Henry Martyn, Saint and Scholar

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a distinguished mathematician, the late Henry Martyn Jeffery, F.R.S., who had in 1883 printed _Two Sets of Unpublished Letters of the Rev.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