Henry Martyn: Missionary Scholar for our Age?
By Dr Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherborne
Cambridge Theological Federation and Henry Martyn Centre Lecture
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
Wednesday 29 February 2012
Introduction: Portraits
Thank you very much for the invitation to give this lecture today. It is a joy
to be back in Cambridge.
We will begin, and conclude, by meditating on this portrait of Henry Martyn,
one time fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, missionary scholar and
Bible translator in India and Persia. He died in 1812 at the age of 31, in
Tokat, Armenia, now northern Turkey on his way to Constantinople.
The original, painted in Calcutta, arrived in Cambridge the year Martyn died,
and hangs in the vestry of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. This copy, in
front of us today, is kept over the fireplace in the Henry Martyn Hall, next to
the Church. The Hall was built in 1887 as a memorial to Martyn and a focus
for encouraging missionary vocations amongst Cambridge students.
Charles Simeon, Martyn’s spiritual father and vicar of Holy Trinity for 54
years (1783-1836) had commissioned the painting. It was completed after
Martyn had finished his Hindustani translation of the New Testament and
before he set out on his final journey from India, through Persia, to perfect
his Persian and Arabic translations of the New Testament.
In a letter, Simeon described the portrait’s arrival at India House in London
in 1812. As he wrote the letter, unbeknown to him, Martyn lay dying in
Tokat. Simeon learned of his death on 13 February 1813:
I could not bear to look upon it, but turned away, covering my face,
and, in spite of every effort to the contrary, crying aloud with anguish.
E. was with me, and all the bystanders said to her, “That, I suppose, is
his father.”...Shall I attempt to describe to you the veneration and the
love with which I look at it?...In seeing how much he is worn, I am
constrained to call to my relief the thought in Whose service he has
worn himself so much; and this reconciles me to the idea of weakness,
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of sickness, or even, if God were so to appoint, of death itself...And I
behold in it all the mind of my beloved brother.’ [Handley Moule, Charles
Simeon (London, 1892) p. 108]
The Henry Martyn Centre, in its archives, has a miniature of Martyn in a
brass case, on loan from Ridley Hall. Handley Moule, the first Principal of
Ridley Hall and later Bishop of Durham, who recounted that letter of Simeon
in his biography Charles Simeon (London, 1892) wrote:
I have in my charge a miniature, taken for Simeon just before Martyn
left England; it has the younger look, but the shadows of toil and
sorrow are just coming over it. (p. 108)
There is a lock of hair in the back of the miniature’s case. Perhaps it is
Martyn’s?
Moule also mentioned another early portrait of Martyn, which was on the
walls of the Church Missionary Society house in London, and now at CMS in
Oxford. Here is a photo I took of it at the opening of the new CMS offices in
Oxford in 2007. I noticed much later that, eerily, it contains a spectre of the
photographer.
It is interesting to contrast that early London portrait with the Calcutta one.
Moule wrote of the former:
It shows the same face, but wearing an expression of almost boyish
cheerfulness. (p. 108)
In 1812, an Armenian Bishop, Serrafino, who had been educated at Rome
and had many European languages, met Martyn at Etchmiatzin, the
Armenian monastery at Erivan. He described him as:
Of a very delicate frame, thin, and not quite of middle stature, a
beardless youth, with a countenance beaming with so much benignity
as to bespeak an errand of Divine love.
[George Fowler, Three Years in Persia cited in George Smith, Henry Martyn: Saint and
Scholar, First Modern Missionary to the Mohammedans, 1781-1812 London: The Religious
Tract Society, 1892), p. 521]
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This afternoon, we shall be considering: first, Martyn’s life in India and
Persia; second, his influence on converts, writers, and missionaries; and
third, his legacy in the scholarly study of mission, dialogue and world
Christianity today, before concluding with his challenge to vocations for our
age.
1. Henry Martyn’s Life and Context
Martyn was born in 1781 in Cornwall and came up to St John’s College,
Cambridge in 1797. His faith in Christ came alive after his father’s death in
1800 and he was mentored by Charles Simeon, vicar of Holy Trinity Church.
He was first in his year in mathematics (Senior Wrangler) in 1801, won the
Smith’s prize, and later won a Latin prize. He was elected a Fellow of St
John’s College, and served as a curate at Holy Trinity, before sailing to India.
