scarcely any record of these journeys of hers, she was too modest and shy to dwell on what only related to herself; and though she several times, with the help of her Burmese interpreter, led the devotions of two or three hundred Karens, it was always with a sense of reluctance, and only under necessity.
She had been a widow four years, when Adoniram Judson, who had returned from Rangoon, and was about to take charge of the station at Moulmein, made her his second wife, on the 10th of April, 1834. At the same time, an opportunity offered of sending little George back to America for education; but year after year filled the house at Moulmein with other little ones,-careful comforts, in that fatal climate, which had begun to tell on the health of both the parents. Pain and sorrow went for little with this devoted pair. To be as holy as the Apostles though without their power, was the endeavour which Judson set before himself, and the work of such a man was one of spirit that drew all to hear and follow him. The Burmese converts were numbered by hundreds, and one of the missionaries in the Karen country could write: 'I no longer date from a heathen land. Heathenism has fled from these banks; I eat the rice and fruits cultivated by Christian hands, look on the fields of Christians, see no dwellings but those of Christian families. I am seated in the midst of a Christian village, surrounded by a people that live as Christians, converse as Christians, act as Christians, and, to my eyes, look like Christians.'
All this, like every other popular conversion, involved many individual disappointments from persons not keeping up to the Christian standard, and from coolness setting in when the excitement of the change was over; and great attention had to be paid to rules, discipline, &c., as well as to providing books and schools. Judson himself had to work hard at the completion and correction of the Burmese Bible, to which he devoted himself, the more entirely because an affection of the throat and cough came on, and for some time prevented him from preaching. In 1839, he tried to alleviate it by a voyage to Calcutta, where he was received by both Bishop Wilson and by the Marshman family at Serampore; but, as he observes, 'the glory of Serampore had departed,' and his stay there must have been full of sad associations. His work upon the Scriptures was finished in 1840, and he then began a complete Burmese dictionary, while his wife was translating the Pilgrim's Progress; but both were completely shattered in health, and their children, four in number, had all been brought low by the hooping cough, and then by other complaints. A voyage to Calcutta was imperatively enjoined on all; but it was stormy and full of suffering, and soon after they arrived at Serampore their youngest child, little Henry, died. A still further voyage was thought advisable, and the whole family went as far as the Isle of France, where they recovered some measure of health, and their toil at Moulmein was resumed. Four more years passed, three more children were born, and then the strength that had been for nineteen years so severely tried, gave way, and the doctors pronounced that Sarah Judson's life could only be saved by a voyage to America. The three elder children were to go with her, but the three little ones were to remain, since their father only intended to go as far as the Isle of France, and then return to his labour. The last words she ever wrote were pencilled on a slip of paper, intended to be given to him to comfort him at their farewell:-
'We part on this green islet, love:
Thou for the Eastern main,
I for the setting sun, love;
Oh! when to meet again?
My heart is sad for thee, love,
For lone thy way will be;
And oft thy tears will fall, love,
For thy children and for me.
The music of thy daughter's voice
Thou'lt miss for many a year,
And the merry shout of thine elder boys
Thou'lt list in vain to hear.
* * * * *
Yet my spirit clings to thine, love,
Thy soul remains with me,
And oft we'll hold communion sweet
O'er the dark and distant sea.
And who can paint our mutual joy
When, all our wanderings o'er,
We both shall clasp our infants three
At home on Burmah's shore?
But higher shall our raptures glow
On yon celestial plain,
When the loved and parted here below
Meet, ne'er to part again.
Then gird thine armour on, love,
Nor faint thou by the way
Till Boodh shall fall, and Burmah's sons
Shall own Messiah's sway.'
What a trumpet-note for a soldier to leave after nineteen years service 'through peril, toil, and pain,' undaunted to the last! For by the time the ship left the Isle of France, she was fading so rapidly that her husband could not quit her, and sailed on with her to St. Helena. She was fast dying, but so composed about her children, that some one observed that she seemed to have forgotten the three babes. 'Can a mother forget?' was all her answer. She died on board the ship, at anchor in the bay of St. Helena, and was carried to the burial-ground, where all the colonial clergy in the island attended, and she was laid beside Mrs. Chater, the wife of that Serampore missionary whose expulsion had led to the first pioneering at Rangoon, and who had since worked in Ceylon. She was just forty-two, and died September 1st, 1845.
Her husband found her beautiful farewell; and, as he copied it out, he wrote after the last verse, 'Gird thine armour on,' 'And so, God willing, I will yet endeavour to do; and while her prostrate form finds repose on the rock of the ocean, and her sanctified spirit enjoys sweeter repose on the bosom of JESUS, let me continue to toil on all my appointed time, until my change too shall come.'
On the evening of the day of her burial, he sailed with the three children, and arrived at Boston on the 15th of October, 1845. He remained in his native country only nine months, and, if a universal welcome could have delighted him, he received it to the utmost. So little did he know of his own fame, that, returning after thirty years, he had been in pain to know where to procure a night's lodging at Boston, whereas he found half the city ready to compete for the honour of receiving him, and every one wanted to meet him. Places of worship where he was to preach were thronged, and every public meeting where he was expected to speak was fully attended; but all this fervour of welcome was a distress to him, his affection of the throat made oratory painful and often impossible, and the mere going silently to an evening assembly so excited his nerves that he could not sleep for the whole night after. Any sort of display was misery to him; he could not bear to sit still and hear the usual laudation of his achievements; and, when distinguished and excellent men were introduced to him, he received them with chilling shyness and coldness, too humble to believe that it was for his goodness and greatness that they sought to know him, but fancying it was out of mere curiosity.
His whole desire was to get back to his work and escape from American notoriety, and, disregarding all representations that longer residence in the north might confirm his health, he intended to seize the first opportunity of returning to Moulmein. But a wife was almost a necessity both to himself and his mission, and even now, at his mature age and broken health, he was able to win a woman of qualities almost if not quite equal to those of the Ann and Sarah who had gone before her.
Emily Chubbuck, born in 1817, was the daughter of parents of the Baptist persuasion, living in the State of New York. She was the fifth child of a large family in such poor circumstances that, when she was only eleven years old, she was sent to work at a woollen factory, where her recollections were only of 'noise and filth, bleeding hands and aching feet, and a very sad heart;' but happily for her, the frost stopped the works during the winter months, and she was able to go to school; and, after two years, the family removed to a country farm. They were all very delicate, and her elder sisters were one after the other slowly dying of decline. This, with their 'conversions' and baptisms, deepened Emily's longing to give the tokens required by her sect for Christian membership, but they came slowly and tardily with her, and she quaintly told how one day she was addressed by one of the congregation whose
