The Period of Schwartz
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seems to have been the exception; there is no evidence in the records of his making use of such methods, except once with a young apprentice who seemed to Schwartz to need this kind of fatherly correction. He believed in the power of love and gentleness to heal all ills. It seems that Pohle in time learnt from him. He served in the mission for no less than forty years and in his later years was greatly respected by all. He, like the younger Kohlhoff, served as a link between the earlier and the later phases of the mission.
Once free from the narrowness of Tranquebar and the many cares of Tiruchirapalli, Schwartz was able to turn his eyes to yet wider fields. The Roman Catholic missions had in the past been strong in the extreme south of India. The largest number ofadherents was among the Paravas on the Coast, but from the seventeenth century on there had been congregations at Kayattar and Vadakkankulam. But the withdrawal of the Jesuits and the final dissolution of their order had had the lamentable consequences elsewhere described, and the time was ripe for a new beginning. The first reference to Palayankottai (Palamcottah) and to the district of Tirunelveli, is to be found in Schwartz' journal for 1771.87 The progress of the church in India was at all times linked to the mobility of Christians, and especially of Christian soldiers in the armies of the Company and of the local rulers. A member of the Lutheran congregation named Savarimuthu was resident in Palayankottai. An English sergeant, who had an Indian wife, was interested in the Christian cause. A young accountant had listened with pleasure to the teaching; the sergeant had instructed him in the essentials of the Christian faith and had then proceeded to baptise him. Schwartz was disturbed by this action, not so much because it had been carried out by a layman, as because it ran contrary to his concern for careful preparation before baptism. In February 1778 Schwartz was called to Palayankottai by a European officer who wished to be married and who informed him also that there was a number of children to be baptised. The congregation in Palayankottai now numbered about fifty - evidence of the strength of the Christian movement in places further north, from which these soldiers and their families had migrated. On this occasion Schwartz encountered a Brahman widow with whom he had already had dealings in Thanjavur. This lady had been living in irregular union with an English officer,88 who had given her some instruction in the Christian faith but who for some reason was unwilling to regularise the union. Schwartz had been in a difficulty; it was against his rule to marry unbaptised persons, but equally he felt it impossible to baptise a woman who was living, by strict Christian standards, in a sinful liaison. At that time nothing could be done, but now the difficulty had been removed - the officer
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