SOME of you, dear young friends, may have heard of Dr. Judson, the first Missionary to Burmah, and of his persecution and imprisonment because he laboured for the heathen in that dark land.
In his youth he had wandered in the paths of folly, but when, through the grace of God, he had been led to see his danger, and to flee to Jesus for the salvation of his undying soul, he longed to tell others of the Saviour of sinners. He had heard of Burmah as a place where the people were sunk in idolatry, and where the name of Jesus was neither known nor loved, so he resolved to go out there, and preach to them.
He had much difficulty in learning the language of the natives. As soon; however, as he had succeeded in translating part of the New Testament, he began to teach these poor heathens. One of his plans was this. He built a zayat, or shed, by the roadside, to shelter him from the burning sun; and there, day after day, he used to sit, and read aloud, so that persons passing by might be brought to listen to “the words of eternal life.” He was thus employed one day, when a Burmese officer, tall, and dignified in appearance and manner, whom he had often noticed in the town, came up, leading by the hand a bright-eyed, sprightly boy.
“Papa! Papa!” said the child, pulling the arm of his grave father, “look, look, Papa! there is Jesus Christ’s man! amai! how shockingly white!”
The Missionary, raising his eyes, gave the child one of his brightest smiles, just as he was leaving the zayat. The father did not speak or turn his head; but the boy had caught the kind look, and the wearied Missionary somehow felt that his hour’s reading had not been thrown away.
Day after day went by, the stranger always carrying the same determined look but every day the child made some slight 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, like ripples on a sunny pool. One day as the father and child came in sight, the Missionary beckoned with his hand, and the child, with a single bound, came to his knee. The Missionary wound a gay-colored Madras handkerchief round his head, and kissed him, and instantly he ran back to his father’s side.
“Very beautiful!” exclaimed the child, touching his new turban, and looking into his father’s clouded face, his eyes sparkling, and his face covered with smiles.
“Very beautiful!” repeated the father, meaning not the turban, but his darling’s lovely countenance.
“You have a very fine boy there, sir,” said Mr. Judson, in a kindly tone, stepping out to the roadside. The officer, somewhat confused, made a low bow, and passed on.
“That zayat, Moung Moung,” said the father gravely, as they walked along, “is not a very good place to go to. Those white foreigners are—” he left the sentence unfinished; but a mysterious shake of the head showed what he meant to say. The child gazed into his face in silence, and after a while, the father said, “I shall leave you at home tomorrow, to keep you from his wicked sorceries.”
“I do not think he has hurt me, Papa,” at last whispered the child; “but I cannot keep away—no, no!”
“What do you mean, Moung Moung?” said the father, startled by the child’s manner, and especially by the strange brightness of his eye.
“The sorcerer has done something to me—he put his beautiful eye on me.”
“He is not a sorcerer—only a very provoking man. His eye, oh! it is nothing to my little Moung Moung. I was only in fun; but we will have done with him; you shall go there no more.”
“If I can help it, Papa.”
“Help it,” replied the father, who seemed very uneasy. “Hear the foolish child! What strange fancies!” And for a few moments, as they walked along, there was silence.
“Is it true,” asked the child, after a little time, looking up with a smile, but yet with a serious expression, into the stern face of his father, “that she—my mother—”
“Hush, Moung Moung.”
“Is it true,” urged the child, “that she prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ?”
“Who dares to tell you so, Mating Moung?”
“I must not say, Papa; the one who told me said it was as much as his life was worth to talk of such things to your son. Did she, Papa?”
“What did they mean? Who could have told you such a tale?”
“But did she, Papa?”
“That is a very pretty turban the foreigner gave you,” said the father, trying to divert the child’s attention.
“Tell me, did she—did my mother pray to Jesus Christ?” repeated the boy, with increasing earnestness.
“There, there,” said the officer, “you have talked enough, my boy.”
As they walked along, a woman, with a palm leaf fan before her face, had been following so closely in the steps of the stranger as to catch almost every word of this conversation; she now stopped at a shop by the way, and seemed intent on purchasing some goods. This woman proved afterward to be the child’s nurse, and from her. Dr. J. received the account of this conversation.
Meanwhile, the missionary was still sitting in the zayat, thoughtful and serious. “Ko Shway-bay,” he at length called out; and there appeared at the door of an inner apartment a native convert, bearing a large bag, which he had just been filling with tracts and books.
“Did you ever notice the tall man who has just passed leading a little boy?”
“I saw him. He is a writer under government; a very respectable man—proud, reserved.”
“And what else do you know about him?” “He hates Christians, teacher.”
“Is he very bigoted then?”
“No, teacher; he is more like a pärämat than a Buddhist. Serious as he seems, he sometimes treats sacred things very lightly.”
“But does the teacher remember,” continued the convert, “it may be three or four years ago, a young woman who came for medicine?”
“I should have a wonderful memory, Shway bay,” said the Missionary, smiling, “if I remembered all my patients who come for medicine.”
“But this one,” said Shway-bay, “was not like other women. She had the face of an angel, and her voice was like the chimes of the pagoda-bells at midnight. She was the favorite wife of this stranger whom you have noticed, and this little bay, her only child, was very ill. She did not dare to ask you to the house, or even to send a servant for the medicine, for her husband was one of the most violent persecutors of the Christians.”
“Ay, I do recollect her; I remember her distress, and her warm gratitude. And so this is her child! What has become of the mother?”
“Has the teacher forgot putting a Gospel of Matthew into her hand, and saying that it contained medicine for her, for that she was afflicted with a worse disease than the fever of her little son—and then praying for her?”
“I do not remember the circumstance just now; but what came of it?”
“They say,” answered the Burman, lowering his voice, “that the medicine cured her. She read her book at night, while watching by her baby, and then she would kneel down and pray as the teacher had done. At last her husband got the book.”
“What did he do with it?”
“Only burned it. But she was a tender little creature, and when the baby got out of danger, she took the fever.”
“And died?”
“Not of the fever altogether; but she first grew weaker day after day, and her face became more beautiful, and they saw she was dying. She got courage as she drew near Paradise, and begged her husband to send for you. He was not a hard-hearted man, yet much as he loved her, he would not send; and so she died, talking to the last moment of the Lord Jesus, and calling on everybody about her to love Him, and to worship none but Him.”
“Is that all you Shway bay?” said Dr. Judson.
“That is all; but the father has taken an oath to destroy everybody who speaks of it; but the teacher may be sure the little child would not run into his arms unless he had been taught about Jesus.”
Shway-bay having told the Missionary all he knew, slung his bag of books over his shoulder, and walked up the street.
The next day the officer passed by on the other side of the way, and without the little boy. This he did the day after, and again on the third day. But on the fourth morning, who should spring up the steps of the zayat but the child, full of spirits, and behind him his grave, dignified father. The boy had on his bead the new turban, on which was placed a red tray bearing a cluster of golden plantains. The gift he placed at Mr. Judson’s feet, and the father, with a courteous bow, took his seat upon the mat.
“You are the foreign priest,” he said, after calling to his child to sit down by his side.
“I am a Missionary,” said Dr. Judson. “And so,” replied the stranger, smiling, “you make people believe in Jesus Christ. My little son here has heard of you, Sir,” he added, in a careless tone (yet not so careless but that the. Missionary could discover some anxiety underneath), “and he is very desirous to learn something about Jesus Christ. It is a pretty story you tell of Him—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 foolishness, of course.”
“You think so,” said Dr. J.; “to what particular story do you refer?”
“Why, that strange story about a person you call Jesus Christ—a great prince, or something of that sort—who, you say, died for us poor fellows; and the pretty fancy has quite delighted little Moung Moung here.”
“I think you are a pärämat.”
“No! oh, no! I am a true and faithful worshipper of Lord Gautama. But, of course, neither you nor I believe all the fables of our respective religions.”
“Are you not afraid that my teachings will do the child harm?” asked Dr. Judson.
“You are a very honest fellow, after all,” said the visitor, looking at him with a smile; then turning to the child, he added, in a tone of mixed tenderness and fear, “Nothing can harm little Moung Moung, Sir.”
“But,” replied Dr. Judson, “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 heart to make everybody else believe it —you and your child among the rest?”
The father tried to smile, but he looked as if he thought it wrong to do so, and quietly answered, “I have heard of a writing you possess, which, by your leave, I will take home, and read to Moung Moung.”
“Sah-ya,” said Dr. Judson, solemnly holding out to him a tract, which he had taken from a parcel lying on the table, “I herewith put into your hands the key of eternal life and happiness. This active, intelligent soul of yours cannot be intended to dwell in another life, in a dog, a monkey, or a worm. 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.”
The child up to this time had sat like a statue, his usually dancing eyes fixed on Dr. Judson; at these words, however, he sprang forward, and cried out “Papa, Papa, hear Min! Let us both love the Lord Jesus Christ. My mother loved Him, and in the golden country of the blessed she is waiting for us.”
“I must go,” whispered the officer, hoarsely, and attempting to rise.
“Let us pray,” said the Missionary, kneeling down; and the child placed his hands together on his forehead bowing his head to the mat, whilst the father again sat down. As he prayed, the Sah-ya’s head gradually drooped, and, placing his elbows on his knees, he covered his face with his hands. When the prayer was ended, he rose up, and, taking the child by the hand, he bowed in silence, and went away.
The Missionary often saw them after this interview walking past his zayat, but the Sah-ya only bowed to him, and seemed as if he wished to shun all further acquaintance. The boy was not often with him; but occasionally the little fellow would come running up for a moment to ask for a book, when the Missionary could notice his thoughtful manner.
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 tomtoms to frighten away the evil spirits, and so arrest, as they thought in their ignorance and blindness, the progress of the disease. Dr. Judson’s zayat was closed for lack of visitors; and he and his assistants busied themselves in attending on the sick and dying.
At length, one night, very late, when all was still, and the wearied Missionary had gone to rest, the faithful assistant aroused him, crying “Teacher teacher! you are wanted.”
The cholera had already carried off a great number of the inhabitants of the town, and now it had entered the house of the Sah-ya. The Missionary hastened to the spot, and passed through a crowd of relatives and. servants to an inner room, where a wild wailing sound told the tale that death had entered before him. A few moments more, and he beheld the corpse of the 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.”
On turning, he saw a middle-aged woman, holding to her mouth a palm-leafed fan, and fearing to pronounce all the words she uttered distinctly. She was the same person whom he had seen following little Moung Moung and his father. She added—
“He worshipped the true God, and trusted in the Lord our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. He called, and was answered; he was weary—weary, and in pain—but the Lord loved him, and took him home to be a little lamb in his bosom forever.”
“How long since did he go?”
“About an hour, teacher.”
“Was he sensible?”
“Yes, and full of joy.”
“What did he talk of?”
“Only of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose face he seemed to see.”
“And his father?” inquired Dr. J.
“Oh, my master! my noble master! He is going too! Come and see, teacher.”
“Who sent for me?”
“Your handmaid, Sir.”
“Not the Sah-ya?”
“The agony was on him; he could not have sent, if he would.”
“But how dared you?”
“God was here,” said she, with a heavenly smile lighting up her dark face.
They went into the next room, where, stretched on a couch, lay the noble figure of the Sah-ya, in the last stage of the disease.
“It grieves me to meet you thus,” said the visitor. The lips moved, but no sound.
“Do you trust in the Lord Gautama at a moment like this?” inquired the Missionary, softly, but with much feeling. The eyes were unclosed, and, with a look of pain and disappointment, he dropped his hands upon the pillow.
“Lord Jesus, receive his spirit!” cried Dr. Judson.
A smile passed across the face of the dying man, as if the precious name was dear to him. His finger pointed upwards, his hand then fell heavily on his breast, and his spirit was gone.
“And who are you,” inquired Dr. J., addressing himself to the woman, “that you have endangered yourself by bringing me here?”
“Pass on, and I will tell you. See,” she said, softly, and almost choked with grief, and at the same time lifting the cloth which covered the dear child. Dr. J. looked, and on his bosom lay a copy of the Gospel of Matthew.
“He placed it there with his own dear hand. Amai! amai, ai!” and her voice was again lost in an outburst of grief “I was,” continued she, “his mother’s nurse. She got this book from you, Sir. She thought my master had burned it; but he kept, and maybe studied it. Do you think that he became a true believer?”
“To whom did he pray at that last moment?” asked Dr. Judson.
“To 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 Moung Moung this very day. He was holding his mother’s book when the disease smote him, and he kept it in his hand all the time. Yes, I remember, the Lord Jesus Christ is just as merciful now as he was then. And so they are all,” she exclaimed, “now with Christ above. Oh! it is almost too much to believe.”
“But where,” asked Dr. Judson, “did you become acquainted with this religion, Wah-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 ban-yan tree on the corner, and crawled away again, so trembling with terror that I could scarcely stand on my feet. At last I found out Ko Shway-bay, and he promised to keep my secret, and he gave me books, 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 tonight, if the Lord would please to take me.”
And many such will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of that Saviour whose precious name has been preached to them by His servants.