Charles Freer Andrews

1871-1940. Missionary to India and friend of the oppressed. Brought up in the Catholic Apostolic Church* (Irvingites) of which his father was a minister, he went to Cambridge after an intense conversion experience and subsequently joined the Church of England. In 1904 he went to the Cambridge Mission in Delhi. The Indian people he found very congenial, and his many friends included Sadhu Sundar Singh,* whose biography he wrote. Over the years, Andrews's doubts about the Athanasian Creed made him unhappy about his Anglican orders. He was helped greatly by Albert Schweitzer's* writings. In 1913 he went to South Africa to help Indian laborers who were being penalized by the notorious indenture system, and there he met Gandhi, who became a firm friend. Returning to India, Andrews left the Anglican Mission and joined Rabindranath Tagore at his ashram at Santiniketan. The Bengali poet's words might well be applied to Andrews, whose life was given to the service of “the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.”