of the English congregation of the manded by the spectacle on which we same order, our holy father the general are now looking Where can bondage president of the same order, and to his be more complete? Henceforth the successors in this monastery of St. professed is the mere instrument of those in -, in the county of of the to whom, whatever be their dictates, he same congregation and order, in the pre- has declared he will be, in body and in sence of the very reverend prior mind, entirely subject. of the monks of the same monastery, to The mass is now concluded, and he the faith of which thing, this schedule or returns to the noviciate, to spend the repetition, written and undersigned with mainder of that day, and the two followmy hand, in the year and day of the ing, in silence so profound, that he is month above added.” Here is a solemn forbidden to hear his own voice, even in engagement of unreserved submission to devotion. After three days have elapsed, human authority, which, with the Bible he receives the wafer, or host of the in our hands, it may be said none ought sacrament, and is then conducted by the to exact, or if exacted, none ought to novice master to the calefactory, where yield.

he is introduced to each of the asAs soon as the person being professed sembled brethren, who having offered has read this form, the black pall (that their congratulations, proceed to the which is used for funerals) is brought prior, and ask relief from study for the in, and spread on the ground before the whole monastery. altar; on this he prostrates himself, and Two facts should be remembered as to the sides being thrown over him, he is this act of profession. One is, that since hidden from the view of all present. the year 1829, in which the emancipaThe brethren now commence chaunting tion bill was carried through Parlia“the Long Litany," an appeal to the ment, the profession of monks has Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, been prohibited in England. Still for mercy on the person making this pro- it occurs, and sometimes every year; fession, and to the Virgin Mary, to the the precaution being taken of perangels, and to many saints and martyrs, forming the ceremony, now described, virgins and confessors, imploring their either during the night, or at an early prayers in his behalf. At its conclusion, hour in the morning, when only the he rises, proceeds to the left hand of the initiated are present. The other fact is, altar, on which the mass is still being that the sum paid by each individual, at offered, and there takes the oath of obe- or about the time of profession, is six dience to his superior and successors for hundred pounds, though this is remitted, ever, and also of chastity and poverty. in some instances, from the hope that Placing his left hand on the crucifix, he special service will be rendered to the signs his name in full to the oath he has Romish mission in England. Gold has, taken, prefixing to it the declaration, however, in all monasteries and nun“ Tango crucem"-"I touch the cross." neries a powerful attraction. Strong, in

Immediately after this act, the recital | deed, must be the case that allows it to of which is deeply painful, from a con

be declined. viction that such vows are frequently It might be supposed, that an appetite broken, and that the consequences of for gain would be satiated by the sum keeping them are also fearful, the fol- just mentioned, but still there is the cry, lowing vow is taken :-“I brother Give, give ;" for immediately after in the place of in the county of profession, the individual is required, ac

in England, promise, vow, and cording to an invariable rule, to resign, swear, before God and his saints, that I in a testamentary form, the whole of his will go to the work of the English apostolic property; not only what he has, but mission, and return again whenever and what may be his at any;future time; prowherever the most reverend president of perty, in fact, whether afterwards arising our congregation shall judge expedient, from heirship, from gift, or from accuand shall command: I touch the cross. mulation in the service of the mission, To this are appended the

to the monastic establishment.

As, (Name of the professed.)

however, it is against the English law to Names of witnesses.)

do so specifically, the plan is, to surrenThe state of a slave 'has frequently der such property to two members of the called for the sighs and the tears of true Benedictine order, so that the professed philanthropy: are they not then de- 1 is unable to make any gift, without ren

THE MORAL CHARACTER OF THE
NATIVES OF AUSTRALIA.--No. I.

dering an account to the prior, or, in the head and cheeks with white or yellow prospect of death, to bequeath any thing clay; the more rare dandyism of a bone he has possessed.

or feather drawn through the cartilage of Exorbitant as this requirement is, the nose, and a universal neglect of more still is demanded, (shame—shame dress, except a narrow band of netthat an intelligent and accountable being work about the waist, and sometimes on should ever yield it!) for he must tender the head. to his president, every four years, a Their modes of living are the same. statement of all he has received, all he When successful in the chase of the kanhas used, and how it was spent. So long, garoo, or in fishing, they will eat to too, as he is the inmate of a monastery, repletion, careless of succeeding wants, he has to give in annually, “a bill of while the means of gorging last; but, poverty,” including all he has about his generally speaking, they are abstemious person, or in his cell, even to a pen, in the extreme, and very simple in their a nail, or a small piece of string ; and dietary. Roots of various kinds, and of in such subjection is he to his superior, spontaneous growth, with wild honey, that the prior may demand his key when- lizards, fresh water muscles, fish in geever he thinks proper !

neral, wild ducks, and other water fowl, the emir and the kangaroo, which they flay, and then cover with the skin, as the Armenians cook a sheep, * roasting it

whole with a quick fire over and under The colonization of New Holland oc- it, constitute their food. Temperate in cupies so much of the public attention at their habits, and living at large in the present, that we shall probably afford open air of a delicious climate, they are gratification to our readers, by giving of course exempt from the diseases consome characteristic descriptions of the sequent on a life of luxury, or arising aboriginal natives.

from foulness of atmosphere and deficiAll the tribes have such a general re

ency of ventilation. semblance to each other, as would lead But since disease and decay and death us to deduce their descent from a com- are the doom of erring and corrupt man, mon stock. The researches of some in- these children of nature have their pegenious travellers, however, have led culiar maladies, arising in general from many to suppose, that the natives on the exposure to night air, in unfavourable northern portions of Australia are of seasons, without domestic security, in Malayan, or Asiatic origin, and that the general, from its influences, (unless a other parts of this immense country have rudely-constructed wigwam, formed of been peopled from New Guinea, and are a few boughs and rushes, pervious to of the Papuan (black) race.

rain and wind, can be considered such,) But, without entering into any discus- and from frequent deficiency of food; sion on this subject, or dogmatically as they suffer much from bronchitis, from suming any precise origin for a race of one of the causes first assigned, and mankind, which with varied language from opthalmia, which is probably attrihas the same distinguishing habits, it butable to the sandy nature of the soil. may be remarked, that the difficulties of They rarely attain a green old age, and . migration to New Holland by the islanders know nothing of the honours and the in the North Pacific, may have been sur blessings of the patriarchal life: yet they mounted without great difficulty, and are a cheerful and intelligent people. that some of the inhabitants of Malay, Their dialects vary considerably, so in particular, may have passed to the much so, as to embarrass considerably northern extremity, by intermediate lo- the verbal intercourse of different tribes. cation on Melville or Bathurst islands. The natives of the northern and southern

All the tribes through this vast extent extreniities cannot at all understand each of country have the same peculiarities of other. the savage, in mild and hot climates : It iş to the reproach of all European indifference to the shelter of a hut, indis- nations, that while colonization in pagan position to labour, general improvidence, countries has advanced with rapid strides, love of hunting and fishing, with the while enterprizing ingenuity has introsame methods of killing game; the same duced among them some of the advanpassion for disfiguring the persons with

* Major Mitchell's expedition to the rivers Darscars, and lines painted across the fore- I ling and Murray.

66

tages of civilized life, there has been no | under obligation to ours, and understood anxiety amongst the colonists (commen- them too ; we have made little allowsurate with that which has actuated them ances for the influence of principles diato add field to field) to spread the know- metrically opposed to our own, and which ledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, to have originated a system of conduct in diffuse the blessings of the Christian them which we have no right to condemn, faith

among the benighted sons of Adam, under existing circumstances. We talk in any of those places which we have to them of morality, and we present them wrested or obtained by other means from with a poisoned bowl of liquid fire ;

and the natural occupiers.

while they are maddened by its power, Nor need we revert to those dark pe- we sometimes take advantage of their riods in the records of human guilt, helplessness, and rarely make allowance when the conversion of the pagan was for the acts which they may commit unsought, not in the spirit of Divine truth, der an influence communicated by our by apostles and prophets, and evangelists, designing craftiness or senseless folly. and pastors and teachers, for the edifying We have had too many of our countryof the “body of Christ;” not with "the men, there and elsewhere, under similar whole armour of God,” the “breastplate circumstances, who, though boasting of of righteousness," and “feet shod with being in the light, have not been “blamethe preparation of the gospel of peace," less and harmless, the sons of God, withthe “shield of faith,' the "helmet out rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, perverse nation,” shining as lights in the which is the word of God,” with “prayer world, holding forth the word of life. and supplication in the Spirit,” but with These are no false assertions or ex. the arm of flesh, the sword' of human aggerated statements, but facts which can power, in the hands of ungodly men, be proved, in too many cases, by indisarrayed in the pomp and pageantry of putable evidence. war, ready to destroy those whom God That these people are capable of rehad formed in his own similitude, if they ceiving instruction in evangelical truth refused to embrace the dogmas which is by no means doubtful; and when adethey could not understand, and bow quate attention shall be given to the gedown to the cross, which in their minds neral improvement of their minds, they must have been associated with the ideas will become impressed with all those of oppression and of cruelty.

motives of action which influence in Alas! in our own times, and especially social and civilized life. in the heathen country under consider- The rational system of treatment which ation, the beauteous form of religion, they have experienced from Mr. Dawson, freed from meretricious ornament and in South Australia, and the Hon. George compulsory advances, has not been pre- Fletcher Moore (on the Swan River) sented as it ought to have been. If there who is represented as peculiarly gifted has been there erected an altar "To the for conducting negotiation, and possessunknown God,” him whom they “igno- ing extraordinary aptitude for holding rantly worship” has not been declared intercourse with the natives, is precisely unto then in the degree in which it that which, with the Divine blessing, may might have been expected from a coun- Christianize these people. The latter try which, while (like the pure spirit of gentleman, whose private letters it has Christianity), it broadly and distinctly been our occasional privilege to peruse, repudiates all violent dissemination of is precisely the person likely to afford the word of God, upholds the principle valuable suggestions to the clerical misof being “ debtor both to the Greeks, and sionary who has gone there recently, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to who will probably undertake the interestthe unwise,” in the preaching of the cross. ing though arduous task of instructing

We have often heard these poor sa- these heathens, some of whom have vages upbraided with their treachery, translated the Lord's Prayer into their their dishonesty, their cruelty ; with their own language, with very tolerable appresloth, and ignorance of the distinctions hension of its meaning ; some of them between right and wrong, yet we have are now tending sheep for the colonists : acted towards them, as if they were in and in thus advancing from a state of every respect enlightened in the prac wildness to the pastoral character, they tices of civilized nations ; as if they, who afford reasonable presumption of making are under a law unto themselves, were | further progress to civilization.

a

THE PERAMBULATOR.
THE RIMY MORNING.

around

It does not appear that they have any | these people to hear of Him who is the notion of a beneficent God; their deity resurrection and the life, and the expeappears in unmitigated manifestations of diency of preaching to them Christ cruwrath; they view him as the spirit of cified, him who has “the keys of hell evil only; they know nothing of the God and of death.” of love.

The great principle of sacrificial and On an exploring expedition, under vicarious offering, by the shedding of taken by Mr. Moore, in 1835, he had blood, so prevalent throughout the world, several opportunities of witnessing the is not without its practical illustration superstitious impressions by which the among those people. natives of western Australia are influ- From the memoranda of Mr. Moore enced. They attributed the spiral mo- we have been informed that whenever tion of dust and wind, an ordinary whirl- an injury is sustained, either from an wind, to the agency of a demon, whom unfriendly tribe or an individual offender, they call Ching-ah, and some rheumatic or even when a natural disease occurs, twinges with which they were affected the ceremony of spearing a victim to during the route, to the venom of a bite death, or in a slight degree, or merely from this malignant being. On another for form's sake, according to their systemoccasion, Mr. Armstrong, an interpreter atic code of retaliation, frequently takes of their language, having spoken irre- place. verently of a monster, whom they believe to dwell at the bottom of the Melville river, was entreated not to pronounce the fiend's name, under the belief that he would be drowned if he attempted to Now had I the dancing spirits, the cross the river, from the vengeance of buoyant elasticity of youth, how would the offended god. Unfortunately, in my delighted eyes, and exulting heart, confirmation of their superstition, Mr. revel in the wondrous scenes Armstrong's foot slipped, and he fell me! Even as it is, I can scarcely rein heels over head into the river. They in my ardent imagination, that is ready asserted, with great energy, that he had to spring forward as recklessly as an unbeen so punished for his irreverent al- broken steed. The sharp freshness of lusion to the deity.

the air, the crimp snow beneath the foot, They have a confused notion of a and the novelty of the scene, give an future state; they believe in the trans- hilarity of feeling that is delightful. migration of souls, and are certain that This morning, when I rose, the beauthe white men are the embodied spirits tiful frostwork on the window panes, of their deceased friends. So fully are spelled me with its rich variety of glassthey impressed with this doctrine of re- like foliage, trees and grasses, floods and appearance on earth, that they name many waterfalls, crystal rock work, and landof the white men after their dead rela- scapes of silvery brightness ; and now, tives. How this belief originated, it is in the open air, on the skirt of a wood, impossible to conjecture.

a richer treat awaits me. Every tree, In all the parts of Australia with which shrub, bramble, thorn, and blade of grass we are acquainted, the natives so studio is covered with rime; and look which ously avoid the observation of the white way I will, I am gazing on a world of men, when performing their funeral ob- transcendent wonders. The snow, the sequies, that nothing certain is known frost, and the rime, mingle their several respecting those formalities; they con- attractions. How poor are the pearls on ceal the dead bodies, and bury them with the neck of beauty, compared with the the utmost privacy, in the most seques- coruscations of this spreading hawthorn!

How dim the diamonds, in a monarch's Ululation at wakes is not uncommon. crown, in competition with the myriad Mr. Moore saw the mother of a dead gems that are sparkling on these frosty child clinging to the knees of an old straggling brambles. The most elaboman, who stood apparently unmoved, rate workmanship, the costliest carvings while she muttered a long and mournful of human hands, is a coarse and blunderrecitative, like the Irish Keene, as if ing performance, in comparison with the apostrophizing the spirit of the deceased. more than magical creations that are

These circumstances clearly demon- profusely flung on every brake and strate the predisposition and capacity of brier. Every leaf is, in itself, a study

tered spots.

:

for the reflective mind; every shrub a Who loves not autumn's joyous round,

When corn, and wine, and oil abound? museum, and every bush a cabinet of

Yet, who would choose, however gay, curiosities !

A year of unrenewed decay? The fields around are only partially Who loves not winter's awful form, covered with snow, and the broad The sphere-born music of the storm ?

Yet, who would choose, how grand soever, patches of brown blend not inhar

The shortest day to last for ever?" moniously, in the distance, with the white colour which mostly prevails; the trees

On a pond, which I passed half an are bold and dark in their stems, but hour ago, were assembled two or three faint and feathery in their sprays; and groups of happy-hearted pleasure takers, the sky is grey: neither sun nor cloud, differently employed : six or eight boys neither shine nor shadow is to be seen were rapidly pursuing each other along above the horizon: all is grey, grey, mo

an extended slide : one young man was, notonously grey!

apparently, making his first essay on On my road to this place, I gazed on

skates, for every time he stirred he the different trees and shrubs that adorned manifested fear, whirling his arms in the the gardens and pleasure grounds of the air, ludicrously, to preserve his balance ; goodly mansions by the wayside. The while another, revelling in his conscious dark-mossy, green, flaky-foliaged cy- superiority, called forth the wondering press, with its leaves beautifully edged admiration of those around him, by with silver; the laurel, laurustinus, skating backwards, cutting the outside variegated holly, and ivy, all fantasti- stroke, and forming the figure three. A cally fringed at their terminations, and young urchin had tied, under one of his trees with clusters of red berries on their shoes, a lump of ice, as a skate ; and a leafless boughs ; but one picture, above few girls, and lesser boys, occupied a the rest, spelled me to the spot. I will smaller slide at the far end of the pond. try to describe it.

Winter has its pleasures, and being of a There were plants and shrubs in hardy kind, they brace the framework of abundance on the fanciful parterres which the body, and give elasticity to the spirit. opened right and left from the gate at At the entrance of the wood, here is a the entrance of the ground, and the painted board, denouncing a woe to all snow, and the frost, and the rime, had sportsmen who shall.dare to appear with disposed themselves in every seeming

a gun on the manor, without due pervariety of form on their stems and mission, and against all dogs trespassing leaves. At a distance of a dozen paces

on the preserve.

Sportsmen may take from the place where I stood, rose

warning, and escape the punishment; but dense mass of laurel, so sheltered, that the poor dogs are still unlettered and in its bold green foliage was almost free danger, for though the schoolmaster has from rime, while, in front of it, sprung been so long abroad, they have not rea silver-barked birch tree of the most ceived the benefit of his instructions. romantic beauty. The contrast between

In the hedge of an adjoining field the laurel bush, and the light feathery stands a tall oak, with neither leaf, spray, tree, was singularly striking, nd the nor branch upon it; for the woodman's one furnished the most appropriate relief axe has lopped away all its graceful to the other. The birch was exceedingly appendages, leaving the crooked unbeautiful, and its graceful and elegant sightly stem a spectacle to gaze on: it branches were

so elaborately adorned only wants a crow perched upon the top with rime, that I gazed on the scene with of it, to make it a perfect picture of the extasy. Talk of paintings !-bah !

unnatural and the unlovely in nature. What a blessing has the great Giver

An infinity of spiders must have been of every good thing bestowed, on man; of lines, which are now rendered visible

at work to form the unnumbered myriads in the change of the seasons! It is a boon worthy its Almighty Donor.

by the fallen rime. Trees and brush

wood are covered with a gauze-like man“ Who loves not spring's extatic hours,

tle of unwonted loveliness. A man of

imagination might well be pardoned if, Yet, who would choose, however dear, That spring should revel all the year?

with such objects as these before him, he

manifested a few singularities. He who Who loves not summer's splendid reign, could gaze around him, from this place, Yet, who would choose, however bright,

on the fairy scene, without emotions of A dog-day noon without a night?

thankfulness, must be deficient, either in

a

a

The carnival of birds and flowers ?

a

The bridal of the earth and main ?