“All these are great evils, I grant: but from which of them are the Castles likely to suffer so much as by remaining here? Their country affords no kindly home for them. They will be disgraced in the eyes of their kindred by becoming a public burden; and their father’s house long ago passed into hands better able to keep it up than theirs. They leave little behind that they love; for want has chilled their affections towards their country, and hardship is fast breeding hatred to the powers which have not hitherto succeeded in securing the happiness of the people.[people.] As for the rest,—they are going to a fine climate a fertile soil, and among inhabitants who speak their language, and are under the same government with themselves. While they have plenty and independence before them, and leave only want and woe behind, I cannot think there is any cruelty in assisting them to go whither they wish.”
“But, Sir, you are assuming that they must prosper abroad and be destitute at home; whereas I assert that neither the one nor the other need be the case. Look at the Swan-river settlement! There was no end of the praise we heard of the climate, and the soil, and the facilities of every kind; and yet where was there ever a more complete failure?”
“Through these very facilities the failure happened,” replied Mr. Jackson. “Land was so cheap, and required so little capital to be laid out on it at first, that every labourer chose to have land, instead of letting his labour to capitalists. The consequence was, that capitalists could do nothing for want of labourers; and by the time their goods were rotted on the beach, and their cattle had strayed or died for want of proper care, the provisions they took out with them were consumed, the new crops had not come up, and all were reduced to equal distress. It was because all would be capitalists at first that all became labourers,—and very poor labourers, at last. This need not be the case again; and, in fact, the Castles hire themselves by contract to capitalists long settled in the parts they are going to.—And now tell me why it need not be that these people should be exposed to want and woe at home.”
“Simply because they might be colonized here instead of abroad. I am sure we have waste land enough and to spare for all our population.”
“As to space, undoubtedly; but what say you to its quality? Why is it still waste in the midst of a hungry population, if it is worth being tilled?”
“Let us try whether it is not; that is all I ask. Send the Castles, and twenty other families to me, and let us see whether corn will not come up upon well-dug ground, as it has ever done till now.—Remember that the condition of land varies under the influences of nature, and that soil once barren need not remain barren for ever. Nature works,—more slowly it is true,—but not less surely than man, in preparing the waste for his support; and there is always a point of time, sooner or later, when he may take the work out of her hands and feed upon the fruits of her ministrations. Wherever there are furrows, wherever there are mounds, there is a growth of fertile soil. Particles of sand are brought by the winds to mix with decaying herbage. Minute seeds of plants and the decomposed elements of vegetable substances float in the atmosphere, are arrested by the first elevation they come in contact with, and settle down to enrich the land. The vegetation which springs up attracts the moisture of the air, and thus is fertility again promoted. It spreads and spreads till a desert becomes a field, or in a condition to be made one. O, you may trust to nature to provide for man!”
“I question nothing of what you have said,” replied Mr. Jackson. “On the contrary, when I preach of Providence, I use as arguments whatever processes of co-operation and amelioration we can distinguish among the workings of nature, from the counteracting forces by which the planets are retained in their orbits, to the method by which the crevice of the rock exchanges, in due time, its carpet of moss for a crest of branching oaks. But nature is slow in her workings; and since the life of man is short, his business is to work with her, not to wait for her. Every acre of ground may in course of ages become capable of tillage; but our business meanwhile is to place our hungry brethren where nature’s work is forwardest. Among the many grades of fertility prepared by her, it is our wisdom to choose the highest. This is what I preach as the truest gratitude to Providence.”
“I have rather wondered, I own, at the style of your preaching lately. It would strike a stranger as unusual.”
“I do not preach for strangers, but for my own flock; and if they are not enlightened enough to apply abstract principles, I must help them to do so. I must not only tell them to be honest, but show that honesty can scarcely subsist under overwhelming temptations to theft and fraud. I must not only recommend the domestic affections, but warn against turning them to bitterness by rashly incurring the risk of that destitution under which parents and children learn to look coldly on each other. I must not only speak of gratitude to God, but show how it may be made to spring up by distributing to all a share of his gifts, instead of being starved out by want and woe. If, as I believe, it be true that hardness of the lot brings hardness of the heart, and that blasphemy is a disease of the spirit-broken, how can I and other ministers of the gospel promote its influences so well as by teaching how to bring about that state of society which is most congenial to those influences?”
“Yours is a more likely way to gain your object than theirs who carefully separate the interests of the other world from those of the present.—Well! I am about to preach to the same effect by my actions as you from your pulpit.”