I shall feel obliged if you will favour me with a reply by the 10th of November next.
"I have taken the liberty to annex a subscription list, and I shall feel obliged if you would leave it in the hands of some person to receive subscriptions, and acquaint me with the name, that it may appear in the papers."
It was in reply to one of these circulars that the Rev. Henry Styles, of Windsor, the chaplain to the Bishop of Australia, an honest opponent, wrote:—"I fully appreciate the zeal and charity in your endeavours to establish the 'Home for Female Emigrants.' My only reason for declining to co-operate in a design which at first sight appears so entirely laudable is, that it is natural to suppose that an institution established by a lady who is a devoted member of the Catholic Church, which renders allegiance to Rome, should prove rather an instrument for augmenting the numbers of that communion, than merely what its name imports—a home for all destitute female emigrants, without respect to their religious professions. The result would be, that the immigrants in your 'Home' would be advised, restrained', and protected by the clergy of the Church of Rome." After thus expressing himself, the reverend gentlemen replied minutely to every question in the circular.
Mrs. Chisholm's answer to this plain and proper letter produced a second letter from Mr. Styles, in which he said, "Your frank and straightforward avowal of the objects you aim at, and the means you will use for their attainment, disarm suspicion. The assurance in your note that you will not be led by the agents of any ecclesiastical party, but that you will pursue steadily the good of the whole of the emigrants who may come under your care, referring in matters of religion to their respective clergy and teachers, induces me to offer you very cordially whatever support I am able to afford. I beg to enclose £2 as a donation."
Eleven years have elapsed since this correspondence took place. Proselytism and propagandism are not to be done in a corner. For every day during that period Mrs. Chisholm has almost lived in public, yet no case of misuse of her influence has ever been brought against her.
The government building appropriated to the "Home" consisted of a low wooden barrack fourteen feet square. Mrs. Chisholm found it needful, for the protection of the characters of the girls, to sleep on the premises. A store-room seven feet square, without a fire-place, and infested with rats, was cleared out for her accommodation. There she dwelt, eating, drinking, and sleeping, dependent on the kindness of a prisoner employed in the adjoining government printing-office for a
