Return to the Golden Feet (1820 - 1822)
C H A P T E R X I I
Return to the Golden Feet
[ 1820-1822 ]
HEY remained in Calcutta three months: a few days with the Lawsons, who had traveled to India with Rice on the Harmony; two months with the Houghs at Serampore; and not quite a month with the Reverend Mr. Townley of the London Missionary Society and his wife. Mr. Townley, noted Nancy, was one of those fortunate missionaries who had sufficient prOperty to support himself and his wife.
Nancy’s health fluctuated. Dr. Chalmers, who declined any fee, thought she had a chronic ailment of the liver. He recommended that she go to the United States, where a cool climate might help. A return to Rangoon was out of the question.
Regretfully, Adoniram reserved a passage for himself alone on the Salmizanca, which expected to sail for Rangoon early in November. But late in October, when a Dr. Macwhirter, whose reputation was equal to Chalmers’s, thought he could prescribe medicines which would permit her to go back with Adoniram, he also took passage for her.
The stay in Calcutta was quiet. The only unpleasantness was 0ccasioned by some ugly stories about the Judsons’ treatment of the dying Wheelock which were undoubtedly being circulated by his widow Eliza, who had chosen to remain in India and about this time married “a Mr. Jones of Calcutta.” Nancy was doubly hurt because she knew the stories were on their way back to Wheelock’s parents. A few days before they sailed she wrote a long letter about the whole matter to Mrs. Carleton in the United States, asking her to convey the truth to old Mr. and Mrs. Wheelock. She could not, she wrote, have them feel she was “so destitute of the feelings of humanity as to have denied their son anything which could have rendered him comfortable.” The fact was, Eliza “was the ‘root of bitterness,’ she endeavored to prevent our union. But notwithstanding all her exertions to ruin our characters, we are endeavouring to cultivate a forgiving spirit, and I trust we have in some measure obtained it.”
They embarked with Emily Van Someren on the Salamanca the twenty-third of November. The voyage was unpleasant. The ship was small and overcrowded with humans, scorpions and centipedes. They met contrary winds, squalls and the most terrifying thunder and lightning storm they had ever seen. The passage should have taken about two weeks, but six weeks elapsed before, on January 3, 1821, they sighted the Elephant at the western limit of the Rangoon outlet of the Irrawaddy.
The pilot had news both good and bad. Mya-day-men, the Wungyi, the Stern spear-carrier who had been viceroy of Rangoon when they first arrived and whose wife had befriended them, was again in Rangoon as viceroy. This was the good news. The bad news was that some thirty thousand troops had recently marched through Rangoon on their way to Siam, making ready for war. It was just as well that the Colmans were preparing a refuge at Chittagong.
The ship drew near the town on the fifth. As the golden tower of the great pagoda soared up above the trees, Nancy and Adoniram strained their eyes from the crowded quarterdeck for a sight of their friends on shore. Sure enough, across the yellow water they could recognize among the many on the wharf the tall figure of old Maung Shway-gnong, his hands raised to his head in greeting. And there were Maung Thahlah, the woman Mah Men-lay, and other disciples, together with various children. They all trooped together to the examination at the customs, and surrounded the two missionaries like a flock as they made their way to the mission house.
The warmth of the greetings, the love of the Burmese disciples, the solicitude for their comfort and well-being—all these filled the hearts of Adoniram and Nancy with gratitude. Their reception was as different as could be from that lonely day more than seven years ago when they had first set foot on the soil of Burma. Then they were friendless, the language a mere babel, the name of Christ a meaningless sound. Now they had a Burmese church of ten, firm friends by the score, the language was pleasantly familiar, and the Gospel news was spreading far and wide.
Maung Shway—gnong had important news for them about himself. It was the former Viceroy who had said of him ominously “Inquire further,” and by those few words dismayed the people and nearly ended the mission. When Mya-day—men returned from the Golden Feet to take up the duties of viceroy again, the priests and officers of Maung Shway-gnong’s village had thought they saw a chance to destroy him once and for all. He knew they were conspiring, feeling more triumphant daily, and began to be afraid he might have to flee for his life any moment.
Finally the conspiracy was complete. The leading member, who belonged to the village high court, went to the Viceroy and com—plained, “The teacher Maung Shway-gnong is trying to turn the bottom of the priests’ rice pot upwards.”
Mya—day—men heard this in silence. Then he replied, “What consequence? Let the priests turn it back again.” These simple words had blasted the conspiracy. Until another Viceroy came, toleration seemed assured.
Adoniram and Nancy went to the government house to see Myaday—men’s wife. She received them with all the familiarity of an old friend, although she had been promoted by the Emperor to the almost supreme dignity of “Woon-gyee-gau—dau.” 1 This meant she was entitled to ride in a wau, a sort of palanquin which was carried by forty or fifty men. They saw the Viceroy, too, still stalking about restlessly with his huge spear. But he was preoccupied with grief over the death of his favorite daughter, one of the emperor’s foremost wives, and said only “Ah! You are come!” be—fore striding on.
The work of the mission continued. There were more inquirers. Even the man Maung Yah, the very first inquirer of years before, returned. Maung Ing, who had been away all of this time at the town of Bike, below Rangoon, turned up too. Long a convert, he had not yet been baptized. Now he received baptism on the fourth
1Its translation today, “Mrs. Wungyi,” does not convey its import in the 1820’s. After all, “Duchess,” in a sense, merely means “Mrs. Duke." of March. A few days later he went back to Bike with a load of tracts. Mah Men-lay of her own accord opened a school in her house, to teach the native boys and girls to read, so they would not have to go to the priests.
But Adoniram spent less time in the zayat than before. He was busy with something more important. The disciples could spread the message of Jesus; it was up to Adoniram to supply that message, in the form of a more complete translation of the Gospel. He had already translated Matthew, the Epistle to the Ephesians, and the first part of Acts. Now, with Maung Shway-gnong’s help, he hoped to revise everything he had done so far and produce a better, more accurate version. By mid-May he was able to send the manuscript of Ephesians and the first part of Acts to Hough at Serampore, with a request that six hundred copies of each be printed.
There were many other things to do. There were the Sunday services—one for the few Europeans in Rangoon, another for the Burmese. There were prayer meetings Tuesday and Friday evenings. A woman, Mah-Myat-lay, was baptized. Adoniram decided to employ Maung Shway-bay as a sort of assistant pastor. Maung Thahlah spoke better, Maung Shway-gnong had far more learning and authority, but Maung Shway—bay was graver and more devoted and had a “humble and persevering desire” for the post, which to Adoniram counted most of all. Adoniram also made a map showing where the events of the Bible occurred, and went over this with the converts.
All this work filled Adoniram’s days from dawn to dark. By the middle of July, he had finished the Gospel and Epistles of St. John, “those exquisitely sweet and precious portions of the New Testament,” and was working on the latter part of Acts.
But sickness was striking again. Earlier in the year he had an attack of cholera. In the late summer, both he and Nancy came down with a fever. For several days they lay in the same room, unable to help each other, having to depend on Emily for the most personal services. And in spite of salivation with blue mercury pills Nancy’s liver trouble was growing much worse. Adoniram felt sure that she would die soon unless something draStic were done at Ann Hasseltine Judson (Adoniram’s first wife)
Emily Chubbuck Judson (Adoniram ’5 third wife)
n a tribute to Sarah Boardman Judson at the ‘ [time of her death, Adoniram Judson made this ' I statement: ”I exceedingly regret that there is
no portrait of the second... Mrs. Judson. Her soft, blue eyes, her mild aspect, her lovely face, and
elegantform have never been delineated on canvas. They must soon pass away from the memory
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shrined in her husband’s heart."
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7,. ‘15—.» .évm"’wle ot the future. once. August 6, he decided she must go to Bengal for help, and then probably home to America.
August 21, 1822, Nancy embarked for Calcutta with Emily Van Someren, no longer “little Emily,” who was to leave her and travel on to Madras, her former home. Emily had been a member of the family for seven years. They had brought her up as their own daughter, but in the surviving letters of that past day she is seldom mentioned. She entered Nancy’s and Adoniram’s lives, and goes out of them, a shadowy figure.
With Nancy, Adoniram sent a letter to Hough, saying in part:
I send you herewith Mrs. Judson, and all that remains of the blue pills and senna, and beg you will see the articles all well packed and shipped for America by the earliest safe opportunity.... It is said that man is prone to jest in the depths of misery; and the bon-mots of the scaffold have been collected: you may add the above specimen to the list if you like. I feel as if I was on the scaffold, and signing, as it were, my own death warrant. However, two years will pass away at last.
He went on in the same vein:
I have been occupied in making up my mind to have my right arm amputated, and my right eye extracted, which the doctors say are necessary in order to prevent a decay and mortification of the whole body conjugal.
His right arm and right eye Nancy certainly was. But there was no help for it. For at least two years, he must resign himself to carrying on the mission without her.
When the ship bearing Nancy and Emily had slipped out of sight down the river, Adoniram left the wharf and turned with misting eyes to the mission house. For the next month he applied himself entirely to the zayat and to translation. But in September he had to close the zayat again.
Both Nancy and he suspected that the present state of toleration was too good to last. Although the viceroy and his wife had encouraged them privately, by telling them they would try to present their case favorably before the Emperor on his intended trip through Rangoon on his way to the Siamese border, they admitted that “toleration” could mean freedom only for foreigners to worship as they pleased. Even then they did not realize that any Burman had renounced Buddhism and become Christian. That was known only to a small circle in the mission.
But Maung Shway-gnong’s conversion could not be concealed from his village. Soon its chief, together with several priests, presented a document to the viceroy accusing Maung Shway-gnong of “having embraced sentiments which aimed at the destruction of the Boodhist religion, and prejudicial to the existing authorities." The viceroy could not overlook this open accusation. He said that if it were true, Maung Shway-gnong deserved death. But he did not hurry to act.
The teacher heard the news at once — his friends had been watching the proceedings carefully. He immediately procured a boat and put his family on board, while he hurried to the mission house to warn Adoniram and pick up a supply of tracts and printed portions of Scripture. Then he went up the river about a hundred miles, to the town of Shway-doung. Here he settled down to spread the Gospel news.
