voy, which had seen
the Danish vessel fairly beyond the French coast, had been unable to
bring back letters on account of the weather. At last, on the 29th
July 1794, Fuller, the secretary; Pearce, the beloved personal friend
of Carey; Ryland in Bristol; and the congregation at Leicester,
received the journals of the voyage and letters which told of the first
six weeks' experience at Balasore, in Calcutta, Bandel, and Nuddea,
just before Carey knew the worst of their pecuniary position. The
committee at once met. They sang "with sacred joy" what has ever since
been the jubilee hymn of missions, that by William Williams--

"O'er those gloomy hills of darkness."

They "returned solemn thanks to the everlasting God whose mercy
endureth for ever, for having preserved you from the perils of the sea,
and hitherto made your ways prosperous. In reading the short account
of your labours we feel something of that spirit spoken of in the
prophet, 'Thine heart shall fear and be enlarged.' We cordially thank
you for your assiduity in learning the languages, in translating, and
in every labour of love in which you have engaged. Under God we
cheerfully confide in your wisdom, fidelity, and prudence, with
relation to the seat of your labours or the means to carry them into
effect. If there be one place, however, which strikes us as of more
importance than the rest, it is Nuddea. But you must follow where the
Lord opens a door for you." The same spirit of generous confidence
marked the relations of Carey and the committee so long as Fuller was
secretary. When the news came that the missionaries had become indigo
planters, some of the weaker brethren, estimating Carey by themselves,
sent out a mild warning against secular temptations, to which he
returned a half-amused and kindly reply. John Newton, then the aged
rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, on being consulted, reassured them: "If
the heart be fired with a zeal for God and love to souls," he said,
"such attention to business as circumstances require will not hurt it."
Since Carey, like the Moravians, meant that the missionaries should
live upon a common stock, and never lay up money, the weakest might
have recognised the Paul-like nobleness, which had marked all his life,
in relinquishing the scanty salary that it might be used for other
missions to Africa and Asia.

The spiritual law which Duff's success afterwards led Chalmers to
formulate, that the relation of foreign