34 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



impulse to the extension of settlement throughout 

 Northern and Western Europe. They were the fitting 

 accompaniments of the new race of colonists, and they 

 gave German colonisation its proper sanction as of 

 Divine ordering, or, as we now say, a necessary result 

 of natural laws. 



Just such was the part played by the clergy in the 

 early days of New South Wales. If they were no more 

 the initiators of pastoral and agricultural settlement 

 than the monks were, they contributed to it in no small 

 degree ; and they gave it the consecration it has had 

 in all ages, if we may trust the myths of many countries, 

 and is all the better for having. 



Of the Anghcan clergy in the far South-East a similar 

 tale has to be told. The Rev. Richard Johnson, first 

 chaplain to the new settlement in New South Wales, 

 was perhaps the earliest settler on a considerable scale 

 to breed cattle and sheep and sow grain. He owned 

 600 acres, on which he fed 150 sheep and some horses 

 and cattle, and he planted three acres with vines and 

 orange and other fruit-trees. According to Captain 

 Tench, he was the best farmer in the Colony. His 

 success as a saver of souls may have been doubtful, 

 but he initiated the pastoral industry of the Colony, 

 and in twelve years, selling his land and stock, he went 

 back to England with " a large fortune." * He did not 

 sacrifice his religion to his worldly speculations, however, 

 but was faithful in teaching and preaching to a froward 

 and perverse generation, where the officers and the 

 soldiers were nearly as bad as the convicts. He was, 



* Dean Kenny also states that he " returned to England 

 with a good fortune." If Johnson's own letters may be trusted, 

 the facts are very much otherwise. He went back to England 

 in broken health, a mere skeleton ; yet, so far from being a 

 wealthy returned colonist, he found himself, in his own words, 

 " under the painful necessity of serving as a curate." He had 

 to make repeated applications to the authorities for a measure of 

 relief. His health must have improved in later years, for he 

 lived to be seventy-four years old. (Bonwick, Australia's 

 First Preacher, p. 252.) 



