Chapter 5: “We Reap on Zion’s Hill”: Heavenly-Minded Spirituality

5

“We Reap on Zion’s Hill”: Heavenly-Minded Spirituality

Adoniram Judson’s biographer, Francis Wayland, claimed, “In treating of [Judson’s] religious character, it would be an omission not to refer to his habitual heavenly mindedness. In his letters, I know of no topic that is so frequently referred to as the nearness of the heavenly glory.”559 Heavenly happiness was Judson’s steady comfort in the face of sickness and death; he longingly fixed his eyes to the eternal reward. This chapter will illustrate how Judson’s ardent vision of heaven’s eternal bliss sustained him through his adversity and self-denial. It will show how his hope for Christ’s heavenly glory filling the earth sustained his optimism of the future. Hoping in heavenly happiness gave Judson the perseverance to stay the course, and the prospect of eternal reward motivated him to spend himself and be spent for the glory of Christ.

Heavenly-Mindedness

Judson’s spirituality was one of self-denying submission to the sovereign will of God, seeking chiefly to please Christ, his Lord. Pleasing Christ was his motivation, and self-denial was his means of submitting to God’s will; and his heavenly-mindedness gave him a hopeful and optimistic perspective. Recording how the promises of the Bible buttressed Judson’s heavenward orientation, one anonymous missionary said about Judson that there was “no man in India, or elsewhere, whom I thought riper for heaven. I was particularly impressed with his firm reliance on the promises of God.”560 Judson interpreted all of God’s temporally severe providences through the lens of eternally happy prospects. This hope in future glory comforted him, and he likewise counseled others to endure with their soul’s attention fixed on the same happy hope. His anticipation of receiving an eternal reward for his self-denying labors reinforced his spirituality.

A Lifelong Heavenly-Minded Disposition

Judson’s heavenly-minded spirituality remained as intense during his last days as it was during his early days. He never vacillated in his patience for heaven’s happiness and eternal benefits. In his early years before experiencing the struggles of missionary life, Judson had a heavenward orientation, which he demonstrated in his communications with his fiancée, Ann Hasseltine. Then, by his final year of life, Judson’s gaze was still looking heavenward, which his third wife, Emily C. Judson, had recorded. Serving as bookends of his lifelong heavenly-minded disposition are accounts of his eternal perspective expressed to both Ann and Emily.

Judson had an eternal perspective from the beginning. Before Judson and Ann had married, he was beginning to focus his lifelong vision toward heaven. As he considered the unknown risks of the missionary call, he sought to steady his hope in God’s good will to reward the faithful in eternity. Though Judson did not know what God held in his temporal future, he nevertheless knew that God had ordained immeasurable happiness for his eternal future. In a letter to Ann in December 1810, Judson pondered the brevity of life and that whatever is done today, “is done to all eternity.” He mused on the consequential continuity between one’s earthly and eternal existence:

A life once spent is irrevocable. It will remain to be contemplated through eternity. If it be marked with sins, the marks will be indelible. If it has been a useless life, it can never be improved. Such it will stand forever and ever . . . When it is once past, it is gone forever. All the marks which we put upon it will exhibit forever. It will never become less true that such a day was spent in such a manner. Each day will not only be a witness of our conduct, but will affect our everlasting destiny. No day will lose its share of influence in determining where shall be our seat in heaven. How shall we then wish to see each day marked with usefulness! It will then be too late to mend its appearance. It is too late to mend the days that are past. The future is in our power. Let us, then, each morning, resolve to send the day into eternity in such a garb as we shall wish it to wear forever. And at night let us reflect that one more day is irrevocably gone, indelibly marked.561

Two years later, on their initial voyage to Asia, Judson and Ann devoted themselves to prayer and studying the Scriptures. Together they pursued the heavenly piety that would sustain them through their tireless labors. While at sea, in April 1812, Ann reflected on Judson’s spirituality in a letter. She said he often would dispel her “spiritual darkness” with words of “hope of a happy eternity.”562

Judson had an eternal perspective to the end. After his death, Judson’s widow, Emily, described his orientation toward eternity and how it affected his joyful trust in God and how it quieted her own gloominess. Like the above accounts, Judson’s spirituality was oriented to look forward to heavenly glory. Furthermore, by the end of his life, he could look back on a lifetime of the usefulness of a heavenly-minded religion. Emily said he had a very happy disposition, though he could still feel discouraged. Having suffered much, he could carry the burdens of the downcast, but he could equally rejoice with the prosperous. His spirituality habitually grounded its steadiness in God’s sovereignty, and she said, though he could be “momentarily disheartened,” he was never glum. She said that because he saw all of life’s events, “however minute or painful,” as ordained by God’s infinite wisdom, he was therefore able to “rejoice evermore” that God caused everything to work “to one great and glorious end.”563

After Judson’s death, Emily wrote to his sister, Abigail Judson. Emily described Judson’s last year, his dying days, and the sweetness of his heavenly-minded piety. She described him as an “uncommonly spiritual Christian . . . It seemed as though the light of the world on which he was entering had been sent to brighten his upward pathway.”564 Looking back on the trials of his life, Judson would often tell Emily that God’s kind providence protected and blessed him through his suffering, so that “his joys had far outnumbered his sorrows.” During his last months, as he considered the looming reality of his earthly departure, he wished that he and Emily could go together, but such was unlikely. Feeling sad that Emily would have to grieve his death, he encouraged her with his trust that the infinitely wise will of God held their futures firm. Judson said, “He will order all things well, and we can safely trust our future to His hands.”565 In his research on Judson’s life, Francis Wayland noted that Judson would often speak of hardships as though soon to be swallowed up in eternal bliss, and he often meditated on that great day for “those who with him had fought the good fight, and were now wearing the crown of victory.” Wayland said that Judson’s reflection on death was his “solace” in all his life’s “troubles.”566

Heavenly Comfort

Having endured many hardships, when no other earthly consolation sufficed, Judson’s steady source of comfort lay in his fixed hope in the promises of heavenly rest.

Judson sought heavenly comfort in insecurity. In a letter to Thomas Baldwin, the pastor at Second Baptist Church in Boston, in February of 1824, Judson expressed his concerns about how the war between Britain and Burma would affect his mission work. Having invested so much into the Burmese mission, nervousness of potential deportments alarmed Judson. In one angry edict, the Burmese monarch could have dissolved all of Judson’s sacrifice and labor. He asked Baldwin for intercession to “the throne of grace” on his behalf. And yet, he said, there is a better Intercessor “at the right hand of the Divine Presence in heaven,” who is sympathetic, affectionate, and mighty to save. Judson conceded that in his little life experience, he had yet to “taste the sweetness of this precious truth” of having “a greater Friend” on the throne in heaven. He looked to Baldwin as an example of one who had already walked through much uncertainty and insecurity and had experienced the faithfulness of such a heavenly King. Nonetheless, Judson knew it was a precious promise that would console him in his anxiety. So, in confessing that he still had much improvement yet to make in trusting God’s purposes, he asked for Baldwin’s prayers. Judson said, “Pray for me, that I may be counted worthy to hold out to the end, and finally meet with you before the throne, and handle a harp of gold in the dear Redeemer’s praise.”567 Twenty-two years after his letter to Baldwin, Judson had indeed experienced the precious truth to which he had conceded he knew only partially. After a lifetime of witnessing God deliver him through uncertainty and troublesome anxieties, Judson’s security remained in the promises of eternal rest and reward. Before he set sail back to Burma with his newly-wedded wife, Emily, Judson attended a valedictory service in the Baldwin Place Church of Boston in July 1846. Following an address by Baron Stow (1801–1869),568 Judson told the assembly that though his temporal future was uncertain, not knowing if he would ever again return to America, yet he was certain that they would meet again “in that blessed world where ‘the loved and the parted here below meet ne’er to part again.’”569 He was content knowing that he might die in the near future, to “meet no more on earth” his “dear friends.”570 As his life and labor progressed, Judson beheld the faithfulness of God, and his trust in God’s providence and promises of blessings strengthened.

Judson sought heavenly comfort in aloneness. There were many seasons where Judson felt the sadness of separation from his loved ones. A most grievous season of aloneness happened in 1821. Ann became very ill, and the extreme nature of her sickness necessitated a voyage back to America for recovery. Saying goodbye to her, Judson wrestled with the feelings of emptiness and sorrow in her sustained absence. He would not see her again for over two years.571 Judson wrote a letter to her in September 1821, a few days after her departure. He described his battle with sin and his dissatisfaction with his state of progressive holiness. He prayed that Ann would know the joy of religion more than he was enjoying it at the time. In his struggle with sin, he rejoiced in how “consoling” it was to surrender their missionary work and their lives “into the faithful hands of Jesus.” He said, because “the Lord reigns,” he could “safely trust all in his hands, and rejoice in whatever may betide.” Suffering with Christ must precede being “glorified with him.”572 Within a few days of writing the aforementioned letter to Ann, Judson wrote in his journal, demonstrating his struggle with melancholy. He mourned the he too often derived “daily comfort and gratification” from the wrong places, which were deceptively empty. His heart’s depravity, he said, was so strong that he could not be “satisfied with the pure bread of heaven.” Instead, he said he was “continually hankering after the more gross and palatable food of this world—the husks of time and sense.” He explained that only when God strips away such counterfeit comforts do Christians realize the source of true satisfaction, and ostensibly, he was referring to the deprivation he felt after Ann’s departure. He perceived that his heart was so “ill-disciplined” that even in those happy moments of enjoying “glimpses of heaven,” temporal discouragements would “intervene, and swallow up all anticipations of future joy.”573 Then, a few days after this journal entry, Judson wrote to Daniel Sharp regarding his sad struggle with Ann’s departure. Judson lamented that not one person could counsel or encourage him. Nevertheless, he asserted that his consolation came from heaven. He said his happiness came from hoping in the saving hands of Christ. The reason he gave for the security of his hope was that Christ was powerful to keep the oppressed from being abandoned and dejected.574 Judson’s spiritual temperament was neither excessive nor emotionless. He could experience real discouragement, and he fought hard to be satisfied with the promises of heaven. Accordingly, he knew the joy of heaven’s security.

Eighteen years later, while apart from his second wife, Sarah B. Judson, he wrote a series of letters to her. In a letter in March 1839, he said that he wished they could be together again to enjoy each other’s company. He mused that if God allowed “sinful creatures on earth” to enjoy the “exquisite delights” of the bond of love as he and Sarah had, then “what must the joys of heaven be? Surely there is not a single lawful pleasure, the loss of which we shall have to regret there.”575

Judson sought heavenly comfort in death, which, more than any type of event, had a way of revealing the true source of his joy and hope. Feeling the pain of a loved one’s death, Judson neither displayed a sulky defeatism nor an indifferent stiffness. His heavenly-minded piety was sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.576 In a letter to Daniel Sharp in November 1822, Judson discussed his lament over the death of his faithful missionary companion, James Colman. Judson had consented for Colman to visit Calcutta, but while in India, Colman became ill and died. Judson agonized to make sense of the peculiar event, but he trusted that God superintended his decision, “and that in the future world of light we shall see that the great designs of God were furthered by events which appear to us, at present, most disastrous.”577

Approximately six months after Ann’s death, their two-year old daughter Maria died.578 In a letter to Ann’s mother in April of 1827, Judson recounted his “excruciating” grief and his heavenly hope. He said that after experiencing separation for six months, he trusted that “their spirits are rejoicing,” though he felt “left alone in the wide world.” Instead of despairing of ultimate loss, he rejoiced that it was only temporary, and he thus sought to prepare himself “in readiness to follow the dear departed to that blessed world” under the reign of Christ.579 In the same year that Maria died, Judson also heard of his father’s death.580 Judson wrote a letter in December of 1827, a year after Ann’s death, to her sisters; not many months before penning that letter did he learn of his father’s death. In that context of consecutive deaths, he candidly wrestled with the sting of death and yet expressed his hope for heaven in his letter to Ann’s sisters.581 At the outset of the letter, he lamented that “death mocks us, and tramples our dearest hopes and our lives in the dust.” Yet Judson retorted by mocking death, saying, “But go on now and do thy worst. Thy time will come. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death . . . Thou shalt devour thyself and die.” He went on in the letter to say,

When the crown of life is set on our heads, and we know assuredly that we shall die no more, we shall make heaven’s arches ring with songs of praise to Him who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

He said his comfort came from meditating on Ann enjoying the company of her departed children in the presence of their Deliverer. He derived comfort knowing that someday his union with Christ, together with his loved ones, would be perfectly realized “when we meet in heaven—when all have arrived . . . forever safe” in Christ. He rejoiced in that happy day to “ever praise him who has endured the cross” to bestow such a heavenly reward.582

After George Boardman died, Judson married his widow, Sarah, in April of 1834. They were married for eleven years before Sarah’s death in 1845.583 The day after her death, Judson wrote to the Burmese mission. Though he felt crushed under a “desolate” and “dreary” mood, Judson said that he derived “consolation” from the fact that she died “longing to depart and be with Christ.” His comfort was rooted in the presence of her heavenly-mindedness in death. He said he was certain that “the love of Christ sustained her to the last,” and he said he happily “congratulated her on the prospect of soon beholding the Saviour in all his glory.” He believed that she was in heaven resting on Christ’s bosom, enjoying heavenly bliss alongside his first wife, Ann. By meditating on the heavenly reward of Ann and Sarah and his other departed companions, he said, “Heaven seems nearer, and eternity sweeter.” He concluded his letter with a hope-filled exhortation to “follow those who, through faith, inherit the promises.”584 Judson further described the anguish he felt after burying Sarah. In his “solitude,” with his “poor children crying” around him, he said that he felt desolate under the “heart-breaking sorrow.” However, in their distress, he said the gospel sustained him: “The promises of the Gospel came to my aid, and faith stretched her view to the bright world of eternal life, and anticipated a happy meeting with those beloved beings whose bodies are moldering at Amherst and St. Helena.”585 Judson’s comfort derived not only from the good news of Christ’s decisive act of forgiveness and justification on the cross, but it also included the good news of Christ’s preserving sanctification and promise of glorification.

Judson sought to communicate heavenly comfort in counseling others; he had a special way with his fellow missionaries who suffered as he did. He could tenderly shepherd their souls to look to Christ, trust him for his sovereign wisdom, and hope eagerly in his promises of rest for labor and reward for service.

To Elizabeth Moore,586 who lost her child, he commiserated that she felt “anguish never before conceived of” and that her tears would be “O, so bitter!” Affirming that she trusted God had done this “in infinite wisdom and love,” he encouraged her to be thankful that her child now occupies heaven. With empathy as one who had lost loved ones, he said, “The warm affections now apparently crushed in the bud will expand and bloom in heavenly glory.” Judson encouraged her that her song of praise to God will be ever increasing in “every succeeding age of eternity” because God, “for some special purpose,” wisely and lovingly took the child to heaven early.587

After George Boardman’s death, Judson wrote a note in March of 1831 to console the grieving widow, Sarah Boardman. Judson said he had tasted the “dregs” of the cup she was now drinking, which was “far bitterer” than she expected. He said, though she would endure many months of “heartrending anguish,” his only counsel for her was, “Take the cup with both hands, and sit down quietly to the bitter repast which God has appointed for your sanctification.” Judson encouraged her to think of the “diadem which encircles [Boardman’s] brow” and the fact that Boardman is now “an immortal saint, a magnificent, majestic king.” Due to the present reality of Boardman’s reward in heaven, Judson encouraged Sarah to cry “tears of joy.” Judson repeated his earlier line, to emphasize what he learned about finding heavenly sweetness through suffering the loss of loved ones; he again advised,

Yet take the bitter cup with both hands, and sit down to your repast. You will soon learn a secret, that there is sweetness at the bottom. You will find it the sweetest cup that you ever tasted in all your life. You will find heaven coming near to you.

