rn tahoe ete Tate Po Biases! eG ery os = on Seige * a pe a) = zB 2 Jad S Se aS CAREY 163 was awfully addicted.” He pictures himself at this time as a “hater of dissenters.” “I had, moreover,” he writes, ‘a share of pride suffi- cient for a thousand times my knowledge; I therefore always scorned to have the worst in an argument, and the last word was usually mine.” A fellow apprentice, a dissenter, used to try to convince Carey who had been brought up in the Established Church, of the need of a change of heart; that externals were not enough to make a man right with God. With phari- saic assurance, Carey would bluster forth his objections. “But,” he writes, “I was often con- vinced afterwards that although I had the last word, my antagonist had the better of the argu- ment.” ‘This caused an uneasiness which was intensified by an incident, that convinced him more fully of his need of a Saviour. It was the custom for apprentices to collect Christmas do- nations for themselves, from their master’s cus- tomers. An ironmonger gave Carey the choice of a shilling or a sixpence. Naturally Carey chose the shilling. With the donation he bought some purchases for himself and after making them, found that the shilling was a counterfeit, and that he had exceeded his supply of money. Fearing his master’s wrath he determined to contend that the brass shilling was his master’s. He also called God in to help. “I thereby promised that, if God would but get me clearly over this, or, in other words, help me through with the theft, I would certainly for the future 164. STARS OF THE MORNING leave off all evil practices; but this theft and consequent lying appeared to me so necessary, that they could not be dispensed with.” He further tells us that a gracious God did not get him safely through. His lie was discovered and best of all his own weakness and sin were re- vealed to him. He began seeking peace, and at the age of eighteen there appeared to him the “Crucified One,” and the “hypocritical Phari- see was converted into the evangelical preacher.” The change was of course a gradual one. Help to young converts was not as accessible then as now, and Carey was thrown upon his own resources in finding his way, by reading the Bible for himself. One book, a little vol- ume, came into his hand about this time, which Carey ever after prized as one of the greatest influences in his life, “Help to Zion’s Travel- ers,’ by Robert Hall, the father of the more re- nowned Robert Hall. This good man took an interest in Carey and helped him toward being a Christian, and also gave him directions as to how to become a preacher. His study of Scripture led him to believe in immersion and Mr. Ryland a Baptist minister records, “On October 5th, 1783, I baptized in the River Nen, a poor journeyman shoemaker.” The text on that occasion could not have been more definitely true,—“‘Many first shall be last, and the last first.” Immediately after his conversion he began talking to others about Christ. His expositions CAREY 165 of Scripture were so clear and his manner so persuasive that many people wanted him to “ex- ercise his gift” as a preacher. He began in a little “licensed house” at Pury, and in other places as opportunity afforded. He attended a meeting of the Baptist Association in Olney, where he met his life-long friend, Andrew Ful- ler. So Carey presents himself to us at this time as a cobbler and a preacher, and so poor that often he had not money to buy food. To add to the burdens of Carey, his master died, leaving him as a heritage his wife and family and a number of debts. Instead of try- ing to escape these, Carey shouldered the re- sponsibility, assumed his master’s debts, and over the doorway he placed his sign,—“Second Hand Shoes Bought and Sold.” At the age of twenty he married the sister of his master’s wife. It was a sad union with one never in sympathy with her husband’s high purpose, and who later developed insanity, of which she died some twenty years after in India. Yet during all those years Carey showed her loving care. Later, Carey was called to preach in Moulton, where he finally moved his shop, pegging shoes and peddling them from town to town during the week and preaching on Sunday. ‘The old church record of that district has this entry. “April 29th, 1787—Church Meeting. After the Order, our Brother William Carey was dis- missed to the Church of Christ at Moulton in 166 STARS OF THE MORNING Northamtonshire with a view to his ordination there.” His salary at Moulton was fifteen pounds a year. This he augmented by teaching in the town school and his shoe trade. Truly it would seem “that no man in Eng- land had apparently a more wretched lot or more miserable prospects than he.” The row of six houses in one of which he lived, still remains. Poor little houses, one room on a floor. You can look right through the front window from the street to the court in the back. The street itself is dismal and narrow and perhaps there came then some village gos- sip, as came to pry into our affairs as we tried to picture the great missionary in that little room. But in spite of her, we can finally succeed in conjuring him up again. There he sits at his bench, near the window looking out on the gar- den, that he kept far better than it is to-day. On the wall before him is a large map of the world with pieces of paper pinned here and there, on which in his neat handwriting are facts of all sorts about the different countries, gleaned from his broad reading. On the bench and all around him are books and more books;—The Bible in Latin, Greek, Hebrew; books of all sorts. There he sits, a lit- tle man, completely bald, with a twinkle in his eyes. Is this where