_October 17._--My dear brethren, on account of the bad weather, were obliged to leave me to-day. So we spent the whole morning in a Divine ordinance in which each read a portion of Scripture and all sang and prayed. Mr. Brown's passage, chosen from Joshua i., was very suitable, 'Have I not commanded thee?' Let this be an answer to my fears, O my Lord, and an assurance that I am in Thy work. It was a very affecting season to me. In prayer I was very far from a state of seriousness and affection. Indeed, I have often remarked that I have never yet prayed comfortably with friends when it has been preceded by a chapter of the Revelation. Perhaps because I depend too much on the feelings which the imagery of that book excites, instead of putting myself into the hands of the Spirit, the only author of the prayer of faith. They went away in their boat, and I was left alone for the first time, with none but natives. FOOTNOTES: [22] _The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward_, London, 1859. _The Life of William Carey_ (John Murray), 2nd edition, 1887. [23] First published (1892) by Rev. H.C.G. Moule from the autograph collection made by Canon Carus, the successor and biographer of Charles Simeon. [24] A line has been erased by a subsequent writer. [25] 'Her letter was to bid me a last farewell.'--Martyn's _Journal_. This was received November 23. CHAPTER VI DINAPORE AND PATNA, 1807-1809 Until, in 1852 and the ten years following, Lord Dalhousie's railway up the Ganges valley was completed to Allahabad, the usual mode of proceeding up-country from Calcutta was by the house-boat known as the budgerow, which is still common on the many rivers of Bengal where English planters and officials are found. At the rate of twenty-five miles a day the traveller is towed up against stream by the boatmen. When time is no object, and opportunities are sought for reading, shooting, and intercourse with the natives, the voyage is delightful in the cool season. Henry Martyn rejoiced in six weeks of this solitary life--alone yet not alone, and ever about his Father's business. His studies were divided between Hindustani and Sanskrit; he was much occupied in prayer and in the reading of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. Morning and evening he spent himself among the people on the banks, and at the ghauts and bazaars of the mighty river, preaching Christ and spreading abroad the New Testament. The dense population and the spiritual darkness, as the panorama of native life moved hourly before his eyes, on river and on land, stirred up the busiest of Christians to be still busier, in spite of his fast-wasting body; 'What a wretched life shall I lead if I do not exert myself from morning till night, in a place where, through whole territories, I seem to be the only light!' His gun supplied him with small game, 'enough to make a change with the curry.'