Krishna Pal

Krishna Pal

On the last Sunday of 1800, a thirty-six year old Indian carpenter named Krishna Pal was baptized by the missionary William Carey.  He was the first convert after seven years of labor by the famed missionary.

A devout Hindu, he tried tirelessly to perform the works he understood to be necessary for Hinduism: worshiping idols, bathing in the Ganges River, making pilgrimages to holy places, licking the dust from his guru’s feet, giving property to priests, repeating the name of his guardian deity, and meditating on and singing Hindu verses.  Despite being persistent in his Hindu practices, the dread of his sin hung over his head and he lived in fear.

While performing one of the bathing rituals of Hinduism, Pal dislocated his arm.  In pain, he went to the mission hospital where Carey’s associate Dr. John Thomas reset his arm.  During his treatment, the staff witnessed to him about Christ and Pal, intrigued, found more reasons to visit the mission house.  Coming to an awareness of his own sin, he wept and came to faith.  During his baptism, in front of many Hindu witnesses, he proclaimed, “I tried the Hindu worship, but got no good…After a while I heard of Christ – that He was incarnate, labored much, and at last laid down His life for sinners.  I thought, ‘What love is this!’  And here I made my resting place.” 

India had (and still has) a caste system.  Pal immediately gave up his high caste to dine with the missionaries.  This, more than anything else, drew the attention of his countrymen.  He reasoned, “The man who keeps his caste cannot obtain salvation.  Men who have their caste are very proud, and he who is proud cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

During his baptism, Carey said to the assembled crowd, “Ye gods of stone and clay, did ye not tremble when, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, one individual shook you as the dust from his feet?”  Pal’s wife later followed him in baptism as did others in his family.  They were the first fruits of Carey’s ministry.  He was kicked out of his house, robbed, and persecuted.  Despite these difficulties, he persisted in his faith, developed a burden for his lost countrymen, and was ordained to the ministry by Carey in 1804. 

Krishna Pal traveled from one end of India to the other preaching and sharing his faith with all the nationalities he could in India.  He was so energetic in his witness that an associate of William Carey’s later remarked that of the churches in India in his day that most were begun initially through the influence of Pal.  He authored a number of Christian hymns popular among Indian Christians in his day, including “O Thou My Soul, Forget No More.”

O thou, my soul, forget no more

The Friend Who all thy misery bore;
Let every idol be forgot,
But, O my soul, forget Him not.

Jesus for thou a body takes,
Thy guilt assumes, thy fetters breaks,
Discharging all thy dreadful debt;
And canst thou e’er such love forget?

Renounce thy works and ways, with grief,

And fly to this most sure relief;
Nor Him forget, who left His throne,
And for thy life gave up His own.

Infinite truth and mercy shine,
In Him, and He Himself is thine:
And canst thou, then, with sin beset,
Such charms, such matchless charms, forget?

Ah! no—till life itself depart,
His Name shall cheer and warm my heart;
And lisping this, from earth I’ll rise;
And join the chorus of the skies.

Ah! no—when all things else expire,
And perish in the general fire,
This name all others shall survive,
And through eternity shall live.

In August of 1822, Krishna Pal contracted Cholera and died – an enthusiastic servant of his Lord.

e-mail from Christian History, 28 Dec 2020

https://www.evangelical-times.org/krishna-pal/

https://www.crichbaptist.org/krishna-pal/