The most remarkable, however, of these reports respecting the increased prevalence of Christianity in this part of India, is contained in a letter from Mr. Gericke, early in 1803, in which he informed the Society that he had recently travelled through the Mysore, and from thence to Palamcotta, and nearly to the extremity of the Peninsula. "It had pleased God," he said, "to awaken such a sense of religion among the inhabitants of whole villages, that they had sought instruction from the neighboring Christians and their catechists, and particularly from Sattianaden, and were waiting anxiously for his arrival, to be further instructed, and baptized. In some of these villages, chapels had been already built, and in others the natives had broken their idols, and buried them deep in the ground, and converted their temples into Christian churches." On his departure from the Tinnevelly country, where these gratifying scenes had occurred, messages were received from many villages, entreating him to prolong his stay, and to do among them what had been so happily affected in other places. With this request it was not in his power to comply; but he recommended them to the care of Sattianaden, and of the native catechists and assistants. In the course of this journey, Gericke baptized above thirteen hundred persons; and, after his departure, the native teachers formed eighteen new congregations, and instructed and baptized two thousand seven hundred people; so that the whole number of these converts amounted to no fewer than four thousand. This extraordinary success excited a very considerable persecution on the part of some of their heathen neighbors, and particularly from those who were officially employed under the collector of the district. Sattianaden was deeply depressed by the cruelties exercised upon the new Christians, one of whom wrote to Mr. Gericke, that, but for the hope of heaven, such were their sufferings, they should all throw themselves into the sea. The excellent Kohlhoff, however, a true "son of consolation," kindly undertook to visit and comfort these oppressed converts; and at his earnest entreaties, the collector at length put a stop to the injustice and machinations of their enemies.

The conduct of Gericke, upon this interesting occasion, has been severely, but very unjustly and unreasonably, blamed, as if he had permitted the great body of the people just described to be baptized without sufficient evidence of their sincere conversion to the Christian faith. The charge itself is perfectly gratuitous, and appears to have been founded simply on the extraordinary numbers of the candidates for admission into the Christian church; forgetting the various means which had, during many previous years, been in active operation in the southern districts, the labor which had been bestowed upon them by Swartz and his pious and unwearied coadjutors, Janicke and Sattianaden, and, above all, the fervent prayers which had been offered for that divine blessing which had now so evidently been bestowed, and which has ever since continued to prosper the "work of the Lord" in that favored part of the peninsula.

At the close of this splendid, and, as it unhappily proved, this last stage of his missionary career, Mr. Gericke, like his venerable predecessor, took occasion to express his assurance, that if there were only an additional number of faithful and discreet laborers, wherever a door was opened to them, rapid would be the progress of the gospel. Like Swartz, too, he urged the great importance of European missionaries, from the fact, that the discourses of the native teachers, even supposing them to be in other

of weight with them. "They never gain," he observes, "the confidence that is placed in an European, when they are once convinced that he is really what he exhorts them to be. Without good missionaries, true disciples of Jesus Christ, from home, the work of the mission would lose its respectability, even though the native teachers were good men; and missionaries," he emphatically adds, " without the spirit and mind of Christ, and as full of the world as the natives are, would soon make the mission the most graceless thing imaginable.

"It has pleased God," he concludes, “to lead us, these several years, through great anxieties with regard to the mission; but we observe and believe, that a kind Providence watches over it; and such help as seemed absolutely necessary for its preservation, has always been furnished in due time.This keeps our hopes alive, and preserves us from losing our energy."

With these pious and animating sentiments, this most excellent man closed his correspondence with the Society. Soon after his return from the memorable journey to the south, which has been just mentioned, he was attacked by a fever, from which he partially recovered; but his increasing and incessant labors did not permit him to enjoy the rest which his weakness and age required. Change of air was recommended; but, arriving at Vellore he was unable to proceed, and died there on the 12th of October, 1803, in the 62nd year of his age, and in the 38th of his labors as a missionary in India. “In him," observes one of his brethren, the Society lost a most faithful servant, the mission its second pillar, and all India a benefactor, and an eminent example of piety and virtue."

The

Mr. Gericke, though much blessed, had been greatly afflicted in his domestic relations. death of his daughter has been already noticed; and during his journey to Tanjore in 1801, he had many an anxious thought respecting his only son, who was an officer in the Company's service at Ongole, where he was then extremely ill, and whither his wife and his little grandson had gone to visit him.

"The last letter," thus he wrote to a friend, "which I received from Ongole, reached me at Tranquebar in going to Negapatam and Tanjore. Near my journey's end at Sadras, my Dutch friends, not knowing that the melancholy news had been concealed from me, came to condole; and I found that my son had died in the very night in which Ihad dreampt that I saw him dying at Trichinopoly.After my arrival at Vepery, I had still to wait eight days for the return of Mrs. Gericke and the little boy from Ongole, without a syllable from them; and when she arrived, we had to lift her out of her palankeen like a corpse, having lost the use of her limbs and all her strength. She can now walk again, but does not come out of her room.— She is quite regardless of life. All my brethren and my friends have not expected that I should survive so much affliction. I know what I feel, and my feelings on such occasions, though not violent, are lasting. I loved my children dearly. God gave them, and God heard my prayers every day in the education of them. They cost me much anxiety; and when the Lord had helped me so far as that I was no longer in any anxiety about them, he took them from me. But," adds this truly pious man, "he has not withdrawn his comforts. He makes me die to the world, and gives me that peace which the world cannot give. He keeps me in health, and I go on in my services. My sorrows draw me to the God of all consolation,' and wean me from the world."

