Henry Martyn. There was deep joy in the meeting—but with it how much of human sorrow mingled. They saw in poor Martyn but the wreck of his former self-they saw one whom sickness, and sorrow, and much toil in an exhausting climatethe strong spirit ever battling against the weakly frame-the carnal wretchedness of the man at strife with the heavenly ecstacy of the immortal-had brought down to the very borders of the grave. Let us hear their account of the meeting.

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"Dear, dear Martyn," writes MrsThomason, "arrived, and we ' had the unspeakable delight of seeing his face. The agitation I felt during the whole morning, was such as I never experienced in India. Joy and sorrow alternately-joy to see him, sorrow for the occasion. In three or four weeks he leaves us to go to sea for his health. He is much altered, is thin and sallow, but he has the same loving heart. No tongue can tell what a refreshment the sight of him has been to us. I should ́ be thankful to be his nurse if he would remain with us; but one would wish him to try every means, hoping that God may yet spare him for a few years-Martyn and I are both writing ' under the same roof." Her husband adds, addressing Mr. Simeon, "This bright and lovely jewel first gratified our eyes ' on Saturday last. He is on his way to Arabia in pursuit of ' health and knowledge. You know his genius, and what gigantic strides he takes in every thing. He has some great plan in 'his mind, of which I am no competent judge. But as far as 'I do understand, the object is far too grand for our short life, and much beyond his feeble and exhausted frame. Feeble indeed it is! how fallen and changed! his complaint lies in 'the lungs, and appears to be incipient consumption. But let us hope the sea air will revive him, and that change of place and pursuit may do him essential service, and continue his life many years. In all other respects he is exactly the same as he was he shines in all the dignity of love, and seems to carry about him such a heavenly majesty as impresses the mind beyond all description. But if he talks 'much, though in a low voice, he sinks and you are reminded ' of his being dust and ashes. It would have filled your eyes when she saw him; you know

:

' with tears to have seen dear

her smile and hearty countenance, and eyes darting good nature, but you never saw them so called forth. We were all filled with joy unspeakable, and blessed God for the rich opportunity of loving intercourse. I immediately put into his hand your long and affectionate letter, in order that you might be of the party. Martyn read it in the corner of the sofa,

sat by him, and I sat looking on: so the letter was read and the tears flowed."

And Martyn left them, never to return. On the 7th of January he embarked on board a vessel bound for Bombay; on the 16th of October, 1812, he put on a garment of immortality. We can not now narrate the history of his travels and his trialswhat he did and what he suffered. There is nothing grander in the annals of Christianity, than the picture of Henry Martyn, with the Bible in hand, alone and unsupported, in a strange country, challenging the whole strength of Mahomedanism to a conflict of disputation. He seems at this time to have possessed something more than his own human power; so cool, so courageous; so bold to declare, so subtle to investigate; astonishing the Mahomedan doctors with his wisdom,―gaining the confidence of all by the gentleness of his manners and the blamelessness of his life. There is a cheerfulness of spirit predominant in the Shiraz journal-almost, indeed, are there touches of humour in it-which would lead us to think that at this period of his life he was more happy and self-possessed than he had been for many years. His victory over the Mullahs was complete; and it pleased him to think of it. In the translation of the Bible into the Persian tongue he had achieved a great work, which was a solace to him to the very hour of his death. He quitted Shiraz and new trials awaited him. Inclement weather extremes of heat and cold alternating-weary travelling along rugged roads on ill-trained horses-little rest and bad food-every possible kind of exposure and privation, soon fevered the blood and exhausted the strength of one so sensitive as Martyn. From Shiraz to Ispahan-from Ispahan to Teheran -from Teheran to Tocat, he struggled onwards, hoping to reach his home and he did reach his home; but it was in Heaven. And who can say what the news of his death cost the survivors. Simeon had shortly before received Martyn's picture from India. He had gone to see it, when the case was opened at the India House, and been so much affected by the sight, that the bystanders exclaimed, "That I suppose is his father?" Now the news of his son's death smote upon his heart crushingly. On Corrie the blow fell heavily indeed. David Brown did not live to feel it; he had gone to his rest a few months before. Let Thomason declare, in his own words, the anguish of his heart.

"Few," he justly and emphatically exclaimed, "have reason to mourn individually as I have: with him I hoped to spend my days in mutual deliberation and united labour. Here in a short time he would have been fixed, and hence we neither of us would have wished to stir a foot. He has often said it to I fondly counted on his return full fraught with health and Arabic. On this his heart was set, though not for itself. It has pleased God to remove him to the rest for which he

me.

had been panting, and from which nothing but the love of 'his work here would willingly have detained him. With his

presence in Calcutta, the Persian and Arabic versions would have proceeded with spirit; he was so eminently qualified with The great

' all needful endowments for a good translator.

'Head of the Church lives, that is our consolation. I have learnt more than ever what that scripture means, cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.' "We are deeply

' wounded," he writes in another letter; 'His walk was so grand, his labours so important, his attainments so rare! O how fondly we counted upon his future labours! how the heart leaped for joy at the thought of Martyn's successful career in Persia, and hoped for return to Calcutta.......... Often have our petitions been offered up at our social meetings for his preservation and success. Once especially the conversation at ' table was wholly engrossed with Martyn, and the prayers which followed were unusually fervent. The very next day we heard of the termination of his career....No event within my recollection has filled me with so much sorrow, and caused so 'hard a conflict between faith and unbelief."

And here for the present we must pause. We are approaching a new and momentous epoch in the history of the Anglican Church in the East. We are coming close upon the Episcopal period. Another chapter may well be devoted to the later annals of established religion in India; at all events we can not embrace them in this. We would wish what we have written to be regarded as little more than a series of rapid biographical sketches-a collection of hastily executed portraits, not of the soldiers of Christ in the great world of Oriental Heathendom, but of one special band, limited in numbers and perhaps in influence, which we could in no words more fittingly describe than as that of the <c Simeonites in the East." We claim for them no exclusive merits. We write not of them as men who were the only labourers in the great field which we have, in some sort, endeavoured to explore. We make and we invite no comparisons. We speak of our heroes simply as they were, so many links in the great chain of Christian brotherhood which includes the names of holy men of all denominations. We have niches reserved in our gallery for those of whom the University calendars and the East-India Register have alike taken no account-who have never preached before a Governor-General or touched the Company's coin. There are niches, we say, reserved for them, and we trust that they will soon be filled.

ART. II.-1. Asiatic Researches, vols. 1-20, 4to. London and Calcutta, 1799-1836.

2. Gleanings in Science, 3 vols. 4to. Calcutta, 1829-31.

3. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 16 vols. 8vo. Calcutta, 1832-48.

4. Calcutta Journal of Natural History, 7 vols. 8vo. Calcutta, 1840-48.

5. Transactions of the Literary Societies of Madras and Bombay.

6. Summary of the Geology of Southern India, by Capt. Newbold, parts 1, 2 and 3. London, 8vo.

7. Transactions of the Geological Society. 2d series.

THE demand for geological information is rapidly on the increase. In the infancy of the science, when it was the fashion to begin at the wrong end, and dream about causes, when little or nothing was known of appearances, cautious men--or the majority of them-eschewed the cosmogony mongers, and were content to take the world as they found it. The splendid theories of the last century had their admirers-and there were notable men among them; but the genius of science has ever been in the long run, conservative of the well-known, and obstructive to the spread of fancies; so that whatever may have been the temporary triumph of new hypotheses, they have all in their turn been dropped which had no basis in facts. Thus we find that so long as geologists sought for theories first, and facts afterwards, it was the way with their neighbours to laugh at them, as philosophers who could make a world to their liking, and yet not know what it was made of. If this ridicule was carried too far, and applied to men and books now honoured among us; it is only what has always happened when doctrines clashing with the prejudices or the faith of the masses, have been reared on a mixed foundation of truth and error, the error apparent or soon found out, the truth perhaps lurking in the envelope of fancy to which it has given birth, as the chrysalis lies hid in its web of gold. But though great minds may often make a wrong use of truth, it is never thrown away in their hands. They may build bad houses of their materials, but when they fall, if fall they must, the industry spent in digging among the ruins is sure to find that all is not rubbish, if it do not collect wherewith to found a new and lasting structure, in the rearing of which, too, many of the plans and principles of the former archi

tect, retain their original value. And it will contribute not a little to our admiration of the first great masters of geology, if we look at the principles of the science as now established, and see how much they owe to the ruins of the grand hypotheses which went before. We have no Wernerians, no Huttonians now, but had Werner and Hutton never lived, it is very likely that we should have been even now more in the dark than they. We have retained their facts, and an invaluable store they have been-but whatis of still greater consequence, we have adopted much of their habits of observation-and with certain restrictions-their habits of reasoning. Their authority is still received with the greatest deference, and in certain matters of the highest importance, has never been shaken by subsequent research.

Still it was only when the theories of Werner and Hutton were on the decline, that the geologists could justly claim exemption from ridicule. But the trammels of pre-assumed belief once cast off, further progress was easy. Men, from surmising what might have happened before Adam, learned. to look about them, and observe facts which might in the end make theorizing a business of profit. Geology was now a science, and for a time strictly the science of observation. The world-makers became earth-students, and it is impossible not to be struck with the splendid results which have attended the investigations of the past half century; during which men have given up trusting to their imaginations, as good for laying hold of truth, and resorted to that homely apparatus which God has given each of us for the study of His works, a good pair of eyes. How little was known of the "earth's crust," when the first mineralogist of his day compared the structure of our planet's surface to the concentric coats of an onion! And yet there are some among us who remember the time when this whimsical notion was thought to be supported, not only by probability but by something more. And when it was pointed out by certain people who used their eyes, that the strata were anything but continuous all over the globe-it was thought a sufficient answer to say, that the onion, though originally perfect, had been damaged by keeping. But the times are changed, and the aggregate amount of industry and sagacity that in the last fifty years has been employed in the simple study of the rocks, is a great fact in the history of the science, and one which could not fail of producing the most brilliant results. For, in this childlike study of nature, have been engaged many of the greatest minds of our time,-men capable, if so disposed, of elaborating theories up to any required degree of magnificence, from the materials they found in their own heads; but men who happily preferred

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