Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/83

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The Builders ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 57 Province, and had agencies in various countries. Its affairs multiplied and yielded large profits, and in 1841 the Company established it on an independent footing as the South Australian Banking Company. The pioneers of South Australia were, as a rule, men of strong religious convictions, and as soon as they had become concentrated in the capital they made preparations for the erection of places of worshij). Within a few years all the principal religious sects of Great Britain had taken root in the Province. That Adelaide should be sometimes called a city of churches is natural. The minds of many of the projectors in England were considerably inlluenced by their religious views when they advocated the formation of a new colony ; indeed, they were influenced almost as much by religious and philanthropic ideas as by commercial and industrial interests. This was especially so in the case of Mr. G. F. Angas, and the religious strain among the pioneers is to be observed in many of their journals. It was of those who projection of the Australia that no State aid to absolute freedom but, nevertheless, attached to the Act of 1834 appointment of clergymen of Churches of Scotland." An passed some dropped this Old Tkiniti' Chukch the general wish encouraged the Province of South there should be religion, and that should be allowed ; a clause was South Australian providing for the "chaplains and the Established P^ n g 1 a n d a n d amending Act time afterwards clause, but in the meanwhile a chaplain, the Rev. C. B. Howard, had been appointed at a salary of ^250 a year, to be paid out of colonial funds. 'Phis was the only special privilege given to the Anglican Church, but it established a connection between Church and State. The Rev. Charles Beaumont Howard was a zealous, broad-minded, and amiable ecclesiast. He arrived with (iovtirnor Hindmarsh in the Bujfalo, and speedily set about finding a temple for worship. Laymen had conducted service at various places before this, and it would seem to be true of the pioneers that wherever a score or so of them were gathered together, someone rose up to preach the Gospel. The Rev. C. B. Howard, as pioneer, had an arduous task. When the people had been in Adelaide only a few weeks, and before they had settled on their town acres, he vainly tried to obtain a suitable building wherein to commence his ministerial duties. Eventually he borrowed