SYDNEY CATHEDRAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 136, 13 August 1853, Page 10

SYDNEY CATHEDRAL.

At an influential meeting held last month in Sydney to promote the building of the Cathedral in that City, the Bishop of New Zealand made the following eloquent harangue:—

The Right Rev. Dr. Selwyn (Bishop of New Zealand) then rose to move the first resolution : " That the report now received and the Treasurer's accounts be adopted." He felt it a great honour, as well as a great satisfaction to himself, to be allowed to move this resolution ; and although leaving the consideration of particular details to those more conversant with the subject, he would say that the proposal had his cordial approbation, and would make but a few geueral remarks. He would first refer to those deeply touching thoughts suggested by the presence of the venerable man now in the chair. It was a mournful privilege to be permitted to attend a meeting presided over by the Venerable Atchdeacon, now almost the only snrviver of those who have constituted so long the staff of episcopacy in this city, and who, he thanked God, was* yet permitted to continue in that Heavenly Master's service, to which he had been called before any of the clergy now present. (Loud cheers.) He was sure that all who heard him cherished to their hearts, as he did to his, the time-honoured institutions of their mother country; and desiring as they must the continual recalling of old associations in the midst of those new scenes, new places, and new countenances amongst which they had been thrown, they would see the vast importance of establishing in this city a church worthy of their religion, and one whose appearance should perpetuate those hallowed associations attending the recollection of the venerable structures of the land of their birth. And in the absence for ever of their own revered Metropolitan, he should he most thankful for the opportunity of assisting, in concert with the hoary head now presiding, and whom they could not expect to see long amongst them, in raising an ecclesiastical edifice which should convey some faint impression of the magnificent cathedrals of the mother country to the minds of the generation now rising up so rapidly amongst them. But the erection of such a church should be m-o-ed on more important considerations ; it was a duty they owed to Almighty God. There was but one argument that could be alleged against the work; it was, in the opinion of some people, paying too much attention to externals to the

neglect of that service of the heart which was required by the God who was invisible, and who demanded a spiritual offering. To such objectors he would repeat the words of the venerable man who now occupied the see of Calcutta. When he was practising the greatest self-denial, and disposing of the bulk of his own private property for the erection of the present cathedral, some of his friends brought up the very argument just referred to, namely, that it must be what men call a waste of money to expend so large a sum in the erection of one splendid temple, instead of scattering it over the country in the building of smaller churches ; his reply was, that so long as man had a body as well as a soul, so long must the ordinances of religion be so conducted as to commend themselves to his eye as well as to his heart. (Cheers.) Thus, the man who steadily upheld spiritual religion, and uniformly urged the sincere homage of the heart to a God who must be worshipped in spirit and in truth, was the first to lay down his whole fortune for the completion of a magnificent cathedral, one which he desired should represent as adequately as such imperfect objects could do, the glory of that High and Holy Being whom he professed to serve. (Loud cheers.) He (Dr. Selwyn) should, at least, never be suspected of an undue preference for the mere externals of religion. He was well known to have been much engaged iv out-door ministrations, and long accustomed to gather within the rudest huts, often destitute of either doors or windows, congregations of the natives of New Zealand. (Cheers.) But he could assure the meeting that there were no better houses to be found throughout New Zealand than the houses of God. (Cheers.) In one village, with a population of not more than a thousand souls, a very handsome chapel—the admiration of every settler—had been erected, the cost of which, an English surveyor estimated at £3000, not one single farthing of which, excepting a gift of £20 from England, was contributed otherwise than through the labours of the natives themselves. (Cheers.) Thus, while on the one hand, no wisely calculated question as to how to serve God at the cheapest cost, ever entered the thoughts of our forefathers, while raising those edifices, which even in days of more advanced civilisation, could not be imitated with success ; and while, on the other, the natives of New Zealand were dedicating to God the very best of their substance; surely, such examples should teach us the lesson so beautifully expressed by the poet Wordsworth :—

Give all thon hast; high Heaven rejects the law Of nicely calculated less or more.

