1810), I
called upon one of the Judges to take breakfast with him, and going
rather abruptly upstairs, as I had been accustomed to do, I found the
family just going to engage in morning worship. I was of course asked
to engage in prayer, which I did. I afterwards told him that I had
scarcely witnessed anything since I had been in Calcutta which gave me
more pleasure than what I had seen that morning. The change in this
family was an effect of Mr. Thomason's ministry...About ten days ago I
had a conversation with one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, Sir
John Boyd, upon religious subjects. Indeed there is now scarcely a
place where you can pay a visit without having an opportunity of saying
something about true religion."

Carey's friendly intercourse, by person and letter, was not confined to
those who were aggressively Christian or to Christian and
ecclesiastical questions. As we shall soon see, his literary and
scientific pursuits led him to constant and familiar converse with
scholars like Colebrooke and Leyden, with savants like Roxburgh, the
astronomer Bentley, and Dr. Hare, with publicists like Sir James
Mackintosh and Robert Hall, with such travellers and administrators as
Manning, the friend of Charles Lamb, and Raffles.

In Great Britain the name of William Carey had, by 1812, become
familiar as a household word in all evangelical circles. The men who
had known him in the days before 1793 were few and old, were soon to
pass away for ever. The new generation had fed their Christian zeal on
his achievements, and had learned to look on him, in spite of all his
humility which only inflamed that zeal, as the pioneer, the father, the
founder of foreign missions, English, Scottish, and American. They had
never seen him; they were not likely to see him in the flesh. The
desire for a portrait of him became irresistible. The burning of the
press, to be hereafter described, which led even bitter enemies of the
mission like Major Scott Waring to subscribe for its restoration, gave
the desired sympathetic voice, so that Fuller wrote to the
missionaries:--"The public is now giving us their praises. Eight
hundred guineas have been offered for Dr. Carey's likeness...When you
pitched your tents at Serampore you said, 'We will not accumulate
riches but devote all to God for the salvation of the heathen.' God
has given you what you desired and what you desired not. Blessed men,
God will bless you and make you a