As great scientific discoveries have seemed to spring up almost simultaneously in the minds of independent and widely-separated thinkers, sometimes engendering a strife as to the original discoverer, so this grand thought of evangelizing the heathen seems to have been in the atmosphere, and to have floated at almost the same time into the hearts of different young men living far apart. Christian society was like a field which, having been ploughed and sown, has folded up in its bosom a potency of growth. Judson and his associates were like the first green shoots, scattered far and wide, that appear above the ground and promise to be followed by countless others. It was after long meditation and prayer, and in communion with kindred glowing spirits, that the thought in Judson’s mind of consecrating himself to the foreign missionary work became a fixed purpose.
There were many obstacles in the way. He was not going among the heathen because he could not find suitable employment at home. He had received a tutor’s appointment in Brown University and had declined it. The Rev. Dr. Griffin had proposed him as his colleague in “the largest church in Boston.” “And you will be so near home,” his mother said. “No!” was his reply, “I shall never live in Boston. I have much farther than that to go.” The ambitious hopes of his father were overthrown; and his mother and sister shed many regretful tears. He did not go abroad because he was not wanted at home.
“In the spring
And glory of his being he went forth
From the embraces of devoted friends,
From ease and quiet happiness.... He went forth
Strengthen’d to suffer—gifted to subdue
The might of human passion—to pass on
Quietly to the sacrifice of all
The lofty hopes of boyhood, and to turn