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 BV 3705 .M3 B44 1881 
 Bell, Charles Dent. 
 Henry Martyn 
 
 
HEROES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. 
 
 A Series of Popular Biographies 
 
 BY 
 
 EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 To be issued at brie/ intervals. 
 
 l2mo Vols., bound in cloth. Price, 75c. each. 
 
 A series of short biographies of men eminent in religious his- 
 tory, by writers of recognized ability. Popular in style, trust- 
 worthy, and comprehensive, and dealing with the most interesting 
 characters and events in the story of the Christian Church. The 
 series will condense, in entertaining form, the essential facts of the 
 great body of religious literature, and will have special value for 
 the large class anxious for information touching these great men, 
 but unable, by reason of limited leisure or means, to read more 
 elaborate works. 
 
 HENRY MARTYN. *" 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 CHARLES D. BELL, M.A., D.D., 
 
 Honorary Canon of Carlisle, and Rector of Cheltenham. 
 
 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D., 
 
 Author of " Homes and Haunts of Luther," " History of Religion in 
 
 England," etc. 
 
 PHILIP DODDRIDGE. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 CHARLES STANFORD, D.D., 
 Author of " Joseph Alleine," " Homilies on Christian Work. 
 
 STEPHEN GRELLET. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 WILLIAM GUEST, F.G.S., 
 
 Author of " Fidelia Fiske," " The Young Man's Safeguard in the Perils of 
 
 the Age," etc. 
 
RICHARD BAXTER. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 G. D. BOYLE, Af.A., 
 
 Dean of Salisbury, and late Vicar of Kidderminster. 
 
 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 WILLIAM M. TA YLOR, D.D., 
 
 Of New York, 
 
 Author of " The Limitations of Life," etc. 
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 JAMES CULROSS, D.D., 
 
 Author of " The Disciple whom Jesus Loved. 
 
 ROBERT HALL.' 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 E. PAX TON HOOD, 
 
 Author of *' The World of Anecdote," " The Romance of Biography," etc. 
 
 FLETCHER OF MADELEY. 
 
 By THE Rev. 
 F. IV. MACDONALD. 
 
 JOHN WYCLIFFE. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 JAMES FLEMING, B.D., 
 
 Hon. Chaplain to the Queen, Canon of York, and Vicar of St. Michael's, 
 
 Chester Square. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 DONALD ERASER, D.D., 
 
 Author of " Blending Lights," etc. 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 
 
 By the Rev. 
 
 H. SINCLAIR PA PERSON, M.D., 
 
 Author of " Studies in Life," etc. 
 
 *if* Copies sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
 New York: A. C. ARMSTRONG k SON, 714 Broadway. 
 
HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 CHARLES dXeELL, D.D., 
 
 Honorary Cajw7i of Carlisle, and Rector of Cheltenham. 
 Author of "Night Scenes of the Bible," etc. 
 
 *-' 
 
 NEW YORK; 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, 
 
 714 BROADWAY. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI. 
 
 {All rights reserved^ 
 
fSOPERTy Of 
 EI 
 
 3PERTy or*<<^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -^-f^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MARTYN^S EARLY LIFE I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CAMBRIDGE 20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA ...... 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INDIA • ^3 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CAWNPORE 96 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SHIRAZ • • .119 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH 1 36 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 SELECTIONS FROM MARTYN 'S CORRESPONDENCE . 1 52 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 MARTYN'S EARLY LII'E, 
 [1781— 1802.] 
 
 THERE are names in ecclesiastical history more 
 conspicuous than his who is the subject of the 
 following memoir ; but it may be doubted whether any 
 one of them is more worthy of being held in everlasting 
 remembrance. It may be safely said that none of those 
 who sleep in the martyr's grave, and wear the martyr's 
 crown, ever laid himself more willingly a living sacrifice 
 on the altar of the Lord, or more readily surrendered 
 home and country, love and ambition at the call of God, 
 than did Henry JNIartyn. 
 
 From the great world without there are borne to our 
 ears high-sounding phrases about heroes and heroic 
 deeds. If we ask the world for the man whom it digni- 
 fies with the title of hero, and whose name it embalms 
 in its annals, it points us to men of high daring and lofty 
 enterprise — to the victor on the red field of war, to the 
 patriot who defends the altars and the hearths of his 
 native land. No one can be insensible to the charms 
 
 I B 
 
2 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 that invest the chivalrous deed or the patriotic exploit. 
 The heart must be cold indeed which does not kindle 
 as it thinks of the soldier who goes forth for no selfish 
 end, nor to weave the laurel round his own brow, 
 but simply at the call of his country, to dare and to 
 endure only so far as she commands, and having accom- 
 plished his mission returns home to repose gratefully 
 among the citizens whose rights he has defended, and 
 whose liberties he has secured. The heroic element 
 exists in such a character, and demands our warmest 
 recognition. True greatness is not to be measured by 
 cities ravaged and villages overrun, that one man may 
 set his individual self on a pedestal which culminates 
 above the world; but it is to be looked for rather 
 through the light of self-sacrifice, when the strongest 
 ties are severed, and the fondest hopes are relin- 
 quished ; when danger is braved, and toil endured that 
 others may benefit by the peril that has been en- 
 countered, and the enjoyment that has been resigned. 
 If the spirit of self-sacrifice enters, as it must, into 
 the character of every one w^ho deserves the name of 
 hero, then where are we to turn for the most striking 
 illustrations of this virtue? Where shall we find the 
 most touching records of men who, with no earthly re- 
 ward in prospect, with no anticipation of worldly honour, 
 or glory, or gain, have trampled on every selfish thought, 
 content to bear all that wrings the heart or wears down 
 the frame ; yea, to be brought face to face with death, 
 that blessings may be secured to others by their heroic 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 
 
 self-offering and devotion ? Not to the red scutcheon on 
 which is emblazoned the name of the warrior ; not to the 
 monument of marble or brass where stands the form of 
 tlie statesman ; nor to the medallion engraven with the 
 features of the poet or historian, however worthy they 
 may be of a place in the great heart of a nation's love : 
 but to the records of some noble missionary society, 
 where we read of men who have cast aside the ties of 
 country and kin, and have hastened to polar snows or to 
 burning sands, that they might carry the tidings of salva- 
 tion to the benighted and degraded of our race ; not 
 shrinking from death itself, but ''hazarding their 'lives 
 for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ/' Are not a 
 Brainerd, a Schwartz, a Williams,— all of them martyrs 
 in spirit, and one of them in terrible reality,— deserving 
 a niche in the temple of Fame, and should not thefr 
 names have a place on the bead-roll which is conse- 
 crated to those who are benefactors of mankind? 
 
 And Martyn, who, though crowned with the highest 
 honours a university could bestow, and distinguished by 
 talents which attracted the admiration of one of our 
 most celebrated seats of learning, -Martyn, who joyfully 
 abandoned the shades of academic renown for distant 
 lands and a burning clime, devoting every energy of 
 mind and body to the service of the Cross,— shall we not 
 venerate his memory, and give him a foremost place in 
 our honour and regard ? As we advance in his story it 
 will be seen that he was endowed with a patience, a for- 
 titude, a humility, a love, a zeal for the Divine glory and 
 
4 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 the salvation of men, such as has not been often paral- 
 leled since the days that apostles trod the earth, and 
 made manifest in every place the savour of the know- 
 ledge of Christ Jesus. 
 
 Henry Martyn was born in Truro, in the county of 
 Cornwall, on the i8th of February, 1781. He was the 
 third child of a numerous family, of whom two sons and 
 two daughters survived their father. John Martyn, the 
 father, was originally a man of humble life, having been 
 a working miner in the mines of Gwennap, the place 
 where he was born. He had, however, a large share of 
 energy, mental as well as physical ; and he took advan- 
 tage of every period of relaxation from manual labour, 
 and devoted it to the improvement of his mind. The 
 miners used to work and rest alternately every four 
 hours ; and in the hours of rest he acquired a complete 
 knowledge of arithmetic, and some acquaintance with 
 mathematics. This diligence in self-culture obtained its 
 reward. He rose gradually from a state of poverty to 
 one of comparative comfort ; and being admitted into 
 the office of Mr. Daniel, a merchant at Truro, he lived 
 there respected and esteemed by all his acquaintance. 
 It was while he was chief clerk in this office that his son 
 Henry was born, a child of a delicate nature, for he, as 
 well as the other children, inherited the consumptive 
 constitution of their mother. 
 
 ^^'hen Henry was between seven and eight years of 
 age, he was placed by his father at the Grammar School 
 in the town, the master of which was the Rev. Cornelius 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 5 
 
 Cardew, a gentleman of learning and talent. Little is 
 known of his childhood, and we have but a meagre ac- 
 count of his school-days. He was of a naturally gentle 
 spirit, inferior to most of his companions in bodily 
 strength, of good abilides, but of little application. " He 
 did not fail," said Mr. Cardew, soon after the lad was 
 placed under his care, " he did not fail to answer the 
 expectations that had been formed of him ; his pro- 
 ficiency in the classics exceeded that of most of his 
 schoolfellows, yet there were boys who made a more 
 rapid progress, not perhaps that their abilities were 
 superior, but their application greater, for he was of a 
 lively, cheerful temper, and, as I have been told by those 
 who sat near him, appeared to be the idlest amongst 
 them, and was frequently known to go up to his lesson 
 with little or no preparation, as if he had learned it 
 merely by intuition." Though of a lively and cheerful 
 disposition, he kept much to himself, shunned the 
 society of the other boys, seldom took part in their 
 sports, and as a consequence was exposed to the ridicule 
 and the tyranny of those older or stronger than him- 
 self " Little Harry Marty n," — the name by which he 
 usually went — says one of his earliest friends and com- 
 panions, " was in a manner proverbial among his school- 
 fellows for a peculiar tenderness and inoffensiveness of 
 spirit, which exposed him to the ill oflices of many over- 
 bearing boys; and as there was at times some peevishness 
 of manner when attacked, he was often unkindly treated. 
 That he might receive assistance in his lessons he was 
 
6 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 placed near one of the upper boys, with whom he con- 
 tracted a friendship which lasted through life, and whose 
 imagination readily recalls the position in which he used 
 to sit, the thankful expression of his affectionate 
 countenance when he happened to be helped out of 
 some difficulty, and a thousand litde incidents of his 
 boyish days." Besides assisting him in his studies, his 
 friend, it is added, '' had often the happiness of rescuing 
 him from the grasp of oppressors, and has never seen 
 more feeling gratitude than was shown by him on these 
 occasions." It is evident that even as a boy he was not 
 deficient in resoluteness of will, for before he reached 
 his fifteenth year he was induced to offer himself as a 
 candidate for a vacant scholarship at Corpus Christi 
 College, Oxford. Though so young, and without any 
 interest in the University, and with only a single letter to 
 one of the tutors, he went there alone, and passed so good 
 an examination that some of the examiners thought he 
 ought to have been elected. In after years he acknow- 
 ledged the hand of God in his failure. Had he 
 succeeded in his wishes, the whole colour of his after 
 life would have been changed, and his spiritual well- 
 being hurt by his temporal success. He says as much 
 in an account prefixed to his private journal some years 
 afterwards. " Had I remained and become a member 
 of the University at that time, as I should have done in 
 case of success, the profligate acquaintance I had there 
 would have introduced me to a scene of debauchery in 
 which I must in all probability, from my extreme youth, 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 7 
 
 have sunk for ever." So he was saved from a sphere in 
 which even he, with all his pure instincts and earnest 
 aspirations, would have succumbed to what is base and 
 degrading, and like too many others who in their youth 
 have been exposed to the fires of temptation, he would 
 have suffered his body to become the sepulchre of his 
 soul. He was just at that time of life when the character 
 is most susceptible of impressions for good or evil ; and 
 had it been corrupted by those whose great pleasure it 
 is to make the innocent as vile as themselves, he might 
 have been trammelled for years in the bondage of evil, 
 and have gone down to a dishonoured tomb, wounded 
 and slain by the sins of his youth. 
 
 On his failure to obtain the vacant scholarship, he re- 
 turned home, and resumed his studies at Dr. Cardew's 
 school. Here he remained till the June of 1797. The 
 success achieved at college by the friend who had been 
 his guide and protector at school, turned his thoughts 
 to the University of Cambridge, where that friend had 
 already entered and was winning much distinction. 
 Hoping, no doubt, to profit still by his advice and 
 assistance, he gave the preference to Cambridge over 
 Oxford, and began his residence at St. John's College 
 in the month of October, 1797. 
 
 His choice of universities did not arise from any taste 
 for mathematics, for in the autumn before he went to 
 Cambridge he spent a great part of his time with his gun 
 and in reading books of travel and Lord Chesterfield's 
 Letters, to the neglect of Euclid and algebra. How 
 
8 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 little knowledge he had of the nature and methods of 
 mathematics, may be gathered from the fact that he 
 attempted to learn the propositions of Euclid by heart, 
 confiding in a retentive memory, and hoping to become 
 eventually the Senior Wrangler of his year. 
 
 The first years of Martyn's college life present 
 nothing particular for comment. Happily for him the 
 friend of his boyish days became the counsellor of his 
 riper years. He alludes to this in his journal. " During 
 the first term I was kept a good deal in idleness by 
 some of my new acquaintances, but the kind attention 
 
 of was a principal means of my preservation from 
 
 excess." From the place that he obtained in the first 
 class at the public examination of his college in 
 December, it is evident that he gave some attention to 
 his studies, and this early success, combined with his 
 desire to gratify his father, encouraged him to increased 
 application and diligence. He had the reward of this 
 at another public examination in the summer, when he 
 reached the second station in the first class, an honour 
 "which flattered his pride not a little." 
 
 His college career was such as to command general 
 approbation. He was outwardly moral, unwearied in 
 his studies, and to the eye of the world his life was in 
 the highest degree praiseworthy and estimable. He was 
 ambitious of obtaining honour, and displayed signs of 
 no ordinary talent. But whatever may have been the 
 excellences and virtues of his character at this time, 
 truthful as he was, upright, clear-headed, large-hearted, 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 9 
 
 he was still ignorant of spiritual things, and was hving 
 *' without God in the world." One exception to the 
 general amiability of his character was a certain irrita- 
 bility of temper which was natural to him, and which had 
 been increased during his younger days by the tyranny 
 and cruelty of his schoolfellows. A sudden gust of 
 passion had on one occasion nearly brought the sin of 
 blood-guiltiness on his soul. An acquaintance had in 
 some way excited his anger, and Martyn, obeying 
 the first impulse of his heated temper, snatched a 
 knife and threw it at the offender, not knowing but that 
 it might be buried in his heart. Mercifully he missed 
 his aim, and the knife glancing past his friend was left 
 quivering in the wall. Indeed, this was but one proof 
 amongst many that his heart was far from God, and that 
 he was living the ignoble life of a man whose thoughts 
 and aspirations centred round self, and whose desires 
 were bounded by the horizon of this world. His college 
 friend, whose mind was bent upon righteousness, was 
 fortunately at hand to remind him that God regards the 
 motives of our actions, and to persuade him to attend to 
 his studies from right principles, for the glory of God, 
 and not for the praise of men. Besides having the 
 great blessing of a Christian friend in the University, he 
 had also the happiness of having a sister in Cornwall 
 who possessed that "ornamentof a meek and quiet spirit, 
 which in the sight of God is of great price.^' She was 
 of a very heavenly and affectionate mind, and often in 
 the tenderest manner urged upon her brother the solemn 
 
lo HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 claims of God upon his love. He paid a visit to her 
 and to the other members of his family in the summer 
 of the year 1799, carrying with him no small degree of 
 academical honour, though not to the extent that he had 
 fondly expected. He not only lost the prize for themes 
 in his college, but came out second instead of first at 
 the public examination. '' This double disappointment 
 nettled him to the quick." His sister, more anxious for 
 his highest interests than for his success in carrying off 
 university honours, often spoke to him on the subject 
 nearest her heart, and laid before him the claims of 
 religion ; but, as he acknowledges, " the sound of the. 
 gospel, conveyed in the admonitions of a sister, was 
 grating to my ears." The result of her efforts was at 
 this time anything but encouraging, and the love of the 
 world prevailed over her tender exhortations and the 
 whispers of the still small voice within. In after years 
 he thus wrote of his state of mind during this summer 
 vacation : " I do not remember a time in which the 
 wickedness of my heart rose to a greater height 
 than during my stay at home. The consummate 
 selfishness and exquisite instability of my mind were 
 displayed in rage, malice, and envy, in pride and 
 vainglory, and contempt of all, in the harshest language 
 to my sister, and even my father, if he happened to 
 differ from my mind and will. Oh, what an example 
 of patience and mildness was he! I love to think of his 
 excellent qualities, and it is frequently the anguish of my 
 heart that I ever could be base and wicked enough to 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. ii 
 
 pain him by the sh'ghtest neglect. O my God and 
 Father, why is not my heart doubly agonized at the remem- 
 brance of all my great transgressions against Thee ever 
 since I have known Thee as such ! I left my sister and 
 father in October, and him I saw no more. I promised 
 my sister that I would read the Bible for myself, but on 
 being settled in college Newton engaged all my thoughts." 
 There now came a turning-point in his history. He 
 was arrested in the midst of his thoughtless and ambitious 
 career by an event in his family which came upon him 
 with a crushing force. In the Christmas of 1794 he had 
 passed a most successful examination. He was first 
 among many competitors, and sent home the intelligence 
 which filled his father's heart with joy. He heard in 
 return that his father was delighted with his son's hon- 
 ours, and was in the highest spirits and the best of 
 health. The following week brought another letter. It 
 was in the handwriting ot his brother. When he broke 
 the seal he learnt that his father was dead. The sudden, 
 the unexpected, the heartrending news overwhelmed 
 him with sorrow. But the sorrow was unto salvation. 
 He was " sowing in tears that he might reap in joy." 
 Bitter thoughts of the last vacation he had spent at home, 
 and the pain he had given his father, came flashing to 
 his mind, and filled him with sad regrets and poignant 
 grief. Never would he see his father more to ask for- 
 giveness, or atone for past ingratitude by obedience 
 in the future. It was too late. That door was shut for 
 ever. Besides all this, thoughts of the world beyond the 
 
12 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 grave forced themselves on his mind, and would not be 
 stilled. He, as well as his father, must pass through 
 " the valley of the shadow of death." His spirits were 
 affected. He became troubled and downcast. He lost 
 his pleasure in his old studies, and had no heart to pur- 
 sue them. He took up his Bible, thinking that the con- 
 sideration of religion was suitable to a time so solemn ; 
 and though other books were often allowed to engage his 
 attention, yet on the advice of his friend he made this 
 season of deep conviction of sin one also of serious 
 reflection. He began his study of the Bible with the 
 Acts of the Apostles, as being the most interesting part 
 of the Bible, and was insensibly led on to inquire more 
 diligently into the doctrines of the apostles. With the 
 reading of the Bible he began also to use a precomposed 
 form of prayer, in which he thanked God in general 
 terms for having sent Christ into the world. But though 
 he prayed for pardon, he had little sense of his own 
 sinfulness, and indeed was so self-satisfied that he began 
 to consider himself a religious man. The first time he 
 went to the college chapel he was struck by the expres- 
 sions of joy which occur in the "Magnificat" at the 
 coming of a Saviour. These had fallen on a listless and 
 inattentive ear before. While he was in this mood, his 
 friend lent him Doddridge's " Rise and Progress of Reli- 
 gion in the Soul." The opening part of the book he 
 disliked, because he thought it made religion consist too 
 much in humiliation, and his proud heart could not bear 
 to be brought down to tlie dust. 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 13 
 
 Soon after Henry had been called to pass through 
 the furnace of affliction, the public exercises began 
 in the University; and although the loss of his father 
 had taken away the great incentive to exertion, he 
 again devoted himself to his mathematical studies with 
 unwearied perseverance. His name stood first upon the 
 list at the college examination in the summer of the year 
 1800. He announced his success in a letter to his sis- 
 ter, which from its whole tone must have filled her heart 
 with joy. "What a blessing it is for me that I have 
 
 such a sister as you, my dear , who have been so 
 
 instrumental in keeping me in the right way." . 
 "How I rejoice to find that we disagreed only about 
 words! 1 did not doubt, as you suppose, at all 
 about that joy which true believers feel. Can there be 
 any one subject, any one source of cheerfulness and joy, 
 at all to be compared with the heavenly serenity and 
 comfort which such a person must find in holding com- 
 munion with his God and Saviour in prayer, in address- 
 ing God as his Father ; and more than all in the trans- 
 porting hope of being preserved unto everlasting life, 
 and of singing praises to his Redeemer when time shall 
 be no more ! Oh, I do indeed feel this state of mind at 
 times ; but at other times I feel quite humbled at find- 
 ing myself so cold and hard-hearted." ..." With 
 respect to the dealings of the Almighty with me, you 
 have heard in general the chief of my account; as I am 
 brought to a sense of things gradually, there is nothing 
 peculiarly striking in it to particularize. After the death 
 
14 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 of our father, you know I was extremely low-spirited, 
 and, like most other people, began to consider seriously, 
 without any particular determination, that invisible world 
 to which he was gone, and to which I must one day go. 
 Yet still I read the Bible unenlightened, and said a 
 prayer or two, rather through terror of a superior power 
 than from any other cause. Soon, however, I began to 
 attend more diligently to the words of our Saviour in 
 the New Testament, and to devour them with delight. 
 When the offers of mercy and forgiveness were made so 
 freely, I supplicated to be made partaker of the cove- 
 nant of grace, with eagerness and hope ; and thanks be 
 to the ever-blessed Trinity for not leaving me without 
 comfort. Throughout the whole, however, even when 
 the light of Divine truth was beginning to dawn on my 
 mind, I was not under the great terror of future punish- 
 ment which I see plainly I had every reason to feel. 
 I look back now upon that course of wickedness which, 
 like a gulf of destruction, yawned to swallow me up, with 
 a trembling delight, mixed with shame at having lived so 
 long in ignorance and error and blindness. I could say 
 
 more, my dear , but I have no more room. I 
 
 have only to express my acquiescence in viost of your 
 opinions, and to join with you in gratitude to God for 
 His mercies to us. May He preserve you, and me, and 
 all of us to the day of the Lord ! " 
 
 How cheering must such a letter have been to such a 
 sister in her season of deep affliction ! How happy for 
 Martyn himself that he could thus freely make known 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 15 
 
 the workings of his heart to a relative so wise and affec- 
 tionate, and who had drunk so deeply into the spirit of 
 Christ. At this time he also began to attend the minis- 
 try of that eminent man of God, the Rev. Charles 
 Simeon, Vicar of Trinity Church, Cambridge ; and under 
 his valuable teaching he "gradually acquired," to use 
 his own words, "more knowledge in Divine things." 
 
 Before the close of his academical career Martyn 
 attained the eminence on which from his first entrance 
 into college his ambition had been fixed. He had 
 toiled with such unflagging diligence, in the hope of 
 reaching this place of distinguished merit, that he was 
 known in his college as " the man that had not lost an 
 hour." His ambition and industry were rewarded, and 
 before he completed his 20th year the highest honour 
 the University can bestow was conferred upon the 
 youthful student, and he came out as Senior Wrangler, 
 in the January of 1801. There was that year an un- 
 usually large number of able competitors, and no doubt 
 he amongst the others felt anxious about the issue, but 
 the recollection of a sermon which he had lately heard 
 calmed and composed his mind. The text was, — • 
 "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not, 
 saith the Lord." Entering with the full and free exercise 
 of his powers into the examination, his decided supe- 
 riority in mathematics was soon made evident. Yet in 
 the very hour of successful ambition, he felt how utterly 
 incompetent is anything earthly to satisfy the wants of 
 the soul. There is a sense of dissatisfaction underlying 
 
16 HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 the highest of earthly distinctions. The curse of barren- 
 ness is upon them all. There are yearnings in the human 
 heart which the husks of the world cannot meet and 
 fulfil. What were the feelings of the successful candidate 
 on the occasion? "I obtained my highest wishes, but 
 was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow." The 
 confession of Kirke White to an intimate friend after a 
 similar triumph at Cambridge, may be well placed side 
 by side with that of Henry Martyn. " Were I to paint," 
 he says, " a picture of Fame crowning a distinguished 
 undergraduate, after the Senate House examination, I 
 would represent her as concealing a Death's head under 
 a mask of beauty." Poor White fell an early victim to 
 his consuming thirst for academic distinction. He 
 entered the arena of competition with the seeds of death 
 already sown in his frame through protracted hours of 
 study, and found in the place to which he so long 
 looked forward with hope, ''only a hot-bed to ripen 
 them." 
 
 Having finished his undergraduate course, Henry 
 Martyn went down in the month of March to Cornwall, 
 where, amidst the congratulations of all his friends, his 
 .youngest sister was alone dejected, because she did not 
 see in him that progress in the Divine life which she had 
 been fondly led to anticipate. Tremblingly alive as she 
 was to his highest interests, she longed for his more 
 thorough dedication to God, and his more entire conse- 
 cration to the service of Christ. She urged upon his heart 
 and upon his conscience the solemn sanctions of the gospel. 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 17 
 
 and prayed him to " forget the things that were behind, 
 and to reach fortli unto those things that were before." 
 
 He returned to Cambridge in the summer of the 
 same year, and spent the long vacation most profitably ; 
 and being constrained to be much alone, he employed 
 his solitary hours in meditation with himself, and in 
 communion with God. He now experienced "a real 
 pleasure in religion," being more deeply "convinced of sin 
 than before, more earnest in fleeing to Jesus for refuge, 
 and more desirous for the renewal of his nature." It was 
 during this vacation that he became personally known to 
 Mr. Simeon, with whom he henceforth enjoyed the most 
 friendly intercourse, and for whom he entertained the 
 most grateful, reverential, and filial regard. On all 
 important occasions he sought his counsel, and received 
 in return the most fatherly advice and encouragement. 
 Through Mr. Simeon's kindness he was introduced to 
 several young men of Christian principles, with whom he 
 formed a lasting friendship ; and through Mr. Simeon's 
 influence his mind was turned to the transcendent 
 privileges of the gospel ministry. Up to this time he 
 had determined to apply himself to the study of the law, 
 "chiefly," as he confesses, "because he could not con- 
 sent to be poor for Christ's sake ; " but now he resolved 
 to take holy orders, and to become an ambassador for 
 Christ. 
 
 His steady advance in the Christian life is seen from 
 his correspondence widi his sister, and with his earHcst 
 friend, the whole tone of his letters proving that hia 
 
 c 
 
i8 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 "affections," were "set on things above." He mentions 
 in a letter to his sister an incident which shows the 
 firmness and boldness of his confession of Christ before 
 men. " I have lately," he writes, " been witness to a 
 
 scene of distress. in this town, with whom I 
 
 have been little acquainted, and who had lived to the 
 full extent of his income, is now dying, and his family 
 will be left perfectly destitute. I called yesterday to ! 
 know whether he was still alive, and found his wife in a 
 greater agony than you can conceive. She was wringing 
 her hands, and crying out to me, ' Oh pray for his 
 soul ; ' and then again recollecting her own helpless 
 condition, and telling me of her wretchedness in being 
 turned out upon the wide world without house or home. 
 It was in vain to point to heaven — the heart distracted 
 and overwhelmed with worldly sorrow finds it hard to 
 look to God. Since writing this, I have been to call on 
 
 the daughters of , who had removed to another 
 
 house, because from the violence of their grief they 
 incommoded the sick man. Thither I went to meet 
 them, with my head and heart full of the subject I was 
 come upon. I was surprised to find them cheerful, and 
 thunderstruck to see a gownsman reading a play to them. 
 A play, when their father was lying in the agonies of 
 death ! What a species of consolation ! I rebuked 
 so sharply, and, I am afraid, so intemperately, that a 
 quarrel will perhaps ensue." 
 
 His fears were groundless, and his plain speaking was 
 honoured of God. It made a deep impression on the 
 
MARTYN'S EARLY LIFE. 19 
 
 young gownsman. He not only thanked Marty n for his 
 faithfulness, but he became an altered man, and in after 
 years they both laboured in India together in the further- 
 ance of the kingdom of their common Master and 
 Redeemer. 
 
CHAPTER IT. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 [1802—5.] 
 
 BEFORE Martyn finished his academical career, he 
 won fresh honours. In the March of 1802 he 
 was chosen Fellow of St. John's, and very shortly after- 
 wards he was awarded the first prize for the best Latin 
 prose composition, " a distinction the more remarkable," 
 says his biographer, " as from his entrance into the 
 University he had directed an unceasing and almost 
 undivided attention to mathematics. But the honour 
 which cometh from man now occupied but a secondary 
 place in his mind, and he made rapid attainments in 
 grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Having gained honour after honour he left Cambridge 
 for a visit to his relatives in Cornwall, making a walking 
 tour through Wenlock, Liverpool, and the Vale of Llan- 
 gollen. He kept a journal of his tour, which, though 
 briefly and hastily written, shows that God was in all his 
 thoughts, and evinces great spirituality of mind. When 
 he reached his home he spent many delightful days in 
 the bosom of his family. The affection of his friends ; 
 the happy intercourse with his sister on the things dearest 
 
CAMBRIDGE, 21 
 
 to his heart ; his hours of private devotion ; his daily- 
 study of the Word of God, all contributed to his enjoy- 
 ment. These days left for a long time " a fragrancy 
 upon his mind, and the remembrance of them was 
 sweet." 
 
 In the beginning of October, 1802, the romantic 
 scenery of Cornwall ; the tranquillity of Woodbury, where 
 his brother-in-law resided ; the sacred retirement and the 
 agreeable intercourse with friends, were exchanged for 
 the more arduous engagements of university life. 
 
 The close of this year was a remarkable one in Mar- 
 ty n's history. He had already dedicated himself to the 
 ministry of the gospel; but now he was to give new 
 proofs of his eminent devotion, and fresh evidences of 
 his faith and love. The call to what was to be his life- 
 work was now heard and obeyed. He was one day in 
 the company of Mr. Simeon, when that good man made 
 some remarks on the untold benefits which had resulted 
 from the services of a single missionary. The missionary 
 alluded to was Dr. Carey, in whose heart the love of 
 Christ burned strong and brightly, and who went forth 
 in the strength of God to Hindostan, that he might assail 
 the mightiest stronghold of idolatry ever framed by the 
 great adversary of souls. Martyn's attention was at once 
 arrested; the vast importance of the missionary cause 
 flashed upon his mind, and his soul was stirred to its 
 depths at the thought of the perishing millions who were 
 without God, without Christ, and without hope in the 
 world. 
 
22 HENRY MARTY N. 
 
 Soon after this he read the life of David Brainerd, 
 who, having laboured with remarkable success amongst 
 the North American Indians, died at the early age of 
 thirty-two, rejoicing with a "joy unspeakable, and full of 
 glory." Martyn was much struck with Brainerd's bio- 
 graphy, and, filled with a holy emulation, resolved to 
 follow the noble example of a man who "jeoparded his 
 life unto the death on the high places " of the mission 
 field. The determination was made in no light or 
 empty spirit. He had a heart warmly attached to home, 
 and friends, and country. He loved the refined enjoy- 
 ments of social and literary life. He knew the extent of 
 the sacrifice he was called upon to make, and the trials 
 he must undergo. He was no quixotic enthusiast, no 
 wild adventurer ; but he sat down and counted the cost, 
 and was enabled to relinquish much that made life sweet 
 and home dear, that he might, like the brave apostle of 
 old, " preach amongst the Gentiles the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ." So he resolved to sever home associa- 
 tions ; to abandon the attractions of a brilliant career in 
 England, and the companionship of attached friends, and 
 to go forth to a foreign land, to toil amongst the ignorant 
 and degraded, and to lead a life of comparative isolation, 
 and void of sympathy and affection. But as he weighed 
 the gain and the loss, he threw into the latter scale the 
 glory of the Saviour which might be promoted through his 
 devotion to such a cause, and the imperishable interests 
 of immortal souls, and the plain command of the Master : 
 "Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 23 
 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost." The hour of decision was one of extreme 
 anguish, and at times the struggle amounted to agony. 
 But as he was influenced by the highest motives, he 
 chose the thorny path of self-denial to the easier one of 
 self-indulgence, and he offered himself as a missionary to 
 the "Society for Missions to Africa and the East"— now 
 known under the name of "The Church Missionary 
 Society," — a noble society and a great, and one largely 
 owned of God in making the moral " wildernesses glad," 
 and the spiritual " deserts " to "rejoice and blossom as 
 the rose." 
 
 His letters to his youngest sister written after he had 
 taken this decided step, show with what varied feelings 
 he anticipated the sacrifices he must make, and the diffi- 
 culties he might encounter. " The dejection I sometimes 
 labour under seems not to arise from doubts of my ac- 
 ceptance with God, though it tends to produce them ; 
 nor from desponding views of my own backwardness in 
 the Divine life, for I am more prone to self-dependence 
 and conceit ; but from the prospect of the difficulties I 
 have to eiicounter in the tvhole of my future life. The 
 thought that I must be unceasingly employed in the 
 same kind of work amongst poor ignorant people, is what 
 my proud spirit revoHs at. To be obliged to submit to 
 a thousand uncomfortable things that must happen to 
 me, whether as a minister or a missionary, is what the 
 flesh cannot endure." We find the following account of 
 the state of his mind at this time, his internal struggles, 
 
24 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 and his sore and agonizing conflict. " I was under dis- 
 quiet at the prospect of my future work, encompassed 
 with difficulties ; but I trusted I was under the guidance 
 
 of Infinite wisdom, and on that I could rest. , 
 
 who had returned from a mission, observed that the 
 crosses to be endured were far greater than can be con- 
 ceived ; " but none of these things move me, neither 
 count I my life dear unto me so that I might finish my 
 course with joy." . . . "Had some disheartening 
 thoughts at night, at the prospect of being stripped of 
 every earthly comfort; but who is it that maketh my 
 comforts to be a source of enjoyment? Cannot the 
 same make cold, and hunger, and nakedness, and peril 
 to be a train of ministering angels conducting me to 
 glory ? " " Oh my soul, compare thyself with St. Paul, 
 and with the example and precepts of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Was it not His meat and drink to do the 
 will of His Heavenly Father ? " Again he writes : 
 "Finished the account of Dr. Vanderkemp, and longed 
 to be sent to China. But I may reasonably doubt the 
 reality of every gracious affection : they are so like the 
 morning cloud, and transient as the early dew. If I had 
 the true love of souls, I should long and labour for those 
 around me, and afterwards for the conversion of the 
 heathen." 
 
 His journals betray a mind full of self-abasement, and 
 somewhat morbidly introspective, yet with the highest 
 aspirations after holiness and God. He had great ten- 
 derness of conscience, and though no saint or sinner can 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 25 
 
 be lowly enough in his own eyes, yet he was too much 
 disposed to self-accusation and condemnation, and to 
 *' write bitter things" of his spiritual condition. His 
 friends saw a grace in his character of which he was 
 unconscious. As with Moses when he left the mount of 
 God, " the glory of his face was visible to every one but 
 himself." 
 
 In Ely Cathedral, in the October of 1803, Henry 
 Martyn was ordained as deacon to Mr. Simeon's curacy. 
 He was deeply impressed with the responsibility of his 
 ordination vows, and would have been overwhelmed by 
 the weight of his charge had he not leaned on the 
 strength of Him who, before He returned to the bosom of 
 the Father, left the promise to His disciples, " Lo, I am 
 with you alway, even unto the end of the world." That 
 which was the comfort of Poly carp as a bishop was his 
 consolation as a deacon,— that " he who was constituted 
 overseer of the church was himself overlooked by Jesus 
 Christ, that in the discharge of his office as pastor of the 
 flock, he was under the gracious superintendence of that 
 great and good Shepherd who had laid down His life for 
 the sheep." 
 
 The zeal for God so apparent in his character, and 
 which raised him above that natural timidity which 
 would have restrained him from rebuking others, was at 
 this time conspicuously displayed. Seeing with pain and 
 sorrow one of the candidates for ordination careless and 
 unconcerned on an occasion so sacred, he admonished 
 him, though a stranger, privately on the subject. How 
 
26 HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 he, who was so impressed by the solemnity of his ordin- 
 ation vows, would offer the rebuke which he felt called 
 to administer, may be readily conceived. Reproof was 
 to him a duty of insuperable difficulty ; " but," said he, 
 " the way to know when to address men and when to 
 abstain is to love.'' He resolved " not to reprove others 
 except he experienced at the time a peculiar contrition 
 of spirit where he could conscientiously be silent," 
 
 His pastoral duties in the Church of the Holy Trinity, 
 Cambridge, were combined with the charge of the parish 
 of Lolworth, a small village at no great distance from the 
 University. There it was, on the Sunday after his ordin- 
 ation, that he preached his first sermon from the words : 
 " If a man die, shall he live again ? All the days of my 
 appointed time will I wait, till my change come." On 
 the Sunday following he preached again at the same 
 place j and when the service was ended, and he was on 
 his way back to Cambridge, an incident occurred, which 
 must have made an abiding impression on his mind. 
 "An old man, who had been one of his hearers, walked 
 by the side of his horse for a considerable time, warning 
 him to reflect that if any souls perished through his 
 neglect, their blood would be required at his hand. 
 He exhorted him to show his hearers that they were 
 perishing sinners ; to be much engaged in secret prayer ; 
 and to labour after an entire departure from himself to 
 Christ." 
 
 On November loth, he preached for the first time at 
 Trinity Church to a numerous and attentive congre- 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 27 
 
 gation from the Saviour's words to the woman of 
 Samaria : " If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is 
 that saith unto thee, Give me to drink ; thou wouldest 
 have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living 
 water." The fervour of his spirit, and the earnestness of 
 his manner deeply impressed the congregation, who felt 
 that it was given him, by the grace of God, 
 
 ** To preach as one who ne'er should preach again, 
 And as a dying man to dying men." 
 
 And this was the usual style of his preaching ; and 
 whether he spoke to the learned and refined, or to the 
 poor and ignorant, — whether the congregation was large 
 or small, he spoke as one who had a message to them 
 from God, and whose heart thrilled under the consider- 
 ation that both he and they must shortly stand before 
 the judgment-seat of Christ. 
 
 " The burdens and difficulties of his sacred employ- 
 ments," his biographer tells us, '* lay heavily at first on 
 his mind, and considerably depressed his spirits ;" " but 
 he endeavoured," he writes, in a letter to his earliest 
 friend, " to keep in view the unreasonableness of his 
 discontent (who was a brand plucked out of the fire), 
 and the glorious blessedness of the ministerial work." 
 In addition to the duties which had now become his 
 peculiar care and delight, and in which he was ever 
 "steadfast and unmovable," an office of another kind 
 devolved on him towards the close of the year 1803. 
 He became one of the public examiners in his college ; 
 
28 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 and he entered upon his new duties in the same Christian 
 spirit that characterized all his actions, ever obeying the 
 apostolic injunction, "Whatsoever ye do in word or 
 deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." His 
 journals at this period of his life show how watchful he 
 was over himself; how earnest in prayer ; how holy in 
 aim ; and how bent on the great duty of " pressing 
 toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God 
 in Christ Jesus." " As the hart panteth after the water- 
 brooks," so did his soul pant after the living God. 
 
 In the early part of the year 1804, Martyn's expecta- 
 tions of becoming a missionary seemed on the point of 
 being disappointed through the loss of all his property, 
 a loss all the more trying because his youngest sister 
 was involved in the same trial. Independently of his 
 own pecuniary resources being thus cut off, he doubted 
 whether it were justifiable to leave his sister in a dis- 
 tress which his presence in England might alleviate or 
 remove. Undecided as to what he ought to do, he left 
 Cambridge for London at the end of June, in order to 
 consult some of his friends and obtain their advice. 
 
 It had for some time appeared desirable to those who 
 took a lively interest in himself and his work, that he 
 should be appointed to an Indian chaplaincy under the 
 East India Company. His friends thought him to be 
 peculiarly fitted for such a post, and the unexpected 
 change which had taken place in his circumstances 
 made them more anxious if possible than before to 
 secure for him such an appointment. They were not 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 29 
 
 without hopes that the Mission Church at Calcutta might 
 be placed under his pastoral superintendence. At first 
 there were insuperable difficulties to this arrangement, 
 and " a veil was cast over his future proceedings." Un- 
 able to see as yet the leadings of God's providence, he 
 returned to Cambridge to resume his ministry there with 
 singleness of eye and fervour of spirit, but with an 
 anxious and heavy heart. He gave himself unweariedly 
 to his Master's service, preaching, praying, warning the 
 wicked, exhorting the careless, edifying the believer ; 
 visiting the poor, the afflicted, and the dying ; passing 
 many an hour in the hospital or almshouse ; thus doing 
 the work of an evangelist, and making it his meat and 
 drink to do his Heavenly Father's will. 
 
 "His care was fixed 
 To fill his od'rous lamp with deeds of light, 
 And hope that reaps not shame. " 
 
 Nor was his labour in vain in the Lord. God blessed 
 the word through his mouth, and he was made instru- 
 mental in *' opening the blind eye, and turning men from 
 darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto 
 God." Much of his pleasure rose out of the happy 
 privilege of being an ambassador for Christ. " At church 
 this morning," he says," " my heart was overflowing with 
 love and joy. During the sermon, which was an ex- 
 hortation to diligence, a sense of my unprofitableness 
 depressed me. But in my ride to Lolworth, I enjoyed 
 much delight; every breeze seemed to breathe love into 
 
30 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 my heart ; and while I surveyed the landscape, I looked 
 forward to the day when all nations should come to the 
 mountain of the Lord's house." 
 
 The duties of a public examiner in St. John's were now, 
 in the month of June, for the second time consigned 
 to Mr. Martyn \ the subjects for examination being one 
 from the classics, the other, " Locke's Treatise on the 
 Understanding." It soon became evident that his wishes 
 would be crowned with success, and that he would be 
 appointed to a chaplaincy in the service of the East 
 India Company. He had become acquainted with 
 Mr. Grant and some other good men then on the Board 
 of Directors ; and anxious as they were that the gospel 
 should be carried to Hindostan, they gladly sent him 
 the intelligence of his appointment, informing him at the 
 same time that he was to leave England in the spring. 
 In the long vacation he visited Cornwall, never expect- 
 ing to see it again ; and, bound as he was to his native 
 place by the ties of family and friendship, three months 
 flew quickly by in sweet intercourse with those so dear. 
 He had other ties to Cornwall than those connected with 
 his own family, if not closer, yet of a tenderer and 
 stronger kind. He had formed an attachment for one 
 of whom his biographer says : " Less ought not, and 
 more cannot be said, than that she was worthy of him;" 
 an attachment which, whether he thought, as he after- 
 wards did, that it should be encouraged, or as he now 
 did from peculiar circumstances, that it ought to be re- 
 pressed, equally exhibits him as a man of God, whose 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 3, 
 
 affections were set on things above, and not on things 
 on the earth. 
 
 He was very anxious on this his last visit to Cornwall, 
 and the first since his ordination, to testify the grace of 
 God by proclaiming the reality of those truths which were 
 the stay of his own soul, and whose worth he desired to 
 make known to others. But there was a great prejudice 
 in those days against evangelical doctrines ; they were 
 regarded as something new and strange, and associated 
 with an ill-regulated and enthusiastic mind; and the 
 only churches open to him were the two under his 
 brother-in-law's charge. In these pulpits he preached 
 frequently; and here both his sisters heard him,— the 
 younger with great delight, and the elder with every 
 appearance of having been deeply impressed by his 
 sermons. "I found," said he, "that she had been 
 deeply affected, and from her conversation I received 
 great satisfaction. In the evening I walked by the 
 water side till late, having my heart full of praise to God 
 for having given me such hopes of my sister." 
 
 The churches where he preached were crowded with 
 eager hearers; the common people flocked there in 
 numbers, and heard him gladly. At Kenwyn the church 
 was so full that many could get no nearer than the doors, 
 and many were compelled to go away. This exceeding 
 popularity humbled rather than exalted him. So watch- 
 ful was he over self, and so tender was his conscience, 
 that " their commendation occasioned him some pain," 
 inasmuch as "they tended to fan the flame of vanity." 
 
32 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 He felt that praise was a severer test of his Christian 
 principles than blame. He had entered into the mean- 
 ing of the wise man's words, " As the fining pot for silver, 
 and the furnace for gold, so is man to his praise." Private 
 prayer and Divine meditation were his refuges against the 
 temptation of human applause. 
 
 At length, having withstood in Cornwall, as he had 
 done in Cambridge, the arguments of those who would 
 have detained him in England, he prepared to say 
 farewell to his native country, and to those dear to him, 
 and set out on his return to Cambridge to await the 
 summons to sail. He felt the approaching separation 
 from his friends as a man of his pure and sensitive 
 nature would feel so great a trial. There was a sharp 
 struggle at his heart, and sorrow such as they feel whose 
 spirit is overwhelmed by bitter and painful partings. 
 He had formed, as we have said, a very deep and fervent 
 attachment to a lady in Cornwall. There was a differ- 
 ence of opinion among his friends respecting the pro- 
 priety of his marriage, and his own mind often had a 
 severe conflict on the point. At times he seemed to 
 think voluntary celibacy the more noble and glorious life, 
 at others his heart strongly urged him to a union with 
 one so fitted to be his helpmeet in the work which lay 
 before him. There may have been something of weak- 
 ness and indecision in this struggle, but we are writing, 
 not of an angel, but of a man ; one of like passions with 
 ourselves, and compassed about with like infirmity. 
 When at length it was decided he should go out single 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 33 
 
 even if afterwards he might ask Miss Grenfell to join 
 him in India, — and she before his departure made no 
 objection to this latter arrangement,— his entries in his 
 journal betray how deeply he felt the separation. One 
 of these shall be given farther on. 
 
 He saw her no more after his departure from England, 
 and in consequence of the disappointment a darkness 
 fell upon his life, out of the shadow of which he never 
 entirely passed. But we must touch this episode of his 
 life with a gentle hand. There are certain feelings of 
 the heart over which it is becoming to throw the delicate 
 veil of silence. 
 
 "Not easily to be forgiven 
 Are those who, setting aside the doors that bar 
 The secret bridal chambers of the heart, 
 Let in the day." 
 
 Martyn felt his trial all the more acutely inasmuch as 
 he was one who yearned after the sympathy and society 
 of his fellows, and shrank sensitively from the loneliness 
 of a solitary life. But any hesitation was overcome by 
 the constraining motives of love and duty. " Shall I 
 hesitate,'' says he, " to pass my days in constant solitude, 
 who am but ' a brand plucked from the burning ' .? " 
 
 When Martyn left Cornwall, he went to Plymouth, 
 where he passed a Sunday in heavenly serenity of spirit, 
 and in the full exercise of that faith which is "the 
 substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things 
 not seen." Here he preached twice, and he tells us 
 how his soul longed for the eternal world, and he could 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 see nothing on earth for which he would wish to live 
 another hour. 
 
 From Plymouth he proceeded to London, and on 
 the 1 8th of September we find him again quietly settled 
 at Cambridge. His chief happiness centred in his 
 pastoral work ; in visiting his flock ; in preaching 
 publicly, and from house to house, " the glorious gospel 
 of the blessed God." With untiring diligence he went 
 about his Master's business, and was " instant in season 
 and out of season " in furthering the redeeming work of 
 the Cross. 
 
 The year 1804 closed with his being for the third 
 time selected as one of the examiners of St. John's ; 
 and on its last day we find him rejoicing at the lapse 
 of time, but sorrowing at its unprofitableness. "So 
 closes," he remarks, " the easy part of my life : enriched 
 by every earthly comfort, and caressed by friends, I may 
 scarcely be said to have experienced trouble ; but now 
 farewell ease, if I might presume to conjecture. O 
 Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit ! Thou 
 hast redeemed me, Thou God of truth ; may I be 
 saved by Thy grace, and be sanctified to do Thy will 
 now, and to all eternity, through Jesus Christ" 
 
 Towards the end of January, 1805, he received a 
 sudden summons to leave England in ten days. He 
 would have complied with it at once had he been in 
 priest's orders, which he could not take in accordance 
 with law until the i8th February, when he would com- 
 plete his 24th year. It was in the month of March 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 35 
 
 that he was admitted to the office of a presbyter in 
 St. James' Chapel, London, after which he received the 
 degree of Bachelor of Divinity, conferred upon him by 
 mandate from the University. Nothing now remained 
 to detain him at Cambridge ; and on the 3rd of April, 
 after a farewell sermon in Trinity Church, Martyn 
 quitted for ever the place which had been "the dear 
 abode of his youth," which his talents had adorned, and 
 where he had obtained both honour and reputation. 
 
 During the two months that he remained in London, 
 lie devoted himself to the study of Hindustani, in order 
 io qualify himself for the duties of an Indian missionary. 
 He also preached frequently for his friends, chiefly 
 occupying the pulpit of St. John's Chapel, Bedford 
 Row, then under the care of the Rev. Richard Cecil, 
 from whose example and advice he derived a lasting 
 advantage. He had likewise the great pleasure of 
 making the acquaintance of the venerable John Newton, 
 who, expecting soon to "enter the joy of his Lord," 
 rejoiced, before he put off his earthly tabernacle, to 
 encourage his young friend in the discharge of that 
 embassy of love on which he was about to go forth. 
 It was at St. John's that he preached his farewell sermon 
 from the words, "And now, brethren, I commend you 
 to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able 
 to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among 
 them that are sanctified." 
 
 So ended his ministrations in England ; and with 
 many mingled feelings he prepared for his voyage to 
 
36 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 Imiia, a much more formidable thing in that day than 
 it is now, occupying considerably more time, and 
 attended with greater risks. 
 
 We shall bring this chapter to a close with a few 
 extracts from his journal. And it is well, as we read 
 them, to bear in mind that these revelations of the inner 
 man were not written for the public eye, but were simply 
 the daily record of his own feelings and struggles as 
 between himself and God. He does not " wear his heart 
 upon his sleeve for daws to peck at." There is nothing 
 in these "cardiphonia," these heart- voices, of what is 
 known as cant, professions of a humiliation and a conflict 
 which he does not feel. They are sacred; they are 
 private, penned only for his own eye ; and when we read 
 them we are looking at the man, not as he wished to 
 appear before others, but as he appeared to himself. 
 
 April 2']th. "My constant unprofitableness seemed 
 to bar my approach to God. But I considered that for 
 all that was past the blood of Christ would atone, and 
 that for the future God would that moment give me 
 grace to perform my duty." 
 
 Alay <^th. "O my soul, when wilt thou live con- 
 sistently? When shall I walk steadily with God? 
 When shall I hold heaven constantly in view ? How 
 time glides away; how is death approaching; how soon 
 must I give up my account ; how are souls perishing ; 
 how does their blood call out to us to labour, to watch, 
 and to pray for them that remain." 
 
 May I Gih. " I went down with Captain M to 
 
CAMBRIDGE. 37 
 
 Deptford. Passing through an inn which was close to the 
 water's side I came at once, to my great surprise, close 
 to the Indiaman before I was aware of it. The sudden 
 sight of the water and of the ship affected me ahiiost 
 to tears. My emotions were mixed, — partly of joy, and 
 partly of trembling apprehension, at my now being so 
 soon to go away." 
 
 June ^th. *'I have not felt such heartrending pain 
 
 since I parted with in Cornwall. But the Lord 
 
 brought me to consider the folly and wickedness of all 
 this. I could not help saying : ' Go, Hindoos ; go on 
 still in your misery : let Satan still rule over you ; for he 
 that was appointed to labour among you is consulting his 
 ease.' No, thought I, hell and earth shall never keep 
 me back from my work. I am cast down, but not 
 destroyed. I began to consider why I was so uneasy. 
 'Cast thy care upon Him, for He careth for you.' 'In 
 everything by prayer and supplication, with thanks- 
 giving, let your requests be made known to God.' These 
 promises were sweetly fulfilled before long to me." 
 
 June Zth. " My heart was sometimes ready to break 
 with agony. At other times I was visited by a few 
 moments of sublime and enraptured joy. Such is the 
 conflict. Why have my friends mentioned this subject ? 
 It has torn open old wounds, and I am again bleeding." 
 
 June \t^th. "Shed tears to-night at the thoughts of 
 my departure. I thought of the roaring seas which 
 would soon be rolling between me and all that is dear 
 to me on earth." 
 
38 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 July Ofth. " Mr. Cecil showed me a letter in Schwartz's 
 own handwriting. Its contents were of a very experi- 
 mental nature, applicable to my case. The life of faith 
 in Jesus is what I want. My soul may almost burst 
 with astonishment at her own wickedness ; but at the 
 same time trusting to mercy, rise and go, and try to 
 make men happy. The Lord go with me ! * Let my 
 right hand forget her cunning, if I remember not Jeru- 
 salem above my chief joy.' " 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 
 [1805-6.] 
 
 IN the July of 1805, Henry Martyn sailed from 
 Portsmouth in The Union East Indiaman, in com- 
 pany with a large fleet under the command of Captain 
 Byng. Two days after sailing the ship came to anchor 
 in the port of Falmouth, where she was detained for 
 upwards of three weeks. An extract from a letter 
 v.ritten from this place to Mr. Simeon, vividly depicts 
 his feelings when, rising in the morning of the lyth, 
 the day on which he sailed, he found that his voyage 
 was really begun. " It was a very painful moment to 
 me when I awoke in the morning after you left us, and 
 found the fleet actually sailing down the Channel. 
 Though it was what I had anxiously been looking 
 forward to so long, yet the consideration of being 
 parted for ever from my friends, almost overcame me. 
 My feelings were those of a man who should suddenly 
 be told that every friend he had in the world was dead. 
 It was only by prayer for them that I could be com- 
 forted; and this was indeed a refreshment to my soul, 
 
40 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 because, by meeting them at the throne of grace, I seemed 
 again to be in their society." 
 
 The arrival of the fleet at Falmouth was a great 
 surprise to Martyn ; it was with mingled feelings that he 
 acknowledged " the singularity of the providence of God 
 in leading him once more into the bosom of all his 
 friends." We learn from his journals that delightful as 
 it was to him to be once more among the scenes where 
 he had spent his youth, he would have felt happier had 
 a storm in the night hurried him past the shores of the 
 Cornwall that he loved so well. True, he was able once 
 more to enjoy the society of dear friends before he 
 bade them farewell for ever ; but the pleasure, great as 
 it was, was more than counterbalanced by the pangs of 
 another separation. For Martyn was of a peculiarly 
 sensitive temperament ; he had a highly wrought mind, 
 tender, delicate, very susceptible, easily dejected, and 
 feeling keenly the pleasures or the pains of the passing 
 hour. 
 
 While he was detained at Falmouth, he preached 
 several times in the ship as well as on shore ; and one 
 sermon, whose subject was the missionary cause, pro- 
 duced a powerful effect on the congregation. The 
 audience saw before them a man, whose aspirations and 
 affections proved that " the kingdom of God was not in 
 word but in power." 
 
 On the loth of September the signal was given for the 
 fleet to sail ; and as he was at the time in the country, 
 about twenty miles distant from Falmouth, he had to 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. \\ 
 
 make an effort to reach the Union before she quitted 
 the harbour. The summons came unexpectedly. " At 
 nine in the morning," he says, "I was sitting at ease 
 with the person dearest to me upon earth, intending to 
 go out with her afterwards to see different views, to visit 
 some persons with her, and preach on the morrow ; four 
 hours only elapsed, and I was under sail from Eng- 
 land." 
 
 The anxiety he felt to reach the ship before she sailed, 
 and his joy in finding that he was in time, banished for 
 the moment all other considerations ; but when the ex- 
 citement passed there came the reaction, and his spirits 
 flagged. He had parted with the woman whom he 
 loved, and when he went on board, it was with the 
 melancholy certainty of never beholding her again. It 
 was little wonder that the death of his earthly hopes 
 should call forth many a burst of passionate grief, and 
 that he needed all the strength of Divine consolation 
 to alleviate his sorrow. There needs no apology for 
 these keen feelings on Henry Martyn's part. The 
 Christian is not the mediaeval saint: pale, emaciated, 
 worn ascetic, who crushes down his physical as well as 
 mental frame ; but one who remembers that all human 
 feelings have been sanctified by the Saviour, and who 
 believes in the sacredness of all natural affections. He 
 whose first miracle was performed at a marriage feast 
 has taught us that the true holiness of life is not in the 
 separation of its natural enjoyments from religion, but 
 in consecrating all its acts to the glory of God. 
 
42 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 For the greater part of the day that he sailed, and 
 on the following day, the ship was in sight of Cornwall, 
 and every object on the receding shore, — hamlet, and 
 wood, and headland, reminded him of scenes linked for 
 ever with his fondest memories, and of pleasures gone 
 never to return. Very touching are the entries in his 
 journals which record his feelings at this period of his 
 life. 
 
 Su7ida}\ August wth* "I rose dejected and ex- 
 tremely weak in body. After simply crying to God for 
 mercy and assistance, I preached on Hebrews xi. i6 : 
 * But now they desire a better country, that is, an 
 heavenly : wherefore God is not ashamed to be called 
 their God : for He hath prepared for them a city.' On 
 repeating the text a second time I could scarcely refrain 
 from bursting into tears, for the Mount, and St. Hilary 
 spire, and trees, were just discernible by the naked eye 
 at the time. I began my sermon by saying, that now 
 the shores of England were receding fast from our view, 
 and that we had taken a long,— many of us an everlast- 
 ing farewell. We had made little way during the night, 
 and so in the morning I was pleased to find we were in 
 Mount's Bay, midway between the Land's End and the 
 Lizard; and I was often with my glass recalling those 
 beloved scenes, till after tea, when, ascending the poop, 
 I found they had disappeared ; but this did not prevent 
 my praying for all on shore. Amidst the extreme gloom 
 of my mind this day, I found great pleasure, at seasons 
 * Note. — Should not this date be September — not August ? 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 43 
 
 of prayer, in interceding earnestly for my beloved friends 
 all over England." 
 
 We see in these the dejection of a man who lived in 
 sympathy. The very intensity of his affections made 
 the solitariness of his friendless position more painful. 
 He craved for human help, the kind look, the en- 
 couraging word, the warm grasp of the hand ; and 
 though surrounded by many faces, he missed what he 
 yearned for, and felt an utter loneliness of soul. He 
 writes again : " England has disappeared, and with it all 
 my peace. The pains of memory were all I felt. Would 
 I go back? Oh no! But how can I be supported? 
 My faith fails. I find by experience I am weak as 
 water. O my dear friends in England, when we spoke 
 with exultation of the mission to the heathen, whilst in 
 the midst of health and joy and hope, what an imperfect 
 idea did we form of the sufferings by which it must be 
 accomplished." But his feelings were not always of this 
 plaintive cast. He was often able to rise above the 
 sorrows of time, and to rejoice in the glory to be re- 
 vealed. 
 
 On the 14th September the fleet anchored in the Cove 
 of Cork ; and while here he would fain have been 
 allowed to preach in one of the pulpits of the city, and 
 to address the convicts going out with the fleet to 
 Botany Bay. His wishes in both cases were unfulfilled. 
 He regularly read prayers on board the Unio?i, and 
 preached every Sunday, but the captain would not 
 permit him to have more than the one service, much 
 
44 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 to his disappointment and vexation. But being thus 
 thwarted in his wishes, he felt that his influence in the 
 ship depended upon his private ministrations, and he 
 went almost daily between decks, and there, gathering 
 together all who were willing, he read some religious 
 book, commenting upon it as he went on. He had many- 
 discouragements in these efforts for his Master. " Some 
 attend fixedly ; others are looking another way ; some 
 women are employed about their children, attending for 
 a little while, and then heedless ; some rising up and 
 going away, — others taking their place ; and numbers, 
 especially of those who have been upon watch, strewed 
 all along the deck fast asleep, — one or two from the 
 upper decks looking down and listening." 
 
 Nor was the state of things at the Sunday service much 
 more encouraging. His patience was sorely tried, and 
 his meekness put to a severe test. "The passengers 
 were inattentive ; the officers, many of them, sat 
 drinking, so that he could overhear their noise ; and the 
 captain was with them." " How melancholy and humil- 
 iating is this mode of public ordinances on ship-board, 
 compared with the respect and joy with which the mul- 
 titudes come up to hear my brethren ashore : but this 
 prepares me for preaching among the heedless Gentiles." 
 
 On the 30th September, after a fortnight's detention in 
 the Cove of Cork, the fleet, consisting of fifty transports, 
 five men of war, and the Indiaman, put to sea ; and 
 again we find him a sufferer both in mind and body. He 
 became languid and feverish ; his nights were passed 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR IiVDIA. 45 
 
 without sleep, and his mental conflict was extremely 
 severe. "My anguish at times," he says, "was inex- 
 pressible, when I awoke from my disturbed dreams, to 
 find myself actually on my way, with a long sea rolling 
 between me and all I held dear in this life. To describe 
 the variety of perplexing, heart-rending, agonizing 
 thoughts which passed through my mind, and which, 
 united with the weakness and languor of my body, served 
 to depress me into the depths of misery, would be im- 
 possible. The bodily sufferings Avould be nothing, did 
 not Satan improve his advantage in representing the 
 happiness and ease of the life I had left." 
 
 Soon after the fleet had left the Irish coast, it was 
 overtaken by a terrific storm ; but during a night of 
 general anxiety and alarm, Martyn's mind was kept in 
 perfect peace. In the morning, when the vessel was 
 going under bare poles, the sea, covered with so thick a 
 mist from the spray and rain that nothing could be seen 
 but the top of the nearest waves, which seemed to be 
 running over the windward side of the ship, he seized 
 the opportunity of pointing out the way of salvation to 
 many who appeared much terrified ; and most willingly, 
 had circumstances permitted, would he have preached 
 to the whole ship's company, warning them to " flee 
 from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on eternal 
 life." The next Sunday he used the form for thanks- 
 giving after a storm. The voyage hitherto had been 
 very wearisome. Seven tedious weeks had passed, and 
 the fleet had proceeded no farther than the latitude of 
 
46 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 the Lizard. A favourable wind now bore the ships on 
 their ocean way, and about the end of September they 
 reached Madeira. 
 
 Though the time had seemed long since he left Fal- 
 mouth, yet he did a good work on board : ever watchful 
 for opportunities of pressing the claims of God on all 
 with whom he came in contact. He also improved the 
 days as they dragged their slow length along. He 
 studied Hindustani ; read Milner's Church History ; 
 Hooker's Sermons ; Baxter's Works, and the Pilgrim's 
 Progress. He writes from Funchal to a near relative at 
 Falmouth : " Yesterday morning we came to an anchor 
 at this place. The craggy mountains at the foot of 
 which Funchal is situate, make a most grand and pic- 
 turesque appearance. On entering the town I was struck 
 with the conviction of being in a foreign country. 
 Everything was different, — the houses, even the poorest, 
 all regular and stately, everywhere groves of orange and 
 lemon trees ; the countenances, and dress, and manners 
 of the people different to those I had been used to; 
 black-skirted Catholic priests and nun-like women, with 
 beads and a crucifix, passing in all directions. How 
 would St. Paul have sighed in passing through this town, 
 wholly given up to idolatry ! I went to the great church, 
 where they were performing high mass, and was perfectly 
 dazzled with the golden splendour of the place. But all. 
 the external aids of devotion lost their usual effect upon 
 me while I contemplated the endless multitude of 
 mountebank tricks the priests were exhibiting. Is it 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 47 
 
 possible, thought I, this should be a Christian church ? 
 There was no appearance of attention, except in one poor 
 African woman, who was crossing herself repeatedly with 
 the utmost expression of contrition in her countenance. 
 " Perhaps," said I to her in my mind, "we shall meet in 
 heaven." 
 
 After a stay of four days at Funchal the fleet put to 
 sea, the army having been told beforehand that their 
 object was the capture of the Cape of Good Hope, then 
 in the occupation of the Dutch, who had espoused the 
 cause of the French, and taken part against us in the 
 war. The possibility of a battle only quickened Martyn 
 to greater earnestness, and he was constantly visiting that 
 part of the ship's crew who were so shortly to be exposed 
 to the perils of warfare. " I entreated them even with 
 tears," said he, ''out of fervent love for their souls, and I 
 could have poured away my life to have persuaded them 
 to return to God." He was at this time very deeply im- 
 pressed by the following sentence in Milner's Church 
 History : " To believe, to suffer, and to love, was the 
 primitive state." He tells us that "no uninspired 
 sentence ever affected him so much." " It was, in fact," 
 as his biographer says, " an epitome of his own life, con- 
 versation, and spirit : a lively exemplification of which is 
 to be found in the manner in which, during this part of 
 the voyage, he strove against an extreme and oppressive 
 languor of body, which tended to impede his present 
 labours, and threatened to impair his future efficiency." 
 
 A voyage of little more than five weeks brought the 
 
48 HENRY MARTY N. 
 
 fleet from Porto Santo to St. Salvador, in South America. 
 The voyage was not without its risks, for soon after 
 crossing the line on the 30th October, the U7iion passed 
 in the night within a very short distance of a dangerous 
 reef of rocks, which proved destruction to two other 
 vessels. The reef lay exactly across the track of the 
 Union, and had not the second mate been on the watch, 
 they would inevitably have been Avrecked. Fragments of 
 the ships that were broken on the reef came floating past 
 them, and those who had been thrown on the rocks were 
 holding out signals of distress. Happily all were saved, 
 with the exception of three officers, one of whom lost his 
 life in the attempt to secure a large sum of money. 
 Leaving the vessel too soon, he sank to rise no more ; 
 and it was thought that he became a prey to the sharks 
 which in great numbers surrounded the ship. For Mar- 
 tyn's part he had nothing but the most fervent gratitude 
 to God for His guardian care. On landing at St. Sal- 
 vador, he was much struck with the beauty of the coast 
 and the romantic scenery. All save the spirit of man 
 was Divine. The population was Roman Catholic, and 
 evidences of superstition met his eye on every hand. 
 *' I walked up the hill in order to get into tlie country, 
 and observed a man standing by the wayside, holding 
 out for the people's salvation a silver embossed piece of 
 plate of a small oval size, and repeating some words 
 about St. Antonio. Some kissed it, others took off their 
 hats ; but the man himself seemed to ridicule their folly." 
 He here made the acquaintance of a young man who 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA, 
 
 49 
 
 had been educated in a Portuguese university, and from 
 whom he received much kindness and hospitahty. This 
 was Joseph Antonio Corre. He was anxious to hear 
 about Cambridge, and gave Martyn a general invitation 
 to his house. Martyn had a good deal of conversation 
 with Antonio, and his father, Senor Domingo, and some 
 priests, on England, and the errors of the Romish 
 Church. The father was so trammelled by the pre- 
 judices of education that no argument, though drawn 
 from the Scriptures, made any impression ; and though 
 the son professed that he had nothing to do with saints 
 in secret, but worshipped God alone, Martyn regarded 
 the profession as proceeding from " a liberal rather than 
 religious mind." Whatever Antonio's private opinions 
 might be, he conformed in public to the superstitious 
 practices of the Romish Church. When a procession of 
 priests passed by, carrying the sacrament to the house of 
 a person who was dying, father and son both knelt, and 
 continued kneeling until the procession went by. Senor 
 Antonio said that he " conformed to the custom of the 
 country in trifles." " I thought," says Martyn, " of 
 Naaman and his god Rimmon. I did not, however, 
 think it right to push the matter too suddenly, but told 
 him in general how the English Reformers were led to 
 prison and to flames, rather than conform, and that if 
 I was born a Portuguese, I would rather be imprisoned 
 and burnt than conform to idolatry." He had many 
 conversations with others on the errors of the Church of 
 Rome ; for the gross superstition which met him on all 
 
50 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 sides troubled his pure spirit, and filled it with such infinite 
 pain that, he longed to bring all into the clear light of the 
 gospel. He had met with great kindness at St. Salvador, 
 and on parting carried away many a thankful recollection. 
 