Then he went on to pledge himself “to receive and treat” her little son, George Dana Jr.,588 as his “own son” and “watch over him” his whole life.589

In 1833, Judson sought to console the broken-hearted Stella Bennett, whose husband and children returned to America.590 He said that “infinite love . . . in the person of the Lord Jesus, is even now looking down upon you, and will smile if you offer him your bleeding, breaking heart.” Judson encouraged her that what she would “sow in tears,” she would “reap in joy.” Then he described “the bright plains of heaven” where she would “hear their celestial songs, sweetened and heightened by [her] present sacrifices and tears.”591 He wrote another letter to Stella Bennett in March 1833, and encouraged her, “Be patient, poor soul! Heaven will be sweeter for all this . . . The dear absent ones will be with you to all eternity.”592

Feeling the loneliness of being separated from his remaining children once they were old enough to live in America, Judson wrote to his daughter Abby Ann, who was living in Bradford at the old homestead of the Hasseltine family.593 His words were tender and hope-filled. He implored her to be converted so that she would have the assurance of being in heaven together with the rest of her family someday, since this life was fleeting. He said that he prayed passionately that she and her siblings would convert to Christ and thus meet him “at the throne of grace.” He pleaded with her: “Meet me in the bosom of Jesus, and we shall live in His blessed presence on high, together with your dear mother, lost to us for a time, but not forever.”594

In addition to family and close friends, others also were beneficiaries of the influence of Judson’s heavenly-minded counsel. For instance, during his last year of life, in a letter to an anonymous missionary in July of 1849, Judson gave words of advice to look away from worldly concerns and look heavenward:

You must endeavor to look away from all outward things—from the satisfactions and discomforts, the commendations and censures, which are the common lot of man, and find your happiness in your own bosoms, in your work, in communion with God, and in the joyful anticipations of that blessed state, the heavenly Jerusalem, the “happy home” to which we are travelling.595

At the end of his life, Emily noted that Judson would often say, “We must look up for direction.”596 In one of the last letters Judson ever wrote, in October 1849, he sought to counsel a grieving fellow-missionary, S. M. Osgood.597 He said that he and Osgood had both experienced the immense pain of losing loved ones, and in light of the severity and sweetness of God’s providence, Judson encouraged Osgood to imagine their loved ones in heaven “reposing in the arms of infinite love, who wipes away all their tears with His own hand.” He charged Osgood to “travel on and look up.” Judson closed by rehearsing the heavenly truth that had been so hope-giving for him; he concluded, “The longer and more tedious the way, the sweeter will be our repose.”598

Heavenly Longing

For Judson, a heavenly-minded disposition was not merely supplemental to missionary spirituality; it was crucial. Such an upward gaze would indeed provide solace in a myriad of afflictions and anxieties. Moreover, heavenly-mindedness would be supremely useful if it were stronger than a simple awareness of or assent to heavenly realities. Judson demonstrated that a heavenly disposition must be a dominant instinct of true religion, manifesting itself in an expectant longing for the benefits of Christ, anchored in heaven. Judson believed such a longing was fundamental for any missionary and minister of the cross.

Judson saw longing for heaven as useful for the missionary spirit. In an extract from a letter to a friend in October 1818, Judson showed far more concern for the graces of heavenly-mindedness in fellow missionaries than for skill, education, and strength, though he said that the same education and “mental improvement” given to ministers should be expected of missionaries. He desired the heart of the missionary to be heavenward in its affections. He said he was fully convinced that a qualified missionary should habitually enjoy a “closet religion.” He maintained that a missionary should be “abstracted from this world, and much occupied in the contemplation of heavenly glories,” in addition to exuding various “spiritual graces,” which include “humility, patience, meekness, love.”599

In 1819 after the baptism of the first Burman convert, Moung Nau, Judson was explaining the gospel to another Burman, named Moung Thah-lah. He compared the Christian system with the Buddhist system, saying that though the Buddhist system does not offer a way of pardon, the Christian gospel, however, provides “not only a way of pardon, but a way of enjoying endless happiness in heaven.” Upon hearing Judson’s explanation of the gospel in terms of a pardon and an eternal inheritance, this was most glorious news to Moung Thah-lah; he decided to follow Christ, about which Judson instructed him further.600 This account illustrates the usefulness of heavenly longing in Judson’s evangelism.

In an address in 1846, Judson also compared the immediate “manifold blessings” wrought by the gospel “in a world so full of sin” and how the “power” of the gospel “will appear in the world to which we are advancing.” There are indeed personal and societal benefits to obeying the gospel in this life, but he said he was discontent with mere social transformation. He said, “It is the Gospel—the Gospel!” that effected blessings throughout Burman society. Considering the promises of heaven, Judson said, “If here, where sin yet reigns, so great a contrast can be wrought, how much greater the contrast between this imperfect state and heaven, free from every defilement!”601

Before the Boardman Missionary Society at Waterville College, in 1846, Judson spoke about pleasing the Lord with eternity in view as the foundation of mission work. Judson was speaking to students who were either interested in missions or who were preparing for missions. In light of the trials he had seen, he said he did not want to compel anyone to experience what he had, but he said their compelling sense of duty must come from a heavenly source. He said,

You have but one life to live in which to prepare for eternity . . . You have only one. Every action of that one life gives coloring to your eternity. How important, then, that you spend that life so as to please the Saviour, the blessed Saviour, who has done everything for you!602

In October of 1846, on his voyage back to Burma and off the Isle of France, Judson wrote a letter in which he traced his memories of first venturing to Burma with Ann and stopping in Port Louis to visit the “grave of Harriett Newell, the first American missionary who left this world for heaven.” Then years later, he buried Sarah on a nearby island. He said he was impressed with the stark reality that a missionary can never “calculate on his final resting place.” Though missionaries are “strangers and pilgrims” and have “no abiding place on earth,” he said that it was from this heavenly longing that they seek “to show the way thither to multitudes” who are “groping in darkness.”603

Judson saw longing for heaven as useful for loving the brethren. Emily recounted that Judson’s heavenly-minded disposition directly motivated his love for people. By contemplating the pervasiveness of brotherly love in heaven, Judson learned to love others for the sake of Christ. Judson would say it is insufficient to be generally pleasant to the people of God; brotherly love requires more than “[abstaining] from evil speaking, and [making] a general mention of them in our prayers.” Emily said that his “ardent temperament” made him “subject to strong attachments and aversions,” which, she said were difficult for him to bring “under the controlling influence of divine grace.” She recorded that he would often say that the Christian’s affection for other believers “should be of the most ardent and exalted character: it would be so in heaven, and we lost immeasurably by not beginning now.” She recalled that the verse, “‘As I have loved you, so ought ye also to love one another [see John 13:34; 15:12],’ was a precept continually in his mind.”604 Judson was aware of his easily-irritated nature, and through his rules of life, he sought to daily confront his lack of affection for people.605 Throughout his life, because of his meditations on death and heaven, his various rules for spiritual maturity in his relationships generally underlined secret prayer, mortifying disaffection for others, showing benevolence to all, and being cordial in all facets of conduct “to please an ever-present Lord.”606

Furthermore, in January of 1850, four months before his death, Emily recorded that Judson suddenly exclaimed to her his feelings of peace because, from contemplating on his progress of brotherly love for people he knew, he finally concluded that as far as he could know himself, he loved “every one of Christ’s redeemed” as would please Christ. He said he loved them “in the same manner, though not probably to the same degree as we shall love one another in heaven.” Judson said he would prefer even the lowliest of Christ’s elect over himself, which Emily said was an “allusion to the text, ‘In honor preferring one another [Rom 12:10],’ on which he had frequently dwelt with great emphasis.” Judson went on to say that he felt such peace with his conscience, knowing that he was “a miserable sinner in the sight of God, with no hope but in the blessed Saviour’s merits.” Additionally, he expressed relief that he could not think of any “peculiarly besetting sin” which he had “duty to correct.”607

Judson saw longing for heaven as useful for self-denying activity. In a letter to his parents in July 1810, in the context of describing his cordial communion with God in Christ, Judson admitted that his temporal future certainly would meet with troubles and uncertainty, yet, he said his “prospects for another life . . . are still brighter.” He went on to say that the dreams of this life are empty, and he said,

O, if we could always realize this, and live above the world,—if we could tread on its trifling vanities, live far from its perplexing cares, and keep an eye fixed on our heavenly inheritance,—how . . . useful we might be!608

In a journal entry in September 1815, Judson recorded a conversation he had with a Buddhist, named Oo Oungmen, about happiness in heaven. He and Oo Oungmen were talking about someone who had died. Judson said the deceased man was lost because he was not a disciple of Christ, and he explained this by illustrating that one could know if the root of a mango tree is good by looking at its fruit. Judson said that the man who had died did not bear the fruit of a disciple of Christ, to which Oo Oungmen asked if all who are not disciples of Christ are lost. Then, Judson affirmed the exclusivity of Christ. Oungmen declared, “This is hard.” Judson responded strongly out of his conviction in an eternal hell and an eternal heaven; he said, “Yes, it is hard indeed; otherwise I should not have come all this way, and left parents and all, to tell you of Christ.”609 Judson then elucidated on how his Christian view of two future eternal realities, one being “miserable” and the other being “happy,” compelled him to leave all his earthly comforts and joys in light of heaven’s pleasures.610

