Isaiah 54:2 to 3 · Story · Perseverance
I Can Plod
William Carey was an English missionary in Bengal, and his nephew Eustace Carey published his Memoir in Boston in 1836.
Carey waited seven years for his first convert and lost his press to fire, and he kept on.
“Enlarge the site of your tent, stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back. Lengthen your ropes and drive your stakes in deep.
- When
- 1792 to 1812 AD
Summary
Carey preached at Nottingham in 1792 on Isaiah 54:2 to 3, and the ministers who heard him pledged themselves to carry the gospel abroad. In the same year his Enquiry asked whether Christ's commission still binds the church. He reached India by sea in November 1793. The Memoir prints his letters and journals from the years that followed, with Andrew Fuller's account of the sermon.
- The first Hindu convert and Carey's son Felix were baptized on 28 December 1800.
- Carey's mission printed the New Testament in Bengali in 1801.
- A fire in March 1812 destroyed the mission's printing office, and only the presses were saved.
- Andrew Fuller and Francis Wayland give the two heads of the Nottingham sermon in different words.
A Plodder by His Own Account
The story rests on Carey's own letters, journals and book.
Carey's years in Bengal are a record of work begun again after each setback. He belongs to the value of perseverance because he kept on at the work through those setbacks.
The question this study answers is what the record of his life shows of that endurance. It gives seven dated events, the Enquiry and the sermon of 1792, the arrival, the first baptism, the fire and his own word for his gift. It also sets out the two wordings of the sermon's heads, each with its holder.
Carey also stands among the examples of the value of patience, for the years he waited before the first baptism.
The Dates of His Work
Carey's letters and journals show when each event happened.
The dated events of Carey's work run from the Enquiry of 1792 to the fire of 1812.
To scale: 7 of 7 stops dated; a mark that would lie on another stands in a lane under the axis.
- The Enquiry is printed1792 ADKnownIts title page, dated MDCCXCII
- Carey preaches to the Nottingham associationJune 1792 ADThe month as Fuller's account prints it; the pages opened give no dayAndrew Fuller's account in the Memoir, pages 49 to 50
- The ministers pledge themselves as a society at Kettering1792 ADThe year from Fuller's account; no day was found in the pages openedFuller's account in the Memoir, page 50
- The ship reaches Balasore roads7 November 1793 ADKnownThe Memoir, page 80
- The first convert is baptized with Carey's son28 December 1800 ADKnownThe Memoir, pages 296 to 297
- The New Testament in Bengali is printed1801 ADKnownThe Memoir, page 406
- The printing office burnsMarch 1812 ADThe month as both letters give itThe Memoir, pages 349 to 351
A timeline of seven dated events, each row giving its certainty and the record that fixes its date.
The Enquiry and the Sermon of 1792
In one year Carey printed a book on missions and preached the sermon that led to a society.
Carey's book bore the title An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. It runs to five sections, and the first asks "whether the Commission given by our Lord to his Disciples be not still binding on us".
Its title page carries Romans 10:12 to 15 as its epigraph, signed "PAUL".
How then can they call on the One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”Carey set this passage at the head of his Enquiry, and its questions about hearing and sending are the questions his book takes up.
Andrew Fuller's account of Carey, printed in the Memoir, says that "At the Nottingham association, in June, 1792, Mr. Carey preached" on Isaiah 54:2 to 3.
For you will spread out to the right and left; your descendants will dispossess the nations and inhabit the desolate cities.Carey's text ran on into this verse, and its promise is the ground he gave for expecting great things.
Fuller wrote that Carey took up the passage "in two exhortations, which he addressed to his brethren". The first was "Expect great things from God", and the second "Attempt great things for God".
Fuller's account goes on to the next meeting of the ministers, at Kettering. There they "pledged themselves to God and one another, as a society, to make at least an attempt for carrying the gospel somewhere into the heathen world".
The Arrival of 1793
Carey's letter and journal record the end of the voyage and the first days of the work.
Carey's letter headed "November 14" reports that "we arrived in Balasore roads, on the 7th instant, and on the 10th, Mr. Thomas and I began our labors".
His journal entry for 9 November 1793 records his first talk with Hindus, from the ship.
The First Baptism and the New Testament
Carey's journal and the Memoir record the first baptism of a Hindu and the printing of the New Testament.
Carey's journal entry of 29 December 1800 opens, "Yesterday was a day of great joy." He had baptized "the first Hindu, viz., Krishnu, and my son Felix".
Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.Carey's first convert came seven years into his work, and this verse is the word for a worker in such a wait.
The Memoir records that the New Testament in Bengali "was printed and circulated in 1801", and that the brethren presented a copy of it to Lord Wellesley.
The Fire of 1812
Two letters of March 1812 report the loss of the printing office.
Carey wrote to his nephew Eustace Carey in March 1812 that "Our printing-office was totally consumed by fire". He added that the property lost amounted "to at least sixty or seventy thousand rupees", and that "nothing was saved but the presses".
His letter to Fuller, dated at Calcutta on 25 March 1812, says the fire happened "the week before last". The day in the heading of the letter to Eustace Carey cannot be read in the copy of the Memoir opened, so the day of the fire is not fixed.
The Two Heads of the Sermon
Fuller and Wayland, both printed in the volume of 1836, set down the motto differently.
Fuller's wording, with "from God" and "for God"Andrew Fuller, in the Memoir (1836), pages 49 to 50
Fuller's account names the place, the month and the text of the sermon.
The objection: Fuller set the heads down afterward, and the words Carey spoke on the day are not known.
Wayland's shorter mottoFrancis Wayland, introductory essay to the Memoir (1836), page xvii
Wayland gives the motto as "attempt great things, expect great things".
The objection: Wayland wrote his essay for a Memoir printed in 1836, forty-four years after the sermon.
I Can Plod
Carey named the one gift he would claim, and two writers report his words.
Eustace Carey wrote that his uncle "once said to me: 'Eustace, if, after my removal, any one should think it worth his while to write my life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness.'"
Carey went on, "If he give me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Any thing beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe every thing."
Francis Wayland's essay gives a shorter form, in which Carey calls himself a plodder and claims no genius. Wayland's own footnote says that he quoted it "from recollection".
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.The verse calls for the endurance Carey asked to be remembered for.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Eustace Carey, Memoir of William Carey, D.D., with an introductory essay by Francis Wayland (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1836)
- Andrew Fuller, "an attempt at a memoir of brother Carey", printed in Eustace Carey, Memoir of William Carey (1836), pages 49 to 50.
- Francis Wayland, introductory essay to Eustace Carey, Memoir of William Carey (1836), pages xv and xvii.
- William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (Leicester, 1792)
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