Edward Judson · 26 of 47

Chapter IX. Life in Maulmain. 1827-1831 · Part 3

Poor little Mee Aa, who had been baptized, was living in great fear. She daily expected her mother from Amherst, and knew that she would take her away instantly, and would use all the means in her power to make her renounce the Christian religion. But Mee Aa was to be pleasantly disappointed. Instead of being remanded by her mother to the shadows of heathenism, she was permitted to lead that mother into the light of the Gospel.

“Soon after that date, Mee Aa came trembling, one morning, to Mrs. Wade, with the alarming news that her mother had just arrived at the landing-place, with the intention, doubtless, of taking her away by force; and what should she do? She was told to go and meet her mother, and to pray as she went. But the poor girl need not have been alarmed. She had been incessantly praying for her mother ever since she had learned to pray for herself; and God had heard her prayers, and softened her mother’s heart. So when she heard that her daughter was actually baptized, she only made up a queer face, like a person choking, and said, ‘It was so, was it not? I hear that some quite die under the operation.’ This speech we all considered encouraging. And, accordingly, she soon settled down among us, drank in the truth from her daughter’s lips, and then followed her example.”

But the most pathetic story of all is that of Mee Shway-ee, 336a little child, whom the missionaries rescued from the barbarities of heathenism. They brought her with them from Amherst. When they first heard of her she was a slave-girl, five years old. Her master was a Moor. He afterward turned out to be her own brother, who had formed the diabolical project of killing her by inches. Mr. Judson got possession of the little girl by threatening her master with all the penalties of the English law. Her wretched condition is thus described in Mrs. Wade’s journal:

“Her little body was wasted to a skeleton, and covered from head to foot with the marks of a large rattan, and blows from some sharp-edged thing which left a deep scar. Her master in a rage one day caught her by the arm, and gave it such a twist as to break the bone, from which her sufferings were dreadful. Besides, she had a large and very dreadful burn upon her body, recently inflicted.... She had been tortured so long that her naturally smiling countenance was the very picture of grief and despair..... Almost the first words which the poor little sufferer said to me were, ‘Please to give your slave a little rice, for I am very hungry.’ She was asked if she had not had her breakfast; to which she replied: ‘Yes, but I got very little, so that I am hungry all the day long.’”

The poor little Mee Shway-ee had suffered too much ever to recover. She survived her release from her master only a few months. She died in the glad triumphs of the Christian faith. “I am dying,” she said, “but I am not afraid to die, for Christ will call me up to heaven. He has taken away all my sins, and I wish to die now, that I may go and see Him.”

Her cruel master received his just deserts. He was thrown into prison, where, after waiting trial for several months, he was condemned to a further confinement of four years in irons, and hard labor on the public works. This dreary prospect broke his spirit, and he managed to put an end to his wretched life by taking arsenic.

But amid the cares and toils of beginning a missionary enterprise in Maulmain, Mr. Judson did not remit his literary labors. The odd moments of time left from zayat work and school work were filled with the work of translation. Even before leaving Amherst he had embarked upon the prodigious task of translating the Old Testament into Burmese. He had begun with the Psalms. After the death of his wife and child his sorrowful heart instinctively turned for consolation to “the prayers of David the son of Jesse.” He had hardly been in Maulmain two years when he makes this record in his journal:

“November 29, 1829. Since my last, we have finished revising the New Testament and the Epitome of the Old—a work in which we have been closely engaged for above a year. We have also prepared for the press several smaller works, viz.:

“1. The Catechism of Religion. This has already passed through two editions in Burmese. It has also been translated and printed into Siamese, and translated into Taling or Peguan.

“2. The View of the Christian Religion, thoroughly revised 339for a fourth edition in Burmese. It has also been translated into Taling and Siamese.

“3. The Liturgy of the Burman Church.

“4. The Baptismal Service.

“5. The Marriage Service.

