Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/892

 850 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. conspicuous in his efforts to improve the resources Dr. Carey. of Bengali prose or help the circulation of Bengali রা printing as was Dr. Carey. (b) Dr. Carey and his colleagues, He had started in life as a cobbler. When, however, by his great diligence, piety, scholarship and strength of character he had raised himself to a position of eminence as missionary, he was din- ing one summar day in 1786 with the Governor General, the Marquis of Hastings, at Barrackpur Park, opposite Cri Ramapur and, “overheard one of the guests, a general officer, making enquiry of one of the Aides-de-Camp, whether Dr. Carey had not been a shoemaker, on which he stepped forward and exclaimed, ‘ No Sir, only a cobbler!’ “ Carey ’ writes John Clark Marshman ‘walking eight or ten miles to Northampton with his wallet full of shoes upon his shoulders and then might be seen’ returning home with a fresh supply of leather to fulfil his engagements with a Goverument con- ‘) tractor. This man came subsequently as a missionary to Bengal and felt a true Christian love for the people around him who appeared to him to be sunk in superstition, vice and idolatory. He learnt Sanskrit, Bengali, Persian and Maharatti, not with a view to know the people or profit by the wisdom contained in oriental books, but with the object of bringing a large mass of humanity, _ whom he sincerely believed to be grovelling in darkness, to light. We may regret that Dr. Carey failed to observe the religious life in Bengal which,