'Atque opere in medio defixa reliquit aratra.'
'Hopes have precarious life;
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer oft
In vigorous youth and turned to rottenness;
_But faithfulness can feed on suffering,
And know no disappointment_.'
_Spanish Gypsy._
Anyone who would write the life of Henry Martyn, must feel that he is
about to tread upon holy ground. For, however clearly we may see, on
perusing his 'Journals and Letters,'[102] that his introspection was
morbidly minute, his temper naturally irritable, and his religious
views generally of the gloomiest as well as of an almost impracticable
character, yet his ardent zeal, his saint-like devotion, his
self-denial, and his deep humility, afford such an example of earnest
piety as is rarely to be met with in the annals of the Church, since
the days of the Apostles themselves. His very faults were but 'the
shadows of his virtues,' and of Henry Martyn it might truly be said
that to him--without religion--
'The pillared firmament was rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.'
How much of this was due to that frequent correlation which, as Mr.
Galton points out, frequently exists between an unusually devout
disposition and a weak constitution, it would of course be hard to say.
I cannot help thinking that Martyn has been a little unfortunate in
his biographer, the Rev. John Sargent, jun., although that writer's
'Memoir' has been so popular that I believe it has run through about
a score of editions. There was a tardy apology for the tone of the
book in the preface to the tenth edition--and an explanation to the
effect that Martyn's religion was really by no means of a desponding
character, and that few persons 'have equalled him in the enjoyment of
that "peace which passeth all understanding."' If such were the case
it is unfortunate that the extracts made by Mr. Sargent from Martyn's
'Journals' should have left so wide-spread an impression to the
contrary--an impression which it is probably as fruitless to attempt to
counteract as Mr. Sargent expected it would be.
Sargent appears to have sympathized chiefly with one side of Martyn's
character, namely, the gloomy and self-torturing one, and the result is
that to read the 'Memoir' harrows one's feelings. Very similar remarks
apply to the 'Journals and Letters,' but in the latter, at least, we
have only the man himself, and are spared the somewhat complacent tone
in which his mental anguish and physical sufferings are depicted by
his friend and biographer. Charles Kingsley used to say of Martyn: 'My
mind is in a chaos about him. Sometimes one feels inclined to take him
at his own word, and believe him, as he says, a mere hypochondriac;
then the next moment he seems a saint. I cannot fathom it. Of this,
however, I am certain, that he was a much better man than I am.'
One great lesson, however, of this learned, brave, and good man's
life--crowned as it surely was with the crown of the martyr, if ever
mortal's brow were so adorned--appears to me to be this: that a life of
seclusion, nay, almost isolation, such as his, defeats its own object,
if that object be, like Martyn's, to influence our fellow-men. 'It is
miserable,' he used to say, when thinking of the vast amount of sin
there was in the world, 'it is miserable living with men;' and, again,
'a dried leaf or a straw makes me feel in good company.' And herein
seems to lie a great difference between Martyn, notwithstanding his
learning, his piety, and his dauntless courage amidst incessant perils,
and such heroic Christian missionaries as were St. Paul and Bishop
Heber, who had learnt to mix more freely with their fellow-men, and to
combine the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove.
But to turn to the life itself. Henry Martyn, like Martin Luther,
sprang from a family of mine captains, and was born at Truro, on Feb.
18th, 1781--the third child of a family of four. His father, who lived
at first near Gwennap Church-Town, had been an Accountant at Wheal
Virgin; and being, like many others of his calling, an ingenious and
self-reliant man, taught himself arithmetic and some mathematics;
his abilities attracted the attention of Mr. Daniell, one of the
Truro merchants, and ultimately John Martyn became his chief clerk.
'The elder Martyn,' Polwhele says, 'was a tall, erect man, used to
take his daily exercise under the Coinage Hall, which was opposite
his house.' The house was pulled down to make room for the new Town
Hall; it occupied the site of the present Police Station, as I am
informed. Henry's great-uncle, Thomas Martyn, was the author of the
large and excellent Map of Cornwall, known by his name.[103] He was
a surveyor, and his map is said to have been the result of fifteen
years' labour--the survey having been made on foot. He died in 1752-53.
Henry's mother, from whom he seems to have inherited his delicate
constitution, was a Miss Fleming of Ilfracombe; she died the year after
he was born.
Henry Martyn--'little Henry Martyn,' as his schoolfellows used tenderly
to call him--was sent at Midsummer, 1788, to that capital nest of so
large a number of our most distinguished Cornishmen--the Truro Grammar
School--and he is thus described by one of his fellow-pupils, the late
Clement Carlyon, M.D., Fellow of Pembroke College, and thrice Mayor of
Truro, in his 'Early Years and Late Reflections:' 'A good-humoured,
plain little fellow, with red eyelids devoid of eye-lashes, and
indicative of a scrofulous habit; and with hands so thickly covered
with warts that it was impossible for him to keep them clean, or
for his respected master,[104] who borrowed a large leaf out of Dr.
Busby's book, to inflict on him, when idle, stripes over the back of
his hand.' He seems to have improved in appearance as he grew older;
but was always 'rather low in stature, and plain in person, though
not disagreeably so;[105] whilst his amiable disposition[106] and
sociability ensured him the esteem and friendship of all who were
acquainted with him.' Though all his life long he was particularly
fond of laughing and playing with little children, at school he
seldom played with the other boys; and seems to have evinced no
precocity, nor was he very studious, like his friend and school-fellow
Kempthorne[107] (Senior Wrangler of 1796, and afterwards vicar of
a church in Gloucester): nor did Martyn display the poetic vein of
another of his colleagues, Humphry Davy.
At the Truro Grammar School, having failed in 1795 to obtain a
Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he remained till 1797,
in which year he took up residence at St. John's College, Cambridge,
where, from his assiduity, he was known as 'the man who had never
lost an hour,' and was at once fortunate in securing the advice and
friendship of his old acquaintance Kempthorne, who, as well as Martyn
himself, soon came within the influence of a very earnest Low Church
Divine, the Rev. Charles Simeon, a fellow of King's College, of whom
it is only right to add that he more than once warned Martyn, whilst
in the East, that he was overtaxing his strength and energies. To this
clergyman Martyn was afterwards to become curate.
The death of his father in 1800 led Martyn to study the Bible most
seriously; and he so read its pages as to determine upon basing his
whole life upon its promises. He says, for instance, of his magnificent
success in becoming the Senior Wrangler of his year (and that year was
a distinguished one in the annals of the University): 'I obtained my
highest wishes, but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow!'
Indeed, it is said that, when he entered the Senate House for the
examination, and saw the unusually large number assembled there, he
ejaculated, with apparently some inconsistency, the text: 'Seekest
thou great things for thyself? seek them not, saith the Lord.' In 1802
he became Fellow and Tutor of his college, and gained the first prize
for Latin prose composition, thus compensating amply for his lack of
success in 1799, when he failed to obtain the prize for themes in his
college, and came out second instead of first, as was expected, at the
examination.
He now returned to his native place for a short time, for much-needed
rest and change; not, however, staying much at Truro, but passing
most of his holiday at Woodbury, just below Malpas, on the Fal,
the residence of his brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Curgenven (curate of
the parishes of Kenwyn and Kea). These were amongst the happiest
moments of his life. He says, either of this place or Lamorran (and
the description is applicable to either): 'The scene is such as is
frequently to be met with in this part of Cornwall. Below the house is
an arm of the sea flowing between the hills, which are covered with
wood. By the shore I walk in general, in the evening, out of the reach
of all sound but the rippling of the water and the whistling of the
curlew.'
On his return to Cambridge in the following October, conversations
with Mr. Simeon, instigated by a perusal of the 'Life and Labours
of David Brainerd among the North American Indians,' gave rise to
Martyn's intense desire to become a missionary; and, notwithstanding
his alleged appreciative enjoyment of a literary and social life at
home, he offered his services to a Missionary Society. They were not,
however, accepted; and after having been ordained at Ely in October,
1803, he became Mr. Simeon's curate--preaching sometimes at Lolworth,
a church six miles from the University, on the Huntingdon road, and
sometimes at Trinity Church, Cambridge. Simeon always continued a
friend and admirer of Martyn, and had his portrait hung up over
his fireplace. He often used to look up at it with affectionate
earnestness: 'There!' he used to say, 'see that blessed man! What an
expression of countenance! No one looks at me as he does--he seems
always to be saying, "Be serious, be in earnest; don't trifle--_don't_
trifle." 'Then he would smile at the picture, and gently bow, and add:
'And I won't trifle--I won't trifle.'
Early in 1804, Martyn, as well as his younger sister, Sally (Mrs.
Pearson), to whom he seems to have been fondly attached, had the
misfortune to lose all their patrimony; an event which, in addition
to the causes already referred to, probably led to his making a
second effort (which was also at the time unsuccessful) to procure an
appointment as a missionary--this time in the form of a 'chaplaincy' to
the East India Company. This year was further memorable from Martyn's
making the acquaintance of a kindred spirit--the poet, H. Kirke White
(also a Johnian), 'a religious young man of seventeen, who wants to
come to college, but has only £20 a year.'
Another visit to his solitary retreat in Cornwall refreshed him during
the summer, and whilst there he preached to a crowded congregation
at Kenwyn Church from 2 Cor. v. 20, 21: 'Now we are ambassadors,'
etc. (a very favourite text of his), and availed himself of the
opportunity, before returning to Cambridge on 18th of September, 1804,
to take leave of his county and friends, in view of the probability
of his soon getting the desired appointment under the East India
Company. On his way back to the University, as his journals testify,
with characteristic zeal and devotedness, though, apparently, not
always with tact and skill, he lost no opportunity, in season or out
of season, of turning the conversation of his fellow-travellers to
religious topics.
At this period of his life his usual routine seems to have been to rise
every morning at about half-past five (and, if he failed to do so,
his self-reproaches are most bitter); to work hard, either with his
pupils, his flock, or his books; to pray at least four times a day,
and to write at least one sermon a week. The Scriptures he doubtless
read daily; and the spirit in which he read them may be seen from the
following extract from his Journals, written when on board ship, on his
way to India: 'Read Isaiah the rest of the evening--sometimes happy
and at other times tired, and desiring to take up some other religious
book; _but I saw it an important duty to check this slighting of the
Word of God_.' And here it may be interesting to note the other works
which seem to have been amongst Martyn's favourites. Of course, he
kept up his mathematics and science; but the references to these in
his Journals are slight and few. He often read the Greek plays, but
his chief reading was, as might be expected, divinity; and especially
St. Augustine, Grotius, Paley, Baxter, Hooker, Pearson, Fletcher's
'Portrait,' Flavel's 'Saint Indeed,' Searle's 'Christian Remembrancer,'
Thomas à Kempis, Law's 'Serious Call,' Lowth, Bishop Hopkins, Jonathan
Edwards's 'Original Sin,' and his work on the Affections, Whitfield's
Journal, Leighton, Milner's 'Church History,' etc., etc.; and these
were interspersed with the study of Hindostanee and other Oriental
languages.
Martyn's religious position and views have been thus described in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for July, 1844, by a writer who traces their origin
to the well-known Clapham School of 'Evangelical' religion:
'From that circle he adopted, in all its unadorned simplicity, the
system called Evangelical--that system of which (if Augustine, Luther,
Calvin, Knox, and the writers of the English Homilies may be credited)
Christ Himself was the author, and Paul the first and greatest
interpreter.
'Through shallow heads and voluble tongues, such a creed (or indeed
any creed) filtrates so easily, that, of the multitudes who maintain
it, comparatively few are aware of the conflict of their faith with
the natural and unaided reason of mankind. Indeed, he who makes such
an avowal will hardly escape the charge of affectation or of impiety.
Yet if any truth be clearly revealed, it is, that the Apostolic
doctrine was foolishness to the sages of this world. If any unrevealed
truth be indisputable, it is, that such sages are at this day making,
as they have ever made, ill-disguised efforts to escape the inferences
with which their own admissions teem. Divine philosophy divorced from
human science--celestial things stripped of the mitigating veils woven
by man's wit and fancy to relieve them--form an abyss as impassable
at Oxford now, as at Athens eighteen centuries ago. To Henry Martyn
the gulf was visible, the self-renunciation painful, the victory
complete. His understanding embraced, and his heart reposed in, the
two comprehensive and ever-germinating tenets of the school in which
he studied. Regarding his own heart as corrupt, and his own reason as
delusive, he exercised an unlimited affiance in the holiness and the
wisdom of Him, in whose person the divine nature had been allied to
the human, that, in the persons of his followers, the human might be
allied to the divine.
'Such was his religious theory--a theory which doctors may combat,
or admit, or qualify, but in which the readers of Henry Martyn's
Biography, Letters, and Journals, cannot but acknowledge that he
found the resting-place of all the impetuous appetencies of his mind,
the spring of all his strange powers of activity and endurance.
Prostrating his soul before the real, though the hidden Presence he
adored, his doubts were silenced, his anxieties soothed, and every
meaner passion hushed into repose.'
On the 2nd of April, 1805, having previously been ordained priest
at St. James's Chapel Royal, London, and having taken his degree as
Bachelor of Divinity, he preached his last sermon at Cambridge, and
came to London to prosecute his studies in Hindostanee, and to preach
occasionally at St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row. It was about this time
that he made the acquaintance of Wilberforce, dining with him and going
afterwards to the House of Commons, where he was much struck with the
eloquence, great seriousness, and energy of Pitt 'about that which is
of no consequence at all.'
He at length, on the 24th April, 1805, obtained the long-wished-for
chaplaincy, with a salary of £1,200 a year, and was fervently longing
to enter upon his labours, exclaiming on one occasion, from the very
depths of his soul: 'Gladly shall this base blood be shed, every drop
of it, if India can be benefited in one of her children!'
This would seem to be the proper occasion to advert to a passage in
Martyn's Life which must possess for any genial reader a most touching
interest. The enthusiastic clergyman had become deeply smitten with the
attractions of Miss Lydia Grenfell, of the parish of St. Hilary, three
or four miles from Marazion. His affection for this lady appears to
have been both profound and sincere; but he feared that its indulgence
might prove a bar to the higher aims which he had set before him. His
mental conflicts on this subject, as on all others, were most severe;
and under such circumstances, and with his gloomy and excitable
religious views, he may have appeared, what the lady herself (some few
years his senior) undoubtedly was, a somewhat languid and vacillating
lover. That the lady never married him--although her final refusal did
not reach him till 1807, when he was in India--was perhaps fortunate
for both parties; but, undoubtedly, Martyn continued to love her and
to correspond with her to the last. The peculiar circumstances of this
attachment gave rise to Holme Lee's (Harriet Parr's) story of 'Her
Title of Honour;' that title consisting of the honour done to Eleanor
Trevelyan by being beloved by so good and great a man as Francis Gwynne
(Martyn). Miss Grenfell never married. Her sister Emma became the wife
of the Rev. T. M. Hitchins,[108] of Devonport, Martyn's cousin; and
some interesting letters to her from Martyn, mostly bearing upon the
subject of his love for Lydia, will be found in a supplement to the
'Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall' edited by Mr. Henry
Martyn Jeffery, F.R.S. (vol. vii. pt. 3, December, 1882, No. 26).
The ship in which he was to sail for India left London on the 8th
of July, 1805. Martyn joined her at Portsmouth on the 17th, after
having had 'a convulsion fit' on the road down. The _Union_ called
(unexpectedly) at Falmouth, where she was detained for three weeks by
unfavourable winds, and Martyn thus had opportunities of returning to
St. Hilary, about twenty miles off, and again enduring the 'pleasing
pain' which he found in his loved one's society. But whilst there the
wind suddenly shifted, and Martyn had the narrowest possible escape
from missing the ship. His self-reproaches on such an occasion as this
may be imagined!
On the 10th of September the _Union_ at length sailed from Falmouth,
and our devoted hero's dejection on contemplating the Cornish cliffs
fading away in the distance was very deep. He longed to die, so he
says, on the way out. A storm arose as they left Ireland behind them,
and added to his sufferings. But at length, after touching at Madeira,
and at San Salvador in Brazil, they safely reached Calcutta on the 14th
of May, 1806, after a tedious and dangerous voyage of nine months.
