Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Professor
March 5, 1801, was a day no one at the Serampore mission house would forget. As individual Gospels had been typeset, they had been printed as single volumes; but this day, the first complete New Testament in Bengali rolled off the printing press. The beautiful black, leather-bound book was placed on the communion table in the chapel, and the entire community gathered to offer prayers of thanks for it.
No one was more thankful than William Carey. The New Testament represented eight years of his labor, not to mention fifteen months of labor by the team of printers and binders who worked under William Ward in the printshop. Although it was a wonderful day of celebration, no one in the chapel had any idea the role that the Bengali New Testament would play in saving the mission.
Far away on the other side of the world, Europe was in an uproar. The war between the English and the French had been dragging on for years. In addition, French leader Napoleon Bonaparte had led his army to victory over a number of European countries. Frustrated at what was happening in Europe, and by their ships continually being attacked, the British had claimed the right to search all ships at sea to look for pirates and privateers. Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark had joined forces to form an alliance called the Armed Neutrality of the North to resist British attempts to search their ships. The British, however, were convinced the Armed Neutrality of the North was plotting with the French to destroy their navy. Tensions between the two sides steadily grew.
In India, however, news of such events was slow in coming, and things continued as usual. As soon as more Bengali New Testaments were bound, William would send a copy to each person who had subscribed to the work of the printshop and to other important people who had taken an interest in the work of the mission. A copy was sent to the king of Denmark with a letter thanking him for his protection in Serampore. Another copy was sent to King George III of England, and yet another copy to the Reverend Brown in Calcutta. It was this particular copy of the New Testament that was used to save the work of the mission.
In Calcutta, changes had been taking place. The governor-general, Lord Wellesley, was an intelligent man who had become very concerned about the young clerks being sent to India from England. These clerks were the sons of wealthy English families, but they were being sent out as young as fifteen years of age, usually before they’d had a chance to start, let alone finish, university.
Once these young clerks arrived in India, they were given jobs that took only a few hours a day to complete. They were paid well for their labor and had servants to cook, clean, and keep house for them. As a result, they tended to become very lazy, since there was little left for them to do in their spare time but engage in horse racing, gambling, drinking parties, and secret meetings with Indian women. These young clerks were also promoted regularly as the men over them either retired and returned to England or died from tropical diseases. In time, a fifteen-year-old clerk could be promoted to a judge or other high-ranking official, even though he had no special training for such a position. The young men had little understanding of the culture and language of the people they were ruling over, and this led to many misunderstandings.
Lord Wellesley had a solution to the problem. He suggested that instead of starting work upon their arrival in India, the clerks go to college for two years. During this time, they would learn the history and geography of India as well as the country’s culture and several of its languages. Not only would the new clerks have a chance to “grow up,” but the college professors would have a chance to get to know the young clerks and could recommend for important jobs those who they thought had the most potential. It seemed like a great idea, except to the directors of the East India Company. The directors argued against the college. Not only would it cost them money, but they could see no point in worrying whether the Indian people were happy with their English overlords. What mattered was trade.
Lord Wellesley argued that it did matter. Those who were rude and lazy as clerks were even more rude and lazy as they gained power; and in the end, such leaders would cause the Indians to rebel. Thus, Lord Wellesley used his power as governor-general and ordered a college for clerks to be established.
In 1800, Fort William College opened with the Reverend Brown as its provost (principal). The new college was modeled after Oxford and Cambridge universities in England and had one hundred young Englishmen from Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras enrolled.
When the college was opened, Lord Wellesley was not aware of a single European in all of India who knew enough Bengali or Sanskrit to teach the new clerks. However, the Reverend Brown showed him the copy of the Bengali New Testament he had received from William Carey. As the governor-general thumbed through its pages, the two men talked and agreed that perhaps there was one European in India capable of teaching these languages after all.
William Carey read the letter that had been hand-delivered to him by a servant of the Reverend Brown. “Me, a lecturer at Fort William College!” he said aloud to himself before bursting into laughter. Then he added, “The Reverend Mr. Brown must have forgotten I’ve never been to college myself. As soon as I remind him, he’ll know I’m not the man he is looking for.”
William’s education had consisted of attending the church school his father ran, and then only until he was twelve years old. From that time on, he had worked and never had another day of formal education. Yes, he was an ordained minister, but while Anglican ministers like the Reverend Brown had to go to college to be ordained, Baptist ministers did not.
Not wanting to seem ungrateful for the invitation, William decided to row one of the mission boats down to Calcutta and explain the misunderstanding to the Reverend Brown in person. When he arrived, he was surprised to find that the Reverend Brown already knew that he had no formal education other than his time attending the church school in Paulerspury. The Reverend Brown told William that he was the one man in India who knew the customs and the language of the people well enough to teach them to others. Many other Europeans had been in India much longer than he had, but they had lived in the pampered world of servants and upper-class English society and had little idea of, or interest in, the Indian people. William, on the other hand, spoke their language, read their literature, and knew how to talk meaningfully with the people. Given this, the Reverend Brown was convinced that William was the man to teach Bengali and Sanskrit at the new college. William, though, was not so sure, but he promised to talk to his fellow missionaries about the invitation.
“What a wonderful opportunity,” announced Joshua Marshman when William told him about his visit with the Reverend Brown.
Finally, after several days of thought and prayer, William decided to accept the invitation. The man who had left school at age twelve was about to take charge of the Language Department at Fort William College!
William Carey’s acceptance of the position happened just in the nick of time, because four days later, in the middle of the night on May 8, 1801, British troops crept into Serampore and captured it without a single shot being fired. The next morning, all Europeans in Serampore were summoned to King’s House and informed that news had just reached India that the British navy under Admiral Nelson had fought and defeated the Danish fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen. (The battle actually occurred in April, but it took a month for the news to travel overland to India.) Britain and Denmark were officially at war with each other, and as part of the war, Serampore had been captured and occupied. The Danish flag was lowered and the Union Jack hoisted in its place. Serampore was officially declared British territory, and the Danish governor was jailed as a prisoner of war.
It had been only eighteen months since the missionaries had fled to Serampore to avoid being arrested by the British and returned to England. Now because of a war in Europe, they were once again living in British territory. They had no more protection from being arrested and deported to England, except for one thing: The leader of their mission was the newest appointee to the staff of Fort William College, Lord Wellesley’s pet project. To their surprise, there was no longer any talk about rounding up the missionaries and sending them home. As long as William taught at the college, they were all welcome to stay in India!
Even though he was the head of the Language Department at the college, William was given the title of tutor. Since it was a government position and he did not belong to the Church of England, he could not be given the title professor. The job did come with some benefits, however. William had a room to live in, free food from the dining room, and a salary of five hundred rupees, or about sixty-five pounds, per month.
When the Serampore mission house was first opened, it had been agreed that all the money each person earned would go into a common account. William gladly turned over to the group the money he earned. Much of it was spent buying paper and employing more Indians to assist William Ward and Felix in the print shop.
Soon William had developed a routine that suited him well. On Monday evening, just before the sun set, he would row down the river to Calcutta. He would stay there and teach until Friday evening, when he would row back up the river to see his family and spend time preaching in Serampore. While he was away during the week, William Ward watched over the two older Carey boys. Felix was William Ward’s full-time printing assistant, and thirteen-year-old William Jr. worked after school in the Bindery Department. Eight-year-old Jabez and five-year-old Jonathan were under the firm but kind care of Hannah Marshman, who also watched over Dolly Carey when William was gone. By now, Dolly was completely deranged and had to be confined to her room.
The war between Britain and Denmark was soon over, and six months after they had captured it, the British handed Serampore back to the Danish government.
At the same time, the mission continued to grow. Krishna Pal’s wife and daughters found the courage to be baptized, as did Gokul’s wife. Thousands of gospel tracts were printed and given away, and many Hindus who did not feel comfortable talking to Europeans, silently made their way to Krishna Pal’s home in the late evening to talk to him about Christianity.
There were some sad times in the mission too. In July 1801, Daniel Brunsdon died following a short illness, and just three months later, Dr. Thomas died. William mourned both deaths. Although Dr. Thomas had been difficult to work with, he had been the one who inspired William to go to India, and he had also played a vital role in winning their first Hindu converts to Christianity. Despite his erratic behavior, Dr. Thomas had been loyal to the end and generous to the mission, though he did leave behind a lot of debt!
