For the most part, ecclesiastical architecture is rather a weak point with these newly-confirmed religions; but in Melbourne, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, they possess far the finest churches, and in Adelaide and Sydney their edifices are at least imposing. The Roman Catholics., however, carry off the palm. In both Melbourne and Sydney their cathedrals are of grand proportions. In all three cities their other churches are large and lofty. The Anglicans have small cathedrals at Sydney and Adelaide; but, in spite of their including a majority of the wealthiest individuals in the colonies, they find a great difficulty in raising money for building purposes.
As far as my experience goes--and I have 'sat under' the principal ministers of each denomination in each town at least once--the preaching is, for the most part, very poor. There are certainly two or three exceptions; but 'what are they,' one is irreverently apt to exclaim, 'among so many?' The shallowness and often halting pace of these discourses is doubtless due, in large measure, to the colonial love of extempore preaching. For sermons read out of a book public opinion of all denominations in Australia has the greatest contempt. Like English lower middle-class communities, again, they like a good pronounced type of doctrine from the pulpit. The lower regions are popular; but most successful is the denunciation of the people over the way who bow down to wood and stone, and commit sundry other iniquities for which Protestants are in no fear of being indicted.
As you notice a man's general appearance and manner before you can form any idea of his character, so I have described churches and denominations before entering seriously into the question of religion. If Churchmen--who will probably form the majority of my readers--cannot but be grieved at the picture I have drawn, of the condition of the Australian Church, they may at least take comfort when I state that the preponderating feeling of Australian cities is essentially Christian, according to the received meaning of the word. The citizens are, for the most part, of a distinctly religious turn of mind. They may not be, and--except in Adelaide--are not, such good church-goers as at home; but they have not drunk of the poison of infidelity, nor eaten of the sweets of indifference. Amidst the distractions of colonial life this could hardly have been the case, but for the Puritan origin of so many of the more influential among them, and the healthy competition between the various sects, as well as the freedom from State control and interference already alluded to.
As in social matters Melbourne may be regarded as the extreme type of Australia, so in religious matters Adelaide affords the easiest text to preach upon. Essentially lower middle-class, Nonconformist and Radical in its origin, South Australia might well claim the title of the New England of the Antipodes. Even to the present day, it preserves signs and tokens of the Principles on which it was founded: its progress having been the gradual and healthy growth of a Pastoral and agricultural colony, undisturbed by the forced marches of gold-mining. In Adelaide middle-class respectability is too strong for larrikinism, and imparts a far healthier social and moral tone than obtains in either Melbourne or Sydney; but for these advantages the little town pays the small but disagreeable price of Philistinism. Want of culture, Pharisees, and narrow-mindedness find a more congenial home there than anywhere else in Australia; but, to my mind, these are a cheap price to pay for the piety and real goodness which they cloak.
The Adelaidian may be unpleasantly conceited and self-satisfied in religious matters, but then he is kind and hospitable, religious and moral, and not so sophisticated as the Victorian, who is probably a more agreeable person superficially. Yet in neither Melbourne nor Sydney can religion be said to be wanting. It is kept more in the background than in Adelaide, and there is not so much of it as in the smaller town; but the religious character of all three, taken either singly or together, will, I think, compare favourably with that of any other modern city or cities.
Sabbatarianism is fast on the decline. The Sabbatarians are still noisy and determined enough to keep the majority of our public libraries, picture galleries, etc., closed on Sunday, but this is more from public indifference on the subject than from any general feeling that they ought to be shut. This becomes evident from a visit to the suburbs on a fine Sunday. All the world and his wife in private carriages and buggies, carts and omnibuses, even on Shanks's pony, come away for an airing; and if the weather only allows of it, there are many of these holiday-makers who make a day of it, leaving their homes early in the morning, with but a few who return to evening service.
On the other hand, the Sunday is soberly kept. In the less strict families music is allowed, but never cards or games of any kind. The man who proposed such a thing in Adelaide would be anathema maranatha. The general feeling, is, that the Sunday was made too wearisome in England to be supportable in a common-sense community; and Sabbatarianism is gradually losing ground day by day, as fast as the keeping up of appearances will allow. There was a great outcry on one occasion because the Governor of Victoria travelled on a Sunday; but this was rather because there is a general feeling that unnecessary labour should as far as possible be avoided on a Sunday, than from Sabbatarianism in the ordinary sense of the word.
Morality has so long been connected with religion that it is difficult to treat of the one without more or less trenching upon the province of the other. But there still remains something to be said on this score. The commandments which are most freely broken in Australia, are par excellence the third, and then the sixth, in its minor sense of crimes of violence in general. Young Australia makes a specialty of swearing. High and low, rich and poor, indulge themselves in bad language luxuriantly; but it is amongst the rising generation that it reaches its acme. The lower-class colonial swears as naturally as he talks. He doesn't mean anything by it in particular; nor is it really an evil outward and visible sign of the spiritual grace within him. On the prevalence of larrikinism I wrote at length in a former epistle.
Drunkenness comes next on our list of vices. That Australians as a nation are more drunken than Englishmen, I do not believe to be the fact; but what is undeniable is, that there is a great deal of drunkenness amongst those who may claim to be considered the upper classes here. An English gentleman of the present day, whatever his other sins may be, does not get drunk, because it is 'bad form,' if for no better reason. If in Australia we were to exclude as 'outsiders' all the leading colonists who are in the habit of intoxicating themselves--to say nothing of the chance customers--'society' would dwindle down to nearly two-thirds its present size. But there has been a very appreciable improvement in this respect during the last half-dozen years, and the tone of public feeling on the subject is gradually approximating to that of English society. The old colonists are not of course expected to change their habits in their old age, but with the young generation there is less tippling, and port, sherry, and spirits are being replaced by claret.
Of drinking as apart from drunkenness I have already said enough. The seventh commandment is one of those unpleasant subjects which one must deal with, and which one would yet prefer to leave alone. Generally speaking, one may say, that while our upper and lower classes are, if anything, rather worse in their morals than in England, we make up for the deficiency by a decided superiority amongst the middle--both upper-middle and lower-middle--class. Conversation is perhaps coarser here; but whatever may be the reality, the moral standard generally accepted is superior to that of London. Such immorality as exists is necessarily of a coarser and more brutal type. In Melbourne, especially, the social sin is very obtrusive. Sydney has of late been acquiring an unenviable notoriety for capital offences, and it is not advisable for ladies to walk alone in the streets there at any time of the day. On the other hand, in Adelaide no woman who does not give occasion for it need ever fear that she will be accosted.