[Illustration: C F Schwartz]
=_ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHIES_=
SCHWARTZ OF
TANJORE
BY
JESSE PAGE, F.R.G.S.
_WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
PREFACE.
There is one reason, amongst others, why the memory of Christian
Frederick Schwartz deserves to be kept green in the history of
missions. It is not generally known that the consuming passion for the
conversion of the heathen which burned in the soul of Henry Martyn was
kindled at the torch of this veteran witness for the faith. While still
a student at Cambridge, Martyn was profoundly impressed by reading his
journal and letters, and when he himself arrived in India, ten years
after the death of Schwartz, he took counsel with many who, like Dr.
Kerr, could stir his heart with first-hand stories of the venerable
missionary they had known and loved so well. Happily for us, these
records which moved Martyn so deeply are still preserved, fresh and
vivid, a veritable classic in missionary literature.
The age of Schwartz, from a missionary point of view, has scarcely
received adequate attention at the hand of the historian. In that hour
of daybreak, missions were hardly in the making, and, as far as India
is concerned, it may be said that the men who were destined to win the
conquests of the Cross were still boys at their school-books; indeed,
the most distinguished of them were yet unborn.
In those days the English were winning and stubbornly maintaining
a precarious foothold in India by the ambition of the merchant,
the soldier, and the diplomat; East and West had met in relentless
struggle, and at the gates of the Orient the white man clamoured
for power and conquest. Amid the glare of this conflagration of war,
Schwartz and these early missionaries quietly pursued their sacred
duties, and with weapons not carnal but spiritual fought their good
fight of faith. The pages of history praise the great achievements
of Clive, Warren Hastings, and Cornwallis as the fathers of our rule
there, but surely Schwartz is also entitled to a niche of honour as
one who laid the foundation of that reign of the Kingdom of God which
thousands of faithful missionaries are promoting throughout the Indian
Empire to-day. It is the sacred office of the Church to preserve the
blessed memory of her standard-bearers and confessors: the world will
look after its own.
The personality of Schwartz was unique. He seems to have combined, like
Gordon, a singular tenderness with heroic strength of purpose--a man of
action with a strain of mysticism, a very Bayard in purity and honour
in an age when reputations in India suffered loss. As will be seen in
these pages, he served the civil power well because the enemy could
implicitly trust him. In the audience chamber of a pagan tyrant he was
still a Christian missionary; he kept his hands clean of bribes, and
his conscience of compromise; his character was a testimony that “there
is no fear in love.”
He had to do his sowing on a very wild and stormy day, but, though
we have now established the Pax Britannica, some of his difficulties
still confront the modern missionary, and with all our progress and
accomplished methods we find ourselves even now wistfully experimenting
on problems which he too could not solve. If the compass of the present
work permitted, one might be tempted to discuss a few of these points
in modern missions, which Schwartz, standing on the threshold of the
new era, foresaw and did his best to meet. But we have travelled far
since then, and if this old-time missionary could re-visit India he
would marvel at the change. He would find us still puzzled with the
problems of caste, perfecting our widespread system of education, busy
with elaborate schemes of vernacular literature. He would see European
ladies carrying a sweet song and message of mercy behind the purdah,
crowds of patients waiting at the door of the medical missionary,
the suttee and the Juggernauth car stopped for ever, native judges
presiding in the courts, and a native episcopate an accomplished fact.
But Schwartz would also see that our western culture has armed the
educated Hindu with a scientific unbelief which is the destructive
enemy of his religion and bitterly assails our own. With so much to
thank God for he would also recognize that there is still need enough
for fervent prayer and faith that India may be saved.
I may add that the quotations in these pages from the letters and
journals of Schwartz are chiefly drawn from the original “Remains”
published in 1826, and the two volumes of Dean Pearson’s “Memoirs” of
1839, supplemented by a few scattered gleanings from other fields.
I should like also to express my indebtedness to the Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel, the Church Missionary Society, and many literary friends for
placing at my disposal books of great service.
* * * * *
The publishers have to thank the Rev. F. Penny for three illustrations
from vol. i. of “The Church in Madras,” and the Rev. J. A. Sharrock
for one illustration from “South Indian Missions.”