the great Carey lived, in this CAREY 167 little roome Hardly! A man’s body may be in a very little room, but his spirit may be where he wills, and no man ever lived in a bigger world than Carey, in those days. What Carlyle said of George Fox might have been said with even greater truth of William Carey,—‘‘Sitting in his stall, working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horn, rosin, swine bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had nevertheless a Living Spirit belong- ing to him; also an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could look upwards and discern its celestial Home.” And it might be added,—he could look outward and behold all the peoples of the earth, and that “Living Spirit” yearned to go out and tell all of the “celestial Home.” This feeling he tried to communicate to his fellow ministers as occasion offered, but with apparently little success, as is shown in an inci- dent which occurred at the ministerial meeting held at Northampton in 1786. Old Mr. Ryland, who presided, asked the younger ministers if they would propose some question for discussion. Carey suggested that they consider, ‘““Whether the command given to the Apostles, to teach all nations, was not obliga- tory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise was of equal extent.” The aged minister in a fury shouted his re- buke, which however, but expressed the com- 168 STARS OF THE MORNING mon belief of that day, “You are a miserable enthusiast for asking such a question. Certainly nothing can be done before another Pentecost, when an effusion of miraculous gifts including the gift of tongues, will give effect to the com- mission of Christ as at first.” It must have been a humiliating experience to the young preacher, and a discouraging one, too, but if they would not /isten to him perhaps he could get people who would read his views. So he wrote a pamphlet entitled,—“‘An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertak- ings, and the Practicability of Further Under- takings, are considered by William Carey.” A man by name of Thomas Potts, one of those less renowned but essential contributors to progress, gave Carey ten pounds to publish the tract which appeared in 1792. There was no man better qualified to write such a comprehensive tract, than Carey with his linguistic ability, his broad knowledge gained through years of interested study, and his keen enthusiasm. It has been called “the first and greatest missionary treatise in the English lan- guage.” The spirit of the man and his cherished in- centive may be seen in the closing words,—“It is true all the reward is of mere grace, but it is nevertheless encouraging; what a treasure, CAREY 169 what a harvest must await such characters as Paul, and Eliot, and Brainerd, and others, who have given themselves wholly to the work of the Lord! What a heaven it will be to see the many myriads of poor heathen, of Britons among the rest, who by their labors have been brought to the knowledge of God! Surely a crown of re- joicing like this is worth aspiring to. Surely it is worth while to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause and kingdom of Christ.” In 1789, Carey moved from Moulton to Leicester, where he preached on Sundays and taught school during the week from nine to four. In addition, he managed to study botany and other branches of learning, so that soon the whole town spoke with pride of the new Baptist minister, The ministers’ meeting of 1792 came round. The place was Nottingham, the day May arst. Carey was to preach the sermon. He chose as his text Isaiah 54:2-3. His outline was sim- ple:—two points, “Expect Great Things from God. Attempt Great Things for God!” It was a good sermon. ‘They were all satis- fied to dismiss the meeting and let it go at that. Carey seized Andrew Fuller’s arm and cried out,—‘‘Are you, after all, going to do nothing?” The meeting was called to order and a mo- tion passed that at the next quarterly meeting to be held in Kettering, plans be presented for 170 STARS OF THE MORNING forming a society for the purpose of propa- gating the Gospel among the heathen. Today, if you will go, you will find still standing that fine old, gabled house surrounded by a charming English garden. In the brick wall in front you will see a tablet, telling the visitor that here on October 2nd, 1792, was or- ganized the first society for propagating the Gospel among the heathen. The house has been purchased by the Baptists and is maintained as a home for missionaries back on furlough. It is a benediction to stay there a few days, and to picture that momentous meeting. What men these were! The Secretary was Andrew Fuller. His body lies in the churchyard back of the Baptist Church in Kettering. The grave fell in a few years ago. The bones of the saint were carefully taken up until the place could be properly repaired. A present deacon of that fine old church over which Fuller was Pastor for so many years, said with awe, “I held the skull of Andrew Fuller in these hands of mine and placed it on that table.” His spirit seems still to hover over that great Baptist Church in Kettering. What a perpetual blessing a good man is! ‘You excel me in wis- dom, especially in seeing difficulties. I there- fore want to advise with you both, but to exe- cute without you,” said this indomitable preacher to Ryland and Sutcliff. - Then, there was William Carey, the spirit of this movement who said, “I will go down into CAREY 171 the well of heathenism, but you must hold the ropes.” In that company, also, was Samuel Pearce, the minister of Birmingham, who went home from the meeting, gathered together his savings and sent seventy pounds toward the project, of- fering also himself. Archbishop Farrar, (eokine back upon that gathering, said in Westminster Abbey in March, 1887, ‘““Those who in that day sneered that Eng- land had sent a cobbler to convert the world were the lineal descendants of those who sneered in Palestine two thousand years ago, ‘Is not this the carpenter?’ ”’ Charles Grant who had been in India for many years on Government duty wrote, “I had formed the design of a mission to Bengal: Providence reserved that honor for the Bap- tists.” George Smith, one of Carey’s biographers, says,—‘‘After all, the twelve village pastors in the back parlour of Kettering were the real suc- cessors of the twelve apostles in the upper room of Jerusalem.” On the 1oth of January, 1793, William Carey and a physician, Dr. John Thomas, who had been in India, were appointed as missionaries on a salary of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds a year to support the two mis- sionaries, their wives and four children, until such time as they could support themselves. Carey’s mother was dead. His father was 172 STARS OF THE MORNING eighty-five years old. His wife was not sympa- thetic to the project. The British East India Company did not welcome missionaries. Carey, like Jacob of old, might have said, “All these things are against me!’ Nevertheless at sunrise June 13th, 1793, Carey with his party boarded the Danish steamer Kron Princessa Marta bound to Serampore and on the eleventh of No- vember, after a five months’ voyage, landed in Calcutta. “T feel something of what Paul felt when he beheld Athens, and ‘his spirit was stirred within him’,” Carey writes home. “If the Gospel flour- ishes here, ‘the wilderness will in every respect become a fruitful field.’ ” They had landed in Bengal among a hun- dred million souls, worshipping three hundred and thirty million gods. No one knew better than Carey the herculean task before them, yet he could write home, “I feel myself happy in my present undertaking for, though I never felt the loss of social religion so much as now, yet a consciousness of having given up all for God is a support; and the work, with all its attendant inconveniences, is to me a rich reward.” And even then he bids those at home “‘keep their eyes towards Africa and Asia” for Christ. Was there ever such another man? What inspired brush can adequately paint those forty years in India! Only the barest out- lines can be drawn. Let your reverent imag- ination clothe these! CAREY 173 For seven years Carey lived and worked in Calcutta. So bitter was the British East India Company against missionary effort that they were permitted to stay not as missionaries, but William Carey as an indigo planter, and Doctor Thomas as a physician. During these years he gathered materials for future use, learning the Bengali and Sanskrit languages. Writing to his loved friend Pearce, he said, “If I, like David, only am an instrument of gathering materials and another build the house, I trust my joy will not be the less.” During part of this time they were so straitened in circumstances that once he had to borrow sixteen pounds from a native at twelve per cent. interest. At length the restriction of his work became so great, that he moved to Serampore, about seven miles from Calcutta, where they could settle as missionaries. ‘They settled here Janu- ary tenth, 1800, and here for thirty-four years until his death, William Carey lived and worked. He purchased a house for about eight hun- dred pounds with the money he had made in the indigo business. About five acres of land adjoined the house, and this Carey converted into a botanical garden, which furnished him recreation and added to the scientific knowledge of the flora of India. He now settled down to that long life of va- ried attainments which seem almost impossible for one man. He was first of all an evangelist. 174. STARS OF THE MORNING For seven years Carey had daily preached Christ in Calcutta without a convert. But on the last Sunday of the year 1800, he baptized Krishna Pal, thirty-five years old. This con- vert became a famous missionary and a noted Bengali hymn writer. Never through all the years did Carey allow anyone or anything to steal from him the joy of personal evangelism. He was a translator. He produced the Bible in Bengali. Finding no words in their lan- guage to express “love” and “repentance,” he had to make them. To make effective his translations he had to have them printed, so he set up a printing press in Serampore; a busi- ness still thriving there to this hour. Between 1801 and 1822, thirty-six translations of the Scriptures were made, edited and printed by Carey at Serampore. He was a philanthropist. Seeing the needs of the people he devised means of supplying free medicine and medical aid, and established a medical college to further this work. He was a reformer. Horrified by the spec- tacle of a widow being burned alive, over the body of her dead husband, he started in mo- tion those measures that finally officially abol- ished that brutal practice from India. He was a scientist, producing in his garden fruits and vegetables native to England; experi- menting and crossing varieties until he inter- ested the government, and had shown them the way to make tea growing, cotton, etc., of com- CAREY 175 mercial value and adding greatly to the food stuffs of India. Of his scientific contributions in the realm of botany and native inventions, time will not suffice to tell. He was a teacher. When Lord Wellesley founded Fort William College, at Calcutta in 1801, Carey was the only man they could find capable of filling the chair of Bengali and Sanskrit. He was first, last and always a Christian