  CAWNPORE, 1809-1810 Mrs. Sherwood, known in the first decade of this century as a writer of such Anglo-Indian tales as Little Henry and his Bearer, and as a philanthropist who did much for the white and the dark orphans of British soldiers in India, was one of the many who came under the influence of Henry Martyn. This Lichfield girl, whose father had been the playmate of Samuel Johnson, and who had known Garrick and Dr. Darwin, Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth, had married her cousin, the paymaster of the King’s 53rd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was sent to Bengal. On its way up the Hoogli from Calcutta in boats, Mr. Sherwood and his wife were walking after sunset, when they stumbled on ‘a small society’ of their own men, who met regularly to read their Bibles and to pray, often in old stores, ravines, woods, and other retired places. ‘The very existence of any person in the barracks who had the smallest notion of the importance of religion was quite unsuspected by me,’ writes Mrs. Sherwood in her Autobiography. The moment the boat anchored at Dinapore Mr. Sherwood set out on foot to present his letter. He found the chaplain in the smaller square, at some distance, in a ‘sort of church-like abode with little furniture, the rooms wide and high, with many vast doorways, having their green jalousied doors, and long verandahs encompassing two sides of the quarters.’ Mr. Martyn received Mr. Sherwood not as a stranger, but as a brother,—the child of the same father. As the sun was already low, he must needs walk back with him to see me. I perfectly remember the figure of that simple-hearted and holy young man, when he entered our budgerow. He was dressed in white, and looked very pale, which, however, was nothing singular in India; his hair, a light brown, was raised from his forehead, which was a remarkably fine one. His features were not regular, but the expression was so luminous, so intellectual, so affectionate, so beaming with Divine charity, that no one could have looked at his features, and thought of their Mr. Martyn invited us to visit him at his quarters at Dinapore, and we agreed to accept his invitation the next day. Mr. Martyn’s house was destitute of every comfort, though he had multitudes of people about him. I had been troubled with a pain in my face, and there was not such a thing as a pillow in the house. I could not find anything to lay my head on at night but a bolster stuffed as hard as a pin-cushion. We had not, as is usual in India, brought our own bedding from the boats. Our kind friend had given us his own room; but I could get no rest during the two nights of my remaining there, from the pain in my face, which was irritated by the bolster; but during each day, however, there was much for the mind to feed upon with delight. After breakfast Mr. Martyn had family prayers, which he commenced by singing a hymn. He had a rich, deep voice, and a fine taste for vocal music. After singing, he read a chapter, explained parts of it, and prayed extempore. Afterwards he withdrew to his studies and translations. The evening was finished with another hymn, Scripture reading, and prayers. The conversion of the natives and the building up of the kingdom of Christ were the great objects for which alone that child of God seemed to exist. He believed that he saw the glimmering of this day in the exertions then making in Europe for the diffusion of the Scriptures and the sending forth of missionaries. Influenced by the belief that man’s ministry was the instrumentality which, by the Holy Spirit, would be made effectual to the work, we found him labouring beyond his strength, and doing all in his power to excite other persons to use the same exertions. Henry Martyn was one of the very few persons whom I have ever met who appeared never to be drawn away from one leading and prevailing object of interest, and that object was the promotion of religion. He did not appear like one who felt the necessity of contending with the world, and denying himself its delights, but rather as one who was unconscious of the existence of any attractions in the world, or of any delights which were worthy of his notice. When he relaxed from his labours in the presence of his friends, it was to play and laugh like an innocent, happy child, more especially if children were present to play and laugh with him. In my Indian Journal I find this remark: ‘Mr. Martyn is one of the most pleasing, mild, and heavenly-minded men, walking in this turbulent world with peace in his mind, and charity in his heart.’ As the regiment was passing Chunar, after a night in ‘the polluted air’ of Benares, the Sherwoods were met by a boat with fresh bread and vegetables from Corrie. On their arrival at Cawnpore, Mrs. Sherwood at once opened two classes for the ‘great boys’ and ‘elder girls.’ Many of the former died in a few years, and not a few of the latter married officers above their own birth. Such were the conditions of military life in India at that time, notwithstanding the Calcutta Orphan Schools which David Brown had first gone out to India to organise; for Henry Lawrence and his noble wife, Honoria, with their Military Orphan Asylums in the hills, belonged to a later generation. When first ordered to Cawnpore, in the hottest months of 1809, Henry Martyn resolved to apply to the Military Board for permission to delay his departure till the rainy season. But, though even then wasted by consumption and ceaseless toil, and tempted to spend the dreary months with the beloved Corrie at Chunar, as he might well have done under the customary rules, he could not linger when duty called. Had he not resolved to ‘burn out’ his life? So, deluding himself by the intention to ‘stay a little longer to recruit’ at Chunar, should he suffer from the heat, he set off in the middle of April in a palanquin by Arrah, afterwards the scene of a heroic defence in the great Mutiny; Buxar, where a battle had been fought not long before, and Ghazipore, seat of the opium manufacture, like Patna. Sabat was sent on in a budgerow, with his wife Ameena and the baggage. This is Martyn’s account, to Brown, of the voyage above Chunar: Cawnpore: May 3, 1809. I transported myself with such rapidity to this place that I had nearly transported myself out of the world. From Dinapore to Chunar all was well, but from Allahabad to that place I was obliged to travel two days and nights without intermission, the hot winds blowing like fire from a furnace. Two days after my arrival the fever which had been kindling in my blood broke out, and last night I fainted repeatedly. But a gracious God has again interposed to save my life; to-day I feel well again. Where Sabat is I do not know. I have heard nothing of him since leaving Dinapore. Corrie is well, but it is grievous to see him chained to a rock with a few half-dead invalids, when so many stations—amongst others, the one I have left—are destitute.... I do not like this place at all. There is no church, not so much as the fly of a tent; what to do I know not I feel a little uncomfortable at being so much farther removed from Calcutta. At Dinapore I had friends on both sides of me, and correspondence with you was quick: here I seem cut off from the world. Alas! how dependent is my heart upon the creature still. I am ordered to seal up.—Yours affectionately ever, H. Martyn. This is Mrs. Sherwood’s description of his arrival: On May 30 the Rev. Henry Martyn arrived at our bungalow. The former chaplain had proceeded to the presidency, and we were so highly favoured as to have Mr. Martyn appointed in his place. I am not aware whether we expected him, but certainly not at the time when he did appear. It was in the morning, and we were situated as above described, the desert winds blowing like fire without, when we suddenly heard the quick steps of many bearers. Mr. Sherwood ran out to the leeward of the house, and exclaimed, ‘Mr. Martyn!’ The next moment I saw him leading in that excellent man, and saw our visitor, a moment afterwards, fall down in a fainting fit. He had travelled in a palanquin from Dinapore, and the first part of the way he moved only by night. But between Cawnpore and Allahabad, being a hundred and thirty miles, there is no resting-place, and he was compelled for two days and two nights to journey on in his palanquin, exposed to the raging heat of a fiery wind. He arrived, therefore, quite exhausted, and actually under the influence of fever. There was not another family in Cawnpore except ours to which he could have gone with pleasure; not because any family would have denied shelter to a countryman in such a condition, but, alas! they He was much engaged also with another subject, into which I was more capable of entering. It was his opinion that, if the Hindus could be persuaded that all nations are made of one blood, to dwell upon the face of the earth, and if they could be shown how each nation is connected by its descent from the sons and grandsons of Noah with other nations existing upon the globe, it would be a means of breaking down, or at least of loosening, that wall of separation which they have set up between themselves and all other people. With this view Mr. Martyn was endeavouring to trace up the various leading families of the earth to their great progenitors; and so much pleased was I In a very few days he had discerned the sweet qualities of the orphan Annie, and had so encouraged her to come about him that she drew her chair, and her table, and her green box to the vicinity of his couch. She showed him her verses, and consulted him about the adoption of more passages into the number of her favourites. Annie had a particular delight in all the pastoral views given in Scripture of our Saviour and of His Church; and when Mr. Martyn showed her this beautiful passage, ‘Feed Thy people with Thy rod, the flock of Thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel’ (Micah vii. 14), she was as pleased with this passage as if she had made some wonderful acquisition. What could have been more beautiful than to see the Senior Wrangler and the almost infant Annie thus conversing together, whilst the elder seemed to be in no ways conscious of any condescension in bringing down his mind to the level of the child’s? Such are the beautiful influences of the Divine Spirit, which, whilst they depress the high places of human pride, exalt the lowly valleys. When Mr. Martyn lost the worst symptoms of his illness he used to sing a great deal. He had an uncommonly As soon as Mr. Martyn could in any way exert himself, he made acquaintance with some of the pious men of the regiment (the same poor men whom I have mentioned before, who used to meet in ravines, in huts, in woods, and in every wild and secret place they could find, to read, and pray, and sing); and he invited them to come to him in our house, Mr. Sherwood making no objection. The time first fixed was an evening after parade, and in consequence they all appeared at the appointed hour, each carrying their mora (a low seat), and their books tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs. In this very unmilitary fashion they were all met in a body by some officers. It was with some difficulty that Mr. Sherwood could divert the storm of displeasure which had well-nigh burst upon them on the occasion. Had they been all found intoxicated and fighting, they would have created less anger from those who loved not religion. How truly is it said that ‘the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.’ Notwithstanding this unfortunate contretemps, these poor good men were received by Mr. Martyn in his own apartment; and a most joyful meeting he had with them. We did not join the party, but we heard them singing and praying, and the sound was very sweet. Mr. Martyn then promised them that when he had I must not omit another anecdote of Mr. Martyn, which amused us much at the time, after we had recovered the alarm attending it. The salary of a chaplain is large, and Mr. Martyn had not drawn his for so long a time, that the sum amounted perhaps to some hundreds. He was to receive it from the collector at Cawnpore. Accordingly he one morning sent a note for the amount, confiding the note to the care of a common coolie, a porter of low caste, generally a very poor man. This man went off, unknown to Mr. Sherwood and myself, early in the morning. The day passed, the evening came, and no coolie arrived. At length Mr. Martyn said in a quiet voice to us, ‘The coolie does not come with my money. I was thinking this morning how rich I should be; and, now, I should not wonder in the least if he has not run off, and taken my treasure with him.’ ‘What!’ we exclaimed, ‘surely you have not sent a common coolie for your pay?’ ‘I have,’ he replied. Of course we could not expect that it would ever arrive safe; for it would be paid in silver, and delivered to the man in cotton bags. Soon afterwards, however, it did arrive—a circumstance at which we all greatly marvelled. Cawnpore, of which Henry Martyn was chaplain for the next two years, till disease drove him from it, was the worst station to which he could have been sent. The district, consisting of clay uplands on the Doab between The first use which the chaplain made of his pay was this, according to Mrs. Sherwood: ‘Being persuaded by some black man, he bought one of the most undesirable houses, to all appearance, which he could have chosen.’ But he had chosen wisely for his daily duties of translation and preaching to the natives. Mr. Martyn’s house was a bungalow situated between the Sepoy Parade and the Artillery Barracks, but behind that range of principal bungalows which face the Parade. The approach to the dwelling was called the Compound, along an avenue of palm trees and aloes. A more stiff, funereal avenue can hardly be imagined, unless it might be that one of noted sphynxes which I have read of as the approach to a ruined Egyptian temple. At the end of this avenue were two bungalows, connected by a long passage. These bungalows were low, and the rooms small. The garden was prettily laid out with flowering shrubs and tall trees; in the centre was a wide space, which at some seasons was green, and a chabootra, or raised platform of chunam (lime), of great extent, was placed in the middle of this space. A vast number and variety of huts and sheds formed one boundary of the compound; these were concealed by the shrubs. But who would venture to give any account of the heterogeneous population which occupied these buildings? For, besides the usual complement of servants found in and about the houses of persons of a certain rank in India, we must add to Mr. Martyn’s household a multitude of pundits, moonshis, schoolmasters, and poor nominal Christians, who hung about him because there was no other to give them a handful of rice for their daily maintenance; and most strange was the murmur which proceeded at times from this ill-assorted and discordant multitude. Mr. Martyn occupied the largest of the two bungalows. He had given up the least to the wife of Sabat, that wild man of the desert whose extraordinary history has made so much noise in the Christian world. It was a burning evening in June, when after sunset I accompanied Mr. Sherwood to Mr. Martyn’s bungalow, and saw for the first time its avenue of palms and aloes. We were conducted to the chabootra, where the company was already assembled; there was no lady but myself. This The second of Mr. Martyn’s guests, whom I must introduce as being not a whit behind Sabat in his own opinion of himself, was the Padre Julius CÆsar, an Italian monk of the order of the Jesuits, a worthy disciple of Ignatius Loyola. Mr. Martyn had become acquainted with him at Patna, where the Italian priest was not less zealous and active in making proselytes than the Company’s chaplain, and probably much more wise and subtle in his movements than the latter. The Jesuit was a handsome young man, and dressed in the complete costume of the monk, with his little skull-cap, his flowing robes, and his cord. The materials, however, of his dress were very rich; his robe was of the finest purple satin, and his cord of twisted silk, and his rosary of costly stones, whilst his air and manner were extremely elegant. He spoke French fluently, and there Mr. Sherwood was at home with him, but his native language was Italian. His conversation with Mr. Martyn was carried on partly in Latin and partly in Italian. A third guest was a learned native of India, in his full and handsome Hindustani costume; and a fourth In order to lengthen out the pleasures of the evening, we were scarcely seated before good Mr. Martyn recollected that he had heard me say that I liked a certain sort of little mutton pattie, which the natives made particularly well; so, without thinking how long it might take to make these same patties, he called to a servant to give orders that mutton patties should be added to the supper. I heard the order, but never dreamed that perhaps the mutton might not be in the house. The consequence of this order was that we sat on the chabootra till it was quite dark, and till I was utterly weary with the confusion. No one who has not been in or near the tropics can have an idea of the glorious appearance of the heavens in these regions, and the brilliancy of the star-lit nights, at Cawnpore. Mr. Martyn used often to show me the pole-star, just above the line of the horizon; and I have seen the moon, when almost new, looking like a ball of ebony in a silver cup. Who can, therefore, be surprised that the science of astronomy should first have been pursued by the shepherds who watched their flocks by night in the plains of the South? When the mutton patties were ready, I was handed by Mr. Martyn into the hall of the bungalow. Mr. Martyn took the top of the table, and From the time Mr. Martyn left our house he was in the constant habit of supping with us two or three times a week, and he used to come on horseback, with the sais running by his side. He sat his horse as if he were not quite aware that he was on horseback, and he generally wore his coat as if it were falling from his shoulders. When he dismounted, his favourite place was in the verandah, with a book, till we came in from our airing. And when we returned many a sweet and long discourse we had, whilst waiting for our dinner or supper. Mr. Martyn often looked up to the starry heavens, and spoke of those glorious worlds of which we know so little now, but of which we hope to know so much hereafter. Often we turned from the contemplation of these to the consideration of the smallness, and apparent diminutiveness in creation, of our own little globe, and of the exceeding love of the Father, who so cared for its inhabitants that He sent His Son to redeem them. On the occasion of the baptism of my second Lucy, never can I forget the solemn manner with which Mr. Martyn went through the service, or the beautiful and earnest blessing he implored for my baby, when he took her into his arms after the service was concluded. I still fancy I see that child of God as he looked down tenderly on the gentle babe, and then looked upwards, asking of his God that grace and mercy for the infant which he truly accounted as the only gift which parents ought to desire. This babe, in infancy, had so peculiar a gentleness of aspect, that Mr. Martyn always called her Serena. Little was spoken of at Mr. Martyn’s table but of various plans for advancing the triumphs of Christianity. Among the plans adopted, Mr. Martyn had, first at Dinapore and then at Cawnpore, established one or two schools for children of the natives of the lower caste. His plan was to hire a native schoolmaster, generally a Mussulman, to appoint him a place, and to pay him an anna Besides the 53rd Regiment, the Cavalry Corps called in those days the 8th Light Dragoons, and six companies of Artillery, were stationed at Cawnpore. At the first parade service, on May 15, 1809, ‘two officers dropped down and some of the men. They wondered how I could go through the fatigue,’ wrote their new chaplain, not many days after his nearly fatal palanquin journey from Chunar. His voice even reached the men at the other end of the square which they had formed. Above a hundred men were in hospital, a daily congregation. Every night about a dozen of the soldiers met with him in the house. Not only the men but the officers were privately rebuked by him for swearing. Of the General he writes: ‘He has never been very cordial, and now he is likely to be less so; though it was done in the gentlest way, he did not seem to like it. Were it not to become all things to all men in order to save some, I should never trouble them with my company. But how then should I be like Christ? I have been almost the whole morning engaged in a good-humoured dispute with Mrs. P., who, in an instant after my introduction to her, opened all her guns of wit and eloquence against me for attempting to convert the Brahmans.’ A little later he writes of a dinner at the brigade-major’s with the chief The year was one of alarms of war, from which the history of our Indian Empire can rarely be free, surrounded as it is by a ring-fence of frontier tribes and often aggressive States. But in those days the great internal conflicts for the consolidation of our power, and the peace and prosperity of peoples exposed to anarchy for centuries, were still being waged. Marathas, Sikhs, and Goorkhas had all to be pacified in 1809. Now the infantry were being sent to the conquest of Bundlekhund and difficult siege of the fortress of Kalinjar, as old as the Mahabharat Epic in which it is mentioned. Now the artillery were under orders to march to Lodiana to check Ranjeet Singh. Now the cavalry were sent off to the, at first, fatal chase of the Goorkhas by Gillespie. Thus it was that their ever-careful chaplain sought to prepare them for the issue: October 20.—Spoke to my men on preparation for the Lord’s Supper, and endeavoured to prepare myself for the ordinance, by considering my former life of sin, and all my unfaithfulness since my call to the Gospel. My heart was, as usual, insensible for a long time, but at last a gracious God made me feel some compunction, and then my feelings were such as I would wish they always were. I resolved at the time that it should be my special labour every day to obtain, and hold fast, this humbling view of my own depravity. October 22. (Sunday.)—Preached at sunrise to the 53rd, on Acts xxviii. 29. At ten, about sixteen of the regiment, with Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood and Sabat, met in my November 18.—At night I took leave of my beloved Church previous to their departure for Bundlekhund with their regiment. I spoke to them from Gen. xxviii: ‘I will be with thee in all places whithersoever thou goest,’ etc. The poor men were much affected; they gave me their wills and watches. November 19. (Sunday.)—Preached at sunrise to the dragoons, on John i. 17: ‘The law was given by Moses.’ At eleven at head-quarters, on Rom. iii. 19. Nowhere are eucharistic seasons of communion so precious as in exile, and especially in the isolation of a tropical station. Not unfrequently in India, Christian people, far separated from any ordained minister, and about to part from each other, are compelled, by loving obedience to the Lord, to meet thus together. But what joy it must have been to have been ministered to at such times by one of Henry Martyn’s consecrated saintliness! Mrs. Sherwood lingers over her description of that Cawnpore service of October 22, 1809—the long inner verandah of the house, where daily prayer was wont to be made, shut in by lofty doors of green lattice-work; the table, with the white cloth and all things requisite, at one end; hassocks on which to kneel, and a high form in front of the table; Henry Martyn’s missionary work among the natives became greatly extended at Cawnpore, as his scrupulous conscience and delicate scholarship allowed him to use in public the colloquial Hindustani, and in conversation the more classical Persian. To Corrie he wrote, five months after his arrival there: What will friends at home think of Martyn and Corrie? They went out full of zeal, but, behold! what are they doing? Where are their converts? They talked of the banyan-tree before they went out; but now they seem to prefer a snug bungalow to field-preaching. I fear I should look a little silly if I were to go home just at this time; but more because I should not be able to make them understand the state of things than because my conscience condemns me. Brother, what can you do? If you itinerate like a European, you will only frighten the people; if as a native, you will be dead in one year. Yet the latter mode pleases me, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than so to live, with the prospect of being able to hold out a few years. Again, to an old Cambridge friend: November, 1809.—Respecting my heart, about which you ask, I must acknowledge that H. Martyn’s heart at Dinapore is the same as H. Martyn’s heart at Cambridge. The tenor of my prayer is nearly the same, except on one subject, the conversion of the heathen. At a distance from the scene of action, and trusting too much to the highly-coloured description of missionaries, my heart used to expand with rapture at the hope of seeing thousands of the natives melting under the Word as soon as it should be preached to them. Here I am called to exercise faith—that so it shall one day be. My former feelings on this subject were more agreeable, and at the same time more according with the truth; for if we believe the prophets, the scenes that time shall unfold, ‘though surpassing fable, are yet true.’ While I write, hope and joy spring up in my mind. Yes, it shall be; yonder stream of Ganges shall one day roll through tracts adorned with Christian churches, and cultivated by Christian husbandmen, and the holy hymn be heard beneath the shade of the tamarind. All things are working together to bring on the day, and my part in the blessed plan, though not at first exactly consonant to my wishes, is, I believe, appointed me by God. To translate the Word of God is a work of more lasting benefit than my preaching would be. But, besides that, I am sorry to say that my strength for public preaching is almost gone. My ministrations among the Europeans at this station have injured my lungs, and I am now obliged to lie by except on the Sabbath days, and once or twice in the week.... However, I am sufficiently aware of my important relations to the natives, and am determined not to strain myself any more for the Europeans. This rainy season has tried my constitution severely. The first attack was with spasms, under which I fainted. The second was a fever, from which a change of air, under God, recovered me. There is something in the air at the close of the rains so unfavourable, that public speaking at that time is a violent strain upon the whole At Cawnpore, in front of his house, he began his wonderful preaching to the native beggars and ascetics of all kinds, Hindoo jogees and Mohammedan fakeers, the blind and the deaf, the maimed and the halt, the diseased and the dying, the impostor and the truly needy. These classes had soon found out the sympathetic padre-sahib, and to secure peace he seems to have organised a weekly dole of an anna each or of rice. He wrote to Corrie: I feel unhappy, not because I do nothing, but because I am not willing to do my duty. The flesh must be mortified, and I am reluctant to take up the cross. Sabat said to me yesterday, ‘Your beggars are come: why do not you preach to them? It is your duty.’ I made excuses; but why do not I preach to them? My carnal spirit says that I have been preaching a long time without success to my servants, who are used to my tongue; what can I expect from them—the very dregs of the people? But the true cause is shame: I am afraid of exposing myself to the contempt of Sabat, my servants, and the mob, by attempting to speak in a language which I do not speak well. To-day in prayer, one consideration has been made of some power in overcoming this shameful backwardness:—these people, if I neglect to speak to them, will give me a look at the last day which may fill me with horror. Alas! brother, where is my zeal? December 17. (Sunday.)—Preached to H.M. Light Dragoons on Rev. iii. 20: To Corrie he thus described his talks with his ‘congregation of the poor’: I went without fear, trusting to myself, and not to the Lord, and accordingly I was put to shame—that is, I did not read half as well as the preceding days. I shuffled and stammered, and indeed I am persuaded that there were many sentences the poor things did not understand at all. I spoke of the dry land, rivers, etc.; here I mentioned Gunga,‘a good river,’ but there were others as good. God loves Hindus, but does He not love others also? He gave them a good river, but to others as good. All are alike before God. This was received with applause. On the work of the fourth day, ‘Thus sun and moon are lamps. Shall I worship a candle in my hand? As a candle in the house, so is the sun in the sky.’ Applause from the Mohammedans. There were also hisses, but whether these betokened displeasure against me or the worship of the sun I do not know. I then charged them to worship Gunga and sun and moon no more, but the honour they used to give to them, henceforward to give to God their Maker. Who knows but even this was a blow struck, at least a branch lopped from the tree of heathenism? The number was about 550. You need not be deterred, dear brother, if this simple way of teaching do any good. Again: I spoke on the corruption of human nature, ‘The Lord saw that every imagination,’ etc. In the application I said, Mrs. Sherwood pictures the scene after an almost pathetic fashion: We went often on the Sunday evenings to hear the addresses of Mr. Martyn to the assembly of mendicants, and we generally stood behind him. On these occasions we had to make our way through a dense crowd, with a temperature often rising above 92°, whilst the sun poured its burning rays upon us through a lurid haze of dust. Frightful were the objects which usually met our eyes in this crowd: so many monstrous and diseased limbs, and hideous faces, were displayed before us, and pushed forward for our inspection, that I have often made my way to the chabootra with my eyes shut, whilst Mr. Sherwood led me. On reaching the platform I was surrounded by our own people, and yet even there I scarcely dared to look about me. I still imagine that I hear the calm, distinct, and musical tones of Henry Martyn, as he stood raised above the people, endeavouring, by showing the purity of the Divine law, to convince the unbelievers that by their works they were all condemned; and that this was the case of every man of the offspring of Adam, and they therefore needed a Saviour who was both willing and able to redeem them. From time to time low murmurs and curses would arise in the distance, and then roll forward, till they became so loud as to drown the voice of this pious one, generally concluding with hissings and fierce cries. No dreams nor visions excited in the delirium of a raging fever can surpass these realities. These devotees vary in age and appearance: they are young and old, male and female, bloated and wizened, tall and short, athletic and feeble; some clothed with abominable rags; some nearly without clothes; some plastered with mud and cow-dung; others with matted, uncombed locks streaming down to their heels; others with heads bald or scabby, every countenance being hard and fixed, as it were, by the continual indulgence of bad passions, the features having become exaggerated, and the lips blackened with tobacco, or blood-red with the juice of the henna. But these and such as these form only the general mass of the people; there are among them still more distinguished monsters. One little man generally comes in a small cart drawn by a bullock; his body and limbs are so shrivelled as to give, with his black skin and large head, the appearance of a gigantic frog. Another has his arm fixed above his head, the nail of the thumb piercing through the palm of the hand; another, and a very large man, has his ribs and the bones of his face externally traced with white chalk, which, striking the eye in relief above the dark skin, makes him appear, as he approaches, like a moving skeleton. When Mr. Martyn collected these people he was most carefully watched by the British authorities. Shall anyone say that the missionary chaplain’s eighteen months’ work among this mixed multitude of the poor and the dishonest was as vain as he himself, in his humility, feared that it was? ‘Greater works’ than His own were what the Lord of Glory, who did like service to man in the Syria of that day, promised to His believing followers. On the wall which enclosed his compound was a kiosk, from which some young Mussulman idlers used to look down on the preacher, as they smoked their hookahs and sipped their sherbet. One Sunday, determined to hear as well as see, that they might the more evidently scoff, they made their way through the crowd, and with the deepest scorn took their place in the very front. They listened in a critical temper, made remarks on what they heard, and returned to the kiosk. But there was one who no longer joined in their jeering. Sheikh Saleh, born at Delhi, Persian and Arabic moonshi of Lucknow, then keeper of the King of Oudh’s jewels, was a Mussulman so zealous that he had persuaded his Hindu servant to be circumcised. But he was afterwards horrified by the treachery and the atrocities of his co-religionists in the Rajpoot State of Joudhpore, whither he had gone. He was on his way back to his father at Lucknow when, on a heart thus prepared, there fell the teaching of the English man of God as to the purity of the Divine law and salvation from sin by Jesus Christ. Eager to learn more of Christianity from its authoritative records, he sought employment on the translating staff of the preacher, through a friend who knew Sabat. He was engaged to copy Persian manuscripts by that not too scrupulous tyrant, without the knowledge of Martyn or any of the English. On receiving the Mrs. Sherwood writes: We were told that Mr. Corrie might perhaps be unable to come as far as Delhi, and the candidates for baptism became so anxious that they set off to meet him on the Delhi road. We soon heard of their meeting from Mr. Corrie himself, and that he was pleased with them. Shortly afterwards our beloved friend appeared, with tents, camels, and elephants, and we had the pleasure of having his largest tent pitched in our compound, for we had not room for all his suite within the house. Then for the next week our house and grounds brought to my mind what I had often fancied of a scene in some high festival in Jerusalem; How delightfully passed that Sunday!—how sweet was our private intercourse with Mr. Corrie! He brought our children many Hindustani hymns, set to ancient Oriental melodies, which they were to sing at the Hindu services, and we all together sang a hymn, which I find in my Journal designated by this title: ‘We Have Seen His Star in The East’ In Britain’s land of light my mind To Jesus and His love was blind, Till, wandering midst the heathen far, Lo in the East I saw His star. Oh, should my steps, which distant roam, Attain once more my native shore, Better than India’s wealth by far, I’ll speak the worth of Bethlehem’s star. Long after this the good seed of the Kingdom, as sown by Henry Martyn, continued to bear fruit, which in its turn propagated itself. In 1816 there came to Corrie in Calcutta, for further instruction, from Bareilly, a young Mohammedan ascetic and teacher who, at seventeen, had abandoned Hinduism, seeking peace of mind. He fell in with Martyn’s Hindustani New Testament, and was baptized under the new name of Fuez Massee’h. Under somewhat similar circumstances Noor Massee’h was baptized at Agra. The missionary labours of Martyn at Cawnpore, followed up by Corrie there and at Agra soon after, farther resulted in the baptism there of seventy-one Hindus and Mohammedans, of whom fifty were adults. All of these, save seven, remained steadfast, and many became missionaries in their turn. The career of Abdool Massee’h closed in 1827, after he had been ordained in the Calcutta cathedral by Bishop Heber, who loved him. His last breath was spent in singing the Persian hymn, translated thus: Beloved Saviour, let not me In Thy kind heart forgotten be! Of all that deck the field or bower, Thou art the sweetest, fairest flower! Youth’s morn has fled, old age comes on. But sin distracts my soul alone; Beloved Saviour, let not me In Thy kind heart forgotten be. As from Dinapore Martyn sought out the moulvies of Patna, so from Cawnpore he found his way to Lucknow Toil such as Martyn’s, physical and mental, in successive hot seasons, in such hospitals and barracks as then killed off the British troops and their families, and without a decent church building, would have sacrificed the healthiest in a few years. Corrie had to flee from it, or he would never have lived to be the first and model Bishop of Madras. But such labours, such incessant straining of the voice through throat and lungs, acting on his highly neurotic constitution, and the phthisical frame which he inherited from his mother, became possible to Henry Martyn only because he willed, he agonised, to live till he should give at least the New Testament to the peoples of Arabia and Persia, and to the Mohammedans of India, in their own tongues. We see him in his Journal, before God, spiritually spurring the sides of his intent day by day, and running like the noble Arab horse till it drops—its object gained. He had many warnings, and if he had had a wife to see that he obeyed the voice of Providence he might have outlived his hereditary tendency in such a tropical climate as that of India—a fact since proved by experience. He had narrowly escaped death at Dinapore a few months before, and he knew it. But it is well that, far more frequently than the world knows, such cases occur in the missionary fields of the world. The Brainerds and the Martyns, the Pattesons 1809, May 29.—The East has been long forsaken of God, and depravity in consequence more thoroughly wrought into them. I have been very ill all this week, the disorder appearing in the form of an intermittent. In the night cold sweats, and for about five hours in the day head-ache and vertigo. Last night I took some medicine, and think that I am better, though the time when the fever has generally come on is not yet arrived. But I hardly know how to be thankful enough for this interval of ease. September 25.—Set out at three in the morning for Currah, and reached it on the 26th in the morning, and married a Miss K. to Mr. R.; the company was very unpleasant, so after passing the night there, I set out and travelled all day and night, and through Divine mercy arrived at home again on the 28th, but excessively fatigued, indeed almost exhausted. At night with the men, my whole desire was to lie low in the dust. ‘Thou hast left thy first love,’ on which I spoke, was an awful call to me, and I trust in God I shall ever feel it so. November 19.—Received a letter from Mr. Simeon, mentioning Sarah’s illness; consumption has seized her, as it did my mother and sister, and will carry her off as it did them, and now I am the only one left. Oh, my dear Corrie, though I know you are well prepared, how does nature bleed at the thought of a beloved sister’s drooping and dying! Yet still to see those whom I love go before me, without so much as a doubt of their going to glory, will, 1810, April 9.—From the labours of yesterday, added to constant conversation and disagreement with visitors to-day, I was quite exhausted, and my chest in pain. April 10.—My lungs still so disordered that I could not meet my men at night. April 15. (Sunday.)—Preached to the Dragoons on the parable of the pounds. At the General’s on Luke xxii 22. With the native congregation I strained myself greatly in order to be heard, and to this I attribute the injury I did myself to-day. Attempted the usual service with my men at night, but after speaking to them from a passage in Scripture, was obliged to leave them before prayer. April 16.—Imprudently joined in conversation with some dear Christian friends to-night, and talked a great deal; the pain in the chest in consequence returned. May 12.—This evening thrown with great violence from my horse: while he was in full gallop, the saddle came off, but I received no other injury but contusion. Thus a gracious Providence preserves me in life. But for His kindness I had been now dragging out a wretched existence in pain, and my blessed work interrupted for years perhaps. Henry Martyn was too absorbed in the higher life at all times to be trusted in riding or driving. Mrs. Sherwood writes: I often went out with him in his gig, when he used to call either for me or Miss Corrie, and whoever went with him went at the peril of their lives. He never looked where he was driving, but went dashing through thick and thin, being always occupied in reading Hindustani by word of mouth, or discussing some text of Scripture. I certainly All through his Cawnpore life, also, the wail of disappointed love breaks from time to time. On Christmas day, 1809, he received, through David Brown as usual, a letter ‘from Lydia, containing a second refusal; so now I have done.’ On March 23, 1810, Mr. Steven’s letter reached him, reporting the death of his last sister. ‘She was my dear counsellor and guide for a long time in the Christian way. I have not a relation left to whom I feel bound by ties of Christian fellowship, and I am resolved to form no new connection of a worldly nature, so that I may henceforward hope to live entirely, as a man of another world.’ Meanwhile he has received Lydia Grenfell’s sisterly offer, to which he thus replies in the first of eleven letters, to one who had sunk the lover in the Christian friend, as was possible to two hearts so far separated and never to meet again in this world. But she was still his ‘dearest.’ To Lydia Grenfell Cawnpore: March 30, 1810. Since you kindly bid me, my beloved friend, consider you in the place of that dear sister whom it has pleased God in His wisdom to take from me, I gratefully accept the offer of a correspondence, which it has ever been the anxious wish of my heart to establish. Your kindness is the more acceptable, because it is shown in the day of affliction. Though I had heard of my dearest sister’s illness some months before I received the account of her death, and though the nature of her disorder was such as left me not a ray of hope, so that I was mercifully prepared for the event, still the certainty of it fills me with anguish. It is not that she has left me, for I never ex Of your illness, my dearest Lydia, I had heard nothing, and it was well for me that I did not.—Yours most affectionately, H. Martyn. To David Brown he wrote, ‘My long-lost Lydia consents to write to me again;’ and in three weeks he thus addresses to Lydia herself again a letter of exquisite tenderness: To Lydia Grenfell Cawnpore: April 19, 1810. I begin my correspondence with my beloved Lydia, not without a fear of its being soon to end. Shall I venture to tell you that our family complaint has again made its appearance in me, with more unpleasant symptoms than it has ever yet done? However, God, who two years ago redeemed my life from destruction, may again, for His Church’s sake, interpose for my deliverance. Though, alas! what am I that my place should not instantly be supplied with far more efficient instruments? The symptoms I mentioned are chiefly a pain in the chest, occasioned, I suppose, by over-exertion the two last Sundays, and incapacitating me at present from all public duty, and even from conversation. You were mistaken in supposing that my former illness originated from study. Study never makes me ill—scarcely ever fatigues me—but my lungs! death is seated there; it is speaking that kills me. May it give others life! ‘Death worketh in us, but life in you.’ Nature intended me, as I should judge from the structure of my frame, for chamber-council, not for a pleader at the Bar. But the call of Jesus Christ bids me cry aloud and spare not. As His minister, I am a debtor both to the Greek and the barbarian. How can I be silent when I have both ever before me, and my debt not paid? You would suggest that energies more restrained will eventually be more efficient. I am aware of this, and mean to act upon this principle in future, if the resolution is not formed too late. But you know how apt we are to outstep the bounds of prudence when there is no kind of monitor at hand to warn us of the consequences. Had I been favoured with the one I wanted, I might not now have had occasion to mourn. You smile at my allusion, at least I hope so, for I am hardly in earnest. I have long since ceased to repine at the decree that keeps us as far asunder as the east is from the west, and yet am far from regretting that I ever knew you. The remembrance of you calls forth the exercise of delightful affections, and has kept me from many a snare. How wise and good is our God in all His dealings with His children! Had I yielded to the suggestions of flesh and blood, and remained in England, as I should have done, without the effectual working of His power, I should without doubt have sunk with my sisters into an early grave. Whereas here, to say the least, I may live a few years, so as to accomplish a very important work. His keeping you from me appears also, at this season of bodily infirmity, to be occasion of thankfulness. Death, I think, would be a less welcome visitor to me, if he came to take me from a wife, and that wife were you. Now, if I die, I die unnoticed, involving none in calamity. Oh, that I could trust Him for all that is to come, and love Him with that perfect love which casteth out fear; for, to say the truth, my confidence is sometimes shaken. To appear before the Judge of quick and dead is a much more awful thought in sickness than in health. Yet I dare not doubt the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ, nor can I, with the utmost ingenuity of unbelief, resist the reasonings of St. Paul, all whose reasons seem to be drawn up on purpose to work into the mind the persuasion that God will glorify Himself by the salvation of sinners through Jesus Christ. I wish I could more enter into the meaning of this ‘chosen vessel.’ He seems to move in a world by himself, and sometimes to utter the unspeakable words such as my natural understanding discerneth not; and when I turn to commentators I find that I have passed out of the spiritual to the material world, and have got amongst men like myself. But soon, April 25.