The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & MissionarySmith, George
Religion
The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary
Smith, George
Carey, William, 1761-1834; Missions -- India
Penang, Ceylon, and even Mauritius. The elaborate review of their
position, signed by the three faithful men of Serampore, at the close
of 1817, amazes the reader at once by the magnitude and variety of the
operations, the childlike modesty of the record, and the heroism of the
toil which supplied the means.
At the time of the organisation into the Five United Missions the staff
of workers had grown to be thirty strong. From England there were nine
surviving:--Carey, Marshman, Ward, Chamberlain, Mardon, Moore, Chater,
Rowe, and Robinson. Raised up in India itself there were seven--the
two sons of Carey, Felix and William; Fernandez, his first convert at
Dinapoor; Peacock and Cornish, and two Armenians, Aratoon and Peters;
two were on probation for the ministry, Leonard and Forder. Besides
seven Hindoo evangelists also on probation, there were five survivors
of the band of converts called from time to time to the
ministry--Krishna Pal, the first, who is entered on the list as "the
beloved"; Krishna Dass, Ram Mohun, Seeta Ram, and Seeta Dass. Carey's
third son Jabez was soon to become the most advanced of the three
brothers away in far Amboyna. His father had long prayed, and besought
others to pray, that he too might be a missionary. For the last
fifteen years of his life Jabez was his closest and most valued
correspondent.
But only less dear than his own sons to the heart of the father,
already in 1817 described in an official letter as "our aged brother
Carey," were the native missionaries and pastors, his sons in the
faith. He sent forth the educated Petumber Singh, first in November
1802, to his countrymen at Sooksagar, and "gave him a suitable and
solemn charge: the opportunity was very pleasant." In May 1803 Krishna
Pal was similarly set apart. At the same time the young Brahman,
Krishna Prosad, "delivered his first sermon in Bengali, much to the
satisfaction of our brethren." Six months after, Ward reports of him
in Dinapoor:--"The eyes of the people were fixed listening to Prosad;
he is becoming eloquent." In 1804 their successful probation resulted
in their formal ordination by prayer and the laying on of the hands of
the brethren, when Carey addressed them from the divine words, "As my
Father hath sent me so send I you," and all commemorated the Lord's
death till He come. Krishna Dass was imprisoned unjustly, for a debt
which he had paid, but "he did not cease to declare to the native men
in power that he was a Christian, when they gnashed upon him with their
teeth. He preached almost all night to the prisoners, who heard the
word with eagerness." Two years after he was ordained, Carey charged
him as Paul had written to Timothy, "in the sight of God and of Christ
Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead," to be instant in season
and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering
and teaching. Ram Mohun was a Brahman, the fruit of old Petumber's
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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