William Carey
Encyclopedia
William Carey was an English
Baptist
missionary
and a Reformed Baptist
minister, known as the "father of modern missions." Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society
. As a missionary in the Danish
colony, Serampore
, India
, he translated the Bible
into Bengali
, Sanskrit
, and numerous other languages and dialects.
in Northamptonshire
. William was raised in the Church of England
; when he was six, his father was appointed the parish clerk and village schoolmaster. As a child he was naturally inquisitive and keenly interested in the natural sciences, particularly botany
. He possessed a natural gift for language, teaching himself Latin
.
At the age of 14, Carey’s father apprenticed him to a shoemaker in the nearby village of Hackleton
, Northamptonshire. His master, Clarke Nichols, was a churchman like himself, but another apprentice, John Warr, was a Dissenter
. Through his influence Carey would eventually leave the Church of England and join with other Dissenters to form a small Congregational church
in Hackleton. While apprenticed to Nichols, he also taught himself Greek
with the help of a local villager who had a college education.
When Nichols died in 1779, Carey went to work for another local shoemaker, Thomas Old; he married Old’s sister-in-law Dorothy Plackett in 1781. Unlike William, Dorothy was illiterate; her signature in the marriage register is a crude cross. William and Dorothy Carey had seven children, five sons and two daughters; both girls died in infancy, as well as their son Peter, who died at the age of 5. Old himself died soon afterward, and Carey took over his business, during which time he taught himself Hebrew
, Italian
, Dutch
, and French
, often reading while working on his shoes.
that had recently formed, where he became acquainted with men such as John Ryland, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller
, who would become his close friends in later years. They invited him to preach in their church in the nearby village of Earls Barton every other Sunday. On 5 October 1783, William Carey was baptized by Ryland and committed himself to the Baptist denomination.
In 1785, Carey was appointed the schoolmaster for the village of Moulton
. He was also invited to serve as pastor to the local Baptist church. During this time he read Jonathan Edwards' Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd
and the journals of the explorer James Cook
, and became deeply concerned with propagating the Christian Gospel
throughout the world. His friend Andrew Fuller had previously written an influential pamphlet in 1781 titled "The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation", answering the hyper-Calvinist belief then prevalent in the Baptist churches, that all men were not responsible to believe the Gospel. At a ministers' meeting in 1786, Carey raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the world. J. R. Ryland, the father of John Ryland, is said to have retorted: "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine." However, Ryland's son, John Ryland Jr., disputes that his father made this statement.
In 1789 Carey became the full-time pastor of a small Baptist church in Leicester
. Three years later in 1792 he published his groundbreaking missionary manifesto, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. This short book consists of five parts. The first part is a theological justification for missionary activity, arguing that the command of Jesus to make disciples of all the world (Matthew
28:18-20) remains binding on Christians. The second part outlines a history of missionary activity, beginning with the early Church and ending with David Brainerd and John Wesley
. Part 3 comprises 26 pages of tables, listing area, population, and religion statistics for every country in the world. Carey had compiled these figures during his years as a schoolteacher. The fourth part answers objections to sending missionaries, such as difficulty learning the language or danger to life. Finally, the fifth part calls for the formation by the Baptist denomination of a missionary society and describes the practical means by which it could be supported. Carey's seminal pamphlet outlines his basis for missions: Christian obligation, wise use of available resources, and accurate information.
Carey later preached a pro-missionary sermon (the so-called Deathless Sermon
), using Isaiah
54:2-3 as his text, in which he repeatedly used the epigram which has become his most famous quotation: Carey finally overcame the resistance to missionary effort, and the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen (subsequently known as the Baptist Missionary Society and since 2000 as BMS World Mission) was founded in October 1792, including Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, and John Sutcliff as charter members. They then concerned themselves with practical matters such as raising funds, as well as deciding where they would direct their efforts. A medical missionary, Dr. John Thomas, had been in Calcutta and was currently in England raising funds; they agreed to support him and that Carey would accompany him to India.
