Gippsland Times 19 12 1883 The new Church Of England, St. Paul’s Sale. Laying the Foundation Stone
The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the above church, in Cunninghame Street, was performed in the presence of a moderately large concourse of people, on Monday afternoon last, by His Lordship, the Right Reverend the Bishop of Melbourne, who was accompanied by the Rev. Canon Watson (Incumbent of St. Paul's), and the Revs. Hollis, Walker, Sandiford, Thomas, Hindley, Spooner, Standrin, and J. M. Watson (Belfast). The proceedings commenced by those assembled, led by the choir of the church, singing the processional hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The Rev. Canon Watson then said: “Dearly beloved in the Lord – It is customary in the erection of all great edifices to lay with solemnity some principal stone, to represent the foundation or corner-stone. In accordance with this custom, we are now assembled to lay the foundation (or corner) stone of a building to be dedicated to the special service of God. Let us then remember how it is written :- ‘Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain;’ and let us implore the blessing of Almighty God on this our undertaking.” The usual devotional exercise then followed, and the 84th Psalm having been sung, Mr. W. deT. Tracey read the following memorial, which was afterwards put in a bottle and placed in a cavity in the stone, together with several coins of the realm, and a copy of that day's Gippsland Times, and Saturday’s Mercury :-
In Nomine Dei, Amen.
Colony of Victoria, Australia,
Diocese of Melbourne, Archdeaconry of Melbourne
Parish of St. Paul.
Sale, County of Tanjil, North Gippsland.
Anno Domini MDCCCLXXXIII
Being in the 47th year of the Reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria.
Bishop of Melbourne, Right Rev. J. Moorhouse, D. D.,
Archdeacon Very Rev. H. B. Macirtney D.D.
Incumbent of St. Paul's. Rev. G. W. Watson, Rural Dean.
Board of Guardians:
Richard Heales Carter James Robinson
Charles Napper Edward Scanlon
Edward Alf Paterson Sydney Fredk. Treloar
James George Pettit Thomas Trood
Geo. Bird.
The foundation stone of this Church was laid on Monday, 17th Dec. 1883,
By his Lordship the Bishop of Melbourne,
In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, and dedicated to the Holy Apostle, St. Paul.
The first Church was built in 1858, the Right Rev. Chas Perry, D.D., being Bishop of Melbourne; Rev, P. K. Simmons the Incumbent. Another, to take its place commenced in 1865, the Venerable T.C.B. Stretch, M.A., being Incumbent, and Archdeacon of Sale. This latter, however, was not finished, and the present structure was erected in a more central portion of the town to serve as the permanent church. The architects are Messrs N. Billing and Son, of Melbourne. The contractor is Mr George Wynd, builder, of Sale; clerk of works, Mr Jas Swan.
The stone having been lowered, the Bishop, using a handsome silver trowel presented to him for the occasion, and handed to him by Mr Billing, laid the stone saying, “I lay this memorial stone of a church to be called St. Paul's Church, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” The hymn “This stone to Thee in faith we lay” was then sung, and the Revs. Mr Sandiford and J. M. Watson engaged in prayer, and the usual collection followed.
The Bishop then said it had been thought best that he should say what he had to say at the Conversazione which was to be held in the evening, but he would avail himself of the present opportunity to congratulate them on entering upon a contract which had been long contemplated, and the wisdom of undertaking which had been frequently under discussion at public meetings of the congregation, and now they had begun it be prayed Almighty God to bless them, that the house to be erected there might reflect the light of His Grace from its walls through the neighbouring districts, and that Almighty God would bless all who ministered in it, and all who assembled to join in prayer and praise within its walls.
The Rev. M. Hindley delivered a short address, and concluded by expressing the hope that this building might be blessed, and that it would be consecrated by a firm and solemn resolve on the part of all connected with it, in the name and strength of the Lord, to lead truer and better lives to the salvation of their souls.
The Rev. C. P. Thomas also delivered an address in which he dwelt upon the infinite superiority of the Christian religion to any other religion in the world. He contended that it was a perfect system of religion in every respect, and nothing could be added to or removed from it. It had lived through all assaults in past ages, and would prosper in spite of all assaults that might be made upon it. He then dwelt upon the divinity of God, the belief in which he said was the secret of the Christian religion, and he concluded by expressing the hope that they were there to engage in the work of advancing the true glory of God to the welfare of their fellow men.
