But then, to a far greater extent than now, the difficulty in the minds of unbelievers was the inconsistent lives and character of professing Christians. The European population was by no means a good example of what the Christian religion did for a man; of course, in many cases the difficulty arose from the common mistake of supposing that because a man had a white face and came from a Christian country he was necessarily himself a Christian. A wealthy native merchant who was growing old and could speak in Danish, English, and French, came with this respectful inquiry--“Sir, be not displeased, I wish to ask you a question. Do all Europeans speak like you?” To this Schwartz made answer that all Europeans were unfortunately not true Christians, but there were many amongst them who were sincere and real in their belief in Christ, and these prayed for the conversion of the Hindus. This was, however, a surprise to this honest and venerable inquirer, and he frankly expressed his opinion of the Christians with whom he had met, who at any rate were Europeans: “You astonish me, for from what we daily observe and experience we cannot but think them, with very few exceptions, to be self-interested, incontinent, proud, full of illiberal contempt and prejudice against us Hindus and even against their own religion, especially the higher classes. So at least I have found it with the majority of those with whom I have had any intercourse.” Still more plainly did the girl pupil of a Hindu dancing master retort when Schwartz told them that no wicked and unholy person could possibly enter the Kingdom of heaven. “Alas, sir,” she cried bitterly, “in that case hardly any European will ever enter it.” In some cases the discussion of Christianity revealed the philosophic and alert mind of the Hindu. Schwartz had one day been preaching the Gospel when a Hindu raised the point with him that he and others in India really worshipped the same God as the Christians only they gave him another name. To this argument Schwartz replied: “The true God must possess Divine perfections, such as supreme wisdom, omniscience, omnipotence, holiness, justice. Now nothing of this is found in your divinities, but by your own records, ignorance, impurity, cruelty. How can it be said of such that they are gods? You have a proverb that where sin is, there is no excellence. Now you acknowledge the practices ascribed to your gods to be sinful; consequently by your own confession they are unworthy of the name.” “That is very true,” replied the Hindu, “but if we receive even what is false and think it to be true in our heart, it is done to us according to our faith.” “How can you adopt,” said Schwartz, “a sophism which you yourselves on other occasions reject? You are accustomed to say, ‘if one writes the word sugar and then licks his finger, it will not on that account become sweet, though he believe it ever so firmly.’”