He was a Chaplain to the East India Company, rather than, as he had hoped,
a missionary of the Church Missionary Society, because that salary enabled
him to support his orphaned siblings.
He was the third of five Cambridge scholars of note to serve in Bengal under
the influence of Simeon and Charles Grant, the Director of the East India
Company. The other four were David Brown, Claudius Buchanan, Daniel
Corrie and Thomas Thomason.
David Brown came up to Magdalene College in 1782 and arrived in Calcutta
in 1786, where he stayed for 25 years. With Charles Grant, Brown drew up
‘A Proposal for establishing a Protestant Mission in Bengal and Bahar’
(1787).
Brown and Grant wrote to Simeon:
We understand that such matters lie very near your heart, and that
you have a warm zeal to promote their interest. Upon this ground we
invite you to become an agent on behalf of the intended mission at
home.
In 1830, Simeon wrote a note on his copy of this document:
It merely shows how early God enabled me to act for India – to
provide for which has now for forty-two years been a principal and an
incessant object of my care and labour.’
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[Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1977) p 144]
Brown wrote to Simeon about the type of man to look out for in Cambridge:
You will be aware that zeal and grace, though essentials, are not the
only requisites on this occasion. They must be men of general
knowledge, and possess such a share of science as may make their
conversation interesting to the learned Brahmins who will only be
communicative in proportion to the returns made them by those with
whom they converse. (p 144)
Claudius Buchanan (1766-1815) came up to Queens’ College in 1791 and
sailed to India in 1796. He campaigned against the Hindu practice of widow
burning (suttee), wrote Christian Researches in Asia (1811) and instituted
prize essays on Christian Mission in British Universities, including Cambridge.
Daniel Corrie (1777-1837), was a member of both Clare College and Trinity
College. He became an East India Company Chaplain in 1807, two years
after Martyn. He became Archdeacon of Calcutta in 1823 and the first Bishop
of Madras in 1835. It was Corrie who prevented Martyn from burning his
spiritual papers before he left Cawnpore. Instead they were sealed up and
left with Corrie. When they were opened after Martyn’s death, the packet
was found to contain all his journals from 1803-10. Martyn’s journals
relating to his final two years were from sent just before his death to the
British consul in Constantinople.
Thomas Thomason (d. 1829), was a fellow of Queens’ College, a fellow
curate with Martyn in Cambridge and arrived in Calcutta in 1808. He
translated the Old Testament into Hindustani and his son, James, became a
Lieutenant-Governor of the North Western Provinces of India in 1843.
Martyn served first at Dinapore (1806-9) and then Cawnpore (1809-10).
Concerning his relationship to Indians he noted:
These men are not fools, and all ingenuity and clearness of reasoning
are not confined to England and Europe. [Constance E Padwick, Henry
Martyn: Confessor of the Faith (London: SCM, 1922) p. 181]
Avril Powell, in her excellent Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India,
mentions the important influence exercised by Martyn’s translation of the
New Testament into Hindustani (now known as Urdu):
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During his short posting in northern India, Martyn created a new
channel both of communication and of subsequent controversy
between the next generation of evangelical missionaries and the
ashraf (noble) classes of the Gangetic core. For Martyn's first Urdu
translation of the New Testament, which began to be disseminated
from Calcutta shortly before the first Urdu translations of the Qur'an…
provided the means to transform the ulamas’ (Islamic scholars')
perception of Christianity.
[Avril Powell, Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India (London: Curzon Press,
1993) p.102]
In his journal there are passages of morbid introspection, but also heights of
delight in God. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta from 1832-58, wrote to his
own family in Britain:
In H. Martyn’s Journals the spirit of prayer, the time he devoted to the
duty, and his fervour in it, are the first things which strike me. In the
next place, his delight in Holy Scripture, his meditations in it, the large
portions he committed to memory, the nourishment he thence derived
to his soul, are full of instruction. Then his humility is quite undoubted,
unfeigned, profound, sincere. There seems, however, to have been a
touch of natural melancholy and depression...
Mary Sherwood, the wife of a British army officer in Cawnpore, and writer of
Anglo-Indian tales, kept a perceptively shrewd diary, which is included in her
autobiography, The Life of Mrs Sherwood (1854). She provides us with a
sympathetic balance to the humble and sometimes tortured passages of
Martyn’s journal:
His features were not regular, but the expression was so luminous, so
intellectual, so affectionate, so beaming with Divine charity, that no
one could have looked at his features, and thought of their shape or
form, - the outbeaming of his soul would absorb the attention of every
observer.
