THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY AND ORIENTAL SCHOLAR.

THE REV. HENRY MARTYN, B.D.,

'Atque opere in medio defixa reliquit aratra.'

'Hopes have precarious life;
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer oft
In vigorous youth and turned to rottenness;
But faithfulness can feed on suffering,
And know no disappointment.' Spanish Gypsy.

Anyone who would write the life of Henry Martyn, must feel that he is about to tread upon holy ground. For, however clearly we may see, on perusing his 'Journals and Letters,'[102] that his introspection was morbidly minute, his temper naturally irritable, and his religious views generally of the gloomiest as well as of an almost impracticable character, yet his ardent zeal, his saint-like devotion, his self-denial, and his deep humility, afford such an example of earnest piety as is rarely to be met with in the annals of the Church, since the days of the Apostles themselves. His very faults were but 'the shadows of his virtues,' and of Henry Martyn it might truly be said that to him—without religion—

'The pillared firmament was rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.'

How much of this was due to that frequent correlation which, as Mr. Galton points out, frequently exists between an unusually devout disposition and a weak constitution, it would of course be hard to say.

I cannot help thinking that Martyn has been a little unfortunate in his biographer, the Rev. John Sargent, jun., although that writer's 'Memoir' has been so popular that I believe it has run through about a score of editions. There was a tardy apology for the tone of the book in the preface to the tenth edition—and an explanation to the effect that Martyn's religion was really by no means of a desponding character, and that few persons 'have equalled him in the enjoyment of that "peace which passeth all understanding."' If such were the case it is unfortunate that the extracts made by Mr. Sargent from Martyn's 'Journals' should have left so wide-spread an impression to the contrary—an impression which it is probably as fruitless to attempt to counteract as Mr. Sargent expected it would be.

Sargent appears to have sympathized chiefly with one side of Martyn's character, namely, the gloomy and self-torturing one, and the result is that to read the 'Memoir' harrows one's feelings. Very similar remarks apply to the 'Journals and Letters,' but in the latter, at least, we have only the man himself, and are spared the somewhat complacent tone in which his mental anguish and physical sufferings are depicted by his friend and biographer. Charles Kingsley used to say of Martyn: 'My mind is in a chaos about him. Sometimes one feels inclined to take him at his own word, and believe him, as he says, a mere hypochondriac; then the next moment he seems a saint. I cannot fathom it. Of this, however, I am certain, that he was a much better man than I am.' One great lesson, however, of this learned, brave, and good man's life—crowned as it surely was with the crown of the martyr, if ever mortal's brow were so adorned—appears to me to be this: that a life of seclusion, nay, almost isolation, such as his, defeats its own object, if that object be, like Martyn's, to influence our fellow-men. 'It is miserable,' he used to say, when thinking of the vast amount of sin there was in the world, 'it is miserable living with men;' and, again, 'a dried leaf or a straw makes me feel in good company.' And herein seems to lie a great difference between Martyn, notwithstanding his learning, his piety, and his dauntless courage amidst incessant perils, and such heroic Christian missionaries as were St. Paul and Bishop Heber, who had learnt to mix more freely with their fellow-men, and to combine the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove.

But to turn to the life itself. Henry Martyn, like Martin Luther, sprang from a family of mine captains, and was born at Truro, on Feb. 18th, 1781—the third child of a family of four. His father, who lived at first near Gwennap Church-Town, had been an Accountant at Wheal Virgin; and being, like many others of his calling, an ingenious and self-reliant man, taught himself arithmetic and some mathematics; his abilities attracted the attention of Mr. Daniell, one of the Truro merchants, and ultimately John Martyn became his chief clerk. 'The elder Martyn,' Polwhele says, 'was a tall, erect man, used to take his daily exercise under the Coinage Hall, which was opposite his house.' The house was pulled down to make room for the new Town Hall; it occupied the site of the present Police Station, as I am informed. Henry's great-uncle, Thomas Martyn, was the author of the large and excellent Map of Cornwall, known by his name.[103] He was a surveyor, and his map is said to have been the result of fifteen years' labour—the survey having been made on foot. He died in 1752-53. Henry's mother, from whom he seems to have inherited his delicate constitution, was a Miss Fleming of Ilfracombe; she died the year after he was born.

Henry Martyn—'little Henry Martyn,' as his schoolfellows used tenderly to call him—was sent at Midsummer, 1788, to that capital nest of so large a number of our most distinguished Cornishmen—the Truro Grammar School—and he is thus described by one of his fellow-pupils, the late Clement Carlyon, M.D., Fellow of Pembroke College, and thrice Mayor of Truro, in his 'Early Years and Late Reflections:' 'A good-humoured, plain little fellow, with red eyelids devoid of eye-lashes, and indicative of a scrofulous habit; and with hands so thickly covered with warts that it was impossible for him to keep them clean, or for his respected master,[104] who borrowed a large leaf out of Dr. Busby's book, to inflict on him, when idle, stripes over the back of his hand.' He seems to have improved in appearance as he grew older; but was always 'rather low in stature, and plain in person, though not disagreeably so;[105] whilst his amiable disposition [106] and sociability ensured him the esteem and friendship of all who were acquainted with him.' Though all his life long he was particularly fond of laughing and playing with little children, at school he seldom played with the other boys; and seems to have evinced no precocity, nor was he very studious, like his friend and school-fellow Kempthorne [107] (Senior Wrangler of 1796, and afterwards vicar of a church in Gloucester): nor did Martyn display the poetic vein of another of his colleagues, Humphry Davy.

At the Truro Grammar School, having failed in 1795 to obtain a Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he remained till 1797, in which year he took up residence at St. John's College, Cambridge, where, from his assiduity, he was known as 'the man who had never lost an hour,' and was at once fortunate in securing the advice and friendship of his old acquaintance Kempthorne, who, as well as Martyn himself, soon came within the influence of a very earnest Low Church Divine, the Rev. Charles Simeon, a fellow of King's College, of whom it is only right to add that he more than once warned Martyn, whilst in the East, that he was overtaxing his strength and energies. To this clergyman Martyn was afterwards to become curate.

The death of his father in 1800 led Martyn to study the Bible most seriously; and he so read its pages as to determine upon basing his whole life upon its promises. He says, for instance, of his magnificent success in becoming the Senior Wrangler of his year (and that year was a distinguished one in the annals of the University): 'I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow!' Indeed, it is said that, when he entered the Senate House for the examination, and saw the unusually large number assembled there, he ejaculated, with apparently some inconsistency, the text: 'Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not, saith the Lord.' In 1802 he became Fellow and Tutor of his college, and gained the first prize for Latin prose composition, thus compensating amply for his lack of success in 1799, when he failed to obtain the prize for themes in his college, and came out second instead of first, as was expected, at the examination.

He now returned to his native place for a short time, for much-needed rest and change; not, however, staying much at Truro, but passing most of his holiday at Woodbury, just below Malpas, on the Fal, the residence of his brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Curgenven (curate of the parishes of Kenwyn and Kea). These were amongst the happiest moments of his life. He says, either of this place or Lamorran (and the description is applicable to either): 'The scene is such as is frequently to be met with in this part of Cornwall. Below the house is an arm of the sea flowing between the hills, which are covered with wood. By the shore I walk in general, in the evening, out of the reach of all sound but the rippling of the water and the whistling of the curlew.'

On his return to Cambridge in the following October, conversations with Mr. Simeon, instigated by a perusal of the 'Life and Labours of David Brainerd among the North American Indians,' gave rise to Martyn's intense desire to become a missionary; and, notwithstanding his alleged appreciative enjoyment of a literary and social life at home, he offered his services to a Missionary Society. They were not, however, accepted; and after having been ordained at Ely in October, 1803, he became Mr. Simeon's curate—preaching sometimes at Lolworth, a church six miles from the University, on the Huntingdon road, and sometimes at Trinity Church, Cambridge. Simeon always continued a friend and admirer of Martyn, and had his portrait hung up over his fireplace. He often used to look up at it with affectionate earnestness: 'There!' he used to say, 'see that blessed man! What an expression of countenance! No one looks at me as he does—he seems always to be saying, "Be serious, be in earnest; don't trifle—don't trifle." 'Then he would smile at the picture, and gently bow, and add: 'And I won't trifle—I won't trifle.'

