1812]

HIS PORTRAIT BY HOME

177

ago I had a conversation with one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, Sir John Boyd, upon religious subjects. Indeed there is now scarcely a place where you can pay a visit without having an opportunity of saying something about true religion."

Carey's friendly intercourse, by person and letter, was not confined to those who were aggressively Christian or to Christian and ecclesiastical questions. As we shall soon see, his literary and scientific pursuits led him to constant and familiar converse with scholars like Colebrooke and Leyden, with savants like Roxburgh, the astronomer Bentley, and Dr. Hare, with publicists like Sir James Mackintosh and Robert Hall, with such travellers and administrators as Manning, the friend of Charles Lamb, and Raffles.

In Great Britain the name of William Carey had, by 1812, become familiar as a household word in all evangelical circles. The men who had known him in the days before 1793 were few and old, were soon to pass away for ever. The new generation had fed their Christian zeal on his achievements, and had learned to look on him, in spite of all his humility which only inflamed that zeal, as the pioneer, the father, the founder of foreign missions, English, Scottish, and American. They had never seen him; they were not likely to see him in the flesh. The desire for a portrait of him became irresistible. The burning of the press, to be hereafter described, which led even bitter enemies of the mission like Major Scott Waring to subscribe for its restoration, gave the desired sympathetic voice, so that Fuller wrote to the missionaries : "The public is now giving us their praises. Eight hundred guineas have been offered for Dr. Carey's likeness. When you pitched your tents at Serampore you said, 'We will not accumulate riches but devote all to God for the salvation of the heathen.' God has given you what you desired and what you desired not. Blessed men, God will bless you and make you a blessing. I and others of us may die, but God will surely visit you. Expect to be highly applauded, bitterly reproached, greatly moved, and much tried in every way. Oh that, having done all, you may stand!"

N

Carey was, fortunately for posterity, not rebellious in the matter of the portrait; he was passive. As he sat in his room in the college of Fort William, his pen in hand, his Sanskrit Bible before him, and his Brahman pundit at his left hand, the saint and the scholar in the ripeness of his powers at fifty was transferred to the canvas which has since adorned the walls of Regent's Park College. A line engraving of the portrait was published in England the year after at a guinea, and widely purchased, the profit going to the mission. The painter was Home, famous in his day as the artist whom Lord Cornwallis had engaged during the first war with Tipoo to prepare those Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tipoo Sultaun, from Drawings taken on the Spot, which appeared in 1794.

Of his four sons, Felix, William, Jabez, and Jonathan, Carey's correspondence was most frequent at this period. with William, who went forth in 1807 to Dinajpoor to begin his independent career as a missionary by the side. of Fernandez.

“2d April 1807.-We have the greatest encouragement to go forward in the work of our Lord Jesus, because we have every reason to conclude that it will be successful at last. It is the cause which God has had in His mind from eternity, the cause for which Christ shed His blood, that for which the spirit and word of God were given, that which is the subject of many great promises, that for which the saints have been always praying, and which God Himself bears an infinite regard to in His dispensations of Providence and Grace. The success thereof is therefore certain. Be encouraged, therefore, my dear son, to devote yourself entirely to it, and to pursue it as a matter of the very first importance even to your dying day.

Give my love to Mr. and Mrs. Creighton and to Mr. Ellerton, Mr. Grant, or any other who knows me about Malda, also to our native Brethren."

"CALCUTTA, 29th September 1808.-A ship is just arrived which brings the account that Buonaparte has taken possession of the whole kingdom of Spain, and that the Royal family of that country are in prison at Bayonne.

1809]

CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS SON

179

It is likely that Turkey is fallen before now, and what will be the end of these wonders we cannot tell. I see the wrath of God poured out on the nations which have so long persecuted His Gospel, and prevented the spread of His truth. Buonaparte is but the minister of the Divine vengeance, the public executioner now employed to execute the sentence of God upon criminal men. He, however, has no end in view but the gratifying his own ambition." "22d December 1808. -DEAR WILLIAM-Be steadfast.

Walk worthy of your high calling, and so as to be a pattern to others who may engage in similar undertakings. Much depends upon us who go first to the work of the Lord in this country; and we have reason to believe that succeeding Ministers of the Gospel in this country will be more or less influenced by our example. . . All, even

the best of men, are more likely to be influenced by evil example than benefited by good: let it, therefore, be your business and mine to live and act for God in all things and at all times.

"I am very glad you wrote to Jabez and Jonathan. O that I could see them converted!"

"30th May 1809.-When you come down take a little pains to bring down a few plants of some sort. There is one grows plentifully about Sadamahal which grows about as high as one's knee, and produces a large red flower. Put half a dozen plants in pots (with a hole in the bottom). There is at Sadamahal (for I found it there) a plant which produces a flower like Bhayt, of a pale bluish colour, almost white; and indeed several other things there. Try and bring something. Can't you bring the grasshopper which has a saddle on its back, or the bird which has a large crest which he opens when he settles on the ground? I want to give you a little taste for natural objects. Felix is very good indeed in this respect.

"26th April 1809.-You, my dear William, are situated in a post which is very dear to my remembrance because the first years of my residence in India were spent in that neighbourhood. I therefore greatly rejoice in any exertions which you are enabled to make for the cause of our