[34] Corrie and Brown.
[35] By letters written March 30 and April 19, 1810, from Cawnpore.
[36] By letter written August 14, 1810.
[37] On leaving the station Henry Martyn presented his French New Testament to Dr. Govan, a little morocco-bound volume which his son prizes as an heirloom.
[38] We have these reminiscences of Henry Martyn’s Cawnpore from Bishop Corrie, when, as Archdeacon of Calcutta, he again visited it. In 1824 he writes: ‘I arrived at this station on the day fourteen years after sainted Martyn had dedicated the church. The house he occupied stands close by. The view of the place and the remembrance of what had passed greatly affected me.... I had to assist in administering the sacrament, and well it was, on the whole, that none present could enter into my feelings, or I should have been overcome.’ Again: ‘How would it have rejoiced the heart of Martyn could he have had the chief authorities associated, by order of Government, to assist him in the work of education; and how gladly would he have made himself their servant in the work for Jesus’ sake! One poor blind man who lives in an outhouse of Martyn’s, and received a small monthly sum from him, often comes to our house, and affords a mournful pleasure in reminding me of some little occurrence of those times. A wealthy native too, who lived next door to us, sent his nephew to express to me the pleasure he derived from his acquaintance with Martyn. These are all the traces I have found of that “excellent one of the earth” at the station.’
In 1833 Corrie was again at Cawnpore, which had two chaplains then, and thus wrote: ‘October 6.—I attended Divine service at the church bungalow, and stood up once more in Martyn’s pulpit. The place is a little enlarged. The remembrance of Martyn and the Sherwoods, and Mary (his sister), with the occupations of that period, came powerfully to my recollection, and I could not prevent the tears from flowing. A sense of the forgiving love of God, with the prospect of all joining in thankful adoration in the realms of bliss, greatly preponderates.’
CHAPTER VIII
FROM CALCUTTA TO CEYLON, BOMBAY, AND ARABIA
Two motives made Henry Martyn eager to leave India for a time, and to cease the strain on his fast-ebbing strength, caused by incessant preaching and speaking: he desired to prolong his life, but to prolong it only till he should give the Mohammedans of Arabia and Persia the Word of God in their own tongues. After his first, almost fatal, attack at Dinapore, Corrie, who had gone to help him in his duties, wrote to ‘the Patriarch,’ as they called Mr. Brown, at Aldeen: ‘He wishes to be spared on account of the translations, but with great earnestness said, “I wish to have my whole soul swallowed up in the will of God.”’ Two years after, Corrie wrote to England from Cawnpore: ‘He is going to try sea air. May God render it effectual to his restoration. His life is beyond all price to us. You know what a profound scholar he is, and all his acquirements are dedicated to the service of Christ. If ever man, since St. Paul, could use these words, he may, One thing I do. But the length of his life will depend on his desisting from public duties.’ To Martyn himself, when at last he had left Cawnpore, Corrie wrote: ‘If you will not take rest, dear brother, come away back;’ informing him, at the same time, that he had returned to a Colonel, whom he had married, 1,600 rupees, he and Martyn having resolved to decline all fees for marrying and burying in India, where such were a stumbling-block in the way of morality and religion, constituted as Anglo-Indian society was at that time.