A GLANCE AT THE ABORIGINES. 177 



state school teacher ; and a native camp, occupied by natives who decline 

 the accommodation of the huts. 



There are many missions to the blacks. How far is the race capable of 

 Christianity? On such an issue only one who has closely studied the 

 natives can pronounce an opinion. If there is any one person who is more 

 entitled to be heard on the subject than another, it is the Rev. F. A. 

 Hagenauer, who has had nearly a thirty years' experience with the 

 Australian black. Mr. Hagenauer came to Australia in 1858 as a Moravian 

 missionary to the aborigines, and has been engaged in his self-denying 

 labours ever since. Recently he has associated with the Presbyterian Church 

 of Victoria, and he has acted — without any stipend from the state — as 

 manager of the Government aboriginal station, Ramahyuck. The following 

 letter speaks for itself: — 



Aboriginal Mission Station, Ramahyuck, Gippsland, 



January 30, 1886. 



Dear Sir, — I gladly comply with your desire, to furnish you with some reliable information 

 as to my views and experiences among the aborigines in reference to their capability of understanding 

 and receiving Christianity as a power to change the hearts and lives of these people. 



The beneficial influence of true Christianity, through the progress of education and civilisation, 

 has worked a wonderful change in the lives, manners and customs of the blacks. Any one not 

 acquainted with their former cruel and most abominable habits, but knowing them only as now 

 settled in peaceable communities, would scarcely believe that the description of heathen life which 

 the apostle Paul gives in the Epistle to the Romans was a correct picture of their mode of life. 

 Given to the continual licentiousness of their carnal minds, they were slaves to their lusts and 

 passions, which, working with their superstitious and cruel nature, made them ever ready, and 

 their feet swift, to shed blood. Without a settled home, they wandered about from place to 

 place in a most miserable and depraved condition, adding to their native vices drunkenness 

 and other evils, which they had learned from white people. The different tribes, either from 

 superstitions or family quarrels, or from violation of tribal territory and the sacred surroundings 

 of their dead, were at continual warfare ; and their fear of revenge by secret enemies was 

 sometimes terrible to behold. Their howling noises for many days and weeks before and after 

 the deaths of their friends and relatives, which told but too plainly that they were without hope 

 in this world, were most pitiful to hear, and the disgusting scenes in connection with their 

 nocturnal corroborees cannot be fully described. Added to this came the tormenting custom to 

 which some of them were subjected at their peculiar native festivities, and especially the barbarous 

 treatment of females by their tribal lords. It is not necessary to refer to the many atrocities and 

 crimes committed by them in days gone by, for it is well known that they gave trouble to the 

 earlier settlers, and were a terror to lonely women and children in the bush; nor need I say 

 anything about their loathsome diseases, which were prevalent among them in consequence of 

 their immoral lives and habits. Having lived for so many years among them as a close observer, 

 I can testify that the above statements give only a faint picture of what actually took place, for. 

 there is not one hour of the night or day in which I did not witness one or other of their 

 cruel customs. 



In the midst of their quarrels and bloody fights, at their ghastly corroborees, and during 

 the time of their most pitiful cries around their sick and dead ones, we have been able to bring 

 to them the Gospel of life and peace, and many times did they throw down their weapons and 

 stop their nocturnal dances in order to listen to the Word of God and the joyful news of salvation 

 through our Lord Jesus Christ. In the beginning of i860 a remarkable awakening amongst the 



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