Martingale

“ Martindale was standing in the open door his face raised as though he were drinking in the fragrance of the morning. A chorus of bird song came from inside.
"Hallo, Mr. Martindale," Angel shouted. "What do you suppose? Father's coming home."
"He'll be here In less than two hours," I panted.
The cobbler put a dark hand on a shoulder of each. "That's grand news, little masters," he said. "But I hope he won't take you so far away that I shall never see you. The birds like you too. They never sing so loud as when you are in the shop." ”

“ The frosty gale tossed Mr. Martell's white hair, while with his hat he worked, in pathetic earnestness, for the sake of his daughter; but in spite of all that he and the oarsman could do, the water gained on them, wetting their feet and creeping up their legs with the icy chili of death.
Every moment or two the man would pause in his work and send forth a cry of such terrible power and earnestness that it would seem some one must hear.
Again Alice Martell saw the distant lights of her own home, but she turned from them to those that gleamed from the nearer residence of Mrs. Marchmont. ”

“ April 21, 1806, the nine months' journey is complete, and they land at Madras. Mr. Martyn gives first impressions and description of the natives, ending in these words: "In general, one thought naturally occurred: the conversion of their poor souls. I am willing, I trust, through grace, to pass my life among them if by any means these poor people may be brought to God. The sight of men, women and children, all idolaters, makes me shudder as if in the dominions of the prince of darkness. ”

“ Martellus, dusting his hands and puffing, returns from the grove. MARTELLUS. Ouf! [He sits down next the Newly Born] That job's finished.
ARJILLAX. Ancients: I should like to make a few studies of you. Not portraits, of course: I shall idealize you a little. I have come to the conclusion that you ancients are the most interesting subjects after all.
MARTELLUS. What! Have those two horrors, whose ashes I have just deposited with peculiar pleasure in poor Pygmalion's dustbin, not cured you of this silly image-making! ”

“ On the New Year’s Day of 1812 Martyn wrote in his journal: “The present year will probably be a perilous one, but my life is of little consequence, whether I live to finish the Persian New Testament, or do not. I look back with pity and shame on p. 94my former self, and on the importance I then attached to my life and labours. The more I see of my own works, the more I am ashamed of them. Coarseness and clumsiness mar all the works of men. I am sick when I look at man, and his wisdom, and his doings, and am relieved only by reflecting that we have a city whose builder and maker is God. ”

“ John Martindale, an eccentric old gentleman who builds an abbey for his titled relative to occupy, whilst he himself lives in a cottage on the estate; seeks an acquaintance with Markham. These parties reside at Brigland, and Philip Martindale, a dissipated lover of the turf, who is dependent on his capricious cousin for his supplies; and Horatio Markham, the hero, are thus introduced. Then we have a country curate of the higher order, together with his loquacious half; which are excellent portraits. ”

“ Génifrède! We may sleep in peace. General Brunet will hardly be able to digest your hospitality, my Margot; but you may sleep. Who else?” he asked, as he looked round upon his trembling household.
“We are following,” said Monsieur Pascal, who had his wife and Euphrosyne on either arm.
“Pardon me,” said General Brunet. “Our orders extend only to General Toussaint and his family. You must remain. Reverend father,” he said to Father Laxabon, “you will remain also—to comfort any friends of General Toussaint whom you may be able to meet with to-morrow. They will be all inconsolable, no doubt.” ”

“ From Hovenden Lodge, Philip Martindale returned home; and after finding every thing as it should be at the Abbey, and arranging with the trusty Oliver concerning uniformity of narrative, he called upon the old gentleman at the cottage. There he underwent a long harangue on the folly of archery, and the silliness [134] of Sir Andrew Featherstone, together with a desultory dissertation on the frivolity of the age in general. From which dissertation, it was to be inferred that old John Martindale was the only man living who had the least idea of propriety and wisdom of conduct. ”

“ Martyn, who, when he was asked by the prince, what were the laws of Christianity, (meaning how often it required its believers to pray, wash, &c.,) said, that it had two commandments—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy strength; and thy neighbour, as thyself.” In these debates he had to endure great contempt from his opponents, which is one of the severest trials a man of honourable feeling, and a minister of the gospel, can be called to suffer. ”

“ Martinmas, mär′tin-mas, n. the mass or feast of St Martin: 11th Nov., a term-day in Scotland.
Martlet, märt′let, n. the martin, the name of a bird: (her.) a martin or swallow without feet, used as a bearing, a crest, or a mark of cadency to designate the fourth son. [From Fr. martinet, dim. of martin.]
Martyr, mär′tėr, n. one who by his death bears witness to the truth: one who suffers for his belief: one who suffers greatly from any cause.—v.t. to put to death for one's belief.—n. Mar′tyrdom, state of being a martyr: the sufferings or death of a martyr: torment generally.—v.t. ”

“ The sound of a voice without made him leap to his feet. The next instant the heavy curtains were thrust back, and a young, richly-attired female stepped into the apartment. Despite the crushing blow the heart of Martialis had received, it gave a bound at the entrance of the new-comer. Her stature was above the feminine standard, and her figure large and voluptuous, but perfect in symmetry and grace. Whilst giving the impression of robustness and vigour, its stately carriage admirably matched the brilliant and haughty beauty of her face. The gaze of Martialis was riveted on her. ”

“ Martell, in the true Christian spirit, sought to impart to his humble companion in peril some of his own confidence in God's mercy and goodness; but in vain. An intelligent, sustaining faith cannot be snatched like a life-preserver in the moment of danger ”

“ The concourse of people in that great city was a solemn admonition to me to be diligent in study and prayer. Thousands of intelligent people [Pg 100] together; no Sabbath; no word of God; no one to give them advice: how inscrutable the ways of God!”
Martyn had made considerable progress in translating the scriptures into the language of India; he now, at the suggestion of Mr. Brown, a missionary near Calcutta, applied himself diligently to finishing the work, and to oversee, also, a translation into Persian. This became a delightful employment, as his own expressions show. ”