 Novembej' 2yd. " In the afternoon took leave of my 
 kind friends Senor and Senora Corre. They and the 
 rest came out to the garden-gate, and continued looking 
 till the winding of the road hid me from their sight; the 
 poor slave Raymond, who had attended me, and carried 
 my things, burst into a flood of tears as we left the door ; 
 and when I parted from him he was going to kiss my 
 feet, but I shook hands with him, much affected with 
 such extraordinary kindness in people to whom I have 
 been a total stranger till within a few days. What shall 
 I render unto the Lord for all His mercies? I have 
 been with my friend Antonio as a wayfaring man that 
 tarrieth but for a night, yet hath the Lord put it into 
 his heart to send me on after a goodly sort. And now 
 we prosecute our voyage; a few more passages, and I 
 shall find myself in the scene of my ministry; a few 
 more changes and journeys, and I am in eternity." 
 
 The fleet was on the waters again, and as the time 
 drew near when the soldiers would be engaged on the 
 battle-field, Martyn's anxiety for their spiritual welfare 
 increased ; and he set apart a day for fasting, humilia- 
 tion and intercession for them, as well as for all who 
 were in the ship. He had other claims on his attention. 
 The ship's company became unhealthy, the crew suffer- 
 ing from dysentery ; and Martyn was to be found at the 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 51 
 
 beds of the sick, ministering assiduously to their tem- 
 poral needs and spiritual comfort. He himself had an 
 attack of the disorder, but his illness was but of short 
 duration; and as soon as his health permitted, he was 
 again at his post, praying beside the hammocks of the 
 dying. The captain of the ship fell ill, attacked by 
 disease of a different kind, and his sickness shortly 
 proved fatal. To him also Martyn was a minister of 
 mercy and consolation. 
 
 After a few weeks, on the 2nd of January, 1806, and 
 while Martyn was commending his flock to God in 
 prayer, the high lands of the Cape became visible at 
 eighty miles distance ; and on the next day the fleet 
 came to anchor, and the signal was given to land. The 
 Indiaman being ordered to get under weigh, and the 
 men of war drawn up close to the shore, a landing was 
 effected. Soon after seven the next day, "a most tre- 
 mendous fire of artillery began behind a mountain 
 abreast of the ships. It seemed as if the mountain 
 itself was torn by intestine convulsions. The smoke 
 rose from a lower eminence on the right of the hill; 
 and on the top of it troops were seen marching down 
 the further declivity. Then came such a long-drawn 
 fire of musketry that I could not conceive anything 
 like it. We all shuddered at considering what a multi- 
 tude of souls must be passing into eternity. The poor 
 ladies were in a dreadful condition, every peal seemed 
 to go through their hearts. I have just been endeavour- 
 ing to do what I can to keep up their spirits. The sun 
 
52 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 is now retiring, and the enemy are seen retreating along 
 the low ground on the right towards the town." 
 
 Martyn went on shore as soon as possible, in the hope 
 of being useful to the wounded on the battle-field. In 
 a letter to Mr. Simeon, he tells something of what he 
 endured while engaged in his work of love and mercy. 
 He dates his letter from the Unio7i, Table Bay, January 
 7th, 1806: "I embraced the opportunity of getting to 
 the wounded men soon after my landing. • A party of 
 the Company's troops were ordered to repair to the 
 field of battle, to bring away the wounded, under the 
 command of Major , whom I knew. By his per- 
 suasion I attached myself to them, and marched six 
 miles over a soft burning sand, till we reached the fatal 
 spot. We found several but slightly hurt; and these 
 we left for a while, after seeing their wounds dressed 
 by a surgeon. A little onward were three, mortally 
 wounded. One of these, on being asked where he was 
 struck, opened his shirt, and showed a wound in his 
 left breast. The blood that he was spitting showed 
 that he had been shot through the lungs. As I spread 
 a great coat over him by the surgeon's desire, who 
 passed on without attempting to save him, I spoke of 
 the blessed gospel, and besought him to look to Jesus 
 Christ for salvation. He was impressed, but could not 
 speak; and I was obliged to leave him, in order to 
 reach the troops, from whom the officers, out of regard 
 to my safety, would not allow me to be separated. 
 Amongst several others, some wounded and some dead, 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 53 
 
 was Captain ^ who was shot by a rifleman. We 
 
 all stopped to gaze for a while in pensive silence over 
 his pale body; and then passed on to witness more 
 proofs of the sin and misery of fallen man. Descending 
 into the plain, where the main body of each army had 
 met, I saw some of the 59th, one of whom, a corporal, 
 who sometimes had sung with us, told me that none of 
 the 59th were killed, and none of the officers wounded. 
 Some farm-houses which had been in the rear of the 
 enemy's army, had been converted into an hospital for 
 the wounded, whom they were bringing from all quarters. 
 The surgeon told me that there were already in the 
 houses two hundred, some of whom were Dutch. A 
 more ghastly spectacle than that which presented itself 
 here, I could not have conceived. They were ranged 
 without and within the houses in rows, covered with 
 gore. Indeed, it was the blood, which they had not had 
 time to wash off, that made their appearance more 
 dreadful than the reality ; for few of their wounds were 
 mortal. The confusion was very great; and sentries 
 and officers were so intent on their duty that I had no 
 fit opportunity of speaking to any of them but a Dutch 
 captain, with whom I had conversed in French. After 
 this I walked out again with the surgeon to the field, 
 and saw several of the enemy's wounded. A Hotten- 
 tot, who had his thigh broken by a ball, was lying 
 in extreme agony, biting the dust, calling down horrid 
 imprecations in Engfish upon the Dutch. I told him 
 he ought to pray for his enemies ; and after telling the 
 
54 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 poor wretched man of the gospel, I begged him to pray 
 to Jesus Christ. But our conversation was soon inter- 
 rupted ; for in the absence of the surgeon, who was 
 gone back for his instruments, a Highland soldier came 
 up and challenged me with the words : ' Who are you?' 
 ' An Englishman.' ' No,' said he ; * you are French,' 
 and began to present his piece. As I saw that he was 
 rather intoxicated, and did not know but that he might 
 actually fire out of mere wantonness, I sprang up to- 
 wards him, and told him if he doubted my word, he 
 might take me as his prisoner to the English camp ; but 
 that I certainly was an English clergyman. This paci- 
 fied him, and he behaved with great respect. The 
 surgeon, on examining the wound, said the man must 
 die, and so left him. At length I found an opportunity 
 of returning, as I much wished, in order to recover from 
 distraction of mind, and give free scope to reflection. 
 I lay down on the border of a clump of shrubs or 
 bushes, with the field of battle in my view, and there 
 lifted up my soul to God." 
 
 This letter shows us the heroism of the man, and how 
 he was willing to hazard his life, if he might only whisper 
 in the ears of the wounded and the dying the story of 
 Christ's mercy and love. After spending a day on the 
 field of battle, he marched back in the evening with the 
 troop to Table Bay. " The surf on the shore was very 
 high," he writes, " but through mercy we escaped that 
 danger. But when we came to our ship's station, we 
 found she was gone, having got under weigh some hours 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 55 
 
 before. The sea ran high. Our men were almost spent, 
 and I was very faint from hunger; but after a long struggle 
 we reached our Indiaman about midnight." 
 
 On the loth of January, the thunder of a gun was 
 heard, which was answered on the instant by all tlie men 
 of war. On looking out for the cause, the British flag 
 was seen flying on the Dutch fort, and the Cape of 
 Good Hope passed into the possession of the English 
 crown. 
 
 It had been Martyn's great desire, the moment he 
 arrived at Cape Town, to meet Dr. Vanderkemp, one 
 of the most distinguished missionaries of the London 
 Missionary Society. After a little delay his wishes were 
 gratified, and he found him standing outside of his house, 
 silently looking up at the stars. A great number of black 
 people were sitting around. On making himself known, 
 Dr. Vanderkemp led him in, and called for his fellow- 
 labourer, Mr. Read ; and his heart overflowed with joy 
 and gratitude in making the acquaintance of two such 
 devoted servants of God. 
 
 Januaiy i/i^th. "Continued walking with Mr. Read 
 till late. He gave me a variety of curious information 
 respecting the mission. He told me of his marvellous 
 success amongst the heathen, how he had heard them 
 among the bushes pouring out their hearts to God. At 
 all this ' my soul did magnify the Lord, and my spirit 
 rejoiced in God my Saviour.' 
 
 " Walked with brother Read, and was so charmed with 
 his spiritual behaviour, that I fancied myself in company 
 
56 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 with David Brainerd. Sat at night in the open air, 
 with the Table Mountains before me, and endeavoured 
 to meditate on Isaiah xi. 2. I went to a church lately- 
 built for the instruction of slaves. There were about one 
 hundred such from fifty different families. A black who 
 was employed in lighting the candles was pointed out to 
 me as one who was to go as a missionary to Madagascar. 
 Walking home I asked Dr. Vanderkemp if he had ever 
 repented of his undertaking. ' No/ said the old man, 
 * and I would not exchange my work for a kingdom.' " 
 
 At length Martyn had to part from these newly found 
 but dear friends, knit as they were together in the 
 bonds of a common faith, and he was again on his 
 voyage to the scene of his labours. He suffered now, as 
 he did before, from the tediousness of the passage, and 
 from sickness and languor. But whether he was tossed 
 on the Atlantic Ocean, or becalmed on the Indian Sea, 
 v/hether he suffered from illness, or was enfeebled by- 
 lassitude, he received all with meekness and resignation, 
 as the special appointment of God. 
 
 His pastoral assiduity was again called into exercise 
 by the unhealthy state of the ship's company. When 
 Martyn was able to leave his own bed he was found by 
 the beds of the sick, ministering to their temporal and 
 spiritual wants, and pointing the eye of faith to Him who 
 came " that we might have life, and might have it more 
 abundantly." And now, as before, this exhibition of a 
 fine Christian philanthropy was given amid much to 
 damp its ardour and check its sympathies ; for he met 
 
JJARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 57 
 
 with violent and increasing opposition from many of the 
 more intelHgent of the passengers, and a discouraging in- 
 difference from others. We can well believe that a spirit 
 so sensitive as his, and yearning after the sympathy of his 
 fellows, felt the scorn and the insult, and was wounded 
 by the contempt and disdain ; but none of these things 
 moved him, and he set his face like a flint to the dis- 
 charge of his arduous duties. The love of God cast out 
 the fear of man. It made him frank and fearless, and 
 careless of personal consequences. It gave him the hero's 
 heart and the martyr's spirit. It enabled him to take up 
 words into his lips more impassioned, and grander than 
 any uttered by the noblest poet on earth ; the words of 
 another great soul, spoken under the inspiration of a 
 mighty and all-conquering affection : " We are troubled 
 on every side, yet not distressed ; perplexed, but not in 
 despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but 
 not destroyed." His whole heart filled with that enthu- 
 siasm which is born of faith in Christ, he walked along 
 that path which his Master hallowed, " being conformed 
 unto the likeness of His death," knowing " the fellow- 
 ship of His sufferings," and devoted to His cause. 
 
 Falling in with the trade winds, the fleet made quick 
 progress towards India, and the breezes wafted him day 
 by day nearer to " the haven where he would be.^' On 
 the 19th of April, Ceylon came in sight, and Martyn 
 describes the long range of hills running -north and 
 south, and though not lofty broken in a picturesque 
 manner with lowlands between the hills and sea, covered 
 
58 HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 with trees. While " the spicy breezes, blowing soft from 
 Ceylon's Isle," brought a soothing and refreshing fra- 
 grance to his senses, his mind was filled with delightful 
 anticipations. He thought of the time when the name 
 of Jesus should be "as ointment poured forth" in 
 temples raised by Cingalese amidst their cinnamon 
 groves, and when prayers should ascend to heaven like 
 clouds of incense through the merits of the Redeemer. 
 
 On the Sunday following, expecting it would be his 
 last on board, he addressed the ship's company in a 
 farewell discourse. It might have been supposed that 
 an occasion so solemn would have restrained any 
 attempt at ridicule or scorn ; but it was not so, and they 
 who reviled him at first continued to revile him to the 
 last. " It pained me," he says, " that they should give 
 a ridiculous turn to anything on so affecting an occasion 
 as parting for ever in this life. But such is the unthank- 
 ful office of a minister. Yet I desire to take the ridicule 
 of men with all meekness and charity, looking forward to 
 another world for approbation and reward." We have 
 here the very mind of Christ, the spirit of Him whose 
 cross he had taken, and who " when He was reviled, 
 reviled not again; when He suffered He threatened not, 
 but committed Himself to Him who judgeth righteously." 
 
 At length, after a wearisome voyage of nine months 
 from the date of his leaving Portsmouth, he saw the land 
 which he had so ardently longed to behold, and on the 
 2 1 St of April "his eyes were gratified with the sight of 
 India."' 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 59 
 
 April 2272d. "At sunrise we anchored in Madras 
 roads Several Doobashees, or interpreters, came on 
 board, dressed in white musHn. I went ashore in one of 
 the country boats, made very high in order to weather 
 the surf, with the boards throughout sewed together very 
 coarsely with straw, and the interstices filled with it. 
 On the shore I was surrounded by an immense crowd of 
 Coohes; I suppose two hundred, who caught up one 
 box after another, and were going off in different direc- 
 tions, so that I was obliged to run instantly and stop 
 them ; and having with some difficulty got my things 
 together, I went to the Custom House, attended by four 
 Coolies, a Doobashee, an umbrella carrier, and a boy or 
 waiting man, all of whom attached themselves to ipe, 
 without at all consulting me on the occasion. 
 
 "Nothing as yet struck me as remarkable in the 
 country, for the novelty of it had been anticipated in 
 what I had seen at St. Salvador. The number of black 
 people was immense, and the crowd of servants so 
 great, that one would suppose they thought themselves 
 made for the service of the English. The elegance of 
 their manner I was much taken with; but in general 
 one thought naturally occurred, the conversion of their 
 poor souls. I felt a solemn sort of melancholy at the 
 sight of such multitudes of idolators. While the tur- 
 baned Asiatics waited upon us at dinner, about a dozen 
 of them, I could not help feeling as if we had got into 
 their places. But now that I am actually treading 
 Indian ground, let me bless and adore my own God 
 
6o HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 for doing so much for me ; and oh, if I live, let me 
 have come hither for some purpose." 
 
 The first Sunday in India he spent at Madras, and 
 after preaching in the. morning, he went after dinner 
 to the chapel where Mr. Lovelace officiated. " I sat,'* 
 he says, " in the air at the door, enjoying the blessed 
 sound of the gospel on an Indian shore, and joining 
 with much comfort in the song of Divine praise." 
 
 After a short detention at Madras, the fleet sailed for 
 the Hooghly, and again while at sea he suffered greatly 
 from langour and debihty. " Exertion seemed to him 
 like death, — indeed, absolutely impossible." He was 
 aroused by seeing the great pagoda of Juggernaut rising 
 fro;n the shores, and his heart was filled with the 
 deepest compassion for the wretched children of India 
 who had erected such a monument of her shame on the 
 coast, and whose heathenism stared the stranger in his 
 face. When Juggernaut was left behind, the fleet was 
 overtaken by a terrific hurricane, such as is often 
 experienced in those latitudes ; and in an instant every 
 sail of the Uiiion was torn to pieces. The ship ran 
 before the gale, the tempest lulled, and the mouth of 
 the Hooghly was reached in safety. But here again 
 they were met by a still more formidable danger. On 
 the 13th May the Union struck on a sand-bank near 
 the Diamond harbour, where her situation was full of 
 peril, for the night came on, and the wind increased. 
 The captain looked upon the vessel as lost, and all 
 the passengers were in the deepest alarm. Martyn 
 
MARTYN SAILS FOR INDIA. 6l 
 
 ' retired for prayer, and so was kept in peace. After 
 being in danger for two hours, the ship unexpectedly 
 floated into deep waters, and reached Calcutta to the 
 joy of all on board. 
 
 From this city Martyn wrote to a dear friend : " My 
 long and wearisome voyage is concluded, and I am 
 at last arrived in the country where I am to spend my 
 days in the work of the Lord. Scarcely can I believe 
 myself to be . so happy as to be actually in India ; 
 yet this hath God wrought. Through changing climates 
 and tempestuous seas, He hath brought on His feeble 
 worm to the field of action, and will, I trust, speedily 
 equip me for my work. I am now very far from you 
 all, and as often as I look round and view the Indian 
 scenery, I sigh to think of the distance that separates 
 us. Time, indeed, and reflection have, under God, 
 contributed to make the separation less painful ; yet 
 still my thoughts recur with increasing fondness to 
 former friendship, and make the duty of intercession 
 for you a happy privilege. Day and night I do not 
 cease to pray for you, and I am willing to hope that 
 you too remember me daily at the throne of grace. 
 Let us not by any means forget one another, nor lose 
 sight of the day of our next meeting. We have little 
 to do with the business of this world. Place and time 
 have not that importance in our views that they have 
 in those of others ; and therefore neither change of 
 situation, nor lapse of years, should weaken our Chris- 
 tian attachments. I see it to be my business to fulfil, 
 
62 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 as a hireling, my day ; and then to leave the world. 
 Amen. We shall meet in happier regions. I believe 
 that those connections and comforts and friendships I 
 have heretofore so desired, though they are the sweetest 
 earthly blessings, are earthly still." 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 [1806-8.] 
 
 T may not be out of place if we make a few remarks 
 on the first missions to India. It is said— and there 
 is no reason to question the correctness of the tradition 
 
 that the apostle who was permitted to put his hands 
 
 into the sacred wounds of the Saviour's body, was the 
 first who brought the knowledge of Christ to the 
 icrnorant Hindoos. Tradition marks the spot— hence 
 called St. Thomas' Mount— on which the apostle who 
 once doubted the resurrection of Jesus suffered martyr- 
 dom in his Master's cause. When the Portuguese, 
 in the early part of the i6th century, first established 
 themselves on the coast of Malabar, they found a 
 community called Syriac, or St. Thome, Christians, 
 because descended from the converts of the apostle, 
 whose church was episcopal in its constitution, and 
 who, though surrounded by the darkness of Hindoo 
 superstition and idolatry, faithfully though feebly pre- 
 served the light of heavenly truth for more than 1,500 
 years. The Portuguese, on their arrival, sent forth 
 teachers of the Roman Catholic faith to various parts 
 
 63 
 
64 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 • 
 
 of the country, who, leaving caste untouched, slightly 
 modifying image worship, and confirming many of the 
 superstitious observances of the heathen, received into 
 the Church all, of whatever character, who would submit 
 to be baptized. For a time their efforts succeeded, 
 and the number of converts was large \ but their suc- 
 cess was but of limited duration. When the Roman 
 Catholic missions were in their decline, Frederick IV., 
 king of Denmark, established a missionary station at 
 Tranquebar, which town had been ceded to the Danish 
 crown by the Rajah of Tanjore. 
 
 In the early part of the eighteenth century, the vener- 
 able " Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge " 
 undertook the sole support of a mission at Madras, and 
 had the honour of sending forth a Schwartz to convey to 
 the East that glorious gospel, whose words, when applied 
 by the Spirit of God, can create life under the ribs of 
 death, and make men '' wise unto salvation through 
 faith which is in Christ Jesus." But as yet the Church 
 of England had no systematic organization for direct 
 missionary work amongst the millions who inhabited 
 the peninsula of India. At length the time came when 
 she awoke to a sense of her responsibihties and duties. 
 Towards the close of the last century, a few clergymen 
 met in a small room in the heart of London for the 
 object of mutual edification. They had often assembled 
 in the same place for purposes of devotion and profit ; 
 but on this occasion a more than usual interest might 
 be observed in their whole demeanour. What was the 
 
INDIA. 65 
 
 reason of this? It was the year in which Bonaparte, 
 in his attempt to conquer Syria, crossed the desert 
 from Cairo with 1 0,000 men, and taking Gaza, and 
 storming Jaffa, butchered all the prisoners there in 
 cold blood, and carried everything before him, until he 
 was checked in his career before the walls of St. Jean 
 d'Acre. It was also a year in which the groans borne 
 across the sea from Africa and the West Indies gre»iv 
 hoarser and deeper, and the terrible cry of oppression 
 that rose to the ear of God from the victims of the 
 accursed trade in slaves began to make itself heard 
 through the country, and called forth the sympathy 
 and compassion of many a philanthropic heart. But 
 neither the thrilling events which were taking place in 
 the East, nor the cries of the enslaved rising from 
 our colonies— though they had been stirred by the 
 story of the one and sighed over the wail of the 
 other — occupied the thoughts, on the day referred to, 
 of the handful of parish priests met in that humble 
 chamber. They were consulting how they might rouse 
 the great heart of England to undertake the noble 
 work of evangelizing the world. India and Africa, 
 with their teeming multitudes, lay close to their hearts, 
 and formed the topic of their conversation. They 
 resolved, in the strength of God, to do all that was in 
 their power to send the gospel to the millions who 
 knew nothing of the one true God, and had never 
 heard the name of Christ. God's blessing rested on 
 their work of faith and labour of love. He had already 
 
 F 
 
66 HENRY MARTYM. 
 
 prepared some of England's legislators to listen to an 
 appeal for direct missionary work amongst the heathen 
 in Africa and the East. Of these there was one who 
 had seen India for himself, and mourned over its 
 abominations ; another, whose birth and family con- 
 nected him with the merchant princes of this country, 
 and who longed for the diffusion of Christianity 
 throughout the globe ; a third, who, filled with " the 
 enthusiasm of humanity," had learned to live for others, 
 and who had received from God's hands the interests 
 of wronged and outraged Africa. To these men, and 
 a few others, was entrusted the honour of forming the 
 Church ]\Iissionary Society, — a society which has 
 grown year by year, which has swelled from an insig- 
 nificant rill to a mighty river whose waters, carrying 
 with them life and healing, have fertilized and glad- 
 dened many a parched and thirsty land. 
 
 It was once said, and with too much truth, that were 
 British rule in India to become, in the changes brought 
 about by the providence of God, a fact of history to- 
 morrow, no visible impress of our faith would be left 
 over whole provinces and kingdoms ; nothing would 
 remain to show that Englishmen fought beneath the 
 banner of the Cross, and remembered the God of battles 
 in the victories which He Himself vouchsafed. But this 
 can be said no more. There are now not only noble 
 cathedrals, and commodious churches — many a mission 
 station, with its peaceful sanctuary and busy schools; 
 but there are imperishable memorials of Christian work 
 
INDIA. 67 
 
 and Christian success; waste places turned into the 
 garden of the Lord ; moral wildernesses rejoicing and 
 blooming as the rose; souls, the purchase of the 
 Saviour's Cross, '' delivered from the bondage of corru])- 
 tion, into the glorious liberty of the children of God." 
 Temples made with hands perish and decay, structures 
 of man's designing, the noblest and grandest, may be 
 swept away by the tornado of popular tumult, but these 
 spiritual trophies are more durable than dynasties and 
 thrones — outlive time, and are coeval with eternity itself. 
 It was that he might win bloodless and immortal vic- 
 tories, that he might open the blind eye, turn men " from 
 darkness to light," and from the power of Satan unto 
 God," that Henry Martyn engaged in the high enter- 
 prise to which he had devoted himself with singular 
 self-renunciation ; consecrating his clear intellect, his 
 simple faith, his burning zeal to the glory of God in the 
 salvation of the lost 
 
 Martyn came to India borne on the wings of prayer. 
 " For many years," says his biographer, " supplications 
 had incessantly ascended up to heaven from Christians in 
 India, for the spiritual prosperity of that benighted land ; 
 and for a considerable time a stated weekly meeting had 
 been held at Calcutta, on the recommendation of Dr. 
 Buchanan and Mr. Barnes, for the express purpose of 
 beseeching the Lord to send forth labourers into those 
 "fields which were white unto the harvest." One of 
 these, Dr. Buchanan, a name dear to all who admire 
 zeal, integrity, liberality, and an entire consecration of 
 
68 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 high talents in the cause of Christian philanthropy, was 
 now about to commence his researches into the state 
 of religion amongst the Syrian Christians ; and the ship 
 which conveyed him on that interesting errand left the 
 mouth of the Hooghly as the Union entered it. To him, 
 doubtless, the sight of Mr. Martyn would have seemed 
 an answer to prayer, demanding the warmest thanks- 
 giving ; the voice of a Christian missionary would have 
 been sweeter in his ears than those sounds which he 
 afterwards heard in Travancore, from the bells amongst 
 the hills, and which reminded him of another country." 
 
 Martyn was received with all the warmth of Christian 
 affection at Aldeen, near Calcutta, by the Rev. David 
 Brown, who fitted up for his residence a pagoda where 
 he could enjoy as much retirement as he desired. The 
 pagoda was near Mr. Brown's house, and on the borders 
 of the river, and its chambers often re-echoed the voice 
 of prayer and the song of praise. It was a matter of 
 much rejoicing to Martyn that " the place where once 
 devils were worshipped was now become a Christian 
 oratory." While here he had a serious attack of fever, 
 and during his illness he was overtaken by a very 
 common temptation — the temptation to take some satis- 
 faction in his own righteousness, and to look to it as 
 a qualification to give him confidence in God. It was 
 a wile of the great adversary, who takes advantage of 
 seasons of weakness to try us with his fiercest assaults. 
 He that tempted Job when he was bowed with sorrow, 
 and Jesus when He was faint with hunger, now tempted 
 
INDIA. 69 
 
 Martyn when he was worn out with sickness and 
 exhaustion. He sought to withdraw his eyes from 
 Christ, and to fix them on himself, so clouding over his 
 faitli, and darkening his joy. No wonder that whilst 
 he was wrestling with the Prince of darkness, and with 
 the frailty of his own heart, he could write of himself in 
 these terms : " I could derive no comfort from reflecting 
 on my past life. Indeed, exactly in proportion as I 
 looked for evidences of grace, I lost that brokenness of 
 spirit I wished to retain, and could not lie with simplicity 
 at the foot of the Cross. I really thought that I was 
 departing this life. I began to pray as on the verge of 
 eternity, and the Lord was pleased to break my hard 
 heart. I lay in tears interceding for the unfortunate 
 natives of this country ; thinking with myself that the 
 most despicable Soodar of India was of as much value in 
 the sight of God as the king of Great Britain." 
 
 After his recovery, the current of his days flowed on 
 pleasantly and sweetly, brightened by the pleasures of 
 friendly society and the communion of saints. So 
 happily did time pass, that Martyn, with his usual watch- 
 fulness over self, began to fear lest after such enjoyment 
 among friends, he should be less fitted for the solitude 
 and hardships of the life he had chosen. Calcutta was 
 a place so manifestly suited to his peculiar gifts that his 
 friends were earnest in their solicitations that he sliould 
 continue in a sphere where his ministry was so likely to 
 be useful. But Dr. Buchanan truly said of him in his 
 " Christian Researches/' that he had a spirit to follow 
 
70 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 the steps of Brainerd and Schwartz ; and to be prevented 
 from going to the heathen, Martyn himself remarked on 
 this occasion, ''would almost have broken his heart." 
 He saw enough of the cruel rites and debasing idolatries 
 of heathenism at Aldeen, to fill him with the utmost 
 compassion for those who were " perishing for lack of 
 knowledge." Seeing one day the blaze of a funeral pile, 
 he hastened to the spot whence the flames arose, to 
 rescue a poor woman from the fire, but she was burned 
 to ashes before he could reach the place. He used to 
 hear the sounds of cymbals and drums rising from a dark 
 wood near Serampore, calling the natives to their devil- 
 worship ; and he frequently saw the natives prostrating 
 themselves before a black idol which stood in one of 
 their pagodas, a sight which overwhelmed him with pity 
 and horror, and he " shivered," he tells us, " as standing 
 as it were in the neighbourhood of hell." Such scenes 
 might have had weight in inducing him to listen to the 
 wishes of his friends to remain at Calcutta \ but as they 
 took place near to a city from which many a holy man 
 of God had gone out to the wretched slaves of super- 
 stition, crying, " Why do ye such things ?" he felt that he 
 was called to places where there was no one to point the 
 idolater to " the Lamb of God which taketh away the 
 sin of the world." 
 
 During his stay at Aldeen he vigorously studied 
 Hindustani, availing himself of the assistance of a 
 Brahmin from Cashmere, whom he wearied with his 
 untiring assiduity. He also preached often to his 
 
INDIA. 71 
 
 countrymen, both in the Mission Church, and at the 
 New Church in Calcutta. His faithful statement of the 
 gospel was offensive to many of his hearers, and un- 
 palatable even to some of his brother clergymen, who 
 attacked hiui from the pulpit, and denounced his doc- 
 trines as "inconsistent, extravagant, absurd." He had 
 the pain of sometimes being present while these attacks 
 were made, and to hear himself described as " knowing 
 neither what he said, nor whereof he affirmed, and as 
 speaking only to gratify self-sufficiency, pride, and 
 uncharitableness." His behaviour under such indecent 
 attacks, so lacking in the spirit of the Christian or the 
 gentleman, and which in these days would be impossible, 
 was worthy a disciple of Christ. "I rejoiced," he said, 
 " to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after- 
 wards, as the solemnities of that blessed ordinance 
 sweetly tended to soothe any asperity of mind ; and 
 
 1 think that I administered tiie cup to and 
 
 with sincere goodwill. There was one honour- 
 able exception to the way in which his brethren in the 
 ministry at Calcutta received the preaching of the 
 gospel in all its fulness and faithfulness through his lips. 
 One of the chaplains, perceiving that the doctrines of 
 the Church of England were becoming a matter of warm 
 and general controversy, adopted the admirable plan of 
 simply reading the Homilies to the congregation, thus 
 leaving the Church authoritatively to speak for herself, 
 and giving all classes an opportunity of deciding what 
 views were most in harmony with her Scriptural formu- 
 
72 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 laries — those of Mr. Martyn or those of his antagonists. 
 
 "Mr. ," he says, "to the great satisfaction of all serious 
 
 people, began to read a Homily by way of sermon ; after 
 stating the diversity of opinion which had lately pre- 
 vailed in the pulpit." And again, "at the New Church 
 
 I read, and Mr. preached the second and tliird 
 
 parts of the Homily on salvation." "The very clear 
 exhibition ol Divine truth which was thus presented was 
 very rejoicing to our hearts." 
 
 On the 13th ot September Martyn received his 
 appointment to Dinapore ; and though his friends en- 
 treated him to remain at Calcutta, and offered him the 
 old Mission Church built by Kiernander — one of the 
 missionaries of the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge, and the salary of a chaplain, and a house 
 besides, he was deaf to all such proposals, for his heart 
 was fixed on preaching amongst the heathen " the un- 
 searchable riches of Christ." 
 
 At the beginning of October he prepared to leave the 
 family of his true Christian friend, the Rev. David 
 Brown, and to set out for his new home ; but before his 
 departure, he was permitted, to his great joy, to welcome 
 two more fellow-labourers from England, who, in imita- 
 tion of his self-denying example, had turned their backs 
 on their native land. " I went down," he says in his 
 journal, " to Calcutta, where we had the happiness of 
 meeting our dear brethren. I rode out with them in 
 the evening, and passed most of the time conversing 
 about European friends." And when he afterwards 
 
INDIA. 73 
 
 heard one of them, Mr. Corrie, preach, he thus expresses 
 himself: *' God be praised for another witness to His 
 truth. Oh may abundant grace and gifts rest on my 
 beloved brother, that the works of God may show them- 
 selves forth in him." 
 
 Shortly before he left Aldeen, several of his friends 
 assembled in his pagoda to commend him to God, and 
 to implore a blessing on his labours. The fact of such 
 a meeting being held in what had been an idol-temple 
 seemed to be an omen for good, and to hold in it the 
 germ of all that he hoped for as regarded idolatrous 
 India. " My soul," he said, " never yet had such Divine 
 enjoyment. I felt a desire to break from the body, and 
 join the high praises of the saints above. May I go ' in 
 the strength of this ' many days. Amen." 
 
 On the 15th of October, after taking leave of the 
 Church at Calcutta in a farewell sermon, and of his 
 friends at Aldeen at their morning family worship, he 
 entered his budgerow, — a travelling boat constructed 
 like a pleasure-barge — which was to convey him up the 
 Ganges to Dinapore. His brethren, Mr. Brown, Mr. 
 Corrie, and Mr. Parsons, accompanied him in his voyage 
 up the river ; and as Mr. Marshman, one of the Baptist 
 missionaries, saw them pass by the Mission House, he 
 joined the party, and after going a little way, left them 
 with prayer. The day after, the weather becoming 
 tempestuous, his friends sadly and reluctantly left him 
 to pursue his voyage alone. It was a trying position, 
 and one which his sensitive spirit felt keenly. " I was 
 
74 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 left alone," he writes in his journal, " for the first time 
 with none but natives. The wind and rain became so 
 violent that the men let the budgerow stay upon the 
 shore the whole day, which in consequence of beating 
 on the ground, leaked so much that the men were 
 obliged to be in my cabin to bale her. Read with 
 moonshee one of the tracts which he had himself trans- 
 lated from the Bengalee into verse. Perceiving him to 
 be alarmed at the violence of the waves beating against 
 the boat, I began to talk to him about religion. He 
 began by saying, ' May God be our Protector.' This 
 was a favourable beginning. The hurricane abated 
 before midnight, through mercy." 
 
 The voyage up the Ganges occupied several weeks, from 
 seventeen to twenty miles a day being the greatest distance 
 a large budgerow can be towed against the stream, during 
 the fair season. During this time he studied Hindustani 
 and Sanscrit, — read with his moonshee ; and landing 
 from time to time got into conversation with the natives 
 of the villages where the boat stopped for the night. In 
 one village he discovered the worshippers of Cali by the 
 sound of their drums and cymbals ; and the Brahmin 
 having invited him to walk within the railing, he did 
 so, and asked a few questions about the idol. " The 
 Brahmin, who spoke bad Hindustani, disputed with 
 great heat, and his tongue ran faster than I could 
 follow, and the people, who were about one hundred, 
 shouted applause. But I continued to ask my questions 
 without making any remarks upon the answers. I asked, 
 
INDIA. 75 
 
 among other things, whether what I had heard of Vishnu 
 and Brahma was true ; which he confirmed. I forbore 
 to press him with the consequences which he seemed 
 to feel, and so I told him what was my belief. The man 
 grew quite wild, and said it was chula bat (good words) 
 and asked me seriously at last what I thought — "Was 
 idol-worship true or false ? " I felt it a matter of thank- 
 fulness that I could make known the truth of God, 
 though but a stammerer, and that I had declared it in 
 the presence of the devil ; and this also I learnt, that the 
 power of gentleness is irresistible. I never was more 
 astonished than at the change of deportment in the 
 hot-headed Brahmin. Read the Sanscrit grammar till 
 bed-time." 
 
 Then follows another interesting extract from his 
 journal. " Came-to on the eastern bank below a village 
 called Ahgadeep. Wherever I walked the women fled 
 at the sight of me. Some men were sitting under the 
 shed dedicated to their goddess, and a lamp was burning 
 in her place. A conversation soon began ; but there 
 was no one who could speak Hindustani, so all I could 
 say was by the medium of my Mussulman Musalchee. 
 They said that they only did as others did, and, if they 
 were wrong, then all Bengal was wrong. I felt love for 
 their souls, and longed for utterance to declare unto 
 those poor simple people the holy gospel. I think that 
 when my mouth is opened, I shall preach to them day 
 and night. I feel that they are my brethren in the 
 flesh, precisely on a level with myself." 
 
76 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 We see from these passages how this missionary of 
 the Cross, animated by the very spirit of his Master, 
 "forgetting the things that were behind, was reaching 
 forth to those that were before," and was content to be 
 estranged from all his old associations, and to live 
 amongst the benighted and degraded, " if by any means 
 he might save some." Indeed, his journals at this time 
 reveal a mind filled with an ardour for the salvation 
 of souls akin to his who, as the tears fell hot on the 
 page, wrote thus : " Many walk of whom I have told 
 you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are 
 the enemies of the Cross of Christ," — a mind in liveliest 
 sympathy with His who, when He had reached the brow 
 of Olivet on His return to Jerusalem, wept over the city, 
 saying, " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
 thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace ! but now 
 they are hid from thine eyes." 
 
 He arrived in the afternoon of the 26th of November 
 at Dinapore, but did not immediately go on shore. As 
 this was to be his permanent residence for some time, 
 he began at once to reflect how he could best work for 
 God. Three especial objects engaged his attention, — 
 to acquire such a facility in speaking Hindustani as 
 should enable him to preach in that language ; to es- 
 tablish native schools ; and to prepare translations of the 
 Scriptures and religious tracts for circulation. During 
 his voyage up the Ganges he had employed himself 
 in translating the Parables, accompanied by remarks 
 on these beautiful stories of Christ. He knew enough 
 
INDIA. >j>j 
 
 of Hindustani to translate with grammatical accuracy ; 
 and he had his moonshee at hand to suggest the proper 
 idiom, and what in that language is said to be so 
 difficult, — the just and exact allocation of the words 
 in the sentences. iMartyn represents the difficulties 
 to be overcome in acquiring the languages of the 
 country to be very great. Passing from the province 
 of Bengal into that of Bahar, he found that he must 
 learn the Baharee as well as the Hindustani; and 
 the Baharee had its various dialects. The people of 
 India are divided into thirty-five different states, and 
 speak thirty different languages ; and though there is a 
 close affinity between these tongues, yet a book in the 
 dialect of one district is unintelligible to the inhabitants 
 of another. These, and many other difficulties which 
 lay in the way of his work, could not fail of weighing 
 oppressively on his mind ; and had he not sought and 
 found a refuge in omnipotent strength, he would have 
 been overwhelmed with despair. 
 
 In what spirit he entered into the duties that now 
 pressed upon him, may be seen in his account of the 
 work of a single day. As the best method of gaining 
 a knowledge of the various Oriental tongues, the study 
 of Sanscrit was recommended to him by his pundit, 
 and to this study the extract which follows has reference. 
 " Morning with pundit, in Sanscrit. In the afternoon, 
 hearing a parable in the Bahar dialect. Continued till 
 late at night in writing on the Parables. My soul 
 much impressed with the immeasurable importance of 
 
78 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 my work, and the wickedness and cruelty of wasting a 
 moment when so many nations are, as it were, waiting 
 till I do my work. Felt eager for the morning to come 
 again that I might resume my work." 
 
 His study of Sanscrit was rendered less agreeable than 
 it might have been by the objections of his moonshee 
 and pundit, — the one Mussulman, and the other Brah- 
 min. Their observations often presented a strange and 
 affecting display of ignorance and intolerance. " Upon 
 showing," he says, "the moonshee the first part of 
 John iii., he instantly caught at those words of our Lord, 
 in which He first describes Himself as having come 
 down from heaven, and then calls Himself the Son of 
 man which is in heaven. He said this was what the 
 philosophers called ' nickal,' or impossible, even for 
 God to make a thing to be in two different places at 
 the same time." Martyn explained to him how the 
 difficulty attending the incarnation lay not so much in 
 conceiving how the Son of man could be at the same 
 time in two different places, as in comprehending that 
 union of the two natures in Him which made this pos- 
 sible. He told him that the union could not be ex- 
 plained, but that the wisdom and the mercy of God was 
 manifested in thus accomplishing the redemption of a 
 guilty world. He had reason for thinking that the 
 explanation given was not without effect. " I was much 
 at a loss for words, but I believe he collected my mean- 
 ing, and received some information which he possessed 
 not before." In another place he says " In reading 
 
INDIA. 79 
 
 some parts of the Epistles of St. John to my moonshee, he 
 seemed to view them with great contempt ; so far above 
 the wisdom of the world is their Divine simplicity ! The 
 moonshee told me at night, that when the pundit carne 
 to the part about the angels ' separating the evil from 
 the good,' he said, with some surprise, that there was 
 no such thing in his Shaster, but that, at the end of 
 the world, the sun would come so near as first to 
 burn all the men, then the mountains, then the ' debtas ' 
 (inferior gods), then the waters : then God, reducing 
 Himself to the size of a thumb-nail, would swim on the 
 leaf of the pupul tree." 
 
 Religious discussions between Mr. Martyn, his moon- 
 shee, and pundit, were of almost daily occurrence, and 
 the record of them is full of interest, as not only throwing 
 light on his character, but on the nature of the work to 
 be done by a missionary in India. In giving a conver- 
 sation with his moonshee on the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 and the Divinity of Christ, in which he grew angry, and 
 felt tired and vexed, he says:— "If any qualification 
 seems necessary to a missionary in India, it is wisdom 
 operating in the regulation of the temper, and im- 
 provement of opportunities." Another extract from his 
 journals must be given, as it shows the kind of people 
 among whom the missionary work is to be carried on. 
 " Dictating to-day the explanation of a parable to the 
 moonshee, I had occasion to give the proofs of the cor- 
 ruption of human nature, and drew the conclusion that 
 hence, till our hearts are changed, we are abominable 
 
8o HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 in the sight of God, and our own works, however useful 
 to man, are worthless in His sight. I think I never saw- 
 such a striking instance of the truth grappling with 
 human nature. He seemed like a fish when he first 
 finds the hook has hold of him : he was in a dreadful 
 rage, and endeavoured to escape from the conviction 
 those truths produced, but seemingly in vain. At last, 
 recovering himself, he said he had a question to ask, 
 which was, " What would become of children if the dis- 
 position they are born with rendered them odious in the 
 sight of God ? I gave him the best answer I could, but 
 he considered it as nothing, because founded on Scrip- 
 ture ; and said with great contempt, that this was mere 
 matter of faith, the same sort of thing as when the Hin- 
 doos believed the nonsense of their Shasters. 
 
 The commencement of Mr. Martyn's ministry amongst 
 his countrymen at Dinapore was not of such a kind 
 as either to gratify or to cheer him. Their levity and 
 profaneness, their disregard of religion, their mind so 
 opposed to the spirit of the Christianity which they 
 professed, caused him the deepest sorrow and trouble. 
 When he first began his duties as chaplain, he read 
 prayers to the soldiers at the barracks on the long drum ; 
 and as there was no place to sit, he was desired to omit 
 the sermon. After a time he made arrangements for the 
 more decorous celebration of Divine service ; and some 
 of the families residing at the station assembled on the 
 Sunday, and availed themselves of Mr. Martyn's minis- 
 trations. By many of these offence was taken that he 
 
INDTA. 8l 
 
 did not read to them a written sermon ; and overstep- 
 ping the Hmits of propriety and respect, they asked him 
 to desist from Qxtempore preaching. Although he at first 
 felt displeased and annoyed at such a request, yet for 
 the sake of conciliation he by7and-by returned the 
 answer, — perhaps a little flavoured with sarcasm,— that 
 " he would give them a folio sermon-book, if they would 
 receive the word of God on that account." 
 
 His very endeavours at this time to bring the gospel 
 to bear upon the heathen excited the jealousy and dread 
 of some of the irreligious of his countrymen, lest he 
 should excite a tumult amongst the natives : as if the 
 gosi)el of the grace of God could do anything but still 
 the passions of the human heart, or introduce anything 
 but peace and goodwill where it is received. Such fears 
 have always been rife amongst men of the world ; and 
 many a statesman has opposed the work of missions, 
 and in their alarm have checked the advance of Christ's 
 kingdom, instead of looking on the gospel as the true 
 and only remedy for the evils that afflict mankind. The 
 gospel is the true pioneer of civilization, and every friend 
 of humanity will do all in his power to give the world 
 that knowledge of Christ which can humanise the bar- 
 barous and elevate the debased. The wise of the world 
 look to other agencies for the regeneration of mankind, 
 to the diffusion of knowledge, the progress of science, 
 the advance of education, the introduction of the useful 
 arts ;- but none of these can change the heart, and renew 
 the nature, can curb the passions, or refine the aftections; 
 
 G 
 
82 HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 and it is found now as ever, that "the foolishness of God 
 is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger 
 than men." He is the wisest philanthropist, as well as 
 the truest Christian, who, with weapons that are '•' not 
 carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of 
 strongholds," attacks Satan within his entrenchments, 
 and proves by the result that " the seed of the woman " 
 can still " bruise the serpent's head." 
 
 The moral character of the natives shocked and dis- 
 tressed him ; and so great was their looseness of prin- 
 ciple that their conversion to nominal Christianity — their 
 becoming " Feringees " — would have been a matter of 
 little or no difficulty. Bat this was not his object ; and 
 unless he had reason to believe that they were truly 
 penitent and believing, he had neither the wish nor the 
 inclination to baptize them, though all the Brahmins' 
 and Rajahs' country came to him for baptism. He 
 imagined that they regarded him with enmity and dis- 
 like ; and his meek and tender spirit was grieved and 
 pained as he feared he was the object of their contempt. 
 Hence this mingled burst of sorrow and hope, which, 
 proceeding from a heart overcharged with grief, found 
 expression in the following words : — " Here every native 
 I meet is an enemy to me because I am an Englishman. 
 England appears almost a heaven upon earth, because 
 there one is not viewed as an unjust intruder. But oh, 
 the heaven of my God, ' the general assembly of the first- 
 born, the spirits of just men made perfect,' — and Jesus! 
 oh, let me for a little while labour, and suffer reproach." 
 
INDIA. 83 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1807, we find him em- 
 ployed morning and evening on the Sanscrit grammar, 
 and in the afternoon on a translation of the Parables. 
 In the month of February he had translated the Book of 
 Common Prayer into Hindustani, a work, as his bio- 
 grapher truly says, " that would have been worth living 
 for, if he had lived for nothing else." He was thus 
 enabled in the month of March to begin a service in the 
 vernacular tongue of India, at which about two hundred 
 women, Portuguese, Roman Catholics, and Mahometans 
 attended in eager crowds. 
 
 His principal success amongst the Europeans to whom 
 he ministered, was with the sick whom he attended in 
 the hospital. The upper ranks stood aloof from him, 
 and treated his efforts for their welfare with coldness 
 or opposition. In vain did he endeavour to introduce 
 religious topics into conversation. " I spoke," said he, 
 after visiting some of these, " several times about religion 
 to them, but the manner in which it was received 
 damped all further attempt." There was but a small 
 number of chaplains in India in those days, and con- 
 sequently Martyn was sometimes obliged to travel so 
 many as seventy miles in order to read the marriage 
 service ; but on these occasions he always sought and 
 found opportunities of advancing his Master's claims. 
 
 He erected five schools at Dinapore solely at his own 
 expense, but these gave him after a time some anxiety. 
 A report was spread that he intended to seize upon the 
 children and compel them to become Christians. The 
 
84 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 school at Patna immediately fell off in numbers, and 
 diminished from forty children to eight ; and at Dina- 
 pore no site could be obtained from the Zemindar for the 
 erection of a schoolroom. For the purpose of soothing 
 the agitation, he went to Patna in order to explain his 
 sentiments and remove the foolish and groundless alarm. 
 
 In addition to his other troubles he had the pain of 
 seeing there a servant of the Company, a man advanced 
 in years and of some social standing, who had openly 
 denied the faith, and professed his adhesion to Ma- 
 hometanism. He had built a mosque of his own, which, 
 as the season when Martyn visited Patna was the 
 Mohurrun, was adorned with flags ; and being illumin- 
 ated at night proclaimed the shame of the offender. 
 Martyn did not fail to rebuke the apostate, seeking to 
 awaken his slumbering conscience with the warning 
 words : " Remember whence thou art fallen," and urging 
 him to consider that " the Son of God had died for 
 sinners." 
 
 He found when he reached Patna that the school 
 was deserted. Neither children nor teacher were to 
 be found. The people, however, quickly gathered in 
 crowds; and such was the effect of Martyn's explan- 
 ations, his temperate arguments and mild expostulations, 
 that all their fears were removed, and in a few days the 
 children returned to the schools at Patna and Dinapore. 
 
 Towards the latter end of March he finished his 
 translation of a Commentary on the Parables. " The 
 little book of the Parables," he wrote to Mr. Corrie, " is 
 
INDIA. 85 
 
 finished, through the blessing of God. I cannot say I 
 am well pleased on the re-perusal of it; but yet, con- 
 taining as it does such large portions of the word of 
 God, I ought not to doubt its accomplishing that which 
 He pleaseth." 
 
 Mr. Martyn's duties on the Sunday had now increased, 
 consisting of one service at seven in the morning to the 
 Europeans, another at two in the afternoon to the 
 Hindoos, and an attendance at the hospital ; after which, 
 in the evening, he ministered privately at his own rooms 
 to the soldiers who wished to be better instructed in the 
 things pertaining to the kingdom of God. With such of 
 these as attended regularly at his house on the Sunday 
 evening and other evenings of the week, he enjoyed 
 much spiritual communion. The number was very 
 small at first, amounting at the most to five ; sometimes 
 no more than one was able to attend, but with him he 
 gladly joined in prayer and praise and the reading of the 
 word, and the " two met together in the Saviour's 
 name" felt Him to be present in their midst. Over 
 some of the officers stationed at Dinapore he began to 
 rejoice, and of one of these, who from the first had 
 treated him with the kindness of a father, he, at this 
 time, formed " expectations which soon ripened into a 
 dehghtful certainty that he had turned with full purpose 
 of heart to the Lord." 
 
 Had Martyn allowed himself to be carried away on 
 the strong and overflowing current of his zeal and love, 
 it would have borne him into the streets of Patna with 
 
86 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 the Bible in liis hand. This would have cost him much, 
 as he owns to Mr. Corrie, and he felt keenly the con- 
 tempt to which it would have exposed him from those to 
 whom the gospel was a stumbling-block and an offence. 
 But he was ready to endure the loss of all things for 
 Christ's sake. In a letter to Mr. Corrie, he says : "Oh 
 that the time were come that I should be able to carry 
 the war into the en.^my's territory. It will be a severe 
 trial to the flesh, my dear brother, for us both ; but it is 
 sufficient for the disciple to be as his Master, and the 
 servant as his Lord. We shall be ' accounted as the 
 filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things.' " 
 
 To the free and frank correspondence carried on 
 weekly with Mr. Corrie he was indebted for much of 
 the happiness of his life at this time. He ranked it 
 amongst his richest blessings to have such a friend near 
 him in such a country ; for, with the exception of his 
 other brethren in India with whom he statedly corre- 
 sponded every quarter, and often also at other times, he 
 had no one like-minded who would naturally care for 
 the evangelization of the heathen. In this Mr. Corrie 
 was of one heart and of one mind with himself. 
 
 Both the health of Mr. Martyn and of his friend, Mr. 
 Corrie, suffered from the weakening effects of the climate, 
 the thermometer at Dinapore being 92° in the shade, 
 while at Chunar the heat was still more intense. But 
 in addition to this Martyn injured himself by his habits 
 of abstinence. He ever observed with great strictness 
 the holy seasons set apart by the Church for fasting and 
 
INDIA. 87 
 
 prayer; but the languid state to which he was now 
 reduced convinced him that this bodily asceticism added 
 to his mental strain was injurious to his health, and there- 
 fore he discontinued it. He was wise enough to temper 
 his zeal with caution, and to feel that if he transgressed 
 any of the laws which nature imposed, he must be the 
 sufferer. Fasting, in itself, is but a means to an end ; 
 and if through the exhaustion of the powers it makes the 
 spirit less active, less willing, less ready for service, it 
 becomes an evil and not a good, and comes under the 
 condemnation of that " bodily exercise which profiteth 
 httle." It may have been owing to his habits of severe 
 abstinence, and the weakness in consequence super- 
 induced, that we find so much of introspection in Mar- 
 tyn's journals accompanied by depression, and that often 
 *' the consolations of God " seem at least to be " small." 
 For instance, towards the middle of April, just before he 
 receives a call from his labours at Dinapore to Monghir 
 to perform the marriage ceremony, he writes : " My 
 mind much as usual ; not tried by any violent assault 
 of sin or Satan, but the daily cause of grief and shame ; 
 and indeed the root of all sin is forgetfulness of God. I 
 perceive not in what state I have been till I come to 
 pray." " Satan assaults me in various ways : some of 
 his darts respecting the person of my Lord were dread- 
 fully severe, but he triumphed not a moment. I am 
 taught to see what would become of me if God should 
 withdraw His strong hand. Is there any depth into 
 which Satan would not plunge me ? " " In prayer had 
 
88 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 an affecting sense of my shameful ingratitude. Had I 
 behaved thus to an earthly benefactor, showing so little 
 regard for his company and his approbation, how should 
 I abhor myself and be abhorred by all ! How astonish- 
 ingly rich in grace, bearing all with unceasing patience, 
 and doing nothing but crown His sinful creature with 
 loving-kindness and tender mercies ! '' 
 
 His journals, however, are not all in this strain of 
 self-condemnation. There are occasions when he takes 
 his harp from the willows, and strikes the chords to more 
 joyful notes. 
 
 April 2ist. " Again the love and mercy of the Lord 
 restored me to health and spirits. Began to write a 
 sermon on walking in Christ, and found ray soul bene- 
 fited by meditation on the subject. In the afternoon 
 went on with translation. Arrived at sunset at Monghir." 
 April 26th. " In prayer, at the appointed hour I felt 
 solemnity of mind, and an earnest desire that the Lord 
 would pour out a double portion of His Spirit upon all 
 His ministers in India ; that every one of us may be 
 eminent in holiness and ministerial gifts." " Passed the 
 day in reading and prayer, such as my prayers are. My 
 soul struggled with corrupdon, yet I found the merit and 
 grace of Jesus all-sufficient, and all-supporting." 
 
 Martyn, as we have seen, had devoted much time to 
 the translation of the Scriptures into Hindustani, both 
 before and since he quitted Calcutta. A proposal was 
 made by the Rev. David Brown, in the June of this 
 year, that he would press on with this important work. 
 
INDIA, 89 
 
 and also superintend a translation into Persian. He had 
 been endeavouring for some time to master the Persian 
 tongue, because he had been told that this language was 
 understood and spoken from Dinapore to Damascus. 
 Mr. Brown's proposal was eagerly accepted, and ani- 
 mated by the hope of seeing his labours brought to a 
 successful close, he pursued them, not only with dili- 
 gence but delight. " The time fled imperceptibly," he 
 remarks: "so delightfully engaged in the translations, 
 the days seemed to have passed like a moment. Blessed 
 be God for some improvement in the languages ! May 
 everything be for edification in the Church ! What do I 
 not owe to the Lord for permitting me to take part in a 
 translation of His word ! Never did I see such wonder 
 and wisdom and love in the blessed Book, as since I 
 have been obliged to study every expression ; and it is 
 a delightful reflection that death cannot deprive us of 
 the pleasure of studying its mysteries." 
 
 It was well for himself that he was now so actively 
 employed, and that he found such perpetual pleasure in 
 the Book of God ; for a new sorrow came upon him, 
 more bitter than any which had befallen him since the 
 death of his father. Letters from England brought the 
 intelligence that his eldest sister was dead. He had 
 been partly prepared for the news by some expressions 
 which liad dropped from her pen in a letter that reached 
 him only a few weeks before. And now the suspense 
 ended in the inexpressible sense of his loss. He was 
 only supported under the bereavement by the knowledge 
 
90 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 that she had passed through death unto life, and had 
 entered through the shadows of the dark valley into the 
 light and glory of the presence of the Lord. 
 
 " O my heart, my heart ! " he says : "is it, can it be 
 true that she has been lying so many months in the cold 
 grave ? Would that I could always remember it, or 
 always forget it ; but to think for a moment of other 
 things, and then to feel the remembrance of it come as 
 if for the first time, rends my heart asunder. O great 
 and gracious God ! what should I do without Thee ? 
 But now Thou art manifesting Thyself as the God of all 
 consolation to my soul, never was I so near to Thee. I 
 stand on the brink, and long to take my flight ! There 
 is not a thing in the world for which I would wish to live, 
 except because it may please God to appoint me some 
 work. And how shall my soul be ever thankful enough 
 to Thee, O Thou mozt incomprehensibly glorious Saviour 
 Jesus ! O what hast Thou done to alleviate the sorrows 
 of life ! And how great has been the mercy of God 
 towards my family, in saving us all ! How dreadful 
 would be the separation of relations in death, were it 
 not for Jesus ! " In a letter to Mr. Brown he says : 
 *' This " (the knowledge that his sister had died in the 
 Lord), " this you will tell me, my dear Mr. Brown, is 
 precious consolation ; indeed, I am constrained to 
 acknowledge that I could hardly ask for greater, for I 
 had already parted with her for ever in this life ; and 
 after that, all I wished for was, to hear of her being 
 converted to God, and if it were His will, taken away in 
 
INDIA, 91 
 
 due time from the evil to come, and brought to glory 
 before me. Yet human nature bleeds ; her departure 
 has left this world a frightful blank to me ; and I feel 
 not the smallest wish to live except there be some work 
 assigned for me to do in the Church of God." 
 
 Acutely as Martyn suffered in this season of trial, 
 yet did he not allow his sorrow to interfere with his 
 studies ; he pursued them with all his old eagerness with 
 but the omission of a single day. He thought it to be his 
 duty to return to his work at once ; and no doubt he 
 felt relief in an occupation which kept his mind on the 
 word of God. " My studies," he writes, " have been 
 the Arabic grammar, and Persian, writing Luke for the 
 women, and dictating i Peter i. to moonshee. Finished 
 the Gulistan of Sadi, and began it again to mark all the 
 phrases that may be of use in the translation of the 
 Scriptures." One fruit of his prayers, and a hai)py 
 result of a right judgment, was the successful introduc- 
 tion of the Sermon on the Mount into his schools ; and 
 on the 2 1 St of September, he had the great joy of 
 hearing the poor heathen boys reading the Saviour's 
 words. His heart now burned with the desire to preach 
 publicly to the natives, but he felt the importance of not 
 being precipitate, and so he slacked, but with some 
 difficulty, the fervour of his zeal. He would do nothing 
 until he saw what his schools and the quiet circulation 
 of the Scriptures might effect, hoping that the way by 
 means of these might be gradually opened for the 
 preaching of the gospel. It was his desire to watch 
 
92 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 the success of his plans that influenced him to decline 
 a pressing invitation from Mr. Brown, urging him to 
 take the Missionary Church at the Presidency. But 
 Dinapore was in the midst of the heathen, and here he 
 could enjoy as much retirement as he pleased. " If 
 ever I am found at Calcutta," he wrote in reply, '* I have 
 done with the natives, for notwithstanding previous 
 determinations, the churches and people are enough to 
 employ twenty ministers. This is one reason for my 
 apparently unconquerable aversion to being fixed there. 
 The happiness of being near, and with you, and your 
 dear family, would not be a compensation for the disap- 
 pointment ; and having said this, I know of no stronger 
 method of my expressing my dislike to the measure. If 
 God commands it, I trust I shall have grace to obey ; but 
 let me beseech you all to take no step towards it, for I 
 shall resist it as long as I can with a safe conscience." 
 
 In addition to his other afflictions, he at this time met 
 with a severe trial in the disappointment of a hope which 
 he had long cherished. Friends whose judgment he 
 valued had so strongly represented the dreariness of a 
 distant station in India, and the evils of solitude, that he 
 was again induced to make an offer of marriage to the 
 lady for whom time had increased, rather tlian weakened, 
 his attachment. He had continued to correspond with 
 Miss Grenfell, and his letters tell how much he felt their 
 separation, and through what struggles he reached re- 
 signation. He was ever hoping that she would join him 
 in his Indian home ; and he longed for her presence the 
 
INDIA. 93 
 
 more because he believed that their union would increase 
 his usefulness in the missionary work. " My own earthly 
 comfort and happiness," he writes, "are not worth a 
 moment's notice. I would not influence you by any 
 artifices, or false representations. I can only say, that if 
 you have a desire of being instrumental in establishing 
 the blessed Redeemer's kingdom among these poor 
 people, and will condescend to it by supporting the 
 spirit, and animating the zeal of a weak messenger of 
 the Lord who is apt to grow very dispirited and lan- 
 guid, — come, and the Lord be with you. It can be 
 nothing but a sacrifice on your part to leave your 
 valuable friends to come to one who is utterly unworthy 
 of you, or of any other of God's precious gifts : but you 
 will have your reward; and I ask it not of you or of 
 God for the sake of my own happiness, but only on 
 account of the gospel." 
 
 The answer to this letter was one which entered like 
 iron into his soul. Miss Grenfell refused to leave Eng- 
 land, partly, at least, on her mother's account, who was 
 naturally unwilling to be separated from her daughter, 
 and partly, it appears, from other reasons. In Mr. 
 Simeon's Life there is given an entry from his journal, 
 in which, referring to Miss Grenfell, he says : " She 
 stated to me all the obstacles to his (Martyn's) proposals: 
 first, her health ; the second, the indelicacy of her going 
 out to India alone on such an errand ; third, her former 
 engagement with another person, which had indeed been 
 broken off, and he had actually gone up to London two 
 
94 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 years ago to be married to another woman, but as he 
 was unmarried it seemed an obstacle in her mind ; 
 fourth, the certainty that her mother would never con- 
 sent to it. On these points I observed that I thought 
 the last was the only one that was insurmountable." 
 
 Martyn's refuge in this sharp sorrow was, as it had 
 been on former occasions, in prayer. ''The Lord 
 sanctify this ; and since this last desire of my heart is 
 also withheld, may I turn away for ever from the world, 
 and henceforth live forgetful of all but God. With 
 Thee, O my God, is no disappointment. I shall never 
 have to regret that I have loved Thee too well. Thou 
 hast said, ' Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall 
 give thee the desires of thy heart.' " 
 
 " At first," he wrote some time afterward, " I was 
 more grieved at the loss of my gourd, than of the 
 perishing Ninevehs all around me ; but now my earthly 
 woes and earthly attachments seem to be absorbing in 
 the vast concern of communicating the gospel to these 
 nations. After this last lesson from God on the vanity 
 of the creature, I feel desirous to be nothing, — to have 
 nothing, — to ask for nothing but what He gives." 
 
 Providentially for Martyn's consolation, his thoughts 
 were soon much occupied by the arrival of his fellow- 
 helpers in the work of translation. One of them, Mirza, 
 of Benares, was well known in India as an eminent 
 scholar in Hindustani ; the other, Sabat, the Arabian, 
 was but too well known both in India and England for 
 his rejection of that faith which he then appeared to 
 
INDIA, 95 
 
 hold in sincerity and truth. Martyn hoped that he had 
 found in this man a Christian brother, as there was every 
 reason to beUeve him a true convert, and a most favour- 
 able report had been given of his abilities by Dr. Ker, 
 of Madras. He was said to be a man of good family 
 in Arabia, who had been employed as an expounder 
 of Mahometan law at Masulipatam, and as being well 
 skilled in the literature of the country. Though Martyn 
 soon discovered in him signs of an unsubdued Arab 
 spirit, and witnessed with pain many things inconsistent 
 with a Christian temper and conduct, yet still he hoped 
 even against hope, and continued to show him un- 
 paralleled kindness and forbearance. So the months 
 flew on, one day telling another; Martyn always engaged 
 in his Master's business : sometimes with a mind de- 
 pressed by " fightings without and fears within " ; 
 sometimes crying out of the depths ; sometimes utter- 
 ing thanks from the fulness of a grateful heart. His 
 chief source of consolation at this time apart from his 
 work arose from his correspondence with his Christian 
 friends at Calcutta, Mr. Brown and Mr. Corrie, and 
 from letters from his sister in England. So ended the 
 year 1808 ; and in the month of April, 1809, he was 
 removed from Dinapore to Cawnpore, several hundred 
 miles farther from Calcutta, and where there was as yet 
 no church for the performance of Divine worship. The 
 change was in many respects unpleasant to him, but in 
 this, as in every other arrangement over which he had 
 not the control, "patience had in him its perfect work." 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CA WNPORE. 
 
 [1809-11.] 
 
 T Cawnpore he was welcomed most cordially by 
 Captain Sherwood and his wife, a lady whose 
 literary works are well known, and whose pen was always 
 employed in advancing that sacred cause for which 
 Martyn lived and laboured and was ready to die. 
 
 Mrs. Sherwood thus writes of his arrival at this new 
 station : " The month of April in the upper provinces of 
 Hindustan is one of the most dreadful months for travel- 
 ling throughout the year ; indeed, no European at that 
 time can remove from place to place, but at the hazard of 
 his life. But Mr. Martyn had that anxiety to be at the 
 work which his Heavenly Father had given him to do, 
 that notwithstanding the violent heat, he travelled from 
 Chunar to Cawnpore, the space of about four hundred 
 miles. At that time, I well remember, the air was as hot 
 and dry as that which I have sometimes felt near the 
 mouth of a large oven. No friendly cloud or verdant 
 carpet of grass to relieve the eye from the strong glare of 
 the rays of the sun pouring on the sandy plains of the 
 Ganges. Thus Mr. Martyn travelled, journeying night 
 and day, and arrived at Cawnpore in such a state that he 
 
 g6 
 
CA WNPORE. 97 
 
 fainted away as soon as he entered the house. When 
 we charged him with the rashness of hazarding in this 
 manner his hfe, he always pleaded his anxiety to get to 
 the great work. He remained with us ten days, suffer- 
 ing at times considerably from fever and pain in his 
 chest." 
 
