second Earl Spencer, the peer who had used the wealth of Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, to collect the great library at Althorp.
Carey had been a poor tenant of his, though the Earl knew it not.
When the Bengali New Testament reached him, with its story, he sent
a cheque for £50 to help to translate the Old Testament, and he took
care that a copy should be presented to George III., as by his own
request. Mr. Bowyer was received one morning at Windsor, and along
with the volume presented an address expressing the desire that His
Majesty might live to see its principles universally prevail
throughout his Eastern dominions. On this the lord in waiting
whispered a doubt whether the book had come through the proper
channel. At once the king replied that the Board of Control had
nothing to do with it, and turning to Mr. Bowyer said, "I am greatly
pleased to find that any of my subjects are employed in this
manner."

This now rare volume, to be found on the shelves of the Serampore
College Library, where it leads the host of the Carey translations,
is coarse and unattractive in appearance compared with its latest
successors. In truth the second edition, which appeared in 1806,
was almost a new version. The criticism of his colleagues and
others, especially of a ripe Grecian like Dr. Marshman, the growth
of the native church, and his own experience as a Professor of
Sanskrit and Marathi as well as Bengali, gave Carey new power in
adapting the language to the divine ideas of which he made it the
medium. But the first edition was not without its self-evidencing
power. Seventeen years after, when the mission extended to the old
capital of Dacca, there were found several villages of Hindoo-born
peasants who had given up idol-worship, were renowned for their
truthfulness, and, as searching for a true teacher come from God,