ll my
dear children I love them dearly, and pray for them constantly. Felix
sends his love. I look upon this mercy as an answer to prayer indeed.
Trust in God. Love to Kitty, brothers, sisters, etc. Be assured I love
you most affectionately. Let me know my dear little child's name.--I
am, for ever, your faithful and affectionate husband,

"WILLIAM CAREY.

"My health never was so well. I believe the sea makes Felix and me
both as hungry as hunters. I can eat a monstrous meat supper, and
drink a couple of glasses of wine after it, without hurting me at all.
Farewell."

She was woman and wife enough, in the end, to do as Mrs. Thomas had
done, but she stipulated that her sister should accompany her.

By a series of specially providential events, as it seemed, such as
marked the whole early history of this first missionary enterprise of
modern England, Carey and Thomas secured a passage on board the Danish
Indiaman Kron Princessa Maria, bound from Copenhagen to Serampore. At
Dover, where they had been waiting for days, the eight were roused from
sleep by the news that the ship was off the harbour. Sunrise on the
13th June saw them on board. Carey had had other troubles besides his
colleague and his wife. His father, then fifty-eight years old, had
not given him up without a struggle. "Is William mad?" he had said when
he received the letter in which his son thus offered himself up on the
missionary altar. His mother had died six years before:--

"LEICESTER, Jan. 17th, 1793.

"DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,--The importance of spending our time for God
alone, is the principal theme of the gospel. I beseech you, brethren,
says Paul, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. To
be devoted like a sacrifice to holy uses, is the great business of a
christian, pursuant to these requisitions. I consider myself as devoted
to the service of God alone, and now I am to realise my professions. I
am appointed to go to Bengal, in the East Indies, a missionary to the
Hindoos. I shall have a colleague who has been there five or six years
already, and who understands their language. They are the most mild
and inoffensive people in all the world, but are enveloped in the
greatest superstition, and in the grossest ignorance...I hope, dear
father, you may be enabled to surrender me up to the Lord for the most
arduous, honourable, and important w