William Carey

Baptist Missionary Society

A village shoemaker who taught himself languages at his workbench, William Carey became the figure most associated with the modern missionary movement. He pressed his fellow Baptists to both dare and trust, helped found their society in 1792, and reached Bengal the next year. From Serampore he poured himself into translation and printing, teaching, and a long campaign against widow-burning — convinced that the gospel touched a whole society, not only its souls.

He sized up the world the way he sized up leather on his bench — turning it over, finding it worn, and deciding it could be cut new and re-made.

• Born in Northamptonshire in 1761; a shoemaker and Baptist pastor before sailing for Bengal in 1793
• Helped found the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792 with the call to expect and attempt great things
• Translated Scripture into Bengali and other languages, taught at Fort William College, and founded Serampore College in 1818
• Spent decades opposing the burning of widows, work that contributed to its ban in 1829

Sources: carey-myers-life p.18 · carey-myers-life p.39 · carey-faithful-witness p.18