The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of William Carey, by George Smith This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Life of William Carey Author: George Smith Posting Date: January 29, 2009 [EBook #2056] Release Date: February, 2000 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY *** Produced by John Bechard. HTML version by Al Haines.
{Note from the preparer of this etext: I have had to insert a view comments mainly in regards to adjustments to fonts to allow for some of the characters in the Indian names; you will find any of my own notes enclosed in these brackets—{}. I have also renumbered the footnotes and placed them at the end of this e-text, removing them from within the document where they fell at the end of each corresponding page.}
{Updater's note: footnote numbers have been enclosed with square brackets, e.g. [30]. The Greek in footnote 1 has been transliterated according to the Project Gutenberg Greek How-to.}
On the death of William Carey In 1834 Dr. Joshua Marshman promised to write the Life of his great colleague, with whom he had held almost daily converse since the beginning of the century, but he survived too short a time to begin the work. In 1836 the Rev. Eustace Carey anticipated him by issuing what is little better than a selection of mutilated letters and journals made at the request of the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society. It contains one passage of value, however. Dr. Carey once said to his nephew, whose design he seems to have suspected, "Eustace, if after my removal any one should think it worth his while to write my Life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness. If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything."
In 1859 Mr. John Marshman, after his final return to England, published The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, a valuable history and defence of the Serampore Mission, but rather a biography of his father than of Carey.
When I first went to Serampore the great missionary had not been twenty years dead. During my long residence there as Editor of the Friend of India, I came to know, in most of its details, the nature of the work done by Carey for India and for Christendom in the first third of the century. I began to collect such materials for his Biography as were to be found in the office, the press, and the college, and among the Native Christians and Brahman pundits whom he had influenced. In addition to such materials and experience I have been favoured with the use of many unpublished letters written by Carey or referring to him; for which courtesy I here desire to thank Mrs. S. Carey, South Bank, Red Hill; Frederick George Carey, Esq., LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn; and the Rev. Jonathan P. Carey of Tiverton.
My Biographies of Carey of Serampore, Henry Martyn, Duff of Calcutta, and Wilson of Bombay, cover a period of nearly a century and a quarter, from 1761 to 1878. They have been written as contributions to that history of the Christian Church of India which one of its native sons must some day attempt; and to the history of English-speaking peoples, whom the Foreign Missions begun by Carey have made the rulers and civilisers of the non-Christian world.
The Heart of England—The Weaver Carey who became a Peer, and the weaver who was father of William Carey—Early training in Paulerspury—Impressions made by him on his sister—On his companions and the villagers—His experience as son of the parish clerk—Apprenticed to a shoemaker of Hackleton—Poverty—Famous shoemakers from Annianus and Crispin to Hans Sachs and Whittier—From Pharisaism to Christ—The last shall be first—The dissenting preacher in the parish clerk's home—He studies Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Dutch and French—The cobbler's shed is Carey's College.
William Carey, the first of her own children of the Reformation whom England sent forth as a missionary to India, where he became the most extensive translator of the Bible and civiliser, was the son of a weaver, and was himself a village shoemaker till he was twenty-eight years of age. He was born on the 17th August 1761, in the very midland of England, in the heart of the district which had produced Shakspere, had fostered Wyclif and Hooker, had bred Fox and Bunyan, and had for a time been the scene of the lesser lights of John Mason and Doddridge, of John Newton and Thomas Scott. William Cowper, the poet of missions, made the land his chosen home, writing Hope and The Task in Olney, while the shoemaker was studying theology under Sutcliff on the opposite side of the market-place. Thomas Clarkson, born a year before Carey, was beginning his assaults on the slave-trade by translating into English his Latin essay on the day-star of African liberty when the shoemaker, whom no university knew, was writing his Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens.
William Carey bore a name which had slowly fallen into forgetfulness after services to the Stewarts, with whose cause it had been identified. Professor Stephens, of Copenhagen, traces it to the Scando-Anglian Car, CAER or CARE, which became a place-name as CAR-EY. Among scores of neighbours called William, William of Car-ey would soon sink into Carey, and this would again become the family name. In Denmark the name Caròe is common. The oldest English instance is the Cariet who coined money in London for Æthelred II. in 1016. Certainly the name, through its forms of Crew, Carew, Carey, and Cary, still prevails on the Irish coast—from which depression of trade drove the family first to Yorkshire, then to the Northamptonshire village of Yelvertoft, and finally to Paulerspury, farther south—as well as over the whole Danegelt from Lincolnshire to Devonshire. If thus there was Norse blood in William Carey it came out in his persistent missionary daring, and it is pleasant even to speculate on the possibility of such an origin in one who was all his Indian life indebted to Denmark for the protection which alone made his career possible.
The Careys who became famous in English history sprang from Devon. For two and a half centuries, from the second Richard to the second Charles, they gave statesmen and soldiers, scholars and bishops, to the service of their country. Henry Carey, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth, was the common ancestor of two ennobled houses long since extinct—the Earls of Dover and the Earls of Monmouth. A third peerage won by the Careys has been made historic by the patriotic counsels and self-sacrificing fate of Viscount Falkland, whose representative was Governor of Bombay for a time. Two of the heroic Falkland's descendants, aged ladies, addressed a pathetic letter to Parliament about the time that the great missionary died, praying that they might not be doomed to starvation by being deprived of a crown pension of £80 a year. The older branch of the Careys also had fallen on evil times, and it became extinct while the future missionary was yet four years old. The seventh lord was a weaver when he succeeded to the title, and he died childless. The eighth was a Dutchman who had to be naturalised, and he was the last. The Careys fell lower still. One of them bore to the brilliant and reckless Marquis of Halifax, Henry Carey, who wrote one of the few English ballads that live. Another, the poet's granddaughter, was the mother of Edmund Kean, and he at first was known by her name on the stage.
At that time when the weaver became the lord the grandfather of the missionary was parish clerk and first schoolmaster of the village of Paulerspury, eleven miles south of Northampton, and near the ancient posting town of Towcester, on the old Roman road from London to Chester. The free school was at the east or "church end" of the village, which, after crossing the old Watling Street, straggles for a mile over a sluggish burn to the "Pury end." One son, Thomas, had enlisted and was in Canada. Edmund Carey, the second, set up the loom on which he wove the woollen cloth known as "tammy," in a two-storied cottage. There his eldest child, WILLIAM, was born, and lived for six years till his father was appointed schoolmaster, when the family removed to the free schoolhouse. The cottage was demolished in 1854 by one Richard Linnell, who placed on the still meaner structure now occupying the site the memorial slab that guides many visitors to the spot. The schoolhouse, in which William Carey spent the eight most important years of his childhood till he was fourteen, and the school made way for the present pretty buildings.
The village surroundings and the country scenery coloured the whole of the boy's after life, and did much to make him the first agricultural improver and naturalist of Bengal, which he became. The lordship of Pirie, as it was called by Gitda, its Saxon owner, was given by the Conqueror, with much else, to his natural son, William Peverel, as we see from the Domesday survey. His descendants passed it on to Robert de Paveli, whence its present name, but in Carey's time it was held by the second Earl Bathurst, who was Lord Chancellor. Up to the very schoolhouse came the royal forest of Whittlebury, its walks leading north to the woods of Salcey, of Yardley Chase and Rockingham, from the beeches which give Buckingham its name. Carey must have often sat under the Queen's Oak, still venerable in its riven form, where Edward IV., when hunting, first saw Elizabeth, unhappy mother of the two princes murdered in the Tower. The silent robbery of the people's rights called "inclosures" has done much, before and since Carey's time, to sweep away or shut up the woodlands. The country may be less beautiful, while the population has grown so that Paulerspury has now nearly double the eight hundred inhabitants of a century ago. But its oolitic hills, gently swelling to above 700 feet, and the valleys of the many rivers which flow from this central watershed, west and east, are covered with fat vegetation almost equally divided between grass and corn, with green crops. The many large estates are rich in gardens and orchards. The farmers, chiefly on small holdings, are famous for their shorthorns and Leicester sheep. Except for the rapidly-developing production of iron from the Lias, begun by the Romans, there is but one manufacture—that of shoes. It is now centred by modern machinery and labour arrangements in Northampton itself, which has 24,000 shoemakers, and in the other towns, but a century ago the craft was common to every hamlet. For botany and agriculture, however, Northamptonshire was the finest county in England, and young Carey had trodden many a mile of it, as boy and man, before he left home for ever for Bengal.
Two unfinished autobiographical sketches, written from India at the request of Fuller and of Ryland, and letters of his youngest sister Mary, his favourite "Polly" who survived him, have preserved for us in still vivid characters the details of the early training of William Carey. He was the eldest of five children. He was the special care of their grandmother, a woman of a delicate nature and devout habits, who closed her sad widowhood in the weaver-son's cottage. Encompassed by such a living influence the grandson spent his first six years. Already the child unconsciously showed the eager thirst for knowledge, and perseverance in attaining his object, which made him chiefly what he became. His mother would often be awoke in the night by the pleasant lisping of a voice "casting accompts; so intent was he from childhood in the pursuit of knowledge. Whatever he began he finished; difficulties never seemed to discourage his mind." On removal to the ancestral schoolhouse the boy had a room to himself. His sister describes it as full of insects stuck in every corner that he might observe their progress. His many birds he entrusted to her care when he was from home. In this picture we see the exact foreshadowing of the man. "Though I often used to kill his birds by kindness, yet when he saw my grief for it he always indulged me with the pleasure of serving them again; and often took me over the dirtiest roads to get at a plant or an insect. He never walked out, I think, when quite a boy, without observation on the hedges as he passed; and when he took up a plant of any kind he always observed it with care. Though I was but a child I well remember his pursuits. He always seemed in earnest in his recreations as well as in school. He was generally one of the most active in all the amusements and recreations that boys in general pursue. He was always beloved by the boys about his own age." To climb a certain tree was the object of their ambition; he fell often in the attempt, but did not rest till he had succeeded. His Uncle Peter was a gardener in the same village, and gave him his first lessons in botany and horticulture. He soon became responsible for his father's official garden, till it was the best kept in the neighbourhood. Wherever after that he lived, as boy or man, poor or in comfort, William Carey made and perfected his garden, and always for others, until he created at Serampore the botanical park which for more than half a century was unique in Southern Asia.
We have in a letter from the Manse, Paulerspury, a tradition of the impression made on the dull rustics by the dawning genius of the youth whom they but dimly comprehended. He went amongst them under the nickname of Columbus, and they would say, "Well, if you won't play, preach us a sermon," which he would do. Mounting on an old dwarf witch-elm about seven feet high, where several could sit, he would hold forth. This seems to have been a resort of his for reading, his favourite occupation. The same authority tells how, when suffering toothache, he allowed his companions to drag the tooth from his head with a violent jerk, by tying around it a string attached to a wheel used to grind malt, to which they gave a sharp turn.
The boy's own peculiar room was a little library as well as museum of natural history. He possessed a few books, which indeed were many for those days, but he borrowed more from the whole country-side. Recalling the eight years of his intellectual apprenticeship till he was fourteen, from the serene height of his missionary standard, he wrote long after:—"I chose to read books of science, history, voyages, etc., more than any others. Novels and plays always disgusted me, and I avoided them as much as I did books of religion, and perhaps from the same motive. I was better pleased with romances, and this circumstance made me read the Pilgrim's Progress with eagerness, though to no purpose." The new era, of which he was to be the aggressive spiritual representative from Christendom, had not dawned. Walter Scott was ten years his junior. Captain Cook had not discovered the Sandwich Islands, and was only returning from the second of his three voyages while Carey was still at school. The church services and the watchfulness of his father supplied the directly moral training which his grandmother had begun.
The Paulerspury living of St. James is a valuable rectory in the gift of New College, Oxford. Originally built in Early English, and rebuilt in 1844, the church must have presented a still more venerable appearance a century ago than it does now, with its noble tower in the Perpendicular, and chancel in the Decorated style, dominating all the county. Then, as still, effigies of a Paveli and his wife, and of Sir Arthur Throckmorton and his wife recumbent head to head, covered a large altar-tomb in the chancel, and with the Bathurst and other monuments called forth first the fear and then the pride of the parish clerk's eldest son. In those days the clerk had just below the pulpit the desk from which his sonorous "Amen" sounded forth, while his family occupied a low gallery rising from the same level up behind the pulpit. There the boys of the free school also could be under the master's eye, and with instruments of music like those of King David, but now banished from even village churches, would accompany him in the doggerel strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, immortalised by Cowper. To the far right the boys could see and long for the ropes under the tower, in which the bell-ringers of his day, as of Bunyan's not long before, delighted. The preaching of the time did nothing more for young Carey than for the rest of England and Scotland, whom the parish church had not driven into dissent or secession. But he could not help knowing the Prayer-Book, and especially its psalms and lessons, and he was duly confirmed. The family training, too, was exceptionally scriptural, though not evangelical. "I had many stirrings of mind occasioned by being often obliged to read books of a religious character; and, having been accustomed from my infancy to read the Scriptures, I had a considerable acquaintance therewith, especially with the historical parts." The first result was to make him despise dissenters. But, undoubtedly, this eldest son of the schoolmaster and the clerk of the parish had at fourteen received an education from parents, nature, and books which, with his habits of observation, love of reading, and perseverance, made him better instructed than most boys of fourteen far above the peasant class to which he belonged.
Buried in this obscure village in the dullest period of the dullest of all centuries, the boy had no better prospect before him than that of a weaver or labourer, or possibly a schoolmaster like one of his uncles in the neighbouring town of Towcester. When twelve years of age, with his uncle there, he might have formed one of the crowd which listened to John Wesley, who, in 1773 and then aged seventy, visited the prosperous posting town. Paulerspury could indeed boast of one son, Edward Bernard, D.D., who, two centuries before, had made for himself a name in Oxford, where he was Savilian Professor of Astronomy. But Carey was not a Scotsman, and therefore the university was not for such as he. Like his school-fellows, he seemed born to the English labourer's fate of five shillings a week, and the poorhouse in sickness and old age. From this, in the first instance, he was saved by a disease which affected his face and hands most painfully whenever he was long exposed to the sun. For seven years he had failed to find relief. His attempt at work in the field were for two years followed by distressing agony at night. He was now sixteen, and his father sought out a good man who would receive him as apprentice to the shoemaking trade. The man was not difficult to find, in the hamlet of Hackleton, nine miles off, in the person of one Clarke Nichols. The lad afterwards described him as "a strict churchman and, what I thought, a very moral man. It is true he sometimes drank rather too freely, and generally employed me in carrying out goods on the Lord's Day morning; but he was an inveterate enemy to lying, a vice to which I was awfully addicted." The senior apprentice was a dissenter, and the master and his boys gave much of the talk over their work to disputes upon religious subjects. Carey "had always looked upon dissenters with contempt. I had, moreover, a share of pride sufficient for a thousand times my knowledge; I therefore always scorned to have the worst in an argument, and the last word was assuredly mine. I also made up in positive assertion what was wanting in argument, and generally came off with triumph. But I was often convinced afterwards that although I had the last word my antagonist had the better of the argument, and on that account felt a growing uneasiness and stings of conscience gradually increasing." The dissenting apprentice was soon to be the first to lead him to Christ.
William Carey was a shoemaker during the twelve years of his life from sixteen to twenty-eight, till he went to Leicester. Poverty, which the grace of God used to make him a preacher also from his eighteenth year, compelled him to work with his hands in leather all the week, and to tramp many a weary mile to Northampton and Kettering carrying the product of his labour. At one time, when minister of Moulton, he kept a school by day, made or cobbled shoes by night, and preached on Sunday. So Paul had made tents of his native Cilician goatskin in the days when infant Christianity was chased from city to city, and the cross was a reproach only less bitter, however, than evangelical dissent in Christian England in the eighteenth century. The providence which made and kept young Carey so long a shoemaker, put him in the very position in which he could most fruitfully receive and nurse the sacred fire that made him the most learned scholar and Bible translator of his day in the East. The same providence thus linked him to the earliest Latin missionaries of Alexandria, of Asia Minor, and of Gaul, who were shoemakers, and to a succession of scholars and divines, poets and critics, reformers and philanthropists, who have used the shoemaker's life to become illustrious.[1] St. Mark chose for his successor, as first bishop of Alexandria, that Annianus whom he had been the means of converting to Christ when he found him at the cobbler's stall. The Talmud commemorates the courage and the wisdom of "Rabbi Jochanan, the shoemaker," whose learning soon after found a parallel in Carey's. Like Annianus, "a poor shoemaker named Alexander, despised in the world but great in the sight of God, who did honour to so exalted a station in the Church," became famous as Bishop of Comana in Cappadocia, as saint, preacher, and missionary-martyr. Soon after there perished in the persecutions of Diocletian, at Soissons, the two missionary brothers whose name of Crispin has ever since been gloried in by the trade, which they chose at once as a means of livelihood and of helping their poor converts. The Hackleton apprentice was still a child when the great Goethe was again adding to the then artificial literature of his country his own true predecessor, Hans Sachs, the shoemaker of Nürnberg, the friend of Luther, the meistersinger of the Reformation. And it was another German shoemaker, Boehme, whose exalted theosophy as expounded by William Law became one link in the chain that drew Carey to Christ, as it influenced Wesley and Whitefield, Samuel Johnson and Coleridge. George Fox was only nineteen when, after eight years' service with a shoemaker in Drayton, Leicestershire, not far from Carey's county, he heard the voice from heaven which sent him forth in 1643 to preach righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, till Cromwell sought converse with him, and the Friends became a power among men.
Carlyle has, in characteristic style, seized on the true meaning that was in the man when he made to himself a suit of leather and became the modern hero of Sartor Resartus. The words fit William Carey's case even better than that of George Fox:—"Sitting in his stall, working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had nevertheless a Living Spirit belonging to him; also an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could look upwards and discern its celestial Home." That "shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or Loretto-shrine...Stitch away, every prick of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of slavery." Thirty-six years after Fox had begun to wear his leathern doublet he directed all Friends everywhere that had Indians or blacks to preach the Gospel to them.
But it would be too long to tell the list of workers in what has been called the gentle craft, whom the cobbler's stall, with its peculiar opportunities for rhythmic meditation, hard thinking, and oft harder debating, has prepared for the honours of literature and scholarship, of philanthropy and reform. To mention only Carey's contemporaries, the career of these men ran parallel at home with his abroad—Thomas Shillitoe, who stood before magistrates, bishops, and such sovereigns as George III. and IV. and the Czar Alexander I. in the interests of social reform; and John Pounds, the picture of whom as the founder of ragged schools led Thomas Guthrie, when he stumbled on it in an inn in Anstruther, to do the same Christlike work in Scotland. Coleridge, who when at Christ's Hospital was ambitious to be a shoemaker's apprentice, was right when he declared that shoemakers had given to the world a larger number of eminent men than any other handicraft. Whittier's own early experience in Massachusetts fitted him to be the poet-laureate of the craft which for some years he adorned. His Songs of Labour, published in 1850, contain the best English lines on shoemakers since Shakspere put into the mouth of King Henry V. the address on the eve of Agincourt, which begins: "This day is called the feast of Crispin." But Whittier, Quaker, philanthropist, and countryman of Judson though he was, might have found a place for Carey when he sang so well of others:—
"Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet,
In strong and hearty German;
And Bloomfield's lay and Gifford's wit
And patriot fame of Sherman;
"Still from his book, a mystic seer,
The soul of Behmen teaches,
And England's priestcraft shakes to hear
Of Fox's leathern breeches."
The confessions of Carey, made in the spiritual humility and self-examination of his later life, form a parallel to the Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the little classic of John Bunyan second only to his Pilgrim's Progress. The young Pharisee, who entered Hackleton with such hate in his heart to dissenters that he would have destroyed their meeting-place, who practised "lying, swearing, and other sins," gradually yielded so far to his brother apprentice's importunity as to leave these off, to try to pray sometimes when alone, to attend church three times a day, and to visit the dissenting prayer-meeting. Like the zealot who thought to do God service by keeping the whole law, Carey lived thus for a time, "not doubting but this would produce ease of mind and make me acceptable to God." What revealed him to himself was an incident which he tells in language recalling at once Augustine and one of the subtlest sketches of George Eliot, in which the latter uses her half-knowledge of evangelical faith to stab the very truth that delivered Paul and Augustine, Bunyan and Carey, from the antinomianism of the Pharisee:—
"A circumstance which I always reflect on with a mixture of horror and gratitude occurred about this time, which, though greatly to my dishonour, I must relate. It being customary in that part of the country for apprentices to collect Christmas boxes [donations] from the tradesmen with whom their masters have dealings, I was permitted to collect these little sums. When I applied to an ironmonger, he gave me the choice of a shilling or a sixpence; I of course chose the shilling, and putting it in my pocket, went away. When I had got a few shillings my next care was to purchase some little articles for myself, I have forgotten what. But then, to my sorrow, I found that my shilling was a brass one. I paid for the things which I bought by using a shilling of my master's. I now found that I had exceeded my stock by a few pence. I expected severe reproaches from my master, and therefore came to the resolution to declare strenuously that the bad money was his. I well remember the struggles of mind which I had on this occasion, and that I made this deliberate sin a matter of prayer to God as I passed over the fields towards home! I there promised that, if God would but get me clearly over this, or, in other words, help me through with the theft, I would certainly for the future leave off all evil practices; but this theft and consequent lying appeared to me so necessary, that they could not be dispensed with.
"A gracious God did not get me safe through. My master sent the other apprentice to investigate the matter. The ironmonger acknowledged the giving me the shilling, and I was therefore exposed to shame, reproach, and inward remorse, which preyed upon my mind for a considerable time. I at this time sought the Lord, perhaps much more earnestly than ever, but with shame and fear. I was quite ashamed to go out, and never, till I was assured that my conduct was not spread over the town, did I attend a place of worship.
"I trust that, under these circumstances, I was led to see much more of myself than I had ever done before, and to seek for mercy with greater earnestness. I attended prayer-meetings only, however, till February 10, 1779, which being appointed a day of fasting and prayer, I attended worship on that day. Mr. Chater [congregationalist] of Olney preached, but from what text I have forgotten. He insisted much on following Christ entirely, and enforced his exhortation with that passage, 'Let us therefore go out unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.'—Heb. xiii. 13. I think I had a desire to follow Christ; but one idea occurred to my mind on hearing those words which broke me off from the Church of England. The idea was certainly very crude, but useful in bringing me from attending a lifeless, carnal ministry to one more evangelical. I concluded that the Church of England, as established by law, was the camp in which all were protected from the scandal of the cross, and that I ought to bear the reproach of Christ among the dissenters; and accordingly I always afterwards attended divine worship among them."
At eighteen Carey was thus emptied of self and there was room for Christ. In a neighbouring village he consorted much for a time with some followers of William Law, who had not long before passed away in a village in the neighbourhood, and select passages from whose writings the Moravian minister, Francis Okely, of Northampton, had versified. These completed the negative process. "I felt ruined and helpless." Then to his spiritual eyes, purged of self, there appeared the Crucified One; and to his spiritual intelligence there was given the Word of God. The change was that wrought on Paul by a Living Person. It converted the hypocritical Pharisee into the evangelical preacher; it turned the vicious peasant into the most self-denying saint; it sent the village shoemaker far off to the Hindoos.
But the process was slow; it had been so even in Paul's case. Carey found encouragement in intercourse with some old Christians in Hackleton, and he united with a few of them, including his fellow-apprentice, in forming a congregational church. The state of the parish may be imagined from its recent history. Hackleton is part of Piddington, and the squire had long appropriated the living of £300 a year, the parsonage, the glebe, and all tithes, sending his house minister "at times" to do duty. A Certificate from Northamptonshire, against the pluralities and other such scandals, published in 1641, declared that not a child or servant in Hackleton or Piddington could say the Lord's Prayer. Carey sought the preaching of Doddridge's successor at Northampton, of a Baptist minister at Road, and of Scott the commentator, then at Ravenstone. He had found peace, but was theologically "inquisitive and unsatisfied." Fortunately, like Luther, he "was obliged to draw all from the Bible alone."
When, at twenty years of age, Carey was slowly piecing together "the doctrines in the Word of God" into something like a system which would at once satisfy his own spiritual and intellectual needs, and help him to preach to others, a little volume was published, of which he wrote:—"I do not remember ever to have read any book with such raptures." It was Help to Zion's Travellers; being an attempt to remove various Stumbling-Blocks out of the Way, relating to Doctrinal, Experimental, and Practical Religion, by Robert Hall. The writer was the father of the greater Robert Hall, a venerable man, who, in his village church of Arnsby, near Leicester, had already taught Carey how to preach. The book is described as an "attempt to relieve discouraged Christians" in a day of gloominess and perplexity, that they might devote themselves to Christ through life as well as be found in Him in death. Carey made a careful synopsis of it in an exquisitely neat hand on the margin of each page. The worm-eaten copy, which he treasured even in India, is now deposited in Bristol College.
A Calvinist of the broad missionary type of Paul, Carey somewhat suddenly, according to his own account, became a Baptist. "I do not recollect having read anything on the subject till I applied to Mr. Ryland, senior, to baptise me. He lent me a pamphlet, and turned me over to his son," who thus told the story when the Baptist Missionary Society held its first public meeting in London:—"October 5th, 1783: I baptised in the river Nen, a little beyond Dr. Doddridge's meeting-house at Northampton, a poor journeyman shoemaker, little thinking that before nine years had elapsed, he would prove the first instrument of forming a society for sending missionaries from England to preach the gospel to the heathen. Such, however, as the event has proved, was the purpose of the Most High, who selected for this work not the son of one of our most learned ministers, nor of one of the most opulent of our dissenting gentlemen, but the son of a parish clerk."
The spot may still be visited at the foot of the hill, where the Nen fed the moat of the old castle, in which many a Parliament sat from the days of King John. The text of that morning's sermon happened to be the Lord's saying, "Many first shall be last, and the last first," which asserts His absolute sovereignty in choosing and in rewarding His missionaries, and introduces the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. As Carey wrote in the fulness of his fame, that the evangelical doctrines continued to be the choice of his heart, so he never wavered in his preference for the Baptist division of the Christian host. But from the first he enjoyed the friendship of Scott and Newton, and of his neighbour Mr. Robinson of St. Mary's, Leicester, and we shall see him in India the centre of the Episcopal and Presbyterian chaplains and missionaries from Martyn Wilson to Lacroix and Duff. His controversial spirit died with the youthful conceit and self-righteousness of which it is so often the birth. When at eighteen he learned to know himself, he became for ever humble. A zeal like that of his new-found Master took its place, and all the energy of his nature, every moment of his time, was directed to setting Him forth.
In his monthly visits to the father-house at Paulerspury the new man in him could not be hid. His sister gives us a vivid sketch of the lad, whose going over to the dissenters was resented by the formal and stern clerk, and whose evangelicalism was a reproach to the others.
"At this time he was increasingly thoughtful, and very was jealous for the Lord of Hosts. Like Gideon, he seemed for throwing down all the altars of Baal in one night. When he came home we used to wonder at the change. We knew that before he was rather inclined to persecute the faith he now seemed to wish to propagate. At first, perhaps, his zeal exceeded the bounds of prudence; but he felt the importance of things we were strangers to, and his natural disposition was to pursue earnestly what he undertook, so that it was not to be wondered at, though we wondered at the change. He stood alone in his father's house for some years. After a time he asked permission to have family prayer when he came home to see us, a favour which he very readily had granted. Often have I felt my pride rise while he was engaged in prayer, at the mention of those words in Isaiah, 'that all our righteousness was like filthy rags.' I did not think he thought his so, but looked on me and the family as filthy, not himself and his party. Oh, what pride is in the human heart! Nothing but my love to my brother would have kept me from showing my resentment."
"A few of the friends of religion wished our brother to exercise his gifts by speaking to a few friends in a house licensed at Pury; which he did with great acceptance. The next morning a neighbour of ours, a very pious woman, came in to congratulate my mother on the occasion, and to speak of the Lord's goodness in calling her son, and my brother, two such near neighbours, to the same noble calling. My mother replied, 'What, do you think he will be a preacher?' 'Yes,' she replied, 'and a great one, I think, if spared.' From that time till he was settled at Moulton he regularly preached once a month at Pury with much acceptance. He was at that time in his twentieth year, and married. Our parents were always friendly to religion; yet, on some accounts, we should rather have wished him to go from home than come home to preach. I do not think I ever heard him, though my younger brother and my sister, I think, generally did. Our father much wished to hear his son, if he could do it unseen by him or any one. It was not long before an opportunity offered, and he embraced it. Though he was a man that never discovered any partiality for the abilities of his children, but rather sometimes went too far on the other hand, that often tended a little to discourage them, yet we were convinced that he approved of what he heard, and was highly gratified by it."
In Hackleton itself his expositions of Scripture were so valued that the people, he writes, "being ignorant, sometimes applauded to my great injury." When in poverty, so deep that he fasted all that day because he had not a penny to buy a dinner, he attended a meeting of the Association of Baptist Churches at Olney, not far off. There he first met with his lifelong colleague, the future secretary of the mission, Andrew Fuller, the young minister of Soham, who preached on being men in understanding, and there it was arranged that he should preach regularly to a small congregation at Earls Barton, six miles from Hackleton. His new-born humility made him unable to refuse the duty, which he discharged for more than three years while filling his cobbler's stall at Hackleton all the week, and frequently preaching elsewhere also. The secret of his power which drew the Northamptonshire peasants and craftsmen to the feet of their fellow was this, that he studied the portion of Scripture, which he read every morning at his private devotions, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
This was Carey's "college." On the death of his first master, when he was eighteen, he had transferred his apprenticeship to a Mr. T. Old. Hackleton stands on the high road from Bedford and Olney to Northampton, and Thomas Scott was in the habit of resting at Mr. Old's on his not infrequent walks from Olney, where he had succeeded John Newton. There he had no more attentive listener or intelligent talker than the new journeyman, who had been more influenced by his preaching at Ravenstone than by that of any other man. Forty years after, just before Scott's death, Dr. Ryland gave him this message from Carey:—"If there be anything of the work of God in my soul, I owe much of it to his preaching when I first set out in the ways of the Lord;" to which this reply was sent: "I am surprised as well as gratified at your message from Dr. Carey. He heard me preach only a few times, and that as far as I know in my rather irregular excursions; though I often conversed and prayed in his presence, and endeavoured to answer his sensible and pertinent inquiries when at Hackleton. But to have suggested even a single useful hint to such a mind as his must be considered as a high privilege and matter of gratitude." Scott had previously written this more detailed account of his intercourse with the preaching shoemaker, whom he first saw when he called on Mr. Old to tell him of the welfare of his mother:
"When I went into the cottage I was soon recognised, and Mr. Old came in, with a sensible-looking lad in his working-dress. I at first rather wondered to see him enter, as he seemed young, being, I believe, little of his age. We, however, entered into very interesting conversation, especially respecting my parishioner, their relative, and the excellent state of her mind, and the wonder of divine grace in the conversion of one who had been so very many years considered as a self-righteous Pharisee. I believe I endeavoured to show that the term was often improperly applied to conscientious but ignorant inquirers, who are far from self-satisfied, and who, when the Gospel is set before them, find the thing which they had long been groping after. However that may be, I observed the lad who entered with Mr. Old riveted in attention with every mark and symptom of intelligence and feeling; saying little, but modestly asking now and then an appropriate question. I took occasion, before I went forward, to inquire after him, and found that, young as he was, he was a member of the church at Hackleton, and looked upon as a very consistent and promising character. I lived at Olney till the end of 1785; and in the course of that time I called perhaps two or three times each year at Mr. Old's, and was each time more and more struck with the youth's conduct, though I said little; but, before I left Olney, Mr. Carey was out of his engagement with Mr. Old. I found also that he was sent out as a probationary preacher, and preached at Moulton; and I said to all to whom I had access, that he would, if I could judge, prove no ordinary man. Yet, though I often met both old Mr. Ryland, the present Dr. Ryland, Mr. Hall, Mr. Fuller, and knew almost every step taken in forming your Missionary Society, and though I sometimes preached very near Moulton, it so happened that I do not recollect having met with him any more, till he came to my house in London with Mr. Thomas, to desire me to use what little influence I had with Charles Grant, Esq., to procure them licence to go in the Company's ships as missionaries to the British settlements in India, perhaps in 1792. My little influence was of no avail. What I said of Mr. Carey so far satisfied Mr. Grant that he said, if Mr. Carey was going alone, or with one equally to be depended on along with him, he would not oppose him; but his strong disapprobation of Mr. T., on what ground I knew not, induced his negative. I believe Mr. Old died soon after I left Olney, if not just before; and his shop, which was a little building apart from the house, was suffered to go to decay. While in this state I several times passed it, and said to my sons and others with me, that is Mr. Carey's college."
This cobbler's shed which was Carey's college has been since restored, but two of the original walls still stand, forming the corner in which he sat, opposite the window that looks out into the garden he carefully kept. Here, when his second master died, Carey succeeded to the business, charging himself with the care of the widow, and marrying the widow's sister, Dorothy or Dolly Placket. He was only twenty when he took upon himself such burdens, in the neighbouring church of Piddington, a village to which he afterwards moved his shop. Never had minister, missionary, or scholar a less sympathetic mate, due largely to that latent mental disease which in India carried her off; but for more than twenty years the husband showed her loving reverence. As we stand in the Hackleton shed, over which Carey placed the rude signboard prepared by his own hands, and now in the library of Regent's Park College, "Second Hand Shoes Bought and—,"[2] we can realise the low estate to which Carey fell, even below his father's loom and schoolhouse, and from which he was called to become the apostle of North India as Schwartz was of the South.
How was this shed his college? We have seen that he brought with him from his native village an amount of information, habits of observation, and a knowledge of books unusual in rustics of that day, and even of the present time. At twelve he made his first acquaintance with a language other than his own, when he mastered the short grammar in Dyche's Latine Vocabulary, and committed nearly the whole book to memory. When urging him to take the preaching at Barton, Mr. Sutcliff of Olney gave him Ruddiman's Latin Grammar. The one alleviation of his lot under the coarse but upright Nichols was found in his master's small library. There he began to study Greek. In a New Testament commentary he found Greek words, which he carefully transcribed and kept until he should next visit home, where a youth whom dissipation had reduced from college to weaving explained both the words and their terminations to him. All that he wanted was such beginnings. Hebrew he seems to have learned by the aid of the neighbouring ministers; borrowing books from them, and questioning them "pertinently," as he did Scott.[3] At the end of Hopkins's Three Sermons on the Effects of Sin on the Universe, preached in 1759, he had made this entry on 9th August 1787—"Gulielm. Careius perlegit." He starved himself to purchase a few books at the sale which attended Dr. Ryland's removal from Northampton to Bristol. In an old woman's cottage he found a Dutch quarto, and from that he so taught himself the language that in 1789 he translated for Ryland a discourse on the Gospel Offer sent to him by the evangelical Dr. Erskine of Edinburgh. The manuscript is in an extremely small character, unlike what might have been expected from one who had wrought with his hands for eight years. French he acquired, sufficiently for literary purposes, in three weeks from the French version of Ditton on the Resurrection, which he purchased for a few coppers. He had the linguistic gift which soon after made the young carpenter Mezzofanti of Bologna famous and a cardinal. But the gift would have been buried in the grave of his penury and his circumstances had his trade been almost any other, and had he not been impelled by the most powerful of all motives. He never sat on his stall without his book before him, nor did he painfully toil with his wallet of new-made shoes to the neighbouring towns or return with leather without conning over his lately-acquired knowledge, and making it for ever, in orderly array, his own. He so taught his evening school and his Sunday congregations that the teaching to him, like writing to others, stereotyped or lighted up the truths. Indeed, the school and the cobbling often went on together—a fact commemorated in the addition to the Hackleton signboard of the Piddington nail on which he used to fix his thread while teaching the children.
But that which sanctified and directed the whole throughout a working life of more than half a century, was the missionary idea and the missionary consecration. With a caution not often shown at that time by bishops in laying hands on those whom they had passed for deacon's orders, the little church at Olney thus dealt with the Father of Modern Missions before they would recognise his call and send him out "to preach the gospel wherever God in His providence might call him:"
"June 17, 1785.—A request from William Carey of Moulton, in Northamptonshire, was taken into consideration. He has been and still is in connection with a society of people at Hackleton. He is occasionally engaged with acceptance in various places in speaking the Word. He bears a very good moral character. He is desirous of being sent out from some reputable church of Christ into the work of the ministry. The principal Question was—'In what manner shall we receive him? by a letter from the people of Hackleton, or on a profession of faith, etc.?' The final resolution of it was left to another church Meeting.
"July 14—Ch. Meeting. W. Carey appeared before the Church, and having given a satisfactory account of the work of God upon his soul, he was admitted a member. He had been formerly baptised by the Rev. Mr. Ryland, jun., of Northampton. He was invited by the Church to preach in public once next Lord's Day.
"July 17.—Ch. Meeting, Lord's Day Evening. W. Carey, in consequence of a request from the Church, preached this Evening. After which it was resolved that he should be allowed to go on preaching at those places where he has been for some time employed, and that he should engage again on suitable occasions for some time before us, in order that farther trial may be made of ministerial gifts.
"June 16, 1786.—C.M. The case of Bror. Carey was considered, and an unanimous satisfaction with his ministerial abilities being expressed, a vote was passed to call him to the Ministry at a proper time.
"August 10.—Ch. Meeting. This evening our Brother William Carey was called to the work of the Ministry, and sent out by the Church to preach the Gospel, wherever God in His providence might call him.
"April 29, 1787.—Ch. M. After the Orde. our Brother William Carey was dismissed to the Church of Christ at Moulton in Northamptonshire with a view to his Ordination there."
These were the last years at Olney of William Cowper before he removed to the Throckmortons' house at Weston village, two miles distant. Carey must often have seen the poet during the twenty years which he spent in the corner house of the market-square, and in the walks around. He must have read the poems of 1782, which for the first time do justice to missionary enterprise. He must have hailed what Mrs. Browning calls "the deathless singing" which in 1785, in The Task, opened a new era in English literature. He may have been fired with the desire to imitate Whitefield, in the description of whom, though reluctant to name him, Cowper really anticipated Carey himself:—
"He followed Paul; his zeal a kindred flame,
His apostolic charity the same;
Like him crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,
Forsaking country, kindred, friends and ease;
Like him he laboured and, like him, content
To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went."
Moulton the Mission's birthplace—Carey's fever and poverty—His Moulton school—Fired with the missionary idea—His very large missionary map—Fuller's confession of the aged and respectable ministers' opposition—Old Mr. Ryland's rebuke—Driven to publish his Enquiry—Its literary character—Carey's survey of the world in 1788—His motives, difficulties, and plans—Projects the first Missionary Society—Contrasted with his predecessors from Erasmus—Prayer concert begun in Scotland in 1742—Jonathan Edwards—The Northamptonshire Baptist movement in 1784—Andrew Fuller—The Baptists, Particular and General—Antinomian and Socinian extremes opposed to Missions—Met by Fuller's writings and Clipstone sermon—Carey's agony at continued delay—His work in Leicester—His sermon at Nottingham—Foundation of Baptist Missionary Society at last—Kettering and Jerusalem.
The north road, which runs for twelve miles from Northampton to Kettering, passes through a country known last century for the doings of the Pytchley Hunt. Stories, by no means exaggerated, of the deep drinking and deeper play of the club, whose gatehouse now stands at the entrance of Overstone Park, were rife, when on Lady Day 1785 William Carey became Baptist preacher of Moulton village, on the other side of the road. Moulton was to become the birthplace of the modern missionary idea; Kettering, of evangelical missionary action.
No man in England had apparently a more wretched lot or more miserable prospects than he. He had started in life as a journeyman shoemaker at eighteen, burdened with a payment to his first master's widow which his own kind heart had led him to offer, and with the price of his second master's stock and business. Trade was good for the moment, and he had married, before he was twenty, one who brought him the most terrible sorrow a man can bear. He had no sooner completed a large order for which his predecessor had contracted than it was returned on his hands. From place to place he wearily trudged, trying to sell the shoes. Fever carried off his first child and brought himself so near to the grave that he sent for his mother to help in the nursing. At Piddington he worked early and late at his garden, but ague, caused by a neighbouring marsh, returned and left him so bald that he wore a wig thereafter until his voyage to India. During his preaching for more than three years at Barton, which involved a walk of sixteen miles, he did not receive from the poor folks enough to pay for the clothes he wore out in their service. His younger brother delicately came to his help, and he received the gift with a pathetic tenderness. But a calling which at once starved him, in spite of all his method and perseverance, and cramped the ardour of his soul for service to the Master who had revealed Himself in him, became distasteful. He gladly accepted an invitation from the somewhat disorganised church at Moulton to preach to them. They could offer him only about £10 a year, supplemented by £5 from a London fund. But the schoolmaster had just left, and Carey saw in that fact a new hope. For a time he and his family managed to live on an income which is estimated as never exceeding £36 a year. We find this passage in a printed appeal made by the "very poor congregation" for funds to repair and enlarge the chapel to which the new pastor's preaching had attracted a crowd:—"The peculiar situation of our minister, Mr. Carey, renders it impossible for us to send him far abroad to collect the Contributions of the Charitable; as we are able to raise him but about Ten Pounds per Annum, so that he is obliged to keep a School for his Support: And as there are other two Schools in the Town, if he was to leave Home to collect for the Building, he must probably quit his Station on his Return, for Want of a Maintenance."
His genial loving-kindness and his fast increasing learning little fitted him to drill peasant children in the alphabet. "When I kept school the boys kept me," he used to confess with a merry twinkle. In all that our Lord meant by it William Carey was a child from first to last. The former teacher returned, and the poor preacher again took to shoemaking for the village clowns and the shops in Kettering and Northampton. His house still stands, one of a row of six cottages of the dear old English type, with the indispensable garden behind, and the glad sunshine pouring in through the open window embowered in roses and honeysuckle.
There, and chiefly in the school-hours as he tried to teach the children geography and the Bible and was all the while teaching himself, the missionary idea arose in his mind, and his soul became fired with the self-consecration, unknown to Wyclif and Hus, Luther and Calvin, Knox and even Bunyan, for theirs was other work. All his past knowledge of nature and of books, all his favourite reading of voyages and of travels which had led his school-fellows to dub him Columbus, all his painful study of the Word, his experience of the love of Christ and expoundings of the meaning of His message to men for six years, were gathered up, were intensified, and were directed with a concentrated power to the thought that Christ died, as for him, so for these millions of dark savages whom Cook was revealing to Christendom, and who had never heard the glad tidings of great joy.
Carey had ceased to keep school when the Moulton Baptists, who could subscribe no more than twopence a month each for their own poor, formally called the preacher to become their ordained pastor, and Ryland, Sutcliff, and Fuller were asked to ordain him on the 10th August 1786. Fuller had discovered the value of a man who had passed through spiritual experience, and possessed a native common sense like his own, when Carey had been suddenly called to preach in Northampton to supply the place of another. Since that day he had often visited Moulton, and he thus tells us what he had seen:—
"The congregation being few and poor, he followed his business in order to assist in supporting his family. His mind, however, was much occupied in acquiring the learned languages, and almost every other branch of useful knowledge. I remember, on going into the room where he employed himself at his business, I saw hanging up against the wall a very large map, consisting of several sheets of paper pasted together by himself, on which he had drawn, with a pen, a place for every nation in the known world, and entered into it whatever he met with in reading, relative to its population, religion, etc. The substance of this was afterwards published in his Enquiry. These researches, on which his mind was naturally bent, hindered him, of course, from doing much of his business; and the people, as was said, being few and poor, he was at this time exposed to great hardships. I have been assured that he and his family have lived for a great while together without tasting animal food, and with but a scanty pittance of other provision."
"He would also be frequently conversing with his brethren in the ministry on the practicability and importance of a mission to the heathen, and of his willingness to engage in it. At several ministers' meetings, between the year 1787 and 1790, this was the topic of his conversation. Some of our most aged and respectable ministers thought, I believe, at that time, that it was a wild and impracticable scheme that he had got in his mind, and therefore gave him no encouragement. Yet he would not give it up; but would converse with us, one by one, till he had made some impression upon us."
The picture is completed by his sister:—
"He was always, from his first being thoughtful, remarkably impressed about heathen lands and the slave-trade. I never remember his engaging in prayer, in his family or in public, without praying for those poor creatures. The first time I ever recollect my feeling for the heathen world, was from a discourse I heard my brother preach at Moulton, the first summer after I was thoughtful. It was from these words:—'For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake will I give him no rest.' It was a day to be remembered by me; a day set apart for prayer and fasting by the church. What hath God wrought since that time!"
Old Mr. Ryland always failed to recall the story, but we have it on the testimony of Carey's personal friend, Morris of Clipstone, who was present at the meeting of ministers held in 1786 at Northampton, at which the incident occurred. Ryland invited the younger brethren to propose a subject for discussion. There was no reply, till at last the Moulton preacher suggested, doubtless with an ill-restrained excitement, "whether the command given to the Apostles, to teach all nations, was not obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent." Neither Fuller nor Carey himself had yet delivered the Particular Baptists from the yoke of hyper-calvinism which had to that hour shut the heathen out of a dead Christendom, and the aged chairman shouted out the rebuke—"You are a miserable enthusiast for asking such a question. Certainly nothing can be done before another Pentecost, when an effusion of miraculous gifts, including the gift of tongues, will give effect to the commission of Christ as at first." Carey had never before mentioned the subject openly, and he was for the moment greatly mortified. But, says Morris, he still pondered these things in his heart. That incident marks the wide gulf which Carey had to bridge. Silenced by his brethren, he had recourse to the press. It was then that he wrote his own contribution to the discussion he would have raised on a duty which was more than seventeen centuries old, and had been for fourteen of these neglected: An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, are considered by WILLIAM CAREY. Then follows the great conclusion of Paul in his letter to the Romans (x. 12-15): "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek...How shall they preach except they be sent?" He happened to be in Birmingham in 1786 collecting subscriptions for the rebuilding of the chapel in Moulton, when Mr. Thomas Potts, who had made a fortune in trade with America, discovering that he had prepared the manuscript, gave him £10 to publish it. And it appeared at Leicester in 1792, "price one shilling and sixpence," the profits to go to the proposed mission. The pamphlet form doubtless accounts for its disappearance now; only four copies of the original edition[4] are known to be in existence.
This Enquiry has a literary interest of its own, as a contribution to the statistics and geography of the world, written in a cultured and almost finished style, such as few, if any, University men of that day could have produced, for none were impelled by such a motive as Carey had. In an obscure village, toiling save when he slept, and finding rest on Sunday only by a change of toil, far from libraries and the society of men with more advantages than his own, this shoemaker, still under thirty, surveys the whole world, continent by continent, island by island, race by race, faith by faith, kingdom by kingdom, tabulating his results with an accuracy, and following them up with a logical power of generalisation which would extort the admiration of the learned even of the present day.
Having proved that the commission given by our Lord to His disciples is still binding on us, having reviewed former undertakings for the conversion of the heathen from the Ascension to the Moravians and "the late Mr. Wesley" in the West Indies, and having thus surveyed in detail the state of the world in 1786, he removes the five impediments in the way of carrying the Gospel among the heathen, which his contemporaries advanced—their distance from us, their barbarism, the danger of being killed by them, the difficulty of procuring the necessaries of life, the unintelligibleness of their languages. These his loving heart and Bible knowledge enable him skilfully to turn in favour of the cause he pleads. The whole section is essential to an appreciation of Carey's motives, difficulties, and plans:—
"FIRST, As to their distance from us, whatever objections might have been made on that account before the invention of the mariner's compass, nothing can be alleged for it with any colour of plausibility in the present age. Men can now sail with as much certainty through the Great South Sea as they can through the Mediterranean or any lesser sea. Yea, and providence seems in a manner to invite us to the trial, as there are to our knowledge trading companies, whose commerce lies in many of the places where these barbarians dwell. At one time or other ships are sent to visit places of more recent discovery, and to explore parts the most unknown; and every fresh account of their ignorance or cruelty should call forth our pity, and excite us to concur with providence in seeking their eternal good. Scripture likewise seems to point out this method, 'Surely the Isles shall wait for me; the ships of Tarshish first, to bring my sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord, thy God.'—Isai. lx. 9. This seems to imply that in the time of the glorious increase of the church, in the latter days (of which the whole chapter is undoubtedly a prophecy), commerce shall subserve the spread of the gospel. The ships of Tarshish were trading vessels, which made voyages for traffic to various parts; thus much therefore must be meant by it, that navigation, especially that which is commercial, shall be one great mean of carrying on the work of God; and perhaps it may imply that there shall be a very considerable appropriation of wealth to that purpose.
"SECONDLY, As to their uncivilised and barbarous way of living, this can be no objection to any, except those whose love of ease renders them unwilling to expose themselves to inconveniences for the good of others. It was no objection to the apostles and their successors, who went among the barbarous Germans and Gauls, and still more barbarous Britons! They did not wait for the ancient inhabitants of these countries to be civilised before they could be christianised, but went simply with the doctrine of the cross; and Tertullian could boast that 'those parts of Britain which were proof against the Roman armies, were conquered by the gospel of Christ.' It was no objection to an Eliot or a Brainerd, in later times. They went forth, and encountered every difficulty of the kind, and found that a cordial reception of the gospel produced those happy effects which the longest intercourse with Europeans without it could never accomplish. It is no objection to commercial men. It only requires that we should have as much love to the souls of our fellow-creatures, and fellow-sinners, as they have for the profits arising from a few otter-skins, and all these difficulties would be easily surmounted.
"After all, the uncivilised state of the heathen, instead of affording an objection against preaching the gospel to them, ought to furnish an argument for it. Can we as men, or as Christians, hear that a great part of our fellow-creatures, whose souls are as immortal as ours, and who are as capable as ourselves of adorning the gospel and contributing by their preachings, writings, or practices to the glory of our Redeemer's name and the good of his church, are enveloped in ignorance and barbarism? Can we hear that they are without the gospel, without government, without laws, and without arts, and sciences; and not exert ourselves to introduce among them the sentiments of men, and of Christians? Would not the spread of the gospel be the most effectual mean of their civilisation? Would not that make them useful members of society? We know that such effects did in a measure follow the afore-mentioned efforts of Eliot, Brainerd, and others amongst the American Indians; and if similar attempts were made in other parts of the world, and succeeded with a divine blessing (which we have every reason to think they would), might we not expect to see able divines, or read well-conducted treatises in defence of the truth, even amongst those who at present seem to be scarcely human?
"THIRDLY, In respect to the danger of being killed by them, it is true that whoever does go must put his life in his hand, and not consult with flesh and blood; but do not the goodness of the cause, the duties incumbent on us as the creatures of God and Christians, and the perishing state of our fellow-men, loudly call upon us to venture all, and use every warrantable exertion for their benefit? Paul and Barnabas, who hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, were not blamed as being rash, but commended for so doing; while John Mark, who through timidity of mind deserted them in their perilous undertaking, was branded with censure. After all, as has been already observed, I greatly question whether most of the barbarities practised by the savages upon those who have visited them, have not originated in some real or supposed affront, and were therefore, more properly, acts of self-defence, than proofs of ferocious dispositions. No wonder if the imprudence of sailors should prompt them to offend the simple savage, and the offence be resented; but Eliot, Brainerd, and the Moravian missionaries have been very seldom molested. Nay, in general the heathen have showed a willingness to hear the word; and have principally expressed their hatred of Christianity on account of the vices of nominal Christians.
"FOURTHLY, As to the difficulty of procuring the necessaries of life, this would not be so great as may appear at first sight; for, though we could not procure European food, yet we might procure such as the natives of those countries which we visit, subsist upon themselves. And this would only be passing through what we have virtually engaged in by entering on the ministerial office. A Christian minister is a person who in a peculiar sense is not his own; he is the servant of God, and therefore ought to be wholly devoted to him. By entering on that sacred office he solemnly undertakes to be always engaged, as much as possible, in the Lord's work, and not to choose his own pleasure, or employment, or pursue the ministry as a something that is to subserve his own ends, or interests, or as a kind of bye-work. He engages to go where God pleases, and to do or endure what he sees fit to command, or call him to, in the exercise of his function. He virtually bids farewell to friends, pleasures, and comforts, and stands in readiness to endure the greatest sufferings in the work of his Lord, and Master. It is inconsistent for ministers to please themselves with thoughts of a numerous auditory, cordial friends, a civilised country, legal protection, affluence, splendour, or even a competency. The slights, and hatred of men, and even pretended friends, gloomy prisons, and tortures, the society of barbarians of uncouth speech, miserable accommodations in wretched wildernesses, hunger, and thirst, nakedness, weariness, and painfulness, hard work, and but little worldly encouragement, should rather be the objects of their expectation. Thus the apostles acted, in the primitive times, and endured hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ; and though we, living in a civilised country where Christianity is protected by law, are not called to suffer these things while we continue here, yet I question whether all are justified in staying here, while so many are perishing without means of grace in other lands. Sure I am that it is entirely contrary to the spirit of the gospel for its ministers to enter upon it from interested motives, or with great worldly expectations. On the contrary, the commission is a sufficient call to them to venture all, and, like the primitive Christians, go everywhere preaching the gospel.
"It might be necessary, however, for two, at least, to go together, and in general I should think it best that they should be married men, and to prevent their time from being employed in procuring necessaries, two, or more, other persons, with their wives and families, might also accompany them, who should be wholly employed in providing for them. In most countries it would be necessary for them to cultivate a little spot of ground just for their support, which would be a resource to them, whenever their supplies failed. Not to mention the advantages they would reap from each other's company, it would take off the enormous expense which has always attended undertakings of this kind, the first expense being the whole; for though a large colony needs support for a considerable time, yet so small a number would, upon receiving the first crop, maintain themselves. They would have the advantage of choosing their situation, their wants would be few; the women, and even the children, would be necessary for domestic purposes: and a few articles of stock, as a cow or two, and a bull, and a few other cattle of both sexes, a very few utensils of husbandry, and some corn to sow their land, would be sufficient. Those who attend the missionaries should understand husbandry, fishing, fowling, etc., and be provided with the necessary implements for these purposes. Indeed, a variety of methods may be thought of, and when once the work is undertaken, many things will suggest themselves to us, of which we at present can form no idea.
"FIFTHLY, As to learning their languages, the same means would be found necessary here as in trade between different nations. In some cases interpreters might be obtained, who might be employed for a time; and where these were not to be found, the missionaries must have patience, and mingle with the people, till they have learned so much of their language as to be able to communicate their ideas to them in it. It is well known to require no very extraordinary talents to learn, in the space of a year, or two at most, the language of any people upon earth, so much of it at least as to be able to convey any sentiments we wish to their understandings.
"The Missionaries must be men of great piety, prudence, courage, and forbearance; of undoubted orthodoxy in their sentiments, and must enter with all their hearts into the spirit of their mission; they must be willing to leave all the comforts of life behind them, and to encounter all the hardships of a torrid or a frigid climate, an uncomfortable manner of living, and every other inconvenience that can attend this undertaking. Clothing, a few knives, powder and shot, fishing-tackle, and the articles of husbandry above mentioned, must be provided for them; and when arrived at the place of their destination, their first business must be to gain some acquaintance with the language of the natives (for which purpose two would be better than one), and by all lawful means to endeavour to cultivate a friendship with them, and as soon as possible let them know the errand for which they were sent. They must endeavour to convince them that it was their good alone which induced them to forsake their friends, and all the comforts of their native country. They must be very careful not to resent injuries which may be offered to them, nor to think highly of themselves, so as to despise the poor heathens, and by those means lay a foundation for their resentment or rejection of the gospel. They must take every opportunity of doing them good, and labouring and travelling night and day, they must instruct, exhort, and rebuke, with all long suffering and anxious desire for them, and, above all, must be instant in prayer for the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the people of their charge. Let but missionaries of the above description engage in the work, and we shall see that it is not impracticable.
"It might likewise be of importance, if God should bless their labours, for them to encourage any appearances of gifts amongst the people of their charge; if such should be raised up many advantages would be derived from their knowledge of the language and customs of their countrymen; and their change of conduct would give great weight to their ministrations."
This first and still greatest missionary treatise in the English language closes with the practical suggestion of these means—fervent and united prayer, the formation of a catholic or, failing that, a Particular Baptist Society of "persons whose hearts are in the work, men of serious religion and possessing a spirit of perseverance," with an executive committee, and subscriptions from rich and poor of a tenth of their income for both village preaching and foreign missions, or, at least, an average of one penny or more per week from all members of congregations. He thus concludes:—"It is true all the reward is of mere grace, but it is nevertheless encouraging; what a treasure, what an harvest must await such characters as Paul, and Eliot, and Brainerd, and others, who have given themselves wholly to the work of the Lord. What a heaven will it be to see the many myriads of poor heathens, of Britons amongst the rest, who by their labours have been brought to the knowledge of God. Surely a crown of rejoicing like this is worth aspiring to. Surely it is worth while to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause and kingdom of Christ."
So Carey projected the first organisation which England had seen for missions to all the human race outside of Christendom; and his project, while necessarily requiring a Society to carry it out, as coming from an "independent" Church, provided that every member of every congregation should take a part to the extent of fervent and united prayer, and of an average subscription of a penny a week. He came as near to the New Testament ideal of all Christians acting in an aggressive missionary church as was possible in an age when the Established Churches of England, Scotland, and Germany scouted foreign missions, and the Free Churches were chiefly congregational in their ecclesiastical action. While asserting the other ideal of the voluntary tenth or tithe as both a Scriptural principle and Puritan practice, his common sense was satisfied to suggest an average penny a week, all over, for every Christian. At this hour, more than a century since Carey wrote, and after a remarkable missionary revival in consequence of what he wrote and did, all Christendom, Evangelical, Greek, and Latin, does not give more than five millions sterling a year to Christianise the majority of the race still outside its pale. It is not too much to say that were Carey's penny a week from every Christian a fact, and the prayer which would sooner or later accompany it, the five millions would be fifty, and Christendom would become a term nearly synonymous with humanity. The Churches, whether by themselves or by societies, have yet to pray and organise up to the level of Carey's penny a week.
The absolute originality as well as grandeur of the unconscious action of the peasant shoemaker who, from 1779, prayed daily for all the heathen and slaves, and organised his society accordingly, will be seen in the dim light or darkness visible of all who had preceded him. They were before the set time; he was ready in the fulness of the missionary preparation. They belonged not only to periods, but to nations, to churches, to communities which were failing in the struggle for fruitfulness and expansion in new worlds and fresh lands; he was a son of England, which had come or was about to come out of the struggle a victor, charged with the terrible responsibility of the special servant of the Lord, as no people had ever before been charged in all history, sacred or secular. William Carey, indeed, reaped the little that the few brave toilers of the wintry time had sown; with a humility that is pathetic he acknowledges their toll, while ever ignorant to the last of his own merit. But he reaped only as each generation garners such fruits of its predecessor as may have been worthy to survive. He was the first of the true Anastatosantes of the modern world, as only an English-speaking man could be—of the most thorough, permanent, and everlasting of all Reformers, the men who turn the world upside down, because they make it rise up and depart from deadly beliefs and practices, from the fear and the fate of death, into the life and light of Christ and the Father.
Who were his predecessors, reckoning from the Renascence of Europe, the discovery of America, and the opening up of India and Africa? Erasmus comes first, the bright scholar of compromise who in 1516 gave the New Testament again to Europe, as three centuries after Carey gave it to all Southern Asia, and whose missionary treatise, Ecclesiasties, in 1535 anticipated, theoretically at least, Carey's Enquiry by two centuries and a half. The missionary dream of this escaped monk of Rotterdam and Basel, who taught women and weavers and cobblers to read the Scriptures, and prayed that the Book might be translated into all languages, was realised in the scandalous iniquities and frauds of Portuguese and Spanish and Jesuit missions in West and East. Luther had enough to do with his papal antichrist and his German translation of the Greek of the Testament of Erasmus. The Lutheran church drove missions into the hands of the Pietists and Moravians—Wiclif's offspring—who nobly but ineffectually strove to do a work meant for the whole Christian community. The Church of England thrust forth the Puritans first to Holland and then to New England, where Eliot, the Brainerds, and the Mayhews sought to evangelise tribes which did not long survive themselves.
It was from Courteenhall, a Northamptonshire village near Paulerspury, that in 1644 there went forth the appeal for the propagation of the Gospel which comes nearest to Carey's cry from the same midland region. Cromwell was in power, and had himself planned a Protestant Propaganda, so to the Long Parliament William Castell, "parson of Courteenhall," sent a petition which, with the "Eliot Tracts," resulted in an ordinance creating the Corporation for the Promoting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England. Seventy English ministers had backed the petition, and six of the Church of Scotland, first of whom was Alexander Henderson. The corporation, which, in a restored form, Robert Boyle governed for thirty years, familiarised the nation with the duty of caring for the dark races then coming more and more under our sway alike in America and in India. It still exists, as well as Boyle's Society for advancing the Faith in the West Indies. The Friends also, and then the Moravians, taught the Wesleys and Whitefield to care for the negroes. The English and Scottish Propagation Societies sought also to provide spiritual aids for the colonists and the highlanders.
The two great thinkers of the eighteenth century, who flourished as philosopher and moralist when Carey was a youth, taught the principles which he of all others was to apply on their spiritual and most effective side. Adam Smith put his finger on the crime which had darkened and continued till 1834 to shadow the brightness of geographical enterprise in both hemispheres—the treatment of the natives by Europeans whose superiority of force enabled them to commit every sort of injustice in the new lands. He sought a remedy in establishing an equality of force by the mutual communication of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements by an extensive commerce.[5] Samuel Johnson rose to a higher level alike of wisdom and righteousness, when he expressed the indignation of a Christian mind that the propagation of truth had never been seriously pursued by any European nation, and the hope "that the light of the Gospel will at last illuminate the sands of Africa and the deserts of America, though its progress cannot but be slow when it is so much obstructed by the lives of Christians."
The early movement which is connected most directly with Carey's and the Northamptonshire Baptists' began in Scotland. Its Kirk, emasculated by the Revolution settlement and statute of Queen Anne, had put down the evangelical teaching of Boston and the "marrow" men, and had cast out the fathers of the Secession in 1733. In 1742 the quickening spread over the west country. In October 1744 several ministers in Scotland united, for the two years next following, in what they called, and what has since become familiar in America as, a "Concert to promote more abundant application to a duty that is perpetually binding—prayer that our God's kingdom may come, joined with praises;" to be offered weekly on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and more solemnly on the first Tuesday of every quarter. Such was the result, and so did the prayer concert spread in the United Kingdom that in August 1746 a memorial was sent to Boston inviting all Christians in North America to enter into it for the next seven years. It was on this that Jonathan Edwards wrote his Humble Attempt to promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth.
This work of Edwards, republished at Olney, came into the hands of Carey, and powerfully influenced the Northamptonshire Association of Baptist ministers and messengers. At their meeting in Nottingham in 1784 Sutcliff of Olney suggested and Ryland of Northampton drafted an invitation to the people to join them, for one hour on the first Monday of every month, in prayer for the effusion of the Holy Spirit of God. "Let the whole interest of the Redeemer be affectionately remembered," wrote these catholic men, and to give emphasis to their œcumenical missionary desires they added in italics—"Let the spread of the Gospel to the most distant parts of the habitable globe be the object of your most fervent requests. We shall rejoice if any other Christian societies of our own or other denominations will join with us, and we do now invite them most cordially to join heart and hand in the attempt." To this Carey prominently referred in his Enquiry, tracing to even the unimportunate and feeble prayers of these eight years the increase of the churches, the clearing of controversies, the opening of lands to missions, the spread of civil and religious liberty, the noble effort made to abolish the inhuman slave-trade, and the establishment of the free settlement of Sierra Leone. And then he hits the other blots in the movement, besides the want of importunity and earnestness—"We must not be contented with praying without exerting ourselves in the use of means...Were the children of light but as wise in their generation as the children of this world, they would stretch every nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was to be obtained in any other way." A trading company obtain a charter and go to its utmost limits. The charter, the encouragements of Christians are exceeding great, and the returns promised infinitely superior. "Suppose a company of serious Christians, ministers and private persons, were to form themselves into a society."
The man was ready who had been specially fitted, by character and training, to form the home organisation of the society, while Carey created its foreign mission. For the next quarter of a century William Carey and Andrew Fuller worked lovingly, fruitfully together, with the breadth of half the world between them. The one showed how, by Bible and church and school, by physical and spiritual truth, India and all Asia could be brought to Christ; the other taught England, Scotland, and America to begin at last to play their part in an enterprise as old as Abraham; as divine in its warrant, its charge, its promise, as Christ Himself. Seven years older than Carey, his friend was born a farmer's son and labourer in the fen country of Cromwell whom he resembled, was self-educated under conditions precisely similar, and passed through spiritual experiences almost exactly the same. The two, unknown to each other, found themselves when called to preach at eighteen unable to reconcile the grim dead theology of their church with the new life and liberty which had come to them direct from the Spirit of Christ and from His Word. Carey had left his ancestral church at a time when the biographer of Romaine could declare with truth that that preacher was the only evangelical in the established churches of all London, and that of twenty thousand clergymen in England, the number who preached the truth as it is in Jesus had risen from not twenty in 1749 to three hundred in 1789. The methodism of the Wesleys was beginning to tell, but the Baptists were as lifeless as the Established Church. In both the Church and Dissent there were individuals only, like Newton and Scott, the elder Robert Hall and Ryland, whose spiritual fervour made them marked men.
The Baptists, who had stood alone as the advocates of toleration, religious and civil, in an age of intolerance which made them the victims, had subsided like Puritan and Covenanter when the Revolution of 1688 brought persecution to an end. The section who held the doctrine of "general" redemption, and are now honourably known as General Baptists, preached ordinary Arminianism, and even Socinianism. The more earnest and educated among them clung to Calvinism, but, by adopting the unhappy term of "particular" Baptists, gradually fell under a fatalistic and antinomian spell. This false Calvinism, which the French theologian of Geneva would have been the first to denounce, proved all the more hostile to the preaching of the Gospel of salvation to the heathen abroad, as well as the sinner at home, that it professed to be an orthodox evangel while either emasculating the Gospel or turning the grace of God into licentiousness. From such "particular" preachers as young Fuller and Carey listened to, at first with bewilderment, then impatience, and then denunciation, missions of no kind could come. Fuller exposed and pursued the delusion with a native shrewdness, a masculine sagacity, and a fine English style, which have won for him the apt name of the Franklin of Theology. For more than twenty years Fullerism, as it was called, raised a controversy like that of the Marrow of Divinity in Scotland, and cleared the ground sufficiently at least to allow of the foundation of foreign missions in both countries. It now seems incredible that the only class who a century ago represented evangelicalism should have opposed missions to the heathen on the ground that the Gospel is meant only for the elect, whether at home or abroad; that nothing spiritually good is the duty of the unregenerate, therefore "nothing must be addressed to them in a way of exhortation excepting what relates to external obedience."
The same year, 1784, in which the Baptist concert for prayer was begun, saw the publication of Fuller's Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation. Seven years later he preached at Clipstone a famous sermon, in which he applied the dealing of the Lord of Hosts (in Haggai) to the Jewish apathy—"The time is not come that the Lord's house should be built"—with a power and directness which nevertheless failed practically to convince himself. The men who listened to him had been praying for seven years, yet had opposed Carey's pleas for a foreign mission, had treated him as a visionary or a madman. When Fuller had published his treatise, Carey had drawn the practical deduction—"If it be the duty of all men, when the Gospel comes, to believe unto salvation, then it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the Gospel to endeavour to make it known among all nations for the obedience of faith." Now, after seven more years of waiting, and remembering the manuscript Enquiry, Carey thought action cannot be longer delayed. Hardly was the usual discussion that followed the meeting over when, as the story is told by the son of Ryland who had silenced him in a former ministers' meeting, Carey appealed to his brethren to put their preaching into practice and begin a missionary society that very day. Fuller's sermon bore the title of The Evil Nature and the Dangerous Tendency of Delay in the Concerns of Religion, and it had been preceded by one on being very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, in which Sutcliff cried for the divine passion, the celestial fire that burned in the bosom and blazed in the life of Elijah. The Elijah of their own church and day was among them, burning and blazing for years, and all that he could induce them to promise was vaguely that, "something should be done," and to throw to his importunity the easy request that he would publish his manuscript and preach next year's sermon.
Meanwhile, in 1789, Carey had left Moulton[6] for Leicester, whither he was summoned to build up a congregation, ruined by antinomianism, in the mean brick chapel of the obscure quarter of Harvey Lane. This chapel his genius and Robert Hall's eloquence made so famous in time that the Baptists sent off a vigorous hive to the fine new church. In an equally humble house opposite the chapel the poverty of the pastor compelled him to keep a school from nine in the morning till four in winter and five in summer. Between this and the hours for sleep and food he had little leisure; but that he spent, as he had done all his life before and did all his life after, with a method and zeal which doubled his working days. "I have seen him at work," writes Gardiner in his Music and Friends, "his books beside him, and his beautiful flowers in the windows." In a letter to his father we have this division of his leisure—Monday, "the learned languages;" Tuesday, "the study of science, history, composition, etc;" Wednesday, "I preach a lecture, and have been for more than twelve months on the Book of Revelation;" Thursday, "I visit my friends;" Friday and Saturday, "preparing for the Lord's Day." He preached three times every Sunday in his own chapel or the surrounding villages, with such results that in one case he added hundreds to its Wesleyan congregation. He was secretary to the local committee of dissenters. "Add to this occasional journeys, ministers' meetings, etc., and you will rather wonder that I have any time, than that I have so little. I am not my own, nor would I choose for myself. Let God employ me where he thinks fit, and give me patience and discretion to fill up my station to his honour and glory."
"After I had been probationer in this place a year and ten months, on the 24th of May 1791 I was solemnly set apart to the office of pastor. About twenty ministers of different denominations were witnesses to the transactions of the day. After prayer Brother Hopper of Nottingham addressed the congregation upon the nature of an ordination, after which he proposed the usual questions to the church, and required my Confession of Faith; which being delivered, Brother Ryland prayed the ordination prayer, with laying on of hands. Brother Sutcliff delivered a very solemn charge from Acts vi. 4—'But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.' And Brother Fuller delivered an excellent address to the people from Eph. v. 2—'Walk in love.' In the evening Brother Pearce of Birmingham preached from Gal. vi. 14—'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.' The day was a day of pleasure, and I hope of profit to the greatest part of the Assembly."
Carey became the friend of his neighbour, Thomas Robinson, evangelical rector of St. Mary's, to whom he said on one occasion when indirectly charged in humorous fashion with "sheep-stealing:" "Mr. Robinson, I am a dissenter, and you are a churchman; we must each endeavour to do good according to our light. At the same time, you may be assured that I had rather be the instrument of converting a scavenger that sweeps the streets than of merely proselyting the richest and best characters in your congregation." Dr. Arnold and Mr. R. Brewin, a botanist, opened to him their libraries, and all good men in Leicester soon learned to be proud of the new Baptist minister. In the two chapels, as in that of Moulton, enlarged since his time, memorial tablets tell succeeding generations of the virtues and the deeds of "the illustrious W. Carey, D.D."
The ministers' meeting of 1792 came round, and on 31st May Carey seized his opportunity. The place was Nottingham, from which the 1784 invitation to prayer had gone forth. Was the answer to come just there after nine years' waiting? His Enquiry had been published; had it prepared the brethren? Ryland had been always loyal to the journeyman shoemaker he had baptised in the river, and he gives us this record:—"If all the people had lifted up their voices and wept, as the children of Israel did at Bochim, I should not have wondered at the effect. It would only have seemed proportionate to the cause, so clearly did he prove the criminality of our supineness in the cause of God." The text was Isaiah's (liv. 2, 3) vision of the widowed church's tent stretching forth till her children inherited the nations and peopled the desolate cities, and the application to the reluctant brethren was couched in these two great maxims written ever since on the banners of the missionary host of the kingdom—
EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD.
ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD.
The service was over; even Fuller was afraid, even Ryland made no sign, and the ministers were leaving the meeting. Seizing Fuller's arm with an imploring look, the preacher, whom despair emboldened to act alone for his Master, exclaimed: "And are you, after all, going again to do nothing?" What Fuller describes as the "much fear and trembling" of these inexperienced, poor, and ignorant village preachers gave way to the appeal of one who had gained both knowledge and courage, and who, as to funds and men, was ready to give himself. They entered on their minutes this much:—"That a plan be prepared against the next ministers' meeting at Kettering for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen." There was more delay, but only for four months. The first purely English Missionary Society, which sent forth its own English founder, was thus constituted as described in the minutes of the Northampton ministers' meeting.
"At the ministers' meeting at Kettering, October 2, 1792, after the public services of the day were ended, the ministers retired to consult further on the matter, and to lay a foundation at least for a society, when the following resolutions were proposed, and unanimously agreed to:—
"1. Desirous of making an effort for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen, agreeably to what is recommended in brother Carey's late publication on that subject, we, whose names appear to the subsequent subscription, do solemnly agree to act in society together for that purpose.
"2. As in the present divided state of Christendom, it seems that each denomination, by exerting itself separately, is most likely to accomplish the great ends of a mission, it is agreed that this society be called The Particular [Calvinistic] Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.
"3. As such an undertaking must needs be attended with expense, we agree immediately to open a subscription for the above purpose, and to recommend it to others.
"4. Every person who shall subscribe ten pounds at once, or ten shillings and sixpence annually, shall be considered a member of the society.
"5. That the Rev. John Ryland, Reynold Hogg, William Carey, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller, be appointed a committee, three of whom shall be empowered to act in carrying into effect the purposes of this society.
"6. That the Rev. Reynold Hogg be appointed treasurer, and the Rev. Andrew Fuller secretary.
"7. That the subscriptions be paid in at the Northampton ministers' meeting, October 31, 1792, at which time the subject shall be considered more particularly by the committee, and other subscribers who may be present.
"Signed, John Ryland, Reynold Hogg, John Sutcliff, Andrew Fuller, Abraham Greenwood, Edward Sherman, Joshua Burton, Samuel Pearce, Thomas Blundel, William Heighton, John Eayres, Joseph Timms; whose subscriptions in all amounted to £13:2:6."
The procedure suggested in "brother Carey's late publication" was strictly followed—a society of subscribers, 2d. a week, or 10s. 6d. a year as a compromise between the tithes and the penny a week of the Enquiry. The secretary was the courageous Fuller, who once said to Ryland and Sutcliff: "You excel me in wisdom, especially in foreseeing difficulties. I therefore want to advise with you both, but to execute without you." The frequent chairman was Ryland, who was soon to train missionaries for the work at Bristol College. The treasurer was the only rich man of the twelve, who soon resigned his office into a layman's hands, as was right. Of the others we need now point only to Samuel Pearce, the seraphic preacher of Birmingham, who went home and sent £70 to the collection, and who, since he desired to give himself like Carey, became to him dearer than even Fuller was. The place was a low-roofed parlour in the house of Widow Wallis, looking on to a back garden, which many a pilgrim still visits, and around which there gathered thousands in 1842 to hold the first jubilee of modern missions, when commemorative medals were struck. There in 1892 the centenary witnessed a still vaster assemblage.
Can any good come out of Kettering? was the conclusion of the Baptist ministers of London with the one exception of Booth, when they met formally to decide whether, like those of Birmingham and other places, they should join the primary society. Benjamin Beddome, a venerable scholar whom Robert Hall declared to be chief among his brethren, replied to Fuller in language which is far from unusual even at the present day, but showing the position which the Leicester minister had won for himself even then:—
"I think your scheme, considering the paucity of well-qualified ministers, hath a very unfavourable aspect with respect to destitute churches at home, where charity ought to begin. I had the pleasure once to see and hear Mr. Carey; it struck me he was the most suitable person in the kingdom, at least whom I knew, to supply my place, and make up my great deficiencies when either disabled or removed. A different plan is formed and pursued, and I fear that the great and good man, though influenced by the most excellent motives, will meet with a disappointment. However, God hath his ends, and whoever is disappointed He cannot be so. My unbelieving heart is ready to suggest that the time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built."
The other Congregationalists made no sign. The Presbyterians, with a few noble exceptions like Dr. Erskine, whose Dutch volume Carey had translated, denounced such movements as revolutionary in a General Assembly of Socinianised "moderates." The Church of England kept haughtily or timidly aloof, though king and archbishop were pressed to send a mission. "Those who in that day sneered that England had sent a cobbler to convert the world were the direct lineal descendants of those who sneered in Palestine 2000 years ago, 'Is not this the carpenter?'" said Archdeacon Farrar in Westminster Abbey on 6th March 1887. Hence Fuller's reference to this time:—"When we began in 1792 there was little or no respectability among us, not so much as a squire to sit in the chair or an orator to address him with speeches. Hence good Dr. Stennett advised the London ministers to stand aloof and not commit themselves."
One man in India had striven to rouse the Church to its duty as Carey had done at home. Charles Grant had in 1787 written from Malda to Charles Simeon and Wilberforce for eight missionaries, but not one Church of England clergyman could be found to go. Thirty years after, when chairman of the Court of Directors and father of Lord Glenelg and Sir Robert Grant, he wrote:—"I had formed the design of a mission to Bengal: Providence reserved that honour for the Baptists." After all, the twelve village pastors in the back parlour of Kettering were the more really the successors of the twelve apostles in the upper room of Jerusalem.
Tahiti v. Bengal—Carey and Thomas appointed missionaries to Bengal—The farewell at Leicester—John Thomas, first medical missionary—Carey's letter to his father—The Company's "abominable monopoly"—The voyage—Carey's aspirations for world-wide missions—Lands at Calcutta—His description of Bengal in 1793—Contrast presented by Carey to Clive, Hastings, and Cornwallis—The spiritual founder of an Indian Empire of Christian Britain—Bengal and the famine of 1769-70—The Decennial Settlement declared permanent—Effects on the landed classes—Obstacles to Carey's work—East India Company at its worst—Hindooism and the Bengalees in 1793—Position of Hindoo women—Missionary attempts before Carey's—Ziegenbalg and Schwartz—Kiernander and the chaplains—Hindooised state of Anglo-Indian society and its reaction on England—Guneshan Dass, the first caste Hindoo to visit England—William Carey had no predecessor.
Carey had desired to go first to Tahiti or Western Africa. The natives of North America and the negroes of the West Indies and Sierra Leone were being cared for by Moravian and Wesleyan evangelists. The narrative of Captain Cook's two first voyages to the Pacific and discovery of Tahiti had appeared in the same year in which the Northampton churches began their seven years' concert of prayer, just after his own second baptism. From the map, and a leather globe which also he is said to have made, he had been teaching the children of Piddington, Moulton, and Leicester the great outlines and thrilling details of expeditions round the world which roused both the scientific and the simple of England as much as the discoveries of Columbus had excited Europe. When the childlike ignorance and natural grace of the Hawaiians, which had at first fired him with the longing to tell them the good news of God, were seen turned into the wild justice of revenge, which made Cook its first victim, Carey became all the more eager to anticipate the disasters of later days. That was work for which others were to be found. It was not amid the scattered and decimated savages of the Pacific or of America that the citadel of heathenism was found, nor by them that the world, old and new, was to be made the kingdom of Christ. With the cautious wisdom that marked all Fuller's action, though perhaps with the ignorance that was due to Carey's absence, the third meeting of the new society recorded this among other articles "to be examined and discussed in the most diligent and impartial manner—In what part of the heathen world do there seem to be the most promising openings?"
