On the 22d, the Bishop pitched the church-tent, "a most complete cathedral, with pulpit, reading-desk, communion-table, rails, kneelingboards, &c. I have fitted it up," he adds, "with boards, resting on trunks of small trees, let into the ground, which the natives cut for me. I have thus provided seats for 200, which were well filled on the following Sunday.

"A lovely site for a church and cemetery has been reserved here. A small mount, rising to the height of 100 feet, in the centre of the little plain on which the chief part of the town stands, and with a flat summit, sufficient for the base of a pine building. The site is already occupied by wooden buildings, convertible into a temporary church and school, at a small expense; and the Company's agent, Captain Wakefield, has consented to let me have them at a valuation; by which means I can at once provide for the reverential performance of Divine Service. In the meantime, I have left my tent, with all its appurtenances, for the use of the Rev. Mr. Reay, the clergyman, who is staying to take care of the arrangements made for the benefit of the natives at Nelson, and to act conjointly with Mr. Saxton, (another clergyman. whom I found there,) in the charge of the English settlers."

Sunday, Sept. 4.-Collected at the offertory 337. for church purposes. Administered the Lord's Supper to seventeen communicants. After church, a native came to me, and, after much hesitation, explained that he had seen the Pakepas (English) giving their money, and wished to give something also, upon which he produced 1s. 6d. as his contribution to the Church.

Sept. 8.-The Bishop quitted Nelson, and arrived at Wellington.* Sept. 10.-Here he was taken ill, and, finding several of his companions also suffering, and two dead, from typhus-fever, he was detained till October 10. A letter written from this place early in October, of which the Bishop speaks, has not been received. other letters, consequently, give no account of the proceedings here,except that he found no suitable place for Divine worship yet erected, and the service for the present performed in a Mechanics' Institute.

His

Oct. 10.-The Bishop commenced his land-journey to New Plymouth, visiting, in his way, Waikanai, the station of the Rev. O. Hadfield, at whose house he rested on the 11th, and the 12th assembled the natives to service. More than 500 had come from various parts, so that the chapel, and the space outside the walls, were quite full. The Bishop adds, "I preached to them, as well as I could, and gathered from their faces that they understood what I was saying. At Waikanai, I saw the preparations for a new chapel, on a large scale. The ridgepiece was formed out of a single tree, and is seventy-six feet in length, --a present from the neighbouring settlement of Otaki, which, till Mr. Hadfield's arrival, was at war with the people of Waikanai, but has made peace, and presented them with this appropriate token of friendship."

Oct. 23-At Waokena, south of Cape Egmont, the western ex

The frontispiece of the present number, showing part of the water-frontage of he town of Wellington, is taken from the Hon. W. Petre's New Zealand, published by Messrs, Smith & Elder.

tremity of New Zealand, native services and schools occupied nearly the whole day.

Oct. 25. At Tengamu. Here the natives assembled in considerable numbers, for evening service, and Scripture questions. After I had questioned them as much as I thought fit, I invited them to ask me their difficulties; upon which such a series of scriptural questions was asked, that our meeting did not break up till ten at night, and then only because I complained that my party were tired, and wanted to go to sleep."

Oct. 28.-Arrived at New Plymouth, situated to the north of Cape Egmont-Nga Motu is the native name of the place, and it lies near the Sugar-loaf Island. Here the Bishop was received by Mr. Wickstead, the Company's agent, and performed the morning service, and preached (Oct. 30,) in a wooden building, prepared for the purpose by him. the following day (in company with the Chief-Justice, who had arrived to meet him,) the Bishop selected sites for churches. Of this place he thus writes:

On

"Oct. 30.-After service, the natives came in such numbers to the mid-day school, that they filled the house and doorways. I am much gratified by the disposition of the people of this settlement, and will endeavour to meet it by zealous endeavours to promote their spiritual well-being. Rev. Mr. Butt will be directed to go as minister of New Plymouth, as soon as possible."

Tuesday, Nov. 1.-The Bishop embarked in the Government brig, and was to proceed to the anchorage at Kapiti, there to land, and to proceed by land to Manawatu River-there to take canoe, and arrive, if possible, at Ahuriri, about Nov. 15, where he expected to meet Archdeacon Williams, and proceed with him to the East Cape. No letters from the Bishop have been received since the one sent from New Plymouth, Nov. 2; but from other sources information has been received of his return to the Waimate, in health and safety, Jan. 9, 1843.

DIOCESE OF AUSTRALIA.

THE BISHOP gives the following testimony to the great utility of the Society in his Diocese :--

Sydney, Feb. 3, 1843.

"Ir is assuredly needless for me to repeat what I have before so frequently acknowledged, that, but for the interposition of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Church could not have continued to maintain its footing in this colony; and, during the past year, owing to the severe losses and privations which the settlers have so generally experienced, it would have been necessary to put a stop to every operation, had I not, by presuming (I hope not too largely) on the continued benevolence of the Society, contrived to keep some necessary works in progress.

OPENING OF A CHURCH DELAYED FOR WANT OF A CLERGYMAN.

"The churches of St. Paul, at Cobbity, and St. John at Mudgee, as I have on former occasions reported, have been completed and consecrated; but it is with regret I am still compelled to state that the latter continues closed, owing to my not having at my disposal the services of a clergyman who could undertake the duties. There is also a good parsonage-house there, complete, and fit for immediate occupation.

"Upon the whole (reviewing the proceedings of the year that is past,) I regard them with satisfaction and thankfulness, and look forward with any feeling but despondency to the future. I must express my thankfulness to God for supplying me, even against hope, with so many diligent and exemplary fellow-labourers among my clergy; and may, without impropriety, offer my acknowledgment in gratitude to the Society for Propagating the Gospel, as having been the most effective human agent in supplying the means of grace to a country in which, not many years ago, they threatened entirely to fail.

"I see clearly, and therefore say with full conviction, that the Church of England is every year strengthening and extending her influence, and is doing so by the most legitimate of means; namely, through the blameless lives, active zeal, and incorrupt teaching of her clergy. Thus proceeding, they are acquiring gradually an improving influence over the hearts and minds of the people, who recognise in them their truest friends and best advisers. More than one-half of the population belongs to the Church of England. As its true nature and object become better understood among them, their attachment to it is increased and confirmed, to their own great benefit. Neither, as I have occasion to learn, by frequent proofs, is a feeling of deep reverence towards the Church of England wanting on the part of very many who yet stand far aloof from her communion and principles of faith."

UNPROVIDED SETTLEMENTS.

THE following extracts from a letter, written by a carpenter, a very honest and seriously-disposed man, who went out from a village in Sussex, to Australia, about four years ago, painfully show the utter absence of all provision for the religious wants of our emigrant countrymen in that district. The letter is addressed to the clergyman of his parish:

"Clarence River, March 10, 1842.

"I am here in a barren land, void of all good, but full of all manner of evil; no place of worship to go to; no friend to converse with; so that oftentimes it makes the Sabbath a dreary day."

After mentioning the birth of a little boy, he says

Having no regular means of christening here, we call his name Joshua."

The same person, writing to his sister, says

"October 25, 1842.

"You desired me to send you word whether we had any place of worship to attend: to which I answer, No,-for this place, of all I ever

met with, is the very worst; I mean as it respects the Sabbath; for the most of this people are belonging to Government, and are assigned out to masters, so that Sunday is all the time they get to themselves, and then they either go to work, or to the public house and get drunk, and then from place to place, revelling about till night."

Emigration without Religion.

PORT PHILLIP.

THE rapid flow of emigration to the newly-formed settlements of Australia is leading to results which it is impossible to contemplate without pain. Thousands of our countrymen have, within a very short time, gone to seek a maintenance in the large pasture districts of that colony, unaccompanied with the ministers and ordinances of religion, and without even the means of education for their children. The consequence has been, in a moral point of view, most deplorable; for while the new settlement has been growing rapidly into outward prosperity, the settlers themselves have been losing, one by one, the habits and the restraints of their christian profession. Without a church, they are fast forgetting the duty of common prayer; without a clergyman, they are cut off from the sacraments; without a school, the young must almost inevitably grow up ignorant and vicious. This is especially the case with those whose occupation forces them into the interior, at a distance from a town.

The following statement of the religious condition and prospects of the population in the interior of Australia Felix (Port Phillip) will show the lamentable consequences of laying the foundations of a new society without religion. The statement is derived from authentic sources, and guaranteed by the signature of the excellent Superintendent of the Colony, C. J. Latrobe, Esq.

Taking, then, a district extending 300 miles, east and west of Melbourne, and 150 miles inward from the coast, it appears that there is scattered over it a population of 8145 British settlers, and 1300 natives. The whole of this large population is "entirely without the ministrations and ordinances of religion," and 1300 of them are literally naked, untutored savages.

Beyond the present limits of occupation, but in stations accessible to the English, there is a further number of 2600 degraded and neglected natives.

Total white population in the Bush.......
Total Black population.........

8,145 3,900

Grand total............ 12,045

The Port Phillip District Committee conclude their Report, from which the above statement is derived, with the following forcible appeal:"This view presents much to excite our sympathies and fears, and to call forth our active exertions to supply at least some of the religious wants of our fellow-Christians in the Bush. Their condition helds out

to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel such a scene of spiritual destitution as called that noble institution into existence, when thousands of our Christian brethren were similarly situated in the North American colonies, nearly a century and a half ago. Worse, therefore, and under more aggravated circumstances of religious destitution than they were then in the plantations, are our Bush population at this present day, in this wide tract of country-without the observance of the Lord's day; without the celebration of public worship; without the ministrations of religion; and without even the occasional visit of a clergyman, either to counsel or comfort, rebuke or exhort.

"Such being the religious condition of the population in the Bush, without any prospect of a better state of things arising out of the efforts of that population itself, the Committee feel that they would be wanting in sympathy towards their fellow-Christians so situated, and also wanting in confidence in the readiness of the Church Societies to render aid, were they not to make known this great spiritual destitution to the Venerable Society, which has already done so much to supply the religious wants of this country. The Committee, therefore, is desirous to second the efforts of their beloved Bishop in laying this statement of the religious destitution of the population in the interior before the Society, and would respectfully solicit such aid as the Society may be able to extend, for the maintenance of religion amongst the scattered members of the Church in Australia Felix, and for the conversion of the Heathen amongst them, whose country God's Providence has given to the British Crown, and whose amelioration and happiness He has confided to British christian benevolence."

INDIA.

THE following passages from the Bishop of Calcutta's recent charge, give a clear summary account of the progress of religion in India :

NUMBER OF CLERGY.

Our entire body of clergy is 95, the number in 1838 having been 69, and when the first honoured and revered Bishop of the See [Middleton,] was in the care of the diocese, 15; so that we have increased, through God's goodness, more than six-fold in twenty years.

NUMBER OF PERSONS CONFIRMED.

The number of young persons who have been confirmed during the course of the second visitation has been 2199; which is 651 more than during the first; and added to the 739 confirmed in Calcutta previously to that period, raises the aggregate 4476. A number not discouraging, when it is considered that the civil and military servants of the Company come out generally after the age for confirmation, and that their children go home long before.

ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH.

The attendance on the services of our church, in the nine churches and chapels in and about Calcutta, was, this Easter, 3922; the com