Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/384

This page has been validated.
332
HINDU PASTOR.

At this earnest appeal, delivered with the meekness of love and the boldness of conscious right, the countenances of the group changed from laughter to earnest seriousness. When he bade them beware of forgetting that they were sinners before God, and that, notwithstanding their high station, they would perish unless they forsook their evil ways, and turned to Christ, they listened in silence; and, as he left them, respectfully bade him good-evening. One, at least, of these officers is believed to have been converted by this faithful rebuke from the lips of the Hindu pastor. It was Shunkurulingam, or, as he was called after his baptism, Samuel Flavel, pastor of native churches successively at Bangalore and Bellary, who thus nobly confessed Christ before scoffers in high places. Often had he thus confessed the name of his Lord before his heathen countrymen; and now he has gone to receive a crown of glory from that Master whom he nobly served on earth.

His history is worthy of note. It well shows that God can raise up able ministers of his word, even from the humblest ranks of the Hindus; and can send them forth as evangelists to preach the gospel to their idolatrous