Of strangers his most frequent visitor was the Governor-General's wife, Lady William Bentinck. Her husband was in South India, and she spent most of her time in Barrackpore Park retreat opposite to Carey's house. From her frequent converse with him, in his life as well as now, she studied the art of dying. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, learned to delight in Serampore almost from the beginning of his long episcopate, and in later years he lived there more than in Calcutta. On the 14th February 1833 he first visited Carey, "his interview with whom, confined as he was to his room, and apparently on the verge of the celestial world, was peculiarly affecting." In the last of subsequent visits the young Bishop asked the dying missionary's benediction. With all the talk was the same, a humble resignation to the will of God, firm trust in the Redeemer of sinners, a joyful gratitude for the wonderful progress of His Kingdom. What a picture is this that his brethren sent home six weeks before he passed away. "Our aged and venerable brother feels himself growing gradually weaker. He can scarcely rise from his couch, and it is with great difficulty that he is carried out daily to take the air. Yet he is free from all pain as to disease, and his mind is in a most serene and happy state. He is in full possession of his faculties, and, although with difficulty, on account of his weakness, he still converses with his friends from day to day."
The hottest season of the year crept wearily on during the month of May and the first week of June. Each night he slept well, and each day he was moved to his couch in the dining-room for air. There he lay, unable to articulate more than a word or two, but expressing by his joyful features union in prayer and interest in conversation. On the 22nd May the English mail arrived with gladdening intelligence from Mr. Hope—God's people were praying and giving anew for the mission. Especially was his own latest station of Cherra-poonjee remembered. As he was told that a lady, anonymously, had offered £500 for that mission, £500 for the college, £500 for the translations, and £100 for the mission generally, he raised his emaciated hands to heaven and murmured praise to God. When the delirium of departure came he strove to reach his desk that he might write a letter of thanks, particularly for Cherra. Then he would recall the fact that the little church he at first formed had branched out into six and twenty churches, in which the ordinances of the Gospel were regularly administered, and he would whisper, "What has God wrought!"
The last Sabbath had come—and the last full day. The constant Marshman was with him. "He was scarcely able to articulate, and after a little conversation I knelt down by the side of his couch and prayed with him. Finding my mind unexpectedly drawn out to bless God for His goodness, in having preserved him and blessed him in India for above forty years, and made him such an instrument of good to His church; and to entreat that on his being taken home, a double portion of his spirit might rest on those who remained behind; though unable to speak, he testified sufficiently by his countenance how cordially he joined in this prayer. I then asked Mrs. Carey whether she thought he could now see me. She said yes, and to convince me, said, 'Mr. Marshman wishes to know whether you now see him?' He answered so loudly that I could hear him, 'Yes, I do,' and shook me most cordially by the hand. I then left him, and my other duties did not permit me to reach him again that day. The next morning, as I was returning home before sunrise, I met our Brethren Mack and Leechman out on their morning ride, when Mack told me that our beloved brother had been rather worse all the night, and that he had just left him very ill. I immediately hastened home, through the college in which he has lived these ten years, and when I reached his room, found that he had just entered into the joy of his Lord—Mrs. Carey, his son Jabez, my son John, and Mrs. Mack being present."
It was Monday the 9th June 1834, at half-past five, as the morning sun was ascending the heavens towards the perfect day. The rain-clouds burst and covered the land with gloom next morning when they carried William Carey to the converts' burial-ground and made great lamentation. The notice was too short for many to come up from Calcutta in those days. "Mr. Duff, of the Scottish Church, returned a most kind letter." Sir Charles Metcalfe and the Bishop wrote very feelingly in reply. Lady Bentinck sent the Rev. Mr. Fisher to represent the Governor-General and herself, and "a most kind and feeling answer, for she truly loved the venerable man," while she sadly gazed at the mourners as they followed the simple funeral up the right bank of the Hoogli, past the College and the Mission chapel. Mr. Yates, who had taken a loving farewell of the scholar he had been reluctant to succeed, represented the younger brethren; Lacroix, Micaiah Hill, and Gogerly, the London Missionary Society. Corrie and Dealtry do not seem to have reached the spot in time. The Danish Governor, his wife, and the members of council were there, and the flag drooped half-mast high as on the occasion of a Governor's death. The road was lined by the poor, Hindoo and Mohammedan, for whom he had done so much. When all, walking in the rain, had reached the open grave, the sun shone out, and Leechman led them in the joyous resurrection hymn, "Why do we mourn departing friends?" "I then addressed the audience," wrote Marshman, "and, contrary to Brother Mack's foretelling that I should never get through it for tears, I did not shed one. Brother Mack was then asked to address the native members, but he, seeing the time so far gone, publicly said he would do so at the village. Brother Robinson then prayed, and weeping—then neither myself nor few besides could refrain." In Jannuggur village chapel in the evening the Bengali burial hymn was sung, Pœritran Christer Morone, "Salvation by the death of Christ," and Pran Krishna, the oldest disciple, led his countrymen in prayer. Then Mack spoke to the weeping converts with all the pathos of their own sweet vernacular from the words, "For David, after he had served his own generation, by the will of God fell on sleep." Had not Carey's been a royal career, even that of a king and a priest unto God?
