D.ADVICE TO MISSIONARY CANDIDATES.

Postscript.

In taking leave of thee, my brother, the thought occurs, that, notwithstanding thy prevailing hope, thou mayst yet have fearful doubts about thy spiritual state, and mayst think that thou hast not yet the hand of faith, with which to lay hold of what I send thee. And I fancy I hear thee cry, What shall I do? Art thousensibleof thy maimed state? Then there is some hope.Do what thou canst: stretch out what thou hast, however maimed or withered, and try to lay hold. Try to pray in faith, to practice self-denial, and to do good. And be assured, my brother, that thou wilt quickly find the hand of faith where thou thoughtest it was not. There is one near thee whom yet thou knowest not—He who gave sight to blind Bartimeus, and said to the deaf man, Ephphatha, Be opened; He who heareth the young ravens when they cry, and much more, the cry of man, the dearest of all his creatures; He, who is ever moved with the yearning feelings of a tender parent, when he sees, at a distance, his poor prodigal son returning, famished and forlorn, from the far country.

Mizar,February, 1829.

75. SeeRules and Instructions for a Holy Life, a piece which, though not elaborately finished, contains the very marrow of true religion. Study also Law’sTreatise upon Christian Perfection, and Kempis’sImitation of Christ.

76. To guard against extremes, take the two following short rules: 1st. Avoid such privations and severities as do really injure thy bodily health. 2d. Avoid affected singularities in dress and deportment, which only cherish pride; and while thou aimest to be poor and mortified in all outward things, still retain the garb and costume of thy country, and respect those national usages which are common to the high and the low, the rich and the poor, unless there be some special reason for a change.

To the Foreign Missionary Association of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, N. Y.

Maulmain,June25, 1832.Dear Brethren: Yours of November last, from the pen of your Corresponding Secretary, Mr. William Dean, is before me. It is one of the few letters that I feel called upon to answer, for you ask my advice on several important points. There is, also, in the sentiments you express, something so congenial to my own, that I feel my heart knit to the members of your association, and instead of commonplace reply, am desirous of setting down a few items which may be profitable to you in your future course. Brief items they must be, for want of time forbids my expatiating.In commencing my remarks, I take you as you are. You are contemplating a missionary life.First, then, let it be a missionarylife; that is, come out for life, and not for a limited term. Do not fancy that you have a true missionaryspirit, while you are intending all along to leave the heathen soon after acquiring their language. Leave them! for what? To spend the rest of your days in enjoying the ease and plenty of your native land?Secondly.In choosing a companion for life, have particular regard to a good constitution, and not wantonly, or without good cause, bring a burden on yourselves and the mission.Thirdly.Be not ravenous to do good on board ship. Missionaries have frequently done more hurt than good, by injudicious zeal, during their passage out.Fourthly.Take care that the attention you receive at home, the unfavorable circumstances in which you will be placed on board ship, and the unmissionary examples you may possibly meet with at some missionary stations, do not transform you from living missionaries to mere skeletons before you reach the place of your destination. It may be profitable to bear in mind, that a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps.Fifthly.Beware of the reaction which will take place soon after reaching your field of labor. There you will perhaps find native Christians, of whose merits or demerits you can not judge correctly without some familiar acquaintance with their language. Some appearances will combine to disappoint and disgust you. You will meet with disappointments and discouragements, of which it is impossible to form a correct idea from written accounts, and which will lead you, at first, almost to regret that you have embarked in the cause. You will see men and women whom you have been accustomed to view through a telescope some thousands of miles long. Such an instrument is apt to magnify. Beware, therefore, of the reaction you will experience from a combination of all these causes, lest you become disheartened at commencing your work, or take up a prejudice against some persons and places, which will embitter all your future lives.Sixthly.Beware of the greater reaction which will take place after you have acquired the language, and become fatigued and worn out with preaching the gospel to a disobedient and gainsaying people. You will sometimes long for a quiet retreat, where you can find a respite from the tug of toiling at native work—the incessant, intolerable friction of the missionary grindstone. And Satan will sympathize with you in this matter; and he will present some chapel of ease, in which to officiate in your native tongue, some government situation, some professorship or editorship, some literary or scientific pursuit, some supernumerary translation, or, at least, some system of schools; anything, in a word, that will help you, without much surrender of character, to slip out of real missionarywork. Such a temptation will form the crisis of your disease. If your spiritual constitution can sustain it, you recover; if not, you die.Seventhly.Beware of pride; not the pride of proud men, but the pride of humble men—that secret pride which is apt to grow out of the consciousness that we are esteemed by the great and good. This pride sometimes eats out the vitals of religion before its existence is suspected. In order to check its operations, it may be well to remember how we appear in the sight of God, and how we should appear in the sight of our fellow-men,if all were known. Endeavor to let all be known. Confess your faults freely, and as publicly as circumstances will require or admit. When you have done something of which you are ashamed, and by which, perhaps, some person has been injured (and what man is exempt?), be glad not only to make reparation, but improve the opportunity for subduing your pride.Eighthly.Never lay up money for yourselves or your families. Trust in God from day to day, and verily you shall be fed.Ninthly.Beware of that indolence which leads to a neglect of bodily exercise. The poor health and premature death of most Europeans in the East must be eminently ascribed to the most wanton neglect of bodily exercise.Tenthly.Beware of genteel living. Maintain as little intercourse as possible with fashionable European society. The mode of living adopted by many missionaries in the East is quite inconsistent with that familiar intercourse with the natives which is essential to a missionary.There are many points of self-denial that I should like to touch upon; but a consciousness of my own deficiency constrains me to be silent. I have also left untouched several topics of vital importance, it having been my aim to select such only as appear to me to have been not much noticed or enforced. I hope you will excuse the monitorial style that I have accidentally adopted. I assure you, I mean no harm.In regard to your inquiries concerning studies, qualifications, etc., nothing occurs that I think would be particularly useful, except the simple remark, that I fear too much stress begins to be laid on what is termed a thorough classical education.Praying that you may be guided in all your deliberations, and that I may yet have the pleasure of welcoming some of you to these heathen shores, I remainYour affectionate brother,A. Judson.

Maulmain,June25, 1832.

Dear Brethren: Yours of November last, from the pen of your Corresponding Secretary, Mr. William Dean, is before me. It is one of the few letters that I feel called upon to answer, for you ask my advice on several important points. There is, also, in the sentiments you express, something so congenial to my own, that I feel my heart knit to the members of your association, and instead of commonplace reply, am desirous of setting down a few items which may be profitable to you in your future course. Brief items they must be, for want of time forbids my expatiating.

In commencing my remarks, I take you as you are. You are contemplating a missionary life.

First, then, let it be a missionarylife; that is, come out for life, and not for a limited term. Do not fancy that you have a true missionaryspirit, while you are intending all along to leave the heathen soon after acquiring their language. Leave them! for what? To spend the rest of your days in enjoying the ease and plenty of your native land?

Secondly.In choosing a companion for life, have particular regard to a good constitution, and not wantonly, or without good cause, bring a burden on yourselves and the mission.

