Bartholomew Ziegenbalg
“Tf there is one man who is to the modern missionary movement in India what Wyclif was to the English Reformation, its herald and morning star, that man is Bartholomew Ziegenbalg.””
MucH has been said regarding a century of modern missions, dating from 1793, the year when William Carey landed in India. But before that time there were brave men who had done what they could to carry the gospel to the Hindoos, men like Christian Frederick Schwartz, who arrived in Tranquebar in 1750. His life in India extended over no fewer than forty-eight years, and he was the means of greatly spreading the knowledge of Christ both among Europeans and natives. But Schwartz, hero though he was, was not the first to preach the gospel in India. Not to speak of missions in other countries, such as those of the Moravians begun by Count Zinzendorf, who sent missionaries to St Thomas in the West Indies in 1732, and to Greenland in the following year, but restricting our enquiry to India, we find that the beginner of modern mission work there was Bartholomew Ziegenbalg.
He was born in the little Saxon town of Pulsnitz in 1683, exactly two hundred years after the birth of a still more famous Saxon— Martin Luther. It was a time when the German Church was awakening from the formal orthodoxy which had controlled the pulpit and dried up the currents of spiritual life. The Thirty Years’ War had brought troubles enough with it, and men sought for something truer and deeper than was then usual in German theology. The spiritual revival which supplied this lack was miscalled Pietism: but its teachers and its results prove that however it was nicknamed it was a true work and that its origin was from above. One of the headquarters of this revival was the University of Halle, where Francke, best known to us by his Orphan House, was Professor of Oriental Languages. In Berlin, Lange the rector of the High School, and Spener the king’s chaplain were the heads of the movement. It was from this new life of German Pietism that Ziegenbalg and Plutscho went forth to India.
One evening in March 1705 King Frederick IV. of Denmark sat in his palace reading some letters and dispatches. As he glanced over them his eye rested on the petition of a poor widow whose husband and son had been killed in a native out- break at Tranquebar. The king was uneasy, for he was then engaged in war with Sweden ; and as he read the widow’s petition asking for redress, his thoughts troubled him. Tranquebar—a husband and a son killed there. Yes; but what of the Hindoos there? What had been done either by the Christian Church in Denmark or by the king to send the gospel to India? Nothing at all. For eighty years Danish ships had sailed to India ; Danish merchants had grown rich through that trade; and Danish soldiers had come and gone from their native land to India: but no Christian missionary had gone to carry the gospel there. The king was vexed and sad and repentant. Hastily he summoned Lutkens his chaplain, and asked him to procure men for the work. Lutkens was both surprised and delighted at the task committed to him, but he knew that Christians in Denmark were no more alive to foreign missions than in any other country in Europe. Knowing how almost impossible it was to get such men, he said to the king, “Send me”; but though the king recognized this self-sacrifice, he could not part with Lutkens, whom he now sent on an errand of enquiry to get the men who were needed.
Such is the popular version of the story of how the Danish mission to India took its rise. Perhaps all the details cannot be verified, but in outline at all events it is true.
Lutkens turned to Lange, who after consultation wrote to Ziegenbalg, then acting as assistant pastor in a parish near Berlin, and proposed to him that he should go to Africa or the West Indies as a missionary, telling him of the king’s desire and that Henry Plutscho, one of his old fellow-students, had also been requested to accompany him in the work. Ziegenbalg thought of declining the task as too great for him; but the feeling came over him that not to go would be to resist God’s will, so he yielded. He and Plutscho reached Copenhagen on 16th October, and then found for the first time that their destination was Tranquebar.
There is an old book, few copies of which are extant, which will enable us to follow in some degree the fortunes of these two missionaries. The title is as follows: “Propagation of the Gospel in the East. Being an Account of the Success of two Danish Missionaries lately sent to the East Indies for the Conversion of the Heathens in Malabar, in several Letters to their Correspondents in Europe, Containing a Narrative of their Voyage to the coast of Coromandel, their Settlement at Tranquebar, the Divinity and Philosophy of the Malabarians, their Language and Manners, the Impediments obstruct- ing their Conversion, the several Methods taken by the Missionaries, the wonderful Providences attending them, and the Progress they have already made. Rendered into English from the High Dutch ; and Dedicated to the Most Honourable Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. London, 1718.”
Omitting their voyage with its incidents and its protracted length, so very unlike modern travel, we see them land at Tranquebar on gth July 1706. It is a day never to be forgotten, for then the first Protestant missionaries set foot on India. “ It was early in the morning,” writes Dr Fleming Stevenson, “and they were ordered to remain in a house before the gate till the Governor had leisure to come in the afternoon. On his arrival, assuming the utmost roughness, he asked what brought them there? They were a mere nuisance. What could he do? That was no place for missionaries. They were not wanted. What could the king know about such things? And so turned upon his heel and withdrew with his suite to the fort. -
“Petrified by this contempt for the king’s mandate as much as cast down by so unexpected a reception, the two young men slowly followed, expecting that some one would inform them of the arrangements made for their stay. But at the market square the group suddenly separated, and in a moment Governor, council and chaplain had disappeared, and the square was empty. The sun had set, and as the houses were already shrouded in gloom, the strangers could not tell what turn to take, but watched and waited under the silent stars, the first Protestant missionaries that ever stood on Indian soil, wondering much what would happen next, and bethinking themselves that even the Son of Man had not where to lay His head.”
Such was the reception that was first given to the gospel in India. The hostility of the Danish officials had not been reckoned on by Ziegenbalg and Plutscho. For the first few days they were sheltered by one of the Governor's suite, and they were afterwards allowed to occupy a house where they settled down to their work.
They immediately set themselves to learn Portuguese and Tamil, or, as Ziegenbalg calls it, Malabarick, the two languages used there. They resolved that one of them should “ get the language of the country,” ze. Portuguese, making that his chief method of communication with the natives, while the other should devote himself principally to Malabarick. “In order hereto we cast lots, and the lot falling on Mr Plutscho, he readily embraced it, and now applieth himself entirely to the learning of that language. As for me, though I don’t design to be quite without the knowledge thereof—spending an hour or two every day to that purpose— yet the chief bent of my endeavour will be to set down the more substantial points of the Christian doctrine in Portuguese and get ’em translated by some able interpreter into Malabarick, whereby one thing or other will stick to my memory from time to time. To facilitate the whole design we maintain a particular schoolmaster in the house in hopes that God will second it with His blessing.”
On ist October of that year, the anniversary of the date when the “dear fathers and brethren offered me that pastoral function which I am now actually entered upon for the service of the Malabar heathen,” Ziegenbalg writes, freely confessing that it is very hard to make any impression upon their minds, and gives these reasons: the scandalous and corrupted lives of the Christians who reside there ; secondly, that the idolatrous worship seems to the heathen to have more pleasantness in it than the doctrine of Christ, fancying as they do that theirs is “ of an earlier date and contains more curious and delightful pastimes” than the Bible ; thirdly, that their conversion is much obstructed by the conduct of the Roman Catholics, who used to decoy them into Christianity by all manner of sinister practices and underhand dealings—hence the fear which the heathen entertained of the new missionaries ; fourthly, the fact that some hundreds of Roman Catholic converts were then wandering about begging bread from door to door, neither food nor employment having been provided for them ; and last, the fact that all who became Christians— except heads of families—are presently banished from their whole estate and kindred, and dare not come near them again.
They had also set up a small charity school for Malabarian boys, providing them with food and “instructing ’em also in their and our language, and chiefly in the fundamental principles of Christian knowledge.” A remarkable statement: our language, that is German. In some respects this was an anticipation of Dr Alexander Duff’s method of teaching Hindoo students by means of the English language. Ziegenbalg adds these rather astonishing words: “ Truly the training up of children will be of the greatest consequence in this affair. If we were but able to purchase and to maintain a pretty many of ’em, the work might undoubtedly spread abroad in a little while, and under the blessing of God produce the desired effect.”
As one means of raising funds to support this school, he says, “ We have indeed fastened an alms-box in our house, but we find nothing in it but what we put in ourselves. For this reason we have most humbly petitioned his majesty the king of Denmark to assist us with some generous relief. But since this new work both in its first foundation and the succeeding progress will prove very expensive, we at the same time entreat also all the well-wishers to the cause of God to commiserate the deplorable state of these poor heathens, and by some charitable and bountiful effusions, tending to the maintenance of the body, to advance the conversion of these deluded souls.” As this appeal to the king of Denmark and to the generosity of those who might be reached by Ziegenbalg’s letter could not produce any result “till two years hence,” owing to the tediousness of the voyage between India and Europe, they proposed to use part of their salary, and perhaps to borrow money on interest from the natives for the purpose of proceeding at once in these endeavours. This letter ends: “My dear fellowlabourer, Mr Plutscho, and my servant Modaliapa, the first-fruits of the heathens, send their kind greeting to you in the Lord.”
With great artlessness Ziegenbalg writes in
B 1O MISSIONARY PIONEERS IN INDIA,
another of his letters: “We find by experience that for propagating the gospel among the heathens, next to the grace of God nothing is more expedient—as for any outward help— than a blameless life, and a seasonable supply of money for establishing all manner of good foundations.”
For the existence and extension of the charity school, funds were needed, as he writes repeatedly. “For the right settling and increasing whereof we must buy such children—and this now and then at a high rate too—as their parents are willing to part with ; which one time necessity obliges them to; another time perhaps some other reasons, which God knows.”
In September 1707, the year following their arrival, Ziegenbalg writes expressing his grief at not having received any European letters that year, notwithstanding their having written so frequently to their friends in Europe. But he charges them with no fault; the means of communication two hundred years ago were not to be compared with what we enjoy. “Last year,” he says, “when the ships returned to Europe, I fell dangerously ill, and the distemper holding me above a month, made me pine away to that degree that both myself and others with me BARTHOLOMEW ZIEGENBALG. Il
began to despair of my recovery. However, the Lord having been graciously pleased once more to restore me, it has now so much the more excited me entirely to spend the rest of my days in the service of God by how much the less my health was expected. My dear colleague having renewed with me this resolution, we began afresh to apply ourselves to the work we were sent about, notwithstanding the many oppositions we are like to encounter, most certainly believing that God would never forsake us in a work sincerely begun for His glory.”
Soon after their arrival they began to hold public worship in their own house for the benefit of Europeans residing in Tranquebar; and the governor had now become so friendly that he even procured them the use of the Danish church, to which this service was then transferred. This happened in December 1706, and was a great comfort and joy to them. “ By this means we had now a fair opportunity to lay the word of God before heathens, Mohammedans and Christians. Truly we often did not know from whence to fetch the necessary supplies to support both spirit and body, having been all along engaged from morning till night to converse with all sorts of people. . . . The first of our baptismal acts was solemnly performed in the Danish church with five heathens which were christened after they had given an account of all the articles of the Christian faith. This they did with such readiness of mind that many old people were ashamed thereat, and we ourselves convinced they had a sound sense of what they outwardly performed.”
