Life of William Carey | Page 4

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use of many unpublished letters written by Carey or referring to him;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 Mrs. S. Carey, South Bank,
Red Hill; Frederick George Carey, Esq., LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn; and
the Rev. Jonathan P. Carey of Tiverton.
My Biographies of Carey of Serampore, Henry Martyn, 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 Christian Church of India which one
of its native sons must some day attempt; 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.
CONTENTS
I. CAREY'S COLLEGE II. THE BIRTH OF ENGLAND'S FOREIGN
MISSIONS III. INDIA AS CAREY FOUND IT IV. SIX YEARS IN

NORTH BENGAL--MISSIONARY AND INDIGO PLANTER V.
THE NEW CRUSADE--SERAMPORE AND THE BROTHERHOOD
VI. THE FIRST NATIVE CONVERTS AND CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
VII. CALCUTTA AND THE MISSION CENTRES FROM DELHI
TO AMBOYNA VIII. CAREY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS IX.
PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, BENGALI, AND MARATHI X. THE
WYCLIF OF THE EAST--BIBLE TRANSLATION XI. WHAT
CAREY DID FOR LITERATURE AND FOR HUMANITY XII.
WHAT CAREY DID FOR SCIENCE--FOUNDER OF THE
AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF INDIA
XIII. CAREY'S IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN
AND AMERICA XIV. CAREY AS AN EDUCATOR--THE FIRST
CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN THE EAST XV. CAREY'S CHRISTIAN
UNIVERSITY FOR THE PEOPLE OF INDIA XVI. CAREY'S LAST
DAYS APPENDIX

LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY, D.D.


CHAPTER I
CAREY'S COLLEGE
1761-1785
The Heart of England--The Weaver Carey who became a Peer, and the
weaver who was father of William Carey--Early training in
Paulerspury--Impressions made by him on his sister--On his
companions and the villagers--His experience as son of the parish
clerk--Apprenticed to a shoemaker of Hackleton--Poverty--Famous
shoemakers from Annianus and Crispin to Hans Sachs and
Whittier--From Pharisaism to Christ--The last shall be first--The
dissenting preacher in the parish clerk's home--He studies Latin, Greek
and Hebrew, Dutch and French--The cobbler's shed is Carey's College.
William Carey, the first of her own children of the Reformation whom
England sent forth as a missionary to India, where he became the most

extensive translator of the Bible and civiliser, was the son of a weaver,
and was himself a village shoemaker till he was twenty-eight years of
age. He was born on the 17th August 1761, in the very midland of
England, in the heart of the district which had produced Shakspere, had
fostered Wyclif and Hooker, had bred Fox and Bunyan, and had for a
time been the scene of the lesser lights of John Mason and Doddridge,
of John Newton and Thomas Scott. William Cowper, the poet of
missions, made the land his chosen home, writing Hope and The Task
in Olney, while the shoemaker was studying theology under Sutcliff on
the opposite side of the market-place. Thomas Clarkson, born a year
before Carey, was beginning his assaults on the slave-trade by
translating into English his Latin essay on the day-star of African
liberty when the shoemaker, whom no university knew, was writing his
Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the
Conversion of the Heathens.
William Carey bore a name which had slowly fallen into forgetfulness
after services to the Stewarts, with whose cause it had been identified.
Professor Stephens, of Copenhagen, traces it to the Scando-Anglian
Car, CAER or CARE, which became a place-name as CAR-EY.
Among scores of neighbours called William, William of Car-ey would
soon sink into Carey, and this would again become the family name. In
Denmark the name Caròe is common. The oldest English instance is
the Cariet who coined money in London for Æthelred II. in 1016.
Certainly the name, through its forms of Crew, Carew, Carey, and Cary,
still prevails on the Irish coast--from which depression of trade drove
the family first to Yorkshire, then to the Northamptonshire village of
Yelvertoft, and finally to Paulerspury, farther south--as well as over the
whole Danegelt from Lincolnshire to Devonshire. If thus there was
Norse blood in William Carey it came out in his persistent missionary
daring, and it is pleasant even to speculate on the possibility of such an
origin in one who was all his Indian life indebted to Denmark for the
protection which alone made his career possible.
The Careys who became famous in English history sprang from Devon.
For two and a half centuries, from the second Richard to the second
Charles, they gave statesmen and soldiers, scholars and bishops, to the

service of their country. Henry Carey, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth,
was the common