Since writing the above, we have seen a poem, entitled "Love's Last Wish," addressed to her husband, by Mrs. Judson when she thought herself near death, which expresses so beautifully the sentiment we have here attributed to her, that, did our limits permit, we would copy the whole. We can only give an extract.
Of Mrs. Judson's happiness in her married and missionary life, we feel bound to say a few words, because the tone of some articles, written since her death, would lead to the impression that, so far from having had any enjoyment as a wife, a mother, and a missionary, she had sacrificed not only all her literary aspirations, but her whole earthly happiness to her desire to benefit the heathen. Thus one widely circulated article speaks of her mission-life as a "slow martyrdom of sacrifices and sorrows;" * * * as "filled with bitterness,"—speaks, too, of the agony wrung out of her heart by suspense in regard to her husband's fate, expressed in that exquisite piece to her mother, (page 334,) as "one hour of the years she suffered in Burmah." That the life of any faithful missionary is one of exile, toil, and privation, we are not disposed to deny. The world knows it too well; and seeing that such toils are uncheered by the acquisition of fame or wealth—the only reward it can appreciate—the world considers the life of the missionary a living death, endured like martyrdom, only for the sake of its crown in the life to come. But not in this light was their life considered by the noble three whose history we have sketched in this volume, nor by Dr. Judson. The elevated sources of happiness opened even in this world to those who literally obey the command to forsake all for Christ, cast far into the shade all merely selfish enjoyment; while the pure domestic affections, and the bliss resulting from them, are as much the portion of the missionary, as of his favored brethren at home. Who can read the letters of Dr. Judson, in Dr. Wayland's memoir of him, or the exquisite letters of his widow found in this volume, without the conviction that the latter years of her life, privileged as they were with the high companionship of one so gifted and so dear as was her husband, and in the midst of social and domestic duties that brought their own exceeding great reward, were, of all her years, the richest and the happiest!
But her own idea of the comparative happiness of her two lives, may be best gathered from her poetry, for it is a characteristic and charm of her verse that it is the pouring forth of her deepest feelings at the moment when they swayed her soul with strongest influence. We extract a few verses from a poem written at Rangoon, during that period of great physical suffering to which we have alluded, but of which Dr. Judson writes: "My sojourn in Rangoon, though tedious and trying in some respects, I regard as one of the greenest spots, one of the brightest oases, in the diversified wilderness of my life. If this world is so happy, what must heaven be?"
TO MY HUSBAND.
As to the sacrifice of her literary taste and reputation, this is so far from the fact, that we may assert without fear of contradiction, that the world never knew her best excellence as a writer, till it was startled, as it were, by her deathless utterances, wafted by east winds from her Indian home. Her memoir of her predecessor, and her appeals for Burmah, have thrilled thousands of hearts that knew nothing of her "Alderbrook;" and her "Bird," has, perhaps, awakened in many a mother's heart its first deep appreciation of the holy responsibilities of maternity. The Christian world gained much, the literary world lost nothing, when Fanny Forester became a missionary.
But her harp is idle now, and its loosened strings will wait long for a hand to tune and draw from them such soul-moving cadences as we have been wont to hear. In purer air she sweeps a nobler lyre; and methinks her song may well be, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."