Return to the Colony--Duaterra--His strange adventures--Mr.
Marsden's Labours in New South Wales--Aborigines--Their
Habits--Plans for their Civilization.
Mr. Marsden took what proved to be his last leave of his native land in
August 1809. Resolute as he was, and nerved for danger, a shade of
depression passed across him. "The ship, I understand," he writes to
Mrs. Mason Good, "is nearly ready. This land in which we live is
polluted, and cannot, on account of sin, give rest to any of its
inhabitants. Those who have (sought) and still do seek their happiness
in anything it can give, will meet nothing but disappointment, vexation,
and sorrow. If we have only a common share of human happiness, we cannot
have or hope for more." A few weeks afterwards he addresses the same
Christian lady thus:--
"Cambridge, August 1, 1809.
"Yesterday I assisted my much esteemed friend, Mr. Simeon, but
here I shall have no continuing city. The signal will soon be
given, the anchor weighed, and the sails spread, and the ship
compelled to enter the mighty ocean to seek for distant lands. I
was determined to take another peep at Cambridge, though conscious
I could but enjoy those beautiful scenes for a moment. In a few
days we shall set off for Portsmouth. All this turning and
wheeling about from place, to place, and from nation to nation, I
trust is our right way to the heavenly Canaan. I am happy in the
conclusion, to inform you that I have got all my business settled
in London much to my satisfaction, both with government and in
other respects. The object of my mission has been answered, far
beyond my expectations. I believe that God has gracious designs
towards New South Wales, and that his gospel will take root there,
and spread amongst the heathen nations to the glory of his grace.
"I have the honour to be, dear madam,
"Yours, in every Christian bond,
"SAMUEL MARSDEN."
His prayers and devout aspirations for New Zealand had been heard on
high, and "the way of the Lord" was "preparing" in a manner far beyond
his expectations, ardent as they seem. The ship Ann, in which he sailed,
by order of the government, for New South Wales, carried with her one
whom Providence had raised up to act a part, only less important than
his own, in the conversion of that benighted land.
The ship had been some time at sea before Mr. Marsden observed on the
forecastle, amongst the common sailors, a man whose darker skin and
wretched appearance awakened his sympathy. He was wrapped in an old
great coat, very sick and weak, had a violent cough, accompanied with
profuse bleeding. He was much dejected, and appeared as though a few
days would close his life. This was Duaterra, a New Zealand chieftain,
whose story, as related by Mr. Marsden himself, is almost too strange
for fiction. And as "this young chief became," as he tells us, "one of
the principal instruments in preparing the way for the introduction of
the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity into his
native country," a brief sketch of his marvellous adventures will not be
out of place.
When the existence of New Zealand was yet scarcely known to Europeans,
it was occasionally visited by a South Sea whaler distressed for
provisions, or in want of water. One of these, the Argo, put into the
Bay of Islands in 1805, and Duaterra, fired with the spirit of
adventure, embarked on board with two of his companions. The Argo
remained on the New Zealand coast for above five months, and then sailed
for Port Jackson, the modern Sydney of Australia, Duaterra sailing with
her. She then went to fish on the coast of New Holland for six months,
again returning to Port Jackson. Duaterra had been six months on board,
working in general as a common sailor, and passionately fond of this
roving life. He then experienced that unkindness and foul play of which
the New Zealander has always had sad reason to complain. He was left on
shore without a friend and without the slightest remuneration.
He now shipped himself on board the Albion whaler, Captain Richardson,
whose name deserves honourable mention; he behaved very kindly to
Duaterra, repaid him for his services in various European articles, and
after six months cruising on the fisheries, put him on shore in the Bay
of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. Here he remained six months, when the
Santa Anna anchored in the bay, on her way to Norfolk Island and other
islets of the South Sea in quest of seal skins. The restless Duaterra
again embarked; he was put on shore on Norfolk Island at the head of a
party of fourteen sailors, provided with a very scanty supply of water,
bread, and salt provisions, to kill seals, while the ship sailed,
intending to be absent but a short time, to procure potatoes and pork in
New Zealand. On her return she was blown off the coast in a storm, and
did not make the land for a month. The sealing party were now in the
greatest distress, and accustomed as he was to hardship, Duaterra often
spoke of the extreme suffering which he and his party had endured,
while, for upwards of three months, they existed on a desert island with
no other food than seals and sea fowls, and no water except when a
shower of rain happened to fall. Three of his companions, two Europeans
and one Tahitian, died under these distresses.
At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of
seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had
now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time
entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast
ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so
wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor,
to visit England and see king George. The Santa Anna arrived in the
river Thames about July 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the
captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a
sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of
Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see king
George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him
exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted
to go on shore. In about fifteen days, the vessel had discharged her
cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the
Ann, which had been taken up by government to convey convicts to New
South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra
asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He
refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson
would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but
even these he never received.
Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that
the son of a New Zealand chief, in circumstances so pitiable, lay on
board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on
board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea.
His sympathies were at once roused, and his indignation too; for it was
always ill for the oppressor when he fell within the power of his stern
rebuke. "I inquired," he says, "of the master where he met with him, and
also of Duaterra what had brought him to England, and how he came to be
so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs
which he had endured on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and
that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause
of his spitting blood, and that the master had defrauded him of all his
wages, and prevented his seeing the king. I should have been very happy,
if there had been time, to call the master of the Santa Anna to account
for his conduct, but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe his
afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults,
and that his wants should be supplied."
By the kindness of those on board, Duaterra recovered, and was ever
after truly grateful for the attention shown him. On their arrival at
Sydney, Mr. Marsden took him into his house for six months, during which
time he applied himself to agriculture; he then wished to return home,
and embarked for New Zealand; but further perils and adventures were in
prospect, and we shall have occasion to advert to them hereafter. For
the present we leave him on his voyage to his island home.
The Ann touched on her passage out at Rio Janeiro, and Mr. Marsden spent
a short time on shore, where his active mind, already, one would
suppose, burthened with cares and projects, discovered a new field of
labour. The ignorance and superstition of a popish city stirred his
spirit, like that of Paul at Athens. He wrote home to entreat the Church
Missionary Society, if possible, to send them teachers; but this lay not
within their province. From a letter of Sir George Grey's, addressed to
himself, it appears that he had interested some members of the English
government upon the subject, and that while at Rio he had been active in
distributing the Scriptures.
But he was now to resume his labours in Australia, where he arrived in
safety, fondly calculating upon a long season of peaceful toil in his
heavenly Master's service. His mind was occupied with various projects,
both for the good of the colony and of the heathen round about. His own
letters, simply and hastily thrown off in all the confidence of
friendship, will show how eagerly he plunged, and with what a total
absence of selfish considerations, into the work before him:
"To John Terry, Esq. "Paramatta, October 26, 1810.
"DEAR SIR.--I received your kind and affectionate letter, also a
bottle of wheat, with the Hull papers, from your brother; for all
of which I feel much indebted. We had a very fine passage, and I
found my affairs much better than I had any reason to expect. The
revolution had caused much distress to many families, and the
settlement has been thrown much back by this event. My wishes for
the general welfare of the colony have been more successful than I
expected they would be. The rising generation are now under
education in almost all parts of the country. The Catholic priests
have all left us, so that we have now the whole field to
ourselves. I trust much good will be done; some amongst us are
turning to the Lord. Our churches are well attended, which is
promising and encouraging to us. My colleagues are men of piety
and four of the schoolmasters. This will become a great country in
time, it is much favoured in its soil and climate. I am very
anxious for the instruction of the New Zealanders; they are a
noble race, vastly superior in understanding to anything you can
imagine a savage nation could attain. Mr. Hall, who was in Hull,
and came out with us with an intention to proceed to New Zealand
as a missionary, has not yet proceeded, in consequence of a
melancholy difference between the natives of that island and the
crew of a ship called the 'Boyd.' The ship was burnt, and all the
crew murdered; our people, it appears, were the first aggressors,
and dearly paid for their conduct towards the natives by the loss
of their lives and ship. I do not think that this awful event will
prevent the establishment of a mission at New Zealand. Time must
be allowed for the difference to be made up, and for confidence to
be restored. I wrote a letter to Mr. Hardcastle, and another to
Rev. J. Pratt, Secretary to the Society for Missions to Africa and
the East, and have pointed out to them the necessity of having a
ship constantly employed in visiting the islands in the South
Seas, for the convenience, safety, and protection of the
missionaries, either at Otaheite and New Zealand, or at any other
island upon which they may reside....
