le task of bringing a nation to righteousness,
respectability, and contentment. A short account of the establishment of
the Bishopric of Australia, and a statement of the means of religious
and sound education in that part of the world, will not be out of place
here; and if, as before, we are driven to speak of the neglect of "the
powers that be" upon these essential points, it is hoped that, since
this is done unwillingly,--more in shame and sorrow than in anger and
party-spirit,--it will not be done with a feeling at all contrary to the
Divine precept: "Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy
people."[173]

[173] Acts xxiii. 5.

"It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and
ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these
orders of ministers in Christ's Church,--Bishops, Priests, and
Deacons;"[174] and the Church of England has never yet made bold to
dispense with what the Church of Christ did for 1500 years, without a
single exception, deem it necessary everywhere to retain. Never _in
theory_, indeed, has our Church made bold to work without the three
orders of an apostolical ministry, but, alas! frequently has she done
this in practice, and in no instance more openly or less successfully
than in Australia. For upwards of thirty years, no superintendent
at all was placed over the clergy and laity of our communion in New
South Wales, and when a step was taken, it was not made in the right
direction; an archdeacon was appointed, who, whatever might be his civil
authority, was, respecting spiritual authority, exactly upon a level
with his other brethren in the ministry; nor could he assume more than
this without assuming to himself that to which he was not entitled,--the
office of a bishop in the Church. Under these strange and irregular
circumstances was the infant Church, brought from the British isles and
planted in the wilderness of Australia, allowed to continue for about
twelve years. The witness of a layman concerning this state of things
may be here repeated: "I myself then saw a church without a bishop, and
I trust in God I may never see it again."[175] In 1824, the Rev. T. H.
Scott was appointed Archdeacon of New South Wales, and there were then
eight chaplains in the colony, which covered a vast expanse of country,
and contained, in 1821, (three years earlier,) 29,783 souls, of whom
13,814 were convicts. Thus was New South Wales provided with "a very
liberal ec