THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES. 585 



acre. Distant from a church and a minister, he gets out of the way 

 of attending the rare services brought within his reach, and forgets 

 the religion in which he was nurtured. It does not mingle with his 

 life. He is usually married at a registrar's. His children are un- 

 baptized. His parents die unshriven. The dull crises of his mean 

 existence come and go, and religion stands dumb before them. The 

 inner spiritual realities fade from his view as their outward symbols 

 disappear, and bit by bit the whole theological vesture woven by 

 nineteen Christian centuries drops off him like Rip Yan Winkle's 

 rotten garments when he woke from his long sleep. In the matter 

 of religion, as in almost all else, the colonist has to begin life again 

 poor. 



As population grows and people come nearer to one another, two 

 things happen. The churches push their skirmishers into the in- 

 terior, plant stations, and have regular services. Gradually the old 

 doctrines strike root in the new soil, and at length a creed answering 

 to Evangelicalism is commonly held, thus repeating the first stage in 

 the history of Christianity in Asia as in England. On the other 

 hand, many of those whom neglect had softened into indifference 

 or hardened into contempt assume a more decided attitude. With 

 the spirit of independence which colonial life so readily begets, and 

 stimulated by the skeptical literature of the day, they take ground 

 against the renascent religion. Secularism, which denies what Evan- 

 gelicalism affirms and is on a level with that, is born. It organizes 

 itself, has halls and Sunday meetings, catechisms and children's 

 teaching, newspapers, and a propaganda. For a while it is trium- 

 phant, openly contemptuous of the current religious mythology, and 

 menacing toward its exponents. The Secularist leaders make their 

 way to the bench and the legislature, the cabinet and the premier- 

 ship. It is here the hitch arises. Some (by no means all) of these 

 leaders are found to prefer power to principle, and prudently let their 

 secularism go by the board when a wave of popular odium threatens 

 to swamp the ship. Financial distress spreads. The movement loses 

 eclat. As Bradlaugh's Hall of Science in London has been sold to 

 the Salvation Army, the Freethought Hall in Sydney has been pur- 

 chased by the Methodists, and in other colonial towns the cause has 

 collapsed. But it always remains, whether patent or latent, as a 

 needed counterpoise to the crudities of Evangelicalism, and it is the 

 core of that increasing mass of religious indifferentism which strikes 

 those who have been brought up in the old country. Statistics are 

 said to prove that Australia is more addicted to church-going than 

 England. If they prove any such thing, then statistics (as Mr. Bum- 

 ble irreverently said of the British Constitution) are hasses and hidi- 

 ots. You may sit down on any Sunday morning at a colonial table 



