{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2056/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2056","id":"gutenberg_2056","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2056","summary":null,"tags":["Carey, William, 1761-1834","Category: Biographies","Category: History - British","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Missions -- India"],"text":"Produced by John Bechard.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n{Note from the preparer of this etext: I have had to insert a few\ncomments mainly in regards to adjustments to fonts to allow for some of\nthe characters in the Indian names; you will find any of my own notes\nenclosed in these brackets--{}.  I have also renumbered the footnotes\nand placed them at the end of this e-text, removing them from within\nthe document where they fell at the end of each corresponding page.}\n\n{Updater's note: footnote numbers have been enclosed with square\nbrackets, e.g. [30].  The Greek in footnote 1 has been transliterated\naccording to the Project Gutenberg Greek How-to.  The oe-ligature\ncharacter has been replaced with \"[oe]\", in the text version.}\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary\n\n\nby\n\nGeorge Smith\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nOn the death of William Carey In 1834 Dr. Joshua Marshman promised to\nwrite the Life of his great colleague, with whom he had held almost\ndaily converse since the beginning of the century, but he survived too\nshort a time to begin the work.  In 1836 the Rev. Eustace Carey\nanticipated him by issuing what is little better than a selection of\nmutilated letters and journals made at the request of the Committee of\nthe Baptist Missionary Society.  It contains one passage of value,\nhowever.  Dr. Carey once said to his nephew, whose design he seems to\nhave suspected, \"Eustace, if after my removal any one should think it\nworth his while to write my Life, I will give you a criterion by which\nyou may judge of its correctness.  If he give me credit for being a\nplodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too\nmuch.  I can plod.  I can persevere in any definite pursuit.  To this I\nowe everything.\"\n\nIn 1859 Mr. John Marshman, after his final return to England, published\nThe Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, a valuable history and\ndefence of the Serampore Mission, but rather a biography of his father\nthan of Carey.\n\nWhen I first went to Serampore the great missionary had not been twenty\nyears dead.  During my long residence there as Editor of the Friend of\nIndia, I came to know, in most of its details, the nature of the work\ndone by Carey for India and for Christendom in the first third of the\ncentury.  I began to collect such materials for his Biography as were\nto be found in the office, the press, and the college, and among the\nNative Christians and Brahman pundits whom he had influenced.  In\naddition to such materials and experience I have been favoured with the\nuse of many unpublished letters written by Carey or referring to him;\nfor which courtesy I here desire to thank Mrs. S. Carey, South Bank,\nRed Hill; Frederick George Carey, Esq., LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn; and\nthe Rev. Jonathan P. Carey of Tiverton.\n\nMy Biographies of Carey of Serampore, Henry Martyn, Duff of Calcutta,\nand Wilson of Bombay, cover a period of nearly a century and a quarter,\nfrom 1761 to 1878.  They have been written as contributions to that\nhistory of the Christian Church of India which one of its native sons\nmust some day attempt; and to the history of English-speaking peoples,\nwhom the Foreign Missions begun by Carey have made the rulers and\ncivilisers of the non-Christian world.\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I. CAREY'S COLLEGE\n   II. THE BIRTH OF ENGLAND'S FOREIGN MISSIONS\n  III. INDIA AS CAREY FOUND IT\n   IV. SIX YEARS IN NORTH BENGAL--MISSIONARY AND INDIGO PLANTER\n    V. THE NEW CRUSADE--SERAMPORE AND THE BROTHERHOOD\n   VI. THE FIRST NATIVE CONVERTS AND CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS\n  VII. CALCUTTA AND THE MISSION CENTRES FROM DELHI TO AMBOYNA\n VIII. CAREY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS\n   IX. PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, BENGALI, AND MARATHI\n    X. THE WYCLIF OF THE EAST--BIBLE TRANSLATION\n   XI. WHAT CAREY DID FOR LITERATURE AND FOR HUMANITY\n  XII. WHAT CAREY DID FOR SCIENCE--FOUNDER OF THE AGRICULTURAL AND\n       HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF INDIA\n XIII. CAREY'S IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA\n  XIV. CAREY AS AN EDUCATOR--THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN THE EAST\n   XV. CAREY'S CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE OF INDIA\n  XVI. CAREY'S LAST DAYS\n       APPENDIX\n\n\n\n\n\nLIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY, D.D.\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCAREY'S COLLEGE\n\n1761-1785\n\nThe Heart of England--The Weaver Carey who became a Peer, and the\nweaver who was father of William Carey--Early training in\nPaulerspury--Impressions made by him on his sister--On his companions\nand the villagers--His experience as son of the parish\nclerk--Apprenticed to a shoemaker of Hackleton--Poverty--Famous\nshoemakers from Annianus and Crispin to Hans Sachs and Whittier--From\nPharisaism to Christ--The last shall be first--The dissenting preacher\nin the parish clerk's home--He studies Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Dutch\nand French--The cobbler's shed is Carey's College.\n\nWilliam Carey, the first of her own children of the Reformation whom\nEngland sent forth as a missionary to India, where he became the most\nextensive translator of the Bible and civiliser, was the son of a\nweaver, and was himself a village shoemaker till he was twenty-eight\nyears of age.  He was born on the 17th August 1761, in the very midland\nof England, in the heart of the district which had produced Shakspere,\nhad fostered Wyclif and Hooker, had bred Fox and Bunyan, and had for a\ntime been the scene of the lesser lights of John Mason and Doddridge,\nof John Newton and Thomas Scott.  William Cowper, the poet of missions,\nmade the land his chosen home, writing Hope and The Task in Olney,\nwhile the shoemaker was studying theology under Sutcliff on the\nopposite side of the market-place. Thomas Clarkson, born a year before\nCarey, was beginning his assaults on the slave-trade by translating\ninto English his Latin essay on the day-star of African liberty when\nthe shoemaker, whom no university knew, was writing his Enquiry into\nthe Obligations of Christians to use means for the Conversion of the\nHeathens.\n\nWilliam Carey bore a name which had slowly fallen into forgetfulness\nafter services to the Stewarts, with whose cause it had been\nidentified.  Professor Stephens, of Copenhagen, traces it to the\nScando-Anglian Car, CAER or CARE, which became a place-name as CAR-EY.\nAmong scores of neighbours called William, William of Car-ey would soon\nsink into Carey, and this would again become the family name.  In\nDenmark the name Car\u00f2e is common.  The oldest English instance is the\nCariet who coined money in London for \u00c6thelred II. in 1016.  Certainly\nthe name, through its forms of Crew, Carew, Carey, and Cary, still\nprevails on the Irish coast--from which depression of trade drove the\nfamily first to Yorkshire, then to the Northamptonshire village of\nYelvertoft, and finally to Paulerspury, farther south--as well as over\nthe whole Danegelt from Lincolnshire to Devonshire.  If thus there was\nNorse blood in William Carey it came out in his persistent missionary\ndaring, and it is pleasant even to speculate on the possibility of such\nan origin in one who was all his Indian life indebted to Denmark for\nthe protection which alone made his career possible.\n\nThe Careys who became famous in English history sprang from Devon. For\ntwo and a half centuries, from the second Richard to the second\nCharles, they gave statesmen and soldiers, scholars and bishops, to the\nservice of their country.  Henry Carey, first cousin of Queen\nElizabeth, was the common ancestor of two ennobled houses long since\nextinct--the Earls of Dover and the Earls of Monmouth.  A third peerage\nwon by the Careys has been made historic by the patriotic counsels and\nself-sacrificing fate of Viscount Falkland, whose representative was\nGovernor of Bombay for a time.  Two of the heroic Falkland's\ndescendants, aged ladies, addressed a pathetic letter to Parliament\nabout the time that the great missionary died, praying that they might\nnot be doomed to starvation by being deprived of a crown pension of \u00a380\na year.  The older branch of the Careys also had fallen on evil times,\nand it became extinct while the future missionary was yet four years\nold.  The seventh lord was a weaver when he succeeded to the title, and\nhe died childless.  The eighth was a Dutchman who had to be\nnaturalised, and he was the last.  The Careys fell lower still.  One of\nthem bore to the brilliant and reckless Marquis of Halifax, Henry\nCarey, who wrote one of the few English ballads that live.  Another,\nthe poet's granddaughter, was the mother of Edmund Kean, and he at\nfirst was known by her name on the stage.\n\nAt that time when the weaver became the lord the grandfather of the\nmissionary was parish clerk and first schoolmaster of the village of\nPaulerspury, eleven miles south of Northampton, and near the ancient\nposting town of Towcester, on the old Roman road from London to\nChester.  The free school was at the east or \"church end\" of the\nvillage, which, after crossing the old Watling Street, straggles for a\nmile over a sluggish burn to the \"Pury end.\"  One son, Thomas, had\nenlisted and was in Canada.  Edmund Carey, the second, set up the loom\non which he wove the woollen cloth known as \"tammy,\" in a two-storied\ncottage.  There his eldest child, WILLIAM, was born, and lived for six\nyears till his father was appointed schoolmaster, when the family\nremoved to the free schoolhouse.  The cottage was demolished in 1854 by\none Richard Linnell, who placed on the still meaner structure now\noccupying the site the memorial slab that guides many visitors to the\nspot.  The schoolhouse, in which William Carey spent the eight most\nimportant years of his childhood till he was fourteen, and the school\nmade way for the present pretty buildings.\n\nThe village surroundings and the country scenery coloured the whole of\nthe boy's after life, and did much to make him the first agricultural\nimprover and naturalist of Bengal, which he became. The lordship of\nPirie, as it was called by Gitda, its Saxon owner, was given by the\nConqueror, with much else, to his natural son, William Peverel, as we\nsee from the Domesday survey.  His descendants passed it on to Robert\nde Paveli, whence its present name, but in Carey's time it was held by\nthe second Earl Bathurst, who was Lord Chancellor.  Up to the very\nschoolhouse came the royal forest of Whittlebury, its walks leading\nnorth to the woods of Salcey, of Yardley Chase and Rockingham, from the\nbeeches which give Buckingham its name.  Carey must have often sat\nunder the Queen's Oak, still venerable in its riven form, where Edward\nIV., when hunting, first saw Elizabeth, unhappy mother of the two\nprinces murdered in the Tower.  The silent robbery of the people's\nrights called \"inclosures\" has done much, before and since Carey's\ntime, to sweep away or shut up the woodlands.  The country may be less\nbeautiful, while the population has grown so that Paulerspury has now\nnearly double the eight hundred inhabitants of a century ago. But its\noolitic hills, gently swelling to above 700 feet, and the valleys of\nthe many rivers which flow from this central watershed, west and east,\nare covered with fat vegetation almost equally divided between grass\nand corn, with green crops.  The many large estates are rich in gardens\nand orchards.  The farmers, chiefly on small holdings, are famous for\ntheir shorthorns and Leicester sheep. Except for the rapidly-developing\nproduction of iron from the Lias, begun by the Romans, there is but one\nmanufacture--that of shoes. It is now centred by modern machinery and\nlabour arrangements in Northampton itself, which has 24,000 shoemakers,\nand in the other towns, but a century ago the craft was common to every\nhamlet.  For botany and agriculture, however, Northamptonshire was the\nfinest county in England, and young Carey had trodden many a mile of\nit, as boy and man, before he left home for ever for Bengal.\n\nTwo unfinished autobiographical sketches, written from India at the\nrequest of Fuller and of Ryland, and letters of his youngest sister\nMary, his favourite \"Polly\" who survived him, have preserved for us in\nstill vivid characters the details of the early training of William\nCarey.  He was the eldest of five children.  He was the special care of\ntheir grandmother, a woman of a delicate nature and devout habits, who\nclosed her sad widowhood in the weaver-son's cottage.  Encompassed by\nsuch a living influence the grandson spent his first six years.\nAlready the child unconsciously showed the eager thirst for knowledge,\nand perseverance in attaining his object, which made him chiefly what\nhe became.  His mother would often be awoke in the night by the\npleasant lisping of a voice \"casting accompts; so intent was he from\nchildhood in the pursuit of knowledge.  Whatever he began he finished;\ndifficulties never seemed to discourage his mind.\"  On removal to the\nancestral schoolhouse the boy had a room to himself.  His sister\ndescribes it as full of insects stuck in every corner that he might\nobserve their progress. His many birds he entrusted to her care when he\nwas from home.  In this picture we see the exact foreshadowing of the\nman. \"Though I often used to kill his birds by kindness, yet when he\nsaw my grief for it he always indulged me with the pleasure of serving\nthem again; and often took me over the dirtiest roads to get at a plant\nor an insect.  He never walked out, I think, when quite a boy, without\nobservation on the hedges as he passed; and when he took up a plant of\nany kind he always observed it with care.  Though I was but a child I\nwell remember his pursuits.  He always seemed in earnest in his\nrecreations as well as in school.  He was generally one of the most\nactive in all the amusements and recreations that boys in general\npursue.  He was always beloved by the boys about his own age.\"  To\nclimb a certain tree was the object of their ambition; he fell often in\nthe attempt, but did not rest till he had succeeded.  His Uncle Peter\nwas a gardener in the same village, and gave him his first lessons in\nbotany and horticulture.  He soon became responsible for his father's\nofficial garden, till it was the best kept in the neighbourhood.\nWherever after that he lived, as boy or man, poor or in comfort,\nWilliam Carey made and perfected his garden, and always for others,\nuntil he created at Serampore the botanical park which for more than\nhalf a century was unique in Southern Asia.\n\nWe have in a letter from the Manse, Paulerspury, a tradition of the\nimpression made on the dull rustics by the dawning genius of the youth\nwhom they but dimly comprehended.  He went amongst them under the\nnickname of Columbus, and they would say, \"Well, if you won't play,\npreach us a sermon,\" which he would do.  Mounting on an old dwarf\nwitch-elm about seven feet high, where several could sit, he would hold\nforth.  This seems to have been a resort of his for reading, his\nfavourite occupation.  The same authority tells how, when suffering\ntoothache, he allowed his companions to drag the tooth from his head\nwith a violent jerk, by tying around it a string attached to a wheel\nused to grind malt, to which they gave a sharp turn.\n\nThe boy's own peculiar room was a little library as well as museum of\nnatural history.  He possessed a few books, which indeed were many for\nthose days, but he borrowed more from the whole country-side.\nRecalling the eight years of his intellectual apprenticeship till he\nwas fourteen, from the serene height of his missionary standard, he\nwrote long after:--\"I chose to read books of science, history, voyages,\netc., more than any others.  Novels and plays always disgusted me, and\nI avoided them as much as I did books of religion, and perhaps from the\nsame motive.  I was better pleased with romances, and this circumstance\nmade me read the Pilgrim's Progress with eagerness, though to no\npurpose.\"  The new era, of which he was to be the aggressive spiritual\nrepresentative from Christendom, had not dawned.  Walter Scott was ten\nyears his junior. Captain Cook had not discovered the Sandwich Islands,\nand was only returning from the second of his three voyages while Carey\nwas still at school.  The church services and the watchfulness of his\nfather supplied the directly moral training which his grandmother had\nbegun.\n\nThe Paulerspury living of St. James is a valuable rectory in the gift\nof New College, Oxford.  Originally built in Early English, and rebuilt\nin 1844, the church must have presented a still more venerable\nappearance a century ago than it does now, with its noble tower in the\nPerpendicular, and chancel in the Decorated style, dominating all the\ncounty.  Then, as still, effigies of a Paveli and his wife, and of Sir\nArthur Throckmorton and his wife recumbent head to head, covered a\nlarge altar-tomb in the chancel, and with the Bathurst and other\nmonuments called forth first the fear and then the pride of the parish\nclerk's eldest son.  In those days the clerk had just below the pulpit\nthe desk from which his sonorous \"Amen\" sounded forth, while his family\noccupied a low gallery rising from the same level up behind the pulpit.\nThere the boys of the free school also could be under the master's eye,\nand with instruments of music like those of King David, but now\nbanished from even village churches, would accompany him in the\ndoggerel strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, immortalised by Cowper.  To\nthe far right the boys could see and long for the ropes under the\ntower, in which the bell-ringers of his day, as of Bunyan's not long\nbefore, delighted. The preaching of the time did nothing more for young\nCarey than for the rest of England and Scotland, whom the parish church\nhad not driven into dissent or secession.  But he could not help\nknowing the Prayer-Book, and especially its psalms and lessons, and he\nwas duly confirmed.  The family training, too, was exceptionally\nscriptural, though not evangelical. \"I had many stirrings of mind\noccasioned by being often obliged to read books of a religious\ncharacter; and, having been accustomed from my infancy to read the\nScriptures, I had a considerable acquaintance therewith, especially\nwith the historical parts.\"  The first result was to make him despise\ndissenters.  But, undoubtedly, this eldest son of the schoolmaster and\nthe clerk of the parish had at fourteen received an education from\nparents, nature, and books which, with his habits of observation, love\nof reading, and perseverance, made him better instructed than most boys\nof fourteen far above the peasant class to which he belonged.\n\nBuried in this obscure village in the dullest period of the dullest of\nall centuries, the boy had no better prospect before him than that of a\nweaver or labourer, or possibly a schoolmaster like one of his uncles\nin the neighbouring town of Towcester.  When twelve years of age, with\nhis uncle there, he might have formed one of the crowd which listened\nto John Wesley, who, in 1773 and then aged seventy, visited the\nprosperous posting town.  Paulerspury could indeed boast of one son,\nEdward Bernard, D.D., who, two centuries before, had made for himself a\nname in Oxford, where he was Savilian Professor of Astronomy.  But\nCarey was not a Scotsman, and therefore the university was not for such\nas he.  Like his school-fellows, he seemed born to the English\nlabourer's fate of five shillings a week, and the poorhouse in sickness\nand old age.  From this, in the first instance, he was saved by a\ndisease which affected his face and hands most painfully whenever he\nwas long exposed to the sun.  For seven years he had failed to find\nrelief.  His attempt at work in the field were for two years followed\nby distressing agony at night. He was now sixteen, and his father\nsought out a good man who would receive him as apprentice to the\nshoemaking trade.  The man was not difficult to find, in the hamlet of\nHackleton, nine miles off, in the person of one Clarke Nichols.  The\nlad afterwards described him as \"a strict churchman and, what I\nthought, a very moral man.  It is true he sometimes drank rather too\nfreely, and generally employed me in carrying out goods on the Lord's\nDay morning; but he was an inveterate enemy to lying, a vice to which I\nwas awfully addicted.\" The senior apprentice was a dissenter, and the\nmaster and his boys gave much of the talk over their work to disputes\nupon religious subjects.  Carey \"had always looked upon dissenters with\ncontempt. I had, moreover, a share of pride sufficient for a thousand\ntimes my knowledge; I therefore always scorned to have the worst in an\nargument, and the last word was assuredly mine.  I also made up in\npositive assertion what was wanting in argument, and generally came off\nwith triumph.  But I was often convinced afterwards that although I had\nthe last word my antagonist had the better of the argument, and on that\naccount felt a growing uneasiness and stings of conscience gradually\nincreasing.\"  The dissenting apprentice was soon to be the first to\nlead him to Christ.\n\nWilliam Carey was a shoemaker during the twelve years of his life from\nsixteen to twenty-eight, till he went to Leicester.  Poverty, which the\ngrace of God used to make him a preacher also from his eighteenth year,\ncompelled him to work with his hands in leather all the week, and to\ntramp many a weary mile to Northampton and Kettering carrying the\nproduct of his labour.  At one time, when minister of Moulton, he kept\na school by day, made or cobbled shoes by night, and preached on\nSunday.  So Paul had made tents of his native Cilician goatskin in the\ndays when infant Christianity was chased from city to city, and the\ncross was a reproach only less bitter, however, than evangelical\ndissent in Christian England in the eighteenth century.  The providence\nwhich made and kept young Carey so long a shoemaker, put him in the\nvery position in which he could most fruitfully receive and nurse the\nsacred fire that made him the most learned scholar and Bible translator\nof his day in the East. The same providence thus linked him to the\nearliest Latin missionaries of Alexandria, of Asia Minor, and of Gaul,\nwho were shoemakers, and to a succession of scholars and divines, poets\nand critics, reformers and philanthropists, who have used the\nshoemaker's life to become illustrious.[1] St. Mark chose for his\nsuccessor, as first bishop of Alexandria, that Annianus whom he had\nbeen the means of converting to Christ when he found him at the\ncobbler's stall.  The Talmud commemorates the courage and the wisdom of\n\"Rabbi Jochanan, the shoemaker,\" whose learning soon after found a\nparallel in Carey's.  Like Annianus, \"a poor shoemaker named Alexander,\ndespised in the world but great in the sight of God, who did honour to\nso exalted a station in the Church,\" became famous as Bishop of Comana\nin Cappadocia, as saint, preacher, and missionary-martyr.  Soon after\nthere perished in the persecutions of Diocletian, at Soissons, the two\nmissionary brothers whose name of Crispin has ever since been gloried\nin by the trade, which they chose at once as a means of livelihood and\nof helping their poor converts.  The Hackleton apprentice was still a\nchild when the great Goethe was again adding to the then artificial\nliterature of his country his own true predecessor, Hans Sachs, the\nshoemaker of N\u00fcrnberg, the friend of Luther, the meistersinger of the\nReformation.  And it was another German shoemaker, Boehme, whose\nexalted theosophy as expounded by William Law became one link in the\nchain that drew Carey to Christ, as it influenced Wesley and\nWhitefield, Samuel Johnson and Coleridge.  George Fox was only nineteen\nwhen, after eight years' service with a shoemaker in Drayton,\nLeicestershire, not far from Carey's county, he heard the voice from\nheaven which sent him forth in 1643 to preach righteousness,\ntemperance, and judgment to come, till Cromwell sought converse with\nhim, and the Friends became a power among men.\n\nCarlyle has, in characteristic style, seized on the true meaning that\nwas in the man when he made to himself a suit of leather and became the\nmodern hero of Sartor Resartus.  The words fit William Carey's case\neven better than that of George Fox:--\"Sitting in his stall, working on\ntanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a\nnameless flood of rubbish, this youth had nevertheless a Living Spirit\nbelonging to him; also an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as\nthrough a window, it could look upwards and discern its celestial\nHome.\" That \"shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any\nVatican or Loretto-shrine...Stitch away, every prick of that little\ninstrument is pricking into the heart of slavery.\"  Thirty-six years\nafter Fox had begun to wear his leathern doublet he directed all\nFriends everywhere that had Indians or blacks to preach the Gospel to\nthem.\n\nBut it would be too long to tell the list of workers in what has been\ncalled the gentle craft, whom the cobbler's stall, with its peculiar\nopportunities for rhythmic meditation, hard thinking, and oft harder\ndebating, has prepared for the honours of literature and scholarship,\nof philanthropy and reform.  To mention only Carey's contemporaries,\nthe career of these men ran parallel at home with his abroad--Thomas\nShillitoe, who stood before magistrates, bishops, and such sovereigns\nas George III. and IV. and the Czar Alexander I. in the interests of\nsocial reform; and John Pounds, the picture of whom as the founder of\nragged schools led Thomas Guthrie, when he stumbled on it in an inn in\nAnstruther, to do the same Christlike work in Scotland.  Coleridge, who\nwhen at Christ's Hospital was ambitious to be a shoemaker's apprentice,\nwas right when he declared that shoemakers had given to the world a\nlarger number of eminent men than any other handicraft.  Whittier's own\nearly experience in Massachusetts fitted him to be the poet-laureate of\nthe craft which for some years he adorned.  His Songs of Labour,\npublished in 1850, contain the best English lines on shoemakers since\nShakspere put into the mouth of King Henry V. the address on the eve of\nAgincourt, which begins: \"This day is called the feast of Crispin.\"\nBut Whittier, Quaker, philanthropist, and countryman of Judson though\nhe was, might have found a place for Carey when he sang so well of\nothers:--\n\n  \"Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet,\n    In strong and hearty German;\n  And Bloomfield's lay and Gifford's wit\n    And patriot fame of Sherman;\n\n  \"Still from his book, a mystic seer,\n    The soul of Behmen teaches,\n  And England's priestcraft shakes to hear\n    Of Fox's leathern breeches.\"\n\nThe confessions of Carey, made in the spiritual humility and\nself-examination of his later life, form a parallel to the Grace\nAbounding to the Chief of Sinners, the little classic of John Bunyan\nsecond only to his Pilgrim's Progress.  The young Pharisee, who entered\nHackleton with such hate in his heart to dissenters that he would have\ndestroyed their meeting-place, who practised \"lying, swearing, and\nother sins,\" gradually yielded so far to his brother apprentice's\nimportunity as to leave these off, to try to pray sometimes when alone,\nto attend church three times a day, and to visit the dissenting\nprayer-meeting.  Like the zealot who thought to do God service by\nkeeping the whole law, Carey lived thus for a time, \"not doubting but\nthis would produce ease of mind and make me acceptable to God.\" What\nrevealed him to himself was an incident which he tells in language\nrecalling at once Augustine and one of the subtlest sketches of George\nEliot, in which the latter uses her half-knowledge of evangelical faith\nto stab the very truth that delivered Paul and Augustine, Bunyan and\nCarey, from the antinomianism of the Pharisee:--\n\n\"A circumstance which I always reflect on with a mixture of horror and\ngratitude occurred about this time, which, though greatly to my\ndishonour, I must relate.  It being customary in that part of the\ncountry for apprentices to collect Christmas boxes [donations] from the\ntradesmen with whom their masters have dealings, I was permitted to\ncollect these little sums.  When I applied to an ironmonger, he gave me\nthe choice of a shilling or a sixpence; I of course chose the shilling,\nand putting it in my pocket, went away.  When I had got a few shillings\nmy next care was to purchase some little articles for myself, I have\nforgotten what.  But then, to my sorrow, I found that my shilling was a\nbrass one.  I paid for the things which I bought by using a shilling of\nmy master's.  I now found that I had exceeded my stock by a few pence.\nI expected severe reproaches from my master, and therefore came to the\nresolution to declare strenuously that the bad money was his.  I well\nremember the struggles of mind which I had on this occasion, and that I\nmade this deliberate sin a matter of prayer to God as I passed over the\nfields towards home!  I there promised that, if God would but get me\nclearly over this, or, in other words, help me through with the theft,\nI would certainly for the future leave off all evil practices; but this\ntheft and consequent lying appeared to me so necessary, that they could\nnot be dispensed with.\n\n\"A gracious God did not get me safe through.  My master sent the other\napprentice to investigate the matter.  The ironmonger acknowledged the\ngiving me the shilling, and I was therefore exposed to shame, reproach,\nand inward remorse, which preyed upon my mind for a considerable time.\nI at this time sought the Lord, perhaps much more earnestly than ever,\nbut with shame and fear.  I was quite ashamed to go out, and never,\ntill I was assured that my conduct was not spread over the town, did I\nattend a place of worship.\n\n\"I trust that, under these circumstances, I was led to see much more of\nmyself than I had ever done before, and to seek for mercy with greater\nearnestness.  I attended prayer-meetings only, however, till February\n10, 1779, which being appointed a day of fasting and prayer, I attended\nworship on that day.  Mr. Chater [congregationalist] of Olney preached,\nbut from what text I have forgotten.  He insisted much on following\nChrist entirely, and enforced his exhortation with that passage, 'Let\nus therefore go out unto him without the camp, bearing his\nreproach.'--Heb. xiii. 13.  I think I had a desire to follow Christ;\nbut one idea occurred to my mind on hearing those words which broke me\noff from the Church of England.  The idea was certainly very crude, but\nuseful in bringing me from attending a lifeless, carnal ministry to one\nmore evangelical.  I concluded that the Church of England, as\nestablished by law, was the camp in which all were protected from the\nscandal of the cross, and that I ought to bear the reproach of Christ\namong the dissenters; and accordingly I always afterwards attended\ndivine worship among them.\"\n\nAt eighteen Carey was thus emptied of self and there was room for\nChrist.  In a neighbouring village he consorted much for a time with\nsome followers of William Law, who had not long before passed away in a\nvillage in the neighbourhood, and select passages from whose writings\nthe Moravian minister, Francis Okely, of Northampton, had versified.\nThese completed the negative process. \"I felt ruined and helpless.\"\nThen to his spiritual eyes, purged of self, there appeared the\nCrucified One; and to his spiritual intelligence there was given the\nWord of God. The change was that wrought on Paul by a Living Person.\nIt converted the hypocritical Pharisee into the evangelical preacher;\nit turned the vicious peasant into the most self-denying saint; it sent\nthe village shoemaker far off to the Hindoos.\n\nBut the process was slow; it had been so even in Paul's case.  Carey\nfound encouragement in intercourse with some old Christians in\nHackleton, and he united with a few of them, including his\nfellow-apprentice, in forming a congregational church.  The state of\nthe parish may be imagined from its recent history.  Hackleton is part\nof Piddington, and the squire had long appropriated the living of \u00a3300\na year, the parsonage, the glebe, and all tithes, sending his house\nminister \"at times\" to do duty.  A Certificate from Northamptonshire,\nagainst the pluralities and other such scandals, published in 1641,\ndeclared that not a child or servant in Hackleton or Piddington could\nsay the Lord's Prayer.  Carey sought the preaching of Doddridge's\nsuccessor at Northampton, of a Baptist minister at Road, and of Scott\nthe commentator, then at Ravenstone. He had found peace, but was\ntheologically \"inquisitive and unsatisfied.\"  Fortunately, like Luther,\nhe \"was obliged to draw all from the Bible alone.\"\n\nWhen, at twenty years of age, Carey was slowly piecing together \"the\ndoctrines in the Word of God\" into something like a system which would\nat once satisfy his own spiritual and intellectual needs, and help him\nto preach to others, a little volume was published, of which he\nwrote:--\"I do not remember ever to have read any book with such\nraptures.\"  It was Help to Zion's Travellers; being an attempt to\nremove various Stumbling-Blocks out of the Way, relating to Doctrinal,\nExperimental, and Practical Religion, by Robert Hall. The writer was\nthe father of the greater Robert Hall, a venerable man, who, in his\nvillage church of Arnsby, near Leicester, had already taught Carey how\nto preach.  The book is described as an \"attempt to relieve discouraged\nChristians\" in a day of gloominess and perplexity, that they might\ndevote themselves to Christ through life as well as be found in Him in\ndeath.  Carey made a careful synopsis of it in an exquisitely neat hand\non the margin of each page.  The worm-eaten copy, which he treasured\neven in India, is now deposited in Bristol College.\n\nA Calvinist of the broad missionary type of Paul, Carey somewhat\nsuddenly, according to his own account, became a Baptist. \"I do not\nrecollect having read anything on the subject till I applied to Mr.\nRyland, senior, to baptise me.  He lent me a pamphlet, and turned me\nover to his son,\" who thus told the story when the Baptist Missionary\nSociety held its first public meeting in London:--\"October 5th, 1783: I\nbaptised in the river Nen, a little beyond Dr. Doddridge's\nmeeting-house at Northampton, a poor journeyman shoemaker, little\nthinking that before nine years had elapsed, he would prove the first\ninstrument of forming a society for sending missionaries from England\nto preach the gospel to the heathen.  Such, however, as the event has\nproved, was the purpose of the Most High, who selected for this work\nnot the son of one of our most learned ministers, nor of one of the\nmost opulent of our dissenting gentlemen, but the son of a parish\nclerk.\"\n\nThe spot may still be visited at the foot of the hill, where the Nen\nfed the moat of the old castle, in which many a Parliament sat from the\ndays of King John. The text of that morning's sermon happened to be the\nLord's saying, \"Many first shall be last, and the last first,\" which\nasserts His absolute sovereignty in choosing and in rewarding His\nmissionaries, and introduces the parable of the labourers in the\nvineyard.  As Carey wrote in the fulness of his fame, that the\nevangelical doctrines continued to be the choice of his heart, so he\nnever wavered in his preference for the Baptist division of the\nChristian host.  But from the first he enjoyed the friendship of Scott\nand Newton, and of his neighbour Mr. Robinson of St. Mary's, Leicester,\nand we shall see him in India the centre of the Episcopal and\nPresbyterian chaplains and missionaries from Martyn Wilson to Lacroix\nand Duff. His controversial spirit died with the youthful conceit and\nself-righteousness of which it is so often the birth.  When at eighteen\nhe learned to know himself, he became for ever humble.  A zeal like\nthat of his new-found Master took its place, and all the energy of his\nnature, every moment of his time, was directed to setting Him forth.\n\nIn his monthly visits to the father-house at Paulerspury the new man in\nhim could not be hid.  His sister gives us a vivid sketch of the lad,\nwhose going over to the dissenters was resented by the formal and stern\nclerk, and whose evangelicalism was a reproach to the others.\n\n\"At this time he was increasingly thoughtful, and very was jealous for\nthe Lord of Hosts.  Like Gideon, he seemed for throwing down all the\naltars of Baal in one night.  When he came home we used to wonder at\nthe change.  We knew that before he was rather inclined to persecute\nthe faith he now seemed to wish to propagate.  At first, perhaps, his\nzeal exceeded the bounds of prudence; but he felt the importance of\nthings we were strangers to, and his natural disposition was to pursue\nearnestly what he undertook, so that it was not to be wondered at,\nthough we wondered at the change.  He stood alone in his father's house\nfor some years.  After a time he asked permission to have family prayer\nwhen he came home to see us, a favour which he very readily had\ngranted.  Often have I felt my pride rise while he was engaged in\nprayer, at the mention of those words in Isaiah, 'that all our\nrighteousness was like filthy rags.' I did not think he thought his so,\nbut looked on me and the family as filthy, not himself and his party.\nOh, what pride is in the human heart!  Nothing but my love to my\nbrother would have kept me from showing my resentment.\"\n\n\"A few of the friends of religion wished our brother to exercise his\ngifts by speaking to a few friends in a house licensed at Pury; which\nhe did with great acceptance.  The next morning a neighbour of ours, a\nvery pious woman, came in to congratulate my mother on the occasion,\nand to speak of the Lord's goodness in calling her son, and my brother,\ntwo such near neighbours, to the same noble calling. My mother replied,\n'What, do you think he will be a preacher?' 'Yes,' she replied, 'and a\ngreat one, I think, if spared.'  From that time till he was settled at\nMoulton he regularly preached once a month at Pury with much\nacceptance.  He was at that time in his twentieth year, and married.\nOur parents were always friendly to religion; yet, on some accounts, we\nshould rather have wished him to go from home than come home to preach.\nI do not think I ever heard him, though my younger brother and my\nsister, I think, generally did.  Our father much wished to hear his\nson, if he could do it unseen by him or any one.  It was not long\nbefore an opportunity offered, and he embraced it.  Though he was a man\nthat never discovered any partiality for the abilities of his children,\nbut rather sometimes went too far on the other hand, that often tended\na little to discourage them, yet we were convinced that he approved of\nwhat he heard, and was highly gratified by it.\"\n\nIn Hackleton itself his expositions of Scripture were so valued that\nthe people, he writes, \"being ignorant, sometimes applauded to my great\ninjury.\"  When in poverty, so deep that he fasted all that day because\nhe had not a penny to buy a dinner, he attended a meeting of the\nAssociation of Baptist Churches at Olney, not far off.  There he first\nmet with his lifelong colleague, the future secretary of the mission,\nAndrew Fuller, the young minister of Soham, who preached on being men\nin understanding, and there it was arranged that he should preach\nregularly to a small congregation at Earls Barton, six miles from\nHackleton.  His new-born humility made him unable to refuse the duty,\nwhich he discharged for more than three years while filling his\ncobbler's stall at Hackleton all the week, and frequently preaching\nelsewhere also.  The secret of his power which drew the\nNorthamptonshire peasants and craftsmen to the feet of their fellow was\nthis, that he studied the portion of Scripture, which he read every\nmorning at his private devotions, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.\n\nThis was Carey's \"college.\"  On the death of his first master, when he\nwas eighteen, he had transferred his apprenticeship to a Mr. T. Old.\nHackleton stands on the high road from Bedford and Olney to\nNorthampton, and Thomas Scott was in the habit of resting at Mr. Old's\non his not infrequent walks from Olney, where he had succeeded John\nNewton.  There he had no more attentive listener or intelligent talker\nthan the new journeyman, who had been more influenced by his preaching\nat Ravenstone than by that of any other man.  Forty years after, just\nbefore Scott's death, Dr. Ryland gave him this message from Carey:--\"If\nthere be anything of the work of God in my soul, I owe much of it to\nhis preaching when I first set out in the ways of the Lord;\" to which\nthis reply was sent: \"I am surprised as well as gratified at your\nmessage from Dr. Carey.  He heard me preach only a few times, and that\nas far as I know in my rather irregular excursions; though I often\nconversed and prayed in his presence, and endeavoured to answer his\nsensible and pertinent inquiries when at Hackleton.  But to have\nsuggested even a single useful hint to such a mind as his must be\nconsidered as a high privilege and matter of gratitude.\"  Scott had\npreviously written this more detailed account of his intercourse with\nthe preaching shoemaker, whom he first saw when he called on Mr. Old to\ntell him of the welfare of his mother:\n\n\"When I went into the cottage I was soon recognised, and Mr. Old came\nin, with a sensible-looking lad in his working-dress.  I at first\nrather wondered to see him enter, as he seemed young, being, I believe,\nlittle of his age.  We, however, entered into very interesting\nconversation, especially respecting my parishioner, their relative, and\nthe excellent state of her mind, and the wonder of divine grace in the\nconversion of one who had been so very many years considered as a\nself-righteous Pharisee.  I believe I endeavoured to show that the term\nwas often improperly applied to conscientious but ignorant inquirers,\nwho are far from self-satisfied, and who, when the Gospel is set before\nthem, find the thing which they had long been groping after.  However\nthat may be, I observed the lad who entered with Mr. Old riveted in\nattention with every mark and symptom of intelligence and feeling;\nsaying little, but modestly asking now and then an appropriate\nquestion.  I took occasion, before I went forward, to inquire after\nhim, and found that, young as he was, he was a member of the church at\nHackleton, and looked upon as a very consistent and promising\ncharacter.  I lived at Olney till the end of 1785; and in the course of\nthat time I called perhaps two or three times each year at Mr. Old's,\nand was each time more and more struck with the youth's conduct, though\nI said little; but, before I left Olney, Mr. Carey was out of his\nengagement with Mr. Old. I found also that he was sent out as a\nprobationary preacher, and preached at Moulton; and I said to all to\nwhom I had access, that he would, if I could judge, prove no ordinary\nman.  Yet, though I often met both old Mr. Ryland, the present Dr.\nRyland, Mr. Hall, Mr. Fuller, and knew almost every step taken in\nforming your Missionary Society, and though I sometimes preached very\nnear Moulton, it so happened that I do not recollect having met with\nhim any more, till he came to my house in London with Mr. Thomas, to\ndesire me to use what little influence I had with Charles Grant, Esq.,\nto procure them licence to go in the Company's ships as missionaries to\nthe British settlements in India, perhaps in 1792.  My little influence\nwas of no avail.  What I said of Mr. Carey so far satisfied Mr. Grant\nthat he said, if Mr. Carey was going alone, or with one equally to be\ndepended on along with him, he would not oppose him; but his strong\ndisapprobation of Mr. T., on what ground I knew not, induced his\nnegative.  I believe Mr. Old died soon after I left Olney, if not just\nbefore; and his shop, which was a little building apart from the house,\nwas suffered to go to decay.  While in this state I several times\npassed it, and said to my sons and others with me, that is Mr. Carey's\ncollege.\"\n\nThis cobbler's shed which was Carey's college has been since restored,\nbut two of the original walls still stand, forming the corner in which\nhe sat, opposite the window that looks out into the garden he carefully\nkept.  Here, when his second master died, Carey succeeded to the\nbusiness, charging himself with the care of the widow, and marrying the\nwidow's sister, Dorothy or Dolly Placket. He was only twenty when he\ntook upon himself such burdens, in the neighbouring church of\nPiddington, a village to which he afterwards moved his shop.  Never had\nminister, missionary, or scholar a less sympathetic mate, due largely\nto that latent mental disease which in India carried her off; but for\nmore than twenty years the husband showed her loving reverence.  As we\nstand in the Hackleton shed, over which Carey placed the rude signboard\nprepared by his own hands, and now in the library of Regent's Park\nCollege, \"Second Hand Shoes Bought and--,\"[2] we can realise the low\nestate to which Carey fell, even below his father's loom and\nschoolhouse, and from which he was called to become the apostle of\nNorth India as Schwartz was of the South.\n\nHow was this shed his college?  We have seen that he brought with him\nfrom his native village an amount of information, habits of\nobservation, and a knowledge of books unusual in rustics of that day,\nand even of the present time.  At twelve he made his first acquaintance\nwith a language other than his own, when he mastered the short grammar\nin Dyche's Latine Vocabulary, and committed nearly the whole book to\nmemory.  When urging him to take the preaching at Barton, Mr. Sutcliff\nof Olney gave him Ruddiman's Latin Grammar. The one alleviation of his\nlot under the coarse but upright Nichols was found in his master's\nsmall library.  There he began to study Greek.  In a New Testament\ncommentary he found Greek words, which he carefully transcribed and\nkept until he should next visit home, where a youth whom dissipation\nhad reduced from college to weaving explained both the words and their\nterminations to him.  All that he wanted was such beginnings.  Hebrew\nhe seems to have learned by the aid of the neighbouring ministers;\nborrowing books from them, and questioning them \"pertinently,\" as he\ndid Scott.[3] At the end of Hopkins's Three Sermons on the Effects of\nSin on the Universe, preached in 1759, he had made this entry on 9th\nAugust 1787--\"Gulielm. Careius perlegit.\"  He starved himself to\npurchase a few books at the sale which attended Dr. Ryland's removal\nfrom Northampton to Bristol.  In an old woman's cottage he found a\nDutch quarto, and from that he so taught himself the language that in\n1789 he translated for Ryland a discourse on the Gospel Offer sent to\nhim by the evangelical Dr. Erskine of Edinburgh.  The manuscript is in\nan extremely small character, unlike what might have been expected from\none who had wrought with his hands for eight years.  French he\nacquired, sufficiently for literary purposes, in three weeks from the\nFrench version of Ditton on the Resurrection, which he purchased for a\nfew coppers.  He had the linguistic gift which soon after made the\nyoung carpenter Mezzofanti of Bologna famous and a cardinal. But the\ngift would have been buried in the grave of his penury and his\ncircumstances had his trade been almost any other, and had he not been\nimpelled by the most powerful of all motives.  He never sat on his\nstall without his book before him, nor did he painfully toil with his\nwallet of new-made shoes to the neighbouring towns or return with\nleather without conning over his lately-acquired knowledge, and making\nit for ever, in orderly array, his own.  He so taught his evening\nschool and his Sunday congregations that the teaching to him, like\nwriting to others, stereotyped or lighted up the truths.  Indeed, the\nschool and the cobbling often went on together--a fact commemorated in\nthe addition to the Hackleton signboard of the Piddington nail on which\nhe used to fix his thread while teaching the children.\n\nBut that which sanctified and directed the whole throughout a working\nlife of more than half a century, was the missionary idea and the\nmissionary consecration.  With a caution not often shown at that time\nby bishops in laying hands on those whom they had passed for deacon's\norders, the little church at Olney thus dealt with the Father of Modern\nMissions before they would recognise his call and send him out \"to\npreach the gospel wherever God in His providence might call him:\"\n\n\"June 17, 1785.--A request from William Carey of Moulton, in\nNorthamptonshire, was taken into consideration.  He has been and still\nis in connection with a society of people at Hackleton.  He is\noccasionally engaged with acceptance in various places in speaking the\nWord. He bears a very good moral character.  He is desirous of being\nsent out from some reputable church of Christ into the work of the\nministry.  The principal Question was--'In what manner shall we receive\nhim? by a letter from the people of Hackleton, or on a profession of\nfaith, etc.?'  The final resolution of it was left to another church\nMeeting.\n\n\"July 14--Ch. Meeting.  W. Carey appeared before the Church, and having\ngiven a satisfactory account of the work of God upon his soul, he was\nadmitted a member.  He had been formerly baptised by the Rev. Mr.\nRyland, jun., of Northampton.  He was invited by the Church to preach\nin public once next Lord's Day.\n\n\"July 17.--Ch. Meeting, Lord's Day Evening.  W. Carey, in consequence\nof a request from the Church, preached this Evening. After which it was\nresolved that he should be allowed to go on preaching at those places\nwhere he has been for some time employed, and that he should engage\nagain on suitable occasions for some time before us, in order that\nfarther trial may be made of ministerial gifts.\n\n\"June 16, 1786.--C.M. The case of Bror. Carey was considered, and an\nunanimous satisfaction with his ministerial abilities being expressed,\na vote was passed to call him to the Ministry at a proper time.\n\n\"August 10.--Ch. Meeting.  This evening our Brother William Carey was\ncalled to the work of the Ministry, and sent out by the Church to\npreach the Gospel, wherever God in His providence might call him.\n\n\"April 29, 1787.--Ch. M. After the Orde. our Brother William Carey was\ndismissed to the Church of Christ at Moulton in Northamptonshire with a\nview to his Ordination there.\"\n\nThese were the last years at Olney of William Cowper before he removed\nto the Throckmortons' house at Weston village, two miles distant.\nCarey must often have seen the poet during the twenty years which he\nspent in the corner house of the market-square, and in the walks\naround.  He must have read the poems of 1782, which for the first time\ndo justice to missionary enterprise.  He must have hailed what Mrs.\nBrowning calls \"the deathless singing\" which in 1785, in The Task,\nopened a new era in English literature.  He may have been fired with\nthe desire to imitate Whitefield, in the description of whom, though\nreluctant to name him, Cowper really anticipated Carey himself:--\n\n  \"He followed Paul; his zeal a kindred flame,\n  His apostolic charity the same;\n  Like him crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,\n  Forsaking country, kindred, friends and ease;\n  Like him he laboured and, like him, content\n  To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE BIRTH OF ENGLAND'S FOREIGN MISSIONS\n\n1785-1792\n\nMoulton the Mission's birthplace--Carey's fever and poverty--His\nMoulton school--Fired with the missionary idea--His very large\nmissionary map--Fuller's confession of the aged and respectable\nministers' opposition--Old Mr. Ryland's rebuke--Driven to publish his\nEnquiry--Its literary character--Carey's survey of the world in\n1788--His motives, difficulties, and plans--Projects the first\nMissionary Society--Contrasted with his predecessors from\nErasmus--Prayer concert begun in Scotland in 1742--Jonathan\nEdwards--The Northamptonshire Baptist movement in 1784--Andrew\nFuller--The Baptists, Particular and General--Antinomian and Socinian\nextremes opposed to Missions--Met by Fuller's writings and Clipstone\nsermon--Carey's agony at continued delay--His work in Leicester--His\nsermon at Nottingham--Foundation of Baptist Missionary Society at\nlast--Kettering and Jerusalem.\n\nThe north road, which runs for twelve miles from Northampton to\nKettering, passes through a country known last century for the doings\nof the Pytchley Hunt. Stories, by no means exaggerated, of the deep\ndrinking and deeper play of the club, whose gatehouse now stands at the\nentrance of Overstone Park, were rife, when on Lady Day 1785 William\nCarey became Baptist preacher of Moulton village, on the other side of\nthe road.  Moulton was to become the birthplace of the modern\nmissionary idea; Kettering, of evangelical missionary action.\n\nNo man in England had apparently a more wretched lot or more miserable\nprospects than he.  He had started in life as a journeyman shoemaker at\neighteen, burdened with a payment to his first master's widow which his\nown kind heart had led him to offer, and with the price of his second\nmaster's stock and business.  Trade was good for the moment, and he had\nmarried, before he was twenty, one who brought him the most terrible\nsorrow a man can bear.  He had no sooner completed a large order for\nwhich his predecessor had contracted than it was returned on his hands.\nFrom place to place he wearily trudged, trying to sell the shoes.\nFever carried off his first child and brought himself so near to the\ngrave that he sent for his mother to help in the nursing.  At\nPiddington he worked early and late at his garden, but ague, caused by\na neighbouring marsh, returned and left him so bald that he wore a wig\nthereafter until his voyage to India.  During his preaching for more\nthan three years at Barton, which involved a walk of sixteen miles, he\ndid not receive from the poor folks enough to pay for the clothes he\nwore out in their service.  His younger brother delicately came to his\nhelp, and he received the gift with a pathetic tenderness.  But a\ncalling which at once starved him, in spite of all his method and\nperseverance, and cramped the ardour of his soul for service to the\nMaster who had revealed Himself in him, became distasteful.  He gladly\naccepted an invitation from the somewhat disorganised church at Moulton\nto preach to them.  They could offer him only about \u00a310 a year,\nsupplemented by \u00a35 from a London fund.  But the schoolmaster had just\nleft, and Carey saw in that fact a new hope.  For a time he and his\nfamily managed to live on an income which is estimated as never\nexceeding \u00a336 a year.  We find this passage in a printed appeal made by\nthe \"very poor congregation\" for funds to repair and enlarge the chapel\nto which the new pastor's preaching had attracted a crowd:--\"The\npeculiar situation of our minister, Mr. Carey, renders it impossible\nfor us to send him far abroad to collect the Contributions of the\nCharitable; as we are able to raise him but about Ten Pounds per Annum,\nso that he is obliged to keep a School for his Support: And as there\nare other two Schools in the Town, if he was to leave Home to collect\nfor the Building, he must probably quit his Station on his Return, for\nWant of a Maintenance.\"\n\nHis genial loving-kindness and his fast increasing learning little\nfitted him to drill peasant children in the alphabet. \"When I kept\nschool the boys kept me,\" he used to confess with a merry twinkle. In\nall that our Lord meant by it William Carey was a child from first to\nlast.  The former teacher returned, and the poor preacher again took to\nshoemaking for the village clowns and the shops in Kettering and\nNorthampton.  His house still stands, one of a row of six cottages of\nthe dear old English type, with the indispensable garden behind, and\nthe glad sunshine pouring in through the open window embowered in roses\nand honeysuckle.\n\nThere, and chiefly in the school-hours as he tried to teach the\nchildren geography and the Bible and was all the while teaching\nhimself, the missionary idea arose in his mind, and his soul became\nfired with the self-consecration, unknown to Wyclif and Hus, Luther and\nCalvin, Knox and even Bunyan, for theirs was other work.  All his past\nknowledge of nature and of books, all his favourite reading of voyages\nand of travels which had led his school-fellows to dub him Columbus,\nall his painful study of the Word, his experience of the love of Christ\nand expoundings of the meaning of His message to men for six years,\nwere gathered up, were intensified, and were directed with a\nconcentrated power to the thought that Christ died, as for him, so for\nthese millions of dark savages whom Cook was revealing to Christendom,\nand who had never heard the glad tidings of great joy.\n\nCarey had ceased to keep school when the Moulton Baptists, who could\nsubscribe no more than twopence a month each for their own poor,\nformally called the preacher to become their ordained pastor, and\nRyland, Sutcliff, and Fuller were asked to ordain him on the 10th\nAugust 1786.  Fuller had discovered the value of a man who had passed\nthrough spiritual experience, and possessed a native common sense like\nhis own, when Carey had been suddenly called to preach in Northampton\nto supply the place of another.  Since that day he had often visited\nMoulton, and he thus tells us what he had seen:--\n\n\"The congregation being few and poor, he followed his business in order\nto assist in supporting his family.  His mind, however, was much\noccupied in acquiring the learned languages, and almost every other\nbranch of useful knowledge.  I remember, on going into the room where\nhe employed himself at his business, I saw hanging up against the wall\na very large map, consisting of several sheets of paper pasted together\nby himself, on which he had drawn, with a pen, a place for every nation\nin the known world, and entered into it whatever he met with in\nreading, relative to its population, religion, etc.  The substance of\nthis was afterwards published in his Enquiry.  These researches, on\nwhich his mind was naturally bent, hindered him, of course, from doing\nmuch of his business; and the people, as was said, being few and poor,\nhe was at this time exposed to great hardships.  I have been assured\nthat he and his family have lived for a great while together without\ntasting animal food, and with but a scanty pittance of other provision.\"\n\n\"He would also be frequently conversing with his brethren in the\nministry on the practicability and importance of a mission to the\nheathen, and of his willingness to engage in it.  At several ministers'\nmeetings, between the year 1787 and 1790, this was the topic of his\nconversation.  Some of our most aged and respectable ministers thought,\nI believe, at that time, that it was a wild and impracticable scheme\nthat he had got in his mind, and therefore gave him no encouragement.\nYet he would not give it up; but would converse with us, one by one,\ntill he had made some impression upon us.\"\n\nThe picture is completed by his sister:--\n\n\"He was always, from his first being thoughtful, remarkably impressed\nabout heathen lands and the slave-trade.  I never remember his engaging\nin prayer, in his family or in public, without praying for those poor\ncreatures.  The first time I ever recollect my feeling for the heathen\nworld, was from a discourse I heard my brother preach at Moulton, the\nfirst summer after I was thoughtful. It was from these words:--'For\nZion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake will I\ngive him no rest.'  It was a day to be remembered by me; a day set\napart for prayer and fasting by the church.  What hath God wrought\nsince that time!\"\n\nOld Mr. Ryland always failed to recall the story, but we have it on the\ntestimony of Carey's personal friend, Morris of Clipstone, who was\npresent at the meeting of ministers held in 1786 at Northampton, at\nwhich the incident occurred.  Ryland invited the younger brethren to\npropose a subject for discussion.  There was no reply, till at last the\nMoulton preacher suggested, doubtless with an ill-restrained\nexcitement, \"whether the command given to the Apostles, to teach all\nnations, was not obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of\nthe world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent.\"\nNeither Fuller nor Carey himself had yet delivered the Particular\nBaptists from the yoke of hyper-calvinism which had to that hour shut\nthe heathen out of a dead Christendom, and the aged chairman shouted\nout the rebuke--\"You are a miserable enthusiast for asking such a\nquestion.  Certainly nothing can be done before another Pentecost, when\nan effusion of miraculous gifts, including the gift of tongues, will\ngive effect to the commission of Christ as at first.\"  Carey had never\nbefore mentioned the subject openly, and he was for the moment greatly\nmortified.  But, says Morris, he still pondered these things in his\nheart.  That incident marks the wide gulf which Carey had to bridge.\nSilenced by his brethren, he had recourse to the press.  It was then\nthat he wrote his own contribution to the discussion he would have\nraised on a duty which was more than seventeen centuries old, and had\nbeen for fourteen of these neglected: An Enquiry into the Obligations\nof Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in which\nthe Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success\nof Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings,\nare considered by WILLIAM CAREY.  Then follows the great conclusion of\nPaul in his letter to the Romans (x. 12-15): \"For there is no\ndifference between the Jew and the Greek...How shall they preach except\nthey be sent?\"  He happened to be in Birmingham in 1786 collecting\nsubscriptions for the rebuilding of the chapel in Moulton, when Mr.\nThomas Potts, who had made a fortune in trade with America, discovering\nthat he had prepared the manuscript, gave him \u00a310 to publish it.  And\nit appeared at Leicester in 1792, \"price one shilling and sixpence,\"\nthe profits to go to the proposed mission.  The pamphlet form doubtless\naccounts for its disappearance now; only four copies of the original\nedition[4] are known to be in existence.\n\nThis Enquiry has a literary interest of its own, as a contribution to\nthe statistics and geography of the world, written in a cultured and\nalmost finished style, such as few, if any, University men of that day\ncould have produced, for none were impelled by such a motive as Carey\nhad.  In an obscure village, toiling save when he slept, and finding\nrest on Sunday only by a change of toil, far from libraries and the\nsociety of men with more advantages than his own, this shoemaker, still\nunder thirty, surveys the whole world, continent by continent, island\nby island, race by race, faith by faith, kingdom by kingdom, tabulating\nhis results with an accuracy, and following them up with a logical\npower of generalisation which would extort the admiration of the\nlearned even of the present day.\n\nHaving proved that the commission given by our Lord to His disciples is\nstill binding on us, having reviewed former undertakings for the\nconversion of the heathen from the Ascension to the Moravians and \"the\nlate Mr. Wesley\" in the West Indies, and having thus surveyed in detail\nthe state of the world in 1786, he removes the five impediments in the\nway of carrying the Gospel among the heathen, which his contemporaries\nadvanced--their distance from us, their barbarism, the danger of being\nkilled by them, the difficulty of procuring the necessaries of life,\nthe unintelligibleness of their languages.  These his loving heart and\nBible knowledge enable him skilfully to turn in favour of the cause he\npleads.  The whole section is essential to an appreciation of Carey's\nmotives, difficulties, and plans:--\n\n\"FIRST, As to their distance from us, whatever objections might have\nbeen made on that account before the invention of the mariner's\ncompass, nothing can be alleged for it with any colour of plausibility\nin the present age.  Men can now sail with as much certainty through\nthe Great South Sea as they can through the Mediterranean or any lesser\nsea.  Yea, and providence seems in a manner to invite us to the trial,\nas there are to our knowledge trading companies, whose commerce lies in\nmany of the places where these barbarians dwell.  At one time or other\nships are sent to visit places of more recent discovery, and to explore\nparts the most unknown; and every fresh account of their ignorance or\ncruelty should call forth our pity, and excite us to concur with\nprovidence in seeking their eternal good.  Scripture likewise seems to\npoint out this method, 'Surely the Isles shall wait for me; the ships\nof Tarshish first, to bring my sons from far, their silver and their\ngold with them, unto the name of the Lord, thy God.'--Isai. lx. 9. This\nseems to imply that in the time of the glorious increase of the church,\nin the latter days (of which the whole chapter is undoubtedly a\nprophecy), commerce shall subserve the spread of the gospel.  The ships\nof Tarshish were trading vessels, which made voyages for traffic to\nvarious parts; thus much therefore must be meant by it, that\nnavigation, especially that which is commercial, shall be one great\nmean of carrying on the work of God; and perhaps it may imply that\nthere shall be a very considerable appropriation of wealth to that\npurpose.\n\n\"SECONDLY, As to their uncivilised and barbarous way of living, this\ncan be no objection to any, except those whose love of ease renders\nthem unwilling to expose themselves to inconveniences for the good of\nothers.  It was no objection to the apostles and their successors, who\nwent among the barbarous Germans and Gauls, and still more barbarous\nBritons!  They did not wait for the ancient inhabitants of these\ncountries to be civilised before they could be christianised, but went\nsimply with the doctrine of the cross; and Tertullian could boast that\n'those parts of Britain which were proof against the Roman armies, were\nconquered by the gospel of Christ.' It was no objection to an Eliot or\na Brainerd, in later times. They went forth, and encountered every\ndifficulty of the kind, and found that a cordial reception of the\ngospel produced those happy effects which the longest intercourse with\nEuropeans without it could never accomplish.  It is no objection to\ncommercial men.  It only requires that we should have as much love to\nthe souls of our fellow-creatures, and fellow-sinners, as they have for\nthe profits arising from a few otter-skins, and all these difficulties\nwould be easily surmounted.\n\n\"After all, the uncivilised state of the heathen, instead of affording\nan objection against preaching the gospel to them, ought to furnish an\nargument for it.  Can we as men, or as Christians, hear that a great\npart of our fellow-creatures, whose souls are as immortal as ours, and\nwho are as capable as ourselves of adorning the gospel and contributing\nby their preachings, writings, or practices to the glory of our\nRedeemer's name and the good of his church, are enveloped in ignorance\nand barbarism?  Can we hear that they are without the gospel, without\ngovernment, without laws, and without arts, and sciences; and not exert\nourselves to introduce among them the sentiments of men, and of\nChristians?  Would not the spread of the gospel be the most effectual\nmean of their civilisation?  Would not that make them useful members of\nsociety? We know that such effects did in a measure follow the\nafore-mentioned efforts of Eliot, Brainerd, and others amongst the\nAmerican Indians; and if similar attempts were made in other parts of\nthe world, and succeeded with a divine blessing (which we have every\nreason to think they would), might we not expect to see able divines,\nor read well-conducted treatises in defence of the truth, even amongst\nthose who at present seem to be scarcely human?\n\n\"THIRDLY, In respect to the danger of being killed by them, it is true\nthat whoever does go must put his life in his hand, and not consult\nwith flesh and blood; but do not the goodness of the cause, the duties\nincumbent on us as the creatures of God and Christians, and the\nperishing state of our fellow-men, loudly call upon us to venture all,\nand use every warrantable exertion for their benefit? Paul and\nBarnabas, who hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus\nChrist, were not blamed as being rash, but commended for so doing;\nwhile John Mark, who through timidity of mind deserted them in their\nperilous undertaking, was branded with censure.  After all, as has been\nalready observed, I greatly question whether most of the barbarities\npractised by the savages upon those who have visited them, have not\noriginated in some real or supposed affront, and were therefore, more\nproperly, acts of self-defence, than proofs of ferocious dispositions.\nNo wonder if the imprudence of sailors should prompt them to offend the\nsimple savage, and the offence be resented; but Eliot, Brainerd, and\nthe Moravian missionaries have been very seldom molested.  Nay, in\ngeneral the heathen have showed a willingness to hear the word; and\nhave principally expressed their hatred of Christianity on account of\nthe vices of nominal Christians.\n\n\"FOURTHLY, As to the difficulty of procuring the necessaries of life,\nthis would not be so great as may appear at first sight; for, though we\ncould not procure European food, yet we might procure such as the\nnatives of those countries which we visit, subsist upon themselves.\nAnd this would only be passing through what we have virtually engaged\nin by entering on the ministerial office.  A Christian minister is a\nperson who in a peculiar sense is not his own; he is the servant of\nGod, and therefore ought to be wholly devoted to him.  By entering on\nthat sacred office he solemnly undertakes to be always engaged, as much\nas possible, in the Lord's work, and not to choose his own pleasure, or\nemployment, or pursue the ministry as a something that is to subserve\nhis own ends, or interests, or as a kind of bye-work.  He engages to go\nwhere God pleases, and to do or endure what he sees fit to command, or\ncall him to, in the exercise of his function.  He virtually bids\nfarewell to friends, pleasures, and comforts, and stands in readiness\nto endure the greatest sufferings in the work of his Lord, and Master.\nIt is inconsistent for ministers to please themselves with thoughts of\na numerous auditory, cordial friends, a civilised country, legal\nprotection, affluence, splendour, or even a competency.  The slights,\nand hatred of men, and even pretended friends, gloomy prisons, and\ntortures, the society of barbarians of uncouth speech, miserable\naccommodations in wretched wildernesses, hunger, and thirst, nakedness,\nweariness, and painfulness, hard work, and but little worldly\nencouragement, should rather be the objects of their expectation.  Thus\nthe apostles acted, in the primitive times, and endured hardness, as\ngood soldiers of Jesus Christ; and though we, living in a civilised\ncountry where Christianity is protected by law, are not called to\nsuffer these things while we continue here, yet I question whether all\nare justified in staying here, while so many are perishing without\nmeans of grace in other lands.  Sure I am that it is entirely contrary\nto the spirit of the gospel for its ministers to enter upon it from\ninterested motives, or with great worldly expectations.  On the\ncontrary, the commission is a sufficient call to them to venture all,\nand, like the primitive Christians, go everywhere preaching the gospel.\n\n\"It might be necessary, however, for two, at least, to go together, and\nin general I should think it best that they should be married men, and\nto prevent their time from being employed in procuring necessaries,\ntwo, or more, other persons, with their wives and families, might also\naccompany them, who should be wholly employed in providing for them.\nIn most countries it would be necessary for them to cultivate a little\nspot of ground just for their support, which would be a resource to\nthem, whenever their supplies failed. Not to mention the advantages\nthey would reap from each other's company, it would take off the\nenormous expense which has always attended undertakings of this kind,\nthe first expense being the whole; for though a large colony needs\nsupport for a considerable time, yet so small a number would, upon\nreceiving the first crop, maintain themselves.  They would have the\nadvantage of choosing their situation, their wants would be few; the\nwomen, and even the children, would be necessary for domestic purposes:\nand a few articles of stock, as a cow or two, and a bull, and a few\nother cattle of both sexes, a very few utensils of husbandry, and some\ncorn to sow their land, would be sufficient.  Those who attend the\nmissionaries should understand husbandry, fishing, fowling, etc., and\nbe provided with the necessary implements for these purposes. Indeed, a\nvariety of methods may be thought of, and when once the work is\nundertaken, many things will suggest themselves to us, of which we at\npresent can form no idea.\n\n\"FIFTHLY, As to learning their languages, the same means would be found\nnecessary here as in trade between different nations.  In some cases\ninterpreters might be obtained, who might be employed for a time; and\nwhere these were not to be found, the missionaries must have patience,\nand mingle with the people, till they have learned so much of their\nlanguage as to be able to communicate their ideas to them in it.  It is\nwell known to require no very extraordinary talents to learn, in the\nspace of a year, or two at most, the language of any people upon earth,\nso much of it at least as to be able to convey any sentiments we wish\nto their understandings.\n\n\"The Missionaries must be men of great piety, prudence, courage, and\nforbearance; of undoubted orthodoxy in their sentiments, and must enter\nwith all their hearts into the spirit of their mission; they must be\nwilling to leave all the comforts of life behind them, and to encounter\nall the hardships of a torrid or a frigid climate, an uncomfortable\nmanner of living, and every other inconvenience that can attend this\nundertaking.  Clothing, a few knives, powder and shot, fishing-tackle,\nand the articles of husbandry above mentioned, must be provided for\nthem; and when arrived at the place of their destination, their first\nbusiness must be to gain some acquaintance with the language of the\nnatives (for which purpose two would be better than one), and by all\nlawful means to endeavour to cultivate a friendship with them, and as\nsoon as possible let them know the errand for which they were sent.\nThey must endeavour to convince them that it was their good alone which\ninduced them to forsake their friends, and all the comforts of their\nnative country.  They must be very careful not to resent injuries which\nmay be offered to them, nor to think highly of themselves, so as to\ndespise the poor heathens, and by those means lay a foundation for\ntheir resentment or rejection of the gospel.  They must take every\nopportunity of doing them good, and labouring and travelling night and\nday, they must instruct, exhort, and rebuke, with all long suffering\nand anxious desire for them, and, above all, must be instant in prayer\nfor the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the people of their charge.\nLet but missionaries of the above description engage in the work, and\nwe shall see that it is not impracticable.\n\n\"It might likewise be of importance, if God should bless their labours,\nfor them to encourage any appearances of gifts amongst the people of\ntheir charge; if such should be raised up many advantages would be\nderived from their knowledge of the language and customs of their\ncountrymen; and their change of conduct would give great weight to\ntheir ministrations.\"\n\nThis first and still greatest missionary treatise in the English\nlanguage closes with the practical suggestion of these means--fervent\nand united prayer, the formation of a catholic or, failing that, a\nParticular Baptist Society of \"persons whose hearts are in the work,\nmen of serious religion and possessing a spirit of perseverance,\" with\nan executive committee, and subscriptions from rich and poor of a tenth\nof their income for both village preaching and foreign missions, or, at\nleast, an average of one penny or more per week from all members of\ncongregations.  He thus concludes:--\"It is true all the reward is of\nmere grace, but it is nevertheless encouraging; what a treasure, what\nan harvest must await such characters as Paul, and Eliot, and Brainerd,\nand others, who have given themselves wholly to the work of the Lord.\nWhat a heaven will it be to see the many myriads of poor heathens, of\nBritons amongst the rest, who by their labours have been brought to the\nknowledge of God. Surely a crown of rejoicing like this is worth\naspiring to. Surely it is worth while to lay ourselves out with all our\nmight, in promoting the cause and kingdom of Christ.\"\n\nSo Carey projected the first organisation which England had seen for\nmissions to all the human race outside of Christendom; and his project,\nwhile necessarily requiring a Society to carry it out, as coming from\nan \"independent\" Church, provided that every member of every\ncongregation should take a part to the extent of fervent and united\nprayer, and of an average subscription of a penny a week.  He came as\nnear to the New Testament ideal of all Christians acting in an\naggressive missionary church as was possible in an age when the\nEstablished Churches of England, Scotland, and Germany scouted foreign\nmissions, and the Free Churches were chiefly congregational in their\necclesiastical action.  While asserting the other ideal of the\nvoluntary tenth or tithe as both a Scriptural principle and Puritan\npractice, his common sense was satisfied to suggest an average penny a\nweek, all over, for every Christian.  At this hour, more than a century\nsince Carey wrote, and after a remarkable missionary revival in\nconsequence of what he wrote and did, all Christendom, Evangelical,\nGreek, and Latin, does not give more than five millions sterling a year\nto Christianise the majority of the race still outside its pale.  It is\nnot too much to say that were Carey's penny a week from every Christian\na fact, and the prayer which would sooner or later accompany it, the\nfive millions would be fifty, and Christendom would become a term\nnearly synonymous with humanity.  The Churches, whether by themselves\nor by societies, have yet to pray and organise up to the level of\nCarey's penny a week.\n\nThe absolute originality as well as grandeur of the unconscious action\nof the peasant shoemaker who, from 1779, prayed daily for all the\nheathen and slaves, and organised his society accordingly, will be seen\nin the dim light or darkness visible of all who had preceded him.  They\nwere before the set time; he was ready in the fulness of the missionary\npreparation.  They belonged not only to periods, but to nations, to\nchurches, to communities which were failing in the struggle for\nfruitfulness and expansion in new worlds and fresh lands; he was a son\nof England, which had come or was about to come out of the struggle a\nvictor, charged with the terrible responsibility of the special servant\nof the Lord, as no people had ever before been charged in all history,\nsacred or secular.  William Carey, indeed, reaped the little that the\nfew brave toilers of the wintry time had sown; with a humility that is\npathetic he acknowledges their toll, while ever ignorant to the last of\nhis own merit.  But he reaped only as each generation garners such\nfruits of its predecessor as may have been worthy to survive.  He was\nthe first of the true Anastatosantes of the modern world, as only an\nEnglish-speaking man could be--of the most thorough, permanent, and\neverlasting of all Reformers, the men who turn the world upside down,\nbecause they make it rise up and depart from deadly beliefs and\npractices, from the fear and the fate of death, into the life and light\nof Christ and the Father.\n\nWho were his predecessors, reckoning from the Renascence of Europe, the\ndiscovery of America, and the opening up of India and Africa? Erasmus\ncomes first, the bright scholar of compromise who in 1516 gave the New\nTestament again to Europe, as three centuries after Carey gave it to\nall Southern Asia, and whose missionary treatise, Ecclesiasties, in\n1535 anticipated, theoretically at least, Carey's Enquiry by two\ncenturies and a half.  The missionary dream of this escaped monk of\nRotterdam and Basel, who taught women and weavers and cobblers to read\nthe Scriptures, and prayed that the Book might be translated into all\nlanguages, was realised in the scandalous iniquities and frauds of\nPortuguese and Spanish and Jesuit missions in West and East. Luther had\nenough to do with his papal antichrist and his German translation of\nthe Greek of the Testament of Erasmus. The Lutheran church drove\nmissions into the hands of the Pietists and Moravians--Wiclif's\noffspring--who nobly but ineffectually strove to do a work meant for\nthe whole Christian community.  The Church of England thrust forth the\nPuritans first to Holland and then to New England, where Eliot, the\nBrainerds, and the Mayhews sought to evangelise tribes which did not\nlong survive themselves.\n\nIt was from Courteenhall, a Northamptonshire village near Paulerspury,\nthat in 1644 there went forth the appeal for the propagation of the\nGospel which comes nearest to Carey's cry from the same midland region.\nCromwell was in power, and had himself planned a Protestant Propaganda,\nso to the Long Parliament William Castell, \"parson of Courteenhall,\"\nsent a petition which, with the \"Eliot Tracts,\" resulted in an\nordinance creating the Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating\nthe Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England.  Seventy English ministers\nhad backed the petition, and six of the Church of Scotland, first of\nwhom was Alexander Henderson. The corporation, which, in a restored\nform, Robert Boyle governed for thirty years, familiarised the nation\nwith the duty of caring for the dark races then coming more and more\nunder our sway alike in America and in India.  It still exists, as well\nas Boyle's Society for advancing the Faith in the West Indies.  The\nFriends also, and then the Moravians, taught the Wesleys and Whitefield\nto care for the negroes.  The English and Scottish Propagation\nSocieties sought also to provide spiritual aids for the colonists and\nthe highlanders.\n\nThe two great thinkers of the eighteenth century, who flourished as\nphilosopher and moralist when Carey was a youth, taught the principles\nwhich he of all others was to apply on their spiritual and most\neffective side.  Adam Smith put his finger on the crime which had\ndarkened and continued till 1834 to shadow the brightness of\ngeographical enterprise in both hemispheres--the treatment of the\nnatives by Europeans whose superiority of force enabled them to commit\nevery sort of injustice in the new lands.  He sought a remedy in\nestablishing an equality of force by the mutual communication of\nknowledge and of all sorts of improvements by an extensive commerce.[5]\nSamuel Johnson rose to a higher level alike of wisdom and\nrighteousness, when he expressed the indignation of a Christian mind\nthat the propagation of truth had never been seriously pursued by any\nEuropean nation, and the hope \"that the light of the Gospel will at\nlast illuminate the sands of Africa and the deserts of America, though\nits progress cannot but be slow when it is so much obstructed by the\nlives of Christians.\"\n\nThe early movement which is connected most directly with Carey's and\nthe Northamptonshire Baptists' began in Scotland.  Its Kirk,\nemasculated by the Revolution settlement and statute of Queen Anne, had\nput down the evangelical teaching of Boston and the \"marrow\" men, and\nhad cast out the fathers of the Secession in 1733.  In 1742 the\nquickening spread over the west country.  In October 1744 several\nministers in Scotland united, for the two years next following, in what\nthey called, and what has since become familiar in America as, a\n\"Concert to promote more abundant application to a duty that is\nperpetually binding--prayer that our God's kingdom may come, joined\nwith praises;\" to be offered weekly on Saturday evening and Sunday\nmorning, and more solemnly on the first Tuesday of every quarter.  Such\nwas the result, and so did the prayer concert spread in the United\nKingdom that in August 1746 a memorial was sent to Boston inviting all\nChristians in North America to enter into it for the next seven years.\nIt was on this that Jonathan Edwards wrote his Humble Attempt to\npromote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in\nExtraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of\nChrist's Kingdom on Earth.\n\nThis work of Edwards, republished at Olney, came into the hands of\nCarey, and powerfully influenced the Northamptonshire Association of\nBaptist ministers and messengers.  At their meeting in Nottingham in\n1784 Sutcliff of Olney suggested and Ryland of Northampton drafted an\ninvitation to the people to join them, for one hour on the first Monday\nof every month, in prayer for the effusion of the Holy Spirit of God.\n\"Let the whole interest of the Redeemer be affectionately remembered,\"\nwrote these catholic men, and to give emphasis to their [oe]cumenical\nmissionary desires they added in italics--\"Let the spread of the Gospel\nto the most distant parts of the habitable globe be the object of your\nmost fervent requests.  We shall rejoice if any other Christian\nsocieties of our own or other denominations will join with us, and we\ndo now invite them most cordially to join heart and hand in the\nattempt.\"  To this Carey prominently referred in his Enquiry, tracing\nto even the unimportunate and feeble prayers of these eight years the\nincrease of the churches, the clearing of controversies, the opening of\nlands to missions, the spread of civil and religious liberty, the noble\neffort made to abolish the inhuman slave-trade, and the establishment\nof the free settlement of Sierra Leone.  And then he hits the other\nblots in the movement, besides the want of importunity and\nearnestness--\"We must not be contented with praying without exerting\nourselves in the use of means...Were the children of light but as wise\nin their generation as the children of this world, they would stretch\nevery nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was\nto be obtained in any other way.\"  A trading company obtain a charter\nand go to its utmost limits.  The charter, the encouragements of\nChristians are exceeding great, and the returns promised infinitely\nsuperior. \"Suppose a company of serious Christians, ministers and\nprivate persons, were to form themselves into a society.\"\n\nThe man was ready who had been specially fitted, by character and\ntraining, to form the home organisation of the society, while Carey\ncreated its foreign mission.  For the next quarter of a century William\nCarey and Andrew Fuller worked lovingly, fruitfully together, with the\nbreadth of half the world between them.  The one showed how, by Bible\nand church and school, by physical and spiritual truth, India and all\nAsia could be brought to Christ; the other taught England, Scotland,\nand America to begin at last to play their part in an enterprise as old\nas Abraham; as divine in its warrant, its charge, its promise, as\nChrist Himself.  Seven years older than Carey, his friend was born a\nfarmer's son and labourer in the fen country of Cromwell whom he\nresembled, was self-educated under conditions precisely similar, and\npassed through spiritual experiences almost exactly the same.  The two,\nunknown to each other, found themselves when called to preach at\neighteen unable to reconcile the grim dead theology of their church\nwith the new life and liberty which had come to them direct from the\nSpirit of Christ and from His Word. Carey had left his ancestral church\nat a time when the biographer of Romaine could declare with truth that\nthat preacher was the only evangelical in the established churches of\nall London, and that of twenty thousand clergymen in England, the\nnumber who preached the truth as it is in Jesus had risen from not\ntwenty in 1749 to three hundred in 1789.  The methodism of the Wesleys\nwas beginning to tell, but the Baptists were as lifeless as the\nEstablished Church.  In both the Church and Dissent there were\nindividuals only, like Newton and Scott, the elder Robert Hall and\nRyland, whose spiritual fervour made them marked men.\n\nThe Baptists, who had stood alone as the advocates of toleration,\nreligious and civil, in an age of intolerance which made them the\nvictims, had subsided like Puritan and Covenanter when the Revolution\nof 1688 brought persecution to an end.  The section who held the\ndoctrine of \"general\" redemption, and are now honourably known as\nGeneral Baptists, preached ordinary Arminianism, and even Socinianism.\nThe more earnest and educated among them clung to Calvinism, but, by\nadopting the unhappy term of \"particular\" Baptists, gradually fell\nunder a fatalistic and antinomian spell. This false Calvinism, which\nthe French theologian of Geneva would have been the first to denounce,\nproved all the more hostile to the preaching of the Gospel of salvation\nto the heathen abroad, as well as the sinner at home, that it professed\nto be an orthodox evangel while either emasculating the Gospel or\nturning the grace of God into licentiousness.  From such \"particular\"\npreachers as young Fuller and Carey listened to, at first with\nbewilderment, then impatience, and then denunciation, missions of no\nkind could come. Fuller exposed and pursued the delusion with a native\nshrewdness, a masculine sagacity, and a fine English style, which have\nwon for him the apt name of the Franklin of Theology.  For more than\ntwenty years Fullerism, as it was called, raised a controversy like\nthat of the Marrow of Divinity in Scotland, and cleared the ground\nsufficiently at least to allow of the foundation of foreign missions in\nboth countries.  It now seems incredible that the only class who a\ncentury ago represented evangelicalism should have opposed missions to\nthe heathen on the ground that the Gospel is meant only for the elect,\nwhether at home or abroad; that nothing spiritually good is the duty of\nthe unregenerate, therefore \"nothing must be addressed to them in a way\nof exhortation excepting what relates to external obedience.\"\n\nThe same year, 1784, in which the Baptist concert for prayer was begun,\nsaw the publication of Fuller's Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation.\nSeven years later he preached at Clipstone a famous sermon, in which he\napplied the dealing of the Lord of Hosts (in Haggai) to the Jewish\napathy--\"The time is not come that the Lord's house should be\nbuilt\"--with a power and directness which nevertheless failed\npractically to convince himself.  The men who listened to him had been\npraying for seven years, yet had opposed Carey's pleas for a foreign\nmission, had treated him as a visionary or a madman.  When Fuller had\npublished his treatise, Carey had drawn the practical deduction--\"If it\nbe the duty of all men, when the Gospel comes, to believe unto\nsalvation, then it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the\nGospel to endeavour to make it known among all nations for the\nobedience of faith.\"  Now, after seven more years of waiting, and\nremembering the manuscript Enquiry, Carey thought action cannot be\nlonger delayed.  Hardly was the usual discussion that followed the\nmeeting over when, as the story is told by the son of Ryland who had\nsilenced him in a former ministers' meeting, Carey appealed to his\nbrethren to put their preaching into practice and begin a missionary\nsociety that very day.  Fuller's sermon bore the title of The Evil\nNature and the Dangerous Tendency of Delay in the Concerns of Religion,\nand it had been preceded by one on being very jealous for the Lord God\nof Hosts, in which Sutcliff cried for the divine passion, the celestial\nfire that burned in the bosom and blazed in the life of Elijah.  The\nElijah of their own church and day was among them, burning and blazing\nfor years, and all that he could induce them to promise was vaguely\nthat, \"something should be done,\" and to throw to his importunity the\neasy request that he would publish his manuscript and preach next\nyear's sermon.\n\nMeanwhile, in 1789, Carey had left Moulton[6] for Leicester, whither he\nwas summoned to build up a congregation, ruined by antinomianism, in\nthe mean brick chapel of the obscure quarter of Harvey Lane. This\nchapel his genius and Robert Hall's eloquence made so famous in time\nthat the Baptists sent off a vigorous hive to the fine new church. In\nan equally humble house opposite the chapel the poverty of the pastor\ncompelled him to keep a school from nine in the morning till four in\nwinter and five in summer.  Between this and the hours for sleep and\nfood he had little leisure; but that he spent, as he had done all his\nlife before and did all his life after, with a method and zeal which\ndoubled his working days. \"I have seen him at work,\" writes Gardiner in\nhis Music and Friends, \"his books beside him, and his beautiful flowers\nin the windows.\"  In a letter to his father we have this division of\nhis leisure--Monday, \"the learned languages;\" Tuesday, \"the study of\nscience, history, composition, etc;\" Wednesday, \"I preach a lecture,\nand have been for more than twelve months on the Book of Revelation;\"\nThursday, \"I visit my friends;\" Friday and Saturday, \"preparing for the\nLord's Day.\" He preached three times every Sunday in his own chapel or\nthe surrounding villages, with such results that in one case he added\nhundreds to its Wesleyan congregation.  He was secretary to the local\ncommittee of dissenters. \"Add to this occasional journeys, ministers'\nmeetings, etc., and you will rather wonder that I have any time, than\nthat I have so little.  I am not my own, nor would I choose for myself.\nLet God employ me where he thinks fit, and give me patience and\ndiscretion to fill up my station to his honour and glory.\"\n\n\"After I had been probationer in this place a year and ten months, on\nthe 24th of May 1791 I was solemnly set apart to the office of pastor.\nAbout twenty ministers of different denominations were witnesses to the\ntransactions of the day.  After prayer Brother Hopper of Nottingham\naddressed the congregation upon the nature of an ordination, after\nwhich he proposed the usual questions to the church, and required my\nConfession of Faith; which being delivered, Brother Ryland prayed the\nordination prayer, with laying on of hands.  Brother Sutcliff delivered\na very solemn charge from Acts vi. 4--'But we will give ourselves\ncontinually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'  And Brother\nFuller delivered an excellent address to the people from Eph. v.\n2--'Walk in love.'  In the evening Brother Pearce of Birmingham\npreached from Gal. vi. 14--'God forbid that I should glory, save in the\ncross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me\nand I unto the world.'  The day was a day of pleasure, and I hope of\nprofit to the greatest part of the Assembly.\"\n\nCarey became the friend of his neighbour, Thomas Robinson, evangelical\nrector of St. Mary's, to whom he said on one occasion when indirectly\ncharged in humorous fashion with \"sheep-stealing:\" \"Mr. Robinson, I am\na dissenter, and you are a churchman; we must each endeavour to do good\naccording to our light.  At the same time, you may be assured that I\nhad rather be the instrument of converting a scavenger that sweeps the\nstreets than of merely proselyting the richest and best characters in\nyour congregation.\"  Dr. Arnold and Mr. R. Brewin, a botanist, opened\nto him their libraries, and all good men in Leicester soon learned to\nbe proud of the new Baptist minister.  In the two chapels, as in that\nof Moulton, enlarged since his time, memorial tablets tell succeeding\ngenerations of the virtues and the deeds of \"the illustrious W. Carey,\nD.D.\"\n\nThe ministers' meeting of 1792 came round, and on 31st May Carey seized\nhis opportunity.  The place was Nottingham, from which the 1784\ninvitation to prayer had gone forth.  Was the answer to come just there\nafter nine years' waiting?  His Enquiry had been published; had it\nprepared the brethren?  Ryland had been always loyal to the journeyman\nshoemaker he had baptised in the river, and he gives us this\nrecord:--\"If all the people had lifted up their voices and wept, as the\nchildren of Israel did at Bochim, I should not have wondered at the\neffect.  It would only have seemed proportionate to the cause, so\nclearly did he prove the criminality of our supineness in the cause of\nGod.\" The text was Isaiah's (liv. 2, 3) vision of the widowed church's\ntent stretching forth till her children inherited the nations and\npeopled the desolate cities, and the application to the reluctant\nbrethren was couched in these two great maxims written ever since on\nthe banners of the missionary host of the kingdom--\n\n   EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD.\n   ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD.\n\nThe service was over; even Fuller was afraid, even Ryland made no sign,\nand the ministers were leaving the meeting.  Seizing Fuller's arm with\nan imploring look, the preacher, whom despair emboldened to act alone\nfor his Master, exclaimed: \"And are you, after all, going again to do\nnothing?\"  What Fuller describes as the \"much fear and trembling\" of\nthese inexperienced, poor, and ignorant village preachers gave way to\nthe appeal of one who had gained both knowledge and courage, and who,\nas to funds and men, was ready to give himself.  They entered on their\nminutes this much:--\"That a plan be prepared against the next\nministers' meeting at Kettering for forming a Baptist Society for\npropagating the Gospel among the Heathen.\"  There was more delay, but\nonly for four months.  The first purely English Missionary Society,\nwhich sent forth its own English founder, was thus constituted as\ndescribed in the minutes of the Northampton ministers' meeting.\n\n\"At the ministers' meeting at Kettering, October 2, 1792, after the\npublic services of the day were ended, the ministers retired to consult\nfurther on the matter, and to lay a foundation at least for a society,\nwhen the following resolutions were proposed, and unanimously agreed\nto:--\n\n\"1. Desirous of making an effort for the propagation of the gospel\namong the heathen, agreeably to what is recommended in brother Carey's\nlate publication on that subject, we, whose names appear to the\nsubsequent subscription, do solemnly agree to act in society together\nfor that purpose.\n\n\"2. As in the present divided state of Christendom, it seems that each\ndenomination, by exerting itself separately, is most likely to\naccomplish the great ends of a mission, it is agreed that this society\nbe called The Particular [Calvinistic] Baptist Society for Propagating\nthe Gospel among the Heathen.\n\n\"3. As such an undertaking must needs be attended with expense, we\nagree immediately to open a subscription for the above purpose, and to\nrecommend it to others.\n\n\"4. Every person who shall subscribe ten pounds at once, or ten\nshillings and sixpence annually, shall be considered a member of the\nsociety.\n\n\"5. That the Rev. John Ryland, Reynold Hogg, William Carey, John\nSutcliff, and Andrew Fuller, be appointed a committee, three of whom\nshall be empowered to act in carrying into effect the purposes of this\nsociety.\n\n\"6. That the Rev. Reynold Hogg be appointed treasurer, and the Rev.\nAndrew Fuller secretary.\n\n\"7. That the subscriptions be paid in at the Northampton ministers'\nmeeting, October 31, 1792, at which time the subject shall be\nconsidered more particularly by the committee, and other subscribers\nwho may be present.\n\n\"Signed, John Ryland, Reynold Hogg, John Sutcliff, Andrew Fuller,\nAbraham Greenwood, Edward Sherman, Joshua Burton, Samuel Pearce, Thomas\nBlundel, William Heighton, John Eayres, Joseph Timms; whose\nsubscriptions in all amounted to \u00a313:2:6.\"\n\nThe procedure suggested in \"brother Carey's late publication\" was\nstrictly followed--a society of subscribers, 2d. a week, or 10s. 6d. a\nyear as a compromise between the tithes and the penny a week of the\nEnquiry.  The secretary was the courageous Fuller, who once said to\nRyland and Sutcliff: \"You excel me in wisdom, especially in foreseeing\ndifficulties.  I therefore want to advise with you both, but to execute\nwithout you.\"  The frequent chairman was Ryland, who was soon to train\nmissionaries for the work at Bristol College.  The treasurer was the\nonly rich man of the twelve, who soon resigned his office into a\nlayman's hands, as was right.  Of the others we need now point only to\nSamuel Pearce, the seraphic preacher of Birmingham, who went home and\nsent \u00a370 to the collection, and who, since he desired to give himself\nlike Carey, became to him dearer than even Fuller was.  The place was a\nlow-roofed parlour in the house of Widow Wallis, looking on to a back\ngarden, which many a pilgrim still visits, and around which there\ngathered thousands in 1842 to hold the first jubilee of modern\nmissions, when commemorative medals were struck.  There in 1892 the\ncentenary witnessed a still vaster assemblage.\n\nCan any good come out of Kettering? was the conclusion of the Baptist\nministers of London with the one exception of Booth, when they met\nformally to decide whether, like those of Birmingham and other places,\nthey should join the primary society.  Benjamin Beddome, a venerable\nscholar whom Robert Hall declared to be chief among his brethren,\nreplied to Fuller in language which is far from unusual even at the\npresent day, but showing the position which the Leicester minister had\nwon for himself even then:--\n\n\"I think your scheme, considering the paucity of well-qualified\nministers, hath a very unfavourable aspect with respect to destitute\nchurches at home, where charity ought to begin.  I had the pleasure\nonce to see and hear Mr. Carey; it struck me he was the most suitable\nperson in the kingdom, at least whom I knew, to supply my place, and\nmake up my great deficiencies when either disabled or removed.  A\ndifferent plan is formed and pursued, and I fear that the great and\ngood man, though influenced by the most excellent motives, will meet\nwith a disappointment.  However, God hath his ends, and whoever is\ndisappointed He cannot be so.  My unbelieving heart is ready to suggest\nthat the time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be\nbuilt.\"\n\nThe other Congregationalists made no sign.  The Presbyterians, with a\nfew noble exceptions like Dr. Erskine, whose Dutch volume Carey had\ntranslated, denounced such movements as revolutionary in a General\nAssembly of Socinianised \"moderates.\"  The Church of England kept\nhaughtily or timidly aloof, though king and archbishop were pressed to\nsend a mission. \"Those who in that day sneered that England had sent a\ncobbler to convert the world were the direct lineal descendants of\nthose who sneered in Palestine 2000 years ago, 'Is not this the\ncarpenter?'\" said Archdeacon Farrar in Westminster Abbey on 6th March\n1887.  Hence Fuller's reference to this time:--\"When we began in 1792\nthere was little or no respectability among us, not so much as a squire\nto sit in the chair or an orator to address him with speeches.  Hence\ngood Dr. Stennett advised the London ministers to stand aloof and not\ncommit themselves.\"\n\nOne man in India had striven to rouse the Church to its duty as Carey\nhad done at home.  Charles Grant had in 1787 written from Malda to\nCharles Simeon and Wilberforce for eight missionaries, but not one\nChurch of England clergyman could be found to go.  Thirty years after,\nwhen chairman of the Court of Directors and father of Lord Glenelg and\nSir Robert Grant, he wrote:--\"I had formed the design of a mission to\nBengal: Providence reserved that honour for the Baptists.\"  After all,\nthe twelve village pastors in the back parlour of Kettering were the\nmore really the successors of the twelve apostles in the upper room of\nJerusalem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nINDIA AS CAREY FOUND IT\n\n1793\n\nTahiti v. Bengal--Carey and Thomas appointed missionaries to\nBengal--The farewell at Leicester--John Thomas, first medical\nmissionary--Carey's letter to his father--The Company's \"abominable\nmonopoly\"--The voyage--Carey's aspirations for world-wide\nmissions--Lands at Calcutta--His description of Bengal in\n1793--Contrast presented by Carey to Clive, Hastings, and\nCornwallis--The spiritual founder of an Indian Empire of Christian\nBritain--Bengal and the famine of 1769-70--The Decennial Settlement\ndeclared permanent--Effects on the landed classes--Obstacles to Carey's\nwork--East India Company at its worst--Hindooism and the Bengalees in\n1793--Position of Hindoo women--Missionary attempts before\nCarey's--Ziegenbalg and Schwartz--Kiernander and the\nchaplains--Hindooised state of Anglo-Indian society and its reaction on\nEngland--Guneshan Dass, the first caste Hindoo to visit\nEngland--William Carey had no predecessor.\n\nCarey had desired to go first to Tahiti or Western Africa.  The natives\nof North America and the negroes of the West Indies and Sierra Leone\nwere being cared for by Moravian and Wesleyan evangelists.  The\nnarrative of Captain Cook's two first voyages to the Pacific and\ndiscovery of Tahiti had appeared in the same year in which the\nNorthampton churches began their seven years' concert of prayer, just\nafter his own second baptism.  From the map, and a leather globe which\nalso he is said to have made, he had been teaching the children of\nPiddington, Moulton, and Leicester the great outlines and thrilling\ndetails of expeditions round the world which roused both the scientific\nand the simple of England as much as the discoveries of Columbus had\nexcited Europe.  When the childlike ignorance and natural grace of the\nHawaiians, which had at first fired him with the longing to tell them\nthe good news of God, were seen turned into the wild justice of\nrevenge, which made Cook its first victim, Carey became all the more\neager to anticipate the disasters of later days.  That was work for\nwhich others were to be found.  It was not amid the scattered and\ndecimated savages of the Pacific or of America that the citadel of\nheathenism was found, nor by them that the world, old and new, was to\nbe made the kingdom of Christ.  With the cautious wisdom that marked\nall Fuller's action, though perhaps with the ignorance that was due to\nCarey's absence, the third meeting of the new society recorded this\namong other articles \"to be examined and discussed in the most diligent\nand impartial manner--In what part of the heathen world do there seem\nto be the most promising openings?\"\n\nThe answer, big with consequence for the future of the East, was in\ntheir hands, in the form of a letter from Carey, who stated that \"Mr.\nThomas, the Bengal missionary,\" was trying to raise a fund for that\nprovince, and asked \"whether it would not be worthy of the Society to\ntry to make that and ours unite with one fund for the purpose of\nsending the gospel to the heathen indefinitely.\"  Tahiti was not to be\nneglected, nor Africa, nor Bengal, in \"our larger plan,\" which included\nabove four hundred millions of our fellowmen, among whom it was an\nobject \"worthy of the most ardent and persevering pursuit to\ndisseminate the humane and saving principles of the Christian\nReligion.\"  If this Mr. Thomas were worthy, his experience made it\ndesirable to begin with Bengal.  Thomas answered for himself at the\nnext meeting, when Carey fell upon his neck and wept, having previously\npreached from the words--\"Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with\nMe.\" \"We saw,\" said Fuller afterwards, \"there was a gold mine in India,\nbut it was as deep as the centre of the earth.  Who will venture to\nexplore it? 'I will venture to go down,' said Carey, 'but remember that\nyou (addressing Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland) must hold the ropes.'  We\nsolemnly engaged to him to do so, nor while we live shall we desert\nhim.\"\n\nCarey and Thomas, an ordained minister and a medical evangelist, were\nat this meeting in Kettering, on 10th January 1793, appointed\nmissionaries to \"the East Indies for preaching the gospel to the\nheathen,\" on \"\u00a3100 or \u00a3150 a year between them all,\"--that is, for two\nmissionaries, their wives, and four children,--until they should be\nable to support themselves like the Moravians.  As a matter of fact\nthey received just \u00a3200 in all for the first three years when\nself-support and mission extension fairly began.  The whole sum at\ncredit of the Society for outfit, passage, and salaries was \u00a3130, so\nthat Fuller's prudence was not without justification when supported by\nThomas's assurances that the amount was enough, and Carey's modest\nself-sacrifice. \"We advised Mr. Carey,\" wrote Fuller to Ryland, \"to\ngive up his school this quarter, for we must make up the loss to him.\"\nThe more serious cost of the passage was raised by Fuller and by the\npreaching tours of the two missionaries.  During one of these, at Hull,\nCarey met the printer and newspaper editor, William Ward, and cast his\nmantle over him thus--\"If the Lord bless us, we shall want a person of\nyour business to enable us to print the Scriptures; I hope you will\ncome after us.\"  Ward did so in five years.\n\nThe 20th March 1793 was a high day in the Leicester chapel, Harvey\nLane, when the missionaries were set apart like Barnabas and Paul--a\nforenoon of prayer; an afternoon of preaching by Thomas from Psalm xvi.\n4; \"Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God;\"\nan evening of preaching by the treasurer from Acts xxi. 14, \"And when\nhe would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, the will of the Lord be\ndone;\" and the parting charge by Fuller the secretary, from the risen\nLord's own benediction and forthsending of His disciples, \"Peace be\nunto you, as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.\"  Often in\nafter days of solitude and reproach did Carey quicken his faith by\nreading the brave and loving words of Fuller on \"the objects you must\nkeep in view, the directions you must observe, the difficulties you\nmust encounter, the reward you may expect.\"\n\nUnder date four days after we find this entry in the Church Book--\"Mr.\nCarey, our minister, left Leicester to go on a mission to the East\nIndies, to take and propagate the Gospel among those idolatrous and\nsuperstitious heathens.  This is inserted to show his love to his poor\nmiserable fellow-creatures.  In this we concurred with him, though it\nis at the expense of losing one whom we love as our own souls.\"  When\nCarey's preaching had so filled the church that it became necessary to\nbuild a front gallery at a cost of \u00a398, and they had applied to several\nother churches for assistance in vain, he thus taught them to help\nthemselves.  The minister and many of the members agreed to pay off the\ndebt \"among ourselves\" by weekly subscriptions,--a process, however,\nwhich covered five years, so poor were they.  Carey left this as a\nparting lesson to home congregations, while his people found it the\neasier to pay the debt that they had sacrificed their best, their own\nminister, to the work of missions for which he had taught them to pray.\n\nJohn Thomas, four years older than Carey, was a surgeon, who had made\ntwo voyages to Calcutta in the Oxford Indiaman, had been of spiritual\nservice to Charles Grant, Mr. George Udny, and the Bengal civilian\ncircle at Malda, and had been supported by Mr. Grant as a missionary\nfor a time until his eccentricities and debts outraged his friends and\ndrove him home at the time of the Kettering meetings.  Full justice has\nbeen done to a character and a career somewhat resembling those of John\nNewton, by his patient and able biographer the Rev. C. B. Lewis.  John\nThomas has the merit of being the first medical missionary, at a time\nwhen no other Englishman cared for either the bodies or souls of our\nrecently acquired subjects in North India, outside of Charles Grant's\ncircle.  He has more; he was used by God to direct Carey to the dense\nHindoo population of Bengal--to the people and to the centre, that is,\nwhere Brahmanism had its seat, and whence Buddhism had been carried by\nthousands of missionaries all over Southern, Eastern, and Central Asia.\nBut there our ascription of merit to Thomas must stop. However well he\nmight speak the uncultured Bengali, he never could write the language\nor translate the Bible into a literary style so that it could be\nunderstood by the people or influence their leaders.  His temper kept\nCharles Grant back from helping the infant mission, though anxious to\nsee Mr. Carey and to aid him and any other companion.  The debts of\nThomas caused him and Carey to be excluded from the Oxford, in which\nhis friend the commander had agreed to take them and their party\nwithout a licence; clouded the early years of the enterprise with their\nshadow, and formed the heaviest of the many burdens Carey had to bear\nat starting.  If, afterwards, the old association of Thomas with Mr.\nUdny at Malda gave Carey a home during his Indian apprenticeship, this\nwas a small atonement for the loss of the direct help of Mr. Grant.  If\nCarey proved to be the John among the men who began to make Serampore\nillustrious, Thomas was the Peter, so far as we know Peter in the\nGospels only.\n\nJust before being ejected from the Oxford, as he had been deprived of\nthe effectual help of Charles Grant through his unhappy companion, when\nwith only his eldest son Felix beside him, how did Carey view his\nGod-given mission?  The very different nature of his wife, who had\nannounced to him the birth of a child, clung anew to the hope that this\nmight cause him to turn back.  Writing from Ryde on the 6th May he thus\nreplied with sweet delicacy of human affection, but with true loyalty\nto his Master's call:--\n\n\"Received yours, giving me an account of your safe delivery.  This is\npleasant news indeed to me; surely goodness and mercy follow me all my\ndays.  My stay here was very painful and unpleasant, but now I see the\ngoodness of God in it.  It was that I might hear the most pleasing\naccounts that I possibly could hear respecting earthly things.  You\nwish to know in what state my mind is.  I answer, it is much as when I\nleft you.  If I had all the world, I would freely give it all to have\nyou and my dear children with me; but the sense of duty is so strong as\nto overpower all other considerations; I could not turn back without\nguilt on my soul.  I find a longing desire to enjoy more of God; but,\nnow I am among the people of the world, I think I see more beauties in\ngodliness than ever, and, I hope, enjoy more of God in retirement than\nI have done for some time past...You want to know what Mrs. Thomas\nthinks, and how she likes the voyage...She would rather stay in England\nthan go to India; but thinks it right to go with her husband...Tell my\ndear children I love them dearly, and pray for them constantly.  Felix\nsends his love.  I look upon this mercy as an answer to prayer indeed.\nTrust in God. Love to Kitty, brothers, sisters, etc.  Be assured I love\nyou most affectionately.  Let me know my dear little child's name.--I\nam, for ever, your faithful and affectionate husband,\n\n\"WILLIAM CAREY.\n\n\"My health never was so well.  I believe the sea makes Felix and me\nboth as hungry as hunters.  I can eat a monstrous meat supper, and\ndrink a couple of glasses of wine after it, without hurting me at all.\nFarewell.\"\n\nShe was woman and wife enough, in the end, to do as Mrs. Thomas had\ndone, but she stipulated that her sister should accompany her.\n\nBy a series of specially providential events, as it seemed, such as\nmarked the whole early history of this first missionary enterprise of\nmodern England, Carey and Thomas secured a passage on board the Danish\nIndiaman Kron Princessa Maria, bound from Copenhagen to Serampore.  At\nDover, where they had been waiting for days, the eight were roused from\nsleep by the news that the ship was off the harbour.  Sunrise on the\n13th June saw them on board.  Carey had had other troubles besides his\ncolleague and his wife.  His father, then fifty-eight years old, had\nnot given him up without a struggle. \"Is William mad?\" he had said when\nhe received the letter in which his son thus offered himself up on the\nmissionary altar.  His mother had died six years before:--\n\n\"LEICESTER, Jan. 17th, 1793.\n\n\"DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,--The importance of spending our time for God\nalone, is the principal theme of the gospel.  I beseech you, brethren,\nsays Paul, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living\nsacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service.  To\nbe devoted like a sacrifice to holy uses, is the great business of a\nchristian, pursuant to these requisitions. I consider myself as devoted\nto the service of God alone, and now I am to realise my professions.  I\nam appointed to go to Bengal, in the East Indies, a missionary to the\nHindoos.  I shall have a colleague who has been there five or six years\nalready, and who understands their language.  They are the most mild\nand inoffensive people in all the world, but are enveloped in the\ngreatest superstition, and in the grossest ignorance...I hope, dear\nfather, you may be enabled to surrender me up to the Lord for the most\narduous, honourable, and important work that ever any of the sons of\nmen were called to engage in.  I have many sacrifices to make.  I must\npart with a beloved family, and a number of most affectionate friends.\nNever did I see such sorrow manifested as reigned through our place of\nworship last Lord's-day.  But I have set my hand to the plough.--I\nremain, your dutiful son,\n\n\"WILLIAM CAREY.\"\n\nWhen in London Carey had asked John Newton, \"What if the Company should\nsend us home on our arrival in Bengal?\" \"Then conclude,\" was the reply,\n\"that your Lord has nothing there for you to accomplish. But if He\nhave, no power on earth can hinder you.\"  By Act of Parliament not ten\nyears old, every subject of the King going to or found in the East\nIndies without a licence from the Company, was guilty of a high crime\nand misdemeanour, and liable to fine and imprisonment.  Only four years\npreviously a regulation had compelled every commander to deliver to the\nHoogli pilot a return of the passengers on board that the Act might be\nenforced.  The Danish nationality of the ship and crew saved the\nmissionary party.  So grievously do unjust laws demoralise contemporary\nopinion, that Fuller was constrained to meet the objections of many to\nthe \"illegality\" of the missionaries' action by reasoning, unanswerable\nindeed, but not now required: \"The apostles and primitive ministers\nwere commanded to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every\ncreature; nor were they to stop for the permission of any power upon\nearth, but to go, and take the consequences.  If a man of God,\nconscious of having nothing in his heart unfriendly to any civil\ngovernment whatever, but determined in all civil matters to obey and\nteach obedience to the powers that are, put his life in his hand,\nsaying, I will go, and if I am persecuted in one city I will flee to\nanother'...whatever the wisdom of this world may decide upon his\nconduct, he will assuredly be acquitted, and more than acquitted, at a\nhigher tribunal.\"\n\nCarey's journal of the voyage begins with an allusion to \"the\nabominable East Indian monopoly,\" which he was to do more than any\nother man to break down by weapons not of man's warfare.  The second\nweek found him at Bengali, and for his companion the poems of Cowper.\nOf the four fellow-passengers one was a French deist, with whom he had\nmany a debate.\n\n\"Aug. 2.--I feel myself to be much declined, upon the whole, in the\nmore spiritual exercises of religion; yet have had some pleasant\nexercises of soul, and feel my heart set upon the great work upon which\nI am going.  Sometimes I am quite dejected when I see the\nimpenetrability of the hearts of those with us.  They hear us preach on\nthe Lord's-day, but we are forced to witness their disregard to God all\nthe week.  O may God give us greater success among the heathen.  I am\nvery desirous that my children may pursue the same work; and now intend\nto bring up one in the study of Sanskrit, and another of Persian.  O\nmay God give them grace to fit them for the work!  I have been much\nconcerned for fear the power of the Company should oppose us...\n\n\"Aug. 20.--I have reason to lament over a barrenness of soul, and am\nsometimes much discouraged; for if I am so dead and stupid, how can I\nexpect to be of any use among the heathen?  Yet I have of late felt\nsome very lively desires after the success of our undertaking. If there\nis anything that engages my heart in prayer to God, it is that the\nheathen may be converted, and that the society which has so generously\nexerted itself may be encouraged, and excited to go on with greater\nvigour in the important undertaking...\n\n\"Nov. 9.--I think that I have had more liberty in prayer, and more\nconverse with God, than for some time before; but have,\nnotwithstanding, been a very unfruitful creature, and so remain. For\nnear a month we have been within two hundred miles of Bengal, but the\nviolence of the currents set us back when we have been at the very\ndoor.  I hope I have learned the necessity of bearing up in the things\nof God against wind and tide, when there is occasion, as we have done\nin our voyage.\"\n\nTo the Society he writes for a Polyglot Bible, the Gospels in Malay,\nCurtis's Botanical Magazine, and Sowerby's English Botany, at his own\ncost, and thus plans the conquest of the world:--\"I hope the Society\nwill go on and increase, and that the multitudes of heathen in the\nworld may hear the glorious words of truth.  Africa is but a little way\nfrom England; Madagascar but a little way farther; South America, and\nall the numerous and large islands in the Indian and Chinese seas, I\nhope will not be passed over.  A large field opens on every side, and\nmillions of perishing heathens, tormented in this life by idolatry,\nsuperstition, and ignorance, and exposed to eternal miseries in the\nworld to come, are pleading; yea, all their miseries plead as soon as\nthey are known, with every heart that loves God, and with all the\nchurches of the living God. Oh, that many labourers may be thrust out\ninto the vineyard of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the gentiles may\ncome to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Him!\"\n\nOn the 7th November, as the ship lay in the roads of Balasore, he and\nThomas landed and \"began our labours.\"  For three hours the people of\nthe bazaar listened with great attention to Thomas, and one prepared\nfor them a native dinner with plantain leaf for dish, and fingers for\nknives and forks.  Balasore--name of Krishna--was one of the first\nsettlements of the English in North India in 1642, and there the\nAmerican Baptist successors of Carey have since carried on his work.\nOn the 11th November, after a five months' voyage, they landed at\nCalcutta unmolested.  The first fortnight's experience of the city,\nwhose native population he estimated at 200,000, and of the surrounding\ncountry, he thus condenses:--\"I feel something of what Paul felt when\nhe beheld Athens, and 'his spirit was stirred within him.'  I see one\nof the finest countries in the world, full of industrious inhabitants;\nyet three-fifths of it are an uncultivated jungle, abandoned to wild\nbeasts and serpents.  If the gospel flourishes here, 'the wilderness\nwill in every respect become a fruitful field.'\"\n\nClive, Hastings (Macpherson during an interregnum of twenty-two\nmonths), and Cornwallis, were the men who had founded and administered\nthe empire of British India up to this time.  Carey passed the last\nGovernor-General in the Bay of Bengal as he retired with the honours of\na seven years' successful generalship and government to atone for the\nnot unhappy surrender of York Town, which had resulted in the\nindependence of the United States.  Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord\nTeignmouth, who had been selected by Pitt to carry out the reforms\nwhich he had elaborated along with his predecessor, had entered on his\nhigh office just a fortnight before. What a contrast was presented, as\nman judges, by the shy shoemaker, schoolmaster, and Baptist preacher,\nwho found not a place in which to lay his head save a hovel lent to him\nby a Hindoo, to Clive, whose suicide he might have heard of when a\nchild; to Hastings, who for seventeen years had stood before his\ncountry impeached.  They were men described by Macaulay as of ancient,\neven illustrious lineage, and they had brought into existence an empire\nmore extensive than that of Rome. He was a peasant craftsman, who had\ntaught himself with a skill which Lord Wellesley, their successor\nalmost as great as themselves, delighted publicly to acknowledge--a man\nof the people, of the class who had used the Roman Empire to build out\nof it a universal Christendom, who were even then turning France upside\ndown, creating the Republic of America, and giving new life to Great\nBritain itself.  The little Englishman was about to do in Calcutta and\nfrom Serampore what the little Jew, Paul, had done in Antioch and\nEphesus, from Corinth and Rome. England might send its nobly born to\nerect the material and the secular fabric of empire, but it was only,\nin the providence of God, that they might prepare for the poor village\npreacher to convert the empire into a spiritual force which should in\ntime do for Asia what Rome had done for Western Christendom.  But till\nthe last, as from the first, Carey was as unconscious of the part which\nhe had been called to play as he was unresting in the work which it\ninvolved.  It is no fanatical criticism, but the true philosophy of\nhistory, which places Carey over against Clive, the spiritual and\nsecular founders, and Duff beside Hastings, the spiritual and secular\nconsolidators of our Indian Empire.\n\nCarey's work for India underlay the first period of forty years of\ntransition from Cornwallis to Bentinck, as Duff's covered the second of\nthirty years to the close of Lord Canning's administration, which\nintroduced the new era of full toleration and partial but increasing\nself-government directed by the Viceroy and Parliament.\n\nCarey had been sent not only to the one people outside of Christendom\nwhose conversion would tell most powerfully on all Asia, Africa, and\ntheir islands--the Hindoos; but to the one province which was almost\nentirely British, and could be used as it had been employed to\nassimilate the rest of India--Bengal.  Territorially the East India\nCompany possessed, when he landed, nothing outside of the Ganges valley\nof Bengal, Bihar, and Benares, save a few spots on the Madras and\nMalabar coasts and the portion just before taken in the Mysore war.\nThe rest was desolated by the Marathas, the Nizam, Tipoo, and other\nMohammedan adventurers.  On the Gangetic delta and right up to\nAllahabad, but not beyond, the Company ruled and raised revenue,\nleaving the other functions of the state to Mohammedans of the type of\nTurkish pashas under the titular superiority of the effete Emperor of\nDelhi.  The Bengali and Hindi-speaking millions of the Ganges and the\nsimpler aborigines of the hills had been devastated by the famine of\n1769-70, which the Company's officials, who were powerless where they\ndid not intensify it by interference with trade, confessed to have cut\noff from ten to twelve millions of human beings.  Over three-fifths of\nthe area the soil was left without a cultivator.  The whole young of\nthat generation perished, so that, even twenty years after, Lord\nCornwallis officially described one-third of Bengal as a jungle\ninhabited only by wild beasts.  A quarter of a century after Carey's\nlanguage was, as we have seen, \"three-fifths of it are an uncultivated\njungle abandoned to wild beasts and serpents.\"\n\nBut the British peace, in Bengal at least, had allowed abundant crops\nto work their natural result on the population.  The local experience\nof Shore, who had witnessed the horrors he could do so little to\nrelieve, had united with the statesmanship of Cornwallis to initiate a\nseries of administrative reforms that worked some evil, but more good,\nall through Carey's time.  First of all, as affecting the very\nexistence and the social development of the people, or their capacity\nfor being educated, Christianised, civilised in the highest sense,\nthere was the relation of the Government to the ryots (\"protected\nones\") and the zameendars (\"landholders\").  In India, as nearly all\nover the world except in feudalised Britain, the state is the common\nlandlord in the interests of all classes who hold the soil subject to\nthe payment of customary rents, directly or through middlemen, to the\nGovernment. For thirty years after Plassey the Government of India had\nbeen learning its business, and in the process had injured both itself\nand the landed classes, as much as has been done in Ireland.  From a\nmere trader it had been, more or less consciously, becoming a ruler. In\n1786 the Court of Directors, in a famous letter, tried to arrest the\nruin which the famine had only hastened by ordering that a settlement\nof the land-tax or revenue or rent be made, not with mere farmers like\nthe pashas of Turkey, but with the old zameendars, and that the rate be\nfixed for ten years.  Cornwallis and Shore took three years to make the\ndetailed investigations, and in 1789 the state rent-roll of Bengal\nproper was fixed at \u00a32,858,772 a year. The English peer, who was\nGovernor-General, at once jumped to the conclusion that this rate\nshould be fixed not only for ten years, but for ever.  The experienced\nBengal civilian protested that to do that would be madness when a third\nof the rich province was out of cultivation, and as to the rest its\nvalue was but little known, and its estates were without reliable\nsurvey or boundaries.\n\nWe can now see that, as usual, both were right in what they asserted\nand wrong in what they denied.  The principle of fixity of tenure and\ntax cannot be over-estimated in its economic, social, and political\nvalue, but it should have been applied to the village communities and\ncultivating peasants without the intervention of middlemen other than\nthe large ancestral landholders with hereditary rights, and that on the\nstandard of corn rents.  Cornwallis had it in his power thus to do what\nsome years afterwards Stein did in Prussia, with the result seen in the\npresent German people and empire.  The dispute as to a permanent or a\ndecennial settlement was referred home, and Pitt, aided by Dundas and\nCharles Grant, took a week to consider it.  His verdict was given in\nfavour of feudalism. Eight months before Carey landed at Calcutta the\nsettlement had been declared perpetual; in 1795 it was extended to\nBenares also.\n\nDuring the next twenty years mismanagement and debt revolutionised the\nlanded interest, as in France at the same time, but in a very different\ndirection.  The customary rights of the peasant proprietors had been\nlegislatively secured by reserving to the Governor-General the power\n\"to enact such regulations as he may think necessary for the protection\nand welfare of the dependent talookdars, ryots, and other cultivators\nof the soil.\"  The peasants continued long to be so few that there was\ncompetition for them; the process of extortion with the aid of the\ncourts had hardly begun when they were many, and the zameendars were\nburdened with charges for the police.  But in 1799 and again in 1812\nthe state, trembling for its rent, gave the zameendars further\nauthority.  The principle of permanence of assessment so far\nco-operated with the splendid fertility of the Ganges valley and the\npeaceful multiplication of the people and spread of cultivation, that\nall through the wars and annexations, up to the close of the Mutiny, it\nwas Bengal which enabled England to extend the empire up to its natural\nlimits from the two seas to the Himalaya.  But in 1859 the first\nattempt was made by the famous Act X. to check the rack-renting power\nof the zameendars.  And now, more than a century since the first step\nwas taken to arrest the ruin of the peasantry, the legislature of India\nhas again tried to solve for the whole country these four difficulties\nwhich all past landed regulations have intensified--to give the state\ntenants a guarantee against uncertain enhancements of rent, and against\ntaxation of improvements; to minimise the evil of taking rent in cash\ninstead of in kind by arranging the dates on which rent is paid; and to\nmitigate if not prevent famine by allowing relief for failure of crops.\nAs pioneering, the work of Carey and his colleagues all through was\ndistinctly hindered by the treatment of the land question, which at\nonce ground down the mass of the people and created a class of\noppressive landlords destitute for the most part of public spirit and\nthe higher culture.  Both were disinclined by their circumstances to\nlend an ear to the Gospel, but these circumstances made it the more\nimperative on the missionaries to tell them, to teach their children,\nto print for all the glad tidings.  Carey, himself of peasant\nextraction, cared for the millions of the people above all; but his\nwork in the classical as well as the vernacular languages was equally\naddressed to their twenty thousand landlords.  The time of his\nwork--before Bentinck; and the centre of it--outside the metropolis,\nleft the use of the English weapon against Brahmanism largely for Duff.\n\nWhen Cornwallis, following Warren Hastings, completed the substitution\nof the British for the Mohammedan civil administration by a system of\ncourts and police and a code of regulations, he was guilty of one\nomission and one mistake that it took years of discussion and action to\nrectify.  He did not abolish from the courts the use of Persian, the\nlanguage of the old Mussulman invaders, now foreign to all parties; and\nhe excluded from all offices above \u00a330 a year the natives of the\ncountry, contrary to their fair and politic practice.  Bengal and its\nmillions, in truth, were nominally governed in detail by three hundred\nwhite and upright civilians, with the inevitable result in abuses which\nthey could not prevent, and oppression of native by native which they\nwould not check, and the delay or development of reforms which the few\nmissionaries long called for in vain.  In a word, after making the most\ngenerous allowance for the good intentions of Cornwallis, and\nconscientiousness of Shore, his successor, we must admit that Carey was\ncalled to become the reformer of a state of society which the worst\nevils of Asiatic and English rule combined to prevent him and other\nself-sacrificing or disinterested philanthropists from purifying.  The\nEast India Company, at home and in India, had reached that depth of\nopposition to light and freedom in any form which justifies Burke's\nextremest passages--the period between its triumph on the exclusion of\n\"the pious clauses\" from the Charter of 1793 and its defeat in the\nCharter of 1813.  We shall reproduce some outlines of the picture which\nWard drew:--[7]\n\n\"On landing in Bengal, in the year 1793, our brethren found themselves\nsurrounded with a population of heathens (not including the Mahometans)\namounting to at least one hundred millions of souls.\n\n\"On the subject of the divine nature, with the verbal admission of the\ndoctrine of the divine unity, they heard these idolaters speak of\n330,000,000 of gods.  Amidst innumerable idol temples they found none\nerected for the worship of the one living and true God. Services\nwithout end they saw performed in honour of the elements and deified\nheroes, but heard not one voice tuned to the praise or employed in the\nservice of the one God. Unacquainted with the moral perfections of\nJehovah, they saw this immense population prostrate before dead matter,\nbefore the monkey, the serpent, before idols the very personifications\nof sin; and they found this animal, this reptile, and the lecher\nKrishnu {u-caron} and his concubine Radha, among the favourite\ndeities of the Hindoos...\n\n\"Respecting the real nature of the present state, the missionaries\nperceived that the Hindoos laboured under the most fatal\nmisapprehensions; that they believed the good or evil actions of this\nbirth were not produced as the volitions of their own wills, but arose\nfrom, and were the unavoidable results of, the actions of the past\nbirth; that their present actions would inevitably give rise to the\nwhole complexion of their characters and conduct in the following\nbirth; and that thus they were doomed to interminable transmigrations,\nto float as some light substance upon the bosom of an irresistible\ntorrent...\n\n\"Amongst these idolaters no Bibles were found; no sabbaths; no\ncongregating for religious instruction in any form; no house for God;\nno God but a log of wood, or a monkey; no Saviour but the Ganges; no\nworship but that paid to abominable idols, and that connected with\ndances, songs, and unutterable impurities; so that what should have\nbeen divine worship, purifying, elevating, and carrying the heart to\nheaven, was a corrupt but rapid torrent, poisoning the soul and\ncarrying it down to perdition; no morality, for how should a people be\nmoral whose gods are monsters of vice; whose priests are their\nringleaders in crime; whose scriptures encourage pride, impurity,\nfalsehood, revenge, and murder; whose worship is connected with\nindescribable abominations, and whose heaven is a brothel?  As might be\nexpected, they found that men died here without indulging the smallest\nvestige of hope, except what can arise from transmigration, the hope,\ninstead of plunging into some place of misery, of passing into the body\nof some reptile.  To carry to such a people the divine word, to call\nthem together for sacred instruction, to introduce amongst them a pure\nand heavenly worship, and to lead them to the observance of a Sabbath\non earth, as the preparative and prelude to a state of endless\nperfection, was surely a work worthy for a Saviour to command, and\nbecoming a christian people to attempt.\"\n\nThe condition of women, who were then estimated at \"seventy-five\nmillions of minds,\" and whom the census shows to be now above\n144,000,000, is thus described after an account of female infanticide:--\n\n\"To the Hindoo female all education is denied by the positive\ninjunction of the shastru {u-caron}, and by the general voice\nof the population.  Not a single school for girls, therefore,\nall over the country!  With knitting, sewing, embroidery, painting,\nmusic, and drawing, they have no more to do than with letters;\nthe washing is done by men of a particular tribe.  The Hindoo\ngirl, therefore, spends the ten first years of her life in sheer\nidleness, immured in the house of her father.\n\n\"Before she has attained to this age, however, she is sought after by\nthe ghutuks, men employed by parents to seek wives for their sons.  She\nis betrothed without her consent; a legal agreement, which binds her\nfor life, being made by the parents on both sides while she is yet a\nchild.  At a time most convenient to the parents, this boy and girl are\nbrought together for the first time, and the marriage ceremony is\nperformed; after which she returns to the house of her father.\n\n\"Before the marriage is consummated, in many instances, the boy dies,\nand this girl becomes a widow; and as the law prohibits the marriage of\nwidows, she is doomed to remain in this state as long as she lives.\nThe greater number of these unfortunate beings become a prey to the\nseducer, and a disgrace to their families.  Not long since a bride, on\nthe day the marriage ceremony was to have been performed, was burnt on\nthe funeral pile with the dead body of the bridegroom, at\nChandernagore, a few miles north of Calcutta. Concubinage, to a most\nawful extent, is the fruit of these marriages without choice.  What a\nsum of misery is attached to the lot of woman in India before she has\nattained even her fifteenth year!\n\n\"In some cases as many as fifty females, the daughters of so many\nHindoos, are given in marriage to one bramhun {u-caron}, in order to\nmake these families something more respectable, and that the parents\nmay be able to say, we are allied by marriage to the kooleens...\n\n\"But the awful state of female society in this miserable country\nappears in nothing so much as in dooming the female, the widow, to be\nburnt alive with the putrid carcase of her husband.  The Hindoo\nlegislators have sanctioned this immolation, showing herein a studied\ndetermination to insult and degrade woman.  She is, therefore, in the\nfirst instance, deluded into this act by the writings of these bramhuns\n{u-caron}; in which also she is promised, that if she will offer\nherself, for the benefit of her husband, on the funeral pile,\nshe shall, by the extraordinary merit of this action, rescue her\nhusband from misery, and take him and fourteen generations of his and\nher family with her to heaven, where she shall enjoy with them\ncelestial happiness until fourteen kings of the gods shall have\nsucceeded to the throne of heaven (that is, millions of years!) Thus\nensnared, she embraces this dreadful death.  I have seen three widows,\nat different times, burnt alive; and had repeated opportunities of\nbeing present at similar immolations, but my courage failed me...\n\n\"The burying alive of widows manifests, if that were possible, a still\nmore abominable state of feeling towards women than the burning them\nalive.  The weavers bury their dead.  When, therefore, a widow of this\ntribe is deluded into the determination not to survive her husband, she\nis buried alive with the dead body.  In this kind of immolation the\nchildren and relations dig the grave. After certain ceremonies have\nbeen attended to, the poor widow arrives, and is let down into the pit.\nShe sits in the centre, taking the dead body on her lap and encircling\nit with her arms. These relations now begin to throw in the soil; and\nafter a short space, two of them descend into the grave, and tread the\nearth firmly round the body of the widow.  She sits a calm and\nunremonstrating spectator of the horrid process.  She sees the earth\nrising higher and higher around her, without upbraiding her murderers,\nor making the least effort to arise and make her escape. At length the\nearth reaches her lips--covers her head.  The rest of the earth is then\nhastily thrown in, and these children and relations mount the grave,\nand tread down the earth upon the head of the suffocating widow--the\nmother!\"\n\nBefore Carey, what had been done to turn the millions of North India\nfrom such darkness as that?  Nothing, beyond the brief and impulsive\nefforts of Thomas.  There does not seem to have been there one genuine\nconvert from any of the Asiatic faiths; there had never been even the\nnucleus of a native church.\n\nIn South India, for the greater part of the century, the Coast Mission,\nas it was called, had been carried on from Tranquebar as a centre by\nthe Lutherans whom, from Ziegenbalg to Schwartz, Francke had trained at\nHalle and Friedrich IV. of Denmark had sent forth to its East India\nCompany's settlement.  From the baptism of the first convert in 1707\nand translation of the New Testament into Tamil, to the death in 1798\nof Schwartz, with whom Carey sought to begin a correspondence then\ntaken up by Guericke, the foundations were laid around Madras, in\nTanjore, and in Tinnevelli of a native church which now includes nearly\na million.  But, when Carey landed, rationalism in Germany and Denmark,\nand the Carnatic wars between the English and French, had reduced the\nCoast Mission to a state of inanition.  Nor was Southern India the true\nor ultimate battlefield against Brahmanism; the triumphs of\nChristianity there were rather among the demon-worshipping tribes of\nDravidian origin than among the Aryan races till Dr. W. Miller\ndeveloped the Christian College. But the way for the harvest now being\nreaped by the Evangelicals and Anglicans of the Church of England, by\nthe Independents of the London Missionary Society, the Wesleyans, and\nthe Presbyterians of Scotland and America, was prepared by the German\nZiegenbalg and Schwartz under Danish protection.  The English\nPropagation and Christian Knowledge Societies sent them occasional aid,\nthe first two Georges under the influence of their German chaplains\nwrote to them encouraging letters, and the East India Company even gave\nthem a free passage in its ships, and employed the sculptor Bacon to\nprepare the noble group of marble which, in St. Mary's Church, Madras,\nexpresses its gratitude to Schwartz for his political services.\n\nIt was Clive himself who brought to Calcutta the first missionary,\nKiernander the Swede, but he was rather a chaplain, or a missionary to\nthe Portuguese, who were nominal Christians of the lowest Romanist\ntype.  The French had closed the Danish mission at Cuddalore, and in\n1758 Calcutta was without a Protestant clergyman to bury the dead or\nbaptise or marry the living.  Two years before one of the two chaplains\nhad perished in the tragedy of the Black Hole, where he was found lying\nhand in hand with his son, a young lieutenant.  The other had escaped\ndown the river only to die of fever along with many more.  The victory\nof Plassey and the large compensation paid for the destruction of Old\nCalcutta and its church induced thousands of natives to flock to the\nnew capital, while the number of the European troops and officials was\nabout 2000.  When chaplains were sent out, the Governor-General\nofficially wrote of them to the Court of Directors so late as\n1795:--\"Our clergy in Bengal, with some exceptions, are not respectable\ncharacters.\"  From the general relaxation of morals, he added, \"a black\ncoat is no security.\"  They were so badly paid--from \u00a350 to \u00a3230 a\nyear, increased by \u00a3120 to meet the cost of living in Calcutta after\n1764--that they traded.  Preaching was the least of the chaplains'\nduties; burying was the most onerous.  Anglo-Indian society, cut off\nfrom London, itself not much better, by a six months' voyage, was\ncorrupt.  Warren Hastings and Philip Francis, his hostile colleague in\nCouncil, lived in open adultery.  The majority of the officials had\nnative women, and the increase of their children, who lived in a state\nworse than that of the heathen, became so alarming that the\ncompensation paid by the Mohammedan Government of Moorshedabad for the\ndestruction of the church was applied to the foundation of the useful\ncharity still known as the Free School.  The fathers not infrequently\nadopted the Hindoo pantheon along with the zanana.  The pollution,\nspringing from England originally, was rolled back into it in an\nincreasing volume, when the survivors retired as nabobs with fortunes,\nto corrupt social and political life, till Pitt cried out; and it\nbecame possible for Burke almost to succeed in his eighteen years'\nimpeachment of Hastings.  The literature of the close of the eighteenth\ncentury is full of alarm lest the English character should be\ncorrupted, and lest the balance of the constitution should be upset.\n\nKiernander is said to have been the means of converting 209 heathens\nand 380 Romanists, of whom three were priests, during the twenty-eight\nyears of his Calcutta career.  Claudius Buchanan declares that\nChristian tracts had been translated into Bengali--one written by the\nBishop of Sodor and Man--and that in the time of Warren Hastings Hindoo\nChristians had preached to their countrymen in the city.  The \"heathen\"\nwere probably Portuguese descendants, in whose language Kiernander\npreached as the lingua franca of the time. He could not even converse\nin Bengali or Hindostani, and when Charles Grant went to him for\ninformation as to the way of a sinner's salvation this happened--\"My\nanxious inquiries as to what I should do to be saved appeared to\nembarrass and confuse him exceedingly.  He could not answer my\nquestions, but he gave me some good instructive books.\"  On\nKiernander's bankruptcy, caused by his son when the father was blind,\nthe \"Mission Church\" was bought by Grant, who wrote that its labours\n\"have been confined to the descendants of Europeans, and have hardly\never embraced a single heathen, so that a mission to the Hindoos and\nMohammedans would be a new thing.\"  The Rev. David Brown, who had been\nsent out the year after as master and chaplain of the Military Orphan\nSociety, for the education of the children of officers and soldiers,\nand was to become one of the Serampore circle of friends, preached to\nEuropeans only in the Mission Church.  Carey could find no trace of\nKiernander's work among the natives six years after his death.[8] The\nonly converted Hindoo known of in Northern India up to that time was\nGuneshan Dass, of Delhi, who when a boy joined Clive's army, who was\nthe first man of caste to visit England, and who, on his return with\nthe Calcutta Supreme Court Judges in 1774 as Persian interpreter and\ntranslator, was baptised by Kiernander, Mr. justice Chambers being\nsponsor.\n\nWilliam Carey had no predecessor in India as the first ordained\nEnglishman who was sent to it as a missionary; he had no predecessor in\nBengal and Hindostan proper as the first missionary from any land to\nthe people.  Even the Moravians, who in 1777 had sent two brethren to\nSerampore, Calcutta, and Patna, had soon withdrawn them, and one of\nthem became the Company's botanist in Madras--Dr. Heyne. Carey\npractically stood alone at the first, while he unconsciously set in\nmotion the double revolution, which was to convert the Anglo-Indian\ninfluence on England from corrupting heathenism to aggressive\nmissionary zeal, and to change the Bengal of Cornwallis into the India\nof Bentinck, with all the possibilities that have made it grow, thus\nfar, into the India of the Lawrences.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nSIX YEARS IN NORTH BENGAL--MISSIONARY AND INDIGO PLANTER\n\n1794-1799\n\nCarey's two missionary principles--Destitute in Calcutta--Bandel and\nNuddea--Applies in vain to be under-superintendent of the Botanic\nGarden--Housed by a native usurer--Translation and preaching work in\nCalcutta--Secures a grant of waste land at Hasnabad--Estimate of the\nBengali language, and appeal to the Society to work in Asia and Africa\nrather than in America--The Udny family--Carey's summary of his first\nyear's experience--Superintends the indigo factory of Mudnabati--Indigo\nand the East India Company's monopolies--Carey's first nearly fatal\nsickness--Death of his child and chronic madness of his wife--Formation\nof first Baptist church in India--Early progress of Bible\ntranslation--Sanskrit studies; the Mahabarata--The wooden\nprinting-press set up at Mudnabati--His educational ideal;\nschool-work--The medical mission--Lord Wellesley--Carey seeks a mission\ncentre among the Bhooteas--Describes his first sight of a\nSati--Projects a mission settlement at Kidderpore.\n\nCarey was in his thirty-third year when he landed in Bengal.  Two\nprinciples regulated the conception, the foundation, and the whole\ncourse of the mission which he now began.  He had been led to these by\nthe very genius of Christianity itself, by the example and teaching of\nChrist and of Paul, and by the experience of the Moravian brethren.  He\nhad laid them down in his Enquiry, and every month's residence during\nforty years in India confirmed him in his adhesion to them.  These\nprinciples are that (1) a missionary must be one of the companions and\nequals of the people to whom he is sent; and (2) a missionary must as\nsoon as possible become indigenous, self-supporting, self-propagating,\nalike by the labours of the mission and of the converts.  Himself a man\nof the people yet a scholar, a shoemaker and a schoolmaster yet a\npreacher and pastor to whom the great Robert Hall gloried in being a\nsuccessor, Carey had led the two lives as Paul had done.  Now that he\nwas fairly in Calcutta he resumed the divine toil, and ceased it not\ntill he entered on the eternal rest.  He prepared to go up country to\nMalda to till the ground among the natives of the rich district around\nthe ruined capital of Gour. He engaged as his pundit and interpreter\nRam Basu, one of the professing inquirers whom Thomas had attracted in\nformer days.  Experience soon taught him that, however correct his\nprinciple, Malda is not a land where the white man can be a farmer. So\nhe became, in the different stages of his career, a captain of labour\nas an indigo planter, a teacher of Bengali, and professor of Sanskrit\nand Marathi, and the Government translator of Bengali.  Nor did he or\nhis associates ever make the mistake--or commit the fraud--of the\nJesuit missionaries, whose idea of equality with the people was not\nthat of brotherhood in Christ, but that of dragging down Christian\ndoctrine, worship and civilisation, to the level of idolatrous\nheathenism, and deluding the ignorant into accepting the blasphemous\ncompromise.\n\nAlas! Carey could not manage to get out of Calcutta and its\nneighbourhood for five months.  As he thought to live by farming,\nThomas was to practise his profession; and their first year's income of\n\u00a3150 had, in those days when the foreign exchanges were unknown, to be\nrealised by the sale of the goods in which it had been invested.  As\nusual, Thomas had again blundered, so that even his gentle colleague\nhimself half-condemned, half-apologised for him by the shrewd\nreflection that he was only fit to live at sea, where his daily\nbusiness would be before him, and daily provision would be made for\nhim.  Carey found himself penniless.  Even had he received the whole of\nhis \u00a375, as he really did in one way or other, what was that for such a\nfamily as his at the beginning of their undertaking? The expense of\nliving at all in Calcutta drove the whole party thirty miles up the\nriver to Bandel, an old Portuguese suburb of the Hoogli factory.  There\nthey rented a small house from the German hotel-keeper, beside the\nAugustinian priory and oldest church in North India, which dates from\n1599 and is still in good order. There they met Kiernander, then at the\ngreat age of eighty-four. Daily they preached or talked to the people.\nThey purchased a boat for regular visitation of the hamlets, markets,\nand towns which line both banks of the river.  With sure instinct Carey\nsoon fixed on Nuddea, as the centre of Brahmanical superstition and\nSanskrit learning, where \"to build me a hut and live like the natives,\"\nlanguage recalled to us by the words of the dying Livingstone in the\nswamps of Central Africa.  There, in the capital of the last of the\nHindoo kings, beside the leafy tols or colleges of a river port which\nrivals Benares, Poona, and Conjeeveram in sanctity, where Chaitanya the\nVaishnaiva reformer was born, Carey might have attacked Brahmanism in\nits stronghold.  A passage in his journal shows how he realised the\nposition.  Thomas, the pundit, and he \"sought the Lord by prayer for\ndirection,\" and this much was the result--\"Several of the most learned\nPundits and Brahmans wished us to settle there; and, as that is the\ngreat place for Eastern learning, we seemed inclined, especially as it\nis the bulwark of heathenism, which, if once carried, all the rest of\nthe country must be laid open to us.\"  But there was no available land\nthere for an Englishman's cultivation.  From Bandel he wrote home these\nimpressions of Anglo-Indian life and missionary duty:--\n\n\"26th Dec. 1793.--A missionary must be one of the companions and equals\nof the people to whom he is sent, and many dangers and temptations will\nbe in his way.  One or two pieces of advice I may venture to give.  The\nfirst is to be exceedingly cautious lest the voyage prove a great\nsnare.  All the discourse is about high life, and every circumstance\nwill contribute to unfit the mind for the work and prejudice the soul\nagainst the people to whom he goes; and in a country like this, settled\nby Europeans, the grandeur, the customs, and prejudices of the\nEuropeans are exceeding dangerous. They are very kind and hospitable,\nbut even to visit them, if a man keeps no table of his own, would more\nthan ten times exceed the allowance of a mission; and all their\ndiscourse is about the vices of the natives, so that a missionary must\nsee thousands of people treating him with the greatest kindness, but\nwhom he must be entirely different from in his life, his appearance in\neverything, or it is impossible for him to stand their profuse way of\nliving, being so contrary to his character and so much above his\nability. This is a snare to dear Mr. Thomas, which will be felt by us\nboth in some measure.  It will be very important to missionaries to be\nmen of calmness and evenness of temper, and rather inclined to suffer\nhardships than to court the favour of men, and such who will be\nindefatigably employed in the work set before them, an inconstancy of\nmind being quite injurious to it.\"\n\nHe had need of such faith and patience.  Hearing of waste land in\nCalcutta, he returned there only to be disappointed.  The Danish\ncaptain, knowing that he had written a botanical work, advised him to\ntake it to the doctor in charge of the Company's Botanic Garden, and\noffer himself for a vacant appointment to superintend part of it.  The\ndoctor, who and whose successors were soon to be proud of his\nassistance on equal terms, had to tell him that the office had been\nfilled up, but invited the weary man to dine with him. Houseless, with\nhis maddened wife, and her sister and two of his four children down\nwith dysentery, due to the bad food and exposure of six weeks in the\ninterior, Carey found a friend, appropriately enough, in a Bengali\nmoney-lender.[9] Nelu Dutt, a banker who had lent money to Thomas,\noffered the destitute family his garden house in the north-eastern\nquarter of Manicktolla until they could do better. The place was mean\nenough, but Carey never forgot the deed, and he had it in his power\nlong after to help Nelu Dutt when in poverty. Such, on the other hand,\nwas the dislike of the Rev. David Brown to Thomas, that when Carey had\nwalked five miles in the heat of the sun to visit the comparatively\nprosperous evangelical preacher, \"I left him without his having so much\nas asked me to take any refreshment.\"\n\nCarey would not have been allowed to live in Calcutta as a missionary.\nForty years were to pass before that could be possible without a\nCompany's passport.  But no one was aware of the existence of the\nobscure vagrant, as he seemed, although he was hard at work. All around\nhim was a Mohammedan community whom he addressed with the greatest\nfreedom, and with whom he discussed the relative merits of the Koran\nand the Bible in a kindly spirit, \"to recommend the Gospel and the way\nof life by Christ.\"  He had helped Thomas with a translation of the\nbook of Genesis during the voyage, and now we find this in his journal\ntwo months and a half after he had landed:--\n\n\"Through the delays of my companion I have spent another month, and\ndone scarcely anything, except that I have added to my knowledge of the\nlanguage, and had opportunity of seeing much more of the genius and\ndisposition of the natives than I otherwise could have known. This day\nfinished the correction of the first chapter of Genesis, which moonshi\nsays is rendered into very good Bengali.  Just as we had finished it, a\npundit and another man from Nuddea came to see me.  I showed it to\nthem; and the pundit seemed much pleased with the account of the\ncreation; only they have an imaginary place somewhere beneath the\nearth, and he thought that should have been mentioned likewise...\n\n\"Was very weary, having walked in the sun about fifteen or sixteen\nmiles, yet had the satisfaction of discoursing with some money-changers\nat Calcutta, who could speak English, about the importance and absolute\nnecessity of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. One of them was a very\ncrafty man, and tried much to entangle me with hard questions; but at\nlast, finding himself entangled, he desisted, and went to his old\noccupation of money-changing again. If once God would by his Spirit\nconvince them of sin, a Saviour would be a blessing indeed to them: but\nhuman nature is the same all the world over, and all conviction fails\nexcept it is produced by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit.\"\n\nRam Basu was himself in debt, was indeed all along a self-interested\ninquirer.  But the next gleam of hope came from him, that the Carey\nfamily should move to the waste jungles of the Soondarbans, the\ntiger-haunted swamps south-east of Calcutta, and there cultivate a\ngrant of land.  With a sum of \u00a316 borrowed from a native at twelve per\ncent. by Mr. Thomas, a boat was hired, and on the fourth day, when only\none more meal remained, the miserable family and their stout-hearted\nfather saw an English-built house.  As they walked up to it the owner\nmet them, and with Anglo-Indian hospitality invited them all to become\nhis guests.  He proved to be Mr. Charles Short, in charge of the\nCompany's salt manufacture there.  As a deist he had no sympathy with\nCarey's enterprise, but he helped the missionary none the less, and the\nreward came to him in due time in the opening of his heart to the love\nof Christ.  He afterwards married Mrs. Carey's sister, and in England\nthe two survived the great missionary, to tell this and much more\nregarding him.  Here, at the place appropriately named Hasnabad, or the\n\"smiling spot,\" Carey took a few acres on the Jamoona arm of the united\nGanges and Brahmapootra, and built him a bamboo house, forty miles east\nof Calcutta.  Knowing that the sahib's gun would keep off the tigers,\nnatives squatted around to the number of three or four thousand. Such\nwas the faith, the industry, and the modesty of the brave little man\nthat, after just three months, he wrote thus:--\"When I know the\nlanguage well enough to preach in it, I have no doubt of having a\nstated congregation, and I much hope to send you pleasing accounts.  I\ncan so far converse in the language as to be understood in most things\nbelonging to eating and drinking, buying and selling, etc.  My ear is\nsomewhat familiarised to the Bengali sounds.  It is a language of a\nvery singular construction, having no plural except for pronouns, and\nnot a single preposition in it: but the cases of nouns and pronouns are\nalmost endless, all the words answering to our prepositions being put\nafter the word, and forming a new case. Except these singularities, I\nfind it an easy language.  I feel myself happy in my present\nundertaking; for, though I never felt the loss of social religion so\nmuch as now, yet a consciousness of having given up all for God is a\nsupport; and the work, with all its attendant inconveniences, is to me\na rich reward.  I think the Society would do well to keep their eye\ntowards Africa or Asia, countries which are not like the wilds of\nAmerica, where long labour will scarcely collect sixty people to hear\nthe Word: for here it is almost impossible to get out of the way of\nhundreds, and preachers are wanted a thousand times more than people to\npreach to.  Within India are the Maratha country and the northern parts\nto Cashmere, in which, as far as I can learn, there is not one soul\nthat thinks of God aright...My health was never better.  The climate,\nthough hot, is tolerable; but, attended as I am with difficulties, I\nwould not renounce my undertaking for all the world.\"\n\nIt was at this time that he drew his strength often from the experience\nof the first missionary, described by Isaiah, in all his\nsolitude:--\"Look unto Abraham your father, for I called him alone and\nblessed him and increased him.  For the Lord shall comfort Zion; He\nwill comfort all her waste places.\"  The sun of His comfort shone forth\nat last.\n\nCarey's original intention to begin his mission near Malda was now to\nbe carried out.  In the opening week of 1794 the small English\ncommunity in Bengal were saddened by the news that, when crossing the\nHoogli at Calcutta, a boat containing three of its principal merchants\nand the wife of one of them, had been upset, and all had been drowned.\nIt turned out that two of the men recovered, but Mr. R. Udny and his\nyoung wife perished.  His aged mother had been one of the godly circle\nin the Residency at Malda to whom Thomas had ministered; and Mr. G.\nUdny, her other son, was still the Company's commercial Resident there.\nA letter of sympathy which Thomas sent to them restored the old\nrelations, and resulted in Mr. G. Udny inviting first the writer and\nthen Carey to become his assistants in charge of new indigo factories\nwhich he was building on his own account.  Each received a salary\nequivalent to \u00a3250 a year, with the prospect of a commission on the\nout-turn, and even a proprietary share.  Carey's remark in his journal\non the day he received the offer was:--\"This appearing to be a\nremarkable opening in divine providence for our comfortable support, I\naccepted it...I shall likewise be joined with my colleague again, and\nwe shall unitedly engage in our work.\"  Again:--\"The conversion of the\nheathen is the object which above all others I wish to pursue.  If my\nsituation at Malda should be tolerable, I most certainly will publish\nthe Bible in numbers.\"  On receiving the rejoinder to his acceptance of\nthe offer he set this down:--\"I am resolved to write to the Society\nthat my circumstances are such that I do not need future help from\nthem, and to devote a sum monthly for the printing of the Bengali\nBible.\" This he did, adding that it would be his glory and joy to stand\nin the same relation to the Society as if he needed support from them.\nHe hoped they would be the sooner able to send another mission\nsomewhere--to Sumatra or some of the Indian Islands.  From the first he\nlived with such simplicity that he gave from one-fourth to one-third of\nhis little income to his own mission at Mudnabati.\n\nCarey thus sums up his first year's experience before leaving his\njungle home on a three weeks' voyage up the Ganges, and records his\nfirst deliberate and regular attempt to preach in Bengali on the way.\n\n\"8th April 1794.--All my hope is in, and all my comfort arises from,\nGod; without His power no European could possibly be converted, and His\npower can convert any Indian; and when I reflect that He has stirred me\nup to the work, and wrought wonders to prepare the way, I can hope in\nHis promises, and am encouraged and strengthened...\n\n\"19th April.--O how glorious are the ways of God! 'My soul longeth and\nfainteth for God, for the living God, to see His glory and beauty as I\nhave seen them in the sanctuary.'  When I first left England, my hope\nof the conversion of the heathen was very strong; but, among so many\nobstacles, it would entirely die away unless upheld by God. Nothing to\nexercise it, but plenty to obstruct it, for now a year and nineteen\ndays, which is the space since I left my dear charge at Leicester.\nSince that I have had hurrying up and down; a five months' imprisonment\nwith carnal men on board the ship; five more learning the language; my\nmoonshi not understanding English sufficiently to interpret my\npreaching; my colleague separated from me; long delays and few\nopportunities for social worship; no woods to retire to, like Brainerd,\nfor fear of tigers (no less than twenty men in the department of\nDeharta, where I am, have been carried away by them this season from\nthe salt-works); no earthly thing to depend upon, or earthly comfort,\nexcept food and raiment.  Well, I have God, and His Word is sure; and\nthough the superstitions of the heathen were a million times worse than\nthey are, if I were deserted by all, and persecuted by all, yet my\nhope, fixed on that sure Word, will rise superior to all obstructions,\nand triumph over all trials.  God's cause will triumph, and I shall\ncome out of all trials as gold purified by fire.  I was much humbled\nto-day by reading Brainerd.  O what a disparity betwixt me and him, he\nalways constant, I as inconstant as the wind!\n\n\"22nd April.--Bless God for a continuance of the happy frame of\nyesterday.  I think the hope of soon acquiring the language puts fresh\nlife into my soul; for a long time my mouth has been shut, and my days\nhave been beclouded with heaviness; but now I begin to be something\nlike a traveller who has been almost beaten out in a violent storm, and\nwho, with all his clothes about him dripping wet, sees the sky begin to\nclear: so I, with only the prospect of a more pleasant season at hand,\nscarcely feel the sorrows of the present.\n\n\"23rd.--With all the cares of life, and all its sorrows, yet I find\nthat a life of communion with God is sufficient to yield consolation in\nthe midst of all, and even to produce a holy joy in the soul, which\nshall make it to triumph over all affliction.  I have never yet\nrepented of any sacrifice that I have made for the Gospel, but find\nthat consolation of mind which can come from God alone.\n\n\"26th May.--This day kept Sabbath at Chandureea; had a pleasant day. In\nthe morning and afternoon addressed my family, and in the evening began\nmy work of publishing the Word of God to the heathen. Though imperfect\nin the knowledge of the language, yet, with the help of moonshi, I\nconversed with two Brahmans in the presence of about two hundred\npeople, about the things of God. I had been to see a temple, in which\nwere the images of Dukkinroy, the god of the woods, riding on a tiger;\nSheetulla, goddess of the smallpox, without a head, riding on a horse\nwithout a head; Punchanon, with large ears; and Colloroy, riding on a\nhorse.  In another apartment was Seeb, which was only a smooth post of\nwood, with two or three mouldings in it, like the base of a Tuscan\npillar.  I therefore discoursed with them upon the vanity of idols, the\nfolly and wickedness of idolatry, the nature and attributes of God, and\nthe way of salvation by Christ.  One Brahman was quite confounded, and\na number of people were all at once crying out to him, 'Why do you not\nanswer him?  Why do you not answer him?'  He replied, 'I have no\nwords.'  Just at this time a very learned Brahman came up, who was\ndesired to talk with me, which he did, and so acceded to what I said,\nthat he at last said images had been used of late years, but not from\nthe beginning.  I inquired what I must do to be saved; he said I must\nrepeat the name of God a great many times.  I replied, would you, if\nyour son had offended you, be so pleased with him as to forgive him if\nhe were to repeat the word 'father' a thousand times?  This might\nplease children or fools, but God is wise.  He told me that I must get\nfaith; I asked what faith was, to which he gave me no intelligible\nreply, but said I must obey God. I answered, what are His commands?\nwhat is His will?  They said God was a great light, and as no one could\nsee him, he became incarnate, under the threefold character of Brhumma,\nBishno, and Seeb, and that either of them must be worshipped in order\nto life.  I told them of the sure Word of the Gospel, and the way of\nlife by Christ; and, night coming on, left them.  I cannot tell what\neffect it may have, as I may never see them again.\"\n\nAt the beginning of the great rains in the middle of June Carey joined\nMr. Udny and his mother at the chief factory.  On each of the next two\nSabbaths he preached twice in the hall of the Residency of the Company,\nwhich excluded all Christian missionaries by Act of Parliament.  As an\nindigo planter he received the Company's licence to reside for at least\nfive years.  So on 26th June he began his secular duties by completing\nfor the season of indigo manufacture the buildings at Mudnabati, and\nmaking the acquaintance of the ninety natives under his charge.  Both\nMr. Udny and he knew well that he was above all things a Christian\nmissionary. \"These will furnish a congregation immediately, and, added\nto the extensive engagements which I must necessarily have with the\nnatives, will open a very wide door for activity.  God grant that it\nmay not only be large but effectual.\"\n\nThese were the days, which continued till the next charter, when the\nEast India Company was still not only a body of merchants but of\nmanufacturers.  Of all the old monopolies only the most evil one is\nleft, that of the growth, manufacture, and sale of opium.  The civil\nservants, who were termed Residents, had not political duties with\ntributary sovereigns as now, but from great factory-like palaces, and\non large salaries, made advances of money to contractors, native and\nEuropean, who induced the ryots to weave cloth, to breed and feed the\nsilkworm, and to grow and make the blue dye to which India had long\ngiven the name of \"indigo.\"  Mr. Carey was already familiar with the\nsystem of advances for salt, and the opium monopoly was then in its\ninfancy.  The European contractors were \"interlopers,\" who introduced\nthe most valuable cultivation and processes into India, and yet with\nwhom the \"covenanted\" Residents were often at war.  The Residents had\nthemselves liberty of private trade, and unscrupulous men abused it.\nClive had been hurried out thirty years before to check the abuse,\nwhich was ruining not only the Company's investments but the people.\nIt had so spread on his departure that even judges and chaplains shared\nin the spoils till Cornwallis interfered.  In the case of Mr. G. Udny\nand purely commercial agents the evil was reduced to a minimum, and the\npractice had been deliberately sanctioned by Sir John Shore on the\nground that it was desirable to make the interests of the Company and\nof individuals go hand in hand.\n\nThe days when Europe got its cotton cloth from India, calling it\n\"calico,\" from Calicut, and its rich yellow silks, have long since\npassed, although the latter are still supplied in an inferior form, and\nthe former is once more raising its head, from the combination of\nmachinery and cheap labour.  For the old abuses of the Company the\nGovernment by Parliament has to some extent atoned by fostering the new\ncultures of tea, coffee, and cinchona, jute and wheat.  The system of\ninducing the ryots to cultivate by advances, protected by a stringent\ncontract law, still exists in the case of opium.  The indigo culture\nsystem of Carey's time broke down in 1860 in the lower districts,\nwhere, following the Company itself, the planter made cash advances to\nthe peasant, who was required to sow indigo on land which he held as a\ntenant but often as a proprietor, to deliver it at a fixed rate, and to\nbear the risk of the crop as well as the exactions of the factory\nservants.  It still exists in the upper districts of Bihar, especially\nin Tirhoot, on a system comparatively free from economic objections.\n\nThe plant known as \"Indigofera Tinctoria\" is sown in March in soil\ncarefully prepared, grows to about 5 feet, is cut down early in July,\nis fermented in vats, and the liquor is beaten till it precipitates the\nprecious blue dye, which is boiled, drained, cut in small cakes, and\ndried.  From first to last the growth and the manufacture are even more\nprecarious than most tropical crops.  An even rainfall, rigorous\nweeding, the most careful superintendence of the chemical processes,\nand conscientious packing, are necessary. One good crop in three years\nwill pay where the factory is not burdened by severe interest on\ncapital; one every other year will pay very well.  Personally Carey had\nmore than the usual qualifications of a successful planter, scientific\nknowledge, scrupulous conscientiousness and industry, and familiarity\nwith the native character, so soon as he acquired the special\nexperience necessary for superintending the manufacture.  That\nexperience he spared no effort to gain at once.\n\n\"1st, 2nd, and 3rd July.--Much engaged in the necessary business of\npreparing our works for the approaching season of indigo-making, which\nwill commence in about a fortnight.  I had on the evening of each of\nthese days very precious seasons of fervent prayer to God. I have been\non these evenings much drawn out in prayer for my dear friends at\nLeicester, and for the Society that it may be prosperous; likewise for\nthe ministers of my acquaintance, not only of the Baptist but other\ndenominations.  I was engaged for the churches in America and Holland,\nas well as England, and much concerned for the success of the Gospel\namong the Hindoos.  At present I know not of any success since I have\nbeen here.  Many say that the Gospel is the word of truth; but they\nabound so much in flattery and encomiums, which are mere words of\ncourse, that little can be said respecting their sincerity.  The very\ncommon sins of lying and avarice are so universal also, that no\nEuropean who has not witnessed it can form any idea of their various\nappearances: they will stoop to anything whatsoever to get a few\ncowries, and lie on every occasion.  O how desirable is the spread of\nthe Gospel!\n\n\"4th July.--Rather more flat, perhaps owing to the excessive heat; for\nin the rainy season, if there be a fine day, it is very hot indeed.\nSuch has been this day, and I was necessitated to be out in it from\nmorning till evening, giving necessary directions.  I felt very much\nfatigued indeed, and had no spirits left in the evening, and in prayer\nwas very barren...\n\n\"9th July to 4th Aug.--Employed in visiting several factories to learn\nthe process of indigo-making.  Had some very pleasant seasons at Malda,\nwhere I preached several times, and the people seemed much affected\nwith the Word. One day, as Mr. Thomas and I were riding out, we saw a\nbasket hung in a tree, in which an infant had been exposed; the skull\nremained, the rest having been devoured by ants.\"\n\nSuccess in the indigo culture was indeed never possible in Mudnabati.\nThe factory stood on the river Tangan, within what is now the district\nof Dinajpoor, thirty miles north of Malda.  To this day the revenue\nsurveyors of Government describe it as low and marshy, subject to\ninundation during the rains, and considered very unhealthy.  Carey had\nnot been there a fortnight when he had to make this record:--\n\n\"5th, 6th, 7th July.--Much employed in settling the affairs of the\nbuildings, etc., having been absent so long, and several of our\nmanaging and principal people being sick.  It is indeed an awful time\nhere with us now, scarcely a day but some are seized with fevers.  It\nis, I believe, owing to the abundance of water, there being rice-fields\nall around us, in which they dam up the water, so that all the country\nhereabouts is about a foot deep in water; and as we have rain, though\nmoderate to what I expected the rainy season to be, yet the continual\nmoisture occasions fevers in such situations where rice is\ncultivated...Felt at home and thankful these days.  O that I may be\nvery useful!  I must soon learn the language tolerably well, for I am\nobliged to converse with the natives every day, having no other persons\nhere except my family.\"\n\nSoon in September, the worst of all the months in Bengal, he himself\nwas brought near to the grave by a fever, one of the paroxysms\ncontinuing for twenty-six hours without intermission, \"when\nprovidentially Mr. Udny came to visit us, not knowing that I was ill,\nand brought a bottle of bark with him.\"  He slowly recovered, but the\nsecond youngest child, Peter, a boy of five, was removed by dysentery,\nand caste made it long difficult to find any native to dig his grave.\nBut of this time the faithful sufferer could write:--\n\n\"Sometimes I enjoyed sweet seasons of self-examination and prayer, as I\nlay upon my bed.  Many hours together I sweetly spent in contemplating\nsubjects for preaching, and in musing over discourses in Bengali; and\nwhen my animal spirits were somewhat raised by the fever, I found\nmyself able to reason and discourse in Bengali for some hours together,\nand words and phrases occurred much more readily than when I was in\nhealth.  When my dear child was ill I was enabled to attend upon him\nnight and day, though very dangerously ill myself, without much\nfatigue; and now, I bless God that I feel a sweet resignation to his\nwill.\"\n\nA still harder fate befell him.  The monomania of his wife became\nchronic.  A letter which she wrote and sent by special messenger called\nforth from Thomas this loving sympathy:--\"You must endeavour to\nconsider it a disease.  The eyes and ears of many are upon you, to whom\nyour conduct is unimpeachable with respect to all her charges; but if\nyou show resentment, they have ears, and others have tongues set on\nfire.  Were I in your case, I should be violent; but blessed be God,\nwho suits our burdens to our backs.  Sometimes I pray earnestly for\nyou, and I always feel for you.  Think of Job, Think of Jesus.  Think\nof those who were 'destitute, afflicted, tormented.'\"\n\nA voyage up the Tangan in Mr. Udny's pinnace as far as the north\nfrontier, at a spot now passed by the railway to Darjeeling, restored\nthe invalid. \"I am no hunter,\" he wrote, while Thomas was shooting wild\nbuffaloes, but he was ever adding to his store of observations of the\npeople, the customs and language.  Meanwhile he was longing for letters\nfrom Fuller and Pearce and Ryland.  At the end of January 1795 the\nmissionary exile thus talks of himself in his journal:--\"Much engaged\nin writing, having begun to write letters to Europe; but having\nreceived none, I feel that hope deferred makes the heart sick.\nHowever, I am so fully satisfied of the firmness of their friendship\nthat I feel a sweet pleasure in writing to them, though rather of a\nforlorn kind; and having nothing but myself to write about, feel the\nawkwardness of being an egotist. I feel a social spirit though barred\nfrom society...I sometimes walk in my garden, and try to pray to God;\nand if I pray at all it is in the solitude of a walk.  I thought my\nsoul a little drawn out to-day, but soon gross darkness returned.\nSpoke a word or two to a Mohammedan upon the things of God, but I feel\nto be as bad as they...9th May.  I have added nothing to these memoirs\nsince the 19th of April.  Now I observe that for the last three\nsabbaths my soul has been much comforted in seeing so large a\ncongregation, and more especially as many who are not our own workmen\ncome from the parts adjacent, whose attendance must be wholly\ndisinterested.  I therefore now rejoice in seeing a regular\ncongregation of from two to six hundred people of all\ndescriptions--Mussulmans, Brahmans and other classes of Hindus, which I\nlook upon as a favourable token from God...Blessed be God, I have at\nlast received letters and other articles from our friends in\nEngland...from dear brethren Fuller, Morris, Pearce, and Rippon, but\nwhy not from others?...14th June.  I have had very sore trials in my\nown family, from a quarter which I forbear to mention.  Have greater\nneed for faith and patience than ever I had, and I bless God that I\nhave not been altogether without supplies of these graces...Mr. Thomas\nand his family spent one Lord's day with us, May 23rd...We spent\nWednesday, 26th, in prayer, and for a convenient place assembled in a\ntemple of Seeb, which was near to our house...I was from that day\nseized with a dysentery, which continued nearly a week with fearful\nviolence; but then I recovered, through abundant mercy.  That day of\nprayer was a good day to our souls.  We concerted measures for forming\na Baptist church.\"\n\nTo his sister he wrote, on the 11th March, of the church, which was\nduly formed of Europeans and Eurasians.  No native convert was made in\nthis Dinapoor mission till 1806, after Carey had removed to Serampore.\n\"We have in the neighbourhood about fifteen or sixteen serious persons,\nor those I have good hopes of, all Europeans.  With the natives I have\nvery large concerns; almost all the farmers for nearly twenty miles\nround cultivate indigo for us, and the labouring people working here to\nthe number of about five hundred, so that I have considerable\nopportunity of publishing the Gospel to them.  I have so much knowledge\nof the language as to be able to preach to them for about half an hour,\nso as to be understood, but am not able to vary my subjects much.  I\ntell them of the evil and universality of sin, the sins of a natural\nstate, the justice of God, the incarnation of Christ and his sufferings\nin our stead, and of the necessity of conversion, holiness, and faith,\nin order to salvation. They hear with attention in general, and some\ncome to me for instruction in the things of God.\"\n\n\"It was always my opinion that missionaries may and must support\nthemselves after having been sent out and received a little support at\nfirst, and in consequence I pursue a very little worldly employment\nwhich requires three months' closish attendance in the year; but this\nis in the rains--the most unfavourable season for exertion.  I have a\ndistrict of about twenty miles square, where I am continually going\nfrom village to village to publish the Gospel; and in this space are\nabout two hundred villages, whose inhabitants from time to time hear\nthe Word. My manner of travelling is with two small boats; one serves\nme to live in, and the other for cooking my food.  I carry all my\nfurniture and food with me from place to place--viz. a chair, a table,\na bed, and a lamp.  I walk from village to village, but repair to my\nboat for lodging and eating. There are several rivers in this extent of\ncountry, which is very convenient for travelling.\"\n\nCarey's first convert seems to have been Ignatius Fernandez, a\nPortuguese descendant who had prospered as a trader in Dinapoor\nstation.  The first Protestant place of worship in Bengal, outside of\nCalcutta, was built by him, in 1797, next to his own house. There he\nconducted service both in English and Bengali, whenever Carey and\nThomas, and Fountain afterwards, were unable to go out to the station,\nand in his house Thomas and Fountain died.  He remained there as a\nmissionary till his own death, four years before Carey's, when he left\nall his property to the mission.  The mission-house, as it is now, is a\ntypical example of the bungalow of one story, which afterwards formed\nthe first chapel in Serampore, and is still common as officers'\nquarters in Barrackpore and other military stations.\n\nSide by side with his daily public preaching and more private\nconversations with inquirers in Bengali, Carey carried on the work of\nBible translation.  As each new portion was prepared it was tested by\nbeing read to hundreds of natives.  The difficulty was that he had at\nonce to give a literary form to the rich materials of the language, and\nto find in these or adapt from them terms sufficiently pure and\naccurate to express the divine ideas and facts revealed through the\nHebrew and the Greek of the original.  He gives us this unconscious\nglimpse of himself at work on this loftiest and most fruitful of tasks,\nwhich Jerome had first accomplished for Latin Christendom, Ulfila for\nour Scandinavian forefathers, Wiclif for the English, and Luther for\nthe Germans of the time.\n\n\"Now I must mention some of the difficulties under which we labour,\nparticularly myself.  The language spoken by the natives of this part,\nthough Bengali, is yet so different from the language itself, that,\nthough I can preach an hour with tolerable freedom so as that all who\nspeak the language well, or can write or read, perfectly understand me,\nyet the poor labouring people can understand but little; and though the\nlanguage is rich, beautiful, and expressive, yet the poor people, whose\nwhole concern has been to get a little rice to satisfy their wants, or\nto cheat their oppressive merchants and zameendars, have scarcely a\nword in use about religion.  They have no word for love, for repent,\nand a thousand other things; and every idea is expressed either by\nquaint phrases or tedious circumlocutions.  A native who speaks the\nlanguage well finds it a year's work to obtain their idiom.  This\nsometimes discourages me much; but blessed be God I feel a growing\ndesire to be always abounding in the work of the Lord, and I know that\nmy labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. I am much encouraged by our\nLord's expression, 'He who reapeth' (in the harvest) 'receiveth wages,\nand gathereth fruit unto eternal life.'  If I, like David, only am an\ninstrument of gathering materials, and another build the house, I trust\nmy joy will not be the less.\"  This was written to the well-beloved\nPearce, whom he would fain have had beside him at Mudnabati.  To guide\nthe two missionaries whom the Society were about to send to Africa on\nthe salaries which he and Thomas had set free for this extension, Carey\nadds:--\"They will do well to associate as much as possible with the\nnatives, and to write down every word they can catch, with its meaning.\nBut if they have children with them, it is by far the readiest way of\nlearning to listen to them, for they will catch up every idiom in a\nlittle time. My children can speak nearly as well as the natives, and\nknow many things in Bengali which they do not know in English.  I\nshould also recommend to your consideration a very large country,\nperhaps unthought of: I mean Bhootan or Tibet.  Were two missionaries\nsent to that country, we should have it in our power to afford them\nmuch help...The day I received your letter I set about composing a\ngrammar and dictionary of the Bengal language to send to you.  The best\naccount of Hindu mythology extant, and which is pretty exact, is\nSonnerat's Voyage, undertaken by order of the king of France.\"\n\nWithout Sanskrit Carey found that he could neither master its Bengali\noffshoot nor enrich that vernacular with the words and combinations\nnecessary for his translations of Scripture. Accordingly, with his\nusual rapidity and industry, we find that he had by April 1796 so\nworked his way through the intricate difficulties of the mother\nlanguage of the Aryans that he could thus write to Ryland, with more\nthan a mere scholar's enthusiasm, of one of the two great Vedic\nepics:--\"I have read a considerable part of the Mahabarata, an epic\npoem written in most beautiful language, and much upon a par with\nHomer; and it was, like his Iliad, only considered as a great effort of\nhuman genius, I should think it one of the first productions in the\nworld; but alas! it is the ground of faith to millions of the simple\nsons of men, and as such must be held in the utmost abhorrence.\"  At\nthe beginning of 1798 he wrote to Sutcliff:--\"I am learning the\nSanskrit language, which, with only the helps to be procured here, is\nperhaps the hardest language in the world.  To accomplish this, I have\nnearly translated the Sanskrit grammar and dictionary into English, and\nhave made considerable progress in compiling a dictionary, Sanskrit,\nincluding Bengali and English.\"\n\nBy this year he had completed his first translation of the Bible except\nthe historical books from Joshua to Job, and had gone to Calcutta to\nobtain estimates for printing the New Testament, of which he had\nreported to Mr. Fuller:--\"It has undergone one correction, but must\nundergo several more.  I employ a pundit merely for this purpose, with\nwhom I go through the whole in as exact a manner as I can.  He judges\nof the style and syntax, and I of the faithfulness of the translation.\nI have, however, translated several chapters together, which have not\nrequired any alteration in the syntax whatever: yet I always submit\nthis article entirely to his judgment.  I can also, by hearing him\nread, judge whether he understands his subject by his accenting his\nreading properly and laying the emphasis on the right words.  If he\nfails in this, I immediately suspect the translation; though it is not\nan easy matter for an ordinary reader to lay the emphasis properly in\nreading Bengali, in which there is no pointing at all.  The mode of\nprinting, i.e. whether a printing-press, etc., shall be sent from\nEngland, or whether it shall be printed here, or whether it shall be\nprinted at all, now rests with the Society.\"\n\nFuller was willing, but the ardent scholar anticipated him.  Seeing a\nwooden printing-press advertised in Calcutta for \u00a340, Carey at once\nordered it.  On its arrival in 1798, \"after worship\" he \"retired and\nthanked God for furnishing us with a press.\"  When set up in the\nMudnabati house its working was explained to the natives, on whom the\ndelighted missionary's enthusiasm produced only the impression that it\nmust be the idol of the English.\n\nBut Carey's missionary organisation would not have been complete\nwithout schools, and in planning these from the very first he gives us\nthe germs which blossomed into the Serampore College of 1818 on the one\nhand, and the primary school circles under native Christian inspectors\non the other, a system carried out since the Mutiny of 1857 by the\nChristian Literature Society, and adopted by the state departments of\npublic instruction.\n\n\"MUDNABATI, 27th January 1795.--Mr. Thomas and I (between whom the\nutmost harmony prevails) have formed a plan for erecting two colleges\n(Chowparis, Bengali), one here and the other at his residence, where we\nintend to educate twelve lads, viz. six Mussulmans and six Hindoos at\neach place.  A pundit is to have the charge of them, and they are to be\ntaught Sanskrit, Bengali, and Persian; the Bible is to be introduced,\nand perhaps a little philosophy and geography.  The time of their\neducation is to be seven years, and we find them meat, clothing,\nlodging, etc.  We are now inquiring for children proper for the\npurpose.  We have also determined to require that the Society will\nadvance money for types to print the Bengali Bible, and make us their\ndebtors for the sum, which we hope to be able to pay off in one year:\nand it will also be requisite to send a printing-press from England.\nWe will, if our lives are spared, repay the whole, and print the Bible\nat our own expense, and I hope the Society will become our creditors by\npaying for them when delivered.  Mr. Thomas is now preparing letters\nfor specimens, which I hope will be sent by this conveyance.\n\n\"We are under great obligation to Mr. G. Udny for putting us in these\nstations.  He is a very friendly man and a true Christian.  I have no\nspirit for politics here; for whatever the East India Company may be in\nEngland, their servants and officers here are very different; we have a\nfew laws, and nothing to do but to obey.\"  Of his own school he wrote\nin 1799 that it consisted of forty boys. \"The school would have been\nmuch larger, had we been able to have borne the expense; but, as among\nthe scholars there are several orphans whom we wholly maintain, we\ncould not prudently venture on any further expense...The boys have\nhitherto learned to read and write, especially parts of the Scriptures,\nand to keep accounts.  We may now be able to introduce some other\nuseful branches of knowledge among them...I trust these schools may\ntend to promote curiosity and inquisitiveness among the rising\ngeneration; qualities which are seldom found in the natives of Bengal.\"\n\nThe Medical Mission completed the equipment. \"I submit it to the\nconsideration of the Society whether we should not be furnished with\nmedicines gratis.  No medicines will be sold by us, yet the cost of\nthem enters very deeply into our allowance.  The whole supply sent in\nthe Earl Howe, amounting to \u00a335, besides charges amounting to thirty\nper cent., falls on me; but the whole will either be administered to\nsick poor, or given to any neighbour who is in want, or used in our own\nfamilies.  Neighbouring gentlemen have often supplied us.  Indeed,\nconsidering the distance we are from medical assistance, the great\nexpensiveness of it far beyond our ability, and the number of wretched,\nafflicted objects whom we continually see and who continually apply for\nhelp, we ought never to sell a pennyworth.  Brother Thomas has been the\ninstrument of saving numbers of lives.  His house is constantly\nsurrounded with the afflicted; and the cures wrought by him would have\ngained any physician or surgeon in Europe the most extensive\nreputation.  We ought to be furnished yearly with at least half a\nhundredweight of Jesuit's bark.\"\n\nAround and as the fruit of the completely organised mission, thus\nconducted by the ordained preacher, teacher, scholar, scientist,\nprinter, and licensed indigo planter in one station, and by his medical\ncolleague sixteen miles to the north of him at Mahipal, there gathered\nmany native inquirers.  Besides the planters, civil officials, and\nmilitary officers, to whom he ministered in Malda and Dinapoor\nstations, there was added the most able and consistent convert, Mr.\nCunninghame of Lainshaw, the assistant judge, who afterwards in England\nfought the battle of missions, and from his Ayrshire estate, where he\nbuilt a church, became famous as an expounder of prophecy.  Carey\nlooked upon this as \"the greatest event that has occurred since our\ncoming to this country.\"  The appointment of Lord Mornington, soon to\nbe known as the Marquis Wellesley, \"the glorious little man,\" as\nMetcalfe called him, and hardly second to his younger brother\nWellington, having led Fuller to recommend that Carey should wait upon\nhis Excellency at Calcutta, this reply was received:--\"I would not,\nhowever, have you suppose that we are obliged to conceal ourselves, or\nour work: no such thing.  We preach before magistrates and judges; and\nwere I to be in the company with Lord Mornington, I should not hesitate\nto declare myself a missionary to the heathen, though I would not on\nany account return myself as such to the Governor-General in Council.\"\n\nTwo years before this, in 1797, Carey had written:--\"This mission\nshould be strengthened as much as possible, as its situation is such as\nmay put it in our power, eventually, to spread the Gospel through the\ngreatest part of Asia, and almost all the necessary languages may be\nlearned here.\"  He had just returned from his first long missionary\ntour among the Bhooteas, who from Tibet had overrun the eastern\nHimalaya from Darjeeling to Assam.  Carey and Thomas were received as\nChristian Lamas by the Soobah or lieutenant-governor of the country\nbelow the hills, which in 1865 we were compelled to annex and now\nadminister as Jalpaigori District.  They seemed to have been the first\nEnglishmen who had entered the territory since the political and\ncommercial missions of Bogle and Buchanan-Hamilton sent by Warren\nHastings.\n\n\"The genuine politeness and gentleman-like behaviour of the Soobah\nexceeded everything that can be imagined, and his generosity was\nastonishing.  He insisted on supplying all our people with everything\nthey wanted; and if we did but cast our eyes to any object in the room,\nhe immediately presented us with one of the same sort.  Indeed he\nseemed to interpret our looks before we were aware; and in this manner\nhe presented each of us that night with a sword, shield, helmet, and\ncup, made of a very light beautiful wood, and used by all the Bhooteas\nfor drinking in.  We admiring the wood, he gave us a large log of it;\nwhich appears to be like fir, with a very dark beautiful grain: it is\nfull of a resin or turpentine, and burns like a candle if cut into thin\npieces, and serves for that use.  In eating, the Soobah imitated our\nmanners so quickly and exactly, that though he had never seen a\nEuropean before, yet he appeared as free as if he had spent his life\nwith them.  We ate his food, though I confess the thoughts of the\nJinkof's bacon made me eat rather sparingly.  We had much talk about\nBhootan, and about the Gospel.\n\n\"We found that he had determined to give all the country a testimony of\nhis friendship for us in a public manner; and the next day was fixed on\nto perform the ceremony in our tent on the market-place. Accordingly we\ngot instructed in the necessary etiquette; and informed him we were\nonly coming a short journey to see the country, were not provided with\nEnglish cloth, etc., for presents.  The time being come, we were waited\non by the Soobah, followed by all his servants, both Bhooteas and\nHindus.  Being seated, we exchanged each five rupees and five pieces of\nbetel, in the sight of the whole town; and having chewed betel for the\nfirst time in our lives, we embraced three times in the Eastern manner,\nand then shook hands in the English manner; after which, he made us a\npresent of a piece of rich debang wrought with gold, each a Bhootan\nblanket, and the tail of an animal called the cheer cow, as bushy as a\nhorse's, and used in the Hindu worship...In the morning, the Soobah\ncame with his usual friendship, and brought more presents, which we\nreceived, and took our leave.  He sent us away with every honour he\ncould heap upon us; as a band of music before us, guides to show us the\nway, etc....The Soobah is to pay us a visit in a little time, which I\nhope to improve for the great end of settling a mission in that\ncountry.\"\n\nCarey applied his unusual powers of detailed observation and memory in\nnoting the physical and mental characteristics of these little\nBuddhists, the structure of the language and nature of their books,\nbeliefs, and government, all of which he afterwards utilised.  He was\noften in sight of snowy Kinchinjinga (28,156 feet), behind Darjeeling,\nand when the Soobah, being sick, afterwards sent messengers with gifts\nto induce him to return, he wrote:--\"I hope to ascend those stupendous\nmountains, which are so high as to be seen at a distance of 200 or 250\nmiles.  One of these distant mountains, which is seen at Mahipal, is\nconcealed from view by the tops of a nearer range of hills, when you\napproach within sixty miles of them. The distant range forms an angle\nof about ten degrees with the horizon.\"  But the time did not come for\na mission to that region till the sanitarium of Darjeeling became the\ncentre of another British district opened up by railway from Calcutta,\nand now the aboriginal Lepchas are coming in large numbers into the\nchurch. Subsequent communications from the Soobah informed them of the\nGaros of Assam.\n\nOn his last visit to Calcutta, in 1799, \"to get types cast for printing\nthe Bible,\" Carey witnessed that sight of widow-burning which was to\ncontinue to disgrace alike the Hindoos and the Company's Government\nuntil his incessant appeals in India and in England led to its\nprevention in 1829.  In a letter to Dr. Ryland he thus describes the\nhorrid rite:--\n\n\"MUDNABATI, 1st April 1799.--As I was returning from Calcutta I saw the\nSahamaranam, or, a woman burning herself with the corpse of her\nhusband, for the first time in my life.  We were near the village of\nNoya Serai, or, as Rennell calls it in his chart of the Hoogli river,\nNiaverai.  Being evening, we got out of the boat to walk, when we saw a\nnumber of people assembled on the river-side.  I asked them what they\nwere met for, and they told me to burn the body of a dead man.  I\ninquired if his wife would die with him; they answered Yes, and pointed\nto the woman.  She was standing by the pile, which was made of large\nbillets of wood, about two and a half feet high, four feet long, and\ntwo wide, on the top of which lay the dead body of her husband.  Her\nnearest relation stood by her, and near her was a small basket of\nsweetmeats called Thioy.  I asked them if this was the woman's choice,\nor if she were brought to it by any improper influence?  They answered\nthat it was perfectly voluntary.  I talked till reasoning was of no\nuse, and then began to exclaim with all my might against what they were\ndoing, telling them that it was a shocking murder.  They told me it was\na great act of holiness, and added in a very surly manner, that if I\ndid not like to see it I might go farther off, and desired me to go.  I\ntold them that I would not go, that I was determined to stay and see\nthe murder, and that I should certainly bear witness of it at the\ntribunal of God. I exhorted the woman not to throw away her life; to\nfear nothing, for no evil would follow her refusal to burn.  But she in\nthe most calm manner mounted the pile, and danced on it with her hands\nextended, as if in the utmost tranquillity of spirit.  Previous to her\nmounting the pile the relation, whose office it was to set fire to the\npile, led her six times round it, at two intervals--that is, thrice at\neach circumambulation.  As she went round she scattered the sweetmeat\nabove mentioned among the people, who picked it up and ate it as a very\nholy thing.  This being ended, and she having mounted the pile and\ndanced as above mentioned (N.B.--The dancing only appeared to be to\nshow us her contempt of death, and prove to us that her dying was\nvoluntary), she lay down by the corpse, and put one arm under its neck\nand the other over it, when a quantity of dry cocoa-leaves and other\nsubstances were heaped over them to a considerable height, and then\nGhee, or melted preserved butter, poured on the top.  Two bamboos were\nthen put over them and held fast down, and fire put to the pile, which\nimmediately blazed very fiercely, owing to the dry and combustible\nmaterials of which it was composed.  No sooner was the fire kindled\nthan all the people set up a great shout--Hurree-Bol, Hurree-Bol, which\nis a common shout of joy, and an invocation of Hurree, or Seeb. It was\nimpossible to have heard the woman had she groaned, or even cried\naloud, on account of the mad noise of the people, and it was impossible\nfor her to stir or struggle on account of the bamboos which were held\ndown on her like the levers of a press.  We made much objection to\ntheir using these bamboos, and insisted that it was using force to\nprevent the woman from getting up when the fire burned her.  But they\ndeclared that it was only done to keep the pile from falling down.  We\ncould not bear to see more, but left them, exclaiming loudly against\nthe murder, and full of horror at what we had seen.\"  In the same\nletter Carey communicates the information he had collected regarding\nthe Jews and Syrian Christians of the Malabar coast.\n\nMr. G. Udny had now found his private indigo enterprise to be\ndisastrous.  He resolved to give it up and retire to England. Thomas\nhad left his factory, and was urging his colleague to try the sugar\ntrade, which at that time meant the distillation of rum. Carey rather\ntook over from Mr. Udny the out-factory of Kidderpore, twelve miles\ndistant, and there resolved to prepare for the arrival of colleagues,\nthe communistic missionary settlement on the Moravian plan, which he\nhad advocated in his Enquiry.  Mr. John Fountain had been sent out as\nthe first reinforcement, but he proved to be almost as dangerous to the\ninfant mission from his outspoken political radicalism as Thomas had\nbeen from his debts.  Carey seriously contemplated the setting up of\nhis mission centre among the Bhooteas, so as to be free from the East\nIndia Company.  The authorities would not license Fountain as his\nassistant.  Would they allow future missionaries to settle with him?\nWould they always renew his own licence?  And what if he must cease\naltogether to work with his hands, and give himself wholly to the work\nof the mission as seemed necessary?\n\nFour new colleagues and their families were already on the sea, but God\nhad provided a better refuge for His servants till the public\nconscience which they were about to quicken and enlighten should cause\nthe persecution to cease.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE NEW CRUSADE--SERAMPORE AND THE BROTHERHOOD\n\n1800\n\nEffects of the news in England on the Baptists--On the home\nchurches--In the foundation of the London and other Missionary\nSocieties--In Scotland--In Holland and America--The missionary\nhome--Joshua Marshman, William Ward, and two others sent out--Landing\nat the Iona of Southern Asia--Meeting of Ward and Carey--First attempt\nto evangelise the non-Aryan hill tribes--Carey driven by providences to\nSerampore--Dense population of Hoogli district--Adapts his communistic\nplan to the new conditions--Purchase of the property--Constitution of\nthe Brotherhood--His relations to Marshman and Ward--Hannah Marshman,\nthe first woman missionary--Daily life of the Brethren--Form of\nAgreement--Carey's ideal system of missionary administration realised\nfor fifteen years--Spiritual heroism of the Brotherhood.\n\nThe first two English missionaries to India seemed to those who sent\nthem forth to have disappeared for ever.  For fourteen months, in those\ndays of slow Indiamen and French privateers, no tidings of their\nwelfare reached the poor praying people of the midlands, who had been\nemboldened to begin the heroic enterprise.  The convoy, which had seen\nthe Danish vessel fairly beyond the French coast, had been unable to\nbring back letters on account of the weather.  