Why did Henry Martyn's preaching and daily pastoral influence excite so much opposition? Undoubtedly, as we shall see, both in Calcutta and Dinapore, his Cornish-Celtic temperament, possibly the irritability due to the disease under which he was even then suffering, disabled him from disarming opposition, as his friend Corrie, for instance, afterwards always did. But we must remember to whom he preached and what he preached, and the time at which he preached, in the history not only of the Church of England, but of Evangelical religion. He had himself been brought out of spiritual darkness under the influence of Kempthorne and Charles Simeon, by the teaching of Paul in his letters to the Roman and the Galatian converts. To him sin was exceeding sinful. The Pauline doctrine of sin and its one remedy was the basis not only of his theology, but of his personal experience and daily life. After a brief ministry to the villagers of Lolworth and occasional sermons to his fellow students in Cambridge, this Senior Wrangler and Classic, yet young convert, was put in spiritual charge of a British regiment and Indiaman's crew, and was the only chaplain in a force of eight thousand soldiers, some with families, and many female convicts. At a time when the dead churches were only beginning to wake up, after the missions of the Wesleys and Whitfield, of William Carey and Simeon, this youthful prophet was called to reason of temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come, with men who were practically as pagan or as sceptical as Felix. His second address at sea, on September 15, was from Paul's sermon in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia (Acts xiii. 38-39): _Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, &c._[16] It was a full and free declaration of God's love in Jesus Christ to sinful man, which he thus describes in his _Journal_: 'In the latter part I was led to speak without preparation on the all-sufficiency of Christ to save sinners who came to Him with all their sins without delay. I was carried away with a Divine aid to speak with freedom and energy. My soul was refreshed, and I retired seeing reason to be thankful!' But the next week's experience resulted in this: 'I was more tried by the fear of man than I have ever been since God called me to the ministry. The threats and opposition of those men made me unwilling to set before them the truths which they hated; yet I had no species of hesitation about doing it. They had let me know that if I would preach a sermon like one of Blair's they should be glad to hear it; but they would not attend if so much of hell was preached.' Strengthened by our Lord's promise of the Comforter (John xiv. 16), he next Sunday took for his text Psalm ix. 17: _The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God._ He thus concluded: