William Carey
‘Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”
WILLIAM CAREY was born on 17th August 1761, in the village of Pury, or Paulerspury, in Northamptonshire. His father was a weaver, and was also parish clerk and schoolmaster. The education then given in village schools was of a very limited character, but what advantages there were, he made the most of. _He was noted even as a boy for perseverance. Having been severely hurt by a fall from a tree, when once he was allowed out of doors, the first thing he did was to climb that very tree. This determination of purpose stood him in good stead in after life. The bent of his mind lay towards natural history, and he had collected quite a little store of insects which he kept in his own room. Unfitted, through illness, for out-door occupation, he was, at the age of fourteen, apprenticed to a shoemaker at Hackleton. Here his thirst for information led him to acquire some knowledge of Greek. 9S The Rev. Thomas Scott, the well-known commentator, who was then curate of Olney, used to visit the house of Carey’s master, and it was largely to the influence and ministry of Mr Scott that Carey’s conversion was due. During his after life he never forgot the debt of gratitude which he owed to his kind minister.
When only nineteen years of age he made his first appearance in the pulpit, and was applauded for his efforts, greatly to his own injury. This his earliest sermon afterwards caused him much humiliation. Some time afterwards he preached at the village of Earl’s Barton, and there, as well as at his own village, he preached for three years and a half. At this time his views on baptism underwent a change, and he was baptized by immersion in the river Nen at Northampton by Dr John Rylands, his future associate in the cause of missions. How unable any one then was to read Carey’s future career is evident from the entry which Dr Rylands made of the event: —‘* This day baptised a poor journeymen shoemaker.”
He now joined the congregation of Rev. John Sutcliffe at Olney, and when it was proposed that he should receive a call to the ministry, it was chiefly through Mr Sutcliffe's influence that this was agreed to, as the members doubted whether he possessed sufficient ability to make a useful minister. His own description of the sermon which he preached on this occasion is that it was as “crude and weak as anything could be which is called or has been called a sermon.”
His studies were now enlarged, and he made it his daily habit to read the Scriptures devotionally in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
The master to whom he was apprenticed having died, Carey took over his stock and business, and married his master’s sister-in-law— Dorothy Plackett—and all this before he was twenty years of age. Trade became dull, and his congregation at Barton were not able to raise enough even to pay for the clothes used by him in their service. At this period he also suffered much from fever, which had the result of making him bald for the rest of his life.
In 1786 he removed to Moulton and took charge of the dissenting congregation there. In this place he also taught a boys’ school, but he Was quite unfitted for such work and had no control over the pupils. The income which he received from his congregation was 411 a year, and £5 from a fund in London; and to cke out a living he was compelled to resume his former trade. Once a fortnight he walked cight or ten miles to Northampton carrying on his shoulder a wallet filled with shoes, and then returned home with a fresh supply of leather. It has been usual to say that Carey was not proficient in his trade, but his own words are that he was accounted “a skilful and honest workman.” Thirty years afterwards, when dining one day at Barrackpore with Lord Hastings, the Governor-general, one of the guests enquired of another whether Dr Carey had not once been a shoemaker. Happening to everhear the remark, he stepped forward and replied—* No, sir, only a cobbler.”
The immediate cause of his being led to think of the state of the heathen was his reading Captain Cook’s “ Voyages.” The idea of missions now took possession of him. The Rev. Andrew Fuller, Baptist minister at Kettering, has related that on going into Carey’s workshop he saw hanging on the wall a large map consisting of several sheets of paper pasted together, on which he had also written items of information regarding the natural characteristics, the population, and the religion of the various countries of the world. Thus while he wrought with hammer and awl, his eyes often glanced at the map, and his thoughts were turned to what methods could be devised for evangelising the heathen. Referring to such a scene, Wilberforce afterwards said in the House of Commons—“A sublimer thought cannot be conceived than when a poor cobbler formed the resolution to give to thé millions of Hindoos the Bible in their own language.”
At a meeting of ministers held at Northampton, Mr Carey proposed as a topic of discussion—* The duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel among heathen nations,” when Mr Rylands, senior, rose and exclaimed —“ Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen He will do it without your aid or mine.” The lack of sympathy from his brethren did not make him desist, but he embodied his views in a pamphlet ; and so carried away was he with his project, that while engaged in compiling this pamphlet his own family could scarcely obtain a supply of bread. This publication marked a new beginning in the cause of missions. _ Its title is “ An enquiry into the obligation 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 undertakings, and the practicability of further undertakings are considered. By William Carey. Leicester, 1792.”
In 1789 he had removed to a congregation in Leicester, but this church too was exceedingly poor ; and so once more the attempt was made to teach a school; this time also the attempt was unsuccessful, His zeal in preaching the gospel both in Leicester and in the surrounding villages endeared him to all who loved the cause of religion.
In 1792, at a meeting of ministers at Nottingham, he preached the sermon which really laid the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society. The text was—‘ Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation: spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited,” Isaiah liv. 2, 3. From these words he enforced two principles—“ Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” The ministers now agreed that a plan should be prepared for the establishment of a society for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen, and that this plan should be ready to be laid before them at next meeting.
This meeting was held at Kettering on 2nd October 1792, in the house, which is still standing, of a widow lady, Mrs Beeby Wallis, Twelve ministers were present, and in accordance with WILLIAM CAREY. 1oL
their promise they formed the Baptist Missionary Socicty, “to convey the message of salvation to some portion of the heathen world.” The twelve ministers themselves then and there subscribed 413, 2s. 6d. No sooner was the subscription list filled up than Mr Carey offered to embark for any country the Society might select. The Rev. Andrew Fuller was appointed the first secretary.
