Read William Carey’s Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens (166k Adobe pdf)
by James Culross, from Founders and Pioneers of Modern Missions, 1899
No name deserves to be held in more lasting remembrance than that of William Carey. He was born in the Northamptonshire village of Paulerspury August 17, 1761. His father, Ed mund Carey, was a weaver who was appointed to the united offices of parish clerk and village schoolmaster when the boy was about six years old. He was a man of kindly nature, and sound common – sense; and under his care the school won a good name in the district.
Young Carey was small for his years, and slightly built, but with an intelligent face, and a bright, indomitable spirit. Very early he manifested a passionate delight in natural history, and gradually stored the school-house garden with choice plants. This love of nature never died out in him, and had much to do with the good health and geniality which made him known many years after as the cheerful old man. ”
Books were scarce in the country, and not easy to be begged or borrowed; but he had a “hunger” for them and such as fell in his way he was sure to master. When about 14 years of age he was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Hackleton, nine or ten miles from his home. In any ordinary case this engagement would probably have determined the boy’s future career, but the thirst for knowledge grew with his years, and made him dream of something beyond shoe making. He was, however, a good workman, and his employer kept on view a pair of shoes made by him as a model of what shoes ought to be. There is no truth in the story that he could never make a pair of shoes to match each other, or to please the customer. There is no inconsistency between this and his retort to the general officer in India, who inquired of one of the aides-de-camp, when dining with the Marquis of Hastings, whether Dr. Carey had not once been a shoemaker, “No sir ! only a cobbler, no doubt only alluding to Sydney Smith’s article in the Edinburgh Review, 1809, in which he takes credit for “routing out a nest of consecrated cobblers.
About the eighteenth year of his age a revolution took place in his life. Though brought up a strict Churchman, and in due time confirmed, he was a stranger to the love of Christ. “Stirrings of mind he had often experienced and good resolutions he had often formed; he was well acquainted with Scripture; he attended church regularly; but there his religion ended. Through the influence of a young fellow-workman with whom he often debated, he came dimly to see that what he needed was a new heart. It is impossible to trace the various stages of his experience, but the issue was a perception of the wonderful grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that vital inward change whence all newness of life proceeds.
In 1781 a small church was formed in Hackleton consisting of nine members. Carey’s name is third in the list. About the same time there was a religious awakening in the district, and prayer meetings and other similar gatherings were much frequented. He sometimes spoke at these meetings, the ignorant people applauding, he says, to my great injury, and tempting him to self-conceit.
On the 10th of June, 1781, he married Dorothy Plackett, his employer’s sister-in-law, and soon afterwards succeeded him in business. He was very poor. On the occasion of an Association meeting in Olney, 1782, he attended all day fasting, because he had not a penny to buy a dinner. On this occasion he was introduced to some friends belonging to the village of Earl’s Barton, which led to an engagement to preach to a little congregation meeting there. This engagement continued in force nearly four years, till the time when he was invited to settle at Moulton. Meanwhile, having accepted the doctrine of believers’ baptism, he had been baptized by the younger Ryland in the Nene, at Northampton. To onlookers, and to Ryland himself, it was merely the baptism of a poor journeyman shoemaker. Ryland’s morning text that day was unconsciously prophetic: Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The Hackleton Church being too Calvinistic for Carey he joined the Baptist Church at Olney in 1785, on profession of faith. The Hackleton Church Book says: “Whent away without his dismission. The Olney Church invited him to preach the Sunday after receiving him, and it was agreed that he should be allowed to go on preaching in those places where he had been for sometime employed, in order to a farther trial of his ministerial gifts.
Settling in Moulton, under a Certificate of Settlement” dated May llth, 1785, at the age of 24, Carey sought to add to his meagre income by teaching a school; but the experiment did not answer; hence he returned to his former trade. Once a fortnight the little man, with a far-away look on his face, might be seen trudging to Northampton or Kettering, as the case might be, with wallet full of shoes for delivery to a Government contractor, and then returning home with a burden of leather for next fortnight’s work. His Kettering employer was Mr. Thomas Gotch, who, seeing the bent of Carey’s genius, gave him weekly a shilling more than he earned, so that he might give more time to study. All this time, in poverty that would have crushed the spirit out of an ordinary man in three months, he went on with his studies and preached regularly on the Sabbath.
It was in Moulton that his great thought took shape in his mind. Reading Cook’s Voyages and studying a map of the world that hung in the workroom, it came painfully home to him how small a portion of the human race had any knowledge of the Saviour. How was this ? Had God’s “set time” not come? Or, were Christians to blame ? He resolved to think out these questions in the light of Scripture, and arrived at the conclusion that means must be taken to send the Gospel to the heathen and that without delay. At first, with the exception of a few men like Andrew Fuller, he encountered indifference or opposition. To not a few his conclusion seemed to conflict with God’s sovereignty. To many others it did not seem worth the trouble of considering. The man simply had a “craze. ”
In 1789 Carey removed to Leicester, to the small Baptist Church meeting in Harvey Lane. Here he became more than ever anxious that something practical should be attempted. He conversed, corresponded, preached, and at length published, in the urgency of his soul that some step should be taken. Next year, on May 30th, 1792, it devolved on him to preach the Association sermon at Nottingham. His text was Isaiah liv., 2-3, and his two thoughts were Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God. That sermon really created the Baptist Missionary Society. The next day, under pressure of Carey’s urgency, it was resolved, That a plan be prepared against the next ministers’ meeting at Kettering for the establishment of a society for propagating the Gospel among the heathen. On the 2nd of October, 1792, this plan was presented, and the same evening, in the back parlour of Mrs. Beeby Wallis, thirteen men solemnly pledged themselves to the undertaking, and subscribed the sum of £13 2s. 6d.; Carey declaring his readiness to embark for any part of the world that might be decided upon.
In April, 1793, Carey and Thomas (a ship-surgeon and a very singular man) started for India, having been commended to God at a solemn farewell meeting held in Leicester. Carey never saw England again. For years it seemed doubtful whether the enterprise would not end in failure. Hindrances and discouragements of all sorts faced the missionaries. The earlier attempts at settlement had to be abandoned, though the experience they bought proved of immense value. In 1796 Carey, then at Mudnabatty, supporting himself by managing an indigo factory, and doing all in his power to spread the knowledge of the Saviour, was joined by Mr. Fountain from England. Besides preaching, Carey very early recognised the importance of translating and circulating the Scriptures, and while at Mudnabatty he began the work. It was a work for which he had singular fitness, both by natural endowment and providential training. Not, however, till he left Mudnabatty and settled in Serampore in January, 1800, under the protection of the Danish flag, did he make much progress. Reinforcements came out Ward, Marshman, Brunsdon, and Grant but were not allowed to settle in the East India Company’s territories. Grant died three weeks after landing, Brunsdon within twelve months, and Fountain about the same time; leaving at Serampore the famous triumvirate, Carey, Marshman, and Ward. Never did three men serve together in union so close for so long a space of time, with such unbroken harmony, such unselfishness and loftiness of aim, such thorough practical common-sense, and such marvellously-sustained resolution and enthusiasm. Before the close of the first year they gathered the first-fruits of the mission in the conversion of Krishnu, a carpenter, speedily followed by other conversions. In the course of six years, ninety-six native converts were baptised and received into Christian fellowship, caste being disregarded.
