Final Voyage and Death
From Bombay he set out for Bushire, bearing letters from Sir John Malcolm to men of position there, as also at Shiraz and Isfahan. After an exhausting journey from the coast he reached Shiraz, and was soon plunged into discussion with the disputants of all classes, "Sufi, Muslim, Jew, and Jewish Muslim, even Armenian, all anxious to test their powers of argument with the first English priest who had visited them." He next traveled to Tabriz to attempt to present the Shah with his translation of the New Testament, which proved unsuccessful. Sir Gore Ouseley, the British ambassador to the Shah, was unable to bring about a meeting, but did deliver the manuscript. Although Martyn could not present the Bible in person, the Shah later wrote him a letter:
| “ | In truth (said the royal letter of thanks to the ambassador) through the learned and unremitted exertions of the Reverend Henry Martyn it has been translated in a style most befitting sacred books, that is in an easy and simple diction...The whole of the New Testament is completed in a most excellent manner, a source of pleasure to our enlightened and august mind. | ” |
At this time, he was seized with fever, and after a temporary recovery, had to seek a change of climate. He set off for Constantinople, where he intended to return on furlough to England to regain his strength and recruit help for the missions in India. On 12 September 1812, he started with two Armenian servants and crossed the Aras River. Urged on from place to place by their Tatar guide, they rode from Tabriz to Erivan, from Erivan to Kars, and from Kars to Erzurum. They departed Erzurum and though the plague was raging at Tokat, he was forced to stop there, unable to continue. He wrote his final journal entry on 6 October. It read, in part:
| “ | Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? When shall appear that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, there shall in no wise enter in any thing that defileth: none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts, none of those corruptions which add still more to the miseries of mortality, shall be seen or heard of any more. | ” |
On 16 October 1812 he died and was given a Christian burial by Armenian clergy.
He was heard to say, "Let me burn out for God". An indication of his zeal for the things of God.
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