The Heroic Story of Adoniram and Ann Judson

“‘Lost.   Lost!’

For weeks he had wandered around with them looking for work.  With disgust he remembered the reckless, empty life they led; finding lodgings where they could, then escaping without paying.  Finally, one night, Adoniram ran away from the group, arriving without warning at his uncle’s house, where his horse was stabled.  Instead of his uncle, he found only a young minister staying there.  Gradually, Adoniram found himself responding to the minister’s gentle earnestness.

As they talked together, Adoniram could see that the Christian was at peace with himself.  Next day, he continued his journey to a country inn.  There, hearing the cries of suffering coming from the other side of the wooden partition, the twenty-year-old philosopher knew that he did not have such peace.

Now that he was forced to think about it, Adoniram realized that his philosophy told him nothing about death.  Probably it was a door to an empty pit.  A door to a darkness darker than the night. The best that he could hope for was that it ended everything.  Just blankness.  Nothingness.

The worse he could fear was---what?  What was going to happen to that part of Adoniram which he called ‘I’?  Would it get blown out, like a candle-flame?  Or be buried in the ground with his body?  The thought slowly took hold of his senses.  He could feel the earth of earth pressing down on him, smell the rotting flesh, see his bones crumbling…

‘Midnight fancies!’ jeered another voice within him.  Adoniram pushed down the terror that had been rising in his heart and laughed at himself.  What would his old classmates think of these nightmares?  They had admired his farewell address for its fearless free-thinking!  Where was his bravery now?

Adoniram had to be brave to stick to the beliefs of his best friend, Jacob Eames—the student who had led him away from his childhood belief in Christ, into a totally impersonal view of the universe where humanity and experience just happened by chance.  Privately, Adoniram didn’t really like to think of himself as an accident; but the thought of Eames making fun of his fear filled him with shame.

Next morning, it seemed to the young man that his fears had only been a dream.  In fact, he could not understand how he had ever given in to such weakness. The sunlight was streaming in through the window, and he was impatient to be off.  He ran downstairs to demand his breakfast and his bill.

When he found the innkeeper and paid his account, he noticed that the man’s face was a little grim. Adoniram spoke casually as he asked if the young man in the room next to him was feeling any better. 

‘He is dead,’ was the simple reply.

‘Dead?’  For a moment, the fear of the night tripped Adoniram’s heart again.  But only for a moment. Quickly, he recovered himself and made a few polite remarks.  Then he asked, ‘Do you know who he was?’

‘Oh yes.  He was a young man from the university.  His name was Eames.  Jacob Eames…’

The news was such a shock that Adoniram was in no state to leave the inn for several hours.   When he found himself on the road later in the day he did not even know how he had got there.  All he knew was that his friend was lost.

Jacob was lost to his friends, to the world and to the future.  If his own ideas were correct, then neither his life nor his death had any meaning at all. The fact that he had met his end only a bed away from his best friend was just a crazy coincidence in a universe too big to care about individuals. 

But what if his beliefs were wrong?  What if the Bible was right and a personal God real?  Then Jacob was lost in a most desperate sense. For now he knew his error and was already regretting it with a bitterness no living human being can imagine.  He had come to the place the Bible calls hell and there was no going back.

For hell to open a quiet country inn and take Adoniram’s dearest friend and mentor from the next bed---surely that was not chance.  That was a terrible warning; a warning for which God had been preparing Adoniram ever since the day he had rejected his father’s faith in favor of a godless philosophy.

