Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/898

 The result of self- sacrifice, 854 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [Chap. Carey ‘This morning brother Carey and I took our stand like two ballad-singers and began singing in Bengali before one of Civa’s temples.”* Of course now-a-days a European Missionary singing a Ben- gali song is no strange spectacle in this country ; but Carey was the pioneer in all such matters and he was inspired by a real zeal to bring the people who, according to his notions, erred in religion, to the creed which he considered to be the only true one ; and Hindus have always judged cf a people by the sincerety of their faith and not by the loftiness of their doctrines, of which their own Castras furnish sufficiently great and noble examples. Before these sincere souls took up the task of propagating their religious faith “there had been no indication that the conquerers of Bengal possessed any rell- gion at all, excepting the hoisting of the flag on Sundays and the official attendance of the few at the Sunday morning service”? and it was the earnest endeavour of Carey, Marshman, Martyn and their colleagues to remove this impression. They spared no pains to bring the lost sheep to the fold. In the Sundervans Dr. Carey lost a son, but he could induce no person, not even a Mahomedan, to make a coffin, and the distress, to which he and his wife were put, can hardly be adequately described. All this he underwent with a patient and even a glad heart., because though the people opposed him, he wanted tou do good to them,—to return good for evil, as the great master had enjoined upon all true followers of his creed, ‘This great love attracted the people and all difficulties, all problems —however tnsur-
 * Memoir p. 129