t, query, is not the universal inclination of the
Bengalees to learn English a favourable circumstance which may be
improved to valuable ends? I only hesitate at the expense." Thirty
years after Duff reasoned in the same way, after consulting Carey, and
acted at once in Calcutta.

By 1816, when, on 25th June, Carey wrote a letter, for his colleagues
and himself, to the Board of the American Baptist General Convention,
the great idea, destined slowly to revolutionise not only India, but
China, Japan, and the farther East, had taken this form:--

"We know not what your immediate expectations are relative to the
Burman empire, but we hope your views are not confined to the immediate
conversion of the natives by the preaching of the Word. Could a church
of converted natives be obtained at Rangoon, it might exist for a
while, and be scattered, or perish for want of additions. From all we
have seen hitherto we are ready to think that the dispensations of
Providence point to labours that may operate, indeed, more slowly on
the population, but more effectually in the end: as knowledge, once put
into fermentation, will not only influence the part where it is first
deposited, but leaven the whole lump. The slow progress of conversion
in such a mode of teaching the natives may not be so encouraging, and
may require, in all, more faith and patience; but it appears to have
been the process of things, in the progress of the Reformation, during
the reigns of Henry, Edward, Elizabeth, James, and Charles. And should
the work of evangelising India be thus slow and silently progressive,
which, however, considering the age of the world, is not perhaps very
likely, still the grand result will amply recompense us, and you, for
all our toils. We are sure to take the fortress, if we can but
persuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. 'We shall reap if
we faint not.'

"And then, very dear brethren, when it shall be said of the seat of our
labours, the infamous swinging-post is no longer erected; the widow
burns no more on the funeral pile; the obscene dances and songs are
seen and heard no more; the gods are thrown to the moles and to the
bats, and Jesus is known as the God of the whole land; the poor Hindoo
goes no more to the Ganges to be washed from his filthiness, but to the
fountain opened for sin and uncleanness; the temples are forsaken; the
crowds say, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord, and He shall teach
us of H