Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/60

44 Episcopalians, that each party seems to do its utmost to prevent any advantage accruing to the other: thus every step towards improvement and extension of the one sect is strongly and bitterly resisted by its opponent, and these feelings of religious jealousy or rivalry have been sufficiently powerful to induce even good and pious men of various denominations of the Christian Church to oppose and withstand, and eventually frustrate, the endeavours of the benevolent and virtuous to supply sound religious instruction to many thousands of souls, because the good of the Church of England might be advanced by the measure. May we not hope that a period of calm reflection will eradicate these petty but pernicious feelings of rivalry, which tend only to retard and place a stumbling block in the way of those who are struggling forward in their Christian course?

The only excursion into the country which my engrossing duties admitted was a day's trip up the river to Paramatta, a distance of about fifteen miles. The Governor's official duties requiring his presence there, and being desirous to show me a little of the country, he kindly offered ine a seat in his barge, which I gladly accepted, especially as I was very anxious to obtain a good comparison of our chronometers with the time of the observatory at Paramatta, whose longitude had been so well determined by Sir Thomas Brisbane, when he first established the observatory at his own expense; and also to make arrangements for measuring the