William Carey

hiarshman, and Ward, by J. C. Rlarshman Life of John Thoma-,, and numerous articles in the Oviezttal Baptist, by C. B. Lewis Browns History of hfissions Houghs Christianity in India Kayes History of Christianity in India Sherrings Protestant Missions in India Life of Dr. Duff, and The Canterbury of North India Sunduy Magnzinr, 1874, by Dr. George . S i t h Hunters Statistical Account, and Rural Annals of Bengal, etc. Special acknowledgment is due to the Rev. W. FIDLER T , o wcester to Mrs. TRESTRAIL, Newport, I. W., for notes respecting Paulerspury to Mrs. HUGH A NDERSONE, d inhnrgh, and to the Rev. C. B. LEWIS, late of Calcutta, for the use of manuscript volumes of letters by Carey, hlarshman, Ward, Fuller, Ryland, and others and to JOHN TAYLOR Es , q ., Northampton, for much out of the way information most kindly furnished. CHAPTER I. P AULERSPURY is the name of a village lying on the south side of the old Roman road known as Watling Street, three miles or thereby from the market-town of Towcester, county of Northampton. It is the Pavelis Pery of Camden, and derives its name from the Paveleys or Peverels, its ancient lords. The neighbourhood, without being picturesque, is pleasing, I and occasionally the wayfarer comes upon bits of unpretending beauty. A hundred years ago, Whittlebury Forest, which is no distance off, was open, and its fine trees, though few compared with . what they had been, still formed a striking feature in the landscape. Thomas Fuller records1 that in his time the county-of which he was a native-was as fruitful and populous as any in England, insomuch that sixteen several towns with their churches have at one view been discovered by my eyes, which I confess none of the best. Sure I am, he 1 The History of the Worthies of England, endeavoured by Thomas Fuifer, D. D. B 2 JVILLIAJZ CAREY. , adds, there is as little waste ground in this as in any county in England no mosses, mears, fells, heaths IVhitering but a beauty-spot, which elsewhere fill so nlany shires with much emptiness Northamptonshire being an apple without core to be cut out, or rind to be pared away. The village itself, with population not far off a thousand, lay rather high and cold in the yet uilenclosed field, and. must have been dreary enough in winter. It consisted of two hamlets, Paulerspury proper and Pury End, separated by a depression with a small brook in the bottom, where children would delight to dabble in the summer time and extended in straggling fashion more than a mile from one extremity to the other. The houses were mostly built of grey-looking stone, and turned many a quaint and high-pitched gable to the village-street with small regard to symmetry of arrangement the upper indolowosk ing out from under eyebrows of dark thatch. Great trees flung their shadows here and there-one fine elm which stands at the entrance to the churchyard surviving to the present. The soil was too cold and stiff for any but the commonest fl wersa, nd a few ferns of the hardiest kinds, . such as would grow anywhere... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.