Sundar in Tibet—I

Born and bred in the far north and familiar with the mountainous regions of the Himalayas, Sundar’s heart turned to the dark places where no vision of Christ has come.

Feeling as he does about Christ it is not surprising that he eventually made choice of the most difficult and dangerous fields ‘“ where Christ is not named” as his peculiar sphere. It. therefore seems quite a natural thing that the mind of Sadhu Sundar Singh should have turned to the closed land of Tibet soon after he set out to preach the Gospel. For more than a century the vast continent of India had had its missionaries, and hundreds of thousands of India’s children had responded to the call of Christ, many of whom in their turn had become messengers of peace to their own people. In his own words, “‘ There are many to proclaim the truth in India,” but as he turned towards Tibet and the contiguous country of Nepal, his heart went out to the people who have no means of hearing of Christ.

Foreign missionaries are debarred from entering the country, and it is scarcely easier for an Indian, for he must not only face the inhospitality of the bitter climate, but the active hostility of a half-civilized and wholly fanatical people. But to suffer for the Master’s sake has been a great mark of the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh, and so, undismayed by what probably lay before him, he set out whilst still a boy on his first journey into that land of bigotry and darkness.

Christ the Son of God hath sent me Through the midnight lands.

Mine the mighty ordination Of the piercéd hands.

Unfortunately the Sadhu has not kept any connected account of his work and journeys through Tibet, so that all there is to. tell is in the shape of fragments of his experiences, sufferings, and successes in that fascinating and yet terrible land.

On his first journey in 1908, when he was scarcely nineteen years of age, he started alone and was unacquainted with the language spoken in Tibet. He was very glad to avail himself of the help offered to him by two Moravian missionaries working at Poo, a little fronticr town. He stayed a week with these good men, and then they gave him a worker of their own who was to accompany him for some distance, and instruct him in the dialect of the people. Except that he knew the intense’ hostility of the Tibetans to every religion but their own, the Sadhu had little knowledge of place or people, but it was not long that he remained in ignorance.

He soon found they resented his teaching, and wherever he went he was met with bitter opposition and hatred, especially from the Lamas. These men were particularly venomous, and often assumed a threatening attitude on the border of the crowds that gathered to hear his preaching. Notwithstanding this, he reached the important town of Tashigang in safety, and was astonished and pleased to receive kindly treatment at the hands of the head Lama of the place. This man was a person of importance, and under him served some hundreds of inferior lamas.

The Lama not only received the Sadhu with kindness but provided him with food and shelter, and as the weather was bitterly cold this hospitality was most acceptable. Moreover the Lama called a gathcring of those under his contro] to hear the Sadhu’s message, and so the Gospel was preached by him with great thankfulness of heart.

Journeying on from this place he was fortunate enough to arrive at a town under the rule of another Lama who was a friend of the Lama of Tashigang, and here again he was accorded a welcome and a good hearing. From this place he visited several other towns and villages, but in these he met with even greater opposition than in his earlicr work. He was constantly threatened and warned to get out of the country lest some evil befall him. But he was not to be thus terrorized, and he continued his work amidst many difficulties.

Thus has Sadhu Sundar Singh “ besicged this stronghold of bigotry and fanaticism,’ and in doing so has passed through many tribulations ; but to him persecution and infamy are as nothing if he may win but one soul for his Saviour. A Ceylon friend says, “His resolution to walk barefooted amidst the perpetual snows of Tibet is the mark of his invincible determination to bring men to Christ.”