William Carey: Educational Pioneer
May 20, 2013
By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird
Who was William Carey, and why has he had such a major impact on our global culture? On May 26th , I graduated with my Doctorate from Carey Theological College on the UBC Campus. While at Carey College, I often walked past a painting of Carey, showing his humble beginning as a village shoemaker in Paulersbury, England. Carey was fascinated with reading books about science, history and travel journals of explorers like Captain Cook. His village playmates nicknamed him Christopher Columbus. Carey said that he was addicted as a young person to swearing, lying, and alcohol. A major turning point happened when he was caught by his employer embezzling a shilling. Fortunately his employer did not press charges. For such petty larceny, Carey could have easily paid the price of imprisonment, forfeiture of goods and chattel, whipping or transportation for seven years to the plantations of the West Indies or America. Facing his own selfishness, Carey had a spiritual breakthrough by personally meeting Christ that had a lasting impact on his values and lifestyle.
Carey had a quick mind and a natural love of learning. He would have normally become a farm labourer, but suffered from a skin disease that made it painful for him to go out in the full sun. If Carey’s face and hands were exposed to the sun for any lengthy period, he would suffer agony throughout the night. So instead he became a cobbler, making shoes. While making shoes, he was able to read and pray. Through this, Carey developed a conviction that he was to go to India. His unimaginative friends and colleagues tried to talk him out of this fantasy. His five-month pregnant wife Dorothy was also dead-set against it. His own father Edmund wondered if his son had lost his mind. Carey said to his dad: “I am not my own nor would I choose for myself. Let God employ me where he thinks fit.”
With unshakable determination, Carey went to India in 1793 which was under the control of the East India Company. He later ended up becoming a Professor of Bengali and Sanskrit in Calcutta, India. Through teaching at Fort Williams College in Calcutta, he was investing in young civil servants from England, helping them to have a good start in India. Carey believed that the future was as bright as the promises of God. He had an exceptional natural gift for languages. Carey called himself a plodder; whatever he started, he always finished. Unlike a number of his family members and closest friends, Carey survived malaria and numerous other tropical diseases. His first wife Dorothy however had a nervous breakdown before later dying. Carey was heartbroken.
Some bureaucrats from the East India Company did their best to expel Carey and his team from India. Anything that might affect financial profit was seen as a threat. William Wilberforce however, having finally abolished the slave trade, presented 837 petitions to the British Parliament representing over half a million signatures, requesting that ‘these good and great men’ be allowed to stay in India. Carey’s enemies attacked him in Parliament for being a lowly shoemaker. Wilberforce won the day in the Charter Renewal Bill of 1813.
Carey’s motto was “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
Entirely self-taught, Carey impacted the emerging generation of Indian leaders that birthed the burgeoning modern democracy of India. Serampore College was founded by Carey and his colleagues in 1818. He produced six grammars of Bengali, Sanskrit, Marathi, Panjabi, Telugi, and Kanarese, and with John Clark Marshman, one of Bhutia. He also translated the whole Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit, and parts of it into twenty-nine other languages or dialects. Scholars say that Carey significantly contributed to the renaissance of Indian Literature in the nineteenth century.
While an ordained preacher and a church planter, Carey was fascinated with all aspects of daily living. In 1818 Carey founded two magazines and a newspaper, the Samachar Darpan, the first newspaper printed in any Asian language. He was the father of Indian printing technology, building what was then their largest printing press. Carey was the first to make indigenous paper for the Indian publishing industry. He brought the steam engine to India, and pioneered the idea of lending libraries in India. Carey introduced the concept of a ‘Savings Bank’ to India, in order to fight the all-pervasive social evil of usury at interest rates of 36% to 72%.
Carey introduced the study of astronomy as a science, teaching that the stars and planets are God’s creation set by him in an observable order, rather than astrological deities fatalistically controlling one’s life. He was the founder of the Agri-Horticultural Society in the 1820s, thirty years before the Royal Agricultural Society was established in England. Carey was the first person in India to write about forest conservation. In 1823, he was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, one of the world’s most distinguished botanical societies even today. As Carey’s favorite flowers were lilies, he had the honour of having one (Careyanum) named after him.
Having a strong social conscience, Carey was the first man to oppose the Sati widow-burning and female infanticide. Sati was finally banned by the Government of India in 1829. He also campaigned for humane treatment of lepers who were being burned or buried alive because of their bad karma. The view at the point was that leprosy was a deserved punishment in the fifth cycle of reincarnation.
