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Life of William Carey by George Smith
page 268 of 472 (56%)
Some loving memories cluster round the first Bengali version of the
New Testament which it is well to collect. On Tuesday, 18th March
1800, Ward's journal19 records: "Brother Carey took an impression at
the press of the first page in Matthew." The translator was himself
the pressman. As soon as the whole of this Gospel was ready, 500
copies of it were struck off for immediate circulation, "which we
considered of importance as containing a complete life of the
Redeemer." Four days after an advertisement in the official
Calcutta Gazette, announcing that the missionaries had established a
press at Serampore and were printing the Bible in Bengali, roused
Lord Wellesley, who had fettered the press in British India. Mr.
Brown was able to inform the Governor-General that this very
Serampore press had refused to print a political attack on the
English Government, and that it was intended for the spiritual
instruction only of the natives. This called forth the assurance
from that liberal statesman that he was personally favourable to the
conversion of the heathen. When he was further told that such an
Oriental press would be invaluable to the College of Fort William,
he not only withdrew his opposition but made Carey first teacher of
Bengali. It was on the 7th February 1801 that the last sheet with
the final corrections was put into Carey's hands. When a volume had
been bound it was reverently offered to God by being placed on the
Communion-table of the chapel, and the mission families and the
new-made converts gathered around it with solemn thanksgiving to God
led by Krishna Pal. Carey preached from the words (Col. iii. 11)
"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." The
centenary was celebrated in Calcutta in 1901, under Dr. Rouse, whose
fine scholarship had just revised the translation.

When the first copies reached England, Andrew Fuller sent one to the
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