“The time fled imperceptibly, while so delightfully engaged in the translations; the days seemed to have passed like a moment. Blessed be God for some improvement in the languages! May every thing be for edification in the church! What do I not owe to the Lord, for permitting me to take part in a translation of his word: never did I see such wonder, and wisdom, and love in the blessed book, as since I have been obliged to study every expression; and it is a delightful reflection, that death cannot deprive us of the pleasure of studying its mysteries.”
“All day on the translations:—employed a good while at night in considering a difficult passage: and being much enlightened respecting it, I went to bed full of astonishment at the wonder of God’s word: never before did I see any thing of the beauty of the language and the importance of the thoughts as I do now. I felt happy that I should never be finally separated from the contemplation of them, or of the things about which they are written. Knowledge shall vanish away, but it shall be because perfection shall come. Then shall I see as I am seen, and know as I am known.”
“What a source of perpetual delight have I in the precious book of God! O that my heart were more spiritual, to keep pace with my understanding; and that I could feel as I know! May my root and foundation be deep in love, and may I be able to ‘comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge!’ And may I be filled with all the fulness of God! May the Lord, in mercy to my soul, save me from setting up an idol of any sort in his place; as I do by preferring even a work professedly done for him, to communion with him. How obstinate is the reluctance of the natural heart to love God! But, O my soul, be not deceived; thy chief work upon earth is, to obtain sanctification, and to walk with God. ‘To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.’ Let me learn from this, that to follow the direct injunctions of God, as to my own soul, is more my duty, than to be engaged in other works, under pretence of doing him service.”
“How sweet the retirement in which I here live. The precious word is now my only study, in the work of translation. Though, in a manner, buried to the world,—neither seeing nor seen by Europeans,—the time flows on here with great rapidity: it seems as if life would be gone before any thing is done, or even before any thing is begun. I sometimes rejoice that I am not twenty-seven years of age; and that, unless God should order it otherwise, I may double the number in constant and successful labour. If not, God has many, many more instruments at command; and I shall not cease from my happiness, and scarcely from my work, by departing into another world. Oh! what shall separate us from the love of Christ! Neither death nor life, I am persuaded. Oh! let me feel my security, that I may be, as it were, already in heaven; that I may do all my work as the angels do theirs; and oh! let me be ready for every work!—be ready to leave this delightful solitude, or remain in it; to go out, or go in; to stay, or depart, just as the Lord shall appoint. Lord, let me have no will of my own; nor consider my true happiness as depending in the smallest degree on any thing that can befall my outward man; but as consisting altogether in conformity to God’s will. May I have Christ here with me in this world; not substituting imagination in the place of faith; but seeing outward things as they really are, and thus obtaining a radical conviction of their vanity.”
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr. Martyn now received intelligence from England of the death of his eldest sister, an event which very deeply afflicted him; but which caused him to feel fresh confidence in God, and a new interest in heaven.
“O great and gracious God! what should I do without Thee! But now thou art manifesting thyself as the God of all consolation to my soul:—never was I so near thee:—I stand on the brink, and long to take my flight. There is not a thing in the world for which I could wish to live, except the hope that it may please God to appoint me some work. And how shall my soul ever be thankful enough to thee, O thou most incomprehensibly glorious Saviour Jesus! O what hast thou done to alleviate the sorrows of life! and how great has been the mercy of God towards my family, in saving us all! How dreadful would be the separation of relations in death were it not for Jesus.”
“The European letter,” he wrote to Mr. Brown, “contained the intelligence of the death of my eldest sister. A few lines received from herself about three weeks ago, gave me some melancholy forebodings of her danger. But though the Lord thus compassionately prepared me for this affliction, I hardly knew how to bear it. We were more united in affection to each other, than to any of our relations: and now she is gone, I am left to fulfil, as a hireling, my day, and then I shall follow her. She had been many years under some conviction of her sins, but not till her last illness had she sought in earnest for salvation. Some weeks before her death she felt the burden of sin, and cried earnestly for pardon and deliverance, and continued in the diligent use of the appointed means of grace. Two days before her death, when no immediate danger was apprehended, my youngest sister visited her; and was surprised and delighted at the change which had taken place. Her convictions of sin were deep, and her views clear; her only fear was on account of her own unworthiness. She asked, with many tears, whether there was mercy for one who had been so great a sinner; though in the eyes of the world she had been an exemplary wife and mother; and said that she believed the Lord would have mercy upon her, because she knew he had wrought on her mind by His Spirit. Two days after this conversation, she suddenly and unexpectedly left this world of woe, while her sister was visiting a dying friend at a distance. This, you will tell me, is precious consolation; indeed I am constrained to acknowledge that I could hardly ask for greater; for I had already parted with her for ever in this life; and, in parting, all I wished for was, to hear of her being converted to God, and, if it was his will, taken away in due time, from the evil to come, and brought to glory before me. Yet human nature bleeds; her departure has left this world a frightful blank to me; and I feel not the smallest wish to live, except there be some work Assigned for me to do in the church of God.”
And sometime afterwards he wrote, “My heart is still oppressed, but it is not ‘a sorrow that worketh death.’ Though nature weeps at being deprived of all hopes of ever seeing this dear companion on earth, faith is thereby brought the more into exercise. How sweet to feel dead to all below; to live only for eternity; to forget the short interval that lies between us and the spiritual world; and to live always seriously. The seriousness which this sorrow produces, is indescribably precious; O that I could always retain it, when these impressions shall be worn away!”