Edward Judson · 31 of 47

Chapter X. Life in Maulmain (Continued). 1831-1845 · Part 3

Soon after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were compelled to part with little George Boardman. He was but six years old, and yet had reached an age when a child begins to be, in a peculiar sense, the companion of his parents. But the children of Anglo-Saxon residents in the East have to be sent at an early age toward the setting sun; otherwise they are in danger of death under the debilitating influence of the Oriental climate; or if they get their growth at all, are liable to feebleness of mind and body. Such a separation between parent and child can not but be peculiarly distressing to the missionary. He devotes himself for life and expects to die on the field, and thus the parting bids fair to be final. Other Europeans and Americans are merely temporary residents in the East, and though also compelled to send their children home, may reasonably 403hope to clasp them in their arms once more after a short separation. The missionary’s child, on the other hand, must be permanently consigned to the care of distant strangers. This is, perhaps, the keenest suffering that falls to his lot. Who can fail to drop a tear over the scene of the Comstocks parting with their children as thus described by Dr. Kincaid:

“I shall never forget the parting scene of brother Comstock and his wife with their children, when we sailed from the shores of Arracan. They had made up their minds to entrust us with their two children, on account of the difficulty of educating them in a heathen land. We were together one day, at their house, when word came that the ship was ready to sail, and we must prepare to embark immediately. Upon the arrival of this message, which we had been expecting, Mrs. Comstock arose from her seat, took her two children, one in each hand, and walked with them toward a grove of tamarind trees near the house. When she had walked some little distance, she paused a moment, looked at each of her children with all a mother’s love, and imprinted an affectionate kiss upon the forehead of each. She then raised her eyes to heaven, silently invoked a blessing on their heads; returned to the house, and delivering her children into my hands, said, ‘Brother Kincaid, this I do for my Saviour.’

“Brother Comstock then took his two children by the hand, and led them from the house toward the ship, while that tender mother gazed upon them, as they walked away, for the last time. She saw them no more on earth. God grant that she may meet them in heaven! Brother Comstock accompanied his two children to the ship, which lay about two miles off in the bay. When we had descended to the cabin, he entered one of the state-rooms with his children. There he knelt with them in prayer, laid his hands upon their heads, and bestowed a father’s blessing upon them—the tears, all the while, streaming down his cheeks. This affecting duty over, he resumed, at once, his usual calmness. He took leave of me with a gentle pressure of the hand, and I followed him to the side of the vessel, as he descended into the small boat which lay alongside, and which was to convey him to the shore. Never shall I forget the words, or the tone in which those words were uttered, as he turned up his face, still bedewed with tears, and exclaimed, as the boat moved away, ‘Remember, brother Kincaid, six men for Arracan!’

“I never saw brother or sister Comstock after that. The very day that we took a pilot on board off Sandy Hook, April 28, 1843, was the day that sister Comstock died, and in one year afterward, lacking three 404days, that is, on the 25th of April, 1844, brother Comstock followed her. Now they sleep side by side in the grave-yard at Ramree, under the tamarind trees.”

It was a heavy day for Mrs. Judson when her husband carried to the ship Cashmere the child[49] who had been the sharer of all her sufferings and griefs at Tavoy. It was well for her that a veil hid from her eyes the immediate future, else she might have seen the boy’s hairbreadth escape from pirates and the tortures of terror to which the shrinking child was subjected on board the ship which was bearing him away from his mother’s side.

While in Maulmain, Mr. Judson completed the Burman Bible. It was about the time of his marriage to Mrs. Boardman that he finished the first rough draft. Seventeen years before in Rangoon, all he had to offer of the precious Scriptures to the first Burman inquirer was two half sheets containing the first five chapters of Matthew.[50] From that time on, beneath all his toils and sufferings and afflictions, there moved the steady undercurrent of this great purpose and labor of Bible translation. It was a task for which he had little relish. He much preferred dealing with the Burmans individually, and persuading them, one by one, of the truth of the Gospel. In a letter which states his purpose of relinquishing for many months the pleasure of laboring in the Karen jungles in order to shut himself up to the work of translation, he says, “The tears flow as I write.” Alluding to this same labor of translation, he writes to the Corresponding Secretary, “And so, God willing and giving us life and strength, we hope to go on, but we hope still to be allowed to feel that our great work is to preach the Gospel viva voce, and build up the glorious kingdom of Christ among this people.”

And when, the Bible being finished, the Board at home 405pressed him to undertake the Dictionary, he sorrowfully exclaims:

“How can I think of leaving this population to perish before me, while I am poring over manuscripts and proof-sheets? I must not do it; I can not do it, unless the Board expressly order it; and then I will obey, believing that vox senatus vox Dei. But before they order the only preaching missionary in the place to spend his time in making books, and above all a dictionary, I beg they will deeply consider the propriety of appointing him a preaching colleague.”

But the translation of the Bible was essentially necessary to the permanent establishment of Christianity in Burmah, and no other living man was qualified for the work. And so, in the brief intervals of preaching, and teaching, and imprisonment, and jungle travel, secluding himself in the garret at Rangoon, and afterward in the little room attached to the mission-house at Maulmain, he quietly wrought at this prodigious task, until, at last, he could write on January 31, 1834, at the age of fifty-six:

“Thanks be to God, I can now say I have attained. I have knelt down before Him, with the last leaf in my hand, and imploring His forgiveness for all the sins which have polluted my labors in this department, and His aid in future efforts to remove the errors and imperfections which necessarily cleave to the work, I have commended it to His mercy and grace; I have dedicated it to His glory. May He make His own inspired word, now complete in the Burman tongue, the grand instrument of filling all Burmah with songs of praise to our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Some of the peculiar ideas that controlled him in the work of translation, and some of the special difficulties he encountered, are disclosed in his letters:

“My ideas of translating are very different from those of some missionaries, better men than myself, but mistaken, I think, in this particular. I consider it the work of a man’s whole life to procure a really good translation of even the 406New Testament in an untried language. I could write much on this subject, but I have neither time nor disposition. I would only say that, in many instances, missionary labor has been dreadfully misdirected, and hundreds of thousands most foolishly thrown away. As to us, we wish to proceed slow and sure, and to see to it that whatever we do, in regard to the inspired word, is well done. About four months ago, being convinced that the New Testament, notwithstanding all my labor upon it, was still in a very imperfect state, brother Wade and myself undertook a thorough revision. We have now done one-quarter of it; and I have some hope that by the time the printer and press arrive, we shall be able to warrant the whole. After that, we propose to work and rework at the precious book of Psalms, until we can venture to warrant that also. And so, God willing, and giving us life and strength, we hope to go on.... Allow me to suggest whether the exegetical works of Stuart, Robinson, Stowe, Ripley, Bush, Noyes, and such like, with some of the best German works, ought not to be sent out to the library, as soon as they come from the press, without waiting for an application to be made for them. I frequently see a sterling work on the cover of the Herald or Magazine, and am ready to scream, with some variations, ‘The book, the book! my kingdom for the book!’ Yes, a kingdom, if the same ship which brought the notice had brought the work too; whereas I have to wait for letters to cross the ocean twice or three times, at least, and thus two or three years’ use of the book is lost, during which time I am, perhaps, working upon that very portion of Scripture which that book is intended to illustrate.”

Again he writes to the Rev. Dr. Sharp:

“I ought to have written you long ago; but necessity has no law. I have lately entered upon a plan by which I hope to finish the translation of the Old Testament in two years. I find by experience that I can dispose of twenty-five or thirty verses per day, by giving all my time to the work. 407One-third of the whole is already done. You may, perhaps, wonder why I make such a tedious work of translating, when some persons dispatch the whole New Testament, and perhaps part of the Old, within a year or two after entering their field of labor. There are two ways of translating—the one original, the other second-hand. The first must be adopted by a missionary whose lot falls in a section of the globe where there is no translation of the Scriptures in any cognate language, or in any language known to the learned men of the country. In that case, he must spend some years in reading a great many books, and in acquiring a competent stock of the language; that, like as the spider spins her web from her own bowels, he may be able to extract the translation from his own brain. The other mode may be advantageously adopted by a missionary who has in his hand the Bible, already translated into some language known by learned natives in the country. In that case, he has only to get a smattering of their vernacular, enough to superintend their operations, and then parcel out the work, and it is done by steam. There have been but few original translations. That by Ziegenbalg and his associates, in Tamil, has served for all the dialects in the south of India. That by Carey and his associates, in Sanscrit and Bengalee, has been the basis of all the other translations which they have conducted. Morrison’s Chinese translation will probably be transferred into all the cognate languages; and the Taling, Karen, and Lah-wah, together with the Siamese, and other Shan translations, will be obtained more or less directly from the Burman. I mention the above as specimens merely; not intending to imply that they are the only original translations that have been made. Nor would I be understood to speak disparagingly of second-hand translations. If the partners employed are faithful, a second-hand translation may be superior to an original one. At any rate, it will probably be more idiomatic, and in all cases, when practicable, it ought undoubtedly to be attempted as a first essay; and as the missionary advances in the language, he can gradually raise it to any degree of perfection.

408“But I sadly fear that, if I prolong this letter, it will leave my to-day’s task of twenty verses in the rear.”

The work of translating was done thoroughly and conscientiously. Every Hebrew and Greek word was turned as far as possible into its exact Burmese equivalent. The Greek word for baptism was justly translated into Burmese, Ya-kneat mengalah, that is, the water-bathing or immersing religious rite. But it is taking a long step to infer from this that Mr. Judson approved of a new version in English, which should discard the thoroughly acclimated English word baptize, and substitute the word immerse. His death occurring just as a new project of such a version was appearing on the horizon, he has, of course, left behind no autographic testimony on this subject. That his name can not be claimed as on the side of such a version may be learned from a hitherto unpublished letter written by his widow within three years of his death:

“There is one thing that annoys me a good deal—the New Bible Versionists claim Dr. J., and I know (though I do not feel brave enough to oppose my bare assertion to the ‘weight of testimony’ they would hurl at my head) that nobody could disapprove of a new English version of the Scriptures more heartily and entirely than he. He was very strenuous about his Burmese version, and would no doubt have persevered in his translation if the whole world had been against him. He considered baptize an English word, in virtue of its long use, and thought that it had no complete synonym in the language. It would be a new word to introduce into the Burmese, and would only add to the peculiar mystic importance which always attaches to the ordinance in a heathen mind; and, besides, it was perfectly translatable. The ya-kneat mengalah (literally, the water-bathing, or immersing religious rite) of the Burmans is definite and dignified, and without an equivalent in meaning in English. The circular of the new society reached Maulmain a month too late; but previous to that he had spoken to me in terms 409of strong reprobation of the movements of the New Versionists. He was a strong, thorough Baptist; he admired the Baptist principle and policy, well carried out; despised all imitations of other denominations, and thought the Baptists ought to be willing to stand for what they really are—the only true representatives of religious freedom in the world. But the abandonment of a word in common use for centuries, and so slightly equivocal in its meaning, he would have regarded as the very extreme of childishness. I have no doubt that Dr. —— and others are honest in claiming him; and I do not know but he may have said and written many things, especially when so deeply interested in the issue of his Burmese version, not difficult for them to appropriate; but I do know that he never contemplated a new English version for general circulation, and that what he heard of the new movements caused him deep pain.”

Great as was the task of thus scrupulously translating the Bible, the revision was still more laborious. Seven years were spent in revising the first work. It was a mental peculiarity of Mr. Judson’s never to leave a thing alone while it could possibly be improved. His besetting sin was, in his own expressive words, alluded to before, a lust for finishing, and it was not until 1840 that he could say:

“On the 24th of October last, I enjoyed the great happiness of committing to the press the last sheet of the new edition of the Burmese Bible. It makes about twelve hundred pages quarto. We are sending you several copies by the present conveyance....

“As for myself, I have been almost entirely confined to the very tedious work of revising the Old Testament. The revision of about one-half is completed, and the books from 1st Samuel to Job, inclusive, have been printed in an edition of two thousand. We should have put the first volume to press some time ago, had we not been obliged to wait for paper, the London paper not matching the American; and now, though paper has arrived, brother Hancock contemplates 410going to America for new fonts of type, in several languages, and brother Cutter has gone on another visit to Ava, so that we shall not probably recommence printing the Old Testament till his return. I am the more satisfied with this arrangement from having just received a complete set of Rosenmüller on the Old Testament, and some other valuable works, in studying which I am very desirous of going over the whole ground once more.... I thought that I had finished the revision of the New Testament above a month ago; but there is no end to revising while a thing is in the press; so I continued working at it until I went to Dong-yan, and even later; for it was not until the 22d instant that the last proof-sheet went to press....

“The work was finished—that is, the revision and printing—on the 24th October last, and a happy day of relief and joy it was to me. I have bestowed more time and labor on the revision than on the first translation of the work, and more, perhaps, than is proportionate to the actual improvement made. Long and toilsome research among the biblical critics and commentators, especially the German, was frequently requisite to satisfy my mind that my first position was the right one.”

In the glow of enthusiasm that attended the completion of this task of twenty-four years, and believing that the Burmans at that time were especially thirsty for the Word of Life, Mr. Judson advocated the almost wholesale distribution of the Bible throughout the land with a warmth and earnestness which he afterward saw good reasons for tempering.

“The Bible cause in this country is now at a very low ebb. I once indulged the hope that I should live to see a complete copy of the whole Bible (bound in one volume, so as not to be liable to be scattered) deposited in every town and village throughout Burmah and Arracan. It is true that many thousand copies would be requisite; great hardships would be incurred and some sturdy perseverance would have to be 411put in requisition. But the work once accomplished, there would be seed sown throughout the country that, with the blessing of God, would spring up in abundant fruit to His glory. From the habits of the people who frequently assemble in large or small parties at the house of the schoolmaster, or chief person in the village, to listen to some one reading from a religious book, it appears to me that to deposit the Bible at the principal place of resort in every village is the least we can do for Burmah; and that such a plan will tell more effectually than any other to fill the country with the knowledge of divine truth.”

These views he greatly modified in his later years, as we learn from the following interesting passage in one of Mrs. E. C. Judson’s letters to Dr. Wayland:

“I do not know whether I ought to try to give Dr. J.’s opinion of the Old Testament, for two reasons: first, I do not know how much he would have thought it best to express; and secondly, I can not be very positive what his opinions were. He was very fond of speculation, and had a habit, in private, of thinking aloud, so that although it was easy enough to learn his real views by asking, a mere listener would be liable to mistakes. My impression, drawn from many a long talk, is that he considered the Old Testament as the Scriptures given to the Jews especially, and, as a whole, applicable to them and them only. He did not like the distinction commonly drawn between the moral and ceremonial law, and sometimes spoke, with an earnestness amounting to severity, of the constant use made of the Ten Commandments by Christians. He thought the Old Testament very important, as explanatory and corroborative of the New—as a portion of the inspiration which came from God, etc., but binding on Christians only so far as repeated in the New Testament. He used to speak of the Mosaic law as fulfilled in Christ, and so having no further power whatever; and to say that we had no right to pick out this as moral and therefore obligatory, and the other as ceremonial, 412and so no longer demanding obedience. Practically we had nothing to do with the Old Testament laws.

“I think he was of the opinion that the Bible, as a whole, without the living teacher, was of but little use, at least that it never ought to be regarded as a substitute. In the power of the Gospels to make their way among the heathen he had more faith. He had reason; for a great many Burmans owed their awakening, if not their conversion, to the Gospel of Matthew, though not more, perhaps, than to the ‘View’ and the ‘Golden Balance.’[51]

“I recollect, too, some remarks that he once made in this country about lazy Christians evading the obligation to preach the Gospel, or do good personally, by placing a Bible in the hands of those who would never read it; which compared very well with my impression of his views afterward. Perhaps you will recollect a remark in one of the letters to Mr. Hough, expressing a fear ‘that the Scriptures will be out of the press before there will be any church to read them.’

“In comparing what he has written, what I have heard him say, and the course he pursued, I am led to the conclusion that, though he regarded the Old Testament Scriptures as much more important while engaged in translating and revising, than afterward, the very study, the prayerful as well as critical examination necessary to the accomplishment of the work, led him by degrees to what some might consider a comparatively extravagant estimate of the New Testament—especially the Gospels. He preached almost exclusively from the teachings of Christ, during his last years; and when I once introduced some lessons from the Old Testament into my Bible-classes, he compared it to groping among shadows, when I might just as well have the noonday sun.

“He spoke also of his favoring the distribution of so many Bibles, after his revision, as the greatest mistake he ever made; though he said he was betrayed into it by Mr. ——’s wonderful reports and his own subsequent impression, that all Burmah was crying for books. He once said, in relation to a man who had stumbled on the Old Testament, and apostatized: 413‘It is the last thing such a fellow as he ought even to have touched. I am more than ever convinced that our business is to propagate the Gospel, scatter the good news of salvation, and let everything else alone.’

“With all this, he has told me that he felt, when making his translation, an almost overpowering sense of the awfulness of his work, and an ever-present conviction that every word was as from the lips of God.”

In regard to the merits of his Burman Bible, Mr. Judson’s estimate was very modest. He writes:

“The beau ideal of translation, so far as it concerns the poetical and prophetical books of the Old Testament, I profess not to have attained. If I live many years, of which I have no expectation, I shall have to bestow much more labor upon those books. With the New Testament I am rather better satisfied, and the testimony of those acquainted with the language is rather encouraging. At least, I hope that I have laid a good foundation for my successors to build upon....

