One day one of these, a Hindu merchant, said to him: “God has created us to the end that we should know and serve Him.” This simple and accurate proposition was of course agreed to by Schwartz, but he added that unfortunately, although God had given him and many of his countrymen a knowledge of the end of their creation, yet they remained in idolatry and thus unhappily never attained to it. After this he pointed out how Christ had come to reveal the will of God and Himself as the way, the truth, and the life to all sinners.
But then, to a far greater extent than now, the difficulty in the minds of unbelievers was the inconsistent lives and character of professing Christians. The European population was by no means a good example of what the Christian religion did for a man; of course, in many cases the difficulty arose from the common mistake of supposing that because a man had a white face and came from a Christian country he was necessarily himself a Christian. A wealthy native merchant who was growing old and could speak in Danish, English, and French, came with this respectful inquiry—“Sir, be not displeased, I wish to ask you a question. Do all Europeans speak like you?” To this Schwartz made answer that all Europeans were unfortunately not true Christians, but there were many amongst them who were sincere and real in their belief in Christ, and these prayed for the conversion of the Hindus. This was, however, a surprise to this honest and venerable inquirer, and he frankly expressed his opinion of the Christians with whom he had met, who at any rate were Europeans: “You astonish me, for from what we daily observe and experience we cannot but think them, with very few exceptions, to be self-interested, incontinent, proud, full of illiberal contempt and prejudice against us Hindus and even against their own religion, especially the higher classes. So at least I have found it with the majority of those with whom I have had any intercourse.” Still more plainly did the girl pupil of a Hindu dancing master retort when Schwartz told them that no wicked and unholy person could possibly enter the Kingdom of heaven. “Alas, sir,” she cried bitterly, “in that case hardly any European will ever enter it.”
In some cases the discussion of Christianity revealed the philosophic and alert mind of the Hindu. Schwartz had one day been preaching the Gospel when a Hindu raised the point with him that he and others in India really worshipped the same God as the Christians only they gave him another name. To this argument Schwartz replied:
“The true God must possess Divine perfections, such as supreme wisdom, omniscience, omnipotence, holiness, justice. Now nothing of this is found in your divinities, but by your own records, ignorance, impurity, cruelty. How can it be said of such that they are gods? You have a proverb that where sin is, there is no excellence. Now you acknowledge the practices ascribed to your gods to be sinful; consequently by your own confession they are unworthy of the name.”
“That is very true,” replied the Hindu, “but if we receive even what is false and think it to be true in our heart, it is done to us according to our faith.”
“How can you adopt,” said Schwartz, “a sophism which you yourselves on other occasions reject? You are accustomed to say, ‘if one writes the word sugar and then licks his finger, it will not on that account become sweet, though he believe it ever so firmly.’”
Here is a striking statement made by another to the missionary one day—it is the unbelief of a later day in its old setting. We can imagine Schwartz, with his keen intellect, watching this caviller as he tries to throw the net of a fine spun objection upon the teaching of the missionary.
“I am surprised to hear you say,” urged this clever Hindu, “that if we forsake Paganism our souls will be happy and that if we do not God will punish us. What is the soul? A breath which when it has left the body is blown away with other winds. You may perceive this by holding the hand to a dying person’s mouth to feel whether there is yet breath. If there be, life is still in him. Thus breath and the soul are one and the same thing. Who then can say that wind shall be punished? What is God? Can He be seen? He is the universe. I die—that means nothing more than that my body is resolved into its original elements—water, fire, earth, air. But the existence of such a spirit within me as you speak of, I believe not. Where is it when I sleep, when I see no one, or though one touch me I do not feel it?”
Schwartz quietly and with careful reasoning strove to put him right. He felt he was dealing with the problem of the soul in every age, in every country, his own as well as under an Indian sky, the questionings of a spirit wanting, perhaps, behind all its cavillings, to find the truth, at any rate feeling its need of direction, but ignoring the only key, the only guiding hand. He spoke to this Hindu of the operations of the soul, such as thinking, judging, determining, and asked whether mind was capable of these. Then lifting his thought to a higher plane he pointed out the arguments for the existence of a soul, how this constituted his immortal part and personality, which being endowed with understanding and will can act for itself and knows the fluctuations of sorrow, anxiety, and pain, as well as joy and satisfaction. Then he opened to him the Scriptures and showed him from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. It will be seen how Schwartz drew his strength from the Bible—the book he loved—which was the power and inspiration behind all his soul.
His readiness to answer questions and the pleasant welcome he gave to all inquirers attracted to his side many who had been set thinking by his words. It is remarkable how the fit word was given him.