Chapter Xi. Visit To America. 1845-1846.

Chapter Xi. Visit To America. 1845-1846.

While thus plodding on in his gigantic task of compiling a Burman dictionary, Mr. Judson found it necessary to embark on a voyage to his native land. Thirty-two years had elapsed since the memorable nineteenth of February, 1812, when he and Mrs. Judson had stood on the deck of the brig Caravan, and watched the rocky shores of New England fade out of their sight. The young man of twenty-four had become a veteran of fifty-seven. Again and again he had been invited by the Board to revisit his beloved native land and recruit his wasting forces, but he had steadily declined. More than five years before, he had received the following urgent invitation from the Corresponding Secretary:

“My dear Brother: At the meeting of the Board on the 2d instant, your letter to Mr. Lincoln, of May 1, having been read, it was unanimously resolved to invite you to revisit this country, with a view to the restoration of your health. The invitation was intended to extend to your wife and children, should you judge it advisable for them to accompany you.

“This resolution, it gives me much pleasure to add, was adopted not only with great cordiality, but with many expressions of the kindest interest and sympathy, and with the universal desire that, if your health should continue as it was at the date of your letter, you would comply with it by the earliest opportunity. It is due not only to you, but to us, and to the general cause of missions, that all suitable means be employed to re-establish your health, and no considerations of expense or obloquy, incurred by the frequent return of missionaries, should deter you from adopting them.

“You will perceive that, in making this proposal, the Board have no respect to the good which might result from your personal intercourse with them, or others who are interested in missions, but which, they trust, would be of great service to them and to the cause at large. The main object would be gained if, by a double voyage, your health should be so far restored as to enable you to continue your labors at the desk, and for at least a few years longer supervise the publication of the Scriptures and such other works as your knowledge of Burman and of the Burmese character peculiarly qualify you to prepare.

“May the God of missions guide you by His good Spirit in all your way, and of His great goodness restore and preserve your health and usefulness for a long time yet to come.

Nevertheless the faithful missionary had worked patiently on, refusing to leave his field. At last, however, a return to America became imperative in order to preserve Mrs. Judson’s life. After the birth of two children, Charles, born December 18, 1843, and Edward, born December 27, 1844, her health rapidly declined. She had taken several short journeys along the coast without receiving any permanent benefit. On one of these trips she was accompanied by her eldest child, Abby, who was about ten years old, and also by the little invalid, Charlie. Mr. Judson with his four boys, Adoniram, Elnathan, Henry, and the infant Edward, were left behind at Maulmain. A glimpse of the missionary’s home-life is afforded in a letter which Abby received on this occasion from her absent father:

“My dear Daughter: Your letters to me and your brothers, together with the shells from Mergui, arrived this afternoon in the Burmese box, which mamma sent by the steamer. The boys are delighted with the shells, and Henry has picked out some for his own; and they have agreed to give me for my share the large coral shell. They have already written some letters to you, and mamma, and Charlie, which I shall send by return of steamer; and perhaps they will add some more, as this is such a favorable opportunity. It is now between eight and nine o’clock in the evening. I have had a little meeting with Adoniram and Elnathan, and now they are asleep. Edward has become a fat little fellow; I am sure you would not know him again. He begins to look pleased when he is played with. But he has not yet made any inquiries about his absent mother and sister. Indeed, I doubt much whether he is aware that he has any such relatives. Or if he ever exercises his mind on such abstruse topics, perhaps he fancies that black Ah-mah is his mother, since she nurses him, and does not know what a fair, beautiful, fond mother he has at Mergui, who thinks of him every day. However, when he gets larger, we will tell him all about these matters.

“I am getting the carpenters to make a new cot for you, longer than your old one. That I have given to Adoniram, and his to Elnathan. Both the kittens are dead, and the old yellow cat has been missing for several days. She was very thin, and apparently very ill, when we last saw her. So I suppose she crept away into some secret place and lay down and died. Alas! poor pussy!

“I pray every day that somewhere during your travels with dear mamma you may receive a blessing from God, so that you will return a true Christian, and set such an example before your brothers as will induce them to try to follow your steps. Think of the dear Saviour every day, and frequently lift up your heart in fervent prayer to God, that He will give you His converting, sanctifying grace, and make you His own child. Try to subdue every evil passion, and avoid all bad conduct. If you trust in the Saviour and try to be good, He will make you good. In your daily deportment and intercourse with others, remember these two lines:

“Love to dear Charlie.”

But, as has already been stated, these short trips along the Tenasserim coast proved quite unavailing. Mrs. Judson’s condition was almost desperate, and the only hope of saving this precious life lay in a voyage to America. Her husband writes sadly to the Corresponding Secretary:

“The hand of God is heavy upon me. The complaint to which Mrs. Judson is subject has become so violent that it is the unanimous opinion of all the medical men, and indeed of all our friends, that nothing but a voyage beyond the tropics can possibly protract her life beyond the period of a few weeks, but that such a voyage will, in all probability, insure her recovery. All medical skill has been exhausted. She has spent six weeks with our commissioner and his lady in a trip down the coast, touching at Tavoy and Mergui, and returned weaker and nearer the grave than when she set out. She is willing to die, and I hope I am willing to see her die, if it be the Divine will; but though my wife, it is no more than truth to say that there is scarcely an individual foreigner now alive who speaks and writes the Burmese tongue so acceptably as she does; and I feel that an effort ought to be made to save her life. I have long fought against the necessity of accompanying her; but she is now so desperately weak, and almost helpless, that all say it would be nothing but savage inhumanity to send her off alone. The three younger children, the youngest but three months and a half old, we must leave behind us, casting them, as it were, on the waters, in the hope of finding them after many days. The three elder, Abby Ann, Adoniram, and Elnathan, we take with us, to leave in their parents’ native land. These rendings of parental ties are more severe, and wring out bitterer tears from the heart’s core, than any can possibly conceive who have never felt the wrench. But I hope I can say with truth that I love Christ above all; and I am striving, in the strength of my weak faith, to gird up my mind to face and welcome all His appointments. And I am much helped to bear these trials by the advice and encouragement of all my dear brethren and sisters of the mission.

“It is another great trial to leave my dear church and people. I never knew till now how much I loved them, and how much they loved me.

“But I leave them in the hands of my dear brethren, and there are no persons in the world to whom I should be so willing to commit so dear a charge....

“Another great trial, not so much as it regards feeling as it regards the anticipated result of long-protracted labor, is the interruption which the heavy work of the Burmese dictionary, in which I have been engaged for two or three years, must sustain; and such is the state of my manuscripts, that if I should die before this work is completed, or at least carried forward to a much more advanced stage, all my previous labor would be nearly or quite lost. But I am endeavoring to obviate this difficulty in some degree, by taking with me my two assistants in that department, whose hearts God has graciously inclined to leave their families and accompany me. They are both Christians, the one a settled character, a convert of long standing, formerly a Government writer in Rangoon; the other a nephew of the late premier of the court of Ava, a person of noble extraction, and though not a tried Christian, I hope a sincere one. And it is my purpose to devote some hours every day, whether on the sea or land, to the work mentioned. I shall be induced to persevere in this purpose while in America, from the fact that I am unable to travel about the country as an agent and preach in the English language. The course that I have uniformly pursued, ever since I became a missionary, has been rather peculiar. In order to become an acceptable and eloquent preacher in a foreign language, I deliberately abjured my own. When I crossed the river, I burned my ships. For thirty-two years I have scarcely entered an English pulpit or made a speech in that language. Whether I have pursued the wisest course, I will not contend; and how far I have attained the object aimed at, I must leave for others to say. But whether right or wrong, the course I have taken can not be retraced. The burned ships can not now be reconstructed. From long desuetude, I can scarcely put three sentences together in the English language. I must therefore beg the Board to allow me a quiet corner, where I can pursue my work with my assistants undisturbed and unknown.

“This request I am induced to urge from the further consideration that my voice, though greatly recovered from the affection of the lungs, which laid me aside from preaching nearly a year, is still so weak that it can only fill a small room; and whenever I attempt to raise it above the conversational tone, the weak place gives way, and I am quite broken down again for several weeks. I hope, therefore, that no one will try to persuade me to be guilty of such imprudence while in America; but since there are thousands of preachers in English, and only five or six Burmese preachers in the whole world, I may be allowed to hoard up the remnant of my breath and lungs for the country where they are most needed.”...

On April 26, 1845, Mr. and Mrs. Judson, with the three elder children, Abby, Adoniram, and Elnathan, embarked on the ship Paragon bound for London. They were accompanied by two Burman assistants, as it was Mr. Judson’s purpose to spend a portion of each day upon the Burman dictionary. The three younger children, Henry, Charles, and Edward, as has been said, were left behind in the tender care of the missionaries at Maulmain. The first part of the voyage was so rough that the vessel sprang aleak, and the captain determined to put in at the Isle of France; and on July 5th the ship, with its precious freight, arrived at Port Louis. Mrs. Judson had so far improved in health that the two missionaries formed the purpose of separating, as it was thought that Mrs. Judson would now be able to continue the voyage to America alone, while Mr. Judson should return to his work in Maulmain. It would be hard to find a parallel for this instance of heroic self-sacrifice. Of these two returning missionaries, one was a poor, shattered invalid, consenting to forego her beloved husband’s society and to take the long westward journey in solitude; the other relinquishing the prospect of again seeing his native land after an absence of thirty-three years, and leaving the side of his sick wife the moment his presence seemed no longer indispensable, that he might resume his labors among the perishing Burmans. It was under these circumstances that Mrs. Judson wrote the pathetic lines which shall be recited for a memorial of her wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached in the whole world:

The two native assistants were therefore sent back to Maulmain, and Mr. Judson expected to follow them as soon as he had seen Mrs. Judson fairly on board ship for America. But she experienced a severe relapse, which reduced her strength lower than ever before; and Mr. Judson was soon convinced that it would be impossible for him to leave her, and, although he bitterly regretted the loss of his assistants, he felt obliged, after spending three weeks in the Isle of France, to re-embark with Mrs. Judson. They took passage with Captain Codman, of the ship Sophia Walker, which was bound directly for the United States. On the 25th of July they sailed from Port Louis, and after a time Mrs. Judson again appeared to be recovering. But the appearance proved deceptive. There came another dreadful relapse, which soon terminated in death.

