“You have been speaking about William Carey. When I am gone, say nothing about William Carey-speak only about William Carey’s Saviour.”
At a meeting of Baptist leaders in the late 1700s, a newly ordained minister stood to argue for the value of overseas missions. He was abruptly interrupted by an older minister who said, “Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.” That such an attitude is inconceivable today is largely due to the subsequent efforts of that young man, William Carey.
While working as a cobbler, he always had a calling to serve the Lord. And he travelled to India
After moving to India he was forced to move his family repeatedly as he sought employment that could sustain them. Illness racked the family, and loneliness and regret set it: “I am in a strange land,” he wrote, “no Christian friend, a large family, and nothing to supply their wants.” But he also retained hope: “Well, I have God, and his word is sure.” He learned Bengali with the help of a pundit, and in a few weeks began translating the Bible into Bengali and preaching to small gatherings. When Carey himself contracted malaria, and then his 5-year-old Peter died of dysentery, it became too much for his wife, Dorothy, whose mental health deteriorated rapidly. She suffered delusions, accusing Carey of adultery and threatening him with a knife. She eventually had to be confined to a room and physically restrained. William Carey was a worker who fell in India, but the work he did still goes on.
“For 41 years Carey was the recognised leader of the growing Indian mission. Never in Christian history has there appeared a man with greater versatility of gifts or consecration more complete. He was India’s pioneer in agriculture, horticulture, and in the promotion of vernacular education. He was the moving spirit of the Serampore Trio who set up and operated the first steam engine in India, introduced the large scale manufacture of paper, inaugurated the printing industry by the establishment of the great Mission Press, and built a college which still stands to train Christian leaders to engage in the conquest of India for Christ. He was interested in social reform as an expression of the Christian spirit and used his influence against suttee [sati] and the practice of casting babies into the Ganges as a sacrifice to the gods. It was Carey who founded the Christian Church in India, and, incredible as it seems, it was this same erstwhile cobbler who, with the help of associates, translated and printed the Word of God, either the whole or the most precious parts thereof, into 34 different tongues. In the book of Revelation, John tells of seeing an angel who gained authority over the nations, not by the might of armies, navies, and fleets of airplanes, but by the power of a Book that was “open in his hand.” It was the privilege of Carey and his associates to put this incomparable Book into the hands of India’s millions and to open its matchless message to their wondering hearts”
A cobbler who changed a nation all because he was relentless in his calling