of it in the lot to which he was born. At the time of his birth, his father, Edmund Carey, was a journeyman "tammy" weaver living in a cottage, the humble character of which may be seen in the illustration on the preceding page.

In the year 1767, his father removed to the schoolhouse belonging to the Free School at the church end of the village, having obtained the two-fold office of schoolmaster and parish clerk, the duties of which the grandfather had previously performed. In the south porch of Paulerspury Church, a tablet may be seen perpetuating the memory of Edmund Carey, who died June 15th, 1816, in the eighty-first year of his age. The old man was worthy of the memorial, for his faithful services and upright character had won the respect and esteem of all his neighbours.

William, of course, was taught by his father in company with the village lads. He soon began his eager pursuit for knowledge. He would lie awake at night going over his sums, which it is said his mother often heard him doing, when the rest of the family were asleep. On the removal from the cottage in the Pury end to the schoolhouse, he was allowed to have his own little room. And what an interesting room it became ! There he kept his numerous birds, to which he was devotedly attached, and the eggs which were the prize of many a risky climb; the walls too were stuck with insects, and botanical specimens were preserved with the utmost care. Many were the spoils he brought home as the result of quests amongst the lanes and haunts of Whittlebury Forest. And surrounded by these treasures of nature, he might often have been seen eagerly reading such books as his father possessed or neighbours could supply. As one of his achievements

at this time he learnt by heart nearly the whole of Dyche's Latin vocabulary.

Two references to these early days are full of interest. His sister Mary remarks, "Though I often used to kill his birds by kindness, yet when he saw my grief he always indulged me with the pleasure of serving them again, and often took me over the dirtiest roads to get at a plant or an insect. . . I recollect even now the delight with which he would show me the beauties in the growth of plants." And as to his literary taste in after years, he himself said: "I chose to read books of science, history, voyages, etc., more than any others. Novels and plays always disgusted me, and I avoided them as much as I did books of religion, and perhaps from the same motive. I was better pleased with romances, and this circumstance made me read the 'Pilgrim's Progress' with eagerness, though to no purpose."

As a boy he was marked by that resolute perseverance which was so conspicuous a characteristic in after life. His indomitable spirit may be seen in the following incident. It is related that having fallen from a tree he had endeavoured to climb, the first thing he did as soon as he had recovered from his bruises was to renew the attempt. The plodding disposition, to which afterwards he confessed he owed so much, had already begun to distinguish him. To quote again his sister: "When a boy he was of a studious turn and fully bent on learning, and always resolutely determined never to give up any portion or particle of anything on which his mind was set, till he had arrived at a clear knowledge and sense of his subject. He was not allured or diverted from it; he was firm to his purpose and steady in his endeavour to improve."

His botanical tastes were greatly encouraged by his uncle, Peter Carey, who was a gardener in the village. Little did this uncle suppose, as he taught the lad how to cultivate flowers and plant trees in his father's garden, that his nephew would one day become one of the most eminent horticulturists in Asia.

In this description of William Carey's childhood may we not, to borrow Milton's metaphor, truly affirm

"The childhood shows the man

As morning shows the day."

At the age of fourteen William began as a field labourer to earn his livelihood, but in consequence of a peculiar skin affection from which at the time he was suffering, and which exposure to the sun most painfully irritated, he was compelled to abandon this employment. What more natural than that attention should then be turned to the shoemaking trade, that being, as it is still, the special occupation in the locality. There was little difficulty in finding a suitable shoemaker to whom to apprentice the lad, and in his seventeenth year we find him at Hackleton, nine miles distant from Paulerspury, in the service of Clarke Nichols. And so he set about learning the craft which has become almost hallowed by the remarkable number of great and good men who have been associated with it.

The providence of God "thus linked him," says Dr. George Smith, "to the earliest Latin missionaries of Alexandria, of Asia Minor, and of Gaul, who were shoemakers, and to a succession of scholars and divines, poets and critics, reformers and philanthropists, who have used the shoemaker's life to become illustrious."

Dr. Smith also states: "Coleridge, who, when at Christ's Hospital, was ambitious to be a shoemaker's apprentice, was right when he declared that shoemakers had given to the world a larger number of eminent men than any other handicraft."

Among Clarke Nichol's books young Carey found a New Testament commentary. Opening its pages he saw for the first time the characters of the Greek language. What could they mean? His master did not know. Who could help him to understand them? Remembering a weaver in his native village who had been well educated, but whose dissolute habits had reduced him in circumstances, he traced with great care the strange letters, and asking leave of his master to visit his home he found out the indigent scholar. And as we thus imagine him gaining instruction in his first Greek lesson, how readily we think of him in later life mastering, by the help of his learned Pundits, the many Oriental languages and dialects, in the acquisition of which, as we shall see, he became so wonderful an adept.

William was unable to complete the term of his apprenticeship owing to the death of his master, but he soon obtained a situation as journeyman with a Mr. T. Old of the same village. In a notice of his

early life which Carey sent to Dr. Ryland, he thus refers to his new master:-"My master was a strict churchman, and what I thought a very moral man. It is true he sometimes drank rather too freely, and generally employed me in carrying goods on the Lord's Day morning till near church time; but he was an inveterate enemy to lying, a vice to which I was awfully addicted; he also possessed the quality of commenting on a fault till I could scarcely endure his reflections." In this description of his master it