Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/213

 Mr. Threlkeld also, a missionary at Lake Macquarie, in New South Wales, writes thus: —

Without entering into the discussion whether the diminution of the natives can be attributed to their ungodliness—a conclusion seemingly negatived by the fecundity of the natives of Africa and Asia, who are sunk in the most debasing superstition—I shall merely remark, that there has been nothing brought forward to show that these visitations may not be traced to natural causes, far less to prove that "the extinction of the aborigines is a necessity which it is impossible to control." The origin of epidemic diseases is always involved in so much obscurity, and the mortality arising from them frequently possesses such a mysterious character, that they have in every age, from the days of Homer down, been attributed to the direct intervention of supernatural power, though probably regulated by laws capable of being as accurately defined, as those of any other phenomenon with which we are acquainted in the range of physics. I have introduced this subject as a matter of interesting speculation, and not as one having any practical bearing on our conduct towards the natives, for whether it shall please the