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
PREFACE iii
I. HOW CHRISTIANITY CAME TO INDIA 1
II. THE FRIAR AND THE LUTHERAN 11
III. FROM COLLEGE TO MISSION FIELD 28
IV. IN TOUCH WITH THE BRAHMINS 48
V. AMID WAR’S ALARMS 58
VI. A GLIMPSE OF THE MAN HIMSELF 68
VII. WAYSIDE WORK 79
VIII. IN FIRST TOUCH WITH TANJORE 90
IX. AS PEACEMAKER WITH HYDER ALI 103
X. THE STRAIN BEGINS TO TELL 117
XI. TULJAJEE AND SERFOGEE 127
XII. RESPONSIBILITIES AND PATIENCE 140
XIII. A NOBLE DEFENCE OF MISSIONS 149
XIV. THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN 164
XV. THE HOME GOING 172
XVI. THE MEMORY OF THE JUST 183
INDEX 201
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHRISTIAN FREDERICK SCHWARTZ. (From a painting in the possession
of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) _Frontispiece_
BARTHOLOMEW ZIEGENBALG. (From an old engraving) _Facing page_ 16
NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH, TRANQUEBAR ” ” 24
MAP OF INDIA TO ILLUSTRATE THE LIFE OF SCHWARTZ ” ” 32
SCHWARTZ’ HOUSE AT TRICHINOPOLY ” ” 80
ST. MARY’S CHURCH, FORT ST. GEORGE ” ” 96
SCHWARTZ’ PULPIT, CHRIST CHURCH, TANJORE ” ” 128
SERFOGEE RAJAH’S MONUMENT TO SCHWARTZ ” ” 184
CHAPTER I.
HOW CHRISTIANITY CAME TO INDIA.
Everything is old in the Orient. We of the West, who talk of a thousand
years past as a long time ago, realise a little as we travel thither,
amid relics of a prehistoric age, how young is our own world when
for the first time we stand on pathways which reach back to the very
daybreak on the horizon of human life. With a child’s wonder turning
the faded parchments of some ancient book or stepping reverently
and softly among the resting-places of the dead, we feel the past
calling to us from behind the veil of the present, and we cannot
escape the impression; we would not if we could. The spell of its
mystery, its spaces of silence, the hush of living millions now stilled
for ever fill us with awe, as with finger on lip we peer wistfully
down the vista of uncounted years. It is the demand, the insistence
of past history which we cannot afford to ignore, for without its
interpretation we shall never understand to-day. This is specially true
of India. Her ancient temples, carved by the thin dark fingers of a
time when Europe was in the cradle of its civilization, these shadowy
figures of to-day with glistening white teeth and lustrous jet eyes,
flitting in light raiment under the fronded palms, keeping up ancestral
customs and living as their fathers did a thousand years ago, make an
indelible impression. And at the back of all this there is a haunting
sense of a far off time when this same glare of sunshine shone upon
the same rushing rivers and wide dry plains, and voices, so like those
now in our ears, spoke with smiles and tears of human gladness and
heart-break so long, so very long ago.
The history of India is filled with the alarms of war, state arrayed
against state, plunder, devastation, and remorseless shedding of blood.
Her soil has indeed been made sacred by the slaughter of her sons.
But beyond this story of strife we are looking for something else and
asking another question. Where and how amid these hoary creeds and
worship did a knowledge of the true God as we know Him, and the Name
of the Saviour of the World first come to the people of this land?
The quest of this is not easy where so much is legend and pious, but
perhaps not quite honest, story telling.
In the age of the Old Testament history when Solomon was building the
temple at Jerusalem it is very probable that the ships of Hiram, laden
with gold and ivory, apes and peacocks, were bringing their treasures
from that land beyond the Red Sea, which is the India of our to-day.
And it is also likely that upon those shores the trading instinct of
the Hebrews had established stations for the ingathering of these
costly freights, and in this strange land the praises of Jehovah were
heard in some simple synagogue with its window open towards the sacred
city of the Hebrews across the wide sea.
