Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/195

1833.] We continued in Hobart Town at this time for twelve weeks, in the course of which, a few more meetings for discipline were held, two persons were admitted into membership, and it was concluded to hold one of these meetings monthly, under the appellation of "Hobart Town Monthly Meeting of Friends."

Meetings for worship continued to be regularly held on First day mornings, and reading meetings in the afternoons. A meeting for worship was also settled on Fifth-day evenings, not because the evening was preferred, for the meetings held at that time were often heavy, from the exhausted state of those who composed them, but because we could only have the use of the room in which we met, in an evening, as it was used for a school, in the day-time, on week-days.

We also invited the inhabitants of Hobart Town to a meeting for Public Worship, and to another for the promotion of Temperance; both of these were held in the Court House, the use of which was kindly granted for these purposes, on various occasions. On going to the former of these meetings I felt a perfect blank, as regarded anything to communicate, but was preserved quiet, trusting in the Lord, in whose counsel, I apprehended, I had requested the meeting to be convened. The passage of Scripture, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," impressed my mind soon after sitting down, along with the belief that it was my duty to rise, and quote it, and to make some comments upon the cause of this fearfulness, as well as upon the plan of salvation by Jesus Christ; inviting all to come unto God by him, and to abide in him, and to prove this abiding, by walking as he also walked. The congregation was attentive, and a preciously solemn feeling pervaded the meeting toward the close, in which prayer was put up for an increase in the knowledge of the things belonging to salvation, and of a disposition to practice them.

The Lieutenant Governor and several other persons of note attended the Temperance Lecture; in which, after explaining the origin and progress of Temperance Societies, and conveying much general information, I invited a more