The Life

of

William  Carey,  D.D.

Shoemaker and Missionary

PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, BENGALI, AND MARATHI IN THE

COLLEGE OF FORT WILLIAM, CALCUTTA

 

by George Smith, ll.d. c.i.E.

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL SOCIETIES; MEMBER OF

COUNCIL OF THE SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY; AUTHOR OF THE

'LIFE OF DUFF' AND 'LIFE OF WILSON,' ETC.

 

 

 

Pur hlqon balein eiV thn ghn.

 

 

WITH PORTRAIT AND ILLUSTRATIONS

 

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1885

 

The right of translation is reserved.


Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh.


to

my wife

for twenty years my fellow-worker in

calcutta and serampore

in the scenes consecrated by the memory of

william  carey


PREFACE. 

ON the death of William Carey In 1834 Dr. Joshua Marshman promised to write the Life of his great colleague, with whom he had held almost daily converse since the beginning of the century, but he survived too short a time to begin the work.  As a writer of culture, in full sympathy and frequent correspondence with Carey, the Rev. Christopher Anderson, of Edinburgh, was even better fitted for the task.  in 1836 the Rev. Eustace Carey anticipated him by issuing what is little better than a selection of mutilated letters and journals made at the request of the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society.  It contains one passage of value, however.  Dr. Carey once said to his nephew, whose design he seems to have suspected, "Eustace, if after my removal any one should think it worth his while to write my Life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness.  If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly.  Anything beyond this will be too much.  I can plod.  I can persevere in any definite pursuit.  To this I owe everything."

    The Rev. Dr. Belcher was the first to publish, at Philadelphia, U.S., in 1853, a brief biography showing the man as he was.  In 1859 Mr. John Marshman, after his final return to England, published The Life and Times of Carey,


viii 

PREFACE.

Marshman, and Ward, a valuable history and defence of the Serampore Mission, but rather a biography of his father than of Carey.  In 1881 the Rev. Dr. Culross wrote a short and charming sketch of William Carey.  Mr. John Taylor, Northampton, has lately published a collection of facts and extracts relating to the Carey, in his Bibliotheca Northantonensis.

    When I first went to Serampore the great missionary had not been twenty years dead.  During my long residence there as Editor of The Friend of India, I came to know, in most of its details, the nature of the work done by Carey for India and for Christendom in the first third of the century.  I began to collect such materials for his Biography as were to be found in the office, the press, and the college, and among the Native Christians and Brahman pundits whom he had influenced.  In addition to such materials and experience I have been favoured with the use of many unpublished letters written by Carey or referring to him; for which courtesy I here desire to thank his grandsons, Frederick George Carey, Esq., LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn; and the Rev. Jonathan T. Carey of Tiverton, whose son is now carrying on the Burrisal Mission founded by his great-grandfather; also the Rev. C. B. Lewis, the biographer of Thomas, the first medical missionary; and the venerable widow of the Rev. Christopher Anderson.  Mr. Baynes, the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Societywhich is worthily conducting in Africa on the Congo, an enterprise greater than even Carey prayed for—has generously granted me the use of several engravings from photographs, which he had taken during a recent visit to Serampore.  Mr. R. Blechynden junr., of Calcutta, caused the records of the Asiatic and Agricultural Societies there to be searched and copies for use in these pages.


ix 

PREFACE.

    My three Biographies of Carey of Serampore, Duff of Calcutta, and Wilson of Bombay, cover a period of nearly a century and a quarter, from 1761 to 1878.  They have been written as contributions to that history of the Church of India which one of its native sons must some day attempt; but also to the annals of the Evangelical Revival, which may well be called the Second Reformation; and to the history of English-speaking peoples, whom the Foreign Missions begun by Carey have made the rulers and civilisers of the non-Christian world.

    The Life of the Rev. Krishna Mohun Banerjea, D.L., C.I.E., Dr. Duff's second convert, and from his baptism in 1832 to his death in 1885 the leader of the Native Christians of India, is being prepared by one of his grandsons.  To complete the story so far as India is concerned, we still desiderate such a record of progress in South India from Ziegenbalg and Schwartz to Anderson and Miller as Bishop Caldwell could give us; and a biography of Charles Grant, for which, I believe, there are abundant materials.

