December 2.—On my way back called on Mr. D., the Judge, and Mr. F., at Bankipore. Mr. F.’s conversation with me about the natives was again a great trial to my spirit; but in the multitude of my troubled thoughts I still saw that there is a strong consolation in the hope set before us. Let men do their worst, let me be torn to pieces, and my dear L. torn from me; or let me labour for fifty years amidst scorn, and never seeing one soul converted; still it shall not be worse for my soul in eternity, nor worse for it in time. Though the heathen rage and the English people imagine a vain thing, the Lord Jesus, who controls all events, is my friend, my master, my God, my all. On the Rock of Ages when I feel my foot rest my head is lifted up above all mine enemies round about, and I sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. If I am not much mistaken, sore trials are awaiting me from without. Yet the time will come when they will be over. Oh, what sweet refuge to the weary soul does the grave appear! There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. Here every man I meet is an enemy; being an enemy to God, he is an enemy to me also on that account; but he is an enemy too to me because I am an Englishman. Oh, what a place must heaven be, where there are none but friends! England appears almost a heaven upon earth, because there one is not viewed as an unjust intruder; but, oh, the heaven of my God! the general assembly of the first-born, the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus! Oh, let me for a little moment labour and suffer reproach!
1807, January 2.—They seem to hate to see me associating at all with the natives, and one gave me a hint a few days ago about taking my exercise on foot. But if our Lord had always travelled about in His palanquin, the poor woman who was healed by touching the hem of His garment might have perished. Happily I am freed from the shackles of custom; and the fear of man, though not extirpated, does not prevail.
January 8.—Pundit was telling me to-day that there was a prophecy in their books that the English should remain one hundred years in India, and that forty years were now elapsed of that period; that there should be a great change, and they should be driven out by a king’s son, who should then be born. Telling this to moonshi, he said that about the same time the Mussulmans expected some great events, such as the coming of Dujjel, and the spread of Islam over the earth.
January 29.—The expectation from prophecy is very prevalent hereabouts that the time is coming when all the Hindus will embrace the religion of the English; and the pundit says that in many places they had already begun. About Agra, and Delhi, and Narwa, in the Mahratta dominions, there are many native Christian families.
Henry Martyn’s occupation of the Aldeen Pagoda had resulted, after his departure, in the formation, by Brown, Corrie, Parson, and Marmaduke Thompson, the Madras chaplain, of what would now be called a clerical club, with these three objects—to aid the British and Foreign Bible Society, then recently established; to help forward the translation of the Scriptures into the languages of the East; and especially to meet the whole expense of the Sanskrit and Greek Testaments, and to send on to Mr. Brown, for circulation, a quarterly report of the prospects, plans, and actual situation of each member so far as the Church is concerned. Of this Evangelical Anglican Brotherhood Martyn seems to have been the most active member during his brief career. His translations were made for it, in the first instance. ‘The Synod’, or ‘the Associated Clergy,’ as he called it at different times, when as yet there was no Bishop of Calcutta, consciously linked him to the fellowship of the Saints, to the Church and the University from which he had come forth. We find him noting seven years after ‘the day I left Cambridge: my thoughts frequently recurred with many tender recollections to that beloved seat of my brethren, and again I wandered in spirit amongst the trees on the banks of the Cam.’
The letters from these four chaplains cheered him at Dinapore when he was ‘very much depressed in spirits,’ and he hastens to write to each, giving this picture of his life:
From a solitary walk on the banks of the river I had just returned to my dreary rooms, and with the reflection that just at this time of the day I could be thankful for a companion, was taking up the flute to remind myself of your social meetings in worship, when your two packages of letters, which had arrived in my absence, were brought to me. For the contents of them, all I can say is, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name! The arrival of another dear brother, and the joy you so largely partake of in fellowship with God and with one another, act as a cordial to my soul. They show me what I want to learn, that the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, and that they that keep the faith of Jesus are those only whom God visits with His strong consolations. I want to keep in view that our God is the God of the whole earth, and that the heathen are given to His exalted Son, the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession.
Continually his love of music breaks forth alike for the worship of God and the association of friendship and affection. His correspondence with Brown was regular, but as that of a son with a father. His letters to Corrie, his old Cambridge junior, are frank and free. His joy was great when Corrie was stationed at the rock-fortress of Chunar, not very far from Dinapore, so that they occasionally met and officiated for each other. But up to this time his chief, his almost fearful human, delight was to think of Lydia by night and by day.
1806, December 10.—A dream last night was so like reality, and the impression after it was so deep upon my spirits, that I must record the date of it. It was about Lydia. I dreamt that she had arrived, but that after some conversation I said to her, ‘I know this is a dream; it is too soon after my letter for you to have come.’ Alas! it is only a dream; and with this I awoke, and sighed to think that it was indeed only a dream. Perhaps all my hope about her is but a dream! Yet be it so; whatever God shall appoint must be good for us both, and with that I will endeavour to be tranquil and happy, pursuing my way through the wilderness with equal steadiness, whether with or without a companion.
December 14. (Sunday.)—Service performed by an after order, at ten o’clock. The general was present, about twenty officers, and some of their ladies. I preached on the parable of the tares of the field. Much of the rest of the day I was in great distraction, owing to the incessant recurrence of thoughts about Lydia. My impatience and fear respecting her sometimes rose to such a height that I felt almost as at Falmouth, when I was leaving Europe, as I thought to see her no more. But in the evening it pleased the Lord to show me something of the awful nearness of the world of spirits, and the unmeasurable importance of my having my thoughts and cares devoted to my missionary work. Thus I obtained peace. I prayed in sincerity and fervour, that if there were any obstacle in the sight of God, the Lord might never suffer us to meet.