“Rangoon, February 10, 1817.
“Have just heard that a person whom we have some time calculated on as a letter-carrier to Bengal is unexpectedly going off in the course of an hour. Have, therefore, time only to accompany the enclosed tracts with a line or two.
“We have just begun to circulate these publications, and are praying that they may produce some inquiry among the natives. And here comes a man, this moment, to talk about religion. What shall I do? I will give him a tract, to keep him occupied a few moments while I finish this. ‘Here, my friend, sit down, and read something that will carry you to heaven if you believe and receive the glorious Saviour therein exhibited.’
“We are just entering on a small edition of Matthew, the translation of which I lately commenced. But we are in great want of men and money. Our hands are full from morning till night. I can not, for my life, translate as fast as brother Hough will print. He has to do all the hard work in the printing-office, without a single assistant, and can not, therefore, apply himself to the study of the language, as is desirable. As for me, I have not an hour to converse with the natives, or go out and make proclamation of the glorious Gospel. In regard to money, we have drawn more from Bengal than has been remitted from America; so that now, if not for their truly brotherly kindness in honoring our bills on credit, we should actually starve. Moreover, an edition of five thousand of the New Testament will cost us nearly five thousand dollars. And what are five thousand among a population of seventeen millions, five millions of whom can read? O that all the members of the Baptist Convention could live in Rangoon one month! Will the Christian world ever awake? Will means ever be used adequate to the necessities of the heathen world? O Lord, send help! Our waiting eyes are unto Thee!”
It is a noteworthy fact that the attention of the first serious Burman inquirer was caught by two little writings that fell into his hands, a tract and a catechism. The British and Foreign Bible Society publish a statement, made upon the authority of Sir Bartle Frere, that he met “with an instance which was carefully investigated, in which all the inhabitants of a remote village in the Deccan had abjured idolatry and caste, removed from their temples the idols which had been worshipped there time out of mind, and agreed to profess a form of Christianity which they had deduced for themselves from the careful perusal of a single Gospel and a few tracts.” And the eminent African missionary, Moffat, related that when he was almost perishing for want of food, he was succored by an old negro woman whose spiritual life had been fed for years from a little copy of the Dutch New Testament. She drew it from her bosom and said: “This is the fountain whence I drink; this is the oil which makes my lamp to burn.”
But far more important than the work of translating and distributing tracts, catechisms, and portions of the Scripture, was the oral preaching of the Gospel. For this Mr. Judson had rare aptitude, and in it he won his most signal triumphs. While engaged in the necessary work of translation, he was always pining for the opportunity of imparting the message of salvation with the living voice. In a letter to Dr. Bolles he says: “I long to see the whole New Testament complete, for I will then be able to devote all my time to preaching the Gospel from day to day; and often now the latter appears to be the more pressing duty. May the Spirit of the Lord be poured out!” When eye meets eye, and the mind of an objector is confronted by a living, loving personality, he receives a deeper impression of religious truth than he can ever get even from the leisurely perusal of a printed book. The press can never supplant the pulpit. The truth, which, when pressed home by the earnest voice of the speaker, carries with it conviction, and arouses the conscience, and kindles the affections, is often weak and thin when presented on the printed page.
But Mr. Judson’s preaching was unlike that of the orator about whom a great throng gathers. After the little chapel, or zayat, was built, public worship indeed was held, the audience consisting of perhaps a hundred persons. But most of the preaching at first was to the individual. It was a process of spiritual button-holing. A single person would enter into a discussion with the missionary, while a few others would draw near to witness the encounter. It was in these hand-to-hand frays that Mr. Judson often extorted exclamations of admiration from the bystanders, as with his keen logic he hewed his opponent to pieces as Samuel did Agag.
His preaching was concrete. He did not deal in vague abstractions. Truth assumed, in his mind, statuesque forms. His conversation abounded in images and illustrations; and in this respect he resembled the great Teacher, whom England’s poet laureate thus describes:
“For wisdom dealt with mortal powers,
Where truth in closest words shall fail,