Not only in this country has Mr. Judson’s career of heroic action and suffering stimulated Christian activity among all denominations, but his influence has been an inspiration everywhere. Just as a steamer in its course along a river generates a wave which will lash the shore long after the disturbing force has passed, so the words and behavior of a good man will sometimes set in motion streams of influence in the most unlooked-for places. How many by his life and his labor have been spurred to missionary endeavor we know not now, but shall know hereafter. But an interesting instance of the wide-reaching character of this influence has been preserved by Dr. Wayland. Mr. Judson had been deeply interested in establishing a mission among the Jews of Palestine, but to his great disappointment the enterprise proved a failure.
“It, however, pleased an all-wise Providence to render His servant useful to the children of Abraham in a manner which he little expected. Two or three days before he embarked on his last voyage, not a fortnight before his death, Mrs. Judson read to him the following paragraph from the Watchman and Reflector:
“‘There[[72]] we first learned the interesting fact, which was mentioned by Mr. Schauffler, that a tract had been published in Germany, giving some account of Dr. Judson’s labors at Ava; that it had fallen into the hands of some Jews, and had been the means of their conversion; that it had reached Trebizond, where a Jew had translated it for the Jews of that place; that it had awakened a deep interest among them; that a candid spirit of inquiry had been manifested; and that a request had been made for a missionary to be sent to them from Constantinople. Such a fact is full of meaning, a comment on the word of inspiration: “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that.”’”
Mrs. Judson, in her relation of these facts, continues:
“His eyes were filled with tears when I had done reading, but still he at first spoke playfully, and in a way that a little disappointed me. Then a look of almost unearthly solemnity came over him, and, clinging fast to my hand, as though to assure himself of being really in the world, he said, ‘Love, this frightens me. I do not know what to make of it.’ ‘What?’ ‘Why, what you have just been reading. I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came; at some time—no matter at how distant a day—somehow, in some shape—probably the last I should have devised—it came. And yet I have always had so little faith! May God forgive me, and, while He condescends to use me as His instrument, wipe the sin of unbelief from my heart.’
“‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’”
Indeed there are very few of those who have gone from this country as missionaries to the heathen who are not indebted to Mr. Judson for methods and inspiration. The writer will not soon forget a scene he witnessed at Saratoga in May, 1880. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was in session. Dr. Jessup, an eminent missionary in Syria, then on a visit to this country, had been elected moderator. When the session of the Assembly had ended, he entered the Convention which the Baptists were then holding also in Saratoga. As an honored guest he was invited to speak. There was a breathless silence through the house as the veteran missionary arose, and with inspiring words urged the prosecution of the missionary enterprise. He closed by saying that when he should arrive in heaven, the first person whose hand he desired to grasp next to the Apostle Paul would be Adoniram Judson.
A life which embodies Christ’s idea of complete self-abnegation can not but become a great object-lesson. A man can not look into the mirror of such a career without becoming at once conscious of his own selfishness and of the triviality of a merely worldly life. A New York merchant in his boyhood read Wayland’s “Life of Judson,” and laying the book down left his chamber, went out into a green meadow belonging to his father’s farm, and consecrated his young life to the service of God. How many unknown souls have been attracted to Christ by the same magnetism! How many others have been lifted out of their self-love! How many have been drawn toward the serener heights of Christian experience by the example of him whose strong aspirings after holiness are depicted in “The Threefold Cord!”[[73]] O that some young man might rise from the reading of these memoirs and lay down his life in all its freshness and strength upon the altar of God, so that he might become, like Paul of old, a chosen vessel of Christ to bear His name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel!
The memory of Mr. Judson’s sufferings in Ava will never cease to nerve missionary endeavor. They appeared at the time unnecessary and fruitless. He himself, upon emerging from them, spoke of them as having been “unavailing to answer any valuable missionary purpose unless so far as they may have been silently blessed to our spiritual improvement and capacity for future usefulness.” But the spectacle of our missionary lying in an Oriental prison, his ankles freighted with five pairs of irons, his heroic wife ministering to him like an angel during the long months of agony, has burned itself into the consciousness of Christendom and has made retreat from the missionary enterprise an impossibility. It is God’s law that progress should be along the line of suffering. The world’s benefactors have been its sufferers. They “have been from time immemorial crucified and burned.”[[74]] It seems to be a divine law that those who bestow roses must feel thorns. The sufferings of Mr. Judson’s life were as fruitful of blessing as the toils.
The graves of the sainted dead forbid retreat from the ramparts of heathenism. It is said that the heart of the Scottish hero Bruce was embalmed after his death and preserved in a silver casket. When his descendants were making a last desperate charge upon the serried columns of the Saracens, their leader threw this sacred heart far out into the ranks of the enemy. The Scots charged with irresistible fury in order to regain the relic. Christianity will never retreat from the graves of its dead on heathen shores. England is pressing into Africa with redoubled energy since she saw placed on the pavement of her own Westminster Abbey the marble tablet in memory of him who was “brought by faithful hands, over land and sea, David Livingstone, missionary, traveller, philanthropist.” Until that day shall come when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess the name of Jesus, Christian hearts will not cease to draw inspiration from the memory of those who found their last resting-place under the hopia-tree at Amherst, on the rocky shore of St. Helena, and beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean.