Serampore was the scene of his praying, his communing, and his
studying, while every Sunday was given to his duties in Calcutta, as
he waited five months for his first appointment to a military station.
David Brown had not long before acquired Aldeen House, with its
tropical garden and English-like lawn sloping down to the river,
nearly opposite the Governor-General's summer-house and park of
Barrackpore. Connected with the garden was the old and architecturally
picturesque temple of the idol Radha-bullub, which had been removed
farther inland because the safety of the shrine was imperilled by the
river. But the temple still stands, in spite of the rapid Hoogli at
its base, and the more destructive peepul tree which has spread over
its massive dome. In 1854, when the present writer first visited the
now historic spot, even the platform above the river was secure, but
that has since disappeared, with much of the fine brick moulding and
tracery work. Here was the young saint's home; ever since it has been
known as Henry Martyn's Pagoda, and has been an object of interest to
hundreds of visitors from Europe and America.
[Illustration: A BRICK FROM HENRY MARTYN'S PAGODA]
Henry Martyn became one of David Brown's family, with whom he kept up
the most loving correspondence almost to his death. But he spent even
more time with the already experienced missionaries who formed the
famous brotherhood a little farther up the right bank of the Hoogli.
Carey thus wrote of him, knowing nothing of the fact that it was his
own earlier reports which, in Simeon's hands, had first led Martyn to
desire the missionary career: 'A young clergyman, Mr. Martyn, is
lately arrived, who is possessed of a truly missionary spirit. He
lives at present with Mr. Brown, and as the image or shadow of bigotry
is not known among us here, we take sweet counsel together and go to
the house of God as friends.' Later on, the founder of the Modern
Missionary enterprise, who desired to send a missionary to every great
centre in North India, declared of the Anglican chaplain that,
wherever he went no other missionary would be needed. The late Mr.
John Clark Marshman, C.S.I., who as a lad saw them daily, wrote: 'A
strong feeling of sympathy drew him into a close intimacy with Dr.
Marshman, and they might be often seen walking arm in arm, for hours
together, on the banks of the river between Aldeen House and the
Mission House.' To the last he addressed Dr. Marshman, in frequent
letters, as his 'dear brother,' anticipating the catholic tenderness
of Bishop Heber.[22] Martyn attended those family lectures of Ward on
the Hindus which resulted in his great book on the subject. In the
Pagoda, 'Carey, Marshman, and Ward joined in the same chorus of praise
with Brown, Martyn, and Corrie.' Martyn himself gives us these
exquisite unconscious pictures of Christian life in Serampore, in
which all true missionaries face to face with the common enemy have
followed the giants of those days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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