The hymn “Oh Lord of Hosts” was then sung, and the Bishop having pronounced the Benediction, the proceedings terminated.
The inscription on the memorial stone was as follows:
This memorial stone was laid by
The Right Rev. James Moorhouse, D.D.
Bishop of Melbourne.
Dec. 17th, 1883.
The following is a description of the building, the erection of which is now fairly under weigh (sic.) and which it is hoped will be opened for divine service during the ensuing year.- The church is to be built of brick, with windows of Waurn Ponds freestone. It is of the decorated English period of Gothic architecture, with traceried windows, that at the west end being of 5 lights, the east of 3, and the side windows of 2 lights each. The roof is open in one span, with arched trusses and boarded under the rafters with wrought deal, stained and varnished; each truss springs from freestone corbels built into the walls. The plan of the church consists of nave, 75ft. x 42ft. 6in., chancel, 25ft 9in. x 24ft., with porch, organ chamber and vestry, and is seated for 498 adults. The walls of the nave are 23ft. 6in. high to cornice, and height from floor to ridge 50ft. The floor of the nave is slightly raised from east to west.
It is not intended to build the tower or porch at present, the funds being unequal to so large an undertaking, which is to be regretted. The walls will be all plastered inside the church and tinted. Ventilation has been provided by inlets a little above floor level, the air being conducted in cavities in the walls, entering the church about 7ft. from the floor. There are also ventilators in the roof and windows.
Messrs Billing and Son, of Collins Street, Melbourne, are the architects, and Mr G. Wynd of Sale, is the builder.
THE CONVERSAZIONE.
In connection with the above ceremony it was decided by the ladies of the congregation to have a conversazione in the evening in the Victoria Hall, and in order to bring it to a successful issue they set to work in right good earnest, with the result that their most sanguine anticipations in regard to it were fully realised.
A more socially enjoyable evening has not been spent in the hall for a long time.
There was a good display of pictures, ferns, floral decorations, etc. the seats in the hall were very judiciously arranged to lessen the usual stiff, cold, formal appearance of such entertainments; there was a large attendance of well dressed, good looking, pleasant and socially disposed people, representing all denominations; and the whole affair passed off with that entente cordiale which ought, but sometimes does not, prevail at such gatherings.
In the rink there was a bountiful supply of refreshments, provided by the ingenuity of the ladies, and it is almost needless to add that their exertions were rewarded by a due appreciation. The proceedings were commenced by the choir of the church singing the anthem “Awake, awake,” followed by a prayer.
The Rev. Canon Watson then said before he called upon the Bishop to address them, there was one thing he desired to say. There seemed to be some misunderstanding as to the present movement. It would be in the memory of the members of the congregation that at a meeting held about two years ago a resolution was passed by which it was decided to complete the present church, and as soon as the plans and specifications were procured from Mr Billing, tenders were called for the work - the estimates for which were various, and ranged from £900 to £1,000. However, when the tenders were received, the Board of Guardians were very much surprised to find the lowest tender was £3,470. It was at once thought that some mistake had been made as to the calculations, and he (Mr Watson) went to Melbourne to see Mr Billing and ascertain why it was the tenders were so much above the estimates - the estimates he might say, were not Mr Billings. Mr Billing said he did not think there could be any mistake; that he had seen Mr Platt who had gone through the requirements of the church, and had taken out the prices, and his own estimate was within some few pounds of the lowest tenderer's estimate. He (Mr, Watson) said this because he had heard during the past two or three months, and every now and then he was being told of it, that Mr Platt had made an offer to finish the old church for some £1,200. There must be some mistake about this, because his estimate was nearly as much as that of the lowest tender, and if it could have been done for £1,600 the board would have gone on with it. When the board found that it would incur such a large expenditure, without providing further accommodation, they naturally hesitated, and after consideration it was decided that it was the best thing to do in the interest of the parish to erect a new church, but to go to no more expense than the completion of the old building would have cost. By abandoning the tower and spire they might have been able to complete the old building for £2,500, and it was thought they were not justified in incurring even that expense, without increased accommodation, because when the time came to make increased accommodation they would not be able to provide it without pulling down some portion of the building. The congregation adopted the recommendation of the board to build a new church, of a more commodious design, and at a smaller cost than the proposed additions. Passing from that he was very glad they had been able to lay the memorial stone of the new church, and he trusted they would stand together and try and finish the church, which he had been told would be one of the best out of Melbourne. He hoped they would do the best they could to carry it on to completion, and he hoped in a few months they would have a building worthy of them. A house of prayer for the people of God. A house erected to the praise and glory of God. (Applause.)
The Bishop (who was received with loud applause), said, “I have thought it might be useful to say a few words about the one condition of all human prosperity. And I may as well mention what in my view that condition is. It is this- that a man puts his whole energies into line with the mighty energies which lie around him for the purpose of using them. That is soon said, but it contains a truth far profounder, and of far more extensive search than most people can easily realise. Let me try to help you a little towards its realization. Prosperity does not so much depend upon effort, as upon effort which observes the condition which I have described-instructed effort. Suppose you have a superior educated people, knowing the dignity of work, knowing the happiness of work, feeling as an old Lancashire man said to me the other day, “I must work as long as I live, for I should be miserable if I had to stop working, I think I should die.” - Suppose you have a race like that to begin with, and that by some strange fatality that race was condemned to spend its energies in direct antagonism to the forces of nature. What would follow? First discouragement, then hopelessness, and then I fear, idleness.
Let me give you an illustration - You know on our northern plains we have some splendid soil, but there is often little rain, some years so little that the crops are a dead failure - well, we sent a large part of our working population there with permission to each man to take possession, on certain easy conditions of 320 acres of land, and to do his best with it. They went and set to work, one year they would do pretty well, but then for two or three following years, they would do ill, sometimes so terribly ill, as to come nearly on the brink of ruin. They ploughed, they sowed, they cleaned and trimmed the land, and they reaped next to nothing. But they belonged to a grand, an imperial race- one that never knows when it is beaten, that cannot say die. And so they went on fighting with nature determined to wring from her remunerative returns, even in her own despite. It was a hopeless struggle from the very first. The men deserved to win but could not win, because they had not taken the trouble to put themselves into harmony with those energies of nature which could alone give them success. What followed? The “old guard” of the race kept on; hung on, as the saying is, by their eyelids, but many were broken-hearted, and gave in, selling their land and going off elsewhere. They were like a sailer who tries to sail his ship directly in the teeth of the wind. Of course he cannot. Let him humour the wind, and the wind will help him, let him defy the wind, and the wind will beat him. Now these settlers of ours were trying to defy nature, they were trying to get crops without water on the plains, and of course they failed. The alternative before them was this, either get water or give up cultivation. Was the water to be had? I ventured to tell them five years ago that it was. There was not rain enough on the plains, but there was rain enough on the mountains, and the rivers brought the mountain rains to their feet, if they would only go to the trouble and expense of getting it. They must go to that trouble and expense, I told them, or give up. They might use nature, they could not defy nature. What I said was true, and thank God, both our Government and people are at last recognising and acting on the truth. I was specially charmed to see the independent way in which some of the farmers in the north-west were this year helping themselves. I found that they had dug long irrigation trenches stretching for miles across the plains. A great pumping engine was being taken round the country, which, taking advantage of these trenches was pouring the water over great paddocks of wheat to a depth of six inches or more, and securing grand crops where there had been threatening of failure. Sometimes the owner of the engine worked for a percentage of the crop, so securing the farmer from any possibility of loss. In one such case a farmer offered the owner of the engine £100 if he would forego his right to 10 per cent on the value of the crop, and the offer was refused. Those farmers are on the high road to success. And why! Because they are bringing their energies into a line with the natural energies around them, so using, instead of defying them.
There is one other thing, however, which our farmers will have to lay to heart before they can make their success permanent. Cultivation not only requires moisture, but certain chemical constituents of the soil, and no crop can be grown without depriving the soil of those constituents. If then those chemical elements are not restored to the soil, the time cannot be distant when even with a good supply of water cultivation will be no longer profitable. The land in other words needs manure as well as water, and our cultivators cannot too soon direct their attention to the raising of a sufficient quantity of root crops to feed a large number of cattle, and produce manure. If I were a farmer I would never rest till I had so far complied with the laws of nature as to secure not only good crops, but such a condition of the soil as to ensure the permanent and perpetual production of good crops. Then I would have brought my energies permanently into line with the energies of nature, and I should know that I could not fail because I had enlisted on my side all the forces of nature.
I would apply the same principle to another of the great problems now before the public mind of these colonies, the problem of federation. We find ourselves threatened with two great evils, the one internal and the other external. Let me notice the internal evil first. Belonging to the same race, inhabiting the same land, having identical aims and interests, standing at the same stage of civilization, with a common religion, and civil institutions all but identical. We are tempted to establish artificial boundaries, to create hostile interests, to impose hostile tariffs, and provoke disastrous conflicts. In other words we are tempted to try to sail in the teeth of the wind, to set our own energies in opposition to the energies of nature in the social and political sphere, and the end of such a conflict can be nothing but disaster.
Let us hasten my friends to put ourselves into a line with these potent social forces. Let us so spread our sails that the wind of social energy may drive the good ship of state towards the harbour of prosperity, and not upon the rocks of enmity and conflict. Let us federate as speedily as we can. (Applause.)
For again there are certain external dangers which threaten us. A great continental power, feeling it self cooped up and constrained at home is seeking an outlet for its energies in distant lands. It has established it self already at the back door of Australia, and it is accumulating there a vast store of moral dynamite which threatens explosion, and the serious shattering of that moral fabric which with infinite pains we are striving to erect in this fair land. It would be madness in us to let this process go on under our very eyes without protest and opposition. The criminals of France are reported to be the worst criminals in Europe; their instincts the most depraved, their habits the most abominable. The near neighbourhood of such desperadoes is a worse danger than the near neighbourhood of Asiatic cholera. (Applause.) The unlimited increase of such foul criminals - and we are threatened with nothing less is a more frightful peril to the infant life of Australia than the turning into our cellars of the foetid contents of a sewer would be to our natural life. (Applause.)
Are we to suffer this? Are we to let the risk of it depend on the indifference of a coldly prudential Secretary of State? If not, we must join our forces, and let France feel that in a federated and indignant Australia she has to face a force which can make itself respected; and let Lord Derby feel that he has a force at his command which makes hesitation cowardly and criminal (Applause.)
We must, in short, put our energies into a line with the energies of nature, with the laws of God, and so doing we shall command success. But what has all this to do with building a new church you may ask? Everything. It is an illustration of the great principle which should actuate us in this as in all our conduct. Why do we build our Church? That as religious men we may place ourselves in harmonious communication with that divine force upon which in the last resort the highest energies and final happiness of our being depend. There may be many ways of doing this; some better and some worse, some more suitable to one class of souls, and some to another; but whatever the method we adopt, we shall achieve no decisive religious success unless we set before us the right end, and work resolutely towards that. What then is the right end? Participation in the spirit of Christ. Just as the sailor needs wind for his sails, the miller water for his wheel, the engineer steam for his piston, so the Christian needs the spirit of Christ for his new life.
What makes the lily grow? Is it the air which bathes it, the water which moistens it, the sun which warms and stimulates it! It would not grow without these, but it is not these which make it grow. Air, water, and sunshine fall upon the stone, but they do not make the stone grow. Why? Because the stone is not alive. The lily grows as our body grows, because it has within it a principle of life. The same must be said of the Christian. He grows into the likeness of his Divine Master, because he has within him the divine principle of his Master's new life. Let him bring his religious energies into line with this supernatural energy without and yet within him, and his religious life will prosper -so, and no otherwise. It follows then that if we know what we are doing, we build a church not merely to please the eye, or to organise therein great spectacles, or a particular kind of ritual; not merely to establish a respectable rendezvous for neighbours on a Sunday, or to supply a suitable theatre for eloquent preachers; but to bring about a living contact between human souls and the spirit of Christ. A church then is not a place merely for preaching, or ecstatic shouting, but above all a place where by prayer and praise we may put ourselves into conscious filial relations with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us only build with this intention; let us only seek to carry out this intention when our building is completed, and then shall we be acting on that profound and reasonable principle which I have been seeking to commend to you; we shall be bringing our energies into line with those mighty energies of God's natural and supernatural kingdoms, through which alone we can prosper in any great religious undertaking, or advance materially the interests of Christ's kingdom. (Loud cheers.)
A hearty vote of thanks to the Bishop was passed by acclamation on the motion
of Mr Tracy and the Rev. Mr Hollis, and the remainder of the evening was passed in social intercourse, musical selections, etc., and at about half-past 10 o'clock the proceedings of a really pleasant evening terminated.
