We find this allusion to the place in Carey's unpublished correspondence with Dr. Ryland :-"20th January 1807.It would have done your heart good to have joined us at our meetings at the pagoda. From that place we have successively recommended Dr. Taylor to the work of the Lord at Bombay, Mr. Martyn to his at Dinapoor, Mr. Corrie to his at Chunar, Mr. Parsons to his at Burhampoor, Mr. Des Granges to his at Vizagapatam, and our two brethren to theirs at Rangoon, and from thence we soon expect to commend Mr. Thompson to his at Madras. In these meetings the utmost harmony prevails and a union of hearts unknown between persons of different denominations in England." Dr. Taylor and Mr. Des Granges were early missionaries of the London Society, Presbyterian or Congregational; the Rangoon brethren were Baptists; the others were Church of England chaplains. The "beggarly elements" of sacramentarianism and the consequent priestcraft of sacerdotalism had not then begun to afflict the Church in India, which had not even a bishop till after 1813. There were giants in those days, in Bengal, worthy of Carey and of the one work in which all were the servants of one Master.

Let us look a little more closely at Henry Martyn's Pagoda. Here is the picturesque ruin, which the peepul tree that is entwined among its fine brick masonry, and the crumbling river-bank, will soon cause to disappear for ever. The exquisite tracery of the moulded bricks may be seen, but not the few figures that are left of the popular Hindoo idols just where the two still perfect arches begin to spring. The side to the river has already fallen down, and with it the open platform overhanging the bank on which the missionary sat in the cool of the morning and evening, and where he knelt to pray for the people. We have accompanied many a visitor there, from Dr. Duff to Bishop Cotton, and have rarely seen one unmoved. This pagoda had been abandoned long before.

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by the priests of Radhabullub, because the river had encroached to a point within 300 feet of it, the limit within which no Brahman is allowed to receive a gift or take his food. The little black doll of an idol, which is famous among Hindoos alike for its sanctity and as a work of art-for had it not been miraculously wafted to this spot like the Santa Casa to Loretto ?-was removed with great pomp to a new

temple after it had paid a visit to Clive's moonshi, the wealthy Raja Nobokissen in Calcutta, who sought to purchase it outright.

In this cool old pagoda Henry Martyn, on one of his earliest visits to Aldeen after his arrival as a chaplain in 1806, found an appropriate residence. Under the vaulted roof of the shrine a place of prayer and praise was fitted up with an organ, so that, as he wrote, "the place where once devils were worshipped has now become a Christian oratory."

Here, too, he laid his plans for the evangelisation of the people. When suffering from one of his moods of depression as to his own state, he thus writes of this place :-" I began to pray as on the verge of eternity; and the Lord was pleased to break my hard heart. I lay in tears, interceding for the unfortunate natives of this country; thinking within myself that the most despicable soodra of India was of as much value in the sight of God as the King of Great Britain." It was from such supplication that he was once roused by the blaze of a Suttee's funeral pyre, on which he found that the living widow had been consumed with the dead before he could interfere. He could hear the hideous drums and gongs and conch-shells of the temple to which Radhabullub had been removed. There he often tried to turn his fellowcreatures to the worship of the one God, from their prostrations "before a black image placed in a pagoda, with lights burning around it," whilst, he says, he "shivered as if standing, as it were, in the neighbourhood of hell." It was in this pagoda that Brown, Corrie, and Parsons met with him for the last time to commend him to God before he set out for his new duties at Dinapoor. "My soul," he writes of this occasion, "never yet had such divine enjoyment. I felt a desire to break from the body, and join the high praises of the saints above. May I go 'in the strength of this many days.' Amen." "I found my heaven begun on earth. No work so sweet as that of praying and living wholly to the service of God." And as he passed by the Mission House on his upward voyage, with true catholicity "Dr. Marshman could not resist joining the party: and after going a little way, left them with prayer." Do we wonder that these men have left their mark on India?

As years went by, the temple, thus consecrated as a Christian oratory, became degraded in other hands. The brand "pagoda distillery" for a time came to be known as

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marking the rum manufactured there. The visits of so many Christian pilgrims to the spot, and above all the desire expressed by Lord Lawrence when Governor-General to visit it, led the wealthy Hindoo family who now own the pagoda to leave it at least as a simple ruin. There it still stands, but the river is fast encroaching on it.

Corrie, afterwards the first bishop of Madras, describes the marriage of Des Granges in the oratory, and gives us a glimpse of life in the Serampore Mission House :

"1806. Calcutta strikes me as the most magnificent city in the world; and I am made most happy by the hope of being instrumental to the eternal good of many. A great opposition, I find, is raised against Martyn and the principles he preaches. . . . Went up to Serampore yesterday, and in the evening was present at the marriage of Mr. Des Granges. Mr. Brown entered into the concern with much interest. The pagoda was fixed on, and lighted up for the celebration of the wedding; at eight o'clock the parties came from the Mission House [at Serampore], attended by most of the family. Mr. Brown commenced with the hymn, 'Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly dove!' A divine influence seemed to attend us, and most delightful were my sensations. The circumstance of so many being engaged in spreading the glad tidings of salvation,-the temple of an idol converted to the purpose of Christian worship, and the Divine presence felt among us, -filled me with joy unspeakable. After the marriage service of the Church of England, Mr. Brown gave out 'the Wedding Hymn'; and after signing certificates of the marriage, we adjourned to the house, where Mr. Brown had provided supper. Two hymns given out by Mr. Marshman were felt very powerfully. He is a most lively, sanguine missionary; his conversation made my heart burn within me, and I find desires of spreading the Gospel growing stronger daily, and my zeal in the cause more ardent. . . . I went to the Mission House, and supped at the same table with about fifty native converts. The triumph of the Cross was most evident in breaking down their prejudices, and uniting them with those who formerly were an abomination in their eyes. After supper they sang a Bengali hymn, many of them with tears of joy; and they concluded with prayer in Bengali, with evident earnestness and emotion. My own feelings were too big for utterance. 0 may the time be hastened when every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father!

us.

"On Friday evening [Oct. 10th], we had a meeting in the pagoda, at which almost all the missionaries, some of their wives, and Captain Wickes attended, with a view to commend Martyn to the favour and protection of God in his work. The Divine presence was with I felt more than it would have been proper to express. Mr. Brown commenced with a hymn and prayer, Mr. Des Granges succeeded him, with much devotion and sweetness of expression: Mr. Marshman followed, and dwelt particularly on the promising appearance of things; and, with much humility, pleaded God's promises for the enlargement of Zion; with many petitions for Mr. Brown and his family. The service was concluded by Mr. Carey, who was earnest in prayer for Mr. Brown: the petition that 'having laboured for many years without encouragement or support, in the evening it might be light,' seemed much to affect his own mind, and greatly impressed us all. Afterwards we supped together at Mr. Brown's. . ..

Had a pleasant sail

"13th Oct. I came to Serampore to dinner. up the river: the time passed agreeably in conversation. In the evening a fire was kindled on the opposite bank; and we soon perceived that it was a funeral pile, on which the wife was burning with the dead body of her husband, It was too dark to distinguish the miserable victim. . . . On going out to walk with Martyn to the pagoda, the noise so unnatural, and so little calculated to excite joy, raised in my mind an awful sense of the presence and influence of evil spirits."

Corrie married the daughter of Mrs. Ellerton, who knew Serampore and Carey well. It was Mr. Ellerton who, when an indigo-planter at Malda, opened the first Bengali school, and made the first attempt at translating the Bible into that vernacular. His young wife, early made a widow, witnessed accidentally the duel in which Warren Hastings shot Philip Francis. She was an occasional visitor at Aldeen, and took part in the pagoda services. Fifty years afterwards, not long before her death at eighty-seven, Bishop Wilson, whose guest she was, wrote of her:-" She made me take her to Henry Martyn's Pagoda. She remembers the neighbourhood, and Gharetty Ghat and House in Sir Eyre Coote's time (1783). The ancient Governor of Chinsurah and his fat Dutch wife are still in her mind. When she visited him with her first hus