On the 1st of October, “Marched over a mountainous tract: we were out from seven in the morning till eight at night. After sitting a little by the fire, I was near fainting from sickness. My depression of spirits led me to the throne of grace, as a sinful, abject worm. When I thought of myself and my transgressions, I could find no text so cheering as, ‘My ways are not as your ways.’ From the men who accompanied Sir William Ousely to Constantinople, I learned that the plague was raging at Constantinople, and thousands dying every day. One of the Persians had died of it. They added, that the inhabitants of Tocat were flying from their town from the same cause. Thus I am passing inevitably into imminent danger. O Lord, thy will be done! Living or dying, remember me!”
The principal guard and leader of the party was a Tartar, named Hassan Aga. His treatment of Mr. Martyn from this time, was inhuman, and the journal of the next five days gives a deeply affecting narrative of the sufferings to which the savage conduct of his guide exposed him.
“Oct. 2d.—Some hours before day, I sent to tell the Tartar I was ready, but Hassan Aga was for once riveted to his bed. However, at eight, having got strong horses, he set off at a great rate, and over the level ground he made us gallop as fast as the horses would go, to Chiflick, where we arrived at sun-set. I was lodged, at my request, in the stables of the post-house, not liking the scrutinizing impudence of the fellows who frequent the coffee room. As soon as it began to grow a little cold, the ague came on, and then the fever: after which I had a sleep, which let me know too plainly the disorder of my frame. In the night, Hassan sent to summon me away, but I was quite unable to move. Finding me still in bed at the dawn, he began to storm furiously at my detaining him so long; but I quietly let him spend his ire, ate my breakfast composedly, and set out at eight. He seemed determined to make up for the delay, for we flew over hill and dale to Sherean, where he changed horses. From thence we travelled all the rest of the day and all night; it rained most of the time. Soon after sun-set the ague came on again, which, in my wet state, was very trying; I hardly knew how to keep my life in me. About that time there was a village at hand; but Hassan had no mercy. At one in the morning we found two men under a wain, with a good fire; they could not keep the rain out, but their fire was acceptable. I dried my lower extremities, allayed the fever by drinking a good deal of water, and went on. We had little rain, but the night was pitchy dark, so that I could not see the road under my horse’s feet. However, God being mercifully pleased to alleviate my bodily suffering, I went on contentedly to the next stage, where we arrived at break of day. After sleeping three or four hours, I was visited by an Armenian merchant, for whom I had a letter. Hassan was in great fear of being arrested here; the governor of the city had vowed to make an example of him for riding to death a horse belonging to a man of this place. He begged that I would shelter him in case of danger; his being claimed by an Englishman, he said, would be a sufficient security. I found, however, that I had no occasion to interfere. He hurried me away from this place without delay, and galloped furiously towards a village, which, he said, was four hours distant; which was all I could undertake in my present weak state; but village after village did he pass, till night coming on, and no signs of another, I suspected that he was carrying me on to the next stage; so I got off my horse, and sat upon the ground, and told him, ‘I neither could nor would go any further.’ He stormed, but I was immovable; till, a light appearing at a distance, I mounted my horse and made towards it, leaving him to follow or not, as he pleased. He brought in the party, but would not exert himself to get a place for me. They brought me to an open verandah, but Sergius[14] told them I wanted a place in which to be alone. This seemed very offensive to them: ‘And why must he be alone?’ they asked; ascribing this desire of mine to pride, I suppose. Tempted, at last, by money, they brought me to a stable-room, and Hassan and a number of others planted themselves there with me. My fever here increased to a violent degree; the heat in my eyes and forehead was so great, that the fire almost made me frantic. I entreated that it might be put out, or that I might be carried out of doors. Neither was attended to: my servant, who, from my sitting in that strange way on the ground, believed me delirious, was deaf to all I said. At last I pushed my head in among the luggage, and lodged it on the damp ground, and slept.
“Oct. 5th.—Preserving mercy made me see the light of another morning. The sleep had refreshed me, but I was feeble and shaken; yet the merciless Hassan hurried me off. The stopping place, however, not being distant, I reached it without much difficulty. I expected to have found it another strong fort at the end of the pass; but it is a poor little village within the jaws of the mountains. I was pretty well lodged, and felt tolerably well till a little after sunset, when the ague came on with a violence I had never before experienced; I felt as if in a palsy: my teeth chattering, and my whole frame violently shaken. Aga Hosyn and another Persian, on their way here from Constantinople, going to Abbas Mirza, whom I had just before been visiting, came hastily to render me assistance if they could. These Persians appear quite brotherly after the Turks. While they pitied me, Hassan sat in perfect indifference, ruminating on the further delay this was likely to occasion. The cold fit, after continuing two or three hours, was followed by a fever, which lasted the whole night, and prevented sleep.
“Oct. 6th.—No horses being to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard, and thought, with sweet comfort and peace, of my God; in solitude, my company, my friend and comforter. Oh! when shall time give place to eternity! When shall appear that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness! There, there shall in no wise enter in any thing that defileth: none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts,—none of those corruptions which add still more to the miseries of mortality, shall be seen or heard of any more.”
These were the last words that Martyn wrote! Nothing more is known of his fate than that he reached the town of Tocat, in Turkey, nearly six hundred miles from Tebriz, and about three hundred from Constantinople, and that he died there on the 16th of October, being in the thirty-second year of his life. The plague was raging when he arrived, and his sickness and fatigue made him very liable to the disease; and his weakness was such, that he could not long sustain it. No particulars of his sickness and death have ever been learned.
Two American missionaries, who passed through Tocat in the year 1830, found his grave in an Armenian burying-place, covered with a tombstone, which had been erected by an English traveller, the year after his interment. The only information they could obtain was, that Mr. Martyn arrived there sick, that some Armenians gave him medicine, and that he died in four or five days. As hundreds were dying daily of the plague, it was thought probable that he was not admitted into any private house, and that he died at the post-house. On the tombstone is a Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation:
in memory of the
rev. HENRY[15] MARTYN, of england,
a minister of the gospel, and a missionary;
a pious, learned, and faithful servant of
the lord,
who called him to a state of felicity,
whilst at tocat, on his return to his
native country, a. d. 1812.
c. j. r. inscribed this stone to his memory,
a. d. 1813.
There he died, alone, in a land of strangers, with not a Christian to attend him. But there can be no doubt that, if his reason was preserved, he was happy in that illness, that his faith in Christ enabled him to bear his sufferings, and to expect with joy a speedy admittance to the presence of his God and Saviour.—To an unpardoned person it is incredible that a Christian can have so strong an assurance that his sins have been forgiven for Christ’s sake, and that God has thus become reconciled to him, as that he can be happy in the prospect of dying. But it is certain that this is often the case, and that Christians, even whilst suffering the most terrible pain in their bodies, have felt a peace and joy in the belief that they were near heaven, greater than all the comforts of life have ever bestowed on them or on others. Wherever the believer lives or dies, Christ is with him. God is his Father, and he has nothing to fear. It seems to us distressing, that Martyn should die so far away from his home, and his friends, in a nation of idolaters; but it is probable these things did not affect him, and that the dying missionary at Tocat was happier than he would have been in health and peace, among his friends in England. In his lonely journeys he had often been able to quote the lines,
“In desert tracts, with Thee, my God,