 We find him, shortly after his arrival at Cawnpore, 
 preaching to a thousand soldiers drawn up in a hollow 
 square, when the heat was so great, although the sun had 
 not risen, that many actually dropped down, unable to 
 support it. His health suffered, as it could not fail of 
 doing from ministrations carried on under such circum- 
 stances in such a district, and he complained of an 
 attack of fever after he had begun these services ; but he 
 was too zealous, and too faithful to spare himself. There 
 was imprudence, no doubt, in putting his valuable life to 
 such risks, but if there was, we forget it in the enthusiasm 
 for his Master which prompted his efforts, and if we can- 
 not unreservedly praise, we must assuredly admire. Of 
 the two extremes, give us the ardent zeal of self forgetting 
 love, rather than the placid indifference which consults 
 its own interests first, and then turns leisurely to the 
 interests of God. 
 
 Martyn's duties at Cawnpore were similar to those at 
 Dinapore. These were prayers and a sermon with the 
 regiment in the early morning, the same services at the 
 house of the General of the station at eleven, attendance 
 at the hospital, and in the evening — and this part of his 
 work he found the most grateful and refreshing — an ex- 
 
 H 
 
98 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 position to the more earnest part of his flock, combined 
 with prayer and praise. 
 
 He had ahvays loved the science of philology, and he 
 ever fondly hoped to make some discoveries which 
 should throw light upon the difficulties of Scripture. He 
 had devoted himself to this study at Dinapore, and he 
 still pursued it for many successive days and nights at 
 Cawnpore. He thought at one time that he had 
 ascertained the meaning of almost all the Hebrew 
 letters ; but he gradually became less fervent in these 
 inquiries, either because he began to doubt the truth of 
 those axioms which he had laid down, or from finding 
 their uselessness after he had established them. 
 
 These abstruse speculations, together with the superin- 
 tendence of an Arabic translation of the New Testament, 
 begun and carried on conjointly with a new Persian 
 version, now occupied him fully. His studies, however, 
 were interrupted from time to time by calls from a 
 distance to perform the marriage service. He received 
 such a summons from Lucknow, and also from Pre- 
 tabjush in the territory of Oudh. Of the latter he writes 
 thus to Mr. Simeon : "Just after the last ship from 
 Europe arrived, and I was hourly expecting my letters, I 
 was summoned to a distant station to marry a couple, 
 and did not return till three weeks after. It was a 
 great disappointment to be thus suddenly sent to roam 
 amongst jungles and jackals, when I was feasting my 
 fancy with delightful letters from my friends at home, 
 though Europe is no longer my home. However, my 
 
CA WNPORE. 99 
 
 mind was soon reconciled to it ; and I was often able to 
 recite, with some sense of their sweetness, Mr. Newton's 
 beautiful lines, 
 
 * In desert tracts with Thee, my God, 
 How happy could I be.' 
 
 " Being detained one Lord's-day at the place, I 
 assembled all the officers and company at the command- 
 ing officer's bungalow, and preached the gospel to them. 
 There were five and thirty officers, besides ladies and 
 other Europeans. You will have an idea of the Nabob's 
 country, when you are informed that last September a 
 young officer, going from his station to Lucknow, was 
 stopped by robbers and literally cut to pieces in his 
 palanquin. Since that time the Nabob has requested 
 that every English gentleman wnshing to visit his capital 
 may give notice of his intention to the resident, in order 
 that a guard may be sent. Accordingly, a few months 
 ago, when I had occasion to go to Lucknow, I had a 
 guard of four troopers, armed with matchlocks and 
 spears. I thought of Nehemiah, but was far too inferior 
 to him in courage and faith not to contemplate the 
 fierce countenances of my satellites with great satisfac- 
 tion." 
 
 He had not been long settled in his new home before 
 he received another shock similar to that which over- 
 whelmed him with sorrow in the past year. Letters 
 from Europe brought the sad intelligence that his 
 youngest sister, she who had been his earliest counsellor 
 
loo HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 and guide in the ways of peace, had been " taken away 
 from the evil to come." He writes in the following 
 touching manner to the widowed husband. " Your loss 
 is greater than mine, and therefore it would become me 
 to offer consolation, but I cannot, I must wait for your 
 next ; and in the meantime I will continue to pray for 
 you, that the God of all consolation may comfort you, 
 and make us both, from this time, live more as pilgrims 
 and strangers upon the earth. In my first three years 
 after leaving my native land, I have lost the three per- 
 sons whom I most loved in it. What is there now I 
 should wish to live for ? Oh what a barren desert, what 
 a howHng wilderness does this world appear ! But for 
 the service of God in His Church, and the preparation of 
 my own soul, I do not know that I would wish to live 
 another day." 
 
 These repeated trials were not without their peculiar 
 spiritual consolations and blessings. They yielded 
 many " peaceable fruits of righteousness." Any one 
 who reads his journal at this period must be struck 
 with his growth in that spiritual mind which is "life 
 and peace." He seems to make rapid advances not 
 only in faith and in love, but in " the glorious liberty 
 of the children of God." One great defect in his re- 
 ligious character before this was a certain lack of that 
 *' spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father." 
 He allowed his inward peace to depend in too great a 
 measure on his frames and feelings at the time ; so that, 
 although he had often a conscious experience of joy, he 
 
CA WNPORE. loi 
 
 was at times downcast and dispirited. But it must ever 
 be borne in mind by those who seek to understand the 
 man, that he was constitutionally melancholy, that his 
 conscience was peculiarly sensitive, and that he was of 
 a spirit that was always ready to " write bitter things 
 against itself." There were seasons, indeed, when he 
 soared above all the infirmities which belonged to his 
 natural temperament, and basked in the unclouded sun- 
 shine of his Father's face. And there is one point worthy 
 of observation as regards his spiritual exultation : his 
 spiritual joy never exceeded the bounds of chastened 
 sobriety; and when his heart was most in heaven, his 
 soul was most under a sense of his un worthiness, and 
 " the exceeding sinfulness of sin." Fervent love and 
 filial fear met in most blessed and holy union in his 
 soul. While he was the child in the bosom of the 
 Father, he was at the same time the creature in the dust 
 at the footstool of God. Daily did he grow in grace, 
 and gather round him the lineaments of heaven. Each 
 trial that was sent was sanctified to an increasing con- 
 formity to the mind of Christ. He tells us himself that 
 he saw love inscribed on these afflictions. He was a 
 learner in the school of sorrow. Sorrow is the great 
 teacher. There are some lessons that would never be 
 acquired were they not taught by tribulation. As dark- 
 ness not only hides but reveals, so it is with affliction. 
 Were the sun never to set below the horizon, how much 
 of God's workmanship in creation we should lose ! It 
 is the darkness that discloses the silver moon, and all the 
 
I02 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 Starry host, as coming out one by one in the purple 
 skies they make night beautiful with their brilliant fires. 
 So is it with sorrow. Had we nothing but the sunshine 
 of prosperous times and circumstances, large portions 
 of '■'' the lively oracles " would be for us without mean- 
 ing and without force. For here are rich promises, 
 made only for the afflicted ; " words in season " spoken 
 only to " the weary," and consolations that can only be 
 understood by the troubled and the heavy-laden. So 
 that trial, v/ith all its darkness and gloom, brings into 
 view many an " exceeding great and precious promise," 
 which like the planet or star, unless revealed by the 
 shadows of the night, would for ever remain hidden 
 from our gaze. 
 
 The close of the year 1809 was distinguished by the 
 beginning of Martyn's first public ministrations among 
 the heathen. To prevent the recurrence of repeated 
 interruptions on his valuable time, he had appointed all 
 who needed temporal assistance to meet him on a stated 
 day for the distribution of alms. Sometimes as many 
 as from five to eight hundred beggars would assemble 
 before his house, and he seized the opportunity of 
 feeding them, not only with the bread which perisheth, 
 but with '• the bread which cometh down from heaven." 
 JEie had the satisfaction of seeing the numbers increase, 
 and of observing a growing attention to the instructions 
 which he delivered. This congregation, assembling 
 from week to week, presented an affecting spectacle of 
 extreme wretchedness, but he was able to tell them 
 
CA WNPORE. 
 
 103 
 
 of a God who is no respecter of persons, and of a 
 Saviour " who for our sakes became poor, that we 
 through His poverty might be rich." He led their 
 minds upward to a God " not like unto gold, or silver, 
 or stone, graven by art and man's device, and who is 
 not worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed 
 anything, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and 
 all things." And he entreated for a God so great and 
 so good their love, and reverence, and awe. " If God 
 made the heaven and earth for you, and made the meat 
 also for you, will He not also feed you ? Know also 
 that He that made heaven and earth ca7i destroy them, 
 and will do it ; therefore fear God who is so great, and 
 love God, who is so good." Such was the substance of 
 his first discourse to this motley assemblage, and the 
 whole of it was preached sentence by sentence. At the 
 end of each clause there were sounds of applause, and 
 also several explanatory remarks from the wiser portion 
 of the audience. "I bless my God," said Martyn, "for 
 helping me beyond my expectations." 
 
 On another occasion, when speaking of God's love to 
 the Hindoos, and of His love to other peoples of the 
 earth, and telling them that '' the Ganges was no better 
 than other rivers, for all rivers are alike," he says, " these 
 were nice points. I felt as if treading on tender ground, 
 and was almost disposed to blame myself for imprudence. 
 I thought that amidst the silence these remarks pro- 
 duced I heard hisses and groans, but a few Mahome- 
 tans applauded. 
 
104 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 With these labours of love the year 1809 came to a 
 close. " Ten years have elapsed," wrote Martyn on the 
 last day of this year, " since I was first called of God to 
 the fellowship of the gospel ; and ten times greater 
 ought to be my gratitude to the tender mercy of my 
 God for all that He has done for me. The ways of 
 wisdom appear more sweet and reasonable than ever, 
 and the world more insipid and vexatious. The chief 
 thing I have to mourn over is my want of more power 
 and fervour in secret prayer, especially when attempting 
 to plead for the heathen. Warmth does not increase 
 with me in proportion to my light ! 
 
 Martyn continued to minister to the temporal and 
 spiritual wants of the wretched beings who statedly as- 
 sembled at his house during the early part of the year 
 18 10, nor did he cease from his labours of love during 
 his residence at Cawnpore, so long as his health per- 
 mitted. He had every reason to believe that a great 
 impression was made, and that the promise was fulfilled, 
 " My word shall not return unto Me void, but it shall 
 accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in 
 the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 In the midst of these exertions an attack of pain in 
 the chest, severer than any he had yet experienced, 
 forced upon his mind the unwelcome conviction that 
 he must rest from his arduous labours. His friends 
 became much alarmed about the state of his health. To 
 Mr. Simeon, who had strongly urged upon him the duty 
 of care and prudence, he thus writes : — " I read your 
 
CA IVNPORE. 105 
 
 letter of 6th July, 1809, cautioning me against over- 
 exertion, with the confidence of one who had nothing to 
 fear. This was only three weeks ago. Since the last 
 Lord's-day your kind advice was brought home to my 
 mind, accompanied with painful regret that I had not 
 paid more attention to it. My work last Sunday was 
 not more than usual, but far too much for me, I can 
 perceive. First, service to his Majesty's 53rd foot in the 
 open air; then at head-quarters, in the afternoon, preached 
 to eight hundred natives ; at night, to my little flock of 
 Europeans. Wiiich of these can I forego ? The minis- 
 tration to the natives might be in the week, but I wish 
 to attach the idea of holiness to the Sunday. My even- 
 ing congregation on Sunday is attended by twice as many 
 as in the week-day, so how can I let this go ? " 
 
 Unwilling as he was to "spare himself," the state of 
 his health, threatened as he was with the hereditary 
 disease of consumption, compelled him to relax his 
 exertions, and to overcome his reluctance of giving up 
 any of his work. He was compelled to tell his Indian / 
 congregation, when they met for service, that ill health 
 prevented his addressing them as before. No sooner 
 had he spoken than hundreds of voices were heard 
 invoking for him long life, and health ; and when he 
 distributed his charity among them, their gratitude was 
 without bounds. He ventured, however, shortly after 
 this to finish with them the history of Joseph which he 
 had begun, and to resume also the whole of his duty on 
 the Sunday with the exception of the service. He also, 
 
io6 HENRY MART VAT. 
 
 notwithstanding his great caution on this point, adminis- 
 tered the rite of baptism to an old Hindoo woman, 
 "ivho, though she knew but little, was (he said) low- 
 liness itself." Nothing shows more the anxiety felt by 
 his friends at this time for his health than the following 
 letter from Mr. Brown : "You will know from our ines- 
 timable brother Corrie, my solicitude about your health. 
 If it could make you live longer, I would give up any 
 child I have, and myself into the bargain. May it please 
 the adorable, unsearchable Being with whom we have to 
 do, to lengthen your span." 
 
 Though Mr. Corrie had arrived at Cawnpore in the 
 beginning of June on his journey to his new station at 
 Agra, and undertook part of Martyn's duties whilst he 
 continued with his friend, yet such was the state of 
 Martyn's health that it was thought advisable that he 
 should try the effect of a short sea voyage, or return for 
 a brief period of rest to England. After a considerable 
 mental struggle, Martyn resolved upon the latter plan ; 
 for strongly as his heart was drawn towards his native 
 country, India had attractions of a more powerful, 
 because of a more exalted kind. His departure for 
 England was, however, deferred in order that he miglit 
 visit Arabia and Persia, for the purpose of making as 
 perfect as possible his Persian version of the New Testa- 
 ment, which w^as considered too incorrect to be sent 
 through the press. Competent judges in Calcutta 
 deemed it unfit for general circulation, as it contained 
 too many Arabic idioms, and was written in a style well 
 
CA IVNPORE. 
 
 107 
 
 suited to the learned, but not sufficiently adapted to the 
 capacities of the common people. 
 
 " At this decision," we are told, " Mr. Martyn was as 
 keenly disappointed as he was delighted at the complete 
 success of the Hindustani version, which, on the minu- 
 test and most rigorous revision, was pronounced to be 
 idiomatic and plain. But meeting the disappointment 
 with that spring and elasticity of mind which is the 
 result of lively faith, he instantly resolved, after com- 
 mitting his way to God in prayer, and consulting his 
 friends, Mr. Corrie and Mr. Brown, on the subject, to go 
 into Arabia and Persia for the pupose of collecting the 
 opinions of learned natives with respect to the Persian 
 translation which had been rejected, as well as the 
 Arabic version which was-yet incomplete, though nearly 
 finished. 
 
 When his resolution was made known to his friends, 
 Mr. Brown wrote him a characteristic letter in Avhich he 
 says : — " But can I thus bring myself to cut the string 
 and let you go? I confess I could not if your bodily 
 frame was strong, and promised to last for half a century. 
 But as you burn with the intenseness and rapid blaze of 
 heated phosphorusi, why should we not make the most of 
 you ? Your flame may last as long, and perhaps longer, 
 in Arabia, than in India. Where should the phoenix 
 build her odoriferous nest but in the land prophetically 
 called " the blessed " ? and where shall we ever expect, 
 tut from that country, the true Comforter to come to the 
 nations of the East ? I contemplate your New Testa- 
 
io8 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 ment springing up, as it were, from dust and ashes, but 
 beautiful as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and 
 her feathers like yellow gold." 
 
 Towards the end of September, Martyn prepared to 
 leave Cawnpore, and his last sermon there was on the 
 life, the miracles, the death, and the resurrection of 
 Christ, on whom he exhorted them to beUeve, taking 
 them to record that he declared to them the gospel of 
 the grace of God. Those present on this solemn and 
 touching occasion felt that they could never again hear 
 the tidings of great joy from his lips, and that when he 
 had parted from them they should see his face no more. 
 " They beheld him," says his biographer, " standing 
 on the verge of the eternal world, and ready to take a 
 splendid flight. 'My father, my father, the chariots of 
 Israel, and the horsemen thereof ;' were the sentiments 
 with which many gazed on him." 
 
 Mrs. Sherwood, who was one of his audience on this 
 solemn occasion, describes in the following words the 
 impression he left upon her and many others : " He 
 began in a weak and faint voice, being at the time in 
 a very bad state of health; but gathering strength as 
 he proceeded, he seemed as one inspired from on high. 
 Never was an audience more affected. The next day 
 this holy and heavenly man left Cawnpore, and the 
 society of many who sincerely loved and admired him. 
 He left us with litde hope of seeing him again until, 
 by the mercy of the Saviour, we meet with him in our 
 Father's home." 
 
CA WNPORE. 109 
 
 On the first day of October, the day which followed 
 this affecting service, he quitted Cawnpore for Aldeen, 
 which he had left four years before, and passing down 
 the Ganges, reached it on the evening of the last day 
 of the month. 
 
 When his friends saw his pallid countenance and 
 enfeebled frame, they knew not whether to mourn over 
 his changed and wasted appearance, or to rejoice that 
 they could enjoy his society once more. Mr. Thomason 
 thus expressed his feelings in a letter to Mr. Simeon: 
 "This bright and lovely jewel first gratified our eyes 
 on Saturday last. He is on his way to Arabia, where 
 he is going in pursuit of health and knowledge. You 
 know his genius, and what gigantic strides he takes 
 in everything. He has some great plan in his mind* of 
 which I am no competent judge, but so far as I do 
 understand it, the object is far too grand for one short 
 life, and much beyond his feeble, exhausted frame. 
 Feeble it is indeed ! how feeble and changed ! His 
 complaint lies in his lungs, and appears to be a begin- 
 ning consumption. But let us hope the sea air may 
 revive him, and that change of place and pursuit may 
 do him essential service, and continue his life many 
 years. In all other respects he is greatly the same 
 as he was ; he shines in all the dignity of love, and 
 seems to carry about him such a heavenly majesty as 
 impresses the mind beyond description. But if he talks 
 much, though in a low voice, he sinks, and you are 
 reminded of his being dust and ashes.' Notwithstand- 
 
no HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 ing the inferior state of his health, and those symptoms 
 of consumption which alarmed his friends at Cawnpore, 
 JVIartyn preached every Sunday during his stay at 
 Calcutta, with one exception. He felt that the time 
 was short, and that he must redeem it, — that the days 
 were evil, and he must do all in his power to amend 
 them. Thus was he, what Brainerd wished himself to 
 be, " a flame of fire in the service of his God," a flame 
 burning brightly, but burning out by its own very in- 
 tensity, being always at a white heat, until it burnt 
 itself away. 
 
 Martyn's own words on leaving for ever those shores 
 on which he had fondly and fully prepared to spend 
 all his days, were these : " I now pass from India to 
 Arabia, not knowing the things that shall befall me 
 there, but assured that an ever faithful God and Saviour 
 will be with me whithersoever I go. May He guide 
 me and protect me; and after preparing me in the 
 thing whereunto I go, bring me back again to my 
 delightful work in India. I am perhaps leaving it to 
 see it no more, but the will of God be done. My 
 times are in His hand, and He will cut them short 
 as shall be most for my good ; with this assurance 
 I feel that nothing need interrupt my work or my 
 peace." 
 
 Ill as he was, he preached a sermon on the anni- 
 versary of the Calcutta Bible Society which was after- 
 wards printed, with the title " Christian India ; or, an 
 appeal on behalf of nine hundred thousand Christians 
 
CAWNPORE. in 
 
 in India who want the Bible." He also for the last 
 time addressed the inhabitants of Calcutta, from the 
 text : *' But one thing is needful." 
 
 On the 7th of January he left India for Shiraz in 
 Persia, takmg his passage in the ship Ahmoody, bound 
 to Bombay. An extract from a letter to Mr. Corrie 
 soon after his departure has its own interest. " One of 
 my fellow-passengers was the Honourable Mr. Elphin- 
 stone, who was proceeding to take the presidency of 
 Poonah. His agreeable manners and classical acquire- 
 ments made me think myself fortunate indeed in 
 having such a companion ; and I found his company 
 the most agreeable part of my voyage." 
 
 " Our captain was a pupil of Schwartz's, of whom he 
 communicated many interesting particulars. Schwartz, 
 with Kolhoff and Joenicke, kept a school for half caste 
 children, about a mile and a half from Tanjore, but 
 went every night to the Tanjore Church to meet about 
 sixty or seventy of the king's regiment who assembled 
 for devotional purposes ; afterwards he officiated to 
 their wives and children in Portuguese. At the school 
 Schwartz used to read in the morning out of the German 
 Meditation for every day in the year ; at night he had 
 family prayer. Joenicke taught them geography ; Kol- 
 • hoff, writing and arithmetic. They had also masters in 
 Persian and Malabar. 
 
 " At the time when the present Rajah was in danger 
 of his life from the usurper of his uncle's throne, 
 Schwartz used to sleep in the same room with him. 
 
112 HENRY MARTY N, 
 
 This was sufficient protection, 'for (said the captain) 
 Schwartz was considered by the natives as something 
 more than mortal' The old Rajah at his death com- 
 mitted his nephew to Schwartz. 
 
 " All down the Bay of Bengal I could do nothing 
 but sit listless on the poop, viewing the wide waste of 
 waters, a sight that would have been beautiful had I 
 been well. On the i8th, we came in sight of the island 
 of Ceylon.'' 
 
 During the voyage the vessel touched at several places, 
 and Martyn landed at Colombo, and describes a walk 
 in a cinnamon garden and along a beautiful road where 
 a tall grove of cocoa-nut trees rose on each side of the 
 way, interspersed with the huts of the natives, and 
 throug^i which he caught a glimpse of the sea beyond. 
 He landed also at Goa, where he visited the tomb of 
 Francis Xavier. He also went in company with Mr* 
 Elphinstone to the Inquisition, but they were not ad- 
 mitted beyond the ante-chamber. 
 
 On the 1 8th of February the vessel anchored at Bom- 
 bay. It was his thirtieth birthday, "an age," he says 
 in his journal, "at which David Brainerd finished his 
 course." He adds characteristically : " I am now at the 
 age when the Saviour of men began His ministry ; when 
 John the Baptist called a nation to repentance. Let me 
 now think for myself and act with energy. Hitherto I 
 have made my youth and insignificance an excuse for 
 sloth and imbecility, now let me have a character and 
 act for God." 
 
CAWNPORE. "3 
 
 This resolution, it need hardly be said, he carried out, 
 and whenever he had an opportunity he furthered as far 
 as possible the kingdom of God, and urged the Saviour's 
 claims on the heart and conscience. Whether he spoke 
 to Christian, Mahometan, or Parsee, he sought trophies 
 for his Master's cross, and jewels for His crown. 
 
 On the 14th of April, Easter Day, they came in sight 
 of the Persian coast, near Tiz, in Meehran, and on the 
 2ist anchored at Muscat, in Arabia. On the 22nd of 
 INlay they landed at Bushire, and Martyn, speaking of 
 himself in his journal, says, "in good health." " How 
 unceasing," he continues, " are the mercies of the Lord ; 
 blessed be His goodness ; may He still preserve me 
 from danger, and above all make my journey a source 
 of future good to this kingdom of Persia, into which I 
 am now come. AVe were hospitably received by the 
 acting Resident. In the evening I walked out by the 
 sea-side to recollect myself, to review the past, and look 
 forward to the future." 
 
 On Sunday the Europeans assembled for Divme 
 service, which was performed at the President's. He 
 preached from the words, " For He must reign till He 
 liath put all enemies under His feet." In the evening 
 he went, at the Padre's request, to the Armenian Church, 
 where he found the same unmeaning ceremonies and 
 noisy chants, the same burning of incense and censing as 
 he had found at Bombay. The next day he felt very ill 
 from headache and overpowering sleepiness, arising, as 
 he thought, from sunstroke, and as often as he attempted 
 
 I 
 
114 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 to read he fell asleep and awoke in bitterness and pain. 
 So the benefit that his health had gained from the voyage 
 and the enforced rest soon passed away, and he suffered 
 again from his old attacks of debility ; but through all, 
 his great desire was to say : " Not my will, but Thine be 
 done." The attack of sunstroke, however, passed off, 
 and again restored, he was able to do something in the 
 way of reading. The account that he received from the 
 Resident of the moral state of Persia made him shudder. 
 He asks in his journal : " If God rained down fire upon 
 Sodom and Gomorrha, how is it that this nation is not 
 blotted out from under heaven? I do not remember 
 to have heard such things of the Hindoos except the 
 Sikhs, they seem to rival the Mahometans."' 
 
 May 30///. '' Our Persian dresses being ready, we 
 set off this evening for Shiraz. Our kafila consisted of 
 about thirty horses and mules, some carrying things to 
 the ambassador, the rest for our servants and luggage ; 
 the animal for my use was a Yaboo, or riding pony, a 
 mule for my trunks, and one for my servant Zachariah, 
 an Armenian of Ispahan. It was a fine moonlight night, 
 about 10 o'clock, when we marched out of the gate of 
 Bushire and began to make our way over the plain. Mr. 
 
 B , who accompanied me a little way, soon returned. 
 
 Captain T .went on, intending to accompany us to 
 
 Shiraz. This was the first time we had any of us put off 
 the European, and the novelty of our situation supplied 
 us with many subjects for conversation about two hours ; 
 when we began to flag and grow sleepy, and the kafila 
 
CA IVNPORE. 
 
 15 
 
 was pretty quiet ; one of the muleteers on foot began to 
 sing. He sang with a voice so plaintive that it was im- 
 possible not to have one's attention arrested. At the 
 end of the first tune he paused, and nothing was heard 
 but the tinkling of the bells attached to the necks of the 
 mules. Every voice was hushed. The first line was 
 enough for me, and I dare say it set many others think- 
 ing of their absent friends — ' Without thee my heart 
 can attach itself to none." It is what I have often felt 
 on setting out on a journey. The friends left behind so 
 absorb the thoughts that the things by the wayside are 
 seen without interest, and the conversation of strangers 
 is insipid. But perhaps the first line, as well as the rest, 
 is only a promise of fidelity, though I did not take it in 
 that sense when I first heard it. The following is per- 
 haps the true translation : — 
 
 * Think not that e'er my heart can dwell 
 
 Contented far from thee : 
 How can the fresh-caught nightingale 
 
 Enjoy tranquillity ? 
 Forsake not then thy friend for aught 
 
 That slanderous tongues can say ; 
 The heart that fixes where it ought, 
 
 No power can rend away. ' 
 
 Thus we went on; and as often as the kafilas, by 
 their dulness and sleepiness, seemed to require it, or 
 perhaps to keep himself awake, he entertained the 
 company and himself with a song. We met two or 
 three other kafilas taking advantage of the night to get 
 
ii6 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 on. My loquacious servant, Zachary, took care to ask 
 every one whence they came, and by that means some- 
 times got an answer which raised a laugh against him." 
 
 So far his journey was agreeable, but as he proceeded 
 on his way he suffered much under the heat and burden 
 of the day. At first the heat was not greater than he 
 had felt in India, bat it soon became so great as to be 
 quite alarming. When the thermometer was above 
 120°, at fever heat, he began to lose strength, and at last 
 it became so intolerable that he could not rest, and 
 thought that he must lose his senses. During the whole 
 journey he suffered much, and on some occasions the 
 thermometer rose to 126°, and the only way in which 
 he could defend himself from the fierceness of the sun 
 and preserve the moisture upon the skin was by wrap- 
 ping himself up in blankets and other coverings thick 
 enough to exclude the air. At other times he had 
 recourse to large wet towels, which he wound round 
 his head and body; and to this preventive he owed, 
 under God, the preservation of his life. This was in 
 the plains. When he began to ascend the mountain 
 ranges, where the road often passed so close to the 
 edge of fearful precipices that one false step must have 
 plunged him in destruction, the cold of the nights was 
 so piercing that all the clothes he could collect tog ther 
 could not keep him from shivering. We cannot wonder, 
 therefore, that he could thus record his impressions 
 when he arrived at Carzeroon : " I could not compose 
 myself tc sleep. There seemed to be a fire within my 
 
C AWN PORE. 117 
 
 head, my skin like a cinder, and the pulse violent. 
 Through the day it was again too hot to sleep, though 
 the place we occupied was a sort of summer-house in 
 a garden of cypress-trees, exceedingly well fitted up 
 with mats and coloured glass. Had the kafila gone 
 on that night I could not have accompanied it; but 
 it halted here a day, by which means I got a sort of 
 night's rest, even though I awoke twenty times to dip 
 my burning hands in water. Though Carzeroon is the 
 second greatest town in Fars, we could get nothing 
 but bread, milk, and eggs, and that with difficulty. The 
 Governor, who is under great obligations to the English, 
 heard of our arrival, but sent us no message." 
 
 At length, on the morning of the 9th of June, he 
 found himself in the plain of Shiraz, after a terrible 
 journey full of difficulty and peril, when at times he 
 was unable even to guide his horse, and sustained only 
 by his trust in God, and by the thought of that better 
 world where all tears shall be wiped from the eyes. An 
 extract from his journal, written down just two days 
 before he reached Shiraz, shows us where his hopes were 
 fixed, and what was the secret of his endurance. 
 
 " Left the caravansera at one this morning. Con- 
 tinned to ascend. The hours we were permitted to 
 rest the musquitoes had effectually prevented me from 
 using, so I never felt more miserable and disordered. 
 The cold was very severe. For fear of falling off from 
 sleep and numbness, I walked a good part of the way. 
 We pitched our tent in the vale of Dustarjan, near a 
 
Ii8 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 crystal stream, on the banks of which we observed the 
 clover and golden cup. The whole valley was one green 
 field, on which large herds of cattle were browsing. The 
 temperature was about that of the spring in England. 
 There a few hours' sleep recovered me, in some degree, 
 from the stupidity in which I had been for some days. 
 I awoke with a light heart and said, " He knoweth our 
 frame, and remembereth we are dust. He redeemeth 
 our life from destruction, and crowneth us with loving- 
 kindness and tender mercies. He maketh us to lie 
 down in the green pastures, and leadeth us beside the 
 still waters. And when we have left this vale of tears, 
 there is no more sorrow, nor sighing, nor any more 
 pain. The sun shall not light upon them, nor any 
 heat. But the Lamb shall lead them to Uving foun- 
 tains." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SHIRAZ. 
 [1811-12.] 
 
 SHIRAZ is the most celebrated seat of Persian 
 learning. It has been called "the Athens of Persia," 
 because it has been the birthplace of many poets and 
 historians who hold a distinguished place in the literature 
 of Asia. Persia recalls to the mind those celebrated 
 Eastern Tales in which the loves of the Nightingale 
 and the Rose form so conspicuous an episode, and in 
 which are related many a daring adventure of the ancient 
 inhabitants of the country, — the worshippers of the sun 
 and the fire. The Arabs at length conquered the 
 foUov/ers of Zoroaster, and forcing them to become 
 wanderers from the land of their birth, introduced the 
 religion of Mahomet into the country. But the poetical 
 associations connected with the region where he had 
 now his home, only brought out into greater prominence 
 the terrible evils under which both the country and the 
 inhabitants suffered. He writes thus from Persia to a 
 friend in England : "As for their wickedness and misery, 
 it is only human nature unveiled, its depravity heightened 
 perhaps by the superstition under which they groaned." 
 
120 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 Martyn at once set himself to work, and, as ever, 
 redeemed the time. Having ascertained the general 
 correctness of the opinion given in Calcutta of Sabat's 
 translation of the New Testament, he immediately began 
 another version in the Persian language. He found an 
 able and willing assistant in this difficult and important 
 work, in Mirza Said Ali Khan, the brother-in-law of his 
 host Jaffiar Ali Khan. Mirza's own religious sentiments 
 were of the most latitudinarian character, and as this 
 same spirit pervades the whole system of Soofeism, it 
 sufficiently accounts for its literature under a Mahometan 
 intolerance of a stricter and more absolute kind than 
 that which exists in the Turkish Empire. 
 
 Jaffier Ali Khan, a Mahometan of rank and influence, 
 was a man of great urbanity of temper and kindness of 
 disposition, and Martyn found in him a host anxious 
 in every way to contribute to his comfort and conveni- 
 ence. He as well as his brother were remarkable for 
 their freedom from bigotry and prejudice ; and he was 
 ready on all occasions to invite rather than decline the 
 freest interchange of opinion on religious topics. 
 
 Martyn, on the 17th of June, when he had been a 
 little more than a week in Shiraz, began the work for 
 which he had come to Persia. As he soon became 
 an object of much interest and curiosity, he was not 
 allowed to proceed on the version of the New Testa- 
 ment without many interruptions. " Said Ali," he writes, 
 "began translating the Gospel of John with me. We 
 were interrupted by the entrance of two very majestic 
 
SHIRAZ. 121 
 
 personages, one of whom was the great-grandson of 
 Nadir Shah. The uncle of the present king used to 
 wait behind his father's table. He is now a prisoner 
 here, subsisting on a pension." He had a visit also 
 from the prince's secretary, who was considered the 
 best prose writer in Shiraz. Then came two young 
 men from the college, full of zeal and logic, to try him 
 with hard questions, all of which were foolish, and 
 ministered rather to strife than to edification. On 
 another occasion a party of Armenians appeared ; and 
 again, upon another, a Mahometan who had been a 
 Jew came to prove that he had found Mahomet in 
 the Pentateuch. He met with several Jews who had 
 become apostates from their faith through bribery ; and 
 the prince gave to every Jew on conversion an honorary 
 dress, " and so," Martyn remarks, " they are turning 
 Mahometans every day." ''A young man, son of the 
 old Jew, asked how it could be supposed that God 
 would leave so many nations so long in darkness if 
 Islam be an error? The father sat with great com- 
 placency to see how I could get over this. I asked 
 why God for four thousand years made Himself known 
 to this nation only, and left all the rest in darkness ? " 
 
 Martyn had, through his conversation with all who 
 sought for discussion, *' a great and effectual door 
 opened " to him for declaring the truth as it is in Jesus ; 
 and unwilling that any should lose an opportunity of 
 hearing of Christ, he received any who were anxious to 
 come. Strict as he was in the observance of Sunday, 
 
122 ^ HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 he admitted them even on that day to speak with him, 
 for he had learnt the import of the words, " I will have 
 mercy, and not sacrifice." 
 
