There are several other little stations scattered about in various directions, especially upon the coast. In 1840 there were five clergymen in Western Australia, and on the 1st of January, 1841, the foundation stone of a church at Perth to contain 600 persons was laid by the governor; its estimated cost was 4000l. There are churches also at Guildford, at the Middle Swan, the Upper Swan, and at York, and a new church erecting at Albany, near King George’s Sound. Some humble little churches have also been built of mud, and thatched with rushes, in this colony. And although, where it can be done, we think that noble churches are most becoming to the service of the King of kings, yet we doubt not, in the cases where these lowly buildings are unavoidable, that since “the chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels,” so these ministering spirits are sent forth into the wilderness to minister unto them that are heirs of salvation: we confidently trust that “the Lord is among them,” even “as in the holy place of Sinai.” Wesleyan meeting-houses are to be found at Perth and Fremantle. The governor and executive council were authorized to “grant aid towards ministers’ stipends, and towards buildings, without any distinction of sect.”[164] This precious system, which would make no “distinction of sect,” between the doctrine of the beloved apostle St. John, and that of the Nicolaitans, “which God hates,”[165] is almost a dead letter in Western Australia, owing to the scattered state of the population, and the great majority of them being members of the Church of England. The duty of government to tolerate separatists, (while they continue obedient to the laws of the country,) is now denied by no one; and toleration, one might have supposed, would have been all that those who dislike a state church would have accepted; but the duty of government to encourage and foster separation in places where it does not at present exist, is inculcated neither by reason, policy, nor Scripture; neither can dissenters consistently accept of aid from the state in Australia, and exclaim against it in England.
One more commencement of colonization in the island of New Holland must be mentioned in order to complete the circle. An attempt to form a settlement on the northern coast was made as early as 1824, at Melville Island, rather more than five degrees to the west of the Gulph of Carpentaria; but this establishment was moved in 1827 to Raffles Bay, an adjacent inlet of the main land. The new station was in its turn abandoned in the year 1829, and a fresh settlement, at the distance of a few miles, was planted at Port Essington, by Sir Gordon Bremer, who sailed thither with His Majesty’s ships Alligator and Britomarte, in 1838. The colony is still quite in an infant state. No clergyman accompanied the expedition, although the commander was desirous of securing the blessings of Church communion for his little settlement.[166] In the immediate neighbourhood some native Christians (Australians) were found, who had many years ago been converted by the Dutch; they had churches, and appeared to behave well. Upon application to the Bishop of Australia, 300l. was obtained towards a church at Port Essington, and his endeavours to get a chaplain appointed there were promised. It may be observed that Port Essington is situated 2000 miles, in a direct line, from Hobart Town, and both places were until very recently within the same diocese, that of Australia! In like manner, when the five clergymen stationed in Western Australia had memorialized the Bishop to visit them, that he might consecrate their churches, confirm their children, and “set in order things that were wanting,” one great obstacle to his compliance was the necessity of having his life insured in the interim, for Western Australia, though within his diocese, was not within the limits of his policy of life assurance!
cape pillar near the entrance of river derwent, van dieman’s land.
CHAPTER XI.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.
Having now rapidly surveyed the various British settlements in Australia, taking them separately, a few observations may be added respecting their general condition. And, first, of the climate of these countries, it must have evidently appeared from what has been already stated that this is extremely healthy and beautiful. Every one who has been in Australia appears to be surprised at the spring and elasticity which the climate imparts to the human frame; and although it does not seem that the average of life is at all more prolonged there than in England, still it would really seem, that the enjoyment of life was greater. Such declarations as these.—“To say we are all well is really nothing;” “the full enjoyment of health is quite a marvel;” occur in the letters of those who are settled in the great Southern Land; and the descriptions with which we meet in books of its exhilarating climate, completely justify and bear out the pleasing accounts of it given us by its inhabitants. In so vast a territory, and in so many different situations as the British colonies now occupy, there must needs be great variety of climate; and the warmth of Sydney and its neighbourhood forms a strong contrast to the cool bracing air of Bathurst, which is only 121 miles distant; the heat of the new settlements at Moreton Bay, which is nearly tropical, is strongly opposed to the English climate, beautifully softened and free from damp, which is enjoyed in Van Diemen’s Land. In Australia, it has been remarked, every thing regarding climate is the opposite of England; for example, the north is the hot wind, and the south the cool; the westerly the most unhealthy, and the east the most salubrious; it is summer with the colonists when it is winter at home, and their midnight coincides with our noonday. Near the coast, the sea breezes, which set in daily from the great expanse of waters, are very refreshing; whilst in the interior, except in Van Diemen’s Land, or in very high situations, the hot winds are extremely disagreeable. Especially in the colony of New South Wales, during the summer season, the westerly wind, which blows probably over immense deserts of sandstone, or over miles of country set on fire by the natives, is scarcely endurable at certain times, but feels like the heated air at the mouth of a furnace, and is then far from wholesome or pleasant. However, this blast of hot wind is said never to endure very long, and it is less oppressive than the same heat would be elsewhere, because in New Holland the air is dry, and in other countries, India for instance, when the heat is exactly the same, it is felt much more intensely from the quantity of moisture with which the burning atmosphere is surcharged. Still we may form an idea of the occasional violence of the heat in the interior of New Holland, from Captain Sturt’s account of his expedition across the parched-up marshes of the Macquarie River, where the sugar which his men carried in their canisters was melted, and all their dogs destroyed.
The scourge of Australia is drought; and when a native of the British Islands has lived a few years in that part of the world, he begins to understand and feel better than he ever before did, the frequent allusions in the holy Scriptures to water as an emblem and sign of the greatest blessings. The Englishman in Australia soon learns what is meant by the blessings of Christ’s kingdom being compared to “rivers of water in a dry place,” or to “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,”[167] when that rock promises a spring of living water, a comfort which in New Holland is occasionally found upon the bare top of a mountain, where no other supply is to be had within thirty miles round.[168] And the thankfulness of the inhabitants of our own green islands may be awakened, the undue expectations of the English emigrant may be checked, by reading complaints like the following, which are, at intervals, only too well founded in many parts of the Australian colonies. “We have now for upwards of four months been watching with anxious interest the progress of every cloudy sky; but, overcast as the heavens most usually are towards evening, the clouds have appeared to consist more of smoky exhalations than moist vapours; and even when at times they have seemed to break darkly over us, their liquid contents have apparently evaporated in the middle air. The various arrivals in our port (Port Macquarie) have brought us accounts of genial showers and refreshing dews, which have visited the neighbouring districts; and even the silence of our own parched coast has been broken by the sound of distant thunderstorms, exhausting themselves on the eastern waves while the sun has been setting in scorching splendour upon the horizon of our western hills. Since the 30th of June last to the present date, October 28th, there have been but thirteen days with rain, and then the showers were but trifling. In consequence, the surface of the ground, in large tracts of the district, is so parched and withered, that all minor vegetation has nearly ceased, and the wheat-crops that were sown in June, are, we fear, doomed to perish.”[169]