Chapter XI: In Persia--Translating the Scriptures (1)

Great as saint and notable as scholar, in the twelve years of his young life from Senior Wrangler to martyr at thirty-one years of age, the highest title of Henry Martyn to everlasting remembrance is that he gave the Persians in their own tongue the Testament of the one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the Hebrew Psalms. By that work, the fruit of which every successive century will reveal till the consummation of the ages, he unconsciously wrote his name beside those of the greatest missionaries in the history of the Church of Christ, the sacred scholars who were the first to give the master races of Asia and Africa, of Europe and America, the Word of God in their vernaculars. Let us write the golden list, which for modern Africa and Oceania also we might inscribe in letters of silver,[66] were not most of the translators still living and perfecting their at first tentative efforts, which time must try:

A.D. 350 ULFILAS Gothic (Teutonic) 368 FRUMENTIUS and EDESIUS (Brothers) Ethiopic 385 HIERONYMUS (Jerome) Latin 410 MESROBES (Miesrob) Armenian 861 C. CYRILLUS and METHODIUS (Brothers) Slavonic (Bulgarian) 1380 WICLIF (Bede in 735) English 1516 ERASMUS (new translation) Latin 1534 LUTHER (translation from Latin of Erasmus) German 1661 JOHN ELIOT (first Bible printed in America) Moheecan 1777 FABRICIUS (Ziegenbalg & Schultze first 1714) Tamul 1801 WILLIAM CAREY (O.T. in 1802-9) Bengali, &c. 1815 HENRY MARTYN Persian 1816 " (Sabat's N.T. version) Arabic 1822 JOSHUA MARSHMAN (Morrison & Milne 1823) Chinese 1832 ADONIRAM JUDSON (O.T. 1834) Burmese 1865 VAN DYCK Arabic

It was David Brown who was wont to call the Bible 'The Great Missionary which would speak in all tongues the wonderful works of God.'

From first to last and above all Henry Martyn was a philologist. His school and college honours sprang from the root of all linguistic studies, Greek and Latin, in which he was twice appointed public examiner in his college and the University of Cambridge. For the uncritical time in which he lived, and the generations which followed his to the present, he was an enthusiastic and accomplished Hebraist. No young scholar in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was so well equipped for translating the Bible by a knowledge of its two original languages. True, he was the Senior Wrangler of the year 1801, but to him the honour was a 'shadow,' because the mathematical sciences could do nothing for him as a translator and preacher of the words of righteousness, compared with the linguistic. Only once, when the rapture of his holy work had carried him away to the borderland of a dark metaphysical theology, did he record the passing regret that he had abandoned the rationalistic ground of mathematical certainty. His devotion to the study of the languages which interpret and apply to the races of India, Arabia, and Persia, the books of the Christian Revelation, was so absorbing as to shorten his career. Like Carey, he never knew an idle moment, even when on shipboard, and he jealously guarded his time from correspondence, other than that with Lydia Grenfell, Brown and Corrie, that he might live to finish the Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic New Testaments at least. The spiritual motive it was, the desire to win every man to Christ, that urged his unresting course, and in the sacred toil he had the reflex joy of being himself won nearer and nearer by the Spirit.

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 that blessed book as since I have been
obliged to study every expression. All day on the translation,
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 wonders of God's Word. Never before
did I see anything 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 concerning which they are written.
Knowledge shall vanish away, but it shall be because perfection
has come.

On the other hand, he was ever on the watch against the deadening influence of routine or one-sided study. 'So constantly engaged with outward works of translation of languages that I fear my inward man has declined in spirituality.'

Canon Edmonds expresses the experience of the present writer in the remark,[67] that to read Martyn's _Journal_ with the single object of noticing this point is to discover another Martyn, not a saint only, but a grammarian. 'He read grammars as other men read novels, and to him they were more entertaining than novels.' So early as September 28, 1804, in Cambridge we find him at prayer after dinner, before visiting Wall's Lane, and then on his return finishing the Bengali Grammar which he had begun the day before. 'I am anxious to get Carey's Bengali New Testament,' which could not long have reached London. Five days after, Thomas à Kempis, followed by hymns and the writing of a sermon, seemed but the preliminary to his Hindustani as well as Bengali studies. 'Engaged all the rest of the morning by Gilchrist's Hindustani Dictionary. After dinner began Halhed's Bengali Grammar, for I found that the other grammar I had been reading was only for the corrupted Hindustani.' The first traces of his Persian and Arabic studies have an interest all their own:

_1804, June 27._--A funeral and calls of friends took up my time
till eleven; afterwards _read Persian_, and made some
calculations in trigonometry, in order to be familiar with the
use of logarithms.

_November 23._--Through shortness of time I was about to omit my
morning portion of Scripture, yet after some deliberation
conscience prevailed, and I enjoyed a solemn seriousness in
learning 'mem' in the 119th Psalm. Wasted much time afterwards
in looking over _an Arabic grammar_.

When fairly at work in Dinapore he wrote almost daily such passages in his _Journal_ as these:

_1807, August 25._--Translating the Epistles; reading Arabic
grammar and Persian. 27 to 29.--Studies in Persian and Arabic
the same. Delight in them, particularly the latter, so great,
that I have been obliged to pray continually that they may not
be a snare to me.... 31st.--Resumed the Arabic with an eagerness
which I found it necessary to check. Began some extracts from
Cashefi which Mr. Gladwin sent me, and thus the day passed
rapidly away. Alas! how much more readily does the understanding
do its work than the heart.

On reaching Calcutta in 1806 Martyn found this to be the position of the Bible translation work. Carey's early labours had led to the formation of the other English and Scottish Missionary Societies at the close of the last century. By 1803 his experience and that of his colleagues had enabled them, with the encouragement of Brown and Buchanan, to formulate a magnificent plan for translating the Bible into all the languages of the far East. The Marquis Wellesley, though Governor-General, approved, and his College at Fort William, with its staff of learned men, including Carey himself and many Asiatics, had become a school of interpreters. In 1804, after all this, the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded, under the ex-Governor-General, Lord Teignmouth, as its first president. That Society, leaving India to the Serampore Brotherhood, at once directed its attention to the three hundred millions of Chinese, who also could be reached only through the East India Company. But, until six years after, when Dr. Marshman made the first reliable translation of the Bible into the language, in its Mandarin dialect, there was no Chinese translation save an anonymous MS. of a large portion of the New Testament in the British Museum, probably of Roman Catholic origin. At that time the infant Society did not see its way to spend two thousand guineas in producing an edition of a thousand copies of a work about which the few experts differed. So, while giving grants to the Serampore translators, it invited the opinions, as to the formation of a corresponding committee in Calcutta, of George Udny, who had by that time become Member of Council, and the Rev. Messrs. Brown, Buchanan, Carey, Ward, and Marshman. The Serampore plan and its rapid execution had been communicated to all the principal civil and military officials, who, after Lord Wellesley's tolerant and reverent action, subscribed liberally to carry it out, and the Society continued its grants. But when in 1807, under Lord Minto, the anti-Christian reaction set in, caused by a groundless panic as to the Vellore Mutiny, and the Fort William College was reduced, Dr. Buchanan proposed to found 'The Christian Institution,' the Society preferred its original plan of a corresponding committee, which was formed in August 1809.

Martyn had not waited one hour for this. Almost from the day of landing at the capital he was engaged in Hindustani translation, and in studious preparation for his projected Persian and Arabic Bibles. In the brotherly intercourse at Aldeen with the Serampore missionaries it was arranged to leave these three languages entirely to him, under the direction of Mr. Brown. Part of the Society's annual grant to India and Ceylon of a thousand pounds a year was assigned to pay his assistants, Mirza Fitrut, the Persian, and Nathanael Sabat, the Arabian, and to print the results. The Corresponding Committee caused an annual sermon to be preached in Calcutta, to rouse public intelligence and help. On the first day of 1810 Mr. Brown preached it in the old church, in the interest chiefly of the thousands of native Christians who had been baptized in Tanjor and Tinnevelli, both Reformed and Romanist, and needed copies of the Tamul Bible. Such was the result of this appeal, headed by the Commander-in-chief, General Hewett, with the sum of 2,000 Sicca-rupees (250_l._), that the committee resolved on establishing a 'Bibliotheca Biblica,' combining a Bible Repository and a Translation Library. The Scottish poet and friend of Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Leyden, was foremost in the enterprise, and took charge of work in the languages of Siam and the Spice Islands, as well as in the Pushtu of Afghanistan.

On the first day of 1811 it fell to the Rev. Henry Martyn to preach the second annual sermon.[68] His appeal was for not only the growing native Church of India, but more particularly for the whole number of nominal Christians, of all sects, in India and Ceylon, whom he estimated at 900,000.[69] In 1881 the Government census returned these, in the Greater India of our day but without Ceylon, as upwards of 2,000,000, and in 1891 as 2,280,549. Martyn's figures included 342,000 of the Singhalese, whom the Dutch had compelled by secular considerations outwardly to conform. The sermon, on Galatians vi. 10, was published at the time, and it appears as the last in the volume of _Twenty Sermons by the late Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D._,[70] first printed at Calcutta with this passage in the preface: 'The desire to know how such a man preached is natural and unavoidable.... His manner in the pulpit was distinguished by a holy solemnity, always suited to the high message which he was delivering, and accompanied by an unction which made its way to the hearts of his audience. With this was combined a fidelity at once forcible by its justice and intrepidity, and penetrating by its affection. There was, in short, a power of holy love and disinterested earnestness in his addresses which commended itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God.'

Addressing the well-paid servants of the East India Company in Calcutta, and its prosperous merchants and shopkeepers, the preacher said: 'Do we not blush at the offers of assistance from home ... where all that is raised may be employed with such effect in benefiting the other three quarters of the globe? Asia must be our care; or, if not Asia, _India_ at least must look to none but us. Honour calls as well as duty.' He then continued:

Prove to our friends and the world that the Mother Country need
never be ashamed of her sons in India. What a splendid spectacle
does she present! Standing firm amidst the overthrow of the
nations, and spreading wide the shadow of her wings for the
protection of all, she finds herself at leisure, amidst the
tumult of war, to form benevolent projects for the best
interests of mankind. Her generals and admirals have caused the
thunder of her power to be heard throughout the south; now her
ministers of religion perform their part, and endeavour to
fulfil the high destinies of Heaven in favour of their country.
They called on their fellow-citizens to cheer the desponding
nations with the Book of the promises of Eternal Life, and thus
afford them that consolation from the prospect of a happier
world, which they have little expectation of finding amidst the
disasters and calamities of this. The summons was obeyed. As
fast as the nature of the undertaking became understood, and
was perceived to be clearly distinct from all party business and
visionary project, great numbers of all ranks in society, and of
all persuasions in religion, joined with one heart and one soul,
and began to impart freely to all men that which, next to the
Saviour, is God's best gift to man....

Shall every town and hamlet in England engage in the glorious
cause, and the mighty Empire of India do nothing? Will not our
wealth and dignity be our disgrace if we do not employ it for
God and our fellow-creatures? What plan could be proposed, so
little open to objections, and so becoming our national
character and religion, so simple and practicable, yet so
extensively beneficial, as that of giving the Word of God to the
Christian part of our native subjects?... Despise not their
inferiority, nor reproach them for their errors; they cannot get
a BIBLE to read; had they been blessed with your advantages,
they would have been perhaps more worthy of your respect.

The brief decade of Henry Martyn's working life fell at a time when the science of Comparative Philology was as yet unborn, but the materials were almost ready for generalisation. Sir William Jones, and still more his successor as a scholar--Henry Thomas Colebrooke--had used their opportunities in India well. The Bengal Asiatic Society, in its _Asiatic Researches_, was laboriously piling up facts and speculations. These awaited only the flash of hardworking genius to evolve the order and the laws which have made Comparative Grammar the most fruitful of the historical and psychological sciences. It might have been Martyn's, had he lived to reach England, to manifest that genius. His Asiatic career was contemporary with the most fruitful part of Colebrooke's. He toiled and he speculated, as he mastered the grammar and much of the vocabulary of the great classical and vernacular languages which made him a seven-tongued man. But his divine motive led him to grope for the philological solvent through the imperfect Semitic. The Germans, Schlegel and Bopp, found it rather, and later, in the richer Aryan or Indo-European family, in Sanskrit and old Persian.

His longing to give the Arabs the Scriptures in their purity intensified his devotion to the study of Hebrew; had he lived to give himself to the Persian, he might have anticipated the German critics who used, at second-hand, the materials that he and Colebrooke, and other servants of the East India Company, were annually accumulating. Nor did his Hebraism lead him, at the beginning of the century, to that fertile criticism of the text and the literary origin of the books of the Old Testament which, at the end of the century, is beginning to make the inspired historians and the prophets, the psalmists and the moralists of the old Jews live anew for the modern Church. But how true has proved his prediction to Corrie in the year 1809:

I think that when the construction of Hebrew is fully
understood, all the scholars in the world will turn to it with
avidity, in order to understand other languages, and then the
Word of God will be studied universally.

Again in 1810:

I sit for hours alone contemplating this mysterious language. If
light does not break upon me at last it will be a great loss of
time, as I never read Arabic or Persian. I have no heart to do
it; I cannot condescend any longer to tread in the paths of
ignorant and lying grammarians. I sometimes say in my vain heart
I will make a deep cut in the mine of philology, or I will do
nothing; but you shall hear no more of Scriptural philology
till I make some notable discoveries.

Again in 1811, when at Bombay:

Chiefly employed on the Arabic tract, writing letters to Europe,
and my Hebrew speculations. The last encroached so much on my
time and thoughts that I lost two nights' sleep, and
consequently the most of two days, without learning more than I
did the first hour.

Happening to think this evening on the nature of language more
curiously and deeply than I have yet done, I got bewildered, and
fancied I saw some grounds for the opinions of those who deny
the existence of matter.... Oh, what folly to be wise where
ignorance is bliss!... The further I push my inquiries the more
I am distressed. It must be now my prayer, not 'Lord, let me
obtain the knowledge which I think would be so useful,' but 'Oh,
teach me just as much as Thou seest good for me.' Compared with
metaphysics, physics and mathematics appear with a kind and
friendly aspect, because they seem to be within the limits in
which man can move without danger, but on the other I find
myself adrift. Synthesis is the work of God alone.

Henry Martyn's first practical work was in Hindustani. His position in Dinapore and Patna, the capital of Bihar with its Hindi dialects, his duties to the native wives and families of the soldiers whom he taught and exhorted, his preaching to the Hindus and discussions with the Mohammedans, all led him to prepare three works--(1) portions of the _Book of Common Prayer_, which Corrie finished and published seventeen years after his death; (2) a _Commentary on the Parables_, in 1807; (3) the _Four Gospels_ in 1809, and in 1810 the whole _New Testament_. Let us look at him in his spiritual and scholarly workshop.

_1807, January 18._ (Sunday.)--Preached on Numbers xxiii. 19: a
serious attention from all. Most of the European tradesmen were
present with their families; my soul enjoyed sweet peace and
heavenly-mindedness for some time afterwards. The thought
suddenly struck me to-day, how easy it would be to translate the
chief part of the Church Service for the use of the soldiers'
wives, and women and children, and so have the service in
Hindustani, by which a door would be opened to the heathen. This
thought took such hold of me, that after in vain endeavouring to
fix my thoughts on anything else, I sat down in the evening, and
translated to the end of the _Te Deum_. But my conscience was
not satisfied that this was a Sabbath employment, and I lost the
sensible sweetness of the Divine presence. However, by leaving
it off, and passing the rest of the evening in reading and
singing hymns, I found comfort and joy. Oh, how shall I praise
my Lord, that here in this solitude, with people enough indeed,
but without any like-minded, I yet enjoy fellowship with all
those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. I see myself travelling on with them, and I hope I shall
worship with them in His courts above.