 In the middle of July he removed to a garden in 
 the suburb of the city, where his kind host had pitched 
 a tent for him, to relieve the tedium of confinement 
 within the walls of Shiraz ; and here he was able to 
 pursue his work without interruption. " Living amidst 
 clusters of grapes, by the side of a clear stream, and 
 frequently sitting under the shade of an orange tree, 
 which Jaffier Ali Khan delighted to point out to 
 visitors, until the day of his own departure, he passed 
 many a tranquil hour, and enjoyed many a Sabbath 
 of holy rest and Divine refeshment." 
 
 However, he was soon in the heat and dust of the 
 conflict again; for after a Sunday quiet, happy, and 
 peaceful, we hear of his engaging in his first public 
 controversy with the Mahometans. After some demurs, 
 the Moojtuhid, or Professor of Mahometan Law, con- 
 sented to a discussion upon religious topics. He was 
 a man of great consequence in Shiraz, and was appealed 
 to on all matters connected with his profession ; so that 
 in all that respected rank, prejudice, popularity, and 
 reputation for learning, the advantage was on his side. 
 Ivlartyn, however, did not shrink from what, in some 
 ways, was an unequal contest, for he knew whom he 
 believed. Nor was his trust misplaced ; and with such 
 wisdom and skill did he conduct the controversy, that 
 a general spirit of inquiry was stirred up in the city of 
 
SHIRAZ. 123 
 
 Shiraz. So great was the interest excited that the 
 Preceptor of all the Moollahs, fearing whereunto this 
 would grow, published a defence of Mahometanism, 
 which gained the credit of surpassing all former treatises 
 upon Islam. The work is said to have been written 
 with much temper and moderation, and with as much 
 candour as is consistent with that degree of subtilty 
 which is indispensable in an apology for so glaring an 
 imposture as Mahometanism. 
 
 Martyn set himself at once to refute this treatise ; and 
 his reply was divided into two parts : the first being 
 devoted principally to an attack upon Mahometanism, 
 the second being intended to display the evidences and 
 establish the authority of the Christian faith. It was 
 written in Persian ; and from a translation of the first 
 part, which has been found, it appears that Martyn 
 used great plainness of speech, whilst at the same 
 time he treated his opponent with meekness and 
 courtesy. 
 
 We learn from Martyn's journal at this time that 
 although there were individuals who professed Maho- 
 metanism without being animated by the spirit of cruelty 
 and extermination which is a very part of it, he was 
 nevertheless exposed to personal danger, and subjected 
 to contempt and insult. "It is this doctrine" (the 
 Divinity of Christ), he says, " that exposes me to the 
 contempt of the learned Mahometans, in whom it is 
 difficult to say whether pride or ignorance predominates. 
 Their sneers are more difficult to bear than the brick- 
 
124 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 bats which the boys sometimes throw at me ; however, 
 
 both are an honour of which I am not worthy. How 
 
 many times in the day have I occasion to repeat the 
 
 words, — 
 
 * If on my face, for Thy dear name, 
 
 Shame and reproaches be, 
 All hail reproach, and welcome shame, 
 If Thou remember me.' 
 
 The more they wish me to give up one point, the 
 Divinity of Christ, the more I seem to feel the necessity 
 of It, and rejoice to glory in it. Indeed, I trust I would 
 sooner give up my life than surrender it." 
 
 Martyn's mathematical studies were invaluable to him 
 now, inasmuch as they not only had given him a habit 
 of patient and persevering inquiry, but there were many 
 occasions in which this and other sciences were of the 
 greatest service to the cause which he had at heart. 
 His knowledge and attainments procured for him that 
 attention and respect which learning ever secures in 
 countries where the light of civiHzation shines though 
 but faintly and imperfectly. 
 
 Martyn now entertained the hope that his opponent, 
 Mirza Ibraheem, was really seeking to discover the truth. 
 '* Mirza, I believe, begins to inquire about the gospel. 
 The objections he made were such as these : ' How sins 
 could be atoned for before they were committed ? 
 Whether, as Jesus died for all men, all would be 
 necessarily saved ? If faith be the condition of salva- 
 tion, would wicked Christians be saved, provided they 
 
SHIRAZ. 
 
 I2S 
 
 believed ? ' I was pleased to see, from the nature of 
 the objections, that he was considering the subject. To 
 his last objection I remarked, that to those who felt 
 themselves sinners and came to God for mercy through 
 Christ, God would give the Holy Spirit, which would 
 progressively sanctify them in heart and life." 
 
 Martyn's mind was ever open to those objects of 
 interest which arrest the attention of men of culture and 
 form one great source of intellectual enjoyment. Al- 
 though his thoughts were chiefly occupied in " holding 
 forth the word of life " to the ignorant and degraded, yet 
 he could also find a mournful pleasure in musing over 
 the fallen grandeur of Persepolis. He has left the follow- 
 ing observations on his visit to those interesting remains 
 of antiquity : — 
 
 "After traversing these celebrated ruins, I must say 
 that I felt a little disappointed ; they did not at all answer 
 my expectations. The architecture of the ancient 
 Persians seems to be much more akin to that of their 
 more clumsy neighbours, the Indians, than to that of 
 the Greeks. I saw no appearance of grand design any- 
 where." "But it was impossible not to recollect that here 
 Alexander and his Greeks passed and repassed, here 
 they sat, and sung, and revelled. Now all is silence ; 
 generation on generation lie mingled with the dust of 
 their mouldering edifices. 
 
 * Alike the busy and the gay 
 But flutter in life's busy day, 
 In fortune's varying colours dress 'd.' 
 
126 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 *' From the ruins I rode off to a neighbouring village, 
 the head man of which, at the minister's order, paid me 
 every attention. At sunset we set out on our return and 
 lost our way. As I particularly remarked, where we 
 entered the plains, I pointed out the track which after- 
 wards proved to be right ; but my opinion was overruled, 
 and we galloped farther and farther away. Meeting at 
 last with some villagers, who were passing the night at 
 their threshing-floor in the field, we were set right. 
 They then conceived so high an idea of my geographical 
 skill, that as soon as we recrossed the Araxes they 
 begged me to point out the Keblah to them, as they 
 wanted to pray. After setting their faces towards Mecca 
 as nearly as I could, I went and sat down on the margin, 
 near the bridge, where the waters, falling over some 
 fragments of a bridge under the arches, produced a roar 
 which, contrasted with the stillness all around, had a 
 grand effect. Then I thought again of the multitudes 
 who had once pursued their labours and pleasures on its 
 banks. Twenty-one centuries have passed away since 
 they lived. How short, in comparison, must be the re- 
 mainder of my days ! What a momentary duration is the 
 life of man ! * Labitur et lahetur in omjie voliibilis avicm^ 
 may be affirmed of the river, but men pass away as soon 
 as they begin to exist. Well, let the moments pass — 
 
 * They'll waft us sooner o'er 
 This life's tempestuous sea, 
 And land us on the peaceful shore 
 Of bless'd eternity.' " 
 
SHIRAZ, 
 
 127 
 
 On his return to Shiraz from this journey to the luins 
 of Persepolis, he witnessed the Ramazan. He gives in 
 his journal an account of this great Mahometan fast, and 
 we learn from it how close an observer he was of all that 
 was going on round about him, and what a just estimate 
 he formed of the events which passed under his eye. 
 We get, too, from his remarks, "a striking view," as his 
 biographer observes, " of the interior of Mahometanism. 
 We plainly discover from them that a love for par- 
 ticular popular preachers, a fiery zeal in religion, a 
 vehement excitation of the animal feelings, as well as 
 rigid austerities, are false criterions of genuine piety ; 
 for we see all these in their full perfection amongst the 
 real followers of the Crescent, as well as amongst the 
 pretended disciples of the Cross." 
 
 On the last birthday Martyn lived to commemorate, 
 we find this interesting passage from his journal : — 
 
 February i8//z. "This is my birthday, on which I 
 complete my thirty-first year. The Persian New Testa- 
 ment has been begun, and, I may say, finished in it, as 
 only the last eight chapters of the Revelation remain. 
 Such a painful year I never passed, owing to the priva- 
 tions I have been called to on the one hand, and the 
 spectacle before me of human depravity on the other. 
 But I hope I have not come to this seat of Satan in vain. 
 The word of God has found its way into Persia, and it 
 is not in Satan's power to oppose its progress if the Lord 
 have sent it." 
 
 On the 24th of February, 18 12, the last sheet of the 
 
128 HENRY MARTYISr. 
 
 New Testament was completed. " I have many 
 mercies," he writes, " in bringing it to a termination, for 
 which I thank the Lord, and this is not the least. Now 
 may that Spirit who gave the word, and called me, I 
 trust, to be an interpreter of it, graciously and powerfully 
 apply it to the hearts of sinners, even to the gathering an 
 elect people from the long-estranged Persians." 
 
 By the middle of October he had finished the version 
 of the Psalms in Persian. Alluding to this work he has 
 these words : " A sweet employment which caused six 
 weary moons that waxed and waned since its commence- 
 ment to pass unnoticed." 
 
 IMartyn had now been a resident at Shiraz for ten 
 months, and during the whole of this time he had been 
 constantly engaged in refuting the errors of the people 
 among whom his lot was cast. He never shrank from 
 confessing Christ before men, but gladly embraced 
 every occasion of avowing " whose he was, and whom 
 he served." He was led on one occasion into a remark- 
 able discussion with Mirza Ibraheem. It took place in 
 a court, the palace of one of the Persian princes, where 
 a numerous body of Moollahs were collected, with 
 Mirza Ibraheem at their head. Martyn stood up in the 
 assembly alone, and advocated, without flinching, the 
 claims of the Christian faith. The fear of God cast out 
 every other fear. In the midst of the Mahometan 
 conclave he proclaimed and maintained that funda- 
 mental principle of Christianity, the Divinity of the only 
 begotten Son of God. 
 
SHIRAZ. 129 
 
 After this intrepid confession of the Deity of Christ,— 
 when, as his biographer remarks, he might be described 
 in the words applied by Milton to the seraph Abdiel : 
 
 •' Faithful found 
 Among the faithless : faithful only he 
 Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
 Unshaken, unreduced, unterrified. 
 His loyalty he kept, his zeal, his love " — 
 
 Martyn remained only a short time at Shiraz. On the 
 evening of the 24th of May, one year after entering 
 Persia, he left Shiraz in company with an English clergy- 
 man, intending to lay before the king his translation of 
 the New Testament. Finding, however, that without a 
 letter of introduction from the British ambassador he 
 could not be admitted into the royal presence, he went 
 on to Tabriz, where Sir Gore Ouseley, the minister from 
 the English Court, resided. " His journey from Shiraz 
 to Tabriz was not accomplished in less than eight weeks, 
 including one week spent at Ispahan, and a few days at 
 the king's camp, and the latter part of it was a time of 
 great and unforeseen suffering. Had he known to what 
 peril his life would be subjected, he doubtless would 
 have deemed his object of too insufficient a magnitude 
 to justify his exposing himself to so much danger." 
 
 During this journey he was ever -'about his Father's 
 business," conversing and ''disputing on the things con- 
 cerning the kingdom of God " at every opportunity, and 
 witnessing before the unbelieving a good confession, and 
 fearlessly acknowledging Jesus as Lord. Many were the 
 
 K 
 
I30 HENRY MARTYAT. 
 
 difficulties thrown in his way. Everywhere he met with 
 neglect and contumely and scorn. 
 
 " I attended the Vizier's levee, when there was a most 
 intemperate and clamorous controversy kept up for an 
 hour or two, eight or ten on one side, and I on the 
 other. Amongst them were two Moollahs, the most 
 ignorant of any I have yet met with in Persia or India. 
 It would be impossible to enumerate all the absurd 
 things they said. Their vulgarity in interrupting me in 
 the middle of a speech, their utter ignorance of the 
 nature of argument, their impudent assertions about the 
 law and the gospel, neither of which they had ever seen 
 in their lives, moved my indignation a little. I wished, 
 and I said that it would have been well, if Mirza 
 Abdoolwahab had been there. I should have had a 
 man of sense to argue with. The Vizier, who set us 
 going at first, joined in it latterly, and said, ' You had 
 better say, " God is God, and Mahomet is the prophet 
 of God." ' I said, ' God is God,' but added instead of 
 ' Mahomet is the Prophet of God,' ' and Jesus is the Son 
 of God.' They had no sooner heard this, which I had 
 avoided mentioning till then, than they all exclaimed, in 
 contempt and anger, ' He is neither born, nor begets,' 
 and rose up, as if they would have torn me in pieces. 
 One of them said, ' What will you say when your tongue 
 is burnt out for such blasphemy ?' 
 
 One of them felt for me a little, and tried to soften 
 the severity of this speech. My Bible which I had 
 brought, expecting to present it to the king, lay before 
 
SHIR A Z. 
 
 31 
 
 Mirza Shufi. As they all rose up after him to go, some 
 to the king, and some away, I was afraid they would 
 trample upon the book, so I went in among them to 
 take it up, and wrapped it in a towel before them, 
 while they looked at it and me with supreme contempt. 
 Thus I walked away alone to my tent, to pass the 
 rest of the day in heat and dirt. What have I done, 
 thought I, to merit all this scorn? Nothing, I trust, 
 bat bearing testimony to Jesus. I thought over these 
 things in prayer, and my troubled heart found that peace 
 which Christ hath promised to His disciples." 
 
 So it was throughout that painful journey. When 
 he reached Teheran, disappointment awaited him, " A 
 message came from the Vizier to say that it was not the 
 king's custom to see any Englishman, unless presented 
 by the ambassador, or accredited by a letter from him, 
 and that I must wait therefore till the king reached 
 Sultania, where the ambassador would be." Turning his 
 back upon the king's camp, he prosecuted his journey 
 towards Tabriz. On his arrival at the village of Sultania, 
 he met with the usual insulting treatment at the cara- 
 vansera, where the king's servants had got possession of 
 a good room built for the reception of better sort of 
 guests. " These men," he says, '' took delight in the 
 opportunity of humbling an European." From Sultania 
 he proceeded to Zengan, where he and all his party were 
 attacked by ague and fever, and where, if detained a 
 day or two longer, they would be absolutely in want of 
 the necessaries of life. They were without money, and 
 
132 HENRY MARTY N. 
 
 no one would advance them a piastre. Providentially 
 a poor muleteer, coming from Tabriz, became their secu- 
 rity, and obtained for them five tomans. " This was a 
 heaven-send, and we lay down quietly free from appre- 
 hensions of being obliged to go a fatiguing journey of 
 eight or ten hours without a house or village in the way, 
 in our present weak and reduced state. We had now 
 eaten nothing for two days, and my mind was much 
 disordered from headache and giddiness, from which I 
 was seldom free; but my heart, I trust, was with Christ 
 and His saints. To live much longer in this world of 
 sickness and pain seemed no way desirable ; the most 
 favourite prospects of my heart seemed very poor and 
 childish, and cheerfully would I have exchanged them 
 for the unfading inheritance." 
 
 When he and the others had recovered from this attack 
 of fever, and they hoped to resume their journey, Martyn 
 had a relapse which further delayed them. " My ague 
 and fever returned with such a headache that I was 
 almost frantic. Again and again I said to myself, let 
 patience have its perfect work, and kept pleading the 
 promise, * When thou passest through the waters I will 
 be with thee,' and the Lord did not withhold His presence. 
 A violent perspiration at last relieved the acute pain in 
 my head, and my heart rejoiced; but as soon as that was 
 over, the exhaustion it occasioned, added to the fatigue 
 from the pain, left me in as low a state of depression as 
 ever I was in. I seemed about to sink into a long faint- 
 ing fit, and I almost wished it, but at this moment, a 
 
SHIRAZ. ,33 
 
 little after midnight, I was summoned to mount my horse, 
 and I set out rather dead than alive. We moved on six 
 parasangs. We had a thunderstorm with hail." 
 
 At length, in a very weakened state, he arrived at 
 Tabriz on the 5th of July, and reaching the gate, asked 
 for a man to show him the way to the ambassador's. 
 
 Here for two months he was laid upon a bed of fever, 
 and was defeated in his intention of presenting in person 
 his translation of the New Testament to the king of 
 Persia, and to the prince his son. He was tenderly and 
 assiduously nursed through his illness by Sir Gore and 
 Lady Ouseley, who paid him all the attention, and ren- 
 dered him all the care in their power. Sir Gore took 
 so far as he could the edge from Martyn's disappoint- 
 ment, about the personal presentation of the New Testa- 
 ment to the king, by the promise that he himself would 
 present it at court. He did so, and the king publicly 
 expressed his approbation of the work. He also carried 
 the manuscript to St. Petersburg, where, under his super- 
 intendence, it was printed and put into circulation. 
 
 The idea of returning to England, which first occurred 
 to Martyn at Cawnpore, and which was only abandoned 
 because it appeared to be the Divine will that he should 
 visit Persia, was now again entertained, in the hope that 
 it might be beneficial to his health. What his feelings 
 were on the occasion we learn from the following letters, 
 the one written to Mr. Simeon from the bed of suffering, 
 and the other to Miss Grenfell. 
 
 To the first he writes, " I would not pain your heart, 
 
134 HENRY AMRTYN. 
 
 but we who are in Jesus have the privilege of viewing 
 life and death as nearly the same, since both are ours ; 
 and I thank a gracious Lord that sickness never came at 
 a time when I was more free from apparent reasons for 
 living. Nothing seemingly remains for me to do but to 
 follow the rest of my family to the tomb." 
 
 To Miss Grenfell he writes, " It has pleased God 
 to restore me to life and health again, not that I have 
 recovered my former strength yet, but consider myself 
 sufficiently restored to prosecute my journey. My daily 
 prayer is that my late chastisement may have its intended 
 effect, and make me all the rest of my days more humble, 
 and less self-confident. 
 
 " I mentioned my contesting sometimes on Divine 
 subjects. In these I am sometimes led on by the Soofi 
 Persians, and tell them all I know of the very recesses 
 of the sanctuary. But to give an account of all my dis- 
 cussions with these mystic philosophers must be reserved 
 to the time of our meeting. Do I dream, that I venture 
 to think and write of such an event as that ? Is it pos- 
 sible that we shall ever meet again below ? Though it is 
 possible, I dare not indulge such a pleasing hope. 
 
 " In three days I intend setting my horse's head to- 
 wards Constantinople, distant about one thousand three 
 hundred miles. Nothing, I think, will occasion any fur- 
 ther detention here, if I can procure servants who know- 
 both Persian and Turkish. Ignorant as I am of Turkish, 
 should I be taken ill on the road, my case would be 
 pitiable indeed. 
 
SHIRAZ, 135 
 
 "The ambassador and his suite are still here. His and 
 Lady Ouseley's attentions to me during my ilhiess have 
 been unremitted. The prince, Abba Mirza, the wisest of 
 the king's sons, and heir to the throne, was here some 
 time after my arrival. I much wished to present a copy 
 of the Persian New Testament to him, but I could not 
 rise from my bed. The Book, however, will be given to 
 him by the ambassador. Public curiosity about the 
 gospel, now for the first time in the memory of the 
 modern Persians introduced into the country, is a good 
 deal excited here and at Shiraz, and at other places, so 
 that upon the whole I am thankful at having been led 
 hither and detained, though my residence in this country 
 has been attended with many unpleasant circumstances. 
 The way of the kings of the East is preparing : thus 
 much may be said with safety, but little more. The 
 Persians also will probably take the lead in the march to 
 Sion." 
 
 Martyn also wrote to Mr. Simeon of his return to 
 England in the following manner : " You will learn from 
 Mr. Grant that I have applied for leave to come to Eng- 
 land on furlough, a measure you will disapprove ; but 
 you would not were you to see the pitiable condition to 
 which I am reduced, and knew what it is to traverse the 
 continent of Asia in the destitute state in which I am. 
 If you wish not to see me, I can say that it is most 
 probable that you will not, the way before being not 
 better than that passed over, which has nearly killed 
 me." 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 
 
 [1812.] 
 
 ITH very faint hopes of ever seeing England, he 
 set out on his long journey on the 2nd of Sep- 
 tember, 181 2. He carried letters from Sir Gore Ouseley 
 for the Governors of Erivan, Kars, and Erzeroum, and 
 the ambassador at Constantinople. His party con- 
 sisted of two Armenian servants, Antoine, the groom, 
 and Sergius, who was to accompany him to Constan- 
 tinople as interpreter, because he professed to speak 
 both Persian and Turkish. His knowledge of Persian 
 Martyn soon discovered to be very small. His atten- 
 dants were mounted, and two other horses carried his 
 baggage, while Martyn rode his own. There was also a 
 man on foot to brmg back the cattle. At sunset the 
 party left the western gate of Tabriz behind them. The 
 horses proved to be sorry animals. One sunk so often 
 under his load that they were six hours going three or 
 four parasangs. At midnight they arrived at Sangla, a 
 village in the middle of the plain of Tabriz, where a 
 place was procured for Martyn in the Zabit's house. 
 The next afternoon the party proceeded towards Sofian. 
 
 136 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 137 
 
 Martyn thus describes his feeUngs as with restored 
 health he pursued his journey, and looked on the 
 scenery through which he passed : " The plain of 
 Tabriz, towards the west and south-west, stretches away 
 to an immense distance, and is bounded in these direc- 
 tions by mountains so remote, as appear, from their soft 
 blue, to blend with the skies. The baggage having been 
 sent on before, I ambled on with my Mihmander, look- 
 ing all around me, and especially towards the distant 
 hills, with gratitude and joy. Oh, it is necessary to 
 have been confined to a bed of sickness to know the 
 delight of moving freely through the works of God with 
 the senses left at liberty to enjoy their proper objects. 
 ]\Iy attendants not being very conversant with Persian, 
 we rode silently along ; for my part I could not have en- 
 joyed any companion so much as I did my own feelings. 
 At sunset we reached Sofian, a village with gardens, at 
 the north-west end of the plain, usually the first stage 
 from Tabriz. The Zabit was in his cornfield, under a 
 little tent, inspecting his labourers, who were cutting the 
 straw fine so as to be eaten by cattle. This was done 
 by drawing over it a cylinder, armed with blades of a 
 triangular form, placed in different planes, so that their 
 vertices should coincide in the cylinder. 
 
 " The Zabit paid me no attention, but sent a man to 
 show me a place to sleep in with only three walls. I 
 demanded another with four, and was accordingly con 
 ducted to a weaver's, where, notwithstanding the mos- 
 quitoes and other vermin, I passed the night comfort- 
 
138 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 ably enough. On my offering money, the Mihmander 
 interfered, and said if it were known that I had given 
 money, he should be ruined ; and added, * they indeed 
 dare not take it,' but this I did not find to be the case." 
 
 So he travelled onward day by day, though *' troubled 
 on every side, yet not distressed ; perplexed, yet not in 
 despair"; his trust in God, and able to enjoy the beauty 
 and interest of the scenes through which he journeyed. 
 
 September 6tk. " Soon after twelve we started with 
 fresh horses and came to the Arar or Araxes, distant two 
 parasangs, and about as broad as the Isis, with a current 
 as strong as that of the Ganges. The ferry-boat being 
 on the other side, I lay down to sleep till it came ; but 
 observing my servants do the same, I was obliged to get 
 up and exert myself. It dawned, however, before we 
 got over. The boat was a huge fabric in the form of a 
 rhombus. The ferryman had only a stick to push with ; 
 an oar, I daresay, he had never seen or heard of; and 
 many of my train had also probably never floated be- 
 fore, so alien is a Persian from everything that belongs 
 to shipping. We landed safely on the other side in 
 about ten minutes. We were four hours in reaching 
 Nackshan, and for half an hour more I was led from 
 street to street, till at last I was lodged in a wash-house 
 belonging to a great man, a corner of which was cleaned 
 out for me. It was near noon, and my baggage had not 
 arrived, so that I was obliged to go without my break- 
 ast, which was hard after a ride of four hours in the sun. 
 The baggage was delayed so long that I began to fear ; 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 139 
 
 however, it arrived. All the afternoon I slept, and at 
 sunset rose and continued wakeful till midnight, when I 
 roused my people and with fresh horses set out again. 
 We travelled till sunrise. I scarcely perceived we had 
 been moving, a Hebrew word in the i6th Psalm having 
 led me gradually to speculations on the eighth conjuga- 
 tion of the Arabic verb. I am glad my philological 
 curiosity is revived, as my mind will be less liable to 
 idleness." 
 
 It is thus again that he writes of one of the most 
 celebrated heights of Scripture which came into view at 
 Nackshan : " I should have mentioned that on descend- 
 ing into the plain Nackshan, my attention was seized by 
 the appearance of a hoary mountain in front, at the other 
 end, rising so high above the rest that they sunk into 
 nothing. It was truly sublime, and the interest it ex- 
 cited was not less when, on inquiring its name, I was 
 told it was Agri, or Ararat. Thus I saw two remarkable 
 objects in one day, — the Araxes and Ararat. At four in 
 the afternoon we set out for Shurrer. The evening was 
 pleasant. The ground over which we passed was all 
 full of rich cultivation and verdure, watered by many a 
 stream, and containing forty villages, most of them with 
 the usual jfppendage of gardens. To add to the scene, 
 the great Ararat was on our left. On the peak of that 
 hill the whole Church was contamed. It has now spread 
 far and wide to the ends of the earth, but the ancient 
 vicinity of it knows it no more. I fancied many a spot 
 where Noah perhaps offered his sacrifices ; and the 
 
140 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 promise of God, " that seed-time and harvest should not 
 cease," appeared, to me, more anxiously fulfilled in the 
 agreeable plain where it was spoken than elsewhere, as 
 I had not seen such fertility in any part of the Shah's 
 dominion. Here the blessed Saint landed in a new 
 world. So may I, safe in Christ, outride the storms 
 of life, and land at last on one of the everlasting 
 hills." 
 
 On the 1 8th of September, after several days of travel, 
 during which he had an interview with the patriarch of 
 the Armenian Church, with whom and other members of 
 that communion he had some interesting conversation, 
 he left the plain of Ararat. It was here that the follow- 
 ing incident occurred which shows how narrowly he at 
 times escaped dangers which threatened his life : — 
 
 " Meeting with the Araxes again, I undressed and 
 plunged into the stream. While hastening forward with 
 the trusty Melcom, to rejoin my party, w^e were over- 
 taken by a spearman with a lance of formidable length. 
 I did not think it likely that one man would venture 
 to attack two, both armed ; but the spot was a noted 
 one for robbers, and very well calculated by its soUtari- 
 ness for deeds of privacy. However, he was friendly 
 enough. He had, however, nearly done me a mischief. 
 On the bank of the river we sprung a covey of partridges. 
 Instantly he laid his long lance under him across the 
 horse's back, and fired a pistol at them. His horse 
 starting at the report, came upon mine with the point 
 of the spear directly towards me, so that I thought a 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 141 
 
 wound for myself or horse was inevitable, but the 
 spear passed under my horse." 
 
 He proceeded on his journey through places which 
 since his time have come into prominence, and from 
 events that are now historical, are more generally known 
 than they were then, such as Erzeroum and Kars. Some- 
 times his path lay through the crowded streets of the 
 busy town, and sometimes through the wooded forest, 
 at others over many a hill and dale. 
 
 It is thus he describes the incidents of one day's 
 journey : — 
 
 Sepieinher 22,rd. "Our way lay through a forest of 
 firs, and the variety of prospect it afforded, of hill and 
 dale, wood and lawn, was beautiful and romantic. No 
 mark of human workmanship was anywhere visible for 
 miles, except where some trees had fallen by the stroke 
 of the woodman. We saw, at last, a few huts in the 
 thickest clumps, and that is all we saw of the Kurds, 
 for fear of whom I was attended by ten armed horsemen. 
 We frightened a company of villagers again to-day. 
 They were bringing wood and grass from the forest, 
 and on seeing us, drew up. One of our party advanced 
 and fired. Such a rash piece of sport I thought must 
 have been followed by serious mischief, but all passed 
 off very well. With the forest I was delighted. The 
 clear streams in the valleys, the lofty trees croAvning the 
 summits of the hills, the smooth paths winding away 
 and losing themselves in the dark woods, and above all, 
 the solitude that reigned, composed a scene that tended 
 
142 
 
 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 to harmonize and solemnize the mind. What displays 
 of taste and magnificence are there occasionally on this 
 ruined earth ! Nothing was wanting to-day but the 
 absence of the Turks, to avoid the sight and sound of 
 whom I rode on. After a ride of nine hours and a half, 
 we reached Mijingud, in the territory of Erzeroum, and 
 resolved not to be annoyed in the same way as last 
 night. I left the Tartar in the undisturbed possession 
 of the post-house, and took up my quarters at an 
 Armenian's, where in the stable-room I expected to 
 be left alone, but a Georgian young man on his way 
 from Ech-Miazin, going on pilgrimage to Moosk, where 
 John the Baptist is supposed to be buried, presuming 
 on his assiduous attentions to me, contrived to get a 
 place for himself in the same room." 
 
 The following extract from his journal, amongst the 
 last which he penned, gives us an account of his state 
 of body and mind at this time, when he was drawing 
 near the close of his heroic life. 
 
 October ist, " Marched over a mountainous tract. 
 We were out from seven in the morning till eight at 
 night. After sitting a little by the fire, I was near 
 fainting from sickness. My depression of spirits led 
 me to the throne of grace as a sinful abject worm. When 
 I thought of myself and my transgressions, I could find 
 no text so cheering as, * My ways are not your ways.' 
 By the men who accompanied Sir William Ouseley to 
 Constantinople, I learned that the plague was raging 
 at Constantinople, and thousands dying every day. 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 143 
 
 One of the Persians had died of it. They added that 
 the inhabitants of Tocat were flying from their town 
 from the same cause. Thus I am passing inevitably 
 into imminent danger. O Lord, Thy will be done ! 
 Living or dying, remember me ! " 
 
 It was not wonderful that the daily fatigue of travel, 
 and the alternations of heat and cold, along with the 
 privations which he suffered, should tell injuriously on 
 his weakened frame. 
 
 What a record of suffering have we in this narrative 
 of his journey as he makes for Tocat ! 
 
 October 2nd. " Some hours before day sent to tell 
 the Tartar I was ready ; but Hasan Agra was for once 
 riveted to his bed. However, at eight, having got 
 strong horses, he set off at a great rate ; and over the 
 level ground he made us gallop as fast as the horses 
 could go to Chifflick, where we arrived at sunset. I 
 was lodged, at my request, in the stable of the post- 
 house, not liking the scrutinising impudence of the 
 fellows who frequent the coffee-room. As soon as it 
 began to grow a little cold, the ague came on, and 
 then the fever; after which I had a sleep that let me 
 know too plainly the disorder of my frame. In the 
 night Hasan sent to summon me away, but I was quite 
 unable to move. Finding me still in bed at the dawn, 
 he began to storm furiously at my detaming him so long ; 
 but I gently let him spend his ire, ate my breakfast 
 composedly, and set out at eight. He seemed deter- 
 mined to make up for the delay, for we flew over hill 
 
144 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 and vale to Sherean, where he changed horses. From 
 thence we travelled all the rest of the day and all night. 
 It rained most of the time. Soon after sunset the ague 
 came on again, which in my wet state was very trying. 
 I hardly knew how to keep my life in me. About that 
 time there was a village at hand, but Hasan had no 
 mercy. At one in the morning we found two men 
 under a wain, with a good fire. They could not keep 
 the rain out, but their fire was acceptable. I dried my 
 lower extremities, allayed the fever by drinking a good 
 deal of water, and went on. We had little rain, but the 
 night was pitchy dark, so that I could not see where 
 the road was under my horse's feet. However, God 
 being mercifully pleased to alleviate my bodily sufferings, 
 I went on contentedly to the Munzil, where we arrived 
 at break of day. After sleeping three or four hours, I 
 was visited by an Armenian merchant for whom I had 
 a letter. Hasan was in great fear of being arrested here ; 
 the governor of the city had vowed to make an example 
 of him for riding to death a horse belonging to a man 
 of this place. He begged that I would shelter him in 
 case of danger; his being claimed by an Englishman, 
 he said, would be a sufficient security. I found, how- 
 ever, that I had no occasion to interfere. He hurried 
 me away from this place without delay, and galloped 
 furiously towards a village which he said was four hours' 
 distance, which was all I could undertake in my present 
 weak state. But village after village did he pass, till, 
 night coming on, and no signs of another, I suspected 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 145 
 
 that he was carrying me to the Munzil ; so I got off 
 my horse, and sat upon the ground, and told him I 
 neither could nor would go any farther. He stormed, 
 but I was immovable, till, a light appearing at a distance, 
 I mounted my horse and made towards it, leaving him 
 to follow or not, as he pleased. He brought in the 
 party, but would not exert himself to get a place for 
 me. They brought me to an open verandah, but Sergius 
 told them I wanted a place in which to be alone. This 
 seemed very offensive to them. And why must he be 
 alone? they asked, ascribing this desire of mine to 
 pride, I suppose. Tempted at last by money, they 
 brought me to a stable-room, and Hasan and a number 
 of others planted themselves there with me. My fever 
 here increased to a violent degree. The heat in my 
 eyes and forehead was so great that the fire almost 
 made me frantic. I entreated that it might be put 
 out, or that I might be carried out of doors. Neither 
 was attended to. My servant, who from my sitting 
 in that strange way on the ground beHeved me delirious, 
 was deaf to all I said. At last I pushed my head in 
 among the luggage, and lodged it on the damp ground 
 and slept." 
 
