In 1787, the childless Rajah decided on—after the fashion of many Hindoo princes—adopting an heir, who might perform the last duties which were incumbent on a son.  His choice fell upon the son of a near kinsman, a child ten years of age, whom he named Serfojee.  A day or two after he sent for Mr. Swartz, and said, “This is not my son, but yours.  Into your hand I deliver him.”  “May the child become a child of God,” was the answer of Swartz.  The Rajah was too ill to continue the interview, but he sent for Swartz the next day, and said, “I appoint you guardian to this child; I put his hands into yours.”

Swartz, however, did not think it right to undertake the state guardianship of the lad, and the administration of the province.  Indeed, he knew that to do so would be absolutely to put the child’s life in danger, from the cabals and jealousies which would be excited, and he induced Tuljajee to confide the charge to his brother, Rama Swamey, afterwards called Ameer Singh.

This was done, and the Rajah soon after died, in the year 1787, leaving the boy and Ameer Singh under the protection of the Company.  He had always listened to Swartz willingly, and treated him affectionately, and the result of the influence of the missionary extended so far that no Suttee took place at his funeral, but he had never actually embraced Christianity, though protecting it to the utmost of his power.

The brother, Ameer Singh, was not contented merely to act as regent, but complained that injustice was done to him, and that Tuljajee was too much enfeebled in mind to judge of his own measures when he adopted the boy Serfojee.  Sir Archibald Campbell, acting for the Company, came to Tanjore, and, after an examination into the circumstances, decided in favour of Ameer Singh, and confirmed him in the Rajahship, binding him over to be the faithful protector of poor little Serfojee, who, putting the adoption apart, was still his near relation.

Ameer was not a better manager of his province than his brother had been, and he was far from kind to Serfojee, whom Swartz had not been allowed to see for months, when the widows of the late Rajah made complaints that the boy was closely shut up and cruelly treated.  On this Swartz applied to Government, and obtained an order to go with another gentleman to inquire into his condition.  The Rajah was much offended; but as he reigned only by the protection of the English, he could not refuse, and the Padre was conducted to a large but dark room, where he found the poor child sitting by lamp-light.  This had been his condition for almost two years, ever since his adopted father’s death, and on seeing the Padre, he asked piteously if it were the way in Europe to prevent children from seeing the sun and moon.  Mr. Swartz comforted him, and asked him if he had any one to teach him.  The Rajah’s minister replied that he had a master, but was too idle to learn; but Serfojee looked up and said, “I have none to teach me, therefore I do not know a single letter.”  The Rajah was only offended at remonstrance, and at last Government sent orders that could not be resisted, and a Sepoy guard to take charge of the lad.  Then, as a great favour, the Rajah entreated that the guard would not enter his palace, but that for the night before Serfojee could be removed, the Padre would remain with him to satisfy them that he was safe.  To this Swartz consented, and the guard disappeared, whereupon the Rajah told him “he might go home.”

“What! and be guilty of a breach of faith?” was his resolute answer.  “Even my father should not be permitted to make me such a proposal!”

They were ashamed, and left him to remain that night with Serfojee, whom he probably thus saved from foul play, since the jealous and vindictive passions of Ameer Singh had been thoroughly excited.  The captivity must have been very wretched, for he observed that the poor boy walked lame, and found that the cause was this:—“I have not been able to sleep,” said poor Serfojee, “from the number of insects in my room, but have had to sit clasping my knees about with my arms.  My sinews are a little contracted, but I hope I shall soon recover.”

When taken out, the poor little fellow was delighted once more to see the sun, and to ride out again.  A Brahmin master selected by Mr. Swartz was given to him, and he very rapidly learnt both to read his own language and English.  Swartz also interfered on behalf of the late Rajah’s minister, Baba, who had indeed been extortionate and severe, but scarcely deserved such a punishment as being put into a hole six feet long and four feet broad and high.

For two years Serfojee was unmolested; but, in 1792, the husband of Ameer Singh’s only child died without children, and this misfortune was attributed by the Rajah to witchcraft on the part of the widows of Tuljajee.  He imagined that they were contriving against his own life, and included Serfojee in his hatred.  By way of revenge, he caused a pile of chilis and other noxious plants to be burnt under Serfojee’s windows, and thus nearly stifled him and his attendants.  He prevented the Prince’s teachers from having access to him, shut up his servants, and denied permission to merchants to bring their wares to him.  Mr. Swartz was absent at the time, and Serfojee wrote a letter to him, begging that the English Government would again interfere.  It was found that any remonstrance put the Rajah into such a state of fury that the lives of the youth and the ladies we’re really unsafe while they remained within his reach, and it was therefore decided that they should be transplanted to Madras.  It was a wonderful step for Hindoo princesses to take, and was only accomplished by the influence of Mr. Swartz, backed by a guard of soldiers, under whose escort all safely arrived at Madras, where Serfojee’s education could at length be properly carried on.

The youth was so entirely the child of Swartz and of the Government, that it is disappointing to find that he did not become a Christian.  No stipulation to the contrary seems to have been made by Tuljajee; but, probably, the missionary refrained from a sense of honour towards the late Rajah, and because to bring the boy up in the Church would have destroyed all chance of his obtaining the provinces, and probably have deprived him of the protection of the Company, who dreaded the suspicion of proselytizing.  Still it is very disappointing, and requires all our trust in Swartz’s judgment and excellence to be satisfied that he was right in leaving this child, who had been confided to him, all his life a heathen.  Serfojee learnt the theory of Christianity, was deeply attached to Mr. Swartz, and lived a life very superior to that of most Hindoo princes of his time.  His faith in his hereditary paganism was probably only political, but he never made the desperate, and no doubt perilous, plunge of giving up all the world to save his own soul.  Was it his fault, or was it any shortcoming in the teaching that was laid before him, and was that human honour a want of faith?  It puzzles us!  Here was Swartz, from early youth to hoary hairs unwavering in the work of the Gospel, gathering in multitudes to the Church, often at great peril to himself, yet holding back from bringing into the fold the child who had been committed to him, and, as far as we can see, without any stipulation to the contrary.  Probably he thought it right to leave Serfojee’s decision uninfluenced until his education should be complete, and was disappointed that the force of old custom and the danger of change were then too strong for him; and thus it was that Serfojee was only one of the many half-reclaimed Indian princes who have lived out their dreary, useless lives under English protection, without accepting the one pearl of great price which could alone have made them gainers.

It is just possible that there may have been too much of a certain sort of acquiescence in Swartz’s mind, missionary as he was.  He did not attack the system of caste, with its multitudinous separations and distinctions.  Of course he wished it to be abolished, but he accepted converts without requiring its renunciation, allowed high-caste persons to sit apart in the churches, and to communicate before Pariahs, and did not interfere with their habits of touching no food that the very finger of a person of a different caste had defiled.  He no doubt thought these things would wither away of themselves, but his having permitted them, left a world of difficulty to his successors.

He lived, however, the life of a saint, nearly that of an ascetic.  His almost unfurnished house was shared with some younger missionary.  Kohloff, who was one of these, related in after years how plain their diet was.  Some tea in a jug, with boiling water poured over it and dry bread broken into it, formed the breakfast, which lasted five minutes; dinner, at one, was of broth or curry; and at eight at night they had some meal or gruel.  If wine were sent them, it was reserved for the communions or for the sick.  Swartz only began, very late in life, to take a single glass in the middle of his Sunday services.

Every morning he assembled his native catechists at early prayer, and appointed them their day’s work.  “You go there.”  “You do this.”  “You call on such and such families.”  “You visit such a village.”  About four o’clock they returned and made their report, when their master took them all with him to the churchyard or some public place, or to the front of the Mission-house, according to the season of the year, and there sat either expounding the Scriptures to those who would come and listen, or conversing with inquirers and objectors among the heathen.  His manner was mild, sometimes humorous, but very authoritative, and he would brook neither idleness nor disobedience.

Over his Christian flock his authority was as complete as ever that of Samuel could have been as a judge.  If any of them did wrong, the alternative was—

“Will you go to the Rajah’s court, or be punished by me?”

“O Padre, you punish me!” was always the reply.

“Give him twenty strokes,” said the Padre, and it was done.

The universal confidence in the Padre, felt alike by Englishmen and Hindoos, was inestimable in procuring and carrying out regulations for the temporal prosperity of the peasantry at Tanjore, under the Board which had pretty well taken the authority out of the hands of the inefficient and violent Ameer Singh.  Districts that, partly from misery, had become full of thieves, were brought into order, and the thieves themselves often became hopeful converts, and endured a good deal of persecution from their heathen neighbours.  His good judgment in dealing with all classes, high and low, English or native, does indeed seem to have been wonderful, and almost always to have prevailed, probably through his perfect honesty, simplicity, and disinterestedness.

The converts in Tinnevelly became more and more numerous, and Sattianadem had been ordained to the ministry, Lutheran fashion, by the assembly of the presbytery at Tranquebar, there being as yet no Bishop in India; and thus many, the very best of his catechists, served for many years, at Palamcotta, the first Christian minister produced by modern India.  On the whole, Swartz could look back on the half-century of his mission with great joy and thankfulness; he counted his spiritual children by hundreds; and the influence he had exerted upon the whole Government had saved multitudes of peasants from oppression and starvation, and had raised the whole tone of the administration.  He was once or twice unkindly attacked by Englishmen who hated or mistrusted the propagation of Christianity.  One gentleman even wrote a letter in a newspaper calling a missionary a disgrace to any nation, and raking up stories of the malpractices of heathens who had been preached to without being converted, which were laid to the charge of the actual Christians; but imputations like these did not meet with faith from any one whose good opinion was of any real consequence to Swartz.

His strong health and the suitability of his constitution to the climate brought him to a good old age in full activity.  He had become the patriarch of the community of missionaries, and had survived all those with whom he had at first laboured; but he was still able to circulate among the churches he had founded, teaching, praying, preaching and counselling, or laying any difficulty before the Government, whose attention he had so well earned.  His last care was establishing the validity of the adoption of Serfojee, who had grown up a thoughtful, gentle, and upright man, satisfactory on all points except on the one which rendered him eligible to the throne of Tanjore, his continued heathenism.  The question was referred to the Company at home, and before the answer could arrive, by the slow communication of those days, when the long voyage, and that by a sailing vessel, was the only mode of conveyance, the venerable guardian of the young Rajah had sunk into his last illness.