_January 19._--Passed the morning with the moonshi and pundit,
dictating to the former a few ideas for the explanation of the
Parable of the Rich Fool. When I came to say that there was no
eating and drinking, etc., in heaven, but only the pleasures of
God's presence and holiness; and that, therefore, we must
acquire a taste for such pleasures, the Mussulman was unwilling
to write, but the Brahman was pleased, and said that all this
was in the Puranas. Afterwards went on with the translation of
the Liturgy.

_March 23._ (To Brown.)--It is with no small delight that I find
the day arrived for my writing to my very dear brother. Many
thanks for your two letters, and for all the consolation
contained in them, and many thanks to our Lord and Saviour, who
has given me such a help where I once expected to struggle on
alone all my days. Concerning the character in the Nagri papers
you have sent me I have to say, it is perfectly the same as the
one used here, and I can read it easily; and the difference in
both the dialects from the one here is so trifling, that I have
not the smallest doubt of the Parables being understood at
Benares and Bettia (a Roman Catholic village), and consequently
through a vast tract of country. A more important inference is,
that in whatever dialect of the Hindustani the translation of
the Scriptures shall be made, it will be generally understood.
The little book of Parables is at last finished, through the
blessing of God. I cannot say I am very well pleased with it on
the reperusal; but yet containing, as it does, such large
portions of the Word of God, I ought not to doubt of its
accomplishing that which He pleaseth.

_July 13._--Mr. Ward has also sent me a long and learned letter.
He is going to print the Parables without delay for me, and the
modern Hindustani version of them for themselves. He says, 'The
enmity of the natives to the Gospel is indeed very great, but on
this point the lower orders are angels compared with the
moonshis and pundits. I believe the man you took from Serampore
has his heart as full of this poison as most. The fear of loss
of caste among the poor is a greater obstacle than their enmity.
Our strait waistcoat makes our arms ache.'

_December 29._--Translating from Hebrew into Hindustani in the
morning. Wrote to Mr. Udny. Read Arabic and Persian as usual
with Sabat. We had some conversation on this subject, whether we
might not expect the Holy Spirit would endue us with
extraordinary powers in the acquisition of languages, if we
could pray for it only with a desire to be useful to the Church
of God, and not with a wish for our own glory. There seemed to
be no reason against such an expectation. I sometimes pray for
the gifts of the spirit, but infinitely greater is the necessity
to pray for grace, as I know by the sorrowful experience of my
deceitfully corrupt heart.

_1808, January 7._--As much of my time as was not employed for
the Europeans has been devoted chiefly to translating the
Epistles into Hindustani. This work is finished after a certain
manner. But Sabat does not allow me to form a very high idea of
the style in which it is executed. But if the work should
fail--which, however, I am far from expecting--my labour will
have been richly repaid by the profit and pleasure derived from
considering the Word of God in the original with more attention
than I had ever done.

_March 31._--I am at present employed in the toilsome work of
going through the Syriac Gospels, and writing out the names, in
order to ascertain their orthography if possible, and correcting
with Mirza the Epistles. This last work is incredibly difficult
in Hindustani, and will be nearly as much so in Persian, but
very easy and elegant in Arabic.

_June 1_ to _4_.--Employed incessantly in reading the Persian of
St. Matthew to Sabat. Met with the Italian padre, Julius, with
whom I conversed in French.

_June 6._--Going on with the Persian Gospel, visiting the
hospital, and with the men at night. My spirit refreshed and
revived by every night's ministration to them. Sent the Persian
of Matthew to Mr. Brown for the press, and went on with the
remainder of the Hindustani of St. Matthew. I have not felt such
trials of my temper for many months as to-day. The General
declared he was an enemy to my design in translating the
Scriptures. My poor harassed soul looked at last to God, and
cast its burden of sin at the foot of the cross. Towards evening
I found rest and peace. A son-in-law of the Qasi ool Qoorrat, of
Patna, a very learned man, called on me. I put to him several
questions about Mohammedanism, which confused him; and as he
seemed a grave, honest man, they may produce lasting doubts.

_1809, September 24._--Began with Mirza Fitrut the correction of
the Hindustani Gospels: _Quod felix faustumque sit._ Began with
my men a course of lectures from the beginning of the Bible.

_September 25_ to _28_.--Revising Arabic version of Romans;
going on in correction of Hindustani; preparing report of
progress in translating for Bible Society. Reading occasionally
Menishi's _Turkish Grammar_.