"We, as a mission," wrote Dr. Marshman to Christopher Anderson, "took the expense on ourselves, not suffering his family to do so, as we shall that of erecting a monument for him. Long before his death we had, by a letter signed by us all, assured him that the dear relatives, in England and France, should have their pensions continued as though he were living, and that Mrs. Carey, as a widow, should have Rs. 100 monthly, whatever Mackintosh's house might yield her."
Twenty-two years before, when Chamberlain was complaining because of the absence of stone, or brick, or inscription in the mission burial-ground, Carey had said, "Why should we be remembered? I think when I am dead the sooner I am forgotten the better." Dr. Johns observed that it is not the desire of the persons themselves but of their friends for them, to which Carey replied, "I think of others in that respect as I do of myself." When his second wife was taken from him, his affection so far prevailed that he raised a memorial stone, and in his will left this "order" to Mack and William Robinson, his executors: "I direct that my funeral be as plain as possible; that I be buried by the side of my second wife, Charlotte Emilia Carey; and that the following inscription and nothing more may be cut on the stone which commemorates her, either above or below, as there may be room, viz.:—
WILLIAM CAREY, BORN AUGUST 17, 1761; DIED
A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall."
The surviving brethren seem to have taken the small oblong stone, with the inscription added as directed, and to have placed it on the south side of the domed square block of brick and white plaster—since renewed from time to time—which stands in the left corner of the God's-acre, now consecrated by the mingled dust of four generations of missionaries, converts, and Christian people. Ward's monument stands in the centre, and that of the Marshman family at the right hand. Three and a half years afterwards Joshua Marshman followed Carey; not till 1847 was Hannah Marshman laid beside him, after a noble life of eighty years. Mack had gone the year before, cut off by cholera like Ward. But the brotherhood cannot be said to have ended till John Marshman, C.S.I., died in London in 1877. From first to last the three families contributed to the cause of God from their own earnings, ninety thousand pounds, and the world would never have known it but for the lack of the charity that envieth not on the part of Andrew Fuller's successors.
Carey's last will and testament begins: "I utterly disclaim all or any right or title to the premises at Serampore, called the mission premises, and every part and parcel thereof; and do hereby declare that I never had, or supposed myself to have, any such right or title. I give and bequeath to the College of Serampore the whole of my museum, consisting of minerals, shells, corals, insects, and other natural curiosities, and a Hortus Siccus; also the folio edition of Hortus Woburnensis, which was presented to me by Lord Hastings; Taylor's Hebrew Concordance, my collection of Bibles in foreign languages, and all my books in the Italian and German languages." His widow, Grace, who survived him a short time, had the little capital that was hers before her marriage to him, and he desired that she would choose from his library whatever English books she valued. His youngest son, Jonathan, was not in want of money. He had paid Felix and William Rs. 1500 each in his lifetime. In order to leave a like sum to Jabez, he thus provided: "From the failure of funds to carry my former intentions into effect, I direct that my library be sold." In dying as in living he is the same—just to others because self-devoted to Him to whom he thus formally willed himself, "On Thy kind arms I fall."
The Indian journals rang with the praises of the missionary whose childlike humility and sincerity, patriotism and learning, had long made India proud of him. After giving himself, William Carey had died so poor that his books had to be sold to provide £187 10s. for one of his sons. One writer asserted that this man had contributed "sixteen lakhs of rupees" to the cause of Christ while connected with the Serampore Mission, and the statement was everywhere repeated. Dr. Marshman thereupon published the actual facts, "as no one would have felt greater abhorrence of such an attempt to impose on the Christian public than Dr. Carey himself, had he been living." At a time when the old Sicca Rupee was worth half a crown, Carey received, in the thirty-four and a half years of his residence at Serampore, from the date of his appointment to the College of Fort William, £45,000.[35] Of this he spent £7500 on his Botanic Garden in that period. If accuracy is of any value in such a question, which has little more than a curious biographical interest, then we must add the seven years previous to 1801, and we shall find that the shoemaker of Hackleton received in all for himself and his family £600 from the Society which he called into existence, and which sent him forth, while he spent on the Christianisation and civilisation of India £1625 received as a manufacturer of indigo; and £45,000 as Professor of Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi, and Bengali Translator to Government, or £46,625 in all.