Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons

by Arabella M. Willson

The following is extracted from a tribute to Mrs. Judson which appeared in a Calcutta paper, after the war. It was written by a fellow-prisoner of Mr. J.

"Mrs. Judson was the author of those eloquent and forcible appeals to the government, which prepared them by degrees for submission to terms of peace, never expected by any who knew the haughtiness and inflexible pride of the Burman court.

"And while on this subject, the overflowings of grateful feelings on behalf of myself and fellow-prisoners, compel me to add a tribute of public thanks to that amiable and humane female, who, though living at a distance of two miles from our prison, without any means of conveyance, and very feeble in health, forgot her own comfort and infirmity, and almost every day visited us, sought out and administered to our wants, and contributed in every way to alleviate our misery.

"When we were all left by the government destitute of food, she, with unwearied perseverance by some means or other, obtained for us a constant supply.

... "When the unfeeling avarice of our keepers confined us inside, or made our feet fast in the stocks, she, like a ministering angel, never ceased her applications to the government, until she was authorized to communicate to us the grateful news of our enlargement, or of a respite from our galling oppressions.

"Besides all this, it was unquestionably owing, in a chief degree, to the repeated eloquence and forcible appeals of Mrs. Judson, that the untutored Burman was finally made willing to secure the welfare of his country by a sincere peace."

Well may Professor Gammell write of her: "History has not recorded, poetry itself has seldom portrayed a more affecting exhibition of Christian fortitude, of female heroism, and of all the noble and generous qualities which constitute the dignity and glory of woman. In the midst of sickness and danger, and every calamity which can crush the human heart, she presented a character equal to the sternest trial, and an address and a fertility of resources which gave her an ascendency over the minds of her most cruel enemies, and alone saved the missionaries and their fellow-captives from the terrible doom which constantly awaited them."

We will conclude this account of the terrible two years, by an extract from a letter of Mr. Judson dated Rangoon, March 25, 1826. "Through the kind interposition of our Heavenly Father, we have been preserved in the most imminent danger, from the hand of the executioner, and in repeated instances of most alarming illness, during my protracted imprisonment of one year and seven months, nine months in three pairs of fetters, two months in five, six months in one, and two months a prisoner at large.... The disciples and inquirers have been dispersed in all directions. Several are dead; Moung-Shwa-ba has been in the mission-house through the whole, and Moung Ing with Mrs. Judson at Ava.... I long for the time when we shall enjoy once more the stated worship and ordinances of the Lord's house."

"One result of the Burman war, was the acquisition by the British of several provinces previously under the government of the King of Burmah. Thus a safe asylum was provided for the missionaries, and for the Christian natives where they might worship God in peace, under the shelter of the English government." One of these provinces was fixed upon as the seat of the mission, and the new town of Amherst was to be the residence of the missionaries. Native Christian families began to assemble there, and Mrs. Judson made vigorous preparations to open a school. Mr. Crawford of the British Embassy after long solicitation, succeeded in persuading Mr. Judson, that by accompanying him in the capacity of interpreter to the court of Ava he might secure to the mission certain advantages he had long had greatly at heart, and he reluctantly consented to go. Leaving Mrs. Judson and her infant daughter in the house of the civil superintendent at Amherst, he proceeded to the Burman capital. The journey was every way unfortunate; attended with long delays, and in its result, as far as Mr. Judson was concerned, quite unsuccessful. But it was chiefly disastrous because it detained him from the sick and dying bed of that devoted wife to whom he was bound by every tie that can attach human hearts to each other; and compelled her to end her troubled pilgrimage alone. That God who "moves in a mysterious way," had ordered it that she who had lived through appalling dangers and threatening deaths until her mission of love toward those she had cherished so fondly was accomplished, was—now that her trials seemed nearly ended, and the hopes of her heart seemingly in a train of accomplishment—suddenly called from the scene of her labors to that of her "exceeding great reward." It was as if a noble ship after encountering storms and tempests, after being often nearly wrecked, and as often saved almost by miracle, should when already in port and in sight of anxious spectators, suddenly sink forever.

In a letter to the corresponding secretary, dated Ava, Dec. 7, 1826, Mr. Judson writes: "The news of the death of my beloved wife, has not only thrown a gloom over all my future prospects, but has forever embittered the recollection of the present journey, in consequence of which I have been absent from her dying bed, and prevented from affording the spiritual comfort which her lonely circumstances peculiarly required, and of contributing to avert the fatal catastrophe, which has deprived me of one of the first of women, and best of wives. I commend myself and motherless child to your sympathy and prayers."