Christian in the city who understood his evangelical sermon was a
ropemaker just arrived from England. At the same time he was busy
with a version in the dialect of the Konkan, the densely-peopled
coast district to the south of Bombay city, inhabited chiefly by the
ablest Brahmanical race in India. In 1819 the New Testament
appeared in this translation, having been under preparation at
Serampore for eleven years. Thus Carey sought to turn to Christ the
twelve millions of Hindoos who, from Western India above and below
the great coast-range known as the Sahyadri or "delectable"
mountains, had nearly wrested the whole peninsula from the
Mohammedans, and had almost anticipated the life-giving rule of the
British, first at Panipat and then as Assye. Meanwhile new
missionaries had been taking possession of those western districts
where the men of Serampore had sowed the first seed and reaped the
first fruits. The charter of 1813 made it possible for the American
Missionaries to land there, and for the local Bible Society to
spring into existence. Dr. John Wilson and his Scottish colleagues
followed them. Carey and his brethren welcomed these and retired
from that field, confining themselves to providing, during the next
seven years, a Goojarati version for the millions of Northern
Bombay, including the hopeful Parsees, and resigning that, too, to
the London Missionary Society after issuing the New Testament in
1820.

Mr. Christopher Anderson justly remarks, in his Annals of the
English Bible, published half a century ago:--"Time will show, and
in a very singular manner, that every version, without exception,
which came from Carey's hands, has a value affixed to it which the
present generation, living as it were too near an object, is not yet
able to estimate or descry. Fifty years hence the character of this