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The Life and Legacy of William Carey

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The Life and Legacy of William Carey SpringC 2011 www.wmcarey.eduarey THE WILLIAM CAREY UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE the legacy of William Carey Carey THE WILLIAM CAREY UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 4 Life & Legacy of William Carey Cover Story: Celebrating William Carey’s life, career, and commitment to the work of Christ. what’s inside... what’s 17 Homecoming Mark your calendar! Join in the fellowship April 14, 15, and 16th. 18 Campus News 20 Faculty & Student Awards 23 New Orleans Campus: Graduation 24 Going Global William Carey Students traveling to China, Mali, Kenya, Philippines, and Israel. 26 Faculty News 30 Alumni Spotlight 33 WCU Online William Carey University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Annuals & Catalogs Schools to award bachelor, master, specialist, and the doctor of osteopathic medicine degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, 34 Alumni News & Class Notes GA 30033-4097 or call 407-679-4500 with questions about the accreditation of William Carey University. Spring 2011 | 3 250 William Carey, D.D. By Dr. Bennie Crockett (1761-1834) orn into an Anglican He initiated the formation of the missionaries distributed numerous family in 1761, William Baptist Missionary Society in 1792 Bible translations, established Carey became a cobbler, with his watchword “Expect great churches, and led people to a self-educated scientist things; attempt great things” and relationship with Christ. With Joshua and linguist, and Baptist his pamphlet An Enquiry into the and Hannah Marshman, Carey Bminister from the English midlands. Obligations of Christians to Use pioneered the education of Indian Means for the Conversion of the natives, Christian ministers, and Heathens. In 1793, along with his Indian women and girls; in 1818, family and John Thomas, Carey the missionaries founded Serampore journeyed to India for Christian College. All of the missionaries mission work in Bengal, where he campaigned against caste, remained until his death in 1834 in infanticide, and suttee (widow- Serampore. burning), but Carey had the singular The Serampore Mission honor in 1829 of translating Lord (established in 1800) created Bentinck’s edict abolishing suttee. scores of Christian mission stations Carey’s missionary understanding throughout southern Asia where prompted him to translate the scriptures and Indian literature, and publish Bibles, grammars, and dictionaries in such Indian languages as Bengali, Sanskrit, Hindi, Oriya, Marathi, and Punjabi. Carey’s colleague and master printer William Ward managed the Serampore Mission Press (est. 1800) and printed all of the missionaries’ work. From 1801-1830, Carey was professor of Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi at Fort William College, Calcutta, a civil service college 4 | Carey Magazine operated by the East India Company. shells, fauna, and flora, Carey wrote John Newton, author of the At Fort William College, he worked and published works on botany famous hymn “Amazing Grace,” with Indian scholars in translation, through the Serampore Mission wrote of Carey, “I look to such a grammar development, and Press. For his botanical work, the man with reverence. He is more dictionary compilation. Recognizing Linnaean Society of London named to me than bishop or archbishop; his translation and linguistic work, him a fellow in 1823, one of the he is an apostle.” Following Brown University awarded him highest scholarly honors in the the command of God for a the honorary Doctor of Divinity in early nineteenth century. Carey also comprehensive mission to India, 1806, the only degree he ever held. established the Agricultural and Carey captured the Christian Carey was an accomplished Horticultural Society of India in meaning of the term “apostle” botanist and scientist. A lifelong 1820 and India’s first periodical, The —someone sent out with Christ’s collector of insects, birds, rocks, Friend of India. purpose. All historic images and maps in this issue are held in the Center for Study of the Life and Work of William Carey, D.D. (1761-1834). Spring 2011 | 5 Born August 17 into the 6 Anglican Church, Paulerspury, | 1761 Northamptonshire, England Carey 1781 Married Dorothy Plackett Magazine John Ryland baptized Carey in 1783 the River Nene WILLIAM Received as a member and 1785 preached in Olney Baptist Church Pastor, Harvey Lane Baptist 1789 Church, Leicester, England 250 1792 Enquiry published Delivered “Deathless Sermon” at Northamptonshire Baptist Association with “Expect great CAREY: things; attempt great things” Helped establish the “Particular Baptist Society for Propagating Gospel Among Heathen” Sailed to India; Mission work 1793 250 miles north of Calcutta 1794 Peter Carey, age five, died Moved to Serampore and joined William Ward and Joshua and By 1800 Hannah Marshman; Baptized first Dr. Indian convert Krishna Pal Bennie 1801 Bengali New Testament published Crockett Appointed Professor of Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi, Fort William College, Calcutta First European to deliver a speech 1804 in Sanskrit in Calcutta Awarded Doctor of Divinity from 1806 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Translated and published the Indian epic poem, Ramayana 1807 Dorothy Carey died 1808 Married Charlotte Rumohr 1809 Complete Bengali Bible published Fire destroyed the Mission Press 1812 including fonts, translations, and printed copies Established Serampore College, 1818 Serampore, India Established the Agricultural and 1820 Horticultural Society of India, Calcutta 1821 Charlotte Rumohr Carey died 1823 Married Grace Hughes Awarded the title of Fellow, Linnaean Society, London Serampore College received Royal Charter of Incorporation from the Spring 1827 King of Denmark 2011 Suttee abolished by Lord Bentinck’s 1829 Edict which Carey translated | Died June 9, Serampore, India; Buried in the Mission Burial 7 1834 Ground, Serampore 250 WILLIAM CAREY: By Dr. Myron The Cobbler Noonkester parish society and consigned him Poverty and persecution shaped to a Puritan, dissenting tradition Carey’s commitment to social reform. that was barely tolerated by law He opposed slavery by boycotting and often scorned by members of sugar. Once in India as a missionary, the establishment in church and he resisted the inequality of the In 1763, two years after William state. Though never imprisoned, caste system and fought to stop the Carey’s birth, British victory over the Carey no doubt felt persecuted in practice of widow-burning, called French extended the British Empire the tradition of fellow Baptist John suttee. Poverty had led Carey to a across North America and into Bunyan. He also felt the scandal of vision of society that promoted and India, where Carey would become a manual labor. Critics later grouped was promoted by Christian notions of missionary 30 years later. But imperial him with “apostates from the loom equality before God. During Carey’s glory could not alter the humble and anvil.” Even a friendly patron, later years in India, when he was prospects and constraints of a rigid determined to subsidize his continued received in polite drawing rooms social structure that left youthful Carey studies as a pastor, had no high as the eminent Dr. Carey, his ears with few opportunities to escape opinion of his abilities as a cobbler. still burned at being complimented poverty. Educated by his father who His association with the voluntarist, by a government official for rising was parish clerk and schoolmaster, democratic Baptist political from a shoe-maker to the status Carey had no university scholarship organization made him dangerous of a distinguished missionary and in prospect and so was fitted for trade to the authorities, a fit subject for Orientalist. Carey insisted instead as an apprentice cobbler. Stung by persecution and exclusion. Carey’s that he was not a maker of shoes guilt over misappropriation marriage to Dorothy “Dolly” Plackett but a mere cobbler or mender of of a shilling of his in 1781 left him with a burgeoning shoes. His response recalled less employer’s money, brood of children and a fading comfortable days when he was as Carey’s decision prospect of inheriting a profitable much a “renegade” as a pilgrim. to become business. For years Carey was what first an we would now call a bi-vocational Independent pastor but what the establishment and then of his age regarded as a “mechanic a Baptist preacher.” It is not surprising that removed Carey became a republican him from opponent of monarchy. 28 | Carey Magazine 250 WILLIAM CAREY: The Scientist By Dr. Myron Noonkester The life of William Carey 1778). He read Curtis and Sowerby’s (1761-1834) witnessed an “Age botanical magazines and, as part of of Improvement” resulting from a scientific network that stretched advances in science and industry and from his native Northamptonshire an “Age of Atonement” arising from to India, traded seeds and shoots evangelical concern with redemption with gardeners and botanists across from sin. Yet Carey championed the world. At one time Dr. Carey’s science in a fallen world because he garden in Serampore, a growing regarded it as a “sublime mediation” testimony to Carey’s cultural on the Creator and creation. exchanges, employed no fewer than Carey’s interest in science began 50 gardeners. In 1834, joining other in childhood when he collected contributors who included Henry and observed plants, birds, insects, Clay and John Quincy Adams, he and rocks. It developed further with sent two plants,diosma alba and his association with the Leicester illicium floridanum, to an exhibition Philosophical Institute
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