“Maulmain, December 13, 1827.
“My Dear Mother and Sister: Yours of the 5th February last reached me a few days ago, and gave me the particulars of that solemn event which has laid the venerable head of our family in the silent dust. ‘Death, like an over-flowing stream, sweeps us away’ into the ocean of eternity. You have heard, from my letters of December 7, ’26, and May 3, ’27, of the ravages which death has made in my own dear family. I am left alone in this wide wilderness, to wait all the days of my appointed time, till my own change come. I pray earnestly that you may both enjoy much of the divine presence, in your solitary, bereaved circumstances, and that both you and I may be preparing, under the repeated strokes of our heavenly Father’s hand, to follow the dear departed ones, and enter upon the high enjoyment of everlasting life.”
CHAPTER IX.
LIFE IN MAULMAIN.
1827-1831.
Before proceeding directly to consider Mr. Judson’s life in Maulmain, it may be well to describe a peculiar phase of his mental and spiritual experience, which has been termed Guyonism. He seemed at one time to be inclined to embrace the mystical tenets of Thomas à Kempis, Fénélon, and Madame Guyon, and it was feared that he was leaning toward those monkish austerities which belong peculiarly to the spirit of the Roman Church. Certainly there are passages here and there in his writings which point in this direction. And yet, often in these extracts it can be discerned with what cautious and stealthy steps he trod the perilous pathway leading toward monastic asceticism. On the occasion of sending a gift of money to his sister in America, he writes:
“But I give it on the express condition that you appropriate part of it to purchase for yourself the life of Lady Guyon ... and I hope you will read it diligently, and endeavor to emulate that most excellent saint so far as she was right.”
Again, he wrote to a fellow-missionary:
“As to the other matter, the land of Beulah lies beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Many Christians spend all their days in a continual bustle, doing good. They are too busy to find either the valley or Beulah. Virtues[Virtues] they have, but are full of the life and attractions of nature, and unacquainted with the paths of mortification and death. Let us die as soon as possible, and by whatever process God shall appoint. And when we are dead to the world, and nature, and self, we shall begin to live to God.”
Again, to the missionaries at Maulmain he wrote: