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2U MARTYNIA MARTYR of the New Testament undertaken by direction of the missionary society into Hindostanee and IVr-i;in. He had also made some progress in .1:1 Arabic version when his failing health com- pelled him to suspend his labors. His life was written by the Rev. John Sargent (1819). MARTYNIA, a genus of plants, named in hon- or of Prof. John Martyn, of Cambridge, Eng., and belonging to a suborder of the Bignoni- acea, which some botanists regard as entitled to rank as an order, the sesamew. They are low branching annuals, with thick stems, which, as well as the simple rounded leaves, are clam- my pubescent, and the whole plant has a rath- er heavy unpleasant odor. The flowers are in racemes, large, bell-shaped, five-lobed, and somewhat two-lipped ; fertile stamens two or four. The fruit is an oval pod terminated by a long, slender, incurved beak, fleshy at first, but toward maturity becoming woody, and when quite ripe the beak splits into two hooked rigid horns, liberating numerous black and wrinkled seeds. There are six or eight Martynia. species, natives of warm countries, except one indigenous to the United States and found as far north as southern Illinois. Some of the species are cultivated as ornamental plants, their large, showy, red and yellow flowers strongly resembling those of the gloxinias. M. fragrans, from Mexico, has violet-purple flowers, which give off a pleasant vanilla-like odor. The native species, M. proboscidea, is sometimes called the unicorn plant, and is cul- tivated in gardens for the sake of its young fruit ; the flowers in this species are dull white or purplish and spotted with yellow and purple. The young pods, taken when still thoroughly succulent, are used for pickling, and are by many considered better than any other vege- table for the purpose. In the southern states the fruit is called martinoes. MARTYR (Gr. pAprvp, a witness), a term ap- plied to all who suffer for any noble cause, but in a more limited sense to those who suffer death in order to bear witness to their religious be- lief. Some early writers bestowed the name of martyrs on all those who had suffered tor- ture for the faith; more generally, however, it was reserved to such as died under the hand of the executioner, or while enduring imprison- ment or exile, all other sufferers being desig- nated as "confessors." It is impossible to fix even approximately the number of the early Christian martyrs. Gibbon endeavored to prove that it was insignificant, but this opinion is not shared by more unprejudiced writers. In most cities where persecution raged, nota- ries were appointed by the bishops to keep lists of the sufferers, and a record of their trial, sufferings, and death. Of these records many, perhaps most, were destroyed in the persecution of Diocletian, when the Christians were compelled to give up all the books be- longing to the churches. Out of what re- mained of them, supplemented by the local traditions, were afterward compiled the mar- tyrologies of the principal Greek and Latin churches. (See AOTA SANCTORUM.) These must not be confounded with church calen- dars, which merely indicate for each day of the year the name of the saint whose festival it is. The martyrologies moreover indicate the sort of punishment endured, the place and time of martyrdom, and the name of the presiding magistrate. The "Roman Martyrology " aims at combining a complete list of martyrs and saints, with their "acts," and the days of the month on which their feasts occur. The mem- ory of the martyrs was held in special honor. The shedding of blood, in the case of unbap- tized sufferers, was considered to be equivalent to baptism. Their tombs were guarded with jealous care and decorated with garlands; chap- els were built over them ; their anniversaries, called natalitia martyrum, were celebrated with enthusiasm ; and it became a rule, when the persecutions ceased, to have the body of some martyr or a portion of his remains be- neath the altar of every church. The Roman catacombs contain the remains of large num- bers of martyrs. Prudentius, after mentioning this fact in one of his hymns, asserts that single numerals on the slabs point out to the initiated the chambers in which a number of martyrs were buried together. This fact was verified by Boldetti (Osseruazioni sopra i cimiteri de 1 santi martiri, Rome, 1720), who discovered 150 martyrs entombed in one chamber in the cemetery of Sant' Ermesio, and 500 in a second, that of San Callisto ; while Visconti (Sposizione di alcune antiche iscrizioni cristiane, Rome, 1824) designates another chamber containing 118 bodies. From this great storehouse the Roman Catholic churches are chiefly supplied, the altar stone on which the mass is offered always containing a relic of some martyr. For the process followed in the canoniza- tion of martyrs, see Benedict XIV., De Ser- voriim Dei Beatificatione, et Beatorum Ca- nonizatione, abridged in Faber's "Essay on Beatification and Canonization" (London, 1848). On the general subject of early Chris-