CALCUTTA AND THE MISSION CENTRES FROM DELHI TO AMBOYNA
1802-1817
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.