The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

ROME IN THE PACIFIC. 535inspected by the government architect ;and the sum requiredis ordered. As the mass-house is built in part, so thepriest is salaried in part, by government. A list of seatholders,with the amount of annual orquarterly rent paidby each, is transmitted to the governor, and an order isstraightway issued for the payment of the stipend.Schoolsand schoolmasters are also aided from the treasury, and thatin no stinted measure.In 1849 the sum voted was eighteenhundred pounds, and the sum placed on the estimates forthe following year was upwards of twenty-six hundred.What makes this the more extraordinary and the more unjustifiableis, that there is a government system of educationin operation in the colony.* We thus see what a webRome has spread over this fine portion of our colonial empire,and how much her boast is justified, that Australia isalready all her own.Australia, in point of geographical position, is the verycitadel of the southern hemisphere : it is destined to givepopulation and language, and, we fondly hope, freedom andreligion, to all this region of the globe. But let Poperyseize upon it, and she will convert what otherwise were acareer of unbounded progress, into one of premature decay.Instead of growing into a greatempire, Australia will sinkdown into the decrepitude of Ireland. And not only so ;Rome will close the gates of the Pacific against the entranceof the gospel, and create here a dense mass of darknessand heathenism, which it may require ages to dispel.Nor will this be all ; she will erect her batteries on thisstrong redoubt, and play with prodigious effect upon ourmissions in the east, and upon our Christianity at home.* See Battersby's Registry for the whole [Catholic] World for 1850 :Government Blue Book [Colonial], 1849 : Dr Lang's Popery in Australia; Edin. 1847.