Impact of the French Revolution on 18th Century Europe and Relevance to contemporary Christianity

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How is Impact of the French Revolution on 18th Century Europe and Relevance to contemporary Christianity

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Events of 1789 formed the catalyst that exploded the powder keg of accumulated grievances in France. no ifs ands or buts "the French Revolution began when Louis Xvi called the States-General to supply money for his bankrupt government" (The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol.7, 1991, p.450). The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 produced intense hostility to Christianity because "the Roman church was identified by the citizen with the earlier government of France and suffered greatly" (Harman and Renwick, 1999, p.170). Lefebvre (1947) observed that in a total citizen of probably twenty three million, there were no ifs ands or buts not more than one hundred thousand priests, monks and nuns, and four hundred thousand nobles. The rest constituted the Third Estate. This secular event shows the modern Church the peril that awaits a nation that rejects God. The point of the observation is that although the French Revolution negatively affected Christianity, the attempt at deChristianization was unable to blot the 'faith of our fathers living still'.

Religious Background To The Conflict

According to Noll (2000), "a number of long-festering conditions had ready the way for this assault on Christianity" (p.247). Paradoxically, some of these were of Christian origin. Centuries earlier, Augustine had declared that man should not have dominion over man, for he is a rational vertebrate made in the image of God. Bellarmine, the Jesuit Cardinal opined that it depended on the consent of the citizen either kings, consuls or other magistrates were to be established in authority over them. He added observed that the citizen should convert a kingdom into an aristocracy if there was legitimate cause. Latourette (1953) therefore referred to the French Revolution as "a secularized version of the heavenly city as perceived by Christians" (p.1007).
Before the outbreak of the revolution in France, bad economic, political, collective and legal conditions, the flourishing example of the English Revolution of 1689 and the American Revolution of 1776 were fused by the amelioration of an ideology that rationalized the right of popular revolution against Louis Xvi. This ideology was the supervene of the teachings of the philosophes. While Rousseau and Montesquieu in case,granted the political climate for revolution, Voltaire criticized the church. Cairns (1981) admitted that there were grounds for commentary of the Roman Catholic Church in France. It owned much land and was as responsible as the secular state in the dealings with the people. The collective resented various tithes imposed by the church, particular repression of religious dissenters, and the non-productive monkish orders. Nichols (1932) suspected that "the greatest cause of the hostility of the church was its substantial wealth and the selfish use made of it" (p.96) since the masses were ruined by cruel taxation at the cost of higher clergy who were ordinarily lazy, luxurious and immoral.

If the 17th century was the age of orthodoxy, the eighteenth was the age of nationalism, a supervene of cold orthodoxy and scientific developments. The deadly supervene was that "revelation tended to take the back seat to reason and knowledge gained by sense perception" (Vos, 1960, p.99). When scientists investigated the form of the universe, they formed the idea of a clockwise universe - God's world was seen as gigantic, well-ordained giant clock.

Implications For 18Th Century Europe

The French Revolution is viewed as a turning point because it was seen as an important stage in a succession of movements that later spread over the globe to ultimately affect the life of mankind.

It is observed that the effects were especially serious for Christianity since they brought actions which struck at the privileges and status of the Roman Catholic Church. The proclamation of the possession of Man and of the citizen on August 26 1789 held that "the source of all sovereignty is placed in the nation; no body, no private can practice authority which does not emanate from it expressly" (Noll, 2000, p.247). The peasants were relieved of a burden which had taken about a twentieth of their produce when tithes were abolished. Consequently, the church was deprived of one of its chief sources of revenue. Church land, which comprised about a fifth of the area of France was confiscated and became the property of the state. In July 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was enacted by the National Assembly. Among other things, bishops were to be elected by the voters who chose the civil officials and the pope was merely to be notified of their choice. cost of the clergy by the state was no blessing in disguise since the previous was to take an oath of allegiance to the latter. [It must be observed that Spener criticized caesaropapism (doctrine of state control over the church) in his needful publication way back in 1675]. The pope's power was reduced to that of stating the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. no ifs ands or buts "churchmen felt this new act meant secularization of the church and they were violently opposed to it" (Cairns, 1981, p.390).

