ther. For almost the quarter of
a century he had kept his vow that he would hold the rope. When Pearce
died all too soon there was none whom Carey loved like Fuller, while
Fuller's devotion to Carey was all the greater that it was tempered by
a wise jealousy for his perfectness. So early as 1797, Fuller wrote
thus to the troublesome Fountain:--"It affords us good hope of your
being a useful missionary that you seem to love and revere the counsels
of Brother Carey. A humble, peaceful, circumspect, disinterested,
faithful, peaceable, and zealous conduct like his will render you a
blessing to society. Brother Carey is greatly respected and beloved by
all denominations here. I will tell you what I have foreborne to tell
him lest it should hurt his modesty. Good old Mr. Newton says: 'Mr.
Carey has favoured me with a letter, which, indeed, I accept as a
favour, and I mean to thank him for it. I trust my heart as cordially
unites with him as though I were a brother Baptist myself. I look to
such a man with reverence. He is more to me than bishop or archbishop;
he is an apostle. May the Lord make all who undertake missions
like-minded with Brother Carey!'" As the home administrator, no less
than as the theological controversialist, Andrew Fuller stands only
second to William Carey, the founder of Modern English Missions.

Fuller's last letter to Carey forms the best introduction to the little
which it is here necessary to record of the action of the Baptist
Missionary Society when under the secretaryship of the Rev. John Dyer.
Mr. John Marshman, C.S.I., has written the detailed history of that
controversy not only with filial duty, but with a forgiving charity
which excites our admiration for one who suffered more from it than all
his predecessors in the Brotherhood, of which he was the last
representative. The Society has long since ceased to approve of that
period. Its opinion has become that of Mr. Marshman, to which a
careful perusal of all the documents both in Serampore and England has
led us--"Had it been possible to create a dozen establishments like
that of Serampore, each raising and managing its own funds, and
connected with the Society as the centre of unity in a common cause, it
ought to have been a subject of congratulation and not of regret." The
whole policy of every missionary church and society is now and has long
been directed to creating self-supporting and self-propagating
missions, like Sera