As usual, the viceroy’s words scattered the inquirers around the zayat like quail. Adoniram restricted his meetings to the mission house. Even so, he baptized one new convert, but he also lost one by the sudden death from cholera of Maung Thahlah, the second convert.
Meanwhile, he spent almost all of his time alone, translating.
The months passed quietly. When government pressure seemed light, Adoniram spent more time teaching. When a shadow of danger appeared, he spent more time translating.
December 13, 1821, a new couple came with their infant daughter to live in the mission house: Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Price. Price, a tall, awkward, gangling man with a bristle of light-colored hair, was almost a caricature of all the Yankees of legend, except that he lacked taciturnity. Everything he thought and felt came out in words, without any filtering; and almost every idea that occurred he tried to execute at once. He was extremely absent-minded, and, somewhat to Adoniram’s disgust, almost completely indifferent to neatness and cleanliness.
Price was a medical man with a whittler’s interest in surgery, particularly eye surgery. His medical Studies had been financed under the Baptist Board’s patronage. In a very short time he had a goodsized practice. He was good at removing cataracts, had no fear of tackling them, and his fame soon spread over all lower Burma. To the Burmese, a man who could remove those blinding white grOWths was a magician. And his knowledge of the language grew as fast as his practice. His grammar was weak, his vocabulary small, his construction poor; but he had a good ear and soon was chattering away to the Burmans like a magpie, his volubility diminished not at all by the fact that they did not always know what he meant.
January 20, 1822, meant anOther season of rejoicing as Hough and his family disembarked at the Rangoon landing. Hough knew the language pretty well now and still could print faster than Adoniram could translate. In Price, with his surgical necromancy, they had a means of spreading favorable word about themselves even faster than the word of the Gospel. However, along with rejoicing came tragedy: on the second of May, Mrs. Price died of dysentery. She was buried beside little Roger, and her little daughter was sent to the Lawsons in Calcutta, where she could receive better care than in Rangoon.
Word of the physician’s cures of cataract were not long in reaching the Golden Ears at Ava. On July 20, an order came from the Golden Lips themselves commanding Price to appear at the Golden Feet.
Price could not possibly go alone. Adoniram would have to accompany him, although he did not want to. He had translated the New Testament as far as the Epistle to the Romans, having finished a new Version of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Burmese had to have the Bible, he felt, and he was the only person alive capable of giving it to them in their own language. But there was no help for it: translation would have to wait.
At least, this trip would be at government expense. Because of that, there was a delay while officialdom made the necessary arrangements, protracted by the death on August 20 of the old spearstalker Mya-day-men. They did not actually leave until August 28, exactly a week after Adoniram had baptized the eighteenth Burmese convert. Price and Adoniram arrived at Ava a month later—September 27, 1822. They found that the work of rebuilding Ava as the new capital, in accordance with the old custom that each new king should rule from a new place, was nearly complete.
This time there was no delay in reaching the Golden Feet. The emperor was interested in Price’s medical skill and had many questions to ask. He took no notice of Adoniram except as interpreter. But Maung Zah, the Atwinwun who had arranged for Adoniram’s introduction to the emperor on his previous visit, remembered him. In the Golden Presence, Maung Zah asked him about his welfare. After the audience he spoke a few cautious words about religion and even gave Adoniram a little private encouragement to Stay in Ava awhile.
On October first they had another audience with the emperor. This time, after some questions to Price, the Golden Eyes fell on Adoniram, who was dressed in his usual rusty black. Without the white robe he had worn on his first visit two years ago, the emperor had nor recognized him.
“And you, in black, what about you?” asked the emperor. “Are you a medical man too?”
Adoniram shook his head. “Not a medical man, but a teacher of religion, Your Majesty.”
The emperor asked a few desultory questions about Christianity. Then he came out with a question which froze Adoniram t0 the marrow of his bones: “Have any embraced your religion?”
“Not here, in Ava,” Adoniram evaded.
The king persisted. “Are there any in Rangoon?”
“There are a few.”
“Are there any foreigners?”
Adoniram hesitated. An honest answer could involve the whole little church in ruin. But a dishonest answer was unthinkable. Finally he replied, “There are some foreigners and some Burmans,” and waited for wrath to descend.
It did not. His Majesty was silent a few moments. Then, dropping that subject, he began to ask Adoniram questions about religion of a kind he could answer fully, and finally came to geography and astronomy. On such matters as the roundness of the earth, and how the earth circles about the sun, along with the planets, Adoniram was on safe ground. Some questions, he remembered, “were answered in such a satisfactory manner as to occasion a general expression of approbation in all the court present.”
Later, when the emperor had withdrawn, a Thau-dau-sen, one of the royal secretaries, conversed with him for some time and asked him a number of questions about Christianity as if he really wanted to know. Adoniram was so relieved that he would have talked happily about anything. The emperor knew at last that some native Burmese had become Christians, and had withheld his wrath!
Adoniram might not have felt so much relief if he had known that one of his listeners was that very Atwinwun who, years ago, had had his own uncle tortured nearly to death for becoming a Christian.