Mr. Boardman was afterward informed that the teacher, on his way home, tore his jogar’s dress to pieces, and threw it into a brook.
While the Burmans lived in towns and cities, the Karens, like our Indians, occupied villages far back in the jungle by the side of mountain streams. Mr. Judson’s attention was first called to them in Rangoon. “They formed small parties of strange, wild-looking men, clad in unshapely garments, who from time to time straggled past his residence.”
He was told that they were as untamable as the wild cow of the mountains; that they seldom entered a town except on compulsion. They were nomadic in their habits. A British officer[[46]] gives a singular instance of their wildness:
“An officer was lying on his bed in a little room inside the stockaded police post, which had a narrow gate with an armed sentry on guard; the Hillman, with the minimum of clothing, was introduced by a smart sergeant, who coaxed him to approach. He cautiously and distrustfully, and with great persuasion, advanced stooping to the bed; when close to it, he gave one long, steady look at the white man; suddenly, with a yell, threw himself up straight, turned round, dashed out of the room, through the gate, upsetting the armed sentry, rushed across a little stream at the bottom of the stockade, and, clambering like a monkey sheer up the side of the opposite mountain, never stopped till he was lost to sight in the forest.”
In order to secure permanent churches among the Karens, the first step of the missionaries was to persuade them to settle down in one place and form large and well-ordered villages. It was in this way that the town of Wadesville, before mentioned, sprang into existence. Christianity has thus proved a powerful agent in civilizing the Karens, and a Christian village is easily distinguished from a heathen one, not only by its size, but by its clean, regular streets.
That Mr. Judson’s tours in the Karen jungles were attended with great fatigue and danger, may be inferred from Mr. Boardman’s “Historical Sketch of the Karens”:
“The paths which lead to their settlements are so obscurely marked, so little trodden, and so devious in their course, that a guide is needed to conduct one from village to village, even over the best part of the way. Not unfrequently the path leads over precipices, over cliffs and dangerous declivities, along deep ravines, frequently meandering with a small streamlet for miles, which we have to cross and recross, and often to take it for our path, wading through water ankle deep for an hour or more. There are no bridges, and we often have to ford or swim over considerable streams, particularly in the rainy season; when, however, the difficulties of travelling are so great as to render it next to impossible. Sometimes we have to sleep in the open air in the woods, where, besides insects and reptiles, the tiger, the rhinoceros, and the wild elephant render our situation not a little uncomfortable and dangerous. I have never met with either of these dangerous animals in the wilderness, but have very frequently seen their recent footsteps and their haunts, while others meet them. It is but seldom they do hurt, but it is in their power, and sometimes they have the disposition. And when, after having encountered so many difficulties, and endured not a little fatigue in travelling, and been exposed to so many dangers, we come to a village, we find, perhaps, but twenty or thirty houses, often only ten, and not unfrequently only one or two within a range of several miles.”
On these jungle trips he was always accompanied by a band of associates. He would take with him eight or ten disciples and dispatch them right and left up the tributaries of the Salwen. Two by two they would penetrate the wilderness, and meeting their teacher a few days later, would report to him the results of their labor. The Oriental, under good leadership, makes a faithful and intrepid follower. And Mr. Judson’s magnetism of character held his assistants to him with hooks of steel. He had the gift of getting work, and their best work, out of the converted natives. Promising boys and young men he took under his own instruction and qualified them to become teachers and ministers. His wise and far-reaching views on this primitive and indispensable kind of ministerial education may be learned from his letters to the Corresponding Secretary. His example might profitably be followed by ministers even in our own Christian land:
“Maulmain, January 3, 1835.
... “My ideas of a seminary are very different from those of many persons. I am really unwilling to place young men, that have just begun to love the Saviour, under teachers who will strive to carry them through a long course of study, until they are able to unravel metaphysics, and calculate eclipses, and their souls become as dry as the one and as dark as the other. I have known several promising young men completely ruined by this process. Nor is it called for in the present state of the Church in Burmah. I want to see our young disciples thoroughly acquainted with the Bible from beginning to end, and with geography and history, so far as necessary to understand the Scriptures, and to furnish them with enlarged, enlightened minds. I would also have them carried through a course of systematic theology, on the plan, perhaps, of Dwight’s. And I would have them well instructed in the art of communicating their ideas intelligibly and acceptably by word and by writing. So great is my desire to see such a system in operation, that I am strongly tempted, as nobody else is able to do anything just now, to make a beginning; and perhaps after brother Wade, who is excellently well capacitated for this department, has settled the Karen language with brother Mason, he will carry on what I shall begin, having both Karen and Burmese students under his care.”...