170 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



fortable in a city where he had made so many enemies, 

 he resolved to shake the dust of Austraha off his feet, 

 as he had shaken the dust of Scotland off his feet, and 

 depart for New Zealand, then in the throes of birth as 

 a colony. His congregation, though tried by his ec- 

 centricities and his frequent absences, was yet proud 

 of him, and induced him to remain. So he stayed on 

 till his dying day, to fight many a battle, be involved 

 in many a trouble, and become the most famous Presby- 

 terian minister in the Empire, ■with two possible ex- 

 ceptions — Thomas Chalmers and Edward Irving. 



The reconstitution of the Legislative Council in 1842 

 opened uj) a path for Dr. Lang into political pubhc life. 

 The Council had hitherto consisted of high officials and 

 Government nominees, as the Norman sovereigns had 

 at first no other council than one formed by the officers 

 of the Court and those others — warriors or clerks — whom 

 the monarch thought fit to summon. It was now en- 

 larged to admit the representatives of electoral districts. 

 Lang was the last man likely to have been nominated 

 under the old system by any Governor, who could not 

 desire to place in the Council a scourge for his own 

 back. Now he was put in a position of independence 

 such as he could never otherwise have gained. He was 

 elected one of the members for the newly settled pro- 

 vince of Port Phillip. In one way he had earned the 

 distinction : he had long energetically protested against 

 the virtual control of the Council by an autocratic 

 Governor, aided rather than checked by a band of like- 

 minded advisers ; and he had taken a leading part in 

 claiming for the Colony the right of enacting its own 

 laws and controlling the appropriation of its own 

 revenue. He was to earn it in another way by reso- 

 lutely contending for the separation of Port Phillip from 

 New South Wales. It need hardly be said that, while 

 he remained a member of the Council, he formed part 

 of the Opposition. The Governor was then the master- 

 ful Sir George Gipps, and he had to govern with the 

 consciousness that every bill he brought fonvard would 



