Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/129

 CAREY AND SRIRAMPUR MISSION 105 philanthropy and self-sacrifice never failed to make an impression upon the hearts of the people and this is one of the reasons why the Srirampur The secret of its ১০০ walsston had been able to wield an enormous influence in the country. One of the principles which regulated the whole course of the Mission was that a missionary must consider him- self as one of the companions and equals of the people to whom he had been sent and that be must endeavour to gain a thorough knowledge of those among whom he laboured in their modes of thinking and feeling: this was what brought them nearer to the people and gained their confidence. They had started a school at Srirampur as early as May 1, 1800. In their letter to the Society at home, we find the missionaries writing in October 10, 1800: ‘There appears to be a growing familiarity between us and the natives. They receive our printed papers with the greatest eagerness and we cannot doubt but that they are pretty extensively read.”' Without this sympathy, self-denial, and high motives of philanthropy and love, they would not have been able to attract the people and mould their life and thought in the way they had done. Of the two fellow-workers of Carev, Joshua Marshman, son of a weaver and for sometime Joshua Marshman > 7, 1 (1768-1837). a bookseller’s employee in London, was born at Westbury in Wiltshire, April 20, 1768.2? After much struggle and _privation he succeeded in obtaining the mastership of a school in 1 E. Carey, op. cit. p. 406. 2 For more details, see Marshman, History of Serampore Mission, 2 vols (1859); Bengal Obituary, pp. 340-43 ; Dict. of National Biography ; W. H. Carey, Oriental Christian Biography, vol. iii, pp. 257-65. 14