When the Collins Street Chapel was approaching completion, a temporary pulpit was put up, but in a loose and hurried manner, and here, at an evening service, the reverend gentleman intended preaching a sermon on "The Heavenly World as the Christian's future Home." As a befitting prelude, he fancied that nothing would tell better than the chanting of a suitable hymn, and forthwith proceeded to give out in the most sonorous of voices, the following verse:—
"Nothing on earth I call my own—
A stranger to the world unknown
I all their goods despise—
I trample on their whole delight,
And seek a country out of sight—
A country in the skies."
But just as he uttered the words ending the fifth line, "a country out of sight," the planking under his feet gave way, and like a criminal turned off when the drop falls, down "dropped" the preacher to a region the reverse of "in the skies," though certainly "out of sight." For a time he was absolutely invisible to the congregation, and the utmost alarm prevailed, for it was not known whether he was dead or alive. Several friends rushed forward to extricate their dearly beloved minister, and to their great joy it was ascertained that he had not suffered injury. "Pray don't speak now or I must laugh aloud," he said, and the service was resumed.
A similar occurrence happened in a very dissimilar place, and on a very dissimilar occasion, fifteen years after. At the general election for Melbourne in 1856, Chief-Justice Stawell, (then Attorney-General) contested Melbourne as a candidate for election to the Legislative Assembly. Party feeling ran high, and Mr. Stawell was addressing a meeting at the old Princess Theatre in Spring Street. The candidate was surrounded by a strong body-guard of enthusiastic friends, and in the midst of one of his most vehement denunciations of "the other side," the stage gave way, falling outwards, and precipitating, as if into a huge rat trap, the candidate, the supporters, and a half-dozen of the "recording angels" told off for the performance of the terrestrial work of the evening. No lives were lost, no limbs were broken, and like the preacher, the orator got off without a scrape. The meeting was adjourned to the open air, the corner window of an adjoining hotel was taken out, and there, mounted on a window-sill, with one leg in the room, and the other dancing outside on nothing, the Attorney-General concluded his address, and the pluck so shown had something to do in winning him the election. My excuse for dove-tailing a political digression with a notice of Wesleyan Methodism, is simply to show how events repeat themselves under conditions curiously and amusingly different.
The Wesleyan Chapel was formally opened on the 24th June, 1841, with a morning service, whereat the Rev. S. Wilkinson read the Liturgy, and the Rev. William Waterfield (an Independent Minister) preached an eloquent sermon from Matthew, 6 chap. 10 verse, " Thy Kingdom Come, &c." The Rev. J. Orton conducted the evening service. The Chapel, designed by Mr. J. J. Peers, was of the modern Gothic style of architecture. The portion finished measured 60 feet by 50 feet outside, and it was intended to extend the building to 80 feet.
In the course of this year there arrived in Melbourne a gentleman, still amongst us, who not only rendered services of no ordinary kind to the Wesleyan community, of which he was a member, but made himself conspicuous by his efforts to promote the welfare of the colony. He is essentially such an old colonist, and such a universally known man that a brief notice of him cannot be out of place in any book written about the Melbourne of the past.
Mr. Joseph Ankers Marsden is every inch a Yorkshireman, and was born at Leeds in August, 1811. On reaching man's estate he was accepted by the Wesleyan Conference as a probationer of the ministry, and ordained in 1836. At his own request he was appointed to a mission station on one of the West Indian Islands (St. Vincent) whither he proceeded, but was obliged to return to Europe in 1839, in consequence of the severe illness of himself and family, and a fear that Yellow Jack (the yellow fever) which was eating up many Europeans, would make a meal of him. He subsequently declined an offer of a station in Van Diemen's Land, and continued ill-health necessitated his retirement from the ministry. However, he emigrated to Melbourne in 1841, where he engaged in commercial pursuits, frequently appearing in the Wesleyan pulpit, Collins Street, and so far as his health and advancing years permit, may still be