How great their encouragement was may be seen from what he says about the building of a church, in the erection of which they had hitherto been disappointed. “In the name of God, and in hopes of being supported by our king, we laid the foundation of a church, bestowing thereon all whatever we could possibly spare from our yearly pension. Every one that saw it laughed at it as a silly and rash design, and cried us down for sots, venturing too boldly upon a thing which they thought would certainly come to nothing. However, we prosecuted our design in the name of God, a friend sending fifty rixdollars towards it. By this forwardness of our work the enemies were confounded, and some of ’em did then contribute something themselves towards accomplishing the whole affair; which proved no small comfort to us. Thus is the building finished at last, and fitted up for a church congregation. It lies without the town in the midst of a multitude of Malabarians near the high road, built all of stone. It was consecrated the fourteenth of August, which was the eighth Sunday after Trinity, in the presence of a great conflux of heathens, Mahommedans and Christians, who had a sermon preached to them, both in Portuguese and Malabarick. . . . Multitudes of people flock together to hear us, Malabarians, Blacks and Christians, every one being allowed to come in, let him be heathen, Mohammedan, Papist or Protestant. . . . At this rate the work of God runs on amain. Our congregation consists of sixty-three persons; and another is to be baptised to-morrow.” He also asks that “two persons more might be sent over to assist us in the work so happily begun.”
In October 1707 he sends to Germany a copy of “the four gospels done into Malabarick after having them carefully perused according to the Original,” as well as several other minor translations. An Indian idol made of gold had been presented to him by some of the converts, and this he sent as a gift to the king of Denmark. “For the present,’ he writes, “we are destitute of all necessary supplies for carrying on the work, being in daily expectation of the happy arrival of the ships coming from Europe. . . . Great is the harvest, but the number of true and faithful labourers very small; and therefore we most heartily desire the concurrence of your prayers and supplications.”
When Ziegenbalg and Plutscho had acquired the Portuguese and Malabarick languages, and were busily engaged preaching the gospel, they found that their greatest want was a translation of the Scriptures. A translation in Portuguese did exist, but was extremely rare and not to be purchased even for ready money. They secured one copy, printed at Batavia; and two other missionaries—one of whom was Grundler— who were sent out to assist them, bought a second copy at the Cape of Good Hope. The New Testament in Malabarick did not exist. Ziegenbalg therefore set himself to do the necessary translation; but first, as a trial of his skill, he translated some smaller books. He began the New Testament on 17th October 1708, and finished it 21st March 1713. The New Testament in Malabarick was now an accomplished fact; but how were copies of it to be procured? for they had no printing press.
When the volume of Ziegenbalg’s and Plutscho’s letters was published in Europe it produced an immediate effect both in Germany and Denmark and England ; and liberal contributions were given to help the work. From Denmark “several charitable contributions have been remitted to Tranquebar, gathered by the Rev. Dr Lutkens, one of his majesty’s chaplains, and the very first person that put the king upon this Christian attempt. But he being lately dead, the missionaries have lost an eminent benefactor by the death of that gentleman.”
The letters were published in England in 1709, and a second volume in 1710, and at once sympathy was evoked and help willingly rendered. The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge resolved to give assistance by sending them an impression of the New Testament in Portuguese along with a sum of money for the support of their charity school. The Society elected Ziegenbalg and Plutscho corresponding members, and funds having been freely contributed, the Society also resolved to supply the missionaries with a printing press, six hundredweight of roman and italic type, and one hundred reams of paper. A printer was also engaged to go with these goods to Tranquebar, and to labour there as a schoolmaster and printer: his name was Jonas Finck, a native of Silesia. The fleet which sailed from England for India in the beginning of 1711 carried Mr Finck as well as two hundred and fifty copies of the gospel of Matthew in Portuguese and “a present of money in foreign silver, together with some sums in bills of exchange to enable the missionaries to carry on more effectually their design. All these goods, together with the person attending them, were embarked freight free on board one of the ships of the Honourable East India Company, who have all along not only granted a free passage to such persons and goods as were designed for a support of this work, but have also most readily laid their commands on their Governors in India to protect and countenance the Protestant mission in those parts.”