“In the cold weather off the Cape of Good Hope,” Mr. Judson writes, “my hopes became again very sanguine. But she never really recovered from her last prostration, and, though sometimes better, continued, on the whole, to decline, until we neared St. Helena, when I gave up all hope of her recovery. She lingered a few days, while the vessel was detained in port, until the 1st instant, when, at three o’clock in the morning, she obtained her release from further suffering, and entered, I trust, into the joy of her Lord. She was buried in the afternoon of the same day; and in the evening we were again at sea.”

Fuller details of this mournful event are given in the appended letter and obituary notice written by Mr. Judson in a letter to a friend at Port Louis:

“My dear Friend: I shall have no opportunity of sending this till after my arrival in the United States; so that you will probably have heard of Mrs. Judson’s death before receiving this line. I was so overwhelmed with my distress while at St. Helena, that it never occurred to me to write a line to any of my friends. My dear wife continued to decline after leaving the Isle of France. Neither the best medical advice, nor the most careful nursing on my part, nor any change of climate, seemed to have much salutary effect. When we reached St. Helena I had given up all hope of her recovery. That took place on the 26th of August. The vessel remained a few days. She lingered along till the first, that is, yesterday, at three o’clock in the morning, when her spirit took its final flight. The body was carried on shore in the afternoon, and interred in the public burial-ground, by the side of Mrs. Chater, long a missionary at Ceylon, who died on her passage home. The funeral was attended by a crowd of friends, though we were entire strangers in the place. We were surprised to find several pious persons under the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Bertram, an excellent, zealous missionary. They took me and the children to their houses and their hearts, and their consoling conversation and sympathizing prayers, in the hour of my distress, afforded wonderful relief. Would you believe that these pious friends and the captain of our ship defrayed all the expenses of the funeral? They even had mourning suits made for the children, and sent off to the ship! But I was obliged to leave them all the same evening; and this morning, the rock of the ocean, where reposes all that is mortal of my dear, dear wife, was out of sight. And O, how desolate my cabin appears, and how dreary the way before me! But I have the great consolation that she died in peace, longing to depart and be with Christ. She had some desire, being on her passage home, to see her parents, and relatives, and friends, after twenty years’ absence; but the love of Christ sustained her to the last. When near dying, I congratulated her on the prospect of soon beholding the Saviour in all His glory; and she eagerly replied, ‘What can I want beside?’... May we who remain have grace to follow those who, through faith, inherit the promises.”

“Sarah Boardman Judson was born at Alstead, in the State of New Hampshire, November 4, 1803. She was the eldest child of Ralph and Abiah Hall. While Sarah was but a child, her parents removed from Alstead to Danvers, and subsequently to Salem, in the State of Massachusetts. In the latter place she received her education, and continued to reside until she was married to the Rev. George Dana Boardman, July 4, 1825, with whom she embarked in the same month for the East Indies, to join the American missionaries in Burmah. After residing some time at Calcutta and at Maulmain, they settled at Tavoy, April 1, 1828. During her residence in Calcutta and Tavoy she had three children, of whom one only, George Dana Boardman, Jr., born August 18, 1828, survives her. She lost her husband February 11, 1831, and was married again to Adoniram Judson, of Maulmain, April 10, 1834. At Maulmain she became the mother of eight children, of whom five survive her. After the birth of her last child, in December, 1844, she was attacked with chronic diarrhœa, from which she had suffered much in the early part of her missionary life. When, in the progress of the disease, it became evident that nothing but a long voyage and an entire change of climate could save her life, she embarked, with her husband and three elder children, for the United States, April 26, 1845. The voyage was at first attended with encouraging results, but finally proved unavailing, and she departed this life on shipboard, in the port of St. Helena, September 1, 1845.

“Like multitudes in the highly-favored land of her nativity, she was blessed with early religious advantages, and in her youth became the subject of serious impressions. When about sixteen years of age, during a revival of religion in Salem, she entertained a hope, received baptism at the hands of her pastor, the Rev. Dr. Bolles, and became a member of his church. Her religious attainments, however, were not of a distinguished order, and though her amiable disposition and her deep interest in missions, especially after her acquaintance with Mr. Boardman, gave her an elevated tone of character, she subsequently felt that at that period she hardly deserved the name of a sincere Christian. And it was not until she was called to part with her eldest child, at Tavoy, in 1829, and to pass through scenes of great danger and suffering during the Tavoy rebellion, that she was enabled to live a life of faith on the Son of God.

“In regard to her missionary qualifications and labors, I may state that she applied herself with great assiduity to the study of the Burmese language, in which, in conversation, prayer, and writing, she acquired an uncommon degree of correctness, fluency, and power. She was in the habit of conducting a prayer-meeting of the female members of the church every week, and also another meeting for the study of the Scriptures. Her acquaintance with, and attachment to, the Burmese Bible were rather extraordinary. She professed to take more pleasure and derive more profit from the perusal of that translation than from the English, and to enjoy preaching in the native chapel more than in any other. Her translation of the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ part first, into Burmese, is one of the best pieces of composition which we have yet published. Her translation of Mr. Boardman’s ‘Dying Father’s Advice’ has become one of our standard tracts; and her hymns in Burmese, about twenty in number, are probably the best in our ‘Chapel Hymn Book’—a work which she was appointed by the mission to edit. Besides these works, she published four volumes of Scripture questions, which are in constant use in our Sabbath-schools. The last work of her life, and one which she accomplished in the midst of overwhelming family cares, and under the pressure of declining health, was a series of Sunday cards, each accompanied with a short hymn, adapted to the leading subject of the card.

“Besides her acquaintance with the Burmese language, she had, in past years, when there was no missionary in the Peguan department, acquired a competent knowledge of that language, and translated, or superintended the translation of the New Testament and the principal Burmese tracts into Peguan. But when a missionary was appointed to that department, she transferred her work to him, and gladly confined herself to the Burmese.

“Something, also, might be said with regard to her labors in the Karen wilderness east of Tavoy, especially during the years of her widowhood, when she made toilsome journeys among the mountains, sometimes amid drenching rains, and always with many privations, and where, notwithstanding that she was wholly opposed to the principle of females acting the part of ministers, she was frequently obliged to conduct worship in the Karen assemblies.

“Her bereaved husband is the more desirous of bearing this testimony to her various attainments, her labors, and her worth, from the fact that her own unobtrusive and retiring disposition always led her to seek the shade, as well as from the fact that she was often brought into comparison with one whose life and character were uncommonly interesting and brilliant. The memoir of his first beloved wife has been long before the public. It is, therefore, most gratifying to his feelings to be able to say, in truth, that the subject of this notice was, in every point of natural and moral excellence, the worthy successor of Ann H. Judson. He constantly thanks God that he has been blessed with two of the best of wives; he deeply feels that he has not improved these rich blessings as he ought, and it is most painful to reflect that, from the peculiar pressure of the missionary life, he has sometimes failed to treat those dear beings with that consideration, attention, and kindness which their situation in a foreign heathen land ever demanded.

“But, to show the forgiving and grateful disposition of the subject of this brief sketch, and somewhat to elucidate her character, he would add that, a few days before her death, he called her children to her bedside, and said, in their hearing, ‘I wish, my love, to ask pardon for every unkind word or deed of which I have ever been guilty. I feel that I have, in many instances, failed of treating you with that kindness and affection which you have ever deserved.’ ‘O,’ said she, ‘you will kill me if you talk so. It is I that should ask pardon of you; and I only want to get well that I may have an opportunity of making some return for all your kindness, and of showing you how much I love you.’

“This recollection of her dying bed leads me to say a few words relative to the closing scenes of her life. After her prostration at the Isle of France, where we spent three weeks, there remained but little expectation of her recovery. Her hope had long been fixed on the Rock of Ages, and she had been in the habit of contemplating death as neither distant nor undesirable. As it drew near, she remained perfectly tranquil. No shade of doubt, or fear, or anxiety, ever passed over her mind. She had a prevailing preference to depart and be with Christ. ‘I am longing to depart,’ and ‘What can I want beside?’ quoting the language of a familiar hymn, were the expressions which revealed the spiritual peace and joy of her mind; yet, at times, the thought of her native land, to which she was approaching, after an absence of twenty years, and a longing desire to see once more her son George, her parents, and the friends of her youth, drew down her ascending soul, and constrained her to say, ‘I am in a strait betwixt two—let the will of God be done.’

“In regard to her children she ever manifested the most surprising composure and resignation, so much so that I was once induced to say, ‘You seem to have forgotten the little ones we have left behind.’ ‘Can a mother forget?’ she replied, and was unable to proceed. During her last days she spent much time in praying for the early conversion of her children. May her living and her dying prayers draw down the blessing of God on their bereaved heads.

“On our passage homeward, as the strength of Mrs. Judson gradually declined, I expected to be under the painful necessity of burying her in the sea. But it was so ordered by divine Providence, that, when the indications of approaching death had become strongly marked, the ship came to anchor in the port of St. Helena. For three days she continued to sink rapidly, though her bodily sufferings were not very severe. Her mind became liable to wander; but a single word was sufficient to recall and steady her recollection. On the evening of the 31st of August she appeared to be drawing near to the end of her pilgrimage. The children took leave of her, and retired to rest. I sat alone by the side of her bed during the hours of the night, endeavoring to administer relief to the distressed body and consolation to the departing soul. At two o’clock in the morning, wishing to obtain one more token of recognition, I roused her attention, and said, ‘Do you still love the Saviour?’ ‘O, yes,’ she replied, ‘I ever love the Lord Jesus Christ.’ I said again, ‘Do you still love me?’ She replied in the affirmative, by a peculiar expression of her own. ‘Then give me one more kiss’; and we exchanged that token of love for the last time. Another hour passed, life continued to recede, and she ceased to breathe. For a moment I traced her upward flight, and thought of the wonders which were opening to her view. I then closed her sightless eyes, dressed her, for the last time, in the drapery of death, and being quite exhausted with many sleepless nights, I threw myself down and slept. On awaking in the morning, I saw the children standing and weeping around the body of their dear mother, then, for the first time, inattentive to their cries. In the course of the day a coffin was procured from the shore, in which I placed all that remained of her whom I had so much loved; and after a prayer had been offered by a dear brother minister from the town, the Rev. Mr. Bertram, we proceeded in boats to the shore. There we were met by the colonial chaplain, and accompanied to the burial-ground by the adherents and friends of Mr. Bertram, and a large concourse of the inhabitants. They had prepared the grave in a beautiful, shady spot, contiguous to the grave of Mrs. Chater, a missionary from Ceylon, who had died in similar circumstances on her passage home. There I saw her safely deposited, and in the language of prayer, which we had often presented together at the throne of grace, I blessed God that her body had attained the repose of the grave and her spirit the repose of Paradise. After the funeral, the dear friends of Mr. Bertram took me to their houses and their hearts; and their conversation and prayers afforded me unexpected relief and consolation. But I was obliged to hasten on board ship, and we immediately went to sea. On the following morning no vestige of the island was discernible in the distant horizon. For a few days, in the solitude of my cabin, with my poor children crying around me, I could not help abandoning myself to heart-breaking sorrow. But 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 mouldering at Amherst and St. Helena.

“I exceedingly regret that there is no portrait of the second, as of the first Mrs. Judson. Her soft blue eye, her mild aspect, her lovely face, and elegant form have never been delineated on canvas. They must soon pass away from the memory even of her children, but they will remain forever enshrined in her husband’s heart.

“To my friends at St. Helena I am under great obligation. I desire to thank God for having raised up in that place a most precious religious interest. The friends of the Redeemer rallied around an evangelical minister immediately on his arrival, and within a few months several souls were added to their number. Those dear, sympathizing, Christian friends received the body of the deceased from my hands as a sacred deposit, united with our kind captain, John Codman, Jr., of Dorchester, in defraying all the expenses of the funeral, and promised to take care of the grave, and see to the erection of the gravestones which I am to forward, and on which I propose to place the following inscription:

“‘Sacred to the memory of Sarah B. Judson, member of the American Baptist mission to Burmah, formerly wife of the Rev. George D. Boardman, of Tavoy, and lately wife of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, of Maulmain, who died in this port, September 1, 1845, on her passage to the United States, in the forty-second year of her age, and in the twenty-first of her missionary life.

Fac-Simile of Mrs. Sarah B. Judson’s Handwriting.

As there is no portrait in existence of Mrs. Sarah B. Judson, the above fac-smile of her handwriting may interest the reader. These verses, from Moore, were written by her on the fly-leaf of a small volume of devotional poems, published at Philadelphia in 1828, presented by her to her husband. Many of the poems in this little book bear the marks of Mr. Judson’s pencil as being of peculiar interest to him. Among those marked is the following:

Fac-Simile of Mr. Judson’s Handwriting.



The above inscription was written by Mr. Judson on the fly-leaf of a volume of Burmese Hymns, compiled by Mrs. Sarah B. Judson, and presented by him to a lady in New York.

The Sophia Walker, with Mr. Judson and his three children on board, arrived at Boston October 15, 1845. The missionary who had been so long absent from his native land felt considerable anxiety before going on shore as to where he should secure suitable lodgings in the city. He little dreamed that every home would be thrown open to him, and that soon his progress from city to city would almost assume the proportions of a triumphal march. He was ill prepared for such an enthusiastic greeting. He naturally shrank from observation. He was in exceedingly delicate health. His pulmonary difficulty prevented his speaking much above a husky whisper. He had so long used a foreign tongue that it was hard work for him to form sentences in English. He could address an audience only at second-hand, whispering his words to a speaker at his side, who would convey them to the ears of the hearers. Naturally humble and shy, he found it exceedingly distasteful to be publicly harangued and eulogized. On one occasion, an eye-witness relates that while the returned missionary was listening to words of eloquent praise addressed to him in the presence of a great concourse of people, “his head sank lower and lower until the chin seemed to touch his breast.” He wrote to the Corresponding Secretary: “My chief object in writing is to beg that I may be excused from attending any more such meetings until I get a little better. I expect to be in Boston to-morrow, and shall want two or three days for some necessary business, and propose to go to Worcester on Friday or Saturday; and if I could spend next Sabbath alone in some chamber, I should feel it a great privilege, both as a refreshment to the soul and a relief to the body.”

He had come home to find that his native country was almost a strange land. The railroad system had sprung into existence during his absence. He entered the cars at Worcester one day, and had just taken his seat, when a boy came along with the daily newspapers. He said to Mr. Judson, “Do you want a paper, sir?” “Yes, thank you,” the missionary replied, and taking the paper began to read. The newsboy stood waiting for his pay until a lady passenger, occupying the same seat with Mr. Judson, said to him, “The boy expects to be paid for his paper.” “Why,” replied the missionary, with the utmost surprise, “I have been distributing papers gratuitously in Burmah so long that I had no idea the boy was expecting any pay.”

He often disappointed public assemblies by declining to relate his own adventures, telling instead the old story of the cross. A lady thus describes an address which he made in the little country church in Eaton, New York:

“After the usual sermon was over, he spoke for about fifteen minutes, with singular simplicity, and, as I thought, with touching pathos, of the ‘precious Saviour,’ what He has done for us, and what we owe to Him. As he sat down, however, it was evident, even to the most unobservant eye, that most of the listeners were disappointed. After the exercises were over, several persons inquired of me, frankly, why Dr. Judson had not talked of something else; why he had not told a story, etc., etc.; while others signified their disappointment by not alluding to his having spoken at all. On the way home, I mentioned the subject to him.

“‘Why, what did they want?’ he inquired; ‘I presented the most interesting subject in the world, to the best of my ability.’

“‘But they wanted something different—a story.’

“‘Well, I am sure I gave them a story—the most thrilling one that can be conceived of.’

“‘But they had heard it before. They wanted something new of a man who had just come from the antipodes.’

“‘Then I am glad to have it to say, that a man coming from the antipodes had nothing better to tell than the wondrous story of Jesus’ dying love. My business is to preach the Gospel of Christ, and when I can speak at all, I dare not trifle with my commission. When I looked upon those people to-day, and remembered where I should next meet them, how could I stand up and furnish food to vain curiosity—tickle their fancies with amusing stories, however decently strung together on a thread of religion? That is not what Christ meant by preaching the Gospel. And then, how could I hereafter meet the fearful charge, “I gave you one opportunity to tell them of me—you spent it in describing your own adventures!”’”

The following reminiscence of Mr. Judson’s preaching in Plymouth has been kindly contributed by the Rev. Dr. D. W. Faunce, now of Washington, D. C.:

“The old church was crowded, and I was able to find a seat only in a corner of the gallery. Shall I confess my disappointment, at first, when a slim, worn man, with a weary voice, rose in the pulpit after the pastor had conducted the opening exercises, and gave out his text, ‘These are they that follow the Lamb.’

“Trained in a religious household, where missionary names, and especially those of Judson and Rice, were familiar words, somehow, in my boyish fancy I had thought of him as a great orator, with a loud voice and commanding tones, who would sweep down all before him with a resistless eloquence. Hence my disappointment. But as he went on, in simple language, to unfold his thought, and repeated over and over again his one theme, pleasing Jesus, somehow I forgot all about eloquence. There stole over me, a boy convert of only a few months’ standing, a great tenderness. Was this venerated man influenced in all he had done by the simple thought of pleasing Jesus? Well, then, might not I, boy as I was, strive to please Jesus also? My eyes began to fill, and my heart was in my throat. Was there anything I could do to please Jesus? A hundred times since, the single simple thought of that sermon has come to me, and the memory of that summer afternoon in the corner of the gallery, and the scene and the words have been an inspiration. And if that is eloquence which gets its thought written imperishably upon the heart of an auditor, then the simple, almost childlike words of that hour were truly eloquent.”

Mr. Judson’s movements in this country were chronicled alike by the secular and religious newspapers. His toils and sufferings had made his name a household word among all Christians, and wherever he went, the churches were crowded with people who desired to see and to hear America’s pioneer missionary. On the evening of the second day after his arrival, a meeting was held in the Bowdoin Square church, Boston. The following words of welcome were spoken by Dr. Sharp:

“There are some feelings,” said Dr. Sharp, “which are too sacred for public utterance. There are sentiments of respect and regard which, when whispered to the ear, or spoken in the privacy of confidential intercourse, are pleasant and refreshing as the breath of spring, but which lose their fragrance in the atmosphere of a public assembly. Were I to express my own feelings toward yourself—my admiration, my confidence, my gratitude, my regard—I should say many things that in this assembly would seem out of place. I may, however, without violating Christian propriety, speak in behalf of the public in the presence of the public.

“I may say, without the semblance of flattery or adulation, the denomination have cherished a deep, and affectionate, and grateful interest in your labors. They have wondered at your steady and unfaltering perseverance; they have admired your disinterested and self-denying course; and they have tenderly sympathized with you, and prayed for you, when they heard of your personal sufferings, your imprisonment, and loss of personal liberty, and when they have heard of those greater losses, to which, in the death of loved and cherished ones, you have been subjected. And they have rejoiced with you, not, indeed, that all your work was done, but that a glorious work was done, when, in humble prostration before the beneficent Author of revelation, you devoutly thanked Him that you had completed the translation of the Holy Scriptures in the Burman language. That was a memorable day, not only in the history of your own life, but in the history of missions.

“We can only pray, dear brother, that, after a still more extended and critical knowledge of the Burman language, the result of patient and laborious study and research, your life may be prolonged to revise and amend your translation of those soul-sanctifying and soul-comforting truths which tell with wondrous power in any language in which a version of them is given. Your prosecution of that other great work, to which your mind, and pen, and days are given—a Burman dictionary—at the completion of which you may well rest from your labors, will aid you greatly in giving your last correcting touch to the Burman Scriptures. Our prayer will be, in submission to God’s will, that you may live until you have sent out to the world the volumes which will not only shed their radiant light on the Scriptures, but will quicken and elevate the common mind of India.

