HENRY MARTYN
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
[Illustration: Henry Martyn. From the portrait in the University
Library. Cambridge.]
HENRY MARTYN
_SAINT AND SCHOLAR_
FIRST MODERN MISSIONARY TO THE MOHAMMEDANS 1781-1812
BY
GEORGE SMITH, C.I.E., LL.D.
AUTHOR OF 'LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY' 'LIFE OF ALEXANDER DUFF' ETC.
_Now let me burn out for God_
_WITH PORTRAIT AND ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
56 PATERNOSTER ROW, 65 ST PAUL'S CHURCHYARD AND 164 PICCADILLY
1892
PREFACE
In the year 1819, John Sargent, Rector of Lavington, published _A
Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn_. The book at once became a spiritual
classic. The saint, the scholar, and the missionary, alike found in it
a new inspiration. It ran through ten editions during the writer's
life, and he died when projecting an additional volume of the Journals
and Letters. His son-in-law, S. Wilberforce, afterwards Bishop of
Oxford and of Winchester, accordingly, in 1837 published, in two
volumes, _Journals and Letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D._, with
an introduction on Sargent's life. Sargent had suppressed what Bishop
Wilberforce describes as 'a great variety of interesting materials'.
Especially in the lifetime of Lydia Grenfell it was thought necessary
to omit the facts which give to Henry Martyn's personality its human
interest and intensify our appreciation of his heroism. On the lady's
death, in 1829, Martyn's letters to her became available, and Bishop
Wilberforce incorporated these in what he described as 'further and
often more continuous selections from the journals and letters of Mr.
Martyn.' But, unhappily, his work does not fully supplement that of
Sargent. The _Journal_ is still mutilated; the _Letters_ are still
imperfect.
Some years ago, on completing the _Life of William Carey_, who had
written that wherever his friend Henry Martyn might go as chaplain the
Church need not send a missionary, I began to prepare a new work on
the first modern apostle to the Mohammedans. I was encouraged by his
grand-nephew, a distinguished mathematician, the late Henry Martyn
Jeffery, F.R.S., who had in 1883 printed _Two Sets of Unpublished
Letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., of Truro_. For a time I
stopped the work on learning that he had come into possession of Lydia
Grenfell's papers, and was preparing the book which appeared in 1890,
_Extracts from the Religious Diary of Miss L. Grenfell, of Marazion,
Cornwall_. Except her letters to Henry Martyn, which are not in
existence now, all the desirable materials seemed to be ready.
Meanwhile, the missionary bishop who most resembled Martyn in
character and service, Thomas Valpy French, of Lahore and Muscat, had
written to Canon Edmonds of S. Wilberforce's book as 'a work for whose
reprint I have often pleaded in vain, and for which all that there is
of mission life in our Church would plead, had it not been so long out
of print and out of sight.'
My aim is to set the two autobiographies, unconsciously written in the
Journals and Letters of Henry Martyn and in the Diary of Lydia
Grenfell, in the light of recent knowledge of South Africa and India,
Persia and Turkey, and of Bible work and missionary history in the
lands of which, by his life and by his death, Henry Martyn took
possession for the Master. Bengal chaplain of the East India Company,
he was, above all, a missionary to the two divisions of Islam, in
India and Persia, and in Arabia and Turkey. May this book, written
after years of experience in Bengal, lead many to enter on the
inheritance he has left to the Catholic Church!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CORNWALL AND CAMBRIDGE, 1781-1803 1
II. LYDIA GRENFELL 43
III. THE NINE MONTHS' VOYAGE--SOUTH AMERICA--SOUTH
AFRICA, 1805-1806 101
IV. INDIA AND THE EAST IN THE YEAR 1806 132
V. CALCUTTA AND SERAMPORE, 1806 150
VI. DINAPORE AND PATNA, 1807-1809 199
VII. CAWNPORE, 1809-1810 257
VIII. FROM CALCUTTA TO CEYLON, BOMBAY, AND ARABIA 315
IX. IN PERSIA--BUSHIRE AND SHIRAZ, 1811 340
X. IN PERSIA--CONTROVERSIES WITH MOHAMMEDANS, SOOFIS,
AND JEWS 370
XI. IN PERSIA--TRANSLATING THE SCRIPTURES 417
XII. SHIRAZ TO TABREEZ--THE PERSIAN NEW TESTAMENT 461
XIII. IN PERSIA AND TURKEY--TABREEZ TO TOKAT AND THE TOMB 492
XIV. THE TWO RESTING-PLACES--TOKAT AND BREAGE 515
XV. BAPTIZED FOR THE DEAD 552
INDEX 573
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PORTRAIT--HENRY MARTYN _Frontispiece_
ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, IN 1797 13
SECOND COURT, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, IN 1803 32
TRINITY CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE, IN 1803 37
ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, AT FULL TIDE 45
PAGODA, ALDEEN HOUSE 159
A BRICK FROM HENRY MARTYN'S PAGODA 161
SHIRAZ 357
TOKAT IN 1812 518
TOMB OF HENRY MARTYN 531
Then came another of priestly garb and mien,
A young man still wanting the years of Christ,
But long since with the saints....
A poet with the contemplative gaze
And listening ear, but quick of force and eye,
Who fought the wrong without, the wrong within,
And, being a pure saint, like those of old,
Abased himself and all the precious gifts
God gave him, flinging all before the feet
Of Him whose name he bore--a fragile form
Upon whose hectic cheek there burned a flush
That was not health; who lived as Xavier lived,
And died like him upon the burning sands,
Untended, yet whose creed was far from his
As pole from pole; whom grateful England still
Loves.
The awakened gaze
Turned wholly from the earth, on things of heaven
He dwelt both day and night. The thought of God
Filled him with infinite joy; his craving soul
Dwelt on Him as a feast; as did the soul
Of rapt Francesco in his holy cell
In blest Assisi; and he knew the pain,
The deep despondence of the saint, the doubt,
The consciousness of dark offence, the joy
Of full assurance last, when heaven itself
Stands open to the ecstasy of faith.
The relentless lie
Of Islam ... he chose to bear, who knew
How swift the night should fall on him, and burned
To save one soul alive while yet 'twas day.
This filled his thoughts, this only, and for this
On the pure altar of his soul he heaped
A costlier sacrifice, this youth in years,
For whom Love called, and loving hands, and hope
Of childish lives around him, offering these,
Like all the rest, to God.
Yet when his hour
Was come to leave his England, was it strange
His weakling life pined for the parting kiss
Of love and kindred, whom his prescient soul
Knew he should see no more?
... The woman of his love
Feared to leave all and give her life to his,
And both to God; his sisters passed away
To heaven, nor saw him more. There seemed on earth
Nothing for which to live, except the Faith,
Only the Faith, the Faith! until his soul
Wore thin her prison bars, and he was fain
To rest awhile, or work no more the work
For which alone he lived.
_A Vision of Saints._ By LEWIS MORRIS.
HENRY MARTYN
CHAPTER I
CORNWALL AND CAMBRIDGE, 1781-1803
Writing half a century ago, as one who gratefully accepted the guidance
of the Church of England, from the evangelical and philanthropic side of
which he sprang, Sir James Stephen declared the name of Henry Martyn to
be 'in fact the one heroic name which adorns her annals from the days of
Elizabeth to our own'. The past fifty years have seen her annals, in
common with those of other Churches, adorned by many heroic names. These
are as many and as illustrious on the side which has enshrined Henry
Martyn in the new Cathedral of Truro, as amongst the Evangelicals, to
whom in life he belonged. But the influence which streams forth from his
short life and his obscure death is the perpetual heritage of all
English-speaking Christendom, and of the native churches of India,
Arabia, Persia, and Anatolia in all time to come. His _Journal_, even in
the mutilated form published first by his friend Sargent, is one of the
great spiritual autobiographies of Catholic literature. It is placed
beside the _Confessions_ of Augustine and the _Grace Abounding_ of
Bunyan. The _Letters_ are read along with those of Samuel Rutherford and
William Cowper by the most saintly workers, persuasive preachers, and
learned scholars, who, even in these days of searching criticism,
attribute to the young chaplain-missionary their early inspiration and
renewed consecration, even as he traced his to Brainerd, Carey, and
Charles Simeon.
