for which I felt that I was now educating.'

Zong

shed tears.

Aga Boo

"A Russian officer coming in at the time, the subject of religion was dropped, except that while speaking of the convicts of Calcutta, whom I had seen at the jail, Mirza Seid Ali asked me how I addressed them? Ι told him, I cautioned them against despair, assured them that they might come at the eleventh hour, that it was never too late for mercy, if they came to God through Christ.

"After this came Aga Ali, the Mede, to hear, as he said, some of the sentences of Paul. Mirza Seid Ali had told them, that if they had read nothing but the Gospels, they knew nothing of the religion of Christ.' The sheet I happened to have by me was the one containing the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of 2d Corinthians, which Aga Ali read out.

"At this time the company had increased considerably. I desired him to notice particularly the latter part of the fifth chapter, 'God was, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.' He then read it a second time, but they saw not its glory : however, they spoke in high terms of the pith and solidity of Paul's

sentences.

"They were evidently on the watch for any thing that tallied with their own sentiments. Upon the passage-Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,' the Mede observed, 'Do you not see that Jesus was in Paul, and that Paul was only another name for Jesus?' 'Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God; and whether we be sober, it is for your sakes,' they interpreted thus: We are absorbed in the contemplation of God, and when we recover, it is to instruct you.'

"Walking afterward with Mirza Seid Ali, he told me, how much one of my remarks had affected him, viz. that he had no humility. He had been talking about simplicity and humility as characteristic of the Soofies. Humility! I said to him, if you were humble, you would not dispute in this manner; you

would be like a child.' He did not open his mouth afterward, but to say, True; I have no humility.' In evident distress, he observed, 'The truth is, we are in a state of compound ignorance-ignorant, yet ignorant of our ignorance."

On the last birth-day Mr. Martyn lived to commemorate, we find him speaking in affecting terms with respect to his privations as a missionary, yet expressing himself with ardent and humble gratitude-as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

"18th. While walking in the garden, in some disorder, from vexation, two Mussulmen Jews came up, and asked me what would become of them in another world? The Mahometans were right in their way, they supposed, and we in ours? but what must they expect? After rectifying their mistake as to the Mahometans, I mentioned two or three reasons for believing that we are right; such as their dispersion, and the cessation of sacrifices, immediately on the appearance of Jesus. 'True, true,' they said, with great feeling and seriousness; indeed, they seemed disposed to yield assent to any thing I said. They confessed they had become Mahometans only on compulsion; and that Abdulghunee wished to go to Bagdad, thinking he might throw off the mask there with safetybut asked, what I thought? I said, the Governor was a Mahometan.'' Did I think Syria safer? The safest place in the East,' I said, 'was India.' Feelings of pity for God's ancient people, and the awful importance of eternal things, impressed on my mind by the seriousness of their inquiries as to what would become of them, relieved me from the pressure of my comparatively insignificant distresses. I, a poor Gentile, blest, honoured, and loved; secured for ever by the everlasting Covenant, whilst the Children of the Kingdom are still lying in outward darkness! Well does it become me to be thankful.

"This is my birth-day, on which I complete my thirty-first year. The Persian New Testament has been begun, and I may say, finished in it, as only the

last eight chapters of the Revelations remain. Such a painful year I never passed, owing to the privations I have been called to, on the one hand, and the spectacle before me of human depravity, on the other. But I hope that I have not come to this seat of Satan in vain. The Word of God has found its way into Persia, and it is not in Satan's power to oppose its progress, if the Lord have sent it.”

The effect on the natural conscience of a plain and solemn declaration of some awful truths of Scripture, may be seen in the case of one of Mr. Martyn's visiters, who to great libertinism of practice added extreme latitudinarianism of principle.

