He did not attack the system of caste, with its multitudinous separations and distinctions.

Of course he wished it to be abolished, but he accepted converts without requiring its renunciation, allowed high-caste persons to sit apart in the churches, and to communicate before Pariahs, and did not interfere with their habits of touching no food that the very finger of a person of a different caste had defiled.

He no doubt thought these things would wither away of themselves, but his having permitted them, left a world of difficulty to his successors.
He lived, however, the life of a saint, nearly that of an ascetic.

His almost unfurnished house was shared with some younger missionary.
Kohloff, who was one of these, related in after years how plain their diet was.

Some tea in a jug, with boiling water poured over it and dry bread broken into it, formed the breakfast, which lasted five minutes; dinner, at one, was of broth or curry; and at eight at night they had some meal or gruel.