“Indeed, I believe my solemn little face was almost ludicrously familiar to worshippers of every denomination, for I remember a Presbyterian once saying to me, as I was leaving the chapel, after having, as usual, asked prayers: ‘What! this little girl not converted yet! How do you suppose we can waste any more time in praying for you?’”
Indeed, she seems from her earliest years to have been haunted by the conviction that she was, some time or other, to be a missionary to the heathen; but she was always striving to rid herself of this irksome thought. She said to a friend:
“I have felt, ever since I read the memoir of Mrs. Ann H. Judson when I was a small child, that I must become a missionary. I fear it is but a childish fancy, and am making every effort to banish it from my mind; yet the more I seek to divert my thoughts from it, the more unhappy I am.”
It was by a strange coincidence that this gifted woman, who had been from childhood so deeply impressed by the story of Ann Hasseltine, should meet Mr. Judson in January, 1846. It was at the house of Dr. Gillette in Philadelphia, Mr. Judson had been invited to come from Boston, and Dr. Gillette had gone there to bring him on. The journey was long and cold, and an accident caused a delay of three or four hours. Dr. Gillette saw in the hands of a friend a collection of light sketches called “Trippings,“ by Fanny Forester. He borrowed it, and handed it to Mr. Judson that he might read it, and so while away the tedious and uncomfortable hours of delay. Mr. Judson read portions of the book, and recognizing the power with which it was written, expressed a regret that a person of such intellectual gifts should devote them to the writing of light literature. “I should be glad to know her,“ he remarked. “The lady who writes so well ought to write better. It’s a pity that such fine talents should be employed on such eesubjects.”
Dr. Gillette answered that he would soon have the pleasure of meeting her, because she was at that time a guest in his own house. Upon their arrival, Mr. Judson was entertained at the residence of Mr. Robarts, and the next morning called at Dr. Gillette’s. His first meeting with Miss Chubbuck is thus described by Dr. Kendrick:
“Promptly on the next day he came over to Mr. Gillette’s. Emily (in her morning-dress) was submitting to the not very poetical process of vaccination. As soon as it was over, Dr. Judson conducted her to the sofa, saying that he wished to talk with her. She replied half playfully that she should be delighted and honored by having him talk to her. With characteristic impetuosity he immediately inquired how she could reconcile it with her conscience to employ talents so noble in a species of writing so little useful or spiritual as the sketches which he had read. Emily’s heart melted; she replied with seriousness and candor, and explained the circumstances which had drawn her into this field of authorship. Indigent parents, largely dependent on her efforts—years of laborious teaching—books published with but little profit, had driven her to still new and untried paths, in which at last success unexpectedly opened upon her. Making this employment purely secondary, and carefully avoiding everything of doubtful tendency, she could not regard her course as open to serious strictures. It was now Dr. Judson’s turn to be softened. He admitted the force of her reasons, and that even his own strict standard could not severely censure the direction given to filial love. He opened another subject. He wished to secure a person to prepare a memoir of his recently deceased wife, and it was partly, in fact, with this purpose that he had sought Emily’s acquaintance. She entertained the proposition, and the discussion of this matter naturally threw them much together during the ensuing few days.”
Alex. Cameron, Eng.r
Emily C Judson
Mr. Judson and Emily Chubbuck were married in Hamilton, N. Y., on the 2d of the following June.
The marriage was pleasing neither to the literary nor to the religious world. The one thought that the brilliant Fanny Forester was throwing herself away in marrying “an old missionary“; the other feared that the moral grandeur of the missionary cause was compromised by an alliance between its venerable founder and a writer of fiction.