"...we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellence of the power may be of God
and not of us. We are hard pressed on every
side, yet not crushed... perplexed, but not
in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed — always
carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be
manifested in our body." 2 Corinthians
4:7-10
"William
Carey... dedicated his life to spreading the gospel
in India. Serving as a missionary there from 1793
until his death in 1834, he... [hoped] to translate
Scripture into as many Indian languages and dialects
as possible....
Carey
supervised the creation of India’s first printing
press. He established a large print shop in the city
of Serampore, where he did his Bible translation.
The building was two hundred by fifty feet, and
twenty translators worked there in addition to
typesetters, compositors, pressmen, binders, and
other writers.
On March
11, 1812, Carey was teaching in Calcutta. While he
was gone, a fire started in the printing room....
Despite many hours of exhaustive efforts to fight
the fire, the building burned to the ground. Just
five pieces of equipment were saved.
Carey’s entire library, his completed Sanskrit
dictionary, part of his Bengal dictionary, two
grammar books, and ten translations of the Bible
were lost. Gone also were the type sets for
printing fourteen different languages. Vast
quantities of English paper, priceless dictionaries,
deeds, and account books were all gone.
When
Carey returned to Serampore and surveyed the scene,
he wept and said,
“In
one short evening the labours of years are
consumed. How unsearchable are the ways of God.
I had lately brought some things to the utmost
perfection of which they seemed capable, and
contemplated the missionary establishment with
perhaps too much self-congratulation. The Lord
has laid me low, that I may look more simply to
him.”
Although
he was heartbroken, he did not take much time to
mourn. With great resiliency Carey wrote,
“The
loss is heavy, but as traveling a road the
second time is usually done with greater ease
than the first time, so I trust the work will
lose nothing of real value. We are not
discouraged; indeed the work is already begun
again in every language. We are cast down but
not in despair.”
Carey
resolved to trust God that from the embers would
come a better press and more scholarly translations.
Within a few months Carey had set up shop in a
warehouse.
Little
did Carey know that the fire would bring him and
his work to the attention of people all over
Europe and America as well as India. In just fifty
days in England and Scotland alone, about ten
thousand pounds were raised for rebuilding Carey’s
publishing enterprise. So much money was coming in
that Andrew Fuller, Carey’s friend and a leader of
his mission in England, told his committee when he
returned from a fund-raising trip, “We must stop the
contributions.”
Many
volunteers came to India to help as well. By
1832 Carey’s rebuilt and expanded printing operation
had published complete Bibles or portions of the
Bible in forty-four languages and dialects!
From
The One Year Book of CHRISTIAN HISTORY
By E. Michael and Sharon Rustin