Edward Judson · 7 of 47

Chapter V. Life in Rangoon. 1813-1819 · Part 2

Having considered the stupendous task set before the young missionary, and the methods he used, let us look at some of the difficulties. His ardent temperament flung itself against the hard reef of Burman conservatism. Oriental slowness to accept a new idea proved a strong obstacle at the outset. He writes:

“The Burmans are a slow, wary, circumspect race; but their pertinacity in maintaining an opinion deliberately adopted, will bear, I imagine, due proportion to their tardiness in adopting it. This trait in their character will render missionary operations among them less rapid in the outset, but more effective and permanent in the issue.”

Another great difficulty at the beginning was learning the language without grammar, or dictionary, or an English-speaking teacher. How hard a task this was, may be learned from his letters.

“Yours of March, 1815, I lately received, and read with real satisfaction. Neither brother Rice nor any of the others you mention have yet been heard of in these parts. May they not be far distant. Whenever they shall arrive, I hope to be 89of some real service to them in their preparatory studies, and to be able to give them, in a short time, information on many points which it has cost me months to acquire. I just now begin to see my way forward in this language, and hope that two or three years more will make it somewhat familiar; but I have met with difficulties that I had no idea of before I entered on the work. For a European or American to acquire a living Oriental language, root and branch, and make it his own, is quite a different thing from his acquiring a cognate language of the West, or any of the dead languages, as they are studied in the schools. One circumstance may serve to illustrate this. I once had occasion to devote about two months to the study of the French. I have now been above two years engaged on the Burman; but if I were to choose between a Burman and French book to be examined in, without previous study, I should, without the least hesitation, choose the French. When we take up a Western language, the similarity of the characters, in very many terms, in many modes of expression, and in the general structure of sentences, its being in fair print (a circumstance we hardly think of), and the assistance of grammars, dictionaries, and instructors, render the work comparatively easy. But when we take up a language spoken by a people on the other side of the earth, whose very thoughts run in channels diverse from ours, and whose modes of expression are consequently all new and uncouth; when we find the letters and words all totally destitute of the least resemblance to any language we had ever met with, and these words not fairly divided and distinguished, as in Western writing, by breaks, and points, and capitals, but run together in one continuous line, a sentence or paragraph seeming to the eye but one long word; when, instead of clear characters on paper, we find only obscure scratches on dried palm leaves strung together and called a book; when we have no dictionary, and no interpreter to explain a single word, and must get something of the language before we can avail ourselves of the assistance of a native teacher,—

90“I had hoped, before I came here, that it would not be my lot to have to go on alone, without any guide in an unexplored path, especially as missionaries had been here before. But Mr. Chater had left the country, and Mr. Carey was with me but very little, before he left the mission and the missionary work altogether.

“I long to write something more interesting and encouraging to the friends of the mission; but it must not yet be expected. It unavoidably takes several years to acquire such a language, in order to converse and write intelligibly on the great truths of the Gospel. Dr. Carey once told me, that after he had been some years in Bengal, and thought he was doing very well in conversing and preaching to the natives, they (as he was afterward convinced) knew not what he was about. A young missionary who expects to pick up the language in a year or two will probably find that he has not counted the cost. If he should be so fortunate as to find a good interpreter, he may be useful by that means. But he will find, especially if he is in a new place, where the way is not prepared, and no previous ideas communicated, that to qualify himself to communicate divine truth intelligibly by his own voice or pen, is not the work of a year. However, notwithstanding my present incompetency, I am beginning to translate the New Testament, being extremely anxious to get some parts of Scripture, at least, into an intelligible shape, if for no other purpose than to read, as occasion offers, to the Burmans I meet with.

“My paper allows me to add nothing more but to beg your prayers, that while I am much occupied in words and phrases, and destitute of those Gospel privileges you so richly enjoy, in the midst of your dear church and people, I may not lose the life of religion in my soul.”

