and a fatter living is given to the other, or some money is left
them. What do they do? Instantly start a carriage, another servant,
put the jack-of-all-trades into a livery, turn the buttons into a
flunkey, and the village girl into a ladies' maid! Is this really
right? They were well enough before. Why not use the surplus for
some better purpose?

'I imagine that we, the clergy, are chiefly to blame, for not only
not protesting against, but most contentedly acquiescing in such a
state of things. You ask now for something really demanding a
sacrifice. "I can't afford it." "What, not to rescue that village
from starvation? not to enable that good man to preach the Gospel to
people only accessible by means of such an outlay on his vessel, &c.?
Give up your carriage, your opera box; don't have so many grand
balls, &c. "Oh no! it is all a corban to the genius of society.

'Now, is this Scriptural or not, my dear father? I don't mean that
any individual is justified in dictating to his neighbour, still less
in condemning him. But are not these the general principles of
religion and morality in the Bible? There are duties to society: but
a good man will take serious counsel as to what they are, and how far
they may be militating against higher and holier claims.

'August 24.--Why I wrote all this, my dearest father, I hardly know,
only I feel sure that unless men at home can, by taking real pains to
think about it, realise the peculiar circumstances of colonial life,
they will never understand any one of us.

'I have written Fan a note in which I said something about my few
effects if I should die.