THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES. 583 



as the mother country grew, the first ministers, like the first preachers 

 of Christianity itself, are often laymen. In an interior county of 

 Virginia Morris read every Lord's day to his neighbors from the 

 writings of Luther and Bunyan, and a meeting house was at length 

 built for him; it is a typical instance of the beginnings of most 

 churches. The part of laymen remains long prominent in colonies. 

 The Anglican lay reader is everywhere a feature of colonial church 

 life. In the more flexible churches a storekeeper or retired sea cap- 

 tain will read Spurgeon's sermons or preach excellent sermons of his 

 own in an Otago village or the Australian bush. Where mission- 

 aries have been sent out to convert the heathen in a country after- 

 ward colonized, many of them remain as ministers, as did Augustin 

 and his monks in England. The Presbyterian catechist lik'ewise be- 

 comes a settled minister. Others arrive. Men of independent char- 

 acter, like Dr. Lang, of Sydney, resolve not to wait for any dead 

 man's shoes in the kirk, but sail beyond the seasto colonies where 

 there is no minister of their own denomination. Heretics, incom- 

 patibles, men who have failed, men whose health has given way, 

 emigrate in increasing numbers. Still, the supply is long deficient. 

 Clergymen were scarce in New York. A bounty was offered to 

 immigrants in Virginia. Six years after the establishment of the 

 Church of England in North Carolina there was only one clergyman 

 in the country. The few there are repeat the history of the first 

 Christian bishops and the early English monks in serving a circuit of 

 two, three, or more churches. The state comes to the rescue by pro- 

 viding for their support. In England contributions were at first 

 voluntary; by the eighth century tithes were levied, folk-land was 

 granted, and private endowments were made. Just so was the 

 Church of England established and endowed in New York, Virginia, 

 and North Carolina; in Maryland a poll tax of forty pounds of to- 

 bacco was levied for its support. In Connecticut and Massachusetts 

 a church was set up in each parish on Congregationalist principles 

 by a vote of the people, who elected the minister and voted his 

 salary. So uncertain was the tenure that in several States even the 

 Anglican minister was hired from year to year; and quite lately an 

 Anglican church in a British colony engaged its incumbent, as it 

 might have engaged its organist, for a term. In 1791 the Church 

 of England in Canada was partially established, and its clergy en- 

 dowed with grants of land. The Australasian colonies have pursued 

 a very various policy. By the Constitution Act of 1791 one seventh 

 of the ungranted lands in New South Wales was set apart for the 

 support of a Protestant clergy. An attempt to endow the Anglican 

 Church in South Australia in the early forties was defeated by a 

 radical governor. A recrudescence of the ecclesiastical principle 



