the life of william carey-第77章
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missionaries; and which gives a favourable specimen of their readiness to listen to the preaching of the Gospel。。。
〃Reflect; O disciple of Jesus! on what has been presented to thy view。 The cause of Christ is thy own cause。 Without deep criminality thou canst not be indifferent to its success。 Rejoice that so delightful a field of missions has been discovered and exhibited。 Rouse thyself from the slumbers of spiritual languor。 Exert thyself to the utmost of thy power; and let conscience be able to testify; without a doubt; even at the tribunal of Jesus Christ; If missionaries are not speedily sent to preach she glorious Gospel in Bengal; it shall not be owing to me。〃
That is remarkable writing for an Edinburgh magazine in the year 1797; and it was Carey who made it possible。 Its author followed up the appeal by offering himself and his all; for life and death; in a 〃Plan of the Mission to Bengal;〃 which appeared in the April number。 Robert Haldane; whose journal at this time was full of Carey's doings; and his ordained associates; Bogue; Innes; and Greville Ewing; accompanied by John Ritchie as printer; John Campbell as catechist; and other lay workers; determined to turn the very centre of Hindooism; Benares; into a second Serampore。 Defeated by one set of Directors of the East India Company; he waited for the election of their successors; only to find the East India Company as hostile to the Scottish gentleman as they had been to the English shoemaker four years before。
The formation of the great Missionary and Bible Societies did not; as in the case of the Moravian Brethren and the Wesleyans; take their members out of the Churches of England and Scotland; of the Baptists and Independents。 It supplied in each case an executive through which they worked aggressively not only on the non…christian world; but still more directly on their own home congregations and parishes。 The foreign mission spirit directly gave birth to the home mission on an extensive scale。 Not merely did the Haldanes and their agents; following Whitefield and the Scottish Secession of 1733; become the evangelists of the north when they were not suffered to preach the Gospel in South Asia; every member of the churches of Great Britain and America; as he caught the enthusiasm of humanity; in the Master's sense; from the periodical accounts sent home from Serampore; and soon from Africa and the South Seas; as well as from the Red Indians and Slaves of the West; began to work as earnestly among the neglected classes around him; as to pray and give for the conversion of the peoples abroad。 From first to last; from the early days of the Moravian influence on Wesley and Whitefield; and the letters of Carey; to the successive visits to the home churches of missionaries like Duff and Judson; Ellis and Williams; Moffat and Livingstone; it is the enterprise of foreign missions which has been the leaven of Christendom no less really than of the rest of the world。 Does the fact that at the close of the year 1796 there were more than thirty thousand men and women in Great Britain who every month read and prayed about the then little known world of heathenism; and spared not their best to bring that world to the Christ whom they had found; seem a small thing? How much smaller; even to contemptible insignificance; must those who think so consider the arrival of William Carey in Calcutta to be three years before! Yet the thirty thousand sprang from the one; and to…day the thirty thousand have a vast body of Christians really obedient to the Master; in so far as; banded together in five hundred churches and societies; they have sent out eighteen thousand missionaries instead of one or two; they see eighty thousand Asiatics; Africans; and Polynesians proclaiming the Christ to their countrymen; and their praying is tested by their giving annually a sum of ?;000;000; to which every year is adding。
The influence of Carey and his work on individual men and women in his generation was even more marked; inasmuch as his humility kept him so often from magnifying his office and glorifying God as the example of Paul should have encouraged him to do。 Most important of all for the cause; he personally called Ward to be his associate; and his writings drew Dr。 and Mrs。 Marshman to his side; while his apostolic charity so developed and used all that was good in Thomas and Fountain; that not even in the churches of John and James; Peter and Paul; Barnabas and Luke; was there such a brotherhood。 When troubles came from outside he won to himself the younger brethren; Yates and Pearce; and healed half the schism which Andrew Fuller's successors made。 His Enquiry; followed 〃by actually embarking on a mission to India;〃 led to the publication of the Letters on Missions addressed to the Protestant Ministers of the British Churches by Melville Horne; who; after a brief experience as Church of England chaplain in Zachary Macaulay's settlement of Sierra Leone; published that little book to excite in all Christians a passion for missions like the Master's。 Referring to the English churches; Established and Nonconformist; he wrote:〃Except the Reverend Mr。 Carey and a friend who accompanies him; I am not informed of any。。。ministers who are engaged in missions。〃 Such was the impression made by Carey on John Newton that; in 1802; he rebuked his old curate; Claudius Buchanan; for depreciating the Serampore missionaries; adding; 〃I do not look for miracles; but if God were to work one in our day; I should not wonder if it were in favour of Dr。 Carey。〃
The Serampore Mission; at an early period; called forth the admiration of the Scottish philanthropist and essayist; James Douglas of Cavers; whose Hints on Missions (1822); a book still full of suggestiveness; contains this passage:〃Education and the press have only been employed to purpose of very late years; especially by the missionaries of Serampore; every year they have been making some improvements upon their former efforts; and。。。it only requires to increase the number of printing presses; schools; teachers; translators; and professors; to accelerate to any pitch the rate of improvement。。。To attempt to convert the world without educating it; is grasping at the end and neglecting the means。〃 Referring to what Carey had begun and the Serampore College had helped to develop in Asia; as in Africa and America; Douglas of Cavers well described the missionary era; the new crusade:〃The Reformation itself needed anew a reform in the spirit if not in the letter。 That second Reformation has begun; it makes less noise than that of Luther; but it spreads wider and deeper; as it is more intimate it will be more enduring。 Like the Temple of Solomon; it is rising silently; without the din of pressure or the note of previous preparation; but notwithstanding it will be not less complete in all its parts nor less able to resist the injuries of time!〃
Henry Martyn died; perhaps the loftiest and most loving spirit of the men whom Carey drew to India。 Son of a Cornish miner…captain; after passing through the Truro Grammar School; he was sixteenthe age at which Carey became a shoemaker's apprenticewhen he was entered at St。 John's; and made that ever since the most missionary of all the colleges of Cambridge。 When not yet twenty he came out Senior Wrangler。 His father's death drove him to the Bible; to the Acts of the Apostles; which he began to study; and the first whisper of the call of Christ came to him in the joy of the Magnificat as its strains pealed through the chapel。 Charles Simeon's preaching drew him to Trinity Church。 In the vicarage; when he had come to be tutor of his college; and was preparing for the law; he heard much talk of William Carey; of his self…sacrifice and his success in India。 It was the opening year of the nineteenth century; the Church Missionary Society had just been born as the fruit partly of a paper written by Simeon four years previously; and he offered himself as its first English missionary。 He was not twenty…one; he could not be ordained for two years。 Meanwhile a calamity made him and his unmarried sister penniless; he loved Lydia Grenfell with a pure passion which enriched while it saddened hi