Thirdly.Be not ravenous to do good on board ship. Missionaries have frequently done more hurt than good, by injudicious zeal, during their passage out.

Fourthly.Take care that the attention you receive at home, the unfavorable circumstances in which you will be placed on board ship, and the unmissionary examples you may possibly meet with at some missionary stations, do not transform you from living missionaries to mere skeletons before you reach the place of your destination. It may be profitable to bear in mind, that a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps.

Fifthly.Beware of the reaction which will take place soon after reaching your field of labor. There you will perhaps find native Christians, of whose merits or demerits you can not judge correctly without some familiar acquaintance with their language. Some appearances will combine to disappoint and disgust you. You will meet with disappointments and discouragements, of which it is impossible to form a correct idea from written accounts, and which will lead you, at first, almost to regret that you have embarked in the cause. You will see men and women whom you have been accustomed to view through a telescope some thousands of miles long. Such an instrument is apt to magnify. Beware, therefore, of the reaction you will experience from a combination of all these causes, lest you become disheartened at commencing your work, or take up a prejudice against some persons and places, which will embitter all your future lives.

Sixthly.Beware of the greater reaction which will take place after you have acquired the language, and become fatigued and worn out with preaching the gospel to a disobedient and gainsaying people. You will sometimes long for a quiet retreat, where you can find a respite from the tug of toiling at native work—the incessant, intolerable friction of the missionary grindstone. And Satan will sympathize with you in this matter; and he will present some chapel of ease, in which to officiate in your native tongue, some government situation, some professorship or editorship, some literary or scientific pursuit, some supernumerary translation, or, at least, some system of schools; anything, in a word, that will help you, without much surrender of character, to slip out of real missionarywork. Such a temptation will form the crisis of your disease. If your spiritual constitution can sustain it, you recover; if not, you die.

Seventhly.Beware of pride; not the pride of proud men, but the pride of humble men—that secret pride which is apt to grow out of the consciousness that we are esteemed by the great and good. This pride sometimes eats out the vitals of religion before its existence is suspected. In order to check its operations, it may be well to remember how we appear in the sight of God, and how we should appear in the sight of our fellow-men,if all were known. Endeavor to let all be known. Confess your faults freely, and as publicly as circumstances will require or admit. When you have done something of which you are ashamed, and by which, perhaps, some person has been injured (and what man is exempt?), be glad not only to make reparation, but improve the opportunity for subduing your pride.

Eighthly.Never lay up money for yourselves or your families. Trust in God from day to day, and verily you shall be fed.

Ninthly.Beware of that indolence which leads to a neglect of bodily exercise. The poor health and premature death of most Europeans in the East must be eminently ascribed to the most wanton neglect of bodily exercise.

Tenthly.Beware of genteel living. Maintain as little intercourse as possible with fashionable European society. The mode of living adopted by many missionaries in the East is quite inconsistent with that familiar intercourse with the natives which is essential to a missionary.

There are many points of self-denial that I should like to touch upon; but a consciousness of my own deficiency constrains me to be silent. I have also left untouched several topics of vital importance, it having been my aim to select such only as appear to me to have been not much noticed or enforced. I hope you will excuse the monitorial style that I have accidentally adopted. I assure you, I mean no harm.

In regard to your inquiries concerning studies, qualifications, etc., nothing occurs that I think would be particularly useful, except the simple remark, that I fear too much stress begins to be laid on what is termed a thorough classical education.

Praying that you may be guided in all your deliberations, and that I may yet have the pleasure of welcoming some of you to these heathen shores, I remain

Your affectionate brother,A. Judson.

Your affectionate brother,

A. Judson.

E.THE KATHAYAN SLAVE.

Atthe commencement of the English and Burmese war of 1824, all the Christians (called “hat-wearers,” in contradistinction from the turbaned heads of the Orientals) residing at Ava were thrown unceremoniously into the death-prison. Among them were both Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries; some few reputable European traders; and criminals shadowed from the laws of Christendom “under the sole of the golden foot.” These, Americans, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and Armenian, were all huddled together in one prison, with villains of every grade—the thief, the assassin, the bandit, or all three in one; constituting, in connection with countless other crimes, a blacker character than the inhabitant of a civilized land can picture. Sometimes stript of their clothing, sometimes nearly starved, loaded with heavy irons, thrust into a hot, filthy, noisome apartment, with criminals for companions and criminals for guards, compelled to see the daily torture, to hear the shriek of anguish from writhing victims, with death, death in some terribly detestable form, always before them, a severer state of suffering can scarcely be imagined.

The Burmese had never been known to spare the lives of their war-captives; and though the little band of foreigners could scarcely be called prisoners of war, yet this well-known custom, together with their having been thrust into the death-prison, from which there was no escape, except by a pardon from the king, cut off nearly every reasonable hope of rescue. But (quite a new thing in the annals of Burmese history), although some died from the intensity of their sufferings, no foreigner was wantonly put to death. Of those who were claimed by the English at the close of the war, some one or two are yet living, with anklets and bracelets which they will carry to the grave with them, wrought in their flesh by the heavy iron. It may well be imagined that these men might unfold to us scenes of horror, incidents daily occurring under their own shuddering gaze, in comparison with which the hair-elevating legends of Ann Radcliff would become simply fairy tales.

The death-prison at Ava was at that time a single large room, built of rough boards, without either window or door, and with but a thinly thatched roof to protect the wretched inmates from the blaze of a tropical sun. It was entered by slipping aside a single board, which constituted a sort of sliding-door. Around the prison, inside the yard, were ranged the huts of the under-jailers, orChildren of the Prison, and outside of the yard, close at hand, that of the head-jailer. These jailersmust necessarily be condemned criminals, with a ring, the sign of outlawry, traced in the skin of the cheek, and the name of their crime engraved in the same manner upon the breast. The head-jailer was a tall, bony man, with sinews of iron; wearing, when speaking, a malicious smirk, and given at times to a most revolting kind of jocoseness. When silent and quiet, he had a jaded, care-worn look; but it was at the torture that he was in his proper element. Then his face lighted up—became glad, furious, demoniac. His small black eyes glittered like those of a serpent; his thin lips rolled back, displaying his toothless gums in front, with a long, protruding tusk on either side, stained black as ebony; his hollow, ringed cheeks seemed to contract more and more, and his breast heaved with convulsive delight beneath the fearful word—Man-Killer. The prisoners called himfather, when he was present to enforce this expression of affectionate familiarity; but among themselves he was irreverently christened thetiger-cat.

One of the most active of the Children of the Prison was a short, broad-faced man, labelledThief, who, as well as the Tiger, had a peculiar talent in the way of torturing; and so fond was he of the use of the whip, that he often missed his count, and zealously exceeded the number of lashes ordered by the city governor. The wife of this man was a most odious creature; filthy, bold, impudent, cruel, and, like her husband, delighting in torture. Her face was not only deeply pitted with small-pox, but so deformed with leprosy, that the white cartilage of the nose was laid entirely bare; from her large mouth shone rows of irregular teeth, black as ink; her hair, which was left entirely to the care of nature, was matted in large black masses about her head; and her manner, under all this hideous ugliness, was insolent and vicious. They had two children—little vipers, well loaded with venom; and by their vexatious mode of annoyance trying the tempers of the prisoners more than was in the power of the mature torturers.

As will readily be perceived, the security of this prison was not in the strength of the structure, but in the heavy manacles, and the living wall. The lives of the jailers depended entirely on their fidelity; and fidelity involved strict obedience to orders, however ferocious. As for themselves, they could not escape; they had nowhere to go; certain death awaited them everywhere, for they bore on cheek and breast the ineffaceable proof of their outlawry. Their only safety was at their post; and there was no safety there in humanity, even if it were possible for such degraded creatures to have a spark of humanity left. So inclination united with interest to make them what they really were—demons.

The arrival of a new prisoner was an incident calculated to excite but little interest in the hat-wearers, provided he came in turban and waistcloth.But one morning there was brought in a young man, speaking the Burmese brokenly, and with the soft accent of the north, who at once attracted universal attention. He was tall and erect, with a mild, handsome face, bearing the impress of inexpressible suffering; a complexion slightly tinted with the rich brown of the east; a fine, manly carriage, and a manner which, even there, was both graceful and dignified.

“Who is he?” was the interpretation of the inquiring glances exchanged among those who had no liberty to speak; and then eye asked of eye, “What can he have done?—he so gentle, so mild, so manly, that even these wretches, who scarcely know the name of pity and respect, seem to feel both for him?” There was, in truth, something in the countenance of the new prisoner which, without asking for sympathy, involuntarily enforced it. It was not amiability, though his dark, soft, beautiful eye was full of a noble sweetness; it was not resignation; it was not apathy; it was hopelessness, deep, utter, immovable, suffering hopelessness. Very young, and apparently not ambitious or revengeful, what crime could this interesting stranger have committed to draw down “the golden foot” with such crushing weight upon his devoted head? He seemed utterly friendless, and without even the means of obtaining food; for, as the day advanced, no one came to see him; and the officer who brought him had left no directions. He did not, however, suffer from this neglect, for Madam Thief (most wonderful to relate!) actually shared so deeply in the universal sympathy as to bring him a small quantity of boiled rice and water.

Toward evening the Woon-bai, a governor, or rather Mayor of the city, entered the prison, his bold, lion-like face as open and unconcerned as ever, but with something of unusual bustling in his manner.

“Where is he?” he cried, sternly; “where is he? this son of Kathay? this dog, villain, traitor! where is he? Aha! only one pair of irons? Put on five! do you hear? five!”

The Woon-bai remained till his orders were executed, and the poor Kathayan was loaded with five pairs of fetters; and then he went out, frowning on one and smiling on another; while the Children of the Prison watched his countenance and manner, as significant of what was expected of them. The prisoners looked at each other, and shook their heads in commiseration.

The next day the feet of the young Kathayan, in obedience to some new order, were placed in the stocks, which raised them about eighteen inches from the ground; and the five pairs of fetters were all disposed on the outer side of the plank, so that their entire weight fell upon the ankles. The position was so painful that each prisoner, some frommemory, some from sympathetic apprehension, shared in the pain when he looked at the sufferer.

During this day, one of the missionaries, who had been honored with an invitation, which it was never prudent to refuse, to the hut of the Thief, learned something of the history of the young man, and his crime. His home, it was told him, was among the rich hills of Kathay, as they range far northward, where the tropic sun loses the intense fierceness of his blaze, and makes the atmosphere soft and luxurious, as though it were mellowing beneath the same amber sky which ripens the fruits, and gives their glow to the flowers. What had been his rank in his own land, the jailer’s wife did not know. Perhaps he had been a prince, chief of the brave band conquered by the superior force of the Burmans; or a hunter among the spicy groves and deep-wooded jungles, lithe as the tiger which he pursued from lair to lair, and free as the flame-winged bird of the sun that circled above him; or perhaps his destiny had been a humbler one, and he had but followed his goats as they bounded fearlessly from ledge to ledge, and plucked for food the herbs upon his native hills. He had been brought away by a marauding party, and presented as a slave to the brother of the queen. ThisMen-thah-gyee, the Great Prince, as he was called, by way of pre-eminence, had risen, through the influence of his sister, from the humble condition of a fishmonger, to be the Richelieu of the nation. Unpopular from his mean origin, and still more unpopular from the acts of brutality to which the intoxication of power had given rise, the sympathy excited by the poor Kathayan in the breasts of these wretches may easily be accounted for. It was not pity or mercy, but hatred. Anywhere else, the sufferer’s sad, handsome face, and mild, uncomplaining manner, would have enlisted sympathy; but here, they would scarcely have seen the sadness, or beauty, or mildness, except through the medium of a passion congenial to their own natures.

Among the other slaves of Men-thah-gyee, was a young Kathay girl of singular beauty. She was, so said Madam the Thief, a bundle of roses, set round with the fragrant blossoms of the champac tree; her breath was like that of the breezes when they come up from their dalliance with the spicy daughters of the islands of the south; her voice had caught its rich cadence from the musical gush of the silver fountain, which wakes among the green of her native hills; her hair had been braided from the glossy raven plumage of the royal edolius; her eyes were twin stars looking out from cool springs, all fringed with the long, tremulous reeds of the jungle; and her step was as the free, graceful bound of the wild antelope. On the subject of her grace, her beauty, and her wondrous daring, the jailer’s wife could not be sufficiently eloquent.And so this poor, proud, simple-souled maiden, this diamond from the rich hills of Kathay, destined to glitter for an hour or two on a prince’s bosom, unsubdued even in her desolation, had dared to bestow her affections with the uncalculating lavishness of conscious heart-freedom. And the poor wretch, lying upon his back in the death-prison, his feet fast in the stocks and swelling and purpling beneath the heavy irons, had participated in her crime; had lured her on, by tender glances and by loving words, inexpressibly sweet in their mutual bondage, to irretrievable destruction. What fears, what hopes winged by fears, what tremulous joys, still hedged in by that same crowd of fears, what despondency, what revulsions of impotent anger and daring, what weeping, what despair must have been theirs! Their tremblings and rejoicings, their mad projects, growing each day wilder and more dangerous—since madness alone could have given rise to anything like hope—are things left to imagination; for there was none to relate the heart-history of the two slaves of Men-thah-gyee. Yet there were some hints of a first accidental meeting under the shadow of the mango and tamarind trees, where the sun lighted up, by irregular gushes, the waters of the little lake in the centre of the garden, and the rustle of leaves seemed sufficient to drown the accents of their native tongues. So they looked, spoke, their hearts bounded, paused, trembled with soft home-memories—they whispered on, and they were lost. Poor slaves!

Then at evening, when the dark-browed maidens of the golden city gathered, with their earthen vessels, about the well, there, shaded by the thick clumps of bamboo, with the free sky overhead, the green earth beneath, and the songs and laughter of the merry girls ringing in their ears, so like their own home, the home which they had lost forever—oh, what a rare, sweet, dangerous meeting-place for those who should not, and yet must be lovers!

Finally came a day fraught with illimitable consequences; the day when the young slave, not yet admitted to the royal harem, should become more than ever the property of her master. And now deeper grew their agony, more uncontrollable their madness, wilder and more daring their hopes, with every passing moment. Not a man in Ava but would have told them that escape was impossible; and yet, goaded on by love and despair, they attempted the impossibility. They had countrymen in the city, and, under cover of night, they fled to them. Immediately the minister sent out his myrmidons—they were tracked, captured, and brought back to the palace.

“And what became of the poor girl?” inquired the missionary, with much interest.

The woman shuddered, and beneath her scars and the swarthiness of her skin, she became deadly pale.

“There is a cellar, Tsayah,” at last she whispered, still shuddering, “a deep cellar, that no one has seen, but horrible cries come from it sometimes, and two nights ago, for three hours, three long hours—such shrieks! Amai-ai! what shrieks! And they say that he was there, Tsayah, and saw and heard it all. That is the reason that his eyes are blinded and his ears benumbed. A great many go into that cellar, but none ever come out again—none but the doomed like him. It is—it is like the West Prison,” she added, sinking her voice still lower, and casting an eager, alarmed look about her. The missionary, too, shuddered, as much at the mention of this prison as at the recital of the woman; for it shut within its walls deep mysteries, which even his jailers, accustomed as they were to torture and death, shrank from babbling of.

The next day a cord was passed around the wrists of the young Kathayan, his arms jerked up into a position perpendicular with his prostrate body, and the end of the cord fastened to a beam overhead. Still, though faint from the lack of food, parched with thirst, and racked with pain, for his feet were swollen and livid, not a murmur of complaint escaped his lips. And yet this patient endurance seemed scarcely the result of fortitude or heroism; an observer would have said that the inner suffering was so great as to render that of the mere physical frame unheeded. There was the same expression of hopelessness, the same unvarying wretchedness, too deep, too real, to think of giving itself utterance on the face as at his first entrance into the prison; and except that he now and then fixed on one of the hopeless beings who regarded him in silent pity, a mournful, half-beseeching, half-vacant stare, this was all.

That day passed away as others had done; then came another night of dreams, in which loved ones gathered around the hearth-stone of a dear, distant home; dreams broken by the clanking of chains, and the groans of the suffering; and then morning broke. There still hung the poor Kathayan; his face slightly distorted with the agony he was suffering, his lips dry and parched, his cheek pallid and sunken, and his eyes wild and glaring. His breast swelled and heaved, and now and then a sob-like sigh burst forth involuntarily. When the Tiger entered, the eye of the young man immediately fastened on him, and a shiver passed through his frame. The old murderer went his usual rounds with great nonchalance; gave an order here, a blow there, and cracked a malicious joke with a third; smiling all the time that dark, sinister smile, which made him so much more hideous in the midst of his wickedness. At last he approached the Kathayan, who, with a convulsive movement,half raised himself from the ground at his touch, and seemed to contract like a shrivelled leaf.

“Right! right, my son!” said the old man, chuckling. “You are expert at helping yourself, to be sure; but then you need assistance. So—so—so!” and giving the cord three successive jerks, he succeeded, by means of his immense strength, in raising the Kathayan so that but the back of his head, as it fell downward, could touch the floor. There was a quick, short crackling of joints, and a groan escaped the prisoner. Another groan followed, and then another—and another—a heaving of the chest, a convulsive shiver, and for a moment he seemed lost. Human hearts glanced heavenward. “God grant it! Father of mercies, spare him farther agony!” It could not be. Gaspingly came the lost breath back again, quiveringly the soft eyes unclosed; and the young Kathayan captive was fully awake to his misery.

“I can not die so—I can not—so slow—so slow—so slow!” Hunger gnawed, thirst burned, fever revelled in his veins; the cord upon his wrists cut to the bone; corruption had already commenced upon his swollen, livid feet; the most frightful, torturing pains distorted his body, and wrung from him groans and murmurings so pitiful, so harrowing, so full of anguish, that the unwilling listeners could only turn away their heads, or lift their eyes to each other’s faces in mute horror. Not a word was exchanged among them—not a lip had power to give it utterance.

“I can not die so! I can not die so! I can not die so!” came the words, at first moaningly, and then prolonged to a terrible howl. And so passed another day, and another night, and still the wretch lived on.

In the midst of their filth and smothering heat, the prisoners awoke from such troubled sleep as they could gain amid these horrors; and those who could, pressed their feverish lips and foreheads to the crevices between the boards to court the morning breezes. A lady with a white brow, and a lip whose delicate vermilion had not ripened beneath the skies of India, came with food to her husband. By constant importunity had the beautiful ministering angel gained this holy privilege. Her coming was like a gleam of sunlight—a sudden unfolding of the beauties of this bright earth to one born blind. She performed her usual tender ministry and departed.

Day advanced to its meridian; and once more, but now hesitatingly, and as though he dreaded his task, the Tiger drew near the young Kathayan. But the sufferer did not shrink from him as before.

“Quick!” he exclaimed, greedily. “Quick! give me one hand and the cord—just a moment, a single moment—this hand with the cord in it—and you shall be rid of me forever!”

The Tiger burst into a hideous laugh, his habitual cruelty returning at the sound of his victim’s voice.

“Rid of you! not so fast, my son; not so fast. You will hold out a day or two yet. Let me see!” passing his hand along the emaciated, feverish body of the sufferer. “Oh, yes; two days at least, perhaps three; and it may be longer. Patience, my son; you are frightfully strong! Now these joints—why, any other man’s would have separated long ago; but here they stay just as firmly—” As he spoke with a calculating sort of deliberation, the monster gave the cord a sudden jerk, then another, and a third, raising his victim still farther from the floor, and then adjusting it about the beam, walked unconcernedly away. For several minutes the prison rung with the most fearful cries. Shriek followed shriek, agonized, furious, with scarcely a breath between; bellowings, howlings, gnashings of the teeth, sharp, piercing screams, yells of savage defiance; cry upon cry, cry upon cry, with wild superhuman strength, they came; while the prisoners shrank in awe and terror, trembling in their chains. But this violence soon exhausted itself, and the paroxysm passed, giving place to low, sad moans, irresistibly pitiful. This was a day never to be forgotten by the hundred wretched creatures congregated in the gloomy death-prison. The sun had never seemed to move so slowly before. Its setting was gladly welcomed, but yet the night brought no change. Those piteous moans, those agonized groanings seemed no nearer an end than ever.

Another day passed—another night—again day dawned and drew near its close; and yet the poor Kathayan clung to life with frightful tenacity. One of the missionaries, as a peculiar favor, had been allowed to creep into an old shed, opposite the door of the prison; and here he was joined by a companion, just as the day was declining towards evening.

“Oh, will it ever end?” whispered one.

The other only bowed his head between his hands—“Terrible! terrible!”

“There surely can be nothing worse in the West Prison.”

“Can there be anything worse—can there be more finished demons in the pit?”

Suddenly, while this broken conversation was conducted in a low tone, so as not to draw upon the speakers the indignation of their jailers, they were struck by the singular stillness of the prison. The clanking of chains, the murmur and the groan, the heavy breathing of congregated living beings, the bustle occasioned by the continuous uneasy movement of the restless sufferers, the ceaseless tread of the Children of the Prison, and their bullying voices, all were hushed.

“What is it?” in a lower whisper than ever, and a shaking of the head, and holding their own chains to prevent their rattle, and looks full of wonder, was all that passed between the two listeners. Their amazement was interrupted by a dull, heavy sound, as though a bag of dried bones had been suddenly crushed down by the weight of some powerful foot. Silently they stole to a crevice in the boards, opposite the open door. Not a jailer was to be seen; and the prisoners were motionless and apparently breathless, with the exception of one powerful man, who was just drawing the wooden mallet in his hand for another blow on the temple of the suspended Kathayan. It came down with the same dull, hollow, crushing sound; the body swayed from the point where it was suspended by wrist and ankle, till it seemed that every joint must be dislocated; but the flesh scarcely quivered. The blow was repeated, and then another, and another; but they were not needed. The poor captive Kathayan was dead.

The mallet was placed away from sight, and the daring man hobbled back to his corner, dangling his heavy chain as though it had been a plaything, and striving with all his might to look unconscious and unconcerned. An evident feeling of relief stole over the prisoners; the Children of the Prison came back to their places, one by one, and all went on as before. It was some time before any one appeared to discover the death of the Kathayan. The old Tiger declared it was what he had been expecting, that his living on in this manner was quite out of rule; but that those hardy fellows from the hills never would give in while there was a possibility of drawing another breath. Then the poor skeleton was unchained, dragged by the heels into the prison-yard, and thrown into a gutter. It did not, apparently, fall properly, for one of the jailers altered the position of the shoulders by means of his foot; then clutching the long black hair, jerked the head a little farther on the side. Thus the discolored temple was hidden; and surely that emaciated form gave sufficient evidence of a lingering death. Soon after, a party of government officers visited the prison-yard, touched the corpse with their feet, without raising it; and, apparently satisfied, turned away, as though it had been a dead dog that they cared not to give farther attention.

Is it strange that, if one were there with a human heart within him, not brutalized by crime, or steeled by passive familiarity with suffering, he should have dragged his heavy chain to the side of the dead, and dropped upon his sharpened, distorted features the tear, which there was none who had loved him to shed? Is it strange that tender fingers should have closed the staring eyes, and touched gently the cold brow, which throbbed no longer with pain, and smoothed the frayed hair, and composed the passive limbsdecentlydecently, though he knew that the next momentrude hands would destroy the result of his pious labor? And is it strange that when all which remained of the poor sufferer had been jostled into its sackcloth shroud, and crammed down into the dark hole dug for it in the earth, a prayer should have ascended, even from that terrible prison? Not a prayer for the dead; he had received his doom. But an earnest, beseeching, upheaving of the heart for those wretched beings that, in the face of the pure heavens and the smiling earth, confound, by the inherent blackness of their natures, philosopher, priest, or philanthropist, who dares to tickle the ears of the multitude with fair theories of “Natural religion,” and “The dignity of human nature.”

BY MRS. E. C. JUDSON.

Thesunlight fell aslant upon the fragile framework of a Burman zayat; but though it was some hours past midday, the burning rays were not yet level enough to look too intrusively beneath the low projecting eaves. Yet the day was intensely hot, and the wearied occupant of the one bamboo chair in the centre of the building, looked haggard and care-worn. All day long had he sat in that position, repeating over and over again, as he could find listeners, such simple truths as mothers are accustomed to teach the infant on their knees; and now his head was aching, and his heart was very heavy. He had met some scoffers, some who seemed utterly indifferent, but not one sincere inquirer after the truth.

In the middle of the day, when the sun was hottest, and scarcely a European throughout all India was astir, he had received the greatest number of visitors; for the passers-by were glad of a moment’s rest and shelter from the sun. The mats were still spread invitingly upon the floor; but though persons of almost every description were continually passing and repassing, they seemed each intent on his own business, and the missionary was without a listener. He thought of his neglected study-table at home; of his patient, fragile wife, toiling through the numerous cares of the day alone; of the letters his friends were expecting, and which he had no time to write; of the last periodicals from his dear native land, lying still unread; and every little while, between the other thoughts, came real pinings after a delicious little book of devotion, which he had slid into his pocket in the morning, promising it his first moment of leisure. Then he was naturally an active man, of quick, ardenttemperament, and with such views of the worth of time as earnest American men can scarcely fail to gain; and it went to his heart to lose so many precious moments. If he could only do something to fill up these tedious intervals! But no; this was a work to which he must not give a divided mind. He was renewing a half-tested experiment in wayside preaching, and he would not suffer his attention to be distracted by anything else. While his face was hidden by his book, and his mind intent on self-improvement, some poor passer-by might lose a last, an only opportunity, of hearing the words of life. To be sure, his own soul seemed very barren, and needed refreshing; and his body was weary—wearied well-nigh to fainting, more with the dull, palsying inanity of the day’s fruitless endeavors, than with anything like labor. Heavily beat down the hot sun, lighting up the amber-like brown of the thatch as with a burning coal; while thickly in its broad rays floated a heavy golden cloud of dust and motes, showing in what a wretched atmosphere the delicate lungs were called to labor. Meantime a fever-freighted breeze, which had been, all the hot day, sweeping the effluvia from eastern marshes, stirred the glossy leaves of the orange tree across the way, and parched the lip, and kindled a crimson spot upon the wan cheek of the weary missionary.

“God reigns,” he repeated, as though some reminder of the sort were necessary. “God Almighty reigns; and I have given myself to him, soul and body, for time and for eternity. His will be done!” Still, how long the day seemed! How broad the space that blistering sun had yet to travel, before its waiting, its watching, and its laboring would be ended! Might he not indulge himself just one moment? His hand went to his pocket, and the edge of a little book peeped forth a moment, and then, with a decided push, was thrust back again. No; he would not trifle with his duty. He would be sternly, rigidly faithful; and the blessing would surely come in time. Yet it was with an irrepressible yawn that he took up a little Burman tract prepared by himself, of which every word was as familiar as his own name, and commenced reading aloud. The sounds caught the ear of a coarsely-clad water-bearer, and she lowered the vessel from her head, and seated herself afar off, just within the shadow of the low eaves. Attracted by the foreign accent of the reader, few passed without turning the head a few moments to listen; then, catching at some word which seemed to them offensive, they would repeat it mockingly and hasten on.

Finally the old water-bearer, grinning in angry derision till her wrinkled visage became positively hideous, rose, slowly adjusted the earthen vessel on her head, and passed along, muttering as she went, “Jesus Christ!—no Nigban!—ha, ha, ha!” The heart of the missionary sunkwithin him, and he was on the point of laying down the book. But the shadow of another passer-by fell upon the path, and he continued a moment longer. It was a tall, dignified looking man, leading by the hand a boy, the open mirthfulness of whose bright, button-like eyes was in perfect keeping with his dancing little feet. The stranger was of a grave, staid demeanor, with a turban of aristocratic smallness, sandals turning up at the toe, a silken robe of somewhat subdued colors, and a snow-white tunic of gentlemanlike length and unusual fineness.

