to do. In 1826, he visited England, partly for the sake of pleading with the Society at home, first begun on so small a scale by Carey, but which now numbered many members and disposed of large sums. The committee, however, were often hard to deal with. There were among them many men of good intentions, but without breadth of views, and used to small economies. They listened to false reports, censured without sufficient information, pinched their missions, and dictated the management, so that to deal with them was but a vexation of spirit. Indeed, such annoyances are inseparable from the very fact of the supplies and the government being in the hands of a body at a distance from the scene of action, and destitute of personal experience of the needs.
After much argument, the matter ended in the Serampore mission being separated from the General Society, as indeed it had become nearly self- supporting through the numerous schools which the talents of the members of it had been able to establish. It was an unfortunate time, however, when the two men whose abilities had earned their present position were so far past the prime of life; and, in 1830, the failure of a great banking company both deprived them of a large part of their investments, and, by ruining numerous families, lessened the attendance at Dr. Marshman's school. Moreover, the American subscribers sent a most vexatious and absurd remonstrance against any part of their contributions for training young men to the ministry, being employed in teaching science. 'As if,' said Dr. Marshman, 'youths in America could be educated for ministers without learning science.'
Another disaster was that, on Lord William Bentinck's arrival in India in 1830, the finances of the Government were found to be in so unsatisfactory a state, that salaries were everywhere reduced, and that which Dr. Carey had derived from the college at Fort William was thus cut down from 1,000 rupees per month to 500. At this time, the missions and preachers dependent on Serampore required 1,500_l. a year for their support, and only 900_l. was to be had, and this when both Marshman and Carey were seventy years of age, and still were toiling as hard as ever.
There were other troubles, too, as to who was the owner of the buildings, whether the Baptist Society, or the missionaries as trustees, and as having paid a large portion of the price. A great inundation of the Hooghly had nearly settled the question by washing the whole away. As it was, it did much damage, and destroyed the beautiful botanical garden that had for twenty years been Dr. Carey's delight. Finally the whole of the right of Marshman and Carey to the buildings was sold to the Society, for a much less amount than they had paid from their own pockets; but they were to occupy them rent free for the rest of their lives.
The trouble and anxiety consequent on this question, which had been of many years' standing, had greatly impaired Dr. Marshman's strength both of body and mind. Morbid attacks of depression came on, during which he wandered about, unable to apply himself so much as even to write a letter, though in the intervals he was both cheerful and full of activity. Dr. Carey's health was likewise failing, and, with no formed illness, he gradually sank, and died on the 9th of June, 1834, in his seventy-third year.
To him belongs the honour of the awakening of the missionary spirit in England. Yet, as an individual preacher and teacher, he does not seem to have had much power. His talent was for language and philology; his perfections were faith and perseverance. In these he was a giant; in everything else, whether as a cobbler, schoolmaster, indigo-planter, nay, even as father of a family, he was a failure: but his steady, faithful purpose enabled him so to use that one talent as to make him the pioneer and the support as well as the example of numbers better qualified for the actual work than himself.
His loss left Dr. Marshman alone, and suffering from melancholy more and more, as well as much harassed by difficulties as to the resources, and by captious complaints from home. In 1836, a great shock was given to his nerves by the danger of his daughter. She was the wife of Lieutenant Henry Havelock, a young officer, who, deeply impressed by Dr. Marshman's piety, had joined his congregation, and who was destined to become in after years one of the most heroic and able of the defenders of the British cause in India. During his absence, she and her three children had been left at Landour, when their bungalow caught fire in the middle of the night, and blazed up with a rapidity due to its light, dry materials. She rushed out with her baby in her arms, but in crossing the verandah tripped and fell, losing her hold of the child. She was dragged away by a faithful native servant, who likewise snatched out her two eldest boys, but the poor baby was lost in the flames, and she herself was so much injured and overwhelmed by the alarm and grief, that, when her husband arrived, her state was almost hopeless, and he wrote a letter preparing her father to hear of her death. From some untoward accident, no more tidings reached Serampore for three days, and to spirits that had already lost their balance the suspense was fatal. The aged father wandered about the house in a purposeless manner, sometimes standing gazing along the road through the Venetian blinds, sometimes talking incoherently; and when at last the intelligence arrived that Mrs. Havelock was out of danger, though his joy and thankfulness were ecstatic, the effects of these three days were irremediable; he was hardly ever seen to smile again, could take no part in the renewed discussions with the Baptist Society, although his mind and memory were still clear. He died on the 5th of December, 1837, just as the Serampore mission had been re-united to the General Baptist mission.
'There had been but few men at Serampore, but they were all giants,' was said of them by one of the dignitaries of the Church and assuredly it was a wonderful triumph, that a shoe-maker, a schoolmaster, and a printer should in thirty-eight years not only have aroused the missionary spirit in England, but have, by their resolution and talent, established thirty- three stations for the preaching of Christianity in India; while at the time of the death of the last survivor, forty-nine ministers were in union with them, half of whom were natives of Hindostan, and around each of the elder stations was a fair proportion of converts. Still more amazingly, these self-educated men had, by their accurate knowledge and deep study, become most eminent authorities in matters of language and philology; and by their usefulness had actually compelled a prejudiced Government to depend on them for assistance, and thus to support the work for which alone they cared. Never were the words more completely fulfilled than in them, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.'
The reverses that chequered their wonderful success were not the more interesting difficulties of wild country, or persecuting heathen, but troubles with an obstructive Government, and with the Society at home, which endeavoured to rule them without understanding them. These vexations are inseparable from the conditions of Societies trying to govern from home instead of letting the management be carried on by a head upon the spot.
CHAPTER VI. THE JUDSON FAMILY.
We must turn to an important offshoot from the Serampore mission, which assumed extensive proportions and a character of its own, chiefly in consequence of American zeal. Here, be it observed, was the first ground attempted by modern missions (not Roman Catholic) which belonged to an independent sovereign.
The great Burmese Empire, roughly speaking, occupies the Eastern India peninsula, being separated from that of Hindostan by the Brahmapootra river. The mountainous formation of the country, its indented coast, and numerous rivers render it fertile, and the hills contain many valuable metals and beautiful precious stones.
The inhabitants are of the Mongolian race, short, stout, active, and brown, with a good deal of ingenuity in arts and manufactures, but not equal to the Chinese, their neighbours. Their language is monosyllabic, their religion Buddhist, their government a despotic empire, and at the time the mission was entered upon they had had little intercourse with strangers, but their women were not secluded, were not wholly uneducated, and were treated with consideration.
Buddha is regarded as a manifestation of Vishnu-the Hindoos say, to delude his enemies; the Buddhists, to bring a new revelation. Gautama was the almost deified being who spread the knowledge of Buddhism, about 500 B.C. In different countries the religion has assumed different forms, but it is nearly co-extensive with the Mongolian race, and the general features are the rejection of the Vedas and of most of the Hindoo myths, faith in the divinity of Buddha, and hope that the individual personality will be entirely absorbed in his essence, the human being lost in the Deity. Five laws of virtue must be observed, ten kinds of sin avoided; and the Buddhist expects that transgressions will be punished by the transmigration of his soul into some inferior creature, whence he will rise by successive stages into another trial as a man, and gradually improving by the help of contemplation, and of a sublime state of annihilation of all self-consciousness, may become fit for his final absorption into the Godhead. There is an extensive priesthood, called Lamas, who live in a state of celibacy in dwellings not at all unlike monasteries; and, in effect, so much in their practices seems to parody the ceremonies of Christianity that the Portuguese thought them invented by the devil for the very purpose. However, there is no doubt that Buddhism inculcates a much purer morality than the religion of Brahma, and far higher aims. In Burmah, however, the idea of
