Over his Christian flock his authority was as complete as
ever that of Samuel could have been as a judge. If any of them did wrong, the alternative was—
“Will you go to the Rajah’s court, or be punished by me?”
“O Padre, you punish me!” was always the reply.
“Give him twenty strokes,” said the Padre, and it was done.
The universal confidence in the Padre, felt alike by Englishmen and Hindoos, was inestimable in procuring and carrying out regulations for the temporal prosperity of the peasantry at Tanjore, under the Board which had pretty well taken the authority out of the hands of the inefficient and violent Ameer Singh. Districts that, partly from misery, had become full of thieves, were brought into order, and the thieves themselves often became hopeful converts, and endured a good deal of persecution from their heathen neighbours. His good judgment in dealing with all classes, high and low, English or native, does indeed seem to have been wonderful, and almost always to have prevailed, probably through his perfect honesty, simplicity, and disinterestedness.
The converts in Tinnevelly became more and more numerous, and Sattianadem had been ordained to the ministry, Lutheran fashion, by the assembly of the presbytery at Tranquebar, there being as yet no Bishop in India; and thus many, the very best of his catechists, served for many years, at Palamcotta, the first Christian minister produced by modern India. On the whole, Swartz could look back on the half-century of his mission with great joy and thankfulness; he counted his spiritual children by hundreds; and the influence he had exerted upon the whole Government had saved multitudes of peasants from oppression and starvation, and had raised the whole tone of the administration. He was once or twice unkindly attacked by Englishmen who hated or mistrusted the propagation of Christianity. One gentleman even wrote a letter in a newspaper calling a missionary a disgrace to any nation, and raking up stories of the malpractices of heathens who had been preached to without being converted, which were laid to the charge of the actual Christians; but imputations like these did not meet with faith from any one whose good opinion was of any real consequence to Swartz.
His strong health and the suitability of his constitution to the climate brought him to a good old age in full activity. He had become the patriarch of the community of missionaries,
and had survived all those with whom he had at first laboured; but he was still able to circulate among the churches he had founded, teaching, praying, preaching and counselling, or laying any difficulty before the Government, whose attention he had so well earned. His last care was establishing the validity of the adoption of Serfojee, who had grown up a thoughtful, gentle, and upright man, satisfactory on all points except on the one which rendered him eligible to the throne of Tanjore, his continued heathenism. The question was referred to the Company at home, and before the answer could arrive, by the slow communication of those days, when the long voyage, and that by a sailing vessel, was the only mode of conveyance, the venerable guardian of the young Rajah had sunk into his last illness.
This was connected with a mortification in his left foot, which had been more or less painful for several years, but had probably been neglected. His Danish colleague, Mr. Gerické, was with him most of the time, and it was one of his subjects of thankfulness that he was permitted to depart out of the world in the society of faithful brethren. He suffered severely for about three months, but it was not till the last week that his departure was thought to be near. He liked to have the English children brought in to read to him chapters of the Bible and sing Dr. Watts’s hymns to him; and the beautiful old German hymns sung by Mr. Gerické and Mr. Kohloff were his great delight. Indeed, when at the very last, as he lay almost lifeless, with closed eyes, Mr. Gerické began to sing the hymn,