Early in 1804, Martyn, as well as his younger sister, Sally (Mrs. Pearson), to whom he seems to have been fondly attached, had the misfortune to lose all their patrimony; an event which, in addition to the causes already referred to, probably led to his making a second effort (which was also at the time unsuccessful) to procure an appointment as a missionary—this time in the form of a 'chaplaincy' to the East India Company. This year was further memorable from Martyn's making the acquaintance of a kindred spirit—the poet, H. Kirke White (also a Johnian), 'a religious young man of seventeen, who wants to come to college, but has only £20 a year.'

Another visit to his solitary retreat in Cornwall refreshed him during the summer, and whilst there he preached to a crowded congregation at Kenwyn Church from 2 Cor. v. 20, 21: 'Now we are ambassadors,' etc. (a very favourite text of his), and availed himself of the opportunity, before returning to Cambridge on 18th of September, 1804, to take leave of his county and friends, in view of the probability of his soon getting the desired appointment under the East India Company. On his way back to the University, as his journals testify, with characteristic zeal and devotedness, though, apparently, not always with tact and skill, he lost no opportunity, in season or out of season, of turning the conversation of his fellow-travellers to religious topics.

At this period of his life his usual routine seems to have been to rise every morning at about half-past five (and, if he failed to do so, his self-reproaches are most bitter); to work hard, either with his pupils, his flock, or his books; to pray at least four times a day, and to write at least one sermon a week. The Scriptures he doubtless read daily; and the spirit in which he read them may be seen from the following extract from his Journals, written when on board ship, on his way to India: 'Read Isaiah the rest of the evening—sometimes happy and at other times tired, and desiring to take up some other religious book; but I saw it an important duty to check this slighting of the Word of God.' And here it may be interesting to note the other works which seem to have been amongst Martyn's favourites. Of course, he kept up his mathematics and science; but the references to these in his Journals are slight and few. He often read the Greek plays, but his chief reading was, as might be expected, divinity; and especially St. Augustine, Grotius, Paley, Baxter, Hooker, Pearson, Fletcher's 'Portrait,' Flavel's 'Saint Indeed,' Searle's 'Christian Remembrancer,' Thomas à Kempis, Law's 'Serious Call,' Lowth, Bishop Hopkins, Jonathan Edwards's 'Original Sin,' and his work on the Affections, Whitfield's Journal, Leighton, Milner's 'Church History,' etc., etc.; and these were interspersed with the study of Hindostanee and other Oriental languages.

Martyn's religious position and views have been thus described in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1844, by a writer who traces their origin to the well-known Clapham School of 'Evangelical' religion:

'From that circle he adopted, in all its unadorned simplicity, the system called Evangelical—that system of which (if Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the writers of the English Homilies may be credited) Christ Himself was the author, and Paul the first and greatest interpreter.

'Through shallow heads and voluble tongues, such a creed (or indeed any creed) filtrates so easily, that, of the multitudes who maintain it, comparatively few are aware of the conflict of their faith with the natural and unaided reason of mankind. Indeed, he who makes such an avowal will hardly escape the charge of affectation or of impiety. Yet if any truth be clearly revealed, it is, that the Apostolic doctrine was foolishness to the sages of this world. If any unrevealed truth be indisputable, it is, that such sages are at this day making, as they have ever made, ill-disguised efforts to escape the inferences with which their own admissions teem. Divine philosophy divorced from human science—celestial things stripped of the mitigating veils woven by man's wit and fancy to relieve them—form an abyss as impassable at Oxford now, as at Athens eighteen centuries ago. To Henry Martyn the gulf was visible, the self-renunciation painful, the victory complete. His understanding embraced, and his heart reposed in, the two comprehensive and ever-germinating tenets of the school in which he studied. Regarding his own heart as corrupt, and his own reason as delusive, he exercised an unlimited affiance in the holiness and the wisdom of Him, in whose person the divine nature had been allied to the human, that, in the persons of his followers, the human might be allied to the divine.

'Such was his religious theory—a theory which doctors may combat, or admit, or qualify, but in which the readers of Henry Martyn's Biography, Letters, and Journals, cannot but acknowledge that he found the resting-place of all the impetuous appetencies of his mind, the spring of all his strange powers of activity and endurance. Prostrating his soul before the real, though the hidden Presence he adored, his doubts were silenced, his anxieties soothed, and every meaner passion hushed into repose.'

