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CHAPTER IV. HENRY MARTYN, THE SCHOLAR-MISSIONARY
Again do we find the steady, plodding labourer of a lifetime contrasted with the warm enthusiast, whose lot seems rather to awaken others than to achieve victories in his own person. St. Stephen falls beneath the stones, but his glowing discourse is traced through many a deep argument of St. Paul. St. James drains the cup in early manhood, but his brother holds aloft his witness to extreme old age.
The ardent zeal of the Keltic character; the religious atmosphere that John Wesley had spread over Cornwall, even among those who did not enrol themselves among his followers; the ability and sensitiveness hereditary in the Martyn family, together with the strong influence of a university tutor,—all combined to make such a bright and brief trail of light of the career of Henry Martyn, the son of the head clerk in a merchant’s office at Truro, born on the 18th of February, 1781. This station sounds lowly enough, but when we find that it was attained by a self-educated man, who had begun life as a common miner, and taught himself in the intervals of rest, it is plain that the elder Martyn must have possessed no ordinary power. Out of a numerous family only four survived their infancy, and only one reached middle age, and in Henry at least great talent was united to an extreme susceptibility and delicacy of frame, which made him as a child unusually tender and gentle in manner when at his ease, but fretful and passionate when annoyed.
Of course he fared as ill with his fellow-scholars at Truro Grammar School as he did well with the masters; but an elder boy took him under his protection, and not only lessened his grievances at the time, but founded a lasting friendship.
In 1795, when only fourteen, Henry Martyn was sufficiently advanced to be sent up as a candidate for a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and passed a very creditable examination, though he failed in obtaining the election. Eight years later, we find him congratulating himself in his journal on thus having escaped the “scenes of debauchery” to which his “profligate acquaintances” might have introduced him. Was Corpus very much changed, when, only eleven years after, John Keble entered it at the same age? Was it that Martyn’s Cornish schoolfellows were a bad set, or does this thanksgiving proceed from the sort of pious complacency which religious journalizing is apt to produce in the best of men?
The failure sent Henry back to work for two years longer at the Truro Grammar School, and when at sixteen he was entered at St. John’s, Cambridge (most peculiarly the college of future missionaries), he immediately made proof of his remarkable talent. Strange to say, although his father’s rise in life had begun in his mathematical ability, Henry’s training in this branch had been so deficient, and the study appeared so repugnant to him, that his first endeavour at Cambridge was to learn the proportions of Euclid by heart, without trying to follow their reasoning. This story is told of many persons, but perhaps of no one else who in four years’ time, while still a month under twenty, was declared Senior Wrangler.
This was in 1801, and the intervening time had been spent in hard study and regular habits, but neither his sister at home, nor a seriously-minded college friend, were satisfied with his religious feelings during the first part of the time, and he himself regarded it afterwards as a period of darkness. Indeed, his temper was under so little control that in a passion he threw a knife at a companion, but happily missed his aim, so that it only pierced the wall. The shock of horror no doubt was good for him. But the next step he recorded in his life was his surprise at hearing it maintained that the glory of God, not the praise of man, should be the chief motive of study. After thinking it over his mind assented, and he resolved to maintain this as a noble saying, but did not perceive that it would affect his conduct.
However, the dearest, almost the only hallowed form of the praise of man, was taken from him by the death of his father in 1799, immediately after the delight of hearing of his standing first in the Christmas examination. The expense of a return home was beyond his means, but he took to reading the Bible, as a proper form to be complied with in the days of mourning; and beginning with the Acts, as being the most entertaining part, he felt the full weight of the doctrine of the Apostles borne in on him, and was roused to renew his long-neglected prayers. When next he went to chapel, with his soul thus awakened, he was struck by perceiving for the first time how joy for the coming of our Lord rings through the Magnificat.
The great religious influence of the day at Cambridge emanated from the pulpit and the rooms of the Reverend Charles Simeon, who did a truly remarkable work in stirring up young men to a sense of the responsibilities of the ministry. Henry Martyn regularly attended his sermons, and the newly lighted sparks were also fanned by anxious letters from the good sister at home; but until the strain, pressure, and excitement of preparing for the final examination were over, he had little time or attention for any other form of mental exertion.
