THE LIFE OF CONRAD MARTENS 



Sooner would he peruse The World's Birthday of Gaussen than 

 traffic with radical and revolutionary ideas, so likely to upset 

 such is the diabolical power of reason ! the simple conscience 

 of an old conservative. 



He was one of the churchwardens of St. Thomas's, North 

 Sydney. Had he not helped to collect money for its renovation, 

 and carved the font with his own hands ? Such service must 

 have added to his sense of proprietorship for it is the act of 

 giving which binds us to the receiver and when he graced 

 the foreground of a North Shore landscape with the old church, 

 it was with an intimate pleasure that he traced its familiar form. 



%*foi 



Martens had removed to St. Leonards, as the North Shore was 

 then called, in 1844. In the previous year he had built a cottage 

 there on five acres belonging to his wife now the site of the 

 home of the Apostolic Delegate. The land was of the poorest 

 description, fit, Mrs. Martens used to say, only for the growing 

 of cactus. Here a son, William Conrad, was born on the 1 1 th 



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