William worried. There was so much to do, and now so few missionaries to do it. He tried to think of a way to have a “backup” for each of the remaining missionaries. That way, if one of the other missionaries died suddenly, the backup person could step in and take over his responsibilities. But William needn’t have worried. The three surviving men, William Ward, Joshua Marshman, and William Carey himself, would all remain in excellent health for the next twenty-three years! The men worked together so well that they became known in Europe and North America as the “Serampore Triad.”
By the end of 1801, more Hindus had been converted, the group enjoyed the protection of the British and Danish flags, copies of the Bengali New Testament were continuing to roll off the press, the missionary community was stable, and William had a job that allowed him to meet with some of the most powerful people in India. And of course, he always used such meetings to push for the spread of the gospel message throughout India.
One of the men William got to know well through his new position was Lord Wellesley. As governor-general, Lord Wellesley took his responsibility to rule British India seriously. For some time, he had been considering the practice of sati. The question was whether he should ban the practice altogether? Many high-caste Hindus told him that their sacred writings demanded that a widow die beside her husband. Others, though, told him privately that the shastras did not say that at all. Because Lord Wellesley didn’t know whom to believe, he turned to the one man he knew he could trust to give him an honest and complete answer—William Carey.
William spent many months researching the practice of sati, and in the end came to the conclusion that while it was suggested in the shastras, it was never actually commanded that a widow be burned with her dead husband. He gave his report to the governor-general and added a report on another practice that had bothered him for a long time—infanticide. In particular, the practice was carried out on the island of Saugor, in the mouth of the Ganges River, where live babies were thrown into the river to be devoured by crocodiles as a form of human sacrifice. William hoped that Lord Wellesley would act to outlaw both sati and infanticide.
The governor-general studied both reports closely, and in 1802, he issued a law banning infanticide. When it came to sati, however, he was under mounting pressure from Hindus not to ban the practice. So while he disagreed with it, he allowed it to continue.
Meanwhile, William’s reputation as a teacher grew each year. In 1806, the rules of the college were changed so that the title of professor could be bestowed on him. His salary was doubled to go along with the new title!
The next year, 1807, was mostly a happy one for William. His son William Jr. became an ordained Baptist minister. William Jr. married and moved upriver to Malda to be a missionary to the workers involved in the indigo dye industry. As the year drew to a close, though, there was sadness. On December 7, Dolly Carey died after a short illness. Most outsiders thought that William would be secretly relieved, since she had been such a burden to him for so long. But William grieved for her. He had always loved his wife. When people had urged him to put Dolly in an institution for insane people, he’d always refused, saying that no matter what happened, she was his wife and the mother of his children and he would keep her with him till the end.
Because Dolly Carey had been such a burden to her husband, there was a lot of concern six months later when William announced that he and Charlotte Rumohr were to be married. Charlotte was the Danish countess who lived in the house next door and who had taken an active interest in the work of the mission since the early days when Krishna Pal had been baptized.
Everyone in the community loved Charlotte, a bright and kind woman. There was just one problem: She was partially crippled. When she was fifteen years old, the castle where she lived with her family had caught on fire. Charlotte had awakened to find her bedchamber filled with smoke. Instead of escaping the fire, she had run through the flames to awaken her parents. As a result, everyone escaped alive, but Charlotte’s legs had been so badly burned she was not able to walk much after that. Her lungs had also been damaged by the smoke, and sometimes she found it difficult to talk.
Despite people’s concerns that Charlotte would be another burden on him, William went ahead with the wedding. Lady Charlotte Emelia Rumohr became the second Mrs. Carey. The two were very happy together. Charlotte had a mind that was as brilliant as William’s, and she spoke seven languages herself. She was a great help to her new husband in his translation work.
Charlotte helped the mission in other ways. She donated her house to the mission school and rented out another of her properties to support Indian preachers who were being sent out from Serampore into the surrounding countryside to spread the gospel message. Although she spent much of her day lying on a couch, she took an active interest in all that was going on around her. William often turned to her for advice and comfort, something he would need a lot of very soon.