The inhabitants are of the Mongolian race, short, stout, active, and brown, with a good deal of ingenuity in arts and manufactures, but not equal to the Chinese, their neighbours. Their language is monosyllabic, their religion Buddhist, their government a despotic empire, and at the time the mission was entered upon they had had little intercourse with strangers, but their women were not secluded, were not wholly uneducated, and were treated with consideration.
Buddha is regarded as a manifestation of Vishnu-the Hindoos say, to delude his enemies; the Buddhists, to bring a new revelation. Gautama was the almost deified being who spread the knowledge of Buddhism, about 500 B.C. In different countries the religion has assumed different forms, but it is nearly co-extensive with the Mongolian race, and the general features are the rejection of the Vedas and of most of the Hindoo myths, faith in the divinity of Buddha, and hope that the individual personality will be entirely absorbed in his essence, the human being lost in the Deity. Five laws of virtue must be observed, ten kinds of sin avoided; and the Buddhist expects that transgressions will be punished by the transmigration of his soul into some inferior creature, whence he will rise by successive stages into another trial as a man, and gradually improving by the help of contemplation, and of a sublime state of annihilation of all self-consciousness, may become fit for his final absorption into the Godhead. There is an extensive priesthood, called Lamas, who live in a state of celibacy in dwellings not at all unlike monasteries; and, in effect, so much in their practices seems to parody the ceremonies of Christianity that the Portuguese thought them invented by the devil for the very purpose. However, there is no doubt that Buddhism inculcates a much purer morality than the religion of Brahma, and far higher aims. In Burmah, however, the idea of the eternity of the Deity had evidently been lost, and Gautama had practically usurped the place that the higher Buddhists gave to Brahma. Indeed, though the true Buddhist system looks to the absorption in the Deity,-Nirvana, as it is called,-the popular notion, as received in Burmah and corrupted by less refined minds, made it into what was either absolute nonentity or could not be distinguished from it, so that the ordinary Burman's best hope for the future was of nothing but annihilation.
There was originally a Burman Empire, but it had become broken up, and the territories of Ava, Pegu, and Siam were separated, though Ava claimed them all, and owned a semi-barbarous magnificent court, with many gradations of dignitaries, sending out Viceroys to the different provinces and towns.
When in 1807 strong opposition was made by Sir George Barlow's government to the landing of the two Baptist missionaries, Robinson and Chater, the former obtained forbearance on account of his wife's health, but the latter was obliged to embark; and, rather than return to England, he chose a vessel bound for Rangoon, a city at the mouth of the river Irrawaddy, the nearest Burmese harbour. His was to be a reconnoitring expedition to discover the condition of the Burmese Empire, the progress that Roman Catholic missions were making there, and the possibility of undertaking anything from the centre of Serampore. Another missionary, named Mardon, went with him. They were well received by the European merchants resident at Rangoon, and returned with an encouraging report. It was decided that the attempt should be made; and as Mr. Mardon did not feel equal to the undertaking, fifteen days were set apart as a time of private prayer for direction who should be chosen in his stead.
It was Felix Carey, then nearly twenty-two, who volunteered to go with Mr. Chater, of whom he was very fond. His father was unwilling to send him, not only on account of his youth, but because he was very valuable in the printers' work, and had an unusual amount of acquaintance with Sanskrit and Bengalee, so that he could hardly be spared from the translations; but the majority of the council at Serampore were in favour of his going, and after a long delay, in consequence of the danger British trading vessels were incurring from French privateers from the Isle of France, they set sail and arrived at Rangoon early in the year 1808.
There they built themselves a house, and obtained a good deal of favour from the gentleness and amiability of Mr. Chater, and from young Carey's usefulness. He had regularly studied medicine for some years in the hospital at Calcutta, and his skill was soon in great request, especially for vaccination, which he was the first to introduce. His real turn was, however, for philology, and he was delighted to discover that the Pali, the sacred and learned language of Burmah, was really a variety of the Sanskrit, cut down into agreement with the Mongolian monosyllabic speech. He began, with the assistance of a pundit, to compile a grammar, and to make a rough beginning of a translation of the Scripture, a work indeed in which the Serampore people were apt to be almost too precipitate, not waiting for those refinements of knowledge which are needful in dealing with the shades of meaning of words of such intense importance and delicate significancy. But on their principles, they could do nothing without vernacular Bibles, and they had not that intense reverence and trained scholarly appreciation which made Martyn spend his life on the correctness of a single version, rather than send it forth with a flaw to give wrong impressions.
Neither does Felix Carey seem to have been a missionary in anything but that bent which is given by training and family impulse. He delighted in languages, but rather as an end than a means; and though he did what the guiding fathers at Serampore required of him, it was as a matter of course, not with his whole heart. In the meantime, the fact of Mr. Chater being a married man occasioned difficulties. Like their kinsmen the Chinese, the Burmese much objected to the residence of foreign females within their bounds; and when Mr. Chater obtained leave to bring his wife, she was so forlorn that he was obliged to seek for another station, and, receiving an invitation to Ceylon, left Felix alone, except for his marriage with a young woman of European extraction, but born in Burmah.
Soon after a dispute arose between the British and Burmese governments, and two English ships of war appeared off Rangoon. The native authorities wished the young missionary to act as interpreter, and on his refusal he was accused of being a spy, and was forced to take refuge on board one of the British ships where he remained for two months before the differences were adjusted, and he was allowed to return on condition that he should not refuse his services as interpreter another time. In the October of 1812 he came home to Serampore to print his Burmese grammar and Gospel of St. Matthew, and not only did this, but carried a press back with him to Rangoon. A youth who was sent from the congregation at Calcutta to co-operate with him proved unfit for the work, and was advised to return to secular business; but in the meantime, the person who was, above all others, to be identified with the Burmese mission, had heard the call and was on his way.
This was Adoniram Judson, a native of New England, the eldest son of the minister of Malden, in Massachusetts, born in 1788, and bred up first at a school near home, and afterwards at Brown University. His acuteness and cleverness from infancy were great, especially in arithmetic and mathematics. During his studies, he met with a clever and brilliant friend who had imbibed the deistical teaching of the French Revolution, and infected him with it, and he came home at seventeen the winner of all the honours and prizes that the College afforded, but announcing himself to his parents as a decided infidel! The pastor treated him with stern displeasure, and argued hotly with him, but young Adoniram was the cleverer man, and felt his advantage. His mother's tears and entreaties were less easy to answer, and the thought of them dwelt with him, do what he would, when he set out on a sort of tour through the surrounding States. On his journey, he stopped at a country inn, and was told, with much apology, that there was no choice but to give him a room next to that of a young man who was so ill that he could scarcely live till morning. In fact, Adoniram's rest was broken by the groans of the dying man and the footsteps of the nurses, and there-close to the shadow of death-his infidelity, which had been but pride of intellect and fashion, began to quail, as the thought of the future haunted him. Morning came; all was still. He asked after his fellow-lodger, and heard that he
was dead. He asked his name. It was no other than the very youth who had staggered his faith.
