AUSTRALIA'S FIRST CHURCH OPENED.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 389, 23 August 1911, Page 2

AUSTRALIA'S FIRST CHURCH OPENED.

A queer little building it must, havi been, this first church that was buill in Australia, and opened on August 26, 1793. It was built, we are told, "of wattle and daub, at the back ol the huts, on the east side of the Cove," and it was the chaplain whc accompanied the f.rst shipload of con victs landed at Botany Bay that laic the foundations of the tiny church ir Sydney. During the week it was used as a schoolroom, in which about twc hundred children were educated. As tc where the teacher came from is a pro blem which no one seems able tc solve ; but there were, no doubt, educated men among the convicts and probably one of them was chose: Since then Australia has made tremendous strides in every direction and her system of education is a: perfect as any in existence in othei and older countries. A little ovci one hundred years ago there was onlj the little church described, with its school, and its priest or pastor, and no doubt, among the six hundred met and two hundred women who formec the settlement were found some whc were glad to attend the familiar service, if only in order to bring tc their minds recollections of that Mo ther Country from which they were banished. There are now two cat he drals in Sydney—Anglican and Roman Catholic—besides a very hand some Jewish synagogue., and numer ous other churches.