Carey loved India and never returned home to England, dying in 1834 at the age of 73. Near the end, he said: ““You have been speaking about William Carey. When I am gone, say nothing about William Carey-speak only about William Carey’s Saviour.” My prayer for those reading this article is that we too would have the passion for learning and making a difference that William Carey once had.
Video: William Carey – A Candle in the Dark (click to view)
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird,
BSW, MDiv, DMin
Rector, St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-an article for the June 2013 Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
The Next Big Thing
December 6, 2012
I have been tagged by Kimberley Payne of Trees of the Book – Learning from God’s Creation
- What is the title of your book?
Battle for the Soul of Canada
- Where did the idea come from for the book?
Seeing the loss of our Judeo-Christian heritage in Canada
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What genre does your book fall under?
Devotional Commentary, and Canadian history
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Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Canadian history buffs.
- What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Raising up the emerging generation of leaders
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Is your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Independently published.
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How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
2 and ½ years
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What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Similar to the Alpha Course genre of books and to E Stanley Jones’ devotional books.
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Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The vision of Acts 20 where Paul warned that wolves would attack the church even from within.
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What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
History buffs will love this book.
5 recommended authors websites.
Marcia Lee Laycock www.vinemarc.com
Heidi McLaughlin www.heartconnection.ca
Donna Fawcett www.donnafawcett.com
Bill Bonikowsky www.billbonikowsky.com
Paul Beckingham http://walkingtowardshope.blogspot.com
The Birth of the Book
October 12, 2010
By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird
I love libraries. In our family, we have four favorite places for ‘down-time’ and restoration: beaches, parks, gyms, and libraries. I see lifting weights and lifting up books as equally stimulating and healthy. One exercises the body; the other one the mind.
My parents love books. My father reads so extensively that he exhausts virtually every library he joins, and has to move on to another neighbouring library just to find new options. Scholars have discovered that the best way to motivate one’s children to learn is by example. If your children never see you reading, it has a profound impact on their likelihood to pick up a book themselves. There is no better way for your children to expand their minds than to turn off their video games, iPods, or TV, and actually crack open a thought-provoking book or e-book.
The latest library book that has fascinated me is Dr Andrew Pettegree’s “The Book in the Renaissance”. Dr Pettegree is the Head of the School of History at the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland, and founding director of the St. Andrew’s Reformation Studies Institute. I have learned so much from reading this amazing book. I was shocked to discover that before the sixteenth century in Europe, educators did not teach history in school. One of my growing passions is history, which is why I included so much Canadian history in my last book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada.’ Dr Pettegree comments that “the teaching of history was in many respects the most original curricular innovation of the Renaissance period. History was not taught in the classrooms in classical times…”
I was also surprised to discover that in England, there was no formal provision for teaching writing in the grammar schools. Few classrooms even had desks. If one wanted to learn how to write, it had to be done during school vacations, perhaps employing a private writing master.
The existence of books can be traced back to before the 7th century BC. Some of the earliest books in Mesopotamia were made of clay tablets. Others were made of silk, bone, bronze, pottery, shell, dried palm leaves, or wood. The Greek word for ‘book’ biblos originally meant “fibre inside of a tree”. The Chinese character for book is an image of a bamboo tablet.
The ancient Egyptians developed a very sophisticated form of book-making, using 
papyrus made of stretched-out reeds, pasted together in scrolls, sometimes up to forty feet. Beginning in the 3rd century BC, parchment made out of animal skins gradually replaced papyrus as the dominant form of book-making. Parchment was both very durable and very expensive. Until the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in the fifteenth century, virtually all books were handwritten manuscripts, often painstakingly transcribed in monasteries.
We are all very aware of how the internet and social media has revolutionized our 21st century. Gutenberg’s printing press was just as revolutionary. Before Gutenberg, books were only for the wealthy elite. After Gutenberg, books democratized Europe by making new ideas available for ordinary people. His revolution did not just birth printed books, but gave rise to newspapers, further educating ordinary people and infusing their minds with dreams of freedom and equality.
