If we forget our history, we lose our heritage. And if we have no heritage from the past, there is no legacy for the future. Philip Schaff, the church historian, once wrote, "How shall we labor with any effect to build up the church if we have no thorough knowledge of her history? History is, and must ever continue to be, next to God's Word, the richest foundation of wisdom, and the surest guide to all successful activity."

So today, this question: Who in the world was William Carey, and why does it matter? What can we learn from his life?

William Carey was a cobbler who lived, as one historian put it, "in a forgotten village in the dullest period of the dullest of all centuries." That is, he was born on August 17, 1761 in a rural village of 800 inhabitants called Paulerspury, to the north of London. His father was a weaver, working at a loom in his own cottage, producing a type of woolen cloth. With a loom occupying a large part of the living room, the small cottage must have been very crowded. Five children, two parents, and a grandmother lived there.

William was a sickly child, afflicted by numerous allergies and sensitive to the sun. He was also poorly educated, and his family was poor. As he entered adolescence, his parents were troubled, for William frequently got into trouble, swearing and lying and running around with an undesirable group of mischief-makers. At length, to provide him with training for a trade, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker and he began to learn the craft of cobbling. William found himself working alongside a senior apprentice named John Warr, who was a dedicated Christian. John began to faithfully witness to William, but young William spurned the Gospel and wanted nothing to do with religion. Still, Warr persisted.

Those were the days of the American Revolution, and all England was disturbed by the War that had broken out in 1776. It wasn't going well, and King George III, hoping for divine reversal, proclaimed a day of national prayer and fasting for Sunday, February 10, 1779. John Warr persuaded his young apprentice to join him for a church service.

The preacher that day spoke from Hebrews 13:13, urging his listeners to give their lives to Christ. As he quoted his text—"Let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach"— the words spoke directly to 17-year-old William. His heart made its decision, and from that day, the direction of his life changed. He was afterwards baptized and became a member of the local Baptist Church. In time, he began to do some preaching and served here and there as pastor in nearby Baptist churches.

On June 10, 1781, he proposed to and married to Dorothy (Dolly) Plackett. They settled down in relative poverty, and within a year they bore a daughter, Ann. But a year or so later, the fever swept through the Carey household. Their little daughter, Ann, died; and William nearly did also. He recovered at last, but the disease left him bald; for many years he wore a wig until one day he finally just pulled it off and decided not to bother to hide his baldness any longer.

One day William got hold of a book that had suddenly become a best seller in England. Everyone was reading and talking about it--Captain Cook's Voyages. William borrowed a copy, and as he read the accounts of the famous sailor's travels, he started thinking of overseas evangelism. On the wall of his cobbler's shop, he hung a homemade map of the world, jotting down facts and figures beside the countries. And he began to feel that something should be done to reach the world for Christ.

During those days, if you can believe it, most Protestants believed the Great Commission had been given only to the original Apostles. Except for a group of German Christians called the Moravians, practically nothing was being done to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. There was virtually no vision or burden or thought about missions in the church.

But William Carey developed such a burden for world evangelism that he began to talk about it and preach about it. At meetings of his fellow Baptist ministers, he continually brought up the subject until some of the men grew tired of it. In one famous exchange during a Baptist Associational meeting, Dr. John C. Ryland, the man who had baptized him, said, "Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without consulting you or me."

Carey was so disturbed in his spirit, that he decided to write a book justifying and explaining the imperative of Gospel evangelism. The book, published on May 12, 1792 was entitled: An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, are Considered.

Despite its unwieldy title, this 87-page book became a classic in Christian history that deserves a place alongside Luther's Ninety-five Theses in its influence on subsequent church history.

After his book was published, William was invited to preach to his fellow ministers on Wednesday, May 31, 1792, at 10 am at the Baptist Associational Meeting in Nottingham. He spoke on the imperative of world evangelization from Isaiah 54:2-3, and it was in this sermon that he is quoted has having uttered his famous slogan: Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God.

The following morning there was a business meeting among the ministers, and William fully expected a resolution of some sort which he hoped would lead to the establishment of a missionary society. But near the end of the meeting when no action had still been taken, William turned to fellow minister Andrew Fuller, gripping his arm, and asking "Is nothing again going to be done?" Before the Assembly dispersed at noon on June 1, 1792, it had been resolved on a proposition from Andrew Fuller "that a plan be prepared against the next Minister's Meeting at Kettering, for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the Gospel among the Heathens."

Several months later, on Tuesday, October 2, 1792, fourteen men huddled in the back-parlor of widow Wallis’ house in Kettering, in a room twelve feet by ten. There were twelve ministers, a student, and a deacon. Carey, 31, reviewed the achievements of the Moravians and recounted the Bible’s missionary mandate. By and by, a resolution was worded: Humbly desirous of making an effort for the propagation of the Gospel amongst the Heathen, according to the recommendations of Carey’s Enquiry, we unanimously resolve to act in Society together for this purpose; and as, in the divided state of Christendom, each denomination, by exerting itself separately, seems likeliest to accomplish the great end, we name this the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen.

Andrew Fuller passed around his snuff box with its picture of Paul’s conversion on the lid, taking up church history’s first collection of pledges for organized, home-supported Protestant missions. And William Carey immediately began to make plans to become the first missionary of what we now called the era of modern missions. He wanted to go to India.

But when he told his wife Dorothy all this, she was horrified and declared that she had no interest in gathering up their little family and traveling to a strange land. Who can blame her? She was 5 months pregnant, unlettered, untraveled, having never even seen the sea, unable to share her husband's passion for missions, and unwilling to leave her hearth and home. She refused to go with him. So William made plans to take their 8-yr old son Felix and go, the two of them.

His father's comment was: "Is William mad?" And in fact, many people thought him mad. But nevertheless, on March 20, 1793, he and another man, John Thomas, were set apart for missionary service according to the pattern seen in the book of Acts, the church at Antioch setting apart Paul & Barnabas.

In the end, Dorothy agreed to go if her sister Kitty would go with them, and the family sailed away from England on June 13, 1793. It was a very rough trip. Dorothy had a tiny baby and three energetic boys, all under the age of 9; and the journey aboard the ship took five months, during which time they were all housed in a single cabin and did not put in to any port, not even to take on fresh water. According to one biographer, the "worst moments came about one o'clock in the morning of August 26, when the ship sailed into a terrific storm. Carey was awakened by the sounds of stools, tables, pots, glasses, and everything else flying through the room. The masts toppled and were carried away by the storm; sails and riggings were blown hither and yon. Mountainous seas bore down on the ship from every direction, and the ship would rise and plunge almost perpendicularly. The vessel managed to ride out the storm, only to be quickly hit by another one."

Finally they sailed into the river leading up to Calcutta on Nov 14, 1793. But arriving in Calcutta, they ran into immediate problems. For example, on the advice of John Thomas, they had brought tons of trinkets with them, thinking they could sell them in the marketplace and thereby generate the money they needed to live on. But to their surprise, the marketplace was already glutted with those things. Furthermore, John Thomas, as it turned out, had left behind many creditors in England who caught up with him in India and he was in constant danger of being arrested. The Careys were practically destitute.

I don't have time to give you much more of the story, how they moved from place to place, how they were pressured by the East India Company to cease preaching, how William's wife Dorothy gradually lost her mind. William was also traumatized by witnessing the Hindu practice of Sati--the custom of burning alive widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. And, in terms of practical success, he had none. It was seven years before he baptized his very first convert.

But let me skip to the end of the story. William Carey never took a furlough, and never returned to England. He stayed in India for 41 years, dying there at age 73. When all was said and done, he had translated the complete Bible into six languages, and portions of the Bible into 29 others. He had founded over 100 rural schools for the people of India. He had founded Serampore College, which is still training ministers to this day. In introduced the concept of a savings bank to the farmers of India. He published the first Indian newspaper. He wrote dictionaries and grammars in five different languages. He so influenced the nation of India that, largely through is efforts, the practice of sati was outlawed. And, most importantly, he launched the modern era of missions and laid the foundations for the modern science of missiology. One biographer, Mary Drewery, wrote: "The number of actual conversions attributed to him is pathetically small; the number indirectly attributable to him must be legion."

Lessons

What lessons, then, can we learn from the life of William Carey. I'd like to suggest several of them.

