History affords but few examples of a change such as New South Wales had undergone since Mr. Marsden landed from a convict ship in the penal settlement of Botany Bay in the year 1794. The gold fields had not yet disclosed their wealth, nor did he live to see the stupendous consequences which resulted from their discovery in 1851, the rush of European adventurers, and the sudden transformation of the dismal solitudes of Bendigo and Ballarat into the abode of thousands of restless, enterprising men, with all the attendant circumstances, both good and evil, of civilized life. But Australia was already a vast colony; in almost everything except the name, an empire, self-supporting, and with regard to its internal affairs, self governed, though still under the mild control, borne with loyalty and pride, of the English sovereign. The state of society was completely changed. For many years, the stream of emigration had carried to the fertile shores of Australia not the refuse of our jails, but some of the choicest of our population; the young, the intelligent, the enterprising, and the high principled, who sought for a wider field of action, or disdained to live at home, useless to society, and a burden to their relatives. Large towns such as Sydney, Victoria, Geelong and Melbourne, with their spacious harbours crowded with shipping, were already in existence, and English settlers had covered with their flocks those inland plains which long after Mr. Marsden's arrival still lay desolate and unexplored. The religious condition of Australia was no less changed. All denominations were now represented by a ministry, and accommodated in places of worship not at all inferior to those at home. The Church of England had erected Sydney into a bishopric, of which the pious and energetic archdeacon Broughton was the first incumbent, and the number of the colonial clergy had been greatly increased; under all these influences the tone of social morality was improved, and real spiritual religion won its triumphs in many hearts. Mr. Marsden was now released from those official cares and duties as senior chaplain which once so heavily pressed upon him. Beyond his own parish of Paramatta his ministerial labours did not necessarily extend, and in his parish duties he had the efficient aid of his son-in-law and other coadjutors. [Illustration: PARAMATTA CHURCH.] The one spot on which no cheering ray seemed to fall, the sterile field which after years of laborious cultivation yielded no return, was the native population, the aborigines of New South Wales.