1859 - "Uncle John" Hints to Colonists - [Text] p 5-36

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HINTS TO COLONISTS.

BY "UNCLE JOHN."

NEW ZEALAND:

WHY IT IS A GOOD COUNTRY:

BECAUSE during the shortest days, men can work from seven in the morning till five in the evening by the genial light of Heaven.

Because during twelve months in the year men can cultivate the soil, neither oppressed by the heat of summer nor prohibited by the frosts of winter.

Because during the twelve months the soil will yield its fruits for the food of man and beast-neither scorched by the sun, nor buried in the snow.

Because in New Zealand according to the Governmental returns the sickness and mortality among Britons is less by ten per cent, than in any other British military station in the world.

Because in New Zealand a man with small capital can easily obtain a good farm, a comfortable homestead, and be contented and independent for the remainder of his life.

Because the industrious man and woman can obtain a maintenance and save a surplus, without becoming the slaves of their masters.

Because both the climate and productions of the country are so adapted to the constitution of Anglo-Saxons, that their posterity are not likely to deteriorate physically and mentally, but to retain their characteristic powers in full vigour and lasting development.

WHY NOT A GOOD COUNTRY TO SOME:

BECAUSE they purchase too much land and make use of too little.

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Because they embarrass themselves by borrowing money and bills instead of depending upon their own energy and perseverance.

Because they speculate too much and work too little.

Because they do not steadily stay in one place and mind one thing. "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is the man that wandereth from his place."

Because they are more the slaves of drink and pleasure than the masters of any handicraft.

Because they live by chance and whim, and become the dupes of unprincipled men--and regard not the God who made them and the Saviour who redeemed them...... "Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments and his statutes. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant." -- Deut. viii.

COLONIZING.

THE history of Colonization involves much of the history of the world. Mankind were at first confined to one country, to one only garden, and to a single pair, --the original parents of the whole family. By their Creator's mandate they were subsequently sent forth into the wilderness, to till the ground from which they were taken. Because of their sin He pronounced that potent law, the force of which every tiller of the soil for six thousand years past has been compelled to feel, --"Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; till thou return unto the ground; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."-- Gen. iii. 17-19.

Under that primeval and irrevocable law they went forth from Eden, and faced the toils and sufferings of

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colonization; they and their posterity, living hundreds of years, and spreading themselves far and wide, and penetrating deep into the untrodden recesses of the unknown desert; until in the lapse of 1,600 years--in which men lived rather than died--the world was probably more completely inhabited than it has ever been since. Those antedeluvian men had nothing before them, nothing to their hand, but the native soil, -- branded by the malediction which trod on the heels of sin and pre-occupied every acre of the earth. The deluge crisis came. The fountains of the great deep were broken up--the windows of heaven opened. The world and its occupants were submerged--and "all flesh died that moved upon the face of the earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and of beasts, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man; all in whose nostrils was the breath of life; of all that was in the dry land died." The earth herself found a watery grave in company with all her children. But at the voice of the Creator she came forth again, and after 150 days the dry land appeared. The whole world now presented its naked surface before four men and their four wives who went forth to occupy the land, to increase and multiply, to replenish the earth and subdue it. They were dowerless colonists. The entire capital stock, which was to begin a world's business, was stowed in that single ark which floated to the top of Ararat. But they despaired not. They offered sacrifice to God, and went to work. Ages rolled on, nations were formed, cities arose, and empires were founded--cities whose hoary antiquities have come down the stream of time to adorn our museums, and to brace up our courage, as we, under better auspicies, go forth to form the empires of another and perhaps more glorious hemisphere.

The people whom Joshua, 1000 years after, led over Jordan were the most wealthy settlers the world ever saw--enriched by the spoils of Egypt, they entered upon Canaan and occupied cities which others had built to their hands, and became the owners of lands, vineyards, and olive-trees, which others had planted. But

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such is not the normal method of colonising. That was special and extraordinary--the result of a stupendous interruption of the ordinary flow of events on the part of the Moral Governor of the nations.

The populous and warlike cities of Northern Africa, which sent Hannibal to Europe, were founded by a few refugees from Phoenicia, who had nothing with which to begin life but the land upon which they settled.

The foundations of Rome, and Greece, were laid by the sturdy hands of men who possessed nothing but enterprize and labor. And Great Britain, the mistress of the world in its prime, owes its origin to Phoenicians, who coasted 4000 miles in the search of tin; --to adventurers across the North Sea from the shores of Northern Europe, --and to Christian refugees from the Pagan persecutions of Southern Europe--who in the first and second centuries settled in the barren highlands of Scotland, the mountains of Wales, and the remote peninsula of Cornwall. These last simultaneously laying the foundation of the British Church and Empire--four centuries before Rome had sent Augustine and his forty monks.

In the year 1682, on the 4th June, William Penn took ship and went to America, and founded the Colony of Pennsylvania. He went in the true spirit of a Christian hero, commending his wife and family (remaining for a time in England) to the Providence of God; and thus he exhorted his children; --"Betake yourselves to an honest and industrious course of life, not of sordid covetousness, but for example, and to avoid idleness. If you marry, mind neither beauty nor riches (so much) but the fear of the Lord. Know well your in-comings, and your out-goings may be the better regulated. Love not money nor the world--use them only and they will serve you; but if you love them, you serve them, which will debase your spirits as well as offend the Lord." Language such as this would excite a sneer in some of our modern adventurers, --but the name of William Penn will be revered by tens of thousands while theirs is written in the dust. He was a right man to found a

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new nation. The men who first peopled New England were of the same stamp. Staunch, well-principled men, whom no temptation could seduce to vice and dissipation, --industrious men, whom no difficulty could daunt, temperate men ever prepared to think and act with all the powers of their nature; in a word they were men of integrity, always able and willing to cope with obstacles, and occupy the post assigned them with ability, integrity, and perseverance.

Their country is now grown up into a new world, with elements of lasting stability and greatness, and with a rapidity of advancement of which the history of mankind gives no parallel.

And yet the main features of their conduct were such as we may copy in ourselves, and then pass them on to future generations.

We have no need to wish for greater abilities or more favorable opportunities. Success depends less on extraordinary powers than upon the diligent improvement and use of those we have; and there is no reason why we should not succeed as well in New Zealand as colonists have in the other lands, which from equally small beginnings, have grown to empires. We have land equal to that of most other countries which have yet become peopled, and a climate never surpassed by any. Our situation is equal for the southern hemisphere to that of Great Britain for the northern; and when the young Anglo-Saxon nations around us in America and Australia shall have come to maturity, our commerce and literature and power may compare with hers.

If any of us are disposed to complain of the country, it is either from unhappy circumstances which will

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soon pass away, or from a distorted view of what a new country must always be, or from the want of the strong and masculine qualities which are essential to a genuine colonist. Men who are destitute of inherent worth--who can only pass current upon the credit of a name, or a family which others have created--men who are adapted rather to enjoy the fruit of other men's skill and labor, --such should have remained at home. Colonists have to found families, to originate fame, and to create honors for their posterity--not to inherit them. Theirs is a stand point--onerous, arduous, self-denying; but, if well maintained and vigorously used, it may he crowned with lasting honor and happiness. We are in a position to give nobility to posterity, rather than receive it from an ancestry. It is ours to make a fortune for ourselves and our children, and not to spend one made to our hand by the ability of others. Let us advance manfully. Not fast, but well. Get money, get knowledge, and with all our getting, let us get the crowning, enduring boon of a good understanding in the fear of the Lord. The honest, upright Christian, who worships God and loves his neighbour, is a good citizen, and he only can make a colonist of the first order. Men of floating unsettled principles, members of no Church, believers in no creed--may float about on the surface of society and be drifted from one country to another; but those to whom future generations will look back with veneration as having founded the nation, and bequeathed to them a name and an honor more precious and enduring than gold, are the men who now quietly occupy the lands, make farms and houses, roads and bridges, and who found benevolent institutions, schools, and churches.

We have taken a venerable, noble calling--that which turns the wilderness into Eden, and makes this desert earth vocal with the praises of its Creator. Let us be worthy colonists. Expect nothing without first earning it, and then sanctify all--both our labor and reward-- by the word of God and prayer. Labor only makes an animal; faith alone a fanatic; vice a devil. But labor

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and religion make a man who may be a colonist of the first order, ranking with the long line of worthies which adorns every country, and reaches throughout all time from Adam to the last true Colonist.

CHARACTER IN THE COLONIES.

IT has often been remarked by persons in the streets of Auckland, and written in letters to friends in Europe, "that character is of no use in the Colonies, and that a man may do equally well, with or without one." If the remark be true, it is by no means creditable to the taste and purity and good judgment of the community. It is surely a matter of some consequence whether a workman be able or unable, clever or a dolt. It is also of importance whether a man can be set to do work with confidence that he will finish it, or with the fear that in a week he will desert it for a drunken orgasm.

It is of some account whether his language be honest English, or so profane and filthy that children and young persons must be kept away from him as from one who has a contagious moral pestilence. Where the sons of the employer have to work in company with the workmen he employs, it is of serious consequence to their pure and manly character through life, that they should have pure and manly persons to work with: for as it is of moment that a school teacher should exercise a sound influence and present a correct example to the pupils, so is it scarcely of less consideration that the men chosen to work with young persons who have but recently left school, should not corrupt and debase the minds and habits of lads, who are now even more in danger than they were before, or perhaps ever will after.

If character be disregarded, and a man without one be deemed as trustworthy as another with--then will the honest and honourable British workman be nothing preferred before the escaped ticket-of-leave convict or the smuggled swindler from London.

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Surely the man who brings with him a letter from a person or persons known and esteemed in England, Ireland, or Scotland, for honour and truth, for twenty or thirty years, ought on his arrival here to he trusted and respected in preference to another, who, for aught that appears, could not find in Europe a single man of character to vouch for his conduct.

There are men floating over the surface of the world utterly devoid of character. They have failed in England, failed in America, and failed, or are to fail, in New Zealand. There are some who have fled from the fetters of justice in half the round of the British Colonies, and are in hopes that they shall also flee from them again. Before a man is trusted, he ought to he tested, and it is a great advantage when his antecedents for ten or twenty years are not a mystery.

If it be deemed right and wise to accept the remark as an ethical postulate, "that a man without a character is equal to another with," then our Auckland ethics will be quite another thing from the recognised social principles of Old England, and the Mother-country may in future years find in New Zealand what the Times newspaper once said was in Australia, "the dust hole of the three kingdoms."

In point of fact, CHARACTER ought to he more carefully investigated, and really valuable men should he more prized in a new country than in an old--because of the greater facilities in the former for detecting and exposing upstarts, and because of the great importance of men of real worth where every kind of virtue and skill is of the utmost utility in the formation of society, the construction of companies and associations for the development of the hidden or very partially known resources of the land.

And after all, it will in the long run be found out that character is of the highest value to the persons who arc known to be worthy. Let a man open any kind of business in Auckland, and sell for successive years only good articles worth the money he charges for them; let him never in any instance depart from

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strict honesty in his dealings; and he will become trusted and followed; he will never want a name and a trade. Let a tradesman always do his work well, and do his best to give satisfaction to his employer, and in course of years ke will be in a far better position than the reckless contractor. Let a professional man do unto others as he would that others should do to him. Let him advise in truth not expediency--and he will inevitably prove the truth of the old adage, --"Honesty is the best policy."

THE MORALS OF A PEOPLE.

NO one will deny that morality is of the first importance to the general weal of a community, whether it be a nation, a city, or a family. If the health of men, women, and children, who make up the population of a town or a nation, is essential to their well being, much more so is their moral purity.

Were half-a-dozen of our streets seized with typhus, cholera, and the plague, these were not so truly terrible as the moral pestilence of falsehood, profaneness, drunkenness and lewdness. An upright man, prostrate under malignant disease and afflicted in his body only, will certainly recover, either by throwing off the disease itself, or by departure from the body into a pure and happy state; but he who is possessed of deceit, profanity, or uncleanness, is seized of a malevolent spirit from the eternal world which will keep possession of his inmost soul, and defy all the powers of nature and art ever to cast out.

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Nothing is so ruinous to the common welfare as bad morals. Deceit destroys confidence, and in the absence of self-control--which intemperate habits and impure indulgences inevitably destroy--men become monsters, more to be dreaded than tigers.

It cannot be said that the immoral man is so to himself alone, and that others have no right to intermeddle or complain.

If a contagious and deadly disease were rampant in the town, no one would dispute that the healthy had cause to purify the stagnant places, and to protect themselves from the plague. The profligate not only robs the community of the valuable services they might otherwise render, but they haunt their neighbours as the most loathsome spectres upon earth; they pollute the young streams of life and infuse poison into the heart of society; they increase the public taxes by filling our hospitals and jails, and by rendering it needful for the general safety to keep up an expensive staff of police, and other appliances, that society may not be utterly destroyed. It cannot, then, be disputed that with the bad morals of men and women, the rest of the people have right to interfere in order to limit the public taxation in the way of both voluntary charities and legalised demands. But I am not now pleading for a coercive interposition of the law, in order to prevent what, if permitted to take place, it must always punish, but am simply asserting the right in equity of investigating, exposing, censuring, and condemning, as an injury and a pest to a town or country, the vices of men and women of abandoned character and habits. They are not, injustice to others, at liberty to throw off the restraints of sobriety and chastity, and are honestly amenable to the bar of an upright and honest public opinion. The vices which claim the liberty to flaunt and stagger about our streets in the sight of our daughters and young children, and that too on the Sabbath day, are obtrusive tyrants which imperatively call for the frown and stigma of every good citizen.

And if private individuals who keep only to their

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own personal vices are thus open to the blame of others, what can be said of those whose passion or boldness, whose love of gain or pride of power, have hoisted them into the very pulpits of wickedness, and made them advocates and pleaders for the devil, --men who make a trade of the sins and sorrows of their fellow men, --- who even feed themselves and their children upon the means which deprave and destroy a large portion of the children of others.

There are regular business establishments which live and fatten upon the falls and follies, the debauches, the crime-inducing habits of the weakest and worst of mankind blended together in one school of abominations, where every bad passion, every destructive lust, every deteriorating and debasing habit are taught and stimulated to the utmost maturity. And there are men to be found who do not scruple to live in such houses, and to bring up daughters and sons in the pestilential atmosphere which breathes about them. And for what end can a reasonable man or woman be induced to pass by the honorable calling of an honest farmer, a common labourer, or even a scavanger, to go down to the very lowest of all human trades, that he might rake up gold from out of the wasted fortunes, the emaciated health, and the inhuman habits, yea, the lost souls of the sons and the daughters of other fathers and mothers.

Does he wish to bring up his family in that mode of life, or in that class of society? Will his children grow up to be such men and women as will give him pleasure and satisfaction in his declining life? I knew a youth who seduced the daughter of his father's friend and then forsook her. She engaged herself as a decoy at a low hotel, and as a dancing girl at night. She returned to her mother with a wrecked constitution and polluted soul. The mother went mourning to her grave. The father became frantic, and in three days died.

Another man purchased a public house, and placed his newly-married son there, to get rich upon the worst habits of his customers. The house was of course a place of resort to men

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from all countries and whose past history cannot be known. What harm in the young wife serving them over the counter with nobblers? It is all in the way of trade. And she must be civil to the patrons of her Husband's trade, and his father's house. Freedoms grew up and matured. She deserted her husband, and he, disgusted with what he had seen of life, sought oblivion in the very slums of society, and gave himself up for lost.

What frightful risks do men run for a fortune! and how seldom they get one. And when they do, the curse dogs them to their graves, and then haunts their children to the second and third generation till all is wasted. But the inward curse which every man of base habits creates within himself and transmits to others, is most terrific. Not only is he undermining his physical constitution and slowly committing self-destruction, but he is by the same process vitiating the noblest powers of his human nature, inducing feebleness and imbecility of intellect, and above all sapping the very foundations of his moral faculties, and rubbing out from his soul by the strong hand of his own vice the last trace of the divine image, and burning deep into his immortal being the brands of infamy, the stains of everlasting pollution.

Then the children of such parents. Suppose a fortune is bequeathed them, --bequeathed with its concomitants! --a lust for the same vices and a feebleness to resist them, even when well instructed, are transmitted from the inmost life of the parent to the springs of passion and thought in the soul of the offspring; - even idiocy, and a thousand other maladies, which in three-fourths of the dismal cases that afflict our world flow from the corrupted fountains of life, in the demoralised nature of base parents.

The sins which revel in the haunts of drunkards and harlots, poison the very blood, and pollute the fountains of thought and passion, and pass from one generation to another till moral feeling is extinct, and children are born with their bodies full of loathsome diseases, their

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minds destitute of natural vigour, their souls predisposed to vices which would in a few ages utterly waste and destroy mankind. Let it he well pondered, that base characters not only destroy themselves and pollute their companions, but they curse posterity both in their bodies and souls, with an augmenting curse which nothing, but the very religion they always hate, can ever stop.

But I will not pursue the subject.

TO NEW COLONISTS. --No. 1.

THERE is something in the undertaking of a genuine colonist new and striking. He is not a man soulless, vapid, inane. But he has character, ability, and purpose. He does not leave the home of his fathers and sail half the circle of the globe without consideration. Not accustomed to make fool's bargains at home, he would not barter his country without due thought and serious consideration. He left an old country for a new. He does not expect to find here the combined advantages of both. There were houses, furniture, neighbours, social institutions, roads, railroads, telegraphs, and a vast variety of conveniences and comforts which an old settler almost forgets. England was once a new country, and her present state of maturity is the growth of ages. The colonist leaves home to aid in making another England. The work is great and arduous; it is romantic; it is nobler than a campaign against the Chinese. Here is land, water, sun, and air equal to any. In these primary provisions of the Creator New Zealand will compare with any lands yet occupied by man. There is not an aristocracy with parks and castles; there is no public workhouse in which men can be employed as paupers. There are only a few thousands of men who came here with little or nothing beyond muscle, skill, and will. Self dependent, they put down a hut upon their own land, they tilled it, fed a few fowls, a pig and a cow. In a

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few years their piece of wilderness had become a fenced farm and garden. Others purchased land near them, and now the farms are flourishing, and the farmers are happy in a prosperous and independent community. In other countries towns have gradually been formed in this way, and the original settlers have become men of immense wealth, and in some instances of great influence. But New Zealand is yet young. There is only the land and water, the sun and air. That which made American and Australian towns and farms and mines was toil and skill. Auckland has been so made by men who have lived in huts and tents, and slept sometimes in a fern-bush. They did not expect to get anything out of the country for which they had not first laid it under obligation to their labour and skill. Had they landed and done nothing till some one better off had taken them by the hand, they had perished of starvation. It is well for a real man to be thrown on his own resources so as to fetch out all the latent ability within him. We look with interest on the men who came here when there was no town to be near to, and when the nearest town was 1,500 miles off, with which they could scarcely communicate once in twelve months. The men who can found a city are more worthy to become the aristocracy of a new country than the men who can only live in one after it is made. The men who can only think of a place where others have built houses, made streets, dug wells, and erected bridges, piers, schools, and churches, are good men for the English parlour and ball room; but they are not good colonists. Some have come looking only for an easy life, short hours, and high wages. They were shortsighted men. They may get these, but the entire case for the colonist to consider involves more than these. Where everything has to be done by some, all should calculate on doing their share. Standing for nice situations, with easy work, is not common sense. The wilderness must be cultivated by hands, houses must be built, and every other department of service in raising a country into happiness and prosperity must

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devolve on MEN--the drones should return to England. What good is it for a man to stay to be idle and drunken, to seek employment and then not do it, and to grumble and complain that there is not some way of getting money while he sits in the hotel and saunters in the streets? The true genius of a manly colonist is bold, enterprising, self-relying, enduring, contriving, and indomitably persevering.

He who seeks a situation takes a subordinate rank, and he should not dictate his terms in a spirit too high for the lower grade he has chosen. There are many men who have been long enough in the country to get a house and premises or farm, who have little or no money--but they have a house and food. A stranger coming to one of these and demanding high wages, is at once told, "Don't want anyone;" when, at the same time, there are many things about his place which he would be glad to have done if it were not for the serious sum of money he has to engage to pay as wages, before he has any security that his work will be properly done. A new comer would serve himself well in many instances by engaging himself for a short time for such remuneration as would only give him a present maintenance and enable him to show that he was a really valuable man, or to gain experience for his own use. And it is only necessary to show ability and heart in the services the country requires, to secure adequate and ample pay.

Read of the first settlers in New England. Mark their remote and lonely region--the severity of the climate, the dangers from the Indians. These colonists were men. No small-talk about "Wages only 5s. a day;" no whimpering because there is no land to be had within 25 miles of town--there was the land, and there were the Pilgrim Fathers. They went to work--the forest yielded before the axe, the Natives softened before Christian kindness, the "desert rejoiced and blossomed like the rose," and a new British empire was

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founded. Half a century ago, some sturdy Scotchmen went to the snowy forests of Nova Scotia; --their toils and endurance were such, as, had they only looked upon, would have turned some immigrants into pillars of ice; --but these men flinched not, but succeeded, and raised up noble-hearted men and women. Some of these attracted by the superiority of the New Zealand climate have lately come here. They have gone to a block of land a day's journey from Auckland, and in the short space of four years have got up comfortable houses, smiling crops and laughing children--and some of these men came down to the last land sale and paid down their hard-earned cash to secure additional acres near to their little farms.

Six months ago a farmer came here, bringing with him fourteen men as labourers--out of these one is now in debt and grumbles, because he is a frequent visitor at the hotel, but twelve others arc in good health and spirits, and have saved a good sum of money, while the farmer has a valuable farm, which will soon be all under cultivation.

Most of the leading men in Auckland, were here at first without a home, and without friends or money; but they have laboured, contrived, and saved, until they are now worth thousands of pounds. Some of these have encouraged others to come to the country, honestly believing that the same happy results would reward their labours as have crowned their own. There is every prospect of this. There are always some of gloomy minds, and perhaps, with bad livers, who see everything as through a smoked glass; but to those who regard this country as designed by the Great Creator to be peopled by civilized men, there is the utmost confidence that He will reward their toils while they obey His command: "Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." Let us, who have lately come, try, by doing His will, and trusting His Providence, and we shall not be mocked.

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TO NEW COLONISTS. --No. 2.

YOU have left the land of your fathers, crossed the wide ocean, and landed on the shores of a new country --on the opposite side of the earth. This cannot fail to be regarded as one of the most important events in your life, and it must have an impressive bearing both upon your future character and history--and upon your everlasting destiny. You can adopt a different course of action from that which you pursued at home, or you can pursue the same. You can choose good companions, and shun the bad: or you can refuse the good, and choose the evil. You can easily foster habits of intemperance and irreligion--or you can avoid the hotel, and repair to the house of God. In a word, you can adopt a line of conduct which will certainly lead you to ruin here and hereafter; or you can prepare for happiness present and everlasting What will you resolve upon? Will you choose wisdom and happiness, or folly, sorrow, and death? Suffer the following advice from one who has conversed with many hundreds on their arrival in other Colonies, who has observed their progress to happiness or ruin, and who feels the deepest desire for your welfare. New Zealand is a fair country, and men can be comfortable and happy here, but not without care and pains.

Be careful what company you keep. Don't regard a man as your friend because he came in the same ship; but if you found him wicked--then avoid him, or he will deceive you, and perhaps be your ruin.

Don't take up hastily with a stranger, because he has been some time in the colony, and is forward to give his advice; but rather suspect him the more for his forwardness. Avoid public houses and hotels, and especially those in which gambling is practised. Many of those places are schools of vice, and dens of wickedness. Shun free concerts and balls. These are free indeed! --Free to the worst of men and women. Do not go to them-- even with a master or a brother. If he invites you to such places, he is himself a fallen man--be cautious of

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him. If you cannot prevent him, he sure not to go yourself. Let nothing induce you to take a step that way. It is the way to certain misery and ruin. Many a brother has led another who had just arrived--from step to step in sin, till both have been utterly ruined. Refuse to join trades unions, and all combinations of men which require them to meet at drinking houses. Many of these are got up entirely by the innkeepers, for the purpose of getting men to buy their drink.

If you are a female--beware! As you would avoid the most deceitful enemies of your sex--if you abhor the very lowest companionship, dread the most poignant distress--sorrow without a friend--disgrace without sympathy--and death in despair, --then flee the snares of the midnight ball and the free concert. If possible, take a situation where you know that religion is respected, and stay not where there is no fear of God. Where there is no reverence for God and his worship, you are not safe--Satan rules there--and soon, he may lead you captive at his will. Let no wages, no gilded prospects, entice you from a safe and Christian family to the dangers of the gay world.

Whether male or female, young or old, --don't stand for high wages, because an old resident says he gets more than is offered you; but go to work at once, and if you at first receive less than you actually earn, in a short time you will be in a position to make better terms with your employer. Be rather anxious to show your worth than to tell it, for when your employer feels your value he will not easily part with you--and the full value of your services will soon be made certain.

See that you place the Colony under positive obligations to your labor or skill, before you venture to dictate terms of remuneration; for she is like adamant under the hammer of discontent, and only jars the hand that wields it. But, at the same time, she is kind and genial to the labors of industry and the attention of genius. In the one case you can only gain vexation and chagrin; but in the other you will reap sixty and an hundred fold of satisfaction and reward.

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If you have a little money, dont he in a hurry to invest it, nor to ask advice too freely what to do with it, but deposit it in a savings' bank, and let it remain there till you have learned by observation how to invest it. Take a situation, though it be--as with English ideas you will call it--less respectable than your former calling; and be diligent, economical, and careful. You may then be sure that quiet industry, temperance, and perseverance, will be most certainly rewarded in New Zealand by plenty, and in all probability by wealth. If you brought testimonials of character, as I hope you did, take care of them, and let your conduct here answer to them, as face to face in a glass.

"Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy."--God is here as he was in England, and His eye is upon you as closely, and He will hold you to the same obligations as at home. Let nothing weaken the impression of eternal truth upon your mind. Keep sacredly in memory the example and advice of your parents, teachers, and esteemed ministers, now far off, and whose voices you may never hear again, till you meet them at the Judgment of the great day. Don't neglect the public worship of God; but, for the sake of your soul, attend it with conscientious regularity and seriousness. Religion will be your safety, and the greatest enjoyment of your life. Keep up the habit of reading the Bible and of private and family worship. Don't put off these duties till "you are settled." You may not be settled for a year or two--and by neglecting your soul till then you will, in all probability, lose the taste for religious duties, and form decided habits of irreligion and sin.

If you were a member of the Church of God at home, go, without delay, to the Minister and get your name enrolled, and enter at once into communion. But if you were not, then give your heart to God, and join the church, lest you grow more negligent and careless, and lose for ever the taste and the power of religion.

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Should you reside in a part of the country where there is no provision for the public worship of God; then obtain a quantity of tracts, and distribute them; try also if you cannot yourself commence the ordinances of religion; invite your neighbors to the reading of God's Holy word, and if possible, sing His praises, read a sermon, and come before Him in solemn prayer. Be encouraged by His own promise-- "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst." --Matt, xviii. 20; and again, "In all places where I record my name, there will I come unto thee, and I will bless thee." --Ex. xx. 24. Having succeeded in gathering a small company, you communicate with some Minister of Christ, and with his co-operation, you will probably become the instrument of establishing the worship of God for future generations. Some persons complain that a Minister never visits them, when they have never informed one that they exist.

In a word, let your arrival in a new hemisphere be the occasion for newness of life. "Cease to do evil, learn to do well." Begin at once--put forth all your efforts to be regular in the use of the means of grace-- and pray earnestly, and day by day, that God may preserve you from evil, and make you a blessing in New Zealand. Then will your life be happy, and your death peaceful.

TO OLD COLONISTS.

IT is a remarkable and rather curious fact that some men, who have overcome very great difficulties themselves, have but little or no sympathy with others who are still in the struggle. The disposition to disregard the struggles of others, because we have overcome, is however far from generous and right. It implies a vanity and self-praise which do not belong to the higher order of men. The man who has risen from an inferior

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rank, and now confines his sympathies to the higher, is deficient in the finer virtues that adorn human nature, cement society, and strengthen nations. "Look not every one on his own things, but every one also on the things of others," is a law essential to the formation of a prosperous community, and what is most beneficial for the entire people, will redound most abundantly to the profit of the wealthy, who have always the largest share in the general prosperity.

The selfish principle is short sighted and often self-ruinous. In some new countries, land is bought up and held on for years, without improvement, with the hope that through the labour of others in the vicinity, the property will increase in value, and that in time a fortune will be obtained.

Many men have purchased land beyond their means, and have no money left to make any improvements. In our opinion it were much better to purchase less and use it. The proprietor would obtain quicker and more abundant and satisfactory returns, and he would have the means at command for employing others who may be unable to form settlements themselves, and so facilitate their period of independence, at the same time that he produced an article for consumption or export. The large land buyers who expend nothing in advancing the country--who grow no crops, make no roads, build no houses--are dependent parasites, who ought to be compelled by law to share in the expenses of advancing the country in whose prosperity they will so largely, but undeservedly, share. Other men labour and they enter into the profit of their labours.

Now that many persons have lately come from the home country to settle here--it is our duty to receive them heartily, to encourage, and, if possible, to assist them. Not pauperise them--they do not require that-- they would not receive the treatment of paupers, --but they should have employment. Many of them get it at once, and keep it without the loss of a week for three months together. But those who are not skilled, or cannot at once fall into the work of the country, are not at once

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employed. Let not the old Colonists needlessly refuse to give employment to men when they ask. Look round the place and see if there is not something out of repair, some improvement that can be made, or some contrivance, practicable and useful to you, and within the power of the applicant to carry into effect. Take time to talk with him, read his letters, ascertain wherein his value lies, then, if it be possible, employ him. You have at least done yourself no harm, and you have done him good. Give no gratuities, no money, without work. The man who looks for it is radically, morally unfit to be a colonist. Some have men in their employ who have earned money enough to be beyond the pressure of daily dependence--and some can spend occasional days in drunkenness, --these last might well be dismissed in favour of a more worthy as well as needy new-comer. Now that many immigrants have arrived, and more are coming, it behoves us who are able to meet their case as far as it lies in our power, without interfering with their freedom or independence.

Let houses be improved, and others built, gardens and orchards laid out, farms fenced, water courses cleared, and whatever else may be done to preserve, improve, and finish the properties we possess. Let us resist the temptation of the next land sale, and spend the money on what we already have. Let us consider whether some articles cannot be cultivated, which are now imported, and others exported which are now but little known. To those who have obtained wealth in the country, it is a moral duty to spend a due proportion of their leisure and income in advancing the general interests of the land which has raised them from comparative poverty to real affluence; and duty is invariably either sooner or later the most remunerative. If, for instance, we improve our present properties by employing those who cannot immediately settle on land of their own, we at once advance the value and general appearance of the neighbourhood by the improvements we make, and hasten the settlement of other families and the creation of townships, by the wages we pay to men,

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who, as soon as they have saved enough, will become settlers themselves, and so enlarge continually the populated circles.

Some men discourage the new-comers. This is simply cruel. Think of men without a home, without a friend, and perhaps with nothing to do, haunted day and night by the gloomy pictures drawn in the dusty chambers of dark minds, --"the land is bad," "There are no roads," "the scheme will fall through," "you should have staid at home." We have even met with some who have thought, or at least have said, that the climate is bad! Think of a man deliberately talking so to mothers and children on their arrival here with the set purpose of robbing them of their chief comfort--Hope. Employ them and speak kindly--but don't croak and whine to them. If men will talk at random, let it be with a pleasant countenance and in hopeful tones. No good can be done by discouraging the freshly arrived immigrant, who cannot leave, even supposing they had been better off in Britain. Rather take them round the town, show them the houses, tell them, "this man came here with £100 seven years ago, and now he lives in that house of his own;" "that man came here six years ago without a shilling and is now worth £200 a year." Then walk out with them to Remuera and show them the farms there, and say, "a few years ago this land was all fern and scrub, and inferior to thousands of acres now open to selection for 10s. an acre, or for the land orders brought from England;" then tell them honestly that "you don't know a man in the Province who, --having been here seven years temperate, industrious, economical and prudent--is not now independent." And then finish by recounting your own past poverty and discomfort, and by thanking God that you now want for nothing but a more thankful heart, and contented mind.

THE "CADUCEUS."

THE good ship rejoicing in this high title has

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just anchored in Auckland Harbour. Wisdom, Power, Activity. Such is the triad intimated in her name. Her people are of the right sort for the Province of Auckland if they are well possessed of this triple genius. Wisdom to make their own observation, see with their own eyes, and judge with their own understandings. Wisdom to shun the company of fools--who know better how to live in a country than to make it--how to spend money than to earn it--how to consume the produce of the soil than to increase it.

This day, a runaway convict from Van Diemen's Land, who has been guilty of mutiny and murder, and, having escaped justice, has moved about unknown among free men for five years past--has been caught! And there are others yet passing in the crowd--of various shades of baseness and crime. They may be met, unknown, at certain public houses, and will be very ready to give opinions and make proposals. Such houses are not good places to find friends and form new acquaintances, or to enter into partnerships and trading enterprises.

Wise men will keep to their own families, and take advice of those whose judgment and integrity they have good reason to trust. I once knew a shrewd old vicar of an English parish, who used to say, that the matches originating at church were generally the best. And do doubt, the church is a better place to find a partner for life than an inn or a playhouse, and those who frequent the worship of God on the Sabbath are more likely to be trustworthy than those who spend the day in sport and intemperance. But, of course, wiise and Christian people will have higher motives for going to the house of God, and will not allow their thoughts to wander from the worship while engaged in it. Yet the most valuable friendships and the happiest unions have originated between worthy persons accustomed to attend the same place of worship.

Our wise Newcomers will take time to consider before they make investments of their money, and will not purchase so much land that they have no money

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left to cultivate it. Some of them will select a piece of land, and go at once to live on it, so that a crop of potatoes, wheat, &c., may he grown at once. And this course will be the best for many to adopt, as there is now only just time to prepare the land, and get in the seed in time to secure a crop for this year. Those who wish to get situations in town will show their wisdom by not being over-particular what work they undertake to do, provided it be honest and lawful, and not in bad and dangerous company. Wages are not the most important thing to be desired. A living with honourable people where friends may be made worth having, and connections formed that may be of lasting importance for comfort and business in future life--are of much greater moment than getting the highest wages. And it will be found out by those who try it, that standing out for high wages will only secure occasional work and no friends, and will at the end of a year produce less money than a more moderate demand and constant employment.

POWER is another attribute of our Caducean friends; and a very important one for colonists. Power to contrive, to economise, to build a house with little cost, to furnish it without expending much money, and live in it contented. Power to dig the land, to fence it in, to sow the seed, and wait for the crop. Power to resist the example and enticements of unprincipled men, who have perhaps spent a fortune of their own, and would be glad to assist others in spending theirs. Power to choose a right road while many others take a wrong-- to judge what is right, and good, and wise, and then to do it in spite of all the world, should they choose a false way. Power to drop all evil habits and all vices which ensnared them at home, and to begin and maintain a wise and prudent course in this new country, --power, in fact, to lead a new life in a new land, and persist in it to the end.

ACTIVITY is the other attribute which I hope to sec in our friends by the "Caduceus." Some men have wisdom, but no power and activity. These make good

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advisers, but they do not themselves act upon their own counsels. Some have wisdom and power, but no action, --and they are as though they were dead, for they bury their talents in a napkin. They have mental power and strength of body, but they do nothing, and are useless. Some men, with a small share of power and wisdom, effect more and prosper more than others with a large share of both. If I were asked what would make a good colonist, I would say, as Demosthenes did about a good speaker, "Action, action, action!"

A colonist must not depend upon the activity of others, but on his own. He must regard himself as placed here by the Great Creator to replenish the earth and subdue it--to clear the land, and add to the food of man and beast. If he is depressed and gloomy, let him work. If disposed to wander and be unsettled, let him conquer that spirit by active industry and persevering labour.

We who have lately come, have no right to depend on others, any more than those had who came first, when there was none to prepare the way before them. We are men upon earth--we must clear and plant it. We must not expect to reap anything in a new country we do not earn. He who wants to live without work, by scheming and taking advantage of the labour and skill of others, is not worthy to be considered a colonist; for if all were like him, the land would remain a desert, and we should all perish for want of the necessaries of life.

New Zealand is to be a fine land, with millions of sturdy Anglo-Saxons thriving in its smiling vallies and on its thousand hills. But it is only wisdom, power, and activity, that will bring it up from the wilderness state. All that could be done to our hand is done. A climate unsurpassed in the whole world--productive soil--abundance of water--and some of the most valuable minerals. Cattle, and sheep, and horses are here, and a town, with other advantages, ready to our hand. Only let us work, and the cattle shall soon

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spread over the islands on cultivated farms, and the valleys, covered over with corn, shall shout for joy.

When anyone grumbles, let us remind him of the cold of the English winter--the squalid poverty of the towns--the potatoes and salt, with seven or eight shillings a week wages in the country--and the stationary state of families from one generation to another. Let us look round Auckland, and know that hardly a gentleman here had anything to begin with ten or fifteen years ago, but the Caducean properties--power, wisdom, and activity; and that these have created the green fields and fruitful orchards, the villas and shops, the spacious drawing-rooms, and elegant furniture. We begin at far greater advantage than they. Their "town" was then 1500 miles off--and they could scarcely hear from it once a year; but we have arrived when a town is built for us within a hundred miles of the land we shall select. They had no regular market either to buy or sell in, but we have in Auckland a market importing from remote countries cheese, bacon, flour, oats, barley, maize, --and a variety of other articles, which can all be produced on our own lands. Let us, then, quickly get to our future homes, and ply our power, our wisdom, our activity, in making farms and gardens-- looking to heaven for prosperity. So shall peace and plenty crown our efforts--and the the name of our gallant ship shall be transferred to our noble country--shall wave in our national flag at the mast-heads of our fleets of traders and whaling ships laden with the abundant produce of land and sea-the sure and ample reward of our own CADUCEUS.

THE LAND GRANTS.

IN other countries land is sold, but in this it is given to immigrants. The motive for giving is to bring population, and convert the wilderness and solitary place into a nation. This plan is not now necessary in Australia, as the abundance of gold was quite sufficient attraction there--nor in America, for that country was

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for ages the only known outlet for British emigration. But the remoteness of New Zealand from the mother country, and the competition of the colonial fields of Africa and Australia, with the near attraction of the valleys of the Mississippi, rendered it needful that some striking feature should mark New Zealand colonization. Hence the religious and almost denominational schemes of Canterbury and Otago arose. Hence also arose the broader and more British idea of giving our acres in cultivable quantities to men adapted by ability and desire to clear and plant them. The men who struck out that thought, sagely foresaw that it carried in it a light which, in the towns and villages of the home countries, should outshine the waving corn-fields of America, vineyards of South Africa, and the gold of Australia and California. And the ships which have lately brought us 500 souls in a fortnight have even surpassed their expectations. An impression has been made not only throughout the three kingdoms, but in some of the less genial colonies, that the Province of Auckland is the place for settlers; --and that conviction has taken hold, not of the lighter and wandering portions of the people, but of an upper layer of society--the industrious--the skilled--the men whose ability and worth have in many instances enabled them to save a few hundreds of pounds--the very men whose integrity and uprightness, whose power and perseverance, qualify them both to originate and exalt a nation.

