twos into the villages that
stood thickly on the coast, where they talked and argued with the
natives, hoping to incite them to inquire further. The two greatest
obstacles they met with here were the evil example of Europeans and the
difficulty of maintenance for a convert. One poor dancing girl said, on
hearing that no unholy person could enter into the kingdom of heaven,
"Ah! sir, then no European will;" but, on the whole, they must have met
with good success, for in 1752 there were three large classes of
catechumens prepared and baptized at the station. In the district around
there were several villages, where congregations of Christians existed,
and, of all those south of the river Caveri, Schwartz was after two more
years made the superintendent.

The simple habits of these German and Danish clergy eminently fitted them
for such journeys; they set out in pairs on foot, after a farewell of
united prayer from their brethren, carrying with them their Hebrew
Bibles, and attended by a few Christian servants and coolies; they
proceeded from village to village, sometimes sleeping in the house of a
Hindoo merchant, sometimes at that of one the brother ministers they had
come to see, and at every halt conversing and arguing with Hindoo or
Mahometan, or sometimes with the remnants of the Christians converted by
the Portuguese, who had been so long neglected that they had little
knowledge of any faith.

The character of Christian Schwartz was one to influence all around him.
He seems to have had all the quiet German patience and endurance of
hardship, without much excitability, and with a steadiness of judgment
and intense honesty and integrity, that disposed every one to lean on him
and rely on him for their temporal as well as their spiritual
matters--great charity and warmth of heart, and a shrewdness of
perception that made him excellent in argument. He had also that true
missionary gift, a great facility of languages, both in grammar and
pronunciation, and his utter absence of all regard for his own comfort or
selfish dignity, yet his due respect to times and places made him able to
penetrate everywhere, from the hut to the palace.

The Carnatic war was at this time an impediment, by keeping the minds of
all the natives in a state of excitement and anxiety, from dread of
Mahratta incursions; but Schwartz never intermitted his rounds, and was
well supported by the Danish Governor, a good man, who often showed
hims