“6. The Funeral Service; the last three consisting chiefly of extracts from Scripture.

“7. The Teacher’s Guide; or, a Digest of those parts of the New Testament which relate to the Duty of Teachers of Religion, designed particularly for Native Pastors.

“8. A Catechism of Astronomy.

“9. A Catechism of Geography.

“10. A Table of Chronological History; or a Register of principal Events from the Creation to the present Time.

“11. The Memoir of Mee Shway-ee.

“12. The Golden Balance; or, the Christian and Buddhist Systems Contrasted. This has been translated into Taling.

“The Gospel of St. Matthew was also translated into Siamese by Mrs. Judson, and is now being translated into Taling by Ko Man-poke, our assistant in that department.”

While thus absorbed in the work of preaching and teaching and translating at Maulmain, he was not forgetful of the smouldering camp-fires he had left behind him at Rangoon and Amherst. At Rangoon especially, where he had first unfurled the banner of the Christ, and whence he had been rudely driven by the intolerant spirit of the king of Ava, a native church was speedily reorganized under a Burman pastor, Ko Thah-a. It seems that this man was one of the original Rangoon converts.

“At the close of the war,” according to Mr. Judson’s narrative, “he spent a few months at a large village in the neighborhood of Shwa-doung, and there, devoting himself to the preaching of the word, he produced a very considerable excitement. Several professed to believe in the Christian religion; and three of the most promising received baptism at his hands. Some others requested the same favor; but 340he became alarmed at his own temerity, and declined their repeated applications. The villagers, in time, returned to the vicinity of Rangoon, whence they had fled at the commencement of the war. He also returned to Rangoon, his former residence, and continued to disseminate the truth, but in a more cautious and covert manner.”

Ko Thah-a visited Mr. Judson at Maulmain in order to be instructed as to what he should do with those whom he had persuaded to accept of Christ, and who wished to be baptized. It was thought best to ordain him as pastor of the church in Rangoon.

What a stubborn vitality there is in that seminal divine idea, a local church! Mr. and Mrs. Judson formed such a church, when, in 1813, they made their home at the mouth of the Irrawaddy, and all by themselves shared in that Holy Supper which was instituted to commemorate the Saviour’s dying love. The church of two slowly grew into a church of twenty. Then came the war, and the long imprisonment of the pastor at Ava. The church was hewed to the ground. Only four members could be found, and these were transplanted to Amherst. More than two years later Ko Thah-a, who had been lost sight of in the interior of the country, makes his appearance in Maulmain. He has all along been secretly preaching the good news, and now he wants to go back to Rangoon and baptize the converts whom he has won. Out of the stump of the tree cut down there springs a shoot which has bloomed and flourished even to the present time. The Rangoon mission of 1881 now embraces eighty-nine churches and thirty-seven hundred members. “There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.”

Ko Thah-a, the first Christian pastor among the Burmans, proved to be an able minister. Of him Mr. Judson wrote:

“His age (fifty-seven), his steadiness and weight of character, 341his attainments in Burman literature, which, though not, perhaps, necessary, seem desirable in one who is taking up arms against the religion of his country, and his humble devotedness to the sacred work, all conspire to make us acquiesce with readiness and gratitude in the divine appointment.”

Again and again he sent to Maulmain the cheering news of conversions and baptisms; and when, a year and a half after his ordination, Mr. Judson visited him at Rangoon and invited him to go on a missionary tour up the country, he declined, “on account of having so many irons in the fire”—that is, hopeful inquirers—that he must stay to bring forward and baptize. And Mr. Judson adds, “He is as solicitous and busy as a hen pressing about her chickens. It is quite refreshing to hear him talk on the subject, and see what a nice, careful old shepherd he makes. The Lord bless his soul and the souls of his flock!”

Neither did Mr. Judson forget the deserted mission-field at Amherst, where lay the precious dust of his wife and child. Like the Apostle Paul, he felt the deepest solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the converts whom he had left along the track behind him. Moung Ing was ordained and sent to be pastor of the disciples at Amherst.