The shattering of Adoniram’s illusions about the world in New York; the warm Christian who was there to talk to him when he fled from his disappointment; the only room in the inn being right next to Jacob’s death-bed—all these things, added up to a lesson which must have been planned for him in advance.  It all pointed to the reality of the God of his father, who knew everything and could do anything.  Adoniram felt deeply now that the God of the Bible must be the true God.  If so, he must have a plan for Adoniram’s whole life, it only he knew what it was.”   (“Storming the Golden Kingdom” by John Waters STL Books)

In Sept., 1809, young Judson, at the age of 21, began to ponder seriously the subject of Foreign Missions.  He had just finished his first year of study at Andover Seminary.  A printed sermon fell into his hands by an English chaplain who worked for the British East India Company describing the progress of the Gospel in India.  It fell like a spark into the tender of Judson’s soul.  Judson wrote, “It was during a solitary walk in the woods behind the college, while meditating and praying, that the command of Christ, ‘Go into all the world’ was presented to my mind with such clearness and power, that I came to a full decision to obey the command at all events.”

At this time, overseas mission was unheard of among American Christians.  Nearly all their focus was upon taking the Gospel to the West.  Even the other students at the seminary thought his talk about foreign missions was crazy and he was forced to grow silent about his dreams and his call.    But Judson eventually met six other students at Andover who shared his passion. But there was no support among the Congregationalists of New England.

Someone gave him a book about Burma – one of the most isolated countries in Asia.  Judson read about a strange feudal empire, colorful and rich.   The people could read and write and their literature was well-developed.  They were all slaves of their emperor. The emperor believed that the whole world was at his feet.  He ruled over 17 million people, which was more than twice the population of the States at that time.  The only reason that he had not made slaves of every race was that they were hardly worth the trouble of conquering.  Judson immediately became drawn to Burma as his place of missionary service.

Judson was offered the associate pastor of the greatest church in New England, Park Street Church.  He was offered a tutor’s appointment at Brown University.  He declined them both.  His family begged him to re-consider and stay in New England, but Judson was determined. 

Finally, the seven students found a receptive pastor and he invited them to the General Association of Congregational Churches in New England, meeting in Bradford.  They students drew up a petition to present and then attended the association. The association appointed nine men to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, but it was a strangely timid board.

That night, Adoniram and the other students were guests at the home of Deacon John Hasseltine and  from the moment his daughter, Ann, walked in the room, Judson was smitten.  Eventually, he asked her father for her hand in marriage with this note:

“I have now to ask, whether you can agree to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world, whether you can agree to her departure, and her subjection to the hardship sand sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can agree to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of lack and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.
“Can you agree to all this, in the hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the shouts of praise which will come to her Savior from souls saved, through her help, from never-ending misery and despair?”

Somehow, he gave his blessing and they were married Feb. 5, 1812.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions suggested that the seven students approach the London Missionary Society because they had funds for foreign missions.  Judson was appointed to go to England with the request for funding.  It took six months to book his passage to London, and en route, his boat was taken over by French privateers just a few days out into the ocean.  Adoniram was arrested, thrown in the boat’s hold and was headed for France, not England.  Once in France, he was rescued by a fellow American and eventually found his way to London.  He argued his case before the London Missionary Society and they agreed to sponsor him as a missionary to Asia in full if he would agree that he was fully their missionary and did not represent the American Congregationalists in any way.

Adoniram returned to Boston and once the American Board of Commissioners heard of the ploy by the English to take over the American missionaries, they voted to fully support them.  One stated to Judson, “My boy, reckon anything them Britishers can do, we can do!

In January, a ship called the Caravan was sailing from Philadelphia to India and on Feb. 5, 1812, Ann and Adoniram and Samuel and Harriet Newell, were aboard.  For the two missionary couples, the voyage was a long honeymoon.  The two couples danced together, partly to keep fit and partly for the joy of it.  Adoniram kept himself busy by translating the Greek New Testament into English.  Much to his surprise, he discovered that the literal meaning of the Greek word for ‘baptism’ was ‘dipping in water.’  In the Congregational church at home he had been baptized when he was a baby by being sprinkled with a few drops of water.  But in the Bible, baptism seemed generally to be given in rivers to adult believers.  Ann finally agreed and they had a dilemma. 

The Congregationalists of New England had sent them to Asia and now they found that they agreed with the Baptists.  They were re-baptized by English missionary William Carey upon their arrival in Calcutta. The American Baptists suddenly learned that they had a missionary in Asia and they had no foreign mission commitment or funding.  They had to struggle to support them.

