"These hopeless human beings continue to this day in their original benighted and degrading state. I may even proceed further, so far as to express my fears that our settlement in their country has even deteriorated a condition of existence, than which, before our interference, nothing more miserable could easily be conceived. While, as the contagion of European intercourse has extended itself among them, they gradually lose the better properties of their own character, they appear, in exchange, to acquire none but the most objectionable and degrading of ours. The most revolting spectacle which presents itself to a stranger newly arriving on these shores is the sight of their natural occupants reduced to a state of worse than barbarian wildness, by that fondness for intoxicating liquors which they imbibed from our example; and in a reckless addiction to which they are encouraged by many whose superiority in knowledge ought to have been directed to some less unchristian work."
But the war was raging in the island. Bloodthirsty deeds occupied the minds of both races. The day had passed for such a mission. The hope of Christian men had gone.
The failure, however, of all the public efforts to convert the Aborigines in these colonies is enough to dishearten further enterprise. Missions had been organized in New South Wales from 1826, and all had failed. The Lake Macquarie Mission under Mr. Threlkeld lasted till 1841, and then expired. The Church of England Mission at Wellington lived from 1832 to 1843, costing several thousands of pounds, and failed. The Lutheran attempt seemed at first most hopeful, from the enterprise and self-denial of the German teachers; but it sunk in despair. The Roman Catholic Mission, under able Italian monks, on an island removed from settlers, failed as miserably. The Wesleyan Mission flourished for a while, but suddenly collapsed like the rest. Lately the Government Guardian of the Aborigines at Perth, Western Australia, is forced to acknowledge that the Protestant schools have all failed, and that the once hopeful school of the Sisters of Mercy now only contains six little girls. The Committee of Council, Queensland, in their report to the Legislature in 1861, reluctantly concludes:—"The evidence taken by your Committee shows beyond doubt that all attempts to Christianize or educate the Aborigines of Australia have hitherto proved abortive." The simple-hearted German mis-
