Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/85

 The Builders ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 59 I leave it and swim for his life. Two sailors then managed to get to the beach with a rope, and soon the whole ship's company was landed, but not before Mrs. Longbottom was immersed in the water. After several days of bitterly cold weather and extreme vicissitude the forlorn party reached the whaling station in Elncounter Bay, whence they were conveyed to Adelaide by boat. The Rev. William Longbottom, his wife and child, received a warm welcome in the capital. In the disaster they had lost all their worldly possessions, but a subscription recouped them for their losses. The Wesleyans importuned the reverend gendeman to become their pastor, and he almost immediately began his duties in the litde church in Hindley Street. He soon concentrated and strengthened the flock, but ill health compelled him to go to Tasmania. He returned to Adelaide, and here he died in 1849. He was practically the founder of the Wesleyan Church in South Australia. The Rev. Thomas Quinton Stow, the founder of the Congregational Church, was, however, the second ptistor to arrive in South Australia. His story is as useful as the preceding in showing of what sterling material the early ministers of religion were made. Arriving in Adelaide on October 16, 1837, he was as zealous a pioneer as the Rev. C. B. Howard. It was a matter of surprise to early setders that one so talented and also so popular as a preacher should have been induced to leave England ; and the explanation is probably to be found in the religious enthusiasm of the man, whom neither toil nor privation could daunt. Though supported by the Colonial Missionary Society, as well as by free-will offerings, Mr. Stow, rather than encroach on the former, was compelled by the want of money to go out of the usual grooves. Thus Mr. J. W. Bull mentions that for years he educated a few private pupils, and "afterwards engaged in farming until the times of struggling and depression in the colony had passed away and the pioneer Independent Church and congregation became self-supporting." To get a building for a church was no easy matter. The first structure was composed of pines and reeds, and Mr. Stow worked " with the laborers and the carter in cutting reeds and pines and loading them." Previous to that he conducted service in a large marquee, or field-officer's tent, which he had brought with him. Mr. Stow instilled a self-reliant .spirit in his fiock ; he became a prominent colonist, and was one of the most capable opponents of the principle of State aid to religion introduced by Governor Robe. He died in 1862, and Stow Memorial Church in Flinders Street is a monument to his zeal. With the German immigrants in 1838 arrived Pastor Kavel, who therefrom became their spiritual teacher. The Rev. Mr. Kavel was the founder of the Lutheran .sect in the Province. He took up his residence at Klemsig, where he made himself greatly beloved, and, to the advantage of South Australia, he published and had circulated in Germany a neat pamphlet containing statistical information relative to the country of his adoption. Among the first settlers were a goodly number of Roman Catholics. During 1837-9 their spiritual wants were attended to by Mr. Phillips, whose house served as an oratory. In 1839 the Catholic inhabitants deputed Messrs. Phillips, Johnson, and Counsel!