On the passage Martyn's usual zeal, and, it might be added, want of
tact, had ample opportunities of displaying themselves. Nothing could
exceed his devotion to the men when sick, or whenever the slightest
opportunity presented itself of speaking to any of them on the subject
which was ever uppermost in his own soul. And his courage was admirably
displayed in landing almost _with_ the troops when the successful
attack was delivered by the British under Sir David Baird upon the
French and Dutch troops at the Cape of Good Hope in January, 1806.
Nor was he unmindful of the welfare of the cadets on board, to whom
he imparted instruction in a variety of subjects, with all the force
of his powerful intellect. But his religious ministrations were, for
the most part, unappreciated, owing to the excessively gloomy tone
with which they were pervaded, and to his tendency to 'scold his
congregation,' a fault of which it may be remembered even Cowper
complained in Mr. Scott, the curate of Olney. The captain dared not
allow him to preach more than once on Sundays, and all the officers
made a point of standing near the cabin-door, so as to make good their
retreat whenever the sermon became too miserably painful. 'Mr. Martyn,'
they once said, '_must_ not damn us to-day, or none will come again.'
After a stay of about four months in Calcutta, during which,
notwithstanding a sharp attack of fever, he went on with his lingual
studies, occasionally preached to somewhat unsympathetic audiences, and
had opportunities of witnessing Suttee and the Juggernaut procession,
he was, on the 13th September, at length appointed to Dinapore, and on
the 15th October proceeded up the Ganges to his post, in a budgerow,
passing most of his time in translating portions of the Scriptures into
the native tongues. He reached Dinapore on 26th November, and met with
but a very cold reception from the Europeans there, as well as from the
natives; and, worst of all, there was no church or church furniture
at his disposal. But he soon got to work, and gave his most special
attention to the native children, who appeared to have been very apt
and tractable, and for whom he is said to have built, at his own cost,
whilst in India, five schools. He now obtained, for the purposes of his
translations, the assistance (such as it was) of two natives--Mirza
Fitrut, who is described as being guileful and hypocritical, and
the vain and furious-tempered Nathanael Sabat, who seem to have
entertained a very cordial jealousy and hatred of each other. Sabat
had served both in the Turkish and Persian armies. He had a free and
haughty manner, and a fierce look, and signed himself 'Nathanael Sabat,
an Arab who was never in bondage.' He used to contend with Martyn so
violently at times that Martyn had to order his palanquin and be off to
his friends, the Sherwoods.
Part of the Prayer Book was, under conditions such as these, translated
into Hindostanee; to this his 'dear friend and brother chaplain'
Corrie added; but it was not completed until 1829, seventeen years
after Martyn's death. In 1807 Martyn finished, in Hindostanee, his
'Commentary on the Parables;' and, by the end of 1809, a plain and
idiomatic version of the four Gospels. The following year saw the
New Testament completed. His translations into the Persian were not
considered quite so successful; but about this time he appears to have
first definitely conceived the desire of evangelizing Persia, and it
was always with regret that he went on with his translations, dreading
lest they might interfere with his strictly ministerial duties. He was
at this time so strict a Sabbatarian that he thought he was doing wrong
in translating even the Prayer Book into Hindostanee on a Sunday.
Signs of breaking health were now becoming too painfully apparent; in
fact, he may be said to have been constantly ill. His friend Corrie
(afterwards Bishop of Madras) paid Martyn two visits in 1808, and
saw that 'there was small prospect of his long continuance in this
vale of tears.' But the tone of Martyn's people towards him had
somewhat improved; and in April, 1809, he was moved to Cawnpore, a
distance of 240 miles--the journey being performed in a fierce heat.
He was kindly received by Captain and Mrs. Sherwood; but here again
he found no church. He first preached at Cawnpore in the native
tongue, and remained at his post until the 30th September, 1810, when,
notwithstanding his 'bright invincibility of spirit,' his health
utterly gave way, and he went back to Calcutta, arriving there with
pallid countenance and enfeebled frame. 'Fortia agere Romanum est,
fortia pati Christianum,' wrote an old author; and, surely, if ever the
courage of the Roman, and the calm brave endurance of the Christian
met, they met in Henry Martyn.
But returning after a while to Cawnpore, he resumed his correspondence
with Miss Grenfell, now _as a friend_; and tells her that this was his
daily routine: 'We rise at daybreak, and breakfast at six. Immediately
after breakfast we pray[109] together; after which I translate into
Arabic with Sabat, who lives in a small bungalow on my ground. We
dine at twelve, and sit recreating ourselves with talking about dear
friends in England. In the afternoon I translate with Mirza Fitrut
into Hindostanee; and Corrie employs himself in teaching some native
Christian boys, whom he is educating with great care, in the hopes of
their being fit for the office of catechists. I have also a school on
my premises for natives; but it is not well attended. At sunset we
ride or drive, and then meet at the church, where we often raise the
song of praise with as much joy, through the grace and presence of our
Lord, as you do in England. At ten we are all asleep.... My work at
present is evidently to translate; hereafter I may itinerate.'
By the spring of 1810 his church, converted from its former use as a
heathen temple, was ready,[110] and his friend Corrie came to visit and
assist him; but he preached in it for the last time on 30th September,
1810, and shortly afterwards went back to Calcutta.
Persia now finally became the object of Martyn's pious yearnings; and,
on the 9th January, in the following year, he set out on his memorable,
but, it is much to be feared, slightly rewarded, journey--a journey
accomplished with so much fatigue, and under such sudden and excessive
changes of temperature, as to have been, doubtless, the proximate cause
of the destruction of his frail body. He stopped at Goa on the route,
and travelled _viâ_ Bombay, landing at Muscat, in Arabia Felix, on
the 22nd April. On the 30th he set out for Shiraz, 'the City of the
Rose'--the Athens of Persia, where he arrived on the 9th June, and met
with a most insulting reception from the people. But Martyn thought
that even such a reception as this was better than so unworthy a sinner
as he merited! Referring to this episode in Martyn's career Dean Alford
writes:
'The pale-faced Frank among them sits: what brought him from afar?
Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches arts of war.
One pearl alone he brings with him--the Book of life and death.
One warfare only teaches he--to fight the fight of faith.'
Matters, however, improved after a while; the Armenian ladies came
to kiss his hand, and the priest incensed him four times over at the
altar. Here, on the 24th February, 1812, he completed, under most
discouraging circumstances, his translation of the New Testament
into Persian.[111] After labouring 'for six weary moons,' a similar
version of the Psalms was finished in the following month; and on the
24th May, 'the meek missionary of the Cross' left Shiraz in order to
present the precious documents himself to the Shah. Much difficulty and
delay intervened on account of the diplomatic formalities considered
necessary on such an occasion; and eventually, after visiting Ispahan
and Teheran, Martyn was disappointed in the object he had in view,
having been struck down by illness, increased by the hardships of
travel and climate, before his desires were accomplished. For two
months he was completely laid up--weeping many 'tears from the depths
of a divine despair'--at the house of Sir Gore Ouseley, the British
Ambassador at Tabriz, who afterwards had the gratification of showing
Martyn's manuscript to the Shah, and it was sent to St. Petersburg to
be printed.
This renewed illness caused Martyn to determine on returning to
England, for his health's sake. But it was too late. On his homeward
way (_viâ_ Constantinople), seeing Mount Ararat on the journey, and
passing through Erivan, Kars, Erzeroum, and Tokat--'hardly knowing
how to keep his life in him'--he succumbed near the latter place, to
hunger, thirst, sunstroke, fever and ague, aggravated by his desperate
gallop for life across the scorching plains, and beneath a rainless
sky, untempered by a single cloud, on the 6th October, 1812, in
the thirty-second year of his age. Here the last entry, commencing
'Oh! when shall Time give place to Eternity?' appears in his sad,
self-searching diary. Ten days afterwards he was no more.
He was buried in the Armenian burial-ground at Tokat, with the honours
usually accorded by Armenian Christians to an Archbishop; and a marble
slab, which the Tokat Christians were wont to keep clear of weeds,
covers his remains. Sir R. K. Porter, in his 'Travels in Persia' (vol.
ii., p. 703), after eulogizing Martyn's self-devotion and zeal beyond
the strength of a naturally delicate constitution, adds that 'exhausted
nature sank under the apostolic labour, and in this place he was called
to the rest of heaven. His remains sleep in a grave as humble as his
own meekness.'