    SERAMPORE HOUSE, MERCHISTON;

        EDINBURGH, 24th August 1885.


CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

CAREY'S COLLEGE

PAGE

1

CHAPTER II.

THE BIRTH OF ENGLAND'S FOREIGN MISSIONS 

27

CHAPTER III.

INDIA AS CAREY FOUND IT

55

CHAPTER IV.

SIX YEARS IN NORTH BENGALMISSIONARY AND INDIGO  PLANTER

79

CHAPTER V.

THE NEW CRUSADESERAMPORE AND THE BROTHERHOOD

111

CHAPTER VI.

THE FIRST NATIVE CONVERTS AND CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS

132

CHAPTER VII.

CALCUTTA AND THE MISSION CENTRES FROM DELHI TO AMBOYNA

157

 

 


xii

CONTENTS.

 

CHAPTER VIII.

CAREY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS

PAGE

178

CHAPTER IX.

PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, BENGALI, AND MARATHI

207

CHAPTER X.

THE WYCLIF OF THE EASTBIBLE TRANSLATION

235

CHAPTER XI.

WHAT CAREY DID FOR LITERATURE AND FOR HUMANITY

272

CHAPTER XII.

WHAT CAREY DID FOR SCIENCEFOUNDER OF THE AGRICULTURAL    AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF INDIA

294

CHAPTER XIII.

CAREY'S IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA

330

CHAPTER XIV.

CAREY AS AN EDUCATORTHE FIRST CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN

    THE EAST

377

CHAPTER XV.

CAREY'S LAST DAYS     

411

                                                                                                                                                    


                                                                                                                                                                     xiii

CONTENTS.

 

                                         APPENDIX.

 

  I.  THE BOND OF THE MISSIONARY BROTHERHOOD OF

            SERAMPORE

PAGE

441

 II.  LATEST JUSTIFICATION OF CAREY'S PIONEER WORK 451

III.  THE ANGLO-ORIENTAL AND THE ANGLO-VERNACULAR

            v.  THE EXCLUSIVELY ENGLISH SYSTEM OF

            EDUCATION IN INDIA   

452
INDEX    457

                                                                                                                                                    

                                                ___________

 

                                ILLUSTRATIONS.

WILLIAM CAREY AT FIFTY

Frontispiece.

 

WILLIAM CAREY'S BIRTHPLACE

PAGE

4

CAREY'S "COLLEGE," HACKLETON 22
CAREY'S COTTAGE AND SCHOOL, PIDDINGTON 24
BIRTHPLACE OF ENGLAND'S FOREIGN MISSIONS, KETTERING 53
FIRST MISSION HOUSE IN NORTH INDIA, DINAJPOOR 99
DANISH LUTHERAN (NOW ANGLICAN) CHURCH, SERAMPORE 123
PLAN OF SERAMPORE ON THE HOOGLI 125
THE FIRST BRAHMAN WHO PREACHED CHRIST 140
CAREY'S CHRISTIAN VILLAGE—BAPTISM IN THE TANK  141
CHRISTIAN VILLAGERS, SERAMPORE 145
KRISHNA CHANDRA PAL, THE FIRST CONVERT 160
HENRY MARTYN'S PAGODA, ALDEEN 191
SHEEV TEMPLE, SERAMPORE 196
THE SERAMPORE COLLEGE 384
NATIVE DIVINITY STUDENTS, SERAMPORE COLLEGE 397
CAREY'S OFFICIAL RESIDENCE AND BACK OF THE COLLEGE 420
CAREY'S TOMB, SERAMPORE 433

 

"As time passes it appears that we are in the hands of a Providence which is greater than all statesmanship, that this fabric so blindly piled up has a chance of becoming a part of the permanent edifice of civilisation, and that the Indian achievement of England, as it is the strongest, may after all turn out to be the greatest of all her achievements."—PROFESSOR J. R. SEELEY.


 

 

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Created:    November 24, 2003            Updated:    February 2, 2009