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SAMUEL MARSDEN, THE AUSTRALIAN CHAPLAIN AND FRIEND OF THE.
MAORI.
It has been mentioned that the island of Australia was considered as an archdeaconry of the see of Calcutta.

This enormous island, first discovered in 1607 by Luis de Torres, and inhabited only by the very lowest race of savages, appeared to the Government of George III.

a convenient spot for forming a penal settlement; and in 1787 the first convict ships carried out an instalment from the English jails to New South Wales, where the city of Sydney was founded by Governor Phillip.
As usual in those days, the provision made for the moral or religious training of this felon population was lamentably and even absurdly deficient; for it seemed to be considered, that so long as the criminals were safe out of England, it did not greatly matter to her what became of them.

But the power of grace is sure to work sooner or later wherever the Christian name has been carried, and a holy man rose up, not only to fight hard with the mass of corruption in Australia, but to carry on the light to the more distant shores of the Southern Ocean.
This good man, Samuel Marsden, was the son of a small farmer at Farsley, near Calverley, in Yorkshire, and was educated at the free Grammar School at Hull by Dr.Joseph Milner, whose Church History used to be a standard book in the early part of this century.