D. T. Niles - in Appreciation

Abstract

Author's Note

Ceylonese world-churchman D. T. Niles died in Vellore, India on July 17, 1970. Following an operation and radiation therapy for cancer of the face, the malignancy cleared. The immediate cause of his passing was a post-operative blood-clot.

When, a week following Dr. Niles’ death, I was asked to prepare this article, I accepted only because lest by our silence, we, his friends, fail to note our appreciation for having known and worked with one of Christ's giants of this or any age. A definitive biographical article should be written. I make no pretension to having written it. The pressures of the time allowed me, at the same time I was making preparations for a month's fact-finding trip to Indo-China, forced me to draw heavily upon my recollections of D. T. as friend and colleague, as having him a guest in my house and being a guest in his home, as co-staff members at various regional and international ecumenical conferences. Each of his friends could have written of him in equally laudatory terms, but quite differently. So gifted was he in the work of Christ's Kingdom, he touched each life in a particular way, according to the needs of the person involved.

To write objectively with tears in one's spirit is a difficult assignment.