"Your's respectfully,
"(Signed) SAMUEL MARSDEN."
Great projects are not to be accomplished without many disappointments.
The first attempt is seldom the successful one. In spiritual things,
this may be regarded as the established rule, or law, in accordance to
which the Head of the church controls while he purifies his servants'
zeal. They are made to feel their weakness. Where they expect honour
they meet with opposition, perhaps with scorn. Their favourite plans are
those which bring, for a time, the least success and the greatest
anxiety. Thus they are taught the great lesson of their own weakness,
and the only less important one of the insignificance of others in whom
they trusted. And thus, too, in the painful but salutary school of
adversity, they learn that the highest wisdom is, after all, simply to
accept the cross of Christ, and to cast themselves on the unerring
guidance of the Holy Spirit; and, in a word, "to cease from man."
The new governor, General Macquarie, had arrived out a few months before
Mr. Marsden. He was an able commander, and had the good of the colony
much at heart; and he had a task of no little difficulty to perform, in
reducing what was still a penal colony, just recovering from a state of
insurrection, into order and obedience. His powers were great; he
considered them absolute. Mr. Marsden, too, was justly tenacious of
public morality and virtue, and still more so of the spiritual
independence of the ministerial character. It seems that the rights of
the governor on the one side, and those of the ministers of religion on
the other, had not been accurately defined by the government at home,
and thus a collision between two minds so firm and so resolute as those
of the governor and Mr. Marsden, was inevitable. Occasions of difference
soon arose; the governor anxious, we doubt not, to raise their character
and elevate their position, with a view to the future welfare of the
colony, placed several of the convicts on the magisterial bench, treated
them with respect, and even invited them to his table. With these men,
Mr. Marsden refused, as a magistrate, to act, or to meet them in society
on equal terms. Some of them were notoriously persons of a bad and
vicious life; while none of them, he thought, could, without gross
impropriety, punish others judicially for the infraction of that law
which they themselves had broken. He would gladly have resigned his
magisterial office, but the governor knew the worth of his services, and
refused to accept his resignation, which was repeatedly tendered. The
new magistrates were of course offended, and became his bitter foes; and
some of them harassed him for twenty years with slanders and libellous
insults, until at length an appeal to the laws of his country vindicated
his reputation and silenced his opponents. Differences of opinion may
exist as to the wisdom of Governor Macquarie's conduct in these civil
affairs, and many will perhaps justify his proceedings; but every
right-minded man will condemn without hesitation the attempts which he
made to lord it over the consciences of the established clergy and other
Christian ministers in the colony, in the discharge of their purely
ministerial work. He wished to dictate even to the pulpit. Mr. Marsden
relates that he once sent for him to the Government-house, and commanded
him to produce the manuscript of a sermon which he had preached nearly a
year before: he did so; when the governor severely commented upon it,
and returned it with the remark that one sentence, which it is more than
probable he did not understand, was "almost downright blasphemy." The
junior clergy were of course still more exposed to the same despotic
interference. The governor wished to prescribe the hymns they should
sing, as well as the doctrines they should teach; and he repeatedly
insisted on their giving out, during divine service, secular notices of
so improper a character, that the military officers in attendance
expressed their disgust. Happy it was for the colony of New South Wales
that he met with an opponent firm and fearless, and at the same time
sound in the faith, such as the senior chaplain. On him menaces and
flattery were lost. The governor, at one time, even threatened him with
a court-martial; nor was the threat altogether an empty one, for he
actually brought one of the junior chaplains, Mr. Vale, before a
court-martial, and had him dismissed the colony. These are painful
facts, and such as, at this distance of time, we should gladly pass over
in silence; but, in that case, what could the reader know of the trials
through which Mr. Marsden passed?
Yet amidst all these distractions his letters testify that he possessed
his soul in peace, and that "no root of bitterness, troubled" him. He
speaks with respect of the governor, gives him credit for good
intentions, and acknowledges the many benefits he conferred upon the
colony; and when at length he was on the eve of returning home,
Governor Macquarie himself bore testimony to the piety, integrity, and
invaluable services of the only man who had dared patiently yet firmly
to contend with him during a long course of years.
The records of ministerial life offer little variety, but to pious minds
they are not without interest. Mr. Marsden rose early, generally at four
o'clock during the summer; and the morning hours were spent in his
study. To a Christian minister a few hours of retirement in the morning
are indispensable, or the mind is distracted and the day is lost. Very
early rising is a question of health and constitution as well as of
conscience, and we lay no burden upon those who cannot practise it. To
those who can, the habit is invaluable. Three friends of Mr. Marsden
present us with different examples in this matter. Simeon's twenty
volumes of Horæ Homilicæ, or outlines of sermons, were all written
between five and eight o'clock in the morning. Thomas Scott, the
commentator, seldom had more than three hours a-day in his study and
those three were early ones. Wilberforce on the other hand laments that
he could do nothing till he had had his "full dose of sleep." Those who
cannot rise early may still make the day long by turning to account the
fragments of time and vacant half-hours which are so recklessly
permitted by most men, especially strong men, to run to waste.
In the early days of the colony, Mr. Marsden used to officiate in the
morning at St. Philip's, Sydney. Roads were bad and conveyances scarce,
and he often walked a distance of fifteen miles to Paramatta, where he
conducted another service and preached again. His preaching is described
as very plain, full of good sense and manly thought, and treating
chiefly of the great foundation truths of the gospel. Man a lost sinner
and needing conversion, Christ an Almighty Saviour pardoning sin, the
Holy Ghost an all-sufficient sanctifier, guide, and comforter, carrying
on the work of grace within the soul. Those who came to hear a great
preacher went away disappointed; those who came to pass a listless hour
were sometimes grievously disturbed. The authenticity of the following
anecdote has been assured to us by Mr. Marsden's surviving friends.
He was one day walking by the banks of the river, when a convict as he
passed plunged into the water. Mr. Marsden threw off his coat, and in an
instant plunged in after him and endeavoured to bring the man to land.
He contrived however to get Mr. Marsden's head under the water, and a
desperate struggle for life ensued between them; till Mr. Marsden, being
the stronger of the two, not only succeeded in getting safe to shore but
in dragging the man with him. The poor fellow, struck with remorse,
confessed his intention. He had resolved to have his revenge on the
senior chaplain, whose offence was that he had preached a sermon which
had stung him to the quick; and he believed, as a sinner exasperated by
the reflection of his own vices does frequently believe, that the
preacher had meant to hold him up to the scorn of the congregation. He
knew too that the sight of a drowning fellow-creature would draw out the
instant help of one who never knew what fear was in the discharge of
duty; and he threw himself into the stream confident of drowning Mr.
Marsden, and then of making good his own escape. He became very
penitent, was a useful member of society, and greatly attached to his
deliverer, who afterwards took him into his own service, where he
remained for some years. We cannot give a more painful illustration of
the malignity with which he was pursued, than to state that the current
version of this story in the colony was, that the convict had been
unjustly punished by Mr. Marsden as a magistrate, and took this method
of revenge.
He made the most, too, of his opportunities. At a time when there were
very few churches or clergymen, and the settlers were widely scattered
over large tracts, he frequently made an itinerating ministerial visit
amongst them. He was everywhere received with the greatest cordiality
and respect. On arriving at a farm, a man on horseback was immediately
dispatched to all the neighbours within ten or twelve miles to collect
them for public worship. The settlers gladly availed themselves of these
opportunities, and assembled, in numbers varying from sixty to eighty,
when Divine service was conducted in a vacant barn or under the shade of
a verandah. The next day, he proceeded twenty or twenty-five miles
further on in the wilds, and again collected a congregation. These tours
would often extend over ten days or a fortnight, and were repeated as
his more settled duties permitted. Thus his name became a household
word, pronounced with love and gratitude far beyond the limits of his
parish, or even of the colony; and probably he found some of his most
willing hearers amongst those to whom he thus carried in their solitude
the glad tidings of a salvation which when offered to them week by week
at home they had neglected or despised.
Yet his duties as principal chaplain were not neglected. From a general
government order, dated September, 1810, it appears that amongst them
were those of an overseer, or chief pastor of the church. "The assistant
chaplains are directed to consider themselves at all times under the
immediate control and superintendence of the principal chaplain, and are
to make such occasional reports to him respecting their clerical duties
as he may think proper to require or call for." A high tribute to his
worth under the circumstances in which he was placed by his opposition
to the governor. The chaplains frequently sought his protection against
arbitrary power, and he willingly fought their battles and his own in
defence of liberty of conscience and the right of conducting God's
worship undisturbed. His connexion with his clerical brethren seems to
have been uniformly happy, and the same remark is true of the
missionaries of various denominations, not a few in number, who, during
a period of twenty years, were virtually under his control. He had
undoubtedly the rare power of governing others in a very high degree,
and it was done noiselessly and with a gentle hand; for the men who
govern well seldom obtrude their authority in an offensive manner, or
worry those they should control with a petty interference. He had the
same kind of influence, and probably from the same cause, over the very
horses in his carriage. He used, in driving from Sydney to Paramatta, to
throw the reins behind the dash-board, take up his book, and leave them
to themselves, his maxim being "that the horse that could not keep
itself up was not worth driving." One of the pair was almost
unmanageable in other hands, but it was remarked that "Captain" always
conducted himself well when his master drove, and never had an
accident.
Amongst his strictly pastoral cares, two schools for orphans had a
foremost place. A female orphan school was first proposed, and Mr.
Marsden undertook the direction of the work, and became treasurer to the
institution. From its formation in 1800 to the year 1821, two hundred
children were admitted. It may be a question whether the children of
living parents, however ignorant or even dissolute they may be, should
be totally withdrawn from parental sympathies. The presence of a child
may restrain, and its artless remonstrances are often known to touch, a
vicious father or mother whom no other influence can reach; and Dr.
Guthrie's recent experiment in Edinburgh seems to show us that the best
method of Christianizing both child and parent is to instruct the former
well by day, and to send him home at night a little missionary to his
parents, where other teaching would be scorned. But in the case of
orphans no such questions occur, and we must look upon an orphan school
with unmixed satisfaction. A male orphan school followed in due course,
in which the boys were instructed in some trade and then apprenticed. In
both schools the moral and religious training was the chief
consideration; yet Mr. Marsden's connexion with them was attributed by
his enemies to a sordid motive, and even those in power, who should have
known him better, gave public currency to these injurious reports.
The fact was that when the institutions were founded the treasurer was
allowed a small per centage upon the receipts, as a clerical fee or
stipend; this he allowed to accumulate until he resigned the office,
when he presented the whole sum to the institution. The committee
absolutely refusing to accept it, he purchased cattle from the
government to the full amount, and made a present of them to the orphan
schools. Soon after his return from England it became necessary to erect
new schools. The work was long and tedious, and owing to the want of
labour in the colony, and the idle and drunken habits of the labourers,
nearly ten years elapsed before they were completed, and the work too
was often at a stand for want of funds. These, however, Mr.
Marsden--whom no pecuniary obstacles could daunt--supplied, in a great
measure, out of his own purse, till his advances amounted to nearly
900_l._; and his disinterested conduct in the end occasioned him very
considerable loss. To the latest period he never ceased to take the
warmest interest in the prosperity of these institutions.
"I am sure," says his daughter, "my father's parish was not neglected.
He was well known to all his parishioners, as he was in the habit of
constantly calling upon them. He was very attentive to the sick, whether
at their own homes or at the government hospital. He also took great
interest in the education of the young. It was through his
instrumentality that many schools were established. His Sunday school,
at the time of which I speak, was in a more efficient state than any I
have since seen; but this my brother-in-law, the Rev. T. Hassell, had a
great deal to do with, as he was then acting as my father's curate. The
factory for the reception of female convicts was built entirely by his
suggestion, and to their religious and moral improvement he devoted a
good deal of his time. It was principally owing to his endeavours to get
this and other institutions in good order that much of his discomfort
with his fellow-magistrates and government officers arose."
The aborigines of Australia were, even when the colony was first
settled, comparatively few in number; and in painful conformity with
universal experience, they have wasted away before the white man, and
will probably disappear in time from the face of the earth. If the New
Zealander stands highest in the scale of savage nature, the native
Australian occupies perhaps the lowest place. So low, indeed, was their
intellect rated, that when the phrenological system of Drs. Gall and
Spurzheim began to occupy attention, some forty years ago, the skulls of
several of them were sent over to England to be submitted to the
manipulations of its professors, with a view of ascertaining whether the
Creator had not thrust into existence a whole race of idiots--men who
had neither reason to guide them on the one hand, nor well-developed
instinct on the other. They are supposed to be a mixture of the Malay
and negro races, but they have nothing of the muscular strength of the
negro, nor of his mental pliancy, and both in body and mind are far
below the pure Malay. In the infancy of the colony they rambled into the
town of Port Jackson in a state of nudity, and when blankets were
presented to them they were thrown aside as an incumbrance. They seemed
to have no wants beyond those which the dart or spear--never out of
their hands--could instantly supply. Their food was the opossum, but
when this was not to be found they were by no means delicate; grubs,
snakes, putrid whales, and even vermin were eagerly devoured, though
fish and oysters were preferred. They are a nomad or wandering people,
always moving from place to place in search of food, or from the mere
love of change. During the winter, they erect a hut, resembling a
beehive, of rude wicker-work besmeared with clay; but in general a mere
hurdle, such as we use in England for penning sheep, placed to windward
in the ground, is all their shelter; under this they lie with a fire
kindled in the front of it. Our English stragglers have made themselves
well acquainted with their habits, frequently living amongst them for
weeks together in the bush. These all agree in admiration of the skill
with which they throw the dart, which seldom misses, even from a child's
hand, to strike its prey. They are peaceable and inoffensive to
strangers, and kind to their "gins," or wives, and to their children,
unless their savage natures are aroused, when they become horribly
brutal and vindictive. Few savage tribes have been found whose ideas on
religion are less distinct. They believe in a good spirit, _Royan_, and
a bad one, _Potoyan_; but like all savages--like all men, we may say,
either savage or civilized, who know not God--they dread the evil spirit
far more than they love the good one. They offer no prayer, and have no
worship or sacrifices. Civil government is unknown; authority in the
tribe depends on personal strength or cunning. A wandering life with
abundance of provisions, amongst their native woods, shores, and
mountains, is the sum of all the little happiness they know or seek.
Some efforts were made in the early period of the colony on their
behalf. A district near Port Jackson was assigned them, and they were
encouraged to reside in it; but it was very soon deserted. The roving
habits of the aborigines made any settled residence irksome; and their
wants were so few that they would neither engage in trade, nor submit to
labour for the sake of wages. It retained the name of the Black Town for
many years; but the black men have long since deserted it. Governor
Macquarie, after consulting with Mr. Marsden, then attempted a farm,
and, in connexion with it, a kind of reformatory school at Paramatta,
where they were to be civilized and cured of their migratory habits, and
instructed in the Christian religion. Mr. Marsden took a warm interest
in the scheme, as he did in everything that concerned the welfare of the
aborigines. Still it failed; for it was founded, as experience has
shown, upon wrong principles. Mr. Marsden, however, is not to be blamed
for this; since Governor Macquarie, having now conceived a violent
prejudice against him, omitted his name from the committee of
management, although the institution was placed in his own parish,
introducing those of two junior chaplains; and it was not till the
governor's retirement that he took an active part in its affairs. But
the character of the institution was then fixed, and its approaching
failure was evident.