“And now, dear brother, withdrawn as you have been, by an afflictive dispensation of Providence, from your chosen and loved labors, allow me to say, in behalf of your ministering brethren, and other brethren and friends: We welcome you to your native land; we welcome you to the scenes of your early and manly youth; we welcome you to our worshipping assemblies; we welcome you to our hearts. As the representative of the ministers and private Christians present, I give to you this hand of cordial welcome, of sympathy, of approbation, and of love. And I believe, could all our denomination be collected in one vast assembly, they would request and empower some one to perform this service for them; or, rather, each one would prefer to give this significant token of love, and respect, and good wishes, for himself. Were it possible, and could your strength hold out, and your hand bear the grasp and the cordial shake of so many, I could wish that every one who loves the Bible and missions might be his own representative, and give to you, as I do, the hand of an honest, unchanging, and cordial good-will.”

And at the close, Mr. Judson rose to reply, Dr. Hague standing at his side and interpreting to the multitude these whispered utterances:

“Through the mercy of God I am permitted to stand before you here this evening a pensioner of your bounty. I desire to thank you for all your sympathy and aid, and I pray God’s blessing to rest upon you.... All that has been done in Burmah has been done by the churches, through the feeble and unworthy instrumentality of myself and my brethren.... It is one of the severest trials of my life not to be able to lift up my voice, and give free utterance to my feelings before this congregation; but repeated trials have assured me that I can not safely attempt it. And I am much influenced by the circumstance that it was a request of my wife, in her dying hour, that I would not address public meetings on my arrival.... I will only add, that I beg your prayers for the brethren I have left in Burmah; for the feeble churches we have planted there; and that the good work of God’s grace may go on until the world shall be filled with His glory.”

When he had finished, Dr. Hague continued to address the audience in an eloquent strain until the thread of his address was strangely interrupted. A man had pressed his way through the crowded aisles and had ascended the pulpit. He and Mr. Judson embraced each other with tears of joy and affection. It was Samuel Nott, Jr., the only survivor, except Mr. Judson, of that group of seminary students who had conceived the stupendous idea of American foreign missions. He was one of the five who had first gone to India, but had been compelled to return to America on account of ill health, and now, after a separation of thirty-three years, was permitted to meet his former fellow-student under these circumstances of thrilling interest. Mr. Nott addressed the meeting, with much emotion, and said:

“More than thirty years ago he gave his brother the right hand of fellowship, and when he became a Baptist it was not withdrawn. One reflection most solemnly impressed him—of the five who went out to India, three are dead. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. In a little while they would all be gone, and every agency now employed pass away; but God’s word will stand fast, and prevail over all the earth. He then referred to the small beginning of the American Board, as well as the Baptist, their trust in God, and the present great and glorious work which is exhibited to us in contrast. The missionary movement in this country originated simultaneously in different hearts; the spirit of the Most High, and not human influence, gave it birth. He deemed it a very trifling question whether Adoniram Judson or Samuel J. Mills was the originator of foreign missions. Samuel Nott, Jr., certainly was not. They were all mere boys, but with God’s blessing on their puerile efforts, they had begun an influence which is spreading over the world.”

In November Mr. Judson visited Providence, the seat of Brown University, where he had been graduated about forty years before, with the highest honors. A public meeting was held in the old First Baptist church, which was filled to overflowing. Prayer was offered by Dr. Granger, the pastor of the church, and Dr. Wayland made an address. Mr. Judson then said a few words, which were interpreted to the audience by Dr. Caswell:

“The first wish of his heart was to express, in behalf of himself and his missionary brethren, his deep sense of gratitude to the church usually worshipping in that house, as one of the foremost of the Baptist churches in the work of missions, and especially for their contributions to the support of the pastor of the native church in Rangoon. In the early part of his residence in Rangoon, a Burman philosopher, attended by his pupils, on their way to a neighboring pagoda, was wont to pass the place where he lived and from which he instructed the people. On one occasion the philosopher was stopped by the crowd gathered about him, and his eye accidentally fell upon the first tract that was published in the Burmese language, the opening words of which announced the existence of a living, eternal God. These significant words arrested his whole attention, and he stood a long time, as in profound thought, his whole soul absorbed with the great truth which they taught. To himself, as well as the whole nation, this was a new idea, and it led to a long course of study and investigation, which finally resulted in the renunciation of the religion of his country, and the adoption of Christianity.

“He was baptized, and commenced a course of zealous labor as a Christian teacher. He soon became obnoxious to the Government, and was tried and condemned to death. But before the day of execution came on, he effected his escape, and fled from the city. Since that time he had never seen him, nor learned any particulars of his life, but had frequently heard of him through persons who came a long distance from the interior in search of tracts and Bibles, having been awakened to inquiry, and converted to the Christian faith, by his instructions. The native pastor, to whom reference had been made, was once a pupil of this Burman philosopher, and afterward his disciple in the better school of Christian truth. After this interesting allusion to this signal instance of the effect of Christian missions, Dr. Judson observed that for more than thirty-three years he had been living in the midst of a people of practical atheists, whose sole object of worship was the image of a being called Gaudama, who had lived some two thousand years ago.

“The image of this being they were taught to worship from their earliest infancy; mothers bringing to it their little children in their arms, and teaching them to clasp it with the affection of infantile devotion. Through the blessing of God much good had been done, multitudes converted, and churches formed; and nothing but the toleration of Government seemed wanting to give the blessings of Christianity to the whole nation. On returning to his native land after so long an absence, he saw on all sides much to admire and love; but he must confess that the conversion of one immortal soul on those heathen shores awakened within him deeper emotion than all the beauty of this glorious land. The greatest favor he could ask of his Christian friends was, to permit him to return as soon as possible to his home on the banks of the Salwen; those banks from which he had led so many happy converts into the baptismal waters; those banks which had so often resounded with the notes of a baptismal song, composed by her whom he had so lately lost, who had now left her task of making hymns on earth for the higher and better one of singing with angels and ransomed spirits that ‘new song of Moses and the Lamb.’ ‘May it be ours,’ were the last words of the speaker, ‘to meet her there at last, and join that holy throng whom no man can number, who rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!’”

The missionary organization which had sustained Mr. Judson in Burmah for so many years, opened its triennial convention in New York city on the 19th of November, 1845. The occasion was one never to be forgotten. Services were held in the Baptist Tabernacle, and Mr. Judson was present. Dr. Cone offered some appropriate resolutions of sympathy and welcome, and then, taking Mr. Judson by the hand, he introduced him to Dr. Wayland, the President of the Convention, as Jesus Christ’s man. In the presence of the vast and deeply-affected concourse, Dr. Wayland gave the veteran missionary a most impressive welcome:

“It is with no ordinary feelings, my beloved brother, that I rise to discharge the duty imposed upon me by the resolution which you have this moment heard. My own heart assures me that language is inadequate to express the sentiments of your brethren on the present occasion.

“Thirty-three years since, you and a few other servants of the most high God, relying simply upon His promises, left your native land to carry the message of Christ to the heathen. You were the first offering of the American churches to the Gentiles. You went forth amid the sneers of the thoughtless, and with only the cold and reluctant consent of many of your brethren. The general voice declared your undertaking fanatical, and those who cowered under its rebuke drew back from you in alarm. On the voyage your views respecting Christian ordinances became changed, and this change gave rise to the convention now in session before you.

“When at length you arrived in India, more formidable obstacles than those arising from paganism were thrown in your path. The mightiest empire that the world has ever seen, forbade every attempt to preach Christ to the countless millions subjected to her sway, and ordered you peremptorily from her shores. Escaping from her power, you took refuge in the Isle of France, and at last, after many perils, arrived at Rangoon, where, out of the reach of Christian power, you were permitted to enter upon your labors of love.

“After years of toil you were able to preach Christ to the Burmans, and men began to inquire after the eternal God. The intolerance of the Government then became apparent, and you proceeded to Ava to plead the cause of toleration before the emperor. Your second attempt was successful, and permission was granted to preach the Gospel in the capital itself. But how inscrutable are the ways of Providence! Your labors had just commenced when a British army took possession of Rangoon, and you and your fellow-laborer, the late Dr. Price, were cast into a loathsome dungeon, and loaded with chains. For nearly two years you suffered all that barbarian cruelty could inflict; and to the special interposition of God alone is it to be ascribed that your imprisonment was not terminated by a violent death. On you, more than any other missionary of modern times, has been conferred the distinction of suffering for Christ. Your limbs have been galled with fetters, and you have tracked with bleeding feet the burning sands between Ava and Oung-pen-la.

“With the apostle of the Gentiles you may say, ‘Henceforth let no man trouble me; I bear in my body the scars of the Lord Jesus,’ Yet, even here God did not leave you comfortless. He had provided an angel to minister to your wants, and when her errand was accomplished, took her to Himself, and the hopia-tree marks the spot whence her spirit ascended. From prison and from chains, God, in His own time, delivered you, and made your assistance of special importance in negotiating a treaty of peace between these two nations, one of whom had driven you from her shores, and the other had inflicted upon you every cruelty but death.

“Since this period, the prime of your life has been spent in laboring to bless the people who had so barbarously persecuted you. Almost all the Christian literature in their language has proceeded from your pen; your own hand has given to the nation the oracles of God, and opened to the millions now living, and to those that shall come after them to the end of time, the door of everlasting life. That mysterious Providence which shut you out from Burmah proper has introduced you to the Karens—a people who seem to have preserved, from remote antiquity, the knowledge of the true God, and who were waiting to receive the message of His Son. To them you, and those who have followed in your footsteps, have made known the Saviour of the world, and they by thousands have flocked to the standard of the cross.

