CAREY, WILLIAM. - Protestant missionary, b. at Paulerspury in England, in the county of Northampton, in 1761, d. at Serampore in India in 1834. Of an Anglican family, at the age of 18 he became a Baptist, and was ordained pastor in 1787. Reading Captain Cook's travels made him reflect on the vast number of those who did not know Jesus Christ, and he decided to devote himself to the conversion of the heathen.
(from Prose di G. C., 2nd ed., Bologna 1906)
CARDUCCI, GIOSUÈ
Autograph manuscript of a passage from the Notes for lectures on the Renaissance.
He published a memoir: An enquiry into the obligations of christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen (1792). But his sect, like the others as well, was not at that time disposed to such an undertaking. Nevertheless in 1792 he formed with some friends a missionary society and offered himself as its first missionary, sailing from England on a Danish ship and arriving at Calcutta in 1793.
The difficulty that most hindered his undertaking was the opposition of the East India Company, under which stood all the English possessions of India, which did not want the Gospel to be preached, so as not to sow religious discord among the Indians, believing that this would hamper its commerce. Since the C. therefore could not remain in the Company's possessions as a missionary, and also in order to be able to live, he accepted the superintendence of an indigo factory some miles distant from Calcutta, and in the meantime devoted himself to studying the native languages, especially Bengali and Sanskrit.
In 1799 there arrived at Calcutta a band of Baptist missionaries among whom were Joshua Marshman and William Ward, whose names have remained inseparable from that of the C. and from the beginnings of the Indian Baptist mission. But their landing was forbidden. Then together with the C., by now free of his employment in the indigo factory, they gathered in the small Danish colony of Serampore, very close to Calcutta, where they were welcomed with open arms by the Danish governor. The method of life they adopted is worthy of note, because it shows that Protestant missionaries, when they truly wish to devote themselves to the work of the missions, seek to imitate Catholic methods. They determined in fact to form a single community with a common fund into which everything that came to them had to enter; the table was common and the house common. Each was given a small sum for personal expenses and everything that remained, after deducting the common expenses, had to be devoted to the poor and to the propagation of the Gospel.
Under the impulse of the C. the mission took on a great development: a printing press was equipped, some grammars and dictionaries of the native languages were printed, the New Testament was published in about ten languages and the whole Bible in Bengali and in Sanskrit; the College of Serampore was founded, from which missionaries departed for various parts of India, and in which was hosted, in 1812, Adoniram Judson, the missionary sent by the American Board (v. CONGREGAZIONALISTI) to India, but who became a Baptist and founded the mission of Burma. Here too the C. contracted his second and third marriages, which turned out happier than the first. From this center he worked effectively, so that the government should forbid widows to be burned together with the corpse of their husbands and so that freedom should be given to missionaries to preach in any part of the English possessions.
The C. is regarded by the Baptists as the great pioneer of their missions. Protestants, moreover, who hold that making the Bible known (for them the sole rule of faith) to all men is the most important point of missionary work, esteem the C. for his translations as one of the greatest missionaries.