most parts of the earth for His possession. Who does not know that the last twenty years have been different years to Zion from any which went before? Who has not heard of the uncommon effusions of the Divine Spirit in Great Britain and America during this whole period? Who has not heard of the establishment of the London Missionary Society in 1795, of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, and the numberless Institutions of a similar character which have since appeared in Europe and America? Who has not heard of the growth of evangelical sentiments in the import ant Church of England, the general silence which has been spread among the ranks of Infidelity through the world, the attention every where excited to prophecies, and the illustration which they have received from the dispensations of Providence? Who does not know that every year of the twenty, has strengthened the general hope that the Church is on the eve of a better day? Thus while the enemy were coming in like a flood, and Infidelity was threatening to extinguish the light of Israel, the Lord lifted up his standard. When the time had come to visit with the darkness and plagues of Egypt the nations that had given their power to the beast, it became light in Goshen! This effusion could not be restrained by one who began his public course the very month that gave birth to the Society at Kettering, and who has had opportunity to observe the whole progress of these wonderful e vents. The honor of originating and commencing the Baptist Mission, must be divided between John Thomas and William Carey, two names that will ever be dear to Zion. Without any knowledge of each other, they separately formed the design; their hands were united in the execution. Mr. Thomas had the honor of beginning the Mission without the aid of any Society; Mr. Carey created a Society to render the Mission perpetual. Analagous to these different parts was a difference running through their whole characters. Thomas was ardent, impetuous, eloquent; Carey was cool, wise, and systematic. Thomas was bold in his designs, but had more talent to forni generous purposes than patience to execute them; Carey was slow and persevering. Thomas, munificent, rather wanting in economy, and full of the most tender sensibility, was fitted to be the good Samaritan to the multitudes of poor who needed his medical aid; Carey, economical and prudent, could better superintend the pecuniary concerns of the Mission. Thomas, with a nervous system screwed up to a noble and perilous enthusiasm, that pushed him to great undertakings, while it subjected him to the extremes of joy and depression, rendered him irritable, and gave him a tendency even to madness; Carey, sedate and uniform. With a point in all he said, and pouring every thing from his heart, Thomas could seize, and penetrate, and bear away his audience; Carey, less eloquent, but with a remarkable aptitude at acquiring languages, was better qualified to conduct the translations. "Do not send 1 men of any compassion here," says Thomas to the Society, "for you will break their hearts. Do send men full of compassion here, where many perish with cold, many for lack of bread, and millions for lack of knowledge." On a time when a large company of brahmins and others were assembled to hear him, one of the most learned, whose name was Mahashoi, offered to dispute with him. He began by asserting that God was in every thing: therefore, (said he,) every thing is God, you are God, and I am God. "Fie, fie, Mahashoi," answered Mr. Thomas, "why do you utter such words? Sahaib (meaning himself) is in his clothes: therefore, (pulling off his hat and throwing it on the ground) this hat is Sahaib. No, Mahashoi, you and I are dying men, but God ever liveth." This short answer confounded his opponent and fixed the attention of the people, while, as he says, he went on to proclaim one God, one Savior, one way, one faith, and one cast, without and besides which all the inventions of men are nothing. Being once on a journey through the country, he saw a great multitude assembling for the worship of one of their gods. He immediately approached them, and passing through the company placed himself on an elevation near the side of the idol. The eyes of all the people were instantly fixed on him, wondering what he, a European, meant to do. After beckoning for silence he thus began: "It has eyes.... (pausing and pointing with his finger to the eyes of the image, and then turning his face, by way of appeal to the people,) but it cannot see! It has ears,... but it cannot hear! It has a nose,... but it cannot smell! It has hands,... but it cannot handle! "It has a mouth,... but it cannot speak, neither is there any breath in it!" An old man in the company, provoked by these selfevident truths, added, "It has feet, but it cannot run away!" At this a universal shout was heard; the faces of the brahmins were covered with shame, and the worship for that time was given up. Such was Thomas. Carey on the other hand, more fearful of giving offence, holding cautiously the silent tenor of his way, pursuing with unremitted industry the study of the different languages, has attained to the chair of a Professor, and, in the opinion of a distinguished writer, is now "a far more learned orientalist than any European has ever been before him." These are the two interesting characters which I wished in the outset to introduce to my readers.