返回总目录
How a Sufi Found His Lord: The New Fellowship in St. Paul's Highschool
37
THE NEW FELLOWSHIP IN ST. PAUL'S HIGHSCHOOL
The incident in Madrasah proved to he a happy one, for it was a stepping-stone
to lead me into a wider circle of Christian fellowship, and opened the door
for me to be known as a follower of Christ. Every Muslim from that day looked
upon me and treated me as a renegade from Islam and regarded me as a Christian.
After my expulsion from the Calcutta Madrasah, I managed to secure my admission
in C. M. S. (now St. Paul's) High School, Calcutta, through the kindness of
the Rev. S. D. Hinde, then the Principal of the School, for no non-Christian
boy was then allowed to be taken as a student into it. In this new School
for the first time I had the joy of being in close fellowship with sons of
the Christian community. It was a real comradeship that I was privileged
to enjoy. The School had several Christian activities entirely conducted
by the students themselves, which were organised under an association of
the Christian students known as St. Paul's Brotherhood. Every Sunday evening
after the Church service one band of the senior students used to go for
preaching in the streets of Calcutta, and another to visit the patients in
the Medical College, and to render such help to the patients as they could,
for example writing letters for those unable to write, or making purchases
for those
38
who had no friends to buy things for them. At the same time, no opportunity
for doing personal evangelism was ever neglected. I have always carried
a delightful picture of those Sunday evenings, when with the bands of those
students I have gone to preach, either in the streets, sometimes chiefly at
the corner of the Harrison Road, near the Sealdah Station, where a large
audience of the moving crowd used to gather round the young preachers to
listen to the preaching of the Gospel, or at other times, in College Square
right opposite to the Senate Hall of the Calcutta University, where a selected
and literate class of Bengali gentlemen would form an audience. No less happy
is the memory of my visits with my fellow students paid in the general ward
of the Medical College Hospital, Calcutta, where the young lads used to go
from bed to bed speaking cheerfully to the patients, and always trying to
find an opening to present the Great Physician of soul and body to those
sufferers. It was marvellous to see how the Holy Spirit guided their
thoughts in public preaching and also in personal evangelism. On one
occasion when a student speaking to a patient had spoken of the possibility
of his dying in his sin, and thus going to hell for eternity, and perhaps
that very illness might prove his last chance to repent and accept Jesus
as his Saviour, he was sharply criticised by others of the team for speaking
to a sick person in that strain, devoid of hope and joy. It was a great
lesson that I learnt from my fellow Christian students. In later life how
often have I had an occasion of listening to such preachers who emphasise
the dark side of human life and fail to present Him who is the source of
JOY and HAPPINESS, and who even standing at the grave could proclaim Himself
to be the Resurrection and the Life, and who, surrounded by outcastes and
sinners earned for Himself
39
the title of a friend of publicans and sinners (Matt. 11:18).
Table of contents to How a Sufi Found His Lord
Answering Islam Home Page