At last, on the 29th\nJuly 1794, Fuller, the secretary; Pearce, the beloved personal friend\nof Carey; Ryland in Bristol; and the congregation at Leicester,\nreceived the journals of the voyage and letters which told of the first\nsix weeks' experience at Balasore, in Calcutta, Bandel, and Nuddea,\njust before Carey knew the worst of their pecuniary position.  The\ncommittee at once met.  They sang \"with sacred joy\" what has ever since\nbeen the jubilee hymn of missions, that by William Williams--\n\n   \"O'er those gloomy hills of darkness.\"\n\nThey \"returned solemn thanks to the everlasting God whose mercy\nendureth for ever, for having preserved you from the perils of the sea,\nand hitherto made your ways prosperous.  In reading the short account\nof your labours we feel something of that spirit spoken of in the\nprophet, 'Thine heart shall fear and be enlarged.'  We cordially thank\nyou for your assiduity in learning the languages, in translating, and\nin every labour of love in which you have engaged. Under God we\ncheerfully confide in your wisdom, fidelity, and prudence, with\nrelation to the seat of your labours or the means to carry them into\neffect.  If there be one place, however, which strikes us as of more\nimportance than the rest, it is Nuddea.  But you must follow where the\nLord opens a door for you.\"  The same spirit of generous confidence\nmarked the relations of Carey and the committee so long as Fuller was\nsecretary.  When the news came that the missionaries had become indigo\nplanters, some of the weaker brethren, estimating Carey by themselves,\nsent out a mild warning against secular temptations, to which he\nreturned a half-amused and kindly reply.  John Newton, then the aged\nrector of St. Mary Woolnoth, on being consulted, reassured them: \"If\nthe heart be fired with a zeal for God and love to souls,\" he said,\n\"such attention to business as circumstances require will not hurt it.\"\nSince Carey, like the Moravians, meant that the missionaries should\nlive upon a common stock, and never lay up money, the weakest might\nhave recognised the Paul-like nobleness, which had marked all his life,\nin relinquishing the scanty salary that it might be used for other\nmissions to Africa and Asia.\n\nThe spiritual law which Duff's success afterwards led Chalmers to\nformulate, that the relation of foreign to home missions acts not by\nexhaustion but by fermentation, now came to be illustrated on a great\nscale, and to result in the foundation of the catholic missionary\nenterprise of the evangelicals of England, Scotland, Ireland, America,\nGermany, and France, which has marked the whole nineteenth century.  We\nfind it first in Fuller himself.  In comforting Thomas during his\nextremest dejection he quoted to him from his own journal of 1789 the\nrecord of a long period of spiritual inactivity, which continued till\nCarey compelled him to join in the mission. \"Before this I did little\nbut pine over my misery, but since I have betaken myself to greater\nactivity for God, my strength has been recovered and my soul\nreplenished.\" \"Your work is a great work, and the eyes of the religious\nworld are upon you. Your undertaking, with that of your dear colleague,\nhas provoked many.  The spirit of missions is gone forth.  I wish it\nmay never stop till the Gospel is sent unto all the world.\"\n\nFollowing the pietist Francke, who in 1710 published the first\nmissionary reports, and also the Moravians, Fuller and his coadjutors\nissued from the press of J. W. Morris at Clipstone, towards the end of\n1794, No. I. of their Periodical Accounts relative to a Society formed\namong the Particular Baptists for Propagating the Gospel among the\nHeathen.  That contained a narrative of the foundation of the Society\nand the letters of Carey up to 15th February 1794 from the Soondarbans.\nSix of these Accounts appeared up to the year 1800, when they were\npublished as one volume with an index and illustrations.  The volume\ncloses with a doggerel translation of one of several Gospel ballads\nwhich Carey had written in Bengali in 1798.  He had thus early brought\ninto the service of Christ the Hindoo love of musical recitative, which\nwas recently re-discovered--as it were--and now forms an important mode\nof evangelistic work when accompanied by native musical instruments.\nThe original has a curious interest and value in the history of the\nBengali language, as formed by Carey.  As to the music he wrote:--\"We\nsometimes have a melody that cheers my heart, though it would be\ndiscordant upon the ears of an Englishman.\"\n\nSuch was the immediate action of the infant Baptist Society.  The\nmoment Dr. Ryland read his letter from Carey he sent for Dr. Bogue and\nMr. Stephen, who happened to be in Bristol, to rejoice with him. The\nthree returned thanks to God, and then Bogue and Stephen, calling on\nMr. Hey, a leading minister, took the first step towards the foundation\nof a similar organisation of non-Baptists, since known as the London\nMissionary Society.  Immediately Bogue, the able Presbyterian, who had\npresided over a theological school at Gosport from which missionaries\nwent forth, and who refused the best living in Edinburgh when offered\nto him by Dundas, wrote his address, which appeared in the Evangelical\nMagazine for September, calling on the churches to send out at least\ntwenty or thirty missionaries.  In the sermon of lofty eloquence which\nhe preached the year after, he declared that the missionary movement of\nthat time would form an epoch in the history of man,--\"the time will be\never remembered by us, and may it be celebrated by future ages as the\n\u00c6ra of Christian Benevolence.\"\n\nOn the same day the Rev. T. Haweis, rector of All Saints, Aldwinkle,\nreferring to the hundreds of ministers collected to decide where the\nfirst mission should be sent, thus burst forth: \"Methinks I see the\ngreat Angel of the Covenant in the midst of us, pluming his wings, and\nready to fly through the midst of heaven with his own everlasting\nGospel, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.\"  In Hindostan\n\"our brethren the Baptists have at present prevented our wishes...there\nis room for a thousand missionaries, and I wish we may be ready with a\nnumerous host for that or any other part of the earth.\"\n\n\"Scotland[10] was the next to take up the challenge sent by Carey.\nGreville Ewing, then a young minister of the kirk in Edinburgh,\npublished in March 1796 the appeal of the Edinburgh or Scottish\nMissionary Society, which afterwards sent John Wilson to Bombay, and\nthat was followed by the Glasgow Society, to which we owe the most\nsuccessful of the Kafir missions in South Africa.  Robert Haldane sold\nall that he had when he read the first number of the Periodical\nAccounts, and gave \u00a335,000 to send a Presbyterian mission of six\nministers and laymen, besides himself, to do from Benares what Carey\nhad planned from Mudnabati; but Pitt as well as Dundas, though his\npersonal friends, threatened him with the Company's intolerant Act of\nParliament.  Evangelical ministers of the Church of England took their\nproper place in the new crusade, and a year before the eighteenth\ncentury closed they formed the agency, which has ever since been in the\nforefront of the host of the Lord as the Church Missionary Society,\nwith Carey's friend, Thomas Scott, as its first secretary.  The sacred\nenthusiasm was caught by the Netherlands on the one side under the\ninfluence of Dr. Van der Kemp, who had studied at Edinburgh University,\nand by the divinity students of New England, of whom Adoniram Judson\nwas even then in training to receive from Carey the apostolate of\nBurma.  Soon too the Bengali Bible translations were to unite with the\nneeds of the Welsh at home to establish the British and Foreign Bible\nSociety.\n\nAs news of all this reached Carey amid his troubles and yet triumphs of\nfaith in the swamps of Dinajpoor, and when he learned that he was soon\nto be joined by four colleagues, one of whom was Ward whom he himself\nhad trysted to print the Bengali Bible for him, he might well write, in\nJuly 1799:--\"The success of the Gospel and, among other things, the\nhitherto unextinguishable missionary flame in England and all the\nwestern world, give us no little encouragement and animate our hearts.\"\nTo Sutcliff he had written eighteen months before that:--\"I rejoice\nmuch at the missionary spirit which has lately gone forth: surely it is\na prelude to the universal spread of the Gospel!  Your account of the\nGerman Moravian Brethren's affectionate regard towards me is very\npleasing.  I am not much moved by what men in general say of me; yet I\ncannot be insensible to the regards of men eminent for\ngodliness...Staying at home is now become sinful in many cases, and\nwill become so more and more.  All gifts should be encouraged, and\nspread abroad.\"\n\nThe day was breaking now.  Men as well as money were offered for\nCarey's work.  In Scotland especially Fuller found that he had but to\nask, but to appear in any evangelical pulpit, and he would receive sums\nwhich, in that day of small things, rebuked his little faith.  Till the\nlast Scotland was loyal to Carey and his colleagues, and with almost a\nprevision of this he wrote so early as 1797:--\"It rejoices my heart\nmuch to hear of our brethren in Scotland having so liberally set\nthemselves to encourage the mission.\"  They approved of his plans, and\nprayed for him and his work.  When Fuller called on Cecil for help, the\n\"churchy\" evangelical told him he had a poor opinion of all Baptists\nexcept one, the man who wrote The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation.\nWhen he learned that its author was before him, the hasty offender\napologised and offered a subscription. \"Not a farthing, sir!\" was the\nreply, \"you do not give in faith;\" but the persistent Cecil prevailed.\nMen, however, were a greater want than money at that early stage of the\nmodern crusade.  Thomas and Fountain had each been a mistake.  So were\nthe early African missionaries, with the exception of the first\nScotsman, Peter Greig.  Of the thirty sent out by the London Missionary\nSociety in the Duff only four were fit for ordination, and not one has\nleft a name of mark.  The Church Mission continued to send out only\nGermans till 1815.  In quick succession four young men offered\nthemselves to the Baptist Society to go out as assistants to Carey, in\nthe hope that the Company would give them a covenant to\nreside--Brunsdon and Grant, two of Ryland's Bristol flock; Joshua\nMarshman with his wife Hannah Marshman, and William Ward called by\nCarey himself.\n\nIn nine months Fuller had them and their families shipped in an\nAmerican vessel, the Criterion, commanded by Captain Wickes, a\nPresbyterian elder of Philadelphia, who ever after promoted the cause\nin the United States.  Charles Grant helped them as he would have aided\nCarey alone.  Though the most influential of the Company's directors,\nhe could not obtain a passport for them, but he gave them the very\ncounsel which was to provide for the young mission its ark of defence:\n\"Do not land at Calcutta but at Serampore, and there, under the\nprotection of the Danish flag, arrange to join Mr. Carey.\"  After five\nmonths' prosperous voyage the party reached the Hoogli.  Before\narriving within the limits of the port of Calcutta Captain Wickes sent\nthem off in two boats under the guidance of a Bengali clerk to\nSerampore, fifteen miles higher up on the right bank of the river.\nThey had agreed that he should boldly enter them, not as assistant\nplanters, but as Christian missionaries, rightly trusting to Danish\nprotection.  Charles Grant had advised them well, but it is not easy\nnow, as in the case of their predecessors in 1795 and of their\nsuccessors up to 1813, to refrain from indignation that the British\nParliament, and the party led by William Pitt, should have so long lent\nall the weight of their power to the East India Company in the vain\nattempt to keep Christianity from the Hindoos.  Ward's journal thus\nsimply tells the story of the landing of the missionaries at this Iona,\nthis Canterbury of Southern Asia:--\n\n\"Lord's-day, Oct. 13, 1799.--Brother Brunsdon and I slept in the open\nair on our chests.  We arrived at Serampore this morning by daylight,\nin health and pretty good spirits.  We put up at Myerr's, a Danish\ntavern to which we had been recommended.  No worship to-day.  Nothing\nbut a Portuguese church here.\n\n\"Oct. 14.--Mr. Forsyth from Calcutta, missionary belonging to the\nLondon Missionary Society, astonished us by his presence this\nafternoon.  He was wholly unknown, but soon became well known.  He gave\nus a deal of interesting information.  He had seen brother Carey, who\ninvited him to his house, offered him the assistance of his Moonshi,\netc.\n\n\"Oct. 16--The Captain having been at Calcutta came and informed us that\nhis ship could not be entered unless we made our appearance. Brother\nBrunsdon and I went to Calcutta, and the next day we were informed that\nthe ship had obtained an entrance, on condition that we appeared at the\nPolice Office, or would continue at Serampore. All things considered we\npreferred the latter, till the arrival of our friends from Kidderpore\nto whom we had addressed letters. Captain Wickes called on Rev. Mr.\nBrown, who very kindly offered to do anything for us in his power.  Our\nInstructions with respect to our conduct towards Civil Government were\nread to him.  He promised to call at the Police Office afterwards, and\nto inform the Master that we intended to stay at Serampore, till we had\nleave to go up the country.  Captain Wickes called at the office\nafterwards, and they seemed quite satisfied with our declaration by\nhim.  In the afternoon we went to Serampore.\n\n\"Oct. 19.--I addressed a letter to the Governor to-day begging his\nacceptance of the last number of our Periodical Accounts, and informing\nhim that we proposed having worship to-morrow in our own house, from\nwhich we did not wish to exclude any person.\n\n\"Lord's-day, Oct. 20.--This morning the Governor sent to inquire the\nhours of our worship.  About half-past ten he came to our house with a\nnumber of gentlemen and their retinue.  I preached from Acts xx. 24.\nWe had a very attentive congregation of Europeans: several appeared\naffected, among whom was the Governor.\"\n\nThe text was well chosen from Paul's words to the elders of Ephesus, as\nhe turned his face towards the bonds and afflictions that awaited\nhim--\"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear\nunto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the\nministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel\nof the grace of God.\" It proved to be a history of the three men\nthenceforth best known as the Serampore Missionaries.  Ward, too, the\nliterary member of the mission, composed the hymn which thus\nconcluded:--\n\n  \"Yes, we are safe beneath Thy shade,\n  And shall be so 'midst India's heat:\n  What should a missionary dread,\n  For devils crouch at Jesus' feet.\n\n  \"There, sweetest Saviour! let Thy cross\n  Win many Hindoo hearts to Thee;\n  This shall make up for every loss,\n  While Thou art ours eternally.\"\n\nIn his first letter to a friend in Hull Ward used language which\nunconsciously predicted the future of the mission:--\"With a Bible and a\npress posterity will see that a missionary will not labour in vain,\neven in India.\"  But one of their number, Grant, was meanwhile removed\nby death, and, while they waited for a month, Carey failed to obtain\nleave for them to settle as his assistants in British territory.  He\nhad appealed to Mr. Brown, and to Dr. Roxburgh, his friend in charge of\nthe Botanic Garden, to use his influence with the Government through\nColebrooke, the Oriental scholar, then high in the service.  But it was\nin vain.  The police had seen with annoyance the missionaries slip from\ntheir grasp because of the liberality of the Governor-General of whom\nCarey had written to Ryland a year before: \"At Calcutta, I saw much\ndissipation; but yet I think less than formerly.  Lord Mornington has\nset his face against sports, gaming, horse-racing, and working on the\nLord's-day; in consequence of which these infamous practices are less\ncommon than formerly.\"  The missionaries, too, had at first been\nreported not as Baptist but as \"Papist,\" and the emissaries of France,\nbelieved to be everywhere, must be watched against.  The brave little\nGovernor let it be understood that he would protect to the last the men\nwho had been committed to his care by the Danish consul in London.  So\nWard obtained a Danish passport to enable him to visit Dinapoor and\nconsult with Carey.\n\nIt was Sunday morning when he approached the Mudnabati factory,\n\"feeling very unusual sensations,\" greatly excited. \"At length I saw\nCarey!  He is less altered than I expected: has rather more flesh than\nwhen in England, and, blessed be God! he is a young man still.\" It was\na wrench to sacrifice his own pioneer mission, property worth \u00a3500, the\nschool, the church, the inquirers, but he did not hesitate.  He thus\nstated the case on the other side:--\"At Serampore we may settle as\nmissionaries, which is not allow here; and the great ends of the\nmission, particularly the printing of the Scriptures, seem much more\nlikely to be answered in that situation than in this.  There also\nbrother Ward can have the inspection of the press; whereas here we\nshould be deprived of his important assistance.  In that part of the\ncountry the inhabitants are far more numerous than in this; and other\nmissionaries may there be permitted to join us, which here it seems\nthey will not.\"  On the way down, during a visit to the Rajmahal Hills,\nround which the great Ganges sweeps, Carey and Ward made the first\nattempt to evangelise the Santal and other simple aboriginal tribes,\nwhom the officials Brown and Cleveland had partly tamed.  The Paharis\nare described, at that time, as without caste, priests, or public\nreligion, as living on Indian corn and by hunting, for which they carry\nbows and arrows. \"Brother Carey was able to converse with them.\"\nAgain, Ward's comment on the Bengali services on the next Sunday, from\nthe boats, is \"the common sort wonder how brother Carey can know so\nmuch of the Shasters.\" \"I long,\" wrote Carey from the spot to his new\ncolleagues, \"to stay here and tell these social and untutored heathen\nthe good news from heaven.  I have a strong persuasion that the\ndoctrine of a dying Saviour would, under the Holy Spirit's influence,\nmelt their hearts.\"  From Taljheri and Pokhuria, near that place, to\nParisnath, Ranchi, and Orissa, thousands of Santals and Kols have since\nbeen gathered into the kingdom.\n\nOn the 10th January 1800 Carey took up his residence at Serampore, on\nthe 11th he was presented to the Governor, and \"he went out and\npreached to the natives.\"  His apprenticeship was over; so began his\nfull apostolate, instant in season and out of season, to end only with\nhis life thirty-four years after.\n\nThus step by step, by a way that he knew not, the shoemaker lad--who\nhad educated himself to carry the Gospel to Tahiti, had been sent to\nBengal in spite of the Company which cast him out of their ship, had\nstarved in Calcutta, had built him a wooden hut in the jungles of the\nDelta, had become indigo planter in the swamps of Dinapoor that he\nmight preach Christ without interference, had been forced to think of\nseeking the protection of a Buddhist in the Himalaya morass--was driven\nto begin anew in the very heart of the most densely peopled part of the\nBritish Empire, under the jealous care of the foreign European power\nwhich had a century before sent missionaries to Tranquebar and taught\nZinzendorf and the Moravians the divine law of the kingdom; encouraged\nby a Governor, Colonel Bie, who was himself a disciple of Schwartz.  To\ncomplete this catalogue of special providences we may add that, if\nFuller had delayed only a little longer, even Serampore would have been\nfound shut against the missionaries.  For the year after, when\nNapoleon's acts had driven us to war with Denmark, a detachment of\nBritish troops, under Lord Minto's son, took possession of\nFredericksnagore, as Serampore was officially called, and of the Danish\nEast India Company's ship there, without opposition.\n\nThe district or county of Hoogli and Howrah, opposite Calcutta and\nBarrackpore, of which Serampore is the central port, swarms with a\npopulation, chiefly Hindoo but partly Mussulman, unmatched for density\nin any other part of the world.  If, after years of a decimating fever,\neach of its 1701 square miles still supports nearly a thousand human\nbeings or double the proportion of Belgium, we cannot believe that it\nwas much less dense at the beginning of the century.  From Howrah, the\nSurrey side of Calcutta, up to Hoogli the county town, the high ridge\nof mud between the river and the old channel of the Ganges to the west,\nhas attracted the wealthiest and most intellectually active of all the\nBengalees.  Hence it was here that Portuguese and Dutch, French and\nEnglish, and Danish planted their early factories.  The last to obtain\na site of twenty acres from the moribund Mussulman Government at\nMoorshedabad was Denmark, two years before Plassey.  In the half\ncentury the hut of the first Governor sent from Tranquebar had grown\ninto the \"beautiful little town\" which delighted the first Baptist\nmissionaries.  Its inhabitants, under only British administration since\n1845, now number 45,000.  Then they were much fewer, but then even more\nthan now the town was a centre of the Vishnoo-worship of Jagganath,\nsecond only to that of Pooree in all India.  Not far off, and now\nconnected with the port by railway, is the foul shrine of Tarakeswar,\nwhich attracts thousands of pilgrims, many of them widows, who measure\nthe road with their prostrate bodies dripping from the bath.\nCommercially Serampore sometimes distanced Calcutta itself, for all the\nforeign European trade was centred in it during the American and French\nwars, and the English civilians used its investments as the best means\nof remitting their savings home.  When the missionaries landed there\nwas nothing but a Portuguese Catholic church in the settlement, and the\nGovernor was raising subscriptions for that pretty building in which\nCarey preached till he died, and the spire of which the\nGovernor-General is said to have erected to improve the view of the\ntown from the windows of his summer palace at Barrackpore opposite.\n\nRemoved from the rural obscurity of a Bengali village, where the cost\nof housing, clothing, and living was small, to a town in the\nneighbourhood of the capital much frequented by Europeans, Carey at\nonce adapted the practical details of his communistic brotherhood to\nthe new circumstances.  With such wisdom was he aided in this by the\nbusiness experience of Marshman and Ward, that a settlement was formed\nwhich admitted of easy development in correspondence with the rapid\ngrowth of the mission.  At first the community consisted of ten adults\nand nine children.  Grant had been carried off in a fever caused by the\ndampness of their first quarters.  The promising Brunsdon was soon\nafter removed by liver complaint caught from standing on an unmatted\nfloor in the printing-office.  Fountain, who at first continued the\nmission at Dinapoor, soon died there a happy death.  Thomas had settled\nat Beerbhoom, but joined the Serampore brethren in time to do good\nthough brief service before he too was cut off.  But, fortunately as it\nproved for the future, Carey had to arrange for five families at the\nfirst, and this is how it was done as described by Ward:--\n\n\"The renting of a house, or houses, would ruin us.  We hoped therefore\nto have been able to purchase land, and build mat houses upon it; but\nwe can get none properly situated.  We have in consequence purchased of\nthe Governor's nephew a large house in the middle of the town for\nRs.6000, or about \u00a3800; the rent in four years would have amounted to\nthe purchase.  It consists of a spacious verandah (portico) and hall,\nwith two rooms on each side. Rather more to the front are two other\nrooms separate, and on one side is a storehouse, separate also, which\nwill make a printing-office.  It stands by the river-side upon a pretty\nlarge piece of ground, walled round, with a garden at the bottom, and\nin the middle a fine tank or pool of water.  The price alarmed us, but\nwe had no alternative; and we hope this will form a comfortable\nmissionary settlement.  Being near to Calcutta, it is of the utmost\nimportance to our school, our press, and our connection with England.\"\n\n\"From hence may the Gospel issue and pervade all India,\" they wrote to\nFuller. \"We intend to teach a school, and make what we can of our\npress.  The paper is all arrived, and the press, with the types, etc.,\ncomplete.  The Bible is wholly translated, except a few chapters, so\nthat we intend to begin printing immediately, first the New and then\nthe Old Testament.  We love our work, and will do all we can to lighten\nyour expenses.\"\n\nThis house-chapel, with two acres of garden land and separate rooms on\neither side, continued till 1875 to be the nucleus of the settlement\nafterwards celebrated all over South Asia and Christendom.  The chapel\nis still sacred to the worship of God. The separate rooms to the left,\nfronting the Hoogli, became enlarged into the stately residence of Mr.\nJohn Marshman, C.S.I., and his two successors in the Friend of India,\nwhile beyond were the girl's school, now removed, the residence of Dr.\nJoshua Marshman before his death, and the boys' school presented to the\nmission by the King of Denmark.  The separate rooms to the right grew\ninto the press; farther down the river was the house of the Lady Rumohr\nwho became Carey's second wife, with the great paper-mill behind; and,\nstill farther, the second park in which the Serampore College was\nbuilt, with the principal's house in which Carey died, and a hostel for\nthe Native Christian students behind.  The whole settlement finally\nformed a block of at least five acres, with almost palatial buildings,\non the right bank of the Hoogli, which, with a breadth of half a mile\nwhen in flood, rolls between it and the Governor-General's summer house\nand English-like park of Barrackpore.  The original two acres became\nCarey's Botanic Garden; the houses he surrounded and connected by\nmahogany trees, which grew to be of umbrageous beauty.  His favourite\npromenade between the chapel and the mill, and ultimately the college,\nwas under an avenue of his own planting, long known as \"Carey's Walk.\"\n\nThe new colleagues who were to live with him in loving brotherhood till\ndeath removed the last in 1837 were not long in attracting him. The two\nwere worthy to be associated with him, and so admirably supplemented\nhis own deficiencies that the brotherhood became the most potent and\npermanent force in India.  He thus wrote to Fuller his first\nimpressions of them, with a loving self-depreciation:--\"Brother Ward is\nthe very man we wanted: he enters into the work with his whole soul.  I\nhave much pleasure in him, and expect much from him.  Brother Marshman\nis a prodigy of diligence and prudence, as is also his wife in the\nlatter: learning the language is mere play to him; he has already\nacquired as much as I did in double the time.\"  After eight months of\nstudy and evangelising work they are thus described:--\"Our brother\nMarshman, who is a true missionary, is able to talk a little; he goes\nout frequently, nay almost every day, and assaults the fortress of\nSatan.  Brother Brunsdon can talk a little, though not like Marshman.\nBrother Ward is a great prize; he does not learn the language so\nquickly, but he is so holy, so spiritual a man, and so useful among the\nchildren.\"\n\nThus early did Carey note the value of Hannah Marshman, the first woman\nmissionary to India.  Granddaughter of the Baptist minister of\nCrockerton in Wiltshire, she proved to be for forty-six years at once a\nloving wife, and the equal of the three missionaries of Christ and of\ncivilisation whom she aided in the common home, in the schools, in the\ncongregation, in the Native Christian families, and even, at that early\ntime, in purely Hindoo circles.  Without her the mission must have been\none-sided indeed.  It gives us a pathetic interest to turn to her\nhousehold books, where we find entered with loving care and thoughtful\nthrift all the daily details which at once form a valuable contribution\nto the history of prices, and show how her \"prudence\" combined with the\nheroic self-denial of all to make the Serampore mission the light of\nIndia.  Ward's journal supplies this first sketch of the brotherhood,\nwho realised, more than probably any in Protestant, Romanist, or Greek\nhagiology, the life of the apostolic community in Jerusalem:--\n\n\"January 18, 1800.--This week we have adopted a set of rules for the\ngovernment of the family.  All preach and pray in turn; one\nsuperintends the affairs of the family for a month, and then another;\nbrother Carey is treasurer, and has the regulation of the medicine\nchest; brother Fountain is librarian.  Saturday evening is devoted to\nadjusting differences, and pledging ourselves to love one another.  One\nof our resolutions is, that no one of us do engage in private trade;\nbut that all be done for the benefit of the mission...\n\n\"August 1.--Our labours for every day are now regularly arranged. About\nsix o'clock we rise; brother Carey to his garden; brother Marshman to\nhis school at seven; brother Brunsdon, Felix, and I, to the\nprinting-office.  At eight the bell rings for family worship: we\nassemble in the hall; sing, read, and pray.  Breakfast.  Afterwards,\nbrother Carey goes to the translation, or reading proofs: brother\nMarshman to school, and the rest to the printing-office.  Our\ncompositor having left us, we do without: we print three half-sheets of\n2000 each in a week; have five pressmen, one folder, and one binder.\nAt twelve o'clock we take a luncheon; then most of us shave and bathe,\nread and sleep before dinner, which we have at three. After dinner we\ndeliver our thoughts on a text or question: this we find to be very\nprofitable.  Brother and sister Marshman keep their schools till after\ntwo.  In the afternoon, if business be done in the office, I read and\ntry to talk Bengali with the br\u00e0mmh\u00e0n.  We drink tea about seven, and\nhave little or no supper.  We have Bengali preaching once or twice in\nthe week, and on Thursday evening we have an experience meeting.  On\nSaturday evening we meet to compose differences and transact business,\nafter prayer, which is always immediately after tea.  Felix is very\nuseful in the office; William goes to school, and part of the day\nlearns to bind.  We meet two hours before breakfast on the first Monday\nin the month, and each one prays for the salvation of the Bengal\nheathen.  At night we unite our prayers for the universal spread of the\nGospel.\"\n\nThe \"Form of Agreement\" which regulated the social economy and\nspiritual enterprise of the brotherhood, and also its legal relations\nto the Baptist Society in England, deserves study, in its divine\ndisinterestedness, its lofty aims, and its kindly common sense.  Fuller\nhad pledged the Society in 1798 to send out \u00a3360 a year for the joint\nfamily of six missionaries, their wives, and children.  The house and\nland at Serampore cost the Society Rs.6000. On Grant's death, leaving a\nwidow and two children, the five missionaries made the first voluntary\nagreement, which \"provided that no one should trade on his own private\naccount, and that the product of their labour should form a common fund\nto be applied at the will of the majority, to the support of their\nrespective families, of the cause of God around them, and of the widow\nand family of such as might be removed by death.\"  The first year the\nschools and the press enabled the brotherhood to be more than\nself-supporting.  In the second year Carey's salary from the College of\nFort-William, and the growth of the schools and press, gave them a\nsurplus for mission extension.  They not only paid for the additional\ntwo houses and ground required by such extension, but they paid back to\nthe Society all that it had advanced for the first purchase in the\ncourse of the next six years.  They acquired all the property for the\nSerampore Mission, duly informing the home Committee from time to time,\nand they vested the whole right, up to Fuller's death in 1815, in the\nSociety, \"to prevent the premises being sold or becoming private\nproperty in the families.\"  But \"to secure their own quiet occupation\nof them, and enable them to leave them in the hands of such as they\nmight associate with themselves in their work, they declared themselves\ntrustees instead of proprietors.\"\n\nThe agreement of 1800 was expanded into the \"Form of Agreement\" of 1805\nwhen the spiritual side of the mission had grown.  Their own\nauthoritative statement, as given above, was lovingly recognised by\nFuller.  In 1817, and again in 1820, the claims of aged and destitute\nrelatives, and the duty of each brother making provision for his own\nwidow and orphans, and, occasionally, the calls of pity and humanity,\nled the brotherhood to agree that \"each shall regularly deduct a tenth\nof the net product of his labour to form a fund in his own hands for\nthese purposes.\"  We know nothing in the history of missions, monastic\nor evangelical, which at all approaches this in administrative\nperfectness as well is in Christlike self-sacrifice.  It prevents\nsecularisation of spirit, stimulates activity of all kinds, gives full\nscope to local ability and experience, calls forth the maximum of local\nsupport and propagation, sets the church at home free to enter\nincessantly on new fields, provides permanence as well as variety of\naction and adaptation to new circumstances, and binds the whole in a\nholy bond of prayerful co-operation and loving brotherhood.  This\nAgreement worked for seventeen years, with a success in England and\nIndia which we shall trace, or as long as Fuller, Ryland, and Sutcliff\nlived \"to hold the ropes,\" while Carey, Marshman, and Ward excavated\nthe mine of Hindooism.\n\nThe spiritual side of the Agreement we find in the form which the three\ndrew up in 1805, to be read publicly at all their stations thrice every\nyear, on the Lord's Day. It is the ripe fruit of the first eleven years\nof Carey's daily toil and consecrated genius, as written out by the\nfervent pen of Ward. In the light of it the whole of Carey's life must\nbe read.  In these concluding sentences the writer sketches Carey\nhimself:--\"Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America,\npouring out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen, without\nwhose salvation nothing could make you happy.  Prayer, secret, fervent,\nbelieving prayer, lies at the root of all personal godliness.  A\ncompetent knowledge of the languages current where a missionary lives,\na mild and winning temper, and a heart given up to God in closet\nreligion; these, these are the attainments which more than all\nknowledge or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments of\nGod in the great work of human redemption.  Finally, let us give\nourselves unreservedly to this glorious cause.  Let us never think that\nour time, our gifts, our strength, our families, or even the clothes we\nwear are our own. Let us sanctify them all to God and His cause.  Oh!\nthat He may sanctify us for His work.  Let us for ever shut out the\nidea of laying up a cowrie (mite) for ourselves or our children.  If we\ngive up the resolution which was formed on the subject of private\ntrade, when we first united at Serampore, the mission is from that hour\na lost cause.  Let us continually watch against a worldly spirit, and\ncultivate a Christian indifference towards every indulgence.  Rather\nlet us bear hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.  No private\nfamily ever enjoyed a greater portion of happiness, even in the most\nprosperous gale of worldly prosperity, than we have done since we\nresolved to have all things in common.  If we are enabled to persevere\nin the same principles, we may hope that multitudes of converted souls\nwill have reason to bless God to all eternity for sending His Gospel\ninto this country.\"\n\nSuch was the moral heroism, such the spiritual aim of the Serampore\nbrotherhood; how did it set to work?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE FIRST NATIVE CONVERTS AND CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS\n\n1800-1810\n\nA carpenter the first Bengali convert--Krishna Pal's confession--Caste\nbroken for the first time--Carey describes the baptism in the\nHoogli--The first woman convert--The first widow convert--The first\nconvert of writer caste--The first Christian Brahman--The first native\nchapel--A Bengali \"experience\" meeting--Carey founding a new community\nas well as church--Marriage difficulties solved--The first native\nChristian marriage feast in North India--Hindoo Christian death and\nburial--The first Christian schools and school-books in North\nIndia--The first native Sunday school--Boarding schools for the higher\neducation of country-born Christians--Carey on the mixed Portuguese,\nEurasians, and Armenians--The Benevolent Institution for destitute\nchildren of all races--A hundred schools--English only\npostponed--Effect on native opinion and action--The leaven of the\nKingdom--The Mission breaks forth into five at the close of 1810.\n\nFor seven years Carey had daily preached Christ in Bengali without a\nconvert.  He had produced the first edition of the New Testament. He\nhad reduced the language to literary form.  He had laid the foundations\nin the darkness of the pit of Hindooism, while the Northamptonshire\npastors, by prayer and self-sacrifice, held the ropes.  The last\ndisappointment was on 25th November 1800, when \"the first Hindoo\"\ncatechumen, Fakeer, offered himself for baptism, returned to his\ndistant home for his child, and appeared no more, probably \"detained by\nforce.\"  But on the last Sunday of that year Krishna Pal was baptised\nin the Hoogli and his whole family soon followed him.  He was\nthirty-five years of age.  Not only as the first native Christian of\nNorth India of whom we have a reliable account, but as the first\nmissionary to Calcutta and Assam, and the first Bengali hymn-writer,\nthis man deserves study.\n\nCarey's first Hindoo convert was three years younger than himself, or\nabout thirty-six, at baptism.  Krishna Pal, born in the neighbouring\nFrench settlement of Chandernagore, had settled in the suburbs of\nSerampore, where he worked as a carpenter.  Sore sickness and a sense\nof sin led him to join the Kharta-bhojas, one of the sects which, from\nthe time of Gautama Buddha, and of Chaitanya, the reformer of Nuddea,\nto that of Nanak, founder of the Sikh brotherhood have been driven into\ndissent by the yoke of Brahmanism. Generally worshippers of some form\nof Vishnoo, and occasionally, as in Kabeer's case, influenced by the\nmonotheism of Islam, these sects begin by professing theism and\nopposition to caste, though Hindooism is elastic enough to keep them\nalways within its pale and ultimately to absorb them again.  For\nsixteen years Krishna Pal was himself a gooroo of the Ghospara sect, of\nwhich from Carey's to Duff's earlier days the missionaries had a hope\nwhich proved vain.  He recovered from sickness, but could not shake off\nthe sense of the burden of sin, when this message came to him, and, to\nhis surprise, through the Europeans--\"Jesus Christ came into the world\nto save sinners.\" At the same time he happened to dislocate his right\narm by falling down the slippery side of his tank when about to bathe.\nHe sent two of the children to the Mission House for Thomas, who\nimmediately left the breakfast table at which the brethren had just sat\ndown, and soon reduced the luxation, while the sufferer again heard the\ngood news that Christ was waiting to heal his soul, and he and his\nneighbour Gokool received a Bengali tract.  He himself thus told the\nstory:--\"In this paper I read that he who confesseth and forsaketh his\nsins, and trusteth in the righteousness of Christ, obtains salvation.\nThe next morning Mr. Carey came to see me, and after inquiring how I\nwas, told me to come to his house, that he would give me some medicine,\nby which, through the blessing of God, the pain in my arm would be\nremoved.  I went and obtained the medicine, and through the mercy of\nGod my arm was cured.  From this time I made a practice of calling at\nthe mission house, where Mr. Ward and Mr. Felix Carey used to read and\nexpound the Holy Bible to me.  One day Dr. Thomas asked me whether I\nunderstood what I heard from Mr. Ward and Mr. Carey.  I said I\nunderstood that the Lord Jesus Christ gave his life up for the\nsalvation of sinners, and that I believed it, and so did my friend\nGokool.  Dr. T. said, 'Then I call you brother--come and let us eat\ntogether in love.'  At this time the table was set for luncheon, and\nall the missionaries and their wives, and I and Gokool, sat down and\nate together.\"\n\nThe servants spread the news, most horrible to the people, that the two\nHindoos had \"become Europeans,\" and they were assaulted on their way\nhome.  Just thirty years after, in Calcutta, the first public breach of\ncaste by the young Brahman students of Duff raised a still greater\ncommotion, and resulted in the first converts there. Krishna Pal and\nhis wife, his wife's sister and his four daughters; Gokool, his wife,\nand a widow of forty who lived beside them, formed the first group of\nChristian Hindoos of caste in India north of Madras.  Two years after\nKrishna Pal sent to the Society this confession of his faith.\nLiterally translated, it is a record of belief such as Paul himself\nmight have written, illustrated by an apostolic life of twenty-two\nyears.  The carpenter's confession and dedication has, in the original,\nan exquisite tenderness, reflected also in the hymn[11] which he wrote\nfor family worship:--\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 12th Oct. 1802.\n\n\"To the brethren of the church of our Saviour Jesus Christ, our souls'\nbeloved, my affectionately embracing representation.  The love of God,\nthe gospel of Jesus Christ, was made known by holy brother Thomas.  In\nthat day our minds were filled with joy.  Then judging, we understood\nthat we were dwelling in darkness.  Through the door of manifestation\nwe came to know that, sin confessing, sin forsaking, Christ's\nrighteousness embracing, salvation would be obtained.  By light\nspringing up in the heart, we knew that sinners becoming repentant,\nthrough the sufferings of Christ, obtain salvation.  In this rejoicing,\nand in Christ's love believing, I obtained mercy.  Now it is in my mind\ncontinually to dwell in the love of Christ: this is the desire of my\nsoul.  Do you, holy people, pour down love upon us, that as the\nchatookee we may be satisfied.[12] I was the vilest of sinners: He hath\nsaved me.  Now this word I will tell to the world.  Going forth, I will\nproclaim the love of Christ with rejoicing.  To sinners I will say this\nword: Here sinner, brother!  Without Christ there is no help.  Christ,\nthe world to save, gave his own soul!  Such love was never heard: for\nenemies Christ gave his own soul!  Such compassion, where shall we get?\nFor the sake of saving sinners he forsook the happiness of heaven.  I\nwill constantly stay near him.  Being awakened by this news, I will\nconstantly dwell in the town of joy.  In the Holy Spirit I will live:\nyet in Christ's sorrow I will be sorrowful.  I will dwell along with\nhappiness, continually meditating on this;--Christ will save the world!\nIn Christ not taking refuge, there is no other way of life.  I was\nindeed a sinner, praise not knowing.--This is the representation of\nChrist's servant,\n\n\"KRISTNO.\"\n\nSuch is the first epistle of the Church of India.  Thus the first\nmedical missionary had his reward; but the joy proved to be too much\nfor him.  When Carey led Krishna and his own son Felix down into the\nwater of baptism the ravings of Thomas in the schoolhouse on the one\nside, and of Mrs. Carey on the other, mingled with the strains of the\nBengali hymn of praise.  The Mission Journal, written by Ward, tells\nwith graphic simplicity how caste as well as idol-worship was overcome\nnot only by the men but the women representatives of a race whom,\nthirty years after, Macaulay described as destitute of courage,\nindependence, and veracity, and bold only in deceit. Christ is changing\nall that.\n\n\"Nov. 27.--Krishna, the man whose arm was set, overtook Felix and me,\nand said he would come to our house daily for instruction; for that we\nhad not only cured his arm, but brought him the news of salvation...\n\n\"Dec. 5.--Yesterday evening Gokool and Krishna prayed in my room. This\nmorning Gokool called upon us, and told us that his wife and two or\nthree more of his family had left him on account of the gospel.  He had\neaten of Krishna's rice, who being of another caste, Gokool had lost\nhis.  Krishna says his wife and family are all desirous of becoming\nChristians.  They declare their willingness to join us, and obey all\nour Saviour's commands.  Gokool and his wife had a long talk; but she\ncontinued determined, and is gone to her relations.\n\n\"Dec. 6.--This morning brother Carey and I went to Krishna's house.\nEverything was made very clean.  The women sat within the house, the\nchildren at the door, and Krishna and Gokool with brother Carey and I\nin the court.  The houses of the poor are only calculated for sleeping\nin.  Brother Carey talked; and the women appeared to have learned more\nof the gospel than we expected.  They declared for Christ at once.\nThis work was new, even to brother Carey.  A whole family desiring to\nhear the gospel, and declaring in favour of it! Krishna's wife said she\nhad received great joy from it.\n\n\"Lord's-day, Dec. 7.--This morning brother Carey went to Krishna's\nhouse, and spoke to a yard full of people, who heard with great\nattention though trembling with cold.  Brother Brunsdon is very poorly.\nKrishna's wife and her sister were to have been with us in the evening;\nbut the women have many scruples to sitting in the company of\nEuropeans.  Some of them scarcely ever go out but to the river; and if\nthey meet a European run away.  Sometimes when we have begun to speak\nin a street, some one desires us to remove to a little distance; for\nthe women dare not come by us to fill their jars at the river.  We\nalways obey...\n\n\"Dec. 11.--Gokool, Krishna, and family continue to seek after the Word,\nand profess their entire willingness to join us.  The women seem to\nhave learnt that sin is a dreadful thing, and to have received joy in\nhearing of Jesus Christ.  We see them all every day almost.  They live\nbut half a mile from us.  We think it right to make many allowances for\nignorance, and for a state of mind produced by a corrupt superstition.\nWe therefore cannot think of demanding from them, previous to baptism,\nto more than a profession of dependence on Christ, from a knowledge of\ntheir need of Him, and submission to Him in all things.  We now begin\nto talk of baptism. Yesterday we fixed upon the spot, before our gate,\nin the river. We begin to talk also of many other things concerning the\ndiscipled natives.  This evening Felix and I went to Gokool's house.\nKrishna and his wife and a br\u00e0mmh\u00e0n were present.  I said a little.\nFelix read the four last chapters of John to them, and spoke also.  We\nsat down upon a piece of mat in the front of the house. (No chairs.) It\nwas very pleasant.  To have natives who feel a little as we do\nourselves, is so new and different.  The country itself seems to wear a\nnew aspect to me...\n\n\"Dec. 13.--This evening Felix and I went to see our friends Gokool and\nKrishna.  The latter was out.  Gokool gave a pleasing account of the\nstate of his mind, and also of that of Krishna and his family. While we\nwere there, Gokool's gooroo (teacher) came for the first time since his\nlosing caste.  Gokool refused to prostrate himself at his feet while he\nshould put his foot on his head; for which his gooroo was displeased...\n\n\"Dec. 22.--This day Gokool and Krishna came to eat tiffin (what in\nEngland is called luncheon) with us, and thus publicly threw away their\ncaste.  Brethren Carey and Thomas went to prayer with the two natives\nbefore they proceeded to this act.  All our servants were astonished:\nso many had said that nobody would ever mind Christ or lose caste.\nBrother Thomas has waited fifteen years, and thrown away much upon\ndeceitful characters: brother Carey has waited till hope of his own\nsuccess has almost expired; and after all, God has done it with perfect\nease!  Thus the door of faith is open to the gentiles; who shall shut\nit?  The chain of the caste is broken; who shall mend it?\"\n\nCarey thus describes the baptism:--\"Dec. 29.--Yesterday was a day of\ngreat joy.  I had the happiness to desecrate the Gunga, by baptising\nthe first Hindoo, viz. Krishna, and my son Felix: some circumstances\nturned up to delay the baptism of Gokool and the two women. Krishna's\ncoming forward alone, however, gave us very great pleasure, and his joy\nat both ordinances was very great.  The river runs just before our\ngate, in front of the house, and, I think, is as wide as the Thames at\nGravesend.  We intended to have baptised at nine in the morning; but,\non account of the tide, were obliged to defer it till nearly one\no'clock, and it was administered just after the English preaching.  The\nGovernor and a good number of Europeans were present.  Brother Ward\npreached a sermon in English, from John v. 39--'Search the Scriptures.'\nWe then went to the water-side, where I addressed the people in\nBengali; after having sung a Bengali translation of 'Jesus, and shall\nit ever be?' and engaging in prayer.  After the address I administered\nthe ordinance, first to my son, then to Krishna.  At half-past four I\nadministered the Lord's Supper; and a time of real refreshing it was...\n\n\"Thus, you see, God is making way for us, and giving success to the\nword of His grace!  We have toiled long, and have met with many\ndiscouragements; but, at last, the Lord has appeared for us.  May we\nhave the true spirit of nurses, to train them up in the words of faith\nand sound doctrine!  I have no fear of any one, however, in this\nrespect, but myself.  I feel much concerned that they may act worthy of\ntheir vocation, and also that they may be able to teach others.  I\nthink it becomes us to make the most of every one whom the Lord gives\nus.\"\n\nJeymooni, Krishna's wife's sister, was the first Bengali woman to be\nbaptised, and Rasoo, his wife, soon followed; both were about\nthirty-five years old.  The former said she had found a treasure in\nChrist greater than anything in the world.  The latter, when she first\nheard the good news from her husband, said \"there was no such sinner as\nI, and I felt my heart immediately unite to Him. I wish to keep all His\ncommands so far as I know them.\"  Gokool was kept back for a time by\nhis wife, Komal, who fled to her father's, but Krishna and his family\nbrought in, first the husband, then the wife, whose simplicity and\nfrankness attracted the missionaries.  Unna, their widowed friend of\nforty, was also gathered in, the first of that sad host of victims to\nBrahmanical cruelty, lust, and avarice, to whom Christianity has ever\nsince offered the only deliverance.  Of 124,000,000 of women in India\nin 1881, no fewer than 21,000,000 were returned by the census as\nwidows, of whom 669,000 were under nineteen years, 286,000 were under\nfifteen, and 79,000 were under nine, all figures undoubtedly within the\nappalling truth.  Jeymooni and Unna at once became active missionaries\namong their country-women, not only in Serampore but in Chandernagore\nand the surrounding country.\n\nThe year 1800 did not close without fruit from the other and higher\ncastes.  Petumber Singh, a man of fifty of the writer caste, had sought\ndeliverance from sin for thirty years at many a Hindoo shrine and in\nmany a Brahmanical scripture.  One of the earliest tracts of the\nSerampore press fell into his hands, and he at once walked forty miles\nto seek fuller instruction from its author.  His baptism gave Carey\njust what the mission wanted, a good schoolmaster, and he soon proved\nto be, even before Krishna in time, the first preacher to the people.\nOf the same writer caste were Syam Dass, Petumber Mitter, and his wife\nDraupadi, who was as brave as her young husband.  The despised soodras\nwere represented by Syam's neighbour, Bharut, an old man, who said he\nwent to Christ because he was just falling into hell and saw no other\nway of safety.  The first Mohammedan convert was Peroo, another\nneighbour of Syam Dass. From the spot on the Soondarbans where Carey\nfirst began his life of missionary farmer, there came to him at the\nclose of 1802, in Calcutta, the first Brahman who had bowed his neck to\nthe Gospel in all India up to this time, for we can hardly reckon\nKiernander's case.  Krishna Prosad, then nineteen, \"gave up his friends\nand his caste with much fortitude, and is the first Brahman who has\nbeen baptised.  The word of Christ's death seems to have gone to his\nheart, and he continues to receive the Word with meekness.\"  The poita\nor sevenfold thread which, as worn over the naked body, betokened his\ncaste, he trampled under foot, and another was given to him, that when\npreaching Christ he might be a witness to the Brahmans at once that\nChrist is irresistible and that an idol is nothing in the world.  This\nhe voluntarily ceased to wear in a few years.  Two more Brahmans were\nbrought in by Petumber Singhee in 1804, by the close of which year the\nnumber of baptised converts was forty-eight, of whom forty were native\nmen and women.  With the instinct of a true scholar and Christian Carey\nkept to the apostolic practice, which has been too often departed\nfrom--he consecrated the convert's name as well as soul and body to\nChrist.  Beside the \"Hermes\" of Rome to whom Paul sent his salutation,\nhe kept the \"Krishna\" of Serampore and Calcutta.\n\nThe first act of the first convert, Krishna Pal, was of his own accord\nto build a house for God immediately opposite his own, the first native\nmeeting-house in Bengal.  Carey preached the first sermon in it to\ntwenty natives besides the family.  On the side of the high road, along\nwhich the car of Jagganath is dragged every year, the missionaries\npurchased a site and built a preaching place, a school, a house for\nGokool, and a room for the old widow, at the cost of Captain Wickes,\nwho had rejoiced to witness their baptism. The Brahman who owned the\nneighbouring land wished to sell it and leave the place, \"so much do\nthese people abhor us.\"  This little purchase for \u00a36 grew in time into\nthe extensive settlement of Jannagur, where about 1870 the last of\nCarey's converts passed away.\n\nFrom its native chapel, and in its village tank, many Hindoos have\nsince been led by their own ordained countrymen to put on Christ. In\ntime the church in the chapel on the Hoogli became chiefly European and\nEurasian, but on the first Sunday of the year, the members of both\nchurches meet together for solemn and joyful communion, when the\nservices are alternately in Bengali and English.\n\nThe longing for converts now gave place to anxiety that they might\ncontinue to be Christians indeed.  As in the early Corinthian Church,\nall did not perceive at once the solemnities of the Lord's Supper.\nKrishna Pal, for instance, jealous because the better educated Petumber\nhad been ordained to preach before him, made a schism by administering\nit, and so filled the missionaries with grief and fear; but he soon\nbecame penitent.  Associated with men who gave their all to Christ, the\nnative members could not but learn the lesson of self-support, so\nessential for a self-propagating church, and so often neglected in the\nearly history of missions, and even still.  On baptism Krishna received\na new white dress with six shillings; but such a gift, beautiful in\nitself, was soon discontinued.  A Mohammedan convert asked assistance\nto cultivate a little ground and rear silkworms, but, writes Mr. Ward\nbowed down with missionary cares, \"We are desirous to avoid such a\nprecedent.\" Although these first converts were necessarily missionaries\nrather than pastors for a time, each preacher received no more than six\nrupees a month while in his own village, and double that when\nitinerating.  Carey and his colleagues were ever on the watch to foster\nthe spiritual life and growth of men and women born, and for thirty or\nfifty years trained, in all the ideas and practices of a system which\nis the very centre of opposition to teaching like theirs.  This record\nof an \"experience meeting\" of three men and five women may be taken as\na type of Bengali Christianity when it was but two years old, and as a\ncontrast to that which prevails a century after:--\n\n\"Gokool. I have been the greatest of sinners, but I wish only to think\nof the death of Christ.  I rejoice that now people can no longer\ndespise the Gospel, and call us feringas; but they begin to judge for\nthemselves.\n\n\"Krishna Prosad. I have this week been thinking of the power of God,\nthat he can do all things; and of the necessity of minding all his\ncommands.  I have thought also of my mother a great deal, who is now\nbecome old, and who is constantly crying about me, thinking that I have\ndishonoured the family and am lost.  Oh that I could but once go and\ntell her of the good news, as well as my brothers and sisters, and open\ntheir eyes to the way of salvation!\n\n\"Ram Roteen. In my mind there is this: I see that all the debtahs\n(idols) are nothing, and that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.  If I\ncan believe in him, and walk in his commandments, it may be well with\nme.\n\n\"Rasoo. I am a great sinner; yet I wish continually to think of the\ndeath of Christ.  I had much comfort in the marriage of my daughter\n(Onunda to Krishna Prosad).  The neighbours talked much about it, and\nseemed to think that it was much better that a man should choose his\nown wife, than that people should be betrothed in their infancy by\ntheir parents.  People begin to be able to judge a little now about the\nChristian ways.\n\n\"Jeymooni. In this country are many ways: the way of the debtahs; the\nway of Jagganath, where all eat together; the way of Ghospara, etc.\nYet all these are vain.  Yesoo Kreest's death, and Yesoo Kreest's\ncommands--this is the way of life!  I long to see Kreest's kingdom\ngrow.  This week I had much joy in talking to Gokool's mother, whose\nheart is inclined to judge about the way of Kreest. When I was called\nto go and talk with her, on the way I thought within myself, but how\ncan I explain the way of Kreest?  I am but a woman, and do not know\nmuch.  Yet I recollected that the blessing does not come from us: God\ncan bless the weakest words.  Many Bengali women coming from the\nadjoining houses, sat down and heard the word; and I was glad in hoping\nthat the mercy of God might be found by this old woman. [Gokool's\nmother.]\n\n\"Komal. I am a great sinner; yet I have been much rejoiced this week in\nGokool's mother coming to inquire about the Gospel.  I had great sorrow\nwhen Gokool was ill; and at one time I thought he would have died; but\nGod has graciously restored him.  We have worldly sorrow, but this\nlasts only for a time.\n\n\"Draupadi. This week I have had much sorrow on account of Petumber. His\nmind is very bad: he sits in the house, and refuses to work; and I know\nnot what will become of him: yet Kreest's death is a true word.\n\n\"Golook. I have had much joy in thinking of God's goodness to our\nfamily.  My sisters Onunda and Kesaree wish to be baptised, and to come\ninto the church.  If I can believe in Kreest's death, and keep his\ncommands till death, then I shall be saved.\"\n\nCarey was not only founding the Church of North India; he was creating\na new society, a community, which has its healthy roots in the\nChristian family.  Krishna Pal had come over with his household, like\nthe Philippian, and at once became his own and their gooroo or priest.\nBut the marriage difficulty was early forced on him and on the\nmissionaries.  The first shape which persecution took was an assault on\nhis eldest daughter, Golook, who was carried off to the house in\nCalcutta of the Hindoo to whom in infancy she had been betrothed, or\nmarried according to Hindoo law enforced by the Danish and British\ncourts.  As a Christian she loathed a connection which was both\nidolatrous and polygamous.  But she submitted for a time, continuing,\nhowever, secretly to pray to Christ when beaten by her husband for\nopenly worshipping Him, and refusing to eat things offered to the idol.\nAt last it became intolerable.  She fled to her father, was baptised,\nand was after a time joined by her penitent husband.  The subject of\nwhat was to be done with converts whose wives would not join them\noccupied the missionaries in discussion every Sunday during 1803, and\nthey at last referred it to Andrew Fuller and the committee.\nPractically they anticipated the Act in which Sir Henry Maine gave\nrelief after the Scriptural mode. They sent the husband to use every\nendeavour to induce his heathen wife to join him; long delay or refusal\nthey counted a sufficient ground for divorce, and they allowed him to\nmarry again.  The other case, which still troubles the native churches,\nof the duty of a polygamous Christian, seems to have been solved\naccording to Dr. Doddridge's advice, by keeping such out of office in\nthe church, and pressing on the conscience of all the teaching of our\nLord in Matthew xix., and of Paul in 1st Corinthians vii.\n\nIn 1802 Carey drew up a form of agreement and of service for native\nChristian marriages not unlike that of the Church of England.  The\nsimple and pleasing ceremony in the case of Syam Dass presented a\ncontrast to the prolonged, expensive, and obscene rites of the Hindoos,\nwhich attracted the people.  When, the year after, a Christian Brahman\nwas united to a daughter of Krishna Pal, in the presence of more than a\nhundred Hindoos, the unity of all in Christ Jesus was still more\nmarked:--\n\n\"Apr. 4, 1803.--This morning early we went to attend the wedding of\nKrishna Prosad with Onunda, Krishna's second daughter.  Krishna gave\nhim a piece of ground adjoining his dwelling, to build him a house, and\nwe lent Prosad fifty rupees for that purpose, which he is to return\nmonthly, out of his wages.  We therefore had a meeting for prayer in\nthis new house, and many neighbours were present.  Five hymns were\nsung: brother Carey and Marshman prayed in Bengali. After this we went\nunder an open shed close to the house, where chairs and mats were\nprovided: here friends and neighbours sat all around.  Brother Carey\nsat at a table; and after a short introduction, in which he explained\nthe nature of marriage, and noticed the impropriety of the Hindoo\ncustoms in this respect, he read 2 Cor. vi. 14-18, and also the account\nof the marriage at Cana. Then he read the printed marriage agreement,\nat the close of which Krishna Prosad and Onunda, with joined hands, one\nafter the other, promised love, faithfulness, obedience, etc.  They\nthen signed the agreement, and brethren Carey, Marshman, Ward,\nChamberlain, Ram Roteen, etc., signed as witnesses.  The whole was\nclosed with prayer by brother Ward. Everything was conducted with the\ngreatest decorum, and it was almost impossible not to have been\npleased.  We returned home to breakfast, and sent the new-married\ncouple some sugar-candy, plantains, and raisins; the first and last of\nthese articles had been made a present of to us, and the plantains were\nthe produce of the mission garden.  In the evening we attended the\nmonthly prayer-meeting.\n\n\"Apr. 5.--This evening we all went to supper at Krishna's, and sat\nunder the shade where the marriage ceremony had been performed. Tables,\nknives and forks, glasses, etc., having been taken from our house, we\nhad a number of Bengali plain dishes, consisting of curry, fried fish,\nvegetables, etc., and I fancy most of us ate heartily. This is the\nfirst instance of our eating at the house of our native brethren.  At\nthis table we all sat with the greatest cheerfulness, and some of the\nneighbours looked on with a kind of amazement.  It was a new and very\nsingular sight in this land where clean and unclean is so much\nregarded.  We should have gone in the daytime, but were prevented by\nthe heat and want of leisure.  We began this wedding supper with\nsinging, and concluded with prayer: between ten and eleven we returned\nhome with joy.  This was a glorious triumph over the caste!  A Brahman\nmarried to a soodra, in the Christian way: Englishmen eating with the\nmarried couple and their friends, at the same table, and at a native\nhouse.  Allowing the Hindoo chronology to be true, there has not been\nsuch a sight in Bengal these millions of years!\"\n\nIn the same year the approaching death of Gokool led the missionaries\nto purchase the acre of ground, near the present railway station, in\nwhich lies the dust of themselves and their converts, and of a child of\nthe Judsons, till the Resurrection. Often did Carey officiate at the\nburial of Europeans in the Danish cemetery.  Previous to his time the\nonly service there consisted in the Government secretary dropping a\nhandful of earth on the coffin. In the native God's-acre, as in the\nCommunion of the Lord's Table, and in the simple rites which\naccompanied the burial of the dead in Christ, the heathen saw the one\nlofty platform of loving self-sacrifice to which the Cross raises all\nits children:--\n\n\"Oct. 7.--Our dear friend Gokool is gone: he departed at two this\nmorning.  At twelve he called the brethren around him to sing and pray;\nwas perfectly sensible, resigned, and tranquil.  Some of the neighbours\nhad been persuading him the day before to employ a native doctor; he\nhowever refused, saying he would have no physician but Jesus Christ.\nOn their saying, How is it that you who have turned to Christ should be\nthus afflicted?  He replied, My affliction is on account of my sins; my\nLord does all things well!  Observing Komal weep (who had been a most\naffectionate wife), he said, Why do you weep for me?  Only pray, etc.\nFrom the beginning of his illness he had little hope of recovery; yet\nhe never murmured, nor appeared at all anxious for medicine.  His\nanswer constantly was, \"I am in my Lord's hands, I want no other\nphysician!'  His patience throughout was astonishing: I never heard him\nsay once that his pain was great. His tranquil and happy end has made a\ndeep impression on our friends: they say one to another, 'May my mind\nbe as Gokool's was!' When we consider, too, that this very man grew shy\nof us three years ago, because we opposed his notion that believers\nwould never die, the grace now bestowed upon him appears the more\nremarkable. Knowing the horror the Hindoos have for a dead body, and\nhow unwilling they are to contribute any way to its interment, I had\nthe coffin made at our house the preceding day, by carpenters whom we\nemploy.  They would not, however, carry it to the house.  The\ndifficulty now was, to carry him to the grave.  The usual mode of\nEuropeans is to hire a set of men (Portuguese), who live by it.  But\nbesides that our friends could never constantly sustain that expense, I\nwished exceedingly to convince them of the propriety of doing that last\nkind office for a brother themselves.  But as Krishna had been ill\nagain the night before, and two of our brethren were absent with\nbrother Ward, we could only muster three persons. I evidently saw the\nonly way to supply the deficiency; and brother Carey being from home, I\nsounded Felix and William, and we determined to make the trial; and at\nfive in the afternoon repaired to the house.  Thither were assembled\nall our Hindoo brethren and sisters, with a crowd of natives that\nfilled the yard, and lined the street.  We brought the remains of our\ndear brother out, whose coffin Krishna had covered within and without\nwith white muslin at his own expense; then, in the midst of the silent\nand astonished multitude, we improved the solemn moment by singing a\nhymn of Krishna's, the chorus of which is 'Salvation by the death of\nChrist.'  Bhairub the brahm\u00e0n, Peroo the mussulman, Felix and I took up\nthe coffin; and, with the assistance of Krishna and William, conveyed\nit to its long home: depositing it in the grave, we sung two\nappropriate hymns.  After this, as the crowd was accumulating, I\nendeavoured to show the grounds of our joyful hope even in death,\nreferring to the deceased for a proof of its efficacy: told them that\nindeed he had been a great sinner, as they all knew, and for that\nreason could find no way of salvation among them; but when he heard of\nJesus Christ, he received him as a suitable and all-sufficient Saviour,\nput his trust in him, and died full of tranquil hope.  After begging\nthem to consider their own state, we prayed, sung Moorad's hymn, and\ndistributed papers.  The concourse of people was great, perhaps 500:\nthey seemed much struck with the novelty of the scene, and with the\nlove and regard Christians manifest to each other, even in death; so\ndifferent from their throwing their friends, half dead and half living,\ninto the river; or burning their body, with perhaps a solitary\nattendant.\"\n\nPreaching, teaching, and Bible translating were from the first Carey's\nthree missionary methods, and in all he led the missionaries who have\ntill the present followed him with a success which he never hesitated\nto expect, as one of the \"great things\" from God. His work for the\neducation of the people of India, especially in their own vernacular\nand classical languages, was second only to that which gave them a\nliterature sacred and pure.  Up to 1794, when at Mudnabati he opened\nthe first primary school worthy of the name in all India at his own\ncost, and daily superintended it, there had been only one attempt to\nimprove upon the indigenous schools, which taught the children of the\ntrading castes only to keep rude accounts, or upon the tols in which\nthe Brahmans instructed their disciples for one-half the year, while\nfor the other half they lived by begging.  That attempt was made by\nSchwartz at Combaconum, the priestly Oxford of South India, where the\nwars with Tipoo soon put an end to a scheme supported by both the Raja\nof Tanjore and the British Government.  When Carey moved to Serampore\nand found associated with him teachers so accomplished and enthusiastic\nas Marshman and his wife, education was not long in taking its place in\nthe crusade which was then fully organised for the conversion of\nSouthern and Eastern Asia. At Madras, too, Bell had stumbled upon the\nsystem of \"mutual instruction\" which he had learned from the easy\nmethods of the indigenous schoolmaster, and which he and Lancaster\ntaught England to apply to the clamant wants of the country, and to\nimprove into the monitorial, pupil-teacher and grant-in-aid systems.\nCarey had all the native schools of the mission \"conducted upon\nLancaster's plan.\"\n\nIn Serampore, and in every new station as it was formed, a free school\nwas opened.  We have seen how the first educated convert, Petumber, was\nmade schoolmaster.  So early as October 1800 we find Carey writing\nhome:--\"The children in our Bengali free school, about fifty, are\nmostly very young.  Yet we are endeavouring to instil into their minds\nDivine truth, as fast as their understandings ripen.  Some natives have\ncomplained that we are poisoning the minds even of their very\nchildren.\"  The first attempt to induce the boys to write out the\ncatechism in Bengali resulted, as did Duff's to get them to read aloud\nthe Sermon on the Mount thirty years after, in a protest that their\ncaste was in danger.  But the true principles of toleration and\ndiscipline were at once explained--\"that the children will never be\ncompelled to do anything that will make them lose caste; that though we\nabhor the caste we do not wish any to lose it but by their own choice.\nAfter this we shall insist on the children doing what they have been\nordered.\"  A few of the oldest boys withdrew for a time, declaring that\nthey feared they would be sent on board ship to England, and the\nbaptism of each of the earlier converts caused a panic.  But\ninstruction on honest methods soon worked out the true remedy.  Two\nyears after we find this report:--\"The first class, consisting of\ncatechumens, are now learning in Bengali the first principles of\nChristianity; and will hereafter be instructed in the rudiments of\nhistory, geography, astronomy, etc.  The second class, under two other\nmasters, learn to read and write Bengali and English.  The third class,\nconsisting of the children of natives who have not lost caste, learn\nonly Bengali. This school is in a promising state, and is liberally\nsupported by the subscriptions of Europeans in this country.\"\n\nCarey's early success led Mr. Creighton of Malda to open at Goamalty\nseveral Bengali free schools, and to draw up a scheme for extending\nsuch Christian nurseries all over the country at a cost of \u00a310 for the\neducation of fifty children.  Only by the year 1806 was such a scheme\npracticable, because Carey had translated the Scriptures, and, as\nCreighton noted, \"a variety of introductory and explanatory tracts and\ncatechisms in the Bengali and Hindostani tongues have already been\ncirculated in some parts of the country, and any number may be had\ngratis from the Mission House, Serampore.\"  As only a few of the\nBrahman and writer castes could read, and not one woman, \"a general\nperusal of the Scriptures amongst natives will be impracticable till\nthey are taught to read.\"  But nothing was done, save by the\nmissionaries, till 1835, when Lord William Bentinck received Adam's\nreport on the educational destitution of Bengal.\n\nReferring to Creighton's scheme, Mr. Ward's journal thus chronicles the\nopening of the first Sunday school in India in July 1803 by Carey's\nsons:--\n\n\"Last Lord's day a kind of Sunday school was opened, which will be\nsuperintended principally by our young friends Felix and William Carey,\nand John Fernandez.  It will chiefly be confined to teaching catechisms\nin Bengali and English, as the children learn to read and write every\nday.  I have received a letter from a gentleman up the country, who\nwrites very warmly respecting the general establishment of Christian\nschools all over Bengal.\"\n\nNot many years had passed since Raikes had begun Sunday schools in\nEngland.  Their use seems to have passed away with the three Serampore\nmissionaries for a time, and to have been again extended by the\nAmerican missionaries about 1870.  There are now above 200,000 boys and\ngirls at such schools in India, and three-fourths of these are\nnon-Christians.\n\nAs from the first Carey drew converts from all classes, the Armenians,\nthe Portuguese, and the Eurasians, as well as the natives of India, he\nand Mr. and Mrs. Marshman especially took care to provide schools for\ntheir children.  The necessity, indeed, of this was forced upon them by\nthe facts that the brotherhood began with nine children, and that\nboarding-schools for these classes would form an honourable source of\nrevenue to the mission.  Hence this advertisement, which appeared in\nMarch 1800:--\"Mission, House, Serampore.--On Thursday, the 1st of May\n1800, a school will be opened at this house, which stands in a very\nhealthy and pleasant situation by the side of the river.  Letters add\nto Mr. Carey will be immediately attended to.\"  The cost of boarding\nand fees varied from \u00a345 to \u00a350 a year, according as \"Latin, Greek,\nHebrew, Persian, or Sanskrit\" lessons were included. \"Particular\nattention will be paid to the correct pronunciation of the English\nlanguage\" was added for reasons which the mixed parentage of the pupils\nexplains.  Such was the first sign of a care for the Eurasians not\nconnected with the army, which, as developed by Marshman and Mack,\nbegan in 1823 to take the form of the Doveton College.  The boys'\nschool was soon followed by a girls' school, through which a stream of\nChristian light radiated forth over resident Christian society, and\nfrom which many a missionary came.\n\nCarey's description of the mixed community is the best we have of its\norigin as well as of the state of European society in India, alike when\nthe Portuguese were dominant, and at the beginning of the nineteenth\ncentury when the East India Company were most afraid of\nChristianity:--\"The Portuguese are a people who, in the estimation of\nboth Europeans and natives, are sunk below the Hindoos or Mussulmans.\nHowever, I am of opinion that they are rated much too low.  They are\nchiefly descendants of the slaves of the Portuguese who first landed\nhere, or of the children of those Portuguese by their female slaves;\nand being born in their house, were made Christians in their infancy by\nwhat is called baptism, and had Portuguese names given them.  It is no\nwonder that these people, despised as they are by Europeans, and being\nconsigned to the teachings of very ignorant Popish priests, should be\nsunk into such a state of degradation.  So gross, indeed, are their\nsuperstitions, that I have seen a Hindoo image-maker carrying home an\nimage of Christ on the cross between two thieves, to the house of a\nPortuguese.  Many of them, however, can read and write English well and\nunderstand Portuguese...\n\n\"Besides these, there are many who are the children of Europeans by\nnative women, several of whom are well educated, and nearly all of them\nProtestants by profession.  These, whether children of English, French,\nDutch, or Danes, by native women, are called Portuguese. Concubinage\nhere is so common, that few unmarried Europeans are without a native\nwoman, with whom they live as if married; and I believe there are but\nfew instances of separation, except in case of marriage with European\nwomen, in which case the native woman is dismissed with an allowance:\nbut the children of these marriages are never admitted to table with\ncompany, and are universally treated by the English as an inferior\nspecies of beings.  Hence they are often shame-faced yet proud and\nconceited, and endeavour to assume that honour to themselves which is\ndenied them by others.  This class may be regarded as forming a\nconnecting link between Europeans and natives.  The Armenians are few\nin number, but chiefly rich.  I have several times conversed with them\nabout religion: they hear with patience, and wonder that any Englishman\nshould make that a subject of conversation.\"\n\nWhile the Marshmans gave their time from seven in the morning till\nthree in the afternoon to these boarding-schools started by Carey in\n1800 for the higher education of the Eurasians, Carey himself, in\nCalcutta, early began to care for the destitute.  His efforts resulted\nin the establishment of the \"Benevolent Institution for the Instruction\nof Indigent Children,\" which the contemporary Bengal civilian, Charles\nLushington, in his History extols as one of the monuments of active and\nindefatigable benevolence due to Serampore. Here, on the Lancaster\nsystem, and superintended by Carey, Mr. and Mrs. Penney had as many as\n300 boys and 100 girls under Christian instruction of all ages up to\ntwenty-four, and of every race:--\"Europeans, native Portuguese,\nArmenians, Mugs, Chinese, Hindoos, Mussulmans, natives of Sumatra,\nMozambik, and Abyssinia.\" This official reporter states that thus more\nthan a thousand youths had been rescued from vice and ignorance and\nadvanced in usefulness to society, in a degree of opulence and\nrespectability.  The origin of this noble charity is thus told to Dr.\nRyland by Carey himself in a letter which unconsciously reveals his own\nbusy life, records the missionary influence of the higher schools, and\nreports the existence of the mission over a wide area.  He writes from\nCalcutta on 24th May 1811:--\n\n\"A year ago we opened a free school in Calcutta.  This year we added to\nit a school for girls.  There are now in it about 140 boys and near 40\ngirls.  One of our deacons, Mr. Leonard, a most valuable and active\nman, superintends the boys, and a very pious woman, a member of the\nchurch, is over the girls.  The Institution meets with considerable\nencouragement, and is conducted upon Lancaster's plan. We meditate\nanother for instruction of Hindoo youths in the Sanskrit language,\ndesigning, however, to introduce the study of the Sanskrit Bible into\nit; indeed it is as good as begun; it will be in Calcutta.  By brother\nand sister Marshman's encouragement there are two schools in our own\npremises at Serampore for the gratuitous instruction of youth of both\nsexes, supported and managed wholly by the male and female scholars in\nour own school.  These young persons appear to enter with pleasure into\nthe plan, contribute their money to its support, and give instruction\nin turns to the children of these free schools.  I trust we shall be\nable to enlarge this plan, and to spread its influence far about the\ncountry.  Our brethren in the Isles of France and Bourbon seem to be\ndoing good; some of them are gone to Madagascar, and, as if to show\nthat Divine Providence watches over them, the ship on which they went\nwas wrecked soon after they had landed from it.  A number of our\nmembers are now gone to Java; I trust their going thither will not be\nin vain.  Brother Chamberlain is, ere this, arrived at Agra...We preach\nevery week in the Fort and in the public prison, both in English and\nBengali.\"\n\nCarey had not been six months at Serampore when he saw the importance\nof using the English language as a missionary weapon, and he proposed\nthis to Andrew Fuller.  The other pressing duties of a pioneer mission\nto the people of Bengal led him to postpone immediate action in this\ndirection; we shall have occasion to trace the English influence of the\npress and the college hereafter.  But meanwhile the vernacular schools,\nwhich soon numbered a hundred altogether, were most popular, and then\nas now proved most valuable feeders of the infant Church.  Without\nthem, wrote the three missionaries to the Society, \"the whole plan must\nhave been nipped in the bud, since, if the natives had not cheerfully\nsent their children, everything else would have been useless.  But the\nearnestness with which they have sought these schools exceeds\neverything we had previously expected.  We are still constantly\nimportuned for more schools, although we have long gone beyond the\nextent of our funds.\"  It was well that thus early, in schools, in\nbooks and tracts, and in providing the literary form and apparatus of\nthe vernacular languages, Carey laid the foundation of the new national\nor imperial civilisation.  When the time for English came, the\nfoundations were at least above the ground.  Laid deep and strong in\nthe very nature of the people, the structure has thus far promised to\nbe national rather than foreign, though raised by foreign hands, while\nmarked by the truth and the purity of its Western architects.\n\nThe manifestation of Christ to the Bengalees could not be made without\nrousing the hate and the opposition of the vested interests of\nBrahmanism.  So long as Carey was an indigo planter as well as a\nproselytiser in Dinapoor and Malda he met with no opposition, for he\nhad no direct success.  But when, from Serampore, he and the others, by\nvoice, by press, by school, by healing the sick and visiting the poor,\ncarried on the crusade day by day with the gentle persistency of a law\nof nature, the cry began.  And when, by the breaking of caste and the\ndenial of Krishna's Christian daughter Golook to the Hindoo to whom she\nhad been betrothed from infancy, the Brahmans began dimly to apprehend\nthat not only their craft but the whole structure of society was\nmenaced, the cry became louder, and, as in Ephesus of old, an appeal\nwas made to the magistrates against the men who were turning the world\nupside down.  At first the very boys taunted the missionaries in the\nstreets with the name of Jesus Christ.  Then, after Krishna and his\nfamily had broken caste, they were seized by a mob and hurried before\nthe Danish magistrate, who at first refused to hand over a Christian\ngirl to a heathen, and gave her father a guard to prevent her from\nbeing murdered, until the Calcutta magistrate decided that she must\njoin her husband but would be protected in the exercise of her new\nfaith.  The commotion spread over the whole densely-peopled district.\nBut the people were not with the Brahmans, and the excitement sent many\na sin-laden inquirer to Serampore from a great distance. \"The fire is\nnow already kindled for which our Redeemer expressed his strong\ndesire,\" wrote Carey to Ryland in March 1801.  A year later he used\nthis language to his old friend Morris at Clipstone village:--\"I think\nthere is such a fermentation raised in Bengal by the little leaven,\nthat there is a hope of the whole lump by degrees being leavened. God\nis carrying on his work; and though it goes forward, yet no one can say\nwho is the instrument.  Doubtless, various means contribute towards it;\nbut of late the printing and dispersing of New Testaments and small\ntracts seem to have the greatest effect.\"\n\nIn a spirit the opposite of Jonah's the whole brotherhood, then\nconsisting of the three, of Carey's son Felix, and of a new missionary,\nChamberlain, sent home this review of their position at the close of\n1804:--\n\n\"We are still a happy, healthful, and highly favoured family.  But\nthough we would feel incessant gratitude for these gourds, yet we would\nnot feel content unless Nineveh be brought to repentance.  We did not\ncome into this country to be placed in what are called easy\ncircumstances respecting this world; and we trust that nothing but the\nsalvation of souls will satisfy us.  True, before we set off, we\nthought we could die content if we should be permitted to see the half\nof what we have already seen; yet now we seem almost as far from the\nmark of our missionary high calling as ever.  If three millions of men\nwere drowning, he must be a monster who should be content with saving\none individual only; though for the deliverance of that one he would\nfind cause for perpetual gratitude.\"\n\nIn 1810 the parent mission at Serampore had so spread into numerous\nstations and districts that a new organisation became necessary. There\nwere 300 converts, of whom 105 had been added in that year. \"Did you\nexpect to see this eighteen years ago?\" wrote Marshman to the Society.\n\"But what may we not expect if God continues to bless us in years to\ncome?\"  Marshman forgot how Carey had, in 1792, told them on the\ninspired evangelical prophet's authority to \"expect great things from\nGod.\" Henceforth the one mission became fivefold for a time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCALCUTTA AND THE MISSION CENTRES FROM DELHI TO AMBOYNA\n\n1802-1817\n\nThe East India Company an unwilling partner of Carey--Calcutta opened\nto the Mission by his appointment as Government teacher of\nBengali--Meeting of 1802 grows into the Lall Bazaar\nmission--Christ-like work among the poor, the sick, the prisoners, the\nsoldiers and sailors and the natives--Krishna Pal first native\nmissionary in Calcutta--Organisation of subordinate stations--Carey's\n\"United Missions in India\"--The missionary staff thirty strong--The\nnative missionaries--The Bengali church self-propagating--Carey the\npioneer of other missionaries--Benares--Burma and Indo-China--Felix\nCarey--Instructions to missionaries--The missionary shrivelled into an\nambassador--Adoniram and Ann Judson--Jabez Carey--Mission to\nAmboyna--Remarkable letter from Carey to his third son.\n\nThe short-sighted regulation of the East India Company, which dreamed\nthat it could keep Christianity out of Bengal by shutting up the\nmissionaries within the little territory of Danish Serampore, could not\nbe enforced with the same ease as the order of a jailer. Under Danish\npassports, and often without them, missionary tours were made over\nCentral Bengal, aided by its network of rivers. Every printed Bengali\nleaf of Scripture or pure literature was a missionary.  Every new\nconvert, even the women, became an apostle to their people, and such\ncould not be stopped.  Gradually, as not only the innocency but the\npositive political usefulness of the missionaries' character and work\ncame to be recognised by the local authorities, they were let alone for\na time.  And soon, by the same historic irony which has marked so many\nof the greatest reforms--\"He that sitteth in the heavens shall\nlaugh\"--the Government of India became, though unwittingly, more of a\nmissionary agency than the Baptist Society itself.  The only teacher of\nBengal who could be found for Lord Wellesley's new College of Fort\nWilliam was William Carey.  The appointment, made and accepted without\nthe slightest prejudice to his aggressive spiritual designs and work,\nat once opened Calcutta itself for the first time to the English\nproselytising of natives, and supplied Carey with the only means yet\nlacking for the translation of the Scriptures into all the languages of\nthe farther East. In spite of its own selfish fears the Company became\na principal partner in the Christianisation of India and China.\n\nFrom the middle of the year 1801 and for the next thirty years Carey\nspent as much of his time in the metropolis as in Serampore.  He was\ngenerally rowed down the eighteen miles of the winding river to\nCalcutta at sunset on Monday evening and returned on Friday night every\nweek, working always by the way.  At first he personally influenced the\nBengali traders and youths who knew English, and he read with many such\nthe English Bible.  His chaplain friends, Brown and Buchanan, with the\ncatholicity born of their presbyterian and evangelical training, shared\nhis sympathy with the hundreds of poor mixed Christians for whom St.\nJohn's and even the Mission Church made no provision, and encouraged\nhim to care for them.  In 1802 he began a weekly meeting for prayer and\nconversation in the house of Mr. Rolt, and another for a more ignorant\nclass in the house of a Portuguese Christian.  By 1803 he was able to\nwrite to Fuller: \"We have opened a place of worship in Calcutta, where\nwe have preaching twice on Lord's day in English, on Wednesday evening\nin Bengali, and on Thursday evening in English.\"  He took all the work\nduring the week and the Sunday service in rotation with his brethren.\nThe first church was the hall of a well-known undertaker, approached\nthrough lines of coffins and the trappings of woe.  In time most of the\nevangelical Christians in the city promised to relieve the missionaries\nof the expense if they would build an unsectarian chapel more worthy of\nthe object.  This was done in Lall Bazaar, a little withdrawn from that\nthoroughfare to this day of the poor and abandoned Christians, of the\nsailors and soldiers on leave, of the liquor-shops and the stews.\nThere, as in Serampore, at a time when the noble hospitals of Calcutta\nwere not, and the children of only the \"services\" were cared for,\n\"Brother Carey gave them medicine for their bodies and the best\nmedicine for their poor souls,\" as a contemporary widow describes it.\nThe site alone cost so much--a thousand pounds--that only a mat chapel\ncould be built.  Marshman raised another \u00a31100 in ten days, and after\ndelays caused by the police Government sanctioned the building which\nCarey opened on Sunday, 1st January 1809.  But he and his colleagues\n\"not episcopally ordained\" were forbidden to preach to British soldiers\nand to the Armenians and Portuguese. \"Carey's Baptist Chapel\" is now\nits name.  Here was for nearly a whole generation a sublime\nspectacle--the Northamptonshire shoemaker training the governing class\nof India in Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi all day, and translating the\nRamayana and the Veda, and then, when the sun went down, returning to\nthe society of \"the maimed, the halt, and the blind, and many with the\nleprosy,\" to preach in several tongues the glad tidings of the Kingdom\nto the heathen of England as well as of India, and all with a loving\ntenderness and patient humility learned in the childlike school of Him\nwho said, \"Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?\"\n\nStreet preaching was added to the apostolic agencies, and for this\nprudence dictated recourse to the Asiatic and Eurasian converts.  We\nfind the missionaries writing to the Society at the beginning of 1807,\nafter the mutiny at Vellore, occasioned as certainly by the hatlike\nturban then ordered, as the mutiny of Bengal half a century after was\nby the greased cartridges:--\n\n\"We now return to Calcutta; not, however, without a sigh.  How can we\navoid sighing when we think of the number of perishing souls which this\ncity contains, and recollect the multitudes who used of late to hang\nupon our lips; standing in the thick-wedged crowd for hours together,\nin the heat of a Bengal summer, listening to the word of life!  We feel\nthankful, however, that nothing has been found against us, except in\nthe matters of our God. Conscious of the most cordial attachment to the\nBritish Government, and of the liveliest interest in its welfare, we\nmight well endure reproach were it cast upon us; but the tongue of\ncalumny itself has not to our knowledge been suffered to bring the\nslightest accusation against us.  We still worship at Calcutta in a\nprivate house, and our congregation rather increases.  We are going on\nwith the chapel. A family of Armenians also, who found it pleasant to\nattend divine worship in the Bengali language, have erected a small\nplace on their premises for the sake of the natives.\"\n\nKrishna Pal became the first native missionary to Calcutta, where he in\n1810 had preached at fourteen different places every week, and visited\nforty-one families, to evangelise the servants of the richer and bring\nin the members of the poorer.  Sebuk Ram was added to the staff.  Carey\nhimself thus sums up the labours of the year 1811, when he was still\nthe only pastor of the Christian poor, and the only resident missionary\nto half a million of natives:--\n\n\"Calcutta is three miles long and one broad, very populous; the\nenvirons are crowded with people settled in large villages, resembling\n(for population, not elegance) the environs of Birmingham.  The first\nis about a mile south of the city; at nearly the same distance are the\npublic jail and the general hospital. Brother Gordon, one of our\ndeacons, being the jailer we preach there in English every Lord's day.\nWe did preach in the Fort; but of late a military order has stopped us.\nKrishna and Sebuk Ram, however, preach once or twice a week in the Fort\nnotwithstanding; also at the jail; in the house of correction; at the\nvillage of Alipore, south of the jail; at a large factory north of the\ncity, where several hundreds are employed; and at ten or twelve houses\nin different parts of the city itself.  In several instances Roman\nCatholics, having heard the word, have invited them to their houses,\nand having collected their neighbours, the one or the other have\nreceived the word with gladness.\n\n\"The number of inquirers constantly coming forward, awakened by the\ninstrumentality of these brethren, fills me with joy.  I do not know\nthat I am of much use myself, but I see a work which fills my soul with\nthankfulness.  Not having time to visit the people, I appropriate every\nThursday evening to receiving the visits of inquirers.  Seldom fewer\nthan twenty come; and the simple confessions of their sinful state, the\nunvarnished declaration of their former ignorance, the expressions of\ntrust in Christ and gratitude to him, with the accounts of their\nspiritual conflicts often attended with tears which almost choke their\nutterance, presents a scene of which you can scarcely entertain an\nadequate idea.  At the same time, meetings for prayer and mutual\nedification are held every night in the week; and some nights, for\nconvenience, at several places at the same time: so that the sacred\nleaven spreads its influence through the mass.\"\n\nOn his voyage to India Carey had deliberately contemplated the time\nwhen the Society he had founded would influence not only Asia, but\nAfrica, and he would supply the peoples of Asia with the Scriptures in\ntheir own tongues.  The time had come by 1804 for organising the onward\nmovement, and he thus describes it to Ryland:--\n\n\"14th December 1803.--Another plan has lately occupied our attention.\nIt appears that our business is to provide materials for spreading the\nGospel, and to apply those materials.  Translations, pamphlets, etc.,\nare the materials.  To apply them we have thought of setting up a\nnumber of subordinate stations, in each of which a brother shall be\nfixed.  It will be necessary and useful to carry on some worldly\nbusiness.  Let him be furnished from us with a sum of money to begin\nand purchase cloth or whatever other article the part produces in\ngreatest perfection: the whole to belong to the mission, and no part\neven to be private trade or private property.  The gains may probably\nsupport the station.  Every brother in such a station to have one or\ntwo native brethren with him, and to do all he can to preach, and\nspread Bibles, pamphlets, etc., and to set up and encourage schools\nwhere the reading of the Scriptures shall be introduced.  At least four\nbrethren shall always reside at Serampore, which must be like the heart\nwhile the other stations are the members.  Each one must constantly\nsend a monthly account of both spirituals and temporals to Serampore,\nand the brethren at Serampore (who must have a power of control over\nthe stations) must send a monthly account likewise to each station,\nwith advice, etc., as shall be necessary.  A plan of this sort appears\nto be more formidable than it is in reality.  To find proper persons\nwill be the greatest difficulty; but as it will prevent much of that\nabrasion which may arise from a great number of persons living in one\nhouse, so it will give several brethren an opportunity of being useful,\nwhose temper may not be formed to live in a common family, and at the\nsame time connect them as much to the body as if they all lived\ntogether.  We have judged that about 2000 rupees will do to begin at\neach place, and it is probable that God will enable us to find money\n(especially if assisted in the translations and printing by our\nbrethren in England) as fast as you will be able to find men.\n\n\"This plan may be extended through a circular surface of a thousand\nmiles' radius, and a constant communication kept up between the whole,\nand in some particular cases it may extend ever farther.  We are also\nto hope that God may raise up some missionaries in this country who may\nbe more fitted for the work than any from England can be.  At present\nwe have not concluded on anything, but when Brother Ward comes down we\nhope to do so, and I think one station may be fixed on immediately\nwhich Brother Chamberlain may occupy.  A late favourable providence\nwill, I hope, enable us to begin, viz., the College have subscribed for\n100 copies of my Sanskrit Grammar, which will be 6400 rupees or 800\npounds sterling.  The motion was very generously made by H. Colebrooke,\nEsq., who is engaged in a similar work, and seconded by Messrs. Brown\nand Buchanan; indeed it met with no opposition.  It will scarcely be\nprinted off under twelve months more, but it is probable that the\ngreatest part of the money will be advanced.  The Maratha war and the\nsubjugation of the country of Cuttak to the English may be esteemed a\nfavourable event for the spreading of the Gospel, and will certainly\ncontribute much to the comfort of the inhabitants.\"\n\nTwo years later he thus anticipates the consent of the local\nGovernment, in spite of the Company's determined hostility in England,\nbut the Vellore mutiny panic led to further delay:--\n\n\"25th December 1805.--It has long been a favourite object with me to\nfix European brethren in different parts of the country at about two\nhundred miles apart, so that each shall be able to visit a circle of a\nhundred miles' radius, and within each of the circuits to place native\nbrethren at proper distances, who will, till they are more established,\nbe under the superintendence of the European brethren situated in the\ncentre.  Our brethren concur with me in this plan. In consequence of\nthis, I thought it would be desirable to have leave of Government for\nthem to settle, and preach, without control, in any part of the\ncountry.  The Government look on us with a favourable eye; and owing to\nSir G. Barlow, the Governor-General, being up the country, Mr. Udny is\nVice-President and Deputy-Governor.  I therefore went one morning, took\na breakfast with him, and told him what we were doing and what we\nwished to do. He, in a very friendly manner, desired me to state to him\nin a private letter all that we wished, and offered to communicate\nprivately with Sir G. Barlow upon the subject, and inform me of the\nresult.  I called on him again last week, when he informed me that he\nhad written upon the subject and was promised a speedy reply. God grant\nthat it may be favourable.  I know that Government will allow it if\ntheir powers are large enough.\"\n\nNot till 1810 could Carey report that \"permission was obtained of\nGovernment for the forming of a new station at Agra, a large city in\nupper Hindostan, not far from Delhi and the country of the Sikhs,\" to\nwhich Chamberlain and an assistant were sent.  From that year the\nBengal became only the first of \"The United Missions in India.\" These\nwere five in number, each under its own separate brotherhood, on the\nsame principles of self-denial as the original, each a Lindisfarne\nsprung from the parent Iona. These five were the Bengal, the Burman,\nthe Orissa, the Bhootan, and the Hindostan Missions. The Bengal mission\nwas fourfold--Serampore and Calcutta reckoned as one station; the old\nDinapoor and Sadamahal which had taken the place of Mudnabati;\nGoamalty, near Malda; Cutwa, an old town on the upper waters of the\nHoogli; Jessor, the agricultural capital of its lower delta; and\nafterwards Monghyr, Berhampore, Moorshedabad, Dacca, Chittagong, and\nAssam.  The Bhootan missionaries were plundered and driven out.  The\nHindostan mission soon included Gaya, Patna, Deegah, Ghazeepore,\nBenares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Ajmer, and Delhi itself.  From Nagpoor,\nin the very centre of India, and Surat to the north of Bombay, Carey\nsought to bring Marathas and Goojaratees under the yoke of Christ.\nChina, where the East India Company was still master, was cared for by\nthe press, as we shall see.  Not content with the continent of Asia,\nCarey's mission, at once forced by the intolerance which refused to\nallow new missionaries to land in India proper, and led by the\ninvitations of Sir Stamford Raffles, extended to Java and Amboyna,\nPenang, Ceylon, and even Mauritius.  The elaborate review of their\nposition, signed by the three faithful men of Serampore, at the close\nof 1817, amazes the reader at once by the magnitude and variety of the\noperations, the childlike modesty of the record, and the heroism of the\ntoil which supplied the means.\n\nAt the time of the organisation into the Five United Missions the staff\nof workers had grown to be thirty strong.  From England there were nine\nsurviving:--Carey, Marshman, Ward, Chamberlain, Mardon, Moore, Chater,\nRowe, and Robinson.  Raised up in India itself there were seven--the\ntwo sons of Carey, Felix and William; Fernandez, his first convert at\nDinapoor; Peacock and Cornish, and two Armenians, Aratoon and Peters;\ntwo were on probation for the ministry, Leonard and Forder.  Besides\nseven Hindoo evangelists also on probation, there were five survivors\nof the band of converts called from time to time to the\nministry--Krishna Pal, the first, who is entered on the list as \"the\nbeloved\"; Krishna Dass, Ram Mohun, Seeta Ram, and Seeta Dass. Carey's\nthird son Jabez was soon to become the most advanced of the three\nbrothers away in far Amboyna.  His father had long prayed, and besought\nothers to pray, that he too might be a missionary.  For the last\nfifteen years of his life Jabez was his closest and most valued\ncorrespondent.\n\nBut only less dear than his own sons to the heart of the father,\nalready in 1817 described in an official letter as \"our aged brother\nCarey,\" were the native missionaries and pastors, his sons in the\nfaith.  He sent forth the educated Petumber Singh, first in November\n1802, to his countrymen at Sooksagar, and \"gave him a suitable and\nsolemn charge: the opportunity was very pleasant.\"  In May 1803 Krishna\nPal was similarly set apart.  At the same time the young Brahman,\nKrishna Prosad, \"delivered his first sermon in Bengali, much to the\nsatisfaction of our brethren.\"  Six months after, Ward reports of him\nin Dinapoor:--\"The eyes of the people were fixed listening to Prosad;\nhe is becoming eloquent.\"  In 1804 their successful probation resulted\nin their formal ordination by prayer and the laying on of the hands of\nthe brethren, when Carey addressed them from the divine words, \"As my\nFather hath sent me so send I you,\" and all commemorated the Lord's\ndeath till He come.  Krishna Dass was imprisoned unjustly, for a debt\nwhich he had paid, but \"he did not cease to declare to the native men\nin power that he was a Christian, when they gnashed upon him with their\nteeth.  He preached almost all night to the prisoners, who heard the\nword with eagerness.\"  Two years after he was ordained, Carey charged\nhim as Paul had written to Timothy, \"in the sight of God and of Christ\nJesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead,\" to be instant in season\nand out of season, to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering\nand teaching.  Ram Mohun was a Brahman, the fruit of old Petumber's\nministry, and had his ability as a student and preacher of the\nScriptures consecrated to Christ on the death of Krishna Prosad, while\nthe missionaries thus saw again answered the invocation they had sung,\nin rude strains, in the ship which brought them to India:--\n\n  \"Bid Brahmans preach the heavenly word\n    Beneath the banian's shade;\n  Oh let the Hindoo feel its power\n    And grace his soul pervade.\"\n\nSo early as 1806 the missionaries thus acknowledged the value of the\nwork of their native brethren, and made of all the native converts a\nMissionary Church.  In the delay and even failure to do this of their\nsuccessors of all Churches we see the one radical point in which the\nChurch in India has as yet come short of its duty and its privilege:--\n\n\"We have availed ourselves of the help of native brethren ever since we\nhad one who dared to speak in the name of Christ, and their exertions\nhave chiefly been the immediate means by which our church has been\nincreased.  But we have lately been revolving a plan for rendering\ntheir labours more extensively useful; namely, that of sending them\nout, two and two, without any European brother.  It appeared also a\nmost desirable object to interest in this work, as much as possible,\nthe whole of the native church among us: indeed, we have had much in\nthem of this nature to commend.  In order, then, more effectually to\nanswer this purpose, we called an extraordinary meeting of all the\nbrethren on Friday evening, Aug. 8, 1806, and laid before them the\nfollowing ideas:--\n\n\"1. That the intention of the Saviour, in calling them out of darkness\ninto marvellous light, was that they should labour to the uttermost in\nadvancing his cause among their countrymen.\n\n\"2. That it was therefore their indispensable duty, both collectively\nand individually, to strive by every means to bring their countrymen to\nthe knowledge of the Saviour; that if we, who were strangers, thought\nit our duty to come from a country so distant, for this purpose, much\nmore was it incumbent on them to labour for the same end.  This was\ntherefore the grand business of our lives.\n\n\"3. That if a brother in discharge of this duty went out forty or fifty\nmiles, he could not labour for his family; it therefore became the\nchurch to support such, seeing they were hindered from supporting\nthemselves, by giving themselves wholly to that work in which it was\nequally the duty of all to take a share.\n\n\"4. We therefore proposed to unite the support of itinerant brethren\nwith the care of the poor, and to throw them both upon the church fund,\nas being both, at least in a heathen land, equally the duty of a church.\n\n\"Every one of these ideas our native brethren entered into with the\ngreatest readiness and the most cordial approbation.\"\n\nCarey's scheme so early as 1810 included not only the capital of the\nGreat Mogul, Surat far to the west, and Maratha Nagpoor to the south,\nbut Lahore, where Ranjeet Singh had consolidated the Sikh power,\nKashmeer, and even Afghanistan to which he had sent the Pushtoo Bible.\nTo set Chamberlain free for this enterprise he sent his second son\nWilliam to relieve him as missionary in charge of Cutwa. \"This would\nsecure the gradual perfection of the version of the Scriptures in the\nSikh language, would introduce the Gospel among the people, and would\nopen a way for introducing it into Kashmeer, and eventually to the\nAfghans under whose dominion Kashmeer at present is.\"  Carey and his\ntwo colleagues took possession for Christ of the principal centres of\nHindoo and Mohammedan influence in India only because they were\nunoccupied, and provided translations of the Bible into the principal\ntongues, avowedly as a preparation for other missionary agencies.  All\nover India and the far East he thus pioneered the way of the Lord, as\nhe had written to Ryland when first he settled in Serampore:--\"It is\nvery probable we may be only as pioneers to prepare the way for most\nsuccessful missionaries, who perhaps may not be at liberty to attend to\nthose preparatory labours in which we have been occupied--the\ntranslation and printing of the Scriptures,\" etc.  His heart was\nenlarged like his Master's on earth, and hence his humbleness of mind.\nWhen the Church Missionary Society, for instance, occupied Agra as\ntheir first station in India, he sent the Baptist missionary thence to\nAllahabad.  To Benares \"Brother William Smith, called in Orissa under\nBrother John Peters,\" the Armenian, was sent owing to his acquaintance\nwith the Hindi language; he was the means of bringing to the door of\nthe Kingdom that rich Brahman Raja Jay Narain Ghosal, whom he\nencouraged to found in 1817 the Church Mission College there which\nbears the name of this \"almost Christian\" Hindoo, who was \"exceedingly\ndesirous of diffusing light among his own countrymen.\"\n\nThe most striking illustrations of this form of Carey's self-sacrifice\nare, however, to be found outside of India as it then was, in the\ncareer of his other two sons in Burma and the Spice Islands.  The East\nIndia Company's panic on the Vellore mutiny led Carey to plan a mission\nto Burma, just as he had been guided to settle in Danish Serampore ten\nyears before.  The Government of India had doubled his salary as\nBengali, Marathi, and Sanskrit Professor, and thus had unconsciously\nsupplied the means.  Since 1795 the port of Rangoon had been opened to\nthe British, although Colonel Symes had been insulted eight years\nafter, during his second embassy to Ava. Rangoon, wrote the accurate\nCarey to Fuller in November 1806, is about ten days' sail from\nCalcutta. \"The Burman empire is about eight hundred miles long, lying\ncontiguous to Bengal on the east; but is inaccessible by land, on\naccount of the mountains covered with thick forests which run between\nthe two countries.  The east side of this empire borders upon China,\nCochin China, and Tongking, and may afford us the opportunity\nultimately of introducing the Gospel into those countries.  They are\nquite within our reach, and the Bible in Chinese will be understood by\nthem equally as well as by the Chinese themselves.  About twenty\nchapters of Matthew are translated into that language, and three of our\nfamily have made considerable progress in it.\"\n\nThis was the beginning of Reformed missions to Eastern Asia. A year was\nto pass before Dr. Robert Morrison landed at Macao.  From those\npolitically aggressive and therefore opposed Jesuit missions, which\nalone had worked in Anam up to this time, a persecuted bishop was about\nto find an asylum at Serampore, and to use its press and its purse for\nthe publication of his Dictionarium Anamitico-Latinum. The French have\nlong sought to seize an empire there.  That, at its best, must prove\nfar inferior to the marvellous province and Christian Church of Burma,\nof which Carey laid the foundation. Judson, and the Governors Durand,\nPhayre, Aitchison, and Bernard, Henry Lawrence's nephew, built well\nupon it.\n\nOn 24th January 1807 Mardon and Chater went forth, after Carey had\ncharged them from the words, \"And thence sailed to Antioch from whence\nthey had been recommended to the grace of God, which they fulfilled.\"\nCarey's eldest son Felix soon took the place of Mardon. The\ninstructions, which bear the impress of the sacred scholar's pen, form\na model still for all missionaries.  These two extracts give counsels\nnever more needed than now:--\n\n\"4. With respect to the Burman language, let this occupy your most\nprecious time and your most anxious solicitude.  Do not be content with\nacquiring this language superficially, but make it your own, root and\nbranch.  To become fluent in it, you must attentivly listen, with\nprying curiosity, into the forms of speech, the construction and accent\nof the natives.  Here all the imitative powers are wanted; yet these\npowers and this attention, without continued effort to use all you\nacquire, and as fast as you acquire it, will be comparatively of little\nuse.\n\n\"5. As soon as you shall feel your ground well in this language you may\ncompose a grammar, and also send us some Scripture tract, for printing;\nsmall and plain; simple Christian instruction, and Gospel invitation,\nwithout any thing that can irritate the most superstitious mind.\n\n\"6. We would recommend you to begin the translation of the Gospel of\nMark as soon as possible, as one of the best and most certain ways of\nacquiring the language.  This translation will of course be revised\nagain and again.  In these revisions you will be very careful\nrespecting the idiom and construction, that they be really Burman, and\nnot English.  Let your instructor be well acquainted with the language,\nand try every word of importance, in every way you can, before it be\nadmitted...\n\n\"In prosecuting this work, there are two things to which especially we\nwould call your very close attention, viz. the strictest and most rigid\neconomy, and the cultivation of brotherly love.\n\n\"Remember, that the money which you will expend is neither ours nor\nyours, for it has been consecrated to God; and every unnecessary\nexpenditure will be robbing God, and appropriating to unnecessary\nsecular uses what is sacred, and consecrated to Christ and his cause.\nIn building, especially, remember that you are poor men, and have\nchosen a life of poverty and self-denial, with Christ and his\nmissionary servants.  If another person is profuse in expenditure, the\nconsequence is small, because his property would perhaps fall into\nhands where it might be devoted to the purposes of iniquity; but\nmissionary funds are in their very circumstances the most sacred and\nimportant of any thing of this nature on earth.  We say not this,\nBrethren, because we suspect you, or any of our partners in labour; but\nwe perceive that when you have done all, the Rangoon mission will lie\nheavy upon the Missionary Funds, and the field of exertion is very\nwide.\"\n\nFelix Carey was a medical missionary of great skill, a printer of the\nOriental languages trained by Ward, and a scholar, especially in\nSanskrit and Pali, Bengali and Burman, not unworthy of his father. He\nearly commended himself to the goodwill of the Rangoon Viceroy, and was\nof great use to Captain Canning in the successful mission from the\nGovernor-General in 1809.  At his intercession the Viceroy gave him the\nlife of a malefactor who had hung for six hours on the cross.\nReporting the incident to Ryland, Dr. Carey wrote that \"crucifixion is\nnot performed on separate crosses, elevated to a considerable height,\nafter the manner of the Romans; but several posts are erected which are\nconnected by a cross piece near the top, to which the hands are nailed,\nand by another near the bottom, to which the feet are nailed in a\nhorizontal direction.\"  He prepared a folio dictionary of Burmese and\nPali, translated several of the Buddhist Sootras into English, and\nseveral books of Holy Scripture into the vernacular.  His medical and\nlinguistic skill so commended him to the king that he was loaded with\nhonours and sent as Burmese ambassador to the Governor-General in 1814,\nwhen he withdrew from the Christian mission.  On his way back up the\nIrawadi he alone was saved from the wreck of his boat, in which his\nsecond wife and children and the MS. of his dictionary went down.  Of\nthis his eldest son, who \"procured His Majesty's sanction for printing\nthe Scriptures in the Burman and adjacent languages, which step he\nhighly approved,\" and at the same time \"the orders of my rank, which\nconsist of a red umbrella with an ivory top, gold betel box, gold\nlefeek cup, and a sword of state,\" the father wrote lamenting to\nRyland:--\"Felix is shrivelled from a missionary into an ambassador.\" To\nhis third son the sorrowing father said:--\"The honours he has received\nfrom the Burmese Government have not been beneficial to his soul.\nFelix is certainly not so much esteemed since his visit as he was\nbefore it.  It is a very distressing thing to be forced to apologise\nfor those you love.\"  Mr. Chater had removed to Ceylon to begin a\nmission in Colombo.\n\nIn July 1813, when Felix Carey was in Ava, two young Americans,\nAdoniram Judson and his wife Ann, tempest-tossed and fleeing before the\npersecution of the East India Company, found shelter in the Mission\nHouse at Rangoon.  Judson was one of a band of divinity students of the\nCongregational Church of New England, whose zeal had almost compelled\nthe institution of the American Board of Foreign Missions.  He, his\nwife, and colleague Rice had become Baptists by conviction on their way\nto Serampore, to the brotherhood of which they had been commended.\nCarey and his colleagues made it \"a point to guard against obtruding on\nmissionary brethren of different sentiments any conversation relative\nto baptism;\" but Judson himself sent a note to Carey requesting baptism\nby immersion.  The result was the foundation at Boston of the American\nBaptist Missionary Society, which was to win such triumphs in Burma and\namong the Karens.  For a time, however, Judson was a missionary from\nSerampore, and supported by the brotherhood.  As such he wrote thus:--\n\n\"RANGOON, Sept. 1, 1814.--Brother Ward wishes to have an idea of the\nprobable expense of each station; on which I take occasion to say that\nit would be more gratifying to me, as presenting a less temptation, and\nas less dangerous to my habits of economy and my spiritual welfare, to\nhave a limited monthly allowance.  I fear that, if I am allowed as much\nas I want, my wants will enlarge with their gratification, and finally\nembrace many things, which at first I should have thought incompatible\nwith economical management, as well as with that character among the\nheathen which it becomes the professed followers of Him who for our\nsakes became poor, even to sustain.  It is better for a missionary,\nespecially a young man, to have rather too little than rather too much.\nYour case, on coming out from England, was quite different from mine.\nYou had all that there was, and were obliged to make the most of it.\n\n\"If these things meet the ideas of the brethren, I will be obliged to\nthem to say, what sum, in Sicca Rupees, payable in Bengal, they think\nsufficient for a small family in Rangoon--sufficient to meet all common\nexpenses, and indeed all that will be incurred at present, except that\nof passages by sea.  You have all the accounts before you, especially\nof things purchased in Bengal, which I have not; and from having seen\nthe mission pass through various changes, will be more competent to\nmake an estimate of expense than I am. And while you are making this\nestimate for one family, say also what will be sufficient for two small\nfamilies, so that if Brother Rice, or any other should soon join me, it\nmay not be necessary to bring the subject again under consideration.\nThis sum I will receive under the same regulations as other stations\nare subject to, and which I heartily approve.  And if, on experiment,\nit be found much too large, I shall be as glad to diminish it, as to\nhave you increase it, if it be found much too small.\n\n\"Sept. 7.--Since writing the above, we have received the distressing\nintelligence, that a few days after Mr. Carey left us, and soon after\nhe had reached the brig (which had previously gone into the great\nriver) on the 31st of August, about noon, she was overtaken by a squall\nof wind, upset, and instantly sunk.  Those who could swim, escaped with\ntheir lives merely, and those who could not, perished. Among the saved,\nwere Mr. Carey and most of the Bengalees.  Mrs. Carey, the two\nchildren, her women and girls, and several men--in all, ten persons,\nperished.  Every article of property had been transferred from the\nboats to the vessel, and she had just left the place, where she had\nbeen long waiting the arrival of Mr. Carey, and had been under sail\nabout three hours.  Several boats were not far distant; the gold-boat\nwas within sight, but so instantaneous was the disaster, that not a\nsingle thing was saved.  Some attempts were made by the lascars to save\nMrs. Carey and William, but they were unsuccessful.  Mr. Carey staid on\nthe shore through the following night; a neighbouring governor sent him\nclothes and money; and the next morning he took the gold-boat, and\nproceeded up the river.  A large boat, on which were several servants,\nmen and women, beside those that were in the vessel, followed the\ngold-boat.  The jolly boat has returned here, bringing the surviving\nlascars.\n\n\"The dreadful situation to which our poor brother was thus reduced in a\nmoment, from the height of prosperity, fills our minds continually with\nthe greatest distress.  We are utterly unable to afford him the least\nrelief, and can only pray that this awful dispensation may prove a\npaternal chastisement from his Heavenly Father, and be sanctified to\nhis soul.\"\n\nWhile Judson wrote to Serampore, which he once again visited, leaving\nthe dust of a child in the mission burial-ground, \"I am glad to hear\nyou say that you will not abandon this mission,\" Carey pressed on to\nthe \"regions beyond.\"  Judson lived till 1850 to found a church and to\nprepare a Burmese dictionary, grammar, and translation of the Bible so\nperfect that revision has hardly been necessary up to the present day.\nHe and Hough, a printer who joined him, formed themselves into a\nbrotherhood on the same self-denying principles as that of Serampore,\nwhom they besought to send them frequent communications to counsel,\nstrengthen, and encourage them. On 28th September 1814 Judson again\nwrote to Carey from Rangoon:--\n\n\"DEAR BROTHER CAREY--If copies of Colebrooke's Sungskrita Dictionary,\nand your Sungskrita Grammar are not too scarce, I earnestly request a\ncopy of each.  I find it will be absolutely necessary for me to pick up\na little of the Pali, chiefly on account of many theological terms,\nwhich have been incorporated from that language into the Burman.  I\nhave found a dictionary, which I suppose is the same as that which Mr.\nColebrooke translated, adapted to the Burman system.  This I intend to\nread.  I want also Leyden's Vocabulary, and a copy or two of your son's\ngrammar, when it is completed.  I gave your son on his going up to Ava,\nmy copy of Campbell's Gospels, together with several other books, all\nof which are now lost.  The former I chiefly regret, and know not\nwhence I can procure another copy.\n\n\"There is a vessel now lying here, which is destined to take round an\nAmbassador from this Government to Bengal.  He expects to go in about a\nmonth, as he told me.  He is now waiting for final instructions from\nAva. If Felix be really to be sent to Bengal again, I think it most\nprobable that he will be ordered to accompany this ambassador.\n\n\"Mrs. J. was on the point of taking passage with Captain Hitchins, to\nobtain some medical advice in Bengal; but she has been a little better\nfor a few days, and has given up the plan for the present. This is a\ndelightful climate.  We have now seen all the seasons, and can\ntherefore judge.  The hot weather in March and April is the chief\nexception.  Nature has done everything for this country; and the\nGovernment is very indulgent to all foreigners.  When we see how we are\ndistinguished above all around, even in point of worldly comforts, we\nfeel that we want gratitude.  O that we may be faithful in the\nimprovement of every mercy, and patient under every trial which God may\nhave in store for us.  We know not how the Gospel can ever be\nintroduced here: everything, in this respect, appears as dark as\nmidnight.\"\n\nBy 1816 Judson had prepared the Gospel of Matthew in Burmese, following\nup short tracts \"accommodated to the optics of a Burman.\"\n\nCarey's third son Jabez was clerk to a Calcutta attorney at the time,\nin 1812, when Dr. Ryland preached in the Dutch Church, Austin Friars,\nthe anniversary sermon on the occasion of the removal of the\nheadquarters of the Society to London.  Pausing in the midst of his\ndiscourse, after a reference to Carey, the preacher called on the vast\ncongregation silently to pray for the conversion of Jabez Carey.  The\nanswer came next year in a letter from his father:--\"My son Jabez, who\nhas been articled to an attorney, and has the fairest prospects as to\nthis world, is become decidedly religious, and prefers the work of the\nLord to every other.\"  Lord Minto's expeditions of 1810 and 1811 had\ncaptured the islands swept by the French privateers from Madagascar to\nJava, and there was soon an end of the active hostility of the\nauthorities to Christianity.  Sir Stamford Raffles governed Java in the\nspirit of a Christian statesman.  The new Governor-General, Lord Moira,\nafterwards Marquis of Hastings, proved to be the most enlightened and\npowerful friend the mission had had.  In these circumstances, after the\ncharter of 1813 had removed the legislative excuse for intolerance, Dr.\nCarey was asked by the Lieutenant-Governor to send missionaries and\nMalay Bibles to the fifty thousand natives of Amboyna.  The\nGovernor-General repeated the request officially.  Jabez Carey was\nbaptised, married, and despatched at the cost of the state before he\ncould be ordained.  Amboyna, it will be perceived, was not in India,\nbut far enough away to give the still timid Company little apprehension\nas to the influence of the missionaries there.  The father's heart was\nvery full when he sent forth the son:--\n\n\"24th January 1814.--You are now engaging in a most important\nundertaking, in which not only you will have our prayers for your\nsuccess, but those of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, and who know\nof your engagement.  I know that a few hints for your future conduct\nfrom a parent who loves you very tenderly will be acceptable, and I\nshall therefore now give you them, assured that they will not be given\nin vain.\n\n\"1st. Pay the utmost attention at all times to the state of your own\nmind both towards God and man: cultivate an intimate acquaintance with\nyour own heart; labour to obtain a deep sense of your depravity and to\ntrust always in Christ; be pure in heart, and meditate much upon the\npure and holy character of God; live a life of prayer and devotedness\nto God; cherish every amiable and right disposition towards men; be\nmild, gentle, and unassuming, yet firm and manly. As soon as you\nperceive anything wrong in your spirit or behaviour set about\ncorrecting it, and never suppose yourself so perfect as to need no\ncorrection.\n\n\"2nd. You are now a married man, be not satisfied with conducting\nyourself towards your wife with propriety, but let love to her be the\nspring of your conduct towards her.  Esteem her highly, and so act that\nshe may be induced thereby to esteem you highly.  The first impressions\nof love arising from form and beauty will soon wear off, but the esteem\narising from excellency of disposition and substance of character will\nendure and increase.  Her honour is now yours, and she cannot be\ninsulted without your being degraded.  I hope as soon as you get on\nboard, and are settled in your cabin, you will begin and end each day\nby uniting together to pray and praise God. Let religion always have a\nplace in your house.  If the Lord bless you with children, bring them\nup in the fear of God, and be always an example to others of the power\nof godliness.  This advice I give also to Eliza, and if it is followed\nyou will be happy.\n\n\"3rd. Behave affably and genteelly to all, but not cringingly towards\nany.  Feel that you are a man, and always act with that dignified\nsincerity and truth which will command the esteem of all. Seek not the\nsociety of worldly men, but when called to be with them act and\nconverse with propriety and dignity.  To do this labour to gain a good\nacquaintance with history, geography, men, and things.  A gentleman is\nthe next best character after a Christian, and the latter includes the\nformer.  Money never makes a gentleman, neither does a fine appearance,\nbut an enlarged understanding joined to engaging manners.\n\n\"4th. On your arrival at Amboyna your first business must be to wait on\nMr. Martin.  You should first send a note to inform him of your\narrival, and to inquire when it will suit him to receive you.  Ask his\nadvice upon every occasion of importance, and communicate freely to him\nall the steps you take.\n\n\"5th. As soon as you are settled begin your work.  Get a Malay who can\nspeak a little English, and with him make a tour of the island, and\nvisit every school.  Encourage all you see worthy of encouragement, and\ncorrect with mildness, yet with firmness.  Keep a journal of the\ntransactions of the schools, and enter each one under a distinct head\ntherein.  Take account of the number of scholars, the names of the\nschoolmasters, compare their progress at stated periods, and, in short,\nconsider this as the work which the Lord has given you to do.\n\n\"6th. Do not, however, consider yourself as a mere superintendent of\nschools; consider yourself as the spiritual instructor of the people,\nand devote yourself to their good.  God has committed the spiritual\ninterests of this island--20,000 men or more--to you; a vast charge,\nbut He can enable you to be faithful to it.  Revise the catechism,\ntracts, and school-books used among them, and labour to introduce among\nthem sound doctrine and genuine piety.  Pray with them as soon as you\ncan, and labour after a gift to preach to them. I expect you will have\nmuch to do with them respecting baptism. They all think infant\nsprinkling right, and will apply to you to baptise their children; you\nmust say little till you know something of the language, and then prove\nto them from Scripture what is the right mode of baptism and who are\nthe proper persons to be baptised. Form them into Gospel churches when\nyou meet with a few who truly fear God; and as soon as you see any fit\nto preach to others, call them to the ministry and settle them with the\nchurches.  You must baptise and administer the Lord's Supper according\nto your own discretion when there is a proper occasion for it.  Avoid\nindolence and love of ease, and never attempt to act the part of the\ngreat and gay in this world.\n\n\"7th. Labour incessantly to become a perfect master of the Malay\nlanguage.  In order to this, associate with the natives, walk out with\nthem, ask the name of everything you see, and note it down; visit their\nhouses, especially when any of them are sick.  Every night arrange the\nwords you get in alphabetical order.  Try to talk as soon as you get a\nfew words, and be as much as possible one of them.  A course of kind\nand attentive conduct will gain their esteem and confidence and give\nyou an opportunity of doing much good.\n\n\"8th. You will soon learn from Mr. Martin the situation and disposition\nof the Alfoors or aboriginal inhabitants, and will see what can be done\nfor them.  Do not unnecessarily expose your life, but incessantly\ncontrive some way of giving them the word of life.\n\n\"9th. I come now to things of inferior importance, but which I hope you\nwill not neglect.  I wish you to learn correctly the number, size, and\ngeography of the islands; the number and description of inhabitants;\ntheir customs and manners, and everything of note relative to them; and\nregularly communicate these things to me.\n\n\"Your great work, my dear Jabez, is that of a Christian minister. You\nwould have been solemnly set apart thereto if you could have stayed\nlong enough to have permitted it.  The success of your labours does not\ndepend upon an outward ceremony, nor does your right to preach the\nGospel or administer the ordinances of the Gospel depend on any such\nthing, but only on the Divine call expressed in the Word of God. The\nChurch has, however, in their intentions and wishes borne a testimony\nto the grace given to you, and will not cease to pray for you that you\nmay be successful.  May you be kept from all temptations, supported\nunder every trial, made victorious in every conflict; and may our\nhearts be mutually gladdened with accounts from each other of the\ntriumphs of Divine grace.  God has conferred a great favour upon you in\ncommitting to you this ministry.  Take heed to it therefore in the Lord\nthat thou fulfil it.  We shall often meet at the throne of grace.\nWrite me by every opportunity, and tell Eliza to write to your mother.\n\n\"Now, my dear Jabez, I commit you both to God, and to the word of His\ngrace, which is able to make you perfect in the knowledge of His will.\nLet that word be near your heart.  I give you both up to God, and\nshould I never more see you on earth I trust we shall meet with joy\nbefore His throne of glory at last.\"\n\nUnder both the English and the Dutch for a time, to whom the island was\nrestored, Jabez Carey proved to be a successful missionary, while he\nsupported the mission by his official income as superintendent of\nschools and second member of the College of Justice.  The island\ncontained 18,000 native Christians of the Dutch compulsory type, such\nas we found in Ceylon on taking it over.  Thus by the labours of\nhimself, his sons, his colleagues, and his children in the faith,\nWilliam Carey saw the Gospel, the press, and the influence of a divine\nphilanthropy extending among Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Hindoos, from\nthe shores of the Pacific Ocean west to the Arabian Sea.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCAREY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS\n\n1807-1812\n\nThe type of a Christian gentleman--Carey and his first wife--His second\nmarriage--The Lady Rumohr--His picture of their married life--His\nnearly fatal illness when forty-eight years old--His meditations and\ndreams--Aldeen House--Henry Martyn's pagoda--Carey, Marshman, and the\nAnglican chaplains in the pagoda--Corrie's account of the Serampore\nBrotherhood--Claudius Buchanan and his Anglican\nestablishment--Improvement in Anglo-Indian Society--Carey's literary\nand scientific friends--Desire in the West for a likeness of\nCarey--Home's portrait of him--Correspondence with his son William on\nmissionary consecration, Buonaparte, botany, the missionary a soldier,\nFelix and Burma, hunting, the temporal power of the Pope, the duty of\nreconciliation--Carey's descendants.\n\n\"A Gentleman is the next best character after a Christian, and the\nlatter includes the former,\" were the father's words to the son whom he\nwas sending forth as a Christian missionary and state superintendent of\nschools.  Carey wrote from his own experience, and he unwittingly\npainted his own character.  The peasant bearing of his early youth\nshowed itself throughout his life in a certain shyness, which gave a\ncharm to his converse with old and young. Occasionally, as in a letter\nwhich he wrote to his friend Pearce of Birmingham, at a time when he\ndid not know whether his distant correspondent was alive or dead, he\nburst forth into an unrestrained enthusiasm of affection and service.\nBut his was rather the even tenor of domestic devotion and friendly\nduty, unbroken by passion or coldness, and ever lighted up by a steady\ngeniality.  The colleagues who were associated with him for the third\nof a century worshipped him in the old English sense of the word.  The\nyounger committee-men and missionaries who came to the front on the\ndeath of Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland, in all their mistaken conflicts\nwith these colleagues, always tried to separate Carey from those they\ndenounced, till even his saintly spirit burst forth into wrath at the\ndouble wrong thus done to his coadjutors.  His intercourse with the\nchaplains and bishops of the Church of England, and with the\nmissionaries of other Churches and societies, was as loving in its\ndegree as his relations to his own people.  With men of the world, from\nthe successive Governor-Generals, from Wellesley, Hastings, and\nBentinck, down to the scholars, merchants, and planters with whom he\nbecame associated for the public good, William Carey was ever the saint\nand the gentleman whom it was a privilege to know.\n\nIn nothing perhaps was Carey's true Christian gentlemanliness so seen\nas in his relations with his first wife, above whom grace and culture\nhad immeasurably raised him, while she never learned to share his\naspirations or to understand his ideals.  Not only did she remain to\nthe last a peasant woman, with a reproachful tongue, but the early\nhardships of Calcutta and the fever and dysentery of Mudnabati clouded\nthe last twelve years of her life with madness. Never did reproach or\ncomplaint escape his lips regarding either her or Thomas, whose\neccentric impulses and oft-darkened spirit were due to mania also.  Of\nboth he was the tender nurse and guardian when, many a time, the\never-busy scholar would fain have lingered at his desk or sought the\nscanty sleep which his jealous devotion to his Master's business\nallowed him.  The brotherhood arrangement, the common family, Ward's\ninfluence over the boys, and Hannah Marshman's housekeeping relieved\nhim of much that his wife's illness had thrown upon him at Mudnabati,\nso that a colleague describes him, when he was forty-three years of\nage, as still looking young in spite of the few hairs on his head,\nafter eleven years in Lower Bengal of work such as never Englishman had\nbefore him.  But almost from the first day of his early married life he\nhad never known the delight of daily converse with a wife able to enter\ninto his scholarly pursuits, and ever to stimulate him in his heavenly\nquest.  When the eldest boy, Felix, had left for Burma in 1807 the\nfaithful sorrowing husband wrote to him:--\"Your poor mother grew worse\nand worse from the time you left us, and died on the 7th December about\nseven o'clock in the evening.  During her illness she was almost always\nasleep, and I suppose during the fourteen days that she lay in a severe\nfever she was not more than twenty-four hours awake.  She was buried\nthe next day in the missionary burying-ground.\"\n\nAbout the same time that Carey himself settled in Serampore there\narrived the Lady Rumohr.  She built a house on the Hoogli bank\nimmediately below that of the missionaries, whose society she sought,\nand by whom she was baptised.  On the 9th May 1808 she became Carey's\nwife; and in May 1821 she too was removed by death in her sixty-first\nyear, after thirteen years of unbroken happiness.\n\nCharlotte Emilia, born in the same year as Carey in the then Danish\nduchy of Schleswick, was the only child of the Chevalier de Rumohr, who\nmarried the Countess of Alfeldt, only representative of a historic\nfamily.  Her wakefulness when a sickly girl of fifteen saved the whole\nhousehold from destruction by fire, but she herself became so disabled\nthat she could never walk up or down stairs.  She failed to find\ncomplete recovery in the south of Europe, and her father's friend, Mr.\nAnker, a director of the Danish East India Company, gave her letters to\nhis brother, then Governor of Tranquebar, in the hope that the climate\nof India might cause her relief.  The Danish ship brought her first to\nSerampore, where Colonel Bie introduced her to the brotherhood, and\nthere she resolved to remain.  She knew the principal languages of\nEurope; a copy of the Pens\u00e9es of Pascal, given to her by Mr. Anker\nbefore she sailed, for the first time quickened her conscience.  She\nspeedily learned English, that she might join the missionaries in\npublic worship.  The barren orthodoxy of the Lutheranism in which she\nhad been brought up had made her a sceptic.  This soon gave way to the\nevangelical teaching of the same apostle who had brought Luther himself\nto Christ.  She became a keen student of the Scriptures, then an ardent\nfollower of Jesus Christ.\n\nOn her marriage to Dr. Carey, in May 1808, she made over her house to\nthe mission, and when, long after, it became famous as the office of\nthe weekly Friend of India, the rent was sacredly devoted to the\nassistance of native preachers.  She learned Bengali that she might be\nas a mother to the native Christian families.  She was her husband's\ncounsellor in all that related to the extension of the varied\nenterprise of the brethren.  Especially did she make the education of\nHindoo girls her own charge, both at Serampore and Cutwa.  Her leisure\nshe gave to the reading of French Protestant writers, such as Saurin\nand Du Moulin.  She admired, wrote Carey, \"Massillon's language, his\ndeep knowledge of the human heart, and his intrepidity in reproving\nsin; but felt the greatest dissatisfaction with his total neglect of\nhis Saviour, except when He is introduced to give efficacy to works of\nhuman merit.  These authors she read in their native language, that\nbeing more familiar to her than English.  She in general enjoyed much\nof the consolations of religion.  Though so much afflicted, a pleasing\ncheerfulness generally pervaded her conversation.  She indeed possessed\ngreat activity of mind.  She was constantly out with the dawn of the\nmorning when the weather permitted, in her little carriage drawn by one\nbearer; and again in the evening, as soon as the sun was sufficiently\nlow.  She thus spent daily nearly three hours in the open air.  It was\nprobably this vigorous and regular course which, as the means, carried\nher beyond the age of threescore years (twenty-one of them spent in\nIndia), notwithstanding the weakness of her constitution.\"\n\nIt is a pretty picture, the delicate invalid lady, drawn along the mall\nmorning and evening, to enjoy the river breeze, on her way to and from\nthe schools and homes of the natives.  But her highest service was,\nafter all, to her husband, who was doing a work for India and for\nhumanity, equalled by few, if any.  When, on one occasion, they were\nseparated for a time while she sought for health at Monghyr, she wrote\nto him the tenderest yet most courtly love-letters.\n\n\"MY DEAREST LOVE,--I felt very much in parting with thee, and feel much\nin being so far from thee...I am sure thou wilt be happy and thankful\non account of my voice, which is daily getting better, and thy pleasure\ngreatly adds to mine own.\n\n\"I hope you will not think I am writing too often; I rather trust you\nwill be glad to hear of me...Though my journey is very pleasant, and\nthe good state of my health, the freshness of the air, and the variety\nof objects enliven my spirits, yet I cannot help longing for you.\nPray, my love, take care of your health that I may have the joy to find\nyou well.\n\n\"I thank thee most affectionately, my dearest love, for thy kind\nletter.  Though the journey is very useful to me, I cannot help feeling\nmuch to be so distant from you, but I am much with you in my\nthoughts...The Lord be blessed for the kind protection He has given to\nHis cause in a time of need.  May He still protect and guide and bless\nHis dear cause, and give us all hearts growing in love and zeal...I\nfelt very much affected in parting with thee.  I see plainly it would\nnot do to go far from you; my heart cleaves to you. I need not say (for\nI hope you know my heart is not insensible) how much I feel your\nkindness in not minding any expense for the recovery of my health.  You\nwill rejoice to hear me talk in my old way, and not in that whispering\nmanner.\n\n\"I find so much pleasure in writing to you, my love, that I cannot help\ndoing it.  I was nearly disconcerted by Mrs.--laughing at my writing so\noften; but then, I thought, I feel so much pleasure in receiving your\nletters that I may hope you do the same.  I thank thee, my love, for\nthy kind letter.  I need not say that the serious part of it was\nwelcome to me, and the more as I am deprived of all religious\nintercourse...I shall greatly rejoice, my love, in seeing thee again;\nbut take care of your health that I may find you well. I need not say\nhow much you are in my thoughts day and night.\"\n\nHis narrative of their intercourse, written after her death, lets in a\nflood of light on his home life:--\n\n\"During the thirteen years of her union with Dr. Carey, they had\nenjoyed the most entire oneness of mind, never having a single\ncircumstance which either of them wished to conceal from the other. Her\nsolicitude for her husband's health and comfort was unceasing. They\nprayed and conversed together on those things which form the life of\npersonal religion, without the least reserve; and enjoyed a degree of\nconjugal happiness while thus continued to each other, which can only\narise from a union of mind grounded on real religion. On the whole, her\nlot in India was altogether a scene of mercy. Here she was found of the\nSaviour, gradually ripened for glory, and after having her life\nprolonged beyond the expectation of herself and all who knew her, she\nwas released from this mortal state almost without the consciousness of\npain, and, as we most assuredly believe, had 'an abundant entrance\nministered unto her into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus\nChrist.'\"\n\nWhen, on 24th June 1809, Carey announced at the dinner table that he\nhad that morning finished the Bengali translation of the whole Bible,\nand he was asked how much more he thought of doing, he answered: \"The\nwork I have allotted to myself, in translating, will take me about\ntwenty years.\"  But he had kept the bow too long and too tightly bent,\nand it threatened to snap.  That evening he was seized with bilious\nfever, and on the eighteenth day thereafter his life was despaired of.\n\"The goodness of God is eminently conspicuous in raising up our beloved\nbrother Carey,\" wrote Marshman. \"God has raised him up again and\nrestored him to his labours; may he live to accomplish all that is in\nhis heart,\" wrote Rowe. He was at once at his desk again, in college\nand in his study. \"I am this day forty-eight years old,\" he wrote to\nRyland on the 17th August, and sent him the following letters, every\nline of which reveals the inner soul of the writer:--\n\n\"CALCUTTA, 16th August 1809.--I did not expect, about a month ago, ever\nto write to you again.  I was then ill of a severe fever, and for a\nweek together scarcely any hopes were entertained of my life. One or\ntwo days I was supposed to be dying, but the Lord has graciously\nrestored me; may it be that I may live more than ever to His glory.\nWhilst I was ill I had scarcely any such thing as thought belonging to\nme, but, excepting seasons of delirium, seemed to be nearly stupid;\nperhaps some of this arose from the weak state to which I was reduced,\nwhich was so great that Dr. Hare, one of the most eminent physicians in\nCalcutta, who was consulted about it, apprehended more danger from that\nthan from the fever.  I, however, had scarcely a thought of death or\neternity, or of life, or anything belonging thereto.  In my delirium,\ngreatest part of which I perfectly remember, I was busily employed in\ncarrying a commission from God to all the princes and governments in\nthe world, requiring them instantly to abolish every political\nestablishment of religion, and to sell the parish and other churches to\nthe first body of Christians that would purchase them.  Also to declare\nwar infamous, to esteem all military officers as men who had sold\nthemselves to destroy the human race, to extend this to all those dead\nmen called heroes, defenders of their country, meritorious officers,\netc.[13] I was attended by angels in all my excursions, and was\nuniversally successful.  A few princes in Germany were refractory, but\nmy attendants struck them dead instantly.  I pronounced the doom of\nRome to the Pope, and soon afterwards all the territory about Rome, the\nMarch of Ancona, the great city and all its riches sank into that vast\nbed of burning lava which heats Nero's bath.  These two considerations\nwere the delirious wanderings of the mind, but I hope to feel their\nforce, to pray and strive for their accomplishment to the end of my\nlife.  But it is now time to attend to something not merely ideal.\n\n\"The state of the world occupied my thoughts more and more; I mean as\nit relates to the spread of the Gospel.  The harvest truly is great,\nand labourers bear scarcely any proportion thereto.  I was forcibly\nstruck this morning with reading our Lord's reply to His disciples,\nJohn iv.  When He had told them that He had meat to eat the world knew\nnot of, and that His meat was to do the will of His Father and to\nfinish His work, He said, 'Say not ye there are three months and then\ncometh harvest?'  He by this plainly intended to call their attention\nto the conduct of men when harvest was approaching, for that being the\nseason upon which all the hopes of men hang for temporal supplies, they\nprovide men and measures in time for securing it.  Afterwards directing\ntheir attention to that which so occupied His own as to be His meat and\ndrink, He said, 'Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields (of souls\nto be gathered in), for they are white already to harvest.'  After so\nmany centuries have elapsed and so many fields full of this harvest\nhave been lost for want of labourers to gather it in, shall we not at\nlast reflect seriously on our duty?  Hindostan requires ten thousand\nministers of the Gospel, at the lowest calculation, China as many, and\nyou may easily calculate for the rest of the world.  I trust that many\nwill eventually be raised up here, but be that as it may the demands\nfor missionaries are pressing to a degree seldom realised.  England has\ndone much, but not the hundredth part of what she is bound to do.  In\nso great a want of ministers ought not every church to turn its\nattention chiefly to the raising up and maturing of spiritual gifts\nwith the express design of sending them abroad? Should not this be a\nspecific matter of prayer, and is there not reason to labour hard to\ninfuse this spirit into the churches?\n\n\"A mission into Siam would be comparatively easy of introduction and\nsupport on account of its vicinity to Prince of Wales Island, from\nwhich vessels can often go in a few hours.  A mission to Pegu and\nanother to Arakan would not be difficult of introduction, they being\nboth within the Burman dominions, Missions to Assam and Nepal should be\nspeedily tried.  Brother Robinson is going to Bhootan.  I do not know\nanything about the facility with which missions could be introduced\ninto Cochin China, Cambodia, and Laos, but were the trial made I\nbelieve difficulties would remove.  It is also very desirable that the\nBurman mission should be strengthened.  There is no full liberty of\nconscience, and several stations might be occupied; even the borders of\nChina might be visited from that country if an easier entrance into the\nheart of the country could not be found.  I have not mentioned Sumatra,\nJava, the Moluccas, the Philippines, or Japan, but all these countries\nmust be supplied with missionaries. This is a very imperfect sketch of\nthe wants of Asia only, without including the Mahometan countries; but\nAfrica and South America call as loudly for help, and the greatest part\nof Europe must also be holpen by the Protestant churches, being nearly\nas destitute of real godliness as any heathen country on the earth.\nWhat a pressing call, then, is here for labourers in the spiritual\nharvest, and what need that the attention of all the churches in\nEngland and America should be drawn to this very object!\"\n\nTwo years after the establishment of the mission at Serampore, David\nBrown, the senior chaplain and provost of Fort William College, took\npossession of Aldeen House, which he occupied till the year of his\ndeath in 1812.  The house is the first in the settlement reached by\nboat from Calcutta.  Aldeen is five minutes' walk south of the\nSerampore Mission House, and a century ago there was only a park\nbetween them.  The garden slopes down to the noble river, and commands\nthe beautiful country seat of Barrackpore, which Lord Wellesley had\njust built.  The house itself is embosomed in trees, the mango, the\nteak, and the graceful bamboo.  Just below it, but outside of\nSerampore, are the deserted temple of Bullubpoor and the Ghat of the\nsame name, a fine flight of steps up which thousands of pilgrims flock\nevery June to the adjoining shrine and monstrous car of Jagganath.\nDavid Brown had not been long in Aldeen when he secured the deserted\ntemple and converted it into a Christian oratory, ever since known as\nHenry Martyn's Pagoda.  For ten years Aldeen and the pagoda became the\nmeeting-place of Carey and his Nonconformist friends, with Claudius\nBuchanan, Martyn, Bishop Corrie, Thomason, and the little band of\nevangelical Anglicans who, under the protection of Lords Wellesley and\nHastings, sweetened Anglo-Indian society, and made the names of\n\"missionary\" and of \"chaplain\" synonymous.  Here too there gathered, as\nalso to the Mission House higher up, many a civilian and officer who\nsought the charms of that Christian family life which they had left\nbehind.  A young lieutenant commemorated these years when Brown was\nremoved, in a pleasing elegy, which Charles Simeon published in the\nMemorials of his friend.  Many a traveller from the far West still\nvisits the spot, and recalls the memories of William Carey and Henry\nMartyn, of Marshman and Buchanan, of Ward and Corrie, which linger\naround the fair scene.  When first we saw it the now mutilated ruin was\nperfect, and under the wide-spreading banian tree behind a Brahman was\nreciting, for a day and a night, the verses of the Mahabharata epic to\nthousands of listening Hindoos.\n\n  \"Long, Hoogli, has thy sullen stream\n    Been doomed the cheerless shores to lave;\n  Long has the Suttee's baneful gleam\n    Pale glimmered o'er thy midnight wave.\n\n  \"Yet gladdened seemed to flow thy tide\n    Where opens on the view--Aldeen;\n  For there to grace thy palmy side\n    Loved England's purest joys were seen.\n\n  \"Yon dome, 'neath which in former days\n    Grim idols marked the pagan shrine,\n  Has swelled the notes of pious praise,\n    Attuned to themes of love divine.\"\n\nWe find this allusion to the place in Carey's correspondence with Dr.\nRyland:--\"20th January 1807.--It would have done your heart good to\nhave joined us at our meetings at the pagoda.  From that place we have\nsuccessively recommended Dr. Taylor to the work of the Lord at Bombay,\nMr. Martyn to his at Dinapoor, Mr. Corrie to his at Chunar, Mr. Parsons\nto his at Burhampore, Mr. Des Granges to his at Vizagapatam, and our\ntwo brethren to theirs at Rangoon, and from thence we soon expect to\ncommend Mr. Thomason to his at Madras.  In these meetings the utmost\nharmony prevails and a union of hearts unknown between persons of\ndifferent denominations in England.\"  Dr. Taylor and Mr. Des Granges\nwere early missionaries of the London Society; the Rangoon brethren\nwere Baptists; the others were Church of England chaplains.\nSacramentarianism and sacerdotalism had not then begun to afflict the\nChurch of India.  There were giants in those days, in Bengal, worthy of\nCarey and of the one work in which all were the servants of one Master.\n\nLet us look a little more closely at Henry Martyn's Pagoda.  It is now\na picturesque ruin, which the peepul tree that is entwined among its\nfine brick masonry, and the crumbling river-bank, may soon cause to\ndisappear for ever.  The exquisite tracery of the moulded bricks may be\nseen, but not the few figures that are left of the popular Hindoo idols\njust where the two still perfect arches begin to spring.  The side to\nthe river has already fallen down, and with it the open platform\noverhanging the bank on which the missionary sat in the cool of the\nmorning and evening, and where he knelt to pray for the people.  We\nhave accompanied many a visitor there, from Dr. Duff to Bishop Cotton,\nand John Lawrence, and have rarely seen one unmoved.  This pagoda had\nbeen abandoned long before by the priests of Radhabullub, because the\nriver had encroached to a point within 300 feet of it, the limit within\nwhich no Brahman is allowed to receive a gift or take his food.  The\nlittle black doll of an idol, which is famous among Hindoos alike for\nits sanctity and as a work of art--for had it not been miraculously\nwafted to this spot like the Santa Casa to Loretto?--was removed with\ngreat pomp to a new temple after it had paid a visit to Clive's\nmoonshi, the wealthy Raja Nobokissen in Calcutta, who sought to\npurchase it outright.\n\nIn this cool old pagoda Henry Martyn, on one of his earliest visits to\nAldeen after his arrival as a chaplain in 1806, found an appropriate\nresidence.  Under the vaulted roof of the shrine a place of prayer and\npraise was fitted up with an organ, so that, as he wrote, \"the place\nwhere once devils were worshipped has now become a Christian oratory.\"\nHere, too, he laid his plans for the evangelisation of the people.\nWhen suffering from one of his moods of depression as to his own state,\nhe thus writes of this place:--\"I began to pray as on the verge of\neternity; and the Lord was pleased to break my hard heart.  I lay in\ntears, interceding for the unfortunate natives of this country;\nthinking within myself that the most despicable soodra of India was of\nas much value in the sight of God as the King of Great Britain.\"  It\nwas from such supplication that he was once roused by the blaze of a\nSuttee's funeral pyre, on which he found that the living widow had been\nconsumed with the dead before he could interfere.  He could hear the\nhideous drums and gongs and conch-shells of the temple to which\nRadhabullub had been removed.  There he often tried to turn his\nfellow-creatures to the worship of the one God, from their prostrations\n\"before a black image placed in a pagoda, with lights burning around\nit,\" whilst, he says, he \"shivered as if standing, as it were, in the\nneighbourhood of hell.\"  It was in the deserted pagoda that Brown,\nCorrie, and Parsons met with him to commend him to God before he set\nout for his new duties at Dinapoor. \"My soul,\" he writes of this\noccasion, \"never yet had such divine enjoyment.  I felt a desire to\nbreak from the body, and join the high praises of the saints above.\nMay I go 'in the strength of this many days.'  Amen.\" \"I found my\nheaven begun on earth.  No work so sweet as that of praying and living\nwholly to the service of God.\" And as he passed by the Mission House on\nhis upward voyage, with true catholicity \"Dr. Marshman could not resist\njoining the party: and after going a little way, left them with\nprayer.\"  Do we wonder that these men have left their mark on India?\n\nAs years went by, the temple, thus consecrated as a Christian oratory,\nbecame degraded in other hands.  The brand \"pagoda distillery\" for a\ntime came to be known as marking the rum manufactured there.  The\nvisits of so many Christian pilgrims to the spot, and above all, the\ndesire expressed by Lord Lawrence when Governor-General to see it, led\nthe Hindoo family who own the pagoda to leave it at least as a simple\nruin.\n\nCorrie, afterwards the first bishop of Madras, describes the marriage\nof Des Granges in the oratory, and gives us a glimpse of life in the\nSerampore Mission House:--\n\n\"1806.--Calcutta strikes me as the most magnificent city in the world;\nand I am made most happy by the hope of being instrumental to the\neternal good of many.  A great opposition, I find, is raised against\nMartyn and the principles he preaches...Went up to Serampore yesterday,\nand in the evening was present at the marriage of Mr. Des Granges.  Mr.\nBrown entered into the concern with much interest. The pagoda was fixed\non, and lighted up for the celebration of the wedding; at eight o'clock\nthe parties came from the Mission House [at Serampore], attended by\nmost of the family.  Mr. Brown commenced with the hymn, 'Come, gracious\nSpirit, heavenly dove!'  A divine influence seemed to attend us, and\nmost delightful were my sensations.  The circumstance of so many being\nengaged in spreading the glad tidings of salvation,--the temple of an\nidol converted to the purpose of Christian worship, and the Divine\npresence felt among us,--filled me with joy unspeakable.  After the\nmarriage service of the Church of England, Mr. Brown gave out 'the\nWedding Hymn'; and after signing certificates of the marriage we\nadjourned to the house, where Mr. Brown had provided supper.  Two hymns\ngiven out by Mr. Marshman were felt very powerfully.  He is a most\nlively, sanguine missionary; his conversation made my heart burn within\nme, and I find desires of spreading the Gospel growing stronger daily,\nand my zeal in the cause more ardent...I went to the Mission House, and\nsupped at the same table with about fifty native converts.  The triumph\nof the Cross was most evident in breaking down their prejudices, and\nuniting them with those who formerly were an abomination in their eyes.\nAfter supper they sang a Bengali hymn, many of them with tears of joy;\nand they concluded with prayer in Bengali, with evident earnestness and\nemotion.  My own feelings were too big for utterance.  O may the time\nbe hastened when every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ, to the glory\nof God the Father!\n\n\"On Friday evening [Oct. 10th], we had a meeting in the pagoda, at\nwhich almost all the missionaries, some of their wives, and Captain\nWickes attended, with a view to commend Martyn to the favour and\nprotection of God in his work.  The Divine presence was with us.  I\nfelt more than it would have been proper to express.  Mr. Brown\ncommenced with a hymn and prayer, Mr. Des Granges succeeded him, with\nmuch devotion and sweetness of expression: Mr. Marshman followed, and\ndwelt particularly on the promising appearance of things; and, with\nmuch humility, pleaded God's promises for the enlargement of Zion; with\nmany petitions for Mr. Brown and his family.  The service was concluded\nby Mr. Carey, who was earnest in prayer for Mr. Brown: the petition\nthat 'having laboured for many years without encouragement or support,\nin the evening it might be light,' seemed much to affect his own mind,\nand greatly impressed us all.  Afterwards we supped together at Mr.\nBrown's...\n\n\"13th Oct.--I came to Serampore to dinner.  Had a pleasant sail up the\nriver: the time passed agreeably in conversation.  In the evening a\nfire was kindled on the opposite bank; and we soon perceived that it\nwas a funeral pile, on which the wife was burning with the dead body of\nher husband.  It was too dark to distinguish the miserable victim...On\ngoing out to walk with Martyn to the pagoda, the noise so unnatural,\nand so little calculated to excite joy, raised in my mind an awful\nsense of the presence and influence of evil spirits.\"\n\nCorrie married the daughter of Mrs. Ellerton, who knew Serampore and\nCarey well.  It was Mr. Ellerton who, when an indigo-planter at Malda,\nopened the first Bengali school, and made the first attempt at\ntranslating the Bible into that vernacular.  His young wife, early made\na widow, witnessed accidentally the duel in which Warren Hastings shot\nPhilip Francis.  She was an occasional visitor at Aldeen, and took part\nin the pagoda services.  Fifty years afterwards, not long before her\ndeath at eighty-seven, Bishop Wilson, whose guest she was, wrote of\nher: \"She made me take her to Henry Martyn's pagoda.  She remembers the\nneighbourhood, and Gharetty Ghat and House in Sir Eyre Coote's time\n(1783).  The ancient Governor of Chinsurah and his fat Dutch wife are\nstill in her mind.  When she visited him with her first husband (she\nwas then sixteen) the old Dutchman cried out, 'Oh, if you would find me\nsuch a nice little wife I would give you ten thousand rupees.'\"\n\nIt was in Martyn's pagoda that Claudius Buchanan first broached his\nplan of an ecclesiastical establishment for India, and invited the\ndiscussion of it by Carey and his colleagues.  Such a scheme came\nnaturally from one who was the grandson of a Presbyterian elder of the\nChurch of Scotland, converted in the Whitefield revival at Cambuslang.\nIt had been suggested first by Bishop Porteous when he reviewed the\nCompany's acquisitions in Asia. It was encouraged by Lord Wellesley,\nwho was scandalised on his arrival in India by the godlessness of the\ncivil servants and the absence of practically any provision for the\nChristian worship and instruction of its officers and soldiers, who\nwere all their lives without religion, not a tenth of them ever\nreturning home.  Carey thus wrote, at Ryland's request, of the\nproposal, which resulted in the arrival in Calcutta of Bishop Middleton\nand Dr. Bryce in 1814:--\"I have no opinion of Dr. Buchanan's scheme for\na religious establishment here, nor could I from memory point out what\nis exceptionable in his memoir.  All his representations must be taken\nwith some grains of allowance.\"  When, in the Aldeen discussions, Dr.\nBuchanan told Marshman that the temple lands would eventually answer\nfor the established churches and the Brahmans' lands for the chaplains,\nthe stout Nonconformist replied with emphasis, \"You will never obtain\nthem.\"  We may all accept the conversion of the idol shrine into a\nplace of prayer--as Gregory I. taught Augustine of Canterbury to\ntransform heathen temples into Christian churches--as presaging the\ntime when the vast temple and mosque endowments will be devoted by the\npeople themselves to their own moral if not spiritual good through\neducation, both religious and secular.\n\nThe change wrought in seventeen years by Carey and such associates as\nthese on society in Bengal, both rich and poor, became marked by the\nyear 1810.  We find him writing of it thus:--\"When I arrived I knew of\nno person who cared about the Gospel except Mr. Brown, Mr. Udny, Mr.\nCreighton, Mr. Grant, and Mr. Brown an indigo-planter, besides Brother\nThomas and myself.  There might be more, and probably were, though\nunknown to me.  There are now in India thirty-two ministers of the\nGospel.  Indeed, the Lord is doing great things for Calcutta; and\nthough infidelity abounds, yet religion is the theme of conversation or\ndispute in almost every house.  A few weeks ago (October 1810), I\ncalled upon one of the Judges to take breakfast with him, and going\nrather abruptly upstairs, as I had been accustomed to do, I found the\nfamily just going to engage in morning worship.  I was of course asked\nto engage in prayer, which I did.  I afterwards told him that I had\nscarcely witnessed anything since I had been in Calcutta which gave me\nmore pleasure than what I had seen that morning.  The change in this\nfamily was an effect of Mr. Thomason's ministry...About ten days ago I\nhad a conversation with one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, Sir\nJohn Boyd, upon religious subjects.  Indeed there is now scarcely a\nplace where you can pay a visit without having an opportunity of saying\nsomething about true religion.\"\n\nCarey's friendly intercourse, by person and letter, was not confined to\nthose who were aggressively Christian or to Christian and\necclesiastical questions.  As we shall soon see, his literary and\nscientific pursuits led him to constant and familiar converse with\nscholars like Colebrooke and Leyden, with savants like Roxburgh, the\nastronomer Bentley, and Dr. Hare, with publicists like Sir James\nMackintosh and Robert Hall, with such travellers and administrators as\nManning, the friend of Charles Lamb, and Raffles.\n\nIn Great Britain the name of William Carey had, by 1812, become\nfamiliar as a household word in all evangelical circles.  The men who\nhad known him in the days before 1793 were few and old, were soon to\npass away for ever.  The new generation had fed their Christian zeal on\nhis achievements, and had learned to look on him, in spite of all his\nhumility which only inflamed that zeal, as the pioneer, the father, the\nfounder of foreign missions, English, Scottish, and American.  They had\nnever seen him; they were not likely to see him in the flesh.  The\ndesire for a portrait of him became irresistible.  The burning of the\npress, to be hereafter described, which led even bitter enemies of the\nmission like Major Scott Waring to subscribe for its restoration, gave\nthe desired sympathetic voice, so that Fuller wrote to the\nmissionaries:--\"The public is now giving us their praises.  Eight\nhundred guineas have been offered for Dr. Carey's likeness...When you\npitched your tents at Serampore you said, 'We will not accumulate\nriches but devote all to God for the salvation of the heathen.'  God\nhas given you what you desired and what you desired not.  Blessed men,\nGod will bless you and make you a blessing.  I and others of us may\ndie, but God will surely visit you...Expect to be highly applauded,\nbitterly reproached, greatly moved, and much tried in every way.  Oh\nthat, having done all, you may stand!\"\n\nCarey was, fortunately for posterity, not rebellious in the matter of\nthe portrait; he was passive.  As he sat in his room in the college of\nFort William, his pen in hand, his Sanskrit Bible before him, and his\nBrahman pundit at his left hand, the saint and the scholar in the\nripeness of his powers at fifty was transferred to the canvas which has\nsince adorned the walls of Regent's Park College.  A line engraving of\nthe portrait was published in England the year after at a guinea, and\nwidely purchased, the profit going to the mission.  The painter was\nHome, famous in his day as the artist whom Lord Cornwallis had engaged\nduring the first war with Tipoo to prepare those Select Views in\nMysore, the Country of Tipoo Sultaun, from Drawings taken on the Spot,\nwhich appeared in 1794.\n\nOf his four sons, Felix, William, Jabez, and Jonathan, Carey's\ncorrespondence was most frequent at this period with William, who went\nforth in 1807 to Dinapoor to begin his independent career as a\nmissionary by the side of Fernandez.\n\n\"2nd April 1807.--We have the greatest encouragement to go forward in\nthe work of our Lord Jesus, because we have every reason to conclude\nthat it will be successful at last.  It is the cause which God has had\nin His mind from eternity, the cause for which Christ shed His blood,\nthat for which the Spirit and word of God were given, that which is the\nsubject of many great promises, that for which the saints have been\nalways praying, and which God Himself bears an infinite regard to in\nHis dispensations of Providence and Grace.  The success thereof is\ntherefore certain.  Be encouraged, therefore, my dear son, to devote\nyourself entirely to it, and to pursue it as a matter of the very first\nimportance even to your dying day.\n\n\"Give my love to Mr. and Mrs. Creighton and to Mr. Ellerton, Mr. Grant,\nor any other who knows me about Malda, also to our native Brethren.\"\n\n\"CALCUTTA, 29th September 1808.--A ship is just arrived which brings\nthe account that Buonaparte has taken possession of the whole kingdom\nof Spain, and that the Royal family of that country are in prison at\nBayonne.  It is likely that Turkey is fallen before now, and what will\nbe the end of these wonders we cannot tell.  I see the wrath of God\npoured out on the nations which have so long persecuted His Gospel, and\nprevented the spread of His truth.  Buonaparte is but the minister of\nthe Divine vengeance, the public executioner now employed to execute\nthe sentence of God upon criminal men.  He, however, has no end in view\nbut the gratifying his own ambition.\"\n\n\"22nd December 1808.--DEAR WILLIAM--Be steadfast...Walk worthy of your\nhigh calling, and so as to be a pattern to others who may engage in\nsimilar undertakings.  Much depends upon us who go first to the work of\nthe Lord in this country; and we have reason to believe that succeeding\nMinisters of the Gospel in this country will be more or less influenced\nby our example...All, even the best of men, are more likely to be\ninfluenced by evil example than benefited by good: let it, therefore,\nbe your business and mine to live and act for God in all things and at\nall times.\n\n\"I am very glad you wrote to Jabez and Jonathan.  O that I could see\nthem converted!\"\n\n\"30th May 1809.--When you come down take a little pains to bring down a\nfew plants of some sort.  There is one grows plentifully about\nSadamahal which grows about as high as one's knee, and produces a large\nred flower.  Put half a dozen plants in pots (with a hole in the\nbottom).  There is at Sadamahal (for I found it there) a plant which\nproduces a flower like Bhayt, of a pale bluish colour, almost white;\nand indeed several other things there.  Try and bring something.  Can't\nyou bring the grasshopper which has a saddle on its back, or the bird\nwhich has a large crest which he opens when he settles on the ground?\nI want to give you a little taste for natural objects.  Felix is very\ngood indeed in this respect.\"\n\n\"26th April 1809.--You, my dear William, are situated in a post which\nis very dear to my remembrance because the first years of my residence\nin India were spent in that neighbourhood.  I therefore greatly rejoice\nin any exertions which you are enabled to make for the cause of our\nRedeemer...Should you, after many years' labour, be instrumental in the\nconversion of only one soul, it would be worth the work of a whole\nlife...I am not sure that I have been of real use to any one person\nsince I have been in this country, yet I dare not give up the work in\nwhich I am engaged.  Indeed, notwithstanding all the discouragements\nwhich I feel from my own unfitness for any part of it, I prefer it to\neverything else, and consider that in the work of my Redeemer I have a\nrich reward.  If you are enabled to persevere you will feel the same,\nand will say with the great Apostle--'I count not my life dear to me\nthat I may fulfil the ministry which I have received of the Lord.'\n'Unto me is this grace (favour) given that I should preach among the\nGentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.'  Hold on, therefore, be\nsteady in your work, and leave the result with God.\n\n\"I have been thinking of a mission to the Ten Tribes of Israel, I mean\nthe Afghans, who inhabit Cabul...I leave the other side for your mother\nto write a few lines to Mary, to whom give my love.\"\n\n\"CALCUTTA, 1st November 1809.--Yesterday was the day for the Chinese\nexamination, at which Jabez acquitted himself with much honour.  I wish\nhis heart were truly set on God. One of the greatest blessings which I\nam now anxious to see before my death is the conversion of him and\nJonathan, and their being employed in the work of the Lord.\n\n\"Now, dear William, what do we live for but to promote the cause of our\ndear Redeemer in the world?  If that be carried on we need not wish for\nanything more; and if our poor labours are at all blessed to the\npromotion of that desirable end, our lives will not be in vain.  Let\nthis, therefore, be the great object of your life, and if you should be\nmade the instrument of turning only one soul from darkness to\nmarvellous light, who can say how many more may be converted by his\ninstrumentality, and what a tribute of glory may arise to God from that\none conversion.  Indeed, were you never to be blessed to the conversion\nof one soul, still the pleasure of labouring in the work of the Lord is\ngreater than that of any other undertaking in the world, and is of\nitself sufficient to make it the work of our choice.  I hope Sebuk Ram\nis arrived before now, and that you will find him to be a blessing to\nyou in your work.  Try your utmost to make him well acquainted with the\nBible, labour to correct his mistakes, and to establish him in the\nknowledge of the truth.\n\n\"You may always enclose a pinch of seeds in a letter.\"\n\n\"17th January 1810.--Felix went with Captain Canning, the English\nambassador to the Burman Empire, to the city of Pegu. On his way\nthither he observed to Captain Canning that he should be greatly\ngratified in accompanying the Minister to the mountains of Martaban and\nthe country beyond them.  Captain Canning at his next interview with\nthe Minister mentioned this to him, which he was much pleased with, and\nimmediately ordered several buffalo-carts to be made ready, and gave\nhim a war-boat to return to Rangoon to bring his baggage, medicines,\netc.  He had no time to consult Brother Chater before he determined on\nthe journey, and wrote to me when at Rangoon, where he stayed only one\nnight, and returned to Pegu the next morning.  He says the Minister has\nnow nearly the whole dominion over the Empire, and is going to war.  He\nwill accompany the army to Martaban, when he expects to stay with the\nMinister there.  He goes in great spirits to explore those countries\nwhere no European has been before him, and where he goes with\nadvantages and accommodations such as a traveller seldom can obtain.\nBrother and Sister Chater do not approve of his undertaking, perhaps\nthrough fear for his safety.  I feel as much for that as any one can\ndo, yet I, and indeed Brethren Marshman, Ward, and Rowe, rejoice that\nhe has undertaken the journey.  It will assist him in acquiring the\nlanguage; it will gratify the Minister, it will serve the interests of\nliterature, and perhaps answer many other important purposes, as it\nrespects the mission; and as much of the way will be through\nuninhabited forests, it could not have been safely undertaken except\nwith an army.  He expects to be absent three months.  I shall feel a\ngreat desire to hear from him when he returns, and I doubt not but you\nwill join me in prayer for his safety both of mind and body...\n\n\"One or two words about natural history.  Can you not get me a male and\nfemale khokora--I mean the great bird like a kite, which makes so great\na noise, and often carries off a duck or a kid?  I believe it is an\neagle, and want to examine it.  Send me also all the sorts of ducks and\nwaterfowls you can get, and, in short, every sort of bird you can\nobtain which is not common here.  Send their Bengali names.  Collect me\nall the sorts of insects, and serpents, and lizards you can get which\nare not common here.  Put all the insects together into a bottle of\nrum, except butterflies, which you may dry between two papers, and the\nserpents and lizards the same.  I will send you a small quantity of rum\nfor that purpose.  Send all the country names.  Let me have the birds\nalive; and when you have got a good boat-load send a small boat down\nwith them under charge of a careful person, and I will pay the\nexpenses.  Spare no pains to get me seeds and roots, and get Brother\nRobinson to procure what he can from Bhootan or other parts.\n\n\"Remember me affectionately to Sebuk Ram and his wife, and to all the\nnative brethren and sisters.\"\n\n\"5th February 1810.--Were you hunting the buffalo, or did it charge you\nwithout provocation?  I advise you to abstain from hunting buffaloes or\nother animals, because, though I think it lawful to kill noxious\nanimals, or to kill animals for food, yet the unnecessary killing of\nanimals, and especially the spending much time in the pursuit of them,\nis wrong, and your life is too valuable to be thrown away by exposing\nit to such furious animals as buffaloes and tigers.  If you can kill\nthem without running any risk 'tis very well, but it is wrong to expose\nyourself to danger for an end so much below that to which you are\ndevoted...\n\n\"I believe the cause of our Redeemer increases in the earth, and look\nforward to more decided appearances of divine power.  The destruction\nof the temporal power of the Pope is a glorious circumstance, and an\nanswer to the prayers of the Church for centuries past...\n\n\"I send you a small cask of rum to preserve curiosities in, and a few\nbottles; but your best way will be to draw off a couple of gallons of\nthe rum, which you may keep for your own use, and then put the snakes,\nfrogs, toads, lizards, etc., into the cask, and send them down.  I can\neasily put them into proper bottles, etc., afterwards.  You may,\nhowever, send one or two of the bottles filled with beetles,\ngrasshoppers, and other insects.\"\n\nIn the absence of Mr. Fernandez, the pastor, William had excluded two\nmembers of the Church.\n\n\"4th April 1810.--A very little knowledge of human nature will convince\nyou that this would have been thought an affront in five instances out\nof six.  You would have done better to have advised them, or even to\nhave required them to have kept from the Lord's table till Mr.\nFernandez's return, and to have left it to him to preside over the\ndiscipline of the church.  You, no doubt, did it without thinking of\nthe consequences, and in the simplicity of your heart, and I think Mr.\nFernandez is wrong in treating you with coolness, when a little\nconversation might have put everything to rights.  Of that, however, I\nshall say no more to you, but one of us shall write to him upon the\nsubject as soon as we can.\n\n\"The great thing to be done now is the effecting of a reconciliation\nbetween you, and whether you leave Sadamahal, or stay there, this is\nabsolutely necessary.  In order to this you both must be willing to\nmake some sacrifice of your feelings; and as those feelings, which\nprevent either of you from making concessions where you have acted\namiss, are wrong, the sooner they are sacrificed the better.  I advise\nyou to write to Mr. Fernandez immediately, and acknowledge that you did\nwrong in proceeding to the exclusion of the members without having\nfirst consulted with him, and state that you had no intention of\nhurting his feelings, but acted from what you thought the urgency of\nthe case, and request of him a cordial reconciliation.  I should like\nmuch to see a copy of the letter you send to him.  I have no object in\nview but the good of the Church, and would therefore rather see you\nstoop as low as you can to effect a reconciliation, than avoid it\nthrough any little punctilio of honour or feeling of pride.  You will\nnever repent of having humbled yourself to the dust that peace may be\nrestored, nothing will be a more instructive example to the heathen\naround you, nothing will so completely subdue Brother Fernandez's\ndissatisfaction, and nothing will make you more respected in the Church\nof God.\n\n\"It is highly probable that you will some time or other be removed to\nanother situation, but it cannot be done till you are perfectly\nreconciled to each other, nor can it possibly be done till some time\nafter your reconciliation, as such a step would be considered by all as\nan effect of resentment or dissatisfaction, and would be condemned by\nevery thinking person.  We shall keep our minds steadily on the object,\nand look out for a proper station; but both we and you must act with\ngreat caution and tenderness in this affair.  For this reason also I\nentreat you not to withdraw yourself from the church, or from any part\nof your labours, but go on steadily in the path of duty, suppress and\npray against every feeling of resentment, and bear anything rather than\nbe accessory to a misunderstanding, or the perpetuating of one. 'Let\nthat mind be in you which was also in Christ, who made himself of no\nreputation.'  I hope what I have said will induce you to set in earnest\nabout a reconciliation with Brother Fernandez, and to spare no pains or\nconcession (consistent with truth) to effect it.\"\n\nWilliam had applied to be transferred to Serampore.\n\n\"3rd August 1811.--The necessities of the mission must be consulted\nbefore every other consideration.  Native brethren can itinerate, but\nEuropeans must be employed to open new missions and found new stations.\nFor were we to go upon the plan of sending Europeans where natives\ncould possibly be employed, no subscriptions or profits could support\nthem.  We intend to commence a new station at Dacca, and if you prefer\nthat to Cutwa you may go thither.  One of the first things to be done\nthere will be to open a charity school, and to overlook it.  Dacca\nitself is a very large place, where you may often communicate religious\ninstructions without leaving the town.  There are also a number of\nEuropeans there, so that Mary would not be so much alone, and at any\nrate help would be near.  We can obtain the permission of Government\nfor you to settle there.\n\n\"I ought, however, to say that I think there is much guilt in your\nfears.  You and Mary will be a thousand times more safe in committing\nyourselves to God in the way of duty than in neglecting obvious duty to\ntake care of yourselves.  You see what hardships and dangers a soldier\nmeets in the wicked trade of war.  They are forced to leave home and\nexpose themselves to a thousand dangers, yet they never think of\nobjecting, and in this the officers are in the same situation as the\nmen.  I will engage to say that no military officer would ever refuse\nto go any whither on service because his family must be exposed to\ndanger in his absence; and yet I doubt not but many of them are men who\nhave great tenderness for their wives and families.  However, they must\nbe men and their wives must be women. Your undertaking is infinitely\nsuperior to theirs in importance. They go to kill men, you to save\nthem.  If they leave their families to chance for the sake of war,\nsurely you can leave yours to the God of providence while you go about\nHis work.  I speak thus because I am much distressed to see you thus\nwaste away the flower of your life in inactivity, and only plead for it\nwhat would not excuse a child.  Were you in any secular employment you\nmust go out quite as much as we expect you to do in the Mission.  I did\nso when at Mudnabati, which was as lonesome a place as could have been\nthought of, and when I well knew that many of our own ryots were\ndakoits (robbers).\"\n\nWilliam finally settled at Cutwa, higher up the Hoogli than Serampore,\nand did good service there.\n\n\"1st December 1813.--I have now an assistant at College,\nnotwithstanding which my duties are quite as heavy as they ever were,\nfor we are to receive a number of military students--I suppose thirty\nat least.  The translation, and printing also, is now so much enlarged\nthat I am scarcely able to get through the necessary labour of\ncorrecting proofs and learning the necessary languages.  All these\nthings are causes of rejoicing more than of regret, for they are the\nvery things for which I came into the country, and to which I wish to\ndevote my latest breath...Jabez has offered himself to the Mission, a\ncircumstance which gives me more pleasure than if he had been appointed\nChief Judge of the Supreme Court...Your mother has long been confined\nto her couch, I believe about six months.\"\n\nThe following was written evidently in reply to loving letters on the\ndeath of his wife, Charlotte Emilia:--\n\n\"4th June 1821.--MY DEAR JONATHAN--I feel your affectionate care for me\nvery tenderly.  I have just received very affectionate letters from\nWilliam and Brother Sutton (Orissa).  Lord and Lady Hastings wrote to\nBrother Marshman, thinking it would oppress my feelings to write to me\ndirectly, to offer their kind condolence to me through him.  Will you\nhave the goodness to send five rupees to William for the Cutwa school,\nwhich your dear mother supported.  I will repay you soon, but am now\nvery short of money.--I am your very affectionate father, W. CAREY.\"\n\nOf the many descendants of Dr. Carey, one great grandson is now an\nordained missionary in Bengal, another a medical missionary in Delhi,\nand a third is a member of the Civil Service, who has distinguished\nhimself by travels in Northern Tibet and Chinese Turkestan, which\npromise to unveil much of the unexplored regions of Asia to the scholar\nand the missionary.\n\nThus far we have confined our study of William Carey to his purely\nmissionary career, and that in its earlier half.  We have now to see\nhim as the scholar, the Bible translator, the philanthropist, the\nagriculturist, and the founder of a University.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nPROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, BENGALI, AND MARATHI\n\n1801-1830\n\nCarey the only Sanskrit scholar in India besides Colebrooke--The motive\nof the missionary scholar--Plans translation of the sacred books of the\nEast--Comparative philology from Leibniz to Carey--Hindoo and\nMohammedan codes and colleges of Warren Hastings--The Marquis\nWellesley--The College of Fort William founded--Character of the\nCompany's civil and military servants--Curriculum of study, professors\nand teachers--The vernacular languages--Carey's account of the college\nand his appointment--How he studied Sanskrit--College Disputation Day\nin the new Government House--Carey's Sanskrit speech--Lord Wellesley's\neulogy--Sir James Mackintosh--Carey's pundits--He projects the\nBibliotheca Asiatica--On the Committee of the Bengal Asiatic\nSociety--Edition and translation of the Ramayana epic--The\nHitopadesa--His Universal Dictionary--Influence of Carey on the civil\nand military services--W. B. Bayley; B. H. Hodgson; R. Jenkins; R. M.\nand W. Bird; John Lawrence.\n\nWhen, in the opening days of the nineteenth century, William Carey was\ndriven to settle in Danish Serampore, he was the only member of the\ngoverning race in North India who knew the language of the people so as\nto teach it; the only scholar, with the exception of Colebrooke, who\ncould speak Sanskrit as fluently as the Brahmans. The Bengali language\nhe had made the vehicle of the teaching of Christ, of the thought of\nPaul, of the revelation of John. Of the Sanskrit, hitherto concealed\nfrom alien eyes or diluted only through the Persian, he had prepared a\ngrammar and begun a dictionary, while he had continually used its great\nepics in preaching to the Brahmans, as Paul had quoted the Greek poets\non the Areopagus.  And all this he had done as the missionary of Christ\nand the scholar afterwards.  Reporting to Ryland, in August 1800, the\npublication of the Gospels and of \"several small pieces\" in Bengali, he\nexcused his irregularity in keeping a journal, \"for in the printing I\nhave to look over the copy and correct the press, which is much more\nlaborious than it would be in England, because spelling, writing,\nprinting, etc., in Bengali is almost a new thing, and we have in a\nmanner to fix the orthography.\"  A little later, in a letter to\nSutcliff, he used language regarding the sacred books of the Hindoos\nwhich finds a parallel more than eighty years after in Professor Max\nM\u00fcller's preface to his series of the sacred books of the East, the\ntranslation of which Carey was the first to plan and to begin from the\nhighest of all motives.  Mr. Max M\u00fcller calls attention to the \"real\nmischief that has been and is still being done by the enthusiasm of\nthose pioneers who have opened the first avenues through the\nbewildering forests of the sacred literature of the East.\" He declares\nthat \"Eastern nations themselves would not tolerate, in any of their\nclassical literary compositions, such violations of the simplest rules\nof taste as they have accustomed themselves to tolerate, if not to\nadmire, in their sacred books.\" And he is compelled to leave\nuntranslated, while he apologises for them, the frequent allusions to\nthe sexual aspects of nature, \"particularly in religious books.\"  The\nrevelations of the Maharaj trial in Bombay are the practical fruit of\nall this.\n\n\"CALCUTTA, 17th March 1802.--I have been much astonished lately at the\nmalignity of some of the infidel opposers of the Gospel, to see how\nready they are to pick every flaw they can in the inspired writings,\nand even to distort the meaning, that they may make it appear\ninconsistent; while these very persons will labour to reconcile the\ngrossest contradictions in the writings accounted sacred by the\nHindoos, and will stoop to the meanest artifices in order to apologise\nfor the numerous glaring falsehoods and horrid violations of all\ndecency and decorum, which abound in almost every page.  Any thing, it\nseems, will do with these men but the word of God. They ridicule the\nfigurative language of Scripture, but will run allegory-mad in support\nof the most worthless productions that ever were published.  I should\nthink it time lost to translate any of them; and only a sense of duty\nexcites me to read them.  An idea, however, of the advantage which the\nfriends of Christianity may obtain by having these mysterious sacred\nnothings (which have maintained their celebrity so long merely by being\nkept from the inspection of any but interested Brahmans) exposed to\nview, has induced me, among other things, to write the Sanskrit\ngrammar, and to begin a dictionary of that language.  I sincerely pity\nthe poor people, who are held by the chains of an implicit faith in the\ngrossest of lies; and can scarcely help despising the wretched infidel\nwho pleads in their favour and tries to vindicate them.  I have long\nwished to obtain a copy of the Veda; and am now in hopes I shall be\nable to procure all that are extant.  A Brahman this morning offered to\nget them for me for the sake of money.  If I succeed, I shall be\nstrongly tempted to publish them with a translation, pro bono publico.\"\n\nIt was not surprising that the Governor-General, even if he had been\nless enlightened than Lord Wellesley, found in this missionary\ninterloper, as the East India Company officially termed the class to\nwhich he belonged, the only man fit to be Professor of Bengali,\nSanskrit, and Marathi in the College of Fort William, and also\ntranslator of the laws and regulations of the Government.\n\nIn a memoir read before the Berlin Academy of Sciences, which he had\nfounded in the first year of the eighteenth century, Leibniz first\nsowed the seed of the twin sciences of comparative philology and\nethnology, to which we owe the fruitful results of the historical and\ncritical school.  That century was passed in the necessary collection\nof facts, of data.  Carey introduced the second period, so far as the\nlearned and vernacular languages of North India are concerned--of\ndeveloping from the body of facts which his industry enormously\nextended, the principles upon which these languages were constructed,\nbesides applying these principles, in the shape of grammars,\ndictionaries, and translations, to the instruction and Christian\ncivilisation alike of the learned and of the millions of the people.\nTo the last, as at the first, he was undoubtedly only what he called\nhimself, a pioneer to prepare the way for more successful civilisers\nand scholars.  But his pioneering was acknowledged by contemporary[14]\nand later Orientalists, like Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson, to be of\nunexampled value in the history of scientific research and industry,\nwhile the succeeding pages will show that in its practical results the\npioneering came as nearly to victory as is possible, until native India\nlives its own national Christian life.\n\nWhen India first became a united British Empire under one\nGovernor-General and the Regulating Act of Parliament of 1773, Warren\nHastings had at once carried out the provision he himself had suggested\nfor using the moulavies and pundits in the administration of Mussulman\nand Hindoo law.  Besides colleges in Calcutta and Benares to train\nsuch, he caused those codes of Mohammedan and Brahmanical law to be\nprepared which afterwards appeared as The Hedaya and The Code of Gentoo\nLaws. The last was compiled in Sanskrit by pundits summoned from all\nBengal and maintained in Calcutta at the public cost, each at a rupee a\nday.  It was translated through the Persian, the language of the\ncourts, by the elder Halhed into English in 1776.  That was the first\nstep in English Orientalism.  The second was taken by Sir William\nJones, a predecessor worthy of Carey, but cut off all too soon while\nstill a young man of thirty-four, when he founded the Bengal Asiatic\nSociety in 1784 on the model of Boyle's Royal Society.  The code of\nWarren Hastings had to be arranged and supplemented into a reliable\ndigest of the original texts, and the translation of this work, as done\nby pundit Jaganatha, was left, by the death of Jones, to Colebrooke,\nwho completed it in 1797.  Charles Wilkins had made the first direct\ntranslation from the Sanskrit into English in 1785, when he published\nin London The Bhagavat-Geeta or Dialogue of Krishna and Arjoon, and his\nis the imperishable honour thus chronicled by a contemporary\npoetaster:--\n\n  \"But he performed a yet more noble part,\n  He gave to Asia typographic art.\"\n\nIn Bengali Halhed had printed at Hoogli in 1783, with types cut by\nWilkins, the first grammar, but it had become obsolete and was\nimperfect.  Such had been the tentative efforts of the civilians and\nofficials of the Company when Carey began anew the work from the only\nsecure foundation, the level of daily sympathetic intercourse with the\npeople and their Brahmans, with the young as well as the old.\n\nThe Marquis Wellesley was of nearly the same age as Carey, whom he soon\nlearned to appreciate and to use for the highest good of the empire.\nOf the same name and original English descent as John and Charles\nWesley, the Governor-General was the eldest and not the least brilliant\nof the Irish family which, besides him, gave to the country the Duke of\nWellington and Lord Cowley.  While Carey was cobbling shoes in an\nunknown hamlet of the Midlands and was aspiring to convert the world,\nyoung Wellesley was at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, acquiring the\nclassical scholarship which, as we find its fruits in his Primiti[oe] et\nReliqui[oe], extorted the praise of De Quincey.  When Carey was starving\nin Calcutta unknown the young lord was making his mark in the House of\nCommons by a speech against the Jacobins of France in the style of\nBurke.  The friend of Pitt, he served his apprenticeship to Indian\naffairs in the Board of Control, where he learned to fight the\ndirectors of the East India Company, and he landed at Calcutta in 1798,\njust in time to save the nascent empire from ruin by the second Mysore\nwar and the fall of Tipoo at Seringapatam.  Like that other marquis who\nmost closely resembled him half a century after, the Scottish\nDalhousie, his hands were no sooner freed from the uncongenial bonds of\nwar than he became even more illustrious by his devotion to the\nprogress which peace makes possible.  He created the College of Fort\nWilliam, dating the foundation of what was fitted and intended to be\nthe greatest seat of learning in the East from the first anniversary of\nthe victory of Seringapatam.  So splendidly did he plan, so wisely did\nhe organise, and with such lofty aims did he select the teachers of the\ncollege, that long after his death he won from De Quincey the impartial\neulogy, that of his three services to his country and India this was\nthe \"first, to pave the way for the propagation of Christianity--mighty\nservice, stretching to the clouds, and which in the hour of death must\nhave given him consolation.\"\n\nWhen Wellesley arrived at Calcutta he had been shocked by the sensual\nignorance of the Company's servants.  Sunday was universally given up\nto horse-racing and gambling.  Boys of sixteen were removed from the\nEnglish public schools where they had hardly mastered the rudiments of\neducation to become the magistrates, judges, revenue collectors, and\ngovernors of millions of natives recently brought under British sway.\nAt a time when the passions most need regulation and the conscience\ntraining, these lads found themselves in India with large incomes,\nflattered by native subordinates, encouraged by their superiors to lead\nlives of dissipation, and without the moral control even of the weakest\npublic opinion.  The Eton boy and Oxford man was himself still young,\nand he knew the world, but he saw that all this meant ruin to both the\ncivil and military services, and to the Company's system.  The\ndirectors addressed in a public letter, dated 25th May 1798, \"an\nobjurgation on the character and conduct\" of their servants.  They\nre-echoed the words of the new Governor-General in their condemnation\nof a state of things, \"highly discreditable to our Government, and\ntotally incompatible with the religion we profess.\"  Such a service as\nthis, preceding the creation of the college, led Pitt's other friend,\nWilberforce, in the discussions on the charter of 1813, to ascribe to\nLord Wellesley, when summoning him to confirm and revise it, the system\nof diffusing useful knowledge of all sorts as the true foe not only of\nignorance but of vice and of political and social decay.\n\nCalled upon to prevent the evils he had been the first to denounce\nofficially, Lord Wellesley wrote his magnificent state paper of 1800,\nwhich he simply termed Notes on the necessity of a special collegiate\ntraining of Civil Servants.  The Company's factories had grown into the\nIndian Empire of Great Britain.  The tradesmen and clerks, whom the\nCompany still called \"writer,\" \"factor,\" and \"merchant,\" in their\nseveral grades, had, since Clive obtained a military commission in\ndisgust at such duties, become the judges and rulers of millions,\nresponsible to Parliament.  They must be educated in India itself, and\ntrained to be equal to the responsibilities and temptations of their\nposition.  If appointed by patronage at home when still at school, they\nmust be tested after training in India so that promotion shall depend\non degrees of merit.  Lord Wellesley anticipated the modified system of\ncompetition which Macaulay offered to the Company in 1853, and the\nrefusal of which led to the unrestricted system which has prevailed\nwith varying results since that time.  Nor was the college only for the\nyoung civilians as they arrived.  Those already at work were to be\nencouraged to study.  Military officers were to be invited to take\nadvantage of an institution which was intended to be \"the university of\nCalcutta,\" \"a light amid the darkness of Asia,\" and that at a time when\nin all England there was not a military college. Finally, the college\nwas designed to be a centre of Western learning in an Eastern dress for\nthe natives of India and Southern Asia, alike as students and teachers.\nA noble site was marked out for it on the stately sweep of Garden\nReach, where every East Indiaman first dropped its anchor, and the\nbuilding was to be worthy of the founder who erected Government House.\n\nThe curriculum of study included Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit;\nBengali, Marathi, Hindostani (Hindi), Telugoo, Tamil, and Kanarese;\nEnglish, the Company's, Mohammedan and Hindoo law, civil jurisprudence,\nand the law of nations; ethics; political economy, history, geography,\nand mathematics; the Greek, Latin, and English classics, and the modern\nlanguages of Europe; the history and antiquities of India; natural\nhistory, botany, chemistry, and astronomy.  The discipline was that of\nthe English universities as they then were, under the Governor-General\nhimself, his colleagues, and the appellate judges.  The senior\nchaplain, the Rev. David Brown, was provost in charge of the\ndiscipline; and Dr. Claudius Buchanan was vice-provost in charge of the\nstudies, as well as professor of Greek, Latin, and English.  Dr.\nGilchrist was professor of Hindostani, in teaching which he had already\nmade a fortune; Lieutenant J. Baillie of Arabic; and Mr. H. B.\nEdmonstone of Persian.  Sir George Barlow expounded the laws or\nregulations of the British Government in India.  The Church of England\nconstitution of the college at first, to which Buchanan had applied the\nEnglish Test Act, and his own modesty, led Carey to accept of his\nappointment, which was thus gazetted:--\"The Rev. William Carey, teacher\nof the Bengali and Sanskrit languages.\"\n\nThe first notice of the new college which we find in Carey's\ncorrespondence is this, in a letter to Sutcliff dated 27th November\n1800:--\"There is a college erected at Fort William, of which the Rev.\nD. Brown is appointed provost, and C. Buchanan classical tutor: all the\nEastern languages are to be taught in it.\" \"All\" the languages of India\nwere to be taught, the vernacular as well as the classical and purely\nofficial.  This was a reform not less radical and beneficial in its\nfar-reaching influence, and not less honourable to the scholarly\nforesight of Lord Wellesley, than Lord William Bentinck's new era of\nthe English language thirty-five years after.  The rulers and\nadministrators of the new empire were to begin their career by a three\nyears' study of the mother tongue of the people, to whom justice was\nadministered in a language foreign alike to them and their governors,\nand of the Persian language of their foreign Mohammedan conquerors.\nThat the peoples of India, \"every man in his own language,\" might hear\nand read the story of what the one true and living God had done for us\nmen and our salvation, Carey had nine years before given himself to\nacquire Bengali and the Sanskrit of which it is one of a numerous\nfamily of daughters, as the tongues of the Latin nations of Europe and\nSouth America are of the offspring of the speech of Caesar and Cicero.\nNow, following the missionary pioneer, as educational, scientific, and\neven political progress has ever since done in the India which would\nhave kept him out, Lord Wellesley decreed that, like the missionary,\nthe administrator and the military officer shall master the language of\nthe people.  The five great vernaculars of India were accordingly\nnamed, and the greatest of all, the Hindi, which was not scientifically\nelaborated till long after, was provided for under the mixed dialect or\nlingua franca known as Hindostani.\n\nWhen Carey and his colleagues were congratulating themselves on a\nreform which has already proved as fruitful of results as the first\ncentury of the Renascence of Europe, he little thought, in his modesty,\nthat he would be recognised as the only man who was fit to carry it\nout.  Having guarded the college, as they thought, by a test, Brown and\nBuchanan urged Carey to take charge of the Bengali and Sanskrit classes\nas \"teacher\" on Rs. 500 a month or \u00a3700 a year. Such an office was\nentirely in the line of the constitution of the missionary brotherhood.\nBut would the Government which had banished it to Serampore recognise\nthe aggressively missionary character of Carey, who would not degrade\nhis high calling by even the suspicion of a compromise?  To be called\nand paid as a teacher rather than as the professor whose double work he\nwas asked to do, was nothing to the modesty of the scholar who pleaded\nhis sense of unfitness for the duties.  His Master, not himself, was\never Carey's first thought, and the full professorship, rising to \u00a31800\na year, was soon conferred on the man who proved himself to be almost\nas much the college in his own person as were the other professors put\ntogether.  A month after his appointment he thus told the story to Dr.\nRyland in the course of a long letter devoted chiefly to the first\nnative converts:--\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 15th June 1801...We sent you some time ago a box full of\ngods and butterflies, etc., and another box containing a hundred copies\nof the New Testament in Bengali...Mr. Lang is studying Bengali, under\nme, in the college.  What I have last mentioned requires some\nexplanation, though you will probably hear of it before this reaches\nyou.  You must know, then, that a college was founded last year in Fort\nWilliam, for the instruction of the junior civil servants of the\nCompany, who are obliged to study in it three years after their\narrival.  I always highly approved of the institution, but never\nentertained a thought that I should be called to fill a station in it.\nTo my great surprise I was asked to undertake the Bengali\nprofessorship.  One morning a letter from Mr. Brown came, inviting me\nto cross the water, to have some conversation with him upon this\nsubject.  I had but just time to call our brethren together, who were\nof opinion that, for several reasons, I ought to accept it, provided it\ndid not interfere with the work of the mission.  I also knew myself to\nbe incapable of filling such a station with reputation and propriety.\nI, however, went over, and honestly proposed all my fears and\nobjections.  Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Buchanan were of opinion that the\ncause of the mission would be furthered by it; and I was not able to\nreply to their arguments.  I was convinced that it might.  As to my\nability, they could not satisfy me; but they insisted upon it that they\nmust be the judges of that.  