most of them, already run a race of prosperity, which, allowing for the recent dates of their foundation, can scarcely be matched in the annals of any nation. Nevertheless, the present form of government is a very great subject of discontent among many of the colonists, and the _want_ of a representative house of assembly in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land appears to give as little satisfaction to many persons _there_, as the _presence_ of such an assembly does _here_ in England.[170] It may easily be imagined what a fine subject for oratory is thus furnished among a mass of people, who, whatever elements of good may exist among them, may, generally speaking, be too truly said to have derived their birth and education from criminals and outcasts. In the midst of a people thus constituted, a press "unshackled by stamps, paper-excise, advertisement duty, or censorship," is doing its daily or weekly work of _enlightening_ the minds of the people respecting their _grievances_; and where, as in Van Diemen's Land, there is said to be a newspaper for every 1666 free persons,[171] the people must indeed bask in the sunshine of political illumination. "The press," it is asserted on good authority respecting Van Diemen's Land, and it is not less true of New South Wales, "The press, with few exceptions, finds ample support in holding up to derision the authorities of the land, and even in the invasion of the sanctity of domestic privacy."[172] The result, however, of this state of things is that, actually, in the colonies of Australia the grievances appear worse, the "wrongs" more galling, and the "rights" less regarded, than even in England itself; and judging from the crabbed tone of discontent prevailing in most of the colonial newspapers, the people who live in a land almost free from taxes, and quite exempt from tithes and poor-rates, can without much difficulty conjure up complaints of taxation and oppression not less piercing than those which are to be heard in a kingdom where taxgatherers, tithe-proctors, and aristocrats, still exist. Perhaps, there is nothing more calculated to make an Englishman tolerably satisfied with the state of things in his own country than the occasional perusal of the newspapers of lands so "highly favoured" in the way of "taxation" or "liberal institutions," as the Australian colonies and the United States of America. The christian patriot looks down with pity upon the strife of tongues and the turmoil of party-spirit which Satan contrives to raise in almost every country under the sun; and while the believer can always bless God's providence for many good things, he expects not perfection in the institutions of mortal men; it is true that "Worldly reformers, while they chafe and curse, Themselves and others change from bad to worse; While christian souls for blessings past can praise, And mend their own and others' future ways."