d for himself at the
next meeting, when Carey fell upon his neck and wept, having previously
preached from the words--"Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with
Me." "We saw," said Fuller afterwards, "there was a gold mine in India,
but it was as deep as the centre of the earth. Who will venture to
explore it? 'I will venture to go down,' said Carey, 'but remember that
you (addressing Fuller, Sutcliff, and Ryland) must hold the ropes.' We
solemnly engaged to him to do so, nor while we live shall we desert
him."

Carey and Thomas, an ordained minister and a medical evangelist, were
at this meeting in Kettering, on 10th January 1793, appointed
missionaries to "the East Indies for preaching the gospel to the
heathen," on "L100 or L150 a year between them all,"--that is, for two
missionaries, their wives, and four children,--until they should be
able to support themselves like the Moravians. As a matter of fact
they received just L200 in all for the first three years when
self-support and mission extension fairly began. The whole sum at
credit of the Society for outfit, passage, and salaries was L130, so
that Fuller's prudence was not without justification when supported by
Thomas's assurances that the amount was enough, and Carey's modest
self-sacrifice. "We advised Mr. Carey," wrote Fuller to Ryland, "to
give up his school this quarter, for we must make up the loss to him."
The more serious cost of the passage was raised by Fuller and by the
preaching tours of the two missionaries. During one of these, at Hull,
Carey met the printer and newspaper editor, William Ward, and cast his
mantle over him thus--"If the Lord bless us, we shall want a person of
your business to enable us to print the Scriptures; I hope you will
come after us." Ward did so in five years.

The 20th March 1793 was a high day in the Leicester chapel, Harvey
Lane, when the missionaries were set apart like Barnabas and Paul--a
forenoon of prayer; an afternoon of preaching by Thomas from Psalm xvi.
4; "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God;"
an evening of preaching by the treasurer from Acts xxi. 14, "And when
he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, the will of the Lord be
done;" and the parting charge by Fuller the secretary, from the risen
Lord's own benediction and forthsending of His disciples, "Peace be
unto you, as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." Often in
after days of solitude and reproach did