I therefore consented, with fear and\ntrembling.  They proposed me that day, or the next, to the\nGovernor-General, who is patron and visitor of the college.  They told\nhim that I had been a missionary in the country for seven years or\nmore; and as a missionary I was appointed to the office.  A clause had\nbeen inserted in the statutes to accommodate those who are not of the\nChurch of England (for all professors are to take certain oaths, and\nmake declarations); but, for the accommodation of such, two other names\nwere inserted, viz., lecturers and teachers, who are not included under\nthat obligation.  When I was proposed, his lordship asked if I was well\naffected to the state, and capable of fulfilling the duties of the\nstation; to which Mr. B. replied that he should never have proposed me\nif he had had the smallest doubt on those heads.  I wonder how people\ncan have such favourable ideas of me.  I certainly am not disaffected\nto the state; but the other is not clear to me.\n\n\"When the appointment was made, I saw that I had a very important\ncharge committed to me, and no books or helps of any kind to assist me.\nI therefore set about compiling a grammar, which is now half printed.\nI got Ram Basu to compose a history of one of their kings, the first\nprose book ever written in the Bengali language; which we are also\nprinting.  Our pundit has also nearly translated the Sanskrit fables,\none or two of which Brother Thomas sent you, which we are also going to\npublish, These, with Mr. Foster's vocabulary, will prepare the way to\nreading their poetical books; so that I hope this difficulty will be\ngotten through.  But my ignorance of the way of conducting collegiate\nexercises is a great weight upon my mind. I have thirteen students in\nmy class; I lecture twice a week, and have nearly gone through one\nterm, not quite two months.  It began 4th May.  Most of the students\nhave gotten through the accidents, and some have begun to translate\nBengali into English.  The examination begins this week.  I am also\nappointed teacher of the Sanskrit language; and though no students have\nyet entered in that class, yet I must prepare for it.  I am, therefore,\nwriting a grammar of that language, which I must also print, if I\nshould be able to get through with it, and perhaps a dictionary, which\nI began some years ago.  I say all this, my dear brother, to induce you\nto give me your advice about the best manner of conducting myself in\nthis station, and to induce you to pray much for me, that God may, in\nall things, be glorified by me.  We presented a copy of the Bengali New\nTestament to Lord Wellesley, after the appointment, through the medium\nof the Rev. D. Brown, which was graciously received.  We also presented\nGovernor Bie with one.\n\n\"Serampore is now in the hands of the English.  It was taken while we\nwere in bed and asleep; you may therefore suppose that it was done\nwithout bloodshed.  You may be perfectly easy about us: we are equally\nsecure under the English or Danish Government, and I am sure well\ndisposed to both.\"\n\nFor seven years, since his first settlement in the Dinapoor district,\nCarey had given one-third of his long working day to the study of\nSanskrit.  In 1796 he reported:--\"I am now learning the Sanskrit\nlanguage, that I may be able to read their Shasters for myself; and I\nhave acquired so much of the Hindi or Hindostani as to converse in it\nand speak for some time intelligibly...Even the language of Ceylon has\nso much affinity with that of Bengal that out of twelve words, with the\nlittle Sanskrit that I know, I can understand five or six.\"  In 1798 he\nwrote:--\"I constantly employ the forenoon in temporal affairs; the\nafternoon in reading, writing, learning Sanskrit, etc.; and the evening\nby candle light in translating the Scriptures...Except I go out to\npreach, which is often the case, I never deviate from this rule.\"\nThree years before that he had been able to confute the Brahmans from\ntheir own writings; in 1798 he quoted and translated the Rig Veda and\nthe Purana in reply to a request for an account of the beliefs of the\npriesthood, apologising, however, with his usual self-depreciation:--\"I\nam just beginning to see for myself by reading the original Shasters.\"\nIn 1799 we find him reading the Mahabharata epic with the hope of\nfinding some allusion or fact which might enable him to equate Hindoo\nchronology with reliable history, as Dr. John Wilson of Bombay and\nJames Prinsep did a generation later, by the discovery of the name of\nAntiochus the Great in two of the edicts of Asoka, written on the\nGirnar rock.\n\nBy September 1804 Carey had completed the first three years' course of\ncollegiate training in Sanskrit.  The Governor-General summoned a\nbrilliant assembly to listen to the disputations and declamations of\nthe students who were passing out, and of their professors, in the\nvarious Oriental languages.  The new Government House, as it was still\ncalled, having been completed only the year before at a cost of\n\u00a3140,000, was the scene, in \"the southern room on the marble floor,\"\nwhere, ever since, all through the century, the Sovereign's Viceroys\nhave received the homage of the tributary kings of our Indian empire.\nThere, from Dalhousie and Canning to Lawrence and Mayo, and their still\nsurviving successors, we have seen pageants and durbars more splendid,\nand representing a wider extent of territory, from Yarkand to Bangkok,\nthan even the Sultanised Englishman as Sir James Mackintosh called\nWellesley, ever dreamed of in his most imperial aspirations.  There\ncouncils have ever since been held, and laws have been passed affecting\nthe weal of from two to three hundred millions of our fellow-subjects.\nThere, too, we have stood with Duff and Cotton, Ritchie and Outram,\nrepresenting the later University of Calcutta which Wellesley would\nhave anticipated.  But we question if, ever since, the marble hall of\nthe Governor-General's palace has witnessed a sight more profoundly\nsignificant than that of William Carey addressing the Marquis Wellesley\nin Sanskrit, and in the presence of the future Duke of Wellington, in\nsuch words as follow.\n\nThe seventy students, their governors, officers, and professors, rose\nto their feet, when, at ten o'clock on Thursday the 20th of September\n1804, His Excellency the Visitor entered the room, accompanied, as the\nofficial gazette duly chronicles, by \"the Honourable the Chief Justice,\nthe judges of the Supreme Court, the members of the Supreme Council,\nthe members of the Council of the College, Major-General Cameron,\nMajor-General the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, Major-General\nDowdeswell, and Solyman Aga, the envoy from Baghdad.  All the principal\ncivil and military officers at the Presidency, and many of the British\ninhabitants, were present on this occasion; and also many learned\nnatives.\"\n\nAfter Romer had defended, in Hindostani, the thesis that the Sanskrit\nis the parent language in India, and Swinton, in Persian, that the\npoems of Hafiz are to be understood in a figurative or mystical sense,\nthere came a Bengali declamation by Tod senior on the position that the\ntranslations of the best works extant in the Sanskrit with the popular\nlanguages of India would promote the extension of science and\ncivilisation, opposed by Hayes; then Carey, as moderator, made an\nappropriate Bengali speech.  A similar disputation in Arabic and a\nSanskrit declamation followed, when Carey was called on to conclude\nwith a speech in Sanskrit.  Two days after, at a second assemblage of\nthe same kind, followed by a state dinner.  Lord Wellesley presented\nthe best students with degrees of merit inscribed on vellum in Oriental\ncharacters, and delivered an oration, in which he specially\ncomplimented the Sanskrit classes, urged more general attention to the\nBengali language, and expressed satisfaction that a successful\nbeginning had been made in the study of Marathi.\n\nIt was considered a dangerous experiment for a missionary, speaking in\nSanskrit, to avow himself such not only before the Governor-General in\nofficial state but before the Hindoo and Mohammedan nobles who\nsurrounded him.  We may be sure that Carey would not show less of his\nMaster's charity and wisdom than he had always striven to do.  But the\nnecessity was the more laid on him that he should openly confess his\ngreat calling, for he had told Fuller on Lord Wellesley's arrival he\nwould do so if it were possible.  Buchanan, being quite as anxious to\nbring the mission forward on this occasion, added much to the English\ndraft--\"the whole of the flattery is his,\" wrote Carey to Fuller--and\nsent it on to Lord Wellesley with apprehension.  This answer came back\nfrom the great Proconsul:--\"I am much pleased with Mr. Carey's truly\noriginal and excellent speech.  I would not wish to have a word\naltered.  I esteem such a testimony from such a man a greater honour\nthan the applause of Courts and Parliaments.\"\n\n\"MY LORD, it is just that the language which has been first cultivated\nunder your auspices should primarily be employed in gratefully\nacknowledging the benefit, and in speaking your praise. This ancient\nlanguage, which refused to disclose itself to the former Governors of\nIndia, unlocks its treasures at your command, and enriches the world\nwith the history, learning, and science of a distant age.  The rising\nimportance of our collegiate institution has never been more clearly\ndemonstrated than on the present occasion; and thousands of the learned\nin distant nations will exult in this triumph of literature.\n\n\"What a singular exhibition has been this day presented to us!  In\npresence of the supreme Governor of India, and of its most learned and\nillustrious characters, Asiatic and European, an assembly is convened,\nin which no word of our native tongue is spoken, but public discourse\nis maintained on interesting subjects in the languages of Asia. The\ncolloquial Hindostani, the classic Persian, the commercial Bengali, the\nlearned Arabic, and the prim\u00e6val Sanskrit are spoken fluently, after\nhaving been studied grammatically, by English youth.  Did ever any\nuniversity in Europe, or any literary institution in any other age or\ncountry, exhibit a scene so interesting as this?  And what are the\ncircumstances of these youth?  They are not students who prosecute a\ndead language with uncertain purpose, impelled only by natural genius\nor love of fame.  But having been appointed to the important offices of\nadministering the government of the country in which these languages\nare spoken, they apply their acquisitions immediately to useful\npurpose; in distributing justice to the inhabitants; in transacting the\nbusiness of the state, revenual and commercial; and in maintaining\nofficial intercourse with the people, in their own tongue, and not, as\nhitherto, by an interpreter.  The acquisitions of our students may be\nappreciated by their affording to the suppliant native immediate access\nto his principal; and by their elucidating the spirit of the\nregulations of our Government by oral communication, and by written\nexplanations, varied according to the circumstances and capacities of\nthe people.\n\n\"The acquisitions of our students are appreciated at this moment by\nthose learned Asiatics now present in this assembly, some of them\nstrangers from distant provinces; who wonder every man to hear in his\nown tongue important subjects discussed, and new and noble principles\nasserted, by the youth of a foreign land.  The literary proceedings of\nthis day amply repay all the solicitude, labour, and expense that have\nbeen bestowed on this institution.  If the expense had been a thousand\ntimes greater, it would not have equalled the immensity of the\nadvantage, moral and political, that will ensue.\n\n\"I, now an old man, have lived for a long series of years among the\nHindoos.  I have been in the habit of preaching to multitudes daily, of\ndiscoursing with the Brahmans on every subject, and of superintending\nschools for the instruction of the Hindoo youth. Their language is\nnearly as familiar to me as my own.  This close intercourse with the\nnatives for so long a period, and in different parts of our empire, has\nafforded me opportunities of information not inferior to those which\nhave hitherto been presented to any other person.  I may say indeed\nthat their manners, customs, habits, and sentiments are as obvious to\nme as if I was myself a native. And knowing them as I do, and hearing\nas I do their daily observations on our government, character, and\nprinciples, I am warranted to say (and I deem it my duty to embrace the\npublic opportunity now afforded me of saying it) that the institution\nof this college was wanting to complete the happiness of the natives\nunder our dominion; for this institution will break down that barrier\n(our ignorance of their language) which has ever opposed the influence\nof our laws and principles, and has despoiled our administration of its\nenergy and effect.\n\n\"Were the institution to cease from this moment, its salutary effects\nwould yet remain.  Good has been done, which cannot be undone.  Sources\nof useful knowledge, moral instruction, and political utility have been\nopened to the natives of India which can never be closed; and their\ncivil improvement, like the gradual civilisation of our own country,\nwill advance in progression for ages to come.\n\n\"One hundred original volumes in the Oriental languages and literature\nwill preserve for ever in Asia the name of the founder of this\ninstitution.  Nor are the examples frequent of a renown, possessing\nsuch utility for its basis, or pervading such a vast portion of the\nhabitable globe.  My lord, you have raised a monument of fame which no\nlength of time or reverse of fortune is able to destroy; not chiefly\nbecause it is inscribed with Maratha and Mysore, with the trophies of\nwar and the emblems of victory, but because there are inscribed on it\nthe names of those learned youth who have obtained degrees of honour\nfor high proficiency in the Oriental tongues.\n\n\"These youth will rise in regular succession to the Government of this\ncountry.  They will extend the domain of British civilisation,\nsecurity, and happiness, by enlarging the bounds of Oriental literature\nand thereby diffusing the spirit of Christian principles throughout the\nnations of Asia. These youth, who have lived so long amongst us, whose\nunwearied application to their studies we have all witnessed, whose\nmoral and exemplary conduct has, in so solemn a manner, been publicly\ndeclared before this august assembly, on this day; and who, at the\nmoment of entering on the public service, enjoy the fame of possessing\nqualities (rarely combined) constituting a reputation of threefold\nstrength for public men, genius, industry, and virtue;--these\nillustrious scholars, my lord, the pride of their country, and the\npillars of this empire, will record your name in many a language and\nsecure your fame for ever.  Your fame is already recorded in their\nhearts.  The whole body of youth of this service hail you as their\nfather and their friend.  Your honour will ever be safe in their hands.\nNo revolution of opinion or change of circumstances can rob you of the\nsolid glory derived from the humane, just, liberal, and magnanimous\nprinciples which have been embodied by your administration.\n\n\"To whatever situation the course of future events may call you, the\nyouth of this service will ever remain the pledges of the wisdom and\npurity of your government.  Your evening of life will be constantly\ncheered with new testimonies of their reverence and affection, with new\nproofs of the advantages of the education you have afforded them, and\nwith a demonstration of the numerous benefits, moral, religious, and\npolitical, resulting from this institution;--benefits which will\nconsolidate the happiness of millions of Asia, with the glory and\nwelfare of our country.\"\n\nThe Court of Directors had never liked Lord Wellesley, and he had, in\ncommon with Colebrooke, keenly wounded them by proposing a free trade\nmovement against their monopoly.  They ordered that his favourite\ncollege should be immediately abolished.  He took good care so to\nprotract the operation as to give him time to call in the aid of the\nBoard of Control, which saved the institution, but confined it to the\nteaching of languages to the civilians of the Bengal Presidency only.\nThe Directors, when thus overruled chiefly by Pitt, created a similar\ncollege at Haileybury, which continued till the open competitive system\nof 1854 swept that also away; and the Company itself soon followed, as\nthe march of events had made it an anachronism.\n\nThe first law professor at Haileybury was James Mackintosh, an Aberdeen\nstudent who had leaped into the front rank of publicists and scholars\nby his answer to Burke, in the Vindici[oe] Gallic[oe], and his famous defence\nof M. Peltier accused of a libel on Napoleon Buonaparte.  Knighted and\nsent out to Bombay as its first recorder, Sir James Mackintosh became\nthe centre of scholarly society in Western India, as Sir William Jones\nhad been in Bengal.  He was the friend of Robert Hall, the younger, who\nwas filling Carey's pulpit in Leicester, and he soon became the\nadmiring correspondent of Carey himself.  His first act during his\nseven years' residence in Bombay was to establish the \"Literary\nSociety.\"  He drew up a \"Plan of a comparative vocabulary of Indian\nlanguages,\" to be filled up by the officials of every district, like\nthat which Carey had long been elaborating for his own use as a\nphilologist and Bible translator. In his first address to the Literary\nSociety he thus eulogised the College of Fort William, though fresh\nfrom a chair in its English rival, Haileybury:--\"The original plan was\nthe most magnificent attempt ever made for the promotion of learning in\nthe East...Even in its present mutilated state we have seen, at the\nlast public exhibition, Sanskrit declamation by English youth, a\ncircumstance so extraordinary, that if it be followed by suitable\nadvances it will mark an epoch in the history of learning.\"\n\nCarey continued till 1831 to be the most notable figure in the College\nof Fort William.  He was the centre of the learned natives whom it\nattracted, as pundits and moonshees, as inquirers and visitors.  His\nown special pundit was the chief one, Mrityunjaya Vidyalankar, whom\nHome has immortalised in Carey's portrait.  In the college for more\nthan half the week, as in his study at Serampore, Carey exhausted three\npundits daily.  His college-room was the centre of incessant literary\nwork, as his Serampore study was of Bible translation.  When he\ndeclared that the college staff had sent forth one hundred original\nvolumes in the Oriental languages and literature, he referred to the\ngrammars and dictionaries, the reading-books, compilations, and\neditions prepared for the students by the professors and their native\nassistants.  But he contributed the largest share, and of all his\ncontributions the most laborious and valuable was this project of the\nBibliotheca Asiatica.\n\n\"24th July, 1805.--By the enclosed Gazette you will see that the\nAsiatic Society and the College have agreed to allow us a yearly\nstipend for translating Sanskrit works: this will maintain three\nmissionary stations, and we intend to apply it to that purpose.  An\naugmentation of my salary has been warmly recommended by the College\nCouncil, but has not yet taken place, and as Lord Cornwallis is now\narrived and Lord Wellesley going away, it may not take place.  If it\nshould, it will be a further assistance.  The business of the\ntranslation of Sanskrit works is as follows: About two years ago I\npresented proposals (to the Council of the College) to print the\nSanskrit books at a fixed price, with a certain indemnity for 100\ncopies.  The plan was thought too extensive by some, and was therefore\nlaid by.  A few months ago Dr. Francis Buchanan came to me, by desire\nof Marquis Wellesley, about the translation of his manuscripts.  In the\ncourse of conversation I mentioned the proposal I had made, of which he\nmuch approved, and immediately communicated the matter to Sir John\nAnstruther, who is president of the Asiatic Society.  Sir John had then\nbeen drawing out a proposal to Lord Wellesley to form a catalogue\nraisonn\u00e8 of the ancient Hindoo books, which he sent to me, and entering\nwarmly into my plan, desired that I would send in a set of proposals.\nAfter some amendments it was agreed that the College of Fort William\nand the Asiatic Society should subscribe in equal shares 300 rupees a\nmonth to defray the current expenses, that we should undertake any work\napproved of by them, and print the original with an English translation\non such paper and with such a type as they shall approve; the copy to\nbe ours.  They have agreed to recommend the work to all the learned\nbodies in Europe.  I have recommended the Ramayana to begin with, it\nbeing one of the most popular of all the Hindoo books accounted sacred.\nThe Veda are so excessively insipid that, had we begun with them, we\nshould have sickened the public at the outset.  The Ramayana will\nfurnish the best account of Hindoo mythology that any one book will,\nand has extravagancy enough to excite a wish to read it through.\"\n\nIn 1807 Carey became one of the most active members of the Bengal\nAsiatic Society.  His name at once appears as one of the Committee of\nPapers.  In the ninth volume of the Asiatic Researches for that year,\nscholars were invited to communicate translations and descriptive\naccounts of Asiatic books.  Carey's edition of The Ramayana of\nValmeeki, in the original Sanskrit, with a prose translation and\nexplanatory notes, appeared from the Serampore press in three\nsuccessive quartos from 1806 to 1810.  The translation was done by \"Dr.\nCarey and Joshua Marshman.\"  Until Gorresio published his edition and\nItalian translation of the whole poem this was the first and only\nattempt to open the seal of the second great Sankrit epic to the\nEuropean world.  In 1802 Carey had encouraged the publication at his\nown press of translations of both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into\nBengali.  Carey's Ramayana excited a keen interest not only among the\nlearned of Europe, but among poetical students.  Southey eagerly turned\nto it for materials for his Curse of Kehama, in the notes to which he\nmakes long quotations from \"the excellent and learned Baptist\nmissionaries of Serampore.\"  Dean Milman, when professor of poetry in\nOxford, drew from the same storehouse many of the notes with which he\nenriched his verse translations from both epics.  A. W. von Schlegel,\nthe death of whose eldest brother at Madras early led him to Oriental\nstudies, published two books with a Latin translation.  Mr. Ralph T. H.\nGriffith most pleasantly opened the treasures of this epic to English\nreaders in his verse translations published since 1868. Carey's\ntranslation has always been the more rare that the edition despatched\nfor sale in England was lost at sea, and only a few presentation copies\nare extant, one of which is in the British Museum.\n\nCarey's contributions to Sanskrit scholarship were not confined to what\nhe published or to what appeared under his own name.  We are told by H.\nH. Wilson that he had prepared for the press translations of treatises\non the metaphysical system called Sankhya. \"It was not in Dr. Carey's\nnature to volunteer a display of his erudition, and the literary\nlabours already adverted to arose in a great measure out of his\nconnection with the college of Calcutta, or were suggested to him by\nthose whose authority he respected, and to whose wishes he thought it\nincumbent upon him to attend.  It may be added that Dr. Carey spoke\nSanskrit with fluency and correctness.\"\n\nHe edited for the college the Sanskrit text of the Hitopadesa, from six\nMSS. recensions of this the first revelation to Europe of the fountain\nof Aryan folk-tales, of the original of Pilpay's Fables.[15] H. H.\nWilson remarks that the errors are not more than might have been\nexpected from the variations and defects of the manuscripts and the\nnovelty of the task, for this was the first Sanskrit book ever printed\nin the Devanagari character.  To this famous work Carey added an\nabridgment of the prose Adventures of Ten Princes (the Dasa Kumara\nCarita), and of Bhartri-hari's Apophthegms.  Colebrooke records his\ndebt to Carey for carrying through the Serampore press the Sanskrit\ndictionary of Amara Sinha, the oldest native lexicographer, with an\nEnglish interpretation and annotations.  But the magnum opus of Carey\nwas what in 1811 he described as A Universal Dictionary of the Oriental\nLanguages, derived from the Sanskrit, of which that language is to be\nthe groundwork.  The object for which he had been long collecting the\nmaterials of this mighty work was the assisting of \"Biblical students\nto correct the translation of the Bible in the Oriental languages after\nwe are dead.\"\n\nThrough the College of Fort William during thirty long years Carey\ninfluenced the ablest men in the Bengal Civil Service, and not a few in\nMadras and Bombay. \"The college must stand or the empire must fall,\"\nits founder had written to his friends in the Government, so convinced\nwas he that only thus could proper men be trained for the public\nservice and the welfare of our native subjects be secured. How right he\nwas Carey's experience proved.  The young civilians turned out after\nthe first three years' course introduced that new era in the\nadministration of India which has converted traders into statesmen and\nfilibusters into soldier-politicals, so that the East Indian services\nstand alone in the history of the administration of imperial\ndependencies for spotless integrity and high average ability.  Contrast\nwith the work of these men, from the days of Wellesley, the first\nMinto, and Dalhousie, from the time of Canning to Lawrence and the\nsecond Minto, the provincial administration of imperial Rome, of Spain\nand Portugal at their best, of even the Netherlands and France.  For a\nwhole generation of thirty years the civilians who studied Sanskrit,\nBengali, and Marathi came daily under the gentle spell of Carey, who,\nthough he had failed to keep the village school of Moulton in order,\nmanifested the learning and the modesty, the efficiency and the\ngeniality, which won the affectionate admiration of his students in\nCalcutta.\n\nA glance at the register of the college for its first five years\nreveals such men as these among his best students.  The first Bengali\nprizeman of Carey was W. Butterworth Bayley, whose long career of\nblameless uprightness and marked ability culminated in the temporary\nseat of Governor-General, and who was followed in the service by a son\nworthy of him.  The second was that Brian H. Hodgson who, when Resident\nof Nepal, of all his contemporaries won for himself the greatest\nreputation as a scholar, who fought side by side with the Serampore\nbrotherhood the battle of the vernaculars of the people.  Charles,\nafterwards Lord Metcalfe, had been the first student to enter the\ncollege.  He was on its Persian side, and he learned while still under\nits discipline that \"humility, patience, and obedience to the divine\nwill\" which unostentatiously marked his brilliant life and soothed his\nspirit in the agonies of a fatal disease.  He and Bayley were\ninseparable.  Of the first set, too, were Richard Jenkins, who was to\nleave his mark on history as Nagpoor Resident and author of the Report\nof 1826; and Romer, who rose to be Governor of Bombay for a time.  In\nthose early years the two Birds passed through the classes--Robert\nMertins Bird, who was to found the great land revenue school of\nHindostan; and Wilberforce Bird, who governed India while Lord\nEllenborough played at soldiers, and to whom the legal suppression of\nslavery in Southern Asia is due.  Names of men second to those, such as\nElliot and Thackeray, Hamilton and Martin, the Shakespeares and\nPlowdens, the Moneys, the Rosses and Keenes, crowd the honour lists.\nOne of the last to enjoy the advantages of the college before its\nabolition was John Lawrence, who used to confess that he was never good\nat languages, but whose vigorous Hindostani made many an ill-doing Raja\ntremble, while his homely conversation, interspersed with jokes,\nencouraged the toiling ryot.\n\nThese, and men like these, sat at the feet of Carey, where they learned\nnot only to be scholars but to treat the natives kindly, and--some of\nthem--even as brethren in Christ.  Then from teaching the future rulers\nof the East, the missionary-professor turned to his Bengali preaching\nand his Benevolent Institution, to his visits to the prisoners and his\nintercourse with the British soldiers in Fort William.  And when the\nfour days' work in Calcutta was over, the early tide bore him swiftly\nup the Hoogli to the study where, for the rest of the week, he gave\nhimself to the translation of the Bible into the languages of the\npeople and of their leaders.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE WYCLIF OF THE EAST--BIBLE TRANSLATION\n\n1801-1832\n\nThe Bible Carey's missionary weapon--Other vernacular\ntranslators--Carey's modest but just description of his labours--His\nphilological key--Type-cutting and type-casting by a Hindoo\nblacksmith--The first manufacture of paper and steam-engines in the\nEast--Carey takes stock of the translation work at the opening of\n1808--In his workshop--A seminary of Bible translators--William Yates,\nshoemaker, the Coverdale of the Bengali Bible--Wenger--A Bengali Luther\nwanted--Carey's Bengali Bible--How the New Testament was printed--The\nfirst copy offered to God--Reception of the volume by Lord Spencer and\nGeorge III.--Self-evidencing power of the first edition--The Bible in\nOoriya--In Maghadi, Assamese, Khasi, and Manipoori--Marathi, Konkani,\nand Goojarati versions--The translation into Hindi and its many\ndialects--The Dravidian translations--Tale of the Pushtoo Bible--The\nSikhs and the Bible--The first Burman version and press--The British\nand Foreign Bible Society--Deaths, earthquake, and fire in\n1812--Destruction of the press--Thomason's description of the smoking\nruins--Carey's heroism as to his manuscripts--Enthusiastic sympathy of\nIndia and Christendom--The ph[oe]nix and its feathers.\n\nEvery great reform in the world has been, in the first instance, the\nwork of one man, who, however much he may have been the product of his\ntime, has conceived and begun to execute the movement which transforms\nsociety.  This is true alike of the moral and the physical forces of\nhistory, of contemporaries so apparently opposite in character and aims\nas Carey and Clarkson on the one side and Napoleon and Wellington on\nthe other.  Carey stood alone in his persistent determination that the\nChurch should evangelise the world.  He was no less singular in the\nmeans which he insisted on as the first essential condition of its\nevangelisation--the vernacular translation of the Bible.  From the\nScriptures alone, while yet a journeyman shoemaker of eighteen, \"he had\nformed his own system,\" and had been filled with the divine missionary\nidea.  That was a year before the first Bible Society was formed in\n1780 to circulate the English Bible among soldiers and sailors; and, a\nquarter of a century before his own success led to the formation in\n1804 of the British and Foreign Bible Society.  From the time of his\nyouth, when he realised the self-evidencing power of the Bible, Carey's\nunbroken habit was to begin every morning by reading one chapter of the\nBible, first in English, and then in each of the languages, soon,\nnumbering six, which he had himself learned.\n\nHence the translation of the Bible into all the languages and principal\ndialects of India and Eastern Asia was the work above all others to\nwhich Carey set himself from the time, in 1793, when he acquired the\nBengali.  He preached, he taught, he \"discipled\" in every form then\nreasonable and possible, and in the fullest sense of his Master's\nmissionary charge.  But the one form of most pressing and abiding\nimportance, the condition without which neither true faith, nor true\nscience, nor true civilisation could exist or be propagated outside of\nthe narrow circle to be reached by the one herald's voice, was the\npublishing of the divine message in the mother tongues of the millions\nof Asiatic men and women, boys and girls, and in the learned tongues\nalso of their leaders and priests. Wyclif had first done this for the\nEnglish-reading races of all time, translating from the Latin, and so\nhad begun the Reformation, religious and political, not only in Britain\nbut in Western Christendom.  Erasmus and Luther had followed him--the\nformer in his Greek and Latin New Testament and in his Paraphrase of\nthe Word for \"women and cobblers, clowns, mechanics, and even the\nTurks\"; the latter in his great vernacular translation of the edition\nof Erasmus, who had never ceased to urge his contemporaries to\ntranslate the Scriptures \"into all tongues.\"  Tyndale had first given\nEngland the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek.  And now one of these\ncobblers was prompted and enabled by the Spirit who is the author of\nthe truth in the Scriptures, to give to South and Eastern Asia the\nsacred books which its Syrian sons, from Moses and Ezra to Paul and\nJohn, had been inspired to write for all races and all ages.\nEmphatically, Carey and his later coadjutors deserve the language of\nthe British and Foreign Bible Society, when, in 1827, it made to\nSerampore a last grant of money for translation--\"Future generations\nwill apply to them the words of the translators of the English\nBible--'Therefore blessed be they and most honoured their names that\nbreak the ice and give the onset in that which helped them forward to\nthe saving of souls.  Now what can be more available thereto than to\ndeliver God's book unto God's people in a tongue which they\nunderstand?'\"  Carey might tolerate interruption when engaged in other\nwork, but for forty years he never allowed anything to shorten the time\nallotted to the Bible work. \"You, madam,\" he wrote in 1797 to a lady as\nto many a correspondent, \"will excuse my brevity when I inform you that\nall my time for writting letters is stolen from the work of\ntranscribing the Scriptures into the Bengali language.\"\n\nFrom no mere humility, but with an accurate judgment in the state of\nscholarship and criticism at the opening of last century, Carey always\ninsisted that he was a forerunner, breaking up the way for successors\nlike Yates, Wenger, and Rouse, who, in their turn, must be superseded\nby purely native Tyndales and Luthers in the Church of India.  He more\nthan once deprecated the talk of his having translated the Bible into\nforty languages and dialects.[16] As we proceed that will be a apparent\nwhich he did with his own hand, that which his colleagues accomplished,\nthat which he revised and edited both of their work and of the\npundits', and that which he corrected and printed for others at the\nSerampore press under the care of Ward. It is to these four lines of\nwork, which centred in him, as most of them originally proceeded from\nhis conception and advocacy, that the assertion as to the forty\ntranslations is strictly applicable.  The Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, and\nSanskrit translations were his own.  The Chinese was similarly the work\nof Marshman.  The Hindi versions, in their many dialects, and the\nOoriya, were blocked out by his colleagues and the pundits.  He saw\nthrough the press the Hindostani, Persian, Malay, Tamil, and other\nversions of the whole or portions of the Scriptures.  He ceased not,\nnight and day, if by any means, with a loving catholicity, the Word of\nGod might be given to the millions.\n\nWriting in 1904 on the centenary of the British and Foreign Bible\nSociety, Mr. George A. Grierson, C.I.E., Ph.D., D.Litt., the head of\nthe Linguistic Survey of India, sums up authoritatively the work of\nCarey and his assistants. \"The great-hearted band of Serampore\nmissionaries issued translations of the Bible or of the New Testament\nin more than forty languages.  Before them the number of Protestant\nversions of the Bible in the speeches of India could be counted on the\nfingers of one hand.  The Dutch of Ceylon undertook a Tamil New\nTestament in 1688, which was followed in 1715 by another version from\nthe pen of Ziegenbalg.  The famous missionary, Schultze, between 1727\nand 1732 made a Telugu version which was never printed, and later,\nbetween 1745 and 1758, he published at Halle a Hindostani translation\nof the New Testament and of a portion of Genesis.  A manuscript version\nof portions of the Bible in Bengali was made by Thomas in 1791; and\nthen the great Serampore series began with Carey's Bengali New\nTestament published in 1801. Most of these Serampore versions were, it\nis true, first attempts and have been superseded by more accurate\nversions, but the first step is always the most important one, and this\nwas taken by Carey and his brethren.\"\n\nCarey's correspondent in this and purely scholarly subjects was Dr.\nRyland, an accomplished Hebraist and Biblical critic for that day, at\nthe head of the Bristol College.  Carey's letters, plentifully\nsprinkled with Hebrew and Greek, show the jealousy with which he sought\nto convey the divine message accurately, and the unwearied sense of\nresponsibility under which he worked.  Biblical criticism, alike as to\nthe original text and to the exegesis of the sacred writings, is so\nvery modern a science, that these letters have now only a historical\ninterest.  But this communication to Ryland shows how he worked from\nthe first:--\n\n\"CALCUTTA, 14th Dec. 1803.--We some time ago engaged in an undertaking,\nof which we intended to say nothing until it was accomplished; but an\nunforeseen providence made it necessary for us to disclose it.  It is\nas follows: About a year and a half ago, some attempts were made to\nengage Mr. Gilchrist in the translation of the Scriptures into the\nHindostani language.  By something or other it was put by.  The Persian\nwas also at the same time much talked of, but given up, or rather not\nengaged in.  At this time several considerations prevailed on us to set\nourselves silently upon a translation into these languages.  We\naccordingly hired two moonshees to assist us in it, and each of us took\nour share; Brother Marshman took Matthew and Luke; Brother Ward, Mark\nand John; and myself the remaining part of the New Testament into\nHindostani.  I undertook no part of the Persian; but, instead thereof,\nengaged in translating it into Maharastra, commonly called the Mahratta\nlanguage, the person who assists me in the Hindostani being a Mahratta.\nBrother Marshman has finished Matthew, and, instead of Luke, has begun\nthe Acts. Brother Ward has done part of John, and I have done the\nEpistles, and about six chapters of the Revelation; and have proceeded\nas far as the second epistle of the Corinthians in the revisal: they\nhave done a few chapters into Persian, and I a few into Mahratta.  Thus\nthe matter stood, till a few days ago Mr. Buchanan informed me that a\nmilitary gentleman had translated the Gospels into Hindostani and\nPersian, and had made a present of them to the College, and that the\nCollege Council had voted the printing of them.  This made it necessary\nfor me to say what we had been about; and had it not been for this\ncircumstance we should not have said anything till we had got the New\nTestament at least pretty forward in printing.  I am very glad that\nMajor Colebrooke has done it.  We will gladly do what others do not do,\nand wish all speed to those who do anything in this way.  We have it in\nour power, if our means would do for it, in the space of about fifteen\nyears to have the word of God translated and printed in all the\nlanguages of the East. Our situation is such as to furnish us with the\nbest assistance from natives of the different countries.  We can have\ntypes of all the different characters cast here; and about 700 rupees\nper month, part of which I hope we shall be able to furnish, would\ncomplete the work.  The languages are the Hindostani (Hindi),\nMaharastra, Ooriya, Telinga, Bhotan, Burman, Chinese, Cochin Chinese,\nTongkinese, and Malay.  On this great work we have fixed our eyes.\nWhether God will enable us to accomplish it, or any considerable part\nof it, is uncertain.\"\n\nBut all these advantages, his own genius for languages, his\nunconquerable plodding directed by a divine motive, his colleagues'\nco-operation, the encouragement of learned societies and the public,\nand the number of pundits and moonshees increased by the College of\nFort William, would have failed to open the door of the East to the\nsacred Scriptures had the philological key of the Sanskrit been wanting\nor undiscovered.  In the preface to his Sanskrit grammar, quoted by the\nQuarterly Review with high approbation, Carey wrote that it gave him\nthe meaning of four out of every five words of the principal languages\nof the whole people of India:--\"The peculiar grammar of any one of\nthese may be acquired in a couple of months, and then the language lies\nopen to the student.  The knowledge of four words in five enables him\nto read with pleasure, and renders the acquisition of the few new\nwords, as well as the idiomatic expressions, a matter of delight rather\nthan of labour.  Thus the Ooriya, though possessing a separate grammar\nand character, is so much like the Bengali in the very expression that\na Bengali pundit is almost equal to the correction of an Orissa proof\nsheet; and the first time that I read a page of Goojarati the meaning\nappeared so obvious as to render it unnecessary to ask the pundit\nquestions.\"\n\nThe mechanical apparatus of types, paper, and printing seem to have\nbeen provided by the same providential foresight as the intellectual\nand the spiritual.  We have seen how, when he was far enough advanced\nin his translation, Carey amid the swamps of Dinapoor looked to England\nfor press, type, paper, and printer.  He got the last, William Ward, a\nman of his own selection, worthy to be his colleague.  But he had\nhardly despatched his letter when he found or made all the rest in\nBengal itself.  It was from the old press bought in Calcutta, set up in\nMudnabati, and removed to Serampore, that the first edition of the\nBengali New Testament was printed. The few rare and venerable copies\nhave now a peculiar bibliographic interest; the type and the paper\nalike are coarse and blurred.\n\nSir Charles Wilkins, the Caxton of India, had with his own hands cut\nthe punches and cast the types from which Halhed's Bengali grammar was\nprinted at Hoogli in 1778.  He taught the art to a native blacksmith,\nPanchanan, who went to Serampore in search of work just when Carey was\nin despair for a fount of the sacred Devanagari type for his Sanskirt\ngrammar, and for founts of the other languages besides Bengali which\nhad never been printed.  They thus tell the story in a Memoir Relative\nto the Translations, published in 1807:--\n\n\"It will be obvious that in the present state of things in India it was\nin many instances necessary to cast new founts of types in several of\nthese languages.  Happily for us and India at large Wilkins had led the\nway in this department; and by persevering industry, the value of which\ncan scarcely be appreciated, under the greatest disadvantages with\nrespect to materials and workmen, had brought the Bengali to a high\ndegree of perfection.  Soon after our settling at Serampore the\nprovidence of God brought to us the very artist who had wrought with\nWilkins in that work, and in a great measure imbibed his ideas.  By his\nassistance we erected a letter-foundry; and although he is now dead, he\nhad so fully communicated his art to a number of others, that they\ncarry forward the work of type-casting, and even of cutting the\nmatrices, with a degree of accuracy which would not disgrace European\nartists.  These have cast for us two or three founts of Bengali; and we\nare now employing them in casting a fount on a construction which bids\nfair to diminish the expense of paper, and the size of the book at\nleast one-fourth, without affecting the legibility of the character.\nOf the Devanagari character we have also cast an entire new fount,\nwhich is esteemed the most beautiful of the kind in India.  It consists\nof nearly 1000 different combinations of characters, so that the\nexpense of cutting the patterns only amounted to 1500 rupees, exclusive\nof metal and casting.\n\n\"In the Orissa we have been compelled also to cast a new fount of\ntypes, as none before existed in that character.  The fount consists of\nabout 300 separate combinations, and the whole expense of cutting and\ncasting has amounted to at least 1000 rupees.  The character, though\ndistinct, is of a moderate size, and will comprise the whole New\nTestament in about 700 pages octavo, which is about a fourth less than\nthe Bengali.  Although in the Mahratta country the Devanagari character\nis well known to men of education, yet a character is current among the\nmen of business which is much smaller, and varies considerably in form\nfrom the Nagari, though the number and power of the letters nearly\ncorrespond.  We have cast a fount in this character, in which we have\nbegun to print the Mahratta New Testament, as well as a Mahratta\ndictionary.  This character is moderate in size, distinct and\nbeautiful.  It will comprise the New Testament in perhaps a less number\nof pages than the Orissa.  The expense of casting, etc., has been much\nthe same. We stand in need of three more founts; one in the Burman,\nanother in the Telinga and Kernata, and a third in the Seek's\ncharacter. These, with the Chinese characters, will enable us to go\nthrough the work.  An excellent and extensive fount of Persian we\nreceived from you, dear brethren, last year.\"\n\nPanchanan's apprentice, Monohur, continued to make elegant founts of\ntype in all Eastern languages for the mission and for sale to others\nfor more than forty years, becoming a benefactor not only to literature\nbut to Christian civilisation to an extent of which he was unconscious,\nfor he remained a Hindoo of the blacksmith caste. In 1839, when he\nfirst went to India as a young missionary, the Rev. James Kennedy[17]\nsaw him, as the present writer has often since seen his successor,\ncutting the matrices or casting the type for the Bibles, while he\nsquatted below his favourite idol, under the auspices of which alone he\nwould work.  Serampore continued down till 1860 to be the principal\nOriental typefoundry of the East.[18]\n\nHardly less service did the mission come to render to the manufacture\nof paper in course of time, giving the name of Serampore to a variety\nknown all over India.  At first Carey was compelled to print his\nBengali Testament on a dingy, porous, rough substance called Patna\npaper.  Then he began to depend on supplies from England, which in\nthose days reached the press at irregular times, often impeding the\nwork, and was most costly.  This was not all. Native paper, whether\nmill or hand-made, being sized with rice paste, attracted the bookworm\nand white ant, so that the first sheets of a work which lingered in the\npress were sometimes devoured by these insects before the last sheets\nwere printed off.  Carey used to preserve his most valuable manuscripts\nby writing on arsenicated paper, which became of a hideous yellow\ncolour, though it is to this alone we owe the preservation in the\nlibrary of Serampore College of five colossal volumes of his polyglot\ndictionary prepared for the Bible translation work.  Many and long were\nthe experiments of the missionaries to solve the paper difficulty,\nending in the erection of a tread-mill on which relays of forty natives\nreduced the raw material in the paper-engine, until one was\naccidentally killed.\n\nThe enterprise of Mr. William Jones, who first worked the Raneegunj\ncoal-field, suggested the remedy in the employment of a steam-engine.\nOne of twelve-horse power was ordered from Messrs. Thwaites and\nRothwell of Bolton.  This was the first ever erected in India, and it\nwas a purely missionary locomotive.  The \"machine of fire,\" as they\ncalled it, brought crowds of natives to the mission, whose curiosity\ntried the patience of the engineman imported to work it; while many a\nEuropean who had never seen machinery driven by steam came to study and\nto copy it.  The date was the 27th of March 1820, when \"the engine went\nin reality this day.\"  From that time till 1865 Serampore became the\none source of supply for local as distinguished from imported and\npurely native hand-made paper.  Even the cartridges of Mutiny notoriety\nin 1857 were from this factory, though it had long ceased to be\nconnected with the mission.\n\nDr. Carey thus took stock of the translating enterprise in a letter to\nDr. Ryland:--\n\n\"22nd January 1808.--Last year may be reckoned among the most important\nwhich this mission has seen--not for the numbers converted among the\nnatives, for they have been fewer than in some preceding years, but for\nthe gracious care which God has exercised towards us. We have been\nenabled to carry on the translation and printing of the Word of God in\nseveral languages.  The printing is now going on in six and the\ntranslation into six more.  The Bengali is all printed except from\nJudges vii. to the end of Esther; Sanskrit New Testament to Acts\nxxvii.; Orissa to John xxi.; Mahratta, second edition, to the end of\nMatthew; Hindostani (new version) to Mark v., and Matthew is begun in\nGoojarati.  The translation is nearly carried on to the end of John in\nChinese, Telinga Kurnata, and the language of the Seeks.  It is carried\non to a pretty large extent in Persian and begun in Burman.  The whole\nBible was printed in Malay at Batavia some years ago.  The whole is\nprinted in Tamil, and the Syrian Bishop at Travancore is now\nsuperintending a translation from Syriac into Malayala.  I learnt this\nweek that the language of Kashmeer is a distinct language.\n\n\"I have this day been to visit the most learned Hindoo now living; he\nspeaks only Sanskrit, is more than eighty years old, is acquainted with\nthe writings and has studied the sentiments of all their schools of\nphilosophy (usually called the Darshunas of the Veda).  He tells me\nthat this is the sixteenth time that he has travelled from Rameshwaram\nto Harhu (viz. from the extreme cape of the Peninsula to Benares).  He\nwas, he says, near Madras when the English first took possession of it.\nThis man has given his opinion against the burning of women.\"\n\nFour years later, in another letter to Ryland, he takes us into his\nconfidence more fully, showing us not only his sacred workshop, but\ningenuously revealing his own humility and self-sacrifice:--\"10th\nDecember 1811.--I have of late been much impressed with the vast\nimportance of laying a foundation for Biblical criticism in the East,\nby preparing grammars of the different languages into which we have\ntranslated or may translate the Bible.  Without some such step, they\nwho follow us will have to wade through the same labour that I have, in\norder to stand merely upon the same ground that I now stand upon.  If,\nhowever, elementary books are provided, the labour will be greatly\ncontracted; and a person will be able in a short time to acquire that\nwhich has cost me years of study and toil.\n\n\"The necessity which lies upon me of acquiring so many languages,\nobliges me to study and write out the grammar of each of them, and to\nattend closely to their irregularities and peculiarities.  I have\ntherefore already published grammars of three of them; namely, the\nSanskrit, the Bengali, and the Mahratta.  To these I have resolved to\nadd grammars of the Telinga, Kurnata, Orissa, Punjabi, Kashmeeri,\nGoojarati, Nepalese, and Assam languages.  Two of these are now in the\npress, and I hope to have two or three more of them out by the end of\nthe next year.\n\n\"This may not only be useful in the way I have stated, but may serve to\nfurnish an answer to a question which has been more than once repeated,\n'How can these men translate into so great a number of languages?'  Few\npeople know what may be done till they try, and persevere in what they\nundertake.\n\n\"I am now printing a dictionary of the Bengali, which will be pretty\nlarge, for I have got to page 256, quarto, and am not near through the\nfirst letter.  That letter, however, begins more words than any two\nothers.\n\n\"To secure the gradual perfection of the translations, I have also in\nmy mind, and indeed have been long collecting materials for, An\nUniversal Dictionary of the Oriental languages derived from the\nSanskrit.  I mean to take the Sanskrit, of course, as the groundwork,\nand to give the different acceptations of every word, with examples of\ntheir application, in the manner of Johnson, and then to give the\nsynonyms in the different languages derived from the Sanskrit, with the\nHebrew and Greek terms answering thereto; always putting the word\nderived from the Sanskrit term first, and then those derived from other\nsources.  I intend always to give the etymology of the Sanskrit term,\nso that that of the terms deduced from it in the cognate languages will\nbe evident.  This work will be great, and it is doubtful whether I\nshall live to complete it; but I mean to begin to arrange the\nmaterials, which I have been some years collecting for this purpose, as\nsoon as my Bengali dictionary is finished.  Should I live to accomplish\nthis, and the translations in hand, I think I can then say, 'Lord, now\nlettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'\"\n\nThe ardent scholar had twenty-three years of toil before him in this\nhappy work.  But he did not know this, while each year the labour\nincreased, and the apprehension grew that he and his colleagues might\nat any time be removed without leaving a trained successor. They\nnaturally looked first to the sons of the mission for translators as\nthey had already done for preachers.\n\nTo Dr. Carey personally, however, the education of a young missionary\nspecially fitted to be his successor, as translator and editor of the\ntranslations, was even more important.  Such a man was found in William\nYates, born in 1792, and in the county, Leicestershire, in which Carey\nbrought the Baptist mission to the birth.  Yates was in his early years\nalso a shoemaker, and member of Carey's old church in Harvey Lane, when\nunder the great Robert Hall, who said to the youth's father, \"Your son,\nsir, will be a great scholar and a good preacher, and he is a holy\nyoung man.\"  In 1814 he became the last of the young missionaries\ndevoted to the cause by Fuller, soon to pass away, Ryland, and Hall.\nYates had not been many months at Serampore when, with the approval of\nhis brethren, Carey wrote to Fuller, on 17th May 1815:--\"I am much\ninclined to associate him with myself in the translations.  My labour\nis greater than at any former period.  We have now translations of the\nBible going forward in twenty-seven languages, all of which are in the\npress except two or three.  The labour of correcting and revising all\nof them lies on me.\"  By September we find Yates writing:--\"Dr. Carey\nsends all the Bengali proofs to me to review.  I read them over, and if\nthere is anything I do not understand, or think to be wrong, I mark it.\nWe then converse over it, and if it is wrong, he alters it; but if not,\nhe shows me the reason why it is right, and thus will initiate me into\nthe languages as fast as I can learn them.  He wishes me to begin the\nHindi very soon.  Since I have been here I have read three volumes in\nBengali, and they have but six of consequence in prose.  There are\nabundance in Sanskrit.\" \"Dr. Carey has treated me with the greatest\naffection and kindness, and told me he will give me every information\nhe can, and do anything in his power to promote my happiness.\"  What\nBaruch was to the prophet Jeremiah, that Yates might have been to\nCarey, who went so far in urging him to remain for life in Serampore as\nto say, \"if he did not accept the service it would be, in his judgment,\nacting against Providence, and the blessing of God was not to be\nexpected.\"  Yates threw in his lot with the younger men who, in\nCalcutta after Fuller's death, began the Society's as distinct from the\nSerampore mission.  If Carey was the Wyclif and Tyndale, Yates was the\nCoverdale of the Bengali and Sanskrit Bible.  Wenger, their successor,\nwas worthy of both.  Bengal still waits for the first native revision\nof the great work which these successive pioneers have gradually\nimproved.  When shall Bengal see its own Luther?\n\nThe Bengali Bible was the first as it was the most important of the\ntranslations.  The province, or lieutenant-governorship then had the\nsame area as France, and contained more than double its population, or\neighty millions.  Of the three principal vernaculars, Bengali is spoken\nby forty-five millions of Hindoos and Mohammedans.  It was for all the\nnatives of Bengal and of India north of the Dekhan (\"south\") tableland,\nbut especially for the Bengali-speaking people, that William Carey\ncreated a literary language a century ago.\n\nThe first Bengali version of the whole New Testament Carey translated\nfrom the original Greek before the close of 1796.  The only English\ncommentary used was the Family Expositor of Doddridge, published in\n1738, and then the most critical in the language.  Four times he\nrevised the manuscript, with a Greek concordance in his hand, and he\nused it not only with Ram Basu by his side, the most accomplished of\nearly Bengali scholars, but with the natives around him of all classes.\nBy 1800 Ward had arrived as printer, the press was perfected at\nSerampore, and the result of seven years of toil appeared in February\n1801, in the first edition of 2000 copies, costing \u00a3612.  The printing\noccupied nine months.  The type was set up by Ward and Carey's son\nFelix with their own hands; \"for about a month at first we had a\nBrahman compositor, but we were quite weary of him.  We kept four\npressmen constantly employed.\"  A public subscription had been opened\nfor the whole Bengali Bible at Rs. 32, or \u00a34 a copy as exchange then\nwas, and nearly fifty copies had been at once subscribed for.  It was\nthis edition which immediately led to Carey's appointment to the\nCollege of Fort William, and it was that appointment which placed Carey\nin a position, philological and financial, to give the Bible to the\npeoples of the farther East in their own tongue.\n\nSome loving memories cluster round the first Bengali version of the New\nTestament which it is well to collect.  On Tuesday, 18th March 1800,\nWard's journal[19] records: \"Brother Carey took an impression at the\npress of the first page in Matthew.\"  The translator was himself the\npressman.  As soon as the whole of this Gospel was ready, 500 copies of\nit were struck off for immediate circulation, \"which we considered of\nimportance as containing a complete life of the Redeemer.\"  Four days\nafter an advertisement in the official Calcutta Gazette, announcing\nthat the missionaries had established a press at Serampore and were\nprinting the Bible in Bengali, roused Lord Wellesley, who had fettered\nthe press in British India.  Mr. Brown was able to inform the\nGovernor-General that this very Serampore press had refused to print a\npolitical attack on the English Government, and that it was intended\nfor the spiritual instruction only of the natives.  This called forth\nthe assurance from that liberal statesman that he was personally\nfavourable to the conversion of the heathen.  When he was further told\nthat such an Oriental press would be invaluable to the College of Fort\nWilliam, he not only withdrew his opposition but made Carey first\nteacher of Bengali.  It was on the 7th February 1801 that the last\nsheet with the final corrections was put into Carey's hands.  When a\nvolume had been bound it was reverently offered to God by being placed\non the Communion-table of the chapel, and the mission families and the\nnew-made converts gathered around it with solemn thanksgiving to God\nled by Krishna Pal. Carey preached from the words (Col. iii. 11) \"Let\nthe Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.\"  The centenary\nwas celebrated in Calcutta in 1901, under Dr. Rouse, whose fine\nscholarship had just revised the translation.\n\nWhen the first copies reached England, Andrew Fuller sent one to the\nsecond Earl Spencer, the peer who had used the wealth of Sarah, Duchess\nof Marlborough, to collect the great library at Althorp. Carey had been\na poor tenant of his, though the Earl knew it not. When the Bengali New\nTestament reached him, with its story, he sent a cheque for \u00a350 to help\nto translate the Old Testament, and he took care that a copy should be\npresented to George III., as by his own request.  Mr. Bowyer was\nreceived one morning at Windsor, and along with the volume presented an\naddress expressing the desire that His Majesty might live to see its\nprinciples universally prevail throughout his Eastern dominions.  On\nthis the lord in waiting whispered a doubt whether the book had come\nthrough the proper channel.  At once the king replied that the Board of\nControl had nothing to do with it, and turning to Mr. Bowyer said, \"I\nam greatly pleased to find that any of my subjects are employed in this\nmanner.\"\n\nThis now rare volume, to be found on the shelves of the Serampore\nCollege Library, where it leads the host of the Carey translations, is\ncoarse and unattractive in appearance compared with its latest\nsuccessors.  In truth the second edition, which appeared in 1806, was\nalmost a new version.  The criticism of his colleagues and others,\nespecially of a ripe Grecian like Dr. Marshman, the growth of the\nnative church, and his own experience as a Professor of Sanskrit and\nMarathi as well as Bengali, gave Carey new power in adapting the\nlanguage to the divine ideas of which he made it the medium.  But the\nfirst edition was not without its self-evidencing power.  Seventeen\nyears after, when the mission extended to the old capital of Dacca,\nthere were found several villages of Hindoo-born peasants who had given\nup idol-worship, were renowned for their truthfulness, and, as\nsearching for a true teacher come from God, called themselves\n\"Satya-gooroos.\"  They traced their new faith to a much-worn book kept\nin a wooden box in one of their villages.  No one could say whence it\nhad come; all they knew was that they had possessed it for many years.\nIt was Carey's first Bengali version of the New Testament of our Lord\nand Saviour Jesus Christ.  In the wide and elastic bounds of Hindooism,\nand even, as we shall see, amid fanatical Mussulmans beyond the\nfrontier, the Bible, dimly understood without a teacher, has led to\npuritan sects like this, as to earnest inquirers like the chamberlain\nof Queen Candace.\n\nThe third edition of the Bengali Testament was published in 1811 in\nfolio for the use of the native congregations by that time formed. The\nfourth, consisting of 5000 copies, appeared in 1816, and the eighth in\n1832.  The venerable scholar, like Columba at Iona over the\nthirty-fourth psalm, and Baeda at Jarrow over the sixth chapter of\nJohn's Gospel, said as he corrected the last sheet--the last after\nforty years' faithful and delighted toil: \"My work is done; I have\nnothing more to do but to wait the will of the Lord.\" The Old Testament\nfrom the Hebrew appeared in portions from 1802 to 1809. Such was the\nardour of the translator, that he had finished the correction of his\nversion of the first chapter of Genesis in January 1794.  When he read\nit to two pundits from Nuddea, he told Fuller in his journal of that\nmonth they seemed much pleased with the account of the creation, but\nthey objected to the omission of patala, their imaginary place beneath\nthe earth, which they thought should have been mentioned.  At this\nearly period Carey saw the weakness of Hindooism as a pretended\nrevelation, from its identification with false physics, just as Duff\nwas to see and use it afterwards with tremendous effect, and\nwrote:--\"There is a necessity of explaining to them several\ncircumstances relative to geography and chronology, as they have many\nsuperstitious opinions on those subjects which are closely connected\nwith their systems of idolatry.\"  The Bengali Bible was the result of\nfifteen years' sweet toil, in which Marshman read the Greek and Carey\nthe Bengali; every one of their colleagues examined the proof sheets,\nand Carey finally wrote with his own pen the whole of the five octavo\nvolumes.  In the forty years of his missionary career Carey prepared\nand saw through the press five editions of the Old Testament and eight\neditions of the New in Bengali.\n\nThe Sanskrit version was translated from the original, and written out\nby the toiling scholar himself.  Sir William Jones is said to have been\nable to secure his first pundit's help only by paying him Rs. 500 a\nmonth, or \u00a3700 a year.  Carey engaged and trained his many pundits at a\ntwentieth of that sum.  He well knew that the Brahmans would scorn a\nbook in the language of the common people. \"What,\" said one who was\noffered the Hindi version, \"even if the books should contain divine\nknowledge, they are nothing to us.  The knowledge of God contained in\nthem is to us as milk in a vessel of dog's skin, utterly polluted.\"\nBut, writes the annalist of Biblical Translations in India, Carey's\nSanskrit version was cordially received by the Brahmans.  Destroyed in\nthe fire in 1812, the Old Testament historical books were again\ntranslated, and appeared in 1815.  In 1827 the aged saint had strength\nto bring out the first volume of a thorough revision, and to leave the\nmanuscript of the second volume, on his death, as a legacy to his\nsuccessors, Yates and Wenger.  Against Vedas and Upanishads, Brahmanas\nand Epics, he set the Sanskrit Bible.\n\nThe whole number of completely translated and published versions of the\nsacred Scriptures which Carey sent forth was twenty-eight.  Of these\nseven included the whole Bible, and twenty-one contained the books of\nthe New Testament.  Each translation has a history, a spiritual romance\nof its own.  Each became almost immediately a silent but effectual\nmissionary to the peoples of Asia, as well as the scholarly and\nliterary pioneer of those later editions and versions from which the\nnative churches of farther Asia derive the materials of their lively\ngrowth.\n\nThe Ooriya version was almost the first to be undertaken after the\nBengali, to which language it bears the same relation as rural Scotch\nto English, though it has a written character of its own. What is now\nthe Orissa division of Bengal, separating it from Madras to the\nsouth-west, was added to the empire in 1803.  This circumstance, and\nthe fact that its Pooree district, after centuries of sun-worship and\nthen shiva-worship, had become the high-place of the vaishnava cult of\nJaganath and his car, which attracted and often slew hundreds of\nthousands of pilgrims every year, led Carey to prepare at once for the\npress the Ooriya Bible.  The chief pundit, Mritunjaya, skilled in both\ndialects, first adapted the Bengali version to the language of the\nOoriyas, which was his own. Carey then took the manuscript, compared it\nwith the original Greek, and corrected it verse by verse.  The New\nTestament was ready in 1809, and the Old Testament in 1815, the whole\nin four volumes. Large editions were quickly bought up and circulated.\nThese led to the establishment of the General Baptist Society's\nmissionaries at Cuttak, the capital.\n\nIn 1814 the Serampore Bible translation college, as we may call it,\nbegan the preparation of the New Testament in Maghadi, another of the\nlanguages allied to the Bengali, and derived from the Sanskrit through\nthe Pali, because that was the vernacular of Buddhism in its original\nseat; an edition of 1000 copies appeared in 1824.  It was intended to\npublish a version in the Maithili language of Bihar, which has a\nliterature stretching back to the fourteenth century, that every class\nmight have the Word of God in their own dialect. But Carey's literary\nenthusiasm and scholarship had by this time done so much to develop and\nextend the power of Bengali proper, that it had begun to supersede all\nsuch dialects, except Ooriya and the northern vernaculars of the valley\nof the Brahmapootra.  In 1810 the Serampore press added the Assamese\nNew Testament to its achievements.  In 1819 the first edition appeared,\nin 1826 the province became British, and in 1832 Carey had the\nsatisfaction of issuing the Old Testament, and setting apart Mr. Rae, a\nScottish soldier, who had settled there, as the first missionary at\nGowhatti. To these must be added, as in the Bengali character though\nnon-Aryan languages, versions in Khasi and Manipoori, the former for\nthe democratic tribes of the Khasia hills among whom the Welsh\nCalvinists have since worked, and the latter for the curious Hindoo\nsnake-people on the border of Burma, who have taught Europe the game of\npolo.\n\nAnother immediate successor of the Bengali translation was the Marathi,\nof which also Carey was professor in the College of Fort William.  By\n1804 he was himself hard at work on this version, by 1811 the first\nedition of the New Testament appeared, and by 1820 the Old Testament\nleft the press.  It was in a dialect peculiar to Nagpoor, and was at\nfirst largely circulated by Lieutenant Moxon in the army there.  In\n1812 Carey sent the missionary Aratoon to Bombay and Surat just after\nHenry Martyn had written that the only Christian in the city who\nunderstood his evangelical sermon was a ropemaker just arrived from\nEngland.  At the same time he was busy with a version in the dialect of\nthe Konkan, the densely-peopled coast district to the south of Bombay\ncity, inhabited chiefly by the ablest Brahmanical race in India.  In\n1819 the New Testament appeared in this translation, having been under\npreparation at Serampore for eleven years.  Thus Carey sought to turn\nto Christ the twelve millions of Hindoos who, from Western India above\nand below the great coast-range known as the Sahyadri or \"delectable\"\nmountains, had nearly wrested the whole peninsula from the Mohammedans,\nand had almost anticipated the life-giving rule of the British, first\nat Panipat and then as Assye.  Meanwhile new missionaries had been\ntaking possession of those western districts where the men of Serampore\nhad sowed the first seed and reaped the first fruits.  The charter of\n1813 made it possible for the American Missionaries to land there, and\nfor the local Bible Society to spring into existence.  Dr. John Wilson\nand his Scottish colleagues followed them.  Carey and his brethren\nwelcomed these and retired from that field, confining themselves to\nproviding, during the next seven years, a Goojarati version for the\nmillions of Northern Bombay, including the hopeful Parsees, and\nresigning that, too, to the London Missionary Society after issuing the\nNew Testament in 1820.\n\nMr. Christopher Anderson justly remarks, in his Annals of the English\nBible, published half a century ago:--\"Time will show, and in a very\nsingular manner, that every version, without exception, which came from\nCarey's hands, has a value affixed to it which the present generation,\nliving as it were too near an object, is not yet able to estimate or\ndescry.  Fifty years hence the character of this extraordinary and\nhumble man will be more correctly appreciated.\"\n\nIn none of the classes of languages derived from the Sanskrit was the\nzeal of Carey and his associates so remarkable as in the Hindi. So\nearly as 1796 he wrote of this the most widely extended offspring of\nthe Sanskrit:--\"I have acquired so much of the Hindi as to converse in\nit and preach for some time intelligibly...It is the current language\nof all the west from Rajmahal to Delhi, and perhaps farther.  With this\nI can be understood nearly all over Hindostan.\" By the time that he\nissued the sixth memoir of the translations Chamberlain's experiences\nin North-Western India led Carey to write that he had ascertained the\nexistence of twenty dialects of Hindi, with the same vocabulary but\ndifferent sets of terminations.  The Bruj or Brijbhasa Gospels were\nfinished in 1813, two years after Chamberlain had settled in Agra, and\nthe New Testament was completed nine years after.  This version of the\nGospels led the Brahman priest, Anand Masih, to Christ.  In their\neagerness for a copy of the Old Testament, which appeared in 1818, many\nSepoys brought testimonials from their commanding officers, and in one\nyear it led eighteen converts to Christ.  The other Hindi dialects, in\nwhich the whole New Testament or the Gospels appeared, will be found at\npage 177 {see footnote number 16}.  The parent Hindi translation was\nmade by Carey with his own hand from the original languages between\n1802 and 1807, and ran through many large editions till Mr.\nChamberlain's was preferred by Carey himself in 1819.\n\nWe may pass over the story of the Dravidian versions, the Telugoo[20]\nNew Testament and Pentateuch, and the Kanarese.  Nor need we do more\nthan refer to the Singhalese, \"derived from the previous labours of Dr.\nCarey\" by Tolfrey, the Persian, Malayalam, and other versions made by\nothers, but edited or carefully carried through the press by Carey.\nThe wonderful tale of his Bible work is well illustrated by a man who,\nnext to the Lawrences, was the greatest Englishman who has governed the\nPunjab frontier, the hero of Mr. Ruskin's book, A Knight's Faith.  In\nthat portion of his career which Sir Herbert Edwardes gave to the world\nunder the title of A Year on the Punjab Frontier in 1848-49, and in\nwhich he describes his bloodless conquest of the wild valley of Bunnoo,\nwe find this gem embedded. The writer was at the time in the Gundapoor\ncountry, of which Kulachi is the trade-centre between the Afghan pass\nof Ghwalari and Dera Ismail Kan, where the dust of Sir Henry Durand now\nlies:--\n\n\"A highly interesting circumstance connected with the Indian trade came\nunder my notice.  Ali Khan, Gundapoor, the uncle of the present chief,\nGoold\u00e2d Khan, told me he could remember well, as a youth, being sent by\nhis father and elder brother with a string of Cabul horses to the fair\nof Hurdw\u00e2r, on the Ganges.  He also showed me a Pushtoo version of the\nBible, printed at Serampore in 1818, which he said had been given him\nthirty years before at Hurdw\u00e2r by an English gentleman, who told him to\n'take care of it, and neither fling it into the fire nor the river; but\nhoard it up against the day when the British should be rulers of his\ncountry!'  Ali Khan said little to anybody of his possessing this book,\nbut put it carefully by in a linen cover, and produced it with great\nmystery when I came to settle the revenue of his nephew's country,\n'thinking that the time predicted by the Englishman had arrived!'  The\nonly person, I believe, to whom he had shown the volume was a Moolluh,\nwho read several passages in the Old Testament, and told Ali Khan 'it\nwas a true story, and was all about their own Muhommudan prophets,\nFather Moses and Father Noah.'\n\n\"I examined the book with great interest.  It was not printed in the\nPersian character, but the common Pushtoo language of Afghanistan; and\nwas the only specimen I had ever seen of Pushtoo reduced to writing.\nThe accomplishment of such a translation was a highly honourable proof\nof the zeal and industry of the Serampore mission; and should these\npages ever meet the eye of Mr. John Marshman, of Serampore,[21] whose\nown pen is consistently guided by a love of civil order and religious\ntruth, he may probably be able to identify 'the English gentleman' who,\nthirty-two years ago on the banks of the Ganges, at the then frontier\nof British India, gave to a young Afghan chief, from beyond the distant\nIndus, a Bible in his own barbarous tongue, and foresaw the day when\nthe followers of the 'Son of David' should extend their dominion to the\n'Throne of Solomon.'\"\n\nHurdw\u00e2r, as the spot at which the Ganges debouches into the plains, is\nthe scene of the greatest pilgrim gathering in India, especially every\ntwelfth year.  Then three millions of people used to assemble, and too\noften carried, all over Asia, cholera which extended to Europe.  The\nmissionaries made this, like most pilgrim resorts, a centre of\npreaching and Bible circulation, and doubtless it was from Thompson,\nCarey's Missionary at Delhi, that this copy of the Pushtoo Bible was\nreceived.  It was begun by Dr. Leyden, and continued for seven years by\nthe same Afghan maulavee under Carey, in the Arabic character.  The\nPunjabi Bible, nearly complete, issued first in 1815, had become so\npopular by 1820 as to lead Carey to report of the Sikhs that no one of\nthe nations of India had discovered a stronger desire for the\nScriptures than this hardy race.  At Amritsar and Lahore \"the book of\nJesus is spoken of, is read, and has caused a considerable stir in the\nminds of the people.\"  A Thug, asked how he could have committed so\nmany murders, pointed to it and said, \"If I had had this book I could\nnot have done it.\"  A fakeer, forty miles from Lodiana, read the book,\nfounded the community of worshippers of the Sachi Pit\u00e8 Isa, and\nsuffered much persecution in a native State.\n\nWhen Felix Carey returned to Serampore in 1812 to print his Burmese\nversion of the Gospel of Matthew and his Burmese grammar, his father\ndetermined to send the press at which they were completed to Rangoon.\nThe three missionaries despatched with it a letter to the king of Ava,\ncommending to his care \"their beloved brethren, who from love to his\nmajesty's subjects had voluntarily gone to place themselves under his\nprotection, while they translated the Bible, the Book of Heaven, which\nwas received and revered\" by all the countries of Europe and America as\n\"the source whence all the knowledge of virtue and religion was drawn.\"\nThe king at once ordered from Serampore a printing-press, like that at\nRangoon, for his own palace at Ava, with workmen to use it.  In this\nCarey saw the beginning of a mission in the Burman capital, but God had\nother designs which the sons and daughters of America, following Judson\nfirst of all, are still splendidly developing, from Rangoon to\nKareng-nee, Siam, and China.  The ship containing the press sank in the\nRangoon river, and the first Burmese war soon followed.\n\nThree months after the complete and magnificent plan of translating the\nBible into all the languages of the far East, which the assistance of\nhis two colleagues and the college of Fort William led Carey to form,\nhad been laid before Fuller in Northamptonshire, the British and\nForeign Bible Society was founded in London.  Joseph Hughes, the\nNonconformist who was its first secretary, had been moved by the need\nof the Welsh for the Bible in their own tongue. But the\nex-Governor-General, Lord Teignmouth, became its first president, and\nthe Serampore translators at once turned for assistance to the new\norganisation whose work Carey had individually been doing for ten years\nat the cost of his two associates and himself.  The catholic Bible\nSociety at once asked Carey's old friend, Mr. Udny, then a member of\nthe Government in Calcutta, to form a corresponding committee there of\nthe three missionaries--their chaplain friends, Brown and Buchanan, and\nhimself.  The chaplains delayed the formation of the committee till\n1809, but liberally helped meanwhile in the circulation of the other\nappeals issued from Serampore, and even made the proposal which\nresulted in Dr. Marshman's wonderful version of the Bible in Chinese\nand Ward's improvements in Chinese printing.  To the principal\ntributary sovereigns of India Dr. Buchanan sent copies of the\nvernacular Scriptures already published.\n\nFrom 1809 till 1830, or practically through the rest of Carey's life,\nthe co-operation of Serampore and the Bible Society was honourable to\nboth.  Carey loyally clung to it when in 1811, under the spell of Henry\nMartyn's sermon on Christian India, the chaplains established the\nCalcutta Auxiliary Bible Society in order to supersede its\ncorresponding committee.  In the Serampore press the new auxiliary,\nlike the parent Society, found the cheapest and best means of\npublishing editions of the New Testament in Singhalese, Malayalam, and\nTamil.  The press issued also the Persian New Testament, first of the\nRomanist missionary, Sebastiani--\"though it be not wholly free from\nimperfections, it will doubtless do much good,\" wrote Dr. Marshman to\nFuller--and then of Henry Martyn, whose assistant, Sabat, was trained\nat Serampore.  Those three of Serampore had a Christ-like tolerance,\nwhich sprang from the divine charity of their determination to live\nonly that the Word of God might sound out through Asia. When in 1830\nthis auxiliary--which had at first sought to keep all missionaries out\nof its executive in order to conciliate men like Sydney Smith's\nbrother, the Advocate-General of Bengal--refused to use the\ntranslations of Carey and Yates, and inclined to an earlier version of\nEllerton, because of the translation or transliteration of the Greek\nwords for \"baptism,\" these two scholars acted thus, as described by the\nBible Society's annalist--they, \"with a liberality which does them\nhonour, permitted the use of their respective versions of the Bengali\nScriptures, with such alterations as were deemed needful in the\ndisputed word for 'baptism,' they being considered in no way parties to\nsuch alterations.\"  From first to last the British and Foreign Bible\nSociety, to use its own language, \"had the privilege of aiding the\nSerampore brethren by grants, amounting to not less than \u00a313,500.\"  Of\nthis \u00a31475 had been raised by Mr. William Hey, F.R.S., a surgeon at\nLeeds, who had been so moved by the translation memoir of 1816 as to\noffer \u00a3500 for the publication of a thousand copies of every approved\nfirst translation of the New Testament into any dialect of India.  It\nwas with this assistance that most of the Hindi and the Pushtoo and\nPunjabi versions were produced.\n\nThe cold season of 1811-12 was one ever to be remembered.  Death\nentered the home of each of the staff of seven missionaries and carried\noff wife or children.  An earthquake of unusual violence alarmed the\nnatives.  Dr. Carey had buried a grandson, and was at his weekly work\nin the college at Calcutta.  The sun had just set on the evening of the\n11th March 1812, and the native typefounders, compositors, pressmen,\nbinders, and writers had gone.  Ward alone lingered in the waning light\nat his desk settling an account with a few servants.  His two rooms\nformed the north end of the long printing-office.  The south rooms were\nfilled with paper and printed materials.  Close beyond was the\npaper-mill.  The Bible-publishing enterprise was at its height.\nFourteen founts of Oriental types, new supplies of Hebrew, Greek, and\nEnglish types, a vast stock of paper from the Bible Society, presses,\npriceless manuscripts of dictionaries, grammars, and translations, and,\nabove all, the steel punches of the Eastern letters--all were there,\nwith the deeds and account-books of the property, and the iron safe\ncontaining notes and rupees.  Suffocating smoke burst from the long\ntype-room into the office.  Rushing through it to observe the source of\nthe fire, he was arrested at the southern rooms by the paper store.\nReturning with difficulty and joined by Marshman and the natives, he\nhad every door and window closed, and then mounting the south roof, he\nhad water poured through it upon the burning mass for four hours, with\nthe most hopeful prospect of arresting the ruin.  While he was busy\nwith Marshman in removing the papers in the north end some one opened a\nwindow, when the air set the entire building on flame.  By midnight the\nroof fell in along its whole length, and the column of fire leapt up\ntowards heaven.  With \"solemn serenity\" the members of the mission\nfamily remained seated in front of the desolation.\n\nThe ruins were still smoking when next evening Dr. Carey arrived from\nCalcutta, which was ringing with the sad news.  The venerable scholar\nhad suffered most, for his were the manuscripts; the steel punches were\nfound uninjured.  The Sikh and Telugoo grammars and ten Bible versions\nin the press were gone.  Second editions of Confucius.  A Dissertation\non the Chinese Language, and of Ward on the Hindoos, and smaller works\nwere destroyed.  The translation of the Ramayana, on which he and\nMarshman had been busy for a year, was stopped for ever; fifty years\nafter the present writer came upon some charred sheets of the fourth\nvolume, which had been on the press and rescued.  The Circular Letter\nfor April 1812 is printed on paper scorched at the edge.  Worst of all\nwas the loss of that polyglot dictionary of all the languages derived\nfrom the Sanskrit which, if Carey had felt any of this world's\nambition, would have perpetuated his name in the first rank of\nphilologists.\n\nWith the delicacy which always marked him Dr. Marshman had himself gone\ndown to Calcutta next morning to break the news to Carey, who received\nit with choking utterance.  The two then called on the friendly\nchaplain, Thomason, who burst into tears.  When the afternoon tide\nenabled the three to reach Serampore, after a two hours' hard pull at\nthe flood, they found Ward rejoicing.  He had been all day clearing\naway the rubbish, and had just discovered the punches and matrices\nunharmed.  The five presses too were untouched. He had already opened\nout a long warehouse nearer the river-shore, the lease of which had\nfallen in to them, and he had already planned the occupation of that\nuninviting place in which the famous press of Serampore and, at the\nlast, the Friend of India weekly newspaper found a home till 1875.  The\ndescription of the scene and of its effect on Carey by an eye-witness\nlike Thomason has a value of its own:--\n\n\"The year 1812 was ushered in by an earthquake which was preceded by a\nloud noise; the house shook; the oil in the lamps on the walls was\nthrown out; the birds made a frightful noise; the natives ran from\ntheir houses, calling on the names of their gods; the sensation is most\nawful; we read the forty-sixth Psalm.  This fearful prodigy was\nsucceeded by that desolating disaster, the Serampore fire.  I could\nscarcely believe the report; it was like a blow on the head which\nstupefies.  I flew to Serampore to witness the desolation.  The scene\nwas indeed affecting.  The immense printing-office, two hundred feet\nlong and fifty broad, reduced to a mere shell.  The yard covered with\nburnt quires of paper, the loss in which article was immense.  Carey\nwalked with me over the smoking ruins.  The tears stood in his eyes.\n'In one short evening,' said he, 'the labours of years are consumed.\nHow unsearchable are the ways of God!  I had lately brought some things\nto the utmost perfection of which they seemed capable, and contemplated\nthe missionary establishment with perhaps too much self-congratulation.\nThe Lord has laid me low, that I may look more simply to Him.' Who\ncould stand in such a place, at such a time, with such a man, without\nfeelings of sharp regret and solemn exercise of mind.  I saw the ground\nstrewed with half-consumed paper, on which in the course of a very few\nmonths the words of life would have been printed.  The metal under our\nfeet amidst the ruins was melted into misshapen lumps--the sad remains\nof beautiful types consecrated to the service of the sanctuary.  All\nwas smiling and promising a few hours before--now all is vanished into\nsmoke or converted into rubbish! Return now to thy books, regard God in\nall thou doest.  Learn Arabic with humility.  Let God be exalted in all\nthy plans, and purposes, and labours; He can do without thee.\"\n\nCarey himself thus wrote of the disaster to Dr. Ryland:--\"25th March\n1812.--The loss is very great, and will long be severely felt; yet I\ncan think of a hundred circumstances which would have made it much more\ndifficult to bear.  The Lord has smitten us, he had a right to do so,\nand we deserve his corrections.  I wish to submit to His sovereign\nwill, nay, cordially to acquiesce therein, and to examine myself\nrigidly to see what in me has contributed to this evil.\n\n\"I now, however, turn to the bright side; and here I might mention what\nstill remains to us, and the merciful circumstances which attend even\nthis stroke of God's rod; but I will principally notice what will tend\nto cheer the heart of every one who feels for the cause of God. Our\nloss, so far as I can see, is reparable in a much shorter time than I\nshould at first have supposed.  The Tamil fount of types was the first\nthat we began to recast.  I expect it will be finished by the end of\nthis week, just a fortnight after it was begun.  The next will be the\nsmall Devanagari, for the Hindostani Scriptures, and next the larger\nfor the Sanskrit.  I hope this will be completed in another month.  The\nother founts, viz., Bengali, Orissa, Sikh, Telinga, Singhalese,\nMahratta, Burman, Kashmeerian, Arabic, Persian, and Chinese, will\nfollow in order, and will probably be finished in six or seven months,\nexcept the Chinese, which will take more than a year to replace it.  I\ntrust, therefore, that we shall not be greatly delayed.  Our English\nworks will be delayed the longest; but in general they are of the least\nimportance.  Of MSS. burnt I have suffered the most; that is, what was\nactually prepared by me, and what owes its whole revision for the press\nto me, comprise the principal part of the MSS. consumed. The ground\nmust be trodden over again, but no delay in printing need arise from\nthat.  The translations are all written out first by pundits in the\ndifferent languages, except the Sanskrit which is dictated by me to an\namanuensis.  The Sikh, Mahratta, Hindostani, Orissa, Telinga, Assam,\nand Kurnata are re-translating in rough by pundits who have been long\naccustomed to their work, and have gone over the ground before.  I\nfollow them in revise, the chief part of which is done as the sheets\npass through the press, and is by far the heaviest part of the work.\nOf the Sanskrit only the second book of Samuel and the first book of\nKings were lost.  Scarcely any of the Orissa, and none of the\nKashmeerian or of the Burman MSS. were lost--copy for about thirty\npages of my Bengali dictionary, the whole copy of a Telinga grammar,\npart of the copy of the grammar of Punjabi or Sikh language, and all\nthe materials which I had been long collecting for a dictionary of all\nthe languages derived from the Sanskrit.  I hope, however, to be\nenabled to repair the loss, and to complete my favourite scheme, if my\nlife be prolonged.\"\n\nLittle did these simple scholars, all absorbed in their work, dream\nthat this fire would prove to be the means of making them and their\nwork famous all over Europe and America as well as India.  Men of every\nChristian school, and men interested only in the literary and secular\nside of their enterprise, had their active sympathy called out.  The\nmere money loss, at the exchange of the day, was not under ten thousand\npounds.  In fifty days this was raised in England and Scotland alone,\ntill Fuller, returning from his last campaign, entered the room of his\ncommittee, declaring \"we must stop the contributions.\"  In Greenock,\nfor instance, every place of worship on one Sunday collected money.  In\nthe United States Mr. Robert Ralston, a Presbyterian, a merchant of\nPhiladelphia, who as Carey's correspondent had been the first American\nlayman to help missions to India, and Dr. Staughton, who had taken an\ninterest in the formation of the Society in 1792 before he emigrated,\nhad long assisted the translation work, and now that Judson was on his\nway out they redoubled their exertions.  In India Thomason's own\ncongregation sent the missionaries \u00a3800, and Brown wrote from his dying\nbed a message of loving help.  The newspapers of Calcutta caught the\nenthusiasm; one leading article concluded with the assurance that the\nSerampore press would, \"like the phoenix of antiquity, rise from its\nashes, winged with new strength, and destined, in a lofty and\nlong-enduring flight, widely to diffuse the benefits of knowledge\nthroughout the East.\" The day after the fire ceased to smoke Monohur\nwas at the task of casting type from the lumps of the molten metal.\n\nIn two months after the first intelligence Fuller was able to send as\n\"feathers of the phoenix\" slips of sheets of the Tamil Testament,\nprinted from these types, to the towns and churches which had\nsubscribed.  Every fortnight a fount was cast; in a month all the\nnative establishment was at work night and day.  In six months the\nwhole loss in Oriental types was repaired.  The Ramayana version and\nSanskrit polyglot dictionary were never resumed.  But of the Bible\ntranslations and grammars, Carey and his two heroic brethren\nwrote:--\"We found, on making the trial, that the advantages in going\nover the same ground a second time were so great that they fully\ncounter-balanced the time requisite to be devoted thereto in a second\ntranslation.\"  The fire, in truth, the cause of which was never\ndiscovered, and insurance against which did not exist in India, had\ngiven birth to revised editions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nWHAT CAREY DID FOR LITERATURE AND FOR HUMANITY\n\nThe growth of a language--Carey identified with the transition stage of\nBengali--First printed books--Carey's own works--His influence on\nindigenous writers--His son's works--Bengal the first heathen country\nto receive the press--The first Bengali newspaper--The monthly and\nquarterly Friend of India--The Hindoo revival of the eighteenth century\nfostered by the East India Company--Carey's three memorials to\nGovernment on female infanticide, voluntary drowning, and\nwidow-burning--What Jonathan Duncan and Col. Walker had\ndone--Wellesley's regulation to prevent the sacrifice of\nchildren--Beginning of the agitation against the Suttee crime--Carey's\npundits more enlightened than the Company's judges--Humanity triumphs\nin 1832--Carey's share in Ward's book on the Hindoos--The lawless\nsupernaturalism of Rome and of India--Worship of Jaganath--Regulation\nidentifying Government with Hindooism--The swinging festival--Ghat\nmurders--Burning of lepers--Carey establishes the Leper Hospital in\nCalcutta--Slavery in India loses its legal status--Cowper, Clarkson,\nand Carey.\n\nLike the growth of a tree is the development of a language, as really\nand as strictly according to law.  In savage lands like those of Africa\nthe missionary finds the living germs of speech, arranges them for the\nfirst time in grammatical order, expresses them in written and printed\nform, using the simplest, most perfect, and most universal character of\nall--the Roman, and at one bound gives the most degraded of the dark\npeoples the possibility of the highest civilisation and the divinest\nfuture.  In countries like India and China, where civilisation has long\nago reached its highest level, and has been declining for want of the\nsalt of a universal Christianity, it is the missionary again who\ninterferes for the highest ends, but by a different process.  Mastering\nthe complex classical speech and literature of the learned and priestly\nclass, and living with his Master's sympathy among the people whom that\nclass oppresses, he takes the popular dialects which are instinct with\nthe life of the future; where they are wildly luxuriant he brings them\nunder law, where they are barren he enriches them from the parent stock\nso as to make them the vehicle of ideas such as Greek gave to Europe,\nand in time he brings to the birth nations worthy of the name by a\nnational language and literature lighted up with the ideas of the Book\nwhich he is the first to translate.\n\nThis was what Carey did for the speech of the Bengalees.  To them, as\nthe historians of the fast approaching Christian future will recognise,\nhe was made what the Saxon Boniface had become to the Germans, or the\nNorthumbrian Baeda and Wyclif to the English.  The transition period of\nEnglish, from 1150 when its modern grammatical form prevailed, to the\nfifteenth century when the rich dialects gave place to the literary\nstandard, has its central date in 1362.  Then Edward the Third made\nEnglish take the place of French as the public language of justice and\nlegislation, closely followed by Wyclif's English Bible.  Carey's one\nIndian life of forty years marks the similar transition stage of\nBengali, including the parallel regulation of 1829, which abolished\nPersian, made by the Mohammedan conquerors the language of the courts,\nand put in its place Bengali and the vernaculars of the other provinces.\n\nWhen Carey began to work in Calcutta and Dinapoor in 1792-93 Bengali\nhad no printed and hardly any written literature.  The very written\ncharacters were justly described by Colebrooke as nothing else but the\ndifficult and beautiful Sanskrit Devanagari deformed for the sake of\nexpeditious writings, such as accounts.  It was the new vaishnava faith\nof the Nuddea reformer Chaitanya which led to the composition of the\nfirst Bengali prose.[22] The Brahmans and the Mohammedan rulers alike\ntreated Bengali--though \"it arose from the tomb of the Sanskrit,\" as\nItalian did from Latin under Dante's inspiration--as fit only for\n\"demons and women.\"  In the generation before Carey there flourished at\nthe same Oxford of India, as Nuddea has been called, Raja Krishna Rai,\nwho did for Bengali what our own King Alfred accomplished for English\nprose.  Moved, however, chiefly by a zeal for Hindooism, which caused\nhim to put a Soodra to death for marrying into a Brahman family, he\nhimself wrote the vernacular and spent money in gifts, which\n\"encouraged the people to study Bengali with unusual diligence.\"  But\nwhen, forty years after that, Carey visited Nuddea he could not\ndiscover more than forty separate works, all in manuscript, as the\nwhole literature of 30,000,000 of people up to that time.  A press had\nbeen at work on the opposite side of the river for fifteen years, but\nHalhed's grammar was still the only as it was the most ancient printed\nbook.  One Baboo Ram, from Upper India, was the first native who\nestablished a press in Calcutta, and that only under the influence of\nColebrooke, to print the Sanskrit classics.  The first Bengali who, on\nhis own account, printed works in the vernacular on trade principles,\nwas Gunga Kishore, whom Carey and Ward had trained at Serampore.  He\nsoon made so large a fortune by his own press that three native rivals\nhad sprung up by 1820, when twenty-seven separate books, or 15,000\ncopies, had been sold to natives within ten years.\n\nFor nearly all these Serampore supplied the type.  But all were in\nanother sense the result of Carey's action.  His first edition of the\nBengali New Testament appeared in 1801, his Grammar in the same year,\nand at the same time his Colloquies, or \"dialogues intended to\nfacilitate the acquiring of the Bengali language,\" which he wrote out\nof the abundance of his knowledge of native thought, idioms, and even\nslang, to enable students to converse with all classes of society, as\nErasmus had done in another way.  His Dictionary of 80,000 words began\nto appear in 1815.  Knowing, however, that in the long run the\nliterature of a nation must be of indigenous growth, he at once pressed\nthe natives into this service.  His first pundit, Ram Basu, was a most\naccomplished Bengali scholar.  This able man, who lacked the courage to\nprofess Christ in the end, wrote the first tract, the Gospel Messenger,\nand the first pamphlet exposing Hindooism, both of which had an\nenormous sale and caused much excitement.  On the historical side Carey\ninduced him to publish in 1801 the Life of Raja Pratapaditya, the last\nking of Sagar Island. At first the new professor could not find reading\nbooks for his Bengali class in the college of Fort William.  He, his\npundits, especially Mritunjaya who has been compared in his physique\nand knowledge to Dr. Samuel Johnson, and even the young civilian\nstudents, were for many years compelled to write Bengali text-books,\nincluding translations of Virgil's \u00c6neid and Shakspere's Tempest. The\nSchool Book Society took up the work, encouraging such a man as Ram\nKomal Sen, the printer who became chief native official of the Bank of\nBengal and father of the late Keshab Chunder Sen, to prepare his\nBengali dictionary.  Self-interest soon enlisted the haughtiest\nBrahmans in the work of producing school and reading books, till now\nthe Bengali language is to India what the Italian is to Europe, and its\nnative literature is comparatively as rich.  Nor was Carey without his\nEuropean successor in the good work for a time.  When his son Felix\ndied in 1823 he was bewailed as the coadjutor of Ram Komal Sen, as the\nauthor of the first volume of a Bengali encyclop\u00e6dia on anatomy, as the\ntranslator of Bunyan's Pilgrim, Goldsmith's History of England, and\nMill's History of India.\n\nLiterature cannot be said to exist for the people till the newspaper\nappears.  Bengal was the first non-Christian country into which the\npress had ever been introduced.  Above all forms of truth and faith\nChristianity seeks free discussion; in place of that the missionaries\nlived under a shackled press law tempered by the higher instincts of\nrulers like Wellesley, Hastings, and Bentinck, till Macaulay and\nMetcalfe gained for it liberty.  When Dr. Marshman in 1818 proposed the\npublication of a Bengali periodical, Dr. Carey, impressed by a quarter\nof a century's intolerance, consented only on the condition that it\nshould be a monthly magazine, and should avoid political discussion.\nAccordingly the Dig-darshan appeared, anticipating in its contents and\nstyle the later Penny and Saturday Magazines, and continued for three\nyears.  Its immediate success led to the issue from the Serampore press\non the 31st May 1818, of \"the first newspaper ever printed in any\nOriental language\"--the Samachar Darpan, or News Mirror.\n\nIt was a critical hour when the first proof of the first number was\nlaid before the assembled brotherhood at the weekly meeting on Friday\nevening.  Dr. Carey, fearing for his spiritual work, but eager for this\nnew avenue to the minds of the people who were being taught to read,\nand had little save their own mythology, consented to its publication\nwhen Dr. Marshman promised to send a copy, with an analysis of its\ncontents in English, to the Government, and to stop the enterprise if\nit should be officially disapproved.  Lord Hastings was fighting the\nPindarees, and nothing was said by his Council.  On his return he\ndeclared that \"the effect of such a paper must be extensively and\nimportantly useful.\"  He allowed it to circulate by post at one-fourth\nthe then heavy rate.  The natives welcomed their first newspaper.\nAlthough it avoided religious controversy, in a few weeks an opposition\njournal was issued by a native, who sought to defend Hindooism under\nthe title of the Destroyer of Darkness.  To the Darpan the educated\nnatives looked as the means of bringing the oppression of their own\ncountrymen to the knowledge of the public and the authorities.\nGovernment found it most useful for contradicting silly rumours and\npromoting contentment if not loyalty.  The paper gave a new development\nto the Bengali language as well as to the moral and political education\nof the people.\n\nThe same period of liberty to the press and to native advancement, with\nwhich the names of the Marquis of Hastings and his accomplished wife\nwill ever be associated, saw the birth of an English periodical which,\nfor the next fifty-seven years, was to become not merely famous but\npowerfully useful as the Friend of India.  The title was the selection\nof Dr. Marshman, and the editorial management was his and his able\nson's down to 1852, when it passed into the hands of Mr. Meredith\nTownsend, long the most brilliant of English journalists, and finally\ninto those of the present writer.  For some years a monthly and for a\ntime a quarterly magazine till 1835, when Mr. John Marshman made it the\nwell-known weekly, this journal became the means through which Carey\nand the brotherhood fought the good fight of humanity.  In the monthly\nand quarterly Friend, moreover, reprinted as much of it was in London,\nthe three philanthropists brought their ripe experience and lofty\nprinciples to bear on the conscience of England and of educated India\nalike.  As, on the Oriental side, Carey chose for his weapon the\nvernacular, on the other he drew from Western sources the principles\nand the thoughts which he clothed in a Bengali dress.\n\nWe have already seen how Carey at the end of the eighteenth century\nfound Hindooism at its worst.  Steadily had the Pooranic corruption and\nthe Brahmanical oppression gone on demoralising the whole of Hindoo\nsociety.  In the period of virtual anarchy, which covered the\nseventy-five years from the death of Aurangzeb to the supremacy of\nWarren Hastings and the reforms of Lord Cornwallis, the healthy zeal of\nIslam against the idolatrous abominations of the Hindoos had ceased.\nIn its place there was not only a wild licence amounting to an\nundoubted Hindoo revival, marked on the political side by the Maratha\nascendency, but there came to be deliberate encouragement of the worst\nforms of Hindooism by the East India Company and its servants.  That\n\"the mischievous reaction\" on England from India--its idolatry, its\nwomen, its nabobs, its wealth, its absolutism--was prevented, and\nEuropean civilisation was \"after much delay and hesitation\" brought to\nbear on India, was due indeed to the legislation of Governor-Generals\nfrom Cornwallis to Bentinck, but much more, to the persistent agitation\nof Christian missionaries, notably Carey and Duff. For years Carey\nstood alone in India, as Grant and Wilberforce did in England, in the\ndarkest hour of England's moral degradation and spiritual death, when\nthe men who were shaping the destinies of India were the Hindooising\nStewarts and Youngs, Prendergasts, Twinings, and Warings, some of whom\nhated missions from the dread of sedition, others because their hearts\n\"seduced by fair idolatresses had fallen to idols foul.\"\n\nThe most atrociously inhuman of all the Brahmanical customs, and yet\nthe most universal, from the land of the five rivers at Lahore to the\nfar spice islands at Bali, was the murder of widows by burning or\nburying them alive with the husband's corpse.  We have seen how the\nfirst of the many such scenes which he was doomed to witness for the\nnext thirty years affected Carey.  After remonstrances, which the\npeople met first by argument and then by surly threats, Carey\nwrote:--\"I told them I would not go, that I was determined to stay and\nsee the murder, and that I should certainly bear witness of it at the\ntribunal of God.\" And when he again sought to interfere because the two\nstout bamboos always fixed for the purpose of preventing the victim's\nescape were pressed down on the shrieking woman like levers, and they\npersisted, he wrote: \"We could not bear to see more, but left them\nexclaiming loudly against the murder and full of horror at what we had\nseen.\"  The remembrance of that sight never left Carey.  His naturally\ncheerful spirit was inflamed to indignation all his life through, till\nhis influence, more than that of any other one man, at last prevailed\nto put out for ever the murderous pyre.  Had Lord Wellesley remained\nGovernor-General a year longer Carey would have succeeded in 1808,\ninstead of having to wait till 1829, and to know as he waited and\nprayed that literally every day saw the devilish smoke ascending along\nthe banks of the Ganges, and the rivers and pools considered sacred by\nthe Hindoos.  Need we wonder that when on a Sunday morning the\nregulation of Lord William Bentinck prohibiting the crime reached him\nas he was meditating his sermon, he sent for another to do the\npreaching, and taking his pen in his hand, at once wrote the official\ntranslation, and had it issued in the Bengali Gazette that not another\nday might be added to the long black catalogue of many centuries?\n\nOn the return of the Marquis Wellesley to Calcutta from the Tipoo war,\nand his own appointment to the College of Fort William, Carey felt that\nhis time had come to prevent the murder of the innocents all over India\nin the three forms of female infanticide, voluntary drowning, and\nwidow-burning or burying alive.  His old friend, Udny, having become a\nmember of Council or colleague of the Governor-General, he prepared\nthree memorials to Government on each of these crimes.  When afterwards\nhe had enlisted Claudius Buchanan in the good work, and had employed\ntrustworthy natives to collect statistics proving that in the small\ndistrict around Calcutta 275 widow murders thus took place in six\nmonths of 1803, and when he was asked by Dr. Ryland to state the facts\nwhich, with his usual absence of self-regarding, he had not reported\npublicly, or even in letters home, he thus replied:--\n\n\"27th April 1808.--The report of the burning of women, and some others,\nhowever, were made by me.  I, at his expense, however, made the\ninquiries and furnished the reports, and believe they are rather below\nthe truth than above it.  I have, since I have been here, through a\ndifferent medium, presented three petitions or representations to\nGovernment for the purpose of having the burning of women and other\nmodes of murder abolished, and have succeeded in the case of\ninfanticide and voluntary drowning in the river.  Laws were made to\nprevent these, which have been successful.\"\n\nBut there was a crime nearer home, committed in the river flowing past\nhis own door, and especially at Sagar Island, where the Ganges loses\nitself in the ocean.  At that tiger-haunted spot, shivering in the cold\nof the winter solstice, every year multitudes of Hindoos, chiefly wives\nwith children and widows with heavy hearts, assembled to wash away\ntheir sins--to sacrifice the fruit of their body for the sin of their\nsoul.  Since 1794, when Thomas and he had found in a basket hanging on\na tree the bones of an infant exposed, to be devoured by the white\nants, by some mother too poor to go on pilgrimage to a sacred\nriver-spot, Carey had known this unnatural horror.  He and his brethren\nhad planned a preaching tour to Sagar, where not only mothers drowned\ntheir first born in payment of a vow, with the encouragement of the\nBrahmans, but widows and even men walked into the deep sea and drowned\nthemselves at the spot where Ganga and Sagar kiss each other, \"as the\nhighest degree of holiness, and as securing immediate heaven.\"  The\nresult of Carey's memorial was the publication of the Regulation for\npreventing the sacrifice of children at Sagar and other places on the\nGanges:--\"It has been represented to the Governor-General in Council\nthat a criminal and inhuman practice of sacrificing children, by\nexposing them to be drowned or devoured by sharks, prevails...Children\nthrown into the sea at Sagar have not been generally rescued...but the\nsacrifice has been effected with circumstances of peculiar atrocity in\nsome instances.  This practice is not sanctioned by the Hindoo law, nor\ncountenanced by the religious orders.\"  It was accordingly declared to\nbe murder, punishable with death.  At each pilgrim gathering sepoys\nwere stationed to check the priests and the police, greedy of bribes,\nand to prevent fanatical suicides as well as superstitious murders.\n\nThe practice of infanticide was really based on the recommendation of\nSati, literally the \"method of purity\" which the Hindoo shastras\nrequire when they recommend the bereaved wife to burn with her husband.\nSurely, reasoned the Rajpoots, we may destroy a daughter by abortion,\nstarvation, suffocation, strangulation, or neglect, of whose marriage\nin the line of caste and dignity of family there is little prospect, if\na widow may be burned to preserve her chastity!\n\nIn answer to Carey's third memorial Lord Wellesley took the first step,\non 5th February 1805, in the history of British India, two centuries\nafter Queen Elizabeth had given the Company its mercantile charter, and\nhalf a century after Plassey had given it political power, to protect\nfrom murder the widows who had been burned alive, at least since the\ntime of Alexander the Great.  This was the first step in the history of\nBritish but not of Mohammedan India, for our predecessors had by decree\nforbidden and in practice discouraged the crime.  Lord Wellesley's\ncolleagues were still the good Udny, the great soldier Lord Lake and\nSir George Barlow.  The magistrate of Bihar had on his own authority\nprevented a child-widow of twelve, when drugged by the Brahmans, from\nbeing burned alive, after which, he wrote, \"the girl and her friends\nwere extremely grateful for my interposition.\"  Taking advantage of\nthis case, the Government asked the appellate judges, all Company's\nservants, to \"ascertain how far the practice is founded on the\nreligious opinions of the Hindoos. If not founded on any precept of\ntheir law, the Governor-General in Council hopes that the custom may\ngradually, if not immediately, be altogether abolished.  If, however,\nthe entire abolition should appear to the Court to be impracticable in\nitself, or inexpedient, as offending any established religious opinion\nof the Hindoos,\" the Court were desired to consider the best means of\npreventing the abuses, such as the use of drugs and the sacrifice of\nthose of immature age.  But the preamble of this reference to the\njudges declared it to be one of the fundamental principles of the\nBritish Government to consult the religious opinions of the natives,\n\"consistently with the principles of morality, reason, and humanity.\"\nThere spoke Carey and Udny, and Wellesley himself.  But for another\nquarter of a century the funeral pyres were to blaze with the living\nalso, because that caveat was set aside, that fundamental maxim of the\nconstitution of much more than the British Government--of the\nconscience of humanity, was carefully buried up. The judges asked the\npundits whether the woman is \"enjoined\" by the shaster voluntarily to\nburn herself with the body of her husband. They replied \"every woman of\nthe four castes is permitted to burn herself,\" except in certain cases\nenumerated, and they quoted Manoo, who is against the custom in so far\nas he says that a virtuous wife ascends to heaven if she devotes\nherself to pious austerities after the decease of her lord.\n\nThis opinion would have been sufficient to give the requisite native\nexcuse to Government for the abolition, but the Nizamat Adawlat judges\nurged the \"principle\" of \"manifesting every possible indulgence to the\nreligious opinions and prejudices of the natives,\" ignoring morality,\nreason, and humanity alike.  Lord Wellesley's long and brilliant\nadministration of eight years was virtually at an end: in seven days he\nwas to embark for home.  The man who had preserved the infants from the\nsharks of Sagar had to leave the widows and their children to be saved\nby the civilians Carey and he had personally trained, Metcalfe and\nBayley, who by 1829 had risen to Council and become colleagues of Lord\nW. Bentinck.  But Lord Wellesley did this much, he declined to notice\nthe so-called \"prohibitory regulations\" recommended by the civilian\njudges. These, when adopted in the year 1812, made the British\nGovernment responsible by legislation for every murder thereafter, and\ngreatly increased the number of murders.  From that date the Government\nof India decided \"to allow the practice,\" as recognised and encouraged\nby the Hindoo religion, except in cases of compulsion, drugging, widows\nunder sixteen, and proved pregnancy.  The police--natives--were to be\npresent, and to report every case.  At the very time the British\nParliament were again refusing in the charter discussions of 1813 for\nanother twenty years to tolerate Christianity in its Eastern\ndependency, the Indian legislature legalised the burning and burying\nalive of widows, who numbered at least 6000 in nine only of the next\nsixteen years, from 1815 to 1823 inclusive.\n\nFrom Plassey in 1757 to 1829, three quarters of a century, Christian\nEngland was responsible, at first indirectly and then most directly,\nfor the known immolation of at least 70,000 Hindoo widows.  Carey was\nthe first to move the authorities; Udny and Wellesley were the first to\nbegin action against an atrocity so long continued and so atrocious.\nWhile the Governor-Generals and their colleagues passed away, Carey and\nhis associates did not cease to agitate in India and to stir up\nWilberforce and the evangelicals in England, till the victory was\ngained.  The very first number of the Friend of India published their\nessay on the burning of widows, which was thereafter quoted on both\nsides of the conflict, as \"a powerful and convincing statement of the\nreal facts and circumstances of the case,\" in Parliament and elsewhere.\nNor can we omit to record the opinion of Carey's chief pundit, with\nwhom he spent hours every day as a fellow-worker.  The whole body of\nlaw-pundits wrote of Sati as only \"permitted.\"  Mritunjaya, described\nas the head jurist of the College of Fort William and the Supreme\nCourt, decided that, according to Hindooism, a life of mortification is\nthe law for a widow.  At best burning is only an alternative for\nmortification, and no alternative can have the force of direct law.\nBut in former ages nothing was ever heard of the practice, it being\npeculiar to a later and more corrupt era. \"A woman's burning herself\nfrom the desire of connubial bliss ought to be rejected with\nabhorrence,\" wrote this colossus of pundits.  Yet before he was\nbelieved, or the higher law was enforced, as it has ever since been\neven in our tributary States, mothers had burned with sons, and forty\nwives, many of them sisters, at a time, with polygamous husbands.\nLepers and the widows of the devotee class had been legally buried\nalive. Magistrates, who were men like Metcalfe, never ceased to prevent\nwidow-murder on any pretext, wherever they might be placed, in defiance\nof their own misguided Government.\n\nThough from 4th December 1829--memorable date, to be classed with that\non which soon after 800,000 slaves were set free--\"the Ganges flowed\nunblooded to the sea\" for the first time, the fight lasted a little\nlonger.  The Calcutta \"orthodox\" formed a society to restore their\nright of murdering their widows, and found English lawyers ready to\nhelp them in an appeal to the Privy Council under an Act of Parliament\nof 1797.  The Darpan weekly did good service in keeping the mass of the\neducated natives right on the subject.  The Privy Council, at which\nLord Wellesley and Charles Grant, venerable in years and character,\nwere present, heard the case for two days, and on 24th June 1832\ndismissed the petition!\n\nThough the greatest, this was only one of the crimes against humanity\nand morality which Carey opposed all his life with a practical\nreasonableness till he saw the public opinion he had done so much to\ncreate triumph.  He knew the people of India, their religious, social,\nand economic condition, as no Englishman before him had done.  He stood\nbetween them and their foreign Government at the beginning of our\nintimate contact with all classes as detailed administrators and\nrulers.  The outcome of his peculiar experience is to be found not only\nin the writings published under his own name but in the great book of\nhis colleague William Ward, every page of which passed under his\ncareful correction as well as under the more general revision of Henry\nMartyn.  Except for the philosophy of Hindooism, the second edition of\nA View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos,\nincluding a Minute Description of their Manners and Customs, and\nTranslations from their Principal Works, published in 1818 in two\nquarto volumes, stands unrivalled as the best authority on the\ncharacter and daily life and beliefs of the 200,000,000 to whom Great\nBritain had been made a terrestrial providence, till Christianity\nteaches them to govern themselves and to become to the rest of Asia\nmissionaries of nobler truth than that wherewith their Buddhist fathers\ncovered China and the farther East.\n\nAll the crimes against humanity with which the history of India teems,\ndown to the Mutiny and the records of our courts and tributary states\nat this hour, are directly traceable to lawless supernaturalism like\nthat of the civilised world before the triumph of Christianity.  In\nnothing does England's administration of India resemble Rome's\ngovernment of its provinces in the seven centuries from the reduction\nof Sicily, 240 B.C., to the fall of the Western Empire, 476 A.D., so\nmuch as in the relation of nascent Christianity to the pagan cults\nwhich had made society what it was.  Carey and the brotherhood stood\nalone in facing, in fighting with divine weapons, in winning the first\nvictories over the secular as well as spiritual lawlessness which fell\nbefore Paul and his successors down to Augustine and his City of God.\nThe gentle and reasonable but none the less divinely indignant father\nof modern missions brings against Hindoo and Mohammedan society\naccusations no more railing than those in the opening passage of the\nEpistle to the Romans, and he brings these only that, following Paul,\nhe may declare the more excellent way.\n\nAs Serampore, or its suburbs, is the most popular centre of Jaganath\nworship next to Pooree in Orissa, the cruelty and oppression which\nmarked the annual festival were ever before the missionaries' eyes. In\n1813 we find Dr. Claudius Buchanan establishing his veracity as an\neye-witness of the immolation of drugged or voluntary victims under the\nidol car, by this quotation from Dr. Carey, whom he had to describe at\nthat time to his English readers, as a man of unquestionable integrity,\nlong held in estimation by the most respectable characters in Bengal,\nand possessing very superior opportunities of knowing what is passing\nin India generally: \"Idolatry destroys more than the sword, yet in a\nway which is scarcely perceived.  The numbers who die in their long\npilgrimages, either through want or fatigue, or from dysenteries and\nfevers caught by lying out, and want of accommodation, is incredible.\nI only mention one idol, the famous Juggernaut in Orissa, to which\ntwelve or thirteen pilgrimages are made every year.  It is calculated\nthat the number who go thither is, on some occasions, 600,000 persons,\nand scarcely ever less than 100,000.  I suppose, at the lowest\ncalculation, that in the year 1,200,000 persons attend. Now, if only\none in ten died, the mortality caused by this one idol would be 120,000\nin a year; but some are of opinion that not many more than one in ten\nsurvive and return home again.  Besides these, I calculate that 10,000\nwomen annually burn with the bodies of their deceased husbands, and the\nmultitudes destroyed in other methods would swell the catalogue to an\nextent almost exceeding credibility.\"\n\nAfter we had taken Orissa from the Marathas the priests of Jaganath\ndeclared that the night before the conquest the god had made known its\ndesire to be under British protection.  This was joyfully reported to\nLord Wellesley's Government by the first British commissioner.  At once\na regulation was drafted vesting the shrine and the increased\npilgrim-tax in the Christian officials.  This Lord Wellesley\nindignantly refused to sanction, and it was passed by Sir George Barlow\nin spite of the protests of Carey's friend, Udny. In Conjeeveram a\nBrahmanised civilian named Place had so early as 1796 induced\nGovernment to undertake the payment of the priests and prostitutes of\nthe temples, under the phraseology of \"churchwardens\" and \"the\nmanagement of the church funds.\"  Even before the Madras iniquity, the\npilgrims to Gaya from 1790, if not before, paid for authority to offer\nfuneral cakes to the manes of their ancestors and to worship Vishnoo\nunder the official seal and signature of the English Collector.\nAlthough Charles Grant's son, Lord Glenelg, when President of the Board\nof Control in 1833, ordered, as Theodosius had done on the fall of\npagan idolatry in A.D. 390, that \"in all matters relating to their\ntemples, their worship, their festivals, their religious practices,\ntheir ceremonial observances, our native subjects be left entirely to\nthemselves,\" the identification of Government with Hindooism was not\ncompletely severed till a recent period.\n\nThe Charak, or swinging festival, has been frequently witnessed by the\npresent writer in Calcutta itself.  The orgie has been suppressed by\nthe police in great cities, although it has not ceased in the rural\ndistricts.  In 1814 the brotherhood thus wrote home:--\n\n\"This abominable festival was held, according to the annual custom, on\nthe last day of the Hindoo year.  There were fewer gibbet posts erected\nat Serampore, but we hear that amongst the swingers was one female.  A\nman fell from a stage thirty cubits high and broke his back; and\nanother fell from a swinging post, but was not much hurt. Some days\nafter the first swinging, certain natives revived the ceremonies.  As\nMr. Ward was passing through Calcutta he saw several Hindoos hanging by\nthe heels over a slow fire, as an act of devotion.  Several Hindoos\nemployed in the printing-office applied this year to Mr. Ward for\nprotection, to escape being dragged into these pretendedly voluntary\npractices.  This brought before us facts which we were not aware of.\nIt seems that the landlords of the poor and other men of property\ninsist upon certain of their tenants and dependants engaging in these\npractices, and that they expect and compel by actual force multitudes\nevery year to join the companies of sunyassees in parading the streets,\npiercing their sides, tongues, etc.  To avoid this compulsion, many\npoor young men leave their houses and hide themselves; but they are\nsure of being beaten if caught, or of having their huts pulled down.\nThe influence and power of the rich have a great effect on the\nmultitude in most of the idolatrous festivals.  When the lands and\nriches of the country were in few hands, this influence carried all\nbefore it.  It is still very widely felt, in compelling dependants to\nassist at public shows, and to contribute towards the expense of\nsplendid ceremonies.\"\n\nThe Ghat murders, caused by the carrying of the dying to the Ganges or\na sacred river, and their treatment there, continue to this day,\nalthough Lord Lawrence attempted to interfere.  Ward estimated the\nnumber of sick whose death is hastened on the banks of the Ganges alone\nat five hundred a year, in his anxiety to \"use no unfair means of\nrendering even idolatry detestable,\" but he admits that, in the opinion\nof others, this estimate is far below the truth.  We believe, from our\nown recent experience, that still it fails to give any just idea of the\ndestruction of parents by children in the name of religion.\n\nOne class who had been the special objects of Christ's healing power\nand divine sympathy was specially interesting to Carey in proportion to\ntheir misery and abandonment by their own people--lepers.  When at\nCutwa in 1812, where his son was stationed as missionary, he saw the\nburning of a leper, which he thus described:--\"A pit about ten cubits\nin depth was dug and a fire placed at the bottom of it.  The poor man\nrolled himself into it; but instantly, on feeling the fire, begged to\nbe taken out, and struggled hard for that purpose.  His mother and\nsister, however, thrust him in again; and thus a man, who to all\nappearance might have survived several years, was cruelly burned to\ndeath.  I find that the practice is not uncommon in these parts.\nTaught that a violent end purifies the body and ensures transmigration\ninto a healthy new existence, while natural death by disease results in\nfour successive births, and a fifth as a leper again, the leper, like\nthe even more wretched widow, has always courted suicide.\"  Carey did\nnot rest until he had brought about the establishment of a leper\nhospital in Calcutta, near what became the centre of the Church\nMissionary Society's work, and there benevolent physicians, like the\nlate Dr. Kenneth Stuart, and Christian people, have made it possible to\nrecord, as in Christ's days, that the leper is cleansed and the poor\nhave the Gospel preached to them.\n\nBy none of the many young civilians whom he trained, or, in the later\nyears of his life, examined, was Carey's humane work on all its sides\nmore persistently carried out than by John Lawrence in the Punjab.\nWhen their new ruler first visited their district, the Bedi clan amazed\nhim by petitioning for leave to destroy their infant daughters.  In\nwrath he briefly told them he would hang every man found guilty of such\nmurder.  When settling the land revenue of the Cis-Sutlej districts he\ncaused each farmer, as he touched the pen in acceptance of the\nassessment, to recite this formula--\n\n  \"Bewa mat jal\u00e1o,\n  Beti mat m\u00e1ro,\n  Korhi mat dabao\"\n\n(\"Thou shalt not burn thy widow, thou shalt not kill thy daughters,\nthou shalt not bury thy lepers.\")\n\nFrom the hour of Carey's conversion he never omitted to remember in\nprayer the slave as well as the heathen.  The same period which saw his\nfoundation of modern missions witnessed the earliest efforts of his\ncontemporary, Thomas Clarkson of Wisbeach, in the neighbouring county\nof Cambridge, to free the slave.  But Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and\ntheir associates were so occupied with Africa that they knew not that\nGreat Britain was responsible for the existence of at least nine\nmillions of slaves in India, many of them brought by Hindoo merchants\nas well as Arabs from Eastern Africa to fill the hareems of\nMohammedans, and do domestic service in the zananas of Hindoos.  The\nstartling fact came to be known only slowly towards the end of Carey's\ncareer, when his prayers, continued daily from 1779, were answered in\nthe freedom of all our West India slaves. The East India answer came\nafter he had passed away, in Act V. of 1843, which for ever abolished\nthe legal status of slavery in India. The Penal Code has since placed\nthe pr\u00e6dial slave in such a position that if he is not free it is his\nown fault.  It is penal in India to hold a slave \"against his will,\"\nand we trust the time is not far distant when the last three words may\nbe struck out.\n\nWith true instinct Christopher Anderson, in his Annals of the English\nBible, associates Carey, Clarkson, and Cowper, as the triumvirate who,\nunknown to each other, began the great moral changes, in the Church, in\nsociety, and in literature, which mark the difference between the\neighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Little did Carey think, as he\nstudied under Sutcliff within sight of the poet's house, that Cowper\nwas writing at that very time these lines in The Task while he himself\nwas praying for the highest of all kinds of liberty to be given to the\nheathen and the slaves, Christ's freedom which had up till then remained\n\n                          \"...unsung\n  By poets, and by senators unpraised,\n  Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers\n  Of earth and hell confederate take away;\n  A liberty which persecution, fraud,\n  Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind:\n  Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nWHAT CAREY DID FOR SCIENCE--FOUNDER OF THE AGRICULTURAL AND\nHORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF INDIA\n\nCarey's relation to science and economics--State of the\npeasantry--Carey a careful scientific observer--Specially a\nbotanist--Becomes the friend of Dr. Roxburgh of the Company's Botanic\nGarden--Orders seeds and instruments of husbandry--All his researches\nsubordinate to his spiritual mission--His eminence as a botanist\nacknowledged in the history of the science--His own botanic garden and\npark at Serampore--The poet Montgomery on the daisies\nthere--Borneo--Carey's paper in the Asiatic Researches on the state of\nagriculture in Bengal--The first to advocate Forestry in India--Founds\nthe Agri-Horticultural Society of India--Issues queries on agriculture\nand horticulture--Remarkable results of his action--On the manufacture\nof paper--His expanded address on agricultural reform--His political\nforesight on the importance of European capital and the future of\nIndia--An official estimate of the results in the present day--On the\nusury of the natives and savings banks--His academic and scientific\nhonours--Destruction of his house and garden by the Damoodar flood of\n1823--Report on the Horticultural Society's garden--The Society honours\nits founder.\n\nNot only was the first Englishman, who in modern times became a\nmissionary, sent to India when he desired to go to Tahiti or West\nAfrica; and sent to Bengal from which all Northern India was to be\nbrought under British rule; and to Calcutta--with a safe asylum at\nDanish Serampore--then the metropolis and centre of all Southern Asia;\nbut he was sent at the very time when the life of the people could best\nbe purified and elevated on its many sides, and he was specially fitted\nto influence each of these sides save one.  An ambassador for Christ\nabove all things like Paul, but, also like him, becoming all things to\nall men that he might win some to the higher life, Carey was\nsuccessively, and often at the same time, a captain of labour, a\nschoolmaster, a printer, the developer of the vernacular speech, the\nexpounder of the classical language, the translator of both into\nEnglish and of the English Bible into both, the founder of a pure\nliterature, the purifier of society, the watchful philanthropist, the\nsaviour of the widow and the fatherless, of the despairing and the\nwould-be suicide, of the downtrodden and oppressed.  We have now to see\nhim on the scientific or the physical and economic side, while he still\njealously keeps his strength for the one motive power of all, the\nspiritual, and with almost equal care avoids the political or\nadministrative as his Master did.  But even then it was his aim to\nproclaim the divine principles which would use science and politics\nalike to bring nations to the birth, while, like the apostles, leaving\nthe application of these principles to the course of God's providence\nand the consciences of men.  In what he did for science, for\nliterature, and for humanity, as in what he abstained from doing in the\npractical region of public life, the first English missionary was an\nexample to all of every race who have followed him in the past century.\nFrom Carey to Livingstone, alike in Asia and Africa, the greatest\nChristian evangelists have been those who have made science and\nliterature the handmaids of missions.\n\nApart from the extreme south of the peninsula of India, where the\nDanish missionaries had explored with hawk's eyes, almost nothing was\nknown of its plants and animals, its men, as well as its beasts, when\nCarey found himself in a rural district of North Bengal in the closing\ndecade of the eighteenth century.  Nor had any writer, official or\nmissionary, anywhere realised the state of India and the needs of the\nHindoo and Mohammedan cultivators as flowing from the relation of the\npeople to the soil.  India was in truth a land of millions of peasant\nproprietors on five-acre farms, rack-rented or plundered by powerful\nmiddlemen, both squeezed or literally tortured by the Government of the\nday, and driven to depend on the usurer for even the seed for each\ncrop.  War and famine had alternated in keeping down the population.\nIgnorance and fear had blunted the natural shrewdness of the\ncultivator.  A foul mythology, a saddening demon-worship, and an\nexacting social system, covered the land as with a pall.  What even\nChristendom was fast becoming in the tenth century, India had been all\nthrough the eighteen Christian centuries.\n\nThe boy who from eight to fourteen \"chose to read books of science,\nhistory, voyages, etc., more than others\"; the youth whose gardener\nuncle would have had him follow that calling, but whose sensitive skin\nkept him within doors, where he fitted up a room with his botanical and\nzoological museum; the shoemaker-preacher who made a garden around\nevery cottage-manse in which he lived, and was familiar with every\nbeast, bird, insect, and tree in the Midlands of England, became a\nscientific observer from the day he landed at Calcutta, an agricultural\nreformer from the year he first built a wooden farmhouse in the jungle,\nas the Manitoba emigrant now does under very different skies, and then\nbegan to grow and make indigo amid the peasantry at Dinapoor.  He thus\nunconsciously reveals himself and his method of working in a letter to\nMorris of Clipstone:--\n\n\"MUDNABATI, 5th December 1797.--To talk of continuance of friendship\nand warm affection to you would be folly.  I love you; and next to\nseeing your face, a letter from you is one of my greatest\ngratifications.  I see the handwriting, and read the heart of my\nfriend; nor can the distance of one-fourth of the globe prevent a union\nof hearts.\n\n\"Hitherto I have refrained from writing accounts of the country,\nbecause I concluded that those whose souls were panting after the\nconversion of the heathen would feel but little gratified in having an\naccount of the natural productions of the country.  But as intelligence\nof this kind has been frequently solicited by several of my friends, I\nhave accordingly opened books of observation, which I hope to\ncommunicate when they are sufficiently authenticated and matured.  I\nalso intend to assign a peculiar share to each of my stated\ncorrespondents.  To you I shall write some accounts of the arts,\nutensils, and manufactures of the country; to Brother Sutcliff their\nmythology and religion; to Brother Ryland the manners and customs of\nthe inhabitants; to Brother Fuller the productions of the country; to\nBrother Pearce the language, etc.; and to the Society a joint account\nof the mission.\"\n\nHe had \"separate books for every distinct class, as birds, beasts,\nfishes, reptiles, etc.\"  Long before this, on 13th March 1795, he had\nwritten to the learned Ryland, his special correspondent on subjects of\nscience and on Hebrew, his first impressions of the physiography of\nBengal, adding: \"The natural history of Bengal would furnish\ninnumerable novelties to a curious inquirer.  I am making collections\nand minute descriptions of whatever I can obtain; and intend at some\nfuture time to transmit them to Europe.\"\n\n\"MUDNABATI, 26th November 1796.--I observed in a former letter that the\nbeasts have been in general described, but that the undescribed birds\nwere surprisingly numerous; and, in fact, new species are still\nfrequently coming under my notice.  We have sparrows and\nwater-wagtails, one species of crow, ducks, geese, and common fowls;\npigeons, teal, ortolans, plovers, snipes like those in Europe; but\nothers, entirely unlike European birds, would fill a volume. Insects\nare very numerous.  I have seen about twelve sorts of grylli, or\ngrasshoppers and crickets.  Ants are the most omnivorous of all\ninsects; we have eight or ten sorts very numerous.  The termes, or\nwhite ants, destroy everything on which they fasten; they will eat\nthrough an oak chest in a day or two and devour all its contents.\nButterflies are not so numerous as in England, but I think all\ndifferent.  Common flies and mosquitoes (or gnats) are abundant, and\nthe latter so tormenting as to make one conclude that if the flies in\nEgypt were mosquitoes, the plague must be almost insupportable.  Here\nare beetles of many species; scorpions of two sorts, the sting of the\nsmallest not mortal; land crabs in abundance, and an amazing number of\nother kinds of insects.  Fish is very plentiful, and the principal\nanimal food of the inhabitants.  I find fewer varieties of vegetables\nthan I could have conceived in so large a country.  Edible vegetables\nare scarce, and fruit far from plentiful.  You will perhaps wonder at\nour eating many things here which no one eats in England: as arum,\nthree or four sorts, and poppy leaves (Papaver somniferum).  We also\ncut up mallows by the bushes for our food (Job xxx. 4).  Amaranths, of\nthree sorts, we also eat, besides capsicums, pumpkins, gourds,\ncalabashes, and the egg-plant fruit; yet we have no hardships in these\nrespects.  Rice is the staple article of food...\n\n\"My love to the students.  God raise them up for great blessings. Great\nthings are certainly at hand.\"\n\nBut he was also an erudite botanist.  Had he arrived in Calcutta a few\ndays earlier than he did, he would have been appointed to the place for\nwhich sheer poverty led him to apply, in the Company's Botanical\nGarden, established on the right bank of the Hoogli a few miles below\nCalcutta, by Colonel Alexander Kyd, for the collection of indigenous\nand acclimatisation of foreign plants.  There he at once made the\nacquaintance, and till 1815 retained the loving friendship, of its\nsuperintendent, Dr. Roxburgh, the leader of a series of eminent men,\nBuchanan and Wallich, Griffith, Falconer, T. Thomson, and Thomas\nAnderson, the last two cut off in the ripe promise of their manhood.\nOne of Carey's first requests was for seeds and instruments, not merely\nfrom scientific reasons, but that he might carry out his early plan of\nworking with his hands as a farmer while he evangelised the people.  On\n5th August 1794 he wrote to the Society:--\"I wish you also to send me a\nfew instruments of husbandry, viz., scythes, sickles, plough-wheels,\nand such things; and a yearly assortment of all garden and flowering\nseeds, and seeds of fruit trees, that you can possibly procure; and let\nthem be packed in papers, or bottles well stopped, which is the best\nmethod. All these things, at whatever price you can procure them, and\nthe seeds of all sorts of field and forest trees, etc., I will\nregularly remit you the money for every year; and I hope that I may\ndepend upon the exertions of my numerous friends to procure them.\nApply to London seedsmen and others, as it will be a lasting advantage\nto this country; and I shall have it in my power to do this for what I\nnow call my own country.  Only take care that they are new and dry.\"\nAgain he addressed Fuller on 22nd June 1797:--\n\n\"MY VERY DEAR BROTHER--I have yours of August 9, 16, which informs me\nthat the seeds, etc., were shipped.  I have received those seeds and\nother articles in tolerable preservation, and shall find them a very\nuseful article.  An acquaintance which I have formed with Dr. Roxburgh,\nSuperintendent of the Company's Botanic Garden, and whose wife is\ndaughter of a missionary on the coast, may be of future use to the\nmission, and make that investment of vegetables more valuable.\"\n\nThus towards the close of his six years' sacrifice for the people of\nDinapoor does he estimate himself and his scientific pursuits in the\nlight of the great conflict to which the Captain of Salvation had\ncalled him.  He is opening his heart to Fuller again, most trusted of\nall:--\n\n\"MUDNABATI, 17th July 1799.--Respecting myself I have nothing\ninteresting to say; and if I had, it appears foreign to the design of a\nmission for the missionaries to be always speaking of their own\nexperiences.  I keep several journals, it is true, relating to things\nprivate and public, respecting the mission, articles of curiosity and\nscience; but they are sometimes continued and sometimes discontinued:\nbesides, most things contained in them are of too general or trivial a\nnature to send to England, and I imagine could have no effect, except\nto mock the expectations of our numerous friends, who are waiting to\nhear of the conversion of the heathen and overthrow of Satan's kingdom.\n\n\"I therefore only observe, respecting myself, that I have much proof of\nthe vileness of my heart, much more than I thought of till lately: and,\nindeed, I often fear that instead of being instrumental in the\nconversion of the heathen, I may some time dishonour the cause in which\nI am engaged.  I have hitherto had much experience of the daily\nsupports of a gracious God; but I am conscious that if those supports\nwere intermitted but for a little time, my sinful dispositions would\ninfallibly predominate.  At present I am kept, but am not one of those\nwho are strong and do exploits.\n\n\"I have often thought that a spirit of observation is necessary in\norder to our doing or communicating much good; and were it not for a\nvery phlegmatic habit, I think my soul would be richer.  I, however,\nappear to myself to have lost much of my capacity for making\nobservations, improvements, etc., or of retaining what I attend to\nclosely.  For instance, I have been near three years learning the\nSanskrit language, yet know very little of it.  This is only a specimen\nof what I feel myself to be in every respect.  I try to observe, to\nimprint what I see and hear on my memory, and to feel my heart properly\naffected with the circumstances; yet my soul is impoverished, and I\nhave something of a lethargic disease cleaving to my body...\n\n\"I would communicate something on the natural history of the country in\naddition to what I have before written, but no part of that pleasing\nstudy is so familiar to me as the vegetable world.\"\n\nHis letters of this period to Fuller on the fruits of India, and to\nMorris on the husbandry of the natives, might be quoted still as\naccurate and yet popular descriptions of the mango, guava, and custard\napple; plantain, jack, and tamarind; pomegranate, pine-apple, and\nrose-apple; papaya, date, and cocoa-nut; citron, lime, and shaddock.\nOf many of these, and of foreign fruits which he introduced, it might\nbe said he found them poor, and he cultivated them till he left to\nsucceeding generations a rich and varied orchard.\n\nWhile still in Dinapoor, he wrote on 1st January 1798: \"Seeds of sour\napples, pears, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries, gooseberries,\ncurrants, strawberries, or raspberries, put loose into a box of dry\nsand, and sent so as to arrive in September, October, November, or\nDecember, would be a great acquisition, as is every European\nproduction.  Nuts, filberts, acorns, etc., would be the same.  We have\nlately obtained the cinnamon tree, and nutmeg tree, which Dr. Roxburgh\nvery obligingly sent to me.  Of timber trees I mention the sissoo, the\nteak, and the saul tree, which, being an unnamed genus, Dr. Roxburgh,\nas a mark of respect to me, has called Careya saulea.\"\n\nThe publication of the last name caused Carey's sensitive modesty\nextreme annoyance. \"Do not print the names of Europeans.  I was sorry\nto see that you printed that Dr. Roxburgh had named the saul tree by my\nname.  As he is in the habit of publishing his drawings of plants, it\nwould have looked better if it had been mentioned first by him.\"\nWhether he prevailed with his admiring friend in the Company's Botanic\nGarden to change the name to that which the useful sal tree now bears,\nthe Shorea robusta, we know not, but the term is derived from Lord\nTeignmouth's name.  Carey will go down to posterity in the history of\nbotanical research, notwithstanding his own humility and the accidents\nof time.  For Dr. Roxburgh gave the name of Careya to an interesting\ngenus of Myrtace[oe].  The great French botanist M. Benjamin Delessert\nduly commemorates the labours of Dr. Carey in the Mus\u00e9e Botanique.\n\nIt was in Serampore that the gentle botanist found full scope for the\none recreation which he allowed himself, in the interest of his body as\nwell as of his otherwise overtasked spirit.  There he had five acres of\nground laid out, and, in time, planted on the Linn\u00e6an system.  The park\naround, from which he had the little paradise carefully walled in, that\nBrahmani bull and villager's cow, nightly jackal and thoughtless youth,\nmight not intrude, he planted with trees then rare or unknown in lower\nBengal, the mahogany and deodar, the teak and tamarind, the carob and\neucalyptus.  The fine American Mahogany has so thriven that the present\nwriter was able, seventy years after the trees had been planted, to\nsupply Government with plentiful seed.  The trees of the park were so\nplaced as to form a noble avenue, which long shaded the press and was\nknown as Carey's Walk. The umbrageous tamarind formed a dense cover,\nunder which more than one generation of Carey's successors rejoiced as\nthey welcomed visitors to the consecrated spot from all parts of India,\nAmerica, and Great Britain.  Foresters like Sir D. Brandis and Dr.\nCleghorn at various times visited this arboretum, and have referred to\nthe trees, whose date of planting is known, for the purpose of\nrecording the rate of growth.\n\nFor the loved garden Carey himself trained native peasants who, with\nthe mimetic instinct of the Bengali, followed his instructions like\nthose of their own Brahmans, learned the Latin names, and pronounced\nthem with their master's very accent up till a late date, when\nHullodhur, the last of them, passed away.  The garden with its tropical\nglories and more modest exotics, every one of which was as a personal\nfriend, and to him had an individual history, was more than a place of\nrecreation.  It was his oratory, the scene of prayer and meditation,\nthe place where he began and ended the day of light--with God. What he\nwrote in his earlier journals and letters of the sequestered spot at\nMudnabati was true in a deeper and wider sense of the garden of\nSerampore:--\"23rd September, Lord's Day.--Arose about sunrise, and,\naccording to my usual practice, walked into my garden for meditation\nand prayer till the servants came to family worship.\"  We have this\naccount from his son Jonathan:--\n\n\"In objects of nature my father was exceedingly curious.  His\ncollection of mineral ores, and other subjects of natural history, was\nextensive, and obtained his particular attention in seasons of leisure\nand recreation.  The science of botany was his constant delight and\nstudy; and his fondness for his garden remained to the last.  No one\nwas allowed to interfere in the arrangements of this his favourite\nretreat; and it is here he enjoyed his most pleasant moments of secret\ndevotion and meditation.  The arrangements made by him were on the\nLinn\u00e6an system; and to disturb the bed or border of the garden was to\ntouch the apple of his eye.  The garden formed the best and rarest\nbotanical collection of plants in the East; to the extension of which,\nby his correspondence with persons of eminence in Europe and other\nparts of the world, his attention was constantly directed; and, in\nreturn, he supplied his correspondents with rare collections from the\nEast. It was painful to observe with what distress my father quitted\nthis scene of his enjoyments, when extreme weakness, during his last\nillness, prevented his going to his favourite retreat.  Often, when he\nwas unable to walk, he was drawn into the garden in a chair placed on a\nboard with four wheels.\n\n\"In order to prevent irregularity in the attendance of the gardeners he\nwas latterly particular in paying their wages with his own hands; and\non the last occasion of doing so, he was much affected that his\nweakness had increased and confined him to the house.  But,\nnotwithstanding he had closed this part of his earthly scene, he could\nnot refrain from sending for his gardeners into the room where he lay,\nand would converse with them about the plants; and near his couch,\nagainst the wall, he placed the picture of a beautiful shrub, upon\nwhich he gazed with delight.\n\n\"On this science he frequently gave lectures, which were well attended,\nand never failed to prove interesting.  His publication of Roxburgh's\nFlora Indica is a standard work with botanists.  Of his botanical\nfriends he spoke with great esteem; and never failed to defend them\nwhen erroneously assailed.  He encouraged the study of the science\nwherever a desire to acquire it was manifested.  In this particular he\nwould sometimes gently reprove those who had no taste for it; but he\nwould not spare those who attempted to undervalue it. His remark of one\nof his colleagues was keen and striking.  When the latter somewhat\nreprehended Dr. Carey, to the medical gentleman attending him, for\nexposing himself so much in the garden, he immediately replied, that\nhis colleague was conversant with the pleasures of a garden, just as an\nanimal was with the grass in the field.\"\n\nAs from Dinapoor, so from Serampore after his settlement there, an\nearly order was this on 27th November 1800:--\"We are sending an\nassortment of Hindoo gods to the British Museum, and some other\ncuriosities to different friends.  Do send a few tulips, daffodils,\nsnowdrops, lilies, and seeds of other things, by Dolton when he\nreturns, desiring him not to put them into the hold.  Send the roots in\na net or basket, to be hung up anywhere out of the reach of salt water,\nand the seeds in a separate small box.  You need not be at any expense,\nany friend will supply these things.  The cowslips and daisies of your\nfields would be great acquisitions here.\"  What the daisies of the\nEnglish fields became to Carey, and how his request was long after\nanswered, is told by James Montgomery, the Moravian, who formed after\nCowper the second poet of the missionary reformation:--\n\nTHE DAISY IN INDIA\n\n\"A friend of mine, a scientific botanist, residing near Sheffield, had\nsent a package of sundry kinds of British seeds to the learned and\nvenerable Doctor WILLIAM CAREY.  Some of the seeds had been enclosed in\na bag, containing a portion of their native earth.  In March 1821 a\nletter of acknowledgment was received by his correspondent from the\nDoctor, who was himself well skilled in botany, and had a garden rich\nin plants, both tropical and European. In this enclosure he was wont to\nspend an hour every morning, before he entered upon those labours and\nstudies which have rendered his name illustrious both at home and\nabroad, as one of the most accomplished of Oriental scholars and a\ntranslator of the Holy Scriptures into many of the Hindoo languages.\nIn the letter aforementioned, which was shown to me, the good man\nsays:--'That I might be sure not to lose any part of your valuable\npresent, I shook the bag over a patch of earth in a shady place: on\nvisiting which a few days afterwards I found springing up, to my\ninexpressible delight, a Bellis perennis of our English pastures.  I\nknow not that I ever enjoyed, since leaving Europe, a simple pleasure\nso exquisite as the sight of this English Daisy afforded me; not having\nseen one for upwards of thirty years, and never expecting to see one\nagain.'\n\n\"On the perusal of this passage, the following stanzas seemed to spring\nup almost spontaneously in my mind, as the 'little English flower' in\nthe good Doctor's garden, whom I imagined to be thus addressing it on\nits sudden appearance:--\n\n  \"Thrice welcome, little English flower!\n  My mother-country's white and red,\n  In rose or lily, till this hour,\n  Never to me such beauty spread:\n  Transplanted from thine island-bed,\n  A treasure in a grain of earth,\n  Strange as a spirit from the dead,\n  Thine embryo sprang to birth.\n\n  \"Thrice welcome, little English flower!\n  Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies,\n  Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;\n  But, when the sun's gay beams arise,\n  With unabashed but modest eyes,\n  Follow his motion to the west,\n  Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,\n  Then fold themselves to rest.\n\n  \"Thrice welcome, little English flower!\n  To this resplendent hemisphere,\n  Where Flora's giant offspring tower\n  In gorgeous liveries all the year:\n  Thou, only thou, art little here,\n  Like worth unfriended and unknown,\n  Yet to my British heart more dear\n  Than all the torrid zone.\n\n  \"Thrice welcome, little English flower!\n  Of early scenes beloved by me,\n  While happy in my father's bower,\n  Thou shalt the blythe memorial be;\n  The fairy sports of infancy,\n  Youth's golden age, and manhood's prime.\n  Home, country, kindred, friends,--with thee,\n  I find in this far clime.\n\n  \"Thrice welcome, little English flower!\n  I'll rear thee with a trembling hand:\n  Oh, for the April sun and shower,\n  The sweet May dews of that fair land.\n  Where Daisies, thick as starlight, stand\n  In every walk!--that here may shoot\n  Thy scions, and thy buds expand\n  A hundred from one root.\n\n  \"Thrice welcome, little English flower!\n  To me the pledge of hope unseen:\n  When sorrow would my soul o'erpower,\n  For joys that were, or might have been,\n  I'll call to mind, how, fresh and green,\n  I saw thee waking from the dust;\n  Then turn to heaven with brow serene,\n  And place in GOD my trust.\"\n\nFrom every distant station, from Amboyna to Delhi, he received seeds\nand animals and specimens of natural history.  The very schoolboys when\nthey went out into the world, and the young civilians of Fort William\nCollege, enriched his collections.  To Jabez, his son in Amboyna, we\nfind him thus writing:--\"I have already informed you of the luckless\nfate of all the animals you have sent.  I know of no remedy for the\nliving animals dying, but by a little attention to packing them you may\nsend skins of birds and animals of every kind, and also seeds and\nroots.  I lately received a parcel of seeds from Moore (a large boy\nwho, you may remember, was at school when the printing-office was\nburnt), every one of which bids fair to grow. He is in some of the\nMalay islands.  After all you have greatly contributed to the\nenlargement of my collection.\"\n\n\"17th September 1816.--I approve much of Bencoolen as a place for your\nfuture labours, unless you should rather choose the island of\nBorneo...The English may send a Resident thither after a time.  I\nmention this from a conversation I had some months ago on the subject\nwith Lord Moira, who told me that there is a large body of Chinese on\nthat island.\"  They \"applied to the late Lieut.-Governor of Java,\nrequesting that an English Resident may be sent to govern them, and\noffering to be at the whole expense of his salary and government.  The\nBorneo business may come to nothing, but if it should succeed it would\nbe a glorious opening for the Gospel in that large island.  Sumatra,\nhowever, is larger than any one man could occupy.\"  As we read this we\nsee the Serampore apostle's hope fulfilled after a different fashion,\nin Rajah Brooke's settlement at Sarawak, in the charter of the North\nBorneo Company, in the opening up of New Guinea and in the civilisation\nof the Philippines by the United States of America.\n\nTo Roxburgh and his Danish successor Wallich, to Voigt who succeeded\nWallich in Serampore, and hundreds of correspondents in India and\nGermany, Great Britain and America, Carey did many a service in sending\nplants and--what was a greater sacrifice for so busy a man--writing\nletters.  What he did for the Hortus Bengalensis may stand for all.\n\nWhen, in 1814, Dr. Roxburgh was sent to sea almost dying, Dr. Carey\nedited and printed at his own press that now very rare volume, the\nHortus Bengalensis, or a Catalogue of the Plants of the Honourable East\nIndia Company's Botanic Garden in Calcutta.  Carey's introduction of\ntwelve large pages is perhaps his most characteristic writing on a\nscientific subject.  His genuine friendliness and humility shine forth\nin the testimony he bears to the abilities, zeal, and success of the\ngreat botanist who, in twenty years, had created a collection of 3200\nspecies.  Of these 3000 at least had been given by the European\nresidents in India, himself most largely of all.  Having shown in\ndetail the utility of botanical gardens, especially in all the foreign\nsettlements of Great Britain, he declared that only a beginning had\nbeen made in observing and cataloguing the stock of Asiatic\nproductions.  He urged English residents all over India to set apart a\nsmall plot for the reception of the plants of their neighbourhood, and\nwhen riding about the country to mark plants, which their servants\ncould bring on to the nursery, getting them to write the native name of\neach. He desiderated gardens at Hurdwar, Delhi, Dacca, and Sylhet,\nwhere plants that will not live at Calcutta might prosper, a suggestion\nwhich was afterwards carried out by the Government in establishing a\ngarden at Saharanpoor, in a Sub-Himalayan region, which has been\nsuccessfully directed by Royle, Falconer, and Jameson.\n\nOn Dr. Roxburgh's death in 1815 Dr. Carey waited to see whether an\nEnglish botanist would publish the fruit of thirty years' labour of his\nfriend in the description of more than 2000 plants, natives of Eastern\nAsia. At his own risk he then, in 1820, undertook this publication, or\nthe Flora Indica, placing on the title-page, \"All Thy works praise\nThee, O Lord--David.\"  When the Roxburgh MSS. were made over to the\nlibrary of the Botanic Garden at Calcutta, the fourth and final volume\nappeared with this note regarding the new edition:--\"The work was\nprinted from MSS. in the possession of Dr. Carey, and it was carried\nthrough the press when he was labouring under the debility of great\nage...The advanced age of Dr. Carey did not admit of any longer delay.\"\n\nHis first public attempt at agricultural reform was made in the paper\nwhich he contributed to the Transactions of the Bengal Asiatic Society,\nand which appeared in 1811 in the tenth volume of the Asiatic\nResearches.  In the space of an ordinary Quarterly Review article he\ndescribes the \"State of Agriculture in the District of Dinapoor,\" and\nurges improvements such as only the officials, settlers, and Government\ncould begin.  The soils, the \"extremely poor\" people, their\n\"proportionally simple and wretched farming utensils,\" the cattle, the\nprimitive irrigation alluded to in Deuteronomy as \"watering with the\nfoot,\" and the modes of ploughing and reaping, are rapidly sketched and\nillustrated by lithographed figures drawn to scale.  In greater detail\nthe principal crops are treated.  The staple crop of rice in its many\nvarieties and harvests at different seasons is lucidly brought before\nthe Government, in language which it would have been well to remember\nor reproduce in the subsequent avoidable famines of Orissa and North\nBihar.  Indigo is set before us with the skill of one who had grown and\nmanufactured it for years.  The hemp and jute plants are enlarged on in\nlanguage which unconsciously anticipates the vast and enriching\ndevelopment given to the latter as an export and a local manufacture\nsince the Crimean War. An account of the oil-seeds and the faulty mode\nof expressing the oil, which made Indian linseed oil unfit for\npainting, is followed by remarks on the cultivation of wheat, to which\nsubsequent events have given great importance.  Though many parts, even\nof Dinapoor, were fit for the growth of wheat and barley, the natives\nproduced only a dark variety from bad seed. \"For the purpose of making\na trial I sowed Patna wheat on a large quantity of land in the year\n1798, the flour produced from which was of a very good quality.\"  The\npulses, tobacco, the egg-plant, the capsicums, the cucumbers, the arum\nroots, turmeric, ginger, and sugar-cane, all pass in review in a style\nwhich the non-scientific reader may enjoy and the expert must\nappreciate.  Improvements in method and the introduction of the best\nkinds of plants and vegetables are suggested, notwithstanding \"the\npoverty, prejudices, and indolence of the natives.\"\n\nThis paper is most remarkable, however, for the true note which its\nwriter was the first to strike on the subject of forestry.  If we\nreflect that it was not till 1846 that the Government made the first\nattempt at forest conservancy, in order to preserve the timber of\nMalabar for the Bombay dockyard; and not till the conquest of Pegu, in\n1855, that the Marquis of Dalhousie was led by the Friend of India to\nappoint Dietrich Brandis of Bonn to care for the forests of Burma, and\nDr. Cleghorn for those of South India, we shall appreciate the wise\nforesight of the missionary-scholar, who, having first made his own\npark a model of forest teaching, wrote such words as these early in the\ncentury:--\"The cultivation of timber has hitherto, I believe, been\nwholly neglected.  Several sorts have been planted...all over Bengal,\nand would soon furnish a very large share of the timber used in the\ncountry.  The sissoo, the Andaman redwood, the teak, the mahogany, the\nsatin-wood, the chikrasi, the toona, and the sirisha should be\nprincipally chosen.  The planting of these trees single, at the\ndistance of a furlong from each other, would do no injury to the crops\nof corn, but would, by cooling the atmosphere, rather be advantageous.\nIn many places spots now unproductive would be improved by clumps or\nsmall plantations of timber, under which ginger and turmeric might be\ncultivated to great advantage.  In some situations saul...would\nprosper.  Indeed the improvements that might be made in this country by\nthe planting of timber can scarcely be calculated.  Teak is at present\nbrought from the Burman dominions...The French naturalists have already\nbegun to turn their attention to the culture of this valuable tree as\nan object of national utility.  This will be found impracticable in\nFrance, but may perhaps be attempted somewhere else.  To England, the\nfirst commercial country in the world, its importance must be obvious.\"\n\nTen years passed, Carey continued to watch and to extend his\nagri-horticultural experiments in his own garden, and to correspond\nwith botanists in all parts of the world, but still nothing was done\npublicly in India.  At last, on 15th April 1820, when \"the advantages\narising from a number of persons uniting themselves as a Society for\nthe purpose of carrying forward any undertaking\" were generally\nacknowledged, the shoemaker and preacher who had a generation before\ntested these advantages in the formation of the first Foreign Mission\nSociety, issued a Prospectus of an Agricultural and Horticultural\nSociety in India, from the \"Mission House, Serampore.\"  The prospectus\nthus concluded:--\"Both in forming such a Society and in subsequently\npromoting its objects, important to the happiness of the country as\nthey regard them, the writer and his colleagues will be happy in doing\nall their other avocations will permit.\"  Native as well as European\ngentlemen were particularly invited to co-operate. \"It is peculiarly\ndesirable that native gentlemen should be eligible as members of the\nSociety, because one of its chief objects will be the improvement of\ntheir estates and of the peasantry which reside thereon.  They should\ntherefore not only be eligible as members but also as officers of the\nSociety in precisely the same manner as Europeans.\"  At the first\nmeeting in the Town Hall of Calcutta, Carey and Marshman found only\nthree Europeans beside themselves.  They resolved to proceed, and in\ntwo months they secured more than fifty members, several of whom were\nnatives.  The first formal meeting was held on 14th September, when the\nconstitution was drawn up on the lines laid down in the prospectus, it\nbeing specially provided \"that gentlemen of every nation be eligible as\nmembers.\"\n\nAt the next meeting Dr. Carey was requested to draw up a series of\nqueries, which were circulated widely, in order to obtain \"correct\ninformation upon every circumstance which is connected with the state\nof agriculture and horticulture in the various provinces of India.\"\nThe twenty queries show a grasp of principles, a mastery of detail, and\na kindliness of spirit which reveal the practical farmer, the\naccomplished observer, and the thoughtful philanthropist all in one.\nOne only we may quote:--\"19.  In what manner do you think the comforts\nof the peasantry around you could be increased, their health better\nsecured, and their general happiness promoted?\" The Marquis of Hastings\ngladly became patron, and ever since the Government has made a grant to\nthe Society.  His wife showed such an interest in its progress that the\nmembers obtained her consent to sit to Chinnery for her portrait to\nfill the largest panel in the house at Titigur.  Lord Hastings added\nthe experimental farm, formed near Barrackpore, to the Botanic Garden,\nwith an immediate view to its assisting the Agricultural Society in\ntheir experiments and pursuits.  The Society became speedily popular,\nfor Carey watched its infancy with loving solicitude, and was the life\nof its meetings.  In the first eighty-seven years of its existence\nseven thousand of the best men in India have been its members, of whom\nseven hundred are Asiatics.  Agriculturists, military and medical\nofficers, civilians, clergy, and merchants, are represented on its roll\nin nearly equal proportions.  The one Society has grown into three in\nIndia, and formed the model for the Royal Agricultural Society of\nEngland, which was not founded till 1838.\n\nItaly and Scotland alone preceded Carey in this organisation, and he\nquotes with approbation the action of Sir John Sinclair in 1790, which\nled to the first inquiry into the state of British agriculture.  The\nTransactions which Carey led the Society to promise to publish in\nEnglish, Bengali, and Hindostani, have proved to be only the first of a\nseries of special periodicals representing Indian agriculture\ngenerally, tea, and forestry.  The various Governments in India have\neconomic museums; and the Government of India, under Lord Mayo,\nestablished a Revenue and Agricultural Department expanded by Lord\nCurzon.  Carey's early proposal of premiums, each of a hundred rupees,\nor the Society's gold medal, for the most successful cultivation on a\ncommercial scale of coffee and improved cotton, for the successful\nintroduction of European fruits, for the improvement of indigenous\nfruits, for the successful introduction from the Eastern Islands of the\nmangosteen or doorian, and for the manufacture of cheese equal to\nWarwickshire, had the best results in some cases.  In 1825 Mr. Lamb of\nDacca was presented by \"Rev. Dr. Carey in the chair\" with the gold\nmedal for 80 lbs. of coffee grown there.  Carey's own head gardener\nbecame famous for his cabbages; and we find this sentence in the\nSociety's Report just after the founder's death:--\"Who would have\ncredited fifteen years ago that we could have exhibited vegetables in\nthe Town Hall of Calcutta equal to the choicest in Covent Garden?\"  The\nberries two centuries ago brought from Arabia in his wallet by the\npilgrim Baba Booden to the hills of Mysore, which bear his name, have,\nsince that Dacca experiment, covered the uplands of South India and\nCeylon. Before Carey died he knew of the discovery of the indigenous\ntea-tree in its original home on the Assam border of Tibet--a discovery\nwhich has put India in the place of China as a producer.\n\nIn the Society's Proceedings for 9th January 1828 we find this\nsignificant record:--\"Resolved, at the suggestion of the Rev. Dr.\nCarey, that permission be given to Goluk Chundra, a blacksmith of\nTitigur, to exhibit a steam engine made by himself without the aid of\nany European artist.\"  At the next meeting, when 109 malees or native\ngardeners competed at the annual exhibition of vegetables, the steam\nengine was submitted and pronounced \"useful for irrigating lands made\nupon the model of a large steam engine belonging to the missionaries at\nSerampore.\"  A premium of Rs. 50 was presented to the ingenious\nblacksmith as an encouragement to further exertions of his industry.\nWhen in 1832 the afterwards well-known Lieutenant-Governor Thomason was\ndeputy-secretary to Government, he applied to the Society for\ninformation regarding the manufacture of paper.  Dr. Carey and Ram\nKomal Sen were referred to, and the former thus replied in his usual\nconcise and clear manner:--\n\n\"When we commenced paper-making several years ago, having then no\nmachinery, we employed a number of native papermakers to make it in the\nway to which they had been accustomed, with the exception of mixing\nconjee or rice gruel with the pulp and using it as sizing; our object\nbeing that of making paper impervious to insects.  Our success at first\nwas very imperfect, but the process was conducted as follows:--\n\n\"A quantity of sunn, viz., the fibres of Crotolaria juncea, was steeped\nrepeatedly in limewater, and then exposed to the air by spreading it on\nthe grass; it was also repeatedly pounded by the dhenki or pedal, and\nwhen sufficiently reduced by this process to make a pulp, it was mixed\nin a gumla with water, so as to make it of the consistence of thick\nsoup.  The frames with which the sheets were taken up were made of mat\nof the size of a sheet of paper.  The operator sitting by the gumla\ndipped this frame in the pulp, and after it was drained gave it to an\nassistant, who laid it on the grass to dry: this finished the process\nwith us; but for the native market this paper is afterwards sized by\nholding a number of sheets by the edge and dipping them carefully in\nconjee, so as to keep the sheets separate.  They are afterwards dried,\nfolded, and pressed by putting them between two boards, the upper board\nof which is loaded with one or more large stones.\n\n\"In the English method the pulp is prepared by the mill and put into\ncisterns; the frames are made of fine wire, and the workman stands by\nthe cistern and takes up the pulp on the frames.  The sheets when\nsufficiently dry are hung on lines to dry completely, after which they\nare sized, if sizing be required.\n\n\"We now make our paper by machinery, in which the pulp is let to run on\na web of wire, and passing over several cylinders, the last of which is\nheated by steam, it is dried and fit for use in about two minutes from\nits having been in a liquid state.\"\n\nSince that reply the Government of India, under the pressure of the\nhome authorities, has alternately discouraged and fostered the\nmanufacture of paper on the spot.  At present it is in the wiser\nposition of preferring to purchase its supplies in India, at once as\nbeing cheaper, and that it may develop the use of the many paper-making\nfibres there.  Hence at the Calcutta Exhibition of 1881-82 the jurors\nbegan their report on the machine and hand-made paper submitted to\nthem, with a reference to Carey and this report of his.  The Serampore\nmills were gradually crushed by the expensive and unsatisfactory\ncontracts made at home by the India Office.  The neighbouring Bally\nmills seem to flourish since the abandonment of that virtual monopoly,\nand Carey's anticipations as to the utilisation of the plantain and\nother fibres of India are being realised nearly a century after he\nfirst formed them.\n\nCarey expanded and published his \"Address respecting an Agricultural\nSociety in India\" in the quarterly Friend of India.  He still thinks it\nnecessary to apologise for his action by quoting his hero, Brainerd,\nwho was constrained to assist his Indian converts with his counsels in\nsowing their maize and arranging their secular concerns. \"Few,\" he adds\nwith the true breadth of genius which converted the Baptist shoemaker\ninto the Christian statesman and scholar, \"who are extensively\nacquainted with human life, will esteem these cares either unworthy of\nreligion or incongruous with its highest enjoyments.\"  When Carey\nwrote, the millions of five-acre farmers in India were only beginning\nto recover from the oppression and neglect of former rulers and the\nvisitation of terrific famines.  Trade was as depressed as agriculture.\nTransit duties, not less offensive than those of the Chinese, continued\nto weigh down agricultural industry till Lord W. Bentinck's time and\nlater.  The English Government levied an unequal scale of duties on the\nstaples of the East and West Indies, against which the former\npetitioned in vain. The East India Company kept the people in\nignorance, and continued to exclude the European capitalist and captain\nof labour.  The large native landholders were as uneducated as the\ncultivators.  Before all Carey set these reforms: close attention to\nthe improvement of land, the best method of cropping land, the\nintroduction of new and useful plants, the improvement of the\nimplements of husbandry, the improvement of live stock, the bringing of\nwaste lands under cultivation, the improvement of horticulture.  He\nwent on to show that, in addition to the abundance which an improved\nagriculture would diffuse throughout the country, the surplus of grain\nexported, besides \"her opium, her indigo, her silk, and her cotton,\"\nwould greatly tend to enrich India and endear Britain to her. \"Whatever\nmay be thought of the Government of Mr. Hastings and those who\nimmediately preceded him for these last forty years, India has\ncertainly enjoyed such a Government as none of the provinces of the\nPersian or the Roman Empire ever enjoyed for so great a length of time\nin succession, and, indeed, one almost as new in the annals of modern\nEurope as in those of India.\"\n\nCarey found one of the greatest obstacles to agricultural progress to\nbe the fact that not one European owned a single foot of the soil, \"a\nsingular fact in the history of nations,\" removed only about the time\nof his own death.  His remarks on this have a present significance:--\n\n\"It doubtless originated in a laudable care to preserve our Indian\nfellow-subjects from insult and violence, which it was feared could\nscarcely be done if natives of Britain, wholly unacquainted with the\nlaws and customs of the people, were permitted to settle\nindiscriminately in India.  While the wisdom of this regulation at that\ntime is not impugned, however, it may not be improper to inquire\nwhether at the present time a permission to hold landed property, to be\ngranted by Government to British subjects in India, according to their\nown discretion, might not be of the highest benefit to the country, and\nin some degree advantageous to the Government itself.\n\n\"The objections which have been urged against any measure of this\nnature are chiefly that the indiscriminate admission of Europeans into\nthe country might tend to alienate the minds of the inhabitants from\nBritain, or possibly lead to its disruption from Britain in a way\nsimilar to that of America.  Respecting this latter circumstance, it is\ncertain that, in the common course of events, a greater evil could\nscarcely befall India.  On the continuance of her connection with\nBritain is suspended her every hope relative to improvement, security,\nand happiness.  The moment India falls again under the dominion of any\none or any number of native princes, all hope of mental improvement, or\neven of security for person or property, will at once vanish.  Nothing\ncould be then expected but scenes of rapine, plunder, bloodshed, and\nviolence, till its inhabitants were sealed over to irremediable\nwretchedness, without the most distant ray of hope respecting the\nfuture.  And were it severed from Britain in any other way, the reverse\nfelt in India would be unspeakably great.  At present all the learning,\nthe intelligence, the probity, the philanthropy, the weight of\ncharacter existing in Britain, are brought to bear on India.  There is\nscarcely an individual sustaining a part in the administration of\naffairs who does not feel the weight of that tribunal formed by the\nsuffrages of the wise and the good in Britain, though he be stationed\nin the remotest parts of India.  Through the medium of a free press the\nwisdom, probity, and philanthropy which pervade Britain exercise an\nalmost unbounded sway over every part of India, to the incalculable\nadvantage of its inhabitants; constituting a triumph of virtue and\nwisdom thus unknown to the ancients, and which will increase in its\neffects in exact proportion to the increase in Britain of justice,\ngenerosity, and love to mankind.  Let India, however, be severed from\nBritain, and the weight of these is felt no more...\n\n\"It is a fact that in case of outrage or injury it is in most cases\neasier for a native to obtain justice against a European, than for a\nEuropean to obtain redress if insulted or wronged by a native.  This\ncircumstance, attended as it may be with some inconvenience, reflects\nthe highest honour on the British name; it is a fact of which India\naffords almost the first instance on record in the annals of history.\nBritain is nearly the first nation in whose foreign Courts of Justice a\ntenderness for the native inhabitants habitually prevails over all the\npartialities arising from country and education.  If there ever existed\na period, therefore, in which a European could oppress a native of\nIndia with impunity, that time is passed away--we trust for ever.  That\na permission of this nature might tend to sever India from Britain\nafter the example of America is of all things the most improbable...\n\n\"Long before the number of British landholders in India shall have\nbecome considerable, Penang and the Eastern Isles, Ceylon, the Cape,\nand even the Isles of New South Wales, may in European population far\nexceed them in number; and unitedly, if not singly, render the most\ndistant step of this nature as impracticable, as it would be ruinous,\nto the welfare and happiness of India...\n\n\"British-born landholders would naturally maintain all their national\nattachments, for what Briton can lose them? and derive their happiness\nfrom corresponding with the wise and good at home. If sufficiently\nwealthy, they would no doubt occasionally visit Britain, where indeed\nit might be expected that some of them would reside for years together,\nas do the owners of estates in the West Indies.  While Britain shall\nremain what she now is, it will be impossible for those who have once\nfelt the force of British attachments, ever to forego them.  Those\nfeelings would animate their minds, occupy their conversation, and\nregulate the education and studies of their children, who would be in\ngeneral sent home that they might there imbibe all those ideas of a\nmoral and intellectual nature for which our beloved country is so\neminent. Thus a new intercourse would be established between Britain\nand the proprietors of land in India, highly to the advantage of both\ncountries.  While they derived their highest happiness from the\nreligion, the literature, the philanthropy and public spirit of\nBritain, they would, on the other hand, be able to furnish Britain with\nthe most accurate and ample information relative to the state of things\nin a country in which the property they held there constrained them to\nfeel so deep an interest.  The fear of all oppression being out of the\nquestion, while it would be so evidently the interest not only of every\nBriton but of every Christian, whether British or native, to secure the\nprotecting aid of Britain, at least as long as two-thirds of the\ninhabitants of India retained the Hindoo or Mussulman system of\nreligion, few things would be more likely to cement and preserve the\nconnection between both countries than the existence of such a class of\nBritish-born landholders in India.\"\n\nIt is profitable to read this in the light of subsequent events--of the\nDuff-Bentinck reforms, the Sepoy mutiny, the government of the\nQueen-Empress, the existence of more than three millions of Christians\nin India, the social and commercial development due to the\nnon-officials from Great Britain and America, and the administrative\nprogress under Lord Curzon and Lord Minto.\n\nThere is one evil which Carey never ceased to point out, but which the\nvery perfection of our judicial procedure and the temporary character\nof our land assessments have intensified--\"the borrowing system of the\nnatives.\"  While 12 per cent. is the so-called legal rate of interest;\nit is never below 36, and frequently rises to 72 per cent.  Native\nmarriage customs, the commercial custom of \"advances,\" agricultural\nusage, and our civil procedure combine to sink millions of the\npeasantry lower than they were, in this respect, in Carey's time.  For\nthis, too, he had a remedy so far as it was in his power to mitigate an\nevil which only practical Christianity will cure.  He was the first to\napply in India that system of savings banks which the Government has of\nlate sought to encourage.\n\nAt a time when the English and even Scottish universities denied their\nhonorary degrees to all British subjects who were not of the\nestablished churches, Brown University, in the United\nStates--Judson's--spontaneously sent Carey the diploma of Doctor of\nDivinity.  That was in the year 1807.  In 1823 he was elected a\ncorresponding member of the Horticultural Society of London, a member\nof the Geological Society, and a Fellow of the Linn\u00e6an Society.  To him\nthe latter year was ever memorable, not for such honours which he had\nnot sought, but for a flood of the Damoodar river, which, overflowing\nits embankments and desolating the whole country between it and the\nHoogli, submerged his garden and the mission grounds with three feet of\nwater, swept away the botanic treasures or buried them under sand, and\ndestroyed his own house. Carey was lying in bed at the time, under an\napparently fatal fever following dislocation of the hip-joint.  He had\nlost his footing when stepping from his boat.  Surgical science was\nthen less equal to such a case than it is now, and for nine days he\nsuffered agony, which on the tenth resulted in fever.  When hurriedly\ncarried out of his tottering house, which in a few hours was scoured\naway by the rush of the torrent into a hole fifty feet deep, his first\nthought was of his garden.  For six months he used crutches, but long\nbefore he could put foot to the ground he was carefully borne all over\nthe scene of desolation.  His noble collection of exotic plants,\nunmatched in Asia save in the Company's garden, was gone.  His\nscientific arrangement of orders and families was obliterated.  It\nseemed as if the fine barren sand of the mountain torrent would make\nthe paradise a desert for ever.  The venerable botanist was wounded in\nhis keenest part, but he lost not an hour in issuing orders and writing\noff for new supplies of specimens and seeds, which years after made the\nplace as lovely if not so precious, as before.  He thus wrote to Dr.\nRyland:--\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 22nd December 1823.\n\n\"MY DEAR BROTHER--I once more address you from the land of the living,\na mercy which about two months ago I had no expectation of, nor did any\none expect it more than, nor perhaps so much as, myself. On the 1st of\nOctober I went to Calcutta to preach, and returned with another friend\nabout midnight.  When I got out of the boat close to our own premises,\nmy foot slipped and I fell; my friend also fell in the same place.  I\nhowever perceived that I could not rise, nor even make the smallest\neffort to rise.  The boatmen carried me into the house, and laid me on\na couch, and my friend, who was a medical man, examined my hurt.--From\nall this affliction I am, through mercy, nearly restored.  I am still\nvery weak, and the injured limb is very painful.  I am unable to walk\ntwo steps without crutches; yet my strength is sensibly increasing, and\nDr. Mellis, who attended me during the illness, says he has no doubts\nof my perfect recovery.\n\n\"During my confinement, in October, such a quantity of water came down\nfrom the western hills, that it laid the whole country for about a\nhundred miles in length and the same in breadth, under water.  The\nGanges was filled by the flood, so as to spread far on every side.\nSerampore was under water; we had three feet of water in our garden for\nseven or eight days.  Almost all the houses of the natives in that vast\nextent of country fell; their cattle were swept away, and the people,\nmen, women, and children.  Some gained elevated spots, where the water\nstill rose so high as to threaten them with death; others climbed\ntrees, and some floated on the roofs of their ruined houses.  One of\nthe Church missionaries, Mr. Jetter, who had accompanied Mr. Thomason\nand some other gentlemen to Burdwan to examine the schools there,\ncalled on me on his return and gave me a most distressing account of\nthe fall of houses, the loss of property, the violent rushing of\nwaters, so that none, not even the best swimmers, dared to leave the\nplace where they were.\n\n\"This inundation was very destructive to the Mission house, or rather\nthe Mission premises.  A slip of the earth (somewhat like that of an\navalanche), took place on the bank of the river near my house, and\ngradually approached it until only about ten feet of space were left\nbetween that and the house; and that space soon split.  At last two\nfissures appeared in the foundation and wall of the house itself.  This\nwas a signal for me to remove; and a house built for a professor in the\nCollege being empty, I removed to it, and through mercy am now\ncomfortably settled there.\n\n\"I have nearly filled my letter with this account, but I must give you\na short account of the state of my mind when I could think, and that\nwas generally when excited by an access of friends; at other times I\ncould scarcely speak or think.  I concluded one or two days that my\ndeath was near.  I had no joys; nor any fear of death, or reluctance to\ndie; but never was I so sensibly convinced of the value of an ATONING\nSaviour as then.  I could only say, 'Hangs my helpless soul on thee;'\nand adopt the language of the first and second verses of the\nfifty-first Psalm, which I desired might be the text for my funeral\nsermon.  A life of faith in Christ as the Lamb of God who taketh away\nthe sin of the world, appeared more than ordinarily important to my\nmind, and I expressed these feelings to those about me with freedom and\npleasure.\n\n\"Now, through the gracious providence of God, I am again restored to my\nwork, and daily do a little as my strength will admit.  The printing of\nthe translations is now going forward almost as usual, but I have not\nyet been able to attend to my duties in College.  The affairs of the\nMission are more extended, and I trust in as prosperous a state as at\nany former time.  There are now many of other denominations employed in\nMissions, and I rejoice to say that we are all workers together in the\nwork.  The native churches were never in a better state, and the face\nof the Mission is in every respect encouraging.  Give my love to all\nwho know me.--I am very affectionately yours, W. CAREY.\"\n\nStill more severe and disastrous in its effects was the cyclone of\n1831.  The former had desolated the open garden, but this laid low some\nof the noblest trees which, in their fall, crushed his splendid\nconservatory.  One of his brethren represents the old man as weeping\nover the ruin of the collections of twenty years.  Again the Hoogli,\nlashed into fury and swollen by the tidal wave, swept away the\nlately-formed road, and, cutting off another fourth of the original\nsettlement of the Mission, imperilled the old house of Mr. Ward. Its\nruins were levelled to form another road, and ever since the whole face\nof the right bank of the river has been a source of apprehension and\nexpense.  Just before this, Dr. Staughton had written from America that\nthe interest on the funds raised there by Ward for the College would\nnot be sent until the trustees were assured that the money was not to\nbe spent on the teaching of science in the College, but only on the\ntheological education of Hindoo converts. \"I must confess,\" was Carey's\nreply, \"I never heard anything more illiberal.  Pray can youth be\ntrained up for the Christian ministry without science?  Do you in\nAmerica train up youths for it without any knowledge of science?\"\n\nOne of Dr. Carey's latest visits to Calcutta was to inspect the\nSociety's Garden then at Alipore, and to write the elaborate report of\nthe Horticultural Committee which appeared in the second volume of the\nTransactions after his death.  He there records the great success of\nthe cultivation of the West India arrowroot.  This he introduced into\nhis own garden, and after years of discontinued culture we raised many\na fine crop from the old roots.  The old man \"cannot but advert, with\nfeelings of the highest satisfaction, to the display of vegetables on\nthe 13th January 1830, a display which would have done honour to any\nclimate, or to any, even the most improved system of horticulture...The\ngreater part of the vegetables then produced were, till within these\nlast few years, of species wholly unknown to the native gardeners.\"\n\nWhen, in 1842, the Agri-Horticultural Society resolved to honour its\nfounder, it appropriately fell to Dr. Wallich, followed by the\npresident Sir J. P. Grant, to do what is thus recorded:--\"Dr. Wallich\naddressed the meeting at some length, and alluded to the peculiar\nclaims which their late venerable founder had on the affection of all\nclasses for his untiring exertions in advancing the prosperity of\nIndia, and especially so on the members of the Society.  He concluded\nhis address by this motion:--'That the Agricultural and Horticultural\nSociety of India, duly estimating the great and important services\nrendered to the interests of British India by the founder of the\ninstitution, the late Reverend Dr. William Carey, who unceasingly\napplied his great talents, abilities, and influence in advancing the\nhappiness of India--more especially by the spread of an improved system\nof husbandry and gardening--desire to mark, by some permanent record,\ntheir sense of his transcendent worth, by placing a marble bust to his\nmemory in the Society's new apartments at the Metcalfe Hall, there to\nremain a lasting testimony to the pure and disinterested zeal and\nlabours of so illustrious a character: that a subscription,\naccordingly, from among the members of the Society, be urgently\nrecommended for the accomplishment of the above object.'\"\n\nOne fact in the history of the marble bust of Carey, which since 1845\nhas adorned the hall of the Agricultural Society of India, would have\ndelighted the venerable missionary.  Following the engraving from\nHome's portrait, and advised by one of the sons, Nobo Koomar Pal, a\nself-educated Bengali artist, modelled the clay.  The clay bust was\nsent to England for the guidance of Mr. J. C. Lough, the sculptor\nselected by Dr. Royle to finish the work in marble. Mr. Lough had\nexecuted the Queen's statue for the Royal Exchange, and the monument\nwith a reclining figure of Southey.  In sending out the marble bust of\nCarey to Calcutta Dr. Royle wrote,--\"I think the bust an admirable one;\nGeneral Macleod immediately recognised it as one of your much esteemed\nFounder.\"\n\nThe Bengal Asiatic Society, on the motion of the Lord Bishop and\nColonel Sir Jer. Bryant, entered these words on their Journal:--\"The\nAsiatic Society cannot note upon their proceedings the death of the\nRev. W. Carey, D.D., so long an active member and an ornament of this\nInstitution, distinguished alike for his high attainments in the\nOriental languages, for his eminent services in opening the stores of\nIndian literature to the knowledge of Europe, and for his extensive\nacquaintance with the sciences, the natural history and botany of this\ncountry, and his useful contributions on every hand towards the\npromotion of the objects of the Society, without placing on record this\nexpression of their high sense of his value and merits as a scholar and\na man of science; their esteem for the sterling and surpassing\nreligious and moral excellencies of his character, and their sincere\ngrief for his irreparable loss.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nCAREY'S IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA\n\n1813-1830\n\nCarey's relation to the new era--The East India Company's Charters of\n1793, 1813, and 1833--His double influence on the churches and public\nopinion--The great missionary societies--Missionary journals and their\nreaders--Bengal and India recognised as the most important mission\nfields--Influence on Robert Haldane--Reflex effect of foreign on home\nmissions--Carey's power over individuals--Melville Horne and Douglas of\nCavers--Henry Martyn--Charles Simeon and Stewart of Moulin--Robert Hall\nand John Foster--Heber and Chalmers--William Wilberforce on Carey--Mr.\nPrendergast and the tub story--Last persecution by the Company's\nGovernment--Carey on the persecution and the charter controversy--The\npersecuting clause and the resolution legalising toleration--The\nEdinburgh Review and Sydney Smith's fun--Sir James Mackintosh's\nopinion--Southey's defence and eulogy of Carey and the brotherhood in\nthe Quarterly Review--Political value of Carey's labours--Andrew\nFuller's death--A model foreign mission secretary--His friendship with\nCarey--The sixteen years' dispute--Dr. Carey's position--His defence of\nMarshman--His chivalrous self-sacrifice--His forgiveness of the younger\nbrethren in Calcutta--His fidelity to righteousness and to friendship.\n\nHimself the outcome of the social and political forces which began in\nthe French Revolution, and are still at work, William Carey was made a\nliving personal force to the new era.  The period which was introduced\nin 1783 by the Peace of Versailles in Europe following the Independence\nof the United States of America, was new on every side--in politics, in\nphilosophy, in literature, in scientific research, in a just and\nbenevolent regard for the peoples of every land, and in the awakening\nof the churches from the sleep of formalism.  Carey was no thinker, but\nwith the reality and the vividness of practical action and personal\nsacrifice he led the English-speaking races, to whom the future of the\nworld was then given, to substitute for the dreams of Rousseau and all\nother theories the teaching of Christ as to His kingdom within each\nman, and in the progress of mankind.\n\nSet free from the impossible task of administering North America on the\nabsolutist system which the Georges would fain have continued, Great\nBritain found herself committed to the duty of doing for India what\nRome had done for Europe.  England was compelled to surrender the free\nWest to her own children only that she might raise the servile and\nidolatrous East to such a Christian level as the genius of its peoples\ncould in time enable them to work out.  But it took the thirty years\nfrom 1783 to 1813 to convince British statesmen, from Pitt to\nCastlereagh, that India is to be civilised not according to its own\nfalse systems, but by truth in all forms, spiritual and moral,\nscientific and historical.  It took other twenty years, to the Charter\nof 1833, to complete the conversion of the British Parliament to the\nbelief that the principles of truth and freedom are in their measure as\ngood for the East as for the West. At the beginning of this new period\nWilliam Pitt based his motion for Parliamentary reform on this fact,\nthat \"our senators are no longer the representatives of British virtue\nbut of the vices and pollutions of the East.\" At the close of it Lord\nWilliam Bentinck, Macaulay, and Duff, co-operated in the decree which\nmade truth, as most completely revealed through the English language\nand literature, the medium of India's enlightenment.  William Carey's\ncareer of fifty years, from his baptism in 1783 and the composition of\nhis Enquiry to his death in 1834, covered and influenced more than any\nother one man's the whole time; and he represented in it an element of\npermanent healthy nationalisation which these successors\noverlooked,--the use of the languages of the peoples of India as the\nonly literary channels for allowing the truth revealed through English\nto reach the millions of the people.\n\nIt was by this means that Carey educated Great Britain and America to\nrise equal to the terrible trust of jointly creating a Christian Empire\nof India, and ultimately a series of self-governing Christian nations\nin Southern and Eastern Asia. He consciously and directly roused the\nChurches of all names to carry out the commission of their Master, and\nto seek the promised impulse of His Spirit or Divine Representative on\nearth, that they might do greater things than even those which He did.\nAnd he, less directly but not less consciously, brought the influence\nof public opinion, which every year purified and quickened, to bear\nupon Parliament and upon individual statesmen, aided in this up till\n1815 by Andrew Fuller. He never set foot in England again, and the\ninfluence of his brethren Ward and Marshman during their visits was\nlargely neutralised by some leaders of their own church.  But Carey's\ncharacter and career, his letters and writings, his work and whole\npersonality, stood out in England, Scotland, and America as the motive\npower which stimulated every church and society, and won the triumph of\ntoleration in the charter of 1813, of humanity, education, and\nadministrative reform in the legislation of Lord William Bentinck.\n\nWe have already seen how the immediate result of Carey's early letters\nwas the foundation on a catholic basis of the London Missionary\nSociety, which now represents the great Nonconformist half of England;\nof the Edinburgh or Scottish and Glasgow Societies, through which the\nPresbyterians sent forth missionaries to West and South Africa and to\nWestern India, until their churches acted as such; of the Church\nMissionary Society which the evangelical members of the Church of\nEngland have put in the front of all the societies; and of Robert\nHaldane's splendid self-sacrifice in selling all that he had to lead a\nlarge Presbyterian mission to Hindostan.  Soon (1797) the London\nSociety became the parent of that of the Netherlands, and of that which\nis one of the most extensive in Christendom, the American Board of\nCommissioners for Foreign Missions.  The latter, really founded (1810)\nby Judson and some of his fellow-students, gave birth (1814) to the\nalmost equally great American Baptist Union when Judson and his\ncolleague became Baptists, and the former was sent by Carey to Burma.\nThe Religious Tract Society (1799), and the British and Foreign Bible\nSociety (1804)--each a handmaid of the missionary agencies--sprang as\nreally though less directly from Carey's action.  Such organised\nefforts to bring in heathen and Mohammedan peoples led in 1809 to the\nat first catholic work begun by the London Society for promoting\nChristianity among the Jews. The older Wesleyan Methodist and Gospel\nPropagation Societies, catching the enthusiasm as Carey succeeded in\nopening India and the East, entered on a new development under which\nthe former in 1813, and the latter in 1821, no longer confined their\noperations to the slaves of America and the English of the dispersion\nin the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain.  In 1815 Lutheran\nGermany also, which had cast out the Pietists and the Moravian brethren\nas the Church of England had rejected the Wesleyans, founded the\nprincipal representative of its evangelicalism at Basel.  The\nsucceeding years up to Carey's death saw similar missionary centres\nformed, or reorganised, in Leipzig (1819), Berlin (1823), and Bremen\n(1836).[23]\n\nThe Periodical Accounts sent home from Mudnabati and Serampore,\nbeginning at the close of 1794, and the Monthly Circular Letters after\n1807, gave birth not only to these great missionary movements but to\nthe new and now familiar class of foreign missionary periodicals.  The\nfew magazines then existing, like the Evangelical, became filled with a\nnew spirit of earnest aggressiveness.  In 1796 there appeared in\nEdinburgh The Missionary Magazine, \"a periodical publication intended\nas a repository of discussion and intelligence respecting the progress\nof the Gospel throughout the world.\"  The editors close their preface\nin January 1797 with this statement:--\"With much pleasure they have\nlearned that there was never a greater number of religious periodical\npublications carried on than at present, and never were any of them\nmore generally read. The aggregate impression of those alone which are\nprinted in Britain every month considerably exceeds thirty thousand.\"\nThe first article utilises the facts sent home by Dr. Carey as the\nfruit of his first two years' experience, to show \"The Peculiar\nAdvantages of Bengal as a Field for Missions from Great Britain.\"\nAfter describing, in the style of an English statesman, the immense\npopulation, the highly civilised state of society, the eagerness of the\nnatives in the acquisition of knowledge, and the principles which the\nHindoos and Mohammedans hold in common with Christians, the writer thus\ncontinues:--\n\n\"The attachment of both the Mohammedans and Hindoos to their ancient\nsystems is lessening every day.  We have this information from the late\nSir William Jones, one of the Judges of that country, a name dear to\nliterature, and a lover of the religion of Jesus.  The Mussulmans in\nHindostan are in general but little acquainted with their system, and\nby no means so zealous for it as their brethren in the Turkish and\nPersian empires.  Besides, they have not the strong arm of civil\nauthority to crush those who would convert them.  Mr. Carey's letters\nseem to intimate the same relaxation among the Hindoos.  This decay of\nprejudice and bigotry will at least incline them to listen with more\npatience, and a milder temper, to the doctrines and evidences of the\nChristian religion.  The degree of adhesion to their castes, which\nstill remains, is certainly unfavourable, and must be considered as one\nof Satan's arts to render men unhappy; but it is not insuperable.  The\nRoman Catholics have gained myriads of converts from among them.  The\nDanish missionaries record their thousands too: and one (Schwartz) of\nthe most successful missionaries at present in the world is labouring\nin the southern part of Hindostan.  Besides a very considerable number\nwho have thrown aside their old superstition, and make a profession of\nthe Christian religion, he computes that, in the course of his\nministry, he has been the instrument of savingly converting two\nthousand persons to the faith of Christ.  Of these, above five hundred\nare Mohammedans: the rest are from among the different castes of the\nHindoos.  In addition to these instances, it is proper to notice the\nattention which the Hindoos are paying to the two Baptist missionaries,\nand which gives a favourable specimen of their readiness to listen to\nthe preaching of the Gospel...\n\n\"Reflect, O disciple of Jesus! on what has been presented to thy view.\nThe cause of Christ is thy own cause.  Without deep criminality thou\ncanst not be indifferent to its success.  Rejoice that so delightful a\nfield of missions has been discovered and exhibited.  Rouse thyself\nfrom the slumbers of spiritual languor. Exert thyself to the utmost of\nthy power; and let conscience be able to testify, without a doubt, even\nat the tribunal of Jesus Christ, If missionaries are not speedily sent\nto preach she glorious Gospel in Bengal, it shall not be owing to me.\"\n\nThat is remarkable writing for an Edinburgh magazine in the year 1797,\nand it was Carey who made it possible.  Its author followed up the\nappeal by offering himself and his all, for life and death, in a \"Plan\nof the Mission to Bengal,\" which appeared in the April number. Robert\nHaldane, whose journal at this time was full of Carey's doings, and his\nordained associates, Bogue, Innes, and Greville Ewing, accompanied by\nJohn Ritchie as printer, John Campbell as catechist, and other lay\nworkers, determined to turn the very centre of Hindooism, Benares, into\na second Serampore.  Defeated by one set of Directors of the East India\nCompany, he waited for the election of their successors, only to find\nthe East India Company as hostile to the Scottish gentleman as they had\nbeen to the English shoemaker four years before.\n\nThe formation of the great Missionary and Bible Societies did not, as\nin the case of the Moravian Brethren and the Wesleyans, take their\nmembers out of the Churches of England and Scotland, of the Baptists\nand Independents.  It supplied in each case an executive through which\nthey worked aggressively not only on the non-christian world, but still\nmore directly on their own home congregations and parishes.  The\nforeign mission spirit directly gave birth to the home mission on an\nextensive scale.  Not merely did the Haldanes and their agents,\nfollowing Whitefield and the Scottish Secession of 1733, become the\nevangelists of the north when they were not suffered to preach the\nGospel in South Asia; every member of the churches of Great Britain and\nAmerica, as he caught the enthusiasm of humanity, in the Master's\nsense, from the periodical accounts sent home from Serampore, and soon\nfrom Africa and the South Seas, as well as from the Red Indians and\nSlaves of the West, began to work as earnestly among the neglected\nclasses around him, as to pray and give for the conversion of the\npeoples abroad.  From first to last, from the early days of the\nMoravian influence on Wesley and Whitefield, and the letters of Carey,\nto the successive visits to the home churches of missionaries like Duff\nand Judson, Ellis and Williams, Moffat and Livingstone, it is the\nenterprise of foreign missions which has been the leaven of Christendom\nno less really than of the rest of the world.  Does the fact that at\nthe close of the year 1796 there were more than thirty thousand men and\nwomen in Great Britain who every month read and prayed about the then\nlittle known world of heathenism, and spared not their best to bring\nthat world to the Christ whom they had found, seem a small thing?  How\nmuch smaller, even to contemptible insignificance, must those who think\nso consider the arrival of William Carey in Calcutta to be three years\nbefore!  Yet the thirty thousand sprang from the one, and to-day the\nthirty thousand have a vast body of Christians really obedient to the\nMaster, in so far as, banded together in five hundred churches and\nsocieties, they have sent out eighteen thousand missionaries instead of\none or two; they see eighty thousand Asiatics, Africans, and\nPolynesians proclaiming the Christ to their countrymen, and their\npraying is tested by their giving annually a sum of \u00a35,000,000, to\nwhich every year is adding.