1803
Henry Martyn, later to become a remarkable missionary, is ordained and given charge of a church at Lolworth, Cambridgeshire, England.
The missionary life of Henry Martyn is one of single-minded perseverance to obey the call of God, laborious allegiance to the Word of God, and most importantly, a passionate love for Jesus Christ the Son of God, such that constrained a life of boasting in the cross.
A Cambridge graduate who was a protege of Charles Simeon and the Clapham Sect, and later a colleague in India to the father of modern missions, William Carey — Henry Martyn — ought to be a household name.
As Jesse Page wrote in her biography of Martyn (Pickering & Inglis), he was as brave a knight as ever carried the pennant of the cross. He crossed the Cornish border in his boyhood, to win the highest university honours. Later refusing opportunities of service that would have secured him status and recognition, he left for an unknown continent, and laboured for only a few years before his death in lonely martyrdom on Armenian soil.
There is much in Martyn’s story to challenge Christians today. His unwavering devotion to his Saviour King Jesus, who had pulled him from sin and death, ensured Martyn’s Christian life was spent sharing the Good News with those in darkness. From sailor to Brahmin, colonial soldier to Indian Princess, Muslim to Catholic, Martyn’s ministry to others was governed by an earnest consciousness of the gravity of sin and reality of judgement.
His letters and journals leave a great devotional legacy similar to that of Edwards, Brainerd, and M’Cheyne — of inspirational service, integrity and worship. These writings are historical treasures from which we can find spiritual comfort and profound stimulation.
Preparing the man
Born on February 18 1781, to a poor mining family, Martyn’s remarkable academic abilities gave him entry to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in October 1797. Here, after some years of faithful prayer from his sister, he found Christ in 1800. He admits in his personal diaries that pride and the ambition for academic success had distracted his thoughts from God. But a change of heart was instigated by the sudden death of his father, and so Martyn ‘laid aside his books and began to read his neglected Bible.’
In time, his belief in the gospel matured into a profound affection for Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, his writings reveal times of spiritual indifference, seasonal for every believer, ‘I did not doubt at all about that joy which true believers feel . . . Oh, I do indeed feel this state of mind at times, but at other times I feel quite troubled at finding myself so cold and hard-hearted. That reluctance to prayer, that unwillingness to come unto God, who is the fountain of all good, when reason and experience tells us that with him only true pleasure is to be found.’
During his time at Cambridge, Martyn was an extremely hard worker; repeatedly attaining first place in his year, leading to the award of Senior Wrangler and a Fellowship. However, his new-found faith rendered such honours to be the empty praises of men. He wrote: ‘I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to find that I had grasped a shadow.’
The call of God
Henry Martyn’s call to missions was stirred by the preaching of Charles Simeon, who appealed for servants to join Carey’s efforts in India. Equally significant was his personal reading of the memoirs of the missionary to the North American Indians, David Brainerd. This noble autobiography of one so clothed in Christ entreated Martyn to similarly ‘spend and be spent’ for the gospel. Page writes, ‘there was a sympathetic bond between him and the young American, who, at almost his own age, turned his back upon the pleasures of home, and the comforts of civilised society, to enter alone, like a true knight of the Cross, the dark and tangled forests of Indian superstition and sin.’
So after receiving a commission to serve as chaplain to the East India Company’s militia, with by the help of Wilberforce and Charles Grant, Henry Martyn left for India in April 1805, aged 24: ‘I am at this time enabled to give myself, body, soul, and spirit to God, and perceive it to be my most reasonable service.’
A man of the Word
He had an immense passion for the Word of God and a strong belief in its power for salvation. This confidence was no doubt due to its testimony in his own life, as well as an upholding to the sufficiency and authority of Scripture. He wrote in a letter to his sister: ‘After the death of our father, you know, I was extremely low-spirited, and, like most other people, began to consider very seriously that invisible world to which he was gone, and to which I must one day go. Yet I still read the Bible unenlightened, and said a prayer or two rather through terror of a superior power than from any other cause. Soon, however, I began to attend more diligently to the words of our Saviour in the New Testament, and to devour them with delight.’
His superior Bible knowledge reflected his high regard for the discipline of reading, meditation, and memorisation. ‘He read the Word of God in the midst of all his trials and difficulties. His letters and journals show how richly his memory was stored with texts, and again and again we catch glimpses of his feeding in the green pastures of the promises when assailed, persecuted and alone.’
This godly esteem for Scripture is also seen in his dedication of his short adult life to its translation. While in India, his heart broke that many of the people had no access to the Word of God in their own language. So, drawing on his linguistic skills from his study of the classics at Cambridge, in just five years Martyn had translated the New Testament into Hindustani (Urdu), Hindi and Persian, while also supervising an Arabic translation.
Missionary to India
Martyn laboured on his Hindustani translations, working harder than he confessed to for his degrees. In addition he committed time to witness among the Hindus and Muslims, and the English colonials.
Martyn took his ambassadorship of Christ very seriously. His self-criticism was sometimes applied too heavily in his sense of duty, but the evident urgency and responsibility that he felt is a challenge to us. Page noted: ‘In speaking to these soldiers in the hospital, he greatly blamed himself for omitting to take a supply of tracts . . . He felt what most would count but a thoughtless omission to be a deadly sin, and imagined that souls would rise up in judgement against him at the last day.’
In Martyn’s journals are also expressions of painful frustration that may be common to the missionary experience. However, he reproached and reminded himself that it is in fact not his work, but that of Christ. ‘Oh, how feeble an instrument must a creature so short-sighted be! . . . Jesus is able to bear the weight of it; therefore we need not be oppressed with care or fear, but a missionary is apt to fancy himself an Atlas.’
Martyn did not see much fruit in India, but he laboured on in spite of dejection and disappointment. He experienced open mockery from his own countrymen, for the soldiers made no attempt to hide their disrespect for him. Fearful of the political consequences of ‘proselytising’, the East India Company’s colonial authorities similarly disregarded the work of Martyn and his compatriots, particularly by obstructing the work of Carey and others in Calcutta. To such discouragement Martyn only said: ‘Be my sufferings what they may, they cannot equal those of my Lord.’
One day, while taking a walk along the banks of the Hooghly River in Calcutta, Henry Martyn stumbled across the funeral rite of an Indian sati. In desperation he attempted to climb the pyre and save the young Indian widow, but the spectators overpowered him. How this selfless attempt to rescue one so disillusioned illustrates the call upon all believers! How it befits the words of Spurgeon: ‘If sinners will be damned, and they must, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.’
Missionary to Persia
Much of Martyn’s time in Persia and Arabia was spent in travel. In Shiraz he spent some ten months in debate with learned mullahs, enduring times of misunderstanding and hostility for presenting the nature and work of Christ. He exerted himself in re-translating his Persian text in readiness to present it to the Shah, and then made up his mind to proceed to Constantinople.
This time was perhaps the loneliest of his life. As though he was one of them of old, ‘of whom the world was not worthy — wandering about in deserts and mountains’, his physical constitution was tested to the utmost by the harsh desert landscape and scorching heat. His faith remained strong and he knew that his stay in Persia had seen an increase in the gospel. Unfortunately his health was declining, but with joy Martyn anticipated going home in the Lord, and on October 16 1812, aged 31, he entered ‘the better country, the heavenly one’. God did indeed take the spiritual life of Henry Martyn, a short duration of 12 years, and shape it into a worshipful service with an eternal perspective. His good friend Simeon remarked: ‘In seeing how much he is worn, I am constrained to call to my relief the thought, in whose service he has worn himself so much.’ Martyn had laboured for a Name, that unlike his own, would last for ever.
Henry Martyn of today?
Henry Martyn had every reason to stay at home. He would not have passed any health-check routine of the present-day missionary-sending, for he was continually in ill health, afflicted with a disease that had killed many close family members. He had great prospects in career and ministry at home, and was in love with a godly girl. However, when Martyn had resolved to deny himself these pleasures, particularly the latter, he confessed: ‘The present wish of my heart is that . . . I may henceforth have no one thing upon earth for which I would wish to stay another hour, except it be to serve the Lord, my Saviour, in the work of the ministry.’ Henry Martyn knew a greater call, one that has gripped the lives of many heroes of the faith, and therefore his short life was not a wasted one.
For a few years, a portrait of Martyn hung above a fireplace belonging to Charles Simeon. Before it was moved to Cambridge, Simeon spoke of its effect on him: ‘What an expression of countenance! — He never takes his eyes off me and always seems to be saying, “Be serious — don’t trifle — don’t trifle”. Then smiling at the picture and gently bowing, Simeon added “and I won’t trifle — I won’t trifle”.’
This is a challenge to every believer. It is though we hear a chant from servants of Christ long past: ‘Don’t trifle, don’t trifle’, or to translate: ‘Don’t waste it, don’t waste it.’
Let’s pray that we don’t. The words of another servant of the Lord, renowned for using every minute given, serve as a powerful conclusion. ‘In God and in another life, thou shalt have a better portion… This is the world of service; that to come is the world of recompense. This is the world of probation and preparation for eternity. Harvest days are busy days, and we must make hay while the sun shines. Serving God and working out our salvation must be done with all that is within us’ (Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 805).
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