Spiritual Growth
SPIRITUAL GROWTH
He There was an eager desire among our people to read the Bible.
Young men, who formerly spent a good deal of time in reading Communist literature or the comic magazines in Tamil, were now found studying the Bible with great earnestness.
From the Erode depot alone three hundred Bibles were sold in five months. Each Tamil Bible cost Rs 5, quite a large amount in those days when famine conditions prevailed in that part of the Diocese due to the failure of monsoons in successive years. Four men from the Nilgiris went to a depot to buy Bibles.
The cheaper editions were sold out.
Only Bibles for Rs 16 were available and they bought them.
When they were rebuked for their extravagance, one of them said:
"We spend Rs 22 in buying a new pair of shoes.
Why should we not buy a Bible for Rs 16?'
One of the remarkable things in the Diocese now was the spontaneous formation of prayer groups in various places.
In a Government College, where no provision was made for worship or religious instruction, some of the Christian students were meeting regularly during the midday recess for worship in each other's tuoms.
Sometimes when there were Hindu students sharing the room, they also took part in the worship.
As I went on one of my tours, a young man met me in a railway station and told me how on the previous evening he had gone to a neighbouring village to pray along with the group there. He had expected to spend an hour with them and to return home.
Just as he was about to leave the prayer meeting after a short time, a person suffering from 'possession' was brought to them and the little group began to pray for him. There was no immediate answer to the prayer and they went on praying until 1.30 in the night.
When they left, they had the conviction that the patient would become well after a few days.
In one town congregation, six groups began to pray.
One of them was a group of young men who met regularly every day in the vestry at 9 p.m. after the day's work was over.
A group of women was meeting regularly every Wednesday for prayer in the same church.
At first there were five women and later the
SPIRITUAL GROWTH
number rose to twenty-five.
In the same town the Pastors and the workers were coming together once a week for prayer.
A group of young men in one of our villages in the Coimbatore area walked a distance of eighteen miles to attend a Quiet Day which was held for them in the Ashram of Bishop Pakenham- 'Walsh.
In another village I found a group of earnest young men.
When I asked how this group had come into being I was told an interesting story. A young man had been very critical and bitter about the Church, about the missionaries and about the Indian workers.
One day he was bitten by a snake.
The Pastor took him into his house and looked after him for some days.
As the young man lay in bed he kept looking at a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ which was hung on the wall opposite.
There was a great storm on the sea and Jesus was standing in a boat, which swayed to and fro.
He commanded the turbulent waves and the storm ceased.
'This picture of Jesus moved the young man deeply.
He decided that if he became well, he would be a true and sincere follower of Jesus, and he offered himself up to Him.
From that time he was a new man.
He had a very wholesome influence on the young men of the village who gathered round him and were ready to do his bidding.
When Dr Glenn Clark asked whether he could visit the Coimbatore Diocese and help, I gladly welcomed him.
- In the United States he was invited to many camps and conferences run by the Student Christian Movernent, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian
Association.
His main duty was to lead the devotional meetings and the hours of prayer.
He felt that in these camps there was light but that in some of them it was fitful and dim as in a faulty kerosene lamp, and in others it was bright and glorious as in a powerful electric light.
This was due to the harmony or lack of harmony among the leaders.
In one conference he found great jealousy among the leading speakers as to who would be allowed to give the largest number of important speeches.
In another conference a professor of Psychology and a full-time evangelist were at loggerheads, the one bitterly criticising the methods of the other. Glenn
Clark also found that in these camps and conferences much importance was given to lectures and discussions, prayer being given a
A. J. APPASAMY
minor and formal place.
In these camps too much time was spent on running the organisation, on raising money and on enrolling new members.
Glenn Clark longed to start his own camps, with leaders who believed that prayer was the mightiest force in the world.
For many years he ran such camps.
They were called Camps Farthest Out, as the folk attending them were taught to go farthest out in their surrender to God.
They met once a year in one of the States and spent a week or ten days in some lovely spot, deepening their life of fellowship with God and man.
Having spread a belt of prayer in the United States, Dr Clark had the vision of spreading a belt of prayer all over the world.
His visit to Coimbatore on March 8, 9 and 10, 1954 proved quite timely.
He was then in his seventies.
Some of us had been reading with much profit his books on prayer.
A prayer group had been started in the bungalow of Mr H. O.
Fowler, the Principal of Stanes High School, Coimbatore.
The group was deliberately kept small—about half a dozen friends.
