Mrs. Carey, after
thirteen years' marriage, the happiest of Dr. Carey's life; but in
another year he married a widow of forty-five, who was ready to nurse his
now declining years. That year 1822 was a year of much sorrow; the
cholera, said to have first appeared in 1817, became very virulent. The
Hindoos viewed it as a visitation from the goddess of destruction, and
held services to propitiate it, and when that had passed away, a more
than usually fatal form of fever set in. Krishnu-pal, the first convert,
who had for twenty years been a consistent Christian, was one of the
first to be taken away. Dr. Carey himself, though exceedingly ill,
recovered his former state of health, and continued his arduous labours,
he being by this time the ablest philologist in India; but the little
band had come to the time of life when "the clouds return after the
rain," and in 1823 Mr. Ward died of cholera. For twenty-three years had
the threefold cord between Carey, Marshman, and Ward, been unbroken. They
had lived together like brothers, alike in aim and purposes, each
supplying what the other lacked; and the distress of the parting was
terrible, especially to Dr. Marshman, who at the time of his friend's
illness was suffering from an attack of deafness, temporary indeed, but
for some days total, so that he could only watch the final struggle
without hearing a single word.

He wrote as if he longed to be with those whose toils and sorrows were at
an end, but he still had much more to do. In 1826, he visited England,
partly for the sake of pleading with the Society at home, first begun on
so small a scale by Carey, but which now numbered many members and
disposed of large sums. The committee, however, were often hard to deal
with. There were among them many men of good intentions, but without
breadth of views, and used to small economies. They listened to false
reports, censured without sufficient information, pinched their missions,
and dictated the management, so that to deal with them was but a vexation
of spirit. Indeed, such annoyances are inseparable from the very fact of
the supplies and the government being in the hands of a body at a
distance from the scene of action, and destitute of personal experience
of the needs.

After much argument, the matter ended in the Serampore mission being
separated from the General Society, as indeed it had become nearly self-
supporting through the numerous schools which the talents