CHAPTER XIII.POSTHUMOUS INFLUENCE.

Mr. Judson did not live to complete the Burmese dictionary. He finished the English and Burmese part, but the Burmese and English was left in an unfinished state. In accordance with his desire, expressed only a few days before his death, Mrs. Judson transmitted his manuscripts to his friend and associate in missionary toil, Mr. Stevens, upon whom accordingly the task of completing the work devolved. Mrs. Judson thus wrote to Mr. Stevens:

“Maulmain,September4, 1850.“My dear Mr. Stevens: Parting with the manuscripts which were every day before my eyes during three happy years, almost carries me back to that sad morning in April whenhepassed from the door never again to return. But I well know that my heavenly Father is ordering all these things, and I have nothing to do but submit—nothing to say but ‘Thy will, O God, be done!’“A few days before Mr. Judson went away, he told me, if he should never return, to place the dictionary papers in your hands, and it is in compliance with that request that I now send them. I suppose that he would not have improved the English and Burmese part very essentially while carrying it through the press; and the second part, the Burmese and English, is, as far as he had advanced, equally complete. The last word he defined was ——, and the corresponding initial vowel ——.“The only request he made was that there might be somedistinct mark, both in the dictionary and grammar, to indicate where his work ended and yours commenced. The grammar was intended to preface the Burmese and English portion of the dictionary, but is complete only as far as through the cases of nouns—thirty-two manuscript pages. I believe this grammar was on a somewhat different plan from the old ‘Grammatical Notices’; but I send a printed copy of that, in which he has marked several errors, as it may be of some service to you. In addition to the finished parts of the dictionary, you will find the two old manuscript volumes which he had in use ever after his first arrival in Burmah; and these I beg to have returned to me when the work is completed. Interlined and erased as they are, you will have great difficulty in deciphering them, and will no doubt find some parts quite illegible. I think I mentioned to you the plan of having Moung Shway-loo make out, from the old printed dictionary and his own memory, a list of words more or less synonymous, and I send the books, which, although not to be implicitly relied on, are, I believe, quite valuable.“There is one bound volume which I do not recollect having seen before; but I think it must be a vocabulary arranged from an original Burmese one, as I have heard Mr. J. speak of having such a work. The remaining papers, consisting of two or three little vocabularies, and the like, are, I suppose, of no great value; but I thought it best to send everything in any way connected with defining words. I also put in with the rest the old proof-sheets, as he sometimes had occasion to refer to them.“And now, may the blessing of God rest upon this work—on you, or whoever else may finish it—on all who, for Christ’s sake, study it, and upon poor Burmah, in whose behalf so much time and labor have been expended.“Very affectionately, your sister,“Emily C. Judson.”

“Maulmain,September4, 1850.

“My dear Mr. Stevens: Parting with the manuscripts which were every day before my eyes during three happy years, almost carries me back to that sad morning in April whenhepassed from the door never again to return. But I well know that my heavenly Father is ordering all these things, and I have nothing to do but submit—nothing to say but ‘Thy will, O God, be done!’

“A few days before Mr. Judson went away, he told me, if he should never return, to place the dictionary papers in your hands, and it is in compliance with that request that I now send them. I suppose that he would not have improved the English and Burmese part very essentially while carrying it through the press; and the second part, the Burmese and English, is, as far as he had advanced, equally complete. The last word he defined was ——, and the corresponding initial vowel ——.

“The only request he made was that there might be somedistinct mark, both in the dictionary and grammar, to indicate where his work ended and yours commenced. The grammar was intended to preface the Burmese and English portion of the dictionary, but is complete only as far as through the cases of nouns—thirty-two manuscript pages. I believe this grammar was on a somewhat different plan from the old ‘Grammatical Notices’; but I send a printed copy of that, in which he has marked several errors, as it may be of some service to you. In addition to the finished parts of the dictionary, you will find the two old manuscript volumes which he had in use ever after his first arrival in Burmah; and these I beg to have returned to me when the work is completed. Interlined and erased as they are, you will have great difficulty in deciphering them, and will no doubt find some parts quite illegible. I think I mentioned to you the plan of having Moung Shway-loo make out, from the old printed dictionary and his own memory, a list of words more or less synonymous, and I send the books, which, although not to be implicitly relied on, are, I believe, quite valuable.