When, however, he found himself in possession of the highest honours his University could award, he was amazed to discover how little they satisfied him, and that he felt as if he had grasped a shadow instead of a substance.
This instinctive longing, the sure token of a mind of the higher pitch, was finding rest as he became more and more imbued with the spirit of religion, and ventured upon manifesting it more openly. He had hitherto intended to apply himself to the law, but the example and conversation of Charles Simeon brought him to such a perception of the greatness of the office of the ministry that he resolved to dedicate himself thereto. During the term after this decision was made, while he was acting as a tutor at his college, he heard Mr. Simeon speak of William Carey and his self-devotion in India; he read the Life of that kindred spirit, David Brainerd, and the spark of missionary zeal was kindled in his ardent nature. The commission “Go ye and teach all nations” was borne in on his mind, and, with the promptness that was a part of his nature, he at once offered himself to the “Society for Missions to Africa and the East,” which had been established, in the year 1800, by members of the English Church who wished to act independently of the elder Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The name has since been altered to the “Church Missionary Society.”
However, Martyn was only just twenty-one, and not of an age to take Holy Orders, and he had therefore to wait, while studying divinity, and acting as a tutor at Cambridge. All through his life he kept copious journals of his sensations and resolutions, full of the deepest piety, always replete with sternness towards himself and others, and tinged with that melancholy which usually pervades the more earnest of that school which requires conscious feeling as the test of spiritual life.
In October 1803, he went to Ely for ordination as a deacon, though still wanting five months of twenty-three. Those were lax days, there was little examination, and a very low standard of fitness was required. Henry Martyn was so much scandalized by the lightness of demeanour of one of his fellow candidates that he spoke to him in strong reproof—with what effect we do not know, but he records that he never ventured to speak in rebuke, “unless he at the same time experienced a peculiar contrition of spirit.”
He became Mr. Simeon’s curate, and at the same time took charge of the neighbouring parish of Lolworth. People then had small expectations of clerical care, if a parish could be entrusted to a young deacon, non-resident, acting as tutor and examiner, and with an assistant curacy besides! His whole mind was, however, intensely full of his duties, and so unworthy did he consider all other occupations that he prayed and struggled conscientiously against the pleasure he could not but feel, in getting up Thucydides and Xenophon for the examinations. Everything not actually devotional seemed to him at these times under a ban, and it is painful to see how a mind of great scope and power was cramped and contracted, and the spirits lowered by incessant self-contemplation and distrust of almost all enjoyment. When, at another time, he had to examine on “Locke on the Human Understanding,” the metaphysical study acting on his already introspective mind produced a sense of misery and anguish that he could hardly endure. It is pleasant, however, to find him in another mood, writing, “Since I have known God in a saving manner, painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before; I have received what I suppose is a taste for them, for religion has refined my mind, and made it susceptible of impressions from the sublime and beautiful.”
This, no doubt, was true, but another influence had awakened his heart, earthly perhaps in itself, but so noble and so holy that it bears a heavenly light. He had become attached to a young lady in Cornwall, named Lydia Grenfell, like-minded enough to return his affection. His intention of volunteering for the Church Missionary Society was overthrown by a disaster in Cornwall which deprived himself and his unmarried sister of all the provision that their father had made for them, thus throwing her upon him for maintenance, and making it necessary that he should obtain a salary that would support her. It was suggested by some of his friends that one of the chaplaincies founded by the old East India Company, before the jealousy of religious teaching had set in, would both give him opportunities for missionary work and enable him to provide for his sister at home. Application was accordingly made, and a man of his talent and character could not fail of being accepted; he was promised the next vacant post, and went down to spend the long vacation in Cornwall, and bid farewell to all whom he loved there, for the journey was long and expensive, and he had resolved not to trust himself among them again.
