ADONIRAM JUDSON was born in 1788, in the town of Malden, in the United States. His father was a Congregational minister, whose ambition for his son was that he should excel in learning. Adoniram was no ordinary boy, and at school earned the nickname of “Old Virgil dug up," and books were his delight. He possessed great powers for work, and fully satisfied his father's wishes, and was as prosperous in college as at school. A brilliant success in life seemed assured to him, in whatever path he might choose to seek it.
The moral and religious influence of college life was sad indeed on Judson. Infidelity was the fashion with young America of that day; learning and skepticism were united together in the seminaries of liberal education. Amongst the most eager of the skeptic young men in his college was E., and Judson made him his idol. E. was a deist, and under his influence Judson deliberately turned his back upon God.
Having completed his education, Judson set out for a tour on horseback through the Northern States, and on his journey met a clergyman, whose earnest Christian appeals shook the young man's infidelity. The day he left the pious clergyman's company, Judson ended his day's ride at the door of a country inn. The landlord told him he could only give him a room next to that occupied by a young man who was dying, but Judson assured him it would not, disturb his rest. However, he could not sleep, questions would arise in his mind about the future state; was the dying man prepared for the change which awaited him? Was there indeed a hell and a heaven? The sufferer was young, Judson could but think of himself, and also of E., his friend the skeptic. In vain he tried to argue himself to the assurance that death was a perpetual sleep. The appeals of the clergyman he had just left followed him, and he passed a night of wretchedness.
The next morning the landlord told him the young man had died, and on Judson asking if he knew his name, replied “E., from Providence College."
Judson returned to his own room, and there for several hours the awful words "Dead! Lost! Lost!" ran through his soul. He was overwhelmed with the sense of his sin and misery, and as he returned home, he did so with the longing for salvation.
By slow degrees light entered his soul, and at length he was enabled to trust in God. Being truly converted, desire to work as a missionary possessed him. One day, during a walk in the woods near his college, the words “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," were presented to his mind with such clearness and power that he came to a full decision ; and in spite of great difficulties, resolved to become a missionary.
Some two years after this, Judson, together with four others, set sail for India. They were welcomed at Calcutta by the Christians there, but the East India Company regarded them with no favor, and finally drove them away from their missionary purposes. “We were reported to the police," says Judson,” and an account of our arrival forwarded to the supreme government in Bengal. It became, therefore, a moral certainty that as soon as an order could be received at Madras, we should be again arrested, and ordered to England. Our only safety appeared to consist in escaping from Madras before such an order should arrive. I enquired after the destination of vessels in the Madras Roads, but found none that would sail in season. However, there was one bound to Rangoon A mission to Rangoon we had been accustomed to regard with feelings of honor But it was now brought to a point. We must either venture there or be sent to Europe. All other paths were shut up; and thus situated, though dissuaded by all our friends at Madras, we commended ourselves to the care of God, and embarked."
Judson and his brave wife reached Rangoon, and established their home in the mission house, which had been erected by a former missionary about half a mile outside the town walls.
Rangoon they found miserable and wretched; hut its long dirty streets led up to one of the most magnificent temples of Burmah, in which it is said are enshrined some of the real hairs of Gautama, the father of that huge and awful system of idolatry, Buddhism, which enslaves millions of the human race. The temple is thus described by Dr. Malcolm: —
“What terrible grandeur! What sickening magnificence! What absurd imagery! What extravagant expenditure! What long successions of devotees to procure this throng of buildings of such various dates! What a poor religion that makes such labors its chief meritoriousness! Before you stands the huge Shoo-da-gon, its top among the clouds, and its golden sides blazing in the glories of an eastern sun. Around are pompous zayats, noble pavements, Gothic mausoleums, uncouth colossal lions, curious stone umbrellas, graceful cylindrical banners of gold, embroidered muslins hanging from lofty pillars , enormous stone jars in rows to receive offerings, tapers burning before the images, exquisite flowers displayed on every side, filling the air with fragrance, and a multitude of carved figures of idols, worshippers, guardians, griffins."
Here were the worshippers, with uplifted hands, repeating their prayers with the aid of rosaries, rendering offerings to the images and the priests of the temple. From the parapets of the temple opened out a scene of wealth and beauty, grandeur and power, utterly unlike Rangoon, “the city of bamboo huts “with its swarming population of poor.
Our reader should know something of Buddhism. Gautama, its founder, flourished in Hindustan about six hundred years before Christ, and his teachings were handed down by tradition, through five centuries and' then reduced to writing. In the tenth century of the Christian era, Buddhism became the established religion of Burmah. Dr. Judson explains to us, that the eternal existence of matter and of finite spirits— the rule of Fate—the transmigration of souls, and final extinction, as the supreme good to be looked for, are among its leading doctrines. “All beings are continually revolving on the great wheel of transmigration, from man to monster or the vilest reptile from the celestial inhabitant of the upper heavens to the blackest demon of the lowest hell," and the only hope for any is extinction!
Hopeless religion! offering no rest, no peace, having no atonement for sin, save a kind of purgatorial suffering, and entirely destitute of the knowledge of God. But this awful religion is that of some five hundred millions of the human race!
Such was the battle-field into which Judson had entered, and his plan of attack was to proclaim the one living and eternal God, the Judge of All, the Upholder of All, and His Son, the one and only Way to God and through Christ alone Atonement for sin.
The language of Burmah is most difficult for a foreigner to acquire, and Judson had neither grammar nor dictionary, nor any teacher to help him. But within three years Judson had prepared a grammar of the language! He studied the sacred books of the country, and despite his labor allowed his soul no chill to its ardor for the salvation of the heathen.
A few years later he acquired a printing press, and by the aid of the printers' art began a warfare against the darkness of paganism. In 1817 he writes: “Our hands are full from morning to night. I cannot for my life translate as fast as brother Hough will print . . . Will the Christian world ever awake? Will means ever be used adequate to the necessities of the heathen world."
And in the same year we find his wife writing of his printed papers: “They are well understood by those who read them. Many have called at the mission house to enquire more particularly about the new religion."
The excessive labors of the missionaries brought illness and exhaustion upon brave Judson, trials followed trials, so that the life of the mission seemed to tremble in the balance. He says: “One malicious intimation to the king would occasion our banishment, which would include the confiscation of all property. But as he viewed his lot, and the precarious position of his very life, he added, “Let us remember that the Son of God chose to become incarnate under the most unprincipled and cruel despot that ever reigned "—and he held on in firm faith in God, willing to live or to die as He might will. These are his words: "O for grace to strengthen faith, to animate hope, to elevate affection, to embolden the soul, to enable us to look danger and death in the face." "To your prayers I desire once more to commend myself— the weakest, the most unqualified, the most unworthy, and the most unsuccessful of missionaries."