to the character of a real christian, appears as yet never to have entered his mind: and even when it did, as was the case at this time, it rested there as a theoretic notion never to be reduced to practice. His own account of himself is very striking. Speaking of June 1799, he says, ***(the friend alluded to before) attempted to persuade me that I ought to attend to reading, not for the praise of men, but for the glory of God. This seemed strange to me, but reasonable. I resolved, therefore, to maintain this opinion thenceforth; but never designed, that I remember, that it should affect my conduct." What a decisive mark this of an unrenewed mind: What an affecting proof that light may break in on the understanding, whilst there is not so much as a dawn of it on the heart!

Providentially for Henry Martyn, he had not only the great blessing of possessing a religious friend at college, but the singular felicity likewise of having a sister in Cornwall, who was a christian of a meek, heavenly, and affectionate spirit; to whom, as well as to the rest of his relations there, he paid a visit in the summer of the year 1799.—pp. 20, 21.

It may be well supposed, that to a sister, such as bis, her brother's spiritual welfare would be a most serious and anxious concern: and that she often conversed with him on the subject of religion, we have his own declaration. "I went home this summer, and was frequently addressed by my dear sister on the subject of religion; but the sound of the Gospel, conveyed in the admonition of a sister, was grating to my ears." The first result of her tender exhortations and earnest endeavours was very discouraging: a violent conflict took place in her brother's mind, between his convictions of the truth of what she urged and his love of the world; and, for the present, the latter prevailed, yet sisters, similarly circumstanced, may learn from this case not merely their duty, but from the final result, the success they may anticipate from the faithful discharge of it."I think," he observes, when afterwards reviewing this period with a spirit truly broken and contrite, "I do not remember a time when the wickedness of my heart rose to a greater height, than during my stay at home. The consummate selfishness and exquisite irritability of my mind were displayed in rage, malice, and envy, in pride and vain glory and contempt of all; in the harshest language to my sister, and even my father, if he happened to differ from my mind and will : O what an example of patience and mildness was he! I love to think of his excellent qualities, and it is frequently the anguish of my heart, that I ever could be base and wicked enough to pain him by the slightest neglect. O my God and Father, why is not

my heart doubly agonized, at the remem. brance of all my great transgressions against thee ever since I bave known thee as such! 1 left my sister and father in October, and him I saw no more. I promised my sister that I would read the Bible for myself, but on being settled in college, Newton engaged all my thoughts."

At length however it pleased God to convince Henry by a most afflicting visitation of his providence, that there was a knowledge far more important to him than any human science; and that, whilst contemplating the heavens by the light of astronomy, he should devote himself to His service, who having made those heavens, did in his nature pass through them as his Mediator and Advocate. The sudden and heart-rending intelligence of the death of his father was the proximate, though doubtless not the efficient cause of his receiving these convictions. How poignant were his sufferings under this affliction, may be seen in the account he himself has left of it :-from whence it is evident, that it was not only a season of severe but of sanctified sorrow; a seed time of tears, promising that harvest of holiness, peace, and joy which succeeded it.

"At the examination at Christmas, 1799," he writes, "I was first, and the ac count of it pleased my father prodigiously, who I was told was in good health and spirits. What was then my consternation, when, in January, I received from my brother an account of his death! But while I mourned the loss of an earthly parent, the angels in heaven were rejoicing at my being so soon to find an heavenly one. As I had no taste at this time for my usual studies, I took up my Bible, thinking that the consideration of religion was rather suitable to this solemn time; nevertheless I often took up other books to engage my attention, and should have continued to do so, had not *** advised me to make this time an occasion of serious reflection. I began with the Acts, as being the most amusing; and, whilst I was entertained with the narrative, I found myself insensibly led to inquire more attentively into the doctrine of the Apostles. It corresponded nearly enough, with the few notions I had received in my early youth. I believe on the first night after, I began to pray from a 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 as a religious man. The first time 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. *** had lent me Doddridge's Rise and Progress. The first part of which I could not bear to read, because it appeared to

make religion consist too much in humiliation; and my prond wicked heart would not bear to be brought down into the dust. And ***, to whom I mentioned the gloom which I felt, after reading the first part of Doddridge, reprobated it strongly.-Alas! did he think that we can go along the way that leadeth unto life, without entering in at 'the straight gate !' "-pp. 21-25.

It will be perceived that his pious sister had not laboured in vain; he subsequently wrote her:

With respect to the dealings of the Almighty with me, you have heard in general the chief of my account; as I am brought to a sense of things gradually, there is nothing peculiarly striking in it to particularize. After the death of our father you know I was extremely low spirited; and like, most other people, began to consider seriously, without any particular determination, that invisible world to which he has gone, and to which I must one day go. Yet still I read the Bible unenlightened and said a prayer or two, rather through terror of a superior power, than from any other cause. Soon however I began to attend more diligently to the

words of our Saviour in the New Testa

ment, 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. Throughout the whole, however, even when the light of divine truth was beginning to dawn on my mind, I was not under that great terror of future punishment, which I now see plainly I had every reason to feel: I look back now upon that course of wickedness, which, like a gulph of destruction, yawned to swallow me up, with a trembling delight, mixed with shame at having lived so long in ignorance, and error, and blindness. pp. 27, 28.

At Cambridge, he now constantly attended on the ministry of Mr. Simeon, and thus gradually acquired more knowledge of divine things; but he says, 'I can only account for my being stationary so long, by the intenseness with which I pursued my studies, in which I was so absorbed that the time I gave to them seemed not to be a portion of my existence.' At the public examination for degrees, "his mind was singularly composed by the recollection of a sermon which he had heard not long before, on the text 'Seekest thou great things

for thyself-seek them not.'" He received the highest academical honour. He I obtained my highsays, est wishes, but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow.' In March, 1802, he was chosen a fellow of his college, and twice discharged the duties of a Public Examiner with great propriety. In October, of the same year, he determined to labour for the cause of Christ, as a missionary.

In

The triumph of Martyn's religion over the temptations of literature, is worthy of notice. In all schools a degree of emulation will exist, which must not unfrequently have a very unhappy influence on the minds of the subjects of it. In colleges, where the rival parties are of maturer years, and the objects in view are more. valuable, the rivalry must be greater, and the evils of it proportionally increased. But from no one of our public institutions, can we learn the value of those objects for which the members of an English University contend; we say contend, for the exertions of the rival parties must frequently be associated with the worst of passions, and are frequently pursued to the ruin of health. that country, the avenues to every reputable and profitable employment are crowded, and in addition to this, obstacles intervene, which excessive premiums only can remove; for every thing a license must be obtained, and for every license sums must be paid, which are prescribed by a government versed in the arts of taxation, and needing all the skill which it exercises. Stimulated to exertion, by the difficulty of securing an independence, and by the rewards of successful literary exertion, the scholar who is without patrons or good resources, feels that he is striving for the comforts and conveniences of life. If successful, he obtains a fellowship, worth perhaps two or three times the salary of a President of Yale College; and a fellowship may be a stepping stone to some of the livings in the gift of his college. If he do not obtain a fellowship, the good scholar

may find other very eligible situations; and distinction at the University will be a good security for obtaining them. These circumstances, in addition to all the common inducements to exertion, incite the students to the most unremitted labour. Henry Kirke White, who fell a victim to intense application, said that if he were to paint a picture of Fame, crowning a distinguished undergraduate, after the Senate-House examination, he would represent her as concealing a Death's head under the mask of beauty.' This however, is not all the evil. Ambition, envy, and other evil passions, must of course spring up, and the youthful christian is in great danger. The same grace which enabled White to come off, unimpaired in moral worth, from such dangerous ground, called Martyn into the kingdom while a student, and enabled him to triumph over the temptations of learning. Severe application to science perhaps retarded his progress, but christian principle increased in strength, and gained a decided victory.

Some might have supposed from the manner of his conversion, from the fact that his convictions of sin were not unusually great, and that he was brought to a sense of things gradually,' that he would not have been eminent for piety. Such convictions of sinfulness, as some at the period of their conversion are favoured with, are undoubtedly very desirable. They leave an impress upon the mind, which gives to it a determined character, and are perhaps productive of that ardour in the cause of religion, which renders the possessors of it so useful. The case of Martyn, however, is one of the exceptions to the general rule, if such rule exists; and his religious character was one of uncommon excellence.

We have seen that he rose superiour to the temptations which surrounded him at college. Not only did he triumph over them; he made his acquisitions subsidiary to his religious improvement. That patient atten

His

tion and determined perseverance, with which he followed his mathe matical pursuits, which increased their power by use, and which at length in the Senate-House, gave him the first rank among men of great talents, and as great industry, enabled him also to make unusual advances in divine knowledge. The great attention which he gave to the instructions of Newton, enabled him to give still greater to the precepts of his God. He had a daily subject for religious meditation, and doubtless felt the value of that power of mental abstraction which Stewart places among the faculties, but which is evidently the product of patient study. All his knowledge became consecrated. His acquisitions of every kind were devoted to the cause of religion. It was in this spirit that he determined on a mission to the heathen. self-devotion was not that of a man who had nothing to relinquish, and little to hope for. He had learned, not so much by the afflictive dispensations of God, as by the teachings of his Spirit, that all is vanity; and he acted in conformity with the lesson taught him. While he was the object of high regard for his talents and acquirements, while in the enjoyment of a fellowship which secured him an honourable independence, while surrounded by friends who were uncommonly dear to him, and who abundantly repaid his attachment, and while the future presented an inviting prospect, fair to the eye, and rich in every valuable product, Martyn, looking not at the things which are seen, but at those which are not seen, with a determination which nothing could shake, but with a humility which was unfeigned, said to those who wished for messengers of the grace of God to the heathen, 'Here am I, send me.' The sacrifice which he made was a free-will offering, but the devoted victim was not insensible to the consequences of such self-denial.

Such was the result of his conviction of religious truth. He made continual advances in the divine life. In

his Journal of Jan. 5th, 1805, he thus writes: Hitherto hath the Lord helped me. It is now about five years since God stopped me in the career of worldliness, and turned me from the paths of sin; three years and a half, since I turned to the Lord with all my heart, and a little more than two years, since he enabled me to devote myself to his service as a missionary. My progress of late has become slower than it had been; yet I can truly say, that in the course of this time, every successive year, every successive week, has been happier than the former. Few convictions, how powerful soever they may be, terminate in such conversions. Henry Martyn sought not his own, but the things which are Jesus Christ's. Of this, the whole course of his life, after he thought seriously of the things of religion, is proof; and in his intercourse with men, he manifested a benevolence, as rare as it is valuable. As a proof of this, we give the following sentences from a journal, which he supposed no eye but his own would ever see, and which when leaving India for Persia, in the fear that he should not return, urgent solicitations only prevented him from destroying. The extract was written while he was in India, but we introduce it for the illustration of what we have said. In prayer, at the appointed hour, I felt solemnity of mind, and an earnest desire that the Lord would pour out a double portion of his Spirit upon us, his ministers in India; that every one of us may be eminent in holiness and ministerial gifts. If I were to judge from my self, I should fear God had forsaken his church; for I am most awfully deficient in the knowledge and experience requisite for a minister :-but, my dear brother Corrie, blessed be God, is a man of a better spirit:may he grow more and more in grace, and continue to be an example to us!' The religious character of Martyn would have been conspicuous in any station, and in whatever situation

placed,he would have gone through life serving God, and doing good to men. It was not simply because he was a missionary, that he was able to keep the flame of piety burning with a pure and brightening flame. It is perhaps as difficult for a missionary, as for other christians to keep the lamp trimmed and burning.' The winds and storms of heaven make no distinction in his favour. Removed from the world in a degree, he may be, and perhaps if any man has seasons when the things of this present evil world are viewed, as they will be viewed when the world and the fashion thereof shall have passed away, the missionary must be that man. But if the missionary has in this respect peculiar advantages, he is, in others, the subject of peculiar disadvantages.To the benefits of christian intercourse, he is in a great measure a stranger; and is obliged also to encounter temptations, where he is subject to the scrutiny only of Him, whose eye is in every place, beholding the evil and the good.. Had Martyn remained in England, he would have instructed and allured by his example. Had he remained in his college, or entered upon the stage of public life, the same humility and disinterestedness, conspicuous in the language we have quoted respecting his associate, would have prevented him from dreading the presence of a colleague, whom he might have supposed was in the possession of superiour talents and qualifications.