, at which time the captain of the ship received word that he endangered his command if he conveyed the missionaries to Calcutta, as their unauthorized journey violated the trade monopoly
of the British East India Company
. He decided to sail without them, and they were delayed until June when Thomas found a Danish captain willing to offer them passage. In the meantime, Carey's wife, who had by now given birth, agreed to accompany him provided her sister came as well. They landed at Calcutta in November.
During the first year in Calcutta, the missionaries sought means to support themselves
and a place to establish their mission. They also began to learn the Bengali language to communicate with the natives. A friend of Thomas owned two indigo
factories and needed managers, so Carey moved with his family north to Midnapore
. During the six years that Carey managed the indigo plant, he completed the first revision of his Bengali New Testament
and began formulating the principles upon which his missionary community would be formed, including communal living, financial self-reliance, and the training of indigenous ministers. His son Peter died of dysentery
, causing Dorothy to suffer a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered.
Meanwhile, the missionary society had begun sending more missionaries to India. The first to arrive was John Fountain, who arrived in Midnapur and began teaching school. He was followed by William Ward
, a printer; Joshua Marshman, a schoolteacher; David Brunsdon, one of Marshman's students; and William Grant, who died three weeks after his arrival. Because the East India Company was still hostile to missionaries, they settled in the Danish colony at Serampore
and were joined there by Carey on 10 January 1800.
, the mission bought a house large enough to accommodate all of their families and a school, which was to be their principal means of support. Ward set up a print shop with a secondhand press Carey had acquired and began the task of printing the Bible in Bengali. In August 1800 Fountain died of dysentery. By the end of that year, the mission had their first convert, a Hindu
named Krishna Pal
. They had also earned the goodwill of the local Danish government and Richard Wellesley
, then Governor-General of India.
The conversion of Hindu
s to Christianity posed a new question for the missionaries concerning whether it was appropriate for converts to retain their caste
. In 1802, the daughter of Krishna Pal, a Sudra
, married a Brahmin
. This wedding was a public demonstration that the church repudiated the caste distinctions.
Brunsdon and Thomas died in 1801. The same year, the Governor-General founded Fort William, a college intended to educate civil servants. He offered Carey the position of professor of Bengali. Carey's colleagues at the college included pundit
s, whom he could consult to correct his Bengali testament. He also wrote grammars of Bengali and Sanskrit
, and began a translation of the Bible into Sanskrit. He also used his influence with the Governor-General to help put a stop to the practices of infant sacrifice and suttee
, after consulting with the pundits and determining that they had no basis in the Hindu sacred writings (although the latter would not be abolished until 1829).
Dorothy Carey died in 1807. She had long since ceased to be a useful member of the mission, and in fact was actually a hindrance to its work. John Marshman wrote how Carey worked away on his studies and translations, "…while an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of most distressing excitement, was in the next room…". In 1808 Carey re-married; his new wife Charlotte Rhumohr, a Danish
member of his church was, unlike Dorothy, Carey's intellectual equal. They were married for 13 years until her death.
From the printing press at the mission came translations of the Bible in Bengali, Sanskrit, and other major languages and dialects. Many of these languages had never been printed before; William Ward had to create punches
for the type by hand. Carey had begun translating literature and sacred writings from the original Sanskrit into English to make them accessible to his own countryman. On 11 March 1812, a fire in the print shop caused £10,000 in damages and lost work. Amongst the losses were many irreplaceable manuscripts, including much of Carey's translation of Sanskrit literature and a polyglot dictionary of Sanskrit and related languages, which would have been a seminal philological
work had it been completed. However, the press itself and the punches were saved, and the mission was able to continue printing in six months. In Carey's lifetime, the mission printed and distributed the Bible in whole or part in 44 languages and dialects.
Also, in 1812, Adoniram Judson
an American Congregational
missionary enroute to India studied the scriptures on baptism in preparation for a meeting with Carey. His studies led him to become a Baptist. Carey's urging of American Baptists to take over support for Judson's mission, led to the foundation in 1814 of the first American Baptist Mission board, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, later commonly known as the Triennial Convention
. Most American Baptist denominations of today are directly or indirectly descended from this convention.
In 1818, the mission founded Serampore College
to train indigenous ministers for the growing church and to provide education in the arts and sciences to anyone regardless of caste or country. The King of Denmark granted a royal charter in 1827 that made the college a degree-granting institution, the first in Asia.
In 1820 Carey founded the Agri Horticultural Society of India
at Alipore, Kolkata, supporting his enthusiasm for botany.
Carey's second wife, Charlotte, died in 1821, followed by his eldest son Felix. In 1823 he married a third time, to a widow named Grace Hughes.
Internal dissent and resentment was growing within the Missionary Society as its numbers grew, the older missionaries died, and they were replaced by less experienced men. Some new missionaries arrived who were not willing to live in the communal fashion that had developed, one going so far as to demand "a separate house, stable and servants." Unused to the rigorous work ethic of Carey, Ward, and Marshman, the new missionaries thought their seniors - particularly Marshman - to be somewhat dictatorial, assigning them work not to their liking.
Andrew Fuller, who had been secretary of the Society in England, had died in 1815, and his successor, John Dyer, was a bureaucrat who attempted to reorganize the Society along business lines and manage every detail of the Serampore mission from England. Their differences proved to be irreconcilable, and Carey formally severed ties with the missionary society he had founded, leaving the mission property and moving onto the college grounds. He lived a quiet life until his death in 1834, revising his Bengali Bible, preaching, and teaching students. The couch on which he died, on 9 June 1834, is now housed at Regent's Park College, the Baptist hall
of the University of Oxford
.
Dorothy's mental breakdown ("at the same time William Carey was baptizing his first Indian convert and his son Felix, his wife was forcefully confined to her room, raving with madness") led inevitably to other family problems. Joshua Marshman was appalled by the neglect with which Carey looked after his four boys when he first met them in 1800. Aged 4, 7, 12 and 15, they were unmannered, undisciplined, and even uneducated.
's study, The Puritan Hope, less attention has been paid in Carey's numerous biographies to his postmillennial eschatology
as expressed in his major missionary manifesto, notably not even in Bruce J. Nichols' article "The Theology of William Carey." Carey was a Calvinist and a postmillennialist. Even the two dissertations which discuss his achievements (by Oussoren and Potts) ignore large areas of his theology. Neither mention his eschatological views, which played a major role in his missionary zeal. One exception, found in James Beck's biography of his first wife, mentions his personal optimism in the chapter on "Attitudes Towards the Future," but not his optimistic perspective on world missions, which he derived from postmillennial theology.
, Carey Theological College
in Vancouver, British Columbia, Carey Baptist College
in Auckland, New Zealand, Carey Baptist Grammar School
in Melbourne, Victoria, Carey College
in Colombo, Sri Lanka and William Carey University, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
. William Carey Academy of Chittagong, Bangladesh teaches both Bangladeshi and expatriate children, from Kindergarten to grade 12.
on October 19.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
and a Reformed Baptist
Reformed Baptist
Reformed Baptists are Baptists that hold to a Calvinist soteriology. They can trace their history through the early modern Particular Baptists of England. The first Reformed Baptist church was formed in the 1630s...
minister, known as the "father of modern missions." Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society
Baptist Missionary Society
rightBMS World Mission is a Christian missionary society founded by Baptists from England in 1792. It was originally called the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, but for most of its life was known as the Baptist Missionary Society...
. As a missionary in the Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
colony, Serampore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, he translated the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
into Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, and numerous other languages and dialects.
Childhood and early adulthood
Carey, the eldest of five children, was born to Edmund and Elizabeth Carey, who were weavers by trade in the village of PaulerspuryPaulerspury
Paulerspury is a civil parish and small village in South Northamptonshire, England. It is approximately south of Towcester and north of Milton Keynes along the A5 road...
in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
. William was raised in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
; when he was six, his father was appointed the parish clerk and village schoolmaster. As a child he was naturally inquisitive and keenly interested in the natural sciences, particularly botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
. He possessed a natural gift for language, teaching himself Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
.
At the age of 14, Carey’s father apprenticed him to a shoemaker in the nearby village of Hackleton
Hackleton
Hackleton is a village located in the south of the English shire county of Northamptonshire in the district of South Northamptonshire, just north of Buckinghamshire. It is south of Northampton town centre, and by road to the M1 London to Yorkshire motorway junction 15 and north of junction 14....
, Northamptonshire. His master, Clarke Nichols, was a churchman like himself, but another apprentice, John Warr, was a Dissenter
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...
. Through his influence Carey would eventually leave the Church of England and join with other Dissenters to form a small Congregational church
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
in Hackleton. While apprenticed to Nichols, he also taught himself Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
with the help of a local villager who had a college education.
When Nichols died in 1779, Carey went to work for another local shoemaker, Thomas Old; he married Old’s sister-in-law Dorothy Plackett in 1781. Unlike William, Dorothy was illiterate; her signature in the marriage register is a crude cross. William and Dorothy Carey had seven children, five sons and two daughters; both girls died in infancy, as well as their son Peter, who died at the age of 5. Old himself died soon afterward, and Carey took over his business, during which time he taught himself Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, often reading while working on his shoes.
Founding of the Baptist Missionary Society
Carey became involved with a local association of Particular BaptistsStrict Baptist
Strict Baptists, also known as Particular Baptists, are Baptists who believe in a Calvinist or Reformed interpretation of Christian soteriology. The Particular Baptists arose in England in the 17th century and took their namesake from the doctrine of particular redemption.-Further reading:*History...
that had recently formed, where he became acquainted with men such as John Ryland, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller
Andrew Fuller
Andrew Fuller was an eminent Baptist minister, born in Cambridgeshire, and settled at Kettering.Fuller was a zealous controversialist in defence of the governmental theory of the atonement against Hyper-Calvinism on the one hand and Socinianism and Sandemanianism on the other, but he is chiefly...
, who would become his close friends in later years. They invited him to preach in their church in the nearby village of Earls Barton every other Sunday. On 5 October 1783, William Carey was baptized by Ryland and committed himself to the Baptist denomination.
In 1785, Carey was appointed the schoolmaster for the village of Moulton
Moulton, Northamptonshire
Moulton is a large village in the Daventry district of the county of Northamptonshire in England.-Education:There is one major school in Moulton which serves other surrounding small villages in the area....
. He was also invited to serve as pastor to the local Baptist church. During this time he read Jonathan Edwards' Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd
David Brainerd
David Brainerd was an American missionary to the Native Americans who had a particularly fruitful ministry among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. During his short life he was beset by many difficulties...
and the journals of the explorer James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
, and became deeply concerned with propagating the Christian Gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
throughout the world. His friend Andrew Fuller had previously written an influential pamphlet in 1781 titled "The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation", answering the hyper-Calvinist belief then prevalent in the Baptist churches, that all men were not responsible to believe the Gospel. At a ministers' meeting in 1786, Carey raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the world. J. R. Ryland, the father of John Ryland, is said to have retorted: "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine." However, Ryland's son, John Ryland Jr., disputes that his father made this statement.
In 1789 Carey became the full-time pastor of a small Baptist church in Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
. Three years later in 1792 he published his groundbreaking missionary manifesto, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. This short book consists of five parts. The first part is a theological justification for missionary activity, arguing that the command of Jesus to make disciples of all the world (Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
28:18-20) remains binding on Christians. The second part outlines a history of missionary activity, beginning with the early Church and ending with David Brainerd and John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
. Part 3 comprises 26 pages of tables, listing area, population, and religion statistics for every country in the world. Carey had compiled these figures during his years as a schoolteacher. The fourth part answers objections to sending missionaries, such as difficulty learning the language or danger to life. Finally, the fifth part calls for the formation by the Baptist denomination of a missionary society and describes the practical means by which it could be supported. Carey's seminal pamphlet outlines his basis for missions: Christian obligation, wise use of available resources, and accurate information.
