Cryer, Thomas

Cryer, Thomas a Wesleyan missionary of rare piety and usefulness, was born at Bingley, in Yorkshire, in 1800. At 20 he was converted, and was called into the ministry about seven years after, and labored for a few months in an English circuit. He was then appointed a missionary to India, and embarked for that country in 1829. For 22 years he labored for the salvation of the heathen, and his name will be long remembered in the East. In spite of opposition and of the long delay of prosperity, which is the great and peculiar trial of the Eastern missionary — in spite of the most acute personal and family afflictions, his heart was undaunted and his faith unsubdued. Few of his fellow-missionaries excelled him in power of utterance, in the adroitness and effect with which he exposed the sophisms of the Brahmin, or in searching and persuasive appeals to the conscience. He "determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified." Such a minister could hardly fail of winning souls; and many will be the crown of his rejoicing in the day of Jesus Christ, not only from among the natives of India, but also from among the Europeans resident in that country. He died of cholera, October 5, 1852. Wesleyan Minutes, 1853.