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requesting the same information respecting his own person.

"To another, who was rather contemptuous and violent, I said, 'If you do not approve of our doctrine, will you be so good as to say what God is according to you, that I may worship a proper object?" One said, 'The author of the universe.' 'I can form no idea from these words,' said I, 'but of a workman at work upon a vast number of materials. Is that a correct notion?" Another said, 'One who came of himself into being.' 'So then he came,' I replied; 'came out of one place into another; and before he came, he was not. Is this an abstract and refined notion?" After this no one asked me any more questions; and for fear the dispute should be renewed, Jaffier Ali Khan carried me away."

After making this intrepid and memorable confession of the Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when he might be described as

"Faithful found

Among the faithless; faithful, only he,
Among innumerable false, unmoved,

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,

His loyalty he kept-his zeal-his love”—

Mr. Martyn continued only a short time at Shiraz. From his own hand we have this brief account of that interesting period which immediately preceded his departure.

"Mirza Seid Ali never now argues against the truth, nor makes any remarks but of a serious kind.

He speaks of his dislike to some of the Soofies, on account of their falsehood and drunken habits. This approach to the love of morality, is the best sign of a change for the better, I have yet seen in him. As often as he produces the New Testament, which he always does when any of his friends come, his brother and cousin ridicule him; but he tells them, that supposing no other benefit to have been derived, it is certainly something better to have gained all this information about the religion of Christians, than to have loitered away the year in the garden.

"27.-Four Moollahs, of Mirza Ibraheem's school, came to dispute against European philosophy, and against European religion,

"Mirza Seid Ali requested, at Mirza Ibraheem's desire, to know where we got our notions concerning the Holy Spirit? He, for his part, did not remember any passages in the New Testament, which bore on the subject. I referred them to the second chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

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"May 1-10. Passed some days at Jaffier Ali Khan's garden, with Mirza Seid Ali, Aga Baba, 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, were not so sweet to me as this discourse from the Persian.

"One day telling Mirza Seid Ali, that I wished to return to the city in the evening, to be alone, and at leisure for prayer, he said with impression, "though a man had no other religious society, with the aid of the Bible, he may, I suppose, live alone, with God?' It will be his own state soon-may he find it the medium of God's gracious communication to his soul! He asked in what way God ought to be addressed, I told him as a father, with respectful love, and added some other exhortations on the subject of prayer.

"11.-Aga Baba came to bid me farewell, and he did it in the best and most solemn way, by asking, 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.' At last he took his leave in great sorrow, and what is better, apparently in great solicitude about his soul.

"The rest of the day I continued with Mirza Seid Ali, giving him in charge what to do with the New Testament, in case of my decease, and exhorting 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."

On the evening of the 24th of May, one year after entering Persia, Mr. Martyn left Shiraz, in company with an English clergyman, having it in intention to lay before the King his translation of the New Testament; but finding, that without a letter of introduction from the British Ambassador, he could not, consistently with established usage, be admitted into the Royal presence, he determined to proceed to Tebriz, where, at that time, Sir Gore Ouseley, his Britannic Majesty's Minister, resided.

His journey from Shiraz to Tebriz was not accomplished in less than eight weeks, including one week spent at Isfahan, and a few days at the King's camp, and the latter part of it was a time of great and unforeseen suffering to him. Had he known to what peril his life would be subjected, he doubtless would have deemed his object of too insufficient a magnitude to justify his exposing himself to so much danger.

"A little before sun-set," Mr. Martyn writes, "I left the city, and at ten o'clock at night, the cafila started. Thus ended my stay at Shiraz. No year of my life was ever spent more usefully, though such a long separation from my friends was often a severe trial. Our journey to Persepolis was performed in ten hours. I had a fall from my horse by the saddle's coming off, but a gracious Providence preserved me from harm.

"12.-Staid at Futihabad, a village about a parasang from the ruins.

"13. At three in the morning, we pursued our way, and at eight reached a village at the northeast extremity of the plain of Persepolis. Remained all day at the caravansara, correcting the Prince's copy.

"14.-Continued our journey through two ridges of mountains to Imanzadu: no cultivation to be seen any where, nor scarcely any natural vegetable production, except the broom and hawthorn. The weather was rather tempestuous, with cold gusts of wind and rain.

"The inhabitants of the village, this being the Imanzadu's tomb, do no work and pay no tax, but are maintained by the surrounding villages, and the casual offerings of visitors to the tomb. The caravansara being in ruins, we staid all this rainy day at a private house, where we were visited by people who came to be cured of all their distempers.

"15. From the top of a mountain, just behind Imanzadu, we descended into a vast plain, entirely uninhabited, except where the skirts of it were spotted with the black tents of the wandering tribes. Crossing this plain obliquely, we passed over a mountain into another plain, where was the same scene of desolation. After a journey of ten parasangs, arrived, at two in the afternoon, at the caravansara Khooshee Zar, which, being in ruins, let in the wind upon us, at night, in all directions.

"On rising on the morning of the 16th, we found a hoar frost, and ice on the pools. The excessive

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