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 LIFE OF ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
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 WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA 
 
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 LIFE OF REV. JUSTIN PERKINS, D. D. 
 
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 LIFE OF 
 
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 PAGE. 
 
 EDUCATION AND PREPARATION, 5 
 
 LIFE IN INDIA, . . . 13 
 
 LIFE IN PERSIA, AND DEATH, 29 
 
 550584
 
 I hold in my hand an album adorned with pictures of missionaries, my 
 brethren and sisters, the ambassadors of the King. On one of the first 
 pages is " the tomb of Henry Martyn," given me by Dr. Van Lennep, who 
 had just visited the sacred spot and described it vividly. When I turn the 
 pages of my album and come to this, I pause with reverence and the over- 
 flowings of deep and tender emotion, and my mind adds other pictures, 
 both terrestrial and celestial, to the one upon the page. My own missionary 
 life as the companion of him whom Dr. Perkins called " the later Henry 
 Martyn," was spent in Henry Martyn's Persia. They were alike I think in 
 many things, these two Persian evangelists, and also in their deaths. 
 When they passed out of the Tabriz gate, journeying homeward after a 
 course of illness in the fated city, for each it was a quick ascent, a painful 
 translation, to the heavenly city with abundant entrance and the Master's 
 " well done "-"-in heaven; and on earth, a foreign grave taking possession 
 for Christ, as the Nestorians reverently say, with " white stones still speak- 
 ing out." S. J. R.
 
 I. 
 
 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 THE PEOBLEM OF THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION. 
 
 How is it that we have a religion? This is a 
 question which has not been asked for the first time 
 in these latter days, but it is, nevertheless, a question 
 which sounds startling even to ears that have been 
 hardened by the din of many battles, fought for the 
 conquest of truth. How it is that we exist, how it is 
 that we perceive, how it is that we form concepts, 
 how it is that we compare precepts and concepts, 
 add and subtract, multiply and divide them all 
 these are problems with which everybody is more or 
 less familiar, from the days in which he first opened 
 the pages of Plato or Aristotle, of Hume or Kant. 
 Sensation, perception, imagination, reasoning, every- 
 thing in fact which exists in our own consciousness, 
 has had to defend the right and reason of its exist- 
 ence ; but the question, Why we believe, why we 
 are, or imagine we are conscious of things which we 
 can neither perceive with our senses, nor conceive 
 with our reason a question, it would seem more 
 natural to ask than any other has but seldom re- 
 ceived, even from the greatest philosophers, that at- 
 tention which it seems so fully to deserve. 
 1
 
 2 THE PEKCEl'TION OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 STRAUSS : HAVE WE STILL ANY RELIGION ? 
 
 What can be less satisfactory than the manner in 
 which this problem has lately been pushed into the 
 foreground of popular controversy? Strauss, in many 
 respects a most acute reasoner, puts before us in his 
 last work, " The Old and the New Faith," the ques- 
 tion, " Have we still any religion ? " To a challenge 
 put in this form, the only answer that could be given 
 would be an appeal to statistics ; and here we should 
 soon be told that, out of a hundred thousand people, 
 there is hardly one who professes to be without re- 
 ligion. If another answer was wanted, the question 
 ought to have been put in a different form. Strauss 
 ought before all things to have told us clearly what 
 lie himself understands by religion. He ought to 
 have defined religion both in its psychological and 
 historical development. But what does he do in- 
 stead ? He simply takes the old definition which 
 Schleiermacher gave of religion, viz., that it consists 
 in a feeling of absolute dependence, and he supple- 
 ments it by a definition of Feuerbach's, that the es- 
 sence of all religion is covetousness, which manifests 
 itself in prayer, sacrifice, and faith. He then con- 
 cludes, because there is less of prayer, crossing, and 
 attending mass in our days than in the Middle Ages, 
 that, therefore, there is little left of real piety and re- 
 ligion. I have used, as much as possible, Strauss's 
 own words. 
 
 But where has Strauss or anybody else proved that 
 true religion manifests itself in prayer, crossing, and 
 attending mass only, and that all who do not pray, 
 who do not cross themselves, and who do not attend 
 mass, have no longer any religion at all, and no belief
 
 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 3 
 
 in God? If we read on, we are almost tempted to 
 admit that M. Renan was right in saying that those 
 poor Germans try very hard to be irreligious and 
 atheistical, but never succeed. Strauss says : " The 
 world is to us the workshop of the Rational and the 
 Good. That on which we feel ourselves absolutely 
 dependent is by no means a brute power, before 
 which we must bow in silent resignation. It is order 
 and law, reason and goodness, to which we surrender 
 ourselves with loving confidence. In our inmost nat- 
 ure we feel a kinship between ourselves and that on 
 which we depend. In our dependence we are free, 
 and pride and humility, joy and resignation, are 
 mingled together in our feeling for all that exists." 
 
 If that is not religion, how is it to be called ? The 
 whole argument of Strauss amounts, in fact, to this. 
 He retains religion as the feeling of dependence, in 
 the full sense assigned to it by Schleiermacher, but he 
 rejects the element added by Feuerbach, namely, the 
 motive of covetousness, as both untrue and unworthy 
 of religion. Strauss himself is so completely in the 
 dark as to the true essence of religion, that when, at 
 the end of the second chapter of his book, he asks 
 himself whether he still has a religion, he can only 
 answer, "Yes or No, according as you understand it." 
 
 Yes, but this is the very point which ought to have 
 been determined first, namely, what we ought to un- 
 derstand by religion. And here I answer that in or- 
 der to understand what religion is, we must first of all 
 see what it has been, and how it has come to be what 
 it is. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF RELIGION. 
 
 Religion is not a new invention. It is, if not as 
 old as the world, at least as old as the world we
 
 4 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 know. As soon almost as we know anything of the 
 thoughts and feelings of man, we find him in posses- 
 sion of religion, or rather possessed by religion. The 
 oldest literary documents are almost everywhere relig- 
 ious. " Our earth," as Herder 1 says, " owes the seeds 
 of all higher culture to religious tradition, whether 
 literary or oral." Even if we go beyond the age of 
 literature, if we explore the deepest levels of human 
 thought, we can discover, in the crude ore which was 
 made to supply the earliest coins or counters of the 
 human mind, the presence of religious ingredients. 
 Before the Aryan languages separated and who is 
 to tell how many thousand years before the first 
 hymn of the Veda or the first line of Homer that 
 ethnic schism may have happened? there existed in 
 them an expression for light, and from it, from the 
 root div, to shine, the adjective deva had been formed, 
 meaning originally " bright." Afterwards this word 
 deva was applied, as a comprehensive designation, to 
 all the bright powers of the morning and the spring, 
 as opposed to all the dark powers of the night and the 
 winter ; but when we meet with it for the first time 
 in the oldest literary documents, it is already so far 
 removed from this its primitive etymological mean- 
 ing, that in the Veda there are but few passages 
 where we can with certainty translate it still by 
 "bright." The bright dawn is addressed in the Veda 
 as devi ushas, but it must remain doubtful whether 
 the old poets still felt in that address the etymolog- 
 ical meaning of brightness, or whether we ought not 
 to translate deva in the Veda, as deus in Latin, by 
 God, however difficult we may find it to connect any 
 definite meaning with such a translation. Still, what 
 
 i Herder, Ideen zur Getchichte der Menschheit, 9. Bucb, p. 130 (ed. 
 Brockhaus).
 
 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 5 
 
 we know for certain is, that deva came to mean 
 "god," because it originally meant "bright," and we 
 cannot doubt that something beyond the meaning of 
 brightness had attached itself to the word deva be- 
 fore the ancestors of the Indians and Italians broke 
 up from their common home. 
 
 Thus, whether we descend to the lowest roots of 
 our own intellectual growth, or ascend to the loftiest 
 heights of modern speculation, everywhere we find 
 religion as a power that conquers, and conquers even 
 those who think that they have conquered it. 
 
 SCIENCE OF BELIGION. 
 
 Such a power did not escape the keen-eyed philos- 
 ophers of ancient Greece. They, to whom the world 
 of thought seems to have been as serene and trans- 
 parent as the air which revealed the sea, the shore, 
 and the sky of Athens, were startled at a very early 
 time by the presence of religion, as by the appearance 
 of a phantom which they could not explain. Here 
 was the beginning of the science of religion, which is 
 not, as has often been said, a science of to-day or of 
 yesterday. The theory on the origin of religion put 
 forward by Feuerbach in his work " On the Essence 
 of Christianity," which sounds to us like the last note 
 of modern despair, was anticipated more than two 
 thousand years ago by the philosophers of Greece. 
 With Feuerbach religion is a radical evil, inherent 
 in mankind the sick heart of man is the source of 
 all religion, and of all misery. With Herakleitos, in 
 the sixth century B. c., religion is a disease, though 
 a sacred disease. 1 Such a saying, whatever we may 
 
 1 See Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae, ed. Bywater, p. 57, 1. 18, from Vita 
 Heraditi e Diogene Laertio, ix. 1. Mr. Bywater places the saying nj>>
 
 6 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 think of its truth, shows, at all events, that religion 
 and the origin of religious ideas had formed the sub- 
 ject of deep and anxious thought at the very begin- 
 ning of what we call the history of philosophy. 
 
 I doubt, however, whether there was in the sayings 
 of Herakleitos the same hostile spirit against all re- 
 ligion as that which pervades the writings of Feuer- 
 bach. The idea that to believe is meritorious was 
 not an ancient Greek idea, and therefore to doubt 
 was not yet regarded as a crime, except where it in- 
 terfered with public institutions. There was, no 
 doubt, an orthodox party in Greece, but we can 
 hardly say that it was fanatical ; 1 nay, it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to understand at what time it ac- 
 quired its power and whence it took its coherence. 2 
 
 Herakleitos certainly blames those who follow sing- 
 ers (aoiSo/), 3 and whose teacher is the crowd, who 
 pray to idols, as if they were to gossip with the walls 
 of houses, not knowing what gods and heroes really 
 are. Epikouros does the same. But, unlike Epi- 
 kouros, Herakleitos nowhere denies the existence of 
 invisible Gods or of the One Divine. Only when he 
 saw people believing in what the singers, such as 
 
 re olija-iv iepav vovov ?Ay, among the Spuria, p. 51. It seems to me to have 
 the full, massive, and noble ring of Herakleitos. It is true that (HTJCTW means 
 rather opinion and prejudice in general than religious belief; but to the 
 philosophical mind of Herakleitos the latter is a subdivision only of the 
 former. Opinion in general might be called a disease, but hardly a sacred 
 disease, nor can sacred disease be taken here either in the sense of great 
 and fearful disease, or in the technical sense of epilepsy. If I am wrong, 
 I share my error with one of the best Greek scholars and mythologies, for 
 Welcker takes the words of Herakleitos in the same sense in which I have 
 taken them. They are sometimes ascribed to Epikouros; anyhow they be- 
 long to the oldest wisdom of Greece. 
 
 1 Lange, Geschichte des Materialismuf,, i. 4. 
 
 2 See E. Curtius, Uber die Bedeutung von Delphi fur die Giiechitcht 
 Cultur, Festrede am 22 Februar, 1878. 
 
 Heracliti Reliquiae, cxi., cxxvi.
 
 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 7 
 
 Homer, and Hesiod, told them about Zeus and Hera, 
 about Hermes and Aphrodite, he seems to have mar- 
 veled ; and the only explanation which he could find 
 of so strange a phenomenon was, that it arose from 
 an affection of the mind, which the physician might 
 try to heal, whensoever it showed itself, but which 
 he could never hope to stamp out altogether. 
 
 In a certain sense, therefore, the science of religion 
 is as little a modern invention as religion itself. 
 Wherever there is human life, there is religion, and 
 wherever there is religion, the question whence it 
 came cannot be long suppressed. When children 
 once begin to ask questions, they ask the why and 
 the wherefore of everything, religion not excepted ; 
 nay, I believe that the first problems of what we call 
 philosophy were suggested by religion. 
 
 It has sometimes been asked why Thales should be 
 called a philosopher, and should keep his place on 
 the first page of every history of philosophy. Many 
 a school-boy may have wondered why to say that 
 water was the beginning of all things should be 
 called philosophy. And yet, childish as that saying 
 may sound to us, it was anything but childish at the 
 time of Thales. It was the first bold denial that the 
 gods had made the world ; it was the first open pro- 
 test against the religion of the crowd a protest that 
 had to be repeated again and again before the Greeks 
 could be convinced that such thinkers as Herakleitos 
 (Reliquiae, xx.) and Xenophanes had at least as good 
 a right to speak of the gods or of God as Homer and 
 other itinerant singers. 
 
 No doubt, at that early time, what was alone im- 
 portant was to show that what was believed by the 
 crowd was purely fanciful. To ask how those fanci-
 
 8 THE PERCEPTION OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 ful opinions of the crowd had arisen, was a problem 
 belonging to a later age. Still, even that problem 
 was not entirely absent from the minds of the earliest 
 thinkers of Greece ; for no one could have given the 
 answer ascribed to Herakleitos who had not asked 
 himself the question which we ask ourselves to-day : 
 What, then, is the origin of religion ? or, to put it 
 into more modern language, How is it that we believe, 
 that we accept what, as we are told by enemy and 
 friend, cannot be supplied to us by our senses or es- 
 tablished by our reason ? 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN BE- 
 LIEF. 
 
 It may be said that, when Herakleitos pondered on 
 ofycri?, or belief, he meant something very different 
 from what we mean by religion. No doubt he did ; 
 for if there is a word that has changed from century 
 to century, and has a different aspect in every country 
 in which it is used nay, which conveys peculiar 
 shades of meaning, as it is used by every man, 
 woman, or child it is religion. In our ordinary 
 language we use religion in at least three different 
 senses ; first, as the object of belief ; secondly, as the 
 power of belief; thirdly, as the manifestation of be- 
 lief, whether in acts of worship or in acts of real piety. 
 
 The same uncertainty prevails in other languages. 
 It would be difficult to translate our word religion 
 into Greek or Sanskrit; nay, even in Latin, religio 
 does by no means cover all that religion comprehends 
 in English. We need not be surprised, therefore, 
 at the frequent misunderstandings, and consequent 
 wranglings, between those who write on religion, 
 without at least having made so much clear to them-
 
 EDUCATION AND PREPARATION. 
 
 HEKRY MARTYN was born in England on the south- 
 western coast of Truro, February 18, 1781. His father, 
 Mr. John Martyn, worked in the mines. He was not edu- 
 cated but was very fond of learning. The miners were in 
 the habit of working and resting alternately every four 
 hours. Mr. John Martyn spent many of his rest intervals in 
 study, and so by diligence and education raised himself to a 
 higher position, and became a clerk in the office of a mer- 
 chant in Truro. When Henry was seven years old, he went 
 to school to Dr. Cardew. From his earliest years all who 
 knew him considered him a very interesting and promising 
 child. Dr. Cardew says his proficiency in the classics 
 exceeded that of his schoolfellows; he was of a lively, cheer- 
 ful temper and seemed to learn without application, almost 
 by intuition. But he was not robust, and loving books 
 better than sport, and having a peculiar tenderness and inof- 
 fensiveness of spirit, he was often abused by rude and coarse 
 boys in the school. A friendship which he formed at this 
 time with a boy older than himself was the source of great 
 comfort and advantage to him, and was kept up throughout 
 his whole life. This friend often protected him from the 
 bullies of the play-ground. At this school, under excellent 
 tuition, Henry remained until fourteen years old, when he 
 was induced to offer himself as a candidate for a vacant 
 scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Young as 
 he was. he went there alone, and acquitted himself so well, 
 though strongly and ably opposed by competitors, that in 
 
 5
 
 6 LIFE OF HENRY MAKTYN. 
 
 the opinion of some of the examiners he ought to have been 
 elected. How often is the hand of God seen in frustrating 
 our fondest designs ! Speaking of this disappointment lie 
 afterwards wrote : " Had I remained and become a member 
 of the university at that time, as I should have done in case 
 of success, the profligate acquaintances I had there would 
 have introduced me to scenes of debauchery, in which I 
 must in all probability, from my extreme youth, have sunk 
 forever." 
 