He writes in his journal, “Parted with Lydia for ever in this life with a sort of uncertain pain, which I knew would increase to violence.” And so it was, he suffered most acutely for many days, and, though calmness and comfort came after a time, never were hopes and affections more thoroughly sacrificed, or with more anguish, than by this most truly devoted disciple of his Master.
He worked on at Cambridge till he received his appointment in the January of 1805, and he then only waited to receive Priests’ Orders before going to London to prepare for his embarkation.
In those times of war, a voyage to India was a perilous and lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were impeded by the disaster of one. The Union, in which a passage was given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, passengers, the 59th Regiment, some other soldiers, and young cadets, all thrown closely together for many months. She sailed from Portsmouth on the 17th of July; but in two days’ time one of the many casualties attendant on at least sixty vessels made the fleet put into Falmouth, where it remained for three weeks. This opportunity of intercourse with his family might well seem an especial boon of Providence to the young missionary, who had denied himself a last visit to them, and he carried away much comfort from this meeting. His sister was engaged to be suitably married, so that he was relieved from care on her account, and some hope was entertained that Lydia would be able to come out to him in India. A correspondence likewise began, which has been in great part preserved. Two days after weighing anchor, the Union still lingered on the coast, and the well-known outline, with Mount’s Bay, the spire of St. Hilary’s church, and all the landmarks so dear and familiar to the young Cornishman’s eye and heart, were watched from morning to night with keen pain and grief, but with steadfast resolve and constant inward prayer.
Then he addressed himself to the duties of the voyage. Private study of Hebrew and of Hindostanee was of course a part; but he hoped to be useful to his companions as a friend and as a minister. He could only obtain permission to hold one service every Sunday, but he hoped to do much by private conversations and prayers, and he tried to gain over the cadets by offering to assist them in their studies, especially mathematics. Some of them had the sense to see that the teaching of a senior wrangler was no small advantage, and these read with him throughout the voyage; but in general they were but raw lads, and followed the example of their superiors, who for the most part were strongly set against Mr. Martyn. Those were the times when sailors were utterly uncared for, and when mauvais sujets at home were sent out to India to the corruptions of a luxurious climate and a heathen atmosphere. Men of this stamp would think it bad enough to have a parson on board at all, and when they found that he was a faithful priest, who held himself bound not to leave them unchecked in their evil courses, they thought themselves aggrieved. Nor was his manner likely to gain them. Grave and earnest, he had never in his life known sportiveness, and his distress and horror at the profanity and blasphemy that rang in his ears made him doubly sad and stern. From the first his Sunday service was by most treated as an infliction, and the officers, both of the ship and of the military, had so little sense of decency as to sit drinking, smoking, and talking within earshot. The persons who professed to attend showed no reverence of attitude; and when he endeavoured to make an impression on the soldiers and their wives between-decks, he was met with the same rude and careless inattention.
With very little experience of mankind, he imagined that these hardened beings could be brought to repent by terror, and his discourses were full of denunciations of the wrath of God. He was told that, if he threatened them thus, they would not come to hear him, and his reply was an uncompromising sermon on the text, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God.” The bravery of the thing, and the spirit of truth and love that pervaded all he said on this solemn verse, was not lost upon all: some of the cadets were moved to tears, and an impression was made upon several persons. Indeed, there was much that should have induced serious thought, for, after having touched at Madeira and the Azores, it was made known that the 59th was to be disembarked at the Cape, to assist in the struggle then going on between the English and Dutch. Moreover, there was much sickness on board, and the captain himself, who had been always bitterly opposed to Mr. Martyn, anxiously called for him to attend upon his death-bed.
The 59th were landed in Table Bay just in time to take part in Sir David Baird’s victory. Martyn went on shore the next day to do his best for the wounded; but they were mostly in hospital, and, being Dutch, he could do little for them. He found congenial spirits among the Dutch clergy in Cape Town, and spent a happy month there, but the latter part of his voyage was not more satisfactory than the first. The educated portion of the passengers continued to set their faces against him, treating him with increased contempt, and even turning into ridicule the farewell sermon, in which he took an affectionate leave of all who had sailed with him.
It may be that his manner was ill-judged, but it is a fearful thing to find that it was possible for so many Christian people to have been in daily contact with as true a saint as ever lived, and yet make him their mock! Perhaps some of his words, and far more his example, may have borne fruit in after years, such as he never knew of.
The whole voyage had lasted nearly ten months before entering the Hooghly. While ascending the stream, the lassitude produced by the climate was so great that Martyn’s spirits sank under it: he thought he should “lead an idle, worthless life to no purpose. Exertion seemed like death; indeed, absolutely impossible.” Yet at the least he could write, “Even if I should never see a native converted, God may design, by my patience and continuance, to encourage future missionaries.”
This feeling of exhaustion was the prelude to a severe attack of fever, which assailed him almost immediately after his arrival; but happily not till he was safely lodged at Aldeen, in the kindly house of the Rev. David Brown, where he was nursed till his recovery. His friends wanted to keep him among the English at Calcutta, but his heart was set on ministering to the heathen, and the sights and sounds of idolatry that constantly met him increased his eagerness. He once rushed out at the sight of the flames of a Suttee, hoping to rescue the victim, but she had perished before he reached the spot.
His arrival was when the alarm about the meeting at Vellore was at its height, and when the colony at Serampore had been forbidden to preach or distribute tracts in Calcutta. He by no means agreed with all the Baptist doctrines, but he held in great esteem and reverence such men as Carey and Marshman, was glad to profit by their experience and instructions, and heartily sympathised in all their difficulties. Mr. Carey might well write, “A young clergyman, Mr. Martyn, is lately arrived, who is possessed with a truly missionary spirit.” Together the Serampore missionaries, with Mr. Martyn, Mr. Corrie, and Mr. Brown, united in dedicating to the worship of God a heathen pagoda, which the last-mentioned had succeeded in purchasing from the natives. Altogether he was much cheered and refreshed. During the time that he waited at Aldeen he improved himself in Hindostanee, and began to study Sanscrit, and learnt the most approved method of dealing with the natives. Moreover, he found that his allowance as a chaplain was so liberal as amply to justify him in writing to urge Miss Grenfell to come out and join him; and, during the long period of sixteen or eighteen months before her refusal to do so reached him, he was full of the hope of receiving her.
His appointed station was Dinapore, where his primary duty was to minister to the English troops there posted, and to the families of the civilians; but he also hoped to establish native schools, to preach in their own language to the Hindoos, and to scatter translations of portions of Scripture, such as the Parables, among them.
He had to read prayers to the soldiers from the drum-head by way of desk; there were no seats, and he was desired to omit the sermon: but afterwards a room was provided, and then the families of the officers and residents began to attend, though at first they were much scandalized by his preaching extempore. In fact there was a good deal in his whole tone that startled old orthodoxy; and in the opposition with which he met at times, there was some lawful and just distrust of the onesidedness of his tenets, together with the ordinary hatred and dislike of darkness to light. So scrupulous was he in the Jewish force given by his party to the Fourth Commandment, that, having one Sunday conceived the plan of translating the Prayer-book into Hindostanee, he worked at it till he had reached the end of the Te Deum; and there, doubting whether it were a proper employment for the day, desisted until the Monday, to give himself up to prayer, singing hymns, Scripture-reading, and meditation. The immediate value of this work was for the poor native wives of the English soldiers, whom he found professing Christianity, but utterly ignorant; and to them every Sunday, after the official English service, he repeated the Liturgy in the vulgar tongue. In this holy work he was the pioneer, since Swartz’s service was in Tamul. While working at his translations with his moonshee, or interpreter, a Mussulman, he had much opportunity for conversation and for study of the Mahometan arguments, so as to be very useful to himself; though he could not succeed in convincing the impracticable moonshee, who had all that self-satisfaction belonging to Mahometanism. “I told him that he ought to pray that God would teach him what the truth really is. He said he had no occasion to pray on this subject, as the word of God is express.” With the Hindoos at Dinapore, he found, to his surprise, that there was apparently little disinclination to “become Feringees,” as they called it, outwardly; but the difficulty lay in his insistance on Christian faith and obedience, instead of a mere external profession.
