In 1821, at the end of Macquarie's government, there was scattered about in the colony a population of 29,783, of whom 13,814 were convicts, and among these were found ministering _seven_ clergymen of the Church of England, with no bishop of that Church to "set things in order"[126] nearer than the Antipodes,--the very opposite side of the habitable globe! Nor, if we look (as unhappily now in every English colony we must look,) beyond the pale of the English Church, shall we find either Romish superstition or Dissenting zeal working any of their usual wonders. Though the number of Romanists from Ireland was very great in the colony, yet they had, in 1821, only _one_ priest residing among them; the Presbyterians at Portland Head had a catechist only, and with respect to the other "denominations" little or nothing is recorded:--the _establishment_ had taken as yet so poor a hold of the soil of New South Wales, that the _voluntary system_, which seems often to need its support, as ivy needs the support of a tree, had scarcely been transplanted thither. One observation, before we quit for the present this painful subject, forces itself upon the mind. How utterly unlike are the ways of an All-Perfect God from the ways of imperfect fallen men! The King of kings desireth not the death of any sinner, and has wrought miracles upon miracles of mercy to provide for his salvation; whereas man regardeth not the spiritual life of his brethren, earthly monarchs and nations care chiefly about the removal of the offenders out of their sight, and, so long as this is effected, they trouble not themselves about the future lot of those outcasts; money is more willingly parted with for "penal settlements" than for religious instruction, and, although the earthly wants of the criminals are attended to, here humanity stops short;--if their _bodies_ are not cast out to starve and to perish _their souls are_. And who cannot read in holy Scripture the just doom of those that have acted, or are acting, thus? "The wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand."[127] [126] See Titus i. 3. [127] Ezekiel iii. 18.