CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Adoniram Judson
Into the Lion's Den
The Untold Story of Faith and Survival
A Child Marked by Heaven: Early Life, Family, and the Restless Soul
I want to take you back—all the way back—to the very beginning of my story. Back to a small house in Malden, Massachusetts, where a little boy with too many questions and far too much energy was born on August 9, 1788. That little boy was me, Adoniram Judson. And looking back now, I can see that the hand of God was on my life long before I ever understood what that meant. Before I knew how to pray, before I knew the name of Jesus with any real understanding, God was already writing a story in my life—a story I could never have imagined and would never have chosen on my own.
My father, the Reverend Adoniram Judson Sr., was a Congregational minister. He was a serious man, a man of the Book, a man whose life was shaped by doctrine and duty. My mother, Abigail, was gentle but strong—the kind of woman whose faith was woven into the fabric of everything she did. Together they gave me something priceless: a home where the Scriptures were read, where God was spoken of with reverence, and where prayer was as natural as breathing. I grew up hearing the Word of God. I grew up in the shadow of the pulpit. And yet—and this is the remarkable, humbling, almost embarrassing truth—for a season, I walked away from all of it.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first tell you who I was as a boy, because the seeds of what I would become were planted very early.
A Brilliant but Restless Mind
From the time I could speak, I seemed to learn things faster than most. By the age of three, I could read. By my teenage years, I had worked through Latin and Greek with a hunger that surprised even my father. He was proud of me—I could see that—and he poured everything he had into my education. He believed that a sharp mind, properly trained and surrendered to God, could be used mightily for the Kingdom. He was right about that. He was also right that a sharp mind, left to itself and handed over to pride, could become a dangerous thing.
I was competitive, restless, and driven. I wanted to be the best at everything. And in many ways, I was. I excelled at my studies. I could debate. I could write. I could reason through complex arguments with a clarity that made men older than me take notice. My father watched this with both pride and caution. He knew that great gifts without great humility are like a sharp blade without a handle—they tend to wound the one holding them.
In 1804, at the age of sixteen, I was sent to Rhode Island College—what we now know as Brown University. My father hoped the school's association with Baptist ministers might temper my growing independence. Instead, something very different happened. I met a young man who would shake my world—and not for the better.
The Poison of Doubt: A Friendship That Nearly Cost Me Eternity
His name was Jacob Eames. He was brilliant, charming, and utterly convinced that Christianity was a relic of a less enlightened age. He had embraced the new rationalism—the philosophy that said the human mind was the supreme authority, that miracles were myths, and that the Bible was little more than ancient literature dressed in religious language. And I, proud and hungry for intellectual respect, was drawn to him like iron to a magnet.
I want you to understand what was happening in me during those years. It was not that I hated God. It was more subtle than that, and in many ways more dangerous. I simply became convinced that I did not need God—that reason alone was sufficient, that the universe could be explained without a Creator, and that my father's faith was a kind and well-intentioned but ultimately outdated way of understanding reality. I called myself a deist. I later called myself something closer to the truth: a 'wretched infidel.'
By the time I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree in September 1807, I had rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ that my parents had placed in my hands. I had broken their hearts without fully understanding what I had done. My father rebuked me. My mother wept. And in the arrogance of my youth, I mistook their grief for weakness and their prayers for superstition.
I returned home to Plymouth and opened a small private school. I even published two textbooks—one on English grammar and one on arithmetic—remarkable for someone my age, and I was not shy about knowing it. Then the wanderlust took hold. I wanted to see the world, to live freely, to cast off the restraints of my upbringing. I decided to leave home and head toward New York, seeking the kind of exciting, unencumbered life I thought I deserved.
The Night That Changed Everything: The Death of Jacob Eames
I did not get very far.
One evening, weary from the road, I stopped at an inn and asked for a room. The innkeeper warned me that the only available room was next to a man who was gravely ill—perhaps dying. He said there would likely be noise through the night, groaning, and people coming and going. I told him I would manage and went to bed. But manage I did not.