 He continued after this with Dr. Cardew till 1797, and 
 then joired his school friend at Cambridge at St. John's 
 College. Here he obtained a place in the first class at the 
 public examination in December, a circumstance which, 
 joined to the extreme desire he had to gratify his father, 
 encouraged and excited him to study with increased alacrity, 
 and as the fruit of this application, at the next public exami- 
 nation in the summer he reached the second station in the 
 first class, a point of elevation which "flattered his pride 
 not a little." At this time he appeared in the eye of the 
 world most amiable and commendable, outwardly moral, 
 unwearied in application, and exhibited marks of no ordinary 
 talent. One exception to this statement is to be found in an 
 irritability of temper arising perhaps from the treatment he 
 had received at school. On one occasion in sudden anger, he 
 threw a knife at the head of another boy, which providen- 
 tially missed him and was left trembling in the wall; but it 
 was a narrow escape, and might have proved fatal. Though 
 not a Christian at this time, he was under two strong influ- 
 ences for good, one from his religious friend in college, the 
 other from his sister in Cornwall, a Christian of a meek, heav- 
 enly and affectionate spirit. He paid a visit to his home in 
 the summer of 1799, carrying with him no small degree of
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYR. 7 
 
 academical honor. It may be well supposed that to a sister 
 such as we have described, her brother's spiritual welfare 
 would be a most serious and anxious concern ; and that she 
 often conversed with him on the subject of religion we know 
 from his own declaration. The first result of her tender exhor- 
 tations and earnest endeavors was very discouraging ; a 
 violent conflict took place in her brother's mind between his 
 conviction of the truth of what she urged, and his love of 
 the world ; and for the present, the latter prevailed. Yet, 
 sisters similarly circumstanced may learn from this case, not 
 merely their duty, but also, from the final result, the success 
 they may anticipate in the faithful clischarge a of it 
 
 "At the examination at Christmas, 1799," he writes: "I 
 was first, and the account of it pleased my father prodig- 
 iously, who, I was told, was in great health and spirits. 
 What, then, was my consternation when in January I received 
 an account of his death ! " Most poignant were his suffer- 
 ings under this affliction, which led him to God for comfort 
 in prayer and Bible study. He says: "I began with the 
 Acts, and found myself insensibly led to inquire more attent- 
 ively into the doctrines of the Apostles." "Writing to his 
 sister, having announced shortly and with much simplicity 
 that his name stood first upon the list at the college examina- 
 tion of the summer of 1800, he says : " What a blessing it is 
 for me that I have such a sister as you, my dear S., who have 
 been so instrumental in keeping me in the right way. After 
 the death 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. 
 Soon I began to attend more diligently to the words of our 
 Savior in the New Testament, and to devour them with
 
 8 LIFE OF lIKNiiY MAltTYtf, 
 
 delight, when the offers of mercy and forgiveness were made 
 so freely ; I supplicated to be made partaker of the covenant 
 of grace with eagerness and hope, and thanks be to the ever- 
 blessed Trinity for not leaving me without comfort." How 
 cheering to his sister it must have been to receive at a 
 moment of deep sorrow such a communication as this ! Uow 
 salutary to his own mind to have possessed so near a relation 
 to whom he could thus freely open the workings of his heart. 
 At this time he also received great benefit from attendance 
 on the faithful ministry of Rev. Charles Simeon, under 
 whose pastoral instructions he himself declares that he. "grad- 
 ually acquired more knowledge in divine things." With this 
 excellent man he had the most friendly and unreserved inter- 
 course. Mr. Martyn received his first impressions of the 
 transcendent excellence of the Christian ministry of Mr. 
 Simeon, from which it was but a short step to choose this 
 calling for his own, for until now he had intended to devote 
 himself to the law " chiefly," he confesses, " because he could 
 not consent to be poor for Christ's sake." 
 
 In January, 1801, the highest academical honor, that of 
 "senior wrangler," was a\varded to him before the comple- 
 tion of his twentieth year. His description of his feelings on 
 this occasion is remarkable : " I obtained my highest wishes, 
 but was surprised to find that I had grasped a shadow." So 
 impossible it is for earthly distinction to fill and satisfy the 
 mind. 
 
 In March, 1802, after another rigid examination, Mr. Mar- 
 tyn was chosen Fellow of St. Johns, a situation honorable to 
 the society and gratifying to himself. Soon after he obtained 
 first prize for best Latin prose composition over many com- 
 petitors of classical celebrity, and this was the more remark- 
 able, as his studies had been almost entirely in mathematics.
 
 LIFE OP HENRY MAKTYN. 9 
 
 Henry Martyn's attention was called to the great cause 
 of Foreign Missions by some remarks of Rev. Mr. Simeon on 
 the work of Carey in India, but more particularly by read- 
 ing the memoir of David Brainerd, who preached with apos- 
 tolic zeal and success to the North American Indians, and 
 who finished a course of self-denying labors for his Eedeemer 
 with unspeakable joy at the early age of thirty -two. Henry 
 Martyn's soul was filled with holy emulation, and after deep 
 consideration and fervent prayer he was at length fixed in a 
 resolution to imitate his example. Nor let it be conceived 
 that he could adopt this resolution without the severest con- 
 flict in his mind, for he was endued with the truest sensi- 
 bility of heart, and was susceptible of the warmest and ten- 
 derest attachments. No one could exceed him in love for 
 his country, or in affection for his friends, and few could 
 surpass him in an exquisite relish for the various and refined 
 enjoyments of a social and literary life. How then could it 
 fail of being a moment of extreme anguish when he came to 
 the deliberate resolution of leaving forever all he held dear 
 upon earth ? But he was fully satisfied that the glory of 
 that Savior who loved him and gave Himself for him would 
 be promoted by his going forth to preach to the heathen. 
 He considered their pitiable and perilous condition; he 
 thought on the value of their immortal souls ; he remembered 
 the last solemn injunction of his Lord, " Go teach all 
 nations," an injunction never revoked, and commensurate 
 with that most encouraging promise, " Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world." Actuated by these 
 motives, he offered himself as a missionary to the society for 
 Missions, and from that time stood prepared with childlike 
 simplicity and unshaken constancy to go to any part of the 
 world whither it might be deemed expedient to send him.
 
 10 LIFE OF IIENKY MARTYN. 
 
 In the early part of 1804, Mr. Martyn's plans of becom- 
 ing a missionary were dampened by the loss of his slender 
 patrimony, and as his sister was also involved in the calamity, 
 it appeared hardly justifiable for him to go away. After 
 some delay his friends obtained for him the position of chap- 
 lain to the East India Company, and so the obstacles which 
 detained him were removed. 
 
 The time of the delay was spent in zealous service for his 
 divine Master. He was associated with Rev. Mr. Simeon as 
 curate and preached with great zeal and unction, often to 
 very large audiences, and sometimes with such unsparing 
 denunciation of common sins as to awaken opposition. lie 
 considered it his duty to rebuke iniquity, and on one occasion 
 severely reproved a student for shocking levity, reading a 
 play with some young ladies while their father lay dying. 
 He feared the result of this might be estrangement from his 
 friend, but prayed earnestly that it might lead to his awak- 
 ening. This prayer was answered, and afterwards this very 
 friend became his beloved associate in missionary work in 
 India. 
 
 In very early youth Mr. Martyn became fondly attached 
 to a young lady named Lydia Grenfell. She considered her- 
 self his superior in social position. The memoirs all speak of 
 her as estimable, and we infer from the little that is said 
 that she somewhat indifferently accepted Henry Martyn's 
 homage, but she did not wholeheartedly and generously 
 respond. What a contrast to the beloved and devoted Har- 
 riet Newell, who was not afraid to risk all for Christ, and 
 counted not her life dear even unto the death ! It was Miss 
 Grenfell's greatest honor that Henry Martyn would have 
 made her his wife, but she declined the honor, and yet gave 
 him encouragement, for their correspondence only ended with
 
 LIFE OF IIENEY MAETYN. 11 
 
 his life, and his very last writing was a letter to her. He begged 
 her with all the eloquence of a lonely and devoted heart to 
 come out to him after he had gone to India, arranging every 
 detail for her comfort with thoughtful tenderness, and urg- 
 ing and encouraging her and lavishing upon her an affection 
 that would have crowned and enriched her life. We are left 
 to infer from the history that she did love him in her way, 
 but if she had shared his consecration and gone with him and 
 taken care of him, and cheered and comforted him,, and 
 made for him a happy restful home, as some missionary 
 wives have done in self-denying foreign fields, what a bless- 
 ing she might have been, and her life, how fruitful, and her 
 memory, how fragrant ! As it was, she has this distinction, 
 that she was Henry Martyn's disappointment and trial and 
 discipline. No one less tender and sensitive than Henry 
 Martyn can appreciate all he suffered on this account ; but 
 he made it, like all the other great sorrows of his life, a cross 
 on which to be crucified with Christ. 
 
 He writes to his dear sister S.: "When I sometimes offer 
 up supplications with strong crying to God to bring down my 
 spirit into the dust I endeavor calmly to contemplate the 
 infinite majesty of the most high God and my own mean- 
 ness and wickedness, or else I quietly tell the Lord, who 
 knows the heart, I Avould give Him all the glory of everything 
 if I could. But the most effectual way I have ever found is 
 to lead away my thoughts from myself and my own concerns 
 .by praying for all my friends, for the church, the world, 
 the nation, and especially by beseeching that God would 
 glorify His own great name by converting all nations to the 
 obedience of faith, also by praying that he would put more 
 abundant honor on those Christians whom he seems to have 
 honored especially, and whom we see to be manifestly our 
 superiors."
 
 12 LIFE OF HENRY MA.KTYN. 
 
 In spite of Henry Martyn's beautiful humility, honor 
 after honor was heaped upon him by his admiring and 
 appreciative Alma Mater. Three times he was chosen ex- 
 aminer, and discharged the duties of this office with great 
 care and faithfulness. 
 
 As the time approaches for his parting from all he holds 
 dear, especially the beloved L., our hearts go out to him in 
 irrepressible sympathy. He writes, "parted with L. for- 
 ever in this life with a sort of uncertain pain which I know 
 will increase to greater violence." 
 
 And these forebodings were but too soon realized. For 
 many succeeding days his mental agony was extreme, yet he 
 could speak to God as one who knew the great conflict 
 within him. Yet while the waves and billows are going over 
 him he writes from these depths, " I never had so clear a con- 
 viction of my call as at the present. Never did I see so 
 much the exceeding excellency and glory and sweetness of 
 the work, nor had so much the favorable testimony of my 
 own conscience, nor perceived so plainly the smile of God. 
 Blessed be God, I feel myself to be His minister. This 
 thought. which I can hardly describe came in the morning 
 after reading Brainerd. I wish for no service but the service 
 of God, to labor for souls on earth and to do His will in 
 heaven."
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MAETYN. 13 
 
 LIFE IN INDIA. 
 
 ON the 17th of July, 1805, the Union East Indiaman con- 
 veying Mr. Martyn sailed from Portsmouth. Mr. Mar- 
 ty n says : " Though it was what I had been anxiously look- 
 ing forward to so long, yet the consideration of being parted 
 forever 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." 
 
 Though suffering much in mind and body throughout 
 the long and tedious voyage of nine months, Mr. Martyn 
 seeks no selfish ease. He preaches, reads and labors 
 assiduously with officers, passengers and crew, and shuns not 
 to declare the whole counsel of God, even the unpalatable 
 doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked. He says: 
 " The threats and opposition of these men made me willing 
 to set before them the truths they hated, yet I had no 
 species of hesitation about doing it. They said they would 
 not come if so much hell was preached, but I took for my 
 text, ' The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the 
 nations that forget God.' The officers were all behind my 
 back in order to have an opportunity of retiring in case 
 of dislike. H., as soon as he heard the text, went back and 
 said he would hear no more about hell ; so he employed him- 
 self in feeding the geese. However, God I trust blessed 
 the sermon to the good of many ; some of the cadets and 
 many of the soldiers were in tears. I felt an ardor and 
 vehemence in some parts which are unusual with me. After 
 service walked the deck with Mrs. ; she spoke with so much
 
 14 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 simplicity and amiable humility that I was full of joy and 
 admiration to God for a sheep brought home to His fold. In 
 the afternoon went below intending to read to them at the 
 hatchway, but there was not one of them, so I could get 
 nothing to do among the poor soldiers." 
 
 What a picture revealing Henry Martyn's character ! 
 the contrasting attributes of sternness and gentleness, 
 his martyrlike determination to do his whole duty at any 
 cost to himself from suffering and insult, the keen 
 shrinking of a nature so refined and sensitive from coarseness 
 and abuse, undeviating yet uncompromising, bringing to our 
 thoughts the Divine Exemplar. I pass by the incidents of 
 the voyage, including mutiny, sickness and death, romantic 
 stay at St. Salvador, battles at the Cape of Good Hope, etc., 
 eloquently and vividly recorded. 
 
 The Friday preceding his arrival in India he spends 
 "in praying that God would no longer delay exerting his 
 power in the conversion of the eastern nations. I felt 
 emboldened " he says, " to employ the most familiar petitions 
 by Is. xii. 6, 7, ' Keep not silence ; give him no rest,' etc. 
 Blessed be God for those words ! They are like a cordial to 
 my spirits, because if the Lord is not pleased by me or during 
 my lifetime to call the Gentiles, yet He is not offended at 
 my being urgent with Him that the kingdom of God may 
 come." 
 
 April 21,. 1806, the nine months' journey is complete, and 
 they land at Madras. Mr. Martyn gives first impressions and 
 description of the natives, ending in these words : " In gen- 
 eral, one thought naturally occurred : the conversion of their 
 poor souls. I am willing, I trust, through grace, to pass my 
 life among them if by any means these poor people may be 
 brought to God. The sight of men, women and children, all
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 15 
 
 idolaters, makes me shudder as if in the dominions of the 
 prince of darkness. Hearing the nymn, ' Before Jehovah's 
 awful throne, ' it excited a train of affecting thoughts in my 
 mind." 
 
 " "Wide as the world is thy command." Therefore it is 
 easy for Thee to spead abroad Thy holy name. But oh, how 
 gross the darkness here! The veil of the covering cast over 
 all nations seems thicker here; the friends of darkness seem 
 to sit in sullen repose in this land. What surprises me is the 
 change of views I have here from what I had in England. 
 There my heart expanded with hope and joy at the prospect 
 of the speedy conversion of the heathen; but here the sight 
 of the apparent impossibility requires a strong faith to sup- 
 port the spirits." Ah, how vividly this describes missionary 
 experiences ! After great peril from storm and illness, pass- 
 ing up the Iloogly from Madras, Mr. Martyn arrived at 
 Calcutta, May 14. In this city for years had been a band of 
 English Christians faithfully praying for the coming of the 
 kingdom in that dark land, and into the home of one of these, 
 Rev. David Brown, was Mr. Martyn received with much 
 affection. A pagoda in one end of the yard on the river 
 bank was fitted up for him, and the place where once devils 
 were worshiped now became a Christian oratory. The 
 first experience here was of severe illness from acclimating 
 fever, from which he was kindly nursed into convalesence. 
 He then applied himself earnestly to the study of the Hin- 
 doostanee, having engaged a Brahmin as a teacher. Here 
 he witnessed with horror the cruel and debasing rites of 
 heathenism. The blaze of a funeral pile caused him one day 
 to hasten to the rescue of a burning widow who was con- 
 sumed before his eyes. And in a dark wood he heard the 
 sound of cymbals and drums calling the poor natives to the
 
 16 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 worship of devils, and saw them prostrate with, their fore- 
 heads to the ground before a black image in a pagoda sur- 
 rounded with burning lights a sight which he contemplated 
 with overwhelming compassion, " shivering as if standing in 
 the neighborhood of hell." 
 
 Mr. Martyn's plain and pungent preaching was a great 
 offense to some of the easy-going formalists of the English 
 church at Calcutta, and some of the ministry attacked him 
 bitterly from their pulpits, declaring, for instance, that to 
 affirm repentance to be the gift of God and to teach that 
 nature is wholly corrupt, is to drive men to despair, and that 
 to suppose the righteousness of Christ sufficient to justify is 
 to make it unnecessary to have any of our own. Though 
 compelled to listen to such downright heresies, to hear him- 
 self described as knowing neither what he said nor whereof 
 he affirmed, and as aiming only to gratify self sufficiency, 
 pride and uncharitableness, " I rejoiced/' said this meek 
 and holy man, " to receive the Lord's supper afterwards ; 
 as the solemnities of that blessed ordinance sweetly tended 
 to soothe any asperity of mind, and I think that I adminis- 
 tered the cup to and with sincere good will." 
 
 September 13, 1806, Mr. Martyn received his appoint- 
 ment to Singapore. A farewell meeting of great interest was 
 held in his pagoda, followed by a tender parting from the 
 family who had been so kind to him, and two fellow labor- 
 ers who, following his bright example, had just come out 
 from England. The voyage to Singapore was performed in a 
 budgero, a small boat with a cabin, in which he studied and 
 translated and prayed while making the seventeen or 
 eighteen miles a day of the six- weeks' journey. At night the 
 boat was fastened to the shore. His journal record of these 
 days is very interesting and very characteristic. He says :
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MAKTTN. 17 
 
 " October 27. Arrived at Berhampore. In the evening 
 walked out to the hospital in which there were 150 Euro- 
 pean soldiers sick. I was talking to a man said to be dying, 
 when a surgeon entered. I went up and made some apology 
 for entering the hospital. It was my old school-fellow 
 
 and townsman, . The remainder of the evening he spent 
 
 with me in my budgero. 
 
 " October 28. Rose very early and was at the hospital 
 .at daylight. Waited there a long time wandering up and 
 down the wards in hopes of inducing the men to get up and 
 assemble, but it was in vain. I left three books with them 
 and \vent away amidst the sneers and titters of the common 
 soldiers. Certainly it is one of the greatest crosses I am 
 called to bear to take pains to make people hear me. It is 
 such a struggle between a sense of propriety and modesty 
 on the one hand, and a sense of duty on the other, that I 
 find nothing equal to it. I could force my way anywhere, 
 in order to introduce a brother minister ; but for myself, I 
 act with hesitation and pain. 
 
 " Walking out into a village where the boat stopped for 
 the night I found the worshipers of Kali by the sound of 
 their drums and cymbals. Invited by the Brahmins to walk 
 in I entered and asked a few questions aj)out the idol. The 
 Brahmin who spoke bad Hindoostanee disputed with great 
 heat, and his tongue ran faster than I could follow, and the 
 people, about one hundred, shouted applause. I continued 
 my questions and among other things asked if what I had 
 heard of Vishnu and Brahma was true, which he confessed 
 I forbore to press him with the consequences, which he seemed 
 to feel ; and then I told him what was my belief. The man 
 grew quite mild and said it was chula ~bat (good words), and 
 asked me seriously at last what I thought, ' Was idol worship 
 
 2
 
 18 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 true or false ? ' I felt it a matter of thankfulness that I could 
 make known the truth of God though 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 in deportment of 
 this hot-headed Brahmin. . . . Came to on the eastern 
 bank below a village called Ahgadup. Wherever I walked 
 the women fled at the sight of me. Some men were sitting 
 under the shed dedicated to their goddess ; a lamp was burn- 
 ing in her place. A conversation soon began, but there was 
 no one who could speak Hindoostanee. I could only speak 
 by the medium of my Mussulman, Musalchee. They said 
 that they only did as others did, and that if they were wrong 
 then all Bengal was wrong. I felt love for their souls, and 
 longed for utterance to declare unto these poor simple people 
 the holy gospel. I think that when my mouth is opened I 
 shall preach to them day and night. 
 
 "October 31. My Moonshee said, 'How can you prove 
 this book (the gospel), to be the word of God ? ' I took him 
 to walk with me on the shore that we might discuss the 
 matter, and the result of our conversation was that I dis- 
 covered that the Mussulmen allow the gospel to be in general 
 the command of God, though the words of it are not His as 
 the words of the Koran are, and contend that the actual 
 words of God given to Jesus were burnt by the Jews ; that 
 they also admit the New Testament to have been in force 
 till the coming of Mohammed. When I quoted some pas- 
 sages which proved the Christian dispensation to be the final 
 one, he allowed it to be inconsistent with the divinity of the 
 Koran, but said, ' Then those words of the gospel must be 
 false.' The man argued and asked his questions seemingly 
 in earnest, and another new impression was left upon my
 
 LIFE OF HENKY MAETYN. 19 
 
 mind, namely, that these men are not fools and that all inge- 
 nuity and clearness of reasoning are not confined to England 
 and Europe. I seem to feel that these descendants of Ham 
 are as dear to God as the haughty sons of Japheth; I feel, too, 
 more at home with the Scriptures than ever ; everything I see 
 gives light to, and receives it from, the Scriptures. I seem 
 transported back to the ancient times of the Israelites and 
 the Apostles. My spirit felt composed after the dispute by 
 simply looking to God as one who had engaged to support 
 His own cause ; and I saw it to be my part to pursue my way 
 through the wilderness of this world, looking only to that 
 redemption which daily draweth nigh. How should this 
 consideration quell the tumult of anger and impatience when 
 I cannot convince men ' the government is on His shoulders \ ' 
 Jesus is able to bear the weight of it ; therefore we need not 
 be oppressed with care or fear, but a missionary is apt to 
 fancy himself an Atlas. 
 
 " November 2. Walking on shore met a large party. I 
 asked if any of them could read. One young man who 
 seemed superior in rank to the rest, said he could, and accord- 
 ingly read some of the only Nagree tract that I had. I then 
 addressed myself boldly to them and told them of the gos- 
 pel. When speaking of the inefficacy of the religious prac- 
 tices of the Hindoos I mentioned as an example the repeti- 
 tion of the name of Earn. The young man assented to this 
 and said, " of what use is it? " As he seemed to be of a pen- 
 sive turn and said this with marks of disgust, I gave him a 
 Nagree Testament, the first I have given. May God's bless- 
 ing go along with it and cause the eyes of the multitudes to be 
 opened. The men said they should be glad to receive tracts, 
 so I sent them back a considerable number. The idea of 
 printing the parables in proper order with a short explana-
 
 20 LIFE OF HENKY MARTYN. 
 
 tion to each, for the purpose of distribution and as school 
 books, suggested itself to me to-night and delighted me pro- 
 digiously. ... A Mussulman, when he received one of the 
 tracts and found what it was, was greatly alarmed, and after 
 many awkward apologies, returned it, saying that 'a man 
 who had his legs in two different boats, was in danger of 
 sinking between them.' " 
 
 Established at Singapore, Mr. Martyn began upon three 
 different lines of work, establishing schools, attaining readi- 
 ness in Hindoostanee so as to preach the gospel in that lan- 
 guage, and translating the Scriptures and religious books. 
 To his great discouragement he was informed by the Pundit 
 that every four miles the language changed, so that a book 
 in the dialect of one district would be unintelligible to the 
 people of another. Being advised to learn Sanscrit, he took 
 up this language with great zeal. The commencement of 
 Mr. Martyn's ministry amongst the Europeans of Singapore 
 was not of such a kind as to either gratify or encourage him. 
 At first he read prayers to the soldiers at the barracks from 
 the drumhead, and as there were no seats provided, was 
 desired to omit the sermon. Afterwards more decent 
 arrangements being made, the families came in ; but taking 
 offense at his evangelical plainness, they asked that he should 
 desist from extempore preaching. These European members 
 of his flock were jealous and angry at his constant efforts for 
 the salvation of the heathen natives. They thought it much 
 beneath the dignity of an English chaplain to care for these 
 degraded souls. Some of Mr. Martyn's duties as chaplain 
 were exceedingly onerous. On several occasions he was sum- 
 moned to distant places involving long and dangerous jour- 
 neys to perform a marriage ceremony. On these journeys he 
 suffered severely, and they were a great draft upon his very
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MAKTYN. 21 
 
 delicate health ; always weak and languid, and often alarm- 
 ingly disordered. Yet through all he continued to labor 
 incessantly. Every Sabbath he held at least four services : at 
 7 for Europeans ; at 2 for Hindoos, about two hundred in 
 attendance ; in the afternoon at the hospital ; in the evening 
 in his own room for the soldiers. In his household were two 
 natives who assisted in his studies and translations, the Moon- 
 shee and the Pundit, with whom he held long disputes and 
 with whom he labored daily, though unsuccessfully, to bring 
 them to faith in Christ. He says, "translating the epistle of 
 St. John with the Moonshee, I asked him what he thought 
 of those passages which so strongly express the doctrines of 
 the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ. He said he never 
 would believe it, because the Koran declared it sinful to say 
 that God had any Son. I told him that he ought to pray 
 that God would teach him what the truth really is. He said 
 he had no occasion on this subject, as the word of God was 
 express. I asked him whether some doubt ought not to arise 
 in his mind whether the Koran is the word of God. He 
 grew angry, and I felt hurt and vexed. I should have done 
 better to have left the words of the chapter with him with- 
 out saying anything. I went also too far with the Pundit in 
 arguing against his superstition, for he also grew angry." If 
 any qualification seems necessary to a missionary in India it 
 is wisdom operating in the regulation of the temper and the 
 due improvement of opportunities. Mr. Martyn needed the 
 heavenly gift of wisdom also in the management of his native 
 schools, five or six of which were supported by himself in 
 Singapore. Little by little he succeeded in introducing as a 
 text-book a part of the Bible his own translation of the 
 sermon on the Mount and the Parables. He was called to do 
 more and more of this work of translating the Scriptures,
 
 22 LIFE OF HENKY MAKTYN. 
 
 and was persuaded by the Rev. David Brown not only to 
 continue the Hindoostanee, but to superintend the translation 
 of the Scriptures into Persian. He engaged in it at once 
 with zeal. He writes: "The time fled imperceptibly while 
 so delightfully engaged in the translations ; the days seemed 
 to have passed like a moment. 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. Employed a good while at night in con- 
 sidering a difficult passage, and being much enlightened 
 respecting it, I went to bed full of astonishment at the won- 
 der of God's Word. Never before did I see anything of the 
 beauty of the language and the importance of the thoughts 
 as I do now. What a source of perpetual delight have I in 
 the precious Word of God ! " 
 
 This ecstacy of enthusiasm in most successful and conge- 
 nial labor was suddenly dashed by a great wave of sorrow 
 which came to Mr. Marty n in the news of the death of his 
 eldest sister. To missionaries in foreign lands such news is 
 especially bitter, and to recover from such a shock and sense 
 of irreparable loss seems almost impossible. The mind, 
 unsatisfied with details of the sad event, is left in shadow 
 which deepens into heavy gloom. Mr. Martyn was all alone 
 and felt it keenly and inexpressibly. Some of his most inti- 
 mate and sympathetic friends at this time, realizing how it 
 was not good for him to be alone, encouraged him to renew his 
 matrimonial offer to his ever beloved L. After her refusal 
 he says, " The Lord sanctify this, and since this last desire of 
 my heart is also withheld may I turn away forever from the 
 world and henceforth live forgetful of all but God. With 
 Thee, O my God, is no disappointment. I shall never have to
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MAETTN. 23 
 
 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.' ' : 
 
 Could sweeter words than these be expressed in any 
 language! Could greater depths of submission or 
 heights of consecration be attained ! They deserve to be 
 recorded on imperishable marble or blazoned on the sky in 
 sight of all, and received as the confession of every Christian 
 heart, to the honor and praise of Him who gave such glori- 
 ous victory to this tried soldier of the cross. 
 
 Providentially for Mr. Martyn's comfort his thoughts 
 were much occupied after this by the arrival of his coadju- 
 tors in the work of translation, one of these, Mirza of 
 Benares, well known in India as an eminent Hindoostanee 
 scholar; the other Sabat the Arabian, since but too well 
 known both in India and England by his rejection of that 
 faith which he then appeared to profess in sincerity and faith. 
 In the latter of these Mr. Martyn confidently trusted that 
 he had found a Christian brother with respect to the reality 
 of his belief in Christianity, although Mr. Martyn imme- 
 diately discovered in him an unsubdued Arab spirit, and 
 witnessed with pain many deflections from that temper and 
 conduct which he himself so eminently exemplified; yet, 
 he could not but " believe all things and hope all things," 
 even while he continued to suffer much from him, and for a 
 length of time, with unparalleled forbearance and kindness." 
 Sabat' s temper was a continual trial and mortification. The 
 very first Sabbath in Singapore, imagining he was not treated 
 with sufficient dignity, he left the church before service in great 
 anger. Often in the midst of the translation he would come 
 to a sudden stop and refuse to go on for the most trivial 
 reasons, sometimes for fear that Mirza who would review the
 
 21 LIFE OF HENRY MAKTYN. 
 
 work might have part of the honor. About this time Mr. 
 Martyn was much bereaved by the removal of a family witii 
 whom he had lived in intimate terms of Christian intercourse. 
 " This separation affected him the more sensibly because it 
 was not in every family at that station that he met with a 
 kind and cordial reception." He says, " I called on one of 
 the Singapore families, and felt my pride rise at the uncivil 
 manner in which I was received. I was disposed at first to 
 determine never to visit the house again, but I remembered 
 the words, ' overcome evil with good.' " 
 
 In the month of March, 1808, the New Testament in Ilin- 
 doostanee was completed. He says, " I have read and cor- 
 rected the manuscript till my eyes ache ; such a week of 
 labor I believe I have never passed. The heat is terrible, often 
 at 98 degrees, the nights insupportable." We next hear of 
 Mr. Martyn suffering from severe illness with fever and ver- 
 tigo, and pained with the thought of leaving the Persian 
 gospels unfinished ! So unselfish, so full of zeal ! Again at 
 work, mercury at 102 degrees. " Arabic now employs my few 
 moments of leisure. In consequence of reading the Koran 
 with Sabat audibly, and drinking no wine, the slander has 
 gone forth that the Singapore Padre has turned Mussulman. 
 
 "June 6th. To-day we have completed the Persian of St. 
 Matthew. Sabat desired me to kneel down to bless God for 
 the happy event, and we joined in praise of the Father of 
 lights. It is a superb performance in every respect, with 
 elegance enough to attract the careless and please the fas- 
 tidious ; it contains enough of Eternal Life to save the reader's 
 soul. . . . My services on the Lord's day always leave 
 me with a pain in the chest, and such a great degree of 
 general relaxation, that I seldom recover it till Tuesday. The 
 society still meet every night at my quarters, and though we
 
 LIFE OF HENEY MAETYN. 25 
 
 have lost many by death, others are raised up in their room. 
 One officer, a lieutenant, is also given to me, and he is not 
 only a brother beloved, but a constant companion and nurse ; 
 so you must feel no apprehension that I should be left alone 
 in sickness." 
 
 In April, 1809, Mr. 'Martyn removes from Dinapore to 
 Cawnpore. Here he met friendship and hospitality. We 
 quote from the graceful pen of Mrs. Sherwood : " The month 
 of April in the upper provinces of Hindoostan is one of the 
 most dreadful months for traveling throughout the year; 
 indeed, no European at that time can remove from place to 
 place, but at the risk of his life. 
 
 " But Mr. Martyn had that anxiety to begin the work which 
 his heavenly Father had given him to do, that notwithstand- 
 the violent heat, he traveled from Chunar to Cawnpore, the 
 space of about four hundred miles. At that time as 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 traveled, journeying 
 night and day, and arrived at Cawnpore in such a state that 
 he fainted away as soon as he entered the house. When we 
 charged him with the rashness of hazarding his life in this man- 
 ner, he always pleaded his anxiety to get to the great work. 
 He remained with us ten days, suffering considerably at times 
 from fever and pain in the che'st. 
 
 "Mr. Martyn's removal from Dinapore to Cawnpore 
 was to him in many respects a very unpleasant arrangement. 
 He was several hundred miles farther distant from Calcutta 
 and more widely separated than before from his friend Mr. 
 Corrie. He had new acquaintances to form at his new abode,
 
 26 LIFE OF HENBY MAKTYN. 
 
 and after having with much difficulty procured the erection of 
 a church at Dinapore he was transported to a spot where 
 none of the conveniences, much less the decencies and solem- 
 nities of public worship, were visible. 
 
