SECOND INDEPENDENT CHURCH, MELBOURNE
The following article, accompanying the above picture, appeared in The Illustrated Australian Magazine, March 1851, one month before the opening of the church:
The place of worship connected with this religious denomination of the Eastern Hill, of which the Rev. A. Morison is minister, was one of the first churches erected in this city.
The desirableness of a second interest had been felt for some time, and on the arrival of the Rev. Thomas Odell, in February, 1850, means were speedily taken for its commencement.
A school room, in Little Bourke Street, on the Western Hill, was opened for Divine Worship on the 10th of March, wherein the usual services have since been regularly observed.
The result of the effort has been such, as to render the obtaining of a larger place a matter of urgent necessity; - and such as fully to justify the erection of the church represented in the engraving.
The present cost of the building, including the ground, is about £2000; and £800, in addition, will be required at some future time for its completion. It is expected that it will be in a state of readiness to be opened, for public worship, about the first or second Sabbath in April.
The church and congregation for which it is preparing, adopt the principle of voluntarism as inculcated in the New Testament. A box at the entrance door receives what duty and disposition those in attendance to contribute.
We understand that a large sum is yet required to meet the cost of the erection. The building is in the Gothic style of the fifteenth century, after the design, and erected under the superintendence of Mr. R. Rogers, architect, of this city.
Its internal dimensions are sixty-two feet in length, by forty feet in width; and it is calculated to hold five hundred persons; having no galleries, though they may be added at a future time if required, as the church is to be exceedingly lofty, with an internal height of thirty-seven feet.
This will be a great advantage in a climate like ours, where air and ventilation are so necessary, but which are nevertheless so much neglected. It is to be ventilated upon Arnot's principle, by flues and iron valves in the walls.
The window casements are to be of cast iron, being superior to lead, both in strength and in the keeping out of dust and weather. They are, at the same time, cheaper than those of wood.
Provision has been made in the design for the enlargement of the church, should that be required.
Source: Second Independent Church, Melbourne; The Illustrated Australian Magazine; March 1851; Courtesy State Library of New South Wales
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