In her recollections of Judson, Emily highlighted how useful Judson’s longing for heaven was in relation to his completion of the dictionary. She said that he was so “consecrated” to his work that he found earthly pleasures only in his family. She said, “His thoughts, which were ordinarily fixed with unusual continuity on heaven, seemed to turn thither with a more resistless longing, now that he had accomplished the work which he believed had been appointed to him.”611

Near the end of his life, Emily told Judson that many people thought he would not recover from his protracted illness. Judson responded to the plain reality that his life was slipping away; he said in tears that he was ready for whatever God ordered according to his perfect will. He said that he was ready because he could not imagine having “more inviting prospects, with brighter hopes.” As he lay there on the bed, he said he had unspeakable “views of the loving condescension of Christ, and the glories of heaven.” He told Emily that he was willing to stay longer even though his “drawings . . . toward heaven” were beyond comparison. However, he said that he would be willing to spare a few years from his “eternity of bliss” for the sake of the Burmans. He said he was not ready to give up because he knew his reward was very great, and the more he worked, the greater his reward.612 Nevertheless, Judson said that he was eager to go when Christ so willed, and “when Christ calls me home I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from his school.”613

One of the clearest examples of the relationship between Judson’s heavenly-minded disposition and his resolve to deny himself the comforts of this world was in a letter in December 1830 to Lucius Bolles. Judson’s health had been poor, and the American Baptist Board sent an invitation for him to return home. His heart longed to return to America, he said, to enjoy sweet fellowship with his friends and family and “to witness the wide-spread and daily-increasing glories of Emanuel’s kingdom in that land of liberty, blessed of Heaven with temporal and spiritual blessings above all others.” Nevertheless, he was willing to postpone such an enjoyable reunion because he was waiting for “a happier meeting, brighter plains, friends the same, but more lovely and beloved.” He was convinced that he would soon “enjoy that glory in comparison of which all on earth is but a shadow.” Because of such heavenly anticipation, he said, “I content myself, assured that we shall not then regret any instance of self-denial or suffering endured for the Lord of life and glory.”614 After marrying Emily in 1846, Judson said that his hopefulness in the dawn of Christ’s heavenly glory led him to welcome all manner of labor, self-denial, and hazards, making his life dissonant with the world’s temporal pursuits. He said that he would even spill his “blood like water in such a cause.”615

That Judson fixated his mind upon and lived in light of heavenly realities is evident. His heavenly-minded disposition carried him from his early impulses of missionary devotion all the way to his final hours. Many trials and afflictions were God’s will for his life, but looking heavenward, he sought to do everything to please Christ in order that in heaven his happiness in Christ would be sweeter. His heavenly-minded piety comforted him in aloneness, insecurity, and death. His heavenly-minded instinct helped him to comfort and counsel others in their pain. His longing for the ever-increasing blessings of heaven proved useful for his self-denying missionary activity and his relations with others. He believed that a sustained heavenly longing was essential for true missionary spirituality.

Postmillennial Hopefulness

Evangelical leaders of the Post-Revolutionary War era (1800–1840) interpreted current events as evidence of the end of the age. For instance, infidelity and indifference to religion in America and political events in Europe all alarmed them that the times were changing. Consequently, preachers arose to issue a solemn plea for repentance, which they believed would effect reformation and revival and eventually the new age of Christ’s millennial blessing. Samuel Hopkins, the systematic theologian of the New Divinity, synthesized Jonathan Edwards’s millennial doctrine.616 During the revivals, Edwards’s millennial vision grew in popularity, and Hopkins developed Edwards’s eschatology in conjunction with an urgent missionary mandate.617 Much evangelical activism rose to the occasion, creating societies for missions, evangelism, abolition, and theological training, though they believed the actual millennium would be approximately two hundred years in the future.618 Concerning the millennial optimism of the New Divinity leaders, the American church historian, E. Brooks Holifield, explains that they emphasized both “the benevolence of the Redeemer . . . [and] the ethics of the redeemed.” He says that Hopkins taught that the millennium would be an age of triumphant peace where “disinterested benevolence would promote general and cordial friendship.” Holifield explains that Edwards’s eschatology, alongside “the Edwardean twist on the notion of disinterested benevolence” impelled the various forms of evangelical activism of the nineteenth century.619

The initial founding of the ABCFM blossomed out of deep Edwardsean roots of the New Divinity students at Andover Theological Seminary. As historian David Kling has said, the ABCFM “was a New Divinity Creation, rooted in New Divinity theology, inspired by New Divinity revivals, and staffed by a well-established New Divinity social and institutional network.”620 Many of the students at Andover experienced conversion during a season of revival. Yale College witnessed revival during 1801–1802, and the president of Yale, Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), continued to promote revival and millennial hope at other colleges. When Andover first opened, Dwight preached there on the conversion of the Gentile nations as subsequent to the Jews returning to Palestine and converting to Christ.621 As historian James A. De Jong has explained, many students came to Andover because their “pervasive vision” of the millennium “quickened” their “devotion to missions.”622 The late historian of religion in America, William R. Hutchison (1930–2005), helpfully explained that this era of the rise of postmillennial-driven missions paralleled the rise of American exceptionalism. He said that American mission beliefs “intensified” the “biblical imperatives.” Hutchison explained that European Protestants viewed themselves as “exceptional to the point of constituting the only true church,” and the Puritan pilgrimage to America “further narrowed and intensified” this exceptional-minded ethos “in the crucible of radical Protestantism and within Anglo-Saxon cultural forms.”623 Spiritually formed in the milieu of Edwardsean postmillennialism and Hopkinsian disinterested benevolence, Adoniram Judson devoted himself to foreign missions. He believed that though he might suffer and die, the God of the Bible promised that the glory of the knowledge of Christ would fill the earth as water covers the seas.624

Millennial Glory

Judson believed that Christ’s millennial glory would come after the conversion of the heathen and the salvation of the Jews, ushering in an era of heavenly peace and brotherly love. His passion to please Christ as a missionary and his self-denying submission to God’s infinitely wise and loving will corresponded to his hope in heavenly happiness and the millennial reign of his Redeemer. With joyful optimism, he kept straightforward because he said that his prospects for the conversion of the heathen were “as bright as the promises of God.”625

From the beginning of Judson’s missionary venture, his ardor for Christ’s glory to spread throughout the earth impelled his lifelong missionary devotion.626 In a letter on December 18, 1837, to Stephen Chapin, the president of Columbian College, Washington, Judson recounted those days when God’s Spirit was calling him “with such clearness and power” to “preach the gospel” through the “command of Christ” in the Great Commission. Demonstrating his Trinitarian spirituality as it related to his postmillennial scheme, Judson highlighted how “the providence of God was conspicuously manifested” in gathering young men from all over to launch a foreign missions movement and give themselves to “missions for life.” He said it was so obvious that the “Spirit of God” was awakening various individuals in various places in order to enable spiritual “movements” that had “since pervaded the American churches.” Such movements of the Spirit, he exclaimed, would “continue to increase until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Anointed!”627 His Christ-enamored spirit manifested itself in his obedience to the Great Commission for the sake of ushering in Christ’s millennial reign.

In January 1820, as he was traveling to Ava to beseech the king for religious liberty, he went through Pugan, an ancient Burman city. He reflected in his journal on all the generations that Buddhism and atheism had plunged into the dark abyss of despair. His evangelical spirituality was evident in how he expressed his desire for the gospel’s advance and for the corresponding reign of Christ to spread. He said that he stood “on the dividing line of the empires of darkness and light.” Judson mocked the darkness of the former Buddhist dynasties:

A voice mightier than mine . . . will ere long sweep away every vestige of thy dominion. The churches of Jesus will soon supplant these idolatrous monuments, and the chanting of the devotees of Buddh will die away before the Christian hymn of praise.628

In the spring of 1832, Judson wrote a long appeal to the American Baptist Board for more missionaries. Weighed down in “distress” because of the “thousands perishing,” he penned over nine hundred words, explaining the dire need for more missionaries and his strategy for placing new missionaries in key locations throughout the Southeast Asian region. Then he wrote another five hundred words of intercession for God to “have mercy” on villages and cities alike throughout the region. He concluded with a prayer for mercy on the American churches, that God would “continue and perpetuate the heavenly revivals of religion” and that no American church would be able to enjoy their weekly religious services “without having one of their number to represent them on heathen ground.” He prayed for mercy on the seminaries, that half of their ministers-in-training would “be taken by thine Holy Spirit and driven into the wilderness, feeling a sweet necessity laid upon them, and the precious love of Christ and of souls constraining them.” He prayed that God would heed the monthly concerts of prayer throughout the world and thus “hasten the millennial glory, for which we are all longing and praying and laboring.” Judson concluded his lengthy prayer by imploring God to “adorn thy beloved one in her bridal vestments, that she may shine forth in immaculate beauty and celestial splendor. Come, O our bridegroom! Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”629 In this letter, he demonstrated the fusion of his postmillennial and evangelical piety. During that spring of 1832 when Judson wrote this letter, pleading and praying for global revival, he was also enthusiastically seeking to raise funds for the establishment of a mission in Palestine to reach the Jews.630 Twenty years into his missionary venture, he still believed strongly that Christ’s millennial reign was imminent, and his missionary activism testified to the reality of his Christ-centered passion.

Before returning to Burma, Judson addressed the Baldwin Place Church of Boston in July of 1846. He started by speaking of his life in third person, explaining how much change he had experienced throughout his life, and at times he would “doubt [his] own personal identity.” Yet, “like steersmen in a storm,” he felt that he “must keep a steady eye at the compass and a strong arm at the wheel.” So many of his early comrades either had moved on in the ministry or had died. He wondered who would carry the banner next after his generation of ministers and missionaries departed. Then, in preparation to begin his full address, he quoted, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them” (Rev 14:13). He quoted this verse again as the final sentences of his address, which served somewhat as a thematic inclusio. Judson recalled the only ground he and those early missionaries had to stand on was “the command and promise of God.” Yet by the time of his address in 1846, he said there was much missionary momentum. Referencing his earlier analogy of steersmen in a storm, he called on them to “look forward with the eye of faith” because widespread missionary devotion was advancing and new Bible translations were “illuminating all lands.” Encouraging them that the millennial glory was at hand, he said, “See the Sabbath spreading its holy calm over the face of the earth, the churches of Zion assembling, and the praises of Jesus resounding from shore to shore.” Even though most of the world still remained in darkness, nevertheless, he said the obstructions of the Holy Spirit’s “descent and operations” were falling, so that “the revivals of religion” would become “more constant and more powerful.” Though the era of glory was imminent, Judson maintained that “the gracious designs of God” had yet to come to fruition. Zion has “yet to triumph, and become the joy and glory of the whole earth.” He exclaimed that it was a “great privilege” and a “precious opportunity” to participate with Christ in the blessing of “enlarging and establishing his kingdom throughout the world.” In light of this great opportunity and hope of future glory, he called the audience neither to grieve losing the earlier generation of missionaries nor to neglect the call themselves. Rather, he charged, “Follow them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises [Heb 6:12].” Their heavenly rewards would be in proportion to their earthly works.631 The works of those who die in Christ will follow them.632 In addition to his explicit postmillennialism, this address is a good example of Judson’s implicit Trinitarianism; he spoke of the Trinity in terms of the will and designs of God the Father, the glory and lordship of God the Son, and the work and power of the Holy Spirit.

At the final meeting of the General Convention at the Pierre-pont Street Church in Brooklyn, in May 1846, Baron Stow read a sermon written by Judson, who was unable to speak clearly. In a lengthy address, Judson tackled the objections made by so many Americans who were increasingly interested in missions, but also increasingly disappointed with the lack of missionary success. Judson said that there had been some progress, though it was not impressive enough to the scrutinizing public. He went on to explain that there are generally three divisions of people: those who are open to the gospel, those who have forsaken the gospel, and those who are resistant to the gospel. The third division comprises those groups who are so hard and hostile that they “will tire out the wavering and faint-hearted” missionaries. This third division, he said, is the majority, which includes the world of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and those animistic tribes where “false religions prevail.” He went on to paint a seemingly discouraging picture of how hostile, despotic, resistant, and intolerant are such nations. Judson, nevertheless, rebuked the critics of slow missionary labor, because missionaries were indeed making progress in translating the Bible, in creating seminaries, and even in converting some souls, though maybe not in the thousands. He contended that such places, though not teeming with revival, contain “the first-fruits” of the coming eschatological harvest. Judson argued that all criticism and despair should be silenced by the fact that, though the work be slow, it was nonetheless “gradually undermining the reigning superstitions, and preparing the way for the triumph of truth, the full ushering in of millennial glory,” which demonstrated that in his theology, the millennial glory advanced to the degree that gospel truth prevailed.633 Judson said that in the face of disparaging progress and quibbling remarks from his native land, his encouragement came from his abiding conviction that Christ’s kingdom was indeed covering the world and taking root as a farmer would liberally cover a field with seed and wait for a great harvest. Judson closed his rebuttal to the critics by quoting the motto of his late father after his father became a Baptist later in life (1817). Judson Sr. said, as he was dying, “Keep straight forward, and trust in God.”634

After they had left for Burma, Emily recorded a conversation that Judson had with a female missionary who was criticizing the meager progress of missions and ridiculing those in America who exuded postmillennial optimism. Not willing to excuse her pessimism, Judson asserted that the time “for millennial hymns” was at hand. He went on to say that a joyful heart in the coming reign of Christ was “a pledge of interest which would lead to future results far more glorious.” He said, “To be sure, our oak is a tiny sapling yet; but it is a real live oak, and well out of the ground.” He went on to say that when he thought of God bringing the oak to fullness and completion, his heart burst with “joy indescribable.” In light of the imminence of heaven coming to earth through the global proclamation of the gospel, he said, “It is base ingratitude to be blind to all these wonders.” Judson argued that because the world was more than half-converted, Christians should not dissuade any from engaging in the Great Commission. Contrarily, such a prospect should be “spirit-stirring,” and it should constrain Christians to embrace any kind of pain and adversity, “so that life itself will seem nothing in the balance.”635

Related to Judson’s urgency for the return of Christ, he was also impatient with temporal trifles and fusses that distracted from eternal matters. After Judson had seceded from the Congregational ecclesiastical body and joined the Baptists, Samuel Worcester of Salem claimed that Samuel Spring of Newburyport had reprimanded Judson for not collecting sufficient details during his trip to London regarding potential cooperation with the London Missionary Society, and for his impetuousness in seeking immediate appointment to missions.636 Yet, Judson denied awareness of the initial reprimand. Though his character and motives were criticized, his view of life’s uncertainty and eternal consequences strengthened his resolve to stay focused on his mission.637 In 1819, he mentioned the case in a letter to Thomas Baldwin and referred to what truly concerned his heart. He said that he considered it to be “exceedingly insignificant in comparison with . . . the introduction of the Messiah’s kingdom into the empire of Burmah.” He went on to say that he felt the weight of the looming damnation of the heathen, and if he could only “be instrumental in saving a few precious souls,” he wished his name to “live in oblivion or disgrace till the great day.”638

Like his impatience for minor scuffles, Judson was also irritated with those who were so fearful of worldliness that they cut themselves off from the world and did not engage it for the sake of Christ’s coming kingdom. Emily recorded his conversation with a visitor during his dying days. Judson said, “At the risk of being written down a bigot,” he condemned the insular nature of the Plymouth Brethren because their doctrine had “ruined” their “usefulness in this world.” He said, “Their influence goes to discourage and paralyze all missionary enterprise.” He went on to assert that sometimes “when seekers after sanctification attain to a certain degree of spirituality, they are peculiarly liable to fall into errors of form.” He charged that “instead of sitting down at the Saviour’s feet, and drinking in his words, they go away to furnish themselves with swimming bladders, the work of their own invention.” Judson went on to say that when Satan finds Christians so separated from the world that they are not susceptible to its temptations, Satan then “dons this sheep’s clothing of Plymouth Brethrenism.” Unable to woo the Christian to worldliness, Satan “puts a veto on the man’s usefulness, to the serious detriment of hundreds of thousands of others.”639

In an apologetic against Buddhism, Judson concluded with a demonstration of his conviction in the triumphant fulfillment of God’s millennial promises. He was confident that the God who planned the cross of Christ also planned the eschatological consummation. Revealing his hope-filled ground for courage in missions, he declared thus:

