Here’s this week’s inspirational delve into the past by Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh. Paul writes, As we continue with our series about Scotland’s missionaries in India, we begin with a Baptist Christian, Revd John Mack. He is largely unknown, being in the shadow of William Carey, but his influence at Serampore was considerable.
Image: Serampore College in 1901, Helen Holcomb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Revd John Mack (1797-1845) from Edinburgh was a key developer in the foundation of this leading Christian college, which became India’s first university.
Although I wrote about Charles Grant last week, who played a vital role in 1793 in preparing the way for Protestant missionaries to take the gospel to India, the first known official Scottish missionary was John Mack. Born and educated in Edinburgh, where he excelled in science, John Mack hoped to be a Presbyterian minister, but apparently, he lacked the refined Anglicised accent necessary to be selected, so he attended a “polishing” school in Gloucestershire. It was there, however, that he was converted to Christ through the witness of Revd William Winterbottom, a Baptist minister at Shortwood. Changing his opinion about baptism, much to the dismay of his family, he embarked on a career in the Baptist Church, after enrolling in the Bristol Baptist Academy in 1818. Whilst studying for the ministry there, William Ward, one of William Carey’s team from Serampore in India, came to address the students. Mack was so inspired by the call to India that he requested that he could join the team. With the commendation of Revd John Ryland, Principal of the Bristol Baptist Academy, Mack was accepted, on the condition that he first qualified in Natural Philosophy (science) at the University of Edinburgh.
It was whilst he studied in Edinburgh that John Mack joined Charlotte Chapel and was mentored by Revd Christopher Anderson, the pastor. The congregation financially backed Mack as a missionary to India, and sent him out to join William Carey’s team at Serampore in May, 1821. Mack’s arrival at Serampore College was to be of critical timing. He began as the Professor of Chemistry in what became India’s first university in 1829. Besides his talent as a science teacher, he also wrote textbooks in Bengali and produced the first Bengali map. Despite the excitement of a pioneering work, there were tensions in the team with their support base back in England, leading to a breach with the Baptist Missionary Society in 1827. When William Ward died of cholera in 1823, Mack filled his gap, acting in a pastoral role for the team.
In 1832, Revd John Mack was ordained, along with Dr William Carey and Dr Joshua Marshman, to be co-pastor of the growing Baptist Church at Serampore, and two years later, he succeeded William Carey as the Principal of Serampore College. It was Mack’s pastoral gifting that God used to keep the team established there, and to advance the work so that it would be so influential. In 1837 Mack went on furlough to England, where God used his wisdom and passion for unity to bring reconciliation with the Baptist Missionary Society. On his return to India, he succeeded from Dr Marshman’s seminary and “raised its reputation to the highest degree and made it the first private educational establishment in India”.
John Mack died in a cholera epidemic in 1845. A copy of a letter in the vestry of Charlotte Chapel from The Baptist Reporter and Missionary Intelligence, (New Series, Vol II, August 1845, at p. 299), records that:
“Till yesterday, its ravages in Serampore were confined to the natives; but most unfortunately our dear pastor, Mr. Mack, a native of Edinburgh, and a labourer in the mission-field for twenty-three years, was attacked at ten o’clock in the morning, and entered into his rest at a quarter past ten in the evening, having suffered for only twelve hours. It was one of the worst cases of spasmodic cholera. He has left a widow, but no children; but every one was so much interwoven with him, that both European and native feel that they have lost a father, in every sense of the word. In him is broken the last connecting-link of the male portion of the Serampore mission commenced by the late Dr. Carey.”
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19, NKJV).