react again as causes and excuses for
keeping them at still greater distance than ever. And however natural,
however necessary, a distinction of ranks is and must be in every
society of men, yet nothing can be more unnatural or mischievous than a
system of dividing men into _castes_. Unhappily, this division, the
fruitful source of all kinds of evil feeling, has to a great extent
prevailed in our penal colonies; and nothing, it may be boldly asserted,
except religion will ever root it out. Attempt to continue the exclusive
privilege of _caste_ to the free population, and you sow the seeds of a
servile rebellion. Open your hands to give concessions and privileges to
the emancipists, and you scatter good seed upon the stony rock, you
vainly endeavour to satisfy the daughters of the horse-leech. But infuse
a christian feeling into all classes, get them to meet in the same
church, to kneel at the same table, to partake in the same spiritual
blessings, and then you may hope that all, whether free or emancipists,
will feel themselves to be members of one another, portions of the same
body, held in union of heart and soul by means of the same head; "for by
One Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or
Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink
into One Spirit."[203]

[203] 1 Cor. xii. 13.

After all that has been stated respecting the three great classes into
which society in Australia is divided, it need scarcely be added that
the taste displayed by many of the inhabitants of the metropolis of
New South Wales is none of the purest or best. Gay equipages, dashing
horses, tandems, and racers, are among the favourite exhibitions of
the wealth of the emancipist. For music or paintings but little taste
prevails in Sydney, and for books, except those of a very low and
worthless character, there is no great demand. A fine house, a fine
carriage, fine horses, plenty of spirits to drink, appear to be thought
the chief goods of human life; and among persons in every class, the
acquisition of money is the one great object. Indeed this last passion,
the love of gain, can scarcely be mentioned among the perverted habits
by which the Australian colonies are infested, since it seems scarcely
possible that the worship of Mammon can be practised more openly or
carried much further than it is in the mother country. Yet the
temptations to prefer gain to every thing else are unusually strong