Long after this the good seed of the Kingdom, as sown by Henry Martyn,
continued to bear fruit, which in its turn propagated itself. In 1816
there came to Corrie in Calcutta, for further instruction, from
Bareilly, a young Mohammedan ascetic and teacher who, at seventeen,
had abandoned Hinduism, seeking peace of mind. He fell in with
Martyn's Hindustani New Testament, and was baptized under the new name
of Fuez Massee'h. Under somewhat similar circumstances Noor Massee'h
was baptized at Agra. The missionary labours of Martyn at Cawnpore,
followed up by Corrie there and at Agra soon after, farther resulted
in the baptism there of seventy-one Hindus and Mohammedans, of whom
fifty were adults. All of these, save seven, remained steadfast, and
many became missionaries in their turn. The career of Abdool Massee'h
closed in 1827, after he had been ordained in the Calcutta cathedral
by Bishop Heber, who loved him. His last breath was spent in singing
the Persian hymn, translated thus:
Beloved Saviour, let not me
In Thy kind heart forgotten be!
Of all that deck the field or bower,
Thou art the sweetest, fairest flower!
Youth's morn has fled, old age comes on.
But sin distracts my soul alone;
Beloved Saviour, let not me
In Thy kind heart forgotten be.
As from Dinapore Martyn sought out the moulvies of Patna, so from
Cawnpore he found his way to Lucknow There, after he had baptized a
child of the Governor-General's Resident, he met the Nawab Saadut Ali,
and his eyes for the first time beheld one who had full power of life
and death over his subjects. He visited the moulvies, at the tomb of
Asaf-ood-Dowla, who were employed to read the Koran constantly. 'With
them I tried my strength, of course, and disputed for an hour; it
ended in their referring me for an answer to another.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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