And may we come to our graves in a full age, as a shock of corn cometh in his season.” CHAPTER III. Mr. Martyn was ordained to the ministry on the 22d of October, 1803. He complained to a friend that “this occasion, so solemn in itself, through want of retirement, was not so to me.” He passed the time, which, by the rules of the English Episcopal church, is required before ministers can be admitted to the full exercise of the sacred office, as assistant to his friend, the Rev. Mr. Simeon, in his church at Cambridge, and as pastor in a small village at a short distance from the town. In this capacity he laboured constantly in preaching, and in making religious visits to the houses of the poor, and to hospitals. After speaking of his preparations for the pulpit, he says, “Another part of my stated ministrations, is to visit one part of Mr. Simeon’s people every week. Unless the mind be in a spiritual and heavenly frame, it is difficult to go through this service with any degree of satisfaction. However, though I have often gone to them cramped with sinful fear, I have been enabled to go through with ease and comfort, thanks be to God. I have been generally in great depression of spirits ever since my ordination; for, having at that time not a single sermon, my hands and head have been constantly employed in that business, while my heart has not had its due share of exercise. I am now recovering from my cowardly despondency on that head; but lately I have been in heaviness again, through the prevalence of self-will, and the prospect of incessant self-denial. God help me to endure hardness, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus; to fight the good fight of faith; and to be a partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel, according to the power of God. My chief comfort is to meditate on the world to come, though it is a happiness which I can seldom steadily enjoy, the train of one’s thoughts is so influenced and directed by the empty concerns of human life. Another evil with me is great childish levity, and want of serious conviction of the awful work of the ministry. In the pulpit I have hitherto been thinking only of the sermon before me, unconscious of the presence of God or the people. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God!” During this interval, the estate which his sister and himself inherited from their father, was lost; and instead of being able to go out as a missionary, at his own expense, as appears to have been his original design, he now sought an appointment as a chaplain of the East India Company, to be employed at some of their stations; which he thought would give him great advantages in preaching to the heathen. We copy here another of his letters: