# The Irish in Australia/Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI.
THE CHURCH IN THE COLONIES.
DEVOTED IRISH PRIESTS—FATHER WALSH, OF OSSORY—THREE UNJUSTLY TRANSPORTED PRIESTS, FATHERS DIXON, O'NEIL, AND HAROLD—TYRANNICAL POLICY OF THE EARLY GOVERNORS—ARRIVAL OP ARCHPRIEST O'FLINN—HIS ARREST, IMPRISONMENT, AND EXPULSION FROM AUSTRALIA—INTERVENTION OF BISHOP ENGLAND—APPOINTMENT OF FATHERS THERRY AND CONOLLY AS THE FIRST COLONIAL CHAPLAINS—ANECDOTES OF "THE GOOD FATHER THERRY"—ARCHDEACON McENCROE AND HIS LABOURS—DR. ULLATHORNE—HIS ORGANISING WORK—SIR RICHARD BOURKE AS GOVERNOR—REVERSAL OF THE OLD ANTI-CATHOLIC POLICY—ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY—ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST BISHOP, DR. PODDING—ARCHBISHOP VAUGHAN—CARDINAL MORAN—ARCHBISHOP GOOLD—THE BISHOP AND THE BUSHRANGERS—DR. GEOGHEGAN—BISHOP REYNOLDS—THE SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH—THE REV. JULIAN E. TENISON-WOODS—BISHOP WILLSON, "THE APOSTLE OF PRISON REFORM"—DR. MURPHY, THE AUSTRALASIAN NESTOR—DR. CROKE AS BISHOP OF AUCKLAND—THE FIRST AUSTRALASIAN PLENARY COUNCIL—TRIUMPH OF CATHOLICITY IN THE COLONIES.
Just as in other distant parts of the world, the light of the Gospel has been principally spread and preserved throughout the Australian colonies by the apostolic zeal and energy of Irish priests. True sons of St. Patrick, they triumphed over the grievous official persecution of the early days, they overcame the prejudices of race and creed, and they established themselves in the land by the main force of personal merit, generous self-sacrifice, and unceasing labours for the moral and spiritual welfare of their Catholic countrymen. The governmental policy at the period of the colonisation of Australia, and for a generation afterwards, was openly and ​avowedly to refuse to recognise the Catholic religion at all, and to regard everybody in the settlement as belonging to the Church of England, whether he liked it or not. It was in pursuance of this shameful policy that the request of Father Walsh, of the Diocese of Ossory, Ireland, to be permitted to accompany the "first fleet" to Australia a century ago was churlishly refused by the reigning powers. Nothing but blind bigotry could have suggested such a refusal, for the request was an eminently reasonable one in the circumstances, and should have been conceded, not so much as a favour, but as a matter of strict right, and a plain duty towards the Catholic members of that pioneer band of exiles, going forth to found a new nation in an unsettled land 12,000 miles away. It was not until 1799, twelve years afterwards, that the Catholic population of the infant settlement were gratified with the sight of three ordained clergymen of their church. But it was not as clergymen that the home government had sent them out, but as convicted prisoners. Father Dixon, Father O'Neil, and Father Harold, along with the Reverend Mr. Fulton, a Protestant minister, were transported for their alleged complicity in the Irish rebellion of 1798. It has since been proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that these three pioneer priests of Australia were unjustly convicted, and compelled to submit to the indignity of transportation. Father Dixon was a Wexford priest and had a brother who did engage in the rebellion, but he himself exercised all his influence to keep his people within the limits of the law. Nevertheless, he had a rebel brother, and that was sufficient to condemn him in those dark days of unchecked martial law. The case of Father O'Neil was harder still. His treatment throws a lurid light on the unprincipled and unscrupulous measures that found favour ​in Irish governing circles towards the close of the last century. A soldier happened to be murdered in the neighbourhood of Youghal, and, as the actual culprit could not be discovered, the authorities resolved that some one must suffer for the deed, and accordingly made an indiscriminate arrest. They seized an idle, worthless scamp, and threatened him with a flogging if he did not give information as to the perpetrator of the murder. Under the influence of this threat, he promised to disclose everything, and he actually had the sacrilegious audacity to name the parish priest of Youghal, Father O'Neil, as the murderer. On the strength of this reckless assertion, and with nothing more substantial to go upon. Father O'Neil was arrested, and, horrible to relate, was cruelly flogged in the vain hope of compelling him to confess the crime or give information concerning it. After being kept in prison for a time, Father O'Neil was sent away in a felon-ship to the new convict settlement at the antipodes, but in less than a month after his departure from Ireland, his innocence was completely demonstrated. He was at once liberated by order of the Crown, brought back from Australia, and re-appointed in his old parish of Youghal, but no recompense or apology did he receive from the government for the harsh, unjust, and scandalous treatment to which he had been subjected. The impious scoundrel who bore false witness against him was subsequently convicted of heinous crimes and executed in Cork.
The case of Father Harold, though not so painful, was equally unjust. He was a hard-working priest in the parish of Dublin, and, because some of his people joined the rebels in '98, he was arrested and transported on the mere gratuitous supposition that they had taken that course ​with his knowledge and by his advice. After Father O'Neil's departure from the penal settlement in Sydney, his brothers in misfortune—Fathers Dixon and Harold—remained there as prisoners until April 19th, 1803, on which date the Governor of the colony, Captain P. G. King, of the Royal Navy, was pleased to issue a proclamation granting "unto the Reverend James Dixon a conditional emancipation to enable him to exercise his clerical functions as a Roman Catholic priest, which he has qualified himself for by the regular and exemplary conduct he has manifested since his residence in the colony." Father Dixon of course availed himself of this permission to resume his sacred functions in a place where they were so sadly needed the more especially as he had received faculties from his ecclesiastical superiors at home to officiate at the antipodes as soon as he was allowed to do so. At about the same time. Father Harold's clerical status was recognised by the government, and he was placed in charge of the Catholic prisoners at Norfolk Island, a delightful spot a thousand miles away in the Pacific, which had been profaned and degraded by being perverted into a prison for the worst and most irreclaimable of convicts. Fathers Dixon and Harold were thus the first duly-appointed Roman Catholic clergymen in the Australian colonies. The former labourer devotedly for several years amongst the Catholic population of Sydney and its vicinity, but, as an historian of the era has truly remarked, "the hatred, bigotry, and jealousy with which he was surrounded, soon found a pretext to depriving him of the power of doing good." This pretext was found in certain malicious and groundless reports that reached the ears of the authorities, to the effect that Father Dixon's congregations at Mass on Sundays were in reality meeting ​of rebels and traitors, and that the peace of the settlement would be endangered by their continuance. Without holding any inquiry into these spiteful allegations, the Governor jumped to the conclusion that they must be correct, and, by an order in the Government Gazette, he suppressed the public celebration of the Mass throughout the colony. There was not a shadow of justification for this high-handed proceeding, which was only possible under a system of military despotism such as then prevailed in New South Wales. It is quite true that a convict outbreak had to be suppressed soon afterwards, but the disturbance had no connection whatever with the meetings of the Roman Catholics for public worship. Indeed, Father Dixon accompanied the commanding officer and exercised all his influence on the side of order and humanity. Nevertheless, the story that this was an attempted repetition under southern skies of the Irish insurrection of '98 received the stamp of official approval, and has been accepted as gospel by several historians who did not care to inquire too closely into the facts. But nobody believes that silly story now, for direct appeals to contemporary evidence have shown conclusively that the "Colonial Vinegar Hill," as it was long the fashion to call this convict outbreak, was not traceable either to race or creed, but was the immediate and natural result of the tyranny and the brutality of heartless overseers towards the prisoners in their charge. Father Dixon tried every possible means to obtain the removal of the governmental interdict, but without the slightest success. He was forbidden to offer up the Holy Sacrifice, to preach, to baptise, or to visit the sick. The good priest soon found his position to be intolerable, and he applied for leave to return to Ireland—a permission which was granted with a ​readiness and an alacrity that showed pretty plainly how the wind was blowing in high quarters. Father Harold, hearing of the sad turn affairs had taken on the continent, left his little island prison in the Pacific, in the hope of being allowed to minister to the spiritual wants of the larger Catholic population around Sydney; but, immediately on his arrival, he was suppressed and interdicted like his predecessor; and like him, too, he refused to remain in a place where his hands were tied, his mouth closed, and his eyes bandaged by order of an autocratic governor. With Father Harold's departure for Ireland, the Australian continent was left without a solitary Catholic priest, and it continued in that hapless condition of spiritual destitution for no less than nine miserable years. During the whole of this terrible time, the country was compulsorily Protestant, that is to say, prisoners of every religious belief were obliged to attend the service of the Church of England. The penalty for refusal was a flogging of twenty-five lashes. A second refusal was visited with fifty lashes, and a third would have to be expiated in the chain-gang or in the solitude of the prison cell. In these latter days, Australian Anglicans have frequently laboured hard to whitewash this foul page of their history by contending that the foregoing penalties were never actually enforced, and they have been considerably aided in this contention by the care and completeness with which the compromising records in relation to this unpleasant business have been committed to the flames J5ut the first quarter of our century is not so remote from our day as to preclude the possibility of reliable evidence on the point being forthcoming; and whenever the allegation has been made in the press or on the platform that the penalties for staying away from the Church of England service ​service were not enforced, witnesses were not wanting to come forward and declare, either from their own personal knowledge or on the solemn testimony of departed friends and relatives, that these abominable penalties were enforced, and in a merciless manner too. Mr. James Bonwick, himself a Protestant, and one of the most industrious investigators into the facts of early colonial history, does not hesitate to say, in speaking of this persecuting era:
"All had to go to church; they were driven as sheep to the fold. Whatever their scruples, they had to go. Fallen as many were, they were not to be regarded as aliens altogether in principle and indifferent to faith. In some the very consciousness of crime had developed an eagerness after faith, and that the faith they had known, the faith of a mother. But expostulations were unheeded. If a man humbly entreated to stay behind because he was a Presbyterian, he incurred the danger of a flogging. It is said that upon a similar appeal from another, who exclaimed, 'I'm a Catholic!' he was silenced by the cry of a clerical magistrate, 'Go to church or be flogged!'"
In several places in his "Memoirs," Joseph Holt, or "General" Holt, as he was most frequently styled, from his being one of the chief leaders in the rebellion of '98, mentions the shocking brutality with which his fellow Irish-Catholic prisoners were treated in those dismal days. Here is one harrowing instance out of several that might hi quoted: "I marched to Toongabbee, where all the government transports were kept, who were called out to witness the punishment of the prisoners. One man, Maurice Fitzgerald, was sentenced to receive 300 lashes, and the method of punishment was such as to make it most effectual. The unfortunate man had his hands extended round a tree, his ​two wrists tied with cord, and his breast pressed closely to the tree, so that flinching from the blows was out of the question, for it was impossible for him to stir. Two men were appointed to flog, namely Richard Rice, a left-handed man, and John Johnson, the hangman from Sydney, who was right-handed. They stood on each side of Fitzgerald, and I never saw two thrashers in a barn move their flails with more regularity than those two man-killers did, unmoved by pity, and rather enjoying their horrid employment than otherwise. The very first blows made the blood spout from Fitzgerald's shoulders, and I felt so disgusted and horrified, that I turned my face away from the cruel sight."
After nearly a decade of attempted wholesale Protestantising through the agency of the lash and the dungeon, a cheering and most welcome ray of light to the sorely-afflicted Catholics appeared on the horizon. Their pitiful condition had been made known in the centre of Catholicity, and relief was at hand. In 1817 there arrived in the settlement at Sydney the Very Rev. Jeremiah O'Flinn, with the jurisdiction of an archpriest—the first ecclesiastic who came to Australia with a direct commission from Rome. But he soon found that something more than a Papal commission was necessary for his protection in a despotically-ruled penal colony. It had struck him before sailing from Ireland that it would be well to obtain a permit of some sort from the British Government, and he forwarded an application to that effect; but he made the mistake of not waiting for a reply, and this mistake was the source of all his subsequent misfortunes. He, in fact, regarded this permit as a mere formality, and, asking a friend to forward it to him when it was prepared, he set sail in the first ship for Australia. ​When he arrived in Sydney and took a survey of the situation, he realised the supreme importance of the absent document, and wisely concealed himself until it should come to hand, as he expected, in a few months' time. While he was in hiding, the leading Catholics and the liberal Protestants presented a memorial to the Governor of the day, General Macquarie, stating the circumstances of the case, and respectfully asking him to recognise the newly-arrived archpriest. True to the discreditable traditions of his office, the General's only reply to this very reasonable request was that the memorialists were guilty of a gross piece of presumption.
This answer sufficed to show what would be the fate of Father O'Flinn if his hiding-place became known to the authorities. The secret was well kept for a couple of months, during which the Catholics of Sydney, in regular batches, enjoyed the unwonted and unspeakable blessing of assisting, though by stealth, at the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Father O'Flinn also succeeded in baptising hundreds of young Catholics who had grown up in the ten years of spiritual darkness that had covered the land. Getting bolder by degrees, he ventured into the out-settlements, collected his scattered people, celebrated mass for their benefit, and gave them instructions both in the English and the Irish language. Long years afterwards, a venerable old man told Dr. Ullathorne, now Bishop of Birmingham, that Father O'Flinn "had the sweetest and the swiftest tongue of Irish that ever I heard." The same aged colonist gave an additional significant piece of information, viz.: that he "never spoke a word of English himself until it was made fifty lashes to speak a word of Irish." When, in his zeal to remedy the mischief of the past. Father O'Flinn ventured out into the open and went about doing good, he ran the risk of arrest at ​any moment; and it was not long before the priest-hunters laid their impious hands on this inoffensive clergyman and lodged him in the common gaol. There he was kept a close prisoner until a ship was about to sail for England, when he was escorted on board and sent back across the seas by the arbitrary act of a despotic governor. Thus, once again were the hopes of the Australian Catholics dashed to the ground, but they had one great consolation in their distress. Father O'Flinn had left the Blessed Sacrament in the house of one of their number, Mr. James Dempsey, of Kent street, Sydney; and there, in the Divine presence, the bereaved flock reverentially met on Sundays and holidays, practised the simple devotions of their Church, and kept the lamp of faith steadily burning. Worthy descendants these of the steadfast men and women of an earlier generation, who, throughout the long dark night of the penal code, worshipped and prayed in the caves and on the hillsides of Holy Ireland! As Dr. Ullathorne has sympathetically said: "It was remarkably beautiful to contemplate these men of sorrow round the Bread of Life, bowed down before the Crucified; no voice but the silent one of faith; not a priest within ten thousand miles to offer them that pledge of pardon to repentance, whose near presence they see and feel." ​When the banished Archpriest returned to Ireland, the illustrious Dr. England, Bishop of Charleston, in the United States, happened to be on a visit to his native land, and to this able and accomplished prelate. Father O'Flinn narrated the ill-treatment and the injustice he had received at the hands of the governing powers in distant Australia. Intense was the bishop's indignation at the recital of the persecution to which the good priest had been subjected, and of the grievous wrongs inflicted on the Catholic population of the colony through being deprived of the ministrations of a clergyman of their faith. Dr. England brought the case under the notice of Lord Donoughmore, then member for Cork, by whom it was ventilated in the House of Commons, with the result that the grievance under which the Catholics of the colony had so long laboured was fully recognised, and an act of tardy justice was performed by the Imperial Government in becoming responsible for the sending out to Australia of two salaried and accredited priests. The Rev. John Joseph Therry and the Rev. Philip Conolly were the clergymen who offered to devote their lives to the service of their exiled countrymen at the antipodes. Father Therry, whose long and laborious career amidst many dangers and difficulties has justly won for him the high title of the "Apostle of the Australias," was a native of Cork, like Bishop England, the Apostle of the American Church. He entered Carlow College in his seventeenth year, and had the good ​fortune of studying for the priesthood under the famous theologian and controversialist, Dr. Doyle, more widely known under his episcopal initials "J. K. L." Ordained in 1815, Father Therry was appointed to a curacy in his native city of Cork, and it was there he met the returned Archpriest O'Flinn, the victim of governmental intolerance at the antipodes. This memorable meeting was the turning-point in the young priest's career. He listened with intense interest to the sad account of oppression and cruel wrongs in a faraway land, and his sympathies were powerfully excited on behalf of his suffering countrymen in Australia, whom he pictured in his mind as holding out their hands, like the vision of St. Patrick of old, and crying out in piteous accents, "Come and abide with us!" Having got the consent of his bishop, and being provided with the necessary credentials from the Imperial Government, the devoted missionary, in company with his colleague. Father Conolly, sailed from the Cove of Cork in the ship "Janus" on December 5th, 1819. They arrived safely in Sydney Harbour at the beginning of May, and presented their credentials to General Macquarie, the same governor who had behaved so badly towards Archpriest O'Flinn. Commissioned as they were by the home authorities, the governor had no option but to receive and recognise Fathers Therry and Conolly, but he showed that his prejudices were as strong as ever by sending them a series of dictatorial written instructions for their guidance. The two newly-arrived priests were warned on their peril "not to try to make converts from the members of the Church of England or from Protestants in general." They were enjoined not to celebrate Mass publicly "except on Sundays and the holidays of the Church of England." But the most outrageous restriction of all was that Fathers Therry and Conolly" were ​not to interfere with the religious instruction of the Catholic children in the orphan schools, all the inmates of which are to be instructed in the faith and doctrines of the Church of England." Father Therry never lost an opportunity of protesting with all his might against this tyrannical and infamous decree. In punishment of his pertinacity, he was once suspended from his clerical office by the government for a considerable period, and it was only after an appeal to the Imperial authorities that he was reinstated. It is needless to say that the indomitable priest triumphed eventually, and vindicated the right of the Catholic Church to the spiritual control and training of her own children.
Soon after their arrival, the two priests resolved to separate in order that they might achieve a maximum of good. Father Conolly taking charge of the growing settlement in Van Diemen's Land in the far south, whilst Father Therry remained in the parent settlement at Sydney. He lost no time in setting about the erection of a suitable church, for, up to that time, the Catholic population of Sydney, though numbering 10,000, had no ecclesiastical edifice they could call their own. So much success attended his exertions that, in the year after his arrival in the colony, the foundation-stone of the old St. Mary's Cathedral—the precursor of the present noble structure—was laid amidst great congratulations and rejoicings. For five long years did Father Therry labour devotedly, without the assistance of a brother priest, amongst the Catholics of the settled districts of New South Wales. Many are the anecdotes related of his uncompromising zeal, energy, and determination in the discharge of his sacred duties. Mr. Bonwick records that on one occasion the good priest received a message that a convict, who had been sentenced to death, ​had expressed a desire to see him and make a last confession. The time was short; a long distance had to be traversed; the roads were in a very bad condition, and the rivers were flooded. After a weary day's ride, Father Therry found his progress barred in the evening by a raging torrent, into which his horse could not possibly go, and on which no boat could live. But the brave priest was determined to reach his destination, and carry succour to a departing soul at all hazards. Seeing a man on the opposite side of the torrent, he asked him for help in God's name. The man, understanding the urgency of the case, procured a rope, and by means of a stone attached to a cord, threw it over to Father Therry, who hesitated not an instant, but tying the rope around his body, jumped into the swollen stream and was dragged across through the foaming waters. Without stopping for rest or changing his clothes, the Soggarth Aroon mounted another horse, and arrived just in time to give absolution to the doomed convict on the scaffold.
At another time, during the period of his unjustifiable suspension by the reigning governor, Father Therry was informed that a Catholic was dying in a prison hospital. It was late at night, and, when he came to the door, an armed sentry opposed his entrance. "I must come in," said the zealous priest. "My orders; I cannot permit you to pass," was the soldier's reply, as he brought his weapon into position. "But," Father Therry persisted in tones of anguish, "a Catholic is dying within—I am the priest—his eternal loss or salvation may depend on you—now which is your first duty?" The soldier was unable to resist this pathetic appeal. He clapped his musket to his side, and Father Therry walked in to give consolation to a departing soul.
​A contemporary of this distinguished Irish-Australian missionary has summed up his character and career in a sentence: "Neither time, nor distance, nor danger—and his duties were often performed at the real peril of life—ever impeded or obstructed him in the zealous performance of the sacred duties of his mission." It was his custom on Christmas-day to celebrate his midnight mass in Sydney, a second mass in Liverpool, and a third at Campbelltown, spending the whole of the subsequent week amongst the scattered Catholic families in the interior. Wherever he went, every door was ready to receive him, and Protestants vied with Catholics in extending assistance and hospitality to the general favourite. Disputes arising between neighbours were as a rule referred to him for arbitration, and Father Therry's decision was invariably accepted as final by both parties. Truly has it been said of him that "in the days of transportation he was the chief comforter and friend of the convicts of his creed, and no minister has enjoyed, in a larger measure than this truly reverend man has done throughout his long career, the confidence and affection of both bond and free."
In 1826 Ireland sent the indefatigable pioneer a helper in the person of Father Daniel Power, and, a few years afterwards, a still more important acquisition arrived, the Rev. John (subsequently Archdeacon) McEncroe. A native of Rathsalla, near Cashel, in Tipperary, Father McEncroe devoted the early years of his priesthood to missionary work under Bishop England in the United States. There for seven years he preached and lectured, established a Catholic newspaper, and combated the now overthrown institution of slavery with a vigour and determination that made him an object of numerous threats from the exasperated dealers ​in human flesh. Unceasing work at high pressure almost ruined his health, and he was forced to return to Ireland. After an interval of comparative repose, he was nominated to a vacant bishopric in the United States; but, acting on a providential inspiration, and with the approval of the then Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Murray, he declined the proffered well-earned promotion, and accepted the hard lot of an humble missionary amongst his exiled countrymen in Australia. Years before, he had seen in Clonmel, Tipperary, a prison-van full of unfortunate fellows about to be transported to the antipodes. Running into a neighbouring bookseller's shop, the thoughtful priest soon emerged with three dozen Catholic prayer-books, which he threw into the van as so much spiritual bread upon the waters. Years afterwards, he had the supreme satisfaction of seeing several of these identical prayer-books in the houses of prosperous settlers in the far interior of New South Wales—a remarkable transformation of that dismal and discouraging scene in Clonmel, when he first saw the men and handled the books. Apart from his conspicuous services on behalf of the moral and spiritual elevation of the Catholic prisoners that were: sent to Australia, Archdeacon McEncroe will long be remembered for the prominent part he played in the establishment of the leading charitable institutions of Sydney. He was also the founder of the Sydney Freeman's Journal, a high-class literary weekly newspaper, which, together with the Melbourne Advocate, has for many years ably and consistently upheld and defended Irish and Catholic interests in the southern hemisphere. During his lifetime; he was himself the chief, the most scholarly, and the most extensive contributor to its columns. One of its editors was a distinguished member of an Irish literary and patriotic ​family, viz., Richard O'Sullivan, a brother of that lamented orator, author, and journalist, A. M. Sullivan, and of that, happily, still living devoted Nationalist leader and patriotic poet, T. D. Sullivan, M.P., editor of the Nation, When he revisited Ireland in 1859, he brought back with him to Australia the Rev. Dr. Forrest as the first rector of the now-flourishing St. John's College, affiliated to the University of Sydney. In short, Archdeacon McEncroe is fully entitled to share with Archpriest Therry in all the posthumous honours that are justly due to the self-denying, successful pioneer, each having been largely instrumental in laying the sure foundation on which the imposing edifice of the Australian Catholic Church of to-day is built. The Right Hon. W. B. Dalley, soon after the decease of the twin founders of Catholicity on the southern continent, reminded a large gathering of his co-religionists in Sydney of "the privilege of having possessed two such pure, simple, heroic confessors as the two great priests whose memory we wish to perpetuate. They are endeared to us by lives as blameless as they were beautiful, and identified with everything of interest in our ecclesiastical history."
With the arrival in Australia, more than half a century ago, of Dr. Ullathorne, now the aged Bishop of Birmingham, in England, another important stage of Church development was reached. Dr. Ullathorne, then an active young man of twenty-six, came out in the capacity of Vicar-General of the Bishop of the Mauritius, who at that early period exercised a sort of nominal jurisdiction over the whole of Australia and the South Sea Islands. The organising faculty was possessed in no small degree by Dr. Ullathorne, and he was fortunate in receiving material assistance from the new Governor, Sir Richard Bourke, who, though not a Catholic ​himself, had sympathies in that direction by reason of his many Catholic relatives and friends around his native city of Limerick. The coming of Sir Richard Bourke was coincident with a complete reversal of that avowed anti-Catholic policy, which previous governors took a shameless delight in administering. A powerful despatch of his to the Right Hon. E. G. Stanley, Secretary of State for the Colonies, under date September 30th, 1833, dealt a knock-down blow to the pampered little state Church which his predecessors had laboured so hard to erect on Australian soil. He pointed out with clearness and effect the grossly unfair manner in which the annual grant from the public treasury for Church purposes was distributed, £11,500 being grabbed by the Church of England, whilst the Roman Catholics, notwithstanding their large numbers, received only £1,500, and the Church of Scotland £600. "The chaplains of the Church of England," he proceeded, "are provided with glebes of forty acres each, or with a money allowance in lieu, and with houses or lodging money. No advantage of this kind is possessed by the clergy of the Church of Scotland, or by the Roman Catholics. Such an unequal distribution of support cannot be supposed to be acceptable to the colonists, who provide the funds from which this distribution is made. Accordingly, the magnitude of the sums annually granted for the support of the Church of England in New South Wales, is very generally complained of, and a petition to the governor and the Legislative Council has been lately prepared at a public meeting, and very numerously signed, praying for a reduction of the expenditure. In a new country, to which persons of all religious persuasions are invited to resort, it will be impossible to establish a dominant and endowed church without much hostility, and there is great improbability ​of its becoming permanent. The inclination of these colonists, which keeps pace with the spirit of the age, is decidedly adverse to such an institution; and I fear the interests of religion would be prejudiced by its establishment. If, on the contrary, support were given as required to every one of the three great divisions of Christians indifferently, and the management of the temporalities left to themselves, I conceive that the public treasury might in time be relieved of a considerable charge; and, what is of much greater importance, the people would become more attached to their respective Churches, and be more willing to listen to, and obey the voices of, their several pastors."
This brave and statesmanlike description of the situation, Sir Richard Bourke followed up with a plan of his own devising for the future equitable distribution of the Government grant for religious and educational purposes. The Imperial authorities in London took some time to digest the most momentous despatch they had yet received on Australian affairs, but at last came the reply from Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Melbourne's Administration. It bore the date of November 30, 1835, and was a complete and highly satisfactory endorsement of the broad liberal views that had been enunciated by Sir Richard Bourke. Writing on behalf of his colleagues in the cabinet as well as for himself. Lord Glenelg thanked Sir Richard for the "full and clear statement" which he had transmitted to them, with respect to the existing means of religious instruction and education in New South Wales, and for the suggestions with which that statement had been supplemented. "I am disposed," his lordship continued, "to commit to the Governor and the Legislative Council the task of suggesting and enacting ​such laws and regulations for the distribution and appropriation of the funds applicable to the general purposes off religion and education, as they consider best adapted to the exigencies of the colony. In the general principles upon which your plan is founded as applicable to New South Wales, His Majesty's Government entirely concur. In these communities of the Australian colonies, formed and rapidly multiplying under most peculiar circumstances, and comprising great numbers of Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, as well as members of the Church of England, it is evident that the attempt to select any one church as the exclusive object of public endowment, even if it were advisable in. every other respect, would not long be tolerated. To none of the numerous Christians of those persuasions should, opportunities be refused for worship and education on principles which they approve."
This unmistakable official sanction cleared the path for local legislation. The Church Act, establishing religious equality on the lines laid down by Sir Richard Bourke in his despatch, was speedily introduced and passed by the Legislative Council. It came into operation on July 29 1836, a red-letter day in the annals of Australia, for it witnessed the close of the long, dark, and sanguinary era of ecclesiastical supremacy and intolerance, and the beginning of the benign reign of religious liberty throughout the Australian dominions. It is true that a few years later when the first Roman Catholic prelate, Dr. Folding, arrived in Sydney and assumed his legitimate title, the local head of the Church of England, Dr. Broughton, made one last desperate attempt to reanimate the ashes of sectarian strife and to regain his vanished position of pre-eminence in the religious world. Standing on the north side of his altar and ​surrounded by his clergy, the Anglican prelate made a public and somewhat theatrical protest, "that the Bishop of Rome has not any right or authority, according to the laws of God and the canonical order of the Church, to institute any episcopal or archiepiscopal see or sees within the diocese of Australia and the province of Canterbury." This silly performance produced a little temporary turmoil, and that was all. It did not alter the opinion of the general community in the least, but rather confirmed the majority in the wisdom of their action in placing all denominations, without exception, on an equal footing in the eye of the law. In after years the two Sydney prelates—Roman Catholic and Church of England—entertained laudable feelings of mutual respect and esteem, and contrived to work harmoniously within their respective spheres of action.
It was during the governorship of Sir Richard Bourke that large numbers of free immigrants from Ireland and England commenced to pour into New South Wales, and to remove the hitherto conspicuous convict element into the background of affairs. In other words, the country was emerging from the sullen, chilly gloom of the penal settlement, and advancing rapidly into the bright sunshine of a free state. This happy change in the condition of the colony was reported to the Roman authorities, with the result that Dr. John Bede Folding was delegated and appointed as the first Roman Catholic Bishop of the Australian continent, with Sydney as his cathedral city. He was subsequently elevated to the dignity of Archbishop, and, for the long period of forty-two years, he was a commanding force in the fostering and development of the Australian "Church. And yet so scrupulous was he in avoiding even the 'appearance of offence to his fellow-colonists of other beliefs, ​that he became one of the most popular and universally respected of the leading men at the antipodes. When he passed away in March, 1877, at the patriarchal age of eighty-three, all Sydney turned out to honour his remains with a public funeral. He was succeeded by his brilliant young coadjutor. Dr. Vaughan, whose episcopal career in Sydney, though short, was distinguished for bounding ecclesiastical progress and the greatly-increased influence of Catholicism in the land. Dr. Moran, Bishop of Ossory, Ireland, was called to be the third occupant of the primatial see of Australia, and on him the present Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Leo XIII., has conferred the highest of honours, the dignity of the Cardinalate. His Holiness, by that generous act, lifted the young Church of Australia to the same level with those great historical churches of the old world, that can gaze back through long centuries of growth and vicissitude, of faith and fidelity, of triumph and toil.
As the Catholic population of New South Wales increased, three provincial sees were constituted—Maitland, which is governed by the Eight Rev. James Murray, formerly private secretary to the late Cardinal Cullen, in Dublin; Goulburn, which continues to be administered by its first diocesan, Dr. Lanigan, from Cashel, Tipperary; and Bathurst, which was organised by the late Dr. Matthew Quinn, and is now presided over by the Right Rev. Dr. Byrne, one of its pioneer missionaries.
One of the first duties that Dr. Polding discharged on his arrival in Sydney was the dedication of a church to St. Patrick at Parramatta. Finding intemperance to be lamentably prevalent amongst the colonists, the Bishop availed himself of this opportunity to preach a powerful sermon on the subject. In the name of their glorious St. Patrick, he ​entreated his people to show forth the power and the purity of their faith in the propriety of their conduct, to shun all excess and drunkenness as most offensive to the Almighty, derogatory to the memory of a saint distinguished for his abstemiousness, and degrading to the descendants of those noble men whose holy lives obtained for Ireland that most cherished title of the Island of Saints. This advice was urgently needed, for the free immigrants who were constantly arriving were in great danger of being demoralised by the scenes of debauchery they were compelled to witness in the streets of Sydney. But, fortunately, the best friends and protectors of the Irish Catholic immigrant were simultaneously making their presence felt in the now growing community. Dr. Ullathorne, who assumed the office of Vicar-General on the arrival of Dr. Folding, made several voyages to the home country, and returned on each occasion with a further supply of Irish missionary priests, several of whom were destined to fill high places in the Church of the future. Thus it was that, wherever a settlement was formed, the priest was soon on the spot, collecting the Catholic people together, building a modest little church, and establishing a school for the young ones. Many now prosperous and populous cities and towns in New South Wales, having large and wealthy congregations and numerous Catholic institutions, began life in this humble fashion under the presiding care of a pioneer Irish missionary priest.
One of the young clergymen, into whom the untiring Dr. Ullathorne infused some of his own abounding enthusiasm for the promotion of the cause of Catholicity in the colonies, was the Rev. James Alipius Goold, a member of an old Cork family, who had been educated for the priesthood on the continent. Meeting him one day on the steps of the church ​of St. Augustine in the Piazza del Popolo in Eome, Dr. Ullathorne pourtrayed so vividly the need of labourers in the distant Australian mission-field, that Father Goold did not hesitate to volunteer his services on the spot. It was this providential rather than accidental meeting in the Eternal City, that gave to the Church in Victoria its pioneer bishop. For, when in the course of a few years the Port Phillip district of New South Wales became prominent and promising, the Holy See, on the recommendation of Dr. Polding, decided to erect it into the bishopric of Melbourne, and to appoint Father Goold as its first prelate, though he was then but thirty-six years of age. After his consecration in St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, Dr. Goold undertook the long drive of 500 miles through the roadless bush to Melbourne, and accomplished the distance in nineteen days. He will live in history as the first man who had the hardihood to essay that then perilous, but now comparatively easy feat. Many Catholic citizens of Melbourne went a long way into the country to meet their new bishop, and he was escorted into his cathedral city by an imposing cavalcade. He found his diocese extending from the River Murray to the Southern Ocean, manned with less than half a dozen priests, and possessing but a few scattered places of worship to meet the requirements of so large a district. He immediately commenced the work of organising the church in a land that, he foresaw, was destined to make marvellous strides in the immediate future. In the early years of his episcopate, he did an enormous amount of rough bush travelling, the era of roads and railways not having yet arrived, sleeping out at night camped under the gum-trees, officiating in primeval huts during the day, and personally visiting ​the most distant and outlying portions of his diocese. The fact so frequently noted and commented on by literary travellers, that in almost every Victorian city and town the Roman Catholic Church occupies the premier site, is an evidence of the activity and the shrewdness with which Bishop Goold in those early days gauged the probabilities of the future, and made ample provision for the populous times to come. The golden discoveries of 1851, the consequent vast influx of people from all quarters of the globe, the bursting into existence of new centres like Ballarat, Sandhurst, Castlemaine, &c., considerably enlarged the sphere of the Bishop's activity, and found him equal to the unexpected and extraordinary emergency that had arisen. A large percentage of the diggers, he knew, was composed of Irish Catholics, and in order to minister to their spiritual necessities, he speedily planted priests on each of the permanent gold-fields, and sent to Ireland for more clergymen to keep pace with the urgent requirements of the new colony of Victoria, into which the Port Phillip district had now bloomed. Dr. Goold was in short the pioneer prelate that was demanded by the difficult circumstances of the time; and the host of ​churches, schools and religious houses for which he secured sites all over Victoria, and which, thanks to his keen and intelligent prevision, are flourishing institutions to-day, will be long-standing memorials of his organising and administrative abilities. His Honour Judge Quinlan, an old Victorian colonist, has supplied some interesting reminiscences of Dr. Groold's early episcopal career. "I had the good fortune," he says, "of making his lordship's acquaintance in the latter part of the year 1853. He was a bishop whose duties can never be equalled, by reason of their inseparable association with the circumstances of the early days. The whole face of the colony is now changed, and the circumstances of the diocese have so altered, that it is impossible that any of his successors can labour in his footsteps. The reason is this. He came at a time that was most exciting in the history of this colony, when people were pouring in at the rate of a thousand a week. He had to supervise a territory of enormous extent, teeming with human souls that wanted saving, and with children that wanted education. It was a task for a Hercules, but he did it. He was obliged to do all his travelling on horseback, and he did it. I remember his excursions through the bush in the olden times. How unostentatious he was! How zealous! How indefatigable! How under his mild bland exterior he carried the heart of the Christian warrior! I remember his coming to Ballarat at the time of the Eureka riots and I know for a fact that his presence and influence there had more effect in upholding law and order than all the soldiers and police put together. I remember when he went to Mount Eversley during the disturbances in that neighbourhood, and can recall the enthusiasm of the people—how they determined to build a ​church, and that the only place where the church should be built was Tipperary Flat. I have a vivid recollection of the kindness and courtesy with which he was treated by the English officers in the camp, and of their anxiety that the bishop should stay with them, but his lordship politely but firmly declined their kind invitation, remarking, "I must go to my own people." And he went to his own people, and slept that night amongst them in a little tent. On the following morning I was present when he spoke. A more unobtrusive orator I never heard, and yet I do not think I ever heard one more effectual. I was assured by the officers and others that Dr. Goold's advice and exhortation to the people effected a revolution for good, and they personally expressed their gratitude to him for his timely visit and his tranquillising words." In those early days referred to by Judge Quinlan, Dr. Goold could easily have become a millionaire, or, to use the words of the Hon. John Gavan Duffy, "the richest bishop in the Christian world," had he preferred to place in his private purse the golden gifts that were showered upon him by lucky diggers during his periodical visits to the gold-fields, when they were at the height of their splendour and productiveness. But all the riches he acquired were utilised in the building up of the Church throughout the extensive district that had been committed to his pastoral charge; and, after governing his Victorian diocese for thirtyeight years, he passed away in June, 1886—the Archbishop of Melbourne—leaving an honoured memory, but little of worldly wealth beyond a few thousands of pounds to be ​devoted to works of religion and charity. His mortal remains fittingly rest within the walls of that noble Cathedral of St. Patrick in Melbourne, of which he was the founder and the chief builder in life. An able and accomplished member of the Irish hierarchy, the Most Rev. T. J. Carr, Bishop of Galway, has been appointed as his successor in the see of Melbourne.
The Rev. John Brady, a brother Irish priest, who was a fellow-voyager with Dr. Goold to Australia, also became a pioneer bishop, the scene of his labours being the vast and remote colony of Western Australia. Two Spanish prelates—Drs. Serra and Griver—succeeded him in the administration of a diocese almost equal in area to half the size of Europe; but now the Western Australian Church is once again ruled by an Irish ecclesiastic in the person of Dr. Matthew Gibney, the recently consecrated Bishop of Perth. His name is associated with one of the most heroic incidents recorded in colonial history. An orphanage near Perth having been almost destroyed by lightning, Father Gibney was deputed to collect in the neighbouring and richer colonies sufficient money for its restoration. Whilst he was engaged in this duty in Victoria, a band of outlaws—"bushrangers," as they are colonially termed—who had long defied capture, and had carried on a career of murder and robbery, descended from their haunts in the mountain ranges and took possession of the village of Glenrowan, in north-eastern Victoria, making all the inhabitants prisoners. They cut the telegraph wires and tore up the railway track; nevertheless the authorities in Melbourne were apprised of the daring outrage, and despatched a large force to the locality. The bushrangers, taken by surprise, threw themselves into the village hotel, which they defended against the besiegers for ​the greater part of the day. Father Gibney, who happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time, hastened to the scene of strife, so that the services of a priest would not be wanting, if required. At an early stage of the conflict, he endeavoured to advance through the open to the hotel, and exert his influence with the besieged bushrangers to induce them to surrender, and thereby avert further bloodshed. He was confident that even such desperadoes as they would not fire upon a priest, but the officers in command thought differently, and declined to allow him to place his life in jeopardy. When, however, late in the afternoon, the hotel was seen to be in flames, the brave priest refused to be kept back any longer, and rushed across to the burning building in the hope of still being able to administer the last sacraments of the Church to any surviving bushrangers within. He w^as watched with eager and breathless attention as he crossed the open space in front of the outlaws' citadel, the general fear being that he would be shot down before he reached the house. A cheer went up from the excited spectators as they saw him rush through the flames into the interior of the hotel, and a number of them were emboldened to follow in his footsteps. When Father Gibney got within the blazing building, he saw the bodies of the bushrangers lying on the floor, they having apparently preferred to shoot themselves or each other, rather than fall into the hands of the authorities. He had just time to touch their bodies and ascertain that they were lifeless, before the advancing flames compelled him to beat a hasty retreat in order to save his own life. The courage and intrepidity displayed by Father Gibney on this occasion won universal admiration, and the news of his elevation to the mitre was received with cordial approval by the press and the public of all the colonies.
​The South Australian Church has had three Irish bishops during the forty-five years of its existence, and is now governed by a fourth accomplished prelate of the same nationality. The first Bishop of Adelaide was the Eight Rev. Francis Murphy, who had well earned the distinction by the ardour and activity with which, in the home country, he had seconded the efforts of Dr. Ullathorne to obtain a supply of missionaries for the colonies. It was one of his little band of pioneer priests, the Rev. Patrick Bonaventure Geoghegan, who succeeded him as second Bishop of Adelaide. Dr. Greoghegan was the first resident priest in Melbourne, and was highly esteemed by all sects and classes in the capital city of Victoria. After wearing the mitre in honour for six years, he died in Dublin, to the intense regret of thousands of antipodean admirers of his many sterling qualities of head and heart. Dr. Shell, who was called to fill his vacant chair in the Adelaide cathedral, was also a Victorian ecclesiastic. He had creditably filled the positions of president of St. Patrick's College in Melbourne, and archdeacon of the Ballarat district. Dr. Reynolds, the present occupant of the see, laboured long and devotedly as a missionary priest in the diocese, before he was chosen as its ruler, and, under his vigorous administration, the Church in South Australia has become remarkably well officered and equipped. The contrast with the circumstances of its birth is striking and instructive to a degree. This is how Dr. Reynolds recently described the state of affairs when the first bishop, Dr. Murphy, came to Adelaide: "His episcopate was an arduous one, his congregation was struggling; he had no help from the State, no church, no school, no home, and only two priests. An old cottage that was used as a public-house, became his episcopal residence. An old store ​was hired and fitted up as his cathedral, and here he commenced his self-denying labours as Bishop of Adelaide."
South Australia enjoys the unique distinction of being the only colony that has so far given to the Church a religious order peculiar to the southern hemisphere. This order is known as the Sisters of St. Joseph, and is mainly composed of the daughters of Irish families, who have devoted their lives to the education of the poor. The sisters conduct schools in all the leading centres of South Australia, and have latterly been extending their field of duty to the neighbouring colonies as well. At the inception of the order, they had a hard struggle to maintain a footing in their own colony, for they were assailed by slanders and misrepresentations, and for a time they were suppressed and disbanded, on prudential grounds by Dr. Shell, the then Bishop of Adelaide. An appeal to Rome ensued, and Pope Pius IX. reversed the bishop's decision. The order was thereupon re-established, and it has ever since nobly vindicated its right to exist, and effectually silenced the voice of calumny, by the earnest, self-denying labours of its members throughout the colonies in the cause of Catholic primary education. Its founder, the Rev. Julian E. Tenison-Woods, has gained a widespread reputation as perhaps the most eminent scientist in the southern hemisphere; but many who have read his numerous works on the geology, botany, and natural history of the Australian continent, are, perhaps, not aware that his real vocation is that of a hard-working missionary priest, and that his scientific studies have been for the most part pursued in the brief intervals of leisure allowed him by the calls of sacred duty.