On the 2nd of April, 1805, having previously been ordained priest at St. James's Chapel Royal, London, and having taken his degree as Bachelor of Divinity, he preached his last sermon at Cambridge, and came to London to prosecute his studies in Hindostanee, and to preach occasionally at St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row. It was about this time that he made the acquaintance of Wilberforce, dining with him and going afterwards to the House of Commons, where he was much struck with the eloquence, great seriousness, and energy of Pitt 'about that which is of no consequence at all.'

He at length, on the 24th April, 1805, obtained the long-wished-for chaplaincy, with a salary of £1,200 a year, and was fervently longing to enter upon his labours, exclaiming on one occasion, from the very depths of his soul: 'Gladly shall this base blood be shed, every drop of it, if India can be benefited in one of her children!'

This would seem to be the proper occasion to advert to a passage in Martyn's Life which must possess for any genial reader a most touching interest. The enthusiastic clergyman had become deeply smitten with the attractions of Miss Lydia Grenfell, of the parish of St. Hilary, three or four miles from Marazion. His affection for this lady appears to have been both profound and sincere; but he feared that its indulgence might prove a bar to the higher aims which he had set before him. His mental conflicts on this subject, as on all others, were most severe; and under such circumstances, and with his gloomy and excitable religious views, he may have appeared, what the lady herself (some few years his senior) undoubtedly was, a somewhat languid and vacillating lover. That the lady never married him—although her final refusal did not reach him till 1807, when he was in India—was perhaps fortunate for both parties; but, undoubtedly, Martyn continued to love her and to correspond with her to the last. The peculiar circumstances of this attachment gave rise to Holme Lee's (Harriet Parr's) story of 'Her Title of Honour;' that title consisting of the honour done to Eleanor Trevelyan by being beloved by so good and great a man as Francis Gwynne (Martyn). Miss Grenfell never married. Her sister Emma became the wife of the Rev. T. M. Hitchins,[108] of Devonport, Martyn's cousin; and some interesting letters to her from Martyn, mostly bearing upon the subject of his love for Lydia, will be found in a supplement to the 'Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall' edited by Mr. Henry Martyn Jeffery, F.R.S. (vol. vii. pt. 3, December, 1882, No. 26).

The ship in which he was to sail for India left London on the 8th of July, 1805. Martyn joined her at Portsmouth on the 17th, after having had 'a convulsion fit' on the road down. The Union called (unexpectedly) at Falmouth, where she was detained for three weeks by unfavourable winds, and Martyn thus had opportunities of returning to St. Hilary, about twenty miles off, and again enduring the 'pleasing pain' which he found in his loved one's society. But whilst there the wind suddenly shifted, and Martyn had the narrowest possible escape from missing the ship. His self-reproaches on such an occasion as this may be imagined!

On the 10th of September the Union at length sailed from Falmouth, and our devoted hero's dejection on contemplating the Cornish cliffs fading away in the distance was very deep. He longed to die, so he says, on the way out. A storm arose as they left Ireland behind them, and added to his sufferings. But at length, after touching at Madeira, and at San Salvador in Brazil, they safely reached Calcutta on the 14th of May, 1806, after a tedious and dangerous voyage of nine months.

On the passage Martyn's usual zeal, and, it might be added, want of tact, had ample opportunities of displaying themselves. Nothing could exceed his devotion to the men when sick, or whenever the slightest opportunity presented itself of speaking to any of them on the subject which was ever uppermost in his own soul. And his courage was admirably displayed in landing almost with the troops when the successful attack was delivered by the British under Sir David Baird upon the French and Dutch troops at the Cape of Good Hope in January, 1806. Nor was he unmindful of the welfare of the cadets on board, to whom he imparted instruction in a variety of subjects, with all the force of his powerful intellect. But his religious ministrations were, for the most part, unappreciated, owing to the excessively gloomy tone with which they were pervaded, and to his tendency to 'scold his congregation,' a fault of which it may be remembered even Cowper complained in Mr. Scott, the curate of Olney. The captain dared not allow him to preach more than once on Sundays, and all the officers made a point of standing near the cabin-door, so as to make good their retreat whenever the sermon became too miserably painful. 'Mr. Martyn,' they once said, 'must not damn us to-day, or none will come again.'

After a stay of about four months in Calcutta, during which, notwithstanding a sharp attack of fever, he went on with his lingual studies, occasionally preached to somewhat unsympathetic audiences, and had opportunities of witnessing Suttee and the Juggernaut procession, he was, on the 13th September, at length appointed to Dinapore, and on the 15th October proceeded up the Ganges to his post, in a budgerow, passing most of his time in translating portions of the Scriptures into the native tongues. He reached Dinapore on 26th November, and met with but a very cold reception from the Europeans there, as well as from the natives; and, worst of all, there was no church or church furniture at his disposal. But he soon got to work, and gave his most special attention to the native children, who appeared to have been very apt and tractable, and for whom he is said to have built, at his own cost, whilst in India, five schools. He now obtained, for the purposes of his translations, the assistance (such as it was) of two natives—Mirza Fitrut, who is described as being guileful and hypocritical, and the vain and furious-tempered Nathanael Sabat, who seem to have entertained a very cordial jealousy and hatred of each other. Sabat had served both in the Turkish and Persian armies. He had a free and haughty manner, and a fierce look, and signed himself 'Nathanael Sabat, an Arab who was never in bondage.' He used to contend with Martyn so violently at times that Martyn had to order his palanquin and be off to his friends, the Sherwoods.

Part of the Prayer Book was, under conditions such as these, translated into Hindostanee; to this his 'dear friend and brother chaplain' Corrie added; but it was not completed until 1829, seventeen years after Martyn's death. In 1807 Martyn finished, in Hindostanee, his 'Commentary on the Parables;' and, by the end of 1809, a plain and idiomatic version of the four Gospels. The following year saw the New Testament completed. His translations into the Persian were not considered quite so successful; but about this time he appears to have first definitely conceived the desire of evangelizing Persia, and it was always with regret that he went on with his translations, dreading lest they might interfere with his strictly ministerial duties. He was at this time so strict a Sabbatarian that he thought he was doing wrong in translating even the Prayer Book into Hindostanee on a Sunday.

Signs of breaking health were now becoming too painfully apparent; in fact, he may be said to have been constantly ill. His friend Corrie (afterwards Bishop of Madras) paid Martyn two visits in 1808, and saw that 'there was small prospect of his long continuance in this vale of tears.' But the tone of Martyn's people towards him had somewhat improved; and in April, 1809, he was moved to Cawnpore, a distance of 240 miles—the journey being performed in a fierce heat. He was kindly received by Captain and Mrs. Sherwood; but here again he found no church. He first preached at Cawnpore in the native tongue, and remained at his post until the 30th September, 1810, when, notwithstanding his 'bright invincibility of spirit,' his health utterly gave way, and he went back to Calcutta, arriving there with pallid countenance and enfeebled frame. 'Fortia agere Romanum est, fortia pati Christianum,' wrote an old author; and, surely, if ever the courage of the Roman, and the calm brave endurance of the Christian met, they met in Henry Martyn.

But returning after a while to Cawnpore, he resumed his correspondence with Miss Grenfell, now as a friend; and tells her that this was his daily routine: 'We rise at daybreak, and breakfast at six. Immediately after breakfast we pray [109] together; after which I translate into Arabic with Sabat, who lives in a small bungalow on my ground. We dine at twelve, and sit recreating ourselves with talking about dear friends in England. In the afternoon I translate with Mirza Fitrut into Hindostanee; and Corrie employs himself in teaching some native Christian boys, whom he is educating with great care, in the hopes of their being fit for the office of catechists. I have also a school on my premises for natives; but it is not well attended. At sunset we ride or drive, and then meet at the church, where we often raise the song of praise with as much joy, through the grace and presence of our Lord, as you do in England. At ten we are all asleep.... My work at present is evidently to translate; hereafter I may itinerate.'

By the spring of 1810 his church, converted from its former use as a heathen temple, was ready,[110] and his friend Corrie came to visit and assist him; but he preached in it for the last time on 30th September, 1810, and shortly afterwards went back to Calcutta.

Persia now finally became the object of Martyn's pious yearnings; and, on the 9th January, in the following year, he set out on his memorable, but, it is much to be feared, slightly rewarded, journey—a journey accomplished with so much fatigue, and under such sudden and excessive changes of temperature, as to have been, doubtless, the proximate cause of the destruction of his frail body. He stopped at Goa on the route, and travelled viâ Bombay, landing at Muscat, in Arabia Felix, on the 22nd April. On the 30th he set out for Shiraz, 'the City of the Rose'—the Athens of Persia, where he arrived on the 9th June, and met with a most insulting reception from the people. But Martyn thought that even such a reception as this was better than so unworthy a sinner as he merited! Referring to this episode in Martyn's career Dean Alford writes:

'The pale-faced Frank among them sits: what brought him from afar?
Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches arts of war.
One pearl alone he brings with him—the Book of life and death.
One warfare only teaches he—to fight the fight of faith.'

Matters, however, improved after a while; the Armenian ladies came to kiss his hand, and the priest incensed him four times over at the altar. Here, on the 24th February, 1812, he completed, under most discouraging circumstances, his translation of the New Testament into Persian.[111] After labouring 'for six weary moons,' a similar version of the Psalms was finished in the following month; and on the 24th May, 'the meek missionary of the Cross' left Shiraz in order to present the precious documents himself to the Shah. Much difficulty and delay intervened on account of the diplomatic formalities considered necessary on such an occasion; and eventually, after visiting Ispahan and Teheran, Martyn was disappointed in the object he had in view, having been struck down by illness, increased by the hardships of travel and climate, before his desires were accomplished. For two months he was completely laid up—weeping many 'tears from the depths of a divine despair'—at the house of Sir Gore Ouseley, the British Ambassador at Tabriz, who afterwards had the gratification of showing Martyn's manuscript to the Shah, and it was sent to St. Petersburg to be printed.

This renewed illness caused Martyn to determine on returning to England, for his health's sake. But it was too late. On his homeward way (viâ Constantinople), seeing Mount Ararat on the journey, and passing through Erivan, Kars, Erzeroum, and Tokat—'hardly knowing how to keep his life in him'—he succumbed near the latter place, to hunger, thirst, sunstroke, fever and ague, aggravated by his desperate gallop for life across the scorching plains, and beneath a rainless sky, untempered by a single cloud, on the 6th October, 1812, in the thirty-second year of his age. Here the last entry, commencing 'Oh! when shall Time give place to Eternity?' appears in his sad, self-searching diary. Ten days afterwards he was no more.

He was buried in the Armenian burial-ground at Tokat, with the honours usually accorded by Armenian Christians to an Archbishop; and a marble slab, which the Tokat Christians were wont to keep clear of weeds, covers his remains. Sir R. K. Porter, in his 'Travels in Persia' (vol. ii., p. 703), after eulogizing Martyn's self-devotion and zeal beyond the strength of a naturally delicate constitution, adds that 'exhausted nature sank under the apostolic labour, and in this place he was called to the rest of heaven. His remains sleep in a grave as humble as his own meekness.'

Would it be too much to say of him

'Heaven scarce believed the conquest it surveyed;
And Saints with wonder heard the vows he made'?

Wordsworth's lines, at least, on another devoted son of the Church, are clearly appropriate to Martyn:

'He sought not praise, and praise did overlook
His inobtrusive merit; but his life,
Sweet to himself, was exercised in good
That shall survive his name and memory.'

His tomb is still, I believe, piously regarded by the natives, and it has been adorned by Lord Macaulay with the following lines:

'Here Martyn lies! In manhood's early bloom
The Christian hero finds a Pagan's tomb:
Religion sorrowing o'er her favourite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won.
Eternal trophies, not with slaughter red,
Not stained with tears by hapless captives shed;
But trophies of the Cross! For that dear Name
Through every form of danger, death, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to a happier shore,
Where danger, death, and shame assault no more.'

A Hall, dedicated to his memory, and designed to provide a place of meeting for the different Religious Societies in Cambridge, is about to be erected in Market Street; and on the centenary of Martyn's birth, viz., 18th February, 1881, special services in his memory were held at the pro-Cathedral at Truro. In the evening Bishop Benson delivered a lecture on Martyn at the Town Hall, at the close of which he proposed that subscriptions should be invited towards the construction of a portion of the new Cathedral, as for instance an aisle or transept, to be dedicated to the cause of Missions in honour of his name. A Baptistry was finally decided upon; and about £1,250 had been collected up to June, 1883. By the attainment of these objects, this distinguished Cornishman, whose motto was, 'To believe, to suffer, and to love,' will be provided with fitting memorials.