It was while he was at Dinapore that we first acquire anything like a distinct idea of Henry Martyn; for there a short halt of the 53rd Regiment brought him in contact with one who had an eye to observe, a heart to honour, and a pen to describe him; namely, Mrs. Sherwood, the wife of the paymaster, a woman of deeply religious sentiments and considerable powers as an author. Mutual friends had already prepared Mr. Martyn to expect to find like-minded companions in the Sherwoods, invited to stay with him for the few days of their sojourn at Dinapore. “Mr. Martyn’s quarters,” says that lady, “were in the smaller square—a church-like abode, with little furniture, the rooms wide and high, with many vast doorways, having their green jalousied doors, and long verandahs encompassing two sides of the quarters.” So scanty, indeed, was the furniture, that, though he gave up his own bedroom, Mrs. Sherwood could not find a pillow, not only there, but in the whole house; and, with a severe pain in her face, could get nothing to lay her head on “but a bolster stuffed as hard as a pin-cushion.”
She thus describes the first sight of her host:—“He was dressed in white, and looked very pale, which, however, was nothing singular in India; his hair, a light brown, was raised from his forehead, which was a remarkably fine one. His features were not regular, but the expression was so luminous, so intellectual, so affectionate, so beaming with Divine charity, that no one could have looked at his features and thought of their shape or form; the outbeaming of his soul would absorb the attention of every observer. There was a very decided air, too, of the gentleman about Mr. Martyn, and a perfection of manners which, from his extreme attention to all minute civilities, might seem almost inconsistent with the general bent of his thoughts to the most serious subjects. He was as remarkable for ease as for cheerfulness. He did not appear like one who felt the necessity of contending with the world and denying himself its delights, but, rather, as one who was unconscious of the existence of any attractions in the world, or of any delights which were worthy of his notice. When he relaxed from his labours in the presence of his friends, it was to play and laugh like an innocent child, more especially if children were present to play and laugh with him.”
His labours were the incessant charge of the English, travelling often great distances to baptize, marry, or bury, together with constant teaching in the schools he had established both for the English and natives, attendance on the sick in the hospitals, and likewise private arguments with Mahometans and Hindoos. Public preachings in the streets and bazaars, like those of Swartz, Carey, and Ward, he does not seem to have attempted at this time; but his translations were his great and serious employment, and one that gave him much delight. His thorough classical education and scholarship fitted him for this in an unusual degree, and besides the Hindostanee version of the Prayer-book, the Persian—so much wanted in the Bombay Presidency—was committed to him; and an assistant was sent to him, whose history, disappointing as it is, cannot be omitted from the account of Indian missions.
Sabat was an Arab of the tribe of Koreish, the same which gave birth to Mahomet himself. He was born on the banks of the Euphrates, and educated in such learning as still lingered about the city of the Khalifs; but he left home early, and served in the Turkish army against the French at Acre. Afterwards he became a soldier in the Persian army, where he was several times wounded, and in consequence retired, and, wandering into Cabul, there rose to be a royal secretary.
He formed a close friendship with his colleague, Abdallah, likewise a Koreishite Arab, and very able and poetical. When the Wahabees, the straitest sect of the Mussulmans, seized Mecca, their chief wrote a letter to the King of Cabul, which was committed to Abdallah to translate into Persian. By way of a graceful compliment, he put his translation into Persian verse, and the reward he received was equally strange; namely, the gift of as many pearls as could be stuffed into his mouth at once. He was, however, observed to be unusually grave and thoughtful, and to frequent the house of an Armenian—of course a Christian: but as this person had a beautiful daughter, she was supposed to be the attraction, and no suspicion was excited by his request to retire into his own country.
Soon after Sabat was made prisoner by the Tartars of Bokhara, and, by appealing to the king, as a descendant of the prophet, obtained his release and promotion to high honour. While visiting the city of Bokhara, he recognized his old friend, Abdallah, and, perceiving that his beard was shaved off, examined him on the cause so closely that he was driven to confess that the Armenian had converted him to the Christian faith, and that he did not wish to be known. Hereditary Christians are tolerated by the Moslem, but converts are bitterly persecuted; and Sabat flew into a great rage, argued, threatened, and at last denounced his old friend to the Moollahs as a recreant from Islam.
Abdallah was arrested, and showed himself a true and faithful confessor and martyr. The Moollahs strove hard to make him recant. They demanded of him: “In the Gospel of Christ, is anything said of our Prophet?”—intending to extort that promise of the Comforter which Mahomet blasphemously applied to himself.
Abdallah’s answer was: “Yea—Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.”
This brave reply was requited by blows on the mouth till the blood flowed, and Sabat thought of the day he had seen that same mouth filled with pearls. Abdallah was sent back to prison, and four days were allowed him in which to recant; after which he was brought out and set before an assembled multitude. Pardon was offered him if he would deny his Lord, and, on his refusal, his left hand was cut off. The look of deep sorrow and pity he gave the former friend who had betrayed him sunk deep into Sabat’s heart. Again his life was offered, again he confessed himself a Christian, and finally his martyrdom was completed by cutting off his head.
This history Sabat told with feeling and earnestness, that convinced his hearers of its truth; and from this he did not vary, though his account of his own subsequent adventures varied so much that it was not possible at last to attach credence to anything he said of himself before he became expounder of Mohammedan Law in the Civil Court at Vizagapatam. At any rate Abdallah’s look dwelt with him; he detected discrepancies in the Koran, and became anxious to study the Christian Scriptures. He obtained from Bombay a copy, first of the New Testament, then of the Old, and, having become convinced, he came to Madras, and demanded baptism from Dr. Ker, the British chaplain. After some probation, which made Sabat so impatient that he threatened that he should accuse the minister before God if he delayed, he was baptized by the name of Nathanael, and sent to Serampore as a person likely to be useful in the translations always in hand there.
He was delighted with the habits there prevailing, dismissed his attendants, dined at the common table, and altogether conformed himself to the spirit of the place. When it was decided to send him to Dinapore to assist Mr. Martyn in rendering the Bible into Persian, he took leave of Serampore with tears in his eyes. He was gladly welcomed by Mr. Martyn, and they worked together at the Gospel of St. Matthew, Sabat showing a scholar-like anxiety both for correctness and rhythm; but there was so much of the wild Arab about him that he was a continual anxiety. The Serampore missionaries thought him a grand, dignified figure. Mrs. Sherwood paints him much less pleasantly, and says he was exactly like the sign of the Saracen’s head, with intensely flashing eyes, high nose, white teeth, and jet black eyebrows, moustache, and beard. His voice was like rolling thunder, his dress of gorgeous material and thoroughly Oriental, silk skull-cap, jacket, jewelled girdle, loose trousers, and embroidered shoes, and he had a free and haughty manner, according with his signature, when writing to a gentleman who had offended him—“Nathanael Sabat, an Arab, who never was in bondage.”
In April 1809, Mr. Martyn was removed to the station at Cawnpore, where the Sherwoods were then residing. The time was one of the worst in the whole year for travelling across the sandy plains, with a wind blowing that made the air like “the mouth of an oven.” For two days and two nights, between Allahabad and Cawnpore, Mr. Martyn travelled in his palanquin without intermission, and, having expected to arrive sooner, he had brought no provision for the last day. “I lay in my palanquin, faint, with a headache, neither awake nor asleep, between dead and alive, the wind blowing flames.” When he arrived, Mr. Sherwood had only just time to lead him into the bungalow before he fainted away, and the hall being the least heated place, a couch was made ready for him there, where for some days he lay very ill; and the thermometer was never below 96°, though the punkah never ceased.
