Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

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“I therefore only observe, respecting myself, that I have much proof of the vileness of my heart, much more than I thought of till lately: and, indeed, I often fear that instead of being instrumental in the conversion of the heathen, I may some time dishonour the cause in which I am engaged. I have hitherto had much experience of the daily supports of a gracious God; but I am conscious that if those supports were intermitted but for a little time, my sinful dispositions would infallibly predominate. At present I am kept, but am not one of those who are strong and do exploits. “I have often thought that a spirit of observation is necessary in order to our doing or communicating much good; and were it not for a very phlegmatic habit, I think my soul would be richer. I, however, appear to myself to have lost much of my capacity for making observations, improvements, etc., or of retaining what I attend to closely. For instance, I have been near three years learning the Sanskrit language, yet know very little of it. This is only a specimen of what I feel myself to be in every respect. I try to observe, to imprint what I see and hear on my memory, and to feel my heart properly affected with the circumstances; yet my soul is impoverished, and I have something of a lethargic disease cleaving to my body... “I would communicate something on the natural history of the country in addition to what I have before written, but no part of that pleasing study is so familiar to me as the vegetable world.” His letters of this period to Fuller on the fruits of India, and to Morris on the husbandry of the natives, might be quoted still as accurate and yet popular descriptions of the mango, guava, and custard apple; plantain, jack, and tamarind; pomegranate, pine-apple, and rose-apple; papaya, date, and cocoa-nut; citron, lime, and shaddock. Of many of these, and of foreign fruits which he introduced, it might be said he found them poor, and he cultivated them till he left to succeeding generations a rich and varied orchard. While still in Dinapoor, he wrote on 1st January 1798: “Seeds of sour apples, pears, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries, gooseberries, currants, strawberries, or raspberries, put loose into a box of dry sand, and sent so as to arrive in September, October, November, or December, would be a great acquisition, as is every European production. Nuts, filberts, acorns, etc., would be the same. We have lately obtained the cinnamon tree, and nutmeg tree, which Dr. Roxburgh very obligingly sent to me. Of timber trees I mention the sissoo, the teak, and the saul tree, which, being an unnamed genus, Dr. Roxburgh, as a mark of respect to me, has called Careya saulea.” The publication of the last name caused Carey’s sensitive modesty extreme annoyance. “Do not print the names of Europeans. I was sorry to see that you printed that Dr. Roxburgh had named the saul tree by my name. As he is in the habit of publishing his drawings of plants, it would have looked better if it had been mentioned first by him.” Whether he prevailed with his admiring friend in the Company’s Botanic Garden to change the name to that which the useful sal tree now bears, the Shorea robusta, we know not, but the term is derived from Lord Teignmouth’s name. Carey will go down to posterity in the history of botanical research, notwithstanding his own humility and the accidents of time. For Dr. Roxburgh gave the name of Careya to an interesting genus of Myrtaceœ. The great French botanist M. Benjamin Delessert duly commemorates the labours of Dr. Carey in the Musée Botanique. It was in Serampore that the gentle botanist found full scope for the one recreation which he allowed himself, in the interest of his body as well as of his otherwise overtasked spirit. There he had five acres of ground laid out, and, in time, planted on the Linnæan system. The park around, from which he had the little paradise carefully walled in, that Brahmani bull and villager’s cow, nightly jackal and thoughtless youth, might not in- 138
trude, he planted with trees then rare or unknown in lower Bengal, the mahogany and deodar, the teak and tamarind, the carob and eucalyptus. The fine American Mahogany has so thriven that the present writer was able, seventy years after the trees had been planted, to supply Government with plentiful seed. The trees of the park were so placed as to form a noble avenue, which long shaded the press and was known as Carey’s Walk. The umbrageous tamarind formed a dense cover, under which more than one generation of Carey’s successors rejoiced as they welcomed visitors to the consecrated spot from all parts of India, America, and Great Britain. Foresters like Sir D. Brandis and Dr. Cleghorn at various times visited this arboretum, and have referred to the trees, whose date of planting is known, for the purpose of recording the rate of growth. For the loved garden Carey himself trained native peasants who, with the mimetic instinct of the Bengali, followed his instructions like those of their own Brahmans, learned the Latin names, and pronounced them with their master’s very accent up till a late date, when Hullodhur, the last of them, passed away. The garden with its tropical glories and more modest exotics, every one of which was as a personal friend, and to him had an individual history, was more than a place of recreation. It was his oratory, the scene of prayer and meditation, the place where he began and ended the day of light--with God. What he wrote in his earlier journals and letters of the sequestered spot at Mudnabati was true in a deeper and wider sense of the garden of Serampore: “23rd September, Lord’s Day.