The reference here to the reception a convert would be likely to receive from the Christian people, by which they meant the Europeans, reveals the religious conditions existing in the time of Schwartz. At no period in the history of Christian missions in India had the cause of Christ received any considerable approval from the representatives of the civil power. In the early days of the Company no impediment was placed in the way of preaching the glad tidings of Christianity, but the ruling classes had studiously avoided any interference with the superstitious and religious customs of the natives. Meanwhile in the region of the Carnatic these idolatries were on the decline and we have seen how readily the message of the missionaries was received, even by the Brahmins. Probably such a scene as we have just considered in the preaching of Schwartz has not its parallel even in modern missions. But when the debate in the British Parliament raised the religious question on the renewal of the Company’s charter in 1793 quite another spirit was made manifest. A jealous fear of weakening our hold on India by disturbing the religious predilections of the natives became a scare and a hindrance, which has taken many years to overcome. The opinion which created this difficulty was very clearly stated by Mr. Fisher, an English chaplain, to the effect that “even amongst many of the most enlightened British officials in the country there could be no more dangerous means of estranging the hearts of the people from the Government and no surer way of endangering the stability of the English rule than by attempting to meddle with the religious concerns of the Hindus, however prudently and carefully one might set to work. All were convinced that rebellion, civil war, and universal unrest would certainly accompany every attempt to promote missionary enterprise, and above all that the conversion of a high caste native soldier would inevitably mean the disbanding of the army and the overthrow of British rule in India.” This false position soon began to bear its natural fruit; if these idolatries were to be considered and protected it might perhaps be a paying policy to patronize them. Therefore we read: “The civil and military servants of the Company were compelled to present offerings with their own hands to idols and to fire salutes in their honour; and Christian Englishmen, whose religious scruples caused them to shrink from these unhallowed compliances, had no alternative but to relinquish their appointments.” The converts had now to contend with a new difficulty which ought never to have been put in their way by the power which emanated from the country from which Christianity came. They not only had to face the separation and hostility of their former relations and friends but the English boycotted them, and heathens and Mohammedans were preferred before them for employment.