“After years spent in unremitted toil, the providence of God has brought you to be present with us at this important crisis. We sympathize with you in all the sorrows of your painful voyage. May God sustain you in your sore bereavement, and cause even this mysterious dispensation to work out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

“How changed is the moral aspect of the world since you first entered upon your labors! Then no pagan nation had heard the name of Christ from American lips; at present churches of Christ, planted by American benevolence, are springing up in almost every heathen nation. The shores of the Mediterranean, the islands of the sea, the thronged cities and the wild jungles of India, are resounding with the high praises of God, in strains first taught by American missionaries. The nation that drove you from her shores has learned to foster the messenger of the cross with parental solicitude. You return to your native land, whence you were suffered to depart almost without her blessing, and you find that the missionary enterprise has kindled a flame that can never be quenched in the heart of the universal Church, and that every Christian, and every philanthropist comes forward to tender to you the homage due to the man through whose sufferings, labors, and examples these changes have, to so great a degree, been effected. In behalf of our brethren, in behalf of the whole Church of Christ, we welcome you back to the land of your fathers. God grant that your life may long be preserved, and that what you have seen may prove to be but the beginning of blessing to our churches at home and to the heathen abroad.”

Mr. Judson, who had been warned by his physicians against speaking in public, could only express his thankfulness in a few simple and touching words. Subsequently, in the course of the convention, the proposition was made to abandon the mission in Arracan. This brought him to his feet. “Though forbidden to speak by my medical adviser, I must say a few words. I must protest against the abandonment of the Arracan mission.” These opening words were audible to all present. Then his voice sunk into a whisper as he stated the reasons why the mission should not be given up. His closing words were: “If the convention think my services can be dispensed with in finishing my dictionary, I will go immediately to Arracan; or if God should spare my life to finish my dictionary, I will go there afterward and labor there and die, and be buried there.” It would be impossible to describe the thrilling effect upon the audience of these broken words, uttered in a low whisper, and reproduced by Dr. Cone. The Arracan mission was saved.

While Mr. Judson was visiting Bradford, the native town of his beloved Ann, he learned of the death of Charlie, one of the little ones whom he had left behind in Burmah. He conveys the sad intelligence to his sons Adoniram and Elnathan, and adds:

“So it appeared that Charlie died twenty-six days before his mother, and he was ready to welcome her at the gates of Paradise. They must have had a very happy meeting. As he was her favorite child on account of being long ill, how happy she must have been to take him in her arms in that state where there is no more sickness or death! O that we may all meet them and be so happy together!”

A few of the addresses which Mr. Judson delivered while in this country have been preserved, and the reader may be interested in the appended extracts.

Address at a Missionary Meeting in Philadelphia.

“Be ye imitators of me, as I am of Christ, is a divine command. There is one Being in the universe who unites in Himself all the excellences of the human and divine nature—that being is Jesus Christ. To become like Jesus Christ, we must be like Him, not only in spirit and character, but in the whole course and conduct of life; and to become like Him ought to be our whole aim. In order to this, it is necessary to ascertain the leading characteristics of that glorious Being. It appears from the inspired writings, that one leading characteristic of Christ was, that ‘He went about doing good.’ To be like Him, we must go about—not merely stay and do good, but go and do good. There is another characteristic which we should consider. He led the life of a missionary. In order, therefore, to be like Him in this particular, we must endeavor, as far as possible, to lead the life of missionaries. Before my arrival in Burmah, there were about seven millions of men, women, and children, who had no knowledge of the true God, and of salvation through Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the existence of an eternal God. They believed that when they died they would be changed into beasts, or be annihilated. Their only object in worship was to obtain some mitigation of suffering. They never expected to meet their friends again after death. Imagine yourselves, my Christian friends, in their state without a knowledge of God. Suppose, while in that state, you heard that in some isle of the sea were those who had received a revelation, informing them that God had sent His own Son to open a way to everlasting life; would you not rejoice, if some one should come to show you that way to heaven? Would not some of you believe? Would you not leap with joy, and kiss the feet of those who brought you the good tidings? Would you not, under these circumstances, desire that a messenger should come to you? ‘As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ I should rejoice to address the assembly at large, but my physicians have forbidden me, and I must commit this duty to others who are to follow. But allow me to say, that I regard the office of the missionary as a most glorious occupation, because the faithful missionary is engaged in a work which is like that of the Lord Jesus Christ; and a missionary who is unfaithful sinks the lowest of his species in guilt and ignominy. Happy are they who can in this respect follow Christ. But the Lord Jesus is not now a missionary. He has retired from this employment, and now employs Himself in sustaining His missionaries, with the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end.’ If you can not, therefore, become a missionary, sustain by your prayers, your influence, and your property, those who are. In these ways Jesus Christ now sustains them. By His prayers, as Advocate and Intercessor with the Father; by His influence, as He is vested with all power in heaven and earth; by His property, by pouring out fresh supplies of His Spirit, and opening the hearts of His children to contribute. In order, therefore, to be like Christ, go about doing good; and if it is not in your power to give yourselves to this work, give your prayers, your influence, and your property. 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 shall we be happy through endless ages.”

At a meeting in Washington, D. C., he said:

“When he first visited Burmah, the idea of an eternal God was not believed nor entertained by any of the Burmans; and nothing more than this idea was entertained by the Karens; but now the former had in their own language the whole Word of God; and the New Testament, and parts of the Old, had been translated, by American missionaries, into several other languages of the East. He spoke of our missions as expensive, as requiring much for the outfit of missionaries, and for sustaining them in that field; but sacrifices of a pecuniary character were not the only or the greatest ones to be encountered. There was the sacrifice of domestic and social comforts here enjoyed, and the sacrifice of life. He remarked that the average life of American missionaries to the East was only about five years. But we must have men and money for this work; and we must all co-operate and make sacrifices together. If men were found willing to go, the Church at home should feel willing to send them out, and support them, that they might give themselves wholly to their work. Dr. Judson said that his heart was full, and it was a great privation to him that he was not able to speak out, and unburden himself, to the satisfaction of himself and of the audience; but this the providence of God prevented him from doing, and he must submit.”

And at a meeting in Utica, N. Y.:

“When mingling in scenes like the present, and like that in which he participated on the preceding evening, at which he believed some then listening to him were present, he was led into trains of meditation which excited the most deep and subduing emotions. At such times he involuntarily recalled many spots memorable in his history. One of these was the prison at Ava, to which allusion had already been made. In that gloomy place, on one night when he was more heavily fettered and was enduring more suffering than usual, he rose from the painful posture in which he reclined to lean, for an interval, against the wall. As he cast his eyes around upon the mass of wretchedness before him, he was able, by the dim light which was always kept burning in the prison, to observe the condition of the miserable beings among whom he was confined. It was an appalling sight. About a hundred condemned felons were before him, some sentenced for murder, all for atrocious crimes. While looking on that spectacle, he felt that if ever, by God’s mercy, he should obtain his freedom, he would endeavor to bear without repining the ills he might be called to endure. Another spot brought to his recollection was that where he stood to witness the worship of the Bengalee Juggernaut—not the great Juggernaut of Orissa—for there are several in India—but one in the province of Bengal. The idol car moved onward. Before him, extending as far as the eye could reach, was a vast expanse, a sea of human heads. The whole concourse of deluded worshippers were shouting as with one voice. Again his mind reverted to a scene that fell under his observation, not many years since, in the Karen jungles. It was one of the festivals of the Karens. He saw three hundred persons, prostrate upon the earth, men, women, and children, promiscuously mingled, covered with filth, in a state of brutal intoxication—a spectacle not to be described to a Christian audience. Scenes like these forced themselves upon his recollection, in view of our places of worship and happy homes. When coming among us, and seeing the contrasted comfort, elegance, and refinement, that make our dwellings so inviting and their inmates so happy, the question spontaneously arose, What is the cause of all this difference? O, it is the Gospel—the Gospel! While surrounded with these manifold blessings, we could but very imperfectly appreciate the sole cause of them all.

“It was to a world suffering under such wretchedness as had been spoken of, that the Lord Jesus Christ, in compassion for mankind, descended in the reign of the despotic and abandoned Herod. Amid such scenes He mingled, till He expired on the cross. If His Gospel is able to effect all that we have seen, to transform the ignorant, sensual, and degraded heathen, and to elevate a nation to such a height of dignity and enjoyment, and all this in a world still so full of sin, how will its power appear in the world to which we are advancing? 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!

“In Burmah, after all that has been done, there is still the same prison at Ava, with its manacled convicts. The same Bengalee Juggernaut is still surrounded by its countless worshippers. The same orgies are still celebrated in the Karen jungles; and scenes innumerable, as revolting as these, are witnessed in all heathen lands. O, let us pray for the millions who know nothing of a God or a Saviour, a heaven or a hell.”

Before the Boardman Missionary Society at Waterville College he spoke as follows:

“Upon an occasion like this, dear brethren, a multitude of thoughts crowd upon me, so that I know not where to begin or what to select. Probably many of you have the ministry in view, and some perhaps look forward to a missionary life. You will expect me to speak of missions and missionary life. I have seen so much of the trials and responsibility of missionary labors that I am unwilling to urge any one to assume them. The urging must come from a higher source. One important thought just occurs to me. You have but one life to live in which to prepare for eternity. If you had four or five lives, two or three of them might be spent in carelessness. But you have one only. 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!

“If any of you enter the Gospel ministry in this or other lands, let not your object be so much to ‘do your duty,’ or even to ‘save souls,’ though these should have a place in your motives, as to please the Lord Jesus. Let this be your ruling motive in all that you do. Now, do you ask, how you shall please Him? How, indeed, shall we know what will please Him but by His commands? Obey these commands and you will not fail to please Him. And there is that ‘last command,’ given just before He ascended to the Father, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.’ It is not yet obeyed as it should be. Fulfil that, and you will please the Saviour.

“Some one asked me, not long ago, whether faith or love influenced me most in going to the heathen. I thought of it a while, and at length concluded that there was in me but little of either. But in thinking of what did influence me, I remembered a time, out in the woods back of Andover Seminary, when I was almost disheartened. Everything looked dark. No one had gone out from this country. The way was not open. The field was far distant, and in an unhealthy climate. I knew not what to do. All at once that ‘last command’ seemed to come to my heart directly from heaven. I could doubt no longer, but determined on the spot to obey it at all hazards, for the sake of pleasing the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Now, my dear brethren, if the Lord wants you for missionaries, He will set that command home to your hearts. If He does so, you neglect it at your peril.”

And thus to the students at Hamilton, N. Y.:

“Brethren, look to Jesus. This sight will fill you with the greatest consolation and delight. Look to Him on the cross; so great is His love that, if He had a thousand lives, He would lay them all down for your redemption. Look to Him on the throne; His blessed countenance fills all heaven with delight and felicity. Look to Him in affliction; He will strengthen you. Look to Him in temptation; He will succor you. Look to Him in death; He will sustain you. Look to Him in the judgment; He will save you.”

But Mr. Judson did not belong exclusively to any one city or section of the country. Not only in New England and in the Northern States was his name revered. His memory was most warmly cherished by Southern hearts. The eminent Dr. Jeter, in a meeting held at Richmond, Va., on the 8th of February, 1846, welcomed Mr. Judson in an eloquent and affectionate address, the closing words of which are appended:

“But I must close my remarks. Brother Judson, we are acquainted with your history. We have marked your labors, have sympathized in your various sufferings, have shed many a tear at the foot of the ‘hopia-tree’; have gone, in fancy, on mournful pilgrimage to the rocky Island of St. Helena; have rejoiced in your successes and the successes of your devoted associates, and have long and fervently wished to see your face in the flesh. This privilege we now enjoy. Welcome, thrice welcome are you, my brother, to our city, our churches, our bosoms. I speak as the representative of Southern Baptists. We love you for the truth’s sake, and for your labors in the cause of Christ. We honor you as the father of American missions.

“One thought pains us. To-morrow morning you will leave us. We shall see your face no more. You will soon return to Burmah, the land of your adoption. There you will continue your toils, and there, probably, be buried. But this separation is not without its solace. Thank God, it is as near from Burmah to heaven as from Richmond, or any other point on the globe. Angels, oft commissioned to convey to heaven the departing spirits of pious Burmans and Karens, have learned the way to that dark land. When dismissed from your toils and sufferings, they will be in readiness to perform the same service for you. God grant that we may all meet in that bright world. There sin shall no more annoy us, separations no more pain us, and every power will find full and sweet employ in the service of Christ.

“And now, my brother, I give my hand in token of our affection to you, and of your cordial reception among us.”

Mr. Judson’s reply attested his capacity for taking a broad and catholic view of the religious situation at a time when the country was agitated by disturbing sectional jealousies:

“I congratulate the Southern and Southwestern churches,” he said, “on the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention for Foreign Missions. I congratulate the citizens of Richmond that the Board of that Convention is located here. Such an organization should have been formed several years ago. Besides other circumstances, the extent of the country called for a separate organization. I have read with much pleasure the proceedings of the Convention at Augusta, Ga., and commend the dignified and courteous tone of the address sent forth by that body. I am only an humble missionary of the heathen, and do not aspire to be a teacher of Christians in this enlightened country; but if I may be indulged a remark, I would say, that if hereafter the more violent spirits of the North should persist in the use of irritating language, I hope they will be met, on the part of the South, with dignified silence.”

It was his desire to go further South, but his frail health imperatively forbade him, and so after visiting Baltimore, where he was welcomed at a most enthusiastic missionary meeting, he turned northward again.

While on this tour through the country, everywhere kindling missionary enthusiasm, he met, during a visit in Philadelphia, a young lady, Miss Emily Chubbuck, who, under the nom de plume of Fanny Forester, had achieved a wide literary reputation. The acquaintance culminated in marriage. This lady, who was to take the place at his side left successively vacant by Ann Hasseltine and Sarah Boardman, had been disciplined in the hard school of poverty. She was born August 22, 1817, at Eaton, a little town in Central New York, and near a stream which, with its fringe of alders, murmurs here and there in her prose and poetry under the name of Alderbrook. Her parents, Charles Chubbuck and Lavinia Richards, had moved to Eaton from New Hampshire. Her childhood days were spent in a little house which can still be seen on the road from Eaton to West Eaton, perched against a hill so close beneath the road that, as she says, one would feel half disposed “to step from the road where you stood to the tip of the chimney.” Her parents were very poor, and she thus describes a winter she passed when she was about thirteen years old:

“We suffered a great deal from cold this winter, though we had plenty of plain food. Indeed, we never were reduced to hunger. But the house was large and unfinished, and the snow sometimes drifted into it in heaps. We were unable to repair it, and the owner was unwilling. Father was absent nearly all the time, distributing newspapers; and the severity of the winter so affected his health that he could do but little when he was at home. Mother, Harriet, and I were frequently compelled to go out into the fields, and dig broken wood out of the snow, to keep ourselves from freezing. Catherine and I went to the district school as much as we could.”

Again she wrote:

“November, 1830. Father’s attempt at farming proved, as might have been expected, an entire failure, and for want of a better place he determined to remove to the village. He took a little old house on the outskirts, the poorest shelter we ever had, with only two rooms on the floor, and a loft, to which we ascended by means of a ladder. We were not discouraged, however, but managed to make the house a little genteel as well as tidy. Harriet and I used a turn-up bedstead, surrounded by pretty chintz curtains, and we made a parlor and dining-room of the room by day. Harriet had a knack at twisting ribbons and fitting dresses, and she took in sewing; Catherine and Wallace went to school; and I got constant employment of a little Scotch weaver and thread-maker at twisting thread. Benjamin returned to his old place, and Walker was still in the printing-office.”

Her little hands very early learned to contribute to the support of the family. When eleven years old she earned a dollar and twenty-five cents a week splicing rolls in a woolen factory. She says of this period: “My principal recollections are of noise and filth, bleeding hands and aching feet, and a very sad heart.” Little did the residents of Eaton then dream that this little factory-girl was afterward to become such an honor to their humble village. Subsequently, when she first applied for the position of teacher in the district school, a young farmer who was acting trustee replied, “Why, the scholars will be bigger than their teacher.” But the little schoolmistress made her teaching a success, and before she was twenty years of age had contributed to the village newspaper poems of great literary merit. About this time she attracted the attention of the Misses Sheldon, who were conducting a well-known ladies’ school at Utica. They offered her gratuitous instruction for a single term, and subsequently proposed to complete her education without present charge. This afforded her an excellent opportunity for self-improvement. Her health, however, had been shattered by the hardship and labors of her earlier years, and it was through great weakness and suffering that she pressed toward higher literary excellence. She was continually spurred on by her desire to secure a home for her aged parents. It was for this purpose that she wrote those charming stories in which grace and strength of style are combined with the purest moral tone. It was under such circumstances as these that she sent to the press the stories for children, entitled “The Great Secret,” “Effie Maurice,” “Charles Linn,” “Allen Lucas,” “John Frink,” and also the fascinating tales for older readers, which were afterward gathered together, under the name of “Alderbrook.” Her biographer relates the following incident:

“As Miss Sheldon was at one time passing near midnight through the halls, a light streaming from Emily’s apartment attracted her attention, and, softly opening the door, she stole in upon her vigils. Emily sat in her night-dress, her papers lying outspread before her, grasping with both hands her throbbing temples, and pale as a marble statue. Miss S. went to her, whispered words of sympathy, and gently chided her for robbing her system of its needed repose. Emily’s heart was already full, and now the fountain of feeling overflowed in uncontrollable weeping. ‘Oh, Miss Sheldon,’ she exclaimed, ‘I must write, I must write; I must do what I can to aid my poor parents.’”

While making a visit in New York during the month of June, 1847, Miss Chubbuck wrote a letter to the Evening Mirror, which at that time was an exceedingly popular magazine, edited by George P. Morris and N. P. Willis. In a graceful and sportive vein she offered her literary services to this periodical:

“You know the shops in Broadway are very tempting this spring. Such beautiful things! Well, you know (no, you don’t know that, but you can guess) what a delightful thing it would be to appear in one of those charming, head-adorning, complexion-softening, hard-feature-subduing neapolitans; with a little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of those exquisite balzarines, to be seen any day at Stewart’s and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that shop-keepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange for these things even of a lady; and also that some people have a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the yellow ‘root’ in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am one of that class. I have the most beautiful little purse in the world, but it is only kept for show; I even find myself under the necessity of counterfeiting—that is, filling the void with tissue paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping expedition.

“Well, now to the point. As Bel and I snuggled down on the sofa this morning to read the New Mirror (by the way, Cousin Bel is never obliged to put tissue paper in her purse), it struck us that you would be a friend in need, and give good counsel in this emergency. Bel, however, insisted on my not telling what I wanted the money for. She even thought that I had better intimate orphanage, extreme suffering from the bursting of some speculative bubble, illness, etc., etc.; but did not I know you better? Have I read the New Mirror so much (to say nothing of the graceful things coined ‘under a bridge,’ and a thousand other pages flung from the inner heart), and not learned who has an eye for everything pretty? Not so stupid, Cousin Bel; no, no!

“However, this is not quite the point, after all; but here it is. I have a pen—not a gold one, I don’t think I could write with one, but a nice, little, feather-tipped pen, that rests in the curve of my finger as contentedly as in its former pillow of down. (Shocking! how that line did run down hill! and this almost as crooked! dear me!) Then I have little messengers racing ‘like mad’ through the galleries of my head; spinning long yarns, and weaving fabrics rich and soft as the balzarine which I so much covet, until I shut my eyes and stop my ears and whisk away, with the ‘wonderful lamp’ safely hidden in my own brown braids. Then I have Dr. Johnson’s dictionary—capital London edition, etc., etc.; and after I use up all the words in that, I will supply myself with Webster’s wondrous quarto, appendix and all. Thus prepared, think you not I should be able to put something in the shops of the literary caterers? something that, for once in my life, would give me a real errand into Broadway? May be you of the New Mirror PAY for acceptable articles—may be not. Comprenez-vous?

