Pioneers and Founders

Perhaps, in spite of his kindness, Mrs. Carey had to endure the disasters common to the wives of struggling great men: for William Carey's shoes were not equal to his sermons, and his congregation were too poor even to raise means to clothe him decently. His time was spent in long tramps to sell shoes he had made and to obtain the mending of others, and, meantime, he was constantly suffering from fever and ague.

In 1786, when in his twenty-fifth year, he obtained a little Baptist chapel and the goodwill of a school at Moulton; but as a minister he only received 16_l. per annum, and at the same time proved, as many have done before him, that aptness to learn does not imply aptness to teach. He could not keep order, and his boys first played tricks with him and then deserted, till he came nearly to starvation, and had to return to his last and his leather.

Yet it was the geography lessons of this poor little school that first found the way to the true chord of Carey's soul. Those broad tracts of heathenism that struck his eye in the map, and the summary of nations and numbers professing false religions, were to a mind like his no mere items of information to be driven into dull brains, but were terrible realities representing souls perishing for lack of knowledge. Cook's Voyages fell into his hands and fed the growing impulse. He hung up in his shop a large map, composed of several sheets pasted together, and gazed at it when at his work, writing against each country whatever information he had been able to collect as to the number of the inhabitants, their religion, government, or habits, also as to the climate and natural history.

After he had for some time thus dwelt on the great longing of his heart, he ventured on speaking it forth at a meeting of ministers at Northampton, when there was a request that some topic might be named for discussion. Carey then modestly rose and proposed 'the duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel among the heathen.' The words were like a shock. The senior, who acted as president, sprang up in displeasure, and shouted out, 'Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.' And another, namely Mr. Fuller, who afterwards became the sheet anchor of the Missions, describes himself as having thought of the words of the noble at Jezreel, 'If the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be?'

Silenced by his brethren, Carey persevered, and proceeded to write what he had not been allowed to speak. A Birmingham tradesman of the name of Pott, an opulent man, was induced by his earnestness to begin a subscription for the publication of Carey's pamphlet, which showed wonderful acquaintance with the state of the countries it mentioned, and manifested talent of a remarkable order. In truth, Carey had been endowed with that peculiar missionary gift, facility for languages. A friend gave him a large folio in Dutch, and was amazed by his returning shortly after with a translation into English of one of the sermons which the book contained.

He was becoming more known, and an invitation from a congregation at Leicester, in 1789, placed him in somewhat more comfortable circumstances, and brought him into contact with persons better able to enter into his views; but it was three years more before he could either publish his pamphlet or take the very first steps towards the establishment of a Society for Promoting the Conversion of the Heathen.

The first endeavour to collect a subscription resulted in 13_l. 2_s. 6_d. This was at Kettering, and at the same time Carey offered to embark for any country the Society might appoint. The committee, however, waited to collect more means, but they found it almost impossible to awaken people's minds. At Birmingham, indeed, 70_l. was collected, but in London the dissenting pastors would have nothing to do with the cause; and the only minister of any denomination who showed any sympathy was the Rev. John Newton, that giant of his day, who had in his youth been captain of a slaver, and well knew what were the dark places of the earth. The objections made at that time were perfectly astounding. In the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, several Presbyterian ministers pronounced it to be 'highly preposterous' to attempt to spread the Gospel among barbarous nations, extolled the 'simple virtues' of the untutored savage, and even declared that the funds of Missionary Societies might be turned against Government.

In India itself, the endeavours of the Danish settlement at Tranquebar had little affected Bengal, but a few of the more religious men at Calcutta had begun to be shocked at the utter oblivion of all Christian faith and morality by their own countrymen, and the absolute favour shown to the grossest idolatry of the heathen. Charles Grant, a member of the Board of Trade at Calcutta, was the foremost of these, and on his return to England brought the subject under the notice of that great champion of Christ, William Wilberforce. The charter of the East India Company was renewed from time to time; and when it was brought before Parliament, Wilberforce proposed the insertion of clauses enforcing the maintenance of chaplains, churches, and schools, so that a branch of the Church might take root in Hindostan.

This scheme, however, excited violent and selfish alarm in the directors, chiefly men who had made their fortunes in India, and after living there for years under no restraint were come home to enjoy their riches. They believed that the natives would take umbrage at the least interference with their religion, and that their own wealth and power, so highly prized, would be lost if idolatry were not merely tolerated, but flattered and supported. The souls of men and the honour of God were nothing to them; they were furious with indignation, and procured from the House of Commons the omission of the clauses. There was another hope in the Lords; but though Archbishop Moore and the Bishop of London spoke in favour of the articles, the Bishop of St. David's said one nation had no right to impose its faith on another. None of the other Bishops stirred, and the charter passed without one line towards keeping Englishmen Christians, or making Hindoos such! The lethargy of the Church of the eighteenth century was so heavy that not only had such a son as Carey been allowed to turn from her pale in search of earnest religion, but while she was forced to employ foreigners, bred up in the Lutheran communion, as the chaplains and missionaries of her Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, he was going forth unaccredited as a volunteer in the cause which her paralysed efforts could not support!

For it was to India that the minds of the little Baptist Society were turned by the return of one John Thomas, who seems to have been the Gaultier Sans Avoir of this crusade. He was Baptist by education, and having gone out as a surgeon to Calcutta, had been so shocked at the state of things as to begin to preach on his own account, but he was a hot tempered, imprudent man, and quarrelled with everybody, so as to make the cause still more unpopular with the East Indians. Yet this strange, wild character had a wonderful power of awakening enthusiasm. He had come home in the same ship with one Wilson, whose history was a marvel in itself. He had been made prisoner by the French during the Carnatic war, and finding that the captives were to be delivered up to Hyder Ali, he resolved to escape, leapt forty feet from his prison window, and swam the river Coleroon, in happy ignorance that it was infested with alligators; but then going up an eminence to judge of his bearings, he was seen, secured, and stripped naked, and, with his hands tied behind him, was driven before Hyder Ali. His account of having crossed the Coleroon was treated as a lie. 'No mortal man,' said the natives, 'had ever swum the river; did he but dip a finger in, he would be seized by the alligators,' but when evidence proved the fact, the Nabob held up his hands and cried, 'This is the man of God.' Nevertheless Wilson was chained to a soldier, and, like the well-known David Baird, John Lindsay, and many others, was driven naked, barefoot, and wounded, 500 miles to Seringapatam; where, loaded with irons of thirty-two pounds weight, and chained in couples, they were thrust into a 'black hole,' and fed so scantily that Wilson declared that at sight of food his jaws snapped together of themselves. Many a time in the morning corpses were unchained, and the survivors coupled up together again. Wilson was one of the thirty-one who lived to be released after twenty-two months, in a frightful state of exhaustion and disease. Afterwards, when commanding a ship at Bencoolen, every European under his command died, and he alone escaped, yet all this time he was an absolute infidel; and, when having made a fortune, he was returning home, he appeared so utterly hardened against all the arguments that the zealous Thomas could bring in favour of Christianity, as to make him in despair remark to the chief officer that he should have more hope of converting the Lascar sailors than of Captain Wilson.

However, the words were penetrating the hitherto ignorant or obdurate heart, and preparing it to attend to further instruction. After some years of comfort at home, on hearing of plans for a mission to the South Sea Islands, Wilson resolved to offer himself as a free and spontaneous fellow-worker, ready to sacrifice his whole self in the great cause!

Meantime Thomas's fervid account of the needs of India had made the infant Society propose to send him out with one colleague; and William Carey, now thirty-three years of age, offered himself as a fellow-worker.

The notion was terrible to Mrs. Carey, who flatly refused to go; but her husband decided on leaving her at home, and only taking his eldest boy, then about ten or eleven years old. An application was made to the Board of Directors for a licence to the two missionaries to preach, and for a passage in one of the Company's vessels; but when Mr. Grant learnt that Thomas was one of them, he refused to assist in promoting their request, though he undertook to do what he could for Carey alone. However, the Board were certain to refuse them a passage; not