“If anyone should think it worth his while to write my life, if he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”

So, who is this plodder and what did he achieve and why am I up here talking about him?

I am here because I opened my big mouth and suggested William Carey would be a good character to look at when David asked for suggestions at the last Home Group leaders meeting. Some of you know that 3 years ago, Steve and I went off to India for 3 months. For me, it was to visit again, for the first time, the place where I lived from an 8-month-old to a 10-year-old child. I of course had no idea of the history of the place – it was just a great place to be a child. I lived in part of a huge house where the dining room was large enough for me to ride my bike around, where my garden was the grounds of a college, with lots of other children to play with. We had great trees to climb and occasionally a visiting elephant would walk past the main gates along by the river. I had no idea that the college where my parents taught was the first University in Asia, or that the house I lived in was the home of the “Father of Modern Missions in the East.”

This plodder, William Carey, was born in 1761. England was at war with France and Spain. English soldiers were fighting in India. The spiritual and moral tone of England had been low. Religion had become a formality and there was great indifference to God. Then came the evangelical revival led by the Wesleys. Carey’s parents were poor weavers in a village in Northamptonshire, but they were Anglican Christians and led a simple life, which made a deep impression on William. His father then became a teacher in a village charity school and William became a diligent pupil. His love was plants and animals and after hearing his father talk about the new “British Museum” he built his own museum in his bedroom collecting allsorts. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker and there he met a fellow apprentice whose parents had left the Anglican church and had become non-conformists or dissenters. He would have heard John Wesley preaching and visited prayer meetings with his colleague. He knew that he needed more than head knowledge and at one of these meetings he knew God was calling him to a deeper commitment. Just to bring him back down to earth, he also fell in love with Dorothy, the daughter of an elder at one of these meetings.

It’s amazing what God and a woman together can make a man do!!

They married. Their first child, a girl, died at the age of 2. They lived in a village where he was a shoemaker and where he started preaching. He also opened a night school in his home for village children. By the age of 24 he was recognised as a Baptist minister and accepted to “preach wherever God in His providence might call him”.
He was invited to preach fortnightly at his childhood village and would walk 10 mls to do so. His father who was a devout Anglican could not go and hear a dissenter, but enjoyed hearing his neighbours speak well of Carey’s sermons.
As a teacher, he would take his students with him on imaginative journeys into far distant lands. He saw an advert in the Northampton Mercury for a world globe. He of course couldn’t afford one, but set about to make one, drawing maps onto the leather he had for shoes. He was intensely interested in Captain Cook’s travels to hidden Pacific lands and fed his desire to learn about the world from the foreign news in the weekly Northampton Mercury. His concern for the poor of the world grew and he began to set out a proposal for mission in other countries realising that there were many nations who could not read the Bible as it was not written in their own language. He dedicated himself to remove human suffering.

“Your window is always full of flowers Cobbler Carey" said a woman collecting shoes from his home. "How can you make them grow so plentifully?” “Perhaps Madam it is because I love them. Indeed they are a part of my life. God has given us the seeds and without them we could of course do nothing. But the good Lord leaves it to us to care for them as they grow.”

He was now the minister of a church in Leicester in his late 20’s, as well as continuing as a shoemaker, but the family were still poor – ministers of non-conformist churches were not paid and life was not easy – churches were being split by all sorts of heresies. At one point he dissolved church membership and would only re-admit those who were willing to live according to NT principles. (Food for thought there!).

Carey lived and preached mission. He wrote a pamphlet which set out his ideas for the formation of a mission society, but couldn’t afford to have it published. By now there were a group of 3 or 4 men with Carey and they tried to start a missionary society, but everyone said, “wait”. He was called to preach to a meeting of the Association of Baptist Ministers from Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire. They listened critically as he introduced his subject and then lifted it to the very gates of heaven with the words...

“Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.” It was an explosive sermon but by the next day the fire had died. “What can a mere handful of ministers accomplish?” 6 months later, 12 ministers, 1 student, and 1 layman caught the vision and “The Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathens” was formed. A businessman in Birmingham published Carey’s book, which was called the “most convincing missionary appeal ever written”.

During all this time, his family was growing and he had 3 sons and then another daughter, but she also died at the age of 2.

The land of India had now replaced Captain Cook’s Pacific lands in Carey’s thoughts and the Society supported his desire to go. He had met a medical missionary who was looking to start a mission in Bengal and they decided to go together. Easy………….NO…….what were the obstacles………

