To a Minister in Thompson, Conn.
“Rangoon, March 4, 1831.
“The great annual festival is just past, during which multitudes come from the remotest parts of the country to worship at the great Shway Da-gong pagoda in this place, where it is believed that several real hairs of Gaudama are enshrined. During the festival I have given away nearly ten thousand tracts, giving to none but those who ask. I presume there have been six thousand applications at the house. Some come two or three months’ journey, from the borders of Siam and China—‘Sir, we hear that there is an eternal hell. We are afraid of it. Do give us a writing that will tell us how to escape it.’ Others come from the frontiers of Kathay, a hundred miles north of Ava—‘Sir, we have seen a writing that tells about an eternal God. Are you the man that gives away such writings? If so, pray give us one, for we want to know the truth before we die.’ Others come from the interior of the country, where the name of Jesus Christ is a little known—‘Are you Jesus Christ’s man? Give us a writing that tells about Jesus Christ.’ Brother Bennett works day and night at the press; but he is unable to supply us, for the call is great at Maulmain and Tavoy as well as here, and his types are very poor, and he has no efficient help.”
But while thus striving to satisfy the thirst of the Burmans for religious knowledge, he did not intermit his long and laborious task of translating the Scriptures. He shut himself up in the garret of the mission-house, leaving his Burman associates to deal with the inquirers below, only referring to him the more important cases. In his seclusion, he made such long strides in his work that, at the close of his stay at Rangoon, he wrote in his journal, “1831, July 19, finished the translation of Genesis, twenty chapters of Exodus, Psalms, Solomon’s Song, Isaiah, and Daniel.” An English lady who visited Rangoon in 1830, and who ventured to penetrate his seclusion, thus describes the interior of his study:
A Visit to Mr. Judson in 1830.[[44]]
“Being unexpectedly in Rangoon in the autumn of 1830, and hearing that the justly-celebrated American missionary, good Mr. Judson, was still there, with indefatigable zeal prosecuting his ‘labor of love’ in the conversion of the Burmese, I was extremely anxious to see him; and, having informed ourselves that a visit from English travellers would not be deemed a disagreeable intrusion, the captain, his wife, and myself immediately proceeded to Mr. Judson’s house.
“It was a Burman habitation, to which we had to ascend by a ladder; and we entered a large, low room through a space like a trap-door. The beams of the roof were uncovered, and the window-frames were open, after the fashion of Burman houses. The furniture consisted of a table in the centre of the room, a few stools, and a desk, with writings and books neatly arranged on one side. We were soon seated, and were most anxious to hear all that the good man had to say, who, in a resigned tone, spoke of his departed wife in a manner which plainly showed that he had set his affections ‘where alone true joy can be found.’ He dwelt with much pleasure on the translation of the Bible into the Burman language. He had completed the New Testament, and was then as far as the Psalms in the Old Testament, which having finished, he said he trusted it would be the will of his heavenly Father to call him to his everlasting home.
“Of the conversions going on amongst the Burmese he spoke with certainty, not doubting that when the flame of Christianity did burst forth, it would surprise even him by its extent and brilliancy. As we were thus conversing, the bats, which frequent the houses at Rangoon, began to take their evening round, and whirled closer and closer till they came in almost disagreeable contact with our heads; and the flap of the heavy wings so near us interrupting the conversation, we at length reluctantly took our leave and departed. And this, thought I, as I descended the dark ladder, is the solitary abode of Judson, whom after-ages shall designate, most justly, the great and the good. It is the abode of one of whom the world is not worthy; of one who has been imprisoned, chained, and starved, and yet who dares still to prosecute his work in the midst of the people who have thus treated him. America may indeed be proud of having given birth to so excellent and admirable a man, who, amidst the trials, sufferings, and bereavements with which it has pleased Heaven to afflict him, still stands with his lamp brightly burning waiting his Lord’s coming.
“If there be any man of whom we may without presumption feel assured that we will hear the joyful words, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant,’ it is certainly the pious Judson, the great and persevering founder of Christianity in a land of dark idolatry and superstition.”
It was about this time that the Mission Board in this country sent him an earnest and affectionate invitation to revisit his native land. He was about forty-two years old, and had been absent from America eighteen years. His health was shattered. His family he had laid in the grave. He said several years later that he had never seen a ship sail out of the port of Maulmain bound for England or America without an almost irrepressible inclination to get on board and visit again the home of his boyhood. And yet in reply to this urgent invitation from his brethren, he wrote: