“Paramatta, August 27, 1833.
“My dear Mrs. Good,—We received Miss Good’s letter, which gave us much concern to learn that you had met with such severe trials.... How mysterious are the ways of God! We cannot comprehend them now, but we are assured, that what we know not at present we shall know hereafter. Our heavenly Father has promised that all things shall work together for good to them that love God, and the Scriptures cannot be broken. He willingly suffers none of his children to be afflicted. In the end we shall find that he hath done all things well. At present our trials may bear heavy upon us, but St. Paul tells us they are but for a moment, and eventually will work for us a far more exceeding weight of eternal glory. Job, when he had lost all his children and property exclaimed, ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ We know Infinite Wisdom cannot err in any of his dispensations towards us, and he will never leave or forsake them that trust in him. I pray that the Father of mercies may support you under all your trials and afflictions. The very remembrance of the pleasure I experienced in the society of your ever-to-be-revered husband is very refreshing to my mind. We often speak of you all, and humbly pray that we may meet again in another and a better world. I am now almost seventy years old, and I cannot but be thankful, when I look back and consider how the Lord hath led me all my life long. I have gone through many dangers by land, by water, amongst the heathen and amongst my own countrymen, robbers and murderers, by night and by day; but though I have been robbed, no personal injury have I ever received, not so much as a bone broken. I have also had to contend with many wicked and unreasonable men in power, but the Lord in his providence ordered all for good. Most of them are now in the silent grave, and I have much peace and comfort in the discharge of my public duty, and I bless God for it. I have visited New Zealand six times. The mission prospers very much; the Lord has blessed the missionaries in their labours, and made their work to prosper.
“I am happy to say my family are all pretty well.... Mrs. M. enjoys her health well at her age, so that we have everything to be thankful for. The colony increases very fast in population; 599 women arrived from Europe a few days ago. Provisions are very cheap and in great plenty. Our number increases some thousands every year, so that there is a prospect of this country becoming great and populous. Your daughter mentions the sheep; she will be astonished to hear that one million eight hundred thousand pounds of wool, were exported last year from New South Wales to England, and we may expect a very great annual increase from the fineness of the climate, and the extent of pasturage.... Wool will prove the natural wealth of these colonies and of vast importance to the mother country also. We are very much in want of pious ministers.... None but pious men will be of any service in such a society as ours.... I should wish to go to England again to select some ministers, if I were not so very old; but this I cannot do, and therefore I must pray to the great Head of the church, to provide for those sheep who are without a shepherd.
“May I request you to remember us affectionately to Mrs. Neale and Dr. Gregory—I pray that you and yours may be supported under every trial, and that they may be all sanctified to your eternal good. I remain, dear Mrs. Good,
“Yours affectionately.
“Samuel Marsden.”
In 1835, Mrs. Marsden died. She had long been patiently looking forward to her great change, and her last end was full of peace. Years had not abated his love for his “dear partner;” so he always called her when, after her decease, he had occasion to speak of her. He showed her grave, in sight of his study window, with touching emotion to his friends, and felt himself almost released from earth and its attractions when she had left it. His own increasing infirmities had led him to anticipate that he should be first removed, and the parsonage house being his only by a life tenure, he had built a comfortable residence for his widow, which however, she did not live to occupy. By this bereavement he was himself led to view the last conflict as near at hand; henceforward it constantly occupied his mind, and formed at times the chief subject of his conversation. He sometimes spoke of it amongst his friends with a degree of calmness, and at the same time with such a deep sense of its nearness and reality, as to excite their apprehensions as well as their astonishment. He stood on the verge of eternity and gazed into it with a tranquil eye, and spoke of what he saw with the composure of one who was “now ready to be offered, and the time of whose departure was at hand;”—his last text before he had quitted New Zealand.
Yet he was not at all times equally serene. Returning one day from a visit to a dying bed, he called at the residence of a brother minister, the Rev. R. Cartwright, in a state of some dejection. He entered on the subject of death with feeling, and expressed some fears with regard to his own salvation. Mr. Cartwright remarked upon the happiness of himself and his friend as being both so near to their eternal rest, to which Mr. Marsden seriously replied with emphasis, “But Mr. C——, if I am there.” “If, Mr. Marsden?” rejoined his friend, surprised at the doubt implied. The aged disciple then brought forward several passages of Scripture bearing upon the deep responsibility of the ministerial office coupled with his own unworthiness; “lest I myself should be a castaway;” “if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;” remarking on his own sinfulness,—every thing he had done being tainted with sin,—on his utter uselessness,—and contrasting all this with the holiness and purity of God. At another time, coming from the factory after a visit to a dying woman, and deeply impressed with the awfulness of a dying hour in the case of one who was unprepared to die, he repeated in a very solemn manner some lines from Blair’s once celebrated poem on the grave—
“In that dread moment how the frantic soul Raves round the walls of her clay tenement, Runs to each avenue and shrieks for help, But shrieks in vain. How wistfully she looks On all she is leaving; now no longer hers. A little longer, yet a little longer. Oh! might she stay To wash away her crimes, and fit her for her passage.”
He then spoke on the plan of salvation and the grace offered by the gospel with great feeling.
The holiness and purity of God appeared at times to overwhelm his soul; contrasting it, as he did, with his own sinfulness, and viewing it in connexion with the fact that he must soon stand before his awful presence. Yet he speedily recovered his habitual peace, recalling the blessed truth that “there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” He was still on the whole a most cheerful Christian, joying and rejoicing in the hope of a blessed immortality. And as he drew near his journey’s end his prospects were still brighter and his peace increased.
CHAPTER XII.
State of New South Wales—The Aborigines—Cruelties practised upon them—Attempts to civilize and convert them—They fail—Mr. Marsden’s Seventh Visit to New Zealand—His Daughter’s Journal—Affection of the Natives—Progress of the Mission—Danger from European vices—Returns in H.M.S Rattlesnake to Sydney.