omething very like faith.
On one of the last days before his leaving Shiraz, Seid Ali said
seriously, "Though a man had no other religious society, I suppose he
might, with the aid of the Bible, live alone with God." It was to this
solitude that Martyn left him, not attempting apparently to induce him to
give up anything for the sake of embracing Christianity. Death would
probably have been the consequence of joining the Armenian Church in
Persia, but why did Martyn's teaching stop at inward faith instead of
insisting on outward confession, the test fixed by the Saviour Himself?

On the 24th of May, Mr. Martyn and another English clergyman set out to
lay his translation before the Shah, who was in his camp at Tebriz. There
they were admitted to the presence of the Vizier, before whom two
Moollahs, the most ignorant and discourteous whom he had met in Persia,
were set to argue with the English priest. The Vizier mingled in the
discussion, which ended thus: "You had better say God is God, and Mahomet
is His prophet." "God is God," repeated Henry Martyn, "and JESUS is the
Son of God."

"He is neither born nor begets," cried the Moollahs; and one said, "What
will you say when your tongue is burnt out for blasphemy?"

He had offended against the Mohammedan doctrine most strictly held; and,
knowing this well, he had kept back the confession of the core of the
true faith till to withhold it longer would have been a denial of his
Lord. After all, he was not allowed to see the Shah without the
Ambassador to present him, and descended again to Sultania--a painful
journey, from which he brought a severe ague and fever, through which he
was nursed by Sir Gore and Lady Ouseley.

As soon as he had recovered, he decided on making his way to
Constantinople, and thence to England, where he hoped to recruit his
health and, it might be, induce Lydia to accompany him back to India. His
last letter to her was written from Tebriz on the 28th of August,
dreading illness on the journey, but still full of hope. In that letter,
too, he alludes to Sabat as the greatest tormentor he had known, but
warns her against mentioning to others that this "star of the East," as
Claudius Buchanan had called him, had been a disappointment. His diary
is carried on as far as Tocat. The last entry is on the 6th of October.
It closes thus: "Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? When shall
appear that new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth right