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Australia and New Zealand: v. 1 (Colonial History)
Australia and New Zealand v 1 - Colonial History Author:Anthony Trollope Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. REL1G1ON AND EDUCAT1ON. It is natural that a visitor to any country should think most, and therefore speak with greatest fulness, of that sect... more » in religion to which he himself belongs. He will be most prone to meet the pastors of that Church; and, unless he keeps his mind alert on the subject, he will,—if he be an Englishman of the Church of England,—fall into the error of thinking that the Church of England is the only important Church. The feeling is very common at home,—but even there it is a mistake. In the colonies the blunder would be much more egregious. As long as the colonies were Crown colonies, governed directly from home, a certain amount of Church of England ascendency was established. Bishops were appointed by the Crown, who still have, by virtue of their patents, some social precedence. They are recognised as titular lords,—having some stronger claim to the appellation than their Roman Catholic brother prelates. But in all these colonies every branch of the Christian religion is nowsupposed to stand on an equal footing,—and to have an equal title to whatever support the State may be able and willing to give. In each of the colonies the energy of the various pastors and of their flocks, and the munificence of individuals, have added something to the clerical incomes, which are for the most part provided by the voluntary payments of the people. I should only trouble my readers with unnecessary particulars were I to attempt to explain in detail the sources from which such funds have arisen, and the manner in which they have been expended; but it may perhaps interest some to knowthat there are f1ve bishops of the Church of England in New South Wales, the Bishop of Sydney being the metropolitan for the Australian colonies, with a salary of 2,000 per ann...« less