In 1800 Fort William College, Calcutta, was established by Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General, in which the junior civil servants of the Company were required to pursue their studies for three years, and Carey, as the one man in India most fully qualified for the office, was appointed teacher of Bengali, and afterwards of Sanskrit and Mahratta, with a salary of £600 a year. Later on he was raised to the status of Professor, with a salary increased to £1, 500. Thus he was enabled to give himself with redoubled ardour to the work of translation, where his special gift lay. Living in the simplest style, he devoted all he received, beyond what was necessary for bare subsistence, to the missionary cause. He prepared numerous grammars and lexicons, and made no fewer than twenty-four versions of Scripture, with comparatively little help from others, in tongues spoken by one-third of the human race. It must not be supposed, of course, that these versions were faultless, but they were an unspeakably valuable boon to India, and a starting-point for completer work. Simultaneously with the work of translating and printing, that of itinerating went for ward; and numerous stations were planted in the country, to which missionaries from home were appointed, and assisted by native agents. All this had to be done in the face of persistent obstruction from the East India Company, which, from dread of political consequences, did all in its power to keep the Gospel out of the country. By-and-by a fierce conflict broke out at home. The missionaries were accused of all kinds of enormities, and if scoffs and hatred could have done it, the Mission would have been exterminated. Sydney Smith, who coined the phrase, a nest of consecrated cobblers, in The Edinburgh Review included the missionaries in the same category with vermin that ought to be caught, cracked, and exterminated. As the time approached for renewing the charter of the East India Company, it became clear to all that the future of the Mission was in the balance. Carey wrote home that the fault in the existing charter lay in the clause which gave the Company power to send home “interlopers, and urged that every effort should be made to secure liberty to preach the Gospel, by a distinct clause in the new charter. After a prolonged and severe struggle, in which the whole country was aroused, the friends of missions succeeded in their aim, and, with certain troublesome restrictions, liberty to preach the Gospel was secured.
It would take a volume to describe the years that followed, the difficulties encountered and vanquished, and the wonderful progress of the Gospel. Carey continued to labour on, with a very lowly estimate of himself: Marshman is a Luther; Ward enchains the attention of all who hear him; I alone am unfit to be called a missionary. Under the conviction that if India was to be won and held for Christ it must be through native preaching, the College at Serampore was built at a final cost of £15,000, to aid in educating fit men for the ministry of the Word. In Carey’s view the college ought not to stand alone, but should be in living connection with the mission-stations, near and remote; the students being drawn from these stations, and when educated going forth to be teachers, evangelists, missionaries, and pastors, as the Lord might appoint.
While Carey and his coadjutors were going on patiently and earnestly with their self-denying work, unjust suspicions respecting them began to be scattered abroad in England. They were said to be living in Oriental pomp”; they had amassed for themselves and families” extensive property; their conduct was consistent neither with truth nor common honesty. It was painful to bear; yet the fact was that, so far from making gain of their position, they had practised the severest self-denial, and had spontaneously given many thousands of pounds, earned by their own toil, to the great cause to which they had consecrated their lives. The books of the Mission show that up to 1826 the sum contributed to the work by the Serampore missionaries themselves amounted to nearly fifty thousand pounds. Subsequently to 1826 they added thousands more.
Gradually the old man’s strength began to fail, and the end drew near. Among those who visited him in his last illness was Alexander Duff, the Scotch missionary. On one of the last occasions on which he saw him if not the very last he spent some time talking, chiefly about Carey’s missionary life, till at length the dying man whispered, “pray. Duff knelt down and prayed, and then said, Good-bye. As he was passing from the room he heard a feeble voice pronouncing his name, and, turning, he found he was recalled. He stepped back accordingly, and this is what he heard, spoken with a gracious solemnity: Mr. Duff, you have been speaking about Dr. Carey, Dr. Carey; when I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey speak about Dr. Carey’s Saviour. Duff went away, rebuked and awed, with a lesson in his heart that he never forgot.
The eternal gates were opened for him at sunrise on June 9, 1834. Next morning, under weeping skies, he was laid in the converts’ burying-ground, by the side of his second wife. The small memorial stone bore this inscription, according to his own special direction in his will:
WILLIAM CAREY,
BORN AUGUST 17, 1761; DIED [JUNE 9, 1834].
A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall.
Those who would trace out the life of Carey in its full current, and who would know what he did for India and the East, and what the whole Christian Church owes to him, under God, should read Dr. George Smith’s masterly and most fascinating volume, “The Life of William Carey, D. D., Shoemaker and Missionary” (Murray). Dr. Smith places him where, he believes, the Church history of the future is likely to keep him amid the uncrowned kings who have made Christian England what it is, under God, to its own people and to half the human race.
William Careys family
WILLIAM CAREY was apprenticed to Mr. Clarke Nichols, shoemaker, Hackleton, nine or ten miles eastwards from his native village of Paulerspury. Mr. Nichols died at the end of the second year’s apprenticeship, and, purchasing his freedom from the widow, he entered the service of Mr. T. Old in the same village as journeyman. On June 10th, 1781, Carey married his employer’s sister-in-law, Dorothy Plackett. He was then only in his twentieth year, and very poor.
i. Their first-born child was a daughter named Ann, who died at Piddington in childhood, aged two years.
ii. Their second child was Felix, born 1785. He inherited his father’s rare linguistic genius, but without his stedfastness of purpose and his faculty of “plodding.” Otherwise he was very fascinating. Felix was baptized in the Ganges along with Krishna, the first Hindoo convert of the Mission. In July, 1803, the first Sunday School in India was opened, under the care of Felix and his brother William and Mr. Fernandez, one of the missionaries.
In 1807 Mardon and Chater were sent forth from Serampore as missionaries to Burmah. Carey charged them: ”With respect to the Burman language, let this occupy your most precious time and your most anxious solicitude. Do not be content with acquiring the language superficially, but make it your own root and branch. To become fluent in it, you must attentively listen with prying curiosity into the forms of speech, the construction and accent of the natives. Here all the imitative powers are wanted; yet these powers and this attention, without continued effort to use all you acquire and as fast as you acquire it, will be comparatively of little use.
“As soon as you shall feel your ground well in this language, you may compose a grammar, and also send us some Scripture tracts for printing, small and plain, simple Christian instruction and Gospel invitation, without anything that can irritate the most superstitious mind.
“We would recommend you to begin the translation of the Gospel of Mark as soon as possible, as one of the best and most certain ways of acquiring the language. This translation will, of course, be revised again and again. In these revisions you will be very careful respecting idiom and construction that they be really Burman and not English. Let your instructor be well acquainted with the language, and try every word of importance, in every way you can, before it be admitted. . . . “In prosecuting this work there are two things to which especially we would call your very close attention, viz., the strictest and most rigid economy and the cultivation of brotherly love.
“Remember that the money which you will expend is neither ours nor yours, for it has been consecrated to God, and every unnecessary expenditure will be robbing God, and appropriating to unnecessary secular uses what is sacred and consecrated to Christ and His cause. In building, especially, remember that you are poor men, and have chosen a life of poverty and self-denial with Christ and his missionary servants. If another person is profuse in his expenditure the consequence is small, because his property would perhaps fall into hands where it might be devoted to the purposes of iniquity ; but missionary funds are in their very circumstances the most sacred and important of anything of this nature on earth.”
Carey’s eldest son, Felix, soon took the place of Mardon. He was a skilful medical missionary and a printer of Oriental languages trained under Ward.
Felix Carey’s missionary life in Burmah opened auspiciously. Writing to Marshman in January, 1814, from Rangoon, he says, “As it respects my prospects in the mission they are greater than at any former period. I hope to be able through the blessing of God to do some little towards aiding the noble views of the British and Foreign Bible Society, by disposing of Bibles and Testaments among the poor Portuguese inhabitants of Rangoon and Ava. I have written to the Portuguese priest and others, all of whom very much approve of the institution and seem inclined to forward its views. I rejoice in the idea of my having such a fair prospect of being enabled to be the unworthy instrument of giving them the sacred writings in the Burman language, and also in the language of Siam and Pegu; but the Burman must come first. I believe I shall be able to procure every assistance necessary towards effecting the accomplishment of the translations into the Siam and Pegu language in this place, and should the plan of getting a press round, succeed, the effecting of this great work will become apparently easy.”
