my heart, my heart," he exclaimed, "is it, can it be, true, that she has been lying so many months in the cold grave! would that I could always remember it, or always forget it, but to think for a moment of other things, and then to feel the remembrance of it come, as if for the first time rends my heart asunder. When I look round upon the creation, and think that her eyes see it not, but have closed upon it for ever, that I lie down in my bed, but that she has lain down in her grave, O! is it possible! I wonder to find myself still in life-that the same tie that united us in life, had not brought death at the same moment to both. O great and gracious God! what should I do without Thee! But w 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 I long to take my flight. There is not a thing in the world for which I could wish to live, except because it may please God to appoint me some work. And how shall my soul be ever thankful enough to thee, O thou most incomprehensibly glorious Saviour Jesus! O what bast 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."

Mr. Martyn's mind, under this painful deprivation, was comforted exceedingly by a sure and certain hope, as it respected her, for whom he mourned. The delightful expectation of meeting her in glory, which he has now realized, was one powerful support to his heart, then overwhelmed within him: for the letter which contained the account of his loss, left him happily no room to doubt of his sister's eternal gain, and that, through the grave and gate of death, she had passed into the consummation of bliss, in the eternal and everlasting kingdom of Christ.

"The European letter," he wrote 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 one another, 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 sought in earnest for salvation. Some weeks before her death she felt the burthen 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, 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 wo, while her sister was visiting a dying friend at a distance. This you will tell me, my dear Mr. Brown, 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 after that, 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.”

Acutely as Mr. Martyn suffered, such importance did he attach to those studies which had in view, the manifestation of the Gospel to regions "sitting in darkness and the shadow of death," that he omitted the

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prosecution of them, at this period, only for a single day. It was a duty, he thought, incumbent on him to return to his work, as soon as possible, however heavily his mind might be burthened, for his expressions many days afterward declare into what depths of grief he was sunk. "My heart," said he, "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 hereby brought 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! My studies have been the Arabic Grammar and Persian-writing Luke for the women, and dictating 1 Pet. i. to Moonshee. Finished the Gulistan of Sadi, and began it again to mark all the phrases which may be of use in the translation of the Scriptures."

One fruit of Mr. Martyn's prayers and result of his prudence was the successful introduction, shortly after this, of the sermon on the Mount, into his schools, and on the 21st of September he had the exquisite joy of hearing the poor Heathen boys reading the words of the Lord Jesus. "A wise man's heart," says Solomon, "discerneth both time and judgment." It was in this spirit of patient and dependent wisdom, that Mr. Martyn had acted respecting the schools, and it was the same rare temper of mind which prevailed on him still to abstain from preaching publicly to the natives again and again did he burn to begin his ministry in Patna-but again and again did he feel deeply the importance of not being precipitate: it was not however without much difficulty, that he checked the ardour of his zeal. He was determined to see what the institution of schools, and the quiet distribution of the Scriptures would effect, and was convinced, that public preaching at first, was incompatible with this

plan of procedure, whereas it was clear that a way would thus be opened for preaching, of which object he never lost sight. It was this which made him re sist the solicitations of those friends, who would have detained him at Calcutta; and this it was which now occasioned him to decline a very pressing invitation from Mr. Brown, urging him to take the Missionary Church at the Presidency. But Dinapore was in the midst of the Heathen, and Dinapore further was a scene of tranquil retirement. Those two considerations caused Mr. Martyn to refuse to comply with the very earnest desire of one whom he entirely esteemed and loved. "If ever I am fixed at Calcutta," he wrote in reply, "I have done with the natives, for notwithstanding previous determinations, the churches and people at Calcutta are enough to employ twenty ministers. This is one reason for my apparently unconquerable aversion to being fixed there. The happiness of being near and with you, and your dear family, would not be a compensation for the disappointment; and having said this, I know of no stronger method of my expressing my dislike to the measure. If God commands it, I trust I shall have grace to obey: but let me beseech you all, to take no step towards it, for I shall resist it as long as I can with a safe conscience."

"I am happier here in this remote land," he wrote in his Journal," where I hear so seldom of what happens in the world, than in England, where there are so many calls to look at the things that are seen. How sweet the retirement in which I live here! The precious word, now my only study by means of translations. Though in a manner buried from the world, neither seeing nor seen by Europeans, here the time flows on 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

more instruments at command, and I shall not cease from my happiness, and scarcely from my work, by departing into another world. O what shall separate us from the love of Christ! neither death nor life, I am persuaded. Olet 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 O 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; or consider my true happiness, as depending, in the smallest degree, on any thing that can befall the 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.

Mr. Martyn's spirits being much depressed by his recent affliction, an invitation, or rather entreaty, strongly pressed upon him by one, who had a great share in his affection and esteem, which called, as he conceived, for a direct and firm rejection, could not but be a matter of some trial to him. He had not, however, the additional pain of witnessing the slightest variation in his friend's attachment: a circumstance, which does not always occur on similar occasions: for the fondness even of Christian friendship will sometimes suffer an interruption upon a disagreement respecting favourite projects and designs.

To this perturbation of mind, comparatively light, a very severe disappointment from another quarter succeeded a disappointment intended, doubtless, like his other troubles, for the augmentation of his faith. Such strong representations had been made by those whose judgment he valued not a little, respecting the dreariness of a distant station in India, and the evils of solitude, that he had deemed it agreeable to the will of God, to make an overture of marriage to her, for whom time had increased, rather than diminished his