I feel a sweet resignation to his will. I know that he has wise ends to answer in all that he does, and that what he does is best; and if his great and wise designs are accomplished, what does it signify if a poor worm feels a little inconvenience and pain, who deserves hell for his sins?" A still harder fate befell him. The monomania of his wife became chronic for the rest of her life. A letter which she wrote and sent by special messenger called forth from Thomas this loving sympathy:—" You must endeavour to consider it a disease. The eyes and ears of many are upon you, to whom your conduct is unimpeachable with respect to all her charges; but if you show resentment, they have ears, and others have tongues set on fire. Were I in your case, I should be violent; but blessed be God, who suits our burdens to our backs. Sometimes I pray earnestly for you, and I always feel for you. Think of Job. Think of Jesus. Think of of those who were 'destitute, afflicted, tormented.'" A voyage up the Tangan in Mr. Udny's pinnace as far as the north frontier, at a spot now passed by the railway to Darjeeling, restored the invalid. "I am no hunter," he wrote, while Thomas was shooting wild buffaloes, but he was ever adding to his store of observations of the people, the customs and language. Meanwhile he was longing for letters from Fuller and Pearce and Ryland. At the end of January 1795 the missionary exile thus talks of himself in his journal :— "Much engaged in writing, having begun to write letters to Europe; but having received none, I feel that hope deferred makes the heart sick. However, I am so fully satisfied of the firmness of their friendship, that I feel a sweet pleasure in writing to them, though rather of a forlorn kind; and having nothing but myself to write about, feel the awkwardness of being an egotist. I feel a social spirit though barred from society. . . . I sometimes walk in my garden, and try to pray to God; and if I pray at all it is in the solitude of a 1795 FIRST CHURCH FORMED. 97 walk. I thought my soul a little drawn out to-day, but soon gross darkness returned. Spoke a word or two to a Mohammedan upon the things of God, but I feel to be as bad as they.... 9th May. I have added nothing to these memoirs since the 19th of April. Now I observe that for the last three sabbaths my soul has been much comforted in seeing so large a congregation, and more especially as many who are not our own workmen come from the parts adjacent, whose attendance must be wholly disinterested. I therefore now rejoice in seeing a regular congregation of from two to six hundred people of all descriptions—Mussulmans, Brahmans, and other classes of Hindoos, which I look upon as a favourable token from God, ... Blessed be God, I have at last received letters and other articles from our friends in England... from dear brethren Fuller, Morris, Pearce, and Rippon, but why not from others? . . . 14th June. I have had very sore trials in my own family, from a quarter which I forbear to mention. Have greater need for faith and patience than ever I had, and I bless God that I have not been altogether without supplies of these graces.. Mr. Thomas and his family spent one Lord's day with us, May 23d. . . . We spent Wednesday, 26th, in prayer, and for a convenient place assembled in a temple of Seeb, which was near to our house. from that day seized with a dysentery, which continued nearly a week with fearful violence; but then I recovered, through abundant mercy. That day of prayer was a good day to our souls. We concerted measures for forming a Baptist church." I was To his sister he wrote, on the 11th March, of the church, which was duly formed of Europeans and Eurasians. No native convert was made in this Dinajpoor mission till 1806, after Carey had removed to Serampore. "We have in the neighbourhood about fifteen or sixteen serious persons, or those I have good hopes of, all Europeans. With the natives I have very large concerns; almost all the farmers for nearly twenty miles H round cultivate indigo for us, and the labouring people working here to the number of about five hundred, so that I have considerable opportunity of publishing the Gospel to them. I have so much knowledge of the language as to be able to preach to them for about half an hour, so as to be understood, but am not able to vary my subjects much. I tell them of the evil and universality of sin, the sins of a natural state, the justice of God, the incarnation of Christ and his sufferings in our stead, and of the necessity of conversion, holiness, and faith, in order to salvation. They hear with attention in general, and some come to me for instruction in the things of God." "It was always my opinion that missionaries may and must support themselves after having been sent out, and received a little support at first, and in consequence I pursue a very little worldly employment which requires three months' closish attendance in the year; but this is in the rains—the most unfavourable season for exertion. I have a district of about twenty miles square, where I am continually going from village to village to publish the Gospel; and in this space are about two hundred villages, whose inhabitants from time to time hear the Word. My manner of travelling is with two small boats; one serves me to live in, and the other for cooking my food. I carry all my furniture and food with me from place to place, viz. a chair, a table, a bed, and a lamp. I walk from village to village, but repair to my boat for lodging and eating. There are several rivers in this extent. of country, which is very convenient for travelling." Carey's first convert seems to have been Ignatius Fernandez, a Portuguese descendant who had prospered as a trader in Dinajpoor station. The first reformed place of worship in Bengal, outside of Calcutta, was built by him, in 1797, next to his own house. There he conducted service both in English and Bengali, whenever Carey and Thomas, |