conflict, a very poor, but a very learned and pious man. From the lap-stone and the awl he called him; and he came. He put into the hands of him, and his humble associates, some £13; and bade them, thus furnished, to assail the paganism of India, with its myriad gods, and its myriad fanes, entrenched in massive and time-worn fastnesses, that centuries of power had built up, until they seemed impregnable. It was as if a grain of sand from the desert had been commanded to lift itself up on the wings of the wind, dash itself against the pyramids of Egypt, and shatter their mountain masses into dust. But hopeles as was the task, and inadequate as were the means, at his bidding, these poor, but devoted men, moved onward to the unequal enterprise. As soon as literature could descry objects so insignificant, she overwhelmed them and their enterprise with peals of mocking laughter and heartless derision. But they held on their way in the serenest meekness. What their God had commanded, they knew was right; what he had promised, they felt was sure. There was seen the mighty inagnanimity of faith. It was amid such scenes of confusion and dismay, in such a day, dark with rebuke and blasphemy, that Carey and his coadjutors planned their missions for the welfare of the distant east. It was not for the want of objects requiring their care at home that they went abroad. The labours of Wesley, and of Howard, who had but just then ended their race, had shown how fearful was the mass of misery left unrelieved, and of ignorance yet untaught, that were to be found in Christian Britain. But there were many to whom these domestic necessities might be well committed; a heavier necessity was laid on them to heed the distant cry of the dying millions of heathenisin. In December, 1793, the devoted preacher had but recently set foot on the shores of India. As yet, ignorant of the language, we find hin, in that month, with a congregation composed only of his own family and that of his associate in the mission; but he is anticipating much pleasure when he shall be able to preach in their own tongue to the benighted Hindus. Little does he suspect that six weary years are to elapse, ere he shall be allowed to welcome one sincere convert. In that same month, when the cheerful missionary is thus girding himself to the work, a lieutenant of artillery is distinguishing himself by effecting for the French armies the capture of a besieged sea-port on the southern coast of France. The name of that young engineer is yet to resound through all lands. It is Napoleon, the star of whose glory is seen skirting the horizon, and beginning to emit its first glimmerings at the close of the year which brought Carey to India, 66 The and when the pious missionary was labouring over the rudiments of the Bengali. How distinguished was the career that soldier had to run! The instrument in the hands of providence for shaking the powers of Europe, and bringing into a new shape the whole structure of its society, he went on winning battles, dictating treaties, putting down kings, and overthrowing dynasties, until many were ready to deem him more than man. Some seven years after his success at Toulon, that victorious General has become the First Consul of France. It is the 24th of December, and he is driving through the streets of Paris, when a fearful explosion is heard behind his carriage. It was intended for his destruction, but he escapes it, preserved for far other destinies, by that providence of which he took little thought. The event is caught up by every gazette, and is the theme of comment in every civilized land. On that incident the destinies of the world seemed to hinge. Yet, four days after, in a far distant land nearer the rising sun, an event occurred, of which no gazette, as we believe, took note, but which was scarce less significant in its results. It was Carey, desecrating," to use his own phrase, the waters of the sacred Ganges, by the immersion of his first Hindu convert. chain of caste has been broken. We fancy that the rabble of gods who crowd the Hindu Pantheon looked on, aghast at the sight, feeling that the blow was one well aimed, striking at the very heart of their power. When we look at durable results, which seems the more eventful incident, the escape of the great Captain, or that first success of the lowly Missionary? The course of the soldier, after a series of the most splendid triumphs, in which, to use his own favourite phrase, he seemed to chain victory to his standards, closed in defeat and captivity. The career of the conqueror of Lodi, of Austerlitz, and of Jena, was terminated in disaster and exile, The flames of Moscow and the rock of St. Helena, were a melancholy comment on the instability of all earthly glory, and the utter impotence of all mortal prowess. The year in which your association was formed, 1815, was that which smote down his power on the field of Waterloo. In vain was his gigantic genius—in vain the remorseless conscriptions that drained France of her sonsin vain the energy of despair wielding all the resources of his consummate tactics. A few years after, the great Captain died, on a lonely island in the ocean, his soul seething impatiently with wishes never to be realized, his mind teeming with vast projects that perished in their conception; with his parting breath, muttering indistinctly and deliriously of armies which he no longer headed. But the missionary said in his latter years, that he had no wish that was left ungratified. Who was then the happier man? The brilliant victories of the one scarce kept pace, in their number, with the dialects into which the other translated the lively oracles of God. Give to the mighty warrior the honours of an exalted intellect, with which that of the humble missionary can never be compared-give to him the unmatched influence he exercised over the diplomacy and civilization of all Europe-give to him the 2,200,000 conscripts that perished in his service, and the myriads that were sacrificed in the armies of his adversaries. Set over against these the gates of eastern dialects opened to the scholars of Europe by that missionary; Christian churches planted, and the Christian scriptures translated; and an impulse given to the mind of heathen India, of which it is equally idle to dispute the present extent, or to calculate the future limits. Does it not seem as if each year is now effacing the monuments of the one, and expanding the influence of the other? And who shall show the field in which that missionary's fame and his power were cloven down?-his fame and his power we call them. They were not his. The glory of his attempts and achievements was Christ's; and the power that wrought in him mightily, and wrought with him effectually, was Christ's. You are engaged, my brethren, under the banners of the same Captain of our salvation. Do the odds seem against us? The force of numbers is not with us. The literature of the world is not thoroughly with us. The laws of the world are not with The fashions of the world are not with us. But if God be with us, it is enough. The prince of darkness, in mustering all his hosts to the encounter, bears on his scarred brow the print of the Master's avenging heel. Hell has been already foiled in that hour now past, which was the true crisis of the world's history; and prophecy shows us the whole earth soon to be subdued to the obedience of the faith. us. The victories here won are never lost. No disastrous battle forfeits them, no adroit diplomacy regains them. The soul gained to the Redeemer, shines through all eternity in the crown of the pastor's rejoicing, and in the diadem of the Mediator when he shall make up his jewels. [The above extract is from a discourse delivered by W. R. Williams, D.D., at the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Hudson River Baptist Association, held at Poughkeepsic, June 14th, 1842. May many a young heart, on reading it, beat with holy emulation to enlist in the cause and service of the Captain of our Salvation. The missionary band is Heaven's high "Legion of Honour."] |