 " We find him soon after he arrived there 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." 
 
 Yet Mr. Martyn's labors were not abated. Every Sabbath 
 at dawn were prayers and sermon with the regiment, and 
 again at eleven at the house of the general of the station. 
 In the afternoon he preached to a crowd of poor natives, five, 
 to eight hundred, rude, noisy, wretched beggars, for whose 
 souls he felt a tender care. Again in the evening, the best 
 of the day, he had a meeting with the more devout of his 
 flock. These ministrations so earnestly performed were most 
 exhausting, yet he knew riot how to forego them; at this 
 time, too, from England came the sad and sudden news of the 
 death of his sister, the one who had led him to Christ. 
 
 The alarming state of his health made some change neces- 
 sary, and Mr. Marty n was urged to leave India and make 
 trial of a sea voyage. His Persian New Testament had been 
 criticised as unfit for general circulation, being written in a 
 style too learned and exalted for the comprehension of the 
 common people. He was advised to visit Persia and there 
 revise his work and also complete his version in Arabic, almost 
 finished. Mr. Brown, his devoted friend, and the Calcutta 
 agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, thus writes: 
 "Can I then bring myself to cut the string and let you go? 
 I confess I could not if your bodily frame were strong, and 
 promised to last for half a century. But as you burn with 
 the intenseness and rapid blaze of heated phosphorus, why
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 27 
 
 should \ve 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, but from that country, the true Comforter to 
 come to the nations of the East ? I contemplate your New 
 Testament springing up, as it were, from dust and ashes, but 
 beautiful as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and his 
 feathers like yellow gold." His farewell services at Cawn- 
 pore were very tender and affecting, both with his great audi- 
 ence of natives and Englishmen. Of the latter, Mrs. Sher- 
 wood says : "He began in a weak and faint voice, being at 
 that 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 Cawmpore and the society of 
 many who sincerely loved and admired him." Stopping to 
 visit the friends in Calcutta, the Kev. Mr. Thomason says : 
 " This bright and lovely jewel first gratified our eyes on Sat- 
 urday 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 as far as I do understand it, the object is far too grand 
 for one short life, and much beyond his feeble and exhausted 
 frame. Feeble it is, indeed ; how fallen and changed ! His 
 complaint lies in his lungs and appears to be an incipient con- 
 sumption. But let us hope the sea air may revive him, and 
 that change may do him essential service and continue his 
 life many years. In all other respects he is exactly 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
 
 28 LIFE OP HENRY MAETYN. 
 
 mind beyond description. But if he talks much, though i*, 
 a low voice, he sinks, and you are reminded of his being dusv 
 and ashes." Though so infirm, Mr. Martyn preached every 
 Sabbath of his visit, and his last sermon on the anniversary 
 of the Calcutta Bible Society was afterwards printed and 
 entitled "Christian India, or an appeal on behalf of nine 
 hundred thousand Christians in India who want the Bible."
 
 LIFE OF HENKY MAKTYN. 29 
 
 LIFE IN PERSIA. 
 
 FROM this time a change comes over Mr. Mar- 
 tyn's varied life. "We have seen him the successful 
 candidate for academical distinctions the faithful and labo- 
 rious pastor the self-denying and devoted missionary 'the 
 indefatigable translator the preacher of the gospel to the 
 heathen; we are now called to admire in him the coura- 
 geous spirit of the Christian confessor. 
 
 He says, on his voyage towards Persia : " All down the 
 Bay of Bengal I could do nothing but sit listless, viewing 
 the wide waste of water, a sight that would have been beau- 
 tiful had I been well. In my Hebrew researches I scarcely 
 ever felt so discouraged. All the knowledge I thought I 
 had acquired became uncertain, and consequently I was 
 unhappy. It was in vain that I reflected that thousands live 
 and die happy without such knowledge as I am in search of. 
 
 " Proposed family prayer every night in the cabin no 
 objection was made. 
 
 " February 18, anchored off Bombay. This day I fin- 
 ished the thirtieth year of my unprofitable life, the age at 
 which David Brainerd finished his course. I am now at the 
 the age at which the Savior of men began his ministry, and 
 and at which John the Baptist called a nation to repentance. 
 Hitherto I have made my youth and insignificance an excuse 
 for sloth and imbecility, now let me have a character and 
 act boldly for God. 
 
 " March 5. Feerog, a Parsee who is considered the most
 
 30 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 learned man here, called to converse about religion. He 
 spoke Persian and seemed familiar with Arabic. He began by 
 saying ' that no one religion had more evidences of its truth 
 than another, for that all the miracles of the respective 
 founders depended upon tradition. This I denied. He 
 acknowledged that the writer of the Zendavesta was not 
 cotemporary with Zoroaster. After disputing and raising 
 objections he was left without an answer, but continued to 
 cavil. ' Why' said he, ' did the Magi see the star in the East 
 and none else ? from what part of the East did they come ? 
 and how was it possible that their king should come to 
 Jerusalem in seven days 2 ' The last piece of information he 
 had from the Armenians. I asked him whether he had any 
 thoughts of changing his religion. He replied with a con- 
 temptuous smile, 'No, every man is safe in his own religion.' 
 I asked him, 'What sinners must do to obtain pardon?' 
 'Eepent,' said he. I asked, 'Would repentance satisfy a 
 creditor or a judge?' 'Why, is it not said in the gospel,' 
 rejoined he, 'that we must repent ? ' I replied, ' It cannot be 
 proved from the gospel that repentance alone is sufficient, or 
 good works, or both.' ' Where then is the glory of salva- 
 tion ? ' he said; I replied, ' In the atonement of Christ.' ' All 
 this ' said he, ' I know, but so the Mohammedans say, that 
 Ilosyn was an atonement for the sins of men.' He then 
 began to criticise the translations he saw on the table. 
 
 "April 23. Moscat, Arabia. Went on shore and met the 
 Yizier. His African slave argued with me for Mohammed 
 and did not know how to let me go, he was so interested in 
 the business." 
 
 "April 25. Gave him an Arabic copy of the gospel, 
 which he at once began to read, and carried it off as a great 
 prize, which I hope he will find it to be."
 
 LIFE OF HENKY MARTYN. 31 
 
 " Bushire, Persia. Called on the governor, a Persian Khan. 
 He was very particular in his attentions. Seated me on his 
 own seat and then sat by my side. After the usual saluta- 
 tions and inquiries the calean (pipe), was introduced, then 
 coffee in china cups placed within silver ones, then calean, 
 then some rose-water syrup, then calean. Observing the 
 windows of stained glass, I began to question him about the 
 art of coloring glass, observing that the modern Europeans 
 were inferior to the ancient in the manufacture of the article. 
 He expressed his surprise that Europeans, who were so skill- 
 ful in making watches, should fail in any handicraft work. 
 I could not help recollecting the Emperor of China's sarcastic 
 remark on the Europeans and their arts, and therefore dropped 
 the subject. On his calean I called it hookah at first, but 
 he did not understand me I noticed several little paintings 
 of the Virgin and child, and asked him whether such things 
 were not unlawful among Mohammedans. He answered 
 very coolly 'Yes,' as much as to say. 'What then?' I 
 lamented that the Eastern Christians should use such things 
 in their churches. He repeated the words of a good man 
 who was found fault with for having an image before him 
 while at prayer, " God is nearer to me than that image, so 
 that I do not see it." This man, I afterwards found, is like 
 most of the other grandees of the East, a murderer. 
 
 " On the 30th of May, our Persian dresses were ready, 
 and we set out for Shiraz. The Persian dress consists of 
 first, stockings and shoes in one ; next, a pair of large blue 
 trousers, or else a pair of huge red boots; then the shirt, then 
 the tunic, and above it the coat, both of chintz, and a great 
 coat. I have here described my own dress, most of which I 
 have on at this moment. On the head is worn an enormous 
 cone made of the skin of the black Tartar sheep with the
 
 32 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 wool on. If to this description of my dress I add that my 
 beard and mustachios have been suffered to vegetate undis- 
 turbed ever since I left India ; that I am sitting on a Persian 
 carpet, in a room without tables or chairs, and that I bury my 
 hand in the pillar (rice), without waiting for spoon or plate, 
 you will give me credit for being already an accomplished 
 Oriental. 
 
 k ' At ten o'clock on the 30th our califa began to move. 
 It consisted chiefly of mules with a few horses. I wished to 
 have a mule, but the muleteer favored me with his own pony ; 
 this animal had a bell fastened to its neck. To add solemnity 
 to the scene, a Bombay trumpeter who was going to join the 
 embassy was directed to blow a blast as we moved off the 
 ground ; but whether it was that the trumpeter was not an 
 adept in the science or that his instrument was out of order, 
 the crazy sounds that saluted our ears had a ludicrous effect. 
 At last, after some jostling, mutual recriminations and 
 recalcitrating of the steeds, we each found our places and 
 moved out of the gate of the city in good order. The resi- 
 dents accompanied us a little way, and then left us to pursue 
 our journey over the plain. It was a fine moonlight night, 
 the scene new and perfectly oriental, and nothing prevented 
 me from indulging my own reflections. As the night 
 advanced the califa grew quiet; on a sudden one of the mule- 
 teers began to sing, and sang in a voice so plaintive that it 
 was impossible not to have one's attention arrested. Every 
 voice was hushed. 
 
 " These were the words translated : 
 
 Think not that e'er my heart could dwell 
 
 Contented far from thee, 
 How can the fresh-caught nightingale 
 
 Enjoy tranquility?
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 33 
 
 Oh, then forsake thy friend for naught 
 
 That slanderous tongues can say, 
 The heart that fixeth where it ought 
 
 No power can rend away. 
 
 " Thus far our journey was agreeable. Now for miseries. 
 At sunrise we came to our ground at Ahmedu, six parasangs, 
 and pitched our little tent under a tree ; it was the only shel- 
 ter we could get. At first the heat was not greater than we 
 had felt in India, but it soon became so intense as to be quite 
 alarming. When the thermometer was above 112, fever 
 heat, I began to lose my strength fast ; at last it became 
 quite intolerable. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and all 
 the warm covering I could get to defend myself from the 
 external air, by which means the moisture was kept a little 
 longer upon the body, and not so speedily evaporated as 
 when the skin was exposed. One of my companions followed 
 my example and found the benefit of it. But the thermom- 
 eter still rising, and the moisture of the body being quite 
 exhausted, I grew restless and thought I should have lost my 
 senses. The thermometer at last stood at 126. In this 
 state I composed myself and concluded that, though I might 
 hold out but a day or two, death was inevitable. Captain 
 
 - continued to tell the hour and heights of the ther- 
 mometer, and with pleasure we heard of it sinking to 120, 
 118, etc. At last the fierce sun retired and I crept out more 
 dead than alive. The next day we secured some comfort 
 from a large wet towel wrapped about the head and body. 
 At sunset, rising to go out, a scorpion fell upon my clothes. 
 The night before we found a black scorpion in our tent, that 
 made us uneasy, so we got no sleep." 
 
 June 9 Mr. Martyn arrived at Shiraz, the celebrated seat 
 of Persian literature, and at once began work upon his trans- 
 3
 
 34 LIFE OF HENRY MAETYN. 
 
 lation with the efficient help of Mirza Seid All Khan. In 
 this work he had many interruptions, being himself an object 
 of attention and curiosity. He received many calls, and 
 unwilling to lose any opportunity of benefiting the inhab- 
 itants of Shiraz, was never inaccessible to them. He says, 
 June 17, in the evening, Seid Ali came with two Moollahs, 
 and with them I had a very long and temperate discussion. 
 One of them read the beginning of John in Arabic and 
 inquired very particularly into our opinions respecting the 
 person of Christ, and when he was informed that we did not 
 consider His human nature eternal nor His mother divine, 
 seemed quite satisfied, and remarked to the others, 'how 
 much misapprehension is removed when people come to an 
 explanation.' " 
 
 "June 22. The Prince's secretary called to talk about 
 Soofeeism. They believe they know not what. He thought 
 to excite my wonder by telling me that I and every created 
 being was God. 
 
 " June 26. Two young men from the college came, full of 
 zeal and logic, to try me with hard questions such as, 
 whether being be but one or two? What is the state and 
 form of disembodied spirits ? and other foolish and unlearned 
 questions ministering strife. At last, one of them discovered 
 the true cause of his coming by asking me bluntly to bring 
 a proof of the religion of Christ. You allow the divine mis- 
 sion of Christ, said I, why need I prove it ? Not being able 
 to draw me into an argument they said what they wished 
 to say, namely, that I had no other proof for the miracles 
 of Christ than they had for those of Mohammed, which is 
 tradition. ' Softly' I said, 'You will be pleased to observe a 
 difference between your books and ours, when by tradition 
 we have reached our several books, our narrators were eye 
 witnesses ; yours are not, nor nearly so.'
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 35 
 
 " In the evening Seid All asked me the cause of evil. I 
 said I knew nothing about it. He thought he could tell 
 me, so I let him reason on till he soon found he knew as lit- 
 tle about the matter as myself. He wanted to prove that 
 there was no real difference between good and evil ; that it 
 was only apparent. I observed that the difference, if only 
 apparent, was the cause of a great deal of misery. 
 
 " June 30, Sunday. ' Preached to the Ambassador's suite 
 on the " Faithful Saying." In the evening baptized his child. 
 Zachariah told me this morning that I was the town talk.' 
 Indeed Shiraz was stirred to its depth by the presence of 
 Mr. Martyn during the whole year of his stay. Men of every 
 kind, especially the learned and zealous, came singly and in 
 groups almost every day to argue and dispute against Christ. 
 Now it was a party of Armenians, now learned Jews, now a 
 prince, now a general, now the very Moojtuhid himself, the 
 professor of Mohammedan law. This great dignitary in- 
 vited Mr. Martyn to his house, where for hours he talked on 
 and on, defending his Prophet and showing his learning ; he 
 Avas greatly annoyed at any difference of opinion, and 
 decided it] was " quite useless for Mohammedans and Chris- 
 tians to argue together, as they had different languages and 
 different histories." But fearing Mr. Martyn's influence he 
 was stirred to write a defense- of his faith, which was said 
 to surpass all former treatises on Islam. He concludes it in 
 these words, addressed to Mr. Martyn : " Oh, thou that art 
 wise! consider with the eye of justice, since thou hast no 
 excuse to offer to God. Thou hast wished to see the truth 
 of miracles. "We desire you to look at the great Koran : 
 that is an everlasting miracle." Mr. Martyn replied, show- 
 ing why men are bound to reject Mohammedanism ; that 
 Mohammed was foretold by no prophet, worked no miracles,
 
 36 UFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 spread his religion by means merely human, appeals to man's 
 Jo \vest and sensual nature, that he was ambitious for himself 
 and family, that the Koran is full of absurdities and contra- 
 dictions, that it contains a method of salvation wholly ineffi- 
 cacious, sadly contrasting with the divine atonement of Jesus 
 Christ. The Prince's nephew, hearing of the attack on 
 Mohammed, said, " the proper answer to it is the sword." 
 
 Mr. Martyn writes, February 8 : " This is my birthday, on 
 which I complete my thirty-first } 7 ear. The Persian New 
 Testament has been begun and finished in it. Such a painful 
 year I never passed, owing to the privations 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 hath sent it." 
 
 The Psalms in Persian was finished by the middle of 
 March. 
 
 On the 23d Mr. Martyn writes : " I called on the Vizier. 
 In the court where he received me, Mirza Ibraheem was lec- 
 turing. Finding myself so near my old and respectable 
 antagonist, I expressed a wish to see him, on which Jaffier 
 Ali Khan went up to ascertain if my visit would be agreeable. 
 The master consented, but some of the disciples demurred. 
 At last, one of them, observing that by the blessing of God 
 on the master's conversation I might possibly be converted, 
 it was agreed that I should be invited to ascend. Then it 
 became a question where I ought to sit. Below all would 
 not be respectful to a stranger, but above all the Moollahs 
 could not be tolerated. I entered and was surprised at the 
 numbers. The room was lined with Moollahs on both sides 
 and at the top. I was about to sit down on the floor but
 
 LIFE OF HEJStBY MAETYN. 37 
 
 was beckoned to an empty place near the top, opposite to the 
 master, who, after the usual compliments, without further 
 ceremony, asked me, ' What we meant by calling Christ, 
 God \ ' War being thus unequivocally declared, I had nothing 
 to do but stand upon the defensive. Mirza Ibraheera argued 
 temperately enough; but of the rest, some were very violent 
 and clamorous. The former asked ' if Christ had ever called 
 himself God was he the Creator or a creature ? ' I replied, 
 ' The Creator.' The Moollahs looked at one another. Such 
 a confession had never before been heard among the Moham- 
 medan doctors. 
 
 " One Moollah wanted to controvert some of my illustra- 
 tions by interrogating me about the personality of Christ. 
 To all his questions I replied by requesting the same informa- 
 tion respecting his own person. To another, who was rather 
 contemptuous and violent, I said ' If you do not approve of 
 our doctrine, will you be so good as to say what God is, 
 according to you, that I may worship a proper object ? ' One 
 said, c the author of the universe.' ' I can form no idea from 
 these words,' said I, 'but of a workman at -work upon a vast 
 number of materials. Is that a correct notion ? ' Another said, 
 ' One who came of himself into being.' ' So then he came,' I 
 replied, ' out of one place into another, and before he came 
 he was not. Is this an abstract and refined notion ? ' After this 
 no one asked me any more questions, and for fear the dispute 
 should be renewed Jaffier Ali Khan carried me away." 
 
 When we think of the bigotry and intolerence of these 
 people and of Mr. Martyn's unflinching courage single-handed 
 and alone, declaring the truth and preaching Christ, exposed 
 to the greatest personal danger, contempt and insult, but 
 unabashed, he stands before the world during his Shiraz resi- 
 dence as one of the bravest and grandest heroes that has ever
 
 38 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 lived. Such a spectacle is thrilling and sublime. God was 
 with him to protect him and to inspire his magnificent con- 
 fessions. A figure-head in history ! A sight for angels and 
 for men ! 
 
 Faithful found 
 
 Among the faithless, faithful only he, 
 Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
 His loyalty he kept, his zeal, his love. 
 
 And God was with him to cheer and comfort, and \ve 
 rejoice to know that some of the scenes of his life in Shiraz 
 were quiet and restful. At one time a tent was pitched for him 
 in a garden in the suburbs of the city. 
 
 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 tran- 
 quil hour, and enjoyed many a Sabbath of holy rest and 
 divine refreshment. 
 
 He says : " Passed some days at Jaffier Ali Khan's garden 
 with Mirza Seid Ali, Aga Baba, Sheikh Abul Hassam, read- 
 ing at their request the Old Testament histories. Their 
 attention to the word and their love and respect for me 
 seemed to increase as the time for my departure approached. 
 Aga Baba, who had been reading St. Matthew, related very 
 circumstantially to the company the particulars of the death 
 of Christ. The bed of roses on which we sat and the notes 
 of the nightingales warbling around us, were not so sweet to 
 me as this discourse from the Persian." 
 
 The plain of Shiraz is covered with ancient ruins, and 
 contains the tombs of the poets Zaadi and Hafiz. 
 
 A vision of the bright Shiraz, of Persian bards the theme; 
 The vine with bunches laden hangs o'er the crystal stream; 
 The nightingale all day her notes in rosy thicket trills, 
 And the brooding heat-mist faintly lies along the distant hills.
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 39 
 
 About the plain are scattered wide in many a crumbling heap, 
 The fanes of other days, and tombs where Iran's poets sleep; 
 And in the midst, like burnished gems, in noonday light repose 
 The minarets of bright Shiraz, the City of the Rose. 
 
 One group beside the river bank in rapt discourse are seen, 
 Where hangs the golden orange on its boughs of purest green; 
 Their words are sweet and low, and their looks are lit with joy, 
 Some holy blessing seems to rest on them and their employ. 
 
 The pale-faced Frank among them sits; what brought him from afar? 
 Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches skill in war; 
 One pearl alone he brings with him the Book of life and death, 
 One warfare only teaches he, to fight the fight of faith. 
 
 And Iran's sons are round him, and one with solemn tone 
 
 Tells how the Lord of Glory was rejected by his own; 
 
 Tells from the wondrous gospel of the trial and the doom, 
 
 The words divine of love and might, the scourge, the cross, the tomb 
 
 Far sweeter to the stranger's ear these eastern accents sound, 
 Than music of the nightingale that fills the air around; 
 Lovelier than balmiest odors sent from gardens of the rose, 
 The fragrance from the contrite soul and chastened lip that flows. 
 
 The nightingales have ceased to sing, the roses' leaves are shed, 
 The Frank's pale face in Tocat's field hath mouldered with the dead; 
 Alone and all unfriended midst his Master's work he fell, 
 With none to bathe his fevered brow, with none his tale to tell. 
 
 But still those sweet and solemn tones about him sound in bliss, 
 And fragrance from those flowers of God forever more is his; 
 For his the meed, by grace, of those who rich in zeal and love, 
 Turn many unto righteousness, and shine, as stars above. 
 
 1851. HENRY ALFOKD. 
 
 On the 24th of May, after a year's residence, Mr. Martyn 
 left Shiraz, bearing his precious translation to be presented 
 to the Shah. The journey was an occasion of disappoint- 
 ment, exposure and suffering. 
 
 Arrived at the Shah's camp he says: "June 12th, 
 attended the Yizier's levee, when there was a most intemper-
 
 40 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYtf. 
 
 ate and clamorous controversy kept tip 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 met in 
 Persia or India. It would be impossible to enumerate all 
 the absurd things they said. Their vulgarity in interrupt- 
 ing me in the middle of a speech, their utter ignorance of 
 the nature of an argument, their impudent assertions about 
 the law and the gospel, neither of which they had ever seen 
 in their lives, moved my indignation. The Vizier said, ' You 
 had better say, God is God and Mohammed is the prophet of 
 God.' I said, ' God is God,' but added,?instead of ' Moham- 
 med is the prophet of God,' ' Jesus is the Son of God.' They 
 had no sooner heard this, which I had avoided bringing for- 
 ward 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 this blas- 
 phemy?' 
 
 My book which I had brought, expecting to present it to 
 the king, lay before 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, but bearing testimony to Jesus. I 
 thought over these things in prayer and found the peace 
 which Christ hath promised. To complete the trials of the 
 day a messenger came from the Vizier in the evening to say 
 that it was the custom of the king not to see any. English- 
 man unless presented by the ambassador or accredited by a
 
 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 41 
 
 letter from him, and that I must therefore wait till the king 
 reached Sultania, where the ambassador would be. 
 
 Traveling toward Tabriz he writes, June 22 : " Met with 
 the usual insulting treatment at the caravansarai when the 
 king's servant had got possession of a good room built for the 
 reception of the better order of guests; they seemed to 
 delight in the opportunity of humbling a European all 
 along the road when the king is expected the people are 
 patiently waiting as for some dreadful disaster ; plague, pes- 
 tilence or famine are nothing to the misery of being subject 
 to the violence and extortion of this rabble soldiery. 
 
 " June 26. Have eaten nothing now for two days. My 
 mind much disordered from headache and giddiness ; but 
 my heart is with Christ and His saints. 
 
 ' k June 27. Passed the third day in the same exhausted 
 state, my head tortured with shocking pains, such as, together 
 with the horror I felt at being exposed to the sun, showed 
 me plainly to what to ascribe my sickness." 
 
 Thus in great illness and suffering Mr. Martyn reached 
 Tabriz, and was nursed through a fever of two month's con- 
 tinuance at the ambassador's residence. This defeated his 
 plan of presenting the Persian New Testament to the king 
 but it was afterwards done by Sir Gore Ouseley himself, and 
 publicly received the royal approbation, and still later was 
 printed in St. Petersburg. 
 
 On leaving Cawnpore, Mr. Martyn had intended return- 
 ing to England, but had willingly remained in Persia to fin- 
 ish the translation, which being now disposed of, he reverted 
 to his original intention, and set out on his last fatal journey 
 towards Constantinople, September 2. His journal is filled 
 with expressions of gratitude for restored health, delight in 
 the scenery of Tabriz, descriptions of the country and the
 
 42 LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 journey, the Araxes river, the hoary peaks of Ararat, the 
 governor's palace, the ancient Armenian church and monas- 
 tery at Ech-Miazin, where he received great kindness from 
 the Patriarch and the monks. He was profoundly impressed 
 with the view from an elevated table-land looking out upon 
 Persia, Eussia and Turkey a Pisgah vision, which excites 
 in later missionaries a strong desire for Christian conquest. 
 Describes Cars and Erzroom. September 29, left Erzroom. 
 Was attacked with fever and ague. 
 
 " September 30. Took nothing all day but tea ; head- 
 ache and loss of appetite depressed my spirits, yet my soul 
 rests in Him who is as anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, 
 which, not seen, keeps me fast. 
 
 " October 1. Marched over a mountainous tract; we were 
 out from seven in the morning till eight at night. After sit- 
 ting 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 as your ways.' From the men who accompa- 
 nied Sir Wm. Ouseley to Constantinople I learned that the 
 plague was raging at Constantinople and thousands dying 
 every day. 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 into imminent dan- 
 ger. O Lord thy will be done ! Living or dying, remember 
 me. 
 
 " October 2. Lodged in the stables of the post-house. 
 As soon as it began to grow a little cold, the ague came on 
 and then the fever, after which I had a sleep, which let me 
 know too plainly the disorder of my frame. In the night 
 ITossan sent to summon me away, but I was quite unable to
 
 LIFE OF HENKY MAKTYN. 43 
 
 move. Finding me still in bed at the dawn he began to 
 storm furiously at my detaining him so long, but I quietly 
 let him spend his ire, ate my breakfast composedly, and set 
 out at eight. He seemed determined, to make up for the 
 delay, for we flew over hill and dale to Sherean, where we 
 changed horses. From thence we traveled all the rest of the 
 day and all night. It rained most of the time. After sun- 
 set the ague came on again, which in my wet state was very 
 trying. I hardly know how to keep my life in me. About 
 that time there was a village at hand, but Hassan had no 
 mercy. The night was pitchy dark, so that I could not see 
 the road under my horse's feet. However, God being mer- 
 cifully pleased to alleviate my bodily suffering, I went on 
 contentedly to the munzil (stopping-place). After sleeping 
 three or four hours Hassan hurried me away, and galloped 
 furiously toward a village, which he said was four hours dis- 
 distant, which was all I could undertake in my present state; 
 but village after village did he pass, till night coming on, 
 and no signs of another, I suspected he was carrying me on 
 to the munzil; so I got oif 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 dis- 
 tance, I mounted my horse and made toward 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 offen- 
 sive 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 
 Hassan and a number of others planted themselves there 
 with me. My fever here increased to a violent degree, the
 
 44 LIFE OP HENRY MARTVN. 
 
 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 senvant, who from my sitting in that 
 strange way on the ground, believed me delirious, was deaf 
 to all I said. At last I pushed my head in among the lug- 
 gage and lodged it on the damp ground and slept. 
 
 "October 5. Preserving mercy made me see the light of 
 another morning. The sleep had refreshed me but I was 
 feeble and shaken, yet the merciless Hassan hurried me off. 
 I was pretty well lodged and felt tolerably well till a little 
 after sunset, when the ague came on with a violence I had 
 never before experienced. I felt as if in a palsy, my teeth 
 chattering, and my whole frame violently shaken. Aga 
 Hosyn and another Persian on their way here from Constan- 
 tinople, came hastily to render me assistance if they could. 
 These Persians appear quite brotherly after the Turks. 
 "While they pitied me, Hassan sat in perfect indifference, 
 ruminating on the further delay this was likely to occasion. 
 The cold fit after continuing two or three hours was followed 
 by a fever, which lasted the whole night and prevented 
 sleep. 
 
 " October 6. No horses were to be had, and I had an 
 unexpected repose. Sat in the orchard and thought with 
 sweet comfort and peace of my God : in solitude my compan- 
 ion, friend and comforter. Oh, when shall time give place to 
 eternity when shall appear that new heaven and 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 of those 
 corruptions which add still more to the miseries of humanity, 
 shall be seen or heard of any more."
 
 LIFE OF HENKY MAKTYN. 45 
 
 Here abruptly closes the journal, with pantings for the 
 glory and the purity of Immanuel's land, into which he 
 was admitted by a blessed translation, released from all the 
 sufferings of life on October 16, 1812, at Tocat, Turkey. 
 The manner of his death is not known, whether it resulted 
 from the sickness described, or from the plague, then raging. 
 Whether Hassan was cruel and driving to the last, whether 
 all his heartless Turkish attendants deserted him or not in 
 his hour of final agony, we cannot tell. No relative or 
 friend was there, no tender voice of sympathy, no woman's 
 soothing hand, no alleviations from medicine. Even the 
 commonest decencies and necessities of civilized life were 
 lacking. Earth gave nothing to Henry Martyn in his mortal 
 need, but we are sure heavenly consolations were unstinted. 
 
 " Jesus can make a dying bed 
 Feel soft as downy pillows are." 
 
 And Jesus was there! And Henry Martyn was satisfied, 
 and is forever satisfied ! "Precious in the sight of the Lord 
 is the death of his saints." And the most priceless legacy of 
 the blood -bought and commissioned church is the memory of 
 a life, so gifted, so unselfish, so consecrated. 
 
 It is wanting in no element of moral heroism. Our souls 
 confess its grandeur. The contemplation lifts us into a 
 higher atmosphere than that of mammon, and self, and earth. 
 We rejoice to see a crown so rare, so fair, so precious, laid at 
 the feet of Jesus, the King. He is worthy. And we long to 
 see the youth of our land and the church inspired by Henry 
 Martyn's example, as he was inspired by David Brainerd's. 
 And so we would have the apostolic succession continued till 
 the millennium, of such as shall not count their lives dear for 
 the testimony of the gospel. 
 
 It is said that after Mr. Martyn's death one of his earliest
 
 46 UKI-: OK HKXRY MARTYN. 
 
 ami most devoted friends, the Rev. Charles Simeon, used 
 always to keep his picture before him in his study for help 
 and inspiration. " Move where he would through the apart- 
 ment, it seemed to keep its eyes upon him, and ever to say to 
 him, 'Be. earnest, be earnest; don't trifle, don't trifle,' and 
 the good Simeon would gently bow to the speaking picture, 
 and with a smile, reply, l Yes, I will; I will be in earnest, 1 
 will not trifle ; for souls are perishing and Jesus is to be 
 glorified.'" 
 
 Would that Henry Martyn's life might bring such a mes- 
 sage to every heart, and awaken in every one a similar 
 response.
 
 MISSIONARY ANNALS. 
 
 (A SERIES.) 
 
 A STORY OF 
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE, 
 
 1783 to 1818. 
 
 ELISABETH G. STRYKEB. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE NORTHWEST, 
 Room 48 McCormick Block.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
 
 BY 
 
 WOMAN'S PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF MISSIONS 
 OF THE NORTHWEST.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pag-c. 
 
 I. ANCESTRY BIRTH BOYHOOD CONVERSION. - 53 
 
 II. COLLEGE THE HAYSTACK EFFORTS TO SPREAD THE INTER- 
 EST IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. - - 58 
 
 III. OBOOKIAH IN HAWAII IN AMERICA. - C2 
 
 IV. THE SANDWICH ISLANDS WITH, AND WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. - C3 
 
 V. MILLS AT ANDOVER THE AMERICAN BOARD. - - - G8 
 
 VI. AN APOSTOLIC JOURNEY IN THE UNITED STATES. - 71 
 
 VII. MILLS' SECOND TOUR. 74 
 
 VIII. THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY THE UNITED FOREIGN MIS- 
 SIONARY SOCIETY. - 77 
 
 IX. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY MILLS, AS ITS AGENT, 
 
 VISITS AFRICA. 81 
 
 X. THE LAST JOURNEY. 86
 
 As I write, I have in my mind a row of intelligent boyish 
 faces. Manly souls look through bright eyes. My heart 
 responds to the beats of affection beneath jacket and cut-a- 
 way. 
 
 I see also a row of girlish faces, in which Christian and 
 womanly graces are dawning. I feel the warmth of pure 
 young hearts beginning to swell with generous desires. 
 
 These are my real friends. Beyond them I see rows and 
 rows of boys and girls whose sympathies and interest I 
 would gladly claim.
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 Those among us interested in the young people, the boys 
 and girls of our Churches, somewhat realize the lack of ma- 
 terial wherewith to stimulate and nourish these young work- 
 ers. The apiarist studies the nature of the insect which 
 must yield him its sweets, and discovers that " the nature of 
 the cell and the food affects the difference" in the bees. 
 We have long watched our boys and girls, and either we do 
 not care what they yield, or we are dull not to notice that 
 what surrounds them and enters into their minds, is surely 
 deciding their natures. White clover honey can only be 
 made from white clover blossoms. What they read and 
 what they may be induced to read concerns us as mission 
 workers. Individual tastes make many by-paths in the 
 field of literature, but the girls all enjoy the windings of 
 romance, and the boys delight in the highway of advent- 
 ure. " But," they say or think, " Missions, their history 
 and progress are so stupid, they have no decent heroes and 
 heroines. We like Kobinson Crusoe, and Little Women, and 
 the Arabian Nights ! " But do we not know that the stories 
 of the lives of some of our missionaries, well told, may stand 
 side by side, upon the book-shelves and in the hearts of our 
 young people, with the pages of DeFoe and Louise Alcott? 
 Many a boy and girl, charmed by the life and fortune of 
 some unreal, and oftentimes unworthy, hero, has attempted 
 to make copy in his or her own life. Missionary lives are 
 not lacking in the spirit, adventure and romance which are 
 so fascinating. With these ideals in their minds, may we 
 
 51
 
 52 PREFACE. 
 
 not expect followers of the Judsons, the Moffats, the Fiskes 
 and the Hankins ? 
 
 The writer, who has humbly undertaken to re-tell an old 
 tale, is neither a De Foe nor an Alcott. She finds she can 
 borrow neither of their pens. Her own, conscious of its in- 
 experience, finds its only relief in the fact that the story is 
 its own strength.
 
 SAMUEL J. MILLS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCESTRY BIRTH BOYHOOD CONVERSION. 
 
 OUR country is quietly enjoying the benefits of a great 
 activity. Foreign Missions are still feeling a noble im- 
 pulse, and the origin of this force was, under God, in the 
 heart and brain of Samuel J. Mills. 
 
 It is a name known to us, but a history almost forgotten. 
 Only upon the shelves of some antiquarian, or in the undis- 
 turbed library of some old homestead can a volume be found 
 bearing the title " Mills' Memoirs." Take it down, blow the 
 dust from the leaves yellow with sixty-seven years, and you 
 will find the narrative related in the stately, old-time style, 
 and somewhat laudatory and expansive. 
 
 He had no son, as Adoniram Judson had, gladly to record 
 the details of his busy life. The writer was Dr. Gardiner 
 Spring, who laments having failed in the attempt to obtain 
 what appeared to him to be important information. We are 
 thankful to him for gathering even these rare fragments. 
 
 From a sketch of Salmon Giddings, the Damon Memo- 
 rial, a letter from a relative of Mills, and the life of Henry 
 Obookiah have come a few incidents and facts, but mainly in 
 the record of Dr. Spring have we found our Story of One 
 Short Life. Such hid treasure should find the light, even 
 though quarried by unskillful hands. 
 
 Biographies are apt to seem discouraging, in the begin- 
 ning; the attention being riveted upon the supposed hero, 
 
 53
 
 54: ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 meets with a shock in finding it has been following the 
 history of his great-grandfather. The scattered energies are 
 then directed upon the grandfather, only to meet with a 
 second delay. Again recovering, and following the father's 
 fortunes, the son, the subject of the work, is at last introduced. 
 
 The great-grandfather of our hero must be brought in 
 just long enough to answer one question. He was once 
 asked, " How did you educate four sons at Yale College, 
 and give each a profession ? " His reply was, " Almighty 
 God did it, with the help of my wife." The grandfather (of 
 our hero) was drowned while some of his children were still 
 young. His widow, committing their babes to the God of 
 the fatherless, especially offered for His service, a son named 
 Samuel John. He became a minister, and for many years 
 was settled in Torringford, Connecticut. He was eminent 
 for his ability and character. Mrs. Stowesaid of him " He 
 was one ingrain New Eiiglander. Of all the marvels that 
 astonished my childhood, there is none I remember to this 
 day with so much interest as Father Mills." This was the 
 name by which he was extensively known. His wife was a 
 woman exemplary and devout. 
 
 Being assured that the three preceding generations were 
 commandment-keeping, we shall see how the Lord showed 
 mercy unto the fourth. Almighty God and a true mother 
 secure for many a man's sons, not only education, but large 
 efficiency and honor. 
 
 The seventh child, born April 21st, 1783, in this Torring- 
 ford home, was a son, named after his father, Samuel John. 
 The child grew to be a mighty instrument in God's hand, 
 which He in His wisdom selected, knowing the fineness of the 
 material with which he dealt. That we too may know some- 
 thing of the tempering of the steel, we are permitted a rever
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 55 
 
 ent glance into that pious mother's bosom. Before the birth- 
 day came she continually dedicated the little life beneath her 
 heart to the God who is pleased to accept such gifts. During 
 all his childhood he received the most careful Christian train- 
 ing. Nourished in such a home-garden, and shined on by 
 such mother-light, we cannot wonder that the child grew 
 toward the Sun, and that the roots of religious character 
 struck deep and spread wide. 
 
 When but a little child he showed an unusual concern of 
 conscience. At fifteen the town in which he lived was greatly 
 aroused and revived. His friends and acquaintances received 
 the blessing, and he was deeply interested, but the revival 
 passed, leaving him with a bitter, rebellious feeling in his 
 heart. 
 
 About this time, one fine cold winter morning, a merry 
 sleigh load drove from his father's house. He, with his 
 brothers, sisters and cousins, about eighteen in all, went to 
 spend a few days with his uncle in West Hartford. Sam- 
 uel had recently come into the possession of a fine farm, 
 lie was gay and ambitious. His companions fearing his 
 good fortune might make him feel a "little too high minded," 
 sought to tease him. The evening before their return, 
 after eating nuts and apples, they agreed to have a little 
 singing. They struck up " Hark, from the Tombs a Doleful 
 Sound," to the tune, Bangor. They sang it slowly and 
 solemnly, now and then casting at him glances from their 
 mischievous eyes. He sat a silent listener, while their song, 
 sung in fun, made an earnest impression of which he could 
 not rid himself. 
 
 Soon after his farm was sold, and at eighteen he deter- 
 mined to go to Litchfield and study in the Academy. As he 
 was leaving home, his mother's anxious heart could not let
 
 56 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 him go without enquiring for his soul's health. Other 
 mothers know the pain she suffered, when he told her " for 
 two years I have been sorry God ever made me." She 
 replied to him as her wise heart prompted her, and sent him 
 on his way. She went where all mothers of boys must so 
 often go, to her knees, alone with God. 
 
 He had not gone far on his journey when he met a Friend. 
 It was the Good Shepherd, whom that mother's urgent 
 prayer had sent searching for the wanderer. It was as if ho 
 had met Christ in his path. He looked up at the great trees 
 and down at the blossoms, and in everything saw God. He 
 became so impressed with the perfections of the Holy One 
 he had so long resisted, that he lost sight of himself. He 
 sat down in the woods to wonder and to pray. It was not 
 until some time after that he realized any change in him- 
 self, and not until he returned from Litchfield did his father 
 perceive it. His conversion was thorough. Not only was he 
 turned about, his face God- ward instead of self -ward, but 
 he was impelled toward " those sitting in darkness." In his 
 childhood, from his mother's lips, he often heard stories from 
 the lives of Brainerd, Eliot, and other missionaries. He heard 
 her prayers for them and their great undertakings. Once 
 he heard her say, " I have consecrated this child to the ser- 
 vice of God as a missionary." Now it was his joy to follow 
 those noble examples, and to fulfill his part in the plans of God 
 and his mother for him. His parents approved of his deter- 
 mination, though the thought of separation tore their hearts. 
 His mother said to him, " I cannot bear to part from you, my 
 son." When he reminded her of her vow, she burst into 
 tears, and never after made complaint. To his father he said 
 that he could " not conceive of any course of life in which to 
 pass the rest of his days, that would prove so pleasant, as to
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 57 
 
 go and communicate the gospel of salvation to the poor 
 heathen." 
 
 This desire to spread the Gospel grew to be a sublime pur- 
 pose, and from it he never wavered. He set about his plan- 
 nings, with this supreme end in view. Thanking God for his 
 own 'salvation, he laid his life in God's hand, imploring Him 
 to use it for those who had as yet no knowledge of that 
 mercy. The Lord took him from the plough, as he did 
 Elisha. He left the field for the college.
 
 58 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COLLEGE THE HAYSTACK EFFORTS TO SPREAD THE INTEREST IN FOR- 
 EIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 HE entered Williams College in the spring of 1806. Dur- 
 ing his first visit home in June, he connected himself 
 with his father's church. A college course means to some young 
 men four years of frolic, or worse. To others it is an oppor- 
 tunity to cram knowledge, that shall by-and-by astound the 
 round world and they that dwell therein. To one, at least,it was 
 the time for choosing " smooth stones " for his combat with the 
 giant adversary, whom he was brave enough to meet alone, if 
 need be, " in the name of the Lord of Hosts." 
 
 As a scholar he was not brilliant, but as a Christian he 
 was " a bright and shining light." To serve God was the 
 highest aim of his life. First of all, he served Him upon his 
 knees. He used to pray often and earnestly, alone and with 
 others. He pursued his studies for the after use he might 
 make of them, not for his own accomplishment. As he visited 
 his friends in their rooms, and walked with them through the 
 groves, the subject dearest to his heart was oftenest the 
 theme of his conversation. To one friend he said: " Though 
 you and I are very little beings, we must not rest satisfied 
 till we have made our influence extend to the remotest cor- 
 ner of this ruined world." 
 
 His life was so consistent, his disposition so sweet, his 
 manners so winning that every one was his friend. Those 
 who had been unfaithful to their vows were reproved, 
 and those opposed to religion were induced to follow his
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 59 
 
 example. During his first year there was a revival, which 
 seemed to come in answer to his earnest prayers. Many of 
 his comrades became Christians, and so earnestly that they 
 laid aside or sanctified their old ambitions, and prepared to 
 spread through the earth the fire kindled by this devoted 
 youth. 
 
 A mission band of boys were examined as to their knowl- 
 edge of Samuel Mills". " "Where was he born ? " asked the 
 leader. " Under a haystack ! " replied a small boy. Had the 
 question been, Where was the American Board of Foreign 
 Missions born ? the answer would not have been so far from 
 the way. Its baptismal naming came some years later, but 
 under a stack of hay in a meadow, near Williams College, it 
 was born, nursed and prayed over. 
 
 About fourteen years earlier foreign missionary organi- 
 ization had begun across the Atlantic. On this side, the at- 
 tention of Christians had been occupied with their new homes 
 and the needs of the destitute near at hand. There were 
 societies of domestic missions ; but no scheme to touch hands 
 God-blessed with, hands idol-cursed, had ever been devised 
 before the Lord of both put it into the heart of Mills. " God 
 called him out of the midst of the bush." The bush was 
 this haystack, but the place became " holy ground." The 
 Lord said: " I have surely seen the affliction of my people, 
 and have heard their cry." " Come now, therefore, and I 
 will send thee/' 
 
 This commission filled his soul. He gathered a few of his 
 friends in a grove, to tell them his convictions and his hopes. 
 What was his surprise and joy to find that the " Angel of the 
 Lord " had appeared to them also. A sudden thunder storm 
 came upon them here, but his retreat, his place of safety, 
 was near by. He led them under the haystack, and there
 
 CO ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 they talked together, and with God. And there they con- 
 tinued to meet through two seasons, and finally formed 
 themselves into the first Foreign Missionary Society of this 
 continent. Its object was " to effect in the persons of its 
 members a mission to the heathen." 
 
 From the spot where the haystack once stood, now rises 
 a marble shaft, bearing .aloft a globe, underneath which is in- 
 scribed : 
 
 " THE FIELD is THE WORLD." 
 "The Birthplace of American Foreign Missions, 1806." 
 
 SAMUEL J. MILLS, 
 
 JAMES RICHARDS, 
 
 FRANCIS L. BOBBINS, 
 
 HARVEY LOOMIS, 
 
 BYRAM GREEN. 
 
 At every commencement, the college president leads to 
 this monument a procession of alumni, students, and guests. 
 Prayer is offered that the spirit of missions may still prevail 
 at Williams, and that the traditions of the past may be 
 maintained. 
 
 In these years public opinion was decidedly opposed to 
 the enterprise of these young men. Even good men thought 
 their zeal extravagant and expected it soon to subside. In 
 order to arouse sympathy and a right sentiment, they de- 
 vised various means. They discussed their projects with 
 Christian people. The} 7 distributed missionary sermons. A 
 list was made of the names of distinguished ministers, to 
 whom these young men made frequent visits, urging their 
 suit. Among them, the first to take fire, was Dr. Worcester. 
 With one of them, Dr. Griffin, Mills asked to be permitted 
 to study theology. Said the Doctor: " I had always refused
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 61 
 
 such applications, but from the love I bore to him, I agreed 
 to criticise one sermon a week. After that exercise he would 
 commonly sit and draw letters very moderately and cauti- 
 ously from his pocket, reading passages to me on some be- 
 nevolent project. At length I perceived that studying 
 divinity with me had been quite a secondary object, that his 
 chief object was to get me engaged to execute his plans. As 
 soon as I discovered that, I told him to bring out his letters 
 and all his plans, without reserve." 
 
 Mills became convinced that they could not expect help 
 from the Churches unless the number was increased of young 
 men ready to devote their lives to this cause. He and his 
 friends then separated for the purpose of establishing socie- 
 ties in other colleges. Mills went to Yale, hoping there to 
 find kindred spirits. This was not the case, but God had 
 sent him for another purpose, and that to know Obookiah, a 
 heathen boy from the Sandwich Islands. This acquaintance 
 greatly increased his zeal. 
 
 Sometimes a little seed, wafted by the wind, is borne far 
 from its mother plant to take root in a foreign soil : but its 
 fruit may be returned whence it came. This little lonely 
 heathen child, blown by seemingly cruel and adverse winds, 
 was tossed upon our Christian shores by the good hand of 
 God. The ship which brought him touched other and idol- 
 atrous lands, but he was not to put his feet down till they 
 could be planted in the right place. 
 
 That his life touched Mills' life, both being quickened, is 
 perhaps reason enough forgiving here a portion of Obookiah's 
 history and that of his native land, if there were not 
 another reason, and that the opportunity, here afforded, of 
 following a stream of influence to its sea.
 
 62 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OBOOKIAn IN HAWAII, IN AMERICA. 
 
 HENRY OBOOKIAH was born in Hawaii, about the 
 year 1Y92. "When about twelve years old, two parties 
 contending for dominion, disturbed the peace of the island. 
 He alone survived the persecution of his family. He was 
 captured and carried home by the man who killed his parents, 
 but finally made his way to an uncle. Though he was well 
 treated, he suffered from loneliness. He said of himself, 
 " "When I was at play with other children, after we had 
 made an end of playing, they return to their parents : but I 
 was returned into tears, for I have no home, neither father 
 nor mother. Poor boy am I." 
 
 He determined to go to some other country, and forget 
 his sorrow. The captain of an American vessel showed him 
 kindness, and consented to take him on board. He brought 
 him to America, and took him to his own home in New 
 Haven. Henry was a clumsy, stupid-looking boy at this 
 time, his appearance not revealing the undeveloped depths 
 of his nature. He made the acquaintance of some of the 
 students at Yale College, and of the Rev. E. "W. D wight. 
 These friends becoming interested in his welfare, offered to 
 teach him. He accepted their aid with avidity, and made 
 wonderful progress, at the same time becoming more and 
 more lovable and attractive. 
 
 A fun-loving disposition soon showed itself. Be h;ul 
 great difficulty in pronouncing the letter r, giving it the 
 sound of I. Every day his teacher tried to help him, saying,
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 63 
 
 " try, Obookiah, it is very easy" This seemed to amuse the 
 boy greatly, though as yet he could not express himself 
 in English. Some time after, when he could speak more 
 readily, he was describing to his teacher some of the cus- 
 toms of his native land. Clasping his hands together, and 
 adjusting his thumbs, he formed a cup which he raised to 
 his lips to show how his countrymen drank from a spring. 
 His instructor tried to do the same, but before he could 
 reach his mouth with his hands the cup would be inverted 
 so that the contents, had there been any, would have been 
 spilled. Obookiah laughed heartil" and said, " try, Mr. 
 D wight, it is very easy ! " 
 
 One day he mimicked the gait of some of his friends so 
 cleverly, that there was no mistaking whom he intended to 
 personate. His teacher then mocked his own awkward 
 style, when he exclaimed several times: "me walk so?" 
 Being assured that it was true, he rolled upon the floor until 
 his mirth exhausted his strength. 
 
 After being instructed about the true God, idol worship 
 seemed to him ridiculous. He said, " Hawaii gods ! They 
 wood, burn. Me go home, put 'em in a fire, burn 'em up. 
 They no see, no hear, no anything." Then added, "We make 
 them. Our God," looking up, " He make us." 
 
 After Mr. Mills arrived in New Haven he became a 
 friend of Mr. Dwight's, and being often in his room, occa- 
 sionally heard this boy recite. He became greatly attached 
 to him, and began to cherish a plan for his future. He 
 wanted to see Obookiah a Christian, educated, and then a 
 missionary to his native land. 
 
 One evening Mr. Mills had not been long in Mr. Dwight's 
 room, when Obookiah came in with a very gloomy face. 
 He said he had no place to live ; Mr. did'nt want him
 
 C4 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 any more, and Miss had threatened to take away his 
 
 new clothes. Mr. Mills told him he would take him to his 
 own home, and that he had clothes enough for both. This 
 cheered the poor, disconsolate fellow, who soon went with 
 Mr. Mills to Torringford, and was placed under the " care of 
 those whose benevolence was without a bond or check, or a 
 limit to confine it." Here he spent a part of the year 1810, 
 and was treated wisely and affectionately. Mrs. Mills 
 taught him the Catechism, and her son Jeremiah assisted 
 him in his studies. At different times, and frequently, their 
 house was his home. 
 
 He became gentle and refined in his manner, a Bible-lov- 
 ing, earnest, prayerful Christian. His friends who had been 
 so careful in the training of his mind and heart, had not 
 neglected his hands. He was taught much that was useful 
 and practical, particularly in farming. He surprised all by 
 the quickness and eagerness with which he learned. He was 
 both inquisitive and acquisitive to a remarkable degree. He 
 persisted in knowing and getting, that he might impart what 
 he had gained to his own countrymen. To return to them 
 for their enlightenment, was his consuming desire. 
 
 He visited many families, and many of the churches of 
 New England, always creating a deep interest in his mission. 
 Many people who had affirmed that the heathen could never 
 be reclaimed from their low estate, were forced to change 
 their opinions after seeing and knowing Obookiah, and were 
 inspired to pray and give for his and other unevangelized 
 races. 
 
 The presence of Obookiah in this country, as well as of 
 other heathen youth, together with the desire to educate 
 some of our own Indians, led to the formation of the Foreign 
 Mission School, at Cornwall, Mass. This school was under
 
 ONE SHOIiT LIFE. 65 
 
 the care of the American Board ten years. Its pupils were 
 from many different nations. In 1826 it was discontinued, 
 for by this time the missions were able to educate the young 
 at their several stations. 
 
 Obookiah was pursuing his studies here, when, in the be- 
 ginning of the year 1818, he was stricken with typhus fever, 
 and suffered several weeks. On the 17th of February, 1818, 
 he shook hands with all his companions present, and with 
 perfect composure addressed to them the parting salutation 
 of his native language, "Alloaho e" "my love be with 
 you." 
 
 Mrs. Stone, in whose house he died, and who cared for 
 him with Christian kindness during his sickness, said, " This 
 had been one of the happiest and most profitable periods of 
 her life ; that she had been more than rewarded for her cares 
 and watch ings by day and night, in being permitted to wit- 
 ness his excellent example, and to hear his godly conversa- 
 tion." 
 
 Almost immediately after his death, missionaries, inspired 
 by his life, hastened to accomplish his cherished purpose, the 
 establishment of a mission in the Sandwich Islands. Mills 
 was far from home, but returning at the time, not knowing 
 Obookiah had died, he said to a friend, " If it please God that 
 I may arrive safely, I think that I shall take Obookiah and go 
 to the Sandwich Islands and there I will end my life." 
 
 From that day to this, missionaries and missions, schools, 
 churches and Christians have multiplied, till all those islands 
 name the name of Christ.
 
 Co ONE SHOET LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SANDWICH ISLES WITH AND WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 
 
 " Surely the isles shall wait for me." 
 
 r~T! HE missionaries found upon these islands naked savages, 
 I without books, education, or courts of justice. The peo- 
 ple were slaves, governed arbitrarily by chiefs. It was a nation 
 of debauchees, thieves and drunkards. There were no mar- 
 riage laws. Two-thirds of the children born were destroyed. 
 If an infant was ailing or troublesome, the mother scooped a 
 hole in the ground, covered the child with earth and tram- 
 pled out its life. The aged and infirm were taken to the 
 brow of a precipice and pushed over. The sick were removed 
 to such a distance that their groans could not annoy, and left 
 to die. The insane were stoned to death. 
 
 God opened the way for the missionaries by a revolution 
 which did away with idolatry, but did nothing for the up- 
 lifting of society. Some of the noblest specimens of our 
 American manhood have devoted their lives to these deso- 
 late, far-away creatures. The mention of one will suffice as 
 a sample of the salt that purified those bitter and filthy 
 waters. 
 
 When he stepped on shore at Hilo, in 1832, it was to stay 
 till his work was finished and he lived beyond the three 
 score and ten. Such a life is a rebuke to the restlessness of 
 many modern Avorkers. For forty-two years he labored pa. 
 tiently in pressing himself and what he knew upon Hawaiian 
 youth nearly a thousand in all many of whom are now 
 pastors, leading lawyers, men of affairs, missionaries to Mi-
 
 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 67 
 
 cronesia, and the men who stand for righteousness in the 
 native churches. Great events and advances in science were 
 exciting his native land, but he worked on, struggling for 
 things unseen and eternal. Amid uninspiring surroundings, 
 and performing many menial duties, he led a high spiritual 
 and intellectual life, not seeking honor, but service thereby 
 gaining honor, and the " rest that remaineth." 
 
 As for the results of such consecration, wisdom and work, 
 the facts are a marvel in history. Any prophecy in regard 
 to them would have been thought a wild dream. These 
 islanders have taken their place among the Christian nations. 
 Marriage is considered honorable, the family established, as 
 well as schools, churches and a government, whose constitu- 
 tion ordains that " no law shall be enacted at variance with 
 the word of the Lord Jehovah, or with the general spirit of 
 His word." 
 
 In proportion to the population, there are more readers 
 than in Boston. The proportion of true Christians is as great 
 as anywhere in Christendom. They are decently clad, their 
 homes are comfortable, even sometimes going so far as to 
 possess a melodeon and a sewing-machine! They have pro- 
 gressed in agriculture, commerce, the industries, literature 
 and the arts. It is a regenerated nation. 
 
 The American Board has erased this mission from its 
 list and transferred all responsibility to the Hawaiian Evan- 
 gelical Association.
 
 68 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 MILLS AT ANDOVEU THE AMEBICAN BOARD. 
 
 FROM Yale College, Mills went to Andover to study 
 theology. Soon after entering, his dear mother died- 
 His grief was passionate. He mourned for the loss of her 
 face, her voice, her prayers, but not as one " without hope." 
 
 At Andover he met some of his former friends, and 
 found new ones whose hearts the Lord had stirred Newell, 
 Judson, Nott, Hall, Mills ! Names to shout at the sleeping 
 saints of this our day ! Lives to uphold to the view of our 
 self-pleasing generation ! These men organized a second 
 missionary society, similar to the one at Williams. They 
 met to pray and plan. Their prayers were answered and 
 their plans resulted in the formation of the American Board 
 of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
 
 If the objections made to their plans were here rehearsed, 
 the arguments would sound very familiar; they are the 
 same, in spite of their repeated death-blows, that array them- 
 selves against the plan of missions to-day. The assailants 
 of this cause are not students of history. There is no such 
 thing as opposition, or even indifference, to Christian mis- 
 sions, unless there is ignorance behind it. 
 
 These young men succeeded in gaining the sympathy 
 and alliance of some of the prominent pastors, and the pro- 
 fessors in the seminary. To the annual meeting of the Gen- 
 eral Association of Massachusetts, at Bradford, June 27, 
 1810, they presented the following paper : 
 
 The undersigned, members of the Divinity College, respectfully re-
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 69 
 
 quest the attention of- their Reverend Fathers, convened in the General 
 Association at Bradford, to the following statement and inquiries: 
 
 They beg leave to state, that their minds have been long impressed 
 with the duty and importance of personally attempting a mission to the 
 heathen; that the impressions on their minds have induced a serious, and 
 they trust a prayerful, consideration of the subject in its various attitudes, 
 particularly in relation to the probable success and the difficulties attending 
 such an attempt; and that after examining all the information which they 
 can obtain, they consider themselves as devoted to this work for life, when- 
 ever God in his providence shall open the way. 
 
 They now offer the following inquiries, on which they solicit the 
 opinion and advice of the association. Whether, with their present views 
 and feelings, they ought to renounce the object of missions, as visionary 
 and impracticable; if not, whether they ought to direct their attention to 
 the Eastern or Western world? Whether they may expect patronage and 
 support from a missionary society in this country, or must commit them. 
 selves to the direction of a European society; and what preparatory meas- 
 ures they ought to take previous to actual engagement ? 
 
 The undersigned, feeling their youth and inexperience, look up to 
 their fathers in the church and respectfully solicit their advice, direc- 
 tion and prayers. 
 
 ADONIKAM JUDSON JR. 
 
 SAMUEL NOTT JR. 
 
 SAMUEL J. MILLS. 
 
 SAMUEL NEWELL. 
 
 The names of Eice and Kichards were struck off " for fear , , 
 of alarming the Association with too large a number." \ 
 
 This paper was referred to a special committee, who 
 indorsed the sentiment and submitted a plan to the associa- 
 tion, which was carried into effect by the appointment of a 
 Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
 
 After much exertion and inquiry at home, Judson was 
 sent to England to learn if help could be expected from the 
 London Missionary Society. He found that society willing 
 to take the young men under its care and support, but not 
 ready to assist the new Board. 
 
 The American society soon received aid within its own
 
 70 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 boundaries, which was a far better beginning than to be de- 
 pendent upon outside resources. Mrs. Mary jSTorris, the wife 
 of one of the founders of Andover Seminary, bequeathed thirty 
 thousand dollars to the Board. God's Spirit generally revived 
 the churches, opening the eyes and hearts of His people, 
 their purses as well, though not many of the latter were 
 well filled in those days. 
 
 God only has a full record of the anxious courage and 
 faith which was exercised by the supporters, managers, 
 and appointees of the Board during those first struggling 
 years. Under the care of this board Mills and his friends 
 placed themselves, and by it most of them were sent out in 
 the year 1812.
 
 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 71 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 AN APOSTOLIC JOURNEY IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 FROM the first throb of his Christian life, the heart of 
 Mills beat like a soldier's. He called out the recruits, 
 captained the forces, and died in service a hero ! In his 
 student days he had a compelling influence upon his class- 
 mates, and even then showed signs of generalship in his 
 faculty of organizing. The establishment of the Foreign 
 Mission School was largely consequent upon his suggestions ; 
 in the formation of the American Board he was one of the 
 foremost personal instruments. 
 
 Studies finished, his heart firm in his lofty purpose, high- 
 born schemes began their struggling claim for his attention. 
 The world with all its lands stretching their help-beckoning 
 fingers, was persuading him. Over the home land, his and 
 ours, he turned his penetrating glance. He saw occasion 
 for vast concern, and here was his first response. To go 
 first, opening the way for others through the tangled wil- 
 derness, was his design, his master-plot. That " divine fer- 
 ment " at Williams College worked the good of home, as 
 well as of foreign, missions. 
 
 Having chosen a companion-spy, the Rev. John Scher- 
 merhorn, soon after his graduation in 1812, he went to view 
 a goodly land, which he desired to have the people of God 
 go up and possess. This tour was undertaken under the 
 patronage of the Connecticut and Massachusetts Home Mis- 
 sionary Societies. Heretofore these societies had prayed 
 and wept over young missionaries sent to the uncivilized
 
 72 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 wilds of Western New York ! The plan of Mills and Scher- 
 merhorn was to travel through the wide territory lying 
 between the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, to learn -the 
 moral condition of the inhabitants, and scatter what good 
 they might. 
 
 The map of this region, as published in Morse's school 
 atlas of 1823, is curiously different from the maps of the 
 present day. The state and territorial lines have been 
 altered, those green, pink, and yellow blanks have become 
 densely freckled and wrinkled, by the dots of cities and 
 towns, and by the complicated tracery of railroads. 
 
 These travelers did not telegraph their intended arrival, 
 nor sleep and dine their way to their journey's end, on the 
 " Flyer," and then rest in some palatial hotel at last. Each 
 mounted his horse, taking with them by way of baggage 
 all that was necessary for the trip, tent, provisions, cloth- 
 ing and Bibles. They plodded through miry swamps, they 
 climbed up and down almost perpendicular ledges, and cut 
 their way through canebrakes with a hatchet. When they 
 had creeks to cross they swam their horses. At night they 
 camped, often in the rain and sometimes without food. 
 More than once they were serenaded by Indian war-whoops 
 and the howling wolves. Stopping at town or settlement 
 they were made cordially at home in hut and cabin. In 
 some places they perceived bright prospects, the germs of 
 future cities, and were often urgently besought to stay and 
 preach the gospel permanently. 
 
 They found everywhere the Sabbath profaned, only a 
 few good people in any one place, and Bibles rare posses- 
 sions. In some places the people were longing for the Gos- 
 pel. In all the leading towns they formed Bible societies, 
 and everywhere preached and distributed Bibles, which were 
 gladly received.
 
 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 73 
 
 From Nashville they went down the Cumberland and 
 Mississippi with General Jackson and fifteen hundred volun- 
 teers. In New Orleans they gained the consent of Bishop 
 DeBury to distribute the Scriptures in French to the French 
 Romanists, who made up three-fourths of the population of 
 the state. They found no Protestant church in the city. 
 They here organized a Bible society, and remained several 
 weeks to preach and to hold prayer-meetings.
 
 74: ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 MILLS' SECOND TOUB. 
 
 IN the year 1814 Mr. Mills having obtained the assistance 
 of some of the eastern Bible societies, and having cho- 
 sen as companion the Kev. Daniel Smith, started on another 
 tour through the South and West. They went laden with 
 Bibles and the prayers of Christian friends. They went 
 through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. 
 In all these states they found the people "exceedingly desti- 
 tute of religious privileges," and a "lamentable want of 
 Bibles and missionaries." They found " American families 
 who never saw a Bible, or heard of Jesus Christ." There 
 was only one minister to ten thousand people if equally 
 placed ; but there were districts containing from twenty to 
 fifty thousand " without a preacher." These men were light- 
 bringers to this " valley of the shadow of death," as Mills 
 called it. They found English soldiers, French Romanists, 
 colored slaves, our own dear countrymen, greedy for the 
 bread of life. 
 
 They traveled more than six thousand miles ; they passed 
 through a variety of climates ; they endured " perils in the 
 city, perils of the wilderness, perils on the rivers and on the 
 sea," that they might cast that bread upon the waters which 
 you and I are finding after many days. 
 
