On Mr. Leechman's arrival from Scotland to be his colleague, he found the old man thus vigorous even in April 1833, or if "faint, yet pursuing":—
"Our venerable Dr. Carey is in excellent health, and takes his turn in all our public exercises. Just forty years ago, the first of this month, he administered the Lord's Supper to the church at Leicester, and started on the morrow to embark for India. Through this long period of honourable toil the Lord has mercifully preserved him; and at our missionary prayer meeting, held on the first of this month, he delivered an interesting address to encourage us to persevere in the work of the Lord. We have also a private monthly prayer meeting held in Dr. Carey's study, which is to me a meeting of uncommon interest. On these occasions we particularly spread before the Lord our public and private trials, both those which come upon us from the cause of Christ, with which it is our honour and privilege to be connected, and those also which we as individuals are called to bear. At our last meeting Dr. Carey read part of the history of Gideon, and commented with deep feeling on the encouragement which that history affords, that the cause of God can be carried on to victory and triumph, by feeble and apparently inefficient means."
Carey's successor, Mack, wrote thus to Christopher Anderson ten months later:—
"SERAMPORE, 31st January 1834.—Our venerable father, Dr. Carey, is yet continued to us, but in the same state in which he has been for the last three months or so. He is quite incapable of work, and very weak. He can walk but a few yards at a time, and spends the day in reading for profit and entertainment, and in occasionally nodding and sleeping. He is perfectly tranquil in mind. His imagination does not soar much in vivid anticipations of glory; and it never disquiets him with restless misgivings respecting his inheritance in God. To him it is everything that the gospel is true, and he believes it; and, as he says, if he can say he knows anything, he knows that he believes it. When his attention is turned to his dismissal from earth, or his hope of glory, his emotions are tender and sweet. They are also very simple, and express themselves in a few brief and pithy sentences. His interest in all the affairs of the mission is unabated, and although he can no longer join us either in deliberation or associated prayer, he must be informed of all that occurs, and his heart is wholly with us in whatever we do. I do not conceive it possible that he can survive the ensuing hot season, but he may, and the Lord will do in this as in all other things what is best.
"When our necessities were coming to their climax I concluded that I must leave Serampore in order to find food to eat, and I fixed upon Cherra-poonjee as my future residence. I proposed establishing a first-class school there, and then with some warmth of imagination I began anticipating a sort of second edition of Serampore up in the Khasia hills, to be a centre of diffusing light in the western provinces. I became really somewhat enamoured of the phantom of my imagination, but it was not to be. The brethren here would not see it as I did."
This last sketch, by Mr. Gogerly, whom the London Missionary Society had sent out in 1819, brings us still nearer the end:—
"At this time I paid him my last visit. He was seated near his desk, in the study, dressed in his usual neat attire; his eyes were closed, and his hands clasped together. On his desk was the proof-sheet of the last chapter of the New Testament, which he had revised a few days before. His appearance, as he sat there, with the few white locks which adorned his venerable brow, and his placid colourless face, filled me with a kind of awe; for he appeared as then listening to the Master's summons, and as waiting to depart. I sat, in his presence, for about half an hour, and not one word was uttered; for I feared to break that solemn silence, and call back to earth the soul that seemed almost in heaven. At last, however, I spoke; and well do I remember the identical words that passed between us, though more than thirty-six years have elapsed since then. I said, 'My dear friend, you evidently are standing on the borders of the eternal world; do not think it wrong, then, if I ask, What are your feelings in the immediate prospect of death?' The question roused him from his apparent stupor, and opening his languid eyes, he earnestly replied, 'As far as my personal salvation is concerned, I have not the shadow of a doubt; I know in Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day; but when I think that I am about to appear in the presence of a holy God, and remember all my sins and manifold imperfections—I tremble.' He could say no more. The tears trickled down his cheeks, and after a while he relapsed into the same state of silence from which I had aroused him.
"Deeply solemn was that interview, and important the lesson I then received. Here was one of the most holy and harmless men whom I ever knew—who had lived above the breath of calumny for upwards of forty years, surrounded by and in close intimacy with many, both Europeans and natives, who would have rejoiced to have witnessed any inconsistency in his conduct, but who were constrained to admire his integrity and Christian character—whilst thus convinced of the certainty of his salvation, through the merits of that Saviour whom he had preached, yet so impressed with the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that he trembled at the thought of appearing before a holy God! A few days after this event, Dr. Carey retired to his bed, from which he never rose."
So long before this as 17th March 1802, Carey had thus described himself to Dr. Ryland:—"A year or more ago you, or some other of my dear friends, mentioned an intention of publishing a volume of sermons as a testimony of mutual Christian love, and wished me to send a sermon or two for that purpose. I have seriously intended it, and more than once sat down to accomplish it, but have as constantly been broken off from it. Indolence is my prevailing sin, and to that are now added a number of avocations which I never thought of; I have also so continual a fear that I may at last fall some way or other so as to dishonour the Gospel that I have often desired that my name may be buried in oblivion; and indeed I have reason for those fears, for I am so prone to sin that I wonder every night that I have been preserved from foul crimes through the day, and when I escape a temptation I esteem it to be a miracle of grace which has preserved me. I never was so fully persuaded as I am now that no habit of religion is a security from falling into the foulest crimes, and I need the immediate help of God every moment. The sense of my continual danger has, I confess, operated strongly upon me to induce me to desire that no publication of a religious nature should be published as mine whilst I am alive. Another reason is my sense of incapacity to do justice to any subject, or even to write good sense. I have, it is true, been obliged to publish several things, and I can say that nothing but necessity could have induced me to do it. They are, however, only grammatical works, and certainly the very last things which I should have written if I could have chosen for myself."
On 15th June 1833 the old man was still able to rejoice with others. He addressed to his son Jonathan the only brief letter which the present writer possesses from his pen, in a hand as clear as that of a quarter of a century before:—