Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers Part 8

See below. Some idea of Thomas's pa.s.sionate zeal may be formed from certain expressions in the letters sent home after Carey and he had arrived in India. He says, "Never did men see their native land with more joy than we left it; but this is not of nature, but from above," etc. See p. 223 of same article.

The story of Carey's life and work in India cannot be followed in detail. We have come to the close of that portion of his history which properly belongs to these brief sketches of ill.u.s.trious shoemakers. A few sentences must suffice to give a picture of his labors as a missionary and the result of those labors. For six or seven years Carey and his friends had to endure much hardship, and their proceedings were hampered by difficulties of various kinds. To begin with, they had no legal standing in the country, and were forced at length to take up their quarters under the Danish flag at Serampore. "Here they bought a house, and organized themselves into a family society, resolving that whatever was done by any member should be for the benefit of the mission. They opened a school, in which the children of those natives who chose to send them were instructed gratuitously."[44] The funds supplied from home were but scanty, and they were compelled to resort to trade for their livelihood and the means of carrying on their work.

"Thomas, who was a surgeon, intended to support himself by his profession. Carey's plan was to take land and cultivate it for his maintenance."[45] At one time, when funds were exhausted, Mr. Carey "was indebted for an asylum to an opulent native;" at another time, driven to distraction by want of money, by the apparent failure of his plans, and the upbraidings of his unsympathetic partner, he removed with his family to the Soonderbunds, and took a small grant of land, which he proposed to cultivate for his own maintenance; and, later on, he thankfully accepted, as a way out of his difficulties and a means of furthering his missionary projects, the post of superintendent of an indigo factory at Mudnabatty. This post he held for five or six years.

No sooner had he got into this position of comparative independence than he wrote home and proposed that "the sum which might be considered his salary should be devoted to the printing of the Bengali translation of the New Testament." This generous proposal is a fair ill.u.s.tration of his self-sacrificing spirit from the beginning to the end of his missionary life. To the work of translating and circulating the Scriptures in the languages of India he devoted not only all his time and his vast mental powers, but whatever private funds might be at his command. As the work proceeded, and he became known and employed by the government in various professorships, these funds were often very considerable. In 1807, when Carey held the Professorship of Oriental Languages at the Fort William College, at a salary of 1200 a year, Mr. Ward, one of his colleagues, wrote, in reply to some unfriendly remarks made in an English publication, that Dr. Carey and Mr. Marshman "were contributing 2400 a year," and receiving from the mission fund "only their food and a trifle of pocket-money for apparel."

[44] _Quarterly Review_, Feb. 1809, p. 197.

[45] Ibid.

In 1800 the missionary establishment, now strengthened by the two worthy colleagues just named, was removed to Serampore, a Danish settlement about fifteen miles from Calcutta. A printing press and type were purchased, and the work of printing the Scriptures commenced. Carey had been quietly but most diligently going on with the translation of the Scriptures into Bengali during the previous years of anxiety and varied missionary labor. Whatever cares weighed on brain and heart, the true work of his life, to which he had devoted himself, was never relinquished.

On the 18th of March, 1800, the first sheets of the Bengali New Testament were struck off, and on the 7th of February in the following year, "Mr. Carey enjoyed the supreme gratification of receiving the last sheet of the Bengali New Testament from the press, the fruition of the 'sublime thought' which he had conceived fifteen years before." It is not surprising that we should read the following record of the manner in which these humble missionaries expressed their devout grat.i.tude to G.o.d on the consummation of this part of their Christian labors: "As soon as the first copy was bound, it was placed on the communion table in the chapel, and a meeting was held of the whole of the mission family, and of the converts recently baptized, to offer a tribute of grat.i.tude to G.o.d for this great blessing." In 1806 the New Testament was ready for the press in _Sanskrit_, the sacred language of India, the language of its most ancient and venerated writings, and the parent of nearly all the languages of modern India. Simultaneously with this were being issued proof-sheets of the New Testament in Mahratta, Orissa, Persian, and Hindostani, besides dictionaries and grammars, and other publications for the use of students. It is well-nigh impossible to form a correct idea of the amount of religious zeal, mental energy, and physical endurance involved in labors like those of Dr. Carey, extending over forty years in the climate of Bengal. He is said to have regularly tired out three pundits, or native interpreters, who came one after the other each day to a.s.sist him in the correction and revision of his translations. A letter written in 1807, when the degree of D.D. was conferred on Mr. Carey by the Brown University, United States, gives a graphic sketch of the ordinary day's work performed by him at this period: "He rises a little before six, reads a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and spends the time till seven in private devotion. He then has family prayer with the servants in Bengali, after which he reads Persian with a moonshee who is in attendance. As soon as breakfast is over he sits down to the translation of the Ramayun with his pundit till ten, when he proceeds to the college and attends to its duties till two.

Returning home, he examines a proof-sheet of the Bengali translation, and dines with his friend Mr. Rolt. After dinner he translates a chapter of the Bible with the aid of the chief pundit of the college. At six he sits down with the Telugu pundit to the study of that language, and then preaches a sermon in English to a congregation of about fifty. The service ended, he sits down to the translation of Ezekiel into Bengali, having thrown aside his former version. At eleven the duties of the day are closed, and after reading a chapter in the Greek Testament and commending himself to G.o.d he retires to rest."[46]

[46] "Carey, Marshman, and Ward," by J. C. Marshman.

London: J. Heaton & Son. 1864.

Strangely enough, about this time a controversy was going on in certain English journals as to the value of the work that Carey and his coadjutors were doing in India. We have no wish to speak bitterly of the satire and severity of the articles written by Sydney Smith in the _Edinburgh Review_. They were not simply sallies of wit, but serious essays, written in a spirit of deliberate hostility to this missionary enterprise. What else can be thought of an article commencing with words like these: "In rooting out a nest of consecrated cobblers, and in bringing to light such a perilous heap of trash as we are obliged to work through in our articles on Methodists and missionaries, we are generally considered to have rendered a useful service to the cause of rational religion." Such articles condemned themselves; and it is fair to add that their author himself lived to regard them as a mistake, and to express to Lord Macaulay his regret that he had ever written them.[47]

[47] "Carey, Marshman, and Ward," p. 137.

But even in that day Carey and his heroic band of Christian fellow-laborers had plenty of sympathizers and supporters both in the Church of England and the Nonconformist denominations. Robert Southey the poet came forward with generous enthusiasm in their defence, and in a carefully-written article in the _Quarterly Review_[48]

vindicated their character and labors. Among other remarkable statements in their behalf, he was able to say: "These 'low-born and low-bred mechanics' have translated the whole Bible into Bengali, and have by this time printed it. They are printing the New Testament in the Sanskrit, the Orissa, the Mahratta, the Hindostani, the Guzerat, and translating it into Persic, Teligna, Carnata, Chinese, the language of the Sieks and the Burmans, and in four of these languages they are going on with the Bible. Extraordinary as this is, it will appear still more so when it is remembered that of these men one was originally a shoemaker, another a printer at Hull, and the third the master of a charity-school at Bristol. Only fourteen years have elapsed since Thomas and Carey set foot in India, and in that time these missionaries have acquired the gift of tongues. In fourteen years these 'low-born, low-bred mechanics' have done more to spread the knowledge of the Scriptures among the heathen than has been accomplished or even attempted by all the world beside. A plain statement of fact will be the best proof of their diligence and success. The first convert was baptized in December, 1800,[49] and in seven years after that time the number has amounted to 109, of whom nine were afterward excluded or suspended, or had been lost sight of.

Carey and his son have been in Bengal fourteen years, the other brethren only nine. They had all a difficult language to acquire before they could speak to a native, and to preach and argue in it required a thorough and familiar knowledge. Under these circ.u.mstances the wonder is, not that they have done so little, but that they have done so much; for it will be found that, even without this difficulty to r.e.t.a.r.d them, no religious opinions have spread more rapidly in the same time, unless there was some remarkable folly or extravagance to recommend them, or some powerful worldly inducement." This liberal Tory an evangelical High Churchman goes on to say: "Other missionaries from other societies have now entered India, and will soon become efficient laborers in their station. From Government all that is asked is toleration for themselves and protection for their converts. The plan which they have laid for their own proceedings is perfectly prudent and unexceptionable, and there is as little fear of their provoking martyrdom as there would be of their shrinking from it if the cause of G.o.d and man require the sacrifice."

