[Memoir of the] Rev. Henry Martyn

Chapter I. Paos

Early life of Henry Martyn — ^His successful academical career . « 13

CHAPTER IL

His advancement in piety— College employments'— Decides on becoming a Missionary — His Ordination., ^ ^ «.,••.•• • 26

CHAPTER in.

Commencement of his Ministerial labors — Collegiate Duties — ^Applies for a Chaplainship under the East India Company — 'Visits Cornwall — ^His sufferings on leaving England , ,, ,. ... ' 54

CHAPTER IV.

Departure from England — Occurrences during his Voyage — ^At St. Salvador — and at the Cape of Good Hope— Arrives at Madras — and at Calcutta ,,...,.> 100

CHAPTER V.

Mr. Martyn's arrival at Calcutta — ^Residence at Aldeen— ^ Preaches at Calcutta — Ts appointed at Dinapore — Leaves Calcutta—Journal of his voyage up the Hoogley and Ganges * - .....,,. 144

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Martyn is fixed at Dinapore — Commences his Ministry — Translations— Disputes with his Moonshee and Pundit -Difficulties respecting the Schools — His happiness in

the work of Translation ^ .

A3

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.

Mr. Martyn receives intelligence of the death of his eldost Sister— Letters to his friends — Is removed to Cawnpore ■—Hears of the death of his youngest Sister — Determines to visit Arahia and Persia — Leaves Cawnpore for Calcutta' — Departs for Arahia 208

CHAPTER Vra.

Mr. Martyn Leaves Bengal for Shiraz— Occurrences during his journey— Arrives at Shiraz— Commences a Nov Translation'— Discussions with the Persian Moollahs, ... 258

CHAPTER IX.

First Public Discussion at Shimz — Mr. Martyn replies to a Defence of Mahometanism — Interview with the Head of the Soofies — Visits Persepolis — Translations — Discussions 28r

CHAPTER X.

Mr. Martyn leaves Shiraz in order to lay before the king his Translation of the New Testament — Arrives at the <samp — ^Is not admitted to an audience — Proceeds to Tebriz — Severe illne&s , , . 328

CHAPTER XI.

Mr. Martyn commences his journey homewards, by way of Constantinople— Visits Ech-Miazin— Suffers^rom Fever — ^Dies at Tocat, in Persia — View of his Character — Coiftclusion 349

Introduction

Before the reader proceeds to the perusal of the following Memoir, it may be proper to inform him, that the first and second parts of it have been chiefly selected from various journals, which Mr. Martyn was in the habit of keeping, for his own private use ; and which, beginning with the year 1803, comprehended a period of eight years. The third part is extracted from an account which he drew up of his visit to Shiraz in Persia ; in which some occasional observations on the state of his own mind and feelings are interspersed. It is termed ' A Narrative,' by Mr. Martyn : and it was probably his intention to have enlarged it, for the use of the public, had his life been spared — or, perhaps, to have communicated it, nearly in its original shape, to his intimate friends. From the style and manner of it, at least, it may be presumed not to have been exclusively intended, as the journals above-mentioned evidently were, for his own recollection and benefit. The greater part of the last-mentioned papers were upon the point of being destroyed by the writer on his undertaking his voyage to Persia; but, happily, he was prevailed upon by the Rev. D. Corrie to confide them, under a soal, to his care; and by him they were transmitted from India to the Rev.

viii

INTRODUCTION.

C. Simeon and J. Thornton, Esq., Mr. Martyn's executors, in the year 1814, 'The Narrative/ which was sent, by Mr. Morier, from Constantinople, came into their hands in the following year. Such are the materials from which I have compiled the present Memoir — throughout the whole of which, I have endeavored, as much as possible, to let Mr. Martyn speak for himself, and thus to exhibit a genuine picture of his own mind.

In making a selection from a mass of such valuable matter, it has been my anxious wish and sincere prayer, that it might prove subservient to the interests of true religion. — One principal object with me has been, to render it beneficial to those disinterested ministers of the gospel, who, **with the Bible in their hand, and their Saviour in their hearts," devote themselves to the great cause for which Mr. Martyn lived and died : and, truly, if the example here delineated should excite any of those servants of Christ to similar exertion, or if it should animate and en courage them, amidst the multiplied difficulties of their ar duous course, my labour will receive an eminent and abun

dant recompense.

J. S.

TO THE TENTH LONDON EDITION .

In a Tenth Edition it certainly is tardy — at any period it probably would have been fruitless — to attempt the counteraction of an impression, not uncommon with the reader, that the subject of this work was of o, gloomy temperament, and that his religion assumed a desponding character. Late, however, as this declaration is — ineffectual as, perhaps, it will be — I am anxious to testify, from intimate personal knowledge, that this opinion is founded in complete misconception. Few persons, if any, known to me, have equalled him in the enjoyment of that *' peace which passeth all understanding" — few have possessed so animating and abiding an expectation of life and immortality. Those who are disposed to question this statement, from the strain of deep self-abasement which he perpetually adopts, do, in my judgment, convert what is a substantial proof of the assertion, into an ill-founded objection. Such at all EVENTS WAS THE FACT : I cau appeal to many living witnesses ; they can confirm what is advanced ; they also with me can aver, that Henry Martyn was not less cheerful as a companion, than he was warm-hearted and constant as a friend.

Those who imagine thai a smile scarcely ever played upon his countenance — that hi* manner was cold and for-

* PREFACE.

bidding, would have been startled at hearing hia hearty laugh, which still sounds in my ears, and in seeing little children climbing his knees, affording ^im a pleasure as great as they themselves received. That his natural temper was more irritable than I had supposed, is plain from the story of the knife, p. 18. which I at first disbelieved, but have since ascertained to be true. Of the tenderness of his heart — in addition to the evidences before given, there is a touching one, p. 253, which, whilst his " beloved Fersis" was yet amongst us, could not so well be published. For the previous non-insertion of that golden passage, p. 223, I have only one excuse — the distracting richness of his voluminous journals. Many masses of ore, and not mere filings, are still necessarily left behind. I will only add that I cannot enough deplore the unaccountable loss of the introduction to that sermon preached by him on ship-board, on the awful subject of eternal punishment The preference it expresses for other topics of discourse •—the reluctance it avows in bringing forward the painful one then under consideration — the motives it exhibits — love and concern for those whom he addressed — would convince those who may have suspected him orTiarshness, that if, on this occasion, he '' used the lancet, it was not till he had concealed it in the sponge." In the absence of the document itself, my testimony, 1 hope, to the above effect, will not be discredited.

J. S ' LAYKfOTON, April 1830.

MEMOIR.

CHAPTER L

EARLY LIFE OF HENRY MARTYN. HIS SUCCESSFUL

ACADEMICAL CAREER.

It has been well observed, by one* who took a profound view of human nature, that there are three very different orbits in which great men move and shine ; and that each sphere of greatness has its respective admirers. There are those, who as heroes, fill the world with their exploits ; they are greeted by the acclamations of the multitude; they are ennobled whilst living, and their names descend with lustre to posterity. Others there are, who by the brilliancy of their imagination or the vigour of their intellect, attain to honour of a purer and a higher kind ; the fame of these is confined to a more select number ; for all have not a discriminating sense of their merit. A third description remains, distinct from both of the former, and far more exalted than either; whose excellence consists in a renunciation of themselves and a compassionate love for mankind. In this order the Saviour of the world was pleased to appear; and those persons obtain the highest rank in it, who, by his grace, are enabled most closely to imitate his example.

Henry Martyn, the subject of this Memoir, was born at Truro, in the county of Cornwall, on the I8th *Pascal.

14 EARLY LIFE

of February, 1781, and appears, with his family in general, to have inherited a weak constitution; as, of many children, four only, two sons and two daughters, survived their father, Mr. John Martyn, and all of these, within a short period, followed him to the grave. Of these Henry was the third. His father was originally in a very humble situation of life, having been a labourer, in the mines of Gwenap, the place of his nativity. With no education but such as a country reading school afforded, he was compelled to engage, for his daily support, in an employment which, dreary and unhealthy as it was, offered some advantages, of which he most meritoriously availed himself. The miners, it seems, are in the habit of working and resting alternately every four hours ; and the periods of relaxation from manual labour, they frequently devote to mental emprovement. In these intervals of cessation from toil, John Martyn acquired a complete knowledge of arithmetic, and also some acquaintance with mathematics; and no sooner had he gathered these valuable and substantial fruits of persevering diligence, in a soil most unfriendly to their growth, than he was raised from a state of poverty and depression to one of comparative ease and comfort. Being admitted to the ofHce of Mr. Daniel, a merchant of Truro, he lived there as chief clerk, very respectably, enjoying considerably more than a competency. At the grammar school in this town, the master of which was the Rev. Cornelius Cardew, D.D. a gentleman of learning and talents, Henry was placedl)y his father in midsummer 1788, being then between seven and eight years of age. Of his childhood, previous to this period, little or nothing can be ascertained, but those who knew him considered him to be a boy of promising abilities.

Upon his first entering the school. Dr. Cardew observes, that ''he did not fail to answer the expectations which had been formed of him : his proficiency in the classics exceeded that of most of his school-fel*

OF HENRY MARTVN. 16

lows ; yet there were boys who made a more rapid progress ; — not perhaps that their abilities were superior, but their application was greater; for he was of a lively, cheerful temper, and, as I have been told by those who sat near him, appeared to be the idlest among them; being frequently known to go up to his lesson with little or no preparation, — as if he learned it by intuition. - .' '•

In all schools there are boys, it is well known, who from natural softness of spirit, inferiority in point of bodily strength, or an unusual thirst for literary acquirements, become much secluded from the rest; and such boys are generally exposed to the ridicule and oppression of their associates. Henry Martyn, though not at that time eminently studious, was one of this class; he seldom joined the other boys in their pastimes, in which he was not an adept; and he often suffered from the tyranny of those older and stronger than himself.

" Little Harry Martyn," (for by that name he usually went,) says one of his earliest friends and companions, " was in a manner proverbial among his schoolfellows for a peculiar tenderness and inoffensiveness of spirit, which exposed him to the ill offices of many overbearing boys; and as there was at times some peevishness in his manner when attacked, he was often unkindly treated.

That he might receive assistance in his lessons he was placed near one of the upper boys, with whom he contracted a friendship which lasted through life, and whose imagination readily recalls the position in which he used to sit, the thankful expression of his affectionate countenance, when he happened to be helped out of some difficulty, and a thousand other little incidents of his boyish days." Besides assisting him in his exercises, his friend, it is added, " had often the happiness of rescuing him from the grasp of oppressors, and has never seen more feeling gratitude evinced than was €hown by him on those occasions."

16 EARLY LIFE

At this school, under the same excellent tuition, Henry remained till he' was between fourteen and fifteen years of age ; at which period 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, without any interest in the University, and with only a single letter to one of the tutors : and while there, he acquitted himself so well, though strongly and ably opposed, that, in 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 ! Had success attended him, the whole circumstances of his after-life would have been varied ; and however his temporal interests might have been promoted, his spiritual interests would probably have sustained a proportionate loss.

It was with sensations of this kind that he himself many years afterwards reverted to this disappointment. "In the Autumn of 1795," he says, in an account prefixed to his private Journal of the year 1803, "my father, at the persuasion of many of his friends, sent me to Oxford, to be a candidate for the vacant scholarship at Corpus Christi; I entered at no college, but had rooms at Exeter College, by the interest of Mr. Cole, the Sub-Rector. I passed the examination, I believe, tolerably well ; but was unsuccessful, having everyreason to think that the decision was impartial. 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 for ever."

After this repulse, Henry returned home, and continued to attend Dr. Cardew^'s school till June, 1797. That he had made no inconsiderable progress there, was evident from the very creditable examination he passed at Oxford ; and in the two years subsequent to

OP HENRY MARTYN. 17

this, he must have greatly augmented his fund of classical knowledge ; but it seems not to have been till after he had commenced his academical career, that his superiority of talent was fully discovered. The signal success of that friend who had been his guide and protector at school, led him in the spring of the year, to direct his views towards the University of Cambridge, which he probably preferred to that of Oxford, because he hoped there to profit by the advice and assistance to which he was already so much indebted. Whatever might be the cause of this preference, it certainly did not arise from any predilection for mathematics ; for he confesses that, in the autumn before he went to Cambridge, instead of the study of Euclid and Algebra, one part of the day was dedicated to his favourite employment of shooting, and the other to reading, for the most part, Travels, and Lord Chesterfield's Letters; — " attributing to a want of taste for mathematics, what ought to have been ascribed to idleness; and having his mind in a roving, dissatisfied, restless condition, seeking his chief pleasure in reading and in human praise."

His residence at St. John's College, where his name had been previously entered in the summer, commenced in the month of October, 1797; and it may tend to show how little can be determined from first attempts, to relate that Henry Martyn began his mathematical pursuits by attempting to commit the propositions of Euclid to memory. The endeavour may be considered as a proof of the confidence he himself entertained in the retentive powers of his mind; but it certainly did not supply an auspicious omen of future excellence.

On his introduction to the University, happily for him, the friend of his ' boyish days ' became the counsellor of his riper years ; nor was this most important act of friendship either lost upon him at the time, or obliterated from his menjory in after life. " During the first term," he has recorded in his journal, ** I was

18 HIS SLci k^^skUL

kept a good deal in idleness by some of iny new acquaintances, but the kind attention of K was a principal means of my preservation from excess." That his time was far from being wholly misemployed, between October and Christmas, is evident from the place he obtained in the first class at the public examination of his college 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 examination in the summer, he reached the second station in the first class ; a point of elevation which "flattered his pride not a little."

The tenor of Henry Martyn's life during this and the succeeding year, would, in the eye of the world, be considered to have been amiable and commendable. He was outwardly moral; was, with little exception, unwearied in application ; and exhibited marks of no ordinary talent. One exception to this statement is to be found in an irritability of temper, increased, if not engendered by the treatment he had. met with at school. These ebullitions of passion had, on one occasion, nearly proved fatal to a friend — the late excellent Mr. Cotterill (afterwards minister of St. Paul's Church, Sheffield.) He barely escaped the point of a knife, wiiich, thrown by the hand of Henry Martyn, most providentially missed him, and was left trembling in the wall. If from this unsubdued impetuosity of temper we pass to his avowed and fixed principles — these, as might well be expected, evince him to have been living at this time ' without God in the world.' The consideration that God chiefly regards the motives of our actions — a consideration so momentous, and so essential to the character of a real christian appears as yet never to have entered his mind : and even when it did, as was the case at this time, it rested there as a theoretic notion, which was never meant to be reduced to practice. His own account of himself is very strik-

ACADEMICAL CAREER. 19

ing. Speaking of June, 1799, he says, '* K (the

friend alluded to before) attempted to persuade me that I ought to attend to reading, not for the praise^ of men, but for the glory of God. This seemed strange to me, but reasonable. I resolved, therefore, to maintain this opinion thenceforth ; but never designed, that I remember, that it should affect my conduct,^'' What a decisive mark this of an unrenewed mind ! v^hat an affecting proof that light may break in upon the understanding, whilst there is not so much as the dawn of it on the heart I

Providentially for Henry Martyn, he had not only the great blessing of possessing a religious friend at College, but he possessed likewise the happiness of having a sister in Cornwall, who was a christian of a meek, heavenly, and affectionate spirit; to whom, as well as to the rest of his relations there, he paid a visit in the summer of the year 1799, carrying with him no small degree of academical honour, though not all that he had fondly and ambitiously expected. He had lost the prize for themes in his college, and was only second again in the first class at the public examination, when he had hoped to have been first; — a "double disappointment," to use his own words, " which nettled him to the quick." 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 learn from his own declaration. " I went home this summer, and was frequently addressed by my dear sister on the subject of religion, but the sound of the Gospel, conveyed in the admonition of a sister, was grating to my ears." — The first result of her tender exhortations and earnest enendeavours 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

1^0 HI9 SUCCESSFUL

sisters, similarly circumstanced, may learn from thifi case, not merely their duty, but also, from the final result, the success they may anticipate — in the faithful discharge of it. '' I think," he observes, wlien afterwards reviewing this period with a spirit truly broken and contrite, " I do not remember a time in which the wickedness of my heart rose to a greater height than during my stay at home. The consummate selfishness and exquisite irritability of my mind were displayed in rage, malice, and envy ; in pride, and vain glory, and contempt of all ; in the harshest language to my sisier, and even to my father, if he happened to differ from my mind and will. O what an example of patience and mildness was he! I love to think of his excellent qualities, and it is frequently the anguish of my heart, that I ever could be so base and wicked as to pain him by the slightest neglect. my God and Father, why is not my heart doubly agonized at the remembrance of all my great transgressions against Thee ever since I have known thee as such ! — I left my sister and father in October, and him I saw no more. I promised my sister that I would read the Bible for myself, but on being settled at college, Newton engaged all my thoughts.'* At length, however, it pleased God to convince Henry by a most affecting visitation of his providence, that there was knowledge far more important to him than any human science; and to lead him, whilst contemplating the heavens by the light of astronomy, to devote himself to His service, who having made those heavens, and having left them for man's salvation, is now again exalted to the right hand of God, as his Mediator and Advocate. The sudden and heart-rending intelligence of the death of his father, was the proximate, though doubtless, not the efficient cause of his receiving these convictions. How poignant were his sufferings under this afHiction may be seen in the account he himself has left of it: — from whence it is evident that it was a season, not only of severe but of

ACADEMICAL CAREER. 31

sanctified sorrow ; a seed time of tears, promising that harvest of holiness, peace, and joy, which succeeded it. At the examination at Christmas, 1799," he writes, ** I was first, and the account of it pleased my father prodigiously, who, I was told, was in great health and spirits. * What then was my consternation, when, in January, I received from my brother an account of his death ! But while I mourned the loss of an earthly parent, the angels in heaven were rejoicing at my being so soon to find an heavenly one. As I had no taste at this time for my usual studies, I took up my Bible, thinking that the consideration of religion was rather suitable to this solemn time ; nevertheless I often took up other books to engage my attention, and should

have continued to do so, had not K advised me to

make this time an occasion of serious reflection. I began with the Acts, as being the most amusing; and, whilst I was entertained with the narrative, I found myself insensibly led to enquire more attentively into the doctrines of the Apostles. These corresponded nearly enough with the few notions I had received in my early youth. I believe, on the first night after, I began to pray from a pre-composed form, in which I thanked God in general, for having sent Christ into the world. But though I prayed for pardon, I had little sense of my own sinfulness; nevertheless, I began to consider myself a religious man. The first time after this that I went to chapel, I saw, with some degree of surprise at my former inattention, that in the Magnificat there was a great degree of joy expressed at the coming of Christ, which I thought but reasonable. K had lent me Doddridge's Rise and Progress. The first part of which 1 could not bear to read, because it appeared to make religion consist too much in humiliation : and piy proud and wicked heart would not bear to be brought down into the dust. And

K , to whom I mentioned the gloom which I felt,

after reading the first part of Doddridge, reprobated it

^4 HIS SUCCESSFUL

•trongly. — Alas ! did he think thert we can go along the way that leadeth unto life, without entering in at the '.strait gate? ' " .

It was not long after Henry had been called to en* dure this gracious, though grievous, chastening from above, that the public exercises conamenced in the University ; and although his greatest stimulous to exertion was removed by the loss of his father, whom it was his most anxious desire still to please, he again devoted himself to his mathematical studies with unwearied diligence. That spiritual danger exists in an intense application of the mind to these studies, he was so deeply sensible at a latter period of his life, as, on a review of this particular time, most gratefully to acknowledge, that " the mercy of God prevented the extinction of that spark of grace which his Spirit had kindled." At the moment of his exposure to this peril he was less conscious of it : but we may perceive, from the following letter to his youngest sister, that he was not wholly devoid of circumspection on this head. Having shortly, and with much simplicity, announced that his name stood first upon the list at the college examination of the summer of the year 1800, he thus expresses himself: " 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. When I consider how little human assistance you. have had, and the great knowledge to which j^ou have attained on the subject of religion — especially observing the extreme ignorance of the most wise and learned of this world — I think this is itself a proof of the wonderful influence of the Holy Ghost on the minds of well-disposed persons. It is certainly by the Spirit alone that we can have the will, or power, or knowledge, or confidence to pray; and by Him alone we come unto the Father through Jesus Christ. ' Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto tlie Father.' How I re- ?oice to find that we disagreed only about words ! I did

ACADEMICAL CAREER. S3

not doubt, as you suppose, at all about that joy which true believers feel. Can there be any one subject, any one source of cheerfulness and joy, at all to be compared with the heavenly serenity and comfort which euch a person must find, in holding communion with his God and Saviour in prayer — in addressing God as his Father, and, more than all, in the transporting hope of being preserved unto everlasting life, and of singing praises to his Redeemer when time shall be no more? Oh ! I do indeed feel this state of mind at times ; but at other times I feel quite humbled at finding myself so cold and hard-hearted. That reluctance to prayer, that unwillingness to come unto God, who is the fountain of all good, when reason and experience tells us that with him only true pleasure is to be found, seem to be owing to Satanic influence. Though I think my employment in life gives me peculiar advantages, in some respects, with regard to religious knowledge; yet with regard to having a practical sense of things on the mind, it is by far more the worst of any. For the labourer as he drives on his plough, and the weaver as he works at his loom, may have his thoughts entirely disengaged from his work, and may think with advantage upon any religious subject. But the nature of owr studies requires such a deep abstraction of the mind from all things, as to roiider it completely incapable of any thing else, and that during many hours of the day. With respect to the dealings of the Almighty with me, you have heard in general the chief of my account; as I am brought to a sense of things gradually, there is nothing peculiarly striking in it to particularise. 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. Yet I still read the Bible unenlightened ; and said a prayer or two rather through terror of a superior power than any other (^ause. Soon,