TWICE-BORN MEN
REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE
Compiled by HY. PICKERING
A Persian Pioneer
HENRY MARTYN was a Cornishman, born in 1781. He was of delicate constitution, shy, and unobtrusive, yet did mighty work for God in India and Persia.
In January, 1801, when still under twenty, he became Senior Wrangler at Cambridge. “Seekest thou the great things for thyself ? seek them not” (Jer 45:5), were words which flashed across his memory as he entered the Senate House to compete for this crowning academic distinction. “I had obtained my highest wishes, but,” he adds, “was surprised to find I had grasped a shadow.”
Feeling depressed and sad at heart at the loss of his father, and having no taste for his usual studies, Martyn took up his Bible one day thinking that the consideration of religion was rather suitable to the solemn time. He writes: “I began with the Acts, as being the most amusing, and whilst I was entertained with the narrative, I found myself insensibly led to inquire more attentively into the doctrine of the Apostles .” Light gradually broke on his mind and spiritual truth by degrees entered his heart. In Charles Simeon, of Trinity College, he found guide, counsellor, and friend, and gradually acquired more and more knowledge in Divine things.
After six and a-half years in Persia, during which his life was “burned out for God,” ague laid him low, then fever, but he wrote his last diary entry on Oct. 6, 1912: “I sat in the orchard, and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God—in solitude my Company, my Friend, my Comforter. Oh, when shall time give place to Eternity; and when shall appear the new Heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness? There shall in no wise enter in anything that defileth. None of that wickedness that has made men worse than wild beasts, none of those corruptions that add still more to the miseries of mortality, shall be seen or heard any more” (Rev 21:22-27).