“As to the merits of the translation, I must leave others to judge. I can only say that, though I have seldom done anything to my own satisfaction, I am better satisfied with the translation of the New Testament than I ever expected to be. The language is, I believe, simple, plain, intelligible; and I have endeavored, I hope successfully, to make every sentence a faithful representation of the original. As to the Old Testament, I am not so well satisfied. The historical books are, perhaps, done pretty well; but the poetical and prophetical books are doubtless susceptible of much improvement, not merely in point of style, but in the rendering of difficult passages, about which the most eminent scholars are not yet agreed.”

How far his own humble view falls short of doing justice to the excellence of his monumental task, may be gathered from the following statement by the late Dr. Wayland:

“From the incidental allusions to it in Dr. Judson’s letters and journals, we may form some conception of the labor which he spent upon 414this work. He had enjoyed the best opportunities which this country then afforded for the study of interpretation; and his progress in this department of knowledge had awakened the highest expectations of his future success as a translator. He had made himself familiar with the Burmese language to a degree never before attained by a foreigner. He determined, if it were possible, to transfer the ideas of the Holy Scriptures, from their original languages, into Burman, in such a manner that his work should need as little revision as possible by his successors. He had an intense desire for rendering perfect every labor which he undertook; indeed, he said of himself, that one of his failings was ‘a lust for finishing.’ Hence he availed himself of all the means of information which the progress of biblical science, either in Germany or America, placed within his reach. As early as the visit of Mrs. Ann Judson to this country, his demand for books was large, and it was all for the very best, the foundation books. I well remember the pleasure with which I stripped my library of what I considered some of its choicest treasures, to supply a part of his most urgent necessities. Thus he continued until he had surrounded himself with a most valuable apparatus for carrying on his work in the manner which its importance deserved.

“While, however, he thus sought for aid from all the sources of modern and ancient learning, it is manifest from the whole of his correspondence that he used them all with the discretion of a master mind. It was not in his power to substitute the working of other intellects for the working of his own. He weighed, with critical caution, every recension of the text. He adopted no interpretation unless either convinced of its truth, or else sure that it was the nearest approximation to the truth that could be made in the present state of our knowledge. In order to reach this result, no labor was too great, and no investigation too protracted. United with all this that was intellectual, there was, in his case, a mind deeply impressed with its own fallibility, and turning with unutterable longing to the Holy Spirit for guidance and illumination. The importance of his work to millions of immortal souls was ever present to his view. He had been called by the providence of God to unfold to a whole nation, in their own language, the revelation of the Most High. He conceived it to be a momentous undertaking; and a heavy weight would have rested on his soul if a single idea in the Scriptures had been obscurely rendered in consequence of haste, impatience, negligence, or culpable ignorance on the part of the translator.

“But after he had satisfied himself as to the meaning of the original, a most difficult labor yet remained to be accomplished. It must be now transferred into a language peculiar and strongly idiomatic, and, moreover, a language destitute of terms in which to express the elementary 415and peculiar ideas of the New Testament. To furnish himself in this respect was the daily labor of his life. He read Burmese prose and poetry wherever he could find it. He was always surrounded by Burmese assistants and transcribers. As fast as his missionary brethren became acquainted with the language, he was incessantly calling upon them for corrections. They cheerfully aided him in this respect to the utmost of their power. Every correction or emendation he examined with the minutest care. Many—I think he says most—of them he adopted; and none of them were rejected without the most careful and diligent inquiry.

“The result of this able and indefatigable labor was such as might have been expected. Competent judges affirm that Dr. Judson’s translation of the Scriptures is the most perfect work of the kind that has yet appeared in India. On this subject it will not be inappropriate to introduce a few sentences from the pen of a gentleman high in rank in India, himself a distinguished linguist, and a proficient in the Burmese language:

“‘To Judson it was granted, not only to found the spiritual Burman Church of Christ, but also to give it the entire Bible in its own vernacular, thus securing that Church’s endurance and ultimate extension; the instances being few or none, of that word, after it has once struck root in any tongue, being ever wholly suppressed. Divine and human nature alike forbid such a result; for, when once it has become incorporated in a living tongue, holiness and love join hands with sin and weakness to perpetuate that word’s life and dominion. We honor Wickliffe and Luther for their labors in their respective mother tongues; but what meed of praise is due to Judson for a translation of the Bible, perfect as a literary work, in a language so foreign to him as the Burmese? Future ages, under God’s blessing, may decide this point, when his own forebodings, as he stood and pondered over the desolate, ruinous scene at Pugan, shall be fulfilled.