[48] _Quarterly Review_, Feb. 1809, pp. 224, 225.

[49] Viz., _Krishnu_, who was baptized at the same time as Carey's son Felix. The ceremony was performed at the Ghaut, or landing-stairs of the Mahanuddy, in the presence of the Governor and a crowd of Hindoos and Mohammedans.

Having lived to see his desire accomplished in the establishment of many other missionary societies besides his own; having been the means of translating the Sacred Scriptures in the languages spoken probably by two hundred millions of people; this good man, working up to the close of his life, died at Calcutta on the 9th of June, 1834. As he lay ill, Lady Bentinck, the wife of the Governor-General, paid him frequent visits, and good "Bishop Wilson came and besought his blessing." He instructed his executors to place no memorial over his tomb but the following simple inscription:

WILLIAM CAREY,

BORN AUGUST 1761; DIED JUNE 1834.

"A wretched, poor, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall."

Mr. Marshman, who had the best means of knowing Carey and his work,[50]

says: "The basis of all his excellences was deep and unaffected piety.

So great was his love of integrity that he never gave his confidence where he was not certain of the existence of moral worth. He was conspicuous for constancy, both in the pursuits of life and the a.s.sociations of friendship. With great simplicity he united the strongest decision of character. He never took credit for anything but plodding, but it was the plodding of genius." In all his work, however successful, however honored by his fellow-men, William Carey was modest and simple-hearted as a child. His unparalleled labors as a translator of the Scriptures were performed under the prompting of sublime faith in Divine truth, warm unwavering love to souls, and an a.s.sured confidence in the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of G.o.d. The shoemaker of Northamptonshire will be remembered till the end of the world as the Christian Apostle of Northern India.

[50] John Clark Marshman was the son of Dr. Marshman, Carey's colleague at Serampore.

CHAPTER VIII.

John Pounds,

THE PHILANTHROPIC SHOEMAKER.

"His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the Eternal Master found His single talent well employed."

--_Dr. Samuel Johnson._

"A young lady once said to him, 'O Mr. Pounds, I wish you were rich, you would do so much good!' The old man paused a few seconds and then replied, 'Well, I don't know; if I had been rich I might, perhaps, have been much the same as other rich people. This I know, there is not now a happier man in England than John Pounds; and I think 'tis best as it is.'"--_Memoir of John Pounds_, p. 12.

"As unknown, and yet well known; ... as poor, yet making many rich."--_The Apostle Paul._ 2 Cor. vi. 9, 10.

"Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."--_Our Lord Jesus Christ._ Matt. xxv. 40.

JOHN POUNDS.

In 1837 there lived at Landport and Portsmouth two notable shoemakers.

The Landport man combined with his daily task as a shoemaker the delightful occupation of sketching and painting, and obtained a local fame as an artist. The Portsmouth man found in the work of teaching poor ragged children to read and write and cipher his greatest relaxation from the drudgery of daily toil and his purest enjoyment, and has become known, we may safely affirm, throughout the Christian world, as a philanthropist, and one of the first men in this country who conceived and carried out the idea of Ragged Schools. The shoemaker-artist had a great admiration for the shoemaker-philanthropist and painted a picture representing him in his humble workroom, engaged in his double occupation as shoemaker and schoolmaster, with a last between his knees and a number of children standing before him receiving instruction. The artist's name was Sheaf, and his interesting picture represented John Pounds occupied in his benevolent work as a gratuitous teacher of the neglected children of his native town. Sheaf sold his picture to Edward Carter, Esq., of Portsmouth, a warm admirer of John Pounds, and one of his best friends and helpers in his work. This picture was afterward engraved by Mr. Charpentier of Portsmouth, and it is to a copy of the engraving the renowned Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh refers in the following story:

"It is rather curious, at least it is interesting to me, that it was by a picture that I was first led to take an interest in Ragged Schools--a picture in an old, obscure, decayed burgh, that stands on the sh.o.r.e of the Firth of Forth. I had gone thither with a companion on a pilgrimage; not that there was any beauty about the place, for it had no beauty. It has little trade. Its deserted harbor, silent streets, and old houses, some of them nodding to their fall, give indications of decay. But one circ.u.mstance has redeemed it from obscurity, and will preserve its name to the latest ages. It was the birthplace of Thomas Chalmers. I went to see this place. It is many years ago, and going into an inn for refreshments, I found the room covered with pictures of shepherdesses with their crooks, and tars in holiday attire, not very interesting. But above the chimney-piece there stood a large print, more respectable than its neighbors, which a skipper, the captain of one of the few ships that trade between that town and England, had probably brought there. It represented a cobbler's room. The cobbler was there himself, spectacles on nose, an old shoe between his knees, the ma.s.sive forehead and firm mouth expressing great determination of character, and below his bushy eyebrows benevolence gleamed out on a number of poor ragged boys and girls who stood at their lessons around the busy cobbler. My curiosity was excited, and on the inscription I read how this man, John Pounds, a cobbler in Portsmouth, taking pity on the poor ragged children, left by ministers and magistrates, and ladies and gentlemen, to run in the streets, had, like a good shepherd, gathered in the wretched outcasts; how he had brought them to G.o.d and the world; and how, while earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he had rescued from misery, and saved to society, not less than five hundred of these children."[51]

[51] "Anecdotes and Stories," by Rev. Thomas Guthrie, D.D. London: Houlston & Wright, pp. 156, 157.

The biography of some of the best and most useful men the world has known may be written almost in a sentence. In the Old Testament there is a biography of this kind in the words, "And Enoch walked with G.o.d: and he was not; for G.o.d took him."[52] In the New Testament there is another of a similar character in the brief sentence, "There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian _band_, a devout man, and one that feared G.o.d with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to G.o.d alway."[53] The life-story of John Pounds is told in the last sentence of Dr. Guthrie's narrative; yet a few farther details of the life and work of this n.o.ble-hearted man will be read with interest by all who venerate true worth and take pleasure in contemplating acts of Christ-like charity and mercy.

[52] Gen. 5: 24.

[53] Acts, 10: 1, 2.

John Pounds was born at Portsmouth on the 17th of June, 1766. He was only twelve years old when his father, a sawyer employed in the government dockyard, had him bound apprentice as a shipwright in the same yard. He was then a strong active boy, and worked with his father in the yard until an accident maimed him for life, and made him incapable of working as a shipwright. He fell into a dry-dock and broke one of his thigh-bones, at the same time dislocating the joint. Whether the fracture was neglected or not we do not know; but, from some cause or other, poor Pounds went lame ever after. From the art of making ships he was now fain to turn to that of making shoes, and finding an old man in High Street, Portsmouth, who was willing to give the needful instruction, John Pounds, at the age of fifteen, became a _shoemaker_.

Indeed, he would scarcely have claimed that t.i.tle of dignity for himself; for his chief thoughts were given to other affairs, so that he was never an adept at his craft, and would in all probability have preferred to be set down as "only a cobbler." It was not until 1804, when Pounds was thirty-eight years of age, that "he ventured to become a tenant on his own account of the small, weather-boarded tenement in St.

Mary's Street." It was in this humble abode that John Pounds lived and worked and carried on his benevolent labors for thirty-five years. The room appears to have been about the size and shape of an open third-cla.s.s railway carriage, and the entire tenement had more the appearance of a shanty or hut than an ordinary dwelling-house. Yet it was amply sufficient for the poor cobbler's purposes, and served as the field of operations in all his benevolent enterprises.

