“But I must close my remarks. Brother Judson, we are acquainted with your history. We have marked your labors, have sympathized in your various sufferings, have shed many a tear at the foot of the ‘hopia-tree’; have gone, in fancy, on mournful pilgrimage to the rocky Island of St. Helena; have rejoiced in your successes and the successes of your devoted associates, and have long and fervently wished to see your face in the flesh. This privilege we now enjoy. Welcome, thrice welcome are you, my brother, to our city, our churches, our bosoms. I speak as the representative of Southern Baptists. We love you for the truth’s sake, and for your labors in the cause of Christ. We honor you as the father of American missions.

“One thought pains us. To-morrow morning you will leave us. We shall see your face no more. You will soon return to Burmah, the land of your adoption. There you will continue your toils, and there, probably, be buried. But this separation is not without its solace. Thank God, it is as near from Burmah to heaven as from Richmond, or any other point on the globe. Angels, oft commissioned to convey to heaven the departing spirits of pious Burmans and Karens, have learned the way to that dark land. When dismissed from your toils and sufferings, they will be in readiness to perform the same service for you. God grant that we may all meet in that bright world. There sin shall no more annoy us, separations no more pain us, and every power will find full and sweet employ in the service of Christ.

“And now, my brother, I give my hand in token of our affection to you, and of your cordial reception among us.”

Mr. Judson’s reply attested his capacity for taking a broad and catholic view of the religious situation at a time when the country was agitated by disturbing sectional jealousies:

“I congratulate the Southern and Southwestern churches,” he said, “on the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention for Foreign Missions. I congratulate the citizens of Richmond that the Board of that Convention is located here. Such an organization should have been formed several years ago. Besides other circumstances, the extent of the country called for a separate organization. I have read with much pleasure the proceedings of the Convention at Augusta, Ga., and commend the dignified and courteous tone of the address sent forth by that body. I am only an humble missionary of the heathen, and do not aspire to be a teacher of Christians in this enlightened country; but if I may be indulged a remark, I would say, that if hereafter the more violent spirits of the North should persist in the use of irritating language, I hope they will be met, on the part of the South, with dignified silence.”

It was his desire to go further South, but his frail health imperatively forbade him, and so after visiting Baltimore, where he was welcomed at a most enthusiastic missionary meeting, he turned northward again.

While on this tour through the country, everywhere kindling missionary enthusiasm, he met, during a visit in Philadelphia, a young lady, Miss Emily Chubbuck, who, under the nom de plume of Fanny Forester, had achieved a wide literary reputation. The acquaintance culminated in marriage. This lady, who was to take the place at his side left successively vacant by Ann Hasseltine and Sarah Boardman, had been disciplined in the hard school of poverty. She was born August 22, 1817, at Eaton, a little town in Central New York, and near a stream which, with its fringe of alders, murmurs here and there in her prose and poetry under the name of Alderbrook. Her parents, Charles Chubbuck and Lavinia Richards, had moved to Eaton from New Hampshire. Her childhood days were spent in a little house which can still be seen on the road from Eaton to West Eaton, perched against a hill so close beneath the road that, as she says, one would feel half disposed “to step from the road where you stood to the tip of the chimney.”[[64]] Her parents were very poor, and she thus describes a winter she passed when she was about thirteen years old:

“We suffered a great deal from cold this winter, though we had plenty of plain food. Indeed, we never were reduced to hunger. But the house was large and unfinished, and the snow sometimes drifted into it in heaps. We were unable to repair it, and the owner was unwilling. Father was absent nearly all the time, distributing newspapers; and the severity of the winter so affected his health that he could do but little when he was at home. Mother, Harriet, and I were frequently compelled to go out into the fields, and dig broken wood out of the snow, to keep ourselves from freezing. Catherine and I went to the district school as much as we could.”

Again she wrote:

“November, 1830. Father’s attempt at farming proved, as might have been expected, an entire failure, and for want of a better place he determined to remove to the village. He took a little old house on the outskirts, the poorest shelter we ever had, with only two rooms on the floor, and a loft, to which we ascended by means of a ladder. We were not discouraged, however, but managed to make the house a little genteel as well as tidy. Harriet and I used a turn-up bedstead, surrounded by pretty chintz curtains, and we made a parlor and dining-room of the room by day. Harriet had a knack at twisting ribbons and fitting dresses, and she took in sewing; Catherine and Wallace went to school; and I got constant employment of a little Scotch weaver and thread-maker at twisting thread. Benjamin returned to his old place, and Walker was still in the printing-office.”