of New Zealand, consisting of a fertile plain as large as Yorkshire; wherein we see ports and cities laid out, some extent of country surveyed, fat mutton produced—too fat for the fastidious crew of the Acheron, and Homer, Horace, and Tennyson quoted in a region where men, thirty years ago, were roasting and eating one another. The Roman poet knew by the light of genius that all nations would one day learn his deathless verses; but his enumeration of his readers, bold as it was, did not include either a country of cannibals or the Antipodes. We must now add them to the list. A letter from which we quote largely in another column presents us with the spectacle of a Christian bishop, and an accomplished scholar, standing among the rude huts, the ill-fenced orchards, and the straggling flocks of an infant colony, as the representative of learning and religion, and inviting the generous and the adventurous to follow him across the globe. When a man of high position, wealth, or acquirements, rises up on a platform, or sits down in his library, to urge his countrymen to go off to the colonies, he exposes himself to the objection that he is recommending to others what he will not do himself. Bishop Selwyn says—Come. He has tied himself for life to the simple duties and still simpler honours of an Australian bishopric, and knows by an experience of some years the sort of community and the style of existence to which he is inviting his countrymen.
Colonies have ever been experiments, both from the peculiar circumstances of their respective foundations and from the various tastes of their founders. No rational person, therefore, will quarrel with a settlement which assumes a distinct and experimental character. New England was the work of Puritan fanatics, Canada of Roman Catholic devotees. In both cases, enthusiasm led to many evils, but undoubtedly gave an additional impulse and a consolidation to the several societies. The simple peasants of La Vendee and the stern English Calvinists flocked gladly to the regions where their respective creeds enjoyed an undisputed supremacy, and where chiefs and pastors of note had already led the way. To pass to a modern instance: the Mormon delusion testifies, even in a ridiculous extreme, the power of a religious idea to draw and gather men. The colonies of antiquity everywhere carried with them their Gods, their Penates, their symbols, and their priests. In these days, our new colonies are rather political than religious experiments. We have penal colonies for the disposal of our convicts; colonies for the cultivation of sugar and coffee, but affording no home for our own population; commercial colonies; military colonies; naval stations of a quasi-colonial; character; colonies acquired by the fortune of war from our neighbours, and containing a mixed population. Of our fifty colonies, scarcely two are alike. As to their religion, in some, the Church or England predominates; in others, various forms of Protestantism; in others, the Roman Catholic faith; in others, Mahomedanism, Bhuddism, or idolatry. On the ground of precedent, then, there is no reason whatever why a purely Church of England settlement should not be tried, though the history of all former examples warns us to expect that such a community, if ever so successfully founded, will suffer its congenital ills. The Church of England is pre-eminently a mixed and tolerant community. Its formularies harbour a vast variety of opinions, and even inspire a constant divergence of sentiment. As sure as there are Dissenters in England, there will also be Dissenters in the Canterbury Settlement; nay, when the Bishop stipulates for a careful selection of 'good, hardworking, honest, and sober labourers,' in too many English parishes he would compel the selector to take those who are more independent than simple in their faith. Freedom goes with intellect, and self-confidence with energy. The settlement will start with Dissenters, and we can scarcely anticipate that its leaders will be able to exclude that entire toleration and that equality of civil rights which, after many struggles, have been established in this country.
The Bishop's advice to the promoters and managers of the settlement, though sentimental in its tone, in its substance is most sound. His warnings are justified by the history of every British settlement. The excessive dispersion of the industrious settlers over the country, and, on the other hand, the excessive congregation of idlers, hucksters, jobbers, et id genus omne, at the colonial port, have everywhere obstructed the progress of colonies, and lowered their moral standard. So also