The Portuguese New Testament was not ready when this fleet sailed, but was printed off about the end of the same year; and in the beginning of 1712, two hundred and fourteen copies, together with a set of mathematical instruments, were shipped for India. In this year, however, news arrived in England that the vessel carrying the printer and the gospels had been captured at Rio Janeiro by a French squadron, the printer made prisoner, and the goods confiscated. However, a negotiation was carried out by which the vessel was ransomed and the printer set free along with the press and the paper. The ship then resumed her voyage, BARTHOLOMEW ZIEGENBALG. U7.
but Jonas Finck died before reaching the Cape of Good Ilope. The printing press, paper and types were carricd to India and delivered at last to the missionaries at Tranquebar. “There happened one thing at Brazil, when the French took possession of the ship, too material to be passed over in silence. It relateth to the aforesaid two hundred and fifty copies of the gospel of St Matthew designed for the Portuguese church and school at Tranquebar. But undergoing now the same fate as the rest of the goods did, they were seized on by the French, and upon sight of their being Portuguese books, dispersed among the inhabitants of that country: where perhaps under the gracious influence of heaven they may prove helpful towards the conviction of some of those in whose hands they were left.”
¢ About November 1712 Mr Henry Plutscho arrived in London from India: his return was caused by ill health ; and he brought with him a Malabarian youth designed to be educated at Halle for the service of the mission. Plutscho laid before the Society much information regarding the mission, the impediments in its way, as well as some means by which it might be advanced. During his stay in England he drew up a Brief Instruction in Portuguese containing the first principles of Christianity, to be used as a primer in the schools at Tranquebar; and the Society immediately ordered a thousand copies to be printed, and half of them to be sent by the first fleet going to India. In the end of the same year three young men arrived in London from Halle on their way to Tranquebar to assist the missionaries, one as a schoolmaster, the other two as printers. Further gifts of paper and books were given to these young men, and the East India Company again carried the goods freight free, “to the no small satisfaction of the well-wishers to the design.”
When Ziegenbalg and Plutscho received the printing press they immediately set about using it, and happily they found that in the Danish Company's service there was a man who in his younger days had learned the art of printing. The press was set to work and there was printed off a primer for the use of the Portuguese school, and a specimen of the J/ethod of Salvation, of which some copies were sent to Europe. This last treatise was described as “the first-fruits of the Word of God bestowed on the heathens by the benefactors in England.” Other books were also printed.
Letters from the missionaries, dated September 1712 and January 1713, tell of increasing spiritual prosperity. In the Malabarick and Portuguese churches there were in January 1713, “of persons baptized 207, and catechumens to be prepared for baptism 26. In the five charity schools there were 78 children, of which 59 are clothed and wholly maintained, together with some other persons who are employed in preparing food for the children and other services about the churches and schools. The missionaries hope that in a little time some of the more advanced scholars in the Malabarickschool will be fit to be employed in this work in the quality of schoolmasters, catechists, and transcribers.”
Ziegenbalg gives a catalogue of “all the Malabarick manuscripts which either have been composed by the missionaries themselves or by them translated from other languages chiefly for the use of the Malabarick church and school.” It consists of no fewer than thirty-two works in addition to other fourteen Portuguese books and manuscripts with which they were provided. The following are some of the separate items :—
The whole New Testament.
Luther’s Short Catechism.
A collection of some short rules or directions for a Christian
life.
The History of the Life of Christ. The Method of Salvation.
A succinct narrative of the Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan and Pagan Religions.
A Compendium of Divinity.
The Danish Liturgy.
A book of Hymns set to tunes.
The Articles of the Christian Religion.
A Malabar Dictionary compiled out of various authors and provided with a German index.
A Dictionary digested after the order of the Malabarick alphabet, and done in such a manner that the reader at one view may find the Primitive word together with all the Derivatives depending thereon. It contains above 20,000 words all writ on leaves, and is designed to be transcribed on paper and to be printed in time for the benefit of the mission.
At the end of this catalogue there are the words, “May the Lord have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics!) And take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of His word; and so fetch them home to His flock that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites and be made one fold under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end! Amen.”
“T must needs say,” writes Ziegenbalg, “that notwithstanding this people be led away by a world of errors and delusions, they nevertheless give at times so pertinent answers in matters of religion as perhaps I should have never thought on before. I remember that some of our learned in Europe have writ entire books upon J/ethods and Ways of converting heathens, whilst they all this while argue with themselves only, and fetch both the objections and the answers from their own stock. Should they come to a closer converse with the pagans and hear their shifts and evasions themselves, they would not find ’em so destitute of argument as we imagine. They are able to baffle now and then one proof alleged for Christianity with ten others brought in against it. It requires an experimental wisdom to convey a saving knowledge into their mind and to convince ’em of the folly of heathenism, and of the truth of Christianity. And this wisdom is not to be had in the barren schools of logic and metaphysics, but must be learned at another university and derived from God Himself for this purpose. The best way is to keep the mind constantly in that temper and serenity that the great God may influence it Himself, and qualify it for so important a work; that so in some degree at least may be obtained what the Lord hath promised to His disciples sent out to preach the gospel, Matt. x. 19. The heathens have abundance of subterfuges whereby they endeavour to vindicate themselves and to frustrate the design of a missionary. If Christians find one error in the doctrine of the heathens, these will find ten in the life of the Christians. It would be infinitely better if never any Christian had been among ’em, for then their mind would be less prepossessed against Christianity, the free reception whereof is now stifled by many inveterate sins and customs they have all along observed among Christians.”
Regarding his dictionary of the Malabar language, Ziegenbalg gives this account: “ It comprises above 20,000 words and phrases. In one line the Malabarick is set down in its own character, and in the other is placed the Latin pronunciation, and in the third the German. This work has kept me employed these two years, having read over for that purpose above two hundred Malabarick authors, and taken down the most elegant phrases out of every book. And because this language is very ample and copious I make still daily additions to this dictionary.”
He gives an account of the baptism of a Malabar poet; showing that the same methods are used now by relatives of converts to prevent their baptism as were employed two hundred years ago. Here is the story as Ziegenbalg tells it: “They now began to insult him everywhere. . . . His parents thought themselves more particularly obliged to confine their son to the old way of worship; and this they prosecuted a while with much vigour and fierceness. They shut him up for three days together, and left him all this while without any food. ... After this his friends and relatives rushed in upon him; and because ‘twas just then that one of their great heathenish festivals was to be kept, they would needs have him go to this pageantry, but they could not prevail.
“Being thus everywhere exposed to the insults and menaces of his enraged countrymen, he desired leave from us to retire to some place of privacy, in a house belonging to a widow which is a member of our church, ... But he soon was found out by his parents, who, with great clamour and violence breaking in upon him, told him plainly they would dispatch him with poison if he should persist any longer in a love to that new religion he was embracing ; the mother having a dose of poison already prepared for effecting that black and wicked design. These threatenings not producing the desired effect, they, both father and mother, fell down at his feet, and with most endearing words endeavoured now to gain by offers and promises what could not be obtained by spite and malice. Home he went with his parents, when, after a long discourse with them, he returned to us again accompanied by his father, who with many fair words entreated us to discharge his son from the service of our house. To this we replied we were willing to do it if he himself did require any such thing. The young man all this while admonished the father not to fight against God. Hereupon the father quitted him with great indignation, but soon after stirred up more than two hundred Malabarians, who, surrounding the young man at a convenient time haled him into a house, and by force would make him forswear the Christian faith. He said he was willing to forswear what was bad but not what was good.
“Being got once more out of their clutches he would venture no more among the heathens hereafter, but most earnestly entreated us to baptise him with all convenient speed, fearing the chief of the country might combine against him and hinder him, if possible, from receiving this ordinance. When we saw his earnest desire for holy baptism, and considering the necessity of going about it without delay, we fixed a day for that purpose. . . . We baptised him the 16th of October last. No sooner was this over but another threatening letter was sent to the Governor by some of the young man’s friends.
... They required the Governor to deliver up the poet into their hands. . .. The poet himself had a letter sent him by an eminent Black, wherein his friends did promise to make him a Governor of a whole country, and swear obedience to him in the presence of the Brahmins, provided he would return to his former religion: but then again they threatened to burn him if he should presume to reject so splendid an offer. Our Governor soon after received a third letter from another of their leading men, importing he would shut up all the avenues to the town unless he made the poet return to his duty. However, our Governor promised to return a smart answer to these busy heathens, in order to allay, if possible, the commotion.”
One of the chief features of the Danish mission was the Christian education of children; the missionaries felt that it was not possible to give too much attention and care to this. “I must not forget to tell you,” writes Ziegenbalg, “that what taketh me most in this affair is the education of children in India. They are of a good and promising temper; and being not yet possessed with so many headstrong prejudices against the Christian faith, they are the sooner wrought upon, and mollified into a sense of the fear of God.
c To tell you the truth, we look on our youth as a stock or nursery from whence in time plentiful supplies may be drawn for enriching our Malabar church with such members as will prove a glory and ornament to the Christian profession. ’Tis true there are but a few of the grown heathens that are willing to be baptised into the name of Christ; and yet ’tis no less true that there is always a concourse of people attending our sermons and other parts of divine service; and many undoubtedly return with strong convictions left upon their minds. All this gives me a fair prospect of getting a larger door of the Word set open in time.”
Ziegenbalg gives an account of “a baptismal act performed by the Papists in India,” which is worthy of being narrated. “In the year 1709, and particularly towards the latter end thereof, everything was very dear in this country. The scarcity was so great that. abundance of Malabarians died for want of necessaries, and others were forced to sell themselves for slaves in that extremity. The Portuguese Church here being very large and populous, took hold of this opportunity and bought up a great many of this poor people for slaves, one being sold from twenty to forty fano, or from eight to sixteen shillings English. After they had purchased the number of fourscore heads, the Pater Vicarius appointed a solemn day for administering the baptismal act to all those souls at once. At the set day they went in one body or procession, being accompanied by some who beat the Malabar drums, and others who played on the flute, these being the usual - instruments the heathen make use of, both at their idolatrous worship in the common pagods, and in their public processions when they carry their idols about... . There were likewise some. standards attending the procession, to give the greater lustre to so solemn an act and formality.
“The whole pageantry being thus mustered up, the sacrament of baptism was ministered to those ignorant wretches without so much as asking them one question about the substance of these transactions. Being sprinkled one after another, they were led back in the same pompous manner; the aforesaid father ordering abundance of cass—a very small coin, eighty whereof make one fano— to be thrown among the people as they went home. And these sorry performances, whereby they make daily additions to the Church of Rome, are extolled by them as extraordinary acts of devotion, and their church set out as the most flourishing of all others,”
The daily time table of the schools was as follows :—
From 6 to 7 a.m. one of the missionaries says prayers with the children and the catechumens, and expounds the catechism.
From 7 to 9 are the ordinary school hours. Part of this time is also used in preparing female candidates for baptism. Likewise some boys are put to knitting in cotton.
From g to 11 the children continue their schooling. Some catechumens, being boys or men, are instructed. The women and girls are employed about knitting.
From 11 to 12 the children have dinner, with such catechumens as cannot maintain themselves. Those catechumens whose relatives have deprived them of all necessaries receive fifteen cass apiece : the same is allowed them also for supper.
From 12 to 1 the children have a resting hour.
From 1 to 2 they learn to write in the sand, according to the custom of the country; but the more advanced are taught to handle the iron tool, to fit them to print on leaves. The Portuguese children knit during this hour.
From 2 to 3, children at school. The slaves are instructed in Christian knowledge: they are taught “distinctly by themselves.” The catechumens are knitting.
From 3 to 5, children are at school. Some time is again given to the instruction of the slaves.
From 5 to 6 “the Malabarick missionary hath all the Malabarick youth together with the catechumens before him, and goes over with them a part of the Christian religion, and thus concludes the ordinary lessons of the day.”
“The same is done by the Portuguese missionary in the Portuguese school, where are now present catechumens, children and slaves.”
From 6 to 7 some entertainment is given to the children; the masters retire with them “to the leads of the house,” and histories or natural occurrences are related to them, or hymns are sung, &c.
From 7 to 8 supper. After supper, prayers ; and about 9 the children lay themselves down on their mats.
The Malabarick and Portuguese missionaries visit the schools every day, themselves teaching one or more hours, as their other business will permit.
“We endeavour to spend the whole Lord’s day as nigh as possibly we can in devotion and exercises of piety.”
Once in six weeks the children were taken to a garden adjoining a village near Tranquebar: this was meant as a little excursion and refreshment to them. All the missionaries and masters accompanied them, and the conversation was on the subject of the power and working of God in creation and nature. “Many Malabarians gather about us all this while and express a great satisfaction at the pertinent answers our Black Lambs—being but lately reclaimed from heathenish vices and superstitions—do return to the questions relating to God and Religion.”
y In 1715 Ziegenbalg came to Europe by order of the physicians. He was received by the king of Denmark; he then hurried onwards and was welcomed by Francke at Halle, his presence and his glowing appeals kindling anew the. zeal of the friends of the mission. .
Having married, he set out again with his wife for India, travelling through Holland and England. King George I. received him, and the East India Company gave him a free passage to India. The English king afterwards—in 1717—wrote to Ziegenbalg at Tranquebar a kindly and sympathetic letter.
At Tranquebar, Ziegenbalg laboured with untiring energy for two more years. New Year's Day, 1719, was the last occasion when he spoke in public. On 23rd February of that year he died—his age was only thirty-six. He was bright and cheerful that morning, and after prayer with his wife, death drew near. “Did he desire to depart, and to be with Christ?” “Ah, how willingly!” “I can scarcely speak,” he said: “may God bless what I have spoken. I have daily given myself into Thy hands, O God! The Lord saith, ‘Father, I will that where I am there also shall My servant be!’” The peace of God rested upon him. Suddenly he put his hands to his eyes and exclaimed, “ How is it so bright as if the sun shone into my face?” Then at his request they sang to him, with the accompaniment of the violin, his favourite hymn, “Jesus, meine Zuversicht”—Jesus, my confidence. The chords seemed to revive him, and his spirit passed away.
In 1849 Dr Alexander Duff visited the spot. “T mounted the pulpit—of Ziegenbalg’s Church,” says Dr Duff, “and with no ordinary emotion gazed around from the position from which Ziegenbalg and Grundler and Schwartz so often proclaimed free salvation to thousands in Tamil, German, Danish, and Portuguese. At the end of one of the wings, on either side of a plain altar, lie the mortal remains of Ziegenbalg and Grundler, two such men of brief but brilliant and immortal career in the mighty work of Indian evangelisation.”
f As the result of those few years’ work in India, from 1706 to 1719, Ziegenbalg left 355 converts and numerous catechumens, a native church, the complete New Testament in Tamil, a dictionary, a mission seminary and the schools. “Certainly,” says Dr Duff, “he was a great missionary, considering that he was the first: inferior to none, scarcely second to any that followed him.”
On the Malabar Coast there are still many congregations of Syrian or St Thomas Christians who have a fond but unverifiable tradition that the Gospel was introduced into India by the Apostle Thomas. More probably the first preacher of the Cross in India was some Christian teacher whose name is forgotten, but who went forth in one of the ancient fleets which sailed from the Red Sea to bring back the riches of the East. From that first introduction of Christianity into India, about the second century, there has evidently never been a time when India has had no living witness for Christ.
When the Portuguese navigators reached India, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, they found that those ancient Syrian or Nestorian Christians had been established there for more than a thousand years. But the Syrian Christianity was a declining power, and was still further weakened by the Roman Catholic missionaries. It was at this juncture that the Danish mission and Zeigenbalg appeared, and by the grace of God he began that great movement towards Christ which is now every year spreading and deepening.