Finally, three days before Christmas, 1800, both Krishna Pal and Gokul announced they wanted to become Christians. It was a wonderful day for William. At last, after seven years of work, there were two Indian converts.
The real question, though, in all the missionaries’ minds was, would an Indian, even one who had believed the gospel message, have the courage to break caste? The question was answered when Dr. Thomas, who was still visiting at the house, invited Krishna Pal and Gokul to eat lunch with the missionaries. Normally, this would have been impossible. A Hindu would be breaking caste by eating with a non-Hindu. Amazingly, the two men willingly sat down and ate with their new friends.
The Indian servants at the mission house were shocked, and news quickly spread that two Hindus were sitting together with the missionaries. By the time the two of them left the mission house that afternoon, it seemed that everyone in Serampore knew what they had done. Many Hindus were furious. How dare two of their own break caste? People waited in the street outside their homes to throw rocks at the two men as they hurried by. When Gokul finally made it home, he found his wife Kamal and his mother packing their bags. The women had heard the terrible news and were so humiliated they could not stay a minute longer in the same house with him.
Krishna Pal’s wife Rasoo and his four daughters did stay, but they were very scared. They feared they would all be killed by the angry mob that had gathered outside their home.
The next day, Krishna Pal, Rasoo, and their oldest daughter were thrown into prison. When his oldest daughter had been only six years old, Krishna Pal had arranged for her to be married to a boy in Calcutta. The daughter had not yet met the boy, but that didn’t matter. By Hindu custom, the “marriage” was official anyway. Within twenty-four hours, news of the two Christian converts in Serampore had spread to Calcutta, where the father of the boy who was arranged to marry Krishna Pal’s daughter had heard it and become enraged. If the daughter stayed in the same house as her Christian convert father, she would no longer be fit to marry. So the boy’s father went straightaway to fetch his son’s bride.
By the time the father arrived in Serampore, Krishna Pal had talked to his family about his conversion, and they, too, were seriously considering becoming Christians. As a result, his daughter was not sure she wanted to marry a Hindu, and of course, Krishna Pal would not make her. When the bridegroom’s father heard this, he stirred up the crowd still gathered outside the house from the night before. The crowd dragged Krishna Pal, his wife, and his daughter before a judge, who had them imprisoned for breaking a marriage contract.
As soon as they heard about this, William and Joshua Marshman hurried to Governor Bie to ask for help. The governor ordered the three prisoners released from jail while the whole matter was looked into.
While in jail, both Krishna Pal’s daughter and his wife, Rasoo, decided to become Christians, as did his other three daughters later that night. William greeted the news enthusiastically. Now there were seven Hindu Christians in the Bengal region.
On December 28, 1800, a baptismal service was held. All seven of the new converts had agreed to be baptized. However, when they saw the huge crowd of Hindus and English people waiting on the steps of the Hooghly River to watch the ceremony, six of them became too scared to continue. They feared they might be killed if the crowd became angry.
In the end, William Carey baptized Krishna Pal and his own son Felix that day. He explained the service in English when he baptized Felix and in Bengali when he baptized Krishna Pal. Then they sang a hymn in English and another hymn, which Ram Boshu had written, in Bengali.
As Felix and Krishna Pal stepped from the water of the Hooghly River after their baptisms, many European men and women were there to welcome them as Christian brothers. Among them was Governor Bie, who was moved to tears as he shook Krishna Pal’s hand.
Another person in the group was Charlotte Rumohr, who lived in the large house next to the mission. Charlotte Rumohr was a wealthy, well-educated countess from Denmark. She was an invalid and had come to India in the hopes that the warm climate would improve her health. Charlotte Rumohr had never had any time for religion until she started taking private English lessons from William Carey. As she had learned about the work William and the others in his group were involved in, she had become fascinated and was soon drawn into the activities of the mission house.
As he drifted off to sleep that night, his head still brimming with the day’s activities, William Carey began to think about what lay ahead for the mission. He was sure that now that they had their first converts, things around the mission house were going to become more hectic than ever. Indeed, big changes lay ahead.
Chapter 14
Professor
March 5, 1801, was a day no one at the Serampore mission house would forget. As individual Gospels had been typeset, they had been printed as single volumes; but this day, the first complete New Testament in Bengali rolled off the printing press. The beautiful black, leather-bound book was placed on the communion table in the chapel, and the entire community gathered to offer prayers of thanks for it.
No one was more thankful than William Carey. The New Testament represented eight years of his labor, not to mention fifteen months of labor by the team of printers and binders who worked under William Ward in the printshop. Although it was a wonderful day of celebration, no one in the chapel had any idea the role that the Bengali New Testament would play in saving the mission.
Far away on the other side of the world, Europe was in an uproar. The war between the English and the French had been dragging on for years. In addition, French leader Napoleon Bonaparte had led his army to victory over a number of European countries. Frustrated at what was happening in Europe, and by their ships continually being attacked, the British had claimed the right to search all ships at sea to look for pirates and privateers. Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark had joined forces to form an alliance called the Armed Neutrality of the North to resist British attempts to search their ships. The British, however, were convinced the Armed Neutrality of the North was plotting with the French to destroy their navy. Tensions between the two sides steadily grew.
In India, however, news of such events was slow in coming, and things continued as usual. As soon as more Bengali New Testaments were bound, William would send a copy to each person who had subscribed to the work of the printshop and to other important people who had taken an interest in the work of the mission. A copy was sent to the king of Denmark with a letter thanking him for his protection in Serampore. Another copy was sent to King George III of England, and yet another copy to the Reverend Brown in Calcutta. It was this particular copy of the New Testament that was used to save the work of the mission.
In Calcutta, changes had been taking place. The governor-general, Lord Wellesley, was an intelligent man who had become very concerned about the young clerks being sent to India from England. These clerks were the sons of wealthy English families, but they were being sent out as young as fifteen years of age, usually before they’d had a chance to start, let alone finish, university.
Once these young clerks arrived in India, they were given jobs that took only a few hours a day to complete. They were paid well for their labor and had servants to cook, clean, and keep house for them. As a result, they tended to become very lazy, since there was little left for them to do in their spare time but engage in horse racing, gambling, drinking parties, and secret meetings with Indian women. These young clerks were also promoted regularly as the men over them either retired and returned to England or died from tropical diseases. In time, a fifteen-year-old clerk could be promoted to a judge or other high-ranking official, even though he had no special training for such a position. The young men had little understanding of the culture and language of the people they were ruling over, and this led to many misunderstandings.
Lord Wellesley had a solution to the problem. He suggested that instead of starting work upon their arrival in India, the clerks go to college for two years. During this time, they would learn the history and geography of India as well as the country’s culture and several of its languages. Not only would the new clerks have a chance to “grow up,” but the college professors would have a chance to get to know the young clerks and could recommend for important jobs those who they thought had the most potential. It seemed like a great idea, except to the directors of the East India Company. The directors argued against the college. Not only would it cost them money, but they could see no point in worrying whether the Indian people were happy with their English overlords. What mattered was trade.
Lord Wellesley argued that it did matter. Those who were rude and lazy as clerks were even more rude and lazy as they gained power; and in the end, such leaders would cause the Indians to rebel. Thus, Lord Wellesley used his power as governor-general and ordered a college for clerks to be established.
In 1800, Fort William College opened with the Reverend Brown as its provost (principal). The new college was modeled after Oxford and Cambridge universities in England and had one hundred young Englishmen from Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras enrolled.
When the college was opened, Lord Wellesley was not aware of a single European in all of India who knew enough Bengali or Sanskrit to teach the new clerks. However, the Reverend Brown showed him the copy of the Bengali New Testament he had received from William Carey. As the governor-general thumbed through its pages, the two men talked and agreed that perhaps there was one European in India capable of teaching these languages after all.
William Carey read the letter that had been hand-delivered to him by a servant of the Reverend Brown. “Me, a lecturer at Fort William College!” he said aloud to himself before bursting into laughter. Then he added, “The Reverend Mr. Brown must have forgotten I’ve never been to college myself. As soon as I remind him, he’ll know I’m not the man he is looking for.”
William’s education had consisted of attending the church school his father ran, and then only until he was twelve years old. From that time on, he had worked and never had another day of formal education. Yes, he was an ordained minister, but while Anglican ministers like the Reverend Brown had to go to college to be ordained, Baptist ministers did not.
Not wanting to seem ungrateful for the invitation, William decided to row one of the mission boats down to Calcutta and explain the misunderstanding to the Reverend Brown in person. When he arrived, he was surprised to find that the Reverend Brown already knew that he had no formal education other than his time attending the church school in Paulerspury. The Reverend Brown told William that he was the one man in India who knew the customs and the language of the people well enough to teach them to others. Many other Europeans had been in India much longer than he had, but they had lived in the pampered world of servants and upper-class English society and had little idea of, or interest in, the Indian people. William, on the other hand, spoke their language, read their literature, and knew how to talk meaningfully with the people. Given this, the Reverend Brown was convinced that William was the man to teach Bengali and Sanskrit at the new college. William, though, was not so sure, but he promised to talk to his fellow missionaries about the invitation.
“What a wonderful opportunity,” announced Joshua Marshman when William told him about his visit with the Reverend Brown.
Finally, after several days of thought and prayer, William decided to accept the invitation. The man who had left school at age twelve was about to take charge of the Language Department at Fort William College!