Bishop Kenneth Cragg, now approaching a century not out, drew his
inspiration for scholarship, mission and dialogue amongst Muslims, from
Martyn. In his chapter on him in Troubled by Truth: Life Studies in InterFaith Concern (1992), Cragg refers to Martyn’s Bible translations as works of
‘theology-in-philology’ and describes the self-scrutinising pages of his
journal:
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Martyn’s introspective honesty, total compassion and genuine anxiety
for integrity, make of autobiography itself a dialogue concerning truth
– truth within and truth beyond...It was precisely the gentle quality of
his earnestness which made dialogue the more engrossing both in
spirit and in theme.
In Shiraz, Persia, Martyn engaged in dialogue with leading Muslim scholars.
Padwick described the scene, drawing on his Journal, and on Samuel Lee’s
Controversial Tracts on Christianity and Mohammadanism (Cambridge,
1824):
[A defence of Islam was prepared by] Mirza Ibrahim, a majestic and
benevolent old man, ‘Preceptor of all the mullahs’, whose manner
recalls the traditions of the great mediaeval doctors, as he meets an
opponent with courteous subtlety... Martyn replied in a tract, the first
of a series, in which he shows an astonishing mastery of the whole
controversy, and in which he and his opponent throughout preserved
high courtesy.
Exhausted and realising he was dying in Tokat, Martyn sent his papers on to
Constantinople. The final extract from his Journal, dated 6 October 1812,
reads:
I sat in an orchard, and thought with sweet comfort and peace, of my
God; in solitude my company, my friend, and comforter. Oh! When
shall time give place to eternity?
He was buried with reverence by Armenian Christians at Tokat. Sir Gore
Ouseley, the British Ambassador in Tabriz who had nursed him, made good
his pledge to Martyn by personally delivering his Persian New Testament to
the press in St. Petersburg and proof reading it for publication in 1815.
2. Martyn’s Influence on People in the Past and Today
We shall be considering three spheres of influence: converts, writers and
missionaries.
(a) Converts
Martyn seems to have had only two converts. The most famous was Abdul
Masih (1776-1827) who became an icon of Indian indigeneity. Masih
became a medical missionary and evangelist among his own people,
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supported by the CMS, and in 1825 became the second Indian ordained
Anglican clergyman.
Masih’s original name was Sheik Salih. He was born in Delhi about the year
1776, and became a zealous Muslim. In 1810 he was at Cawnpore and heard
Martyn preach to the poor who assembled at his door on Sunday afternoons
to receive alms. Salih, in his own words, went “to see the sport”. He was
struck by Martyn’s exposition of the ten commandments and wanted to hear
more. In the end he was engaged to work with Martyn’s assistant.
The Missionary Papers of CMS in 1831, documented his conversion in 1810:
When Mr. Martyn had finished his Translation of the New Testament
into Hindoostanee, the book was given to Sheik Salih to bind. This he
considered as a fine opportunity; nor did he let it slip. On reading the
Word of God, he discovered his state, and perceived therein a true
description of his own heart. He soon decided in favour of the Christian
Religion.
The second convert was Mahomed Rahim. George Fowler, in his book
Three Years in Persia (London: 1841) recounted meeting him in Shiraz. He
quotes Rahim as saying:
Just before [Martyn] quitted Shiraz I could not refrain from paying him
a farewell visit. Our conversation, the memory of which will never fade
from the tablet of my mind, sealed my conversion. He gave me a
book; it has been my constant companion; the study of it formed my
most delightful occupation; its contents have often consoled me.
Upon this he put into my hand a copy of the New Testament in
Persian; on one of the blank leaves was written, ‘There is joy in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth. HENRY MARTYN.’ [George Smith,
Henry Martyn Saint and Scholar: First Modern Missionary to the Mohammedans
(London: Religious Tract Society, 1892), p. 525-6]
(b) Writers
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published his Aids to Reflection in 1825, six
years after the publication of Martyn’s Memoir in 1819. Aphorism XVIII
reads:
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Examine the journals of our zealous missionaries, I will not say among
the Hottentots or Esquimaux, but in the highly civilized, though
fearfully uncultivated, inhabitants of ancient India. How often, and how
fleetingly, do they describe the difficulty of rendering the simplest
chain of thought intelligible to the ordinary natives, the rapid
exhaustion of their whole power of attention, and with what distressful
effort it is exerted while it lasts!
[Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection (London: George Bell and
Sons, 1890) edition, p. 9. First published in 1825.]
It is not conclusive, but to me seems highly likely that Coleridge was
referring to Martyn.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
There is an intriguing echo of Martyn in Jane Eyre. Martyn had failed to
persuade his beloved Lydia Grenfell, of Falmouth, to come to India with him.
At the end of Jane Eyre St John Rivers, sails to India having failed to
persuade Jane to marry him and accompany him. Valentine Cunningham,
Professor of English at Oxford, has written supporting the theory that St
John Rivers is based on the life, if not the character, of Martyn. [Valentine
Cunningham, ‘God and Nature Intended You for a Missionary’s Wife’ in Fiona
Bowie, Deborah Kirkwood and Shirley Ardener (eds), Women and Missions:
Past and Present (Oxford: Berg, 1993), pp. 85-105]
Charlotte Brontë’s father had been helped by him as a young student at St
John’s College, Cambridge and Martyn was his hero. He had arranged for
Patrick Brunty, as he was called at that time, to received £10 a year from
each of Henry Thornton and William Wilberforce. If you see the new film,
look out for St John Rivers, named after Martyn’s Cambridge College.
I have recently found an interesting footnote to this story of Jane Eyre. In
Jeanette Winterson’s new book, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal
(London: Jonathan Cape, 2011), she recounts her fearsome mother reading
it to her at the age of seven:
Mrs Winterson read out loud, turning the pages. There was a terrible
fire at Thornfield Hall and Mr Rochester goes blind, but in the version
Mrs Winterson read, Jane doesn’t bother about her now sightless
paramour; she marries St John Rivers and they go off together to work
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in the mission field. It was only when I finally read Jane Eyre for
myself that I found out what my mother had done.
And she did it so well, turning the pages and inventing the text
extempore in the style of Charlotte Brontë. (p. 102)
It just goes to show the importance of reading the text for yourself.
George Eliot, in chapter 23 of her 1858 book, Scenes from Clerical Life,
describes the spiritual crisis of Janet Demster. It comes from her reading of
Sargent’s Memoir of Martyn. Thrown out of her home by her husband, and
destitute, she found a copy lying on Mrs Pettifer’s table. After being
engrossed in it, she tells her:
I must go. I feel I must be doing something for someone – not be a
mere useless log any longer. I’ve been reading about that wonderful
Henry Martyn...wearing himself out for other people, and I sit thinking
of nothing but myself. I must go. [p 264.]
(c) Missionaries
In 1887 the Henry Martyn Hall was opened and a large number of
Cambridge students have heard their missionary call there, through prayer
meetings, sermons, books and advice. Sue Anderson, the Henry Martyn
World Mission Adviser, continues to mentor students pondering vocations.
I will highlight eight British scholarly missionaries (not from Cambridge) who
served in the twentieth century and have been influenced by Martyn. Three
have died, three are still writing in their retirement and two are actively
serving and writing.
Temple Gairdner (1873-1928), was a CMS missionary in Cairo from 1899
and the author of “Edinburgh 1910”: An Account and Interpretation of the
World Missionary Conference (1910), and the pioneering The Reproach of
Islam (1909) which he later retitled The Rebuke of Islam (1920). He was an
important figure of respectful witness to Muslims. When he died, his
colleague in Cairo, Yusef Effendi Tadras, commented: ‘Other teachers taught
us how to refute Islam; he taught us how to love Muslims’.
Constance Padwick (1886-1968) was one of the leading British women
missionaries in the twentieth century. She made her way in the Middle East
through her own initiative, having been rejected by CMS, but was in very
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close liaison with various CMS personnel As well as the biography of Martyn
she also wrote the lives of Temple Gairdner and Alexander Mackay. Catriona
Laing is currently finishing her Cambridge PhD on Constance Padwick.
Kenneth Cragg (b. 1913) was never technically a CMS missionary but was
part of the tradition developed by Gairdner. He served in the Lebanon,
taught at Hartford Seminary, Connecticut, was an Assistant Bishop in
Jerusalem, a Reader at the University of Sussex, Warden of St Augustine’s
College, Canterbury. His book, The Call of the Minaret (London: OUP, 1956)
had a profound influence on mission and dialogue. In December last year, I
was present at a three day conference held in his honour at Lambeth Palace.
Roger Hooker (1934-1999) was a CMS missionary in North India at Bareilly
Theological College and then as a student of Sanskrit at the Sanskrit
University, Benaras (Varanasi), which also involved deep friendships with
Hindus and Muslims. Hooker later became the Bishop of Birmingham’s
Adviser for Inter-Faith Relations based in the inner-city area of Smethwick.
Ten years ago, I published a study of his correspondence with his father-inlaw, Max Warren, who had been General Secretary of CMS 1942-63,
Christianity Connected (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 2002).
Colin Chapman (b. 1938) who is with us today, has retired to Cambridge
and is a trustee of the Henry Martyn Trust. He served with CMS in Cairo and
Lebanon, taught at Trinity College, Bristol and Crowther Hall, Birmingham
and again in Lebanon. He is a prolific author of many books on mission and
dialogue.
Christopher Lamb (b.1939) served with CMS in Pakistan, taught at
Crowther Hall, Birmingham, wrote his Birmingham doctorate on Kenneth
Cragg. During his studies, he complained that every time he wrote a new
chapter of his dissertation, Cragg had written another book. Lamb
coordinated the Other Faiths project of BCMS and CMS, became Community
Relations Officer for Coventry Diocese, then Secretary for Inter-Faith
Relations for the Church of England and served as a country priest in
Coventry Diocese.
Toby Howarth (b. 1962) served with Crosslinks at the Henry Martyn
Institute, Hyderabad, India, studied for his doctorate in The Netherlands,
tutored at the CMS college in Birmingham before being a priest in
Birmingham and Bishop’s Adviser on Inter-Faith Relations. Last year he
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became Secretary of Inter Religious Affairs for the Church of England and
the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Richard Sudworth has been CMS mission partner in Birmingham and is
currently a pioneer curate in Birmingham studying part-time for a PhD in
Christian-Muslim relations at Heythrop College, University of London. He has
written Distinctly Welcoming: Christian Presence in a Multifaith Society
(London: Scripture Union, 2007)
3. The Study of Mission, Dialogue and World Christianity Today
For five years, I was a member of the British ecumenical ‘Mission Theological
Advisory Group’ which produced Presence and Prophecy: a Heart for Mission
in Theological Education (London: Church House Publishing, 2002). Today,
as theological curricula are being rewritten, I still believe that the scholarly
study of mission, dialogue and world Christianity is crucial to the current
teaching of theology and religious studies and to the preparation for mission
and ministry in Britain and the world.
It is encouraging to see that the Henry Martyn Centre, currently under the
directorship of Emma Wild-Wood, for over 15 years has flourished as an
Associate Institute of the Cambridge Theological Federation and a focus for
study in the University.
After I moved from the Henry Martyn Centre to Islington in 2000, Sebastian
Kim served for a year as interim Director, while Kirsteen his wife continued
as Administrator. Sebastian is now Professor of Theology and Public Life at
York St John University and Kirsteen is Professor of Theology and World
Christianity at Leeds Trinity University College. They have both been prolific
authors since leaving Cambridge and one of their latest joint books,
Christianity as a World Religion (London: Continuum, 2008) is an
outstanding text book, structured by geographical region. They show that
Christianity is a world religion topographically, theologically, geographically,
socio-politically, historically and structurally.
Brian Stanley, Britain’s leading historian of mission, was Director of the
Henry Martyn Centre from 2001-2010 and is now Professor of World
Christianity, University of Edinburgh. With R E Frykenberg, he edited the
extraordinary Eerdmans series Studies in the History of Christian Missions,
culminating with his own The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910
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(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). With Sheridan Gilley, he edited volume 8
of The Cambridge History of Christianity, World Christianities, c. 1815 - c.
1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
The Henry Martyn Institute in Hyderabad, India, was founded originally in
1930 in Lahore (see Carol Pickering, ‘Murray T. Titus: Missionary and Islamic
Scholar’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research Vol 19 No 3 pp 118120) and continues to be an international centre of renown for research,
inter faith relations and reconciliation, ably directed by Varghese Manimala.
It is encouraging that there are now so many centres for the study of world
Christianity, drawing on the pioneering scholarship of Andrew Walls
(Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Liverpool), Lamin Sanneh (Yale) and the late
Kwame Bediako (Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana). In particular, it seems to me,
the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, at Trinity Theological
College, Singapore, directed by Michael Nai-Chiu Poon, and St Paul’s
University, Limuru, Kenya, whose Vice Chancellor is Joseph Galgalo, are
vibrant centres of excellence.
Concerning dialogue, two current scholarly initiatives worthy of the legacy
Martyn are first the Building Bridges seminars convened by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Since 2002, there have been ten of these
and the books include Michael Ipgrave (ed), Bearing the Word: Prophecy in
Biblical and Qur’anic Perspective (London: Church House Publishing, 2005)
and David Marshall (ed), Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation,
and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam (Washington: Georgetown
University Press, 2011. The undergirding theology for these seminars
coalesced in an Anglican theology of inter-faith relations, Generous Love: the
Truth of the Gospel and the Call to Dialogue (London: Anglican Communion
Office, 2008).
The second scholarly initiative worthy of note is the Cambridge Inter-Faith
Project, founded and directed by David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity and
Henry Martyn trustee. With its particular approach of ‘Scriptural Reasoning’
and special projects, including facilitating the teaching of Christianity as a
World Religion in Church schools, it is a key pioneering scholarly adventure
for our age.
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Conclusion: Martyn’s Challenge for Vocations for our Age
I believe that God is still calling people to follow Jesus of Nazareth, and his
saints like Henry Martyn, in being authentic, integrated, sacrificial, cross
cultural mission partners and Bible translators.
God is still calling young men and women to be priests and missional
ministers in Britain, who sense God’s challenge to live in difficult areas,
outside of their usual comfort zone and who long to combine the study of
classical and biblical languages with the languages of our burgeoning inner
cities: Gujurati, Urdu and Hindi.
God is still calling Christians to explore putting themselves onto paper before
God. Beginning a spiritual journal at the beginning of Lent is breathtakingly
brave, but worth the plunge. You can be completely yourself. It is different
from a diary, in that it is consciously written in the presence of God and
parts of it can be addressed to God. You do not have to pretend, for you
cannot fool God: he knows you better than you know yourself.
So we return to the portrait. Constance E Padwick, summed up Martyn’s life:
‘That youth in years who yet knew the abasement and the rapture of a saint,
and who flung at the feet of Christ a scholar’s dreams and the heart of a
lover.’ [Constance E Padwick, Henry Martyn: Confessor of the Faith (London: SCM, 1922)
p. 36]
The Henry Martyn Lectureship in Mission Studies, in the Cambridge
Theological Federation, was inaugurated with a service at Holy Trinity
Church, Cambridge in January 1992, twenty years ago. I remember Kwame
Bediako, the preacher, spending some time meditating in front of this
painting in the vestry before the service. Conscious of an African and
Christian emphasis on the Communion of Saints, he said to me as we
processed in:
Martyn is alive. He is still with us. What does he say to us today? What
would he have done if he had returned to England and perhaps
eventually to Cambridge?
Charles Simeon had rooms at King’s College, in the Gibbs’ Building, above
the ‘Jumbo arch’ with the large semi circular windows: one facing onto King’s
Parade, and the other facing onto the River Cam.
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This portrait hung above the fireplace. Hugh Evan Hopkins, his biographer,
wrote:
Years afterwards, looking at that picture, Simeon would say to his
guests ‘There! See that blessed man! What an expression of
countenance! No one looks at me as he does – and he never takes his
eyes off me; and seems always to be saying, “Be serious – be in
earnest – Don’t trifle – don’t trifle.” And I won’t trifle – I won’t trifle.’
[Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977)
p 149.]
The Collect, in Common Worship, for Henry Martyn’s day, celebrated on 19
October, is:
Almighty God,
who by your Holy Spirit gave Henry Martyn
a longing to tell the good news of Christ
and skill to translate the Scriptures:
by the same Spirit give us grace to offer you our gifts,
wherever you may lead, at whatever the cost;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Dr Graham Kings is Bishop of Sherborne. In 1992 he became the first Henry Martyn
Lecturer in Mission Studies in the Cambridge Theological Federation, and in 1996 he
founded the Henry Martyn Centre for the study of mission and World Christianity, in the
Cambridge Theological Federation, at Westminster College. From 2000-2009 he was Vicar of
St Mary Islington, London.
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