But O, that strain I have hitherto listened in vain to hear, or rather have not listened aright, and therefore can not hear.
“Have either of you learned the art of real communion with God, and can you teach me the first principles? God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in Him, but I find Him not.”
And to his own mother and sister:
“I still live alone, and board with some one of the families that compose the mission. After the Wades left, I boarded with the Bennetts. After the Bennetts left for Rangoon, I boarded with the Cutters. After the Cutters left for Ava, I boarded with the Hancocks, where I now am. I have no family or living creature about me that I can call my own, except one dog, Fidelia, which belonged to little Maria, and which I value more on that account. Since the death of her little mistress, she has ever been with me; but she is now growing old, and will die before long; and I am sure I shall shed more than one tear when poor Fidee goes.”
The sadness of this period was also intensified by the slowness of American Christians in sending on reinforcements. He often felt that he had been left out on the skirmish line almost alone. He writes to the Corresponding Secretary:
“I am startled and terrified to find that, by several unexpected moves, I am left, as it were, alone; there being not another foreigner in all the country that can preach the Gospel to the perishing millions, north and south, or feed the infant churches, except, indeed, Mrs. Bennett, who has begun to take the management of the female meetings. My prayers to God and my entreaties to my brethren at home seem to have equal efficacy. Since the last missionaries left home, I perceive no further signs of life. All seem to have gone to slumbering and sleeping.”
In acknowledging a gift of fifty dollars from the Rev. Mr. Grow, of Thompson, Connecticut, he wrote:
“The fact is, that we are very weak, and have to complain that hitherto we have not been well supported from home. It is most distressing to find, when we are almost worn out, and are sinking, one after another, into the grave, that many of our brethren in Christ at home are just as hard and immovable as rocks; just as cold and repulsive as the mountains of ice in the polar seas. But whatever they do, we can not sit still and see the dear Burmans, flesh and blood like ourselves, and like ourselves possessed of immortal souls, that will shine forever in heaven, or burn forever in hell—we can not see them go down to perdition without doing our very utmost to save them. And thanks be to God, our labors are not in vain. We have three lovely churches, and about two hundred baptized converts, and some are in glory. A spirit of religious inquiry is extensively spreading throughout the country, and the signs of the times indicate that the great renovation of Burmah is drawing near. O, if we had about twenty more versed in the language, and means to spread schools, and tracts, and Bibles, to any extent, how happy I should be! But those rocks and those icy mountains have crushed us down for many years.”
And at the close of an imploring appeal for new men, he says:
“May God forgive all those who desert us in our extremity. May He save them all. But surely, if any sin will lie with crushing weight on the trembling, shrinking soul, when grim death draws near; if any sin will clothe the face of the final Judge with an angry frown, withering up the last hope of the condemned, in irremediable, everlasting despair, it is the sin of turning a deaf ear to the plaintive cry of ten millions of immortal beings, who, by their darkness and misery, cry, day and night, ‘Come to our rescue, ye bright sons and daughters of America, COME AND SAVE US, FOR WE ARE SINKING INTO HELL.’”