Completed in 1810, Martyn's Hindustani New Testament for Mohammedans was passing through the Serampore press when the great fire of March 11, 1812, destroyed all the sheets save the first thirteen chapters of Matthew's Gospel, and melted the fount of Persian type. The Corresponding Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, for which it had been prepared, put it to press the second time at Serampore, from finer type, and it appeared in 1814 in an edition of 2,000 copies, on English paper. The demand for portions for immediate use was such that 3,000 copies of the Gospels and Acts, on Patna paper, had been previously struck off. The longing translator--who had once written, 'Oh, may I have the bliss of soon seeing the New Testament in Hindustani and Persian!'--had then been two years dead, but verily his works followed him. Such was the reputation of the version that it was read in the native schools at Agra and elsewhere; while an edition of 2,000 copies in the Deva-Nagri character, for Hindus, appeared in 1817, and was used up till a Hindi version was prepared from it by Mr. Bowley, the zealous agent of the Church Missionary Society at Chunar, by divesting it of the Persian and Arabic terms. Bishop Corrie's revision of this work and portions of the Old Testament were circulated in many editions and extending numbers, in the Kaithi character also, among the millions of Hindus who speak the most widespread of Indian languages with many dialects. The Bible Society in London welcomed Martyn's work, of which Professor Lee prepared a large edition. Learning that the lamented scholar had done some work on the Old Testament in Hindustani, and had taught Mirza Fitrut Hebrew, to enable that able moonshi to carry on the translation from the original, the Society first published Genesis in Hindustani, under Professor Lee's care, in 1817, and then issued a revision of the rough draft of the entire version of the Old Testament, by Bishop Corrie and Mr. Thomason. In 1843 Mr. Schürmann, of the London Missionary Society, and Mr. Justice Hawkins, an elder of the Free Church of Scotland and an accomplished Bengal civilian, issued a uniform revision of the Old and New Testaments in the Arabic and Roman characters, in the course of which Mr. Schürmann 'saw reason to revert in a great measure to the translation of Henry Martyn, especially in the latter half of the version.'[71] Of the different translations of the Bible into Hindustani, the Oordoo or 'camp' language understood by the sixty millions of Mussulmans in India, this criticism is just: 'the idiomatic and faithful version of Henry Martyn still maintains its ground, although, from the lofty elegance of its style, it is better understood by educated than by illiterate Mohammedans.'[72]

In the first generation, from 1814 to 1847, after the appearance of Henry Martyn's work, sixteen editions[73] of the Hindustani New Testament were published and sent into circulation among the then fifty millions of Mussulmans in India. Before Martyn's work was printed, he and Corrie used to dictate to inquirers translations of Bible passages suited to their needs. When Corrie was at Chunar, he tells us, because 'there was not at that time any translation of the Scriptures to put into his hands, a native Roman Catholic took down the translated texts on loose pieces of paper.' Years after, Mr. Wilkinson, of Gorakpore, was called to visit the man on his death-bed, and found him so well acquainted with Scripture that he asked an explanation. 'The poor man produced the loose slips of paper on which he had written my translations,' says Corrie. 'On these, it appeared, his soul had fed through life, and through them he died such a death that Mr. Wilkinson entertained no doubt of his having passed into glory.' In the forty years since the sixteen editions made the Word of God known to thousands of India Mussulmans, the Oordoo Bible has caused the Word to grow mightily, and in many cases to prevail.

The entire Bible in Hindustani was again revised, by Dr. R.C. Mather, after many years' experience in Benares and Mirzapore, and was published, in both the Arabic and Roman characters, in 1869, after continuous labour for more than six years. He stumbled, in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, on sixteen manuscript volumes of a Hindustani translation of nearly the whole Old Testament, beginning with Martyn's Genesis. The folios were interleaved, and on the blank pages were thousands of notes in English. At the end of the Pentateuch the copyist records that 'the above has been completed, by order of Paymaster Sherwood, for the Rev. Daniel Corrie, by me, Mákhdum Buksh.' The copy seems to have been the accomplished Thomason's, and to have been deposited in the library by his widow after his death at Port Louis, Mauritius. This practically complete translation of the Old Testament had been lost for forty years. The eulogy passed by Thomason on Martyn's Hindustani New Testament, that it 'will last as a model of elegant writing as well as of faithful translation,' is pronounced by Dr. Mather,[74] after all that time, as, 'in the main, just; the work has lasted and continued to be acceptable, and will perhaps always continue to be useful. All subsequent translators have, as a matter of course, proceeded upon it as a work of excellent skill and learning, and rigid fidelity.'

The modern Arabic translation of the New Testament, by Martyn and Sabat, was not printed (in Calcutta) till 1816, and the translation of the Old Testament was continued under the supervision of Mr. Thomason, who became virtually Martyn's literary executor, and whose labours as Oriental translator and editor hurried him, like his friend, to a premature death. Both had the same biographer--the good Sargent, Rector of Lavington. As Thomason toiled at the Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani editions, he wrote: 'I am filled with astonishment at the opening scenes of usefulness. Send us labourers--send us faithful laborious labourers!'[75] Martyn's Arabic New Testament, produced with the assistance of an undoubtedly learned Arab, as conceited and of temper as intolerable as Sabat, did its work among the 'learned and fastidious' Mohammedans for whom chiefly it was prepared. Professor Lee issued a second edition in London, and Mr. Thomason a third in Calcutta. In common with the old translations, made for the land in which St. Paul began the first missionary work, and reproduced in various Polyglot Bibles, it has been superseded by the wonderfully perfect and altogether beautiful Arabic Bible (Beirut) of Dr. Eli Smith and Dr. Van Dyck, on which these American scholars, assisted by learned natives of Syria and Cairo, were occupied for nearly thirty years. In the Beirut Arabic Scriptures, Henry Martyn's troubled life with Sabat found early and luxuriant fruit. How wisely and humbly the missionary chaplain of the East India Company estimated his own, and especially his Arabic, translations, and how at the same time he longed to live that he might do in 1812-20 what Eli Smith and Van Dyck did in 1837-65, may be seen from these early letters and journals:

TO THE REV. DAVID BROWN, CALCUTTA

Cawnpore: June 11, 1810.

