Nowhere are eucharistic seasons of communion so precious as in exile, and especially in the isolation of a tropical station. Not unfrequently in India, Christian people, far separated from any ordained minister, and about to part from each other, are compelled, by loving obedience to the Lord, to meet thus together. But what joy it must have been to have been ministered to at such times by one of Henry Martyn's consecrated saintliness! Mrs. Sherwood lingers over her description of that Cawnpore service of October 22, 1809--the long inner verandah of the house, where daily prayer was wont to be made, shut in by lofty doors of green lattice-work; the table, with the white cloth and all things requisite, at one end; hassocks on which to kneel, and a high form in front of the table; all 'decent and in good order, according to the forms of the Church of England.' Still there was no church building. His first parade service in the hot winds brought on fever, so that he proposed to ask for the billiard-room, 'which is better than the ball-room,' but in vain. His next service was in the riding-school, but 'the effluvium was such as would please only the knights of the turf. What must the Mohammedans think of us? Well may they call us "dogs," when even in Divine worship we choose to kennel ourselves in such places.' The General delayed to forward to Government the proposal for a church. Henry Martyn's missionary work among the natives became greatly extended at Cawnpore, as his scrupulous conscience and delicate scholarship allowed him to use in public the colloquial Hindustani, and in conversation the more classical Persian. To Corrie he wrote, five months after his arrival there: What will friends at home think of Martyn and Corrie? They went out full of zeal, but, behold! what are they doing? Where are their converts? They talked of the banyan-tree before they went out; but now they seem to prefer a snug bungalow to field-preaching. I fear I should look a little silly if I were to go home just at this time; but more because I should not be able to make them understand the state of things than because my conscience condemns me. Brother, what can you do? If you itinerate like a European, you will only frighten the people; if as a native, you will be dead in one year. Yet the latter mode pleases me, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than so to live, with the prospect of being able to hold out a few years. Again, to an old Cambridge friend: