Eustace Carey, a missionary in India

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EUSTACE CAREY:

A MISSIONARY IN INDIA..

" He who is not possessed of a considerable portion of a self-denying spirit can engage in no employment more irksome and intolerable than that of a missionary." — Robert Hall.

Preface

In the last week of July, 1855, an advertisement appeared in the newspapers of a speedy publication of a Memoir of Mr. Carey. This arose from a mistake on the part of the advertiser.

I hope it will be distinctly understood, that at that time not a line of this book was written, neither had it even been thought of. This fact, together with ill health, will explain to the reader the cause of delay in publication.

When beginning the work, I found scarcely any materials in my own possession from which to compile a Memoir. It was Mr. Carey's habit to destroy all written memorials of every description. On application to his correspondents, very few of his letters were forthcoming. This must account for the prominence of my own remarks in the early part of the book.

In giving the history of this life, I have endeavi

PREFACE.

voured to present no more detail than was necessary to embody or exhibit its spirit ; believing, that c< the man is the spirit he worked in ; — not what he did " (merely), "but what he became."

On this account there has been little attention paid to the minute filling up of all the months and years of his earthly sojourn, for surely a life is not a common calendar.

It is much to be regretted that the histories of so many of the good and great should be shut up in large tomes and bodies of divinity, fit only to be read by the learned.

Should any one be disposed to censure the too frequent use of Scripture, I can only say that my main hope rests in the good which may follow upon a perusal of the words which "the Holy Ghost teacheth ; for they are spirit and they are life."

Some explanation is needed as to one particular. In the introductory chapter to the Memoir,* an allusion is made to a sketch of the rise of the Baptist Mission and history of its founders, which was to have preceded it. This does not appear, from the reason that, after the first chapters had been placed in the hands of the printer, the material, which it seemed * See page 10.

PKEFACE.

vii necessary to publish, so much increased as to leave no room for it. Should the perusal of this book tend, as it is earnestly hoped it may do, to the revivification in any degree, of the missionary spirit, and should it seem desirable, I propose working this sketch into an abridged edition of my husband's life of Dr. Carey,

The portrait in this book is a sketch from memory by a member of his family. Mr. Carey's aversion to having his likeness taken was so excessive, that any allusion to the subject was always painful. Thus, out of regard to his strongly expressed feelings, the matter was delayed from time to time.

I have desired to make this a missionary book. If I have at all succeeded, and if, by God's blessing, in this character it should be made in the least decree useful, my labour will not have been spent in vain.

Esther Carey.

Xentish Town, December, 1856.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY 1

II. PARENTAGE — EARLY LIFE 13

Chap. II. Parentage. — Early Life

" Lipe is a strange avenue of various trees and flowers Lightsome at commencement, but darkening to its end in

a distant massy portal.

It beginnetli as a little path, edged with the violet and

primrose,

A little path of lawny grass, and soft to tiny feet."

Amongst all that is artless, fanciful, and poetic in the brief period of childhood, how little is retained in memory for use, or reference in after-life. This is a matter to be regretted, for it would, doubtless, be gratifying to the minds of not a few persons to be able to recall an incident, or even a vague recollection, which might lead them to form some idea, or to arrive at some conclusion, as to what was really thought by them at first of the various objects with which their sight and hearing and touch came in contact ; for who does not u look with lingering love on the first star of childhood's memory ?" But from the infrequency of allusion to such " memory" in biography in general, it may be just to conclude that the majority of persons pass the brief period of infancy, as well as that of youth, without having one ideal presence, much less

MEMOIR OF EUSTACE CAEEY.

a " star," to prevent and to hail the boundless opening day.

There are, however, some impressions and some incidents of a very pleasing kind, which might often he gathered for the gratification, and, perhaps, instruction of those who train the young ; and there are also useful suggestions which might arise from regarding facts connected with the earlier development of our being. For instance, we know that although possessed of a perfect organ of vision, very young children learn the real nature and proper use of things only by slow observation, or by means of personal contact ; we know, also, that some years are passed before the eye conveys to the mind any true idea of space or extension for a child has been known to make a most sincere attempt, while running in an avenue of trees, to catch the moon which peeped through at its opposite end. From hence might we not learn a practical lesson, the difficulty that there is connected with an attempt to convey to the minds of very young children any idea of the true nature of God, — of his all-pervasive presence, yet his invisibility alike to all. If persons would take a hint from this plain intimation, which the very nature of the tender years suggests, there would be fewer gratuitous attempts made to thrust upon the attention of the child definitions of the attributes of the Great Eternal, which lead only to the confusion of the

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mind, and frequently, in the presence of the young, I to the excitation of the risible faculties in persons of mature years, and in connexion with his name, the mention of which should incite only to the deepest reverence.

Moreover, if we would consider that a grown-up person is the tallest object which is kept before the eye of a child, we should not wonder at the perfect enigma which the works of God present to him, both those which are on the earth and in the sky. Truly 'in this case also, "men are seen as trees walking;" land all is wrapped up in profound mystery. In the i memory of one child, a distinct impression of astonishment was long retained, at the giant-height of its father or grown-up sister; also at the wonderful strength exerted by them, either for the child's relief from fatigue, or for his defence in time of danger. As it has been fancifully conjectured that men look like giants in the eyes of horses, hence the ease with which they manage them; we may with certainty aver with regard to children, that when first beginning to use their faculties the eye perceives not, and consequently cannot convey to the mind the truths las to the comparative height and strength of these objects ; and thence the practical lesson above alluded to. But that the minds of little children, as has just been mentioned, are sometimes subject to a process of thought which is very pleasing, and whose con-

MEMOIR OF EUSTACE CAREY.

elusions are highly fanciful and even poetic, there can be no doubt. The writer remembers reading two instances of this kind, one of a little girl who had noticed the stars in the sky, and who had not been told how they came there, but who wished with such a longing heart to understand this mystery ; and the other of a little girl, who on asking "how they canie," was told that u God made the stars." The former little girl watched her brother with close attention while he made holes in wood with what he called a gimlet, through which she could see, and which were very pretty when put before a candle. She mused for some time that night amongst the stars ; at length her musings were not in vain. Suddenly a bright thought came to her, and when night had once more come, and " not too soon," and

" There was no light in earth or heaven, But the cold light of stars/ 5

she ran to the window, drew aside the curtains, and exclaimed, in an ecstacy of joy, " O papa, these are the gimlet-holes to let in the glory."

The other incident may be familiar to the reader as beautifully expressed in blank verse by a transatlantic poet, which concludes,

" Presently in the edge of the last tint Of sunset, where the blue was melted in To the faint golden mellowness, a star

EARLY LIFE. 17

Stood suddenly. A laugh of wild delight Burst from her lips ; and putting up her hands, Her simple thought broke forth expressively — c Father, dear father ! God has made a star. 5 55

With, what entire complacency may such impressions be allowed to remain uncorrected ! A grievous error it would he on the part of any one to mingle a plain matter-of-fact view of truth as to the physical world, with this the first and purest poetry of infant life. Were there less of teaching at this period, when the creative faculties are positively labouring to expand themselves under the warm spring-tide of the child's own common sense, or instinct, or intuition, or whatsoever we may term that power with which the Creator has endowed human beings in their earliest existence, and which increases with every day's progress or use ; there would be less precocity and unnatural growth ; perhaps less of physical disease, and a much better foundation laid both in the body and the mind of the child, for rigid growth to maturity in after-life. But, alas ! for our race, in the minds of too many parents and teachers, they no sooner think of a human being than they think of books ; books too for which the child is made, and not the books for the child. An infant's library is soon found, and the mind is ruled and lined according to the dimensions and requirements of the books, and not according to the taste and ability of the

C child * It is too frequently forgotten that the receptive faculty in infants is very small; besides, with respect to a thousand things which they are taught, they would learn the truth soon enough without any teaching at all; and if let alone, when a few years are gone by, such impressions as the above will remain, as some of those radiant visions of the past which glorify the present :

" Those purple flowers, which in the rudest wind Never grow sere "When rooted in the garden of the mind,

Because they are the earliest of the year."

But there are certain moral impressions which may be made on a child very early in life ; and these will be found essentially to differ from those of a mere physical kind from the more facile manner in which they may be apprehended by him. Although he has no powers of mind, at present, by which he can un-

* Infant Schools also in this country might too often fall under the same censure. Although books are not much used, yet, as generally conducted, there is too much exercise of the thinking and the retentive faculty. Germany has set us a fine example in this respect in the manner of their conducting their Kinder Garten, in which are furnished, for the exercise of the inventive faculty, and to help the memory, all sorts of manual employment. All the lessons are learnt in this way : reading and arithmetic, by use of letters and figures cut out of wood; natural history, by the child's modelling animals, plants, &c, by means of plastic clay. These have lately been set up in England by Herr Eonge, and attended with great success.

EAJEtLY LIFE. 19

derstand the nature and distance of the heavenly bodies, but thinks, if he thinks at all (as in the case of the little girl with the moon before-mentioned), that they are close about the trees, or the roof of his father's house ; — it is so arranged by the Creator that he should be placed in circumstances to understand, or be made to understand very early, the difference between right and wrong on a small scale, and the necessity of obedience to parental authority. As parents are, during these very early years, in God's stead to the child, hence arises the duty which they owe to him of teaching obedience with the first development of the faculties ; so that this business of governing and of submitting may be clearly understood by each party. "Willy has a ball to play with which he throws about the room; but Willy goes into a great passion, and throws it at the nurse with full intent to hurt her, were this possible. Now is the time, if the parent be present, to teach Willy his first lesson in morals, which is the right and which is the wrong throwing of the ball. Oh, Willy ! what a mercy for you and for all of your order of the human genus, that you have so much of the animal, and so little of the mental or ethereal nature about you. The small deprivation of some little toy, or pleasure, will be correction quite equal to your offence, and will not fail, if properly administered, to answer the chief end of punishment, which is, or ought to

C 2

MEMOIR OF EUSTACE CAREY.

be, reformation. Now you must be denied the use of the ball for to-day, and if the lesson is only remembered an hour or two by you, it will not be altogether in vain.

A parent has, in these petty or in more criminal cases, to be both judge and jury, to dispose of the evidence, and to be executioners of their own verdict. Yet it is there and then, before Scripture precept can be at all known by the child, that commences that moral education which the apostle intimates when he says, " Fathers provoke not your children to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Evident as it is that there is an evil nature in very young children, it is also as evident that there is a tendency to that which is good. This latter, so ingenuous, so sincere, so beautiful, it is presumed, is that which our Lord takes occasion to point out in a little child, when he would set forth the qualities of mind in adults which are requisite for the right reception of his kingdom. u He took a little child, and set him in the midst of them and said, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." The teachable, humble, unprejudiced, confiding mind ; — these are the mental qualities here intended ; and which must at once present an advantage to the parent which, while it can never be too fully estimated, might probably be more frequently turned to better account. But it

EAKLY LIFE.

is much to be regretted, that, at this early age, children are left so much with others ; parents also, themselves, while their children are young, have at command less wisdom arising from experience than they have in after-years ; their own minds are too often undisciplined, so that if the child be passionate and resentful, so is, too frequently, the parent; and the error of passionate reproof is often followed by the equal error of relenting fondness, which error soon becomes perceptible to the child. Yet the fact pointed out so impressively by the Saviour in the above words, while it gives encouragement more especially to Christian mothers, who watch over the souls of their children " as they that must give account/' may lead them to seek more diligently for that renewing of the spirit of their mind towards God, which a little child so beautifully exhibits towards them; and, under a sense of their own weighty care and entire insufficiency in this respect, may incline them to take themselves and their children more confidingly unto Him, who when on earth " took little children up in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them."

Thus, also, may those early impressions be made, which hereafter, when the truth concerning God and the testimony which he hath given of his Son shall be familiar to the mind through the learning of verses of Scripture, hymns, and other easy lessons, shall, by the teaching of the Spirit, become religious impressions.

And if it be asked, what is the first impression which should be made on a child, the answer, doubtless, would be love, not a sermon on love. If we set before them constantly the fact that we love them, by a daily and hourly practical demonstration of it, it will be doing just that which God does when he teaches his children. He does not give them merely lessons on love, which may be applicable or otherwise, but a grand exhibition of his love in the gift of Christ : the lesson is love itself ; for God is love. And with a Christian mother, if the first lesson be love, surely to her who has learnt in the school of Christ "as a little child" this lesson, the way must be already open, with the divine blessing, and facilities immediately at hand for making such impression. It was reported of an eminent minister of the gospel of by-gone days, that he once said, " his children should fear him if they did not love him." But such a decision, however marked by heroic bravery, and however favourable the result, is surely dangerous as a precedent, and contrary to the plain dictates of nature and of right feeling. Were the sentence reversed, " they shall love me, although they do not fear me the error would be far less and also "on the right side." It is difficult to conceive in such a case, how that which is to be the main-spring of all true obedience, whether towards the Creator or the creature, should ever take a secondary place in the esteem of any parent. Christianity is not designed to

EARLY LIFE.

teach, us that which nature itself so clearly intimates ; but its design is to superinduce over our whole being an excellence and a glory which we shall in vain search for where its influence is unfelt. So that as parents, not only our religions 'profession, but our natural affection, is at fault, if our love be not powerful enough to produce love which shall return to us with increase, and richly laden with trust and confidence. Where these are secured as pre-requisites, and there is presented in a manner, and accompanied with the diction suited to those in tender years, a relation of the life and death of Christ as a sublime fact, we may leave and await the result in faith and hope. If we relate to a child some of the wonderful Scripture stories — of Joseph sold into Egypt, of David in his mastery of the lion and the bear, of Daniel in the lions' den, of Peter in prison — the child believes the story so strange, so extraordinary, because it can trust the person who relates it. Thus, with a little care, in early life, in the rosy hours of morning, may the intelligence as well as the affections of the tender heart be gathered up by the parent, and wound together for use in time to come ; and these precious gifts of God through his grace may be drawn to their great Creator and to them u hy the bands of a man and by the cords of love." B,eligion and religious education should be as the magnetic needle by which the young steer their way through life. If children commit to memory plenty of the rig-lit kind; — when their minds are stored with portions of Scripture, and their memory with loving example, we have all that we need for effectuating the result united with the divine injunction, " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it f and for producing impressions which shall hereafter, " when by reason of age the senses are exercised to discern both good and evil," become religions impressions. By thus securing the affections of children, we secure also their loving friendship ; we have in each of them, as they grow up, an ally instead of an enemy — a friend and companion whose instincts and tastes will grow together with our own, and who will be won by the wise conduct of the parent, first to himself, and then by natural sequence to his God and Father. For while character is ever more impressive than teaching, children are very quick to discover the imperfections of their superiors in age, and very soon to learn in them any breach of their own rule. It is much to be regretted, that these defects in social and domestic life are often so palpable on the part of religiously professing parents, that the young will form their friendships in any direction rather than on the parental hearth. Alas ! how common is such a remark as the following, "I cannot speak to my father; he does not at all understand me or, " I cannot tell what I feel to my mother, for she has forgotten the time when she was young >

PARENTAGE.

and makes no allowance for the heat, buoyancy, and mistakes of youth "

In the case before us, how different ! As the dawn advances to the brightness of day, we shall find some hand that takes hold of his hand ; some heart that beats in unison with his own heart; lips that "whisper" sentences of the deepest affection, as well as an ear to hear the first utterances of his own.

Eustace Caiiey was born March 22nd, 1791, at Paulerspury, a small and pleasant village in Northamptonshire, which was celebrated only for its obscurity, until, in the middle of the last century, it became the birthplace of Di\ William Carey, the great Oriental scholar and missionary. Eustace was the son of Thomas and Mary Carey. Thomas Carey was the youngest son of Edmund Carey, and a brother of Dr. Carey above mentioned.

Mr. Edmund Carey, the grandfather of Eustace, was an upright and j udicious man ; he was remarkable for his plain and good sense, and also for his kindheartedness and generosity. He had five children, three sons and two daughters ; and, being the master of the Free School of the village, his children were instructed with his scholars in the usual branches of an English education. This education was considered very good in those days, and indeed it was so ; for through the diligence and success of the master, the

MEMOIR OF EUSTACE CAREY.

good name to which he had attained and his father before him, his school became a sort of college, to which resorted daily for instruction farmers' and gentlemen's sons ; also ladies, to be taught writing by him, and needlework by his wife and daughter. Twice a week he might be seen walking to the neighbouringtown of Towcester, there to teach a ladies' school writing and arithmetic ; and in all the country no one sought more diligently to fulfil his daily duties, —

" Something attempted, something done, — To earn his night's repose," —

than Mr. Edmund Carey. The day-star from on high had not yet visited his dwelling with the full assurance of a gladsome hope; yet had he the charity which "seeketh not her own." A little girl in the village, who was suddenly deprived of both parents by death, and who was destitute of the means of subsistence, was taken by him into his house, placed amongst his own children, and provided with bed and board until fitted for some useful employment. To these good qualities must be added, his great hatred of deception, and also of vanity. To a slanderer who reported ill of a neighbour, his invariable reply was, " There are faults in us all." Faults he had, doubtless ; but of these the writer is not advised by his survivors who bear his name, for " love covereth a multitude of sins." Of his* wife and mother also honourable mention must be made here. While the

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former equalled her husband in his strict integrity and quick perception of right and wrong, she excelled him, if that were possible, in her high moral bearing, in her pure and refined benevolence. The latter, who had been left a widow in early life, and who resided with her son, was as distinguished for her meekness and gentleness as for her loving spirit, united with true refinement of manners ; she was a perfect lady in every sense of that word. Like Naomi and Ruth, these two lived together; and while their distinctive characteristics blended in sweetest harmony and beauty as then and there exhibited, they were an ornament to themselves and to the neighbourhood in which they dwelt.* As a vein of precious ore, these excellent qualities descended through other branches of the family, and will not fail to be recognised as the rich inheritance of him who has so lately disappeared from amongst us.

Had the morning beams of gospel light and grace broken sooner on the minds of these honourable women, they might have attained before their gifted descendants to the faith of the mother and grandmother of Timothy. But their name, notwithstand-

* It was matter of deep regret to a daughter of Mrs. Edmund Carey that these traits, especially in her mother's and grandmother's characters, were not mentioned by Mr. Eustace Carey when he published the life of her brother, Dr. Carey. A granddaughter suggests, "that if published now, it will give her mother pleasure in heaven."

MEMOIR OF EUSTACE CAKEY.

ing that these virtues were so well sustained and exemplified by them, would have been forgotten, and would have lain low with their remains amongst the sods of their native village, had it not been for their children, and more especially for their eldest son William, who for the possession of these high moral qualities makes a rich return ; and the converse of the apostle's text is applicable to him, " when I remember the unfeigned faith which dwelt first " in thee, and then in thy mother Elizabeth, and thy grandmother Ann.

Thomas Carey, the father of Eustace Carey, was a non-commissioned officer in the army, and was with the Duke of York in one of our wars with Holland. He was there wounded in the knee, and on his return home was rewarded with a pension. He had three children — Edmund, who died in youth; Peter, who followed the profession of his father, and died in India ; and Eustace, the subject of this memoir.

In that which may be justly termed the wondrous era of the rise of the first modern Missionary Society, at a time when Dr. Carey was little known and less understood, and society, at least in England with reference to missions to the heathen, was quite " without form and void/' Eustace Carey was born. Whether when the " Spirit of God moved on the face of these waters," under his supervening and all-powerful control, this child's future destiny was in-

PARENTAGE.

fluenced or directed thereby, will probably be apparent in the sequel. Eustace was born either under the same roof with Dr. Carey, or in a house in contiguity to the one in which in childhood, in the school chamber, he spent his leisure hours ; where he placed his treasures collected from the world's great storehouse ; and where, amidst his insects and birds and flowers, he was first taught of God to know and to study himself, and to live for his glory and the good of his fellow-creatures. Not only the room, but also the garden which Dr. Carey had cultivated with so much care twenty years before, was familiar to this child's eye. He sat beneath the very trees where Dr. Carey had been in the habit of reading Captain Cook's Voyages, and all the scraps of foreign intelligence he could procure ; — where he so often pictured to himself the fearful Suttee and Infanticide of India, and the idolatry and cannibalism of the South Seas. As here was expressed the anguish of his soul, so fancy might place here some tree that told the tale of his sorrow, as the " Talking Oak ; " but with what a different story of heart-struggle, those best know who are most familiar with his life. But be this as it may, Eustace Carey was nursed up and nurtured too in the affectionate hearts of those who had derived, in great measure instrumentally, their religious warmth from the missionary altar there erected, which had received the sacrifice and the service of the faith of him who, so