In September he introduced Christ’s Sermon on the mount as a lesson for the schools; the first time he had been privileged to hear the natives reading and learning any portion of the sacred scriptures. He declined the urgent request of his friends in Calcutta, to establish himself there, saying, that however delightful it would be, to be placed in the society of the missionaries and their families, he wished to remain more in the midst of the heathen, upon whom he desired to expend his labours. His solitude was also rendered more painful, by the disappointment of his hopes of marriage with the lady at Cornwall, to whom he was engaged, but who now felt obliged to decline the union, for reasons which Mr. Martyn himself admitted to be proper. He bore this trial with much meekness: he said, “The Lord sanctify this: and since this last desire of my heart is also withheld, may I turn away for ever from the world, and henceforth live forgetful of all but God. With thee, O my God, is no disappointment. I shall never have to regret, that I have loved thee too well. Thou hast said, ‘delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.’” “At first I was more grieved,” he wrote some time afterwards, “at the loss of my gourd, than for all the perishing Ninevehs around me; but now my earthly woes and earthly attachments seem to be absorbing in the vast concern of communicating the gospel to these nations. After this last lesson from God on the vanity of the creature, I feel desirous to be nothing, to have nothing, to ask for nothing, but what he gives.” And at the close of the year, he thus spoke of this event, and the death of his sister: “On both these afflictions I have seen love inscribed, and that is enough. What I think I want, it is better still to want: but I am often wearied with this world of wo. I set my affections on the creature, and am then torn from it; and from various other causes, particularly the prevalence of sin in my heart, I am often so full of melancholy, that I hardly know what to do for relief. Sometimes I say, ‘O that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest;’ at other times, in my sorrow about the creature, I have no wish left for my heavenly rest. It is the grace and favour of God that have saved me hitherto: my ignorance, waywardness, and wickedness, would long since have plunged me into misery; but there seems to be a mighty exertion of mercy and grace upon my sinful nature, every day, to keep me from perishing at last. My attainments in the divine life, in this last year, seem to be none at all; I appear, on the contrary, to be more self-willed and perverse; and more like many of my countrymen, in arrogance and a domineering spirit over the natives. The Lord save me from my wickedness! Henceforth let my soul, humbly depending upon the grace of Christ, perfect holiness in the fear of God, and show towards all, whether Europeans or natives, the mind that was in Christ Jesus.”