The trumpet of the Lord is pealing forth a battle call. We are standing on the vestibule of a resplendently glorious era. The angel “having the everlasting gospel to preach,” is already “in the midst of heaven [Rev 14:6],” and we hear the rushing of his mighty wings; the church is shaking off the drowsy dust of ages, polishing her weapons, and spreading her banner to the breeze; the word of command has sounded from the walls of heaven; and there are sure indications that the immutable promises of Jehovah are hastening to their accomplishment . . . Courage, lone laborer! . . . Courage! Every ray shed from thy gospel lamp speeds away as the mountain rill to the ocean, swelling the flood of radiance which is ere long to sweep over the entire earth. Then, at the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, shall the nations clap their hands in gladness, and the redeemed and the renovated race of man burst forth in one universal shout: “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth!”640

Judson’s postmillennial optimism not only strengthened his persevering piety, but it also propelled his evangelical activism and his Christocentric ardor. Grounded in the promises of the Bible, his heavenly-minded piety was a product of the juxtaposition of Edwardsean eschatology, Hopkinsian disinterested benevolence, and the national spirit of the “The Rising Glory of America.”641

Conclusion

Judson’s spirituality was neither temporal nor transient. From his early years to his final days, his was a wholehearted heavenly disposition. The reward of heaven’s happiness gave hope to Judson in the adversity of submitting to the will of God. His certainty that heaven was a place of love and peace consoled him in loneliness, uncertainty, and risk. Judson believed that the experience of heavenly joy corresponded directly to the love and sacrificial benevolence poured out in this life. Hope in heaven’s blessings also influenced how he counseled others through their own trials. He longed for eternal rest more than for temporal relief. Judson ardently longed for heaven because that was where he would see his Redeemer and Friend. His missionary spirituality remained optimistic because he believed that Christ’s heavenly glory would fill the earth to the degree that the gospel triumphed through Bible translation and preaching. Christ’s millennial glory was at hand, and Judson was devoted to hastening the peaceful and loving reign of Christ. Self-denying sacrifice was the means through which he sought to please his Savior and coming King. With bright optimism, Judson could say all his life,

—In joy or sorrow, health or pain,

Our course be onward still;

We sow on Burmah’s barren plain,

We reap on Zion’s hill.642

559. Wayland, Memoir, 2:381–82.

560. Ibid., 2:332.

561. Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 14–15. Even before Judson wrote this letter to Ann, he had already expressed his heavenly-minded conviction to Ann’s father in asking him to allow Judson to lead Ann into a life and ministry that would certainly face hazards, pangs, and anguish of all kinds. He pleaded, “Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness, brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?” Ann Hasseltine Judson, An Account of the American Baptist Mission, 36. See also Clemént, Memoir of Adoniram Judson, 25; and Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 38.

562. Wayland, Memoir, 1:211–12. See also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 44–45.

563. Emily Chubbuck Judson, “Closing Scenes in Dr. Judson’s Life,” 35. For a good example of Judson’s trust that God works all things for a glorious end, see his letter to Daniel Sharp, on November 30, 1822, about the untimely death of his missionary colleague, James Colman, in, Adoniram Judson, “Letter from Dr. Judson to Mr. Sharp, of Boston, Ava, Nov. 30, 1822,” 209–10. For helpful illustrations of Judson’s joyful temperament, smiling face, and tenderness with both his family and acquaintances, see Kendrick, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, 141–215. For William Hague’s account of Judson’s happy temperament and smiling countenance, see Wayland, Memoir, 2:359.

564. Wayland, Memoir, 2:337.

565. Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 534.

566. Wayland, Memoir, 2:382.

567. Adoniram Judson to the Rev. Thomas Baldwin, letter, February 19, 1824, Box No. AJ 1, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS; for an extract, see Adoniram Judson, “Letter from Dr. Judson to Rev. Dr. Baldwin, Dated Ava, Feb. 19, 1824,” 22–23.

568. Baron Stow was a Baptist minister at the Baldwin Street Baptist Church in Boston (1832–1848), and then later he served as the pastor at the Rowe Street Baptist Church (1848–1867) of Boston. He compiled the Baptist hymnal, The Psalmist. See Stow and Smith, The Psalmist.

569. This was a reference to a poem written by Judson’s second wife, Sarah B. Judson, near the Isle of France right before she died; see Wayland, Memoir, 2:211–12.

570. Dowling, The Judson Offering, 279. See also Adoniram Judson, “Address of Dr. Judson,” 267; Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 396; and Wayland, Memoir, 2:254.

571. Ann left on August 21, 1821 and returned on December 5, 1823. See Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 564.

572. Adoniram Judson, “Extracts from Mr. Judson’s Letters to His Wife, Rangoon, Sept. 5, 1821,” 57.

573. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 165.

574. Adoniram Judson, “Letter from Mr. Judson to Mr. Sharp, Dated Rangoon, September 17, 1821,” 344–45.

575. Wayland, Memoir, 2:140.

576. See 2 Cor 6:10.

577. Adoniram Judson, “Letter from Dr. Judson to Mr. Sharp, of Boston, Ava, Nov. 30, 1822,” 209–10.

578. See Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 565.

579. Adoniram Judson, “Death of Dr. Judson’s Child, Letter to Mother Hasseltine, Amherst, April 26, 1827,” 131. For a previous letter of equal gravity about Ann’s death, see Adoniram Judson to Mother Hasseltine, letter, February 4, 1827, Box No. AJ 7, Folder 3 and Microfilm Roll 2, Judson Letters, ABHS.

580. Judson’s father died on November 25, 1826, and Judson heard the news on July 11, 1827. See Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 565. Ann died on October 24, 1826, and Judson heard the news of her death on November 24, 1826. See ibid.

581. See Hunt, Bless God and Take Courage, 307.

582. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 231–32. After Boardman’s death on February 11, 1831, Judson paid him a tribute with glowing expectation of Boardman’s heavenly reward. He rejoiced that Boardman had “gone to his eternal rest.” He went on to wax eloquent about Boardman’s legacy and noble sufferings for Christ’s sake. He concluded with a word of hopeful anticipation of Boardman’s reward. He said, “Well may we rest assured that a triumphal crown awaits him on the great day, and ‘Well done, good and faithful Boardman, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Wayland, Memoir, 1:524. See also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 271–72.

583. For Judson’s personal records and reflections on his decision to marry Sarah, see Adoniram Judson, journal, March 12, 1834 to April 10, 1834, Box No. AJ 4, Folder 4 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS. For a vivid account of Sarah’s death, see Adoniram Judson to the Rev. Solomon Peck, letter, September 1, 1845, Box No. AJ 3, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS.

584. Wayland, Memoir, 2:203–4.

585. He was referring to Ann, buried at Amherst, and Sarah, buried at St. Helena. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 352–53.

586. Elizabeth Forbes Moore was married to William Moore in 1847. They subsequently went to Burma as Baptist missionaries. See Phinney, The Judson Centennial Celebrations in Burma, 20.

587. Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 520–21. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:321.

588. He was also known as George Dana.

589. Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 374–75. On that same day, Judson wrote both in his journal and another letter to a supporter, James Grow of Thompson, Connecticut. In them he lamented the overwhelming needs and the meager supply of missionaries and materials. See Adoniram Judson, “Mr. Judson’s Letter to Rev. Mr. Grow,” 31–32; and Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 273–74. See also Adoniram Judson, journal, February 28, 1831 to March 4, 1831, Box No. AJ 4, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS; and Adoniram Judson, “Extracts from Mr. Judson’s Journal, to Rev. Dr. Bolles, Rangoon, Feb. 28, 1831 [to March 4, 1831],” 373–74.

590. See Ranney, A Sketch of the Lives and Missionary Work.

591. Adoniram Judson to Mrs. Bennett, letter, 1833, Box No. AJ 5, Folder 1 and Microfilm Roll 2, ABHS. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:57–58.

592. Wayland, Memoir, 2:65. For more words of encouragement to Stella Bennett revealing Judson’s prayerful and Christ-centered piety, see also Judson’s next letter to her on May 14, 1833 in ibid., 2:68.

593. Judson took leave of Abby Ann at Bradford on July 9, 1846. See Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 567.

594. Adoniram Judson, “Adoniram Judson’s Letter to His Daughter Abby Ann,” 14. See also Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 522; and Wayland, Memoir, 2:312. In a letter to his sister, Abigail, Judson likewise sought to point her attention to their heavenly reunion where their family would be apart no more. See Wayland, Memoir, 2:150.

595. Wayland, Memoir, 2:333.

596. Ibid., 2:372; emphasis in original.

597. See Smith, Sewall Mason Osgood.

598. Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 521–22. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:328–29. Regarding Elhira Osgood’s death in 1837, in a letter of condolence, Judson concluded as though he were writing to Elhira Osgood herself about her future glory; he said, “We know that thou sleepest in Jesus, and that when the night of death is passed away, and the resurrection morn appears, thou also wilt again appear, blooming in celestial beauty, and arrayed in thy Saviour’s righteousness, a being fitted to love and to be beloved, throughout the ever-revolving hours of an eternal day.” Wayland, Memoir, 2:118.

599. Wayland, Memoir, 1:211. For one biographer’s apt observations of Judson’s own missionary spirit, see Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 437. Citing comparable graces though not explicitly mentioning heavenly-mindedness, Judson wrote two years earlier to Luther Rice, in November of 1816. He wrote about the kind of missionaries to send: “In encouraging other young men to come out as missionaries, do use the greatest caution . . . Humble, quiet, persevering men . . . Men of an amiable, yielding temper, willing to take the lowest place, to be the least of all and the servants of all; men who enjoy much closet religion, who live near to God, and are willing to suffer all things for Christ’s sake, without being proud of it, these are the men, &c.” Adoniram Judson, “Extract of a Letter from Mr. Judson to Mr. Rice, Rangoon, Novem. 14th, 1816,” 184–85. See also Wayland, Memoir, 1:185–86. Regarding the strategic role Luther Rice played in promoting and mobilizing for the American Baptist Board and in arousing missionary devotion in others, Torbet, A History of the Baptists, 331.

600. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 128.

601. This is from an address at a meeting in Utica, New York in 1846; see Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 471–73.

602. Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 473–74. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:234–35. In another address, Judson laid out his vision of the continuity of heavenly reality with earthly living. In the context of giving a charge for potential missionary candidates to count the cost of missionary sacrifice, he said, “So far as we are like Christ in this world, so far shall we be like him through eternity. So far as we sustain this cause, which is peculiarly the cause of God, so far we shall be happy through endless ages.” Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 470. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:233–34; and Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 376.

603. Wayland, Memoir, 2:262–63. See also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 402–3.

604. Wayland, Memoir, 2:338. In a letter to Emily in January of 1847, Judson said, “‘Trust in God and keep your powder dry,’ was Cromwell’s word to his soldiers. Trust in God and love one another is, I think, a better watchword. Let us do the duties of religion and of love, and all will be well.” Kendrick, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, 251.

605. See Wayland, Memoir, 1:322–23; Wayland, Memoir, 2:61, 103, 190; Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 315–16.

606. Wayland, Memoir, 2:190. See also Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 316.

607. Emily Chubbuck Judson, “Closing Scenes in Dr. Judson’s Life,” 36.

608. Wayland, Memoir, 1:58.

609. Similar to this statement about leaving his family for Christ’s sake, in a letter to his sister and mother twenty years later on November 1, 1835, Judson said, “Surely, I should have to call myself a most ungrateful son and brother, had I abandoned you forever in this world, as I have done, for any other cause than that of the kingdom of the glorious Redeemer.” Ibid., 2:105.

610. Ibid., 1:171–72. After serving as missionaries for nine years, Judson and his first wife, Ann, could have pulled out and retired to a more bearable ministry. The temptation to retreat was especially strong during Ann’s illness and consequent two-year voyage back to America. In a letter in 1821 to Ann, Judson told her how he wished they could find “some quiet resting place on earth” where they could retreat and spend the rest of their days enjoying “the ordinary services of religion.” However, he quickly turned from such a thought and drew near to Christ. Judson said that he counted serving Christ and suffering for him “a privilege.” He believed that Christ’s “heavenly glory” was near, so he said he sought to pour out his life for the Burmans to “show the path to that glory,” which he was “anticipating” with great eagerness. He concluded his letter to Ann by pleading with her to join him in prayer to grow in grace and sanctification. Demonstrating how his heavenly longing was useful for self-denial, he said, “Let me pray that the trials which we respectively are called to endure may wean us from the world, and rivet our hearts on things above. Soon we shall be in heaven. O, let us live as we shall then wish we had done. Let us be humble, unaspiring , indifferent equally to worldly comfort and the applause of men, absorbed in Christ.” Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 167.

611. Wayland, Memoir, 2:163. Wayland said, “[Judson] had a passion for saving souls, and he had reason to believe that, by this labor, many souls were saved who would be his joy and his crown in that heaven for which his whole life was a constant preparation.” Ibid., 2:6–7.

612. In a letter to a newly arrived missionary, Lydia Lillybridge Simons, on August 12, 1847, Judson sought to encourage her through the difficult language-learning phase; he said, “We must sow before we reap; and though our whole life should prove to be but sowing time, the harvest of eternity will produce ample returns.” Ibid., 2:295.

613. Emily Chubbuck Judson, “Closing Scenes in Dr. Judson’s Life,” 38. See also Wilson, The Lives of Mrs. Ann H. Judson and Mrs. Sarah B. Judson, 353; and see Wayland, Memoir, 2:345–46.

614. Adoniram Judson to Dr. Lucius Bolles, letter, December 20, 1830, Box No. AJ 2, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS; see also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 271. For some of Judson’s comments about bearing up under trials and suffering with Christ in order to reign with him, see Wayland, Memoir, 2:295.

615. Wayland, Memoir, 2:371.

616. See Edwards, “An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement, &c.,” 280–312; see also Edwards, An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement. For a thorough synthesis of Edwards’s eschatology, see McClymond and McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 566–79.

617. See Leonard, “‘Wild and Romantic in the Extreme,’” 81–86.

618. For a cogent summary of this post-Revolutionary War era and the effects of Edwardsean postmillennialism on the ABCFM and evangelical activism, see De Jong, As the Waters Cover the Sea, 227. See also Hutchison, Errand to the World, 38–42. Judson completed his first tract, A View of the Christian Religion, in 1816. In it he predicted, in very Hopkinsian-sounding language, that within two hundred years from then, the religions of Buddhism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, and all other minor religions “will disappear and be lost, and the religion of Christ will pervade the whole world; all quarrels and wars will cease, and all the tribes of man will be like a band of mutually loving brothers.” Adoniram Judson, A View of the Christian Religion, 7; see also Bennett, Tracts, In Burmese, 34; and Adoniram Judson, The Septenary, 17. For an easily accessible version, see McElroy, Adoniram Judson’s Soul Winning Secrets Revealed, x, 26. Judson believed that the millennium would begin sometime after the year 2000; see Kendrick, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, 333. Regarding Judson’s prediction of the demise of Buddhism under the millennial reign of Christ, Richard Fox Young, Associate Professor of History of Religions at Princeton Theological Seminary, exemplifies a non-evangelical perspective by denouncing it as “a rude eschatological reverie.” Young, “Making Comparative Missiology More Comparative,” 107, quoted in Dingrin, “A Missiological and Theological Critique,” 131.

619. Holifield, Theology in America, 149.

620. Kling, “The New Divinity,” 13. See also Tracy, History of the American Board.

621. Elsbree, The Rise of the Missionary Spirit in America, 132.

622. De Jong, As the Waters Cover the Sea, 223.

623. Hutchison, Errand to the World, 42. In one of Judson’s journals, he illustrated this conviction that American Christians should play a significant role in the salvation of the nations; see Adoniram Judson, journal, February 28, 1831 to March 4, 1831, Box No. AJ 4, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS; and see Adoniram Judson, “Extracts from Mr. Judson’s Journal, to Rev. Dr. Bolles, Rangoon, Feb. 28, 1831 [to March 4, 1831],” 373–74.

624. See Hab 2:14.

625. Wayland, Memoir, 2:381. Wayland observed, “It never appeared to him possible for a moment, that God could fail to do precisely as he had said; and he therefore relied on the divine assurance with a confidence that excluded all wavering. He believed Burmah was to be converted to Christ, just as much as he believed that Burmah existed. He believed that he had been sent there to preach the gospel, and he as much believed that the Holy Ghost would make his labors, in some way, or at some time, the means of the salvation of the nation, as he believed that there was a Holy Ghost.” Ibid., 2:380–81.

