e key of the store-room in clay, from which he had
procured another key to fit the lock. Mr. Johnson scarcely credited the
story, but at length he consented that a constable should be concealed
in the house on a Sunday, when all the family, except this person, would
be engaged in Divine service. The plan succeeded too well. Supposing
that all was secure, the ungrateful wretch applied his key to the door
of the store-room, and began to plunder it of all the articles he chose
to take, until the constable, leaving his hiding-place, put an end to
the robbery by making the thief his prisoner.

The attention of Mr. Johnson to his ministerial and public duties
appears to have continued in a quiet and regular way, but its fruits
were by no means so manifest as could have been wished. In 1790 he
complained to the authorities of the want of attendance at divine
service, which, it must be observed, was generally performed in the open
air, exposed alike to the wind and rain, or burning sun; and then it was
ordered that a certain portion of provisions should be taken off from
the allowance of each person who might absent himself from prayers
without giving a reasonable excuse. And thus, we may suppose, a better
congregation was secured; but, alas! from what a motive were they
induced to draw near their God. And how many are there, it is to be
feared, in our country parishes in England, whose great inducement to
attend their church is the fact that the clergyman generally has certain
gifts to distribute: how common a fault, in short, has it been in all
ages and in all countries for men to seek Christ from no higher motive
than that they may "eat of the loaves and be filled!"[98] In proof of
the single voice that was raised in the wilderness of New South Wales
being not altogether an empty and ineffectual sound, we are told that
in 1790, when the female convicts who arrived by the _Lady Juliana_
attended divine service for the first time, Mr. Johnson, with much
propriety, in his discourse, touched upon their situation so forcibly as
to draw tears from many of them, who were not yet hardened enough to be
altogether insensible to truth. Another instance of very praiseworthy
zeal was afforded by the voluntary visit of the chaplain of New South
Wales in 1791 to Norfolk Island, which small colony had never yet been
favoured even with the temporary presence of a minister of the Church of
Christ.

[98] Religion, of course, concerns all eq