The following extract from the Calcutta Review of December, 1850, will show how completely he mastered this difficult language:

“Let our readers dwell for a moment upon the difficulty, in their own powerful Saxon tongue, of discoursing upon free will, predestination, and many other such subjects, and then endeavor to realize to themselves how infinitely more difficult the attempt must be in a language of monosyllabic formation and structure; its very polysyllables being the roughest possible mosaic of monosyllables, and the genius and construction of the tongue such, that even the simple language of the Gospels—the sentences of which are in general so remarkably plain and free from complication—is beyond its flexibility, the simplest sentences in the Gospels of Mark or John having to be chopped up and decomposed, in order to adapt them to this peculiar language. Let our readers imagine, if they can, the wonderful command requisite of so awkward an instrument, in order to be enabled to answer an Oo Yan—‘How are sin and eternal misery reconcilable with the character of an infinitely holy, wise, and powerful God?’ or to meet the subtleties of a Moung Shwa-gnong, arguing on his fundamental doctrine, that divine wisdom, not concentrated in any existing spirit, or embodied in any form, but diffused throughout the universe, and partaken in different degrees by various intelligences, and in a very high degree by the Buddhs, is the true and only God. Yet so completely was Judson master of this very difficult tongue, and of the modes of thought of its people, that he could, by his replies and arguments, impart to an Oo Yan intense satisfaction, and a joy which exhibited 92itself by the ebullitions natural to a susceptible temperament; and, in the end, could force a subtle Moung Shwa-gnong to yield to the skill of a foreign disputant.”

But the chief hindrance to preaching the Gospel to the Burmans was the danger of persecution. Mr. Judson found himself in the dominions of a monarch upon whose slightest nod depended the life of each subject. Every convert knew that in adopting this new religion he was encountering the risk of confiscation of property, imprisonment, torture, or death in its most shocking form.

But in spite of these great difficulties, and even in the face of the fact that many of his brethren and sisters in his own, distant, native land regarded the undertaking as hopeless, and looked upon him as an obstinate and chimerical fanatic, he never for a moment lost hope. He felt as sure that Burmah would be converted to Christ as that it existed. He was buoyed up by the same faith that caused him to answer many years after, when he was asked whether he thought the prospects bright for the speedy conversion of the heathen, “As bright as the promises of God.” And in the darkest period of the history of our missions, he sounded the bugle-call, which will inspire the heart of the Christian missionary until that day when “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.”

“I have completed a grammar of the Burman language, which I hope will be useful to you; also a tract, which I hope to get printed as soon as Mr. Hough arrives.

“If any ask what success I meet with among the natives, tell them to look at Otaheite, where the missionaries labored nearly twenty years, and, not meeting with the slightest success, began to be neglected by all the Christian world, and the very name of Otaheite began to be a shame to the cause of missions; and now the blessing begins to come. Tell them to look at Bengal also, where Dr. Thomas had been 93laboring seventeen years (that is, from 1783 to 1800) before the first convert, Krishna, was baptized. When a few converts are once made, things move on; but it requires a much longer time than I have been here to make a first impression on a heathen people. If they ask again, What prospect of ultimate success is there? tell them, As much as that there is an almighty and faithful God, who will perform His promises, and no more. If this does not satisfy them, beg them to let me stay and try it, and to let you come, and to give us our bread; or, if they are unwilling to risk their bread on such a forlorn hope as has nothing but the Word of God to sustain it, beg of them, at least, not to prevent others from giving us bread; and, if we live some twenty or thirty years, they may hear from us again.

“This climate is good—better than in any other part of the East. But it is a most filthy, wretched place. Missionaries must not calculate on the least comfort, but what they find in one another and their work. However, if a ship was lying in the river, ready to convey me to any part of the world I should choose, and that, too, with the entire approbation of all my Christian friends, I would prefer dying to embarking. This is an immense field, and, since the Serampore missionaries have left it, it is wholly thrown on the hands of the American Baptists. If we desert it, the blood of the Burmans will be required of us.”

Upon arriving in Rangoon, of course there was nothing for Mr. and Mrs. Judson to do but to learn the Burmese language.

“As it respects ourselves,” Mrs. Judson writes, “we are busily employed all day long. I can assure you that we find much pleasure in our employment. Could you look into a large, open room, which we call a veranda, you would see Mr. Judson bent over his table, covered with Burman books, with his teacher at his side, a venerable-looking man in his sixtieth year, with a cloth wrapped round his middle, and a handkerchief round his head. They talk and chatter all day long, with hardly any cessation.

94“My mornings are busily employed in giving directions to the servants, providing food for the family, etc. At ten my teacher comes, when, were you present, you might see me in an inner room, at one side of my study-table, and my teacher the other, reading Burman, writing, talking, etc. I have many more interruptions than Mr. Judson, as I have the entire management of the family. This I took upon myself for the sake of Mr. Judson’s attending more closely to the study of the language; yet I have found, by a year’s experience, that it was the most direct way I could have taken to acquire the language, as I am frequently obliged to speak Burman all day. I can talk and understand others better than Mr. Judson, though he knows more about the nature and construction of the language.”

