ually, only the guilty and the
wretched seem to be the last persons who can afford to reject its
consolations, even in this world. However, the conduct of those in
authority was pretty much on a par with that of the convicts, and it
was only when one of the earlier governors was told of but five or six
persons attending divine service, that "he determined to go to church
himself, and stated that he expected his example would be followed by
the people." See Burton on Education and Religion in New South Wales,
p. 7.

But a yet better proof of the chaplain's earnestness was given,
after the colony had been settled for six years, in his building a
church,--the first that was raised in New Holland for the purposes of
christian worship. Even now, we often may hear and lament the ignorance
which chooses to reckon the _clergy_ as the _Church_, and which looks
upon the efforts recently made in favour of church extension, as lying
quite beyond the province of the laity; and this deplorable ignorance
was much more common in Mr. Johnson's days.[99] Accordingly, to the
disgrace of the colony and of the government at home, no church
was raised during six years, and when at last that object was
accomplished, it was by the private purse and the single efforts of
an individual,--the chaplain of the colony. The building was in a very
humble style, made of wood and thatched, and it is said to have cost Mr.
Johnson only 40_l._; but all this merely serves to show how easily the
good work might have been before done, how inexcusable it was to leave
its accomplishment to one individual. A few months before this necessary
work was undertaken the colony had been visited by two Spanish ships,
and it is possible that an observation made by the Romish priest
belonging to one of these ships may have had some effect towards raising
the first church built at Sydney. At the time when the Spanish ships
were in the harbour, the English chaplain performed divine service
wherever he could find a shady spot; and the Spanish priest observing
that, during so many years no church had been built, lifted up his eyes
with astonishment, declaring (truly), that, had the place been settled
by his nation, a house of God would have been erected before any house
for man. How disgraceful to the English nation, how injurious to our
Reformed Church, that an observation like this, coming from the lips of
one who belonged to a corrupt and idolatrous church,