The shock changed his whole tone. He could not bear to continue his journey, but turned back to Plymouth, determined to prove to himself what was indeed truth; and, while deeply studying the evidences of Christianity, he supported himself by keeping a school and writing educational books on grammar and arithmetic. His mind was soon thoroughly made up, as, indeed, his aberrations had been only on the surface, and he became very anxious to enter the Theological College at Andover, Massachusetts. This belonged to the most earnest of the Congregationalists, and evidence of personal conversion and piety was required from the candidates; but, in his case, the professors were satisfied, and he entered on his course of study, which included Hebrew. In the last year of his studies there he fell in with Claudius Buchanan's "Star in the East," and the perusal directed his whole soul to the desire of missionary labour. His mind was harassed night and day with the thought of longing to do something for the enlightenment of the millions in Asia; and, meeting with Symes' "Burmese Empire," his thoughts turned especially in that direction. It was a quiet steady purpose, though he was slow of communicating it; until, one evening at home, his father began throwing out hopes and hints of some great preferment, and his mother and sister smiled complacently, as if they were in the secret. Adoniram begged for an explanation, since it was possible their plans might not coincide, to which his father replied there was no fear, and told him that the minister of the biggest church in Boston wished for him as a colleague. "So near home," said the delighted mother. He could not bear to answer her, but, when his sister chimed in, he turned to her, saying, "No, sister, I shall never live in Boston; I have much farther to go;" and then, steadily and calmly, but fervidly, he set forth the call that he felt to be upon him. How different a communication from that which he had made two years before! No doubt his family so felt it, for, though his mother and sister shed many tears, neither they nor his father offered a word of opposition.
Thenceforth his fate was determined, and he began to prepare himself. He was, in person, slightly made and delicate-looking, with an aquiline face, dark eyes, and chesnut hair; and though his constitution must have been immensely strong to have borne what he underwent, at this time he was thought delicate; and therefore, with his one purpose before him, he carefully studied physiology, and made himself a code of rules which he obeyed to the end of his life, in especial inhaling large quantities of air, sponging the whole body with cold water, and taking daily exercise by walking. He was a man of great vivacity and acuteness, with the poetical spirit that accompanies strong enthusiasm, and with a fastidious delicacy and refinement in all personal matters, such as seemed rather to mark him as destined to be an accomplished scholar than to lead the rude life of a missionary; and Ann Hasseltine, the young lady on whom he had fixed his affections, was a very beautiful girl, of great cultivation and accomplishments, but they were alike in one other great respect,-namely, in dauntless self-devotion. He began to talk of his purpose to the like- minded among his college mates, and gradually gathered a few into a very small missionary association, into which none were admitted who had any duties that could forbid their going out to minister among the heathen.
At the same time, and partly through their means, a wider association was formed, which had its centre at Bradford, and which finally decided on sending Judson to England to endeavour to effect a union with the London Missionary Society, which had been formed in 1795, in imitation of Carey's Baptist Society, to work in other directions by Nonconformists of other denominations.
The voyage in 1811, in the height of the continental war, was a very perilous one. On the way the vessel was taken by the French and carried into Bayonne, while the young American passenger was summarily thrown into the hold with the common sailors. He became very ill, but, when the French doctor visited him, he could hold no communication for want of a common language. Then it was that there came thoughts of home, and of the "biggest church in Boston," and a misgiving swept over him, which he treated at once as a suggestion of the enemy, and betook himself to prayer. Then, in the grey twilight of the hold, he felt about for his Hebrew Bible; and to keep his mind fully absorbed, began mentally rendering the Hebrew into Latin. When the doctor came in, he took up the Bible, perceived that he had a scholar to deal with, began to talk Latin to him, and arranged his release from the hold.
But on landing at Bayonne, he was marched through the streets as a prisoner with the English crew. He began declaiming in his native language on the injustice of detaining an American, and obtained his purpose by attracting the attention of an American gentleman in the street, who promised to do what he could for him, but advised him in the meantime to proceed quietly. The whole party were thrown into a dismal underground vault, and the stones covered with straw, which seemed to Judson so foul that he could not bear to sit down on it, and he walked up and down, though sick and giddy with the chill, close, noisome atmosphere. Before his walking powers were exhausted, his American friend was at the door, and saying, "Let me see whether I know any of these poor fellows," took up the lamp, looked at them, said "No friend of mine," and as he put down the lamp threw his own large cloak round Mr. Judson, and grasping his arm, led him out under it in the dark; while a fee, put into the hand, first of the turnkey and then of the porter, may have secured that the four legs under the cloak should pass unobserved. "Now run," said the American, as soon as they were outside, and he rushed off to the wharf, closely followed by his young countryman, whom he placed on board a vessel from their own country for the night. Afterwards, Judson's papers were laid before the authorities, and he was not only released, but allowed to travel through France to the northern coast, and, making friends with some of the Emperor's suite on the way home from Spain, travelled to Paris in an Imperial carriage. Afterwards, he made his way to England, where he received a warm welcome from the London Missionary Society, by which he and the three friends he had left in America-Samuel Newell, Samuel Nott, and Gordon Hall-were accepted as missionaries; but on Judson's return to America, he found that the Congregationalist Mission Board there was able to undertake their expenses, and accordingly they went out, salaried by their own country. All four were dedicated to the ministry at Salem on the 6th of February, 1812, and immediately prepared to sail for the East Indies.
