Certainly, whatever other arrangements might have been adopted, those that have been made are faulty in principle; and this is true, although it be confessed that some good has arisen from them, since through them an increased supply of religious teaching has been afforded to the colonists, however reluctantly wrung from the government in behalf of the Church of England. The faultiness of principle in these arrangements is thus stated by the present Bishop of Australia, a man well fitted to the responsible station which he fills in Christ's Church. "By the government plan of aid," he observes, "encouragement is given to the lax and dangerous opinion, that there is in religion nothing that is either certain or true. The government virtually admits that there is no divinely-instituted form of church-membership, or of doctrine, otherwise that one would in preference receive its support. The consequence is that the most awful truths of Christianity, which have been acknowledged and preserved in the Church from the beginning, are now frequently spoken of as merely sectarian opinions, to which no peculiar respect is due."[215] The Roman Catholics hailed this measure with delight, for what to them can be a greater triumph or a more gratifying spectacle than to behold a great Protestant nation, inquiring, as Pilate did, "What is truth?" The Presbyterians, likewise, and Protestant Dissenters, were not behind their brethren of Rome (though there were fewer voices to join the shout) in greeting so exquisitely liberal a measure, which is actually founded upon some of their favourite notions respecting the harmlessness of divisions, the total invisibility of the Church, and the hatefulness of "a dominant episcopacy." The rejoicings which were to be heard in quarters apparently so opposite boded no good from the measure to the Church of England; and, certainly, from the strange way in which this law has been carried into operation, so far as that communion is concerned, the Government are not to be thanked for any favourable results that have followed. Through the activity of the members of our Church, both at home and in Australia, an increased supply of churches and of clergy has indeed been obtained; but this has, in most instances, literally been wrung from the ruling powers; while the only boon that was freely given,--a most valuable boon, it is willingly acknowledged,--was the appointment of a bishop instead of an archdeacon. However, the value of the boon thus obtained was lessened by the disregard shown by Government to the wants of the Church in Australia. The Bishop returned from England, after his consecration in 1836, _alone, without being accompanied by a single clergyman_, because, while Roman Catholic priests and Presbyterian teachers were still eligible to receive, and did receive, the aid of government, the Church of England was to remain as it was, notwithstanding its pressing wants and increasing numbers.