Many congregations now began to send contributions, but the churches and ministers in London gave no help. “ When we began in 1792,” Mr Fuller afterwards remarked, “there was little or no respectability among us; not so much as a squire to sit in the chair or an orator to make speeches to him. Hence good Dr Stennett advised the London ministers to stand aloof and not commit themselves.” The only minister in London who gave Mr Carey any sympathy was the venerable John Newton, who “advised him with the fidelity and tenderness of a father.” In 1797 John Newton wrote: “ Mr Carey has favoured me with a letter, which indeed I accept as a favour, and I mean to thank him for it. I trust my heart as cordially unites with him for the success of his mission as though I were a brother Baptist myself. I look up to such a man with reverence. He is more to me than bishop or archbishop: he is an apostle. May the Lord make all who undertake missions like-minded with Mr Carey.”
While the newly formed Society was deliberating in what quarter of the world their mission should be located, the question was providentially settled for them by the appearing of Mr John Thomas on his return from Bengal. Mr Thomas had been a surgeon in the service of the East India Company. He was now endeavouring to raise funds for a mission in India, and also to secure some one to go out with him to the work. The Society, after making enquiries regarding Mr Thomas, invited him to go to India as one of their missionaries, and Mr Carey was solicited to accompany him. “It is clear,” said Mr Fuller to Carey, “that there is a rich mine of gold in India: if you will go down I will hold the ropes.”
It was with much difficulty that the amount necessary to pay their fares to India was raised, even though Mr Fuller himself went to London to ask subscriptions from the wealthier members of the denomination: and the difficulty increased more than ever when the question arose what ship the two missionaries should sail in. At that time the only ships sailing from England to India were those of the East India Company, and no passengers were carried except those who had received a license from the court of directors. The East India Company being openly hostile to missions, it was out-of-the-question to get a license. But the commander of the Oxford East Indiaman offered to take the two missionaries and to do so at his own risk. They accordingly went to the Isle of Wight, where the fleet was lying, and embarked in the Oxford. But when the fleet was within four days of sailing, the captain of the ship received a letter to the effect that he would be informed on to the directors for carrying passengers without a license ; and without an hour's delay Mr Carey and Mr Thomas were rowed ashore. “ Our plans are frustrated for the present,” wrote Mr Carey to Mr Fuller; “but however mysterious the dealings of providence, I have no doubt they are directed by an infinitely wise God.” On receipt of the letter Mr Fuller's words were, “We are all undone.”
They were extricated from this difficulty by Mr Thomas happening to hear that a Danish East Indiaman was daily expected in the Downs. He therefore immediately proceeded to Northamptonshire, partly to raise funds, and also to make a last attempt to persuade Mrs Carey to accompany her husband to India. A reluctant consent was secured, but only on condition that her sister should go with her. With this addition to their number, £600 were now required for the passage money for the two missionaries, the two ladies and the children. Notwithstanding the prolonged efforts which had been made the funds had not reached that amount. Mr Thomas therefore generously agreed with the shipping agents that he and Mrs Carey’s sister should be rated as assistants, and take their meals at the steward’s mess. On 13th June 1793 the whole party embarked on board the Kron Princessa Maria. On the day after sailing the captain was so gentlemanly as to request Mr Thomas and Mrs Carey’s sister to take their seats at the cabin table.
Under the supervision of Mr Thomas, Mr Carey used his time on board ship in studying the Bengali language.
On 11th November they landed in Calcutta; but they were soon in new difficulties owing to Mr Thomas’ unskilful management of money matters: he was embarrassed with debt, and seemed to have a nack of getting into difficult positions.
To escape these troubles, and in order to secure the means of livelihood, Mr Carey proceeded to the Soonderbuns—a vast tract of land south of Calcutta and facing the Bay of Bengal. It was a region of jungle, tigers and malaria. He obtained a piece of land, and began to erect what he called his huts. “Wild hogs, deer, and fowl,” he writes to Mr Fuller, “are to be procured with the gun, and must supply us with a considerable portion of our food. I find an inconvenience in having so much of my time taken up in procuring provisions and cultivating my little farm. But when my house is built I shall have more leisure than at present, and have daily opportunities of conversing with the natives and pursuing the work of the mission.”
From this unfavourable position he was rescued by Mr Thomas, through whose influence he was appointed to superintend an indigo factory at Mudnabatty, near Malda, where Mr Thomas himself received a similar appointment. With a feeling of relief Mr Carey accepted the position, but his action was not very acceptable to the directors of the Missionary Society in England, who do not themselves seem to have been too liberal, or to have sent him during the previous three years more than 4200. They wrote a letter of “serious and affectionate caution to him lest he should allow the spirit of the missionary to be swallowed up in the pursuits of the merchant.”
H To this Mr Carey replied, “I can only say that after my family’s obtaining a bare subsistence, my whole income, and some months more, goes for the purpose of the gospel, in supporting persons to assist in the translation of the Bible, in writing out copies of it, and in teaching school. I am indeed poor, and shall always be so until the Bible is published in Bengali and Hindustani, and the people want no further instruction.”
His salary from the indigo factory was at this time about £240 a year. The employees at the factory numbered about ninety, and every day he gathered them together for Christian worship. He also constantly visited the surrounding villages, preaching the gospel to the people. He made an attempt at teaching a school for native children, but his chief work was the translation of the New Testament into Bengali, and this he now completed. The printers in Calcutta demanded £4400 for printing ten thousand copies unbound; but this sum being exorbitant and beyond his means, another way was found of having it published. Mr Udny, one of whose factories Mr Carey was superintending, bought a second-hand printing press and presented it to the mission ; and thus the New Testament was printed. When the natives saw the press and heard Mr Carey speak of its wonderful power, they said that it was an European idol!
Mr Carey had now lived at Mudnabatty for five years, during which he had preached the gospel far and near and with untiring energy, but little fruit had yet appeared. The providence of God was opening up his way to another scene of labour ; for the indigo factories had been so unprofitable that Mr Udny was forced to part with them, and thus Mr Carey’s regular income ceased. On hearing of this the Missionary Society in England acted generously and paid him the arrears of salary which he had previously declined to receive. He now purchased from Mr Udny, for £300, a small indigo factory, from the profits of which he hoped to be able to support the mission. But events of which he had not thought were now to open a career of success.
In 1799 Mr William Ward and Mr Joshua Marshman were sent out to India by the Society in England; and as the regulations of the East India Company were now exceedingly strict against any European being allowed to set foot on British India without a license, they resolved to go at once to Serampore, a Danish settlement on the Hoogly, fifteen miles above Calcutta.
On hearing that two missionaries had landed —for Mr Carey and Mr Thomas entered themselves in the official government returns as “indigo planters,’—the British authorities made an attempt to expel them from India; but now that they were actually on Danish territory, the attempt was given up.
Mr Carey was invited to join Mr Ward and Mr Marshman at Serampore, but was unwilling to leave British territory where he had a footing. His objections, however, were overruled by a letter which Mr Marshman received to the effect that “some of the higher officers of government were incensed to find that the missionaries had obtained an asylum beyond their reach in a foreign settlement, and had expressed their determination to arrest any of them who might be found in the Company’s territories.” This seems to have determined the question, and he joined his colleagues at Serampore. (Here he arrived on 10th January 1800 with his four children and his wife, who was now helplessly insane.) NS) *s
A carpenter in Serampore had dislocated his arm, and Mr Thomas was called on to attend to the injury. When he had set the arm, he fervently exhorted his patient regarding the great truths of salvation, and also about the folly of idolatry. The man was deeply affected and became a con- stant visitor at the mission house, where he eagerly reccived further Christian instruction. He received the truth in the love of it, and was baptized: he then broke his caste by eating with the missionaries, to the great astonishment of the servants.
On this being known a commotion was caused in the town: a wild crowd of some two thousand persons surrounded his house, and dragged him before the Danish magistrate. But instead of doing as the mob wished him to do, the magistrate commended Krishna tor obeying his conscience, ordered a soldier to protect him, and commanded the crowd to disperse. He also offered, should it be necessary, to protect the missionaries from all violence whenever baptism was to be administered. So altogether friendly were the Danish authorities. Their kindly and sympathetic action was of the utmost value to the mission and saved it from being extinguished, as would certainly have happened had the English authorities been able to carry out their wishes. These events took place in the first year of the work at Serampore.
In 1801 the first female convert was baptized : she was a sister-in-law of Krishna, and was named Joyminee. There was also baptised Mr Fernandez, a gentleman of Portuguese descent. He had been a friend of Mr Carey at Mudnabatty ; and for more than thirty years he continued to give active and willing help to the Serampore missionaries, and was also the means of raising a large and flourishing native congregation, of which he took the pastoral oversight.
The printing of the Bengali New Testament was completed in this year. A large part of the type had been set by Mr Ward’s hands.
The College of Fort William in Calcutta had just been founded by Lord Wellesley for the purpose of educating the junior members of the civil service, and of giving them a grammatical knowledge of the native Indian languages. It so happened that there was only one person capable of filling the office of teacher of Bengali, but he would accept it only on condition of being allowed full freedom as a missionary. Notwithstanding this condition, Lord Wellesley directed that Mr Carey should receive the appointment. This office carried with it a salary of 500 rupees a month. Mr Carey at once wrote to Mr Fuller that the mission would have an ample income from this source as well as from the returns of Mr Marshman’s school, and that they would require no further remittances from England for their personal support. This arrangement, so altogether creditable to the missionarics, was accordingly acted on.
In 1800 the political relations between England and Denmark were ruptured, and in May of the following year British troops took possession of Serampore. This was a serious event for the mission, which was thus deprived of the friendly protection so willingly rendered by Denmark. But the antagonism of the British government to the spread of the gospel in India was now modified, and nothing occurred to disturb the working of the mission.
Soon after this time Mr Thomas died, and the other three missionaries, Carey, Marshman and Ward, were left to work alone. But the Lord worked with them, and they had the pleasure of seeing among the newly baptised converts three men from the Kayust, or writer caste, and one from that of the Brahmins.
The British government, while tardily refraining from open hostility to the mission, was openly patronizing to heathenism. “ Last week,” writes Mr Ward, “a deputation from government went in procession to Kalee ghaut—the most opulent and popular shrine of the metropolis—and_presented 5000 rupees to the idol in the name of TI2 MISSIONARY PIONEERS IN INDIA,
the Company, for the success which had attended the British arms.”
The attention of the Governor-general was called to the practice of sacrificing children at the annual festival held at Gunga Saugor, and Mr Carey was directed by the government to report upon it. This duty was most congenial to him; and his report was the means of a law being passed, by which the sacrificing of children was prohibited under severe penalties.
Meanwhile he continued his work in the College, in which he was now also appointed teacher of Sanskrit, but with no additional salary. He compiled a Bengali grammar as well as other books in that language, and also began a Sanskrit. grammar.
Mr Marshman’s school was such a success that he drew from it 41000 a year; yet of this sum he took only £34 annually for the personal expenses of his family. Mr Ward drew from the press a corresponding allowance of £20; and Mr Carey received for himself and_ his family £40 a year, to which was added £20 for “decent apparel” in which to appear at the College and Government House. Such was the self-denial of the Serampore missionaries.
On 19th July 1802, Serampore was handed back to the Danish authorities; but whether under a Danish or British government the work of the mission went on uninterruptedly. Serampore eventually was incorporated in British India.
. Their method of proclaiming the gospel is thus described :—‘ When the sun is going down, one of us, taking some tracts in his hands, goes out into some part of Serampore or its neighbourhood, talks to the people, and distributes the papers; another does the same in another direction; while a third goes one evening to the Bengali schoolhouse, and another evening to Krishnu’s little meeting-house. After this our Hindoo friends come every evening to our house. In our family worship the chapter in the Old Testament, after being read in English, is translated offhand and read in Bengali. When proceeding to a distance we travel, cat and sleep in a boat, and going from place to place preach and distribute tracts.”
The equalizing power of the gospel was now seen in the little Christian community when Krishnu-prisad the Brahmin received the communion cup at the Lord’s Table from the hand of Krishnu, a Soodra; and about four months thereafter the same Brahmin was united in marriage to the daughter of the same Soodra, Krishnu the carpenter. After the bride and bridegroom had plighted their troth, they both signed the marriage contract—the first to which a Hindoo female had affixed her signature for centuries.
In the beginning of 1804, three months before the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded, the three missionaries at Serampore submitted to the home committee a plan or proposal for the translation and publication of the Bible into the languages of the East. They wrote that there were at least seven languages current in India—the Bengali, the Hindustani, the Oriya, the Telugu, the Kurnata, the Mahrathi, and Tamil; and they proposed to translate at least the New Testament into some if not all of these languages.
The home committee, under the direction of Mr Fuller, heartily fell in with the plan, and determined that such a work should not be hindered through lack of funds.
The work of translation and dictionary-making went on apace. Mr Carey and Mr Marshman undertook the publication of some of the most celebrated Sanskrit classics, with an English translation; and in this, too, their aim was the extension of the mission—“means would thus be obtained of supporting at least one missionary station.”
The Serampore missionaries had again and again called the attention of the English authorities to sutteeism or the burning alive of Hindoo widows on the funeral pile of their dead husbands. The first time that Carey saw the burning of a widow was when his residence at Mudnabatty was nearing its close. One evening as he was returning by boat from Calcutta, on going ashore near a village he observed a crowd of people by the river side: they had come to burn the body of a dead man, and the widow was to be burned with him. A pile made of large billets of wood had been erected, and on this the dead body lay while the widow stood close by. Her nearest relative stood beside her, and at a little distance was a basket of sweetmeats. When Carey asked whether it was the woman's choice to die on her husband’s funeral pyre, or whether she was influenced or compelled, he was told that she was doing so of her own free will. He reasoned and remonstrated, but to no purpose; and then he exclaimed against what they were about to do as being no less than murder. It was in vain. They told him it was a great act of holiness, and that he might go away if he did not wish to see it. But he declined to go, and said he would be a witness against their deed. Then turning to the widow he pled with her not to throw away her life. In reply she mounted the pile and danced on it, with her hands extended. She had previously passed six times round the pile, scattering the sweetmeats among the spectators. After dancing on the pile she lay down beside the corpse and put her arms around its neck. Then a quantity of dry leaves and other fuel was heaped above them, and some melted butter was poured on the top. Two bamboos were held down fast over them, and the nearest relative then set fire to the pile, which immediately blazed up fiercely. If the woman groaned or screamed the shouting of the spectators prevented her cries from being heard; and if she tried to escape the bamboos effectually prevented her, for they held her down “like the leaves of a press.” Carey went away agonized and horror-stricken.
In 1804 Mr Carey found after enquiry that in the villages within a circle of thirty miles around Calcutta more than three hundred widows had been burned alive within six months, He laid these and other relative facts before Lord Wellesley, and entreated him to prohibit the practice, as had already been done in the case WILLIAM CAREY. ED?
of the sacrifice of children at Saugor. But Lord Wellesley was about to leave India, and thought he could not venture then to issue the prohibition. Sutteeism therefore continued to exist for some twenty-five years longer, during which seventy thousand more widows were burned alive as the victims of a cruel heathen superstition.
After Lord Wellesley left India, the East India Company became more intolerant toward Protestant missions, although it gave free scope to the Church of Rome and even took heathenism under its patronage.
Certain new military regulations had been made, and among these it was enacted that the sepoys should appear on parade with the chin shaved and the moustache trimmed after a particular fashion ; that they should cease to display any distinguishing marks of caste, and should wear a turban of a new pattern.
These orders were most unacceptable, and the result was that the sepoys, being worked into desperation, broke out in mutiny. On 1oth July 1806, at two o’clock in the morning, they rose against the European soldiers in Vellore as they lay asleep, and massacred the colonel and thirteen officers as well as ninety-seven non-commissioned officers and men. This mutiny was quickly put down, and nearly four hundred of the mutineers were put to death.
This event, though it was in no way connected with Christian missions, was nevertheless laid to their charge. The East India Company used the fact of this mutiny as the strongest reason for trying to bring the Baptist mission to an end, and the Governor-general, Sir George Barlow, sent for one of the magistrates and directed him to call on Mr Carey and request him and his colleagues at once to cease from mission work among the natives.
This entire prohibition was soon afterwards relaxed a little ; but even with the partial liberty proposed to be given, the mission was virtually closed unless the public authorities in England could be induced to grant a freedom which the Indian officials refused.
On the arrival of two new missionaries who had come to Calcutta in an American vessel, and who on landing had proceeded to Serampore, the authorities made every attempt to compel the captain of the ship to take the two gentlemen with him out of the country; and were only restrained from violent measures when it was represented to them that this would involve England in difficulties both with Denmark and with the United States.
The appeal to England brought little success. The prejudices entertained by the East India Company were then invincible, and all that could be done, even by those of the directors who were favourable to the mission and by Mr Robert Dundas, the president of the board of control, was to prevent an order from being drawn up for the expulsion of Mr Carey and his colleagues from India. It was not until six years had passed that permission was obtained to itinerate and evangelize throughout British India.
In the beginning of 1807 a statute was passed by the Company to remodel the College of Fort William ; and among other changes, Mr Carey, from being merely a teacher, was raised to a professorship, and his salary increased from 500 to 1000 rupees a month. In March of the same - year he received from Brown University, U.S.A., the degree of D.D.
During this time of opposition and difficulty his labours were never relaxed. An idea of how his time was occupied is given in a private letter dated June 1806:—“I rose this morning at a quarter before six, read a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and spent the time till seven in private addresses to God, and then attended family prayer with the servants in Bengali. While tea was getting ready I read a little in Persian with the moonshi, who was waiting when I left my bedroom: read also before breakfast a portion of the Scriptures in Hindustani. The moment breakfast was over, sat down to the translation of Ramayun from the Sanskrit, with a pundit who was also waiting, and continued this translation till ten o'clock, at which hour I went to College and attended the duties there till between one and two o'clock. When I returned home I examined a proof sheet of the Bengali translation of Jeremiah, which took till dinner time. After dinner, translated, with the assistance of the chief pundit of the College, the greatest part of the eighth chapter of Matthew in Sanskrit. This employed me till six o’clock. After six, sat down with a Telugu pundit to learn that language. At seven I began to collect a few previous thoughts into the form of a sermon, and preached in English at half-past seven. About forty persons present. After sermon I sat down and translated the cleventh of Ezekiel into Bengali, and this lasted till near eleven, and now I sit down to write to you. After this I conclude the evening by reading a chapter in the Greek Testament and commending myself to God. I have never more time in a day WILLIAM CAREY. 12!
than this, though the exercises vary.” “It will serve to give some idea of the strength of Dr Carey's character, to state that the biblical and literary labours in which he had been engaged since his arrival at Serampore were prosecuted with an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of the most deplorable excitement, confined in an adjoining room.”
The translation of the Scriptures into the languages of India had not been interrupted : and in this work they had the cordial co-operation of Rev. Mr Buchanan, and Rev. Mr Brown, two of the chaplains in Calcutta, and their most generous contributions too, Mr Buchanan contributing no less a sum than 4500, and Mr Brown £100. The subscriptions in Calcutta amounted to £1000, and £2000 were raised in England and America.
The friendship was a cordial one between the Serampore missionaries and those likeminded chaplains Mr Buchanan and Mr Brown. And there was now added to their number Henry Martyn. He arrived in Calcutta in 1806, and soon came to Serampore, where he resided with Mr Brown. “As the shadow of bigotry is not known among us here, writes Mr Carey, we take sweet counsel together and go to the house of God as friends.”
I An old pagoda in Mr Brown’s garden was fitted up by him as a Christian church, and in it denominational feelings were forgotten while Brown, Martyn and Corrie, with Carey, Marshman and Ward, Churchman and Nonconformist joined together in fellowship and united in Christian worship. This intercourse between the Church of England chaplains and the Baptist missionaries during that time of protracted opposition to mission work was an oasis in the desert.
On the arrival of Lord Minto as Governorgeneral, the opposition became still more intense. The idea under which the government then acted was that nothing could be done to carry the gospel to the natives without the greatest political danger. A letter was sent to Dr Carey ordering the discontinuance of preaching in a little chapel recently opened in Calcutta, and also containing the command that no publications with a view to the conversion of the natives should be issued from the Serampore mission press. The Governor-general also commanded them to remove the mission press from Serampore to Calcutta in order that the government might there exercise a more efficient control over it.
On receipt of this communication Dr Carey exclaimed, “ Never had such a letter been written by any government before. Roman Catholics have persecuted other Christians under the name of heretics, but no Christian government that I know of has ever prohibited attempts to spread the gospel among the heathen.”
This order involved no less than the suppression of all mission work. Immediately on receipt of this letter the three missionaries met and prayed to be guided aright. In their reply they simply acknowledged receipt of the letter.
