Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

and the house; and that space soon split. At last two fissures appeared in the foundation and
wall of the house itself. This was a signal for me to remove; and a house built for a professor in
the College being empty, I removed to it, and through mercy am now comfortably settled there.
“I have nearly filled my letter with this account, but I must give you a short account of the state
of my mind when I could think, and that was generally when excited by an access of friends; at
other times I could scarcely speak or think. I concluded one or two days that my death was near.
I had no joys; nor any fear of death, or reluctance to die; but never was I so sensibly convinced
of the value of an ATONING Saviour as then. I could only say, ‘Hangs my helpless soul on thee;’
and adopt the language of the first and second verses of the fifty-first Psalm, which I desired
might be the text for my funeral sermon. A life of faith in Christ as the Lamb of God who taketh
away the sin of the world, appeared more than ordinarily important to my mind, and I expressed
these feelings to those about me with freedom and pleasure.
“Now, through the gracious providence of God, I am again restored to my work, and daily do a
little as my strength will admit. The printing of the translations is now going forward almost as
usual, but I have not yet been able to attend to my duties in College. The affairs of the Mission
are more extended, and I trust in as prosperous a state as at any former time. There are now
many of other denominations employed in Missions, and I rejoice to say that we are all workers
together in the work. The native churches were never in a better state, and the face of the Mission
is in every respect encouraging. Give my love to all who know me.--I am very affectionately
yours, W. CAREY.”
Still more severe and disastrous in its effects was the cyclone of 1831. The former had desolated the open
garden, but this laid low some of the noblest trees which, in their fall, crushed his splendid conservatory. One
of his brethren represents the old man as weeping over the ruin of the collections of twenty years. Again the
Hoogli, lashed into fury and swollen by the tidal wave, swept away the lately-formed road, and, cutting off another
fourth of the original settlement of the Mission, imperilled the old house of Mr. Ward. Its ruins were
levelled to form another road, and ever since the whole face of the right bank of the river has been a source of
apprehension and expense. Just before this, Dr. Staughton had written from America that the interest on the
funds raised there by Ward for the College would not be sent until the trustees were assured that the money
was not to be spent on the teaching of science in the College, but only on the theological education of Hindoo
converts. “I must confess,” was Carey’s reply, “I never heard anything more illiberal. Pray can youth be
trained up for the Christian ministry without science? Do you in America train up youths for it without any
knowledge of science?”
One of Dr. Carey’s latest visits to Calcutta was to inspect the Society’s Garden then at Alipore, and to write the
elaborate report of the Horticultural Committee which appeared in the second volume of the Transactions
after his death. He there records the great success of the cultivation of the West India arrowroot. This he introduced
into his own garden, and after years of discontinued culture we raised many a fine crop from the old
roots. The old man “cannot but advert, with feelings of the highest satisfaction, to the display of vegetables on
the 13th January 1830, a display which would have done honour to any climate, or to any, even the most improved
system of horticulture... The greater part of the vegetables then produced were, till within these last
few years, of species wholly unknown to the native gardeners.”
When, in 1842, the Agri-Horticultural Society resolved to honour its founder, it appropriately fell to Dr. Wallich,
followed by the president Sir J. P. Grant, to do what is thus recorded: “Dr. Wallich addressed the meeting
at some length, and alluded to the peculiar claims which their late venerable founder had on the affection
of all classes for his untiring exertions in advancing the prosperity of India, and especially so on the members
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