Pioneers and Founders

Thenceforth his fate was determined, and he began to prepare himself.  He was, in person, slightly made and delicate-looking, with an aquiline face, dark eyes, and chesnut hair; and though his constitution must have been immensely strong to have borne what he underwent, at this time he was thought delicate; and therefore, with his one purpose before him, he carefully studied physiology, and made himself a code of rules which he obeyed to the end of his life, in especial inhaling large quantities of air, sponging the whole body with cold water, and taking daily exercise by walking.  He was a man of great vivacity and acuteness, with the poetical spirit that accompanies strong enthusiasm, and with a fastidious delicacy and refinement in all personal matters, such as seemed rather to mark him as destined to be an accomplished scholar than to lead the rude life of a missionary; and Ann Hasseltine, the young lady on whom he had fixed his affections, was a very beautiful girl, of great cultivation and accomplishments, but they were alike in one other great respect,—namely, in dauntless self-devotion.  He began to talk of his purpose to the like-minded among his college mates, and gradually gathered a few into a very small missionary association, into which none were admitted who had any duties that could forbid their going out to minister among the heathen.

At the same time, and partly through their means, a wider association was formed, which had its centre at Bradford, and which finally decided on sending Judson to England to endeavour to effect a union with the London Missionary Society, which had been formed in 1795, in imitation of Carey’s Baptist Society, to work in other directions by Nonconformists of other denominations.

The voyage in 1811, in the height of the continental war, was a very perilous one.  On the way the vessel was taken by the French and carried into Bayonne, while the young American passenger was summarily thrown into the hold with the common sailors.  He became very ill, but, when the French doctor visited him, he could hold no communication for want of a common language.  Then it was that there came thoughts of home, and of the “biggest church in Boston,” and a misgiving swept over him, which he treated at once as a suggestion of the enemy, and betook himself to prayer.  Then, in the grey twilight of the hold, he felt about for his Hebrew Bible; and to keep his mind fully absorbed, began mentally rendering the Hebrew into Latin.  When the doctor came in, he took up the Bible, perceived that he had a scholar to deal with, began to talk Latin to him, and arranged his release from the hold.

But on landing at Bayonne, he was marched through the streets as a prisoner with the English crew.  He began declaiming in his native language on the injustice of detaining an American, and obtained his purpose by attracting the attention of an American gentleman in the street, who promised to do what he could for him, but advised him in the meantime to proceed quietly.  The whole party were thrown into a dismal underground vault, and the stones covered with straw, which seemed to Judson so foul that he could not bear to sit down on it, and he walked up and down, though sick and giddy with the chill, close, noisome atmosphere.  Before his walking powers were exhausted, his American friend was at the door, and saying, “Let me see whether I know any of these poor fellows,” took up the lamp, looked at them, said “No friend of mine,” and as he put down the lamp threw his own large cloak round Mr. Judson, and grasping his arm, led him out under it in the dark; while a fee, put into the hand, first of the turnkey and then of the porter, may have secured that the four legs under the cloak should pass unobserved.  “Now run,” said the American, as soon as they were outside, and he rushed off to the wharf, closely followed by his young countryman, whom he placed on board a vessel from their own country for the night.  Afterwards, Judson’s papers were laid before the authorities, and he was not only released, but allowed to travel through France to the northern coast, and, making friends with some of the Emperor’s suite on the way home from Spain, travelled to Paris in an Imperial carriage.  Afterwards, he made his way to England, where he received a warm welcome from the London Missionary Society, by which he and the three friends he had left in America—Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon Hall—were accepted as missionaries; but on Judson’s return to America, he found that the Congregationalist Mission Board there was able to undertake their expenses, and accordingly they went out, salaried by their own country.  All four were dedicated to the ministry at Salem on the 6th of February, 1812, and immediately prepared to sail for the East Indies.

Judson, with his wife, the beautiful dark-eyed Ann Hasseltine, and his friends Mr. and Mrs. Newell, also newly married, embarked in the Caravan; Hall, Nott, and another college mate, named Luther Rice, were in the Harmony.  They were at once received at Serampore, on their landing, in the June of 1812, but Dr. Carey’s expectations of them were not high.  Adoniram and Ann Judson were both delicate, slender, refined-looking people.  “I have little hope from the Americans,” he wrote; “if they should stay in the East, American habits are too luxurious for a preparation to live among savages.”  He little knew what were the capabilities of Ann Judson, the first woman who worked effectively in the cause, the first who rose above the level of being the comfort of her husband in his domestic moments, and was an absolute and valuable influence.

The opposition to the arrival of missionaries was at its height, and this large batch so dismayed the Calcutta authorities that, declaring them British subjects come round by America, they required their instant re-embarkation.  It was decided to go to the Isle of France, whence it was hoped to find a French ship to take them to the aid of Felix Carey, but the first vessel could only take the Newells, and the detention at Serampore drew the Judsons and Rice into the full influence of Marshman’s powerful and earnest mind.  Aware that they would have to work with the Baptist mission, they had studied the tenets on the voyage, but found when they arrived, that the points of difference were subjects that the trio at Serampore did not choose to discuss, lest their work among the heathen should suffer by attention to personal controversy.  However, their own thoughts and the influences of the place led them to desire baptism by immersion; and this being done, they considered it due to the Congregationalists, who had sent them out, to resign their claim on them for support, though this left them destitute.  It was decided that Rice should go home and appeal for their support to the American Baptists, and in this he thoroughly succeeded, while the Judsons, after sailing for Mauritius, where they found poor Mrs. Newell recently dead, made their way back to Madras, and there found a vessel bound for Rangoon.  It was a crazy old craft, with a Malay crew, no one but the captain able to speak a word of English.  The voyage was full of disaster.  A good European nurse, who had been engaged to go with Mrs. Judson, fell on the floor and died suddenly, even while the ship was getting under weigh, too late to supply her place.  Mrs. Judson became dangerously ill, and the vessel was driven into a perilous strait between the Great and Little Andaman Islands, where the captain was not only out of his bearings, but believed that, if he were driven ashore, the whole ship’s company would be eaten by the cannibal islanders.  The alarm, however, acted as a tonic, and Mrs. Judson began to recover.

They reached Rangoon in safety, but Judson writes: “We had never before seen a place where European influence had not contributed to smooth and soften the rough features of uncultivated nature.  The prospect of Rangoon, as we approached, was quite disheartening.  I went on shore, just at night, to take a view of the place and the mission-house, but so dark and cheerless and unpromising did all things appear, that the evening of that day, after my return to the ship, we have marked as the most gloomy and distressing that we ever passed.”  The mission-house was not quite empty, though Felix Carey, who they had hoped would welcome them, was at Ava.  When Mrs. Judson, still too weak to walk, was carried ashore, she was received by his wife, who could speak Burmese, and managed the household, providing daily dinners of fowls stewed with rice or with cucumber.

It was, however, a dismal place, near the spot where public executions took place, and where the dead were burnt outside the walls.  And all around, among the beautiful vegetation and lovely forests on the banks of the broad Irrawaddy, rose the pagodas, graceful with the peculiar beauty of the far East, with gilded lacquer-work, umbrella-shaped roofs spiring upwards; huge idols with solemn contemplative faces within, and all around swarms of yellow-robed, fat, lazy lamas.

The new comers meantime applied themselves to the study of the language, after overcoming the disdain of their pundit at having to instruct a woman.  He could not speak English, and had neither grammar nor dictionary, so that the difficulties were great; but the eager spirit of the students overcame all, and they ventured to remove into town and keep house themselves.

Mrs. Judson was taken to visit the wives of the Myowoon, or Viceroy of Rangoon, by a French lady who had been admitted before.  On their first arrival the principal wife was not up, and the ladies waited, while the inferior wives examined all they wore, and tried on their gloves and bonnets; but when the great lady appeared, they all crouched together at a distance.  She came in richly attired, and smoking a silver pipe, and sat down on a mat by Mrs. Judson, whom she viewed with much curiosity, asking if she were her husband’s first wife.  The Myowoon came in looking wild and savage, and carrying a huge spear in his hand; but he was very polite to Mrs. Judson, though he took very little notice of her husband.

In fact the government was violent and barbarous.  There were perpetual murders and robberies, and these were punished by horrid executions, accompanied by torture; yet the Burmese regarded themselves as superior to all other nations, and were far from understanding how greatly they fell short even of the requirements of Buddhism.

Felix Carey, meantime, had been requested by the king to vaccinate the royal children; but he had to return to Calcutta to procure matter for the purpose.  He then visited Rangoon on his way back, and prepared to carry up his family, property, and printing-press to Ava, with the hope of forming a fresh station there, under royal patronage; but after ten days’ voyage, the vessel was capsized by a sudden storm, and all who could not swim were drowned.  Felix tried to rescue his little son of three years old, but, finding himself sinking, he let the child go, and saved himself alone.

Everything in the vessel was lost; but the king gave him compensation for the property, and took him into high favour, sending him shortly after, to conduct some negotiations with the British Government.  He appeared at Calcutta with the title and gorgeous dress of a Burmese noble, and showed himself in the streets with a train of fifty followers.  Old Dr. Carey was seriously grieved at his thus “sinking from a missionary to an ambassador;” and he was by no means successful in this new line; in fact his negotiations turned out so ill, that on his return to Rangoon he was obliged to fly the country.  The excitement of his life had made missionary labour distasteful to him, and, after strange wanderings in the wild lands eastward of Bengal, he became prime minister and generalissimo to a barbarous prince; and in that capacity led an army against his old friends, the Burmese, sustained a defeat, and was forced to wander in the jungle.  After three years of this strange life, he fell in by chance at Chittagong with Mr. Ward, and was by him persuaded to return to the printing and philology, for which alone, like his father, he really was well qualified.  He lived at Serampore till 1822, and then was carried off by the same sickly season that had proved fatal to Krishnu-pal, who had been baptized with him, and to Bishop Middleton.

Meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were working steadily on, and were greatly cheered by the arrival of a much less barbarous viceroy, named Mya-day-men.  They were invited, with all the Europeans, to a banquet at the new official’s house, and Mrs. Judson was entertained by the wife, who questioned her eagerly, and asked if she knew how to dance in the English way; but was satisfied on hearing that the wives of priests did not dance.  As Buddhist priests are celibate, Mrs. Judson must have been rather a puzzle to the good lady; and all this time the real work of the mission had not commenced, for the preliminary operation of acquiring the language had not been completed, and Judson was warned not to attempt preaching till he was familiar with it, by Dr. Carey having told him that after some years in Bengal, when he imagined himself to be freely able to use the language, he had found from the remark of a young man, that he was really not in the least understood.  Private arguments with the teachers was all that could be attempted, and in these there seems to have been some forgetfulness of St. Paul’s words, “Who art thou that judgest another?  To his own master he standeth or falleth;” since there was a very free threatening that the souls of the pagans must be lost; to which the pundits replied with true Eastern calmness, “Our religion is good for us, yours for you.”  During this time of perseverance and preparation, Mrs. Judson’s health became so much affected that she was forced to go to Madras.  Heroine as she was, she would not consent to let her husband break up his work to accompany her; but the solitude of her absence fell on him most severely.  She says, “He had no individual Christian with whom he could converse or unite in prayer during the six months of her absence;” but he worked on heartily, and she returned in perfect health.

In the spring of 1816, the death of their first-born child was a great shock to the father’s health, which was already disordered; and he continued in a declining state all through the summer.  The Myowoon’s wife, whom Mrs. Judson conveniently calls the vice-reine, was very kind to them, and took them on elephant-back to visit her country-house.  The way lay through the woods, between trees sometimes so thick that the elephants broke them down, at the mahout’s word, to make way.  Thirty men in red caps, with spears and guns, formed the guard; then came the vice-reine’s elephant, with a gilded howdah, where the lady sat dressed in red and white silk; then the Judsons’ animal, three or four more behind with grandees, and 300 or 400 attendants followed.  At a beautiful garden, full of fruit trees, a feast was spread under a noble banyan, the vice-reine causing the cloth next to her to be allotted to her guests, whom she tended affectionately, gathering and paring fruit, cutting flowers and weaving them for them, and, unlike the Hindoos, freely eating what they handed her.  This hospitable and amiable lady had just begun to ask Mrs. Judson the difference between the Christians’ God and Gautama, when she was obliged to return to Ava.

For several months Mr. Judson’s illness increased; but exercise on horseback did much to relieve him, and the comfort and encouragement of the arrival of a brother missionary, Mr. Hough, with his family, did more.  He weathered the attack without leaving his post, and in 1817 made his first real step.  A press had come out with Mr. Hough, and with it two little tracts, summarizing the chief truths of Christianity, were printed and distributed at Rangoon.

Shortly after, a respectable-looking Burmese, attended by a servant, walked into Mr. Judson’s house, and sat down.  Presently he inquired, “How long a time will it take me to learn the religion of Jesus?”

Mr. Judson answered, that where God gave light and wisdom, it was soon learnt; but without, a whole lifetime would not teach a man.  “But how,” he asked, “came the wish for this knowledge?”

“I have seen two little books.”

“And who is Jesus?” said the missionary.

“He is the Son of God, who, pitying human creatures, came into this world and suffered death in their stead.”

“Who is God?” continued Mr. Judson.

“He is a Being without beginning or end, who is not subject to old age or death, but always is.”

Mr. Judson showed him the two little books, which he recognized, but begged for more.  He did not attend much to what Judson tried to teach him by word of mouth, but begged for book.  The Gospel of St. Matthew was in hand, but could not be finished for three months; and when he was told this “Have you not a little of that book done, which you will graciously give me now?” he asked.  “And I,” writes Judson, “beginning to think that God’s time was better than man’s, folded and gave him the two first half-sheets, which contain the first five chapters of St. Matthew, on which he instantly rose, as if his business was done, and took leave.”

It was long before they saw him again; though many other persons began calling at the mission-house to inquire about what they called the new religion; but all were so much afraid of one another, that no one would ask any questions if a fellow-citizen were present.  Mrs. Judson was also getting together from fifteen to twenty women every Sunday, whom she tried to instruct.  One of them, like the Norseman of old, preferred casting in her lot with her forefathers to a heaven separated from them; and when Mrs. Judson told her they would reproach her with the rejection of the truth they had never known, and that she would regret her folly when it was too late, she answered, “If I do, I will cry out to you to be my intercessor.”  Another combined prayers to our Lord and Gautama.

The vice-reine came back from Ava, and continued to be very kind to Mrs. Judson, made her explain her doctrine, caused the little catechism to be taught to her daughter, and accepted a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which was at length completed.  This being finished, Mr. Judson, after four years’ study of the language, believed himself able to undertake more public ministrations; but first went on a voyage to Chittagong, where he hoped to find, among the Christian converts of Burmese speech, one to assist him in communicating with the people.

Mrs. Judson remained with the Houghs, and had the pleasure of receiving the Burmese inquirer, whose long absence had been occasioned by his being appointed governor of some villages in Pegu.  He said he was thinking and reading in order to become a believer.  “But I cannot yet destroy my old mind, for, when I see a handsome patso, or a handsome gounboun,2 I still desire it.  Tell the great teacher, when he returns, that I wish to see him, though I am not a disciple of Christ.”  She gave him the rest of St. Matthew, and a tract to each of his attendants, and he promised that, if the great teacher would come and see him, he would collect his villagers to hear the new doctrine preached.  There was something very attractive, meek, and unassuming about the man’s whole appearance, and of him there was much hope; but, just about this time great anxiety fell on the mission party.  The kindly Myowoon and his wife were removed, and immediately after a summons was sent to Mr. Hough to appear at the court-house of the city, with the intimation, “that, if he did not tell the whole truth they would write it in his blood.”  He was kept all Friday and Saturday answering, through an interpreter, foolish questions: who were his father and mother, how many suits of clothes he had, and the like; all which was formally written down.  On the third day, Sunday, Mrs. Judson, resolving to ascertain whether this were really done by the command of the Myowoon, drew up a petition, which she carried herself.  She was graciously received, and it presently appeared that an order had really been sent for the banishment of some Portuguese priests, and that the petty officials of the Court had taken advantage of it to harass Mr. Hough, in the hope of extracting a reward for his liberation.

At this time there was a terrible visitation of cholera, which the Burmese attributed to evil spirits, and accordingly attempted to drive away by force of noise.  It was supposed that the evil spirits would take refuge in any house that was silent, and for three whole nights cannon were fired from the court-house, and every human creature used the utmost powers nature or art afforded for producing a din.  The mission party were uninfected by the contagion, but it was a time of terrible anxiety, for nothing had been heard of Mr. Judson or his ship for months; there were reports of ill-feeling between the Burmese and British Governments, no arrivals of English at Rangoon, and no intelligence.  Mrs. Judson’s female classes had fallen off ever since Mr. Hough’s summons, and the state of things was such, that the Houghs decided on removing to Bengal.  Mrs. Judson, with her little girl, most reluctantly decided to accompany them, but, just as the vessel in which they sailed had gone down the river, she was ascertained not to be seaworthy; and, during this delay, Mrs. Judson’s fears of her husband’s finding her gone, if he ever returned to Rangoon, so increased, that she went back with her child to the house, and, brave woman as she was, took up her abode there with the native servants, trusting herself wholly to the protection of her God.  She was rewarded by her husband’s arrival, after an absence of nine months, caused by the captain of his ship having broken his engagement, and carried him on to Madras, where he had been detained all this time for want of a vessel to return in.  The Houghs also came back, and two young men from America soon after came out, full of zeal and activity, but both fell ill very shortly afterwards, and the younger died, but his fellow, Mr. Colman, became a valuable assistant.

This era, the spring of 1819, was the first great step in the Burmese mission.  Funds had been raised by the Baptist Society in America, which were applied to the erection of a zayat or public room, with walls of bamboo and a thatched roof.  It had two rooms, one for a school for the women, another for the men, who gladly learnt to read and write from Mrs. Judson and a Burmese teacher.  Here, too, Mr. Judson openly held prayers and preaching on Sunday, and these attracted many, some of whom would come in the week for private discussion.

The first real convert was a man of thirty-five, named Moung Nau, poor, but of excellent character, and so intelligent, that he became a useful assistant after his baptism, on the 27th of June, 1819.  Others were inquiring, among whom the most interesting was Moung Shwaygnong, a schoolmaster or tutor by profession, at a village a little way from Rangoon, and already a philosopher, “half deist, half sceptic, the first of the sort I have seen among the Burmans” (our quotations are from Mr. Judson’s journal), who, however, worshipped at the pagodas, and conformed to national observances.  The second time he came the conversation seemed to have made “no impression on his proud sceptical heart, yet he promised to pray to the eternal God, through the Saviour.”  It appeared that, about eight years previously, it had come before him that there is indeed One Eternal God, and that this thought had been working in him ever since.  A copy of Mr. Judson’s tract which fell in his way chimed in with this primary belief, and next came the question of the Scripture revelation, which he argued over with much metaphysical power and acuteness, being a very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the literature of his own country.  Meantime three simpler minds—Moung Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing—had been thoroughly convinced, and, though aware that they would expose themselves to considerable danger, resolved to become Christians.

The Viceroy had remarked the zayat, and notice was taken that men were there led “to forsake the religion of the country.”  The alarm cleared the zayat of all the audience, and emptied Mrs. Judson’s class of women, but Thaahlah3 and Byaay sent in a letter, entreating to be admitted to baptism, and Ing would have followed their example, but that his trade as a fisherman carried him off to sea.  They begged not to be baptized openly, as Nau had been, in a piece of water near the town and presided over by an image of Gautama; and Mr. Judson yielded so far, that he conducted the preliminary devotions in the zayat, and baptized them in the same pool two hours after dark.  Shwaygnong had in the meantime taken alarm at being interrogated by the Government, had apologized, and apparently fallen away; but he could not keep aloof, and soon came back again.  After a good deal of fencing and putting forth metaphysical cavils, he allowed that it was all for the sake of experiment, and declared that he really believed both in God and in the Atonement.