Shep's Place Family Tree

Jabez, like his younger brother Jonathan, undoubtedly spoke the local Bengali languages and dialects like a local. Jabez also studied Chinese and Malay language and did well. From a letter from Jabez's father William Carey to his brother William:

Calcutta, 1st November 1809. Yesterday was the day for the Chinese examination, at which Jabez acquitted himself with much honour. I wish his heart were truly set on God. One of the greatest blessing which I am now anxious to see before my death is the conversion of him and Jonathan, and their being employed in the work of the Lord."

In December 1810 Jabez had written to Carey:

'My very dear father,
As you have once or twice suggested to me that you would be glad if I would let you know in what line of life I would wish myself permanently fixed, I now take the liberty of laying open my mind to you....If you would endeavour to get me into the Civil Service, I would be glad, both on account of my being near yourself for the first two or three years, and on account of my not mixing with any mean company...I hope, my dear father, that you will not take this amiss, for, if it does not meet your approbation, I shall drop all thought of it.'

Unable to arrange this, Carey did the next best similar thing, and articled him to a firm of Calcutta solicitors.

Sometime after this, Jabez decided to become a missionary, much to his father's delight.

In England in 1811 John Ryland preached the anniversary sermon when the mission headquarters moved to London. Pausing in the midst of his discourse, Ryland called on the vast congregation to unite in silent prayer for the conversion of Jabez Carey. The answer to this came in a letter ‎[1812]‎ from ‎[Jabez's]‎ father the next year--'My son Jabez, who has been articled to an attorney, has become decidedly religious, and prefers the work of the Lord to every other.'"

In early 1812, Jabez was in Amboyna, modern Indonesia.
"...Such respect and confidence did Jabez inspire in the Malays by his development of the schools, his preaching, and his civic service on the other as State almoner and Member of the College of Justice, that, in the very troublous days which followed the restoration of the islands to the Dutch, he was enabled to be chief arbiter and peacemaker. Carey could be very proud of him. His intimate knowledge of Chinese, too, opened avenues of service."

'About this time a request came for missionaries and bibles in the Malay tongue. Jabez was baptized and sent "to the Molucca Islands" before he could be ordained. The Moluca Islands, also called the Spice Islands, were off the coast of present-day Indonesia between Celebes and New Guinea.

Jabez was ordained on the 26th of January 1814, two days after his marriage to Eliza Hilton.

At that time Jabez's father wrote the following advice to Jabez with both his ordination and marriage in mind:

1. Pay the utmost attention at all times to the state of your own mind both towards God and man.....

2. Be not satisfied with conducting yourself towards your wife with propriety, but let love to her be the spring of your conduct towards her. Esteem her highly....

3. Behave affably and genteelly to all, but not cringingly toward any.....

4. On your arrival at Amboyna your first business is to wait on Mr. Martin....'

Jabez, an accomplished linguist in Eastern languages, had added Chinese to the languages he mastered.

Jabez and Eliza had their first baby in Amboyna, which was a seaport in the Molucca Islands. William Henry Carey was born on 12 June 1817. Their other children were born either in Calcutta or Serampore, which was undoubtedly better for Eliza because she would have had support and care from the other missionary women.

page 342. "By the end of 1818 Jabez set out upon the four months' river voyage for Ajmere, with his father's just-completed Hindi bible in his hands, and laboured there with noble faithfulness for fifteen years. How did Eliza fit into this life?

In 1842 gives Jabez was residing in Sealdah. That was the year in which his wife Eliza died. Sealdah is in modern times known as the most important railway station in Kolkatta; however its significance in 1841, I do not know. Perhaps it was just an area of Calcutta.

Eliza died on 28 February 1842 when she was only 47 years old. She may have been ill for quite a while. Later that same year Jabez married Sarah Hawkins, a young Indian woman whose parents were overseers in the education department at Serampore. Unfortunately, Sarah died in September 1843, probably as a complication of pregnancy or childbirth. Jabez didn't marry again although he lived for another thirty-four years.

In the 1860 Bengal Directory, Jabez Carey was listed as a commission agent, res. 30, Lower circular road, town-side ‎[Calcutta]‎.