But the East India Trading Company was not pleased with the arrival of American missionaries in India.  They did not want the native Indian people converted to Christianity.  Quickly, all American missionaries were expelled by the local authorities.  The Judsons and the Newells found a ship going to an island called Mauritius in the Indian Ocean with room for two.  With the Newells expecting a baby, it was agreed that they would be on that ship.  This left the Judsons stranded with an order to board the next ship and return to England.  They crept onto a ship called Creole with the captain’s permission, but when the authorities found out, they stopped the ship and removed the Judsons. 

Finally, they were given permission and they boarded the Creole for Mauritius.  When they arrived, Samuel Newell came aboard.  With grief in his heart, he told them how his wife had lost her baby at sea and then fallen ill  herself and died.   Nearly all the inhabitants of the island were slaves and jealous owners forbid them to have contact with the missionaries.  So, they decided to leave.  When they arrived back in India, the authorities were waiting for them.  In Madras, they were told many fearful stories about how foreigners were treated in the Golden Kingdom of Burma, and particularly missionaries were unwelcome by the king.   Yet, after 18 months of traveling, the Judsons had no doubt that Burma was the place to which God wanted them to go. 

Adoniram searched the Madras harbor for a ship.  Finally, the last ship he checked, the captain stated that he was headed to Rangoon.  During violent storms, Ann miscarried and arrived in Rangoon weak and unable to walk.  On July 13, 1813, the ship entered the mouth of the Rangoon River.  The land looked desolate and poor. But late in the afternoon, Judson saw a flash of gold above the jungle tree-tops.  The sun’s rays were catching the tip of a gleaming spire, the top of the great Shwe Dagon pagoda of Rangoon, a temple built up by the Buddhists for many generations.  The pagoda towered over the town of bamboo and teak houses. 

Four Burmese men carried Ann sitting in an armchair on two long poles.  The streets were crowded with people who had never seen a foreign woman.

Adoniram soon found a Hindu scholar who could teach them the Burmese language.  Their language had very few religious words and it was difficult to talk about religious things with the Burmese. Ann eventually gave birth to Roger on Sept. 11, 1815.  But by Spring, the baby died from disease.  Little Roger was laid to rest in the garden of the mission-house by the distraught Judsons.  Ann had befriended the governing viceroy’s wife.  More than a week later, the viceroy’s wife sent an elephant and handler to the Judson’s house.  The couple climbed into a colorful shelter on the elephant’s back.  They were taken to the viceroy’s house where many officials were also mounted on elephants.  The elephants went into the jungle for ten miles until they reached an area of wild fruit trees.  They ate and returned home.  When the Judson’s arrived at the mission house, the viceroy’s wife had planted a circle of mango trees around little Roger’s grave.

Adoniram began writing tracts in Burmese and Ann wrote curriculum.  The Careys in India sent a printing press and thousands of copies of their newly written works were distributed around Rangoon.

After translating the Gospel of Matthew, Adoniram longed to begin preaching and set off on a ship for Chittagong, near the Indian border, to invite a Burmese Christian to help him.  While he was away the first of Burma’s cholera epidemics began to spread like the plague with people dying everywhere.  Throughout Rangoon, death gongs were sounded continuously. 

The printer missionary and Ann Judson were the only foreigners at the mission and the printer, Hough, had been arrested by a new viceroy and was growing increasingly worried by the threat of war between Britain and Burma.  Hough decided it was time to pull out and return to India until things calmed down.  It had been six months since any word of Adoniram had been received, and Ann did not want to leave.  She boarded the ship and went down river, but when the ship stopped, she deboarded and returned to Rangoon where Adoniram was waiting for her.

Soon, things calmed down and two more missionary couples arrived from the Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel.  Adoniram started to build his meeting place, called a zayat.  There were zayats all along the busy Pagoda Road, when led from the city to the pagoda of Shwe Dagon  Pagodas were only for Buddhists, but zayats were for everyone.  Travelers could stop and rest there, men could meet for conversation and teachers could teach their students.  The first service was held in Burmese on  April 4, 1819, six years after the Judson’s arrival in Burma and Adoniram was now 31 years old.  15 adults and many children came in during the service.  They looked around, made loud comments on the design of the place, discussed the dress and manners of the foreign teacher.   Adoniram then added a porch to his zayat.  He sat in it every day calling out, “Ho!  Everyone that thirsts for knowledge!”  More came until the teacher was fully occupied with his visitors.  On June 6, 1819, the first Burmese man, Maung Nau,  professed his faith and asked to be baptized.

However, a new viceroy placed restrictions around the missionaries making the people scared to visit their zayat.  Judson decided that the only way around this difficult situation was to travel to northern Burma to Ava, the Court of the Golden King.  After a month’s travel, January 25, 1820, they arrived at the Capitol.  The former viceroy of Rangoon who had befriended the Judsons now lived in the imperial palace and Judson went to visit him.  When Mya-day-men heard that the missionaries wished to see the king, he immediately arranged for an interview with the king’s private councilor, Maung Zah. 

They finally were given permission to see the king.  They were led into a tremendous hall.  It was impossible to see the end of the room.  High above their heads was a golden dome, supported by hundred of pillars.  All the walls and surfaces were covered in gold.  Suddenly, every Burman in the room flung himself flat on the floor as the king entered.  Days went by negotiating with the king and his counselors.  Finally, the king said, “What!  They have come presuming to convert us to their religion!  Let them leave our capitol.  We have no desire to receive their instructions.  Perhaps they will find some of their countrymen in Rangoon, who may be wiling to listen to them.”   Judson had failed to gain the king’s protection to continue his ministry in Rangoon among the native Burmese.

Eventually, Judson decided to relocate to southern Burma under control of the British East India Company.  But before they left, the Burmese believers asked them to wait until ten believers were baptized.  They waited and after ten believers were baptized, Adoniram and Ann left Rangoon with a hundred people following them to the river.

Eventually, they returned to Rangoon but Ann fell so ill that it was felt that were no other solution than for her to return to America to regain her strength.  Their two year separation was very difficult for both of them.  Adoniram said that he felt as if he was cutting off his right arm and pulling out his right eye.   To take his mind off his loneliness, he concentrated on translating the Scriptures and teaching at the zayat.  Soon, another missionary couple, the Price’s arrived and he was a medical doctor.  News of his healing ability reached the king.  On July 20, 1822, an order came from the emperor commanding the doctor to appear before him.  Adoniram agreed to go with him to translate.  By now, there were 18 baptized believers in Rangoon.

They were well received by the king and by his princes.  Adoniram had many faith conversations with royalty.  Eventually, the King insisted that the medical doctor and the Christian teacher settle in the capitol and he would give them land to build a house.  Adoniram returned to Rangoon to wait for Ann and finish his translation of the Burmese New Testament. When Ann arrived, they returned to Ava, the capitol.  For Adoniram and Ann, the trip up the river was like a second honeymoon.  En route, they passed a fleet of golden war-boats.  Somehow, they were allowed to pass through but Dr. Price met them and told them the discouraging news that now all foreigners were out of favor with the king.  The East India Company had sent an army to take Rangoon, and to everyone’s surprise, the city easily fell into British control.  Soon, there were rumors that all foreigners were spies of the British. While Ann and Adoniram were getting ready for dinner one night, an official forced his way into their house with a dozen armed men and took Adoniram in chains to a deplorable jail.  Their legs were elevated in the air and they were left hanging with most of their bodies upside down throughout the night.  Adoniram’s health declined rapidly.  Ann visited every government official that she knew and eventually was given permission to visit him in prison.    When Adoniram crawled to the little gate in the wall to see her, she could hardly recognize him.  It seemed impossible that only two nights of restless torture had given him this death-like appearance.  Eventually, the foreigners were taken outside the inner prison where they could receive visitors and breathe fresh air.

