ONE

The Apostle of Burmah.

[SECOND PAPER.]

NE of the most thrilling chapters in the history of missions is that which details the trials endured for two long years by Mr Judson and his wife during the war between the English East India Company and the native government of Burmah. The heroism and unconquerable devotion of the suffering wife were marvellous. Previous to the outbreak of the war, which brought such disaster upon the mission, Judson had settled by request of the king in his capital, Ava, where he was conducting mission work amid much that was hopeful. But when the king heard that the English army had landed at Rangoon his anger was excited against all white persons, and suspecting that the missionaries might be spies, and in the pay of the English, he ordered their immediate arrest. For two years nothing was heard in America of their fate.

Judson was seized by a dozen Burman officers, who were accompanied by a prison executioner known by his "spotted face." He was thrown on the floor and bound by cords, Mrs. Judson failing to induce the officer to release his severe hold upon her husband either by entreaties or bribes. "Take her too," said the officer, "she also is a foreigner." This they would probably have done but for the imploring looks and earnest expostulations of Judson. The instruments of torture were tightened, and the helpless victim dragged away to the death prison. Mrs. Judson returned home, only, however, to find that she was required for examination in the verandah by the magistrate. Having with not a little presence of mind destroyed such letters and journals as might disclose the fact that the family had correspondents in England, she submitted to the examination of the legal functionary outside, who ordered a strict watch to be kept over the house. The guard were violent in their behaviour; they ill-treated the two Bengalee servants, annoyed the unprotected women, and caroused during the whole night, pouring forth most diabolical language, so that each hour was full of horror.

The severe punishment inflicted upon her husband caused Mrs. Judson intense anguish. She sought the good offices of the magistrate, but failed. She penned a polite note to one of the king's sisters, and received as polite a refusal of intervention. The governor could do nothing, but there was the head officer left. He was, therefore, visited, and in answer to the question what she was to do to obtain at least a mitigation of the present sufferings of the two teachers, was told to pay him liberally and reward him with fine cloth and pieces of handkerchiefs. The latter request she was unable to comply with-money she freely offered. It was accepted, the officer promising to relieve the teachers from their painful situation. Permission was granted her to visit her husband in prison, and thus commenced those constant visits to the prisoners which were the only human relief of their gloom. She sent them food to eat, and mats upon which to sleep. Anticipating the confiscation of her property, she quietly secreted as many articles of value, and as much silver as she could. On the

following day the house was visited, and all the silver abstracted from her trunks. Her prudent foresight in hiding some of her possessions proved during her husband's long imprisonment of the greatest value in alleviating the hardships that were undergone. We cannot relate all the trials to which she was subject during this period, or all the expedients to which she so skilfully resorted to avert the anger of the authorities. It is wonderful what a number of devices were conceived and executed, and how persistently, day after day, and month, after month, she sought the release of her husband and Dr. Price. Buoyed up with that hope which is said to "spring immortal in the human breast," she persevered in her applications to members of the government as well as to the royal family."My prevailing opinion," she writes, "was that my husband would suffer a violent death, and that I should, of course, become a slave, and languish out a miserable though short existence in the tyrannic hands of some unfeeling monster. But the consolations of religion in these trying circumstances were neither few nor small.' It taught me to look beyond this world to that rest, that peaceful happy rest, where Jesus reigns and oppression never enters." After the lapse of several months this devoted woman was permitted to make a little bamboo room in the prison enclosure, where she could spend a few hours with her husband, and where he might be by himself during the day.

"How many times," she writes to her brother-in-law, "have I returned from that dreary prison at nine o'clock at night [a distance of two miles], solitary and worn out with fatigue and anxiety, and thrown myself in that same rocking-chair which you and Deacon L. provided for me in Boston, and endeavoured to invent some new scheme for the release of the prisoners." In the midst of all this trouble, she gave birth to a daughter. Two months after, she was informed that her husband, with all the other white prisoners, had been placed in the inner dungeon, in five pairs of fetters each, that the bamboo room had been pulled down, and all the little comforts she had sent him and them removed. It was a bitter trial, and her apprehensions of worse evils to come were painful in the extreme. "The situation of the prisoners," she says, "was now distressing beyond description. It was at the commencement of the hot season. There were above one hundred prisoners shut up in one room, without a breath of air excepting from the cracks in the boards. I sometimes obtained permission to go to the door for five minutes, when my heart sickened at the wretchedness exhibited. The white prisoners, from incessant perspiration and loss of appetite, looked more like the dead than the living. I made daily applications to the governor, offering him money, which he refused; but all that I gained was permission for the foreigners to eat their food outside, and this continued but a short time."

