Henry Martyn

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This article is about the Anglican missionary. For the English cricketer, see Henry Martyn (cricketer). For the economist, see Henry Martyn (economist). For other people of a similar name, see Henry Martin (disambiguation).

Henry Martyn
Missionary to India and Persia
Translator of the Scriptures
Born(1781-02-18)18 February 1781
Truro, Cornwall, England
Died16 October 1812(1812-10-16) (aged 31)
Tokat, Ottoman Empire
Venerated inAnglican Communion
Feast19 October

Henry Martyn (18 February 1781 – 16 October 1812) was an

British East India Company
.

Martyn arrived in India in April 1806, where he preached and occupied himself in the study of linguistics. He translated the whole of the

Isfahan, and Tabriz
.

Martyn was seized with fever, and, though the plague was raging at

Lesser Festival on 19 October. Martyn's papers and private letters are held at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide
at Westminster College in Cambridge, England.

Early life

Martyn was born in

Truro, Cornwall, on 18 February 1781.[2] His father, John Martyn, was a "captain" or mine-agent at Gwennap. As a boy, he was educated at Truro grammar school under Dr. Cardew and he entered St John's College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1797, and was senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman in 1801. In 1802, he was chosen as a fellow of his college.[3]

He had intended to go to the bar, but in the October term of 1802 he chanced to hear

missionary, William Carey, and some time afterwards he read the life of David Brainerd, a missionary to the Native Americans. He resolved, accordingly, to become a missionary himself. On 22 October 1803, he was ordained deacon at Ely, and afterwards priest, and served as Simeon's curate at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, taking charge of the Cambridgeshire parish of Lolworth.[3]

Missionary work

Martyn wanted to offer his services to the

British East India Company and left for India on 5 July 1805.[3] On his voyage to the East, Martyn happened to be present at the British conquest of the Cape Colony on 8 January 1806. He spent that day tending to the dying soldiers and was distressed by seeing the horrors of war. He would come away feeling that it was Britain's destiny to convert, not colonize, the world.[5]
He wrote in his diary:

I prayed that…England whilst she sent the thunder of her arms to distant regions of the globe, might not remain proud and ungodly at home; but might show herself great indeed, by sending forth the ministers of her church to diffuse the gospel of peace.

— McManners 2001, p. 457

India

Martyn arrived in India in April 1806, and for some months he was stationed at Aldeen, near

Cawnpore, where he preached to British and Indians in his own compound, in spite of interruptions and threats from local non-Christians.[4]

He occupied himself in linguistic study, and had already, during his residence at Dinapur, been engaged in revising the sheets of his

Bombay. The ship reached port on his thirtieth birthday.[6]

Final voyage and death

From Bombay he set out for

Isfahan. After an exhausting journey from the coast he reached Shiraz, and was soon plunged into discussion with the disputants of all classes, "Sufi, Muslim, Jew, and Jewish Muslim, even Armenian, all anxious to test their powers of argument with the first English priest who had visited them."[7] He next traveled to Tabriz to attempt to present the Shah with his translation of the New Testament, which proved unsuccessful. Sir Gore Ouseley
, the British ambassador to the Shah, was unable to bring about a meeting, but did deliver the manuscript. Although Martyn could not present the Bible in person, the Shah later wrote him a letter:

In truth (said the royal letter of thanks to the ambassador) through the learned and unremitted exertions of the Reverend Henry Martyn it has been translated in a style most befitting sacred books, that is in an easy and simple diction...The whole of the New Testament is completed in a most excellent manner, a source of pleasure to our enlightened and august mind.

— Padwick 1925, p. 285

At this time, he was seized with fever, and after a temporary recovery, had to seek a change of climate. He set off for

Tatar guide, they rode from Tabriz to Erivan, from Erivan to Kars, and from Kars to Erzurum. They departed Erzurum and though the plague was raging at Tokat
, he was forced to stop there, unable to continue. He wrote his final journal entry on 6 October. It read, in part:

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.

— Wilberforce 1837

On 16 October 1812 he died and was given a Christian burial by Armenian clergy.[3]

He was heard to say, "Let me burn out for God". An indication of his zeal for the things of God.[citation needed]

Legacy

His devotion to his tasks won him much admiration in Great Britain and he was the hero of a number of literary publications.

Thomas Babington Macaulay
's Epitaph, composed early in 1813, testified to the impression made by his career:

Here Martyn lies. In Manhood's early bloom
The Christian Hero finds a Pagan tomb.
Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son,
Points to the glorious trophies that he won.
Eternal trophies! not with carnage red,
Not stained with tears by hapless captives shed,
But trophies of the Cross! for that dear name,
Through every form of danger, death, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to a happier shore,
Where danger, death, and shame assault no more.

An institution was established in his name in India, called the Henry Martyn Institute: An Interfaith Centre for Reconciliation and Research, Hyderabad, India.

Episcopal Church on 19 October.[8][3][9]

In 1881, on the centennial of Martyn's birth, a trust was created in his name for the purpose of constructing a hall for a library and a place for public lecture on missions. The Henry Martyn Library opened in the Hall in 1898, and there it remained as a small collection of missionary biographies and other books until 1995. The evolution of the Henry Martyn Library into the present Henry Martyn Centre began in 1992, when Canon Graham Kings was appointed as the first Henry Martyn Lecturer in Missiology in the Cambridge Theological Federation.[10] In 2014 the Henry Martyn Centre was renamed the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Martyn, Henry (MRTN797H)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. ^ Hughes 1988, p. 75.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Cross & Livingstone 1997, p. 1046.
  4. ^ a b c Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Martyn, Henry" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 36. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  5. ^ a b McManners 2001, p. 457.
  6. ^ a b Wilberforce 1837.
  7. ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Martyn, Henry" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 804.
  8. ^ "The Calendar". The Church of England. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  9. ISBN 978-1-64065-235-4
    .
  10. ^ Cameron 2019, p. 44.

Sources

Further reading

  • Ayler, Scott D., ed. (2019). The Letters of Henry Martyn, East India Company Chaplain. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
  • Bentley-Taylor, David. My Love Must Wait: the Story of Henry Martyn, Downers Grove: IVP (1975).
  • Henry, B. V. Forsaking All for Christ: A Biography of Henry Martyn London: Chapter Two, 2003.
  • Sargent, John. Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn B. D., London: Hatchard (1816). Links to editions from 1820 and 1844
  • Kellsye M. Finnie, Beyond the Minarets: A Biography of Henry Martyn Bromley: STL Books, 1988
  • Smith, George. Henry Martyn, Saint and Scholar, London: Religious Tract Society (1892).
  • Isaac, Peter. A history of Evangelical Christianity in Cornwall, Privately published; Polperro, Cornwall (1999) – contains a chapter about Martyn, who was born in Cornwall.

External links


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