 He awoke somewhat refreshed in the morning, 
 though feehng feeble and shaken, and was again 
 hurried off in his journey by the merciless Hasan. He 
 reached the Munzil, which was not far distant, without 
 much difficulty, expecting to find it another strong fort 
 at the end of the pass, whereas it was but a poor Httle 
 
 L 
 
146 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 village in the jaws of the mountains. Here he was 
 fairly lodged, and felt tolerably well, till a little after 
 sunset, when the ague returned with a violence he had 
 never experienced before. He felt as if in a palsy, his 
 teeth chattering, and his whole frame violently shaken. 
 Two Persians on their way from Constantinople going 
 to Abbas ]\Iirza, rendered him what assistance they 
 could, and their kindness contrasted favourably with 
 the indifference of the Turks. Hasan only thought of 
 the delay his illness was Hkely to occasion. The cold 
 fit, after two or three hours, was followed by a fever 
 which lasted the whole night, and prevented sleep. 
 
 His sorijws, however, were near an end. A few 
 days longer, and for him sorrow and sighing should be 
 no more. "He had fought the good fight, and kept 
 the faith." He had been found faithful unto death, 
 and the crown of life was being prepared for his brows. 
 Soon would the starry portals of heaven open to admit 
 his soul among the choir of the redeemed. 
 His last recorded words were these : — 
 Oct. 6th. "No horses being to be had, I had an 
 unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard, and thought 
 with sweet comfort and peace of my God ; — in soli- 
 tude, — my company, my Friend and Comforter. Oh, 
 when shall time give place to eternity? When shall 
 appear that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness ? There — there shall in no wise enter 
 in anything that defileth ; none of that wickedness 
 which has made men worse than wild beasts ; none 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 147 
 
 of those corruptions that add still more to the 
 miseries of mortality, shall be seen or heard of any 
 more." 
 
 Ten days after these heavenly aspirations — on the 
 1 6th of October, 18 12— at the early age of thirty-two, 
 either falling a victim to the plague, or sinking under 
 the fever which had so greatly reduced his strength, 
 Martyn entered the presence of the Saviour, "whom 
 having not seen he loved, and in whom, though he now 
 saw Him not, yet believing he rejoiced with joy un- 
 speakable and full of glory." 
 
 There is something pathetic in the thought of that 
 lonely death-bed in a foreign land. No kinsman was 
 near to watch his last look, or receive his last words. 
 No friend stood by his couch to whisper encouraging 
 words, to close his eyes, or wipe the death-sweat from 
 his brow. Those whose privilege it would have been 
 to perform these last offices of love were anxiously 
 expecting tidings of his arrival either in India or 
 England. For they knew that he was hastening home 
 with the hope of repairing his shattered strength, that 
 he might again devote himself to the work of evan- 
 gelizing the East. And what fond thoughts of his 
 native land, of affectionate relatives and friends, and 
 of all that made England dear, may have rushed in a 
 flood of thrilling hopes and anticipations on his soul ! 
 It may have been with him as it was with the traveller 
 who laid him down to die on the burning sands of 
 Africa, before whose closing eyes came floating up 
 
148 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 visions of the past, and in whose ears there rang old 
 familiar voices, and who said in almost his last words : 
 "I have just heard the sound of an English funeral bell." 
 
 But however apparently lonely Martyn's dying bed, 
 and whatever yearning thoughts of friends and country 
 may have crossed his mind, of one thing we may be 
 certain^ that he was not alone ; that Christ was near to 
 *' loose the silver cord, and break the golden bowl " at 
 the fountain; yea, we may be very sure that "under- 
 neath were the everlasting arms, and the eternal God 
 his refuge." 
 
 His death could not fail of making a great impres- 
 sion on all to whom the cause and kingdom of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ was dear. " He was in our hearts," 
 writes the Rev. Mr. Thomason ; " we honoured him, 
 we loved him, we thanked God for him, we prayed 
 for his longer continuance amongst us; we rejoiced in 
 the good he was doing ; we are sadly bereaved. When 
 such fervent piety, and extensive knowledge, and 
 vigorous understanding, and classical taste, and un- 
 wearied application, were all united, what might not 
 have been expected ? I cannot dwell upon the subject 
 without feeling very sad. I stand upon the walls of 
 Jerusalem, and see the lamentable breach that has 
 been made in them ; but it is the Lord, — ' He gave, 
 and He hath taken away.'" 
 
 " A more perfect character," says the Rev. Dr. 
 Corrie, " I never met with, nor expect to see again on 
 earth. During the four years we were fellow-labourers 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 149 
 
 in this country, I had no less than six opportunities 
 of enjoying his company, and every opportunity only 
 increased my love and veneration for him." 
 
 Sir James Stephen says that "Martyn's is the one 
 heroic name which adorns the annals of the English 
 Church from the days of Elizabeth to our own " ; and 
 whether we agree or not in an assertion so sweeping 
 and so wide, considering the many devoted men and 
 ardent missionaries which that Church has nourished 
 within her fold, we can crown him with all a hero's 
 honours, for he forsook all for Clirist, and "loved not 
 his life unto the death." 
 
 It may truly be affirmed of him that ''he, being dead, 
 yet speaketh.'' "Tidings of the death of Henry 
 Martyn," says Sir James Stephen, "reached England 
 during the parliamentary debates on the renewal of 
 the East India Company's Charter, and gave new im- 
 petus to the zeal with which the friends and patrons 
 of his youth were then contending for the establish- 
 ment of an episcopal see at Calcutta, and for the 
 removal of all restraints on the diffusion of Chris- 
 tianity within its limits." 
 
 Many a Christian has been roused to greater zeal, 
 and stirred to higher attainments in holiness by 
 Martyn's example ; and many a young man, stimulated 
 by the same pattern, has left all to become a missionary 
 of the Cross. Mr. Simeon used to say when he looked 
 at his picture : " Look at that blessed man ; be in ear- 
 nest i don't trifle, don't trifle." 
 
I50 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 It may be interesting to quote here the lines written 
 on the tomb of this saint and martyr by Lord Macau- 
 lay : — 
 
 ** Here Martyn lies ! In manhood's early bloom 
 The Christian hero found a Pagan tomb ; 
 Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son, 
 Points to the glorious trophies which he won. 
 Eternal trophies, not with slaughter red, 
 Not stained with tears by hopeless captives shed ; 
 But trophies of the Cross. For that dear name 
 Through every form of danger, death, and shame, 
 Onward he journeyed to a happier shore, 
 Where danger, death, and shame are known no more." 
 
 Not altogether melancholy are the thoughts with 
 which we contemplate that lonely grave at Tocat. 
 " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord " ; and 
 they that have served God in the martyr's spirit shall 
 be rewarded with the martyr's crown. The resting-places 
 of the just can never be connected in our minds with 
 what is sad : rather are they associated with honour, 
 and reverence and love. Nor is there the tomb of any 
 one of India's conquerors, however decorated and 
 adorned, however made the subject of the poet's eu- 
 logy or the historian's praise, that is to be chosen in 
 preference to the humble grave of Henry Martyn. In 
 consecrating his life to God, he did deeds which attract 
 the admiration of heaven, and whose issues shall be felt 
 to the furthest eternity. He lacked the honours that 
 come from man, but his record is- on high. By preaching 
 the gospel to the ignorant, and by causing languages, 
 
LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH. 151 
 
 hitherto dumb as regards its glorious truths, to speak 
 through them to the heart and to the conscience, he 
 made the oracles of God accessible to millions, and be- 
 came the author of blessings which shall never be known 
 till time shall be no more. His reward may not have 
 been such as follows the hero of the age, and who receives 
 the loud applause of mankind, but it is one better, 
 nobler, and more enduring ; and when thrones have crum- 
 bled, and empires have sunk into ruin, and when heaven 
 and earth have passed away, the crown shall sparkle on 
 his brow, and the palm wave greenly in his hand. Mean- 
 while his name is enshrined in the great heart of the 
 Church's love ; nor will it ever cease to blend with her 
 most cherished recollections, until she pass from her 
 militant into her triumphant condition, when it shall be 
 lost in the brighter glories of that '' new name which no 
 man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it," and which is 
 to be given to all who overcome. 
 
 ** What is the meaning of the Christian life ? 
 Is it success ? or vulgar wealth? a name? 
 Is it a weary struggle, — a mean strife 
 
 For rank, low gauds, ambition, or for fame ? 
 What sow we for ? The world ? For fleeting time ? 
 Or far-off harvests, richer, more sublime ? 
 
 •* The brightest life on earth was one of loss ; 
 
 The noblest head was wreathed with sharpest thorn 
 Has He not consecrated pain— the Cross ? 
 
 What higher crown can Christian brows adorn ? 
 Be we content to follow on the road 
 
 Which men count failure, but which leads to God ! " 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM MARTYN'S CORRESPONDENCE, 
 
 IT has been thought well to give a few letters from 
 Martyn's correspondence, selected out of many. 
 They are taken from different periods of his life, 
 beginning with his college days, extending over his 
 sojourn in India and Persia, and concluding with a letter 
 written a few months before his death. They will show 
 what manner of man he was, and as the date of each 
 letter is given, they will serve to illustrate his biography. 
 
 Amongst them will be found some to Miss Grenfell, 
 with whom he kept up a correspondence to the close of 
 his life. The last letter is to her. Many of his letters 
 are necessarily excluded from the present volume, and 
 those only are printed which, it is thought, will contain 
 the greatest interest for the reader. Those to Miss 
 Grenfell were bequeathed by her to his biographer and 
 friend, the Rev. John Sargent, that after her death he 
 might use them for publication if he thought fit. 
 
 The letters cannot fail of possessing an interest for all 
 to whom " the memory of the just is blessed," for they 
 throw a light on Martyn's character, on his peculiar tem- 
 perament, and the trials and temptations to which he was 
 exposed. As we read them we may not approve of every 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESEONDENCE. 153 
 
 sentiment, or endorse every opinion, but they sketch for 
 us the portrait of a man of eminent humility, and of 
 singular faith and love. 
 
 The letters are placed at the close of his biography, 
 rather than in the life itself, that the narrative may not 
 be broken more than is necessary by the insertion of the 
 correspondence. As the dates are given with the letters, 
 they can easily be used by the reader, if he wishes to 
 refer to the particular time at which they were written, 
 or to the special place where they were penned. 
 
 To THE Rev. John Sargent. 
 
 " Siaansea, August 9//^, 1802. 
 ''Dear Sargent, — You see by the date of my letter 
 that I have almost reached the end of my long pilgrim- 
 age. Our first resting-place was Wenlock in Shropshire, 
 from whence we went on the Sunday to Madeley Church. 
 You must have heard of Mr. Fletcher, who was formerly 
 
 rector of this place. We were introduced to Mrs. F 
 
 by a young man who first introduced himself to us. We 
 took some cofi'ee with him afterwards, and he told us he 
 had formerly been a cornet in the 15th Light Dragoons, 
 but had retired from the world, and had now lived in 
 solitude nearly three years, employed in nothing but 
 reading the Bible and visiting the sick. He was perfectly 
 meek and gentle in his manners, and seemed quite happy. 
 I leave you to make your own reflections on this pheno- 
 menon. From Wenlock we became pedestrians, and 
 went successively to Shrewsbury, the Vale of Llangollen, 
 and Chester, from whence we sailed down the Mersey to 
 Liverpool; from this place I proceeded to Holywell, etc., 
 alone. 
 
154 HENRY MARTYN: 
 
 " Thus have I been preserved by the protecting provi- 
 dence of God, and been endued with bodily strength to 
 accomplish my journey with ease. I have never once 
 wished for a companion ; even in the most gloomy 
 moments I have found the Bible a never-failing source 
 of interesting thought." 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ^^ St. Johiis^ January I'jth^ 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sargent, — I find from , that you really 
 
 expect me to fultil a promise I never made. However, 
 as you allow me to send you even a skeleton of a letter, 
 I sit down resolved to avail myself of the permission if I 
 find it necessary. 
 
 "G and H seem to disapprove of my pro- 
 ject much, and on this account I have been rather 
 discouraged of late, though not in any degree convinced. 
 It would be more satisfactory to go out with the full 
 approbation of my friends, but it is in vain to attempt 
 to please man. In doubtful cases, we are to use the 
 opinions of others no further than as means of directing 
 our own judgment. My sister has also objected to it, 
 on the score of my deficiency in that deep and solid 
 experience necessary in a missionary. You have taken 
 rooms, I think in the Temple, so that the providence of 
 God seems to have called you irrevocably to the pro- 
 fession of the law. Though I cannot help regretting 
 that one so well qualified to preach the glad tidings of 
 salvation should be called off to labour in the business 
 of this world, yet we may be sure, that whatever is un- 
 dertaken according to His will, will be attended with His 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 155 
 
 blessing. You will, I dare say, find a double degree of 
 watchfulness necessary to preserve a proper state of 
 mind. In the case of those who minister in the sanc- 
 tuary, temporal and spiritual occupations are one ; 
 corresponding to the necessity of a superior degree of 
 hohness in those who are to be examples. But in your 
 case, even a common degree of spirituality cannot be 
 maintained without much attention. Many have found 
 that occasional aspirations after God have been made 
 the channels of the communications of His grace in the 
 midst of worldly business, and have left the mind not 
 disqualified for the employments of heaven. Indeed, 
 this seems to be a good criterion of our state. For 
 surely the new-born soul never more truly acts according 
 to its heavenly nature, than when it delights to shake off 
 the clogs of earth, and to leave the world beneath it, and 
 to rise exultingly to God. Though it is hard to be thus 
 minded, yet it is undoubtedly our privilege ; but nothing 
 but almighty grace is sufficient for these things, as the 
 coldness we all feel manifests. I have been reading 
 Hopkins's sermons to-day. I would give you my opinion 
 of them (I could willingly fill the sheet), but the time 
 does not allow me. Therefore, adieu." 
 
 Dear Sargent, - 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ^^ St. John's, June 2iOtJi, 1803. 
 
 ** I feel ashamed that you express any satisfaction in 
 corresponding with me. God only knows how poor and 
 ghallow I am ; and if any good should ever arise to you 
 t>y my means, it must be ascribed to His wisdom, who 
 
156 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 can use the meanest instruments to effect His purposes. 
 What shall I say to Him for giving me such a friend as 
 you are likely to prove ! One who fears not to give 
 offence by speaking the truth, and who would seek to 
 improve the spirit, rather than please the flesh. . . . 
 May you, as long as you shall give me your acquaint- 
 ance, direct me to the casting down of all high imagina- 
 tions. Possibly it may be a cross to you to tell me or 
 any one of his faults. But should I be at last a castaway, 
 or at least dishonour Christ through some sin, which, 
 for want of faithful admonition, remained unmortified, 
 how bitter would be your reflections ! I conjure you, 
 therefore, my dear friend, as you value the good of the 
 souls to whom I am to preach, and my own eternal 
 interests, that you tell me what you think to be, in my 
 life, spirit, or temper, not according to the will of God 
 my Saviour. You profess your need of humiliation. I 
 wish my own experience could assist you in this the 
 most important part of our sanctification. In examining 
 myself according to your advice on this head, it seems 
 (for the work of inquiry is so exceedingly difficult that I 
 can hardly say with certainty what I have known, or 
 whether I have known anything on this subject) that I 
 seek my humility rather from views of Gods greatness 
 and the example of Christ, than of my own corruption. 
 Now, though the former views may assist in producing 
 the effect, yet the impressions arising from them are 
 necessarily transient, whereas that humility which arises 
 from just views of ourselves may be as abiding as our own 
 consciousness, and be brought into exercise by every- 
 thing we do, or speak, or think. It has greatly dis- 
 tressed me to thuik how slow my heart is to yield to the 
 convictions of reason, how unable to mourn when I 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 157 
 
 should be lying low in the dust On reading the words 
 of our Lord to the lukewarm Laodiceans, the form of 
 the words is very striking and comforting : ' Because 
 thou knowest not that thou art wretched, etc., I counsel 
 thee to buy of Me eye-salve, that thou mayest see ' ; so 
 that there is provision made for those whom of all others 
 God holds most in abhorrence, the blind (to their sins), 
 the hard-hearted, and the proud. Were it not so, what 
 would become of me ? Happily for us, * the covenant is 
 ordered in all things and sure,' and it is not left to our 
 own wisdom, but to that adorable Agent, the Spirit of 
 God, to perform that good work which He hath begun 
 in us. ]\Iay we be both conformed to the bright image 
 of the Redeemer, especially in meekness and lowliness 
 of heart. I feel for you, lest by a fatal comparison with 
 those around you you should be induced to lower the 
 standard of Christian morality in your own practice. 
 This is a temptation to which I am prone even here. 
 But let us remember that God judgeth according to 
 every man's work, and not relatively. He marks his 
 secret walk, and His view of him is precisely the same, 
 whatever be the change of the opinions of the man of 
 himself, or of others concerning him. Let us then walk 
 in the Spirit. . . . 
 
 " D has heard about a religious young man of 
 
 seventeen, who wants to come to College, but has only 
 ;^2o a year. He is very clever, and, from the perusal 
 of some poems which he has published, I am much 
 interested about him. His name is H. K. White. . . . 
 
 " We remembered our friend Sargent at Mr. Simeon's 
 room on Thursday evening. Pray that I may have true 
 piety and fitness for my work. 
 
 " Yours ever, Henry Martyn." 
 
158 HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 '' St. John's, November \%th, 1803. 
 " I thank you, my dear Sargent, for your prayers on 
 the day of my ordination. 1 rejoiced to think that many 
 were putting up to heaven for me, for much indeed did I 
 need them. Neither at that time nor since have I been 
 duly affected with the awfulness of the charge. The 
 incessant employment of sermon-writing has left me 
 little leisure for quiet consideration, and so my spirits 
 have been greatly depressed the last three weeks. The 
 four sermons I have preached are on Job xiv. 14, John 
 iv. 10, Ps. ix. 17, Heb. vi. 11, two of them at Trinity 
 Church. My Lolvvorth congregation is about one hun- 
 dred. Now that the composition of sermons will become 
 easier, I hope to perform all the duties of the ministry 
 with more attention than I have yet been able to give. 
 Time and prayer will, I trust, through the grace of (jod, 
 remove that childish thoughtlessness which attends me 
 still, and makes me feel where I stand. . . . My 
 
 conversations with have been attended with no 
 
 small advantage to me in the way of wholesome correc- 
 tion. He is the only man of all my friends here that 
 tells me the truth plainly, and so is the only one who, by 
 lowering my pride, eventually promotes my sanctification 
 and peace. ... 
 
 " As you have read law, tell me your opinion of him. 
 He is rather a favourite of mine, though not without his 
 faults. It seems, by what your friends here say, that you 
 do not engage with sufficient earnestness in your worldly 
 business. I hardly know what to give as my opinion on 
 this subject. The law is so very different from all other 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 159 
 
 pursuits in the time and labour required for it. Yet, on 
 the other hand, there is Sir Matthew Hale. ... I 
 never hear a word about the missionary business. If 
 you see Mr. Wilberforce, and his mind is not too much 
 occupied about the present affairs of national danger, ask 
 him something about it. 
 
 " 1 am, dear Sargent, 
 
 *' Yours ever truly, 
 
 "H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Same. 
 '■^ St. JoJm's, January ()th, 1804. 
 
 " I heard of the death of your brother, my dear Sar- 
 gent, some time ago, but I had neither inclination nor 
 leisure to write to you immediately after. I liope the 
 first impressions of grief are now somewhat worn away, 
 but that you retain that blessed effect of sanctified sor- 
 row, a tender spirit, which to me at this time appears so 
 desirable that I could be willing to suffer anything or do 
 anything to obtain it. I should judge by your account 
 that he could have hardly attained the age of moral 
 agency, and so we may hope he is among tliose of whom 
 it is said, 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' I trust 
 that the melancholy event has, in answer to your prayers, 
 
 been beneficial to . If not yet in the degree you 
 
 could wish, yet cease not to pray for her. But how can 
 I encourage you to a duty in which I am so languid my- 
 self, so seldom disposed to ' stir up myself to lay hold 
 upon God ' ? How necessary is self-denial in this as 
 well as every other duty, through the corruption that is 
 in us. Sometimes I feel the most ardent and stronjr 
 resolutions to fight manfully, to exert all the powers of 
 
l6o HE.VRY MARTYN. 
 
 the soul unceasingly in mortifying the flesh, but these 
 resolves are short-lived ; sometimes through forgetfulness, 
 sometimes through weakness, I find myself giving way to 
 ever-craving self-indulgence. . . . 
 
 " I thank you for the kind interest you take in my mis- 
 sionary plans j but unless Providence should see fit to 
 restore our property, I see no possibility of my going 
 out. Most probably, after all, I shall be settled at 
 Calcutta, in that post which Mr. Grant is so anxious 
 to procure some one to fill, for by this the pecuniary 
 difficulties which attend my going out would be re- 
 moved. . . . 
 
 You told me some time ago that the multiplicity of 
 business which would attend me as Mr. Simeon's curate 
 would leave little time for reflection on my future plans, 
 and truly I find your prediction fulfilled, for the compo- 
 sition of sermons and preparing for the societies confines 
 the hours of devotion into far too small a compass. 
 Nevertheless, I have found my spirit disciplined by these 
 more active parts of the ministry, so as to perform with 
 willingness those duties from which once I used to 
 shrink. . . . 
 
 " Farewell, my dear brother, amidst all the afflictions of 
 the gospel, and truly they are not few, we shall also be 
 made partakers of its consolations. The contemplation 
 of the eternal world is of necessity my chief happiness, 
 and yours, I hope, by choice, for though this world 
 demands your attention more than mine, you have learnt 
 to give it its right value. In our Father's house there 
 are, I humbly hope, mansions prepared for us, purchased 
 only by the blood of Jesus, who will also keep that 
 which we have committed to Him till that day. 
 
 " H. M.» 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. i6i 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 " Lamorran, August 6th, 1804. 
 
 "My dear Sargent, — How can I sufficiently adore the 
 singular benefits of God to my family; we are now 
 brothers and sisters for eternity. How cheerfully can I 
 now go forth to proclaim the glories of Him who hath 
 done so much for us ! 
 
 " Respecting your approaching union with that excellent 
 lady, I have nothing to add at present, but that you have 
 my prayers, both of you ; and particularly does it seem 
 to me a necessary petition that you may not in your 
 mutual affection forget the Saviour. May He Himself 
 show us the vanity of the enjoyments of this world ; and 
 instead of pleasing ourselves with the prospect of a happy 
 continuance in it, let us contemplate with greater satis- 
 faction the moment of our departure from it. 
 
 To Miss Grenfell. 
 
 ^^ Sej-ampore, July 2,0th, 1806. 
 
 "My dearest Lydia,— On a subject so intimately con- 
 nected with my happiness and future ministry as that on 
 which I am now about to address you, I wish to assure 
 you that I am not acting with precipitancy, or without 
 much consideration and prayer, while I at last sit down 
 to request you to come out to me to India. 
 
 " May the Lord graciously direct His blind and erring 
 creature, and not suffer the natural bias of his mind to 
 lead him astray. You are acquainted with much of the 
 conflict I have undergone on your account. It has been 
 
 M 
 
i62 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 greater than you or Emma have imagined, and yet not 
 so painful as I deserve to have found it for having suffered 
 my affections to fasten so inordinately on an earthly 
 obj ect. 
 
 " Soon, however, after my final departure from Europe, 
 God in great mercy gave me deliverance, and favoured 
 me throughout the voyage with peace of mind, indiffer- 
 ence about all worldly connections, and devotedness to 
 no object upon earth but the work of Christ. I gave you 
 up entirely — not the smallest expectation remained in 
 my mind of ever seeing you again till we should meet in 
 heaven ; and the thought of this separation was the less 
 painful from the consolatory persuasion that our own 
 Father had so ordered it for our mutual good. I con- 
 tinued from that time to remember you in my prayers 
 only as a Christian sister, though one very dear to me. 
 On my arrival in this country I saw no reason at first for 
 supposing that marriage was advisable for a missionary — 
 or rather the subject did not offer itself to my mind. 
 The Baptist missionaries indeed recommended it, and 
 Mr. Brown ; but not knowing any proper person in this 
 country, they were not very pressing upon the subject, 
 and I accordingly gave no attention to it. After a very 
 short experience and inquiry afterwards, my own opin- 
 ions began to change ; and when a few weeks ago we 
 received your welcome letter and others from Mr. Simeon 
 and Colonel Sandys, both of whom spoke of you in refer- 
 ence to me, I considered it even as a call from God to 
 satisfy myself concerning His will. From the account 
 which Mr. Simeon received of you from Mr. Thomason, 
 he seemed in his letter to me to regret that he had so 
 strongly dissuaded me from thinking about you at the 
 time of my leaving England. Colonel Sandys spoke in 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 163 
 
 such terms of you, and of the advantages to result from 
 your presence in this country, that Mr. B. became very 
 earnest for me to endeavour to prevail upon you. Your 
 letter to me perfectly delighted him, and induced him to 
 say that you would be the greatest aid to the mission I 
 could possibly meet with. I knew my own heart too 
 well not to be distrustful of it, especially as my aftections 
 were again awakened, and accordingly all my labour and 
 prayers have been to check their influence, that I might 
 see clearly the path of duty. 
 
 " Though I dare not say that I am under no bias, yet 
 from every view of the subject I have been able to take, 
 after balancing the advantages and disadvantages that 
 may ensue to the cause in which I am engaged, always 
 in prayer for God's direction, my reason is fully con- 
 vinced of the expediency, I had almost said the necessity, 
 of having you with me. It is possible that my reason 
 may still be obscured by passion ; let it suffice, however, 
 to say that now with a safe conscience, and the enjoy- 
 ment of the Divine presence, I calmly and deliberately 
 make the proposal to you — and blessed be God if it be 
 not His will to permit it ; still this step is not advancing 
 beyond the limits of duty, because there is a variety of 
 ways by which God can prevent it, without suffering any 
 dishonour to His cause. If He shall forbid it, I think 
 that, by His grace, I shall even then be contented and 
 rejoice in the pleasure of corresponding with you. Your 
 letter dated December, 1805, was the first I received 
 (your former having been taken in the Bell packet) \ and 
 I found it so animating that I could not but reflect on 
 the blessedness of having so dear a counseflor always 
 near me. I can truly say, and God is my witness, that 
 my principal desire in this affair is that you may promote 
 
1 64 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 the kingdom of God in my own heart, and be the means 
 of extending it to the heathen. My own earthly comfort 
 and happiness are not worth a moment's notice. I would 
 not, my dearest Lydia, influence you by any artifices or 
 false representations. I can only say that if you have 
 a desire of being instrumental in establishing the blessed 
 Redeemer's kingdom among these poor people, and will 
 condescend to do it by supporting the spirits and ani- 
 mating the zeal of a weak messenger of the Lord who is 
 apt to grow very dispirited and languid, * Come, and the 
 Lord be with you ! ' It can be nothing but a sacrifice 
 on your part, to leave your valuable friends to come to 
 one who is utterly unworthy of you or any other of God's 
 precious gifts ; but you will have your reward, and I ask 
 it not of you or of God for the sake of my own happiness, 
 but only on account of the gospel. If it be not calcu- 
 lated to promote it, may God in His mercy withhold it. 
 For the satisfaction of your friends, I should say that 
 you will meet with no hardships. The voyage is very 
 agreeable, and with the people and country of India I 
 think you will be much pleased. The climate is very 
 fine — the so much dreaded heat is really nothing to those 
 who will employ their minds in useful pursuits. Idleness 
 will make people complain of everything. The natives 
 are the most harmless and timid creatures I ever met 
 with. The whole country is the land of plenty and 
 peace. Were I a missionary among the Esquimaux or 
 Boschemen I should never dream of introducing a female 
 into such a scene of danger or hardship, especially one 
 whose happiness is dearer to me than my own ; but here 
 there is universal tranquillity — though the multitudes 
 are so great that a missionary need not go three miles 
 from his house without having a congregation of many 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 165 
 
 thousands. You would not be left in solitude if I were 
 to make any distant excursion, because no chaplain is 
 stationed where there is not a large English society. My 
 salary is abundantly sufficient for the support of a mar- 
 ried man, the house and number of people kept by each 
 company's servant being such as to need no increase for a 
 family establishment. As I must make the supposition 
 of your coming, though it may be perhaps a premature 
 liberty, I should give you some directions. This letter 
 will reach you about the latter end of the year. It would 
 be very desirable if you could be ready for the February 
 fleet, because the voyage will be performed in far less 
 time than at any other season. George will find out the 
 best ship ; one in which there is a lady of high rank in 
 the service would be preferable. You are to be considered 
 as coming as a visitor to ^Ir. Brown, who will write to you 
 or to Colonel Sandys, who is best qualified to give you 
 directions about the voyage. Should I be up the country 
 on your arrival in Bengal, Mr. Brown will be at hand to 
 receive you, and you will find yourself immediately at 
 home. As it will highly expedite some of the plans 
 which we have in agitation that you should know the 
 language as soon as possible, take Gilchrist's Indian 
 Stranger's Guide, and occasionally on the voyage learn 
 some of the words. 
 
 " If I had room I might enlarge on much that would 
 be interesting to you. In my conversations with Marsh- 
 man, the Baptist missionary, our hearts sometimes ex- 
 pand with delight and joy at the prospect of seeing all 
 these nations of the East receive the doctrine of the 
 Cross. He is a happy labourer, and I only wait, I trust, 
 to know the language to open my mouth boldly and 
 make known the mystery of the gospel. My romantic 
 
l66 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 notions are for the first time almost realized, for, in addi- 
 tion to the beauties of sylvan scenery, may be seen the 
 more delightful object of multitudes of simple people 
 sitting in the shade listening to the words of eternal life. 
 Much as yet is not done, but I have seen many discover 
 by their looks while Marshman was preaching that their 
 hearts were tenderly affected. My post is not yet deter- 
 mined ; we expect, however, it will be Patna, a civil 
 station, where I shall not be under military command. 
 As you are so kindly anxious about my health, I am 
 happy to say that through mercy my health is far better 
 than it ever was in England. 
 
 " The people of Calcutta are very desirous of keeping 
 me at the Mission Church, and offer to any evangelical 
 clergyman a chaplain's salary and a house besides. I 
 am, of course, deaf to such a proposal ; but it is strange 
 that no one in England is tempted by such an inviting 
 situation. I am actually going to mention it to cousin 
 T. H. and Emma. Not, as you may suppose, with much 
 hope of success, but I think that possibly the chapel at 
 Dock may be too much for him, and he will have here a 
 sphere of still greater importance. As this will be sent 
 by the Overland Despatch there is some danger of its not 
 reaching you ; you will therefore receive a duplicate, and 
 perhaps a triplicate by the ships that will arrive in 
 England a month or two after. I cannot write now to 
 any of my friends. I will therefore trouble you, if you 
 have opportunity, to say that I have received no letters 
 since I left England but one from each of these — Cousin 
 T. and Emma, Simeon, Sargent, Bates ; of my own 
 family I have heard nothing. Assure any of them whom 
 you may see of the continuance of my affectionate re- 
 gard, especially dear Emma. I did not know that it was 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 167 
 
 permitted me to write to you, or I fear she would not 
 have found me so faithful a correspondent on the voyage. 
 As I have heretofore addressed you through her, it is 
 probable that I may be now disposed to address her 
 through you, or, what will be best of all, that we both of 
 us address her in one letter from India. However, you 
 shall decide, my dearest Lydia ; I i7iust approve your 
 determination, because with that spirit of simple looking 
 to the Lord, which we both endeavour to maintain, we 
 must not doubt that you will be divinely directed. Till 
 I receive an answer to this, my prayers, you may be as- 
 sured, will be constantly put up for you that in this affair 
 you may be under an especial guidance, and that in all 
 your ways God may be abundantly glorified by you 
 tlirough Jesus Christ. You say in your letter that fre- 
 quently every day you remember my worthless name 
 before the throne of grace. This instance of extraordin- 
 ary and undeserved kindness draws my heart towards 
 you with a tenderness which I cannot describe. Dearest 
 Lydia, in the sweet and fond expectation of your being 
 given to me by God, and of the happiness which I 
 humbly hope you yourself might enjoy here, I find a 
 pleasure in breathing out my assurance of ardent love. I 
 have now long loved you most affectionately, and my 
 attachment is more strong, more pure, more heavenly, 
 because I see in you the image of Jesus Christ. I un- 
 willingly conclude by bidding my beloved Lydia adieu. 
 
 " H. Martyn." 
 
1 68 . HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ^^ Seranipore, September, 1806. 
 
