About a year after Dr. Morrison came to China, the English East India Company wished him to be their translator. He complied, and has ever since acted in that capacity. He thought it his duty to do so, that he might, by the labor of his own hands, relieve others from the burden of supporting himself and family. This, in a considerable degree, he has done. For upwards of twenty years he has received _no_ salary from any charitable institution. The London Missionary Society assist him every year in defraying a part of his house‑rent, which, in China, is very high‑‑ten or twelve hundred dollars annually. Being translator for the company, they were willing to defray the expenses of publishing his Dictionary, which was more than £12,000.‑‑And besides this, and what he has done for the support of his own family, it has enabled him to give between 8 and 10,000 dollars for the promotion of Christianity among the Chinese; a considerable part of this sum was expended in founding the Anglo Chinese College at Malacca; of this, I will tell you more when I come to write about Dr. Milne.
The same day he became translator to the company, he was married to Miss Morton, an excellent and pious lady, who had a long time resided in India. Their first born son died the same day in which he breathed the breath of life. The infant was interred on the top of a little hill, at the north extremity of Macao; and in a beautiful enclosure, not far from where he now sleeps, are the earthly remains of his mother. Mrs. Morrison died June 10, 1821.
In 1824, Dr. Morrison visited England, and returned in 1826. While in his native country, he married Miss Armstrong, a pious and accomplished lady. He has now living in China, six children; four sons and two daughters. His family reside at Macao, for the Chinese will not allow foreign ladies to come to Canton. His eldest son, John Robert Morrison, is already quite a master of Chinese, and acts as translator to the British merchants in China.
Dr. Morrison is now fifty years old, and it is more than 24 years since he came to China. The Lord has been very good to him, and has blessed him, and given good success to the labor of his hands. He has lived to see many and most glorious results from the very small beginnings he was permitted and enabled to make; but the judgment of the great day, only, can display all the effects of his long and arduous labors. Every Christian prays in secret; but he has often preached in secret, with his doors locked around him, and only one or two to listen to the sound of the gospel.