He said that he might or might not return himself to Australia,--it
would depend on circumstances; but that he could not be idle in England,
and was likely to become either a fellow-curate of Rowland's, or a
neighbouring one. He liked a city curacy, because, having taught the
heathen in another land for many years, he thought he might do some good
amongst them at home. He told them, also, that it was during a year's
residence in Melbourne that he had known Miss Hall's sister. He had been
obliged to undertake clerical duty there, because his health was failing
in his attempts to convert the aborigines.
Mr Jones was a man of grave and quiet manner, one who seemed to think
much and deeply. He habitually led the conversation, without pedantry,
to religious or instructive subjects, and when lighter matter was
introduced, was given rather to withdraw his mind from it to his own
thoughts.
He had been little in society for many years, during which his time had
been passed in the highest, weightiest, gravest, grandest of all
labours,--that of studying to turn the human soul from darkness to
light. Now that he found himself in his own country again, he felt far
behind most men in worldly conversation though very far beyond them, not
only in religious, but in practical, useful, and general knowledge; such
knowledge, I mean, as would be suited to the improvement, not merely of
savages, but of the wild, lawless bushmen, gold diggers, and convicts of
the Australian world.
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