in the neighbourhood of one who can preach the Gospel to them! how wonderful! I trust the Lord will open a great and effectual door. O for faith, zeal, courage, love!"

In consequence of the state of the weather at this season of the year, the public celebration of Divine Service on the Sabbath was suspended for a considerable time at Dinapore; a circumstance as painful to Mr. Martyn, as it was pleasing to the careless and worldly part of his congregation. Upon the serious inconvenience, and yet more serious detriment, to the spiritual interest of his flock, in being destitute of a church, he had already presented a memorial to the Governor-General, and orders to provide a proper place for Public Worship had been issued ; nothing effectual, however, was yet done, and Mr. Martyn's love of the souls entrusted to him not allowing him to bear the thought of their being scattered for a length of time, as sheep without a shepherd, he came to the resolution of opening his own house, as a place in which the people might assemble in this emergency. About the middle of February he writes, "As many of the European regiment as were effective were accommodated under my roof; and praise be to God, we had the Public Ordinances once more. My text was from Isaiah, c. iv. The Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence." In the afternoon, I waited for the women, but not one came perhaps notice had not been given them, by some mistake. At the hospital, and with the men at night, I was engaged, as usual, in prayer: my soul panted after the living God, but it remained tied and bound with corruption. I felt as if I would have given the world to be brought to be alone with God, and the promise that this is the will of God, even our santification,' was the right hand that upheld me while I followed after him. When low in spirits, through an unwillingness to take up the cross, I found myself more

resigned by endeavouring to realize the thought that had often composed me in my trials on board the ship -that I was born to suffer: suffering is my daily ap pointed portion : let this reconcile me to every thing! To have a will of my own, not agreeable to God's, is a most tremendous wickedness. I own it is so for a few moments: but, Lord, write it on my heart! In perfect meekness and resignation let me take what befalls me in the path of duty, and never dare to think of being dissatisfied." As far as it respected Mr. Martyn's health, a temporary interruption of his ministerial duty would have proved a favourable occurrence: he was beginning again to suffer from some severe pains in the chest, which first attacked him in the autumn of the preceding year: desiring to be as a flame of fire in the service of his God, and panting for the full employment of every day, the early morning, as well as the closing evening, found him engaged in his delightful labours. But he perceived that the body could not keep pace with his soul, in this career of unceasing activity: "the earthly tabernacle weighed down the spirit whilst musing upon many things," and compelled him, for a while at least, to moderate the vehemence of these exertions. By the month of March, however, that great work, for which myriads in the ages yet to come will gratefully remember and revere the name of Martyn-the Version of the New Testament into Hindoostance, was brought to a completion, nor if we consider how much time he had spent upon it, ever since he arrived at Calcutta, and how laboriously he prosecuted it, after Mr. Brown had summoned him to direct all his efforts to that end, can it be affirmed that it was hurried to a conclusion with a heedless and blameable precipitancy.

"'Twas not the hasty product of a day;

But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise, delay."

"It is a real refreshment to my spirit (Mr. Martyn remarks to Mr. Corrie, just at the moment of sending

off the first page of the Testament to Calcutta, in the beginning of April) to take up my pen to write to you. -Such a week for labour I believe I never passed, not excepting even the last week before going into the Senate-House. I have read and corrected the manuscript copies of my Hindoostanee Testament so often, that my eyes ache. The heat is terrible, often at 98°; the nights insupportable." Such was his energy in a climate tending to beguile him into ease and indolence; so entirely "whatever he had to do, did he do it with all his might."

Throughout the remainder of the year 1808, Mr. Martyn's life flowed on in the same course of usefulness and uniformity. He continued to minister to the Europeans and the Natives at the hospital, and daily received the more religious part of his flock at his own house, whilst his health permitted: to this was added the revisal of the sheets of the Hindoostanee version of the Testament, which he had completed; the superintendance of the Persian translation, confided to Sabat; and the study of Arabic, that he might be fully competent to superintend another version of the Testament into that tongue. From the even tenor of a life like this, it cannot be expected that incidents of a very striking nature should arise; yet the description which he himself has given of it, in the following extracts drawn chiefly from a free and frequent correspondence with his endeared friends and brethren, the Rev. David Brown and the Rev. Daniel Corrie, will not be wholly devoid of interest to those who have hitherto watched him, with love and admiration, in his way towards Heaven.

To the Rev. D. Brown.

(6 April 16, 1808. "This day I have received yours of the 8th: like the rest of your letters, it set my thoughts on full gallop, from which I can hardly recover my breath. Sabat's letter I hesitate to give him, lest it should make him unhappy again. He is at this moment more quiet

and Christian in his deportment than I have yet seen him. Arabic now employs my few moments of leisure. In consequence of reading the Koran with Sabat audibly, and drinking no wine, the slander is gone forth among the Christians at Patna, that the Dinapore Padre is turned Mussulman.”

To the Same.

"April 26, 1808. "This day I sent off a chapter of Hindoostanee of St. Matthew, the name I design for my work is-Benoni, the son of my affliction: for through great tribulation will it come out. Sabat has kept me much upon the fret this week: when he had reached the ninth chapter, the idea seized him, that Mirza might receive some honour from his inspecting the work. He stopped immediately, and say what I will he determines not to give me the smallest help in correct-ing the Hindoostanee."

To the Rev. D. Corrie.

"May 9, 1808. "Sabat having one of his headachs, leaves me at liberty to take a complete sheet. This week has passed as usual, in comparing the Persian and Greek; yet we are advanced no further than the end of the 15th of Matthew. Notwithstanding the vexation and disappointment Sabat has occasioned me, I have enjoyed a more peaceable week than ever since his arrival. I do not know how you find the heat, but here it is dreadful in one person's quarters yesterday it was 102°; perhaps on that account scarcely any women came. Another reason I assign is, that I rebuked one of them last Sunday, yet very gently, for talking and laughing in the church before I came; so yesterday they showed their displeasure by not coming at all. I spoke to them on the Parable of the Great Supper: the old woman, who is always so exemplary in her attention, shed many tears; I have endeavoured. to speak to her sometimes, but she declines conversa

tion: I feel interested about her, there is so much sorrow and meekness depictured in her countenance, but she always crosses herself after the service is over. Yesterday, for the first time, I baptized a child in Hindoostanee.-My Europeans, this week, have not attended very well-fifteen instead of twenty-five; some of them, indeed, are in the hospital; the hospital is a town of itself—how shall I ever be faithful to them all!"

To the Rev. D. Brown.

"May 31, 1806. "Yours on the 24th instant arrived to-day, and relieved me from much anxiety respecting your own health. Still you do not say whether the Hindoostanee sheets are arrived. I do not wonder at your inquiring about the Persian.-To-day we finished comparing St. Matthew with the Greek, if it may be called a comparison; for, partly owing to the errors of the scribe, rendering whole verses unintelligible, and partly on account of Sabat's anxiety to preserve the rhythm, which often require the change of a whole sentence for a single word, it is a new translation: we have laboured hard at it to-day, from six in the morning till four in the afternoon."

To the Rev. D. Brown.

"June 7, 1808. "This day we have sent the Persian of St. Matthew. Sabat is not a little proud of it. Your design of announcing the translation, as printed at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society, I highÏy approve; I wish to see honour put upon so godlike an Institution. Mirza returned yesterday, and again there are symptoms of disquiet in Sabat.-Pray for us."

66

To the Rev. D. Corrie.

"June 6, 1808.

To-day we have completed the Persian of St.