Two faults were interwoven with it, either of which must have proved
fatal. In the first place, the attempt to confine a nomad, wandering
tribe within the precincts of a farm, or to bring them to endure, except
it had been by force, the discipline of lads in an English workhouse,
was upon the very face of it absurd. These, we must remember, were the
early days of English philanthropy amongst wild black men. She had yet
to make her blunders and learn her first lessons. Why should a nomad
race be settled upon the workhouse plan, or even confined to an English
farm? Why should they not rather be encouraged to dwell in tents, carry
civilization with them into their own woods and mountains, and, roam,
free and fearless, over those vast regions which God had given them to
possess, until at last they themselves shall wish to adopt the settled
habits of European Christians? A roving life in the wilderness is not
of necessity an idle or a barbarous one. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
highly civilized, and eminently devout. "Arabians" and "dwellers in
Mesopotamia," wanderers of the desert, heard the word with gladness, and
received the Holy Ghost upon the day of Pentecost. But we do not read
that they were required to live in cities, and abandon the
long-cherished wilderness, with all its solemn associations and grand
delights. And we have not so mean an opinion of Christianity as to
believe that it can thrive only in towns well paved and lighted, or in
farms neatly fenced and artificially cultivated. The true missionary
must track the wandering savage into the desert, and there make himself
his guide and friend; and teach him that the gospel of Jesus Christ is
indeed of God, inasmuch as it is fitted, as no human contrivance can be
fitted, for man, whatever his outward circumstances or his mode of life;
that it knows no difference between the dweller in the tent, and in
"cities, tall and fenced up to heaven." "Barbarian, Scythian, bond or
free," are all alike welcome to its blessings; and we can see no good
reason why there should not be Christian tribes in the wilderness, as
there were patriarchal churches in the plains of the Euphrates, long
before the law was given on Mount Sinai.
The other mistake was the same which has tainted other missions in their
infancy, and to which we have made some allusion. It was thought
necessary to prepare the savage mind for Christianity, by the
preliminary discipline of a civilizing process. This is inverting the
order in which God proceeds: "The entrance of thy word giveth light."
When the voice of God speaks within, and not before, the demoniac quits
"his dwelling amongst the tombs;" no longer "tears off his raiment" like
a brute beast, unconscious of shame; ceases to be "exceeding fierce,"
and is now found "sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his
right mind." A few efforts upon this, the right evangelical principle as
we conceive, have been made from time to time amongst these degraded
aborigines; but the success has not been great. A wide field still
remains, thinly peopled and spiritually uncultivated. If these lines
should be read by our Christian friends in Australia, to them we would
venture to commend the glorious enterprise. Let there be one colony at
least in which the aborigines shall share the intruder's prosperity. Let
the vast centre of the Australian continent one day rejoice in its
thronging tribes of Christian aborigines.
Mr. Marsden's view of the native character may be gathered from the
following statement, which he published in self-defence when charged
with indifference as to their conversion. "More than twenty years ago, a
native lived with me at Paramatta, and for a while I thought I could
make something of him; but at length he got tired, and no inducement
could prevail upon him to continue in my house; he took to the bush
again, where he has continued ever since. One of my colleagues, the Rev.
R. Johnstone, took two native girls into his house, for the express
purpose of educating them; they were fed and clothed like Europeans; but
in a short time they went into the woods again. Another native, named
Daniel, was taken when a boy into the family of Mrs. C.; he was taken to
England; mixed there with the best society, and could speak English
well; but on his return from England he reverted to his former wild
pursuits." In reply to the inquiries made by Mr. Marsden, who once met
Daniel after he returned to his savage state, he said; "The natives
universally prefer a free and independent life, with all its privations,
to the least restraint." Without multiplying instances quoted by Mr.
Marsden, the trial he made with an infant shows that his heart was not
unfriendly towards these people. "One of my boys, whom I attempted to
civilize, was taken from its mother's breast, and brought up with my own
children for twelve years; but he retained his instinctive taste for
native food; and he wanted that attachment to me and my family that we
had just reason to look for; and always seemed deficient in those
feelings of affection which are the very bonds of social life." This boy
ran away at Rio from Mr. Marsden, when returning from England in 1810,
but was brought back to the colony by Captain Piper; and died in the
Sydney hospital, exhibiting Christian faith and penitence. "I mentioned
to the governor," he adds, "some of these circumstances, but not with
any view to create difficulties; so far from it, that I informed him
that I was authorized by the Church Missionary Society to assist any
plan with pecuniary aid, that was likely to benefit the natives of the
colony." A mission was in fact set on foot by this Society; but from
various causes, it failed, and was abandoned.