"June 16, 1786.--C.M. The case of Bror. Carey was considered, and an unanimous satisfaction with his ministerial abilities being expressed, a vote was passed to call him to the Ministry at a proper time. "August 10.--Ch. Meeting. This evening our Brother William Carey was called to the work of the Ministry, and sent out by the Church to preach the Gospel, wherever God in His providence might call him. "April 29, 1787.--Ch. M. After the Orde. our Brother William Carey was dismissed to the Church of Christ at Moulton in Northamptonshire with a view to his Ordination there." These were the last years at Olney of William Cowper before he removed to the Throckmortons' house at Weston village, two miles distant. Carey must often have seen the poet during the twenty years which he spent in the corner house of the market-square, and in the walks around. He must have read the poems of 1782, which for the first time do justice to missionary enterprise. He must have hailed what Mrs. Browning calls "the deathless singing" which in 1785, in The Task, opened a new era in English literature. He may have been fired with the desire to imitate Whitefield, in the description of whom, though reluctant to name him, Cowper really anticipated Carey himself:-- "He followed Paul; his zeal a kindred flame, His apostolic charity the same; Like him crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas, Forsaking country, kindred, friends and ease; Like him he laboured and, like him, content To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went." CHAPTER II THE BIRTH OF ENGLAND'S FOREIGN MISSIONS 1785-1792 Moulton the Mission's birthplace--Carey's fever and poverty--His Moulton school--Fired with the missionary idea--His very large missionary map--Fuller's confession of the aged and respectable ministers' opposition--Old Mr. Ryland's rebuke--Driven to publish his Enquiry--Its literary character--Carey's survey of the world in 1788--His motives, difficulties, and plans--Projects the first Missionary Society--Contrasted with his predecessors from Erasmus--Prayer concert begun in Scotland in 1742--Jonathan Edwards--The Northamptonshire Baptist movement in 1784--Andrew Fuller--The Baptists, Particular and General--Antinomian and Socinian extremes opposed to Missions--Met by Fuller's writings and Clipstone sermon--Carey's agony at continued delay--His work in Leicester--His sermon at Nottingham--Foundation of Baptist Missionary Society at last--Kettering and Jerusalem.