Born in Truro on February 18, 1781, Henry Martyn came from a land the
oldest and most isolated in Great Britain; a Celtic people but
recently transformed from the rudest to the most courteous and
upright; a family created and partly enriched by the great mining
industry; and a church which had been the first, in these far-western
islands, to receive the teaching of the Apostles of Jesus Christ.
The tin found in the lodes and streams of the Devonian Slates of West
Cornwall was the only large source of supply to the world down to
Henry Martyn's time. The granite porphyries which form the Land's End
had come to be worked only a century before that for the 'bunches' of
copper which fill the lines of fault and fissure. It was chiefly from
the deeper lodes of Gwennap, near Truro, that his family had drawn a
competence. The statement of Richard Carew, in his _Survey of
Cornwall_, was true of the dim centuries before Herodotus wrote, that
the 'tynne of the little angle (Cornwall) overfloweth England,
watereth Christendom, and is derived to a great part of the world
besides'.[1] Tyrian and Jew, Greek and Roman, as navigators,
travellers, and capitalists, had in the darkness of prehistoric days
dealings with the land described in an Elizabethan treatise on
Geography as a foreign country on that side of England next to Spain.
London itself is modern compared with the Cornish trade, which in its
latest stage assumed the Latin name _Stannum_, and the almost perfect
economic laws administered by the Lord Warden of the Stannaries since
King John leased the mines to the Jews, and Edward I., as Earl of
Cornwall, established the now vexed 'royalties' by charter. Even in
the century since Henry Martyn's early days, fourteen of the Cornish
mines have yielded a gross return of more than thirteen millions
sterling, of which above one-fifth was clear profit.
Whether the Romans used the Britons in the mines as slaves or not, the
just and democratic system of working them--which was probably due to
the Norman kings, and extorted the admiration of M. Jars, a French
traveller of the generation to which Henry Martyn's father belonged--did
not humanise the population. So rude were their manners that their
heath-covered rocks bore the name of 'West Barbary.' Writing two
centuries before Martyn, Norden described the city of his birth as
remarkable for its neatness, which it still is, but he added, there is
not a town 'more discommendable for the pride of the people.' The
Cornish miner's life is still as short as it is hard and daring, in
spite of his splendid physique and the remarkable health of the women
and children. But the perils of a rock-bound coast, the pursuits of
wrecking and smuggling, added to the dangers of the mines, and all
isolated from the growing civilisation of England, had combined, century
after century, to make Cornwall a byword till John Wesley and George
Whitfield visited it. Then the miner became so changed, not less really
because rapidly, that the feature of the whole people which first and
most continuously strikes a stranger is their grave and yet hearty
politeness. Thomas Carlyle has, in his _Life of Sterling_, pictured the
moral heroism which Methodism, with its 'faith of assurance,' developes
in the ignorant Cornish miner, a faith which, as illustrated by William
Carey and taught by the Church of England, did much to make Henry Martyn
what he became. John Wesley's own description in the year of Henry
Martyn's birth is this: 'It pleased God the seed there sown has produced
an abundant harvest. Indeed, I hardly know any part of the three
kingdoms where there has been a more general change.' The Cornishman
still beguiles the weary hours of his descent of the ladder to his toil
by crooning the hymns of Charles Wesley. The local preacher whose
eloquent earnestness and knowledge of his Bible have delighted the
stranger on Sunday, is found next day two hundred fathoms below the sea,
doing his eight hours' work all wet and grimy and red from the
iron-sand, picking out the tin of Bottallack or the copper of Gwennap.
Long before Henry Martyn knew Simeon he had become unconsciously in some
sense the fruit of the teaching of the Wesleys.
During fifty-five years again and again John Wesley visited Cornwall,
preaching in the open air all over the mining county and in the
fishing hamlets, till two generations were permanently changed. His
favourite centre was Gwennap, which had long been the home of the
Martyn family, a few miles from Truro. There he found his open-air
pulpit and church in the great hollow, ever since known as 'Wesley's
Pit,' where, to this day, thousands crowd every Whit-Monday to
commemorative services. Wesley's published journal, which closes with
October 1790, when Henry Martyn was nearly ten years of age, has more
frequent and always more appreciative references to Gwennap than to
any other town. On July 6, 1745, we find him writing:
At Gwennap also we found the people in the utmost consternation.
Word was brought that a great company of tinners, made drunk on
purpose, were coming to do terrible things--so that abundance of
people went away. I preached to the rest on 'Love your enemies.'
By 1774 we read 'the glorious congregation was assembled at five in
the amphitheatre at Gwennap.' Next year we find this:
'At five in the evening in the amphitheatre at Gwennap. I think
this is the most magnificent spectacle which is to be seen on
this side heaven. And no music is to be heard upon earth
comparable to the sound of many thousand voices when they are
all harmoniously joined together singing "praises to God and the
Lamb." Four-and-twenty thousand were present, frequently, at
that spot. And yet all, I was informed, could hear distinctly in
the fair, calm evening.' Again: 'I think this is my _ne plus
ultra_. I shall scarce see a larger congregation till we meet in
the air.'
We are thus introduced to the very spot where Henry Martyn was born:
'About noon I preached in the piazza adjoining to the Coinage Hall in
Truro. I was enabled to speak exceeding plain on "Ye are saved through
faith."' In the evening of the same day Wesley preached in the fishing
village of Megavissey, 'where I saw a very rare thing--men swiftly
increasing in substance, and yet not decreasing in holiness.'
From such a land and such influences sprang the first missionary hero
of the Church of England in modern times. The Martyn family had for
more than a century been known locally as one of skilled miners,
described by their ablest representative in recent times[2] as 'mine
agents or mine captains who filled positions of trust.' Martin Luther
had a similar origin. There is no evidence that any of them went
underground, although that, if true, would justify the romance for
which Martyn's first biographer is responsible. His great-grandfather
was Thomas Martyn, his grandfather was John Martyn of Gwennap
Churchtown, and his grand-uncle was the surveyor, Thomas Martyn
(1695-1751), who published the map of Cornwall described as a marvel
of minute and accurate topography, due to a survey on foot for fifteen
years. Mr. Jeffery quotes from some manuscript notes written by his
father:
John, an elder brother of Thomas Martyn, was the father of John
Martyn, who was born at Gwennap Churchtown, and, when young, was
put as an accountant at Wheal Virgin Mine. He was soon made
cashier to Ralph Allen Daniell, Esq., of Trelissick. Mr. Martyn
held one-twenty-fourth of Wheal Unity Mine, where upwards of
300,000_l._ was divided. He then resided in a house opposite the
Coinage Hall (now the Cornish Bank), Truro, a little below the
present Market House. Here Henry Martyn was born February 18,
1781, and was sent thence to Dr. Cardew's School in 1788.
The new Town Hall stands on the site of the house.
The boy bore a family name which is common in Southwest England, and
which was doubtless derived, in the first instance, from the great
missionary monk of Celtic France, the founder of the Gallic Church,
St. Martin, Bishop of Tours. Born in what is now Lower Hungary, the
son of a pagan soldier of Rome, St. Martin, during his long life
which nearly covered the fourth century, made an impression,
especially on Western or Celtic Christendom, even greater than that of
the Devonshire Winfrith or Boniface on Germany long after him. It was
in the generation after his death, when St. Martin's glory was at its
height, that the Saxon invasion of Britain led to the migration of
British Christians from West and South England to Armorica, which was
thence called Brittany. The intercourse between Cornwall and Britannia
Minor became as close as is now the case between the Celtic districts
of the United Kingdom and North America. Missionaries continually
passed and repassed between them. St. Corentin, consecrated Bishop of
Quimper in Brittany or French Cornwall, by the hands of St. Martin
himself, was sent to Cornwall long before Pope Gregory despatched St.
Augustin to Canterbury, and became a popular Cornish saint after whom
St. Cury's parish is still named. On the other side, the Early British
Church of Cornwall, where we still find Roman Christian inscriptions,
kept up a close fellowship with the Church in Ireland. The earliest
martyrs and hermits of the Church of Cornu-Gallia were companions of
St. Patrick.
Certainly there is no missionary saint in all the history of the
Church of Christ whom, in his character, Henry Martyn so closely
resembled as his namesake, the apostle of the Gallic peoples. In the
pages of the bishop's biographer, Sulpicius Severus, we see the same
self-consecration which has made the _Journal_ of Henry Martyn a
stimulus to the noblest spirits of modern Christendom; the same fiery
zeal, often so excessive as to defeat the Divine mission; the same
soldier-like obedience and humility; the same prayerfulness without
ceasing, and faith in the power of prayer; the same fearlessness in
preaching truth however disagreeable to the luxurious and vicious of
the time; and, above all on the practical side, the same winning
loveableness and self-sacrifice for others which have made the story
of St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar second only, in
Mediæval art, to the Gospel records of the Lord's own acts of tender
grace and Divine self-emptying. As we trace, step by step, the
unceasing service of Henry Martyn to men for love of his Master, we
shall find a succession of modern parallels to the act of St. Martin,
who, when a lad of eighteen with his regiment at Amiens, himself
moneyless, answered the appeal of a beggar, shivering at the city
gates in a cruel winter, by drawing his dagger, dividing his military
cloak, and giving half of it to the naked man. If the legend continues
to run, that the boy saw in a dream Christ Himself in the half-cloak
saying to the attendant angels, 'Martin, still a catechumen, has
clothed Me with this garment,' and forthwith sought baptism--that is
only a form of the same spirit which, from the days of Paul to our
own, finds inspiration in the thought that we are compassed about by a
great cloud of witnesses.
Henry Martyn was baptised in the old church of St. Mary, now part of the
unfinished cathedral. He was the third of four children. The eldest, a
half-brother, John, was born fifteen years before him. The second and
fourth were his own sisters, Laura and Sally; the former married Mr.
Curgenven, nephew of the Vicar of Lamorran of that name; the latter
married a Mr. Pearson. Short-lived as Henry himself proved to be, all
three died before him. To both the sisters--and especially to the
younger, who proved to be to him at once sister, mother, and spiritual
guide to Christ--there are frequent allusions in his _Journals and
Letters_. His mother, named Fleming, and from Ilfracombe, died in the
year after his birth, having transmitted her delicate constitution to
her children. It was through his father, as well as younger sister, that
the higher influences were rained on Henry Martyn. In the wayward and
often wilful years before the boy yielded to the power of Christ's
resurrection, the father's gentleness kept him in the right way, from
which any violent opposition would have driven one of proud spirit. A
skilled accountant and practical self-trained mathematician, the father
encouraged in the boy the study of science, and early introduced him to
the great work of Newton. Valuing the higher education as few in England
did at that time, John Martyn ever kept before the lad the prospect of a
University course. Looking back on these days, and especially on his
last visit home before his father's unexpected death, Henry Martyn wrote
when he was eighteen years of age:
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
sister, and even to my father, if he happened to differ from my
mind and will. Oh, what an example of patience and mildness was
he! I love to think of his excellent qualities, and it is
frequently the anguish of my heart that I ever could be so base
and wicked as to pain him by the slightest neglect.
Truro was fortunate in its grammar school--'the Eton of Cornwall'--and
in the headmaster of that time, the Rev. Cornelius Cardew, D.D., whose
portrait now adorns the city's council chamber. The visitor who seeks
out the old school in Boscawen Street now finds it converted into the
ware-room of an ironmonger. All around may still be seen the oak
panels on which successive generations of schoolboys cut their names.
A pane of glass on which Henry Martyn scratched his name, with a Greek
quotation and a Hebrew word, probably on his last visit to the spot
before he left England for ever, is reverently preserved in the
muniment room of the corporation buildings. There also are the musty
folios of the dull history and duller divinity which formed the school
library of that uncritical century, but there is no means of tracing
the reading of the boys. Into this once lightsome room, adorned only
by a wood-carving of the galleon which formed the city arms, was the
child Henry Martyn introduced at the age of seven. Dr. Clement
Carlyon, who was one of his fellow-pupils, writes of him as 'a
good-humoured plain little fellow, with red eyelids devoid of
eyelashes'. But we know from Mrs. Sherwood, when she first met him in
India--where his hair, a light brown, was raised from his forehead,
which was a remarkably fine one--that although his features were not
regular, 'the expression was so luminous, so intellectual, so
affectionate, so beaming with Divine charity, as to absorb the
attention of every observer'. His sensitive nature and violent
passionateness when roused, at once marked him out as the victim of the
older boys. In a happy moment Dr. Cardew put 'little Henry Martyn' under
the care of one of them, who became his protector, tutor, and friend,
not only at school but at college, and had an influence on his spiritual
as well as intellectual life next only to that of his father, sister,
and Charles Simeon. That 'upper boy'--named Kempthorne, son of Admiral
Kempthorne, of Helston--delighted to recall to his first biographer,
Sargent, '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.' This boy-friend 'had often the happiness of rescuing him from the
grasp of oppressors, and has never seen more feeling of gratitude
evinced than was shown by him on those occasions.'
Even at seven Henry's natural cleverness was so apparent that high
expectations of his future were formed. Dr. Cardew wrote of his
proficiency in the classics as exceeding that of most of his
school-fellows, but he was too lively and too careless to apply
himself as some did who distanced him. '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 had learnt it by
intuition.' The delicacy of his constitution naturally kept him from
joining in the rougher games of his fellows. Such was the impression
made by his progress at school that, when he was fifteen years of age,
not only Dr. Cardew and his father, but many of his father's friends,
urged him to compete for a vacant scholarship of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford. With only a letter to the sub-rector of Exeter College,
the usual Cornish College, the boy found himself in the great University
city. The examiners were divided in opinion as to the result, but a
majority gave it in favour of one with whom Henry Martyn was almost
equal. Had he become a member of that University at fifteen, with
character unformed and knowledge immature or superficial, it is not
likely that Oxford would have gained what, at a riper stage, Cambridge
fell heir to. His own comment, written afterwards like Augustine's in
the _Confessions_, was this: 'The profligate acquaintances I had in
Oxford would have introduced me to scenes of debauchery, in which I
must, in all probability, from my extreme youth, have sunk for ever.' He
returned to school for two years, to extend his knowledge of the
classics. He spent his leisure in shooting, and in reading travels and
Lord Chesterfield's _Letters_. His early private Journal reflects
severely on that time as spent in '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 human praise.'
[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, IN 1797]
In this spirit he began residence in St. John's College, Cambridge, in
the month of October 1797, as a pensioner or unassisted student. To
that University he was attracted by Kempthorne, who had been his
protector at school, and had just distinguished himself at St. John's,
coming out Senior Wrangler. Alike from the idleness to which he was
tempted by other fellow-students who were new to him, and from the
variety of study with no other motive than to win glory of men, his
friend gradually weaned his fickle and impulsive genius. But for two
years he halted between two opinions. He was ever restless because
ever dissatisfied with himself, and his want of inward peace only
increased the natural irritability of his temper. He indulged in bursts
of passion on slight provocation, and sometimes on none at all, save
that of an uneasy conscience. Like Clive about the same age, Henry
Martyn on one occasion hurled a knife at his friend, Cotterill, who just
escaped, leaving it quivering in the panel of the dining-hall. The
father and younger sister at home prayerfully watched over him, and
by letter sought to guide him. On his periodical visits to Truro he was
able at least to report success in his examinations, and at the close of
1799 he came out first, to his father's delight. The providence of God
had made all things ready for the completion of His eighteen years' work
in the convictions and character of Henry Martyn, on his return to
college. To him, at the opening of the new century, all things became
new.
Cambridge, first of all, had received--unconsciously to its leading
men for a time--that new spirit which has ever since identified its
University with the aggressive missionary philanthropy of the
nineteenth century. For nearly the whole period of Martyn's life, up
to that time, Charles Simeon, the Eton boy, Fellow of King's College,
and Christian gentleman, who had sought the position only that he
might preach Christ after the manner of St. Paul, had, from the pulpit
of Trinity Church, been silently transforming academic life. He had
become the trusted agent of Charles Grant and George Udny, the Bengal
civilians who were ready to establish an eight-fold mission in Bengal
as soon as he could send out the men. Failing to find these, he had
brought about the foundation of the Church Missionary Society on April
12, 1799. Some years before that, Charles Grant exchanged his seat in
the Bengal council for one of the 'chairs' of the Court of Directors.
He became their chairman, and it was to Simeon that he turned for East
India chaplains. Cambridge, even more than London itself, had become
the centre of the spiritual life of the Church of England.
First among the fellow-students of Henry Martyn, though soon to leave
for India when he entered it, was his future friend, Claudius
Buchanan, B.A. of 1796 and Fellow of Queen's College, of which Isaac
Milner was president. Magdalene College--which had sent David Brown to
Calcutta in 1786, to prepare the way for the other four, who are for
ever memorable as 'the Five Chaplains'--had among its students of the
same standing as Martyn, Charles Grant's two distinguished sons, of whom
one became Lord Glenelg and a cabinet minister, and the younger, Robert,
was afterwards Governor of Bombay, the still valued hymnologist, and the
warm friend of Dr. John Wilson. Thomason--seven years older than Martyn,
and induced afterwards, by his example, to become a Bengal chaplain--was
Simeon's curate and substitute in the closing years of the last century,
when to Mr. Thornton of Clapham, who had warned him against preaching
five sermons a week, as casting the net too often to allow time to mend
it, he drew this picture of college life: 'There are reasons for fearing
the mathematical religion which so prevails here. Here, also, is
everything that can contribute to the ease and comfort of life. Whatever
pampers the appetite and administers fuel to sloth and indolence is to
be found in abundance. Nothing is left to want or desire. Here is the
danger; this is the horrible precipice.' Corrie and Dealtry, also of the
Five Chaplains, and afterwards first and second Bishops of Madras, were
of Martyn's Cambridge time, the latter graduating before, and the former
just after him.
Hardly had Henry Martyn returned to college in January 1800 when he
received from his half-brother news of the death of their father, whom
he had just before left 'in great health and spirits.' The first
result was 'consternation,' and then, as he told his sister,
I was extremely low-spirited, and, like most people, began to
consider seriously, without any particular determination, that
invisible world to which he had gone and to which I must one day
go. As I had no taste at this time for my usual studies, I took
up my Bible. Nevertheless I often took up other books to engage
my attention, and should have continued to do so had not
Kempthorne advised me to make this time an occasion of serious
reflection. I began with the Acts, as being the most amusing,
and when I was entertained with the narrative I found myself
insensibly led to inquire more attentively into the doctrines of
the Apostles.... On the first night after, I began to pray from
a precomposed 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 college chapel service at once had a new meaning for the student
whom death had shaken and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles had
awakened. '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.' His friend then lent him
Doddridge's _Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul_, but, because
the first part of that book 'appeared to make religion consist too
much in humiliation, and my proud and wicked heart would not bear to
be brought down into the dust,' he could not bear to read it. 'Soon,
however,' as he afterwards told his sister, who had prayed for this
very thing all her life, as Monica had agonised for Augustine, 'I
began to attend more diligently to the words of our Saviour in the New
Testament, and to devour them with delight. When the offers of mercy
and forgiveness were made so freely, I supplicated to be made partaker
of the covenant of grace with eagerness and hope, and thanks be to the
ever-blessed Trinity for not leaving me without comfort.' The
doctrines of the Apostles, based on the narrative of the Acts, and
confirming the teaching of the family in early youth, were seen to be
in accord with the words of the Master, and thus Henry Martyn started
on the Christian life an evangelical of the Evangelicals. In the
preaching and the personal friendship of the minister of Trinity
Church he found sympathetic guidance, and so 'gradually acquired more
knowledge in divine things.' All the hitherto irregular impulses of
his fervent Celtic nature received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and
became centred in the living, reigning, personal Christ. All the
restless longings of his soul and his senses found their satisfaction
for ever in the service of Him who had said 'He that loveth his life
shall lose it. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me, and where I am
there shall also My servant be.' All the pride of his genius, his
intellectual ambition, and his love of praise became purged by the
determination thenceforth to know nothing save the Crucified One.
His first temptation and test of honest fitness for such service was
found in the examination for degrees, and especially for the greatest
honour of all, that of Senior Wrangler. If we place his conversion to
Christ at the close of his nineteenth year, we find that the whole of
his twentieth was spent in the necessary preparation for the
competition, and in the accompanying spiritual struggles. It is not
surprising that, when looking back on that year from higher experiences,
he should be severe in his self-examination. But the path of duty
clearly lay in hard and constant study, and not alone in religious
meditation. It was not surprising that the experienced convert should
afterwards pronounce the former worldly, and lament that 'the
intenseness with which I pursued my studies' prevented his growth in
contrition, and in a knowledge of the excellency of Christ. But so
severe a judge as his friend and fellow-student John Sargent, who knew
all the facts, and became not less saintly than himself, declares that
there was no reason, save his own humility, for his suspecting a want of
vitality at least in his spiritual life in this critical year. His
new-found life in Christ, and delight in the Bible, reacted on his whole
nature, elevating it to that degree of spontaneous energy free from all
self-consciousness which is the surest condition, divine and human, of
success. He himself used to tell how, when he entered the Senate House,
the text of a sermon he had recently heard quieted his spirit: 'Seekest
thou great things for thyself? Seek them not, saith the Lord.'
Henry Martyn was not fully twenty years of age when, in January 1801,
he came out Senior Wrangler and first Smith's (mathematical) Prizeman.
