Morriss, state school teacher; and a native camp, occupied by natives who decline the accommodation of the huts. [Illustration: CHURCH, SCHOOLHOUSE, AND ENCAMPMENT AT LAKE TYERS.] There are many missions to the blacks. How far is the race capable of Christianity? On such an issue only one who has closely studied the natives can pronounce an opinion. If there is any one person who is more entitled to be heard on the subject than another, it is the Rev. F. A. Hagenauer, who has had nearly a thirty years' experience with the Australian black. Mr. Hagenauer came to Australia in 1858 as a Moravian missionary to the aborigines, and has been engaged in his self-denying labours ever since. Recently he has associated with the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, and he has acted--without any stipend from the state--as manager of the Government aboriginal station, Ramahyuck. The following letter speaks for itself:-- ABORIGINAL MISSION STATION, RAMAHYUCK, GIPPSLAND, _January 30, 1886_. DEAR SIR,--I gladly comply with your desire, to furnish you with some reliable information as to my views and experiences among the aborigines in reference to their capability of understanding and receiving Christianity as a power to change the hearts and lives of these people. The beneficial influence of true Christianity, through the progress of education and civilisation, has worked a wonderful change in the lives, manners and customs of the blacks. Any one not acquainted with their former cruel and most abominable habits, but knowing them only as now settled in peaceable communities, would scarcely believe that the description of heathen life which the apostle Paul gives in the Epistle to the Romans was a correct picture of their mode of life. Given to the continual licentiousness of their carnal minds, they were slaves to their lusts and passions, which, working with their superstitious and cruel nature, made them ever ready, and their feet swift, to shed blood. Without a settled home, they wandered about from place to place in a most miserable and depraved condition, adding to their native vices drunkenness and other evils, which they had learned from white people. The different tribes, either from superstitions or family quarrels, or from violation of tribal territory and the sacred surroundings of their dead, were at continual warfare; and their fear of revenge by secret enemies was sometimes terrible to behold. Their howling noises for many days and weeks before and after the deaths of their friends and relatives, which told but too plainly that they were without hope in this world, were most pitiful to hear, and the disgusting scenes in connection with their nocturnal corroborees cannot be fully described. Added to this came the tormenting custom