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336
SKETCHES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

from pretty nearly all nations, the "odium theologicum" helps to fill up the measure.

The professions of ultra-Protestantism that we used to meet with amongst the convicts frequently reminded me of the experience of Lord George Gordon's servant, in 'Barnaby Rudge,' that "Protestants were very fond of spoons, when airy doors were left open," and to those persons who regard the name of Protestant as expressing a religion in itself, it must be a matter of surprise that so many of these pretended devotees come to be transported. On the other hand, a great proportion of the immigrant women who marry the Protestants are Roman Catholics; a circumstance which forms a constant standing ground for bickerings, giving any disagreements the peculiar bitterness of all quarrels that have religion for a pretext.

On returning from a walk, one winter's day, we found that in our absence a native had come running to our house with a slip of paper, on which was written a request that the clergyman should lose no time in hastening to the cottage of a man named M'Dougall to baptize a dying child. My husband went to M'Dougall's as quickly as he could after receiving the message, and, finding that the poor baby was already dead, remained some time, endeavouring to comfort the parents, both of whom, he supposed, were sadly grieved that it had been deprived of baptism.

Next morning before daylight we were aroused by a loud knocking at our door, where stood M'Dougall in a terrible state of anger and determination. He had discovered, since the previous evening, that his child had not died unbaptized; but that a few days before its death, when his back