up before him as he reclined amid the fragrant koempferas, whose large stemless purple and white flowers rise in crowds from the bare earth without a leaf, typical of the resurrection; while the stream, whose noisy, bubbling sources had been his pathway through the gorges, resting at his feet in a quiet cove, and formed a transparent baptistery, encircled by an amphitheatre of floating water-lilies, where thirty-four of those for whose salvation he had prayed and laboured were baptized in his presence. When they looked to place him in that canoe that was waiting for him, 'he was not, for God had taken him.' "
The first supposed Christian convert of Australia was a fine lad, the particulars of whose death I read in the early Sydney papers of 1804. In the very year of the foundation of the colony, 1788, a little abandoned Native child was found by a prisoner of the name of Watt, who kindly took charge of the little thing, naming him James Bath. The Gazette, noticing his death, December 15, 1804, adds that he "gave proof of Christian piety, fervently repeating the Lord's prayer shortly before dissolution." At a missionary meeting held in Sydney, in September 1822, there were sitting on the platform two Christianized Aborigines,—the fruit of private religious exertion.
Not to multiply instances, but to show the adaptation of the aboriginal mind to receive a higher faith, one more case may be mentioned. It is that of Edward Warruban, brought to England by Governor Eyre, and confided to the Christian care of that distinguished philanthropist Dr. Hodgkin. He very soon died of consumption. Of his character his excellent friend writes: "We found him a peaceable and innocent character, and we do not remember, at any period, his ever having intentionally done wrong. In meetings for worship. Scripture readings, and other serious opportunities, his deportment was thoughtful and suitable for the occasion." About an hour before he expired, he exclaimed, "The white robe! oh! the white robe!"
Tasmania had its Christian monuments among the dark skins. I was much affected with the story of one dying in Christian hope at Oyster Cove; and the last Protector of the Aborigines, Dr. Milligan, will forgive my saying that I learnt, to his honour as a man, that he was not ashamed to kneel weeping beside the dying Tasmanian, who was calling upon Jesus as his friend.
