“How sweet the retirement in which I here live. The precious word is now my only study, in the work of translation. Though, in a manner, buried to the world,—neither seeing nor seen by Europeans,—the time flows on here with great rapidity: it seems as if life would be gone before any thing is done, or even before any thing is begun. I sometimes rejoice that I am not twenty-seven years of age; and that, unless God should order it otherwise, I may double the number in constant and successful labour. If not, God has many, many more instruments at command; and I shall not cease from my happiness, and scarcely from my work, by departing into another world. Oh! what shall separate us from the love of Christ! Neither death nor life, I am persuaded. Oh! let me feel my security, that I may be, as it were, already in heaven; that I may do all my work as the angels do theirs; and oh! let me be ready for every work!—be ready to leave this delightful solitude, or remain in it; to go out, or go in; to stay, or depart, just as the Lord shall appoint. Lord, let me have no will of my own; nor consider my true happiness as depending in the smallest degree on any thing that can befall my outward man; but as consisting altogether in conformity to God’s will. May I have Christ here with me in this world; not substituting imagination in the place of faith; but seeing outward things as they really are, and thus obtaining a radical conviction of their vanity.” CHAPTER VIII. Mr. Martyn now received intelligence from England of the death of his eldest sister, an event which very deeply afflicted him; but which caused him to feel fresh confidence in God, and a new interest in heaven. “O great and gracious God! what should I do without Thee! But now thou art manifesting thyself as the God of all consolation to my soul:—never was I so near thee:—I stand on the brink, and long to take my flight. There is not a thing in the world for which I could wish to live, except the hope that it may please God to appoint me some work. And how shall my soul ever be thankful enough to thee, O thou most incomprehensibly glorious Saviour Jesus! O what hast thou done to alleviate the sorrows of life! and how great has been the mercy of God towards my family, in saving us all! How dreadful would be the separation of relations in death were it not for Jesus.”