Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/59

] which has been confided to them, and will select as their representatives those only who will devote themselves to the duties required of them, and direct the best energies of their minds to elevating the commercial, social, and moral condition of the colony.

It is, however, the religious condition of the colonists which demands the most anxious attention of the government. With three acknowledged or established religions whose ministers are paid from the public purse, it requires a more than ordinary degree of prudence and wisdom in administering to each of the three sects—Romanists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians—the monies in due proportions; and the great want of church accommodation for all classes, and of ordained pastors of the Church of England in particular, is the cause of thousands falling away into a most shocking state of irreligion and infidelity; and, unless liberal and efficient measures be adopted by both the Home and Colonial governments to extend the means of education and religious instruction, the consequences cannot fail to be most calamitous.

Here, as at Van Diemen's Land, the Governor, being a member of the Church of England, is complained of by those of that communion with being often obliged to give a more favourable decision to either of the other sects, in order to prevent the suspicion of an undue bias towards his own church; and the religious feuds are often carried so high between the Presbyterians and