Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/170

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THE NEW ARCADIA.

ability of human labour to establish itself, under free and fair conditions, without aid of the State, dole of charity, or the Church. They had learned, he pointed out, that by loving their neighbours as themselves, life became, in spiritual as in all temporal things, trebly richer.

In a loft above the wide chancel-screen the band was playing. With the surpliced choir of men and boys, some clergy and singers from town were associated. The chairs, free to all, were every one occupied. As orchestra, choir, and people joined in the Te Deum, and all faced, like one army, the figured eastern light, high above the home-carved reredos and glowing altar, the first beams of the dawning shed a soft light about the sacred building. Frank Brown felt that a better day was indeed being ushered in.

Later, all repaired, by tramway and on foot, to the lake. The common daily bathe was enlivened by swimming contests—for families, for men, and for women. The lake rang with laughter, that coursed along its surface, and set the magpies in the few gaunt gums remaining, piping a loud symphony of song.

The morning ablutions over, the prize-winners announced, all assembled in a bower of saplings and gum-boughs specially erected for the purpose. Here about one thousand five hundred persons sat down to the breakfast that a committee of the villagers dispensed. The band played; the 'Song of the Village Settlers' was sung; the doctor and the bishop delivered short addresses inseparable from all British social gatherings.

Later, a stream of visitors wound down the hill-side in four-in-hands, wagons, and Cobb & Co.'s coaches; in every and any kind of vehicle. Half the township of Gumford, miners of Tin-pot Gully, "Cockies" from the