After a few months Mr. and Mrs. Judson removed from the English Baptist mission-house into the city proper. The mission-house which they had been occupying was situated half a mile from Rangoon, near the place of public execution, where the refuse of the city streets was thrown, and not far from the place where the dead were buried. While outside the city walls, the missionaries were exposed to robbers and to wild beasts. It was thought best, therefore, to move into the city itself, especially as in this way they would be brought into closer contact with the people.

After they had been in Rangoon about a year and a half, Mrs. Judson’s health began to break down under the effects of the climate. They had no physician to consult, and her symptoms proving dangerous, she was obliged to sail to Madras to secure both medical advice and the recuperation of a sea voyage. She set sail on January 25, 1815, and after an absence of nearly three months, returned with her health much improved. This first experience of long separation was very painful. Mr. Judson writes:

“There is not an individual in the country that I can pray with, and not a single soul with whom I can have the least religious communion. I keep myself as busy as possible all 95day long, from sunrise till late in the evening, in reading Burman, and conversing with the natives. I have been here a year and a half, and so extremely difficult is the language—perhaps the most difficult to a foreigner of any on the face of the earth next to the Chinese—that I find myself very inadequate to communicate divine truth intelligibly. I have, in some instances, been so happy as to secure the attention, and in some degree to interest the feelings, of those who heard me; but I am not acquainted with a single instance in which any permanent impression has been produced. No Burman has, I believe, ever felt the grace of God; and what can a solitary, feeble individual or two expect to be the means of effecting in such a land as this, amid the triumphs of Satan, the darkness of death? The Lord is all-powerful, wise, and good; and this consideration alone always affords me unfailing consolation and support.”

In a letter to her parents, sisters, and brother, Mrs. Judson gave the following description of the voyage to Madras and her return to Rangoon:

“I embarked for Madras to procure medical assistance, and hoping a change of air would conduce to the restoration of my health. I was obliged to leave Mr. Judson here alone, without a single associate to animate him in his arduous work. We did not think it his duty for him to leave the mission if I could possibly go alone. But though I was separated from him, and felt for the first time in my life that I was entirely alone in this wide world, yet I could not but trace the kind dealings of God in inclining every one with whom I had any concern to favor and assist me in my way. The viceroy gave me an order to take a woman with me, free from expense, a thing which is generally attended with great difficulty, owing to the Burman law which forbids any female to leave the country. We went to him ourselves with a small present, which is customary when a favor is asked. On his seeing it, he inquired if we had any business; and on Mr. Judson’s presenting the petition, he immediately commanded his writer to give us an official order, without causing us any 96expense whatever. The captain with whom I went refused any pay for my passage, though he provided every necessary for one in ill health. I stayed at Madras six weeks, and resided at Mr. Loveless’ house, where I received every attention. When about to leave Madras, I sent the physician under whose care I had been, seventy rupees, which he immediately returned, saying he was happy if he had been serviceable to me. After an absence of three months I safely arrived at Rangoon, where I found Mr. Judson well, and laboring hard, though entirely alone. My health continued to mend, and on the 11th of September I was made the happy mother of a little son. I had no physician or assistant whatever excepting Mr. Judson. Since the birth of our little son my health has been much better than for two years before. I feel now almost in a new state of existence. Our hands are full, and though our prospects in regard to the immediate conversion of the Burmans are dark, yet our trust in God is strong, and our hopes animating.”

The little boy to whom Mrs. Judson alludes in this letter was born September 11, 1815, and named Roger Williams, but on May 4, 1816, he closed his brief life on earth, at the age of seven months and twenty-three days.

In a letter dated Rangoon, May 7, 1816, Mr. Judson conveys the sad intelligence to the Rev. Mr. Lawson, missionary at Serampore:

“Our little comfort, our dear little Roger, has become insensible to our parental attentions and fond caresses; the light of his mild blue eyes is quenched, his sweet face has become cold to our lips, and his little mind, which, to a parent’s discernment at least, discovered peculiar sensibility and peculiar sweetness of disposition, has deserted its infantile tenement and fled—oh, where? Into what strange scenes is it introduced? Who supports and guides its trembling steps across the dark valley? There a parent’s aid could not be extended. But we hope it had a more affectionate and abler guide. We hope that Jesus has repaired the ruins of 97the fall in regard to all little children. And who but thinks their departed children sweet and lovely beyond compare? Perhaps I am a novice in affliction. Had I lost a wife, I might not thus lament for a little child eight months old. Yet nothing but such a scene of bereavement and anguish as we have passed through can teach us to pity others in like circumstances. Nothing but experience can teach us what feelings agonize the soul of a parent when he puts his face to that of his dear, his only child, to ascertain whether there may not be one breath more; and when satisfied of the truth, when hope expires with life, he tries to raise the bursting aspiration: O Lord, receive the spirit!

“Our little Roger died last Saturday morning. We looked at him through the day, and on the approach of night we laid him in the grave. This is the fourth day, and we just begin to think, What can we do for the heathen? But yet it seems hard to forget little Roger so soon, to force off our thoughts from the attractive, painful subject, and to return to our usual employments. O may we not suffer in vain! May this bereavement be sanctified to our souls! and for this I hope we have your prayers.

“How is Mrs. Lawson, and your little ones? We had only one. Might not this have been spared? It was almost all our comfort and our amusement in this dreary place. But, ‘the Lord gave,’ etc.”

At this same period Mrs. Judson thus opened her sorrowful heart to a lady in Beverly, Mass.:

“The sun of another holy Sabbath has arisen upon us, and though no chime of bells has called us to the house of God, yet we, two in number, have bowed the knee to our Father in heaven, have invoked His holy name, have offered Him our feeble praise, have meditated on His Sacred Word, and commemorated the dying love of a Saviour to a perishing world. Inestimable privileges! Not denied even in a land where the Prince of Darkness reigns!

“Since worship I have stolen away to a much-loved spot, 98where I love to sit and pay the tribute of affection to my lost darling child. It is a little enclosure of mango-trees, in the centre of which is erected a small bamboo-house on a rising spot of ground, which looks down on the new-made grave of an infant boy. Here I now sit; and though all nature around wears a most romantic, delightful appearance, yet my heart is sad, and my tears frequently stop my pen. You, my dear Mrs. Lovett, who are a mother, may guess my feelings; but if you have never lost a first-born, an only son, you can not know my pain. Had you even buried your little boy, you are in a Christian country, surrounded by friends and relatives who could soothe your anguish and direct your attention to other objects. But behold us solitary and alone, with this one single source of recreation! Yet even this is denied us; this must be removed, to show us that we need no other source of enjoyment but God himself! Do not think, though I thus write, that I repine at the dealings of Providence, or would wish them to be otherwise than they are. No; ‘though He slay me, I will trust in Him,’ is the language I would adopt. Though I say with the prophet, ‘Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,’ yet I would also say with him, ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.’”

While engaged in the hard task of learning the Burman language, Mr. Judson caught eagerly at every opportunity of imparting Christian truth. We give his record of a conversation with his teacher:

