The life of Adoniram Judson

by Edward Judson

Groaning for its latter day.”

But it was Mr. Judson’s lot to labor in the hard and obscure period of the first beginnings. And not only so, but he undertook the task of planting Christianity not among a people, like the Sandwich Islanders, without literature and without an elaborate religious system, but rather in a soil already preoccupied by an ancient classical literature and by a time-honored ritual which now numbers among its devotees one-third of the population of our globe. The difficulties of such an attempt are well described in one of his sermons, from which Mrs. Stevens has preserved a striking illustration:

.... “In comparing labors among a people without a national religion to labors among idolaters or Mussulmans, Dr. Judson used a figure which ought to be published in the Macedonian in reply to some things which have appeared there and elsewhere, to the import that difference of success among Burmans and Karens is owing to difference of labor performed among them. He supposed a man offering to fill two jars, one of which stands empty, the other filled with earth oil. Now, the force of the illustration will not appear to you as to us, because we are so familiar with this oil; and you are not, as we are, obliged to make frequent use of it; but you can judge of its character by a translation of the Burman name for it, ‘stinking water.’ The smell of it can not be extracted from a jar which has been emptied of it, except by burning. I should never think of using a vessel which had once contained it for any other purpose. To return to the illustration. A man goes to the owner of the empty jar, and asks if he may fill it with pure and sweet water. ‘O, yes, I shall consider it a favor.’ So the Sandwich Islander, so the Karen receives the truth, the benefits of a written language, and instruction in books, and the elevation that follows, as favors conferred; and as there are no stains of ancient superstitions, they are better Christians than converts from heathenism. When I say no stains, of course comparatively is meant.

“Let the missionary next go to the owner of the jar filled with earth oil. He must first empty it, which the owner considers robbery. He would say, ‘You are taking away my property; this is my merit, which I have been many years gathering. You wish to deprive me of my offerings. I will apply to the king and priests to uphold me in clinging to my property.’ But the missionary says, ‘If you drink that oil it will be poison to you; let me give you water, which will insure life eternal.’ ‘O, my ancestors have all drunk of this, and I wish to do the same; this is good for me, and yours for you. My books are good for me, and my religion, and so yours for you.’ But, after long argument and persuasion, he gains the man’s consent to give up his earth oil, and he labors through the process of dipping it out, and cleansing the jar; he rubs and washes; the man all the while begging him not to deprive him of all of it; to allow him some of his former customs, and some of the practices of his worldly neighbors and relatives; and often so much of the oil is left, that the water is very offensive, and by-standers say, ‘We do not perceive that the water is any sweeter than the oil.’ Sometimes the man himself joins in, and says he does not know but the smell is as bad as before, and the change has been of no use; so he upsets the jar and apostatizes.”

When these considerations are taken into account, the tangible results which Mr. Judson left behind at his death seem simply amazing. But these are only a small part of what he really accomplished. Being dead, he yet speaketh. The Roman Church has preserved an old legend that John, the beloved disciple, “did not die at all, but is only slumbering, and moving the grave mound with his breath until the final return of the Lord.”[^[71]] And in a sense it is true that a great man does not die at all. You can not bury a saint so deep that he will not sway the lives of those who walk over his grave. The upheavals of society are mainly due to the breath of those who have vanished from the surface of the earth and lie beneath its bosom.

The early actions of Mr. Judson and his fellow-students at Andover resulted in the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. This society, representing the Congregationalists of this country, may justly claim to be the mother of American foreign missionary bodies. It was organized for the support of certain young men while they were engaged in the work to which the Lord had called them. Societies do not call men into being, but men create societies. The society is only a convenient vehicle through which the Christian at home can send bread to the missionary abroad, whose whole time is devoted to feeding the heathen with the bread of life.

In the year 1880, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions received and expended over six hundred thousand dollars. It is conducting successful missionary operations in Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan, Micronesia, Mexico, Spain, and Austria, as well as in our own western land. In these different countries it has two hundred and seventy-two churches, over seventeen thousand church members, and sixteen hundred and eighty-five missionaries, native pastors, and assistants.

The change in Mr. Judson’s views on the subject of Baptism led almost immediately to the formation of a Baptist Missionary Society, now known as the American Baptist Missionary Union. In the year 1880, there passed through the treasury of this Board nearly three hundred thousand dollars, given by the Baptists of the United States for the evangelization of the heathen. This society is at work in Burmah, Siam, India, China, Japan, and also in the countries of Europe, and it reports nine hundred and eight native churches, eighty-five thousand three hundred and eight church members, and twelve hundred and fourteen missionaries and native preachers.

A few years after Mr. Judson’s departure from this country, and the organization of these two societies, the Episcopalians and also the Methodists of America organized themselves for the work of foreign missions. For many years the Presbyterians joined hands with the Congregationalists, and poured their contributions into the treasury of the American Board. But in 1836 they organized a society of their own, now known as the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. Its fields of operation are Syria, Persia, Japan, China, Siam, India, Africa, South America, Mexico, and the Indian tribes, with an annual expenditure of nearly six hundred thousand dollars. It supports ten hundred and ninety-nine missionaries and lay missionaries, and reports fourteen thousand five hundred and eighty-eight communicants, with eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty scholars in the native schools.

All these vigorous Christian societies sustained by the missionary conviction of the churches in America, with their vast army of missionaries and native communicants now pressing against the systems of heathenism at a thousand points, when they come to tell the story of their origin, do not fail to make mention of the name of Adoniram Judson. His life formed a part of the fountain-head from which flow these beneficent streams which fringe with verdure the wastes of paganism.