The first church in Marlborough was built by the Rev. Samuel Ironsides, at Port Underwood. It was opened on the 5th of August, 1842, when the service was attended by whalers and Maoris from all parts of the Sounds. On the following Sunday, forty couples were united in the bonds of matrimony. The lack of wedding rings was not allowed to bar the proceedings, as Mrs Ironsides produced a number of brass curtain rings, which served the purpose of the occasion. Mr. Ironsides ministered at Port Underwood and the various Maori pas in the Sounds for three years, during which he baptised 613 adults, and 165 children, and married 171 couples. Things have changed since then; the church-going citizen walks on asphalted footpaths, the country settlers drive in in neat and stylish buggies, but, forty or fifty years ago, almost every-one went to church in a bullock dray. From the fact that there is no established or State Church in New Zealand, it follows that the clergymen of the country are hard working men, who lead unobtrusive lives. It has been said by Anthony Trollope that “A colonial bishop should be hale, vigorous, young, and good-humoured; ready to preach, to laugh, or to knock a fellow down at any moment.” In making this humorously true statement, Trollope was thinking specially of his old school-fellow, the late Bishop Suter, of Nelson, whom he describes as a man who could put a collar on his own horse, ride fifty miles at a stretch, or hold his own in any conflict, by word or hand; but the statement is more or less generally applicable to clergymen in the colonies. The churches represented in Marlborough are the Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Methodist and the ubiquitous Salvation Army.