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It will be no small comfort to reflect on having assisted, in however small a degree, to forward so grand a consummation: and the attempt, even if success should fail, can leave behind it no cause for regret.

THE

CHRISTIAN EMIGRANT.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

EMIGRATION.

FOR Some considerable time the importance, and even the necessity of emigration, from this and other densely populated countries, has been forced upon the minds of all thinking men. The political economist, the statesman, the merchant, and the journalist have all turned their thoughts to this probable remedy for a superabundant population springing up amidst us; while trade occasionally declines, and food diminishes, or keeps no equal measure with the redundancy of consumers. This question has now ceased to be one of party or of political divisions, and the devout Christian finds the half-hearted worldling agreeing with him in the belief that, by this inevitable result, God is indicating his providential designs, and by the pressure at the

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centre is forcing out the unwilling and the unprosperous towards the uncrowded circumference and the thinly-peopled places of the earth.

It is remarkable how little the unlimited resources and the exceeding fertility of various countries have been viewed in the light of compensatory arrangements, until of late years. Few, perhaps, are even now aware that it has been computed that the land of the globe would be equal to the support of fifteen times the number of its present inhabitants, or that it might sustain a population of no less than 15,000,000,000 of human beings. According to recent reports, while our whole population is increasing at the rate of 300,000 per annum, the pauper population of England is augmenting at the rate of 65,000 per annum.

In Ireland there are not less than 3,000,000 of inhabitants depending upon public charity, and the number is rapidly increasing; yet the emigration from that unfortunate country has hitherto been comparatively insignificant. Even in England, where the resources are much larger, the number of emigrants sent out by parishes, during the course of eleven years, did not exceed 11,000 persons.

Now the colonial empire of Great Britain-exclusive of the territories which are governed by the East India Company-contains between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 of square miles, an area equal to the whole of Europe and British India added together. Of this large space, about 1,000,000 of square miles have been divided into forty different colonies, each with a separate government. Four of them are in Europe, five

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