everely. But he boasted the firmness and hardihood with which he
had endured it. It is seldom performed on those who are under sixteen years
old.]

As this leads to an important subject I shall at once discuss it. "Have
these people any religion: any knowledge of, or belief in a deity?--any
conception of the immortality of the soul?" are questions which have been
often put to me since my arrival in England: I shall endeavour to answer
them with candour and seriousness.

Until belief be enlightened by revelation and chastened by reason,
religion and superstition, are terms of equal import. One of our earliest
impressions is the consciousness of a superior power. The various forms
under which this impression has manifested itself are objects of the most
curious speculation.

The native of New South Wales believes that particular aspects and
appearances of the heavenly bodies predict good or evil consequences to
himself and his friends. He oftentimes calls the sun and moon 'weeree,'
that is, malignant, pernicious. Should he see the leading fixed stars (many
of which he can call by name) obscured by vapours, he sometimes disregards
the omen, and sometimes draws from it the most dreary conclusions. I
remember Abaroo running into a room where a company was assembled, and
uttering frightful exclamations of impending mischiefs about to light on
her and her countrymen. When questioned on the cause of such agitation she
went to the door and pointed to the skies, saying that whenever the stars
wore that appearance, misfortunes to the natives always followed. The night
was cloudy and the air disturbed by meteors. I have heard many more of them
testify similar apprehensions.

However involved in darkness and disfigured by error such a belief be, no
one will, I presume, deny that it conveys a direct implication of superior
agency; of a power independent of and uncontrolled by those who are the
objects of its vengeance. But proof stops not here. When they hear the
thunder roll and view the livid glare, they flee them not, but rush out and
deprecate destruction. They have a dance and a song appropriated to this
awful occasion, which consist of the wildest and most uncouth noises and
gestures. Would they act such a ceremony did they not conceive that either
the thunder itself, or he who directs the thunder, might be propitiated by
its performance? That a living intellectual principle exists, capable of
comprehending their petition