BURMAH, CHINA, ETC., ETC.
My dear children--If you will look on your map of Asia, you will see,
adjoining Hindostan, at the east, a country called Burmah. This is
another land of idols. Here the "Baptist General Convention for Foreign
Missions" have one of the most interesting and flourishing missions in
the world. The people of Burmah are, if possible, still further removed
from divine knowledge than the people of India. They are in reality
atheists, or, in other words, people who do not believe in a creator or
preserver of the world. But still they worship gods, who, they say, have
become so by acts of religious merit. He whom they now worship is called
Gaudama, or Boodh. He is reputed to be the son of the king of Benares,
and, if their history be correct, was born six hundred years before
Christ. The Boodhists are all idolaters. They have many temples erected
to the honor of Boodh and his image. Before this image they present
flowers, incense, rice, betel-nuts etc. Like all other idolatrous
nations, the Burmese are very wicked. They do not respect their females
as they should do. They treat them as an inferior order of beings. They
often sell them.
A very singular custom prevails in that country. It consists in paying a
kind of homage to a white elephant. This elephant is sumptuously dressed
and fed. It is provided with officers, like a second sovereign, and is
made to receive presents from foreign ambassadors. It is next in rank to
the king, and _superior_ to the queen.
Burmah is the country in which Drs. Judson and Price, and Messrs. Hough
and Wade suffered so much, during the war with England several years
ago. Messrs. Hough and Wade were the first to suffer. As the ships which
were to make the attack upon Rangoon approached the city, they were
seized and cast into prison. Their legs were bound together with ropes,
and eight or ten Burmans, armed with spears and battle-axes, were
placed over them, as a guard. They were afterwards put in irons. The
next morning, as the fleet approached still nearer the city, orders were
sent to the guard, through the grates of their prison, that the instant
the shipping should fire upon the town, they were to kill them, together
with the other prisoners confined with them. The guard, on receiving
these orders, began to sharpen the instruments with which they intended
to kill them, and moved them about their heads to show with how much
skill and pleasure they would attend to their orders. Upon the floor
where they intended to butcher them, a large quantity of sand was spread
to receive the blood. The gloom and silence of death reigned among the
prisoners; the vast ocean of eternity seemed but a step before them. At
length the fleet arrived, and the firing commenced The first ball which
was thrown into the town passed, with a tremendous noise, directly over
their heads. This so frightened the guard, that they seemed unable to
execute their murderous orders. They shrunk away into one corner of the
prison, where they remained quiet, until a broadside from one of the
ships made the prison shake and tremble to its very foundation. This so
alarmed them, that they burst open the doors of the prison and fled. The
missionaries, with the other prisoners, were then left alone. Their
danger, however, was not at an end; but as God had protected them thus
far, he continued to protect them until they were set at liberty, and
allowed to preach the Gospel again to those perishing heathen. Drs.
Judson and Price were also imprisoned, and suffered much; but they, too,
were preserved and delivered. The accounts of their sufferings are so
long, that I cannot now relate them all to you. You will find them in
the life of Mrs. Judson.
After the war was over, the missionaries were permitted to go everywhere
to proclaim the name of the Saviour; and their efforts have been very
much blessed, especially among the Karens. It will be impossible for me
to give you an account of their many labors, and of the many tokens
which they have received of God's favor towards multitudes who have
become followers of the Redeemer. Suffice it to say, that more than six
thousand have been received into the Christian church. One of the native
teachers not long since baptized, on one occasion, three hundred and
seventy-two persons.
Adjoining Burmah, is China, a country containing more than three hundred
millions of people, about twenty times as many as there are in the
United States of America. It is a country filled with idols. Many of the
people earn their living by making and selling these idols. There are
many shops where they are sold, or repaired when they become broken or
defaced.
The females in that country are in a very degraded state. They are the
slaves of their husbands, and live and die in the greatest ignorance.
Any attempt to raise themselves to the level of females in Christian
lands, is considered as very wicked. The little female child is tortured
from her birth. You have, perhaps, heard that the women of China have
small feet. These are made small by a very cruel practice--by putting
bandages of cloth so tightly around them, that they cannot grow. Many
women have feet not larger than those of an American infant of one year
old. Mr. Doty, missionary to China, says, that he was acquainted with a
little girl whose mother had bound up her feet so tightly, that she
cried two or three hours every day, on account of the great pain which
she suffered.
With such little feet, you may well suppose that it would be very
difficult for the women to walk. It is so. They limp and hobble along,
just as if their feet had been cut off, and they had to walk on stumps.
The Chinese do not count their daughters among their children. Mr. Doty
says, he one day asked his Chinese teacher how many children he had. He
replied, that he had several. "How many of these," he then inquired,
"are daughters?" "We do not count our daughters among our children," he
answered. "I have three daughters, but we Chinese count our sons only as
children."
When this missionary was in a Chinese village where he had never been
before, a man called to see him, bringing with him two pretty little
girls, neatly dressed, about six and seven years old. He said that they
were his daughters and that he wished to sell them. Mr. Doty refused to
buy them, as it was wicked to buy and sell children; but he told him,
that if he would commit them to him, he would take them home with him,
and educate them, and that they might return home after they had grown.
To this proposal he would not consent but said, that if he would buy
them, they should be his for ever. He could have bought them both for
about twenty-six dollars.
The Chinese have many schools, but none for their daughters, as they do
not teach them, to read. When they are about thirteen years old, they
shut them up in what are called "women's apartments," where they remain
until the time of their marriage. Then the parents sell them to those
who wish to have wives for their sons. In this way, they are frequently
married to persons whom they never before saw.
Many parents in China destroy their little girls soon after they are
born, or while they are very small. This they frequently do by throwing
them into rivers, or into the sea, after they have wrapped them up in
coarse mats. There is a little Chinese girl, named Ellen, now living in
Newark, New Jersey, whose father was about to kill her when she was
three weeks old. An English lady heard of his intentions, and sent a
person with ten dollars to see if she could not be bought. He was
offered the ten dollars, but refused to take them. She sent ten dollars
more. He consented to take the twenty dollars. This little girl was
brought by this English lady to America, when she was about six years
old. The friends who have her under their care, are educating her with
the hope that she may go back to China, to tell its females of the
Saviour.
Did you ever, my dear girls, think why it is that your parents love you,
and educate you--why it is that they try to make you happy, instead of
cramping your feet, shutting you up, and, perhaps, at last selling you?
It is because they have the Bible. Then, how anxious should you be to
save what money you can, to buy Bibles to send to those poor heathen.
As I am now speaking of the destruction of infants, I would observe,
that this crime is common in other heathen countries. It was quite
common, until lately, in the island of Tahiti, and other places in the
South Pacific Ocean. When the missionaries of the London Missionary
Society went there, many years ago, they found the females in a very
degraded situation. Mr. Nott, one of these missionaries, declared that
three out of four of the children were murdered as soon as they were
born. He met a woman soon after this dreadful crime had been abolished
to whom he said, "How many children have you?" "This one in my arms,"
was her answer. "And how many did you kill?" She replied, "Eight."
Another woman, who was asked the same question, said that she had
destroyed _seventeen_. Infanticide, or, in other words, the destruction
of infants, says the Rev. Mr. Williams, was carried to an almost
incredible extent in Tahiti, and some other islands. He writes, "During
the visit of the deputation, G. Bennet, Esq., was our guest for three or
four days; and on one occasion, while conversing on this subject, he
expressed a wish to obtain accurate knowledge of the extent to which
this cruel practice had prevailed. Three women were sitting in the room
at the time, making European garments, under Mrs. Williams direction;
and, after replying to Mr. Bennet's inquiries, I said, 'I have no doubt
but that each of these women has destroyed some of her children.' Mr.
Bennet exclaimed, 'Impossible; such motherly, respectable women could
never have been guilty of so great an atrocity.' 'Well,' I added, 'we
will ask them.' Addressing the first, I said to her, 'Friend, how many
children have you destroyed?' She was startled at my question, and at
first charged me with unkindness, in harrowing up her feelings, by
bringing the destruction of her babes to her remembrance; but upon
learning the object of my inquiry, she replied, with a faltering voice,
'I have destroyed _nine_.' The second, with eyes suffused with tears,
said, 'I have destroyed _seven_;' and the third informed us that she had
destroyed _five_. Had the missionaries gone there but a few years
before, with the blessing of God, they would have prevented all this.
These mothers were all Christians at the time this conversation was
held."
"On another occasion," says Mr. Williams, "I was called to visit the
wife of a chief in dying circumstances. She had professed Christianity
for many years, had learned to read when about sixty, and was a very
active teacher in our adult school. In the prospect of death, she sent a
pressing request that I would visit her immediately; and on my entering
her apartment she exclaimed, 'O, servant of God, come and tell me what I
must do.' Perceiving that she suffered great mental distress, I
inquired the cause of it, when she replied, 'I am about to die.' 'Well,'
I rejoined, 'if it be so, what creates this agony of mind?' 'O, my sins,
my sins,' she cried; 'I am about to die.' I then inquired what the
particular sins were which so greatly distressed her, when she
exclaimed, 'O, my children, my murdered children! I am about to die, and
shall meet them all at the judgment-seat of Christ.' Upon this I
inquired how many children she had destroyed, and to my astonishment she
replied, 'I have destroyed _sixteen_, and now I am about to die.'" After
this Mr. Williams tried to comfort her, by telling her that she had done
this when a heathen, and during the times of ignorance, which God winked
at. But she received no consolation from this thought, and exclaimed
again, "O, my children, my children." He then directed her to the
"faithful saying, which is worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners." This gave her a little comfort;
and after visiting her frequently, and directing her to that blood which
cleanseth from all sin, he succeeded, with the blessing of God, in
bringing peace to her mind. She died soon after, rejoicing in the hope
that her sins, though many, would be forgiven her. Well may you exclaim,
my dear children,
"Holy Bible, book divine,
Precious treasure, thou art mine."
Infanticide still prevails in India, but as I have given a particular
description of this crime in my Sermon to Children, on the Condition of
the Heathen, I will here say nothing farther on the subject.