Ten years before this, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge had been established and these English friends were destined to become the faithful and effectual supporters of Ziegenbalg and the Danish Mission in India. Through their agency the work was made widely known to England and Europe, and help was sent out for the translation of the Holy Scriptures and the opening of schools. The chaplains of the English forts at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay were entreated to show the missionary and his flock every favour. Ziegenbalg’s companion, Plütschau, had to return to Europe on account of failing health, but the work grew and extended in different directions. One of the notable converts at this time was a Tamil poet, Kanabadi by name, who was asked by Ziegenbalg to translate some portions of the Bible into that language and by doing so was led into the light. Afterwards he rendered the life of Christ into verse and used to sing it with the children on the housetops in the cool of the evening. Whatever great things our nation has done for India since then--and the Church has poured forth without stint her best treasure and noble witnesses for the salvation of its people--the palm of credit must be given to Denmark and Germany for the pioneer missionary efforts. The great missionaries of England were yet unborn, but the hearts of many godly people were deeply stirred by the tidings of what was being dared and done by the Lutheran brethren who had gone forth with their Bibles in their hands. Their letters home had been translated into English by the Rev. A. W. Boehme, the German chaplain of Prince George of Denmark (the uncle of King Frederick), and these were sent to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, asking their sympathy and help. The latter, however, it was not in their power, under their original charter, to give, as they were limited to the “English Plantations and Colonies,” so the appeal came to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was not so bound in its action. Thus it came to pass in the order of Divine Providence that this Society should have the privilege of expressing the pious liberality and equally precious direction which the Christian love and faith in England placed at the service of the needs of India. Its practical sympathy was shown at once by sending many copies of the New Testament in Portuguese to Tranquebar and a printing press with a fount of Roman type, together also with one Jonas Fincke, a printer by trade. These, however, were perilous days for ships, and the French captured the ship off Brazil, which seems a little out of her course, and took Fincke as a prisoner of war. In the end he was set free but died at the Cape of Good Hope of fever and the belated press arrived in India the following year. Fortunately, one of the soldiers of the East India Company was found who could work a press, and thus catechisms, hymn books and tracts began for the first time to be printed for the mission.