“The church,” Mr. Judson writes, “consisted of three—Mah Loon-byay, who was baptized while we lived there, and has never left the place; Mah Kai, and her daughter, Mee A, who have lately moved thither. To these are now added pastor Moung Ing and his wife, Mah Lan. May the five become five hundred. May the seed formerly sown in weakness and tears yet spring up and bear fruit. May the last efforts of the one we have lost, whose setting rays sunk in death beneath the hope-tree, prove not to have been in vain; and may the prayers which ascended from her dying bed be yet heard and answered in blessings upon Amherst.”

Moung Ing, however, though diligent and faithful, and 342extremely desirous of doing good, seems to have proved rather a failure as a minister. The prospects at Amherst darkened; and Mr. Judson sadly wrote:

“Moung Ing has had no success at all, though he has not been wanting in diligence and faithfulness. At length we advised him to remove to Tavoy. He, however, preferred Rangoon, and is now co-operating with Ko Thah-a. His wife remained behind. Her conduct has been very exceptionable since her baptism, and soon after her husband’s departure she became openly vicious. She is now suspended from communion—the first case of church discipline that has occurred among the native members.”

One feels his heart drawn out toward the poor fisherman, Moung Ing, one of the very earliest Burman converts, Mrs. Judson’s only dependence at Ava and Oung-pen-la—the first bearer of the Gospel to the Tavoyans, and yet a man whose mission in this world, in spite of zeal, fidelity, and untiring industry, seemed to be ever to fail. In a subsequent letter of Mr. Judson’s, there occurs a pathetic account of his death. His humility and disinterestedness shone forth with a steady ray even in his latest hours.

“During the last year of his life, Ko Ing was supported from the donations of Mr. Colgate, of New York. But at the close of October, 1833, he wrote that, on account of his unworthiness and want of success, he declined receiving any further allowance; that his wife—of whose conversion he had been the means—was able, by keeping a small shop, to support the family; but that he intended, however, to devote himself the same as before to the work to which he had been called. Accordingly, the same letter reports his labors and states his plans for future operations. Such communications he continued to make till his death. In order, however, to square our accounts, we requested him to receive the usual allowance for the remaining two months of that year. He did so, and in acknowledging the receipt of the money, said that he regarded it as a special gift from heaven. We then 343determined that, though he declined any stated allowance, we would occasionally make him presents; and brother Mason has sent him money two or three times, amounting, I believe, to about one-third of his usual allowance. The following is an extract from the letter of a pious sergeant in the detachment stationed at Mergui, dated December 7, 1834:

“‘I was with Ko Ing several times during his illness, and commonly took an interpreter with me; but on account of his extreme weakness and deafness, I could say but little to him. Being anxious, however, to know his experience, I asked him a few questions, as follows: Q. Do you wish to die or not? Ans. I wish to die, if it is the will of God. Q. Why do you wish to die? Ans. I shall go to heaven and be happy. Q. How do you know that you shall go to heaven? Ans. I have read in the word of God that those who serve Him will go there, and my own breast tells me of it (placing his hand on his breast and looking up). Q. How have you served God? Ans. By forsaking my wicked ways, and praying to Him for forgiveness. Q. Do you think all this will take you to heaven? Ans. Jesus Christ came down from above, and died for sinners; and those that are sorry for and forsake their sins shall be saved, because Christ died for them. Q. You don’t think, then, that your works and your own goodness will take you to heaven? Ans. No. All my works are but filthy rags. He was so much exhausted that I asked him no more questions. I think I told you in a former letter that he had his coffin made some days before his death; that our lads carried him to the grave; and I read the funeral service over him.’”

But the time had now come when this little company of missionaries at Maulmain had to be broken up. Judson, Boardman, and Wade—an illustrious triumvirate—could not long expect to work together in the same place. This would be too great a concentration of forces at one point. The Gospel light must be more widely dispersed through the thick gloom of Paganism. The Boardmans were the first to go, though the parting with their missionary associates 344was attended with the keenest suffering. Besides, they had originated the mission at Maulmain, and it was at a peculiar sacrifice that they pressed into the regions beyond. They chose Tavoy as their field of work. It seemed out of the question to assail Burmah proper; and on the long coast of the ceded provinces, Amherst having dwindled into insignificance, Tavoy was the only important point within a hundred and fifty miles. If they went to Arracan, British territory situated on the other side of Burmah proper,[40] they would be too far away to meet with the other missionaries for such occasional consultation and concert of prayer as seemed advisable to the Board at home. Accordingly, on the 29th of March, 1828, when the missionaries had experienced for only seven months the joy of laboring together in Maulmain, Mr. and Mrs. Boardman with their little family set sail for Tavoy. They were accompanied by a young Siamese convert, Moung Shway-pwen, by a Karen, Ko Thah-byoo—subsequently the renowned apostle to the Karens—and by four of the native school-boys. With this little group of disciples, Mr. Boardman began that brief and heroic campaign among the Karens which has made his name so illustrious in the annals of missions.

On the 15th of December, 1829, Mr. Judson received news of the death at Washington of his brother Elnathan, with whom he had prayed so many years before by the roadside on his way from Plymouth to Boston.[41] The letter that brought him these sad tidings assured him also that the wayside prayer had been answered. He wrote the following letter of comfort to his distant sister:

“I have just received yours of May 25 last, giving an account of Elnathan’s death, and also Dr. Sewall’s detail of his dying exercises. Perhaps you have not seen Dr. Sewall’s letter. It closes thus: ‘A few hours before his death, and when he was so low as to be unable to converse or to move, 345he suddenly raised himself up, and clasping his hands, with an expression of joy in his countenance, cried, “Peace, peace!” and then he sunk down, without the power of utterance. About ten minutes before he expired, it was said to him, “If you feel the peace of God in your soul, open your eyes.” He opened his eyes, and soon after expired, and, as we believe, in the triumphs of faith.’ When I read this account, I went into my little room, and could only shed tears of joy, my heart full of gratitude and my tongue of praise. I have felt most anxious about him for a long time; to hear at last that there is some good reason to conclude that he has gone to heaven is enough. So we are dying, one after another. We shall all be there, I trust, before long. I send you and mother a little tract, which I beg you will study prayerfully. Let me urge you frequently to re-examine the foundation of your hope. O, it is a solemn thing to die—an awful thing to go into eternity, and discover that we have been deceiving ourselves! Let us depend upon it that nothing but real faith in Christ, proved to be genuine by a holy life, can support us at last. That faith which consists merely in a correct belief of the doctrines of grace, and prompts to no self-denial,—that faith which allows us to spend all our days in serving self, content with merely refraining from outward sins, and attending to the ordinary duties of religion,—is no faith at all. O, let me beg of you to look well into this matter! And let me beg my dear mother, in her old age, and in view of the near approach of death and eternity, to examine again and again whether her faith is of the right kind. Is it that faith which gives her more enjoyment in Jesus, from day to day, than she finds in anything else?

“May God bless you both, is the fervent prayer of your affectionate brother.”

On the arrival at Maulmain of two new missionaries, the printer, Mr. Cephas Bennett, and his wife, it seemed best that the policy of dispersion should be still more rigorously pursued. Mr. Judson never approved of the huddling of 346missionaries together at any one station. A few years later he wrote:

“Formerly, having spent many years alone, I felt desirous of missionary society, and was disposed to encourage a few to stay together, not doubting but that we should all find enough to do. But I have now learned that one missionary standing by himself, feeling his individual responsibility, and forced to put forth all his efforts, is worth half a dozen cooped up in one place, while there are unoccupied stations in all directions, and whole districts, of thousands and hundreds of thousands, perishing in the darkness of heathenism. You will perhaps wonder that I am frequently writing in this strain. But when I think of seven families,—eight when the ——s are here, which will probably be every rainy season,—my spirit groans within me. I feel that I can not spend my time to better purpose than in endeavoring to effect some change in our present arrangements. I can truly say that all the real missionary work done by all the sisters at this station, from day to day, might and would be done by any two of them, if left to themselves; and this not because they are disposed to indolence or self-indulgence, but simply because there are so many together. Place any one of them in a station by herself, with her husband, and she would become a new creature.”

He also believed in multiplying the centres of light. It might be well for a new missionary upon his first arrival to be kept in training at some long-established post in association with experienced laborers, but then his ultimate aim should be to plunge alone into the thicket of heathenism.

Besides, the time had now come to make a new attempt to enter Burmah proper. Accordingly on February 21, 1830, Mr. and Mrs. Wade removed to Rangoon, Mr. Judson’s old field, where the newly-ordained Moung Thah-a and Moung Ing were laboring. The pain of parting was alleviated by the hope which Mr. Judson cherished of joining them again at Rangoon, with the purpose of once more 347penetrating the valley of the Irrawaddy in the direction of Ava. In a confidential letter, written to the Corresponding Secretary two years and a half before, he had thus described the four beloved coadjutors from whom it was now his duty to be separated:

“Brother Wade is a steady, correct, judicious, persevering, heavenly-minded man. He is much better than he seems on first appearance or a slight acquaintance. I have learned that his advice is safe, and I confide in his judgment more than my own. He is getting a thorough knowledge of the language, and both he and Mrs. Wade speak it very well. In regard to Mrs. Wade I can truly say, that among all my living acquaintances I do not know a single woman who is superior to her in sterling excellence of missionary character. Brother and sister Boardman I am not much acquainted with, and am unable to delineate their distinguishing characteristics. He appears to have a mind well disciplined and readily stirred. She is a truly lovely and estimable woman. Of all the four, I know not which I esteem most. The Wades I love most because I know them best.”

But Mr. Judson could not remain content at Maulmain. He was not satisfied with founding two or three missions on the outermost edge of British Burmah. He longed to penetrate Burmah proper again, and establish a line of mission stations in the Irrawaddy valley, that arterial channel through which the tide of Burmese population surged. Mr. Wade had gone before simply as an avant coureur. His going to Rangoon was only a part of a more general movement. Leaving Maulmain in charge of Mr. Boardman, who had been temporarily recalled from Tavoy, Mr. Judson parted with him and the new-comers, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, on April 26, 1830, and set sail for Rangoon, where he arrived six days later. Before leaving Maulmain, he writes in his journal:

“Our re-entering Burmah is an experiment which we are making with fear and trembling. Accounts from brother 348and sister Wade are rather encouraging. They both give it as their decided opinion that I ought to join them immediately; not merely with a view to Rangoon, but to the neighboring towns, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall render accessible.”

He spent only a few days with Mr. Wade in Rangoon. Then, in the company of five native disciples, he proceeded by boat to Prome, an ancient city situated on the Irrawaddy about one hundred and seventy miles from the mouth. He writes from Rangoon:

“Every day deepens the conviction in my mind that I am not in the place where God would have me be. It was to the interior, and not to Rangoon, that my mind was turned long before I left Maulmain; and while I feel that brother and sister Wade are in the right place, I feel that I am called elsewhere. Under these impressions, I am about proceeding up the river, accompanied by Moung Ing, Moung En, Moung Dway, Moung Dan, baptized April 4, and little Moung Like, mentioned April 18, not yet baptized. The boat on which we embark will take us to Prome, the great half-way place between this and Ava, and there I hope and pray that the Lord will show us what to do.”

This brave effort, however, to plant Christianity at Prome, in the very interior of the Burman empire, the half-way place between Rangoon and Ava, proved a complete failure. Mr. Judson preached the Gospel and distributed tracts all the way up the river, and for three months he and his disciples labored faithfully in Prome. He occupied daily an old tumble-down zayat at the foot of the great pagoda, Shway Landau, and thousands heard the Gospel from his lips. But suddenly the zayat was deserted. He met with cold and rude treatment in the streets. The dogs were allowed to bark at him unmolested. It was rumored that the king at Ava was displeased that the Burman religion should be assailed in the very heart of his empire, and that 349he had given orders that Mr. Judson should be required to depart from Burmah. It subsequently transpired that the king himself was, in reality, kindly disposed toward Mr. Judson. He had inquired some time before where Mr. Judson was, and when told that he was in Maulmain, he said: “Why does he not come here? He is a good man and would, if he were here, teach and discipline my ministers and make better men of them.” The ejection of Mr. Judson from Burmah was a trick on the part of these very prime ministers. They hated all foreign intrusion, and represented to Major Burney, the English ambassador at Ava, that the king was very much displeased with Mr. Judson’s attempt to introduce Christianity into the empire. Major Burney writes:

“The ministers requested my advice as to the measures which they ought to pursue with respect to Dr. Judson, who, they said, is come up to Prome, and is there distributing tracts among the inhabitants, and abusing the Burmese religion, much to the annoyance of the king. I told them that Dr. Judson is now exclusively devoted to missionary pursuits; that I possess no power or authority over him, but that I know him to be a very pious and good man, and one not likely to injure the Burmese king or Government in any manner. The ministers replied that the king is much vexed with Dr. Judson for the zeal with which he is distributing among the people writings in which the Burmese faith is held forth to contempt, and that his majesty is anxious to remove him from Prome. I said that the Burmese king and Government have always enjoyed a high reputation among civilized nations for the toleration which they have shown to all religious faiths; that there are thousands, in Europe and America, who would be much hurt and disappointed to hear of any change in the liberal policy hitherto observed by the king of Ava, and that I hope the ministers would not think of molesting or injuring Dr. Judson, as such a proceeding would offend and displease good men of all nations. They 350replied that it was for this reason, to avoid hurting Dr. Judson, that they had consulted me; and they propose that I should write and advise Dr. Judson of the king’s sentiments toward him. I reiterated my assurances that Dr. Judson is in no way connected with me or my Government, and that I can issue no orders to him; and I begged the ministers to leave him alone, which, however, they said they could not, as his majesty had expressed himself much displeased with his conduct. I consented at last to write to Dr. Judson, but I told the ministers to recollect that I had no right to interfere with him, who would, notwithstanding any letter he might receive from me, act in whatever manner his own judgment and conscience might dictate. The ministers begged of me only to recommend Dr. Judson to return to Rangoon, and confine his missionary labors within that city.”

And so Mr. Judson was forced sadly and reluctantly to abandon his project of carrying the Gospel into Central Burmah. The thrilling narrative of his experiences in Prome and of his return to Rangoon is best told in his own words:

“Dear Brethren and Sisters: To-day I have taken possession of the old zayat allowed me by Government. Part of it we have inclosed in rooms, and the other part we have left open for the reception of company. Several people accosted us as they passed. ‘So you have moved, have you? We shall come and see you before long.’ There are at present no hopeful inquirers; but some visitors from Men-dai and Men-yoo-ah approximate toward that character.

“July 2. A great change has taken place in the minds of Government people toward me. Satan has industriously circulated a report that I am a spy in pay of the British. Last night the deputy governor sent to inquire my name and title. This morning I waited on him, and on the lady governess, but met with a very cold reception at both places. The deputy governor is probably reporting me to Ava, and what 351the consequences will be I know not. Several visitors, who began to listen with some favorable disposition, have suddenly fallen off. To-day I have had no company at all.