--Arose about sunrise, and, according to my usual practice, walked into my garden for meditation and prayer till the servants came to family worship.” We have this account from his son Jonathan: “In objects of nature my father was exceedingly curious. His collection of mineral ores, and other subjects of natural history, was extensive, and obtained his particular attention in seasons of leisure and recreation. The science of botany was his constant delight and study; and his fondness for his garden remained to the last. No one was allowed to interfere in the arrangements of this his favourite retreat; and it is here he enjoyed his most pleasant moments of secret devotion and meditation. The arrangements made by him were on the Linnæan system; and to disturb the bed or border of the garden was to touch the apple of his eye. The garden formed the best and rarest botanical collection of plants in the East; to the extension of which, by his correspondence with persons of eminence in Europe and other parts of the world, his attention was constantly directed; and, in return, he supplied his correspondents with rare collections from the East. It was painful to observe with what distress my father quitted this scene of his enjoyments, when extreme weakness, during his last illness, prevented his going to his favourite retreat. Often, when he was unable to walk, he was drawn into the garden in a chair placed on a board with four wheels. “In order to prevent irregularity in the attendance of the gardeners he was latterly particular in paying their wages with his own hands; and on the last occasion of doing so, he was much affected that his weakness had increased and confined him to the house. But, notwithstanding he had closed this part of his earthly scene, he could not refrain from sending for his gardeners into the room where he lay, and would converse with them about the plants; and near his couch, against the wall, he placed the picture of a beautiful shrub, upon which he gazed with delight. “On this science he frequently gave lectures, which were well attended, and never failed to prove interesting. His publication of Roxburgh’s Flora Indica is a standard work with botanists. Of his botanical friends he spoke with great esteem; and never failed to defend them when erroneously assailed. He encouraged the study of the science wherever a desire to acquire it was manifested. In this particular he would sometimes gently reprove those who had no taste for it; but he would not spare those who attempted to undervalue it. His remark of one of his colleagues was keen and striking. When the latter somewhat reprehended Dr. Carey, to the medical gentleman 139
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LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY, Shoemaker &
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CONTENTS PAGE I. CAREY’S COLLEGE
Page 6 and 7:
Careys also had fallen on evil time
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for young Carey than for the rest o
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And England’s priestcraft shakes
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the fulness of his fame, that the e
Page 14 and 15:
This cobbler’s shed which was Car
Page 16 and 17:
“He followed Paul; his zeal a kin
Page 18 and 19:
His genial loving-kindness and his
Page 20 and 21:
“FIRST, As to their distance from
Page 22 and 23:
crop, maintain themselves. They wou
Page 24 and 25:
It was from Courteenhall, a Northam
Page 26 and 27:
plied the dealing of the Lord of Ho
Page 28 and 29:
appear to the subsequent subscripti
Page 30 and 31:
CHAPTER III INDIA AS CAREY FOUND IT
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a licence; clouded the early years
Page 34 and 35:
ciety which has so generously exert
Page 36 and 37:
We can now see that, as usual, both
Page 38 and 39:
with letters; the washing is done b
Page 40 and 41:
Warren Hastings Hindoo Christians h
Page 42 and 43:
and is still in good order. There t
Page 44 and 45:
Bengali sounds. It is a language of
Page 46 and 47:
came incarnate, under the threefold
Page 48 and 49:
“Sometimes I enjoyed sweet season
Page 50 and 51:
will do well to associate as much a
Page 52 and 53:
efore magistrates and judges; and w
Page 54 and 55:
time meant the distillation of rum.
Page 56 and 57:
land, America, Germany, and France,
Page 58 and 59:
ies, rightly trusting to Danish pro
Page 60 and 61:
efore sent missionaries to Tranqueb
Page 62 and 63:
other; brother Carey is treasurer,
Page 64 and 65:
CHAPTER VI THE FIRST NATIVE CONVERT
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whom, thirty years after, Macaulay
Page 68 and 69:
hammedan convert was Peroo, another
Page 70 and 71:
not join them occupied the missiona
Page 72 and 73:
as one of the “great things” fr
Page 74 and 75:
While the Marshmans gave their time
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CHAPTER VII CALCUTTA AND THE MISSIO
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“The number of inquirers constant
Page 80 and 81:
on probation, there were five survi
Page 82 and 83:
chapters of Matthew are translated
Page 84 and 85:
for one family, say also what will
Page 86 and 87:
cannot be insulted without your bei
Page 88 and 89:
CHAPTER VIII CAREY’S FAMILY AND F
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“MY DEAREST LOVE,--I felt very mu
Page 92 and 93: “A mission into Siam would be com
Page 94 and 95: Marshman could not resist joining t
Page 96 and 97: constant and familiar converse with
Page 98 and 99: his instrumentality, and what a tri
Page 100 and 101: than be accessory to a misunderstan
Page 102 and 103: CHAPTER IX PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, B
Page 104 and 105: Bhagavat-Geeta or Dialogue of Krish
Page 106 and 107: When Carey and his colleagues were
Page 108 and 109: The seventy students, their governo
Page 110 and 111: on the public service, enjoy the fa
Page 112 and 113: thought it incumbent upon him to at
Page 114 and 115: CHAPTER X THE WYCLIF OF THE EAST--B
Page 116 and 117: colleagues accomplished, that which
Page 118 and 119: Sir Charles Wilkins, the Caxton of
Page 120 and 121: cape of the Peninsula to Benares).
Page 122 and 123: eady, 500 copies of it were struck
Page 124 and 125: of the valley of the Brahmapootra.
Page 126 and 127: Lahore “the book of Jesus is spok
Page 128 and 129: the Serampore fire. I could scarcel
Page 130 and 131: CHAPTER XI WHAT CAREY DID FOR LITER
Page 132 and 133: It was a critical hour when the fir
Page 134 and 135: The practice of infanticide was rea
Page 136 and 137: weapons, in winning the first victo
Page 138 and 139: merchants as well as Arabs from Eas
Page 140 and 141: lunted the natural shrewdness of th
Page 144 and 145: attending him, for exposing himself
Page 146 and 147: “17th September 1816.--I approve
Page 148 and 149: held on 14th September, when the co
Page 150 and 151: educated as the cultivators. Before
Page 152 and 153: At a time when the English and even
Page 154 and 155: of the Society. He concluded his ad
Page 156 and 157: It was by this means that Carey edu
Page 158 and 159: sion spirit directly gave birth to
Page 160 and 161: ings for promoting Christianity, wi
Page 162 and 163: tion the Governor-General yielded t
Page 164 and 165: thus expressed in a letter to Franc
Page 166 and 167: 1812 the Committee had been increas
Page 168 and 169: property, or thirty-two letters ran
Page 170 and 171: men as theirs differ from one anoth
Page 172 and 173: we may edify one another may abound
Page 174 and 175: CHAPTER XIV CAREY AS AN EDUCATOR--T
Page 176 and 177: Bible as at last tolerated under th
Page 178 and 179: and the Brotherhood, to confer degr
Page 180 and 181: manner all the points of difference
Page 182 and 183: In 1826 Carey, finding that his fav
Page 184 and 185: Dr. Carey’s last report, at the c
Page 186 and 187: ence, representing all the Protesta
Page 188 and 189: CHAPTER XVI CAREY’S LAST DAYS 183
Page 190 and 191: annual revenues collected for this
Page 192 and 193:
the college, and remained, assiduou
Page 194 and 195:
might India now have been!” In Se
Page 196 and 197:
weather will permit us to expect. I
Page 198 and 199:
am Carey to the converts’ burial-
Page 200 and 201:
What must have been the feelings on
Page 202 and 203:
its own people and to half the huma
Page 204 and 205:
performed by these respectively for
Page 206 and 207:
II.--STATUTES AND REGULATIONS OF SE
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III.--ARTICLE VI., CLAUSE 2, OF THE
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