Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/194

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CHAPTER XIII.

Meeting for Discipline Established.—Meetings for Worship.—Temperance Lecture. Flagellation.—Causes of Crime.—Judicial Oaths.—Peculiarities of Friends.—Chain Gang.—Unsteady Emigrant.—Ascent of Mount Wellington.—Notice of a Pious Prisoner.

On returning to Hobart Town, we found the little congregation with which we had become associated, in a state requiring care: a conference was therefore held with the two persons, who, with ourselves, were members of the Society of Friends in England, and it was concluded to organize a meeting for discipline, for the purpose of preserving good order, keeping records, discharging regularly the expenses attendant upon the occupation of the room in which the meetings for worship were held, and maintaining a general care respecting such other matters, as might be connected with the welfare of those professing with the Society of Friends, in this Colony.

At the first of these meetings, which was held on the 20th of 9th month, 1833, the certificates of George Washington Walker and myself, sanctioning our visit to the Southern Hemisphere, were read.—Appendix A.—A certificate of the membership of another individual, who had brought this document with him from England, was also read, and a record was made of the membership of two other Friends, with a notice of the respective Monthly Meetings in England, to which they belonged. A list of the names of other persons attending the meetings of Friends in Hobart Town, and of those professing an attachment to the principles of the Society in other parts of the Island, was likewise entered on minute.