The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & MissionarySmith, George
Religion
The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
Smith, George
Carey, William, 1761-1834; Missions -- India
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
I'll rear thee with a trembling hand:
Oh, for the April sun and shower,
The sweet May dews of that fair land.
Where Daisies, thick as starlight, stand
In every walk!--that here may shoot
Thy scions, and thy buds expand
A hundred from one root.
"Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To me the pledge of hope unseen:
When sorrow would my soul o'erpower,
For joys that were, or might have been,
I'll call to mind, how, fresh and green,
I saw thee waking from the dust;
Then turn to heaven with brow serene,
And place in GOD my trust."
From every distant station, from Amboyna to Delhi, he received seeds
and animals and specimens of natural history. The very schoolboys when
they went out into the world, and the young civilians of Fort William
College, enriched his collections. To Jabez, his son in Amboyna, we
find him thus writing:--"I have already informed you of the luckless
fate of all the animals you have sent. I know of no remedy for the
living animals dying, but by a little attention to packing them you may
send skins of birds and animals of every kind, and also seeds and
roots. I lately received a parcel of seeds from Moore (a large boy
who, you may remember, was at school when the printing-office was
burnt), every one of which bids fair to grow. He is in some of the
Malay islands. After all you have greatly contributed to the
enlargement of my collection."
"17th September 1816.--I approve much of Bencoolen as a place for your
future labours, unless you should rather choose the island of
Borneo...The English may send a Resident thither after a time. I
mention this from a conversation I had some months ago on the subject
with Lord Moira, who told me that there is a large body of Chinese on
that island." They "applied to the late Lieut.-Governor of Java,
requesting that an English Resident may be sent to govern them, and
offering to be at the whole expense of his salary and government. The
Borneo business may come to nothing, but if it should succeed it would
be a glorious opening for the Gospel in that large island. Sumatra,
however, is larger than any one man could occupy." As we read this we
see the Serampore apostle's hope fulfilled after a different fashion,
in Rajah Brooke's settlement at Sarawak, in the charter of the North
Borneo Company, in the opening up of New Guinea and in the civilisation
of the Philippines by the United States of America.
To Roxburgh and his Danish successor Wallich, to Voigt who succeeded
Wallich in Serampore, and hundreds of correspondents in India and
Germany, Great Britain and America, Carey did many a service in sending
plants and--what was a greater sacrifice for so busy a man--writing
letters. What he did for the Hortus Bengalensis may stand for all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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