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finally advantageously married. She now superintends the postoffice and telegraph station of our department. The government of the English colony gives her, besides lodgings, seven hundred and fifty francs a year. All the Protestant journals in Australia have recorded the appointment, and passed the highest encomiums on the mission where Ellen Cuper-that is the name of the young woman-received her education." The above account is confirmed by an official dispatch from the governor of West Australia to the Earl of Carnarvon, Minister of the Colonies:

"No. 9.

WEST AUSTRALIA, GOVERNOR'S HOUSE, PERTH, January 20, 1876. "MY LORD: It will probably interest you to know that the present director of the post-office and telegraph station is a native woman, who a few years ago was brought to the Roman Bishop Salvado. She performs the duty to the complete satisfaction of the postmaster-general. We have, moreover, a more recent example of the happy influence exercised on the natives of West Australia by this bishop. . . . A few weeks before my arrival Ellen Cuper, the postmistress mentioned above, was obliged on account of ill-health to absent herself for a short time from New Norcia, and I began to look about for some one to supply her place. The bishop at once informed the postmaster-general that he had at his house a young native girl, named Sarah Cann, quite intelligent, and able after a few lessons to take care of the telegraph station. I willingly agreed to give her a trial. During my visit to the mission I found her at the office. She was already quite at home in her new position. On my return to Perth I sent her my congratulations by telegraph, and she at once returned thanks in the most courteous terms. . . . I have the honor to subscribe myself, your lordship's very devoted servant,

WILLIAM ROBINSON, Esq., Governor of Perth.

Even in the freedom of their native forests the Australian blacks are by no means the senseless beings, lower than the brutes, nor even the children, that Dr. Lindsay would fain have us believe them. The testimony of Sir Thomas Mitchell on this point leaves no doubt on the question: "The frequent intercourse I had with the inhabitants enables me to speak with full knowledge. I must say that the individuals we come across in the cities are unfair specimens of the race. Those we meet in the forests and immense solitudes of the interior are handsome in appearance and lead a free and happy life. The first one I saw was tall and well-proportioned. His grave demeanor and penetrating look inspired respect. Two white-bearded old men were seated near him before a fire. One of them was most dignified, almost diplomatic, in bearing. He was so observant of decorum that when one of the children spoke a word while I was asking for directions, he admonished him with a slight tap of his long lance. . . . The man who consented to be our guide was smaller and less robust than the others, but he was full of resolution and courage, while his acuteness and rare judgment made him so useful that I always kept him by my side. . . . He spoke little, and always in maxims, which made his sayings easily remembered. This Australian rendered us great services. I should add that his

countrymen are not at all so void of intelligence as is generally given out. Το me, who saw them in their natural condition, they seemed at least equal, in this respect, to the peasants of England.

They are even in advance of these in a certain politeness and reserve of manner and language that makes a very favorable impression."-Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, by Thomas Mitchell, Esq., quoted in the Messenger.

With regard to their asserted ignorance of the very idea of a God, we think the following passage from the published narrative so important, and the remarks made thereon so judicious, as to deserve quotation in full, despite its length: "It is exceedingly difficult,' says Bishop Salvado, 'to ascertain with accuracy the religious notions of the Australian savage.' And yet we hear certain tourists speak of them as matters well known to all. These travelers, without knowing any thing whatever of the language of the natives, spend a few days, nay, perhaps only a few hours, among them, and then come home and tell us that they are perfectly conversant with the manners, customs, and religious ideas of savages who, either through a spirit of mischief or reserve, have always been most reticent with strangers on these points. I am well aware how these truthful travelers pursue their quest for unpublished notes upon the Australian race. We may imagine one waiting for his prey. Along comes a poor native. Our knowledge-seeker pounces upon him. 'Have you a soul?' he asks. The child of the woods is disgusted and shakes his head, as if to say, 'I don't understand your jargon.' Our friend, the tourist, is delighted. He has made a discovery, and down goes the following note in his memorandum book: 'The Australians do not believe they have souls.' You see the thing from beginning to end is simply a mystification. As soon as he returns home his notes, with interesting illustrations, are given to the public, and, sad to say, by such truthful writers as our friend are the majority taught. Bishop Salvado, moreover, adds that the Australians, who are easily inclined to joke, often amuse themselves at the expense of the innocent traveler. One of them being asked the Australian word for water, replied cona, which in their language meant excrement. At another time they gave the generic name of the subject instead of its own specific one." Dr. Lindsay, by the way, asserts that "the language of the Australian blacks contains no word 'to express a general idea' or abstraction. It has no word, for instance, for the notion 'tree."

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"But from Bishop Salvado they concealed nothing. . . . They believe in a being all powerful, who created heaven and earth, whom they call Motogon. This Motogon is a man of very great strength and wisdom, a native of the country, and has the same dusky complexion as they have. When creating heaven and earth, and the waters, and plants, and trees, and kangaroos, he breathed and said, 'Heaven and earth, and waters, and plants, and trees, and kangaroos, come forth;' and they came forth and were created. It is interesting to notice the close similarity between the formula of creation, this breathing, and the words of Holy Scripture, 'Let there be light, and there was light,' as the book of Genesis says in describing the creation. The Australians FOURTH SERIES. VOL. XXXII.-48

also believe in an evil spirit, whom they call Cienga. It is he who excites the fury of tempests; he causes the destructive equinoctial rains; he whitens their children with leprosy and kills them. Thus the savages believe in two principles, the one good the other bad. But, strange as it may appear, Cienga is as much worshiped as Motogon. I have seen them,' writes the missionary, 'in times of dreadful storms curse Cienga as the author of them, then run and put themselves under the shelter of their great eucalyptus trees; but when, despite their cloaks of kangaroo skin, they get drenched by the deluging rain, they become furious and stamp the ground with rage, forgetful of Motogon and Cienga.""

