Women, too, did not shrink from suffering persecution on behalf of their newly-found Lord. Describing a baptism, Mr. Judson says:
“We made up a small female party, consisting of Mah See, Mah Gatee, and Mah Kyan, all decided and hearty in the cause, amid a torrent of threatening and abuse. The first is the wife of Moung San-lone, second; but her elder brother, and her priest, and other acquaintance are all alive on the occasion. The husbands of the other two are both opposers, and have threatened their wives with everything bad if they enter the new religion. They expect to suffer as soon as their husbands hear of the deeds of this day. We feel most for Mah Kyan, who has a child at her breast, an only child; and her husband has declared that he will not only turn her off, but take the child away from her, and provide it another nurse. After they were baptized, they said that their minds were very happy; come life, come death; they were disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ for life and forever.”
Again, he tells the story of a lady eighty years of age, mother-in-law of a petty chief who was one of the bitterest opposers:
“She commenced her inquiries,” he writes, “several months ago with a great deal of timidity. And though she has acquired a little courage, and is a person of considerable presence, she almost trembles under a sense of the great responsibility of changing her religion. Such being her character, the promptness with which she answered our questions, before the church, affected us even to tears. ‘How old are you, mother?’ ‘Eighty years.’ ‘Can you, at such an age, renounce the religion that you have followed all your life long?’ ‘I see that it is false, and I renounce it all.’ ‘Why do you wish to be baptized into the religion of Jesus Christ?’ ‘I have very, very many sins; and I love the Lord, who saves from sin.’ ‘Perhaps your son-in-law, on hearing that you have been baptized, will abuse you, and turn you out of doors.’ ‘I have another son-in-law, to whom I will flee.’ ‘But he also is an opposer; suppose that you should meet with the same treatment there?’ ‘You will, I think, let me come and live near you.’ We made no reply, willing that she should prove her sincerity by bearing the brunt alone. Her name is Mai Hlah. Behold this venerable woman, severing, at her time of life, all the ties which bind her to a large circle of connections and friends, hazarding the loss of a comfortable, respectable situation, the loss of character, the loss of a shelter for her gray head, throwing herself on the charity of certain foreigners, and all for the sake of ‘the Lord who saves from sin.’ O, blessed efficacy of the love of Christ!”
But not only was the zayat work crowned with success; the school work was not less effective. The school of girls which had been transplanted from Amherst increased in size and efficiency under the superintendence of Mrs. Wade and Mrs. Boardman, who not only taught the children, but imparted religious instruction to the Burman women. The tireless Boardman also opened a school for boys. Mr. Judson speaks joyously of an incipient revival in the girls’ school, “similar to those glorious revivals which distinguish our own beloved land.” He baptized Mah-ree (Hasseltine) about twelve years ago, one of the two Burman girls[[38]] whom his departed Ann had watched over during his own long imprisonment at Ava.
“Two other girls, younger than those that have been baptized, appear to have obtained light and hope in Christ. ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.’ One of them, Mee Youk, about eight years old, gives as clear, satisfactory evidence of real conversion as any of the older girls. The other, Mee Kway, like our departed Mee Shway-ee, was rescued at Amherst from miserable slavery. She has hitherto given us very little pleasure, but is now led to see that she has been an uncommonly wicked child, and to feel a humble, penitent disposition.”
But even these babes in Christ were not exempt from suffering persecution. Mee Tan-goung had just been baptized. Her eldest sister, after having experienced real and pungent convictions of divine truth, had at length been induced by her mother’s alternate promises and threatenings deliberately to reject the Saviour.
“Mee Tan-goung’s mother came early,” writes Mr. Judson, “before any of us were up, and having made her elder daughter, Mee Lau, open the door of the school zayat, she fell upon her younger daughter, abusing and beating her, until, fearing that she should alarm the house, she went off. Soon after, however, she came again, and finding her daughter outside, she beat her on the head with an umbrella, and threatened to sell her for a slave. She then went into town, and after raising a tumult in the market-place, and declaring that her daughter had entered into a religion which prevented her lying and cheating, so that she was quite lost to all purposes of trade, she carried the alarming tale to the mothers of the other two girls who were baptized yesterday. One of them, the mother of Mee Nen-mah, who has been most violent heretofore, came in a rage to Mrs. Wade (brother Wade and myself being absent at our zayats), and after using as bad language as she dared, she ran down to the schoolroom, seized her daughter by the hair, and dragged her outdoors toward a pile of wood, where she would soon have armed herself with a weapon, had not Mrs. Wade interfered, and rescued the victim; upon which the mother went off, muttering vengeance. The girls bore all this abuse in silent submission, and really manifested something of the spirit of martyrs. All three are taken into the house for the present, lest their infuriated relatives should make an assault upon them by night.”
Poor little Mee Aa, who had been baptized, was living in great fear. She daily expected her mother from Amherst, and knew that she would take her away instantly, and would use all the means in her power to make her renounce the Christian religion. But Mee Aa was to be pleasantly disappointed. Instead of being remanded by her mother to the shadows of heathenism, she was permitted to lead that mother into the light of the Gospel.
“Soon after that date, Mee Aa came trembling, one morning, to Mrs. Wade, with the alarming news that her mother had just arrived at the landing-place, with the intention, doubtless, of taking her away by force; and what should she do? She was told to go and meet her mother, and to pray as she went. But the poor girl need not have been alarmed. She had been incessantly praying for her mother ever since she had learned to pray for herself; and God had heard her prayers, and softened her mother’s heart. So when she heard that her daughter was actually baptized, she only made up a queer face, like a person choking, and said, ‘It was so, was it not? I hear that some quite die under the operation.’ This speech we all considered encouraging. And, accordingly, she soon settled down among us, drank in the truth from her daughter’s lips, and then followed her example.”