Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

1808

THE ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENT PROJECTED.

195

band (she was then sixteen) the old Dutchman cried out, 'Oh, if you would find me such a nice little wife I would give you ten thousand rupees.'

It was in Martyn's Pagoda that Claudius Buchanan first broached his plan of an ecclesiastical establishment for India, and invited the discussion of it by Carey and his colleagues. Such a scheme came naturally from one who was the grandson of a Presbyterian elder of the Church of Scotland, converted in the Whitefield revival at Cambuslang. It had been suggested first by Bishop Porteous when he reviewed the Company's acquisitions in Asia. It was encouraged by Lord Wellesley, who was scandalised on his arrival in India by the godlessness of the civil servants and the absence of practically any provision for the Christian worship and instruction of its officers and soldiers, who were all their lives without religion, not a tenth of them ever returning home. Carey thus wrote, at Ryland's request, of the proposal which resulted in the arrival in Calcutta of Bishop Middleton and Dr. Bryce in 1814:—"I have no opinion of Dr. Buchanan's scheme for a religious establishment here, nor could I from memory point out what is exceptionable in his memoir. All his representations must be taken with some grains of allowance." When, in the Aldeen discussions, Dr. Buchanan told Marshman that the temple lands would eventually answer for the established churches and the Brahmans' lands for the chaplains, the stout Nonconformist replied with emphasis, "You will never obtain them." Whatever be the judgment of our readers on an establishment which during the seventy years of its existence at a cost of ten millions sterling has given us at least the brief and beautiful episcopates of Heber and Cotton, we may regret that Carey's principles were not applied so as to enable civilians to help themselves, while the Government should confine its care to the supply of military chaplains only on a non-intolerant system. And we may all

accept the conversion of the idol shrine into a place of prayer —as Gregory I. taught Augustine of Canterbury to transform heathen temples into Christian churches—as presaging the time when the vast temple and mosque endowments will be devoted by the people themselves to their own moral if not spiritual good through education, both religious and secular.

The change wrought in seventeen years by Carey and such. associates as these on society in Bengal, both rich and poor, became marked by the year 1810. We find him writing of it thus: "When I arrived I knew of no person who cared about the Gospel except Mr. Brown, Mr. Udny, Mr. Creighton, Mr. Grant, and Mr. Brown, an indigo-planter, besides Brother Thomas and myself. There might be more, and probably were, though unknown to me. There are now in India thirty-two ministers of the Gospel. Indeed, the Lord is doing great things for Calcutta; and though infidelity abounds, yet religion is the theme of conversation or dispute in almost every house. A few weeks ago (October 1810), I called upon one of the Judges to take breakfast with him, and going rather abruptly upstairs, as I had been accustomed to do, I found the family just going to engage in morning worship. I was of course. asked to engage in prayer, which I did. I afterwards told him that I had scarcely witnessed any thing since I had been in Calcutta which gave me more pleasure than what I had seen that morning. The change in this family was an effect of Mr. Thomason's ministry. . . . About ten days ago I had a conversation with one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, Sir John Royds, 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. His literary and scientific

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

1812

HOME'S PORTRAIT OF CAREY.

197

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!" Little did the great-hearted Andrew Fuller dream that his own death in two years would be followed by the most grievous wounding of the missionaries, not from their enemies but from the house of their friends.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »