CHAPTER VIII.
"THROUGH MUCH TRIBULATION."
The darkest hour had not yet come! Two or three days after she had secured the removal of her husband from the common prison, he and all the white men were suddenly seized and hurried out of the city. Mrs. Judson was engaged elsewhere at the time, and for some hours she was unable to learn where the prisoners had been taken; but a servant who had seen them leave gave her a clue, and she at once followed it up. She deposited her books and medicines with the friendly governor, and set out with her babe on her arm, and two orphan children she had adopted by her side, seeking her husband. After a wearisome journey she found him in a wretched prison at Oung-pen-la, almost dead from weakness and the torture he had undergone on his forced march, and was greeted with the pathetic words, so illustrative of Adoniram Judson's utter unselfishness, "Why have you come? I hoped you would not follow, for you cannot live here." The prison was placed in a lonely spot, far away from any village. There was no accommodation for Mrs. Judson, and no food could be obtained near at hand. She was refused permission to build herself a little hut, but the jailer found her a small, dirty store-room in his own house, and here she and the three children lived for the next six months. Day by day she searched for food, not only for her husband, but for the other white prisoners; and though worn out with pain and sorrow, cheered them, looked after their every want, and continually applied to the officials for some improvement in their lot. The untold privations she was suffering soon told on a frame that had never been very strong. Her two adopted children were taken with small-pox, and when they had partly recovered the baby was also attacked. Mrs. Judson had now to look after them in addition to her other work, and would often spend the day attending to the prisoners, and the night in nursing the children. The watchings and fatigue at last broke her down, and for two months she was unable to leave her bed. She had for most of the time no attendant except a common Bengalee cook, but this man proved an invaluable aid. He worked almost without ceasing, nursing Mrs. Judson, searching for provisions, and feeding the prisoners. The little baby was in a most deplorable state. It had no nurse, Mrs. Judson could not feed it on account of her fever, and the only way it existed was by her husband obtaining permission from the jailer to go out for a short time each day, carry the child around the village, and beg a little nourishment for it from those mothers who had young children. "I now began to think the very afflictions of Job had come upon me," wrote Mrs. Judson. "When in health I could bear the various trials and vicissitudes through which I was called upon to pass; but to be confined with sickness, and unable to assist those who were so dear to me, when in distress, was almost too much for me to bear; and had it not been for the consolations of religion, and an assured conviction that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I must have sunk under my accumulated sufferings."
Meanwhile the English army was daily coming closer and closer to the capital, and Mr. Judson was taken out of prison and sent down to the Burmese camp, to act as translator in the negotiations which were going on between the two forces. The victorious British general, Sir Archibald Campbell, ordered the Burmese to pay a heavy war indemnity, and to cede a large part of their territory to the English; and he also stipulated that all foreign prisoners who wished should be handed over to him. Consequently the Judsons found themselves once more free, after a year and seven months' imprisonment, and were made the honoured guests of the English general.
But the relief came too late, for Mrs. Judson's constitution was completely undermined by the privations she had endured. She and her husband settled in Amherst, a new town in British Burman territory, and hopefully looked forward to carrying on a useful work there. They had not been many months in the place before Mrs. Judson had a bad attack of fever, at a time when her husband was away helping the English general. She seemed temporarily to get better, but she had no strength left to resist the disease, and gradually sank. "The teacher is long in coming, and the new missionaries are long in coming," she murmured in a moment of relief from her delirium. "I must die alone, and leave my little one; but as it is the will of God I acquiesce in His will. I am not afraid of death; but I am afraid I shall not be able to bear these pains. Tell the teacher the disease was most violent, and I could not write; tell him how I suffered and died; tell him all that you see; and take care of the house and things until he returns." For most of the time she lay unconscious, and on October 24, 1827, after about sixteen days of illness, and at the age of thirty-seven, she passed away before her husband could return. Soon afterwards her baby followed her.
And so went home one of the noblest women who have laboured in the mission field. Her brave spirit, her undaunted trust in God and in the power of prayer upheld her, when the courage of the bravest men would have failed. Not a little of the remarkable success of the work of God in Burmah is due to the indomitable perseverance and the wise devotion to God and to her husband of Ann Judson; and wherever the Gospel is preached, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
Was her life thrown away? Were the labours and sufferings she had bodily undergone wasted? Not so. The story of her life has been and still is a precious heritage for the whole Church militant, a lesson which ever appeals to Christians to rouse themselves from self-seeking and apathetic lives, and consecrate their talents to the Master's use. Though she was taken up higher, the work in Burmah did not stop, and before many years had passed, hundreds and thousands of the people among whom she had laboured were professing to serve the true God; so true is it that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."
FRED. A. McKENZIE.