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VI.

It was with real regret that on the morning of July 13th we said good-bye to the friends whose acquaintance we had made at Hobart only a week before, for in those few days we had seen much of them, and felt really attached to them. And now we knew for an all but absolute certainty that we should see them again no more, nor Hobart, their charming home. We watched them long waving to us from the quay, till we could distinguish them no more from one another, and they disappeared from view. Then we fixed our eyes on the great bulk of Mount Wellington, which marked the site of their city, till we turned a corner of the bay, and it was gone too, and I thought I had seen the last of it forever. But hours after, far away on the horizon, it showed its snowy head through a gap in the cliffs. I gave it another greeting and bid it a second farewell. But a third time it appeared yet further off, and once again, and it was only in the dusk of evening that it laded from sight. I have seen many mountains, but I think none, except, perhaps, Helvellyn, which has exercised the same fascination over me. And it has the advantage of Helvellyn, not merely in height but in having a city at its feet, and as it were under its tutelage. It is doubtful whether the aborigines of Tasmania had any religion, but if they had conceived of gods at all, they would surely have made this their Olympus, and turned to it to pray for fair weather or a good catch of fish.

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The cliff's along the south-eastern coast of the island are magnificent. Columns of basalt, or some allied rock, they seem to have been raised as fortifications against the sea, which is ever beating at their base till one by one they totter and strew the beach with their 400 feet of length. A few harder or more compact stand out together far into the waves, which have torn down all that once stood beside them, leaving only the square pedestal to mark the place where they stood. Still these stand survivors of the serried ranks of old; but they are more exposed than before to the fury of the storm, are broken off in the middle, undermined, sometimes a single one completely isolated. A Giants' Causeway of mile upon mile, interrupted at times by the intrusion of what seemed to me a sandstone which I suppose it had originally displaced, and then again reappearing. It was a calm, bright day, and we were able to go very near, and see an instance of how creation is the continuous act of God, the world ever being made.

The wind was against us, and the glass falling, and the captain foretold a storm, but the singular good fortune which has hitherto attended me at sea, wherever I was going and on whatever errand bound, still favoured me, and the captain was perplexed to account for his mistaken forecast. The only mishap which befell us was a delay of a few hours, so that instead of arriving at Sydney in the afternoon, we did not get to the wharf till just at the time the meeting to welcome us commenced. And then through some blunder or accident we were kept two hours within a stone's page 108 throw of the Quay, yet unable to get alongside. At last—it was 9-30, and the meeting was called for 7-30—we landed, and were met by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the son and daughter-in-law of my old friend, once minister of Dewsbury, whom I married in his own chapel twenty-six years ago, just before his departure from England to take charge of the church at Sydney. He remained only eighteen months in the ministry of religion, so-called, and then entered another ministry not less honourable and arduous—the ministry of education—and has, I am informed, been a very successful master of a public school some miles up country.

Well, I got to the meeting just about the time it should have come to an end, but they set to afresh; a resolution bidding us a hearty welcome was proposed, seconded, supported and carried with enthusiasm, and after I had acknowledged it and the meeting broke up, I was still detained to shake hands with new friends and receive congratulations on our safe arrival.

On Sunday I preached twice, in the evening to the best congregation I have had since my arrival in Australia. There was hardly any advertisement of my coming beyond the notice at the church doors, but every pew was crowded and seats were placed in the aisles. I suppose about 450 were present. The church is finely situated in a leading thoroughfare and opposite one of the public parks. The greatest credit is due to the Rev. George Walters for the success he has achieved under most trying and difficult page 109 circumstances. Had he not come forward after the Worthington scandal and volunteered his services there is little doubt but that the church would have been closed. It is still hard work to maintain it, as some of those who were formerly its leading supporters have been, I fear, permanently alienated; but I am sure means will be found to meet the small debt with which they are encumbered. All promises well, if only Mr. Walters can stand the strain of preaching every Sunday without ever a holiday. This is one great difficulty of our work in Australia. An exchange cannot be arranged under a less cost than £6 on either side and a long journey, so it is only once in three or four years that it is possible.

I lectured in the church on Monday and Wednesday to fair audiences, better than I should have expected to get on a week-night anywhere at home. On Sunday I met the Church Committee to talk over the difficulties, financial and otherwise, of their position. Good men and true they seemed to me, and united in support of their Church and minister.

On Thursday evening we started for Brisbane by rail. It is a comfortable journey of over twenty-eight hours. The greater part of it high up among the hills, up to 4,500 feet at Ben Lomond. All the way through "the bush," with now and again "a township," here and there "a station;" the eucalyptus down in the deep valleys, up over the highest bills, its evergreen just reddened with early blossom. I have seen but just a few spots on or near the coast of this great continent, nearly as large as Europe, twenty-six times the area of the British Isles, and my impressions are page 110 not to be relied on. But from all I have observed and heard and read, it appears to me that the whole land was formerly one great forest of eucalyptus, save for the vast wastes where nothing will grow. Man has made clearings of a few acres or of many thousands of acres, but in a territory of three million square miles these do not count for much when taking a general view; and whether they be large or small, the sites of great cities or small farms, the primeval bush surrounds them and intrudes on every side. Here from my windows in Brisbane I look over the railway station and the city lying behind it, and quite near the "gum trees," as they are called, make a dark olive-green border which extends on and up to the hills on the horizon.

There has been a meeting this Saturday night to welcome us, attended by about eighty persons. It is unfortunate that, as at Perth, my visit coincides with a general election for the State Parliament, and all the politicians were too busy to attend. Otherwise I should have had the support of more than one Minister of the Crown, perhaps of the Prime Minister too. But there are several old Unitarians from the Mother Country living here, among whom I am bound to mention Mr. Burkitt, the chairman of my committee; Mr. Tom Loftus, formerly of Hull, the secretary; and Mrs. Miller, of Pendleton, who have done all that lay in their power to make my visit a success.

C. H.