Through the thin wall, I could hear it all: the labored breathing, the groaning, the soft footsteps of people trying to help someone who was beyond helping. I lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, and something in my chest would not be still. I had spent years training my mind to dismiss thoughts of death and judgment. I had built careful arguments against eternity. But lying there that night, with another human being dying just a few feet away from me, every one of those arguments felt hollow and fragile—like paper held over a flame.
I kept asking myself: What is the condition of his soul? Where will he go when the last breath leaves his body? Is he ready? I argued with myself. I told myself these were the old fears, the superstitions my father had planted in me. I tried to silence the questions. But Jesus was already working on my heart, even though I did not yet know it.
In the morning, I went downstairs and asked the innkeeper about his other guest.
'He is dead,' the innkeeper said simply.
I felt a chill move through me. 'Dead?'
'Yes. Passed in the night. A young man from Providence College. A fine fellow. Name was Jacob Eames.'
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet. Jacob Eames. My friend, my mentor, the man whose brilliant arguments had dismantled my faith and replaced it with comfortable emptiness—he was dead. He had gone into eternity with no Christ, no forgiveness, no hope.
I could not breathe. I could not think. Everything I had built my intellectual life upon collapsed in that moment like a house of cards. Lost. The word came to me like a thunderclap. He was lost. Eternally lost. And I—who had followed him, who had admired him, who had let his scoffing become my own—I was standing at the very same precipice.
I did not finish my journey to New York. I turned around and went home. The great God of heaven, who had heard every one of my mother's prayers, was not finished with me yet. He never abandons those whose parents cry out to Him on their behalf. (Proverbs 22:6 KJV) "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I had strayed far. But God was faithful.
Andover Seminary: The Road Back to God
After returning home, I received an invitation to study at the newly established Andover Theological Seminary. This was no small thing. Andover had been founded by men who were serious about Reformed, evangelical Christianity—men who believed in the authority of Scripture, in the sovereignty of God, and in the desperate need of lost souls for a Savior. I enrolled not as a man of faith, but as a man in search of one.
The faculty at Andover were godly and gifted. They did not lecture at me; they reasoned with me, prayed for me, and held up the truth of the gospel with such clarity and grace that my defenses began to crumble one by one. I read voraciously—theology, Scripture, the writings of men who had wrestled deeply with the things of God. One book in particular struck me with great force: Thomas Boston's 'Fourfold State of Human Nature.' In it I saw myself clearly for perhaps the first time—not as an enlightened philosopher, but as a fallen human being in desperate need of the grace of God.
On December 2, 1808, something broke open inside me. I knelt down and made a solemn dedication of my life to God through Jesus Christ. I cannot fully explain what happened in that moment—only that the pride and rebellion that had governed me for years finally gave way, and in their place came something I had never felt before: peace. Real peace. The kind that (Philippians 4:7 KJV) "passeth all understanding." I had come home. Not just to my family's faith, but to a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
I joined the Third Congregational Church of Plymouth, where my father served as pastor. I was baptized. I was restored. And slowly, quietly, the seeds of a calling began to stir deep in my heart—a calling so vast and so unexpected that if anyone had described it to me on that December evening, I would not have believed them.
The Stirring of a Missionary Heart
The years at Andover were more than a theological education. They were an awakening. The early nineteenth century was a remarkable season in American spiritual history. Gardiner Spring, one of the great ministers of that era, wrote that from 1800 to 1825, there was 'an uninterrupted series of celestial visitations, spreading over different parts of the land.' God was moving. The Holy Spirit was pouring Himself out across New England, and young men in seminaries were catching fire.
At Andover I met a group of students who would change my life. Samuel Mills had already been part of what became known as the Haystack Prayer Meeting—a small group of students caught in a thunderstorm who had taken shelter by a haystack and turned the interruption into intercession. Out of that prayer meeting had come a burning conviction: America needed to send missionaries to the unreached peoples of the world. There were no American missionaries abroad. A handful of men had gone to the Native American tribes on the frontier, but none had ventured across the ocean to Africa or Asia. The world was perishing, and the Church was comfortable.
