It was an evidence of the bounteous garden, set by nature
amid a fresh, crystal sea, and wooed by a loving climate.
'By contrast, the convict settlement! The stricken creatures worked in
irons, and when evening came, they were turned into a great court where
they slept. The irons being, in most instances, removed, the quarrelling
and fighting began. I heard of a convict who had been tried for killing a
fellow, during some fall-out. He appealed to those judging him: "I came
here, having the heart of a man, and your convict system, with its brutal
associations, has given me the heart of a beast."'
England built in tribulations--nations! At first we had no better use for
Australia than to moor hulks to it. That was an eddy in the nobler stream
of tribulation which, like the Nile, bore all fertility in its waters.
Sir George Grey sat upon a Mount Pisgah that commanded the past and the
future. He saw the stream, beginning in far-away mist-crowned sources,
roll down the ages. It was a flood of destiny.
'I suppose,' he submitted, 'we all recognise that there are certain
driving forces behind the march of humanity. We may not see them, or we
may merely get a glimpse of them now and then, but they are there, and
always in operation. Providence; that is my word.
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