“Papa, papa!” said the boy, with a merry little skip, and twitching at the hand he was holding, “Look, look, papa!thereis Jesus Christ’s man.Amai!how shockingly white!”

“Jesus Christ’s man” raised his eyes from the book which he could read just as well without eyes, and bestowed one of his brightest smiles upon the little stranger, just as the couple were passing beyond the corner of the zayat, but not too late to catch a bashfully pleased recognition. The father did not speak nor turn his head, but a ray of sunshine went down into the missionary’s heart from those happy little eyes; and he somehow felt that his hour’s reading had not been thrown away. He had remarked this man before in other parts of the town; and had striven in various ways to attract his attention, but without success. He was evidently known, and most probably avoided; but the child, with that shy, pleased, half-confiding, roguish sort of smile, seemed sent as an encouraging messenger. The missionary continued his reading with an increase of earnestness and emphasis. A priest wrapped his yellow robes about him and sat down upon the steps, as though for a moment’s rest. Then another stranger came up boldly, and with considerable ostentation, seated himself on the mat. He proved to be a philosopher, from the school then recently disbanded at Prome; and he soon drew on a brisk, animated controversy.

The missionary did not finish his day’s work with the shutting up of the zayat. At night, in his closet, he remembered both philosopher and priest; pleaded long and earnestly for the scoffing old water-bearer; and felt a warm tear stealing to his eye, as he presented the case of the tall stranger, and the laughing, dancing ray of sunshine at his side.

Day after day went by, as oppressively hot, as dusty, and bringing as many feverish winds as ever; but the hours were less wearisome, because many little buds of hope had been fashioned, which might yet expand into perfect flowers. But every day the tall stranger carried the same imperturbable face past the zayat; and every day the child made some silent advance towards the friendship of the missionary, bending his half-shaven head, and raising his little nut-colored hand to his forehead, by way of salutation, and smiling till his round face dimpled all over likeripples in a sunny pool. One day, as the pair came in sight, the missionary beckoned with his hand, and the child, with a single bound, came to his knee.

“Moung-Moung!” exclaimed the father in a tone of surprise blended with anger. But the child was back again in a moment, with a gay colored Madras handkerchief wound around his head; and with his bright lips parted, his eyes sparkling, and dancing with joy, and his face wreathed with smiles, he seemed the most charming thing in nature. “Tai hlah-the!” (very beautiful) said the child, touching his new turban, and looking into his father’s clouded face, with the fearlessness of an indulged favorite.

“Tai hlah-the!” repeated the father, involuntarily. He meant the child.

“You have a very fine boy there, sir,” said the missionary, in a tone intended to be conciliatory. The stranger turned with a low salaam. For a moment he seemed to hesitate, as though struggling between his native politeness and his desire to avoid an acquaintance with the proselyting foreigner. Then taking the hand of the little boy who was too proud and happy to notice his father’s confusion, he hastened away.

“I do not think that zayat a very good place to go to, Moung-Moung,” said the father, gravely, when they were well out of hearing. The boy answered only by a look of inquiry strangely serious for such a face as his.

“These white foreigners are——.” He did not say what, but shook his head with mysterious meaning. The boy’s eyes grew larger and deeper, but he only continued to look up into his father’s face in wondering silence.

“I shall leave you at home to-morrow, to keep you from his wicked sorceries.”

“Papa!”

“What, my son?”

“I think it will do no good to leave me at home.”

“Why?”

“He has done something to me.”

“Who? theKalah-byoo?”

“I do not think he has hurt me, papa; but I can not—keep—away—no—oh, no!”

“What do you mean, Moung-Moung?”

“The sorcerer has done something to me—put his beautiful eye on me. I see itnow.” And the boy’s own eyes glowed with a strange, startling brilliancy.

“’Mai, ’mai!what a boy!Heis not a sorcerer, only a very provokingman. His eye—whish! It is nothing to my little Moung-Moung. I was only sporting. But we will have done with him; you shall go there no more——”

“If I can help it, papa!”

“Help it! Hear the foolish child! What strange fancies!”

“Papa!”

“What, my son?”

“You will not be angry?”

“Angry!” The soft smile on that stern, bearded face was a sufficient answer.

“Is it true that she—my mother——?”

“Hush, Moung-Moung!”

“Is it true that she evershikoedto the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“Who dares to tell you so?”

“I must not say, papa; the one who told me said it was as much as life is worth to talk of such things toyourson. Did she, papa?”

“What did he mean? Who could have told such a tale?”

“Did she, papa?”

“That is a very prettygoung-boungthe foreigner gave you.”

“Did she?”

“And makes your bright eyes brighter than ever.”

“Did my mothershikoto the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“There, there, you have talked enough, my boy,” said the father, gloomily; and the two continued their walk in silence. As the conversation ceased, a woman who, with a palm-leaf fan before her face, had followed closely in the shadow of the stranger—so closely, indeed, that she might have heard every word that had been spoken—stopped at a little shop by the way, and was soon seemingly intent on making purchases.

“Ko Shway-bay!” called out the missionary. A man bearing a large satchel, which he had just newly filled with books, appeared at the door of an inner apartment of the zayat.

“’Ken-payah!”

“Did you observe the tall man who just passed, leading a little boy?”

“I saw him.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He is a writer under government—a very respectable man—haughty—reserved——”

“And what else?”

“He hates—Christians,Tsayah.”

“Is he very bigoted, then?”

“No,Tsayah; he is more like apäramätthan a Boodhist. Grave as he appears, he sometimes treats sacred things very playfully, always carelessly. But does the teacher remember—it may be now three, four—I do not know how many years ago—a young woman came for medicine——?”

The missionary smiled. “I should have a wonderful memory, Shway-bay, if I carried all my applicants for medicine in it.”

“But this one was not like other women. She had the face of anät-thamee” [goddess or angel], “and her voice—the teachermustremember her voice—it was like the silvery chimes of the pagoda bells at midnight. She was the favorite wife of theSah-ya, and this little boy, her only child, was very ill. She did not dare ask you to the house, or even send a servant for the medicine, for her husband was one of the most violent persecutors——”

“Ay, I do recollect her, by her distress and her warm gratitude. So this is her child! What has become of the mother?”

“Has the teacher forgotten putting a Gospel of Matthew in her hand, and saying that it contained medicine forher, for that she was afflicted with a worse disease than the fever of her little son; and then lifting up his hands and praying very solemnly?”

“I do not recall the circumstance just now. But what came of it?”

“They say,” answered the Burman, lowering his voice, and first casting an investigating glance around him—“they say that the medicine cured her.”

“Ah!”

“She read the book nights, while watching by her baby, and then she would kneel down and pray as the teacher had done. At last theSah-yagot the writing.”

“What did he do with it?”

“Only burnt it. But she was a tender little creature, and could not bear his look; so, as the baby got out of danger, she took the fever—”

“And died?” asked the missionary, remarking some hesitation in the manner of his narrator.

“Not of the fever altogether.”

“What then? Surely,hedid not—”

“No,Tsayah! it must have been an angel-call. TheSah-yawas very fond of her, and did everything to save her; but she just grew weaker, day after day, and her face more beautiful; and there was no holding her back. She got courage as she drew near Paradise, and begged theSah-yato send for you. He is not a hard-hearted man, and she was more than life and soul to him; but he would not send. And so shedied, talking to the last moment of the Lord Jesus Christ, and calling on everybody about her to love him, and worship none but him.”

“Is this true, Shway-bay?”

“I know nothing about it,Tsayah; and it is not very safe to know anything. TheSah-yahas taken an oath to destroy every body having too good a memory. But,”—and the man again looked cautiously around him—“does the teacher think that little Burman children are likely to run into the arms of foreigners without being taught?”

“Aha! say you so, Shway-bay?”

“I say nothing,Tsayah.”

“What of the child?”

“A wonderful boy,Tsayah. He seems usually as you have seen him; but he has another look—so strange! He must have caught something from his mother’s face just before she went up to the golden country.”

The missionary seemed lost in thought; and the assistant, after waiting a moment to be questioned further, slung his satchel over his shoulder, and proceeded up the street.

The next day the missionary remarked that theSah-yawent by on the other side of the way, and without the little boy; and the next day, and the next the same. In the meantime, the wrinkled old water-bearer had become a sincereinquirer.inquirer.“The one shall be taken and the other left,” sighed the missionary, as he tried to discern the possible fate of his bright-eyed little friend.

The fourth day came. The old water-bearer was in an agitated state of joy and doubt—a timid but true believer. The self-confident philosopher had almost ceased to cavil. Fresh inquirers had appeared, and the missionary’s heart was strengthened. “It is dull work,” he said to himself, though without any expression of dullness in his face; “but it is the Saviour’s own appointed way, and the way the Holy Spirit will bless.” Then his thoughts turned to the sternSah-yaand his little boy; and he again murmured, with more of dejection in his manner than when he had spoken of the dullness of the work, “And the other left—the other left!”

The desponding words had scarcely passed his lips when, with a light laugh, the very child who was in his thoughts, and who somehow clung so tenaciously to his heart, sprang up the steps of the zayat, followed by his grave, dignified father. The boy wore his new Madras turban, arranged with a pretty sort of jauntiness, and above its showy folds he carried a red lacquered tray with a cluster of golden plantains on it. Placing the gift at the missionary’s feet, he drew back with a pleasedsmile of boyish shyness, while the man, bowing courteously, took his seat upon the mat.

“Sit down, Moung-Moung, sit down,” said the father, in the low tone that American parents use when reminding careless little boys of their hats; for, though Burmans and Americans differ somewhat in their peculiar notions of etiquette, the children of both races seem equally averse to becoming learners.

“You are the foreign priest,” he remarked civilly, and more by way of introduction than inquiry.

“I am a missionary.”

The stranger smiled, for he had purposely avoided the offensive epithet, and was amused and conciliated by the missionary’s frank use of it. “And so you make people believe in Jesus Christ?”

“I try to.”

The visitor laughed outright; then, as if a little ashamed of his rudeness, he composed his features, and with his usual courtesy resumed, “My little son has heard of you, sir; and he is very anxious to learn something about Jesus Christ. It is a pretty story that you tell of that man—prettier, I think, than any of our fables; and you need not be afraid to set it forth in its brightest colors; for my Moung-Moung will never see through its absurdity, of course.”

The missionary threw a quick, scrutinizing glance on the face of his visitor. He saw that the man was ill at ease, that his carelessness was entirely assumed, and that underneath all, there was a deep, wearing anxiety, which he fancied was in some way connected with his boy. “Ah! you think so? To what particular story do you allude?”

“Why, that of the strange sort of being you call Jesus Christ—anät, or prince, or something of that sort—dying for us poor fellows and so—ha, ha! The absurdity of the thing makes me laugh; though there is something in it beautiful, too. Our stupidpongyeeswould never have thought out anything one half so fine; and the pretty fancy has quite enchanted little Moung-Moung here.”

“I perceive you are apâramät,” said the missionary.

“No—oh, no; I am a true worshipper of Lord Gaudama; but of course neither you nor I subscribe to all the fables of our respective religions. There is quite enough that is honest and reasonable in our Boodhistic system to satisfy me, but my little son” (here the father seemed embarrassed, and laughed again, as though to cover his confusion) “is bent on philosophical investigation—eh, Moung-Moung?”

“But are you not afraid that my teachings will do the child harm?”

The visitor looked up with a broad smile of admiration, as though he would have said, “You are a very honest fellow, after all;” then regardingthe child with a look of mingled tenderness and apprehension, he said softly, “Nothing can harm little Moung-Moung, sir.”

“But what if I should tell you I do believe everything I preach, as firmly as I believe you sit on the mat before me; and that it is the one desire of my life to make everybody else believe it—you and your child among the rest?”

TheSah-yatried to smile, tried to look unconcerned; but his easy nonchalance of manner seemed utterly to forsake him in his need; and finally abandoning the attempt to renew his former tone of banter, he answered quietly, “I have heard of a writing you possess, which, by your leave, I will take home and read to Moung-Moung.”

The missionary selected a little tract from the parcel on the table beside him, and extended it to his visitor. “Sah-ya,” said he, solemnly, “I herewith put into your hands the key to eternal life and happiness. This active, intelligent soul of yours, with its exquisite perception of moral beauty and loveliness,” and he glanced toward the child, “cannot be destined to inhabit a dog, a monkey, or a worm, in another life. God made it for higher purposes; and I hope and pray that I may yet meet you, all beautiful, and pure, and glorious, in a world beyond the reach of pain or death, and above all, beyond the reach of sin.”

Up to this time the boy had sat upon his mat like a statue of silence; his usually dancing eyes fixed steadfastly upon the speakers, and gradually dilating and acquiring a strange, mystic depth of expression, of which they seemed at first incapable. At these words, however, he sprang forward.

“Papa! papa! hear him! Let us both love the Lord Jesus Christ! My mother loved him; and in the golden country of the blest she waits for us.”

“I must go,” said theSah-yahoarsely, and attempting to rise.

“Let us pray!” said the missionary, kneeling down.

The child laid his two hands together, and placing them against his forehead, bowed his head to the mat; while the father yielded to the circumstances of the case so far as to re-seat himself. Gradually, as the fervent prayer proceeded, his head drooped a little; and it was not long before he placed his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands. As soon as the prayer was ended, he rose, bowed in silence, took his child by the hand, and walked away.

Day after day went by, theSah-ya, as he passed the zayat, always saluting its occupant respectfully, but evincing no disposition to cultivate his acquaintance farther. He was accompanied by the boy less often than formerly; but, from casual opportunities, the missionary remarked that a strange look of thoughtfulness had crept into the childish face,softening and beautifying, though scarcely saddening it. And when occasionally the little fellow paused for a moment, to ask for a book, or exchange a word of greeting, the gay familiarity of his manner seemed to have given place to a tender, trustful affection, somewhat tinctured with awe.