Immigration is, however, always a difficulty--sometimes a hardship--and those who undertake the business of a colonist, counting the cost, do not fail to calculate on drawing heavily upon their patience and endurance. The Pilgrim Fathers who, nearly three centuries ago, landed from the "May-flower" amid the thickets and dense woods of Cape Cod, without a living soul except the savage Indians to receive them--without shelter from the harsh blasts of winter till they had built one--those men had counted the cost; and when lighter minds and inferior men would have grumbled themselves to death, they spent their first Sabbath un-

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der the forest trees in singing hymns and in prayer, and on the six days they laboured and did all they had to do. And now that an Empire, second only to Great Britain in vastness and energy, has grown up, the posterity of those noble men celebrate the anniversary of their landing under the honorable distinction of "Forefathers' day." There are difficulties for us in settling in New Zealand; but not the greatest. No dangerous Natives-- no freezing to death. No gloomy dread of being years without a sail in sight, or the arrival of a single visitor. The work of all colonists is of course up-hill work. But our hill is less steep and rugged than other hills; and like that of all our fellows, our work is free, of our own choosing, and the fruits will be all our own. But staying in Auckland and spending money in self-indulgence, or listening to those who "talk fast" against the country, and the land, and the Government, is not colonising. Gathering up a party of fifty or one hundred persons, and selecting a quantity of land at the entrance of some kindly waters, fifty or one hundred miles from another settlement, and going to live and labour upon it--this is colonizing,

But there appears to be a difficulty in the minds of some of our new friends as to where they shall select their lands. That, of course, is their own difficulty. Had there been only one block offered, there had been no hardship of choice between many; but as every man can select his few acres out of some thousands in different parts of the Province, either inland or coast-land, hilly or level, forest or fern, flax or ti-tree; the advantages of a large choice should not excite complaining that the variety is perplexing--but satisfaction that the field is so large and varied. "But the Auckland capitalists buy up the best lands." Some of it they do; but even for the very best, the "free-grant men" can compete with them in the lot, (and many have thus beaten the capitalist); though they had much better make a selection from the many thousands of acres which are open to them without any competition; and

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no doubt some of the lands so opened are as good as those for which many compete, for the run for a block does not always arise from a well-founded opinion that it is really superior. The wisest and safest way, perhaps, is for a party to agree to send two or three of themselves, with the guide which it appears the Provincial Government would provide to accompany them, to inspect and report upon some block open for selection, and let the whole party bear the expense; and then, having made choice, let them go off together, and build their small dwellings, helping each other as Colonial neighbours cordially should do.

And our Auckland patriots, who, having grown rich, feel that they should be also prominent, could hardly find a work more worthy their wisdom and benevolence, or even more remunerative for their efforts and capital, than that of taking the lead of a large party of persons who should obtain and settle upon a new district of the country, founding another town, and bringing thousands of acres into cultivation, and producing such provisions 1 as are now imported from other countries at enormous expenditure of capital which might be well retained here, and find beneficial employment in the development of the numerous resources of our own Colony. There is at this moment ample scope for the formation of settlements which, in the future, cannot fail to become of the first importance

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for agriculture, grazing, sheep-farming, and especially for whaling and general commerce, on the rivers and estuaries and ports which give entrance to those large tracts of land which are already available for the purpose in the interesting littoral districts, situated to the north of Auckland. Here is an object worthy the intelligence, ability, and money of men who owe their distinction to the country they would serve: an object which would prove a blessing at once to hundreds of men who are not in a position to take the lead in such a movement, but who would be happy indeed to follow those whose character and experience and wealth both qualify and warrant them to lead.

Thus would they fulfil the designs of the Creator, and become the founders of new ports, towns, and groups of farms--would be at once able to establish the means of education and worship--and thus would they escape the worst evils and the greatest hardships of colonial life.

INTENDING EMIGRANTS.

PERSONS in the home countries who in future may intend to come to the Province of Auckland, should be advised by their friends here to enter into combinations of fifty or one hundred individuals, or twenty or more families, with the intention of settling on the same block of land. An agent should be sent out from England, or some one already here appointed by them, to select the land and make application to the Provincial Government to have it set apart as "Special Settlement" land for "immigrants expected to arrive." It would be well for each party to comprise men of some capital, say from £400 to £1000 each, also artizans and farm labourers. They should also bring a School teacher and a Minister of Religion. In order to carry such a plan into effect it would be requisite for the immigrants, before leaving England, or their home country, to obtain from an Emigration Agent for the Province of Auckland, the

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land orders in the form required under the Land Regulations for "Special Settlement." They would thus secure the selection of a location from many tens of thousands of acres, in all varieties of situation; and, in addition to obtaining some of the best land in the most desirable locality for land and water communication, the very fact of a small community being at once grouped upon it, with the prospect of a town, and trade with the capital, and ere long with Australia also, would immediately raise the value of their selection from five to ten-fold, apart from the additional value of the improvements they would make on their forms. This plan has already been acted upon by a number of persons from "Nova Scotia," and they present every indication of a contented and thriving community. Already some of them have saved money enough from their farm produce to enable them to purchase additional land, which they have selected from the portions remaining unsold in their own neighbourhood. It might occur that, on the party arriving here, some one or more of them, looking over the maps in the Land Office, and seeing vast tracts of 30,000, 50,000, and 60,000 acres, each actually open for selection, and still larger districts in course of transfer from the Natives in various parts of the Province, might be tempted to regret that he was previously limited to one block; but all such temptations should be resisted, for the advantages of the Grouping System, and of the subsequent mutual aid in erecting residences, felling trees, &c., as well as the enhanced value of the land, will be great enough to outweigh all other considerations. Of course care should be taken to send a competent and trustworthy person to examine the country and select the block. All the parties should bring their implements, and the Teacher his books and other school requisites. In conclusion, I would only add the inspired words of King Solomon, "In all thy ways acknowledge GOD, and He shall direct thy paths."