“September 30, 1815. Had the following conversation with my teacher, as nearly as I can recollect it. This man has been with me about three months, and is the most sensible, learned, and candid man that I have ever found among the Burmans. He is forty-seven years of age, and his name is Oo Oungmen. I began by saying, Mr. J—— is dead. Oo. I have heard so. J. His soul is lost, I think. Oo. Why so? J. He was not a disciple of Christ. Oo. How do you knowknow 99that? You could not see his soul. J. How do you know whether the root of that mango-tree is good? You can not see it; but you can judge by the fruit on its branches. Thus I know that Mr. J. was not a disciple of Christ, because his words and actions were not such as indicate a disciple. Oo. And so all who are not disciples of Christ are lost? J. Yes, all, whether Burmans or foreigners. Oo. This is hard. J. Yes, it is hard indeed; otherwise I should not have come all this way, and left parents and all, to tell you of Christ. He seemed to feel the force of this, and after stopping a little he said, How is it that the disciples of Christ are so fortunate above all men? J. Are not all men sinners, and deserving of punishment in a future state? Oo. Yes, all must suffer in some future state for the sins they commit. The punishment follows the crime as surely as the wheel of the cart follows the footsteps of the ox. J. Now, according to the Burman system, there is no escape. According to the Christian system, there is. Jesus Christ has died in the place of sinners—has borne their sins; and now those who believe on Him, and become His disciples, are released from the punishment they deserve. At death, they are received into heaven, and are happy forever. Oo. That I will never believe. My mind is very stiff on this one point, namely, that all existence involves in itself principles of misery and destruction. The whole universe is only destruction and reproduction. It therefore becomes a wise man to raise his desires above all things that exist, and aspire to nigban, the state where there is no existence. J. Teacher, there are two evil futurities, and one good. A miserable future existence is evil, and annihilation, or nigban, is an evil, a fearful evil. A happy future existence is alone good. Oo. I admit that is best, if it could be perpetual; but it can not be. Whatever is, is liable to change, and misery, and destruction. Nigban is the only permanent good, and that good has been attained by Gaudama, the last deity. J. If there be no eternal being, you can not account for anything. Whence this world, and all that we see? Oo. Fate. J. Fate! The cause must always be equal to the effect. See, I raise this table. See also that ant under it 100Suppose I were invisible, would a wise man say the ant raised it? Now, fate is not even an ant. Fate is a word; that is all. It is not an agent; not a thing. What is fate? Oo. The fate of creatures is the influence which their good or bad deeds have on their future existence. J. If influence be exerted, there must be an exerter. If there be a determination, there must be a determiner. Oo. No, there is no determiner. There can not be an eternal being. J. Consider this point. It is a main point of true wisdom. Whenever there is an execution of a purpose, there must be an agent. Oo. (After a little thought.) I must say that my mind is very decided and hard, and unless you tell me something more to the purpose, I shall never believe. J. Well, teacher, I wish you to believe, not for my profit, but for yours. I daily pray the true God to give you light that you may believe. Whether you will ever believe in this world, I do not know; but when you die, I know you will believe what I now say. You will then appear before the God that you now deny. Oo. I don’t know that. J. I have heard that one Burman, many years ago, embraced the Portuguese religion, and that he was your relation. Oo. He was a brother of my grandfather. J. At Ava, or here? Oo. At Ava he became a Portuguese; afterwards went to a ship country with a ship-priest, and returned to Ava. J. I have heard he was put to death for his religion. Oo. No, he was imprisoned and tortured by order of the emperor. At last he escaped from their hands, fled to Rangoon, and afterwards to Bengal, where they say he died. J. Did any of his family join him? Oo. None; all forsook him; and he wandered about, despised and rejected by all. J. Do you think that he was a decided Christian, and had got a new mind? Oo. I think so; for when he was tortured hard, he held out. J. Did he ever talk with you about religion? Oo. Yes. J. Why did you not listen to him? Oo. I did not listen. J. Did you ever know any other Burman that changed his own for a foreign religion? Oo. I have heard that there is one now in Rangoon, who became a Portuguese; but he keeps himself concealed, and I have never seen him.”

101After almost three years of the closest application to study, Mr. Judson was taken ill. He wrote to Dr. Baldwin:

“I began to enter into my studies with such pleasure and spirit, and to make such rapid progress, as encouraged me to hope that the time was not far distant when I should be able to commence missionary operations. I was going forward in a course of most valuable Burman reading, and, at the same time, had begun to translate one of the Gospels, and to write a ‘View of the Christian Religion’ in Burman, which, in imagination, were already finished and circulating among the natives, when, all of a sudden, in the midst of the hot season, which in this country is most severe during the months of March and April, I was seized with a distressing weakness and pain in my eyes and head, which put a stop to all my delightful pursuits, and reduced me to a pitiable state indeed. Since that time, excepting at some intervals, I have been unable to read, or write, or make any exertion whatever. Sometimes I have almost given up the hope that I should ever be of any more service; sometimes I have been on the point of trying a short voyage at sea. But, thanks be to God, it is now ten days since I have experienced a turn of severe pain, though I still feel great weakness in my head, and, indeed, throughout my whole nervous system. I begin now to hope that I shall gradually recover, though I fear I never shall be as I formerly was.”

He improved even the hours of his illness by collecting what knowledge he had acquired of the language and “putting it together in the shape of a grammar that it might not be wholly lost to others.” Fearing that his own life might soon come to a close, he determined to blaze the trees through this hitherto untrodden wilderness of the Burmese language, by preparing a grammar. On July 13, 1816, exactly three years to a day after his arrival, he completed a work with the modest title, “Grammatical Notices of the Burman Language.” It was printed twenty years afterward; and although it was the result of a study of only 102three years, of one of the most difficult Oriental languages, and was written to relieve the tedium of a sick-bed, yet its merits were such as to command the following notice in the Calcutta Review: