1745

There is no cause for delay

Neelakanta Pillai was already a man of standing when he came to the font: an officer at the court of the king of Travancore, of good family, and thirty-two years old. It was Eustache de Lannoy, an officer of the king's own army, who first spoke to him of the Christian faith and sent him on to Fr Buttari, the priest of Vadakkankulam. Buttari could see the persecution such a convert would draw, and he did not hurry. He “judged it necessary to defer the grace he so ardently desired; and, having tested him long, admitted him to the sacrament of regeneration.” A Protestant historian of Travancore records what the waiting man said to the hesitating priest: “There is no cause for delay. This is no compulsory baptism. I came here to receive the sacraments not by force, but by my own free will and desire. I shall even give up my life to maintain the Truth of which I received the light and of which I am convinced.” He would. The instruction ran nine months. On 14 May 1745 the water was poured in the church here, with the catechist Gnanaprakasam Pillai standing as his godfather, and the officer took the name Lazarus, and in Tamil Devasahayam, God is my help.