“O, I do hope that beautiful balzarine like Bel’s will not be gone before another Saturday! You will not forget to answer me in the next Mirror; but pray, my dear Editor, let it be done very cautiously, for Bel would pout all day if she should know what I had written. Till Saturday,

This letter attracted the attention of Mr. Willis, and drew from him a characteristic reply:

“Well, we give in! On condition that you are under twenty-five, and that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time you appear in Broadway with the hat and balzarine, we will pay the bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself, as cleverly done as this letter, and you may ‘snuggle down’ on the sofa, and consider us paid, and the public charmed with you.”

Mr. Willis at once introduced her through his columns to the American public, and, though they never saw each other but once, he became from this time on her life-long literary adviser and friend. And so, after the long struggle with poverty and ill-health, this woman, by dint of an imperious will and an unmistakable genius, began to take her place among the foremost literary characters of America. We quote from her biographer, Dr. Kendrick, who is well qualified by his intellectual acumen and fine poetic nature to judge of the quality of her mind:

“Those who now turn over the stories of Alderbrook will, I think, be at no loss to explain the popularity which they attained. They will find in them a truth to nature—a freshness and raciness of thought and diction—a freedom from the hackneyed conventionalisms of ordinary story-telling, a descriptive and dramatic power, which lend to them an unfailing charm. The language is ever plain and simple. They never affect ‘big’ words, nor deck themselves out in fripperies of expression. If there are occasional conceits of thought—and such are almost inevitable in a young woman’s first converse with the public—the style is almost wholly free from them. It delights in that plain Anglo-Saxon that comes freighted with home associations to every heart; and yet this simple style, under her delicate handling, has all the grace of ornament.

“Another source of the popularity of her sketches is found in the spirit and vivacity of her descriptions—showing a clear and close eye for the observation of nature—and in the lifelike truthfulness of her character-drawing. Her personages are not mere pegs on which to hang a story—a train of external incidents: they are themselves the story. They are not mere labelled embodiments of the virtues and vices of the Decalogue, but actual men and women, brought by a few simple but effective touches livingly before the eye, and, even in her lightest sketches, sharply individualized. Thus the interest of her stories is emphatically a human interest. It is not what the actors do, but what they are, that rivets our attention, and chains us to her fascinating pages. As might be inferred from this, she possesses extraordinary dramatic power. The dramatis personæ live and breathe and move through the story. The author transports herself into the scene; identifies herself with her characters; and instead of conducting her narration by cold, second-hand details, makes it gush warmly and livingly from the lips of the speakers. Not unfrequently nearly the whole story is unfolded by dialogue, natural, racy, and spirited, and that which in its mere outward details would be but a trivial incident, under this warm, dramatic handling, and imbedded in human passion, is impregnated with life and interest. Equally happy, too, is Emily in the conduct of her narrative—in the management of the plot—in so seizing upon the hinging-points, the nodes and crises of the story, and so coloring, and grouping, and contrasting them, as to give them their utmost effect. With the instinctive eye of genius, she separates the incidental from the essential, and strikes to the inmost core of her subject.

“And finally—and here perhaps was pre-eminently the secret of Emily’s power—she was drawing from her own life, ‘coloring from her own heart.’ With every stroke of her pen she daguerreotyped herself upon the page before her. The trials of her youth—her own harsh experiences—quivered through her bright and glittering fancies, and compelled many a tear from hearts unknowing of the cause. She was unconsciously obeying the dictum of the great Master; she moved others because she had first been moved herself. The tear that trembled in their eye answered to that which had first glistened in her own. The emotion that swelled their bosoms was responsive to that which had throbbed in her own breast. True to herself, she was true to the universal elements of humanity.

“And yet she was far from being the mere recorder; she dealt not in the mere statistics of experience. Her power of fancy was equal to her power of feeling. The germ of her conception sprung from the actual, but it developed itself in the realm of the ideal. When fancy supplied the groundwork, her feelings insensibly blended themselves with it, giving it genuineness and vitality. When she started from experience, fancy instantly stood as its servitor, ready to invest the creation with her bright and glittering hues. Thus her heart and life-experiences were so transfigured and idealized that she did not obtrude herself indelicately or painfully before the public. ‘Grace Linden,’ ‘Lilias Fane,’ ‘Dora,’ ‘Nora Maylie,’ ‘Ida Ravelin,’ even, were all born in he depths of her own nature, all embodied a certain portion of her spiritual essence; yet all were so wrought and moulded, so blended with imaginative elements, that she for whom they really stood ‘passed in music out of sight.’ So amidst the deeper emotions of later life her power of imagination kept pace with her power of passionate emotion. ‘My Bird,’ ‘Watching,’ ‘My Angel Guide,’ are beautifully idealized, and it is only perhaps in ‘Sweet Mother’ that the bleeding, agonizing heart of the stricken wife and daughter comes nakedly before the public. And with all this, there breathes through all her pages a tenderness and delicacy of sentiment which impart to them a nameless charm.

“In this slight analysis I am not claiming for ‘Fanny Forester’s’ sketches the highest order of genius. They are a woman’s production, and are thoroughly womanly. They aspire to no heights of masculine eloquence, no depths of philosophical teaching. They deal with the heart, the fancy, and the imagination. Nor in mere vigor and grasp of intellect is she, perhaps, to be classed with Joanna Bailie, Mrs. Browning, and Miss Bronté; although looking at all which she did, I am satisfied that she approaches much nearer to them in intellectual vigor than they do to her in womanly delicacy and softness. It is one of her high excellences that she never compromises her womanhood; and yet to her who could write the ‘Madness of the Missionary Enterprise,’ and render such contributions as she did to the memoir of her husband, is to be assigned no mean rank among the intellects of the world. Mr. Willis, Dr. Griswold, and Mr. H. B. Wallace, than whom our country has produced no more competent literary critics, estimated her genius as of a very high order, and regarded her true sphere as that not of popularity, but of fame.”

But, besides her intellectual gifts, Miss Chubbuck had an intensely religious nature. She was the child of pious parents, and was subject to very early religious impressions. She writes:

“The first event of any importance which I remember is the conversion of my sister Lavinia, when I was about seven years of age. My little cot was in her room; and as she grew worse after her baptism, the young members of the church were in the habit of spending the night with her, partly in the character of watchers, partly because of a unity of interest and feeling. She and her visitors spent the greater part of the night in conversation and prayer, without any thought of disturbing so sound a sleeper as I seemed to be, I was a silent, sometimes tearful listener when they talked; and when they prayed I used to kneel down in my bed, and with hands clasped and heart uplifted, follow them through to the end. I can not recall my exercises with any degree of distinctness; but I remember longing to go to heaven, and be with Christ; some moments of ecstasy, and some of deep depression on account of my childish delinquencies. My sister used often to converse with me on religious subjects; and I remember on one occasion her going to the next room and saying to my mother, ‘That child’s talk is wonderful! I believe, if there is a Christian in the world, she is one.’ For a moment I felt a deep thrill of joy, and then I became alarmed lest I should have deceived them. The effect was to make me reserved and cautious.”

In subsequent life she dated her conversion as occurring when she was eight years old. She used to attend all the religious services in the neighborhood. She writes:

“Indeed, I believe my solemn little face was almost ludicrously familiar to worshippers of every denomination, for I remember a Presbyterian once saying to me, as I was leaving the chapel, after having, as usual, asked prayers: ‘What! this little girl not converted yet! How do you suppose we can waste any more time in praying for you?’”

Indeed, she seems from her earliest years to have been haunted by the conviction that she was, some time or other, to be a missionary to the heathen; but she was always striving to rid herself of this irksome thought. She said to a friend:

“I have felt, ever since I read the memoir of Mrs. Ann H. Judson when I was a small child, that I must become a missionary. I fear it is but a childish fancy, and am making every effort to banish it from my mind; yet the more I seek to divert my thoughts from it, the more unhappy I am.”

It was by a strange coincidence that this gifted woman, who had been from childhood so deeply impressed by the story of Ann Hasseltine, should meet Mr. Judson in January, 1846. It was at the house of Dr. Gillette in Philadelphia, Mr. Judson had been invited to come from Boston, and Dr. Gillette had gone there to bring him on. The journey was long and cold, and an accident caused a delay of three or four hours. Dr. Gillette saw in the hands of a friend a collection of light sketches called “Trippings,“ by Fanny Forester. He borrowed it, and handed it to Mr. Judson that he might read it, and so while away the tedious and uncomfortable hours of delay. Mr. Judson read portions of the book, and recognizing the power with which it was written, expressed a regret that a person of such intellectual gifts should devote them to the writing of light literature. “I should be glad to know her,“ he remarked. “The lady who writes so well ought to write better. It’s a pity that such fine talents should be employed on such eesubjects.”

Dr. Gillette answered that he would soon have the pleasure of meeting her, because she was at that time a guest in his own house. Upon their arrival, Mr. Judson was entertained at the residence of Mr. Robarts, and the next morning called at Dr. Gillette’s. His first meeting with Miss Chubbuck is thus described by Dr. Kendrick:

“Promptly on the next day he came over to Mr. Gillette’s. Emily (in her morning-dress) was submitting to the not very poetical process of vaccination. As soon as it was over, Dr. Judson conducted her to the sofa, saying that he wished to talk with her. She replied half playfully that she should be delighted and honored by having him talk to her. With characteristic impetuosity he immediately inquired how she could reconcile it with her conscience to employ talents so noble in a species of writing so little useful or spiritual as the sketches which he had read. Emily’s heart melted; she replied with seriousness and candor, and explained the circumstances which had drawn her into this field of authorship. Indigent parents, largely dependent on her efforts—years of laborious teaching—books published with but little profit, had driven her to still new and untried paths, in which at last success unexpectedly opened upon her. Making this employment purely secondary, and carefully avoiding everything of doubtful tendency, she could not regard her course as open to serious strictures. It was now Dr. Judson’s turn to be softened. He admitted the force of her reasons, and that even his own strict standard could not severely censure the direction given to filial love. He opened another subject. He wished to secure a person to prepare a memoir of his recently deceased wife, and it was partly, in fact, with this purpose that he had sought Emily’s acquaintance. She entertained the proposition, and the discussion of this matter naturally threw them much together during the ensuing few days.”

