Life and Work of <name type="person" key="name-208673" TEIform="name">Samuel Marsden</name>

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Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin, N.Z. Melbourne and London: Whitcombe and Tombs Limited 1913 Source copy consulted: Victoria University of Wellington Library, DU422 M3 M364 L 1913 <name key="name-102796" type="title" TEIform="name">Preface to 'Life and Work of Samuel Marsden'</name> James Drummond <name key="name-102797" type="title" TEIform="name">An Appreciation.</name> Philip Walsh

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NZETC Subject Headings English Autobiography; Biography; Journals; Correspondence Samuel Marsden 21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCText-proofing of a sample of the text21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCConversion to TEI.2-conformat markup21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAdding scripted markup21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of encodingDesc21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of bibls21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAssembled all images21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCCreation of derivative images21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCValidation of TEI21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCValidation of names21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCConversion to Unicode (utf-8)21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCPromotion to production21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to access control21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCHarvest into Topic Map21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCChecking of text using browser21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to corpus21:17:54, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to Library Catalogue14:47:14, Tuesday 23 September 2008editorialNZETCMake text available on NZETC website

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Samuel Marsden Born July 28th, 1764; died May 12th, 1838

Life and Work of Samuel Marsden By The Rev. J. B. Marsden Premier of New Zealand, 1893–1906. Edited By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. With an Appreciation by Archdeacon Philip Walsh Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin, N.Z. Melbourne and London Whitcombe and Tombs Limited 1913 Preface.

This work, which gives an account of the life, labours, and difficulties of one of the most notable missionaries of modern times, was written by the Rev. J. B. Marsden, and published by the Religious Tract Society fifty years ago. The original is out of print, but still is found occasionally in second-hand booksellers' shops, in a quaint blue cover embellished with gold letters.

The Rev. J. B. Marsden collected a great deal of his material from Samuel Marsden's correspondence, in the possession of the Church Missionary Society and the London Missionary Society. He also had the use of an unpublished memoir of Samuel Marsden by Lieutenant Sadleir, R.N., for many years master of the Male Orphans' Home near Sydney, and manuscript prepared by Mr. John Liddiard Nicholas, an Australian land-owner, who was an admirer of Samuel Marsden, and who, besides writing an account of the missionary's first visit to New Zealand, dealt with his life in New South Wales. Finally, the biographer was helped by many of Samuel Marsden's friends, who placed in his hands letters written to them.

The Rev. J. B. Marsden was the author of “The History of the Early and Later Puritans” and other works associated with the Church. He was not related to the missionary, but the identity of the two men's surnames led to the conclusion that there was some relationship, and for that reason he was urged repeatedly to write the biography. He declined several times, but ultimately, when the request was renewed by the Religious Tract Society, he was induced to comply with the Society's wishes, “under the conviction,” he says, “that the facts and incidents, as well as the moral grandeur, of Mr. Marsden's life are too important to be suffered to lie any longer in comparative obscurity.”

Some time previous to the publication of the biography, the Rev. W. Woolls published a memoir of Samuel Marsden in a series of articles in the Parramatta Chronicle, and these were republished in book form at Parramatta in 1844. The object was to provide funds for the erection of a church at Marsfield as a memorial to the missionary. In recent years, Dr. T. M. Hocken, of Dunedin, began an extensive research into Marsden correspondence and documents. At the end of 1905, he read papers on “The Rev. Samuel Marsden and the Early New Zealand Missionaries” before the Otago Institute. These were published in different copies of the “Otago Daily Times” at the end of 1905 and the beginning of 1906. The Rev. J. B. Marsden did not pretend to write a comprehensive biography, and it is hoped that, with the information Dr. Hocken collected, a larger work some day will be given to the public.

In editing the Rev. J. B. Marsden's work, I have not preserved the whole of it. Many pages deal with missionary work at Tahiti, in which Samuel Marsden did not take an active part. These, and other portions, have been omitted. I have reproduced letters written to Samuel Marsden by notable or famous persons, amongst them Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, a member of the Society of Friends, who worked amongst the women prisoners of London, and who took a sympathetic interest in Samuel Marsden's efforts to reform the women convicts in New South Wales. I have retained the biographer's spelling of Maori names, which is not in accordance with the orthography of Bishop Williams and other New Zealand missionaries who followed in Samuel Marsden's footsteps, but I have added footnotes, showing the method now in use. I have supplied a number of other footnotes, dealing mainly with people who were well known when the biography was published, but who have been almost forgotten by the present generation.

A Marsden Cross has been erected as close as the conditions of the ground permit to the actual place occupied by the novel pulpit built by Ruatara one hundred years ago, when the first Divine Service was held in New Zealand. The idea of erecting this cross originated with the Rev. Dr. J. Kinder, who for many years was Warden of St. John's College, Auckland. It was pointed out that “The Prayer Book Cross,” erected near the Golden Gate at San Francisco, marks the place on which Sir Francis Drake's chaplain held the first Anglican service on the Pacific Coast of America. A New Zealand monument on the same scale was not contemplated, but it was felt that the Dominion could erect in Samuel Marsden's honour a substantial stone cross sufficiently large to be a conspicuous landmark from the decks of vessels that enter the Bay of Islands.

The proposal was not taken in hand in a practical way until some years after Dr. Kinder's death, when his widow offered to pay the sum of £100 to meet the expenses. Mrs. Kinder placed the scheme in the hands of Archdeacon Philip Walsh, of Waimate, who has kindly written an “Appreciation” for this book. His appeal to the Church people of New Zealand resulted in a sufficient sum being obtained, and the cross was unveiled by His Excellency Lord Plunket, Governor of New Zealand, on the 12th of March, 1907, in the presence of representatives of the two races in the Dominion. It is of Celtic design, and it bears the following inscription:—

On Christmas Day, 1814 The First Christian Service in N.Z. was Held on This Spot by The Rev. Samuel Marsden.

At the unveiling ceremony, addresses were given by His Excellency Lord Plunket, Bishop Neligan, of Auckland, and Archdeacon Walsh. Mr. J. B. Clarke spoke on behalf of the mission families in the district, and Hare Te Heihei on behalf of the Maori people. Amongst the hymns sung was, “All People that on Earth do Dwell,” the hymn chosen by Marsden at his memorable service.

The simple cross is a memorial to Samuel Marsden's work, but his greatest memorial is the work itself, which is described in these pages.

There are two objects in republishing this little book. One is to follow a policy which has induced Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs to make a large number of Australasian works, of a high educational value, available to the public. The other is to make a literary contribution to the celebration of the centenary of the first Divine Service in New Zealand, conducted by Samuel Marsden at Oihi, in the Bay of Islands, on Christmas Day, 1814.

James Drummond. Christchurch, New Zealand, September 1st, 1913. An Appreciation. By Archdeacon Philip Walsh.

Samuel Marsden came of good Yorkshire stuff, and by his yeoman blood he inherited the sterling and enduring qualities of mind and body usually associated with the typical Yorkshireman. He was of powerful physique, of remarkable endurance, of undaunted courage, and of boundless perseverance; but the great source of all his success was his profound conviction that he was an instrument in God's hand, that he worked under His divine guidance, and that he lived under His almighty protection.

Although he received a fair education, according to the notions of the times, he was a man of action rather than a student; and, except for a deep and careful study of the Bible, in which his candid mind found a meaning often hidden from much profounder theologians, he does not seem to have wandered very far in the field of learning. Indeed, even if his tastes had run in that direction, he could hardly have found time, amid the busy scenes of his active life, for serious and systematic study. What literary ability he possessed may be judged from his writings. They consist chiefly of letters and reports, together with a very voluminous journal, which supplies a deeper impression of the man than any critical biography could give.

The history of his first years in Parramatta is the history of a man patiently, laboriously, and conscientiously doing his duty. “Nothing is too hard for the Lord,” he says in his journal. “This gives me encouragement in my present difficult undertaking.” He surmounts each obstacle as it confronts him, and solves each question as it arises. In addition to his duties as a minister of the Gospel, he was obliged to undertake those of a Magistrate. In that dual capacity, he was able to right many a wrong, and to bring the light of divine love into one of the darkest places on the earth.

His efforts were not confined to the technical discharge of the duties of his offices. He always was watching for an opportunity to ameliorate the condition of those committed to his charge, whether they were prisoners or soldiers, ticket-of-leave men or free labourers. At one time, he is establishing a school for boys and girls, at another time a house of refuge for the victims of lust and cruelty. Later we find him importing additional clergymen, school masters, artisans, and manufacturers. He induces the Government to make grants of land to deserving settlers. He busies himself in the improvement of stock.

While all this is going on, his sympathies reach out to the Australian aborigines, the South Sea Islands Mission, and the Maoris whose roving spirit left them stranded in a foreign land. From what he saw of those Maoris, he formed a very high opinion of the natives of New Zealand, and he became filled with an eager longing to impart to them the blessings of Christian civilization. The story of how this was accomplished, told by the Rev. J. B. Marsden some fifty years ago, and republished now under the editorship of Mr. Drummond, reads like a most fascinating romance.

The long delays, Mr. Marsden's arrival at Oihi in 1814, the wonderful Christmas service at the place now marked by an imposing stone cross, and the foundation of the little missionary settlement, which was the germ of the future colony, are described in these pages; but the greatness of the enterprise, and the faith and courage with which it was carried out, cannot be fully realised by people who have not seen the locality, or who are not acquainted with the character and customs of the Maoris in those early days. We can only imagine the feelings of the three young missionaries, with their young wives, as they sailed along the cliff-bound coast and into the little bay, with its shingly beach crowded with excited savages. But doubtless they, like their chief, felt secure under the protection of their Divine Master.

Of all the early adventurers in New Zealand, Mr. Marsden was the first to grasp the character of the Maoris, and was the most successful in winning their confidence. Amongst those untutored savages, as amongst the desperadoes of the convict settlement, he bore a charmed life. On his first night ashore in New Zealand, he slept peacefully upon the open ground, surrounded by members of a tribe that had conducted the massacre of the “Boyd,” and on his arrival at Oihi he placed himself unreservedly in the hands of the blood-stained Hongi. “If Hongi tells you to settle on that rock,” he said to some of the missionaries who wanted to remove to a place where the land was more suitable for cultivation, “you must stop there till he tells you to go. Hongi has given me his promise, and as long as you are in his hands I know you are safe.”

This trust was never forfeited. There is not an instance on record where the missionaries were molested. Even in the days of Heke's war, when the Maoris fought against the Imperial troops, the missionaries' lives and property were always respected. Indeed, the missionary station was always a city of refuge in time of trouble.

Mr. Marsden's connection with New Zealand lasted for twenty-three years. During that time, he made no fewer than seven visits, going over a great part of the North Island in increasing areas, establishing new centres as opportunities offered, and generally supervising the work of the mission. His last visit was in 1837, when he was 73 years of age. His health had begun to fail, and he already was feeling the infirmities of old age, but his visit nevertheless was a triumphal progress. He landed at Hokianga, on the West Coast, and was conveyed across the island by a large company of Maoris. They made part of the journey by canoe, but he was carried overland for twenty miles on a kauhoa, or shoulder litter. At every stopping-place he was received by the Christian converts with tears of joy, and by the heathen population with the wardance and the firing of muskets, while all greeted him as the friend and father of the Maoris. He died on the 12th of May in the following year, worn out by the cares and hardships of his long and arduous life, and he was buried under the shadow of his own church at Parramatta.

Samuel Marsden's name will always stand high on the roll of Christian heroes and amongst the names of those who have helped to build up the Christian Church. His natural gifts, and the wide experience gained in his work, fitted him for a task that few could have accomplished. He lived to see the fulfilment of his hopes and prayers, and he died esteemed and regretted even by those who, during his lifetime, had been his hardest critics and his most bitter opponents.

Philip Walsh.

Cambridge, New Zealand.

Contents

Page Chapter I. … … … … 1 ” II. … … … … 13 ” III. … … … … 30 ” IV. … … … … 47 ” V. … … … … 65 ” VI. … … … … 89 ” VII. … … … … 107 ” VIII. … … … … 142 ” IX. … … … … 157 ” X. … … … … 170 ” XI. … … … … 185 ” XII. … … … … 200 ” XIII. … … … … 217

List of Illustrations

Samuel Marsden … … Frontispiece Page Mr. Marsden's Cottage at Parramatta … … 59 Landing of Samuel Marsden at Bay of Islands … … 76 Mr. Marsden's Church at Parramatta … … 96 Mission Station at Kerikeri, Bay of Islands … … 109 A Maori War Expedition … … 177 Marsden Cross, Oihi, Bay of Islands … … 188 Russell, Bay of Islands, at the present time … … 198 Unveiling of the Marsden Cross … … 219

Life and Work of Samuel Marsden Chapter I.

Samuel Marsden, whose life is sketched in the following pages, was not ennobled by birth or rank, nor was he greatly distinguished by splendid talents. Yet he was, in the true sense, a great man; and he was an instance—one of the most striking of modern times—of the vast results which may be accomplished when an honest heart, a clear head, and a resolute mind and purpose are directed, under the influence of the grace of God, to the attainment of a noble object.

While he lived he shared the usual lot of people whose large philanthropy outruns the narrow policy of those around them. His motives were seldom understood, and in consequence he was thwarted and maligned. Nor was it till death had removed him from the scene that either the grandeur of his projects or the depth of his self-denying, unobtrusive piety was generally appreciated. At length, however, his character has begun to be revered. It is perceived that he was, at least, a farsighted man; and that in his own labours he was laying the foundations for the successes of thousands; while in the Church of Christ he is held in reverence as the Apostle of New Zealand—a title of high distinction, yet by no means misapplied to one who, in the simplicity of his faith as well as in zeal and self-denying labours, was truly an apostolic man.

Of his early life the memorials are but scanty. His father had a small farm at Farsley, in the parish of Calverley, Yorkshire, where he was born; and both his parents are known in the traditions of his family as having been persons of integrity and piety, attached to the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodists. He was born on the 28th of July, 1764, and after receiving the elements of learning at a village school, was placed in the free grammar-school of Hull, of which the celebrated Mr. Joseph Milner, the ecclesiastical historian, and brother to the no less eminent Dr. Isaac Milner, dean of Carlisle, was then head master. Here he was on the same form with Dr. Dealtry, rector of Clapham and Chancellor of Winchester.

Of his early youth little more is known; for his modesty, rather than any sentiment of false shame, to which indeed his whole nature was opposed, seldom permitted him to speak of himself, or to dwell upon the adventures or incidents of his early life. He was removed from school to take his share in the business of his uncle, a tradesman at Horsforth near Leeds; but he now had higher thoughts, and longed to be a minister of Christ. That he was a young man of more than ordinary promise is at once evident from the fact that he was adopted by the Elland Society and placed at St. John's College, Cambridge, to study for the ministry of the Church of England.

The Elland Society, so called from the parish in which its meetings were held, was an institution to which the cause of evangelical truth in the Church of England was much indebted. In its early days, the funds were supplied by Thornton,

Henry Thornton, a wealthy London banker, merchant, philanthropist, and member of the House of Commons. He gave large sums of money in charity. He was the first treasurer of the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, which afterwards became the Church Missionary Society, and also first treasurer of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Simeon

Charles Simeon, the eminent evangelical preacher. He was distinguished for an impassioned evangelicalism, which at first was bitterly assailed. Later on he exercised a great influence at Cambridge, where he was perpetual curate of Trinity Church, and, indeed in all parts of England and many parts of Scotland. In his time, his conversation-circles at Cambridge were famous. He took a prominent part in establishing the Church Missionary Society, and it was largely on account of his efforts that Henry Martyn was sent to India.

, Wilberforce

William Wilberforce, who became famous on account of his exertions to bring about the abolition of the slave trade, and who at the time mentioned by the biographer was about 25 years of age.

, and others like minded with them, and the society was managed by a few devoted clergymen of Yorkshire and the neighbouring counties, amongst whom were Venn,

The Rev. Harry Venn, Vicar of Huddersfield.

of Huddersfield, and Joseph Milner.

To this Society Samuel Marsden was introduced by his friend the Rev. Mr. Whittaker, a neighbouring clergyman; and not without some apprehensions, it is said, on the part of the latter, lest his simple and unassuming manner should create a prejudice against him. Such anxieties were superfluous. The Milners themselves had fought their way to eminence from the weaver's loom, and well knew how to distinguish real worth, however unpretending. The piety, the manly sense, and the modest bearing of the candidate at once won the confidence of the examiners; and he was sent to college at their expense.

Of his college life we are not aware that any memorials have been preserved. He was, no doubt, a diligent student; and from the warm friendship which existed between him and Mr. Simeon we may infer that he profited from his ministry. He had not yet completed his studies or taken his degree, when, to his great surprise, an offer was made to him by the Government of a chaplaincy in what was then designated “His Majesty's territory of New South Wales.” That a post of such importance should have been offered, unsolicited, to a student hitherto quite unknown, was owing to the influence of Mr. Wilberforce, who was guided in his choice by Joseph Milner. He had already secured the appointment of one pious chaplain to the colony, and from its commencement had always been anxious to promote its moral and religious welfare.

At first, Mr. Marsden declined the tempting offer; for such it undoubtedly was to a young man in his circumstances, although no human sagacity could then foresee its vast importance. He was naturally anxious to complete his studies, and he had a deep and unaffected sense of his own incompetence, while yet so young and inexperienced. The offer, however, was repeated and pressed upon him, when he modestly replied, that he was “sensible of the importance of the post—so sensible, indeed, that he hardly dared to accept it upon any terms, but if no more proper person could be found, he would consent to undertake it.” The choice reflects, no doubt, great credit upon the sagacity and spiritual discernment of those who made it. “Young as he was,” says one who knew him well in after life, Dr. Mason Good, “he was remarkable for firmness of principle, an intrepidity of spirit, a suavity of manner, a strong judgment, and, above all, a mind stored with knowledge and deeply impressed with religious truth, which promised the happiest results.”

He was accordingly appointed as second chaplain to the settlement in New South Wales, by a royal commission, bearing date 1st January, 1793. He was ordained shortly afterwards, and proceeded at once to Hull, from whence he was to take his passage in a convict transport, the only conveyance, at that period, for the far distant colony, a banishment of half a world.

On the 21st of April, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Tristan, in whom, for upwards of thirty years, he found not only an affectionate and faithful wife, but a companion singularly qualified to share his labours and lighten his toils. Disinterested and generous as he was, even to a fault, it was to her admirable management that not only his domestic comfort, but even his means of assisting others so profusely, was owing in no small degree.

While at Hull, an incident occurred which shows to what an extent, even thus early in life, he possessed the art of gaining the respect and warm affection of those who knew him, however slightly. While waiting for the sailing of the ship, he was frequently asked to officiate in various churches. One Sunday morning, when he was just about to enter the pulpit, a signal-gun was heard; his ship was about to sail, and it was of course impossible for him to preach. Taking his bride under his arm, he immediately left the church and walked down to the beach; but he was attended by the whole congregation, who, as if by one movement, followed in a body. From the boat into which he stepped he gave his parting benedictions, which they returned with fervent prayers and tender farewells.

He now found himself in a new world. What contrast could indeed be greater, or more distressing? The calm, though vigorous pursuits of Cambridge, and the pious circle of warm Christian friends, were at once exchanged for the society of felons, and the doubly irksome confinement of a convict-ship. From his journal, which has been fortunately preserved, we make the following extracts, omitting much which our space does not permit us to insert:—

Sunday, 28th August, 1793.—This morning we weighed anchor, with a fair wind, and have sailed well all the day. How different this Sabbath to what I have been accustomed to. Once I could meet the people of God, and assemble with them in the house of prayer; but now am deprived of this valuable privilege; and instead of living among those who love and serve the Lord Jesus, spending the Sabbath in prayer and praise, I hear nothing but oaths and blasphemies. Lord, keep me in the midst of them, and grant that I may neither in word or deed countenance their wicked practices.

The ship was first ordered to Portsmouth to receive the convicts and thence to Cork to join her convoy. Whilst she lay off Portsmouth, Mr. Marsden went on shore in the Isle of Wight, and on Sunday asked and obtained permission to preach in the parish church at Brading. His text was, “Be clothed with humility,” 1 Peter v. 5; and amongst the congregation was a young woman, to whom the “word” preached was “quick and powerful,” being carried home to her conscience by the Spirit of the living God. To that sermon “The Dairyman's Daughter” owed her conversion, and the Church of Christ her bright example, as depicted by the loving heart and pen of Legh Richmond.

“The Dairyman's Daughter” is one of three notable tales of village life published by Legh Richmond. All were written from information collected during the visit to the Isle of Wight. The heroine of “The Dairyman's Daughter” was Elizabeth Wallbridge, to whom the name was applied. She lies buried at Arreton. The other works of the series are “The Young Cottager” and “The Negro Servant.” All were reprinted together under the title “Annals of the Poor,” and were translated into French, Italian, German, Danish, and Swedish.

Mr. Marsden in later life became acquainted with the fact, and was often heard to speak of it with grateful feelings, which the pious reader can imagine far better than we can describe.

It was not till the 30th of September that the fleet in which his ship sailed finally left Cork. The war with France was then raging, and her fleets were still formidable; so that our merchantmen only ventured to put to sea in considerable numbers, and under the convoy of a ship of war.

Cork, 30th September.—This morning the signal was given by the commodore for all the ships under his convoy to weigh anchor and prepare for sea. About nine o'clock the whole fleet was under sail, which consisted of about forty ships. The wind was very fair, so that we were quickly in the main ocean. I was soon affected by the motion of the vessel; this rendered me quite unfit for any religious duties. Oh! how miserable must their state be who have all their religion to seek when sickness and death come upon them! Lord grant that this may never be my case.

Monday, 23rd October.—I have this day been reading a portion of Dr. Dodd's “Prison Thoughts.” What an awful instance of human infirmity is here! What need of humility in every situation, but more especially in the ministerial office! How needful the apostle's caution, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

The following entries will be read with pain. The mercantile marine of England is still capable of improvement in matters of religion, but we hope the instances are few in which the commander of a first rate merchant vessel would follow the examples they record.

This, of course, is a comment by the biographer written about fifty years ago. He refers to a time about 120 years from the present time, 1913.

Sunday, 29th September.—How different is this Sabbath from those I have formerly known, when I could meet with the great congregation! I long for those means and privileges again. “Oh, when shall I come and appear before God?” Yet it is a consolation to me to believe that I am in the way of my duty. I requested the captain to-day to give me permission to perform Divine Service to the ship's company; he rather hesitated, said he had never seen a religious sailor, but at length promised to have service the following Sunday.

Sunday, 6th October.—The last Sabbath the captain promised me I should have liberty to perform Divine Service to-day, but, to my great mortification, he now declines. How unwilling are the unconverted to hear anything of divine truth!

But Mr. Marsden was not one of those who are discouraged by a first repulse. The next Sunday relates his triumph, and from this time, Divine Service, whenever the weather allowed, was statedly performed.

Sunday, 13th.—I arose this morning with a great desire to preach to the ship's company, yet did not know how I should be able to accomplish my wish. We were now four ships in company. Our captain had invited the captains belonging to the other three to dine with us to-day. As soon as they came on board I mentioned my design to one of them, who immediately complied with my wish, and said he would mention it to our captain, which he did, and preparations were made for me to preach. I read part of the Church prayers, and afterwards preached from the third chapter of St. John, the 14th and 15th verses: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” etc. The sailors stood on the main deck, I and the four captains upon the quarter-deck; they were attentive, and the good effects were apparent during the remainder of the day.

Thursday, 12th December.—I have been reading of the success of Mr. Brainerd

David Brainerd, the celebrated missionary. The Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge appointed him missionary to the North American Indians. In 1744 he took up his residence near the forks of Delaware, in Pennsylvania, but was more successful amongst the Indians of New Jersey. Probably it was his “Account of the Rise and Progress of a remarkable Work of Grace among a Number of Indians in New Jersey” which Mr. Marsden was reading. Brainerd was born in Connecticut in 1718 and died in Massachusetts in 1747.

among the Indians. How the Lord owned and blessed his labours to the conversion of the heathen! Nothing is too hard for the Lord. This gives me encouragement under my present difficult undertaking. The same power can effect a change upon those hardened ungodly sinners to whom I am about to carry the words of eternal life.

January 1st, 1794.—A new year. I wish this day to renew my covenant with God, and to give myself up to His service more than ever I have done heretofore. May my little love be increased, my weak faith strengthened, and hope confirmed.”

In this humble yet trustful spirit, Mr. Marsden entered his new field of labour. On board the ship there were a number of convicts, whose daring wickedness—in which, indeed, they were countenanced by the whole conduct of the captain and his crew—grieved his righteous soul from day to day; while at the same time it prepared him, in some measure, for scenes amidst which his life was to be spent. “I am surrounded,” he says, “with evil-disposed persons, thieves, adulterers, and blasphemers. May God keep me from evil, that I may not be tainted by the evil practices of those amongst whom I live.” His last sermon was preached, “notwithstanding the unwillingness there was in all on board to hear the word of God,” from the vision of dry bones (Ezekiel xxxvii.). “I found some liberty, and afterwards more comfort in my own soul. I wish to be found faithful at last, and to give up my account with joy to God.”

To add to his anxieties, Mrs. Marsden was confined on shipboard, in stormy weather, and under circumstances peculiarly distressing, “though both the mother and daughter did well.” But the same day the scene brightened; the perils and privations of the voyage were drawing to a close, and they were in sight of their future home—that magnificent Australia, destined hereafter to assume, perhaps, a foremost place among the nations of the earth, though scarcely known to Europe when Mr. Marsden first stepped upon its shores: and valued only by the British Government as a settlement for the refuse of gaols. He thus gives utterance to the feelings of a grateful heart:—

March 2nd.—I shall ever retain a grateful sense of the mercies received this day, and the deliverances wrought. The Lord is good, and a stronghold in the day of trouble, and knows them that fear Him…. As soon as I had the opportunity to go upon deck, I had the happiness again to behold the land: it was a very pleasing sight, as we had not seen it since the 3rd of December. We came up with the Cape about noon.

In a few days, Mr. Marsden had taken up his abode in the “barracks” of Parramatta, a few miles from Port Jackson, and entered upon his arduous and toilsome duties as chaplain to the colony. His first Sunday in Australia is thus described:—

Saw several persons at work as I went along, to whom I spoke, and warned them of the evil of Sabbath-breaking. My mind was deeply affected with the wickedness I beheld going on. I spoke from the 6th chapter of Revelation, “Behold the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand.” As I was returning home, a young man followed me into the wood, and told me how he was distressed for the salvation of his soul. He seemed to manifest the strongest marks of contrition, and to be truly awakened to a sense of his danger. I hope the Lord will have many souls in this place.

He had, for a short time, a single associate, in the Rev. P. Johnson, the senior chaplain, a good and useful minister, but unequal to the difficulties peculiar to his situation. This gentleman soon relinquished his appointment, and returned to England; and thus Mr. Marsden was left alone with a charge which might have appalled the stoutest heart.

Chapter II.

The retirement of the senior chaplain left Mr. Marsden in sole charge of the spiritual concerns of the infant colony. He had now to officiate at the three settlements of Sydney, Parramatta, and Hawkesbury without assistance. The nature of the population, consisting as it did of a mass of criminals, rendered his ministerial labours peculiarly distressing. The state of morals was utterly depraved; oaths and ribaldry, and audacious lying were general; marriage, and the sacred ties of domestic life, were almost unknown, and those who, from their station, should have set an example to the convicts and settlers, encouraged sin in others by the effrontery of their own transgressions. Under discouragement such as would have subdued the spirit of most men, did he, for the long period of fourteen years, continue at his post; cheered it is true with occasional gleams of success, but upon the whole rather a witness against abounding vice than, at present, a successful evangelist.

Nor were domestic trials wanting to complete that process of salutary discipline by which “the great Shepherd of the Sheep” was preparing his servant for other and wider scenes of labour, and for triumphs greater than the Church in these later days had known. His first-born son, a lovely and promising child scarcely two years old, was thrown from its mother's arms by a sudden jerk of the gig in which they were seated, and killed upon the spot. It would be impossible to describe the agonised feelings of the mother under such a bereavement, nor were the sorrows of the father less profound. He received the tidings, together with the body of his lifeless boy, we are told, with “calm, and even dignified submission,” for “he was a man who said little though he felt much.”

A second stroke, still more painful, was to follow. Mrs. Marsden, determined not to hazard the safety of another child, left her babe at home in charge of a domestic while she drove out. But her very precaution was the occasion of his death; the little creature strayed into the kitchen unobserved, fell backwards into a pan of boiling water, and its death followed soon after. Thus early in his ministerial career the iron entered his own soul, and taught him that sympathy for the wounded spirit which marked his character through life.

But from these scenes of private suffering we must turn aside. The public life and ministerial labours of Mr. Marsden require our attention; and as we enter upon the review of them we must notice two circumstances which from the very outset of his career exposed him to frequent suspicion and obloquy, both in the colony and at home, and formed in fact the chief materials, so to speak, out of which his opponents wove the calumnies with which they harassed the greater portion of his life.

He had scarcely arrived at his post when he was appointed a colonial Magistrate. Under ordinary circumstances, we should condemn in the strongest manner the union of functions so obviously incompatible as those of the Christian minister and the civil Judge. To use the words of a great authority on judicial questions, a recent Lord Chancellor,

Lord Brougham.

“it is the union of two noble offices to the detriment of both.” Yet it seems in the case before us that the office was forced upon Mr. Marsden, not as a complimentary distinction, but as one of the stern duties of his position as a colonial chaplain, who was bound to maintain the authority of the law amidst a population of lawless and dangerous men.

Port Jackson, or Botany Bay as it was generally called, was then and long afterwards merely a penal settlement. The Governor was absolute, and the discipline he enforced was, perhaps of necessity, harsh and rigid. Resistance to the law and its administrators was of daily occurrence; life and property were always insecure, and even armed rebellion sometimes broke out. If the Government thought it necessary, for the safety of this extraordinary community, to select a minister of the Gospel to fill the office of a Magistrate, he had no alternative but to submit, or else to resign his chaplaincy and return Home. Mr. Marsden chose to remain; moved by the hope of being able to infuse something of the spirit of the Gospel into the administration of justice, and to introduce far higher principles than those which he saw prevailing amongst the Magistrates themselves.

In both of these objects he succeeded to an eminent extent, though not till after the lapse of years, and a remonstrance carried by himself in person to the Government at Home. Justice was dealt even to the greatest criminals more fairly, and the bench of Magistrates grew at length ashamed, in the presence of the chaplain of Parramatta, of its own hitherto unabashed licentiousness. But the cost was great. He was involved in secular business from day to day, and that often of the most painful kind. His equal-handed justice made him a host of personal enemies in those whose vices he punished; and, still more, in those whose corrupt and partial administration of the law was rebuked by the example of his integrity. In the share he was obliged to take in the civil affairs of the colony differences of opinion would naturally arise, and angry feelings would, as usual, follow. Of course, he was not free from human infirmity; his own temper was sometimes disturbed. Thus for years, especially during his early residence in New South Wales, he was in frequent collision with the Magistrates, and occasionally even with the Governor. Again and again he would have resigned his commission, but was not allowed to do so; meanwhile his mind was often distracted and his character maligned. To these trials we shall be obliged to refer as we trace his steps through life; but we mean to do so as seldom as we can, for the subject is painful, and, as few men can ever be placed in his circumstances, to most of us unprofitable.

Another point on which Mr. Marsden's conduct has been severely, and yet most unjustly, blamed, is that he was engaged in the cultivation of a considerable tract of land. Avarice and secularity were roundly charged upon him in consequence; for it was his painful lot through life to be incessantly accused not only of failings of which he was quite guiltless, but of those which were the most opposite to his real character. A more purely disinterested and unselfish man perhaps never lived. One who under the constant disturbance of every kind of business and employment, still “walked” more “humbly with his God,” is not often to be found. Yet the cry once raised against him was never hushed; until at length, having rung in his ears through life, as a warning to him, no doubt, even in his brightest moments of success, that he should “cease from man,” it was suddenly put to shame at last and buried with him in his grave.

The circumstances were these: When he arrived in the colony, in the beginning of 1794, it was yet but six years old. The cultivation of land had scarcely begun; it was therefore dependent on supplies of food from Home, and was often reduced to the brink of famine. One cask of meat was all that the King's Stores contained when Mr. Marsden first landed on those shores from which the produce of the most magnificent flocks and herds the world has ever pastured was afterwards to be shipped. Governor Phillip, as we have seen, had laid the foundation of the colony amid scenes of difficulty and trial which it is fearful to contemplate. In September, 1795, Captain Hunter arrived, and following in the steps of his predecessor, exerted himself in clearing land and bringing it under cultivation. To effect this he made a grant to every officer, civil and military, of one hundred acres, and allowed each thirteen convicts as servants to assist in bringing it into order. Mr. Marsden availed himself of the grant, and his farm soon exhibited those marks of superior management which might have been looked for by all who were acquainted with the energy of his character and his love of rural pursuits. Where land was to be had on such easy terms, it was not to be desired or expected that he should be limited to the original grant.

He soon possessed an estate of several hundred acres—the model farm of New South Wales—and, let it not be forgotten, the source from whence those supplies were drawn which fed the infant missions of the Southern Seas, while at the same time they helped their generous owner to support many a benevolent institution in his own parish and neighbourhood. Years afterwards he was induced to print a pamphlet in justification of his conduct in this as well as other particulars on which it was assailed; and as we copy an extract from it, our feeling is one of shame and sorrow that it should ever have been required. He says:—

I did not consider myself in the same situation, in a temporal point of view, in this colony as a clergyman in England. My situation at that period would bear no such comparison. A clergyman in England lives in the very bosom of his friends; his comforts and conveniences are all within his reach, and he has nothing to do but to feed his flock. On the contrary, I entered a country which was in a state of Nature, and was obliged to plant and sow or starve. It was not from inclination that my colleague and I took the axe, the spade, and the hoe: we could not, from our situation, help ourselves by any other means, and we thought it no disgrace to labour. St. Paul's own hands ministered to his necessities in a cultivated nation, and our hands ministered to our wants in an uncultivated one. If this be cast upon me as a shame and a reproach, I cheerfully bear it, for the remembrance never gives me any cause of reproach or remorse.

Monsieur Perron, a commander sent out by the French Government to search for the unfortunate La Perouse who had recently perished in an exploratory voyage to the islands of the South Pacific,

La Perouse, the distinguished French navigator, anchored in Botany Bay on the 26th of January, 1788. He left Botany Bay in March of the same year, to visit some of the Pacific Islands, but nothing further was heard of him. The mystery of his fate has never been definitely solved, but it is thought that his two vessels were wrecked at the New Hebrides, and that those on board were either drowned or murdered by natives. In 1828, Dumont D'Urville, another French navigator, erected a monument to La Perouse on the Island of Vanikoro, where, it is believed, the wreck took place.

visited Mr. Marsden's farm in 1802, and records, with the generous admiration his countrymen have never withheld from English enterprise and industry, his astonishment and delight. “No longer,” he exclaims, “than eight years ago, the whole of this spot was covered with immense and useless forests; what pains, what exertions must have been employed! These roads, these pastures, these fields, these harvests, these orchards, these flocks, the work of eight years!” And his admiration of the scene was not greater than his reverence for its owner, “who,” he adds, “while he thus laboured in his various important avocations was not unmindful of the interests of others. He generously interfered in behalf of the poorer settlers in their distresses, established schools for their children, and often relieved their necessities; and to the unhappy culprits, whom the justice of their offended country had banished from their native soil, he administered alternately exhortation and comfort.”

Indeed, it would be no easy task to enumerate all the schemes of social, moral, and spiritual enterprise upon which Mr. Marsden was now employed, and into all of which he appears to have thrown a force and energy generally reserved, even by the zealous philanthropist, for some one favoured project. Thus the state of the female convicts, at a very early period, especially attracted his attention. Their forlorn condition, their frightful immoralities—the almost necessary consequence of the gross neglect which exposed them to temptation, or rather thrust them into sin—pressed heavily upon him, and formed the subject of many solemn remonstrances, first to the authorities abroad, and, when these were unheeded, to the Government at Home. The wrongs of the aborigines, their heathenism and their savage state, with all its attendant miseries and hopeless prospects in eternity, sank into his heart; and under his care a school arose at Parramatta for their children. The scheme, as we shall explain hereafter, was not successful; but at least it will be admitted “he did well that it was in” his “heart.”

He was often consulted by the successive Governors on questions of difficulty and importance, and gave his advice with respect, but at the same time with honest courage. Amusing anecdotes are told of some of their interviews. A misunderstanding had occurred between Governor King and him, which did not, however, prevent the Governor from asking his advice. Mr. Marsden was allowed to make his own terms, which were that he should consider Governor King as a private individual, and as such address him. Much to his credit, the Governor consented. Mr. Marsden then locked the door, and in plain and forcible terms explained to “Captain” King the faults, as he conceived of “Governor” King's administration. They separated on the most friendly terms; and if we admire the courage of the chaplain, we must not overlook the self-command and forbearance of the Governor. With a dash of eccentricity, the affair was honourable to both parties.

Another instance of Mr. Marsden's ready tact and self-possession may be mentioned. Governor King, who possessed, by virtue of his office, the most absolute power, was not only eccentric, but also somewhat choleric. On one occasion, when Mr. Marsden was present, a violent dispute arose between the Governor and the Commissary-general. Mr. Marsden not being at liberty to leave the room, retired to a window, determined not to be a witness of the coming storm. The Governor, in his heat, pushed or collared the Commissary, who in return, pushed or struck the Governor. His Excellency, indignant at the insult, called to the chaplain, “Do you see that, sir?” “Indeed, sir,” replied Mr. Marsden, “I see nothing,” dwelling with jocular emphasis on the word “see.” Thus good humour was immediately restored, and the grave and even treasonable offence of striking the representative of the State was forgotten. These trifling circumstances are worth relating, not only in illustration of Mr. Marsden's character, but of the history of the earlier days of the colony.

But graver duties had already devolved upon him. Amongst the unpublished manuscripts of the London Missionary Society there is one document of singular interest in connection with the name of Samuel Marsden. It is a memorandum of seventeen folio pages on the state and prospects of their missions to Tahiti and the islands in the South Seas, dated “Parramatta, 30th January, 1801,” and “read before the Committee” in London—such was the slow, uncertain communication fifty years ago with a colony now brought within sixty days' sail of England—“on the 19th of April, 1802.”

It should be remembered that the biographer wrote fifty years ago, and that the time he refers to is more than 100 years ago.

Foremost in the literature of another generation will stand those treasures which slumber, for the most part unvalued and undisturbed, on the shelves of our missionary houses. For men will surely one day inquire, with an interest similar to that with which we read of the conversion of Britain in the dim light of Ingulphus and the Saxon Chronicle, or the Venerable Bede, how distant islands were first evangelised, and through what sorrows, errors, and reverses, the first missionary fought his way to victory in continents and islands of the Southern Hemisphere. And of these, the document which now lies before us will be esteemed as inferior to none in calm and practical wisdom, in piety, or in ardent zeal tempered with discretion.

The circumstances which called it forth were these. The Tahitian mission, the first great effort of the London Missionary Society, and indeed the first Protestant mission, with perhaps one exception,

That of the Moravians to Labrador. The Wesleyans had a mission in the West Indies, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had long had the care of the Danish missions at Malabar. But none of these were missions, in the strict sense, among savages. (Note by the biographer.)

to savage tribes, had hitherto disappointed the sanguine expectations of its promoters. We trust we shall not be thought to make a display of that cheap wisdom which consists in blaming the failures of which the causes were not seen until the catastrophe had occurred, if we say that, great and truly magnificent as the project was, it carried within itself the elements of its own humiliation. The faith and zeal of its founders were beyond all human praise; but in the wisdom which results from experience, they were of course deficient. “To attempt great things, and to expect great things,” was their motto; but they did not appreciate the difficulties of the enterprise; nor did they duly estimate the depth of the depravity of the savage heart and mind.

Dr. Haweis, a London clergyman of great piety and note in those days, preached before the Society when the first missionary ship, the Duff, was about to sail. He described to his delighted audience the romantic beauty and grandeur of the islands which lie like emeralds upon the calm bosom of the Southern Ocean, and anticipated their immediate conversion as soon as they should hear the first glad tidings of the gospel. The ship sailed from the Tower wharf, with flags flying and banners streaming, as if returning from a triumph, amidst the cheers of the spectators. Amongst the crowd there stood a venerable minister of Christ, leaning upon the arm of a veteran in the service of his Lord. As they turned slowly away from the exciting scene, the aged minister mournfully exclaimed, “I am afraid it will not succeed: there is too much of man in it.”

The elder one was the Rev. Samuel Bradburn, the friend and associate of Wesley. “The younger minister” was the Rev. G. Marsden, a president of the Wesleyan Conference.

His words were prophetic; for nearly twenty years no success followed, but one sweeping tide of disappointment and disaster; till, at length, when, humbled and dejected, about 1814, the missionaries, as well as the Society at Home, in despair had almost resolved to abandon the station, the work of God appeared in the conversion of the king of Tahiti; and with a rapidity to be compared only to the long, cheerless, period in which they had “laboured in vain, and spent their strength for nought,” the missionaries beheld not only Tahiti, but the adjacent islands, transformed into Christian lands.

It was in the midst of these disasters that Mr. Marsden was consulted, and wrote the memorandum to which we have referred. If in some places he seems to lay too great stress upon what may appear to the reader prudential considerations of inferior importance, let us remind him that on these very points the missionaries had betrayed their weakness. Their own quarrels, and even the gross misconduct of some few amongst them, were not less painful to the Church at Home than their want of success.

We make a few extracts:—

The first and principal object for the consideration of the directors is to select men properly qualified for the mission; unless persons equal to the task are sent out nothing can be done. It may be asked, who are proper persons, and what are the requisite qualifications? To the question I would reply in general terms. A missionary should be a man of real sound piety, and well acquainted with the depravity of the human heart, as well as experimental religion; he should not be a novice; he should not only be a good man in the strictest sense of the word, but also well informed, not taken from the dregs of the common people, but possessed of some education, and liberal sentiments. He should rather be of a lively active turn of mind than gloomy and heavy. A gloomy ignorant clown will be disgusting even to savages, and excite their contempt. The more easy and affable a missionary is in his address, the more easily will he obtain the confidence and good opinion of the heathen.

In my opinion a man of a melancholy habit is altogether unqualified for a missionary; he will never be able to sustain the hardships attending his situation, nay, he will magnify his dangers and difficulties and make them greater than what in reality they may be. A missionary, were I to define his character, should be a pious good man, should be well acquainted with mankind, should possess some education, should be easy in address, and of an active turn. Some of the missionaries who have come to this colony are the opposite character to the above. They are totally ignorant of mankind, they possess no education, they are clowns in their manners. If the directors are determined to establish a mission in these islands there is another object to be attended to; they must send out a sufficient body and furnish them with the means of self-defence. Unless the missionaries are able to protect themselves from the violence of the natives, they will be in constant danger of being cut off by them. Their lives, if unprotected by their own strength, will hang sometimes perhaps upon the fate of a single battle between two contending chiefs. Can any idea be more distressing than for the lives of a few defenceless missionaries to depend upon the sudden whim or turn of an enraged savage, without the means of self-defence? See them driven, in order to escape the savage fury of the natives, into holes and caverns of the rocks, suffering every hardship that Nature can bear from hunger, toil, and anxiety, without so much as the prospect of relief in time of danger from Europe, or accomplishing in the smallest degree the object of the mission. Yet this must and will be the case, unless the missionaries are furnished with the means of self-defence, and are able to convince the natives of their superiority in point of skill and protection.

Mr. Marsden continued to be through life the confidential adviser of the London Missionary Society, and the warm friend and, as they passed to and fro upon their voyages, the kind host of its missionaries.

His character was now established. The colony was rapidly increasing in importance; and yet no change had been made in its government, which was still committed to the absolute direction of a single mind, that of the colonial Governor. He, too, was a military officer, and not always one of high position and large capacity, or even of the purest morals; for by such men the governorship of his Majesty's territory in New South Wales would have then been disdained. Mr. Marsden had done much, but much more remained to be done. There were mischiefs that lay far beyond his reach, and spurned control. On the first establishment of the colony all the military officers were forbidden to take their wives with them—the Governor and chaplains were the only exceptions—and there is one instance of a lady whose love for her husband led her to steal across the ocean in the disguise of a sailor, and who was actually sent Home again by Governor Phillip without being permitted to land. Our readers may anticipate the consequences which followed in an almost general licentiousness. The most abandoned females often appeared fearlessly before the Magistrates, well knowing that they would have impunity even for the greatest crimes; and male offenders used their influence to obtain a judgment in their favour. Expostulation, remonstrance, and entreaty Mr. Marsden had tried in vain. “Of all existing spots in New South Wales the court of judicature at Sydney,” it was publicly affirmed, “was the most iniquitous and abandoned”; and at length a rebellious spirit broke out, and the authority of the Governor, even in his military capacity, was at an end.

The efforts of the faithful chaplain were now thwarted at the fountain head, and his life was not unfrequently in danger. Mr. Marsden's sagacity fastened the conviction on his mind that a crisis was at hand, which could only be averted by the interference of the Government at Home. He therefore asked for and obtained permission to revisit England. His fears were just; he had already assisted in quelling one rebellion, and another of a more serious nature broke out soon after he embarked, which drove the Governor from the colony, and ended in his recall, and the establishment of a new order of things. The spiritual fruit of Mr. Marsden's labours had not yet been great, but already the foundations had been laid for extensive usefulness. On the eve of his departure, he was presented with a gratifying address, bearing the signatures of three hundred and two persons, “the holders of landed estates, public offices, and other principal inhabitants of the large and extensive settlements of Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Portland-Head, and adjacent parts of New South Wales,” conveying “their grateful thanks for his pious, humane, and exemplary conduct throughout this whole colony, in the various and arduous situations held by him as a minister of the Gospel, superintendent magistrate, inspector of public, orphan, and charity schools, and in other offices.”

They thank him too for “his attention and cares in the improvement of stock, agriculture, and in all other beneficial and useful arts, for the general good of the colony, and for his unremitting exertions for its prosperity,” and conclude: “Your sanctity, philanthropy, and disinterestedness of character will ever remain an example to future ministers; and that God, whom we serve, may pour down his blessings upon you and yours to the latest posterity is the sincere prayer of those who sign this address.”

Chapter III.

Mr. Marsden returned Home in His Majesty's ship Buffalo, after an absence of fourteen years. On the voyage he had one of those hairbreadth deliverances in which devout Christians recognise the hand of God. The Buffalo was leaky when she sailed, and a heavy gale threatening, it was proposed that the passengers should quit the ship and take refuge in a stauncher vessel which formed one of the fleet. Mr. Marsden objected, Mrs. Marsden being unwilling to leave Mrs. King, the wife of Governor King, who was returning in the same vessel, and who was at the time an invalid. In the night, the expected storm came on. In the morning, the eyes of all on board the crazy Buffalo were strained in vain to discover their companion. She was never heard of more, and no doubt had foundered in the hurricane.

On his arrival in London he waited on the Under Secretary of State to report his return, and learned from him that his worst fears had been realised, and that the colony was already in a state of open insurrection, headed by the “New South Wales Corps,” who were leagued with several of the wealthier traders. The insurrection, however, was suppressed, and Lieutenant-colonel Macquarie was sent out with his regiment to assume the government. Lord Castlereagh, the Colonial Minister, was quick to perceive the value of such an adviser on the affairs of Australia as Mr. Marsden, and encouraged him to place before the Government a full statement of his views.

Seldom has it happened to a private individual to be charged with weightier or more various affairs, never perhaps with schemes involving more magnificent results. As the obscure chaplain from Botany Bay paced the Strand from the Colonial Office at Whitehall to the chambers in the city where a few pious men were laying plans for Christian missions in the Southern Hemisphere, he was, in fact, charged with projects upon which not only the civilization, but also the eternal welfare of future nations, was suspended.

Nor was he unconscious of the greatness of the task. With a total absence of romance or enthusiasm—for his mind was wanting in the imaginative faculty on which enthusiasm feeds—he was yet fully alive to the possible consequences of his visit to his native shores, and intensely interested in his work. He aimed at nothing less than to see Australia a great country; and with a yet firmer faith, he expected the conversion of the cannibal tribes of New Zealand and the Society Islands; and this at a time when even statesmen had only learned to think of New South Wales as a national prison, and when the conversion of New Zealanders was regarded as a hopeless task, even by the majority of Christian men, and treated by the world with indifference or scorn. In fact, during this short visit he may be said to have planned, perhaps unconsciously, the labours of his whole life, and to have laid the foundation for all the good of which he was to be the instrument.

Let us first turn to the efforts he made for the settlements in New South Wales. The improvement of the convict population was his primary object, and his more immediate duty. He had observed that by far the greater number of reformed criminals consisted of those who had intermarried, or whose wives had been able to purchase their passage over, and he suggested that those of the convicts' wives who chose to do so should be permitted to accompany their husbands even at the public expense. This was refused, and it was almost the only point upon which his representations failed; but, as a compromise, the wives of the officers and soldiers were permitted to accompany their husbands, and not less than three hundred immediately went with a single regiment.

To encourage honesty and industry he recommended not only remission of the sentence to the well conducted convict, but a grant of land to a certain extent, with which the Government complied. But he had no weak and foolish sympathy with crime, and long after the period at which we are now writing, he continued to incur the hatred of a certain class by protesting, as he never ceased to do, against the monstrous impropriety of placing men, however wealthy, who had themselves been convicts, on the Magisterial Bench.

Amongst the convicts, he had observed, the greater number were acquainted with some branch of mechanics or manufactures; at present, they were unemployed, or occupied in labour for which they were unfit, and which was therefore irksome to themselves and of no advantage to the colony. He therefore suggested that one or two practical mechanics with small salaries, and one or two general manufacturers, should be sent out to instruct the convicts. But here a serious obstacle presented itself; for this was the age of commercial prohibitions, and it was objected that the manufacturers of the Mother Country would be injured by such a step. Mr. Marsden met the objection at once. If the Government would but accede to the proposal, “he would undertake that the enormous expense at which the country was for clothing the convicts should entirely cease within a certain period.” The wool of the Government flocks and the flesh of the wild cattle were already sufficient to provide both food and raiment for the convicts without any expense to the parent State, and all he prayed for was the opportunity of turning those advantages to the best account. These requests were granted, and on the same night, and at his own cost, he set off by the mail for Warwickshire and Yorkshire in search of four artisans and manufacturers, who were soon upon their way to the scene of their future operations.

The vast importance of Australia as the source upon which the English manufacturer must at some future day depend for his supplies of wool had already occupied his thoughts. He found that within three years his own stock, without any care on his part—for his farm was entirely managed in his absence by a trusty bailiff who had been a convict—had upon an average been doubled in number and value. With the energy which was natural to him, he carried some of his own wool to Leeds, where he had it manufactured, and he had the satisfaction to learn that it was considered equal, if not superior, to that of Saxony or France. His private letters abound with intimations that before long Australia must become the great wool-producing country to which the English manufacturer would look.

He was introduced to King George the Third, and took the liberty, through Sir Joseph Banks, of praying for a couple of Merino sheep, His Majesty's property, to improve the breed; and his last letter from England, dated from the Cowes Roads, mentions their reception on board. We anticipate a little, but must quote the letter, if only to let the reader see how possible it is to be at once diligent in business and fervent in spirit:—

We are this moment getting under weigh, and soon expect to be upon the ocean. I have received a present of five Spanish sheep from the king's flock, which are all on board; if I am so fortunate as to get them out they will be a most valuable acquisition to the colony. I leave England with much satisfaction, having obtained so fully the object of my mission. It is the good hand of our God that hath done these things for us. I have the prospect of getting another pious minister. I am writing to him on the subject this morning, and I hope he will soon follow us… On Sunday I stood on the long boat and preached from Ezekiel xviii., 27: “When the wicked man turneth away,” etc. It was a solemn time, many of the convicts were affected. We sang the Hundredth Psalm in the midst of a large fleet. The number of souls on board is more than four hundred. God may be gracious to some of them; though exiled from their country and friends, they may cry unto Him in a foreign land, when they come like the Jews of old to hang their harps upon the willows, and weep when they remember Zion, or rather when they remember England.

To Mr. Avison Terry, Hull.

The spiritual wants of the colony were not forgotten. He induced the Government to send out three additional clergymen and three schoolmasters; and happily the selection was intrusted to his own judgment. A disciple in the school of Venn and Milner, he knew that the ordinances of the church, though administered by a moral and virtuous man, or by a zealous philanthropist, were not enough. He sought for men who were “renewed in the spirit of their minds”; who uttered no mere words of course when they said at their ordination that they “believed themselves moved thereto by the Holy Ghost.”

But here again his task was difficult; clergymen of such a stamp were but few; the spirit of missionary enterprise was almost unfelt; and, to say the truth, there was a missionary field at home, dark and barbarous, and far too wide for the few such labourers of this class whom the Lord had yet “sent forth into his harvest.” Mr. Marsden, however, nothing daunted, went from parish to parish till he met with two admirable men, the Rev. Mr. Cowper and the Rev. Robert Cartwright, who, with their families, accompanied him on his return. His choice was eminently successful. In a short account of Mr. Marsden, published in Australia in 1844, they are spoken of as still living, pious and exemplary clergymen, the fathers of families occupying some of the most important posts in the colony, and, “notwithstanding their advancing years and increasing infirmities,” it is added, “there are few young men in the colony so zealous in preaching the Gospel, and in promoting the interests of the Church of England.” The schoolmasters, too, we believe, did honour to his choice. He had already established two public free-schools for children of both sexes, and he was now able to impart the elements of a pious education, and to train them in habits of industry and virtue. Into all these plans the Archbishop of Canterbury cordially entered, and wisely and liberally left it to the able founder to select his agents and associates.

Mr. Marsden likewise urged upon the Home Administration the necessity for a Female Penitentiary; and obtained a promise that a building should be provided. That he was deeply alive to the importance of an institution of this kind is manifest in his own description of the state of the female prisoners in the earlier years of the colony, and the deplorable picture he draws of their immorality and wretchedness. “When I returned to England in 1807,” he says, “there were upwards of fourteen hundred women in the colony; more than one thousand were unmarried, and nearly all convicts: many of them were exposed to the most dangerous temptations, privations and sufferings; and no suitable asylum had been provided for the female convicts since the establishment of the colony. On my arrival in London in 1808, I drew up two memorials on their behalf, stating how much they suffered from want of a proper barrack—a building for their reception. One of these memorials I presented to the Under Secretary of State, and the other to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. They both expressed their readiness to promote the object.” Years, however, passed before the consent of the colonial Governor could be gained; and Mr. Marsden's benevolent exertions on behalf of these outcast women were for some time frustrated.

The variety of his engagements at this time was equal to their importance. He had returned Home charged with an almost infinite multiplicity of business. He was the agent of almost every poor person in the colony who had, or thought he had, important business at Home. Penny-postages lay in the same dim future as electric telegraphs and steamfrigates, and he was often burdened with letters from Ireland and other remote parts—so wrote a friend, who published at the time a sketch of his proceedings in the Eclectic Review—the postage of which, for a single day, has amounted to a guinea, which he cheerfully paid, from the feeling that, although many of these letters were of no use whatever, they were written with a good intention, and under a belief that they were of real value. He had already been saluted, like the Roman generals of old, with the title of common father of his adopted country; and one of his last acts before he quitted England was to procure, by public contributions and donations of books,” what he called a lending library”—so writes the reviewer,

Eclectic Review, vol. v., pp. 988–995.

and the expression seems to have amused him from its novelty—“consisting of books on religion, morals, mechanics, agriculture, and general history, to be lent out under his own control and that of his colleagues, to soldiers, free settlers, convicts, and others who had time to read.” In this, too, he succeeded, and took over with him a library of the value of between £300 and £400.

It was during this two years' visit to his native land that Mr. Marsden laid the foundation of the Church of England Mission to New Zealand. In its consequences, civil and religious, this has already proved one of the most extraordinary and most successful of those achievements which are the glory of the Churches in these later times. This was the great enterprise of his life; he will be remembered while the Church on earth endures as the apostle of New Zealand. Not that we claim for him the exclusive honour of being the only one, although we believe he was, in point of time, the first who began, about this period, to project a mission to New Zealand. The Wesleyans were early in the same field. The Rev. Samuel Leigh, a man whose history and natural character bore a marked resemblance to those of Mr. Marsden, was the pioneer of Methodism, and proved himself a worthy herald of the cross amongst the New Zealanders. A warm friendship existed between the two. On his passage homewards he was a guest at Parramatta; and no tinge of jealousy ever appears to have shaded their intercourse, each rejoicing in the triumphs of the other. Still Mr. Marsden's position afforded him peculiar facilities, and having once undertaken it, the superintendence of the New Zealand mission became, without design on his part, the great business of his life.

He had formed a high—we do not think an exaggerated—estimate of the Maori tribes. “They are a noble race,” he writes to his friend, Mr. John Terry, of Hull, “vastly superior in understanding to anything you can imagine in a savage nation.” This was before the mission was begun. But he did not speak merely from hearsay. Several of their chiefs and enterprising warriors had visited Australia, and they ever found a welcome at the hospitable parsonage at Parramatta. Sometimes, it is true, they were but awkward guests, as the following anecdote will show, which we present to the reader, as it has been kindly furnished to us, in the words of one of Mr. Marsden's daughters:

My father had sometimes as many as thirty New Zealanders staying at the parsonage. He possessed extraordinary influence over them. On one occasion, a young lad, the nephew of a chief, died, and his uncle immediately made preparations to sacrifice a slave to attend his spirit into the other world. My father was from home at the moment, and our family were only able to preserve the life of the young New Zealander by hiding him in one of the rooms. Mr. Marsden no sooner returned and reasoned with the chief, than he consented to spare his life. No further attempt was made upon it, though the uncle frequently deplored that his nephew had no attendant in the next world, and seemed afraid to return to New Zealand, lest the father of the young man should reproach him for having given up this, to them, important point.

The Church Missionary Society, which now had been established about seven years, seemed fully disposed to co-operate with him; and at their request he drew up a memorial on the subject of a New Zealand mission, not less important than that we have already mentioned to the London Missionary Society on the subject of their Polynesian missions. He still lays great stress upon the necessity for civilization going first as the pioneer of the gospel, “commerce and the arts having a natural tendency to inculcate industrious and moral habits, open a way for the introduction of the Gospel, and lay the foundation for its continuance when once received.” “…. Nothing, in my opinion, can pave the way for the introduction of the Gospel but civilization.” … “The missionaries,” he thought, “might employ a certain portion of their time in manual labour, and that this neither would nor ought to prevent them from constantly endeavouring to instruct the natives in the great doctrines of the Gospel.”. “The arts and religion should go together. I do not mean a native should learn to build a hut or make an axe before he should be told anything of man's fall and redemption, but that these grand subjects should be introduced at every favourable opportunity, while the natives are learning any of the simple arts.” He adds that “four qualifications are absolutely necessary for a missionary—piety, industry, prudence, and patience. Without sound piety, nothing can be expected. A man must feel a lively interest in the eternal welfare of the heathen to spur him on to the discharge of his duty.” On the three other qualifications he enlarges with great wisdom and practical good sense.

It is no dishonour done to Mr. Marsden if we say that, in mature spiritual wisdom, the venerable men who had founded the Church Missionary Society, and still managed its affairs, were at this time his superiors. Strange indeed it would have been had the case been otherwise. They listened gracefully and with deep respect to the opinion of one so well entitled to advise; they determined on the mission, and they gave a high proof of their confidence, both in the practical wisdom and sterling piety of their friend, in consulting him in the choice of their first agents. But they did not adopt his views with regard to the importance of civilization as the necessary pioneer to the Gospel. So long ago as the year 1815, they thought it necessary to publish a statement of the principles upon which their mission was established. “It has been stated,” they say, “that the mission was originally established, and for a long time systematically conducted, on the principle of first civilizing and then christianizing the natives. This is wholly a mistake. The agents employed in establishing the mission were laymen, because clergymen could not be had; and the instructions given to them necessarily correspond with their lay character. The foremost object of the mission has, from the first, been to bring the natives, by the use of all suitable means, under the saving influences of the grace of the Gospel, adding indeed the communication to them of such useful arts and knowledge as might improve their social condition.”

The committee's instructions to their first agents in the mission abundantly sustain these assertions. Mr. William Hall and Mr. John King were the two single-hearted laymen to whom, in the providence of God, the distinguished honour was committed of first making known the Gospel in New Zealand. They bore with them these instructions, before they embarked in the same vessel in which their friend and guide, Mr. Marsden, himself returned to Australia: “Ever bear in mind that the only object of the Society, in sending you to New Zealand, is to introduce the knowledge of Christ among the natives, and, in order to this, the arts of civilized life.”

Then after directing Messrs. Hall and King “to respect the Sabbath Day,” to “establish family worship,” at any favourable opportunity to “converse with the natives on the great subject of religion,” and to “instruct their children in the knowledge of Christianity,” the instructions add: “Thus in your religious conduct you must observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, attend regularly to family worship, talk to the natives about religion when you walk by the way, when you labour in the field, and on all occasions when you can gain their attention, and lay yourselves out for the education of the young.”

Mr. Thomas Kendall followed; a third layman, for no ordained clergyman of the Church of England could yet be found. The same instructions were repeated, and in December, 1815, when the Rev. John Butler, their first clerical missionary, entered on his labours in New Zealand, he and his companions were exhorted thus: “The committee would observe that they wish, in all the missions of the Society, that the missionaries should give their time as much as possible, and wholly if practicable, first to the acquisition of the native language, and then to the constant and faithful preaching to the natives.” It is subsequently added: “Do not mistake civilization for conversion. Do not imagine when heathens are raised in intellect, in the knowledge of the arts and outward decencies, about their fellow-countrymen, that they are Christians, and therefore rest content as if your proper work were accomplished. Our great aim is far higher; it is to make them children of God and heirs of his glory. Let this be your desire, and prayer, and labour among them. And while you rejoice in communicating every other good, think little or nothing done till you see those who were dead in trespasses and sins quickened together with Christ.” These passages fully exhibit the views of the committee of this evangelical Society with regard not only to the New Zealand, but also to all their other missions.

Before he left England, Mr. Marsden formed or renewed an acquaintance with many great and good men, Mr. Wilberforce, Sir George Grey,

Sir George Grey was a grandson of the first Earl Grey. His mother was a lady of strong religious convictions, and from her he learnt a simple piety which moulded his character and accompanied him throughout a long life. He originally took holy orders, but afterwards entered public life. As a member of the House of Commons he was regarded as an able speaker and a man of sterling worth. He occupied positions in the Cabinets of Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, and Lord John Russell. When he lost his seat for North Northumberland in 1852, 13,000 working men presented him with a testimonial. He died in 1882.

the Rev. Daniel Wilson (Bishop of Calcutta), the Rev. Charles Simeon, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, Dr. Olinthus Gregory, and others whose names are dear to the Church of Christ. But we must particularly notice the friendship which he formed with Dr. Mason Good as productive of the highest blessings to his friend, and of much advantage to himself.

The life of this excellent and accomplished person was published by Dr. Olinthus Gregory, soon after his death, in 1828. He tells us that Dr. Mason Good, when he became acquainted with Mr. Marsden, had long professed Socinian

The Socinian doctrines, somewhat modified, now are popularly known as Unitarianism. Unitarians were not granted full toleration in England until 1813, about five years after the time referred to in this passage by the biographer. Dr. John Mason Good was well known in his day as a London physician and a poet and writer on philology. He published a large number of books, including “The Study of Medicine.” He was a member of the Unitarian Church of London, and afterwards joined the Established Church.

principles, but of these had recently begun to doubt, while he had not yet embraced the Gospel of Christ so as to derive either comfort or strength from it. He was anxious and inquiring; his father had been an orthodox dissenting minister, and he himself a constant student and indeed a critical expositor of the Bible. He had published a translation of the book of Job, with notes, and also a translation of Solomon's Song of Songs. He saw in the latter “a sublime and mystic allegory, and in the former a poem, than which nothing can be purer in its morality, nothing sublimer in its philosophy, nothing more majestic in its creed.” He had given beautiful translations of many of the Psalms; but with all this he had not yet perceived that Christ is the great theme of the Old Testament, nor did he understand the salvation of which “David in the Psalms, and all the prophets,” as well as Job the patriarch “did speak.” His introduction to Mr. Marsden, in such a state of mind, was surely providential. He saw, and wondered at, his self-denial; he admired the true sublimity of his humble, unassuming, but unquestionable and active piety. “The first time I saw Mr. Marsden,''says Dr. Gregory, “was in January, 1808; he had just returned from Hull, and had travelled nearly the whole journey on the outside of a coach in a heavy fall of snow, being unable to secure an inside place. He seemed scarcely conscious of the inclemency of the season, and declared that he felt no inconvenience from the journey. He had accomplished his object, and that was enough. And what was that object, which could raise him above the exhaustion of fatigue and the sense of severe cold? He had engaged a rope-maker who was willing, at his (Mr. Marsden's) own expense, to go and teach his art to the New Zealanders.”

As a philosopher who loved to trace phenomena to their causes, Dr. Mason Good endeavoured to ascertain the principles from which these unremitting exertions sprang; and, as he often assured his friend, Dr. Gregory, he could trace them only to the elevating influence of Divine Grace. He could find no other clue; and he often repeated the wish that his own motives were as pure and his own conduct as exemplary as those of Mr. Marsden.

Chapter IV.

Mr. Marsden took what proved to be his last leave of his native land in August, 1809. Resolute as he was, and nerved for danger, a shade of depression passed over him.

“The ship, I understand,” he writes to Mrs. Mason Good, “is nearly ready. This land in which we live is polluted, and cannot, on account of sin, give rest to any of its inhabitants. Those who have (sought) and still do seek their happiness in anything it can give, will meet nothing but disappointment, vexation, and sorrow. If we have only a common share of human happiness, we cannot have or hope for more.”

A few weeks afterwards he addressed the same lady as follows:—

Cambridge, August 1st, 1809.

Yesterday I assisted my much esteemed friend, Mr. Simeon, but here I shall have no continuing city. The signal will soon be given, the anchor weighed, and the sails spread, and the ship compelled to enter the mighty ocean to seek for distant lands. I was determined to take another peep at Cambridge, though conscious I could but enjoy those beautiful scenes for a moment. In a few days we shall set off for Portsmouth. All this turning and wheeling about from place to place, and from nation to nation, I trust is our right way to the heavenly Canaan. I am happy in the conclusion, to inform you that I have got all my business settled in London much to my satisfaction, both with Government and in other respects. The object of my mission has been answered far beyond my expectations. I believe that God has gracious designs towards New South Wales, and that His Gospel will take root there, and spread amongst the heathen nations to the glory of His grace.

I have the honour to be, dear madam,

Yours in every Christian bond, Samuel Marsden.

The ship Ann, in which he sailed, by order of the Government, for New South Wales, had been some time at sea before Mr. Marsden observed on the forecastle, amongst the common sailors, a man whose darker skin and wretched appearance awakened his sympathy. The man was wrapped in an old great coat, was very sick and weak, and had a violent cough, accompanied with profuse bleeding. He was much dejected, and appeared as though a few days would close his life. This was Duaterra,

Ruatara. The biographer's spelling of the name has been maintained throughout.

a New Zealand chief, whose story, as related by Mr. Marsden himself, is almost too strange for fiction. And as “this young chief became,” as he tells us, “one of the principal instruments in preparing the way for the introduction of the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity into his native country,” a brief sketch of his marvellous adventures will not be out of place.

When the existence of New Zealand was yet scarcely known to Europeans, it was occasionally visited by a South Sea whaler distressed for provisions, or in want of water. One of these, the Argo, put into the Bay of Islands in 1805, and Duaterra, fired with the spirit of adventure, embarked on board with two of his companions. The Argo remained on the New Zealand coast for above five months, and then sailed for Port Jackson, the modern Sydney of Australia, Duaterra sailing with her. Duaterra had been six months on board, working in general as a common sailor, and passionately fond of this roving life. He then experienced that unkindness and foul play of which the New Zealander has always had sad reason to complain.

As soon as civil government was established, the Maoris were treated with justice, consideration and kindness.

He was left on shore without a friend and without the slightest remuneration

He now shipped himself on board the Albion whaler, Captain Richardson, whose name deserves honourable mention; he behaved very kindly to Duaterra, repaid him for his services in various European articles, and after six months' cruising on the fisheries, put him on shore in the Bay of Islands, where his tribe dwelt. Here he remained six months, when the Santa Anna anchored in the bay, on her way to Norfolk Island and other islets of the South Sea in quest of seal skins.

The restless Duaterra again embarked; he was put on shore on Norfolk Island at the head of a party of fourteen sailors, provided with a very scanty supply of water, bread, and salt provisions, to kill seals, while the ship sailed, intending to be absent but a short time, to procure potatoes and pork in New Zealand. On her return she was blown off the coast in a storm, and did not make the land for a month. The sealing party were now in the greatest distress, and accustomed as he was to hardship, Duaterra often spoke of the extreme suffering which he and his party had endured, while, for upwards of three months, they existed on a desert island with no other food than seals and sea fowls, and no water except when a shower of rain happened to fall. Three of his companions, two Europeans and one Tahitian, died under these distresses.

At length the Santa Anna returned, having procured a valuable cargo of seal skins, and prepared to take her departure homewards. Duaterra had now an opportunity of gratifying an ardent desire he had for some time entertained of visiting that remote country from which so many vast ships were sent, and to see with his own eyes the great chief of so wonderful a people. He willingly risked the voyage, as a common sailor, to visit England and see King George.

The Santa Anna arrived in the river Thames about July, 1809, and Duaterra now requested that the captain would make good his promise, and indulge him with at least a sight of the king. Again he had a sad proof of the perfidiousness of Europeans. Sometimes he was told that no one was allowed to see King George; sometimes that his house could not be found. This distressed him exceedingly; he saw little of London, was ill-used, and seldom permitted to go on shore. In about fifteen days the vessel had discharged her cargo, when the captain told him that he should put him on board the Ann, which had been taken up by Government to convey convicts to New South Wales. The Ann had already dropped down to Gravesend, and Duaterra asked the master of the Santa Anna for some wages and clothing. He refused to give him any, telling him that the owners at Port Jackson would pay him in two muskets for his services on his arrival there; but even these he never received.

Mr. Marsden was at this time in London, quite ignorant of the fact that the son of a New Zealand chief, in circumstances so pitiable, lay on board a South Sea whaler near London bridge. Their first meeting was on board the Ann, as we have stated, when she had been some days at sea. His sympathies were at once roused, and his indignation, too; for it was always ill for the oppressor when he fell within the power of his stern rebuke.

“I inquired,” he says, “of the master where he met with him, and also of Duaterra what had brought him to England, and how he came to be so wretched and miserable. He told me that the hardships and wrongs which he had endured on board the Santa Anna were exceedingly great, and that the English sailors had beaten him very much, which was the cause of his spitting blood, and that the master had defrauded him of all his wages, and prevented his seeing the King. I should have been very happy, if there had been time, to call the master of the Santa Anna to account for his conduct, but it was too late. I endeavoured to soothe his afflictions, and assured him that he should be protected from insults, and that his wants should be supplied.”

By the kindness of those on board, Duaterra recovered, and was ever after truly grateful for the attention shown him. On their arrival at Sydney, Mr. Marsden took him into his house for six months, during which time Duaterra applied himself to agriculture; he then wished to return home, and embarked for New Zealand; but further perils and adventures were in prospect, and we shall have occasion to advert to them hereafter. For the present we leave him on his voyage to his island home.

The Ann touched on her passage out at Rio Janeiro, and Mr. Marsden spent a short time on shore, where his active mind, already, one would suppose, burthened with cares and projects, discovered a new field of labour. The ignorance and superstition of a popish city stirred his spirit, like that of Paul at Athens. He wrote Home to entreat the Church Missionary Society, if possible, to send them teachers; but this lay not within their province. From a letter of Sir George Grey, addressed to him, it appears that he had interested some members of the English Government in the subject, and that while at Rio he had been active in distributing the Scriptures.

But he was now to resume his labours in Australia, where he arrived in safety, fondly calculating upon a long season of peaceful toil in his heavenly Master's service. His mind was occupied with various projects, both for the good of the colony and of the heathen round about. His own letters, simply and hastily thrown off in all the confidence of friendship, will show how eagerly he plunged, and with what a total absence of selfish considerations, into the work before him: