In the same spirit he presented the Wesleyan Methodists with a valuable piece of land on which to erect a chapel, at Windsor. This act of Christian charity was acknowledged by their missionaries in a grateful letter. Mr. Marsden's reply is full of warmth and feeling. "You express your acknowledgment for the ground at Windsor to build your chapel and house upon. I can only say I feel much pleasure in having it in my power to meet your wishes in this respect. To give you the right hand of fellowship is no more than my indispensable duty; and were I to throw the smallest difficulty in your way I should be highly criminal and unworthy the Christian name, more especially considering the present circumstances of these extensive settlements, 'where the harvest is so great and the labourers are so few.' ... The importation of convicts from Europe is very great every year; hundreds have just landed on our shores from various parts of the British empire, hundreds are now in the harbour ready to be disembarked, and hundreds more on the bosom of the great deep are hourly expected. These exiles come to us laden with the chains of their sins, and reduced to the lowest state of human wretchedness and depravity. We must not expect that magistrates and politicians can find a remedy for the dreadful moral diseases with which the convicts are infected. The plague of sin, when it has been permitted to operate on the human mind with all its violence and poison, can never be cured, and seldom restrained by the wisest human laws and regulations. Heaven itself has provided the only remedy for sin--the blessed balm in Gilead; to apply any other remedy is lost labour. In recommending this at all times and in all places, we shall prevail upon some to try its effect; and whoever do this we know they will be healed in the selfsame hour. I pray that the Divine blessing may attend all your labours for the good of immortal souls in these settlements." His private charities displayed the same catholic spirit. His disinterestedness was great, and his only desire seemed to be to assist the deserving or to retrieve the lost. He was not foolishly indifferent to the value of money, as those who had business transactions with him were well aware; but its chief value in his eyes consisted in the opportunities it gave him to promote the happiness of others. Hundreds of instances of his extraordinary liberality might be mentioned, and it is probable that many more are quite unknown. The following anecdotes, furnished by his personal friends, will show that his bounty was dealt out with no sparing hand.