Pounds lived alone in his snug little home; and as his earnings, though small, were more than enough to meet the requirements of a bachelor, he felt it right to do something to a.s.sist his poor relatives. He had a brother--a seafaring man--whose family was large and stood in need of a.s.sistance. John accordingly proposed to take one of his brother's children and clothe, board, and educate him as if he had been his own.

With characteristic generosity of spirit, he selected a poor little fellow who was a cripple. The child's feet turned inward, and, as he walked, he had to lift them one over another. The tender-hearted cobbler could not endure to see the deformity, and soon devised the means of remedy. A neighbor's child who suffered in the same way had been provided by a surgeon with a set of irons which straightened his feet and enabled him to walk properly. Unable to purchase irons for his own little charge, Pounds set to work to construct something in lieu of them to answer the same purpose. His apparatus, made out of old shoe soles, answered admirably, and he soon had the gratification of seeing the little fellow entirely cured of his defect. This boy grew up under his uncle's care, was put apprentice to a fashionable shoemaker, and lived with Pounds till the time of his death.

When his nephew was old enough to begin to learn to read, John Pounds resolved to do the work of a schoolmaster himself; and, thinking that his little pupil would get on better if he had a companion, he began to look round for some one to share the benefit of his instructions. He selected a poor little urchin, "the son of a poor woman who went about selling puddings, her homeless children, unable to accompany her, being left in the open street amid frost and snow, with no other shelter than the overhanging shade of a bay-window."[54] Other pupils were added in course of time, and the shoemaker soon began to take great delight in the work of teaching. It was not very difficult in Portsmouth to find plenty of children whose education and training were entirely neglected by their parents, and who were suffered to run about the streets in the most ragged and dest.i.tute condition. The sight of these children moved him to pity; and, once embarked on the enterprise of reforming and teaching them, Pounds could not rest content with having half a dozen or a dozen of them under his care, but went on gathering them into his room until he had, in the later years of his life, an average of forty poor children under his charge at a time. He loved his work all the more because it was entirely gratuitous, and because he knew that if these poor children were not thus taught they would never be taught at all, but grow up in ignorance, misery, and vice. No amount of pains, self-sacrifice, and anxiety was too much for this true disciple of Christ to pay for the satisfaction of doing such children good, and enriching and enn.o.bling all their future lives.

[54] "A Memoir of John Pounds." Foord, Stationer, Landport; p. 9. The writer is indebted to this brief memoir for most of the facts stated in this sketch. He is also indebted for information to the courtesy of Rev. T. Timmins, Portsmouth, pastor of the congregation of which John Pounds was a member.

The editor of the "Memoir of John Pounds" thus describes the cobbler in the midst of his scholars: "His humble workshop was about six feet wide and about eighteen feet in depth, in the midst of which he would sit on his stool, with his last or lapstone on his knee, and other implements by his side, going on with his work and attending at the same time to the pursuits of the whole a.s.semblage--some of whom were reading by his side, writing from his dictation, of showing up their sums; others seated around on forms or boxes on the floor, or on the steps of a small staircase in the rear. Although the master seemed to know where to look for each and to maintain a due command over all, yet so small was the room, and so deficient in the usual accommodation of a school, that the scene appeared to the observer from without to be a mere crowd of children's heads and faces."[55]

[55] "Memoir of John Pounds," p. 10.

The smallness of his room made selection necessary when the number of candidates for instruction became unusually large. In this case he always chose the worst and most desperate cases, preferring to take in hand "the little blackguards," as he termed them, and turn them into decent members of society. At other times, "he has been seen to follow such to the town-quay, and hold out in his hand to them the bribe of a roasted potato to induce them to come to school."[56] On fine warm days the school "ran over" into the street, the children who behaved best being allowed to sit near the door, or on a bench outside.

[56] Ibid, p. 10.

His method of teaching was of the simplest and most graphic character, and seemed, although John Pounds, of course, knew nothing of such things, to combine the features of the Pestalozzian and Kindergarten systems. He would point to the different parts of the body, get the pupil to tell their names, and then to spell them. Taking a child's hand, he would say, "What is this? Spell it." Then slapping it he would say, "What did I do? Spell that."