The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & MissionarySmith, George
Religion
The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
Smith, George
Carey, William, 1761-1834; Missions -- India
"I examined the book with great interest. It was not printed in the
Persian character, but the common Pushtoo language of Afghanistan; and
was the only specimen I had ever seen of Pushtoo reduced to writing.
The accomplishment of such a translation was a highly honourable proof
of the zeal and industry of the Serampore mission; and should these
pages ever meet the eye of Mr. John Marshman, of Serampore,[21] whose
own pen is consistently guided by a love of civil order and religious
truth, he may probably be able to identify 'the English gentleman' who,
thirty-two years ago on the banks of the Ganges, at the then frontier
of British India, gave to a young Afghan chief, from beyond the distant
Indus, a Bible in his own barbarous tongue, and foresaw the day when
the followers of the 'Son of David' should extend their dominion to the
'Throne of Solomon.'"
Hurdwâr, as the spot at which the Ganges debouches into the plains, is
the scene of the greatest pilgrim gathering in India, especially every
twelfth year. Then three millions of people used to assemble, and too
often carried, all over Asia, cholera which extended to Europe. The
missionaries made this, like most pilgrim resorts, a centre of
preaching and Bible circulation, and doubtless it was from Thompson,
Carey's Missionary at Delhi, that this copy of the Pushtoo Bible was
received. It was begun by Dr. Leyden, and continued for seven years by
the same Afghan maulavee under Carey, in the Arabic character. The
Punjabi Bible, nearly complete, issued first in 1815, had become so
popular by 1820 as to lead Carey to report of the Sikhs that no one of
the nations of India had discovered a stronger desire for the
Scriptures than this hardy race. At Amritsar and Lahore "the book of
Jesus is spoken of, is read, and has caused a considerable stir in the
minds of the people." A Thug, asked how he could have committed so
many murders, pointed to it and said, "If I had had this book I could
not have done it." A fakeer, forty miles from Lodiana, read the book,
founded the community of worshippers of the Sachi Pitè Isa, and
suffered much persecution in a native State.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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