The answer, big with consequence for the future of the East, was in their hands, in the form of a letter from Carey, who stated that "Mr. Thomas, the Bengal missionary," was trying to raise a fund for that province, and asked "whether it would not be worthy of the Society to try to make that and ours unite with one fund for the purpose of sending the gospel to the heathen indefinitely." Tahiti was not to be neglected, nor Africa, nor Bengal, in "our larger plan," which included above four hundred millions of our fellowmen, among whom it was an object "worthy of the most ardent and persevering pursuit to disseminate the humane and saving principles of the Christian Religion." If this Mr. Thomas were worthy, his experience made it desirable to begin with Bengal. Thomas answered for himself at the next meeting, when Carey fell upon his neck and wept, having previously preached from the words—"Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me." "We saw," said Fuller afterwards, "there was a gold mine in India, but it was as deep as the centre of the earth. Who will venture to explore it? 'I will venture to go down,' said Carey, 'but remember that you (addressing Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland) must hold the ropes.' We solemnly engaged to him to do so, nor while we live shall we desert him."
Carey and Thomas, an ordained minister and a medical evangelist, were at this meeting in Kettering, on 10th January 1793, appointed missionaries to "the East Indies for preaching the gospel to the heathen," on "£100 or £150 a year between them all,"—that is, for two missionaries, their wives, and four children,—until they should be able to support themselves like the Moravians. As a matter of fact they received just £200 in all for the first three years when self-support and mission extension fairly began. The whole sum at credit of the Society for outfit, passage, and salaries was £130, so that Fuller's prudence was not without justification when supported by Thomas's assurances that the amount was enough, and Carey's modest self-sacrifice. "We advised Mr. Carey," wrote Fuller to Ryland, "to give up his school this quarter, for we must make up the loss to him." The more serious cost of the passage was raised by Fuller and by the preaching tours of the two missionaries. During one of these, at Hull, Carey met the printer and newspaper editor, William Ward, and cast his mantle over him thus—"If the Lord bless us, we shall want a person of your business to enable us to print the Scriptures; I hope you will come after us." Ward did so in five years.
The 20th March 1793 was a high day in the Leicester chapel, Harvey Lane, when the missionaries were set apart like Barnabas and Paul—a forenoon of prayer; an afternoon of preaching by Thomas from Psalm xvi. 4; "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God;" an evening of preaching by the treasurer from Acts xxi. 14, "And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, the will of the Lord be done;" and the parting charge by Fuller the secretary, from the risen Lord's own benediction and forthsending of His disciples, "Peace be unto you, as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." Often in after days of solitude and reproach did Carey quicken his faith by reading the brave and loving words of Fuller on "the objects you must keep in view, the directions you must observe, the difficulties you must encounter, the reward you may expect."
Under date four days after we find this entry in the Church Book—"Mr. Carey, our minister, left Leicester to go on a mission to the East Indies, to take and propagate the Gospel among those idolatrous and superstitious heathens. This is inserted to show his love to his poor miserable fellow-creatures. In this we concurred with him, though it is at the expense of losing one whom we love as our own souls." When Carey's preaching had so filled the church that it became necessary to build a front gallery at a cost of £98, and they had applied to several other churches for assistance in vain, he thus taught them to help themselves. The minister and many of the members agreed to pay off the debt "among ourselves" by weekly subscriptions,—a process, however, which covered five years, so poor were they. Carey left this as a parting lesson to home congregations, while his people found it the easier to pay the debt that they had sacrificed their best, their own minister, to the work of missions for which he had taught them to pray.
John Thomas, four years older than Carey, was a surgeon, who had made two voyages to Calcutta in the Oxford Indiaman, had been of spiritual service to Charles Grant, Mr. George Udny, and the Bengal civilian circle at Malda, and had been supported by Mr. Grant as a missionary for a time until his eccentricities and debts outraged his friends and drove him home at the time of the Kettering meetings. Full justice has been done to a character and a career somewhat resembling those of John Newton, by his patient and able biographer the Rev. C. B. Lewis. John Thomas has the merit of being the first medical missionary, at a time when no other Englishman cared for either the bodies or souls of our recently acquired subjects in North India, outside of Charles Grant's circle. He has more; he was used by God to direct Carey to the dense Hindoo population of Bengal—to the people and to the centre, that is, where Brahmanism had its seat, and whence Buddhism had been carried by thousands of missionaries all over Southern, Eastern, and Central Asia. But there our ascription of merit to Thomas must stop. However well he might speak the uncultured Bengali, he never could write the language or translate the Bible into a literary style so that it could be understood by the people or influence their leaders. His temper kept Charles Grant back from helping the infant mission, though anxious to see Mr. Carey and to aid him and any other companion. The debts of Thomas caused him and Carey to be excluded from the Oxford, in which his friend the commander had agreed to take them and their party without a licence; clouded the early years of the enterprise with their shadow, and formed the heaviest of the many burdens Carey had to bear at starting. If, afterwards, the old association of Thomas with Mr. Udny at Malda gave Carey a home during his Indian apprenticeship, this was a small atonement for the loss of the direct help of Mr. Grant. If Carey proved to be the John among the men who began to make Serampore illustrious, Thomas was the Peter, so far as we know Peter in the Gospels only.
Just before being ejected from the Oxford, as he had been deprived of the effectual help of Charles Grant through his unhappy companion, when with only his eldest son Felix beside him, how did Carey view his God-given mission? The very different nature of his wife, who had announced to him the birth of a child, clung anew to the hope that this might cause him to turn back. Writing from Ryde on the 6th May he thus replied with sweet delicacy of human affection, but with true loyalty to his Master's call:—
"Received yours, giving me an account of your safe delivery. This is pleasant news indeed to me; surely goodness and mercy follow me all my days. My stay here was very painful and unpleasant, but now I see the goodness of God in it. It was that I might hear the most pleasing accounts that I possibly could hear respecting earthly things. You wish to know in what state my mind is. I answer, it is much as when I left you. If I had all the world, I would freely give it all to have you and my dear children with me; but the sense of duty is so strong as to overpower all other considerations; I could not turn back without guilt on my soul. I find a longing desire to enjoy more of God; but, now I am among the people of the world, I think I see more beauties in godliness than ever, and, I hope, enjoy more of God in retirement than I have done for some time past...You want to know what Mrs. Thomas thinks, and how she likes the voyage...She would rather stay in England than go to India; but thinks it right to go with her husband...Tell my dear children I love them dearly, and pray for them constantly. Felix sends his love. I look upon this mercy as an answer to prayer indeed. Trust in God. Love to Kitty, brothers, sisters, etc. Be assured I love you most affectionately. Let me know my dear little child's name.—I am, for ever, your faithful and affectionate husband,
"WILLIAM CAREY.
"My health never was so well. I believe the sea makes Felix and me both as hungry as hunters. I can eat a monstrous meat supper, and drink a couple of glasses of wine after it, without hurting me at all. Farewell."
She was woman and wife enough, in the end, to do as Mrs. Thomas had done, but she stipulated that her sister should accompany her.
By a series of specially providential events, as it seemed, such as marked the whole early history of this first missionary enterprise of modern England, Carey and Thomas secured a passage on board the Danish Indiaman Kron Princessa Maria, bound from Copenhagen to Serampore. At Dover, where they had been waiting for days, the eight were roused from sleep by the news that the ship was off the harbour. Sunrise on the 13th June saw them on board. Carey had had other troubles besides his colleague and his wife. His father, then fifty-eight years old, had not given him up without a struggle. "Is William mad?" he had said when he received the letter in which his son thus offered himself up on the missionary altar. His mother had died six years before:—
"LEICESTER, Jan. 17th, 1793.
"DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,—The importance of spending our time for God alone, is the principal theme of the gospel. I beseech you, brethren, says Paul, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. To be devoted like a sacrifice to holy uses, is the great business of a christian, pursuant to these requisitions. I consider myself as devoted to the service of God alone, and now I am to realise my professions. I am appointed to go to Bengal, in the East Indies, a missionary to the Hindoos. I shall have a colleague who has been there five or six years already, and who understands their language. They are the most mild and inoffensive people in all the world, but are enveloped in the greatest superstition, and in the grossest ignorance...I hope, dear father, you may be enabled to surrender me up to the Lord for the most arduous, honourable, and important work that ever any of the sons of men were called to engage in. I have many sacrifices to make. I must part with a beloved family, and a number of most affectionate friends. Never did I see such sorrow manifested as reigned through our place of worship last Lord's-day. But I have set my hand to the plough.—I remain, your dutiful son,
"WILLIAM CAREY."
When in London Carey had asked John Newton, "What if the Company should send us home on our arrival in Bengal?" "Then conclude," was the reply, "that your Lord has nothing there for you to accomplish. But if He have, no power on earth can hinder you." By Act of Parliament not ten years old, every subject of the King going to or found in the East Indies without a licence from the Company, was guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour, and liable to fine and imprisonment. Only four years previously a regulation had compelled every commander to deliver to the Hoogli pilot a return of the passengers on board that the Act might be enforced. The Danish nationality of the ship and crew saved the missionary party. So grievously do unjust laws demoralise contemporary opinion, that Fuller was constrained to meet the objections of many to the "illegality" of the missionaries' action by reasoning, unanswerable indeed, but not now required: "The apostles and primitive ministers were commanded to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; nor were they to stop for the permission of any power upon earth, but to go, and take the consequences. If a man of God, conscious of having nothing in his heart unfriendly to any civil government whatever, but determined in all civil matters to obey and teach obedience to the powers that are, put his life in his hand, saying, I will go, and if I am persecuted in one city I will flee to another'...whatever the wisdom of this world may decide upon his conduct, he will assuredly be acquitted, and more than acquitted, at a higher tribunal."
Carey's journal of the voyage begins with an allusion to "the abominable East Indian monopoly," which he was to do more than any other man to break down by weapons not of man's warfare. The second week found him at Bengali, and for his companion the poems of Cowper. Of the four fellow-passengers one was a French deist, with whom he had many a debate.
"Aug. 2.—I feel myself to be much declined, upon the whole, in the more spiritual exercises of religion; yet have had some pleasant exercises of soul, and feel my heart set upon the great work upon which I am going. Sometimes I am quite dejected when I see the impenetrability of the hearts of those with us. They hear us preach on the Lord's-day, but we are forced to witness their disregard to God all the week. O may God give us greater success among the heathen. I am very desirous that my children may pursue the same work; and now intend to bring up one in the study of Sanskrit, and another of Persian. O may God give them grace to fit them for the work! I have been much concerned for fear the power of the Company should oppose us...
"Aug. 20.—I have reason to lament over a barrenness of soul, and am sometimes much discouraged; for if I am so dead and stupid, how can I expect to be of any use among the heathen? Yet I have of late felt some very lively desires after the success of our undertaking. If there is anything that engages my heart in prayer to God, it is that the heathen may be converted, and that the society which has so generously exerted itself may be encouraged, and excited to go on with greater vigour in the important undertaking...
"Nov. 9.—I think that I have had more liberty in prayer, and more converse with God, than for some time before; but have, notwithstanding, been a very unfruitful creature, and so remain. For near a month we have been within two hundred miles of Bengal, but the violence of the currents set us back when we have been at the very door. I hope I have learned the necessity of bearing up in the things of God against wind and tide, when there is occasion, as we have done in our voyage."
To the Society he writes for a Polyglot Bible, the Gospels in Malay, Curtis's Botanical Magazine, and Sowerby's English Botany, at his own cost, and thus plans the conquest of the world:—"I hope the Society will go on and increase, and that the multitudes of heathen in the world may hear the glorious words of truth. Africa is but a little way from England; Madagascar but a little way farther; South America, and all the numerous and large islands in the Indian and Chinese seas, I hope will not be passed over. A large field opens on every side, and millions of perishing heathens, tormented in this life by idolatry, superstition, and ignorance, and exposed to eternal miseries in the world to come, are pleading; yea, all their miseries plead as soon as they are known, with every heart that loves God, and with all the churches of the living God. Oh, that many labourers may be thrust out into the vineyard of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the gentiles may come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Him!"
On the 7th November, as the ship lay in the roads of Balasore, he and Thomas landed and "began our labours." For three hours the people of the bazaar listened with great attention to Thomas, and one prepared for them a native dinner with plantain leaf for dish, and fingers for knives and forks. Balasore—name of Krishna—was one of the first settlements of the English in North India in 1642, and there the American Baptist successors of Carey have since carried on his work. On the 11th November, after a five months' voyage, they landed at Calcutta unmolested. The first fortnight's experience of the city, whose native population he estimated at 200,000, and of the surrounding country, he thus condenses:—"I feel something of what Paul felt when he beheld Athens, and 'his spirit was stirred within him.' I see one of the finest countries in the world, full of industrious inhabitants; yet three-fifths of it are an uncultivated jungle, abandoned to wild beasts and serpents. If the gospel flourishes here, 'the wilderness will in every respect become a fruitful field.'"
Clive, Hastings (Macpherson during an interregnum of twenty-two months), and Cornwallis, were the men who had founded and administered the empire of British India up to this time. Carey passed the last Governor-General in the Bay of Bengal as he retired with the honours of a seven years' successful generalship and government to atone for the not unhappy surrender of York Town, which had resulted in the independence of the United States. Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, who had been selected by Pitt to carry out the reforms which he had elaborated along with his predecessor, had entered on his high office just a fortnight before. What a contrast was presented, as man judges, by the shy shoemaker, schoolmaster, and Baptist preacher, who found not a place in which to lay his head save a hovel lent to him by a Hindoo, to Clive, whose suicide he might have heard of when a child; to Hastings, who for seventeen years had stood before his country impeached. They were men described by Macaulay as of ancient, even illustrious lineage, and they had brought into existence an empire more extensive than that of Rome. He was a peasant craftsman, who had taught himself with a skill which Lord Wellesley, their successor almost as great as themselves, delighted publicly to acknowledge—a man of the people, of the class who had used the Roman Empire to build out of it a universal Christendom, who were even then turning France upside down, creating the Republic of America, and giving new life to Great Britain itself. The little Englishman was about to do in Calcutta and from Serampore what the little Jew, Paul, had done in Antioch and Ephesus, from Corinth and Rome. England might send its nobly born to erect the material and the secular fabric of empire, but it was only, in the providence of God, that they might prepare for the poor village preacher to convert the empire into a spiritual force which should in time do for Asia what Rome had done for Western Christendom. But till the last, as from the first, Carey was as unconscious of the part which he had been called to play as he was unresting in the work which it involved. It is no fanatical criticism, but the true philosophy of history, which places Carey over against Clive, the spiritual and secular founders, and Duff beside Hastings, the spiritual and secular consolidators of our Indian Empire.
Carey's work for India underlay the first period of forty years of transition from Cornwallis to Bentinck, as Duff's covered the second of thirty years to the close of Lord Canning's administration, which introduced the new era of full toleration and partial but increasing self-government directed by the Viceroy and Parliament.
Carey had been sent not only to the one people outside of Christendom whose conversion would tell most powerfully on all Asia, Africa, and their islands—the Hindoos; but to the one province which was almost entirely British, and could be used as it had been employed to assimilate the rest of India—Bengal. Territorially the East India Company possessed, when he landed, nothing outside of the Ganges valley of Bengal, Bihar, and Benares, save a few spots on the Madras and Malabar coasts and the portion just before taken in the Mysore war. The rest was desolated by the Marathas, the Nizam, Tipoo, and other Mohammedan adventurers. On the Gangetic delta and right up to Allahabad, but not beyond, the Company ruled and raised revenue, leaving the other functions of the state to Mohammedans of the type of Turkish pashas under the titular superiority of the effete Emperor of Delhi. The Bengali and Hindi-speaking millions of the Ganges and the simpler aborigines of the hills had been devastated by the famine of 1769-70, which the Company's officials, who were powerless where they did not intensify it by interference with trade, confessed to have cut off from ten to twelve millions of human beings. Over three-fifths of the area the soil was left without a cultivator. The whole young of that generation perished, so that, even twenty years after, Lord Cornwallis officially described one-third of Bengal as a jungle inhabited only by wild beasts. A quarter of a century after Carey's language was, as we have seen, "three-fifths of it are an uncultivated jungle abandoned to wild beasts and serpents."
But the British peace, in Bengal at least, had allowed abundant crops to work their natural result on the population. The local experience of Shore, who had witnessed the horrors he could do so little to relieve, had united with the statesmanship of Cornwallis to initiate a series of administrative reforms that worked some evil, but more good, all through Carey's time. First of all, as affecting the very existence and the social development of the people, or their capacity for being educated, Christianised, civilised in the highest sense, there was the relation of the Government to the ryots ("protected ones") and the zameendars ("landholders"). In India, as nearly all over the world except in feudalised Britain, the state is the common landlord in the interests of all classes who hold the soil subject to the payment of customary rents, directly or through middlemen, to the Government. For thirty years after Plassey the Government of India had been learning its business, and in the process had injured both itself and the landed classes, as much as has been done in Ireland. From a mere trader it had been, more or less consciously, becoming a ruler. In 1786 the Court of Directors, in a famous letter, tried to arrest the ruin which the famine had only hastened by ordering that a settlement of the land-tax or revenue or rent be made, not with mere farmers like the pashas of Turkey, but with the old zameendars, and that the rate be fixed for ten years. Cornwallis and Shore took three years to make the detailed investigations, and in 1789 the state rent-roll of Bengal proper was fixed at £2,858,772 a year. The English peer, who was Governor-General, at once jumped to the conclusion that this rate should be fixed not only for ten years, but for ever. The experienced Bengal civilian protested that to do that would be madness when a third of the rich province was out of cultivation, and as to the rest its value was but little known, and its estates were without reliable survey or boundaries.
We can now see that, as usual, both were right in what they asserted and wrong in what they denied. The principle of fixity of tenure and tax cannot be over-estimated in its economic, social, and political value, but it should have been applied to the village communities and cultivating peasants without the intervention of middlemen other than the large ancestral landholders with hereditary rights, and that on the standard of corn rents. Cornwallis had it in his power thus to do what some years afterwards Stein did in Prussia, with the result seen in the present German people and empire. The dispute as to a permanent or a decennial settlement was referred home, and Pitt, aided by Dundas and Charles Grant, took a week to consider it. His verdict was given in favour of feudalism. Eight months before Carey landed at Calcutta the settlement had been declared perpetual; in 1795 it was extended to Benares also.
During the next twenty years mismanagement and debt revolutionised the landed interest, as in France at the same time, but in a very different direction. The customary rights of the peasant proprietors had been legislatively secured by reserving to the Governor-General the power "to enact such regulations as he may think necessary for the protection and welfare of the dependent talookdars, ryots, and other cultivators of the soil." The peasants continued long to be so few that there was competition for them; the process of extortion with the aid of the courts had hardly begun when they were many, and the zameendars were burdened with charges for the police. But in 1799 and again in 1812 the state, trembling for its rent, gave the zameendars further authority. The principle of permanence of assessment so far co-operated with the splendid fertility of the Ganges valley and the peaceful multiplication of the people and spread of cultivation, that all through the wars and annexations, up to the close of the Mutiny, it was Bengal which enabled England to extend the empire up to its natural limits from the two seas to the Himalaya. But in 1859 the first attempt was made by the famous Act X. to check the rack-renting power of the zameendars. And now, more than a century since the first step was taken to arrest the ruin of the peasantry, the legislature of India has again tried to solve for the whole country these four difficulties which all past landed regulations have intensified—to give the state tenants a guarantee against uncertain enhancements of rent, and against taxation of improvements; to minimise the evil of taking rent in cash instead of in kind by arranging the dates on which rent is paid; and to mitigate if not prevent famine by allowing relief for failure of crops. As pioneering, the work of Carey and his colleagues all through was distinctly hindered by the treatment of the land question, which at once ground down the mass of the people and created a class of oppressive landlords destitute for the most part of public spirit and the higher culture. Both were disinclined by their circumstances to lend an ear to the Gospel, but these circumstances made it the more imperative on the missionaries to tell them, to teach their children, to print for all the glad tidings. Carey, himself of peasant extraction, cared for the millions of the people above all; but his work in the classical as well as the vernacular languages was equally addressed to their twenty thousand landlords. The time of his work—before Bentinck; and the centre of it—outside the metropolis, left the use of the English weapon against Brahmanism largely for Duff.
When Cornwallis, following Warren Hastings, completed the substitution of the British for the Mohammedan civil administration by a system of courts and police and a code of regulations, he was guilty of one omission and one mistake that it took years of discussion and action to rectify. He did not abolish from the courts the use of Persian, the language of the old Mussulman invaders, now foreign to all parties; and he excluded from all offices above £30 a year the natives of the country, contrary to their fair and politic practice. Bengal and its millions, in truth, were nominally governed in detail by three hundred white and upright civilians, with the inevitable result in abuses which they could not prevent, and oppression of native by native which they would not check, and the delay or development of reforms which the few missionaries long called for in vain. In a word, after making the most generous allowance for the good intentions of Cornwallis, and conscientiousness of Shore, his successor, we must admit that Carey was called to become the reformer of a state of society which the worst evils of Asiatic and English rule combined to prevent him and other self-sacrificing or disinterested philanthropists from purifying. The East India Company, at home and in India, had reached that depth of opposition to light and freedom in any form which justifies Burke's extremest passages—the period between its triumph on the exclusion of "the pious clauses" from the Charter of 1793 and its defeat in the Charter of 1813. We shall reproduce some outlines of the picture which Ward drew:—[7]
"On landing in Bengal, in the year 1793, our brethren found themselves surrounded with a population of heathens (not including the Mahometans) amounting to at least one hundred millions of souls.
"On the subject of the divine nature, with the verbal admission of the doctrine of the divine unity, they heard these idolaters speak of 330,000,000 of gods. Amidst innumerable idol temples they found none erected for the worship of the one living and true God. Services without end they saw performed in honour of the elements and deified heroes, but heard not one voice tuned to the praise or employed in the service of the one God. Unacquainted with the moral perfections of Jehovah, they saw this immense population prostrate before dead matter, before the monkey, the serpent, before idols the very personifications of sin; and they found this animal, this reptile, and the lecher Krishnu {u-caron} and his concubine Radha, among the favourite deities of the Hindoos...
"Respecting the real nature of the present state, the missionaries perceived that the Hindoos laboured under the most fatal misapprehensions; that they believed the good or evil actions of this birth were not produced as the volitions of their own wills, but arose from, and were the unavoidable results of, the actions of the past birth; that their present actions would inevitably give rise to the whole complexion of their characters and conduct in the following birth; and that thus they were doomed to interminable transmigrations, to float as some light substance upon the bosom of an irresistible torrent...
"Amongst these idolaters no Bibles were found; no sabbaths; no congregating for religious instruction in any form; no house for God; no God but a log of wood, or a monkey; no Saviour but the Ganges; no worship but that paid to abominable idols, and that connected with dances, songs, and unutterable impurities; so that what should have been divine worship, purifying, elevating, and carrying the heart to heaven, was a corrupt but rapid torrent, poisoning the soul and carrying it down to perdition; no morality, for how should a people be moral whose gods are monsters of vice; whose priests are their ringleaders in crime; whose scriptures encourage pride, impurity, falsehood, revenge, and murder; whose worship is connected with indescribable abominations, and whose heaven is a brothel? As might be expected, they found that men died here without indulging the smallest vestige of hope, except what can arise from transmigration, the hope, instead of plunging into some place of misery, of passing into the body of some reptile. To carry to such a people the divine word, to call them together for sacred instruction, to introduce amongst them a pure and heavenly worship, and to lead them to the observance of a Sabbath on earth, as the preparative and prelude to a state of endless perfection, was surely a work worthy for a Saviour to command, and becoming a christian people to attempt."
The condition of women, who were then estimated at "seventy-five millions of minds," and whom the census shows to be now above 144,000,000, is thus described after an account of female infanticide:—
"To the Hindoo female all education is denied by the positive injunction of the shastru {u-caron}, and by the general voice of the population. Not a single school for girls, therefore, all over the country! With knitting, sewing, embroidery, painting, music, and drawing, they have no more to do than with letters; the washing is done by men of a particular tribe. The Hindoo girl, therefore, spends the ten first years of her life in sheer idleness, immured in the house of her father.
"Before she has attained to this age, however, she is sought after by the ghutuks, men employed by parents to seek wives for their sons. She is betrothed without her consent; a legal agreement, which binds her for life, being made by the parents on both sides while she is yet a child. At a time most convenient to the parents, this boy and girl are brought together for the first time, and the marriage ceremony is performed; after which she returns to the house of her father.
"Before the marriage is consummated, in many instances, the boy dies, and this girl becomes a widow; and as the law prohibits the marriage of widows, she is doomed to remain in this state as long as she lives. The greater number of these unfortunate beings become a prey to the seducer, and a disgrace to their families. Not long since a bride, on the day the marriage ceremony was to have been performed, was burnt on the funeral pile with the dead body of the bridegroom, at Chandernagore, a few miles north of Calcutta. Concubinage, to a most awful extent, is the fruit of these marriages without choice. What a sum of misery is attached to the lot of woman in India before she has attained even her fifteenth year!
"In some cases as many as fifty females, the daughters of so many Hindoos, are given in marriage to one bramhun {u-caron}, in order to make these families something more respectable, and that the parents may be able to say, we are allied by marriage to the kooleens...
"But the awful state of female society in this miserable country appears in nothing so much as in dooming the female, the widow, to be burnt alive with the putrid carcase of her husband. The Hindoo legislators have sanctioned this immolation, showing herein a studied determination to insult and degrade woman. She is, therefore, in the first instance, deluded into this act by the writings of these bramhuns {u-caron}; in which also she is promised, that if she will offer herself, for the benefit of her husband, on the funeral pile, she shall, by the extraordinary merit of this action, rescue her husband from misery, and take him and fourteen generations of his and her family with her to heaven, where she shall enjoy with them celestial happiness until fourteen kings of the gods shall have succeeded to the throne of heaven (that is, millions of years!) Thus ensnared, she embraces this dreadful death. I have seen three widows, at different times, burnt alive; and had repeated opportunities of being present at similar immolations, but my courage failed me...
"The burying alive of widows manifests, if that were possible, a still more abominable state of feeling towards women than the burning them alive. The weavers bury their dead. When, therefore, a widow of this tribe is deluded into the determination not to survive her husband, she is buried alive with the dead body. In this kind of immolation the children and relations dig the grave. After certain ceremonies have been attended to, the poor widow arrives, and is let down into the pit. She sits in the centre, taking the dead body on her lap and encircling it with her arms. These relations now begin to throw in the soil; and after a short space, two of them descend into the grave, and tread the earth firmly round the body of the widow. She sits a calm and unremonstrating spectator of the horrid process. She sees the earth rising higher and higher around her, without upbraiding her murderers, or making the least effort to arise and make her escape. At length the earth reaches her lips—covers her head. The rest of the earth is then hastily thrown in, and these children and relations mount the grave, and tread down the earth upon the head of the suffocating widow—the mother!"
Before Carey, what had been done to turn the millions of North India from such darkness as that? Nothing, beyond the brief and impulsive efforts of Thomas. There does not seem to have been there one genuine convert from any of the Asiatic faiths; there had never been even the nucleus of a native church.
In South India, for the greater part of the century, the Coast Mission, as it was called, had been carried on from Tranquebar as a centre by the Lutherans whom, from Ziegenbalg to Schwartz, Francke had trained at Halle and Friedrich IV. of Denmark had sent forth to its East India Company's settlement. From the baptism of the first convert in 1707 and translation of the New Testament into Tamil, to the death in 1798 of Schwartz, with whom Carey sought to begin a correspondence then taken up by Guericke, the foundations were laid around Madras, in Tanjore, and in Tinnevelli of a native church which now includes nearly a million. But, when Carey landed, rationalism in Germany and Denmark, and the Carnatic wars between the English and French, had reduced the Coast Mission to a state of inanition. Nor was Southern India the true or ultimate battlefield against Brahmanism; the triumphs of Christianity there were rather among the demon-worshipping tribes of Dravidian origin than among the Aryan races till Dr. W. Miller developed the Christian College. But the way for the harvest now being reaped by the Evangelicals and Anglicans of the Church of England, by the Independents of the London Missionary Society, the Wesleyans, and the Presbyterians of Scotland and America, was prepared by the German Ziegenbalg and Schwartz under Danish protection. The English Propagation and Christian Knowledge Societies sent them occasional aid, the first two Georges under the influence of their German chaplains wrote to them encouraging letters, and the East India Company even gave them a free passage in its ships, and employed the sculptor Bacon to prepare the noble group of marble which, in St. Mary's Church, Madras, expresses its gratitude to Schwartz for his political services.
It was Clive himself who brought to Calcutta the first missionary, Kiernander the Swede, but he was rather a chaplain, or a missionary to the Portuguese, who were nominal Christians of the lowest Romanist type. The French had closed the Danish mission at Cuddalore, and in 1758 Calcutta was without a Protestant clergyman to bury the dead or baptise or marry the living. Two years before one of the two chaplains had perished in the tragedy of the Black Hole, where he was found lying hand in hand with his son, a young lieutenant. The other had escaped down the river only to die of fever along with many more. The victory of Plassey and the large compensation paid for the destruction of Old Calcutta and its church induced thousands of natives to flock to the new capital, while the number of the European troops and officials was about 2000. When chaplains were sent out, the Governor-General officially wrote of them to the Court of Directors so late as 1795:—"Our clergy in Bengal, with some exceptions, are not respectable characters." From the general relaxation of morals, he added, "a black coat is no security." They were so badly paid—from £50 to £230 a year, increased by £120 to meet the cost of living in Calcutta after 1764—that they traded. Preaching was the least of the chaplains' duties; burying was the most onerous. Anglo-Indian society, cut off from London, itself not much better, by a six months' voyage, was corrupt. Warren Hastings and Philip Francis, his hostile colleague in Council, lived in open adultery. The majority of the officials had native women, and the increase of their children, who lived in a state worse than that of the heathen, became so alarming that the compensation paid by the Mohammedan Government of Moorshedabad for the destruction of the church was applied to the foundation of the useful charity still known as the Free School. The fathers not infrequently adopted the Hindoo pantheon along with the zanana. The pollution, springing from England originally, was rolled back into it in an increasing volume, when the survivors retired as nabobs with fortunes, to corrupt social and political life, till Pitt cried out; and it became possible for Burke almost to succeed in his eighteen years' impeachment of Hastings. The literature of the close of the eighteenth century is full of alarm lest the English character should be corrupted, and lest the balance of the constitution should be upset.
Kiernander is said to have been the means of converting 209 heathens and 380 Romanists, of whom three were priests, during the twenty-eight years of his Calcutta career. Claudius Buchanan declares that Christian tracts had been translated into Bengali—one written by the Bishop of Sodor and Man—and that in the time of Warren Hastings Hindoo Christians had preached to their countrymen in the city. The "heathen" were probably Portuguese descendants, in whose language Kiernander preached as the lingua franca of the time. He could not even converse in Bengali or Hindostani, and when Charles Grant went to him for information as to the way of a sinner's salvation this happened—"My anxious inquiries as to what I should do to be saved appeared to embarrass and confuse him exceedingly. He could not answer my questions, but he gave me some good instructive books." On Kiernander's bankruptcy, caused by his son when the father was blind, the "Mission Church" was bought by Grant, who wrote that its labours "have been confined to the descendants of Europeans, and have hardly ever embraced a single heathen, so that a mission to the Hindoos and Mohammedans would be a new thing." The Rev. David Brown, who had been sent out the year after as master and chaplain of the Military Orphan Society, for the education of the children of officers and soldiers, and was to become one of the Serampore circle of friends, preached to Europeans only in the Mission Church. Carey could find no trace of Kiernander's work among the natives six years after his death.[8] The only converted Hindoo known of in Northern India up to that time was Guneshan Dass, of Delhi, who when a boy joined Clive's army, who was the first man of caste to visit England, and who, on his return with the Calcutta Supreme Court Judges in 1774 as Persian interpreter and translator, was baptised by Kiernander, Mr. justice Chambers being sponsor.
William Carey had no predecessor in India as the first ordained Englishman who was sent to it as a missionary; he had no predecessor in Bengal and Hindostan proper as the first missionary from any land to the people. Even the Moravians, who in 1777 had sent two brethren to Serampore, Calcutta, and Patna, had soon withdrawn them, and one of them became the Company's botanist in Madras—Dr. Heyne. Carey practically stood alone at the first, while he unconsciously set in motion the double revolution, which was to convert the Anglo-Indian influence on England from corrupting heathenism to aggressive missionary zeal, and to change the Bengal of Cornwallis into the India of Bentinck, with all the possibilities that have made it grow, thus far, into the India of the Lawrences.
Carey's two missionary principles—Destitute in Calcutta—Bandel and Nuddea—Applies in vain to be under-superintendent of the Botanic Garden—Housed by a native usurer—Translation and preaching work in Calcutta—Secures a grant of waste land at Hasnabad—Estimate of the Bengali language, and appeal to the Society to work in Asia and Africa rather than in America—The Udny family—Carey's summary of his first year's experience—Superintends the indigo factory of Mudnabati—Indigo and the East India Company's monopolies—Carey's first nearly fatal sickness—Death of his child and chronic madness of his wife—Formation of first Baptist church in India—Early progress of Bible translation—Sanskrit studies; the Mahabarata—The wooden printing-press set up at Mudnabati—His educational ideal; school-work—The medical mission—Lord Wellesley—Carey seeks a mission centre among the Bhooteas—Describes his first sight of a Sati—Projects a mission settlement at Kidderpore.
Carey was in his thirty-third year when he landed in Bengal. Two principles regulated the conception, the foundation, and the whole course of the mission which he now began. He had been led to these by the very genius of Christianity itself, by the example and teaching of Christ and of Paul, and by the experience of the Moravian brethren. He had laid them down in his Enquiry, and every month's residence during forty years in India confirmed him in his adhesion to them. These principles are that (1) a missionary must be one of the companions and equals of the people to whom he is sent; and (2) a missionary must as soon as possible become indigenous, self-supporting, self-propagating, alike by the labours of the mission and of the converts. Himself a man of the people yet a scholar, a shoemaker and a schoolmaster yet a preacher and pastor to whom the great Robert Hall gloried in being a successor, Carey had led the two lives as Paul had done. Now that he was fairly in Calcutta he resumed the divine toil, and ceased it not till he entered on the eternal rest. He prepared to go up country to Malda to till the ground among the natives of the rich district around the ruined capital of Gour. He engaged as his pundit and interpreter Ram Basu, one of the professing inquirers whom Thomas had attracted in former days. Experience soon taught him that, however correct his principle, Malda is not a land where the white man can be a farmer. So he became, in the different stages of his career, a captain of labour as an indigo planter, a teacher of Bengali, and professor of Sanskrit and Marathi, and the Government translator of Bengali. Nor did he or his associates ever make the mistake—or commit the fraud—of the Jesuit missionaries, whose idea of equality with the people was not that of brotherhood in Christ, but that of dragging down Christian doctrine, worship and civilisation, to the level of idolatrous heathenism, and deluding the ignorant into accepting the blasphemous compromise.
Alas! Carey could not manage to get out of Calcutta and its neighbourhood for five months. As he thought to live by farming, Thomas was to practise his profession; and their first year's income of £150 had, in those days when the foreign exchanges were unknown, to be realised by the sale of the goods in which it had been invested. As usual, Thomas had again blundered, so that even his gentle colleague himself half-condemned, half-apologised for him by the shrewd reflection that he was only fit to live at sea, where his daily business would be before him, and daily provision would be made for him. Carey found himself penniless. Even had he received the whole of his £75, as he really did in one way or other, what was that for such a family as his at the beginning of their undertaking? The expense of living at all in Calcutta drove the whole party thirty miles up the river to Bandel, an old Portuguese suburb of the Hoogli factory. There they rented a small house from the German hotel-keeper, beside the Augustinian priory and oldest church in North India, which dates from 1599 and is still in good order. There they met Kiernander, then at the great age of eighty-four. Daily they preached or talked to the people. They purchased a boat for regular visitation of the hamlets, markets, and towns which line both banks of the river. With sure instinct Carey soon fixed on Nuddea, as the centre of Brahmanical superstition and Sanskrit learning, where "to build me a hut and live like the natives," language recalled to us by the words of the dying Livingstone in the swamps of Central Africa. There, in the capital of the last of the Hindoo kings, beside the leafy tols or colleges of a river port which rivals Benares, Poona, and Conjeeveram in sanctity, where Chaitanya the Vaishnaiva reformer was born, Carey might have attacked Brahmanism in its stronghold. A passage in his journal shows how he realised the position. Thomas, the pundit, and he "sought the Lord by prayer for direction," and this much was the result—"Several of the most learned Pundits and Brahmans wished us to settle there; and, as that is the great place for Eastern learning, we seemed inclined, especially as it is the bulwark of heathenism, which, if once carried, all the rest of the country must be laid open to us." But there was no available land there for an Englishman's cultivation. From Bandel he wrote home these impressions of Anglo-Indian life and missionary duty:—
"26th Dec. 1793.—A missionary must be one of the companions and equals of the people to whom he is sent, and many dangers and temptations will be in his way. One or two pieces of advice I may venture to give. The first is to be exceedingly cautious lest the voyage prove a great snare. All the discourse is about high life, and every circumstance will contribute to unfit the mind for the work and prejudice the soul against the people to whom he goes; and in a country like this, settled by Europeans, the grandeur, the customs, and prejudices of the Europeans are exceeding dangerous. They are very kind and hospitable, but even to visit them, if a man keeps no table of his own, would more than ten times exceed the allowance of a mission; and all their discourse is about the vices of the natives, so that a missionary must see thousands of people treating him with the greatest kindness, but whom he must be entirely different from in his life, his appearance in everything, or it is impossible for him to stand their profuse way of living, being so contrary to his character and so much above his ability. This is a snare to dear Mr. Thomas, which will be felt by us both in some measure. It will be very important to missionaries to be men of calmness and evenness of temper, and rather inclined to suffer hardships than to court the favour of men, and such who will be indefatigably employed in the work set before them, an inconstancy of mind being quite injurious to it."
He had need of such faith and patience. Hearing of waste land in Calcutta, he returned there only to be disappointed. The Danish captain, knowing that he had written a botanical work, advised him to take it to the doctor in charge of the Company's Botanic Garden, and offer himself for a vacant appointment to superintend part of it. The doctor, who and whose successors were soon to be proud of his assistance on equal terms, had to tell him that the office had been filled up, but invited the weary man to dine with him. Houseless, with his maddened wife, and her sister and two of his four children down with dysentery, due to the bad food and exposure of six weeks in the interior, Carey found a friend, appropriately enough, in a Bengali money-lender.[9] Nelu Dutt, a banker who had lent money to Thomas, offered the destitute family his garden house in the north-eastern quarter of Manicktolla until they could do better. The place was mean enough, but Carey never forgot the deed, and he had it in his power long after to help Nelu Dutt when in poverty. Such, on the other hand, was the dislike of the Rev. David Brown to Thomas, that when Carey had walked five miles in the heat of the sun to visit the comparatively prosperous evangelical preacher, "I left him without his having so much as asked me to take any refreshment."
Carey would not have been allowed to live in Calcutta as a missionary. Forty years were to pass before that could be possible without a Company's passport. But no one was aware of the existence of the obscure vagrant, as he seemed, although he was hard at work. All around him was a Mohammedan community whom he addressed with the greatest freedom, and with whom he discussed the relative merits of the Koran and the Bible in a kindly spirit, "to recommend the Gospel and the way of life by Christ." He had helped Thomas with a translation of the book of Genesis during the voyage, and now we find this in his journal two months and a half after he had landed:—
"Through the delays of my companion I have spent another month, and done scarcely anything, except that I have added to my knowledge of the language, and had opportunity of seeing much more of the genius and disposition of the natives than I otherwise could have known. This day finished the correction of the first chapter of Genesis, which moonshi says is rendered into very good Bengali. Just as we had finished it, a pundit and another man from Nuddea came to see me. I showed it to them; and the pundit seemed much pleased with the account of the creation; only they have an imaginary place somewhere beneath the earth, and he thought that should have been mentioned likewise...
"Was very weary, having walked in the sun about fifteen or sixteen miles, yet had the satisfaction of discoursing with some money-changers at Calcutta, who could speak English, about the importance and absolute necessity of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. One of them was a very crafty man, and tried much to entangle me with hard questions; but at last, finding himself entangled, he desisted, and went to his old occupation of money-changing again. If once God would by his Spirit convince them of sin, a Saviour would be a blessing indeed to them: but human nature is the same all the world over, and all conviction fails except it is produced by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit."
Ram Basu was himself in debt, was indeed all along a self-interested inquirer. But the next gleam of hope came from him, that the Carey family should move to the waste jungles of the Soondarbans, the tiger-haunted swamps south-east of Calcutta, and there cultivate a grant of land. With a sum of £16 borrowed from a native at twelve per cent. by Mr. Thomas, a boat was hired, and on the fourth day, when only one more meal remained, the miserable family and their stout-hearted father saw an English-built house. As they walked up to it the owner met them, and with Anglo-Indian hospitality invited them all to become his guests. He proved to be Mr. Charles Short, in charge of the Company's salt manufacture there. As a deist he had no sympathy with Carey's enterprise, but he helped the missionary none the less, and the reward came to him in due time in the opening of his heart to the love of Christ. He afterwards married Mrs. Carey's sister, and in England the two survived the great missionary, to tell this and much more regarding him. Here, at the place appropriately named Hasnabad, or the "smiling spot," Carey took a few acres on the Jamoona arm of the united Ganges and Brahmapootra, and built him a bamboo house, forty miles east of Calcutta. Knowing that the sahib's gun would keep off the tigers, natives squatted around to the number of three or four thousand. Such was the faith, the industry, and the modesty of the brave little man that, after just three months, he wrote thus:—"When I know the language well enough to preach in it, I have no doubt of having a stated congregation, and I much hope to send you pleasing accounts. I can so far converse in the language as to be understood in most things belonging to eating and drinking, buying and selling, etc. My ear is somewhat familiarised to the Bengali sounds. It is a language of a very singular construction, having no plural except for pronouns, and not a single preposition in it: but the cases of nouns and pronouns are almost endless, all the words answering to our prepositions being put after the word, and forming a new case. Except these singularities, I find it an easy language. I feel myself happy in my present undertaking; for, though I never felt the loss of social religion so much as now, yet a consciousness of having given up all for God is a support; and the work, with all its attendant inconveniences, is to me a rich reward. I think the Society would do well to keep their eye towards Africa or Asia, countries which are not like the wilds of America, where long labour will scarcely collect sixty people to hear the Word: for here it is almost impossible to get out of the way of hundreds, and preachers are wanted a thousand times more than people to preach to. Within India are the Maratha country and the northern parts to Cashmere, in which, as far as I can learn, there is not one soul that thinks of God aright...My health was never better. The climate, though hot, is tolerable; but, attended as I am with difficulties, I would not renounce my undertaking for all the world."
It was at this time that he drew his strength often from the experience of the first missionary, described by Isaiah, in all his solitude:—"Look unto Abraham your father, for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places." The sun of His comfort shone forth at last.
Carey's original intention to begin his mission near Malda was now to be carried out. In the opening week of 1794 the small English community in Bengal were saddened by the news that, when crossing the Hoogli at Calcutta, a boat containing three of its principal merchants and the wife of one of them, had been upset, and all had been drowned. It turned out that two of the men recovered, but Mr. R. Udny and his young wife perished. His aged mother had been one of the godly circle in the Residency at Malda to whom Thomas had ministered; and Mr. G. Udny, her other son, was still the Company's commercial Resident there. A letter of sympathy which Thomas sent to them restored the old relations, and resulted in Mr. G. Udny inviting first the writer and then Carey to become his assistants in charge of new indigo factories which he was building on his own account. Each received a salary equivalent to £250 a year, with the prospect of a commission on the out-turn, and even a proprietary share. Carey's remark in his journal on the day he received the offer was:—"This appearing to be a remarkable opening in divine providence for our comfortable support, I accepted it...I shall likewise be joined with my colleague again, and we shall unitedly engage in our work." Again:—"The conversion of the heathen is the object which above all others I wish to pursue. If my situation at Malda should be tolerable, I most certainly will publish the Bible in numbers." On receiving the rejoinder to his acceptance of the offer he set this down:—"I am resolved to write to the Society that my circumstances are such that I do not need future help from them, and to devote a sum monthly for the printing of the Bengali Bible." This he did, adding that it would be his glory and joy to stand in the same relation to the Society as if he needed support from them. He hoped they would be the sooner able to send another mission somewhere—to Sumatra or some of the Indian Islands. From the first he lived with such simplicity that he gave from one-fourth to one-third of his little income to his own mission at Mudnabati.
Carey thus sums up his first year's experience before leaving his jungle home on a three weeks' voyage up the Ganges, and records his first deliberate and regular attempt to preach in Bengali on the way.
"8th April 1794.—All my hope is in, and all my comfort arises from, God; without His power no European could possibly be converted, and His power can convert any Indian; and when I reflect that He has stirred me up to the work, and wrought wonders to prepare the way, I can hope in His promises, and am encouraged and strengthened...
"19th April.—O how glorious are the ways of God! 'My soul longeth and fainteth for God, for the living God, to see His glory and beauty as I have seen them in the sanctuary.' When I first left England, my hope of the conversion of the heathen was very strong; but, among so many obstacles, it would entirely die away unless upheld by God. Nothing to exercise it, but plenty to obstruct it, for now a year and nineteen days, which is the space since I left my dear charge at Leicester. Since that I have had hurrying up and down; a five months' imprisonment with carnal men on board the ship; five more learning the language; my moonshi not understanding English sufficiently to interpret my preaching; my colleague separated from me; long delays and few opportunities for social worship; no woods to retire to, like Brainerd, for fear of tigers (no less than twenty men in the department of Deharta, where I am, have been carried away by them this season from the salt-works); no earthly thing to depend upon, or earthly comfort, except food and raiment. Well, I have God, and His Word is sure; and though the superstitions of the heathen were a million times worse than they are, if I were deserted by all, and persecuted by all, yet my hope, fixed on that sure Word, will rise superior to all obstructions, and triumph over all trials. God's cause will triumph, and I shall come out of all trials as gold purified by fire. I was much humbled to-day by reading Brainerd. O what a disparity betwixt me and him, he always constant, I as inconstant as the wind!
"22nd April.—Bless God for a continuance of the happy frame of yesterday. I think the hope of soon acquiring the language puts fresh life into my soul; for a long time my mouth has been shut, and my days have been beclouded with heaviness; but now I begin to be something like a traveller who has been almost beaten out in a violent storm, and who, with all his clothes about him dripping wet, sees the sky begin to clear: so I, with only the prospect of a more pleasant season at hand, scarcely feel the sorrows of the present.
"23rd.—With all the cares of life, and all its sorrows, yet I find that a life of communion with God is sufficient to yield consolation in the midst of all, and even to produce a holy joy in the soul, which shall make it to triumph over all affliction. I have never yet repented of any sacrifice that I have made for the Gospel, but find that consolation of mind which can come from God alone.
"26th May.—This day kept Sabbath at Chandureea; had a pleasant day. In the morning and afternoon addressed my family, and in the evening began my work of publishing the Word of God to the heathen. Though imperfect in the knowledge of the language, yet, with the help of moonshi, I conversed with two Brahmans in the presence of about two hundred people, about the things of God. I had been to see a temple, in which were the images of Dukkinroy, the god of the woods, riding on a tiger; Sheetulla, goddess of the smallpox, without a head, riding on a horse without a head; Punchanon, with large ears; and Colloroy, riding on a horse. In another apartment was Seeb, which was only a smooth post of wood, with two or three mouldings in it, like the base of a Tuscan pillar. I therefore discoursed with them upon the vanity of idols, the folly and wickedness of idolatry, the nature and attributes of God, and the way of salvation by Christ. One Brahman was quite confounded, and a number of people were all at once crying out to him, 'Why do you not answer him? Why do you not answer him?' He replied, 'I have no words.' Just at this time a very learned Brahman came up, who was desired to talk with me, which he did, and so acceded to what I said, that he at last said images had been used of late years, but not from the beginning. I inquired what I must do to be saved; he said I must repeat the name of God a great many times. I replied, would you, if your son had offended you, be so pleased with him as to forgive him if he were to repeat the word 'father' a thousand times? This might please children or fools, but God is wise. He told me that I must get faith; I asked what faith was, to which he gave me no intelligible reply, but said I must obey God. I answered, what are His commands? what is His will? They said God was a great light, and as no one could see him, he became incarnate, under the threefold character of Brhumma, Bishno, and Seeb, and that either of them must be worshipped in order to life. I told them of the sure Word of the Gospel, and the way of life by Christ; and, night coming on, left them. I cannot tell what effect it may have, as I may never see them again."
At the beginning of the great rains in the middle of June Carey joined Mr. Udny and his mother at the chief factory. On each of the next two Sabbaths he preached twice in the hall of the Residency of the Company, which excluded all Christian missionaries by Act of Parliament. As an indigo planter he received the Company's licence to reside for at least five years. So on 26th June he began his secular duties by completing for the season of indigo manufacture the buildings at Mudnabati, and making the acquaintance of the ninety natives under his charge. Both Mr. Udny and he knew well that he was above all things a Christian missionary. "These will furnish a congregation immediately, and, added to the extensive engagements which I must necessarily have with the natives, will open a very wide door for activity. God grant that it may not only be large but effectual."
These were the days, which continued till the next charter, when the East India Company was still not only a body of merchants but of manufacturers. Of all the old monopolies only the most evil one is left, that of the growth, manufacture, and sale of opium. The civil servants, who were termed Residents, had not political duties with tributary sovereigns as now, but from great factory-like palaces, and on large salaries, made advances of money to contractors, native and European, who induced the ryots to weave cloth, to breed and feed the silkworm, and to grow and make the blue dye to which India had long given the name of "indigo." Mr. Carey was already familiar with the system of advances for salt, and the opium monopoly was then in its infancy. The European contractors were "interlopers," who introduced the most valuable cultivation and processes into India, and yet with whom the "covenanted" Residents were often at war. The Residents had themselves liberty of private trade, and unscrupulous men abused it. Clive had been hurried out thirty years before to check the abuse, which was ruining not only the Company's investments but the people. It had so spread on his departure that even judges and chaplains shared in the spoils till Cornwallis interfered. In the case of Mr. G. Udny and purely commercial agents the evil was reduced to a minimum, and the practice had been deliberately sanctioned by Sir John Shore on the ground that it was desirable to make the interests of the Company and of individuals go hand in hand.
The days when Europe got its cotton cloth from India, calling it "calico," from Calicut, and its rich yellow silks, have long since passed, although the latter are still supplied in an inferior form, and the former is once more raising its head, from the combination of machinery and cheap labour. For the old abuses of the Company the Government by Parliament has to some extent atoned by fostering the new cultures of tea, coffee, and cinchona, jute and wheat. The system of inducing the ryots to cultivate by advances, protected by a stringent contract law, still exists in the case of opium. The indigo culture system of Carey's time broke down in 1860 in the lower districts, where, following the Company itself, the planter made cash advances to the peasant, who was required to sow indigo on land which he held as a tenant but often as a proprietor, to deliver it at a fixed rate, and to bear the risk of the crop as well as the exactions of the factory servants. It still exists in the upper districts of Bihar, especially in Tirhoot, on a system comparatively free from economic objections.
The plant known as "Indigofera Tinctoria" is sown in March in soil carefully prepared, grows to about 5 feet, is cut down early in July, is fermented in vats, and the liquor is beaten till it precipitates the precious blue dye, which is boiled, drained, cut in small cakes, and dried. From first to last the growth and the manufacture are even more precarious than most tropical crops. An even rainfall, rigorous weeding, the most careful superintendence of the chemical processes, and conscientious packing, are necessary. One good crop in three years will pay where the factory is not burdened by severe interest on capital; one every other year will pay very well. Personally Carey had more than the usual qualifications of a successful planter, scientific knowledge, scrupulous conscientiousness and industry, and familiarity with the native character, so soon as he acquired the special experience necessary for superintending the manufacture. That experience he spared no effort to gain at once.
"1st, 2nd, and 3rd July.—Much engaged in the necessary business of preparing our works for the approaching season of indigo-making, which will commence in about a fortnight. I had on the evening of each of these days very precious seasons of fervent prayer to God. I have been on these evenings much drawn out in prayer for my dear friends at Leicester, and for the Society that it may be prosperous; likewise for the ministers of my acquaintance, not only of the Baptist but other denominations. I was engaged for the churches in America and Holland, as well as England, and much concerned for the success of the Gospel among the Hindoos. At present I know not of any success since I have been here. Many say that the Gospel is the word of truth; but they abound so much in flattery and encomiums, which are mere words of course, that little can be said respecting their sincerity. The very common sins of lying and avarice are so universal also, that no European who has not witnessed it can form any idea of their various appearances: they will stoop to anything whatsoever to get a few cowries, and lie on every occasion. O how desirable is the spread of the Gospel!
"4th July.—Rather more flat, perhaps owing to the excessive heat; for in the rainy season, if there be a fine day, it is very hot indeed. Such has been this day, and I was necessitated to be out in it from morning till evening, giving necessary directions. I felt very much fatigued indeed, and had no spirits left in the evening, and in prayer was very barren...
"9th July to 4th Aug.—Employed in visiting several factories to learn the process of indigo-making. Had some very pleasant seasons at Malda, where I preached several times, and the people seemed much affected with the Word. One day, as Mr. Thomas and I were riding out, we saw a basket hung in a tree, in which an infant had been exposed; the skull remained, the rest having been devoured by ants."
Success in the indigo culture was indeed never possible in Mudnabati. The factory stood on the river Tangan, within what is now the district of Dinajpoor, thirty miles north of Malda. To this day the revenue surveyors of Government describe it as low and marshy, subject to inundation during the rains, and considered very unhealthy. Carey had not been there a fortnight when he had to make this record:—
"5th, 6th, 7th July.—Much employed in settling the affairs of the buildings, etc., having been absent so long, and several of our managing and principal people being sick. It is indeed an awful time here with us now, scarcely a day but some are seized with fevers. It is, I believe, owing to the abundance of water, there being rice-fields all around us, in which they dam up the water, so that all the country hereabouts is about a foot deep in water; and as we have rain, though moderate to what I expected the rainy season to be, yet the continual moisture occasions fevers in such situations where rice is cultivated...Felt at home and thankful these days. O that I may be very useful! I must soon learn the language tolerably well, for I am obliged to converse with the natives every day, having no other persons here except my family."
Soon in September, the worst of all the months in Bengal, he himself was brought near to the grave by a fever, one of the paroxysms continuing for twenty-six hours without intermission, "when providentially Mr. Udny came to visit us, not knowing that I was ill, and brought a bottle of bark with him." He slowly recovered, but the second youngest child, Peter, a boy of five, was removed by dysentery, and caste made it long difficult to find any native to dig his grave. But of this time the faithful sufferer could write:—
"Sometimes I enjoyed sweet seasons of self-examination and prayer, as I lay upon my bed. Many hours together I sweetly spent in contemplating subjects for preaching, and in musing over discourses in Bengali; and when my animal spirits were somewhat raised by the fever, I found myself able to reason and discourse in Bengali for some hours together, and words and phrases occurred much more readily than when I was in health. When my dear child was ill I was enabled to attend upon him night and day, though very dangerously ill myself, without much fatigue; and now, I bless God that I feel a sweet resignation to his will."
A still harder fate befell him. The monomania of his wife became chronic. A letter which she wrote and sent by special messenger called forth from Thomas this loving sympathy:—"You must endeavour to consider it a disease. The eyes and ears of many are upon you, to whom your conduct is unimpeachable with respect to all her charges; but if you show resentment, they have ears, and others have tongues set on fire. Were I in your case, I should be violent; but blessed be God, who suits our burdens to our backs. Sometimes I pray earnestly for you, and I always feel for you. Think of Job, Think of Jesus. Think of those who were 'destitute, afflicted, tormented.'"
A voyage up the Tangan in Mr. Udny's pinnace as far as the north frontier, at a spot now passed by the railway to Darjeeling, restored the invalid. "I am no hunter," he wrote, while Thomas was shooting wild buffaloes, but he was ever adding to his store of observations of the people, the customs and language. Meanwhile he was longing for letters from Fuller and Pearce and Ryland. At the end of January 1795 the missionary exile thus talks of himself in his journal:—"Much engaged in writing, having begun to write letters to Europe; but having received none, I feel that hope deferred makes the heart sick. However, I am so fully satisfied of the firmness of their friendship that I feel a sweet pleasure in writing to them, though rather of a forlorn kind; and having nothing but myself to write about, feel the awkwardness of being an egotist. I feel a social spirit though barred from society...I sometimes walk in my garden, and try to pray to God; and if I pray at all it is in the solitude of a walk. I thought my soul a little drawn out to-day, but soon gross darkness returned. Spoke a word or two to a Mohammedan upon the things of God, but I feel to be as bad as they...9th May. I have added nothing to these memoirs since the 19th of April. Now I observe that for the last three sabbaths my soul has been much comforted in seeing so large a congregation, and more especially as many who are not our own workmen come from the parts adjacent, whose attendance must be wholly disinterested. I therefore now rejoice in seeing a regular congregation of from two to six hundred people of all descriptions—Mussulmans, Brahmans and other classes of Hindus, which I look upon as a favourable token from God...Blessed be God, I have at last received letters and other articles from our friends in England...from dear brethren Fuller, Morris, Pearce, and Rippon, but why not from others?...14th June. I have had very sore trials in my own family, from a quarter which I forbear to mention. Have greater need for faith and patience than ever I had, and I bless God that I have not been altogether without supplies of these graces...Mr. Thomas and his family spent one Lord's day with us, May 23rd...We spent Wednesday, 26th, in prayer, and for a convenient place assembled in a temple of Seeb, which was near to our house...I was from that day seized with a dysentery, which continued nearly a week with fearful violence; but then I recovered, through abundant mercy. That day of prayer was a good day to our souls. We concerted measures for forming a Baptist church."
To his sister he wrote, on the 11th March, of the church, which was duly formed of Europeans and Eurasians. No native convert was made in this Dinapoor mission till 1806, after Carey had removed to Serampore. "We have in the neighbourhood about fifteen or sixteen serious persons, or those I have good hopes of, all Europeans. With the natives I have very large concerns; almost all the farmers for nearly twenty miles round cultivate indigo for us, and the labouring people working here to the number of about five hundred, so that I have considerable opportunity of publishing the Gospel to them. I have so much knowledge of the language as to be able to preach to them for about half an hour, so as to be understood, but am not able to vary my subjects much. I tell them of the evil and universality of sin, the sins of a natural state, the justice of God, the incarnation of Christ and his sufferings in our stead, and of the necessity of conversion, holiness, and faith, in order to salvation. They hear with attention in general, and some come to me for instruction in the things of God."
"It was always my opinion that missionaries may and must support themselves after having been sent out and received a little support at first, and in consequence I pursue a very little worldly employment which requires three months' closish attendance in the year; but this is in the rains—the most unfavourable season for exertion. I have a district of about twenty miles square, where I am continually going from village to village to publish the Gospel; and in this space are about two hundred villages, whose inhabitants from time to time hear the Word. My manner of travelling is with two small boats; one serves me to live in, and the other for cooking my food. I carry all my furniture and food with me from place to place—viz. a chair, a table, a bed, and a lamp. I walk from village to village, but repair to my boat for lodging and eating. There are several rivers in this extent of country, which is very convenient for travelling."
Carey's first convert seems to have been Ignatius Fernandez, a Portuguese descendant who had prospered as a trader in Dinapoor station. The first Protestant place of worship in Bengal, outside of Calcutta, was built by him, in 1797, next to his own house. There he conducted service both in English and Bengali, whenever Carey and Thomas, and Fountain afterwards, were unable to go out to the station, and in his house Thomas and Fountain died. He remained there as a missionary till his own death, four years before Carey's, when he left all his property to the mission. The mission-house, as it is now, is a typical example of the bungalow of one story, which afterwards formed the first chapel in Serampore, and is still common as officers' quarters in Barrackpore and other military stations.
Side by side with his daily public preaching and more private conversations with inquirers in Bengali, Carey carried on the work of Bible translation. As each new portion was prepared it was tested by being read to hundreds of natives. The difficulty was that he had at once to give a literary form to the rich materials of the language, and to find in these or adapt from them terms sufficiently pure and accurate to express the divine ideas and facts revealed through the Hebrew and the Greek of the original. He gives us this unconscious glimpse of himself at work on this loftiest and most fruitful of tasks, which Jerome had first accomplished for Latin Christendom, Ulfila for our Scandinavian forefathers, Wiclif for the English, and Luther for the Germans of the time.
"Now I must mention some of the difficulties under which we labour, particularly myself. The language spoken by the natives of this part, though Bengali, is yet so different from the language itself, that, though I can preach an hour with tolerable freedom so as that all who speak the language well, or can write or read, perfectly understand me, yet the poor labouring people can understand but little; and though the language is rich, beautiful, and expressive, yet the poor people, whose whole concern has been to get a little rice to satisfy their wants, or to cheat their oppressive merchants and zameendars, have scarcely a word in use about religion. They have no word for love, for repent, and a thousand other things; and every idea is expressed either by quaint phrases or tedious circumlocutions. A native who speaks the language well finds it a year's work to obtain their idiom. This sometimes discourages me much; but blessed be God I feel a growing desire to be always abounding in the work of the Lord, and I know that my labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. I am much encouraged by our Lord's expression, 'He who reapeth' (in the harvest) 'receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto eternal life.' If I, like David, only am an instrument of gathering materials, and another build the house, I trust my joy will not be the less." This was written to the well-beloved Pearce, whom he would fain have had beside him at Mudnabati. To guide the two missionaries whom the Society were about to send to Africa on the salaries which he and Thomas had set free for this extension, Carey adds:—"They will do well to associate as much as possible with the natives, and to write down every word they can catch, with its meaning. But if they have children with them, it is by far the readiest way of learning to listen to them, for they will catch up every idiom in a little time. My children can speak nearly as well as the natives, and know many things in Bengali which they do not know in English. I should also recommend to your consideration a very large country, perhaps unthought of: I mean Bhootan or Tibet. Were two missionaries sent to that country, we should have it in our power to afford them much help...The day I received your letter I set about composing a grammar and dictionary of the Bengal language to send to you. The best account of Hindu mythology extant, and which is pretty exact, is Sonnerat's Voyage, undertaken by order of the king of France."
Without Sanskrit Carey found that he could neither master its Bengali offshoot nor enrich that vernacular with the words and combinations necessary for his translations of Scripture. Accordingly, with his usual rapidity and industry, we find that he had by April 1796 so worked his way through the intricate difficulties of the mother language of the Aryans that he could thus write to Ryland, with more than a mere scholar's enthusiasm, of one of the two great Vedic epics:—"I have read a considerable part of the Mahabarata, an epic poem written in most beautiful language, and much upon a par with Homer; and it was, like his Iliad, only considered as a great effort of human genius, I should think it one of the first productions in the world; but alas! it is the ground of faith to millions of the simple sons of men, and as such must be held in the utmost abhorrence." At the beginning of 1798 he wrote to Sutcliff:—"I am learning the Sanskrit language, which, with only the helps to be procured here, is perhaps the hardest language in the world. To accomplish this, I have nearly translated the Sanskrit grammar and dictionary into English, and have made considerable progress in compiling a dictionary, Sanskrit, including Bengali and English."
By this year he had completed his first translation of the Bible except the historical books from Joshua to Job, and had gone to Calcutta to obtain estimates for printing the New Testament, of which he had reported to Mr. Fuller:—"It has undergone one correction, but must undergo several more. I employ a pundit merely for this purpose, with whom I go through the whole in as exact a manner as I can. He judges of the style and syntax, and I of the faithfulness of the translation. I have, however, translated several chapters together, which have not required any alteration in the syntax whatever: yet I always submit this article entirely to his judgment. I can also, by hearing him read, judge whether he understands his subject by his accenting his reading properly and laying the emphasis on the right words. If he fails in this, I immediately suspect the translation; though it is not an easy matter for an ordinary reader to lay the emphasis properly in reading Bengali, in which there is no pointing at all. The mode of printing, i.e. whether a printing-press, etc., shall be sent from England, or whether it shall be printed here, or whether it shall be printed at all, now rests with the Society."
Fuller was willing, but the ardent scholar anticipated him. Seeing a wooden printing-press advertised in Calcutta for £40, Carey at once ordered it. On its arrival in 1798, "after worship" he "retired and thanked God for furnishing us with a press." When set up in the Mudnabati house its working was explained to the natives, on whom the delighted missionary's enthusiasm produced only the impression that it must be the idol of the English.
But Carey's missionary organisation would not have been complete without schools, and in planning these from the very first he gives us the germs which blossomed into the Serampore College of 1818 on the one hand, and the primary school circles under native Christian inspectors on the other, a system carried out since the Mutiny of 1857 by the Christian Literature Society, and adopted by the state departments of public instruction.
"MUDNABATI, 27th January 1795.—Mr. Thomas and I (between whom the utmost harmony prevails) have formed a plan for erecting two colleges (Chowparis, Bengali), one here and the other at his residence, where we intend to educate twelve lads, viz. six Mussulmans and six Hindoos at each place. A pundit is to have the charge of them, and they are to be taught Sanskrit, Bengali, and Persian; the Bible is to be introduced, and perhaps a little philosophy and geography. The time of their education is to be seven years, and we find them meat, clothing, lodging, etc. We are now inquiring for children proper for the purpose. We have also determined to require that the Society will advance money for types to print the Bengali Bible, and make us their debtors for the sum, which we hope to be able to pay off in one year: and it will also be requisite to send a printing-press from England. We will, if our lives are spared, repay the whole, and print the Bible at our own expense, and I hope the Society will become our creditors by paying for them when delivered. Mr. Thomas is now preparing letters for specimens, which I hope will be sent by this conveyance.
"We are under great obligation to Mr. G. Udny for putting us in these stations. He is a very friendly man and a true Christian. I have no spirit for politics here; for whatever the East India Company may be in England, their servants and officers here are very different; we have a few laws, and nothing to do but to obey." Of his own school he wrote in 1799 that it consisted of forty boys. "The school would have been much larger, had we been able to have borne the expense; but, as among the scholars there are several orphans whom we wholly maintain, we could not prudently venture on any further expense...The boys have hitherto learned to read and write, especially parts of the Scriptures, and to keep accounts. We may now be able to introduce some other useful branches of knowledge among them...I trust these schools may tend to promote curiosity and inquisitiveness among the rising generation; qualities which are seldom found in the natives of Bengal."
The Medical Mission completed the equipment. "I submit it to the consideration of the Society whether we should not be furnished with medicines gratis. No medicines will be sold by us, yet the cost of them enters very deeply into our allowance. The whole supply sent in the Earl Howe, amounting to £35, besides charges amounting to thirty per cent., falls on me; but the whole will either be administered to sick poor, or given to any neighbour who is in want, or used in our own families. Neighbouring gentlemen have often supplied us. Indeed, considering the distance we are from medical assistance, the great expensiveness of it far beyond our ability, and the number of wretched, afflicted objects whom we continually see and who continually apply for help, we ought never to sell a pennyworth. Brother Thomas has been the instrument of saving numbers of lives. His house is constantly surrounded with the afflicted; and the cures wrought by him would have gained any physician or surgeon in Europe the most extensive reputation. We ought to be furnished yearly with at least half a hundredweight of Jesuit's bark."
Around and as the fruit of the completely organised mission, thus conducted by the ordained preacher, teacher, scholar, scientist, printer, and licensed indigo planter in one station, and by his medical colleague sixteen miles to the north of him at Mahipal, there gathered many native inquirers. Besides the planters, civil officials, and military officers, to whom he ministered in Malda and Dinapoor stations, there was added the most able and consistent convert, Mr. Cunninghame of Lainshaw, the assistant judge, who afterwards in England fought the battle of missions, and from his Ayrshire estate, where he built a church, became famous as an expounder of prophecy. Carey looked upon this as "the greatest event that has occurred since our coming to this country." The appointment of Lord Mornington, soon to be known as the Marquis Wellesley, "the glorious little man," as Metcalfe called him, and hardly second to his younger brother Wellington, having led Fuller to recommend that Carey should wait upon his Excellency at Calcutta, this reply was received:—"I would not, however, have you suppose that we are obliged to conceal ourselves, or our work: no such thing. We preach before magistrates and judges; and were I to be in the company with Lord Mornington, I should not hesitate to declare myself a missionary to the heathen, though I would not on any account return myself as such to the Governor-General in Council."
Two years before this, in 1797, Carey had written:—"This mission should be strengthened as much as possible, as its situation is such as may put it in our power, eventually, to spread the Gospel through the greatest part of Asia, and almost all the necessary languages may be learned here." He had just returned from his first long missionary tour among the Bhooteas, who from Tibet had overrun the eastern Himalaya from Darjeeling to Assam. Carey and Thomas were received as Christian Lamas by the Soobah or lieutenant-governor of the country below the hills, which in 1865 we were compelled to annex and now administer as Jalpaigori District. They seemed to have been the first Englishmen who had entered the territory since the political and commercial missions of Bogle and Buchanan-Hamilton sent by Warren Hastings.
"The genuine politeness and gentleman-like behaviour of the Soobah exceeded everything that can be imagined, and his generosity was astonishing. He insisted on supplying all our people with everything they wanted; and if we did but cast our eyes to any object in the room, he immediately presented us with one of the same sort. Indeed he seemed to interpret our looks before we were aware; and in this manner he presented each of us that night with a sword, shield, helmet, and cup, made of a very light beautiful wood, and used by all the Bhooteas for drinking in. We admiring the wood, he gave us a large log of it; which appears to be like fir, with a very dark beautiful grain: it is full of a resin or turpentine, and burns like a candle if cut into thin pieces, and serves for that use. In eating, the Soobah imitated our manners so quickly and exactly, that though he had never seen a European before, yet he appeared as free as if he had spent his life with them. We ate his food, though I confess the thoughts of the Jinkof's bacon made me eat rather sparingly. We had much talk about Bhootan, and about the Gospel.
"We found that he had determined to give all the country a testimony of his friendship for us in a public manner; and the next day was fixed on to perform the ceremony in our tent on the market-place. Accordingly we got instructed in the necessary etiquette; and informed him we were only coming a short journey to see the country, were not provided with English cloth, etc., for presents. The time being come, we were waited on by the Soobah, followed by all his servants, both Bhooteas and Hindus. Being seated, we exchanged each five rupees and five pieces of betel, in the sight of the whole town; and having chewed betel for the first time in our lives, we embraced three times in the Eastern manner, and then shook hands in the English manner; after which, he made us a present of a piece of rich debang wrought with gold, each a Bhootan blanket, and the tail of an animal called the cheer cow, as bushy as a horse's, and used in the Hindu worship...In the morning, the Soobah came with his usual friendship, and brought more presents, which we received, and took our leave. He sent us away with every honour he could heap upon us; as a band of music before us, guides to show us the way, etc....The Soobah is to pay us a visit in a little time, which I hope to improve for the great end of settling a mission in that country."
Carey applied his unusual powers of detailed observation and memory in noting the physical and mental characteristics of these little Buddhists, the structure of the language and nature of their books, beliefs, and government, all of which he afterwards utilised. He was often in sight of snowy Kinchinjinga (28,156 feet), behind Darjeeling, and when the Soobah, being sick, afterwards sent messengers with gifts to induce him to return, he wrote:—"I hope to ascend those stupendous mountains, which are so high as to be seen at a distance of 200 or 250 miles. One of these distant mountains, which is seen at Mahipal, is concealed from view by the tops of a nearer range of hills, when you approach within sixty miles of them. The distant range forms an angle of about ten degrees with the horizon." But the time did not come for a mission to that region till the sanitarium of Darjeeling became the centre of another British district opened up by railway from Calcutta, and now the aboriginal Lepchas are coming in large numbers into the church. Subsequent communications from the Soobah informed them of the Garos of Assam.
On his last visit to Calcutta, in 1799, "to get types cast for printing the Bible," Carey witnessed that sight of widow-burning which was to continue to disgrace alike the Hindoos and the Company's Government until his incessant appeals in India and in England led to its prevention in 1829. In a letter to Dr. Ryland he thus describes the horrid rite:—
"MUDNABATI, 1st April 1799.—As I was returning from Calcutta I saw the Sahamaranam, or, a woman burning herself with the corpse of her husband, for the first time in my life. We were near the village of Noya Serai, or, as Rennell calls it in his chart of the Hoogli river, Niaverai. Being evening, we got out of the boat to walk, when we saw a number of people assembled on the river-side. I asked them what they were met for, and they told me to burn the body of a dead man. I inquired if his wife would die with him; they answered Yes, and pointed to the woman. She was standing by the pile, which was made of large billets of wood, about two and a half feet high, four feet long, and two wide, on the top of which lay the dead body of her husband. Her nearest relation stood by her, and near her was a small basket of sweetmeats called Thioy. I asked them if this was the woman's choice, or if she were brought to it by any improper influence? They answered that it was perfectly voluntary. I talked till reasoning was of no use, and then began to exclaim with all my might against what they were doing, telling them that it was a shocking murder. They told me it was a great act of holiness, and added in a very surly manner, that if I did not like to see it I might go farther off, and desired me to go. I told them that I would not go, that I was determined to stay and see the murder, and that I should certainly bear witness of it at the tribunal of God. I exhorted the woman not to throw away her life; to fear nothing, for no evil would follow her refusal to burn. But she in the most calm manner mounted the pile, and danced on it with her hands extended, as if in the utmost tranquillity of spirit. Previous to her mounting the pile the relation, whose office it was to set fire to the pile, led her six times round it, at two intervals—that is, thrice at each circumambulation. As she went round she scattered the sweetmeat above mentioned among the people, who picked it up and ate it as a very holy thing. This being ended, and she having mounted the pile and danced as above mentioned (N.B.—The dancing only appeared to be to show us her contempt of death, and prove to us that her dying was voluntary), she lay down by the corpse, and put one arm under its neck and the other over it, when a quantity of dry cocoa-leaves and other substances were heaped over them to a considerable height, and then Ghee, or melted preserved butter, poured on the top. Two bamboos were then put over them and held fast down, and fire put to the pile, which immediately blazed very fiercely, owing to the dry and combustible materials of which it was composed. No sooner was the fire kindled than all the people set up a great shout—Hurree-Bol, Hurree-Bol, which is a common shout of joy, and an invocation of Hurree, or Seeb. It was impossible to have heard the woman had she groaned, or even cried aloud, on account of the mad noise of the people, and it was impossible for her to stir or struggle on account of the bamboos which were held down on her like the levers of a press. We made much objection to their using these bamboos, and insisted that it was using force to prevent the woman from getting up when the fire burned her. But they declared that it was only done to keep the pile from falling down. We could not bear to see more, but left them, exclaiming loudly against the murder, and full of horror at what we had seen." In the same letter Carey communicates the information he had collected regarding the Jews and Syrian Christians of the Malabar coast.
Mr. G. Udny had now found his private indigo enterprise to be disastrous. He resolved to give it up and retire to England. Thomas had left his factory, and was urging his colleague to try the sugar trade, which at that time meant the distillation of rum. Carey rather took over from Mr. Udny the out-factory of Kidderpore, twelve miles distant, and there resolved to prepare for the arrival of colleagues, the communistic missionary settlement on the Moravian plan, which he had advocated in his Enquiry. Mr. John Fountain had been sent out as the first reinforcement, but he proved to be almost as dangerous to the infant mission from his outspoken political radicalism as Thomas had been from his debts. Carey seriously contemplated the setting up of his mission centre among the Bhooteas, so as to be free from the East India Company. The authorities would not license Fountain as his assistant. Would they allow future missionaries to settle with him? Would they always renew his own licence? And what if he must cease altogether to work with his hands, and give himself wholly to the work of the mission as seemed necessary?
Four new colleagues and their families were already on the sea, but God had provided a better refuge for His servants till the public conscience which they were about to quicken and enlighten should cause the persecution to cease.
Effects of the news in England on the Baptists—On the home churches—In the foundation of the London and other Missionary Societies—In Scotland—In Holland and America—The missionary home—Joshua Marshman, William Ward, and two others sent out—Landing at the Iona of Southern Asia—Meeting of Ward and Carey—First attempt to evangelise the non-Aryan hill tribes—Carey driven by providences to Serampore—Dense population of Hoogli district—Adapts his communistic plan to the new conditions—Purchase of the property—Constitution of the Brotherhood—His relations to Marshman and Ward—Hannah Marshman, the first woman missionary—Daily life of the Brethren—Form of Agreement—Carey's ideal system of missionary administration realised for fifteen years—Spiritual heroism of the Brotherhood.
The first two English missionaries to India seemed to those who sent them forth to have disappeared for ever. For fourteen months, in those days of slow Indiamen and French privateers, no tidings of their welfare reached the poor praying people of the midlands, who had been emboldened to begin the heroic enterprise. The convoy, which had seen the Danish vessel fairly beyond the French coast, had been unable to bring back letters on account of the weather. At last, on the 29th July 1794, Fuller, the secretary; Pearce, the beloved personal friend of Carey; Ryland in Bristol; and the congregation at Leicester, received the journals of the voyage and letters which told of the first six weeks' experience at Balasore, in Calcutta, Bandel, and Nuddea, just before Carey knew the worst of their pecuniary position. The committee at once met. They sang "with sacred joy" what has ever since been the jubilee hymn of missions, that by William Williams—
"O'er those gloomy hills of darkness."
They "returned solemn thanks to the everlasting God whose mercy endureth for ever, for having preserved you from the perils of the sea, and hitherto made your ways prosperous. In reading the short account of your labours we feel something of that spirit spoken of in the prophet, 'Thine heart shall fear and be enlarged.' We cordially thank you for your assiduity in learning the languages, in translating, and in every labour of love in which you have engaged. Under God we cheerfully confide in your wisdom, fidelity, and prudence, with relation to the seat of your labours or the means to carry them into effect. If there be one place, however, which strikes us as of more importance than the rest, it is Nuddea. But you must follow where the Lord opens a door for you." The same spirit of generous confidence marked the relations of Carey and the committee so long as Fuller was secretary. When the news came that the missionaries had become indigo planters, some of the weaker brethren, estimating Carey by themselves, sent out a mild warning against secular temptations, to which he returned a half-amused and kindly reply. John Newton, then the aged rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, on being consulted, reassured them: "If the heart be fired with a zeal for God and love to souls," he said, "such attention to business as circumstances require will not hurt it." Since Carey, like the Moravians, meant that the missionaries should live upon a common stock, and never lay up money, the weakest might have recognised the Paul-like nobleness, which had marked all his life, in relinquishing the scanty salary that it might be used for other missions to Africa and Asia.
The spiritual law which Duff's success afterwards led Chalmers to formulate, that the relation of foreign to home missions acts not by exhaustion but by fermentation, now came to be illustrated on a great scale, and to result in the foundation of the catholic missionary enterprise of the evangelicals of England, Scotland, Ireland, America, Germany, and France, which has marked the whole nineteenth century. We find it first in Fuller himself. In comforting Thomas during his extremest dejection he quoted to him from his own journal of 1789 the record of a long period of spiritual inactivity, which continued till Carey compelled him to join in the mission. "Before this I did little but pine over my misery, but since I have betaken myself to greater activity for God, my strength has been recovered and my soul replenished." "Your work is a great work, and the eyes of the religious world are upon you. Your undertaking, with that of your dear colleague, has provoked many. The spirit of missions is gone forth. I wish it may never stop till the Gospel is sent unto all the world."
Following the pietist Francke, who in 1710 published the first missionary reports, and also the Moravians, Fuller and his coadjutors issued from the press of J. W. Morris at Clipstone, towards the end of 1794, No. I. of their Periodical Accounts relative to a Society formed among the Particular Baptists for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen. That contained a narrative of the foundation of the Society and the letters of Carey up to 15th February 1794 from the Soondarbans. Six of these Accounts appeared up to the year 1800, when they were published as one volume with an index and illustrations. The volume closes with a doggerel translation of one of several Gospel ballads which Carey had written in Bengali in 1798. He had thus early brought into the service of Christ the Hindoo love of musical recitative, which was recently re-discovered—as it were—and now forms an important mode of evangelistic work when accompanied by native musical instruments. The original has a curious interest and value in the history of the Bengali language, as formed by Carey. As to the music he wrote:—"We sometimes have a melody that cheers my heart, though it would be discordant upon the ears of an Englishman."
Such was the immediate action of the infant Baptist Society. The moment Dr. Ryland read his letter from Carey he sent for Dr. Bogue and Mr. Stephen, who happened to be in Bristol, to rejoice with him. The three returned thanks to God, and then Bogue and Stephen, calling on Mr. Hey, a leading minister, took the first step towards the foundation of a similar organisation of non-Baptists, since known as the London Missionary Society. Immediately Bogue, the able Presbyterian, who had presided over a theological school at Gosport from which missionaries went forth, and who refused the best living in Edinburgh when offered to him by Dundas, wrote his address, which appeared in the Evangelical Magazine for September, calling on the churches to send out at least twenty or thirty missionaries. In the sermon of lofty eloquence which he preached the year after, he declared that the missionary movement of that time would form an epoch in the history of man,—"the time will be ever remembered by us, and may it be celebrated by future ages as the Æra of Christian Benevolence."
On the same day the Rev. T. Haweis, rector of All Saints, Aldwinkle, referring to the hundreds of ministers collected to decide where the first mission should be sent, thus burst forth: "Methinks I see the great Angel of the Covenant in the midst of us, pluming his wings, and ready to fly through the midst of heaven with his own everlasting Gospel, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people." In Hindostan "our brethren the Baptists have at present prevented our wishes...there is room for a thousand missionaries, and I wish we may be ready with a numerous host for that or any other part of the earth."
"Scotland[10] was the next to take up the challenge sent by Carey. Greville Ewing, then a young minister of the kirk in Edinburgh, published in March 1796 the appeal of the Edinburgh or Scottish Missionary Society, which afterwards sent John Wilson to Bombay, and that was followed by the Glasgow Society, to which we owe the most successful of the Kafir missions in South Africa. Robert Haldane sold all that he had when he read the first number of the Periodical Accounts, and gave £35,000 to send a Presbyterian mission of six ministers and laymen, besides himself, to do from Benares what Carey had planned from Mudnabati; but Pitt as well as Dundas, though his personal friends, threatened him with the Company's intolerant Act of Parliament. Evangelical ministers of the Church of England took their proper place in the new crusade, and a year before the eighteenth century closed they formed the agency, which has ever since been in the forefront of the host of the Lord as the Church Missionary Society, with Carey's friend, Thomas Scott, as its first secretary. The sacred enthusiasm was caught by the Netherlands on the one side under the influence of Dr. Van der Kemp, who had studied at Edinburgh University, and by the divinity students of New England, of whom Adoniram Judson was even then in training to receive from Carey the apostolate of Burma. Soon too the Bengali Bible translations were to unite with the needs of the Welsh at home to establish the British and Foreign Bible Society.
As news of all this reached Carey amid his troubles and yet triumphs of faith in the swamps of Dinajpoor, and when he learned that he was soon to be joined by four colleagues, one of whom was Ward whom he himself had trysted to print the Bengali Bible for him, he might well write, in July 1799:—"The success of the Gospel and, among other things, the hitherto unextinguishable missionary flame in England and all the western world, give us no little encouragement and animate our hearts." To Sutcliff he had written eighteen months before that:—"I rejoice much at the missionary spirit which has lately gone forth: surely it is a prelude to the universal spread of the Gospel! Your account of the German Moravian Brethren's affectionate regard towards me is very pleasing. I am not much moved by what men in general say of me; yet I cannot be insensible to the regards of men eminent for godliness...Staying at home is now become sinful in many cases, and will become so more and more. All gifts should be encouraged, and spread abroad."
The day was breaking now. Men as well as money were offered for Carey's work. In Scotland especially Fuller found that he had but to ask, but to appear in any evangelical pulpit, and he would receive sums which, in that day of small things, rebuked his little faith. Till the last Scotland was loyal to Carey and his colleagues, and with almost a prevision of this he wrote so early as 1797:—"It rejoices my heart much to hear of our brethren in Scotland having so liberally set themselves to encourage the mission." They approved of his plans, and prayed for him and his work. When Fuller called on Cecil for help, the "churchy" evangelical told him he had a poor opinion of all Baptists except one, the man who wrote The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. When he learned that its author was before him, the hasty offender apologised and offered a subscription. "Not a farthing, sir!" was the reply, "you do not give in faith;" but the persistent Cecil prevailed. Men, however, were a greater want than money at that early stage of the modern crusade. Thomas and Fountain had each been a mistake. So were the early African missionaries, with the exception of the first Scotsman, Peter Greig. Of the thirty sent out by the London Missionary Society in the Duff only four were fit for ordination, and not one has left a name of mark. The Church Mission continued to send out only Germans till 1815. In quick succession four young men offered themselves to the Baptist Society to go out as assistants to Carey, in the hope that the Company would give them a covenant to reside—Brunsdon and Grant, two of Ryland's Bristol flock; Joshua Marshman with his wife Hannah Marshman, and William Ward called by Carey himself.
In nine months Fuller had them and their families shipped in an American vessel, the Criterion, commanded by Captain Wickes, a Presbyterian elder of Philadelphia, who ever after promoted the cause in the United States. Charles Grant helped them as he would have aided Carey alone. Though the most influential of the Company's directors, he could not obtain a passport for them, but he gave them the very counsel which was to provide for the young mission its ark of defence: "Do not land at Calcutta but at Serampore, and there, under the protection of the Danish flag, arrange to join Mr. Carey." After five months' prosperous voyage the party reached the Hoogli. Before arriving within the limits of the port of Calcutta Captain Wickes sent them off in two boats under the guidance of a Bengali clerk to Serampore, fifteen miles higher up on the right bank of the river. They had agreed that he should boldly enter them, not as assistant planters, but as Christian missionaries, rightly trusting to Danish protection. Charles Grant had advised them well, but it is not easy now, as in the case of their predecessors in 1795 and of their successors up to 1813, to refrain from indignation that the British Parliament, and the party led by William Pitt, should have so long lent all the weight of their power to the East India Company in the vain attempt to keep Christianity from the Hindoos. Ward's journal thus simply tells the story of the landing of the missionaries at this Iona, this Canterbury of Southern Asia:—
"Lord's-day, Oct. 13, 1799.—Brother Brunsdon and I slept in the open air on our chests. We arrived at Serampore this morning by daylight, in health and pretty good spirits. We put up at Myerr's, a Danish tavern to which we had been recommended. No worship to-day. Nothing but a Portuguese church here.
"Oct. 14.—Mr. Forsyth from Calcutta, missionary belonging to the London Missionary Society, astonished us by his presence this afternoon. He was wholly unknown, but soon became well known. He gave us a deal of interesting information. He had seen brother Carey, who invited him to his house, offered him the assistance of his Moonshi, etc.
"Oct. 16—The Captain having been at Calcutta came and informed us that his ship could not be entered unless we made our appearance. Brother Brunsdon and I went to Calcutta, and the next day we were informed that the ship had obtained an entrance, on condition that we appeared at the Police Office, or would continue at Serampore. All things considered we preferred the latter, till the arrival of our friends from Kidderpore to whom we had addressed letters. Captain Wickes called on Rev. Mr. Brown, who very kindly offered to do anything for us in his power. Our Instructions with respect to our conduct towards Civil Government were read to him. He promised to call at the Police Office afterwards, and to inform the Master that we intended to stay at Serampore, till we had leave to go up the country. Captain Wickes called at the office afterwards, and they seemed quite satisfied with our declaration by him. In the afternoon we went to Serampore.
"Oct. 19.—I addressed a letter to the Governor to-day begging his acceptance of the last number of our Periodical Accounts, and informing him that we proposed having worship to-morrow in our own house, from which we did not wish to exclude any person.
"Lord's-day, Oct. 20.—This morning the Governor sent to inquire the hours of our worship. About half-past ten he came to our house with a number of gentlemen and their retinue. I preached from Acts xx. 24. We had a very attentive congregation of Europeans: several appeared affected, among whom was the Governor."
The text was well chosen from Paul's words to the elders of Ephesus, as he turned his face towards the bonds and afflictions that awaited him—"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." It proved to be a history of the three men thenceforth best known as the Serampore Missionaries. Ward, too, the literary member of the mission, composed the hymn which thus concluded:—
"Yes, we are safe beneath Thy shade,
And shall be so 'midst India's heat:
What should a missionary dread,
For devils crouch at Jesus' feet.
"There, sweetest Saviour! let Thy cross
Win many Hindoo hearts to Thee;
This shall make up for every loss,
While Thou art ours eternally."
In his first letter to a friend in Hull Ward used language which unconsciously predicted the future of the mission:—"With a Bible and a press posterity will see that a missionary will not labour in vain, even in India." But one of their number, Grant, was meanwhile removed by death, and, while they waited for a month, Carey failed to obtain leave for them to settle as his assistants in British territory. He had appealed to Mr. Brown, and to Dr. Roxburgh, his friend in charge of the Botanic Garden, to use his influence with the Government through Colebrooke, the Oriental scholar, then high in the service. But it was in vain. The police had seen with annoyance the missionaries slip from their grasp because of the liberality of the Governor-General of whom Carey had written to Ryland a year before: "At Calcutta, I saw much dissipation; but yet I think less than formerly. Lord Mornington has set his face against sports, gaming, horse-racing, and working on the Lord's-day; in consequence of which these infamous practices are less common than formerly." The missionaries, too, had at first been reported not as Baptist but as "Papist," and the emissaries of France, believed to be everywhere, must be watched against. The brave little Governor let it be understood that he would protect to the last the men who had been committed to his care by the Danish consul in London. So Ward obtained a Danish passport to enable him to visit Dinapoor and consult with Carey.
It was Sunday morning when he approached the Mudnabati factory, "feeling very unusual sensations," greatly excited. "At length I saw Carey! He is less altered than I expected: has rather more flesh than when in England, and, blessed be God! he is a young man still." It was a wrench to sacrifice his own pioneer mission, property worth £500, the school, the church, the inquirers, but he did not hesitate. He thus stated the case on the other side:—"At Serampore we may settle as missionaries, which is not allow here; and the great ends of the mission, particularly the printing of the Scriptures, seem much more likely to be answered in that situation than in this. There also brother Ward can have the inspection of the press; whereas here we should be deprived of his important assistance. In that part of the country the inhabitants are far more numerous than in this; and other missionaries may there be permitted to join us, which here it seems they will not." On the way down, during a visit to the Rajmahal Hills, round which the great Ganges sweeps, Carey and Ward made the first attempt to evangelise the Santal and other simple aboriginal tribes, whom the officials Brown and Cleveland had partly tamed. The Paharis are described, at that time, as without caste, priests, or public religion, as living on Indian corn and by hunting, for which they carry bows and arrows. "Brother Carey was able to converse with them." Again, Ward's comment on the Bengali services on the next Sunday, from the boats, is "the common sort wonder how brother Carey can know so much of the Shasters." "I long," wrote Carey from the spot to his new colleagues, "to stay here and tell these social and untutored heathen the good news from heaven. I have a strong persuasion that the doctrine of a dying Saviour would, under the Holy Spirit's influence, melt their hearts." From Taljheri and Pokhuria, near that place, to Parisnath, Ranchi, and Orissa, thousands of Santals and Kols have since been gathered into the kingdom.
On the 10th January 1800 Carey took up his residence at Serampore, on the 11th he was presented to the Governor, and "he went out and preached to the natives." His apprenticeship was over; so began his full apostolate, instant in season and out of season, to end only with his life thirty-four years after.
Thus step by step, by a way that he knew not, the shoemaker lad—who had educated himself to carry the Gospel to Tahiti, had been sent to Bengal in spite of the Company which cast him out of their ship, had starved in Calcutta, had built him a wooden hut in the jungles of the Delta, had become indigo planter in the swamps of Dinapoor that he might preach Christ without interference, had been forced to think of seeking the protection of a Buddhist in the Himalaya morass—was driven to begin anew in the very heart of the most densely peopled part of the British Empire, under the jealous care of the foreign European power which had a century before sent missionaries to Tranquebar and taught Zinzendorf and the Moravians the divine law of the kingdom; encouraged by a Governor, Colonel Bie, who was himself a disciple of Schwartz. To complete this catalogue of special providences we may add that, if Fuller had delayed only a little longer, even Serampore would have been found shut against the missionaries. For the year after, when Napoleon's acts had driven us to war with Denmark, a detachment of British troops, under Lord Minto's son, took possession of Fredericksnagore, as Serampore was officially called, and of the Danish East India Company's ship there, without opposition.
The district or county of Hoogli and Howrah, opposite Calcutta and Barrackpore, of which Serampore is the central port, swarms with a population, chiefly Hindoo but partly Mussulman, unmatched for density in any other part of the world. If, after years of a decimating fever, each of its 1701 square miles still supports nearly a thousand human beings or double the proportion of Belgium, we cannot believe that it was much less dense at the beginning of the century. From Howrah, the Surrey side of Calcutta, up to Hoogli the county town, the high ridge of mud between the river and the old channel of the Ganges to the west, has attracted the wealthiest and most intellectually active of all the Bengalees. Hence it was here that Portuguese and Dutch, French and English, and Danish planted their early factories. The last to obtain a site of twenty acres from the moribund Mussulman Government at Moorshedabad was Denmark, two years before Plassey. In the half century the hut of the first Governor sent from Tranquebar had grown into the "beautiful little town" which delighted the first Baptist missionaries. Its inhabitants, under only British administration since 1845, now number 45,000. Then they were much fewer, but then even more than now the town was a centre of the Vishnoo-worship of Jagganath, second only to that of Pooree in all India. Not far off, and now connected with the port by railway, is the foul shrine of Tarakeswar, which attracts thousands of pilgrims, many of them widows, who measure the road with their prostrate bodies dripping from the bath. Commercially Serampore sometimes distanced Calcutta itself, for all the foreign European trade was centred in it during the American and French wars, and the English civilians used its investments as the best means of remitting their savings home. When the missionaries landed there was nothing but a Portuguese Catholic church in the settlement, and the Governor was raising subscriptions for that pretty building in which Carey preached till he died, and the spire of which the Governor-General is said to have erected to improve the view of the town from the windows of his summer palace at Barrackpore opposite.
Removed from the rural obscurity of a Bengali village, where the cost of housing, clothing, and living was small, to a town in the neighbourhood of the capital much frequented by Europeans, Carey at once adapted the practical details of his communistic brotherhood to the new circumstances. With such wisdom was he aided in this by the business experience of Marshman and Ward, that a settlement was formed which admitted of easy development in correspondence with the rapid growth of the mission. At first the community consisted of ten adults and nine children. Grant had been carried off in a fever caused by the dampness of their first quarters. The promising Brunsdon was soon after removed by liver complaint caught from standing on an unmatted floor in the printing-office. Fountain, who at first continued the mission at Dinapoor, soon died there a happy death. Thomas had settled at Beerbhoom, but joined the Serampore brethren in time to do good though brief service before he too was cut off. But, fortunately as it proved for the future, Carey had to arrange for five families at the first, and this is how it was done as described by Ward:—
"The renting of a house, or houses, would ruin us. We hoped therefore to have been able to purchase land, and build mat houses upon it; but we can get none properly situated. We have in consequence purchased of the Governor's nephew a large house in the middle of the town for Rs.6000, or about £800; the rent in four years would have amounted to the purchase. It consists of a spacious verandah (portico) and hall, with two rooms on each side. Rather more to the front are two other rooms separate, and on one side is a storehouse, separate also, which will make a printing-office. It stands by the river-side upon a pretty large piece of ground, walled round, with a garden at the bottom, and in the middle a fine tank or pool of water. The price alarmed us, but we had no alternative; and we hope this will form a comfortable missionary settlement. Being near to Calcutta, it is of the utmost importance to our school, our press, and our connection with England."
"From hence may the Gospel issue and pervade all India," they wrote to Fuller. "We intend to teach a school, and make what we can of our press. The paper is all arrived, and the press, with the types, etc., complete. The Bible is wholly translated, except a few chapters, so that we intend to begin printing immediately, first the New and then the Old Testament. We love our work, and will do all we can to lighten your expenses."
This house-chapel, with two acres of garden land and separate rooms on either side, continued till 1875 to be the nucleus of the settlement afterwards celebrated all over South Asia and Christendom. The chapel is still sacred to the worship of God. The separate rooms to the left, fronting the Hoogli, became enlarged into the stately residence of Mr. John Marshman, C.S.I., and his two successors in the Friend of India, while beyond were the girl's school, now removed, the residence of Dr. Joshua Marshman before his death, and the boys' school presented to the mission by the King of Denmark. The separate rooms to the right grew into the press; farther down the river was the house of the Lady Rumohr who became Carey's second wife, with the great paper-mill behind; and, still farther, the second park in which the Serampore College was built, with the principal's house in which Carey died, and a hostel for the Native Christian students behind. The whole settlement finally formed a block of at least five acres, with almost palatial buildings, on the right bank of the Hoogli, which, with a breadth of half a mile when in flood, rolls between it and the Governor-General's summer house and English-like park of Barrackpore. The original two acres became Carey's Botanic Garden; the houses he surrounded and connected by mahogany trees, which grew to be of umbrageous beauty. His favourite promenade between the chapel and the mill, and ultimately the college, was under an avenue of his own planting, long known as "Carey's Walk."
The new colleagues who were to live with him in loving brotherhood till death removed the last in 1837 were not long in attracting him. The two were worthy to be associated with him, and so admirably supplemented his own deficiencies that the brotherhood became the most potent and permanent force in India. He thus wrote to Fuller his first impressions of them, with a loving self-depreciation:—"Brother Ward is the very man we wanted: he enters into the work with his whole soul. I have much pleasure in him, and expect much from him. Brother Marshman is a prodigy of diligence and prudence, as is also his wife in the latter: learning the language is mere play to him; he has already acquired as much as I did in double the time." After eight months of study and evangelising work they are thus described:—"Our brother Marshman, who is a true missionary, is able to talk a little; he goes out frequently, nay almost every day, and assaults the fortress of Satan. Brother Brunsdon can talk a little, though not like Marshman. Brother Ward is a great prize; he does not learn the language so quickly, but he is so holy, so spiritual a man, and so useful among the children."
Thus early did Carey note the value of Hannah Marshman, the first woman missionary to India. Granddaughter of the Baptist minister of Crockerton in Wiltshire, she proved to be for forty-six years at once a loving wife, and the equal of the three missionaries of Christ and of civilisation whom she aided in the common home, in the schools, in the congregation, in the Native Christian families, and even, at that early time, in purely Hindoo circles. Without her the mission must have been one-sided indeed. It gives us a pathetic interest to turn to her household books, where we find entered with loving care and thoughtful thrift all the daily details which at once form a valuable contribution to the history of prices, and show how her "prudence" combined with the heroic self-denial of all to make the Serampore mission the light of India. Ward's journal supplies this first sketch of the brotherhood, who realised, more than probably any in Protestant, Romanist, or Greek hagiology, the life of the apostolic community in Jerusalem:—
"January 18, 1800.—This week we have adopted a set of rules for the government of the family. All preach and pray in turn; one superintends the affairs of the family for a month, and then another; brother Carey is treasurer, and has the regulation of the medicine chest; brother Fountain is librarian. Saturday evening is devoted to adjusting differences, and pledging ourselves to love one another. One of our resolutions is, that no one of us do engage in private trade; but that all be done for the benefit of the mission...
"August 1.—Our labours for every day are now regularly arranged. About six o'clock we rise; brother Carey to his garden; brother Marshman to his school at seven; brother Brunsdon, Felix, and I, to the printing-office. At eight the bell rings for family worship: we assemble in the hall; sing, read, and pray. Breakfast. Afterwards, brother Carey goes to the translation, or reading proofs: brother Marshman to school, and the rest to the printing-office. Our compositor having left us, we do without: we print three half-sheets of 2000 each in a week; have five pressmen, one folder, and one binder. At twelve o'clock we take a luncheon; then most of us shave and bathe, read and sleep before dinner, which we have at three. After dinner we deliver our thoughts on a text or question: this we find to be very profitable. Brother and sister Marshman keep their schools till after two. In the afternoon, if business be done in the office, I read and try to talk Bengali with the bràmmhàn. We drink tea about seven, and have little or no supper. We have Bengali preaching once or twice in the week, and on Thursday evening we have an experience meeting. On Saturday evening we meet to compose differences and transact business, after prayer, which is always immediately after tea. Felix is very useful in the office; William goes to school, and part of the day learns to bind. We meet two hours before breakfast on the first Monday in the month, and each one prays for the salvation of the Bengal heathen. At night we unite our prayers for the universal spread of the Gospel."
The "Form of Agreement" which regulated the social economy and spiritual enterprise of the brotherhood, and also its legal relations to the Baptist Society in England, deserves study, in its divine disinterestedness, its lofty aims, and its kindly common sense. Fuller had pledged the Society in 1798 to send out £360 a year for the joint family of six missionaries, their wives, and children. The house and land at Serampore cost the Society Rs.6000. On Grant's death, leaving a widow and two children, the five missionaries made the first voluntary agreement, which "provided that no one should trade on his own private account, and that the product of their labour should form a common fund to be applied at the will of the majority, to the support of their respective families, of the cause of God around them, and of the widow and family of such as might be removed by death." The first year the schools and the press enabled the brotherhood to be more than self-supporting. In the second year Carey's salary from the College of Fort-William, and the growth of the schools and press, gave them a surplus for mission extension. They not only paid for the additional two houses and ground required by such extension, but they paid back to the Society all that it had advanced for the first purchase in the course of the next six years. They acquired all the property for the Serampore Mission, duly informing the home Committee from time to time, and they vested the whole right, up to Fuller's death in 1815, in the Society, "to prevent the premises being sold or becoming private property in the families." But "to secure their own quiet occupation of them, and enable them to leave them in the hands of such as they might associate with themselves in their work, they declared themselves trustees instead of proprietors."
The agreement of 1800 was expanded into the "Form of Agreement" of 1805 when the spiritual side of the mission had grown. Their own authoritative statement, as given above, was lovingly recognised by Fuller. In 1817, and again in 1820, the claims of aged and destitute relatives, and the duty of each brother making provision for his own widow and orphans, and, occasionally, the calls of pity and humanity, led the brotherhood to agree that "each shall regularly deduct a tenth of the net product of his labour to form a fund in his own hands for these purposes." We know nothing in the history of missions, monastic or evangelical, which at all approaches this in administrative perfectness as well is in Christlike self-sacrifice. It prevents secularisation of spirit, stimulates activity of all kinds, gives full scope to local ability and experience, calls forth the maximum of local support and propagation, sets the church at home free to enter incessantly on new fields, provides permanence as well as variety of action and adaptation to new circumstances, and binds the whole in a holy bond of prayerful co-operation and loving brotherhood. This Agreement worked for seventeen years, with a success in England and India which we shall trace, or as long as Fuller, Ryland, and Sutcliff lived "to hold the ropes," while Carey, Marshman, and Ward excavated the mine of Hindooism.
The spiritual side of the Agreement we find in the form which the three drew up in 1805, to be read publicly at all their stations thrice every year, on the Lord's Day. It is the ripe fruit of the first eleven years of Carey's daily toil and consecrated genius, as written out by the fervent pen of Ward. In the light of it the whole of Carey's life must be read. In these concluding sentences the writer sketches Carey himself:—"Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America, pouring out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen, without whose salvation nothing could make you happy. Prayer, secret, fervent, believing prayer, lies at the root of all personal godliness. A competent knowledge of the languages current where a missionary lives, a mild and winning temper, and a heart given up to God in closet religion; these, these are the attainments which more than all knowledge or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments of God in the great work of human redemption. Finally, let us give ourselves unreservedly to this glorious cause. Let us never think that our time, our gifts, our strength, our families, or even the clothes we wear are our own. Let us sanctify them all to God and His cause. Oh! that He may sanctify us for His work. Let us for ever shut out the idea of laying up a cowrie (mite) for ourselves or our children. If we give up the resolution which was formed on the subject of private trade, when we first united at Serampore, the mission is from that hour a lost cause. Let us continually watch against a worldly spirit, and cultivate a Christian indifference towards every indulgence. Rather let us bear hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. No private family ever enjoyed a greater portion of happiness, even in the most prosperous gale of worldly prosperity, than we have done since we resolved to have all things in common. If we are enabled to persevere in the same principles, we may hope that multitudes of converted souls will have reason to bless God to all eternity for sending His Gospel into this country."
Such was the moral heroism, such the spiritual aim of the Serampore brotherhood; how did it set to work?
A carpenter the first Bengali convert—Krishna Pal's confession—Caste broken for the first time—Carey describes the baptism in the Hoogli—The first woman convert—The first widow convert—The first convert of writer caste—The first Christian Brahman—The first native chapel—A Bengali "experience" meeting—Carey founding a new community as well as church—Marriage difficulties solved—The first native Christian marriage feast in North India—Hindoo Christian death and burial—The first Christian schools and school-books in North India—The first native Sunday school—Boarding schools for the higher education of country-born Christians—Carey on the mixed Portuguese, Eurasians, and Armenians—The Benevolent Institution for destitute children of all races—A hundred schools—English only postponed—Effect on native opinion and action—The leaven of the Kingdom—The Mission breaks forth into five at the close of 1810.
For seven years Carey had daily preached Christ in Bengali without a convert. He had produced the first edition of the New Testament. He had reduced the language to literary form. He had laid the foundations in the darkness of the pit of Hindooism, while the Northamptonshire pastors, by prayer and self-sacrifice, held the ropes. The last disappointment was on 25th November 1800, when "the first Hindoo" catechumen, Fakeer, offered himself for baptism, returned to his distant home for his child, and appeared no more, probably "detained by force." But on the last Sunday of that year Krishna Pal was baptised in the Hoogli and his whole family soon followed him. He was thirty-five years of age. Not only as the first native Christian of North India of whom we have a reliable account, but as the first missionary to Calcutta and Assam, and the first Bengali hymn-writer, this man deserves study.
Carey's first Hindoo convert was three years younger than himself, or about thirty-six, at baptism. Krishna Pal, born in the neighbouring French settlement of Chandernagore, had settled in the suburbs of Serampore, where he worked as a carpenter. Sore sickness and a sense of sin led him to join the Kharta-bhojas, one of the sects which, from the time of Gautama Buddha, and of Chaitanya, the reformer of Nuddea, to that of Nanak, founder of the Sikh brotherhood have been driven into dissent by the yoke of Brahmanism. Generally worshippers of some form of Vishnoo, and occasionally, as in Kabeer's case, influenced by the monotheism of Islam, these sects begin by professing theism and opposition to caste, though Hindooism is elastic enough to keep them always within its pale and ultimately to absorb them again. For sixteen years Krishna Pal was himself a gooroo of the Ghospara sect, of which from Carey's to Duff's earlier days the missionaries had a hope which proved vain. He recovered from sickness, but could not shake off the sense of the burden of sin, when this message came to him, and, to his surprise, through the Europeans—"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." At the same time he happened to dislocate his right arm by falling down the slippery side of his tank when about to bathe. He sent two of the children to the Mission House for Thomas, who immediately left the breakfast table at which the brethren had just sat down, and soon reduced the luxation, while the sufferer again heard the good news that Christ was waiting to heal his soul, and he and his neighbour Gokool received a Bengali tract. He himself thus told the story:—"In this paper I read that he who confesseth and forsaketh his sins, and trusteth in the righteousness of Christ, obtains salvation. The next morning Mr. Carey came to see me, and after inquiring how I was, told me to come to his house, that he would give me some medicine, by which, through the blessing of God, the pain in my arm would be removed. I went and obtained the medicine, and through the mercy of God my arm was cured. From this time I made a practice of calling at the mission house, where Mr. Ward and Mr. Felix Carey used to read and expound the Holy Bible to me. One day Dr. Thomas asked me whether I understood what I heard from Mr. Ward and Mr. Carey. I said I understood that the Lord Jesus Christ gave his life up for the salvation of sinners, and that I believed it, and so did my friend Gokool. Dr. T. said, 'Then I call you brother—come and let us eat together in love.' At this time the table was set for luncheon, and all the missionaries and their wives, and I and Gokool, sat down and ate together."
The servants spread the news, most horrible to the people, that the two Hindoos had "become Europeans," and they were assaulted on their way home. Just thirty years after, in Calcutta, the first public breach of caste by the young Brahman students of Duff raised a still greater commotion, and resulted in the first converts there. Krishna Pal and his wife, his wife's sister and his four daughters; Gokool, his wife, and a widow of forty who lived beside them, formed the first group of Christian Hindoos of caste in India north of Madras. Two years after Krishna Pal sent to the Society this confession of his faith. Literally translated, it is a record of belief such as Paul himself might have written, illustrated by an apostolic life of twenty-two years. The carpenter's confession and dedication has, in the original, an exquisite tenderness, reflected also in the hymn[11] which he wrote for family worship:—
"SERAMPORE, 12th Oct. 1802.
"To the brethren of the church of our Saviour Jesus Christ, our souls' beloved, my affectionately embracing representation. The love of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, was made known by holy brother Thomas. In that day our minds were filled with joy. Then judging, we understood that we were dwelling in darkness. Through the door of manifestation we came to know that, sin confessing, sin forsaking, Christ's righteousness embracing, salvation would be obtained. By light springing up in the heart, we knew that sinners becoming repentant, through the sufferings of Christ, obtain salvation. In this rejoicing, and in Christ's love believing, I obtained mercy. Now it is in my mind continually to dwell in the love of Christ: this is the desire of my soul. Do you, holy people, pour down love upon us, that as the chatookee we may be satisfied.[12] I was the vilest of sinners: He hath saved me. Now this word I will tell to the world. Going forth, I will proclaim the love of Christ with rejoicing. To sinners I will say this word: Here sinner, brother! Without Christ there is no help. Christ, the world to save, gave his own soul! Such love was never heard: for enemies Christ gave his own soul! Such compassion, where shall we get? For the sake of saving sinners he forsook the happiness of heaven. I will constantly stay near him. Being awakened by this news, I will constantly dwell in the town of joy. In the Holy Spirit I will live: yet in Christ's sorrow I will be sorrowful. I will dwell along with happiness, continually meditating on this;—Christ will save the world! In Christ not taking refuge, there is no other way of life. I was indeed a sinner, praise not knowing.—This is the representation of Christ's servant,
"KRISTNO."
Such is the first epistle of the Church of India. Thus the first medical missionary had his reward; but the joy proved to be too much for him. When Carey led Krishna and his own son Felix down into the water of baptism the ravings of Thomas in the schoolhouse on the one side, and of Mrs. Carey on the other, mingled with the strains of the Bengali hymn of praise. The Mission Journal, written by Ward, tells with graphic simplicity how caste as well as idol-worship was overcome not only by the men but the women representatives of a race whom, thirty years after, Macaulay described as destitute of courage, independence, and veracity, and bold only in deceit. Christ is changing all that.
"Nov. 27.—Krishna, the man whose arm was set, overtook Felix and me, and said he would come to our house daily for instruction; for that we had not only cured his arm, but brought him the news of salvation...
"Dec. 5.—Yesterday evening Gokool and Krishna prayed in my room. This morning Gokool called upon us, and told us that his wife and two or three more of his family had left him on account of the gospel. He had eaten of Krishna's rice, who being of another caste, Gokool had lost his. Krishna says his wife and family are all desirous of becoming Christians. They declare their willingness to join us, and obey all our Saviour's commands. Gokool and his wife had a long talk; but she continued determined, and is gone to her relations.
"Dec. 6.—This morning brother Carey and I went to Krishna's house. Everything was made very clean. The women sat within the house, the children at the door, and Krishna and Gokool with brother Carey and I in the court. The houses of the poor are only calculated for sleeping in. Brother Carey talked; and the women appeared to have learned more of the gospel than we expected. They declared for Christ at once. This work was new, even to brother Carey. A whole family desiring to hear the gospel, and declaring in favour of it! Krishna's wife said she had received great joy from it.
"Lord's-day, Dec. 7.—This morning brother Carey went to Krishna's house, and spoke to a yard full of people, who heard with great attention though trembling with cold. Brother Brunsdon is very poorly. Krishna's wife and her sister were to have been with us in the evening; but the women have many scruples to sitting in the company of Europeans. Some of them scarcely ever go out but to the river; and if they meet a European run away. Sometimes when we have begun to speak in a street, some one desires us to remove to a little distance; for the women dare not come by us to fill their jars at the river. We always obey...
"Dec. 11.—Gokool, Krishna, and family continue to seek after the Word, and profess their entire willingness to join us. The women seem to have learnt that sin is a dreadful thing, and to have received joy in hearing of Jesus Christ. We see them all every day almost. They live but half a mile from us. We think it right to make many allowances for ignorance, and for a state of mind produced by a corrupt superstition. We therefore cannot think of demanding from them, previous to baptism, to more than a profession of dependence on Christ, from a knowledge of their need of Him, and submission to Him in all things. We now begin to talk of baptism. Yesterday we fixed upon the spot, before our gate, in the river. We begin to talk also of many other things concerning the discipled natives. This evening Felix and I went to Gokool's house. Krishna and his wife and a bràmmhàn were present. I said a little. Felix read the four last chapters of John to them, and spoke also. We sat down upon a piece of mat in the front of the house. (No chairs.) It was very pleasant. To have natives who feel a little as we do ourselves, is so new and different. The country itself seems to wear a new aspect to me...
"Dec. 13.—This evening Felix and I went to see our friends Gokool and Krishna. The latter was out. Gokool gave a pleasing account of the state of his mind, and also of that of Krishna and his family. While we were there, Gokool's gooroo (teacher) came for the first time since his losing caste. Gokool refused to prostrate himself at his feet while he should put his foot on his head; for which his gooroo was displeased...
"Dec. 22.—This day Gokool and Krishna came to eat tiffin (what in England is called luncheon) with us, and thus publicly threw away their caste. Brethren Carey and Thomas went to prayer with the two natives before they proceeded to this act. All our servants were astonished: so many had said that nobody would ever mind Christ or lose caste. Brother Thomas has waited fifteen years, and thrown away much upon deceitful characters: brother Carey has waited till hope of his own success has almost expired; and after all, God has done it with perfect ease! Thus the door of faith is open to the gentiles; who shall shut it? The chain of the caste is broken; who shall mend it?"
Carey thus describes the baptism:—"Dec. 29.—Yesterday was a day of great joy. I had the happiness to desecrate the Gunga, by baptising the first Hindoo, viz. Krishna, and my son Felix: some circumstances turned up to delay the baptism of Gokool and the two women. Krishna's coming forward alone, however, gave us very great pleasure, and his joy at both ordinances was very great. The river runs just before our gate, in front of the house, and, I think, is as wide as the Thames at Gravesend. We intended to have baptised at nine in the morning; but, on account of the tide, were obliged to defer it till nearly one o'clock, and it was administered just after the English preaching. The Governor and a good number of Europeans were present. Brother Ward preached a sermon in English, from John v. 39—'Search the Scriptures.' We then went to the water-side, where I addressed the people in Bengali; after having sung a Bengali translation of 'Jesus, and shall it ever be?' and engaging in prayer. After the address I administered the ordinance, first to my son, then to Krishna. At half-past four I administered the Lord's Supper; and a time of real refreshing it was...
"Thus, you see, God is making way for us, and giving success to the word of His grace! We have toiled long, and have met with many discouragements; but, at last, the Lord has appeared for us. May we have the true spirit of nurses, to train them up in the words of faith and sound doctrine! I have no fear of any one, however, in this respect, but myself. I feel much concerned that they may act worthy of their vocation, and also that they may be able to teach others. I think it becomes us to make the most of every one whom the Lord gives us."
Jeymooni, Krishna's wife's sister, was the first Bengali woman to be baptised, and Rasoo, his wife, soon followed; both were about thirty-five years old. The former said she had found a treasure in Christ greater than anything in the world. The latter, when she first heard the good news from her husband, said "there was no such sinner as I, and I felt my heart immediately unite to Him. I wish to keep all His commands so far as I know them." Gokool was kept back for a time by his wife, Komal, who fled to her father's, but Krishna and his family brought in, first the husband, then the wife, whose simplicity and frankness attracted the missionaries. Unna, their widowed friend of forty, was also gathered in, the first of that sad host of victims to Brahmanical cruelty, lust, and avarice, to whom Christianity has ever since offered the only deliverance. Of 124,000,000 of women in India in 1881, no fewer than 21,000,000 were returned by the census as widows, of whom 669,000 were under nineteen years, 286,000 were under fifteen, and 79,000 were under nine, all figures undoubtedly within the appalling truth. Jeymooni and Unna at once became active missionaries among their country-women, not only in Serampore but in Chandernagore and the surrounding country.
The year 1800 did not close without fruit from the other and higher castes. Petumber Singh, a man of fifty of the writer caste, had sought deliverance from sin for thirty years at many a Hindoo shrine and in many a Brahmanical scripture. One of the earliest tracts of the Serampore press fell into his hands, and he at once walked forty miles to seek fuller instruction from its author. His baptism gave Carey just what the mission wanted, a good schoolmaster, and he soon proved to be, even before Krishna in time, the first preacher to the people. Of the same writer caste were Syam Dass, Petumber Mitter, and his wife Draupadi, who was as brave as her young husband. The despised soodras were represented by Syam's neighbour, Bharut, an old man, who said he went to Christ because he was just falling into hell and saw no other way of safety. The first Mohammedan convert was Peroo, another neighbour of Syam Dass. From the spot on the Soondarbans where Carey first began his life of missionary farmer, there came to him at the close of 1802, in Calcutta, the first Brahman who had bowed his neck to the Gospel in all India up to this time, for we can hardly reckon Kiernander's case. Krishna Prosad, then nineteen, "gave up his friends and his caste with much fortitude, and is the first Brahman who has been baptised. The word of Christ's death seems to have gone to his heart, and he continues to receive the Word with meekness." The poita or sevenfold thread which, as worn over the naked body, betokened his caste, he trampled under foot, and another was given to him, that when preaching Christ he might be a witness to the Brahmans at once that Christ is irresistible and that an idol is nothing in the world. This he voluntarily ceased to wear in a few years. Two more Brahmans were brought in by Petumber Singhee in 1804, by the close of which year the number of baptised converts was forty-eight, of whom forty were native men and women. With the instinct of a true scholar and Christian Carey kept to the apostolic practice, which has been too often departed from—he consecrated the convert's name as well as soul and body to Christ. Beside the "Hermes" of Rome to whom Paul sent his salutation, he kept the "Krishna" of Serampore and Calcutta.
The first act of the first convert, Krishna Pal, was of his own accord to build a house for God immediately opposite his own, the first native meeting-house in Bengal. Carey preached the first sermon in it to twenty natives besides the family. On the side of the high road, along which the car of Jagganath is dragged every year, the missionaries purchased a site and built a preaching place, a school, a house for Gokool, and a room for the old widow, at the cost of Captain Wickes, who had rejoiced to witness their baptism. The Brahman who owned the neighbouring land wished to sell it and leave the place, "so much do these people abhor us." This little purchase for £6 grew in time into the extensive settlement of Jannagur, where about 1870 the last of Carey's converts passed away.
From its native chapel, and in its village tank, many Hindoos have since been led by their own ordained countrymen to put on Christ. In time the church in the chapel on the Hoogli became chiefly European and Eurasian, but on the first Sunday of the year, the members of both churches meet together for solemn and joyful communion, when the services are alternately in Bengali and English.
The longing for converts now gave place to anxiety that they might continue to be Christians indeed. As in the early Corinthian Church, all did not perceive at once the solemnities of the Lord's Supper. Krishna Pal, for instance, jealous because the better educated Petumber had been ordained to preach before him, made a schism by administering it, and so filled the missionaries with grief and fear; but he soon became penitent. Associated with men who gave their all to Christ, the native members could not but learn the lesson of self-support, so essential for a self-propagating church, and so often neglected in the early history of missions, and even still. On baptism Krishna received a new white dress with six shillings; but such a gift, beautiful in itself, was soon discontinued. A Mohammedan convert asked assistance to cultivate a little ground and rear silkworms, but, writes Mr. Ward bowed down with missionary cares, "We are desirous to avoid such a precedent." Although these first converts were necessarily missionaries rather than pastors for a time, each preacher received no more than six rupees a month while in his own village, and double that when itinerating. Carey and his colleagues were ever on the watch to foster the spiritual life and growth of men and women born, and for thirty or fifty years trained, in all the ideas and practices of a system which is the very centre of opposition to teaching like theirs. This record of an "experience meeting" of three men and five women may be taken as a type of Bengali Christianity when it was but two years old, and as a contrast to that which prevails a century after:—
"Gokool. I have been the greatest of sinners, but I wish only to think of the death of Christ. I rejoice that now people can no longer despise the Gospel, and call us feringas; but they begin to judge for themselves.
"Krishna Prosad. I have this week been thinking of the power of God, that he can do all things; and of the necessity of minding all his commands. I have thought also of my mother a great deal, who is now become old, and who is constantly crying about me, thinking that I have dishonoured the family and am lost. Oh that I could but once go and tell her of the good news, as well as my brothers and sisters, and open their eyes to the way of salvation!
"Ram Roteen. In my mind there is this: I see that all the debtahs (idols) are nothing, and that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour. If I can believe in him, and walk in his commandments, it may be well with me.
"Rasoo. I am a great sinner; yet I wish continually to think of the death of Christ. I had much comfort in the marriage of my daughter (Onunda to Krishna Prosad). The neighbours talked much about it, and seemed to think that it was much better that a man should choose his own wife, than that people should be betrothed in their infancy by their parents. People begin to be able to judge a little now about the Christian ways.
"Jeymooni. In this country are many ways: the way of the debtahs; the way of Jagganath, where all eat together; the way of Ghospara, etc. Yet all these are vain. Yesoo Kreest's death, and Yesoo Kreest's commands—this is the way of life! I long to see Kreest's kingdom grow. This week I had much joy in talking to Gokool's mother, whose heart is inclined to judge about the way of Kreest. When I was called to go and talk with her, on the way I thought within myself, but how can I explain the way of Kreest? I am but a woman, and do not know much. Yet I recollected that the blessing does not come from us: God can bless the weakest words. Many Bengali women coming from the adjoining houses, sat down and heard the word; and I was glad in hoping that the mercy of God might be found by this old woman. [Gokool's mother.]
"Komal. I am a great sinner; yet I have been much rejoiced this week in Gokool's mother coming to inquire about the Gospel. I had great sorrow when Gokool was ill; and at one time I thought he would have died; but God has graciously restored him. We have worldly sorrow, but this lasts only for a time.
"Draupadi. This week I have had much sorrow on account of Petumber. His mind is very bad: he sits in the house, and refuses to work; and I know not what will become of him: yet Kreest's death is a true word.
"Golook. I have had much joy in thinking of God's goodness to our family. My sisters Onunda and Kesaree wish to be baptised, and to come into the church. If I can believe in Kreest's death, and keep his commands till death, then I shall be saved."
Carey was not only founding the Church of North India; he was creating a new society, a community, which has its healthy roots in the Christian family. Krishna Pal had come over with his household, like the Philippian, and at once became his own and their gooroo or priest. But the marriage difficulty was early forced on him and on the missionaries. The first shape which persecution took was an assault on his eldest daughter, Golook, who was carried off to the house in Calcutta of the Hindoo to whom in infancy she had been betrothed, or married according to Hindoo law enforced by the Danish and British courts. As a Christian she loathed a connection which was both idolatrous and polygamous. But she submitted for a time, continuing, however, secretly to pray to Christ when beaten by her husband for openly worshipping Him, and refusing to eat things offered to the idol. At last it became intolerable. She fled to her father, was baptised, and was after a time joined by her penitent husband. The subject of what was to be done with converts whose wives would not join them occupied the missionaries in discussion every Sunday during 1803, and they at last referred it to Andrew Fuller and the committee. Practically they anticipated the Act in which Sir Henry Maine gave relief after the Scriptural mode. They sent the husband to use every endeavour to induce his heathen wife to join him; long delay or refusal they counted a sufficient ground for divorce, and they allowed him to marry again. The other case, which still troubles the native churches, of the duty of a polygamous Christian, seems to have been solved according to Dr. Doddridge's advice, by keeping such out of office in the church, and pressing on the conscience of all the teaching of our Lord in Matthew xix., and of Paul in 1st Corinthians vii.
In 1802 Carey drew up a form of agreement and of service for native Christian marriages not unlike that of the Church of England. The simple and pleasing ceremony in the case of Syam Dass presented a contrast to the prolonged, expensive, and obscene rites of the Hindoos, which attracted the people. When, the year after, a Christian Brahman was united to a daughter of Krishna Pal, in the presence of more than a hundred Hindoos, the unity of all in Christ Jesus was still more marked:—
"Apr. 4, 1803.—This morning early we went to attend the wedding of Krishna Prosad with Onunda, Krishna's second daughter. Krishna gave him a piece of ground adjoining his dwelling, to build him a house, and we lent Prosad fifty rupees for that purpose, which he is to return monthly, out of his wages. We therefore had a meeting for prayer in this new house, and many neighbours were present. Five hymns were sung: brother Carey and Marshman prayed in Bengali. After this we went under an open shed close to the house, where chairs and mats were provided: here friends and neighbours sat all around. Brother Carey sat at a table; and after a short introduction, in which he explained the nature of marriage, and noticed the impropriety of the Hindoo customs in this respect, he read 2 Cor. vi. 14-18, and also the account of the marriage at Cana. Then he read the printed marriage agreement, at the close of which Krishna Prosad and Onunda, with joined hands, one after the other, promised love, faithfulness, obedience, etc. They then signed the agreement, and brethren Carey, Marshman, Ward, Chamberlain, Ram Roteen, etc., signed as witnesses. The whole was closed with prayer by brother Ward. Everything was conducted with the greatest decorum, and it was almost impossible not to have been pleased. We returned home to breakfast, and sent the new-married couple some sugar-candy, plantains, and raisins; the first and last of these articles had been made a present of to us, and the plantains were the produce of the mission garden. In the evening we attended the monthly prayer-meeting.
"Apr. 5.—This evening we all went to supper at Krishna's, and sat under the shade where the marriage ceremony had been performed. Tables, knives and forks, glasses, etc., having been taken from our house, we had a number of Bengali plain dishes, consisting of curry, fried fish, vegetables, etc., and I fancy most of us ate heartily. This is the first instance of our eating at the house of our native brethren. At this table we all sat with the greatest cheerfulness, and some of the neighbours looked on with a kind of amazement. It was a new and very singular sight in this land where clean and unclean is so much regarded. We should have gone in the daytime, but were prevented by the heat and want of leisure. We began this wedding supper with singing, and concluded with prayer: between ten and eleven we returned home with joy. This was a glorious triumph over the caste! A Brahman married to a soodra, in the Christian way: Englishmen eating with the married couple and their friends, at the same table, and at a native house. Allowing the Hindoo chronology to be true, there has not been such a sight in Bengal these millions of years!"
In the same year the approaching death of Gokool led the missionaries to purchase the acre of ground, near the present railway station, in which lies the dust of themselves and their converts, and of a child of the Judsons, till the Resurrection. Often did Carey officiate at the burial of Europeans in the Danish cemetery. Previous to his time the only service there consisted in the Government secretary dropping a handful of earth on the coffin. In the native God's-acre, as in the Communion of the Lord's Table, and in the simple rites which accompanied the burial of the dead in Christ, the heathen saw the one lofty platform of loving self-sacrifice to which the Cross raises all its children:—
"Oct. 7.—Our dear friend Gokool is gone: he departed at two this morning. At twelve he called the brethren around him to sing and pray; was perfectly sensible, resigned, and tranquil. Some of the neighbours had been persuading him the day before to employ a native doctor; he however refused, saying he would have no physician but Jesus Christ. On their saying, How is it that you who have turned to Christ should be thus afflicted? He replied, My affliction is on account of my sins; my Lord does all things well! Observing Komal weep (who had been a most affectionate wife), he said, Why do you weep for me? Only pray, etc. From the beginning of his illness he had little hope of recovery; yet he never murmured, nor appeared at all anxious for medicine. His answer constantly was, "I am in my Lord's hands, I want no other physician!' His patience throughout was astonishing: I never heard him say once that his pain was great. His tranquil and happy end has made a deep impression on our friends: they say one to another, 'May my mind be as Gokool's was!' When we consider, too, that this very man grew shy of us three years ago, because we opposed his notion that believers would never die, the grace now bestowed upon him appears the more remarkable. Knowing the horror the Hindoos have for a dead body, and how unwilling they are to contribute any way to its interment, I had the coffin made at our house the preceding day, by carpenters whom we employ. They would not, however, carry it to the house. The difficulty now was, to carry him to the grave. The usual mode of Europeans is to hire a set of men (Portuguese), who live by it. But besides that our friends could never constantly sustain that expense, I wished exceedingly to convince them of the propriety of doing that last kind office for a brother themselves. But as Krishna had been ill again the night before, and two of our brethren were absent with brother Ward, we could only muster three persons. I evidently saw the only way to supply the deficiency; and brother Carey being from home, I sounded Felix and William, and we determined to make the trial; and at five in the afternoon repaired to the house. Thither were assembled all our Hindoo brethren and sisters, with a crowd of natives that filled the yard, and lined the street. We brought the remains of our dear brother out, whose coffin Krishna had covered within and without with white muslin at his own expense; then, in the midst of the silent and astonished multitude, we improved the solemn moment by singing a hymn of Krishna's, the chorus of which is 'Salvation by the death of Christ.' Bhairub the brahmàn, Peroo the mussulman, Felix and I took up the coffin; and, with the assistance of Krishna and William, conveyed it to its long home: depositing it in the grave, we sung two appropriate hymns. After this, as the crowd was accumulating, I endeavoured to show the grounds of our joyful hope even in death, referring to the deceased for a proof of its efficacy: told them that indeed he had been a great sinner, as they all knew, and for that reason could find no way of salvation among them; but when he heard of Jesus Christ, he received him as a suitable and all-sufficient Saviour, put his trust in him, and died full of tranquil hope. After begging them to consider their own state, we prayed, sung Moorad's hymn, and distributed papers. The concourse of people was great, perhaps 500: they seemed much struck with the novelty of the scene, and with the love and regard Christians manifest to each other, even in death; so different from their throwing their friends, half dead and half living, into the river; or burning their body, with perhaps a solitary attendant."
Preaching, teaching, and Bible translating were from the first Carey's three missionary methods, and in all he led the missionaries who have till the present followed him with a success which he never hesitated to expect, as one of the "great things" from God. His work for the education of the people of India, especially in their own vernacular and classical languages, was second only to that which gave them a literature sacred and pure. Up to 1794, when at Mudnabati he opened the first primary school worthy of the name in all India at his own cost, and daily superintended it, there had been only one attempt to improve upon the indigenous schools, which taught the children of the trading castes only to keep rude accounts, or upon the tols in which the Brahmans instructed their disciples for one-half the year, while for the other half they lived by begging. That attempt was made by Schwartz at Combaconum, the priestly Oxford of South India, where the wars with Tipoo soon put an end to a scheme supported by both the Raja of Tanjore and the British Government. When Carey moved to Serampore and found associated with him teachers so accomplished and enthusiastic as Marshman and his wife, education was not long in taking its place in the crusade which was then fully organised for the conversion of Southern and Eastern Asia. At Madras, too, Bell had stumbled upon the system of "mutual instruction" which he had learned from the easy methods of the indigenous schoolmaster, and which he and Lancaster taught England to apply to the clamant wants of the country, and to improve into the monitorial, pupil-teacher and grant-in-aid systems. Carey had all the native schools of the mission "conducted upon Lancaster's plan."
In Serampore, and in every new station as it was formed, a free school was opened. We have seen how the first educated convert, Petumber, was made schoolmaster. So early as October 1800 we find Carey writing home:—"The children in our Bengali free school, about fifty, are mostly very young. Yet we are endeavouring to instil into their minds Divine truth, as fast as their understandings ripen. Some natives have complained that we are poisoning the minds even of their very children." The first attempt to induce the boys to write out the catechism in Bengali resulted, as did Duff's to get them to read aloud the Sermon on the Mount thirty years after, in a protest that their caste was in danger. But the true principles of toleration and discipline were at once explained—"that the children will never be compelled to do anything that will make them lose caste; that though we abhor the caste we do not wish any to lose it but by their own choice. After this we shall insist on the children doing what they have been ordered." A few of the oldest boys withdrew for a time, declaring that they feared they would be sent on board ship to England, and the baptism of each of the earlier converts caused a panic. But instruction on honest methods soon worked out the true remedy. Two years after we find this report:—"The first class, consisting of catechumens, are now learning in Bengali the first principles of Christianity; and will hereafter be instructed in the rudiments of history, geography, astronomy, etc. The second class, under two other masters, learn to read and write Bengali and English. The third class, consisting of the children of natives who have not lost caste, learn only Bengali. This school is in a promising state, and is liberally supported by the subscriptions of Europeans in this country."
Carey's early success led Mr. Creighton of Malda to open at Goamalty several Bengali free schools, and to draw up a scheme for extending such Christian nurseries all over the country at a cost of £10 for the education of fifty children. Only by the year 1806 was such a scheme practicable, because Carey had translated the Scriptures, and, as Creighton noted, "a variety of introductory and explanatory tracts and catechisms in the Bengali and Hindostani tongues have already been circulated in some parts of the country, and any number may be had gratis from the Mission House, Serampore." As only a few of the Brahman and writer castes could read, and not one woman, "a general perusal of the Scriptures amongst natives will be impracticable till they are taught to read." But nothing was done, save by the missionaries, till 1835, when Lord William Bentinck received Adam's report on the educational destitution of Bengal.
Referring to Creighton's scheme, Mr. Ward's journal thus chronicles the opening of the first Sunday school in India in July 1803 by Carey's sons:—
"Last Lord's day a kind of Sunday school was opened, which will be superintended principally by our young friends Felix and William Carey, and John Fernandez. It will chiefly be confined to teaching catechisms in Bengali and English, as the children learn to read and write every day. I have received a letter from a gentleman up the country, who writes very warmly respecting the general establishment of Christian schools all over Bengal."
Not many years had passed since Raikes had begun Sunday schools in England. Their use seems to have passed away with the three Serampore missionaries for a time, and to have been again extended by the American missionaries about 1870. There are now above 200,000 boys and girls at such schools in India, and three-fourths of these are non-Christians.
As from the first Carey drew converts from all classes, the Armenians, the Portuguese, and the Eurasians, as well as the natives of India, he and Mr. and Mrs. Marshman especially took care to provide schools for their children. The necessity, indeed, of this was forced upon them by the facts that the brotherhood began with nine children, and that boarding-schools for these classes would form an honourable source of revenue to the mission. Hence this advertisement, which appeared in March 1800:—"Mission, House, Serampore.—On Thursday, the 1st of May 1800, a school will be opened at this house, which stands in a very healthy and pleasant situation by the side of the river. Letters add to Mr. Carey will be immediately attended to." The cost of boarding and fees varied from £45 to £50 a year, according as "Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, or Sanskrit" lessons were included. "Particular attention will be paid to the correct pronunciation of the English language" was added for reasons which the mixed parentage of the pupils explains. Such was the first sign of a care for the Eurasians not connected with the army, which, as developed by Marshman and Mack, began in 1823 to take the form of the Doveton College. The boys' school was soon followed by a girls' school, through which a stream of Christian light radiated forth over resident Christian society, and from which many a missionary came.
Carey's description of the mixed community is the best we have of its origin as well as of the state of European society in India, alike when the Portuguese were dominant, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the East India Company were most afraid of Christianity:—"The Portuguese are a people who, in the estimation of both Europeans and natives, are sunk below the Hindoos or Mussulmans. However, I am of opinion that they are rated much too low. They are chiefly descendants of the slaves of the Portuguese who first landed here, or of the children of those Portuguese by their female slaves; and being born in their house, were made Christians in their infancy by what is called baptism, and had Portuguese names given them. It is no wonder that these people, despised as they are by Europeans, and being consigned to the teachings of very ignorant Popish priests, should be sunk into such a state of degradation. So gross, indeed, are their superstitions, that I have seen a Hindoo image-maker carrying home an image of Christ on the cross between two thieves, to the house of a Portuguese. Many of them, however, can read and write English well and understand Portuguese...
"Besides these, there are many who are the children of Europeans by native women, several of whom are well educated, and nearly all of them Protestants by profession. These, whether children of English, French, Dutch, or Danes, by native women, are called Portuguese. Concubinage here is so common, that few unmarried Europeans are without a native woman, with whom they live as if married; and I believe there are but few instances of separation, except in case of marriage with European women, in which case the native woman is dismissed with an allowance: but the children of these marriages are never admitted to table with company, and are universally treated by the English as an inferior species of beings. Hence they are often shame-faced yet proud and conceited, and endeavour to assume that honour to themselves which is denied them by others. This class may be regarded as forming a connecting link between Europeans and natives. The Armenians are few in number, but chiefly rich. I have several times conversed with them about religion: they hear with patience, and wonder that any Englishman should make that a subject of conversation."
While the Marshmans gave their time from seven in the morning till three in the afternoon to these boarding-schools started by Carey in 1800 for the higher education of the Eurasians, Carey himself, in Calcutta, early began to care for the destitute. His efforts resulted in the establishment of the "Benevolent Institution for the Instruction of Indigent Children," which the contemporary Bengal civilian, Charles Lushington, in his History extols as one of the monuments of active and indefatigable benevolence due to Serampore. Here, on the Lancaster system, and superintended by Carey, Mr. and Mrs. Penney had as many as 300 boys and 100 girls under Christian instruction of all ages up to twenty-four, and of every race:—"Europeans, native Portuguese, Armenians, Mugs, Chinese, Hindoos, Mussulmans, natives of Sumatra, Mozambik, and Abyssinia." This official reporter states that thus more than a thousand youths had been rescued from vice and ignorance and advanced in usefulness to society, in a degree of opulence and respectability. The origin of this noble charity is thus told to Dr. Ryland by Carey himself in a letter which unconsciously reveals his own busy life, records the missionary influence of the higher schools, and reports the existence of the mission over a wide area. He writes from Calcutta on 24th May 1811:—
"A year ago we opened a free school in Calcutta. This year we added to it a school for girls. There are now in it about 140 boys and near 40 girls. One of our deacons, Mr. Leonard, a most valuable and active man, superintends the boys, and a very pious woman, a member of the church, is over the girls. The Institution meets with considerable encouragement, and is conducted upon Lancaster's plan. We meditate another for instruction of Hindoo youths in the Sanskrit language, designing, however, to introduce the study of the Sanskrit Bible into it; indeed it is as good as begun; it will be in Calcutta. By brother and sister Marshman's encouragement there are two schools in our own premises at Serampore for the gratuitous instruction of youth of both sexes, supported and managed wholly by the male and female scholars in our own school. These young persons appear to enter with pleasure into the plan, contribute their money to its support, and give instruction in turns to the children of these free schools. I trust we shall be able to enlarge this plan, and to spread its influence far about the country. Our brethren in the Isles of France and Bourbon seem to be doing good; some of them are gone to Madagascar, and, as if to show that Divine Providence watches over them, the ship on which they went was wrecked soon after they had landed from it. A number of our members are now gone to Java; I trust their going thither will not be in vain. Brother Chamberlain is, ere this, arrived at Agra...We preach every week in the Fort and in the public prison, both in English and Bengali."
Carey had not been six months at Serampore when he saw the importance of using the English language as a missionary weapon, and he proposed this to Andrew Fuller. The other pressing duties of a pioneer mission to the people of Bengal led him to postpone immediate action in this direction; we shall have occasion to trace the English influence of the press and the college hereafter. But meanwhile the vernacular schools, which soon numbered a hundred altogether, were most popular, and then as now proved most valuable feeders of the infant Church. Without them, wrote the three missionaries to the Society, "the whole plan must have been nipped in the bud, since, if the natives had not cheerfully sent their children, everything else would have been useless. But the earnestness with which they have sought these schools exceeds everything we had previously expected. We are still constantly importuned for more schools, although we have long gone beyond the extent of our funds." It was well that thus early, in schools, in books and tracts, and in providing the literary form and apparatus of the vernacular languages, Carey laid the foundation of the new national or imperial civilisation. When the time for English came, the foundations were at least above the ground. Laid deep and strong in the very nature of the people, the structure has thus far promised to be national rather than foreign, though raised by foreign hands, while marked by the truth and the purity of its Western architects.
The manifestation of Christ to the Bengalees could not be made without rousing the hate and the opposition of the vested interests of Brahmanism. So long as Carey was an indigo planter as well as a proselytiser in Dinapoor and Malda he met with no opposition, for he had no direct success. But when, from Serampore, he and the others, by voice, by press, by school, by healing the sick and visiting the poor, carried on the crusade day by day with the gentle persistency of a law of nature, the cry began. And when, by the breaking of caste and the denial of Krishna's Christian daughter Golook to the Hindoo to whom she had been betrothed from infancy, the Brahmans began dimly to apprehend that not only their craft but the whole structure of society was menaced, the cry became louder, and, as in Ephesus of old, an appeal was made to the magistrates against the men who were turning the world upside down. At first the very boys taunted the missionaries in the streets with the name of Jesus Christ. Then, after Krishna and his family had broken caste, they were seized by a mob and hurried before the Danish magistrate, who at first refused to hand over a Christian girl to a heathen, and gave her father a guard to prevent her from being murdered, until the Calcutta magistrate decided that she must join her husband but would be protected in the exercise of her new faith. The commotion spread over the whole densely-peopled district. But the people were not with the Brahmans, and the excitement sent many a sin-laden inquirer to Serampore from a great distance. "The fire is now already kindled for which our Redeemer expressed his strong desire," wrote Carey to Ryland in March 1801. A year later he used this language to his old friend Morris at Clipstone village:—"I think there is such a fermentation raised in Bengal by the little leaven, that there is a hope of the whole lump by degrees being leavened. God is carrying on his work; and though it goes forward, yet no one can say who is the instrument. Doubtless, various means contribute towards it; but of late the printing and dispersing of New Testaments and small tracts seem to have the greatest effect."
In a spirit the opposite of Jonah's the whole brotherhood, then consisting of the three, of Carey's son Felix, and of a new missionary, Chamberlain, sent home this review of their position at the close of 1804:—
"We are still a happy, healthful, and highly favoured family. But though we would feel incessant gratitude for these gourds, yet we would not feel content unless Nineveh be brought to repentance. We did not come into this country to be placed in what are called easy circumstances respecting this world; and we trust that nothing but the salvation of souls will satisfy us. True, before we set off, we thought we could die content if we should be permitted to see the half of what we have already seen; yet now we seem almost as far from the mark of our missionary high calling as ever. If three millions of men were drowning, he must be a monster who should be content with saving one individual only; though for the deliverance of that one he would find cause for perpetual gratitude."
In 1810 the parent mission at Serampore had so spread into numerous stations and districts that a new organisation became necessary. There were 300 converts, of whom 105 had been added in that year. "Did you expect to see this eighteen years ago?" wrote Marshman to the Society. "But what may we not expect if God continues to bless us in years to come?" Marshman forgot how Carey had, in 1792, told them on the inspired evangelical prophet's authority to "expect great things from God." Henceforth the one mission became fivefold for a time.
The East India Company an unwilling partner of Carey—Calcutta opened to the Mission by his appointment as Government teacher of Bengali—Meeting of 1802 grows into the Lall Bazaar mission—Christ-like work among the poor, the sick, the prisoners, the soldiers and sailors and the natives—Krishna Pal first native missionary in Calcutta—Organisation of subordinate stations—Carey's "United Missions in India"—The missionary staff thirty strong—The native missionaries—The Bengali church self-propagating—Carey the pioneer of other missionaries—Benares—Burma and Indo-China—Felix Carey—Instructions to missionaries—The missionary shrivelled into an ambassador—Adoniram and Ann Judson—Jabez Carey—Mission to Amboyna—Remarkable letter from Carey to his third son.
The short-sighted regulation of the East India Company, which dreamed that it could keep Christianity out of Bengal by shutting up the missionaries within the little territory of Danish Serampore, could not be enforced with the same ease as the order of a jailer. Under Danish passports, and often without them, missionary tours were made over Central Bengal, aided by its network of rivers. Every printed Bengali leaf of Scripture or pure literature was a missionary. Every new convert, even the women, became an apostle to their people, and such could not be stopped. Gradually, as not only the innocency but the positive political usefulness of the missionaries' character and work came to be recognised by the local authorities, they were let alone for a time. And soon, by the same historic irony which has marked so many of the greatest reforms—"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh"—the Government of India became, though unwittingly, more of a missionary agency than the Baptist Society itself. The only teacher of Bengal who could be found for Lord Wellesley's new College of Fort William was William Carey. The appointment, made and accepted without the slightest prejudice to his aggressive spiritual designs and work, at once opened Calcutta itself for the first time to the English proselytising of natives, and supplied Carey with the only means yet lacking for the translation of the Scriptures into all the languages of the farther East. In spite of its own selfish fears the Company became a principal partner in the Christianisation of India and China.
From the middle of the year 1801 and for the next thirty years Carey spent as much of his time in the metropolis as in Serampore. He was generally rowed down the eighteen miles of the winding river to Calcutta at sunset on Monday evening and returned on Friday night every week, working always by the way. At first he personally influenced the Bengali traders and youths who knew English, and he read with many such the English Bible. His chaplain friends, Brown and Buchanan, with the catholicity born of their presbyterian and evangelical training, shared his sympathy with the hundreds of poor mixed Christians for whom St. John's and even the Mission Church made no provision, and encouraged him to care for them. In 1802 he began a weekly meeting for prayer and conversation in the house of Mr. Rolt, and another for a more ignorant class in the house of a Portuguese Christian. By 1803 he was able to write to Fuller: "We have opened a place of worship in Calcutta, where we have preaching twice on Lord's day in English, on Wednesday evening in Bengali, and on Thursday evening in English." He took all the work during the week and the Sunday service in rotation with his brethren. The first church was the hall of a well-known undertaker, approached through lines of coffins and the trappings of woe. In time most of the evangelical Christians in the city promised to relieve the missionaries of the expense if they would build an unsectarian chapel more worthy of the object. This was done in Lall Bazaar, a little withdrawn from that thoroughfare to this day of the poor and abandoned Christians, of the sailors and soldiers on leave, of the liquor-shops and the stews. There, as in Serampore, at a time when the noble hospitals of Calcutta were not, and the children of only the "services" were cared for, "Brother Carey gave them medicine for their bodies and the best medicine for their poor souls," as a contemporary widow describes it. The site alone cost so much—a thousand pounds—that only a mat chapel could be built. Marshman raised another £1100 in ten days, and after delays caused by the police Government sanctioned the building which Carey opened on Sunday, 1st January 1809. But he and his colleagues "not episcopally ordained" were forbidden to preach to British soldiers and to the Armenians and Portuguese. "Carey's Baptist Chapel" is now its name. Here was for nearly a whole generation a sublime spectacle—the Northamptonshire shoemaker training the governing class of India in Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi all day, and translating the Ramayana and the Veda, and then, when the sun went down, returning to the society of "the maimed, the halt, and the blind, and many with the leprosy," to preach in several tongues the glad tidings of the Kingdom to the heathen of England as well as of India, and all with a loving tenderness and patient humility learned in the childlike school of Him who said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
Street preaching was added to the apostolic agencies, and for this prudence dictated recourse to the Asiatic and Eurasian converts. We find the missionaries writing to the Society at the beginning of 1807, after the mutiny at Vellore, occasioned as certainly by the hatlike turban then ordered, as the mutiny of Bengal half a century after was by the greased cartridges:—
"We now return to Calcutta; not, however, without a sigh. How can we avoid sighing when we think of the number of perishing souls which this city contains, and recollect the multitudes who used of late to hang upon our lips; standing in the thick-wedged crowd for hours together, in the heat of a Bengal summer, listening to the word of life! We feel thankful, however, that nothing has been found against us, except in the matters of our God. Conscious of the most cordial attachment to the British Government, and of the liveliest interest in its welfare, we might well endure reproach were it cast upon us; but the tongue of calumny itself has not to our knowledge been suffered to bring the slightest accusation against us. We still worship at Calcutta in a private house, and our congregation rather increases. We are going on with the chapel. A family of Armenians also, who found it pleasant to attend divine worship in the Bengali language, have erected a small place on their premises for the sake of the natives."
Krishna Pal became the first native missionary to Calcutta, where he in 1810 had preached at fourteen different places every week, and visited forty-one families, to evangelise the servants of the richer and bring in the members of the poorer. Sebuk Ram was added to the staff. Carey himself thus sums up the labours of the year 1811, when he was still the only pastor of the Christian poor, and the only resident missionary to half a million of natives:—
"Calcutta is three miles long and one broad, very populous; the environs are crowded with people settled in large villages, resembling (for population, not elegance) the environs of Birmingham. The first is about a mile south of the city; at nearly the same distance are the public jail and the general hospital. Brother Gordon, one of our deacons, being the jailer we preach there in English every Lord's day. We did preach in the Fort; but of late a military order has stopped us. Krishna and Sebuk Ram, however, preach once or twice a week in the Fort notwithstanding; also at the jail; in the house of correction; at the village of Alipore, south of the jail; at a large factory north of the city, where several hundreds are employed; and at ten or twelve houses in different parts of the city itself. In several instances Roman Catholics, having heard the word, have invited them to their houses, and having collected their neighbours, the one or the other have received the word with gladness.
"The number of inquirers constantly coming forward, awakened by the instrumentality of these brethren, fills me with joy. I do not know that I am of much use myself, but I see a work which fills my soul with thankfulness. Not having time to visit the people, I appropriate every Thursday evening to receiving the visits of inquirers. Seldom fewer than twenty come; and the simple confessions of their sinful state, the unvarnished declaration of their former ignorance, the expressions of trust in Christ and gratitude to him, with the accounts of their spiritual conflicts often attended with tears which almost choke their utterance, presents a scene of which you can scarcely entertain an adequate idea. At the same time, meetings for prayer and mutual edification are held every night in the week; and some nights, for convenience, at several places at the same time: so that the sacred leaven spreads its influence through the mass."
On his voyage to India Carey had deliberately contemplated the time when the Society he had founded would influence not only Asia, but Africa, and he would supply the peoples of Asia with the Scriptures in their own tongues. The time had come by 1804 for organising the onward movement, and he thus describes it to Ryland:—
"14th December 1803.—Another plan has lately occupied our attention. It appears that our business is to provide materials for spreading the Gospel, and to apply those materials. Translations, pamphlets, etc., are the materials. To apply them we have thought of setting up a number of subordinate stations, in each of which a brother shall be fixed. It will be necessary and useful to carry on some worldly business. Let him be furnished from us with a sum of money to begin and purchase cloth or whatever other article the part produces in greatest perfection: the whole to belong to the mission, and no part even to be private trade or private property. The gains may probably support the station. Every brother in such a station to have one or two native brethren with him, and to do all he can to preach, and spread Bibles, pamphlets, etc., and to set up and encourage schools where the reading of the Scriptures shall be introduced. At least four brethren shall always reside at Serampore, which must be like the heart while the other stations are the members. Each one must constantly send a monthly account of both spirituals and temporals to Serampore, and the brethren at Serampore (who must have a power of control over the stations) must send a monthly account likewise to each station, with advice, etc., as shall be necessary. A plan of this sort appears to be more formidable than it is in reality. To find proper persons will be the greatest difficulty; but as it will prevent much of that abrasion which may arise from a great number of persons living in one house, so it will give several brethren an opportunity of being useful, whose temper may not be formed to live in a common family, and at the same time connect them as much to the body as if they all lived together. We have judged that about 2000 rupees will do to begin at each place, and it is probable that God will enable us to find money (especially if assisted in the translations and printing by our brethren in England) as fast as you will be able to find men.
"This plan may be extended through a circular surface of a thousand miles' radius, and a constant communication kept up between the whole, and in some particular cases it may extend ever farther. We are also to hope that God may raise up some missionaries in this country who may be more fitted for the work than any from England can be. At present we have not concluded on anything, but when Brother Ward comes down we hope to do so, and I think one station may be fixed on immediately which Brother Chamberlain may occupy. A late favourable providence will, I hope, enable us to begin, viz., the College have subscribed for 100 copies of my Sanskrit Grammar, which will be 6400 rupees or 800 pounds sterling. The motion was very generously made by H. Colebrooke, Esq., who is engaged in a similar work, and seconded by Messrs. Brown and Buchanan; indeed it met with no opposition. It will scarcely be printed off under twelve months more, but it is probable that the greatest part of the money will be advanced. The Maratha war and the subjugation of the country of Cuttak to the English may be esteemed a favourable event for the spreading of the Gospel, and will certainly contribute much to the comfort of the inhabitants."
Two years later he thus anticipates the consent of the local Government, in spite of the Company's determined hostility in England, but the Vellore mutiny panic led to further delay:—
"25th December 1805.—It has long been a favourite object with me to fix European brethren in different parts of the country at about two hundred miles apart, so that each shall be able to visit a circle of a hundred miles' radius, and within each of the circuits to place native brethren at proper distances, who will, till they are more established, be under the superintendence of the European brethren situated in the centre. Our brethren concur with me in this plan. In consequence of this, I thought it would be desirable to have leave of Government for them to settle, and preach, without control, in any part of the country. The Government look on us with a favourable eye; and owing to Sir G. Barlow, the Governor-General, being up the country, Mr. Udny is Vice-President and Deputy-Governor. I therefore went one morning, took a breakfast with him, and told him what we were doing and what we wished to do. He, in a very friendly manner, desired me to state to him in a private letter all that we wished, and offered to communicate privately with Sir G. Barlow upon the subject, and inform me of the result. I called on him again last week, when he informed me that he had written upon the subject and was promised a speedy reply. God grant that it may be favourable. I know that Government will allow it if their powers are large enough."
Not till 1810 could Carey report that "permission was obtained of Government for the forming of a new station at Agra, a large city in upper Hindostan, not far from Delhi and the country of the Sikhs," to which Chamberlain and an assistant were sent. From that year the Bengal became only the first of "The United Missions in India." These were five in number, each under its own separate brotherhood, on the same principles of self-denial as the original, each a Lindisfarne sprung from the parent Iona. These five were the Bengal, the Burman, the Orissa, the Bhootan, and the Hindostan Missions. The Bengal mission was fourfold—Serampore and Calcutta reckoned as one station; the old Dinapoor and Sadamahal which had taken the place of Mudnabati; Goamalty, near Malda; Cutwa, an old town on the upper waters of the Hoogli; Jessor, the agricultural capital of its lower delta; and afterwards Monghyr, Berhampore, Moorshedabad, Dacca, Chittagong, and Assam. The Bhootan missionaries were plundered and driven out. The Hindostan mission soon included Gaya, Patna, Deegah, Ghazeepore, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Ajmer, and Delhi itself. From Nagpoor, in the very centre of India, and Surat to the north of Bombay, Carey sought to bring Marathas and Goojaratees under the yoke of Christ. China, where the East India Company was still master, was cared for by the press, as we shall see. Not content with the continent of Asia, Carey's mission, at once forced by the intolerance which refused to allow new missionaries to land in India proper, and led by the invitations of Sir Stamford Raffles, extended to Java and Amboyna, Penang, Ceylon, and even Mauritius. The elaborate review of their position, signed by the three faithful men of Serampore, at the close of 1817, amazes the reader at once by the magnitude and variety of the operations, the childlike modesty of the record, and the heroism of the toil which supplied the means.
At the time of the organisation into the Five United Missions the staff of workers had grown to be thirty strong. From England there were nine surviving:—Carey, Marshman, Ward, Chamberlain, Mardon, Moore, Chater, Rowe, and Robinson. Raised up in India itself there were seven—the two sons of Carey, Felix and William; Fernandez, his first convert at Dinapoor; Peacock and Cornish, and two Armenians, Aratoon and Peters; two were on probation for the ministry, Leonard and Forder. Besides seven Hindoo evangelists also on probation, there were five survivors of the band of converts called from time to time to the ministry—Krishna Pal, the first, who is entered on the list as "the beloved"; Krishna Dass, Ram Mohun, Seeta Ram, and Seeta Dass. Carey's third son Jabez was soon to become the most advanced of the three brothers away in far Amboyna. His father had long prayed, and besought others to pray, that he too might be a missionary. For the last fifteen years of his life Jabez was his closest and most valued correspondent.
But only less dear than his own sons to the heart of the father, already in 1817 described in an official letter as "our aged brother Carey," were the native missionaries and pastors, his sons in the faith. He sent forth the educated Petumber Singh, first in November 1802, to his countrymen at Sooksagar, and "gave him a suitable and solemn charge: the opportunity was very pleasant." In May 1803 Krishna Pal was similarly set apart. At the same time the young Brahman, Krishna Prosad, "delivered his first sermon in Bengali, much to the satisfaction of our brethren." Six months after, Ward reports of him in Dinapoor:—"The eyes of the people were fixed listening to Prosad; he is becoming eloquent." In 1804 their successful probation resulted in their formal ordination by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the brethren, when Carey addressed them from the divine words, "As my Father hath sent me so send I you," and all commemorated the Lord's death till He come. Krishna Dass was imprisoned unjustly, for a debt which he had paid, but "he did not cease to declare to the native men in power that he was a Christian, when they gnashed upon him with their teeth. He preached almost all night to the prisoners, who heard the word with eagerness." Two years after he was ordained, Carey charged him as Paul had written to Timothy, "in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead," to be instant in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. Ram Mohun was a Brahman, the fruit of old Petumber's ministry, and had his ability as a student and preacher of the Scriptures consecrated to Christ on the death of Krishna Prosad, while the missionaries thus saw again answered the invocation they had sung, in rude strains, in the ship which brought them to India:—
"Bid Brahmans preach the heavenly word
Beneath the banian's shade;
Oh let the Hindoo feel its power
And grace his soul pervade."
So early as 1806 the missionaries thus acknowledged the value of the work of their native brethren, and made of all the native converts a Missionary Church. In the delay and even failure to do this of their successors of all Churches we see the one radical point in which the Church in India has as yet come short of its duty and its privilege:—
"We have availed ourselves of the help of native brethren ever since we had one who dared to speak in the name of Christ, and their exertions have chiefly been the immediate means by which our church has been increased. But we have lately been revolving a plan for rendering their labours more extensively useful; namely, that of sending them out, two and two, without any European brother. It appeared also a most desirable object to interest in this work, as much as possible, the whole of the native church among us: indeed, we have had much in them of this nature to commend. In order, then, more effectually to answer this purpose, we called an extraordinary meeting of all the brethren on Friday evening, Aug. 8, 1806, and laid before them the following ideas:—
"1. That the intention of the Saviour, in calling them out of darkness into marvellous light, was that they should labour to the uttermost in advancing his cause among their countrymen.
"2. That it was therefore their indispensable duty, both collectively and individually, to strive by every means to bring their countrymen to the knowledge of the Saviour; that if we, who were strangers, thought it our duty to come from a country so distant, for this purpose, much more was it incumbent on them to labour for the same end. This was therefore the grand business of our lives.
"3. That if a brother in discharge of this duty went out forty or fifty miles, he could not labour for his family; it therefore became the church to support such, seeing they were hindered from supporting themselves, by giving themselves wholly to that work in which it was equally the duty of all to take a share.
"4. We therefore proposed to unite the support of itinerant brethren with the care of the poor, and to throw them both upon the church fund, as being both, at least in a heathen land, equally the duty of a church.
"Every one of these ideas our native brethren entered into with the greatest readiness and the most cordial approbation."
Carey's scheme so early as 1810 included not only the capital of the Great Mogul, Surat far to the west, and Maratha Nagpoor to the south, but Lahore, where Ranjeet Singh had consolidated the Sikh power, Kashmeer, and even Afghanistan to which he had sent the Pushtoo Bible. To set Chamberlain free for this enterprise he sent his second son William to relieve him as missionary in charge of Cutwa. "This would secure the gradual perfection of the version of the Scriptures in the Sikh language, would introduce the Gospel among the people, and would open a way for introducing it into Kashmeer, and eventually to the Afghans under whose dominion Kashmeer at present is." Carey and his two colleagues took possession for Christ of the principal centres of Hindoo and Mohammedan influence in India only because they were unoccupied, and provided translations of the Bible into the principal tongues, avowedly as a preparation for other missionary agencies. All over India and the far East he thus pioneered the way of the Lord, as he had written to Ryland when first he settled in Serampore:—"It is very probable we may be only as pioneers to prepare the way for most successful missionaries, who perhaps may not be at liberty to attend to those preparatory labours in which we have been occupied—the translation and printing of the Scriptures," etc. His heart was enlarged like his Master's on earth, and hence his humbleness of mind. When the Church Missionary Society, for instance, occupied Agra as their first station in India, he sent the Baptist missionary thence to Allahabad. To Benares "Brother William Smith, called in Orissa under Brother John Peters," the Armenian, was sent owing to his acquaintance with the Hindi language; he was the means of bringing to the door of the Kingdom that rich Brahman Raja Jay Narain Ghosal, whom he encouraged to found in 1817 the Church Mission College there which bears the name of this "almost Christian" Hindoo, who was "exceedingly desirous of diffusing light among his own countrymen."
The most striking illustrations of this form of Carey's self-sacrifice are, however, to be found outside of India as it then was, in the career of his other two sons in Burma and the Spice Islands. The East India Company's panic on the Vellore mutiny led Carey to plan a mission to Burma, just as he had been guided to settle in Danish Serampore ten years before. The Government of India had doubled his salary as Bengali, Marathi, and Sanskrit Professor, and thus had unconsciously supplied the means. Since 1795 the port of Rangoon had been opened to the British, although Colonel Symes had been insulted eight years after, during his second embassy to Ava. Rangoon, wrote the accurate Carey to Fuller in November 1806, is about ten days' sail from Calcutta. "The Burman empire is about eight hundred miles long, lying contiguous to Bengal on the east; but is inaccessible by land, on account of the mountains covered with thick forests which run between the two countries. The east side of this empire borders upon China, Cochin China, and Tongking, and may afford us the opportunity ultimately of introducing the Gospel into those countries. They are quite within our reach, and the Bible in Chinese will be understood by them equally as well as by the Chinese themselves. About twenty chapters of Matthew are translated into that language, and three of our family have made considerable progress in it."
This was the beginning of Reformed missions to Eastern Asia. A year was to pass before Dr. Robert Morrison landed at Macao. From those politically aggressive and therefore opposed Jesuit missions, which alone had worked in Anam up to this time, a persecuted bishop was about to find an asylum at Serampore, and to use its press and its purse for the publication of his Dictionarium Anamitico-Latinum. The French have long sought to seize an empire there. That, at its best, must prove far inferior to the marvellous province and Christian Church of Burma, of which Carey laid the foundation. Judson, and the Governors Durand, Phayre, Aitchison, and Bernard, Henry Lawrence's nephew, built well upon it.
On 24th January 1807 Mardon and Chater went forth, after Carey had charged them from the words, "And thence sailed to Antioch from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God, which they fulfilled." Carey's eldest son Felix soon took the place of Mardon. The instructions, which bear the impress of the sacred scholar's pen, form a model still for all missionaries. These two extracts give counsels never more needed than now:—
"4. With respect to the Burman language, let this occupy your most precious time and your most anxious solicitude. Do not be content with acquiring this language superficially, but make it your own, root and branch. To become fluent in it, you must attentivly listen, with prying curiosity, into the forms of speech, the construction and accent of the natives. Here all the imitative powers are wanted; yet these powers and this attention, without continued effort to use all you acquire, and as fast as you acquire it, will be comparatively of little use.
"5. As soon as you shall feel your ground well in this language you may compose a grammar, and also send us some Scripture tract, for printing; small and plain; simple Christian instruction, and Gospel invitation, without any thing that can irritate the most superstitious mind.
"6. We would recommend you to begin the translation of the Gospel of Mark as soon as possible, as one of the best and most certain ways of acquiring the language. This translation will of course be revised again and again. In these revisions you will be very careful respecting the idiom and construction, that they be really Burman, and not English. Let your instructor be well acquainted with the language, and try every word of importance, in every way you can, before it be admitted...
"In prosecuting this work, there are two things to which especially we would call your very close attention, viz. the strictest and most rigid economy, and the cultivation of brotherly love.
"Remember, that the money which you will expend is neither ours nor yours, for it has been consecrated to God; and every unnecessary expenditure will be robbing God, and appropriating to unnecessary secular uses what is sacred, and consecrated to Christ and his cause. In building, especially, remember that you are poor men, and have chosen a life of poverty and self-denial, with Christ and his missionary servants. If another person is profuse in expenditure, the consequence is small, because his property would perhaps fall into hands where it might be devoted to the purposes of iniquity; but missionary funds are in their very circumstances the most sacred and important of any thing of this nature on earth. We say not this, Brethren, because we suspect you, or any of our partners in labour; but we perceive that when you have done all, the Rangoon mission will lie heavy upon the Missionary Funds, and the field of exertion is very wide."
Felix Carey was a medical missionary of great skill, a printer of the Oriental languages trained by Ward, and a scholar, especially in Sanskrit and Pali, Bengali and Burman, not unworthy of his father. He early commended himself to the goodwill of the Rangoon Viceroy, and was of great use to Captain Canning in the successful mission from the Governor-General in 1809. At his intercession the Viceroy gave him the life of a malefactor who had hung for six hours on the cross. Reporting the incident to Ryland, Dr. Carey wrote that "crucifixion is not performed on separate crosses, elevated to a considerable height, after the manner of the Romans; but several posts are erected which are connected by a cross piece near the top, to which the hands are nailed, and by another near the bottom, to which the feet are nailed in a horizontal direction." He prepared a folio dictionary of Burmese and Pali, translated several of the Buddhist Sootras into English, and several books of Holy Scripture into the vernacular. His medical and linguistic skill so commended him to the king that he was loaded with honours and sent as Burmese ambassador to the Governor-General in 1814, when he withdrew from the Christian mission. On his way back up the Irawadi he alone was saved from the wreck of his boat, in which his second wife and children and the MS. of his dictionary went down. Of this his eldest son, who "procured His Majesty's sanction for printing the Scriptures in the Burman and adjacent languages, which step he highly approved," and at the same time "the orders of my rank, which consist of a red umbrella with an ivory top, gold betel box, gold lefeek cup, and a sword of state," the father wrote lamenting to Ryland:—"Felix is shrivelled from a missionary into an ambassador." To his third son the sorrowing father said:—"The honours he has received from the Burmese Government have not been beneficial to his soul. Felix is certainly not so much esteemed since his visit as he was before it. It is a very distressing thing to be forced to apologise for those you love." Mr. Chater had removed to Ceylon to begin a mission in Colombo.
In July 1813, when Felix Carey was in Ava, two young Americans, Adoniram Judson and his wife Ann, tempest-tossed and fleeing before the persecution of the East India Company, found shelter in the Mission House at Rangoon. Judson was one of a band of divinity students of the Congregational Church of New England, whose zeal had almost compelled the institution of the American Board of Foreign Missions. He, his wife, and colleague Rice had become Baptists by conviction on their way to Serampore, to the brotherhood of which they had been commended. Carey and his colleagues made it "a point to guard against obtruding on missionary brethren of different sentiments any conversation relative to baptism;" but Judson himself sent a note to Carey requesting baptism by immersion. The result was the foundation at Boston of the American Baptist Missionary Society, which was to win such triumphs in Burma and among the Karens. For a time, however, Judson was a missionary from Serampore, and supported by the brotherhood. As such he wrote thus:—
"RANGOON, Sept. 1, 1814.—Brother Ward wishes to have an idea of the probable expense of each station; on which I take occasion to say that it would be more gratifying to me, as presenting a less temptation, and as less dangerous to my habits of economy and my spiritual welfare, to have a limited monthly allowance. I fear that, if I am allowed as much as I want, my wants will enlarge with their gratification, and finally embrace many things, which at first I should have thought incompatible with economical management, as well as with that character among the heathen which it becomes the professed followers of Him who for our sakes became poor, even to sustain. It is better for a missionary, especially a young man, to have rather too little than rather too much. Your case, on coming out from England, was quite different from mine. You had all that there was, and were obliged to make the most of it.
"If these things meet the ideas of the brethren, I will be obliged to them to say, what sum, in Sicca Rupees, payable in Bengal, they think sufficient for a small family in Rangoon—sufficient to meet all common expenses, and indeed all that will be incurred at present, except that of passages by sea. You have all the accounts before you, especially of things purchased in Bengal, which I have not; and from having seen the mission pass through various changes, will be more competent to make an estimate of expense than I am. And while you are making this estimate for one family, say also what will be sufficient for two small families, so that if Brother Rice, or any other should soon join me, it may not be necessary to bring the subject again under consideration. This sum I will receive under the same regulations as other stations are subject to, and which I heartily approve. And if, on experiment, it be found much too large, I shall be as glad to diminish it, as to have you increase it, if it be found much too small.
"Sept. 7.—Since writing the above, we have received the distressing intelligence, that a few days after Mr. Carey left us, and soon after he had reached the brig (which had previously gone into the great river) on the 31st of August, about noon, she was overtaken by a squall of wind, upset, and instantly sunk. Those who could swim, escaped with their lives merely, and those who could not, perished. Among the saved, were Mr. Carey and most of the Bengalees. Mrs. Carey, the two children, her women and girls, and several men—in all, ten persons, perished. Every article of property had been transferred from the boats to the vessel, and she had just left the place, where she had been long waiting the arrival of Mr. Carey, and had been under sail about three hours. Several boats were not far distant; the gold-boat was within sight, but so instantaneous was the disaster, that not a single thing was saved. Some attempts were made by the lascars to save Mrs. Carey and William, but they were unsuccessful. Mr. Carey staid on the shore through the following night; a neighbouring governor sent him clothes and money; and the next morning he took the gold-boat, and proceeded up the river. A large boat, on which were several servants, men and women, beside those that were in the vessel, followed the gold-boat. The jolly boat has returned here, bringing the surviving lascars.
"The dreadful situation to which our poor brother was thus reduced in a moment, from the height of prosperity, fills our minds continually with the greatest distress. We are utterly unable to afford him the least relief, and can only pray that this awful dispensation may prove a paternal chastisement from his Heavenly Father, and be sanctified to his soul."
While Judson wrote to Serampore, which he once again visited, leaving the dust of a child in the mission burial-ground, "I am glad to hear you say that you will not abandon this mission," Carey pressed on to the "regions beyond." Judson lived till 1850 to found a church and to prepare a Burmese dictionary, grammar, and translation of the Bible so perfect that revision has hardly been necessary up to the present day. He and Hough, a printer who joined him, formed themselves into a brotherhood on the same self-denying principles as that of Serampore, whom they besought to send them frequent communications to counsel, strengthen, and encourage them. On 28th September 1814 Judson again wrote to Carey from Rangoon:—
"DEAR BROTHER CAREY—If copies of Colebrooke's Sungskrita Dictionary, and your Sungskrita Grammar are not too scarce, I earnestly request a copy of each. I find it will be absolutely necessary for me to pick up a little of the Pali, chiefly on account of many theological terms, which have been incorporated from that language into the Burman. I have found a dictionary, which I suppose is the same as that which Mr. Colebrooke translated, adapted to the Burman system. This I intend to read. I want also Leyden's Vocabulary, and a copy or two of your son's grammar, when it is completed. I gave your son on his going up to Ava, my copy of Campbell's Gospels, together with several other books, all of which are now lost. The former I chiefly regret, and know not whence I can procure another copy.
"There is a vessel now lying here, which is destined to take round an Ambassador from this Government to Bengal. He expects to go in about a month, as he told me. He is now waiting for final instructions from Ava. If Felix be really to be sent to Bengal again, I think it most probable that he will be ordered to accompany this ambassador.
"Mrs. J. was on the point of taking passage with Captain Hitchins, to obtain some medical advice in Bengal; but she has been a little better for a few days, and has given up the plan for the present. This is a delightful climate. We have now seen all the seasons, and can therefore judge. The hot weather in March and April is the chief exception. Nature has done everything for this country; and the Government is very indulgent to all foreigners. When we see how we are distinguished above all around, even in point of worldly comforts, we feel that we want gratitude. O that we may be faithful in the improvement of every mercy, and patient under every trial which God may have in store for us. We know not how the Gospel can ever be introduced here: everything, in this respect, appears as dark as midnight."
By 1816 Judson had prepared the Gospel of Matthew in Burmese, following up short tracts "accommodated to the optics of a Burman."
Carey's third son Jabez was clerk to a Calcutta attorney at the time, in 1812, when Dr. Ryland preached in the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, the anniversary sermon on the occasion of the removal of the headquarters of the Society to London. Pausing in the midst of his discourse, after a reference to Carey, the preacher called on the vast congregation silently to pray for the conversion of Jabez Carey. The answer came next year in a letter from his father:—"My son Jabez, who has been articled to an attorney, and has the fairest prospects as to this world, is become decidedly religious, and prefers the work of the Lord to every other." Lord Minto's expeditions of 1810 and 1811 had captured the islands swept by the French privateers from Madagascar to Java, and there was soon an end of the active hostility of the authorities to Christianity. Sir Stamford Raffles governed Java in the spirit of a Christian statesman. The new Governor-General, Lord Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings, proved to be the most enlightened and powerful friend the mission had had. In these circumstances, after the charter of 1813 had removed the legislative excuse for intolerance, Dr. Carey was asked by the Lieutenant-Governor to send missionaries and Malay Bibles to the fifty thousand natives of Amboyna. The Governor-General repeated the request officially. Jabez Carey was baptised, married, and despatched at the cost of the state before he could be ordained. Amboyna, it will be perceived, was not in India, but far enough away to give the still timid Company little apprehension as to the influence of the missionaries there. The father's heart was very full when he sent forth the son:—
"24th January 1814.—You are now engaging in a most important undertaking, in which not only you will have our prayers for your success, but those of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, and who know of your engagement. I know that a few hints for your future conduct from a parent who loves you very tenderly will be acceptable, and I shall therefore now give you them, assured that they will not be given in vain.
"1st. Pay the utmost attention at all times to the state of your own mind both towards God and man: cultivate an intimate acquaintance with your own heart; labour to obtain a deep sense of your depravity and to trust always in Christ; be pure in heart, and meditate much upon the pure and holy character of God; live a life of prayer and devotedness to God; cherish every amiable and right disposition towards men; be mild, gentle, and unassuming, yet firm and manly. As soon as you perceive anything wrong in your spirit or behaviour set about correcting it, and never suppose yourself so perfect as to need no correction.
"2nd. You are now a married man, be not satisfied with conducting yourself towards your wife with propriety, but let love to her be the spring of your conduct towards her. Esteem her highly, and so act that she may be induced thereby to esteem you highly. The first impressions of love arising from form and beauty will soon wear off, but the esteem arising from excellency of disposition and substance of character will endure and increase. Her honour is now yours, and she cannot be insulted without your being degraded. I hope as soon as you get on board, and are settled in your cabin, you will begin and end each day by uniting together to pray and praise God. Let religion always have a place in your house. If the Lord bless you with children, bring them up in the fear of God, and be always an example to others of the power of godliness. This advice I give also to Eliza, and if it is followed you will be happy.
"3rd. Behave affably and genteelly to all, but not cringingly towards any. Feel that you are a man, and always act with that dignified sincerity and truth which will command the esteem of all. Seek not the society of worldly men, but when called to be with them act and converse with propriety and dignity. To do this labour to gain a good acquaintance with history, geography, men, and things. A gentleman is the next best character after a Christian, and the latter includes the former. Money never makes a gentleman, neither does a fine appearance, but an enlarged understanding joined to engaging manners.
"4th. On your arrival at Amboyna your first business must be to wait on Mr. Martin. You should first send a note to inform him of your arrival, and to inquire when it will suit him to receive you. Ask his advice upon every occasion of importance, and communicate freely to him all the steps you take.
"5th. As soon as you are settled begin your work. Get a Malay who can speak a little English, and with him make a tour of the island, and visit every school. Encourage all you see worthy of encouragement, and correct with mildness, yet with firmness. Keep a journal of the transactions of the schools, and enter each one under a distinct head therein. Take account of the number of scholars, the names of the schoolmasters, compare their progress at stated periods, and, in short, consider this as the work which the Lord has given you to do.
"6th. Do not, however, consider yourself as a mere superintendent of schools; consider yourself as the spiritual instructor of the people, and devote yourself to their good. God has committed the spiritual interests of this island—20,000 men or more—to you; a vast charge, but He can enable you to be faithful to it. Revise the catechism, tracts, and school-books used among them, and labour to introduce among them sound doctrine and genuine piety. Pray with them as soon as you can, and labour after a gift to preach to them. I expect you will have much to do with them respecting baptism. They all think infant sprinkling right, and will apply to you to baptise their children; you must say little till you know something of the language, and then prove to them from Scripture what is the right mode of baptism and who are the proper persons to be baptised. Form them into Gospel churches when you meet with a few who truly fear God; and as soon as you see any fit to preach to others, call them to the ministry and settle them with the churches. You must baptise and administer the Lord's Supper according to your own discretion when there is a proper occasion for it. Avoid indolence and love of ease, and never attempt to act the part of the great and gay in this world.
"7th. Labour incessantly to become a perfect master of the Malay language. In order to this, associate with the natives, walk out with them, ask the name of everything you see, and note it down; visit their houses, especially when any of them are sick. Every night arrange the words you get in alphabetical order. Try to talk as soon as you get a few words, and be as much as possible one of them. A course of kind and attentive conduct will gain their esteem and confidence and give you an opportunity of doing much good.
"8th. You will soon learn from Mr. Martin the situation and disposition of the Alfoors or aboriginal inhabitants, and will see what can be done for them. Do not unnecessarily expose your life, but incessantly contrive some way of giving them the word of life.
"9th. I come now to things of inferior importance, but which I hope you will not neglect. I wish you to learn correctly the number, size, and geography of the islands; the number and description of inhabitants; their customs and manners, and everything of note relative to them; and regularly communicate these things to me.
"Your great work, my dear Jabez, is that of a Christian minister. You would have been solemnly set apart thereto if you could have stayed long enough to have permitted it. The success of your labours does not depend upon an outward ceremony, nor does your right to preach the Gospel or administer the ordinances of the Gospel depend on any such thing, but only on the Divine call expressed in the Word of God. The Church has, however, in their intentions and wishes borne a testimony to the grace given to you, and will not cease to pray for you that you may be successful. May you be kept from all temptations, supported under every trial, made victorious in every conflict; and may our hearts be mutually gladdened with accounts from each other of the triumphs of Divine grace. God has conferred a great favour upon you in committing to you this ministry. Take heed to it therefore in the Lord that thou fulfil it. We shall often meet at the throne of grace. Write me by every opportunity, and tell Eliza to write to your mother.
"Now, my dear Jabez, I commit you both to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to make you perfect in the knowledge of His will. Let that word be near your heart. I give you both up to God, and should I never more see you on earth I trust we shall meet with joy before His throne of glory at last."
Under both the English and the Dutch for a time, to whom the island was restored, Jabez Carey proved to be a successful missionary, while he supported the mission by his official income as superintendent of schools and second member of the College of Justice. The island contained 18,000 native Christians of the Dutch compulsory type, such as we found in Ceylon on taking it over. Thus by the labours of himself, his sons, his colleagues, and his children in the faith, William Carey saw the Gospel, the press, and the influence of a divine philanthropy extending among Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Hindoos, from the shores of the Pacific Ocean west to the Arabian Sea.
The type of a Christian gentleman—Carey and his first wife—His second marriage—The Lady Rumohr—His picture of their married life—His nearly fatal illness when forty-eight years old—His meditations and dreams—Aldeen House—Henry Martyn's pagoda—Carey, Marshman, and the Anglican chaplains in the pagoda—Corrie's account of the Serampore Brotherhood—Claudius Buchanan and his Anglican establishment—Improvement in Anglo-Indian Society—Carey's literary and scientific friends—Desire in the West for a likeness of Carey—Home's portrait of him—Correspondence with his son William on missionary consecration, Buonaparte, botany, the missionary a soldier, Felix and Burma, hunting, the temporal power of the Pope, the duty of reconciliation—Carey's descendants.
"A Gentleman is the next best character after a Christian, and the latter includes the former," were the father's words to the son whom he was sending forth as a Christian missionary and state superintendent of schools. Carey wrote from his own experience, and he unwittingly painted his own character. The peasant bearing of his early youth showed itself throughout his life in a certain shyness, which gave a charm to his converse with old and young. Occasionally, as in a letter which he wrote to his friend Pearce of Birmingham, at a time when he did not know whether his distant correspondent was alive or dead, he burst forth into an unrestrained enthusiasm of affection and service. But his was rather the even tenor of domestic devotion and friendly duty, unbroken by passion or coldness, and ever lighted up by a steady geniality. The colleagues who were associated with him for the third of a century worshipped him in the old English sense of the word. The younger committee-men and missionaries who came to the front on the death of Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland, in all their mistaken conflicts with these colleagues, always tried to separate Carey from those they denounced, till even his saintly spirit burst forth into wrath at the double wrong thus done to his coadjutors. His intercourse with the chaplains and bishops of the Church of England, and with the missionaries of other Churches and societies, was as loving in its degree as his relations to his own people. With men of the world, from the successive Governor-Generals, from Wellesley, Hastings, and Bentinck, down to the scholars, merchants, and planters with whom he became associated for the public good, William Carey was ever the saint and the gentleman whom it was a privilege to know.
In nothing perhaps was Carey's true Christian gentlemanliness so seen as in his relations with his first wife, above whom grace and culture had immeasurably raised him, while she never learned to share his aspirations or to understand his ideals. Not only did she remain to the last a peasant woman, with a reproachful tongue, but the early hardships of Calcutta and the fever and dysentery of Mudnabati clouded the last twelve years of her life with madness. Never did reproach or complaint escape his lips regarding either her or Thomas, whose eccentric impulses and oft-darkened spirit were due to mania also. Of both he was the tender nurse and guardian when, many a time, the ever-busy scholar would fain have lingered at his desk or sought the scanty sleep which his jealous devotion to his Master's business allowed him. The brotherhood arrangement, the common family, Ward's influence over the boys, and Hannah Marshman's housekeeping relieved him of much that his wife's illness had thrown upon him at Mudnabati, so that a colleague describes him, when he was forty-three years of age, as still looking young in spite of the few hairs on his head, after eleven years in Lower Bengal of work such as never Englishman had before him. But almost from the first day of his early married life he had never known the delight of daily converse with a wife able to enter into his scholarly pursuits, and ever to stimulate him in his heavenly quest. When the eldest boy, Felix, had left for Burma in 1807 the faithful sorrowing husband wrote to him:—"Your poor mother grew worse and worse from the time you left us, and died on the 7th December about seven o'clock in the evening. During her illness she was almost always asleep, and I suppose during the fourteen days that she lay in a severe fever she was not more than twenty-four hours awake. She was buried the next day in the missionary burying-ground."
About the same time that Carey himself settled in Serampore there arrived the Lady Rumohr. She built a house on the Hoogli bank immediately below that of the missionaries, whose society she sought, and by whom she was baptised. On the 9th May 1808 she became Carey's wife; and in May 1821 she too was removed by death in her sixty-first year, after thirteen years of unbroken happiness.
Charlotte Emilia, born in the same year as Carey in the then Danish duchy of Schleswick, was the only child of the Chevalier de Rumohr, who married the Countess of Alfeldt, only representative of a historic family. Her wakefulness when a sickly girl of fifteen saved the whole household from destruction by fire, but she herself became so disabled that she could never walk up or down stairs. She failed to find complete recovery in the south of Europe, and her father's friend, Mr. Anker, a director of the Danish East India Company, gave her letters to his brother, then Governor of Tranquebar, in the hope that the climate of India might cause her relief. The Danish ship brought her first to Serampore, where Colonel Bie introduced her to the brotherhood, and there she resolved to remain. She knew the principal languages of Europe; a copy of the Pensées of Pascal, given to her by Mr. Anker before she sailed, for the first time quickened her conscience. She speedily learned English, that she might join the missionaries in public worship. The barren orthodoxy of the Lutheranism in which she had been brought up had made her a sceptic. This soon gave way to the evangelical teaching of the same apostle who had brought Luther himself to Christ. She became a keen student of the Scriptures, then an ardent follower of Jesus Christ.
On her marriage to Dr. Carey, in May 1808, she made over her house to the mission, and when, long after, it became famous as the office of the weekly Friend of India, the rent was sacredly devoted to the assistance of native preachers. She learned Bengali that she might be as a mother to the native Christian families. She was her husband's counsellor in all that related to the extension of the varied enterprise of the brethren. Especially did she make the education of Hindoo girls her own charge, both at Serampore and Cutwa. Her leisure she gave to the reading of French Protestant writers, such as Saurin and Du Moulin. She admired, wrote Carey, "Massillon's language, his deep knowledge of the human heart, and his intrepidity in reproving sin; but felt the greatest dissatisfaction with his total neglect of his Saviour, except when He is introduced to give efficacy to works of human merit. These authors she read in their native language, that being more familiar to her than English. She in general enjoyed much of the consolations of religion. Though so much afflicted, a pleasing cheerfulness generally pervaded her conversation. She indeed possessed great activity of mind. She was constantly out with the dawn of the morning when the weather permitted, in her little carriage drawn by one bearer; and again in the evening, as soon as the sun was sufficiently low. She thus spent daily nearly three hours in the open air. It was probably this vigorous and regular course which, as the means, carried her beyond the age of threescore years (twenty-one of them spent in India), notwithstanding the weakness of her constitution."
It is a pretty picture, the delicate invalid lady, drawn along the mall morning and evening, to enjoy the river breeze, on her way to and from the schools and homes of the natives. But her highest service was, after all, to her husband, who was doing a work for India and for humanity, equalled by few, if any. When, on one occasion, they were separated for a time while she sought for health at Monghyr, she wrote to him the tenderest yet most courtly love-letters.
"MY DEAREST LOVE,—I felt very much in parting with thee, and feel much in being so far from thee...I am sure thou wilt be happy and thankful on account of my voice, which is daily getting better, and thy pleasure greatly adds to mine own.
"I hope you will not think I am writing too often; I rather trust you will be glad to hear of me...Though my journey is very pleasant, and the good state of my health, the freshness of the air, and the variety of objects enliven my spirits, yet I cannot help longing for you. Pray, my love, take care of your health that I may have the joy to find you well.
"I thank thee most affectionately, my dearest love, for thy kind letter. Though the journey is very useful to me, I cannot help feeling much to be so distant from you, but I am much with you in my thoughts...The Lord be blessed for the kind protection He has given to His cause in a time of need. May He still protect and guide and bless His dear cause, and give us all hearts growing in love and zeal...I felt very much affected in parting with thee. I see plainly it would not do to go far from you; my heart cleaves to you. I need not say (for I hope you know my heart is not insensible) how much I feel your kindness in not minding any expense for the recovery of my health. You will rejoice to hear me talk in my old way, and not in that whispering manner.
"I find so much pleasure in writing to you, my love, that I cannot help doing it. I was nearly disconcerted by Mrs.—laughing at my writing so often; but then, I thought, I feel so much pleasure in receiving your letters that I may hope you do the same. I thank thee, my love, for thy kind letter. I need not say that the serious part of it was welcome to me, and the more as I am deprived of all religious intercourse...I shall greatly rejoice, my love, in seeing thee again; but take care of your health that I may find you well. I need not say how much you are in my thoughts day and night."
His narrative of their intercourse, written after her death, lets in a flood of light on his home life:—
"During the thirteen years of her union with Dr. Carey, they had enjoyed the most entire oneness of mind, never having a single circumstance which either of them wished to conceal from the other. Her solicitude for her husband's health and comfort was unceasing. They prayed and conversed together on those things which form the life of personal religion, without the least reserve; and enjoyed a degree of conjugal happiness while thus continued to each other, which can only arise from a union of mind grounded on real religion. On the whole, her lot in India was altogether a scene of mercy. Here she was found of the Saviour, gradually ripened for glory, and after having her life prolonged beyond the expectation of herself and all who knew her, she was released from this mortal state almost without the consciousness of pain, and, as we most assuredly believe, had 'an abundant entrance ministered unto her into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.'"
When, on 24th June 1809, Carey announced at the dinner table that he had that morning finished the Bengali translation of the whole Bible, and he was asked how much more he thought of doing, he answered: "The work I have allotted to myself, in translating, will take me about twenty years." But he had kept the bow too long and too tightly bent, and it threatened to snap. That evening he was seized with bilious fever, and on the eighteenth day thereafter his life was despaired of. "The goodness of God is eminently conspicuous in raising up our beloved brother Carey," wrote Marshman. "God has raised him up again and restored him to his labours; may he live to accomplish all that is in his heart," wrote Rowe. He was at once at his desk again, in college and in his study. "I am this day forty-eight years old," he wrote to Ryland on the 17th August, and sent him the following letters, every line of which reveals the inner soul of the writer:—
"CALCUTTA, 16th August 1809.—I did not expect, about a month ago, ever to write to you again. I was then ill of a severe fever, and for a week together scarcely any hopes were entertained of my life. One or two days I was supposed to be dying, but the Lord has graciously restored me; may it be that I may live more than ever to His glory. Whilst I was ill I had scarcely any such thing as thought belonging to me, but, excepting seasons of delirium, seemed to be nearly stupid; perhaps some of this arose from the weak state to which I was reduced, which was so great that Dr. Hare, one of the most eminent physicians in Calcutta, who was consulted about it, apprehended more danger from that than from the fever. I, however, had scarcely a thought of death or eternity, or of life, or anything belonging thereto. In my delirium, greatest part of which I perfectly remember, I was busily employed in carrying a commission from God to all the princes and governments in the world, requiring them instantly to abolish every political establishment of religion, and to sell the parish and other churches to the first body of Christians that would purchase them. Also to declare war infamous, to esteem all military officers as men who had sold themselves to destroy the human race, to extend this to all those dead men called heroes, defenders of their country, meritorious officers, etc.[13] I was attended by angels in all my excursions, and was universally successful. A few princes in Germany were refractory, but my attendants struck them dead instantly. I pronounced the doom of Rome to the Pope, and soon afterwards all the territory about Rome, the March of Ancona, the great city and all its riches sank into that vast bed of burning lava which heats Nero's bath. These two considerations were the delirious wanderings of the mind, but I hope to feel their force, to pray and strive for their accomplishment to the end of my life. But it is now time to attend to something not merely ideal.
"The state of the world occupied my thoughts more and more; I mean as it relates to the spread of the Gospel. The harvest truly is great, and labourers bear scarcely any proportion thereto. I was forcibly struck this morning with reading our Lord's reply to His disciples, John iv. When He had told them that He had meat to eat the world knew not of, and that His meat was to do the will of His Father and to finish His work, He said, 'Say not ye there are three months and then cometh harvest?' He by this plainly intended to call their attention to the conduct of men when harvest was approaching, for that being the season upon which all the hopes of men hang for temporal supplies, they provide men and measures in time for securing it. Afterwards directing their attention to that which so occupied His own as to be His meat and drink, He said, 'Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields (of souls to be gathered in), for they are white already to harvest.' After so many centuries have elapsed and so many fields full of this harvest have been lost for want of labourers to gather it in, shall we not at last reflect seriously on our duty? Hindostan requires ten thousand ministers of the Gospel, at the lowest calculation, China as many, and you may easily calculate for the rest of the world. I trust that many will eventually be raised up here, but be that as it may the demands for missionaries are pressing to a degree seldom realised. England has done much, but not the hundredth part of what she is bound to do. In so great a want of ministers ought not every church to turn its attention chiefly to the raising up and maturing of spiritual gifts with the express design of sending them abroad? Should not this be a specific matter of prayer, and is there not reason to labour hard to infuse this spirit into the churches?
"A mission into Siam would be comparatively easy of introduction and support on account of its vicinity to Prince of Wales Island, from which vessels can often go in a few hours. A mission to Pegu and another to Arakan would not be difficult of introduction, they being both within the Burman dominions, Missions to Assam and Nepal should be speedily tried. Brother Robinson is going to Bhootan. I do not know anything about the facility with which missions could be introduced into Cochin China, Cambodia, and Laos, but were the trial made I believe difficulties would remove. It is also very desirable that the Burman mission should be strengthened. There is no full liberty of conscience, and several stations might be occupied; even the borders of China might be visited from that country if an easier entrance into the heart of the country could not be found. I have not mentioned Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas, the Philippines, or Japan, but all these countries must be supplied with missionaries. This is a very imperfect sketch of the wants of Asia only, without including the Mahometan countries; but Africa and South America call as loudly for help, and the greatest part of Europe must also be holpen by the Protestant churches, being nearly as destitute of real godliness as any heathen country on the earth. What a pressing call, then, is here for labourers in the spiritual harvest, and what need that the attention of all the churches in England and America should be drawn to this very object!"
Two years after the establishment of the mission at Serampore, David Brown, the senior chaplain and provost of Fort William College, took possession of Aldeen House, which he occupied till the year of his death in 1812. The house is the first in the settlement reached by boat from Calcutta. Aldeen is five minutes' walk south of the Serampore Mission House, and a century ago there was only a park between them. The garden slopes down to the noble river, and commands the beautiful country seat of Barrackpore, which Lord Wellesley had just built. The house itself is embosomed in trees, the mango, the teak, and the graceful bamboo. Just below it, but outside of Serampore, are the deserted temple of Bullubpoor and the Ghat of the same name, a fine flight of steps up which thousands of pilgrims flock every June to the adjoining shrine and monstrous car of Jagganath. David Brown had not been long in Aldeen when he secured the deserted temple and converted it into a Christian oratory, ever since known as Henry Martyn's Pagoda. For ten years Aldeen and the pagoda became the meeting-place of Carey and his Nonconformist friends, with Claudius Buchanan, Martyn, Bishop Corrie, Thomason, and the little band of evangelical Anglicans who, under the protection of Lords Wellesley and Hastings, sweetened Anglo-Indian society, and made the names of "missionary" and of "chaplain" synonymous. Here too there gathered, as also to the Mission House higher up, many a civilian and officer who sought the charms of that Christian family life which they had left behind. A young lieutenant commemorated these years when Brown was removed, in a pleasing elegy, which Charles Simeon published in the Memorials of his friend. Many a traveller from the far West still visits the spot, and recalls the memories of William Carey and Henry Martyn, of Marshman and Buchanan, of Ward and Corrie, which linger around the fair scene. When first we saw it the now mutilated ruin was perfect, and under the wide-spreading banian tree behind a Brahman was reciting, for a day and a night, the verses of the Mahabharata epic to thousands of listening Hindoos.
"Long, Hoogli, has thy sullen stream
Been doomed the cheerless shores to lave;
Long has the Suttee's baneful gleam
Pale glimmered o'er thy midnight wave.
"Yet gladdened seemed to flow thy tide
Where opens on the view—Aldeen;
For there to grace thy palmy side
Loved England's purest joys were seen.
"Yon dome, 'neath which in former days
Grim idols marked the pagan shrine,
Has swelled the notes of pious praise,
Attuned to themes of love divine."
We find this allusion to the place in Carey's correspondence with Dr. Ryland:—"20th January 1807.—It would have done your heart good to have joined us at our meetings at the pagoda. From that place we have successively recommended Dr. Taylor to the work of the Lord at Bombay, Mr. Martyn to his at Dinapoor, Mr. Corrie to his at Chunar, Mr. Parsons to his at Burhampore, Mr. Des Granges to his at Vizagapatam, and our two brethren to theirs at Rangoon, and from thence we soon expect to commend Mr. Thomason to his at Madras. In these meetings the utmost harmony prevails and a union of hearts unknown between persons of different denominations in England." Dr. Taylor and Mr. Des Granges were early missionaries of the London Society; the Rangoon brethren were Baptists; the others were Church of England chaplains. Sacramentarianism and sacerdotalism had not then begun to afflict the Church of India. There were giants in those days, in Bengal, worthy of Carey and of the one work in which all were the servants of one Master.
Let us look a little more closely at Henry Martyn's Pagoda. It is now a picturesque ruin, which the peepul tree that is entwined among its fine brick masonry, and the crumbling river-bank, may soon cause to disappear for ever. The exquisite tracery of the moulded bricks may be seen, but not the few figures that are left of the popular Hindoo idols just where the two still perfect arches begin to spring. The side to the river has already fallen down, and with it the open platform overhanging the bank on which the missionary sat in the cool of the morning and evening, and where he knelt to pray for the people. We have accompanied many a visitor there, from Dr. Duff to Bishop Cotton, and John Lawrence, and have rarely seen one unmoved. This pagoda had been abandoned long before by the priests of Radhabullub, because the river had encroached to a point within 300 feet of it, the limit within which no Brahman is allowed to receive a gift or take his food. The little black doll of an idol, which is famous among Hindoos alike for its sanctity and as a work of art—for had it not been miraculously wafted to this spot like the Santa Casa to Loretto?—was removed with great pomp to a new temple after it had paid a visit to Clive's moonshi, the wealthy Raja Nobokissen in Calcutta, who sought to purchase it outright.
In this cool old pagoda Henry Martyn, on one of his earliest visits to Aldeen after his arrival as a chaplain in 1806, found an appropriate residence. Under the vaulted roof of the shrine a place of prayer and praise was fitted up with an organ, so that, as he wrote, "the place where once devils were worshipped has now become a Christian oratory." Here, too, he laid his plans for the evangelisation of the people. When suffering from one of his moods of depression as to his own state, he thus writes of this place:—"I began to pray as on the verge of eternity; and the Lord was pleased to break my hard heart. I lay in tears, interceding for the unfortunate natives of this country; thinking within myself that the most despicable soodra of India was of as much value in the sight of God as the King of Great Britain." It was from such supplication that he was once roused by the blaze of a Suttee's funeral pyre, on which he found that the living widow had been consumed with the dead before he could interfere. He could hear the hideous drums and gongs and conch-shells of the temple to which Radhabullub had been removed. There he often tried to turn his fellow-creatures to the worship of the one God, from their prostrations "before a black image placed in a pagoda, with lights burning around it," whilst, he says, he "shivered as if standing, as it were, in the neighbourhood of hell." It was in the deserted pagoda that Brown, Corrie, and Parsons met with him to commend him to God before he set out for his new duties at Dinapoor. "My soul," he writes of this occasion, "never yet had such divine enjoyment. I felt a desire to break from the body, and join the high praises of the saints above. May I go 'in the strength of this many days.' Amen." "I found my heaven begun on earth. No work so sweet as that of praying and living wholly to the service of God." And as he passed by the Mission House on his upward voyage, with true catholicity "Dr. Marshman could not resist joining the party: and after going a little way, left them with prayer." Do we wonder that these men have left their mark on India?
As years went by, the temple, thus consecrated as a Christian oratory, became degraded in other hands. The brand "pagoda distillery" for a time came to be known as marking the rum manufactured there. The visits of so many Christian pilgrims to the spot, and above all, the desire expressed by Lord Lawrence when Governor-General to see it, led the Hindoo family who own the pagoda to leave it at least as a simple ruin.
Corrie, afterwards the first bishop of Madras, describes the marriage of Des Granges in the oratory, and gives us a glimpse of life in the Serampore Mission House:—
"1806.—Calcutta strikes me as the most magnificent city in the world; and I am made most happy by the hope of being instrumental to the eternal good of many. A great opposition, I find, is raised against Martyn and the principles he preaches...Went up to Serampore yesterday, and in the evening was present at the marriage of Mr. Des Granges. Mr. Brown entered into the concern with much interest. The pagoda was fixed on, and lighted up for the celebration of the wedding; at eight o'clock the parties came from the Mission House [at Serampore], attended by most of the family. Mr. Brown commenced with the hymn, 'Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly dove!' A divine influence seemed to attend us, and most delightful were my sensations. The circumstance of so many being engaged in spreading the glad tidings of salvation,—the temple of an idol converted to the purpose of Christian worship, and the Divine presence felt among us,—filled me with joy unspeakable. After the marriage service of the Church of England, Mr. Brown gave out 'the Wedding Hymn'; and after signing certificates of the marriage we adjourned to the house, where Mr. Brown had provided supper. Two hymns given out by Mr. Marshman were felt very powerfully. He is a most lively, sanguine missionary; his conversation made my heart burn within me, and I find desires of spreading the Gospel growing stronger daily, and my zeal in the cause more ardent...I went to the Mission House, and supped at the same table with about fifty native converts. The triumph of the Cross was most evident in breaking down their prejudices, and uniting them with those who formerly were an abomination in their eyes. After supper they sang a Bengali hymn, many of them with tears of joy; and they concluded with prayer in Bengali, with evident earnestness and emotion. My own feelings were too big for utterance. O may the time be hastened when every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father!
"On Friday evening [Oct. 10th], we had a meeting in the pagoda, at which almost all the missionaries, some of their wives, and Captain Wickes attended, with a view to commend Martyn to the favour and protection of God in his work. The Divine presence was with us. I felt more than it would have been proper to express. Mr. Brown commenced with a hymn and prayer, Mr. Des Granges succeeded him, with much devotion and sweetness of expression: Mr. Marshman followed, and dwelt particularly on the promising appearance of things; and, with much humility, pleaded God's promises for the enlargement of Zion; with many petitions for Mr. Brown and his family. The service was concluded by Mr. Carey, who was earnest in prayer for Mr. Brown: the petition that 'having laboured for many years without encouragement or support, in the evening it might be light,' seemed much to affect his own mind, and greatly impressed us all. Afterwards we supped together at Mr. Brown's...
"13th Oct.—I came to Serampore to dinner. Had a pleasant sail up the river: the time passed agreeably in conversation. In the evening a fire was kindled on the opposite bank; and we soon perceived that it was a funeral pile, on which the wife was burning with the dead body of her husband. It was too dark to distinguish the miserable victim...On going out to walk with Martyn to the pagoda, the noise so unnatural, and so little calculated to excite joy, raised in my mind an awful sense of the presence and influence of evil spirits."
Corrie married the daughter of Mrs. Ellerton, who knew Serampore and Carey well. It was Mr. Ellerton who, when an indigo-planter at Malda, opened the first Bengali school, and made the first attempt at translating the Bible into that vernacular. His young wife, early made a widow, witnessed accidentally the duel in which Warren Hastings shot Philip Francis. She was an occasional visitor at Aldeen, and took part in the pagoda services. Fifty years afterwards, not long before her death at eighty-seven, Bishop Wilson, whose guest she was, wrote of her: "She made me take her to Henry Martyn's pagoda. She remembers the neighbourhood, and Gharetty Ghat and House in Sir Eyre Coote's time (1783). The ancient Governor of Chinsurah and his fat Dutch wife are still in her mind. When she visited him with her first husband (she was then sixteen) the old Dutchman cried out, 'Oh, if you would find me such a nice little wife I would give you ten thousand rupees.'"
It was in Martyn's pagoda that Claudius Buchanan first broached his plan of an ecclesiastical establishment for India, and invited the discussion of it by Carey and his colleagues. Such a scheme came naturally from one who was the grandson of a Presbyterian elder of the Church of Scotland, converted in the Whitefield revival at Cambuslang. It had been suggested first by Bishop Porteous when he reviewed the Company's acquisitions in Asia. It was encouraged by Lord Wellesley, who was scandalised on his arrival in India by the godlessness of the civil servants and the absence of practically any provision for the Christian worship and instruction of its officers and soldiers, who were all their lives without religion, not a tenth of them ever returning home. Carey thus wrote, at Ryland's request, of the proposal, which resulted in the arrival in Calcutta of Bishop Middleton and Dr. Bryce in 1814:—"I have no opinion of Dr. Buchanan's scheme for a religious establishment here, nor could I from memory point out what is exceptionable in his memoir. All his representations must be taken with some grains of allowance." When, in the Aldeen discussions, Dr. Buchanan told Marshman that the temple lands would eventually answer for the established churches and the Brahmans' lands for the chaplains, the stout Nonconformist replied with emphasis, "You will never obtain them." We may all accept the conversion of the idol shrine into a place of prayer—as Gregory I. taught Augustine of Canterbury to transform heathen temples into Christian churches—as presaging the time when the vast temple and mosque endowments will be devoted by the people themselves to their own moral if not spiritual good through education, both religious and secular.
The change wrought in seventeen years by Carey and such associates as these on society in Bengal, both rich and poor, became marked by the year 1810. We find him writing of it thus:—"When I arrived I knew of no person who cared about the Gospel except Mr. Brown, Mr. Udny, Mr. Creighton, Mr. Grant, and Mr. Brown an indigo-planter, besides Brother Thomas and myself. There might be more, and probably were, though unknown to me. There are now in India thirty-two ministers of the Gospel. Indeed, the Lord is doing great things for Calcutta; and though infidelity abounds, yet religion is the theme of conversation or dispute in almost every house. A few weeks ago (October 1810), I called upon one of the Judges to take breakfast with him, and going rather abruptly upstairs, as I had been accustomed to do, I found the family just going to engage in morning worship. I was of course asked to engage in prayer, which I did. I afterwards told him that I had scarcely witnessed anything since I had been in Calcutta which gave me more pleasure than what I had seen that morning. The change in this family was an effect of Mr. Thomason's ministry...About ten days ago I had a conversation with one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, Sir John Boyd, upon religious subjects. Indeed there is now scarcely a place where you can pay a visit without having an opportunity of saying something about true religion."
Carey's friendly intercourse, by person and letter, was not confined to those who were aggressively Christian or to Christian and ecclesiastical questions. As we shall soon see, his literary and scientific pursuits led him to constant and familiar converse with scholars like Colebrooke and Leyden, with savants like Roxburgh, the astronomer Bentley, and Dr. Hare, with publicists like Sir James Mackintosh and Robert Hall, with such travellers and administrators as Manning, the friend of Charles Lamb, and Raffles.
In Great Britain the name of William Carey had, by 1812, become familiar as a household word in all evangelical circles. The men who had known him in the days before 1793 were few and old, were soon to pass away for ever. The new generation had fed their Christian zeal on his achievements, and had learned to look on him, in spite of all his humility which only inflamed that zeal, as the pioneer, the father, the founder of foreign missions, English, Scottish, and American. They had never seen him; they were not likely to see him in the flesh. The desire for a portrait of him became irresistible. The burning of the press, to be hereafter described, which led even bitter enemies of the mission like Major Scott Waring to subscribe for its restoration, gave the desired sympathetic voice, so that Fuller wrote to the missionaries:—"The public is now giving us their praises. Eight hundred guineas have been offered for Dr. Carey's likeness...When you pitched your tents at Serampore you said, 'We will not accumulate riches but devote all to God for the salvation of the heathen.' God has given you what you desired and what you desired not. Blessed men, God will bless you and make you a blessing. I and others of us may die, but God will surely visit you...Expect to be highly applauded, bitterly reproached, greatly moved, and much tried in every way. Oh that, having done all, you may stand!"
Carey was, fortunately for posterity, not rebellious in the matter of the portrait; he was passive. As he sat in his room in the college of Fort William, his pen in hand, his Sanskrit Bible before him, and his Brahman pundit at his left hand, the saint and the scholar in the ripeness of his powers at fifty was transferred to the canvas which has since adorned the walls of Regent's Park College. A line engraving of the portrait was published in England the year after at a guinea, and widely purchased, the profit going to the mission. The painter was Home, famous in his day as the artist whom Lord Cornwallis had engaged during the first war with Tipoo to prepare those Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tipoo Sultaun, from Drawings taken on the Spot, which appeared in 1794.
Of his four sons, Felix, William, Jabez, and Jonathan, Carey's correspondence was most frequent at this period with William, who went forth in 1807 to Dinapoor to begin his independent career as a missionary by the side of Fernandez.
"2nd April 1807.—We have the greatest encouragement to go forward in the work of our Lord Jesus, because we have every reason to conclude that it will be successful at last. It is the cause which God has had in His mind from eternity, the cause for which Christ shed His blood, that for which the Spirit and word of God were given, that which is the subject of many great promises, that for which the saints have been always praying, and which God Himself bears an infinite regard to in His dispensations of Providence and Grace. The success thereof is therefore certain. Be encouraged, therefore, my dear son, to devote yourself entirely to it, and to pursue it as a matter of the very first importance even to your dying day.
"Give my love to Mr. and Mrs. Creighton and to Mr. Ellerton, Mr. Grant, or any other who knows me about Malda, also to our native Brethren."
"CALCUTTA, 29th September 1808.—A ship is just arrived which brings the account that Buonaparte has taken possession of the whole kingdom of Spain, and that the Royal family of that country are in prison at Bayonne. It is likely that Turkey is fallen before now, and what will be the end of these wonders we cannot tell. I see the wrath of God poured out on the nations which have so long persecuted His Gospel, and prevented the spread of His truth. Buonaparte is but the minister of the Divine vengeance, the public executioner now employed to execute the sentence of God upon criminal men. He, however, has no end in view but the gratifying his own ambition."
"22nd December 1808.—DEAR WILLIAM—Be steadfast...Walk worthy of your high calling, and so as to be a pattern to others who may engage in similar undertakings. Much depends upon us who go first to the work of the Lord in this country; and we have reason to believe that succeeding Ministers of the Gospel in this country will be more or less influenced by our example...All, even the best of men, are more likely to be influenced by evil example than benefited by good: let it, therefore, be your business and mine to live and act for God in all things and at all times.
"I am very glad you wrote to Jabez and Jonathan. O that I could see them converted!"
"30th May 1809.—When you come down take a little pains to bring down a few plants of some sort. There is one grows plentifully about Sadamahal which grows about as high as one's knee, and produces a large red flower. Put half a dozen plants in pots (with a hole in the bottom). There is at Sadamahal (for I found it there) a plant which produces a flower like Bhayt, of a pale bluish colour, almost white; and indeed several other things there. Try and bring something. Can't you bring the grasshopper which has a saddle on its back, or the bird which has a large crest which he opens when he settles on the ground? I want to give you a little taste for natural objects. Felix is very good indeed in this respect."
"26th April 1809.—You, my dear William, are situated in a post which is very dear to my remembrance because the first years of my residence in India were spent in that neighbourhood. I therefore greatly rejoice in any exertions which you are enabled to make for the cause of our Redeemer...Should you, after many years' labour, be instrumental in the conversion of only one soul, it would be worth the work of a whole life...I am not sure that I have been of real use to any one person since I have been in this country, yet I dare not give up the work in which I am engaged. Indeed, notwithstanding all the discouragements which I feel from my own unfitness for any part of it, I prefer it to everything else, and consider that in the work of my Redeemer I have a rich reward. If you are enabled to persevere you will feel the same, and will say with the great Apostle—'I count not my life dear to me that I may fulfil the ministry which I have received of the Lord.' 'Unto me is this grace (favour) given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.' Hold on, therefore, be steady in your work, and leave the result with God.
"I have been thinking of a mission to the Ten Tribes of Israel, I mean the Afghans, who inhabit Cabul...I leave the other side for your mother to write a few lines to Mary, to whom give my love."
"CALCUTTA, 1st November 1809.—Yesterday was the day for the Chinese examination, at which Jabez acquitted himself with much honour. I wish his heart were truly set on God. One of the greatest blessings which I am now anxious to see before my death is the conversion of him and Jonathan, and their being employed in the work of the Lord.
"Now, dear William, what do we live for but to promote the cause of our dear Redeemer in the world? If that be carried on we need not wish for anything more; and if our poor labours are at all blessed to the promotion of that desirable end, our lives will not be in vain. Let this, therefore, be the great object of your life, and if you should be made the instrument of turning only one soul from darkness to marvellous light, who can say how many more may be converted by his instrumentality, and what a tribute of glory may arise to God from that one conversion. Indeed, were you never to be blessed to the conversion of one soul, still the pleasure of labouring in the work of the Lord is greater than that of any other undertaking in the world, and is of itself sufficient to make it the work of our choice. I hope Sebuk Ram is arrived before now, and that you will find him to be a blessing to you in your work. Try your utmost to make him well acquainted with the Bible, labour to correct his mistakes, and to establish him in the knowledge of the truth.
"You may always enclose a pinch of seeds in a letter."
"17th January 1810.—Felix went with Captain Canning, the English ambassador to the Burman Empire, to the city of Pegu. On his way thither he observed to Captain Canning that he should be greatly gratified in accompanying the Minister to the mountains of Martaban and the country beyond them. Captain Canning at his next interview with the Minister mentioned this to him, which he was much pleased with, and immediately ordered several buffalo-carts to be made ready, and gave him a war-boat to return to Rangoon to bring his baggage, medicines, etc. He had no time to consult Brother Chater before he determined on the journey, and wrote to me when at Rangoon, where he stayed only one night, and returned to Pegu the next morning. He says the Minister has now nearly the whole dominion over the Empire, and is going to war. He will accompany the army to Martaban, when he expects to stay with the Minister there. He goes in great spirits to explore those countries where no European has been before him, and where he goes with advantages and accommodations such as a traveller seldom can obtain. Brother and Sister Chater do not approve of his undertaking, perhaps through fear for his safety. I feel as much for that as any one can do, yet I, and indeed Brethren Marshman, Ward, and Rowe, rejoice that he has undertaken the journey. It will assist him in acquiring the language; it will gratify the Minister, it will serve the interests of literature, and perhaps answer many other important purposes, as it respects the mission; and as much of the way will be through uninhabited forests, it could not have been safely undertaken except with an army. He expects to be absent three months. I shall feel a great desire to hear from him when he returns, and I doubt not but you will join me in prayer for his safety both of mind and body...
"One or two words about natural history. Can you not get me a male and female khokora—I mean the great bird like a kite, which makes so great a noise, and often carries off a duck or a kid? I believe it is an eagle, and want to examine it. Send me also all the sorts of ducks and waterfowls you can get, and, in short, every sort of bird you can obtain which is not common here. Send their Bengali names. Collect me all the sorts of insects, and serpents, and lizards you can get which are not common here. Put all the insects together into a bottle of rum, except butterflies, which you may dry between two papers, and the serpents and lizards the same. I will send you a small quantity of rum for that purpose. Send all the country names. Let me have the birds alive; and when you have got a good boat-load send a small boat down with them under charge of a careful person, and I will pay the expenses. Spare no pains to get me seeds and roots, and get Brother Robinson to procure what he can from Bhootan or other parts.
"Remember me affectionately to Sebuk Ram and his wife, and to all the native brethren and sisters."
"5th February 1810.—Were you hunting the buffalo, or did it charge you without provocation? I advise you to abstain from hunting buffaloes or other animals, because, though I think it lawful to kill noxious animals, or to kill animals for food, yet the unnecessary killing of animals, and especially the spending much time in the pursuit of them, is wrong, and your life is too valuable to be thrown away by exposing it to such furious animals as buffaloes and tigers. If you can kill them without running any risk 'tis very well, but it is wrong to expose yourself to danger for an end so much below that to which you are devoted...
"I believe the cause of our Redeemer increases in the earth, and look forward to more decided appearances of divine power. The destruction of the temporal power of the Pope is a glorious circumstance, and an answer to the prayers of the Church for centuries past...
"I send you a small cask of rum to preserve curiosities in, and a few bottles; but your best way will be to draw off a couple of gallons of the rum, which you may keep for your own use, and then put the snakes, frogs, toads, lizards, etc., into the cask, and send them down. I can easily put them into proper bottles, etc., afterwards. You may, however, send one or two of the bottles filled with beetles, grasshoppers, and other insects."
In the absence of Mr. Fernandez, the pastor, William had excluded two members of the Church.
"4th April 1810.—A very little knowledge of human nature will convince you that this would have been thought an affront in five instances out of six. You would have done better to have advised them, or even to have required them to have kept from the Lord's table till Mr. Fernandez's return, and to have left it to him to preside over the discipline of the church. You, no doubt, did it without thinking of the consequences, and in the simplicity of your heart, and I think Mr. Fernandez is wrong in treating you with coolness, when a little conversation might have put everything to rights. Of that, however, I shall say no more to you, but one of us shall write to him upon the subject as soon as we can.
"The great thing to be done now is the effecting of a reconciliation between you, and whether you leave Sadamahal, or stay there, this is absolutely necessary. In order to this you both must be willing to make some sacrifice of your feelings; and as those feelings, which prevent either of you from making concessions where you have acted amiss, are wrong, the sooner they are sacrificed the better. I advise you to write to Mr. Fernandez immediately, and acknowledge that you did wrong in proceeding to the exclusion of the members without having first consulted with him, and state that you had no intention of hurting his feelings, but acted from what you thought the urgency of the case, and request of him a cordial reconciliation. I should like much to see a copy of the letter you send to him. I have no object in view but the good of the Church, and would therefore rather see you stoop as low as you can to effect a reconciliation, than avoid it through any little punctilio of honour or feeling of pride. You will never repent of having humbled yourself to the dust that peace may be restored, nothing will be a more instructive example to the heathen around you, nothing will so completely subdue Brother Fernandez's dissatisfaction, and nothing will make you more respected in the Church of God.
"It is highly probable that you will some time or other be removed to another situation, but it cannot be done till you are perfectly reconciled to each other, nor can it possibly be done till some time after your reconciliation, as such a step would be considered by all as an effect of resentment or dissatisfaction, and would be condemned by every thinking person. We shall keep our minds steadily on the object, and look out for a proper station; but both we and you must act with great caution and tenderness in this affair. For this reason also I entreat you not to withdraw yourself from the church, or from any part of your labours, but go on steadily in the path of duty, suppress and pray against every feeling of resentment, and bear anything rather than be accessory to a misunderstanding, or the perpetuating of one. 'Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ, who made himself of no reputation.' I hope what I have said will induce you to set in earnest about a reconciliation with Brother Fernandez, and to spare no pains or concession (consistent with truth) to effect it."
William had applied to be transferred to Serampore.
"3rd August 1811.—The necessities of the mission must be consulted before every other consideration. Native brethren can itinerate, but Europeans must be employed to open new missions and found new stations. For were we to go upon the plan of sending Europeans where natives could possibly be employed, no subscriptions or profits could support them. We intend to commence a new station at Dacca, and if you prefer that to Cutwa you may go thither. One of the first things to be done there will be to open a charity school, and to overlook it. Dacca itself is a very large place, where you may often communicate religious instructions without leaving the town. There are also a number of Europeans there, so that Mary would not be so much alone, and at any rate help would be near. We can obtain the permission of Government for you to settle there.
"I ought, however, to say that I think there is much guilt in your fears. You and Mary will be a thousand times more safe in committing yourselves to God in the way of duty than in neglecting obvious duty to take care of yourselves. You see what hardships and dangers a soldier meets in the wicked trade of war. They are forced to leave home and expose themselves to a thousand dangers, yet they never think of objecting, and in this the officers are in the same situation as the men. I will engage to say that no military officer would ever refuse to go any whither on service because his family must be exposed to danger in his absence; and yet I doubt not but many of them are men who have great tenderness for their wives and families. However, they must be men and their wives must be women. Your undertaking is infinitely superior to theirs in importance. They go to kill men, you to save them. If they leave their families to chance for the sake of war, surely you can leave yours to the God of providence while you go about His work. I speak thus because I am much distressed to see you thus waste away the flower of your life in inactivity, and only plead for it what would not excuse a child. Were you in any secular employment you must go out quite as much as we expect you to do in the Mission. I did so when at Mudnabati, which was as lonesome a place as could have been thought of, and when I well knew that many of our own ryots were dakoits (robbers)."
William finally settled at Cutwa, higher up the Hoogli than Serampore, and did good service there.
"1st December 1813.—I have now an assistant at College, notwithstanding which my duties are quite as heavy as they ever were, for we are to receive a number of military students—I suppose thirty at least. The translation, and printing also, is now so much enlarged that I am scarcely able to get through the necessary labour of correcting proofs and learning the necessary languages. All these things are causes of rejoicing more than of regret, for they are the very things for which I came into the country, and to which I wish to devote my latest breath...Jabez has offered himself to the Mission, a circumstance which gives me more pleasure than if he had been appointed Chief Judge of the Supreme Court...Your mother has long been confined to her couch, I believe about six months."
The following was written evidently in reply to loving letters on the death of his wife, Charlotte Emilia:—
"4th June 1821.—MY DEAR JONATHAN—I feel your affectionate care for me very tenderly. I have just received very affectionate letters from William and Brother Sutton (Orissa). Lord and Lady Hastings wrote to Brother Marshman, thinking it would oppress my feelings to write to me directly, to offer their kind condolence to me through him. Will you have the goodness to send five rupees to William for the Cutwa school, which your dear mother supported. I will repay you soon, but am now very short of money.—I am your very affectionate father, W. CAREY."
Of the many descendants of Dr. Carey, one great grandson is now an ordained missionary in Bengal, another a medical missionary in Delhi, and a third is a member of the Civil Service, who has distinguished himself by travels in Northern Tibet and Chinese Turkestan, which promise to unveil much of the unexplored regions of Asia to the scholar and the missionary.
Thus far we have confined our study of William Carey to his purely missionary career, and that in its earlier half. We have now to see him as the scholar, the Bible translator, the philanthropist, the agriculturist, and the founder of a University.
Carey the only Sanskrit scholar in India besides Colebrooke—The motive of the missionary scholar—Plans translation of the sacred books of the East—Comparative philology from Leibniz to Carey—Hindoo and Mohammedan codes and colleges of Warren Hastings—The Marquis Wellesley—The College of Fort William founded—Character of the Company's civil and military servants—Curriculum of study, professors and teachers—The vernacular languages—Carey's account of the college and his appointment—How he studied Sanskrit—College Disputation Day in the new Government House—Carey's Sanskrit speech—Lord Wellesley's eulogy—Sir James Mackintosh—Carey's pundits—He projects the Bibliotheca Asiatica—On the Committee of the Bengal Asiatic Society—Edition and translation of the Ramayana epic—The Hitopadesa—His Universal Dictionary—Influence of Carey on the civil and military services—W. B. Bayley; B. H. Hodgson; R. Jenkins; R. M. and W. Bird; John Lawrence.
When, in the opening days of the nineteenth century, William Carey was driven to settle in Danish Serampore, he was the only member of the governing race in North India who knew the language of the people so as to teach it; the only scholar, with the exception of Colebrooke, who could speak Sanskrit as fluently as the Brahmans. The Bengali language he had made the vehicle of the teaching of Christ, of the thought of Paul, of the revelation of John. Of the Sanskrit, hitherto concealed from alien eyes or diluted only through the Persian, he had prepared a grammar and begun a dictionary, while he had continually used its great epics in preaching to the Brahmans, as Paul had quoted the Greek poets on the Areopagus. And all this he had done as the missionary of Christ and the scholar afterwards. Reporting to Ryland, in August 1800, the publication of the Gospels and of "several small pieces" in Bengali, he excused his irregularity in keeping a journal, "for in the printing I have to look over the copy and correct the press, which is much more laborious than it would be in England, because spelling, writing, printing, etc., in Bengali is almost a new thing, and we have in a manner to fix the orthography." A little later, in a letter to Sutcliff, he used language regarding the sacred books of the Hindoos which finds a parallel more than eighty years after in Professor Max Müller's preface to his series of the sacred books of the East, the translation of which Carey was the first to plan and to begin from the highest of all motives. Mr. Max Müller calls attention to the "real mischief that has been and is still being done by the enthusiasm of those pioneers who have opened the first avenues through the bewildering forests of the sacred literature of the East." He declares that "Eastern nations themselves would not tolerate, in any of their classical literary compositions, such violations of the simplest rules of taste as they have accustomed themselves to tolerate, if not to admire, in their sacred books." And he is compelled to leave untranslated, while he apologises for them, the frequent allusions to the sexual aspects of nature, "particularly in religious books." The revelations of the Maharaj trial in Bombay are the practical fruit of all this.
"CALCUTTA, 17th March 1802.—I have been much astonished lately at the malignity of some of the infidel opposers of the Gospel, to see how ready they are to pick every flaw they can in the inspired writings, and even to distort the meaning, that they may make it appear inconsistent; while these very persons will labour to reconcile the grossest contradictions in the writings accounted sacred by the Hindoos, and will stoop to the meanest artifices in order to apologise for the numerous glaring falsehoods and horrid violations of all decency and decorum, which abound in almost every page. Any thing, it seems, will do with these men but the word of God. They ridicule the figurative language of Scripture, but will run allegory-mad in support of the most worthless productions that ever were published. I should think it time lost to translate any of them; and only a sense of duty excites me to read them. An idea, however, of the advantage which the friends of Christianity may obtain by having these mysterious sacred nothings (which have maintained their celebrity so long merely by being kept from the inspection of any but interested Brahmans) exposed to view, has induced me, among other things, to write the Sanskrit grammar, and to begin a dictionary of that language. I sincerely pity the poor people, who are held by the chains of an implicit faith in the grossest of lies; and can scarcely help despising the wretched infidel who pleads in their favour and tries to vindicate them. I have long wished to obtain a copy of the Veda; and am now in hopes I shall be able to procure all that are extant. A Brahman this morning offered to get them for me for the sake of money. If I succeed, I shall be strongly tempted to publish them with a translation, pro bono publico."
It was not surprising that the Governor-General, even if he had been less enlightened than Lord Wellesley, found in this missionary interloper, as the East India Company officially termed the class to which he belonged, the only man fit to be Professor of Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi in the College of Fort William, and also translator of the laws and regulations of the Government.
In a memoir read before the Berlin Academy of Sciences, which he had founded in the first year of the eighteenth century, Leibniz first sowed the seed of the twin sciences of comparative philology and ethnology, to which we owe the fruitful results of the historical and critical school. That century was passed in the necessary collection of facts, of data. Carey introduced the second period, so far as the learned and vernacular languages of North India are concerned—of developing from the body of facts which his industry enormously extended, the principles upon which these languages were constructed, besides applying these principles, in the shape of grammars, dictionaries, and translations, to the instruction and Christian civilisation alike of the learned and of the millions of the people. To the last, as at the first, he was undoubtedly only what he called himself, a pioneer to prepare the way for more successful civilisers and scholars. But his pioneering was acknowledged by contemporary[14] and later Orientalists, like Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson, to be of unexampled value in the history of scientific research and industry, while the succeeding pages will show that in its practical results the pioneering came as nearly to victory as is possible, until native India lives its own national Christian life.
When India first became a united British Empire under one Governor-General and the Regulating Act of Parliament of 1773, Warren Hastings had at once carried out the provision he himself had suggested for using the moulavies and pundits in the administration of Mussulman and Hindoo law. Besides colleges in Calcutta and Benares to train such, he caused those codes of Mohammedan and Brahmanical law to be prepared which afterwards appeared as The Hedaya and The Code of Gentoo Laws. The last was compiled in Sanskrit by pundits summoned from all Bengal and maintained in Calcutta at the public cost, each at a rupee a day. It was translated through the Persian, the language of the courts, by the elder Halhed into English in 1776. That was the first step in English Orientalism. The second was taken by Sir William Jones, a predecessor worthy of Carey, but cut off all too soon while still a young man of thirty-four, when he founded the Bengal Asiatic Society in 1784 on the model of Boyle's Royal Society. The code of Warren Hastings had to be arranged and supplemented into a reliable digest of the original texts, and the translation of this work, as done by pundit Jaganatha, was left, by the death of Jones, to Colebrooke, who completed it in 1797. Charles Wilkins had made the first direct translation from the Sanskrit into English in 1785, when he published in London The Bhagavat-Geeta or Dialogue of Krishna and Arjoon, and his is the imperishable honour thus chronicled by a contemporary poetaster:—
"But he performed a yet more noble part,
He gave to Asia typographic art."
In Bengali Halhed had printed at Hoogli in 1783, with types cut by Wilkins, the first grammar, but it had become obsolete and was imperfect. Such had been the tentative efforts of the civilians and officials of the Company when Carey began anew the work from the only secure foundation, the level of daily sympathetic intercourse with the people and their Brahmans, with the young as well as the old.
The Marquis Wellesley was of nearly the same age as Carey, whom he soon learned to appreciate and to use for the highest good of the empire. Of the same name and original English descent as John and Charles Wesley, the Governor-General was the eldest and not the least brilliant of the Irish family which, besides him, gave to the country the Duke of Wellington and Lord Cowley. While Carey was cobbling shoes in an unknown hamlet of the Midlands and was aspiring to convert the world, young Wellesley was at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, acquiring the classical scholarship which, as we find its fruits in his Primitiœ et Reliquiœ, extorted the praise of De Quincey. When Carey was starving in Calcutta unknown the young lord was making his mark in the House of Commons by a speech against the Jacobins of France in the style of Burke. The friend of Pitt, he served his apprenticeship to Indian affairs in the Board of Control, where he learned to fight the directors of the East India Company, and he landed at Calcutta in 1798, just in time to save the nascent empire from ruin by the second Mysore war and the fall of Tipoo at Seringapatam. Like that other marquis who most closely resembled him half a century after, the Scottish Dalhousie, his hands were no sooner freed from the uncongenial bonds of war than he became even more illustrious by his devotion to the progress which peace makes possible. He created the College of Fort William, dating the foundation of what was fitted and intended to be the greatest seat of learning in the East from the first anniversary of the victory of Seringapatam. So splendidly did he plan, so wisely did he organise, and with such lofty aims did he select the teachers of the college, that long after his death he won from De Quincey the impartial eulogy, that of his three services to his country and India this was the "first, to pave the way for the propagation of Christianity—mighty service, stretching to the clouds, and which in the hour of death must have given him consolation."
When Wellesley arrived at Calcutta he had been shocked by the sensual ignorance of the Company's servants. Sunday was universally given up to horse-racing and gambling. Boys of sixteen were removed from the English public schools where they had hardly mastered the rudiments of education to become the magistrates, judges, revenue collectors, and governors of millions of natives recently brought under British sway. At a time when the passions most need regulation and the conscience training, these lads found themselves in India with large incomes, flattered by native subordinates, encouraged by their superiors to lead lives of dissipation, and without the moral control even of the weakest public opinion. The Eton boy and Oxford man was himself still young, and he knew the world, but he saw that all this meant ruin to both the civil and military services, and to the Company's system. The directors addressed in a public letter, dated 25th May 1798, "an objurgation on the character and conduct" of their servants. They re-echoed the words of the new Governor-General in their condemnation of a state of things, "highly discreditable to our Government, and totally incompatible with the religion we profess." Such a service as this, preceding the creation of the college, led Pitt's other friend, Wilberforce, in the discussions on the charter of 1813, to ascribe to Lord Wellesley, when summoning him to confirm and revise it, the system of diffusing useful knowledge of all sorts as the true foe not only of ignorance but of vice and of political and social decay.
Called upon to prevent the evils he had been the first to denounce officially, Lord Wellesley wrote his magnificent state paper of 1800, which he simply termed Notes on the necessity of a special collegiate training of Civil Servants. The Company's factories had grown into the Indian Empire of Great Britain. The tradesmen and clerks, whom the Company still called "writer," "factor," and "merchant," in their several grades, had, since Clive obtained a military commission in disgust at such duties, become the judges and rulers of millions, responsible to Parliament. They must be educated in India itself, and trained to be equal to the responsibilities and temptations of their position. If appointed by patronage at home when still at school, they must be tested after training in India so that promotion shall depend on degrees of merit. Lord Wellesley anticipated the modified system of competition which Macaulay offered to the Company in 1853, and the refusal of which led to the unrestricted system which has prevailed with varying results since that time. Nor was the college only for the young civilians as they arrived. Those already at work were to be encouraged to study. Military officers were to be invited to take advantage of an institution which was intended to be "the university of Calcutta," "a light amid the darkness of Asia," and that at a time when in all England there was not a military college. Finally, the college was designed to be a centre of Western learning in an Eastern dress for the natives of India and Southern Asia, alike as students and teachers. A noble site was marked out for it on the stately sweep of Garden Reach, where every East Indiaman first dropped its anchor, and the building was to be worthy of the founder who erected Government House.
The curriculum of study included Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit; Bengali, Marathi, Hindostani (Hindi), Telugoo, Tamil, and Kanarese; English, the Company's, Mohammedan and Hindoo law, civil jurisprudence, and the law of nations; ethics; political economy, history, geography, and mathematics; the Greek, Latin, and English classics, and the modern languages of Europe; the history and antiquities of India; natural history, botany, chemistry, and astronomy. The discipline was that of the English universities as they then were, under the Governor-General himself, his colleagues, and the appellate judges. The senior chaplain, the Rev. David Brown, was provost in charge of the discipline; and Dr. Claudius Buchanan was vice-provost in charge of the studies, as well as professor of Greek, Latin, and English. Dr. Gilchrist was professor of Hindostani, in teaching which he had already made a fortune; Lieutenant J. Baillie of Arabic; and Mr. H. B. Edmonstone of Persian. Sir George Barlow expounded the laws or regulations of the British Government in India. The Church of England constitution of the college at first, to which Buchanan had applied the English Test Act, and his own modesty, led Carey to accept of his appointment, which was thus gazetted:—"The Rev. William Carey, teacher of the Bengali and Sanskrit languages."
The first notice of the new college which we find in Carey's correspondence is this, in a letter to Sutcliff dated 27th November 1800:—"There is a college erected at Fort William, of which the Rev. D. Brown is appointed provost, and C. Buchanan classical tutor: all the Eastern languages are to be taught in it." "All" the languages of India were to be taught, the vernacular as well as the classical and purely official. This was a reform not less radical and beneficial in its far-reaching influence, and not less honourable to the scholarly foresight of Lord Wellesley, than Lord William Bentinck's new era of the English language thirty-five years after. The rulers and administrators of the new empire were to begin their career by a three years' study of the mother tongue of the people, to whom justice was administered in a language foreign alike to them and their governors, and of the Persian language of their foreign Mohammedan conquerors. That the peoples of India, "every man in his own language," might hear and read the story of what the one true and living God had done for us men and our salvation, Carey had nine years before given himself to acquire Bengali and the Sanskrit of which it is one of a numerous family of daughters, as the tongues of the Latin nations of Europe and South America are of the offspring of the speech of Caesar and Cicero. Now, following the missionary pioneer, as educational, scientific, and even political progress has ever since done in the India which would have kept him out, Lord Wellesley decreed that, like the missionary, the administrator and the military officer shall master the language of the people. The five great vernaculars of India were accordingly named, and the greatest of all, the Hindi, which was not scientifically elaborated till long after, was provided for under the mixed dialect or lingua franca known as Hindostani.
When Carey and his colleagues were congratulating themselves on a reform which has already proved as fruitful of results as the first century of the Renascence of Europe, he little thought, in his modesty, that he would be recognised as the only man who was fit to carry it out. Having guarded the college, as they thought, by a test, Brown and Buchanan urged Carey to take charge of the Bengali and Sanskrit classes as "teacher" on Rs. 500 a month or £700 a year. Such an office was entirely in the line of the constitution of the missionary brotherhood. But would the Government which had banished it to Serampore recognise the aggressively missionary character of Carey, who would not degrade his high calling by even the suspicion of a compromise? To be called and paid as a teacher rather than as the professor whose double work he was asked to do, was nothing to the modesty of the scholar who pleaded his sense of unfitness for the duties. His Master, not himself, was ever Carey's first thought, and the full professorship, rising to £1800 a year, was soon conferred on the man who proved himself to be almost as much the college in his own person as were the other professors put together. A month after his appointment he thus told the story to Dr. Ryland in the course of a long letter devoted chiefly to the first native converts:—
"SERAMPORE, 15th June 1801...We sent you some time ago a box full of gods and butterflies, etc., and another box containing a hundred copies of the New Testament in Bengali...Mr. Lang is studying Bengali, under me, in the college. What I have last mentioned requires some explanation, though you will probably hear of it before this reaches you. You must know, then, that a college was founded last year in Fort William, for the instruction of the junior civil servants of the Company, who are obliged to study in it three years after their arrival. I always highly approved of the institution, but never entertained a thought that I should be called to fill a station in it. To my great surprise I was asked to undertake the Bengali professorship. One morning a letter from Mr. Brown came, inviting me to cross the water, to have some conversation with him upon this subject. I had but just time to call our brethren together, who were of opinion that, for several reasons, I ought to accept it, provided it did not interfere with the work of the mission. I also knew myself to be incapable of filling such a station with reputation and propriety. I, however, went over, and honestly proposed all my fears and objections. Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Buchanan were of opinion that the cause of the mission would be furthered by it; and I was not able to reply to their arguments. I was convinced that it might. As to my ability, they could not satisfy me; but they insisted upon it that they must be the judges of that. I therefore consented, with fear and trembling. They proposed me that day, or the next, to the Governor-General, who is patron and visitor of the college. They told him that I had been a missionary in the country for seven years or more; and as a missionary I was appointed to the office. A clause had been inserted in the statutes to accommodate those who are not of the Church of England (for all professors are to take certain oaths, and make declarations); but, for the accommodation of such, two other names were inserted, viz., lecturers and teachers, who are not included under that obligation. When I was proposed, his lordship asked if I was well affected to the state, and capable of fulfilling the duties of the station; to which Mr. B. replied that he should never have proposed me if he had had the smallest doubt on those heads. I wonder how people can have such favourable ideas of me. I certainly am not disaffected to the state; but the other is not clear to me.
"When the appointment was made, I saw that I had a very important charge committed to me, and no books or helps of any kind to assist me. I therefore set about compiling a grammar, which is now half printed. I got Ram Basu to compose a history of one of their kings, the first prose book ever written in the Bengali language; which we are also printing. Our pundit has also nearly translated the Sanskrit fables, one or two of which Brother Thomas sent you, which we are also going to publish, These, with Mr. Foster's vocabulary, will prepare the way to reading their poetical books; so that I hope this difficulty will be gotten through. But my ignorance of the way of conducting collegiate exercises is a great weight upon my mind. I have thirteen students in my class; I lecture twice a week, and have nearly gone through one term, not quite two months. It began 4th May. Most of the students have gotten through the accidents, and some have begun to translate Bengali into English. The examination begins this week. I am also appointed teacher of the Sanskrit language; and though no students have yet entered in that class, yet I must prepare for it. I am, therefore, writing a grammar of that language, which I must also print, if I should be able to get through with it, and perhaps a dictionary, which I began some years ago. I say all this, my dear brother, to induce you to give me your advice about the best manner of conducting myself in this station, and to induce you to pray much for me, that God may, in all things, be glorified by me. We presented a copy of the Bengali New Testament to Lord Wellesley, after the appointment, through the medium of the Rev. D. Brown, which was graciously received. We also presented Governor Bie with one.
"Serampore is now in the hands of the English. It was taken while we were in bed and asleep; you may therefore suppose that it was done without bloodshed. You may be perfectly easy about us: we are equally secure under the English or Danish Government, and I am sure well disposed to both."
For seven years, since his first settlement in the Dinapoor district, Carey had given one-third of his long working day to the study of Sanskrit. In 1796 he reported:—"I am now learning the Sanskrit language, that I may be able to read their Shasters for myself; and I have acquired so much of the Hindi or Hindostani as to converse in it and speak for some time intelligibly...Even the language of Ceylon has so much affinity with that of Bengal that out of twelve words, with the little Sanskrit that I know, I can understand five or six." In 1798 he wrote:—"I constantly employ the forenoon in temporal affairs; the afternoon in reading, writing, learning Sanskrit, etc.; and the evening by candle light in translating the Scriptures...Except I go out to preach, which is often the case, I never deviate from this rule." Three years before that he had been able to confute the Brahmans from their own writings; in 1798 he quoted and translated the Rig Veda and the Purana in reply to a request for an account of the beliefs of the priesthood, apologising, however, with his usual self-depreciation:—"I am just beginning to see for myself by reading the original Shasters." In 1799 we find him reading the Mahabharata epic with the hope of finding some allusion or fact which might enable him to equate Hindoo chronology with reliable history, as Dr. John Wilson of Bombay and James Prinsep did a generation later, by the discovery of the name of Antiochus the Great in two of the edicts of Asoka, written on the Girnar rock.
By September 1804 Carey had completed the first three years' course of collegiate training in Sanskrit. The Governor-General summoned a brilliant assembly to listen to the disputations and declamations of the students who were passing out, and of their professors, in the various Oriental languages. The new Government House, as it was still called, having been completed only the year before at a cost of £140,000, was the scene, in "the southern room on the marble floor," where, ever since, all through the century, the Sovereign's Viceroys have received the homage of the tributary kings of our Indian empire. There, from Dalhousie and Canning to Lawrence and Mayo, and their still surviving successors, we have seen pageants and durbars more splendid, and representing a wider extent of territory, from Yarkand to Bangkok, than even the Sultanised Englishman as Sir James Mackintosh called Wellesley, ever dreamed of in his most imperial aspirations. There councils have ever since been held, and laws have been passed affecting the weal of from two to three hundred millions of our fellow-subjects. There, too, we have stood with Duff and Cotton, Ritchie and Outram, representing the later University of Calcutta which Wellesley would have anticipated. But we question if, ever since, the marble hall of the Governor-General's palace has witnessed a sight more profoundly significant than that of William Carey addressing the Marquis Wellesley in Sanskrit, and in the presence of the future Duke of Wellington, in such words as follow.
The seventy students, their governors, officers, and professors, rose to their feet, when, at ten o'clock on Thursday the 20th of September 1804, His Excellency the Visitor entered the room, accompanied, as the official gazette duly chronicles, by "the Honourable the Chief Justice, the judges of the Supreme Court, the members of the Supreme Council, the members of the Council of the College, Major-General Cameron, Major-General the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, Major-General Dowdeswell, and Solyman Aga, the envoy from Baghdad. All the principal civil and military officers at the Presidency, and many of the British inhabitants, were present on this occasion; and also many learned natives."
After Romer had defended, in Hindostani, the thesis that the Sanskrit is the parent language in India, and Swinton, in Persian, that the poems of Hafiz are to be understood in a figurative or mystical sense, there came a Bengali declamation by Tod senior on the position that the translations of the best works extant in the Sanskrit with the popular languages of India would promote the extension of science and civilisation, opposed by Hayes; then Carey, as moderator, made an appropriate Bengali speech. A similar disputation in Arabic and a Sanskrit declamation followed, when Carey was called on to conclude with a speech in Sanskrit. Two days after, at a second assemblage of the same kind, followed by a state dinner. Lord Wellesley presented the best students with degrees of merit inscribed on vellum in Oriental characters, and delivered an oration, in which he specially complimented the Sanskrit classes, urged more general attention to the Bengali language, and expressed satisfaction that a successful beginning had been made in the study of Marathi.
It was considered a dangerous experiment for a missionary, speaking in Sanskrit, to avow himself such not only before the Governor-General in official state but before the Hindoo and Mohammedan nobles who surrounded him. We may be sure that Carey would not show less of his Master's charity and wisdom than he had always striven to do. But the necessity was the more laid on him that he should openly confess his great calling, for he had told Fuller on Lord Wellesley's arrival he would do so if it were possible. Buchanan, being quite as anxious to bring the mission forward on this occasion, added much to the English draft—"the whole of the flattery is his," wrote Carey to Fuller—and sent it on to Lord Wellesley with apprehension. This answer came back from the great Proconsul:—"I am much pleased with Mr. Carey's truly original and excellent speech. I would not wish to have a word altered. I esteem such a testimony from such a man a greater honour than the applause of Courts and Parliaments."
"MY LORD, it is just that the language which has been first cultivated under your auspices should primarily be employed in gratefully acknowledging the benefit, and in speaking your praise. This ancient language, which refused to disclose itself to the former Governors of India, unlocks its treasures at your command, and enriches the world with the history, learning, and science of a distant age. The rising importance of our collegiate institution has never been more clearly demonstrated than on the present occasion; and thousands of the learned in distant nations will exult in this triumph of literature.
"What a singular exhibition has been this day presented to us! In presence of the supreme Governor of India, and of its most learned and illustrious characters, Asiatic and European, an assembly is convened, in which no word of our native tongue is spoken, but public discourse is maintained on interesting subjects in the languages of Asia. The colloquial Hindostani, the classic Persian, the commercial Bengali, the learned Arabic, and the primæval Sanskrit are spoken fluently, after having been studied grammatically, by English youth. Did ever any university in Europe, or any literary institution in any other age or country, exhibit a scene so interesting as this? And what are the circumstances of these youth? They are not students who prosecute a dead language with uncertain purpose, impelled only by natural genius or love of fame. But having been appointed to the important offices of administering the government of the country in which these languages are spoken, they apply their acquisitions immediately to useful purpose; in distributing justice to the inhabitants; in transacting the business of the state, revenual and commercial; and in maintaining official intercourse with the people, in their own tongue, and not, as hitherto, by an interpreter. The acquisitions of our students may be appreciated by their affording to the suppliant native immediate access to his principal; and by their elucidating the spirit of the regulations of our Government by oral communication, and by written explanations, varied according to the circumstances and capacities of the people.
"The acquisitions of our students are appreciated at this moment by those learned Asiatics now present in this assembly, some of them strangers from distant provinces; who wonder every man to hear in his own tongue important subjects discussed, and new and noble principles asserted, by the youth of a foreign land. The literary proceedings of this day amply repay all the solicitude, labour, and expense that have been bestowed on this institution. If the expense had been a thousand times greater, it would not have equalled the immensity of the advantage, moral and political, that will ensue.
"I, now an old man, have lived for a long series of years among the Hindoos. I have been in the habit of preaching to multitudes daily, of discoursing with the Brahmans on every subject, and of superintending schools for the instruction of the Hindoo youth. Their language is nearly as familiar to me as my own. This close intercourse with the natives for so long a period, and in different parts of our empire, has afforded me opportunities of information not inferior to those which have hitherto been presented to any other person. I may say indeed that their manners, customs, habits, and sentiments are as obvious to me as if I was myself a native. And knowing them as I do, and hearing as I do their daily observations on our government, character, and principles, I am warranted to say (and I deem it my duty to embrace the public opportunity now afforded me of saying it) that the institution of this college was wanting to complete the happiness of the natives under our dominion; for this institution will break down that barrier (our ignorance of their language) which has ever opposed the influence of our laws and principles, and has despoiled our administration of its energy and effect.
"Were the institution to cease from this moment, its salutary effects would yet remain. Good has been done, which cannot be undone. Sources of useful knowledge, moral instruction, and political utility have been opened to the natives of India which can never be closed; and their civil improvement, like the gradual civilisation of our own country, will advance in progression for ages to come.
"One hundred original volumes in the Oriental languages and literature will preserve for ever in Asia the name of the founder of this institution. Nor are the examples frequent of a renown, possessing such utility for its basis, or pervading such a vast portion of the habitable globe. My lord, you have raised a monument of fame which no length of time or reverse of fortune is able to destroy; not chiefly because it is inscribed with Maratha and Mysore, with the trophies of war and the emblems of victory, but because there are inscribed on it the names of those learned youth who have obtained degrees of honour for high proficiency in the Oriental tongues.
"These youth will rise in regular succession to the Government of this country. They will extend the domain of British civilisation, security, and happiness, by enlarging the bounds of Oriental literature and thereby diffusing the spirit of Christian principles throughout the nations of Asia. These youth, who have lived so long amongst us, whose unwearied application to their studies we have all witnessed, whose moral and exemplary conduct has, in so solemn a manner, been publicly declared before this august assembly, on this day; and who, at the moment of entering on the public service, enjoy the fame of possessing qualities (rarely combined) constituting a reputation of threefold strength for public men, genius, industry, and virtue;—these illustrious scholars, my lord, the pride of their country, and the pillars of this empire, will record your name in many a language and secure your fame for ever. Your fame is already recorded in their hearts. The whole body of youth of this service hail you as their father and their friend. Your honour will ever be safe in their hands. No revolution of opinion or change of circumstances can rob you of the solid glory derived from the humane, just, liberal, and magnanimous principles which have been embodied by your administration.
"To whatever situation the course of future events may call you, the youth of this service will ever remain the pledges of the wisdom and purity of your government. Your evening of life will be constantly cheered with new testimonies of their reverence and affection, with new proofs of the advantages of the education you have afforded them, and with a demonstration of the numerous benefits, moral, religious, and political, resulting from this institution;—benefits which will consolidate the happiness of millions of Asia, with the glory and welfare of our country."
The Court of Directors had never liked Lord Wellesley, and he had, in common with Colebrooke, keenly wounded them by proposing a free trade movement against their monopoly. They ordered that his favourite college should be immediately abolished. He took good care so to protract the operation as to give him time to call in the aid of the Board of Control, which saved the institution, but confined it to the teaching of languages to the civilians of the Bengal Presidency only. The Directors, when thus overruled chiefly by Pitt, created a similar college at Haileybury, which continued till the open competitive system of 1854 swept that also away; and the Company itself soon followed, as the march of events had made it an anachronism.
The first law professor at Haileybury was James Mackintosh, an Aberdeen student who had leaped into the front rank of publicists and scholars by his answer to Burke, in the Vindiciœ Gallicœ, and his famous defence of M. Peltier accused of a libel on Napoleon Buonaparte. Knighted and sent out to Bombay as its first recorder, Sir James Mackintosh became the centre of scholarly society in Western India, as Sir William Jones had been in Bengal. He was the friend of Robert Hall, the younger, who was filling Carey's pulpit in Leicester, and he soon became the admiring correspondent of Carey himself. His first act during his seven years' residence in Bombay was to establish the "Literary Society." He drew up a "Plan of a comparative vocabulary of Indian languages," to be filled up by the officials of every district, like that which Carey had long been elaborating for his own use as a philologist and Bible translator. In his first address to the Literary Society he thus eulogised the College of Fort William, though fresh from a chair in its English rival, Haileybury:—"The original plan was the most magnificent attempt ever made for the promotion of learning in the East...Even in its present mutilated state we have seen, at the last public exhibition, Sanskrit declamation by English youth, a circumstance so extraordinary, that if it be followed by suitable advances it will mark an epoch in the history of learning."
Carey continued till 1831 to be the most notable figure in the College of Fort William. He was the centre of the learned natives whom it attracted, as pundits and moonshees, as inquirers and visitors. His own special pundit was the chief one, Mrityunjaya Vidyalankar, whom Home has immortalised in Carey's portrait. In the college for more than half the week, as in his study at Serampore, Carey exhausted three pundits daily. His college-room was the centre of incessant literary work, as his Serampore study was of Bible translation. When he declared that the college staff had sent forth one hundred original volumes in the Oriental languages and literature, he referred to the grammars and dictionaries, the reading-books, compilations, and editions prepared for the students by the professors and their native assistants. But he contributed the largest share, and of all his contributions the most laborious and valuable was this project of the Bibliotheca Asiatica.
"24th July, 1805.—By the enclosed Gazette you will see that the Asiatic Society and the College have agreed to allow us a yearly stipend for translating Sanskrit works: this will maintain three missionary stations, and we intend to apply it to that purpose. An augmentation of my salary has been warmly recommended by the College Council, but has not yet taken place, and as Lord Cornwallis is now arrived and Lord Wellesley going away, it may not take place. If it should, it will be a further assistance. The business of the translation of Sanskrit works is as follows: About two years ago I presented proposals (to the Council of the College) to print the Sanskrit books at a fixed price, with a certain indemnity for 100 copies. The plan was thought too extensive by some, and was therefore laid by. A few months ago Dr. Francis Buchanan came to me, by desire of Marquis Wellesley, about the translation of his manuscripts. In the course of conversation I mentioned the proposal I had made, of which he much approved, and immediately communicated the matter to Sir John Anstruther, who is president of the Asiatic Society. Sir John had then been drawing out a proposal to Lord Wellesley to form a catalogue raisonnè of the ancient Hindoo books, which he sent to me, and entering warmly into my plan, desired that I would send in a set of proposals. After some amendments it was agreed that the College of Fort William and the Asiatic Society should subscribe in equal shares 300 rupees a month to defray the current expenses, that we should undertake any work approved of by them, and print the original with an English translation on such paper and with such a type as they shall approve; the copy to be ours. They have agreed to recommend the work to all the learned bodies in Europe. I have recommended the Ramayana to begin with, it being one of the most popular of all the Hindoo books accounted sacred. The Veda are so excessively insipid that, had we begun with them, we should have sickened the public at the outset. The Ramayana will furnish the best account of Hindoo mythology that any one book will, and has extravagancy enough to excite a wish to read it through."
In 1807 Carey became one of the most active members of the Bengal Asiatic Society. His name at once appears as one of the Committee of Papers. In the ninth volume of the Asiatic Researches for that year, scholars were invited to communicate translations and descriptive accounts of Asiatic books. Carey's edition of The Ramayana of Valmeeki, in the original Sanskrit, with a prose translation and explanatory notes, appeared from the Serampore press in three successive quartos from 1806 to 1810. The translation was done by "Dr. Carey and Joshua Marshman." Until Gorresio published his edition and Italian translation of the whole poem this was the first and only attempt to open the seal of the second great Sankrit epic to the European world. In 1802 Carey had encouraged the publication at his own press of translations of both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into Bengali. Carey's Ramayana excited a keen interest not only among the learned of Europe, but among poetical students. Southey eagerly turned to it for materials for his Curse of Kehama, in the notes to which he makes long quotations from "the excellent and learned Baptist missionaries of Serampore." Dean Milman, when professor of poetry in Oxford, drew from the same storehouse many of the notes with which he enriched his verse translations from both epics. A. W. von Schlegel, the death of whose eldest brother at Madras early led him to Oriental studies, published two books with a Latin translation. Mr. Ralph T. H. Griffith most pleasantly opened the treasures of this epic to English readers in his verse translations published since 1868. Carey's translation has always been the more rare that the edition despatched for sale in England was lost at sea, and only a few presentation copies are extant, one of which is in the British Museum.
Carey's contributions to Sanskrit scholarship were not confined to what he published or to what appeared under his own name. We are told by H. H. Wilson that he had prepared for the press translations of treatises on the metaphysical system called Sankhya. "It was not in Dr. Carey's nature to volunteer a display of his erudition, and the literary labours already adverted to arose in a great measure out of his connection with the college of Calcutta, or were suggested to him by those whose authority he respected, and to whose wishes he thought it incumbent upon him to attend. It may be added that Dr. Carey spoke Sanskrit with fluency and correctness."
He edited for the college the Sanskrit text of the Hitopadesa, from six MSS. recensions of this the first revelation to Europe of the fountain of Aryan folk-tales, of the original of Pilpay's Fables.[15] H. H. Wilson remarks that the errors are not more than might have been expected from the variations and defects of the manuscripts and the novelty of the task, for this was the first Sanskrit book ever printed in the Devanagari character. To this famous work Carey added an abridgment of the prose Adventures of Ten Princes (the Dasa Kumara Carita), and of Bhartri-hari's Apophthegms. Colebrooke records his debt to Carey for carrying through the Serampore press the Sanskrit dictionary of Amara Sinha, the oldest native lexicographer, with an English interpretation and annotations. But the magnum opus of Carey was what in 1811 he described as A Universal Dictionary of the Oriental Languages, derived from the Sanskrit, of which that language is to be the groundwork. The object for which he had been long collecting the materials of this mighty work was the assisting of "Biblical students to correct the translation of the Bible in the Oriental languages after we are dead."
Through the College of Fort William during thirty long years Carey influenced the ablest men in the Bengal Civil Service, and not a few in Madras and Bombay. "The college must stand or the empire must fall," its founder had written to his friends in the Government, so convinced was he that only thus could proper men be trained for the public service and the welfare of our native subjects be secured. How right he was Carey's experience proved. The young civilians turned out after the first three years' course introduced that new era in the administration of India which has converted traders into statesmen and filibusters into soldier-politicals, so that the East Indian services stand alone in the history of the administration of imperial dependencies for spotless integrity and high average ability. Contrast with the work of these men, from the days of Wellesley, the first Minto, and Dalhousie, from the time of Canning to Lawrence and the second Minto, the provincial administration of imperial Rome, of Spain and Portugal at their best, of even the Netherlands and France. For a whole generation of thirty years the civilians who studied Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi came daily under the gentle spell of Carey, who, though he had failed to keep the village school of Moulton in order, manifested the learning and the modesty, the efficiency and the geniality, which won the affectionate admiration of his students in Calcutta.
A glance at the register of the college for its first five years reveals such men as these among his best students. The first Bengali prizeman of Carey was W. Butterworth Bayley, whose long career of blameless uprightness and marked ability culminated in the temporary seat of Governor-General, and who was followed in the service by a son worthy of him. The second was that Brian H. Hodgson who, when Resident of Nepal, of all his contemporaries won for himself the greatest reputation as a scholar, who fought side by side with the Serampore brotherhood the battle of the vernaculars of the people. Charles, afterwards Lord Metcalfe, had been the first student to enter the college. He was on its Persian side, and he learned while still under its discipline that "humility, patience, and obedience to the divine will" which unostentatiously marked his brilliant life and soothed his spirit in the agonies of a fatal disease. He and Bayley were inseparable. Of the first set, too, were Richard Jenkins, who was to leave his mark on history as Nagpoor Resident and author of the Report of 1826; and Romer, who rose to be Governor of Bombay for a time. In those early years the two Birds passed through the classes—Robert Mertins Bird, who was to found the great land revenue school of Hindostan; and Wilberforce Bird, who governed India while Lord Ellenborough played at soldiers, and to whom the legal suppression of slavery in Southern Asia is due. Names of men second to those, such as Elliot and Thackeray, Hamilton and Martin, the Shakespeares and Plowdens, the Moneys, the Rosses and Keenes, crowd the honour lists. One of the last to enjoy the advantages of the college before its abolition was John Lawrence, who used to confess that he was never good at languages, but whose vigorous Hindostani made many an ill-doing Raja tremble, while his homely conversation, interspersed with jokes, encouraged the toiling ryot.
These, and men like these, sat at the feet of Carey, where they learned not only to be scholars but to treat the natives kindly, and—some of them—even as brethren in Christ. Then from teaching the future rulers of the East, the missionary-professor turned to his Bengali preaching and his Benevolent Institution, to his visits to the prisoners and his intercourse with the British soldiers in Fort William. And when the four days' work in Calcutta was over, the early tide bore him swiftly up the Hoogli to the study where, for the rest of the week, he gave himself to the translation of the Bible into the languages of the people and of their leaders.
The Bible Carey's missionary weapon—Other vernacular translators—Carey's modest but just description of his labours—His philological key—Type-cutting and type-casting by a Hindoo blacksmith—The first manufacture of paper and steam-engines in the East—Carey takes stock of the translation work at the opening of 1808—In his workshop—A seminary of Bible translators—William Yates, shoemaker, the Coverdale of the Bengali Bible—Wenger—A Bengali Luther wanted—Carey's Bengali Bible—How the New Testament was printed—The first copy offered to God—Reception of the volume by Lord Spencer and George III.—Self-evidencing power of the first edition—The Bible in Ooriya—In Maghadi, Assamese, Khasi, and Manipoori—Marathi, Konkani, and Goojarati versions—The translation into Hindi and its many dialects—The Dravidian translations—Tale of the Pushtoo Bible—The Sikhs and the Bible—The first Burman version and press—The British and Foreign Bible Society—Deaths, earthquake, and fire in 1812—Destruction of the press—Thomason's description of the smoking ruins—Carey's heroism as to his manuscripts—Enthusiastic sympathy of India and Christendom—The phœnix and its feathers.
Every great reform in the world has been, in the first instance, the work of one man, who, however much he may have been the product of his time, has conceived and begun to execute the movement which transforms society. This is true alike of the moral and the physical forces of history, of contemporaries so apparently opposite in character and aims as Carey and Clarkson on the one side and Napoleon and Wellington on the other. Carey stood alone in his persistent determination that the Church should evangelise the world. He was no less singular in the means which he insisted on as the first essential condition of its evangelisation—the vernacular translation of the Bible. From the Scriptures alone, while yet a journeyman shoemaker of eighteen, "he had formed his own system," and had been filled with the divine missionary idea. That was a year before the first Bible Society was formed in 1780 to circulate the English Bible among soldiers and sailors; and, a quarter of a century before his own success led to the formation in 1804 of the British and Foreign Bible Society. From the time of his youth, when he realised the self-evidencing power of the Bible, Carey's unbroken habit was to begin every morning by reading one chapter of the Bible, first in English, and then in each of the languages, soon, numbering six, which he had himself learned.
Hence the translation of the Bible into all the languages and principal dialects of India and Eastern Asia was the work above all others to which Carey set himself from the time, in 1793, when he acquired the Bengali. He preached, he taught, he "discipled" in every form then reasonable and possible, and in the fullest sense of his Master's missionary charge. But the one form of most pressing and abiding importance, the condition without which neither true faith, nor true science, nor true civilisation could exist or be propagated outside of the narrow circle to be reached by the one herald's voice, was the publishing of the divine message in the mother tongues of the millions of Asiatic men and women, boys and girls, and in the learned tongues also of their leaders and priests. Wyclif had first done this for the English-reading races of all time, translating from the Latin, and so had begun the Reformation, religious and political, not only in Britain but in Western Christendom. Erasmus and Luther had followed him—the former in his Greek and Latin New Testament and in his Paraphrase of the Word for "women and cobblers, clowns, mechanics, and even the Turks"; the latter in his great vernacular translation of the edition of Erasmus, who had never ceased to urge his contemporaries to translate the Scriptures "into all tongues." Tyndale had first given England the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek. And now one of these cobblers was prompted and enabled by the Spirit who is the author of the truth in the Scriptures, to give to South and Eastern Asia the sacred books which its Syrian sons, from Moses and Ezra to Paul and John, had been inspired to write for all races and all ages. Emphatically, Carey and his later coadjutors deserve the language of the British and Foreign Bible Society, when, in 1827, it made to Serampore a last grant of money for translation—"Future generations will apply to them the words of the translators of the English Bible—'Therefore blessed be they and most honoured their names that break the ice and give the onset in that which helped them forward to the saving of souls. Now what can be more available thereto than to deliver God's book unto God's people in a tongue which they understand?'" Carey might tolerate interruption when engaged in other work, but for forty years he never allowed anything to shorten the time allotted to the Bible work. "You, madam," he wrote in 1797 to a lady as to many a correspondent, "will excuse my brevity when I inform you that all my time for writting letters is stolen from the work of transcribing the Scriptures into the Bengali language."
From no mere humility, but with an accurate judgment in the state of scholarship and criticism at the opening of last century, Carey always insisted that he was a forerunner, breaking up the way for successors like Yates, Wenger, and Rouse, who, in their turn, must be superseded by purely native Tyndales and Luthers in the Church of India. He more than once deprecated the talk of his having translated the Bible into forty languages and dialects.[16] As we proceed that will be a apparent which he did with his own hand, that which his colleagues accomplished, that which he revised and edited both of their work and of the pundits', and that which he corrected and printed for others at the Serampore press under the care of Ward. It is to these four lines of work, which centred in him, as most of them originally proceeded from his conception and advocacy, that the assertion as to the forty translations is strictly applicable. The Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, and Sanskrit translations were his own. The Chinese was similarly the work of Marshman. The Hindi versions, in their many dialects, and the Ooriya, were blocked out by his colleagues and the pundits. He saw through the press the Hindostani, Persian, Malay, Tamil, and other versions of the whole or portions of the Scriptures. He ceased not, night and day, if by any means, with a loving catholicity, the Word of God might be given to the millions.
Writing in 1904 on the centenary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Mr. George A. Grierson, C.I.E., Ph.D., D.Litt., the head of the Linguistic Survey of India, sums up authoritatively the work of Carey and his assistants. "The great-hearted band of Serampore missionaries issued translations of the Bible or of the New Testament in more than forty languages. Before them the number of Protestant versions of the Bible in the speeches of India could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Dutch of Ceylon undertook a Tamil New Testament in 1688, which was followed in 1715 by another version from the pen of Ziegenbalg. The famous missionary, Schultze, between 1727 and 1732 made a Telugu version which was never printed, and later, between 1745 and 1758, he published at Halle a Hindostani translation of the New Testament and of a portion of Genesis. A manuscript version of portions of the Bible in Bengali was made by Thomas in 1791; and then the great Serampore series began with Carey's Bengali New Testament published in 1801. Most of these Serampore versions were, it is true, first attempts and have been superseded by more accurate versions, but the first step is always the most important one, and this was taken by Carey and his brethren."
Carey's correspondent in this and purely scholarly subjects was Dr. Ryland, an accomplished Hebraist and Biblical critic for that day, at the head of the Bristol College. Carey's letters, plentifully sprinkled with Hebrew and Greek, show the jealousy with which he sought to convey the divine message accurately, and the unwearied sense of responsibility under which he worked. Biblical criticism, alike as to the original text and to the exegesis of the sacred writings, is so very modern a science, that these letters have now only a historical interest. But this communication to Ryland shows how he worked from the first:—
"CALCUTTA, 14th Dec. 1803.—We some time ago engaged in an undertaking, of which we intended to say nothing until it was accomplished; but an unforeseen providence made it necessary for us to disclose it. It is as follows: About a year and a half ago, some attempts were made to engage Mr. Gilchrist in the translation of the Scriptures into the Hindostani language. By something or other it was put by. The Persian was also at the same time much talked of, but given up, or rather not engaged in. At this time several considerations prevailed on us to set ourselves silently upon a translation into these languages. We accordingly hired two moonshees to assist us in it, and each of us took our share; Brother Marshman took Matthew and Luke; Brother Ward, Mark and John; and myself the remaining part of the New Testament into Hindostani. I undertook no part of the Persian; but, instead thereof, engaged in translating it into Maharastra, commonly called the Mahratta language, the person who assists me in the Hindostani being a Mahratta. Brother Marshman has finished Matthew, and, instead of Luke, has begun the Acts. Brother Ward has done part of John, and I have done the Epistles, and about six chapters of the Revelation; and have proceeded as far as the second epistle of the Corinthians in the revisal: they have done a few chapters into Persian, and I a few into Mahratta. Thus the matter stood, till a few days ago Mr. Buchanan informed me that a military gentleman had translated the Gospels into Hindostani and Persian, and had made a present of them to the College, and that the College Council had voted the printing of them. This made it necessary for me to say what we had been about; and had it not been for this circumstance we should not have said anything till we had got the New Testament at least pretty forward in printing. I am very glad that Major Colebrooke has done it. We will gladly do what others do not do, and wish all speed to those who do anything in this way. We have it in our power, if our means would do for it, in the space of about fifteen years to have the word of God translated and printed in all the languages of the East. Our situation is such as to furnish us with the best assistance from natives of the different countries. We can have types of all the different characters cast here; and about 700 rupees per month, part of which I hope we shall be able to furnish, would complete the work. The languages are the Hindostani (Hindi), Maharastra, Ooriya, Telinga, Bhotan, Burman, Chinese, Cochin Chinese, Tongkinese, and Malay. On this great work we have fixed our eyes. Whether God will enable us to accomplish it, or any considerable part of it, is uncertain."
But all these advantages, his own genius for languages, his unconquerable plodding directed by a divine motive, his colleagues' co-operation, the encouragement of learned societies and the public, and the number of pundits and moonshees increased by the College of Fort William, would have failed to open the door of the East to the sacred Scriptures had the philological key of the Sanskrit been wanting or undiscovered. In the preface to his Sanskrit grammar, quoted by the Quarterly Review with high approbation, Carey wrote that it gave him the meaning of four out of every five words of the principal languages of the whole people of India:—"The peculiar grammar of any one of these may be acquired in a couple of months, and then the language lies open to the student. The knowledge of four words in five enables him to read with pleasure, and renders the acquisition of the few new words, as well as the idiomatic expressions, a matter of delight rather than of labour. Thus the Ooriya, though possessing a separate grammar and character, is so much like the Bengali in the very expression that a Bengali pundit is almost equal to the correction of an Orissa proof sheet; and the first time that I read a page of Goojarati the meaning appeared so obvious as to render it unnecessary to ask the pundit questions."
The mechanical apparatus of types, paper, and printing seem to have been provided by the same providential foresight as the intellectual and the spiritual. We have seen how, when he was far enough advanced in his translation, Carey amid the swamps of Dinapoor looked to England for press, type, paper, and printer. He got the last, William Ward, a man of his own selection, worthy to be his colleague. But he had hardly despatched his letter when he found or made all the rest in Bengal itself. It was from the old press bought in Calcutta, set up in Mudnabati, and removed to Serampore, that the first edition of the Bengali New Testament was printed. The few rare and venerable copies have now a peculiar bibliographic interest; the type and the paper alike are coarse and blurred.
Sir Charles Wilkins, the Caxton of India, had with his own hands cut the punches and cast the types from which Halhed's Bengali grammar was printed at Hoogli in 1778. He taught the art to a native blacksmith, Panchanan, who went to Serampore in search of work just when Carey was in despair for a fount of the sacred Devanagari type for his Sanskirt grammar, and for founts of the other languages besides Bengali which had never been printed. They thus tell the story in a Memoir Relative to the Translations, published in 1807:—
"It will be obvious that in the present state of things in India it was in many instances necessary to cast new founts of types in several of these languages. Happily for us and India at large Wilkins had led the way in this department; and by persevering industry, the value of which can scarcely be appreciated, under the greatest disadvantages with respect to materials and workmen, had brought the Bengali to a high degree of perfection. Soon after our settling at Serampore the providence of God brought to us the very artist who had wrought with Wilkins in that work, and in a great measure imbibed his ideas. By his assistance we erected a letter-foundry; and although he is now dead, he had so fully communicated his art to a number of others, that they carry forward the work of type-casting, and even of cutting the matrices, with a degree of accuracy which would not disgrace European artists. These have cast for us two or three founts of Bengali; and we are now employing them in casting a fount on a construction which bids fair to diminish the expense of paper, and the size of the book at least one-fourth, without affecting the legibility of the character. Of the Devanagari character we have also cast an entire new fount, which is esteemed the most beautiful of the kind in India. It consists of nearly 1000 different combinations of characters, so that the expense of cutting the patterns only amounted to 1500 rupees, exclusive of metal and casting.
"In the Orissa we have been compelled also to cast a new fount of types, as none before existed in that character. The fount consists of about 300 separate combinations, and the whole expense of cutting and casting has amounted to at least 1000 rupees. The character, though distinct, is of a moderate size, and will comprise the whole New Testament in about 700 pages octavo, which is about a fourth less than the Bengali. Although in the Mahratta country the Devanagari character is well known to men of education, yet a character is current among the men of business which is much smaller, and varies considerably in form from the Nagari, though the number and power of the letters nearly correspond. We have cast a fount in this character, in which we have begun to print the Mahratta New Testament, as well as a Mahratta dictionary. This character is moderate in size, distinct and beautiful. It will comprise the New Testament in perhaps a less number of pages than the Orissa. The expense of casting, etc., has been much the same. We stand in need of three more founts; one in the Burman, another in the Telinga and Kernata, and a third in the Seek's character. These, with the Chinese characters, will enable us to go through the work. An excellent and extensive fount of Persian we received from you, dear brethren, last year."
Panchanan's apprentice, Monohur, continued to make elegant founts of type in all Eastern languages for the mission and for sale to others for more than forty years, becoming a benefactor not only to literature but to Christian civilisation to an extent of which he was unconscious, for he remained a Hindoo of the blacksmith caste. In 1839, when he first went to India as a young missionary, the Rev. James Kennedy[17] saw him, as the present writer has often since seen his successor, cutting the matrices or casting the type for the Bibles, while he squatted below his favourite idol, under the auspices of which alone he would work. Serampore continued down till 1860 to be the principal Oriental typefoundry of the East.[18]
Hardly less service did the mission come to render to the manufacture of paper in course of time, giving the name of Serampore to a variety known all over India. At first Carey was compelled to print his Bengali Testament on a dingy, porous, rough substance called Patna paper. Then he began to depend on supplies from England, which in those days reached the press at irregular times, often impeding the work, and was most costly. This was not all. Native paper, whether mill or hand-made, being sized with rice paste, attracted the bookworm and white ant, so that the first sheets of a work which lingered in the press were sometimes devoured by these insects before the last sheets were printed off. Carey used to preserve his most valuable manuscripts by writing on arsenicated paper, which became of a hideous yellow colour, though it is to this alone we owe the preservation in the library of Serampore College of five colossal volumes of his polyglot dictionary prepared for the Bible translation work. Many and long were the experiments of the missionaries to solve the paper difficulty, ending in the erection of a tread-mill on which relays of forty natives reduced the raw material in the paper-engine, until one was accidentally killed.
The enterprise of Mr. William Jones, who first worked the Raneegunj coal-field, suggested the remedy in the employment of a steam-engine. One of twelve-horse power was ordered from Messrs. Thwaites and Rothwell of Bolton. This was the first ever erected in India, and it was a purely missionary locomotive. The "machine of fire," as they called it, brought crowds of natives to the mission, whose curiosity tried the patience of the engineman imported to work it; while many a European who had never seen machinery driven by steam came to study and to copy it. The date was the 27th of March 1820, when "the engine went in reality this day." From that time till 1865 Serampore became the one source of supply for local as distinguished from imported and purely native hand-made paper. Even the cartridges of Mutiny notoriety in 1857 were from this factory, though it had long ceased to be connected with the mission.
Dr. Carey thus took stock of the translating enterprise in a letter to Dr. Ryland:—
"22nd January 1808.—Last year may be reckoned among the most important which this mission has seen—not for the numbers converted among the natives, for they have been fewer than in some preceding years, but for the gracious care which God has exercised towards us. We have been enabled to carry on the translation and printing of the Word of God in several languages. The printing is now going on in six and the translation into six more. The Bengali is all printed except from Judges vii. to the end of Esther; Sanskrit New Testament to Acts xxvii.; Orissa to John xxi.; Mahratta, second edition, to the end of Matthew; Hindostani (new version) to Mark v., and Matthew is begun in Goojarati. The translation is nearly carried on to the end of John in Chinese, Telinga Kurnata, and the language of the Seeks. It is carried on to a pretty large extent in Persian and begun in Burman. The whole Bible was printed in Malay at Batavia some years ago. The whole is printed in Tamil, and the Syrian Bishop at Travancore is now superintending a translation from Syriac into Malayala. I learnt this week that the language of Kashmeer is a distinct language.
"I have this day been to visit the most learned Hindoo now living; he speaks only Sanskrit, is more than eighty years old, is acquainted with the writings and has studied the sentiments of all their schools of philosophy (usually called the Darshunas of the Veda). He tells me that this is the sixteenth time that he has travelled from Rameshwaram to Harhu (viz. from the extreme cape of the Peninsula to Benares). He was, he says, near Madras when the English first took possession of it. This man has given his opinion against the burning of women."
Four years later, in another letter to Ryland, he takes us into his confidence more fully, showing us not only his sacred workshop, but ingenuously revealing his own humility and self-sacrifice:—"10th December 1811.—I have of late been much impressed with the vast importance of laying a foundation for Biblical criticism in the East, by preparing grammars of the different languages into which we have translated or may translate the Bible. Without some such step, they who follow us will have to wade through the same labour that I have, in order to stand merely upon the same ground that I now stand upon. If, however, elementary books are provided, the labour will be greatly contracted; and a person will be able in a short time to acquire that which has cost me years of study and toil.
"The necessity which lies upon me of acquiring so many languages, obliges me to study and write out the grammar of each of them, and to attend closely to their irregularities and peculiarities. I have therefore already published grammars of three of them; namely, the Sanskrit, the Bengali, and the Mahratta. To these I have resolved to add grammars of the Telinga, Kurnata, Orissa, Punjabi, Kashmeeri, Goojarati, Nepalese, and Assam languages. Two of these are now in the press, and I hope to have two or three more of them out by the end of the next year.
"This may not only be useful in the way I have stated, but may serve to furnish an answer to a question which has been more than once repeated, 'How can these men translate into so great a number of languages?' Few people know what may be done till they try, and persevere in what they undertake.
"I am now printing a dictionary of the Bengali, which will be pretty large, for I have got to page 256, quarto, and am not near through the first letter. That letter, however, begins more words than any two others.
"To secure the gradual perfection of the translations, I have also in my mind, and indeed have been long collecting materials for, An Universal Dictionary of the Oriental languages derived from the Sanskrit. I mean to take the Sanskrit, of course, as the groundwork, and to give the different acceptations of every word, with examples of their application, in the manner of Johnson, and then to give the synonyms in the different languages derived from the Sanskrit, with the Hebrew and Greek terms answering thereto; always putting the word derived from the Sanskrit term first, and then those derived from other sources. I intend always to give the etymology of the Sanskrit term, so that that of the terms deduced from it in the cognate languages will be evident. This work will be great, and it is doubtful whether I shall live to complete it; but I mean to begin to arrange the materials, which I have been some years collecting for this purpose, as soon as my Bengali dictionary is finished. Should I live to accomplish this, and the translations in hand, I think I can then say, 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'"
The ardent scholar had twenty-three years of toil before him in this happy work. But he did not know this, while each year the labour increased, and the apprehension grew that he and his colleagues might at any time be removed without leaving a trained successor. They naturally looked first to the sons of the mission for translators as they had already done for preachers.
To Dr. Carey personally, however, the education of a young missionary specially fitted to be his successor, as translator and editor of the translations, was even more important. Such a man was found in William Yates, born in 1792, and in the county, Leicestershire, in which Carey brought the Baptist mission to the birth. Yates was in his early years also a shoemaker, and member of Carey's old church in Harvey Lane, when under the great Robert Hall, who said to the youth's father, "Your son, sir, will be a great scholar and a good preacher, and he is a holy young man." In 1814 he became the last of the young missionaries devoted to the cause by Fuller, soon to pass away, Ryland, and Hall. Yates had not been many months at Serampore when, with the approval of his brethren, Carey wrote to Fuller, on 17th May 1815:—"I am much inclined to associate him with myself in the translations. My labour is greater than at any former period. We have now translations of the Bible going forward in twenty-seven languages, all of which are in the press except two or three. The labour of correcting and revising all of them lies on me." By September we find Yates writing:—"Dr. Carey sends all the Bengali proofs to me to review. I read them over, and if there is anything I do not understand, or think to be wrong, I mark it. We then converse over it, and if it is wrong, he alters it; but if not, he shows me the reason why it is right, and thus will initiate me into the languages as fast as I can learn them. He wishes me to begin the Hindi very soon. Since I have been here I have read three volumes in Bengali, and they have but six of consequence in prose. There are abundance in Sanskrit." "Dr. Carey has treated me with the greatest affection and kindness, and told me he will give me every information he can, and do anything in his power to promote my happiness." What Baruch was to the prophet Jeremiah, that Yates might have been to Carey, who went so far in urging him to remain for life in Serampore as to say, "if he did not accept the service it would be, in his judgment, acting against Providence, and the blessing of God was not to be expected." Yates threw in his lot with the younger men who, in Calcutta after Fuller's death, began the Society's as distinct from the Serampore mission. If Carey was the Wyclif and Tyndale, Yates was the Coverdale of the Bengali and Sanskrit Bible. Wenger, their successor, was worthy of both. Bengal still waits for the first native revision of the great work which these successive pioneers have gradually improved. When shall Bengal see its own Luther?
The Bengali Bible was the first as it was the most important of the translations. The province, or lieutenant-governorship then had the same area as France, and contained more than double its population, or eighty millions. Of the three principal vernaculars, Bengali is spoken by forty-five millions of Hindoos and Mohammedans. It was for all the natives of Bengal and of India north of the Dekhan ("south") tableland, but especially for the Bengali-speaking people, that William Carey created a literary language a century ago.
The first Bengali version of the whole New Testament Carey translated from the original Greek before the close of 1796. The only English commentary used was the Family Expositor of Doddridge, published in 1738, and then the most critical in the language. Four times he revised the manuscript, with a Greek concordance in his hand, and he used it not only with Ram Basu by his side, the most accomplished of early Bengali scholars, but with the natives around him of all classes. By 1800 Ward had arrived as printer, the press was perfected at Serampore, and the result of seven years of toil appeared in February 1801, in the first edition of 2000 copies, costing £612. The printing occupied nine months. The type was set up by Ward and Carey's son Felix with their own hands; "for about a month at first we had a Brahman compositor, but we were quite weary of him. We kept four pressmen constantly employed." A public subscription had been opened for the whole Bengali Bible at Rs. 32, or £4 a copy as exchange then was, and nearly fifty copies had been at once subscribed for. It was this edition which immediately led to Carey's appointment to the College of Fort William, and it was that appointment which placed Carey in a position, philological and financial, to give the Bible to the peoples of the farther East in their own tongue.
Some loving memories cluster round the first Bengali version of the New Testament which it is well to collect. On Tuesday, 18th March 1800, Ward's journal[19] records: "Brother Carey took an impression at the press of the first page in Matthew." The translator was himself the pressman. As soon as the whole of this Gospel was ready, 500 copies of it were struck off for immediate circulation, "which we considered of importance as containing a complete life of the Redeemer." Four days after an advertisement in the official Calcutta Gazette, announcing that the missionaries had established a press at Serampore and were printing the Bible in Bengali, roused Lord Wellesley, who had fettered the press in British India. Mr. Brown was able to inform the Governor-General that this very Serampore press had refused to print a political attack on the English Government, and that it was intended for the spiritual instruction only of the natives. This called forth the assurance from that liberal statesman that he was personally favourable to the conversion of the heathen. When he was further told that such an Oriental press would be invaluable to the College of Fort William, he not only withdrew his opposition but made Carey first teacher of Bengali. It was on the 7th February 1801 that the last sheet with the final corrections was put into Carey's hands. When a volume had been bound it was reverently offered to God by being placed on the Communion-table of the chapel, and the mission families and the new-made converts gathered around it with solemn thanksgiving to God led by Krishna Pal. Carey preached from the words (Col. iii. 11) "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." The centenary was celebrated in Calcutta in 1901, under Dr. Rouse, whose fine scholarship had just revised the translation.
When the first copies reached England, Andrew Fuller sent one to the second Earl Spencer, the peer who had used the wealth of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, to collect the great library at Althorp. Carey had been a poor tenant of his, though the Earl knew it not. When the Bengali New Testament reached him, with its story, he sent a cheque for £50 to help to translate the Old Testament, and he took care that a copy should be presented to George III., as by his own request. Mr. Bowyer was received one morning at Windsor, and along with the volume presented an address expressing the desire that His Majesty might live to see its principles universally prevail throughout his Eastern dominions. On this the lord in waiting whispered a doubt whether the book had come through the proper channel. At once the king replied that the Board of Control had nothing to do with it, and turning to Mr. Bowyer said, "I am greatly pleased to find that any of my subjects are employed in this manner."
This now rare volume, to be found on the shelves of the Serampore College Library, where it leads the host of the Carey translations, is coarse and unattractive in appearance compared with its latest successors. In truth the second edition, which appeared in 1806, was almost a new version. The criticism of his colleagues and others, especially of a ripe Grecian like Dr. Marshman, the growth of the native church, and his own experience as a Professor of Sanskrit and Marathi as well as Bengali, gave Carey new power in adapting the language to the divine ideas of which he made it the medium. But the first edition was not without its self-evidencing power. Seventeen years after, when the mission extended to the old capital of Dacca, there were found several villages of Hindoo-born peasants who had given up idol-worship, were renowned for their truthfulness, and, as searching for a true teacher come from God, called themselves "Satya-gooroos." They traced their new faith to a much-worn book kept in a wooden box in one of their villages. No one could say whence it had come; all they knew was that they had possessed it for many years. It was Carey's first Bengali version of the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the wide and elastic bounds of Hindooism, and even, as we shall see, amid fanatical Mussulmans beyond the frontier, the Bible, dimly understood without a teacher, has led to puritan sects like this, as to earnest inquirers like the chamberlain of Queen Candace.
The third edition of the Bengali Testament was published in 1811 in folio for the use of the native congregations by that time formed. The fourth, consisting of 5000 copies, appeared in 1816, and the eighth in 1832. The venerable scholar, like Columba at Iona over the thirty-fourth psalm, and Baeda at Jarrow over the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, said as he corrected the last sheet—the last after forty years' faithful and delighted toil: "My work is done; I have nothing more to do but to wait the will of the Lord." The Old Testament from the Hebrew appeared in portions from 1802 to 1809. Such was the ardour of the translator, that he had finished the correction of his version of the first chapter of Genesis in January 1794. When he read it to two pundits from Nuddea, he told Fuller in his journal of that month they seemed much pleased with the account of the creation, but they objected to the omission of patala, their imaginary place beneath the earth, which they thought should have been mentioned. At this early period Carey saw the weakness of Hindooism as a pretended revelation, from its identification with false physics, just as Duff was to see and use it afterwards with tremendous effect, and wrote:—"There is a necessity of explaining to them several circumstances relative to geography and chronology, as they have many superstitious opinions on those subjects which are closely connected with their systems of idolatry." The Bengali Bible was the result of fifteen years' sweet toil, in which Marshman read the Greek and Carey the Bengali; every one of their colleagues examined the proof sheets, and Carey finally wrote with his own pen the whole of the five octavo volumes. In the forty years of his missionary career Carey prepared and saw through the press five editions of the Old Testament and eight editions of the New in Bengali.
The Sanskrit version was translated from the original, and written out by the toiling scholar himself. Sir William Jones is said to have been able to secure his first pundit's help only by paying him Rs. 500 a month, or £700 a year. Carey engaged and trained his many pundits at a twentieth of that sum. He well knew that the Brahmans would scorn a book in the language of the common people. "What," said one who was offered the Hindi version, "even if the books should contain divine knowledge, they are nothing to us. The knowledge of God contained in them is to us as milk in a vessel of dog's skin, utterly polluted." But, writes the annalist of Biblical Translations in India, Carey's Sanskrit version was cordially received by the Brahmans. Destroyed in the fire in 1812, the Old Testament historical books were again translated, and appeared in 1815. In 1827 the aged saint had strength to bring out the first volume of a thorough revision, and to leave the manuscript of the second volume, on his death, as a legacy to his successors, Yates and Wenger. Against Vedas and Upanishads, Brahmanas and Epics, he set the Sanskrit Bible.
The whole number of completely translated and published versions of the sacred Scriptures which Carey sent forth was twenty-eight. Of these seven included the whole Bible, and twenty-one contained the books of the New Testament. Each translation has a history, a spiritual romance of its own. Each became almost immediately a silent but effectual missionary to the peoples of Asia, as well as the scholarly and literary pioneer of those later editions and versions from which the native churches of farther Asia derive the materials of their lively growth.
The Ooriya version was almost the first to be undertaken after the Bengali, to which language it bears the same relation as rural Scotch to English, though it has a written character of its own. What is now the Orissa division of Bengal, separating it from Madras to the south-west, was added to the empire in 1803. This circumstance, and the fact that its Pooree district, after centuries of sun-worship and then shiva-worship, had become the high-place of the vaishnava cult of Jaganath and his car, which attracted and often slew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year, led Carey to prepare at once for the press the Ooriya Bible. The chief pundit, Mritunjaya, skilled in both dialects, first adapted the Bengali version to the language of the Ooriyas, which was his own. Carey then took the manuscript, compared it with the original Greek, and corrected it verse by verse. The New Testament was ready in 1809, and the Old Testament in 1815, the whole in four volumes. Large editions were quickly bought up and circulated. These led to the establishment of the General Baptist Society's missionaries at Cuttak, the capital.
In 1814 the Serampore Bible translation college, as we may call it, began the preparation of the New Testament in Maghadi, another of the languages allied to the Bengali, and derived from the Sanskrit through the Pali, because that was the vernacular of Buddhism in its original seat; an edition of 1000 copies appeared in 1824. It was intended to publish a version in the Maithili language of Bihar, which has a literature stretching back to the fourteenth century, that every class might have the Word of God in their own dialect. But Carey's literary enthusiasm and scholarship had by this time done so much to develop and extend the power of Bengali proper, that it had begun to supersede all such dialects, except Ooriya and the northern vernaculars of the valley of the Brahmapootra. In 1810 the Serampore press added the Assamese New Testament to its achievements. In 1819 the first edition appeared, in 1826 the province became British, and in 1832 Carey had the satisfaction of issuing the Old Testament, and setting apart Mr. Rae, a Scottish soldier, who had settled there, as the first missionary at Gowhatti. To these must be added, as in the Bengali character though non-Aryan languages, versions in Khasi and Manipoori, the former for the democratic tribes of the Khasia hills among whom the Welsh Calvinists have since worked, and the latter for the curious Hindoo snake-people on the border of Burma, who have taught Europe the game of polo.
Another immediate successor of the Bengali translation was the Marathi, of which also Carey was professor in the College of Fort William. By 1804 he was himself hard at work on this version, by 1811 the first edition of the New Testament appeared, and by 1820 the Old Testament left the press. It was in a dialect peculiar to Nagpoor, and was at first largely circulated by Lieutenant Moxon in the army there. In 1812 Carey sent the missionary Aratoon to Bombay and Surat just after Henry Martyn had written that the only Christian in the city who understood his evangelical sermon was a ropemaker just arrived from England. At the same time he was busy with a version in the dialect of the Konkan, the densely-peopled coast district to the south of Bombay city, inhabited chiefly by the ablest Brahmanical race in India. In 1819 the New Testament appeared in this translation, having been under preparation at Serampore for eleven years. Thus Carey sought to turn to Christ the twelve millions of Hindoos who, from Western India above and below the great coast-range known as the Sahyadri or "delectable" mountains, had nearly wrested the whole peninsula from the Mohammedans, and had almost anticipated the life-giving rule of the British, first at Panipat and then as Assye. Meanwhile new missionaries had been taking possession of those western districts where the men of Serampore had sowed the first seed and reaped the first fruits. The charter of 1813 made it possible for the American Missionaries to land there, and for the local Bible Society to spring into existence. Dr. John Wilson and his Scottish colleagues followed them. Carey and his brethren welcomed these and retired from that field, confining themselves to providing, during the next seven years, a Goojarati version for the millions of Northern Bombay, including the hopeful Parsees, and resigning that, too, to the London Missionary Society after issuing the New Testament in 1820.
Mr. Christopher Anderson justly remarks, in his Annals of the English Bible, published half a century ago:—"Time will show, and in a very singular manner, that every version, without exception, which came from Carey's hands, has a value affixed to it which the present generation, living as it were too near an object, is not yet able to estimate or descry. Fifty years hence the character of this extraordinary and humble man will be more correctly appreciated."
In none of the classes of languages derived from the Sanskrit was the zeal of Carey and his associates so remarkable as in the Hindi. So early as 1796 he wrote of this the most widely extended offspring of the Sanskrit:—"I have acquired so much of the Hindi as to converse in it and preach for some time intelligibly...It is the current language of all the west from Rajmahal to Delhi, and perhaps farther. With this I can be understood nearly all over Hindostan." By the time that he issued the sixth memoir of the translations Chamberlain's experiences in North-Western India led Carey to write that he had ascertained the existence of twenty dialects of Hindi, with the same vocabulary but different sets of terminations. The Bruj or Brijbhasa Gospels were finished in 1813, two years after Chamberlain had settled in Agra, and the New Testament was completed nine years after. This version of the Gospels led the Brahman priest, Anand Masih, to Christ. In their eagerness for a copy of the Old Testament, which appeared in 1818, many Sepoys brought testimonials from their commanding officers, and in one year it led eighteen converts to Christ. The other Hindi dialects, in which the whole New Testament or the Gospels appeared, will be found at page 177 {see footnote number 16}. The parent Hindi translation was made by Carey with his own hand from the original languages between 1802 and 1807, and ran through many large editions till Mr. Chamberlain's was preferred by Carey himself in 1819.
We may pass over the story of the Dravidian versions, the Telugoo[20] New Testament and Pentateuch, and the Kanarese. Nor need we do more than refer to the Singhalese, "derived from the previous labours of Dr. Carey" by Tolfrey, the Persian, Malayalam, and other versions made by others, but edited or carefully carried through the press by Carey. The wonderful tale of his Bible work is well illustrated by a man who, next to the Lawrences, was the greatest Englishman who has governed the Punjab frontier, the hero of Mr. Ruskin's book, A Knight's Faith. In that portion of his career which Sir Herbert Edwardes gave to the world under the title of A Year on the Punjab Frontier in 1848-49, and in which he describes his bloodless conquest of the wild valley of Bunnoo, we find this gem embedded. The writer was at the time in the Gundapoor country, of which Kulachi is the trade-centre between the Afghan pass of Ghwalari and Dera Ismail Kan, where the dust of Sir Henry Durand now lies:—
"A highly interesting circumstance connected with the Indian trade came under my notice. Ali Khan, Gundapoor, the uncle of the present chief, Gooldâd Khan, told me he could remember well, as a youth, being sent by his father and elder brother with a string of Cabul horses to the fair of Hurdwâr, on the Ganges. He also showed me a Pushtoo version of the Bible, printed at Serampore in 1818, which he said had been given him thirty years before at Hurdwâr by an English gentleman, who told him to 'take care of it, and neither fling it into the fire nor the river; but hoard it up against the day when the British should be rulers of his country!' Ali Khan said little to anybody of his possessing this book, but put it carefully by in a linen cover, and produced it with great mystery when I came to settle the revenue of his nephew's country, 'thinking that the time predicted by the Englishman had arrived!' The only person, I believe, to whom he had shown the volume was a Moolluh, who read several passages in the Old Testament, and told Ali Khan 'it was a true story, and was all about their own Muhommudan prophets, Father Moses and Father Noah.'
"I examined the book with great interest. It was not printed in the Persian character, but the common Pushtoo language of Afghanistan; and was the only specimen I had ever seen of Pushtoo reduced to writing. The accomplishment of such a translation was a highly honourable proof of the zeal and industry of the Serampore mission; and should these pages ever meet the eye of Mr. John Marshman, of Serampore,[21] whose own pen is consistently guided by a love of civil order and religious truth, he may probably be able to identify 'the English gentleman' who, thirty-two years ago on the banks of the Ganges, at the then frontier of British India, gave to a young Afghan chief, from beyond the distant Indus, a Bible in his own barbarous tongue, and foresaw the day when the followers of the 'Son of David' should extend their dominion to the 'Throne of Solomon.'"
Hurdwâr, as the spot at which the Ganges debouches into the plains, is the scene of the greatest pilgrim gathering in India, especially every twelfth year. Then three millions of people used to assemble, and too often carried, all over Asia, cholera which extended to Europe. The missionaries made this, like most pilgrim resorts, a centre of preaching and Bible circulation, and doubtless it was from Thompson, Carey's Missionary at Delhi, that this copy of the Pushtoo Bible was received. It was begun by Dr. Leyden, and continued for seven years by the same Afghan maulavee under Carey, in the Arabic character. The Punjabi Bible, nearly complete, issued first in 1815, had become so popular by 1820 as to lead Carey to report of the Sikhs that no one of the nations of India had discovered a stronger desire for the Scriptures than this hardy race. At Amritsar and Lahore "the book of Jesus is spoken of, is read, and has caused a considerable stir in the minds of the people." A Thug, asked how he could have committed so many murders, pointed to it and said, "If I had had this book I could not have done it." A fakeer, forty miles from Lodiana, read the book, founded the community of worshippers of the Sachi Pitè Isa, and suffered much persecution in a native State.
When Felix Carey returned to Serampore in 1812 to print his Burmese version of the Gospel of Matthew and his Burmese grammar, his father determined to send the press at which they were completed to Rangoon. The three missionaries despatched with it a letter to the king of Ava, commending to his care "their beloved brethren, who from love to his majesty's subjects had voluntarily gone to place themselves under his protection, while they translated the Bible, the Book of Heaven, which was received and revered" by all the countries of Europe and America as "the source whence all the knowledge of virtue and religion was drawn." The king at once ordered from Serampore a printing-press, like that at Rangoon, for his own palace at Ava, with workmen to use it. In this Carey saw the beginning of a mission in the Burman capital, but God had other designs which the sons and daughters of America, following Judson first of all, are still splendidly developing, from Rangoon to Kareng-nee, Siam, and China. The ship containing the press sank in the Rangoon river, and the first Burmese war soon followed.
Three months after the complete and magnificent plan of translating the Bible into all the languages of the far East, which the assistance of his two colleagues and the college of Fort William led Carey to form, had been laid before Fuller in Northamptonshire, the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in London. Joseph Hughes, the Nonconformist who was its first secretary, had been moved by the need of the Welsh for the Bible in their own tongue. But the ex-Governor-General, Lord Teignmouth, became its first president, and the Serampore translators at once turned for assistance to the new organisation whose work Carey had individually been doing for ten years at the cost of his two associates and himself. The catholic Bible Society at once asked Carey's old friend, Mr. Udny, then a member of the Government in Calcutta, to form a corresponding committee there of the three missionaries—their chaplain friends, Brown and Buchanan, and himself. The chaplains delayed the formation of the committee till 1809, but liberally helped meanwhile in the circulation of the other appeals issued from Serampore, and even made the proposal which resulted in Dr. Marshman's wonderful version of the Bible in Chinese and Ward's improvements in Chinese printing. To the principal tributary sovereigns of India Dr. Buchanan sent copies of the vernacular Scriptures already published.
From 1809 till 1830, or practically through the rest of Carey's life, the co-operation of Serampore and the Bible Society was honourable to both. Carey loyally clung to it when in 1811, under the spell of Henry Martyn's sermon on Christian India, the chaplains established the Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society in order to supersede its corresponding committee. In the Serampore press the new auxiliary, like the parent Society, found the cheapest and best means of publishing editions of the New Testament in Singhalese, Malayalam, and Tamil. The press issued also the Persian New Testament, first of the Romanist missionary, Sebastiani—"though it be not wholly free from imperfections, it will doubtless do much good," wrote Dr. Marshman to Fuller—and then of Henry Martyn, whose assistant, Sabat, was trained at Serampore. Those three of Serampore had a Christ-like tolerance, which sprang from the divine charity of their determination to live only that the Word of God might sound out through Asia. When in 1830 this auxiliary—which had at first sought to keep all missionaries out of its executive in order to conciliate men like Sydney Smith's brother, the Advocate-General of Bengal—refused to use the translations of Carey and Yates, and inclined to an earlier version of Ellerton, because of the translation or transliteration of the Greek words for "baptism," these two scholars acted thus, as described by the Bible Society's annalist—they, "with a liberality which does them honour, permitted the use of their respective versions of the Bengali Scriptures, with such alterations as were deemed needful in the disputed word for 'baptism,' they being considered in no way parties to such alterations." From first to last the British and Foreign Bible Society, to use its own language, "had the privilege of aiding the Serampore brethren by grants, amounting to not less than £13,500." Of this £1475 had been raised by Mr. William Hey, F.R.S., a surgeon at Leeds, who had been so moved by the translation memoir of 1816 as to offer £500 for the publication of a thousand copies of every approved first translation of the New Testament into any dialect of India. It was with this assistance that most of the Hindi and the Pushtoo and Punjabi versions were produced.
The cold season of 1811-12 was one ever to be remembered. Death entered the home of each of the staff of seven missionaries and carried off wife or children. An earthquake of unusual violence alarmed the natives. Dr. Carey had buried a grandson, and was at his weekly work in the college at Calcutta. The sun had just set on the evening of the 11th March 1812, and the native typefounders, compositors, pressmen, binders, and writers had gone. Ward alone lingered in the waning light at his desk settling an account with a few servants. His two rooms formed the north end of the long printing-office. The south rooms were filled with paper and printed materials. Close beyond was the paper-mill. The Bible-publishing enterprise was at its height. Fourteen founts of Oriental types, new supplies of Hebrew, Greek, and English types, a vast stock of paper from the Bible Society, presses, priceless manuscripts of dictionaries, grammars, and translations, and, above all, the steel punches of the Eastern letters—all were there, with the deeds and account-books of the property, and the iron safe containing notes and rupees. Suffocating smoke burst from the long type-room into the office. Rushing through it to observe the source of the fire, he was arrested at the southern rooms by the paper store. Returning with difficulty and joined by Marshman and the natives, he had every door and window closed, and then mounting the south roof, he had water poured through it upon the burning mass for four hours, with the most hopeful prospect of arresting the ruin. While he was busy with Marshman in removing the papers in the north end some one opened a window, when the air set the entire building on flame. By midnight the roof fell in along its whole length, and the column of fire leapt up towards heaven. With "solemn serenity" the members of the mission family remained seated in front of the desolation.
The ruins were still smoking when next evening Dr. Carey arrived from Calcutta, which was ringing with the sad news. The venerable scholar had suffered most, for his were the manuscripts; the steel punches were found uninjured. The Sikh and Telugoo grammars and ten Bible versions in the press were gone. Second editions of Confucius. A Dissertation on the Chinese Language, and of Ward on the Hindoos, and smaller works were destroyed. The translation of the Ramayana, on which he and Marshman had been busy for a year, was stopped for ever; fifty years after the present writer came upon some charred sheets of the fourth volume, which had been on the press and rescued. The Circular Letter for April 1812 is printed on paper scorched at the edge. Worst of all was the loss of that polyglot dictionary of all the languages derived from the Sanskrit which, if Carey had felt any of this world's ambition, would have perpetuated his name in the first rank of philologists.
With the delicacy which always marked him Dr. Marshman had himself gone down to Calcutta next morning to break the news to Carey, who received it with choking utterance. The two then called on the friendly chaplain, Thomason, who burst into tears. When the afternoon tide enabled the three to reach Serampore, after a two hours' hard pull at the flood, they found Ward rejoicing. He had been all day clearing away the rubbish, and had just discovered the punches and matrices unharmed. The five presses too were untouched. He had already opened out a long warehouse nearer the river-shore, the lease of which had fallen in to them, and he had already planned the occupation of that uninviting place in which the famous press of Serampore and, at the last, the Friend of India weekly newspaper found a home till 1875. The description of the scene and of its effect on Carey by an eye-witness like Thomason has a value of its own:—
"The year 1812 was ushered in by an earthquake which was preceded by a loud noise; the house shook; the oil in the lamps on the walls was thrown out; the birds made a frightful noise; the natives ran from their houses, calling on the names of their gods; the sensation is most awful; we read the forty-sixth Psalm. This fearful prodigy was succeeded by that desolating disaster, the Serampore fire. I could scarcely believe the report; it was like a blow on the head which stupefies. I flew to Serampore to witness the desolation. The scene was indeed affecting. The immense printing-office, two hundred feet long and fifty broad, reduced to a mere shell. The yard covered with burnt quires of paper, the loss in which article was immense. Carey walked with me over the smoking ruins. The tears stood in his eyes. 'In one short evening,' said he, 'the labours of years are consumed. How unsearchable are the ways of God! I had lately brought some things to the utmost perfection of which they seemed capable, and contemplated the missionary establishment with perhaps too much self-congratulation. The Lord has laid me low, that I may look more simply to Him.' Who could stand in such a place, at such a time, with such a man, without feelings of sharp regret and solemn exercise of mind. I saw the ground strewed with half-consumed paper, on which in the course of a very few months the words of life would have been printed. The metal under our feet amidst the ruins was melted into misshapen lumps—the sad remains of beautiful types consecrated to the service of the sanctuary. All was smiling and promising a few hours before—now all is vanished into smoke or converted into rubbish! Return now to thy books, regard God in all thou doest. Learn Arabic with humility. Let God be exalted in all thy plans, and purposes, and labours; He can do without thee."
Carey himself thus wrote of the disaster to Dr. Ryland:—"25th March 1812.—The loss is very great, and will long be severely felt; yet I can think of a hundred circumstances which would have made it much more difficult to bear. The Lord has smitten us, he had a right to do so, and we deserve his corrections. I wish to submit to His sovereign will, nay, cordially to acquiesce therein, and to examine myself rigidly to see what in me has contributed to this evil.
"I now, however, turn to the bright side; and here I might mention what still remains to us, and the merciful circumstances which attend even this stroke of God's rod; but I will principally notice what will tend to cheer the heart of every one who feels for the cause of God. Our loss, so far as I can see, is reparable in a much shorter time than I should at first have supposed. The Tamil fount of types was the first that we began to recast. I expect it will be finished by the end of this week, just a fortnight after it was begun. The next will be the small Devanagari, for the Hindostani Scriptures, and next the larger for the Sanskrit. I hope this will be completed in another month. The other founts, viz., Bengali, Orissa, Sikh, Telinga, Singhalese, Mahratta, Burman, Kashmeerian, Arabic, Persian, and Chinese, will follow in order, and will probably be finished in six or seven months, except the Chinese, which will take more than a year to replace it. I trust, therefore, that we shall not be greatly delayed. Our English works will be delayed the longest; but in general they are of the least importance. Of MSS. burnt I have suffered the most; that is, what was actually prepared by me, and what owes its whole revision for the press to me, comprise the principal part of the MSS. consumed. The ground must be trodden over again, but no delay in printing need arise from that. The translations are all written out first by pundits in the different languages, except the Sanskrit which is dictated by me to an amanuensis. The Sikh, Mahratta, Hindostani, Orissa, Telinga, Assam, and Kurnata are re-translating in rough by pundits who have been long accustomed to their work, and have gone over the ground before. I follow them in revise, the chief part of which is done as the sheets pass through the press, and is by far the heaviest part of the work. Of the Sanskrit only the second book of Samuel and the first book of Kings were lost. Scarcely any of the Orissa, and none of the Kashmeerian or of the Burman MSS. were lost—copy for about thirty pages of my Bengali dictionary, the whole copy of a Telinga grammar, part of the copy of the grammar of Punjabi or Sikh language, and all the materials which I had been long collecting for a dictionary of all the languages derived from the Sanskrit. I hope, however, to be enabled to repair the loss, and to complete my favourite scheme, if my life be prolonged."
Little did these simple scholars, all absorbed in their work, dream that this fire would prove to be the means of making them and their work famous all over Europe and America as well as India. Men of every Christian school, and men interested only in the literary and secular side of their enterprise, had their active sympathy called out. The mere money loss, at the exchange of the day, was not under ten thousand pounds. In fifty days this was raised in England and Scotland alone, till Fuller, returning from his last campaign, entered the room of his committee, declaring "we must stop the contributions." In Greenock, for instance, every place of worship on one Sunday collected money. In the United States Mr. Robert Ralston, a Presbyterian, a merchant of Philadelphia, who as Carey's correspondent had been the first American layman to help missions to India, and Dr. Staughton, who had taken an interest in the formation of the Society in 1792 before he emigrated, had long assisted the translation work, and now that Judson was on his way out they redoubled their exertions. In India Thomason's own congregation sent the missionaries £800, and Brown wrote from his dying bed a message of loving help. The newspapers of Calcutta caught the enthusiasm; one leading article concluded with the assurance that the Serampore press would, "like the phoenix of antiquity, rise from its ashes, winged with new strength, and destined, in a lofty and long-enduring flight, widely to diffuse the benefits of knowledge throughout the East." The day after the fire ceased to smoke Monohur was at the task of casting type from the lumps of the molten metal.
In two months after the first intelligence Fuller was able to send as "feathers of the phoenix" slips of sheets of the Tamil Testament, printed from these types, to the towns and churches which had subscribed. Every fortnight a fount was cast; in a month all the native establishment was at work night and day. In six months the whole loss in Oriental types was repaired. The Ramayana version and Sanskrit polyglot dictionary were never resumed. But of the Bible translations and grammars, Carey and his two heroic brethren wrote:—"We found, on making the trial, that the advantages in going over the same ground a second time were so great that they fully counter-balanced the time requisite to be devoted thereto in a second translation." The fire, in truth, the cause of which was never discovered, and insurance against which did not exist in India, had given birth to revised editions.
The growth of a language—Carey identified with the transition stage of Bengali—First printed books—Carey's own works—His influence on indigenous writers—His son's works—Bengal the first heathen country to receive the press—The first Bengali newspaper—The monthly and quarterly Friend of India—The Hindoo revival of the eighteenth century fostered by the East India Company—Carey's three memorials to Government on female infanticide, voluntary drowning, and widow-burning—What Jonathan Duncan and Col. Walker had done—Wellesley's regulation to prevent the sacrifice of children—Beginning of the agitation against the Suttee crime—Carey's pundits more enlightened than the Company's judges—Humanity triumphs in 1832—Carey's share in Ward's book on the Hindoos—The lawless supernaturalism of Rome and of India—Worship of Jaganath—Regulation identifying Government with Hindooism—The swinging festival—Ghat murders—Burning of lepers—Carey establishes the Leper Hospital in Calcutta—Slavery in India loses its legal status—Cowper, Clarkson, and Carey.
Like the growth of a tree is the development of a language, as really and as strictly according to law. In savage lands like those of Africa the missionary finds the living germs of speech, arranges them for the first time in grammatical order, expresses them in written and printed form, using the simplest, most perfect, and most universal character of all—the Roman, and at one bound gives the most degraded of the dark peoples the possibility of the highest civilisation and the divinest future. In countries like India and China, where civilisation has long ago reached its highest level, and has been declining for want of the salt of a universal Christianity, it is the missionary again who interferes for the highest ends, but by a different process. Mastering the complex classical speech and literature of the learned and priestly class, and living with his Master's sympathy among the people whom that class oppresses, he takes the popular dialects which are instinct with the life of the future; where they are wildly luxuriant he brings them under law, where they are barren he enriches them from the parent stock so as to make them the vehicle of ideas such as Greek gave to Europe, and in time he brings to the birth nations worthy of the name by a national language and literature lighted up with the ideas of the Book which he is the first to translate.
This was what Carey did for the speech of the Bengalees. To them, as the historians of the fast approaching Christian future will recognise, he was made what the Saxon Boniface had become to the Germans, or the Northumbrian Baeda and Wyclif to the English. The transition period of English, from 1150 when its modern grammatical form prevailed, to the fifteenth century when the rich dialects gave place to the literary standard, has its central date in 1362. Then Edward the Third made English take the place of French as the public language of justice and legislation, closely followed by Wyclif's English Bible. Carey's one Indian life of forty years marks the similar transition stage of Bengali, including the parallel regulation of 1829, which abolished Persian, made by the Mohammedan conquerors the language of the courts, and put in its place Bengali and the vernaculars of the other provinces.
When Carey began to work in Calcutta and Dinapoor in 1792-93 Bengali had no printed and hardly any written literature. The very written characters were justly described by Colebrooke as nothing else but the difficult and beautiful Sanskrit Devanagari deformed for the sake of expeditious writings, such as accounts. It was the new vaishnava faith of the Nuddea reformer Chaitanya which led to the composition of the first Bengali prose.[22] The Brahmans and the Mohammedan rulers alike treated Bengali—though "it arose from the tomb of the Sanskrit," as Italian did from Latin under Dante's inspiration—as fit only for "demons and women." In the generation before Carey there flourished at the same Oxford of India, as Nuddea has been called, Raja Krishna Rai, who did for Bengali what our own King Alfred accomplished for English prose. Moved, however, chiefly by a zeal for Hindooism, which caused him to put a Soodra to death for marrying into a Brahman family, he himself wrote the vernacular and spent money in gifts, which "encouraged the people to study Bengali with unusual diligence." But when, forty years after that, Carey visited Nuddea he could not discover more than forty separate works, all in manuscript, as the whole literature of 30,000,000 of people up to that time. A press had been at work on the opposite side of the river for fifteen years, but Halhed's grammar was still the only as it was the most ancient printed book. One Baboo Ram, from Upper India, was the first native who established a press in Calcutta, and that only under the influence of Colebrooke, to print the Sanskrit classics. The first Bengali who, on his own account, printed works in the vernacular on trade principles, was Gunga Kishore, whom Carey and Ward had trained at Serampore. He soon made so large a fortune by his own press that three native rivals had sprung up by 1820, when twenty-seven separate books, or 15,000 copies, had been sold to natives within ten years.
For nearly all these Serampore supplied the type. But all were in another sense the result of Carey's action. His first edition of the Bengali New Testament appeared in 1801, his Grammar in the same year, and at the same time his Colloquies, or "dialogues intended to facilitate the acquiring of the Bengali language," which he wrote out of the abundance of his knowledge of native thought, idioms, and even slang, to enable students to converse with all classes of society, as Erasmus had done in another way. His Dictionary of 80,000 words began to appear in 1815. Knowing, however, that in the long run the literature of a nation must be of indigenous growth, he at once pressed the natives into this service. His first pundit, Ram Basu, was a most accomplished Bengali scholar. This able man, who lacked the courage to profess Christ in the end, wrote the first tract, the Gospel Messenger, and the first pamphlet exposing Hindooism, both of which had an enormous sale and caused much excitement. On the historical side Carey induced him to publish in 1801 the Life of Raja Pratapaditya, the last king of Sagar Island. At first the new professor could not find reading books for his Bengali class in the college of Fort William. He, his pundits, especially Mritunjaya who has been compared in his physique and knowledge to Dr. Samuel Johnson, and even the young civilian students, were for many years compelled to write Bengali text-books, including translations of Virgil's Æneid and Shakspere's Tempest. The School Book Society took up the work, encouraging such a man as Ram Komal Sen, the printer who became chief native official of the Bank of Bengal and father of the late Keshab Chunder Sen, to prepare his Bengali dictionary. Self-interest soon enlisted the haughtiest Brahmans in the work of producing school and reading books, till now the Bengali language is to India what the Italian is to Europe, and its native literature is comparatively as rich. Nor was Carey without his European successor in the good work for a time. When his son Felix died in 1823 he was bewailed as the coadjutor of Ram Komal Sen, as the author of the first volume of a Bengali encyclopædia on anatomy, as the translator of Bunyan's Pilgrim, Goldsmith's History of England, and Mill's History of India.
Literature cannot be said to exist for the people till the newspaper appears. Bengal was the first non-Christian country into which the press had ever been introduced. Above all forms of truth and faith Christianity seeks free discussion; in place of that the missionaries lived under a shackled press law tempered by the higher instincts of rulers like Wellesley, Hastings, and Bentinck, till Macaulay and Metcalfe gained for it liberty. When Dr. Marshman in 1818 proposed the publication of a Bengali periodical, Dr. Carey, impressed by a quarter of a century's intolerance, consented only on the condition that it should be a monthly magazine, and should avoid political discussion. Accordingly the Dig-darshan appeared, anticipating in its contents and style the later Penny and Saturday Magazines, and continued for three years. Its immediate success led to the issue from the Serampore press on the 31st May 1818, of "the first newspaper ever printed in any Oriental language"—the Samachar Darpan, or News Mirror.
It was a critical hour when the first proof of the first number was laid before the assembled brotherhood at the weekly meeting on Friday evening. Dr. Carey, fearing for his spiritual work, but eager for this new avenue to the minds of the people who were being taught to read, and had little save their own mythology, consented to its publication when Dr. Marshman promised to send a copy, with an analysis of its contents in English, to the Government, and to stop the enterprise if it should be officially disapproved. Lord Hastings was fighting the Pindarees, and nothing was said by his Council. On his return he declared that "the effect of such a paper must be extensively and importantly useful." He allowed it to circulate by post at one-fourth the then heavy rate. The natives welcomed their first newspaper. Although it avoided religious controversy, in a few weeks an opposition journal was issued by a native, who sought to defend Hindooism under the title of the Destroyer of Darkness. To the Darpan the educated natives looked as the means of bringing the oppression of their own countrymen to the knowledge of the public and the authorities. Government found it most useful for contradicting silly rumours and promoting contentment if not loyalty. The paper gave a new development to the Bengali language as well as to the moral and political education of the people.
The same period of liberty to the press and to native advancement, with which the names of the Marquis of Hastings and his accomplished wife will ever be associated, saw the birth of an English periodical which, for the next fifty-seven years, was to become not merely famous but powerfully useful as the Friend of India. The title was the selection of Dr. Marshman, and the editorial management was his and his able son's down to 1852, when it passed into the hands of Mr. Meredith Townsend, long the most brilliant of English journalists, and finally into those of the present writer. For some years a monthly and for a time a quarterly magazine till 1835, when Mr. John Marshman made it the well-known weekly, this journal became the means through which Carey and the brotherhood fought the good fight of humanity. In the monthly and quarterly Friend, moreover, reprinted as much of it was in London, the three philanthropists brought their ripe experience and lofty principles to bear on the conscience of England and of educated India alike. As, on the Oriental side, Carey chose for his weapon the vernacular, on the other he drew from Western sources the principles and the thoughts which he clothed in a Bengali dress.
We have already seen how Carey at the end of the eighteenth century found Hindooism at its worst. Steadily had the Pooranic corruption and the Brahmanical oppression gone on demoralising the whole of Hindoo society. In the period of virtual anarchy, which covered the seventy-five years from the death of Aurangzeb to the supremacy of Warren Hastings and the reforms of Lord Cornwallis, the healthy zeal of Islam against the idolatrous abominations of the Hindoos had ceased. In its place there was not only a wild licence amounting to an undoubted Hindoo revival, marked on the political side by the Maratha ascendency, but there came to be deliberate encouragement of the worst forms of Hindooism by the East India Company and its servants. That "the mischievous reaction" on England from India—its idolatry, its women, its nabobs, its wealth, its absolutism—was prevented, and European civilisation was "after much delay and hesitation" brought to bear on India, was due indeed to the legislation of Governor-Generals from Cornwallis to Bentinck, but much more, to the persistent agitation of Christian missionaries, notably Carey and Duff. For years Carey stood alone in India, as Grant and Wilberforce did in England, in the darkest hour of England's moral degradation and spiritual death, when the men who were shaping the destinies of India were the Hindooising Stewarts and Youngs, Prendergasts, Twinings, and Warings, some of whom hated missions from the dread of sedition, others because their hearts "seduced by fair idolatresses had fallen to idols foul."
The most atrociously inhuman of all the Brahmanical customs, and yet the most universal, from the land of the five rivers at Lahore to the far spice islands at Bali, was the murder of widows by burning or burying them alive with the husband's corpse. We have seen how the first of the many such scenes which he was doomed to witness for the next thirty years affected Carey. After remonstrances, which the people met first by argument and then by surly threats, Carey wrote:—"I told them I would not go, that I was determined to stay and see the murder, and that I should certainly bear witness of it at the tribunal of God." And when he again sought to interfere because the two stout bamboos always fixed for the purpose of preventing the victim's escape were pressed down on the shrieking woman like levers, and they persisted, he wrote: "We could not bear to see more, but left them exclaiming loudly against the murder and full of horror at what we had seen." The remembrance of that sight never left Carey. His naturally cheerful spirit was inflamed to indignation all his life through, till his influence, more than that of any other one man, at last prevailed to put out for ever the murderous pyre. Had Lord Wellesley remained Governor-General a year longer Carey would have succeeded in 1808, instead of having to wait till 1829, and to know as he waited and prayed that literally every day saw the devilish smoke ascending along the banks of the Ganges, and the rivers and pools considered sacred by the Hindoos. Need we wonder that when on a Sunday morning the regulation of Lord William Bentinck prohibiting the crime reached him as he was meditating his sermon, he sent for another to do the preaching, and taking his pen in his hand, at once wrote the official translation, and had it issued in the Bengali Gazette that not another day might be added to the long black catalogue of many centuries?
On the return of the Marquis Wellesley to Calcutta from the Tipoo war, and his own appointment to the College of Fort William, Carey felt that his time had come to prevent the murder of the innocents all over India in the three forms of female infanticide, voluntary drowning, and widow-burning or burying alive. His old friend, Udny, having become a member of Council or colleague of the Governor-General, he prepared three memorials to Government on each of these crimes. When afterwards he had enlisted Claudius Buchanan in the good work, and had employed trustworthy natives to collect statistics proving that in the small district around Calcutta 275 widow murders thus took place in six months of 1803, and when he was asked by Dr. Ryland to state the facts which, with his usual absence of self-regarding, he had not reported publicly, or even in letters home, he thus replied:—
"27th April 1808.—The report of the burning of women, and some others, however, were made by me. I, at his expense, however, made the inquiries and furnished the reports, and believe they are rather below the truth than above it. I have, since I have been here, through a different medium, presented three petitions or representations to Government for the purpose of having the burning of women and other modes of murder abolished, and have succeeded in the case of infanticide and voluntary drowning in the river. Laws were made to prevent these, which have been successful."
But there was a crime nearer home, committed in the river flowing past his own door, and especially at Sagar Island, where the Ganges loses itself in the ocean. At that tiger-haunted spot, shivering in the cold of the winter solstice, every year multitudes of Hindoos, chiefly wives with children and widows with heavy hearts, assembled to wash away their sins—to sacrifice the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul. Since 1794, when Thomas and he had found in a basket hanging on a tree the bones of an infant exposed, to be devoured by the white ants, by some mother too poor to go on pilgrimage to a sacred river-spot, Carey had known this unnatural horror. He and his brethren had planned a preaching tour to Sagar, where not only mothers drowned their first born in payment of a vow, with the encouragement of the Brahmans, but widows and even men walked into the deep sea and drowned themselves at the spot where Ganga and Sagar kiss each other, "as the highest degree of holiness, and as securing immediate heaven." The result of Carey's memorial was the publication of the Regulation for preventing the sacrifice of children at Sagar and other places on the Ganges:—"It has been represented to the Governor-General in Council that a criminal and inhuman practice of sacrificing children, by exposing them to be drowned or devoured by sharks, prevails...Children thrown into the sea at Sagar have not been generally rescued...but the sacrifice has been effected with circumstances of peculiar atrocity in some instances. This practice is not sanctioned by the Hindoo law, nor countenanced by the religious orders." It was accordingly declared to be murder, punishable with death. At each pilgrim gathering sepoys were stationed to check the priests and the police, greedy of bribes, and to prevent fanatical suicides as well as superstitious murders.
The practice of infanticide was really based on the recommendation of Sati, literally the "method of purity" which the Hindoo shastras require when they recommend the bereaved wife to burn with her husband. Surely, reasoned the Rajpoots, we may destroy a daughter by abortion, starvation, suffocation, strangulation, or neglect, of whose marriage in the line of caste and dignity of family there is little prospect, if a widow may be burned to preserve her chastity!
In answer to Carey's third memorial Lord Wellesley took the first step, on 5th February 1805, in the history of British India, two centuries after Queen Elizabeth had given the Company its mercantile charter, and half a century after Plassey had given it political power, to protect from murder the widows who had been burned alive, at least since the time of Alexander the Great. This was the first step in the history of British but not of Mohammedan India, for our predecessors had by decree forbidden and in practice discouraged the crime. Lord Wellesley's colleagues were still the good Udny, the great soldier Lord Lake and Sir George Barlow. The magistrate of Bihar had on his own authority prevented a child-widow of twelve, when drugged by the Brahmans, from being burned alive, after which, he wrote, "the girl and her friends were extremely grateful for my interposition." Taking advantage of this case, the Government asked the appellate judges, all Company's servants, to "ascertain how far the practice is founded on the religious opinions of the Hindoos. If not founded on any precept of their law, the Governor-General in Council hopes that the custom may gradually, if not immediately, be altogether abolished. If, however, the entire abolition should appear to the Court to be impracticable in itself, or inexpedient, as offending any established religious opinion of the Hindoos," the Court were desired to consider the best means of preventing the abuses, such as the use of drugs and the sacrifice of those of immature age. But the preamble of this reference to the judges declared it to be one of the fundamental principles of the British Government to consult the religious opinions of the natives, "consistently with the principles of morality, reason, and humanity." There spoke Carey and Udny, and Wellesley himself. But for another quarter of a century the funeral pyres were to blaze with the living also, because that caveat was set aside, that fundamental maxim of the constitution of much more than the British Government—of the conscience of humanity, was carefully buried up. The judges asked the pundits whether the woman is "enjoined" by the shaster voluntarily to burn herself with the body of her husband. They replied "every woman of the four castes is permitted to burn herself," except in certain cases enumerated, and they quoted Manoo, who is against the custom in so far as he says that a virtuous wife ascends to heaven if she devotes herself to pious austerities after the decease of her lord.
This opinion would have been sufficient to give the requisite native excuse to Government for the abolition, but the Nizamat Adawlat judges urged the "principle" of "manifesting every possible indulgence to the religious opinions and prejudices of the natives," ignoring morality, reason, and humanity alike. Lord Wellesley's long and brilliant administration of eight years was virtually at an end: in seven days he was to embark for home. The man who had preserved the infants from the sharks of Sagar had to leave the widows and their children to be saved by the civilians Carey and he had personally trained, Metcalfe and Bayley, who by 1829 had risen to Council and become colleagues of Lord W. Bentinck. But Lord Wellesley did this much, he declined to notice the so-called "prohibitory regulations" recommended by the civilian judges. These, when adopted in the year 1812, made the British Government responsible by legislation for every murder thereafter, and greatly increased the number of murders. From that date the Government of India decided "to allow the practice," as recognised and encouraged by the Hindoo religion, except in cases of compulsion, drugging, widows under sixteen, and proved pregnancy. The police—natives—were to be present, and to report every case. At the very time the British Parliament were again refusing in the charter discussions of 1813 for another twenty years to tolerate Christianity in its Eastern dependency, the Indian legislature legalised the burning and burying alive of widows, who numbered at least 6000 in nine only of the next sixteen years, from 1815 to 1823 inclusive.
From Plassey in 1757 to 1829, three quarters of a century, Christian England was responsible, at first indirectly and then most directly, for the known immolation of at least 70,000 Hindoo widows. Carey was the first to move the authorities; Udny and Wellesley were the first to begin action against an atrocity so long continued and so atrocious. While the Governor-Generals and their colleagues passed away, Carey and his associates did not cease to agitate in India and to stir up Wilberforce and the evangelicals in England, till the victory was gained. The very first number of the Friend of India published their essay on the burning of widows, which was thereafter quoted on both sides of the conflict, as "a powerful and convincing statement of the real facts and circumstances of the case," in Parliament and elsewhere. Nor can we omit to record the opinion of Carey's chief pundit, with whom he spent hours every day as a fellow-worker. The whole body of law-pundits wrote of Sati as only "permitted." Mritunjaya, described as the head jurist of the College of Fort William and the Supreme Court, decided that, according to Hindooism, a life of mortification is the law for a widow. At best burning is only an alternative for mortification, and no alternative can have the force of direct law. But in former ages nothing was ever heard of the practice, it being peculiar to a later and more corrupt era. "A woman's burning herself from the desire of connubial bliss ought to be rejected with abhorrence," wrote this colossus of pundits. Yet before he was believed, or the higher law was enforced, as it has ever since been even in our tributary States, mothers had burned with sons, and forty wives, many of them sisters, at a time, with polygamous husbands. Lepers and the widows of the devotee class had been legally buried alive. Magistrates, who were men like Metcalfe, never ceased to prevent widow-murder on any pretext, wherever they might be placed, in defiance of their own misguided Government.
Though from 4th December 1829—memorable date, to be classed with that on which soon after 800,000 slaves were set free—"the Ganges flowed unblooded to the sea" for the first time, the fight lasted a little longer. The Calcutta "orthodox" formed a society to restore their right of murdering their widows, and found English lawyers ready to help them in an appeal to the Privy Council under an Act of Parliament of 1797. The Darpan weekly did good service in keeping the mass of the educated natives right on the subject. The Privy Council, at which Lord Wellesley and Charles Grant, venerable in years and character, were present, heard the case for two days, and on 24th June 1832 dismissed the petition!
Though the greatest, this was only one of the crimes against humanity and morality which Carey opposed all his life with a practical reasonableness till he saw the public opinion he had done so much to create triumph. He knew the people of India, their religious, social, and economic condition, as no Englishman before him had done. He stood between them and their foreign Government at the beginning of our intimate contact with all classes as detailed administrators and rulers. The outcome of his peculiar experience is to be found not only in the writings published under his own name but in the great book of his colleague William Ward, every page of which passed under his careful correction as well as under the more general revision of Henry Martyn. Except for the philosophy of Hindooism, the second edition of A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, including a Minute Description of their Manners and Customs, and Translations from their Principal Works, published in 1818 in two quarto volumes, stands unrivalled as the best authority on the character and daily life and beliefs of the 200,000,000 to whom Great Britain had been made a terrestrial providence, till Christianity teaches them to govern themselves and to become to the rest of Asia missionaries of nobler truth than that wherewith their Buddhist fathers covered China and the farther East.
All the crimes against humanity with which the history of India teems, down to the Mutiny and the records of our courts and tributary states at this hour, are directly traceable to lawless supernaturalism like that of the civilised world before the triumph of Christianity. In nothing does England's administration of India resemble Rome's government of its provinces in the seven centuries from the reduction of Sicily, 240 B.C., to the fall of the Western Empire, 476 A.D., so much as in the relation of nascent Christianity to the pagan cults which had made society what it was. Carey and the brotherhood stood alone in facing, in fighting with divine weapons, in winning the first victories over the secular as well as spiritual lawlessness which fell before Paul and his successors down to Augustine and his City of God. The gentle and reasonable but none the less divinely indignant father of modern missions brings against Hindoo and Mohammedan society accusations no more railing than those in the opening passage of the Epistle to the Romans, and he brings these only that, following Paul, he may declare the more excellent way.
As Serampore, or its suburbs, is the most popular centre of Jaganath worship next to Pooree in Orissa, the cruelty and oppression which marked the annual festival were ever before the missionaries' eyes. In 1813 we find Dr. Claudius Buchanan establishing his veracity as an eye-witness of the immolation of drugged or voluntary victims under the idol car, by this quotation from Dr. Carey, whom he had to describe at that time to his English readers, as a man of unquestionable integrity, long held in estimation by the most respectable characters in Bengal, and possessing very superior opportunities of knowing what is passing in India generally: "Idolatry destroys more than the sword, yet in a way which is scarcely perceived. The numbers who die in their long pilgrimages, either through want or fatigue, or from dysenteries and fevers caught by lying out, and want of accommodation, is incredible. I only mention one idol, the famous Juggernaut in Orissa, to which twelve or thirteen pilgrimages are made every year. It is calculated that the number who go thither is, on some occasions, 600,000 persons, and scarcely ever less than 100,000. I suppose, at the lowest calculation, that in the year 1,200,000 persons attend. Now, if only one in ten died, the mortality caused by this one idol would be 120,000 in a year; but some are of opinion that not many more than one in ten survive and return home again. Besides these, I calculate that 10,000 women annually burn with the bodies of their deceased husbands, and the multitudes destroyed in other methods would swell the catalogue to an extent almost exceeding credibility."
After we had taken Orissa from the Marathas the priests of Jaganath declared that the night before the conquest the god had made known its desire to be under British protection. This was joyfully reported to Lord Wellesley's Government by the first British commissioner. At once a regulation was drafted vesting the shrine and the increased pilgrim-tax in the Christian officials. This Lord Wellesley indignantly refused to sanction, and it was passed by Sir George Barlow in spite of the protests of Carey's friend, Udny. In Conjeeveram a Brahmanised civilian named Place had so early as 1796 induced Government to undertake the payment of the priests and prostitutes of the temples, under the phraseology of "churchwardens" and "the management of the church funds." Even before the Madras iniquity, the pilgrims to Gaya from 1790, if not before, paid for authority to offer funeral cakes to the manes of their ancestors and to worship Vishnoo under the official seal and signature of the English Collector. Although Charles Grant's son, Lord Glenelg, when President of the Board of Control in 1833, ordered, as Theodosius had done on the fall of pagan idolatry in A.D. 390, that "in all matters relating to their temples, their worship, their festivals, their religious practices, their ceremonial observances, our native subjects be left entirely to themselves," the identification of Government with Hindooism was not completely severed till a recent period.
The Charak, or swinging festival, has been frequently witnessed by the present writer in Calcutta itself. The orgie has been suppressed by the police in great cities, although it has not ceased in the rural districts. In 1814 the brotherhood thus wrote home:—
"This abominable festival was held, according to the annual custom, on the last day of the Hindoo year. There were fewer gibbet posts erected at Serampore, but we hear that amongst the swingers was one female. A man fell from a stage thirty cubits high and broke his back; and another fell from a swinging post, but was not much hurt. Some days after the first swinging, certain natives revived the ceremonies. As Mr. Ward was passing through Calcutta he saw several Hindoos hanging by the heels over a slow fire, as an act of devotion. Several Hindoos employed in the printing-office applied this year to Mr. Ward for protection, to escape being dragged into these pretendedly voluntary practices. This brought before us facts which we were not aware of. It seems that the landlords of the poor and other men of property insist upon certain of their tenants and dependants engaging in these practices, and that they expect and compel by actual force multitudes every year to join the companies of sunyassees in parading the streets, piercing their sides, tongues, etc. To avoid this compulsion, many poor young men leave their houses and hide themselves; but they are sure of being beaten if caught, or of having their huts pulled down. The influence and power of the rich have a great effect on the multitude in most of the idolatrous festivals. When the lands and riches of the country were in few hands, this influence carried all before it. It is still very widely felt, in compelling dependants to assist at public shows, and to contribute towards the expense of splendid ceremonies."
The Ghat murders, caused by the carrying of the dying to the Ganges or a sacred river, and their treatment there, continue to this day, although Lord Lawrence attempted to interfere. Ward estimated the number of sick whose death is hastened on the banks of the Ganges alone at five hundred a year, in his anxiety to "use no unfair means of rendering even idolatry detestable," but he admits that, in the opinion of others, this estimate is far below the truth. We believe, from our own recent experience, that still it fails to give any just idea of the destruction of parents by children in the name of religion.
One class who had been the special objects of Christ's healing power and divine sympathy was specially interesting to Carey in proportion to their misery and abandonment by their own people—lepers. When at Cutwa in 1812, where his son was stationed as missionary, he saw the burning of a leper, which he thus described:—"A pit about ten cubits in depth was dug and a fire placed at the bottom of it. The poor man rolled himself into it; but instantly, on feeling the fire, begged to be taken out, and struggled hard for that purpose. His mother and sister, however, thrust him in again; and thus a man, who to all appearance might have survived several years, was cruelly burned to death. I find that the practice is not uncommon in these parts. Taught that a violent end purifies the body and ensures transmigration into a healthy new existence, while natural death by disease results in four successive births, and a fifth as a leper again, the leper, like the even more wretched widow, has always courted suicide." Carey did not rest until he had brought about the establishment of a leper hospital in Calcutta, near what became the centre of the Church Missionary Society's work, and there benevolent physicians, like the late Dr. Kenneth Stuart, and Christian people, have made it possible to record, as in Christ's days, that the leper is cleansed and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.
By none of the many young civilians whom he trained, or, in the later years of his life, examined, was Carey's humane work on all its sides more persistently carried out than by John Lawrence in the Punjab. When their new ruler first visited their district, the Bedi clan amazed him by petitioning for leave to destroy their infant daughters. In wrath he briefly told them he would hang every man found guilty of such murder. When settling the land revenue of the Cis-Sutlej districts he caused each farmer, as he touched the pen in acceptance of the assessment, to recite this formula—
"Bewa mat jaláo,
Beti mat máro,
Korhi mat dabao"
("Thou shalt not burn thy widow, thou shalt not kill thy daughters, thou shalt not bury thy lepers.")
From the hour of Carey's conversion he never omitted to remember in prayer the slave as well as the heathen. The same period which saw his foundation of modern missions witnessed the earliest efforts of his contemporary, Thomas Clarkson of Wisbeach, in the neighbouring county of Cambridge, to free the slave. But Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and their associates were so occupied with Africa that they knew not that Great Britain was responsible for the existence of at least nine millions of slaves in India, many of them brought by Hindoo merchants as well as Arabs from Eastern Africa to fill the hareems of Mohammedans, and do domestic service in the zananas of Hindoos. The startling fact came to be known only slowly towards the end of Carey's career, when his prayers, continued daily from 1779, were answered in the freedom of all our West India slaves. The East India answer came after he had passed away, in Act V. of 1843, which for ever abolished the legal status of slavery in India. The Penal Code has since placed the prædial slave in such a position that if he is not free it is his own fault. It is penal in India to hold a slave "against his will," and we trust the time is not far distant when the last three words may be struck out.
With true instinct Christopher Anderson, in his Annals of the English Bible, associates Carey, Clarkson, and Cowper, as the triumvirate who, unknown to each other, began the great moral changes, in the Church, in society, and in literature, which mark the difference between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Little did Carey think, as he studied under Sutcliff within sight of the poet's house, that Cowper was writing at that very time these lines in The Task while he himself was praying for the highest of all kinds of liberty to be given to the heathen and the slaves, Christ's freedom which had up till then remained
"...unsung
By poets, and by senators unpraised,
Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers
Of earth and hell confederate take away;
A liberty which persecution, fraud,
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind:
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more."
Carey's relation to science and economics—State of the peasantry—Carey a careful scientific observer—Specially a botanist—Becomes the friend of Dr. Roxburgh of the Company's Botanic Garden—Orders seeds and instruments of husbandry—All his researches subordinate to his spiritual mission—His eminence as a botanist acknowledged in the history of the science—His own botanic garden and park at Serampore—The poet Montgomery on the daisies there—Borneo—Carey's paper in the Asiatic Researches on the state of agriculture in Bengal—The first to advocate Forestry in India—Founds the Agri-Horticultural Society of India—Issues queries on agriculture and horticulture—Remarkable results of his action—On the manufacture of paper—His expanded address on agricultural reform—His political foresight on the importance of European capital and the future of India—An official estimate of the results in the present day—On the usury of the natives and savings banks—His academic and scientific honours—Destruction of his house and garden by the Damoodar flood of 1823—Report on the Horticultural Society's garden—The Society honours its founder.
Not only was the first Englishman, who in modern times became a missionary, sent to India when he desired to go to Tahiti or West Africa; and sent to Bengal from which all Northern India was to be brought under British rule; and to Calcutta—with a safe asylum at Danish Serampore—then the metropolis and centre of all Southern Asia; but he was sent at the very time when the life of the people could best be purified and elevated on its many sides, and he was specially fitted to influence each of these sides save one. An ambassador for Christ above all things like Paul, but, also like him, becoming all things to all men that he might win some to the higher life, Carey was successively, and often at the same time, a captain of labour, a schoolmaster, a printer, the developer of the vernacular speech, the expounder of the classical language, the translator of both into English and of the English Bible into both, the founder of a pure literature, the purifier of society, the watchful philanthropist, the saviour of the widow and the fatherless, of the despairing and the would-be suicide, of the downtrodden and oppressed. We have now to see him on the scientific or the physical and economic side, while he still jealously keeps his strength for the one motive power of all, the spiritual, and with almost equal care avoids the political or administrative as his Master did. But even then it was his aim to proclaim the divine principles which would use science and politics alike to bring nations to the birth, while, like the apostles, leaving the application of these principles to the course of God's providence and the consciences of men. In what he did for science, for literature, and for humanity, as in what he abstained from doing in the practical region of public life, the first English missionary was an example to all of every race who have followed him in the past century. From Carey to Livingstone, alike in Asia and Africa, the greatest Christian evangelists have been those who have made science and literature the handmaids of missions.
Apart from the extreme south of the peninsula of India, where the Danish missionaries had explored with hawk's eyes, almost nothing was known of its plants and animals, its men, as well as its beasts, when Carey found himself in a rural district of North Bengal in the closing decade of the eighteenth century. Nor had any writer, official or missionary, anywhere realised the state of India and the needs of the Hindoo and Mohammedan cultivators as flowing from the relation of the people to the soil. India was in truth a land of millions of peasant proprietors on five-acre farms, rack-rented or plundered by powerful middlemen, both squeezed or literally tortured by the Government of the day, and driven to depend on the usurer for even the seed for each crop. War and famine had alternated in keeping down the population. Ignorance and fear had blunted the natural shrewdness of the cultivator. A foul mythology, a saddening demon-worship, and an exacting social system, covered the land as with a pall. What even Christendom was fast becoming in the tenth century, India had been all through the eighteen Christian centuries.
The boy who from eight to fourteen "chose to read books of science, history, voyages, etc., more than others"; the youth whose gardener uncle would have had him follow that calling, but whose sensitive skin kept him within doors, where he fitted up a room with his botanical and zoological museum; the shoemaker-preacher who made a garden around every cottage-manse in which he lived, and was familiar with every beast, bird, insect, and tree in the Midlands of England, became a scientific observer from the day he landed at Calcutta, an agricultural reformer from the year he first built a wooden farmhouse in the jungle, as the Manitoba emigrant now does under very different skies, and then began to grow and make indigo amid the peasantry at Dinapoor. He thus unconsciously reveals himself and his method of working in a letter to Morris of Clipstone:—
"MUDNABATI, 5th December 1797.—To talk of continuance of friendship and warm affection to you would be folly. I love you; and next to seeing your face, a letter from you is one of my greatest gratifications. I see the handwriting, and read the heart of my friend; nor can the distance of one-fourth of the globe prevent a union of hearts.
"Hitherto I have refrained from writing accounts of the country, because I concluded that those whose souls were panting after the conversion of the heathen would feel but little gratified in having an account of the natural productions of the country. But as intelligence of this kind has been frequently solicited by several of my friends, I have accordingly opened books of observation, which I hope to communicate when they are sufficiently authenticated and matured. I also intend to assign a peculiar share to each of my stated correspondents. To you I shall write some accounts of the arts, utensils, and manufactures of the country; to Brother Sutcliff their mythology and religion; to Brother Ryland the manners and customs of the inhabitants; to Brother Fuller the productions of the country; to Brother Pearce the language, etc.; and to the Society a joint account of the mission."
He had "separate books for every distinct class, as birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles, etc." Long before this, on 13th March 1795, he had written to the learned Ryland, his special correspondent on subjects of science and on Hebrew, his first impressions of the physiography of Bengal, adding: "The natural history of Bengal would furnish innumerable novelties to a curious inquirer. I am making collections and minute descriptions of whatever I can obtain; and intend at some future time to transmit them to Europe."
"MUDNABATI, 26th November 1796.—I observed in a former letter that the beasts have been in general described, but that the undescribed birds were surprisingly numerous; and, in fact, new species are still frequently coming under my notice. We have sparrows and water-wagtails, one species of crow, ducks, geese, and common fowls; pigeons, teal, ortolans, plovers, snipes like those in Europe; but others, entirely unlike European birds, would fill a volume. Insects are very numerous. I have seen about twelve sorts of grylli, or grasshoppers and crickets. Ants are the most omnivorous of all insects; we have eight or ten sorts very numerous. The termes, or white ants, destroy everything on which they fasten; they will eat through an oak chest in a day or two and devour all its contents. Butterflies are not so numerous as in England, but I think all different. Common flies and mosquitoes (or gnats) are abundant, and the latter so tormenting as to make one conclude that if the flies in Egypt were mosquitoes, the plague must be almost insupportable. Here are beetles of many species; scorpions of two sorts, the sting of the smallest not mortal; land crabs in abundance, and an amazing number of other kinds of insects. Fish is very plentiful, and the principal animal food of the inhabitants. I find fewer varieties of vegetables than I could have conceived in so large a country. Edible vegetables are scarce, and fruit far from plentiful. You will perhaps wonder at our eating many things here which no one eats in England: as arum, three or four sorts, and poppy leaves (Papaver somniferum). We also cut up mallows by the bushes for our food (Job xxx. 4). Amaranths, of three sorts, we also eat, besides capsicums, pumpkins, gourds, calabashes, and the egg-plant fruit; yet we have no hardships in these respects. Rice is the staple article of food...
"My love to the students. God raise them up for great blessings. Great things are certainly at hand."
But he was also an erudite botanist. Had he arrived in Calcutta a few days earlier than he did, he would have been appointed to the place for which sheer poverty led him to apply, in the Company's Botanical Garden, established on the right bank of the Hoogli a few miles below Calcutta, by Colonel Alexander Kyd, for the collection of indigenous and acclimatisation of foreign plants. There he at once made the acquaintance, and till 1815 retained the loving friendship, of its superintendent, Dr. Roxburgh, the leader of a series of eminent men, Buchanan and Wallich, Griffith, Falconer, T. Thomson, and Thomas Anderson, the last two cut off in the ripe promise of their manhood. One of Carey's first requests was for seeds and instruments, not merely from scientific reasons, but that he might carry out his early plan of working with his hands as a farmer while he evangelised the people. On 5th August 1794 he wrote to the Society:—"I wish you also to send me a few instruments of husbandry, viz., scythes, sickles, plough-wheels, and such things; and a yearly assortment of all garden and flowering seeds, and seeds of fruit trees, that you can possibly procure; and let them be packed in papers, or bottles well stopped, which is the best method. All these things, at whatever price you can procure them, and the seeds of all sorts of field and forest trees, etc., I will regularly remit you the money for every year; and I hope that I may depend upon the exertions of my numerous friends to procure them. Apply to London seedsmen and others, as it will be a lasting advantage to this country; and I shall have it in my power to do this for what I now call my own country. Only take care that they are new and dry." Again he addressed Fuller on 22nd June 1797:—
"MY VERY DEAR BROTHER—I have yours of August 9, 16, which informs me that the seeds, etc., were shipped. I have received those seeds and other articles in tolerable preservation, and shall find them a very useful article. An acquaintance which I have formed with Dr. Roxburgh, Superintendent of the Company's Botanic Garden, and whose wife is daughter of a missionary on the coast, may be of future use to the mission, and make that investment of vegetables more valuable."
Thus towards the close of his six years' sacrifice for the people of Dinapoor does he estimate himself and his scientific pursuits in the light of the great conflict to which the Captain of Salvation had called him. He is opening his heart to Fuller again, most trusted of all:—
"MUDNABATI, 17th July 1799.—Respecting myself I have nothing interesting to say; and if I had, it appears foreign to the design of a mission for the missionaries to be always speaking of their own experiences. I keep several journals, it is true, relating to things private and public, respecting the mission, articles of curiosity and science; but they are sometimes continued and sometimes discontinued: besides, most things contained in them are of too general or trivial a nature to send to England, and I imagine could have no effect, except to mock the expectations of our numerous friends, who are waiting to hear of the conversion of the heathen and overthrow of Satan's kingdom.
"I therefore only observe, respecting myself, that I have much proof of the vileness of my heart, much more than I thought of till lately: and, indeed, I often fear that instead of being instrumental in the conversion of the heathen, I may some time dishonour the cause in which I am engaged. I have hitherto had much experience of the daily supports of a gracious God; but I am conscious that if those supports were intermitted but for a little time, my sinful dispositions would infallibly predominate. At present I am kept, but am not one of those who are strong and do exploits.
"I have often thought that a spirit of observation is necessary in order to our doing or communicating much good; and were it not for a very phlegmatic habit, I think my soul would be richer. I, however, appear to myself to have lost much of my capacity for making observations, improvements, etc., or of retaining what I attend to closely. For instance, I have been near three years learning the Sanskrit language, yet know very little of it. This is only a specimen of what I feel myself to be in every respect. I try to observe, to imprint what I see and hear on my memory, and to feel my heart properly affected with the circumstances; yet my soul is impoverished, and I have something of a lethargic disease cleaving to my body...
"I would communicate something on the natural history of the country in addition to what I have before written, but no part of that pleasing study is so familiar to me as the vegetable world."
His letters of this period to Fuller on the fruits of India, and to Morris on the husbandry of the natives, might be quoted still as accurate and yet popular descriptions of the mango, guava, and custard apple; plantain, jack, and tamarind; pomegranate, pine-apple, and rose-apple; papaya, date, and cocoa-nut; citron, lime, and shaddock. Of many of these, and of foreign fruits which he introduced, it might be said he found them poor, and he cultivated them till he left to succeeding generations a rich and varied orchard.
While still in Dinapoor, he wrote on 1st January 1798: "Seeds of sour apples, pears, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries, gooseberries, currants, strawberries, or raspberries, put loose into a box of dry sand, and sent so as to arrive in September, October, November, or December, would be a great acquisition, as is every European production. Nuts, filberts, acorns, etc., would be the same. We have lately obtained the cinnamon tree, and nutmeg tree, which Dr. Roxburgh very obligingly sent to me. Of timber trees I mention the sissoo, the teak, and the saul tree, which, being an unnamed genus, Dr. Roxburgh, as a mark of respect to me, has called Careya saulea."
The publication of the last name caused Carey's sensitive modesty extreme annoyance. "Do not print the names of Europeans. I was sorry to see that you printed that Dr. Roxburgh had named the saul tree by my name. As he is in the habit of publishing his drawings of plants, it would have looked better if it had been mentioned first by him." Whether he prevailed with his admiring friend in the Company's Botanic Garden to change the name to that which the useful sal tree now bears, the Shorea robusta, we know not, but the term is derived from Lord Teignmouth's name. Carey will go down to posterity in the history of botanical research, notwithstanding his own humility and the accidents of time. For Dr. Roxburgh gave the name of Careya to an interesting genus of Myrtaceœ. The great French botanist M. Benjamin Delessert duly commemorates the labours of Dr. Carey in the Musée Botanique.
It was in Serampore that the gentle botanist found full scope for the one recreation which he allowed himself, in the interest of his body as well as of his otherwise overtasked spirit. There he had five acres of ground laid out, and, in time, planted on the Linnæan system. The park around, from which he had the little paradise carefully walled in, that Brahmani bull and villager's cow, nightly jackal and thoughtless youth, might not intrude, he planted with trees then rare or unknown in lower Bengal, the mahogany and deodar, the teak and tamarind, the carob and eucalyptus. The fine American Mahogany has so thriven that the present writer was able, seventy years after the trees had been planted, to supply Government with plentiful seed. The trees of the park were so placed as to form a noble avenue, which long shaded the press and was known as Carey's Walk. The umbrageous tamarind formed a dense cover, under which more than one generation of Carey's successors rejoiced as they welcomed visitors to the consecrated spot from all parts of India, America, and Great Britain. Foresters like Sir D. Brandis and Dr. Cleghorn at various times visited this arboretum, and have referred to the trees, whose date of planting is known, for the purpose of recording the rate of growth.
For the loved garden Carey himself trained native peasants who, with the mimetic instinct of the Bengali, followed his instructions like those of their own Brahmans, learned the Latin names, and pronounced them with their master's very accent up till a late date, when Hullodhur, the last of them, passed away. The garden with its tropical glories and more modest exotics, every one of which was as a personal friend, and to him had an individual history, was more than a place of recreation. It was his oratory, the scene of prayer and meditation, the place where he began and ended the day of light—with God. What he wrote in his earlier journals and letters of the sequestered spot at Mudnabati was true in a deeper and wider sense of the garden of Serampore:—"23rd September, Lord's Day.—Arose about sunrise, and, according to my usual practice, walked into my garden for meditation and prayer till the servants came to family worship." We have this account from his son Jonathan:—
"In objects of nature my father was exceedingly curious. His collection of mineral ores, and other subjects of natural history, was extensive, and obtained his particular attention in seasons of leisure and recreation. The science of botany was his constant delight and study; and his fondness for his garden remained to the last. No one was allowed to interfere in the arrangements of this his favourite retreat; and it is here he enjoyed his most pleasant moments of secret devotion and meditation. The arrangements made by him were on the Linnæan system; and to disturb the bed or border of the garden was to touch the apple of his eye. The garden formed the best and rarest botanical collection of plants in the East; to the extension of which, by his correspondence with persons of eminence in Europe and other parts of the world, his attention was constantly directed; and, in return, he supplied his correspondents with rare collections from the East. It was painful to observe with what distress my father quitted this scene of his enjoyments, when extreme weakness, during his last illness, prevented his going to his favourite retreat. Often, when he was unable to walk, he was drawn into the garden in a chair placed on a board with four wheels.
"In order to prevent irregularity in the attendance of the gardeners he was latterly particular in paying their wages with his own hands; and on the last occasion of doing so, he was much affected that his weakness had increased and confined him to the house. But, notwithstanding he had closed this part of his earthly scene, he could not refrain from sending for his gardeners into the room where he lay, and would converse with them about the plants; and near his couch, against the wall, he placed the picture of a beautiful shrub, upon which he gazed with delight.
"On this science he frequently gave lectures, which were well attended, and never failed to prove interesting. His publication of Roxburgh's Flora Indica is a standard work with botanists. Of his botanical friends he spoke with great esteem; and never failed to defend them when erroneously assailed. He encouraged the study of the science wherever a desire to acquire it was manifested. In this particular he would sometimes gently reprove those who had no taste for it; but he would not spare those who attempted to undervalue it. His remark of one of his colleagues was keen and striking. When the latter somewhat reprehended Dr. Carey, to the medical gentleman attending him, for exposing himself so much in the garden, he immediately replied, that his colleague was conversant with the pleasures of a garden, just as an animal was with the grass in the field."
As from Dinapoor, so from Serampore after his settlement there, an early order was this on 27th November 1800:—"We are sending an assortment of Hindoo gods to the British Museum, and some other curiosities to different friends. Do send a few tulips, daffodils, snowdrops, lilies, and seeds of other things, by Dolton when he returns, desiring him not to put them into the hold. Send the roots in a net or basket, to be hung up anywhere out of the reach of salt water, and the seeds in a separate small box. You need not be at any expense, any friend will supply these things. The cowslips and daisies of your fields would be great acquisitions here." What the daisies of the English fields became to Carey, and how his request was long after answered, is told by James Montgomery, the Moravian, who formed after Cowper the second poet of the missionary reformation:—
"A friend of mine, a scientific botanist, residing near Sheffield, had sent a package of sundry kinds of British seeds to the learned and venerable Doctor WILLIAM CAREY. Some of the seeds had been enclosed in a bag, containing a portion of their native earth. In March 1821 a letter of acknowledgment was received by his correspondent from the Doctor, who was himself well skilled in botany, and had a garden rich in plants, both tropical and European. In this enclosure he was wont to spend an hour every morning, before he entered upon those labours and studies which have rendered his name illustrious both at home and abroad, as one of the most accomplished of Oriental scholars and a translator of the Holy Scriptures into many of the Hindoo languages. In the letter aforementioned, which was shown to me, the good man says:—'That I might be sure not to lose any part of your valuable present, I shook the bag over a patch of earth in a shady place: on visiting which a few days afterwards I found springing up, to my inexpressible delight, a Bellis perennis of our English pastures. I know not that I ever enjoyed, since leaving Europe, a simple pleasure so exquisite as the sight of this English Daisy afforded me; not having seen one for upwards of thirty years, and never expecting to see one again.'
"On the perusal of this passage, the following stanzas seemed to spring up almost spontaneously in my mind, as the 'little English flower' in the good Doctor's garden, whom I imagined to be thus addressing it on its sudden appearance:—
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
My mother-country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread:
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies,
Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;
But, when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabashed but modest eyes,
Follow his motion to the west,
Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year:
Thou, only thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended and unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone.
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Of early scenes beloved by me,
While happy in my father's bower,
Thou shalt the blythe memorial be;
The fairy sports of infancy,
Youth's golden age, and manhood's prime.
Home, country, kindred, friends,—with thee,
I find in this far clime.
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
I'll rear thee with a trembling hand:
Oh, for the April sun and shower,
The sweet May dews of that fair land.
Where Daisies, thick as starlight, stand
In every walk!—that here may shoot
Thy scions, and thy buds expand
A hundred from one root.
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To me the pledge of hope unseen:
When sorrow would my soul o'erpower,
For joys that were, or might have been,
I'll call to mind, how, fresh and green,
I saw thee waking from the dust;
Then turn to heaven with brow serene,
And place in GOD my trust."
From every distant station, from Amboyna to Delhi, he received seeds and animals and specimens of natural history. The very schoolboys when they went out into the world, and the young civilians of Fort William College, enriched his collections. To Jabez, his son in Amboyna, we find him thus writing:—"I have already informed you of the luckless fate of all the animals you have sent. I know of no remedy for the living animals dying, but by a little attention to packing them you may send skins of birds and animals of every kind, and also seeds and roots. I lately received a parcel of seeds from Moore (a large boy who, you may remember, was at school when the printing-office was burnt), every one of which bids fair to grow. He is in some of the Malay islands. After all you have greatly contributed to the enlargement of my collection."
"17th September 1816.—I approve much of Bencoolen as a place for your future labours, unless you should rather choose the island of Borneo...The English may send a Resident thither after a time. I mention this from a conversation I had some months ago on the subject with Lord Moira, who told me that there is a large body of Chinese on that island." They "applied to the late Lieut.-Governor of Java, requesting that an English Resident may be sent to govern them, and offering to be at the whole expense of his salary and government. The Borneo business may come to nothing, but if it should succeed it would be a glorious opening for the Gospel in that large island. Sumatra, however, is larger than any one man could occupy." As we read this we see the Serampore apostle's hope fulfilled after a different fashion, in Rajah Brooke's settlement at Sarawak, in the charter of the North Borneo Company, in the opening up of New Guinea and in the civilisation of the Philippines by the United States of America.
To Roxburgh and his Danish successor Wallich, to Voigt who succeeded Wallich in Serampore, and hundreds of correspondents in India and Germany, Great Britain and America, Carey did many a service in sending plants and—what was a greater sacrifice for so busy a man—writing letters. What he did for the Hortus Bengalensis may stand for all.
When, in 1814, Dr. Roxburgh was sent to sea almost dying, Dr. Carey edited and printed at his own press that now very rare volume, the Hortus Bengalensis, or a Catalogue of the Plants of the Honourable East India Company's Botanic Garden in Calcutta. Carey's introduction of twelve large pages is perhaps his most characteristic writing on a scientific subject. His genuine friendliness and humility shine forth in the testimony he bears to the abilities, zeal, and success of the great botanist who, in twenty years, had created a collection of 3200 species. Of these 3000 at least had been given by the European residents in India, himself most largely of all. Having shown in detail the utility of botanical gardens, especially in all the foreign settlements of Great Britain, he declared that only a beginning had been made in observing and cataloguing the stock of Asiatic productions. He urged English residents all over India to set apart a small plot for the reception of the plants of their neighbourhood, and when riding about the country to mark plants, which their servants could bring on to the nursery, getting them to write the native name of each. He desiderated gardens at Hurdwar, Delhi, Dacca, and Sylhet, where plants that will not live at Calcutta might prosper, a suggestion which was afterwards carried out by the Government in establishing a garden at Saharanpoor, in a Sub-Himalayan region, which has been successfully directed by Royle, Falconer, and Jameson.
On Dr. Roxburgh's death in 1815 Dr. Carey waited to see whether an English botanist would publish the fruit of thirty years' labour of his friend in the description of more than 2000 plants, natives of Eastern Asia. At his own risk he then, in 1820, undertook this publication, or the Flora Indica, placing on the title-page, "All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord—David." When the Roxburgh MSS. were made over to the library of the Botanic Garden at Calcutta, the fourth and final volume appeared with this note regarding the new edition:—"The work was printed from MSS. in the possession of Dr. Carey, and it was carried through the press when he was labouring under the debility of great age...The advanced age of Dr. Carey did not admit of any longer delay."
His first public attempt at agricultural reform was made in the paper which he contributed to the Transactions of the Bengal Asiatic Society, and which appeared in 1811 in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Researches. In the space of an ordinary Quarterly Review article he describes the "State of Agriculture in the District of Dinapoor," and urges improvements such as only the officials, settlers, and Government could begin. The soils, the "extremely poor" people, their "proportionally simple and wretched farming utensils," the cattle, the primitive irrigation alluded to in Deuteronomy as "watering with the foot," and the modes of ploughing and reaping, are rapidly sketched and illustrated by lithographed figures drawn to scale. In greater detail the principal crops are treated. The staple crop of rice in its many varieties and harvests at different seasons is lucidly brought before the Government, in language which it would have been well to remember or reproduce in the subsequent avoidable famines of Orissa and North Bihar. Indigo is set before us with the skill of one who had grown and manufactured it for years. The hemp and jute plants are enlarged on in language which unconsciously anticipates the vast and enriching development given to the latter as an export and a local manufacture since the Crimean War. An account of the oil-seeds and the faulty mode of expressing the oil, which made Indian linseed oil unfit for painting, is followed by remarks on the cultivation of wheat, to which subsequent events have given great importance. Though many parts, even of Dinapoor, were fit for the growth of wheat and barley, the natives produced only a dark variety from bad seed. "For the purpose of making a trial I sowed Patna wheat on a large quantity of land in the year 1798, the flour produced from which was of a very good quality." The pulses, tobacco, the egg-plant, the capsicums, the cucumbers, the arum roots, turmeric, ginger, and sugar-cane, all pass in review in a style which the non-scientific reader may enjoy and the expert must appreciate. Improvements in method and the introduction of the best kinds of plants and vegetables are suggested, notwithstanding "the poverty, prejudices, and indolence of the natives."
This paper is most remarkable, however, for the true note which its writer was the first to strike on the subject of forestry. If we reflect that it was not till 1846 that the Government made the first attempt at forest conservancy, in order to preserve the timber of Malabar for the Bombay dockyard; and not till the conquest of Pegu, in 1855, that the Marquis of Dalhousie was led by the Friend of India to appoint Dietrich Brandis of Bonn to care for the forests of Burma, and Dr. Cleghorn for those of South India, we shall appreciate the wise foresight of the missionary-scholar, who, having first made his own park a model of forest teaching, wrote such words as these early in the century:—"The cultivation of timber has hitherto, I believe, been wholly neglected. Several sorts have been planted...all over Bengal, and would soon furnish a very large share of the timber used in the country. The sissoo, the Andaman redwood, the teak, the mahogany, the satin-wood, the chikrasi, the toona, and the sirisha should be principally chosen. The planting of these trees single, at the distance of a furlong from each other, would do no injury to the crops of corn, but would, by cooling the atmosphere, rather be advantageous. In many places spots now unproductive would be improved by clumps or small plantations of timber, under which ginger and turmeric might be cultivated to great advantage. In some situations saul...would prosper. Indeed the improvements that might be made in this country by the planting of timber can scarcely be calculated. Teak is at present brought from the Burman dominions...The French naturalists have already begun to turn their attention to the culture of this valuable tree as an object of national utility. This will be found impracticable in France, but may perhaps be attempted somewhere else. To England, the first commercial country in the world, its importance must be obvious."
Ten years passed, Carey continued to watch and to extend his agri-horticultural experiments in his own garden, and to correspond with botanists in all parts of the world, but still nothing was done publicly in India. At last, on 15th April 1820, when "the advantages arising from a number of persons uniting themselves as a Society for the purpose of carrying forward any undertaking" were generally acknowledged, the shoemaker and preacher who had a generation before tested these advantages in the formation of the first Foreign Mission Society, issued a Prospectus of an Agricultural and Horticultural Society in India, from the "Mission House, Serampore." The prospectus thus concluded:—"Both in forming such a Society and in subsequently promoting its objects, important to the happiness of the country as they regard them, the writer and his colleagues will be happy in doing all their other avocations will permit." Native as well as European gentlemen were particularly invited to co-operate. "It is peculiarly desirable that native gentlemen should be eligible as members of the Society, because one of its chief objects will be the improvement of their estates and of the peasantry which reside thereon. They should therefore not only be eligible as members but also as officers of the Society in precisely the same manner as Europeans." At the first meeting in the Town Hall of Calcutta, Carey and Marshman found only three Europeans beside themselves. They resolved to proceed, and in two months they secured more than fifty members, several of whom were natives. The first formal meeting was held on 14th September, when the constitution was drawn up on the lines laid down in the prospectus, it being specially provided "that gentlemen of every nation be eligible as members."
At the next meeting Dr. Carey was requested to draw up a series of queries, which were circulated widely, in order to obtain "correct information upon every circumstance which is connected with the state of agriculture and horticulture in the various provinces of India." The twenty queries show a grasp of principles, a mastery of detail, and a kindliness of spirit which reveal the practical farmer, the accomplished observer, and the thoughtful philanthropist all in one. One only we may quote:—"19. In what manner do you think the comforts of the peasantry around you could be increased, their health better secured, and their general happiness promoted?" The Marquis of Hastings gladly became patron, and ever since the Government has made a grant to the Society. His wife showed such an interest in its progress that the members obtained her consent to sit to Chinnery for her portrait to fill the largest panel in the house at Titigur. Lord Hastings added the experimental farm, formed near Barrackpore, to the Botanic Garden, with an immediate view to its assisting the Agricultural Society in their experiments and pursuits. The Society became speedily popular, for Carey watched its infancy with loving solicitude, and was the life of its meetings. In the first eighty-seven years of its existence seven thousand of the best men in India have been its members, of whom seven hundred are Asiatics. Agriculturists, military and medical officers, civilians, clergy, and merchants, are represented on its roll in nearly equal proportions. The one Society has grown into three in India, and formed the model for the Royal Agricultural Society of England, which was not founded till 1838.
Italy and Scotland alone preceded Carey in this organisation, and he quotes with approbation the action of Sir John Sinclair in 1790, which led to the first inquiry into the state of British agriculture. The Transactions which Carey led the Society to promise to publish in English, Bengali, and Hindostani, have proved to be only the first of a series of special periodicals representing Indian agriculture generally, tea, and forestry. The various Governments in India have economic museums; and the Government of India, under Lord Mayo, established a Revenue and Agricultural Department expanded by Lord Curzon. Carey's early proposal of premiums, each of a hundred rupees, or the Society's gold medal, for the most successful cultivation on a commercial scale of coffee and improved cotton, for the successful introduction of European fruits, for the improvement of indigenous fruits, for the successful introduction from the Eastern Islands of the mangosteen or doorian, and for the manufacture of cheese equal to Warwickshire, had the best results in some cases. In 1825 Mr. Lamb of Dacca was presented by "Rev. Dr. Carey in the chair" with the gold medal for 80 lbs. of coffee grown there. Carey's own head gardener became famous for his cabbages; and we find this sentence in the Society's Report just after the founder's death:—"Who would have credited fifteen years ago that we could have exhibited vegetables in the Town Hall of Calcutta equal to the choicest in Covent Garden?" The berries two centuries ago brought from Arabia in his wallet by the pilgrim Baba Booden to the hills of Mysore, which bear his name, have, since that Dacca experiment, covered the uplands of South India and Ceylon. Before Carey died he knew of the discovery of the indigenous tea-tree in its original home on the Assam border of Tibet—a discovery which has put India in the place of China as a producer.
In the Society's Proceedings for 9th January 1828 we find this significant record:—"Resolved, at the suggestion of the Rev. Dr. Carey, that permission be given to Goluk Chundra, a blacksmith of Titigur, to exhibit a steam engine made by himself without the aid of any European artist." At the next meeting, when 109 malees or native gardeners competed at the annual exhibition of vegetables, the steam engine was submitted and pronounced "useful for irrigating lands made upon the model of a large steam engine belonging to the missionaries at Serampore." A premium of Rs. 50 was presented to the ingenious blacksmith as an encouragement to further exertions of his industry. When in 1832 the afterwards well-known Lieutenant-Governor Thomason was deputy-secretary to Government, he applied to the Society for information regarding the manufacture of paper. Dr. Carey and Ram Komal Sen were referred to, and the former thus replied in his usual concise and clear manner:—
"When we commenced paper-making several years ago, having then no machinery, we employed a number of native papermakers to make it in the way to which they had been accustomed, with the exception of mixing conjee or rice gruel with the pulp and using it as sizing; our object being that of making paper impervious to insects. Our success at first was very imperfect, but the process was conducted as follows:—
"A quantity of sunn, viz., the fibres of Crotolaria juncea, was steeped repeatedly in limewater, and then exposed to the air by spreading it on the grass; it was also repeatedly pounded by the dhenki or pedal, and when sufficiently reduced by this process to make a pulp, it was mixed in a gumla with water, so as to make it of the consistence of thick soup. The frames with which the sheets were taken up were made of mat of the size of a sheet of paper. The operator sitting by the gumla dipped this frame in the pulp, and after it was drained gave it to an assistant, who laid it on the grass to dry: this finished the process with us; but for the native market this paper is afterwards sized by holding a number of sheets by the edge and dipping them carefully in conjee, so as to keep the sheets separate. They are afterwards dried, folded, and pressed by putting them between two boards, the upper board of which is loaded with one or more large stones.
"In the English method the pulp is prepared by the mill and put into cisterns; the frames are made of fine wire, and the workman stands by the cistern and takes up the pulp on the frames. The sheets when sufficiently dry are hung on lines to dry completely, after which they are sized, if sizing be required.
"We now make our paper by machinery, in which the pulp is let to run on a web of wire, and passing over several cylinders, the last of which is heated by steam, it is dried and fit for use in about two minutes from its having been in a liquid state."
Since that reply the Government of India, under the pressure of the home authorities, has alternately discouraged and fostered the manufacture of paper on the spot. At present it is in the wiser position of preferring to purchase its supplies in India, at once as being cheaper, and that it may develop the use of the many paper-making fibres there. Hence at the Calcutta Exhibition of 1881-82 the jurors began their report on the machine and hand-made paper submitted to them, with a reference to Carey and this report of his. The Serampore mills were gradually crushed by the expensive and unsatisfactory contracts made at home by the India Office. The neighbouring Bally mills seem to flourish since the abandonment of that virtual monopoly, and Carey's anticipations as to the utilisation of the plantain and other fibres of India are being realised nearly a century after he first formed them.
Carey expanded and published his "Address respecting an Agricultural Society in India" in the quarterly Friend of India. He still thinks it necessary to apologise for his action by quoting his hero, Brainerd, who was constrained to assist his Indian converts with his counsels in sowing their maize and arranging their secular concerns. "Few," he adds with the true breadth of genius which converted the Baptist shoemaker into the Christian statesman and scholar, "who are extensively acquainted with human life, will esteem these cares either unworthy of religion or incongruous with its highest enjoyments." When Carey wrote, the millions of five-acre farmers in India were only beginning to recover from the oppression and neglect of former rulers and the visitation of terrific famines. Trade was as depressed as agriculture. Transit duties, not less offensive than those of the Chinese, continued to weigh down agricultural industry till Lord W. Bentinck's time and later. The English Government levied an unequal scale of duties on the staples of the East and West Indies, against which the former petitioned in vain. The East India Company kept the people in ignorance, and continued to exclude the European capitalist and captain of labour. The large native landholders were as uneducated as the cultivators. Before all Carey set these reforms: close attention to the improvement of land, the best method of cropping land, the introduction of new and useful plants, the improvement of the implements of husbandry, the improvement of live stock, the bringing of waste lands under cultivation, the improvement of horticulture. He went on to show that, in addition to the abundance which an improved agriculture would diffuse throughout the country, the surplus of grain exported, besides "her opium, her indigo, her silk, and her cotton," would greatly tend to enrich India and endear Britain to her. "Whatever may be thought of the Government of Mr. Hastings and those who immediately preceded him for these last forty years, India has certainly enjoyed such a Government as none of the provinces of the Persian or the Roman Empire ever enjoyed for so great a length of time in succession, and, indeed, one almost as new in the annals of modern Europe as in those of India."
Carey found one of the greatest obstacles to agricultural progress to be the fact that not one European owned a single foot of the soil, "a singular fact in the history of nations," removed only about the time of his own death. His remarks on this have a present significance:—
"It doubtless originated in a laudable care to preserve our Indian fellow-subjects from insult and violence, which it was feared could scarcely be done if natives of Britain, wholly unacquainted with the laws and customs of the people, were permitted to settle indiscriminately in India. While the wisdom of this regulation at that time is not impugned, however, it may not be improper to inquire whether at the present time a permission to hold landed property, to be granted by Government to British subjects in India, according to their own discretion, might not be of the highest benefit to the country, and in some degree advantageous to the Government itself.
"The objections which have been urged against any measure of this nature are chiefly that the indiscriminate admission of Europeans into the country might tend to alienate the minds of the inhabitants from Britain, or possibly lead to its disruption from Britain in a way similar to that of America. Respecting this latter circumstance, it is certain that, in the common course of events, a greater evil could scarcely befall India. On the continuance of her connection with Britain is suspended her every hope relative to improvement, security, and happiness. The moment India falls again under the dominion of any one or any number of native princes, all hope of mental improvement, or even of security for person or property, will at once vanish. Nothing could be then expected but scenes of rapine, plunder, bloodshed, and violence, till its inhabitants were sealed over to irremediable wretchedness, without the most distant ray of hope respecting the future. And were it severed from Britain in any other way, the reverse felt in India would be unspeakably great. At present all the learning, the intelligence, the probity, the philanthropy, the weight of character existing in Britain, are brought to bear on India. There is scarcely an individual sustaining a part in the administration of affairs who does not feel the weight of that tribunal formed by the suffrages of the wise and the good in Britain, though he be stationed in the remotest parts of India. Through the medium of a free press the wisdom, probity, and philanthropy which pervade Britain exercise an almost unbounded sway over every part of India, to the incalculable advantage of its inhabitants; constituting a triumph of virtue and wisdom thus unknown to the ancients, and which will increase in its effects in exact proportion to the increase in Britain of justice, generosity, and love to mankind. Let India, however, be severed from Britain, and the weight of these is felt no more...
"It is a fact that in case of outrage or injury it is in most cases easier for a native to obtain justice against a European, than for a European to obtain redress if insulted or wronged by a native. This circumstance, attended as it may be with some inconvenience, reflects the highest honour on the British name; it is a fact of which India affords almost the first instance on record in the annals of history. Britain is nearly the first nation in whose foreign Courts of Justice a tenderness for the native inhabitants habitually prevails over all the partialities arising from country and education. If there ever existed a period, therefore, in which a European could oppress a native of India with impunity, that time is passed away—we trust for ever. That a permission of this nature might tend to sever India from Britain after the example of America is of all things the most improbable...
"Long before the number of British landholders in India shall have become considerable, Penang and the Eastern Isles, Ceylon, the Cape, and even the Isles of New South Wales, may in European population far exceed them in number; and unitedly, if not singly, render the most distant step of this nature as impracticable, as it would be ruinous, to the welfare and happiness of India...
"British-born landholders would naturally maintain all their national attachments, for what Briton can lose them? and derive their happiness from corresponding with the wise and good at home. If sufficiently wealthy, they would no doubt occasionally visit Britain, where indeed it might be expected that some of them would reside for years together, as do the owners of estates in the West Indies. While Britain shall remain what she now is, it will be impossible for those who have once felt the force of British attachments, ever to forego them. Those feelings would animate their minds, occupy their conversation, and regulate the education and studies of their children, who would be in general sent home that they might there imbibe all those ideas of a moral and intellectual nature for which our beloved country is so eminent. Thus a new intercourse would be established between Britain and the proprietors of land in India, highly to the advantage of both countries. While they derived their highest happiness from the religion, the literature, the philanthropy and public spirit of Britain, they would, on the other hand, be able to furnish Britain with the most accurate and ample information relative to the state of things in a country in which the property they held there constrained them to feel so deep an interest. The fear of all oppression being out of the question, while it would be so evidently the interest not only of every Briton but of every Christian, whether British or native, to secure the protecting aid of Britain, at least as long as two-thirds of the inhabitants of India retained the Hindoo or Mussulman system of religion, few things would be more likely to cement and preserve the connection between both countries than the existence of such a class of British-born landholders in India."
It is profitable to read this in the light of subsequent events—of the Duff-Bentinck reforms, the Sepoy mutiny, the government of the Queen-Empress, the existence of more than three millions of Christians in India, the social and commercial development due to the non-officials from Great Britain and America, and the administrative progress under Lord Curzon and Lord Minto.
There is one evil which Carey never ceased to point out, but which the very perfection of our judicial procedure and the temporary character of our land assessments have intensified—"the borrowing system of the natives." While 12 per cent. is the so-called legal rate of interest; it is never below 36, and frequently rises to 72 per cent. Native marriage customs, the commercial custom of "advances," agricultural usage, and our civil procedure combine to sink millions of the peasantry lower than they were, in this respect, in Carey's time. For this, too, he had a remedy so far as it was in his power to mitigate an evil which only practical Christianity will cure. He was the first to apply in India that system of savings banks which the Government has of late sought to encourage.
At a time when the English and even Scottish universities denied their honorary degrees to all British subjects who were not of the established churches, Brown University, in the United States—Judson's—spontaneously sent Carey the diploma of Doctor of Divinity. That was in the year 1807. In 1823 he was elected a corresponding member of the Horticultural Society of London, a member of the Geological Society, and a Fellow of the Linnæan Society. To him the latter year was ever memorable, not for such honours which he had not sought, but for a flood of the Damoodar river, which, overflowing its embankments and desolating the whole country between it and the Hoogli, submerged his garden and the mission grounds with three feet of water, swept away the botanic treasures or buried them under sand, and destroyed his own house. Carey was lying in bed at the time, under an apparently fatal fever following dislocation of the hip-joint. He had lost his footing when stepping from his boat. Surgical science was then less equal to such a case than it is now, and for nine days he suffered agony, which on the tenth resulted in fever. When hurriedly carried out of his tottering house, which in a few hours was scoured away by the rush of the torrent into a hole fifty feet deep, his first thought was of his garden. For six months he used crutches, but long before he could put foot to the ground he was carefully borne all over the scene of desolation. His noble collection of exotic plants, unmatched in Asia save in the Company's garden, was gone. His scientific arrangement of orders and families was obliterated. It seemed as if the fine barren sand of the mountain torrent would make the paradise a desert for ever. The venerable botanist was wounded in his keenest part, but he lost not an hour in issuing orders and writing off for new supplies of specimens and seeds, which years after made the place as lovely if not so precious, as before. He thus wrote to Dr. Ryland:—
"SERAMPORE, 22nd December 1823.
"MY DEAR BROTHER—I once more address you from the land of the living, a mercy which about two months ago I had no expectation of, nor did any one expect it more than, nor perhaps so much as, myself. On the 1st of October I went to Calcutta to preach, and returned with another friend about midnight. When I got out of the boat close to our own premises, my foot slipped and I fell; my friend also fell in the same place. I however perceived that I could not rise, nor even make the smallest effort to rise. The boatmen carried me into the house, and laid me on a couch, and my friend, who was a medical man, examined my hurt.—From all this affliction I am, through mercy, nearly restored. I am still very weak, and the injured limb is very painful. I am unable to walk two steps without crutches; yet my strength is sensibly increasing, and Dr. Mellis, who attended me during the illness, says he has no doubts of my perfect recovery.
"During my confinement, in October, such a quantity of water came down from the western hills, that it laid the whole country for about a hundred miles in length and the same in breadth, under water. The Ganges was filled by the flood, so as to spread far on every side. Serampore was under water; we had three feet of water in our garden for seven or eight days. Almost all the houses of the natives in that vast extent of country fell; their cattle were swept away, and the people, men, women, and children. Some gained elevated spots, where the water still rose so high as to threaten them with death; others climbed trees, and some floated on the roofs of their ruined houses. One of the Church missionaries, Mr. Jetter, who had accompanied Mr. Thomason and some other gentlemen to Burdwan to examine the schools there, called on me on his return and gave me a most distressing account of the fall of houses, the loss of property, the violent rushing of waters, so that none, not even the best swimmers, dared to leave the place where they were.
"This inundation was very destructive to the Mission house, or rather the Mission premises. A slip of the earth (somewhat like that of an avalanche), took place on the bank of the river near my house, and gradually approached it until only about ten feet of space were left between that and the house; and that space soon split. At last two fissures appeared in the foundation and wall of the house itself. This was a signal for me to remove; and a house built for a professor in the College being empty, I removed to it, and through mercy am now comfortably settled there.
"I have nearly filled my letter with this account, but I must give you a short account of the state of my mind when I could think, and that was generally when excited by an access of friends; at other times I could scarcely speak or think. I concluded one or two days that my death was near. I had no joys; nor any fear of death, or reluctance to die; but never was I so sensibly convinced of the value of an ATONING Saviour as then. I could only say, 'Hangs my helpless soul on thee;' and adopt the language of the first and second verses of the fifty-first Psalm, which I desired might be the text for my funeral sermon. A life of faith in Christ as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, appeared more than ordinarily important to my mind, and I expressed these feelings to those about me with freedom and pleasure.
"Now, through the gracious providence of God, I am again restored to my work, and daily do a little as my strength will admit. The printing of the translations is now going forward almost as usual, but I have not yet been able to attend to my duties in College. The affairs of the Mission are more extended, and I trust in as prosperous a state as at any former time. There are now many of other denominations employed in Missions, and I rejoice to say that we are all workers together in the work. The native churches were never in a better state, and the face of the Mission is in every respect encouraging. Give my love to all who know me.—I am very affectionately yours, W. CAREY."
Still more severe and disastrous in its effects was the cyclone of 1831. The former had desolated the open garden, but this laid low some of the noblest trees which, in their fall, crushed his splendid conservatory. One of his brethren represents the old man as weeping over the ruin of the collections of twenty years. Again the Hoogli, lashed into fury and swollen by the tidal wave, swept away the lately-formed road, and, cutting off another fourth of the original settlement of the Mission, imperilled the old house of Mr. Ward. Its ruins were levelled to form another road, and ever since the whole face of the right bank of the river has been a source of apprehension and expense. Just before this, Dr. Staughton had written from America that the interest on the funds raised there by Ward for the College would not be sent until the trustees were assured that the money was not to be spent on the teaching of science in the College, but only on the theological education of Hindoo converts. "I must confess," was Carey's reply, "I never heard anything more illiberal. Pray can youth be trained up for the Christian ministry without science? Do you in America train up youths for it without any knowledge of science?"
One of Dr. Carey's latest visits to Calcutta was to inspect the Society's Garden then at Alipore, and to write the elaborate report of the Horticultural Committee which appeared in the second volume of the Transactions after his death. He there records the great success of the cultivation of the West India arrowroot. This he introduced into his own garden, and after years of discontinued culture we raised many a fine crop from the old roots. The old man "cannot but advert, with feelings of the highest satisfaction, to the display of vegetables on the 13th January 1830, a display which would have done honour to any climate, or to any, even the most improved system of horticulture...The greater part of the vegetables then produced were, till within these last few years, of species wholly unknown to the native gardeners."
When, in 1842, the Agri-Horticultural Society resolved to honour its founder, it appropriately fell to Dr. Wallich, followed by the president Sir J. P. Grant, to do what is thus recorded:—"Dr. Wallich addressed the meeting at some length, and alluded to the peculiar claims which their late venerable founder had on the affection of all classes for his untiring exertions in advancing the prosperity of India, and especially so on the members of the Society. He concluded his address by this motion:—'That the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India, duly estimating the great and important services rendered to the interests of British India by the founder of the institution, the late Reverend Dr. William Carey, who unceasingly applied his great talents, abilities, and influence in advancing the happiness of India—more especially by the spread of an improved system of husbandry and gardening—desire to mark, by some permanent record, their sense of his transcendent worth, by placing a marble bust to his memory in the Society's new apartments at the Metcalfe Hall, there to remain a lasting testimony to the pure and disinterested zeal and labours of so illustrious a character: that a subscription, accordingly, from among the members of the Society, be urgently recommended for the accomplishment of the above object.'"
One fact in the history of the marble bust of Carey, which since 1845 has adorned the hall of the Agricultural Society of India, would have delighted the venerable missionary. Following the engraving from Home's portrait, and advised by one of the sons, Nobo Koomar Pal, a self-educated Bengali artist, modelled the clay. The clay bust was sent to England for the guidance of Mr. J. C. Lough, the sculptor selected by Dr. Royle to finish the work in marble. Mr. Lough had executed the Queen's statue for the Royal Exchange, and the monument with a reclining figure of Southey. In sending out the marble bust of Carey to Calcutta Dr. Royle wrote,—"I think the bust an admirable one; General Macleod immediately recognised it as one of your much esteemed Founder."
The Bengal Asiatic Society, on the motion of the Lord Bishop and Colonel Sir Jer. Bryant, entered these words on their Journal:—"The Asiatic Society cannot note upon their proceedings the death of the Rev. W. Carey, D.D., so long an active member and an ornament of this Institution, distinguished alike for his high attainments in the Oriental languages, for his eminent services in opening the stores of Indian literature to the knowledge of Europe, and for his extensive acquaintance with the sciences, the natural history and botany of this country, and his useful contributions on every hand towards the promotion of the objects of the Society, without placing on record this expression of their high sense of his value and merits as a scholar and a man of science; their esteem for the sterling and surpassing religious and moral excellencies of his character, and their sincere grief for his irreparable loss."
Carey's relation to the new era—The East India Company's Charters of 1793, 1813, and 1833—His double influence on the churches and public opinion—The great missionary societies—Missionary journals and their readers—Bengal and India recognised as the most important mission fields—Influence on Robert Haldane—Reflex effect of foreign on home missions—Carey's power over individuals—Melville Horne and Douglas of Cavers—Henry Martyn—Charles Simeon and Stewart of Moulin—Robert Hall and John Foster—Heber and Chalmers—William Wilberforce on Carey—Mr. Prendergast and the tub story—Last persecution by the Company's Government—Carey on the persecution and the charter controversy—The persecuting clause and the resolution legalising toleration—The Edinburgh Review and Sydney Smith's fun—Sir James Mackintosh's opinion—Southey's defence and eulogy of Carey and the brotherhood in the Quarterly Review—Political value of Carey's labours—Andrew Fuller's death—A model foreign mission secretary—His friendship with Carey—The sixteen years' dispute—Dr. Carey's position—His defence of Marshman—His chivalrous self-sacrifice—His forgiveness of the younger brethren in Calcutta—His fidelity to righteousness and to friendship.
Himself the outcome of the social and political forces which began in the French Revolution, and are still at work, William Carey was made a living personal force to the new era. The period which was introduced in 1783 by the Peace of Versailles in Europe following the Independence of the United States of America, was new on every side—in politics, in philosophy, in literature, in scientific research, in a just and benevolent regard for the peoples of every land, and in the awakening of the churches from the sleep of formalism. Carey was no thinker, but with the reality and the vividness of practical action and personal sacrifice he led the English-speaking races, to whom the future of the world was then given, to substitute for the dreams of Rousseau and all other theories the teaching of Christ as to His kingdom within each man, and in the progress of mankind.
Set free from the impossible task of administering North America on the absolutist system which the Georges would fain have continued, Great Britain found herself committed to the duty of doing for India what Rome had done for Europe. England was compelled to surrender the free West to her own children only that she might raise the servile and idolatrous East to such a Christian level as the genius of its peoples could in time enable them to work out. But it took the thirty years from 1783 to 1813 to convince British statesmen, from Pitt to Castlereagh, that India is to be civilised not according to its own false systems, but by truth in all forms, spiritual and moral, scientific and historical. It took other twenty years, to the Charter of 1833, to complete the conversion of the British Parliament to the belief that the principles of truth and freedom are in their measure as good for the East as for the West. At the beginning of this new period William Pitt based his motion for Parliamentary reform on this fact, that "our senators are no longer the representatives of British virtue but of the vices and pollutions of the East." At the close of it Lord William Bentinck, Macaulay, and Duff, co-operated in the decree which made truth, as most completely revealed through the English language and literature, the medium of India's enlightenment. William Carey's career of fifty years, from his baptism in 1783 and the composition of his Enquiry to his death in 1834, covered and influenced more than any other one man's the whole time; and he represented in it an element of permanent healthy nationalisation which these successors overlooked,—the use of the languages of the peoples of India as the only literary channels for allowing the truth revealed through English to reach the millions of the people.
It was by this means that Carey educated Great Britain and America to rise equal to the terrible trust of jointly creating a Christian Empire of India, and ultimately a series of self-governing Christian nations in Southern and Eastern Asia. He consciously and directly roused the Churches of all names to carry out the commission of their Master, and to seek the promised impulse of His Spirit or Divine Representative on earth, that they might do greater things than even those which He did. And he, less directly but not less consciously, brought the influence of public opinion, which every year purified and quickened, to bear upon Parliament and upon individual statesmen, aided in this up till 1815 by Andrew Fuller. He never set foot in England again, and the influence of his brethren Ward and Marshman during their visits was largely neutralised by some leaders of their own church. But Carey's character and career, his letters and writings, his work and whole personality, stood out in England, Scotland, and America as the motive power which stimulated every church and society, and won the triumph of toleration in the charter of 1813, of humanity, education, and administrative reform in the legislation of Lord William Bentinck.
We have already seen how the immediate result of Carey's early letters was the foundation on a catholic basis of the London Missionary Society, which now represents the great Nonconformist half of England; of the Edinburgh or Scottish and Glasgow Societies, through which the Presbyterians sent forth missionaries to West and South Africa and to Western India, until their churches acted as such; of the Church Missionary Society which the evangelical members of the Church of England have put in the front of all the societies; and of Robert Haldane's splendid self-sacrifice in selling all that he had to lead a large Presbyterian mission to Hindostan. Soon (1797) the London Society became the parent of that of the Netherlands, and of that which is one of the most extensive in Christendom, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The latter, really founded (1810) by Judson and some of his fellow-students, gave birth (1814) to the almost equally great American Baptist Union when Judson and his colleague became Baptists, and the former was sent by Carey to Burma. The Religious Tract Society (1799), and the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804)—each a handmaid of the missionary agencies—sprang as really though less directly from Carey's action. Such organised efforts to bring in heathen and Mohammedan peoples led in 1809 to the at first catholic work begun by the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews. The older Wesleyan Methodist and Gospel Propagation Societies, catching the enthusiasm as Carey succeeded in opening India and the East, entered on a new development under which the former in 1813, and the latter in 1821, no longer confined their operations to the slaves of America and the English of the dispersion in the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain. In 1815 Lutheran Germany also, which had cast out the Pietists and the Moravian brethren as the Church of England had rejected the Wesleyans, founded the principal representative of its evangelicalism at Basel. The succeeding years up to Carey's death saw similar missionary centres formed, or reorganised, in Leipzig (1819), Berlin (1823), and Bremen (1836).[23]
The Periodical Accounts sent home from Mudnabati and Serampore, beginning at the close of 1794, and the Monthly Circular Letters after 1807, gave birth not only to these great missionary movements but to the new and now familiar class of foreign missionary periodicals. The few magazines then existing, like the Evangelical, became filled with a new spirit of earnest aggressiveness. In 1796 there appeared in Edinburgh The Missionary Magazine, "a periodical publication intended as a repository of discussion and intelligence respecting the progress of the Gospel throughout the world." The editors close their preface in January 1797 with this statement:—"With much pleasure they have learned that there was never a greater number of religious periodical publications carried on than at present, and never were any of them more generally read. The aggregate impression of those alone which are printed in Britain every month considerably exceeds thirty thousand." The first article utilises the facts sent home by Dr. Carey as the fruit of his first two years' experience, to show "The Peculiar Advantages of Bengal as a Field for Missions from Great Britain." After describing, in the style of an English statesman, the immense population, the highly civilised state of society, the eagerness of the natives in the acquisition of knowledge, and the principles which the Hindoos and Mohammedans hold in common with Christians, the writer thus continues:—
"The attachment of both the Mohammedans and Hindoos to their ancient systems is lessening every day. We have this information from the late Sir William Jones, one of the Judges of that country, a name dear to literature, and a lover of the religion of Jesus. The Mussulmans in Hindostan are in general but little acquainted with their system, and by no means so zealous for it as their brethren in the Turkish and Persian empires. Besides, they have not the strong arm of civil authority to crush those who would convert them. Mr. Carey's letters seem to intimate the same relaxation among the Hindoos. This decay of prejudice and bigotry will at least incline them to listen with more patience, and a milder temper, to the doctrines and evidences of the Christian religion. The degree of adhesion to their castes, which still remains, is certainly unfavourable, and must be considered as one of Satan's arts to render men unhappy; but it is not insuperable. The Roman Catholics have gained myriads of converts from among them. The Danish missionaries record their thousands too: and one (Schwartz) of the most successful missionaries at present in the world is labouring in the southern part of Hindostan. Besides a very considerable number who have thrown aside their old superstition, and make a profession of the Christian religion, he computes that, in the course of his ministry, he has been the instrument of savingly converting two thousand persons to the faith of Christ. Of these, above five hundred are Mohammedans: the rest are from among the different castes of the Hindoos. In addition to these instances, it is proper to notice the attention which the Hindoos are paying to the two Baptist missionaries, and which gives a favourable specimen of their readiness to listen to the preaching of the Gospel...
"Reflect, O disciple of Jesus! on what has been presented to thy view. The cause of Christ is thy own cause. Without deep criminality thou canst not be indifferent to its success. Rejoice that so delightful a field of missions has been discovered and exhibited. Rouse thyself from the slumbers of spiritual languor. Exert thyself to the utmost of thy power; and let conscience be able to testify, without a doubt, even at the tribunal of Jesus Christ, If missionaries are not speedily sent to preach she glorious Gospel in Bengal, it shall not be owing to me."
That is remarkable writing for an Edinburgh magazine in the year 1797, and it was Carey who made it possible. Its author followed up the appeal by offering himself and his all, for life and death, in a "Plan of the Mission to Bengal," which appeared in the April number. Robert Haldane, whose journal at this time was full of Carey's doings, and his ordained associates, Bogue, Innes, and Greville Ewing, accompanied by John Ritchie as printer, John Campbell as catechist, and other lay workers, determined to turn the very centre of Hindooism, Benares, into a second Serampore. Defeated by one set of Directors of the East India Company, he waited for the election of their successors, only to find the East India Company as hostile to the Scottish gentleman as they had been to the English shoemaker four years before.
The formation of the great Missionary and Bible Societies did not, as in the case of the Moravian Brethren and the Wesleyans, take their members out of the Churches of England and Scotland, of the Baptists and Independents. It supplied in each case an executive through which they worked aggressively not only on the non-christian world, but still more directly on their own home congregations and parishes. The foreign mission spirit directly gave birth to the home mission on an extensive scale. Not merely did the Haldanes and their agents, following Whitefield and the Scottish Secession of 1733, become the evangelists of the north when they were not suffered to preach the Gospel in South Asia; every member of the churches of Great Britain and America, as he caught the enthusiasm of humanity, in the Master's sense, from the periodical accounts sent home from Serampore, and soon from Africa and the South Seas, as well as from the Red Indians and Slaves of the West, began to work as earnestly among the neglected classes around him, as to pray and give for the conversion of the peoples abroad. From first to last, from the early days of the Moravian influence on Wesley and Whitefield, and the letters of Carey, to the successive visits to the home churches of missionaries like Duff and Judson, Ellis and Williams, Moffat and Livingstone, it is the enterprise of foreign missions which has been the leaven of Christendom no less really than of the rest of the world. Does the fact that at the close of the year 1796 there were more than thirty thousand men and women in Great Britain who every month read and prayed about the then little known world of heathenism, and spared not their best to bring that world to the Christ whom they had found, seem a small thing? How much smaller, even to contemptible insignificance, must those who think so consider the arrival of William Carey in Calcutta to be three years before! Yet the thirty thousand sprang from the one, and to-day the thirty thousand have a vast body of Christians really obedient to the Master, in so far as, banded together in five hundred churches and societies, they have sent out eighteen thousand missionaries instead of one or two; they see eighty thousand Asiatics, Africans, and Polynesians proclaiming the Christ to their countrymen, and their praying is tested by their giving annually a sum of £5,000,000, to which every year is adding.
The influence of Carey and his work on individual men and women in his generation was even more marked, inasmuch as his humility kept him so often from magnifying his office and glorifying God as the example of Paul should have encouraged him to do. Most important of all for the cause, he personally called Ward to be his associate, and his writings drew Dr. and Mrs. Marshman to his side, while his apostolic charity so developed and used all that was good in Thomas and Fountain, that not even in the churches of John and James, Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Luke, was there such a brotherhood. When troubles came from outside he won to himself the younger brethren, Yates and Pearce, and healed half the schism which Andrew Fuller's successors made. His Enquiry, followed "by actually embarking on a mission to India," led to the publication of the Letters on Missions addressed to the Protestant Ministers of the British Churches by Melville Horne, who, after a brief experience as Church of England chaplain in Zachary Macaulay's settlement of Sierra Leone, published that little book to excite in all Christians a passion for missions like the Master's. Referring to the English churches, Established and Nonconformist, he wrote:—"Except the Reverend Mr. Carey and a friend who accompanies him, I am not informed of any...ministers who are engaged in missions." Such was the impression made by Carey on John Newton that, in 1802, he rebuked his old curate, Claudius Buchanan, for depreciating the Serampore missionaries, adding, "I do not look for miracles, but if God were to work one in our day, I should not wonder if it were in favour of Dr. Carey."
The Serampore Mission, at an early period, called forth the admiration of the Scottish philanthropist and essayist, James Douglas of Cavers, whose Hints on Missions (1822), a book still full of suggestiveness, contains this passage:—"Education and the press have only been employed to purpose of very late years, especially by the missionaries of Serampore; every year they have been making some improvements upon their former efforts, and...it only requires to increase the number of printing presses, schools, teachers, translators, and professors, to accelerate to any pitch the rate of improvement...To attempt to convert the world without educating it, is grasping at the end and neglecting the means." Referring to what Carey had begun and the Serampore College had helped to develop in Asia, as in Africa and America, Douglas of Cavers well described the missionary era, the new crusade:—"The Reformation itself needed anew a reform in the spirit if not in the letter. That second Reformation has begun; it makes less noise than that of Luther, but it spreads wider and deeper; as it is more intimate it will be more enduring. Like the Temple of Solomon, it is rising silently, without the din of pressure or the note of previous preparation, but notwithstanding it will be not less complete in all its parts nor less able to resist the injuries of time!"
Henry Martyn died, perhaps the loftiest and most loving spirit of the men whom Carey drew to India. Son of a Cornish miner-captain, after passing through the Truro Grammar School, he was sixteen—the age at which Carey became a shoemaker's apprentice—when he was entered at St. John's, and made that ever since the most missionary of all the colleges of Cambridge. When not yet twenty he came out Senior Wrangler. His father's death drove him to the Bible, to the Acts of the Apostles, which he began to study, and the first whisper of the call of Christ came to him in the joy of the Magnificat as its strains pealed through the chapel. Charles Simeon's preaching drew him to Trinity Church. In the vicarage, when he had come to be tutor of his college, and was preparing for the law, he heard much talk of William Carey, of his self-sacrifice and his success in India. It was the opening year of the nineteenth century, the Church Missionary Society had just been born as the fruit partly of a paper written by Simeon four years previously, and he offered himself as its first English missionary. He was not twenty-one, he could not be ordained for two years. Meanwhile a calamity made him and his unmarried sister penniless; he loved Lydia Grenfell with a pure passion which enriched while it saddened his short life, and a chaplaincy became the best mode in every way of his living and dying for India. What a meeting must that have been between him and Carey when, already stricken by fever, he found a sanctuary in Aldeen, and learned at Serampore the sweetness of telling to the natives of India in one of their own tongues the love of God. William Carey and Henry Martyn were one in origin, from the people; in industry, as scholars; in genius, as God-devoted; in the love of a great heart not always returned. The older man left the church of his fathers because there was no Simeon and no missionary society, and he made his own university; he laid the foundation of English missions deep and broad in no sect but in Christ, to whom he and Martyn alike gave themselves.
The names of Carey and Simeon, thus linked to each other by Martyn, find another pleasant and fruitful tie in the Rev. Alexander Stewart, D.D., Gaelic scholar and Scottish preacher. It was soon after Carey went out to India that Simeon, travelling in the Highlands, spent a Sunday in the manse of Moulin, where his personal intercourse and his evening sermon after a season of Communion were blessed to the evangelical enlightenment of Stewart. Moulin was the birthplace ten years after of Alexander Duff, whose parents previously came under the power of the minister's new-found light.[24] Like Simeon, Dr. Stewart thenceforth became a warm supporter of foreign missions. Finding in the Periodical Accounts a letter in which Carey asked Fuller to send him a copy of Van der Hooght's edition of the Hebrew Bible because of the weakness of his eyesight, Dr. Stewart at once wrote offering his own copy. Fuller gladly accepted the kindness. "I with great pleasure," writes Dr. Stewart, "followed the direction, wrote a letter of some length to Carey, and sent off my parcel to London. I daresay you remember my favourite Hebrew Bible in two volumes. I parted with it with something of the same feelings that a pious parent might do with a favourite son going on a mission to the heathen—with a little regret but with much goodwill." This was the beginning of an interesting correspondence with Carey and Fuller.
Next to Andrew Fuller, and in the region of literature, general culture and eloquence before him, the strongest men among the Baptists were the younger Robert Hall and John Foster. Both were devoted to Carey, and were the most powerful of the English advocates of his mission. The former, for a time, was led to side with the Society in some of the details of its dispute with Dr. Marshman, but his loyalty to Carey and the principles of the mission fired some of the most eloquent orations in English literature. John Foster's shrewder common sense never wavered, but inspired his pen alike in the heat of controversy and in his powerful essays and criticisms. Writing in 1828, he declared that the Serampore missionaries "have laboured with the most earnest assiduity for a quarter of a century (Dr. Carey much longer) in all manner of undertakings for promoting Christianity, with such a renunciation of self-interest as will never be surpassed; that they have conveyed the oracles of divine truth into so many languages; that they have watched over diversified missionary operations with unremitting care; that they have conducted themselves through many trying and some perilous circumstances with prudence and fortitude; and that they retain to this hour an undiminished zeal to do all that providence shall enable them in the same good cause." The expenditure of the Serampore Brotherhood up to that time, leaving out of account the miscellaneous missionary services, he showed to have been upwards of £75,000. Dr. Chalmers in Scotland was as stoutly with Carey and his brethren as Foster was in England, so that Marshman wrote:—"Thus two of the greatest and wisest men of England are on our side, and, what is more, I trust the Lord God is with us." What Heber thought, alike as man and bishop, his own loving letter and proposal for "reunion of our churches" in the next chapter will show.
Of all the publicists in the United Kingdom during Carey's long career the foremost was William Wilberforce; he was not second even to Charles Grant and his sons. Defeated in carrying into law the "pious clauses" of the charter which would have opened India to the Christian missionary and schoolmaster in 1793, he nevertheless succeeded by his persuasive eloquence and the weight of his character in having them entered as Resolutions of the House of Commons. He then gave himself successfully to the abolition of the slave-trade. But he always declared the toleration of Christianity in British India to be "that greatest of all causes, for I really place it before the abolition, in which, blessed be God, we gained the victory." His defeat in 1793, when Dundas and the Government were with him, was due to the apathy of public opinion, and especially of the dumb churches. But in the next twenty years Carey changed all that. Not merely was Andrew Fuller ever on the watch with pen and voice, but all the churches were roused, the Established to send out bishops and chaplains, the Nonconformist and Established Evangelicals together to secure freedom for missionaries and schoolmasters. In 1793 an English missionary was an unknown and therefore a much-dreaded monster, for Carey was then on the sea. In 1813 Carey and the Serampore Brotherhood were still the only English missionaries continuously at work in India, and not the churches only, but governor-generals like Teignmouth and Wellesley, and scholars like Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson, were familiar with the grandeur and political innocency of their labours. Hence this outburst of Wilberforce in the House of Commons on the 16th July 1813, when he used the name of Carey to defeat an attempt of the Company to prevent toleration by omitting the declaratory clauses of the Resolution, which would have made it imply that the privilege should never be exerted though the power of licensing missionaries was nominally conceded.
"One great argument of his opponents was grounded on the enthusiastic character which they imputed to the missionary body. India hitherto has seen no missionary who was a member of the English Church, and imputations could be cast more readily on 'Anabaptists and fanatics.' These attacks Mr. Wilberforce indignantly refuted, and well had the noble conduct of the band at Serampore deserved this vindication. 'I do not know,' he often said, 'a finer instance of the moral sublime, than that a poor cobbler working in his stall should conceive the idea of converting the Hindoos to Christianity; yet such was Dr. Carey. Why Milton's planning his Paradise Lost in his old age and blindness was nothing to it. And then when he had gone to India, and was appointed by Lord Wellesley to a lucrative and honourable station in the college of Fort William, with equal nobleness of mind he made over all his salary (between £1000 and £1500 per annum) to the general objects of the mission. By the way, nothing ever gave me a more lively sense of the low and mercenary standard of your men of honour, than the manifest effect produced upon the House of Commons by my stating this last circumstance. It seemed to be the only thing which moved them.' Dr. Carey had been especially attacked, and 'a few days afterwards the member who had made this charge came to me, and asked me in a manner which in a noted duellist could not be mistaken, "Pray, Mr. Wilberforce, do you know a Mr. Andrew Fuller, who has written to desire me to retract the statement which I made with reference to Dr. Carey?" "Yes," I answered with a smile, "I know him perfectly, but depend upon it you will make nothing of him in your way; he is a respectable Baptist minister at Kettering." In due time there came from India an authoritative contradiction of the slander. It was sent to me, and for two whole years did I take it in my pocket to the House of Commons to read it to the House whenever the author of the accusation should be present; but during that whole time he never once dared show himself in the House.'"
The slanderer was a Mr. Prendergast, who affirmed that Dr. Carey's conduct had changed so much for the worse since the departure of Lord Wellesley, that he himself had seen the missionary on a tub in the streets of Calcutta haranguing the mob and abusing the religion of the people in such a way that the police alone saved him from being killed. So, and for the same object of defeating the Resolutions on Toleration, Mr. Montgomerie Campbell had asserted that when Schwartz was in the heat of his discourse in a certain village and had taken off his stock, "that and his gold buckle were stolen by one of his virtuous and enlightened congregation; in such a description of natives did the doctrine of the missionaries operate." Before Dr. Carey's exposure could reach England this "tub" story became the stock argument of the anti-christian orators. The Madras barrister, Marsh, who was put up to answer Wilberforce, was driven to such language as this:—
"Your struggles are only begun when you have converted one caste; never will the scheme of Hindoo conversion be realised till you persuade an immense population to suffer by whole tribes the severest martyrdom that has yet been sustained for the sake of religion—and are the missionaries whom this bill will let loose on India fit engines for the accomplishment of this great revolution? Will these people, crawling from the holes and caverns of their original destinations, apostates from the loom and the anvil—he should have said the awl—and renegades from the lowest handicraft employments, be a match for the cool and sedate controversies they will have to encounter should the Brahmans condescend to enter into the arena against the maimed and crippled gladiators that presume to grapple with their faith? What can be apprehended but the disgrace and discomfiture of whole hosts of tub preachers in the conflict?"
Lord Wellesley's eulogy of the Serampore mission in the House of Lords was much more pronounced than appears from the imperfect report. But even in that he answered the Brahmanised member of the House of Commons thus:—
"With regard to the missionaries, he must say that while he was in India he never knew of any danger arising from their proceedings, neither had he heard of any impression produced by them in the way of conversion. The greater number of them were in the Danish settlement of Serampore; but he never heard of any convulsions or any alarm produced by them. Some of them, particularly Mr. Carey, were very learned men, and had been employed in the College of Fort William. He had always considered the missionaries who were in India in his time a quiet, orderly, discreet, and learned body; and he had employed them in the education of youth and the translation of the Scriptures into the eastern languages. He had thought it his duty to have the Sacred Scriptures translated into the languages of the East, and to give the learned natives employed in the translation the advantage of access to the sacred fountain of divine truth. He thought a Christian governor could not have done less; and he knew that a British governor ought not to do more."
Carey's letters to Fuller in 1810-12 are filled with importunate appeals to agitate, so that the new charter might legalise Christian mission work in India. Fuller worked outside of the House as hard as Wilberforce. In eight weeks of the session no fewer than nine hundred petitions were presented, in twenties and thirties, night after night, till Lord Castlereagh exclaimed, "This is enough, Mr. Fuller." There was more reason for Carey's urgency than he knew at the time he was pressing Fuller. The persecution of the missionaries in Bengal, excused by the Vellore mutiny, which had driven Judson to Burma and several other missionaries elsewhere, was renewed by the Indian Government's secretaries and police. The Ministry had informed the Court of Directors that they had resolved to permit Europeans to settle in India, yet after five weeks' vacillation the Governor-General yielded to his subordinates so far as to issue an order on 5th March 1812, for the expulsion of three missionaries, an order which was so executed that one of them was conducted like a felon through the streets and lodged in the native jail for two hours. Carey thus wrote to Ryland on the persecution:—
"CALCUTTA, 14th April 1813.—Before this reaches you it is probable that you will have heard of the resolution of Government respecting our brethren Johns, Lawson, and Robinson, and will perhaps have even seen Brother Johns, who was by that cruel order sent home on the Castlereagh. Government have agreed that Brother Lawson shall stay till the pleasure of the Court of Directors is known, to whom a reference will be made. Brother Robinson was gone down the river, and was on board a ship bound to Java when the order was issued; he therefore got out without hearing of it, but I understand it will be sent thither after him. Jehovah reigneth!
"Since Brother Johns's departure I have tried to ascertain the cause of the severity in Government. I had a long conversation with H. T. Colebrooke, Esq., who has been out of Council but a few months, upon the matter. I cannot learn that Government has any specific dislike to us, but find that ever since the year 1807 the orders of the Court of Directors to send home all Europeans not in the service of Her Majesty or the Company, and who come out without leave of the Directors, have been so peremptory and express that Government cannot now overlook any circumstance which brings such persons to notice. Notwithstanding the general way in which the Court of Directors have worded their orders, I cannot help putting several circumstances together, which make me fear that our Mission was the cause of the enforcement of that general law which forbids Europeans to remain in India without the leave of the Court of Directors.
"Whether Twining's pamphlet excited the alarm, or was only an echo of the minds of a number of men hostile to religion, I cannot say, but if I recollect dates aright the orders of the Court of Directors came as soon as possible after that pamphlet was published; and as it would have been too barefaced to have given a specific order to send home missionaries, they founded their orders on an unjust and wicked clause in the charter, and so enforced it that it should effectually operate on missionaries.
"I hope the friends of religion will persevere in the use of all peaceful and lawful means to prevail on the legislature to expunge that clause, or so to modify it that ministers of the Gospel may have leave to preach, form and visit churches, and perform the various duties of their office without molestation, and that they may have a right to settle in and travel over any part of India for that purpose. Nothing can be more just than this wish, and nothing would be more politic than for it to be granted; for every one converted from among the heathen is from that time a staunch friend of the English Government. Our necks have, however, been more or less under the yoke ever since that year, and preaching the Gospel stands in much the same political light as committing an act of felony. Witness what has been done to Mr. Thompson, the five American brethren, and our three brethren. Mr. Thomason, the clergyman, has likewise hard work to stand his ground.
"I trust, however, it is too late to eradicate the Gospel from Bengal. The number of those born in the country who preach the Word is now very considerable. Fifteen of this description preach constantly, and seven or eight more occasionally exhort their countrymen, besides our European brethren. The Gospel is stationed at eighteen or twenty stations belonging to our Mission alone, and at several of them there are churches. The Bible is either translated or under translation into twenty-four of the languages of the East, eighteen of which we are employed about, besides printing most of the others. Thirteen out of these eighteen are now in the press, including a third edition of the Bengali New Testament. Indeed, so great is the demand for Bibles that though we have eight presses constantly at work I fear we shall not have a Bengali New Testament to sell or give away for the next twelve months, the old edition being entirely out of print. We shall be in almost the same predicament with the Hindostani. We are going to set up two more presses, which we can get made in Calcutta, and are going to send another to Rangoon. In short, though the publishing of the Word of God is a political crime, there never was a time when it was so successful. 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.'
"Through divine mercy we are all well, and live in peace and love. A small cloud which threatened at the time Brother Johns left us has mercifully blown over, and we are now in the utmost harmony. I will, if possible, write to my nephew Eustace by these ships, but I am so pressed for time that I can never promise to write a letter. The Lord has so blessed us that we are now printing in more languages than we could do before the fire took place.
"Give my love to Eustace, also to all who recollect or think of me. I am now near fifty-two years of age; yet through mercy I am well and am enabled to keep close to work twelve or fourteen hours a day. I hope to see the Bible printed in most of the languages in which it is begun.—I am, very affectionately yours, WM. CAREY."
Carey had previously written thus to Fuller:—"The fault lies in the clause which gives the Company power thus to send home interlopers, and is just as reasonable as one which should forbid all the people in England—a select few excepted—to look at the moon. I hope this clause will be modified or expunged in the new charter. The prohibition is wrong, and nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right."
It was left to the charter of 1853 fully to liberalise the Company, but each step was taken too late to save it from the nemesis of 1857 and extinction in 1858. "Let no man think," Wilberforce had said to the House of Commons in 1813, "that the petitions which have loaded our table have been produced by a burst of momentary enthusiasm. While the sun and moon continue to shine in the firmament so long will this object be pursued with unabated ardour until the great work be accomplished."
The opposition of Anglo-Indian officials and lawyers, which vainly used no better weapons than such as Mr. Prendergast and his "tub" fabrication, had been anticipated and encouraged by the Edinburgh Review. That periodical was at the height of its influence in 1808, the year before John Murray's Quarterly was first published. The Rev. Sydney Smith, as the literary and professional representative of what he delighted to call "the cause of rational religion," was the foe of every form of earnest Christianity, which he joined the mob in stigmatising as "Methodism." He was not unacquainted with Indian politics, for his equally clever brother, known as Bobus Smith, was long Advocate-General in Calcutta, and left a very considerable fortune made there to enrich the last six years of the Canon's life. Casting about for a subject on which to exercise at once his animosity and his fun, he found it in the Periodical Accounts, wherein Fuller had undoubtedly too often published letters and passages of journals written only for the eye of the private friend. Carey frequently remonstrated against the publicity given to some of his communications, and the fear of this checked his correspondence. In truth, the new-born enthusiasm was such that, at first, the Committee kept nothing back. It was easy for a litterateur like Sydney Smith in those days to extract passages and to give them such headings as "Brother Carey's Piety at Sea," "Hatred of the Natives to the Gospel." Smith produced an article which, as republished in his collected essays, has a historical value as a test of the bitterness of the hate which the missionary enterprise had to meet in secular literature till the death of Livingstone, Wilson, and Duff opened the eyes of journalism to the facts. In itself it must be read in the light of its author's own criticism of his articles, thus expressed in a letter to Francis Jeffrey, and of the regret that he had written it which, Jeffrey told Dr. Marshman, he lived to utter:—"Never mind; let them" (his articles) "go away with their absurdity unadulterated and pure. If I please, the object for which I write is attained; if I do not, the laughter which follows my error is the only thing which can make me cautious and tremble." But for that picture by himself we should have pronounced Carlyle's drawing of him to be almost as malicious as his own of the Serampore missionaries—"A mass of fat and muscularity, with massive Roman nose, piercing hazel eyes, shrewdness and fun—not humour or even wit—seemingly without soul altogether."
The attack called forth a reply by Mr. Styles so severe that Sydney Smith wrote a rejoinder which began by claiming credit for "rooting out a nest of consecrated cobblers." Sir James Mackintosh, then in Bombay, wrote of a similar assault by Mr. Thomas Twining on the Bible Societies, that it "must excite general indignation. The only measure which he could consistently propose would be the infliction of capital punishment on the crime of preaching or embracing Christianity in India, for almost every inferior degree of persecution is already practised by European or native anti-christians. But it fell to Southey, in the very first number of the Quarterly Review, in April 1809, to deal with the Rev. Sydney Smith, and to defend Carey and the Brotherhood as both deserved. The layman's defence was the more effective for its immediate purpose that he started from the same prejudice as that of the reverend Whig rationalist—"the Wesleyans, the Orthodox dissenters of every description, and the Evangelical churchmen may all be comprehended under the generic name of Methodists. The religion which they preach is not the religion of our fathers, and what they have altered they have made worse." But Southey had himself faith as well as a literary canon higher than that of his opponent who wrote only to "please" his patrons. He saw in these Methodists alone that which he appreciated as the essence of true faith—"that spirit of enthusiasm by which Europe was converted to Christianity they have in some measure revived, and they have removed from Protestantism a part of its reproach." He proceeded to tell how "this Mission, which is represented by its enemies as so dangerous to the British Empire in India, and thereby, according to a logic learnt from Buonaparte, to England also, originated in a man by name William Carey, who till the twenty-fourth year of his age was a working shoemaker. Sectarianism has this main advantage over the Established Church, that its men of ability certainly find their station, and none of its talents are neglected or lost. Carey was a studious and pious man, his faith wrong, his feelings right. He made himself competently versed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He is now probably a far more learned orientalist than any European has ever been before him, and has been appointed Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali at the College of Fort William." Then follow a history of the Mission written in a style worthy of the author of the Life of Nelson, and these statements of the political and the purely missionary questions, which read now almost as predictions:—
"The first step towards winning the natives to our religion is to show them that we have one. This will hardly be done without a visible church. There would be no difficulty in filling up the establishment, however ample; but would the archbishop, bishops, deans, and chapters of Mr. Buchanan's plan do the work of missionaries? Could the Church of England supply missionaries?—where are they to be found among them? In what school for the promulgation of sound and orthodox learning are they trained up? There is ability and there is learning in the Church of England, but its age of fermentation has long been over; and that zeal which for this work is the most needful is, we fear, possessed only by the Methodists...
"Carey and his son have been in Bengal fourteen years, the other brethren only nine; they had all a difficult language to acquire before they could speak to a native, and to preach and argue in it required a thorough and familiar knowledge. Under these circumstances the wonder is, not that they have done so little, but that they have done so much; for it will be found that, even without this difficulty to retard them, no religious opinions have spread more rapidly in the same time, unless there was some remarkable folly or extravagance to recommend them, or some powerful worldly inducement. Their progress will be continually accelerating; the difficulty is at first, as in introducing vaccination into a distant land; when the matter has once taken one subject supplies infection for all around him, and the disease takes root in the country. The husband converts the wife, the son converts the parent, the friend his friend, and every fresh proselyte becomes a missionary in his own neighbourhood. Thus their sphere of influence and of action widens, and the eventual issue of a struggle between truth and falsehood is not to be doubted by those who believe in the former. Other missionaries from other societies have now entered India, and will soon become efficient labourers in their station. From Government all that is asked is toleration for themselves and protection for their converts. The plan which they have laid for their own proceedings is perfectly prudent and unexceptionable, and there is as little fear of their provoking martyrdom as there would be of their shrinking from it, if the cause of God and man require the sacrifice. But the converts ought to be protected from violence, and all cramming with cow-dung prohibited on pain of retaliation with beef-tea.
"Nothing can be more unfair than the manner in which the scoffers and alarmists have represented the missionaries. We, who have thus vindicated them, are neither blind to what is erroneous in their doctrine or ludicrous in their phraseology; but the anti-missionaries cull out from their journals and letters all that is ridiculous sectarian, and trifling; call them fools, madmen, tinkers, Calvinists, and schismatics; and keep out of sight their love of man, and their zeal for God, their self-devotement, their indefatigable industry, and their unequalled learning. These low-born and low-bred mechanics have translated the whole Bible into Bengali, and have by this time printed it. They are printing the New Testament in the Sanskrit, the Orissa, Mahratta, Hindostan, and Guzarat, and translating it into Persic, Telinga, Karnata, Chinese, the language of the Sieks and of the Burmans, and in four of these languages they are going on with the Bible. Extraordinary as this is, it will appear more so when it is remembered that of these men one was originally a shoemaker, another a printer at Hull, and a third the master of a charity-school at Bristol. Only fourteen years have elapsed since Thomas and Carey set foot in India, and in that time have these missionaries acquired this gift of tongues, in fourteen years these low-born, low-bred mechanics have done more towards spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures among the heathen than has been accomplished, or even attempted, by all the princes and potentates of the world—and all the universities and establishments into the bargain.
"Do not think to supersede the Baptist missionaries till you can provide from your own church such men as these, and, it may be added, such women also as their wives."
Soon after the Charter victory had been gained "that fierce and fiery Calvinist," whose dictum Southey adopted, that the question in dispute is not whether the natives shall enjoy toleration, but whether that toleration shall be extended to the teachers of Christianity, Andrew Fuller, entered into rest on the 7th May 1815, at the age of sixty-two. Sutcliff of Olney had been the first of the three to be taken away[25] a year before, at the same age. The scholarly Dr. Ryland of Bristol was left alone, and the home management of the Mission passed into the hands of another generation. Up to Fuller's death that management had been almost ideally perfect. In 1812 the Committee had been increased by the addition of nineteen members, to represent the growing interest of the churches in Serampore, and to meet the demand of the "respectable" class who had held aloof at the first, who were eager that the headquarters of so renowned an enterprise should be removed to London. But Fuller prevailed to keep the Society a little longer at Kettering, although he failed to secure as his assistant and successor the one man whose ability, experience, and prudence would have been equal to his own, and have prevented the troubles that followed—Christopher Anderson. As Fuller lay dying, he dictated a letter to Ryland wherein he thus referred to the evangelical doctrine of grace which he had been the one English theologian of his day to defend from the hyper-calvinists, and to use as the foundation of the modern missionary enterprise:—"I have preached and written much against the abuse of the doctrine of grace, but that doctrine is all my salvation and all my desire. I have no other hope than from salvation by mere sovereign, efficacious grace through the atonement of my Lord and Saviour: with this hope I can go into eternity with composure. We have some who have been giving it out of late that if Sutcliff and some others had preached more of Christ and less of Jonathan Edwards they would have been more useful. If those who talk thus had preached Christ half as much as Jonathan Edwards did, and were half as useful as he was, their usefulness would be double what it is. It is very singular that the Mission to the East originated with one of these principles, and without pretending to be a prophet, I may say if it ever falls into the hands of men who talk in this strain (of hyper-calvinism) it will soon come to nothing."
Andrew Fuller was not only the first of Foreign Mission Secretaries; he was a model for all. To him his work was spiritual life, and hence, though the most active preacher and writer of his day, he was like Carey in this, that his working day was twice as long as that of most men, and he could spend half of his time in the frequent journeys all over the kingdom to raise funds, in repeated campaigns in London to secure toleration, and in abundant letters to the missionaries. His relation to the Committee, up to the last, was equally exemplary. In the very earliest missionary organisation in England it is due to him that the line was clearly drawn between the deliberative and judicial function which is that of the members, and the executive which is that of the secretary. Wisdom and efficiency, clearness of perception and promptitude of action, were thus combined. Fuller's, too, was the special merit of realising that, while a missionary committee or church are fellow-workers only with the men and women abroad, the Serampore Brotherhood was a self-supporting, and to that extent a self-governing body in a sense true of no foreign mission ever since. The two triumvirates, moreover, consisted of giants—Carey, Marshman, and Ward abroad; Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland at home. To Carey personally the death of Fuller was more than to any other. For almost the quarter of a century he had kept his vow that he would hold the rope. When Pearce died all too soon there was none whom Carey loved like Fuller, while Fuller's devotion to Carey was all the greater that it was tempered by a wise jealousy for his perfectness. So early as 1797, Fuller wrote thus to the troublesome Fountain:—"It affords us good hope of your being a useful missionary that you seem to love and revere the counsels of Brother Carey. A humble, peaceful, circumspect, disinterested, faithful, peaceable, and zealous conduct like his will render you a blessing to society. Brother Carey is greatly respected and beloved by all denominations here. I will tell you what I have foreborne to tell him lest it should hurt his modesty. Good old Mr. Newton says: 'Mr. Carey has favoured me with a letter, which, indeed, I accept as a favour, and I mean to thank him for it. I trust my heart as cordially unites with him as though I were a brother Baptist myself. I look to such a man with reverence. He is more to me than bishop or archbishop; he is an apostle. May the Lord make all who undertake missions like-minded with Brother Carey!'" As the home administrator, no less than as the theological controversialist, Andrew Fuller stands only second to William Carey, the founder of Modern English Missions.
Fuller's last letter to Carey forms the best introduction to the little which it is here necessary to record of the action of the Baptist Missionary Society when under the secretaryship of the Rev. John Dyer. Mr. John Marshman, C.S.I., has written the detailed history of that controversy not only with filial duty, but with a forgiving charity which excites our admiration for one who suffered more from it than all his predecessors in the Brotherhood, of which he was the last representative. The Society has long since ceased to approve of that period. Its opinion has become that of Mr. Marshman, to which a careful perusal of all the documents both in Serampore and England has led us—"Had it been possible to create a dozen establishments like that of Serampore, each raising and managing its own funds, and connected with the Society as the centre of unity in a common cause, it ought to have been a subject of congratulation and not of regret." The whole policy of every missionary church and society is now and has long been directed to creating self-supporting and self-propagating missions, like Serampore, that the regions beyond may be evangelised—whether these be colleges of catechumens and inquirers, like those of Duff and Wilson, Hislop and Dr. Miller in India, and of Govan and Dr. Stewart in Lovedale, Kafraria; or the indigenous churches of the West Indies, West Africa, the Pacific Ocean, and Burma. To us the long and bitter dispute is now of value only in so far as it brings out in Christ-like relief the personality of William Carey.
At the close of 1814 Dr. Carey had asked Fuller to pay £50 a year to his father, then in his eightieth year, and £20 to his (step) mother if she survived the old man. Protesting that an engraving of his portrait had been published in violation of the agreement which he had made with the artist, he agreed to the wish of each of his relatives for a copy. To these requests Fuller had replied:—"You should not insist on these things being charged to you, nor yet your father's £50, nor the books, nor anything necessary to make you comfortable, unless it be to be paid out of what you would otherwise give to the mission. To insist on their being paid out of your private property seems to be dictated by resentment. It is thus we express our indignation when we have an avaricious man to deal with."
The first act of the Committee, after Fuller's funeral, led Dr. Ryland to express to Carey his unbounded fears for the future. There were two difficulties. The new men raised the first question, in what sense the Serampore property belonged to the Society? They then proceeded to show how they would answer it, by appointing the son of Samuel Pearce to Serampore as Mr. Ward's assistant. On both sides of their independence, as trustees of the property which they had created and gifted to the Society on this condition, and as a self-supporting, self-elective brotherhood, it became necessary, for the unbroken peace of the mission and the success of their work, that they should vindicate their moral and legal position. The correspondence fell chiefly to Dr. Marshman. Ward and he successively visited England, to which the controversy was transferred, with occasional references to Dr. Carey in Serampore. All Scotland, led by Christopher Anderson, Chalmers, and the Haldanes—all England, except the Dyer faction and Robert Hall for a time, among the Baptists, and nearly all America, held with the Serampore men; but their ever-extending operations were checked by the uncertainty, and their hearts were nearly broken. The junior missionaries in India formed a separate union and congregation by themselves in Calcutta, paid by the Society, though professing to carry out the organisation of the Serampore Brotherhood in other respects. The Committee's controversy lasted sixteen years, and was closed in 1830, after Ward's death, by Carey and Marshman drawing up a new trust-deed, in which, having vindicated their position, the old men made over properties which had cost them £7800 to eleven trustees in England, stipulating only that they should occupy them rent free till death, and that their colleagues—who were John Marshman and John Mack, of Edinburgh University—might continue in them for three years thereafter, paying rent to the Society. Such self-sacrifice would be pronounced heroic, but it was only the outcome of a life of self-devotion, marked by the spirit of Him who spake the Sermon on the Mount, and said to the first missionaries He sent forth:—"Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves." The story is completed by the fact that John Marshman, on his father's death, again paid the price of as much of the property as the Hoogli had not swallowed up when the Committee were about to put it in the market.
Such was Dr. Carey's position in the Christian world that the Dyer party considered it important for their interest to separate him from his colleagues, and if not to claim his influence for their side, at least to neutralise it. By trying to hold up Dr. Marshman to odium, they roused the righteous indignation of Carey, while outraging his sense of justice by their blows at the independence of the Brotherhood. Dr. Marshman, when in England, met this course by frankly printing the whole private correspondence of Carey on the subject of the property, or thirty-two letters ranging from the year 1815 to 1828. One of the earliest of these is to Mr. Dyer, who had so far forgotten himself as to ask Dr. Carey to write home, alone, his opinion of his "elder brethren," and particularly of Dr. Marshman. The answer, covering eleven octavo pages of small type, is a model for all controversialists, and especially for any whom duty compels to rebuke the minister who has failed to learn the charity which envieth not. We reproduce the principal passages, and the later letters to Christopher Anderson and his son Jabez, revealing the nobleness of Carey and the inner life of the Brotherhood:—
"SERAMPORE, 15th July 1819.
"MY DEAR BROTHER—I am sorry you addressed your letter of January the 9th to me alone, because it places me in a most awkward situation, as it respects my elder brethren, with whom I have acted in concert for the last nineteen years, with as great a share of satisfaction and pleasure as could reasonably be expected from a connection with imperfect creatures, and whom I am thereby called to condemn contrary to my convictions, or to justify at the expense of their accusers. It also places me in a disagreeable situation as it respects my younger brethren, whom I highly respect as Christians; but whose whole conduct, as it respects the late unhappy differences, has been such as makes it impossible for me to do otherwise than condemn it...
"You ask, 'Is there no ground for the charges of profusion, etc., preferred against Brother Marshman?' Brother Marshman has always been ardently engaged in promoting the cause of God in India, and, being of a very active mind, has generally been chosen by us to draw up our Reports, to write many of our public letters, to draw up plans for promoting the objects of the mission, founding and managing schools, raising subscriptions, and other things of a like nature; so that he has taken a more active part than Brother Ward or myself in these public acts of the mission. These things placed him in the foreground, and it has been no uncommon thing for him to bear the blame of those acts which equally belong to Brother Ward and myself, merely because he was the instrument employed in performing them.
"The charge of profusion brought against Dr. Marshman is more extensive than you have stated in your letter. He is charged with having his house superbly furnished, with keeping several vehicles for the use of his family, and with labouring to aggrandise and bring them into public notice to a culpable extent. The whole business of furniture, internal economy, etc., of the Serampore station, must exclusively belong to ourselves, and I confess I think the question about it an unlovely one. Some person, we know not whom, told some one, we know not whom, 'that he had been often at Lord Hastings's table, but that Brother Marshman's table far exceeded his.' I have also often been at Lord Hastings's table (I mean his private table), and I do therefore most positively deny the truth of the assertion; though I confess there is much domestic plainness at the table of the Governor-General of India (though nothing of meanness; on the contrary, everything is marked with a dignified simplicity). I suspect the informant never was at Lord Hastings's table, or he could have not been guilty of such misrepresentation. Lord Hastings's table costs more in one day than Brother Marshman's in ten.
"The following statement may explain the whole business of Brother Marshman's furniture, etc., which you have all been so puzzled to account for, and have certainly accounted for in a way that is not the true one. We have, you know, a very large school, perhaps the largest in India. In this school are children of persons of the first rank in the country. The parents or guardians of these children frequently call at the Mission-house, and common propriety requires that they should be respectfully received, and invited to take a breakfast or dinner, and sometimes to continue there a day or two. It is natural that persons who visit the Mission-house upon business superintended by Brother Marshman should be entertained at his house rather than elsewhere. Till within the last four or five years we had no particular arrangement for the accommodation of visitors who came to see us; but as those who visited us on business were entertained at Brother Marshman's, it appeared to be the most eligible method to provide for the entertainment of other visitors there also; but at that time Brother Marshman had not a decent table for persons of the above description to sit down to. We, therefore, voted him a sum to enable him to provide such articles as were necessary to entertain them with decency; and I am not aware that he has been profuse, or that he has provided anything not called for by the rules of propriety. I have no doubt but Brother Ward can enumerate and describe all these articles of furniture. It is, however, evident that you must be very imperfect judges of their necessity, unless you could at the same time form a just estimate of the circumstances in which we stand. It ought also to be considered that all these articles are public property, and always convertible into their full value in cash. I hope, however, that things are not yet come to that pass, that a man who, with his wife, has for nineteen or twenty years laboured night and day for the mission, who by their labour disinterestedly contribute between 2000 and 3000 rupees monthly to it, and who have made sacrifices which, if others have not seen, Brother Ward and I have,—sacrifices which ought to put to the blush all his accusers, who, notwithstanding their cries against him, have not only supported themselves, but also have set themselves up in a lucrative business at the Society's expense; and who, even to this day, though they have two prosperous schools, and a profitable printing-office, continue to receive their monthly allowance, amounting (including Miss Chaffin's) to 700 rupees a month from the Society; I feel indignant at their outcry on the subject of expense, and I say, merely as a contrast to their conduct, So did not Brother Marshman. Surely things are not come to that pass, that he or any other brother must give an account to the Society of every plate he uses, and every loaf he cuts.
"Till a very few years ago we had no vehicle except a single horse chaise for me to go backwards and forwards to Calcutta. That was necessarily kept on the opposite side of the river; and if the strength of the horse would have borne it, could not have been used for the purposes of health. Sister Marshman was seized with a disease of the liver, a disease which proves fatal in three cases out of four. Sister Ward was ill of the same disorder, and both of them underwent a long course of mercurial treatment, as is usual in that disease. Exercise was considered by the physicians as of the first importance, and we certainly thought no expense too great to save the valuable lives of our sisters. A single horse chaise, and an open palanquin, called a Tonjon, were procured. I never ride out for health; but usually spend an hour or two, morning and evening, in the garden. Sister Ward was necessitated to visit England for hers. Brother Ward had a saddle horse presented to him by a friend. My wife has a small carriage drawn by a man. These vehicles were therefore almost exclusively used by Brother Marshman's family. When our brethren arrived from England they did not fail to put this equipage into the account against Brother Marshman. They now keep three single horse chaises, besides palanquins; but we do not think they keep more than are necessary.
"Brother Marshman retains for the school a French master, a music master, and a drawing master. The expenses of these are amply repaid by the school, but Brother Marshman's children, and all those belonging to the family, have the advantage of their instructions. Brother Marshman's children are, however, the most numerous, and envy has not failed to charge him with having retained them all for the sake of his own children. Surely a man's caring for his family's health and his children's education is, if a crime, a venial one, and ought not to be held up to blacken his reputation. Brother Marshman is no more perfect than other men, partakers like him of the grace of God. His natural bias and habits are his own, and differ as much from those of other men as theirs differ from one another. I do not deny that he has an inclination to display his children to advantage. This, however, is a foible which most fond parents will be inclined to pardon. I wish I had half his piety, energy of mind, and zeal for the cause of God. These excellencies, in my opinion, so far overbalance all his defects that I am constrained to consider him a Christian far above the common run. I must now close this defence of Brother Marshman by repeating that all matters of furniture, convenience, etc., are things belonging to the economy of the station at Serampore, and that no one beside ourselves has the smallest right to interfere therewith. The Calcutta brethren are now acting on the same principle, and would certainly repel with indignation any attempt made by us to regulate their affairs.
"I have said that 'I never ride out for the sake of health'; and it may therefore be inquired, 'Why are vehicles, etc., for the purpose of health more necessary for the other members of the family than for you?' I reply that my health is in general good, and probably much benefited by a journey to and from Calcutta two or three times a week. I have also a great fondness for natural science, particularly botany and horticulture. These, therefore, furnish not only exercise, but amusement for me. These amusements of mine are not, however, enjoyed without expense, any more than those of my brethren, and were it not convenient for Brother Marshman's accusers to make a stepping-stone of me, I have no doubt but my collection of plants, aviary, and museum, would be equally impeached as articles of luxury and lawless expenses; though, except the garden, the whole of these expenses are borne by myself.
"John Marshman is admitted a member of the union, but he had for some time previously thereto been a member of the church. I perceive plainly that all your objections to him have been excited by the statements of the Calcutta brethren, which you certainly ought to receive with much caution in all things which regard Bother Marshman and his family. You observe that the younger brethren especially look up to me with respect and affection. It may be so; but I confess I have frequently thought that, had it been so, they would have consulted me, or at least have mentioned to me the grounds of their dissatisfaction before they proceeded to the extremity of dividing the mission. When I engaged in the mission, it was a determination that, whatever I suffered, a breach therein should never originate with me. To this resolution I have hitherto obstinately adhered. I think everything should be borne, every sacrifice made, and every method of accommodation or reconciliation tried, before a schism is suffered to take place...
"I disapprove as much of the conduct of our Calcutta brethren as it is possible for me to disapprove of any human actions. The evil they have done is, I fear, irreparable; and certainly the whole might have been prevented by a little frank conversation with either of us; and a hundredth part of that self-denial which I found it necessary to exercise for the first few years of the mission, would have prevented this awful rupture. I trust you will excuse my warmth of feeling upon this subject, when you consider that by this rupture that cause is weakened and disgraced, in the establishment and promotion of which I have spent the best part of my life. A church is attempted to be torn in pieces, for which neither I nor my brethren ever thought we could do enough. We laboured to raise it: we expended much money to accomplish that object; and in a good measure saw the object of our desire accomplished. But now we are traduced, and the church rent by the very men who came to be our helpers. As to Brother Marshman, seriously, what do they want? Would they attempt to deny his possessing the grace of God? He was known to and esteemed by Brother Ryland as a Christian before he left England. I have lived with him ever since his arrival in India, and can witness to his piety and holy conduct. Would they exclude him from the mission? Judge yourself whether it is comely that a man, who has laboriously and disinterestedly served the mission so many years—who has by his diligence and hard labour raised the most respectable school in India, as well as given a tone to all the others—who has unvaryingly consecrated the whole of that income, as well as his other labours, to the cause of God in India,—should be arraigned and condemned without a hearing by a few young men just arrived, and one of whom had not been a month in the country before he joined the senseless outcry? Or would they have his blood? Judge, my dear brother, yourself, for I am ashamed to say more on this subject.
"I need not say that circumstances must in a great measure determine where missionaries should settle. The chief town of each of these countries would be preferable, if other circumstances permit; but sometimes Government would not allow this, and sometimes other things may close the door. Missionaries however must knock loud and push hard at the door, and if there be the smallest opening, must force themselves in; and, once entered, put their lives in their hands and exert themselves to the utmost in dependence upon divine support, if they ever hope to do much towards evangelising the heathen world. My situation in the college, and Brother Marshman's as superintending the first academy in India, which, I likewise observe, has been established and brought to its present flourishing state wholly by his care and application, have made our present situation widely different from what it was when first engaged in the mission. As a missionary I could go in a straw hat and dine with the judge of the district, and often did so; but as a Professor in the College I cannot do so. Brother Marshman is placed in the same predicament. These circumstances impose upon us a necessity of making a different appearance to what we formerly did as simple missionaries; but they furnish us with opportunities of speaking to gentlemen of the first power and influence in government, upon matters of the highest importance to the great work in which we are engaged; and, as a proof that our opportunities of this nature have not been in vain, I need only say that, in a conversation which I had some time ago with one of the secretaries to Government, upon the present favourable bias of government and the public in general to favour all plans for doing good, he told me that he believed the whole was owing to the prudent and temperate manner in which we had acted; and that if we had acted with precipitancy and indiscretion, he had every reason to believe the general feeling would have been as hostile to attempts to do good as it is now favourable to them.
"I would not wish you to entertain the idea that we and our brethren in Calcutta are resolved upon interminable hatred. On the contrary, I think that things are gone as far as we may expect them to go; and I now expect that the fire of contention will gradually go out. All the distressing and disagreeable circumstances are, I trust, past; and I expect we shall be in a little time on a more friendly footing. Much of what has taken place originated in England. Mistakes and false conclusions were followed by all the circumstances I have detailed. I think the whole virulence of opposition has now spent itself. Our brethren have no control over us, nor we over them. And, if I am not mistaken, each side will soon acknowledge that it has gone too far in some instances; and ultimate good will arise from the evil I so much deplore.
"Having now written to you my whole sentiments upon the business, and formerly to my very dear Brother Ryland, allow me to declare my resolution not to write anything further upon the subject, however much I may be pressed thereto. The future prosperity of the mission does not depend upon the clearing up of every little circumstance to the satisfaction of every captious inquirer, but upon the restoration of mutual concord among us, which must be preceded by admitting that we are all subject to mistake, and to be misled by passion, prejudice, and false judgment. Let us therefore strive and pray that the things which make for peace and those by which we may edify one another may abound among us more and more. I am, my dear brother, very affectionately, yours in our Lord Jesus Christ, W. CAREY."
"14th May 1828.
"MY DEAR BROTHER ANDERSON—Yours by the Louisa, of October last, came to hand a few days ago with the copies of Brother Marshman's brief Memoir of the Serampore Mission. I am glad it is written in so temperate and Christian a spirit, and I doubt not but it will be ultimately productive of good effects. There certainly is a great contrast between the spirit in which that piece is written and that in which observations upon it, both in the Baptist and Particular Baptist Magazines, are written. The unworthy attempts in those and other such like pieces to separate Brother Marshman and me are truly contemptible. In plain English, they amount to thus much—'The Serampore Missionaries, Carey, Marshman, and Ward, have acted a dishonest part, alias are rogues. But we do not include Dr. Carey in the charge of dishonesty; he is an easy sort of a man, who will agree to anything for the sake of peace, or in other words, he is a fool. Mr. Ward, it is well known,' say they, 'was the tool of Dr. Marshman, but he is gone from the present scene, and it is unlovely to say any evil of the dead.' Now I certainly hold those persons' exemption of me from the blame they attach to Brother Marshman in the greatest possible contempt. I may have subscribed my name thoughtlessly to papers, and it would be wonderful if there had been no instance of this in so long a course of years. The great esteem I had for the Society for many years, undoubtedly on more occasions than one put me off my guard, and I believe my brethren too; so that we have signed writings which, if we could have foreseen the events of a few years, we should not have done. These, however, were all against our own private interest, and I believe I have never been called an easy fool for signing of them. It has only been since we found it necessary to resist the claims of the Committee that I have risen to this honour.
"It has also been hinted that I intend to separate from Brother Marshman. I cannot tell upon what such hints or reports are founded, but I assure you, in the most explicit manner, that I intend to continue connected with him and Serampore as long as I live; unless I should be separated from him by some unforeseen stroke of Providence. There may be modifications of our union, arising from circumstances; but it is my wish that it should remain in all things essential to the mission as long as I live.
"I rejoice to say that there is very little of that spirit of hostility which prevails in England in India, and I trust what still remains will gradually decrease till scarcely the remembrance of it will continue. Our stations, I mean those connected with Serampore, are of great importance, and some of them in a flourishing state. We will do all we can to maintain them, and I hope the friends to the cause of God in Britain will not suffer them to sink for want of that pecuniary help which is necessary. Indeed I hope we shall be assisted in attempting other stations beside those already occupied; and many such stations present themselves to my mind which nothing prevents being immediately occupied but want of men and money. The college will also require assistance, and I hope will not be without it; I anticipate the time when its salutary operation in the cause of God in India will be felt and acknowledged by all.
"These observations respecting my own conduct you are at liberty to use as you please. I hope now to take my final leave of this unpleasant subject, and have just room to say that I am very affectionately yours, W. CAREY."
Throughout the controversy thus forced upon him, we find Dr. Carey's references, in his unpublished letters to the brethren in Calcutta, all in the strain of the following to his son Jabez:—
"15th August 1820.—This week we received letters from Mr. Marshman, who had safely arrived at St. Helena. I am sure it will give you pleasure to learn that our long-continued dispute with the younger brethren in Calcutta is now settled. We met together for that purpose about three weeks ago, and after each side giving up some trifling ideas and expressions, came to a reconciliation, which, I pray God, may be lasting. Nothing I ever met with in my life—and I have met with many distressing things—ever preyed so much upon my spirits as this difference has. I am sure that in all disputes very many wrong things must take place on both sides for which both parties ought to be humbled before God and one another.
"I wish you could succeed in setting up a few more schools...Consider that and the spread of the gospel as the great objects of your life, and try to promote them by all the wise and prudent methods in your power. Indeed we must always venture something for the sake of doing good. The cause of our Lord Jesus Christ continues to prosper with us. I have several persons now coming in who are inquirers; two or three of them, I hope, will be this evening received into the Church. Excuse my saying more as my room is full of people."
Eight years after, on the 17th April 1828, he thus censured Jabez in the matter of the Society's action at home:—"From a letter of yours to Jonathan, in which you express a very indecent pleasure at the opposition which Brother Marshman has received, not by the Society but by some anonymous writer in a magazine, I perceive you are informed of the separation which has taken place between them and us. What in that anonymous piece you call a 'set-down' I call a 'falsehood.' You ought to know that I was a party in all public acts and writings, and that I never intend to withdraw from all the responsibility connected therewith. I utterly despise all the creeping, mean assertions of that party when they say they do not include me in their censures, nor do I work for their praise. According to their and according to your rejoicing...I am either a knave or a fool—a knave if I joined with Brother Marshman; but if, as those gentlemen say, and as you seem to agree with them, I was only led as he pleased, and was a mere cat's-paw, then of course I am a fool. In either way your thoughts are not very high as it respects me. I do not wonder that Jonathan should express himself unguardedly; his family connection with Mr. Pearce sufficiently accounts for that. We have long been attacked in this country—first by Mr. Adam,[26] and afterwards by Dr. Bryce.[27] Bryce is now silenced by two or three pieces by John Marshman in his own newspaper, the John Bull; and as to some of the tissues of falsehood published in England, I shall certainly never reply to them, and I hope no one else will. That cause must be bad which needs such means to support it. I believe God will bring forth our righteousness as the noonday."
On the 12th July 1828 the father again writes to his son Jabez thus:—"Your apologies about Brother Marshman are undoubtedly the best you can offer. I should be sorry to harbour hostile sentiments against any man on the earth upon grounds so slight. Indeed, were all you say matter of fact you ought to forgive it as God for Christ's sake forgives us. We are required to lay aside all envy and strife and animosities, to forgive each other mutually and to love one another with a pure heart fervently. 'Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not.'"
A college the fourth and perfecting corner-stone of the mission—Carey on the importance of English in 1800—Anticipates Duff's policy of undermining Brahmanism—New educational era begun by the charter of 1813 and Lord Hastings—Plan of the Serampore College in 1818—Anticipates the Anglo-Orientalism of the Punjab University—The building described by John Marshman—Bishop Middleton follows—The Scottish and other colleges—Action of the Danish Government—The royal charter—Visit of Maharaja Serfojee—Death of Ward, Charles Grant and Bentley—Bishop Heber and his catholic letter—Dr. Carey's reply—Progress of the college—Cause of its foundation—The college directly and essentially a missionary undertaking—Action of the Brotherhood from the first vindicated—Carey appeals to posterity—The college and the systematic study of English—Carey author of the Grant in Aid system—Economy in administering missions—The Serampore Mission has eighteen stations and fifty missionaries of all kinds—Subsequent history of the Serampore College to 1883.
The first act of Carey and Marshman when their Committee took up a position of hostility to their self-denying independence, was to complete and perpetuate the mission by a college. As planned by Carey in 1793, the constitution had founded the enterprise on these three corner-stones—preaching the Gospel in the mother tongue of the people; translating the Bible into all the languages of Southern and Eastern Asia; teaching the young, both heathen and Christian, both boys and girls, in vernacular schools. But Carey had not been a year in Serampore when, having built well on all three, he began to see that a fourth must be laid some day in the shape of a college. He and his colleagues had founded and supervised, by the year 1818, no fewer than 126 native schools, containing some 10,000 boys, of whom more than 7000 were in and around Serampore. His work among the pundit class, both in Serampore and in the college of Fort William, and the facilities in the mission-house for training natives, Eurasians, and the missionaries' sons to be preachers, translators, and teachers, seemed to meet the immediate want. But as every year the mission in all its forms grew and the experience of its leaders developed, the necessity of creating a college staff in a building adapted to the purpose became more urgent. Only thus could the otherwise educated natives be reached, and the Brahmanical class especially be permanently influenced. Only thus could a theological institute be satisfactorily conducted to feed the native Church.
On 10th October 1800 the missionaries had thus written home:—"There appears to be a favourable change in the general temper of the people. Commerce has roused new thoughts and awakened new energies; so that hundreds, if we could skilfully teach them gratis, would crowd to learn the English language. We hope this may be in our power some time, and may be a happy means of diffusing the gospel. At present our hands are quite full." A month after that Carey wrote to Fuller:—"I have long thought whether it would not be desirable for us to set up a school to teach the natives English. I doubt not but a thousand scholars would come. I do not say this because I think it an object to teach them the English tongue; but, query, is not the universal inclination of the Bengalees to learn English a favourable circumstance which may be improved to valuable ends? I only hesitate at the expense." Thirty years after Duff reasoned in the same way, after consulting Carey, and acted at once in Calcutta.
By 1816, when, on 25th June, Carey wrote a letter, for his colleagues and himself, to the Board of the American Baptist General Convention, the great idea, destined slowly to revolutionise not only India, but China, Japan, and the farther East, had taken this form:—
"We know not what your immediate expectations are relative to the Burman empire, but we hope your views are not confined to the immediate conversion of the natives by the preaching of the Word. Could a church of converted natives be obtained at Rangoon, it might exist for a while, and be scattered, or perish for want of additions. From all we have seen hitherto we are ready to think that the dispensations of Providence point to labours that may operate, indeed, more slowly on the population, but more effectually in the end: as knowledge, once put into fermentation, will not only influence the part where it is first deposited, but leaven the whole lump. The slow progress of conversion in such a mode of teaching the natives may not be so encouraging, and may require, in all, more faith and patience; but it appears to have been the process of things, in the progress of the Reformation, during the reigns of Henry, Edward, Elizabeth, James, and Charles. And should the work of evangelising India be thus slow and silently progressive, which, however, considering the age of the world, is not perhaps very likely, still the grand result will amply recompense us, and you, for all our toils. We are sure to take the fortress, if we can but persuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. 'We shall reap if we faint not.'
"And then, very dear brethren, when it shall be said of the seat of our labours, the infamous swinging-post is no longer erected; the widow burns no more on the funeral pile; the obscene dances and songs are seen and heard no more; the gods are thrown to the moles and to the bats, and Jesus is known as the God of the whole land; the poor Hindoo goes no more to the Ganges to be washed from his filthiness, but to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness; the temples are forsaken; the crowds say, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord, and He shall teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His statutes;' the anxious Hindoos no more consume their property, their strength, and their lives, in vain pilgrimages, but they come at once to Him who can save to 'the uttermost'; the sick and the dying are no more dragged to the Ganges, but look to the Lamb of God, and commit their souls into His faithful hands; the children, no more sacrificed to idols, are become 'the seed of the Lord, that He may be glorified'; the public morals are improved; the language of Canaan is learnt; benevolent societies are formed; civilisation and salvation walk arm in arm together; the desert blossoms; the earth yields her increase; angels and glorified spirits hover with joy over India, and carry ten thousand messages of love from the Lamb in the midst of the throne; and redeemed souls from the different villages, towns, and cities of this immense country, constantly add to the number, and swell the chorus of the redeemed, 'Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, unto HIM be the glory;'—when this grand result of the labours of God's servants in India shall be realised, shall we then think that we have laboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought? Surely not. Well, the decree is gone forth! 'My word shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it.'"
India was being prepared for the new missionary policy. On what we may call its literary side Carey had been long busy. On its more strictly educational side, the charter of 1813 had conceded what had been demanded in vain by a too feeble public opinion in the charter of 1793. A clause was inserted at the last moment declaring that a sum of not less than a lakh of rupees (or ten thousand pounds) a year was to be set apart from the surplus revenues, and applied to the revival and improvement of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories there. The clause was prompted by an Anglo-Indian of oriental tastes, who hoped that the Brahman and his Veda might thus be made too strong for the Christian missionary and the Bible as at last tolerated under the 13th resolution. For this reason, and because the money was to be paid only out of any surplus, the directors and their friends offered no opposition. For the quarter of a century the grant was given, and was applied in the spirit of its proposer. But the scandals of its application became such that it was made legally by Bentinck and Macaulay, and practically by Duff, the fountain of a river of knowledge and life which is flooding the East.
The first result of the liberalism of the charter of 1813 and the generous views of Lord Hastings was the establishment in Calcutta by the Hindoos themselves, under the influence of English secularists, of the Hindoo, now the Presidency College. Carey and Marshman were not in Calcutta, otherwise they must have realised even then what they left to Duff to act on fourteen years after, the importance of English not only as an educating but as a Christianising instrument. But though not so well adapted to the immediate need of the reformation which they had begun, and though not applied to the very heart of Bengal in Calcutta, the prospectus of their "College for the Instruction of Asiatic, Christian, and Other Youth in Eastern Literature and European Science," which they published on the 15th July 1818, sketched a more perfect and complete system than any since attempted, if we except John Wilson's almost unsupported effort in Bombay. It embraced the classical or learned languages of the Hindoos and Mohammedans, Sanskrit and Arabic; the English language and literature, to enable the senior students "to dive into the deepest recesses of European science, and enrich their own language with its choicest treasures"; the preparation of manuals of science, philosophy, and history in the learned and vernacular languages of the East; a normal department to train native teachers and professors; as the crown of all, a theological institute to equip the Eurasian and native Christian students, by a quite unsectarian course of study, in apologetics, exegetics, and the Bible languages, to be missionaries to the Brahmanical classes. While the Government and the Scottish missionaries have in the university and grant in aid systems since followed too exclusively the English line, happily supplanting the extreme Orientalists, it is the glory of the Serampore Brotherhood that they sought to apply both the Oriental and the European, the one as the form, the other as the substance, so as to evangelise and civilise the people through their mother tongue. They were the Vernacularists in the famous controversy between the Orientalists and the Anglicists raised by Duff. In 1867 the present writer in vain attempted to induce the University of Calcutta to follow them in this. It was left to Sir Charles Aitchison, when he wielded the power and the influence of the Lieutenant-Governor, to do in 1882 what the Serampore College would have accomplished had its founders been young instead of old men, by establishing the Punjab University.
Lord Hastings and even Sir John Malcolm took a personal interest in the Serampore College. The latter, who had visited the missionaries since his timid evidence before the House of Lords in 1813, wrote to them:—"I wish I could be certain that your successors in the serious task you propose would have as much experience as you and your fellow-labourers at Serampore—that they would walk, not run, in the same path—I would not then have to state one reserve." Lord Hastings in Council passed an order encouraging the establishment of a European Medical Professorship in Serampore College, and engaged to assist in meeting the permanent expense of the chair when established. His Excellency "interrupted pressing avocations" to criticise both the architectural plan of the building and the phraseology of the draft of the first report, and his suggestions were followed. Adopting one of the Grecian orders as most suitable to a tropical climate, the Danish Governor's colleague, Major Wickedie, planned the noble Ionic building which was then, and is still, the finest edifice of the kind in British India.
"The centre building, intended for the public rooms, was a hundred and thirty feet in length, and a hundred and twenty in depth. The hall on the ground floor, supported on arches, and terminated at the south by a bow, was ninety-five feet in length, sixty-six in breadth, and twenty in height. It was originally intended for the library, but is now occupied by the classes. The hall above, of the same dimensions and twenty-six feet in height, was supported by two rows of Ionic columns; it was intended for the annual examinations. Of the twelve side-rooms above and below, eight were of spacious dimensions, twenty-seven feet by thirty-five. The portico which fronted the river was composed of six columns, more than four feet in diameter at the base. The staircase-room was ninety feet in length, twenty-seven in width, and forty-seven in height, with two staircases of cast-iron, of large size and elegant form, prepared at Birmingham. The spacious grounds were surrounded with iron railing, and the front entrance was adorned with a noble gate, likewise cast at Birmingham...
"The scale on which it was proposed to establish the college, and to which the size of the building was necessarily accommodated, corresponded with the breadth of all the other enterprises of the Serampore missionaries,—the mission, the translations, and the schools. While Mr. Ward was engaged in making collections for the support of the institution in England, he wrote to his brethren, 'the buildings you must raise in India;' and they determined to respond to the call, and, if possible, to augment their donation from £2500 to £8000, and to make a vigorous effort to erect the buildings from their own funds. Neither the ungenerous suspicion, nor the charge of unfaithfulness, with which their character was assailed in England, was allowed to slacken the prosecution of this plan. It was while their reputation was under an eclipse in England, and the benevolent hesitated to subscribe to the society till they were assured that their donations would not be mixed up with the funds of the men at Serampore, that those men were engaged in erecting a noble edifice for the promotion of religion and knowledge, at their own cost, the expense of which eventually grew under their hands to the sum of £15,000. To the charge of endeavouring to alienate from the society premises of the value of £3000, their own gift, they replied by erecting a building at five times the cost, and vesting it in eleven trustees,—seven besides themselves. It was thus they vindicated the purity of their motives in their differences with the society, and endeavoured to silence the voice of calumny. They were the first who maintained that a college was an indispensable appendage to an Indian mission."
The next to follow Carey in this was Bishop Middleton, who raised funds to erect a chaste Gothic pile beside the Botanic Garden, since to him the time appeared "to have arrived when it is desirable that some missionary endeavours, at least, should have some connection with the Church establishment." That college no longer exists, in spite of the saintly scholarship of such Principals as Mill and Kay; the building is now utilised as a Government engineering college. But in Calcutta the Duff College, with the General Assembly's Institution (now united as the Scottish Churches College), the Cathedral Mission Divinity School, and the Bhowanipore Institution; in Bombay the Wilson College, in Madras the Christian College, in Nagpoor the Hislop College, in Agra St. John's College, in Lahore the Church Mission Divinity School, in Lucknow the Reid College, and others, bear witness to the fruitfulness of the Alma Mater of Serampore.
The Serampore College began with thirty-seven students, of whom nineteen were native Christians and the rest Hindoos. When the building was occupied in 1821 Carey wrote to his son:—"I pray that the blessing of God may attend it, and that it may be the means of preparing many for an important situation in the Church of God...The King of Denmark has written letters signed with his own hand to Brothers Ward, Marshman, and myself, and has sent each of us a gold medal as a token of his approbation. He has also made over the house in which Major Wickedie resides, between Sarkies's house and ours, to us three in perpetuity for the college. Thus Divine generosity appears for us and supplies our expectations." The missionaries had declined the Order of the Dannebrog. When, in 1826, Dr. Marshman visited Europe, one of his first duties was to acknowledge this gift to Count Moltke, Danish Minister in London and ancestor of the great strategist, and to ask for a royal charter. The Minister and Count Schulin, whose wife had been a warm friend of Mrs. Carey, happened to be on board the steamer in which Dr. Marshman, accompanied by Christopher Anderson, sailed to Copenhagen. Raske, the Orientalist, who had visited Serampore, was a Professor in the University there. The vellum charter was prepared among them, empowering the College Council, consisting of the Governor of Serampore and the Brotherhood, to confer degrees like those of the Universities of Copenhagen and Kiel, but not carrying the rank in the State implied in Danish degrees unless with the sanction of the Crown. The King, in the audience which he gave, informed Dr. Marshman that, having in 1801 promised the mission protection, he had hitherto refused to transfer Serampore to the East India Company, since that would prevent him from keeping his word. When, in 1845, the Company purchased both Tranquebar and Serampore, it could be no longer dangerous to the Christian Mission, but the Treaty expressly provided that the College should retain all its powers, and its Christian character, under the Danish charter, which it does. It was thus the earliest degree-conferring college in Asia, but it has never exercised the power. Christian VIII., then the heir to the throne, showed particular interest in the Bible translation work of Carey. When, in 1884, the Evangelical Alliance held its session in Copenhagen, and was received by Christian IX.,[28] it did well, by special resolution, to express the gratitude of Protestant Christendom to Denmark for such courageous and continued services to the first Christian mission from England to India.
How Dr. Carey valued the gift of the King is seen in this writing, on the lining of the case of the gold medal, dated 6th November 1823:—
"It is my desire that this medal, and the letter of the King of Denmark, which accompanied it, be given at my death to my dear son Jonathan, that he may keep it for my sake."
The letter of King Frederic VI. is as follows:—
"MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR ET PROFESSEUR WILLIAM CAREY—
C'est avec beaucoup d'intérêt que nous avons appris le mérite qu'en qualité de membre dirigeant de la Société de la Mission, vous avez acquis, ainsi que vos co-directeurs, et les effèts salutaires que vos louables travaux ont produits et partout où votre influence a pu atteindre. Particulierement informés qu'en votre dite qualité vous avez contribué a effectuer bien des choses utiles, dont l'établissement à Frédéricsnagore a à se louer, et voulant vous certifier que nous vous en avons gré, nous avons chargé le chef du dit établissement,—notre Lieutenant-Colonel Kraefting, de vous remettre cette lettre; et en même temps une medaille d'or, comme une marque de notre bienveillance et de notre protection, que vous assurera toujours une conduite meritoire.
"Sur ce nous prions Dieu de vous avoir dans Sa sainte et digne garde.—Votre affectionné FREDERIC.
"Copenhague, ce 7 Juin 1820.
"Au Docteur et Professeur WILLIAM CAREY,
Membre dirigeant de la Société de la Mission à Frédéricsnagore."
The new College formed an additional attraction to visitors to the mission. One of these, in 1821, was the Maharaja Serfojee, the prince of Tanjore, whom Schwartz had tended, but who was on pilgrimage to Benares. Hand in hand with Dr. Carey he walked through the missionary workshop, noticed specially the pundits who were busy with translation to which Lord Hastings had directed his attention, and dilated with affectionate enthusiasm on the deeds and the character of the apostle of South India. In 1823 cholera suddenly cut off Mr. Ward in the midst of his labours. The year after that Charles Grant died, leaving a legacy to the mission. Almost his last act had been to write to Carey urging him to publish a reply to the attack of the Abbé Dubois on all Christian missions. Another friend was removed in Bentley, the scholar who put Hindoo astronomy in its right place. Bishop Heber began his too brief episcopate in 1824, when the college, strengthened by the abilities of the Edinburgh professor, John Mack, was accomplishing all that its founders had projected. The Bishop of all good Christian men never penned a finer production—not even his hymns—than this letter, called forth by a copy of the Report on the College sent to him by Dr. Marshman:—
"I have seldom felt more painfully than while reading your appeal on the subject of Serampore College, the unhappy divisions of those who are the servants of the same Great Master! Would to God, my honoured brethren, the time were arrived when not only in heart and hope, but visibly, we shall be one fold, as well as under one shepherd! In the meantime I have arrived, after some serious considerations, at the conclusion that I shall serve our great cause most effectually by doing all which I can for the rising institutions of those with whom my sentiments agree in all things, rather than by forwarding the labours of those from whom, in some important points, I am conscientiously constrained to differ. After all, why do we differ? Surely the leading points which keep us asunder are capable of explanation or of softening, and I am expressing myself in much sincerity of heart—(though, perhaps, according to the customs of the world, I am taking too great a freedom with men my superiors both in age and in talent), that I should think myself happy to be permitted to explain, to the best of my power, those objections which keep you and your brethren divided from that form of church government which I believe to have been instituted by the apostles, and that admission of infants to the Gospel Covenants which seem to me to be founded on the expressions and practice of Christ himself. If I were writing thus to worldly men I know I should expose myself to the imputation of excessive vanity or impertinent intrusion. But of you and Dr. Carey I am far from judging as of worldly men, and I therefore say that, if we are spared to have any future intercourse, it is my desire, if you permit, to discuss with both of you, in the spirit of meekness and conciliation, the points which now divide us, convinced that, if a reunion of our Churches could be effected, the harvest of the heathen would ere long be reaped, and the work of the Lord would advance among them with a celerity of which we have now no experience.
"I trust, at all events, you will take this hasty note as it is intended, and believe me, with much sincerity, your friend and servant in Christ, REGINALD CALCUTTA.
"3rd June 1824."
This is how Carey reciprocated these sentiments, when writing to Dr. Ryland:—
"SERAMPORE, 6th July 1824.
"I rejoice to say that there is the utmost harmony between all the ministers of all denominations. Bishop Heber is a man of liberal principles and catholic spirit. Soon after his arrival in the country he wrote me a very friendly letter, expressing his wish to maintain all the friendship with us which our respective circumstances would allow. I was then confined, but Brother Marshman called on him. As soon as I could walk without crutches I did the same, and had much free conversation with him. Some time after this he wrote us a very friendly letter, saying that it would highly gratify him to meet Brother Marshman and myself, and discuss in a friendly manner all the points of difference between himself and us, adding that there was every reason to expect much good from a calm and temperate discussion of these things, and that, if we could at any rate come so near to each other as to act together, he thought it would have a greater effect upon the spread of the gospel among the heathen than we could calculate upon. He was then just setting out on a visitation which will in all probability take a year. We, however, wrote him a reply accepting his proposal, and Brother Marshman expressed a wish that the discussion might be carried on by letter, to which in his reply he partly consented. I have such a disinclination to writing, and so little leisure for it, that I wished the discussion to be viva voce; it will, however, make little difference, and all I should have to say would be introduced into the letter."
On the death of Mr. Ward and departure of Dr. Marshman for Great Britain on furlough, after twenty-six years' active labours, his son, Mr. John Marshman, was formally taken into the Brotherhood. He united with Dr. Carey in writing to the Committee two letters, dated 21st January 1826 and 15th November 1827, which show the progress of the college and the mission from the first as one independent agency, and closed with Carey's appeal to the judgment of posterity.
"About seven years ago we felt convinced of the necessity of erecting a College for native Christian youth, in order to consolidate our plans for the spread of gospel truth in India; and, as we despaired of being able to raise from public subscriptions a sum equal to the expense of the buildings, we determined to erect them from our own private funds. Up to the present date they have cost us nearly £14,000, and the completion of them will require a further sum of about £5000, which, if we are not enabled to advance from our own purse, the undertaking must remain incomplete. With this burden upon our private funds we find it impossible any longer to meet, to the same extent as formerly, the demands of our out-stations. The time is now arrived when they must cease to be wholly dependent on the private donations of three individuals, and must be placed on the strength of public contributions. As two out of three of the members of our body are now beyond the age of fifty-seven, it becomes our duty to place them on a more permanent footing, as it regards their management, their support, and their increase. We have therefore associated with ourselves, in the superintendence of them, the Rev. Messrs. Mack and Swan, the two present professors of the college, with the view of eventually leaving them entirely in the hands of the body of professors, of whom the constitution of the college provides that there shall be an unbroken succession.
"To secure an increase of missionaries in European habits we have formed a class of theological students in the college, under the Divinity Professor. It contains at present six promising youths, of whose piety we have in some cases undoubted evidence, in others considerable ground for hope. The class will shortly be increased to twelve, but none will be continued in it who do not manifest undeniable piety and devotedness to the cause of missions. As we propose to allow each student to remain on an average four years, we may calculate upon the acquisition of two, and perhaps three, additional labourers annually, who will be eminently fitted for active service in the cause of missions by their natural familiarity with the language and their acquisitions at college. This arrangement will, we trust, secure the speedy accomplishment of the plan we have long cherished, that of placing one missionary in each province in Bengal, and eventually, if means be afforded, in Hindostan.
"As the completion of the buildings requires no public contribution, the sole expense left on the generosity of its friends is that of its existing establishment. Our subscriptions in India, with what we receive as the interest of money raised in Britain and America, average £1000 annually; about £500 more from England would cover every charge, and secure the efficiency of the institution. Nor shall we require this aid beyond a limited period.
"Of the three objects connected with the College, the education of non-resident heathen students, the education of resident Christian students, and the preparation of missionaries from those born in the country, the first is not strictly a missionary object, the two latter are intimately connected with the progress of the good cause. The preparation of missionaries in the country was not so much recommended as enforced by the great expense which attends the despatch of missionaries from Europe. That the number of labourers in this country must be greatly augmented, before the work of evangelising the heathen can be said to have effectively commenced, can admit of no doubt.
"The education of the increasing body of Native Christians likewise, necessarily became a matter of anxiety. Nothing could be more distressing than the prospect of their being more backward in mental pursuits than their heathen neighbours. The planting of the gospel in India is not likely to be accomplished by the exertions of a few missionaries in solitary and barren spots in the country, without the aid of some well-digested plan which may consolidate the missionary enterprise, and provide for the mental and religious cultivation of the converts. If the body of native Christians required an educational system, native ministers, who must gradually take the spiritual conduct of that body, demanded pre-eminent attention. They require a knowledge of the ingenious system they will have to combat, of the scheme of Christian theology they are to teach, and a familiarity with the lights of modern science. We cannot discharge the duty we owe as Christians to India, without some plan for combining in the converts of the new religion, and more especially in its ministers, the highest moral refinement of the Christian character, and the highest attainable progress in the pursuits of the mind.
"During the last ten years of entire independence the missionary cause has received from the product of our labour, in the erection of the college buildings, in the support of stations and schools, and in the printing of tracts, much more than £23,000. The unceasing calumny with which we have been assailed, for what has been called 'our declaration of independence' (which, by the bye, Mr. Fuller approved of our issuing almost with his dying breath), it is beneath us to notice, but it has fully convinced us of the propriety of the step. This calumny is so unreasonable that we confidently appeal from the decision of the present age to the judgment of posterity."
Under Carey, as Professor of Divinity and Lecturer on Botany and Zoology, Mack and John Marshman, with pundits and moulavies, the college grew in public favour, even during Dr. Marshman's absence, while Mrs. Marshman continued to conduct the girls' school and superintend native female education with a vigorous enthusiasm which advancing years did not abate and misrepresentation in England only fed. The difficulties in which Carey found himself had the happy result of forcing him into the position of being the first to establish practically the principle of the Grant in Aid system. Had his Nonconformist successors followed him in this, with the same breadth of view and clear distinction between the duty of aiding the secular education, while giving absolute liberty to the spiritual, the splendid legacy which he left to India would have been both perpetuated and extended. As it is, it was left to his young colleague, John Marshman, and to Dr. Duff, to induce Parliament, by the charter of 1853, and the first Lord Halifax in the Educational Despatch of 1854, to sanction the system of national education for the multifarious classes and races of our Indian subjects, under which secular instruction is aided by the state on impartial terms according to its efficiency, and Christianity delights to take its place, unfettered and certain of victory, with the Brahmanical and aboriginal cults of every kind.
In 1826 Carey, finding that his favourite Benevolent Institution in Calcutta was getting into debt, and required repair, applied to Government for aid. He had previously joined the Marchioness of Hastings in founding the Calcutta School Book and School Society, and had thus been relieved of some of the schools. Government at once paid the debt, repaired the building, and continued to give an annual grant of £240 for many years. John Marshman did not think it necessary, "to defend Dr. Carey from the charge of treason to the principles of dissent in having thus solicited and accepted aid from the state for an educational establishment; the repudiation of that aid is a modern addition to those principles." He tells us that "when conversation happened to turn upon this subject at Serampore, his father was wont to excuse any warmth which his colleague might exhibit by the humorous remark that renegades always fought hardest. There was one question on which the three were equally strenuous—that it was as much the duty of Government to support education as to abstain from patronising missions."
A letter written in 1818 to his son William, then one of the missionaries, shows with what jealous economy the founder of the great modern enterprise managed the early undertakings.
"MY DEAR WILLIAM—Yours of the 3rd instant I have received, and must say that it has filled me with distress. I do not know what the allowance of 200 rupees includes, nor how much is allotted for particular things; but it appears that Rs. 142:2 is expended upon your private expenses, viz., 78:2 on table expenses, and 64 on servants. Now neither Lawson nor Eustace have more than 140 rupees for their allowance, separate from house rent, for which 80 rupees each is allowed, and I believe all the brethren are on that, or a lower allowance, Brother Yates excepted, who chooses for himself. I cannot therefore make an application for more with any face. Indeed we have no power to add or diminish salaries, though the Society would agree to our doing so if we showed good reasons for it. I believe the allowances of the missionaries from the London Society are about the same, or rather less—viz. £200 sterling, or 132 rupees a month, besides extra expenses; so that your income, taking it at 140 rupees a month, is quite equal to that of any other missionary. I may also mention that neither Eustace nor Lawson can do without a buggy, which is not a small expense.
"I suppose the two articles you have mentioned of table expenses and servants include a number of other things; otherwise I cannot imagine how you can go to that expense. When I was at Mudnabati my income was 200 per month, and during the time I stayed there I had saved near 2000 rupees. My table expenses scarcely ever amounted to 50 rupees, and though I kept a moonshi at 20 rupees and four gardeners, yet my servants' wages did not exceed 60 rupees monthly. I kept a horse and a farmyard, and yet my expenses bore no proportion to yours. I merely mention this without any reflection on you, or even a wish to do it; but I sincerely think your expenses upon these two articles are very greater.—I am your affectionate father, W. CAREY."
In 1825 Carey completed his great Dictionary of Bengali and English in three quarto volumes, abridged two years afterwards. No language, not even in Europe, could show a work of such industry, erudition, and philological completeness at that time. Professor H. H. Wilson declared that it must ever be regarded as a standard authority, especially because of its etymological references to the Sanskrit, which supplies more than three-fourths of the words; its full and correct vocabulary of local terms, with which the author's "long domestication amongst the natives" made him familiar, and his unique knowledge of all natural history terms. The first copy which issued from the press he sent to Dr. Ryland, who had passed away at seventy-two, a month before the following letter was written:—
"June 7th, 1825.—On the 17th of August next I shall be sixty-four years of age; and though I feel the enervating influence of the climate, and have lost something of my bodily activity, I labour as closely, and perhaps more so than I have ever done before. My Bengali Dictionary is finished at press. I intend to send you a copy of it by first opportunity, which I request you to accept as a token of my unshaken friendship to you. I am now obliged, in my own defence, to abridge it, and to do it as quickly as possible, to prevent another person from forestalling me and running away with the profits.
"On Lord's day I preached a funeral sermon at Calcutta for one of our deacons, who died very happily; administered the Lords' Supper, and preached again in the evening. It was a dreadfully hot day, and I was much exhausted. Yesterday the rain set in, and the air is somewhat cooled. It is still uncertain whether Brothers Judson and Price are living. There was a report in the newspaper that they were on their way to meet Sir Archibald Campbell with proposals of peace from the Burman king; but no foundation for the report can be traced out. Living or dead they are secure."
On hearing of the death of Dr. Ryland, he wrote:—"There are now in England very few ministers with whom I was acquainted. Fuller, Sutcliff, Pearce, Fawcett, and Ryland, besides many others whom I knew, are gone to glory. My family connections also, those excepted who were children when I left England, or have since that time been born, are all gone, two sisters only excepted. Wherever I look in England I see a vast blank; and were I ever to revisit that dear country I should have an entirely new set of friendships to form. I, however, never intended to return to England when I left it, and unless something very unexpected were to take place I certainly shall not do it. I am fully convinced I should meet with many who would show me the utmost kindness in their power, but my heart is wedded to India, and though I am of little use I feel a pleasure in doing the little I can, and a very high interest in the spiritual good of this vast country, by whose instrumentality soever it is promoted."
By 1829 the divinity faculty of the College had become so valuable a nursery of Eurasian and Native missionaries, and the importance of attracting more of the new generation of educated Hindoos within its influence had become so apparent that Oriental gave place to English literature in the curriculum. Mr. Rowe, as English tutor, took his place in the staff beside Dr. Carey, Dr. Marshman, Mr. Mack, and Mr. John Marshman. Hundreds of native youths flocked to the classes. Such was the faith, such the zeal of Carey, that he continued to add new missions to the ten of which the College was the life-giving centre; so that when he was taken away he left eighteen, under eleven European, thirteen Eurasian, seventeen Bengali, two Hindostani, one Telugoo, and six Arakanese missionaries. When Mr. David Scott, formerly a student of his own in Fort William College, and in 1828 Commissioner of Assam (then recently annexed to the empire), asked for a missionary, Carey's importunity prevailed with his colleagues only when he bound himself to pay half the cost by stinting his personal expenditure. Similarly it was the generous action of Mr. Garrett, when judge of Barisal, that led him to send the best of his Serampore students to found that afterwards famous mission.
Having translated the Gospels into the language of the Khasias in the Assam hills, he determined in 1832 to open a new mission at the village of Cherra, which the Serampore Brotherhood were the first to use as a sanitarium in the hot season. For this he gave up £60 of his Government pension and Mr. Garrett gave a similar sum. He sent another of his students, Mr. Lisk, to found the mission, which prospered until it was transferred to the Welsh Calvinists, who have made it the centre of extensive and successful operations. Thus the influence of his middle age and old age in the Colleges of Fort William and of Serampore combined to make the missionary patriarch the father of two bands—that of the Society and that of the Brotherhood.
Dr. Carey's last report, at the close of 1832, was a defence of what has since been called, and outside of India and of Scotland has too often been misunderstood as, educational missions or Christian Colleges. To a purely divinity college for Asiatic Christians he preferred a divinity faculty as part of an Arts and Science College,[29] in which the converts study side by side with their inquiring countrymen, the inquirers are influenced by them as well as by the Christian teaching and secular teaching in a Christian spirit, and the Bible consecrates the whole. The United Free Church of Scotland has, alike in India, China and Africa, proved the wisdom, the breadth, and the spiritual advantage of Carey's policy. When the Society opposed him, scholars like Mack from Edinburgh and Leechman from Glasgow rejoiced to work out his Paul-like conception. When not only he, but Dr. Marshman, had passed away Mack bravely held aloft the banner they bequeathed, till his death in 1846. Then John Marshman, who in 1835 had begun the Friend of India as a weekly paper to aid the College, transferred the mission to the Society under the learned W. H. Denham. When in 1854 a new generation of the English Baptists accepted the College also as their own, it received a Principal worthy to succeed the giants of those days, the Rev. John Trafford, M.A., a student of Foster's and of Glasgow University. For twenty-six years he carried out the principles of Carey. On his retirement the College as such was suspended in the year 1883, and in the same building a purely native Christian Training Institution took its place. There, however, the many visitors from Christendom still found the library and museum; the Bibles, grammars, and dictionaries; the natural history collections, and the Oriental MSS.; the Danish Charter, the historic portraits, and the British Treaty; as well as the native Christian classes—all of which re-echo William Carey's appeal to posterity.
The Danish charter—The British treaty—Growth of native Christian community—Lord Minto's concession of self-governing privileges—Madras Decennial Conference and Serampore degrees—Proposed reorganisation of College so as to teach and examine for B.D. and other degrees—Appeal for endowments of Carey's Christian University
Attention has already been directed to the far-seeing plans which Carey laid down for Serampore College. It is a pleasure to record that while this volume is in the press (1909), a scheme is being promoted by the College Council for the reorganisation of the College on the lines of Carey's ideal, with a view to making it a centre of higher ministerial training for all branches of the Indian Church.
It will be remembered that in 1827 the College received from Friedrich VI. a Royal Charter, empowering it to confer degrees, and giving to it all the rights which are possessed by Western Universities. Under Treaty dated the 6th October, 1845, the King of Denmark agreed to transfer to the Governor-General of India, Lord Hardinge, G.C.B., for the sum of £125,000, the towns of Tranquebar, Frederiksnagore or Serampore,[30] and the old factory site at Balasore. Article 6 of this treaty provides that "the rights and immunities granted to the Serampore College by Royal Charter, of date 23rd of February, 1827, shall not be interfered with, but continue in force in the same manner as if they had been obtained by a Charter from the British Government, subject to the General Law of British India."[31]
For lack of an endowment sufficient to maintain the teaching staff required, and to establish the necessary scholarships, the College has never been fully developed on University lines. Since 1883 it has been used as a training Institution for preachers and teachers for the Bengal field of the Baptist Missionary Society. Meanwhile in the century since Carey's statesman-like ideal was sketched, under the providence of God there have been two notable developments in the conditions of Indian life—(1) the educated Christian natives of India, from Cape Comorin to Peshawar, have grown, and continue to grow, in numbers, in character, and in influence, with a rapidity pronounced marvellous by the official report of the Census of 1901; (2) the three hundred millions of the peoples of India have, by the frank concession of the Earl of Minto and his advisers, and the sanction of Viscount Morley and Parliament, received a virtual constitution, which recognises their fitness for self-governing rights under the benevolent rule of King Edward VII. and his Viceroy in Council. Christianity, and the leaven of the more really educated Christian natives, will alone moralise and loyalise the peoples of India, and prepare future generations for a healthy independence, material and political.
As they have watched the lines along which these developments have proceeded, the leaders of the missionary enterprise have become more and more convinced that the realisation of Carey's ideal has been too long delayed, and that the influence of the Christian community on the great movements of Indian thought has suffered in consequence. In particular, while the need for highly-equipped Indian preachers, evangelists and leaders, is far more urgent now even than it was in Carey's day, the most experienced missionaries of all societies are far from satisfied with the present level of theological education in the Indian Church. They are convinced that the time has come to reorganise the whole system of ministerial training, and to secure for the study of Christian Theology in India that academic recognition which it has enjoyed for centuries in Western lands. Since the British Government is pledged to neutrality in religious matters, it is unable to sanction the establishment of Divinity faculties, in any of the State Universities, Hence the Decennial Missionary Conference, representing all the Protestant Missionary Societies working in India, meeting in Madras in December 1902, appointed a Committee "to confer with the Council of the Serampore College, through the Committee of the London Baptist Missionary Society, to ascertain whether they are prepared to delegate the degree-conferring powers of the Charter of that College to a Senate or Faculty, representative of the various Protestant Christian Churches and Societies working in India."
The College Council (of which Meredith Townsend, Esq., is Master, and Alfred Henry Baynes, Esq., F.R.G.S., is Secretary), has taken this request into careful consideration, and after being assured by the highest legal opinion that the Charter is still valid, has resolved to do everything in its power to carry out the suggestions of the Decennial Conference. They realise, however, that if the degree-conferring powers of the Charter are to be used, the College itself must be raised to the highest standard of efficiency as a Teaching Institution, and its permanence must be guaranteed by an adequate endowment.
The Council has felt that the attainment of these two objects is possible only through a union of the forces of the various Protestant Christian Churches working in India. The result has been the adoption of a wise and catholic project of reorganisation, under which it is hoped that Serampore will become a great interdenominational College of University rank, giving a theological training up to the standard of the London B.D., conferring its own divinity degrees, and maintaining an Arts and Science department, for the present at least affiliated to the Calcutta University. It is justly claimed that such a Christian University at Serampore will both unify and raise the standard of theological education in the Indian Church, helping to build the Eastern structure of Christian thought and life on the one Foundation of Jesus Christ, the Word of God.
The scheme which the Council has sanctioned contemplates the permanent endowment of the requisite professorships and scholarships. The College building will provide sufficient class-room accommodation, but it will be necessary to secure additional land, and to erect houses for the staff and hostels for the students. An immediate endowment of £250,000 is aimed at with a view of establishing a well-equipped theological faculty, with a preliminary department in Arts and Sciences. The Council, however, is not without hope that in due time Carey's noble vision of a great Christian University at Serampore conferring its own degrees, not only in theology but in all branches of useful learning, may powerfully appeal to some of the merchant princes of the West. It is estimated that the sum of £2,000,000 would be required for this equipment and endowment of the University on this larger scale. The great missionary Churches and Societies look favourably on the proposal, initiated by their own missionaries, to co-operate with Carey's more immediate representatives in realising and applying his ideal which is bound to expand and grow as India becomes Christianised.
The members of the College Council maintain that, in view of the world-wide influence of the modern missionary movement, inaugurated by William Carey, a movement that has been so beneficial both to the Church at home and to non-Christian nations, there is no institution that has greater historical and spiritual claims upon modern philanthropy than Serampore, and they believe that there are large numbers of men and women in Great Britain, America, India and other lands who will consider it a sacred privilege to have their names inscribed with those of Carey, Marshman and Ward on the walls of Serampore College as its second founders.
The Council is doing all within its power to reorganise the College on the broadest possible basis, believing that an institution with such inspiring traditions and associations should be utilised in the interests, not merely of one denomination, but of the whole Church in India and the nation. Up to the present, the Council, though legally an entirely independent body, has worked in the closest association with the Baptist Missionary Society's Committee. But now with the fullest sympathy both of the Baptist Missionaries on the field and the Committee in England, it is also inviting the co-operation of all evangelical Christian bodies in the work of Serampore College. It is prepared to welcome as full professors of the College, in Arts and Theology, representatives of other evangelical missions, who shall have special superintendence of the students belonging to their respective denominations, and be free to give them such supplementary instruction as may be thought necessary. All professors without distinction of denomination will share equally in the local management of the affairs of the College. The final authority must, in accordance with the Charter, remain in the hands of the College Council, but in order to admit of the due representation upon the Council of the various evangelical bodies which may co-operate, the present members of Council have, with the hearty concurrence of the Baptist Missionary Society's Committee, approved the suggestion that application should be made to the Indian Legislature for powers to enlarge its membership.
The Honorary Secretary of the College Council, A. H. Baynes, Esq., 19 Furnival Street, London, E.C., will be glad to supply further information, or to receive contributions towards the Fund for the endowment and equipment of the College.
In view of the conditions at present existing in India, this appeal should be of interest not only to friends of Christian missions, but to philanthropists generally, for a Christian University, conducted on the broad and catholic principles laid down by Carey, supplementary but in no way antagonistic to the existing Universities, will be a most effective instrument for permeating the political and social ideals of the youth of India with the spirit of Christ. This is a matter that deeply concerns, not only the Missionary, but also the statesman, the merchant, and all true friends of India of whatever race or creed.
In all the romance of Christian Missions, from Iona to Canterbury, there is no more evident example of the working of the Spirit of God with the Church, than the call of Carey and the foundation of Serampore College under Danish Charter and British treaty, making it the only University with full powers to enable the whole Reformed Church in India to work out its own theological system and Christian life.
The college and mission stripped of all their funds—Failure of the six firms for sixteen millions—Carey's official income reduced from £1560 to £600—His Thoughts and Appeal published in England—His vigour at seventy—Last revision of the Bengali Bible—Final edition of the Bengali New Testament—Carey rejoices in the reforms of Lord William Bentinck's Government—In the emancipation of the slaves—Carey sketched by his younger contemporaries—His latest letters and last message to Christendom—Visits of Lady William Bentinck and Bishop Daniel Wilson—Marshman's affection and promise as to the garden—The English mail brings glad news a fortnight before his death—His last Sabbath—He dies—Is buried—His tomb among his converts—His will—The Indian press on his poverty and disinterestedness—Dr. Marshman and Mack, Christopher Anderson and John Wilson of Bombay on his character—His influence still as the founder of missions—Dr. Cox and Robert Hall on Carey as a man—Scotland's estimate of the father of the Evangelical Revival and its foreign missions.
The last days of William Carey were the best. His sun went down in all the splendour of a glowing faith and a burning self-sacrifice. Not in the penury of Hackleton and Moulton, not in the hardships of Calcutta and the Soondarbans, not in the fevers of the swamps of Dinapoor, not in the apprehensions twice excited by official intolerance, not in the most bitter sorrow of all—the sixteen years' persecution by English brethren after Fuller's death, had the father of modern missions been so tried as in the years 1830-1833. Blow succeeded blow, but only that the fine gold of his trust, his humility, and his love might be seen to be the purer.
The Serampore College and Mission lost all the funds it had in India. By 1830 the financial revolution which had laid many houses low in Europe five years before, began to tell upon the merchant princes of Calcutta. The six firms, which had developed the trade of Northern India so far as the Company's monopolies allowed, had been the bankers of the Government itself, of states like Haidarabad, and of all the civil and military officials, and had enriched a succession of partners for half a century, fell one by one—fell for sixteen millions sterling among them. Palmer and Co. was the greatest; the house at one time played a large part in the history of India, and in the debates and papers of Parliament. Mr. John Palmer, a personal friend of the Serampore men, had advanced them money at ten per cent. four years previously, when the Society's misrepresentation had done its worst. The children in the Eurasian schools, which Dr. and Mrs. Marshman conducted with such profit to the mission, depended chiefly on funds deposited with this firm. It suddenly failed for more than two millions sterling. Although the catastrophe exposed the rottenness of the system of credit on which commerce and banking were at that time conducted, in the absence of a free press and an intelligent public opinion, the alarm soon subsided, and only the more business fell to the other firms. But the year 1833 had hardly opened when first the house of Alexander and Co., then that of Mackintosh and Co., and then the three others, collapsed without warning. The English in India, officials and merchants, were reduced to universal poverty. Capital disappeared and credit ceased at the very time that Parliament was about to complete the partial concession of freedom of trade made by the charter of 1813, by granting all Carey had argued for, and allowing Europeans to hold land.
The funds invested for Jessor and Delhi; the legacy of Fernandez, Carey's first convert and missionary; his own tenths with which he supported three aged relatives in England; the property of the partner of his third marriage, on whom the money was settled, and who survived him by a year; the little possessed by Dr. Marshman, who had paid all his expenses in England even while working for the Society—all was swept away. Not only was the small balance in hand towards meeting the college and mission expenditure gone, but it was impossible to borrow even for a short time. Again one of Dr. Carey's old civilian students came to the rescue. Mr. Garrett, grandson of Robert Raikes who first began Sunday schools, pledged his own credit with the Bank of Bengal, until Samuel Hope of Liverpool, treasurer of the Serampore Mission there, could be communicated with. Meanwhile the question of giving up any of the stations or shutting the college was not once favoured. "I have seen the tears run down the face of the venerable Dr. Carey at the thought of such a calamity," wrote Leechman; "were it to arrive we should soon have to lay him in his grave." When the interest of the funds raised by Ward in America ceased for a time because of the malicious report from England that it might be applied by Dr. Marshman to the purposes of family aggrandisement, Carey replied in a spirit like that of Paul under a similar charge: "Dr. Marshman is as poor as I am, and I can scarcely lay by a sum monthly to relieve three or four indigent relatives in Europe. I might have had large possessions, but I have given my all, except what I ate, drank, and wore, to the cause of missions, and Dr. Marshman has done the same, and so did Mr. Ward."
Carey's trust in God, for the mission and for himself, was to be still further tried. On 12th July 1828 we find him thus writing from Calcutta to Jabez:—"I came down this morning to attend Lord W. Bentinck's first levée. It was numerously attended, and I had the pleasure of seeing there a great number of gentlemen who had formerly studied under me, and for whom I felt a very sincere regard. I hear Lady Bentinck is a pious woman, but have not yet seen her. I have a card to attend at her drawing-room this evening, but I shall not go, as I must be at home for the Sabbath, which is to-morrow." It soon fell to Lord William Bentinck to meet the financial consequences of his weak predecessor's administration. The College of Fort William had to be sacrificed. Metcalfe and Bayley, Carey's old students whom he had permanently influenced in the higher life, were the members of council, and he appealed to them. They sent him to the good Governor-General, to whose sympathy he laid bare all the past and present of the mission's finance. He was told to have no fear, and indeed the Council held a long sitting on this one matter. But from June 1830 the college ceased to be a teaching, and became an examining body. When the salary was reduced one-half, from Rs. 1000 a month, the Brotherhood met to pray for light and strength. Mr. Robinson, the Java missionary who had attached himself to Serampore, and whose son long did good service as a Bengali scholar and preacher, gives us this glimpse of its inner life at this time:—
"The two old men were dissolved in tears while they were engaged in prayer, and Dr. Marshman in particular could not give expressions to his feelings. It was indeed affecting to see these good old men, the fathers of the mission, entreating with tears that God would not forsake them now grey hairs were come upon them, but that He would silence the tongue of calumny, and furnish them with the means of carrying on His own cause."
They sent home an appeal to England, and Carey himself published what is perhaps the most chivalrous, just, and weighty of all his utterances on the disagreeable subject—Thoughts upon the Discussions which have arisen from the Separation between the Baptist Missionary Society and the Serampore Missions. "From our age and other circumstances our contributions may soon cease. We have seen a great work wrought in India, and much of it, either directly or indirectly, has been done by ourselves. I cannot, I ought not to be indifferent about the permanency of this work, and cannot therefore view the exultation expressed at the prospect of our resources being crippled otherwise than being of a character too satanic to be long persisted in by any man who has the love of God in his heart."
The appeal to all Christians for "a few hundred pounds per annum" for the mission station closed thus: "But a few years have passed away since the Protestant world was awakened to missionary effort. Since that time the annual revenues collected for this object have grown to the then unthought-of sum of £400,000. And is it unreasonable to expect that some unnoticeable portion of this should be intrusted to him who was amongst the first to move in this enterprise and to his colleagues?" The Brotherhood had hardly despatched this appeal to England with the sentence, "Our present incomes even are uncertain," when the shears of financial reduction cut off Dr. Carey's office of Bengali translator to Government, which for eight years had yielded him Rs. 300 a month. But such was his faith this final stroke called forth only an expression of regret that he must reduce his contributions to the missionary cause by so much. He was a wonder to his colleagues, who wrote of him: "Though thus reduced in his circumstances the good man, about to enter on his seventieth year, is as cheerful and as happy as the day is long. He rides out four or five miles every morning, returning home by sunrise; goes on with the work of translation day by day; gives two lectures on divinity and one on natural history every week in the college, and takes his turn of preaching both in Bengali and in English."
When the Christian public responded heartily to his appeal Carey was loud and frequent in his expressions of gratitude to God, who, "in the time of our great extremity, appeared and stirred up His people thus willingly to offer their substance for His cause." With respect to myself, I consider my race as nearly run. The days of our years are three score years and ten, and I am now only three months short of that age, and repeated bilious attacks have weakened my constitution. But I do not look forward to death with any painful anticipations. I cast myself on and plead the efficacy of that atonement which will not fail me when I need it."
Dr. Marshman gives us a brighter picture of him. "I met with very few friends in England in their seventieth year so lively, as free from the infirmities of age, so interesting in the pulpit, so completely conversible as he is now." The reason is found in the fact that he was still useful, still busy at the work he loved most of all. He completed his last revision of the entire Bible in Bengali—the fifth edition of the Old Testament and the eighth edition of the New—in June 1832. Immediately thereafter, when presiding at the ordination of Mr. Mack as co-pastor with Dr. Marshman and himself over the church at Serampore, he took with him into the pulpit the first copy of the sacred volume which came from the binder's hands, and addressed the converts and their children from the words of Simeon—"Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." As the months went on he carried through the press still another and improved edition of the New Testament, and only then he felt and often said that the work of his heart was done.
He had other sources of saintly pleasure as he lay meditating on the Word, and praising God for His goodness to the college and the mission stations increased to nineteen by young Sir Henry Havelock, who founded the church at Agra. Lord William Bentinck, having begun his reign with the abolition of the crime of suttee, was, with the help of Carey's old students, steadily carrying out the other reforms for which in all his Indian career the missionary had prayed and preached and published. The judicial service was reorganised so as to include native judges. The uncovenanted civil service was opened to all British subjects of every creed. The first act of justice to native Christians was thus done, so that he wrote of the college:—"The students are now eligible to every legal appointment in India which a native can hold; those who may possess no love for the Christian ministry have the prospect of a profitable profession as advocates in the judicial courts, and the hope of rising to posts of honourable distinction in their native land." The Hindoo law of inheritance which the Regulating Act of Parliament had so covered that it was used to deprive converts to Christianity of all civil rights, was dealt with so far as a local regulation could do so, and Carey, advised by such an authority as Harington, laid it on his successor in the apostolate, the young Alexander Duff, to carry the act of justice out fully, which was done under the Marquis of Dalhousie. The orders drawn up by Charles Grant's sons at last, in February 1833, freed Great Britain from responsibility for the connection of the East India Company with Temple and mosque endowments and the pilgrim tax.
His son Jonathan wrote this of him two years after his death:—
"In principle my father was resolute and firm, never shrinking from avowing and maintaining his sentiments. He had conscientious scruples against taking an oath; and condemned severely the manner in which oaths were administered, and urged vehemently the propriety of altogether dispensing with them. I remember three instances in which he took a conspicuous part in regard to oaths, such as was characteristic of the man. On one occasion, when a respectable Hindoo servant of the college of Fort William, attached to Dr. Carey's department, was early one morning proceeding to the Ganges to bathe, he perceived a dead body lying near the road; but it being dark, and no person being present, he passed on, taking no further notice of the circumstance. As he returned from the Ganges after sunrise, he saw a crowd near the body, and then happened to say to one of the watchmen present that in the morning he saw the body on the other side of the road. The watchman took him in custody, as a witness before the coroner; but, when brought before the coroner, he refused to take an oath, and was, consequently, committed to prison for contempt. The Hindoo being a respectable person, and never having taken an oath, refused to take any nourishment in the prison. In this state he continued a day and a half, my father being then at Serampore; but upon his coming to Calcutta, the circumstances were mentioned to him. The fact of the man having refused to take an oath was enough to make him interest himself in his behalf. He was delighted with the resolution the man took—rather to go to prison than take an oath; and was determined to do all he could to procure his liberation. He first applied to the coroner, but was directed by him to the sheriff. To that functionary he proceeded, but was informed by him that he could make no order on the subject. He then had an interview with the then chief judge, by whose interference the man was set at liberty.
"Another instance relates to him personally. On the occasion of his last marriage, the day was fixed on which the ceremony was to take place—friends were invited—and all necessary arrangements made; but, three or four days prior to the day fixed, he was informed that it would be necessary for him to obtain a licence, in doing which, he must either take an oath or have banns published. To taking an oath he at once objected, and applied to the then senior judge, who informed him that, as he was not a quaker, his oath was indispensable; but, rather than take an oath, he applied to have the banns published, and postponed the arrangements for his marriage for another three weeks.
"The third instance was as follows:—It was necessary, in a certain case, to prove a will in court, in which the name of Dr. Carey was mentioned, in connection with the Serampore missionaries as executors. An application was made by one of his colleagues, which was refused by the court, on account of the vagueness of the terms, 'Serampore missionaries;' but as Dr. Carey's name was specifically mentioned, the court intimated that they would grant the application if made by him. The communication was made: but when he was informed that an oath was necessary, he shrunk with abhorrence from the idea; but after much persuasion, he consented to make the application, if taking an oath would be dispensed with. He did attend, and stated his objections to the then chief judge, which being allowed, his affirmation was received and recorded by the court.
"The duties connected with the College of Fort William afforded him a change of scene, which relieved his mind, and gave him opportunities of taking exercise, and conduced much to his health. During the several years he held the situation of professor to the college, no consideration would allow him to neglect his attendance; and though he had to encounter boisterous weather in crossing the river at unseasonable hours, he was punctual in his attendance, and never applied for leave of absence. And when he was qualified by the rules of the service to retire on a handsome pension, he preferred being actively employed in promoting the interests of the college, and remained, assiduously discharging his duties, till his department was abolished by Government. The business of the college requiring his attendance in Calcutta, he became so habituated to his journeys to and fro, that at his age he painfully felt the retirement he was subjected to when his office ceased. After this circumstance his health rapidly declined; and though he occasionally visited Calcutta, he complained of extreme debility. This increased daily, and made him a constant sufferer; until at length he was not able to leave his house."
Nor was it in India alone that the venerable saint found such causes of satisfaction. He lived long enough to thank God for the emancipation of the slaves by the English people, for which he had prayed daily for fifty years.
We have many sketches of the Father of English Missions in his later years by young contemporaries who, on their first arrival in Bengal, sought him out. In 1824 Mr. Leslie, an Edinburgh student, who became in India the first of Baptist preachers, and was the means of the conversion of Henry Havelock who married Dr. Marshman's youngest daughter, wrote thus of Carey after the third great illness of his Indian life:—
"Dr. Carey, who has been very ill, is quite recovered, and bids fair to live many years; and as for Dr. Marshman, he has never known ill-health is, during the whole period of his residence in India. They are both active to a degree which you would think impossible in such a country. Dr. Carey is a very equable and cheerful old man, in countenance very like the engraving of him with his pundit, though not so robust as he appears to be there. Next to his translations Botany is his grand study. He has collected every plant and tree in his garden that will possibly grow in India, and is so scientific withal that he calls everything by its classical name. If, therefore, I should at any time blunder out the word Geranium, he would say Pelargonium, and perhaps accuse me of ignorance, or blame me for vulgarity. We had the pleasure of hearing him preach from Rom. vii. 13, when he gave us an excellent sermon. In manner he is very animated, and in style very methodical. Indeed he carries method into everything he does; classification is his grand hobby, and wherever anything can be classified, there you find Dr. Carey; not only does he classify and arrange the roots of plants and words, but visit his dwelling and you find he has fitted up and classified shelves full of minerals, stones, shells, etc., and cages full of birds. He is of very easy access, and great familiarity. His attachments are strong, and extend not merely to persons but places. About a year ago, so much of the house in which he had lived ever since he had been at Serampore, fell down so that he had to leave it, at which he wept bitterly. One morning at breakfast, he was relating to us an anecdote of the generosity of the late excellent John Thornton, at the remembrance of whom the big tear filled his eye. Though it is an affecting sight to see the venerable man weep; yet it is a sight which greatly interests you, as there is a manliness in his tears—something far removed from the crying of a child."
The house in which for the last ten years he lived, and where he died, was the only one of two or three, planned for the new professors of the college, that was completed. Compared with the adjoining college it was erected with such severe simplicity that it was said to have been designed for angels rather than for men. Carey's room and library looked towards the river with the breadth of the college garden between. On the other side, in the upper verandah, in the morning he worked at his desk almost to the last, and in the evening towards sunset he talked with his visitors. In 1826 the London Missionary Society sent out to Calcutta the first of its deputations. Dr. Carey sent his boat for them, and in the absence of her husband in England, Mrs. Marshman entertained the guests. They wrote:—
"We found Dr. Carey in his study, and we were both pleased and struck with his primitive, and we may say, apostolical appearance. He is short of stature, his hair white, his countenance equally bland and benevolent in feature and expression. Two Hindoo men were sitting by, engaged in painting some small subjects in natural history, of which the doctor, a man of pure taste and highly intellectual cast of feeling, irrespective of his more learned pursuits, has a choice collection, both in specimens and pictorial representations. Botany is a favourite study with him, and his garden is curiously enriched with rarities."
Of all the visits paid to Carey none are now so interesting to the historian of the Church of India, as those of the youth who succeeded him as he had succeeded Schwartz. Alexander Duff was twenty-four years of age when, in 1830, full of hesitation as to carrying out his own plans in opposition to the experience of all the missionaries he had consulted, he received from Carey alone the most earnest encouragement to pursue in Calcutta the Christian college policy so well begun in the less central settlement of Serampore. We have elsewhere[32] told the story:—
"Landing at the college ghaut one sweltering July day, the still ruddy highlander strode up to the flight of steps that leads to the finest modern building in Asia. Turning to the left, he sought the study of Carey in the house—'built for angels,' said one, so simple is it—where the greatest of missionary scholars was still working for India. There he beheld what seemed to be a little yellow old man in a white jacket, who tottered up to the visitor of whom he had already often heard, and with outstretched hands solemnly blessed him. A contemporary soon after wrote thus of the childlike saint—
"'Thou'rt in our heart—with tresses thin and grey,
And eye that knew the Book of Life so well,
And brow serene, as thou wert wont to stray
Amidst thy flowers—like Adam ere he fell.'
"The result of the conference was a double blessing; for Carey could speak with the influence at once of a scholar who had created the best college at that time in the country, and of a vernacularist who had preached to the people for half a century. The young Scotsman left his presence with the approval of the one authority whose opinion was best worth having...
"Among those who visited him in his last illness was Alexander Duff, the Scots missionary. On one of the last occasions on which he saw him—if not the very last—he spent some time talking chiefly about Carey's missionary life, till at length the dying man whispered, Pray. Duff knelt down and prayed, and then said Good-bye. As he passed from the room, he thought he heard a feeble voice pronouncing his name, and, turning, he found that he was recalled. He stepped back accordingly, and this is what he heard, spoken with a gracious solemnity: 'Mr. Duff, you have been speaking about Dr. Carey, Dr. Carey; When I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey—speak about Dr. Carey's Saviour.' Duff went away rebuked and awed, with a lesson in his heart that he never forgot."[33]
When with his old friends he dwelt much on the past. Writing of May 1832, Dr. Marshman mentioned: "I spent an hour at tea with dear Brother Carey last night, now seventy and nine months. He was in the most comfortable state of health, talking over his first feelings respecting India and the heathen, and the manner in which God kept them alive, when even Fuller could not yet enter into them, and good old John Ryland (the doctor's father) denounced them as unscriptural. Had these feelings died away, in what a different state might India now have been!" In September of that year, when burying Mrs. Ward, he seemed, in his address at the grave, to long for renewed intercourse with the friends who had preceded him in entering into the joy of the Lord.
On Mr. Leechman's arrival from Scotland to be his colleague, he found the old man thus vigorous even in April 1833, or if "faint, yet pursuing":—
"Our venerable Dr. Carey is in excellent health, and takes his turn in all our public exercises. Just forty years ago, the first of this month, he administered the Lord's Supper to the church at Leicester, and started on the morrow to embark for India. Through this long period of honourable toil the Lord has mercifully preserved him; and at our missionary prayer meeting, held on the first of this month, he delivered an interesting address to encourage us to persevere in the work of the Lord. We have also a private monthly prayer meeting held in Dr. Carey's study, which is to me a meeting of uncommon interest. On these occasions we particularly spread before the Lord our public and private trials, both those which come upon us from the cause of Christ, with which it is our honour and privilege to be connected, and those also which we as individuals are called to bear. At our last meeting Dr. Carey read part of the history of Gideon, and commented with deep feeling on the encouragement which that history affords, that the cause of God can be carried on to victory and triumph, by feeble and apparently inefficient means."
Carey's successor, Mack, wrote thus to Christopher Anderson ten months later:—
"SERAMPORE, 31st January 1834.—Our venerable father, Dr. Carey, is yet continued to us, but in the same state in which he has been for the last three months or so. He is quite incapable of work, and very weak. He can walk but a few yards at a time, and spends the day in reading for profit and entertainment, and in occasionally nodding and sleeping. He is perfectly tranquil in mind. His imagination does not soar much in vivid anticipations of glory; and it never disquiets him with restless misgivings respecting his inheritance in God. To him it is everything that the gospel is true, and he believes it; and, as he says, if he can say he knows anything, he knows that he believes it. When his attention is turned to his dismissal from earth, or his hope of glory, his emotions are tender and sweet. They are also very simple, and express themselves in a few brief and pithy sentences. His interest in all the affairs of the mission is unabated, and although he can no longer join us either in deliberation or associated prayer, he must be informed of all that occurs, and his heart is wholly with us in whatever we do. I do not conceive it possible that he can survive the ensuing hot season, but he may, and the Lord will do in this as in all other things what is best.
"When our necessities were coming to their climax I concluded that I must leave Serampore in order to find food to eat, and I fixed upon Cherra-poonjee as my future residence. I proposed establishing a first-class school there, and then with some warmth of imagination I began anticipating a sort of second edition of Serampore up in the Khasia hills, to be a centre of diffusing light in the western provinces. I became really somewhat enamoured of the phantom of my imagination, but it was not to be. The brethren here would not see it as I did."
This last sketch, by Mr. Gogerly, whom the London Missionary Society had sent out in 1819, brings us still nearer the end:—
"At this time I paid him my last visit. He was seated near his desk, in the study, dressed in his usual neat attire; his eyes were closed, and his hands clasped together. On his desk was the proof-sheet of the last chapter of the New Testament, which he had revised a few days before. His appearance, as he sat there, with the few white locks which adorned his venerable brow, and his placid colourless face, filled me with a kind of awe; for he appeared as then listening to the Master's summons, and as waiting to depart. I sat, in his presence, for about half an hour, and not one word was uttered; for I feared to break that solemn silence, and call back to earth the soul that seemed almost in heaven. At last, however, I spoke; and well do I remember the identical words that passed between us, though more than thirty-six years have elapsed since then. I said, 'My dear friend, you evidently are standing on the borders of the eternal world; do not think it wrong, then, if I ask, What are your feelings in the immediate prospect of death?' The question roused him from his apparent stupor, and opening his languid eyes, he earnestly replied, 'As far as my personal salvation is concerned, I have not the shadow of a doubt; I know in Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day; but when I think that I am about to appear in the presence of a holy God, and remember all my sins and manifold imperfections—I tremble.' He could say no more. The tears trickled down his cheeks, and after a while he relapsed into the same state of silence from which I had aroused him.
"Deeply solemn was that interview, and important the lesson I then received. Here was one of the most holy and harmless men whom I ever knew—who had lived above the breath of calumny for upwards of forty years, surrounded by and in close intimacy with many, both Europeans and natives, who would have rejoiced to have witnessed any inconsistency in his conduct, but who were constrained to admire his integrity and Christian character—whilst thus convinced of the certainty of his salvation, through the merits of that Saviour whom he had preached, yet so impressed with the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that he trembled at the thought of appearing before a holy God! A few days after this event, Dr. Carey retired to his bed, from which he never rose."
So long before this as 17th March 1802, Carey had thus described himself to Dr. Ryland:—"A year or more ago you, or some other of my dear friends, mentioned an intention of publishing a volume of sermons as a testimony of mutual Christian love, and wished me to send a sermon or two for that purpose. I have seriously intended it, and more than once sat down to accomplish it, but have as constantly been broken off from it. Indolence is my prevailing sin, and to that are now added a number of avocations which I never thought of; I have also so continual a fear that I may at last fall some way or other so as to dishonour the Gospel that I have often desired that my name may be buried in oblivion; and indeed I have reason for those fears, for I am so prone to sin that I wonder every night that I have been preserved from foul crimes through the day, and when I escape a temptation I esteem it to be a miracle of grace which has preserved me. I never was so fully persuaded as I am now that no habit of religion is a security from falling into the foulest crimes, and I need the immediate help of God every moment. The sense of my continual danger has, I confess, operated strongly upon me to induce me to desire that no publication of a religious nature should be published as mine whilst I am alive. Another reason is my sense of incapacity to do justice to any subject, or even to write good sense. I have, it is true, been obliged to publish several things, and I can say that nothing but necessity could have induced me to do it. They are, however, only grammatical works, and certainly the very last things which I should have written if I could have chosen for myself."
On 15th June 1833 the old man was still able to rejoice with others. He addressed to his son Jonathan the only brief letter which the present writer possesses from his pen, in a hand as clear as that of a quarter of a century before:—
"MY DEAR JONATHAN—I congratulate you upon the good news you have received. But am sorry Lucy continues so ill. I am too weak to write more than to say your mother is as well as the weather will permit us to expect. I could scarcely have been worse to live than I have been the last fortnight.—Your affectionate father, W. CAREY."
The hot season had then reached its worst.
His last letters were brief messages of love and hope to his two sisters in England. On 27th July 1833 he wrote to them:—
"About a week ago so great a change took place in me that I concluded it was the immediate stroke of death, and all my children were informed of it and have been here to see me. I have since that revived in an almost miraculous manner, or I could not have written this. But I cannot expect it to continue. The will of the Lord be done. Adieu, till I meet you in a better world.—Your affectionate brother, "W. CAREY."
Two months later he was at his old work, able "now and then to read a proof sheet of the Scriptures."
"SERAMPORE, 25th Sept. 1833.
"MY DEAR SISTERS—My being able to write to you now is quite unexpected by me, and, I believe, by every one else; but it appears to be the will of God that I should continue a little time longer. How long that may be I leave entirely with Him, and can only say, 'All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.' I was, two months or more ago, reduced to such a state of weakness that it appeared as if my mind was extinguished; and my weakness of body, and sense of extreme fatigue and exhaustion, were such that I could scarcely speak, and it appeared that death would be no more felt than the removing from one chair to another. I am now able to sit and to lie on my couch, and now and then to read a proof sheet of the Scriptures. I am too weak to walk more than just across the house, nor can I stand even a few minutes without support. I have every comfort that kind friends can yield, and feel, generally, a tranquil mind. I trust the great point is settled, and I am ready to depart; but the time when, I leave with God.
"3rd Oct.—I am not worse than when I began this letter.—I am, your very affectionate brother, WM. CAREY."
His latest message to Christendom was sent on the 30th September, most appropriately to Christopher Anderson:—"As everything connected with the full accomplishment of the divine promises depends on the almighty power of God, pray that I and all the ministers of the Word may take hold of His strength, and go about our work as fully expecting the accomplishment of them all, which, however difficult and improbable it may appear, is certain, as all the promises of God are in Him, yea, and in Him, Amen." Had he not, all his career, therefore expected and attempted great things?
He had had a chair fixed on a small platform, constructed after his own direction, that he might be wheeled through his garden. At other times the chief gardener Hullodhur, reported to him the state of the collection of plants, then numbering about 2000. Dr. Marshman saw his friend daily, sometimes twice a day, and found him always what Lord Hastings had described him to be—"the cheerful old man." On the only occasion on which he seemed sad, Dr. Marshman as he was leaving the room turned and asked why. With deep feeling the dying scholar looked to the others and said, "After I am gone Brother Marshman will turn the cows into my garden." The reply was prompt, "Far be it from me; though I have not your botanical tastes, the care of the garden in which you have taken so much delight, shall be to me a sacred duty."[34]
Of strangers his most frequent visitor was the Governor-General's wife, Lady William Bentinck. Her husband was in South India, and she spent most of her time in Barrackpore Park retreat opposite to Carey's house. From her frequent converse with him, in his life as well as now, she studied the art of dying. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, learned to delight in Serampore almost from the beginning of his long episcopate, and in later years he lived there more than in Calcutta. On the 14th February 1833 he first visited Carey, "his interview with whom, confined as he was to his room, and apparently on the verge of the celestial world, was peculiarly affecting." In the last of subsequent visits the young Bishop asked the dying missionary's benediction. With all the talk was the same, a humble resignation to the will of God, firm trust in the Redeemer of sinners, a joyful gratitude for the wonderful progress of His Kingdom. What a picture is this that his brethren sent home six weeks before he passed away. "Our aged and venerable brother feels himself growing gradually weaker. He can scarcely rise from his couch, and it is with great difficulty that he is carried out daily to take the air. Yet he is free from all pain as to disease, and his mind is in a most serene and happy state. He is in full possession of his faculties, and, although with difficulty, on account of his weakness, he still converses with his friends from day to day."
The hottest season of the year crept wearily on during the month of May and the first week of June. Each night he slept well, and each day he was moved to his couch in the dining-room for air. There he lay, unable to articulate more than a word or two, but expressing by his joyful features union in prayer and interest in conversation. On the 22nd May the English mail arrived with gladdening intelligence from Mr. Hope—God's people were praying and giving anew for the mission. Especially was his own latest station of Cherra-poonjee remembered. As he was told that a lady, anonymously, had offered £500 for that mission, £500 for the college, £500 for the translations, and £100 for the mission generally, he raised his emaciated hands to heaven and murmured praise to God. When the delirium of departure came he strove to reach his desk that he might write a letter of thanks, particularly for Cherra. Then he would recall the fact that the little church he at first formed had branched out into six and twenty churches, in which the ordinances of the Gospel were regularly administered, and he would whisper, "What has God wrought!"
The last Sabbath had come—and the last full day. The constant Marshman was with him. "He was scarcely able to articulate, and after a little conversation I knelt down by the side of his couch and prayed with him. Finding my mind unexpectedly drawn out to bless God for His goodness, in having preserved him and blessed him in India for above forty years, and made him such an instrument of good to His church; and to entreat that on his being taken home, a double portion of his spirit might rest on those who remained behind; though unable to speak, he testified sufficiently by his countenance how cordially he joined in this prayer. I then asked Mrs. Carey whether she thought he could now see me. She said yes, and to convince me, said, 'Mr. Marshman wishes to know whether you now see him?' He answered so loudly that I could hear him, 'Yes, I do,' and shook me most cordially by the hand. I then left him, and my other duties did not permit me to reach him again that day. The next morning, as I was returning home before sunrise, I met our Brethren Mack and Leechman out on their morning ride, when Mack told me that our beloved brother had been rather worse all the night, and that he had just left him very ill. I immediately hastened home, through the college in which he has lived these ten years, and when I reached his room, found that he had just entered into the joy of his Lord—Mrs. Carey, his son Jabez, my son John, and Mrs. Mack being present."
It was Monday the 9th June 1834, at half-past five, as the morning sun was ascending the heavens towards the perfect day. The rain-clouds burst and covered the land with gloom next morning when they carried William Carey to the converts' burial-ground and made great lamentation. The notice was too short for many to come up from Calcutta in those days. "Mr. Duff, of the Scottish Church, returned a most kind letter." Sir Charles Metcalfe and the Bishop wrote very feelingly in reply. Lady Bentinck sent the Rev. Mr. Fisher to represent the Governor-General and herself, and "a most kind and feeling answer, for she truly loved the venerable man," while she sadly gazed at the mourners as they followed the simple funeral up the right bank of the Hoogli, past the College and the Mission chapel. Mr. Yates, who had taken a loving farewell of the scholar he had been reluctant to succeed, represented the younger brethren; Lacroix, Micaiah Hill, and Gogerly, the London Missionary Society. Corrie and Dealtry do not seem to have reached the spot in time. The Danish Governor, his wife, and the members of council were there, and the flag drooped half-mast high as on the occasion of a Governor's death. The road was lined by the poor, Hindoo and Mohammedan, for whom he had done so much. When all, walking in the rain, had reached the open grave, the sun shone out, and Leechman led them in the joyous resurrection hymn, "Why do we mourn departing friends?" "I then addressed the audience," wrote Marshman, "and, contrary to Brother Mack's foretelling that I should never get through it for tears, I did not shed one. Brother Mack was then asked to address the native members, but he, seeing the time so far gone, publicly said he would do so at the village. Brother Robinson then prayed, and weeping—then neither myself nor few besides could refrain." In Jannuggur village chapel in the evening the Bengali burial hymn was sung, Pœritran Christer Morone, "Salvation by the death of Christ," and Pran Krishna, the oldest disciple, led his countrymen in prayer. Then Mack spoke to the weeping converts with all the pathos of their own sweet vernacular from the words, "For David, after he had served his own generation, by the will of God fell on sleep." Had not Carey's been a royal career, even that of a king and a priest unto God?
"We, as a mission," wrote Dr. Marshman to Christopher Anderson, "took the expense on ourselves, not suffering his family to do so, as we shall that of erecting a monument for him. Long before his death we had, by a letter signed by us all, assured him that the dear relatives, in England and France, should have their pensions continued as though he were living, and that Mrs. Carey, as a widow, should have Rs. 100 monthly, whatever Mackintosh's house might yield her."
Twenty-two years before, when Chamberlain was complaining because of the absence of stone, or brick, or inscription in the mission burial-ground, Carey had said, "Why should we be remembered? I think when I am dead the sooner I am forgotten the better." Dr. Johns observed that it is not the desire of the persons themselves but of their friends for them, to which Carey replied, "I think of others in that respect as I do of myself." When his second wife was taken from him, his affection so far prevailed that he raised a memorial stone, and in his will left this "order" to Mack and William Robinson, his executors: "I direct that my funeral be as plain as possible; that I be buried by the side of my second wife, Charlotte Emilia Carey; and that the following inscription and nothing more may be cut on the stone which commemorates her, either above or below, as there may be room, viz.:—
WILLIAM CAREY, BORN AUGUST 17, 1761; DIED
A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall."
The surviving brethren seem to have taken the small oblong stone, with the inscription added as directed, and to have placed it on the south side of the domed square block of brick and white plaster—since renewed from time to time—which stands in the left corner of the God's-acre, now consecrated by the mingled dust of four generations of missionaries, converts, and Christian people. Ward's monument stands in the centre, and that of the Marshman family at the right hand. Three and a half years afterwards Joshua Marshman followed Carey; not till 1847 was Hannah Marshman laid beside him, after a noble life of eighty years. Mack had gone the year before, cut off by cholera like Ward. But the brotherhood cannot be said to have ended till John Marshman, C.S.I., died in London in 1877. From first to last the three families contributed to the cause of God from their own earnings, ninety thousand pounds, and the world would never have known it but for the lack of the charity that envieth not on the part of Andrew Fuller's successors.
Carey's last will and testament begins: "I utterly disclaim all or any right or title to the premises at Serampore, called the mission premises, and every part and parcel thereof; and do hereby declare that I never had, or supposed myself to have, any such right or title. I give and bequeath to the College of Serampore the whole of my museum, consisting of minerals, shells, corals, insects, and other natural curiosities, and a Hortus Siccus; also the folio edition of Hortus Woburnensis, which was presented to me by Lord Hastings; Taylor's Hebrew Concordance, my collection of Bibles in foreign languages, and all my books in the Italian and German languages." His widow, Grace, who survived him a short time, had the little capital that was hers before her marriage to him, and he desired that she would choose from his library whatever English books she valued. His youngest son, Jonathan, was not in want of money. He had paid Felix and William Rs. 1500 each in his lifetime. In order to leave a like sum to Jabez, he thus provided: "From the failure of funds to carry my former intentions into effect, I direct that my library be sold." In dying as in living he is the same—just to others because self-devoted to Him to whom he thus formally willed himself, "On Thy kind arms I fall."
The Indian journals rang with the praises of the missionary whose childlike humility and sincerity, patriotism and learning, had long made India proud of him. After giving himself, William Carey had died so poor that his books had to be sold to provide £187 10s. for one of his sons. One writer asserted that this man had contributed "sixteen lakhs of rupees" to the cause of Christ while connected with the Serampore Mission, and the statement was everywhere repeated. Dr. Marshman thereupon published the actual facts, "as no one would have felt greater abhorrence of such an attempt to impose on the Christian public than Dr. Carey himself, had he been living." At a time when the old Sicca Rupee was worth half a crown, Carey received, in the thirty-four and a half years of his residence at Serampore, from the date of his appointment to the College of Fort William, £45,000.[35] Of this he spent £7500 on his Botanic Garden in that period. If accuracy is of any value in such a question, which has little more than a curious biographical interest, then we must add the seven years previous to 1801, and we shall find that the shoemaker of Hackleton received in all for himself and his family £600 from the Society which he called into existence, and which sent him forth, while he spent on the Christianisation and civilisation of India £1625 received as a manufacturer of indigo; and £45,000 as Professor of Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi, and Bengali Translator to Government, or £46,625 in all.
"It is possible," wrote Dr. Marshman, "that if, instead of thus living to God and his cause with his brethren at Serampore, Dr. Carey had, like the other professors in the college, lived in Calcutta wholly for himself and his family, he might have laid by for them a lakh of rupees in the thirty years he was employed by Government, and had he been very parsimonious, possibly a lakh and a half. But who that contrasts the pleasures of such a life with those Dr. Carey enjoyed in promoting with his own funds every plan likely to plant Christianity among the natives around him, without having to consult any one in thus doing, but his two brethren of one heart with him, who contributed as much as himself to the Redeemer's cause, and the fruit of which he saw before his death in Twenty-six Gospel Churches planted in India within a surface of about eight hundred miles, and above Forty labouring brethren raised up on the spot amidst them—would not prefer the latter? What must have been the feelings on a deathbed of a man who had lived wholly to himself, compared with the joyous tranquillity which filled Carey's soul in the prospect of entering into the joy of his Lord, and above all with what he felt when, a few days before his decease, he said to his companion in labour for thirty-four years: 'I have no fears; I have no doubts; I have not a wish left unsatisfied.'"
In the Danish Church of Serampore, and in the Mission Chapel, and afterwards in the Union Chapel of Calcutta, Dr. Marshman and Mr. Mack preached sermons on William Carey. These and the discourse delivered in Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, on the 30th of November, by Christopher Anderson, were the only materials from which a just estimate of Carey and his work could be formed for the next quarter of a century. All, and especially the last, were as worthy of their theme as éloges pronounced in such circumstances could be. Marshman spoke from the text chosen by Carey himself a few weeks before his death as containing the foundation of his hope and the source of his calm and tranquil assurance—"For by grace are ye saved." Mack found his inspiration again, as he had done in the Bengali village, in Paul's words—"David, after he had served his own generation, by the will of God fell on sleep." The Edinburgh preacher turned to the message of Isaiah wherewith Carey used to comfort himself in his early loneliness, and which the Revised Version renders—"Look unto Abraham your father; for when he was but one I called him and I blessed him and made him many." And in Bombay the young contemporary missionary who most nearly resembled Carey in personal saintliness, scholarship, and self-devotion, John Wilson, thus wrote:—
"Dr. Carey, the first of living missionaries, the most honoured and the most successful since the time of the Apostles, has closed his long and influential career. Indeed his spirit, his life, and his labours, were truly apostolic...The Spirit of God which was in him led him forward from strength to strength, supported him under privation, enabled him to overcome in a fight that seemed without hope. Like the beloved disciple, whom he resembled in simplicity of mind, and in seeking to draw sinners to Christ altogether by the cords of love, he outlived his trials to enjoy a peaceful and honoured old age, to know that his Master's cause was prospering, and that his own name was named with reverence and blessing in every country where a Christian dwelt. Perhaps no man ever exerted a greater influence for good on a great cause. Who that saw him, poor and in seats of learning uneducated, embark on such an enterprise, could ever dream that, in little more than forty years, Christendom should be animated with the same spirit, thousands forsake all to follow his example, and that the Word of Life should be translated into almost every language and preached in almost every corner of the earth?"
As the Founder and Father of Modern Missions, the character and career of William Carey are being revealed every year in the progress, and as yet, the purity of the expansion of the Church and of the English-speaking races in the two-thirds of the world which are still outside of Christendom. The £13:2:6 of Kettering became £400,000 before he died, and is now £5,000,000 a year. The one ordained English missionary is now a band of 20,000 men and women sent out by 558 agencies of the Reformed Churches. The solitary converts, each with no influence on his people, or country, or generation, are now a community of 3,000,000 in India alone, and in all the lands outside of Christendom 5,000,000, of whom 80,000 are missionaries to their own countrymen, and many are leaders of the native communities. Since the first edition of the Bengali New Testament appeared at the beginning of the century 250,000,000 of copies of the Holy Scriptures have been printed, of which one half are in 370 of the non-English tongues of the world. The Bengali School of Mudnabati, the Christian College of Serampore, have set in motion educational forces that are bringing nations to the birth, are passing under Bible instruction every day more than a million boys and girls, young men and maidens of the dark races of mankind.
The seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, the greatest and most practical Evangelical of the nineteenth century after William Wilberforce, wrote thus in his Journal of the class whom Carey headed in the eighteenth, and whom Wordsworth commemorated as
"Not sedentary all, there are who roam
To scatter seeds of Life on barbarous shores."
1847. "Aug. 30th—RYDE.—Reading Missionary Enterprises by Williams...Zeal, devotion, joy, simplicity of heart, faith, love; and we here have barely affection enough to thank God that such deeds have been done. Talk of 'doing good' and being 'useful in one's generation,' why, these admirable men performed more in one month than I or many others shall perform in a whole life!"
The eloquent Dr. Richard Winter Hamilton, reflecting that sacrifice to heroes is reserved until after sunset, recalled William Carey, eight years after his death, as "wielding a power to which all difficulties yielded, but that power noiseless as a law of nature; great in conception as well as in performance; profound as those deep combinations of language in which the Indian philosophy and polytheism hide themselves, but gentle as the flower which in his brief recreation he loved to train; awful as the sage, simple as the child; speaking through the Eastern world in as many languages, perhaps, as 'the cloven tongues of fire' represented; to be remembered and blessed as long as Ganges rolls!"
The historian of the Baptist Missionary Society, and Robert Hall, whom Sir James Mackintosh pronounced the greatest English orator, have both attempted an estimate of Carey's genius and influence. Dr. F. A. Cox remarks:—"Had he been born in the sixteenth century he might have been a Luther, to give Protestantism to Europe; had he turned his thought and observations merely to natural philosophy he might have been a Newton; but his faculties, consecrated by religion to a still higher end, have gained for him the sublime distinction of having been the Translator of the Scriptures and the Benefactor of Asia." Robert Hall spoke thus of Carey in his lifetime:—"That extraordinary man who, from the lowest obscurity and poverty, without assistance, rose by dint of unrelenting industry to the highest honours of literature, became one of the first of Orientalists, the first of Missionaries, and the instrument of diffusing more religious knowledge among his contemporaries than has fallen to the lot of any individual since the Reformation; a man who unites with the most profound and varied attainments the fervour of an evangelist, the piety of a saint, and the simplicity of a child."
Except the portrait in London and the bust in Calcutta, no memorial, national, catholic, or sectarian, marks the work of Carey. That work is meanwhile most appropriately embodied in the College for natives at Serampore, in the Lall Bazaar chapel and Benevolent Institution for the poor of Calcutta. The Church of England, which he left, like John Wesley, has allowed E. S. Robinson, Esq., of Bristol, to place an inscription, on brass, in the porch of the church of his native village, beside the stone which he erected over the remains of his father, Edmund, the parish clerk:—"To the Glory of God and in memory of Dr. Wm. Carey, Missionary and Orientalist."
Neither Baptist nor Anglican, the present biographer would, in the name of the country which stood firm in its support of Carey and Serampore all through the forty-one years of his apostolate, add this final eulogy, pronounced in St. George's Free Church, Edinburgh, on the man who, more than any other and before all others, made the civilisation of the modern world by the English-speaking races a Christian force.[36] Carey, childlike in his humility, is the most striking illustration in all Hagiology, Protestant or Romanist, of the Lord's declaration to the Twelve when He had set a little child in the midst of them, "Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Yet we, nigh a century after he went forth with the Gospel to Hindostan, may venture to place him where the Church History of the future is likely to keep him—amid the uncrowned kings of men who have made Christian England what it is, under God, to its own people and to half the human race. These are Chaucer, the Father of English Verse; Wyclif the Father of the Evangelical Reformation in all lands; Hooker, the Father of English Prose; Shakspere, the Father of English Literature; Milton, the Father of the English Epic; Bunyan, the Father of English Allegory; Newton, the father of English Science; Carey, the Father of the Second Reformation through Foreign Missions.
WE, Frederick the Sixth, by the Grace of God King of Denmark, the Venders and Gothers, Duke of Slesvig Holsten, Stormarn, Ditmarsken, Limessborg and Oldenborg, by writings these make known and publicly declare, that whereas William Carey and Joshua Marshman, Doctors of Divinity, and John Clark Marshman, Esq., inhabitants of our town of Fredericksnagore (or Serampore) in Bengal, being desirous of founding a College to promote piety and learning particularly among the native Christian population of India, have to secure this object erected suitable buildings and purchased and collected suitable books, maps, etc., and have humbly besought us to grant unto them and such persons as shall be elected by them and their successors to form the Council of the College in the manner to be hereafter named, our Royal Charter of Incorporation that they may the more effectually carry into execution the purposes above-mentioned:—We, being desirous to encourage so laudable an undertaking, have of our special grace and free motion ordained, constituted, granted and declared, and by the presents We do for ourselves, our heirs and successors ordain, constitute, grant and declare:
1. That the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, and such other person or persons as shall successively be elected and appointed the Council of the said College, in the manner hereafter mentioned, shall by virtue of the presents be for ever hereafter one body politic and incorporate by the name of the Serampore College for the purposes aforesaid to have perpetual succession and to have a common seal, and by the said name to sue and be sued, to implead and be impleaded, and to answer and be answered unto in every court and place belonging to us, our heirs and successors.
2. And We do hereby ordain, constitute and declare that the persons hereby incorporated and their successors shall for ever be competent in law to purchase, hold and enjoy for them and their successors any goods and chattels whatsoever and to receive, purchase, hold and enjoy, they and their successors, any lands, tenements or hereditaments whatever, and that they shall have full power and authority to sell, exchange or otherwise dispose of any real or personal property to be by them acquired as aforesaid, unless the sale or alienation of such property be specially prohibited by the donor or donors thereof, and to do all things relating to the said College or Corporation in as ample a manner or form as any of our liege subjects, or any other body politic or corporate in our said kingdom or its dependencies may or can do.
3. And We do hereby ordain, grant and declare that the number of Professors, Fellows or Student Tutors and Students, shall be indefinite and that the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, shall be the first Council of the said College, and that in the event of its appearing to them necessary during their life-time, or in the case of the death of any one of the three members of the said first Council, the survivors or survivor shall and may under their respective hands and seals appoint such other person or persons to be members of the Council of the College, and to succeed each other so as to become Members of the said Council in the order in which they shall be appointed, to the intent that the Council of the said College shall for ever consist of at least three persons.
4. And We do hereby further ordain, grant and declare, that for the better government of the said College, and the better management of its concerns, the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, the members of the first Council, shall have full power and authority for the space of ten years from the date of these presents, to make and establish such statutes as shall appear to them useful and necessary for the government of the said College, in which statutes they shall define the powers to be entrusted to their successors, to the Professors, the Fellows or Student Tutors and the other Officers thereof, and the duties to be performed by these respectively for the management of the estates, lands, revenues and goods—and of the business of the said College, and the manner of proposing, electing, admitting and removing all and every one of the Council, the Professors, the Fellows or Tutors, the officers, the students and the servants thereof, and shall make and establish generally all such other statutes as may appear to them necessary for the future good government and prosperity of the said College, provided that these statutes be not contrary to the laws and statutes of our realm.
5. And we do hereby further ordain, grant and declare, that the statutes thus made and established by the said three members of the first Council, and given or left in writing under their respective hands, shall be valid and in full force at the expiration of ten years from the date of these presents, so that no future Council of the College shall have power to alter, change or vary them in any manner whatever and that the statutes shall for ever be considered the constitution of the said College. And we do hereby appoint and declare that these statutes shall be made and established by the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman alone, so that in case either of them should die before the expiration of ten years, the power of completing or perfecting these statutes shall devolve wholly on the survivors or survivor; and that in case all three of them should die before the expiration of ten years, the statutes which they have left in writing under their hands, or under the hand of the last survivor among them shall be considered "The Fundamental Statutes and Constitution of Serampore College," incapable of receiving either addition or alteration, and shall and may be registered in our Royal Court of Chancery as "The Statutes and Constitution of Serampore College."
6. And We do hereby further appoint, grant and declare that from and after the completion of the statutes of the said College in the above said time of ten years, the said Council of the College shall be deemed to consist of a Master or President and two or four members who may be Professors or otherwise as the Statutes may direct so that the said Council shall not contain less than three, nor more than five persons, as shall be defined in the Statutes. The Council shall ever be elected as the Statutes of the College may direct, yet the said Master or President shall always previously have been a Member of the said College; and upon the decease of the said Master or President, the Council of the said College shall be unable to do any act or deed until the appointment of a new Master or President, save and except the appointment of such a Master.
7. And We further appoint, grant and declare, that the said William Carey, Joshua Marshman and John Clark Marshman, the members of the first Council, and their successors for ever, shall have the power of conferring upon the students of the said College, Native Christians as well as others, degrees of rank and honour according to their proficiency in as ample a manner as any other such College, yet the said Serampore College shall only have the power of conferring such degrees on the students that testify their proficiency in Science and no rank or other special right shall be connected therewith in our dominions. And We do hereby further appoint, grant and declare, that after the expiration of the said ten years, the said Council of the College and their successors for ever shall have power to make and establish such orders and bye-laws as shall appear to them useful and necessary for the government of the said College, and to alter, suspend or repeal those already made, and from time to time make such new ones in their room as shall appear to them most proper and expedient provided the same be not repugnant to the Statutes of the College, or to the laws of our realm, and that after the expiration of these ten years any member of the Council shall have power to move the enactment of any new bye-law, or the alteration, suspension or repeal of any existing one provided notice of such motion shall have been delivered in writing to the Master and read from the Chair at one previous meeting of the Council of the said College, but that no such motion shall be deemed to have passed in the affirmative, until the same shall have been discussed and decided by ballot at another meeting summoned especially for that purpose, a majority of the members then present having voted in the affirmative; and in this, as in all other cases, if the votes be equal, the Master or President shall have the casting vote.
Given at our Royal Palace in Copenhagen on the twenty-third day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven, in the nineteenth year of our reign.
Under our Royal Hand and Seal.
FREDERICK R.
June 12th, 1833.
1. Article the Third of the Charter granted by his Danish Majesty, having authorised the first Council of Serampore College in their lifetime to nominate under their hand and seal such other person or persons for colleagues or successors as may to them appear most proper, so that the Council shall always consist of at least three persons, their successors in the Council shall be competent in like manner to nominate in their lifetime, under their separate hand and seal, such person or persons as they may deem most proper to fill vacancies then existing or which may occur on their demise; members thus nominated and chosen shall succeed to the Council in order of their nomination.
2. It being fixed in the Charter that the Council must consist of the Master or President and at least two, but no more than four Members, and that on the demise of the Master no act shall be done until another be elected, the Master and Council for the time being shall appoint the next Master under their separate hand and seal. If on the demise of a Master no one be found thus appointed under the hand and seal of a majority of the Council, the Senior Member of the Council shall succeed as Master.
3. The Charter having given the casting vote to the Master, in all cases when the votes are equal the casting vote shall lie with the Master, and if there be no Master, it shall lie with the Senior Member of the Council.
4. Learning and piety being peculiar to no denomination of Christians, one member of the Council may at all times be of any other denomination besides the Baptist, to preserve the original design of the Institution; however, if on the election of a Master a number of the Council be equally divided, that part which is entirely of the Baptist denomination shall have the casting vote, whether it includes the Master or not.
5. The management of the College, including its revenues and property, the choice of Professor and Tutors, the admission of Students, the appointment of all functionaries and servants, and the general order and government of the College, shall ever be vested in the Master and the Council. The Master shall see that the Statutes and Regulations of the Council be duly carried into effect, and take order for the good government of the College in all things. His signature is necessary to the validity of all deeds, instruments, documents and proceedings.
6. "The first Council and their successor for ever" being authorised by the Charter "to confer such degrees of rank and honour as shall encourage learning" in the same manner as other Colleges and Universities, they shall from time to time confer degrees in such branches of Knowledge and Science as may be studied there, in the same manner as the Universities in Denmark, Germany and Great Britain. In doing this the Master and Council shall ad libitum call in the aid of any or all the Professors of Serampore College. All such degrees shall be perfectly free of expense to the person on whom they may be conferred, whether he be in India, Europe or America.
7. No oaths shall be administered in Serampore College, either to the Members of Council, the Professors and Tutors, or the Students. In all cases a solemn promise, duly recorded and signed by the party, shall be accepted instead of an oath.
8. Marriage shall be no bar to any office or situation in Serampore College, from that of the Master to that of the lowest student.
9. The salaries of the Professors and Tutors in Serampore College shall be appointed, and the means of support for all functionaries, students and servants be regulated by the Council in such manner as shall best promote the objects of the Institution.
10. It is intended that neither the Master nor any Member of the Council in general shall receive any salary. But any Master who may not previously reside in the College shall have a residence there free of rent for himself and his family. And if the Council shall elect any one in Europe or in America, whom they deem eminent for learning and piety, a Member of the Council, with a view to choosing him Master, should they on trial deem him worthy, the Council shall be competent to appoint him such salary as they may deem necessary, not exceeding, however, the highest given to a Professor.
11. As the founders of the College deem the belief of Christ's Divinity and Atonement essential to vital Christianity, the promotion of which is the grand object of this Institution, no one shall be eligible to the College Council or to any Professorship who is known to oppose these doctrines, and should any one of the Professors or any member of the Council unhappily so change his views after his election as to oppose these fundamental doctrines of Christianity, on this being clearly and decidedly proved from his teaching or his writings, he shall vacate the office he previously held. But every proceeding of this nature on the part of the College Council shall be published to the Christian world, with the proofs on which it may rest, as an Appendix to the succeeding Report.
12. Members of the Council are eligible from among the Professors of the College, or from among any in India, Europe, or America whom the College Council may deem suitable in point of learning, piety, and talent.
13. Students are admissible at the discretion of the Council from any body of Christians, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, the Greek, or the Armenian Church; and for the purpose of study, from the Mussulman and Hindu youth, whose habits forbid their living in the College. No caste, colour, or country shall bar any man from admission into Serampore College.
14. Expulsion shall be awarded in cases of open immorality, incorrigible idleness, neglect of the College Statutes and regulations, or repeated disobedience to the officers of the College.
15. Any person in India, Europe, or America shall be at liberty to found any Professorship, or to attach to Serampore College any annual exhibition or prize for the encouragement of learning in the same manner as in the Universities of Great Britain, regulating such endowment according to their own will; and it shall be duty of the College Council to carry such benefactions into effect in strict consonance with the will of the donors as far as shall be consistent with the Statutes of the College.
16. It shall be lawful for the first Council of the College or their successors to make and rescind any bye-laws whatever, provided they be not contrary to these Statutes.
17. The Charter having declared that the number of the Professors and students in Serampore College remains unlimited, they shall be left thus unlimited, the number to be regulated only by the gracious providence of God and the generosity of the public in India, Europe and America.
"The rights and immunities granted to the Serampore College by Royal Charter of date, 23rd February, 1827, shall not be interfered with, but continue in force in the same manner as if they had been obtained by a Charter from the British Government, subject to the general law of British India."
[1] Iphicrates, great Athenian general, who was the son of a shoemaker, used this saying, fit motto for Carey, ex oiôn eis oia.
[2] The shopmate, William Manning, preserved this signboard. In 1881 we found a Baptist shoemaker, a descendant of Carey's wife, with four assistants, at work in the shed. Then an old man, who had occasionally worked under Carey, had just died, and he used to tell how Carey had once flipped him with his apron when he had allowed the wax to boil over.
[3] In the library of the late Rev. T. Toller of Kettering was a manuscript (now in the library of Bristol Baptist College) of nine small octavo pages, evidently in the exquisitely small and legible handwriting of Carey, on the Psalter. The short treatise discusses the literary character and authorship of the Psalms in the style of Michaelis and Bishop Lowth, whose writings are referred to. The Hebrew words used are written even more beautifully than the English. If this little work was written before Carey went to India—and the caligraphy seems to point to that—the author shows a very early familiarity with the writings of one who was his predecessor as a Christian Orientalist, Sir William Jones. The closing paragraph has this sentence:—"A frequent perusal of the book of Psalms is recommended to all. We should permit few days to pass without reading in Hebrew one of those sacred poems; the more they are read and studied, the more will they delight, edify, and instruct."
[4] Twice reprinted, in Leicester, and in London (1892) in facsimile.
[5] Wealth of Nations, Book IV., Chap. VII.
[6] Mr. Thomas Haddon of Clipstone writes: "I recollect when I was about ten years old, at my father's house; it was on a Saturday, Carey was on his way to Arnsby (which is twenty miles from Moulton) to supply there the following Sabbath; he had then walked from Moulton to Clipstone, a distance of ten miles, and had ten miles further to walk to Arnsby. My honoured father had been intimately acquainted with him for some years before, and he pressed him to stay and take an early cup of tea before he went further. I well recollect my father saying to him, 'I suppose you still work at your trade?' (which was that of an army and navy shoemaker). Mr. Carey replied: 'No, indeed, I do not; for yesterday week I took in my work to Kettering, and Mr. Gotch came into the warehouse just as I had emptied my bag. He took up one of the shoes and said, "Let me see, Carey, how much do you earn a week?" I said, "About 9s., sir." Mr. Gotch then said: "I have a secret to tell you, which is this: I do not intend you should spoil any more of my leather, but you may proceed as fast as you can with your Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and I will allow you from my own private purse 10s. a week!" With that sum and about 5s. a week which I get from my people at Moulton, I can make a comfortable living' (although at that time he had a wife and three children to provide for)."
[7] Farewell Letters on Returning to Bengal in 1821.
[8] Rev. A. T. Clarke succeeded Kiernander in 1789 in the Old or Mission Church, according to Miss Blechynden's Calcutta Past and Present (1905), p. 84.
[9] At this time, and up to 1801, the last survivor of the Black Hole tragedy was living in Calcutta and bore his own name, though the missionary knew it not. Mrs. Carey was a country-born woman, who, when a girl, had married an officer of one of the East Indiamen, and with him, her mother, and sister, had been shut up in the Black Hole, where, while they perished, she is said to have retained life by swallowing her tears. Dr. Bishop, of Merchant Taylors' School—Clive's School—wrote Latin verses on the story, which thus conclude—
"...Nescit sitiendo perire
Cui sic dat lacrymas quas bibat ipsa fides."
—See Echoes from Old Calcutta, by Dr. Busteed, C.I.E.
[10] But not its Church. In October 1796 Mr. A. Johnstone, thirty years elder in Lady Yester's congregation, beside the University of Edinburgh, began a prayer meeting for Carey's work and for foreign missions. He was summoned to the Presbytery, and there questioned as if he had been a "Black-neb" or revolutionary. This meeting led to the foundation of the Sabbath School and Destitute Sick Societies in Edinburgh. See Lives of the Haldanes.
[11] Dr. Marshman's English translation is still used, beginning—
"Oh! thou my soul forget no more
The Friend who all thy misery bore."
[12] The chatookee is a bird which, they say, drinks not at the streams below: but when it rains, opening its bill, it catches the drops as they fall from the clouds.
[13] The sight of the red coat of the military surgeon who attended him gave this form to his delirious talk: "I treated him very roughly and refused to touch his medicine. In vain did he retire and put on a black coat. I knew him and was resolved."
[14] In a criticism of the three Sanskrit grammars of Carey, Wilkins, and Colebrooke, the first number of the Quarterly Review in 1809 pronounces the first "everywhere useful, laborious, and practical. Mr. Wilkins has also discussed these subjects, though not always so amply as the worthy and unwearied missionary. We have been much pleased with Dr. Carey's very sensible preface."
[15] It was reserved for a young Orientalist, whom the career of Carey and Wilson of Bombay attracted to the life of a Christian missionary, to do full justice to this book and its literature. In 1885 the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, M.A., published, at the Cambridge University Press, his Kalilah and Dimnah, or The Fables of Bidpai: Being an Account of their Literary History, with an English Translation of the later Syriac Version of the Same, and Notes. The heroic scholar and humble follower of Christ, having given himself and his all to found a Mission to the Mohammedans of South Arabia, at Sheikh Othman, near Aden, died there, on 11th May 1887, a death which will bring life to Yemen, through his memory, and the Mission which he founded, his family support, and the United Free Church of Scotland carry on in his name.
[16] THIRTY-SIX BIBLE TRANSLATIONS,
MADE AND EDITED BY DR. CAREY AT SERAMPORE
First
Published in
1801. BENGALI—New Testament; Old Testament in 1802-9.
1811. Ooriya " " in 1819.
1824. Maghadi " only.
1815-19. Assamese " " in 1832.
1824. Khasi.
1814-24. Manipoori.
1808. SANSKRIT " " in 1811-18.
1809-11. HINDI " " in 1813-18.
1822-32. Bruj-bhasa " only.
1815-22. Kanouji " "
1820. Khosali—Gospel of Matthew only.
1822. Oodeypoori—New Testament only.
1815. Jeypoori "
1821. Bhugeli "
1821. Marwari "
1822. Haraoti "
1823. Bikaneri "
1823. Oojeini "
1824. Bhatti "
1832. Palpa "
1826. Kumaoni "
1832. Gurhwali "
1821. Nepalese "
1811. MARATHI— " Old Testament in 1820.
1820. Goojarati " only.
1819. Konkan " Pentateuch in 1821.
1815. PANJABI " " and Historical Books
in 1822.
1819. Mooltani—New Testament.
1825. Sindhi—Gospel of Matthew only.
1820. Kashmeeri—New Testament; and Old Testament to 2nd Book
of Kings.
1820-26. Dogri—New Testament only.
1819. PUSHTOO—New Test. and Old Test. Htorical Books.
1815. BALOOCHI " Three Gospels.
1818. TELUGOO " and Pentateuch in 1820.
1822. KANARESE " only.
MALDIVIAN—Four Gospels.
EDITED AND PRINTED ONLY BY CAREY
Persian. Singhalese.
Hindostani. Chinese (Dr. Marshman's).
Malayalam. Javanese.
Burmese—Matthew's Gospel. Malay.
[17] Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-77. London, 1884.
[18] Mr. John Marshman, in his Life and Times of the three, states that Fry and Figgins, the London typefounders, would not produce under £700 half the Nagari fount which the Serampore native turned out at about £100. In 1813 Dr. Marshman's Chinese Gospels were printed on movable metallic types, instead of the immemorial wooden blocks, for the first time in the twenty centuries of the history of Chinese printing. This forms an era in the history of Chinese literature, he justly remarks.
[19] The fervent printer thus wrote to his Hull friends:—"To give to a man a New Testament who never saw it, who has been reading lies as the Word of God; to give him these everlasting lines which angels would be glad to read—this, this is my blessed work."
[20] In 1795 Captain Dodds, a Madras officer front Scotland, translated part of the Bible into Telugoo, and, lingering on in the country to complete the work, died seven days after the date of his letter on the subject in the Missionary Magazines of 1796.
[21] Then Editor of the Friend of India.
[22] The Chaitanya Charita Amrita, by Krishna Dass in 1557, was the first of importance.
[23] Nor was his influence confined to the Protestant division of Christendom. When, on the Restoration of 1815, France became once more aggressively Romanist for a time, the Association for the Propagation of the Faith was founded at Lyons and Paris, avowedly on the model of the Baptist Missionary Society, and it now raises a quarter of a million sterling a year for its missions. The expression in an early number of its Annales is:—"C'est l'Angleterre qui a fourni l'idée modèle," etc. "La Société des Anabaptistes a formé pour ses Missions des Sociétés," etc.
[24] Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., chapter I.
[25] Fuller more than once referred to the dying words of Sutcliff—"I wish I had prayed more." "I do not suppose he wished he had prayed more frequently, but more spiritually. I wish I had prayed more for the influences of the Holy Spirit; I might have enjoyed more of the power of vital godliness. I wish I had prayed more for the assistance of the Holy Spirit in studying and preaching my sermons; I might have seen more of the blessing of God attending my ministry. I wish I had prayed more for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to attend the labours of our friends in India; I might have witnessed more of the effects of their efforts in the conversion of the heathen."
[26] The Baptist missionary, who became an Arian, and was afterwards employed by Lord William Bentinck to report on the actual state of primary education in Bengal.
[27] The first India chaplain of the Church of Scotland, superintendent of stationery and editor of the John Bull.—See Life of Alexander Duff, D.D.
[28] His Majesty's Lord Chamberlain formally expressed to the British Minister at Copenhagen, H.E. the Hon. Edmund Monson, C.B., the King's high pleasure at "the author's noble expressions of the good his pre-possessors of the throne and the government of Denmark tried to do for their Indian subjects," when the first edition of this Life of William Carey, D.D., was presented to His Majesty.—See Taylor and Son's Biographical and Literary Notices of William Carey, D.D., Northampton, 1886.
[29] In 1834, the year Carey died, there were in the college ten European and Eurasian students learning Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Bengali, mathematics, chemistry, mental philosophy, and history (ancient and ecclesiastical). There were forty-eight resident native Christians and thirty-four Hindoos, sons of Brahmans chiefly, learning Sanskrit, Bengali, and English. "The Bengal language is sedulously cultivated...The Christian natives of India will most effectually combat error and diffuse sounder information with a knowledge of Sanskrit. The communication, therefore, of a thoroughly classic Indian education to Christian youth is deemed an important but not always an indispensable object."
[30] Serampore—Srirampur or place of the worshipful Ram.
[31] Aitchison's Collection, vol. i., edition 1892, pp. 81-86
[32] Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., 1879.
[33] William Carey, by James Culross, D.D., 1881.
[34] For years, and till the land was sold to the India Jute Company in 1875, the Garden was kept up at the expense of John Marshman, Esq., C.S.I.
[35] Sa. Rs.
"From May 1801 to June 1807, inclusive, as Teacher of
Bengali and Sanskrit, 74 months at 500 rupees monthly 37,000
From 1st July 1807 to 31st May 1830, as Professor of
ditto, at 1000 rupees monthly 2,75,000
From 23rd Oct. to July 1830, inclusive, 300 rupees
monthly, as Translator of Government Regulations 24,600
From 1st July 1830 to 31st May 1834, a pension of 500
rupees monthly 23,500
"Sicca Rupees 3,60,100"
[36] The Evangelical Succession. Third Series. Edinburgh, Macniven and Wallace, 1884.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Life of William Carey, by George Smith
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY ***
***** This file should be named 2056-h.htm or 2056-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/5/2056/
Produced by John Bechard. HTML version by Al Haines.
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.net/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.net
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.