From Tom Nettles, The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity (Beginnings in Britain):
Our undertaking to India really appeared to me, on its commencement, to be somewhat like a few men, who were deliberating about the importance of penetrating into a deep mine, which had never before been explored. We had no one to guide us, and while we were thus deliberating, [William] Carey, as it were, said, 'Well, I will go down if you will hold the rope.' But before he went down, (continued Mr. Fuller,) he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us, at the mouth of the pit, to this effect, that [we] 'while we lived, should never let go of the rope.' You understand me. There was great responsibility attached to us who began the business (Nettles, 267).