Carey later preached a pro-missionary sermon (the so-called Deathless Sermon
Deathless Sermon
The Deathless Sermon was a sermon given during the decline of Hyper-Calvinism in England. It was preached by Particular Baptist Minister, William Carey on May 30, 1792 at the Friar Lane Baptist Chapel in Nottingham as an effort to arouse his pastoral contemporaries to intentional evangelistic...
), using Isaiah
Isaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...
54:2-3 as his text, in which he repeatedly used the epigram which has become his most famous quotation: Carey finally overcame the resistance to missionary effort, and the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen (subsequently known as the Baptist Missionary Society and since 2000 as BMS World Mission) was founded in October 1792, including Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, and John Sutcliff as charter members. They then concerned themselves with practical matters such as raising funds, as well as deciding where they would direct their efforts. A medical missionary, Dr. John Thomas, had been in Calcutta and was currently in England raising funds; they agreed to support him and that Carey would accompany him to India.
Early Indian period
Carey, his eldest son Felix, Thomas and his wife and daughter sailed from London aboard an English ship in April 1793. Dorothy Carey had refused to leave England, being pregnant with their fourth son and having never been more than a few miles from home; but before they left they asked her again to come with them and she gave consent, with the knowledge that her sister Kitty would help her give birth. En route they were delayed at the Isle of WightIsle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, at which time the captain of the ship received word that he endangered his command if he conveyed the missionaries to Calcutta, as their unauthorized journey violated the trade monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. He decided to sail without them, and they were delayed until June when Thomas found a Danish captain willing to offer them passage. In the meantime, Carey's wife, who had by now given birth, agreed to accompany him provided her sister came as well. They landed at Calcutta in November.
Tentmaking
Tentmaking, in general, refers to the activities of any Christian who, while functioning as a minister, receives little or no pay for his or her church work, and supports him or herself by additional, unrelated work...
and a place to establish their mission. They also began to learn the Bengali language to communicate with the natives. A friend of Thomas owned two indigo
Indigo dye
Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
factories and needed managers, so Carey moved with his family north to Midnapore
Midnapore
Midnapore is the district headquarters of Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal. It is situated on the banks of the Kangsabati River . This area had taken a pioneering role in India's freedom struggle...
. During the six years that Carey managed the indigo plant, he completed the first revision of his Bengali New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
and began formulating the principles upon which his missionary community would be formed, including communal living, financial self-reliance, and the training of indigenous ministers. His son Peter died of dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
, causing Dorothy to suffer a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered.
Meanwhile, the missionary society had begun sending more missionaries to India. The first to arrive was John Fountain, who arrived in Midnapur and began teaching school. He was followed by William Ward
William Ward (missionary)
William Ward was an English pioneer Baptist missionary, author, printer and translator. On 10 May 1802 he was married at Serampore to the widow of John Fountain, another missionary, by whom he left two daughters.-Early life:...
, a printer; Joshua Marshman, a schoolteacher; David Brunsdon, one of Marshman's students; and William Grant, who died three weeks after his arrival. Because the East India Company was still hostile to missionaries, they settled in the Danish colony at Serampore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
and were joined there by Carey on 10 January 1800.
Late Indian period
Once settled in SeramporeSerampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
, the mission bought a house large enough to accommodate all of their families and a school, which was to be their principal means of support. Ward set up a print shop with a secondhand press Carey had acquired and began the task of printing the Bible in Bengali. In August 1800 Fountain died of dysentery. By the end of that year, the mission had their first convert, a Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
named Krishna Pal
Krishna Pal
Krishna Pal was the first Indian convert to Christianity due to the missionary activity of William Carey, the founder of the Baptist Missionary Society, and his co-workers. Krishna Pal was born in Calcutta...
. They had also earned the goodwill of the local Danish government and Richard Wellesley
Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
Richard Colley Wesley, later Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, KG, PC, PC , styled Viscount Wellesley from birth until 1781, was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator....
, then Governor-General of India.
The conversion of Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
s to Christianity posed a new question for the missionaries concerning whether it was appropriate for converts to retain their caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
. In 1802, the daughter of Krishna Pal, a Sudra
Shudra
Shudra is the fourth Varna, as prescribed in the Purusha Sukta of the Rig veda, which constitutes society into four varnas or Chaturvarna. The other three varnas are Brahmans - priests, Kshatriya - those with governing functions, Vaishya - agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders...
, married a Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
. This wedding was a public demonstration that the church repudiated the caste distinctions.
Brunsdon and Thomas died in 1801. The same year, the Governor-General founded Fort William, a college intended to educate civil servants. He offered Carey the position of professor of Bengali. Carey's colleagues at the college included pundit
Pundit (India)
A Paṇḍit is a scholar, poet and vocalist, particularly one adept in the Sanskrit language. Typically a Saraswat Brahmin by birth, a Pandit memorizes a substantial portion of the Vedas for chanting of Hindu prayers during ritual ceremonies...
s, whom he could consult to correct his Bengali testament. He also wrote grammars of Bengali and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, and began a translation of the Bible into Sanskrit. He also used his influence with the Governor-General to help put a stop to the practices of infant sacrifice and suttee
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
, after consulting with the pundits and determining that they had no basis in the Hindu sacred writings (although the latter would not be abolished until 1829).
Dorothy Carey died in 1807. She had long since ceased to be a useful member of the mission, and in fact was actually a hindrance to its work. John Marshman wrote how Carey worked away on his studies and translations, "…while an insane wife, frequently wrought up to a state of most distressing excitement, was in the next room…". In 1808 Carey re-married; his new wife Charlotte Rhumohr, a Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
member of his church was, unlike Dorothy, Carey's intellectual equal. They were married for 13 years until her death.
From the printing press at the mission came translations of the Bible in Bengali, Sanskrit, and other major languages and dialects. Many of these languages had never been printed before; William Ward had to create punches
Punchcutting
In traditional typography, punchcutting is the craft of cutting letter punches in steel from which matrices were made in copper for type founding in the letterpress era. Cutting punches and casting type was the first step of traditional typesetting. The cutting of letter punches was a highly...
for the type by hand. Carey had begun translating literature and sacred writings from the original Sanskrit into English to make them accessible to his own countryman. On 11 March 1812, a fire in the print shop caused £10,000 in damages and lost work. Amongst the losses were many irreplaceable manuscripts, including much of Carey's translation of Sanskrit literature and a polyglot dictionary of Sanskrit and related languages, which would have been a seminal philological
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
work had it been completed. However, the press itself and the punches were saved, and the mission was able to continue printing in six months. In Carey's lifetime, the mission printed and distributed the Bible in whole or part in 44 languages and dialects.
Also, in 1812, Adoniram Judson
Adoniram Judson
Adoniram Judson, Jr. was an American Baptist missionary, who served in Burma for almost forty years. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary sent from North America to preach in Burma...
an American Congregational
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
missionary enroute to India studied the scriptures on baptism in preparation for a meeting with Carey. His studies led him to become a Baptist. Carey's urging of American Baptists to take over support for Judson's mission, led to the foundation in 1814 of the first American Baptist Mission board, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions, later commonly known as the Triennial Convention
Triennial Convention
The Triennial Convention, founded in 1814, was the first national Baptist denomination in the United States of America. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it was formed to advance missionary work...
. Most American Baptist denominations of today are directly or indirectly descended from this convention.
Serampore College
Serampore College is located in Serampore Town, in Hooghly District, West Bengal, India.The college consists of two entities:*The theological faculty*A separate college with faculties of arts, science, commerce...
to train indigenous ministers for the growing church and to provide education in the arts and sciences to anyone regardless of caste or country. The King of Denmark granted a royal charter in 1827 that made the college a degree-granting institution, the first in Asia.
In 1820 Carey founded the Agri Horticultural Society of India
Agri Horticultural Society of India
The Agri Horticultural Society of India was founded in 1820 by William Carey on the Alipore Road, Kolkata. It has a flower garden, greenhouses, a research laboratory and a library. It houses a massive collection of plants and flowers...
at Alipore, Kolkata, supporting his enthusiasm for botany.
Carey's second wife, Charlotte, died in 1821, followed by his eldest son Felix. In 1823 he married a third time, to a widow named Grace Hughes.
Internal dissent and resentment was growing within the Missionary Society as its numbers grew, the older missionaries died, and they were replaced by less experienced men. Some new missionaries arrived who were not willing to live in the communal fashion that had developed, one going so far as to demand "a separate house, stable and servants." Unused to the rigorous work ethic of Carey, Ward, and Marshman, the new missionaries thought their seniors - particularly Marshman - to be somewhat dictatorial, assigning them work not to their liking.
Andrew Fuller, who had been secretary of the Society in England, had died in 1815, and his successor, John Dyer, was a bureaucrat who attempted to reorganize the Society along business lines and manage every detail of the Serampore mission from England. Their differences proved to be irreconcilable, and Carey formally severed ties with the missionary society he had founded, leaving the mission property and moving onto the college grounds. He lived a quiet life until his death in 1834, revising his Bengali Bible, preaching, and teaching students. The couch on which he died, on 9 June 1834, is now housed at Regent's Park College, the Baptist hall
Permanent Private Hall
A Permanent Private Hall at the University of Oxford is an educational institution within the university. There are six Permanent Private Halls at Oxford, five of which admit undergraduates. They were founded by different Christian denominations....
of the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
.
Family history
Biographies of Carey, such as those by F.D. Walker and J.B. Myers, only allude to Carey's distress caused by the mental illness and subsequent breakdown suffered by his wife, Dorothy, in the early years of their ministry in India. More recently, Beck's biography of Dorothy Carey paints a more detailed picture: William Carey uprooted his family from all that was familiar and sought to settle them in one of the most unlikely and difficult (for an uneducated eighteenth century English peasant woman) cultures in the world. Dorothy faced enormous difficulties in adjusting to all of this change; she failed to make the adjustment emotionally and ultimately, mentally, and her husband seemed to be unable to help her through all of this because he just did not know what to do about it. Carey even wrote to his sisters in England on 5 October 1795, that "I have been for some time past in danger of losing my life. Jealousy is the great evil that haunts her mind."Dorothy's mental breakdown ("at the same time William Carey was baptizing his first Indian convert and his son Felix, his wife was forcefully confined to her room, raving with madness") led inevitably to other family problems. Joshua Marshman was appalled by the neglect with which Carey looked after his four boys when he first met them in 1800. Aged 4, 7, 12 and 15, they were unmannered, undisciplined, and even uneducated.
Eschatology
Besides Iain MurrayIain Murray
Iain Hamish Murray was educated in the Isle of Man and at the University of Durham. He entered the Christian ministry in 1955. He served as assistant to Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel and subsequently at Grove Chapel, London and St. Giles Presbyterian Church, Sydney, Australia,...
's study, The Puritan Hope, less attention has been paid in Carey's numerous biographies to his postmillennial eschatology
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
as expressed in his major missionary manifesto, notably not even in Bruce J. Nichols' article "The Theology of William Carey." Carey was a Calvinist and a postmillennialist. Even the two dissertations which discuss his achievements (by Oussoren and Potts) ignore large areas of his theology. Neither mention his eschatological views, which played a major role in his missionary zeal. One exception, found in James Beck's biography of his first wife, mentions his personal optimism in the chapter on "Attitudes Towards the Future," but not his optimistic perspective on world missions, which he derived from postmillennial theology.
Schools
Carey has at least seven colleges named after him: William Carey International University in Pasadena, CaliforniaPasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, Carey Theological College
Carey Theological College
Carey Theological College is an evangelical Christian seminary based in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a ministry of the Baptist Union of Western Canada....
in Vancouver, British Columbia, Carey Baptist College
Carey Baptist College
Carey Baptist College is a Bible and theological college for training in mission, ministry, and formation based in Auckland, New Zealand.It is the theological college of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand....
in Auckland, New Zealand, Carey Baptist Grammar School
Carey Baptist Grammar School
Carey Baptist Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, Christian, international, day school consisting of four campuses in Victoria, Australia - Kew , Donvale , the Carey Sports Complex in Bulleen and an outdoor education camp near Paynesville in eastern Gippsland called Carey...
in Melbourne, Victoria, Carey College
Carey College, Colombo
Carey Baptist College, popularly known as "Carey College", is a private Baptist school providing primary and secondary education in Sri Lanka.- Administration :...
in Colombo, Sri Lanka and William Carey University, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. William Carey Academy of Chittagong, Bangladesh teaches both Bangladeshi and expatriate children, from Kindergarten to grade 12.
Legacy and influence
William Carey has been referred to as the "father of modern missions" and was a significant influence to the Protestant missionary movement of the 19th century.Veneration
Carey is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...
on October 19.
Chronology
- 1761 Born at Paulerspury, Northampton. England; 17 August.
- 1777 Apprenticed to the shoemaking trade.
- 1779 Attended prayer-meeting that changed his life, 10 February.
- 1783 Baptized by Mr. Ryland, 5 October.
- 1786 Called to the ministry at Olney, August 10.
- 1792 Pamphlet "An Inquiry" published;
- Baptist Missionary Society in England formed, 2 October.
- 1793 Appointed missionary to India, 10 January;
- Arrived in Calcutta, 11 November.
- 1786 5-year-old son Peter dies on 11 October.
- 1796 Baptized a Portuguese, his first convert.
- 1800 Moved to Serampore, 10 January;
- Baptized Krishna Pal, first Bengali convert, 28 December;
- Elected Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali languages at Fort Williams College.
- 1801 Completed New Testament in Bengali, 7 February.
- 1803 Self-supporting missionary organization founded.
- 1807 Doctor of Divinity conferred by Brown University of U.S.A.;
- Member of Bengali Asiatic Society.
- Dorothy Carey died.
- 1808 New Testament in Sanskrit published;
- Married Charlotte Emilia Rumohr.
- 1809 Completed translation of Bible in Bengali, 24 June.
- 1811 New Testament in Marathi published.
- 1815 New Testament in Punjabi published.
- 1818 His father died, 15 June.
- 1818 Old Testament in Sanskrit published.
- 1820 Founded the Agricultural and Horticultural SocietyAgri Horticultural Society of IndiaThe Agri Horticultural Society of India was founded in 1820 by William Carey on the Alipore Road, Kolkata. It has a flower garden, greenhouses, a research laboratory and a library. It houses a massive collection of plants and flowers...
, 4 September;- Danish King granted charter for college at Serampore;
- Marathi Old Testament published.
- 1821 Serampore college opened;
- Second wife Charlotte died.
- 1823 Married Grace Hughes.
- 1825 Completed Dictionary of Bengali and English.
- 1826 Government gave Carey "Grant in Aid" for education.
- 1829 Sati prohibited through Carey's efforts, 4 December.
- 1834 Died at Serampore, 9 June.
- 1835 Third wife Grace died.
See also
- Carey Baptist ChurchCarey Baptist ChurchCarey Baptist Church is an independent evangelical/baptist church in Reading, England.-History:The church was founded in 1867 and was named after William Carey, a famous missionary from Northamptonshire, who went to India in 1793, and never returned to his homeland.Notable past pastors include Rev...
- William Carey University
- Carey Baptist CollegeCarey Baptist CollegeCarey Baptist College is a Bible and theological college for training in mission, ministry, and formation based in Auckland, New Zealand.It is the theological college of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand....
Further reading
- Carey, Eustace - Memoir of William Carey, D. D. Late missionary to Bengal, Professor of Oriental Languages in the College of Fort William, Calcutta. 1837, 2nd Edition, Jackson & Walford: London.
- Carey, S. Pearce - William Carey "The Father of Modern Missions", edited by Peter Masters, Wakeman Trust, London, 1993 ISBN 1-870855-14-0