Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/509

and (through Sir J. Banks) was allowed to procure pure Merino sheep from the Royal flock. He asked for two, and five were given. But his general and secular labours did not engross all his time. He personally sought and found two fellow-labourers for his Master's vineyard; the Revds. W. Cowper and R. Cartwright. He selected three schoolmasters, who were sent to the colony. He had interviews with the London Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society, and impressed upon them his opinion that arts and civilization should go hand in hand with religion to the races which were to be converted. He laid before them his plans for carrying the Gospel to the South Seas and New Zealand. The Church Missionary Society selected Mr. William Hall and Mr. John King as missionaries to New Zealand. Both were laymen, but no clergyman could be found for the post. How, by meeting the high-born but woe-begone Ruatara on board the vessel which bore him to Australia, Marsden became the successful apostle of New Zealand, belongs to the history of that country. It is sufficient to say here, that Marsden's house was from that time until his death the home of every Maori who wanted advice, or was in any other need or affliction.

Having glanced at the religious condition of the colony, and the efforts of the first ministers of the Church of England, the Wesleyans, and the Roman Catholics, it is requisite to record one voluntary work, carried on apart by a few poor convicts, which cast light upon the gloom of the time, and gathered a devout congregation, whose orisons, like those of the cottar of Burns, shed a halo round the humble, and perhaps were heard as the acceptable "language of the soul." A number of prisoners were employed in sawing, and in splitting rails and shingles, at Pennant Hills, then a part of the forest remote from all sound of the holy bell which knolls to church. By their own exertions during leisure hours they built a decent wooden chapel there, for which the government supplied the nails, and permitted the workmen to appropriate the requisite timber. The overseer, a freedman named Kelly, and another carpenter, whose name is unfortunately not recorded, were