rience proves that this proposition, when applied to the case of Colonies of a different stamp, is no less an awful truth, and an astounding reality.

We will point to the colonization of New England, of Maryland, of Pennsylvania, and of French Canada, as having from the outset possessed a predominating element of a religious and moral kind. The objects of the original Colonists were, in all these cases, to preserve religious freedom, and to secure to themselves and their posterity the power of enjoying congenial civil institutions. In the last instance, that of French Canada, the leaders of the Colony were religious men, possessing a definite principle of faith, which they endeavoured from the beginning to impress upon the rising settlement.

The result has been that which we should be prepared upon general principles to expect. All these Colonies, in a greater or a less degree, according to circumstances and the character of their respective forms of faith, acquired and preserved a high degree of civilization and of religious and moral development, and more or less nearly approached the type of a perfect Colony. The more modern colonization of this country has been conducted upon a different principle, or rather we should say, upon no principle at all. The theory-if theory it can be called-has been entirely one of emigration, not of colonization; having reference solely to the relief of the mother-country, and in no respect regarding the future welfare or condition of the offspring. Our colonization has been either, in the expressive (and from its very expressiveness, hackneyed) phrase of the late lamented Charles Buller, a mere 'shovelling out of paupers,' to such a distance from our shores as to save our feelings the sight of their misery; or it has been a living entombment of convicts, where they might fester in their own corruption, without our sentiment being shocked at the spectacle of their crime.

Our Colonies have been made gigantic poor-houses, or enormous gaols. In the one case, as in Canada, they have been peopled with helpless wretches, famine and fever-stricken, reaching the inhospitable shore to which they were bound, only to find a death-bed and a crowded grave; in the other, in our convict settlements, they have been filled with the rakings of our prisons and the offscourings of our hulks, advancing in depravity, until they reach the culminating iniquity of Norfolk Island.

Of course this sweeping censure is not intended to apply to all our Colonies; but even in the best of them, those which have been founded by private enterprise, the state of society is not such as to induce any large number of Englishmen of attainments and position, men of a thoughtful and religious

turn, to embark in them the fortunes of themselves and their children.

There is no doubt that many of these settlements have attained a high degree of material prosperity, and that individuals have in some of them succeeded in realizing large fortunes; but this is not the point at issue. The question is, whether the moral atmosphere be congenial to the cultivated minds of men and women of education and refinement; and we fear that the reply must be given in the negative.

In the struggle to escape from the ills which are found to wait upon an advanced stage of civilization, a new and fruitful train of evils is engendered; and a state of society is the result, which is anything but attractive to minds of the description of those to which we have just alluded. Freed from the trammels which are imposed by the conventionalities of society, a contempt arises for the delicacies, almost for the decencies of life. The higher energies of our nature are not drawn out, the finer sympathics of our being are not called into play. The material elements are unduly forced into action, while the moral and æsthetic faculties are neglected; and the result is, that a colonial temper is produced utterly at variance with the original and hereditary type, which has been consecrated to us for centuries, and reverenced by a succession of generations.

Communities will thus be formed, very probably flourishing and progressive, as far as mere worldly prosperity is concerned; but in the higher requirements of civilization, stationary, if not retrograde. They will be apt to forget the words of Lord Bacon, in the essay on plantations which we have before quoted, that 'the principal thing which has been the ruin of most planta'tions, has been the base and hasty desire of profit in the first years; and will throw themselves recklessly and with transatlantic sharpness into the pursuit of wealth. Religion and education will cease to be necessary conditions of their existence; and they will probably exhibit in another hemisphere the worst and most degraded features of the parent stock, and give to the antipodes the spectacle of another England, with all its sleepless activity, its grasping avidity, its toiling, moiling, money-getting restlessness; but without any of those softening and humanizing influences, which, with all our faults, make the English character one which we pray may long be continued amongst us.

It must be clear, that with such a system of colonization as this we ought not to rest contented. Even if we wished to abandon our mission as the Christianizers and civilizers of the globe, we cannot do so. We have gone too far to recede from the contest. We cannot now check the increasing tide of our

population, which demands at our hands room to labour and to live. We cannot put a bar to the inexhaustible spirit of enterprise, which is ever prompting adventurous men to fight the battle of life in a new and distant field. Countless thousands must still continue to leave the shores of England, and it is for us to decide whether we are to send them forth to lapse into barbarism,

'A savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed,'

or still worse, to become a prey to the lowering tendencies that attach to mere money-making and speculating communities.

Do what we will, our Colonies will be our representatives to the latest ages; and it is for us to act, so that we shall not be shamed by our posterity. Sismondi has well said,-' Une patrie, qui n'a pas d'hier, n'a pas de lendemain;' and it is our duty, no less than our interest, to endeavour, that those who leave our shores shall take with them their full inheritance of the national spirit, and of the memories and associations of the past, in the hope of securing for them a bright and glorious tomorrow. Communities will then be formed, who will reproduce in other regions the entire framework of the society of the fatherland. They will commence their existence rich in the experience of former ages, sharing the hereditary glories and cumulated knowledge of the past, carrying to distant climes the religion the civilization and the institutions of their home, and bound up with her in all the associations of a common faith, of common interests, and of a common sympathy.

It is evident that in this work the Church must bear her part; and that it is her duty to watch over this work of reproduction, and to endeavour, as far as in her lies, to turn to a good account this the great movement of the day.

It is true, and a melancholy confession it is to make, that in this, as in every other particular, the history of our Colonies affords a fearful witness against us. To whatever side we turn,

we see a record of duties unperformed, and opportunities neglected; and sad indeed would be our prospects both at home. and abroad, could we believe that in the annals of the past we were to read the history of the future.

Yet the experience of the last few years leads us to hope, that we have already begun to see the dawn of a brighter day, and that the Church is becoming more alive to the duties which devolve upon her in this sphere. We may trust that she is not insensible to the opening which is afforded to her for entering upon an era of renewed vigour; and of recovering, amid the primæval solitudes of a new world, at least a portion of that strength which has ere now been gathered in the deserts, and

which has been well nigh lost amidst the blandishments of civilization, and the enervating influences of the world.

We can point to Bishops with their devoted staff of Missionary Clergy, engaged in works so arduous, and performing them with a self-devotion so admirable, as to appear almost miraculous in these soft and self-indulgent days.

This, however, is not the point. No instances of individual zeal, or of missionary enterprise, will redeem our colonization from the reproach to which it is exposed. They may make our emigration less appalling in its features, and in its results, but they do absolutely nothing towards the work of reproduction, which devolves upon us as one of the highest of our national duties, and as our most costly contribution to the destinies of the world.

Mr. Wynter's pamphlet upon Church Colonization comes at a very critical moment, when, as he well says, 'The vigilance of 'the Church is mainly directed inwards to itself, to the mainte'nance of its own position at home, . . . or to defence against 'foreign foes. And thus another sphere of action-its work in 'the distant Colonies-is in danger of being overlooked at the very moment when it requires the most thoughtful consider'ation.'

His brief sketch of our former dealings with the Colonies in this particular, and of the results which have as a natural consequence flowed from our neglect and want of system, deserves attention, and will well repay the time which may be bestowed upon it.

Now it is vain to hope any good from the negation of what is, unless we are prepared to assert and to affirm a higher principle, and to exhibit a plan of colonization based upon sounder views. Hence it is that we hail with satisfaction the idea of a Colony founded on the principles laid down in the works, whose names appear at the head of this article.

'The Canterbury papers are intended to supply the public 'with information as to the principles, objects, plans, and pro'ceedings of the Canterbury Association for founding a SettleIment in New Zealand.'

The object contemplated by the originators of this association is a return to a sounder system, and one more consonant with all that reason and experience combine to teach upon this subject. An endeavour is made to revive what may be termed the lost art of colonization; and it is impossible not to look with the greatest sympathy at the attempt, and watch with warm interest the progress that is made.

The outline of the plan is to be found in the first few pages of the pamphlet now before us; and it gives evidence of a

population, which demands at our hands room to labour and to live. We cannot put a bar to the inexhaustible spirit of enterprise, which is ever prompting adventurous men to fight the battle of life in a new and distant field. Countless thousands must still continue to leave the shores of England, and it is for us to decide whether we are to send them forth to lapse into barbarism,

'A savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed,'

or still worse, to become a prey to the lowering tendencies that attach to mere money-making and speculating communities.

Do what we will, our Colonies will be our representatives to the latest ages; and it is for us to act, so that we shall not be shamed by our posterity. Sismondi has well said,- Une patrie, qui n'a pas d'hier, n'a pas de lendemain;' and it is our duty, no less than our interest, to endeavour, that those who leave our shores shall take with them their full inheritance of the national spirit, and of the memories and associations of the past, in the hope of securing for them a bright and glorious tomorrow. Communities will then be formed, who will reproduce in other regions the entire framework of the society of the fatherland. They will commence their existence rich in the experience of former ages, sharing the hereditary glories and cumulated knowledge of the past, carrying to distant climes the religion the civilization and the institutions of their home, and bound up with her in all the associations of a common faith, of common interests, and of a common sympathy.

It is evident that in this work the Church must bear her part; and that it is her duty to watch over this work of reproduction, and to endeavour, as far as in her lies, to turn to a good account this the great movement of the day.

It is true, and a melancholy confession it is to make, that in this, as in every other particular, the history of our Colonies affords a fearful witness against us. To whatever side we turn, we see a record of duties unperformed, and opportunities neglected; and sad indeed would be our prospects both at home and abroad, could we believe that in the annals of the past we were to read the history of the future.

Yet the experience of the last few years leads us to hope, that we have already begun to see the dawn of a brighter day, and that the Church is becoming more alive to the duties which devolve upon her in this sphere. We may trust that she is not insensible to the opening which is afforded to her for entering upon an era of renewed vigour; and of recovering, amid the primæval solitudes of a new world, at least a portion of that strength which has ere now been gathered in the deserts, and