We are With Judson (Dr. Adoniram Judson, the Apostle of Burmah) one day, in the zayat by the wayside. It is noon; and the sun is pouring down his rays upon the thin, fragile roof, In the center of the floor beneath, the missionary is seated, in a bamboo chair, haggard and careworn, for he has suffered greatly for Christ’s sake. He takes up a Burmese tract, written by himself, and reading it aloud, waits, hoping some native as he passes may be arrested, and enter in. Just at that moment a stranger, tall and dignified, comes up, leading by the hand a bright eyed, sprightly boy. “Papa! Papa!” says the latter, “look, look, Papa, there is Jesus Christ’s man.” The father does not speak or turn his head; but day after day, as they pass, the child regularly smiles at “Jesus Christ’s man,” as if recognizing in him a friend.
One evening the missionary calls a native convert. “Did you ever observe the tall man who has 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. . . but does the teacher remember, it may be now three, four, I know not how many years ago, a young woman came for medicine? 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.”
“Ah, I do recollect her, by her distress, and by 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 it contained medicine for her for she was afflicted with a worse disease than the fever of her little son; and then praying?”
“I do not recall the circumstance just now. But what came of it?”
“They say,” answered the Burman, lowering his voice, “the medicine cured her.”
A few days passed, and who should spring up the steps of the zayat but the child, and behind him, his grave, dignified father, who, with 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, here, has heard of you, sir,” he added, with an air of assumed carelessness, but betraying to Judson’s practiced eye a deep, wearing anxiety, “and he is very anxious to learn something about Jesus Christ. It is a pretty story you tell of that Man, prettier, I think, than any of our fables.”
“Ah, you think so? To what particular story do you allude?”
“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 absurdity of the thing makes me laugh, though there is something beautiful in it, too. I am a true and faithful worshipper of Lord Gautama; but of course neither you nor I subscribe to all the fables of our respective religions.”
“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?”...
One night, very late, the weaned missionary was roused from his slumbers. “Teacher! teacher! you are wanted.” And in a few minutes he was hastening to a house where cholera was raging. He entered the verandah, and proceeded to an inner room, where wild wailing intimated the presence of death. A few moments more, and he was gazing, in intense emotion, on thy corpse of a little boy.
“He is gone up to the golden country,” murmured a voice close to his ear, “to bloom forever amid the royal lilies of paradise.”
Startled, and turning abruptly, he had before him a middle-aged woman, holding to her mouth a palm leaf fan. Slurring over an occasional word, she dared not pronounce distinctly, she added, “He worshipped the true God, and trusted in the Lord our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ; He trusted in Him; he called and was answered; he was 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.”
“Was he conscious?”
“Yes, and full of joy.”
“What did he talk of?”
“Only the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose face he seemed to see.”
“And his father?” inquired Judson, anxiously.
“His father! oh my master! he is going too. Come and see.”
They moved forward together to the next apartment, where in the last stage of the disease lay his noble figure.
“Do you trust in Lord Gautama at a moment like this?” inquired the missionary softly. The eyes were unclosed, with a look of mingled pain and disappointment.
“Lord Jesus, receive his spirit!” exclaimed Judson, kneeling at the side of the dying man. A smile flitted across the pale face, as if the sacred Name had touched a kindred chord within. The finger pointed upward, then fell heavily on his breast. A moment later, he was with the Lord.
“You had better go now,” whispered the woman; “you can do no further good, and may receive harm.”
They once more stood by the corpse of the child, which the mourners, by the rush to the inner apartment, had suddenly left alone.
“See!” she said, softly, lifting the cloth reverently. Judson looked, and on the toy’s bosom lay a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. “Who placed it there?”
“He did, with his own dear hand. I was his mother’s nurse,” she continued, after a pause. “She got this book from you, sir. We thought my master had burned it; but he kept, and maybe, studied it. Do you think he became a true believer?”
“Whom did he worship at the last moment?”
“The Lord Jesus Christ, I am sure of that. Do you think the Lord would receive him, sir?”
“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 smote him; and he kept it in his hand, and went 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” she exclaimed, gathering before her mind’s eye the three departed, now with Christ above. “Oh, it is almost too much to believe!”
“But where,” asked Judson, “did you first become acquainted with this religion?”
“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 should not mind now,” she added, “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 tonight, if the Lord would please to take me.”
Sel.