Adoniram had been in prison for seven months when in January, 1825, Ann gave birth to a daughter, Maria.   The order came that all the foreigners were to be roped together in pairs and marched out of the city.  A new ruler had taken over Burma who hated all foreigners.  Judson’s shoes were taken from him and blisters began to form on his feet as they were marched across a scorching hot desert.  Burning sand and stones turned his feet into raw, open sores.  Somehow, he survived the march to Death Prison in Amarapura.

The next evening, a cart came bumping up the country road to the prison.  There was the sound of a baby crying.  Adoniram saw Ann standing before him holding little Maria and their two adopted Burmese daughters.  There was no place for Ann to live until a prison guard took pity and took the woman and the three children into his humble house.  But Ann fell extremely ill and was no longer able to breast-feed her infant daughter.  Surprisingly, the prison warden gave permission for Adoniram to leave the prison for several hours and take the baby around to other young mothers in the area.  Adoniram carried the baby around in his chains until the infant had enough milk to stay alive.  Then, he bore her back to Ann.

They had heard rumors that the army leader of Burma, Pakan Wun, had plans to come to this area with his army and murder all the foreign prisoners.  But before he could implement this plan, Pakan Wun himself died by the king’s command.

Adoniram was freed, but taken by the government to translate a peace treaty between the English and the Burmese since no one else could read both languages.  Finally, after his work as peace translater, he returned to Ava and went straight to the mission house.  He barely recognized Ann, who was holding their filthy thin baby, Maria.    Ann’s face was deathly pale, the features sharp, the whole form shrunken almost to fleshlessness.  Ann had been afflicted by the dreaded spotted fever.  But Dr. Price nursed her back from the brink of death.

Finally, the British were on their march up the river to overtake the royal city.  The Judsons and other foreigners were allowed to travel downriver and try to talk the British out of advancing further.  But Adoniram later stated,
“What do you think of floating down the Irrawaddy on a cool, moonlit evening, with your wife by your side and your baby in your arms, free – all free?  I can never regret my 21 months of misery when I recall that one delicious thrill.  I think I have had a better appreciation of what heaven might be like after that.”

Adoniram was successful in negotiating a peace treaty and the British left.  But there was a strong sentiment against foreigners in Rangoon and the Judsons left for Amherst along the Southern Burma coast, outside the control of the Burma king.  No sooner had they settled there but the British insisted that Judson come with them again to Ava to negotiate a new trade agreement with the King.  While he was gone, Ann died.  He swiftly returned to Amherst to find his beloved wife buried in a grave that is still marked to this day in a little field in this fishing village.  Baby Maria Judson lived a while longer until she was two years old, and then she died.

Grief drove Adoniram to take his Bible and go into the jungle for forty days.  Gradually, the widower climbed out of his gloom. 

Adoniram wanted to do more pioneering work to take the gospel where it had never been heard.  He was now in good health, his face almost unlined, his body vigorous, his step quick.  In September, 1831, he went up the Dagyaing River, where the first members of the Karen tribe were baptized.     They were scattered among the hill villages.  At one village, a Buddhist Karen sent a message to Adoniram that he was not going to invite him to his village but neither was he going to stop him from coming.  At another village, the chief himself asked for baptism.   During the six-week journey, 25 converts were baptized and many more Karens became ‘hopeful inquirers.’   At night, they had to sleep on their boat because the countryside was swarming with tigers.

Seven years after Ann’s death, he completed translating the entire Bible into Burmese.  Sarah Boardman, a missionary widow who continued working among the Karen, read Judson’s translation of scripture and was moved to tears.  On April 10, 1834, Sarah and Adoniram were married.  Unfortunately, Sarah was ill even at the time of their wedding.

Even so, she gave birth to their first child, Abby.  By this time Judson had spent half his life in Burma and could hardly put three English sentences together he so seldom spoke his native tongue.  A visitor sent by the mission board stayed with the Judsons and was struck just how Burmese Adoniram had become.  In Moulmein, the congregation sat cross-legged on mats. When Adoniram knelt in prayer, the Burmese would lean forward from the bamboo poles which served as back-rests and rest their elbows on the floor.  As he prayed, they would press the palms of their hands together in concentration.  The only imported word in the services was the ‘Amen’ which everyone spoke aloud in response.  The birth of a son, Adoniram, followed, and then Elnathan, and Henry.  Henry was the next to die.

Sarah was working on a translation of Pilgrim’s Progress, but her health deteriorated.  The only solution was for the family to return to the United States.  Before they could return, Sarah died.  Adoniram was a widower again, returning to the states with three children, and leaving two behind in Burma under the care of other missionaries.

After six weeks, he returned to Boston and unexpectedly found himself something of a celebrity.   Everyone wanted to hear from the great missionary to Burma.   But his lung disease was so bad he could barely whisper and someone had to speak for him when he preached.   While traveling around America, he met Emily Chubbock.  She was a writer and she agreed to write a biography with Adoniram of Sarah Judson.  But soon the two fell in love and were married.  He was 58 and she was 28. Emily had long had an interest in the Judson’s missionary work in Burma and they left for Burma on July 11, 1846, leaving behind three Judson children to be raised by others in America.  When they returned to Burma, Emily met two of Judson’s children, Henry and Edward, for the first time.

At the end of 1847, Emily gave birth to her first child, Emily Frances. Later in his life, he developed the first English-Burmese dictionary, which ran 600 pages.  His translations of the Bible and of the dictionary are regarded by many across Myanmar (Burma) as among the most elegant examples of their language.

But illness and frailty took over Adoniram and the doctor ordered him to go on a boat and get away from the damp climate of Burma.  Emily was very reluctant to see him go and the Burmese Christians did not want him to die at sea.  They wanted him to be buried on their soil.  But the doctor said if he was to survive, he had to leave by ship.  He died five days out on the voyage and was buried at sea on April 12, 1850. 

The Karen people began responding to the Gospel by 1827.  The Chins began to turn to Christ five years before Adoniram’s death, and the Kachins started to follow their example 21 years later in 1876.

George and Sarah Boardman were the first American Baptist missionaries to work among the Karen.  George was near death when they carried him by cot, at his insistence, into the jungle where 34 Karens were to be baptized.  It was a journey of three days.  He didn’t survive the trip, leaving Sarah a widow but she remained in Tavoy, considered by the Karen in that area as their spiritual mother.

The Karen people lived in the jungles, forests and mountains, in small villages, not in towns or cities.   While there were Karen Buddhists, more Karen were animists and this made it easier for them to accept Christianity.  Their religion wasn’t as highly structured as Buddhism.

The Karen also had a cultural legend of losing their holy book and a white-skinned man would someday arrive and bring it back to them.  Judson seemed like a fulfillment of that legend.

When the foreign missionaries were expelled in 1966, the work was already fully in Burmese hands.  The Burma Baptist convention has 3,000 congregations with 900,000 members.   All of the mission hospitals and schools had to be turned over to the government in 1966.  The Baptists have only one hospital for lepers in Moulmein.  Yet, they have over 17 seminaries to train new leaders.

We have many connections to Burma.  Jay Jensen’s grandparents were missionaries to Burma.  Rev. Gertrude Anderson was a missionary to the Karen from 1921-1941 and she was the granddaughter of Rev. Galusha Anderson, our pastor during the Civil War years. 

But the greatest connection we have is our shared Baptist faith, and the fact that the Karen tribal people have come full circle, voyaging around the globe as did Adoniram and Ann Judson, residing as refugees in Judson’s homeland.  Making a new start with their lives, our faith has come full circle.
 

Sources: Storming the Golden Kingdom, A biography of Adoniram Judson by John Waters, STL Books, 1989
Jungle Trips through Burma, 1921-1941, Gertrude Anderson
Adoniram Judson, Missionary to Burma, Moody Press, 1955

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