Now, O my soul, forget no more

On Monday Dec 22 1800 in Serampore, William Carey’s troubled colleague Dr John Thomas asked Krishna Pal, the Hindu carpenter they had got to know, whether he had understood what he had been hearing. He answered that ‘the Lord Jesus Christ had given his very life for the salvation of sinners, and that he and his friend Gokul did unfeignedly believe this.’ William Ward wrote, ‘Thus is the door of faith opened again to the Gentiles; who shall shut it?’ Against fierce and instant local opposition, Krishna Pal was baptized in the river on the following Sunday—after they had sung Carey’s Bengali version of 637—and with this first Indian convert after years of patient and almost despairing work, the long-prayed-for breakthrough had come. His wife, sister-in-law and a friend soon followed. When we sing this hymn which he later wrote and Joshua Marshman translated, the temptation is to let the story eclipse the hymn, which deserves recognition in its own right.

The author wrote several hymns in Bengali; Marshman’s translation of this one entitled ‘Christ the Friend’, made in 1801, was published in Rippon’s Selection (27th edn) in 1827, Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody of 1833 and in many (mainly baptist) hymnals. 4 other current books include it today. The original English version began ‘O thou, my soul …’; 2.2. had ‘assumes’ and 3.4 ‘gave up’. 4.2 read ‘… and he himself is thine’, 4.4. had ‘charms’, 5.3 ‘lisping’, and stz 6 (sometimes omitted) began ‘Ah no! when all things else expire …’ While the theme of ‘not forgetting’ is paramount (eg Psalm 103.1), among Scriptures alluded to are John 10:15–18; Hebrews 10:5; 2 Peter 3:7–10; and (most powerfully in this context) 1 Thessalonians 1:9–10 and 1 John 5:21.

Brian Edwards notes that ‘Joshua Marshman did more than translate and turn it into rhyming verse’, pointing out that Wm Carey’s literal translation began with a refrain: ‘The One who gave up his own life/ sinners to redeem,/ O my soul, do not forget him.’ It continued (stz 1): ‘Never again forget. Make this the essence (core),/ Jesus, the (true) Brahma. For salvation lies in his name. (2) Forsake, leave behind all other works; keep Christ’s love-wealth in your heart. (3) Truth, grace and forgiveness all boundless; Jesus by his own blood delivers the sinner. (4) I say it again and again: he is the (true) Saint and Friend;/ it is the name of Jesus that takes me across.’

Roger Mayor composed LORD AS I WAKE for Brian Foley’s paraphrase of Psalm 5 beginning with those words, which appeared in the 1993 Hymns for the People. Older tunes in use include HOLLEY by George Hews, from 1835; Alfred Scott-Gatty’s BODMIN (690); and WOUNDS OF JESUS by David Wood, composed for 425.

b Westbury Leigh, nr Bath, Som 1768, d Serampore, India 1837. Largely self-educated owing to his family’s poverty, he worked first for his father in the weaving trade. He taught for a time at a Baptist school in Broadmead, Bristol, and although by now he had a growing family (eventually 12 children), he offered for missionary service with the fledgling Particular Baptist Missionary Soc in India. In 1799, together with Wm Ward (1769–1821), they joined Wm Carey (1762–1834, who wrote the first Christian hymns in Bengali) and with his wife Hannah he ran a school to support the work of preaching, teaching and his own speciality of Bible translation. Unlike Carey he returned to England once, in 1826–29. With him he rendered parts of the Scriptures in several Indian dialects, helping to establish Serampore College and together with his son John running local newspapers. He also translated the works of Confucius, and published the first-ever complete Bible in Chinese. In June 1813 the work of Marshman and his colleagues was praised in the House of Commons, in a remarkable speech ‘of extraordinary fulness and power’ by Wm Wilberforce outlining and defending (against official detractors) the faith, scholarship and achievements of ‘these great and good men; for so I shall not hesitate to term them’. From 1826 to 1829 Marshman’s furlough proved an exhausting one from which he returned, according to Carey, looking 15 years older. But he outlived his leader by 3 years, being with him at Serampore on the day (Sunday) before he died in June 1834. He had preaching duties that day, and returned to find that Carey had passed away at sunrise on Monday. No.736.

b 1764, d 1822. A carpenter and Hindu guru, his name gradually became known worldwide when he became the first Christian convert from Hinduism after 7 years of missionary work by Wm Carey, Joshua Marshman (qv) and Wm Ward at Serampore (Sambalpur), N of Calcutta in NE India. He first heard the gospel from John Fountain, but at the age of 35 an accident at work and a shoulder-injury led him to ask the help of John Thomas, a medical colleague of the Baptist ‘Serampore Trio’. Convicted of his need of a saviour, he began to look for spiritual as well as physical remedies and eventually requested baptism. After breaking caste (a required pre-condition) he was baptized in the Hooghly (Hugli) River opposite the mission centre, on 30 Dec 1800, in spite of bitter opposition from his family and neighbours. Within two months his wife, his sister-in-law and his great friend Gokul took the same step of faith, and in spite of many setbacks he was ordained and became a travelling evangelist who pioneered and was persecuted in true apostolic mode. His home became a centre of fellowship, teaching and prayer. The English magistrate at Benares (Varanasi) gave him no protection from a hostile crowd. At Silhet, however, the equivalent official marked the importance of the first 7 baptisms conducted by Krishna Pal by having a ceremonial cannon fired; 600 attended and he provided hospitality and wrote a full report to Carey. On that earlier landmark day in 1800 Carey’s son Felix had also been baptized; see also the notes to no.637 and to his own hymn included here in translation, as in other (mainly Baptist) books. Krishna Pal wrote several other hymns; he died of cholera at the age of 56 (or 58). Further details are found in biographies of Carey, eg Pearce Carey’s William Carey, 1st edn 1923; and in Elsie Houghton’s Christian Hymn-writers (1982). No.736.