Nothing seemed to stir the heart of Schwartz more than the abject idolatry of the people. He never missed an opportunity of pointing out that their superstition was no good to them, it could neither help nor comfort them in their need. “We talked ourselves quite weary,” he writes, “with various heathen. When the catechist read to them our Lord’s warning against false prophets and said something in explanation, a Brahmin declared before all present: ‘It is the lust of the eyes and of pleasures that prevents us from embracing the truth.’”
As a result of the continued fight with Hyder Ali, Schwartz found on returning to Trichinopoly a number of sick and wounded soldiers glad to welcome him back again. He makes a note in his journal of several interesting facts with regard to his ministrations among these English soldiers in the hospital.
SCHWARTZ’ HOUSE AT TRICHINOPOLY
BISHOP HEBER PREACHED HIS LAST SERMON FROM THE STEPS
“Here I have often found,” he writes, “blessed traces of awakening grace. A soldier said he had been such thirty-two years. I asked him how long he had served Christ? He wept and replied, ‘Alas, I have not yet entered His service.’” “An officer who had previously discovered a great inclination to religion and entreated me to instruct him catechetically, just as I would an ignorant heathen, in which we had made a beginning, but were interrupted by the war, was brought in mortally wounded. He expressed a great desire for instruction. I accordingly visited him daily and explained to him the chief points in practical Christianity. After a few days he appeared to be something better. He could occasionally take the fresh air and his appetite returned. Under these circumstances he gradually yielded to indifference as to religion. He listened, indeed, but not with real earnestness. At length I said to him, ‘I see you are quite different. I fear you are deceiving yourself. Your wound is as mortal now as it was fourteen days ago. When you perceive that you are drawing near to your end you will be terrified to think that you have been so foolish as to allow worldly men to draw you off from the chief concern.’ He replied, ‘It is true, they have flattered me with the hope that I shall recover; but it is not so. I know that my wound is mortal.’ After this he became more earnest in prayer and meditation on the Word of God. Before his death I visited him and exhorted him to commit himself in faith into the hands of his Merciful Saviour. Speaking was painful to him, yet he said he hoped to obtain mercy, and thus he departed amid the exhortations and prayers of those around him.”
He went frequently to the river where the Brahmins used to assemble the people and read to them the history of Ram. On his way he met one of the Court officials, called the King’s Ahlikar, whose duty it was to go about the place and among the crowds and then to make a report to his Royal master of anything which he saw of an extraordinary nature.
“Tell the King,” said Schwartz, “that you saw me and that I declared to great and small that they ought to turn from vain idols to the living God, and that from my heart I wish the King would set others in this respect a good example.” “Good, good,” said he, “I will tell him so.”
There was something in the personality of Schwartz which greatly attracted the Brahmins, who were and still are very loth to discuss the Christian religion. But with this missionary at least they had no such reserve; indeed, they often presented themselves as seekers after truth, and quite frankly admitted the force of many arguments advanced against their idolatry to be reasonable. It must be considered that hitherto they had had little opportunity of judging the claims of Christianity, for in the case of the Europeans it was unhappily absent as any moral force, and as presented by the Roman Catholics it contained an element as idolatrous to their mind as their own. For the first time they had come into touch with a man who had a profound knowledge of their own position and had a friendly and sincere sympathy in meeting their difficulties and bringing light where they were in darkness. He met them as a friend and yet never spared their sinfulness, he never rebuffed them as beyond hope, he cheered them with a loving message of peace from One Who could save to the uttermost. These conversations are of the deepest interest; the difficulties they disclose have not changed and the answers which Schwartz gave are just as wise and applicable as if spoken to-day. His journal is rich in these incidents. A little hut of leaves of the palmyra tree at Ureius near the foot had been put up by him as a place of resort for quiet to which any inquirers were always welcome. One day a group of Brahmins came and he opened the conversation by asking them what was their creed and what it all meant when they taught the people.
“The eldest replied, ‘We teach that God is omnipresent and is to be found in everything.’
“‘It is true,’ I said, ‘God is present everywhere and to every one of his creatures but it does not follow from this that you are to adore and worship every creature. If you regard the heaven, earth, sun, and moon, as evidences of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God and as creatures that lead to the Creator you do well; but if you invoke the creature, you ascribe to it the glory which is due to God alone and fall into idolatry. Besides the creature is not perfect but only a frail image of the Almighty. Can an idol which is unable to see, speak, or move, adequately set forth to you the majesty, greatness, wisdom, and goodness of the living God?’