1806, February 8.—I have passed some days of pain and weakness, but now am blessed again with health. During the whole of this sickness I was afflicted with much deadness of soul, and have had very few thoughts of God. I felt, as strength returned, the necessity of more earnest supplications for grace and spiritual life. I have ascertained this sad truth, that my soul has declined in spiritual fervour and liveliness since I have admitted an earthly object so much into my heart. Ah! I know I have not power to recall my affections, but God can, and I believe He will, enable me to regulate them better. This thought has been of great injury to me, as I felt no murmuring at the will of God, nor disposed to act therein contrary to His will. I thought I might indulge secretly my affection, but it has been of vast disadvantage to me. I am now convinced, and I do humbly (relying on strength from on high) resolve no more to yield to it. Oh, may my conversation be in heaven, and the glories of Immanuel be all my theme.
February 15.—I have been much exercised yesterday and to-day—walking in darkness, without light—and I feel the truth of this Scripture: ‘Your sins have separated between you and your God.’ I have betrayed a most unbecoming impatience and warmth of temper. My dear absent friend, too, has been much in my mind. How many times have I endured the pain of bidding him farewell! I would not dare repine. I doubt not for a moment the necessity of its being as it is, but the feelings of my mind at particular seasons overwhelm me. My refuge is to consider it is the will of God. Thy will, my God, be done.
Henry Martyn did not lose a day in discharging his mission to the residents and slaves of that part of the coast of Brazil, in the great commercial city and seat of the metropolitan. His was the first voice to proclaim the pure Gospel in South America since, three hundred years before, Coligny’s and Calvin’s missionaries had been there silenced by Villegagnon, and put to death. Martyn was frequently ashore, almost fascinated by the tropical glories of the coast and the interior, and keenly interested in the Portuguese dons, the Franciscan friars, and the negro slaves. After his first walk through the town to the suburbs, he was looking for a wood in which he might rest, when he found himself at a magnificent porch leading to a noble avenue and house. There he was received with exuberant hospitality by the Corrè family, especially by the young Señor Antonio, who had received a University training in Portugal, and soon learned to enjoy the society of the Cambridge clergyman. In his visits of days to this family, his exploration of the immediate interior and the plantations of tapioca and pepper, introduced from Batavia, and his discussions with its members and the priests on Roman Catholicism, all conducted in French and Latin, a fortnight passed rapidly. He was ever about his Master’s business, able in speaking His message to men and in prayer and meditation. ‘In a cool and shady part of the garden, near some water, I sat and sang,
O’er the gloomy hills of darkness.
I could read and pray aloud, as there was no fear of anyone understanding me. Reading the eighty-fourth Psalm,
O how amiable are Thy tabernacles,
this morning in the shade, the day when I read it last under the trees with Lydia was brought forcibly to my remembrance, and produced some degree of melancholy.’ Refreshed by the hospitality of San Salvador, he resumed the voyage with new zeal for his Lord and for his study of such authorities as Orme’s Indostan and Scott’s Dekkan, and thus taking himself to task: ‘I wish I had a deeper conviction of the sinfulness of sloth.’
Thus had he taken possession of Brazil, of South America, for Christ. As he walked through the streets, where for a long time he ‘saw no one but negro slaves male and female’; as he passed churches in which ‘they were performing Mass,’ and priests of all colours innumerable, and ascended the battery which commanded a view of the whole bay of All Saints, he exclaimed, ‘What happy missionary shall be sent to bear the name of Christ to these western regions? When shall this beautiful country be delivered from idolatry and spurious Christianity? Crosses there are in abundance, but when shall the doctrine of the Cross be held up?’ In the nearly ninety years that have gone since that time, Brazil has ceased to belong to the house of Braganza, slavery has been abolished, the agents of the Evangelical churches and societies of the United States of America and the Bible societies have been sent in answer to his prayer; while down in the far south Captain Allen Gardiner, R.N., by his death for the savage people, has brought about results that extorted the admiration of Dr. Darwin. As Martyn went back to the ship for the last time, after a final discussion on Mariolatry with the Franciscans, rowed by Lascars who kept the feast of the Hijra with hymns to Mohammed, and in converse with a fellow-voyager who declared mankind needed to be told nothing but to be sober and honest, he cried to God with a deep sigh ‘to interfere in behalf of His Gospel; for in the course of one hour I had seen three shocking examples of the reign and power of the devil in the form of Popish and Mohammedan delusion and that of the natural man. I felt, however, in no way discouraged, but only saw the necessity of dependence on God.’
Why did Henry Martyn’s preaching and daily pastoral influence excite so much opposition? Undoubtedly, as we shall see, both in Calcutta and Dinapore, his Cornish-Celtic temperament, possibly the irritability due to the disease under which he was even then suffering, disabled him from disarming opposition, as his friend Corrie, for instance, afterwards always did. But we must remember to whom he preached and what he preached, and the time at which he preached, in the history not only of the Church of England, but of Evangelical religion. He had himself been brought out of spiritual darkness under the influence of Kempthorne and Charles Simeon, by the teaching of Paul in his letters to the Roman and the Galatian converts. To him sin was exceeding sinful. The Pauline doctrine of sin and its one remedy was the basis not only of his theology, but of his personal experience and daily life. After a brief ministry to the villagers of Lolworth and occasional sermons to his fellow students in Cambridge, this Senior Wrangler and Classic, yet young convert, was put in spiritual charge of a British regiment and Indiaman’s crew, and was the only chaplain in a force of eight thousand soldiers, some with families, and many female convicts. At a time when the dead churches were only beginning to wake up, after the missions of the Wesleys and Whitfield, of William Carey and Simeon, this youthful prophet was called to reason of temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come, with men who were practically as pagan or as sceptical as Felix.
His second address at sea, on September 15, was from Paul’s sermon in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia (Acts xiii. 38-39): Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, &c.[16] It was a full and free declaration of God’s love in Jesus Christ to sinful man, which he thus describes in his Journal: ‘In the latter part I was led to speak without preparation on the all-sufficiency of Christ to save sinners who came to Him with all their sins without delay. I was carried away with a Divine aid to speak with freedom and energy. My soul was refreshed, and I retired seeing reason to be thankful!’ But the next week’s experience resulted in this: ‘I was more tried by the fear of man than I have ever been since God called me to the ministry. The threats and opposition of those men made me unwilling to set before them the truths which they hated; yet I had no species of hesitation about doing it. They had let me know that if I would preach a sermon like one of Blair’s they should be glad to hear it; but they would not attend if so much of hell was preached.’ Strengthened by our Lord’s promise of the Comforter (John xiv. 16), he next Sunday took for his text Psalm ix. 17: The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. He thus concluded: