rooms, (late the Paul's Head Tavern,) in Cateaton-street, on Wednesday evening last, April 28th, to hold their first Anniversary Meeting, Sir THOMAS BARING, Bart. Pre

sident.

It

The Report was read by their Se. cretary, Mr Samuel Stennet. glances at the existing state of religion on the Continent of Europethe scarcity of Bibles, and the faci. lity that will be given to their circulation by means of the labours of this Society-the lamentable paucity of religious books in France-activity of the foreign clergy impeded by want of means-origin of the Independent church in Geneva, with some account of its pastors-and the Report closes with a sketch of the operations of the Society, during the few months it has been in existence. A few extracts from this Report cannot but be interesting to our readers.

"Be the causes what they may, infidelity has been the prevailing sentiment of the majority of the best educated persons throughout France and Italy. A Gentleman who, from his high official station in the former country, possessed the best means of judging accurately, fately declared it to be his opinion, that a great multitude of the present population of France disbelieved even the immortality of the soul; and the opinion of that distinguish ed personage has been but too painfully corroborated from other sources. The two leading divisions of the Christian world,-the Papist and the Protestant-have continued hostile towards each other; and, if many of the former have wholly thrown off the mask of religion, the latter have worn but a thin disguise over their Socinian sentiments. Some leading members of Protestant Consistories have not scrupled to avow that the tenets of Socinianism comprise their creed. The defection of the Geneva Church is more flagrant, inasmuch as she not-only openly revoked the Confession drawn up by her founders, but enjoined a Soci

nian, or at least an Arian Catechism, to be taught to her youth; refused ordination to all candidates for the ministry who did not pledge them-. selves to abstain from preaching on any of the distinguishing tenets of Christianity; and even endeavoured to impose a spurious version of the Scriptures upon the French Reformed Churches throughout Switzer land, France and Holland.

"On the other side, to adopt the emphatic language of a Clergyman of Berne," the German Neology has deluged the land as with an overwhelming torrent." There is scarcely a German University in which eminent Professors are not to be found tainted with this heresy, whilst the illiterate are dupes to mystics, or to such as pretend to be favoured by invisible spirits.

"Still, however, there are many truly pious Christians to be found scattered among the Catholic and Protestant peasantry in France and Switzerland. In the latter country, more particularly, the glad tidings of salvation are now proclaimed with a power scarcely equalled and certainly not exceeded at the time of the Reformation. In Germany, likewise, many Catholic Clergy are distinguishing themselves in the Christian race.

"Until very recently, no Bible Societies had been formed in any of the principal Catholic kingdoms of Europe, and some of those in the Protestant districts scarcely existed but in name. It has indeed been alleged as an apology for the ineffi ciency that has hitherto characterised these institutions, that there was little or no demand for the Sacred Volume in those countries: but the experience of a few months has proved that opinion to be alto. gether unfounded. The native correspondents of the Continental Society uniformly testify that they have everywhere found among the common people an avidity to possess the Word of life; and that their efforts to call the attention of their fellow sinners to it have had the

We are under the necessity, for want of room, of delaying till our next, an account of the Meetings of several other Societies.

THE

CHRISTIAN HERALD.

JULY 19. 1819.

MEMOIR OF THE REV. HENRY MARTYN, B. D., LATE FELLOW OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY.

THE father of Mr Martyn was chief clerk in the office of Mr Daniel, a merchant at Truro in Cornwall, and was a man of piety and talents. His son Henry was born at Truro, in 1781; was sent in 1788 to the grammar school of Dr Cardew in that town; and having made considerable progress in classical literature, went up, at the age of fourteen, to sit for a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, in Oxford, but being disappointed in the undertaking, returned to the same school, and entered at St John's College, Cambridge, in May 1797. The desire of pleasing his father, combined with the wise counsels of a pious and valuable friend in the university, tended to preserve him, though not at that time under the influence of religious principles, from gross vice, and to secure a steady attention to the studies of his college.

At this period, to the eye of the world, every part of his conduct was in the highest degree amiable and commendable. He was outwardly moral, with little exception was unwearied in application, and exhibited marks of no ordinary talent. But whatever may have been his external conduct, and whatever his capacity in literary pursuits, he seems to have been totally ignorant of spiritual things, and to have lived without God in the world.' The consideration, that God chiefly regards the motives of our actions-a consideration so momentous, and so essential to the character of a real Christian-appears as yet never to have entered his mind and even when it did, as was Hh

VOL. VI.

the case at this time, it rested there as a theoretic notion never to be reduced to practice. His own account of himself is very striking. Speaking of June 1799, he says, " attempted to persuade me that I ought to attend to reading, not for the praise of men, but for the glory of God. This seemed strange to me, but reasonable. I resolved, therefore, to maintain this opinion thenceforth; but never designed, that I remember, it should affect my conduct. What a decisive mark this of an unrenewed mind! What an affecting proof that light may break in on the understanding, whilst there is not so much as the dawn of it on the heart!"

Mr Martyn possessed, at this early period of his university career, a younger sister of unfeigned zeal and piety, to whom, in common with his friend and minister, Mr Simeon of Cambridge, in subservience to the power and grace of God, his change and progress in religion must be traced. The account he gives of the state of his own mind, during a visit he paid his family in the summer of 1799, is very striking.

"I went home this summer, and was frequently addressed by my dear sister on the subject of religion; but the sound of the Gospel, conveyed in the admonition of a sister, was grating to my ears."-The first result of her tender exhortations and earnest endeavours was by no means encouraging: a violent conflict took place in her brother's mind, between his convictions of the truth of what she urged and his love of the world; and, for the present, the latter prevailed: yet sisters, similarly circumstanced, may learn from this case not merely their duty, but from the final result, the success they may anticipate from the faithful discharge of it." I think," he observes, when afterwards reviewing this period with a spirit truly broken and contrite, “ I do not remember a time, in which the wickedness of my heart rose to a greater height, than during my stay at home. The consummate selfishness and exquisite irritability of my mind were displayed in rage, malice and envy, in pride and vain glory, and contempt of all: in the harshest language to my sister and even my father, if he happened to differ from my mind and will. O what an example of patience and mildness was he! I love to think of his excellent qualities, and it is frequently the anguish of my heart, that I ever could be base and wicked enough to pain him by the slightest neglect. O my God and Father, why is not my heart doubly agonized, at the remembrance of all my great transgressions against thee ever since I have known thee as such! I left my sister and father in October, and him I saw no more. I promised my sister that I would read the Bible for myself, but on being settled in college, Newton engaged all my thoughts."

At length, however, it pleased God to arrest him in his

thoughtless, and, we might even add, criminal course. In January, 1800, he received the sudden and overwhelming intelligence of his father's death. This event was calculated to rend his heart; and through that avenue Religion seemed to enter. He became earnest in prayer, and the study of the Scriptures and other devout books, and by degrees acquired a just knowledge. of his own guilt as a sinner, and of the value of Jesus Christ as a Saviour.

The following letter to his sister, written soon after this period, is very interesting." What a blessing it is for me, that I have such a sister as you, my dear - who have been so instrumental in keeping me in the right way! When I consider how little human assistance you have had, and the great knowledge to which you have attained in the subject of religionespecially observing the extreme ignorance of the most wise and learned of this world, I think this is itself a mark of the wonderful influence of the Holy Ghost, in the mind of well disposed persons. It is certainly by the Spirit alone that we can have the will, or power, or knowledge, or confidence to pray; and by him alone we come unto the Father through Jesus Christ. Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." How I rejoice to find that we disagreed only about words! I did not doubt, as you suppose, at all about that joy which true believers feel. Can there be any subject, any one source of cheerfulness and joy, at all to be compared with the heavenly serenity and comfort which such a person must find, in holding communion with his God and Saviour in prayerin addressing God as his Father, and more than all, in the transporting hope of being preserved unto everlasting life, and of singing praises to his Redeemer when time shall be no more. OI do indeed feel this state of mind at times; but at other times, I feel quite humbled at finding myself so cold and hard-hearted. That reluctance to prayer, that unwillingness to come unto God, who is the fountain of all good, when reason and experience tell us, that with him only true pleasure is to be found, seem to be owing to satanic influence. Though I think my employment in life gives me peculiar advantages, in some respects, with regard to religious knowledge, yet with regard to having a practical sense of things on the mind, it is by far the worst of any. For the labourer, as he drives on his plough, and the weaver, who works at his loom, may have their thoughts entirely disengaged from their work, and may think with advantage upon any religious subject. But the nature of our studies requires such a deep abstraction of the mind from all things, as completely to render it incapable of any thing else during many hours of the day."