IT WAS A hot day in Burma and Dr. Judson the missionary was seated in a bamboo chair on the verandah by the roadside. He was tired and careworn, for he had suffered much for Christ. Taking up a tract which he himself had written in Burmese, he read it aloud, hoping that some passerby might come in to listen.
Just at that moment a stranger, tall and dignified, came up, leading by the hand a bright-eyed, sprightly little boy.
“Daddy,” exclaimed the little fellow, “look, look, there is Jesus Christ’s man!” But the father did not so much as turn his head.
Day after day the two came by, and each time the boy smiled regularly at “Jesus Christ’s man,” as if recognizing him as his friend.
One evening the missionary asked a native Christian, “Did you see that tall man with the little boy go by? What do you know about him?”
“He is a government writer,” replied the native, “a very respectable, but haughty man.... He hates Christians. Don’t you remember several years ago a young mother came for medicine? This little boy was her only child, and he was very sick. She did not dare send to ask you to come to the house, for her husband was a violent persecutor.”
“Oh I remember her now,” returned Judson. “She was in great distress, but showed such warm gratitude. So this is her child! But what became of the mother?”
“Have you forgotten how you put a Gospel of Matthew in her hand saying it contained medicine for her for she had a worse disease than her son’s fever; then you prayed? Well, they say, ‘the medicine cured her.’ "
A few days passed and who should come springing up the steps of the porch but the little boy, and behind him his grave, dignified father, who after a courteous bow took his seat on the mat. “You are the foreign priest?” he remarked by way of introduction.
“I am a missionary,” was the reply.
“And so you make people believe in Jesus Christ? My little son has heard of you, sir,” he added with an assumed careless air, but which betrayed underneath a deep anxiety; “and he is very anxious to learn something about Jesus Christ. It is a pretty story you tell of that Man — prettier than our fables.”
“Oh, you think so? But what story do you refer to?”
“Why that strange sort of a Being you call Jesus Christ, a great Prince or something of that sort, dying for us poor fellows. The thing is absurd and makes me laugh, though there is something beautiful in it too. I myself am a true and faithful worshiper of Gautama.”
“But I believe everything I preach as firmly as I believe you sit on that mat before me,” exclaimed Judson, “and it is the desire of my life to make everyone else believe it, you and your child among the rest.”
One night, very late, the wearied missionary was roused from his sleep. “Teacher! you’re wanted!” And in a few minutes he was happening to a house where cholera was raging. The next moment he was gazing on the lifeless form of the little boy.
“He’s gone up to the golden country,” murmured a voice close to his ear, “to bloom forever in paradise.” The speaker was a middle-aged woman, who fearing to speak aloud whispered softly; “He worshiped the true God, and trusted in the Lord our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.... He was weary and in pain, and the Lord who loved him took His little lamb home to be in His bosom forever.”
“Was he conscious at the end, and what did he talk about?”
“Oh yes, and he talked only of the Lord Jesus, whose face he seemed to see.”
“And what about his father?” “His father, my master? He’s going too. Come, and see.”
She led him into the next room where lay the noble figure in the last stages of the dread disease.
“Do you trust in Lord Gautama now?” inquired the missionary softly. A look of pain and disappointment crossed the man’s face.
“Lord Jesus, receive his spirit,” prayed Judson, kneeling at his side. A smile passed over the pale face, as if the sacred Name had touched a kindred chord within. With his finger he pointed upward, and a moment later, he was gone — to be with the Lord.
Once more they stood by the bedside of the little boy, now silent in death. “See,” said the lady, lifting the cloth reverently, and Judson saw on the child’s bosom a copy of Matthew’s Gospel.
“He placed it there with his own dear hand,” she went on. “I was his mother’s nurse. She got this Book from you, sir. We thought my master had burned it, but he kept it, and maybe studied it.”
“Whom did he worship at the last?”
“The Lord Jesus Christ, I am sure of that. Do you think the Lord would receive him?”
“Did you ever read about the thief who was crucified with the Saviour?”
“Oh yes! I read it to the boy this very day. He was holding his mother’s Book when the disease struck him, and he kept it in his hand until the end.”
“But where did you first become acquainted with the gospel?” asked Judson.
“My mistress taught me, sir, and she made me promise before she died to teach her baby when he was old enough, and to go to you for more instruction. But I was alone and afraid. I should not mind now,” she added, “if they did find me out and kill me. It would be wonderful to go up to paradise. I think I should even like to go tonight, if the Lord would please to take me.”
ML-03/19/1972