Pioneers and Founders: or, Recent Workers in the Mission fieldYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
Pioneers and Founders: or, Recent Workers in the Mission field
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Missionaries
On the 24th of February he finished his Persian New Testament, and in six
weeks more his translation of the Psalms. His residence in Persia had
lasted just a year, and, though direct missionary work had not been
possible to him there, he had certainly inspired his coadjutor, Mirza
Seid Ali, with a much higher morality and with something very like faith.
On one of the last days before his leaving Shiraz, Seid Ali said
seriously, "Though a man had no other religious society, I suppose he
might, with the aid of the Bible, live alone with God." It was to this
solitude that Martyn left him, not attempting apparently to induce him to
give up anything for the sake of embracing Christianity. Death would
probably have been the consequence of joining the Armenian Church in
Persia, but why did Martyn's teaching stop at inward faith instead of
insisting on outward confession, the test fixed by the Saviour Himself?
On the 24th of May, Mr. Martyn and another English clergyman set out to
lay his translation before the Shah, who was in his camp at Tebriz. There
they were admitted to the presence of the Vizier, before whom two
Moollahs, the most ignorant and discourteous whom he had met in Persia,
were set to argue with the English priest. The Vizier mingled in the
discussion, which ended thus: "You had better say God is God, and Mahomet
is His prophet." "God is God," repeated Henry Martyn, "and JESUS is the
Son of God."
"He is neither born nor begets," cried the Moollahs; and one said, "What
will you say when your tongue is burnt out for blasphemy?"
He had offended against the Mohammedan doctrine most strictly held; and,
knowing this well, he had kept back the confession of the core of the
true faith till to withhold it longer would have been a denial of his
Lord. After all, he was not allowed to see the Shah without the
Ambassador to present him, and descended again to Sultania--a painful
journey, from which he brought a severe ague and fever, through which he
was nursed by Sir Gore and Lady Ouseley.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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