Page:The Bengal Obituary.djvu/355

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

SERAMPORE Mr. Daniel Cooper, departed this life on the ith Jan. 1814, and served the Most Noble the Governor-General Sacred to the Memory of Captain J. G. Hoare, who died at this place Aug. 9th, 1798 Sacred to the Memory of Lieut. George Heard, who was unfortunately drowned near this place by the upsetting of his boat, on the evening of the 4th November MDCCXCIII in the 30th year of his age. as a Gardemer and Pensioner Lieut.-Col. W. Clayton, deceased 22d Sept. A. D. 1804, aged 50 years. He saved the forfeited lives of three hundred men, at the Assault of the Barrahbatty Fort, Cuttack, A. D. 1803 Only the actions of the brave and just, Sacred to the Memory of Lieutenant James Willoughby, who departed this life April the 9th, 1792, Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. Sacred to the Memory of Capt. William Hill, of the Bengal Military Establishment, who departed this life 25th of October 1800. This tribute of affection is erected by the desire of his afflicted sister, Letitia Hill ac Major Charles Chatfield, late Commanding the 8th Battalion of Sepoys of the- N. I. who departed this life at Barrackpore the 8th of October 1791, Lieut.-Col. illiam Lally, who died most sincerely and deservedly regretted at Barrackpore, on the 20th Jan. 1803, in the 42d year of his age. Lieut.-Col. Thomas Breton, Obiit June 18th, 1783

SERAMPORE REVEREND WILLIAM CAREY, D. D.-(The Father of Missions.) Dr. Carey was born August 17th, 1761, at Pauler's Perry, in Northamptonshire. His mother died when he was young. His father was Preceptor in the Established Church at Pauler's Perry Though imperfectly brought up in the tenets of the Christian religion, his mind was not directed to the Saviour of the world by his father, who was at that time, unhappily, ignorant of the Saviour him self, but at the age of fifteen the subject of our memoir was apprenticed to a Shoe Maker in the village of Paddington, (ten miles from Pauler's Perry,) and there, often held conversations with a fellow apprentice, named John Ward, which first led him to reflect closely on his state as a sinner before God ; and his occasional access to the ministration of the Rev. Thomas Scott, author of the Commentary on the Bible, and Pastor at Ravanstone, (a village a few miles distant,) tended greatly to increase l ions of his fallen condition. At length he met with the excell ent Mr. Hall's Help to Zion's Travellers," which did more towards giving him just ideas of himself, as a sinner, and in pointing out the way of salvation than all that he had ever read or heard before, and encouraged him, finally, to give himself up to the exclusive service of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he was about eighteen years old, left wholly to his own judgment, he thought he saw many things in the Estab which he had hitherto been brought up, that he could not reconcile with the scriptures; and at length a sermon which he heard from Heb. xiii. 3Let us therefore go forth without the Camp bearing his reproach," led him at once to forsake it and cast lot with a few poor people near him who were of the Baptist denomination. Before he was twenty, a number of persons, in a village a few miles dis- tant, came to him one sabbath, and urged him, as they were that day destitute of a minister, to attend and give an exhortation from the word of Go. With much reluctance and fear he complied with their desire, and they felt themselves so much instructed by his discourse from the scriptures that they asked him again, and again, till in a year or two he consented to become the pastor of the s Church at Moulton, where he continued, up to 1788, when he was prevailed upon to remove to Leicester. In the interval, he became acquainted with the Rev. John (afterwards Dr.) Ryland, thern an assistant to his father in the Gospel ministry at Northampton, by whom he was soon after baptized: and about the same time with the Rev. John Sutcliff of Olney, whose Church he joined, and the Rev Andrew Fuller of Kettering; who was, also, his senior by about seven years. Possessed of kindred minds these four pious men gradually framed a bond of union with one another, which was never inter rupted in this life, and which eternity itself will never dissolve .-With these, with Mr. Thomas Scott and with the Rev. Robert Hall of Arnsby, father of the late Robert Hall of Bristol, the author " Help to Zion's, travellers" (whom he esteemed above all the rest as a minister.) Carey spent the first ten heathen appears to have sprung up in his own mind, without any fostering from without; for, as soon as that work appeared, he read Cook's voyages, and the state of the Islanders in the South Seas, deeply of his Christian life to his unspeakable advantage. His desire for the salvation of the ing his mind, he was led into a train of thought which ended in the full conviction that it was a duty binding on Christians now, as well as in the Apostles' days, to carry the Gospel to the heathen in every part of the world. This conviction affected him so st constantly conversed on the subject with such of his friends as appeared most emi spirituality of mind. Being one day at Birmingham about the year 1785, he mentioned his views to a few friends there ; upon which one of them said, If you will write your thoughts on this subject, I