“There is one bound volume which I do not recollect having seen before; but I think it must be a vocabulary arranged from an original Burmese one, as I have heard Mr. J. speak of having such a work. The remaining papers, consisting of two or three little vocabularies, and the like, are, I suppose, of no great value; but I thought it best to send everything in any way connected with defining words. I also put in with the rest the old proof-sheets, as he sometimes had occasion to refer to them.

“And now, may the blessing of God rest upon this work—on you, or whoever else may finish it—on all who, for Christ’s sake, study it, and upon poor Burmah, in whose behalf so much time and labor have been expended.

“Very affectionately, your sister,“Emily C. Judson.”

“Very affectionately, your sister,

“Emily C. Judson.”

During the long winter of our Northern States, sometimes a mass of snow accumulates, little by little, in the corner of the farmer’s meadow. Under the warm rays ofthe spring sun the dazzling bank gradually melts away, but leaves upon the greensward which it has sheltered a fertilizing deposit. It now remains for us to ask what stimulating residuum this great life which we have attempted to describe left behind it upon the surface of human society.

Mr. Judson’s achievements far transcended the wildest aspirations of his youth. During the early years in Rangoon, when the mighty purpose of evangelizing Burmah began to take definite shape in his mind; even before the first convert, Moung Nau, was baptized; when indeed the young missionary was almost forgotten by his fellow-Christians at home, or merely pitied as a good-hearted enthusiast—the outermost limit reached by his strong-winged hope was that he might, before he died, build up a church of a hundred converted Burmans and translate the whole Bible into their language. But far more than this was accomplished during the ten years in Rangoon, the two years in Ava, and the twenty-three years in Maulmain. At the time of his death, the native Christians (Burmans and Karens publicly baptized upon the profession of their faith) numbered over seven thousand. Besides this, hundreds throughout Burmah had died rejoicing in the Christian faith. He had not only finished the translation of the Bible, but had accomplished the larger and the more difficult part of the compilation of a Burmese dictionary. At the time of his death there were sixty-three churches established among the Burmans and Karens. These churches were under the oversight of one hundred and sixty-three missionaries, native pastors, and assistants. He had laid the foundations of Christianity deep down in the Burman heart where they could never be washed away.

This achievement is the more startling when we consider that all divine operations are slow in the beginning, but rush to the consummation with lightning speed. Many long days elapse while the icy barriers are being slowly loosened beneath the breath of spring. But at last thefreshet comes, and the huge frozen masses are broken up and carried rapidly to the sea. The leaves slowly ripen for the grave. Though withered, they still cling to the boughs. But finally a day comes in the autumn when suddenly the air is full of falling foliage. It takes a long time for the apple to reach its growth, but a very brief time suffices for the ripening. Tennyson’s lark

“Shook his song together as he nearedHis happy home, the ground.”

“Shook his song together as he neared

His happy home, the ground.”

Nature is instinct with this law, and we may well believe that though the processes are slow and inconspicuous by which the ancient structures of false religions are being undermined, yet the time will come when they will tumble suddenly into ruins, when a nation shall be converted in a day, when, “As the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” In the baptism of ten thousand Telugus in India within a single year, do we not already see the gray dawn of such an era of culmination?

“We are living, we are dwellingIn a grand and awful time,In an age on ages telling;To be living is sublime.Hark! the waking up of nations,Gog and Magog to the fray.Hark! what soundeth? ’Tis creationGroaning for its latter day.”

“We are living, we are dwelling

In a grand and awful time,

In an age on ages telling;

To be living is sublime.

Hark! the waking up of nations,

Gog and Magog to the fray.

Hark! what soundeth? ’Tis creation

Groaning for its latter day.”

But it was Mr. Judson’s lot to labor in the hard and obscure period of the first beginnings. And not only so, but he undertook the task of planting Christianity not among a people, like the Sandwich Islanders, without literature and without an elaborate religious system, but rather in a soil already preoccupied by an ancient classical literature and by a time-honored ritual which now numbers among its devoteesone-third of the population of our globe. The difficulties of such an attempt are well described in one of his sermons, from which Mrs. Stevens has preserved a striking illustration:

.... “In comparing labors among a people without a national religion to labors among idolaters or Mussulmans, Dr. Judson used a figure which ought to be published in theMacedonianin reply to some things which have appeared there and elsewhere, to the import that difference of success among Burmans and Karens is owing to difference of labor performed among them. He supposed a man offering to fill two jars, one of which stands empty, the other filled with earth oil. Now, the force of the illustration will not appear to you as to us, because we are so familiar with this oil; and you are not, as we are, obliged to make frequent use of it; but you can judge of its character by a translation of the Burman name for it, ‘stinking water.’ The smell of it can not be extracted from a jar which has been emptied of it, except by burning. I should never think of using a vessel which had once contained it for any other purpose. To return to the illustration. A man goes to the owner of the empty jar, and asks if he may fill it with pure and sweet water. ‘O, yes, I shall consider it a favor.’ So the Sandwich Islander, so the Karen receives the truth, the benefits of a written language, and instruction in books, and the elevation that follows, as favors conferred; and as there are no stains of ancient superstitions, they are better Christians than converts from heathenism. When I saynostains, of course comparatively is meant.“Let the missionary next go to the owner of the jar filled with earth oil. He must first empty it, which the owner considers robbery. He would say, ‘You are taking away my property; this is my merit, which I have been many years gathering. You wish to deprive me of my offerings. I will apply to the king and priests to uphold me in clinging to my property.’ But the missionary says, ‘If you drink that oil it will be poison to you; let me give you water, which will insurelife eternal.’ ‘O, my ancestors have all drunk of this, and I wish to do the same; this is good for me, and yours for you. My books are good for me, and my religion, and so yours for you.’ But, after long argument and persuasion, he gains the man’s consent to give up his earth oil, and he labors through the process of dipping it out, and cleansing the jar; he rubs and washes; the man all the while begging him not to deprive him ofallof it; to allow him some of his former customs, and some of the practices of his worldly neighbors and relatives; and often so much of the oil is left, that the water is very offensive, and by-standers say, ‘We do not perceive that the water is any sweeter than the oil.’ Sometimes the man himself joins in, and says he does not know but the smell is as bad as before, and the change has been of no use; so he upsets the jar and apostatizes.”

“Let the missionary next go to the owner of the jar filled with earth oil. He must first empty it, which the owner considers robbery. He would say, ‘You are taking away my property; this is my merit, which I have been many years gathering. You wish to deprive me of my offerings. I will apply to the king and priests to uphold me in clinging to my property.’ But the missionary says, ‘If you drink that oil it will be poison to you; let me give you water, which will insurelife eternal.’ ‘O, my ancestors have all drunk of this, and I wish to do the same; this is good for me, and yours for you. My books are good for me, and my religion, and so yours for you.’ But, after long argument and persuasion, he gains the man’s consent to give up his earth oil, and he labors through the process of dipping it out, and cleansing the jar; he rubs and washes; the man all the while begging him not to deprive him ofallof it; to allow him some of his former customs, and some of the practices of his worldly neighbors and relatives; and often so much of the oil is left, that the water is very offensive, and by-standers say, ‘We do not perceive that the water is any sweeter than the oil.’ Sometimes the man himself joins in, and says he does not know but the smell is as bad as before, and the change has been of no use; so he upsets the jar and apostatizes.”

When these considerations are taken into account, the tangible results which Mr. Judson left behind at his death seem simply amazing. But these are only a small part of what he really accomplished. Being dead, he yet speaketh. The Roman Church has preserved an old legend that John, the beloved disciple, “did not die at all, but is only slumbering, and moving the grave mound with his breath until the final return of the Lord.”[71]And in a sense it is true that a great man does not die at all. You can not bury a saint so deep that he will not sway the lives of those who walk over his grave. The upheavals of society are mainly due to the breath of those who have vanished from the surface of the earth and lie beneath its bosom.

The early actions of Mr. Judson and his fellow-students at Andover resulted in the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. This society, representing the Congregationalists of this country, may justly claim to be the mother of American foreign missionary bodies. It was organized for the support ofcertain young men while they were engaged in the work to which the Lord had called them. Societies do not call men into being, but men create societies. The society is only a convenient vehicle through which the Christian at home can send bread to the missionary abroad, whose whole time is devoted to feeding the heathen with the bread of life.

In the year 1880, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions received and expended over six hundred thousand dollars. It is conducting successful missionary operations in Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan, Micronesia, Mexico, Spain, and Austria, as well as in our own western land. In these different countries it has two hundred and seventy-two churches, over seventeen thousand church members, and sixteen hundred and eighty-five missionaries, native pastors, and assistants.

The change in Mr. Judson’s views on the subject of Baptism led almost immediately to the formation of a Baptist Missionary Society, now known as the American Baptist Missionary Union. In the year 1880, there passed through the treasury of this Board nearly three hundred thousand dollars, given by the Baptists of the United States for the evangelization of the heathen. This society is at work in Burmah, Siam, India, China, Japan, and also in the countries of Europe, and it reports nine hundred and eight native churches, eighty-five thousand three hundred and eight church members, and twelve hundred and fourteen missionaries and native preachers.

A few years after Mr. Judson’s departure from this country, and the organization of these two societies, the Episcopalians and also the Methodists of America organized themselves for the work of foreign missions. For many years the Presbyterians joined hands with the Congregationalists, and poured their contributions into the treasury of the American Board. But in 1836 they organized a society of their own, now known as the Board of Foreign Missionsof the Presbyterian Church. Its fields of operation are Syria, Persia, Japan, China, Siam, India, Africa, South America, Mexico, and the Indian tribes, with an annual expenditure of nearly six hundred thousand dollars. It supports ten hundred and ninety-nine missionaries and lay missionaries, and reports fourteen thousand five hundred and eighty-eight communicants, with eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty scholars in the native schools.

All these vigorous Christian societies sustained by the missionary conviction of the churches in America, with their vast army of missionaries and native communicants now pressing against the systems of heathenism at a thousand points, when they come to tell the story of their origin, do not fail to make mention of the name of Adoniram Judson. His life formed a part of the fountain-head from which flow these beneficent streams which fringe with verdure the wastes of paganism.

Not only in this country has Mr. Judson’s career of heroic action and suffering stimulated Christian activity among all denominations, but his influence has been an inspiration everywhere. Just as a steamer in its course along a river generates a wave which will lash the shore long after the disturbing force has passed, so the words and behavior of a good man will sometimes set in motion streams of influence in the most unlooked-for places. How many by his life and his labor have been spurred to missionary endeavor we know not now, but shall know hereafter. But an interesting instance of the wide-reaching character of this influence has been preserved by Dr. Wayland. Mr. Judson had been deeply interested in establishing a mission among the Jews of Palestine, but to his great disappointment the enterprise proved a failure.

“It, however, pleased an all-wise Providence to render His servant useful to the children of Abraham in a manner which he little expected. Two or three days before he embarked on his last voyage, not a fortnight before his death, Mrs.Judson read to him the following paragraph from theWatchman and Reflector:“‘There[72]we first learned the interesting fact, which was mentioned by Mr. Schauffler, that a tract had been published in Germany, giving some account of Dr. Judson’s labors at Ava; that it had fallen into the hands of some Jews, and had been the means of their conversion; that it had reached Trebizond, where a Jew had translated it for the Jews of that place; that it had awakened a deep interest among them; that a candid spirit of inquiry had been manifested; and that a request had been made for a missionary to be sent to them from Constantinople. Such a fact is full of meaning, a comment on the word of inspiration: “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that.”’”

“‘There[72]we first learned the interesting fact, which was mentioned by Mr. Schauffler, that a tract had been published in Germany, giving some account of Dr. Judson’s labors at Ava; that it had fallen into the hands of some Jews, and had been the means of their conversion; that it had reached Trebizond, where a Jew had translated it for the Jews of that place; that it had awakened a deep interest among them; that a candid spirit of inquiry had been manifested; and that a request had been made for a missionary to be sent to them from Constantinople. Such a fact is full of meaning, a comment on the word of inspiration: “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that.”’”

