vain flees from its ravenous pursuer. When the hunger of the ravagers has been satisfied, and they have retired to their rocky kennels, what, a few hours previously, comprized a fine flock of sheep, includes but a number of mangled carcases. A stock of domestic dogs, afford to the settlers the best and principal means of defence against their depredations. For though the native dog has fangs of extreme sharpness, and admirably adapted for the work of destruction, it is, however, much inferior to a well bred domestic dog, in wind, strength, and courage. There are, indeed, in Australia, not a few of these invaluable domestics, that will in single combat kill the mountain aggressor.

The climate of New South Wales is highly salubrious, and is adapted both to the European and Asiatic constitution. The atmosphere is exceedingly pure, and the sky in general exhibits an Italian brightness. The heat in the district of Sydney, and to the north of the metropolis, is sometimes intense, the thermometer rising to one hundred and twenty degrees. It is however of short duration, and is succeeded by a southerly breeze which cools the air, so much as to diminish the temperature forty, and not unfrequently fifty degrees. The district of Bathurst being considerably elevated above the sea, though it is only a hundred and twenty miles west of Sydney, possesses entirely a different climate. Here is high table-land, and comparatively, little timber; in the winter, snow is not uncommon; the frosts are sharp, the air is very bracing, and congenial to the constitution of Europeans.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to point out the geographical position, and to describe some of the natural features of the territory of New South Wales; the number of its inhabitants, and the nature and extent of its commerce; the general character of the soil, and the internal resources; the aspect of the country, and the salubrity of the atmosphere. In a future paper it is my intention, to view Australia as a place for emigration, and to examine the merits of the convict system; in addition to which an attempt will be made to delineate the character of the Australians in their social, political, moral, and religious relations.

Yours, &c.

III.-Chapter of Varieties.

1.—ANNIVERSARY OF THE COLOMBO (BAPTIST) MISSIONARY SOCIETY. The following account of the Anniversary of the Colombo Baptist Missionary Society will, we think, be read with special interest. The speeches of the Hon'ble the Governor and the Chief Judge will, we are sure, fill the minds of good people with sincere pleasure, not merely because they were delivered by persons in the highest walks of life, but because of the eloquent and manly manner in which pious and reasonable but hitherto unpopular sentiments were expressed. When shall we see such a day as this in Calcutta, when the Governor General and Chief Judge shall be moving and seconding resolutions at the Anniversary of a Missionary Meeting?

At the public meeting of this Institution, held on the 5th of November, the following speeches were delivered, for which we are indebted to the Colombo Observer.

The Acting Chief Justice the Honorable Mr. JEREMIE, having taken the Chair, opened the proceedings of the Meeting in these words:

The Chairman observed that-About 18 months ago he had presided at the request of his Wesleyan friends at a Missionary Meeting held at Galle-a proceeding which he believed was viewed with something like dissatisfaction by the fastidious in this community. At the last anniversary of the Temperance Society, he promised his friend Mr. Daniel that he would also take the Chair at a Meeting of his communion, and he now redeemed that pledge: but how altered within the short space of 18 months is the state of things. I am now, he added, surrounded by the most distinguished in the land, and so far from the station I hold in this Colony being sufficient to warrant my being Chairman to-day, it is on the contrary in defiance of my wishes that my Right Hon'ble friend on my left does not take my place. Instead of leading, I should be happy to follow one, to whom in merit and abilities, tact and experience of the management of assemblies, I am as much the inferior as in public station. Let me then offer you my congratulations at the truly Catholic Spirit which presides over your councils, and which I entertain not a doubt will soon extend itself throughout the length and breadth of Ceylon.

You are aware that I am not a member of Mr. Daniel's Society but of the Church of England, and in so rigid a sense, that however great my esteem for my numerous friends of other communions, I have never yet entered one of their Chapels when the service of my own Church was open to me. But that active benevolence which is among the most precious fruits of our religion I honor in every one; and in a country overspread with heathenism, the labourers are sufficiently few (taking them altogether, of every Christian denomination) to render it a solemn duty in those who sincerely and heartily believe in the leading principles of our faith, to promote concord and unanimity, and to eschew dissension from among us.

But let me add that as one of a band which is now issuing triumphant from a struggle second in importance to none in recorded history—as an old and strenuous friend of the Slave, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Baptists which I rejoice in being able to acknowledge. To the trialsVIII.

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the sufferings-the courage and the spirit of a KNIBB and an ABBOTT, the cause of emancipation stood most deeply indebted at some of its most critical moments, and here let the progress of that cause serve as an encouragement to those who perhaps may (looking to the mass of unbelief which still prevails in the world) view the efforts of Christian Missiona ries with feelings akin to despondency. It is scarcely 14 years ago since an honored and esteemed friend of my own, recently deceased, on the formation of the Society which afterwards effected emancipation, proposed that it should be immediate, and one man only was found to support him -all the rest, including many of those who have subsequently so highly distinguished themselves, declared that if he persisted in urging so insane a project they must withdraw from him, and accordingly their first attempts were merely directed to amelioration.-Yet under discouragements inconceivable, has that cause within so short a space of time signally triumphed. By yesterday's mail the glorious news arrived that throughout our West Indian dominions the Negro was truly free-nor was this our only ground of joy. The Cooley trade has received its death-blow. And how pleasing is it now to remember, that the first official attack made upon this horrid traffic in this quarter of the globe proceeded from my Right Hon'ble friend the Governor of Ceylon on the first occasion of his meeting your legislature. But the triumphs of the friends of humanity are not likely to end here-it is publicly announced and I know it to be true, that one of the most distinguished leaders of emancipation is likely to bring slavery in the East before the Parliament of Great Britain.Doctor Lushington has undertaken this task; his distinguished name is a guarantee for the result. When therefore we see millions throughout the globe thus absolved from a yoke rivetted on them throughout generations, in defiance of obstacles which human strength alone could never have surmounted; how greatly must you not be encouraged in these your further endeavours to promote the happiness and well-being of our fellowmen here, and their eternal interests above. And when we further witness in this Government the cordiality and unanimity now prevailing in these matters, it were something more than distrust or callousness-it were all but impiety to doubt with regard to the issue.

On Mr. Stewart Mackenzie's arrival in Ceylon, his first act was to offer up prayers in your Churches for God's protection in his perils by sea. How did not every heart thrill on witnessing this proof of innate piety. Not only here but throughout India, was the sentiment re-echoed that at last a Christian nation had established over its millions a thoroughly Christian government-that from the highest seat it had at length been proclaimed that Christianity was something more than a name or the denomination of a powerful sect-the Governor of Ceylon had shewn himself animated by its spirit and proved to the world that he rejoiced in being numbered among the believing and the faithful. Most deeply do I at this moment feel the full force of his example when I have also to express my gratitude to the Author of all good, for a similar proof of his divine protection.

The Right Honorable the Governor moved the first resolution in nearly the following language :

Ladies and Gentlemen,-1 have been invited to propose the first resolution for the adoption of this Meeting, and if I rightly understood the expressions of feelings which accompanied its close, and the attention with which you listened to the reading of this excellent report, my task will be an easy and very short one.

The purport of the resolution is, that you shall approve of and adopt the report, that you have just heard read. The report itself exhorts us

all here present, and the friends of missionary labours in general, to per severe in their exertions in the righteous cause, and to extend by every means in their power the sphere of those exertions.

The picture presented to us is on the whole consoling, but I may well spare your time by not dwelling on its details with which the report, in a tone of so much modesty and truth, has amply furnished us. If we cannot say indeed, that 3000 have been yet added to the Church of Christ by the labours of missionaries here, we must not forget, that while the Church Missionary, the Wesleyan and the London Missionary Societies, and your Baptist Missionary Society itself, all have laboured and not without successful results in this vineyard, your Society has not yet so extensively run its race of usefulness, as they have done in Ceylon and that none have had yet a very long career.

Among the idolatries of the benighted population of this Island, the light of Gospel truth has not yet dawned upon their darkened intellect; the voice has not yet gone forth "let there be light and there was light,”mental light, to pierce and chase away the clouds of ignorance and idolatry. Your efforts, my missionary friends, and our efforts must not on that account be less strenuous, nor relax: no-they require to be the more ardent and active, knowing as we do know, on the word of unerring wisdom and truth, to cheer us amidst these labours of love among the heathen, languishing in a miserable state of ignorance, brutality, and degradation, that the kingdom of Messiah shall come, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

If missionary institutions, though not of yesterday, are here but comparatively young and new, let the ardour and freshness and vigour of youth animate you all in your labours, and then shall we, while we witness those labours, cast away from us that dormancy of spirit and unconcern, with which I fear we may all be too justly reproached.

