Lord Hastings’ government was far more friendly than any previous one, and the few notable events that befell the community are quickly numbered. In 1821, they were visited by Swartz’s pupil, Serfojee, who was staying with the Governor-General, Lord Hastings, on his way to Benares, whither, strange and sad to say, he was on pilgrimage, though all the time showing full intellectual understanding of, and warm external affection for, the Christian faith. He talked English easily, and showed much interest in all that was going on, but a heathen he still remained.
This visit only preceded by a few weeks the death of Mrs. Carey, after thirteen years’ marriage, the happiest of Dr. Carey’s life; but in another year he married a widow of forty-five, who was ready to nurse his now declining years. That year 1822 was a year of much sorrow; the cholera, said to have first appeared in 1817, became very virulent. The Hindoos viewed it as a visitation from the goddess of destruction, and held services to propitiate it, and when that had passed away, a more than usually fatal form of fever set in. Krishnu-pal, the first convert, who had for twenty years been a consistent Christian, was one of the first to be taken away. Dr. Carey himself, though exceedingly ill, recovered his former state of health, and continued his arduous labours, he being by this time the ablest philologist in India; but the little band had come to the time of life when “the clouds return after the rain,” and in 1823 Mr. Ward died of cholera. For twenty-three years had the threefold cord between Carey, Marshman, and Ward, been unbroken. They had lived together like brothers, alike in aim and purposes, each supplying what the other lacked; and the distress of the parting was terrible, especially to Dr. Marshman, who at the time of his friend’s illness was suffering from an attack of deafness, temporary indeed, but for some days total, so that he could only watch the final struggle without hearing a single word.
He wrote as if he longed to be with those whose toils and sorrows were at an end, but he still had much more 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 1,500l. a year for their support, and only 900l. 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.