himself with his Hindoostanee translation of the New Testament. He also took every opportunity to discourse with the native inhabitants of the places on the banks of the river wherever they halted. At Berhampore, a European cantonment, he found one hundred and fifty soldiers in the hospital, to whom he spake a word of consolation and advice, and left them some books to read.

11. He arrived at Dinapore on the 26th of Novem- State of Europeans ber, where his first duty was with the Europeans, at Dinawho consisted of the military in the cantonment, pore. and the civil servants of Government at Bankipore, in the neighbourhood; but for some time he had very little encouragement from any of them. As none of the civilians came to Church, he proposed to go out and perform service at their own place of residence; but they declined his offer. Of the military, also, very few officers or their families attended Church: they were too much taken up with dissipation in various forms to attend to the sacred duties of religion. He mentions, as the solitary exception to the general character of society, the respect shown to religion by the commanding officer of the native corps and his lady. He had reason to hope that they were in earnest, and he had much comfort in his intercourse with them. For some time they were the only persons who could sympathize with him in his trials.

12. Though neglected by the officers, among the Company of religious privates he was not without encouragement. In soldiers. general, indeed, their insolence and ill-manners were a great trial to his gentle spirit, and their ungodliness caused him to weep and pray for them to his Father in secret; yet a little company of them, besides

(5) This account is drawn up from the first three of Mr. Martyn's communications in manuscript, to his brethren, dated April 6,

I.

CHAP. attending the public ordinances of the Church, were accustomed to meet at his quarters for instruction and prayer. One of these he describes with great satisfaction. This man's comrades did all they could to turn him back, some by ridicule, others by abuse and ill-treatment, and others by endeavouring to shake his faith in the Scriptures; but, though a man of few words, he stood his ground, and even diligently exerted himself to gather others to the little company that attended Mr. Martyn's private assemblies. These seasons of social worship were some of Martyn's happiest moments. "I have often wondered," he wrote, "how the company of these poor men can prove so animating. Blessed be the Prince of Peace, the source of our joys, who remembers His promise, and, where two or three are gathered together in His name, comes to meet them."2

Native
Schools.

13. Besides these his proper duties, Mr. Martyn's attention was directed to the Natives, for whom he proposed to establish Schools3; and in the course of a few months he had opened five, solely at his own expense, at Dinapore, Bankipore, Patna, and Monea. The introduction of these Free Schools soon awakened the jealousy of the country Schoolmasters, who spread a report that it was intended to make the

(') In his second communication to his brethren.

(2) Ibid. At Patna Mr. Martyn had the severe pain of beholding a servant of the Company, a man advanced in years, and occupying a situation of great respectability, living in a state of daring apostasy from the Christian faith, and openly professing his preference for Mahomedanism. He had even built a mosque of his own, which at this season, the festival of the Mohurrum, was adorned with flags; and being illuminated at night, it proclaimed the shame of the offender. Mr. Martyn did not fail to sound a warning in the ears of this miserable apostate, charging him to remember whence he was fallen, and exhorting him to consider that the Son of God had died for sinners.-Memoir, p. 240.

(3) Memoir, p. 219.

children Christians, and send them to Europe. Consequently, some children were withdrawn. On a little remonstrance, however, the parents were satisfied, and the children returned. The Schools then increased, and before the end of the first year they contained, together, one hundred and sixty scholars.1

At first Mr. Martyn was doubtful what books to teach the children. Considering the suspicion of his designs that had been awakened in some of their parents, he deemed it advisable to allow the masters to use some of their own books, for the present, of which he approved. Meanwhile, he was preparing our Lord's Parables and Sermon on the Mount, in Hindoostanee, which, ere long, he was able to put into the hands of the scholars.

Service in

14. While Mr. Martyn was preparing to preach to Public the Natives in Hindoostanee, he translated a suffi- Hindocient portion of the Book of Common Prayer into stanee. that language, for the purpose of Public Worship. He then, in March 1807, about four months after his arrival at Dinapore, obtained the permission of the Commandant to make a beginning with the native wives of the soldiers, who belonged to the Roman Church. At first, all the women, to the number of about two hundred, came together willingly, and continued to assemble for some time. At length, however, their numbers gradually melted away, until they were reduced to fifty, which continued to be the usual attendance; and as these were "generally the same fifty," said Martyn, "it is to be hoped that they have a desire to learn." Various causes were assigned for the withdrawal of the rest. "But the real state of the case is," said Martyn, "that the Devil's religions are still the favourites.

(*) Memoir, pp. 239, 240. Also Mr. Martyn's third communication to his brethren, and a Letter in Manuscript to the Rev. Dr. Kerr of Madras, November 11, 1807.

I.

CHAP. They went in crowds to the last Mohurrum, even these Christian women; and many of them give their husbands' money to the Brahmins for the benefit of their prayers. In our service there is nothing to take the eye or ear; and the worship of God without finery and music has, alas! no attraction for the carnal mind. Yet the promises of God respecting the success of His Word, wherever it is sent, command us to hope that some even of these will choose religion in her naked severity." He took great pains to make them understand him, and persevered in faith and hope.

State of the Ro

sions.

15. The wretched state of these women led him to mish Mis- inquire further into the condition of the Romish Missions in that part of the country. Hearing that there were large bodies of these Christians at Narwa, in the Mahratta dominions, and at several places to the north of Dinapore, within the East-India Company's territories, he drew up a Latin Letter, proposing certain queries relating to the origin and present state of the Roman Church in those parts, which he sent to the Romish Missionaries round him. From the Prefect of the Mogul Mission he learned, that, at Delhi, there were thirty widows, some children, and two or three families of Natives; but that, through the negligence of the Padre there, they were rather Mahomedans than Christians, and never met for worship. At Sardhana there were more than three hundred in the service of the Begum Somru3, consisting of about forty Europeans-French,

() Memoir, pp. 240, 241. Communications to his brethren. (2) Journals and Letters. Vol. i. pp. 520, 521, 524. (3) This was the widow of the notorious Walter Reinhard, called by the Natives Samaru, or Somru. After serving as a private in several armies, and being employed in the massacre of the English prisoners at Patna, he died in the service of Najaf Khan in 1778, from whom he received the perganah or territory of Sardhana. After his decease, the perganah was continued to his

widow,

Portuguese, English, and Germans. The rest were Natives, chiefly children of European fathers. At Arver there was a family of these Christians, and three or four Natives, in the service of the Rajah. At Gwalior there was one family, at Jypoor, a hundred individuals, mostly in the Rajah's army.*

Such were the vaunted multitudes of Romanists in this neighbourhood! And often do we find the thousands of which they boast reduced, upon inquiry, to hundreds. Seeing that those around him were sunk into a condition of equal ignorance and wickedness with the Heathen, Mr. Martyn was excited to a peculiar sympathy and anxiety in their behalf; and he made an offer to those at Patna to go and preach the Gospel to them on Sundays; but the proposal was rejected. He mourned, also, over the ignorance and superstition of the soldiers of that fallen Church, who refused all his offers of instruction. "The men are fast dying in the hospital," he wrote; "yet they would rather be sent to Patna for some holy oil, than hear the Word of Eternal Life.""

with a

16. His interest in behalf of these people brought Interview him into communication with a priest in the neigh- Romish bourhood, whom he describes in his correspondence Missiowith a friend. After mentioning a singular inter- nary. view with a "Mussulman Lord," he adds-" Now for Antichrist in another shape--the Popish Padre, Julius Cæsar. I asked him whether the doctrine I had heard from the Franciscan Brethren in America was his Extra Ecclesiam Romanam salus non esse potest.' He said that it was a question on which

widow, a Mogul woman of a needy but high family. She became a nominal Christian; was a woman of great ability and courage; but a cruel tyrant in her little territory, where she had the power of life and death.-Indian Orphans, pp. 178-180.

(1) Second communication to his brethren.

(5) Memoir, p. 285.

(") Ibid. p. 303.