For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
    His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right;

and I think we cannot have a better guide to our actions than

   ‘to do unto others as we would be done by.’

Ever your affectionate son,

W.J.  Wills.

P.S.  If I go, I will write again before starting.

. . .

The expedition he here speaks of turned out a mere venture to obtain cash, and nothing came of it.  He remained but a short time at Ballaarat, and never idle.  In a month he completed a wooden addition to my residence, building the sides, and shingling the roof in a most workmanlike manner.  It was perfectly weatherproof, and stood good for some years, being only taken down when an alteration in the line of the street rendered its removal necessary.  He now wished to study surveying.  My acquaintance with Mr. Taylor, district surveyor at Ballaarat, obtained for him an admission as an amateur into his office.  He there set to work with his characteristic industry to perfect himself in trigonometry and Euclid; drawing and mapping in the office by day, and working hard in his own room by night.  On rising from bed in the morning, I have found him sitting as I had left him, working out his point, for he never deserted anything he had once taken up until he mastered it.  At the expiration of a few months, Mr. Taylor promised me to introduce him to a gentleman in the survey department named Byerly, with a view to reciprocal services.  On the 20th of August, 1856, he speaks for himself in a letter to his mother from Glendaruel: 

My dear mother,

I have at length found time to write to you.  You will no doubt expect a long letter after so much delay, but I am afraid you will be disappointed, as long letters are not my forte.  In your last, you asked me to send Bessy any information I could.  I can assure you I shall be most happy to do so, and to encourage her taste for knowledge as much as lies in my power.  I send her Bonwick’s Geography of Australia, which is a very useful little book, and in most instances correct.

You must not look upon it as infallible.  For instance, he says Lake Burrambeet is in the Pyrenees, whereas it is more than twenty miles from those mountains.  But this may be a misprint.  I would recommend you to let the children learn drawing.  I do not mean merely sketching, but perspective drawing, with scale and compasses.  It is a very nice amusement, and may some day be found extremely useful.  There is another thing would do them much good, if they should happen to have a taste for it:  this is Euclid.  Not to learn by heart, but to read so as to understand it.  Mathematics generally, and Euclid, and Algebra in particular, are the best studies young people can undertake, for they are the only things we can depend on as true, (of course I leave the Bible out of the question).  Christian and Heathen, Mahometan and