CAREY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS
1807-1812
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.