Sadhu Sundar Singh

1889-c.1929. Indian Christian and mystic. The youngest of four children of wealthy Sikh parents in Rampur, North Punjab, he was deeply attached to his mother and was much distressed when she died in 1902. For a time he attended an American Presbyterian Mission school, but he was bitterly opposed to Christianity and publicly burned a copy of the gospels. Two days later he had a vision of Christ and was converted. Driven from home by his father, he became a preacher, wearing the saffron robe of a Sadhu (“holy man”) in an endeavor to evangelize the Hindus. In 1905 he was baptized into the Church of England, but later refused to be restricted to a particular denomination. He traveled widely in Asia and visited the West, but was saddened by the love of comfort and luxury evident there. Despite ill-health, he persisted in evangelizing Tibet and disappeared there in 1929.