Judson, with his wife, the beautiful dark-eyed Ann Hasseltine, and his friends Mr. and Mrs. Newell, also newly married, embarked in the Caravan; Hall, Nott, and another college mate, named Luther Rice, were in the Harmony. They were at once received at Serampore, on their landing, in the June of 1812, but Dr. Carey's expectations of them were not high. Adoniram and Ann Judson were both delicate, slender, refined- looking people. "I have little hope from the Americans," he wrote; "if they should stay in the East, American habits are too luxurious for a preparation to live among savages." He little knew what were the capabilities of Ann Judson, the first woman who worked effectively in the cause, the first who rose above the level of being the comfort of her husband in his domestic moments, and was an absolute and valuable influence.
The opposition to the arrival of missionaries was at its height, and this large batch so dismayed the Calcutta authorities that, declaring them British subjects come round by America, they required their instant re- embarkation. It was decided to go to the Isle of France, whence it was hoped to find a French ship to take them to the aid of Felix Carey, but the first vessel could only take the Newells, and the detention at Serampore drew the Judsons and Rice into the full influence of Marshman's powerful and earnest mind. Aware that they would have to work with the Baptist mission, they had studied the tenets on the voyage, but found when they arrived, that the points of difference were subjects that the trio at Serampore did not choose to discuss, lest their work among the heathen should suffer by attention to personal controversy. However, their own thoughts and the influences of the place led them to desire baptism by immersion; and this being done, they con
sidered it due to the Congregationalists, who had sent them out, to resign their claim on them for support, though this left them destitute. It was decided that Rice should go home and appeal for their support to the American Baptists, and in this he thoroughly succeeded, while the Judsons, after sailing for Mauritius, where they found poor Mrs. Newell recently dead, made their way back to Madras, and there found a vessel bound for Rangoon. It was a crazy old craft, with a Malay crew, no one but the captain able to speak a word of English. The voyage was full of disaster. A good European nurse, who had been engaged to go with Mrs. Judson, fell on the floor and died suddenly, even while the ship was getting under weigh, too late to supply her place. Mrs. Judson became dangerously ill, and the vessel was driven into a perilous strait between the Great and Little Andaman Islands, where the captain was not only out of his bearings, but believed that, if he were driven ashore, the whole ship's company would be eaten by the cannibal islanders. The alarm, however, acted as a tonic, and Mrs. Judson began to recover.
They reached Rangoon in safety, but Judson writes: "We had never before seen a place where European influence had not contributed to smooth and soften the rough features of uncultivated nature. The prospect of Rangoon, as we approached, was quite disheartening. I went on shore, just at night, to take a view of the place and the mission-house, but so dark and cheerless and unpromising did all things appear, that the evening of that day, after my return to the ship, we have marked as the most gloomy and distressing that we ever passed." The mission-house was not quite empty, though Felix Carey, who they had hoped would welcome them, was at Ava. When Mrs. Judson, still too weak to walk, was carried ashore, she was received by his wife, who could speak Burmese, and managed the household, providing daily dinners of fowls stewed with rice or with cucumber.
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