Schwartz of Tanjore

C F Schwartz
ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHIES
JESSE PAGE, F.R.G.S.
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921
There is one reason, amongst others, why the memory of Christian Frederick Schwartz deserves to be kept green in the history of missions. It is not generally known that the consuming passion for the conversion of the heathen which burned in the soul of Henry Martyn was kindled at the torch of this veteran witness for the faith. While still a student at Cambridge, Martyn was profoundly impressed by reading his journal and letters, and when he himself arrived in India, ten years after the death of Schwartz, he took counsel with many who, like Dr. Kerr, could stir his heart with first-hand stories of the venerable missionary they had known and loved so well. Happily for us, these records which moved Martyn so deeply are still preserved, fresh and vivid, a veritable classic in missionary literature.
The age of Schwartz, from a missionary point of view, has scarcely received adequate attention at the hand of the historian. In that hour of daybreak, missions were hardly in the making, and, as far as India is concerned, it may be said that the men who were destined to win the conquests of the Cross were still boys at their school-books; indeed, the most distinguished of them were yet unborn.
In those days the English were winning and stubbornly maintaining a precarious foothold in India by the ambition of the merchant, the soldier, and the diplomat; East and West had met in relentless struggle, and at the gates of the Orient the white man clamoured for power and conquest. Amid the glare of this conflagration of war, Schwartz and these early missionaries quietly pursued their sacred duties, and with weapons not carnal but spiritual fought their good fight of faith. The pages of history praise the great achievements of Clive, Warren Hastings, and Cornwallis as the fathers of our rule there, but surely Schwartz is also entitled to a niche of honour as one who laid the foundation of that reign of the Kingdom of God which thousands of faithful missionaries are promoting throughout the Indian Empire to-day. It is the sacred office of the Church to preserve the blessed memory of her standard-bearers and confessors: the world will look after its own.