Chapter 6
Chapter 6
I Will Go
William Carey turned the envelope over in his hands. He squinted to read the tiny handwriting on it. It was from a Dr. John Thomas, and it was postmarked London. As he slit the envelope open, William tried to think of any connection he had with someone in London. He had never been there himself and couldn’t think of anyone he knew there.
William pulled out the letter and began to read. As he read, he got more and more excited. Dr. Thomas had just spent four years in the Bengal region of India. He had originally gone to India as a ship’s doctor for the East India Company. While in Calcutta, he had become a Christian, and soon after that he was so overcome with both the spiritual and medical needs of the Indian people that he left his ship and stayed on to work among the people. He had made friends with several English Christians there who had given him money to keep on doing what he was doing. But finally the money had run out, and Dr. Thomas had returned to England to raise more so that he could return to the Bengal region. When he arrived in London, a friend had told him about William Carey and the new missionary society.
Was it possible that God had sent them their very first missionary so soon? William wondered as he read. By the time he had finished the letter, he could hardly wait for the next meeting of the missionary society committee to share its contents with the others.
The members of the committee were as impressed with the letter as William had been. Andrew Fuller was given the job of writing to Dr. Thomas and inviting him to attend their next committee meeting in Kettering. The meeting was to be held on January 10, 1793.
Dr. Thomas, who had accepted the invitation, was late, so the meeting started without him. Finally, as the meeting was drawing to a close, there was a knock on the door. William rushed to answer it, wanting to be the first one to greet a real missionary. He shook Dr. Thomas’s hand heartily, noting that the doctor looked only about five years older than himself and was a good six inches taller.
Within minutes, William felt as if he and Dr. Thomas were old friends. Dr. Thomas was as passionate about sharing the gospel message with the heathen as William was. The evening sped by.
William, who had written the longest and most researched missionary book of its time, had many questions to ask this real missionary. How much money did it take to keep a family in India? Did Dr. Thomas speak the Bengali language? Did he have some of the language written down so that they could see what it looked like? How many Indians could understand English? What Christian literature was already published in their native languages? How many converts had Dr. Thomas made? How much would it cost to build a humble mud and straw cottage in India? The questions went on and on, and with each answer, William became more excited and more inspired.
Finally, Dr. Thomas pulled a letter from his pocket and read a portion of it. It was from three high-ranking Brahmins (members of India’s scholar caste) to whom he had been preaching. The Brahmins had written: “Have compassion on us and send us preachers, and such as will do translation work.”
As William heard these words, he felt like his heart would burst. He knew that God had given him a gift for understanding languages quickly, and here were heathen people begging for someone to translate the Bible for them. At that moment, William Carey knew he must go to India.
After putting the letter back in his pocket, Dr. Thomas continued, his voice raised with excitement. “An Englishman should not have any difficulty finding a suitable job within three months of arriving. A man can meet his own expenses and the expenses of his family and still have some left over to use in preaching.”
This was what William had been waiting to hear. In his book, Enquiry, he had suggested that missionary societies should pay for the missionaries’ passage to a foreign land as well as their setup costs when they arrived. As quickly as possible, however, the missionaries should find jobs and become able to support themselves. Now a real missionary was standing in front of him suggesting that this approach was possible in India.
“What is it you desire of us?” Andrew Fuller finally asked Dr. Thomas.
“If you will pay the way for me, my wife, and my daughter and meet our expenses for the first year, I will go back to Bengal and continue the work I began.”
Every head in the room nodded.
“And one more thing,” Dr. Thomas added. “If a suitable companion could be found to go with me, together we could do a lot more than I could alone.”
William Carey could feel his heart beating loudly in his chest. He was the suitable companion; he knew it. He stood firmly to his feet. “I will go,” he announced.
All eyes turned to him.
“I will go,” he repeated.
“Yes. Go! There is a gold mine of souls to be dug for in India,” said Andrew Fuller, rushing over to shake his friend’s hand.
“I will go down the mine,” William replied seriously, “if you will all hold the ropes for me.”
It was a solemn moment. William looked carefully from Andrew Fuller to John Sutcliff and then to John Ryland. Each man knew exactly what William meant. If he was to go to India, he would have to be able to count on them 100 percent to support him. The three men gathered around William and made him a promise. “I pledge to support you, no matter what happens, until the day I die,” each one repeated in turn. Right then and there, the course for the rest of William Carey’s life was set. He knew there would be no turning back.
William and Dr. Thomas talked far into the night. By the time they parted ways the following morning, their plans were firm. They would leave for India around April 1, in about three months. This would give them time to raise the money they needed. Dr. Thomas explained to William that it would take about five months to get to India, and if they didn’t start the journey before mid-May, the winds would be blowing in the wrong direction.
As William hiked back through the country lanes to his home in Leicester, he began wondering what other people would think of his decision. Would they understand? What would Dolly say? She had never been more than thirty miles from the cottage where she was born. Neither had William, for that matter, but unlike him, Dolly had no spirit for adventure. Everything made her nervous. And then there was the matter of her latest pregnancy. Dolly Carey was expecting another baby. It was due in May, which William knew meant that the child would be born at sea. Thank goodness, Dr. and Mrs. Thomas would be on board to help if anything went wrong.
Then there was his father. What would he say? He was still a clerk in the Church of England, and William didn’t think his father would be one bit impressed with what he was about to do. And his congregation. How would the members of the Harvey Lane Baptist Church react when they heard the news? Under William’s leadership, the church had left its troubled past behind and was growing rapidly. In fact, the church had just built a new gallery to provide extra seating for all the people who had joined the church.
As William walked, he prayed about these things. He knew beyond a doubt that God had called him to go halfway around the world to India. He just hoped that the people he loved most in the world would understand.
“What a wild idea!” screamed Dolly when her husband announced the news. “How can you think of me going to India when I have a baby on the way? God have mercy, is there not enough for you to do in England? And think of the boys. Felix, William, Peter, all those native diseases. I’ve buried two children, and it would be the death of me to lose another.” Tears of despair flowed down her cheeks, but she was not finished. “And the voyage, in a little boat out on that great big ocean. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. It’s cruel of you to even suggest it.”
William reached out to take her hand. Although she had never seen the ocean, he knew how much she feared it.
“We must leave it in God’s hands,” he said soothingly.
“In God’s hands, indeed!” his wife snapped back angrily, pulling her hand away. “I will not go, and that’s final. If you want to leave us all behind, you can go alone. That’s all I have to say about it.”
William Carey sighed deeply. He knew from experience that it would be almost impossible to change his wife’s mind. Still, it was not too unusual for eighteenth-century men to leave their wives and families for long periods. Some men went to war, others searched for gold, and men like Captain Cook were away for years at a time exploring. Surely, going to share the gospel message with those who had never heard it before was a more noble reason to go alone than any of these other reasons, William comforted himself.
Next, it was time to tell his father of his plans. The following Saturday, William sat down and wrote him the following letter:
Leicester, January 17, 1793
Dear and honored father,
The importance of spending our time for God alone is the principal theme of the gospel. I beseech you, brethren, says Paul, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. To be devoted like a sacrifice to holy uses is the great business of a Christian….
I consider myself as devoted to the service of God alone and now I am to realize my professions. I am appointed to go to Bengal in the East Indies, a missionary to the Hindoos [sic]…. I have many sacrifices to make, I must part with a beloved family and a number of most affectionate friends…but I have set my hand to the plough.
I remain your dutiful son,
W. Carey
It was just as well William sent the letter rather than deliver the news in person. His sister Polly later told him that their father had been very angry when he read the letter and had yelled, “Has William gone mad? How can a person who has to keep out of the midday sun in England hope to survive in the tropics? And what about his wife and children?” Edmund Carey no doubt was also thinking that if William went through with his scheme, he may never see his son again. He was right.
The following Sunday, William decided it was time to tell his congregation of his plans. After all, he told himself, if he did not tell them soon, someone else would, since news was getting around. It was with a heavy heart that William broke the news to his congregation. The next day he wrote in his journal, “Never did I see such sorrow manifested as reigned through our place of worship last Lord’s day.”
Over the next several weeks, though, the church came to accept the news. The members of the congregation had been praying for several years that God would send missionaries to the heathen, and now they understood that their church was being asked to make the first sacrifice. While they were losing a pastor they loved very much, they were gaining a missionary. Soon they began to get excited about the whole venture.
Dolly Carey, however, did not change her position at all. William’s two friends, John Sutcliff and Andrew Fuller, both walked to Leicester to beg her to reconsider, but she would not. Finally, William had to face the fact that he would be going to India without her. His new plan was to set up a mission base somewhere in the Bengal region, and when he had a nice house and garden, he would come back for his family. He thought this would take him three or four years to accomplish. He was hopeful that by then, Dolly would have adjusted to the idea of going to India. Still, the thought of leaving his family behind was an awful one for William. Finally, he persuaded Dolly to let him take eight-year-old Felix along. That way he would have at least one family member with him.
The next question was what to do with Dolly Carey, the other two boys, and the new baby during the years William would be away. Since William would no longer be the pastor of the church, Dolly would not be able to continue living in the church manse, and she had no way of supporting herself. The missionary society agreed to support her, and Dolly decided to move in with her sister Kitty, who lived in Piddington.
While it was generous of the society to offer to look after William’s family while he was gone, in reality it didn’t have the money to do it. The entire society had only eighty-eight pounds in the bank.
On top of supporting Dolly and the family, the society had to have money to pay for William, Felix, and the three members of the Thomas family to get to India and establish themselves. Altogether, the society needed over five hundred fifty pounds, a huge amount at that time. William felt the only way to raise that kind of money was to involve every Baptist church in England. But how could they do that?
Finally, it was decided that William, Dr. Thomas, and Andrew Fuller would spend several weeks on a speaking tour of the country trying to convince people of the need for missionaries. The men would sell copies of Enquiry and ask their audiences to pledge money to the cause. It was something that had never been done before, and no one was sure whether it would work. The truth was, sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. In Birmingham, the speakers received a warm welcome and the promise of two hundred pounds to help their cause.
In the town of Bath, it was a different story. The offering in Bath netted exactly one penny! Dr. Thomas couldn’t believe that the people of Bath were so uncaring about missions. At the end of the meeting, he stood to his feet and announced, “Thank you for coming to listen to us. Your financial contribution of one penny will be gratefully recorded in the mission society’s ledger, alongside the gifts of other towns.”
A murmur rolled through the crowd. The people were embarrassed. How could they allow other towns to know they had given only a penny to the new missionaries? Someone grabbed the offering basket and sent it around for a second offering. This time there was a much more generous twenty-pound pledged, and the one penny from Bath was never recorded in the ledger.
In London, none of the Baptist churches would support them. The ministers there held many meetings to discuss the issue, but in the end, they decided it was God’s job to reach the heathen, not theirs. Besides, there was a lot of work to be done in England, and it seemed ridiculous to them that someone would want to make such a dangerous journey just to share the gospel message.
Despite the setback in London, William Carey enjoyed his trip throughout England. On horseback and on foot, he and his companions traveled several hundred miles. Along the way, William saw for the first time things he’d only read or heard about. He stood on the seashore and looked out across the frigid North Sea. He had tried to imagine all his life what the sea must be like, and now he was seeing it. He went to London and crossed the River Thames and saw the Tower of London. The things he saw were more amazing than he’d imagined. But more than all these sights, William enjoyed the trip because it gave him the opportunity to share in person with thousands of people, both in large churches and in small cottages, his ideas about the need for missionaries.
