The History of Christianity in 25 Objects: William Carey's Couch

If you were visit Oxford, England today, and find your way to the Angus Library of Regent’s Park College (a part of Oxford University), you might just come across an old, nondescript couch settled there in the archives. This antique couch sits at the top of a stone staircase, beside a plaque warning that this area of the library is a “quiet area.” It looks for all the world like a piece of furniture someone put down for a moment and then forgot to move to a better place. And yet this couch has greater significance than you might guess, because William Carey died upon it in Serampore, India, almost two hundred years ago. William Carey’s couch is the next of the twenty-five objects through which we are exploring the history of Christianity.

William Carey was born on August 17, 1761 and raised in Paulerspury, a small village in central England. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a cobbler in a nearby village and, though Carey had been raised Anglican, a fellow apprentice who was a Dissenter influenced him to leave the Church of England and join a Congregational church. This was just the beginning of an important spiritual pilgrimage.

During Carey’s time as an apprentice and shoemaker he found that he was adept at languages and taught himself Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Dutch, and French. In 1783 he became a Baptist and by 1789 was a full-time pastor at Harvey Lane Baptist Church in Leicester. After reading Jonathan Edwards’ account of the life of David Brainerd, as well as the journals of the explorer James Cook, he became increasingly interested in missions and in 1792 published his most enduring work, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. This book outlined the Christians’ obligation to do missions, shared a brief history of missions, gave statistical data about the world’s need for missions, provided answers to objections against doing missions, and a contained a proposal for the kind of society that could be formed to support such an effort.

Also in 1792 he preached the sermon which contained the quote that has become indelibly associated with his name: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” In the fall of that same year, he formed the Baptist Missionary Society alongside other charter members Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, and John Sutcliff. Carey sailed to India the following April, and would never again return to England.

Over the next 41 years Carey accomplished or influenced a remarkable amount of work, and for good reason is considered the father of modern missions. He translated the entire Bible into India’s major languages: Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit and parts of 209 other languages and dialects. He influenced social reform, including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning, and assisted suicide. And he helped found Serampore College, a divinity school for Indians. But, as Mark Galli says, “His greatest legacy was in the worldwide missionary movement of the nineteenth century that he inspired. Missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone, among thousands of others, were impressed not only by Carey’s example, but by his words ‘Expect great things; attempt great things.’ The history of nineteenth-century Protestant missions is in many ways an extended commentary on the phrase.” Carey expected great things from God and on that basis attempted great things; thousands would follow his lead.

Carey’s initiative, expressed through the Baptist Missionary Society, ushered in what is now known as the First Wave or First Era of Modern Missions. This wave focused mainly on the coastlands of foreign lands, with later waves focusing on the inlands and then the unreached people groups that remained. Ralph Winter identifies two especially bright notes about this opening era in the missions movement: The first is the “astonishing demonstration of love and sacrifice on the part of those who went out. … Very few missionaries to Africa in the first 60 years of the First Era survived more than two years.” And still they went. In fact, Carey himself suffered immeasurably, marrying three times as his wives succumbed to illness. The second is “The development of high quality insight into mission strategy.” Such strategy had to be learned through patience and perseverance—rather difficult qualities when so few of the missionaries survived long enough to apply the lessons.

While Carey was not the first Protestant missionary, he served as a catalyst for a whole new movement so that John Piper can rightly say, “Carey was the morning star of modern missions.” Generations of Christians were inspired by Carey’s example and followed him from the safety and comfort of England and America to foreign lands. Over the next century, the missionary movement he sparked would reach almost every coastland on earth with countless souls being saved.

Today that old couch rests in The Angus Library where students are free to sit on it or to use it to catch a quick nap. This library is a fitting resting place because it houses a leading collection of Baptist history and heritage from around the world. But it is fitting as well that the couch is relatively unknown, for Carey himself was content to be unknown. Not long before he died he scolded a friend: “You have been saying much about Dr. Carey and his work. When I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey; speak about Dr. Carey’s Saviour.” While Carey’s life ended upon that couch on June 9, 1834, his legacy continued and, indeed, continues today. And his Savior still reigns, and is still drawing his people to himself.

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The Philanthropists: William Borden

William Whiting Borden was a wealthy Christian philanthropist who had a particular passion for the Muslims of Northern China. Born in Chicago in 1887 to William and Mary, Borden’s family became wealthy through wise investments in real estate and the dairy industry. It was this family wealth that Borden would generously distribute before his death at the young age of 25.