Dearest Sir,--The excessive heat, by depriving me of my rest at
night, keeps me between sleeping and waking all day. This is one
reason why I have been remiss in answering your letters. It must
not, however, be concealed that the man Daniel Corrie has kept
me so long talking that I have had no time for writing since his
arrival.

Your idea about presenting splendid copies of the Scriptures to
native great men has often struck me, but my counsel is, not to
do it with the first edition. I have too little faith in the
instruments to believe that the first editions will be
excellent; and if they should be found defective, we cannot
after once presenting the great men with one book, repeat the
thing.

Before the second edition of the Arabic, what say you to my
carrying the first with me to Arabia, having under the other arm
the Persian, to be examined at Shiraz or Teheran? By the time
they are both ready I shall have nearly finished my seven years,
and may go on furlough.

I am glad to find you promising to give yourself wholly to your
plans. I always tremble lest Mrs. Brown should order you home;
but I must not suspect her, she has the soul of a missionary. If
you go soon we shall all droop and die. Your Polyglot
speculations are fine, but Polyglots are Biblical luxuries,
intended for the gratification of men of two tongues or more. We
must first feed those that have but one, especially as single
tongues are growing upon us so fast.

_June 12._--To-day I have requested the Commander of the forces
to detain D. Corrie here to assist me; he said he did not like
to make innovations, but would keep him here for two or three
months. This will be a great relief to my labouring chest, for I
am still far from being out of the fear of consumption. Tell me
that you have prayed for me.

Yours, etc. H.M.

_August 22._--I want silence and diversion, a little dog to play
with; or what would be best of all, a dear little child, such as
Fanny was when I left her. Perhaps you could learn when the
ships usually sail for Mocha. I have set my heart upon going
there; I could be there and back in six months.

_September 8._--Your tide rolls on with terrifying rapidity, at
least I tremble while committing myself to it. You look to me,
and I to Sabat; and Sabat I look upon as the staff of Egypt. May
I prove mistaken! All, however, does not depend upon him. If my
life is spared, there is no reason why the Arabic should not be
done in Arabia, and the Persian in Persia, as well as the Indian
in India. I hope your Shalome has not left you. I promise myself
great advantage in reading Hebrew and Syriac with him.

_September 9._--Yours of the 27th ult. is a heart-breaking
business. Though I share so deeply in Sabat's disgrace, I feel
more for you than myself, but I can give you no comfort except
by saying, 'It is well that it was in thine heart.' Your letter
will give a new turn to my life. Henceforward I have done with
India. Arabia shall hide me till I come forth with an approved
New Testament in Arabic. I do not ask your advice, because I
have made up my mind, but shall just wait your answer to this,
and come down to you instantly. I have been calculating upon the
means of support, and find that I shall have wherewithal to
live. Besides, the Lord will provide. Before Him I have spread
this affair, and do not feel that I shall be acting contrary to
His will.... Will Government let me go away for three years
before the time of my furlough arrives? If not, I must quit the
service, and I cannot devote my life to a more important work
than that of preparing the Arabic Bible.

Herewith you will receive the first seven chapters in Persian
and Hindustani, though I suppose you have ceased to wish for
them. The Persian will only prove that Sabat is not the man for
it. I have protested against many things in it, but instead of
sending you my objections I inclose a critique by Mirza, who
must remain unknown. I am somewhat inclined to think the Arabic
not quite so hopeless. Sabat is confident, and eager to meet his
opponents. His version of the Romans was certainly not from the
old one, because he translated it all before my face from the
English; but then, as I hinted long ago, he is inaccurate and
not to be depended upon. He entirely approves of my going to
Busrah with his translations, and the old one, confident that
the decision there will be in his favour. Dear Sir, take
measures for transmitting me with the least possible delay;
detain me not, for the King's business requires haste.

The King sent His eager servant to Persia, and did not give him the desire of his heart to enter Arabia. Truly he hastened so unrestingly that the Spirit of God led him to complete the Persian New Testament, and then carried him away from the many tongues of mortal men, which as they sprang from disunion, so they are to 'cease' in the one speech of the multitudes of every nation and kindred and tribe and tongue who sing the new song.

The following letter to Charles Simeon, the original of which was presented by his biographer, Canon Carus, to Canon Moor, who permits it to be published here for the first time, fitly introduces Henry Martyn's translation used in Persia. Simeon received it on January 21, 1812, and thus wrote of it to Thomason:

From whom, think you, did I receive a letter yesterday? From our
beloved Martyn in Persia. He begins to find his strength
improve, and he is 'disputing daily' with the learned, who, he
says, are extremely subtile. They are not a little afraid of
him, and are going to write a book on the evidences of their
religion. The evidences of Mohammedanism! A fine comparison they
will make with those of Christianity. Oh, that God may endue our
brother with wisdom and strength to execute all that is in his
heart. He is desirous of spending two years in Persia, and is
willing to sacrifice his salary if the East India Company will
not give him leave. I am going in an hour to Mr. Grant to
consult him, and shall call on Mr. Astell if Mr. Grant thinks it
expedient.

