For more than a hundred years the bones of Henry Martyn have reposed in that far-off Oriental sepulcher; but, as though he had never heard of his own decease, he goes on making history still. Henry Martyn died seven years before George Eliot was born, and they had very little in common. But, in the novel which Dr. Marcus Dods described as 'one of the greatest religious books ever written,' George Eliot makes the spiritual crisis in the experience of her storm-beaten and distracted heroine to turn on the perusal of the _Life of Henry Martyn_. When Janet Dempster, clad only in her thin nightdress, was driven at dead of night from her husband's home, she took refuge with good old Mrs. Pettifer, and fell into a stupor of utter misery and black despair. Nothing seemed to rouse her. It chanced, however, that Mrs. Pettifer was a subscriber of the Paddiford Lending Library. From that village treasure-trove she had borrowed the biography that was lying on the table when, like a hunted deer, poor Janet took shelter in her home. After a day or two, Janet picked up the book, dipped into it, and at length 'became so arrested by that pathetic missionary story that she could not leave it alone.' It broke the spell of her stupor, gave her a new hold upon life, awoke her dormant energy, and moved her to renewed action. 'I must go,' she said. 'I feel I must be doing something for someone; I must not be a mere useless log any longer. I've been reading about that wonderful Henry Martyn wearing himself out for _other people_, and I sit thinking of nothing but _myself_! I must go! Good-bye!' And, like a frightened dove that, having been driven to shelter by a hawk, recovers from its terror and again takes wing, off she went! Janet Dempster is all the more real because she is unreal. She is all the more a substance because she is only a shadow. She is all the more symbolic and typical because she appears, not in history, but in fiction. If I had found her in the realm of biography, I might have regarded hers as an isolated and exceptional case. But, since I have found her in the realm of romance, I can only regard her--as her creator intended me to regard her--as a great representative character. She represents all those thousands of people upon whom the heroic record of Henry Martyn's brief career has acted as a stimulant and a tonic. She represents all those thousands of people through whom Henry Martyn is making history. II