Borden began attending Chicago Avenue Church (now The Moody Church) with his mother after she trusted Christ in 1894. It was as a young man under the preaching of the famous evangelist and writer Dr. R. A. Torrey that Borden professed faith in Christ and was baptized. His conversion left an indelible mark that would persist through the rest of his short life so that his friends and family would later attest he rarely wasted a minute of the time given him.

As a high school graduation gift his parents gave him a trip around the world and it was in this time that he developed a passion for mission. When Borden left home to study at Yale University, he led other students in times of prayer and Scripture reading. In fact, the movement spread so much that 1,000 out of Yale’s 1,300 students were meeting in similar groups by the time Borden graduated. During these meetings, the students would plan how they could reach all the students for Christ, and Borden was known to willingly take on the more hostile students. He also led Yale’s student missionary conference.

After graduating from Yale and then Princeton Theological Seminary, Borden studied Arabic in Egypt to prepare him to minister to the Kansu Muslims of Northern China. Sadly, though, he died of cerebral meningitis at the age of 25. Samuel Zwemer, who had taught Borden while he was in Egypt, officiated the funeral. Thus, Borden forsook his great wealth for the sake of the nations. In his Bible, he wrote the words, “No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.”

Borden gave $1 million of his family’s wealth to organizations such as the China Inland Mission, Moody Bible Institute, Moody Church, and Princeton Theological Seminary.

But he was more than a philanthropist—he was also an evangelist. While a student, he founded the Yale Hope mission, an organization that rescued drunks off the street, sought to rehabilitate them, and shared with them the good news of Jesus Christ. Thus, it would be shortsighted to focus only on Borden’s wealth. His own passionate influence had a great effect on others. One of his professors at Princeton, Charles R. Erdman, said that Borden was “an ideal missionary volunteer” because of his vision, dedication, example, and influence. Or, as his epitaph reads,

A man in Christ
He arose and forsook all and followed Him,
Kindly affectioned with brotherly love,
Fervent in spirit serving the Lord,
Rejoicing in hope,
Patient in tribulation,
Instant in prayer,
Communicating to the necessity of saints,
In honour preferring others,
Apart from faith in Christ,
There is no explanation for such a life.

The Philanthropists: William Colgate

Our next Christian philanthropist, William Colgate, founded a company that has placed a well-known product in many of our homes even today—Colgate toothpaste. Born in Kent, England in 1783 to Robert and Sarah, Colgate migrated with his family to Maryland in 1798 because of his father’s political sympathy for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.

While in Maryland, Colgate helped his father manufacture soap and candles, but it was after he moved to New York City in 1804 that he became an apprentice to a soap-maker and in this position learned the manufacturing business. In 1806 he founded his own starch, soap and candle business on Dutch Street in New York City, and this small shop eventually grew into a massive and thriving corporation. A skilled and principled businessman, Colgate would in due time become one of the wealthiest and most generous men in New York City. 

In his early days Colgate attended a Presbyterian church pastored by Rev. Dr. Mason, one of the most prominent preachers in New York. In conjunction with his business success, Colgate was highly esteemed amongst the church members and he played an active part in the church. However, after corresponding with his Baptist father, Colgate came to reject infant baptism and, having done so, joined First Baptist Church of New York where Rev. William Parkinson baptized him in 1808. He remained an active, generous churchman throughout his life. He served as a deacon (he was affectionately known as Deacon Colgate) and became known not only for financial generosity, but also for faithfully serving the people of his church.

In 1811, Colgate married Mary Gilbert and together they had three sons, Robert, James and Samuel. Colgate eventually served on the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society (ABS) as its treasurer. Later, after dealing with controversial matters within the ABS, Colgate helped organize the American Bible Union in 1850, and again he served as the treasurer of that society until his death.

Beside serving the Bible societies, Colgate also supported Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution (later Madison University and Theological Seminary). Likewise, he regularly gave to the Baptist Missionary Union, and he even fully funded a foreign missionary on his own. Colgate made financial provisions for his aging parents by purchasing a farmhouse in a neighboring county, and he supported them financially the rest of their lives. Because of his kind and generous personality (along with Mary’s congenial spirit), his home was known as an especially pleasant and welcoming place to be. Throughout his life, Colgate attributed his success in business and ministry to the principles and truths taught in the Bible.

In 1857, Colgate died at the age of 74 and his son Samuel succeeded him as President of Colgate & Company and for a time it remained a family business; in 1928 the company was sold to Palmolive-Peet to become the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company (though Peet was subsequently dropped). As long as the family was involved in the business, they maintained the founder’s spirit of generosity. Samuel and James were both benefactors of Madison University and Theological Seminary. Because of the family’s great financial support, the school was renamed Colgate University in 1890, seven decades after the Colgate family initially got involved with the institution.