Henry Martyn testimony
Posted by wagardner - 03/03/08 at 07:03:28 amWhenever Martyn worked among the Europeans he found the same response, a scornful rejection of his message by the vast majority, but a handful of men who, often in secret, came to hear more. There was the corporal who slipped into his hand a letter begging for spiritual help, a request he dared not make in the open; there was the chief mate who, though unable to understand much of Martyn’s theology, stopped swearing, and became the chaplain’s loyal supporter; there were the faithful five who joined him in his cabin for daily worship; above all, there was Mackenzie, an officer of the cadets, who throughout the voyage was a constant visitor to the chaplain’s cabin, and incurred ridicule by attending the hymn-singing which Martyn introduced among the lower ranks.
A few did indeed find a true faith in Christ on that voyage; but the majority grew steadily more obstinate in their opposition. Much as they disliked his message, however, they could not deny the sincere love of [his fellow man]. It was love for the blaspheming sailors which kept him busy trying to awaken their consciences. Such love is not easily recognized by men of the world, but they could not disregard his unselfish care for the sick and dying, who were always to be found in plenty on the troop-ships of those days. From the captain, who died on the way to the Cape, to the merest ship’s boy, all claimed his unceasing care, and only when dysentery attacked Martyn himself was he forced to stop. Imagine it: the sweat and the dirt, the foul smell and the unbearable heat of the lower decks, and the Cambridge don in his meticulously neat black clothes moving from hammock to hammock, from sick boy to dying man, with food and medicine, and always with the Word of God. The men had never seen anything like it; nor had the officers, and they wrote him off as a mad enthusiast.
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