CHAPTER XI

Summary

We come now to the last days of Serampore. At the beginning of 1834 Dr Marshman experienced another visitation of mental debility. He had never fully recovered from the severe strain on his nervous system by the collision with the committee. The consciousness of integrity made him indifferent to any injury his personal reputation might sustain; but the effect of this opposition on the interests of the mission pressed heavily on his spirits. He experienced the first attack of melancholy nine months after his return to Serampore, when the prospects of support for the cause appeared almost hopeless. A twelvemonth after, he was again visited with the same feeling of morbid depression, when, as Dr Carey observed, the merest trifle lay on his mind with insupportable weight. The feeling was so intensely painful that he noted in his journal with deep gratitude the day of his deliverance. But the severe calamities of 1833, and the gradual decay of Dr Carey's health, brought on a third visitation. He wandered about the premises like a spectre. Everything he saw or heard filled his mind with undefinable terror. The days had come when “the grasshopper was a burden.” He was not only obliged to relinquish the exercises of the pulpit, but became totally disabled for the ordinary duties of life. During these days of dismay he frequently turned to the record he had made of his former affliction and relief, and entreated the Almighty that “he might be brought out of prison a month earlier.”