When Mr. Judson was subjected to these indignities and tortures, he was in the very prime of life—thirty-six years old. He had come to that age when a good physical constitution is thoroughly seasoned and well qualified to endure hardship.
He had always taken the best care of his health consistent with the performance of his multiform duties. Even before leaving America, he had adopted the following rules: First, frequently to inhale large quantities of air, so as to expand the lungs to the uttermost; secondly, daily to sponge the whole body in cold water; and thirdly, and above all, to take systematic exercise in walking.
Again, he had that tough, wiry physique which endures unexpectedly even during prolonged crises. All this was in his favor. But, on the other hand, he was a student, unused to suffering hardship. His naturally vigorous constitution had been somewhat enfeebled by ten years of close application to study in a tropical climate, and of late years had been completely shattered by repeated blows of fever and ague. He was reared in the cold, bracing air of New England, and during the tedious hours of imprisonment, how often must his memory have projected the sufferings of the Oriental jail against the background of the cool, green hillsides of his childhood. For
... “this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.”
And his was an active, methodical nature, to which the enforced idleness of twenty-one months must have brought the keenest torture. There was his Burman Bible unfinished, and ten years of work in Rangoon going to pieces in his absence. He longed to be preaching the Gospel. Now that he had at last completely mastered the native tongue, he was filled with Jeremiah’s consuming zeal. “His word was in mine heart, as a burning fire shut up in my bones.”
Endowed with a nervous temperament, his nature was exceedingly sensitive to discomfort. One of his fellow-prisoners says: “His painful sensitiveness to anything gross or uncleanly, amounting almost to folly, was an unfortunate virtue to possess, and made him live a life of constant martyrdom.” Of his personal habits, Mrs. E. C. Judson says:
“His predilection for neatness, uniformity, and order amounted, indeed, to a passion. Then he had an innate sort of refinement about him, which would subject him to annoyance when a less sensitive person would only be amused—a most inconvenient qualification for a missionary. This passion for order—which I should rather consider an unconquerable love for the beautiful and elegant, studiously perverted—displayed itself rather oddly after the means for its natural gratification and development were cut off. Nobody ever luxuriated more in perfectly spotless linen, though, partly from necessity, and partly because there was a suspicion among his friends that he would wear no other, it was always coarse. The tie of the narrow black ribbon, which he wore instead of a neckcloth, was perfect, and the ribbon itself would not have soiled the purest snow, though it was often limp and rusty from frequent washing. His general dress was always clean, and adjusted with scrupulous exactness, though it often looked as if it might have belonged to some rustic of the last century, being of the plainest material, and in fashion the American idea of what was proper for a missionary, perpetuated in broad caricature by a bungling Bengalee tailor. Most people thought that he dressed oddly from a love of eccentricity; but the truth is, he was not in the least aware of anything peculiar in his costume, never seeing himself in a mirror larger than his pocket toilet-glass. He could see his feet, however; and his shoes never had a spot on their polish, nor the long, white, carefully-gartered stockings a wrinkle, much less a stain. In the construction and arrangement of his unique studying apparatus, which was composed of two long, narrow boxes mounted on a teak table, there was the same mixture of plainness with neatness and order, and, what was rather conspicuous in all his arrangements, a wonderful capacity for convenience. No one ever thought of invading his study corner; for he dusted his books and papers himself, and knew so well where everything was placed, that he could have laid his hand upon the smallest article in the darkest night.”
A nature amply endowed with these fine sensibilities must have instinctively shrunk from the filth of the dungeon and the squalor of the prisoners; while the constrained and crowded position, night and day, and the galling fetters, were almost unendurable.
There was also much to shock his moral nature. He found himself thrown into close association with the basest criminals of the Burman capital. His pure look rested upon their repulsive features, his reluctant ears were filled with their vulgar and blasphemous jests. Besides this, again and again he saw the wretched prisoner tortured with the cord and the mallet, and was forced to hear the writhing victim’s shriek of anguish.