 Mills arrived for the second time in New Orleans, soon 
 after the celebrated battle of January 8, 1815, and cheered 
 many hearts by his coming. lie visited the soldiers in 
 prison, the sick and wounded in the hospitals ; kneeling on
 
 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 75 
 
 the bare floor where they lay, he prayed and talked with 
 them, sang for them, and gave them Bibles ; he preached in 
 camp. The Philadelphia society had given him a quantity 
 of French Bibles. The people were clamorous for them. 
 They thronged the distributor's door, and remained even after 
 the notice had been given that no more could be had until 
 the following day. They came sometimes from great 
 distances. In one week a thousand copies were given away. 
 In one instance a Romish priest assisted in this work. The 
 bishop acknowledged the deplorable state of the people, and 
 preferred their having the Protestant version to none at all. 
 
 When these adventurers in Christ's kingdom visited St. 
 Louis, they found it a place of two thousand inhabitants, 
 " a tumble-down French village, built mainly of wooden 
 slabs and poles set vertically, and well daubed with mortar 
 mixed with straw, though there were many log houses." 
 In a school-room they delivered the first Presbyterian or 
 Congregational sermons ever preached on the west side of 
 the Mississippi. They were gratefully received, and had 
 crowded audiences. The people would gladly have supported 
 either one could he have stayed. 
 
 But the immediate duty of these explorers for souls was 
 to return to the churches which had sent them out, to report 
 what they had discovered, and to beg that men be sent to 
 these waste places which were waiting to be made to blos- 
 som. All New England was roused to effort by their appeal, 
 and the next year ten or twelve men responded to the 
 summons. 
 
 In 1848 the word "gold" was whispered in California 
 and heard all over the world. The gold-hunters pressed for- 
 ward from every corner of the earth. It was not thought 
 a hard thing to turn one's back on home, friends and country,
 
 Y6 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 for the sake of gold, though that glittering promise was, to 
 most of those who searched, like the bag at the end of the 
 rainbow, and all the riches of this world " make themselves 
 wings." "The promises of God are sure/' and the riches 
 which He bestows are everlasting ; and yet to the call, gold 
 and glory, young men answer by the thousand, while to the 
 cry, Christ and a crown, they respond by the dozen! 
 " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve."
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY THE UNITED FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 DUKING these two missionary journeys the heart of our 
 apostle was swelling with the woes of the sin-bound, 
 and his brain contriving for their release. Upon his return he 
 settled in New York state, and spent two busy years in work- 
 ing out his purposes. While waiting for their maturity he was 
 m jst of the time in the large cities, particularly New York. 
 Here he spent what might have been leisure, in visiting 
 the poor in the neglected districts. He also wrote many 
 letters; and in the churches, and every where, and upon every- 
 body, urged attention to the world's great needs, and their 
 great duties. As the result of this planning, waiting and 
 working, he was permitted to see formed the American Bible 
 Society, and the United Foreign Missionary Society. On 
 the subject of city evangelization, he advanced ideas which 
 we at this striving time might well study. 
 
 The entire destitution of religious privileges which Mills 
 had witnessed in the West and South, and the great desire of 
 the people for the word of God, with their inability to supply 
 themselves, made him eager for the formation of a National 
 Bible Society, which should be large enough and strong 
 enough to supply such great want. He had some hope of 
 having the matter brought out at the general assembly of 
 the Presbyterian church ; but it was thought best to have it 
 come about through the existing Bible societies, rather than 
 have it bear the features of any denomination. 
 
 The matter was kept constantly before influential peo-
 
 78 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 pie by this indefatigable man, and at last on the 8th of 
 May, 1816, delegates from the different Bible societies of 
 the United States convened in New York city, and resolved 
 unanimously " to establish, without delay, a General Bible 
 Institution, for the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, with- 
 out note or comment." Before closing their sessions a con- 
 stitution was adopted, managers elected, and an address 
 issued to the people of the United States, informing them of 
 the project, and inviting their sympathy and cooperation in 
 this benevolent scheme. 
 
 This was a great day to Mills, and those who saw him, 
 sitting apart, watching with intense eagerness the delibera- 
 tions of the convention, long remembered his delighted face. 
 But how must the resources and usefulness of this society 
 have exceeded even his fond hopes ! 
 
 As its first depository, it shared the office room of its 
 agent. From time to time it was forced to move to larger 
 quarters, until the year 1853, when it located permanently, 
 in its well-known building, The Bible House, on Astor Place, 
 New York city. This edifice is of brick, six stories high, 
 and occupies a solid block. In its first year, the society 
 received $37,779, and issued 6,410 volumes ; in its seventieth 
 year (1886) its receipts were $523,910, and it issued 1,437,440 
 volumes. In the Bible House, the working force manu- 
 facturing and executive numbers about 250. The auxili- 
 aries which directly and indirectly center in this society, 
 number about 7,000. 
 
 From this great tree and its many branches, the leaves 
 have been sent for the healing of nations. There are now but 
 few countries where there are any impediments to the free 
 circulation of the Scriptures. In our own land the society 
 has afforded relief to its feeble auxiliaries, has supplied des
 
 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 79 
 
 titute Sabbath-schools, has endeavored to place the Bible in 
 the common schools, to distribute it among soldiers and sea- 
 men, to furnish hotels, steamboats, railroads, and humane 
 and criminal institutions. By it, the Bible has been circu- 
 lated among immigrants, the destitute poor, the freedmen, 
 the Chinese, and (in the Douay version) among Komanists. 
 At four different periods the society has made exploration 
 among the states and territories, to search and supply the 
 destitute. Proportionately the number of families without 
 the word of God is much smaller now than when the society 
 was organized, notwithstanding the enormous growths in 
 population. 
 
 The society has attempted to send the Bible to all the 
 inhabitants of the earth, accessible to its agents. It has 
 established depots in almost every place where the American 
 churches have missions. It circulates the Scriptures in more 
 than eighty different languages and dialects. In 1856, in 
 compliance with a special request, and by means of a special 
 gift, the Society's Imperial Quarto English Bible, bound with 
 extraordinary care, enclosed in a rosewood case, and ac- 
 companied by a courteous letter, was sent to each of the 
 reigning monarchs and other chief magistrates of the world. 
 
 Before the art of printing, the Bible was the most expen- 
 sive book in the world. So late as the American Revolution, 
 in its cheapest edition a volume could not be purchased for 
 less than two dollars. This society now furnishes a copy 
 of the entire book for twenty-five cents. It has made the 
 Bible the cheapest book in the world. 
 
 Mills, anxious to see every wheel set in motion for the 
 advancement of Christ's kingdom, was restless because of the 
 inaction of the Presbyterian church in the cause of Foreign 
 Missions; again by his personal influence upon prominent
 
 80 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 men, another plan was matured. A committee was appointed 
 by the General Assembly to confer with committees from the 
 Dutch and Scotch churches, and a new society was formed, 
 called the United Foreign Missionary Society. After a few 
 years of efficient service this society was merged with the 
 American Board, yielding to it its name and affairs. 
 
 While so busy with these schemes just referred to, Mr. 
 Mills was collecting all possible information in regard to 
 South America. He desired to have the way opened for a 
 mission in that country, and was willing to go himself to 
 make the needed investigations. But it was seven years 
 later when the American Board sent the first men to that 
 field. 
 
 In spite of these great enterprises, which must have been 
 so absorbing of time and energy, this busy man found oppor- 
 tunity and strength to search out the squalid back streets of 
 New York, and to go from house to house of its wretched 
 inhabitants, giving sympathy, speaking words of Christian 
 love and instruction, and where they would receive them 
 leaving the word of God and good books.
 
 ONE SHOKT LIFE. 81 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY MILLS, AS ITS AGENT, VISITS APBICA. 
 
 A BRAHAM LINCOLN, when a young man, made a 
 J~\ journey into the South. Of all the impressions 
 which those new scenes made upon him, the one deepest 
 and strongest was that of slavery. It filled him with loath- 
 ing, but kindled a zeal which never slumbered, until it cost 
 his priceless life. 
 
 It was such a spark which became a fire in the oreast of 
 Mills. What he saw and what he heard, during those south- 
 ern tours, made him a willing martyr for the sake of Africa's 
 sons and daughters. Their degradation made him ready to 
 endure all things if only he could pierce the black cloud 
 overshading them. His first effort resulted in a school, 
 called the African School, for training young colored men to 
 teach and preach to their own race. He then lent essential 
 aid in the formation of the American Colonization Society. 
 
 This society was composed of noble-minded men whose 
 pitying attention was fastened upon the bondage, afflictions 
 and heathenism of their black brothers, in this so called free 
 land. 
 
 Their aim was to furnish a refuge, in their own country, 
 for those who were emancipated here, and it was their hope 
 that such a scheme would do much toward the abolition of 
 slavery. 
 
 Their first effort was the collection of information : first, 
 in regard to the condition of the slave here, that they might 
 enlist general sympathy in their work. In a letter written 
 6
 
 82 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 by Mr. Mills about this matter, he said : " State facts. 
 Facts will always produce an effect, at least on pious minds. 
 You can easily possess yourself of facts, the bare recital of 
 which will make the heart bleed." From the extensive ob- 
 servations he had made in the South, and by having the 
 subject so long in his mind, he was very ready to " state 
 facts," and did so in every time and place. The informa- 
 tion needed, in the second place, by the society was in re- 
 gard to a suitable location for the colony, and the methods 
 which would be required to obtain it. Mr. Mills was made 
 their agent. 
 
 He chose as a colleague, to share his responsibility, the 
 Eev. Mr. Burgess. After some months of preparation they 
 left America, planning to visit England first for information 
 and assistance and then Africa, for the accomplishment of 
 their errand. 
 
 His father says of the "good-bye" which he bade him, 
 at the time, that " he enjoyed peculiar peace of mind, com- 
 mitting himself entirely to the guidance and protection of 
 the Almighty." He, who had endured so many hardships 
 for Christ's sake, knew in whom he trusted. 
 
 After about two weeks' sailing, they encountered a fear- 
 ful storm and had need of all their faith. The wind blew 
 furiously for thirty-six hours. The captain ordered the 
 masts cut away and the decks cleared. He remained on 
 deck, calmly giving orders, until they were driven almost 
 upon a ledge of rocks. Despairing of any safety in the 
 ship, he abandoned her, taking his children with him in a 
 small boat. Some of those left on board the ship, in their 
 agony of peril, were in the cabin, beseeching the mercy of 
 Him who rules the violent sea. Others were on deck, where 
 Mr. Burgess, praying aloud, commended their souls to God.
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 83 
 
 All unexpectedly, a counter current bore them into deeper 
 water, past the rocks. All exclaimed, " It is the work of 
 God ! " A gloomy night they spent tossing on the sea, but 
 in the morning quiet came. The mate assumed control, and 
 by using what crippled forces they could command, they 
 found their way to a harbor of France. 
 
 From there they proceeded to London. They were cor- 
 dially received by a number of distinguished men and offic- 
 ials. Among them Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Zachary 
 Macauly, the former governor of Sierra Leone, who intro- 
 duced them to the Duke of Gloucester. They met every- 
 where with Christian sympathy, and the kindest offers of 
 service. Having obtained letters to the governors of colonies 
 in Africa, they left England for the west coast, February 3, 
 1818. 
 
 This voyage was a pleasant one, and brought them in 
 about thirty days to the mouth of the Gambia. They 
 anchored near the village of St. Mary's, and went to inspect 
 this and other settlements. They made the acquaintance of 
 the governors and the Europeans, everywhere gathering 
 useful and pertinent facts. 
 
 They proceeded south, visiting towns and villages, and 
 calling upon the kings and head men. On these occasions 
 they were received in the "palaver house," by the chiefs 
 arranged in true African style, regardless of taste. One was 
 described as wearing "a silver-laced coat, a superb three- 
 cornered hat, blue-bafta trousers, considerably the worse for 
 wear, and no stockings or shoes." The insignia of royalty 
 were a silver-headed cane in one hand, a horse-tail in the 
 other. Before the palaver could go on, the hosts must re- 
 ceive presents, and as their guests had oftenest been slave 
 traders, rum and tobacco had become essentials.
 
 84 ONE SHORT LIFE. 
 
 By means of interpreters they made known their friendly 
 feelings, and that they had come from America. " That 
 wise and good men had agreed to help the black people who 
 wished to come to this country ; that the design was a good 
 one, and would promote the best interests of the black peo- 
 ple both in America and Africa; that if they would sell or 
 give tracts of their unimproved lands, the people who came 
 would introduce more knowledge of the arts and agriculture, 
 would buy such things as they had to sell, and would sell to 
 them such things as they wanted;" that the children were 
 to be educated ; that they had come as messengers of peace 
 and good tidings, bringing no weapons in their hands that 
 they did not desire war. 
 
 They found that African kings knew the art of being 
 slothful in business. They seemed to have no idea of 
 dispatch, but would talk for hours without coming to the 
 point. In general their reception was cordial, and, in some 
 instances, more than that. Land was offered them in five 
 different places. Their greatest obstacle was the unsavory 
 reputation of the white men who had preceded them, the 
 slave-traders and merchants, men who had been gross,violent 
 and rapacious. One of the natives who saw Mr. Mills and 
 Mr. Burgess in prayer, said he "never knew before that 
 white men'prayed ! " 
 
 They found that the natives would not be unwilling to 
 give up their superstitions, and were gratified at the pros- 
 pect of education for their children ; that they would be glad 
 to have God's word, and the pure religion it teaches. One 
 old man with white hair and beard, wished for this good time 
 to come at once ; he wanted to know more about God's book 
 before he died. 
 
 The observations and inquiries which had been so consci-
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 85 
 
 entiously made by the agents, enabled them to report to 
 thei r society that the project was both practicable and expedi- 
 ent. After due consideration of the instructions and recom- 
 mendations of experienced foreigners, and the details of 
 exploration, which this report furnished them, the society 
 thought it most wise to proceed with the undertaking. 
 
 After seeking needed individual and governmental aid, 
 and perfecting so far as possible the organization, the first 
 colony was sent to Africa in 1820. They endured the dis- 
 couraging vicissitudes which are generally incident to new 
 settlements, and in a few years success seemed certain. 
 
 In 1847 LIBERIA became an established free republic. 
 The constitution is modeled upon our own.
 
 86 ONE SHOBT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LAST JOURNEY BRIG "SUCCESS," FRIDAY, MAY 22, 1818- 
 
 6 6 ^VTT E nave taken an affectionate leave of the clergy- 
 
 V V men, the civil officers, and the colonists of Sierra 
 
 Leone. We are embarked for the United States, by way 
 
 of England ; and the continent of Africa recedes from our 
 
 I view." 
 
 This is the last entry in Mills' journal. Three months 
 had been spent in Africa ; months of unsparing toil, under 
 a scorching sun, amid depressing pagan scenes. But the 
 undertaking had been reasonably successful, and tired bodies 
 had been upheld by grateful hearts. 
 
 On shipboard once more, with faces turned homeward, 
 opportunity came for fatigue to assert itself. The strength 
 of Mills, never great at the best, began to fail. A deep 
 spirituality, which had possessed him through all the jour- 
 ney, grew stronger and stronger. And as they were wafted, 
 day by day, nearer home, it became evident that his spirit, 
 too, was nearing its desired haven. Fever burned his body; 
 but at last eternal health claimed his soul. Under a glow- 
 ing sunset, he was buried, to wait until the sea surrenders 
 its dead. 
 
 The one great desire of his life, " to sit in some quiet 
 corner and teach the perishing," was unfulfilled ; but God 
 through him had sent, and yet sends, many teachers to many 
 far corners. 
 
 Thirty-five years, only, of mortal life was allotted him 
 in which to accomplish so much ; yet it was time enough,
 
 ONE SHORT LIFE. 87 
 
 not because of his uncommon gifts, but because he knew the 
 secret of well doing. He did not attempt to be the origin 
 the source, but gloried in being the channel through which 
 God poured His great thoughts. No time was lost by 
 obstructions ; the dredge that kept the channel free was 
 prayer private, social, public, constant prayer, not for him- 
 self, but for God's glory. 
 
 THE END.
 
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