to possess, and must be careful not to forfeit, the widespread confidence of which it was the token. His new home would remind him habitually that he could not become slothful or selfish, or embark in any slothful or selfish cause, without base ingratitude to the men of many nations and creeds who had opened its doors to him. He accepted the gift as frankly as it was given; he would accept it as a noble retaining-fee to serve the interests of Australia according to the best of his abilities. He had hoped that night to speak of the future destiny of the Australian colonies, not only of the political liberty in store for them, but of the precious opportunity they enjoyed in the new social experiment of adopting whatever was best in the habits of kindred nations, and rejecting whatever was deleterious or dangerous, till a national Australian character would grow, which, once created, would probably prevail on the shores of the Southern Ocean after the last stone of the city of Melbourne had crumbled into dust. They might imitate the energy and decision of America, which exhibited themselves as much in the arts of locomotion and commercial enterprise as on the battle-field, and their love of simplicity, which had given them codified laws and cheap effective government, without adopting the servile fear of the majority and the indifference to spiritual aims which seemed to be the dry rot of their system. From the old country they carried whatever was best, and, he feared, often whatever was worst. Let them be careful not to revive its parliamentary system steeped in corruption, its government by one favoured class, its bigotry which taught men to hate their neighbours and to love themselves, nor to perpetuate its northern life under southern skies. What good was it to them that their soil teemed with gold if it would not purchase settled liberty and the rational enjoy-