"23d. Aga Neseer came, and talked most captiously and irrelevantly against all revealed religion. Three years ago, he had thrown of the shackles of Mahomet, and advised me to do the same with my yoke. I told him, that I preferred my yoke to his freedom. He was for sending me naked into a wilderness; but I would rather be a child, under the restraints of a parent, who would provide me with food and clothing, and be my protector and guide. To every thing I said, he had but one answer, 'God is the sole agent, sin and holiness, happiness and misery, cause and effect, are all perfectly one. Finding him determined to amuse himself in this way, I said, These things will do very well for the present, while reclining in gardens and smoking caleans, but not for a dying hour. How many years of life remain? You are about thirty, perhaps thirty more remain. How swiftly have the last thirty passed: how soon will the next thirty be gone! and then we shall see. If you are right, I lose nothing; if I am right, you lose your soul. Leaving out the consideration of all religion, it is probable that the next world may be a-kin to this. and our relation to both not dissimilar. But here we see that childhood is a preparation for manhood, and that neglect of the proper employments of childhood entails miseries in riper years.' The thought of death, and separation from his pleasures, made him serious; or perhaps he

thought it useless to press me with any more of his dogmas."

On the 24th of February, 1812, the last sheet of the Persian New Testament was completed. "I have many mercies," said the Author of this great work, "in bringing it to a termination, for which to thank the Lord, and this is not the least. Now may that Spirit who gave the word, and called me, I trust, to be an interpreter of it, graciously and powerfully apply it to the hearts of sinners, even to the gathering an elect people from the long estranged Persians!"

The version of the Psalms in Persian, "a sweet employment," as Mr. Martyn terms it, and which, to use his own language, "caused six weary moons, that waxed and waned since its commencement, to pass unnoticed," was finished by the middle of the month of March.

Mr. Martyn had now been resident for the space of ten months at Shiraz, during the whole of which time he had been almost incessantly engaged, as we have seen, in endeavouring to reclaim the wretched race of infidels around him from the error of their ways. So far was he from shrinking from any fair opportunity of confessing Christ before men, that he gladly embraced and boldly sought out, every occasion of avowing "whose he was, and whom he served." Nor was this conduct in him the fruit of a contentious spirit; it wasthe genuine offspring of that heavenly charity, which, "rejoicing in the truth," is ever ready "to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." No one could have a more deep-rooted antipathy to controversy, at all times, and with all persons, than Mr. Martyn: a paramount regard to what was indispensably due to the cause of his Redeemer alone could induce him to engage in it.

One public argument he had already held with the chief professor of Mahometan Law; a second disputation, of a similar, but far more decided character, he was led to enter into, at this time, with Mirza Ibraheem. The scene of this discussion was a court, in

the palace of one of the Persian Princes, where a numerous body of Moollahs were collected, with Mirza Ibraheem at their head. In this assembly, Mr. Martyn stood up, as the single advocate of the Christian faith. Fearing God, like Micaiah the son of Imlah, he feared not man. In the midst therefore of a Mahometan conclave, he proclaimed and maintained that prime and fundamental article of true religion, the Divinity of the Son of God.

"On the 23d," Mr. Martyn writes, "I called on the Vizier, afterward on the Secretary of the Kermanshah Prince. In the court, where he received me, Mirza Ibraheem was lecturing. Finding myself so near my old and respectable antagonist, I expressed a wish to see him, on which Jaffier Ali Khan went up to ascertain if my visit would be agreeable. The Master consented, but some of the disciples demurred. At last, one of them observing, 'that, by the blessing of God on the Master's conversation, I might possibly be converted,' it was agreed that I should be invited to ascend. Then it became a question, where I ought to sit. Below all, would not be respectful to a stranger; but, above all the Moollahs, could not be tolerated.

entered, and was surprised at the numbers. The room was lined with Moollahs, on both sides, and at the top. I was about to sit down at the door, but I was beckoned to an empty place near the top, opposite to the Master, who, after the usual compliments, without further ceremony, asked me, 'what we meant by calling Christ-God?' War being thus unequivocally declared, I had nothing to do but to stand upon the defensive. Mirza Ibraheem argued temperately enough, but of the rest, some were very violent and clamorous. The former asked, if Christ had ever called himself God; was he the Creator, or a creature?" I replied, 'The CREATOR.' The Moollahs looked at one another. Such a confession had never before been heard among Mahometan Doctors.

* 1 Kings xxii,