We have said enough to show the gross inaccuracy of the idea of the Australians which is given by "Mind in the Lower Animals." The same, did time and space allow, could probably be done with regard to many other races of whom he gives a no more favorable character. We cannot, however, leave this interesting subject without quoting the following passage from the latest works of an eminent French anthropologist, M. de Quatrefages, relating to the community of wives, asserted by our author of the Australians: "We ought, perhaps, to refer to the idea of property, the manner in which adultery is regarded by some peoples. Nevertheless, even among the most savage tribes, a more elevated feeling, and one which is connected with moral or social ideas, as we ourselves understand them, may be proved often in the clearest manner. The gravity of the punishment incurred by the culprit scarcely permits a doubt that it is

So.

The Australian, uncorrupted by the vicinity of the white and brandy, never forgives one who has destroyed the purity of his wife, and kills him on the first occasion."-Pp. 561–563.

The reader should particularly note the line where an Englishman places the Australian on a level with English peasants. On all this we query: Is Dr. Winchell after all right in placing the Australians at the bottom of the human race, and so at its historical beginning? May not the Samoieds of the Arctic be really as low or lower, and therefore the true originals of humanity? If both lie at the bottom, why may there not be two original races? May not man then be both a tropical and "an arctic animal?" Or if the Samoied is to be held a degenerate variety, why not the Australian? Why not both a degeneration from an Edenic center?

The true conclusion seems to be that the human race is one; and that, surveyed as a whole, it rounds in upon itself exclusively, girt round with a chasin separating it from all other living The highest can pass to the lowest, the lowest to the

races.

highest, in the due conditions. Says Mivart: "Sir John Lubbock quotes with approval from Mr. Sproat the opinion that the difference between the savage and the cultivated mind is merely between the more or less aroused condition of the one and the same mind. The quotation is made in reference to the Ahts of North-western America: The native mind, to an educated man, seems generally to be asleep; and, if you suddenly ask a novel question, you have to repeat it while the mind. of the savage is awaking, and to speak with emphasis until he has quite got your meaning."" And Darwin says: "The Fuegians rank among the lowest barbarians; but I was continually struck with surprise how closely the three natives on board his majesty's ship 'Beagle' who had lived some years in England and could talk a little English, resembled us in disposition and in most of our mental qualities." And again: "The American aborigines, negroes, and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, while living with the Fuegians on board the 'Beagle,' with the many little traits of character, showing how similar their. minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate."

THE CATHOLIC WORLD for June has an admirable article on THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH, containing a very clear view of its origin, history, and prospects, written with candor from the Roman stand-point, and for that reason exhibiting the various phases of the subject. We take the liberty of presenting most of the article before our readers:

In the autumn of the year 1873 a gathering of Evangelical Christians of all lands and all denominations was held in the city of New York, under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance. During the sitting of this conference the present Dean of Canterbury (Dr. R. Payne Smith) and Bishop Cummins, an assistant bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky, partook of the Lord's Supper in a Presbyterian meeting-house-an act which gave great offense to many English and American Episcopalians of the HighChurch and ritualistic schools of thought. The authorities of the new sect inform us that the tempest raised proved to Bishop Cummins that all hope of true catholicity in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America was at an end, so he thought it necessary to resign his office. In his letter of resignation, dated November 10, 1873, Bishop Cummins gave three reasons for his

withdrawal: 1st, the progress of ritualism, which he was powerless to stop; 2d, the conviction that the root of the evil was in the prayer book; 3d, the anti-Christian outcry against the united communion. He concluded his letter in the following words: "I therefore leave the Church in which I have labored in the sacred ministry for twenty-eight years, and transfer my work and office to another sphere of labor. I have an earnest hope and confidence that a basis for the union of all Evangelical Christendom can be found in a communion which shall retain or restore a primitive episcopacy and a pure scriptural liturgy."

Immediately after his secession he proceeded to organize the new communion which he had called into existence; a bishop was consecrated in the person of Dr. Cheney, and a new prayer book was adopted, from which all passages supposed to have a Puseyite tendency were eliminated, something after the mode of that which Lord Ebury and the Prayer Book Revision Society have endeavored to introduce into England. Meanwhile the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, from which he had seceded, held a meeting and agreed that he should be formally deposed. By their canon law, however, they discovered they could do nothing in the matter for six months. The Reformed Episcopal Church was, therefore, well started before the bishops of the other Church had time to degrade their seceding brother-a fact which gave great force to the movement.

It remains to be seen whether it is likely to continue to increase, but there can be no doubt that it has hitherto made great progress. We find from the official report (1879) that it extends from British Columbia and the remote Bermudas to England, that it has five bishops, nearly a hundred clergy, and numbers its communicants by thousands, and that it already possesses a university nobly endowed. It is stated that in England within the last three months the missionary chaplain has inaugurated four Churches, and that its clergy are at work in nine dioceses.

A schism already appears to have broken out in its ranks, for in some announcements we are told that Bishop Sugden is the presiding bishop in England, and in others that Bishop Gregg is the primate. Various recriminating letters have also passed between the contending parties, who apparently are opposed to one another more on the question of jurisdiction than that of doctrine. Attention was drawn to the whole movement in the year 1878 by the charges of two Anglican bishops, (Chichester and St. Albans,) who in pompous language declared that intruders, under the guise of Anglican bishops and clergy, had appeared in their dioceses and performed services that could scarcely be distinguished from those of the Established Church of the country. The appointment and consecration of a bishop in the person of Dr. Toke, who had formally seceded from the Anglican communion after the Bennet judgment, gave rise to much criticism, especially from the fact that his consecrator, Bishop Gregg, had been formerly vicar of a well-known Church

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