Sooner or later, in a country so disturbed by war and strife, Schwartz was sure to get his baptism of fire, and we find him praised as of great service in the siege of Madura. Within the walls of this city Mahomed Issoof, who at one time held a high appointment as commander of the English Sepoys and had been active in reducing the refractory tribes to order, was now defending the place against his old employers. During one of the unsuccessful assaults on the place Major Preston, a friend of Schwartz, was killed and his dead body with all honours was restored to the British camp.
Eventually Mahomed Issoof was betrayed by one of his own people and afterwards treated with great severity. It is not clear in what manner Schwartz distinguished himself in this conflict—doubtless he would succour the sick and care for the dying soldiers—but it is possible that his great personal influence was for the first time used with the natives on behalf of the British cause. When it was all over a large sum was presented to him and he generously devoted the whole of it to the use of the mission and for the support of the orphans of English soldiers who had fallen in the fight. This was the first time in which we find Schwartz using his influence as a peaceful helper in time of conflict; later we shall see with what success he played the part of diplomatist at a crisis in the affairs of India.
He had made many friends already among the English people; one of these was Mr. William Chambers, an important official to the East India Company and a man of great character and ability. He was a master of Oriental languages and took a deep interest in missionary work as a corresponding member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. So close was his intimacy with Schwartz that he had intended to write an account of his life and labours, but this was cut short by his death and so only a fragment of rough notes is left. From this, however, we gain some interesting particulars of the mission, and, particularly, the only glimpse of the striking personality, as Mr. Chambers knew him, of Schwartz at this time. He explains in this fragment of biography that he first made his acquaintance with Schwartz when on a visit to Trichinopoly from Madras in order that he might perfect his knowledge of Tamil and Persian, and during a prolonged stay, in a season of ill health, he came in very intimate touch with the missionary who was so well qualified to help him with those languages. Besides this reason, however, he had a desire by personal inquiry to estimate the value of the work in which Schwartz was engaged.
“I had often heard mentioned,” he writes, “of Mr. Schwartz before I went thither, as a man of great zeal and piety, and of considerable attainments in the language of the country, but as these accounts were in general given me by those who viewed the excellence of a religious character through the medium of popular prejudice, my ideas of him were very imperfect, and as I myself had then scarcely any better rule of judgment, a preconceived notion of great strictness and austerity had mixed itself with everything I had heard in his praise. The first sight of him, however, made a complete revolution in my mind as to this point. His garb, indeed, which was pretty well worn, seemed foreign and old-fashioned, but in every other respect his appearance was the reverse of all that could be called forbidding or morose. Picture to yourself a stout well made man, somewhat about the middle age, erect in his carriage and address, with a complexion rather dark, though healthy, black curled hair and a manly engaging countenance, expressive of unaffected candour, ingenuousness and benevolence, and you will have an idea of what Mr. Schwartz appeared to be at first sight. During the intimacy which I had afterwards the happiness to contract with him I learnt his past history.”
Mr. Chambers, after giving an account of the early days of the missionary, and his work as tutor in the University at Halle, reveals to us from the testimony of an observer how thoroughly Schwartz worked in order to qualify himself to the utmost for his important labours. There was nothing superficial about this man, either as regards his personal character as a Christian or in his work amongst the natives; he never spared himself in taking pains to do his best for them and he was equally honest in testing their profession of Christianity and grounding them in the faith. Mr. Chambers tells us that the people among whom he had come to labour were a superior people with an ancient stock and through generations back had pursued learning and the arts and crafts with considerable success. They were worthy of the best efforts for their conversion to Christianity and these were put forth without stint.
“Mr. Schwartz, deeming it necessary, in order to converse with advantage with these people, to be well acquainted with their system of theology, whatever it was, spent five years, after he had attained some proficiency in their language, in reading their many mythological books only. Hard and irksome as this task must have been to a devout mind, he has reaped this benefit from it, that he can at any time command the attention of the Malabars by allusions to their favourite books and histories, which he never fails to make subservient to the truth. He also learnt at Tranquebar the Portuguese tongue, particularly that dialect of it which is used by the Portuguese who are natives of India.
“The missionaries have found great numbers of these, in every place at which they have settled, ready to embrace the Protestant faith, or who, having already embraced it, or been brought up in it as servants of Protestant masters, were in need of instruction and of pastors. Willing, therefore, to seek souls whenever they were to be found, they have all voluntarily added the study of Portuguese to that of Malabar and preach and instruct in that language also.
“Mr. Schwartz, however, while engaged in these pursuits at Tranquebar, found his province there somewhat confined and therefore sought and obtained permission to go and establish an English mission at Trichinopoly where the Gospel had not hitherto been preached, at least not for a continuance. He was there happy in a correspondence and frequent intercourse with another young missionary named Dame, who was settled at Tanjore and was as fervent and zealous as himself. The same spirit and the same pursuit soon threw them into the strictest bond of Christian friendship—the sublimest of all earthly affections. Their prayers, their labours and their souls, were united in the same glorious and never dying cause, for which they had both resigned all temporal prospects. But Mr. Schwartz did not long enjoy this source of comfort, for being called over suddenly to see his friend, he hastened to Tanjore and found him dead.
“At Trichinopoly he had much to do with very narrow means. His whole income was ten pagodas a month or about £48 per annum, and he had no other fund for making a new establishment. I must here, however, observe that though, computing at the usual rule of exchange, one hundred and twenty pagodas must be allowed to be equivalent to £48, yet if we estimate it according to the effective value of money in India and in England it will not be equal to half that sum. I mean that a European may live much better on £24 per annum than he could in India for one hundred and twenty pagodas. Let us see then how he managed with this income. He obtained of the commanding officer, who perhaps was ordered to furnish him with quarters, a room in an old Gentoo [i.e. Hindu] building, which was just large enough to hold his bed and himself and in which few men could stand upright. With this apartment he was contented. A dish of rice and vegetables dressed after the manner of the natives was what he could always sit cheerfully down to, and a piece of Chintz dyed black and other materials of the same homely sort sufficed him for an annual supply of clothing. Thus easily provided as to temporalities his only care was to ‘do the work of the evangelist.’ He preached to the natives incessantly, both in the town and in the villages around, and was not long without a congregation of converted Hindus, and among them three or four who were capable of instructing others, whom he therefore entertained as catechists and continued to maintain out of his little income.
“But these were not his only labours at Trichinopoly. He found there a large English garrison without a chaplain, and to these also he sought to be of service by every means in his power. The kindness of his heart and the unaffected simplicity of his manners soon procured him a civil reception among them and he improved this into an opportunity of gaining a knowledge of the English language, with which he was unacquainted at his first arriving. After he had made, however, but a small proficiency in English, he undertook to read the lessons to the garrison on Sundays and at the same time read them sermons from those of our English divines in whose writings he discovered an evangelical spirit. But since he has attained a more perfect acquaintance with our language he has proceeded to preach extempore, which I am told he still continues and is enabled to command the utmost attention in his auditory. It is indeed astonishing, if we consider the manners of our troops to India, how he has been able to persuade whole garrisons.