Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/897

 VII. ] « BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 853 foreigner who has studied our language. He had employed Pundits to help him to acquire know- ledge of Bengali, and when they declared that he was fit to address the people he commenced preaching ; and in 1794 we find him devoted to this task in the jungly tracts of Sundarvans. He writes on the 16th January, 1798, “I spoke in Bengali for nearly half an hour without an inter- mission.’”’ ‘‘ But” says he later on “I recollect that after I had preached or rather thought that | had, for two years (in Bengali), a man one day came to me and declared that he could not under- stand me, and this long after my flattering teachers had declared that every one could understand me. I feel the impression which that poor man’s remark made on me to this day.’’* But we presume that it was his peculiarity of ac- cent in pronouncing the letters, ¥ etc. which must have made his speech in some cases unintelligible to people. Reading his Bengali works on various sub- jects, one is struck with his wonderful command over the idioms and colloquial forms of our dialect so difficult for a foreigner to acquire. Dr. Carey was not, however, the man to be daunted by failures. He composed a short and simple marriage service in Bengali for meeting the growing demand of such formulz, as there was already a good number of native Christians, whose marriage ceremonies were to be celebrated according to the new rites for which there was vet no guide in the vernacular. He besides composed songs in Bengali and we find one of his friends writing about himself and Dr.
 * Memoir of Dr Carey by Eustace Carey.—p. 503.