October 22. (Sunday.)—Preached at sunrise to the 53rd, on Acts xxviii. 29. At ten, about sixteen of the regiment, with Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood and Sabat, met in my bungalow, where, after a short discourse on ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ we commemorated the death of the Lord. It was the happiest season I have yet had at the Lord’s Table, though my peace and pleasure were not unalloyed; the rest of the day I felt weak in body, but calm in mind, and rather spiritual; at night I spoke to the men on Rev. xxii. 2; the number was double; afterwards had some conversation on eternal things, but had reason to groan at the hollow-heartedness and coldness with which I do my best works.
November 18.—At night I took leave of my beloved Church previous to their departure for Bundlekhund with their regiment. I spoke to them from Gen. xxviii: ‘I will be with thee in all places whithersoever thou goest,’ etc. The poor men were much affected; they gave me their wills and watches.
November 19. (Sunday.)—Preached at sunrise to the dragoons, on John i. 17: ‘The law was given by Moses.’ At eleven at head-quarters, on Rom. iii. 19.
Nowhere are eucharistic seasons of communion so precious as in exile, and especially in the isolation of a tropical station. Not unfrequently in India, Christian people, far separated from any ordained minister, and about to part from each other, are compelled, by loving obedience to the Lord, to meet thus together. But what joy it must have been to have been ministered to at such times by one of Henry Martyn’s consecrated saintliness! Mrs. Sherwood lingers over her description of that Cawnpore service of October 22, 1809—the long inner verandah of the house, where daily prayer was wont to be made, shut in by lofty doors of green lattice-work; the table, with the white cloth and all things requisite, at one end; hassocks on which to kneel, and a high form in front of the table; all ‘decent and in good order, according to the forms of the Church of England.’ Still there was no church building. His first parade service in the hot winds brought on fever, so that he proposed to ask for the billiard-room, ‘which is better than the ball-room,’ but in vain. His next service was in the riding-school, but ‘the effluvium was such as would please only the knights of the turf. What must the Mohammedans think of us? Well may they call us “dogs,” when even in Divine worship we choose to kennel ourselves in such places.’ The General delayed to forward to Government the proposal for a church.
Henry Martyn’s missionary work among the natives became greatly extended at Cawnpore, as his scrupulous conscience and delicate scholarship allowed him to use in public the colloquial Hindustani, and in conversation the more classical Persian. To Corrie he wrote, five months after his arrival there:
What will friends at home think of Martyn and Corrie? They went out full of zeal, but, behold! what are they doing? Where are their converts? They talked of the banyan-tree before they went out; but now they seem to prefer a snug bungalow to field-preaching. I fear I should look a little silly if I were to go home just at this time; but more because I should not be able to make them understand the state of things than because my conscience condemns me. Brother, what can you do? If you itinerate like a European, you will only frighten the people; if as a native, you will be dead in one year. Yet the latter mode pleases me, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than so to live, with the prospect of being able to hold out a few years.
Again, to an old Cambridge friend:
November, 1809.—Respecting my heart, about which you ask, I must acknowledge that H. Martyn’s heart at Dinapore is the same as H. Martyn’s heart at Cambridge. The tenor of my prayer is nearly the same, except on one subject, the conversion of the heathen. At a distance from the scene of action, and trusting too much to the highly-coloured description of missionaries, my heart used to expand with rapture at the hope of seeing thousands of the natives melting under the Word as soon as it should be preached to them. Here I am called to exercise faith—that so it shall one day be. My former feelings on this subject were more agreeable, and at the same time more according with the truth; for if we believe the prophets, the scenes that time shall unfold, ‘though surpassing fable, are yet true.’ While I write, hope and joy spring up in my mind. Yes, it shall be; yonder stream of Ganges shall one day roll through tracts adorned with Christian churches, and cultivated by Christian husbandmen, and the holy hymn be heard beneath the shade of the tamarind. All things are working together to bring on the day, and my part in the blessed plan, though not at first exactly consonant to my wishes, is, I believe, appointed me by God. To translate the Word of God is a work of more lasting benefit than my preaching would be. But, besides that, I am sorry to say that my strength for public preaching is almost gone. My ministrations among the Europeans at this station have injured my lungs, and I am now obliged to lie by except on the Sabbath days, and once or twice in the week.... However, I am sufficiently aware of my important relations to the natives, and am determined not to strain myself any more for the Europeans. This rainy season has tried my constitution severely. The first attack was with spasms, under which I fainted. The second was a fever, from which a change of air, under God, recovered me. There is something in the air at the close of the rains so unfavourable, that public speaking at that time is a violent strain upon the whole body. Corrie passed down a few weeks ago to receive his sister. We enjoyed much refreshing communion in prayer and conversation on our dear friends at and near Cambridge, and found peculiar pleasure in the minutest circumstances we could recollect about you all.
At Cawnpore, in front of his house, he began his wonderful preaching to the native beggars and ascetics of all kinds, Hindoo jogees and Mohammedan fakeers, the blind and the deaf, the maimed and the halt, the diseased and the dying, the impostor and the truly needy. These classes had soon found out the sympathetic padre-sahib, and to secure peace he seems to have organised a weekly dole of an anna each or of rice.