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1830

SKETCHED BY LESLIE.

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mentioned, the court intimated that they would grant the application if made by him. The communication was made: but when he was informed that an oath was necessary, he shrunk with abhorrence from the idea; but after much persuasion, he consented to make the application, if taking an oath would be dispensed with. He did attend, and stated his objections to the then chief judge, which being allowed, his affirmation was received and recorded by the court.

"The duties connected with the College of Fort William afforded him a change of scene, which relieved his mind, and gave him opportunities of taking exercise, and conduced much to his health. During the several years he held the situation of professor to the college, no consideration would allow him to neglect his attendance; and though he had to encounter boisterous weather in crossing the river at unseasonable hours, he was punctual in his attendance, and never applied for leave of absence. And when he was qualified, by the rules of the service, to retire on a handsome pension, he preferred being actively employed in promoting the interests of the college, and remained, assiduously discharging his duties, till his department was abolished by Government. The business of the college requiring his attendance in Calcutta, he became so habituated to his journeys to and fro, that at his age he painfully felt the retirement he was subjected to when his office ceased. After this circumstance, his health rapidly declined; and though he occasionally visited Calcutta, he complained of extreme debility. This increased daily, and made him a constant sufferer; until at length he was not able to leave his house."

Nor was it in India alone that the venerable saint found such causes of satisfaction. He lived long enough to thank God for the emancipation of the slaves by the English people, for which he had prayed daily for fifty years.

We have many sketches of the Father of English Missions in his later years by young contemporaries who, on their first arrival in Bengal, sought him out. In 1824 Mr. Leslie, an Edinburgh student, who became in India the first of Baptist preachers, and was the means of the conversion of Henry Havelock, who married Dr. Marshman's youngest daughter, wrote thus of Carey after the third great illness of his Indian life::

"Dr. Carey, who has been very ill, is quite recovered, and bids fair to live many years; and as for Dr. Marshman, he has never known what ill health is, during the whole period of his residence in India. They are both active to a degree which you would think impossible in such a country. Dr. Carey is a very equable and cheerful old man, in countenance very like the engraving of him with his pundit, though not so robust as he appears to be there. Next to his translations Botany is his grand study. He has collected every plant and tree in his garden that will possibly grow in India, and is so scientific withal, that he calls everything by its classical name. If, therefore, I should at any time blunder out the word Geranium, he would say Pelargonium, and perhaps accuse me of ignorance, or blame me for vulgarity. We had the pleasure of hearing him preach from Rom. vii. 13, when he gave us an excellent sermon. In manner he is very animated, and in style very methodical. Indeed he carries method into everything he does; classification is his grand hobby, and wherever anything can be classified, there you find Dr. Carey; not only does he classify and arrange the roots of plants and words, but visit his dwelling, and you find he has fitted up and classified shelves full of minerals, stones, shells, etc., and cages full of birds. He is of very easy access, and great familiarity. His attachments are strong, and extend not merely to persons but places. About a year ago, so much of the house in which he had lived ever since he had been at Serampore, fell down so that he had to leave it, at which he wept bitterly. One morning at breakfast, he was relating to us an anecdote of the generosity of the late excellent John Thornton, at the remembrance of whom the big tear filled his eye. Though it is an affecting sight to see the venerable man weep; yet it is a sight which greatly interests you, as there is a manliness in his team —something far removed from the crying of a child."

The house in which for the last ten years he lived, and where he died, is seen to the right of the picture, partly shadowed by a small teak tree. It was the only one of two or three, planned for the new professors of the college, that was completed. Compared with the adjoining college it was erected with such severe simplicity that it was said to have been designed for angels rather than for men. Carey's room and library looked towards the river with the breadth of the college garden between. The white front shows the upper

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1830

VISITED BY ALEXANDER DUFF.

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verandah where in the morning he worked at his desk almost to the last, and in the evening towards sunset he talked with his visitors. In 1826 the London Missionary Society sent out to Calcutta the first of its deputations, the Rev. D. Tyerman and Mr. G. Bennet. Dr. Carey sent his boat for them, and in the absence of her husband in England Mrs. Marshman entertained the guests. They wrote—

"We found Dr. Carey in his study, and we were both pleased and struck with his primitive, and we may say, apostolical appearance. He is short of stature, his hair white, his countenance equally bland and benevolent in feature and expression. Two Hindoo men were sitting by, engaged in painting some small subjects in natural history, of which the doctor, a man of pure taste and highly intellectual cast of feeling, irrespective of his more learned pursuits, has a choice collection, both in specimens and pictorial representations. Botany is a favourite study with him, and his garden is curiously enriched with rarities. In the evening Mr. Tyerman was invited to preach, which he did from Acts viii. 5-8, the subject, Philip at Samaria. The congregation consisted chiefly of the mission family, namely, a hundred and twenty children of both sexes at Mrs. Marshman's school, and about thirty other persons."

Of all the visits paid to Carey none are now so interesting to the historian of the Church of India, as those of the youth who succeeded him as he had succeeded Schwartz, Alexander Duff was twenty-four years of age when, in 1830, full of hesitation as to carrying out his own plans in opposition to the experience of all the missionaries he had consulted, he received from Carey alone the most earnest encouragement to pursue in Calcutta the Christian college policy so well begun in the less central settlement of Serampore. We have elsewhere1 told the story:—

"Landing at the college ghaut one sweltering July day, the still ruddy Highlander strode up to the flight of steps that leads to the finest modern building in Asia. Turning to the left, he sought the

1 Life of Alexander Duff, D.D. LL.D., 1879.

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