TO REV. C. SIMEON

Shiraz: July 8, 1811.

My dearest Friend and Brother,--My last letter to you was from
Bombay. I sailed thence on March 25, in the Company's corvette,
the Benares. As the ship was manned principally by Europeans, I
had a good deal to do during the voyage, but through the mercy
of our Heavenly Father I was so far from suffering that I rather
gained strength, and am now apparently as well as ever I was. On
Easter day we made the coast of Mekran, in Persia, and on the
Sunday following landed at Muscat, in Arabia. Here I met with an
African slave, who tried hard to persuade me that I was in the
wrong and he in the right. The dispute ended in his asking for
an Arabic Testament, which I gave him. We were about a month in
the Persian Gulf, generally in sight of land. At last, on May
22, I was set down at Bushire, in Persia, and was kindly
received by the English Resident. One day I went to the Armenian
church, at the request of the priest, not expecting to see
anything like Christian worship, and accordingly I did not. The
Word of God was read, indeed, but in such a way that no man
could have understood it. After church he desired me to notice
that he had censed me _four_ times because I was a priest. This
will give you an idea of their excessive childishness. I took
occasion from his remark to speak about the priest's office, and
the awful importance of it. Nothing can be conceived more vapid
and inane than his observations.

As soon as my Persian dress was ready, I set off for the
interior in a kafila, or small caravan, consisting chiefly of
mules, and after a very fatiguing journey of ten days over the
mountains, during which time the difference in the thermometer
by day and night was often sixty degrees, I arrived at this
place about a month ago.

I had no intention of making any stay here, but I found, on my
producing Sabat's Persian translation, that I must sit down with
native Persians to begin the work once more. The fault found
with Sabat's work is that he uses words not only so difficult as
to be unintelligible to the generality, but such as never were
in use in the Persian.

When it is considered that the issue of all disputes with the
Mohammedans is a reference to the Scriptures, and that the
Persian and Arabic are known all over the Mohammedan world, it
will be evident that we ought to spare no pains in obtaining
good versions in these languages. Hence I look upon my staying
here for a time as a duty paramount to every other, and I trust
that the Government in India will look upon it in the same
light. If they should stop my pay, it would not alter my purpose
in the least, but it would be an inconvenience. I should be
happy, therefore, if the Court of Directors would sanction my
residence in these parts for a year or two. No one who has been
in Persia will imagine that I am here for my own pleasure. India
is a paradise to it. All is poverty and desolation without, and
within I have no comfort but in my God. I am in the midst of
enemies, who argue against the truth, sometimes with uncommon
subtlety. But I pray for the fulfilment of the Lord's promise,
and I am assured that He will be with me and give me a mouth and
a wisdom, which all my adversaries shall not be able to gainsay
or resist. I am sometimes asked whether I am not afraid to speak
so boldly against the Mohammedan religion. I tell them if I say
or do anything against the laws I am not unwilling to suffer,
but if I say nothing but what naturally comes in the course of
argument--it is an argument too which you yourselves began--why
should I fear? You know the power of the English too well to
suppose that they would let any violence be offered to me with
impunity.

The English ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley, whom I met here on
his way to Tabreez, carried me with him to the court of the
prince, who, though tributary to his father, is a sovereign
prince in Elam, as the S. Scriptures call the province of Fars.
He has also recommended me to the prince's favourite minister,
so that I am in no danger. But there is certainly a great stir
among the learned, and every effort is made to support their
cause. They have now persuaded the father of all the moollas to
write a book in Arabic on the evidences of the Mohammedan
religion, a book which is to silence me for ever. I rather
suppose that the more their cause is examined the worse it will
appear.

I have had no news from India these four months, so I can say
nothing of our friends there. Let your next letters be sent not
to India, but direct to Persia, in this way: Rev. H.M., care of
Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart., Ambassador Extraordinary, etc.,
_Teheran_; care of S. Morier, Esq., _Constantinople_; care of
George Moore, Esq., _Malta_. My kindest love to all your dear
people, Messrs. Bowman and Goodall, Farish, Port, Phillips, etc.
I hope they continue to remember me once a week in their
prayers; to the _four godly professors_;[76] to your young men
though to me unknown, and especially to your brother. Believe me
to be yours ever most affectionately,

H. MARTYN.

_1812, January 1_ to _8_.--Spared by mercy to see the beginning
of another year. The last has been in some respects a memorable
year; transported in safety to Shiraz, I have been led, by the
particular providence of God, to undertake a work the idea of
which never entered my mind till my arrival here, but which has
gone on without material interruption and is now nearly
finished. To all appearance the present year will be more
perilous than any I have seen, but if I live to complete the
Persian New Testament, my life after that will be of less
importance. But whether life or death be mine, may Christ be
magnified in me. If He has work for me to do, I cannot die.

He had just before written this pathetic letter, of exquisite friendliness:

TO THE REV. D. CORRIE

Shiraz: December 12, 1811.