“ Mr Arthur Sartoris, the East End curate, and two old maids with amiable profiles in a back row, were inclined to set it down to “cerebral undulations in the ethereal medium”⁠—⁠which, of course, would be competent to explain almost anything, if they only existed. Lady Martindale leaned rather towards the extremer view that “the man had dealings with a familiar spirit,” and objected to take any further part in such doubtful proceedings. ”

“ The "Martinet" is the name of a genus, not of a species; the title of a race variously feathered, but having specific qualities in common. There is your military martinet, your clerical martinet, your legal martinet, and the martinet of common life, ("Gallicrista fastidiosa communis," Linnaeus would class him,) who is to the others what the house-sparrow is to the rest of his tribe. It is with him alone we have to do. The "martinet" is a person who is all his life violently busied in endeavouring to be a perfect gentleman, and who almost succeeds. He misses the point by over-stepping it. ”

“ If it was the night-watchman, he had [Pg 209] perhaps a word about the wind being in the northwest, “blowing up to a storm,” or about the marten that ate the last batch of squabs. The marten lived in the attic under the roof beams, where it had its young in peace. It was not disturbed, though it made an occasional raid on the hen roost or the pigeon coop; but that was to be guarded against. To make up for it, it ate the rats that infested the old houses, and for this service it was let alone. ”

“ New names, new saints, new heroes ever rise and dazzle the eyes of common men. So it should be, for God lives, and through Him men live and manifest His unexhausted power. But Martyn is a perennial. He springs up fresh to every generation. ”

“ Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar second only, in Mediæval art, to the Gospel records of the Lord’s own acts of tender grace and Divine self-emptying. As we trace, step by step, the unceasing service of Henry Martyn to men for love of his Master, we shall find a succession of modern parallels to the act of St. Martin, who, when a lad of eighteen with his regiment at Amiens, himself moneyless, answered the appeal of a beggar, shivering at the city gates in a cruel winter, by drawing his dagger, dividing his military cloak, and giving half of it to the naked man. ”

“ The great desire of Martyn’s heart was to excel at college, and to be foremost in his class, and this ambition occupied his mind so entirely, that he lived without God, and as if the world had been created for his honor, instead of the Maker’s. ”

“ Henry Martyn has now been in heaven twenty-six years, having died in his thirty-second year. Dearest Corrie was born like myself in 1778, and died in 1837, aged fifty-nine, and after having been thirty-one years in India. He has been at home now a year and five months. When, where, how, I may be called hence I know not. The Lord make me a follower of them who through faith and patience have inherited the promises. 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. ”

“ Whenever Philip married, she would find it no hardship at all to retire to the dower house at the edge of the park. Meanwhile she did her best to uphold the ancient ways. But if she sometimes found Martindale oppressive--too old, too large, too rich, too perfect--how was it going to strike a young Canadian, fresh from the prairies, who had never been in England before? ”

“ Marteen's story than his mind began supplying reasons for her departure--and the very first held him spellbound. Was it another move in her perpetual game? Was she on the track of someone's secret? Was her scheming mind now following some new clew that must lead to the discovery of a hidden or forgotten crime--the burial place of some well entombed family skeleton? He shivered.
Mrs. Marteen observed him narrowly.
"Mr. Gard is cold, Dorothy. Send for the tea, dear--or will you have something else? Really, you look like the patient who should seek climate and rest." ”

“ It is time, though, to take care that he does not become simply the shadow of an [491] angel passing by. His pinnacle is that lofty one which is only assigned to eminent goodness, but it rests upon, and is only the finial of, a broad-based tower of sound and solid intellectual endowment.
Henry Martyn’s Persian Testament called forth, in 1816, two Bulls from Pope Pius VIII., addressed to the Archbishops of Gnesne and Moghilev, within the Russian dominions, and letters from the Propaganda College at Rome to the Vicars Apostolic and Missionaries in Persia, Armenia, and other parts of the East. ”

“ Martigny is a well-built town; and some antiquarians insist, that it is the ancient Octodurum of the Romans. I can give no opinion on a point which has occasioned differences amongst the learned; but the present appearance of the inhabitants was very favourable, it being a holiday here as well as at Valorsine, and although their festivity was not altogether marked by the same simplicity, yet it was sufficiently removed from that which prevails in many other countries to interest us by its singularity. ”

“ These discouragements are mentioned, not to exalt the praises of Martyn; for had he been a perfect man, they would have appeared too insignificant to affect him at all, but to show that God gives strength to those who serve Him, and depend upon Him, proportionate to their trials and necessities; that his grace can enable a man to do actions of benevolence, which no other influence could; and that the sacrifices which Martyn made, are a proof of the reality of religion, as well as of the sincerity of his own profession. ”

“ Corrie had to flee from it, or he would never have lived to be the first and model Bishop of Madras. But such labours, such incessant straining of the voice through throat and lungs, acting on his highly neurotic constitution, and the phthisical frame which he inherited from his mother, became possible to Henry Martyn only because he willed, he agonised, to live till he should give at least the New Testament to the peoples of Arabia and Persia, and to the Mohammedans of India, in their own tongues. ”

“ Mr Rathbone has not experienced these dangers, because he has made his fortune by commerce, not by war. Besides, I must think Mr Rathbone a very rare instance of the power of principle against temptation. There are few indeed who spend their Indian wealth so generously for others, though every one who goes out with any principle to direct him, hopes that he shall be able to hold a straight course, though almost all others have gone astray. I could not, neither, I am sure, could you, encourage this confidence with respect to Alfred. ”