His year was one of the most brilliant in the recent history of the
University. Woodall of Pembroke was second. Robert Grant was third,
and Charles Grant (Lord Glenelg) fourth Wrangler. They distanced him
in classics, once his strongest point. But the boy who entered college
believing that geometry was to be learned by committing Euclid[3] to
memory had given the whole strength of his powers during three years
to the college examinations, so as to please his father and win the
applause of his fellows. Until recently it was possible for a student
to enter the University ignorant of mathematics, and to come out
Senior Wrangler, as the late Professor Kelland used to tell his
Edinburgh class. Such was the reverence for Newton that the Leibnizian
methods were not recognised in the University studies till the reform
of the Cambridge course was introduced by Dean Peacock and his
contemporaries. In those earlier days, Dr. Carlyon,[4] who had been
one of his school-fellows, tells us high Wranglers won their places by
correct book-work rapidly produced in oral examination from four set
treatises by Wood and Vince, on optics, mechanics, hydrostatics, and
astronomy; problem papers were answered by the best men. Martyn's
grand-nephew, himself a distinguished mathematician, remarks that he
sprang from a family of calculators, and so had the patience and taste
necessary for mathematical attainments. There is no evidence that he
pursued science even at Cambridge except as a tutor; he does not
appear to have been a mathematical examiner even in his own college.
The truth is seen in his own comment on a success which at once won
for him admiration and deference in circles that could not appreciate
the lofty Christian aims of his life: 'I obtained my highest wishes,
but was surprised to find that I had grasped a shadow.' He was called
to other service, and for that he brought his University triumph with
him to the feet of Christ. He was too cultured, however, to despise
learning or academic reputation, for they might be made weapons for
the Master's use, and we shall find him wielding both alike in home
and foreign missions. His genius and learning found expression in the
study, the translation, and the unceasing application to the
consciences of men, of the Word of God. His early love of the classics
of Greece and Rome prevailed over his later mathematical studies to
make him an ardent philologist, with the promise, had he lived, of
becoming an Orientalist of the type of Sir William Jones. If he was
known in his college as 'the man who had not lost an hour' when
University honours alone were his object, how much would not his
unresting perseverance have accomplished, when directed by the highest
of all motives, had he been spared to the age of William Carey or John
Wilson?
The time had come for the brilliant student to decide on his
profession. The same ambition which had stimulated him to his college
successes, had led him to resolve on studying the law, as the most
lucrative. 'I could not consent to be poor for Christ's sake,' was his
own language at a later period. But Christ himself had changed all
that, as effectually as when the young lawyer Saul was stricken down
after the martyr testimony of Stephen. The year 1801 was to him one of
comparative solitude, both in Cornwall and at the University, where
he cultivated the fruitful grace of meditation, learning to know and
to master himself, as he came to know more and more intimately, and to
submit himself to, Christ Jesus. He was admitted to the inner circle
of Simeon's friends, and to unreserved intercourse with men of his own
age who had come to Christ before him. Especially was he drawn to John
Sargent, one year his senior, who was about to leave the university
for the Temple, that he might by the study of law prepare himself to
administer worthily the family estate to which he was to succeed. His
son-in-law, the late Bishop S. Wilberforce, has left us a charming
picture[5] of this saintly man, of whom Martyn wrote, even at college,
'Sargent seems to be outstripping us all.' While Simeon ever, by his
counsels and his example, impressed on the choice youth whom he
gathered around him the attractiveness of the Christian ministry,[6]
Sargent bewailed that only a painful sense of duty to others kept him
from it, and in a few years he succeeded in entering its consecrated
ranks. Among such friends, and with his own heart growing in the
experience of the power of the Holy Spirit, Henry Martyn was
constrained, notwithstanding his new humbleness of mind, to hear and
obey the divine call. He who had received such mercy must tell it
abroad; he who had known such love must bring others to share the
sweetness. Hence he writes to his sister:
When we consider the misery and darkness of the unregenerate
world, oh! with how much reason shall we burst out into
thanksgiving to God, who has called us in His mercy through
Christ Jesus! What are we, that we should thus be made objects
of distinguishing grace! Who, then, that reflects upon the rock
from which he was hewn, but must rejoice to give himself
entirely and without reserve to God, to be sanctified by His
Spirit. The soul that has truly experienced the love of God,
will not stay meanly inquiring how much he shall do, and thus
limit his service, but will be earnestly seeking more and more
to know the will of our Heavenly Father, and that he may be
enabled to do it. Oh, may we both be thus minded! may we
experience Christ to be our all in all, not only as our
Redeemer, but also as the fountain of grace. Those passages of
the Word of God which you have quoted on this head, are indeed
awakening; may they teach us to breathe after holiness, to be
more and more dead to the world, and alive unto God, through
Jesus Christ. We are as lights in the world; how needful then
that our tempers and lives should manifest our high and heavenly
calling! Let us, as we do, provoke one another to good works,
not doubting that God will bless our feeble endeavours to His
glory.
The next year, 1802, saw Martyn Fellow of his College and the winner
of the first University prize for a Latin essay, open to those who had
just taken the Bachelor of Arts degree. It ended in his determination
to offer himself to the Church Missionary Society. He had no sooner
resolved to be a minister of Christ than he began such home mission
work as lay to his hands among his fellow members of the University,
and in the city where, at a recent period, one who closely resembled
him in some points, Ion Keith-Falconer, laboured. When ministering to
a dying man he found that the daughters had removed to another house,
where they were cheerful, and one of the students was reading a play
to them. 'A play! when their father was lying in the agonies of death!
What a species of consolation! I rebuked him so sharply, and, I am
afraid, so intemperately, that a quarrel will perhaps ensue.' This is
the first of those cases in which the impulsively faithful Christian,
testifying for his Master, often roused hatred to himself. But the
student afterwards thanked him for his words, became a new man, and
went out to India, where he laboured for a time by his side. After a
summer tour--during which he walked to Liverpool, and then through
Wales, ascending Snowdon--Henry Martyn found himself in the old home
in Truro, then occupied by his brother. From the noise of a large
family he moved to Woodbury: 'With my brother-in-law[7] I passed some
of the sweetest moments in my life. The deep solitude of the place
favoured meditation; and the romantic scenery around supplied great
external sources of pleasure.'
Along the beautiful coast of Cornwall and Devon there is no spot more
beautiful than Woodbury. It is henceforth sacred as Moulton in Carey's
life, and St. Andrews in Alexander Duff's, for there Henry Martyn
wrestled out his deliberate dedication to the service of Christ in
India and Persia. The Fal river is there just beginning to open out
into the lovely estuary which, down almost to Falmouth town and
Carrick Road, between Pendennis and St. Mawes, is clothed on either
side with umbrageous woods. On the left shore, after leaving the point
from which is the best view of Truro and its cathedral, now known as
the Queen's View, there is Malpas, and further on are the sylvan
glories of Tregothnan. On the right shore, sloping down to the
ever-moving tide, are the oaks, ilexes, and firs which inclose
Woodbury, recently rebuilt. There the Cambridge scholar of twenty-one
roamed and read his Bible (especially Isaiah); 'and from this I
derived great spirituality of mind compared with what I had known
before.' He returned to Cambridge and its tutorial duties, ready to
become Simeon's curate, and ultimately to go abroad when the definite
call should come. In the first conversation which he had with him,
Simeon, who had been reading the last number of the _Periodical
Accounts_ from Serampore, drew attention to the results of William
Carey's work, in the first nine years of his pioneering, as showing
what a single missionary could accomplish. From this time, in his
letters and journals, we find all his thoughts and reading, when
alone, revolving around the call to the East.
