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THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.
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there were very numerously attended services and tea-meetings. After a very brief stay he left for Launceston. At Belfast the foundation stone of a Wesleyan Chapel was laid by Mr. John Chastel, on the 30th April, 1847, and an animated address delivered by Mr. W m . Witton. Mr. J. Atkinson having kindly lent a tent for the purpose, it was pitched on the ground, wherefiftymouths of all ages were regaled with tea and cakes. The Rev. Mr. Lowe left Geelong in 1847, and was the recipient of a handsome valedictory presentation. In August of the following year, Mr. James Austin gave a piece of land as a chapel site for Newtown (near Geelong). THE BRUNSWICK STREET CHAPEL. In the beginning of 1849 the Rev. Mr. Sweetman purchased a site for a chapel in Brunswick Street, with a frontage of 80 feet, and the price was 12s. per foot. This step was necessitated by the expiry, on the 3rd September, 1848, of the lease of the ground upon which the wooden chapel was put up, the south-west corner of Brunswick Street and Moor (then William) Street. It belonged to Mr. R. S. Webb, the first Sub-collector of Customs, who, in 1841, gave it to the Wesleyans at a nominal rent on a seven years' lease. A new chapel was, therefore, an urgency, and the foundation stone was laid at 4 p.m. on the 21st March. The ceremony was to have been performed by M r Sydney Stephen, barrister-at-law, who was prevented by indisposition from attending, and the Rev. Mr. Sweetman officiated in his stead. Some 200 of those present adjourned to the old chapel (at the other side of the street), and partook of the conventional tea-refreshments, supplied for the occasion by the Wesleyan ladies of Collingwood and Melbourne. It was calculated that .£350 would be required to complete the new building, and towards this the Rev. Mr. Boyce, the Superintendent of Missions, resident in Sydney, had promised ,£50. In addition to the proceeds of the tea-party, ,£80 had been subscribed in the room. The meeting was addressed by the Rev. Messrs. Sweetman, Harcourt, and Mr. E. C. Symonds, a recently received candidate for the Wesleyan ministry. A shameful sacrilege was perpetrated at Geelong on the night of the 29th May by some scoundrels, whose sin after all brought them no gain. The Wesleyan Chapel there was feloniously broken into and two money-boxes carried off. They contained nothing, and the thieves must have felt rather disappointed at having so laboured in vain. For some time the Collins Street Chapel was growing too small for the weekly increasing demands upon its space, and it was at length decided to enlarge it at a cost of ,£650. A meeting was held in May to take steps to do so, whereat the liberal sum of ,£512 was raised. This work was prosecuted with so much zeal that by the close of the year the additions were made, including the erection of an organ loft; and it was now pronounced to be the mostfinishedreligious edifice in the colony. A chapel had been opened at East Brighton since June, 1849, which was attended to by the Rev. Mr. Harcourt and occasional ministers and lay-preachers from Melbourne. It was at length found that Melbourne stood much in need of a second place of worship within what might be termed the city proper; and as a temporary convenience, a large room was put up in the eastern part of Lonsdale Street, and opened for chapel services on the 1st December, 1850, when a post meridiem sermon was preached by the Rev. Mr. Butters, and an evening one by the Rev. T. Hastie. Next evening there came off a tea-meeting, and the two days' collections made £100. This building was also to be used as a Sunday and a day-school. O n the last day of the year there were five Wesleyan Churches in the colony, supposed to be sufficient for the accommodation of 2700 persons, and attended by the same number. W h e n the census was taken on 2nd March, 1851, the Wesleyan population of Port Phillip was returned at 4988, of w h o m 1630 were resident in Melbourne. From a report brought before a public meeting on 21st April, 1851, it appeared that for 1850 the pupils who attended at Sunday-School in Melbourne and suburbs numbered 461, and during thefirstquarter of 1851 they increased to 817, or about 77 per cent. There were 81 teachers imparting instruction. Perhaps the largest demonstration of Wesleyanism in the olden time was on the 15th September of the same year, when a tea-meeting was held in the Collins Street Chapel, with Captain M'Crae as Chairman. The specific purpose of the