626. One biographer well observed the effect that Judson’s ordination and commissioning had upon those gathered. Because of the solemnity and gravity of the commissioning on February 6, 1812, “many who had only looked to their own salvation, or, at the utmost, to the evangelization of their own country, obtained a wider view of the glory of Christ’s kingdom, and were led to unite in magnificent plans of mercy, by which multitudes out of every nation, people, and tongue are brought to His throne.” Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 41.

627. Conant, The Earnest Man, 49–50. See also Wayland, Memoir, 1:51–53; and Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 25–26.

628. Wayland, Memoir, 1:251–52. Nearly eight years after becoming a missionary, Judson’s desire for Christ’s glory to spread had not waned. The new monarch of Burma, a despotic Buddhist, refused religious liberty for the propagation of other religions. Judson resolved to risk his life and beseech the king. In a letter to Thomas Baldwin in December of 1819, he made clear the source of his conviction and courage. Judson said his trust was in Christ’s power and purpose to glorify himself: “In approaching the throne, we desire to have a simple dependence on the presence and power of our Saviour, and a single eye to his glory. We have indeed no other ground of hope; we ought to have no other view. We trust that, if the set time to favor Burmah is come, He who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working, will open a wide and effectual door for the promulgation of divine truth. But if the Lord has other purposes, it becomes us meekly to acquiesce, and willingly to sacrifice our dearest hopes to the divine will.” Wayland, Memoir, 1:244. See also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 136. The next day Judson wrote another letter to Baldwin about the same subject, in which he said that this hazardous endeavor ahead of him consumed his soul. However, he made clear that what was at stake was not the monarch’s approval or Judson’s own safety, but rather, the “great object” of his concern was “the introduction of the Messiah’s kingdom into the empire of Burmah.” Adoniram Judson to the Rev. Thomas Baldwin, letter, December 9, 1819, Box No. AJ 1, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS. See also Adoniram Judson, “Letter from the Rev. Adoniram Judson, Jun. to Dr. Baldwin, Dated Rangoon, December 9, 1819,” 379–80. Two years after the king refused to grant religious liberty, in February of 1822, with like-minded conviction, Judson wrote to Baldwin that he was still “fully persuaded” that God would soon open the way in Burma “for the introduction and establishment of true religion.” He knew he would “encounter the hazards” of public gospel proclamation. Yet, well aware that “difficulties may obstruct, delays may intervene, [and that] the faith of missionaries and their supporters may be severely tried,” he was not distraught. He asserted, “but at the right time, the time marked out from all eternity, the Lord will appear in his glory.” Adoniram Judson, “Letter from Mr. Judson to Dr. Baldwin, Rangoon, Feb. 6, 1822,” 458. See also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 168.

629. Adoniram Judson, “Appeal from the Missionaries, Maulmein, June 4th, 1832,” 39–41. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:51–54; emphasis in original. In Wayland’s account of this appeal, he recorded the date as March 4, 1832, but The Baptist Missionary Magazine recorded the date as June 4, 1832; it is also dated as June 4, 1832 in Dowling, The Judson Offering, 175–81. In a letter in 1845, Judson said that “the crowning mercy of [his] life” was attaining his life’s highest ambition to become a missionary, and it was a privilege to see eminently pious “successors” pick up the work. More than entrusting his work into their hands, Judson said the mission work was really “in the hands of Christ, who carried it on before we were born, and while we were in arms against him, and will carry it on more gloriously when we repose in the grave and in paradise. Glory be to Him alone.” Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 334–35. Judson found great delight in hearing of the news of other missionaries going to parts of Asia previously untouched. In a letter in June 1835, he said, “Happy lot to live in these days! Oh, happy lot to be allowed to bear a part in the glorious work of bringing an apostate world to the feet of Jesus. Glory, glory be to God.” Wayland, Memoir, 2:101–2. See also Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 326–27.

630. Because Judson believed strongly in the need to reach the Jews in Palestine, he sought to promote a fund of ten thousand dollars to establish missions in Palestine. Though the effort was unsuccessful, a few days before he set sail back to Burma in 1846, Judson received word that a tract, which had detailed his labors and sufferings in Ava, underwent translation in Germany. Some Jews in Germany read it and converted to Christianity. A Jew in Trebizond (present-day Turkey) also translated it for Jews there; after reading of his sufferings, they too experienced awakening and requested a missionary to come to them. Judson responded with weeping because of his unbelief that God could use such a weak vessel for the salvation of the Jews. See Wayland, Memoir, 2:32–37; and see also “A Sweet Surprise,” 174. For letters Judson wrote about raising funds for Palestine, see Adoniram Judson, “Raising Funds,” letter, January 1, 1832, Box No. AJ 5, Folder 2 and Microfilm Roll 2, Judson Letters, ABHS; Adoniram Judson to Dr Lucius Bolles, letter, May 8, 1832, Box No. AJ 2, Folder 4 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS; Adoniram Judson to Mr. Patison, letter, February 20, 1832, Box No. AJ 5, Folder 1 and Microfilm Roll 2, Judson Letters, ABHS; Adoniram Judson to the Rev. James L Knowles, letter, February 20, 1832, Box No. AJ 5, Folder 1 and Microfilm Roll 2, Judson Letters, ABHS.

631. Expressing a similar sentiment in a thank-you card to the American Baptist Magazine on January 1, 1835, Judson wrote of himself in third-person: “He rejoices in the belief that every distant expression and recognition of fraternal affection here below will form an additional tie, binding heart to heart, in the world above; that every cup of cold water given to a disciple will become a perennial stream, flowing on from age to age, and swelling the heavenly tide of life and gladness.” Adoniram Judson to the Missionary Magazine, letter, Moulmein, January 1, 1835, Box No. AJ 2, Folder 1 and Microfilm Roll 1, Judson Letters, ABHS. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:92; Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 323–24.

632. Adoniram Judson, “Parting Address of Mr. Judson,” 31–33. See also Adoniram Judson, “Address of Dr. Judson,” 267–68; Dowling, The Judson Offering, 279–83; and see Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 396–98; Wayland, Memoir, 2:254–58. See Rev 14:13. In his last year of life, Judson wrote a letter in August 1849, to George William Anderson (1791–1857), the governor of Mauritius, expressing his optimism of the coming reign of Christ. He said that in his old age he could “hardly expect to see the long-desired and long-prayed-for triumph of the Redeemer’s kingdom in Burmah.” Nevertheless, he was confident that he would “see it from the windows of paradise.” He anticipated that the glorious era of Christ’s triumph was at hand. He said, “We live in wonderful times. Every revolution among the kingdoms of the earth seems to be designed to prepare the way for the universal establishment of the kingdom of Christ.” Wayland, Memoir, 2:325–26.

633. After having served in Burma for twenty-five years, in a letter on July 20, 1838 to his sister, Abigail, Judson recounted how many churches the missionaries had established and how the gospel seemed to be advancing throughout the land. He indicated in this letter that the hastening millennial glory corresponded to the pervading influence of the gospel. Judson said, “I trust that the good work will go on, until every vestige of idolatry shall be effaced, and millennial glory shall bless the whole land.” Wayland, Memoir, 2:124.

634. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 391–94. See also Wayland, Memoir, 2:285–88. A month after this message, on June 2, 1846, Judson and Emily Chubbuck (Judson’s third and last wife) married at Hamilton.

635. Wayland, Memoir, 2:371–72.

636. See Adoniram Judson, A Letter to the Rev. Adoniram Judson, Sen.

637. For an apt summary of the context of this situation, see Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 96–98. See also Wills, “From Congregationalist to Baptist,” 150–53.

638. Adoniram Judson, “Letter from the Rev. Adoniram Judson, Jun. to Dr. Baldwin, Dated Rangoon, December 9, 1819,” 380.

639. Wayland, Memoir, 2:365–66.

640. Ibid., 2:410; emphasis in original. In Wayland’s transcription of these emphasized words, he capitalized them to indicate Judson’s extra emphasis. For the full apologetic treatise contra Buddhism, see ibid., 2:410–17.

641. Hutchison, Errand to the World, 42. Hutchison noted that “this was the title of a commencement poem by Philip Freneau and H. H. Brackenridge for the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1771.”

642. In Wayland’s opinion, Judson’s habitual heavenly-minded disposition was never better expressed than in these words that he penciled in a book he used in making the dictionary. See Wayland, Memoir, 2:381–82.

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