India -- Description and travel; Missionaries -- India -- Biography; Missions -- India; Swartz, Christian Frederick, 1726-1798
The directors of the East India Company were equally anxious to
perpetuate the memory of one whom they held in conspicuous honour. What
Serfogee had done at Tanjore they would do in the Church of St. Mary
in Fort St. George, Madras. On 29th October, 1807, by the direction
of the court a letter was written to say that a marble monument by
Bacon was on its way to be erected there in memory of Mr. Schwartz.
“As the most appropriate testimony of the deep sense we entertain of
his transcendent merit, of his unwearied and disinterested labours to
the cause of religion and piety, and the exercise of the finest and
most exalted benevolence, also of his public services at Tanjore,
where the influence of his name and character, through the unbounded
confidence and veneration which they inspired, was for a long course of
years productive of important benefits to the Company.” This beautiful
monument, worthy of a sculptor of such eminence, represented also the
death scene, with the exception that here Serfogee is absent, but one
of the native children is embracing the hand of the dying missionary,
his friend Kohlhoff supporting him by his arm, the figure of an angel
bearing a cross is depicted above. There is also included below the
group, emblems of the pastoral office--the Episcopal Crozier, the
Gospel trumpet with the banners of the Cross, and an open Bible, upon
which is inscribed the divine mandate of all missionary enterprise, “Go
ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Above is shown the ark of the covenant, and the whole is a most
appropriate and artistic piece of work. The inscription was written by
Mr. Huddleston, then one of the directors of the Company, and a very
intimate and valued friend of Schwartz, and is in these words:
Sacred to the memory of
THE REV. CHRISTIAN FREDERIC SCHWARTZ,
whose life was one continued effort to imitate the example of
his Blessed Master.
Employed as a Protestant missionary from the Government of Denmark,
and in the same character by the Society in England for the Promotion
of Christian Knowledge, he, during a period of fifty years, “went
about doing good,” manifesting, in respect to himself, the most entire
abstraction from temporal views, but embracing every opportunity of
promoting both the temporal and eternal welfare of others. In him
religion appeared not with a gloomy aspect or forbidding mien, but
with a graceful form and placid dignity. Among the many fruits of his
indefatigable labours was the Erection of the Church at Tanjore. The
savings from a small salary were, for many years, devoted to this
pious work, and the remainder of the expense supplied by individuals
at his solicitation. The Christian Seminaries of Ramanadporam and in
the Tinnevelly province were established by him.
BELOVED AND HONOURED BY EUROPEANS,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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