Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D.

d'argent, John, 1780-1832

MEMOIR

OF THE

REV. HENRY MARTYN, B. D.

LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
AND CHAPLAIN TO THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY.

Διὰ τὸ ὄνομά με κεκοπίακας καὶ καὶ κέκμηκας.

FROM THE FOURTH LONDON EDITION.

NEW-YORK:

Rev. ii. 3.

PUBLISHED BY N. BANGS AND T. MASON, FOR THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

J. & J. Harper, Printers.

4-18-180

BEFORE the reader proceeds to the perusal of the following Memoir, it may be proper to inform himthat the first and second parts of it have been chiefly selected from various Journals, which Mr. Martyn was in the habit of keeping, for his own private use, and which, beginning with the year 1803, comprehended a period of eight years. The third part is extracted from an account which he drew up of his visit to Shiraz in Persia; in which some occasional observations on the state of his own mind and feelings are interspersed. It is termed a Narrative by Mr. Martyn; and had his life been spared, it was probably his intention to have enlarged it, for the use of the Public, or perhaps to have communicated it, nearly in its original shape, to his intimate friends. From the style and manner of it, at least, it may be presumed not to have been exclusively intended (as the Journals above mentioned evi. dently were) for his own recollection and benefit.The greater part of these papers were upon the point of being destroyed by the writer, upon his undertaking the voyage to Persia ; but, happily, he was prevailed upon, by the Rev. D. Corrie, to confide them under a seal to his care, and by him they were transmitted from India, to the Rev. C. Simeon, and J. Thornton, Esq. Mr. Martyn's executors, in the year 1814. The Narrative, which was sent, by Mr. Morier, from Constantinople, came into their hands in the following year. Such are the materials from which I have compiled the present Memoir,--throughout the whole of which I have endeavoured, as much as possi

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ble, to let Mr. Martyn speak for himself, and thus exhibit a genuine picture of his own mind.

In making a selection from a mass of such valuable matter, it has been my anxious wish and sincere prayer, that it might prove subservient to the interests of true religion. A principal object with me has been, to render it beneficial to those disinterested Ministers of the Gospel, who, “with the Bible in their hand, and their Saviour in their hearts,” devote themselves to. the “great cause," in which Mr. Martyn lived and died; and, truly, if the example here delineated should excite any of those Servants of Christ to similar exertion, or if it should animate and encourage them, amidst the multiplied difficulties of their arduous course, my labour will receive an eminent and abundant recompense.

JOHN SARGENT, JUN.

Grafham, uly 7, 1819.

CONTENTS.

PART I.