(Cheers,) There was another question which, though lower in degree, mi^ht yet with advantage be introduced in support of the claims of the present object. What was it that had so recently been filling the columns of the public newspapers ? Was it not the most minute and circumstantial details of the burial of that great man whom all England and the world honoured ? And how did a grateful nation pay its last tribute of respect to that great man who was now gone to his rest 1 Was it not by choosing one of the noblest temples that England could afford for his sepulchre, where he could be placed by the side of an equally great man who had gone before him 1 There lay these two heroes side by side un^er the glorious dome which the piety and liberality of their fore;athers had raised for the worship of Almighty God, and for the long repose of the mighty dead who slept in Christ. Now, in calling to mind the magnificence of that noble, cathedra), an 3 supposing that the later actions of Wellington's life had been achieved merely that he might find a burial place in one of those mean paltry churches with which modern economy has disgraced the religion of the age—was there one present who would not have wished, glorious as were that hero's later years—called as he was to the councils of his Sovereign but a few weeks before his death—that he might have fallen on the field of battle, even than survive so many useful years, to receive, at last, so inappropriate a sepulture! (loud cheers.) And still more was there one who, knowing that the glorious career of Nelson would onl? have been prolonged to close at last in an insignificant tomb, would not have infinitely preferred for him the sepulchre in whose precincts he met his death, the mighty ocean—that beautiful emblem of the unbounded glory of God —a-i erernal protest against the sordid stinginess of man—that the hero might have been committed to the watery deep, there to remain till the sea gave up its dead? (loud cheers.) But the nation was now satisfied that the burying-places of these two heroes were appropriate to their distinguished services. These considerations would be somewhat better applied to the point now in view, by recollecting that the late dear and revered Metropolitan of this diocese had been buried in one

of the noblest churches that Christianity had ever dedicated to God; he lay where he ought to lie, in. tlie metropolitan Church of Canterbury. And though he (Dr. Selwyn) regretted that he could not make a pilgrimage to the grave of that esteemed Prelate, yet he could not say he regretted that, the bones of Bishop Broughton -now rested in such classic ground, instead of being interred in the Cathedral here, where there wouldjnot for many years be a roof over his tomb, and within whose precincts the crumbling grave-stones desecrated by the play of idle children, proclaimed that this Christian city had not done its duty to the National Church. And he would urge the Churchmen of Sydney to claim that burying ground as their own, and suffer it no longer to remain a disgrace and an eye-sore to the city. (Cheers.) It had ever been the privilege of the Church of England to claim the guardianship of the final resting places of its members ; and especially ought this sacred ground to be reverently cherished, as be believed it was the first plot set apart for that purpose in the colony.

The Chairman : It was the first ground consecrated.

Dr. Selwyn resumed : Yet there it stood, a desolate and sightless object. Again and again had he visited Sydney, and each time with the hope that the rulers had felt it their duty to put into a proper condition this consecrated ground, in the very precincts of tbe Cathedral. But he would now press it on the consideration of Churchmen present, that this burying-ground be henceforward preserved, as every ground should be preserved, in which their bodies rested, who slept in Jesus. He bad but one word more to say, and that referred to the smallness of the present meeting. He was sorry for this, especially when he knew that on the slightest political excitement, when there was an expectation of an angry quarrel, the room would be filled to suffocation. But the smallness of the company need be no drawback to energetic action, especially if it contained a number of earnest persons. Such he sincerely believed was the character of the present meeting, many of whom would give themselves, if needed, to the completion of this work. At the fame time their labours might be quiet and unostentatious; like those at the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, wh«re, as Bishop Heber exquisitelj described :

No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung; Majegti» silence! (Loud cheers.) Yes, in quietness and confidence must be our strength. (Cheers.) There were quite enough persons present to help forward the work; and it would be far more to the honour of this city, for the churchmen in it to effect the completion of the Cathedral themselves* than to be indebted for it to the liberality of the English people. (Prolonged cheering).