Page:History of Knox Church Dunedin.djvu/72

42 worship in the church; we met, however, for the celebration of baptism in a store, where some fifteen persons all told found accommodation. The sacred ordinance was followed by a feast at which the principal joint was a large tin dish containing, I believe, over a hundred hard boiled eggs, which all vanished under the united action of the assembled friends. Among other good things, I must not omit to mention an earnest talk about church and school, and a request by more than one that I should not be long in coming back again. At night the storm did not prevent "tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," from visiting my humble bed and recruiting my strength. Before I was dressed next morning my host brought me the distressing news that the church had been prostrated by the tempest, and lay a wreck. The fact was that so eager were the friends to open the church that they did not take time to fasten the windows securely, and, the storm displacing them, the building made a complete somersault, and lay warped and crushed.

On returning to Dunedin I waited on the Hon. Thomas Dick, who held a Provincial portfolio, and represented to him the poor accommodation of the Goldfields officer at St. Bathans, with the result that my sympathising friend promised to look into the matter, and I soon had the pleasure of learning that an order for the addition of two rooms to the "whare" had been issued.

About this time the Synod, after a discussion on the spiritual necessities of the Goldfields, resolved on the motion of the Rev. A. H. Stobo to send to the Home Country for an ordained minister to exercise what we called a vagum ministerium (roving or itinerating ministry). In due course a gentleman arrived with certificates showing that he was a man of learning as well as a man of character. It was resolved to locate him at Clyde. I was told off to introduce him, but owing to circumstances I was unable to accompany him to his destination. He left Dunedin with introductions to local friends, who were eager for his arrival. The ways of a goldfield in its first stage shocked the worthy man; the kind-hearted storekeeper who undertook to entertain him sold bread, butter, and other necessaries on the Sabbath, while others washed their clothes and baked on the sacred day—and so, instead of being stirred up by such practices to preach the Gospel which has power to cast such spirits out of the heart and life, and even worse