Leaving the pearl fishers after a year’s work the great Jesuit turned his attention to the conversion of princes and kings. He gained great influence over the King of Travancore, using it for the protection of Christians, for many of the members of the old Syrian Church were living on the western coast of his dominions and suffered much from the oppression of tax gatherers. The truth of his labours is sadly exaggerated and overladen with the legends of his Jesuit biographers, who relate miracles performed by him even so improbable as the raising of the dead. Twenty years after his death, when he was canonized by Gregory XV as a Saint, these miracles were set forth to his honour, among them being a gift of tongues by which without any learning he could fluently speak any language, a statement which his own letters prove to be a fiction.
It is not within the scope of the present work to deal with anything beyond his three years’ work in India, which leaves the greater portion of his deeply interesting career unrecorded. This first attempt to evangelize the world certainly gave him no content or satisfaction. He writes on 14th January, 1549, on the eve of his leaving for Japan, these words of keen disappointment, speaking of India:—“The natives, on account of the enormity of their wickedness, are as little as possible fitted to embrace the Christian religion. They so abhor it that they have no patience to listen to us if we introduce the subject. To ask them to become Christians is like asking them to submit to death.”[5]
On his return he spent some months in arranging the work of the crowd of Jesuits who had followed him, but it cannot be said that he renewed his original plan of preaching Christianity in a simple and elementary manner to the nations of India. But with all his limitations he stands on the horizon of history as one of the greatest missionaries his Church ever knew. He had the courage of a hero and the piety of a martyr, and his end, as he died of fever in a dirty hut on the Island of Sancian, amid unsympathetic strangers, without the rites of his Church, with his glowing eyes wistfully looking towards the China he hoped to win, forms a sad but not inappropriate close to his life.
His less distinguished successors are deserving of only a brief mention. Their methods were open to grave objection, and, indeed, were condemned by Pope Clement XI. The Jesuit influence declined with the decay of Portuguese power and the advance of that of the Dutch. The newcomers were not disposed to favour Roman Catholic missionaries; it could hardly be expected that the nation which withstood the arrogance of Philip of Spain could tolerate with equanimity the Jesuits in their Eastern possessions. On the other hand, the missionaries of the Reformed Protestant faith were naturally encouraged to go forward, and in Ceylon the Dutch missionaries won great though ephemeral successes.
We must now look at the part played by Denmark in the evangelization of India. This was largely due in the first instance to that enlightened Christian King Frederick IV, who having concluded a long and disastrous war with Charles XII of Sweden was able to turn his attention to the work of evangelizing the East. In this he was prompted by Dr. Lütkens, his chaplain, who was also interested in the development of a strip of territory purchased from the Rajah of Tanjore. Here then was the moment of providential opportunity and soon the man appeared who was ready and willing to embrace it.
Bartholomæus Ziegenbalg,
Misnensis Saxo, Ecclesiæ ex Indis
collectæ Præpositus.
In the little town of Pulsnitz in Lusatia was a youth named Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, who was born on 24th June, 1683. The fatherless boy, who had lost his mother a few years before, recalled her words about gathered treasure: “Seek it in your Bible, my dear children, you will find it there, for I have watered every leaf with my prayers.” His studies were in the direction of a ministerial career, which he felt God had placed before him, but his weak health and lack of means were hindrances to this. Through the kindness of friends, however, he was able to study at Halle under the direction of Professor A. H. Francke, and eventually he was discovered by Dr. Lütkens and, with his friend Henry Plütschau, was appointed to go to India. He set sail on the 29th November, 1705. He left behind many friends who wished him God-speed, but not a few, of little faith and equal grace of soul, sneered at his zeal and predicted nothing but failure and shame.
Through a long and stormy passage he worked hard to acquire a knowledge of Portuguese, and at last, reaching his destination, stepped ashore without a friend to meet or welcome him and his companion to this strange land. They were evidently not wanted in India. On every hand they looked round only to find a fresh trial of their faith.
The natives were bigoted Hindus and Mohammedans, whose tongue had to be mastered; added to this the Europeans, with the flimsiest semblance of a Christian profession, were living dissolute and mercenary lives which brooked no interference. It is the old story, many times repeated since then. The name of Christ was profaned by the white people who were supposed to represent and honour it. Said a native to a chaplain: “Christian religion! Devil religion! Christian much drunk, much do wrong, much beat, much abuse others!” But Ziegenbalg and his comrade had come to warn their unruly brethren and to vindicate the power and grace of Christ to the heathen. They taught the children in schools, they learned Tamil in order to preach, and toiled with an unremitting zeal which soon broke down the health of poor Ziegenbalg.