Dearest Brother,--Your letters of January 28 and April 22 have
just reached me. After being a whole year without any tidings of
you, you may conceive how much they have tended to revive my
spirits. Indeed, I know not how to be sufficiently thankful to
our God and Father for giving me a brother who is indeed a
brother to my soul, and thus follows me with affectionate
prayers wherever I go, and more than supplies my place to the
precious flock over whom the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers.
There is only one thing in your letters that makes me uneasy,
and that is, the oppression you complain of in the hot weather.
As you will have to pass another hot season at Cawnpore, and I
do not know how many more, I must again urge you to spare
yourself. I am endeavouring to learn the true use of time in a
new way, by placing myself in idea twenty or thirty years in
advance, and then considering how I ought to have managed twenty
or thirty years ago. In racing violently for a year or two, and
then breaking down? In this way I have reasoned myself into
contentment about staying so long at Shiraz. I thought at first,
what will the Government in India think of my being away so
long, or what will my friends think? Shall I not appear to all a
wandering shepherd, leaving the flock and running about for my
own pleasure! But placing myself twenty years on in time, I say,
Why could not I stay at Shiraz long enough to get a New
Testament done there, even if I had been detained there on that
account three or six years? What work of equal importance can
ever come from me? So that now I am resolved to wait here till
the New Testament is finished, though I incur the displeasure of
Government, or even be dismissed the service. I have been many
times on the eve of my departure, as my translator promised to
accompany me to Baghdad, but that city being in great confusion
he is afraid to trust himself there; so I resolved to go
westward through the north of Persia, but found it impossible,
on account of the snow which blocks up the roads in winter, to
proceed till spring. Here I am therefore, for three months more;
our Testament will be finished, please God, in six weeks. I go
on as usual, riding round the walls in the morning, and singing
hymns at night over my milk and water, for tea I have none,
though I much want it. I am with you in spirit almost every
evening, and feel a bliss I cannot describe in being one with
the dear saints of God all over the earth, through one Lord and
one Spirit.

They continued throwing stones at me every day, till happening
one day to tell Jaffir Ali Khan, my host, how one as big as my
fist had hit me in the back, he wrote to the Governor, who sent
an order to all the gates, that if any one insulted me he should
be bastinadoed, and the next day came himself in state to pay me
a visit. These measures have had the desired effect; they now
call me the Feringhi Nabob, and very civilly offer me the
kalean; but indeed the Persian commonalty are very brutes; the
Soofis declare themselves unable to account for the fierceness
of their countrymen, except it be from the influence of Islam.
After speaking in my praise one of them added 'and there are the
Hindus too (who have brought the guns), when I saw their
gentleness I was quite charmed with them; but as for our
Iranees, they delight in nothing but tormenting their fellow
creatures.' These Soofis are quite the Methodists of the East.
They delight in everything Christian, except in being exclusive.
They consider that all will finally return to God, from whom
they emanated, or rather of whom they are only different forms.
The doctrine of the Trinity they admired, but not the atonement,
because the Mohammedans, they say, consider Imam Husain as also
crucified for the sins of men; and to everything Mohammedan they
have a particular aversion. Yet withal they conform externally.
From these, however, you will perceive the first Persian Church
will be formed, judging after the manner of men. The employment
of my leisure hours is translating the Psalms into Persian. What
will poor Fitrut do when he gets to the poetical books? Job, I
hope, you have let him pass over. The Books of Solomon are also
in a very sorry condition in the English. The Prophets are all
much easier, and consequently better done. I hear there is a man
at Yezd that has fallen into the same way of thinking as myself
about the letters, and professes to have found out all the arts
and sciences from them. I should be glad to compare notes with
him. It is now time for me to bid you good night. We have had
ice on the pools some time, but no snow yet. They build their
houses without chimneys, so if we want a fire we must take the
smoke along with it. I prefer wrapping myself in my sheepskin.

Your accounts of the progress of the kingdom of God among you
are truly refreshing. Tell dear H. and the men of both regiments
that I salute them much in the Lord, and make mention of them in
my prayers. May I continue to hear thus of their state, and if I
am spared to see them again, may we make it evident that we have
grown in grace. Affectionate remembrances to your sister and
Sherwoods; I hope they continue to prosecute their labours of
love. Remember me to the people of Cawnpore who inquire, etc.
Why have not I mentioned Col. P.? It is not because he is not in
my heart, for there is hardly a man in the world whom I love and
honour more. My most Christian salutations to him.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit,
dearest brother. Yours affectionately,

H. MARTYN.

Martyn's Cambridge Persian studies were continued for practical Hindustani purposes at Dinapore, in 1809, and the following incident unconsciously lights up his Persian scholarship at that date. Writing to the impatient David Brown at Aldeen, from Patna, on March 28, he says:

You chide me for not trusting my Hindustani to the press. Last
week we began the correction of it; present, a Sayyid of Delhi,
a poet of Lucknow, three or four literates of Patna, and Baba
Ali in the chair; Sabat and myself assessors.

I was amazed and mortified at observing that reference was had
to the Persian for every verse, in order to understand the
Hindustani. It was, however, a consolation to find that from the
Persian they caught the meaning of it instantly, always
expressing their admiration of the plainness of their
translation.

But when the Persian translation of the four Gospels was printed at Serampore, nearly two years after, Martyn himself was dissatisfied with it. His Cawnpore and especially Lucknow experience had developed him in Persian style, and led him to see that in Persia itself only could the great work be done of translating the Word of God into a language spoken and read from Calcutta and Patna to Damascus and Tabreez.