William Carey was born August 17, 1761 in Paulerspury, England, a small village in Northamptonshire. Even today the village isn’t much more than a thousand people. But it was into this tiny hamlet that Carey was born—the man who would help launch the modern missionary movement and the man who exhorted his fellow Christians with the now famous words: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
For much of his life, it did not seem that Carey was destined for great things. William’s father was a weaver, and William’s first job was in shoemaking. William was not rich. He did not have formal schooling past age twelve. He did not come from a well-connected or well-known family. As an adult, he was only 5’4” (unusually short even for his day) and bald. William Carey did not look the part of a man who would change the world.
At 18, he left the Anglican fold and joined a Dissenting church (i.e., not a part of the state church of England). Carey became a Baptist. Not long after, in 1781, he married Dorothy “Dolly” Plackett. By the next year Carey began preaching every other week, splitting his time as a cobbler and as a pastor. In 1785 he was turned down for ordination, but the church allowed him to continue preaching on a trial basis as he honed his skills. It took him two more years to be officially ordained. In 1789 he assumed the pastorate at a Baptist church in Leicester.
A Continuing Commission
Carey was a Calvinist, believing in unconditional election and in the need for the sovereign grace of God if sinners were to be converted. Carey also possessed indefatigable zeal for the un- converted. He couldn’t understand why the church’s attitude toward the heathen was so passive. In 1786 he began publicly advocating for a missionary society. When Carey proposed the idea at a gathering of his Particular (i.e., Calvinistic) Baptist col- leagues, one minister is reported to have said, “Young man, sit down. You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.” Carey was living among hyper-Calvinists.
The rebuke prompted Carey to study the matter more closely and put his thoughts on paper. The result was a modestly-sized book published first in 1792 and republished in this volume. Though the book was relatively small, the title was not: An Enquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens. In which the religious state of the different nations of the world, the success of former undertakings, and the practicability of further undertakings, are considered, by William Carey. There is nothing fancy about Carey’s book. There are pages of tables about the size of various nations, how many people live there, and what religion they practice. What made the tract influential was not the data but the basic message: We are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The whole world hasn’t heard the gospel. So why isn’t anyone going?
Carey’s central theological argument was that the Great Commission is still binding. True, there may be some sense in which the gospel went out into all the world during the time of the apostles (Romans 10:18; Colossians 1:23), but the expansive success of the gospel in the first century does not render the Great Commission null and void. Carey insisted that the Great Commission was still the church’s commission. If teaching all nations was restricted to a certain era, Carey reasoned, then so was baptizing (yet the church still baptizes). If the Great Commission is no longer operative, then all those who had gone to the heathen before did so without warrant. If the commands of Matthew 28 were limited to apostles, then why did Jesus promise to be with them to the very end of the age?
Particularly compelling is Carey’s response to the familiar retort—common in his day and in ours—that we can fulfill the call of “missions” by simply attending to the spiritual needs in our own neighborhoods. On this point, it is worth quoting Carey at length:
It has been objected that there are multitudes in our own nation, and within our immediate spheres of action, who are as ignorant as the South Sea savages, and that therefore we have work enough at home without going into other countries. That there are thousands in our own land as far from God as possible, I readily grant, and that this ought to excite us to ten-fold diligence in our work and in attempts to spread divine knowledge amongst them is a certain fact; but that it ought to supersede all attempts to spread the gospel in foreign parts seems to want proof. Our own countrymen have the means of grace and may attend on the word preached if they choose it. They have the means of knowing the truth, and faithful ministers are placed in almost every part of the land, whose spheres of action might be much extended if their congregations were but more hearty and active in the cause. But with them the case is widely different, who have no Bible, no written language (which many of them have not), no ministers, no good civil government, nor any of those advantages which we have. Pity, therefore, humanity, and much more Christianity, call loudly for every possible exertion to introduce the gospel amongst them.
Carey’s reply anticipates the now familiar distinction between the “reached” and the “unreached.” By all means, Carey says, we ought to labor hard in our own lands. But if our neighbors—in “Christian” lands—need our help, how much more do those persons around the world with no or little access to the Bible, to the church, or even to the blessings of civilization, need gospel workers among them.
A One-Way Ticket to India
By the end of 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed. In June of the next year, Carey and his family left for India as the society’s first missionaries. On November 11, 1793, Carey landed on India’s east coast in Calcutta. Carey spent 41 years in India and never returned to England.