Meanwhile the English were routing the native troops, and causing great consternation among the Burmese. The leader of the native army, in whom the king placed extraordinary confidence, had been killed, and a new officer was appointed whose advent to power was the cause of additional sorrow to the white prisoners. Long confinement in a heated and unwholesome atmosphere brought on a fever, under which it was feared Mr. Judson would sink. Immediately he was thus attacked, his wife put up another small bamboo room, large enough for two to sit in, and after

some patient waiting obtained the governor's leave to remove her husband to this hovel, which was a palace compared with the foul overcrowded prison. A few days only elapsed when the governor sent in great haste for the missionary's wife, and detained her with enquiries about his watch, while his officers were taking away all the white prisoners. She returned in haste to the prison, but found her husband gone, whither she knew not. She ran first into one street, then into another, enquiring of all, but obtaining no satisfactory reply. One old woman declared that the white prisoners had been taken to the river; instantly the distracted woman ran to discover some traces of their whereabouts, but could not find any. She then went to the governor, with a heavy heart, and begged his compassionate consideration. "You can do nothing for your husband," he said, with evident kindness: "take care of yourself." She returned home almost in despair; her heart was desolate; her happiness blasted. Evil designs might be entertained against her had she not been advised to take care of herself?—but life without her husband was insupportable. Yet one more effort she would make. She would go at any risk to the old capital, Amarapoora, where the white prisoners were to be confined. The distance was six milessix miles in the burning sun of that torrid region! First in a boat, then in a cart, she travelled, with her child in her arms. Arriving at the city, travel-stained and distressed, she was informed that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before to Oung-pen-la, a distance of four miles. The owner of the cart declined to go any further; but, after waiting an hour in the scorching sun, another vehicle was procured, and in due course she arrived at the prisonhouse. It was a never-to-be forgotten scene. The prison was an old, ramshackled building, affording no shelter from the heat, for it had no roof. "Eight or ten Burmese," she says were on the top of the building, trying to make something like a shelter with leaves; while under a little low projection outside of the prison sat the foreigners, chained together two and two, almost dead with suffering and fatigue." Mr. Judson was deeply pained to see his wife. "Why have you come?” he sadly enquired. "I hoped you would not follow, for you cannot live here." She found a shelter for the night in a room half full of grain belonging to the gaoler, and in this wretched place she spent six weary months.

Mr. Judson's account of his sufferings in being removed from one prison to another are very touching. The prisoners were driven along by slaves. The season was the hottest in the year, and they started on their painful journey in the most intolerable part of the day. Judson had only proceeded half a mile when his feet became blistered, "and so great was his agony even at this early period that, as they were crossing the little river, he ardently longed to throw himself into the water to be free from misery. The sin attached to such an act alone prevented. They had then eight miles to walk. The sand and gravel were like burning coals to the feet of the prisoners, which soon became perfectly destitute of skin; and in this wretched state they were goaded on by their unfeeling drivers." In consequence of his fever, Judson was less able to bear the fatigue than the other captives; a fellow prisoner helped to support him as he was fast sinking to the

earth; and a Bengalee servant generously took off his turban, which was made of cloth, tore it in two, gave half to his master, and the other half to the suffering missionary, which he instantly wrapped round his wounded feet, while the servant almost carried him the rest of the way. Had it not been for this help, Judson would have expired from sheer exhaustion.

The prisoners had not long been in their confinement in this place when a series of troubles were undergone by the Judsons. The children were taken ill, Mrs. Judson's health gave way, and her distracted husband, who had purchased a few hours' liberty of his keepers, bore his child from village to village begging food from those who had children and might therefore pity his child.

At last, release came. The English army had so thoroughly beaten the Burmese soldiers, that the king sued for peace. In the arrangement of the articles of peace, help was needed by the king, and Mr. Judson was set at liberty that this assistance might be given. He accordingly went to the Burmese camp as translator and interpreter. Mrs. Judson left for her own house, and while there suffered an attack of "the spotted fever," during which her life was despaired of. Meanwhile, through the intervention of General Campbell, they were fully released and their property restored.

The result of the war was the scattering of the converts and the breaking up of the mission in Rangoon. Mr. Judson therefore decided to commence his missionary labours at Amherst, a town designed to be the English capital. Here accordingly we find him in the month of July, 1826, comfortably settled, as he hoped, with his family. Alas for human expectations! While on a visit to Ava, where he sought to secure the insertion of a clause for religious toleration in the new treaty, his wife, whose health had been shattered by misfortunes, sickened and died. The loss of such a wife-so brave, so gentle, so prudent-at the early age of thirty-seven, was overwhelming. We draw a veil over the feelings of the disconsolate husband. Such a grief was unique, and sacred. Of this remarkable woman, many eulogistic things have been said, but none too many. Her delicate tact, her unflinching bravery, her disinterestedness, even won the admiration of her heathen foes. She was the very beau ideal of a missionary's wife. All honour to her memory! The missionary annals of the world are incomplete without some record of her life and work. She was a true heroine. Her call to labour and endurance in the mission field was as divine as her husband's.

Amherst did not turn out so favourable a field as was anticipated; the population decreased, while other places gained in numbers and importance. A native preacher was therefore left in the capital, and Judson removed. Judson had been rewarded-if it be a reward-by the grateful American public with a title they are wont to bestow with quite sufficient readiness, and he became Doctor of Divinity. Dr. Judson removed to Maulmain, where other American missionaries were located. Here he laboured hard in preaching "the glorious gospel of the grace of God," and was cheered by evident signs of blessing. In one of the dirtiest, noisiest public streets, he took his stand and delivered his message. to the people, some of whom received it with gladness, while others

showed" all the rage of chained wild beasts." As the result a church was formed, and certain native converts were set apart as preachers. As with all true-hearted servants of God, success in the ministry only increased his concern for souls. He added to his engagements, and yet found time for seasons of solitude, that he might seek help from above for the conflict with the powers of darkness. He gave to the Mission Board the whole of his patrimonial estate, and that other labourers might be sent to the field, he relinquished no inconsiderable portion of his salary. The arrival of these additional missionaries enabled him to devote himself with greater zeal to the ambition of his life-the translation of the Scriptures into Burmese. On the 31st of January, 1834, this noble object was completely attained. "Thanks be to God," he wrote to the mission at home, "I can now say that I have attained. I have knelt down before him, with the last leaf in my hand, and implored his forgiveness for all the sins which have polluted my labours 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." The work of removing errors and imperfections afterwards cost him much labour; for his philological accomplishments led him to seek the utmost accuracy. The work was glorious. Who shall estimate the value of such an undertaking? One feels thankful that missionaries have never undertaken such peculiarly honourable labours for gain of gold; for what payment can express the untold value of such efforts? The translator's only fit reward is spiritual and eternal.

In 1834 Dr. Judson was married to the widow of his friend and fellow labourer, Mr. Boardman, a lady of much ability, well versed in the Burmese tongue, and of fervent piety. "She translated," says an

American writer, "the first part of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' into Burmese, reckoned as one of the best publications issued from the mission press. She translated tracts, prepared a hymn-book, several volumes of Scripture questions for Sunday-schools, and as one of the last works of her life, a series of Sunday cards. Before the Peguans had a missionary, she acquired their language, and translated, or superintended the translation, of the New Testament and the principal Burmese tracts into the Peguan tongue, a self-imposed task, collateral to her work as a missionary among the Burmese." Unfortunately her health was never satisfactory, and she died in 1845, while on a visit to her native country.

The greeting which Dr. Judson received in America after an absence of nearly thirty-four years was worthy of a generous people. Old friends had died-he scarcely knew any one. Admirers of consecrated heroism gave him an enthusiastic reception wherever he went. It was so different from the time when almost as a solitary man he sought the sympathies of those who could have sent him into the mission field. His surprise at the reception accorded him was great, and public applause seemed little worth at a time when he was mourning the loss of his beloved wife. Like the venerable and honoured Mr. Robert Moffat, whom we