What fruit has his mission zeal left? It has left one of the soul-stirring examples that have raised up other labourers. It has left the Persian Bible for the blessing of all to whom that language is familiar. It left, for the time, a strong interest in Christianity in Shiraz. It left in India many English quickened to a sense of religion; and it assuredly left Sheik Salah a true convert. Baptized afterwards by the name of Abdul Messeh, or Servant of the Messiah, he became the teacher of no less than thirty-nine Hindoos whom he brought to Holy Baptism. Such were the reapings in Paradise that Henry Martyn has won from his thirty-one years' life and his seeming failure.
CHAPTER V. WILLIAM CAREY AND JOSHUA MARSHMAN, THE SERAMPORE MISSIONARIES.
The English subjects and allies in India had hitherto owed their scanty lessons in Christianity to Germans or Danes, and the first of our own countrymen who attempted the work among them was, to the shame of our Government be it spoken, a volunteer from among the humblest classes, of no more education than falls to the lot of the child of a village schoolmaster and parish clerk.
In 1761, when Schwartz was just beginning to make his way in Tanjore, William Carey was born in the village of Paulerspury, in Northamptonshire. He showed himself a diligent scholar in his father's little school, and had even picked up some Latin before, at fourteen years old, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker at the neighbouring village of Hackleton. Still he had an earnest taste for study; and, falling in with a commentary on the New Testament full of Greek words, he copied them all out, and carried them for explanation to a man living in his native village, who had thrown away a classical education by his dissipated habits.
The young shoemaker, thus struggling on to instruct himself, fell under the notice of Thomas Scott, the author of the Commentary on the Bible, and it was from him that Carey first received any strong religious impressions. Scott was a Baptist; and young Carey, who had grown up in the days of the deadness of the Church, was naturally led to his teacher's sect, and began to preach at eighteen years of age. He always looked back with humiliation to the inexperienced performances of his untried zeal at that time of life; but he was doing his best to study, working hard at grammar, and every morning reading his portion of the Scripture for the day in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, as well as English. Well might Mr. Scott say, as he looked at the little cobbler's shop, "That was Mr. Carey's college;" for all this time he was working at his trade, and, on his master's death, took the business, and married the daughter of the house before he was twenty.
It was an unlucky marriage, for she was a dull, ignorant woman, with no feeling for her husband's high aims or superior powers, and the business was not a flourishing one; but he never manifested anything but warm affection and tenderness towards this very uncompanionable person, and perhaps, like most men of low station and unusual intellect, had no idea that more could be expected of a wife.
Perhaps, in spite of his kindness, Mrs. Carey had to endure the disasters common to the wives of struggling great men: for William Carey's shoes were not equal to his sermons, and his congregation were too poor even to raise means to clothe him decently. His time was spent in long tramps to sell shoes he had made and to obtain the mending of others, and, meantime, he was constantly suffering from fever and ague.
In 1786, when in his twenty-fifth year, he obtained a little Baptist chapel and the goodwill of a school at Moulton; but as a minister he only received 16_l. per annum, and at the same time proved, as many have done before him, that aptness to learn does not imply aptness to teach. He could not keep order, and his boys first played tricks with him and then deserted, till he came nearly to starvation, and had to return to his last and his leather.
Yet it was the geography lessons of this poor little school that first found the way to the true chord of Carey's soul. Those broad tracts of heathenism that struck his eye in the map, and the summary of nations and numbers professing false religions, were to a mind like his no mere items of information to be driven into dull brains, but were terrible realities representing souls perishing for lack of knowledge. Cook's Voyages fell into his hands and fed the growing impulse. He hung up in his shop a large map, composed of several sheets pasted together, and gazed at it when at his work, writing against each country whatever information he had been able to collect as to the number of the inhabitants, their religion, government, or habits, also as to the climate and natural history.
After he had for some time thus dwelt on the great longing of his heart, he ventured on speaking it forth at a meeting of ministers at Northampton, when there was a request that some topic might be named for discussion. Carey then modestly rose and proposed "the duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel among the heathen." The words were like a shock. The senior, who acted as president, sprang up in displeasure, and shouted out, "Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine." And another, namely Mr. Fuller, who afterwards became the sheet anchor of the Missions, describes himself as having thought of the words of the noble at Jezreel, "If the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be?"
Silenced by his brethren, Carey persevered, and proceeded to write what he had not been allowed to speak. A Birmingham tradesman of the name of Pott, an opulent man, was induced by his earnestness to begin a subscription for the publication of Carey's pamphlet, which showed wonderful acquaintance with the state of the countries it mentioned, and manifested talent of a remarkable order. In truth, Carey had been endowed with that peculiar missionary gift, facility for languages. A friend gave him a large folio in Dutch, and was amazed by his returning shortly after with a translation into English of one of the sermons which the book contained.
He was becoming more known, and an invitation from a congregation at Leicester, in 1789, placed him in somewhat more comfortable circumstances, and brought him into contact with persons better able to enter into his views; but it was three years more before he could either publish his pamphlet or take the very first steps towards the establishment of a Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Heathen.
The first endeavour to collect a subscription resulted in 13_l. 2_s. 6_d. This was at Kettering, and at the same time Carey offered to embark for any country the Society might appoint. The committee, however, waited to collect more means, but they found it almost impossible to awaken people's minds. At Birmingham, indeed, 70_l. was collected, but in London the dissenting pastors would have nothing to do with the cause; and the only minister of any denomination who showed any sympathy was the Rev. John Newton, that giant of his day, who had in his youth been captain of a slaver, and well knew what were the dark places of the earth. The objections made at that time were perfectly astounding. In the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, several Presbyterian ministers pronounced it to be "highly preposterous" to attempt to spread the Gospel among barbarous nations, extolled the "simple virtues" of the untutored savage, and even declared that the funds of Missionary Societies might be turned against Government.
In India itself, the endeavours of the Danish settlement at Tranquebar had little affected Bengal, but a few of the more religious men at Calcutta had begun to be shocked at the utter oblivion of all Christian faith and morality by their own countrymen, and the absolute favour shown to the grossest idolatry of the heathen. Charles Grant, a member of the Board of Trade at Calcutta, was the foremost of these, and on his return to England brought the subject under the notice of that great champion of Christ, William Wilberforce. The charter of the East India Company was renewed from time to time; and when it was brought before Parliament, Wilberforce proposed the insertion of clauses enforcing the maintenance of chaplains, churches, and schools, so that a branch of the Church might take root in Hindostan.