inhabitants for co-operation in building a Church of Rome. There is a dash of unwitting humour in the coolness which prompted the issue of this manifesto, at a time when it was well known that the Episcopalians had hard work to raise funds for the erection of their own intended church, and the Wesleyans and Presbyterians had their hands full in the same way. The document was judiciously drawn up and the case well put, as this extract will show:— "We (the Catholics) are," it declared, "among you, before you, and we need but refer you to our numbers, industry and talent, to induce you to acknowledge our importance to a new-born, rising, and struggling colony. We are, however, poor as a community, and therefore call upon you with confidence for assistance in our undertaking. We need not, at the present day, revert to those bugbears, the offspring of ignorance and fraud, which kept our fathers at variance for so many ages." The appeal was met in a generous spirit, and several contributions followed, the most remarkable being the receipt of £2 12s. 6d. "from the privates of the 28th regiment," a detachment of which was then quartered in the town. Several of the red-coated donors were members of the Roman Catholic persuasion.
The First Priest.
The petition asking for a minister was anticipated by the Bishop, for it and the so much wished for clergyman passed each other on the route between Melbourne and Sydney; and so the Rev. P. B. Geoghegan, the pioneer-priest, arrived per the "Paul Pry," on the 15th May, 1839, and was followed by the Rev. Richard Walshe in September. Four days after his arrival, on Pentecost Sunday, (19th May) Father Geoghegan celebrated thefirstMass in the colony, in an unroofed store, belonging to Messrs. Campbell and Woolley, at the corner of Elizabeth and Little Collins Streets, the now site of the Colonial Bank; and it is a remarkable coincidence that thefirstMass, and the first Protestant church service, were both solemnised in temples with no other covering than the canopy of Heaven.
The new priest was not a man to lose time in grappling with difficulties, and he set to work without delay. Mr. Arthur Hogue, of Banyule, near Heidelberg, allowed him to use an empty store as a place of worship, the collectors were urged on in their money-hunting mission, and on the 25th May, the indefatigable priest published an address to the Catholics of Port Phillip, which formulated a declaration that ought to be preserved as a golden legend by every religious denomination, viz.:— "To recognise the right of every one to worship God according to his conscience, is a noble and enlightened principle; it alone can give a permanent basis to society, because upon it alone can be combined the various forms of Christian worship into a structure for the common good."
Mr. Peter Bodecin was appointed the first clerk, funds were increasing, and at the end of June the military sent in £3 10s. as a second instalment of their good-will. The weekly worship was continued for some time at Mr. Hogue's store, and Father Geoghegan, who was as methodical a man of business as the proverbial "old bachelor," in order to save the expense of advertising the subscriptions of Roman Catholics, had the list posted every Sunday on the chapel (store) door. They were not yet in a position, financially, to make application for a grant of land from the Governor; but Father Geoghegan had wanly chosen a site which Captain Lonsdale, the Government Administrator, permitted him to occupy, pending the sanction of the Executive. This site was at the intersection of Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets. The place was then literally forest land, and here in the bush was run up, at the cost of £100, a small wooden chapel, which was opened for service at 11 o'clock on Sunday, the 28th July. This was the original church of St. Francis, so-called after St. Francis of Assisium, the founder of the Franciscan Order of Friars, of which Brotherhood Father Geoghegan was one.
On the first and succeeding Sabbaths it was arranged to hold three services, viz.:— 1. For families and servants, short service at 8.30 a.m.; 2. Parochial service, 11 a.m.; 3. Exhortation on some practical subject, 4 p.m. The first Roman Catholic sermon or exhortation in Port Phillip was delivered on the 28th July; subject—"Social Duties."
On the 29th September, 1839, a meeting was held in the temporary chapel to consider the important question of "Ways and Means." The amount of collections was reported as £116 in cash and £20 in promissory notes. If £300 could be raised the land grant would issue, and an annual salary of £150, be
