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.