A Reminder from a Christian Brahmin: Narayan Sheshadri

Perhaps there is no nobler or more lordly-looking set or sort of men than the best specimens of high-caste Brahmins. They are not only the highest in rank and position among the Hindoos, but they deem themselves, and are deemed by those among whom and above whom they stand or move, as one with the gods, and as each one a god. As one of them himself said: “They form the highest class in Hindoo society. They are the only authorized interpreters of the Shasters and other holy books the Hindoo sacred scriptures. Each Brahmin is a much more infallible dignitary than the Pope of Rome.” Born into the world where his people and those about him have this idea of his position and place among men, he is, by heredity and environment and constant training, made to feel that he is not as other men, and that other men can never be as he is. Many of them are superior if not superb in appearance, physically and intellectually. Manu, the old Hindoo lawgiver, whose words are, as Hindoos think, infallible, and who is in Hindoo belief lord of the lower world, has asserted — and every Brahmin is bound to believe it to be the truth — that “from north to south, from east to west, there shall be finally nothing but Hindooism, Hindooism, Hindooism, to the absolute exclusion of every other religious system.”

This being the case, is it strange that the conversion of a proud and noble high-caste Brahmin to become an humble learner at the feet of Jesus is hardly less remarkable than was the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, a prominent member of the Jewish sanhedrin at Jerusalem? Such a wonder was not known on earth, at least in modern times, until near the middle of the nineteenth Christian century, and then the world looked on with profoundest interest.

Narayan Sheshadri was the first high-caste Brahmin I was ever privileged to see, and he was then a Christian missionary minister. It was in Association Hall at the corner of Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, New York City, at the sessions of the Sixth General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, in October, 1873. That was a great and a grand gathering, one of the noblest and most impressive assemblages I ever looked upon. There were God’s representatives from all the chief nations of earth, men who had already accomplished much for God and for their fellows, and who were destined to accomplish yet more. Yet among the lordly men of that great assemblage no one seemed more lordly or was more honored and admired than Narayan Sheshadri in his white Hindoo robes and his huge snowy turban, setting off in fine relief the rich olive complexion of his handsome intellectual face. He was a lord among the lordly. It was a sight not to be forgotten. It was an object lesson of the value and power of Christianity and Christian missions.

In good English and graceful manner this Christian missionary told that audience how he was won to Christ and how he now joyed in the service of his Saviour. It was not through ordinary missionary preaching or invitations that he was brought to accept Christianity, yet it was through the knowledge of the Bible and its teachings gained in the schools organized in India through the endeavors of good Dr. Alexander Duff. He had gradually come to realize that the Bible was more than the teachings of Manu, than the Vedas, the Shasters, and the Puranas, and that Jesus was more than any god worshipped by the Hindoos, even than Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva. After he had thus been led to accept the teachings of the Bible and to commit himself to Jesus, Narayan Sheshadri was baptized, September 13, 1843, and a few years later he was ordained as an evangelist and was appointed to be a missionary among his own people, in connection with the Free Church in Scotland.

Eight years after I first saw and heard Narayan Sheshadri at the conference of the Evangelical Alliance in New York, I again met him at the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of London, where was a great gathering of missionary workers from different parts of the world-field, welcomed to the Mansion House by special invitation of the Lord Mayor. This again was a notable assemblage. The Lord Mayor was present in his showy official robes. The Lady Mayoress honored the occasion with her presence. Peers of the realm were there, and there were God’s noblemen from various portions of God’s earthly domain, from the venerable Robert Moffat of South Africa to Theodore Monod of Geneva. But once more the Christian Brahmin dwarfed them all, and caused all present to rejoice in what God hkd wrought, and was bringing about through missions.

Yet of all the times when I met and heard Narayan Sheshadri, the occasion that stands out in my mind as most impressive was when he was welcomed and gave a brief address in a Presbyterian Church in West Philadelphia. And that occasion I best remember because of a rejoinder and a reminder that he gave to the Christians who welcomed him. There was a fine Christian audience assembled in the church to give him greeting on a week-day afternoon. He was introduced as an evidence of the value of Christian missions that ought to be sufficient to satisfy any doubter who might raise a question on the subject. Narayan Sheshadri, in his imposing presence and dress, stepped forward, and perhaps touched in his pride as a lordly Brahmin by the reference to his rescue and uplifting said, as he looked down into the faces upturned to his:

“My friends, if I had ever had any doubt as to the value of Christian missions, that doubt would be removed as I stand here and look into your bright and intelligent faces, and consider the facts in the case. When my ancestors were among the lordliest persons on earth, considering themselves and being considered by others as one with the gods, worthy of divine honors, your ancestors were among the most degraded of human beings, looked down on and despised by those of my race. Yet by Christian missionaries your fathers were sought out and won to Christ, and in consequence you now sit here clothed and in your right mind, as a living proof of the value of Christian missions concerning the interests of which we are to consult together this afternoon.”

That was a rejoinder and a reminder to be remembered, and it was a truth to be considered. It is indeed a truth that we do not always consider as we should. I never realized it before hearing it thus brought out so bluntly; but I recalled, after hearing it, that at the time when the Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII, visited India with Dean Stanley, it was said that the India officials sent into the jungle, and lassoed a few specimens of the ancient Aryan race from which the English people are supposed to have sprung, and brought them in for the young Prince of Wales to look at. And it is owing to Christian missions and missionaries that we are, under God, now above the level or the low depths of our ancestors. All the civiUzation and the refinement and the Christianity that we enjoy in America, and on which we pride ourselves, we, as a people, — with the exception of the Hebrew race, — owe to this glorious agency.

Is it not well for us to heed the words of the evangelical prophet, “Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek Jehovah: look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged “? Since I heard that telling rejoinder and reminder by the Christian Brahmin, the faithful missionary, Narayan Sheshadri, I am more ready than before to consider not only what is my duty to the cause of Christian missions, but what gratitude I should have to Christian missions in view of what they have done for me and mine.