more of a
missionary agency than the Baptist Society itself. The only teacher of
Bengal who could be found for Lord Wellesley's new College of Fort
William was William Carey. The appointment, made and accepted without
the slightest prejudice to his aggressive spiritual designs and work,
at once opened Calcutta itself for the first time to the English
proselytising of natives, and supplied Carey with the only means yet
lacking for the translation of the Scriptures into all the languages of
the farther East. In spite of its own selfish fears the Company became
a principal partner in the Christianisation of India and China.

From the middle of the year 1801 and for the next thirty years Carey
spent as much of his time in the metropolis as in Serampore. He was
generally rowed down the eighteen miles of the winding river to
Calcutta at sunset on Monday evening and returned on Friday night every
week, working always by the way. At first he personally influenced the
Bengali traders and youths who knew English, and he read with many such
the English Bible. His chaplain friends, Brown and Buchanan, with the
catholicity born of their presbyterian and evangelical training, shared
his sympathy with the hundreds of poor mixed Christians for whom St.
John's and even the Mission Church made no provision, and encouraged
him to care for them. In 1802 he began a weekly meeting for prayer and
conversation in the house of Mr. Rolt, and another for a more ignorant
class in the house of a Portuguese Christian. By 1803 he was able to
write to Fuller: "We have opened a place of worship in Calcutta, where
we have preaching twice on Lord's day in English, on Wednesday evening
in Bengali, and on Thursday evening in English." He took all the work
during the week and the Sunday service in rotation with his brethren.
The first church was the hall of a well-known undertaker, approached
through lines of coffins and the trappings of woe. In time most of the
evangelical Christians in the city promised to relieve the missionaries
of the expense if they would build an unsectarian chapel more worthy of
the object. This was done in Lall Bazaar, a little withdrawn from that
thoroughfare to this day of the poor and abandoned Christians, of the
sailors and soldiers on leave, of the liquor-shops and the stews.
There, as in Serampore, at a time when the noble hospitals of Calcutta
were not, and the children of only the "services" were cared for,
"Broth