Unlike the situation in the United States, separation of church and state by the French Revolution and later in the Soviet Union and its sphere of affect was an attempt to totally exterminate the church and to replace it with nationalism. The Roman Catholic Church and the French state were wholly separated during the reign of terror of 1793 and 1794 when so many were executed for counter revolutionary activities.

The programme of deChristianization gained momentum when the practice decreed that a commune had the right to renounce the Catholic form of worship. The calendar adopted on October 3 1793 made every tenth day rather than Sunday a day of rest. On November 7, 1793, the Archbishop of Paris appeared before the practice and "solemnly resigned his Episcopal functions" (Encyclopaedia Britiannica, vol.15, 1989, p.498). A distinct Mademoiselle Maillard, an opera dancer, wearing the three colours of the new republic on November 10, 1793 was enthroned as the goddess of reason upon the high altar of Notre Dame, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Paris, and there she received the homage of the revolutionists. Notre Dame was rechristened the Temple of Reason. an additional one step adopted by the practice was the ordering of churches and parsonages to be used as school houses and poor houses thus effectively preventing collective and lawful worship. The Feasts of reason both at Paris and elsewhere soon "degenerated into mere orgies, disreputable women playing the part of goddesses and enacting bacchanals in the churches" (Martin, 1877, p.552). The precarious situation during the Reign of Terror forced many Christians to renounce their trust in God. Assessing the situation, Kuiper (1964) pointed out that "it is not inherent to say how many Protestants as well as Catholics renounced their faith at this time, but the number was large" (p.310). Although the practice passed a settle reaffirming the principle of the leisure of worship, the Directory and its regime were basically anti-Christian. The interests of Christianity and European civilization were no longer regarded as two expressions of the same reality. In other words, there was a signal of the demise of Christendom.

Kings initially viewed themselves as God's representatives on earth and determined all disobedience and rebellion to be sinful. A hazardous feeling of infallibility, needful serenity and moderation therefore gained control of monarchs. The French Revolution wholly repudiated this divine right of kings and "asserted the doctrine that the right to rule came from the people" (The World Book Encyclopedia, vol.5, 1971, p.199). Although Napoleon at last recognized the Roman Catholic religion as the religion of the great majority of French citizens, he did not make it the established religion. The clergy were to be paid by the state but the property taken from the Roman Church in 1790 was not to be returned to it. In fact, Latourette (1953) observed with brutal truth that Napoleon "regarded the church as an practice which must be recognized and used for his purposes" (p.1011).

The French Revolution and Napoleon brought grave embarrassment to missions. The direct supervene was a sharp decline of the faith in some geographic frontiers. Few missionaries were sent from Europe and it was difficult to render aid to those already in the field. The community of Foreign Missions of Paris was compelled to seek headquarters exterior of France. The Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, the bureau through which the Papacy supervised missions abroad, was driven out of Rome. This led to a marked falling off in numbers and morale of the Roman Catholic community in India. Adverse domestic conditions coupled with the handicaps in Europe threatened the extinction of the church in China. The work of Spain by Napoleonic armies and the assault on Portugal greatly affected missions in Latin America. Conditions in Russia were also adverse. Parishes lost the right of electing their clergy, a privilege enjoyed since the era of Peter the Great. In a great summary, Noll (2000) commented that "turmoil from the French Revolution and then the wave of national liberation movements fostered by Napoleon added diminished European concern for cross-cultural Christian expansion" (p.274). The revolution greatly affected Lutherans in the German states. War and suffering revealed that skepticism and infidelity were not sufficient to meet the needs of the human spirit and multitudes turned again to religious faith. The old Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, stimulating the strengthening of independent states like Austria and Prussia. Later in the century, this contributed to the unification of the German citizen under the leadership of Prussia. Calvinism in Europe also felt the shock of the French Revolution. Skepticism had already weakened this group in France, Switzerland, the German states and the Low Countries. according to Baker (1959), the "political conditions that continued through the Congress of Vienna in 1815 brought disorganization and uncertainty to continental Calvinism" (p.321).

Beyond the dark clouds were shades of silver lining, which some scholars tend to overlook. possibly a distinct view was that "society was being directed toward the good of the whole community instead of toward the benefit of a tiny elite of kings, nobles and bishops" (Noll, 2000, p.248). Grievous as were the losses suffered by Christianity, "there was ample evidence that the faith was by no means moribund" (Latourette, 1953, p.1012). Indications of vitality (old and new) were evident. These could be found among the Roman Catholics of the eastern churches and in Protestantism. If anything, "secularization of the west was not going to blot out the faith" (Noll, 2000, p.260). Liberal, sectarian and traditionalist responses to the marginalization of European Christendom all had notable vigor though at varying degrees. European belief was skillfully sifted in a new world in order to sustain an intellectually vigorous Christian faith. Groups like the Oxford Movement applied lessons of the early church of the perils of the present. In his stimulating Church History lectures at West Africa Theological Seminary, Lagos, Nigeria, Dr. William Faupel observed that secularization is not inherently evil and argued that there must be a distinct interaction, that is, taking the gospel in the mindset of the people.

Relevance To modern Christianity

Many biblical scholars agreed that the punctuation of papal power in France was a fulfillment of prophecies of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, which they believed staggering the demise of Roman Catholicism. In this light, Faupel (1996) observed that "the French Revolution became the Rosetta Stone by which all scriptural prophecy could be correlated with the events of human history" (p.92). The lessons for modern Christianity are significant.

Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is no ifs ands or buts a reproach to any people. Even today, the Wesleys are credited with saving England from a bloody, political revolution such as befell France. While the coarse citizen were as oppressed and deprived as the French, the English citizen could cope with their oppression because of their faith in God and their adherence to Christian principles. The English revival caused the citizen to look to God for hope whereas the French had only politicians and atheistic philosophers. The part is that God can avert destruction in a nation that acknowledges Him as Saviour. The situation in Sierra Leone in May 2000 is a case in point. God miraculously saved the nation at a time when destruction loomed large. The nation responded to the call to shout 'Jesus' at 5:00 p.m. On Monday May 9 2000. God honoured this demonstration of faith and trust on Him as the only hope. The peaceful elections in May 2002 and August/September 2007 could also be attributed to the redeeming work of God in a land where He is exalted. In like manner, Horton (1993) firmly believed that "God brought about a peaceful convert in the protestant land of England, in dissimilarity to the turmoil of the Roman Catholic France" (p.72).

Secondly, the church in any nation should not fraternize with the state to oppress masses since the latter could rebel with frenzied violence. In France, the revolutionists demonstrated that "they could break down barriers if they were driven to desperation" (Rowe, 1931, p.420). Furthermore, ideas that glorify man and sentence God to temporary or permanent exile could be hazardous to any nation. The French Revolution shocked Europe and awakened citizen to the power of ideas and forces that had come to be part of western culture. For many, "those ideas and forces connoted the disruptions and destruction that could be staggering from unrestrained rationalism" (Manschreck, 1974, 298).

From the study, the researcher realizes that pagan religions and ideas could drill areas once dominated by Christianity as a supervene of the state of the church. during his lectures, Dr. Faupel lamented that an impending doom could await the church in North America because of inherent weakness including racist Christian policies. As Rodney observed (1972), "racism...[was] a set of generalizations and assumptions, which had no scientific bias, but...rationalized in every sphere from theology to biology" (p.99). modern Christianity should perceive that it should not be the cold impotent ash (like the church in France before the revolution) but a vibrant church fulfilling the Great Commission. Sumrall (1980) caustically dismissed refusal to spread the gospel as "reckless spiritual homicide" (p.8). The modern church must be willing to reduce like Christ and the saints of old if the earth should be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Houghton (1980) hoped that the modern church would be mindful of the fact that "when the church goes astray, denying Him who had bought His citizen with His precious blood, the Lord [sends] trials and afflictions to strict His unfaithful children" (p.34).

Conclusion

The above notwithstanding, the blood of a martyr is seed for the church. After the French Revolution, Christianity, probably to the dismay of the revolutionaries, did not die. Truth (Jesus) was in the grave for three days but at last resurrected. Persecution, in the history of Christianity, could be regarded as a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block. Fire did not beget cold and impotent ash. After the French Revolution, the church became much more involved in speaking on relevant issues of the day. Christianity was viewed from a dissimilar perspective. Evangelism was given a thoughtful consideration. In spite of all the negative effects of the French Revolution, the brand of Christianity that emerged transformed itself by no ifs ands or buts interacting with the philosophical mindset of the day.

List Of References

Baker, Robert A. 1959. A scrutinize of Christian history. Nashville: Broadman Press.

Cairns, Earle E. 1981. Christianity through the centuries: a history of the Christian Church. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, Michigan: The Zondervan Corporation.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1989 ed., s.v. "French Revolution".

Faupel, William. 1996. The everlasting gospel: the point of eschatology in the amelioration of Pentecostal thought. Sheffield: Sheffield scholastic Press.

Harman, A.M. And A.M. Renwick. 1999. The story of the church. 3rd ed. Leicester: Varsity Press.

Horton, Beka. 1993. 1980. Sketches from church history. Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth.

Kuiper, B.K. 1964. The church in history. Michigan: The National Union of Christian Schools.

Latourette, Kenneth S. 1953. A history of Christianity. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.

Lefebvre, George. 1947. The coming of the French Revolution. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Lewis, C.S. 1970. God in the dock: essays on theology and ethics. Michigan: William E. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Manschreck, Clyde L. 1974. A history of Christianity in the world: from persecution to uncertainty.
New York: Prentice Hall.

Martin, Henri. 1877. A popular history of France from the first revolution to the present time, Vol.1.

Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.

Noll, Mark A. 2000. Turning points: decisive moments in the history of Christianity. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic.

Rodney, Walter. 1972. How Europe underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle L'Ouverture Publications.

Rowe, Henri K. 1931. History of the Christian people. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Sumrall, Lester. 1980. Where was God when pagan religions began? Indiana: LeSea Publishing Co.

Vos, Howard F. 1960. Highlights of church history. Nebraska: Back to the Bible Publishers.

The World Book Encyclopaedia, 1971 ed., s.v. "Divine possession of kings".

The World Bank Encyclopaedia, 1971 e.d., s.v. "French Revolution".

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An In-Depth Study Of A Pioneer Of The contemporary Missionary Movement - Case Study Of William Carey

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1.0 Introduction

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How is An In-Depth Study Of A Pioneer Of The contemporary Missionary Movement - Case Study Of William Carey

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It is incontrovertible that Christianity was a working missionary institution for a thousand years from the days of the apostles. The Church initially won the Roman Empire from heathenism to Christianity in the first four centuries of its history. The advancing hordes of barbarians were subsequently conquered. Unfortunately, after the tenth century, church, state, pope and emperor fought for supremacy. A sad realization is that the missionary spirit declined, though it was not entirely lost. The Reformation did not really expand the church but was more concerned with efforts to purify and reorganize the church. In the later age of the Reformation, the first farranging efforts to Christianize the heathen was were made, not by Protestants, but by Roman Catholics. It was really embarrassing to Protestants to hear that Roman Catholic missionaries were "writing off the Protestant movement because it was not sending missionaries" (Winter 1999, 212). The Moravians began to create foreign missions by 1932. It is believed that in proportion to its small membership at home, no other denomination has maintained as many missions as the Moravian Church. Writers contest the beloved view that British missions began with Carey. It is argued that "strictly speaking, this is not correct" (Kane 1975, 81). The community for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts are cited as supportive evidence. However, the point of this in-depth study is that Carey brought a veritable revolution in missionary reasoning and planning. Carey realized that "at the very heart of the Church''s occupation in the world is the notification of the kingdom of God inaugurated in Jesus the Lord, crucified and risen" (Scherer and Bevans 1992, 73). This truth is really the lifeblood of missionary inspiration and endurance. Carey himself expressed the connection:

When I left England, my hope of India''s conversion was very strong. But amongst so many obstacles, it would die, unless upheld by God. Well, I have God, and His Word is true. Though the superstitions of the heathen were a thousand times stronger than they are, and the example of the Europeans a thousand times worse, though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all, yet my faith, fixed on the sure Word, would rise above all obstructions and overcome every trial. God''s cause will triumph (Piper 1993, 14).

2.0 Short History Of The Early Life Of Carey

William Carey was born in Paulerspery, Northamptonshire, England on August 17, 1961 (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. "William Carey"). Great men really have humble beginnings. There is exiguous information about young Carey during his teen years.

He initially worked with his father and at the age of fourteen he apprenticed himself to Clarke Nichols, shoemaker at Hackleton, where he worked for twelve years. At the age of eighteen, he was led straight through the sway of a pious fellow apprentice (John Warr) to the faith in Christ and became an earnest Christian and preacher of the gospel. He left the Church of England and began preaching in colse to Churches. At twenty-six, Carey was "formally ordained by John Sutcliff, John Ryland and Andrew Fuller" (Kane 1975, 84).

On May 19, 1781, three weeks before William and Dorothy were married in Piddington, members of the colse to Hackleton Meeting House organized themselves into a church. The members had been meeting for worship as dissenters for fourteen years. The Carey marriage coincided with the beginnings of their involvement in this new Hackleton Church. When Carey applied for membership with the Baptist Church in Olney, it took a year before this call was recognized. In 1786, he became pastor of the Baptist Church at Moulton. Although he was progressing spiritually, it is worth mentioning that "three children arrived in the Carey house during their five years in Moutlon: Felix, 1795; William, 1798? And Peter 1789" (Beck 1992, 47). It is therefore obvious that care for the growing house consumed Dorothy''s time and energy.

In his intense desire to learn, Carey often borrowed books he could not afford to buy returning them after mastering their contents. It is engaging to note that "in order to study the Bible better, he went beyond Latin to learn Greek and Hebrew. Then he added Dutch and French" (Harold 1967, 55). In his office was a crude leathern globe with the continents and the nations of the world, on which he had traced the travels of explorer Captain Cook, England''s idol of the hour. It was "China. Burma. Africa! Or he stared at the map on the wall. ''Captain Cook. Tahiti. Australia. Botany Bay" (Beka 1993, 83).

3.0 The Dawn Of A New Era

Carey challenged the hyper-Calvinist view, prevalent among British Baptists that "God would bring the nations to Christ without human assistance" (Anderson 1998, 115). In other words, he "contended against a theology which supposed that the commission had been repealed" (Hedlund 1985, 210). As he studied the Scriptures, Carey noted that "it was the church''s firm to take these [heathen] citizen the Gospel... Others did not agree" (Cook 1967, 55). It is admitted that although a few shared his vision, "among them John Sutcliff, Andrew Fuller, Samuel Pearce and others, even they counseled caution and delay in the operation of the plan" (Kane 1975, 85). The beloved catalogue has been re-echoed that the elder Dr. John Ryland rebuked Carey for his missionary zeal when he retorted: "Young man, sit down, sit down. You''re an enthusiast. When God pleases to change the heathen he will do it without your aid or mine" (Houghton 1980, 203).

3.1 The Enquiry

Carey''s missiological pamphlet, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792), vehemently argued that Christians should undertake evangelistic missions overseas. It is engaging to recognize that the full title suggests a much longer publication than it turned out to be: An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in Which the Religious State of the distinct Nations of the World, the success of former Undertakings, and the Practicability of additional Undertakings are Considered. As he observed, "no wonder books of that day did not heed a table of contents. The title told all" (Beck 1992, 62). Indeed, "there is theology in Carey''s pamphlet and there is history and there is demography" (Walls 1996, 243). A principal test of Carey''s Enquiry reveals that it was really "a landmark in Christian history and deserves a place alongside Martin Luther''s Ninety-five Theses in its sway on subsequent church history" (Kane 1982, 147).

In the first section Carey asked the rhetorical question, is the Great Commission still binding? He forcefully argued that baptism stop if Christians are unwilling to go because both commands form a unified whole in Matthew 28. He believed that the so-called insurmountable barriers to missions (travel, language and climate) have all been conquered by English traders, the Moravians and Roman Catholics. Section 2 surveyed the Book of Acts as he reviewed the apostolic missionary journeys, both canonical and traditional. He traced the efforts of rigorous missionaries to bring the gospel to Britain implying that even his readers would not yet have been believers if all former generations of Christians had treated the Great Commission as the English Baptists were treating it. Section 3 set out in tabular form Carey''s assessment of the state of the world in relation to the Gospel. These displays of data foreshadowed missiologists such as Patrick Johnstone who have in more recent years assembled similar material about the state of Christianity in the world at large. He observed that those who did not have the Bible were branch to tragic conditions such as cannibalism and human sacrifice. Section 4 is an test of the impediments to taking the Gospel to the heathen. The first was distance. Carey argued that recent advances in the science of the mariner had removed this barrier. A second was the barbarous and savage manner of living of the heathen. Carey''s response was that it could only be an objection to those unwilling to expose themselves to inconveniences for the good of others. A fourth objection was the danger complicated in going overseas. Carey noted that Paul and Barnabas were not afraid of being killed. A fourth objection complicated the mystery of obtaining the necessities of life. Carey wrote that the minister is not his own; he is a slave of God. The final objection had to do with language. Carey was definite that any language on earth could be learned in a year or two. His own feel with language had already been demonstrated that fact since "no second Pentecost was needed, only hard work. Missionaries would learn the language best by mingling with the people" (Beck 1992, 65). The pamphlet concludes with a plea for ongoing, united prayer.

It is obvious therefore that the publication argued convincingly that "the New Testament command to ''preach the Gospel to every creature'' was as binding upon the Christians of his day as it was upon the apostle" (DuBose 1979, 22).

3.2 Epoch-making sermon

On May 31 1792, Carey preached his epoch-making sermon before a group of Baptist ministers at Kettering on the text ''Enlarge the borders of thy tent'' (Is. 54:2-3). The divisions of the sermon were: Expect great things from God and effort great things for God. Although it was an unusual text for a missionary sermon, "Carey had considered to petition for missions" (Cook 1967, 56).

3.3 The Baptist Missionary Society

Although Carey pleaded for observation after the sermon had a profound effect on his hearers, operation was not immediate. He did not relent. Four months later, he pressed again for operation but the brethren wavered again. At the crucial moment, where all hope seemed gone, Carey took a booklet entitled Periodical catalogue of Moravian Missions from his pocket. With tears in his eyes and a tremor in his voice he said these supreme words: "If you had only read this and knew how these men overcame all obstacles for Christ''s sake, you would go forward in faith" (Kane 1982, 147). The men agreed and the minutes of the meeting report their decision to form ''The single Baptist community for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen. The Baptist Missionary Society, formed in 1792, was the British community organized especially for foreign missionary work. This community "was founded at Kettering, England with an first fund of a exiguous over thirteen pounds" (Cairns 1981, 402).

