But a yet better proof of the chaplain's earnestness was given, after the colony had been settled for six years, in his building a church,--the first that was raised in New Holland for the purposes of christian worship. Even now, we often may hear and lament the ignorance which chooses to reckon the _clergy_ as the _Church_, and which looks upon the efforts recently made in favour of church extension, as lying quite beyond the province of the laity; and this deplorable ignorance was much more common in Mr. Johnson's days.[99] Accordingly, to the disgrace of the colony and of the government at home, no church was raised during six years, and when at last that object was accomplished, it was by the private purse and the single efforts of an individual,--the chaplain of the colony. The building was in a very humble style, made of wood and thatched, and it is said to have cost Mr. Johnson only 40_l._; but all this merely serves to show how easily the good work might have been before done, how inexcusable it was to leave its accomplishment to one individual. A few months before this necessary work was undertaken the colony had been visited by two Spanish ships, and it is possible that an observation made by the Romish priest belonging to one of these ships may have had some effect towards raising the first church built at Sydney. At the time when the Spanish ships were in the harbour, the English chaplain performed divine service wherever he could find a shady spot; and the Spanish priest observing that, during so many years no church had been built, lifted up his eyes with astonishment, declaring (truly), that, had the place been settled by his nation, a house of God would have been erected before any house for man. How disgraceful to the English nation, how injurious to our Reformed Church, that an observation like this, coming from the lips of one who belonged to a corrupt and idolatrous church, should be so true, so incapable of contradiction! However, if the remark had any effect in exciting the efforts of the Protestant chaplain, and in thus supplying at length a want so palpable as that of a house of God in the colony, it was by no means uttered in vain; and supposing it to be so, this is not a solitary instance of our Church and her members having been aroused into activity by the taunts and attacks of those that are opposed to her. [99] It would appear almost as though some men _will_ not see that churches are not built for clergymen to preach in, and live (or starve) upon the pew-rents, but for laymen to hear God's word and join in His solemn worship.