and day, and arrived at Cawnpore, in such a state, that he fainted away as soon as he entered the house. When we charged him with the rashness of hazarding in this manner his life, he always pleaded his anxiety to get to the great work. He remained with us ten days, suffering at times considerably from fever and pain in the chest."

Mr. Martyn's own account of this dreadful and most distressing journey, is thus briefly detailed to Mr. Corrie.

I

Cawnpore, May 1, 1809.

"The entrance to this place is through plains of unmeasureable extent, covered with burning sand. The place itself I have not yet been able to see, nor shall, suppose, till the rains at present it is involved in a thick cloud of dust. So much for exordium.-Let me take up my narrative from Mirzapore, where I wrote you a note. I reached Tarra about noon. Next day, at noon, reached Allahabad, and was hospitably received by Mr. G.; at night dined with him at the Judge's, and met twenty-six people. From Allahabad to Cawnpore how shall I describe what I suffered! Two days and two nights was I travelling without intermission. Expecting to arrive early on Saturday morning, I took no provision for that day. Thus I lay in my palanquin, faint, with a headach, neither awake nor asleep, between dead and alivethe wind blowing flames. The bearers were so unable to bear up, that we were six hours coming the last six kos (twelve miles.) However, with all this frightful description, I was brought in mercy through. It was too late on Saturday to think of giving notice of my arrival, that we might have service; indeed I was myself too weak. Even now the motion of the palanquin is not out of my brain, nor the heat out of my blood."

Mr. Martyn's removal from Dinapore to Cawnpore was to him, in many respects, a very unpleasant ar

rangement. He was several hundred miles farther distant from Calcutta, and was far more widely separated than before from his friend Mr. Corrie: he had new acquaintances to form at his new abode; and, after having with much difficulty procured the erection of a Church at Dinapore, he was transported to a spot where none of the conveniencies, much less the decencies and solemnities of public worship were visible. We find him, soon after he arrived there, preaching to a thousand soldiers, drawn up in a hollow square, when the heat was so great, although the sun had not risen, that many actually dropped down, unable to support it. What must such services as these have been to a minister too faithful and zealous to seek refuge in indolent formality, and already weakened in health by former ministrations. He complained, if indeed he may be ever said to complain, of an attack of fever soon after the commencement of these services; and there can be but little doubt but that they contributed very materially to undermine his constitution. No time, indeed, was lost by him on this occasion, as before, in remonstrating upon this subject, and his remonstrance procured a promise that a Church should be built. This expectation, however, was not fulfilled until his health was too much shaken to profit by its accomplishment.

At Cawnpore Mr. Martyn's ministerial duties varied little from those which had occupied him at Dinapore. Prayers and a sermon with the regiment at the dawn of the morning; the same service at the house of the General of the station, at eleven o'clock; attendance at the hospital; and in the evening, that part of his work which was most grateful and refreshing to his spirit, though performed under the pressure of much bodily fatigue-an exposition to the more devout part of his flock, with prayer and thanksgiving, made up the ordinary portion of his labours.

That love of philology, in which he fondly hoped to effect discoveries conducive to the elucidation of difficulties in the Scriptures, followed him from Dina

pore to his new residence, and so haunted his mind, that whether at home or abroad, whether by day or by night, he could not divest himself of it. For many successive days did he intensely pursue this study, and for many sleepless nights did the study pursue him. At length he thought he had ascertained the meaning of almost all the Hebrew LETTERS; by degrees, however, he became less ardent in these inquiries, either from questioning the truth of those axioms which he had laid down, or from finding their inutility after he had established them.

These abstruse speculations, together with duties of a more important character (one of the chief of which was the superintendence of the Arabic translation of the New Testament, now began and carried on conjointly with a new Persian version,) were soon interrupted, and for a time suspended, by a summons he received to Lucknow, for the purpose of celebrating a marriage, and by a similar call to Pretabjush. Concerning the latter he thus writes to Mr. Simeon, lamenting the inconvenience to which he was exposed by such distant demands upon his services. "Just after the last ship from Europe arrived, and I was hourly expecting my letters, I was summoned to a distant station to marry a couple, and did not return till three weeks after. It was a great disappointment to be thus suddenly sent to roam among jungles and jackals, when I was feasting my fancy with delightful letters from my friends at home-though Europe is no longer my home. However, my mind was soon reconciled to it, and I was often able to recite, with some sense of their sweetness, Mr. Newton's beautiful lines,

In desert tracts, with Thee, my God,
How happy could I be.'

"The place to which I was called is Pretabjush, in the territory of Oude, which is still under the government of the Nabob. Oppression and insecurity of property seem to have stripped the country of its in

habitants. From Manicpore, where I left the river. to Pretabjush, a distance of fifty miles, I saw but two or three miserable villages, and no agriculture. The road was nothing more than a winding footpath, through a continued wood, and that, in consequence of the rains, was often lost. Indeed, all the low lands were under water, which added to the circumstance of travelling by night, made the journey by no means a pleasant one. Being detained one Lord's day at the place, I assembled all the officers and company at the commanding officer's bungalow, and preached the Gospel to them. There were five and thirty officers, besides ladies, and other Europeans. You will have an idea of the Nabob's country, when you are informed that, last September a young officer, gning from his station at Lucknow, was stopped by robbers, and literally cut to pieces in his palanquin. Since that time, the Nabob has requested that every English gentleman, wishing to visit his capital, may give notice of his intention to the Resident, in order that a guard may be sent. Accordingly, a few months ago, when I had occasion to go to Lucknow, I had a guard of four troopers, armed with matchlocks and spears. I thought of Nehemiah, but was far too inferior to him in courage and faith not to contemplate the fierce countenances of my satellites with great satisfaction."

Not long after Mr. Martyn's return from this expedition, letters from Europe reached Cawnpore, fraught with intelligence of a similar nature with that which had overwhelmed him in the preceding year. They contained intimations of the dangerous illness of that sister who had been so instrumental in his conversion to the Lord; and they were but too quickly followed by an account of her death. "O my dearest *** (he began to write to his sister with a faint hope at first of the possibility of her receiving his letter,) that disease which preyed upon our mother and dear sister, and has often shown itself in me, has, I fear, attacked you. Although I parted from you in the expectation

of never seeing you in this life, and though I know that you are, and have long been prepared to go, yet to lose my last near relation, my only sister, in nature and grace, is a dreadful stroke." "Dearest brother" (he continued to her husband, from whom he had, in the mean time, received a more alarming account,) "I can write no more to my sister. Even now something tells me I have been addressing one in the world of spirits. But yet it is possible that I may be mistaken. No-I dare not hope. Your loss is greater than mine, and therefore it would become me to offer consolation-but I cannot. I must wait till your next; and, in the mean time, I will continue to pray for you, that the God of all consolation may comfort you, and make us both, from this time, live more as pilgrims and strangers upon the earth. In the first three years after leaving my native land, I have lost the three persons whom I most loved in it.—What is there now I should wish to live for? O what a barren desert, what a howling wilderness, does this world appear. for the service of God in his Church and the preparation of my own soul, I do not know that I would wish to live another day." With a grateful tenderness, also, in the midst of this affliction, he thus addressed Mr. Simeon: "My ever dear friend and brother—I address you by your true title, for your are a friend and brother, and more than a brother to me. Your letter, though it contains much afflictive intelligence, contains in it also much that demands my gratitude. In the midst of judgment he remembers mercy. has been pleased to take away my last remaining sister (for I have no hopes of my poor ***'s recovery ;) he has reduced the rest of my family, but he has raised up a friend for me and mine. Tears of gratitude mingle with those of sorrow, whilst I think of the mercy of God, and the goodness of you, his instrument."

But

He

The close of the year 1809 was distinguished by the commencement of Mr. Martyn's first public ministration among the Heathen. A crowd of mendicants,