The British colonial government in India was not welcoming of missionaries, and the powerful East India Company looked down on their arrival even more. While in British controlled cities like Calcutta, Carey was constantly in danger of hostility or deportation. By 1800, he had moved 16 miles north to the Danish colony of Serampore. There he joined two other English missionaries, Joshua Marshman and William Ward. Together, Carey, Marshman, and Ward became the famous Serampore Trio. Before long, Carey baptized his first Indian convert, Krishna Chandra Pal.
The work of the Serampore Trio was multifaceted. They started educational institutions–boarding schools at first (for both boys and girls, in separate schools), and then Serampore College in 1819. The college, which opened with 37 students (19 Christians and 18 non-Christians) offered instruction in Sanskrit, Arabic, and English. In 1826, Marshman met with the King of Denmark and secured a royal charter for the college, making it the first degree-granting institution in Asia.
The Trio also worked to abolish the practice of Sati whereby widows were expected to burn themselves to death on their husband’s funeral pyre.
Crucially, over many years they labored extensively in Bible translation, completing six translations of the whole Bible, along with 23 New Testaments, and portions of the Bible in ten other languages. Carey himself translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi.
A Human Hero
We are right to consider Carey a hero of the faith, but he was also a real, and sometimes flawed, human being. Carey often struggled with feelings of isolation and loneliness. He was deeply aware of pride in his heart, and often commented that he felt his heart to be dead and lifeless.
Most painfully, Carey did not have a close relationship with his first wife and was not as sensitive to her fears and desires as he should have been. Dorothy lived a difficult life. She was five years older than Carey and always seemed to be pregnant, in poor health, or both at the same time. She was strongly opposed to the missionary venture that Carey was so passionately committed to. Dorothy was seasick most of the trip to India. Once in Calcutta, she got dysentery and her sister (and traveling companion) died. Later, their five-year-old son, Peter, died, plunging Dorothy into deep despair.
Dorothy was never happy in India. At times she expressed profound anger, almost to the point of violence, toward her husband. She suffered from ill treatments of the day. After being diagnosed with paranoia, her doctor recommended another pregnancy to snap her out of her delusion. From time to time, she would be confined to her room with only the children allowed to see her. She died December 8, 1807, possibly poisoned by the mercury which was often used to treat dysentery.
Six months later, Carey married Lady Charlotte von Rumohr. She was the daughter of a Danish count, fluent in several languages, and extremely wealthy. The marriage was a scandal. But Charlotte proved well-suited for missionary work and spent 13 happy years with William until she died in 1821.
In 1823, Carey married his third wife, Grace Hughes. When Carey died, he left his library to Grace, but he asked to be buried next to his second wife, Charlotte.
An Inspiration for Many
Carey’s accomplishments are hard to fathom. He was an accomplished gardener, discovering three varieties of eucalyptus. He founded the Agri-Horticultural Society in India 30 years before the Royal Agricultural Society was established in England. He published the first books on science and natural history in India. He helped develop indigenous paper production, and is considered by some to be the father of modern printing and publishing in India. Carey established the first newspaper printed in an oriental language. He introduced savings banks, lending libraries, and the study of astronomy. He worked for the humane treatment of lepers. He taught linguistics and published Sanskrit editions of Indian classics. About the time the United States was celebrating a postage stamp in honor of Elvis, India issued a stamp commemorating the work of William Carey.
Most importantly, Carey was a church planter. Although he saw only a few converts in his lifetime, he was able to establish an indigenous church. Even though this work was small, Carey’s influence was great. His contribution was to thrust the English-speaking world into the work of global missions. One missiologist has estimated that from the time of William Carey to the 1960s, four out of every five Protestant missionaries came from the English-speaking world.
For good reason, then, Carey has been hailed as the father of the modern missions movement. This is certainly true for English-speaking Protestants. From Henry Martyn in India, to Robert Morrison in Canton Province, to Hudson Taylor in inland China, to Adoniram Judson in Burma, to Samuel Zwemer in Arabia and Egypt, dozens and hundreds (if not thousands) of missionaries have been inspired by Carey to “expect great things from God” and “attempt great things from God.” This fact alone makes Carey worth remembering and his missionary tract worth reading.
Given Carey’s heroic efforts for the spread of the gospel, it is fitting that his epitaph highlights the grace of God for sinners. His tombstone reads: “William Carey, D.D.; Born: 17 August 1761; Died: 9 June 1834; A wretched poor and helpless worm on thy kind arms I fall.”
Order a copy of Carey’s An Enquiry from our friends at Missionary.