_1803, January 12_ to _19_.--Reading Lowth on Isaiah--Acts--and
abridged Bishop Hopkins' first sermon on Regeneration. On the
19th called on Simeon, from whom I found that I was to go to the
East Indies, not as a missionary, but in some superior capacity;
to be stationed at Calcutta, or possibly at Ceylon. This
prospect of this world's happiness gave me rather pain than
pleasure, which convinced me that I had before been running away
from the world, rather than overcoming it. During the whole
course of the day, I was more worldly than for some time past,
unsettled and dissatisfied. In conversation, therefore, I found
great levity, pride, and bitterness. What a sink of corruption
is this heart, and yet I can go on from day to day in
self-seeking and self-pleasing! Lord, shew me myself, nothing
but 'wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores,' and teach me to
live by faith on Christ my all.
St. John's, January 17, 1803.
My dear Sargent,--G. and H. seem to disapprove of my project
much; and on this account I have been rather discouraged of
late, though not in any degree convinced. It would be more
satisfactory to go out with the full approbation of my friends,
but it is in vain to attempt to please man. In doubtful cases,
we are to use the opinions of others no further than as means of
directing our own judgment. My sister has also objected to it,
on the score of my deficiency in that deep and solid experience
necessary in a missionary.
_February 4._--Read Lowth in the afternoon, till I was quite
tired. Endeavoured to think of Job xiv. 14, and to have solemn
thoughts of death, but could not find them before my pupil came,
to whom I explained justification by faith, as he had ridiculed
Methodism. But talk upon what I will, or with whom I will,
conversation leaves me ruffled and discomposed. From what does
this arise? From a want of the sense of God's presence when I am
with others.
_February 6._--Read the Scriptures, between breakfast and
church, in a very wandering and unsettled manner, and in my walk
was very weak in desires after God. As I found myself about the
middle of the day full of pride and formality, I found some
relief in prayer. Sat with H. and D. after dinner, till three,
but though silent, was destitute of humility. Read some of S.
Pearce's[8] life, and was much interested by his account of the
workings of his mind on the subject of his mission. Saw reason
to be thankful that I had no such tender ties to confine me at
home, as he seemed to have; and to be amazed at myself, in not
making it a more frequent object of reflection, and yet to
praise God for calling me to minister in the glorious work of
the conversion of the Gentiles.
_March 27._--The lectures in chemistry and anatomy I was much
engaged with, without receiving much instruction. A violent cold
and cough led me to prepare myself for an inquiry into my views
of death. I was enabled to rest composed on the Rock of Ages.
Oh, what mercy shewn to the chief of sinners.
_April 22._--Was ashamed to confess to ---- that I was to be Mr.
Simeon's curate, a despicable fear of man from which I vainly
thought myself free. He, however, asked me if I was not to be,
and so I was obliged to tell him. Jer. i. 17.
_May 8._--Expressed myself contemptuously of ----, who preached
at St. Mary's. Such manifestations of arrogance which embody, as
it were, my inward pride, wound my spirit inexpressibly, not to
contrition, but to a sullen sense of guilt. Read Second Epistle
to Timothy. I prayed with some earnestness.
_June 13_ to _24_.--Passed in tolerable comfort upon the whole;
though I could on no day say my walk had been close with God.
Read Sir G. Staunton's _Embassy to China_, and was convinced of
the propriety of being sent thither. But I have still the spirit
of worldly men when I read worldly books. I felt more curiosity
about the manners of this people than love and pity towards
their souls.
St. John's, June 30, 1803.
Dear Sargent,--May you, as long as you shall give me your
acquaintance, direct me to the casting down of all high
imaginations. Possibly it may be a cross to you to tell me or
any one of his faults. But should I be at last a castaway, or at
least dishonour Christ through some sin, which for want of
faithful admonition remained unmortified, how bitter would be
your reflections! I conjure you, therefore, my dear friend, as
you value the good of the souls to whom I am to preach, and my
own eternal interests, that you tell me what you think to be, in
my life, spirit, or temper, not according to the will of God my
Saviour. D. has heard about a religious young man of seventeen,
who wants to come to College, but has only 20_l._ a year. He is
very clever, and from the perusal of some poems which he has
published, I am much interested about him. His name is H.K.
White.
_July 17._--Rose at half-past five, and walked a little before
chapel in happy frame of mind; but the sunshine was presently
overcast by my carelessly neglecting to speak for the good of
two men, when I had an opportunity. The pain was, moreover,
increased by the prospect of the incessant watchfulness for
opportunities I should use; nevertheless, resolved that I would
do so through grace. The dreadful act of disobeying God, and the
baseness of being unwilling to incur the contempt of men, for
the sake of the Lord Jesus, who had done so much for me, and the
cruelty of not longing to save souls, were the considerations
that pressed on my mind.
_July 18_ to _30_.--Gained no ground in all this time; stayed a
few days at Shelford, but was much distracted and unsettled for
want of solitude. Felt the passion of envy rankle in my bosom on
a certain occasion. Seldom enjoyed peace, but was much under the
power of corruption. Read Butler's _Analogy_; Jon. Edwards _On
the Affections_; in great hopes that this book will be of
essential use to me.
_September 10._--Was most deeply affected with reading the
account of the apostasy of Lewis and Broomhall, in the
transactions of the Missionary Society. When I first came to the
account of the awful death of the former, I cannot describe the
sense I had of the reality of religion,--that there is a God who
testifies His hatred of sin; 'my flesh trembled for fear of His
judgments.' Afterwards, coming to the account of Broomhall's
sudden turn to Deism, I could not help even bursting into tears
of anxiety and terror at my own extreme danger; because I have
often thought, that if I ever should make shipwreck, it would be
on the rocks of sensuality or infidelity. The hollowness of
Broomhall's arguments was so apparent, that I could only
attribute his fall to the neglect of inquiring after the
rational foundation of his faith.
_September 12._--Read some of the minor prophets, and Greek
Testament, and the number of the _Missionary Transactions_. H.
drank tea with me in the evening. I read some of the missionary
accounts. The account of their sufferings and diligence could
not but tend to lower my notions of myself. I was almost ashamed
at my having such comforts about me, and at my own
unprofitableness.
_September 13._--Received a letter from my sister, in which she
expressed her opinion of my unfitness for the work of a
missionary. My want of Christian experience filled me with many
disquieting doubts, and this thought troubled me among many
others, as it has often done: 'I am not only not so holy as I
ought, but I do not strive to have my soul wrought up to the
highest pitch of devotion every moment.'
_September 17._--Read Dr. Vanderkemp's mission to Kafraria. What
a man! In heaven I shall think myself well off, if I obtain but
the lowest seat among such, though now I am fond of giving
myself a high one.
St. John's, September 29, 1803.
How long it seems since I heard from you, my dear Sargent. My
studies during the last three months have been Hebrew, Greek
Testament, Jon. Edwards _On Original Sin_, and _On the
Affections_, and Bishop Hopkins,--your favourite and mine. Never
did I read such energetic language, such powerful appeals to the
conscience. Somehow or other he is able to excite most constant
interest, say what he will. I have been lately reading the first
volume of the _Reports_ of the Missionary Society, who sent out
so many to Otaheite and the southern parts of Africa. You would
find the account of Dr. Vanderkemp's mission into Kafraria
infinitely entertaining. It appeared so much so to me, that I
could read nothing else while it lasted. Respecting my own
concerns in this way, no material change has taken place, either
externally or internally, except that my sister thinks me
unqualified, through want of religious experience, and that I
find greater pleasure at the prospect of it. I am conscious,
however, of viewing things too much on the bright side, and
think more readily of the happiness of seeing the desert rejoice
and blossom as the rose, than of pain, and fatigue, and crosses,
and disappointments. However it shall be determined for me, it
is my duty to crush the risings of self-will, so as to be
cheerfully prepared to go or stay.
_October 1._--In the afternoon read in Law's _Serious Call_, the
chapter on 'Resignation,' and prayed for it, according to his
direction. I rather think a regular distribution of the day for
prayer, to obtain the three great graces of humility, love, and
resignation, would be far the best way to grow in them. The
music at chapel led my thoughts to heaven, and I went cheerfully
to Mrs. S.H. drank tea with me afterwards. As there was in the
_Christian Observer_ something of my own, the first which ever
appeared in print, I felt myself going off to vanity and levity.
[Illustration: SECOND COURT, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, 1803]
_October 9._--Rose at six, which is earlier than of late, and
passed the whole morning in great tranquillity. I prayed to be
sent out to China, and rejoiced in the prospect of the glorious
day when Christ shall be glorified on earth. At chapel the music
of the chant and anthem seemed to be in my ears as the sounds of
heaven, particularly the anthem, 1 Chron. xxix. 10. But these
joys, alas! partake much of the flesh in their transitory
nature. At chapel I wished to return to my rooms to read the
song of Moses the servant of God, &c. in the Revelation, but
when I came to it I found little pleasure. The sound of the
music had ceased, and with it my joy, and nothing remained but
evil temper, darkness, and unbelief. All this time I had
forgotten what it is to be a poor humble soul. I had floated off
the Rock of Ages into the deep, where I was beginning to sink,
had not the Saviour stretched out His hand, and said to me, 'It
is I!' Let me never be cheated out of my dependence on Him, nor
ever forget my need of Him.
_October 12._--Reading Paley's _Evidences_. Had my pride
deeply wounded to-day, and perceived that I was far from
humility. Great bitterness and dislike arose in my mind against
the man who had been the unconscious cause of it. Oh, may I
learn daily my hidden evils, and loathe myself for my secret
abominations! Prayed for the man, and found my affections
return.
_October 19._--I wished to have made my approaching ordination
to the ministry a more leading object of my prayers. For two or
three days I have been reading some of St. Augustine's
_Meditations_, and was delighted with the hope of enjoying such
communion with God as this holy man. Blessed be God! nothing
prevents, no earthly business, no earthly love can rightfully
intrude to claim my thoughts, for I have professedly resigned
them all. My mind still continues in a joyous and happy state,
though at intervals, through want of humility, my confidence
seems vain.
_October 20._--This morning was almost all lost, by friends
coming in. At noon I read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. Amidst
the bustle of common life, how frequently has my heart been
refreshed by the descriptions of the future glory of the Church,
and the happiness of man hereafter!
_November 13._--I longed to draw very near to God, to pray Him
that He would give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. I
thought of David Brainerd, and ardently desired his devotedness
to God and holy breathings of soul.
When a Fellow of St. John's, Henry Martyn occupied the three rooms in
the highest storey of E block, entered from the right-hand corner of
the Second Court before passing through the gateway into the Third
Court. The Court is that pronounced by Ruskin the finest in the
University, because of the beautiful plum-red hue of the old brick,
going back to 1595, and the perfect architecture. From the same stair
the fine College Library is entered. The low roof was formed of reed,
instead of lath, and plaster, down to a very recent date. On one
occasion, while the outer roof was being repaired, the foot of a
workman suddenly pushed through the frail inner ceiling above the
study table, an incident which has enabled their present occupant[9]
to identify the rooms. Here Martyn studied, and taught, and prayed,
while hour after hour and quarter after quarter, from the spire of St.
Clement's on the one side, and the tower of Trinity College on the
other, the flight of time was chimed forth. When, a generation after,
Alexander Duff visited Charles Simeon and his successor, Carus, and
expressed surprise that so few Cambridge men had, by 1836, given
themselves to foreign missions, Carus pointed to the exquisite beauty
of the Cam, as it winds between Trinity and St. John's, as one
explanation of the fact. Both forgot Henry Martyn, whose Cornish
temperament was most susceptible to the seductive influence, and whose
academic triumphs might have made the ideal life of a Fellow of St.
John's an overpowering temptation. As we stand in these hallowed
rooms, or wander through the four courts, and in the perfect gardens,
or recall the low chapel--which has given place to Sir Gilbert
Scott's, with a frescoed figure of Henry Martyn on its roof--we can
realise the power of the motive that sent him forth to Dinapore and
Cawnpore, Shiraz and Tokat.
Samuel Pearce--the 'seraphic' preacher of Birmingham, whom a weak
body, like Martyn's, alone prevented from joining his beloved Carey at
Serampore; Vanderkemp, the Dutch physician, who had given up all for
the good of the Kafirs, and whom he was soon to see in the midst of
his converts; David Brainerd, also like himself in the shortness and
saintliness of his career; the transactions of the London Missionary
Society; the latest works on the East; and the experimental divinity
of Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, and Law, with the writings of Bishops
Butler and Hopkins, and Dr. Paley--these were the men and the books he
used to train his spirit for the work of the ministry abroad, when he
had fed it with the words of Jesus Christ, Isaiah, and Paul. He thus
describes his examination for Deacon's orders, and his ordination by
the Bishop of Ely on the title of his Fellowship, after which he
became Mr. Simeon's curate, and took charge of the neighbouring small
parish of Lolworth.
_1803, October 22._--Went in a gig to Ely with B. Having had no
time for morning prayer, my conversation was poor. At chapel, I
felt great shame at having come so confidently to offer myself
for the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, with so much
ignorance and unholiness, and I thought it would be but just if
I were sent off with ignominy. Dr. M., the examining chaplain,
set me to construe the eleventh chapter of Matthew: Grotius: To
turn the first article into Latin: To prove the being of a God,
His infinite power and goodness: To give the evidence of
Christianity to Jews and heathens: To shew the importance of the
miracle of the resurrection of Christ. He asked an account,
also, of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes, the places of
the worship amongst the Jews, &c. After leaving the palace I was
in very low spirits. I had now nothing to think of but the
weight and difficulty of the work which lay before me, which
never appeared so great at a distance. At dinner the
conversation was frivolous. After tea I was left alone with one
of the deacons, to whom I talked seriously, and desired him to
read the Ordination Service, at which he was much affected.
Retired to my room early, and besought God to give me a right
and affecting sense of things. I seemed to pray a long time in
vain, so dark and distracted was my mind. At length I began to
feel the shameful and cruel neglect and unconcern for the honour
of God, and the souls of my brethren, in having trifled with men
whom I feared were about to 'lie to the Holy Ghost.' So I went
to them again, resolving to lay hold on any opportunity, but
found none to do anything effectually. Went to bed with a
painful sense of my hardness of heart and unsuitable preparation
for the ministry.
_October 23._--Rose early, and prayed, not without distraction.
I then walked, but could not acquire a right and happy sense of
God's mercy in calling me to the ministry; but was melancholy at
the labours that awaited me. On returning, I met one of the
deacons, to whom I spoke on the solemn occasion, but he seemed
incapable of entertaining a serious thought. At half-past ten we
went to the cathedral. During the ordination and sacramental
services I sought in vain for a humble heavenly mind. The
outward show which tended to inspire solemnity, affected me more
than the faith of Christ's presence, giving me the commission to
preach the gospel. May I have grace to fulfil those promises I
made before God and the people! After dinner, walked with great
rapidity to Cambridge. I went straight to Trinity Church, where
my old vanities assailed my soul. How monstrous and horrible did
they appear in me, now that I was a minister of holy things! I
could scarcely believe that so sacred an office should be held
by one who had such a heart within. B. sat with me in the
evening, but I was not humbled; for I had not been near to God
to obtain the grace of contrition. On going to prayer at night,
I was seized with a most violent sickness. In the pain and
disorder of my body, I could but commend myself faintly to God's
mercy in Jesus Christ.
[Illustration: TRINITY CHURCH IN 1803.]
_October 24_ to _29_.--Busily employed in writing a sermon, and
from the slow advances I made in it, was in general very
melancholy. I read on the Thursday night for the first time in
Trinity Church.
_October 30._--Rose with a heavy heart, and my head empty, from
having read so little of the Scriptures this last week. After
church, sat with ---- two hours conversing about the missionary
plan. He considered my ideas on the subject to be enthusiastic,
and told me that I had neither strength of body nor mind for the
work. This latter defect I did not at all like; it was galling
to the pride of my heart, and I went to bed hurt; yet thankful
to God for sending me one who would tell me the truth.
_December 3._--Employed all day in writing sermon. The incessant
employment of my thoughts about the necessary business of my
life, parishes, pupils, sermons, sick, &c., leave far too little
time for my private meditations; so that I know little of God
and my soul. Resolved I would gain some hours from my usual
sleep, if there were no other way; but failed this morning in
consequence of sitting up so late.
_December 4._--Called at two or three of the parishioners'
houses, and found them universally in the most profound state of
ignorance and stupidity. On my road home could not perceive that
men who have any little knowledge should have anything to do but
instruct their wretched fellow-creatures. The pursuits of
science, and all the vain and glittering employments of men,
seemed a cruel withholding from their perishing brethren of that
time and exertion which might save their souls.
_December 22._--Married ----. How satisfactory is it to
administer the ordinance of matrimony, where the couple are
pious! I felt thankful that I was delivered from all desires of
the comforts of the married life. With the most desirable
partner, and every prospect of happiness, I would prefer a
single life, in which there are so much greater opportunities
for heavenly-mindedness.
When appointed classical examiner of his college at this time, he
jealously examined himself:
Did I delight in reading of the retreat of the ten thousand
Greeks; and shall not my soul glory in the knowledge of God, who
created the Greeks, and the vast countries over which they
passed! I examined in Butler's _Analogy_ and in Xenophon: how
much pride and ostentatious display of learning was visible in
my conduct--how that detestable spirit follows me, whatever I
do!
He opened the year 1804, after preaching in Trinity Church, and
visiting two men whom he exhorted to think on their ways, with a
review of his new-found life.
Nevertheless, I judge that I have grown in grace in the course
of the last year; for the bent of my desires is towards God more
than when I thought I was going out as a missionary, though
vastly less than I expected it would have been by this time.
This year he received into his fellowship the young poet, Henry Kirke
White, whom Wilberforce had, at Simeon's request, sent to St. John's.
Southey declares that Chatterton is the only youthful poet whom Kirke
White does not leave far behind him. 'The Star of Bethlehem' is
certainly a hymn that will live. The sickly youth followed close in
Martyn's steps, becoming the first man of his year, but the effort
carried him off almost before his friend reached India.
Had Martyn been of canonical age for ordination at the close of 1803,
there can be little doubt that he would at once have been sent out by
the Church Missionary Society, which could find only German Lutherans
as its agents abroad, until 1813, when another Fellow of St. John's,
and a Wrangler, the Rev. William Jowett, offered his services, and
was stationed at Malta. But when ordained he lost the little that he
had inherited from his father, and saw his younger sister also without
resources. There was a tradition in the family of his half-brother
John, that Henry and his sisters litigated with him, and farther
lessened the patrimony. However that may have been, while in India
Henry set apart the proceeds of his Fellowship at St. John's for the
maintenance of his brother's family, and bequeathed all he had to his
children. Mr. H. Thornton, of Clapham, was executor, and duly carried
out his instructions, starting the nephews in life. Another incident
at this time foreshadows the self-denial of his Indian career. By
opening the door of his room suddenly he had disfigured the face of
his Cambridge landlady, whose husband was a clergyman. He left to her
the interest of 1,000_l._ as an amend, and she enjoyed this annuity
through a very long life.
The Senior Wrangler was not allowed to preach in the church where he
had been baptised, nor in any church of his native county, save in his
brother-in-law's. On August 8, 1804, he thus wrote to his friend 'R.
Boys, Esq., Bene't Coll., Cambridge,' after preaching at Plymouth for
his cousin:
The following Sunday it was not permitted me to occupy the
pulpit of my native town, but in a neighbouring church I was
allowed to testify the Gospel of the grace of God. But that one
sermon was enough. The clergy seem to have united to exclude me
from their churches, so that I must now be contented with my
brother-in-law's two little churches about five miles from
Truro. The objection is that 'Mr. Martyn is a Calvinist preacher
in the dissenting way, &c.' My old schoolmaster, who has always
hitherto been proud of his pupil, has offered his services for
any time to a curate near this place, rather than, as he said,
he should apply to me for assistance.
It is interesting to remember, remarks Mr. Moule, who has published
this letter for the first time, that 'always now, as the anniversary
of Martyn's death recurs, a sermon is preached in the cathedral of
Truro, in which the great work of Missions is set forth, and his
illustrious share in it commemorated.'
As confidential adviser of Charles Grant in the Court of Directors, in
the appointment of chaplains, Simeon always sought to attract the best
of his curates to that career, and it would appear from the _Journal_
that so early as the beginning of 1803 he had hinted at this to
Martyn. Now the way was plain. Martyn could no longer support himself
as one of those volunteer missionaries whose services the two great
missionary societies of the Church of England have always been happy
to enjoy, nor could he relieve his sister out of the subsistence
allowance of a missionary. Mr. Grant's offer of a Bengal chaplaincy
seemed to come to him as the solution. But a new element had entered
into his life, second only to his spiritual loyalty. He had learned to
love Lydia Grenfell.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the _Statistical Society's Journal_, September, 1888, for
invaluable notes on the 'System of Work and Wages in the Cornish
Mines,' by L.L. Price, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford.
[2] The late Henry Martyn Jeffery, M.A., F.R.S., in 1883.
[3] Rev. Henry Bailey, D.D., Canon of Canterbury, supplies us with
this story from the lips of the late Rev. T.H. Shepherd, who was the
last surviving Canon of the Collegiate Church in Southwell:--
'Henry Martyn had just entered the College as a Freshman under the
Rev. Mr. Catton. I was the year above him, _i.e._ second year man; and
Mr. Catton sent for me to his rooms, telling me of Martyn, as a quiet
youth, with some knowledge of classics, but utterly unable as it
seemed to make anything of even the First Proposition of Euclid, and
desiring me to have him into my rooms, and see what I could do for him
in this matter. Accordingly, we spent some time together, but all my
efforts appeared to be in vain; and Martyn, in sheer despair, was
about to make his way to the coach office, and take his place the
following day back to Truro, his native town. I urged him not to be so
precipitate, but to come to me the next day, and have another trial
with Euclid. After some time light seemed suddenly to flash upon his
mind, with clear comprehension of the hitherto dark problem, and he
threw up his cap for joy at his _Eureka_. The Second Proposition was
soon taken, and with perfect success; but in truth his progress was
such and so rapid, that he distanced every one in his year, and, as
everyone knows, became Senior Wrangler.'
[4] _Early Years and Late Reflections_, vol. iii. p. 5.
[5] Introduction to _Journals and Letters of Henry Martyn_, 1837.
[6] See the delightful _Charles Simeon_, by H.C.G. Moule, M.A. (1892),
published since this was written.
[7] Rev. Mr. Curgenven, curate of Kenwyn and Kea.
[8] William Carey's most intimate friend. See p. 46 of _Life of
William Carey, D.D._, 2nd ed. (John Murray).
[9] Rev. A. Caldecott, M.A., Fellow and Dean of St. John's College.