(Continued from p. 303.)
DURING his residence at Aldeen with Mr Brown, Mr Martyn employed himself chiefly in acquiring the Hindoostanee, besides preaching occasionally to his countrymen in Calcutta. The purity of his doctrines, as might have been expected, proved offensive to many; but, in spite of all opposition, this devoted messenger of Christ was determined to know nothing in his public ministrations save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. On the 13th of September, Mr Martyn received his appointment to Dinapore. The account of his departure from his dear Christian friends at Calcutta, is thus beautifully given by his biographer:— “A few days before he left Aldeen, several of Mr Martyn’s friends came together to his pagoda, in order that they might unite with him in imploring a blessing on his intended labours. Such a meeting could not fail of being highly interesting; and it was not the less so from a recollection of the place in which they were assembled—a Christian congregation in a building which once had been an idol temple, seemed to supply a consolatory pledge, as well as a significant emblem of what all earnestly prayed for, and confidently anticipated in poor idolatrous India. ‘My soul,’ said Mr Martyn, ‘never yet had such divine enjoyment. I felt a desire to break from the body and join the high praises of the saints above. May I go ‘in the strength of this many days’—Amen. ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.’ How sweet to walk with Jesus—to love Him—and to die for Him! ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ And again, the next day he says—’The blessed God has again visited my soul in His power, and all that was within me blessed His holy name. I found my heaven begun on earth. No work so sweet as that of praying, and living wholly to the service of God.’ “On the 15th October, after taking leave of the Church at Calcutta in a farewell discourse, and of the family at Aldeen in an exposition at morning worship, Mr Martyn entered his budgerow,* which was to convey him to Dinapore, and sailed up the Ganges, accompanied by his brethren, Mr Brown, Mr Corrie, and Mr Parsons. Mr Marshman, seeing them pass by the Mission House, could not resist joining the party; and after going a little way, left them with prayer. At night, Mr Martyn prayed with his brethren in the vessel; and the next day they devoted the whole morning to religious exercises. ‘How sweet is prayer,’ said he, ‘to my soul at this time. I seem as if I could never be tired, not only of spiritual joys, but of spiritual employments, since these are now the same.’ “The day after, the weather becoming tempestuous, his brethren sorrowfully and reluctantly left him to prosecute his voyage alone. Before they parted, however, they spent the whole morning (to use his own words) in a divine ordinance, in which each of them read a portion of Scripture, and all of them sang and prayed. ‘Mr Brown’s passage, chosen from the 1st of Joshua, was very suitable,’ said Mr Martyn—’Have I not sent thee’—’Let this be an answer to my fears, O my Lord, that I am in thy work; and that therefore I shall not go forth at my own charges, or fight any enemies but thine. It was a very affecting season to me, but in prayer I was far from a state of seriousness and affection.’
* A budgerow is a travelling boat, constructed like a pleasure barge.
At the commencement of his labours at Dinapore, Mr Martyn met with considerable opposition; but such was the mild and affectionate, yet firm adherence to the truth, by which his whole conduct was characterised, that he soon succeeded in gaining the esteem and the confidence of those who waited upon his ministry. In prosecuting his work as a Missionary, he now commenced the study of the Sanscrit, besides dedicating a considerable time every day to a translation of the Parables into Hindostanee, along with a commentary upon them. Both among Europeans and natives, he was indefatigable in preaching the Gospel, and endeavouring to commend the truth to every man’s conscience. In the superintendence of the schools which he had established, in his Sabbath duties, and in his week-day labours, Mr Martyn was so incessantly occupied, that his health began to yield. Still he felt unwilling to relax in his exertions. He devoted much of his time to the translation of the Scriptures into Hindostanee and Persian, an employment which seems to have afforded him peculiar delight. “The time fled imperceptibly,” he observes, “while so delightfully engaged in the translations; the days seemed to have passed like a moment. Blessed be God for some improvement in the languages! May every thing be for edification in the Church! What do I not owe to the Lord, for permitting me to take part in a translation of His Word; never did I see such wonder, and wisdom, and love, in that blessed book, as since I have been obliged to study every expression; and it is a delightful reflection, that death cannot deprive us of the pleasure of studying its mysteries.” While thus engaged, however, in his Master’s work, it pleased Him with whom all wisdom dwells, to visit him with a severe trial, in the death of his eldest sister, the intelligence of which affected him with the most pungent sorrow. “O my heart, my heart,” he exclaimed, “is it, can it be true, that she has been lying so many months in the cold grave! Would that I could remember it, or always forget it; but to think for a moment of other things, and then to feel the remembrance of it coming, as if for the first time, rends my heart asunder. When I look round upon the creation, and think that her eyes see it not, but have closed upon it for ever—that I lie down in my bed, but that she has lain down in her grave—Oh! is it possible! I wonder to find myself still in life; that the same tie which united us in life, has not brought death at the same moment to both. O great and gracious God! what should I do without Thee! But now thou art manifesting thyself as the God of all consolation to my soul; never was I so near thee; I stand on the brink, and long to take my flight. There is not a thing in the world for which I could wish to live, except the hope that it may please God to appoint me some work. And how shall my soul ever be thankful enough to thee. O thou most incomprehensibly glorious Saviour, Jesus! O what hast thou done to alleviate the sorrows of life! and how great has been the mercy of God towards my family, in saving us all! How dreadful would be the separation of relations in death, were it not for Jesus!” Acutely as Mr Martyn suffered under this afflicting dispensation, he omitted the prosecution of his various duties for only one day, devoting himself in season, and out of season, to the work which his Master had assigned him. It was not so much by preaching, in the first instance, that he hoped to reach the hearts of the natives, but by the institution of schools, and the distribution of the Scriptures. Anxious to try the effect of this mode of carrying on his missionary work, he resisted the earnest solicitations of his friends at Calcutta, who were urgent with him to accept the Mission Church at the Presidency. Mr Martyn preferred the retirement of Dinapore, with the hope of benefiting the natives, and, therefore, though the application was made to him through his much esteemed friend Mr Brown, he counted it his duty to decline the offer. In a short time, however, his present situation was rendered much less agreeable, by the removal of the only family with whom he had lived on terms of Christian intimacy, and to whom he had been the instrument of first imparting serious impressions. And another circumstance which distressed his mind not a little, was the temporary suspension of public worship on the Sabbath, in consequence of the state of the weather. Application had been made to the Governor-General for the erection of a church, and meanwhile Mr Martyn opened his own house as a place of worship. No exertions were spared to fulfil, as an hireling, his day; “the early morning, as well as the closing evening, found him engaged in his delightful labours.” At length he succeeded in accomplishing his great work—the version of the New Testament in Hindoostanee.
In the early part of the year 1809, Mr Martyn was removed from his station at Dinapore to Cawnpore, where his duties varied little from those to which he had already been accustomed. Soon after his arrival at his new station, intelligence reached him from Europe, first of the dangerous illness, then of the death of that sister who had taken so deep an interest in his spiritual welfare. This threw a deep gloom, for a time, over Mr Martyn’s mind, but still he persevered in labouring for souls, as one who must give an account. He now commenced his public ministrations among the heathen, preaching the Gospel to a crowd of mendicants who assembled on a stated day before his house, for the purpose of receiving alms. This motley congregation of beggars, of all descriptions, increased to the amount of even eight hundred, to whom an opportunity was thus afforded Mr Martyn of preaching the glad tidings of salvation. In the midst of these exertions Mr Martyn’s health began to fail. An attack of pain in the chest, accompanied with fever and debility, excited considerable alarm in the minds of his friends. But it was with extreme difficulty that he was prevailed upon to spare himself; providentially, however, he obtained no small assistance and relief by the arrival of his dear friend, Mr Corrie, who happened to stop at Cawnpore on his way to Agra. Notwithstanding this seasonable aid, Mr Martyn’s health became so precarious that he was recommended either to try the effect of a sea voyage, or to return to England for a short time. The latter alternative he at last, though with reluctance, resolved to adopt. Still anxious, however, to carry forward his missionary work, he decided upon going into Arabia and Persia, for the purpose of having the Persian and Arabic translations of the New Testament revised and corrected by some of the most learned men. At Shiraz, in Persia, where he resided for some time, he excited great interest by the success with which he conducted discussions with the Moollahs and the Sooffe doctors. After a stay of ten months he completed the Persian New Testament, and also the version of the Psalms in Persian—”a sweet employment,” to use his own words, “and which caused six weary moons that waxed and waned since its commencement, to pass unnoticed.” Having finished the translation, which was the object of his journey, he set out from Shiraz, with the design of laying the work before the king of Persia; but, finding that from some informality he could not obtain an audience, he proceeded to Tebriz, where the British minister resided, and from whom he expected to receive the necessary introduction to the king. After having completed this tedious journey, Mr Martyn was attacked with a severe fever, which compelled him to give up all idea of presenting the New Testament in person. It was now becoming every day more evident that a longer residence in the East would prove speedily fatal to our missionary; and, accordingly, ten days after his recovery from the fever, he set out on his journey home-wards. His design was to reach England by way of Constantinople; and accompanied by a Tartar guide, whose inhuman barbarity seems to have caused Mr Martyn’s death, he had reached no farther than Tocat, when, on the 16th October 1812, he breathed his last. The special circumstances of his death are unknown, but one thing is certain, that, whatever these circumstances were, he has reaped a rich reward of all his labours, toils, and privations in the cause of the Redeemer. “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”—”The Scottish Christian Herald.”