4.0 Carey In India

The first field of the Baptist Missionary community was India and Carey was the most supreme missionary. Although the obstacles seemed insurmountable, he arrived in India in 1793 initially settling in the Danish colony at Serampore, about fifteen miles up the Hoopghley River from Calcutta. He would have preferred to work in British India but was refused tube by the East India firm which regarded the nearnessy of missionaries as a threat to the peace and protection of its possessions. Even though he preached for seven years before he got his first native convert, he did not linger. He was faced with other challenges: "His child died. His wife was a burden... He got pessimistic, depressing letters back from England" (Beka 1993, 87). He perservered, even when a fool might have known the battle was lost. He completed a translation of the New Testament, setting a proper prose and an arrangement of Sanskrit borrowings which has affected Bengali prose to this hour. Tying Krishna Pal to a tree, John Thomas joined him to pray for his broken leg. Krishna was healed, converted and baptized in the River Hoogly. When invited to dinner, he ate beef with foreigners, thereby astonishing a hard blow at an old and paralyzing religious doctrine of Ahimsa (the Buddhist religious doctrine that all living things are one and are sacred and thus the animals have possession just like humans).

At the height of lonely labours, Carey was joined by four British missionaries (Joshua Marshman and William War, and their wives). Marshman was an educator. Hannah, his wife, started a school for girls which was a risky thing to do since the status of a woman in India was ridiculously low. Ward was a printer, producing what Carey translated. The translations of the latter came so fast that citizen began to call him the Wycliffe of the East. He not only translated or guided the translation of Indian classics, preserving thereby a wealth of aged prose and poetry, but also created dictionaries and grammars, so that even the humblest and the bottom might read. Occasion the pages of the Bible to all India, he is also responsible for thirty one million pages of the Old and New Testaments in the language of the East. Before his death, he translated the Bible or parts of it into forty dialects and languages. Mission promoters daubed Carey, Marshman and Ward, in a unique partnership as the Serampore Trio. Carey spent well over half his time working as a Professor of Bengali and Sanskrit at Fort William College, Calcutta. In partnership with several veteran colleagues and scores of Judian pundits, he finished much of the areas of philology, Bible translation (into dozens of languages), orientalism, literacy, study (founding Serampore College in 1818), publishing, technology, relief work, public reform, botany, evangelization and mission promotion. Supportive evidence is presented justifying Carey as knowledgeable in Science, Mechanical Engineering, Economics, Medicine, Printing Technology, Mass Communication, Literature, Education, Mathematics, Indian Forestry, public Science, public Administration, Indian religious doctrine and History (Mangalwadi and Mangalwadi 1999).

5.0 Carey''S Legacy

It is worth mentioning that Carey had a major flaw. This may have resided in his exiguous capacities for domestic relationships. He "did not seem to give a lot of attention to his wife and sons" (Beck 1992, 138).

The above notwithstanding, Carey was really a philanthropist, benefactor and humanitarian. He was able to put into effect the earlier Protestant principles:

i. farranging teaching of the Gospel

ii. Aiming at personal conversion

iii. Distribution of the Bible in local languages

iv. Study of the culture of the citizen and

v. Preparing of an indigenous church with national leadership as soon as possible (Fuller 1980, 18).

With the aid of Indians and Englishmen, he filed a report with Lord Bentick, finest of India''s governors, that resulted in a law abolishing widow-burning (suttee). He had seen babies exposed in baskets in the trees, exposed to the pitiless sun and deadly white ants. He also saw them torn from their mothers and thrown to alligators and sharks. He was also influential in stopping baby sacrifice. After he saw a leper burned alive in 1812, he did not rest until he had brought about the Preparing of a hospital for lepers in Calcutta, the first in India. This supreme Professor of Sanskrit was honoured in a government college by the very government that tried to keep him from preaching in India. Although he died like a humble patriarch in 1834, "seeds blew from his orchad on the wings of the wind, taking root in far-off unexpected places" (Horton 1993, 89). It is engaging to recognize that "when Carey launched the modern missionary movement colse to 1800, the world''s citizen was about 900 million" (Wagner 1974, 3).

A fitting tribute is paid to Carey attributing the formation of the under mentioned missionary societies largely straight through his labors and letters:

The London Missionary community (1795), the Scottish and Glasgow Missionary Societies (1976), the Netherlands Missionary community (1797), the Church Missionary community (1799), the British and Foreign Bible community (1804), the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810), the American Baptist Missionary Union (1814) and the American Bible community (1816) (Kane 1982, 148).

Carey''s sway "led women in Boston to form women''s missionary prayer groups, and women at last became the main custodians of mission knowledge and motivation" (Hiebert 1985, 286). single women began to go abroad as missionaries and by 1865 they had organized mission boards operated entirely by women.

6.0 Conclusion

It is true that serious missionary attempts had earlier taken place among English colonists in Northern America where John Eliot (1604-90), and the Mayhew house (first Thomas, Jr. [1621-57], and then his father, Thomas, Sr. [1593-1682] has led to the some Christian conversions among Algonquian-speaking Indians of Massachusetts and the Native Americas on Martha''s Vineyard and Nantucket. It is indubitable however that what began with Carey was "cross-cultural outreach with single-minded missionary purpose" (Noll 2000, 279).

Who then was William Carey? It is therefore incontrovertible that, among other things,
He was a pioneer of the modern missionary movement of the west, reaching out to all parts of the world; a pioneer of the Protestant Church in India; and the translator and publisher of the Bible in forty distinct Indian languages. Carey was an evangelist who used every medium to illuminate every dark facet of Indian life with the light of truth. He is the central character in the story of the modernization of India (Mangalwadi and Mangalwadi 1999, 528).

Indeed, Carey is highly revered by generations of Bengalis for his contributions to the renaissance of their culture. In many respects Carey restored the gospel to its central place in Christianity. In this leading sense, it recovered an element in the Holy Catholic church that the Reformation had obscured. It is a truism that "this catholicity began on Carey''s workshop map, [and] reached out to embrace new peoples in many new lands" (Shelley 1982, 402). I endorse the argument that "few will wish to deny him the title of ''Father of modern Missions''" (Kane 1975, 86).

Works Cited

Anderson, Gerald H. Ed. 1998. Biographical dictionary of Christian missions. Grand Rapids, Michigan:

William B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Beck, James R. 1992. Dorothy Carey: The tragic and untold story of Mrs. William Carey. Grand Rapids,

Michigan: Baker Book House.

Cairns, E. 1981. Christianity straight through the centuries: History of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids,

Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Cook, Harold R. 1967. Highlights of Christian missions: A history and survey. Chicago: Moody Press.
DuBose, Francis M. Ed. 1979. Classics of Christian missions. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press.
Fuller, Harold. 1980. Mission-church dynamics. Pasadena, California: William Carey Library.
Hedlund, Roger E. 1985. Anthropological insights for missionaries. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book

House.

Houghton, S.M. 1980. Sketches from church history. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust.

Horton, Beka. 1993. Book of the revelation: Church history. Pensacola, Florida: Pensacola

Christian College.

Kane, J. Herbert. 1975. A global view of Christian mission: From Pentecost to present. Grand Rapids,

Michigan: Baker Book House.

___________________ 1982. Understanding Christian missions. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker

Book House.

Mangalwadi, Ruth & Vishal Mangalwadi. 1999. Who (really) was William Carey? In Perspectives of the

World Christian Movement: A reader, 195-213.

Pasadena, California: William Carey Library.

Noll, Mark A. 2000. Turning points: Decisive moments in the history of Christianity. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids,

Michigan: Baker Academic.

Piper, John. 1993. Let the nations be glad: The supremacy of God in missions. Grand Rapids,Michigan:

Baker Book House.

Scherer, James A. And Stephen B. Bevans. Eds. 1992. New directions in mission and evangelism 1: Basic

statements 1974-1991. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.

Shelley, Bruce. 1982. Church history in plain language. Dallas: Word Publishing.

Wagner, C. Peter. 1974. Stop the world: I want to go on. Pasadena, California: William Carey Library.

Walls, Andrew F. 1996. The missionary movement in Christian history: Studies in the transmission of faith.

Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.

Winter, Ralph D. 1999. The kingdom strikes back: ten epochs of redemptive history. In Perspectives on

the world Christian movement: A reader, 195-213. Pasadena, California: William Carey Library.

(c) Oliver Harding 2008

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