—After another interval I resume my pen. Through the mercy of God I am again quite well, but my mind is a good deal distressed at Sabat’s conduct. I forbear writing what I think, in the hope that my fears may prove groundless; but indeed the children of the East are adepts in deceit. Their duplicity appears to me so disgusting at this moment, that I can only find relief from my growing misanthropy by remembering Him who is the faithful and true Witness; in whom all the promises of God are ‘yea and amen’; and by turning to the faithful in Europe—children that will not lie. Where shall we find sincerity in a native of the East? Yesterday I dined in a private way with ——. After one year’s inspection of me they begin to lose their dread and venture to invite me. Our conversation was occasionally religious, but topics of this nature are so new to fashionable people, and those upon which they have thought so much less than on any other, that often from the shame of having nothing to say they pass to other subjects where they can be more at home. I was asked after dinner if I liked music. On my professing to be an admirer of harmony, cantos were performed and songs sung. After a time I inquired if they had no sacred music. It was now recollected that they had some of Handel’s, but it could not be found. A promise, however, was made that next time I came it should be produced. Instead of it the 145th Psalm-tune was played, but none of the ladies could recollect enough of the tune to sing it. I observed that all our talents and powers should be consecrated to the service of Him who gave them. To this no reply was made, but the reproof was felt. I asked the lady of the house if she read poetry, and then proceeded to mention Cowper, whose poems, it seems, were in the library; but the lady had never heard of the book. This was produced, and I read April 26.—From speaking to my men last night, and again to-day conversing long with some natives, my chest is again in pain, so much so that I can hardly speak. Well, now I am taught, and will take more care in future. My sheet being full, I must bid you adieu. The Lord ever bless and keep you. Believe me to be with the truest affection,—Yours ever, H. Martyn. To Rev. T.M. Hitchins, Plymouth Dock Cawnpore: October 10, 1809. My dearest Brother,—I am again disappointed in receiving no letter from you. The last intelligence from the West of England is Lydia’s letter of July 8, 1808. Colonel Sandys has long since ceased to write to me, and I have no other correspondent. It is very affecting to me to be thus considered as dead by almost all my natural relations and early connections; and at this time, when I am led to think of you and the family to which you are united, and have been reading all your letters over, I feel that I could dip my pen deep in melancholy; for, strange as it may seem to you, I love so true, that though it is now the fifth year since I parted from the object of my affection, she is as dear to me as ever; yet, on the other hand, I find my present freedom such a privilege that I would not lose it for hardly any consideration. It is the impossibility of compassing every wish, that I suppose is the cause of any uneasiness that I feel. I know not how to express my thoughts respecting Lydia better than in Martial’s words—Nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te. However, these are not my general sentiments; it pleases God to cause me to eat my meat with gladness, praising God. Almost always I am without carefulness, as indeed it would be to my shame if I were not. My kindest remembrances attend my dearest sisters, Emma and Lydia, as they well know. You two are such bad correspondents that on this ground I prefer another petition for the renewal of Lydia’s correspondence,—she need not suspect anything now, nor her friends. I have no idea that I should trouble her upon the old subject, even if I were settled in England—for oh, this vain world! quid habet commodi? quid non potius laboris? But I never expect to see England more, nor do I expect that though all obstacles should be removed, she would ever become mine unless I came for her, and I now do not wonder at it, though I did before. If any one of my sisters had had such a proposal made to them, I would never have consented to their going, so you may see the affair is ended between us. My wish is that she would be scribe for you all, and I promise on my part to send you through her an ample detail of all my proceedings; also she need not imagine that I may form another attachment—in which case she might suppose a correspondence with an unmarried lady might be productive of difficulties,—for after one disappointment I am not likely to try my chance again, and if I do I will give her the earliest intelligence of it, with the same frankness with which I have always dealt (with her). Meanwhile, on the silent shores of South Cornwall, Lydia Grenfell was thus remembering him before God: 1809, March 30.—My dear friend in India much upon my heart lately, chiefly in desires that the work of God may prosper in his hands, and that he may become more and more devoted to the Lord. I seem, as to the future, to have attained what a year or two since I prayed much for—to regard him absent as in another state of existence, and my affection is holy, pure, and spiritual for this dear saint of God; when it is otherwise, it is owing to my looking back. Recollections sometimes intrude, and I welcome Tregembo, July 11.—I have suffered from levity of spirit, and lost thereby the enjoyment of God. How good then is it in the Lord to employ means in His providence to recall His wanderer to Himself and happiness! Such mercy belongeth unto God—and this His care over me I will record as a testimony against myself, if I forsake Him again and lose that sweet seriousness of mind, so essential to my peace and safety. Though I have never (perhaps for many hours in a day) ceased to remember my dear friend in India, it has not of late been in a way but as I might love and think of him in heaven. Why is it then that the intelligence of his probable nearness to that blessed abode should distress me? yet it did, and does so still. It is this intelligence which has, I hope, taught that my late excessive cheerfulness was dangerous to my soul, in weakening my hold of better and calmer joys. I was directed, I think, to the thirty-sixth Psalm for what I wanted on this occasion, as I was once before to the sixty-first, and I have found it most wonderfully cheering to my heart. The Lord, as ‘the preserver of man and beast,’ caused me to exercise dependence on Him respecting the result of my friend’s illness. Then the description of the Divine perfections drew back my wandering heart, I hope to God. The declaration of those who trust in God being abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, taught me where real enjoyment alone will be found; but the concluding part opened in a peculiarly sweet way to my mind: ‘Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures.’ October 23.—I am under some painful forebodings respecting my dear absent friend, and know not how to act. I am strongly impelled to write to him, now that he is in affliction and perhaps sickness himself—yet I dread 1810, January 1.—Felt the necessity of beginning this year with prayer for preserving grace. Prayed with some sense of my own weakness and dependence on God—with a conviction of much sin and hope in His mercy through Jesus Christ. Oh, to be Thine, Lord, in heart and life this year! Had a remembrance of those most dear to me in prayer, and found it very sweet to commend them to God, especially my friend in India—perhaps not now in India, but in heaven. Oh, to join him at last in Thy blissful presence! January 24.—Heard yesterday of the marriage of Mr. John—what a mercy to me do I feel it!—a load gone off my mind, for every evil I heard of his committing I feared I might have been the cause of, by my conduct ten years since—I rejoice in this event for his sake and my own. February 6.—Heard at last of the safety of my friend in India, and wrote to him—many fears on my mind as to its propriety, and great deadness of soul in doing it—yet ere I concluded I felt comforted from the thought of the nearness of eternity, and the certainty that then, without any fear of doing wrong, I should again enjoy communion with him. February 24.—Many sad presages of evil concerning my absent friend, yet I am enabled to leave all to God—only now I pray, if consistent with His will, his life may be spared, and as a means of it, that God may incline him to return again to this land. I never did before dare to ask this, believing the cause of God would be more advanced by his remaining in India; but now I pray, without fear of doing wrong or opposing the will of God, for his return. March 5.—I am sensible of a very remarkable change in the desires of my soul before God, respecting my absent April 23.—Wrote to India. November 30.—Heard yesterday, and again to-day, from India. 1811, March 28.—Heard from my dearest friend in India. Corrie had been ordered from his narrow parish of Chunar to the wider field of Agra, and on his way up was directed to remain at Cawnpore to help his friend, whose physical exhaustion was too apparent even to the most The Hukeem and the missionary hear native opinion spoken out with much greater freedom than the political agent, the judge, or commandant. ‘Were there many more of the Sahibean Ungez (the English gentlemen) in character like the Padre Sahibs (Corrie and Martyn), Christianity would make more progress here,’ was the unvaried testimony of the natives in their favour.... I cannot help mentioning the results of various conversations I had with two natives of Eastern rank and family employed by the Venerable Mr. Corrie, afterwards Bishop of Madras, and the Rev. Henry Martyn, in Scripture translation, and whose assistance I had used in the study of the languages, as they quite coincide with much which I had the opportunity of hearing among men of still higher position in the native educated community, when attached to the staff of the Governor-General: ‘By the decrees of God,’ said the Mohammedan noble, ‘and the ubiquity of their fleets, armaments, and commerce, it appears plainly that the European nations have become the arbiters of the destinies of the nations of Asia. Yet this seems to us strange in the followers of Him who taught that His true disciples must be ready to give their cloaks also to him who took from them their coats.’ To which I had no better reply than this, that the progress of events in the world’s history seems to us to give evidence that undoubtedly a Divine message had been sent, both to governments and their subjects, to which, at their peril, both must give attention. We return to Martyn’s Journal and Correspondence: July 8. (Sunday.)—Corrie preached to the 53rd a funeral sermon on the death of one of their captains. In the afternoon I spoke to the natives on the first commandment, with greater fluency than I have yet found. My thoughts to-day very much towards Lydia; I began even to be reconciled to the idea of going to England for her. To Lydia Grenfell Cawnpore: August 14, 1810. With what delight do I sit down to begin a letter to my beloved Lydia! Yours of February 5, which I received a few days ago, was written, I conceive, in considerable embarrassment. You thought it possible it might find me married, or about to be so. Let me begin, therefore, with assuring you, with more truth than Gehazi did his master, ‘Thy servant went no whither:’ my heart has not strayed from Marazion, or Gurlyn, or wherever you are. Five long years have passed, and I am still faithful. Happy would it be if I could say that I had been equally true to my profession of love for Him who is fairer than ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Yet to the praise of His grace let me recollect that twice five years have passed away since I began to know Him, and I am still not gone from Him. On the contrary, time and experience have endeared the Lord to me more and more, so that I feel less inclination, and see less reason for leaving Him. What is there, alas! in the world, were it even everlasting? I rejoice at the accounts you give me of your continued good health and labours of love. Though you are not so usefully employed as you might be in India, yet as that must not be, I contemplate with delight your exertions at the other end of the world. May you be instrumental in bringing many sons and daughters to glory. What is become of St. Hilary and its fairy scenes? When I think of Malachy, and the old man, and your sister, and Josepha, etc., how some are dead, and the rest dispersed, and their place occupied by strangers, it seems all like a dream. August 15.—It is only little intervals of time that I can find for writing; my visitors, about whom I shall write presently, taking up much of my leisure from necessary duty. Here follow some extracts from my Journal.... Here my Journal must close. I do not know whether you understand from it how we go on. I must endeavour to give you a clearer idea of it. We all live here in bungalows, or thatched houses, on a piece of ground enclosed. Next to mine is the church, not yet opened for public worship, but which we make use of at night with the men of the 53rd. Corrie lives with me, and Miss Corrie with the Sherwoods. We usually rise at daybreak, and breakfast at six. Immediately after breakfast we pray together, after which I translate into Arabic with Sabat, who lives in a small bungalow on my ground. We dine at twelve, and sit recreating ourselves with talking a little about dear friends in England. In the afternoon, I translate with Mirza Fitrut into Hindustani, and Corrie employs himself in teaching some native Christian boys whom he is educating with great care, in hopes of their being fit for the office of catechist. I have also a school on my premises, for natives; but it is not well attended. There are not above sixteen Hindu boys in it at present: half of them read the Book of Genesis. At sunset we ride or drive, and then meet at the church, where we often raise the song of praise, with as much joy, through the grace and presence of our Lord, as you do in England. At ten we are all asleep. Thus we go on. To the hardships of missionaries we are strangers, yet not averse, I trust, to encounter them when we are called. My work at present is evidently to translate; hereafter I may itinerate. Dear Corrie, I fear, never will, he always suffers from moving about in the daytime. But I should have said something about my health, as I find my death was reported at Cambridge. I thank God I am perfectly well, though not very strong in my lungs; they do not seem affected yet, but I cannot speak long without uneasiness. From the nature of my complaint, if it deserves the name, it is evident that England is the last place I should go to. I should go home only to find a grave. How shall I I am truly sorry to see my paper fail. Write as often as possible, every three months at least. Tell me where you go, and whom you see and what you read. August 17.—I am sorry to conclude with saying that my yesterday’s boasted health proved a mistake; I was seized with violent sickness in the night, but to-day am better. Continue to pray for me, and believe me to be, your ever affectionate, H. Martyn. September 22.—Was walking with Lydia; both much affected, and speaking on the things dearest to us both. I awoke, and behold it was a dream. My mind remained very solemn and pensive; shed some tears; the clock struck three, and the moon was riding near her highest noon; all was silence and solemnity, and I thought with some pain of the sixteen thousand miles between us. But good is the will of the Lord, if I see her no more. To Lydia Grenfell From the Ganges: October 6, 1810. My dearest Lydia,—Though I have had no letter from you very lately, nor have anything particular to say, yet having been days on the water without a person to speak to, tired also with reading and thinking, I mean to indulge myself with a little of what is always agreeable to me, and sometimes good for me; for as my affection for you has something sacred in it, being founded on, or at least cemented by, an union of spirit in the Lord Jesus; so my separation also from you produced a deadness to the world, at least for a time, which leaves a solemn impression as often as I think of it. Add to this, that as I must not indulge the hope of ever seeing you again in this world, I I think of having my portrait taken in Calcutta, as I promised Mr. Simeon five years ago. Sabat’s picture would also be a curiosity. Yesterday I carried Col. Wood to dine with me, at the Nabob Bahir Ali’s. Sabat was there. The Colonel, who had been reading by the way the account of his conversion, in the Asiatic and East Society Report, which I had given him, eyed him with no great complacency, and observed in French, that Sabat might not understand him, ‘Il a l’air d’un sauvage.’ Sabat’s countenance is indeed terrible; noble when he is pleased, but with the look of an assassin when he is out of humour. I have had more opportunities of knowing Sabat than any man has had, and I cannot regard him with that interest which the ‘Star in the East’ is calculated to excite in most people. Buchanan says, I wrote (to whom I do not know) in terms of admiration and affection about him. Affection I do feel for him, but admiration, if I did once feel it, I am not conscious of it at present. I tremble for everything Calcutta, November 5.—A sheet full, like the preceding, I had written, but the moment it is necessary to send off my letter I cannot find it. That it does not go on to you is of little consequence, but into whose hands may it have fallen? It is this that grieves me. It was the continuance of my Journal to Calcutta, where I arrived the last day in October. Constant conversation with dear friends here has brought on the pain in the chest again, so that I do not attempt to preach. In two or three weeks I shall embark for the Gulf of Persia, where, if I live, I shall solace myself in my hours of solitude with writing to you. Farewell, beloved friend; pray for me, as you do, I am sure, and doubt not of an unceasing interest in the heart and prayers of your ever affectionate, H. Martyn. Ordered away on six months’ sick leave, Henry Martyn had the joy of once at least ministering to his soldier flock in the ‘new church,’ which he had induced the authorities to form out of an ordinary bungalow. Daily and fondly had he watched the preparations, reporting to Brown: ‘My church is almost ready for the organ and the bell.’ On Sunday, September 16, he had written: ‘Rain prevented me from having any service in public; the natives not being able to sit upon the grass, I could not preach to them.’ On Sunday, September 30, he thus took farewell of his different congregations: Corrie preached to the Dragoons, at nine the new church was opened. There was a considerable congregation, and I preached on, ‘In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee and bless thee.’ I felt something of Mrs. Sherwood thus describes the scene: On the Sunday before Mr. Martyn left the church was opened, and the bell sounded for the first time over this land of darkness. The church was crowded, and there was the band of our regiment to lead the singing and the chanting. Sergeant Clarke—our Sergeant Clarke—had been appointed as clerk; and there he sat under the desk in due form, in his red coat, and went through his duty with all due correctness. The Rev. Daniel Corrie read prayers, and Mr. Martyn preached. That was a day never to be forgotten. Those only who have been for some years in a place where there never has been public worship can have any idea of the fearful effect of its absence, especially among the mass of the people, who, of course, are unregenerate. Every prescribed form of public worship certainly has a tendency to become nothing more than a form, yet even a form may awaken reflection, and any state is better than that of perfect deadness. From his first arrival at the station Mr. Martyn had been labouring to effect the purpose which he then saw completed; namely, the opening of a place of worship. He was permitted to see it, to address the congregation once, and then he was summoned to depart. How often, how very often, are human beings called away, perhaps from this world, at the moment they have been enabled to bring to bear some favourite object. On this occasion the bright glow prevailed—a brilliant light shone from his eyes—he was filled with hope and joy; he saw the dawn of better things, he thought, at Cawnpore, and most eloquent, earnest, and affectionate was his address to the congregation. Our usual party accompanied him back to his bungalow, where, being arrived, he sank, as was often his way, nearly fainting, on a sofa in the hall. Soon, however, he revived a little, and called us all about him to sing. It was then that we sang to him that sweet hymn which thus begins: O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home. We all dined early together, and then returned with our little ones to enjoy some rest and quiet; but when the sun began to descend to the horizon we again went over to Mr. Martyn’s bungalow, to hear his last address to the fakeers. It was one of those sickly, hazy, burning evenings, which I have before described, and the scene was precisely such a one as I have recounted above. Mr. Martyn nearly fainted again after this effort, and when he got to his house, with his friends about him, he told us that he was afraid he had not been the means of doing the smallest good to any one of the strange people whom he had thus so often addressed. He did not even then know of the impression he had been enabled to make, on one of these occasions, on Sheikh Saleh. On the Monday our beloved friend went to his boats, which lay at the Ghaut, nearest the bungalow; but in the cool of the evening, how E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die. Then, in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save, When this poor lisping, stammering tongue Is silent in the grave. Henry Martyn’s continued to be the military church of Cawnpore till 1857, when it was destroyed in the Mutiny. Its place has been taken by a Memorial Church which visibly proclaims forgiveness and peace on the never-to-be forgotten site of Wheeler’s entrenchment—consecrated ground indeed! On October 1 he left Cawnpore, ‘after a parting prayer with my dearest brother Corrie,’ Thus far we are come in safety; but my spirits tell me that I have parted with friends. Your pale face as it appeared on Monday morning is still before my eyes, and will not let me be easy till you tell me you are strong and prudent. The first night there blew a wind so bleak and cold, through and through my boat and bed, that I rose, as I expected, with a pain in the breast, which has not quite left me, but will, I hope, to-night, when I shall take measures for expelling it. There is a gate not paid for yet belonging to the churchyard, may you always go through it in faith and return through it with praise. You are now in prayer with our men. The Lord be with you, and be always with you, dearest brother. Ministering to all who needed his services, in preaching, baptizing, and marrying, on his way down the great Ganges, at Benares, at Ghazipore, where he met with ‘the remains’ of his old 67th regiment, at Bhagulpore, and at Bandel, where he called on the Roman Catholics, on November 12 he at last came to Aldeen. Children jumping, shouting, and convoying me in troops to the house. They are a lovely family indeed, and I do not know when I have felt so delighted as at family worship last night. To-day Mr. Brown and myself have been consulting at the Pagoda. After four years’ absence he seemed a dying man to his Serampore and Calcutta friends, Brown, Thomason, Udny, and Colonel Young of Dinapore memory. But he was ever cheerful, and he preached every Sunday for five weeks, though in his Journal we find this on November 21: Caught a cold, and kept awake much of the night by a cough. From this day perhaps I may date my decay. Nature shrinks from dissolution, and conscience trembles at the thought of a judgment to come. But I try to rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. November 25. (Sunday.)—Preached at the old church, on ‘While Paul reasoned of righteousness,’ etc. The Governor-General, Lord Minto, was present, desiring, as was supposed, to abolish the distinction which had been made between the two churches. One passage in my sermon appeared to some personal, and on reconsideration I thought it so myself, and was excessively distressed at having given causeless offence, and perhaps preventing much good. Lord! pardon a blind creature. How much mischief may I do through mere thoughtlessness! December 2.—Preached at eight, on ‘Grace reigns,’ and was favoured with strength of body and joy of heart in proclaiming the glorious truth. December 25.—Preached, with much comfort to myself, on ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,’ etc. Mr. Brown on ‘Let your light so shine before men,’ etc. The whole sum collected about seven thousand rupees. At night Mr. Thomason on December 31.—Had a long dispute with Marshman, which brought on pain in the chest. He opened the year 1811 by preaching for the new Calcutta Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society his published sermon on Christian India and the Bible, to be read in the light of his own translation work hereafter. He thus on the same day committed himself to the future in the spirit of St. Paul: 1811.—The weakness which has come upon me in the course of the last year, if it should not give an entire new turn to my life, is likely to be productive of events in the course of the present year which I little expected, or at least did not expect so soon. I now pass from India to Arabia, not knowing what things shall befall me there; but assured that an ever-faithful God and Saviour will be with me in all places whithersoever I go. May He guide and protect me, and after prospering me in the thing whereunto I go, bring me back again to my delightful work in India. It would be a painful thought indeed, to suppose myself about to return no more. Having succeeded, apparently, through His blessing, in the Hindustani New Testament, I feel much encouraged, and could wish to be spared in order to finish the Bible. FOOTNOTES:‘Ameena was, by the Arab’s own account, his seventh wife. He had some wonderful story to tell of each of his former marriages; but that which he related of his sixth wife exceeded all the rest in the marvellous and the romantic. He told this tale at Mr. Martyn’s table one evening, whilst we were at supper, during the week we lived in the house. He spoke in Persian, and Mr. Martyn interpreted what he said, and it was this he narrated: It was on some occasion, he said, in which Fortune had played him one of her worst tricks, and reduced him to a state of the most abject poverty, that he happened to arrive one night at a certain city, which was the capital of some rajah, or petty king—Sabat called this person a king. It seemed he arrived at a crisis in which the king’s only daughter had given her father some terrible offence, and in order to be revenged upon her, the father issued his commands that she should be compelled to take for her husband the first stranger who arrived in the town after sunset. This man happened to be our Arab; he was accordingly seized and subjected to the processes of bathing and anointing with precious oil. He was then magnificently dressed, introduced into the royal hall, and duly married to the princess, who proved not only to be fair as the houris, but to be quite prepared to love the husband whom Fortune had sent her. He lived with her, he pretended, I know not how many years, and they were perfectly happy until the princess died, and he lost the favour of his majesty. I think that Sabat laid the scene of this adventure in or near Agra. But this could hardly be. That such things have been in the East—that is, that royal parents have taken such means of avenging themselves on offending daughters—is quite certain; but I cannot venture to assert that Sabat was telling the truth when he made himself the hero of the tale.’ In 1833 Corrie was again at Cawnpore, which had two chaplains then, and thus wrote: ‘October 6.—I attended Divine service at the church bungalow, and stood up once more in Martyn’s pulpit. The place is a little enlarged. The remembrance of Martyn and the Sherwoods, and Mary (his sister), with the occupations of that period, came powerfully to my recollection, and I could not prevent the tears from flowing. A sense of the forgiving love of God, with the prospect of all joining in thankful adoration in the realms of bliss, greatly preponderates.’ |
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