It may be also here mentioned, that although the frequent public services in which Mr. Corrie engaged, had not allowed him repose sufficient to recruit his health so effectually as could have been desired, yet he was unwilling to let pass any opportunity that occurred to promote the cause of missions. Within a few days, therefore, of his departure from England, he agreed to attend a meeting of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society in London, for the purpose of addressing two missionaries who were about to proceed to India; and the next day he preached a farewell sermon at the church of St. Mary Woolnoth. On the 14th of April 1817, Mr. Corrie embarked on board the Carnatic, Indiaman, with his wife and infant daughter, and the same day sailed from the Downs. There were on board the Carnatic, besides his own family and those of the two missionaries above mentioned, upwards of forty passengers, and a detachment of soldiers. “We have about three hundred souls on board,” observes Mr. C. in a letter to his father, “but how to set about attempting their good, it is difficult to say.” As regarded himself, Mr. C. added:-- “A solemn, but not a painful feeling, sometimes fills my mind on recollecting my father’s house, and the distant prospect of again beholding it; but the consideration of the ‘house not made with hands,’ quiets every anxiety, and the sure and certain hope of meeting there may well reconcile us to temporary separation. I have had many thoughts of late, about the variety of religious divisions in England, and see clearly, that most of them arise from excess of spiritual advantages; and thus the means intended for their good, become to many an ‘occasion of falling.’ No view of religion but what affects the heart, temper, and life, is of any avail for eternity. The great facts of the Trinity in Unity, the incarnation and vicarious death of the Son of God, the promise of the Holy Ghost, all these remain true and certain, though all men should deny them. The influence they have, therefore, upon my heart and life, is the great thing I have to attend to. If I do so understand and feel these truths, as to engage me in private, and influence me in public, the end for which they were revealed is effected in me; and I shall be led by them to the issue they promise: otherwise they serve no good purpose to me.” On approaching Madeira he again wrote to his father:--