When Moorhouse arrived at Melbourne he found much work was needed. Before the discovery of gold 25 years before, Melbourne was a small provincial town, it was now an established city with a quarter of a million inhabitants. Much as the churches had done it had been difficult to keep pace with such progress, and Moorhouse realised that men of ability should be encouraged to become clergymen, and that they should be properly trained. Trinity College had recently been built and affiliated with the University, and Moorhouse decided that if possible all candidates for orders should reside there for three years and take a degree. He had been presented with £1000 by his parishioners when he left London, and this was now given to the fund founded to meet the expenses of the students while at college. It is interesting to know that practically within the span of Moorhouse's life Trinity College contributed six bishops to the Anglican church. He travelled the country widely and made friends wherever he went, and especially stressed the need for the religious instruction of children. His difficulties were great and he found the dissensions between the various religious bodies a greater bar than the opposition of sceptics. Writing in the late 1870s he said, "The hatred of Rome here is incredible. I could have gained my object long ago but for that. . . . Nothing will induce me to join in the bigoted howl against Rome." In 1881, however, he was able to assure a friend in England that the prospects of religious instruction in schools were much brighter. His broad-mindedness appealed to many outside his own denomination. He began delivering a series of lectures in the autumn of each year on the Bible, on the gospel and city life of Corinth, on religion and science. At first given in one of the churches his audiences grew until it was necessary to engage the town hall, which held about three thousand. Without aiming at popularity Moorhouse filled this hall with people of all classes and creeds, who listened with the greatest intentness to all he said.