Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

“We found Dr. Carey in his study, and we were both pleased and struck with his primitive, and
we may say, apostolical appearance. He is short of stature, his hair white, his countenance
equally bland and benevolent in feature and expression. Two Hindoo men were sitting by, engaged
in painting some small subjects in natural history, of which the doctor, a man of pure
taste and highly intellectual cast of feeling, irrespective of his more learned pursuits, has a
choice collection, both in specimens and pictorial representations. Botany is a favourite study
with him, and his garden is curiously enriched with rarities.”
Of all the visits paid to Carey none are now so interesting to the historian of the Church of India, as those of
the youth who succeeded him as he had succeeded Schwartz. Alexander Duff was twenty-four years of age
when, in 1830, full of hesitation as to carrying out his own plans in opposition to the experience of all the missionaries
he had consulted, he received from Carey alone the most earnest encouragement to pursue in Calcutta
the Christian college policy so well begun in the less central settlement of Serampore. We have elsewhere
32 told the story:
“Landing at the college ghaut one sweltering July day, the still ruddy highlander strode up to
the flight of steps that leads to the finest modern building in Asia. Turning to the left, he sought
the study of Carey in the house--‘built for angels,’ said one, so simple is it--where the greatest of
missionary scholars was still working for India. There he beheld what seemed to be a little yellow
old man in a white jacket, who tottered up to the visitor of whom he had already often
heard, and with outstretched hands solemnly blessed him. A contemporary soon after wrote
thus of the childlike saint--
“‘Thou’rt in our heart--with tresses thin and grey,
And eye that knew the Book of Life so well,
And brow serene, as thou wert wont to stray
Amidst thy flowers--like Adam ere he fell.’
“The result of the conference was a double blessing; for Carey could speak with the influence at
once of a scholar who had created the best college at that time in the country, and of a vernacularist
who had preached to the people for half a century. The young Scotsman left his presence
with the approval of the one authority whose opinion was best worth having...
“Among those who visited him in his last illness was Alexander Duff, the Scots missionary. On
one of the last occasions on which he saw him--if not the very last--he spent some time talking
chiefly about Carey’s missionary life, till at length the dying man whispered, Pray. Duff knelt
down and prayed, and then said Good-bye. As he passed from the room, he thought he heard a
feeble voice pronouncing his name, and, turning, he found that he was recalled. He stepped
back accordingly, and this is what he heard, spoken with a gracious solemnity: ‘Mr. Duff, you
have been speaking about Dr. Carey, Dr. Carey; When I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey--
speak about Dr. Carey’s Saviour.’ Duff went away rebuked and awed, with a lesson in his heart
that he never forgot.” 33
When with his old friends he dwelt much on the past. Writing of May 1832, Dr. Marshman mentioned: “I
spent an hour at tea with dear Brother Carey last night, now seventy and nine months. He was in the most
comfortable state of health, talking over his first feelings respecting India and the heathen, and the manner in
which God kept them alive, when even Fuller could not yet enter into them, and good old John Ryland (the
doctor’s father) denounced them as unscriptural. Had these feelings died away, in what a different state
32 Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., 1879.
33 William Carey, by James Culross, D.D., 1881.
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