I began to read everything I could find about Asia. I devoured information about India, China, and the kingdom then known as 'The Golden Kingdom'—Burma. I read a printed sermon by Dr. Claudius Buchanan, a Church of England minister who described the missionary work already being done in parts of the East—how as far back as 1715, a man named Ziegenbalg had translated the New Testament into Tamil, and how a German missionary named Schwartz had spent fifty years preaching the gospel in India. Fifty years! I was twenty years old and had done nothing. The weight of the unfinished task pressed down on me.
I wrote in a magazine article during this period, giving voice to the burden that was building inside me:
How do Christians discharge the trust committed to them? They let three-fourths of the world sleep the sleep of death, ignorant of the simple truth that a Saviour died for them. Content if they can be useful in the little circle of their acquaintances, they quietly sit and see whole nations perish for lack of knowledge.
Those words were not just argument—they were the cry of a man whose heart Jesus had captured and set aflame. I was beginning to understand that the love of Christ, if it is real, cannot be contained. (2 Corinthians 5:14 KJV) "For the love of Christ constraineth us." That is not a suggestion. It is a force. And it was working in me powerfully.
Lobbying for a Mission Agency
By February 1810, I had resolved in my heart: I would go. But where? And under whose authority? There was no American missionary society equipped to send men overseas. The British had their London Missionary Society. William Carey was working in India under their auspices, out of the tiny Danish enclave of Serampore because the British East India Company would not permit missionaries in their territories. But for Americans, there was nothing. We had to build it ourselves.
Together with my fellow students—Samuel Mills, James Richards, Luther Rice, Gordon Hall—we spent months lobbying the Congregationalist leadership to establish an organization for overseas missions. We prayed. We wrote. We petitioned. And on June 28, 1810, four of us appeared before the General Association of Congregational Ministers in Bradford. We stood before those men and declared that we felt compelled by the Spirit of God to offer ourselves for a lifetime commitment to carry the gospel to the nations. The response was historic: they formed the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Let me tell you what that moment meant to me. Standing before those ministers, I was not performing. I was not seeking recognition. I was simply reporting what Jesus had done in my heart and what I believed He was asking of me. The Great Commission was not a suggestion. (Matthew 28:19-20 KJV) "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Those words had become the organizing principle of my entire existence.
The Letter That Defied All Reason: Courting Ann Hasseltine
The General Association meeting on June 28, 1810 had taken place at the home of a deacon named Hasseltine. His daughter, Ann, was twenty-one years old. I noticed her that day. More than noticed her—something in my spirit recognized in her a woman of rare quality, a woman whose faith was not decorative but foundational. A month later, I formally wrote to Ann asking if we might begin a courtship.
She told me her father's permission would be needed. So I wrote Mr. Hasseltine a letter. It was, by all accounts, one of the most extraordinary letters ever written in the history of courtship. Let me share with you some of what I wrote, because it captures better than anything else I can say the spirit of what I believed Jesus was calling us to:
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next Spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God?
Friends who heard of this letter thought I had lost my mind. One man declared that if Ann were his daughter, he would tie her to her bedpost before allowing her to embark on such a scheme. But Ann's parents, cautious and prayerful, left the decision to her.
And Ann—remarkable, fearless, Jesus-loving Ann—she said yes. She wrote in her journal: 'Jesus is faithful; His promises are precious. Were it not for these considerations, I should, with my present prospects, sink down in despair, especially as no female has, to my knowledge, ever left the shores of America to spend her life among the heathen; nor do I yet know that I shall have a single female companion. But God is my witness, that I have not dared to decline the offer that has been made me, though so many are ready to call it a wild, romantic undertaking.'
A wild, romantic undertaking. Yes. That is exactly what it was. And Ann Hasseltine walked into it with her eyes open and her heart surrendered to the Savior she loved. I was the most blessed man alive.
Turning Down the Easy Road
Before I move on, I want to pause and tell you about a moment that tested the purity of my calling. My father had a friend—a man of enormous influence named Dr. Edward Griffin, minister of the largest church in Boston, and one of the most eminent preachers in all of America. Dr. Griffin had been watching my development closely. He believed I had exceptional gifts. And he proposed to my father that I should become his colleague at his great Boston church. It was a breathtaking opportunity. Ministry in one of the finest pulpits in America, with the backing of one of the most respected ministers in the nation, with all the security and comfort and prestige that came with it.
My parents were delighted. They hoped, perhaps, that this was God's way of keeping me close to home while still using my gifts for His glory.
I said no. Not rudely—I hope—but firmly and without hesitation. The offer was, to me, entirely incompatible with what Jesus had called me to do. I had not surrendered my life to preach to the comfortable in Boston. I had surrendered it to reach those who had never heard the name of Jesus at all. A position of ease and honor was not what I was after. (Philippians 3:7-8 KJV) "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Those words were not just Scripture to me. They were my testimony.
February 1812: The Day We Sailed
On February 6, 1812, I was ordained as a minister of the gospel. The very next day, February 5—one day before my ordination—I married Ann Hasseltine. We were married and ordained and setting off to change the world, all in the span of forty-eight hours. Life, when Jesus is driving it, does not slow down for comfort.
On February 19, 1812, Ann and I, along with Samuel and Harriet Newell (Harriet was only sixteen and already frail), boarded a ship at Salem, Massachusetts and sailed for India. We did not go on a return ticket. We were not planning a short-term mission trip. We went with the full understanding and full expectation that we would never see America again. We were giving our lives. All of them.
There were no American embassies in Asia. No telephone. No telegraph. Letters took months, and many never arrived at all. The voyages were perilous. Sea travel in 1812 was little safer than in the days of the New Testament. Disease, storms, pirates, hostile governments—these were not abstractions to us. They were the landscape we were willingly stepping into for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As the shore of New England disappeared behind us and the open Atlantic spread out in every direction, I stood at the rail and felt something I had never felt before: the terrifying and exhilarating sensation of having nothing left to hold onto except God. Every human security—family, reputation, comfort, country—was behind me. Before me was the unknown. And in the unknown, Jesus was waiting.
(Isaiah 43:2 KJV) "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." I did not know yet how literally those words would be tested. But God knew. And He had been preparing me for it from the moment I was born.
The Seeds of a Legacy
Looking back from the far end of my life, I can see now what I could not see then: that God had been authoring every chapter. The prodigal years at college—not wasted, but used to build in me a compassion for those who are lost in their own brilliance, convinced that the mind alone is sufficient. The death of Jacob Eames—not random, but a divine appointment, a thunderclap of grace designed to shatter my pride and send me running toward God. The years at Andover—not just education, but formation, the slow and careful shaping of a man whom God intended to send to the far edge of the known world.
Even the relationships He placed in my life—my father's faithful preaching, my mother's unwavering prayers, the fire that burned in men like Samuel Mills and Luther Rice, the extraordinary courage of Ann Hasseltine—these were not coincidences. They were provisions. They were the gifts of a God who was preparing His servant for something that would outlast his own lifetime by centuries.
Today, millions of believers in Myanmar trace their spiritual heritage to the work that began when a young man in Malden, Massachusetts knelt down in the winter of 1808 and gave his life to Jesus Christ. None of that was my plan. All of it was His. (Jeremiah 29:11 KJV) "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."
My story was just beginning. The lion's den was still ahead. But the God who had already brought me back from the brink of eternal darkness would prove more than equal to everything that lay before me. He is faithful. He is always faithful.
* * *
In the next chapter, we will board that ship with Adoniram and Ann and sail into a world of obstacles that would have stopped any ordinary man—the iron wall of the British East India Company, the terror of a king who held the power of life and death, the stone walls of a prison that smelled of death, and the unbearable silence of fresh graves. But we will also see something else: the relentless faithfulness of a God who never abandons those He has called.
The same Jesus who sustained Adoniram Judson is still calling men and women today. He is still faithful. And somewhere, right now, there is a lion's den with your name on the door—not as a punishment, but as a destination, the place where ordinary faith becomes extraordinary testimony. Will you go?
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