* Mr. Thomas was the son of a deacon of a Baptist church at Fairford in Gloucestershire. He was bred to medicine, and afterwards walked the hospitals in London. Inclined to dissipation, he bade fair at that age to make great proficiency in wickedness. After completing his education he settled in Great Newportstreet, and commenced the prac tice of surgery and midwifery. Shortly after his marriage, he was brought to the knowledge of the truth under the ministry of Dr. Stennett, in 1781. His ed affairs soon became embarrassed. Finding the world, as he expresses it, more ready to receive credit than give it, he was obligto sell all and wait in lodg-ings till an offer was made him of going to sea. In the year 1783 he took a voyage to Calcutta in the character of surgeon of the Oxford Indiaman. Upon his return he was baptized in London, in 1785, and soon after began to preach. He sailed again as surgeon of the same ship in 1786, the year in which the Rev. David Brown, hereafter to be mentioned, went out to In dia. He employed Podo Loson a pundit, or professed instructor, of Nuddeea, to teach him the Shanscrit language. God gave him one or two Europeans as seals of his ministry, and encouraged him by some impressions, (which proved not however permanent,) on several Hindoos, among whom was his moonshee. But the harvest required more laborers. After spending therefore five years and a half in the country, he embarked for England about the end of 1791, with a view to discharge his debts, to bring out his family, and to enlarge and strengthen the mission. On his arrival at Calcutta a- While he was in London enbout the middle of the year, he deavoring to raise a fund for formed a connexion with several this great object, he was informreligious persons, and opened ed of the proposed meeting at for them a lecture on Sabbath Kettering. Providentially preevening. By them he was in-vented from being present to duced, at the beginning of 1787, witness the formation of the to turn his attention for the first Missionary Society, he wrote time to a permanent residence shortly after to Mr. Carey, inin India, with a view to propa- quiring about the result of the gate the Gospel among the Hin- meeting, and expressing an ear- doos. This pian was so speedily matured that about the middle of the year he obtained his discharge from the ship, and sat down to learn the language. He could converse a little with the natives in 1788, and had gained so much of the language in 1789 that though his preaching was unintelligible through the faultitress of his pronunciation, he began by the help of Ram Ram Boshoo, his moonshee or teacher, to translate the Scriptures into the Bengalee tongue. He pursued this work till he had translated and dispersed in manuscript a part of Genesis, sclect portions of the Prophecies, the whole book of Psalms, together with Matthew, Mark, and James. nest desire to obtain a missionary companion. At a meeting of the Society in November, 1792, Mr. Carey communicated the views and wishes of Mr. Thomas, and proposed to unite the two objects by taking him into the service of the Society, which was done the next January.* Mr. Carey was born on the 17th day of September, 1761.1 Till the twenty-fourth year of his age he was a working shoemaker. His preparations for the ministry seem to have commenced about the time that Mr. Thomas embarked for India in * B. P. A. vol.i, p. 7, 13-32, 53, 207. Nar. p. 7, 56. М. В. M. M. vol. i, p. 299, 300. +B. P. A. vol. iii, p. 62. 1783.* In 1786, the year of Mr. Thomas's second voyage, he was invited to preach at Moulton, and in 1787 was ordained pastor of the Baptist church in that town. Before he came to Moulton he was deeply impressed with the state of the heathen world, and the duty of making some exertions to extend to them the blessings of the Gospel. In reference to this object he made himself acquainted with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, with the geography, population, and religion of the various countries of the earth, and the labors of Christian Missionaries in different ages. In his conversations with his brethren, in his prayers and preaching, he seldom failed to introduce something relative to Missions. While he lived at Moulton, he wrote "An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen." In 1790 he removed to Leicester, a shiretown pleasantly situated on the river Sour; but he never concealed from that congregation his carnest desire to be employed as a Missionary whenever an opportunity should offer. About the same time he visited Birmingham, and became acquainted with Mr Pearce, whose kindred soul entered with ardor into all his views. His conversations, together with the monthly prayer meetings, gradually awak ened the attention of his brethren; while his zeal for missions, his thirst for geographical knowledge, and his remarkable aptitude at learning languages, led them to regard him for several years as peculiarly fitted to be employed in such a work. His desire to form a Society and to enter on a Mission himself continued to increase, till at length at a minister's meeting held at Clipstone in the spring of 1791, he brought forward a proposition for the immediate formation of a Missionary Society. Nothing was done, however, at that meeting, but to request him to prepare for the press his Inquiry, and it was printed a few months after. At the annual mecting of the Association in May, 1793, Mr. Carey preached. He labored to enforce two points: First, that it was the duty of Christians to expect great things; Secondly, that it was their duty to attempt great things. The Association went so far as to direct that a plan of a Missionary Society should be drawn up to be laid before the Ministers' Meeting to be holden at Kettering, in the Autumn. This was done; and at Kettering, October 2, 1792, twelve ministers formed themselves into a Missionary Society, and subscribed 131. 2s. 6d. At their meeting in November the Society received information respecting Mr. Thomas, and appointed Dr. Fuller to make further inquiries about him. The Committee of the Society met at Kettering on the 10th of January, 1793, and after examining the account which Mr. Thomas had drawn up of his labors in Bengal, de • Let it be recorded for an encouragement to prayer, that in 1784 an association of Baptist ministers and churches, who were to take the lead in supporting this Mission, agreed to set apart an hour on the first Monday evening in every month to pray for the revival of religion, and the exten. sion of the Redeemer's kingdom. This was continued seven years. 58,33. termined to take him into the service of the Society. Mr. Carey at the same time consented to accompany him on a Mission to India. In the evening Mr. Thomas arrived and acceded to the proposals. On the 13th of June, 1793, these Missionaries with their families sailed in a Danish EastIndiaman. On their passage Mr. Thomas finished his translation of the book of Genesis. They arrived in India Nov. 11th, and soon met with Boshoo, whom Mr: Carey employed to teach him the language, and to assist him in the translation. On the 22d of January, 1794, Mr. Carey began with the help of his moonshee to correct the translation of Genesis. Mr. Thomas, in addition to his Shanscrit studies, pursued the same work, and that month consulted a printer in Calcutta, with whom were the types used in the country, about the expense of printing a Bengalee Bible. He undertook to support himself at Calcutta by his professional business; but Mr. Carey, whose funds were exhausted, was put to great straits. Early in February taking his family with him in a boat, he sailed in pursuit of some means of subsistence. On the 6th of that month he stopped at Dehatta, about forty miles east of Calcutta, the residence of the late Charles Short, Esq. superintendant of the salt works at that place. Mr. Short, who afterwards married Mrs. Carey's sister, generously received the whole family to his house till their own should be prepared. In that neighborhood, within a quarter of a mile of the impenetrable forests called the SunderVOL. V. New Series. bunds, Mr. Carey erected a mat house, and took land to cultivate. Here he continued to exercise himself in correcting the translation of Genesis. In the mean time an event took place which changed the whole of these calculations, and called the Missionaries to a new scene of action. A young man and his wife having been drowned near Calcutta, and his mother, who lived with herson Mr.U- of Malda, being ill through the influence of grief, Mr. Thomas wrote his friend Mr. U- a letter of condolence. He had just entered his new house at Calcutta, when he received an answer from Mr. U- pressing him to visit his mother as a physician. Mr. Thomas obeyed the summons, and set off on a journey of 250 miles. Upon his arrival at Malda he was offered the superintendence of an indigo factory at Moypauldiggy, (commonly called Moypaul,) belonging to Mr. U-, and obtained for Mr. Carey the offer of another, belonging to the same person, at Mudnabatty, sixteen miles south of Moypaul, and thirty miles north of Malda, both in the district of Dinagepore. From Moypaul which lies a hundred miles from the borders of Bootan (a feudatory of Thibet,) you may see the mountains of that country at the distance of 200 or 250 miles. Mr. Carey received the offer on the first day of March, and set off with his famisy for Malda on the 23d of May. In the boat which conveyed him he continued to pursue the work of translation. When he reached Malda on the 15th of June, he was refreshed by joining once more his colleague, and finding 2 |