\n\nThe influence of Carey and his work on individual men and women in his\ngeneration was even more marked, inasmuch as his humility kept him so\noften from magnifying his office and glorifying God as the example of\nPaul should have encouraged him to do.  Most important of all for the\ncause, he personally called Ward to be his associate, and his writings\ndrew Dr. and Mrs. Marshman to his side, while his apostolic charity so\ndeveloped and used all that was good in Thomas and Fountain, that not\neven in the churches of John and James, Peter and Paul, Barnabas and\nLuke, was there such a brotherhood.  When troubles came from outside he\nwon to himself the younger brethren, Yates and Pearce, and healed half\nthe schism which Andrew Fuller's successors made.  His Enquiry,\nfollowed \"by actually embarking on a mission to India,\" led to the\npublication of the Letters on Missions addressed to the Protestant\nMinisters of the British Churches by Melville Horne, who, after a brief\nexperience as Church of England chaplain in Zachary Macaulay's\nsettlement of Sierra Leone, published that little book to excite in all\nChristians a passion for missions like the Master's.  Referring to the\nEnglish churches, Established and Nonconformist, he wrote:--\"Except the\nReverend Mr. Carey and a friend who accompanies him, I am not informed\nof any...ministers who are engaged in missions.\"  Such was the\nimpression made by Carey on John Newton that, in 1802, he rebuked his\nold curate, Claudius Buchanan, for depreciating the Serampore\nmissionaries, adding, \"I do not look for miracles, but if God were to\nwork one in our day, I should not wonder if it were in favour of Dr.\nCarey.\"\n\nThe Serampore Mission, at an early period, called forth the admiration\nof the Scottish philanthropist and essayist, James Douglas of Cavers,\nwhose Hints on Missions (1822), a book still full of suggestiveness,\ncontains this passage:--\"Education and the press have only been\nemployed to purpose of very late years, especially by the missionaries\nof Serampore; every year they have been making some improvements upon\ntheir former efforts, and...it only requires to increase the number of\nprinting presses, schools, teachers, translators, and professors, to\naccelerate to any pitch the rate of improvement...To attempt to convert\nthe world without educating it, is grasping at the end and neglecting\nthe means.\"  Referring to what Carey had begun and the Serampore\nCollege had helped to develop in Asia, as in Africa and America,\nDouglas of Cavers well described the missionary era, the new\ncrusade:--\"The Reformation itself needed anew a reform in the spirit if\nnot in the letter.  That second Reformation has begun; it makes less\nnoise than that of Luther, but it spreads wider and deeper; as it is\nmore intimate it will be more enduring.  Like the Temple of Solomon, it\nis rising silently, without the din of pressure or the note of previous\npreparation, but notwithstanding it will be not less complete in all\nits parts nor less able to resist the injuries of time!\"\n\nHenry Martyn died, perhaps the loftiest and most loving spirit of the\nmen whom Carey drew to India.  Son of a Cornish miner-captain, after\npassing through the Truro Grammar School, he was sixteen--the age at\nwhich Carey became a shoemaker's apprentice--when he was entered at St.\nJohn's, and made that ever since the most missionary of all the\ncolleges of Cambridge.  When not yet twenty he came out Senior\nWrangler.  His father's death drove him to the Bible, to the Acts of\nthe Apostles, which he began to study, and the first whisper of the\ncall of Christ came to him in the joy of the Magnificat as its strains\npealed through the chapel.  Charles Simeon's preaching drew him to\nTrinity Church.  In the vicarage, when he had come to be tutor of his\ncollege, and was preparing for the law, he heard much talk of William\nCarey, of his self-sacrifice and his success in India.  It was the\nopening year of the nineteenth century, the Church Missionary Society\nhad just been born as the fruit partly of a paper written by Simeon\nfour years previously, and he offered himself as its first English\nmissionary.  He was not twenty-one, he could not be ordained for two\nyears.  Meanwhile a calamity made him and his unmarried sister\npenniless; he loved Lydia Grenfell with a pure passion which enriched\nwhile it saddened his short life, and a chaplaincy became the best mode\nin every way of his living and dying for India.  What a meeting must\nthat have been between him and Carey when, already stricken by fever,\nhe found a sanctuary in Aldeen, and learned at Serampore the sweetness\nof telling to the natives of India in one of their own tongues the love\nof God. William Carey and Henry Martyn were one in origin, from the\npeople; in industry, as scholars; in genius, as God-devoted; in the\nlove of a great heart not always returned.  The older man left the\nchurch of his fathers because there was no Simeon and no missionary\nsociety, and he made his own university; he laid the foundation of\nEnglish missions deep and broad in no sect but in Christ, to whom he\nand Martyn alike gave themselves.\n\nThe names of Carey and Simeon, thus linked to each other by Martyn,\nfind another pleasant and fruitful tie in the Rev. Alexander Stewart,\nD.D., Gaelic scholar and Scottish preacher.  It was soon after Carey\nwent out to India that Simeon, travelling in the Highlands, spent a\nSunday in the manse of Moulin, where his personal intercourse and his\nevening sermon after a season of Communion were blessed to the\nevangelical enlightenment of Stewart.  Moulin was the birthplace ten\nyears after of Alexander Duff, whose parents previously came under the\npower of the minister's new-found light.[24] Like Simeon, Dr. Stewart\nthenceforth became a warm supporter of foreign missions.  Finding in\nthe Periodical Accounts a letter in which Carey asked Fuller to send\nhim a copy of Van der Hooght's edition of the Hebrew Bible because of\nthe weakness of his eyesight, Dr. Stewart at once wrote offering his\nown copy.  Fuller gladly accepted the kindness. \"I with great\npleasure,\" writes Dr. Stewart, \"followed the direction, wrote a letter\nof some length to Carey, and sent off my parcel to London.  I daresay\nyou remember my favourite Hebrew Bible in two volumes.  I parted with\nit with something of the same feelings that a pious parent might do\nwith a favourite son going on a mission to the heathen--with a little\nregret but with much goodwill.\"  This was the beginning of an\ninteresting correspondence with Carey and Fuller.\n\nNext to Andrew Fuller, and in the region of literature, general culture\nand eloquence before him, the strongest men among the Baptists were the\nyounger Robert Hall and John Foster.  Both were devoted to Carey, and\nwere the most powerful of the English advocates of his mission.  The\nformer, for a time, was led to side with the Society in some of the\ndetails of its dispute with Dr. Marshman, but his loyalty to Carey and\nthe principles of the mission fired some of the most eloquent orations\nin English literature. John Foster's shrewder common sense never\nwavered, but inspired his pen alike in the heat of controversy and in\nhis powerful essays and criticisms.  Writing in 1828, he declared that\nthe Serampore missionaries \"have laboured with the most earnest\nassiduity for a quarter of a century (Dr. Carey much longer) in all\nmanner of undertakings for promoting Christianity, with such a\nrenunciation of self-interest as will never be surpassed; that they\nhave conveyed the oracles of divine truth into so many languages; that\nthey have watched over diversified missionary operations with\nunremitting care; that they have conducted themselves through many\ntrying and some perilous circumstances with prudence and fortitude; and\nthat they retain to this hour an undiminished zeal to do all that\nprovidence shall enable them in the same good cause.\"  The expenditure\nof the Serampore Brotherhood up to that time, leaving out of account\nthe miscellaneous missionary services, he showed to have been upwards\nof \u00a375,000.  Dr. Chalmers in Scotland was as stoutly with Carey and his\nbrethren as Foster was in England, so that Marshman wrote:--\"Thus two\nof the greatest and wisest men of England are on our side, and, what is\nmore, I trust the Lord God is with us.\"  What Heber thought, alike as\nman and bishop, his own loving letter and proposal for \"reunion of our\nchurches\" in the next chapter will show.\n\nOf all the publicists in the United Kingdom during Carey's long career\nthe foremost was William Wilberforce; he was not second even to Charles\nGrant and his sons.  Defeated in carrying into law the \"pious clauses\"\nof the charter which would have opened India to the Christian\nmissionary and schoolmaster in 1793, he nevertheless succeeded by his\npersuasive eloquence and the weight of his character in having them\nentered as Resolutions of the House of Commons.  He then gave himself\nsuccessfully to the abolition of the slave-trade.  But he always\ndeclared the toleration of Christianity in British India to be \"that\ngreatest of all causes, for I really place it before the abolition, in\nwhich, blessed be God, we gained the victory.\"  His defeat in 1793,\nwhen Dundas and the Government were with him, was due to the apathy of\npublic opinion, and especially of the dumb churches.  But in the next\ntwenty years Carey changed all that.  Not merely was Andrew Fuller ever\non the watch with pen and voice, but all the churches were roused, the\nEstablished to send out bishops and chaplains, the Nonconformist and\nEstablished Evangelicals together to secure freedom for missionaries\nand schoolmasters.  In 1793 an English missionary was an unknown and\ntherefore a much-dreaded monster, for Carey was then on the sea.  In\n1813 Carey and the Serampore Brotherhood were still the only English\nmissionaries continuously at work in India, and not the churches only,\nbut governor-generals like Teignmouth and Wellesley, and scholars like\nColebrooke and H. H. Wilson, were familiar with the grandeur and\npolitical innocency of their labours.  Hence this outburst of\nWilberforce in the House of Commons on the 16th July 1813, when he used\nthe name of Carey to defeat an attempt of the Company to prevent\ntoleration by omitting the declaratory clauses of the Resolution, which\nwould have made it imply that the privilege should never be exerted\nthough the power of licensing missionaries was nominally conceded.\n\n\"One great argument of his opponents was grounded on the enthusiastic\ncharacter which they imputed to the missionary body. India hitherto has\nseen no missionary who was a member of the English Church, and\nimputations could be cast more readily on 'Anabaptists and fanatics.'\nThese attacks Mr. Wilberforce indignantly refuted, and well had the\nnoble conduct of the band at Serampore deserved this vindication. 'I do\nnot know,' he often said, 'a finer instance of the moral sublime, than\nthat a poor cobbler working in his stall should conceive the idea of\nconverting the Hindoos to Christianity; yet such was Dr. Carey.  Why\nMilton's planning his Paradise Lost in his old age and blindness was\nnothing to it.  And then when he had gone to India, and was appointed\nby Lord Wellesley to a lucrative and honourable station in the college\nof Fort William, with equal nobleness of mind he made over all his\nsalary (between \u00a31000 and \u00a31500 per annum) to the general objects of\nthe mission.  By the way, nothing ever gave me a more lively sense of\nthe low and mercenary standard of your men of honour, than the manifest\neffect produced upon the House of Commons by my stating this last\ncircumstance.  It seemed to be the only thing which moved them.'  Dr.\nCarey had been especially attacked, and 'a few days afterwards the\nmember who had made this charge came to me, and asked me in a manner\nwhich in a noted duellist could not be mistaken, \"Pray, Mr.\nWilberforce, do you know a Mr. Andrew Fuller, who has written to desire\nme to retract the statement which I made with reference to Dr. Carey?\"\n\"Yes,\" I answered with a smile, \"I know him perfectly, but depend upon\nit you will make nothing of him in your way; he is a respectable\nBaptist minister at Kettering.\"  In due time there came from India an\nauthoritative contradiction of the slander.  It was sent to me, and for\ntwo whole years did I take it in my pocket to the House of Commons to\nread it to the House whenever the author of the accusation should be\npresent; but during that whole time he never once dared show himself in\nthe House.'\"\n\nThe slanderer was a Mr. Prendergast, who affirmed that Dr. Carey's\nconduct had changed so much for the worse since the departure of Lord\nWellesley, that he himself had seen the missionary on a tub in the\nstreets of Calcutta haranguing the mob and abusing the religion of the\npeople in such a way that the police alone saved him from being killed.\nSo, and for the same object of defeating the Resolutions on Toleration,\nMr. Montgomerie Campbell had asserted that when Schwartz was in the\nheat of his discourse in a certain village and had taken off his stock,\n\"that and his gold buckle were stolen by one of his virtuous and\nenlightened congregation; in such a description of natives did the\ndoctrine of the missionaries operate.\"  Before Dr. Carey's exposure\ncould reach England this \"tub\" story became the stock argument of the\nanti-christian orators. The Madras barrister, Marsh, who was put up to\nanswer Wilberforce, was driven to such language as this:--\n\n\"Your struggles are only begun when you have converted one caste; never\nwill the scheme of Hindoo conversion be realised till you persuade an\nimmense population to suffer by whole tribes the severest martyrdom\nthat has yet been sustained for the sake of religion--and are the\nmissionaries whom this bill will let loose on India fit engines for the\naccomplishment of this great revolution? Will these people, crawling\nfrom the holes and caverns of their original destinations, apostates\nfrom the loom and the anvil--he should have said the awl--and renegades\nfrom the lowest handicraft employments, be a match for the cool and\nsedate controversies they will have to encounter should the Brahmans\ncondescend to enter into the arena against the maimed and crippled\ngladiators that presume to grapple with their faith?  What can be\napprehended but the disgrace and discomfiture of whole hosts of tub\npreachers in the conflict?\"\n\nLord Wellesley's eulogy of the Serampore mission in the House of Lords\nwas much more pronounced than appears from the imperfect report.  But\neven in that he answered the Brahmanised member of the House of Commons\nthus:--\n\n\"With regard to the missionaries, he must say that while he was in\nIndia he never knew of any danger arising from their proceedings,\nneither had he heard of any impression produced by them in the way of\nconversion.  The greater number of them were in the Danish settlement\nof Serampore; but he never heard of any convulsions or any alarm\nproduced by them.  Some of them, particularly Mr. Carey, were very\nlearned men, and had been employed in the College of Fort William.  He\nhad always considered the missionaries who were in India in his time a\nquiet, orderly, discreet, and learned body; and he had employed them in\nthe education of youth and the translation of the Scriptures into the\neastern languages.  He had thought it his duty to have the Sacred\nScriptures translated into the languages of the East, and to give the\nlearned natives employed in the translation the advantage of access to\nthe sacred fountain of divine truth.  He thought a Christian governor\ncould not have done less; and he knew that a British governor ought not\nto do more.\"\n\nCarey's letters to Fuller in 1810-12 are filled with importunate\nappeals to agitate, so that the new charter might legalise Christian\nmission work in India.  Fuller worked outside of the House as hard as\nWilberforce.  In eight weeks of the session no fewer than nine hundred\npetitions were presented, in twenties and thirties, night after night,\ntill Lord Castlereagh exclaimed, \"This is enough, Mr. Fuller.\"  There\nwas more reason for Carey's urgency than he knew at the time he was\npressing Fuller.  The persecution of the missionaries in Bengal,\nexcused by the Vellore mutiny, which had driven Judson to Burma and\nseveral other missionaries elsewhere, was renewed by the Indian\nGovernment's secretaries and police.  The Ministry had informed the\nCourt of Directors that they had resolved to permit Europeans to settle\nin India, yet after five weeks' vacillation the Governor-General\nyielded to his subordinates so far as to issue an order on 5th March\n1812, for the expulsion of three missionaries, an order which was so\nexecuted that one of them was conducted like a felon through the\nstreets and lodged in the native jail for two hours.  Carey thus wrote\nto Ryland on the persecution:--\n\n\"CALCUTTA, 14th April 1813.--Before this reaches you it is probable\nthat you will have heard of the resolution of Government respecting our\nbrethren Johns, Lawson, and Robinson, and will perhaps have even seen\nBrother Johns, who was by that cruel order sent home on the\nCastlereagh.  Government have agreed that Brother Lawson shall stay\ntill the pleasure of the Court of Directors is known, to whom a\nreference will be made.  Brother Robinson was gone down the river, and\nwas on board a ship bound to Java when the order was issued; he\ntherefore got out without hearing of it, but I understand it will be\nsent thither after him.  Jehovah reigneth!\n\n\"Since Brother Johns's departure I have tried to ascertain the cause of\nthe severity in Government.  I had a long conversation with H. T.\nColebrooke, Esq., who has been out of Council but a few months, upon\nthe matter.  I cannot learn that Government has any specific dislike to\nus, but find that ever since the year 1807 the orders of the Court of\nDirectors to send home all Europeans not in the service of Her Majesty\nor the Company, and who come out without leave of the Directors, have\nbeen so peremptory and express that Government cannot now overlook any\ncircumstance which brings such persons to notice.  Notwithstanding the\ngeneral way in which the Court of Directors have worded their orders, I\ncannot help putting several circumstances together, which make me fear\nthat our Mission was the cause of the enforcement of that general law\nwhich forbids Europeans to remain in India without the leave of the\nCourt of Directors.\n\n\"Whether Twining's pamphlet excited the alarm, or was only an echo of\nthe minds of a number of men hostile to religion, I cannot say, but if\nI recollect dates aright the orders of the Court of Directors came as\nsoon as possible after that pamphlet was published; and as it would\nhave been too barefaced to have given a specific order to send home\nmissionaries, they founded their orders on an unjust and wicked clause\nin the charter, and so enforced it that it should effectually operate\non missionaries.\n\n\"I hope the friends of religion will persevere in the use of all\npeaceful and lawful means to prevail on the legislature to expunge that\nclause, or so to modify it that ministers of the Gospel may have leave\nto preach, form and visit churches, and perform the various duties of\ntheir office without molestation, and that they may have a right to\nsettle in and travel over any part of India for that purpose.  Nothing\ncan be more just than this wish, and nothing would be more politic than\nfor it to be granted; for every one converted from among the heathen is\nfrom that time a staunch friend of the English Government.  Our necks\nhave, however, been more or less under the yoke ever since that year,\nand preaching the Gospel stands in much the same political light as\ncommitting an act of felony.  Witness what has been done to Mr.\nThompson, the five American brethren, and our three brethren.  Mr.\nThomason, the clergyman, has likewise hard work to stand his ground.\n\n\"I trust, however, it is too late to eradicate the Gospel from Bengal.\nThe number of those born in the country who preach the Word is now very\nconsiderable.  Fifteen of this description preach constantly, and seven\nor eight more occasionally exhort their countrymen, besides our\nEuropean brethren.  The Gospel is stationed at eighteen or twenty\nstations belonging to our Mission alone, and at several of them there\nare churches.  The Bible is either translated or under translation into\ntwenty-four of the languages of the East, eighteen of which we are\nemployed about, besides printing most of the others.  Thirteen out of\nthese eighteen are now in the press, including a third edition of the\nBengali New Testament. Indeed, so great is the demand for Bibles that\nthough we have eight presses constantly at work I fear we shall not\nhave a Bengali New Testament to sell or give away for the next twelve\nmonths, the old edition being entirely out of print.  We shall be in\nalmost the same predicament with the Hindostani.  We are going to set\nup two more presses, which we can get made in Calcutta, and are going\nto send another to Rangoon.  In short, though the publishing of the\nWord of God is a political crime, there never was a time when it was so\nsuccessful. 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the\nLord.'\n\n\"Through divine mercy we are all well, and live in peace and love. A\nsmall cloud which threatened at the time Brother Johns left us has\nmercifully blown over, and we are now in the utmost harmony.  I will,\nif possible, write to my nephew Eustace by these ships, but I am so\npressed for time that I can never promise to write a letter. The Lord\nhas so blessed us that we are now printing in more languages than we\ncould do before the fire took place.\n\n\"Give my love to Eustace, also to all who recollect or think of me. I\nam now near fifty-two years of age; yet through mercy I am well and am\nenabled to keep close to work twelve or fourteen hours a day. I hope to\nsee the Bible printed in most of the languages in which it is begun.--I\nam, very affectionately yours, WM. CAREY.\"\n\nCarey had previously written thus to Fuller:--\"The fault lies in the\nclause which gives the Company power thus to send home interlopers, and\nis just as reasonable as one which should forbid all the people in\nEngland--a select few excepted--to look at the moon.  I hope this\nclause will be modified or expunged in the new charter.  The\nprohibition is wrong, and nothing that is morally wrong can be\npolitically right.\"\n\nIt was left to the charter of 1853 fully to liberalise the Company, but\neach step was taken too late to save it from the nemesis of 1857 and\nextinction in 1858. \"Let no man think,\" Wilberforce had said to the\nHouse of Commons in 1813, \"that the petitions which have loaded our\ntable have been produced by a burst of momentary enthusiasm. While the\nsun and moon continue to shine in the firmament so long will this\nobject be pursued with unabated ardour until the great work be\naccomplished.\"\n\nThe opposition of Anglo-Indian officials and lawyers, which vainly used\nno better weapons than such as Mr. Prendergast and his \"tub\"\nfabrication, had been anticipated and encouraged by the Edinburgh\nReview.  That periodical was at the height of its influence in 1808,\nthe year before John Murray's Quarterly was first published.  The Rev.\nSydney Smith, as the literary and professional representative of what\nhe delighted to call \"the cause of rational religion,\" was the foe of\nevery form of earnest Christianity, which he joined the mob in\nstigmatising as \"Methodism.\"  He was not unacquainted with Indian\npolitics, for his equally clever brother, known as Bobus Smith, was\nlong Advocate-General in Calcutta, and left a very considerable fortune\nmade there to enrich the last six years of the Canon's life.  Casting\nabout for a subject on which to exercise at once his animosity and his\nfun, he found it in the Periodical Accounts, wherein Fuller had\nundoubtedly too often published letters and passages of journals\nwritten only for the eye of the private friend.  Carey frequently\nremonstrated against the publicity given to some of his communications,\nand the fear of this checked his correspondence.  In truth, the\nnew-born enthusiasm was such that, at first, the Committee kept nothing\nback.  It was easy for a litterateur like Sydney Smith in those days to\nextract passages and to give them such headings as \"Brother Carey's\nPiety at Sea,\" \"Hatred of the Natives to the Gospel.\"  Smith produced\nan article which, as republished in his collected essays, has a\nhistorical value as a test of the bitterness of the hate which the\nmissionary enterprise had to meet in secular literature till the death\nof Livingstone, Wilson, and Duff opened the eyes of journalism to the\nfacts.  In itself it must be read in the light of its author's own\ncriticism of his articles, thus expressed in a letter to Francis\nJeffrey, and of the regret that he had written it which, Jeffrey told\nDr. Marshman, he lived to utter:--\"Never mind; let them\" (his articles)\n\"go away with their absurdity unadulterated and pure.  If I please, the\nobject for which I write is attained; if I do not, the laughter which\nfollows my error is the only thing which can make me cautious and\ntremble.\"  But for that picture by himself we should have pronounced\nCarlyle's drawing of him to be almost as malicious as his own of the\nSerampore missionaries--\"A mass of fat and muscularity, with massive\nRoman nose, piercing hazel eyes, shrewdness and fun--not humour or even\nwit--seemingly without soul altogether.\"\n\nThe attack called forth a reply by Mr. Styles so severe that Sydney\nSmith wrote a rejoinder which began by claiming credit for \"rooting out\na nest of consecrated cobblers.\"  Sir James Mackintosh, then in Bombay,\nwrote of a similar assault by Mr. Thomas Twining on the Bible\nSocieties, that it \"must excite general indignation.  The only measure\nwhich he could consistently propose would be the infliction of capital\npunishment on the crime of preaching or embracing Christianity in\nIndia, for almost every inferior degree of persecution is already\npractised by European or native anti-christians.  But it fell to\nSouthey, in the very first number of the Quarterly Review, in April\n1809, to deal with the Rev. Sydney Smith, and to defend Carey and the\nBrotherhood as both deserved. The layman's defence was the more\neffective for its immediate purpose that he started from the same\nprejudice as that of the reverend Whig rationalist--\"the Wesleyans, the\nOrthodox dissenters of every description, and the Evangelical churchmen\nmay all be comprehended under the generic name of Methodists.  The\nreligion which they preach is not the religion of our fathers, and what\nthey have altered they have made worse.\"  But Southey had himself faith\nas well as a literary canon higher than that of his opponent who wrote\nonly to \"please\" his patrons.  He saw in these Methodists alone that\nwhich he appreciated as the essence of true faith--\"that spirit of\nenthusiasm by which Europe was converted to Christianity they have in\nsome measure revived, and they have removed from Protestantism a part\nof its reproach.\"  He proceeded to tell how \"this Mission, which is\nrepresented by its enemies as so dangerous to the British Empire in\nIndia, and thereby, according to a logic learnt from Buonaparte, to\nEngland also, originated in a man by name William Carey, who till the\ntwenty-fourth year of his age was a working shoemaker.  Sectarianism\nhas this main advantage over the Established Church, that its men of\nability certainly find their station, and none of its talents are\nneglected or lost.  Carey was a studious and pious man, his faith\nwrong, his feelings right.  He made himself competently versed in\nLatin, Greek, and Hebrew.  He is now probably a far more learned\norientalist than any European has ever been before him, and has been\nappointed Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali at the College of Fort\nWilliam.\"  Then follow a history of the Mission written in a style\nworthy of the author of the Life of Nelson, and these statements of the\npolitical and the purely missionary questions, which read now almost as\npredictions:--\n\n\"The first step towards winning the natives to our religion is to show\nthem that we have one.  This will hardly be done without a visible\nchurch.  There would be no difficulty in filling up the establishment,\nhowever ample; but would the archbishop, bishops, deans, and chapters\nof Mr. Buchanan's plan do the work of missionaries?  Could the Church\nof England supply missionaries?--where are they to be found among them?\nIn what school for the promulgation of sound and orthodox learning are\nthey trained up?  There is ability and there is learning in the Church\nof England, but its age of fermentation has long been over; and that\nzeal which for this work is the most needful is, we fear, possessed\nonly by the Methodists...\n\n\"Carey and his son have been in Bengal fourteen years, the other\nbrethren only nine; they had all a difficult language to acquire before\nthey could speak to a native, and to preach and argue in it required a\nthorough and familiar knowledge.  Under these circumstances the wonder\nis, not that they have done so little, but that they have done so much;\nfor it will be found that, even without this difficulty to retard them,\nno religious opinions have spread more rapidly in the same time, unless\nthere was some remarkable folly or extravagance to recommend them, or\nsome powerful worldly inducement.  Their progress will be continually\naccelerating; the difficulty is at first, as in introducing vaccination\ninto a distant land; when the matter has once taken one subject\nsupplies infection for all around him, and the disease takes root in\nthe country.  The husband converts the wife, the son converts the\nparent, the friend his friend, and every fresh proselyte becomes a\nmissionary in his own neighbourhood.  Thus their sphere of influence\nand of action widens, and the eventual issue of a struggle between\ntruth and falsehood is not to be doubted by those who believe in the\nformer. Other missionaries from other societies have now entered India,\nand will soon become efficient labourers in their station.  From\nGovernment all that is asked is toleration for themselves and\nprotection for their converts.  The plan which they have laid for their\nown proceedings is perfectly prudent and unexceptionable, and there is\nas little fear of their provoking martyrdom as there would be of their\nshrinking from it, if the cause of God and man require the sacrifice.\nBut the converts ought to be protected from violence, and all cramming\nwith cow-dung prohibited on pain of retaliation with beef-tea.\n\n\"Nothing can be more unfair than the manner in which the scoffers and\nalarmists have represented the missionaries.  We, who have thus\nvindicated them, are neither blind to what is erroneous in their\ndoctrine or ludicrous in their phraseology; but the anti-missionaries\ncull out from their journals and letters all that is ridiculous\nsectarian, and trifling; call them fools, madmen, tinkers, Calvinists,\nand schismatics; and keep out of sight their love of man, and their\nzeal for God, their self-devotement, their indefatigable industry, and\ntheir unequalled learning.  These low-born and low-bred mechanics have\ntranslated the whole Bible into Bengali, and have by this time printed\nit.  They are printing the New Testament in the Sanskrit, the Orissa,\nMahratta, Hindostan, and Guzarat, and translating it into Persic,\nTelinga, Karnata, Chinese, the language of the Sieks and of the\nBurmans, and in four of these languages they are going on with the\nBible.  Extraordinary as this is, it will appear more so when it is\nremembered that of these men one was originally a shoemaker, another a\nprinter at Hull, and a third the master of a charity-school at Bristol.\nOnly fourteen years have elapsed since Thomas and Carey set foot in\nIndia, and in that time have these missionaries acquired this gift of\ntongues, in fourteen years these low-born, low-bred mechanics have done\nmore towards spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures among the\nheathen than has been accomplished, or even attempted, by all the\nprinces and potentates of the world--and all the universities and\nestablishments into the bargain.\n\n\"Do not think to supersede the Baptist missionaries till you can\nprovide from your own church such men as these, and, it may be added,\nsuch women also as their wives.\"\n\nSoon after the Charter victory had been gained \"that fierce and fiery\nCalvinist,\" whose dictum Southey adopted, that the question in dispute\nis not whether the natives shall enjoy toleration, but whether that\ntoleration shall be extended to the teachers of Christianity, Andrew\nFuller, entered into rest on the 7th May 1815, at the age of sixty-two.\nSutcliff of Olney had been the first of the three to be taken away[25]\na year before, at the same age.  The scholarly Dr. Ryland of Bristol\nwas left alone, and the home management of the Mission passed into the\nhands of another generation.  Up to Fuller's death that management had\nbeen almost ideally perfect.  In 1812 the Committee had been increased\nby the addition of nineteen members, to represent the growing interest\nof the churches in Serampore, and to meet the demand of the\n\"respectable\" class who had held aloof at the first, who were eager\nthat the headquarters of so renowned an enterprise should be removed to\nLondon.  But Fuller prevailed to keep the Society a little longer at\nKettering, although he failed to secure as his assistant and successor\nthe one man whose ability, experience, and prudence would have been\nequal to his own, and have prevented the troubles that\nfollowed--Christopher Anderson.  As Fuller lay dying, he dictated a\nletter to Ryland wherein he thus referred to the evangelical doctrine\nof grace which he had been the one English theologian of his day to\ndefend from the hyper-calvinists, and to use as the foundation of the\nmodern missionary enterprise:--\"I have preached and written much\nagainst the abuse of the doctrine of grace, but that doctrine is all my\nsalvation and all my desire.  I have no other hope than from salvation\nby mere sovereign, efficacious grace through the atonement of my Lord\nand Saviour: with this hope I can go into eternity with composure.  We\nhave some who have been giving it out of late that if Sutcliff and some\nothers had preached more of Christ and less of Jonathan Edwards they\nwould have been more useful.  If those who talk thus had preached\nChrist half as much as Jonathan Edwards did, and were half as useful as\nhe was, their usefulness would be double what it is.  It is very\nsingular that the Mission to the East originated with one of these\nprinciples, and without pretending to be a prophet, I may say if it\never falls into the hands of men who talk in this strain (of\nhyper-calvinism) it will soon come to nothing.\"\n\nAndrew Fuller was not only the first of Foreign Mission Secretaries; he\nwas a model for all.  To him his work was spiritual life, and hence,\nthough the most active preacher and writer of his day, he was like\nCarey in this, that his working day was twice as long as that of most\nmen, and he could spend half of his time in the frequent journeys all\nover the kingdom to raise funds, in repeated campaigns in London to\nsecure toleration, and in abundant letters to the missionaries.  His\nrelation to the Committee, up to the last, was equally exemplary.  In\nthe very earliest missionary organisation in England it is due to him\nthat the line was clearly drawn between the deliberative and judicial\nfunction which is that of the members, and the executive which is that\nof the secretary.  Wisdom and efficiency, clearness of perception and\npromptitude of action, were thus combined.  Fuller's, too, was the\nspecial merit of realising that, while a missionary committee or church\nare fellow-workers only with the men and women abroad, the Serampore\nBrotherhood was a self-supporting, and to that extent a self-governing\nbody in a sense true of no foreign mission ever since.  The two\ntriumvirates, moreover, consisted of giants--Carey, Marshman, and Ward\nabroad; Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland at home.  To Carey personally the\ndeath of Fuller was more than to any other.  For almost the quarter of\na century he had kept his vow that he would hold the rope.  When Pearce\ndied all too soon there was none whom Carey loved like Fuller, while\nFuller's devotion to Carey was all the greater that it was tempered by\na wise jealousy for his perfectness.  So early as 1797, Fuller wrote\nthus to the troublesome Fountain:--\"It affords us good hope of your\nbeing a useful missionary that you seem to love and revere the counsels\nof Brother Carey.  A humble, peaceful, circumspect, disinterested,\nfaithful, peaceable, and zealous conduct like his will render you a\nblessing to society.  Brother Carey is greatly respected and beloved by\nall denominations here.  I will tell you what I have foreborne to tell\nhim lest it should hurt his modesty.  Good old Mr. Newton says: 'Mr.\nCarey has favoured me with a letter, which, indeed, I accept as a\nfavour, and I mean to thank him for it.  I trust my heart as cordially\nunites with him as though I were a brother Baptist myself.  I look to\nsuch a man with reverence.  He is more to me than bishop or archbishop;\nhe is an apostle.  May the Lord make all who undertake missions\nlike-minded with Brother Carey!'\"  As the home administrator, no less\nthan as the theological controversialist, Andrew Fuller stands only\nsecond to William Carey, the founder of Modern English Missions.\n\nFuller's last letter to Carey forms the best introduction to the little\nwhich it is here necessary to record of the action of the Baptist\nMissionary Society when under the secretaryship of the Rev. John Dyer.\nMr. John Marshman, C.S.I., has written the detailed history of that\ncontroversy not only with filial duty, but with a forgiving charity\nwhich excites our admiration for one who suffered more from it than all\nhis predecessors in the Brotherhood, of which he was the last\nrepresentative.  The Society has long since ceased to approve of that\nperiod.  Its opinion has become that of Mr. Marshman, to which a\ncareful perusal of all the documents both in Serampore and England has\nled us--\"Had it been possible to create a dozen establishments like\nthat of Serampore, each raising and managing its own funds, and\nconnected with the Society as the centre of unity in a common cause, it\nought to have been a subject of congratulation and not of regret.\"  The\nwhole policy of every missionary church and society is now and has long\nbeen directed to creating self-supporting and self-propagating\nmissions, like Serampore, that the regions beyond may be\nevangelised--whether these be colleges of catechumens and inquirers,\nlike those of Duff and Wilson, Hislop and Dr. Miller in India, and of\nGovan and Dr. Stewart in Lovedale, Kafraria; or the indigenous churches\nof the West Indies, West Africa, the Pacific Ocean, and Burma.  To us\nthe long and bitter dispute is now of value only in so far as it brings\nout in Christ-like relief the personality of William Carey.\n\nAt the close of 1814 Dr. Carey had asked Fuller to pay \u00a350 a year to\nhis father, then in his eightieth year, and \u00a320 to his (step) mother if\nshe survived the old man.  Protesting that an engraving of his portrait\nhad been published in violation of the agreement which he had made with\nthe artist, he agreed to the wish of each of his relatives for a copy.\nTo these requests Fuller had replied:--\"You should not insist on these\nthings being charged to you, nor yet your father's \u00a350, nor the books,\nnor anything necessary to make you comfortable, unless it be to be paid\nout of what you would otherwise give to the mission.  To insist on\ntheir being paid out of your private property seems to be dictated by\nresentment.  It is thus we express our indignation when we have an\navaricious man to deal with.\"\n\nThe first act of the Committee, after Fuller's funeral, led Dr. Ryland\nto express to Carey his unbounded fears for the future. There were two\ndifficulties.  The new men raised the first question, in what sense the\nSerampore property belonged to the Society?  They then proceeded to\nshow how they would answer it, by appointing the son of Samuel Pearce\nto Serampore as Mr. Ward's assistant.  On both sides of their\nindependence, as trustees of the property which they had created and\ngifted to the Society on this condition, and as a self-supporting,\nself-elective brotherhood, it became necessary, for the unbroken peace\nof the mission and the success of their work, that they should\nvindicate their moral and legal position.  The correspondence fell\nchiefly to Dr. Marshman. Ward and he successively visited England, to\nwhich the controversy was transferred, with occasional references to\nDr. Carey in Serampore.  All Scotland, led by Christopher Anderson,\nChalmers, and the Haldanes--all England, except the Dyer faction and\nRobert Hall for a time, among the Baptists, and nearly all America,\nheld with the Serampore men; but their ever-extending operations were\nchecked by the uncertainty, and their hearts were nearly broken.  The\njunior missionaries in India formed a separate union and congregation\nby themselves in Calcutta, paid by the Society, though professing to\ncarry out the organisation of the Serampore Brotherhood in other\nrespects.  The Committee's controversy lasted sixteen years, and was\nclosed in 1830, after Ward's death, by Carey and Marshman drawing up a\nnew trust-deed, in which, having vindicated their position, the old men\nmade over properties which had cost them \u00a37800 to eleven trustees in\nEngland, stipulating only that they should occupy them rent free till\ndeath, and that their colleagues--who were John Marshman and John Mack,\nof Edinburgh University--might continue in them for three years\nthereafter, paying rent to the Society.  Such self-sacrifice would be\npronounced heroic, but it was only the outcome of a life of\nself-devotion, marked by the spirit of Him who spake the Sermon on the\nMount, and said to the first missionaries He sent forth:--\"Be wise as\nserpents, harmless as doves.\"  The story is completed by the fact that\nJohn Marshman, on his father's death, again paid the price of as much\nof the property as the Hoogli had not swallowed up when the Committee\nwere about to put it in the market.\n\nSuch was Dr. Carey's position in the Christian world that the Dyer\nparty considered it important for their interest to separate him from\nhis colleagues, and if not to claim his influence for their side, at\nleast to neutralise it.  By trying to hold up Dr. Marshman to odium,\nthey roused the righteous indignation of Carey, while outraging his\nsense of justice by their blows at the independence of the Brotherhood.\nDr. Marshman, when in England, met this course by frankly printing the\nwhole private correspondence of Carey on the subject of the property,\nor thirty-two letters ranging from the year 1815 to 1828.  One of the\nearliest of these is to Mr. Dyer, who had so far forgotten himself as\nto ask Dr. Carey to write home, alone, his opinion of his \"elder\nbrethren,\" and particularly of Dr. Marshman.  The answer, covering\neleven octavo pages of small type, is a model for all\ncontroversialists, and especially for any whom duty compels to rebuke\nthe minister who has failed to learn the charity which envieth not.  We\nreproduce the principal passages, and the later letters to Christopher\nAnderson and his son Jabez, revealing the nobleness of Carey and the\ninner life of the Brotherhood:--\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 15th July 1819.\n\n\"MY DEAR BROTHER--I am sorry you addressed your letter of January the\n9th to me alone, because it places me in a most awkward situation, as\nit respects my elder brethren, with whom I have acted in concert for\nthe last nineteen years, with as great a share of satisfaction and\npleasure as could reasonably be expected from a connection with\nimperfect creatures, and whom I am thereby called to condemn contrary\nto my convictions, or to justify at the expense of their accusers.  It\nalso places me in a disagreeable situation as it respects my younger\nbrethren, whom I highly respect as Christians; but whose whole conduct,\nas it respects the late unhappy differences, has been such as makes it\nimpossible for me to do otherwise than condemn it...\n\n\"You ask, 'Is there no ground for the charges of profusion, etc.,\npreferred against Brother Marshman?'  Brother Marshman has always been\nardently engaged in promoting the cause of God in India, and, being of\na very active mind, has generally been chosen by us to draw up our\nReports, to write many of our public letters, to draw up plans for\npromoting the objects of the mission, founding and managing schools,\nraising subscriptions, and other things of a like nature; so that he\nhas taken a more active part than Brother Ward or myself in these\npublic acts of the mission.  These things placed him in the foreground,\nand it has been no uncommon thing for him to bear the blame of those\nacts which equally belong to Brother Ward and myself, merely because he\nwas the instrument employed in performing them.\n\n\"The charge of profusion brought against Dr. Marshman is more extensive\nthan you have stated in your letter.  He is charged with having his\nhouse superbly furnished, with keeping several vehicles for the use of\nhis family, and with labouring to aggrandise and bring them into public\nnotice to a culpable extent.  The whole business of furniture, internal\neconomy, etc., of the Serampore station, must exclusively belong to\nourselves, and I confess I think the question about it an unlovely one.\nSome person, we know not whom, told some one, we know not whom, 'that\nhe had been often at Lord Hastings's table, but that Brother Marshman's\ntable far exceeded his.'  I have also often been at Lord Hastings's\ntable (I mean his private table), and I do therefore most positively\ndeny the truth of the assertion; though I confess there is much\ndomestic plainness at the table of the Governor-General of India\n(though nothing of meanness; on the contrary, everything is marked with\na dignified simplicity).  I suspect the informant never was at Lord\nHastings's table, or he could have not been guilty of such\nmisrepresentation.  Lord Hastings's table costs more in one day than\nBrother Marshman's in ten.\n\n\"The following statement may explain the whole business of Brother\nMarshman's furniture, etc., which you have all been so puzzled to\naccount for, and have certainly accounted for in a way that is not the\ntrue one.  We have, you know, a very large school, perhaps the largest\nin India.  In this school are children of persons of the first rank in\nthe country.  The parents or guardians of these children frequently\ncall at the Mission-house, and common propriety requires that they\nshould be respectfully received, and invited to take a breakfast or\ndinner, and sometimes to continue there a day or two.  It is natural\nthat persons who visit the Mission-house upon business superintended by\nBrother Marshman should be entertained at his house rather than\nelsewhere.  Till within the last four or five years we had no\nparticular arrangement for the accommodation of visitors who came to\nsee us; but as those who visited us on business were entertained at\nBrother Marshman's, it appeared to be the most eligible method to\nprovide for the entertainment of other visitors there also; but at that\ntime Brother Marshman had not a decent table for persons of the above\ndescription to sit down to.  We, therefore, voted him a sum to enable\nhim to provide such articles as were necessary to entertain them with\ndecency; and I am not aware that he has been profuse, or that he has\nprovided anything not called for by the rules of propriety.  I have no\ndoubt but Brother Ward can enumerate and describe all these articles of\nfurniture.  It is, however, evident that you must be very imperfect\njudges of their necessity, unless you could at the same time form a\njust estimate of the circumstances in which we stand.  It ought also to\nbe considered that all these articles are public property, and always\nconvertible into their full value in cash.  I hope, however, that\nthings are not yet come to that pass, that a man who, with his wife,\nhas for nineteen or twenty years laboured night and day for the\nmission, who by their labour disinterestedly contribute between 2000\nand 3000 rupees monthly to it, and who have made sacrifices which, if\nothers have not seen, Brother Ward and I have,--sacrifices which ought\nto put to the blush all his accusers, who, notwithstanding their cries\nagainst him, have not only supported themselves, but also have set\nthemselves up in a lucrative business at the Society's expense; and\nwho, even to this day, though they have two prosperous schools, and a\nprofitable printing-office, continue to receive their monthly\nallowance, amounting (including Miss Chaffin's) to 700 rupees a month\nfrom the Society; I feel indignant at their outcry on the subject of\nexpense, and I say, merely as a contrast to their conduct, So did not\nBrother Marshman.  Surely things are not come to that pass, that he or\nany other brother must give an account to the Society of every plate he\nuses, and every loaf he cuts.\n\n\"Till a very few years ago we had no vehicle except a single horse\nchaise for me to go backwards and forwards to Calcutta.  That was\nnecessarily kept on the opposite side of the river; and if the strength\nof the horse would have borne it, could not have been used for the\npurposes of health.  Sister Marshman was seized with a disease of the\nliver, a disease which proves fatal in three cases out of four.  Sister\nWard was ill of the same disorder, and both of them underwent a long\ncourse of mercurial treatment, as is usual in that disease.  Exercise\nwas considered by the physicians as of the first importance, and we\ncertainly thought no expense too great to save the valuable lives of\nour sisters.  A single horse chaise, and an open palanquin, called a\nTonjon, were procured.  I never ride out for health; but usually spend\nan hour or two, morning and evening, in the garden.  Sister Ward was\nnecessitated to visit England for hers.  Brother Ward had a saddle\nhorse presented to him by a friend. My wife has a small carriage drawn\nby a man.  These vehicles were therefore almost exclusively used by\nBrother Marshman's family. When our brethren arrived from England they\ndid not fail to put this equipage into the account against Brother\nMarshman.  They now keep three single horse chaises, besides\npalanquins; but we do not think they keep more than are necessary.\n\n\"Brother Marshman retains for the school a French master, a music\nmaster, and a drawing master.  The expenses of these are amply repaid\nby the school, but Brother Marshman's children, and all those belonging\nto the family, have the advantage of their instructions. Brother\nMarshman's children are, however, the most numerous, and envy has not\nfailed to charge him with having retained them all for the sake of his\nown children.  Surely a man's caring for his family's health and his\nchildren's education is, if a crime, a venial one, and ought not to be\nheld up to blacken his reputation. Brother Marshman is no more perfect\nthan other men, partakers like him of the grace of God. His natural\nbias and habits are his own, and differ as much from those of other men\nas theirs differ from one another.  I do not deny that he has an\ninclination to display his children to advantage.  This, however, is a\nfoible which most fond parents will be inclined to pardon.  I wish I\nhad half his piety, energy of mind, and zeal for the cause of God.\nThese excellencies, in my opinion, so far overbalance all his defects\nthat I am constrained to consider him a Christian far above the common\nrun.  I must now close this defence of Brother Marshman by repeating\nthat all matters of furniture, convenience, etc., are things belonging\nto the economy of the station at Serampore, and that no one beside\nourselves has the smallest right to interfere therewith.  The Calcutta\nbrethren are now acting on the same principle, and would certainly\nrepel with indignation any attempt made by us to regulate their affairs.\n\n\"I have said that 'I never ride out for the sake of health'; and it may\ntherefore be inquired, 'Why are vehicles, etc., for the purpose of\nhealth more necessary for the other members of the family than for\nyou?'  I reply that my health is in general good, and probably much\nbenefited by a journey to and from Calcutta two or three times a week.\nI have also a great fondness for natural science, particularly botany\nand horticulture.  These, therefore, furnish not only exercise, but\namusement for me.  These amusements of mine are not, however, enjoyed\nwithout expense, any more than those of my brethren, and were it not\nconvenient for Brother Marshman's accusers to make a stepping-stone of\nme, I have no doubt but my collection of plants, aviary, and museum,\nwould be equally impeached as articles of luxury and lawless expenses;\nthough, except the garden, the whole of these expenses are borne by\nmyself.\n\n\"John Marshman is admitted a member of the union, but he had for some\ntime previously thereto been a member of the church.  I perceive\nplainly that all your objections to him have been excited by the\nstatements of the Calcutta brethren, which you certainly ought to\nreceive with much caution in all things which regard Bother Marshman\nand his family.  You observe that the younger brethren especially look\nup to me with respect and affection.  It may be so; but I confess I\nhave frequently thought that, had it been so, they would have consulted\nme, or at least have mentioned to me the grounds of their\ndissatisfaction before they proceeded to the extremity of dividing the\nmission.  When I engaged in the mission, it was a determination that,\nwhatever I suffered, a breach therein should never originate with me.\nTo this resolution I have hitherto obstinately adhered.  I think\neverything should be borne, every sacrifice made, and every method of\naccommodation or reconciliation tried, before a schism is suffered to\ntake place...\n\n\"I disapprove as much of the conduct of our Calcutta brethren as it is\npossible for me to disapprove of any human actions.  The evil they have\ndone is, I fear, irreparable; and certainly the whole might have been\nprevented by a little frank conversation with either of us; and a\nhundredth part of that self-denial which I found it necessary to\nexercise for the first few years of the mission, would have prevented\nthis awful rupture.  I trust you will excuse my warmth of feeling upon\nthis subject, when you consider that by this rupture that cause is\nweakened and disgraced, in the establishment and promotion of which I\nhave spent the best part of my life.  A church is attempted to be torn\nin pieces, for which neither I nor my brethren ever thought we could do\nenough.  We laboured to raise it: we expended much money to accomplish\nthat object; and in a good measure saw the object of our desire\naccomplished.  But now we are traduced, and the church rent by the very\nmen who came to be our helpers.  As to Brother Marshman, seriously,\nwhat do they want? Would they attempt to deny his possessing the grace\nof God?  He was known to and esteemed by Brother Ryland as a Christian\nbefore he left England.  I have lived with him ever since his arrival\nin India, and can witness to his piety and holy conduct.  Would they\nexclude him from the mission?  Judge yourself whether it is comely that\na man, who has laboriously and disinterestedly served the mission so\nmany years--who has by his diligence and hard labour raised the most\nrespectable school in India, as well as given a tone to all the\nothers--who has unvaryingly consecrated the whole of that income, as\nwell as his other labours, to the cause of God in India,--should be\narraigned and condemned without a hearing by a few young men just\narrived, and one of whom had not been a month in the country before he\njoined the senseless outcry?  Or would they have his blood?  Judge, my\ndear brother, yourself, for I am ashamed to say more on this subject.\n\n\"I need not say that circumstances must in a great measure determine\nwhere missionaries should settle.  The chief town of each of these\ncountries would be preferable, if other circumstances permit; but\nsometimes Government would not allow this, and sometimes other things\nmay close the door.  Missionaries however must knock loud and push hard\nat the door, and if there be the smallest opening, must force\nthemselves in; and, once entered, put their lives in their hands and\nexert themselves to the utmost in dependence upon divine support, if\nthey ever hope to do much towards evangelising the heathen world.  My\nsituation in the college, and Brother Marshman's as superintending the\nfirst academy in India, which, I likewise observe, has been established\nand brought to its present flourishing state wholly by his care and\napplication, have made our present situation widely different from what\nit was when first engaged in the mission.  As a missionary I could go\nin a straw hat and dine with the judge of the district, and often did\nso; but as a Professor in the College I cannot do so.  Brother Marshman\nis placed in the same predicament.  These circumstances impose upon us\na necessity of making a different appearance to what we formerly did as\nsimple missionaries; but they furnish us with opportunities of speaking\nto gentlemen of the first power and influence in government, upon\nmatters of the highest importance to the great work in which we are\nengaged; and, as a proof that our opportunities of this nature have not\nbeen in vain, I need only say that, in a conversation which I had some\ntime ago with one of the secretaries to Government, upon the present\nfavourable bias of government and the public in general to favour all\nplans for doing good, he told me that he believed the whole was owing\nto the prudent and temperate manner in which we had acted; and that if\nwe had acted with precipitancy and indiscretion, he had every reason to\nbelieve the general feeling would have been as hostile to attempts to\ndo good as it is now favourable to them.\n\n\"I would not wish you to entertain the idea that we and our brethren in\nCalcutta are resolved upon interminable hatred.  On the contrary, I\nthink that things are gone as far as we may expect them to go; and I\nnow expect that the fire of contention will gradually go out.  All the\ndistressing and disagreeable circumstances are, I trust, past; and I\nexpect we shall be in a little time on a more friendly footing.  Much\nof what has taken place originated in England. Mistakes and false\nconclusions were followed by all the circumstances I have detailed.  I\nthink the whole virulence of opposition has now spent itself.  Our\nbrethren have no control over us, nor we over them.  And, if I am not\nmistaken, each side will soon acknowledge that it has gone too far in\nsome instances; and ultimate good will arise from the evil I so much\ndeplore.\n\n\"Having now written to you my whole sentiments upon the business, and\nformerly to my very dear Brother Ryland, allow me to declare my\nresolution not to write anything further upon the subject, however much\nI may be pressed thereto.  The future prosperity of the mission does\nnot depend upon the clearing up of every little circumstance to the\nsatisfaction of every captious inquirer, but upon the restoration of\nmutual concord among us, which must be preceded by admitting that we\nare all subject to mistake, and to be misled by passion, prejudice, and\nfalse judgment.  Let us therefore strive and pray that the things which\nmake for peace and those by which we may edify one another may abound\namong us more and more.  I am, my dear brother, very affectionately,\nyours in our Lord Jesus Christ, W. CAREY.\"\n\n\"14th May 1828.\n\n\"MY DEAR BROTHER ANDERSON--Yours by the Louisa, of October last, came\nto hand a few days ago with the copies of Brother Marshman's brief\nMemoir of the Serampore Mission.  I am glad it is written in so\ntemperate and Christian a spirit, and I doubt not but it will be\nultimately productive of good effects.  There certainly is a great\ncontrast between the spirit in which that piece is written and that in\nwhich observations upon it, both in the Baptist and Particular Baptist\nMagazines, are written.  The unworthy attempts in those and other such\nlike pieces to separate Brother Marshman and me are truly contemptible.\nIn plain English, they amount to thus much--'The Serampore\nMissionaries, Carey, Marshman, and Ward, have acted a dishonest part,\nalias are rogues.  But we do not include Dr. Carey in the charge of\ndishonesty; he is an easy sort of a man, who will agree to anything for\nthe sake of peace, or in other words, he is a fool.  Mr. Ward, it is\nwell known,' say they, 'was the tool of Dr. Marshman, but he is gone\nfrom the present scene, and it is unlovely to say any evil of the\ndead.'  Now I certainly hold those persons' exemption of me from the\nblame they attach to Brother Marshman in the greatest possible\ncontempt.  I may have subscribed my name thoughtlessly to papers, and\nit would be wonderful if there had been no instance of this in so long\na course of years.  The great esteem I had for the Society for many\nyears, undoubtedly on more occasions than one put me off my guard, and\nI believe my brethren too; so that we have signed writings which, if we\ncould have foreseen the events of a few years, we should not have done.\nThese, however, were all against our own private interest, and I\nbelieve I have never been called an easy fool for signing of them.  It\nhas only been since we found it necessary to resist the claims of the\nCommittee that I have risen to this honour.\n\n\"It has also been hinted that I intend to separate from Brother\nMarshman.  I cannot tell upon what such hints or reports are founded,\nbut I assure you, in the most explicit manner, that I intend to\ncontinue connected with him and Serampore as long as I live; unless I\nshould be separated from him by some unforeseen stroke of Providence.\nThere may be modifications of our union, arising from circumstances;\nbut it is my wish that it should remain in all things essential to the\nmission as long as I live.\n\n\"I rejoice to say that there is very little of that spirit of hostility\nwhich prevails in England in India, and I trust what still remains will\ngradually decrease till scarcely the remembrance of it will continue.\nOur stations, I mean those connected with Serampore, are of great\nimportance, and some of them in a flourishing state. We will do all we\ncan to maintain them, and I hope the friends to the cause of God in\nBritain will not suffer them to sink for want of that pecuniary help\nwhich is necessary.  Indeed I hope we shall be assisted in attempting\nother stations beside those already occupied; and many such stations\npresent themselves to my mind which nothing prevents being immediately\noccupied but want of men and money.  The college will also require\nassistance, and I hope will not be without it; I anticipate the time\nwhen its salutary operation in the cause of God in India will be felt\nand acknowledged by all.\n\n\"These observations respecting my own conduct you are at liberty to use\nas you please.  I hope now to take my final leave of this unpleasant\nsubject, and have just room to say that I am very affectionately yours,\nW. CAREY.\"\n\nThroughout the controversy thus forced upon him, we find Dr. Carey's\nreferences, in his unpublished letters to the brethren in Calcutta, all\nin the strain of the following to his son Jabez:--\n\n\"15th August 1820.--This week we received letters from Mr. Marshman,\nwho had safely arrived at St. Helena.  I am sure it will give you\npleasure to learn that our long-continued dispute with the younger\nbrethren in Calcutta is now settled.  We met together for that purpose\nabout three weeks ago, and after each side giving up some trifling\nideas and expressions, came to a reconciliation, which, I pray God, may\nbe lasting.  Nothing I ever met with in my life--and I have met with\nmany distressing things--ever preyed so much upon my spirits as this\ndifference has.  I am sure that in all disputes very many wrong things\nmust take place on both sides for which both parties ought to be\nhumbled before God and one another.\n\n\"I wish you could succeed in setting up a few more schools...Consider\nthat and the spread of the gospel as the great objects of your life,\nand try to promote them by all the wise and prudent methods in your\npower.  Indeed we must always venture something for the sake of doing\ngood.  The cause of our Lord Jesus Christ continues to prosper with us.\nI have several persons now coming in who are inquirers; two or three of\nthem, I hope, will be this evening received into the Church.  Excuse my\nsaying more as my room is full of people.\"\n\nEight years after, on the 17th April 1828, he thus censured Jabez in\nthe matter of the Society's action at home:--\"From a letter of yours to\nJonathan, in which you express a very indecent pleasure at the\nopposition which Brother Marshman has received, not by the Society but\nby some anonymous writer in a magazine, I perceive you are informed of\nthe separation which has taken place between them and us.  What in that\nanonymous piece you call a 'set-down' I call a 'falsehood.'  You ought\nto know that I was a party in all public acts and writings, and that I\nnever intend to withdraw from all the responsibility connected\ntherewith.  I utterly despise all the creeping, mean assertions of that\nparty when they say they do not include me in their censures, nor do I\nwork for their praise. According to their and according to your\nrejoicing...I am either a knave or a fool--a knave if I joined with\nBrother Marshman; but if, as those gentlemen say, and as you seem to\nagree with them, I was only led as he pleased, and was a mere\ncat's-paw, then of course I am a fool.  In either way your thoughts are\nnot very high as it respects me.  I do not wonder that Jonathan should\nexpress himself unguardedly; his family connection with Mr. Pearce\nsufficiently accounts for that.  We have long been attacked in this\ncountry--first by Mr. Adam,[26] and afterwards by Dr. Bryce.[27] Bryce\nis now silenced by two or three pieces by John Marshman in his own\nnewspaper, the John Bull; and as to some of the tissues of falsehood\npublished in England, I shall certainly never reply to them, and I hope\nno one else will.  That cause must be bad which needs such means to\nsupport it.  I believe God will bring forth our righteousness as the\nnoonday.\"\n\nOn the 12th July 1828 the father again writes to his son Jabez\nthus:--\"Your apologies about Brother Marshman are undoubtedly the best\nyou can offer.  I should be sorry to harbour hostile sentiments against\nany man on the earth upon grounds so slight.  Indeed, were all you say\nmatter of fact you ought to forgive it as God for Christ's sake\nforgives us.  We are required to lay aside all envy and strife and\nanimosities, to forgive each other mutually and to love one another\nwith a pure heart fervently. 'Thine own friend and thy father's friend\nforsake not.'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nCAREY AS AN EDUCATOR--THE FIRST CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN THE EAST\n\n1818-1830\n\nA college the fourth and perfecting corner-stone of the mission--Carey\non the importance of English in 1800--Anticipates Duff's policy of\nundermining Brahmanism--New educational era begun by the charter of\n1813 and Lord Hastings--Plan of the Serampore College in\n1818--Anticipates the Anglo-Orientalism of the Punjab University--The\nbuilding described by John Marshman--Bishop Middleton follows--The\nScottish and other colleges--Action of the Danish Government--The royal\ncharter--Visit of Maharaja Serfojee--Death of Ward, Charles Grant and\nBentley--Bishop Heber and his catholic letter--Dr. Carey's\nreply--Progress of the college--Cause of its foundation--The college\ndirectly and essentially a missionary undertaking--Action of the\nBrotherhood from the first vindicated--Carey appeals to posterity--The\ncollege and the systematic study of English--Carey author of the Grant\nin Aid system--Economy in administering missions--The Serampore Mission\nhas eighteen stations and fifty missionaries of all kinds--Subsequent\nhistory of the Serampore College to 1883.\n\nThe first act of Carey and Marshman when their Committee took up a\nposition of hostility to their self-denying independence, was to\ncomplete and perpetuate the mission by a college.  As planned by Carey\nin 1793, the constitution had founded the enterprise on these three\ncorner-stones--preaching the Gospel in the mother tongue of the people;\ntranslating the Bible into all the languages of Southern and Eastern\nAsia; teaching the young, both heathen and Christian, both boys and\ngirls, in vernacular schools.  But Carey had not been a year in\nSerampore when, having built well on all three, he began to see that a\nfourth must be laid some day in the shape of a college.  He and his\ncolleagues had founded and supervised, by the year 1818, no fewer than\n126 native schools, containing some 10,000 boys, of whom more than 7000\nwere in and around Serampore.  His work among the pundit class, both in\nSerampore and in the college of Fort William, and the facilities in the\nmission-house for training natives, Eurasians, and the missionaries'\nsons to be preachers, translators, and teachers, seemed to meet the\nimmediate want.  But as every year the mission in all its forms grew\nand the experience of its leaders developed, the necessity of creating\na college staff in a building adapted to the purpose became more\nurgent.  Only thus could the otherwise educated natives be reached, and\nthe Brahmanical class especially be permanently influenced.  Only thus\ncould a theological institute be satisfactorily conducted to feed the\nnative Church.\n\nOn 10th October 1800 the missionaries had thus written home:--\"There\nappears to be a favourable change in the general temper of the people.\nCommerce has roused new thoughts and awakened new energies; so that\nhundreds, if we could skilfully teach them gratis, would crowd to learn\nthe English language.  We hope this may be in our power some time, and\nmay be a happy means of diffusing the gospel. At present our hands are\nquite full.\"  A month after that Carey wrote to Fuller:--\"I have long\nthought whether it would not be desirable for us to set up a school to\nteach the natives English.  I doubt not but a thousand scholars would\ncome.  I do not say this because I think it an object to teach them the\nEnglish tongue; but, query, is not the universal inclination of the\nBengalees to learn English a favourable circumstance which may be\nimproved to valuable ends?  I only hesitate at the expense.\"  Thirty\nyears after Duff reasoned in the same way, after consulting Carey, and\nacted at once in Calcutta.\n\nBy 1816, when, on 25th June, Carey wrote a letter, for his colleagues\nand himself, to the Board of the American Baptist General Convention,\nthe great idea, destined slowly to revolutionise not only India, but\nChina, Japan, and the farther East, had taken this form:--\n\n\"We know not what your immediate expectations are relative to the\nBurman empire, but we hope your views are not confined to the immediate\nconversion of the natives by the preaching of the Word. Could a church\nof converted natives be obtained at Rangoon, it might exist for a\nwhile, and be scattered, or perish for want of additions.  From all we\nhave seen hitherto we are ready to think that the dispensations of\nProvidence point to labours that may operate, indeed, more slowly on\nthe population, but more effectually in the end: as knowledge, once put\ninto fermentation, will not only influence the part where it is first\ndeposited, but leaven the whole lump.  The slow progress of conversion\nin such a mode of teaching the natives may not be so encouraging, and\nmay require, in all, more faith and patience; but it appears to have\nbeen the process of things, in the progress of the Reformation, during\nthe reigns of Henry, Edward, Elizabeth, James, and Charles.  And should\nthe work of evangelising India be thus slow and silently progressive,\nwhich, however, considering the age of the world, is not perhaps very\nlikely, still the grand result will amply recompense us, and you, for\nall our toils.  We are sure to take the fortress, if we can but\npersuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. 'We shall reap if\nwe faint not.'\n\n\"And then, very dear brethren, when it shall be said of the seat of our\nlabours, the infamous swinging-post is no longer erected; the widow\nburns no more on the funeral pile; the obscene dances and songs are\nseen and heard no more; the gods are thrown to the moles and to the\nbats, and Jesus is known as the God of the whole land; the poor Hindoo\ngoes no more to the Ganges to be washed from his filthiness, but to the\nfountain opened for sin and uncleanness; the temples are forsaken; the\ncrowds say, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord, and He shall teach\nus of His ways, and we will walk in His statutes;' the anxious Hindoos\nno more consume their property, their strength, and their lives, in\nvain pilgrimages, but they come at once to Him who can save to 'the\nuttermost'; the sick and the dying are no more dragged to the Ganges,\nbut look to the Lamb of God, and commit their souls into His faithful\nhands; the children, no more sacrificed to idols, are become 'the seed\nof the Lord, that He may be glorified'; the public morals are improved;\nthe language of Canaan is learnt; benevolent societies are formed;\ncivilisation and salvation walk arm in arm together; the desert\nblossoms; the earth yields her increase; angels and glorified spirits\nhover with joy over India, and carry ten thousand messages of love from\nthe Lamb in the midst of the throne; and redeemed souls from the\ndifferent villages, towns, and cities of this immense country,\nconstantly add to the number, and swell the chorus of the redeemed,\n'Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,\nunto HIM be the glory;'--when this grand result of the labours of God's\nservants in India shall be realised, shall we then think that we have\nlaboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought?  Surely not. Well,\nthe decree is gone forth! 'My word shall prosper in the thing whereunto\nI sent it.'\"\n\nIndia was being prepared for the new missionary policy.  On what we may\ncall its literary side Carey had been long busy.  On its more strictly\neducational side, the charter of 1813 had conceded what had been\ndemanded in vain by a too feeble public opinion in the charter of 1793.\nA clause was inserted at the last moment declaring that a sum of not\nless than a lakh of rupees (or ten thousand pounds) a year was to be\nset apart from the surplus revenues, and applied to the revival and\nimprovement of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives\nof India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the\nsciences among the inhabitants of the British territories there.  The\nclause was prompted by an Anglo-Indian of oriental tastes, who hoped\nthat the Brahman and his Veda might thus be made too strong for the\nChristian missionary and the Bible as at last tolerated under the 13th\nresolution.  For this reason, and because the money was to be paid only\nout of any surplus, the directors and their friends offered no\nopposition.  For the quarter of a century the grant was given, and was\napplied in the spirit of its proposer.  But the scandals of its\napplication became such that it was made legally by Bentinck and\nMacaulay, and practically by Duff, the fountain of a river of knowledge\nand life which is flooding the East.\n\nThe first result of the liberalism of the charter of 1813 and the\ngenerous views of Lord Hastings was the establishment in Calcutta by\nthe Hindoos themselves, under the influence of English secularists, of\nthe Hindoo, now the Presidency College.  Carey and Marshman were not in\nCalcutta, otherwise they must have realised even then what they left to\nDuff to act on fourteen years after, the importance of English not only\nas an educating but as a Christianising instrument. But though not so\nwell adapted to the immediate need of the reformation which they had\nbegun, and though not applied to the very heart of Bengal in Calcutta,\nthe prospectus of their \"College for the Instruction of Asiatic,\nChristian, and Other Youth in Eastern Literature and European Science,\"\nwhich they published on the 15th July 1818, sketched a more perfect and\ncomplete system than any since attempted, if we except John Wilson's\nalmost unsupported effort in Bombay.  It embraced the classical or\nlearned languages of the Hindoos and Mohammedans, Sanskrit and Arabic;\nthe English language and literature, to enable the senior students \"to\ndive into the deepest recesses of European science, and enrich their\nown language with its choicest treasures\"; the preparation of manuals\nof science, philosophy, and history in the learned and vernacular\nlanguages of the East; a normal department to train native teachers and\nprofessors; as the crown of all, a theological institute to equip the\nEurasian and native Christian students, by a quite unsectarian course\nof study, in apologetics, exegetics, and the Bible languages, to be\nmissionaries to the Brahmanical classes. While the Government and the\nScottish missionaries have in the university and grant in aid systems\nsince followed too exclusively the English line, happily supplanting\nthe extreme Orientalists, it is the glory of the Serampore Brotherhood\nthat they sought to apply both the Oriental and the European, the one\nas the form, the other as the substance, so as to evangelise and\ncivilise the people through their mother tongue.  They were the\nVernacularists in the famous controversy between the Orientalists and\nthe Anglicists raised by Duff. In 1867 the present writer in vain\nattempted to induce the University of Calcutta to follow them in this.\nIt was left to Sir Charles Aitchison, when he wielded the power and the\ninfluence of the Lieutenant-Governor, to do in 1882 what the Serampore\nCollege would have accomplished had its founders been young instead of\nold men, by establishing the Punjab University.\n\nLord Hastings and even Sir John Malcolm took a personal interest in the\nSerampore College.  The latter, who had visited the missionaries since\nhis timid evidence before the House of Lords in 1813, wrote to\nthem:--\"I wish I could be certain that your successors in the serious\ntask you propose would have as much experience as you and your\nfellow-labourers at Serampore--that they would walk, not run, in the\nsame path--I would not then have to state one reserve.\"  Lord Hastings\nin Council passed an order encouraging the establishment of a European\nMedical Professorship in Serampore College, and engaged to assist in\nmeeting the permanent expense of the chair when established.  His\nExcellency \"interrupted pressing avocations\" to criticise both the\narchitectural plan of the building and the phraseology of the draft of\nthe first report, and his suggestions were followed.  Adopting one of\nthe Grecian orders as most suitable to a tropical climate, the Danish\nGovernor's colleague, Major Wickedie, planned the noble Ionic building\nwhich was then, and is still, the finest edifice of the kind in British\nIndia.\n\n\"The centre building, intended for the public rooms, was a hundred and\nthirty feet in length, and a hundred and twenty in depth.  The hall on\nthe ground floor, supported on arches, and terminated at the south by a\nbow, was ninety-five feet in length, sixty-six in breadth, and twenty\nin height.  It was originally intended for the library, but is now\noccupied by the classes.  The hall above, of the same dimensions and\ntwenty-six feet in height, was supported by two rows of Ionic columns;\nit was intended for the annual examinations. Of the twelve side-rooms\nabove and below, eight were of spacious dimensions, twenty-seven feet\nby thirty-five.  The portico which fronted the river was composed of\nsix columns, more than four feet in diameter at the base.  The\nstaircase-room was ninety feet in length, twenty-seven in width, and\nforty-seven in height, with two staircases of cast-iron, of large size\nand elegant form, prepared at Birmingham.  The spacious grounds were\nsurrounded with iron railing, and the front entrance was adorned with a\nnoble gate, likewise cast at Birmingham...\n\n\"The scale on which it was proposed to establish the college, and to\nwhich the size of the building was necessarily accommodated,\ncorresponded with the breadth of all the other enterprises of the\nSerampore missionaries,--the mission, the translations, and the\nschools.  While Mr. Ward was engaged in making collections for the\nsupport of the institution in England, he wrote to his brethren, 'the\nbuildings you must raise in India;' and they determined to respond to\nthe call, and, if possible, to augment their donation from \u00a32500 to\n\u00a38000, and to make a vigorous effort to erect the buildings from their\nown funds.  Neither the ungenerous suspicion, nor the charge of\nunfaithfulness, with which their character was assailed in England, was\nallowed to slacken the prosecution of this plan.  It was while their\nreputation was under an eclipse in England, and the benevolent\nhesitated to subscribe to the society till they were assured that their\ndonations would not be mixed up with the funds of the men at Serampore,\nthat those men were engaged in erecting a noble edifice for the\npromotion of religion and knowledge, at their own cost, the expense of\nwhich eventually grew under their hands to the sum of \u00a315,000.  To the\ncharge of endeavouring to alienate from the society premises of the\nvalue of \u00a33000, their own gift, they replied by erecting a building at\nfive times the cost, and vesting it in eleven trustees,--seven besides\nthemselves.  It was thus they vindicated the purity of their motives in\ntheir differences with the society, and endeavoured to silence the\nvoice of calumny.  They were the first who maintained that a college\nwas an indispensable appendage to an Indian mission.\"\n\nThe next to follow Carey in this was Bishop Middleton, who raised funds\nto erect a chaste Gothic pile beside the Botanic Garden, since to him\nthe time appeared \"to have arrived when it is desirable that some\nmissionary endeavours, at least, should have some connection with the\nChurch establishment.\"  That college no longer exists, in spite of the\nsaintly scholarship of such Principals as Mill and Kay; the building is\nnow utilised as a Government engineering college. But in Calcutta the\nDuff College, with the General Assembly's Institution (now united as\nthe Scottish Churches College), the Cathedral Mission Divinity School,\nand the Bhowanipore Institution; in Bombay the Wilson College, in\nMadras the Christian College, in Nagpoor the Hislop College, in Agra\nSt. John's College, in Lahore the Church Mission Divinity School, in\nLucknow the Reid College, and others, bear witness to the fruitfulness\nof the Alma Mater of Serampore.\n\nThe Serampore College began with thirty-seven students, of whom\nnineteen were native Christians and the rest Hindoos.  When the\nbuilding was occupied in 1821 Carey wrote to his son:--\"I pray that the\nblessing of God may attend it, and that it may be the means of\npreparing many for an important situation in the Church of God...The\nKing of Denmark has written letters signed with his own hand to\nBrothers Ward, Marshman, and myself, and has sent each of us a gold\nmedal as a token of his approbation.  He has also made over the house\nin which Major Wickedie resides, between Sarkies's house and ours, to\nus three in perpetuity for the college.  Thus Divine generosity appears\nfor us and supplies our expectations.\"  The missionaries had declined\nthe Order of the Dannebrog.  When, in 1826, Dr. Marshman visited\nEurope, one of his first duties was to acknowledge this gift to Count\nMoltke, Danish Minister in London and ancestor of the great strategist,\nand to ask for a royal charter. The Minister and Count Schulin, whose\nwife had been a warm friend of Mrs. Carey, happened to be on board the\nsteamer in which Dr. Marshman, accompanied by Christopher Anderson,\nsailed to Copenhagen. Raske, the Orientalist, who had visited\nSerampore, was a Professor in the University there.  The vellum charter\nwas prepared among them, empowering the College Council, consisting of\nthe Governor of Serampore and the Brotherhood, to confer degrees like\nthose of the Universities of Copenhagen and Kiel, but not carrying the\nrank in the State implied in Danish degrees unless with the sanction of\nthe Crown.  The King, in the audience which he gave, informed Dr.\nMarshman that, having in 1801 promised the mission protection, he had\nhitherto refused to transfer Serampore to the East India Company, since\nthat would prevent him from keeping his word.  When, in 1845, the\nCompany purchased both Tranquebar and Serampore, it could be no longer\ndangerous to the Christian Mission, but the Treaty expressly provided\nthat the College should retain all its powers, and its Christian\ncharacter, under the Danish charter, which it does.  It was thus the\nearliest degree-conferring college in Asia, but it has never exercised\nthe power.  Christian VIII., then the heir to the throne, showed\nparticular interest in the Bible translation work of Carey.  When, in\n1884, the Evangelical Alliance held its session in Copenhagen, and was\nreceived by Christian IX.,[28] it did well, by special resolution, to\nexpress the gratitude of Protestant Christendom to Denmark for such\ncourageous and continued services to the first Christian mission from\nEngland to India.\n\nHow Dr. Carey valued the gift of the King is seen in this writing, on\nthe lining of the case of the gold medal, dated 6th November 1823:--\n\n\"It is my desire that this medal, and the letter of the King of\nDenmark, which accompanied it, be given at my death to my dear son\nJonathan, that he may keep it for my sake.\"\n\nThe letter of King Frederic VI. is as follows:--\n\n\"MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR ET PROFESSEUR WILLIAM CAREY--\n\nC'est avec beaucoup d'int\u00e9r\u00eat que nous avons appris le m\u00e9rite qu'en\nqualit\u00e9 de membre dirigeant de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de la Mission, vous avez\nacquis, ainsi que vos co-directeurs, et les eff\u00e8ts salutaires que vos\nlouables travaux ont produits et partout o\u00f9 votre influence a pu\natteindre.  Particulierement inform\u00e9s qu'en votre dite qualit\u00e9 vous\navez contribu\u00e9 a effectuer bien des choses utiles, dont l'\u00e9tablissement\n\u00e0 Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ricsnagore a \u00e0 se louer, et voulant vous certifier que nous vous\nen avons gr\u00e9, nous avons charg\u00e9 le chef du dit \u00e9tablissement,--notre\nLieutenant-Colonel Kraefting, de vous remettre cette lettre; et en m\u00eame\ntemps une medaille d'or, comme une marque de notre bienveillance et de\nnotre protection, que vous assurera toujours une conduite meritoire.\n\n\"Sur ce nous prions Dieu de vous avoir dans Sa sainte et digne\ngarde.--Votre affectionn\u00e9 FREDERIC.\n\n\"Copenhague, ce 7 Juin 1820.\n\n\"Au Docteur et Professeur WILLIAM CAREY,\n\nMembre dirigeant de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de la Mission \u00e0 Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ricsnagore.\"\n\nThe new College formed an additional attraction to visitors to the\nmission.  One of these, in 1821, was the Maharaja Serfojee, the prince\nof Tanjore, whom Schwartz had tended, but who was on pilgrimage to\nBenares.  Hand in hand with Dr. Carey he walked through the missionary\nworkshop, noticed specially the pundits who were busy with translation\nto which Lord Hastings had directed his attention, and dilated with\naffectionate enthusiasm on the deeds and the character of the apostle\nof South India.  In 1823 cholera suddenly cut off Mr. Ward in the midst\nof his labours.  The year after that Charles Grant died, leaving a\nlegacy to the mission. Almost his last act had been to write to Carey\nurging him to publish a reply to the attack of the Abb\u00e9 Dubois on all\nChristian missions.  Another friend was removed in Bentley, the scholar\nwho put Hindoo astronomy in its right place.  Bishop Heber began his\ntoo brief episcopate in 1824, when the college, strengthened by the\nabilities of the Edinburgh professor, John Mack, was accomplishing all\nthat its founders had projected.  The Bishop of all good Christian men\nnever penned a finer production--not even his hymns--than this letter,\ncalled forth by a copy of the Report on the College sent to him by Dr.\nMarshman:--\n\n\"I have seldom felt more painfully than while reading your appeal on\nthe subject of Serampore College, the unhappy divisions of those who\nare the servants of the same Great Master!  Would to God, my honoured\nbrethren, the time were arrived when not only in heart and hope, but\nvisibly, we shall be one fold, as well as under one shepherd!  In the\nmeantime I have arrived, after some serious considerations, at the\nconclusion that I shall serve our great cause most effectually by doing\nall which I can for the rising institutions of those with whom my\nsentiments agree in all things, rather than by forwarding the labours\nof those from whom, in some important points, I am conscientiously\nconstrained to differ.  After all, why do we differ?  Surely the\nleading points which keep us asunder are capable of explanation or of\nsoftening, and I am expressing myself in much sincerity of\nheart--(though, perhaps, according to the customs of the world, I am\ntaking too great a freedom with men my superiors both in age and in\ntalent), that I should think myself happy to be permitted to explain,\nto the best of my power, those objections which keep you and your\nbrethren divided from that form of church government which I believe to\nhave been instituted by the apostles, and that admission of infants to\nthe Gospel Covenants which seem to me to be founded on the expressions\nand practice of Christ himself.  If I were writing thus to worldly men\nI know I should expose myself to the imputation of excessive vanity or\nimpertinent intrusion.  But of you and Dr. Carey I am far from judging\nas of worldly men, and I therefore say that, if we are spared to have\nany future intercourse, it is my desire, if you permit, to discuss with\nboth of you, in the spirit of meekness and conciliation, the points\nwhich now divide us, convinced that, if a reunion of our Churches could\nbe effected, the harvest of the heathen would ere long be reaped, and\nthe work of the Lord would advance among them with a celerity of which\nwe have now no experience.\n\n\"I trust, at all events, you will take this hasty note as it is\nintended, and believe me, with much sincerity, your friend and servant\nin Christ, REGINALD CALCUTTA.\n\n\"3rd June 1824.\"\n\nThis is how Carey reciprocated these sentiments, when writing to Dr.\nRyland:--\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 6th July 1824.\n\n\"I rejoice to say that there is the utmost harmony between all the\nministers of all denominations.  Bishop Heber is a man of liberal\nprinciples and catholic spirit.  Soon after his arrival in the country\nhe wrote me a very friendly letter, expressing his wish to maintain all\nthe friendship with us which our respective circumstances would allow.\nI was then confined, but Brother Marshman called on him.  As soon as I\ncould walk without crutches I did the same, and had much free\nconversation with him.  Some time after this he wrote us a very\nfriendly letter, saying that it would highly gratify him to meet\nBrother Marshman and myself, and discuss in a friendly manner all the\npoints of difference between himself and us, adding that there was\nevery reason to expect much good from a calm and temperate discussion\nof these things, and that, if we could at any rate come so near to each\nother as to act together, he thought it would have a greater effect\nupon the spread of the gospel among the heathen than we could calculate\nupon.  He was then just setting out on a visitation which will in all\nprobability take a year.  We, however, wrote him a reply accepting his\nproposal, and Brother Marshman expressed a wish that the discussion\nmight be carried on by letter, to which in his reply he partly\nconsented.  I have such a disinclination to writing, and so little\nleisure for it, that I wished the discussion to be viva voce; it will,\nhowever, make little difference, and all I should have to say would be\nintroduced into the letter.\"\n\nOn the death of Mr. Ward and departure of Dr. Marshman for Great\nBritain on furlough, after twenty-six years' active labours, his son,\nMr. John Marshman, was formally taken into the Brotherhood.  He united\nwith Dr. Carey in writing to the Committee two letters, dated 21st\nJanuary 1826 and 15th November 1827, which show the progress of the\ncollege and the mission from the first as one independent agency, and\nclosed with Carey's appeal to the judgment of posterity.\n\n\"About seven years ago we felt convinced of the necessity of erecting a\nCollege for native Christian youth, in order to consolidate our plans\nfor the spread of gospel truth in India; and, as we despaired of being\nable to raise from public subscriptions a sum equal to the expense of\nthe buildings, we determined to erect them from our own private funds.\nUp to the present date they have cost us nearly \u00a314,000, and the\ncompletion of them will require a further sum of about \u00a35000, which, if\nwe are not enabled to advance from our own purse, the undertaking must\nremain incomplete.  With this burden upon our private funds we find it\nimpossible any longer to meet, to the same extent as formerly, the\ndemands of our out-stations.  The time is now arrived when they must\ncease to be wholly dependent on the private donations of three\nindividuals, and must be placed on the strength of public\ncontributions.  As two out of three of the members of our body are now\nbeyond the age of fifty-seven, it becomes our duty to place them on a\nmore permanent footing, as it regards their management, their support,\nand their increase.  We have therefore associated with ourselves, in\nthe superintendence of them, the Rev. Messrs. Mack and Swan, the two\npresent professors of the college, with the view of eventually leaving\nthem entirely in the hands of the body of professors, of whom the\nconstitution of the college provides that there shall be an unbroken\nsuccession.\n\n\"To secure an increase of missionaries in European habits we have\nformed a class of theological students in the college, under the\nDivinity Professor.  It contains at present six promising youths, of\nwhose piety we have in some cases undoubted evidence, in others\nconsiderable ground for hope.  The class will shortly be increased to\ntwelve, but none will be continued in it who do not manifest undeniable\npiety and devotedness to the cause of missions.  As we propose to allow\neach student to remain on an average four years, we may calculate upon\nthe acquisition of two, and perhaps three, additional labourers\nannually, who will be eminently fitted for active service in the cause\nof missions by their natural familiarity with the language and their\nacquisitions at college.  This arrangement will, we trust, secure the\nspeedy accomplishment of the plan we have long cherished, that of\nplacing one missionary in each province in Bengal, and eventually, if\nmeans be afforded, in Hindostan.\n\n\"As the completion of the buildings requires no public contribution,\nthe sole expense left on the generosity of its friends is that of its\nexisting establishment.  Our subscriptions in India, with what we\nreceive as the interest of money raised in Britain and America, average\n\u00a31000 annually; about \u00a3500 more from England would cover every charge,\nand secure the efficiency of the institution.  Nor shall we require\nthis aid beyond a limited period.\n\n\"Of the three objects connected with the College, the education of\nnon-resident heathen students, the education of resident Christian\nstudents, and the preparation of missionaries from those born in the\ncountry, the first is not strictly a missionary object, the two latter\nare intimately connected with the progress of the good cause. The\npreparation of missionaries in the country was not so much recommended\nas enforced by the great expense which attends the despatch of\nmissionaries from Europe.  That the number of labourers in this country\nmust be greatly augmented, before the work of evangelising the heathen\ncan be said to have effectively commenced, can admit of no doubt.\n\n\"The education of the increasing body of Native Christians likewise,\nnecessarily became a matter of anxiety.  Nothing could be more\ndistressing than the prospect of their being more backward in mental\npursuits than their heathen neighbours.  The planting of the gospel in\nIndia is not likely to be accomplished by the exertions of a few\nmissionaries in solitary and barren spots in the country, without the\naid of some well-digested plan which may consolidate the missionary\nenterprise, and provide for the mental and religious cultivation of the\nconverts.  If the body of native Christians required an educational\nsystem, native ministers, who must gradually take the spiritual conduct\nof that body, demanded pre-eminent attention.  They require a knowledge\nof the ingenious system they will have to combat, of the scheme of\nChristian theology they are to teach, and a familiarity with the lights\nof modern science.  We cannot discharge the duty we owe as Christians\nto India, without some plan for combining in the converts of the new\nreligion, and more especially in its ministers, the highest moral\nrefinement of the Christian character, and the highest attainable\nprogress in the pursuits of the mind.\n\n\"During the last ten years of entire independence the missionary cause\nhas received from the product of our labour, in the erection of the\ncollege buildings, in the support of stations and schools, and in the\nprinting of tracts, much more than \u00a323,000.  The unceasing calumny with\nwhich we have been assailed, for what has been called 'our declaration\nof independence' (which, by the bye, Mr. Fuller approved of our issuing\nalmost with his dying breath), it is beneath us to notice, but it has\nfully convinced us of the propriety of the step.  This calumny is so\nunreasonable that we confidently appeal from the decision of the\npresent age to the judgment of posterity.\"\n\nUnder Carey, as Professor of Divinity and Lecturer on Botany and\nZoology, Mack and John Marshman, with pundits and moulavies, the\ncollege grew in public favour, even during Dr. Marshman's absence,\nwhile Mrs. Marshman continued to conduct the girls' school and\nsuperintend native female education with a vigorous enthusiasm which\nadvancing years did not abate and misrepresentation in England only\nfed.  The difficulties in which Carey found himself had the happy\nresult of forcing him into the position of being the first to establish\npractically the principle of the Grant in Aid system.  Had his\nNonconformist successors followed him in this, with the same breadth of\nview and clear distinction between the duty of aiding the secular\neducation, while giving absolute liberty to the spiritual, the splendid\nlegacy which he left to India would have been both perpetuated and\nextended.  As it is, it was left to his young colleague, John Marshman,\nand to Dr. Duff, to induce Parliament, by the charter of 1853, and the\nfirst Lord Halifax in the Educational Despatch of 1854, to sanction the\nsystem of national education for the multifarious classes and races of\nour Indian subjects, under which secular instruction is aided by the\nstate on impartial terms according to its efficiency, and Christianity\ndelights to take its place, unfettered and certain of victory, with the\nBrahmanical and aboriginal cults of every kind.\n\nIn 1826 Carey, finding that his favourite Benevolent Institution in\nCalcutta was getting into debt, and required repair, applied to\nGovernment for aid.  He had previously joined the Marchioness of\nHastings in founding the Calcutta School Book and School Society, and\nhad thus been relieved of some of the schools.  Government at once paid\nthe debt, repaired the building, and continued to give an annual grant\nof \u00a3240 for many years.  John Marshman did not think it necessary, \"to\ndefend Dr. Carey from the charge of treason to the principles of\ndissent in having thus solicited and accepted aid from the state for an\neducational establishment; the repudiation of that aid is a modern\naddition to those principles.\"  He tells us that \"when conversation\nhappened to turn upon this subject at Serampore, his father was wont to\nexcuse any warmth which his colleague might exhibit by the humorous\nremark that renegades always fought hardest. There was one question on\nwhich the three were equally strenuous--that it was as much the duty of\nGovernment to support education as to abstain from patronising\nmissions.\"\n\nA letter written in 1818 to his son William, then one of the\nmissionaries, shows with what jealous economy the founder of the great\nmodern enterprise managed the early undertakings.\n\n\"MY DEAR WILLIAM--Yours of the 3rd instant I have received, and must\nsay that it has filled me with distress.  I do not know what the\nallowance of 200 rupees includes, nor how much is allotted for\nparticular things; but it appears that Rs. 142:2 is expended upon your\nprivate expenses, viz., 78:2 on table expenses, and 64 on servants.\nNow neither Lawson nor Eustace have more than 140 rupees for their\nallowance, separate from house rent, for which 80 rupees each is\nallowed, and I believe all the brethren are on that, or a lower\nallowance, Brother Yates excepted, who chooses for himself.  I cannot\ntherefore make an application for more with any face.  Indeed we have\nno power to add or diminish salaries, though the Society would agree to\nour doing so if we showed good reasons for it.  I believe the\nallowances of the missionaries from the London Society are about the\nsame, or rather less--viz. \u00a3200 sterling, or 132 rupees a month,\nbesides extra expenses; so that your income, taking it at 140 rupees a\nmonth, is quite equal to that of any other missionary.  I may also\nmention that neither Eustace nor Lawson can do without a buggy, which\nis not a small expense.\n\n\"I suppose the two articles you have mentioned of table expenses and\nservants include a number of other things; otherwise I cannot imagine\nhow you can go to that expense.  When I was at Mudnabati my income was\n200 per month, and during the time I stayed there I had saved near 2000\nrupees.  My table expenses scarcely ever amounted to 50 rupees, and\nthough I kept a moonshi at 20 rupees and four gardeners, yet my\nservants' wages did not exceed 60 rupees monthly. I kept a horse and a\nfarmyard, and yet my expenses bore no proportion to yours.  I merely\nmention this without any reflection on you, or even a wish to do it;\nbut I sincerely think your expenses upon these two articles are very\ngreater.--I am your affectionate father, W. CAREY.\"\n\nIn 1825 Carey completed his great Dictionary of Bengali and English in\nthree quarto volumes, abridged two years afterwards.  No language, not\neven in Europe, could show a work of such industry, erudition, and\nphilological completeness at that time.  Professor H. H. Wilson\ndeclared that it must ever be regarded as a standard authority,\nespecially because of its etymological references to the Sanskrit,\nwhich supplies more than three-fourths of the words; its full and\ncorrect vocabulary of local terms, with which the author's \"long\ndomestication amongst the natives\" made him familiar, and his unique\nknowledge of all natural history terms.  The first copy which issued\nfrom the press he sent to Dr. Ryland, who had passed away at\nseventy-two, a month before the following letter was written:--\n\n\"June 7th, 1825.--On the 17th of August next I shall be sixty-four\nyears of age; and though I feel the enervating influence of the\nclimate, and have lost something of my bodily activity, I labour as\nclosely, and perhaps more so than I have ever done before.  My Bengali\nDictionary is finished at press.  I intend to send you a copy of it by\nfirst opportunity, which I request you to accept as a token of my\nunshaken friendship to you.  I am now obliged, in my own defence, to\nabridge it, and to do it as quickly as possible, to prevent another\nperson from forestalling me and running away with the profits.\n\n\"On Lord's day I preached a funeral sermon at Calcutta for one of our\ndeacons, who died very happily; administered the Lords' Supper, and\npreached again in the evening.  It was a dreadfully hot day, and I was\nmuch exhausted.  Yesterday the rain set in, and the air is somewhat\ncooled.  It is still uncertain whether Brothers Judson and Price are\nliving.  There was a report in the newspaper that they were on their\nway to meet Sir Archibald Campbell with proposals of peace from the\nBurman king; but no foundation for the report can be traced out.\nLiving or dead they are secure.\"\n\nOn hearing of the death of Dr. Ryland, he wrote:--\"There are now in\nEngland very few ministers with whom I was acquainted.  Fuller,\nSutcliff, Pearce, Fawcett, and Ryland, besides many others whom I knew,\nare gone to glory.  My family connections also, those excepted who were\nchildren when I left England, or have since that time been born, are\nall gone, two sisters only excepted.  Wherever I look in England I see\na vast blank; and were I ever to revisit that dear country I should\nhave an entirely new set of friendships to form. I, however, never\nintended to return to England when I left it, and unless something very\nunexpected were to take place I certainly shall not do it.  I am fully\nconvinced I should meet with many who would show me the utmost kindness\nin their power, but my heart is wedded to India, and though I am of\nlittle use I feel a pleasure in doing the little I can, and a very high\ninterest in the spiritual good of this vast country, by whose\ninstrumentality soever it is promoted.\"\n\nBy 1829 the divinity faculty of the College had become so valuable a\nnursery of Eurasian and Native missionaries, and the importance of\nattracting more of the new generation of educated Hindoos within its\ninfluence had become so apparent that Oriental gave place to English\nliterature in the curriculum.  Mr. Rowe, as English tutor, took his\nplace in the staff beside Dr. Carey, Dr. Marshman, Mr. Mack, and Mr.\nJohn Marshman.  Hundreds of native youths flocked to the classes. Such\nwas the faith, such the zeal of Carey, that he continued to add new\nmissions to the ten of which the College was the life-giving centre; so\nthat when he was taken away he left eighteen, under eleven European,\nthirteen Eurasian, seventeen Bengali, two Hindostani, one Telugoo, and\nsix Arakanese missionaries.  When Mr. David Scott, formerly a student\nof his own in Fort William College, and in 1828 Commissioner of Assam\n(then recently annexed to the empire), asked for a missionary, Carey's\nimportunity prevailed with his colleagues only when he bound himself to\npay half the cost by stinting his personal expenditure.  Similarly it\nwas the generous action of Mr. Garrett, when judge of Barisal, that led\nhim to send the best of his Serampore students to found that afterwards\nfamous mission.\n\nHaving translated the Gospels into the language of the Khasias in the\nAssam hills, he determined in 1832 to open a new mission at the village\nof Cherra, which the Serampore Brotherhood were the first to use as a\nsanitarium in the hot season.  For this he gave up \u00a360 of his\nGovernment pension and Mr. Garrett gave a similar sum.  He sent another\nof his students, Mr. Lisk, to found the mission, which prospered until\nit was transferred to the Welsh Calvinists, who have made it the centre\nof extensive and successful operations.  Thus the influence of his\nmiddle age and old age in the Colleges of Fort William and of Serampore\ncombined to make the missionary patriarch the father of two bands--that\nof the Society and that of the Brotherhood.\n\nDr. Carey's last report, at the close of 1832, was a defence of what\nhas since been called, and outside of India and of Scotland has too\noften been misunderstood as, educational missions or Christian\nColleges.  To a purely divinity college for Asiatic Christians he\npreferred a divinity faculty as part of an Arts and Science\nCollege,[29] in which the converts study side by side with their\ninquiring countrymen, the inquirers are influenced by them as well as\nby the Christian teaching and secular teaching in a Christian spirit,\nand the Bible consecrates the whole.  The United Free Church of\nScotland has, alike in India, China and Africa, proved the wisdom, the\nbreadth, and the spiritual advantage of Carey's policy. When the\nSociety opposed him, scholars like Mack from Edinburgh and Leechman\nfrom Glasgow rejoiced to work out his Paul-like conception. When not\nonly he, but Dr. Marshman, had passed away Mack bravely held aloft the\nbanner they bequeathed, till his death in 1846.  Then John Marshman,\nwho in 1835 had begun the Friend of India as a weekly paper to aid the\nCollege, transferred the mission to the Society under the learned W. H.\nDenham.  When in 1854 a new generation of the English Baptists accepted\nthe College also as their own, it received a Principal worthy to\nsucceed the giants of those days, the Rev. John Trafford, M.A., a\nstudent of Foster's and of Glasgow University.  For twenty-six years he\ncarried out the principles of Carey.  On his retirement the College as\nsuch was suspended in the year 1883, and in the same building a purely\nnative Christian Training Institution took its place.  There, however,\nthe many visitors from Christendom still found the library and museum;\nthe Bibles, grammars, and dictionaries; the natural history\ncollections, and the Oriental MSS.; the Danish Charter, the historic\nportraits, and the British Treaty; as well as the native Christian\nclasses--all of which re-echo William Carey's appeal to posterity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nCAREY'S CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE OF INDIA\n\nThe Danish charter--The British treaty--Growth of native Christian\ncommunity--Lord Minto's concession of self-governing privileges--Madras\nDecennial Conference and Serampore degrees--Proposed reorganisation of\nCollege so as to teach and examine for B.D. and other degrees--Appeal\nfor endowments of Carey's Christian University\n\nAttention has already been directed to the far-seeing plans which Carey\nlaid down for Serampore College.  It is a pleasure to record that while\nthis volume is in the press (1909), a scheme is being promoted by the\nCollege Council for the reorganisation of the College on the lines of\nCarey's ideal, with a view to making it a centre of higher ministerial\ntraining for all branches of the Indian Church.\n\nIt will be remembered that in 1827 the College received from Friedrich\nVI. a Royal Charter, empowering it to confer degrees, and giving to it\nall the rights which are possessed by Western Universities.  Under\nTreaty dated the 6th October, 1845, the King of Denmark agreed to\ntransfer to the Governor-General of India, Lord Hardinge, G.C.B., for\nthe sum of \u00a3125,000, the towns of Tranquebar, Frederiksnagore or\nSerampore,[30] and the old factory site at Balasore.  Article 6 of this\ntreaty provides that \"the rights and immunities granted to the\nSerampore College by Royal Charter, of date 23rd of February, 1827,\nshall not be interfered with, but continue in force in the same manner\nas if they had been obtained by a Charter from the British Government,\nsubject to the General Law of British India.\"[31]\n\nFor lack of an endowment sufficient to maintain the teaching staff\nrequired, and to establish the necessary scholarships, the College has\nnever been fully developed on University lines.  Since 1883 it has been\nused as a training Institution for preachers and teachers for the\nBengal field of the Baptist Missionary Society.  Meanwhile in the\ncentury since Carey's statesman-like ideal was sketched, under the\nprovidence of God there have been two notable developments in the\nconditions of Indian life--(1) the educated Christian natives of India,\nfrom Cape Comorin to Peshawar, have grown, and continue to grow, in\nnumbers, in character, and in influence, with a rapidity pronounced\nmarvellous by the official report of the Census of 1901; (2) the three\nhundred millions of the peoples of India have, by the frank concession\nof the Earl of Minto and his advisers, and the sanction of Viscount\nMorley and Parliament, received a virtual constitution, which\nrecognises their fitness for self-governing rights under the benevolent\nrule of King Edward VII. and his Viceroy in Council.  Christianity, and\nthe leaven of the more really educated Christian natives, will alone\nmoralise and loyalise the peoples of India, and prepare future\ngenerations for a healthy independence, material and political.\n\nAs they have watched the lines along which these developments have\nproceeded, the leaders of the missionary enterprise have become more\nand more convinced that the realisation of Carey's ideal has been too\nlong delayed, and that the influence of the Christian community on the\ngreat movements of Indian thought has suffered in consequence.  In\nparticular, while the need for highly-equipped Indian preachers,\nevangelists and leaders, is far more urgent now even than it was in\nCarey's day, the most experienced missionaries of all societies are far\nfrom satisfied with the present level of theological education in the\nIndian Church.  They are convinced that the time has come to reorganise\nthe whole system of ministerial training, and to secure for the study\nof Christian Theology in India that academic recognition which it has\nenjoyed for centuries in Western lands.  Since the British Government\nis pledged to neutrality in religious matters, it is unable to sanction\nthe establishment of Divinity faculties, in any of the State\nUniversities, Hence the Decennial Missionary Conference, representing\nall the Protestant Missionary Societies working in India, meeting in\nMadras in December 1902, appointed a Committee \"to confer with the\nCouncil of the Serampore College, through the Committee of the London\nBaptist Missionary Society, to ascertain whether they are prepared to\ndelegate the degree-conferring powers of the Charter of that College to\na Senate or Faculty, representative of the various Protestant Christian\nChurches and Societies working in India.\"\n\nThe College Council (of which Meredith Townsend, Esq., is Master, and\nAlfred Henry Baynes, Esq., F.R.G.S., is Secretary), has taken this\nrequest into careful consideration, and after being assured by the\nhighest legal opinion that the Charter is still valid, has resolved to\ndo everything in its power to carry out the suggestions of the\nDecennial Conference.  They realise, however, that if the\ndegree-conferring powers of the Charter are to be used, the College\nitself must be raised to the highest standard of efficiency as a\nTeaching Institution, and its permanence must be guaranteed by an\nadequate endowment.\n\nThe Council has felt that the attainment of these two objects is\npossible only through a union of the forces of the various Protestant\nChristian Churches working in India.  The result has been the adoption\nof a wise and catholic project of reorganisation, under which it is\nhoped that Serampore will become a great interdenominational College of\nUniversity rank, giving a theological training up to the standard of\nthe London B.D., conferring its own divinity degrees, and maintaining\nan Arts and Science department, for the present at least affiliated to\nthe Calcutta University.  It is justly claimed that such a Christian\nUniversity at Serampore will both unify and raise the standard of\ntheological education in the Indian Church, helping to build the\nEastern structure of Christian thought and life on the one Foundation\nof Jesus Christ, the Word of God.\n\nThe scheme which the Council has sanctioned contemplates the permanent\nendowment of the requisite professorships and scholarships.  The\nCollege building will provide sufficient class-room accommodation, but\nit will be necessary to secure additional land, and to erect houses for\nthe staff and hostels for the students.  An immediate endowment of\n\u00a3250,000 is aimed at with a view of establishing a well-equipped\ntheological faculty, with a preliminary department in Arts and\nSciences.  The Council, however, is not without hope that in due time\nCarey's noble vision of a great Christian University at Serampore\nconferring its own degrees, not only in theology but in all branches of\nuseful learning, may powerfully appeal to some of the merchant princes\nof the West. It is estimated that the sum of \u00a32,000,000 would be\nrequired for this equipment and endowment of the University on this\nlarger scale.  The great missionary Churches and Societies look\nfavourably on the proposal, initiated by their own missionaries, to\nco-operate with Carey's more immediate representatives in realising and\napplying his ideal which is bound to expand and grow as India becomes\nChristianised.\n\nThe members of the College Council maintain that, in view of the\nworld-wide influence of the modern missionary movement, inaugurated by\nWilliam Carey, a movement that has been so beneficial both to the\nChurch at home and to non-Christian nations, there is no institution\nthat has greater historical and spiritual claims upon modern\nphilanthropy than Serampore, and they believe that there are large\nnumbers of men and women in Great Britain, America, India and other\nlands who will consider it a sacred privilege to have their names\ninscribed with those of Carey, Marshman and Ward on the walls of\nSerampore College as its second founders.\n\nThe Council is doing all within its power to reorganise the College on\nthe broadest possible basis, believing that an institution with such\ninspiring traditions and associations should be utilised in the\ninterests, not merely of one denomination, but of the whole Church in\nIndia and the nation.  Up to the present, the Council, though legally\nan entirely independent body, has worked in the closest association\nwith the Baptist Missionary Society's Committee.  But now with the\nfullest sympathy both of the Baptist Missionaries on the field and the\nCommittee in England, it is also inviting the co-operation of all\nevangelical Christian bodies in the work of Serampore College.  It is\nprepared to welcome as full professors of the College, in Arts and\nTheology, representatives of other evangelical missions, who shall have\nspecial superintendence of the students belonging to their respective\ndenominations, and be free to give them such supplementary instruction\nas may be thought necessary.  All professors without distinction of\ndenomination will share equally in the local management of the affairs\nof the College. The final authority must, in accordance with the\nCharter, remain in the hands of the College Council, but in order to\nadmit of the due representation upon the Council of the various\nevangelical bodies which may co-operate, the present members of Council\nhave, with the hearty concurrence of the Baptist Missionary Society's\nCommittee, approved the suggestion that application should be made to\nthe Indian Legislature for powers to enlarge its membership.\n\nThe Honorary Secretary of the College Council, A. H. Baynes, Esq., 19\nFurnival Street, London, E.C., will be glad to supply further\ninformation, or to receive contributions towards the Fund for the\nendowment and equipment of the College.\n\nIn view of the conditions at present existing in India, this appeal\nshould be of interest not only to friends of Christian missions, but to\nphilanthropists generally, for a Christian University, conducted on the\nbroad and catholic principles laid down by Carey, supplementary but in\nno way antagonistic to the existing Universities, will be a most\neffective instrument for permeating the political and social ideals of\nthe youth of India with the spirit of Christ.  This is a matter that\ndeeply concerns, not only the Missionary, but also the statesman, the\nmerchant, and all true friends of India of whatever race or creed.\n\nIn all the romance of Christian Missions, from Iona to Canterbury,\nthere is no more evident example of the working of the Spirit of God\nwith the Church, than the call of Carey and the foundation of Serampore\nCollege under Danish Charter and British treaty, making it the only\nUniversity with full powers to enable the whole Reformed Church in\nIndia to work out its own theological system and Christian life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nCAREY'S LAST DAYS\n\n1830-1834\n\nThe college and mission stripped of all their funds--Failure of the six\nfirms for sixteen millions--Carey's official income reduced from \u00a31560\nto \u00a3600--His Thoughts and Appeal published in England--His vigour at\nseventy--Last revision of the Bengali Bible--Final edition of the\nBengali New Testament--Carey rejoices in the reforms of Lord William\nBentinck's Government--In the emancipation of the slaves--Carey\nsketched by his younger contemporaries--His latest letters and last\nmessage to Christendom--Visits of Lady William Bentinck and Bishop\nDaniel Wilson--Marshman's affection and promise as to the garden--The\nEnglish mail brings glad news a fortnight before his death--His last\nSabbath--He dies--Is buried--His tomb among his converts--His will--The\nIndian press on his poverty and disinterestedness--Dr. Marshman and\nMack, Christopher Anderson and John Wilson of Bombay on his\ncharacter--His influence still as the founder of missions--Dr. Cox and\nRobert Hall on Carey as a man--Scotland's estimate of the father of the\nEvangelical Revival and its foreign missions.\n\nThe last days of William Carey were the best.  His sun went down in all\nthe splendour of a glowing faith and a burning self-sacrifice. Not in\nthe penury of Hackleton and Moulton, not in the hardships of Calcutta\nand the Soondarbans, not in the fevers of the swamps of Dinapoor, not\nin the apprehensions twice excited by official intolerance, not in the\nmost bitter sorrow of all--the sixteen years' persecution by English\nbrethren after Fuller's death, had the father of modern missions been\nso tried as in the years 1830-1833. Blow succeeded blow, but only that\nthe fine gold of his trust, his humility, and his love might be seen to\nbe the purer.\n\nThe Serampore College and Mission lost all the funds it had in India.\nBy 1830 the financial revolution which had laid many houses low in\nEurope five years before, began to tell upon the merchant princes of\nCalcutta.  The six firms, which had developed the trade of Northern\nIndia so far as the Company's monopolies allowed, had been the bankers\nof the Government itself, of states like Haidarabad, and of all the\ncivil and military officials, and had enriched a succession of partners\nfor half a century, fell one by one--fell for sixteen millions sterling\namong them.  Palmer and Co. was the greatest; the house at one time\nplayed a large part in the history of India, and in the debates and\npapers of Parliament.  Mr. John Palmer, a personal friend of the\nSerampore men, had advanced them money at ten per cent. four years\npreviously, when the Society's misrepresentation had done its worst.\nThe children in the Eurasian schools, which Dr. and Mrs. Marshman\nconducted with such profit to the mission, depended chiefly on funds\ndeposited with this firm.  It suddenly failed for more than two\nmillions sterling. Although the catastrophe exposed the rottenness of\nthe system of credit on which commerce and banking were at that time\nconducted, in the absence of a free press and an intelligent public\nopinion, the alarm soon subsided, and only the more business fell to\nthe other firms.  But the year 1833 had hardly opened when first the\nhouse of Alexander and Co., then that of Mackintosh and Co., and then\nthe three others, collapsed without warning.  The English in India,\nofficials and merchants, were reduced to universal poverty.  Capital\ndisappeared and credit ceased at the very time that Parliament was\nabout to complete the partial concession of freedom of trade made by\nthe charter of 1813, by granting all Carey had argued for, and allowing\nEuropeans to hold land.\n\nThe funds invested for Jessor and Delhi; the legacy of Fernandez,\nCarey's first convert and missionary; his own tenths with which he\nsupported three aged relatives in England; the property of the partner\nof his third marriage, on whom the money was settled, and who survived\nhim by a year; the little possessed by Dr. Marshman, who had paid all\nhis expenses in England even while working for the Society--all was\nswept away.  Not only was the small balance in hand towards meeting the\ncollege and mission expenditure gone, but it was impossible to borrow\neven for a short time.  Again one of Dr. Carey's old civilian students\ncame to the rescue.  Mr. Garrett, grandson of Robert Raikes who first\nbegan Sunday schools, pledged his own credit with the Bank of Bengal,\nuntil Samuel Hope of Liverpool, treasurer of the Serampore Mission\nthere, could be communicated with.  Meanwhile the question of giving up\nany of the stations or shutting the college was not once favoured. \"I\nhave seen the tears run down the face of the venerable Dr. Carey at the\nthought of such a calamity,\" wrote Leechman; \"were it to arrive we\nshould soon have to lay him in his grave.\"  When the interest of the\nfunds raised by Ward in America ceased for a time because of the\nmalicious report from England that it might be applied by Dr. Marshman\nto the purposes of family aggrandisement, Carey replied in a spirit\nlike that of Paul under a similar charge: \"Dr. Marshman is as poor as I\nam, and I can scarcely lay by a sum monthly to relieve three or four\nindigent relatives in Europe.  I might have had large possessions, but\nI have given my all, except what I ate, drank, and wore, to the cause\nof missions, and Dr. Marshman has done the same, and so did Mr. Ward.\"\n\nCarey's trust in God, for the mission and for himself, was to be still\nfurther tried.  On 12th July 1828 we find him thus writing from\nCalcutta to Jabez:--\"I came down this morning to attend Lord W.\nBentinck's first lev\u00e9e.  It was numerously attended, and I had the\npleasure of seeing there a great number of gentlemen who had formerly\nstudied under me, and for whom I felt a very sincere regard.  I hear\nLady Bentinck is a pious woman, but have not yet seen her.  I have a\ncard to attend at her drawing-room this evening, but I shall not go, as\nI must be at home for the Sabbath, which is to-morrow.\"  It soon fell\nto Lord William Bentinck to meet the financial consequences of his weak\npredecessor's administration. The College of Fort William had to be\nsacrificed.  Metcalfe and Bayley, Carey's old students whom he had\npermanently influenced in the higher life, were the members of council,\nand he appealed to them.  They sent him to the good Governor-General,\nto whose sympathy he laid bare all the past and present of the\nmission's finance.  He was told to have no fear, and indeed the Council\nheld a long sitting on this one matter.  But from June 1830 the college\nceased to be a teaching, and became an examining body.  When the salary\nwas reduced one-half, from Rs. 1000 a month, the Brotherhood met to\npray for light and strength.  Mr. Robinson, the Java missionary who had\nattached himself to Serampore, and whose son long did good service as a\nBengali scholar and preacher, gives us this glimpse of its inner life\nat this time:--\n\n\"The two old men were dissolved in tears while they were engaged in\nprayer, and Dr. Marshman in particular could not give expressions to\nhis feelings.  It was indeed affecting to see these good old men, the\nfathers of the mission, entreating with tears that God would not\nforsake them now grey hairs were come upon them, but that He would\nsilence the tongue of calumny, and furnish them with the means of\ncarrying on His own cause.\"\n\nThey sent home an appeal to England, and Carey himself published what\nis perhaps the most chivalrous, just, and weighty of all his utterances\non the disagreeable subject--Thoughts upon the Discussions which have\narisen from the Separation between the Baptist Missionary Society and\nthe Serampore Missions. \"From our age and other circumstances our\ncontributions may soon cease.  We have seen a great work wrought in\nIndia, and much of it, either directly or indirectly, has been done by\nourselves.  I cannot, I ought not to be indifferent about the\npermanency of this work, and cannot therefore view the exultation\nexpressed at the prospect of our resources being crippled otherwise\nthan being of a character too satanic to be long persisted in by any\nman who has the love of God in his heart.\"\n\nThe appeal to all Christians for \"a few hundred pounds per annum\" for\nthe mission station closed thus: \"But a few years have passed away\nsince the Protestant world was awakened to missionary effort. Since\nthat time the annual revenues collected for this object have grown to\nthe then unthought-of sum of \u00a3400,000.  And is it unreasonable to\nexpect that some unnoticeable portion of this should be intrusted to\nhim who was amongst the first to move in this enterprise and to his\ncolleagues?\"  The Brotherhood had hardly despatched this appeal to\nEngland with the sentence, \"Our present incomes even are uncertain,\"\nwhen the shears of financial reduction cut off Dr. Carey's office of\nBengali translator to Government, which for eight years had yielded him\nRs. 300 a month.  But such was his faith this final stroke called forth\nonly an expression of regret that he must reduce his contributions to\nthe missionary cause by so much.  He was a wonder to his colleagues,\nwho wrote of him: \"Though thus reduced in his circumstances the good\nman, about to enter on his seventieth year, is as cheerful and as happy\nas the day is long.  He rides out four or five miles every morning,\nreturning home by sunrise; goes on with the work of translation day by\nday; gives two lectures on divinity and one on natural history every\nweek in the college, and takes his turn of preaching both in Bengali\nand in English.\"\n\nWhen the Christian public responded heartily to his appeal Carey was\nloud and frequent in his expressions of gratitude to God, who, \"in the\ntime of our great extremity, appeared and stirred up His people thus\nwillingly to offer their substance for His cause.\"  With respect to\nmyself, I consider my race as nearly run.  The days of our years are\nthree score years and ten, and I am now only three months short of that\nage, and repeated bilious attacks have weakened my constitution.  But I\ndo not look forward to death with any painful anticipations.  I cast\nmyself on and plead the efficacy of that atonement which will not fail\nme when I need it.\"\n\nDr. Marshman gives us a brighter picture of him. \"I met with very few\nfriends in England in their seventieth year so lively, as free from the\ninfirmities of age, so interesting in the pulpit, so completely\nconversible as he is now.\"  The reason is found in the fact that he was\nstill useful, still busy at the work he loved most of all.  He\ncompleted his last revision of the entire Bible in Bengali--the fifth\nedition of the Old Testament and the eighth edition of the New--in June\n1832.  Immediately thereafter, when presiding at the ordination of Mr.\nMack as co-pastor with Dr. Marshman and himself over the church at\nSerampore, he took with him into the pulpit the first copy of the\nsacred volume which came from the binder's hands, and addressed the\nconverts and their children from the words of Simeon--\"Lord now lettest\nThou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy\nsalvation.\"  As the months went on he carried through the press still\nanother and improved edition of the New Testament, and only then he\nfelt and often said that the work of his heart was done.\n\nHe had other sources of saintly pleasure as he lay meditating on the\nWord, and praising God for His goodness to the college and the mission\nstations increased to nineteen by young Sir Henry Havelock, who founded\nthe church at Agra. Lord William Bentinck, having begun his reign with\nthe abolition of the crime of suttee, was, with the help of Carey's old\nstudents, steadily carrying out the other reforms for which in all his\nIndian career the missionary had prayed and preached and published.\nThe judicial service was reorganised so as to include native judges.\nThe uncovenanted civil service was opened to all British subjects of\nevery creed.  The first act of justice to native Christians was thus\ndone, so that he wrote of the college:--\"The students are now eligible\nto every legal appointment in India which a native can hold; those who\nmay possess no love for the Christian ministry have the prospect of a\nprofitable profession as advocates in the judicial courts, and the hope\nof rising to posts of honourable distinction in their native land.\"\nThe Hindoo law of inheritance which the Regulating Act of Parliament\nhad so covered that it was used to deprive converts to Christianity of\nall civil rights, was dealt with so far as a local regulation could do\nso, and Carey, advised by such an authority as Harington, laid it on\nhis successor in the apostolate, the young Alexander Duff, to carry the\nact of justice out fully, which was done under the Marquis of\nDalhousie.  The orders drawn up by Charles Grant's sons at last, in\nFebruary 1833, freed Great Britain from responsibility for the\nconnection of the East India Company with Temple and mosque endowments\nand the pilgrim tax.\n\nHis son Jonathan wrote this of him two years after his death:--\n\n\"In principle my father was resolute and firm, never shrinking from\navowing and maintaining his sentiments.  He had conscientious scruples\nagainst taking an oath; and condemned severely the manner in which\noaths were administered, and urged vehemently the propriety of\naltogether dispensing with them.  I remember three instances in which\nhe took a conspicuous part in regard to oaths, such as was\ncharacteristic of the man.  On one occasion, when a respectable Hindoo\nservant of the college of Fort William, attached to Dr. Carey's\ndepartment, was early one morning proceeding to the Ganges to bathe, he\nperceived a dead body lying near the road; but it being dark, and no\nperson being present, he passed on, taking no further notice of the\ncircumstance.  As he returned from the Ganges after sunrise, he saw a\ncrowd near the body, and then happened to say to one of the watchmen\npresent that in the morning he saw the body on the other side of the\nroad.  The watchman took him in custody, as a witness before the\ncoroner; but, when brought before the coroner, he refused to take an\noath, and was, consequently, committed to prison for contempt.  The\nHindoo being a respectable person, and never having taken an oath,\nrefused to take any nourishment in the prison. In this state he\ncontinued a day and a half, my father being then at Serampore; but upon\nhis coming to Calcutta, the circumstances were mentioned to him.  The\nfact of the man having refused to take an oath was enough to make him\ninterest himself in his behalf.  He was delighted with the resolution\nthe man took--rather to go to prison than take an oath; and was\ndetermined to do all he could to procure his liberation.  He first\napplied to the coroner, but was directed by him to the sheriff.  To\nthat functionary he proceeded, but was informed by him that he could\nmake no order on the subject. He then had an interview with the then\nchief judge, by whose interference the man was set at liberty.\n\n\"Another instance relates to him personally.  On the occasion of his\nlast marriage, the day was fixed on which the ceremony was to take\nplace--friends were invited--and all necessary arrangements made; but,\nthree or four days prior to the day fixed, he was informed that it\nwould be necessary for him to obtain a licence, in doing which, he must\neither take an oath or have banns published.  To taking an oath he at\nonce objected, and applied to the then senior judge, who informed him\nthat, as he was not a quaker, his oath was indispensable; but, rather\nthan take an oath, he applied to have the banns published, and\npostponed the arrangements for his marriage for another three weeks.\n\n\"The third instance was as follows:--It was necessary, in a certain\ncase, to prove a will in court, in which the name of Dr. Carey was\nmentioned, in connection with the Serampore missionaries as executors.\nAn application was made by one of his colleagues, which was refused by\nthe court, on account of the vagueness of the terms, 'Serampore\nmissionaries;' but as Dr. Carey's name was specifically mentioned, the\ncourt intimated that they would grant the application if made by him.\nThe communication was made: but when he was informed that an oath was\nnecessary, he shrunk with abhorrence from the idea; but after much\npersuasion, he consented to make the application, if taking an oath\nwould be dispensed with.  He did attend, and stated his objections to\nthe then chief judge, which being allowed, his affirmation was received\nand recorded by the court.\n\n\"The duties connected with the College of Fort William afforded him a\nchange of scene, which relieved his mind, and gave him opportunities of\ntaking exercise, and conduced much to his health. During the several\nyears he held the situation of professor to the college, no\nconsideration would allow him to neglect his attendance; and though he\nhad to encounter boisterous weather in crossing the river at\nunseasonable hours, he was punctual in his attendance, and never\napplied for leave of absence.  And when he was qualified by the rules\nof the service to retire on a handsome pension, he preferred being\nactively employed in promoting the interests of the college, and\nremained, assiduously discharging his duties, till his department was\nabolished by Government.  The business of the college requiring his\nattendance in Calcutta, he became so habituated to his journeys to and\nfro, that at his age he painfully felt the retirement he was subjected\nto when his office ceased.  After this circumstance his health rapidly\ndeclined; and though he occasionally visited Calcutta, he complained of\nextreme debility.  This increased daily, and made him a constant\nsufferer; until at length he was not able to leave his house.\"\n\nNor was it in India alone that the venerable saint found such causes of\nsatisfaction.  He lived long enough to thank God for the emancipation\nof the slaves by the English people, for which he had prayed daily for\nfifty years.\n\nWe have many sketches of the Father of English Missions in his later\nyears by young contemporaries who, on their first arrival in Bengal,\nsought him out.  In 1824 Mr. Leslie, an Edinburgh student, who became\nin India the first of Baptist preachers, and was the means of the\nconversion of Henry Havelock who married Dr. Marshman's youngest\ndaughter, wrote thus of Carey after the third great illness of his\nIndian life:--\n\n\"Dr. Carey, who has been very ill, is quite recovered, and bids fair to\nlive many years; and as for Dr. Marshman, he has never known ill-health\nis, during the whole period of his residence in India. They are both\nactive to a degree which you would think impossible in such a country.\nDr. Carey is a very equable and cheerful old man, in countenance very\nlike the engraving of him with his pundit, though not so robust as he\nappears to be there.  Next to his translations Botany is his grand\nstudy.  He has collected every plant and tree in his garden that will\npossibly grow in India, and is so scientific withal that he calls\neverything by its classical name.  If, therefore, I should at any time\nblunder out the word Geranium, he would say Pelargonium, and perhaps\naccuse me of ignorance, or blame me for vulgarity.  We had the pleasure\nof hearing him preach from Rom. vii. 13, when he gave us an excellent\nsermon.  In manner he is very animated, and in style very methodical.\nIndeed he carries method into everything he does; classification is his\ngrand hobby, and wherever anything can be classified, there you find\nDr. Carey; not only does he classify and arrange the roots of plants\nand words, but visit his dwelling and you find he has fitted up and\nclassified shelves full of minerals, stones, shells, etc., and cages\nfull of birds.  He is of very easy access, and great familiarity.  His\nattachments are strong, and extend not merely to persons but places.\nAbout a year ago, so much of the house in which he had lived ever since\nhe had been at Serampore, fell down so that he had to leave it, at\nwhich he wept bitterly.  One morning at breakfast, he was relating to\nus an anecdote of the generosity of the late excellent John Thornton,\nat the remembrance of whom the big tear filled his eye.  Though it is\nan affecting sight to see the venerable man weep; yet it is a sight\nwhich greatly interests you, as there is a manliness in his\ntears--something far removed from the crying of a child.\"\n\nThe house in which for the last ten years he lived, and where he died,\nwas the only one of two or three, planned for the new professors of the\ncollege, that was completed.  Compared with the adjoining college it\nwas erected with such severe simplicity that it was said to have been\ndesigned for angels rather than for men. Carey's room and library\nlooked towards the river with the breadth of the college garden\nbetween.  On the other side, in the upper verandah, in the morning he\nworked at his desk almost to the last, and in the evening towards\nsunset he talked with his visitors.  In 1826 the London Missionary\nSociety sent out to Calcutta the first of its deputations.  Dr. Carey\nsent his boat for them, and in the absence of her husband in England,\nMrs. Marshman entertained the guests.  They wrote:--\n\n\"We found Dr. Carey in his study, and we were both pleased and struck\nwith his primitive, and we may say, apostolical appearance. He is short\nof stature, his hair white, his countenance equally bland and\nbenevolent in feature and expression.  Two Hindoo men were sitting by,\nengaged in painting some small subjects in natural history, of which\nthe doctor, a man of pure taste and highly intellectual cast of\nfeeling, irrespective of his more learned pursuits, has a choice\ncollection, both in specimens and pictorial representations.  Botany is\na favourite study with him, and his garden is curiously enriched with\nrarities.\"\n\nOf all the visits paid to Carey none are now so interesting to the\nhistorian of the Church of India, as those of the youth who succeeded\nhim as he had succeeded Schwartz.  Alexander Duff was twenty-four years\nof age when, in 1830, full of hesitation as to carrying out his own\nplans in opposition to the experience of all the missionaries he had\nconsulted, he received from Carey alone the most earnest encouragement\nto pursue in Calcutta the Christian college policy so well begun in the\nless central settlement of Serampore.  We have elsewhere[32] told the\nstory:--\n\n\"Landing at the college ghaut one sweltering July day, the still ruddy\nhighlander strode up to the flight of steps that leads to the finest\nmodern building in Asia. Turning to the left, he sought the study of\nCarey in the house--'built for angels,' said one, so simple is\nit--where the greatest of missionary scholars was still working for\nIndia.  There he beheld what seemed to be a little yellow old man in a\nwhite jacket, who tottered up to the visitor of whom he had already\noften heard, and with outstretched hands solemnly blessed him.  A\ncontemporary soon after wrote thus of the childlike saint--\n\n  \"'Thou'rt in our heart--with tresses thin and grey,\n    And eye that knew the Book of Life so well,\n  And brow serene, as thou wert wont to stray\n    Amidst thy flowers--like Adam ere he fell.'\n\n\"The result of the conference was a double blessing; for Carey could\nspeak with the influence at once of a scholar who had created the best\ncollege at that time in the country, and of a vernacularist who had\npreached to the people for half a century.  The young Scotsman left his\npresence with the approval of the one authority whose opinion was best\nworth having...\n\n\"Among those who visited him in his last illness was Alexander Duff,\nthe Scots missionary.  On one of the last occasions on which he saw\nhim--if not the very last--he spent some time talking chiefly about\nCarey's missionary life, till at length the dying man whispered, Pray.\nDuff knelt down and prayed, and then said Good-bye.  As he passed from\nthe room, he thought he heard a feeble voice pronouncing his name, and,\nturning, he found that he was recalled.  He stepped back accordingly,\nand this is what he heard, spoken with a gracious solemnity: 'Mr. Duff,\nyou have been speaking about Dr. Carey, Dr. Carey; When I am gone, say\nnothing about Dr. Carey--speak about Dr. Carey's Saviour.'  Duff went\naway rebuked and awed, with a lesson in his heart that he never\nforgot.\"[33]\n\nWhen with his old friends he dwelt much on the past.  Writing of May\n1832, Dr. Marshman mentioned: \"I spent an hour at tea with dear Brother\nCarey last night, now seventy and nine months.  He was in the most\ncomfortable state of health, talking over his first feelings respecting\nIndia and the heathen, and the manner in which God kept them alive,\nwhen even Fuller could not yet enter into them, and good old John\nRyland (the doctor's father) denounced them as unscriptural.  Had these\nfeelings died away, in what a different state might India now have\nbeen!\"  In September of that year, when burying Mrs. Ward, he seemed,\nin his address at the grave, to long for renewed intercourse with the\nfriends who had preceded him in entering into the joy of the Lord.\n\nOn Mr. Leechman's arrival from Scotland to be his colleague, he found\nthe old man thus vigorous even in April 1833, or if \"faint, yet\npursuing\":--\n\n\"Our venerable Dr. Carey is in excellent health, and takes his turn in\nall our public exercises.  Just forty years ago, the first of this\nmonth, he administered the Lord's Supper to the church at Leicester,\nand started on the morrow to embark for India.  Through this long\nperiod of honourable toil the Lord has mercifully preserved him; and at\nour missionary prayer meeting, held on the first of this month, he\ndelivered an interesting address to encourage us to persevere in the\nwork of the Lord. We have also a private monthly prayer meeting held in\nDr. Carey's study, which is to me a meeting of uncommon interest.  On\nthese occasions we particularly spread before the Lord our public and\nprivate trials, both those which come upon us from the cause of Christ,\nwith which it is our honour and privilege to be connected, and those\nalso which we as individuals are called to bear.  At our last meeting\nDr. Carey read part of the history of Gideon, and commented with deep\nfeeling on the encouragement which that history affords, that the cause\nof God can be carried on to victory and triumph, by feeble and\napparently inefficient means.\"\n\nCarey's successor, Mack, wrote thus to Christopher Anderson ten months\nlater:--\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 31st January 1834.--Our venerable father, Dr. Carey, is yet\ncontinued to us, but in the same state in which he has been for the\nlast three months or so.  He is quite incapable of work, and very weak.\nHe can walk but a few yards at a time, and spends the day in reading\nfor profit and entertainment, and in occasionally nodding and sleeping.\nHe is perfectly tranquil in mind.  His imagination does not soar much\nin vivid anticipations of glory; and it never disquiets him with\nrestless misgivings respecting his inheritance in God. To him it is\neverything that the gospel is true, and he believes it; and, as he\nsays, if he can say he knows anything, he knows that he believes it.\nWhen his attention is turned to his dismissal from earth, or his hope\nof glory, his emotions are tender and sweet.  They are also very\nsimple, and express themselves in a few brief and pithy sentences.  His\ninterest in all the affairs of the mission is unabated, and although he\ncan no longer join us either in deliberation or associated prayer, he\nmust be informed of all that occurs, and his heart is wholly with us in\nwhatever we do.  I do not conceive it possible that he can survive the\nensuing hot season, but he may, and the Lord will do in this as in all\nother things what is best.\n\n\"When our necessities were coming to their climax I concluded that I\nmust leave Serampore in order to find food to eat, and I fixed upon\nCherra-poonjee as my future residence.  I proposed establishing a\nfirst-class school there, and then with some warmth of imagination I\nbegan anticipating a sort of second edition of Serampore up in the\nKhasia hills, to be a centre of diffusing light in the western\nprovinces.  I became really somewhat enamoured of the phantom of my\nimagination, but it was not to be.  The brethren here would not see it\nas I did.\"\n\nThis last sketch, by Mr. Gogerly, whom the London Missionary Society\nhad sent out in 1819, brings us still nearer the end:--\n\n\"At this time I paid him my last visit.  He was seated near his desk,\nin the study, dressed in his usual neat attire; his eyes were closed,\nand his hands clasped together.  On his desk was the proof-sheet of the\nlast chapter of the New Testament, which he had revised a few days\nbefore.  His appearance, as he sat there, with the few white locks\nwhich adorned his venerable brow, and his placid colourless face,\nfilled me with a kind of awe; for he appeared as then listening to the\nMaster's summons, and as waiting to depart.  I sat, in his presence,\nfor about half an hour, and not one word was uttered; for I feared to\nbreak that solemn silence, and call back to earth the soul that seemed\nalmost in heaven.  At last, however, I spoke; and well do I remember\nthe identical words that passed between us, though more than thirty-six\nyears have elapsed since then.  I said, 'My dear friend, you evidently\nare standing on the borders of the eternal world; do not think it\nwrong, then, if I ask, What are your feelings in the immediate prospect\nof death?'  The question roused him from his apparent stupor, and\nopening his languid eyes, he earnestly replied, 'As far as my personal\nsalvation is concerned, I have not the shadow of a doubt; I know in\nWhom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that\nwhich I have committed unto Him against that day; but when I think that\nI am about to appear in the presence of a holy God, and remember all my\nsins and manifold imperfections--I tremble.'  He could say no more. The\ntears trickled down his cheeks, and after a while he relapsed into the\nsame state of silence from which I had aroused him.\n\n\"Deeply solemn was that interview, and important the lesson I then\nreceived.  Here was one of the most holy and harmless men whom I ever\nknew--who had lived above the breath of calumny for upwards of forty\nyears, surrounded by and in close intimacy with many, both Europeans\nand natives, who would have rejoiced to have witnessed any\ninconsistency in his conduct, but who were constrained to admire his\nintegrity and Christian character--whilst thus convinced of the\ncertainty of his salvation, through the merits of that Saviour whom he\nhad preached, yet so impressed with the exceeding sinfulness of sin,\nthat he trembled at the thought of appearing before a holy God! A few\ndays after this event, Dr. Carey retired to his bed, from which he\nnever rose.\"\n\nSo long before this as 17th March 1802, Carey had thus described\nhimself to Dr. Ryland:--\"A year or more ago you, or some other of my\ndear friends, mentioned an intention of publishing a volume of sermons\nas a testimony of mutual Christian love, and wished me to send a sermon\nor two for that purpose.  I have seriously intended it, and more than\nonce sat down to accomplish it, but have as constantly been broken off\nfrom it.  Indolence is my prevailing sin, and to that are now added a\nnumber of avocations which I never thought of; I have also so continual\na fear that I may at last fall some way or other so as to dishonour the\nGospel that I have often desired that my name may be buried in\noblivion; and indeed I have reason for those fears, for I am so prone\nto sin that I wonder every night that I have been preserved from foul\ncrimes through the day, and when I escape a temptation I esteem it to\nbe a miracle of grace which has preserved me.  I never was so fully\npersuaded as I am now that no habit of religion is a security from\nfalling into the foulest crimes, and I need the immediate help of God\nevery moment. The sense of my continual danger has, I confess, operated\nstrongly upon me to induce me to desire that no publication of a\nreligious nature should be published as mine whilst I am alive.\nAnother reason is my sense of incapacity to do justice to any subject,\nor even to write good sense.  I have, it is true, been obliged to\npublish several things, and I can say that nothing but necessity could\nhave induced me to do it.  They are, however, only grammatical works,\nand certainly the very last things which I should have written if I\ncould have chosen for myself.\"\n\nOn 15th June 1833 the old man was still able to rejoice with others. He\naddressed to his son Jonathan the only brief letter which the present\nwriter possesses from his pen, in a hand as clear as that of a quarter\nof a century before:--\n\n\"MY DEAR JONATHAN--I congratulate you upon the good news you have\nreceived.  But am sorry Lucy continues so ill.  I am too weak to write\nmore than to say your mother is as well as the weather will permit us\nto expect.  I could scarcely have been worse to live than I have been\nthe last fortnight.--Your affectionate father, W. CAREY.\"\n\nThe hot season had then reached its worst.\n\nHis last letters were brief messages of love and hope to his two\nsisters in England.  On 27th July 1833 he wrote to them:--\n\n\"About a week ago so great a change took place in me that I concluded\nit was the immediate stroke of death, and all my children were informed\nof it and have been here to see me.  I have since that revived in an\nalmost miraculous manner, or I could not have written this.  But I\ncannot expect it to continue.  The will of the Lord be done.  Adieu,\ntill I meet you in a better world.--Your affectionate brother, \"W.\nCAREY.\"\n\nTwo months later he was at his old work, able \"now and then to read a\nproof sheet of the Scriptures.\"\n\n\"SERAMPORE, 25th Sept. 1833.\n\n\"MY DEAR SISTERS--My being able to write to you now is quite unexpected\nby me, and, I believe, by every one else; but it appears to be the will\nof God that I should continue a little time longer. How long that may\nbe I leave entirely with Him, and can only say, 'All the days of my\nappointed time will I wait till my change come.' I was, two months or\nmore ago, reduced to such a state of weakness that it appeared as if my\nmind was extinguished; and my weakness of body, and sense of extreme\nfatigue and exhaustion, were such that I could scarcely speak, and it\nappeared that death would be no more felt than the removing from one\nchair to another.  I am now able to sit and to lie on my couch, and now\nand then to read a proof sheet of the Scriptures.  I am too weak to\nwalk more than just across the house, nor can I stand even a few\nminutes without support.  I have every comfort that kind friends can\nyield, and feel, generally, a tranquil mind.  I trust the great point\nis settled, and I am ready to depart; but the time when, I leave with\nGod.\n\n\"3rd Oct.--I am not worse than when I began this letter.--I am, your\nvery affectionate brother, WM. CAREY.\"\n\nHis latest message to Christendom was sent on the 30th September, most\nappropriately to Christopher Anderson:--\"As everything connected with\nthe full accomplishment of the divine promises depends on the almighty\npower of God, pray that I and all the ministers of the Word may take\nhold of His strength, and go about our work as fully expecting the\naccomplishment of them all, which, however difficult and improbable it\nmay appear, is certain, as all the promises of God are in Him, yea, and\nin Him, Amen.\" Had he not, all his career, therefore expected and\nattempted great things?\n\nHe had had a chair fixed on a small platform, constructed after his own\ndirection, that he might be wheeled through his garden.  At other times\nthe chief gardener Hullodhur, reported to him the state of the\ncollection of plants, then numbering about 2000.  Dr. Marshman saw his\nfriend daily, sometimes twice a day, and found him always what Lord\nHastings had described him to be--\"the cheerful old man.\"  On the only\noccasion on which he seemed sad, Dr. Marshman as he was leaving the\nroom turned and asked why.  With deep feeling the dying scholar looked\nto the others and said, \"After I am gone Brother Marshman will turn the\ncows into my garden.\"  The reply was prompt, \"Far be it from me; though\nI have not your botanical tastes, the care of the garden in which you\nhave taken so much delight, shall be to me a sacred duty.\"[34]\n\nOf strangers his most frequent visitor was the Governor-General's wife,\nLady William Bentinck.  Her husband was in South India, and she spent\nmost of her time in Barrackpore Park retreat opposite to Carey's house.\nFrom her frequent converse with him, in his life as well as now, she\nstudied the art of dying.  Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, learned\nto delight in Serampore almost from the beginning of his long\nepiscopate, and in later years he lived there more than in Calcutta.\nOn the 14th February 1833 he first visited Carey, \"his interview with\nwhom, confined as he was to his room, and apparently on the verge of\nthe celestial world, was peculiarly affecting.\"  In the last of\nsubsequent visits the young Bishop asked the dying missionary's\nbenediction.  With all the talk was the same, a humble resignation to\nthe will of God, firm trust in the Redeemer of sinners, a joyful\ngratitude for the wonderful progress of His Kingdom.  What a picture is\nthis that his brethren sent home six weeks before he passed away. \"Our\naged and venerable brother feels himself growing gradually weaker.  He\ncan scarcely rise from his couch, and it is with great difficulty that\nhe is carried out daily to take the air.  Yet he is free from all pain\nas to disease, and his mind is in a most serene and happy state.  He is\nin full possession of his faculties, and, although with difficulty, on\naccount of his weakness, he still converses with his friends from day\nto day.\"\n\nThe hottest season of the year crept wearily on during the month of May\nand the first week of June.  Each night he slept well, and each day he\nwas moved to his couch in the dining-room for air.  There he lay,\nunable to articulate more than a word or two, but expressing by his\njoyful features union in prayer and interest in conversation. On the\n22nd May the English mail arrived with gladdening intelligence from Mr.\nHope--God's people were praying and giving anew for the mission.\nEspecially was his own latest station of Cherra-poonjee remembered.  As\nhe was told that a lady, anonymously, had offered \u00a3500 for that\nmission, \u00a3500 for the college, \u00a3500 for the translations, and \u00a3100 for\nthe mission generally, he raised his emaciated hands to heaven and\nmurmured praise to God. When the delirium of departure came he strove\nto reach his desk that he might write a letter of thanks, particularly\nfor Cherra.  Then he would recall the fact that the little church he at\nfirst formed had branched out into six and twenty churches, in which\nthe ordinances of the Gospel were regularly administered, and he would\nwhisper, \"What has God wrought!\"\n\nThe last Sabbath had come--and the last full day.  The constant\nMarshman was with him. \"He was scarcely able to articulate, and after a\nlittle conversation I knelt down by the side of his couch and prayed\nwith him.  Finding my mind unexpectedly drawn out to bless God for His\ngoodness, in having preserved him and blessed him in India for above\nforty years, and made him such an instrument of good to His church; and\nto entreat that on his being taken home, a double portion of his spirit\nmight rest on those who remained behind; though unable to speak, he\ntestified sufficiently by his countenance how cordially he joined in\nthis prayer.  I then asked Mrs. Carey whether she thought he could now\nsee me.  She said yes, and to convince me, said, 'Mr. Marshman wishes\nto know whether you now see him?'  He answered so loudly that I could\nhear him, 'Yes, I do,' and shook me most cordially by the hand.  I then\nleft him, and my other duties did not permit me to reach him again that\nday.  The next morning, as I was returning home before sunrise, I met\nour Brethren Mack and Leechman out on their morning ride, when Mack\ntold me that our beloved brother had been rather worse all the night,\nand that he had just left him very ill.  I immediately hastened home,\nthrough the college in which he has lived these ten years, and when I\nreached his room, found that he had just entered into the joy of his\nLord--Mrs. Carey, his son Jabez, my son John, and Mrs. Mack being\npresent.\"\n\nIt was Monday the 9th June 1834, at half-past five, as the morning sun\nwas ascending the heavens towards the perfect day.  The rain-clouds\nburst and covered the land with gloom next morning when they carried\nWilliam Carey to the converts' burial-ground and made great\nlamentation.  The notice was too short for many to come up from\nCalcutta in those days. \"Mr. Duff, of the Scottish Church, returned a\nmost kind letter.\"  Sir Charles Metcalfe and the Bishop wrote very\nfeelingly in reply.  Lady Bentinck sent the Rev. Mr. Fisher to\nrepresent the Governor-General and herself, and \"a most kind and\nfeeling answer, for she truly loved the venerable man,\" while she sadly\ngazed at the mourners as they followed the simple funeral up the right\nbank of the Hoogli, past the College and the Mission chapel.  Mr.\nYates, who had taken a loving farewell of the scholar he had been\nreluctant to succeed, represented the younger brethren; Lacroix,\nMicaiah Hill, and Gogerly, the London Missionary Society.  Corrie and\nDealtry do not seem to have reached the spot in time.  The Danish\nGovernor, his wife, and the members of council were there, and the flag\ndrooped half-mast high as on the occasion of a Governor's death.  The\nroad was lined by the poor, Hindoo and Mohammedan, for whom he had done\nso much.  When all, walking in the rain, had reached the open grave,\nthe sun shone out, and Leechman led them in the joyous resurrection\nhymn, \"Why do we mourn departing friends?\" \"I then addressed the\naudience,\" wrote Marshman, \"and, contrary to Brother Mack's foretelling\nthat I should never get through it for tears, I did not shed one.\nBrother Mack was then asked to address the native members, but he,\nseeing the time so far gone, publicly said he would do so at the\nvillage.  Brother Robinson then prayed, and weeping--then neither\nmyself nor few besides could refrain.\"  In Jannuggur village chapel in\nthe evening the Bengali burial hymn was sung, P[oe]ritran Christer Morone,\n\"Salvation by the death of Christ,\" and Pran Krishna, the oldest\ndisciple, led his countrymen in prayer.  Then Mack spoke to the weeping\nconverts with all the pathos of their own sweet vernacular from the\nwords, \"For David, after he had served his own generation, by the will\nof God fell on sleep.\"  Had not Carey's been a royal career, even that\nof a king and a priest unto God?\n\n\"We, as a mission,\" wrote Dr. Marshman to Christopher Anderson, \"took\nthe expense on ourselves, not suffering his family to do so, as we\nshall that of erecting a monument for him.  Long before his death we\nhad, by a letter signed by us all, assured him that the dear relatives,\nin England and France, should have their pensions continued as though\nhe were living, and that Mrs. Carey, as a widow, should have Rs. 100\nmonthly, whatever Mackintosh's house might yield her.\"\n\nTwenty-two years before, when Chamberlain was complaining because of\nthe absence of stone, or brick, or inscription in the mission\nburial-ground, Carey had said, \"Why should we be remembered?  I think\nwhen I am dead the sooner I am forgotten the better.\"  Dr. Johns\nobserved that it is not the desire of the persons themselves but of\ntheir friends for them, to which Carey replied, \"I think of others in\nthat respect as I do of myself.\"  When his second wife was taken from\nhim, his affection so far prevailed that he raised a memorial stone,\nand in his will left this \"order\" to Mack and William Robinson, his\nexecutors: \"I direct that my funeral be as plain as possible; that I be\nburied by the side of my second wife, Charlotte Emilia Carey; and that\nthe following inscription and nothing more may be cut on the stone\nwhich commemorates her, either above or below, as there may be room,\nviz.:--\n\nWILLIAM CAREY, BORN AUGUST 17, 1761; DIED\n\n  A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,\n  On Thy kind arms I fall.\"\n\nThe surviving brethren seem to have taken the small oblong stone, with\nthe inscription added as directed, and to have placed it on the south\nside of the domed square block of brick and white plaster--since\nrenewed from time to time--which stands in the left corner of the\nGod's-acre, now consecrated by the mingled dust of four generations of\nmissionaries, converts, and Christian people. Ward's monument stands in\nthe centre, and that of the Marshman family at the right hand.  Three\nand a half years afterwards Joshua Marshman followed Carey; not till\n1847 was Hannah Marshman laid beside him, after a noble life of eighty\nyears.  Mack had gone the year before, cut off by cholera like Ward.\nBut the brotherhood cannot be said to have ended till John Marshman,\nC.S.I., died in London in 1877.  From first to last the three families\ncontributed to the cause of God from their own earnings, ninety\nthousand pounds, and the world would never have known it but for the\nlack of the charity that envieth not on the part of Andrew Fuller's\nsuccessors.\n\nCarey's last will and testament begins: \"I utterly disclaim all or any\nright or title to the premises at Serampore, called the mission\npremises, and every part and parcel thereof; and do hereby declare that\nI never had, or supposed myself to have, any such right or title.  I\ngive and bequeath to the College of Serampore the whole of my museum,\nconsisting of minerals, shells, corals, insects, and other natural\ncuriosities, and a Hortus Siccus; also the folio edition of Hortus\nWoburnensis, which was presented to me by Lord Hastings; Taylor's\nHebrew Concordance, my collection of Bibles in foreign languages, and\nall my books in the Italian and German languages.\"  His widow, Grace,\nwho survived him a short time, had the little capital that was hers\nbefore her marriage to him, and he desired that she would choose from\nhis library whatever English books she valued.  His youngest son,\nJonathan, was not in want of money.  He had paid Felix and William Rs.\n1500 each in his lifetime. In order to leave a like sum to Jabez, he\nthus provided: \"From the failure of funds to carry my former intentions\ninto effect, I direct that my library be sold.\"  In dying as in living\nhe is the same--just to others because self-devoted to Him to whom he\nthus formally willed himself, \"On Thy kind arms I fall.\"\n\nThe Indian journals rang with the praises of the missionary whose\nchildlike humility and sincerity, patriotism and learning, had long\nmade India proud of him.  After giving himself, William Carey had died\nso poor that his books had to be sold to provide \u00a3187 10s. for one of\nhis sons.  One writer asserted that this man had contributed \"sixteen\nlakhs of rupees\" to the cause of Christ while connected with the\nSerampore Mission, and the statement was everywhere repeated.  Dr.\nMarshman thereupon published the actual facts, \"as no one would have\nfelt greater abhorrence of such an attempt to impose on the Christian\npublic than Dr. Carey himself, had he been living.\" At a time when the\nold Sicca Rupee was worth half a crown, Carey received, in the\nthirty-four and a half years of his residence at Serampore, from the\ndate of his appointment to the College of Fort William, \u00a345,000.[35] Of\nthis he spent \u00a37500 on his Botanic Garden in that period.  If accuracy\nis of any value in such a question, which has little more than a\ncurious biographical interest, then we must add the seven years\nprevious to 1801, and we shall find that the shoemaker of Hackleton\nreceived in all for himself and his family \u00a3600 from the Society which\nhe called into existence, and which sent him forth, while he spent on\nthe Christianisation and civilisation of India \u00a31625 received as a\nmanufacturer of indigo; and \u00a345,000 as Professor of Sanskrit, Bengali,\nand Marathi, and Bengali Translator to Government, or \u00a346,625 in all.\n\n\"It is possible,\" wrote Dr. Marshman, \"that if, instead of thus living\nto God and his cause with his brethren at Serampore, Dr. Carey had,\nlike the other professors in the college, lived in Calcutta wholly for\nhimself and his family, he might have laid by for them a lakh of rupees\nin the thirty years he was employed by Government, and had he been very\nparsimonious, possibly a lakh and a half.  But who that contrasts the\npleasures of such a life with those Dr. Carey enjoyed in promoting with\nhis own funds every plan likely to plant Christianity among the natives\naround him, without having to consult any one in thus doing, but his\ntwo brethren of one heart with him, who contributed as much as himself\nto the Redeemer's cause, and the fruit of which he saw before his death\nin Twenty-six Gospel Churches planted in India within a surface of\nabout eight hundred miles, and above Forty labouring brethren raised up\non the spot amidst them--would not prefer the latter?  What must have\nbeen the feelings on a deathbed of a man who had lived wholly to\nhimself, compared with the joyous tranquillity which filled Carey's\nsoul in the prospect of entering into the joy of his Lord, and above\nall with what he felt when, a few days before his decease, he said to\nhis companion in labour for thirty-four years: 'I have no fears; I have\nno doubts; I have not a wish left unsatisfied.'\"\n\nIn the Danish Church of Serampore, and in the Mission Chapel, and\nafterwards in the Union Chapel of Calcutta, Dr. Marshman and Mr. Mack\npreached sermons on William Carey.  These and the discourse delivered\nin Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, on the 30th of November, by Christopher\nAnderson, were the only materials from which a just estimate of Carey\nand his work could be formed for the next quarter of a century.  All,\nand especially the last, were as worthy of their theme as \u00e9loges\npronounced in such circumstances could be.  Marshman spoke from the\ntext chosen by Carey himself a few weeks before his death as containing\nthe foundation of his hope and the source of his calm and tranquil\nassurance--\"For by grace are ye saved.\"  Mack found his inspiration\nagain, as he had done in the Bengali village, in Paul's words--\"David,\nafter he had served his own generation, by the will of God fell on\nsleep.\"  The Edinburgh preacher turned to the message of Isaiah\nwherewith Carey used to comfort himself in his early loneliness, and\nwhich the Revised Version renders--\"Look unto Abraham your father; for\nwhen he was but one I called him and I blessed him and made him many.\"\nAnd in Bombay the young contemporary missionary who most nearly\nresembled Carey in personal saintliness, scholarship, and\nself-devotion, John Wilson, thus wrote:--\n\n\"Dr. Carey, the first of living missionaries, the most honoured and the\nmost successful since the time of the Apostles, has closed his long and\ninfluential career.  Indeed his spirit, his life, and his labours, were\ntruly apostolic...The Spirit of God which was in him led him forward\nfrom strength to strength, supported him under privation, enabled him\nto overcome in a fight that seemed without hope.  Like the beloved\ndisciple, whom he resembled in simplicity of mind, and in seeking to\ndraw sinners to Christ altogether by the cords of love, he outlived his\ntrials to enjoy a peaceful and honoured old age, to know that his\nMaster's cause was prospering, and that his own name was named with\nreverence and blessing in every country where a Christian dwelt.\nPerhaps no man ever exerted a greater influence for good on a great\ncause.  Who that saw him, poor and in seats of learning uneducated,\nembark on such an enterprise, could ever dream that, in little more\nthan forty years, Christendom should be animated with the same spirit,\nthousands forsake all to follow his example, and that the Word of Life\nshould be translated into almost every language and preached in almost\nevery corner of the earth?\"\n\nAs the Founder and Father of Modern Missions, the character and career\nof William Carey are being revealed every year in the progress, and as\nyet, the purity of the expansion of the Church and of the\nEnglish-speaking races in the two-thirds of the world which are still\noutside of Christendom.  The \u00a313:2:6 of Kettering became \u00a3400,000\nbefore he died, and is now \u00a35,000,000 a year.  The one ordained English\nmissionary is now a band of 20,000 men and women sent out by 558\nagencies of the Reformed Churches.  The solitary converts, each with no\ninfluence on his people, or country, or generation, are now a community\nof 3,000,000 in India alone, and in all the lands outside of\nChristendom 5,000,000, of whom 80,000 are missionaries to their own\ncountrymen, and many are leaders of the native communities.  Since the\nfirst edition of the Bengali New Testament appeared at the beginning of\nthe century 250,000,000 of copies of the Holy Scriptures have been\nprinted, of which one half are in 370 of the non-English tongues of the\nworld.  The Bengali School of Mudnabati, the Christian College of\nSerampore, have set in motion educational forces that are bringing\nnations to the birth, are passing under Bible instruction every day\nmore than a million boys and girls, young men and maidens of the dark\nraces of mankind.\n\nThe seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, the greatest and most practical\nEvangelical of the nineteenth century after William Wilberforce, wrote\nthus in his Journal of the class whom Carey headed in the eighteenth,\nand whom Wordsworth commemorated as\n\n  \"Not sedentary all, there are who roam\n  To scatter seeds of Life on barbarous shores.\"\n\n1847. \"Aug. 30th--RYDE.--Reading Missionary Enterprises by\nWilliams...Zeal, devotion, joy, simplicity of heart, faith, love; and\nwe here have barely affection enough to thank God that such deeds have\nbeen done.  Talk of 'doing good' and being 'useful in one's\ngeneration,' why, these admirable men performed more in one month than\nI or many others shall perform in a whole life!\"\n\nThe eloquent Dr. Richard Winter Hamilton, reflecting that sacrifice to\nheroes is reserved until after sunset, recalled William Carey, eight\nyears after his death, as \"wielding a power to which all difficulties\nyielded, but that power noiseless as a law of nature; great in\nconception as well as in performance; profound as those deep\ncombinations of language in which the Indian philosophy and polytheism\nhide themselves, but gentle as the flower which in his brief recreation\nhe loved to train; awful as the sage, simple as the child; speaking\nthrough the Eastern world in as many languages, perhaps, as 'the cloven\ntongues of fire' represented; to be remembered and blessed as long as\nGanges rolls!\"\n\nThe historian of the Baptist Missionary Society, and Robert Hall, whom\nSir James Mackintosh pronounced the greatest English orator, have both\nattempted an estimate of Carey's genius and influence. Dr. F. A. Cox\nremarks:--\"Had he been born in the sixteenth century he might have been\na Luther, to give Protestantism to Europe; had he turned his thought\nand observations merely to natural philosophy he might have been a\nNewton; but his faculties, consecrated by religion to a still higher\nend, have gained for him the sublime distinction of having been the\nTranslator of the Scriptures and the Benefactor of Asia.\" Robert Hall\nspoke thus of Carey in his lifetime:--\"That extraordinary man who, from\nthe lowest obscurity and poverty, without assistance, rose by dint of\nunrelenting industry to the highest honours of literature, became one\nof the first of Orientalists, the first of Missionaries, and the\ninstrument of diffusing more religious knowledge among his\ncontemporaries than has fallen to the lot of any individual since the\nReformation; a man who unites with the most profound and varied\nattainments the fervour of an evangelist, the piety of a saint, and the\nsimplicity of a child.\"\n\nExcept the portrait in London and the bust in Calcutta, no memorial,\nnational, catholic, or sectarian, marks the work of Carey.  That work\nis meanwhile most appropriately embodied in the College for natives at\nSerampore, in the Lall Bazaar chapel and Benevolent Institution for the\npoor of Calcutta.  The Church of England, which he left, like John\nWesley, has allowed E. S. Robinson, Esq., of Bristol, to place an\ninscription, on brass, in the porch of the church of his native\nvillage, beside the stone which he erected over the remains of his\nfather, Edmund, the parish clerk:--\"To the Glory of God and in memory\nof Dr. Wm. Carey, Missionary and Orientalist.\"\n\nNeither Baptist nor Anglican, the present biographer would, in the name\nof the country which stood firm in its support of Carey and Serampore\nall through the forty-one years of his apostolate, add this final\neulogy, pronounced in St. George's Free Church, Edinburgh, on the man\nwho, more than any other and before all others, made the civilisation\nof the modern world by the English-speaking races a Christian\nforce.[36] Carey, childlike in his humility, is the most striking\nillustration in all Hagiology, Protestant or Romanist, of the Lord's\ndeclaration to the Twelve when He had set a little child in the midst\nof them, \"Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same\nis greatest in the kingdom of heaven.\"  Yet we, nigh a century after he\nwent forth with the Gospel to Hindostan, may venture to place him where\nthe Church History of the future is likely to keep him--amid the\nuncrowned kings of men who have made Christian England what it is,\nunder God, to its own people and to half the human race.  These are\nChaucer, the Father of English Verse; Wyclif the Father of the\nEvangelical Reformation in all lands; Hooker, the Father of English\nProse; Shakspere, the Father of English Literature; Milton, the Father\nof the English Epic; Bunyan, the Father of English Allegory; Newton,\nthe father of English Science; Carey, the Father of the Second\nReformation through Foreign Missions.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nI.--CHARTER OF INCORPORATION OF SERAMPORE COLLEGE\n\nWE, Frederick the Sixth, by the Grace of God King of Denmark, the\nVenders and Gothers, Duke of Slesvig Holsten, Stormarn, Ditmarsken,\nLimessborg and Oldenborg, by writings these make known and publicly\ndeclare, that whereas William Carey and Joshua Marshman, Doctors of\nDivinity, and John Clark Marshman, Esq., inhabitants of our town of\nFredericksnagore (or Serampore) in Bengal, being desirous of founding a\nCollege to promote piety and learning particularly among the native\nChristian population of India, have to secure this object erected\nsuitable buildings and purchased and collected suitable books, maps,\netc., and have humbly besought us to grant unto them and such persons\nas shall be elected by them and their successors to form the Council of\nthe College in the manner to be hereafter named, our Royal Charter of\nIncorporation that they may the more effectually carry into execution\nthe purposes above-mentioned:--We, being desirous to encourage so\nlaudable an undertaking, have of our special grace and free motion\nordained, constituted, granted and declared, and by the presents We do\nfor ourselves, our heirs and successors ordain, constitute, grant and\ndeclare:\n\n1. That the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark\nMarshman, and such other person or persons as shall successively be\nelected and appointed the Council of the said College, in the manner\nhereafter mentioned, shall by virtue of the presents be for ever\nhereafter one body politic and incorporate by the name of the Serampore\nCollege for the purposes aforesaid to have perpetual succession and to\nhave a common seal, and by the said name to sue and be sued, to implead\nand be impleaded, and to answer and be answered unto in every court and\nplace belonging to us, our heirs and successors.\n\n2. And We do hereby ordain, constitute and declare that the persons\nhereby incorporated and their successors shall for ever be competent in\nlaw to purchase, hold and enjoy for them and their successors any goods\nand chattels whatsoever and to receive, purchase, hold and enjoy, they\nand their successors, any lands, tenements or hereditaments whatever,\nand that they shall have full power and authority to sell, exchange or\notherwise dispose of any real or personal property to be by them\nacquired as aforesaid, unless the sale or alienation of such property\nbe specially prohibited by the donor or donors thereof, and to do all\nthings relating to the said College or Corporation in as ample a manner\nor form as any of our liege subjects, or any other body politic or\ncorporate in our said kingdom or its dependencies may or can do.\n\n3. And We do hereby ordain, grant and declare that the number of\nProfessors, Fellows or Student Tutors and Students, shall be indefinite\nand that the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark\nMarshman, shall be the first Council of the said College, and that in\nthe event of its appearing to them necessary during their life-time, or\nin the case of the death of any one of the three members of the said\nfirst Council, the survivors or survivor shall and may under their\nrespective hands and seals appoint such other person or persons to be\nmembers of the Council of the College, and to succeed each other so as\nto become Members of the said Council in the order in which they shall\nbe appointed, to the intent that the Council of the said College shall\nfor ever consist of at least three persons.\n\n4. And We do hereby further ordain, grant and declare, that for the\nbetter government of the said College, and the better management of its\nconcerns, the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark\nMarshman, the members of the first Council, shall have full power and\nauthority for the space of ten years from the date of these presents,\nto make and establish such statutes as shall appear to them useful and\nnecessary for the government of the said College, in which statutes\nthey shall define the powers to be entrusted to their successors, to\nthe Professors, the Fellows or Student Tutors and the other Officers\nthereof, and the duties to be performed by these respectively for the\nmanagement of the estates, lands, revenues and goods--and of the\nbusiness of the said College, and the manner of proposing, electing,\nadmitting and removing all and every one of the Council, the\nProfessors, the Fellows or Tutors, the officers, the students and the\nservants thereof, and shall make and establish generally all such other\nstatutes as may appear to them necessary for the future good government\nand prosperity of the said College, provided that these statutes be not\ncontrary to the laws and statutes of our realm.\n\n5. And we do hereby further ordain, grant and declare, that the\nstatutes thus made and established by the said three members of the\nfirst Council, and given or left in writing under their respective\nhands, shall be valid and in full force at the expiration of ten years\nfrom the date of these presents, so that no future Council of the\nCollege shall have power to alter, change or vary them in any manner\nwhatever and that the statutes shall for ever be considered the\nconstitution of the said College.  And we do hereby appoint and declare\nthat these statutes shall be made and established by the said William\nCarey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman alone, so that in case\neither of them should die before the expiration of ten years, the power\nof completing or perfecting these statutes shall devolve wholly on the\nsurvivors or survivor; and that in case all three of them should die\nbefore the expiration of ten years, the statutes which they have left\nin writing under their hands, or under the hand of the last survivor\namong them shall be considered \"The Fundamental Statutes and\nConstitution of Serampore College,\" incapable of receiving either\naddition or alteration, and shall and may be registered in our Royal\nCourt of Chancery as \"The Statutes and Constitution of Serampore\nCollege.\"\n\n6. And We do hereby further appoint, grant and declare that from and\nafter the completion of the statutes of the said College in the above\nsaid time of ten years, the said Council of the College shall be deemed\nto consist of a Master or President and two or four members who may be\nProfessors or otherwise as the Statutes may direct so that the said\nCouncil shall not contain less than three, nor more than five persons,\nas shall be defined in the Statutes. The Council shall ever be elected\nas the Statutes of the College may direct, yet the said Master or\nPresident shall always previously have been a Member of the said\nCollege; and upon the decease of the said Master or President, the\nCouncil of the said College shall be unable to do any act or deed until\nthe appointment of a new Master or President, save and except the\nappointment of such a Master.\n\n7. And We further appoint, grant and declare, that the said William\nCarey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, the members of the\nfirst Council, and their successors for ever, shall have the power of\nconferring upon the students of the said College, Native Christians as\nwell as others, degrees of rank and honour according to their\nproficiency in as ample a manner as any other such College, yet the\nsaid Serampore College shall only have the power of conferring such\ndegrees on the students that testify their proficiency in Science and\nno rank or other special right shall be connected therewith in our\ndominions.  And We do hereby further appoint, grant and declare, that\nafter the expiration of the said ten years, the said Council of the\nCollege and their successors for ever shall have power to make and\nestablish such orders and bye-laws as shall appear to them useful and\nnecessary for the government of the said College, and to alter, suspend\nor repeal those already made, and from time to time make such new ones\nin their room as shall appear to them most proper and expedient\nprovided the same be not repugnant to the Statutes of the College, or\nto the laws of our realm, and that after the expiration of these ten\nyears any member of the Council shall have power to move the enactment\nof any new bye-law, or the alteration, suspension or repeal of any\nexisting one provided notice of such motion shall have been delivered\nin writing to the Master and read from the Chair at one previous\nmeeting of the Council of the said College, but that no such motion\nshall be deemed to have passed in the affirmative, until the same shall\nhave been discussed and decided by ballot at another meeting summoned\nespecially for that purpose, a majority of the members then present\nhaving voted in the affirmative; and in this, as in all other cases, if\nthe votes be equal, the Master or President shall have the casting vote.\n\nGiven at our Royal Palace in Copenhagen on the twenty-third day of\nFebruary, in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and\ntwenty-seven, in the nineteenth year of our reign.\n\nUnder our Royal Hand and Seal.\n\nFREDERICK R.\n\n\n\nII.--STATUTES AND REGULATIONS OF SERAMPORE COLLEGE\n\nJune 12th, 1833.\n\n1. Article the Third of the Charter granted by his Danish Majesty,\nhaving authorised the first Council of Serampore College in their\nlifetime to nominate under their hand and seal such other person or\npersons for colleagues or successors as may to them appear most proper,\nso that the Council shall always consist of at least three persons,\ntheir successors in the Council shall be competent in like manner to\nnominate in their lifetime, under their separate hand and seal, such\nperson or persons as they may deem most proper to fill vacancies then\nexisting or which may occur on their demise; members thus nominated and\nchosen shall succeed to the Council in order of their nomination.\n\n2. It being fixed in the Charter that the Council must consist of the\nMaster or President and at least two, but no more than four Members,\nand that on the demise of the Master no act shall be done until another\nbe elected, the Master and Council for the time being shall appoint the\nnext Master under their separate hand and seal. If on the demise of a\nMaster no one be found thus appointed under the hand and seal of a\nmajority of the Council, the Senior Member of the Council shall succeed\nas Master.\n\n3. The Charter having given the casting vote to the Master, in all\ncases when the votes are equal the casting vote shall lie with the\nMaster, and if there be no Master, it shall lie with the Senior Member\nof the Council.\n\n4. Learning and piety being peculiar to no denomination of Christians,\none member of the Council may at all times be of any other denomination\nbesides the Baptist, to preserve the original design of the\nInstitution; however, if on the election of a Master a number of the\nCouncil be equally divided, that part which is entirely of the Baptist\ndenomination shall have the casting vote, whether it includes the\nMaster or not.\n\n5. The management of the College, including its revenues and property,\nthe choice of Professor and Tutors, the admission of Students, the\nappointment of all functionaries and servants, and the general order\nand government of the College, shall ever be vested in the Master and\nthe Council.  The Master shall see that the Statutes and Regulations of\nthe Council be duly carried into effect, and take order for the good\ngovernment of the College in all things.  His signature is necessary to\nthe validity of all deeds, instruments, documents and proceedings.\n\n6. \"The first Council and their successor for ever\" being authorised by\nthe Charter \"to confer such degrees of rank and honour as shall\nencourage learning\" in the same manner as other Colleges and\nUniversities, they shall from time to time confer degrees in such\nbranches of Knowledge and Science as may be studied there, in the same\nmanner as the Universities in Denmark, Germany and Great Britain.  In\ndoing this the Master and Council shall ad libitum call in the aid of\nany or all the Professors of Serampore College.  All such degrees shall\nbe perfectly free of expense to the person on whom they may be\nconferred, whether he be in India, Europe or America.\n\n7. No oaths shall be administered in Serampore College, either to the\nMembers of Council, the Professors and Tutors, or the Students. In all\ncases a solemn promise, duly recorded and signed by the party, shall be\naccepted instead of an oath.\n\n8. Marriage shall be no bar to any office or situation in Serampore\nCollege, from that of the Master to that of the lowest student.\n\n9. The salaries of the Professors and Tutors in Serampore College shall\nbe appointed, and the means of support for all functionaries, students\nand servants be regulated by the Council in such manner as shall best\npromote the objects of the Institution.\n\n10. It is intended that neither the Master nor any Member of the\nCouncil in general shall receive any salary.  But any Master who may\nnot previously reside in the College shall have a residence there free\nof rent for himself and his family.  And if the Council shall elect any\none in Europe or in America, whom they deem eminent for learning and\npiety, a Member of the Council, with a view to choosing him Master,\nshould they on trial deem him worthy, the Council shall be competent to\nappoint him such salary as they may deem necessary, not exceeding,\nhowever, the highest given to a Professor.\n\n11. As the founders of the College deem the belief of Christ's Divinity\nand Atonement essential to vital Christianity, the promotion of which\nis the grand object of this Institution, no one shall be eligible to\nthe College Council or to any Professorship who is known to oppose\nthese doctrines, and should any one of the Professors or any member of\nthe Council unhappily so change his views after his election as to\noppose these fundamental doctrines of Christianity, on this being\nclearly and decidedly proved from his teaching or his writings, he\nshall vacate the office he previously held.  But every proceeding of\nthis nature on the part of the College Council shall be published to\nthe Christian world, with the proofs on which it may rest, as an\nAppendix to the succeeding Report.\n\n12. Members of the Council are eligible from among the Professors of\nthe College, or from among any in India, Europe, or America whom the\nCollege Council may deem suitable in point of learning, piety, and\ntalent.\n\n13. Students are admissible at the discretion of the Council from any\nbody of Christians, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, the Greek, or\nthe Armenian Church; and for the purpose of study, from the Mussulman\nand Hindu youth, whose habits forbid their living in the College.  No\ncaste, colour, or country shall bar any man from admission into\nSerampore College.\n\n14. Expulsion shall be awarded in cases of open immorality,\nincorrigible idleness, neglect of the College Statutes and regulations,\nor repeated disobedience to the officers of the College.\n\n15. Any person in India, Europe, or America shall be at liberty to\nfound any Professorship, or to attach to Serampore College any annual\nexhibition or prize for the encouragement of learning in the same\nmanner as in the Universities of Great Britain, regulating such\nendowment according to their own will; and it shall be duty of the\nCollege Council to carry such benefactions into effect in strict\nconsonance with the will of the donors as far as shall be consistent\nwith the Statutes of the College.\n\n16. It shall be lawful for the first Council of the College or their\nsuccessors to make and rescind any bye-laws whatever, provided they be\nnot contrary to these Statutes.\n\n17. The Charter having declared that the number of the Professors and\nstudents in Serampore College remains unlimited, they shall be left\nthus unlimited, the number to be regulated only by the gracious\nprovidence of God and the generosity of the public in India, Europe and\nAmerica.\n\n\n\nIII.--ARTICLE VI., CLAUSE 2, OF THE TREATY OF PURCHASE, TRANSFERRING\nSERAMPORE TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT\n\n\"The rights and immunities granted to the Serampore College by Royal\nCharter of date, 23rd February, 1827, shall not be interfered with, but\ncontinue in force in the same manner as if they had been obtained by a\nCharter from the British Government, subject to the general law of\nBritish India.\"\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[1] Iphicrates, great Athenian general, who was the son of a shoemaker,\nused this saying, fit motto for Carey, _ex oi\u00f4n eis oia_.\n\n[2] The shopmate, William Manning, preserved this signboard.  In 1881\nwe found a Baptist shoemaker, a descendant of Carey's wife, with four\nassistants, at work in the shed.  Then an old man, who had occasionally\nworked under Carey, had just died, and he used to tell how Carey had\nonce flipped him with his apron when he had allowed the wax to boil\nover.\n\n[3] In the library of the late Rev. T. Toller of Kettering was a\nmanuscript (now in the library of Bristol Baptist College) of nine\nsmall octavo pages, evidently in the exquisitely small and legible\nhandwriting of Carey, on the Psalter.  The short treatise discusses the\nliterary character and authorship of the Psalms in the style of\nMichaelis and Bishop Lowth, whose writings are referred to.  The Hebrew\nwords used are written even more beautifully than the English.  If this\nlittle work was written before Carey went to India--and the caligraphy\nseems to point to that--the author shows a very early familiarity with\nthe writings of one who was his predecessor as a Christian Orientalist,\nSir William Jones.  The closing paragraph has this sentence:--\"A\nfrequent perusal of the book of Psalms is recommended to all.  We\nshould permit few days to pass without reading in Hebrew one of those\nsacred poems; the more they are read and studied, the more will they\ndelight, edify, and instruct.\"\n\n[4] Twice reprinted, in Leicester, and in London (1892) in facsimile.\n\n[5] Wealth of Nations, Book IV., Chap. VII.\n\n[6] Mr. Thomas Haddon of Clipstone writes: \"I recollect when I was\nabout ten years old, at my father's house; it was on a Saturday, Carey\nwas on his way to Arnsby (which is twenty miles from Moulton) to supply\nthere the following Sabbath; he had then walked from Moulton to\nClipstone, a distance of ten miles, and had ten miles further to walk\nto Arnsby.  My honoured father had been intimately acquainted with him\nfor some years before, and he pressed him to stay and take an early cup\nof tea before he went further.  I well recollect my father saying to\nhim, 'I suppose you still work at your trade?' (which was that of an\narmy and navy shoemaker).  Mr. Carey replied: 'No, indeed, I do not;\nfor yesterday week I took in my work to Kettering, and Mr. Gotch came\ninto the warehouse just as I had emptied my bag.  He took up one of the\nshoes and said, \"Let me see, Carey, how much do you earn a week?\"  I\nsaid, \"About 9s., sir.\"  Mr. Gotch then said: \"I have a secret to tell\nyou, which is this: I do not intend you should spoil any more of my\nleather, but you may proceed as fast as you can with your Latin, Greek,\nand Hebrew, and I will allow you from my own private purse 10s. a\nweek!\"  With that sum and about 5s. a week which I get from my people\nat Moulton, I can make a comfortable living' (although at that time he\nhad a wife and three children to provide for).\"\n\n[7] Farewell Letters on Returning to Bengal in 1821.\n\n[8] Rev. A. T. Clarke succeeded Kiernander in 1789 in the Old or\nMission Church, according to Miss Blechynden's Calcutta Past and\nPresent (1905), p. 84.\n\n[9] At this time, and up to 1801, the last survivor of the Black Hole\ntragedy was living in Calcutta and bore his own name, though the\nmissionary knew it not.  Mrs. Carey was a country-born woman, who, when\na girl, had married an officer of one of the East Indiamen, and with\nhim, her mother, and sister, had been shut up in the Black Hole, where,\nwhile they perished, she is said to have retained life by swallowing\nher tears.  Dr. Bishop, of Merchant Taylors' School--Clive's\nSchool--wrote Latin verses on the story, which thus conclude--\n\n         \"...Nescit sitiendo perire\n  Cui sic dat lacrymas quas bibat ipsa fides.\"\n  --See Echoes from Old Calcutta, by Dr. Busteed, C.I.E.\n\n[10] But not its Church.  In October 1796 Mr. A. Johnstone, thirty\nyears elder in Lady Yester's congregation, beside the University of\nEdinburgh, began a prayer meeting for Carey's work and for foreign\nmissions.  He was summoned to the Presbytery, and there questioned as\nif he had been a \"Black-neb\" or revolutionary.  This meeting led to the\nfoundation of the Sabbath School and Destitute Sick Societies in\nEdinburgh.  See Lives of the Haldanes.\n\n[11] Dr. Marshman's English translation is still used, beginning--\n\n  \"Oh! thou my soul forget no more\n  The Friend who all thy misery bore.\"\n\n[12] The chatookee is a bird which, they say, drinks not at the streams\nbelow: but when it rains, opening its bill, it catches the drops as\nthey fall from the clouds.\n\n[13] The sight of the red coat of the military surgeon who attended him\ngave this form to his delirious talk: \"I treated him very roughly and\nrefused to touch his medicine.  In vain did he retire and put on a\nblack coat.  I knew him and was resolved.\"\n\n[14] In a criticism of the three Sanskrit grammars of Carey, Wilkins,\nand Colebrooke, the first number of the Quarterly Review in 1809\npronounces the first \"everywhere useful, laborious, and practical. Mr.\nWilkins has also discussed these subjects, though not always so amply\nas the worthy and unwearied missionary.  We have been much pleased with\nDr. Carey's very sensible preface.\"\n\n[15] It was reserved for a young Orientalist, whom the career of Carey\nand Wilson of Bombay attracted to the life of a Christian missionary,\nto do full justice to this book and its literature.  In 1885 the Hon.\nIon Keith-Falconer, M.A., published, at the Cambridge University Press,\nhis Kalilah and Dimnah, or The Fables of Bidpai: Being an Account of\ntheir Literary History, with an English Translation of the later Syriac\nVersion of the Same, and Notes.  The heroic scholar and humble follower\nof Christ, having given himself and his all to found a Mission to the\nMohammedans of South Arabia, at Sheikh Othman, near Aden, died there,\non 11th May 1887, a death which will bring life to Yemen, through his\nmemory, and the Mission which he founded, his family support, and the\nUnited Free Church of Scotland carry on in his name.\n\n[16]                   THIRTY-SIX BIBLE TRANSLATIONS,\n\n                 MADE AND EDITED BY DR. CAREY AT SERAMPORE\n\n     First\n  Published in\n     1801. BENGALI--New Testament; Old Testament in 1802-9.\n     1811.   Ooriya       \"              \"       in 1819.\n     1824.   Maghadi      \" only.\n  1815-19.   Assamese     \"              \"       in 1832.\n     1824.   Khasi.\n  1814-24.   Manipoori.\n     1808. SANSKRIT       \"              \"       in 1811-18.\n  1809-11. HINDI          \"              \"       in 1813-18.\n  1822-32.   Bruj-bhasa   \" only.\n  1815-22.   Kanouji      \"   \"\n     1820.   Khosali--Gospel of Matthew only.\n     1822.   Oodeypoori--New Testament only.\n     1815.   Jeypoori             \"\n     1821.   Bhugeli              \"\n     1821.   Marwari              \"\n     1822.   Haraoti              \"\n     1823.   Bikaneri             \"\n     1823.   Oojeini              \"\n     1824.   Bhatti               \"\n     1832.   Palpa                \"\n     1826.   Kumaoni              \"\n     1832.   Gurhwali             \"\n     1821.   Nepalese             \"\n     1811. MARATHI--              \"   Old Testament in 1820.\n     1820.   Goojarati            \" only.\n     1819.   Konkan               \"   Pentateuch in 1821.\n     1815. PANJABI                \"       \" and Historical Books\n                                                 in 1822.\n     1819.   Mooltani--New Testament.\n     1825.   Sindhi--Gospel of Matthew only.\n     1820.   Kashmeeri--New Testament; and Old Testament to 2nd Book\n                                        of Kings.\n  1820-26.   Dogri--New Testament only.\n     1819. PUSHTOO--New Test. and Old Test. Historical Books.\n     1815. BALOOCHI     \"         Three Gospels.\n     1818. TELUGOO      \"         and Pentateuch in 1820.\n     1822. KANARESE     \"         only.\n           MALDIVIAN--Four Gospels.\n\n                EDITED AND PRINTED ONLY BY CAREY\n\n  Persian.                         Singhalese.\n  Hindostani.                      Chinese (Dr. Marshman's).\n  Malayalam.                       Javanese.\n  Burmese--Matthew's Gospel.       Malay.\n\n[17] Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-77. London, 1884.\n\n[18] Mr. John Marshman, in his Life and Times of the three, states that\nFry and Figgins, the London typefounders, would not produce under \u00a3700\nhalf the Nagari fount which the Serampore native turned out at about\n\u00a3100.  In 1813 Dr. Marshman's Chinese Gospels were printed on movable\nmetallic types, instead of the immemorial wooden blocks, for the first\ntime in the twenty centuries of the history of Chinese printing.  This\nforms an era in the history of Chinese literature, he justly remarks.\n\n[19] The fervent printer thus wrote to his Hull friends:--\"To give to a\nman a New Testament who never saw it, who has been reading lies as the\nWord of God; to give him these everlasting lines which angels would be\nglad to read--this, this is my blessed work.\"\n\n[20] In 1795 Captain Dodds, a Madras officer front Scotland, translated\npart of the Bible into Telugoo, and, lingering on in the country to\ncomplete the work, died seven days after the date of his letter on the\nsubject in the Missionary Magazines of 1796.\n\n[21] Then Editor of the Friend of India.\n\n[22] The Chaitanya Charita Amrita, by Krishna Dass in 1557, was the\nfirst of importance.\n\n[23] Nor was his influence confined to the Protestant division of\nChristendom.  When, on the Restoration of 1815, France became once more\naggressively Romanist for a time, the Association for the Propagation\nof the Faith was founded at Lyons and Paris, avowedly on the model of\nthe Baptist Missionary Society, and it now raises a quarter of a\nmillion sterling a year for its missions.  The expression in an early\nnumber of its Annales is:--\"C'est l'Angleterre qui a fourni l'id\u00e9e\nmod\u00e8le,\" etc. \"La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Anabaptistes a form\u00e9 pour ses Missions\ndes Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s,\" etc.\n\n[24] Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., chapter I.\n\n[25] Fuller more than once referred to the dying words of Sutcliff--\"I\nwish I had prayed more.\" \"I do not suppose he wished he had prayed more\nfrequently, but more spiritually.  I wish I had prayed more for the\ninfluences of the Holy Spirit; I might have enjoyed more of the power\nof vital godliness.  I wish I had prayed more for the assistance of the\nHoly Spirit in studying and preaching my sermons; I might have seen\nmore of the blessing of God attending my ministry. I wish I had prayed\nmore for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to attend the labours of our\nfriends in India; I might have witnessed more of the effects of their\nefforts in the conversion of the heathen.\"\n\n[26] The Baptist missionary, who became an Arian, and was afterwards\nemployed by Lord William Bentinck to report on the actual state of\nprimary education in Bengal.\n\n[27] The first India chaplain of the Church of Scotland, superintendent\nof stationery and editor of the John Bull.--See Life of Alexander Duff,\nD.D.\n\n[28] His Majesty's Lord Chamberlain formally expressed to the British\nMinister at Copenhagen, H.E. the Hon. Edmund Monson, C.B., the King's\nhigh pleasure at \"the author's noble expressions of the good his\npre-possessors of the throne and the government of Denmark tried to do\nfor their Indian subjects,\" when the first edition of this Life of\nWilliam Carey, D.D., was presented to His Majesty.--See Taylor and\nSon's Biographical and Literary Notices of William Carey, D.D.,\nNorthampton, 1886.\n\n[29] In 1834, the year Carey died, there were in the college ten\nEuropean and Eurasian students learning Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Bengali,\nmathematics, chemistry, mental philosophy, and history (ancient and\necclesiastical).  There were forty-eight resident native Christians and\nthirty-four Hindoos, sons of Brahmans chiefly, learning Sanskrit,\nBengali, and English. \"The Bengal language is sedulously\ncultivated...The Christian natives of India will most effectually\ncombat error and diffuse sounder information with a knowledge of\nSanskrit.  The communication, therefore, of a thoroughly classic Indian\neducation to Christian youth is deemed an important but not always an\nindispensable object.\"\n\n[30] Serampore--Srirampur or place of the worshipful Ram.\n\n[31] Aitchison's Collection, vol. i., edition 1892, pp. 81-86\n\n[32] Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., 1879.\n\n[33] William Carey, by James Culross, D.D., 1881.\n\n[34] For years, and till the land was sold to the India Jute Company in\n1875, the Garden was kept up at the expense of John Marshman, Esq.,\nC.S.I.\n\n\n[35]                                                         Sa. Rs.\n     \"From May 1801 to June 1807, inclusive, as Teacher of\n     Bengali and Sanskrit, 74 months at 500 rupees monthly   37,000\n\n     From 1st July 1807 to 31st May 1830, as Professor of\n     ditto, at 1000 rupees monthly                         2,75,000\n\n     From 23rd Oct. to July 1830, inclusive, 300 rupees\n     monthly, as Translator of Government Regulations        24,600\n\n     From 1st July 1830 to 31st May 1834, a pension of 500\n     rupees monthly                                          23,500\n\n                                             \"Sicca Rupees 3,60,100\"\n\n[36] The Evangelical Succession. Third Series. Edinburgh, Macniven and\nWallace, 1884.","title":"The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":143021}