Dorothy and the family went to live with her sister Katherine. The Captain of the East India’s ship “Earl of Oxford” agreed to take Carey and Thomas to Calcutta despite them not having a permit. They set sail from London in April 1793, Carey was 32. They got as far as the Isle of Wight and the ship was stuck there for weeks, then months, waiting for a convoy to take it to India. During that time Carey was able to visit his family and see their new daughter, but also during that time the Captain got cold feet about taking them without a permit and eventually the ship left without them. They then found a Danish ship that would take them that would prove to be one of those “God-incidences”. Carey had his last meeting with Dorothy, trying to persuade her again, but they left without her. Carey was so overcome with grief that after a few miles walk, Dr.Thomas persuaded him to go back and try once more. This time it was God and a man working together and Dorothy said she would go, but only if her sister Katherine would go too. Within 24 hours, they were off to Dover. It took 5 months to reach Calcutta, due to fog in the Bay of Biscay, violent storms, being becalmed and then violent currents kept them 200 miles off Bengal for a whole month. I don’t know how his wife coped, but Carey wasted no time in learning Bengali from Dr. Thomas and he also shed his wig that he wore due to premature baldness. A minister friend had said of the man who made the wig “ Good Mr Wilson of Olney is an excellent Christian, but one of the ugliest wigmakers that ever was born" He threw it overboard – maybe his wife spent much of her time nagging him to do so – or maybe as one book put it - “ his decision to take this drastic action could have been due to the heat of the tropics, or maybe his wife took advantage of her captive audience. It could have been the result of a quiet word from her, claiming it to be her reward for being willing at last to go with him to India!!

The India they arrived at was mainly ruled by the British. In Bengal, the Dutch and Portuguese rule had all but disappeared, with the Dutch East India Company holding a few small territories around Calcutta. There had been a few mission attempts by individuals and the Danish Mission organised by the King of Denmark had a few workers in the area. As already mentioned, the British East India Company prevented missionary work in areas under their control.
The Calcutta they arrived at in November 1793 had a population of 200 thousand. (Darlington is about 120 thousand) and Calcutta today is about 12 million. It was a town with 1 main road and a great contrast of fine houses and squalid native quarters.

The first couple of months were dreadful. They had to go to a small Portuguese settlement a few miles from Calcutta where they rented a house and bought a boat to enable them to go and preach to villages down the river. The money soon ran out and Carey managed to get a job in Calcutta, working as the head gardener for the East India Company. He now had a proper job, so was tolerated, but couldn’t openly preach. Dr. Thomas set up as a surgeon. It was a hard start. The family were all ill with dysentery, they had no money and felt dejected, alone, harassed and perplexed. Carey felt his life was torn into worthless fragments but in January 1794 he wrote “towards evening I felt the all-sufficiency of God and the stability of His promises – I was able to roll my cares on Him.”

They moved several times, being offered land. One place was 300 miles away, by boat, which took 3 weeks in a small human powered boat in the glare of the May sun (about 110 degrees Fahrenheit) with only a straw canopy and mosquitoes for company. They went claiming God’s promise of protection from the cobras and tigers in the forests around them. He taught, preached and continued to learn the languages, as well as building a home from bamboo and grass, where he made a garden and grew vegetables. Some of the Indians began to return to the area because the white man had a gun and they had left because of the tigers. This is where Carey saw at first hand some of the horrific Hindu practises of self-torture and this increased his desire to master the language.

They moved again – another boat trip – where he wrote in his journal “ travelling with a family is a great hindrance to holy, spiritual meditation”, but accepted it as being part of his work. He became manager of an indigo factory. He was able to support his family now and put money aside for translating work. He had flowering shrubs and fruit trees sent out from England. The 1st season was good, but sadness came when his 5-year-old son Peter died of a fever.
Within his first year in India he had translated Genesis, Matthew, Mark and James into Bengali and was building up a book of Bengali vocabulary and grammar. He ministered to Europeans and founded a small Baptist Church.
Within 3 years his wife was mentally ill and he cared lovingly for her and his children, but still managed to translate the whole of the NT into Bengali.

2 years later the indigo factory closed after several seasons of droughts and floods and crop failure. So again, Carey had no money, but he refused to give up expecting great things and went on attempting more.

In 1799, 6 years after Carey had arrived, 5 new missionaries were sent out from The Society back in England. They were advised to land at a Danish settlement near Calcutta to save them from being sent straight back by the British, as they didn’t have permits. One of them died within 3 weeks, but the Danish authorities allowed them to settle and Carey made the difficult decision to move there. They were leaving all that they had started, Dorothy was mentally ill and no one had yet become a Christian, though he left a crowd of zealous European Christians to carry on the work. In January 1800, Carey landed at Serampore, 2 hours by river from Calcutta. This small Danish town was attractive and increasingly prosperous, with well ordered streets and a busy port with ships from many nations. There was a mix of Danes, Germans, British, French, Portuguese, Greeks and Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It was a mission field condensed into one centre.
The 6 missionary families decided to live as a community and bought a large house with room for services, a printing press and a school. They would set aside Saturday evenings for fellowship and prayer and for “frank discussion to settle differences”. The Danish Governor of Serampore allowed them to use his house for public worship on Sundays until the Danish Church was built in 1808. Carey became the pastor of the Baptist Church and fellow missionaries Marshman and Ward were deacons. They ran several successful boarding schools for Europeans and that brought in enough money to start a free school for local children. Another missionary fell to the fever and some taunted them saying “if God really sent you here to preach to us, why are 2 of your members dead already”.

But – by the end of 1800 they had their first convert, Krishna Pal. He faced persecution and had to have a soldier stationed outside his house as a mob of 2000 had gathered one night. On the last Sunday in 1800, Carey conducted his first baptism in the River Hooghly (one of the holy rivers in Hinduism) They had to explain they were using it not because it had any magical powers, but because – IT WAS THERE. Carey baptised in English, his eldest son and in Bengali, Krishna Pal. That evening, they conducted the first Bengali Communion service ever held. Other converts then followed, despite persecution and even death. The first Brahmin convert was baptised (the highest caste in Hinduism – a huge breakthrough) and the 1st Christian wedding was Krishna Pal’s daughter (who was from a lower caste) to this first Brahmin convert. We can’t really understand what this means, but even today with the caste system officially broken down, marrying someone from your own caste is hugely important.

By 1801 only Carey, Marshman and Ward were left – 3 of the original 7. The work continued and in 1803 they opened the first Sunday School in India.
Governor General Wellesley of Calcutta opened a new college in Calcutta for young civil servants sent out from England. These students would be potential rulers of India and Carey was invited to teach Bengali and Sanskrit – the ancient Hindu language. He could only be a lowly lecturer – you had to be an Anglican to be a professor! So with no special schooling or college training and no books, Carey had to create and compile grammar books for Bengali and Sanskrit. But it all served to make the mission acceptable and Carey and his fellow workers were no longer regarded as a potential danger to Bengal and they were given to protection of the flag of the British East India Company.
Carey was able to influence the Governor to make the Hindu practise of sacrificing children to the Holy River a heavy punishable crime, though it took him another 20 years to make ‘Sati’ illegal. 10 thousand widows each year would throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyres to please the gods.)

In his first year he was asked to give the principal college address in Sanskrit to the highest people in Calcutta, which included the future Duke of Wellington, aswell as Indian princes and all the learned and wealthy people of India. It was the 1st Sanskrit speech given by a European.

Within 3 years he was made a professor, tripling his salary, which he consecrated to the promotion of Christianity in India.
In 1809 the 1st Bengali OT was published.

1813 India became officially open to missionary enterprise.

People began to ask how 3 men could do so much translation work into so many languages and typically Carey replied “few people know what may be done ‘til they try and persevere in what they have undertaken.”

A typical Carey day started with private devotions and family prayers in Bengali with the household. A light breakfast at 6 was followed by translation work, then teaching from 10 till 2. More language work and study, then preaching for a couple of hours in English, making a Bengali translation, writing a letter or 2 and reading an evening message. He remained devoted to Dorothy and cared for her in her illness for 12 years. If he felt his work was depriving his sons of his personal time and attention, he would write them letters late at night.

As well as translating, printing and publishing the Bible in many Indian languages, he also translated many sacred Indian books.

The Serampore Printing Press was the first (and only for some time) of its kind for Oriental print in Asia.
In 1812 a fire destroyed virtually all the work, but they rejoiced that that the valuable punches of all the Indian languages were saved.

“The loss is heavy, but as travelling the road a second time however painful it might be, is usually done with greater ease and certainty, so I trust the work will lose nothing in real value. It was after the fire that Elijah heard the still small voice of God with him”

Carey stated that the re-written versions were greatly improved and by the time he died the complete Bible, Old and New Testaments and separate books of the bible had been published in 44 different languages and dialects.
Alongside all that, the Mission work was growing with 12 stations around Serampore and many workers.
The next big idea was to open a college. Carey was convinced that India could best be won for Christ by Indian people, but they would need further training. In 1818 they bought some land near the mission in Serampore and 37 students enrolled. 19 Christians, 14 Hindu and 4 no caste or religion. They studied religion, Eastern literature and Western science. The building was completed in 1821 and was voted “one of the noblest European buildings in Asia”. I learnt recently that much of the ironwork came from Middlesborough.

The King of Denmark granted a royal Charter to the College to award degrees and this made it the 1st University in Asia to offer degrees.

Carey had expected, attempted and was now experiencing the great things he had longed for.

It was still a hard life. Felix, his eldest son whom he had baptised, died at 36 and he was receiving news of the deaths of many relatives and friends back in England. He wrote
“Everything dear to me in England is now removed. Wherever I look I see a vast blank …however I never intended to return to England when I left it and I shall not do it –my heart is wedded to India and though I am of little use, I feel a pleasure in doing the little I can.”

In 1829, at the age of 68, early on a Sunday, as he was preparing to preach, he had a visitor, sent by the Governor of Calcutta, asking him to translate into Bengali the enclosed edict. As soon as he read it, he got someone else to preach and spent the day translating this edict which would abolish the practise of Sati. No widow should die on the funeral pyre of her husband because William Carey was too slow in translating the Edict which would save her. It was finished by the evening.

He kept his childhood passion for flowers and plants and the gardens at Serampore College became one of the finest botanical collections in Asia. Even this knowledge was used for the good of India. He was made President of the Agricultural Society of India and investigated for the Government various plans for the planting of new forests.

He married again, twice, both happy marriages that supported his work and his 3rd wife supported him through his old age.

He died with the latest 8th edition of the Bengali NT in his hand.

Jenny Bunning - July 2003