In these various matters Bishop Camidge has always shown himself determined to rule on recognized Church lines. But he has also shown himself equally ready to foster good work, wherever, and by whomsoever, exhibited. Together with the bishops of Melbourne and Grafton and Armidale, he thought well to decline the Archbishop's invitation to the recent Lambeth Conference, preferring to remain at his post in the absence of so many of his episcopal brethren. His services were thus available, and were most generously given, for the needful ministrations in the neighbouring dioceses. To the great gain of the Church he still continues his valuable oversight of his huge diocese.

North Queensland was unfortunate enough to lose its first bishop in 1891 by translation to Newcastle, but not until he had brought his enormous diocese into something like ecclesiastical order. His Vicar at St. James's pro-cathedral, Townsville, the Rev. Christopher George Barlow, was nominated to the succession. The consecration ceremony was appointed for July 25, 1891, at St. Andrew's Metropolitan Cathedral, [152/153] Sydney. The Primate was assisted by the bishops of Newcastle and Grafton and Armidale. Some exception was taken to the confirmation of the bishop-elect by certain of the Australian bishops, on the ground that he was not a University graduate. The objection was, however, overruled, and the event has amply justified the action of those who supported the nomination. Perhaps no diocese has suffered more keenly from the change which has come over the pastoral industry of recent years in the transference of ownership from private gentlemen of means and position--many of them staunch Churchmen and generous givers--to financial institutions, banks, and trading companies of various descriptions. The severance of Rockhampton to the south, in 1892, immensely relieved the labours of the two neighbouring bishops. All of Queensland to the north of the twenty-first parallel is still retained by Bishop Barlow--a mining and grazing region of almost illimitable extent, but containing besides the sugar plantations of the coast, for the working of which many thousands of Kanakas have been imported from the South Sea Islands. For the spiritual welfare of these, active efforts have been made in consultation with the Bishop of Melanesia, from whose charge they mainly come. A goodly number of them have already embraced Christianity and are leading worthy consistent lives. A habit of reverence is indeed a noticeable trait in the character of the Polynesian races.

Compelled by continued ill-health to resign his see of Grafton and Armidale, Bishop Turner set sail for England, but died at Naples on his homeward voyage. He was succeeded by the Rev. Arthur Vincent Green, Archdeacon of Ballarat, an eminent priest of Australian training and orders, though not of birth, being an LL.D. of both Sydney and Melbourne. The conse-cration ceremony was performed May 1, 1894, by the [153/154] bishops of Melbourne, Ballarat, Adelaide, Newcastle, Riverina, and Goulburn. Monetary difficulties beset the new bishop from the outset. The endowment, never very large, had been gradually dwindling away from injudicious investments and other causes. Nevertheless he completed his primary visitation with a good heart. The older parishes were strengthened and new ones formed in the bush districts to cope with the onward march of settlement. A splendid spirit of self-abnegation was evinced by the country clergy, the good results of which can scarcely be overestimated. To help lessen the strain the Archdeacon of Tamworth was dispatched on a mission to the old country to entreat assistance. His efforts were fairly successful. Indeed English Churchmen, whether individually or as represented by the great societies, have been proverbially generous towards Australia. But it is questionable whether the time has not come for her to brace herself up to a supply of her own needs. The present period of financial and industrial depression constitutes a formidable obstacle, it is true, but not an insuperable one, for difficulties not seldom have the effect of developing a keener sense of responsibility. The experiment of choosing bishops from the ranks of the Australian clergy, although still in its initial stage, has been so far decidedly successful. It would be invidious to mention names, but the fact must be apparent to all who have any intimate knowledge of affairs. The supply of clergy has benefited at the same time and perhaps for a similar reason. Troubles of a lesser character, about stipends and Church finance generally, will no doubt be overcome likewise by the energy and determination of colonists. A renewed spirit of self-reliance will at any rate help towards that happy result.

A much-needed coadjutor has been provided for the diocese of Ballarat. On the nomination of Bishop [154/155] Thornton, the Rev. Henry Edward Cooper, M.A., of Trinity College, Dublin, Vicar of Hamilton and Archdeacon, was consecrated November 1895, in St. Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne. The Primate was assisted by the bishops of Melbourne, Ballarat, Goul-burn, and Grafton and Armidale. Bishop Cooper's long and intimate association with his diocesan, coupled with his many years' service in the diocese, is a guarantee, were any needed, of his extended usefulness in the higher sphere. For nearly two years, in fact, it has fallen to him to administer the diocese single-handed.

Just within the "One Hundred Years" may be fittingly included the founding of the New Guinea Mission, long projected and many times delayed. At the Melbourne Church Assembly of 1887, Canon Chalmers, now Bishop of Goulburn, moved--"That this assembly desires to direct the attention of the Church to the Church Mission of New Guinea, determined upon by the General Synod held last year in Sydney, and earnestly commends it to sympathy and support." The proposal was taken up throughout Australia, and an enthusiastic young priest, the Rev. Albert Maclaren, found to head the mission. He was accompanied by the Rev. Copland King, the youngest of the four generations of the name covering the whole century 1788-1888--Governor King, Admiral King, Archdeacon King, Missionary-Priest King. His three brothers in holy orders are all at work in Australia. The terribly sad news of the premature death of Mr. Maclaren from fever, and the subsequent vicissitudes of the mission--absorbingly interesting as they are--do not come within the scope of our pages. Yet it does mark an epoch in the history of the Australian Church, that after much prayerful waiting she should have been able at length to send forth her first missionary bishop. In the Right Rev. M. J. Stone-Wigg, of [155/156] University College, Oxon., and lately Canon and Rector of St. John's pro-cathedral, Brisbane, Australasia possesses her youngest bishop. His consecration in the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Andrew, Sydney, on January 25 last, created intense sympathy. In the absence of the Primate, the Bishop of Brisbane, as senior prelate, officiated, and was supported by the bishops of Melbourne and Bathurst. Liberal offertories were made during the day towards the objects of the mission, to which has been added a grant of £1500 from the funds of the "S.P.C.K." for the establishment and endowment of the episcopate.

Missions to the Chinese have been established in most of the centres of population. Chinese deacons and catechists are making splendid headway among their countrymen in Sydney, Melbourne, and Hay. They are an affectionate, teachable race, with great inherent promise for the future, and by their means will be solved, we believe, the difficulty of how best to secure an entrance for the Christian faith into the hitherto impracticable territory of China, with its countless millions waiting for the Gospel to be preached to them.

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