 " How earnestly do I long for the arrival of my dearest 
 Lydia. Though it may prove at last no more than a 
 waking dream that I ever expected to receive you in 
 India, the hope is too pleasing not to be cherished till I 
 am forbidden any longer to hope. Till I am assured of 
 the contrary, I shall find a pleasure in addressing you as 
 my own. If you are not to be mine you will pardon me, 
 but my expectations are greatly encouraged by the words 
 you used when we parted at Gurlyn, that I had better go 
 out free^ implying, as I thought, that you would not be 
 unwilling to follow me if I should see it to be the will of 
 God to make the request. I was rejoiced also to see in 
 your letter that you unite your name with mine when you 
 pray that God would keep us both in the path of duty ; 
 from this I infer that you are by no means deterinined to 
 remain separate from me. You will not suppose, my 
 dear Lydia, that I mean these little things to influence 
 your conduct, or to implicate you in an engagement. No, 
 I acknowledge that you are perfectly free, and I have no 
 doubt that you will act as the love and wisdom of our 
 God shall direct. Your heart is far less interested in 
 this business than mine, in all probability, and this, on 
 one account, I do not regret, as you will be able to see 
 more clearly the directions of God's providence. About 
 a fortnight ago I sent you a letter accompanying the 
 duplicate of the one sent overland in August. If these 
 shall have arrived safe, you will perhaps have left Eng- 
 land before this reaches it. But if not, let me entreat 
 you to delay not a moment. Yet how will my dear 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 169 
 
 sister Emma be able to part with you and George, but 
 above all your mother ? I feel very much for you and 
 for them, but I have no doubt at all about your health 
 and happiness in this country. 
 
 " The commander-in-chief has at last appointed me to 
 the station of Dinapore, near Patna, and I shall accord- 
 ingly take my departure for that place as soon as I can 
 make the necessary preparations. It is not exactly the 
 situation I wished for, though, in a temporal point of 
 view, it is desirable enough. The air is good, the living 
 cheap, the salary ;^iooo a year, and there is a large 
 body of English troops there ; but I should have pre- 
 ferred being near Benares, the heart of Hindooism. We 
 rejoice to hear that two other brethren are arrived at 
 Madras on their way to Bengal, sent, I trust, by the 
 Lord to co-operate in overturning the kingdom of Satan 
 in these regions. They are Corrie and Parsons, both 
 Bengal chaplains. Their stations will be Benares and 
 Moorshedabad, one on one side of me, and the other on 
 the other. There are also now ten Baptist missionaries 
 at Serampore. Surely good is intended for this country ! 
 
 Captain Wickes, the good old Captain Wickes who 
 has brought out so many missionaries to India, is now 
 
 here. He reminds me of Uncle S . I have been just 
 
 interrupted by the blaze of a funeral pile within a hun- 
 dred yards of my pagoda. I ran out, but the wretched 
 woman had consigned herself to the flames before 1 
 reached the spot, and I saw only the remains of her and 
 her husband. O Lord, how long shall it be ? Oh, I 
 shall have no rest in my spirit till my tongue is loosed to 
 testify against the devil, and deliver the message of God 
 to these his unhappy bond-slaves. I stammered out 
 something to the wicked Brahmins about the judgments 
 
170 HENRY MARTYJSr. 
 
 of God upon them for the murder they had just com- 
 mitted, but they said it was an act of her own free will. 
 Some of the missionaries would have been there, but 
 they are forbidden by the governor-general to preach to 
 the natives in the British territory. Unless this prohibi- 
 tion is revoked by an order from home it will amount to 
 a total suppression of the mission. 
 
 " I know of nothing else that will give you a further 
 idea of the state of things here. The two ministers con- 
 tinue to oppose my doctrines with unabated virulence, 
 but they think not that they fight against God. My own 
 heart is at present cold and slothful. Oh that my soul 
 did burn with love and zeal ! Surely, were you here I 
 should act with more cheerfulness and activity, with so 
 bright a pattern before me. If Corrie brings me a letter 
 from you, and the fleet is not sailed, which, however, is 
 not likely, I shall write to you again. Colonel Sandys 
 will receive a letter from me and Mr. Brown by this 
 fleet. Continue to remember me in your prayers as a 
 weak brother. I shall always think of you as one to be 
 loved and honoured. 
 
 ** H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. D. Brown. 
 
 " Dtfiapore^ Dece?nber ^rdf iZo6. 
 " My dear Sir, — From a solitary walk on the banks of 
 the river I had just returned to my dreary rooms, and, 
 with the reflection that just at this time of the day I 
 could be thankful for a companion, was taking up the 
 flute to remind myself of your social meetings in worship, 
 when your two packages of letters, which had arrived in 
 my absence, were brought to me. For the contents of 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 171 
 
 them, all I can say is, ' Bless the Lord, O my soul, and 
 all that is within me bless His holy name ! ' The arrival 
 of another dear brother, and the joy you so largely par- 
 take of in fellowship with God and with one another, 
 act as a cordial to my soul. They show me what I want 
 to learn — that the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, and 
 that they that keep the faith of Jesus are those only 
 whom God visits with His strong consolations. I want 
 to keep in view that our God is the God of the whole 
 earth, and that the heathen are given to His exalted Son, 
 the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. 
 
 ** I have now made my calls and delivered my letters, 
 and the result of my observations upon whom and what 
 I have seen is that I stand alone. Not one voice is 
 heard saying, * I wish you good luck in the name of the 
 Lord ; ' not one kind thought towards me for the truth's 
 sake. Sunday morning, by the General's order, the men 
 were ordered to attend at one of the barracks, where the 
 only article of ecclesiastical furniture was a long drum. 
 On this I read prayers, but as there was no seat for any 
 one, I was desired not to detain them by a sermon. 
 
 Monday I went without any introduction to Mr. G , 
 
 and by the influence of your name, found a very kind re- 
 ception. I spent the day with him very agreeably, talking 
 about Persian, Hindustani, etc., but chiefly about re- 
 ligion. He evidently did not speak about it merely in 
 compliment to me, for many times he chose the subject 
 himself. He made me a present of his works, promises 
 to get a good pundit ; and, what is best of all, has almost 
 engaged to undertake a Persian translation of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 " I have found out two schools at Dinapore. The 
 
172 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 masters have waited on me with specimens of their Nagree 
 writing — the Devu Nagree tracts they could not read at 
 all, the common Nagree of the Testament they could 
 make out pretty well. I shall set on foot one or two 
 schools here without delay, and by the time the scholars 
 are able to read we can get books ready for them. 
 
 "Since I began this letter I have been chiefly thinking 
 of Hannah. You have, indeed, good reason for suppos- 
 ing that God hath loved her. Dear child ! if she should 
 be at this time taken to His glory, I could almost envy 
 her lot in being removed from a world of sin and sorrow 
 so soon. Give my love to her ; I hope we shall see 
 together that great and glorious day which Jesus has 
 made. 
 
 " I hasten to write a few lines to each of my brethren 
 who have so kindly remembered me, and therefore I 
 conclude. You do not mention Mrs. Brown in any of 
 your letters. I do not know why ; I am sure she sends 
 her love to me. 
 
 " Believe me to be, my very dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours most affectionately, 
 
 '^H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. Dr. Corrie. 
 
 ^^ January 25M, 1808. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — One of the Hindustani New Testa- 
 ments will soon be ready ; but I want to have a press 
 here, for the delay of having everything done at Seram- 
 pore is insufferable. There are few things I regret more 
 than not having learnt how to print. Before travelling 
 westward, it would be worth while to go to Calcutta to 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESrONDENCE. 173 
 
 learn this noble art, in order to teach it wherever we go. 
 Yesterday we had the last of our church. The General 
 says I must only read the prayers for the future, as the 
 men cannot be kept in the sun for more than half an 
 hour. I feel at a loss to know what to do ; a short ser- 
 mon I must give them. The 67th is expected here in 
 ten days. I have been employed in wTiting Europe 
 
 letters to and . To the latter, using every 
 
 argument to draw him to India j advising him to keep 
 his fellowship, for if he gets married it will be impossible 
 
 to get him out of England. I have not heard from 
 
 since I know not when, but I am greatly concerned that 
 he does not give his mind to the languages. What an 
 awful thought may it be to all three of us in the neigh- 
 bourhood of such cities as Patna, Benares, and Moorshe- 
 dabad, that thousands are perishing with a light close at 
 hand ! But while we are seriously preparing and con- 
 scientiously redeeming the time for that purpose, we may 
 hope to be free from blood-guiltiness. Last Sunday I 
 felt greatly fatigued with speaking, and for the first time 
 perceived symptoms of injury, by pain in the breast. 
 Yesterday it returned just as I began the service, and I 
 thought it impossible that I should go through all the 
 service of the day, but the Lord helped me. Saturday 
 evening I was reading the ordination services, and think 
 they are some of the most affecting things I ever read. 
 What men of God were our forefathers 1 Oh may I learn 
 in the same school. The Lord bless you, brother 
 beloved, through Jesus Christ. 
 
 "H. Martyn." 
 
174 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 To THE Rev. D. Brown. 
 
 ^^ Dinapore, January ^oih, 1808. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — Sabat to-day finishes St. Matthew, and 
 will write to you on the occasion. Your letter to him 
 was very kind and suitable, but I think you must not 
 mention his logic to him, except with contempt ; for he 
 takes what you say to him on that head as homage due 
 to his acquirements, and praise to him is brandy to a 
 man in a high fever. He loves as a Christian brother ; 
 but as a logician he holds us all in supreme contempt. 
 He assumes all the province of reasoning as his own 
 by right, and decides every question magisterially. He 
 allows Europeans to know a little about arithmetic and 
 navigation, but nothing more. Dear man, I smile to 
 observe his pedantry. Never have I seen such an in- 
 stance of dogmatical pride since I heard Dr. Parr preach 
 his Greek sermon at St. Mary's, about the to W. 
 
 " For several days past I have had my mind full of 
 imaginations about establishing a press in my house. 
 The reasons are many and strong which I have to offer, 
 but as you will probably perceive them yourself, I will 
 not adduce them till your opposition renders it necessary. 
 But favour me with your opinion upon it as soon as you 
 can, because we shall soon be ready for printing. 
 
 " Mr. G 's late appointment seems to have excited in 
 
 him a spirit of thankfulness to the Giver of all good gifts. 
 . . . He always mentions you with kindness, but, like 
 most other people, has a strange prejudice against Dr. 
 Buchanan. On his removal to Bankipore, he promises 
 to come and stay with me. His library is most choice ; 
 every article in it is most interesting to me, and he lends 
 freely. 
 
'75 
 
 S£Z£CrfOA'S FXOM ms CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 "And now I have no more questions to ask excent 
 about your health, and that, n,y dear sir, is a ques o„ 
 hat comes from my heart. Oh n,ay your next br ^ me 
 he good Udmgs of your restoration to health and spnks 
 
 irJnltuT„°'T"^' '"^^^ ^°"^ ^P'"'^ sink«i,f; " 
 Strength, but His love changeth not 
 
 ''We wait your order to assemble anywhere to receive 
 
 Beheve th,s to be a true word from your affectionate 
 
 "H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. Dr. Corrie. 
 
 "February Zth, iSo8. 
 Dear Brother,-This week I believe I have nothin<. 
 
 liU ""^M ' ''"■; ''^^'""'"^ '^^^"^ -de,;!::,' inl 
 will occur. My mmd is just now much occupied with 
 some news I have heard, that the king is dead Irelind 
 
 lldtdL"' '^"'''"' '"^^'^'^' ^ >arge%rench for C'^hJ 
 land and sea, commg to India, etc., if any etc can Z 
 added to this. We deserve it all fo our National arro 
 
 t:^Ti?T 'iT ''^^"^"^' '° bringdownTehi^W: 
 ness of the terrible; yet I trust the half of this is not 
 
 served by the Governor and council since the arrival of 
 the last overland despatch, is enough to alarm the p bhc 
 nnnd Howwm our affairs be affected by it L' o ^ 
 {7 il Not at an. Our Lord's kingdom is n^tTf 
 this world; only we shall not be dressed in so good a 
 coat, and perhaps shall trudge about without a palaCin 
 
176 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 neither of which, we trust, are serious afflictions to us. 
 Also the Romish missionaries will lift up their head, and 
 the Beast triumph for a season. Oh happy our lot to 
 have a blessed heaven above for us, where no enemy, 
 temporal or spiritual, shall disturb ; and a Saviour here 
 to whom we may flee and be safe from fears. * Thou 
 art my habitation whereunto I may continually resort' 
 Mirza made his appearance unexpectedly last week, and 
 began his work forthwith. To-day we reached Matt, 
 xiv., and in a month I expect the four Gospels will be 
 ready for the press. But not a word from Calcutta to 
 say whether I may hope to be favoured with a press 
 here. To print myself, is become a hobby-horse with 
 me. . . . Sabat continues tolerable in health, 
 though often interrupted by headaches. He wrote a 
 second letter to the Molwee Sahebs, at Phoolwaree, con- 
 vincing them from the Koran of their unreasonableness 
 in not arguing with him ; to which they replied in a 
 Persian letter full of Galee. I advised him to let the 
 matter rest there, but he wrote a third time, in conse- 
 quence of which one of them came and sent a note from 
 a place in Dinapore to say, that for the sake of his 
 descent he would meet him, but not dispute, except with 
 leai-Jied men. He refused to meet him, and smiled at 
 their pretending to despise his learning. Poor Sabat's 
 mind is a little hurt, but I rejoice that his pride has re- 
 ceived a wound. He is thereby drawn further from the 
 world, and nearer to the Lord. To-day I hear one of 
 these haughty Mussulman means to visit me. I shall see 
 what arguments he can bring for the support of his filthy 
 religion. The more Sabat and myself talk and read 
 about the Koran, the more he is amazed .that his eyes 
 were not opened before; and I, that 1,200 years out of 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 177 
 
 the 1,260 have left the superstition still in such strength. 
 I had a conversation last night, at my garden gate, with 
 several Brahmins, but I have forgotten my old Hindoo 
 words, and so our discourse was reciprocally rather dark. 
 Before I attempt speaking in the villages I must study 
 the Nagree parables again with some attention. And 
 now my paper is done, but not my desire of communicat- 
 ing with you. " H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. D. Brown. 
 
 ^^ Dinapore, February 12th, 1808. 
 " My dear Sir, — I have no very urgent occasion to 
 write, but next to the pleasure of hearing from you is that 
 of writing to you. . . . My first question is about 
 the press. May I not have one here ? St. Matthew in 
 Hindustani is ready ; and in a month (D.V.) the four 
 will be so. The Acts, by Mirza, were sent by him to 
 you, he says, and Dr. Buchanan's secretary acknowledged 
 the receipt of it. If you can procure it from Dr. Hunter, 
 
 a month's labour will be saved. For Sabat, Mr. G 
 
 will provide a good scribe ; is it determined whether he 
 is to be allowed one or not? He begins to be a little 
 peevish at not hearing from you, as he suspects that 
 silence may be the prelude to denial. Certainly our 
 Arabian's natural temper is as bad as it well can be ; 
 but he fights manfully against it. If in any of our dis- 
 putes I get the better of him, he is stung to the quick 
 and does not forget it for days. So I avoid as much as 
 possible all questions gendering strifes. If he sees any- 
 thing wrong in me, any appearance of pride or tone of 
 grandeur, he tells me of it without ceremony ; and thus 
 he is a friend indeed. He describes so well the cha- 
 racter of a missionary that I am ashamed of my great 
 
 N 
 
178 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 house, and mean to sell it the first opportunity, and 
 take the smallest quarters I can find. Would that the 
 day were come when I might throw off the coat, and 
 substitute the jamer ; I long for it more and more, and 
 am often very uneasy at being in the neighbourhood of 
 so great a Nineveh without being able to do anything 
 immediately for the salvation of so many perishing souls. 
 What do you think of my standing under a shed some- 
 where in Patna as the missionaries did in the Lat Bazaar ? 
 will the Government interfere? 
 
 *' What are your sensations on the late news ? I fear 
 the judgments of God on our proud nation, and that as we 
 have done nothing for the gospel in India, this vineyard 
 will be let out to others, who shall bring the fruits of it in 
 their season. I think the French would not treat the Jug- 
 gernaut with quite so much ceremony as we do. . . . 
 
 " The Lord graciously preserve your bodily health, and 
 fill you with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus ! So 
 prays, 
 
 " Yours ever afi"ectionately, 
 
 " H. Martyn.' 
 
 To THE Rev. D. Corrie. 
 
 ^^ February 29///, 1808. 
 "If writing to you were not agreeable to me, I should 
 not think of trying to fill a sheet at this time, for my eyes 
 are heavy with sleep. We are all ill here, — Mirza, 
 Sabat, etc., and to the inequality of the temperature we 
 ascribe our ailings. After my preaching yesterday my 
 lassitude was so great that I could scarcely support my- 
 self ; at the close of the rains my sensations were the same. 
 The General had not given orders for church on Satur- 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 179 
 
 day. I sent to inquire whether there would be a service 
 or no ; in consequence of this appHcation, an after order 
 was issued, to the no small disappointment of the soldiers, 
 who were enjoying the idea of having no service. When 
 
 the order came, B says they vented their rage in 
 
 dreadful curses and execrations against me, for they lay 
 all the blame of having the worship of God on me. May 
 I be always chargeable with this crime. But what sort 
 of men are these committed to my care ? Alas ! they 
 are men of whom it is said, that their heart is enmity 
 against God. On the preceding Sabbath I had given 
 them one more warning against their whoredom and 
 drunkenness, and it is the truth grappling with their con- 
 sciences that makes them thus furious. When we do 
 meet, it is with little comfort, as you may suppose, since 
 1 know that by far the greater number come by con- 
 straint. Even Sabat, who ought to be a comforter, does 
 by his unguarded and coarse remarks often dishearten 
 me, for he says he does not like the public worship ; and 
 were it not that he is afraid he should be suspected 
 of not being a Christian, he says he would not come at 
 all. He complains that there is no love in the people, 
 and that he is distracted and not able to pray. It must 
 be confessed that from the scandalous disorder in which 
 the Company have left the ecclesiastical part of their 
 affairs, so that we have no place fit, our assemblies are 
 little like worshipping assemblies. No kneeling, because 
 no room, no singing, no responses. Yet a judicious 
 Christian would bear with all these things, and lend a hand 
 to counteract them as much as possible. But Sabat, yet 
 young, just thinks of pleasing himself. But through the 
 Lord's love and mercy I do not much need the help of 
 m^n. I feel determined to combat the enemy of souls 
 
i8o HENRY MARTY N. 
 
 in every form. Yesterday was rather a happy day ; text, 
 * Behold, I stand at the door and knock.' The poor 
 men who continue to meet me so steadfastly in the 
 evenings, I begin to think are really in earnest. Another 
 came in the week, confessing his sins with tears, and 
 
 desiring a hymn-book. B is made the butt of the 
 
 wicked men, who try every species of infidel and atheis- 
 tical argument within their reach to shake his faith. At 
 the hospital Baxter's ' Saints' Rest ' seems to cut like a 
 sharp sword. The men, when I begin, look with con- 
 tempt, but presently their high looks are brought low by 
 Baxter's plain home arguments. A few women came to 
 my quarters yesterday. The explanation of the Lord's 
 Prayer from Luke xi. seemed to interest them. Saturday 
 and to-day two merchants have been calling on me. With 
 each of them I discoursed a long time on the affairs of 
 another world, telling them ' Not to lay up for them- 
 selves treasures on the earth. One of them said these 
 were ' words of wisdom, and he would hear me further 
 on this matter.' Thus we go on, through evil report and 
 good report. I have been reading Sir John Chardin's 
 Travels into Persia, and a history of the Turks. I read 
 everything I can pick up about the Mahometans. The 
 Lord soon destroy their detestable dominion ! But we 
 shall soon be out of the reach of all evil, where the wicked 
 cease from troubling. Let us continue to pray for one 
 another, brother beloved, that we may be faithful unto 
 death." 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 ''May 2nd, 1808. 
 *'You have your trials, and I have mine; and trials 
 are necessary for us both ; the fall of one among few is 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE, i8i 
 
 very cutting. But you will soon have more to supply 
 his place, if he is not himself restored. My greatest 
 trial is Sabat, he spreads desolation here. Mirza is 
 driven to Patna, declaring he will not live here to be 
 insulted by Sabat. My Hindustani work is, as I told 
 you, all stopped. My scribes, whom Sabat will not 
 allow me to turn away, pass all their days without any- 
 thing to do. All my employment now is to compare 
 Persian with Greek, and this, if it please God, shall be 
 done before we part ; he talks every day of going, saying 
 he cannot live here for these wicked people. Alas, he 
 little thinks of his wicked heart as the cause of all his 
 troubles. He still holds fast the diabolical doctrine that 
 love of our enemies is not necessary. Last night I 
 preached to the men on humility, and angered him much. 
 I intended it for him, he said, but that if he knew more 
 English he could preach infinitely better. Friday morn- 
 ing one of our lieutenants, breakfasting out, went on the 
 top of the house in the middle of the day without a hat, 
 and while he was looking about, a stroke of the sun laid 
 him dead in an instant. That night I buried him, and 
 yesterday preached his funeral sermon. The heat here 
 is terrible, often at 98°, and the nights almost insupport- 
 able. My employment every day is very great now. 
 Sick and dying people are to be visited at the barracks 
 and hospital. Sabat always calling me to the Persian, 
 etc. But the Lord helps me through. I hope you have 
 received the parables. Epistle IL of Corinthians is also 
 written out for you, but I read it before I send it. 
 
 "H. Martyn." 
 
i82 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 March 2'jth, 1809. 
 "You will have heard that I am ordered to Cawnpore ; 
 but, by the General's advice, I shall apply for leave to 
 stay till the rains, as I do not think that I could support 
 the hot winds on the water. My expected removal has 
 given a new turn to my thoughts, and produced a little 
 dejection. It has always happened hitherto that when- 
 ever I have begun to feel an attachment to places, per- 
 sons, or things, of a merely temporary nature, I have 
 been carried away from them.. Amen ! May I live as a 
 stranger and pilgrim upon the earth. May we be brought 
 to that better country where painful changes are known 
 no more. Every blessing attend you. 
 
 ''H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. David Brown. 
 
 Fatna, March 28//;, 1809. 
 "Dearest Sir, — Your letter is just come. The Europe 
 letter is from Lydia. I trembled at the handwriting, 
 . . . It was only more last words sent by the advice 
 
 of Colonel S , lest the non-arrival of the former 
 
 might keep me in suspense. I trust that I have done 
 with the entanglements of this world ; seldom a day 
 passes but I thank God for the freedom from earthly 
 care which I enjoy. I long to see Buchanan's letter. 
 You chide me for not trusting my Hindustani to the 
 press. I congratulate myself. Last week we began the 
 correction of it. Present, a Seid of Delhi, a poet of 
 Lucknow, three or four literati of Patna, and Baber Ali 
 in the chair; Sabat and myself assessors. Almost 
 every sentence was altered. I was amazed and mortified 
 at observing that reference was had to the Persian for 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 183 
 
 every verse, in order to understand the Hindustani. 
 It was, however, a consolation to find, that from the 
 Persian they caught the meaning of it instantly, always 
 expressing their admiration of the plainness of their 
 translation. After four days' hard labour, five hours 
 each day, we reached to the end of the second chapter, 
 so when you will have a gospel I do not know. It is to 
 be hoped that they will get on a little faster when they are 
 more used to the work of translation. Baber Ali, who is 
 ambitious of the name of a learned man, thinks his own 
 reputation involved in this work. He often tells his 
 coadjutors to be careful, for if any error should escape, it 
 will be said they do not know their own language. I 
 find I have very little to do towards helping them out. 
 The Persian is another Greek, so literal. This makes 
 me more anxious about the remainder of the Persian, 
 and less about the Hindustani. It is a delightful con- 
 sideration to have set these Indians at work without hire 
 at the word of God, for their own eternal salvation. 
 Already kings are becoming nursing fathers to the 
 Church. Baber Ali and his nephew are of the Soofi 
 dynasty of the kings of Persia, and Sabat, you know, 
 counts kings in his pedigree. I was about to say that 
 the Euphrates was flowing towards you, but the unex- 
 pected departure of the bungy has proved a dam to it. 
 So we must wait till next Wednesday. 
 
 " Sabat is not likely to come down, except I am 
 ordered away from this place. 
 
 " Yours ever affectionately, 
 
 "H. Martyn. 
 
 "I am ordered to Cawnpore, as you will know. I 
 mean to apply for permission to stay till the rains." 
 
i84 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 To Rev. D. Corrie. 
 
 ''Oct 2>oth, 1809. 
 "You are now doing my work, crossing rivers and 
 traversing jungles, while I sit quietly in my bungalow, 
 and the sweet song of Zion soothes my spirit. Yet I am 
 with you in spirit, and lift my heart to God to keep you 
 in all places whithersoever you go, and to make known 
 by you the savour of Christ's name in every place. 
 
 "Yesterday we had a service at head-quarters. I 
 preached from the Parable of the Pounds ; on the accoun- 
 
 tableness of man. was pleased to say that it was 
 
 a very good sermon, but the praises of men of that 
 stamp have no charms for me. His commendation gave 
 me real displeasure, so much so, that I believe I hardly 
 concealed my chagrin. Alas ! thought I, the sermon 
 has done you no good, it has not made you uneasy. At 
 night I spoke to them on 'Enoch walked with God.* 
 My soul breathed after the same holy, happy state. Oh, 
 that the influence were more abiding ; but I am the man 
 that seeth his natural face in a glass. 
 
 "H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. W. Clark, Ben'et College, Cambridge. 
 ^' Dinapore, Novejiiber, 1809. 
 " My dear Friend, — ... I could willingly 
 converse with you a little on some part of your letter, 
 but it has all probably passed out of your mind long 
 before this. Respecting my heart, about which you ask, 
 I must acknowledge that H. Martyn's heart at Dinapore 
 is the same as H. Martyn's heart at Cambridge. The 
 tenor of my prayer is nearly the same, except on one 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 185 
 
 subject, the conversion of the heathen. At a distance 
 from the scene of action, and trusting too much to the 
 highly-coloured description of missionaries, my heart 
 used to expand with rapture at the hope of seeing 
 thousands of the natives melting under the word as soon 
 as it should be preached to them. Here I am called to 
 exercise faith, that so it shall one day be. My former 
 feelings on this subject were more agreeable, and at the 
 same time more according with the truth; for if we 
 believe the prophets, the scenes that time shall unfold, 
 * though surpassing fable, are yet true.' While I write, 
 hope and joy spring up in my mind. Yes, it shall be ; 
 yonder stream of Ganges shall one day roll through 
 tracts adorned with Christian Churches and cultivated 
 by Christian husbandmen, and the holy hymn be heard 
 beneath the shade of the tamarind. All things are work- 
 ing together to bring on the day, and my part in the 
 blessed plan, though not at first exactly consonant to my 
 wishes, is, I believe, appointed me by God. To trans- 
 late the word of God is a work of more lasting benefit 
 than my preaching would be. But besides that, I am 
 sorry to say that my strength for public preaching is 
 almost gone. My ministrations among the Europeans 
 at this station have injured my lungs, and I am now 
 obliged to lie by except on the Sabbath-days, and once or 
 twice in the week. . . . However 1 am sufficiently 
 aware of my important relations to the natives, and 
 am determined not to strain myself any more for the 
 Europeans. This rainy season has tried my constitution 
 severely. The first attack was with spasms, under which 
 I fainted. The second was a fever, from which a change 
 of air, under God, recovered me. There is something 
 in the air at the close of the rains so unfavourable, that 
 
x86 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 public speaking at that time is a violent strain upon the 
 whole body. Corrie passed down a few weeks ago to 
 receive his sister. We enjoyed much refreshing com- 
 munion in prayer and conversation on our dear friends 
 at and near Cambridge, and found peculiar pleasure in the 
 minutest circumstances we could recollect about you all. 
 I seldom receive a letter from Europe, so that you can- 
 not do me a greater favour than to write and mention 
 all our common friends. I remember them with you 
 always in my prayers, and beg the continuance of yours 
 for me. 
 
 " I am, dear Clark, 
 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 "H. Martyn. 
 
 ^^ Nov. i$f/t. I am happy to say that by the goodness 
 of God I am now perfectly recovered.'* 
 
 To Miss Grenfell. 
 
 *' Cawnpore^ March 2,otk, 1810. 
 " Since you kindly bid me, my beloved friend, con- 
 sider you in the place of that dear sister whom it has 
 pleased God in His wisdom to take from me, I gratefully 
 accept the offer of a correspondence, which it has ever 
 been the anxious wish of my heart to establish. Your 
 kindness is the more acceptable because it is shown in 
 the day of affliction. Though I had heard of my dear 
 sister's illness some months before I received the account 
 of her death, and though the nature of her disorder was 
 such as left me not a ray of hope, so that I was merci- 
 fully prepared for the event, still the certainty of it fills 
 me with anguish. It is not that she has left me, for I 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 187 
 
 never expected to see her more on earth. I have no 
 doubt of meeting her in heaven, but I cannot bear to 
 think of the pangs of dissolution she underwent, which 
 have been unfortunately detailed to me with too much 
 particularity. Would that I had never heard them, or 
 could efface them from my remembrance. But oh, may 
 I learn what the Lord is teaching me by these repeated 
 strokes. May I learn meekness and resignation. May 
 the world always appear as vain as it does now, and my 
 own continuance in it as short and uncertain. How 
 frightful is the desolation which death makes, and how 
 appaUing his visits when he enters one's family. I w^ould 
 rather never have been born, than be born and die, were 
 it not for Jesus, the Prince of life, the resurrection and 
 the Ufe. How inexpressibly precious is this Saviour 
 when eternity seems near ! I hope often to communi- 
 cate with you on these subjects, and in return for your 
 kind and consolatory letters, to send you from time to 
 time accounts of myself and my proceedings. Through 
 you I can hear of all my friends in the West. When I 
 first heard of the loss I was likely to suffer, and began 
 to reflect on my own friendless situation, you were much 
 in my thoughts, whether you would be silent on this 
 occasion or no ; whether you would persist in your 
 resolution. Friends, indeed, I have, and brethren, 
 blessed be God ! but two brothers cannot supply the 
 place of one sister. When month after month passed 
 away, and no letter came from you, I almost abandoned 
 the hope of ever hearing from you again. It only 
 remained to wait the result of my last application 
 through Emma. You have kindly anticipated my 
 request, and I need scarcely add, are more endeared 
 to me than ever. 
 
i8S HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 " Of your illness, my dearest Lydia, I had heard 
 nothing, and it was well for me that I did not. 
 *' Yours most affectionately, 
 
 " H. Martyn." 
 
 To THE Rev. D. Brown. 
 
 " Cawnpore, April yd, 1810. 
 
 " Dearest Sir, — I do not know whether my spirits were 
 low or not when I last wrote to you, but this I know, that 
 I need not go so far as Calcutta for occasions of sorrow. 
 Everybody would suppose Sabat improved ; I fancy I 
 see the worldly principle more predominant. Do not 
 tell him any more that he is a learned man, the fact 
 itself begins to be doubtful to me ; but however that 
 may be, it can only tend to strengthen his abominable 
 pride to tell him that he is what he thinks he is. 
 
 "As you will not part with Shalome for five or six 
 months yet, we shall have time to consider of the 
 expediency of his coming to me. I have no hope of 
 getting anything from him, when all the versions and 
 Targum of the Polyglot are insufficient to afford me 
 aid. . . . 
 
 " Next to oriental translation, my wish and prayer is 
 that I may live to give a new English version of the 
 Bible, from Job to Malachi, and after that to lead men 
 to search for the principles of all true philosophy in the 
 Bible. 
 
 " I have had several letters from England this week of 
 a mournful nature ; my long-lost Lydia, however, con- 
 sents to write to me again. My health, through mercy, 
 is very well, notwithstanding all my vexations and 
 
SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 189 
 
 fatigues. My church is almost ready for the organ and 
 the bell. 
 
 " Old Mirza gives me more satisfaction than any one 
 in Cawnpore. He seems to take great pleasure in seeing 
 an intricate sentence of the Epistles unravelled. 
 " Yours ever most affectionately, 
 
 "H. Martyn." 
 
 Our space forbids the insertion of several most in- 
 teresting letters written during Marty n's journey from 
 India to Tabriz. The last he wrote dates from Tabriz, 
 and is addressed to Miss Grenfell. The greater part of 
 it has already appeared at the close of the sixth chap- 
 ter, and so need not be repeated here. The last sentence 
 may be added, as it touchingly sets forth expectations 
 never to be realized on earth. He was looking forward to 
 a meeting with her to whom he had given his heart, and 
 whom he hoped, after a season of delay and disappoint- 
 ment, to call wife. But it was not to be. Their union 
 was not to be perfected here. This joy was reserved for 
 heaven. In this world they never met face to face again. 
 But they have long since met in the world where part- 
 ings are no more, and "in super-eminence of beatific 
 vision have clasped inseparable hands with joy and bliss 
 in over-measure for ever." All is well for both, and they 
 would acknowledge that they were " led by the right way 
 that they might go to the city of habitation." His last 
 words to her in this world were these, — and the letter, 
 written from Tabriz, is dated August 28th, 181 2 : — 
 
 " My course from Constantinople is so uncertain that 
 I hardly know where to desire you to direct to me ; I 
 believe Malta is the only place, for there I must stop on 
 
I90 HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 my way home. Soon we shall have occasion for pen 
 and ink no more ; but I trust I shall shortly see face to 
 face. Love to all the saints. 
 
 " BeHeve me to be yours ever, 
 
 *' Most faithfully and affectionately, 
 
 "H. Martyn.** 
 
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