Name  -  Jordan Lodge Date Of Birth  -  - Date Of Death  -  - Titles  -  - Posts held  -  -

Among  the first eight students in the day school  At Tellipalli  was not only the lad who was baptized  Nathaniel  Niles, but also another lad who was baptized Jordan Lodge.

Mrs. Winslow speaks of both of them, baptized on the same day, (21st. April 1821) as   “ the first fruits of the mission”, meaning that these two were the first Christian converts in Jaffna  from Hinduism  after Dutch times. The name of Jordan Lodge, before baptism was Subramaniam, and he came from the village of Tellipallai.. Nathaniel Niles is my father’s grandfather, and Jordan Lodge is my mother’s grandfather.

In the history of the American Ceylon Mission, written by the Rev. C. D. Velupillai, the following account is given of the baptism of Jordan Lodge.

“When the mother of Jordan Lodge heard the news that he was intending to become a Christian, she came one Saturday wailing along the road to the house of the missionary. She said to him, “Should my son be baptized, all our relations and friends will have nothing to do with us after that .I cannot  give my consent.” The missionary called the boy and said to him, “You must decide”. Where upon he took his mother aside, and comforted her and said to her  “My mother, I belong to Jesus Christ”. The mother went away sorrowing, saying to the son, “You will not be able to come to our home again, and I have lost you”. The father of Jordan Lodge, however, gave his consent to his son’s baptism.”

Jordan Lodge studied for one year at the Batticotta  Seminary, after which he became a clerk in the mission.

One day, as Dr. Poor, the missionary at Tellipallai, was out on one of his walks, he happened to go to the village of North Earlalai. He saw a mother with seven children, all girls, sitting outside a little hut, drinking gruel. It was a very poor family. Dr. Poor sat down to talk with them, and when he found out their situation, he asked whether the mother would be willing to allow the eldest of the girls to go with him and be educated at the Uduvil Girls  School and to be looked after by the Church. The mother consented. The story is told in our family of how, when the missionary called for this girl, she went murmuring,  ………(Tamil Insert) –which was an appeal to her god to deliver her from the hands of this stranger. There is an entry in Mrs. Winslow’s memoirs under the date of June 29,1822, which reads, “This morning a little girl was brought to us to be received into our family. This is a wonderful circumstance, and we hardly know how to understand it”.

The girl was educated at Uduvil, and proved to be an excellent student with a beautiful singing voice. She was also a very beautiful person. She was baptized when still in school.

Jordan Lodge, in his capacity as clerk in the mission, used to carry letters from Tellipalai to Uduvil and back. He saw this girl at Uduvil, fell in love with her and persuaded her to run away with him. These two became the parents of a good Christian home. They had three children, the eldest of whom was Joseph William Appacuddy.  Appacuddy was later also given the name “Barr”, which was the name of the person in America who paid for his education.  Barr Appacuddy was educated at Batticotta  Seminary and later became Interpretar Mudaliyar and Secretary of the Mallakam Courts. He married a Hindu, Sivahamipillai(  Tamil insert), the daughter of an orthodox Hindu home in Uduvil. They had nine children of whom the eldest was my mother’s mother.

The last of the nine children, Chelvanayagam, went to England on Government scholarship to study for the Ceylon Civil Service. There he fell seriously ill and died; but before he died, he wrote letters pleading with his mother to accept baptism, which she did.

When in England, one person with whom Chelvanayagam was in close correspondence was my mother. They were about the same age. She had the same religious commitment as her young uncle. In his letters to her, there constantly runs the strain of his strong desire for greater dedication to the Gospel among his own people. It was my mother who, on the spot, reinforced Chelvanayagam’s plea  with his mother to be baptized – the old lady listening as much to her eldest grand- daughter as to her youngest son. One of Chelvanayagam’s last letters to my mother contains the prayer that God would raise someone in the family whom he would use in the work in the spread of the gospel.

Dr. Isaac  Tambyah, a brother-in-law and close friend of  Chelvanayagam, wrote “A Book of Memories”  when Chelvanayagam died. In that book, the following letter dated June29, 1900, from the son to the mother is quoted.

“I trust dear mother, that you and others dear to me understand by now the deep significance of my illness. It’s purpose is the glory of God. (St. John  11.4)  God has been very gracious to our house. His mercies have been many. Forgetting all faults, He offers you this opportunity. He calls you through me….As for me, my hope is in my God”.

And then referring to the mother’s baptism, Dr. Tambyah  says,

“Crushed in spirit, broken hearted, contrite, she openly surrendered her stormy soul to God, a few weeks before her darling son’s death, at Tellipallai  Church.”

Chelvanayagam died on August 29, 1900. In a letter to her eldest son, dated that very day, the mother says,

“I am in no way impatient. I am naturally anxious. I am not unbelieving. On the day that Chellam left home for England, I had cheerfully committed my darling boy to the care of the All-Gracious. I am eager to know, as a mother well may be, all that is possible to know about my child”.

But the mother’s trust in God had still another test to bear, for her eldest son too died within three years of his youngest brother. The ordeal by death, when loved ones go, is an ordeal from which no one is spared; but it was especially hard  on  one who’s decision for the Saviour came so late in life, and under such circumstances.

The real Christian influence in Barr Appacuddy’s home, his wife having been a Hindu most of her life, was that of his sister who married one Mr. Page. She had no children, and it was she who brought up her brother’s children in the Christian faith. Barr Appacuddy’s own Christian faith was a living one. Some of the lyrics he sang out of that faith are still in use in the Church in Jaffna. Given below is one of his lyrics, in which is found expression of his intense yearning to live the Christian life, his prayer to be delivered from temptation, and his trust in his Lord.

The fact that Barr Appacuddy married a Hindu, is worth noting. It was part of the practice of the early missionaries to encourage marriages where only one partner was a Christian and to make sure that the children were all brought up as Christians. This was a very sensible way of building up a Christian community from small beginnings.

Jordan Lodge served the mission for over a period of 25 years. When his wife died in 1855, his bereavement affected his faith so that, for some years, he refused to go to church. His had not been a very steady life and she had been both the mainstay and the moderating influence in his life. She left behind her the memory of a sweet and gracious disposition and of a warm Christian faith.

Jordan Lodge found his faith again through a long and serious illness. He died 10 years after the death of his wife.

At present, the Barr family go by the name of  Kumarakulasinghe. When Kanagnayagam, the eldest son of  Barr  Appacuddy, was honoured with the title of Governor’s Gate Mudaliyar (1893), he took the name of Kumarakulasinghe  Mudaliyar after Tilliampalam Kumarakulasinghe, an ancestor of Jordan Lodge. In a book entitled “Golden Book of India and Ceylon” by Sir Roger Lethbridge, quoted by Dr. Tambyah, there is the following reference to Kanagnayagam Mudaliyar.

“Kanaganaygam  Charles Barr Kumarakulasinghe, Mudaliyar of the Governor’s Gate, born February 2, 1862, belongs to the Kumarakulasinghe family of Jaffna. One of his ancestors received the title  “Irumarupuntuyya  Kumarakulasinghe Mudaliyar” from the Dutch Government in 1756 in recognition of his position as a direct descendent of the ancient kings of Jaffna”

This name Kumarakulasinghe is now the name used by the whole family in all it’s branches. (Even Appucuddy Barr is known now as Joseph William Barr Kumarakulasinghe.)

Kanaganayagam Mudaliyar inherited his father’s ability as a writer of verse. He not only wrote some lyrics but translated many of the Western hymns into Tamil. He died in 1903, twenty years after his father’s death, and in the prime of his life, being only 42 when he died. Dr Tambyah, in his book, speaks of the evangelical conversion  which he had in1889, a conversion followed by an active life of Christian witness. The following paragraph is from Dr. Tambyah’s book,

“The Mudaliyar’s faith, so strong in suffering, so triumphant under trial, was his always. His reliance upon God was so unworldly as to be deemed unwise. He took no thought for the morrow. His religion was evangelical to the extreme and his active service in the Master’s work begun in1889, was unremittingly carried on with such ardour as, once, nearly made him forsake all his high official position and the fascinating prospects of it- and follow in the wake of the Great Renunciation.”

The following hymn of consecration written by him is a fine expression of that faith by which he was supported in the trials he bore, the sorrows and disappointments he endured, and the witness to his Lord which he gave.”

When Appacuddy Barr died, and that at the early age of 50, all the family property at Tellipallai was heavily mortgaged. It was due to the self denial of  Kanaganayagam  that he redeemed all this property for the family, and managed to set all his brothers and sisters on their feet. He died, as he lived, an outstanding Christian gentleman. His mother, the wife of Barr Appacuddy, lived to a ripe old age, and died in1916. My mother, her eldest grand- daughter too, died before her(1909), but she kept her faith to the end, a faith which she had found under sorrow, and leaned on through many sorrows yet.

As I have written this story, I have been struck by the circumstance that, on my mother’s side, it was the women who were the stronger characters- the wife of Jordan Lodge, the wife of Appacuddy Barr,- and, if I may add here, also my mother’s mother