pastor of the flock, he was ever under the gracious superintendence of that great and good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. A circumstance which occurred at this time shews how seriously his mind was affected. From a constitutional delicacy and reserve, no one had naturally a greater reluctance than Mr. Martyn to obtrude himself on the notice of others in a way of admonition; it was a task from which his feelings recoiled. Observing, however, with pain and sorrow, one of the candidates for ordination in an apparently careless and unconcerned state, he took an opportunity, though the party was not personally known to him, of admonishing him privately on the subject: and in what a strain such a man would speak at such a moment, may more easily be conceived than expressed.-A deep conviction of the necessity of reproving others, and not suffering sin to remain in them, often induced Mr. Martyn to do violence to the retiring tenderness of his disposition. He felt reproof to be "a duty of unlimited extent and almost insuperable difficulty"—but, said he, "the way to know when to address men, and when to abstain, is to love," and he resolved "not to reprove others, except he experienced at the time a peculiar contrition of spirit, where he could conscientiously be silent." The exercise of his pastoral function Mr. Martyn commenced, as curate to the Rev. C. Simeon, in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Cambridge, undertaking likewise the charge of the parish of Lolworth, a small village at no great distance from the University. There it was, on the Sunday after his ordination, that he preached his first sermon, on the following words: "If a man die shall he live again-all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come;" Job xiv, 14. At which place after delivering his second sermon on the succeeding Sunday, an incident occurred on his way home, which is recorded in his Journal, and which could not well be effaced from his remembrance. An old man, who had been one of his auditors, walked by the side of his horse for a considerable time, warning him to reflect, that if any souls perished through his neglect, their blood would be required at his hand. He exhorted him to shew his hearers, that they were perishing sinners; to be much engaged in secret prayer; and to labor after an entire departure from himself to Christ. "From what he said on the last head (observes Mr. Martyn,) it was clear that I had but little experience; but I lifted up my heart afterwards to the Lord, that I might be fully instructed in righteousness."So meekly and thankfully did this young minister listen to the affectionate counsel of an old disciple. On Thursday, Nov. 10, he preached for the first time at Trinity Church to a numerous and earnestly attentive congregation, upon part of that address of Jesus to the Woman of Samaria:-"If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water," John iv, 10; when it was his fervent desire and prayer to enter fully into the solemn spirit of those well known lines, "I'd preach as though I ne'er should preach again: Nor could words characterise more justly the usual strain of his preaching: for whether the congregation he addressed were great or small, learned and refined, or poor and ignorant, he spake as one who had a message to them from God, and who was impressed with the consideration, that both he and they must shortly stand before the Judge of quick and dead. The burthens and difficulties of his sacred employments lay heavily at first on Mr. Martyn's mind, and considerably depressed his spirits: but he endeavored, he writes, in a letter to his earliest friend, to keep in view "the unreasonableness of his discontent (who was a brand plucked out of the fire) and the glorious blessedness of the ministerial work." At times, he confesses, he was tried with a "sinful dislike of his parochial duty"--and seemed frequently "as a stone speaking to stones" --and he laments that "want of private devotional reading and shortness of prayer through incessant sermon-making, had produced much strangeness between God and his soul."—"Every time," he remarked, "that I open the Scriptures, my thoughts. are about a sermon or exposition, so that even in private I seem to be reading in public." Young ministers, those especially who are placed in extensive spheres of action, are not ignorant of the temptations of which Mr. Martyn here complains -and to them it must be a consolation to be assured, that the same afflictions were accomplished in one of the most devoted and most faithful of their brethren. Added to those duties which had now become his peculiar care, and in which, notwithstanding some momentary depressions, he continued stedfast and immoveable, always abounding in his work, an office of another kind devolved on him towards the close of the year 1803-that of one of the public examiners in his college: and if it were too much to say, that an examination in the classics at St. John's has rarely been conducted more to the credit of the society-or to the advantage of the students-or to the honor of the examinercertainly it would not be declaring too much to aver, that never since the foundation of the college has one been held in a more Christian spirit, and in a more strict accordance with that extensive apostolical injunction "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." The vigilance with which Mr. Martyn prepared for this duty, and the humility in which he speaks of himself when engaged in the execution of it, shew that his Christianity was of the highest proof. "I read Mitford's History of Greece, as I am to be classical examiner. To keep my thoughts from wandering away to take pleasure in those studies, required more watchfulness and earnestness in prayer than I can account for. But earnest ejaculation was effectual to make me return to the word of God with some delight. The carnal mind is enmity against God,'-and so I find it. I was forced to reason with myself, and force open my eyes, that I might see the excellency of divine things. Did I delight in reading the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, and shall not my soul glory in the knowledge of God, who created the Greeks, and the vast countries over which they passed.-I examined in Butler, and in Xenophon; how much pride and ostentatious display of learning was visible in my conduct! how that detestable spirit follows me whatever I do." It was customary with Mr. Martyn, at the commencement of a new year, to take a solemn review of the time past, and to contemplate his future. prospects. In the review of his Journal of the year 1803, he judged that he had dedicated too much time to public ministrations, and too little to private communion with God. Yet he trusted that he had grown in grace, inasmuch as the bent of his desires was towards God more than when he first thought of becoming a Missionary. "In heavenly contemplation and abstraction of mind," he adds, "my attainments have fallen far short of my expectation; but in a sense of my own worth |