Mr. M. was ordained at Ely, Oct. 22nd, 1803, having attained to a degree of self-knowledge and spiritualily equally rare.' On this occasion he felt compelled to reprove one of the candidates for ordination, for his indifference and inattention to the solemn business in which they were engaged. With what effect he did this we know not, but the circumstance reminds us that we ought to lay before our readers an instance in which his giving reproof was productive of much good.

tress.

"I have lately," he writes in the second letter, "been witness to a scene of disin this town, with whom [ have been little acquainted, and who had lived to the full extent of his income, is now dying, and his family will be left perfectly destitute. I called yesterday to know whether he was still alive, and found his wife in a greater agony than you can conceive. She was wringing her hands, and crying out to me, O pray for his soul-and then again recollecting ber own helpless condition, and telling me of her wretchedness in being turned out upon the wide world without house or home. It was in vain to point to heaven; the heart, distracted and overwhelmed with worldly sorrow, finds it hard to look to God. Since writing this, I have been to call on the daughters of ***, who had removed to another house because, from the violence of their grief, they incommoded the sick man. Thither I went to visit them, with my head and heart full of the subject I was come upon, and was surprised to find them cheerful, and thunderstrack to see a Gownsınan 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.--p. 34.

"The Gownsman I mentioned, so far from being offended, has been thanking me for what I said, and is so seriously impressed with the awful circumstances of death; that I am in hopes it may be the foundation of a lasting change."

It will be highly pleasing to the reader to know, that the anticipation with which the above letter concludes was verified. Mr. Martyn had afterwards the happiness of laboring in India together with that very person who had been reproved by him, and who, from the divine blessing accompanying that reproof, was then first led to appreciate the value of the Gospel.-p 36.

On account of the loss of his own, and his youngest sister's property, it was thought advisable for him to leave England as a chaplain to the EastIndia Company; and when it was intimated to him that there was a probability of his obtaining this appointment, he wrote in his journal, 'The prospect of this world's happiness gave me rather pain than pleasare, which convinced me that I had been running away from the world rather than in overcoming it.' He received the appointment; and on June 8th, 1805, sailed from Portsmouth. The congregations to which VOL. 3-No. II.

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he had preached, parted from him with regret and with tears; and his last interview with some intimate christian friends is thus related.

The few days Mr. Martyn remained at Portsmouth were spent in conversing with his brethren on the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, in social supplication and thanksgiving. His prayer, on the day England, will not easily be forgotten by he expected finally to quit the shores of those who bowed their knees together with him to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: it ascended to the "lofty One," from the lowest depths of humiliation, and it breathed the most entire devotedness of body, soul, and spirit to his service. His whole demeanor, indeed, could not fail of tenderly affecting, as well as indelibly impressing their hearts and minds. One of those then present, who little thought that the task he now so inadequately attempts to execute would ever be assigned him, well remembers his own sensations on that most trying but triumphant occasion; and how completely every thought within him was absorbed in admiration of the astonishing grace bestowed on his friend, and in bitter regret at being forever to be deprived of his society. Nor let it be here surmised, that been magnified, from being contemplated Mr. Martyn's sacrifices and sufferings have ill-judging partiality of friendship. His through a medium, raised by the fond and situation as a chaplain to the East India gible, or, as it may be deemed, an enviable Company, it is really admitted, was an elistation. But this, so far as worldly pros pects are concerned, would have been contemptible in bis eyes when placed in com wall. And it ought not to be forgotten, in petition with the poorest curacy in Cornour estimate of his privations, that, although he was not the only one of the many sailing with him from the happy land of their nativity, who clung to it with ardency of affection, and parted from it with the most lively sorrow, without disparaging their motives, those by which he was actuated were solely of a spiritual kind: they too, it must be remembered, were cheered with the hope of one day shedding the tears of joy, where then they were pouring forth those of sadness-but tyn's horizon. He went forth to preach no such distant gleam streaked Mr. Marthe gospel to the heathen, and it was his fixed resolution to live and die amongst them. When he left England, he left it wholly for Christ's sake, and he left it for

ever. pp. 118, 119.

On the 31st of August they left Cork, and amid many discouragements. Mr. M. continued faithfully to