caste,
professing to have come from Brahma's shoulders, and second only to the
Brahmins. They were desperately offended. At Trichinopoly, only seven
Soodra families continued to attend the services, although the seceders
behaved quietly, and offered no insults either to the clergy or the
pariahs. At Vepery, on the reading of the Bishop's letter, the whole
Soodra population walked out _en masse_, except one catechist, who joined
them afterwards. They then drew up a paper, declaring that they would
not yield, and would neither come to church nor send their children to
school, unless they continued to be distinguished; and they set up a
service of their own in a chapel lent them by a missionary belonging to
the London Society. He was, however, reprimanded for this by the
committee which employed him at Madras, and the chapel was withdrawn;
upon which the Soodras remained without any public worship whatever for
five months, when the catechists and schoolmasters came forward and
acknowledged their pride and contumacy, the children dropped into the
schools, and the grown-up people, one by one, returned to church, but in
their own way.

At Tanjore, the contest was a much harder one. Serfojee had died in
1834, and the son whom Bishop Heber had vainly tried to obtain for
education was one of the ordinary specimens of indolent, useless rajahs,
enjoying ease and display under British protection; but the Mission had
gone on thriving as to numbers, though scarcely as to earnestness or
energy; and the Christians numbered 7,000, with 107 catechists and four
native clergy, under the management of Mr. Kohloff, almost the last of
Schwartz's fellow-workers. The Bishop's letter was read aloud by him,
after the sermon, on the 10th of November, 1833. There was an immediate
clamour of all the Soodras, who would not be hushed by being reminded
that they were in church, and, while Mr. Kohloff was being assisted from
the pulpit, gathered round his wife and insulted her.

Letters passed between the Soodras and the missionaries. There was no
denial that the Bishop's command was right in itself; but an immense
variety of excuses were offered for not complying with it, and only one
of the four priests consented,--Nyanapracasem, an old man of eighty, who
may be remembered as one of Schwartz's earliest converts, and of the four
priests ordained by the Lutherans,--with three catechists, and ten of the
general body; all the others remained in