With and Without Christ
Sadhu Sundar Singh · Introduction by the Lord Bishop of Winchester
About this book
With and Without Christ by Sadhu Sundar Singh, full title Being Incidents Taken from the Lives of Christians and of Non-Christians Which Illustrate the Difference in Lives Lived With Christ and Without Christ, was first published in 1929 by Harper & Brothers of New York and London, with an introduction by the Lord Bishop of Winchester. In it, the Indian evangelist Sadhu Sundar Singh sets down true incidents from his evangelistic travels, arranged under four headings: non-Christians without Christ, non-Christians who nonetheless show the marks of a living faith, nominal Christians who have the form of religion without its substance, and Christians whose lives are visibly transformed by Christ.
- 4 Chapters
- 1 Introduction
- 1 Preface
- 108 source pages
- 1929
- English
Source edition: Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1929 (copyright 1929 by Harper & Brothers). The digitized copy used as UECF.NET's source is hosted on the Internet Archive and is marked CC0 1.0 Universal by its uploader; the underlying 1929 publication is also in the public domain in the United States. UECF.NET has not been able to independently re-key or verify the OCR transcription of the complete 108-page text against the scanned original closely enough to publish it as a word-for-word edition, so this page presents the book's verified front matter, table of contents and a short introduction, and links readers to the complete authorized text on Internet Archive.
Front matter (from the source edition)
The title page reads: With and Without Christ — Being Incidents Taken from the Lives of Christians and of Non-Christians Which Illustrate the Difference in Lives Lived With Christ and Without Christ, by Sadhu Sundar Singh, with an introduction by the Lord Bishop of Winchester. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, MCMXXIX (1929).
The Preface opens:
In this book I have set out to describe some experiences of Christians and non-Christians belonging to various walks of life, whom I have met in different parts of the world during my evangelistic tours.
Chapter One opens:
Though Christians and non-Christians are equally the creation and sons of one God, yet there is a great difference between them. Some men have a true knowledge and realisation of Him, and are transformed into His likeness and become the heirs of life and eternal happiness through living in the presence of His incarnation, Jesus Christ.
These three passages are quoted directly from the source text (verified against the Internet Archive edition) to show the book's own voice. For the complete chapters, use the "Read the full text" link above.
Table of Contents
This is the complete contents listing of the 1929 edition, taken directly from the book's own Table of Contents page. Each entry below gives a short UECF.NET editorial description of that section — not the original text — with a link to read that section in full at Internet Archive.
Introduction — by the Lord Bishop of Winchester
UECF Editorial Note: The 1929 edition opens with an introduction contributed by the Lord Bishop of Winchester, commending Sadhu Sundar Singh's account of the incidents that follow. UECF.NET has not reproduced the full introduction here; read it in the source edition.
Preface
UECF Editorial Note: Sundar Singh explains, in his own words quoted above, that the book gathers true experiences of Christians and non-Christians he met on his evangelistic travels in various parts of the world.
Chapter One — Non-Christians Without Christ
UECF Editorial Note: This chapter recounts incidents involving sincere but unconverted seekers Sundar Singh met on his travels — including ascetics who pursued relief from sin through severe physical austerities — and reflects on why such efforts, apart from Christ, did not bring the peace they sought.
Chapter Two — Non-Christians With Christ
UECF Editorial Note: Here Sundar Singh describes people he met who had not formally embraced Christianity but whose lives, he believed, already showed the working of Christ — his way of illustrating that the Spirit's work is not confined to organised churches.
Chapter Three — Christians Without Christ
UECF Editorial Note: This chapter turns to nominal Christians Sundar Singh encountered — people who held the name and outward form of the Christian faith without, in his assessment, a living relationship with Christ — and contrasts their condition with genuine discipleship.
Chapter Four — Christians With Christ
UECF Editorial Note: The closing chapter gathers incidents of believers whose faith, in Sundar Singh's telling, visibly bore fruit in transformed character, sacrificial love and joy amid hardship — his positive counterpart to the earlier chapters.
Appendix
UECF Editorial Note: The 1929 edition includes a short appendix following the fourth chapter. UECF.NET has not reproduced its contents here; read it in the source edition.
Index
UECF Editorial Note: The book closes with an index, as listed on its own Table of Contents page.
About Sadhu Sundar Singh
Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889 – disappeared 1929) was an Indian Christian evangelist and ascetic. Born into a Sikh family in Punjab, he experienced a vision of Christ as a teenager that led to his conversion, after which he adopted the saffron robe of a Hindu "sadhu" (holy man) as a sign that following Christ did not require abandoning his Indian identity. He travelled widely as an itinerant preacher across India, Tibet, and other parts of Asia and the West, becoming known for his simple, story-based style of teaching and for incidents such as those collected in this book. He set out on a journey into Tibet in 1929 and was never seen again; he is presumed to have died on that journey.
This biography summarises widely documented, publicly available facts about Sundar Singh's life. UECF.NET has not independently verified every detail and welcomes corrections at [email protected].
Related Christian Books
- Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Personal Memoir — C. F. Andrews
- The Apostle of the East and West — James A. Kelso
- The Confessions of Saint Augustine
- The Cost of Discipleship — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Absolute Surrender — Andrew Murray
- History of Christianity in India — M. M. Ninan
- The Cross Is Heaven — The Life and Writings of Sadhu Sundar Singh, ed. A. J. Appasamy
Source Edition & Attribution
With and Without Christ, Sadhu Sundar Singh, 1929 (Harper & Brothers, New York and London).
Source: Internet Archive — With and Without Christ by Sadhu Sundar Singh, 1929 (uploaded by Peter-John Parisis), marked CC0 1.0 Universal by the uploader. The 1929 publication is also in the public domain in the United States. This UECF.NET page is an original description of the book prepared from that source and does not claim to be the original publisher or copyright holder of the work itself.