Perhaps the greatest lesson is the one from the text I read at the beginning of the message. God doesn't often use the rich and famous. He seems to do his best work with obscure and ordinary people. Think again of Carey's early life. He was born in an obscure village. His family was poor, and he himself was poorly educated. A skin affliction made him sensitive to outdoor work, so he apprenticed to a nearby shoemaker. When he didn't do well at cobbling, he opened a school to supplement his income. That didn't go well, either. He married, but his marriage proved unhappy. A terrible disease took the life of his baby daughter and left Carey bald for life. He was called to pastor a small church, but he had trouble being ordained because people considered his sermons boring. Arriving in India, he preached without a single convert for many years. And yet, the Lord used him to change the world. To this day we quote his inspiring words: Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

The second lesson is the power of plodding. William Carey was a man of intense determination who never gave up until he had done all he could to succeed at what he felt God had called him to do. His sister once wrote: Whatever he began he finished: difficulties never seemed to discourage his mind. His brother Thomas wrote: I recollect that he was from a boy always resolutely determined never to give up any point or particle of any thing on which his mind was set. Carey himself said: I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.

Closely related to that is the third lesson I'd like to mention. The value of hard work. I would like to read to you a letter that William Carey wrote at about nine o’clock on Thursday night, June 12, 1806. Weary from the day’s labors, he sat at his desk and wrote this letter in the flickering light of his oil lamp, and it gives us a glimpse into a day in the his life:

I rose this day at a quarter before six, read a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and spent the time till seven in private addresses to God and then attended family prayer with the servants in Bengalee. While tea was pouring out, I read a little in Persian with a Moonshi [a native assistant] who was waiting when I left my bedroom. Read also before breakfast a portion of the Scriptures in Hindoosthanee. The moment breakfast was over sat down to the translation of the Ramayuna [an Indian epic] from Sangskrit, with a Pundit... continued this translation till ten o’clock, at which time I went to College (Fort William), and attended the duties there (teaching Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi) till between one and two o’clock — When I returned home I examined a proof sheet of the Bengalee translation of Jeremiah, which took till dinner time... After dinner translated with the assistance of the chief Pundit of the College, greatest part of the 8th Chap. of Matthew, into Sangskrit — this employed me till six o’clock, after six sat down with a Tilingua Pundit... to learn that Language. Mr. Thomas (son of the Rev. Tho. Thomas of London) called in the evening; I began to collect a few previous thoughts into the form of a Sermon, at Seven o’clock, and preached in English at half past seven... The Congregation was gone by nine o’clock. I then sat down to write to you, after this I conclude the Evening by reading a Chapter in the Greek testament, and commending myself to God. I have never more time in a day than this, though the exercises vary.

The fourth thing that impresses me about William Carey was his resiliency. He had the capacity of bouncing back from adversity, like a cork in the water, again and again. My favorite story about Carey has to do with a large print shop he established in Serampore where translation work was continually being done. He spent hours each day translating Scripture, often while his insane wife ranted and raved in the next room.

On March 11, 1832, Carey was teaching in Calcutta, and was away from Serampore. His associate, William Ward, was working late. Suddenly Ward’s throat tightened and he smelled smoke. He leaped up to discover clouds belching from the printing room. He screamed for help, and workers passed water from the nearby river until 2 a.m., but everything was destroyed.

The next day, his associate Joshua Marshman entered the classroom where William was teaching. "I can think of no easy way to break the news," he said. "The print shop burned to the ground last night." Carey was stunned. Gone were his massive polyglot dictionary, two grammar books, and whole versions of the Bible. Gone were sets of type for 14 eastern languages, 1200 reams of paper, 55,000 printed sheets, and 30 pages of his Bengal dictionary. Gone was his complete library. "The work of years — gone in a moment," he whispered.

He took little time to mourn. "The loss is heavy," he wrote, "but as traveling a road the second time is usually done with greater ease and certainty than the first time, so I trust the work will lose nothing of real value. We are not discouraged, indeed the work is already begun again in every language. We are cast down but not in despair."

When news of the fire reached England, it catapulted Carey to instant fame and more than any other single factor led to his developing a world-renowned ministry. Thousands of pounds were raised for the work, and volunteers offered to come help. The enterprise was rebuilt and enlarged. By 1832, complete Bibles, New Testaments, or separate books of Scripture had issued from the printing press in 44 languages and dialects.

"There are grave difficulties on every hand," he once wrote, "and more are looming ahead. Therefore we must go forward."

The fifth reason why I believe the Lord used William Carey has to do with his humility. Long before his death at age 73, Carey had become famous around the world, and people in England even began collecting relics from his youth and early life. But Carey himself said, "The less said about me the better." And when he lay dying in 1834, he summoned fellow missionary Alexander Duff to his side and whispered, "My Duff! You have been speaking about Dr. Carey, Dr. Carey; when I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey. Speak about Dr. Carey's Savior."

The epitaph on his tombstone simply says: "A wretched, poor, and helpless worm, on Thy kind arms I fall."