Sadhu Sundar Singh in America

Dr.Jowett and others introduced the Sadhu to the American people. Curiously enough, when it was known that he was going to America, there were good people who feared the result. Sincerely believing that his mission to the States would be more likely to arouse curiosity than accomplish any great spiritual purpose, a number of devout persons met together for prayer in New York, to ask for God’s overruling providence in the matter.

There was no time for suitable arrangements to be made before the Sadhu’s arrival. The Pond Lyceum Bureau offered to arrange a full programme covering the USA, and ventured the opinion that as a business proposition it would be an even greater success than the one they had carried through for Rabindranath Tagore. They published preliminary announcements, but when the Sadhu realized that this was a business arrangement, he declined to have anything to do with it. The National Bible Institute then made necessary arrangements, covering a couple of months, after which the Sadhu was due to leave for Australia.

On May 30, 1920, the Sadhu was at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Then followed engagements in Hartford, Baltimore, Pittston, Princeton University, Brank Presbyterian Church, New York; the Marble Collegiate Church, Brooklyn; Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities. On June 25, he went to the Silver Bay Students’ Conference, and spent four days addressing 800 students and their leaders. Early in July, he was in Chicago, and passed onto Iowa, Kansas and other places, finally arriving at San Francisco, where his journey and work in America ended. Some friends there were moved to give money for the support of “consecrated young men to the Sadhu, who had laid themselves on God’s altar to become martyrs for Christ by carrying the Gospel message to Tibet”.

At Lake George, the following incident took place. In the front row at a certain meeting sat a small child of three and a half years. All through his address, this wee mite scarcely took her eyes from the Sadhu’s face. When he sat down, the audience was almost electrified to hear the question asked in a clear childish treble, “Is he Jesus?”

A writer in the New York Evening News said:

“This tall strong young man has come from India to tell the world of Christianity again. He has an entirely ageless look of both youth and age in one; joy, energy, wisdom…. He has a high glad way about him. He is said to look like the pictures of Christ, and he does; but there is a greater vitality and joy about him than is ever represented in the pictures of Christ. Perhaps the pictures are wrong.

He comes to bear testimony to the endless power; the endless joy of Christ, to tell how he turned from Hinduism to Christ and in that way found peace of mind. To Indians nothing matters but serenity and peace of mind, as perhaps nothing else matters to anyone. He feels no oddity about coming to America to tell the power of Christ, when for some many generations; people have gone from here to tell the same. Christians must tell their experience, their joy that is all…. Sects are strange unnecessary things, the Sadhu thinks. There is one God; why have so many creeds? Piece and quiet come from knowing Christ. Why cause dissension? But still! “This is the world,” he says, resignedly though never without joy. “When all sects are one, it will be world no longer. It will be heaven then”.

Mr.Frank Buchman of Hartford Theological Seminary, who had traveled for some weeks with the Sadhu wrote of him:

“I agree with the newspaper reporters of America who interviewed him, “Nearer the Christ than any living man we have seen”. The leading papers gave him ample space. His pictures appeared in the movies, and he was able to reach influential and lay circles in the various cities. He is Spirit-taught and has almost a medium-like gift of sensing people and situations.

He brings the message of the Supernatural, which this age needs. Men simply flocked to hear him that he had scarcely time for his meals. I have just received a letter from the Headmistress of a leading preparatory school. She said there was a veil of light on every boy’s face as he left the Sadhu’s meeting. He said a true word when he predicted that America would have no spiritual leaders fifty years hence if she kept up her present pace. He has a practical message for America.