Meanwhile that terrible scourge of Eastern nations, the cholera, had made its appearance, and it came sweeping through the town with its usual devastating power. Fires were kindled before every house, and kept burning night and day; while immense processions continually thronged the streets with gongs, drums, and tom-toms, to frighten away the evil spirits, and so arrest the progress of the disease. The zayat was closed for lack of visitors; and the missionary and his assistants busied themselves in attending on the sick and dying.

It was midnight when the over-wearied foreigner was roused from his slumbers by the calls of the faithful Ko Shway-bay.

“Teacher, teacher, you are wanted!”

“Where?”

The man lowered his voice almost to a whisper; but, putting his hands to each side of his mouth, sent the volume of sound through a crevice in the boards. “At theSah-ya’s.”

“Who?”

“I do not know,Tsayah. I only heard that the cholera was in the house, and the teacher was wanted, and so I hurried off as fast as possible.”

In a few minutes the missionary had joined his assistant, and they proceeded on their way together. As they drew near the house, the Burman paused in the shadow of a bamboo hedge.

“It is not good for either of us, that we go in together; I will wait you here,Tsayah.”

“No, you need rest; and I shall not want you—go!”go!”

Theverandahverandahwas thronged with relatives and dependents; and from an inner room came a wild, wailing sound, which told that death was already there. No one seemed to observe the entrance of the foreigner; and he followed the sound of woe till he stood by the corpse of a little child. Then he paused in deep emotion.

“He has gone up to the golden country, to bloom forever amid the royal lilies of Paradise,” murmured a voice close to his ear.

The missionary, a little startled, turned abruptly. A middle-aged woman, holding a palm-leaf fan to her mouth, was the only person near him.

“He worshipped the true God,” she continued, suffering the individuality of her voice to glide away and mingle the wail of the mourners, andoccasionally slurring a word which she dared not pronounce with distinctness; “he worshipped the true God, and trusted in the Lord our Redeemer—the Lord Jesus Christ, he trusted in Him. He called and he was answered, he was weary, weary and in pain; and the Lord who loved him, He took him home to be a little golden lamb in His bosom forever.”

“How long, since, did he go?”

“About an hour,Tsayah.” Then joining in the wail again, “An hour amid the royal lilies; and his mother—his own beautiful mother—she of the starry eyes and silken hand——”

“Was he conscious?”

“Conscious and full of joy.”

“What did he talk of?”

“Only of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose face he seemed to see!”

“And his father?”

“His father—oh, my master! my noble master! he is going, too! Come and see.Tsayah!”

“Who sent for me?”

“Your handmaid, sir.”

“Not theSah-ya?”

The woman shook her head. “The agony was on him—he could not have sent, if he would.”

“But how daredyou?”

There was a look such as might have been worn by the martyrs of old upon the woman’s face as she expressly answered, “God was here!”

In the next apartment lay the fine figure of theSah-ya, stretched upon a couch, evidently in the last stage of the fearful disease—his pain all gone.

“It grieves me to meet you thus, my friend,” remarked the visitor, by way of testing the dying man’s consciousness.

TheSah-yamade a gesture of impatience. Then his fast stiffening lips stirred, but they were powerless to convey a sound; there was a feeble movement, as though he would have pointed at something, but his half-raised finger wavered and sunk back again; and a look of dissatisfaction amounting to anxiety passed over his countenance. Finally renewing the effort, he succeeded in laying his two hands together, and with some difficulty lifted them to his forehead; and then quietly and calmly closed his eyes.

“Do you trust in Lord Gaudama in a moment like this?” inquired the missionary, uncertain for whom the act of worship was intended. There was a quick tremor in the shut lids, and the poorSah-yaunclosed his eyes with an expression of mingled pain and disappointment;while the death-heavy hands slid from their position back upon the pillow.

“Lord Jesus, receive hisspirit,”spirit,”exclaimed the missionary, solemnly.

A bright, joyous smile flitted across the face of the dying man, parting the lips, and even seeming to shed light upon the glazed eyes; a sigh-like breath fluttered his bosom for a moment; the finger which he had before striven to lift, pointed distinctly upward, then fell heavily across his breast; and the disembodied spirit stood in the presence of its Maker.

The thrilling death-wail commenced with the departure of the breath; for although several who had been most assiduous in their attentions, glided away when it was ascertained that he who would have awarded their fidelity was gone; there were yet many who were prevented, some by real affection, some by family pride, from so far yielding to their fears, as to withhold the honors due to the departed.

“You had better go now,” whispered the woman, “you can do no further good, and may receive harm.”

“And who are you that you have braved the danger to yourself of bringing me here?”

“Pass on, and I will tell you.”

They drew near the body of the child, which, by the rush to the other apartment, had been left, for a moment, alone.

“See!” said the woman, lifting the cloth reverently. A copy of the Gospel of Matthew lay on his bosom.

“Who placed it there?”

“He did, with his own dear little hand—Amai! amai-ai!” and the woman’s voice gave expression to one swell of agony, and then died away in a low wail, like that which proceeded from the adjoining room. Presently she resumed, “I was his mother’s nurse. She got this book of you, sir. We thought my master burned it, but he kept, and maybe studied it. Do you think that he became a true believer?”

“To whom did heshikoat the last moment,Mah-aa?”

“To the Lord Jesus Christ—I am sure of that. Do you think the Lord would receive him, sir?”

“Do you ever read about the thief who was crucified with the Saviour?”

“Oh, yes; I read it to Moung-Moung this very day. He was holding his mother’s book when the disease smote him; and he kept it in his hand, andwent up, with it lying on his bosom. Yes, I remember.”

“The Lord Jesus Christ is just as merciful now as he was then.”

“And so they are all——oh,’ken-payah! it is almost too much to believe!”

“When did you first become acquainted with this religion,Mah-aa?”

“My mistress taught me, sir; and made me promise to teach her baby when he was old enough; and to go to you for more instruction. But I was alone, and afraid. I sometimes got as far as the big banyan tree on the corner, and crawled away again so trembling with terror, that I could scarcely stand upon my feet. At last I found out Ko Shway-bay, and he promised to keep my secret; and he gave me books, and explained their meaning, and taught me how to pray, and I have been getting courage ever since. I should not much mind now, if they did find me out and kill me. It would be very pleasant to go up to Paradise. I think I should even like to go to-night, if the Lord would please to take me.”

It was two or three weeks before the missionary resumed his customary place in the zayat by the wayside. His hearers were scattered widely; in the neighboring jungles, in far-off towns, and in that other place from whence “no traveller returns.”

Where was his last hopeful inquirer?

Dead.

Where the priest?

Dead.

Where the philosopher?

Fled away, none knew whither.

And the poor old water-bearer?

Dead—died like a dog in its kennel; and but that some pitying Christian had succeeded in discovering her at the last moment, without a human witness. But—and the missionary’s heart swelled with gratitude to God as he thought of—there were other witnesses, nobler, tenderer, dearer to that simple, lone old creature, than all the earthly friends that ever thronged a death-bed; and these had been her bright, rejoicing convoy to the Saviour’s presence.

Oh! how full of awe, how fearfully laden with the solemn interests of eternity, appeared this wondrous work of his! And how broad and clear seemed his sacred commission, as though at that moment newly traced by the finger of Jehovah!

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