ree or four thousand. Such
was the faith, the industry, and the modesty of the brave little man
that, after just three months, he wrote thus:--"When I know the
language well enough to preach in it, I have no doubt of having a
stated congregation, and I much hope to send you pleasing accounts. I
can so far converse in the language as to be understood in most things
belonging to eating and drinking, buying and selling, etc. My ear is
somewhat familiarised to the Bengali sounds. It is a language of a
very singular construction, having no plural except for pronouns, and
not a single preposition in it: but the cases of nouns and pronouns are
almost endless, all the words answering to our prepositions being put
after the word, and forming a new case. Except these singularities, I
find it an easy language. I feel myself happy in my present
undertaking; for, though I never felt the loss of social religion so
much as now, yet a consciousness of having given up all for God is a
support; and the work, with all its attendant inconveniences, is to me
a rich reward. I think the Society would do well to keep their eye
towards Africa or Asia, countries which are not like the wilds of
America, where long labour will scarcely collect sixty people to hear
the Word: for here it is almost impossible to get out of the way of
hundreds, and preachers are wanted a thousand times more than people to
preach to. Within India are the Maratha country and the northern parts
to Cashmere, in which, as far as I can learn, there is not one soul
that thinks of God aright...My health was never better. The climate,
though hot, is tolerable; but, attended as I am with difficulties, I
would not renounce my undertaking for all the world."

It was at this time that he drew his strength often from the experience
of the first missionary, described by Isaiah, in all his
solitude:--"Look unto Abraham your father, for I called him alone and
blessed him and increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion; He
will comfort all her waste places." The sun of His comfort shone forth
at last.

Carey's original intention to begin his mission near Malda was now to
be carried out. In the opening week of 1794 the small English
community in Bengal were saddened by the news that, when crossing the
Hoogli at Calcutta, a boat containing three of its principal merchants
and the wife of one of them, had been upset, and all had been drowned.
It turned out that two of the m