This was connected with a mortification in his left foot, which had been more or less painful for several years, but had probably been neglected.  His Danish colleague, Mr. Gerické, was with him most of the time, and it was one of his subjects of thankfulness that he was permitted to depart out of the world in the society of faithful brethren.  He suffered severely for about three months, but it was not till the last week that his departure was thought to be near.  He liked to have the English children brought in to read to him chapters of the Bible and sing Dr. Watts’s hymns to him; and the beautiful old German hymns sung by Mr. Gerické and Mr. Kohloff were his great delight.  Indeed, when at the very last, as he lay almost lifeless, with closed eyes, Mr. Gerické began to sing the hymn,

 
“Only to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ,”
 

he joined in with a clear melodious voice, and accompanied him to the end.  Two hours later, about four o’clock in the afternoon of the 13th of February, 1798, Christian Friedrich Swartz breathed his last, in the seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-eighth of his mission service in India.

The cries and wailings of the poor resounded all night around the house, and Serfojee Rajah came from a distance to be present at his burial.  It had been intended to sing a funeral hymn, but the cries and lamentations of the poor so overcame the clergy, that they could scarcely raise their voices.  Serfojee wept bitterly, laid a gold cloth over the bier, and remained present while Mr. Gerické read the Funeral Service,—a most unusual departure from Hindoo custom, and a great testimony of affection and respect.

A few months later arrived the decision of the East India Company, that the weak and rapacious Ameer Singh should be deposed, and Serfojee placed on the throne.  He conducted himself excellently as a ruler, and greatly favoured Christians in his territory, always assisting the various schools, and giving liberal aid whenever the frequently-recurring famines of India brought them into distress.

Three years later, in 1801, Serfojee wrote to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to beg them to order a “monument of marble” at his expense, to the memory of the late Rev. Father Swartz, to be affixed to the pillar nearest the pulpit.  Accordingly, a bas-relief in white marble was executed by Flaxman, representing the death of Swartz, Gerické behind him, two native Christians and three children standing by, and Serfojee clasping his hand and receiving his blessing.  It was not exactly fact, but it was the monumental taste of the day; and it so much delighted the Rajah, that he kept it in his palace, among the portraits of his ancestors, for two years before he could resolve on parting with it to the church.  The Prince likewise composed the epitaph which was carved on the stone which covers the grave of Swartz, the first instance of English verse by a Hindoo:—

 
“Firm wast thou, humble and wise,
Honest, pure, free from disguise;
Father of orphans, the widow’s support,
Comfort in sorrow of every sort:
To the benighted dispenser of light,
Doing and pointing to that which is right.
Blessing to princes, to people, to me,
May I, my father, be worthy of thee,
Wisheth and prayeth thy Sarabojee.”
 

Swartz had always been striving to be poor, and never succeeding.  Living and eating in the humblest manner, and giving away all that came to him, still recognitions of services from English and natives had flowed in on him; and, after all the hosts of poor he had fed, and of churches and schools he had founded, he was an instance of “there is that scattereth and yet increaseth;” for the property he bequeathed to the Mission was enough to assist materially in carrying it on after his death.  Moreover, Serfojee maintained the blind, lame, and decrepit members of his church, and founded an asylum for the orphan children; so that the good men, Gerické, Kohloff, Pohlé, and the rest, were not absolutely dependent on Europe for assistance; and this was well, since the Orphan-house at Halle and the Society at Copenhagen had in this long course of years ceased to send out funds.

But Swartz’s work under their hands continued to prosper.  He had a sort of apotheosis among the heathen, such as he would have been the last to covet; for statues were raised to him, lights burnt before him, and crowns offered up.  But about Palamcotta and throughout Tinnevelly there was one of those sudden movements towards Christianity that sometimes takes place.  The natives were asking instruction from their friends, and going eagerly in search of the catechists and of Sattianadem, and even burning their idols and building chapels in preparation for the coming of more fully qualified teachers.  Mr. Gerické made a tour among them in 1803, and found their hearts so moved towards the Gospel, that he baptized 1,300 in the course of his journey, and the work of Sattianadem and the catechists raised the number of converts to 4,000.  This was, however, this good man’s last journey.  On his return, he found that his only son, an officer in the Company’s service, was dying, and, under the weight of this and other troubles, his health gave way, and he died in the thirty-eighth year of his mission.  Others of the original Danish and German missionaries likewise died, and scarcely any came out in their stead.  Their places were, therefore, supplied by ordinations, by the assembly of ministers, of four native catechists, of whom was Nyanapracasem, a favourite pupil of Swartz.  No Church can take root without a native ministry.  But the absence of any central Church government was grievously felt, both as concerned the English and the Hindoos.  There were more than twenty English regiments in India, and not a single chaplain among them all.