WILLIAM CAREY

[Pic. Index- Carey and his renowned Serampore College]

(I wrote this essay in participating in the Carey's Day Essay Competition last year; I should have won the first prize; but the Judges told me that I exceeded the limited words; otherwise...??? I was a bit exasperated after seeing the award winner's writings...@ndrewLfanai(c))

INTRODUCTION:

"Sit down, young man! When God pleases to convert the heathen,

He will do it without your aid or mine."

This was the response he received from the then Director, Mr. Ryland when young William Carey proposed in the meeting of ministers at Northampton: "The duty of Christians to attempt to spread the Gospel among heathen nations." This idea was then so strange that exclaimed: Not discouraged, Carey wrote a tract containing all the facts that he had gathered on his map. Slowly he got other ministers interested, and at another meeting he preached his great sermon—

"Expect Great Things from God.

Attempt Great Things for God"

His labour was blessed and at last, in 1792, in Kettering, a missionary society was formed. William Carey was one of God's giants in the history of evangelism! One of his biographers, F. Dealville Walker, wrote of Carey: "He, with a few contemporaries, was almost single-handed in conquering the prevailing indifference and hostility to missionary effort; Carey developed a plan for missions, and printed his amazing Enquiry; he influenced timid and hesitating men to take steps to the evangelizing of the world." Another wrote of him, "Taking his life as a whole, it is not too much to say that he was the greatest and most versatile Christian missionary sent out in modern times."

CAREY’S LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

William Carey, D.D. (1761-1834), orientalist and missionary, was born 17 August 1761 at Paulerspury, Northamptonshire, (England), where his father, Edmund Carey, kept a small free school, to the educational benefit of the boy. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Hackleton, and becoming religiously affected joined the Baptist connexion in 1783. In 1786 he was chosen minister of the Baptist congregation at Moulton. He had lately married, on so slender an income that meat was a rarity at his table. He was working at Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, chiefly with a view to the interpretation of the scriptures. After holding a ministry at Leicester from 1789 he joined in the movement which culminated in the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society, and was (with a Mr. Thomas) chosen to be the first Baptist missionary to India.

Carey and his family and colleague arrived in Bengal early in 1794, and speedily discovered that Calcutta was not the place for a needy missionary to live in. The small funds they had brought swiftly vanished, and absolutely destitute they set out in an open boat to seek for a refuge. They found it after a forty miles' voyage in the house of a Mr. Short, who afterwards married Mrs. Carey's sister. At first the missionary's intention was to make his living by farming; but on being offered the superintendence of Mr. Udney's indigo factory near Máldah he gladly accepted the post. His letters home at this period express his distress at the postponement of his evangelizing mission, owing to the difficulties presented by the various languages and dialects spoken in Bengal. Carey set himself with determination to overcome this obstacle. In 1795 he established a church near the factory, and there he preached in the vernacular.

After five years' work at Máldah, varied by journeys to Bhutan and Dínájpúr he moved south to the Danish settlement of Serampore, north of Calcutta, following the refusal of the East India Company to grant permission to reside in its territory to a party of BMS recruits who had just arrived in Bengal in 1800.[1] Three young[2] missionaries, together with their families arrived. A school and printing press were the first requisites, and a Bible in Bengali was at once put in hand and duly appeared, together with other versions of the scriptures, in Mahratta, Tamil; in altogether twenty-six languages, besides numerous philosophical works. The Serampore trio built up the work of Serampore to a level which attracted a widespread admiration in Britain and did much to popularize the idea of mission.[3] On December 28, 1800, Carey had the pleasure of baptizing his own son, Felix; then for the first time, the baptismal service was spoken in Bengali, as Krishna Pal thus publicly professed his faith in Christ. As the faithful missionaries continued their work, other natives were added to their Christian church; and opposition arose. But God definitely answered prayer and the enemy's plans were thwarted.

In 1801 Carey was appointed professor of Sanskrit, Bengáli, and Mahratta in the newly founded college of Fort William, and, continuing the pursuit of linguistics and proselytes, published a Mahratta grammar in 1805, and opened a mission chapel in Calcutta in the same year. There was, however, a strong feeling against over-zealous proselytizing as a political danger, and Carey was cautioned to abstain from preaching or distributing tracts for a while, although the government assured him that they were well satisfied with the character and deportment of his missionaries, against whom there were no complaints. In 1807 Mrs. Carey died, after having been violently insane for several years. In spite of her affliction, Carey's love and tenderness toward her never ceased. In spite of such official curbs the mission grew steadily, and in 1814 had twenty stations in India. Dr. Carey had now received the diploma of D.D. actively superintended the work of the mission and its press.

Besides the Indian versions of the scriptures, in which he took a vigorous part, he published grammars of Mahratta (1805), Sanskrit (1806), Punjábi (1812), Telinga (1814), Bhotanta (1826?); dictionaries of Mahratta (1810), Bengáli (1818, 3 vols. ; 2nd ed. 1825; 3rd ed. 1827-30), Bhotanta (1826), and had prepared materials for one of all Sanskrit-derived languages; but these were destroyed in a fire which occurred in 1812 at the press at Serampore. He also edited the 'Ramayana,' in 3 vols. 1806-10, and his friend Dr. Roxburgh's 'Flora Medica,' for he was an excellent botanist.

Through all the forty-one uninterrupted years of Carey's missionary career, his zeal was unabated. But at last his strength failed — the end was drawing near. After being weakened by many attacks of fever he was struck with apoplexy July 1833, and lingered in a feeble state till 9 June 1834. He was thrice married, and left three sons, one of whom was Felix Carey. The last resting-place of the venerable missionary was marked only by a simple epitaph of his own composing:

Wm. Carey

Born, August 17, 1761

Died, June 9, 1834

"A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,

On Thy kind arms I fall."

Forty-one years in India! Reader, the field still needs workers. And the promise is — "He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal." One of his fellow-missionaries wrote of him, "He is ripe for glory and already dead to all that belongs to life."

"Perhaps this is one of the strongest chains with which the devil ever bound the children of men. This is my comfort — that God can break it."

In Carey’s missionary programme, the opening of a charity school was given first priority. The contribution that William Carey and his associates- Joshua Marshman and Ward made towards spreading education through the medium of the Indian languages especially Bengali is laudable. In 1794, a charity school was established at Madnabatty with 40 boys. He had written to his son, “One of the first things to be done will be to open a charity school”. Now, this dream has been realized.[4]. In 1800, a Bengali school was established and the number of schools established by mission eventually rose to 111 with about 10,000 students. The curriculum of these schools included Oriental languages and philosophy in conjunction with western science.[5]
 

Education for Girls was emphasis. At that time in India, girls were not sent to school at all. The Serampore missionaries were sensitive to the lack of female education in this very conservative society. They started to encourage girls to come forward and join the school for education. In 1809 the Serampore missionaries established benevolent institutions in Calcutta where Charity schools for girls and boys were established and there was no restriction to admissions in these schools. By 1830, they had established 23 schools for girls with 582 female students.

Carey’s also written a Multi-lingual dictionary which was written in the style of the celebrated Sanskrit dictionary entitled as Amarkosh. Carey drew up a manuscript of a multilingual dictionary of 13 Indian languages.

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[1] B. Stanley, “William Carey” in Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, Ed. Timothy Larsen (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2003), 118-121.

[2] The new missionaries were Joshua Marshman and William Ward, whose names will always be associated with that of Carey.

[3] B. Stanley, “William Carey…, 118-121.

[4] Malay Dewanji, William Carey and the Indian Renaissant (New Delhi: ISPCK, 1996), 45.

[5] Malay Dewanji, William Carey and the Indian …46.