Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/261

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THE CHURCH IN THE COLONIES.
247

entreated his people to show forth the power and the purity of their faith in the propriety of their conduct, to shun all excess and drunkenness as most offensive to the Almighty, derogatory to the memory of a saint distinguished for his abstemiousness, and degrading to the descendants of those noble men whose holy lives obtained for Ireland that most cherished title of the Island of Saints. This advice was urgently needed, for the free immigrants who were constantly arriving were in great danger of being demoralised by the scenes of debauchery they were compelled to witness in the streets of Sydney. But, fortunately, the best friends and protectors of the Irish Catholic immigrant were simultaneously making their presence felt in the now growing community. Dr. Ullathorne, who assumed the office of Vicar-General on the arrival of Dr. Folding, made several voyages to the home country, and returned on each occasion with a further supply of Irish missionary priests, several of whom were destined to fill high places in the Church of the future. Thus it was that, wherever a settlement was formed, the priest was soon on the spot, collecting the Catholic people together, building a modest little church, and establishing a school for the young ones. Many now prosperous and populous cities and towns in New South Wales, having large and wealthy congregations and numerous Catholic institutions, began life in this humble fashion under the presiding care of a pioneer Irish missionary priest.

One of the young clergymen, into whom the untiring Dr. Ullathorne infused some of his own abounding enthusiasm for the promotion of the cause of Catholicity in the colonies, was the Rev. James Alipius Goold, a member of an old Cork family, who had been educated for the priesthood on the continent. Meeting him one day on the steps of the church