The first book that Gutenberg printed was the 
Bible. The ready accessibility of the Bible in one’s own language was a radical innovation that many bureaucrats resisted with a passion. Bibles were burnt openly in every part of Europe. Tyrants knew that if ordinary people were given a chance to read the Bible for themselves, liberty would break out everywhere. As the Great Physician put it, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
I was fortunate to be number seven of the eight people to receive an IPhone 4 at a local phone store. My only problem was that I didn’t know how to make it work. So I went back to the phone store, asking about the user guide. None of the three employees had ever seen or read the user guide. All had IPhone 4s. “How did you learn to use it?” I asked. One of the young employees said to me “I just pressed buttons until something happened.” Eventually I found the user guide, and actually read it. What an amazing difference it made. As my math teacher said 
in Grade 10, “When all else fails, read the instructions”. We live in an amazing age when most of us are able to read, yet we still often fail to make the most of this gift.
Gutenberg gave us the gift of printed Bibles available for all to read. Isn’t it about time that we take a look once again at God’s user manual?
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
- published in the Nov 2010 Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
My Father the Family Historian
July 21, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
I share my father’s fascination with history. My father loves to read, research, and learn. ‘Like Father, like Son’ is true in so many unexpected ways. Like my father, I want to keep learning and growing until I leave this planet earth. I believe that we either grow or shrink. You can’t remain static.
Like my dad, I have become involved in the area of writing and journalism. My father was a writer and then the editor of the Telecom Advisor for over 15 years. Since 1988, I have been privileged over the past 22 years to write over 270 articles for the Deep Cove Crier, and for the past ten years co-ordinated the ‘Spiritually Speaking’ column for the North Shore News.
It is wonderful to have a father who models helpful skills. Whether it was helping my father to cut wood with his skillsaw or to cut the grass, my dad has always been a coach, a mentor, and an equipper who loves to help me discover new abilities. If my dad is excited about a new book or a new movie, he eagerly shares his enthusiasm and invites our participation. I also find myself being that way with my own three sons!
One of my father’s trademarks is that whenever the family gathered for holidays or birthdays, out comes his video camera! In the early days, video cameras required painfully bright backdrop lights. We would all groan when the bright lights came out, but later be thrilled by the immortalized visual memories.
My family and my father are wonderful gifts that I appreciate more and more as I become older. Family for me is inextricably connected with thousands of unforgettable and often hilarious memories. It is also connected with times of great sorrow and loss, great joy and celebration. Family is birthdays, weddings, funerals, baptisms, anniversaries, graduations, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, and yes, Father’s Day. My life would be much less rich without the gift of my family and my father.
One of my father’s most memorable projects has been his family memoirs. The term ‘memoir’ comes from the French ‘memoire’ for memory. We as Canadians are a nation that often suffers from cultural and spiritual amnesia. We so quickly forget the wonderful stories of our pioneering ancestors who helped make Canada what it is today. My dad often comments how he wished that he had listened more closely as a teenager when his now deceased aunts and uncles would talk about family history.
Just like the famous Afro-American ‘Roots’ 
Book & TV –mini-series, my father’s memoirs are helping me understand better who I am and where I have come from. My Dad, as an electrical engineer, loves anything to do with computers and telecommunications.
Through the use of a scanner and PhotoShop, my Dad has incorporated in his memoirs over a hundred pictures that capture the essence of our family life.
So much family history functions as oral tradition that can easily be lost or muddled within one generation. Much of Canada’s rich Christian heritage is being lost precisely that way. Psalm 102 says: ‘Let this be written for a future generation…’. By my father’s writing down his memoirs, I will be able to pass this gift of history onto my children and future grandchildren. They too will be able to learn the exploits of their grandfather being raised in a coal-mining town outside of Edmonton, helping his blacksmith father shoe horses, serving as an Air Force WWII wireless radio mechanic in the Queen Charlotte Islands, becoming an electrical Engineer at UBC, becoming President of Lenkurt Electric, before becoming a hi-tech communications consultant. The inspiring thing about my father is that he has always been able to ‘re-invent’ himself. When one door closed in his life, he would always find another door that would open. Like my hero 
Winston Churchill, my father never, never, ever gives up! He also hasn’t given up on writing his memoirs.
The Good Book says: ‘What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from our children; we will tell the next generation…’ (Psalm 78). My Father Day prayer for fathers reading this article is that each of us will have the courage to never give up, and the wisdom to transmit the cultural and spiritual gifts of our family history to the emerging generation.
edhird
