Krishna Pal

Krishna Pal (1764–1822) was the first Indian convert to Baptist Christianity due to the missionary activity of William Carey, the founder of the Baptist Missionary Society, and his co-workers.[1]

Krishna Pal was born in 1764 in Calcutta, India. In his mid-thirties, he broke his arm doing his carpentry job. This lead him to Dr. John Thomas, a doctor from the Baptist Missionary Society (founded by William Carey) who told Krishna Pal with the help of Joshua Marshman, of a disease they said was even more deadly—sin. Pal was very moved by the story of God's salvation and was baptised by William Carey in the River Ganges a month later, in December 1800, making him the first Indian convert to Christianity. He renounced his caste at around the same time while he was eating in public with missionaries.

For the next twenty years, until his death in 1822, Pal devoted himself to the ministry of the people in Calcutta and built a house for worship there. In these twenty years he wrote hymns such as "The Shipwrecked Sinner Looking to Jesus," "O Thou, My Soul, Forget No More" and "Salvation by the Death of Christ." Many of these hymns were translated from Bengali to English by John Marshman.[2]

References

  1. ↑ The First Hindoo Convert: A Memoir of Krishna Pal, a Preacher of the Gospel to His Countrymen More Than Twenty Years. Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1852. OCLC 14560551
  2. ↑ http://nethymnal.org/htm/o/t/othoumys.htm

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