garden, with Mirza Seid Ali, Aga Baba, and Shekh Abulhasan, reading at their request the Old Testament histories. Their attention to the word, and their love and respect to me, seemed to increase as the time of my departure approached.

"Aga Baba, who had been reading St. Matthew, related, very circumstantially, to the company, the particulars of the death of Christ. The bed of roses on which we sat, and the notes of the nightingales warbling around us, was not so sweet to me as this discourse from the lips of the Persian."

The same Aga Baba came, on the day of Mr. Martyn's quitting Shiraz, to bid him farewell. "He did it," Mr. M. says, "in the best and most solemn way, asking me, as a final question, 'Whether, independently of external evidences, I had any internal proofs of the doctrine of Christ?' I answered, Yes, undoubtedly; the change from what I once was is a sufficient evidence to me.' He at last. took his leave in great sorrow, and what is better, apparently in great solicitude about his soul."

6

The rest of the day Mr. Martyn continued with Mirza Seid Ali. 66 I gave him," he says, "in charge what to do with the New Testament, in case of my decease, and exhorted him, as far as his confessions allowed me, to stand fast. He has made many a good resolution respecting his besetting sins. I hope, as well as pray, that some lasting effects will be seen at Shiraz from the Word of God left among them."

It must not be forgotten that, besides the translation of the New Testament, Mr. Martyn translated the Psalms into Persian during his stay at Shiraz. In his Journal of

March 15th, 1811, he says" Finished my Persian translation of the Psalms. Six weary moons have waxed and waned since I began it, but this sweet employment has made them pass unnoticed. Mirza Seid Ali is eager to correct a copy for himself; he hopes also one day to translate the 'Principia' of Newton into Persian ;—the first proposition he understood readily.”

It was on the evening of the 11th of May, one year after entering Persia, that Mr. Martyn left Shiraz. "A little before sunset," he writes, "I left the city, and at ten o'clock at night the cafila started. No year of my life was ever spent more usefully, though such a long separation from my friends was often a severe trial.”

In consequence of unexpected difficulties on his way to Tebriz, Mr. Martyn thought that, by proceeding at once to the camp, and by making use of a letter which he brought with him from Jaffier Ali Khan to the Vizier, he might be able to present his book to the King. But the Vizier himself was ill, and all that Mr. Martyn hoped to gain by the devious course he had taken to solicit his influence, ended in disappointment, except that it afforded him another opportunity of making a public profession of the Christian faith, which terminated in clamour and confusion, notwithstanding it took place at a levee of the Vizier. Mr. M. appears to have been set upon by eight or ten intemperate disputants, among whom were two Moolahs, whose ignorance provoked a hasty expression from him, when the Vizier himself, rudely interposing,

* In summer the Kings of Persia are accustomed to repair to a plain in the neighbourhood of Sultania, the climate of which enjoys a delightful temperature at that season.

said, "You had better say, 'God is God, and Mahomet is the Prophet of God.' I rejoined," Mr. Martyn says, "God is God,' but added, instead of Mahomet is the Prophet of God, and Jesus is the Son of God.' They had no sooner heard this, which I had avoided mentioning till then, than they all exclaimed in contempt and anger, 'He is neither born, nor begets,' and rose up as if they would have torn me in pieces. One of them said, 'What will you say when your tongue is burnt out for this blasphemy?" Another felt for me a little, and tried to soften the severity of this speech. My book, which I had brought, expecting to present it to the King, lay before Mirza Shufi, the Vizier. But as they all rose up after him to go away, I was afraid they would trample it, so I went in among them to take it up, and wrapped it in a towel before them, while they looked at it and me with supreme contempt."

To complete his trials, a message came to him from the Vizier in the evening, after the levee, to say that it was the custom of the King not to see any Englishman unless presented by the ambassador, or accredited by a letter from him. Such being the case, Mr. Martyn forthwith recommenced his journey, and proceeded onwards to Tebriz, where, after suffering much from fever on the road, he at length arrived, and was most kindly received by Sir Gore Ouseley, the English ambassador, and his lady. To their unremitted attention during a severe illness of nearly two months' continuance, he appears to have owed his life. On his recovery, he determined to make an effort to reach England.

He had been disappointed in his hope of having been

able to present a copy of his Persian translation of the New Testament to the King in person, but it was subsequently presented by Sir Gore Ouseley to his majesty, who, in a public rescript, expressed his approbation of the work.

In a letter from Tebriz to a friend in England (the last letter Mr. Martyn ever wrote), after some allusion to his frequent conversations with Persian Soofees, during which, he says, he was led on to tell them all he knew of the very recesses of the sanctuary, he thus concludes:"Public curiosity about the Gospel, now, for the first time in the memory of the modern Persians, introduced into the country, is a good deal excited here, and at Shiraz, and at other places; so that, upon the whole, I am thankful at having been led hither and detained, though my residence in this country has been attended with many unpleasant circumstances. The way of the Kings of the East is preparing: thus much may be said with safety, but little more. The Persians also will probably take

the lead in the march to Sion."

Thus have I traced a brief outline of my friend and fellow-townsman, Henry Martyn, through his laborious career from the Truro Grammar School to Persia, the last scene of his literary and religious achievements. His journey from Tebriz to Tokat, where he rested from his labours, was rendered distressing by illness and the most unprovoked annoyances, as we learn from his Journal; and most wonderful it is, that he should have been able to continue this record of his sufferings till within a few days of his decease. He died on the 16th of October, 1812. The following are the last words

"O! when

which appear to have been written by him :shall time give place to eternity! When shall appear

that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness! There-there shall in nowise enter in anything that defileth; none of that wickedness that has made men worse than wild beasts; none of those corruptions that add still more to the miseries of mortality shall be seen or heard of any more."

Whether he fell a victim to the plague which then raged at Tokat, or sunk under the fever which, when he penned these last words, had so greatly reduced him, seems not to have been ascertained.

It never occurred to me, when I began to write about Kempthorne and Martyn as schoolfellows and contemporaries at Cambridge, that the recollections associated with them would have led me to pursue the missionary labours of the latter so far as I have done. But, in reperusing Mr. Sargent's Memoirs, I found that the information they contained was not merely personally interesting, but of great religious importance, especially at the present day, when nothing is so desirable as the co-operation of all conscientious men who agree in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

At the commencement of their religious course, both Martyn and Kempthorne were chiefly remarkable as zealous followers of Simeon, who, favourably contrasted as his piety must ever be with the luke-warmness of those around him, was scarcely less ambitious of becoming a master in Israel, than was John Wesley nearly a century before. Both professed to adhere to the ritual of the English Church, and both adopted its