The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker and Missionary Part 22

"The rights and immunities granted to the Serampore College by Royal Charter of date, 23rd February, 1827, shall not be interfered with, but continue in force in the same manner as if they had been obtained by a Charter from the British Government, subject to the general law of British India."

FOOTNOTES

[1] Iphicrates, great Athenian general, who was the son of a shoemaker, used this saying, fit motto for Carey, _ex oion eis oia_.

[2] The shopmate, William Manning, preserved this signboard. In 1881 we found a Baptist shoemaker, a descendant of Carey's wife, with four a.s.sistants, at work in the shed. Then an old man, who had occasionally worked under Carey, had just died, and he used to tell how Carey had once flipped him with his ap.r.o.n when he had allowed the wax to boil over.

[3] In the library of the late Rev. T. Toller of Kettering was a ma.n.u.script (now in the library of Bristol Baptist College) of nine small octavo pages, evidently in the exquisitely small and legible handwriting of Carey, on the Psalter. The short treatise discusses the literary character and authorship of the Psalms in the style of Michaelis and Bishop Lowth, whose writings are referred to. The Hebrew words used are written even more beautifully than the English. If this little work was written before Carey went to India--and the caligraphy seems to point to that--the author shows a very early familiarity with the writings of one who was his predecessor as a Christian Orientalist, Sir William Jones. The closing paragraph has this sentence:--"A frequent perusal of the book of Psalms is recommended to all. We should permit few days to pa.s.s without reading in Hebrew one of those sacred poems; the more they are read and studied, the more will they delight, edify, and instruct."

[4] Twice reprinted, in Leicester, and in London (1892) in facsimile.

[5] Wealth of Nations, Book IV., Chap. VII.

[6] Mr. Thomas Haddon of Clipstone writes: "I recollect when I was about ten years old, at my father's house; it was on a Sat.u.r.day, Carey was on his way to Arnsby (which is twenty miles from Moulton) to supply there the following Sabbath; he had then walked from Moulton to Clipstone, a distance of ten miles, and had ten miles further to walk to Arnsby. My honoured father had been intimately acquainted with him for some years before, and he pressed him to stay and take an early cup of tea before he went further. I well recollect my father saying to him, 'I suppose you still work at your trade?' (which was that of an army and navy shoemaker). Mr. Carey replied: 'No, indeed, I do not; for yesterday week I took in my work to Kettering, and Mr. Gotch came into the warehouse just as I had emptied my bag. He took up one of the shoes and said, "Let me see, Carey, how much do you earn a week?" I said, "About 9s., sir." Mr. Gotch then said: "I have a secret to tell you, which is this: I do not intend you should spoil any more of my leather, but you may proceed as fast as you can with your Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and I will allow you from my own private purse 10s. a week!" With that sum and about 5s. a week which I get from my people at Moulton, I can make a comfortable living' (although at that time he had a wife and three children to provide for)."

[7] Farewell Letters on Returning to Bengal in 1821.

[8] Rev. A. T. Clarke succeeded Kiernander in 1789 in the Old or Mission Church, according to Miss Blechynden's Calcutta Past and Present (1905), p. 84.

[9] At this time, and up to 1801, the last survivor of the Black Hole tragedy was living in Calcutta and bore his own name, though the missionary knew it not. Mrs. Carey was a country-born woman, who, when a girl, had married an officer of one of the East Indiamen, and with him, her mother, and sister, had been shut up in the Black Hole, where, while they perished, she is said to have retained life by swallowing her tears. Dr. Bishop, of Merchant Taylors' School--Clive's School--wrote Latin verses on the story, which thus conclude--

"...Nescit sitiendo perire Cui sic dat lacrymas quas bibat ipsa fides."

--See Echoes from Old Calcutta, by Dr. Busteed, C.I.E.

[10] But not its Church. In October 1796 Mr. A. Johnstone, thirty years elder in Lady Yester's congregation, beside the University of Edinburgh, began a prayer meeting for Carey's work and for foreign missions. He was summoned to the Presbytery, and there questioned as if he had been a "Black-neb" or revolutionary. This meeting led to the foundation of the Sabbath School and Dest.i.tute Sick Societies in Edinburgh. See Lives of the Haldanes.

[11] Dr. Marshman's English translation is still used, beginning--

"Oh! thou my soul forget no more The Friend who all thy misery bore."

[12] The chatookee is a bird which, they say, drinks not at the streams below: but when it rains, opening its bill, it catches the drops as they fall from the clouds.

[13] The sight of the red coat of the military surgeon who attended him gave this form to his delirious talk: "I treated him very roughly and refused to touch his medicine. In vain did he retire and put on a black coat. I knew him and was resolved."

[14] In a criticism of the three Sanskrit grammars of Carey, Wilkins, and Colebrooke, the first number of the Quarterly Review in 1809 p.r.o.nounces the first "everywhere useful, laborious, and practical. Mr.

Wilkins has also discussed these subjects, though not always so amply as the worthy and unwearied missionary. We have been much pleased with Dr. Carey's very sensible preface."

[15] It was reserved for a young Orientalist, whom the career of Carey and Wilson of Bombay attracted to the life of a Christian missionary, to do full justice to this book and its literature. In 1885 the Hon.

Ion Keith-Falconer, M.A., published, at the Cambridge University Press, his Kalilah and Dimnah, or The Fables of Bidpai: Being an Account of their Literary History, with an English Translation of the later Syriac Version of the Same, and Notes. The heroic scholar and humble follower of Christ, having given himself and his all to found a Mission to the Mohammedans of South Arabia, at Sheikh Othman, near Aden, died there, on 11th May 1887, a death which will bring life to Yemen, through his memory, and the Mission which he founded, his family support, and the United Free Church of Scotland carry on in his name.

[16] THIRTY-SIX BIBLE TRANSLATIONS,

MADE AND EDITED BY DR. CAREY AT SERAMPORE

First Published in 1801. BENGALI--New Testament; Old Testament in 1802-9.

1811. Ooriya " " in 1819.

1824. Maghadi " only.

1815-19. a.s.samese " " in 1832.

1824. Khasi.

1814-24. Manipoori.

1808. SANSKRIT " " in 1811-18.

1809-11. HINDI " " in 1813-18.

1822-32. Bruj-bhasa " only.

1815-22. Kanouji " "

1820. Khosali--Gospel of Matthew only.

1822. Oodeypoori--New Testament only.

1815. Jeypoori "

1821. Bhugeli "

1821. Marwari "

1822. Haraoti "

1823. Bikaneri "

1823. Oojeini "

1824. Bhatti "

1832. Palpa "

1826. k.u.maoni "

1832. Gurhwali "

1821. Nepalese "

1811. MARATHI-- " Old Testament in 1820.

1820. Goojarati " only.

1819. Konkan " Pentateuch in 1821.

1815. PANJABI " " and Historical Books in 1822.

1819. Mooltani--New Testament.

1825. Sindhi--Gospel of Matthew only.

1820. Kashmeeri--New Testament; and Old Testament to 2nd Book of Kings.

1820-26. Dogri--New Testament only.

1819. PUSHTOO--New Test. and Old Test. Historical Books.

1815. BALOOCHI " Three Gospels.

1818. TELUGOO " and Pentateuch in 1820.

1822. KANARESE " only.

MALDIVIAN--Four Gospels.

EDITED AND PRINTED ONLY BY CAREY

Persian. Singhalese.

Hindostani. Chinese (Dr. Marshman's).

Malayalam. Javanese.

Burmese--Matthew's Gospel. Malay.

[17] Life and Work in Benares and k.u.maon, 1839-77. London, 1884.

[18] Mr. John Marshman, in his Life and Times of the three, states that Fry and Figgins, the London typefounders, would not produce under 700 half the Nagari fount which the Serampore native turned out at about 100. In 1813 Dr. Marshman's Chinese Gospels were printed on movable metallic types, instead of the immemorial wooden blocks, for the first time in the twenty centuries of the history of Chinese printing. This forms an era in the history of Chinese literature, he justly remarks.

[19] The fervent printer thus wrote to his Hull friends:--"To give to a man a New Testament who never saw it, who has been reading lies as the Word of G.o.d; to give him these everlasting lines which angels would be glad to read--this, this is my blessed work."

[20] In 1795 Captain Dodds, a Madras officer front Scotland, translated part of the Bible into Telugoo, and, lingering on in the country to complete the work, died seven days after the date of his letter on the subject in the Missionary Magazines of 1796.