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CHAPTER VI.

SECTION I.

LETTERS FROM THE MISSIONARIES TO THE SOCIETY-REMARKS ON THE PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE-LETTER FROM MR. CAREY TO MR. FULLER -LETTERS TO MR. SUTCLIFF-AFFLICTION

OF MR.

THOMAS-LETTER TO

DR. RYLAND.

THE short period to which the ensuing chapter relates is the only one in the labours of forty years in which we are permitted to view Mr. Carey in the simple character of a missionary. Hitherto he has prosecuted his spiritual designs in combination with unavoidable secular pursuits; and in a short time his advancing reputation as an oriental scholar, and his ardent desire to translate the holy scriptures into the languages of India, with other concurring circumstances favourable to that great enterprise, will separate him to objects mainly literary and biblical. The compiler, therefore, has very slightly abridged the letters of Mr. Carey written at this juncture, as they present him to us in a light different from any in which we shall hereafter contemplate

him. The two first documents bear the joint signatures of himself and his associated brethren; but, as he was the individual of principal interest in the circle, and as the circumstances detailed were important, not only to the establishment of the Serampore station, but to the introduction of Mr. Carey to his grand and final pursuits, it was felt that nothing could be withholden without incurring some prejudice to the integrity or interest of the narrative.

Trials also are related of peculiar severity, such as the demise of Mr. Fountain, and the mental affliction of Mrs. Carey and Mr. Thomas. The contents of the chapter need not to be anticipated, nor any reflections upon them premised, in this place. The documents themselves supply a complete history of the epoch to which they relate, whilst the providential occurrences they record are too obvious to escape the attention of the christian reader, and their character too clearly marked not to awaken the right emotions.

CAREY, FOUNTAIN, MARSHMAN, AND WARD TO THE SOCIETY.

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'We have already, by several private and one public letter, acquainted you with the reasons of our removal here; but, lest the last mentioned should miscarry, we will briefly recapitulate.

Our brethren, on their arrival at Serampore, thought of nothing but proceeding to Mudnabatty;

but Providence very evidently forbade them, and, by a number of circumstances, quite unthought of before, determined this as the spot on which the seat of the mission was to be fixed, there being evidently no security for the press anywhere else, nor indeed for the missionaries themselves, with their increasing and, to some connected with government, alarming families.

'Brother Carey, who had taken Kidderpore with a considerable incumbrance on it, in full confidence of making it the seat of the mission, received this intimation of the divine will with surprise and astonishment. Much he weighed all circumstances, and tried all his interest to obtain the necessary permission for his brethren to join him; but in vain. Dire necessity overcame every consideration, and determined him to give up Kidderpore, with all the accumulated expense of it, and, as his brethren were completely prevented from removing to him, to go and join himself to them. Accordingly, Jan. 10th, he and his family removed to Serampore; and we now form one family, united, not more by necessity and obligation, than by mutual inclination.

'Being now become a pretty large number, we were involved in a degree of perplexity respecting a habitation. Ten grown people and nine children were not likely to be comfortable in an ordinary house in this torrid clime. Besides, a printing-room, and a chapel for the reception of a small European congregation, were also found indispensably necessary; and to rent houses sufficient for these purposes, could

they have been procured, would have been an enormous expense. We therefore resolved to follow the advice of Governor Bie, and purchase one. One quickly presented itself, with about two acres of ground, quite large enough, with its out-houses, to answer all these purposes, the hall of which the governor had purposed before to convert into a Danish church. We agreed for six thousand rupees (the house with a little alteration will be worth twelve hundred rupees per annum to us); to liquidate which we wished to negociate bills on London; but, on attempting this, we found ourselves placed in the situation of beggars: none wished to send money to England, but all to get their property from thence, to place it in the company's funds, where they get twelve per cent. We accordingly met from some a disdainful repulse, and from others a very cool reception. You may well suppose our minds in this situation were not a little agitated. few days the Lord relieved us from A Captain Passmore, who was taking passengers to England, wished to get bills on London: he applied to Mr. Udney, who very kindly referred him to us. We gave him bills for £600, on Weston and Co., Southwark, for which we obtained four thousand five hundred rupees, exchange being two shillings and eightpence per rupee. At the same time brother Forsyth had recommended another person to us, a Mr. Dickson, who wanted to send almost £200 to England. By both these sums we are enabled to pay for the house, and with what we have remaining of

However, in a our perplexity.

the stock we brought with us we shall have about two thousand rupees left to subsist on, which we hope will last us through the month of July next; and then we shall be reduced to the same difficulty as before and should we not be able to negociate bills, which we are by no means certain of, we must be obliged to borrow a few rupees of some friend or other, if we can. On account of these circumstances, we again entreat you to send out, as quickly as possible, as much money as you can raise, in dollars, and invest it in the company's funds. Could you send out £4000, the interest of that sum would render us independent of any person here. agreeable is it to people here to negociate bills for you, that they shun such a one, as people in England would a perpetual borrower. Surely we need say no more to you on a subject more painful to us to mention than it can be to any of you to have it repeated.

Indeed, so dis

'We account it a most sacred duty to study the strictest economy; and are also about to open a boarding school for our common support. To this measure we have been advised by many gentlemen of brother Carey's acquaintance, by the governor, by the Rev. Mr. Brown, and others, who are acquainted with our situation. We look on it as not incongruous with our grand employment, and are not without hope that it will be something more than a means of support, even of instilling a knowledge of the true God into the tender minds of the rising European generation, to whom this is scarcely less necessary than to the

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