Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons

by Arabella M. Willson

From a letter from Mr. Judson to Mrs. Hasseltine we learn, that when he parted from his wife, she was in good health and comfortably situated, with happy prospects of a new field of missionary labor, and the expectation of seeing her husband again in three or four months at farthest. His last letter from her was dated the 14th of September. She says, "I have this day moved into the new house, and for the first time since we were broken up at Ava, feel myself at home. The house is large and convenient, and if you were here I should feel quite happy.... Poor little Maria is still feeble.... When I ask her where Papa is, she always starts up and points toward the sea. The servants behave very well, and I have no trouble about anything except you and Maria. Pray take care of yourself.... May God preserve and bless you, and restore you again to your new and old home is the prayer of your affectionate Ann." Another letter from a friend confirmed the statement with regard to his wife's health, though it spoke unfavorably of that of the child. "But," continues Mr. Judson, "my next communication was a letter with a black seal, handed me by a person, saying he was sorry to inform me of the death of the child. I know not whether this was a mistake on his part, or kindly intended to prepare my mind for the real intelligence. I went to my room, and opened the letter with a feeling of gratitude and joy, that at any rate the mother was spared. It began thus: 'My dear Sir,—To one who has suffered so much and with such exemplary fortitude, there needs but little preface to tell a tale of distress. It were cruel indeed to torture you with doubt and suspense. To sum up the unhappy tidings in a few words—Mrs. Judson is no more.' At intervals," continues Mr. Judson, "I got through the dreadful letter and proceed to give you the substance, as indelibly engraven on my heart." After adding that her disease was a violent fever, which baffled the skill of the physicians and after eighteen days carried her to the grave, he continues: "You perceive I have no account whatever of the state of her mind in view of death and eternity, or of her wishes concerning her darling babe, whom she loved most intensely. I will not trouble you, my dear mother, with an account of my own private feelings—the bitter, heart-rending anguish, which for some days would not admit of mitigation, and the comfort which the Gospel subsequently afforded, the Gospel of Jesus Christ which brings life and immortality to light."

After his return to Amherst, Mr. Judson writes: "Amid the desolation that death has made, I take up my pen to address once more the mother of my beloved Ann. I am sitting in the house she built—in the room where she breathed her last—and at a window from which I see the tree that stands at the head of her grave.... Mr. and Mrs. Wade are living in the house, having arrived here about a month after Ann's death, and Mrs. W. has taken charge of my poor motherless Maria.... When I arrived Mr. Wade met me at the landing-place, and as I passed on to the house, one and another of the native Christians came out, and when they saw me they began to weep. At length we reached the house; and I almost expected to see my love coming out to meet me as usual, but no, I only saw in the arms of Mrs. Wade, a poor puny child, who could not recognize her father, and from whose infant mind had long been erased all recollection of the mother who loved her so much. She turned away from me in alarm, and I, obliged to seek comfort elsewhere, found my way to the grave, but who ever obtained comfort there? Thence I went to the house in which I left her; and looked at the spot where last we knelt in prayer, and where we exchanged the parting kiss....

"It seems that her head was much affected and she said but little. She sometimes complained thus: 'The teacher is long in coming, and the missionaries are long in coming, 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 that the disease was most violent, and I could not write; tell him how I suffered and died; tell him all you see.'... When she could not notice anything else, she would still call the child to her, and charge the nurse to be kind to it, and indulge it in everything till its father should return. The last day or two she lay almost senseless and motionless, on one side, her head reclining on her arm, her eyes closed, and at eight in the evening, with one exclamation of distress in the Burman language, she ceased to breathe."

From the physician who attended her he afterwards learned that the fatal termination of her disease, was chiefly owing to the weakness of her constitution occasioned by the severe privations, and long-protracted sufferings which she endured at Ava. "And oh!" adds her husband, "With what meekness, patience magnanimity and Christian fortitude, she bore those sufferings; and can I wish they had been less? Can I sacriligiously wish to rob her crown of a single gem? Much she saw and suffered of the evils of this evil world; and eminently was she qualified to relish and enjoy the pure and holy rest into which she has entered. True she has been taken from a sphere in which she was singularly qualified, by her natural disposition, her winning manners, her devoted zeal, and her perfect acquaintance with the language, to be extensively serviceable to the cause of Christ; true she has been torn from her husband's bleeding heart and from her darling babe; but infinite wisdom and love have presided, as ever, in this most afflicting dispensation. Faith decides that all is right."

To show that Mrs. Judson was already appreciated as she deserved by the European society in Amherst, we will subjoin part of a letter from Captain F. of that place to a friend in Rangoon: "I shall not attempt to give you an account of the gloom which the death of this amiable woman has thrown over our little society, you who were so well acquainted with her, will feel her loss more deeply; but we had just known her long enough to value her acquaintance as a blessing in this remote corner. I dread the effect it will have on poor Judson. I am sure you will take every care that this mournful intelligence may be opened to him as carefully as possible."

In the Calcutta Review of 1848, we find this noble tribute to her memory: "Of Mrs. Judson little is known in the noisy world. Few comparatively are acquainted with her name, few with her actions, but if any woman since the first arrival of the white strangers on the shores of India, has on that great theatre of war, stretching between the mouth of the Irrawady and the borders of the Hindoo Kush, rightly earned for herself the title of a heroine, Mrs. Judson has, by her doings and sufferings, fairly earned the distinction—a distinction, be it said, which her true woman's nature would have very little appreciated. Still it is right that she should be honored by the world. Her sufferings were far more unendurable, her heroism far more noble, than any which in more recent times have been so much pitied and so much applauded; but she was a simple missionary's wife, an American by birth, and she told her tale with an artless modesty—writing only what it became her to write, treating only of matters that became a woman. Her captivity, if so it can be called, was voluntarily endured. She of her own free will shared the sufferings of her husband, taking to herself no credit for anything she did; putting her trust in God, and praying to him to strengthen her human weakness. She was spared to breathe once again the free air of liberty, but her troubles had done the work of death on her delicate frame, and she was soon translated to heaven. She was the real heroine. The annals in the East present us with no parallel."

On the 26th of April, Mr. Judson writes, "My sweet little Maria lies by the side of her fond mother. Her complaint proved incurable. The work of death went forward, and after the usual process, excruciating to a parent's feelings, she ceased to breathe on the 24th inst., at 3 o'clock P.M., aged 2 years and 3 months. We then closed her faded eyes, and bound up her discolored lips, and folded her little hands—the exact pattern of her mother's—on her cold breast. The next morning we made her last bed, under the hope tree, (Hopia,) in the small enclosure which surrounds her mother's lonely grave."

Many months later he wrote; "You ask many questions about our sufferings at Ava, but how can I answer them now? There would be some pleasure in reviewing those scenes if she were alive; now I can not. The only reflection that assuages the anguish of retrospection is, that she now rests far away, where no spotted-faced executioner can fill her heart with terror; where no unfeeling magistrate can extort the scanty pittance which she had preserved through every risk to sustain her fettered husband and famishing babe; no more exposed to lie on a bed of languishment, stung with the uncertainty what would become of her poor husband and child when she was gone. No, she has her little ones around her, I trust, and has taught them to praise the source whence their deliverance flowed. Her little son, his soul enlarged to angel's size, was perhaps first to meet her at heaven's portals, and welcome his mother to his own abode—and her daughter followed her in six short months." ... "And when we all meet in Heaven—when all have arrived, and we find all safe, forever safe, and our Saviour ever safe and glorious, and in him all his beloved—oh shall we not be happy, and ever praise him who has endured the cross to wear and confer such a crown!"

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Alluding to Dr. Judson's visit to America.