“Many thanks, dear sister, for your last present of fifty dollars, which I have received. I am obliged to look after the rupees a little more carefully now than when I had no little ones to provide for.
“I suppose you take the Magazine; so I do not introduce missionary affairs into my private letters.”
But Mr. Judson’s iron purposes were not melted in the ease and quiet of home life. He did not cease his efforts to save his poor Burmans. A few weeks after the birth of his son, he wrote:
“My days are commonly spent in the following manner: the morning in reading Burman; the forenoon in a public zayat with some assistant, preaching to those who call; the afternoon in preparing or revising something for the press, correcting proof-sheets, etc.; the evening in conducting worship in the native chapel, and conversing with the assistants or other native Christians or inquirers.”
With what genuine satisfaction must such a worker have looked back upon his work of a quarter of a century in Burmah!
“July 20, 1838.
“I have lately,” he writes, “had the happiness of baptizing the first Toung-thoo that ever became a Christian. I hope he will be the first-fruits of a plentiful harvest. God has given me the privilege and happiness of witnessing and contributing a little, I trust, to the conversion of the first Burmese convert, the first Peguan, the first Karen, and the first Toung-thoo. Three of them I baptized. The Karen was approved for baptism; but just then, brother Boardman removing to Tavoy, I sent the Karen with him, and he was baptized there.
“There are now above a thousand converts from heathenism, formed into various churches throughout the country. And I trust that the good work will go on, until every vestige of idolatry shall be effaced, and millennial glory shall bless the whole land. The thirteenth day of this month finished a quarter of a century that I have spent in Burmah; and on the eighth of next month, if I live, I shall complete the fiftieth year of my life. And I see that mother, if living, will enter on her eightieth year next December. May we all meet in heaven.”
Upon the completion of the fiftieth year of his life, and of his twenty-fifth year in Burmah, it is not strange that even his wiry physique should begin to give way beneath the strain. Disease fastened first upon his lungs, entailing loss of voice and intense pain. Allusions in his letters at this time indicate his declining health:
“On Passage from Maulmain to Calcutta, March 3, 1839.