England. Thomas
had left his factory, and was urging his colleague to try the sugar
trade, which at that time meant the distillation of rum. Carey rather
took over from Mr. Udny the out-factory of Kidderpore, twelve miles
distant, and there resolved to prepare for the arrival of colleagues,
the communistic missionary settlement on the Moravian plan, which he
had advocated in his Enquiry. Mr. John Fountain had been sent out as
the first reinforcement, but he proved to be almost as dangerous to the
infant mission from his outspoken political radicalism as Thomas had
been from his debts. Carey seriously contemplated the setting up of
his mission centre among the Bhooteas, so as to be free from the East
India Company. The authorities would not license Fountain as his
assistant. Would they allow future missionaries to settle with him?
Would they always renew his own licence? And what if he must cease
altogether to work with his hands, and give himself wholly to the work
of the mission as seemed necessary?
Four new colleagues and their families were already on the sea, but God
had provided a better refuge for His servants till the public
conscience which they were about to quicken and enlighten should cause
the persecution to cease.
CHAPTER V
THE NEW CRUSADE--SERAMPORE AND THE BROTHERHOOD
1800
Effects of the news in England on the Baptists--On the home
churches--In the foundation of the London and other Missionary
Societies--In Scotland--In Holland and America--The missionary
home--Joshua Marshman, William Ward, and two others sent out--Landing
at the Iona of Southern Asia--Meeting of Ward and Carey--First attempt
to evangelise the non-Aryan hill tribes--Carey driven by providences to
Serampore--Dense population of Hoogli district--Adapts his communistic
plan to the new conditions--Purchase of the property--Constitution of
the Brotherhood--His relations to Marshman and Ward--Hannah Marshman,
the first woman missionary--Daily life of the Brethren--Form of
Agreement--Carey's ideal system of missionary administration realised
for fifteen years--Spiritual heroism of the Brotherhood.
The first two English missionaries to India seemed to those who sent
them forth to have disappeared for ever. For fourteen months, in those
days of slow Indiamen and French privateers, no tidings of their
welfare reached the poor praying people of the midlands, who had been
emboldened to begin the heroic enterprise. The con
|