Dr Glenn Clerk had taught that prayer must be made with one accord as in the Acts of the Apostles.
He had also taught that prayer should be specific and intimate, not general and vague as in large prayer meetings.
This prayer group was meeting regularly once a week for many years.
I said to Mrs Fowler, 'Have you had any outstanding answers to the prayers in your group?'
'Yes', she said, 'for many years my husband wanted to serve the Church as an ordained minister.
In our prayer group we asked God that He might open the way for my husband to be ordained.
God did open the way. A scholarship was available for theological study in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley,
California.
You sent him there for two years.
We are sure this was a definite answer from God.'
After Mr Fowler returned from the United States it gave me great joy to ordain him, first as Honorary Deacon and a year later as Honorary Presbyter.
He is now serving the Church faithfully, taking services every Sunday and making pastoral calls on his people, in addition to his heavy duties as the Principal of a large and flourishing High School.
SPIRITUAL GROWTH
The Missions were being held in different parts of the Diocese.
Reports were coming in of the varying response to them.
It was necessary for some of us to come together in a quiet place to pray for the work which was going on and at the same time to consider how best to follow it up.
A great many of our people, especially young people, were asking for Bible Study.
There was a hunger for the Word of God.
We needed to train leaders who could take Bible Study classes.
Men and women who had been converted needed considerable help in learning to live the victorious life and to share with others the spiritual blessings they had received.
The Coimbatore Diocese was very fortunate in having St George's Church at Wellington on the Nilgiris, with a large parsonage attached to it. The natural surroundings of the church and the parsonage are beautiful and their peaceful setting is ideal for prayer and study.
They are centrally situated in the Church of South India.
The cool and pleasant climate of Wellington (6,000 feet high) during the months of April and May was a great attraction to many visitors.
There was no difficulty in getting distinguished speakers (who came to the Nilgiris for their holiday) to help in our meetings.
So we decided to use the Wellington church and parsonage as a Retreat and Conference House.
Mountains are the source of life.
Mountains offer security.
Mountains inspire us with the desire to ascend.
~ Mountains give us a view of the distant horizons.
The Indian Rishis and their disciples had realized such truths on the Himalayas.
We found them also true on the Nilgiris.
Fifty of our congregations lived on the Nilgiris.
I constantly travelled to and fro to meet these congregations and take services for them.
Wellington became my halting place on numerous occasions.
During my visits to the blue mountains (Nilgiris literally means that) I was well-nourished in body and spirit by their loveliness.
I kept praising God for calling me to serve Him in such beautiful places.
Summer schools and conferences, some of them lasting for ten days each, were arranged at Wellington.
The maximum number of people who could be accommodated was fifteen. These
A. J. APPASAMY
groups were not too small or too large. The leaders and the students. came to know one another.
We had much informal discussion.
Holy Communion, Bible Study, Reports from Pastors, Intercessions, Recreation—these occupied our time and brought us close to God and close to one another.
I am inclined to regard these seminars as the really vital part of my ministry.
As a Bishop I had many problems of my own.
I was asked. to read a paper in the C.S.I. Synod, Tiruchirapalli, in January 1956.
I said there: 'A Bishop has many difficult things to do—presiding over noisy meetings in which people make heated speeches, facing angry laymen who are anxious to teach the Bishop his job, taking disciplinary action against his workers and dealing with court cases.
All these are in the day's work for a Bishop.
He copes with them with as much tact, love and wisdom as he can, continually seeking God's guidance.
But, as I see it, the most difficult thing which a Bishop has to do is so to organize his time and energy that the most important and worthwhile duties of his office (such as prayer, study and teaching) are performed, whatever may or may not happen to the many other duties which are expected of him.'
In 1949 it became clear to me that the time was ripe for a complete biography of Sundar Singh. He had died in 1929. Many of his friends were slowly passing away.
I was one of the few men who had known him intimately.
When I wrote to people asking for materials, they responded promptly and generously.
Several books about him in English, German, Swedish, French and Tamil were sent to me.
Shorthand reports of his addresses, newspaper cuttings about his meetings in various parts of the world and his letters to his friends as well as their reminiscences of him also came.
'They needed considerable study.
The biography had then to be written.
As a Bishop I had little time for literary work.
When I was not on tour I formed the habit of going to bed early for some years, waking up in the middle of the night and working at the manuscript for an hour or two without any disturbance.
Sundar Singh: A Biography was published by the Lutterworth Press, London, in 1958.
I may say that the work on this book was a continual inspiration to me.
It was good to lay aside for some time the normal