Memoir of William Carey

It seems due alike to the social as to the religious interests of our nature, gratefully to commemorate, and diligently to ponder, the lives of men, who, with more than ordinary intensity and success, have consecrated themselves to the welfare of their species. A just exposition of those principles which have mainly governed them, and a faithful record of their developments, by quickening the zeal of other minds, may multiply their influences far beyond the sphere in which they were first exerted, and prolong their effects to succeeding ages. When christian virtues are offered to our view in living exemplifications, and in striking prominence, amidst impediments such as beset ourselves, we are at once reproved for our supineness, and incited to imitation. God himself has condescended to instruct us through this medium; as much,

perhaps, as by prescriptive rule. The principal and immutable law of our salvation was illustrated, in the very infancy of the world, by the creation of a bright exemplar of it in the case of Abraham. Thus, too, our blessed Saviour, whilst, by his vicarious sufferings, he laid the foundation of our recovery, and paid the price of our ransom, by his holiness and his love he brightly irradiated those essential morals in which the beauty and perfection of evangelical obedience consist. Christians are exhorted to be imitators of God, as dear children; and, as they conform to their fair original, they are fitted to exert a meliorating and transforming influence upon each other and upon the world.

Faithful religious biography is a department of christian literature of acknowledged importance; and of this, no variety meets with more general acceptance among pious readers, or is of greater practical utility, than that which has been furnished of late years by the annals of christian missions. The life of Henry Martyn, in which the tenderness, simplicity, and glowing fervour of christian love are so eminently conspicuous; and that of John Chamberlain, whose devotedness to God has seldom been surpassed in modern times; who displayed a seraphic fervour, combined, as it was, with a peasant-like plainness, unabated through all the painful details of missionary labour for twenty years in succession; well deserve the diligent perusal of persons of every religious persuasion, and to become the daily manuals of all those who design to assay their principles in a similar enterprise.

The subject of the ensuing memoir has been long before the public; and his literary and religious labours have been referred to with frequent and lofty eulogy. Yet, a full and consistent view of his character and his engagements, such as cannot be collected from the occasional panegyrics of individuals, or from the documents of official bodies, may prove agreeable to many, to whom no other medium of information has hitherto been open, and not unacceptable to any class of persons who take an interest in the advancement of saving truth in the world. Much of the matter incorporated in this volume is from Dr. Carey's own hand; whilst other portions are supplied from sources which, it is presumed, cannot fail of being highly gratifying to the reader. The compiler trusts, also, that this circumstance may be allowed to exonerate him from the charge of temerity in undertaking to prepare this work for the public.

Dr. Carey had his own views upon the subject of biographical composition, and expressed to me, during my early residence in India, his wishes with respect to any record of himself. These are likely to be best complied with by allowing him as much as possible to retrace the steps of his own history, and to delineate his own character. The first document presented to the reader, addressed to Mr. Fuller, at his request, is one in which he narrates the circumstances and events of his early life, up to the period of his entrance on the ministry, and his succeeding to a pastoral charge. While it cannot but

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