Mrs. Judson, in her relation of these facts, continues:

“His eyes were filled with tears when I had done reading, but still he at first spoke playfully, and in a way that a little disappointed me. Then a look of almost unearthly solemnity came over him, and, clinging fast to my hand, as though to assure himself of being really in the world, he said, ‘Love, this frightens me. I do not know what to make of it.’ ‘What?’ ‘Why, what you have just been reading. I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came; at some time—no matter at how distant a day—somehow, in some shape—probably the last I should have devised—it came. And yet I have always had so little faith! May God forgive me, and, while He condescends to use me as His instrument, wipe the sin of unbelief from my heart.’“‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’”

“‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’”

Indeed there are very few of those who have gone from this country as missionaries to the heathen who are not indebted to Mr. Judson for methods and inspiration. The writer will not soon forget a scene he witnessed at Saratogain May, 1880. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was in session. Dr. Jessup, an eminent missionary in Syria, then on a visit to this country, had been elected moderator. When the session of the Assembly had ended, he entered the Convention which the Baptists were then holding also in Saratoga. As an honored guest he was invited to speak. There was a breathless silence through the house as the veteran missionary arose, and with inspiring words urged the prosecution of the missionary enterprise. He closed by saying that when he should arrive in heaven, the first person whose hand he desired to grasp next to the Apostle Paul would be Adoniram Judson.

A life which embodies Christ’s idea of complete self-abnegation can not but become a great object-lesson. A man can not look into the mirror of such a career without becoming at once conscious of his own selfishness and of the triviality of a merely worldly life. A New York merchant in his boyhood read Wayland’s “Life of Judson,” and laying the book down left his chamber, went out into a green meadow belonging to his father’s farm, and consecrated his young life to the service of God. How many unknown souls have been attracted to Christ by the same magnetism! How many others have been lifted out of their self-love! How many have been drawn toward the serener heights of Christian experience by the example of him whose strong aspirings after holiness are depicted in “The Threefold Cord!”[73]O that some young man might rise from the reading of these memoirs and lay down his life in all its freshness and strength upon the altar of God, so that he might become, like Paul of old, a chosen vessel of Christ to bear His name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel!

The memory of Mr. Judson’s sufferings in Ava will never cease to nerve missionary endeavor. They appeared at the time unnecessary and fruitless. He himself, upon emergingfrom them, spoke of them as having been “unavailing to answer any valuable missionary purpose unless so far as they may have been silently blessed to our spiritual improvement and capacity for future usefulness.” But the spectacle of our missionary lying in an Oriental prison, his ankles freighted with five pairs of irons, his heroic wife ministering to him like an angel during the long months of agony, has burned itself into the consciousness of Christendom and has made retreat from the missionary enterprise an impossibility. It is God’s law that progress should be along the line of suffering. The world’s benefactors have been its sufferers. They “have been from time immemorial crucified and burned.”[74]It seems to be a divine law that those who bestow roses must feel thorns. The sufferings of Mr. Judson’s life were as fruitful of blessing as the toils.

The graves of the sainted dead forbid retreat from the ramparts of heathenism. It is said that the heart of the Scottish hero Bruce was embalmed after his death and preserved in a silver casket. When his descendants were making a last desperate charge upon the serried columns of the Saracens, their leader threw this sacred heart far out into the ranks of the enemy. The Scots charged with irresistible fury in order to regain the relic. Christianity will never retreat from the graves of its dead on heathen shores. England is pressing into Africa with redoubled energy since she saw placed on the pavement of her own Westminster Abbey the marble tablet in memory of him who was “brought by faithful hands, over land and sea, David Livingstone, missionary, traveller, philanthropist.” Until that day shall come when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess the name of Jesus, Christian hearts will not cease to draw inspiration from the memory of those who found their last resting-place under the hopia-tree at Amherst, on the rocky shore of St. Helena, and beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean.

71. Schaff’s “History of the Christian Church,” Vol. I., p. 79.

72. At the house of Mr. Goodell, in Constantinople.

73. SeeAppendix C.

74. Goethe.

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