Felix Carey’s linguistic ability and his medical skill brought him into favour with the Burmese government, by whom he was loaded with honours. But at Serampore, his father regarded these honours with little pleasure. “I fear,” he wrote, “these honours have not been beneficial to his soul.” He adds, “It is a very distressing thing to be forced to apologise for those you love.” Later on, the king ennobled him and employed him as ambassador to the supreme government at Calcutta to bring some pending negotiations to a close, degraded, according to his father, from a missionary to an ambassador. In the course of his voyage, the brig in which he sailed was struck by a sudden squall and went down; he alone was saved, his wife and two children being drowned in the Irrawaddy. At the same time his MS. dictionary went to the bottom and was lost. Rather than face the king, for he was not successful in his mission, he threw himself among the wild tribes to the east of Bengal where he passed through a succession of adventures, such as are seldom known except in the pages of a romance. His father writes He is, in my opinion very much sunk, and is absolutely shrivelled up as regards Divine things.” In 1818, he was induced to return to Serampore, where his profound acquaintance with eastern philology enabled him to render valuable assistance to his father in revising his Bengali translations.” He died in 1822, at the early age of thirty-six.
iii. Carey’s third child was Lucy, who died in her second year.
iv. William, born in 1787, received his missionary training under his father. He was sent in 1808, as a missionary to Dinajpore, to begin his independent work there by the side of Fernandez. Afterwards he went to Cutwa, with which his name is chiefly connected. Cutwa is an old town on the upper waters of the Hooghly. His father thus counsels him : Dear William, I suppose that you are arrived at Sadamahal before now. You will, I trust, feel the weight and importance of the work in which you are engaged, and may God enable you to devote yourself entirely to it. You will meet with numerous discouragements both from the people to whom you are gone to make known the word of life, and from what you feel in your own mind, but take courage ; the cause is the cause of God, and though it may not be immediately successful it will assuredly be so at last. Consider yourself as devoted to the work of the Lord, and lay yourself out to promote by every method in your power, the cause of the great Redeemer.
“A ship has just arrived which brings the account that Buonaparte has taken possession of the whole kingdom of Spain, and that the royal family are in prison at Bayonne. It is likely that Turkey is fallen before now, and what will be the end of these wonders one cannot tell. I see the wrath of God poured out upon the nations which have so long prevented the spread of His truth. Buonaparte is but the minister of the Divine vengeance, the public executioner now employed to execute the sentence of God upon criminal men. He, however, has no end in view but the gratifying of his own ambition. . . .
“Now, dear William, what do we live for but to promote the cause of our dear Redeemer in the world ? If that be carried on, we need not wish for anything more ; and if our poor labours be at all blessed to the promotion of that desirable end, our lives will not be in vain. Let this therefore be the great object of your life, and if you should be made the instrument of turning only one soul from darkness to marvellous light who can say how many more may be converted by his instrumentality and what a . tribute of glory may arise to God from that one conversion? You may always enclose a pinch of seeds in a letter.
“30 May, 1809. When you come down take a little pains to bring down a few plants of some sort. There is one grows plentifully about Sadamahal which grows about as high as one’s knee, and produces a large red flower. Put about half-a-dozen plants in pots (with a hole in the bottom). There is at Sadamahal (for I found it there) a plant which produces a flower like Bhoy of a pale bluish colour, almost white ; and indeed several other things there. Try and bring something. Can’t you bring the grasshopper which has a saddle on its back, or the bird which has a large crest which he opens when he settles on the ground ? I want to give you a little taste for natural objects. Felix is very good in this respect.”
In his correspondence it is noteworthy how anxious the father is that all missionary undertakings should be managed with jealous economy: “I suppose the two articles you have mentioned of table expenses and servants include a number of other things ; otherwise I cannot imagine how you can go to that expense. When I was at Mudnabati my income was 200r. per month, and during the time I staid there I had saved there near 2,000 rupees. My table expenses scarcely ever amounted to 50 rupees, and though I kept a moonshi at 20 rupees and four gardeners yet my servant’s “wages did not exceed 60 rupees monthly. I sincerely think your expense on these two articles very great.”
v. Carey’s fifth child was named Peter. He died at Mudnabati in 1794, aged five.
vi. Carey’s fourth son and sixth child was named Jabez. He was born in 1793 and was clerk to a Calcutta attorney when Ryland preached the anniversary sermon for the mission on the removal of the headquarters to London. Pausing in the midst of his discourse, Ryland called on the vast congregation to unite in silent prayer for the conversion of Jabez Carey. The answer came in a letter from his father next year “My son Jabez, who has been articled to an attorney, and has the fairest prospects as to this world, has become decidedly religious, and prefers the work of the Lord to every other.” About this time a request came for missionaries and Bibles in the Malay tongue. Jabez was baptized and sent before he could be ordained. A letter of his father dated 24 Jan., 1814, shows the father’s heart as fully as any document that exists. “You are now engaging in a most important undertaking in which not only you have our prayers for your success but those of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, and who know of your engagement. I know that a few hints for your future conduct from a parent who loves you very tenderly will be acceptable, and I shall therefore now give you them, assured that they will not be given in vain.
1st. Pay the utmost attention at all times to the state of your own mind both towards God and man, cultivate an intimate acquaintance with your own heart, labour to obtain a deep sense of your own depravity and to trust always in Christ; be pure in heart and meditate much upon the pure and holy character of God ; live a life of prayer and devotedness to God ; cherish every amiable and right disposition towards men ; be mild, gentle and unassuming, yet firm and manly. As soon as you perceive anything wrong in your spirit or behaviour set about correcting it, and never suppose yourself so perfect as to need no correction.
2nd. Be not satisfied with conducting yourself towards your wife with propriety, but let love to her be the spring of your conduct towards her. Esteem her highly, and so act that she may be induced thereby to esteem you highly. ….. Let religion always have a place in your house. If the Lord bless you with children, bring them up in the fear of God, and be always an example to others of the power of Godliness. …
3rd. Behave affably and genteelly to all, but not cringingly towards any. Feel that you are a man, and always act with that dignified sincerity and truth which will command the esteem of all. Seek not the society of worldly men, but when called to be with them act and converse with propriety and dignity. To do this labour to gain a good acquaintance with history, geography, men and things. A gentleman is the next best character after a Christian, and the latter includes the former. Money never makes a gentleman, neither does a fine appearance, but an enlarged understanding joined to engaging manners.
4th. On your arrival at Amboyna your first business must be to wait on Mr. Martin. . . . Ask his advice upon every occasion of importance, and communicate freely to him all the steps you take.
At the time when feeling ran high in England as to the variance between the senior and junior missionaries in Calcutta, Dr. Carey thus censured Jabez : From a letter of yours to Jonathan, in which you express a very indecent pleasure at the opposition which Brother Marshman has received, not by the Society, but from an anonymous writer in a magazine, I perceive you are informed of the separation which has taken place between them and us. What in that anonymous piece you call a set-down,” I call a falsehood.” You ought to know that I was a party in all public acts and writings, and that I never intend to withdraw from all the responsibility connected therewith. I utterly despise all the creeping, mean assertions of that party when they say they do not include me in their censures, nor do I work according to them, and according to your rejoicing. . . . As to some of the tissues of falsehold, published in England, I shall certainly never reply to them, and I hope no one else will.
“I should be sorry to harbour hostile sentiments against any man on the earth upon grounds so slight. Indeed were all you say matter of fact, you ought to forgive it, as God for Christ’s sake forgives us. Thy own Friend and thy father’s Friend forsake not.”
Jabez, like his father, Dr. Carey, became an accomplished linguist in Eastern tongues. He added Chinese to the languages he mastered. He died in 1862.
William Henry Carey, eldest son of Jabez Carey, born at Amboyna in 1817, died 1889, was for several years superintendent of the Adjutant-General’s Press at Simla. His eldest son, William (M.B. Edinburgh University, L.E.C.S. Edinburgh), proceeded to India in 1875, as a medical missionary in connection with the Baptist Missionary Society. He laboured at Delhi, Simla, Patna, and Dinapore, retiring in 1892.
vii. Jonathan was born 1794 and died April 13, 1874. He married Hannah, daughter of Samuel Pearce, born 1799, died 1833. To Jonathan we owe some characteristic notes respecting his father.
” His collection of mineral ores and other subjects of natural history was extensive, and obtained his particular attention in seasons of leisure and recreation. The science of botany was his constant delight and study ; and his fondness for his garden remained to the last. No one was allowed to interfere in the arrangements of this his favourite retreat; and it is here he enjoyed his most pleasant moments of secret devotion and meditation. The garden formed the best and rarest botanical collection of plants in the East, to the extension of which, by his correspondence with persons of eminence in Europe and other parts of the world, his attention was constantly directed ; and in return he supplied his correspondents with rare collections from the East. It was painful to observe with what distress my father quitted this scene of his enjoyments, when extreme weakness, during his last illness, prevented his going to his favourite retreat.”
Jonathan says of his father two years after his death: “In principle he was resolute and firm, never shrinking from avowing and maintaining his sentiments. He had conscientious scruples against taking an oath, and condemned severely the manner in which oaths were administered, and urged vehemently the propriety of altogether dispensing with them. He names three instances. …. On the occasion of his last marriage, the day was fixed on which the ceremony was to take place, friends were invited, and all necessary arrangements made ; but three or four days prior to the day fixed he was informed that it would be necessary for him to obtain a licence, in doing which he must either take an oath, or have banns published. To taking an oath he at once objected, and applied to the then senior judge, who informed him that as he was not a Quaker, his oath was indispensable ; but rather than take an oath he applied to have the banns published, and postponed the arrangements for his marriage for another three weeks.”
“The third instance was as follows : It was necessary in a certain case to prove a will in court, in which the name of Dr. Carey was mentioned, in connection with the Serampore missionaries as executors. An application was made by one of his colleagues, which was refused the court, on account of the vagueness of the terms, “Serampore missionaries,” but as Dr. Carey’s name was specifically mentioned, the court intimated that they would grant the application if made by him. The communication was made, but when he was informed that an oath was necessary, he shrank with abhorrence from the idea, but after much persuasion, he consented to make the application, if taking an oath would be dispensed with. He did attend, and stated his objections to the then chief judge, which being allowed his affirmation was received and recorded by the court.”
Jonathan’s eldest son was Jonathan Pearce Carey, late Baptist minister at Tiverton, born in August, 1827, and died in February, 1890. He inherited his father’s wonderful linguistic ability, he mastered Assyrian and Egyptian after he was fifty years of age. William Carey, missionary at Dacca, and Samuel Pearce Carey, M.A., Baptist minister at Loughborough, are his sons. The Rev. William Carey was born on February 11th, 1861, at Wolverhampton, and was educated at Rawdon College. He was appointed to the mission field towards the end of 1884, and his designation took place early in the following year at Bloomsbury Chapel. He was sent to Bengal, and was largely instrumental in founding the Bengal Sunday School Union ; and he has been the pioneer of the Christian Endeavour movement there. His chief work, both at Barisal where he was formerly stationed and at Dacca where he is now, has been chiefly amongst the students of the Government schools. He is extremely enthusiastic in his work and is a very gifted organiser. The Rev. Samuel Pearce Carey, M.A., Lon., was born on March 4th, 1862, also at Wolverhampton. He was a student at Regent’s Park College from 1879 to 1883. At College he took the senior Greek Testament prize in his first year ; and in his last year (coupled with the Rev. G. A. Willis) he took the senior Hebrew prize. He was a Ward’s Trust Scholar throughout his college course. He passed M.A. at London University in 1884. His first charge was at Burnley Baptist Church, of which he became pastor in February, 1887, followed by Wolverhampton in May, 1890, and Loughborough, where he still remains, in December, 1893. He is this year (1898) president of the Loughborough and District Baptist Union.
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