We cannot be surprised that sorrows such as

these should have undermined the health of one so susceptible and affectionate. It is a striking proof of the power of religion in his heart that he should, amidst them all, have exhibited such ardent and unremitting zeal and diligence in his missionary labors. The consternation and grief which pervaded all classes on the death of this excellent and valuable man, cannot be described. His mild, meek, and humble character, had endeared him to persons of distinguished rank, as well as to those of inferior station. His conversation, it is said, was particularly agreeable and instructive, from the stores of information which his long experience and attentive observation had enabled him to accumulate. He spoke with so much wisdom, that all who heard him were pleased; and even such as differed from him on the subject of religion, respected, and revered his piety. The simplicity and integrity of his character, had obtained for him the title of "The primitive Christian." Though the propagation of the gospel was his chief object, and occupied his principal attention, he took a lively interest in all institutions for the general good, and particularly encouraged the cultivation of learning and science. He even paid a monthly salary to a Brahmin for assisting one of his brethren in the study of Indian literature. His readiness and diligence in doing good were unwearied, and his charities boundless. Though from various sources he had derived considerable wealth, he observed the utmost frugality in his style of living, that he might be able to afford more extensive relief to the poor and needy, the widow and the orphan. To his brethren, he was a most kind and generous friend and benefactor; never assuming any superiority over them, but ever being the first to take upon himself the heaviest burdens, to assist and to comfort them. In the year 1800, he rebuilt the church at Cuddalore out of his own funds; and at his death, besides a provision for the Christian poor at Negapatam, Mr. Gericke left to the Vepery mission fifteen thousand star pagodas, together with the reversion of another considerable sum and a large house, on the demise of his widow. He was, in short, only inferior in piety and benevolence to Swartz himself, whose cordial and affectionate friend and coadjutor he had been during a lengthened period of service, and with whom, after no long interval, he was re-united in happiness and glory for ever.t

his own various and protracted labors the year after the death of Swartz. He had associated with himself in the direction of the orphan house the late excellent Dr. Knapp; but the religious state of the German univers ies at this period, which has been already alluded to, rendered every application of this kind for the present fruitless.

When Mr. Gericke was called to the mission at Vepery in 1787, he left at Cuddalore Mr. Christopher Horst, a young man who had studied in a German university, to superintend the schools, at that place. His piety, zeal, and diligence in that subordinate capacity had been most exemplary, and on Mr. Holzberg's settlement at Cuddalore, he removed to Tranquebar to qualify himself more perfectly for the service of the mission. Hitherto the generous Gericke had allowed him a salary of £60 a year; but as that had now ceased, Mr. Pohle, whose health was beginning to decline, requested the Society to supply this deficiency, and to permit him to assist in the mission at Trichinopoly. The Society readily consented to send Mr. Horst a gratuity of £50 for his recent services at Cuddalore, but suspended any permanent salary till farther accounts were received of his competency to act as a missionary. About three years afterwards this promising young man having fully proved his qualifications for the ministry, was ordained, according to the rites of the Lutheran church, by Messrs. Pohle, Kohlhoff, and Holzberg, and with the approbation of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, was appointed to a share in the extensive labors of the Tanjore mission. An extract from one of his letters to a friend in the midst of the French conquests in Germany, will give a pleasing view of his disinterested and zealous piety.

"I wrote," he observes, to Germany in 1806," the year of his ordination, "to order a printing press, with divers Latin and a few German types to be sent out to me from Copenhagen, together with Malabar types from Halle, at my own expense independent of the one which we hope to obtain from England. I was then joint owner of a manor left by my maternal grandfather, and had three thousand dollars of one year's income of that estate in the hands of my attornies. But now the estate, as well as the three thousand dollars, have no doubt become a prey to the grand nation. The Lord's will be done! He will provide for myself and mine.Only I regret the press. When I bespoke it, I thought that in the event of a casualty, (which God avert,) I should be obliged to go to Trichinopoly, and then my own press should have gone with me. Meanwhile, I would have used it constantly at Tanjore."

Mr. Horst was married, and had a large family; and in the same letter in which the preceding passage occurs he says, "My private circumstances are poor, and I find it a hard matter to make both ends meet."

* About £6,000 sterling.

its own fertilizing rivers, throughout the neighboring lands." Wherever he travelled, this eminent man

"We pray our gracious Lord," writes Mr. Horst to Dr. Buchanan, in 1809, "abundantly to requite your munificence to his servants. God bless you, dear sir, more than words can express, for your affection to his work among the heathen. Now Mr. Kohlhoff needs not make any further debts; and may by degrees pay off those which he has been obliged to contract, in order to maintain the many native laborers in the Tinnevelly district, for which the interest of Mr. Swartz's legacy is not sufficient."

This valuable man had entered warmly into Dr. Buchanan's wishes to collect materials for a life of the venerable missionary, but he was not long spared for this or any other service. In the year 1810, Mr. Kohlhoff announced to the Society the painful intelligence of his death. His learning and abilities, he observed, his ardent desire to be useful, the fervor and delight with which he ever pursued his work, and the essential services which he had rendered to himself and to the mission, had given him great cause to lament so early and unexpected a removal, which had deprived the mission of a faithful pastor, and a wife and numerous famiy of an affectionate husband, and a kind parent. It was particularly afflicting to have him called away at a time when the want of faithful missionaries was so severely felt; whilst his amiable disposition and uncommon application to business, had afforded the most sanguine hope of his proving a blessing to the missions. "The sufferings he underwent," adds Mr. Kohlhoff, " during the latter part of his illness, were very severe; yet he endured them with the patience and firmness of a Christian. His humble submission to the will of God, on his approaching dissolution, was truly awakening to every one that attended him; while the peace and tranquillity which he enjoyed to his very last breath, was a lively example of the inestimable happiness that attends a life of godliness."

Well might the aged Pohle, on hearing of this distressing loss, exclaim, in a letter to the Society, "Would to God that we could receive new missionaries! I am upwards of sixty-six years old; my strength faileth me, and I may soon be gone, and the mission be left an unprovided orphan. May the Lord hear our prayers, and help us for his mercy's sake!"

Under these afflicting circumstances, the native priest Sattianaden being now also advanced in age, and unequal to the laborious duties which he had hitherto performed among the country congregations, Mr. Pohle and Mr. Kohlhoff, with the consent of the Society, and the concurrence of their Danish brethren, resorted to the best and indeed the only means of increasing the number of their fellow laborers in their power. They selected four of the most pious and experienced native catechists attached to the Tanjore mission, one of whom was Nyanapracasam, the history of whose conversion the reader will remember, and all of whom, to adopt their own expressions, "had from their childhood had the happiness of enjoying the sound and wholesome instructions of their late father, the revered Swartz, and to whom the words of St. Paul to Timothy, 'Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them,' might justly and with good reason be applied;" and having examined and heard them preach their probationary sermons, after a discourse by Mr. Kohlhoff

While these zealous missionaries were thus endeavoring to supply the loss of their departed brethren, and in some measure to provide for the religious wants of their rapidly increasing congregations, a spirit had been excited in England, which, though it did not immediately respond to their reiterated entreaties for additional laborers from Europe, cheered their desponding hearts, and afforded the most gratifying proof of a widely extended and increasing interest in the promotion of Christianity in India. The attention of Dr. Buchanan had, it is well known, been anxiously directed during his residence in Bengal to the inadequate provision which had hitherto been made for the support of Christianity among the European population in India, as well as to the deplorable condition in a moral and religious point of view, of the natives of that vast empire. Towards the close of the year 1805, his "Memoir on the Expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India, both as the means of perpetuating the Christian religion among our own countrymen, and as a foundation for the ultimate civilization” (as he cautiously expressed it, but as we may now fearlessly add, the conversion) "of the natives," was published in England. More than a century had elapsed since Archbishop Tennison and Dean Prideaux had expressed their earnest wishes for such an establishment of our church in India; but though the possessions, the power, and the responsibility of the British nation had since that period so immensely increased, little had been attempted towards promoting the interests of Christianity, beyond the addition of a few chaplains at some of the principal stations of the East India Company, and the efforts which have been partially detailed in the preceding pages of the Danish and English missionaries on the coast of Coromandel, and in the south of the peninsula.

The appeal thus unexpectedly made by Dr. Buchanan to the British nation, preceded and followed as it was by the proposal of prizes to the universities, and of other publications upon the same important subject, produced a very striking and permanent impression upon the public mind. During the two years which succeeded the appearance of his memoir, the question of an ecclesiastical establishment, as well as that of the duty of this Christian country to afford facilities for the propagation of the gospel in India, received the most ample and complete discussion; and the result was, that on the approaching renewal of the charter of the East India Company in the year 1812, a simultaneous effort was made by the more religious part of the community to enforce upon the government the necessity of making some effectual provision for these sacred and important purposes. In these endeavors to obtain the performance of a solemn national duty, the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and the Church Missionary Society, warmly and effectively participated, by presenting memorials to the directors of the East India Company, and to his majesty's ministers, in which the whole subject was admirably discussed and powerfully urged. The success with which these truly Christian exertions were crowned is well known, in the establishment of the bishopric of Calcutta, and of an archdeaconry at each of the three presidencies; nor is it too much to assert, that while none of the evils predicted by the opponents of this great measure