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It is appropriate to give in this place some account of Martha Savory’s character and Christian experience.  That our notice is brief and incomplete, is owing to the loss of most of her own memoranda, and of the letters she addressed to those with whom she was on intimate terms.  She possessed, it will be seen, an intellectual character and disposition, as well as an experience, very different from those of her husband.  It does not follow, however, that this dissimilarity was a hindrance to their joint service in the gospel, any more than to their social harmony and love.  It may be, on the contrary, that Martha Savory’s quickness of understanding and of feeling, the readiness with which she apprehended the sentiments and condition of others, her conversancy with the allurements of city life, and the perils of unbelief from which she had been rescued, fitted her in a peculiar degree to be her husband’s helper in the ministry, especially in their travels on the Continent.

She was born in London in 1781, and was the daughter of Joseph and Anna Savory.  To an active and vigorous understanding she united a strength of will which would brook little control, together with much energy and fearlessness; and the propensity to follow the vain inclinations of the unregenerate heart displayed itself in an indulgence in much that was inimical to the restraints of Christian principle.  Her disposition was generous; all her emotions were ardent, and were seldom subjected to the discipline of a corrected judgment.  There were, however, various occasions, even in her very early years, when, through the visitations of heavenly love, her mind was forcibly aroused to a conviction of the need of redeeming grace.  She was particularly impressed by the preaching and influence of William Savery, whose home in London was at her father’s house.  In some memoranda of this period, she remarks, “Frequently in the meetings appointed by him, I was greatly wrought upon by his living ministry;” and notwithstanding that she subsequently wandered far from the way of peace, there is good ground to believe that the remembrance of those truths which had penetrated her heart through the instrumentality of this gospel messenger, was never altogether effaced.

Being naturally endowed with a lively imagination and a taste for literature, she sought to suppress the upbraidings of conscience in intellectual pursuits, and employed much time in the composition of verses that were merely a transcript of visionary and romantic ideas, afterwards published under the title of “Poetical Tales.”  This volume obtained but a limited circulation; for, soon after it had issued from the press, the conviction that it had been an unhallowed and unprofitable exercise of her understanding was so impressed upon her spirit, that, although the sacrifice was considerable, she caused all the unsold copies to be destroyed.  It is interesting to observe how, in later years, this talent for metrical rhythm, which had been so misapplied, became consecrated, as were all her faculties, to the promotion of piety and virtue.