The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary

by George Smith



PREFACE


On the death of William Carey In 1834 Dr. Joshua Marshman promised
to write the Life of his great colleague, with whom he had held
almost daily converse since the beginning of the century, but he
survived too short a time to begin the work. In 1836 the Rev.
Eustace Carey anticipated him by issuing what is little better than
a selection of mutilated letters and journals made at the request of
the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society. It contains one
passage of value, however. Dr. Carey once said to his nephew, whose
design he seems to have suspected, "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. If he
give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly.
Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can
persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything."

In 1859 Mr. John Marshman, after his final return to England,
published The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, a
valuable history and defence of the Serampore Mission, but rather a
biography of his father than of Carey.

When I first went to Serampore the great missionary had not been