Alex. Cameron, Eng.^r



Emily C Judson

Mr. Judson and Emily Chubbuck were married in Hamilton, N. Y., on the 2d of the following June.

The marriage was pleasing neither to the literary nor to the religious world. The one thought that the brilliant Fanny Forester was throwing herself away in marrying “an old missionary“; the other feared that the moral grandeur of the missionary cause was compromised by an alliance between its venerable founder and a writer of fiction.

These conflicting opinions made, however, but a slight impression upon Mr. Judson’s mind. He was not dependent for his happiness and well-being upon the opinion of others. He had long before learned to think and to act independently, otherwise he would never have become a missionary, least of all a Baptist. He wrote to his betrothed:

“I have been so cried down at different periods of my life—especially when I became a Baptist—and lost all—all but Ann—that I suppose I am a little hardened. But I feel for you, for it is your first field. Whatever of strength or shield is mine, or I can draw down from heaven, is yours.”

But the missionary’s heart kept turning toward the field of his labors far across the sea. If his two Burmese assistants had been with him, he might have contented himself a little longer in this country, for he could then have worked more effectively on his dictionary.

The following poem (by Mr. H. S. Washburn, of Boston) seems to gather up and express that longing for his Burman home which impelled him to re-embark even before he had been nine months in the United States. The author of these stanzas read them to Mr. Judson while he was busy packing his boxes for the voyage, and found that they seemed exactly to voice the desire of his heart:

Less than six weeks intervened between his marriage to Miss Chubbuck and his embarkation. Many tender farewells had to be spoken. He well knew that the dear ones from whom he was parting would probably never be seen again on earth. He thus wrote to his boys, Adoniram and Elnathan, whom he left with Dr. and Mrs. Newton at Worcester, and to his daughter Abby, whom he had committed to the care of his only sister at Plymouth:

“My dear Sons: Farewell. We embark to-morrow about noon. Many a time I shall look at your likenesses, and weep over them, and pray that you may early become true Christians. Love your brother George, and your uncle and aunt Newton. Pray every morning and evening. Your new mamma sends you her best love. Forget not

“My dear Daughter: Farewell. We embark to-morrow about noon. I think the likenesses taken of your face very good. I shall take one with me, and shall many a time look at it, and weep over it, and pray that you may early become a Christian. The other I shall give to George, to keep a while at Worcester, and finally give to your aunt Judson when he visits Plymouth.

“Love your dear aunts and cousins, with whom you live; pray every morning and evening, and may we meet again on earth, and if not, O, may we meet in heaven, and be happy together. Your new mamma sends her best love.

“Write me once in three months.”

To his only sister, also, the fond playmate of his childhood, the sole survivor of the dear family group that had clung to him so tenderly when, many years before, with the flush of youth on his cheek, he had set his face toward the rising sun, he speaks the parting word:

“Dear Sister: Farewell. We embark to-morrow about noon. I have two likenesses of Abby Ann. One I take myself, The other I hand to George, that he may take it to Worcester, and keep it with the boys, until he visits Plymouth, in about a month or six weeks, when he is to give it to you. I left Abby Ann at Bradford yesterday forenoon; gave the twenty dollars, which they will place to your credit. Take care of yourself, dear sister, and spare no expense that is necessary for your health and comfort.

“Emily sends her best love. Every blessing rest upon you, until we meet in heaven.

The following is his last public utterance in America:

“My friends are aware that it is quite impossible for me, without serious injury to myself, to sustain my voice at such a height as to reach this large assembly, except for a few sentences. I have, therefore, taken the liberty of putting some thoughts on paper, which the Rev. Mr. Hague will do me the honor of reading to you.

“I wish, however, in my own voice, to praise God for the deep interest in the cause of missions manifested by the friends of the Redeemer in this city and the vicinity, and to thank them for all their expressions and acts of kindness toward me during my brief sojourn among them. I regret that circumstances have prevented my spending more time in this city, and forming a more intimate acquaintance with those whom a slight acquaintance has taught me so much to love.

“It is as certain as any future event can be, that I shall never again revisit the shores of my native land; that, after a few days, your beautiful city, this great and glorious country, will be forever shut from my view. No more shall I enter your places of worship; no more shall I behold your faces, and exchange the affectionate salutations of Christian love.

“The greatest favor we can bestow on our absent friends is to bear them on our hearts at the throne of grace. I pray you, dear friends, remember me there, and my missionary associates, and our infant churches, and the poor heathen, among whom we go to live. And though we do meet no more on earth, I trust that our next meeting will be in that blessed world where ‘the loved and the parted here below meet ne’er to part again.’”

“There are periods in the lives of men who experience much change of scene and variety of adventure, when they seem to themselves to be subject to some supernatural illusion, or wild, magical dream; when they are ready, amid the whirl of conflicting recollection, to doubt their own personal identity, and, like steersmen in a storm, feel that they must keep a steady eye to the compass and a strong arm at the wheel. The scene spread out before me seems, on retrospection, to be identified with the past, and at the same time to be reaching forward and foreshadowing the future. At one moment the lapse of thirty-four years is annihilated; the scenes of 1812 are again present; and this assembly—how like that which commended me to God on first leaving my native shores for the distant East! But, as I look around, where are the well-known faces of Spring, and Worcester, and Dwight? Where are Lyman, and Huntington, and Griffin? And where are those leaders of the baptized ranks who stretched out their arms across the water, and received me into their communion? Where are Baldwin and Bolles? Where Holcombe, and Rogers, and Staughton? I see them not. I have been to their temples of worship, but their voices have passed away. And where are my early missionary associates, Newell, and Hall, and Rice, and Richards, and Mills? But why inquire for those so ancient? Where are the succeeding laborers in the missionary field for many years, and the intervening generation who sustained the missions? And where are those who moved amid the dark scenes of Rangoon, and Ava, and Tavoy? Where those gentle, yet firm spirits, which tenanted forms—delicate in structure, but careless of the storm—now broken, and scattered, and strewn, like the leaves of autumn, under the shadow of overhanging trees, and on remote islands of the sea?

“No, these are not the scenes of 1812; nor is this the assembly that convened in the Tabernacle of a neighboring city. Many years have elapsed; many venerated, many beloved ones have passed away to be seen no more. ‘They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.’ And with what words shall I address those who have taken their places, the successors of the venerated and the beloved, the generation of 1812?

“In that year American Christians pledged themselves to the work of evangelizing the world. They had but little to rest on, except the command and promise of God. The attempts then made by British Christians had not been attended with so much success as to establish the practicability, or vindicate the wisdom of the missionary enterprise. For many years the work advanced but slowly. One denomination after another embarked in the undertaking; and now American missionaries are seen in almost every clime. Many languages have been acquired; many translations of the Bible have been made; the Gospel has been extensively preached; and churches have been established containing thousands of sincere, intelligent converts. The obligation, therefore, on the present generation, to redeem the pledge given by their fathers, is greatly enhanced. And it is an animating consideration, that, with the enhancement of the obligation, the encouragement to persevere in the work, and to make still greater efforts, is increasing from year to year. Judging from the past, what may we rationally expect during the lapse of another thirty or forty years? Look forward with the eye of faith. See the missionary spirit universally diffused, and in active operation throughout this country; every church sustaining, not only its own minister, but, through some general organization, its own missionary in a foreign land. See the Bible faithfully translated into all languages; the rays of the lamp of heaven transmitted through every medium, and illuminating all lands. 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; and, though the great majority may still remain, as now in this Christian country, without hope and without God in the world, yet the barriers in the way of the descent and operations of the Holy Spirit removed, so that revivals of religion become more constant and more powerful.

“The world is yet in its infancy; the gracious designs of God are yet hardly developed. Glorious things are spoken of Zion, the city of our God. She is yet to triumph, and become the joy and glory of the whole earth. Blessed be God that we live in these latter times—the latter times of the reign of darkness and imposture. Great is our privilege, precious our opportunity, to co-operate with the Saviour in the blessed work of enlarging and establishing His kingdom throughout the world. Most precious the opportunity of becoming wise, in turning many to righteousness, and of shining, at last, as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars, forever and ever.

“Let us not, then, regret the loss of those who have gone before us, and are waiting to welcome us home, nor shrink from the summons that must call us thither. Let us only resolve to follow them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. Let us so employ the remnant of life, and so pass away, that our successors will say of us, as we of our predecessors, ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.’”

At Boston, July 11, 1846, Mr. and Mrs. Judson, in company with the newly-appointed missionaries, Miss Lillybridge, the Beechers, and the Harrises, embarked on the Faneuil Hall, Captain Hallett, bound for Maulmain. Many friends mingled in that farewell scene. He was leaving behind him fragrant memories. In many a household his prayers are cherished as a “precious benediction.” He had been entertained in the house of his friend, Gardner Colby, of Boston, and at the family altar he thus prayed for the family of his host: “May they, and their children, and their children’s children, in every generation to the end of time, follow each other in uninterrupted succession through the gates of glory,” a prayer that has borne fruitage from that time until now. The Colbys came to the ship to bid him good-bye, and the Lincolns, and the Gillettes, and Mrs. Judson’s bosom friend, Miss Anna Maria Anable, with, among others, and dearer than all the rest, a slender youth of eighteen, the child of her who had been laid at rest at St. Helena, George Dana Boardman. But how, even at that hour, Mrs. Judson’s thoughts must have wandered again and again to the humble roof at Hamilton, beneath which her aged parents were commending their departing daughter to the heavenly Father’s merciful care!

. Died in infancy.

. See .

. In public speech.

. By H. S. Washburn, Boston.

. Mr. Thomas Nickerson, of Newton Centre.

. I am indebted for this reminiscence to Mr. H. S. Washburn, of Boston.

. The road has since been changed and now passes below the house.

. The reader is referred to Dr. Kendrick’s Memoir of Mrs. E. C. Judson.

. See the graceful sketch of “The Life and Character of Gardner Colby,” by his son, the Rev. Henry F. Colby.

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