When the village of Melbourne was eight months old, the Reverend John Orton came from Tasmania and conducted divine service in the hut of John Batman, close to the present railway station at Spencer Street. The hut stood on a green hill, overlooking the marshes of west Melbourne, and there the preacher asked the biblical question: ‘What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ News of this unusual gathering must have spread, and in the afternoon Orton preached again. More settlers came to hear him, and even more Aboriginal people – perhaps fifty of them – sat quietly, watching intently and listening to the singing. Orton had never seen a more fascinating sight. As a Wesleyan he resolved to convert the Aboriginal people as well as those inheriting the earth, but the obstacles were mountainous.

People poured into Victoria to make money, and scattered themselves over such a wide area that rarely did a minister visit them. Victoria was dominated at first by men, by young men, and such a society was often more receptive to brandy than the Bible. Ministers and priests came; churches and church schools were erected; and Aboriginal missions were opened. Little in 1850, however, suggested that Victoria would become an enlightened society with a sense of compassion and some willingness to see wealth as a means as well as an end. The first gold rushes did even more to postpone the coming of such a society.