The centuries pass, and in the fulness of time wise men from the East,
following the guidance of the Star, came to Bethlehem to worship
the Christ child. The Light of the world had dawned. And it is not
inconceivable that the tidings of One so mighty in word and work would
be spread abroad through the talk of travellers and traders to the
regions eastward of the Holy Land. For what it is worth, a reference
may be made to the letters still preserved in the British Museum,
supposed to have been written during the life of our Lord by Agbgbar
from Edessa. These record that he, like the Queen of Sheba, was anxious
to know more of what was taking place at Jerusalem and sent messages to
Jesus Christ asking Him to visit him and offering his protection. When
the reply is given that Jesus Christ is too much occupied, but that
after He had been received up He would send one of His Apostles, we
feel we are in the midst of a legend, especially when Thomas is named
as the writer of the answer, who afterwards sent Thaddeus, from whom
the succession of the bishops of Edessa was traced. Before considering
the claims of the St. Thomas theory, which has given his name to the
Christians of the Malabar coast, we must realise the fact that after
Pentecost the inspiration of the early Christian Church began to show
itself in sending forth its witnesses for the conquest of the world
under the Divine mandate received on the mount at His Ascension.
Persecution also drove them hence; the hate of the Pharisees, the stern
discipline of Roman repression, the prison walls and the sword of
martyrdom--these only spread the embers which elsewhere broke out in
fresh flames of testimony.
In the year 70 Jerusalem was destroyed and the soldiers of Titus
completed the overthrow of the Jewish Kingdom. The people who in their
pride and contempt had cried “Crucify Him” were now flying in terror
from their doomed city, and many must have escaped to reach the refuge
of those trading settlements on the shores of India. In support of this
view it may be mentioned that there is in the Library of the University
of Cambridge a facsimile of a copper plate of the greatest interest,
found in the Jewish Colony at Cochin, which bears a Hebrew inscription
to this effect:
“After the second temple was destroyed (which may God speedily
rebuild!) our fathers dreading the conquerors’ wrath departed from
Jerusalem, a numerous body of men, women, priests and Levites, and
came unto this land.”
Possibly among these fugitives Christians came, some maybe with
personal memories of the life and ministry of our Lord, others,
converts of the Apostles, stray Jews who had embraced the Christian
faith, or Gentiles who had renounced their idolatry and gratefully
accepted the Gospel. It is therefore not improbable that at this time
and under these conditions Christianity first came to India.
But the Church on the Malabar coast still cherishes its tradition
that St. Thomas laid its foundations when he landed on the island of
Melankara near Kranganur. The source of this story is the apocryphal
Acts of Thomas and the Martyrdom of Thomas, written towards the end of
the third century. These records state that the Indian King Gondophares
sent Abbanes to Jerusalem to find an architect or builder, and that in
the slave market there Jesus Christ sold St. Thomas to him for £3 worth
of uncoined silver! After this the recital of sundry extraordinary
miracles wrought by the Apostle at the King’s court falls on rather
unbelieving ears. The only item of fact which proves the existence of
King Gondophares was the discovery, some years ago, of coins bearing
his effigy among the mountains of Iran and an inscription showing that
he was reigning during the lifetime of Jesus Christ and also that the
Greek language was evidently known in that district.
The genuine Thomas legend, however, has probably no reference to
the Apostle but to a Bishop of Edessa of that name, who in the year
A.D. 345 landed at Malabar with a company of presbyters, youths and
maidens gathered from Jerusalem, Baghdad and Nineveh, and he it was who
probably founded Kranganur. He is known as Thomas Cananaus.
The Thomas tradition is perpetuated by a cathedral of simple dimensions
in the neighbourhood of Madras which is dedicated to his memory, while
another church three miles from St. George’s offers the faithful the
privilege of entering the floor and taking a handful of earth as a
cure for diseases, because the ashes of the saint were found there.
The bones, however, were religiously taken by John III of Portugal to
a church at Goa, where they are still an object of worship. At St.
Thomas’ Mount near Madras there is a granite stone upon which is carved
a cross and dove with outspread wings, probably the work of the seventh
century. The inscription, which is in Pelhavi or ancient Persian, says:
“In punishment by the Cross was the suffering of this One who is the
true Christ God above and Guide ever pure,” according to Dr. Burnell.
But another expert, Dr. Haug of Munich, rather expands the literal
meaning as “He that believes in the Messiah and in God in the height
and also in the Holy Ghost is in the grace of Him who suffered the pain
of the cross.” Two other crosses are preserved in the ancient Church of
Cottayam in Travancore; upon one of these a portion of the old Pelhavi
inscription has been replaced by a quotation from Galatians vi. 14,
“Let us not glory except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These
crosses are full of antiquarian interest and seem to indicate Persian
influence on the Christian Churches of South India and also go to prove
the existence of Christianity on the Coromandal coast in these early
centuries.
Going back to a much earlier time, we meet with the name of a man who
perhaps deserves, according to definite historical data, the credit
of being the first to come as a missionary to India. It is that of
Pantaenus. Eusebius in his Church History gives us the following
reference to him:
“About the year 180 there were still many evangelists who sought to
imitate the godly zeal of the Apostles by contributing their share to
the extension and upbuilding of the Kingdom of God. Among these was
Pantaenus, who is reputed to have reached the Indians, amongst whom he
is stated to have found the Gospel of St. Matthew, which, prior to his
arrival, was in the possession of many who had known Christ. To these
Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, is reported to have preached and to
have left behind him the Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew characters,
which had been retained up to the time in question. This Pantaenus,
after many praiseworthy achievements, was at last placed at the head of
the school at Alexandria.”[1]
It is a moot point among scholars whether the sphere of this great
missionary was not Southern Arabia, but Egypt and India were at this
period closely connected by trade, and the Roman coins found at
Coimbatore and Calicut, in the year 1850, of the time of Tiberius,
Augustus and Nero, show the possibility of India being indicated.
Besides, the words of Jerome are explicit: “On account of the fame of
his superior learning Pantaenus was sent to India by Bishop Demetrius
(of Alexandria) to preach Christ among the Brahmans and philosophers
there.”[2]
This much is clear; this distinguished Greek, by birth an Athenian,
by culture of the School of the Stoics, was at the head of a great
college for catechists at Alexandria and exercised a powerful influence
upon his students, among whom Clement and Origen were the most famous.
Pantaenus trained his pupils to look beyond their immediate horizon
and proclaim the Gospel of Christ to a then unknown world. Alexandria
was a cosmopolitan city; all sorts and conditions of humanity, from
all quarters of the world, flocked there. They came for trade, for
intellectual treasure, and some for light on the great question of
religion. It may be that in the pathways of his own city Pantaenus
met Brahmans with their philosophic sense of superiority and Buddhist
priests steeped in the calm of intellectual repose. All this would
stimulate and influence a mind such as his. He longed to bring to their
homeland a better Gospel and a word of truth which would reveal to them
the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom He had sent. We have the high
authority of Eusebius for the statement that “he was distinguished as
an expositor of the Word of God,” and it was said of him that he “had
penetrated most profoundly into the Spirit of Scripture.”
It may be that amongst this crowd of visitors from other countries some
would apply to Bishop Demetrius for a missionary to be sent to India;
indeed, it is stated that some of the catechists who had passed under
the hands of Pantaenus did actually beseech him to come and nourish
the faith and bless the lives of the Christians scattered abroad. When
he went and how long he stayed with the Church on the Malabar coast we
know not, for as yet no fragment of ancient history gives any sign. But
the alleged discovery of the autograph Gospel of St. Matthew amongst
these Jewish Christians awakens our interest. It was believed that this
Gospel, written in Aramaic, was brought thither by St. Bartholomew
after the martyrdom of St. Stephen. After his visit Pantaenus brought
back this precious MS. in the year A.D. 211 when he returned to take up
his old position with the catechumens in Alexandria. We would fain know
more of this strong and cultured man, to whom was entrusted the task of
instructing the Church at a period when already the bitterest doctrinal
differences had arisen within her borders, and also of strengthening,
as doubtless he did, the hearts of the little colony of Christian
believers on the Malabar coast. These probably held the Faith not
unalloyed with errors born of ignorance within and their environment
without.
Once more the veil of obscurity, like a shifting mist, settles on that
Indian Church; no word breaks the silence, no streak of light enables
us to see the growing powers of this faithful few, hedged in by Judaism
on the one hand and the native religions on the other.
In the year A.D. 345 Thomas Cananaus, as we have seen, landed in
Malabar. Two centuries afterwards the Egyptian merchant and traveller,
Cosmas Indicopleustes, journeyed thither, and we get another glimpse,
disappointingly meagre, of the Christians in India.
“What I have seen,” says he, “and experienced in the majority of
places during my stay I truthfully declare. On the Island of Taprobane
(_i.e._ Ceylon), in Inner India, where the Indian Ocean is, there
is to be found a community of Christians, consisting of both clergy
and the faithful, but I do not know whether there are any Christians
to be found beyond this. Similarly in Male (Malabar, perhaps more
particularly Quilon, which was later known by the Arabs as Kullam-male)
where pepper grows and in the place called Caliana (Kalyan near Bombay)
there is also a Bishop, who receives imposition of hands from Persia,
as well as in the isle called the Isle of Discoris in the same Indian
Sea. The inhabitants of that island speak Greek, having been originally
settled there by the Ptolemies who ruled after Alexander of Macedon.
There are clergy there also, ordained and sent from Persia to minister
among the people of the island, and a multitude of Christians.... In
a very great number of places one found churches of Christians with
Bishops, martyrs, monks and recluses, wherever in fact the Gospel of
Christ had been proclaimed.”
This extract, taken with its context, not only proves how widely
dispersed the Christian faith had become in the fifth century but also
attracts our attention to the diffusion of the Nestorian doctrine
which, with its imperfect presentation of Christianity, carried
everywhere the element of its own failure, even where apparently such
a success. It was an age in which, humanly speaking, the Church had
her magnificent opportunity, but being divided and unworthy she failed
to carry conquest. Had she remained true to the Apostolic teaching how
different it might have been!
Again the curtain falls and for six centuries the Syrian Church on the
Malabar coast is out of sight and mind. Just a break for a moment in
the year A.D. 883 when we see two priests of the Anglo-Saxon Church,
Sighelm and Athelstan, taking to India the votive offerings of the
great King Alfred of England, which he had promised to the shrine of
St. Thomas during his siege of London. We only know they went and
returned safely.
But during these centuries Islam was advancing, its crescent banners
red with blood, its eyes fired with hatred, trampling in its onrush
the Christian Churches and all other religions and effacing only too
effectively the fruit of the work of evangelizing Asia. The seats of
learning, the sacred temples of the Christian faith, the priceless
archives rich in the thought and piety of the age, the seven Churches
of the Apocalyptic messages, all were overthrown as the Crescent
supplanted the Cross. The tide of conquest not only overran the holy
places of the East, but flung itself against the ramparts of European
Christianity. The peril of the age woke the chivalry of the Crusaders,
and the flower of Knighthood perished in trying to wrest the sacred
spots of Palestine from the Infidel.
Scarcely had this storm spent itself when another cloud arose in the
East and burst with force and rage. The great Mongol chieftain Chengis
Khan, beating down Islam with its own weapon, had made himself master
of China and the whole of Western Asia, and now, flushed with victory,
essayed to conquer Europe also. Islam had brought the flag of the
prophet as far as the gates of Vienna; Chengis Khan on that fateful day
in April, 1241, broke down the defence of Prince Henry at Liegnitz.
It seemed as though all Europe lay defenceless, when suddenly, by one
of the great acts of God in history, the Tartar host like a swarm of
locusts arose and departed whence they came.
Then we see the Church of Rome diplomatically trying to meet the desire
of Kubla Khan to make some alliance with the Christian Kingdoms of
Europe against Islam, their common foe. It is an amazing fact, well
worth keeping in mind, that, after the visit of Polo to his court, the
Khan of Persia actually wrote letters to the French King asking for “a
hundred Christians, intelligent men, acquainted with the seven arts,
well justified to enter into controversy and able clearly to prove by
force of argument to idolators and other kinds of folk that the law of
Christ was best, and that all other religions were false and naught;
and that if they would prove this he and all under him would become
Christians and the Church’s liegemen.” It is disappointing to find that
this open door did not admit the pure Gospel; it was a cry from Macedon
with no St. Paul to answer it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ v. 10.
[2] Jerome, _Epist._ lxx.