Dr Carey and Mr Marshman, knowing how friendly the Danish Governor was, were willing to leave the matter in his hands, trusting to the Danish authorities to protect them; but Mr Ward expostulated with his colleagues to the effect that even if the press were not removed from Serampore, in any case the British government would now be their avowed enemies, and that though they could not be turned out of Serampore, yet their operations might be restricted to that one town, their translations of the Scriptures might be stopped, and other evils might result. Mr Ward’s argument ended by saying “ Tender words, with the consciences of men on our side, go a long way. We may tell them that we are willing to do everything they desire, except to renounce our work and character as ministers of the Saviour of the world.”
Mr Ward’s advice was acted on, and an interview was obtained with Lord Minto. The interview was wholly successful. Lord Minto accepted from Dr Carey a copy of the Ramayun. They also offered him copies of any other literary works which they had printed. Mr Marshman then asked that they should be allowed to present a private memorial; and this also was agreed to. They laid before Lord Minto a short history of the origin and progress of the mission. Mr Marshman also pled that the order for the removal of the mission press to Calcutta should not be enforced, for this would be equivalent to the ruin of the mission. Lord Minto assured them that he felt no hostility to them or to their work, and said that men expected missionaries to have some enthusiasm and to be able to bear the frowns of those in authority !
On his return to Serampore, Mr Marshman drew up the memorial. It shortly described the origin and work of the Baptist Missionary Society, and strongly deprecated the removal of the printing establishment.
On receipt of this memorial, Lord Minto proposed a resolution in the council by which the former order was revoked, and works intended for circulation in British India were simply to be submitted to the inspection of the Company’s officers. This resolution was adopted; and the mission once more breathed freely.
Considerable hostility was still shown in England both by the East India Company and by various writers, one of the most notable of whom was Sydney Smith, whose writings were skilfully aimed for the purpose of throwing ridicule upon the work at Serampore and trying to show that missions in India would end in the insurrection of the natives, that the persons engaged, ze. Dr Carey and his associates, were utterly unfit for the work, and that Christian missions in present circumstances were utterly hopeless. Sydney Smith’s opinion of what he had written is—‘In rooting out a nest of consecrated cobblers, and in bringing to light such a perilous heap of trash as we were obliged to work through in our articles on Methodists and Missionaries we are generally considered to have rendered a useful service to the cause of rational religion.” But the author of this attack lived to regret it, and he afterwards expressed to Lord Macaulay his sorrow for having written against the work at Serampore.
This controversy—for the missionaries had their defenders—ended in an article which Robert Southey wrote. It concluded in these words: “We who have thus vindicated them are neither blind to what is erroneous in their doctrines nor ridiculous in their phraseology, but the antimissionaries cull out from their journals and letters all that is ridiculous, sectarian and trifling ; call them fools, madmen, tinkers, Calvinists and schismatics ; and keep out of sight their love of men and their zeal for God, and their self-devotedness, their indefatigable industry, their unequalled learning. These ‘low born and low bred mechanics’ have translated the whole Bible into Bengali and have by this time printed it. They are printing the New Testament in the Sanskrit, Orissa, the Mahrathi, the Hindustani, the Gujarati, and translating it into Persic, Telinga, Kurnata, Chinese, the language of the Sikhs, and the Burmese. Extraordinary as this is, it will appear still more so, when it is remembered that of these men one was originally a shoemaker, another a printer at Hull, and the third the master of a Charity School at Bristol, Only fourteen years have elapsed since Thomas and Carey set foot in India, and in that time these missionaries have acquired this gift of tongues. In fourteen years these low born, low bred mechanics have done more to spread the knowledge of the Scriptures among the heathen than has been accomplished or even attempted by all the world beside.”
The difficulties in the way of the opening of a place of worship in Calcutta were at length surmounted, and on 1st January 1809, divine service was begun in a large chapel in Bow bazaar. It cost £3200, of which nearly a half was with their usual liberality and self-denial, given by the Serampore missionaries themselves.
Dr Carey had enjoyed the best of health for nearly ten years in Serampore, but in July 1809, on the day after he had completed the publication of the Bengali Bible, he was prostrated by fever which was nearly fatal. He was now forty-eight years of age, and on his recovery from this illness he threw himself into his work with more vigour than eyer. Ina letter written by him at this time to Mr Fuller he urged the need of beginning mission work in Siam, Pegu, Aracan, Nepaul, and Assam. Like Wesley, he felt that the world was his parish.
As the East India Company refused to allow any new missionaries to land in India, Dr Carey and his colleagues saw that one of their chief requirements was to train a native ministry. In the case of native preachers no licences or passports were needed. Two native preachers were set apart, one to be stationed in Jessore, and the other on the borders of Orissa.
The attitude of the government being now more favourable to the working of the mission, measures were at once taken to extend it. “Now,” said Mr Ward, “we shall be tolerated like toads and not hunted down like wild beasts,”
Dr Carey was not afflicted with self-esteem as the following extract shows:—“I have often thought that the work must be obstructed by me, and that the God who aboundeth in all wisdom and prudence in the dispensations of His grace could not give a blessing to the labours of such an one as I am.” “I have for years been obliged to drag myself on, to subject myself to rules, to impose the day’s work on myself, and after all to sit down in confusion at my indolence and inertness. I often compare myself with my brethren Marshman and Ward. The first is all eagerness for the work. Often have I seen him when we have been walking together, eye a group of persons as a hawk looks at his prey, and go up to them with a resolution to try the utmost effort of gospel reasons on them. In point of zeal he is Luther, 1 am Erasmus. Brother Ward has such a facility of addressing spiritual things to the heart, and his thoughts run so naturally in that channel that he fixes the mind of all who hear him on what he says, while I, after making repeated efforts can scarcely get out a few dry sentences, and should I meet with a rebuff at the beginning, sit like a silly mute and scarcely say anything at all.” In a letter to Ryland he says, “I alone am unfit to be called a missionary and often doubt whether I am a Christian.”
In March 1812 the printing establishment was consumed by fire; in a single night there was destroyed the labour of twelve years. In addition to a large supply of English type and paper, there were in the printing office no fewer than fourteen founts in the Eastern languages, In those days there were neither fire engines nor fire insurance offices in India, so the premises were utterly destroyed, and the loss amounting to £7000 fell wholly on the mission. But the next day as Mr Ward examined the ruins caused by the fire, he found to his great joy that the punches and matrices were uninjured, and instantly they set themselves to undo the work of the flames.
The pundits were anew set to translation; the typecasters were also busily employed; and at the end of thirty days two of the versions were again in the press. All was in full operation again within a few months. Subscriptions to repair the loss poured in freely both in India and in Britain. The fire had given a celebrity to the Serampore mission press which would have been otherwise unattainable.
Once more the hostility of the government burst out with renewed violence, and this happily was for the last time. Five American missionaries, one of whom was Dr Judson, landed in Calcutta and were immediately expelled. It was this forcible expulsion that led to Dr Judson’s settling in Burmah. One of the newly arrived Serampore missionaries, Mr Johns, was peremptorily ordered to quit the country, and he returned to England. Such were the violent and arbitrary measures of Lord Minto’s administration.
In writing of these things to Mr Fuller, Dr Carey said, “I have endeavoured to acquit the government of religious persecution, but my mind will not do it. Lord Minto has no dislike to us; he is a man of amiable disposition and a professed friend of liberty. But it is in the power of a secretary to prepare and present such a statement as the government cannot refrain from noticing. I never before heard of a man like Mr Johns, of liberal education and_ scientific acquirements and inoffensive conduct, being sent back to Europe unless he had meddled with politics, or in some way or other rendered himself troublesome to government: and in no instance of a man like Mr Robinson being ordered out of the country after a residence of six years in it. The fault lies in the clause which gives the Company power to send home interlopers, and it is just as reasonable as to forbid every man to look at the moon, and will, I trust, be modified in the next charter.”
The renewal of the East India Company’s charter was to settle what liberty, if any, should be granted to missions in India. It was round this point that the battle was waged. “ Almost all men of influence, as was remarked by Mr Charles Grant, appeared to think and act on the conviction that duty and success lay in slighting Christianity, while they manifested the most delicate regard to the wildest superstitions of heathenism.” The strife was long and keen. Champions like Wilberforce arose to plead in the British Parliament the cause of the gospel in India, and by God’s blessing their efforts were crowned with victory.
Mr Fuller died in 1815. During his life the intercourse between the Serampore missionaries and the Home Committee had been most harmonious and friendly. In clear judgment and in resolution he was no less conspicuous than in kindliness of heart. And during those first twenty years of the infancy of the mission, when its very existence was so often imperilled, his master mind and hand surmounted the greatest obstacles. He lived until all of these were overcome or removed.
But his death was an untold loss) The Home Committee were now personally unacquainted with what had occurred during those twenty years ; and almost at once friction arose in the working of the mission. To such a length did this go that Dr Carey, Dr Marshman, and Mr Ward were left in a position of isolation, both from the other Baptist missionaries in India and from the Home Committee.
Mr Ward having returned to England for a time on account of his health found everywhere at work the most marvellous calumnies against himself, and Dr Carey, and Dr Marshman. They were charged with the accumulation of private wealth, and that all that they had said-of disinterestedness was untrue. Contributions were falling off in consequence of these rumours. It was the most cruel way to requite the work of the three Serampore missionaries. “Had not my dependence been upon God,” wrote Dr Marshman, “I should either have been transported with anger under the trials I have had to endure, and have given up the support of the mission, or have sunk under the treatment I have received . . . and have died of a broken heart. In our late examination which the unkindness of others constrained us to make, we found that the sum contributed by my family would have given us an income of £1200 a year in England and £2000 a year in India. I rejoice more, unspeakably more, in having thus devoted it to the cause of God than as though the whole sum lay by me at this moment.” How unjust those charges against the Serampore missionaries were, appears from the fact that up to 1826 they had expended on the work in India more.that £58,000, and had received from England only a little more than £10,000. The total amount contributed by them to the cause of missions has been estimated at little short of £80,000.
The ungenerous suspicions circulating throughout England were not allowed to slacken their labours in India, nor to stop the erection of the College which they were building on the Hoogly opposite to Barrackpore Park. The cost of the College buildings was £15,000, and this amount Dr Carey, Dr Marshman, and Mr Ward themselves contributed. Such was the work of the men who at this period were unceasingly regarded in England with suspicion and charged with greed and avarice !
They had now published translations of the New Testament in no fewer than twenty of the languages of India. The translation and printing and publication of so many versions was not effected without expense, not only of time and care, but also of money. And as the whole expenses of these as well as the erection of the College had fallen on the resources of the Serampore missionaries, they now found themselves involved in a state of financial embarrassment and of extreme difficulty. These words of Dr Carey explain the situation:—* The buildings of the College have completely drained us... . And our printing the Scriptures in the languages of India, on the faith of supplies from Britain, has involved us in such a state of debt as we never knew before, and in which we little expected to be left in our old age, after so many years’ exertion for the cause of God in India.”
In order to obtain some relief from this painful position they wrote in urgent terms to the Bible Society in London requesting help. It is to the great honour of the Bible Socicty that they nobly responded to this appeal, for they sent Dr Carey for the translation fund £3000, as well as a sum of £2000 which they had voted before his appeal reached them. Other amounts were also remitted to them by the Bible Society, and in this way they were extricated from their difficulties.
Literary labours for the government as well as in the compiling of lexicons in the Bootan and Bengali languages, now occupied much of Dr Carey's attention. But he successfully accomplished these tasks by the magic of method and by a cheerful temper.
A great loss was suffered by the mission through the death of Mr Ward on 7th March 1823: he died of cholera. Thus there was removed the first of the three Serampore brethren. In business talent, industry, and clear judgment he had been eminent. His labour for the mission had been unceasing. He never made an enemy.
An accident caused through Dr Carey’s foot slipping resulted in an illness of long duration, during the course of which the river burst its banks, covered the streets of Serampore, and in its encroachment utterly destroyed the house in which the invalid had been lying. The Home Committee, to their credit, treated the Serampore mission in a more generous way, and sent 41000 to repair the damage. It can scarcely be believed that the missionaries were thereafter publicly accused in Calcutta of having embezzled (!) £22, which the Home Society was sa‘d to have sent them. They applied to the Home Committee to exonerate them from this charge, but in reply received a letter declining to audit their accounts, and also declining to defend them from the charge of inconsistency. On receipt of this communication Dr Carey exclaimed, “Is this the reward of thirty-three years of labour, and of an entire sacrifice of all personal advantage for so long a period.”
This unkind feeling toward the mission continued to increase until on 15th March 1827 the Home Committee severed their connection with Serampore—a melancholy event.
These unhappy disputes between the Serampore missionaries and the Home Committee regarding the management of the mission and of the mission property, were largely the result of misunderstanding. But the memory of this breach of unity has well-nigh faded away, and no two opinions now exist as to the disinterestedness and whole-hearted devotion of Carey, Marshman, and Ward.
Meanwhile in India the mission was making the most gratifying progress, and the number of stations and of converts increased.
The year 1829 is that in which Suttecism in India was prohibited. Twenty-five years before this time Dr Carey had pleaded in vain that the government should do this ; but now Lord William Bentinck was Governor-general, and he determined that the burning alive of widows should be allowed no longer. A copy of the Act was sent to Dr Carey to be translated into Bengali. It was Sunday morning when he received it. Throwing off his coat he exclaimed: “No church for me to-day: if I delay an hour to translate and publish this, many a widow's life may be sacrificed.” The translation was finished and in the hands of the authorities before night.
Unhappily the financial embarrassment of the Serampore mission continued more or less to the end of Dr Carey’s life.
Forty years’ incessant labour in the exhausting climate of Bengal had brought much weakness with it. During those forty years he had never left the shores of India. Dreading to be useless as long as life endured, he continued to work
K even when scarcely able to sit at his desk. For several months before his death he could not rise from his couch.
“There is nothing remarkable in what I have done,” he said, “it has only required patience and perseverance.” “Indolence is my prevailing sin,” was his gratuitous self-condemnation.
“One passage of Scripture gives me great comfort,” he remarked. He was asked what passage? “That passage which says, ‘If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now I am sure I confess my sins, and if God forgives them and cleanses me from ai unrighteousness, what more can I desire?”
One of his last visitors was Rev. Alexander Duff of the Scotch mission in Calcutta, who conversed with him on the subject of his past life, and then prayed with him before leaving. Then the dying man whispered, “Mr Duff, you have been talking about Doctor Carey, Doctor Carey: when I am gone say nothing about Dr Carey,— speak about Dr Carey’s Saviour !”
He died on oth June 1834: he was in his seventy-third year. By his own directions the inscription on his tomb is in these words:
“WILLIAM CAREY, Born August 1761; Died 9th June 1834.”
**A wretched, poor, and helpless worm On Thy kind arms I fall.”
In a letter written years before the three Serampore missionaries give us these words of cheer :— “We are sure to take the fortress if we can persuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. And then, my dear brethren, when it shall be said of the scene of our labours: The infamous swinging post is no longer erected—the widow burns no more on the funeral pile—the obscene songs and dances are heard and seen no more—the gods are thrown to the moles and to the bats, and Jesus is known as the God of the whole land—the poor Hindoo goes no more to the Ganges to be washed from his filthiness, but to the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness—the temples are forsaken, and the crowd say, ‘Let us go up to the house of the Lord and He shall teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His statutes’—the anxious Hindoos no more consume their property, their strength and their lives in vain pilgrimages, but come at once to Him who can save to the uttermost—the sick and dying are no more dragged to the Ganges, but look to the Lamb of God, and commit their souls into His faithful hands—the children, no longer sacrificed to idols, are become ‘the seed of the Lord’—the public morals are improved —the language of Canaan is learned— benevolent societies are formed—civilization and salvation walk arm in arm together—the’ desert blossoms—the carth yields her increase, and redeemed souls from the different towns and villages and cities of this immense country constantly add to the number, and swell the chorus of the redeemed—‘ Unto Him that washed us from our sins in His own blood, unto Him be the glory’— when this grand result of the labours of God’s servants in India shall be realised, shall we then think that we have laboured in vain and spent our strength for nought ?”