At a meeting in Hull, William met a young man who greatly impressed him by the name of William Ward. After the meeting was over, William Ward stayed behind to talk to William Carey. He told how he was a printer who worked for the local newspaper. William’s mind whirled as he heard this. He thought of Dr. Thomas’s letter from the Brahmins about the need for translation work, and his eyes lit up. “If God blesses us, we will be needing someone like you in India to help us print the Scriptures. I hope you will consider joining us in three or four years,” he told William Ward.
The two men shook hands, and William Carey left for his next meeting, but the young printer never forgot the conversation. He and William Carey were destined to meet again.
After several weeks of traveling throughout England, the trio had raised enough money to pay for five passages to India, outfit the men, and keep Dolly Carey and the boys for one year. There was even some money left over to buy a trunkful of metal goods to sell when they arrived in India.
Dr. Thomas had convinced William and the rest of the committee that the money raised from the sale of the metal goods would be enough to keep them all for at least a year. However, during the time they had been out raising the money for their voyage, two important events had occurred. The first event had to do with France. The French had declared war on England and Holland again. This meant that the seas around Great Britain were filled with French pirate ships, or privateers, as they were called. With the permission of the French government, these ships waited to attack and prey on British ships leaving port. Many captains feared for their lives as they set out from English ports. It was a dangerous time to be flying the English flag on the open sea.
The second event was even more important because it meant that even if the ship carrying William and the Thomases got safely past the privateers and made it to India, when they got there they would not be welcome. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I had given a group of wealthy businessmen a charter to establish a company that would be the exclusive English agency for trade with India. The company was called the East India Company, and it was soon the world leader in the export of calico, indigo dye, cotton, silk, spices, and tea. In 1793, a bill to extend the East India Company’s charter was before the British Parliament. However, a growing number of people in England believed that the British had an obligation to help civilize the native peoples in far-off lands. These people began asking Parliament to allow teachers and even missionaries to go to India to aid in the process.
Up to this point, as part of its charter, the East India Company had the authority to say who would be issued permits to enter India and who would not, and it issued permits only to merchants and government officials. And that was how the company wanted things to stay. The last thing it needed was teachers and missionaries meddling in Indian affairs. Who knew what might happen if the Indian people started hearing about such things as freedom and independence! It was in the best interests of the East India Company to keep the local people ignorant of such ideas. That way, the people would keep working hard and not ask questions. Thus, the powerful businessmen who ran the East India Company set about persuading Parliament not to listen to the arguments of those who wanted to “meddle” in Indian affairs, and instead pass a bill extending the company’s charter unchanged. That is precisely what Parliament did.
This was bad news for the first ever Baptist missionaries, who knew there was no way they would be granted a permit to enter India; and if they entered illegally, they could be fined and put in jail. The problem bothered William and Dr. Thomas for some time. What were they to do? Then Dr. Thomas came up with an idea. He had been a ship’s doctor aboard the Earl of Oxford, and he was still good friends with the ship’s captain. Dr. Thomas persuaded Captain White to take the group to India without a permit. Once they got there, they would have to find some way to stay.
William was not happy with the plan. Yet he had to admit that there seemed no other way around the East India Company’s rules. He decided to seek the advice of a man he’d heard a lot about, the Reverend John Newton. Newton had been the captain of a slave ship before becoming a Christian and was now a well-known minister.
William explained the situation to John Newton and asked what he should do if the authorities in India wouldn’t let him land without a permit. The Reverend Newton answered, “Then conclude that your God has nothing there for you to accomplish. But if He has, no power on earth can hinder you.”
William was very encouraged by these words. “No power on earth can hinder you,” he would repeat often to himself. If God wanted him to get to India, no power on earth was going to stop him!
On April 4, 1793, just three months after their first meeting, William Carey, his son Felix, and Dr. and Mrs. Thomas and their four-year-old daughter, Eliza, stood side by side on the deck of the Earl of Oxford as she sailed from London down the River Thames and out into the North Sea. At thirty-one years of age, William Carey was finally on his way to the mission field—or so he had every reason to believe!