Martyn, Henry

MARTYN, HENRY: English missionary; b. at Truro (10 m. n.e. of Falmouth), Cornwall, Feb. 18, 1781; d. at Tokat (58 m. n.w. of Sivas), Asia Minor, Oct. 16, 1812. His father, who had been a miner, rose to a place of comparative ease as chief clerk in a store, and was able to send his son to the grammar-school, which he attended from 1-788 till 1797, when he entered St. John's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1801; M.A., 1804; B.D., 1805), and became senior wrangler in 1801. In 1802 he was chosen fellow of St. John's College, taking the first prize in Latin prose composition. His college subsequently elected him twice public examiner. In 1802 Martyn formed the resolution of devoting his life to missionary labors. To this state of mind he had been brought, in past, by the perusal of the biography and diary of David Brainerd. He offered himself to the Society for Missions to Africa and the East; but, suffering from pecuniary losses which gave him some anxiety about the support of a sister, he ultimately went to India as a chaplain of the East India Company. He had served from 1803 as the curate of Charles Simeon at Cambridge; and July 17, 1805, he sailed for his new home.

He arrived at Calcutta in April, 1806. The impression made upon his mind by idolatry was most painful. He wrote of seeing natives bow before a hideous image: " I shivered as if standing, as it were, in the neighborhood of hell." He did not go to his station, Dinapur, till October, remaining in the mean time at Calcutta. His tolerant Christian spirit was displayed in the cordial friendship which sprang up between himself and the Serampore missionaries. In 1806 Carey wrote, " A young clergyman, Mr. Martyn, is lately arrived, who is possessed of a truly missionary spirit . . . . We take sweet counsel together, and go to the house of God as friends" (Marshman's Life of Corey, i. p. 246). In Apr., 1809, Marlyn was transferred to Cawnpur. In addition to his labors among the soldiers and English residents, he preached to the natives, and prepared translations in the vernacular. Endowed with rare linguistic talents, he speedily became fluent in the Hindustani; and his preaching was so attractive that, at the time failing health obliged him to quit Cawnpur, he had as many as eight hundred in his audiences.

Martyn's most permanent influence was exerted through his translations. He had by Feb. 24, 1807, completed a translation of a part of the Book of Common Prayer into the vernacular (Calcutta, 1814), and in March, 1808, he completed a Hindustani version of the New Testament (Serampore, 1814). At the urgency of his friends, he also undertook the supervision of a Persian version.of the New Testament. In this task he was less successful, and his version was referred back to him for revision. Never strong, his health gave way in 1810; so that he determined to take a trip to England in the hope of restoring it, when the rejection of his Persian version induced him to take a journey to Persia, for recreation and the revision of the version. Starting

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in Jan. 1811, Martyn reached Shiraz, where he not only finished the Persian New Testament (St. Petersburg, 1815; revision, Calcutta, 1816), but made a Persian version of the Psalms (London, 1824). His learning and skill in disputing with the Mohammedans awakened a sensation in the city and aroused the professor of Mohammedan law to engage in a public dispute with him. The professor followed the discussion up with a tract in defense of Mohammedanism, to which Martyn replied in defense of Christianity. Anxious to present a copy of the New Testament to the Shah of Persia, Martyn directed his steps to Tabriz to secure a letter of introduction from the British minister, Sir Gore Ouseley. On this journey his body was racked with fever and chills, and he barely escaped with his life. In Tabriz he likewise engaged in animated discussion with the Mohammedans, risking his life by the fearless confession of Christ as the Son of God. He failed to put his Testament into the hands of the Persian monarch, but left it with Sir Gore, who did it for him, and afterward saw it through the press. Martyn then turned his horse's head toward Constantinople, fifteen hundred miles away. Fever and ague were racking his system, but with unflagging patience the sufferer pushed on. He got no further than Tokat. His body rests in the Armenian cemetery there. In addition to the translations mentioned above there have appeared: Sermons of Henry Martyn (Calcutta, 1822); Controversial Tracts on Mohammedanism and Christianity (Cambridge, 1824); and his Journals and Letters (ed. S. Wilberforce, 2 vols., London, 1837).

D. S. Schaff.

Bibliography: Lives have been written by J. Sargent (Life and Letters), London, 1819, new ed., 1885; Mary Seeley (in Later Evangelical Fathers), ib. 1879; C. D. Bell, ib. 1880; J. Page, New York, 1890; G. Smith, London, 1892.