HER ARRIVAL AT CALCUTTA.--DIFFICULTIES WITH THE BENGAL
GOVERNMENT.--VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF FRANCE.--DEATH OF MRS.
NEWELL.--CHANGE OF SENTIMENTS.--VOYAGE TO RANGOON.
Mr. and Mrs. Judson landed at Calcutta on the 18th of June, 1812, and
were hospitably received by the venerable Dr. Carey, who immediately
conducted them to his home in Serampore. There they found a delightful
mission family, consisting of Messrs. Carey Marshman and Ward, with
their wives and children who welcomed them most cordially, and invited
them to remain until the arrival of their brother missionaries. Of the
arrangements in this truly Christian family--the schools, the religious
exercises, the cultivation of the gardens belonging to the
establishment, and the instruction communicated to the natives, they
express themselves in the highest terms of eulogy.
Hitherto the course of our missionaries in their enterprise had indeed
run smooth, and they had begun to flatter themselves that they had
over-estimated the trials and dangers of the life they had chosen; but
sad reverses awaited them. They had been in Serampore but ten days,
when Messrs. Judson and Newell were summoned to Calcutta, where an order
from government was read to them, commanding them immediately to leave
the country, and return to America. The British East India Company were
at that time unfriendly to missions, and especially intolerant to
missionaries from America. The idea of returning, without effecting the
object for which they had left their native land, was too painful to be
endured by the missionaries, and they immediately attempted to gain
permission to go to some country not under the company's
jurisdiction.--Burmah, the field to which they had been assigned by
their brethren at home, seemed, for various reasons, utterly
inaccessible; but they finally got leave to take passage in a ship bound
for the Isle of France. The vessel would, however, accommodate but two
passengers, and the health of Mrs. Newell requiring that she should be
in a place of quiet, it was agreed that she and her husband should
embark in it. For three months the rest of their company remained in
Calcutta, watched with jealousy by the British Government, but unable to
find a vessel to convey them away. At length they had peremptory orders
to embark in a vessel bound to England. All hope of escape seemed now
cut off, when Mr. Judson accidentally learned that a ship was about
sailing for the Isle of France. They applied for a passport to go on
board of her, but were refused. They informed the captain of the vessel
of their circumstances, and were allowed to go on board without a pass.
They had got but a few miles down the river, however, when a government
despatch overtook them, commanding the pilot to conduct the ship no
further, as there were persons on board who had been ordered to England.
By advice of the captain, the missionaries left the ship, and went on
shore, while the pilot wrote a certificate that no such persons were on
board. The captain being angry at the detention of his vessel, ordered
them to take their baggage from it immediately, but at length consented
to let it remain on board until he should reach a tavern sixteen miles
further down the river. Mrs. Judson also remained in the ship until it
came opposite the tavern, "where," she says, "the pilot kindly lent me
his boat and a servant to go on shore. I immediately procured a large
boat to send to the ship for our baggage. I entered the tavern _a
stranger_, a _female_ and _unprotected_. I called for a room and sat
down to reflect on my disconsolate situation. I had nothing with me but
a few rupees. I did not know that the boat which I had sent after the
vessel would overtake it, and if it did, whether it would ever return
with our baggage; neither did I know where Mr. Judson was, or when he
would come, or with what treatment I should meet at the tavern. I
thought of _home_ and said to myself, _These are some of the trials
attendant upon a missionary life, and which I have anticipated._ In a
few hours Mr. J. arrived, and toward night our baggage."
After two or three days of great perplexity and distress, and when they
had given up all hope of being able to proceed to the Isle of France,
they unexpectedly received from an unknown friend a magistrate's _pass_
to go on board the Creole, the vessel they had left. Their only
difficulty now was that she had probably got out to sea, as it was three
days since they had left her. However they hastened down the river
seventy miles, to Saugur, where, among many ships at anchor, they had
the inexpressible happiness to find the Creole, on which they embarked
for the Isle of France, their first destination.
Their dangers on the passage to the Isle of France were great, the
vessel being old and leaky; and when they reached there, they found
little encouragement to remain. While on the island, Mrs. J. had a
severe attack of illness, as well as much depression of spirits from the
uncertainties of their situation. After much deliberation they
determined to establish themselves on an island near Malacca, to reach
which they must first go to Madras, and they accordingly sailed for that
place. War having broken out between England and America, the hostility
of the East India Directors to American missionaries was of course much
increased, so that it would be impossible for them to make any stop at
all in Madras, without incurring the danger of being sent back to
America. What, then, was their distress on their arrival there, to find
no ship bound for the island they wished to visit! Their way seemed
entirely hedged up, for the only vessel in Madras harbor ready for sea,
was destined to Burmah, a country pronounced by all their friends in
India, utterly inaccessible.
In her journal, at this time, Mrs. J. writes: "Oh, our heavenly Father,
direct us aught! Where wilt thou have us to go? What wilt thou have us
to do? Our only hope is in thee, and to thee only do we look for
protection. Oh, let this mission live before thee!" "To-morrow," she
adds, at a somewhat later date, "we expect to embark for Rangoon, (in
Burmah.) Adieu to polished, refined, Christian society. Our lot is not
cast among you, but among pagans, among barbarians, whose tender mercies
are cruel. Indeed, we voluntarily forsake you, and for Jesus' sake
choose the latter for our associates. O may we be prepared for the pure
and polished society of heaven, composed of the followers of the Lamb,
whose robes have been washed in his blood!"
Everything combined to render the passage to Rangoon unpleasant and
perilous;--sickness, threatened shipwreck, and the want of all
comforts;--but at length on the 14th of July, 1813, about eighteen
months from the time they left Salem, in Massachusetts, they set their
'weary, wandering feet' on that shore which was to be their future home.
Among the depressing circumstances that had occurred in this gloomy
period, not the least painful was the death of Mrs. Judson's early
friend, and companion in her eastern voyage, Mrs. Harriet Newell. Of
less mental and physical vigor than Mrs. Judson, this amiable and ardent
Christian had gladly relinquished all other objects in life, for that of
sharing the privations and soothing the cares of a husband to whom she
was tenderly attached, in his labors among the heathen. But this
privilege was denied her; she was not even permitted to reach a scene of
missionary labor. Her heart-broken husband was compelled to bury her in
a far distant isle of the ocean, and finish his short earthly course
alone. But he lived to see the grave of that young martyr missionary
visited by many pilgrim feet, and her name embalmed in many admiring
hearts.
How keenly Mrs. Judson felt her loss, may be learned from a letter
written from the Isle of France, whither she and her husband went on
being driven from Calcutta:--"Have at last arrived in port; but oh, what
news, what distressing news! Harriet is dead. Harriet, my dear friend,
my earliest associate in the mission, is no more. Oh death, could not
this wide world afford thee victims enough, but thou must enter the
family of a solitary few whose comfort and happiness depended so much on
the society of each other? Could not this infant mission be shielded
from thy shafts!" "But be still, my heart, and know that God has done
it. Just and true are thy ways, oh thou King of saints!"
Another heavy trial, was the separation of herself and husband from the
church in which they were both educated, from the missionary association
on which they depended for support, and from the sympathies of those
Christians in their native land who had hitherto given them the most
cordial encouragement in their enterprise. This separation was in
consequence of a change in their sentiments in regard to baptism. So
liberal has the church become at this day, that all now look upon this
change as having decidedly advanced the cause of missions by enlisting a
large and respectable body of Christians in this country, not hitherto
engaged in it. But in 1813, a step like this on the part of
beneficiaries of the Board, could not but be regarded with much disfavor
and prejudice, render those who had taken it highly unpopular, and even
subject their motives to unworthy imputations. Whatever may be thought
of the soundness of their new views, therefore, there is not the shadow
of a reason to doubt their conscientiousness in adopting them. That they
did it in the face of every worldly motive, their letters and journals
abundantly prove. Mrs. Judson writes: "It is extremely trying to reflect
on the consequences of our becoming Baptists. We must make some very
painful sacrifices." "We must be separated from our dear missionary
associates, and labor alone in some isolated spot. We must expect to be
treated with contempt, and to be cast off by many of our American
friends--forfeit the character we have in our native land, and probably
have to labor for our own support wherever we are stationed." "These
things are very trying to us, and cause our hearts to bleed for
anguish--we feel that we have no home in this world, and no friend but
each other." "A renunciation of our former sentiments has caused us more
pain than anything which ever happened to us through our lives."
Thus "perplexed but not in despair, cast down but not destroyed," they
reached Rangoon, then the capital of the Burman Empire, and established
themselves in what they regarded as their future home. Here, "remote,
unfriended" and solitary--"reft of every stay but Heaven"--they were
destined to pass nearly two years, before their hearts could be cheered
by the intelligence from America, of the general interest awakened for
them there in the denomination with which they had connected themselves;
and the formation of a Baptist Board of Missions, which had appointed
them its Missionaries. Of one thing, however, they must have felt sure,
that they were conducted there by the special providence of God. The
honor of commencing the Burman Mission, says Prof. Gammell, "is to be
ascribed rather to the Divine Head of the Church, than to any leading
movement or agency of the Baptist denomination. The way was prepared and
the field was opened by God alone, and it only remained for true-hearted
laborers to enter in and prosecute the noble work to which they had been
summoned."