William Carey :
The Cobbler Who Gave India a Bible :
William Carey was born near Northampton, England, on August 17, 1761. The words of the Lord to Saint Peter, "Thou art ... thou shalt be" (John 1:42), may very well be applied to Carey. Not many missionaries have started their careers with so few advantages, or culminated their work with so much success for the glory of God and the good of man, as did William Carey.
When he was fourteen years of age, he became an apprentice in a shoe shop. He was converted at the age of eighteen, and affiliated himself with the local Baptist Church. At the age of twenty-six, he was ordained. His income as a preacher was so limited that he gained his subsistence by working as a shoemaker. In his spare moments he studied languages, biographies, and conditions of the heathen world. He acquired a fair knowledge of French, Dutch, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
In front of him, on his work bench, hung a map of the world which he himself had made. In the year 1786 he pleaded with other ministers of his denomination to take up work among the heathen, but was greatly grieved when the chairman reproved him by saying, "Sit down, young man. When it pleases God to convert the heathen, He will do it without your help or mine!"
Fruitful Life. Self-denial was not the only mark of Carey's life. Thoro system enabled him to accomplish much work. Up at 5:45, reading a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, "private addresses to God," family prayers with the Bengali servants, reading Persian till tea, translating Scriptures in Hindustani from Sanskrit, teaching at the college from ten till two, correcting proof sheets of Bengali translating of Jeremiah, translating Matthew into Sanskrit, spending one hour with a pundit on Telinga, at seven collecting thoughts for a sermon, preaching at 7:30 to forty persons, translating Bengali till eleven, writing a letter home, reading a chapter from the Greek New Testament and commending himself to God as he lay down to sleep, is a sample of one day's work. It would appear that Carey's chief work of life was to make translation of the Scriptures and it was his joy before the close of life to see "more than 213,000 volumes of the Divine Word, in forty different languages, issue from the Serampore press." But this was but a part of his life work. About 1801 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi in Williams College, Calcutta, which position he held for thirty years. At first he received £600 per year. In 1807 Brown University, U.S.A., conferred the degree of D.D. on him. His salary was increased to £1,200 per year, yet according to the arrangement with the missionaries, he lived on £40 and had £20 extra to enable him to appear in "decent apparel" at the college and government house, and the remaining £1,140 was turned into the mission treasury. He wrote articles on the natural history and botany of India for the Asiatic Society; he published the entire Bible in the Bengali in five volumes in 1809.
A NEW ERA: It was on October 2, 1792, that Carey preached his memorable sermon, giving out the challenge: "Expect great things from God—attempt great things for God." The immediate result was the organization of the Baptist Missionary Society, which was the first Protestant missionary society in England. An amount equal to sixty-five dollars was received to start missionary work in India. After overcoming apparently insurmountable difficulties, Carey, at the age of thirty-two years, secured passage on a ship belonging to the Danish East India Company. He arrived in Serampore in 1793.
William Carey recognized the need of organization and administration of missions at home, as well as of effective work on the mission field. Accordingly, in 1795 he took the first and principal step in the organization of the London Missionary Society.
For more than seven years he labored faithfully in India without the joy of reporting to friends at home that he had won a single convert. His trials were many, the opposition great. His wife was an invalid for fourteen years. He buried some of his children in India. His printing establishment, together with manuscripts—the fruit of many years of labor—was once destroyed by fire. But patiently he continued preaching, writing, and living the gospel.
William Carey was like John Wycliffe, the "morning star of the Reformation," in his strong belief in the power of the Word of God in print. This man of God, once a cobbler, practically self-educated, void of selfish interests, translated the Word of God into forty different languages and dialects, and printed it as well.
After forty-one years of labor as a missionary to the people of India, he died and was buried at Serampore in 1834.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord ... and their works do follow them...
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The Cobbler Who Gave India a Bible :
William Carey was born near Northampton, England, on August 17, 1761. The words of the Lord to Saint Peter, "Thou art ... thou shalt be" (John 1:42), may very well be applied to Carey. Not many missionaries have started their careers with so few advantages, or culminated their work with so much success for the glory of God and the good of man, as did William Carey.
When he was fourteen years of age, he became an apprentice in a shoe shop. He was converted at the age of eighteen, and affiliated himself with the local Baptist Church. At the age of twenty-six, he was ordained. His income as a preacher was so limited that he gained his subsistence by working as a shoemaker. In his spare moments he studied languages, biographies, and conditions of the heathen world. He acquired a fair knowledge of French, Dutch, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
In front of him, on his work bench, hung a map of the world which he himself had made. In the year 1786 he pleaded with other ministers of his denomination to take up work among the heathen, but was greatly grieved when the chairman reproved him by saying, "Sit down, young man. When it pleases God to convert the heathen, He will do it without your help or mine!"
Fruitful Life. Self-denial was not the only mark of Carey's life. Thoro system enabled him to accomplish much work. Up at 5:45, reading a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, "private addresses to God," family prayers with the Bengali servants, reading Persian till tea, translating Scriptures in Hindustani from Sanskrit, teaching at the college from ten till two, correcting proof sheets of Bengali translating of Jeremiah, translating Matthew into Sanskrit, spending one hour with a pundit on Telinga, at seven collecting thoughts for a sermon, preaching at 7:30 to forty persons, translating Bengali till eleven, writing a letter home, reading a chapter from the Greek New Testament and commending himself to God as he lay down to sleep, is a sample of one day's work. It would appear that Carey's chief work of life was to make translation of the Scriptures and it was his joy before the close of life to see "more than 213,000 volumes of the Divine Word, in forty different languages, issue from the Serampore press." But this was but a part of his life work. About 1801 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi in Williams College, Calcutta, which position he held for thirty years. At first he received £600 per year. In 1807 Brown University, U.S.A., conferred the degree of D.D. on him. His salary was increased to £1,200 per year, yet according to the arrangement with the missionaries, he lived on £40 and had £20 extra to enable him to appear in "decent apparel" at the college and government house, and the remaining £1,140 was turned into the mission treasury. He wrote articles on the natural history and botany of India for the Asiatic Society; he published the entire Bible in the Bengali in five volumes in 1809.
A NEW ERA: It was on October 2, 1792, that Carey preached his memorable sermon, giving out the challenge: "Expect great things from God—attempt great things for God." The immediate result was the organization of the Baptist Missionary Society, which was the first Protestant missionary society in England. An amount equal to sixty-five dollars was received to start missionary work in India. After overcoming apparently insurmountable difficulties, Carey, at the age of thirty-two years, secured passage on a ship belonging to the Danish East India Company. He arrived in Serampore in 1793.
William Carey recognized the need of organization and administration of missions at home, as well as of effective work on the mission field. Accordingly, in 1795 he took the first and principal step in the organization of the London Missionary Society.
For more than seven years he labored faithfully in India without the joy of reporting to friends at home that he had won a single convert. His trials were many, the opposition great. His wife was an invalid for fourteen years. He buried some of his children in India. His printing establishment, together with manuscripts—the fruit of many years of labor—was once destroyed by fire. But patiently he continued preaching, writing, and living the gospel.
William Carey was like John Wycliffe, the "morning star of the Reformation," in his strong belief in the power of the Word of God in print. This man of God, once a cobbler, practically self-educated, void of selfish interests, translated the Word of God into forty different languages and dialects, and printed it as well.
After forty-one years of labor as a missionary to the people of India, he died and was buried at Serampore in 1834.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord ... and their works do follow them...
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