It is related that a little over forty years ago a few priests ventured northwards from New South Wales to what was ​then called the Moreton Bay district, in the hope of being able to plant the Church in that newly-settled quarter. But, to borrow a Biblical phrase, they could find no rest for the soles of their feet at that early period, and they were under the necessity of retreating to Sydney in a little boat. And, yet, in the comparatively few years that have elapsed since this abortive attempt was made, the Moreton Bay district has developed into the fine and populous colony of Queensland, with an Irish Catholic bishop enthroned in its capital city of Brisbane. And spread over its ample surface are scores of towns, each with its resident priest and its Catholic congregation. Bishop James Quinn was sent from Dublin in 1859 to take charge of the newly-formed diocese of Brisbane and for twenty years he spent himself in the up-hill work of its organisation. Before he passed away, and before resigning his episcopal charge into the hands of his vicar-general, the present bishop (Dr. Dunne), he had the satisfaction of seeing many of the fruits of his prudent and energetic administration. More than once was Bishop Quinn called upon to calm the angry passions of excited bands of Orangemen and Catholics, ready to fly at each other's throats and his good-humoured advice, added to his general popularity, was always effectual in dispelling the impending storm, and restoring peace and good-will to the previously agitated community.
In referring in a preceding page to the arrival of the two duly-accredited pioneer priests, Fathers Therry and Conolly it was stated that, whilst the former made Sydney his headquarters, the hitter established himself in the new settlement at Van Diemen's Land, the "isle of beauty" lying to the south of the Australian continent, and afterwards christened under its present sweeter and shorter name, ​Tasmania. Father Conolly landed at Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, in 1820, and, during the succeeding fifteen years, he was the only resident priest and Catholic chaplain on the island. At first his congregation assembled in the store of the leading Catholic of Hobart, Mr. Edward Curr, but, after a few months' trial of this temporary expedient. Father Conolly resolved to approach the governor (Colonel Sorrell) with a request for a grant of land, on which to commence the building of a permanent church. "The regulations allow me to grant land only to those who bring capital into the colony," was the governor's answer to the priest's request. "Well," replied Father Conolly, "when I landed, I had just £14 in my pocket." "Then I regard you as a capitalist," said the governor, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "and will give you a grant in proportion. You may have fourteen acres of land." Father Conolly lost no time in selecting a site and erecting the first modest little Catholic church on Tasmanian soil, the precursor of the present spacious and beautiful St. Mary's Cathedral of Hobart. Year after year, he lived and laboured by himself amongst the few free settlers of his faith in Tasmania, and the Catholic convicts who were being annually expatriated from the old country. On behalf of the latter, he had to fight the same battle that Father Therry successfully waged in the parent colony, in order to relieve the Catholic prisoners from compulsory attendance at the Church of England services. "Many a poor fellow had the punishment of fifty lashes inflicted on him for not going to the Protestant church on all occasions," writes one of the oldest and most respected dignitaries of the Church in Tasmania. It was not until ​the arrival of the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Hobart, Dr. Willson, in May, 1844, that this gross abuse of power became entirely a thing of the past. John Francis Maguire, in his well-known work on "Rome: Its Ruler and its Institutions," mentions that the feelings of the late Pope Pius IX.—himself a great prison reformer—"were touchingly expressed on the occasion of his giving a final audience to the late Bishop Willson, when that prelate was about to return to his distant diocese: 'Be kind, my son,' said the Pope, 'to all your flock at Hobart, but be kindest to the condemned.'" These weighty words from the lips of the Sovereign Pontiff made a deep and lasting impression on the newly-consecrated prelate, and, during the whole of his subsequent episcopal career. Dr. Willson was the best friend of the banished prisoners of the United Kingdom, the "Apostle of Reform," in the words of Sir Charles Trevelyan. It was his regular practice to board every convict ship immediately on its arrival in Hobart. Then he would single out the Catholic convicts, give them a wholesome practical address, telling them what they should avoid, and pointing out to them the path of righteousness and reform. Many are the testimonies to the beneficial effects of "good Bishop Willson's" earnest endeavours to ameliorate the hard lot of Great Britain and Ireland's transported prisoners. Here is an official one out of several of the like character that might be quoted: "I can affirm," writes Mr. James Boyd, the commandant of the prison at Port Arthur for a long series of years, "from personal observation and the abundant voluntary, testimony of the prisoners themselves, that but one sentiment animates them towards his lordship's person, viz., that of mingled gratitude, respect, and affection. Many a hardened, reckless convict has, through Bishop Willson's ​missionary zeal and Howard-like philanthropy, been awakened to a sense of his unhappy position, and induced to enter upon an amended career, whereby he has manifested a disposition to act rationally and conform to discipline whilst he remained under my charge, and has ultimately become a respectable member of society." And Colonel Champ, the head of the Tasmanian Convict Department, bore further testimony to the "constant and unwearied exertions of Bishop Willson in administering to the spiritual needs of the convict population, and the success with which those exertions have been attended." Sir William Denison, the Governor of Tasmania, wrote in these terms on the eve of the Bishop's departure for a brief visit to Europe in 1852: "If the government owe you much, so do the convicts; and they, I am certain, will participate in those feelings of regret, with which every one who has had the pleasure of your acquaintance w411 hear of your approaching departure."
Like all the other pioneer prelates, Bishop Willson threw himself on the generosity of the Irish Church, in the full assurance that his appeal for more missionaries to man his island diocese would not be fruitless. There were only three priests and three churches in the whole of Tasmania at the time. The Rev. Thomas Kelsh, the biographer of Bishop Willson, describing his visit to Ireland, states that "though great difficulties prevented his getting the supply of priests he had hoped for, some ecclesiastical students, quite captivated by his venerable appearance and address, volunteered for the distant colony as soon as their studies were completed." They kept their promise, came out to Tasmania, were ordained by Bishop Willson, and were established in various parts of the island, where their presence was sorely needed. Having provided his diocese with a fresh ​contingent of clergy, the bishop proceeded to the erection of St. Mary's Cathedral in Hobart, which he was enabled to do through the princely generosity of a local Irish Catholic, Mr. Roderick O'Connor, who gave him the noble sum of £10,000 for the purpose. The spirit in which the bishop set about this great undertaking is shown by his own words, expressing an earnest desire for "an humble revival of that taste and skill which influenced our forefathers in the faith, when erecting St. Peter's in Canterbury and York, St. Patrick's in Dublin, St. Canice's in Kilkenny, St. Finbarr's in Cork, and the many glorious churches, the pride of our land." Dr. Willson was not spared to see the completion of the cathedral in whose erection he took so laudable a pride, but the structure has been finished under the supervision of his successor, the Right Eev. Daniel Murphy, the present venerable Bishop of Hobart. Dr. Murphy is the Nestor of the Australasian prelates, having worn the mitre for more than forty years, first under the burning sun of India, and afterwards under the beautiful skies of temperate Tasmania.
France is entitled to the honour of having planted Catholicity in New Zealand, but, just as in the other Australasian colonies, the working of the Church is now almost entirely in the hands of Irish ecclesiastics. Dr. Pompallier, the first bishop of New Zealand, landed there in 1838, accompanied by one priest and a lay brother. He, and the clergy who followed in his footsteps, made many converts to Christianity amongst the high-spirited Maories, and a large percentage of the present, but rapidly-vanishing, generation of New Zealand natives, is thoroughly and devotedly Catholic. One priest in particular, the Very Rev. Walter McDonald, has laboured for many years so ​successfully in their midst as to earn for himself the high title of the "Apostle of the Maori Race" He speaks the Maori language as fluently as a native; he has made a complete study of their intricate national character; he is thoroughly acquainted with all their tribal customs and peculiarities, and has gained their absolute confidence and affection. It is of him that this pleasant little anecdote is told: "Father Walter is well known as a flute-player of more than ordinary ability; but few of the large audience assembled within the walls of the Panmure Hall, on the occasion of the concert recently held in the village, were prepared for the treat which was afforded them by the worthy parish priest, who contributed a flute solo, playing in his best style. On one occasion, in Auckland, when summoned on a sick call, Father Walter, having ministered to the spiritual wants of the patient, was chatting in his genial way, just prior to his departure, when his eye caught sight of a flute lying near by, and, taking it up, he surprised and delighted his hearers by 'rattling off' in great style 'Haste to the Wedding,' 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley,' 'The Pigeon on the Grate,' and many other old-fashioned but charming airs so dear to every Irish heart, and which have been played 'many a time and oft,' and will be played to the end of the chapter, at the 'harvest home' and merrymakings in the South of Ireland. Probably the most delighted of those present was the patient himself, who rapidly recovered, and was quite well again within a short time, such was the efficacy of Father Walter's novel prescription."
Father Walter's ecclesiastical superior for some years was the distinguished prelate who now rules the Archdiocese of Cashel, in Ireland. Dr. Croke's first episcopal appointment ​was that of Bishop of Auckland, a diocese that comprises the greater part of the North Island of New Zealand, and embraces within its bounds nearly the whole of the Maori population. His administration of ecclesiastical affairs was characterised by great vigour in the building of churches and the establishment of schools. Dr. Croke ever manifested the deepest interest in the spiritual and temporal welfare of the native population, and it was with the object of securing a supply of Irish priests to take charge of the Maori missions, that His Grace returned home in 1874. But Ireland would not allow one of the best and bravest of her sons to go abroad again. She kept him at home and made him Archbishop of Cashel, and, in that wider, loftier, and more responsible arena, Dr. Croke has become a trusted beacon-light to his countrymen throughout the world, a valiant defender of Irish rights, and a foremost champion of the national cause.
Besides Auckland in the far north of New Zealand, there is the diocese of Dunedin in the extreme south. This extensive district is under the spiritual supervision of the Eight Rev. Patrick Moran, a fearless prelate of the controversial order, whose voice and pen have been actively employed for more than thirty years in the defence and assertion of Catholic rights. Midway between Auckland, the old capital of New Zealand, and Dunedin, the most populous city and the great commercial centre of the colony, is Wellington, the political capital and the residence of the governor. Wellington constitutes a third diocese, which is ruled by the Right Rev. Francis Redwood, who, by general consent, stands in the front rank of the pulpit orators of Australasia.
In casting a retrospective glance at the foundation and ​growth of the Church in the colonies, and in summarising the ecclesiastical history of the Australasian dominion, one cannot help being struck by the extraordinary rapidity with which the complete organisation of to-day has been evolved from the small and unpromising beginnings of half-a-century ago. The now flourishing condition of the Australian Church affords another signal illustration of the utter futility of trying to impede the growth of Catholicity in young countries. An unworthy policy of that sort may have a little temporary success, but the eventual triumph must always rest with the Church. The failure that attended the efforts of the early Australian governors to make Anglicanism the State Church in the colonies, as in the mother country, is now regarded with openly expressed satisfaction by colonists of all classes and creeds. An established religion in these free, self-governed democratic communities would not be tolerated for an instant, and the principle that every denomination stands on a perfect equality from a State standpoint, receives full recognition throughout the whole of Australasia. In such a fair and open field the Catholic Church can always advance by leaps and bounds, as the wonderful strides it has made in the colonies during recent years abundantly testify. Well and truly did the Bishops of Australasia, assembled in Plenary Council for the first time in Sydney, at the close of 1885, under the presidency of Cardinal Moran, refer to the present and the past in their joint Pastoral Letter in these mingled terms of pride and pathos:
   "The prevalent impression on our minds during these days of our council is one of intense thankfulness to God, who has so blessed the mustard seed of the faith in the Church of Australasia. At a date so recent as to be quite within the lifetime of men still moving amongst us, there was not one priest, or one single altar, in all these southern lands. It is not simply that the ministration ​of the Church was poor and scant; but, as a matter of fact, it did not exist. Children came into the world and there was no Catholic clergyman nearer than the northern hemisphere to baptise them. Old men were dying on the scaffold, or in their beds, but the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the coral seas of the north, lay between them and all the sacraments of the dying. Within sight of where we are now assembled the mystery of our faith, the most Holy Sacrament, was preserved by stealth in a poor man's house. It and its few faithful lay worshippers were the whole of God's Church in this part of the world at the beginning of the current century. At the present hour the priests in the colonies number several hundreds; the churches are among the most beautiful in Christendom; and there is scarcely a religious community in the old world which is not largely represented in our midst. Every town has its convent and Catholic schools; and an assembly of 18 Australasian prelates meets here in this capital of New South Wales. A Cardinal is Archbishop of Sydney, and presides over such meetings. Such a contrast between the beginning and the close of a century is unexampled in history. Such a blessing of fruitfulness is unparalleled since the early ages of the Apostles.
* ↑ Traditions differ on this point. Some accounts state that the house in which the Blessed Sacrament was preserved was occupied by Mr. William Davis, and that it stood in close proximity to the present site of St. Patrick's Church, Sydney.
* ↑ "Father O'Flinn was the first clergyman who came to the colony expressly with the view of ministering to the spiritual wants of the Roman Catholic part of the population. He occupied in his church the position of archpriest, an office which enabled him to perform some of those higher functions which ordinarily belong to a bishop. This, among other circumstances, made it clear that his coming was directly influenced by the great and pressing wants of that large section of the population, both free and bond, who professed his faith. The compulsory retirement of this clergyman is the greatest, if not the only slur on the administration of Macquarie. The proceeding adopted by the authorities in forcing him to quit a community where his ministrations would have been not less valuable in a social than in a religious point of view, was the more inexcusable, inasmuch as the character and conduct of Father O'Flinn, alike as a priest and a subject, were irreproachable."-"History of New South Wales," by Roderick Flanagan, vol. i. page 215.
* ↑ A venerable Australian missionary writes: "In 1850 and part of 1851 Father Dunne had the whole of the Geelong district to attend, the nearest priests being at Warrnambool on the one side and Melbourne on the other. Archbishop Goold was then in the prime of life, and besides his episcopal duties, he did as much clerical duty as any priest in his diocese. When visiting the remote districts, he often had to be content with the accommodation of a shepherd's hut. There were no railroads in these days or even passable roads after heavy rains in winter. On one occasion when his lordship and Father Dunne were returning from Colac to Geelong, they were overtaken by a severe storm, and had to take shelter in the hut of a Tipperary man named John Ryan. There was only one bedroom, which was given up to the bishop and Father Dunne. The Bishop, of course, got the bed. Father Dunne slept on the boards, and Mr. Ryan and his family sat up all night at the fire drying the bishop's and priest's clothes."
* ↑ The Rev. Dr. Backhaus, the priest whom Dr. Goold placed in charge of the Sandhurst gold-field, died a few years ago, leaving £250,000 for the building of a cathedral and the endowment of the newly-created diocese of Sandhurst.
* ↑ The Ven Archdeacon Hogan, of Westbury.