One not least important result of meetings, such as this, is to spread as widely as possible, not only a just report of the proceedings of your Society, and of similar Societies, but also to encourage a desire and afford facilities to any, who shall feel the inward promptings of religious zeal so as to multiply the chances of finding, in this vast moral wilderness, any individuals, whose hearts may be illumined by a spark of that divine light, which those apostolic labourers have been the humble means of lighting up amidst the heathen darkness and superstition that have enveloped other lands.

Let us then but scatter encouragement here as widely as possible under the guidance of our mild and beneficent religion; let our general efforts of conversion be made under the influences, and under that confidence of success, which our reason as well as our faith assure us will prevail.

But you must continue to watch with unceasing anxiety the progress of things; what has been effected is only a beginning, and the best impressions will fade away, unless followed up by a series of wise and kind measures all directed to one end; for our cause is one, our aim and object is one, the substitution of Christian for Heathen principles and habits. This we openly avow and must steadily prosecute (not indeed expecting to see that glorious day) until the kingdom of the Messiah shall be from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

Reasoning from human experience alone, why would I call on you for these exertions? It is because I have lived long enough to see pass away that unbelief, which would have checked them in an earlier stage: my friend, Mr. Charles Lushington, presiding at the late anniversary meeting of your Farent Society in London, in reference to the union of the Serampore mission with it, has taken occasion to bear witness to the alarm,

created by the first labours of Marshman and Carey, when at Calcutta. Well do I myself remember now 30 years ago, when the work of conversion in India was denounced as dangerous to the stability of our empire there, then perhaps but doubtful and unsteadfast ;—when the exposure and correction of the vices and idolatries of the natives was reprobated, as risking the safety of our power; when the timid worldling, and the sceptical poli tician, bred in the school of a cold and false philosophy, now past away and almost forgotten, could venture to sneer at the pious labours of a Ward, a Carey, and a Marshman, and predict almost against the very words of truth itself, that such labours as our missionaries were then engaged in, would not only subvert our empire in the east, but that if we succeeded in making nominal converts, (and nominal converts they alone admitted could be made) we should shake, and weaken those habits of morality and decency (such as they were) which their own religion prescribed: and that unable to graft fresh principles of action on the minds of the natives, we should leave them immersed only in doubt and error, as to the tenets of the religion, and those religious duties, we had been striving to inculcate; that we should, to use the words of the objector of those days, “destroy the old religion, without really and effectually teaching the new." Such was the calculating alarmist's denunciation against Missionary labours, in 1888, when at least they had not been idle, so nearly at the same period, I think as late as in 1806, not one line had issued of the scriptures from the Bengal press. Such were the predictions of the sophist which were current and in fashion 30 years ago, but what are thirty years in the history or age of a nation, or of a nation's religion? In 1808 while these laboured attacks against the missionaries were sent forth, similar assaults against the discretion and judgment, in the conduct of our Indian affairs, were levelled unsparingly against such among the Directors, as supported the Missionaries: and from those attacks, neither the meekness of life, nor the assiduity and talents devoted to the interests of India as they were for half a century, could protect the late pious and estimable Mr. Charles Grant. The Massacre at Vellore was, it was said, to be the forerunner of our expulsion from India; but mark the hand that overrules all things; within six short years thereafter, Bishop Middleton went forth from his native land to immortalize the name of a Protestant Bishop in India, by an exemplary life of piety and virtue-and within the space of but 10 years, from 1822 to 1831, no fewer than four excellent prelates had sunk under the pressure of the peculiar toils and trials, incident to the administration of their office. How vain then the mere predictions of man; how weak these attacks against the Missionary's labours! What are Mr. Wilberforce's remarkable words, as quoted by Mr. Lushington at the meeting I have already referred to? "I do not know," he says, "a finer instance of the moral sublime, than that a poor cobler working in his stall should conceive the idea of converting the Hindus to Christianity: yet such was Dr. Carey."

And can we doubt at this time of day, that it was to the encouraging, though slow and limited results of these labours, we owed it that our Rulers at home, and our Legislatures, had at length learnt that, humble though the instruments had been, the work of conversion to Christianity was so widely spread abroad in India, and had been kept alive and advanced in spite of every trial and persecution to which the Missionary had been there subjected and exposed; had learnt too that they had not less a duty to perform, in whose hands, so far as human authority goes, were vested the direction and disposal of the affairs of that vast empire; thus I say was it brought home to their tardy conviction, that the time was arrived when it was the duty of a Christian Government and a Christian Legisla.