and to him, to be a Christian was to be a missionary. His fine Christian spirit is evidenced time after time in the conduct of the ever growing mission and the coming in of new helpers, and when he was maligned by those jealous of his ever increasing favor and popularity. To him there was no greater honor than that of being Christ’s missionary. When his son Felix accepted a flattering offer as a govern- ment official, the father sorrowfully writes, “My son Felix has shriveled from a missionary to an ambassador.” Could there be a more beautiful picture than this which George Smith paints of the wide range of Carey’s work in those Serampore years? “Here was for nearly a whole genera- tion a sublime spectacle—the Northamptonshire shoemaker training the governing class of India in Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi all day, and translating the Ramayana and the Veda, and then when the sun went down, returning to the society of ‘the maimed, the halt, and the blind, 176 STARS OF THE MORNING and many with the leprosy,’ to preach in sev- eral tongues the glad tidings of the Kingdom to the heathen of England as well as of India, and all with a loving tenderness and patient hu- mility learned in the childlike school of Him who said, ‘Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?’ ” There were personal sadnesses, and losses and disappointments, yet as the years multiplied, the life of Carey seemed to grow brighter and more beautiful. As he passed his three-score years and ten, his step lost something of its alertness, and yet he labored on with unabated interest. More than thirty years after Carey’s death, Mr. Gogerly who visited Carey writes of his last visit to the missionary,— “At this time I paid him my last visit. He was seated near his desk in the study, dressed in his usual neat attire; his eyes were closed, and his hands clasped together. On his desk was the proof sheet of the last chapter of the New Testament, which he had revised a few days before. His appearance, as he sat there, with the few white locks which adorned his venerable brow, and his placid colourless face, filled me with a kind of awe; for he appeared as though listening to the Master’s summons, and as waiting to depart. I sat in his presence, for about half an hour, and not one word was uttered; for I feared to break that solemn si- lence, and call back to earth the soul that seemed almost in heaven. At last, however, I spoke; CAREY 177 and well do I remember the identical words that passed between us, though more than thirty- six years have elapsed since then. I said, ‘My dear friend, you evidently are standing on the borders of the eternal world; do not think it wrong, then, if J ask, What are your feelings in the immediate prospect of death?’ The ques- tion roused him from his apparent stupor, and opening his languid eyes, he earnestly replied, ‘As far as my personal salvation is concerned, I have not the shadow of a doubt; I know in Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day; but when I think I am about to appear in the presence of a holy God, and remember all my sins and manifold imperfections—I tremble.’ He could say no more. The tears trickled down his cheeks, and after a while he relapsed into the same state of silence from which I had aroused him.” Dr. James Culross tells of Alexander Duff's last visit to Carey.—‘‘We spent some time talk- ing chiefly about Carey’s missionary life, till at length the dying man whispered, ‘Pray.’ Duff knelt down and prayed, and then said ‘Good- bye.’ As he passed from the room, he thought he heard a feeble voice pronouncing his name, and, turning, he found that he was recalled. He stepped back accordingly, and this is what he heard, spoken with gracious solemnity: ‘Mr. Duff, you have been speaking about Dr. Carey, —Dr. Carey. When I am gone, say nothing 178 STARS OF THE MORNING about Dr. Carey—speak about Dr. Carey’s Saviour.’ ” It was Monday morning June gth, 1834, at half after five, as the sun was rising, that Carey’s soul at last found the day in the presence of Him Whom years before his soul had seen through the shadows and toward Whom he had unerringly kept his eyes during all the years be- tween. The next morning as they carried his body to the Christian burying ground, though it poured rain, the Danish Governor, his wife and members of the council were there to do him reverence, and the flag floated at half mast. The road was lined with the poor, Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, who had received bounty at his hand; and their tears mingled with the rain. On the little plain stone that marks his grave is “this inscription and nothing more” accord- ing to his direction,— “William Carey, born August 17th, 1761 died June gth, 1834. ‘A wretched, poor, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall.” Why call him the Morning Star of Modern Missions? Had not other missionaries gone out before him to tell the story to non-Christian people? He was preceded by Ziegenbalg the Dane who more than half a century before had CAREY 179 gone as missionary to the Tamils; by Schwartz, the Prussian, who succeeded Ziegenbalg; by the Moravian missionaries to the Negroes of St. Thomas and to other peoples. Then why call him the morning star of Modern Missions? Because all of these, though devoted, yet re- mained as little stars in the dark firmament, that but made more apparent the darkness, while Carey somehow so stimulated missionary inter- est that he ushered in a new day of obedience to Jesus’ command to “Go!” His courage and enthusiasm and example shamed other Christian bodies into action. The old hard shell of hyper-Calvinism, that stifled missionary effort, was broken. It was in 1793 that he succeeded in having a missionary society organized. Note the rapid succession of organi- zations among other Christian bodies! In 1797 four years later, the Religious Tract Society; seven years after this in 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society. Shortly after, the American Societies were formed, and within twenty-five years every denomination was look- ing out toward the evangelization of the world. A new day had dawned. In respect to his method, he may also justly be called the Morning Star of Modern Mis- sions. He introduced in his mission every form ef modern methods,—evangelistic, educational, medical, industrial, social. The historian of missions will tell you, he was first: “The first complete or partial translation of 180 STARS OF THE MORNING the Bible printed in forty languages or dialects of India, China, Central Asia, and other neigh- boring lands, at a cost of eighty thousand, one hundred and forty-three pounds; the first prose work and vernacular newspaper in Bengali, the language of seventy million human beings; the first printing press on an organized scale, paper- mill, and steam-engine seen in India; the firsi Christian primary school in North India; the first efforts to educate native girls and women; the first college to train native ministers and Christianize native Hindus; the first Hindu Protestant convert; the first medical mission, of which that convert was, to some extent, the fruit; the establishment and maintenance of at least thirty separate large mission stations; the first botanic garden and society for the im- provement of agriculture and horticulture in India; the first translation into English of the great Sanskrit epics.” By him were introduced those methods now recognized as a part of every well organized mission station. In point of view of results he was a herald of a new day. Almost alone, he stood in that day, among the millions of heathenism. Within fifty years of his death the Protestant native churches of India numbered a_ half-million souls. T’o-day, thousands of missionaries are telling the story to non-Christian peoples, and millions have learned to look up to God and call Him “Father.” CAREY 181 When at last the “Sun of Righteousness shall rise with Healing in His wings” upon all the kingdoms of the earth, there shall be seen still visible in the brightness of that new day, the morning star of modern missions, William Carey. Then shall we hear his refrain set to heavenly music, “Speak of William Carey’s Saviour.” THE UNSUNG STARS “And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. ‘Therefore let us also, seeing we are com- passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and Jet us run with patience the race that is set before us.”— Hebrews XI: 39-12: 1. UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING CAMILLE FLAMMARION, for many years Pres- ident of the French Astronomical Society, tells us in his picturesque way that there are nine- teen stars of first magnitude, fifty-two of second magnitude, one hundred and eighty of third, five hundred and forty of the fourth and that some seven thousand stars of lesser magnitudes are discernible to the naked eye. An opera glass would disclose about thirteen thousand; a small telescope one hundred thousand, and that up to the fourteenth magnitude there must be about forty-four million stars. Many of these stars, he tells us, are flaming suns some of which are far larger than our sun. But the sun and moon appear to us to be the greatest of the heavenly bodies. It requires a distinct act of faith on our part to believe that the sun and moon are not the greatest. It is with persons as with heavenly bodies. ‘There are some who are outstanding. So they appear greater than others, but, because they appear greater, does not make them so. Conspicuousness is not greatness. Too long have we exalted the conspicuous leaders in peace and war, while the quality of greatness has been 185 186 STARS OF THE MORNING too often overlooked. The fact that the sun looks larger than some far-off fixed star, does not make it so; nor does fame make a man really greater than his unknown but fine spirited fel- low. At Stoke Poges just outside of London, there is a little church surrounded by a graveyard. A great overhanging yew tree shades a tomb table- high of marble, now much worn by the ele- ments. Here one day Thomas Gray sat and looking about over the graves, mused on those whose bodies lay there, “Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its fragrance on the desert air.” In that little city of the dead were those whose hearts had beat nobly with love of liberty, had aspired to high thinking, had fought bravely on little battlefields, and though the achievement of conspicuous greatness was never theirs, the quality of real greatness rested within them. The area before the temple is crowded with merchants, the rich, the renowned from many UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING 187 lands. The great brazen jars resound to the clinking of gold and silver as these great of earth cast of their abundance into the temple treasury and pass on in self-satisfied com- placency. In marked contrast to their grandeur, yet with exquisite grace and tenderness, a poor widow, bent with years and hard work, dropped two mites into the great jar and passed on to the reverent worship of the God she loved. A discerning eye saw her, and Jesus turning to his disciples said, “‘See that woman with the faded shawl and bowed form!” ‘The disciples could hardly make her out amid that resplendent throng. “She has given more than all these others, because she has given of her very life.” All of which leads us to the question as to what is greatness anyway? We have been talk- ing about outstanding men, leaders in the jour- ney of man upward. If greatness is measured as the Master said, by service, then these men were truly great. If greatness is quality of soul, then these men were great. Look at them, any one of them, Dante, Savonarola, Wesley! But it is not given to many to rise above his fellows as these men did. Then must the ma- jority of men forever give up the idea of being great? Is greatness possible only to a few? David Grayson describes greatness by telling of Carlstrom. Carlstrom had come from Sweden and had set up a shop where he mended anything in metal and took pride in mending it right. The more hopeless the job, the more sure 188 STARS OF THE MORNING he was to mend it exactly right. Not money but workmanship was the object of Carlstrom’s labor. For forty years he had risen early and worked late. He had taken part in the simple activities of the town. He wasno recluse. He worked for the good of his community on elec- tion days and others. He was to be found washed up and shining in his place at Church on the Sabbath Day. Of him, Grayson says in his book on “Friend- ship,’ “he had beaten out the respect of the whole town and fashioned for himself wisdom, and peace of mind, and the ripe humour which sees that God is in His world.” ‘Then in his characteristically happy way, Grayson says— ‘The more I think of it, the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour, and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works; he accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honorable calling than that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all towns, and the peo- ple he knows the best people. Yes, it zs great- ness.” Here is a message of inspiration to the hum- blest; any man or woman, boy or girl, no matter where he is, or what he does for a living, may ~ be great, for greatness is quality of soul, not praise of men. As the star which appears little to our view may actually be a blazing sun in the eyes of God, so the humblest person may UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING 189 be great in the sight of Him who sees things as they are. Sometimes, long time reveals what nearness fails to show. Mozart died unheralded and was carried to a pauper’s grave; but the years have placed him on the pedestal of fame as the father of modern music. Is it not conceivable that this readjustment of judgment may reveal that many who now stand last, may really be first? As we look back on these characters, we find that their lives have been influenced by other lives in every instance. So while we love to sing of these bright stars of the morning, shall we not raise a hymn of praise to the unsung stars who helped to make effective their shining. Among the unsung great of earth are the good mothers. “T marvel at your patience,” said Samuel Wesley to his wife Susanna. “You have told that child the same thing twenty times.” “It re- quired that often to make what I told it ef- fective,” replied the mother of John Wesley. It was through her the illustrious son acquired the habits of industry and method, and that devotion to God which sent him forth to shine;—the morning star of spirituality in modern times. With her nineteen children and her household tasks she labored on, a real heroine. “Fle sang to the world, and she to her nest, In the nice ear of nature, which song is the best?” 190 STARS OF THE MORNING And who shall say that the mother’s teaching in self-forgetful service, does not deserve much of the praise which is sung to the heroes of the world! John Milton’s father was a great lover of music and best of all he understood his son. When John came home from college, the father filled the house with the best of music and mu- sicians. Culture was the order of the home. How great a part, say you, had the father in making his renowned son the “great organ-voice of England.” And there is the old grandmother! What of greatness can she hope for, and yet Carey owed much, as many another man does, to the quiet, loving devotion of the aged grandmother whose rich experience has taught her that in quiet- ness and confidence in God is true strength. Who shall sing an adequate song to the wives of men! We speak of the great mission of Carey in Serampore, but he would tell us that much of the success of that mission was due to Hannah Marshman, who for forty-six years was not only the inspiration to her husband, but the very mother of that new enterprise. One day Nathaniel Hawthorne returned home. He was beaten. He had lost his posi- tion at the Custom House. He hated to face his wife, for he had failed. His wife met the de- jected husband with glad welcome. But there was no joy in his heart, for what could he do? UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING _ IQI —no work,no money. The far-seeing wife said, “T’m glad you have lost the position. Now you will have time to write your book!” “Yes, but how can we liver” Then she showed him some money she had saved from his small earnings and she urged him on. Is it any wonder that with such a wife he succeeded and there came from his pen one of the “best sellers,” The Scar- let Letter. To whom are we indebted for that book? ‘To Nathaniel Hawthorne or to his wife, or bother Many a man has succeeded and has been praised, whose success and praise belong in large measure to his wife. The home furnishes myriad examples of true greatness. Let us sing a song of praise to those who shine in the obscurity of the home. The teachey standing patiently before her class in some obscure schoolhouse; the preacher, ordained and unordained, with patient uncom- plaining love, encouraging, instructing, helping with unselfish hand; how these should share in the songs to greatness! One Sunday morning before the service in a little Scottish kirk, a layman told the faithful old preacher that there must be something wrong with the preaching for not a person had been added to the church that year. With what a heavy heart he preached that morning! At the close of the service, he sat there in the empty, silent church, longing for the end of the jour- ney as he saw the little church through a mist of tears. He did not notice the door opening, 192 STARS OF THE MORNING and was startled when a hand was placed softly on his arm. It was a little boy standing there. “Do you think,” the lad asked him timidly, “do you think if I would study hard, I could be- come a preachere” “May God bless you my boy. Yes, I think you can become a preacher.” The years passed on, and to-day men sing the praises of Robert Moffatt the great pioneer mis- sionary in Southern Africa; but how about that faithful old preacher there in the country church, who started him on his way? It was an unknown monk, who in his sermon said something that went right to Savonarola’s heart, a something he treasured carefully all his life, which decided Savonarola to become a preacher. Who shall add to the hymn of the achievement of that great reformer a stanza of praise to the faithful old monk who put that treasure in Savonarola’s heart! Many of the un- known preachers, saddened by their apparent failure, will be astonished to find themselves standing one day among the great. It was a snowy New Year’s Day. Two men trudged bravely through the storm to church. By eleven o’clock about a dozen others had gathered. The minister was at a distance and had probably been storm-stayed. What should they do? Finally a rather poor looking man yielded to the urging of the people to go up to the pulpit and start the service. He was nerv- ous. He was no speaker. He looked over the church,—some three hundred empty seats, about UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING 193 two dozen people whom he knew very well and one stranger, a boy of about fifteen years. A marble tablet now adorns the wall in the church near where the boy of fifteen sat that snowy morning. It tells that on that morning Charles Haddon Spurgeon was converted and gave his heart to Christ;—Charles Haddon Spurgeon the great preacher, whose ministry brought thousands into the Kingdom. Who will place a tablet to the man who took the min- ister’s place, and to that noble little band of Christians who braved the storm to go to church that morning and so made possible the service in which the renowned preacher was converted? When shall we learn to sing due praise to the obscure but loyal members of churches who are truly as great in heart as the most conspicuous leaders! In the datly walks of life there are heroes and heroines whose lives are set to divine music. There was the apprentice serving the same mas- ter to whom William Carey was apprenticed. In those days, Carey tells us, he had conceit for a thousand times his knowledge, and loved to have the last word in an argument. But the quiet confidence of this fellow-apprentice con- vinced Carey that here was a man who had something more valuable than argument, and through the influence of this brother workman William Carey came to know Jesus as his Sav- iour. What part, think you, has this youth in the missionary harvest of Carey? In the songs 194. STARS OF THE MORNING we raise to the great evangelists of the world, let us not forget the man at the bench who quietly brings his fellow workman to Jesus! To-day we have the heart-searching plays of Shakespeare as a common heritage, but the plays were written only to entertain that generation, with no thought of permanent benefit to poster- ity. How did we come by them? Lowell tells us: “I doubt if posterity owes a greater debt to any two men living in 1623 than to the two obscure actors who in that year published the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays. But for them it is more than likely that such of his works as had remained unpublished would have been irrevocably lost; among them Julius Cesar, The Tempest, Macbeth. And they did it as they said, “To keep the memory of such a worthy friend and fellow alive as was our Shake- Snearewe, So to the obscure actors as well as to the dramatist we owe these plays. Do they not de- serve to have their praises sung? And who shall exalt the two men who at their own charges built the church where John Huss preached; of Robert Haldene who sold all that he had and gave thirty-five thousand pounds to send out missionaries, with Benares as a center, as Carey did from Muduabate; of Grosseteste the learned and pious Bishop of Lincoln, whom Wycliffe called ‘“SSamuel Robert the great head and heart of the church,” who helped pave the way for religious freedom; of the brave un- UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING 195 named Anabaptists and Waldensians, who were reformers before the Reformation and without whom the Reformation could not have been ef- fective! It is with a thrill of joy and satisfaction we think of the recognition at last of the brave Wal- densians who suffered untold agonies for the sake of freedom. As the result of the edict of persecution issued by the Duke of Savoy in 1686, Giovanni Luzzi tells us, eleven thousand of the fourteen thousand men, women and chil- dren perished miserably of hunger, fever, pes- tilence, in the darkness and damp of infected prisons. Then at last came the edict of tolera- tion by Charles ‘Albert, February 17th, 1848, after two centuries of agony. Here comes the procession to celebrate with thanksgiving the edict. It is in the Campo di Marte in Turin in those very streets where “Waldensian” was a name of opprobrium. “Where shall these Waldensians be placed in the parade?” was the question. “Let them be first. They have been last long enough!” comes the decision. There they march, six hundred of them, to the continual shouting, ‘Evviva! Long live our Waldensian brethren!” Luzzi tells us that ‘more than one young man broke through the ranks and threw himself upon the neck of these grave mountaineers, whose voices were so choked with emotion that they could only reply by tears of recognition.” And as we sing of these, let us not forget that 196 STARS OF THE MORNING three hundred years before on March 2gth, 1558, in that very square, Gioffredo Varaglia, Pastor of the Waldensian parish of San Gio- vanni, suffered martyrdom, saying as the execu- tioner was about to kill him, “Do your duty; my death will not be in vain.” We glided smoothly along over the summer sea on an ocean: palace. ‘There was the color- ful throng enjoying the bracing breezes and the soft poetry of the sky and sea. The officers in clean uniform and gold braid seemed monarchs of the waters. Then we went down, down, down into the dark bottom of the ship, and there were men stripped to the waist shoveling, end- lessly shoveling the black dirty coal into eager, blazing furnaces. Who will sing a song of those sweating, begrimed workmen buried beneath the splendor of the surface? Without these, the _ gay throngs above could not be; without these the ships cannot go down to sea; without these the men in braid would be helpless. When shall we learn to sing to the unsung stars! When shall we learn to live as heroes in obscure places, knowing that He who tells the stars, sees them a// as they are, not as they seem. He also makes no mistake about us. What a fine-appearing, enviable picture he made—that well dressed, clean looking youth who approached Jesus one day with the asser- tion and the question: “I have kept all these laws. What lack I yet?” Then did Jesus look through the man’s ex- terior, to his heart. He saw there a dependence UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING 197 upon money and the things that money brings, and while others saw the glitter, Jesus saw the need. This man needed to know that true worth was in being, not in things. But the youth would not pay the price, for he went away very sorrowful. Then Jesus turned to His disciples and said, “Many that are first shall be last, and many that are last, first.’ Not all but many. Carey was renowned and he was also great. Some are renowned but not great. Some are great and are not renowned. Heaven shall sing the song of praise to real greatness, “And millions who, humble and nameless, The straight, hard pathway trod” with heroic uncomplaining loyalty, shall shine as the stars forever and ever, for ‘“‘God seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart.” Mr. E. W. Lewis tells the story of a waking dream. In the dream he approaches a build- ing whose dome seemed to penetrate the heav- ens. A gracious guide conducts him through the building which consists of various spacious galleries, all opening on a great nave. The doorway to the first gallery bore the inscrip- tion —‘“ Heroes of Battle’, the second,—“Heroes of the Lonely Way’; the third —“Heroes of Truth’, the fourth—“Heroes of Love.” In each of these were monuments and inscriptions to the great of earth in various realms. As he entered the last it seemed that the great dome 198 STARS OF THE MORNING merged with the shining blue above. Faces ap- peared one by one, like stars in the twilight firmament,—one after another, as the appearing of the stars at evening, he could distinguish them, explorers, missionaries, returmers. ‘Then brighter than the shining sun, in the zenith ap- peared a cross and the loveliest face of all. A hushed name breathed from the beholder’s lips, —“Jesus.’ Then came soft strains of music like the tones of an organ. Louder the music grew, and clearer, until words could be distinguished at last: “In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o’er the wrecks of time. All the light of sacred story Gathers round His head sublime.” Awed and hushed, the visitor retraced his steps to the entrance. There stood his guide. “You will be here some day?” he asked. “Mer” I stammered out; “me a heror” “Why note” he softly asked. “Why not? You have it in you.’ “And as the guide reached out his hand, lo the print of the nail was there!” We have talked of heroes and heroism. We have traced the achievements of these pioneers UNSUNG STARS OF THE MORNING 199 in the journey upward. Our present blessings have their roots in their sacrifices. But let us not forget that thousands unknown to posterity have added their share, as the unknown builders of the pyramids dragged the stones across the desert and died, but left the pyramids as the monument to their labor. These too, are great. Also, let us remember that we, even the hum- blest of us, may with true heroism take our place in the dark firmament of sin and wrong and suffering and add the light of our shining until the day of truth and right dawn, and the dark- ness flee away! “Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night lke stars, And with their mild persistence urge men’s search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing a beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man. This is life to come,— Which martyred men have made more glo- rious 200 STARS OF THE MORNING For us who strive to follow. 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